Luna stood impatiently in the bathroom stall, waiting for the other girl to stop peeing. The rush slowed to a tinkle and then stopped, and Luna exhaled happily.
My turn!
She made to pull up her robes, but remembered her discovery that morning.
Damn, I forgot to bring my book bag in here.
"D'you have a pad?" she shouted to the girl in the other stall.
"No... sorry," came the reply.
Recognizing the voice, Luna dropped her robes and opened the stall door. Hermione stood at the sink, washing her hands.
"Sorry Hermione!" grinned Luna apologetically.
Hermione looked up, confused.
"I didn't know it was you!" laughed Luna, giving the older girl's arm a squeeze. "Of course you wouldn't have one. Anyway, see you later." She walked towards the door as she continued, "Are you coming to Divination this week? I think Trelawney rather hopes th-."
"What are you talking about?" interrupted Hermione, running a few paces and grabbing the sleeve of her robe.
"About Divination class," said Luna innocently.
"No, no," said Hermione. "I mean what do you mean about everything you said before that?"
"I just meant of course you wouldn't have a pad, because you wouldn't need one."
Oh. My. Gods, thought Hermione. Is she one of those creepy stalkers that goes through your trash to find out personal things about you?
Hermione let go of Luna in disgust, forgetting for a moment that she was in the wizarding world, and the house elves took care of all the waste.
"Well don't look at me so funny," said the other girl indignantly. "Of course I new you were pregnant; didn't you know I could see auras?"
Hermione stiffened, not believing what she had just heard. Her eyes widened and all the colour drained out of her cheeks.
"Preg - pregnant?"
Luna looked her up and down. "You...didn't know?" She shook her head incredulously. Hermione backed into the sink, feeling her tummy with her hands. Her eyes gazed into space.
Of course. The...dream. I think I dreamed this... that I was... but how? I cast the charm every time...
"I'm so sorry you found out like this," said Luna, putting an arm around her. "But it's a good thing you found out, isn't it?" Her eyes were beginning to do the creepy thing where they unfocused. It almost made Luna look thoughtful. "But how could you not have known? Didn't you skip your period, or . . . or I don't know, throw up or something?"
Hermione shook her head slowly, she was in a haze. "I skip my periods sometimes normally . . . my doctor said, I mean it's because. . ." she trailed off.
Pregnant. I'm pregnant.
" . . . because I'm so petite," she found herself continuing.
It must have been the first time with Severus. I don't remember if I cast it or not...that time. Oh Gods... what am I going to do?
---
That afternoon, Hermione went to the owlery and scribbled a quick note to Snape. Somehow she couldn't face him without knowing that he knew. And to have to say it in person was too much right now.
I'm pregnant, she wrote.
- H.G.
---
How was it that the note intended for her Potions Professor ended up in the hands of Lucius Malfoy? To be sure, that's exactly what his son would have wanted – short of actually having an affair with Hermione, this would be the next-best thing! Draco had decided towards the end of the summer that she was the prettiest – and therefore, most convincing – 'Mudblood' at Hogwarts, thus the most realistic in his campaign for his father to forget he ever had a son.
Though Draco might well have painstakingly planned an operation in which he intercepted all of Hermione's mail and redirected some letters, or even simply forged a letter himself, in the end it was much simpler. In fact, Draco didn't have to do anything.
Kreacher did it for him.
---
She had only managed to read the paper twice over before Kreacher had crept around her, a mass of silver cutlery in his arms. He dropped the lot as Hermione jumped in surprise, clutching the paper to her chest. She quickly escaped to her room as Kreacher's watery eyes followed narrowed in dislike. She could still hear him muttering on about 'Mudblood filth' contaminating his mistress' house as she reached the first floor landing.
Alone for a moment while Ginny visited Tonks in her room, Hermione pondered the situation, unable to accept the reality that she, budding student, had been summoned to man's room at an obscenely inappropriate hour. It almost hurt her feminist ego.
"Hey Hermione," said Ginny, smiling as she entered the room. Hermione, startled, let the slip of paper she'd been holding flutter to the floor. "Do you want to go to sleep yet?"
"Oh – uh – no, not quite yet," she'd improvised, "I'm just going to go read in the library until I get sleepy."
---
"Kreacher knows what master does, oh –yes!" he cried with glee. "Kreacher knows all about his secret, all about the Mudblood whore and their little dirty trysts." He waved around the piece of paper Hermione had dropped in her bedroom. She and the other students were long gone, but in cleaning up after them Kreacher had discovered several items they had left behind (three pieces of nose-bleed nougat, two old textbooks and one new one, and a self-inking wand) in addition to the note Sirius had written.
"Kreacher can not back-talk his Master, no, oh no he won't do that, Kreacher will do him one better. . ." The house elf hopped up and down with glee.
And he had. In visiting Black family relatives, he let on that there was something suspicious about Harry's girly friend, oh yes, something quite amiss. And though his eagerness to destroy Miss Granger was for more personal reasons, Lucius Malfoy interpreted Kreacher's hints in a broader sense and told the elf to fetch for him the Mudblood's letters, every letter, without exception, and to also trail her around the school whenever he could. Perhaps there was something important to what she was doing, something that could give Lucius a way to get to that Potter boy, so he could become his Master's favorite once again.
"Report everything you find both to me and to Severus Snape, the Potions Master," commanded Lucius icily. I have notified him of your . . . suspicions, and he has agreed to investigate the girl with much greater detail . . ."
---
It was simple for Lucius to put two and two together, Draco's letter and Hermione's note – thought Kreacher admitted he knew nothing about them ever meeting.
"Stupid elf!" bellowed the imposing man, kicking the little elf hard in the back as he rose from his throne-like seat. "You let my son and that slutty little Muggle carry on right under your nose!"
"No, no Mr. Malfoy, Kreacher didn't know, Kreacher didn't see -,"
"Stop your sniveling!" he shouted.
"It was that Professor of yours, I'm sure!" whimpered Kreacher. "Kreacher would never follow her there, Mr. Malfoy, no. Kreacher assumed Mr. Snape was doing his job because Mr. Malfoy said Kreacher could trust him, but no, now Kreacher thinks, yes, he is sure, that -,"
But Lucius had had enough. "Go back to your Master's house and never come here again, you worthless lump of an elf," he spat. "I don't want to hear your driveling, or any excuses you've tried to invent. Perhaps Sirius has put you up to this, well I won't let myself be mocked any more!" He was working himself up into a rage, the two papers shaking in his red fist while Kreacher shuddered at his feet. "This is a gross humiliation to the Malfoy name, and you'll see whether or not my son and that harlot will pay! Oh, you'll see if they don't . . ."