Chapter Ten - Snapshots

Part 1 - Circles

"Hermione?"

She turned, startled to see him standing in the bedroom door. "M – Draco. What are you doing here?" He wasn't due back for another four hours.

He shrugged out of his work robes like he hadn't heard the question. "What are you up to?"

She looked down and realized she had stuffed the book half under her pillow. "Um. Bellatrix was here earlier. She dropped this off."

He came over to sit beside her in his jeans, which was an odd image, taking the book out of her hands.

"What is it?"

"Paint chips. For the… nursery." He wasn't looking at her, but she watched him closely, mystified. It was the middle of the day. A workday. "Shouldn't you be at the Ministry?"

Draco frowned, turning a page absently. "Bellatrix was here?"

"She… stopped in for lunch." And a few well-timed threats, but that was barely relevant.

He looked up at her, almost with concern. "Do I need to have words with her?"

"No." Please. She was more than used to handling Bellatrix on her own.

Draco turned another page and frowned down at a hot pink chip. "Isn't it… er… a little early to be planning the nursery?" He frowned down at the pink before turning the page quickly. "I mean. Seven and a half months."

Hermione pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. "I think Bellatrix is bored. She doesn't know what to do with her time now that I'm not – there." She almost said "now that I'm not her pincushion." Draco didn't appreciate hearing stories of her treatment at the Manor, and he made her uncomfortable enough when he wasn't angry.

He stared at her thoughtfully for a moment before giving her back the book and stretching out across the bed. The silence was uncomfortable for a moment, and then, "I suppose I'll leave that sort of thing to you, won't I?"

"If you want to." She ran her finger over the comforter. "No suggestions?" No imposed Slytherin color schemes? That does seem to be the norm in your family.

"Not particularly."

"What was…?" Why was she asking him this? She cleared her throat. "What was your nursery like as a child? I imagine it was quite grand for the Manor, wasn't it?"

"Hardly." And suddenly he didn't look at her either, but watched his hands as they clenched into tight fists, knuckles white. "I suppose it was, of course. But I've never been partial to my father's decorating tastes."

"Oh."

He closed his eyes and said nothing for another few moments, then grimaced. "My father didn't really raise me."

"I… sort of imagined that much." Hermione tightened her grip on her knees and bit her lip, wondering.

"My mother didn't, either." He too, wondered. Wondered why he lay in bed with the Mudblood talking about this. Something about the way she was looking at him made him relax too much. It was frightening. He was used to hatred. Not… compassion. Maybe it was a woman thing.

"Who did, then?" Hermione said flatly.

"My mother did her best. There was a part of her that really cared, I think. But it must have been hard for her, living with my father all that time."

A rather unladylike snort. "I imagine."

Draco permitted himself to grin slightly, even though there was nothing remotely funny. "He hired governesses for me until I was about four, and then he just gave up."

"I –' She didn't really have an answer for that. It was a picture she could see quite clearly, as little as she liked it. A four-year-old Malfoy, blond and probably ridiculously cherubic, lost and alone in the vastness of The Manor. What would he have done? Spent his days reading through ancient texts or something? If he had a governess, it wouldn't have surprised her to know that he was reading at such a tender age. "I'm sorry."

His eyes finally opened, and he frowned up at her. "Why?"

"You think that's… right?"

"That's my father."

"That doesn't make it right."

The silence that settled between them was long and uncomfortable. She wanted to say something. Anything. Something more than "sorry," because sorry didn't cut it. But there wasn't much to say, especially not to Draco Malfoy. Instead, she concentrated on breathing evenly. That wasn't how she would let her child be raised.

If she was allowed to raise her child.

"Are you crying?"

"No."

Draco propped himself into a more upright position. "Granger, you're crying. I'm touched. Is this all for me?"

She lifted a hand to her cheek and was surprised to feel the dampness. "It's nothing, Malfoy. Just…"

"Just?"

Just leave me alone. Let me go home. "Nothing." She hid her face in her knees and sighed shakily. "It's just hormones." There was an excuse that worked on boys, without fail. And it wasn't even a lie. Probably.

"Hormones my arse." She froze when she felt a hand tangling in her hair, smoothing out her curls.

"What are you doing here Malfoy?"

"I got the afternoon off." He snagged her brush from the bedside table and began to work slowly through the knots. "Figured I might as well come home and get some rest before" – His hand stilled.

She barely found the energy to wonder. "Before?"

"Nothing."

Saying that it had been a long two weeks would have been an understatement. They'd been moving around each other in awkward circles. Dodging, avoiding, but just barely. They always wound up bumping into each other again, stumbling over each other. It was only expected, really, that two people living under the same roof couldn't stay apart for too long.

It was horribly, painfully tense. They really did… try to stay as far away from each other as possible. But there were moments. Like these ones…

Hermione gritted her teeth together and tried to focus on the steady rhythm of the brush in her hair, and not on the man attached to it.

Each day, it seemed, went slower than the previous as the novelty of being in a new place with a new Malfoy wore off. Time froze and no longer took a meaning as they settled into the robotic gestures of a new routine.

By that point, they were used to each other. It no longer bothered her that he slept on the left side of the bed – she'd always, always taken the left side – or that he didn't ball his socks. He stopped trying to lace every sentence with hidden insults and seemed less bothered by her inconsistent eating habits. But with habituation comes irritation. She noticed the odd way he held his fork when he ate, and he'd started griping about how she left books sitting out half-read instead of putting them back on the shelves.

And with routine comes monotony. Draco worked long, hard hours, and while Hermione hadn't been strictly forbidden to leave the house, she didn't want to risk it and ask. She wanted to launch herself into his library and see, maybe, if he had something on Horcruxes, or on Dark Magic, or on something that would make her feel like she was doing something useful. Unfortunately, she still wasn't feeling quite in top condition, so she spent much of her time lying down and feeling ridiculous. She'd never been one for putting her feet up when there was work to be done.

Their efforts at conversation were limited, although each of them was trying. A little bit. Only because it was so horribly, painfully awkward, though. And they never talked about the baby. Rarely about Lucius. Never about the future. Questions didn't extend much past, "Hi. How was your day?"

"What are you thinking about so hard?" Draco said quietly, putting the brush back down and running his hand one last time through her hair before settling back down onto the bed.

She shook her head. "It's nothing."

He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't.

It was like that. It was always like that. The things that went unsaid would make it impossible to move forward. Ever. She was sure of it.

A/N: What was supposed to be Chapter Ten will instead be published in a series of snapshots. These snapshots will cover Hermione and Draco's first month of married life together. Time will jump in unpredictable quantities and I ask you to bear with me. This is the only way I canthink of getting the chapter out with relative speed, and to convince you all that I'm not dead. I'm not… technically.

Also, I apologize for any confusion with the username switch. I will continue the snapshots under both names to give you all the time to transfer your alerts, and then will start chapter eleven only under filledecriture.

Yours, Lily