The two weeks that passed after her visit to Azkaban went slowly. She had taken an indefinite leave of absence from her job as soon as Lucius had been arrested, and while she was bored, she also could not imagine going back to work. Anytime she so much as stepped outside of the Manor she was surrounded by reporters demanding answers to their questions. The press had never been particularly kind to her, but ever since this whole fiasco things have been much worse. The Daily Prophet went largely ignored as she was quite sick of reading about herself. In fact, she had taken to throwing it in the fireplace. Watching it burn was oddly satisfying.

A soft chime sounding throughout the house let her know she had a visitor. Thankful that it wasn't Draco, because he would have flooed or Apparated over, she made her way to the front door. Throwing it open, she was happily surprised to see one of her only girl-friends standing there.

"Ginny! Come on in. What are you doing here in the middle of the day? Shouldn't you be at work?"

Ginny just laughed at her barrage of questions as they walked to the sun-room, Ginny's favorite room in the Manor.

"I had some time so I wanted to come and check up on you, see how you were holding up."

"Well, Draco or Luna have been by nearly every day. I know he means well, but it's getting to be a bit much so I had to threaten to hex his bits if he didn't scale it back some. Plus, Luna is close to her due date so she really shouldn't be Flooing over here."

They sat there, sipping tea and eating biscuits, while Ginny filled her in on the latest gossip going around the Ministry. It was nice to just sit down and engage in a frivolous activity as girl talk. She enjoyed spending time with Ginny, something that had decreased in frequency after she married Lucius. While Ginny had said she was happy for her, it was absolutely apparent that she did not approve of Hermione's choice in husbands.

"So, Hermione, Ron tells me that you two have been talking more lately. I know he's hoping you might give him a chance."

"If you consider him sending me an owl every single day, then sure, we are 'talking' more. I've told him 'no' multiple times, Gin. My interest in him is as a friend, nothing more."

Ginny was clearly disappointed by her answer, her smile dimming slightly.

"He told me you were coming around. Are you sure? Surely you want to move on at some point, right?"

Hermione sighed, aware that Ginny had really wanted her to be an actual Weasley by way of marrying Ron.

"Ginny, I'm still legally married, and that fact is not going to be changing anytime in the near future."

"What? Hermione! How could you possibly want to stay married to that... that monster?" Ginny spat out, clearly disgusted by Hermione's words.

"It's not as simple as just getting a divorce, Ginny. You know we had a traditional Wizarding wedding with permanent bonds. I can't break them even if that's what I wanted. Besides, there is another reason I have no interest in moving on... I'm pregnant."

Ginny's eyes grew huge and the deep intake of breath she took told Hermione that the pregnancy announcement had surprised her.

"But... but... no! Hermione, Ron will never be with you if you have Malfoy's baby. Don't you see? That is how it was supposed to be, you with Ron and me with Harry!"

Hermione eyed Ginny with concern as her outburst made little sense.

"Ginny... you haven't been with Harry for a few years now. You know he's perfectly happy with Daphne."

Hermione was slightly taken aback at the quick flare of anger she saw in Ginny's eyes at the mention of Daphne's name. But, as quickly as it appeared it disappeared, and suddenly everything was back to normal.

"Oh, I know that. I'm happy for him, really I am. It's just... I guess I'm just a little disappointed that we won't be family, is all."

"I don't need to marry your brother to be your family. You've always been part of my family of the heart."

Ginny seemed appeased by her statement and the two chatted about more light-hearted topics until it was time for Ginny to get back to work. Hermione was grateful for the visit as it took her mind off her husband, at least for a little while. She didn't like to admit it, but she was lonely. Even with Draco checking on her daily and Harry stopping by when he could, it just wasn't the same as having Lucius' presence in the Manor. Those thoughts immediately had Hermione berating herself. Lucius was a monster who did terrible things to those women; being alone and lonely in the Manor was far better than living with a monster.

The dream had started out nice enough. She blamed the pregnancy hormones for the fact that she was having sex dreams about her husband.

The moans that sounded throughout the room were exciting her. She enjoyed almost nothing more than reducing the great Lucius Malfoy to a great pile of need. Giving one last swipe of her tongue over the head of his cock, she pulled away and looked up at him. His face was flushed, and his eyes were darkened with lust.

"Evil. You are evil, woman. You should really finish what you started," he said, his eyes moving from her face to look pointedly at his cock. Instead of taking him up on his suggestion, she moved further away, smirking when she heard him groan in frustration.

"Well, I could," she started to say, as she tugged her dress up and over her head, leaving her bare but for a pair of green, lace knickers. "But I can think of something much more... fun."

She squealed when his hand shot out suddenly, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her down on top of him.

"You'll be the death of me, witch," he whispered before lowering his lips to hers in a heated kiss. Before things could go much further, however, something quite odd happened. Hermione looked on horror as Lucius started to fade right in front of her. Trying to push down her panic, she got up from the bed and retrieved her dress from the floor, tugging it back over her head. She had to find Lucius, had to figure out what just happened. She did not get very far before the door to their bedroom slammed open. Eyes wide, she couldn't believe who was standing there.

"Ron? What are you doing in my bedroom? And how did you even get in here?"

"Why am I here? I'm here to take back what's mine," he answered as he stalked towards her. Her attempt to run past him and out the door was thwarted as he easily caught her. He pulled her in close to his body, much closer than she ever wanted to be. As his lips started to descend towards hers, she was able to struggle out of his grasp enough to knee him right between the legs. He went down hard, a pained moan escaping from his mouth.

"You... you stay away from me, Ronald Weasley! You disgust me!"

"I disgust you? You are the one that married a monster, Hermione, not me. If that wasn't bad enough, you just had to go and get pregnant. You are the one who is disgusting."

Hermione had no idea what was going on as she watched with terror as she heard Ginny's voice saying those things. Slowly, as if he had taken Polyjuice Potion, Ron's body morphed into Ginny's.

"Ginny? What... " she trailed off, completely confused as to just what was going on here.

"I'm sorry, Hermione. You should have listened to me when I told you it was a bad idea to marry Malfoy. I can't, in good conscience, allow any more of his spawn to exist."

With that said, Ginny pointed her wand right at Hermione's stomach and uttered the two words that struck fear into every witch or wizard's heart.

"Avada Kedavra."

Hermione shot straight up in her bed, right before the sickly green light struck her in the stomach. Struggling to catch her breath, she groped for her wand. As soon as her fingers felt the smooth wood, she cast a Lumos and looked around her bedroom. Satisfied that there was no one there, that it really had been just a dream, she sunk back into her pillows. She had heard that some women had some crazy dreams throughout their pregnancies, but that was not anything like she had been expecting. She supposed that Ginny's visit had bothered her more than she cared to admit. Sighing, she willed herself to forget all about it and try to get back to sleep.


A/N: Thanks to erbkaiser for betaing. Another thanks to NeonDomino and Raybe for all their help on this story. Probably only looking at 2 more chapters or so. We are getting close to knowing just what is going on!