Edited 10/13/15
10. I'm Just Fine
Eyes on the prize and I can't capsize this time
'cause there's somebody else in my boat
Used to live alone in a tomb I made my own
But now I've gone and given up my coat
And it's cold outside but I'm just fine
You are mine to keep warm
Down, down, down I go
On a road that I don't know
[Keep Warm, Ingrid Michaelson]
"Merlin's fucking bollocks, Hermione!" Tonks was grinning and shocked, what would have been a deafening exclamation toned down a little because Teddy was fast asleep on the bed beside Tonks. "You're…? You're really…? Merlin… And these Muggle things are accurate, yeah?"
"They are, very. I followed the instructions on the box to the letter, and…" Hermione waved a hand at the pregnancy test that Tonks held carefully and stared at suspiciously, with her pink eyebrows raised halfway up her forehead in disbelief.
"And two lines came up," Hermione continued, rubbing a hand over her face and slumping onto the bed next to the older witch and taking the test back, tapping it with her wand to return it to its charmed appearance as a tampon, and tucking it into her pocket. "Two lines. Two bloody lines. Jesus. Merlin. Fuck. I wasn't expecting this, Tonks. I don't even know what to do…what to…" She shot Tonks a beseeching look, feeling tears wobbling in her eyes as her chin trembled and her stomach knotted itself up into twisty shapes.
"And here I thought you were bright, Hermione. What do you think happens when a witch and a wizard, er, make love, without using contraceptive charms, hmm?" Tonks waggled her candy floss pink brows and Hermione shot her a baleful look, and Tonks' mischievous look slipped away; she turned on the bed, tucking her feet up under her tailor-fashion and peering worriedly into the younger witch's face.
"Sorry, Hermione. Do - do you know when it happened? How…far along you are"
"It must have been when we were captured." Hermione stared at the wall; papered in a pattern of flower sprigs on age-spotted cream and gold stripes. It had probably happened one of the times Draco was whispering his words of furious, misdirected hate in her ear, or fastening his teeth over her shoulder in a bite that sent pain and lust wrenching through her. Merlin; what an awful thought. Hermione felt ill. What a way to conceive a child; in anger and pain, in a dark dank cell still shaking from trauma and torture, sunk in despair. Not that any of that affected how one's reproductive organs functioned, obviously Hermione, she told herself firmly and groaned, sinking her head into her hands.
"I can't believe I never thought to take a potion when I escaped…If I'd just said I needed one, if I'd just used my head and thought about it for all of two seconds, I wouldn't be in this situation. God, I'm so stupid. I just didn't think."
Tonks' hand smoothed over Hermione's back, rubbing firmly down her spine between her shoulder blades, and Merlin it was relaxing. It was nice. If Hermione had a choice, she would have wished for her mother to cry on right now, but in her mother's absence, Tonks' was actually quite a good substitute. Possibly even better than her mother, because her mother would be sympathetic, but also probably horrified and upset that Hermione had gotten pregnant, and to the boy that had called her a mudblood and been so horrible to her in the past, too.
"You can still take a potion, if that's what you want to do, Hermione. We'd need to get a Healer in to make sure everything went smoothly, at this point, but you don't have to go through with this…" Tonks' trailed off, hand still rubbing firmly up and down Hermione's back, and the younger witch shut her eyes and made herself think about it and go over her options carefully. It was impractical - nearly insane - to consider having a child now, during the war - with the fighting and the uncertainty…and yet Tonks and Remus had had Teddy. And it had worked out for them. And there was something very appealing about the fact that there was a little bit of Draco in her right now, a little bit of Draco and a bit of her, all mixed up like a potion, and in approximately seven months time, it would be an actual baby. A baby. Merlin, that was nearly unbelievable.
"I'm only nineteen! I didn't plan on having children until I was twenty-five or so, at least. I'm not Ron and Cho - I don't want to start spitting babies out as soon as possible and have a whole brood! I wanted a career after the war - I wanted to…" Tears clouded her eyes as the words were choked off by stifled sobs, and Tonks shushed her soothingly, half-laughing - kindly - at Hermione's sudden panic.
"You don't have to have a whole brood, Hermione. Just the one. And there's no reason you can't have a career and a child. There was a very good crèche at the Ministry that I assume will be started up again when we win the war - and there are always nannies, or having family or friends mind the child. And you don't have to go ahead with this pregnancy at all, if you don't want to, remember."
Tonks was calm and practical, but Hermione was mired in her panic.
"Draco's only eighteen! My parents would kill me - and him - if…when they find out. Am I going to find them after the war and have to explain that not only did I take away their memories and implant false ones, but I also got engaged, had a child, maybe got married, oh and by the way you missed it all! Merlin! It's - I - I - and I don't want to be a teenage mother! My mum would be so ashamed of me!" she half-wailed the last, muffling the sound with her hands.
"Then don't be, Hermione," Tonks said patiently. "Although technically, you're both adults in the wizarding world - and by Muggle traditions too, if I recall correctly."
"And Draco - Merlin, can you imagine how he'll react? Because I can't. I have no idea if he'll be overjoyed, or furious, or terrified, or want to - want to - want to murder me…" Hermione whooped in a shaky breath and tried to control her stifled sobbing, scrubbing at her eyes with her knuckles and nearly hyperventilating with the ridiculously overwhelming flood of emotions suddenly consuming her. She had to pull herself together and get a grip. She laid her hands on her knees and stared at a sprig of flowers on the wallpaper, breathing very slowly and deliberately, while Tonks patted her back gently, without a word.
"So you'll have the baby then?" Tonks asked after a good long while, looking for confirmation, and Hermione blinked and glanced at the older witch.
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, you might have been saying you don't want to have a baby, and that it's a terrible idea, but you were talking about it like you're going to do it anyway. I just thought…it wounded like you've already made up your mind."
Hermione went back over her words in her mind, and a faint smile twisted at her lips. "I suppose I have. And I suppose I am going to."
She thought about being pregnant during a war - how much more vulnerable that made her, how it would restrict her ability to fight and actively contribute eventually, if not immediately. Merlin; having a baby during the war wasn't going to be easy. And the thought of she and Draco trying to be parents - attempting to raise a child together in the middle of a war; well, Hermione didn't anticipate that was going to be easy either. She loved him madly, but the reality of the situation just sounded so absurd. Would she marry Draco just because they were having a baby? God, she wanted to marry him anyway - but would a baby be enough reason to convince him to marry her? She had no idea.
Hermione knew this much for certain - she would end up like Tonks; stuck at a safehouse because she was too pregnant to go out, and later stuck at a safehouse with the baby to make sure the infant retained at least one parent if a mission went wrong. Merlin. It didn't sound easy, or fun. She would far rather be out at Draco's side. But maybe it would be worth it, in the end. Maybe they could do it, together.
"I don't know what's going to happen in the future. We - we still don't know if we'll win the war, or if we'll survive it, or whether he'll go to Azkaban, or - or anything. We could all be killed, or Draco could be killed, or go to prison… And none of those things sound like good reasons to have a baby, really. More like reasons not to have a baby. And yet…Merlin…yes, I'm going to have the baby." Hermione's hands folded over her abdomen, wary and frightened and hopeful.
"At least that's something certain - for both of us. And as scary as it is, I think - I think I want this. I want…" a little mini-Draco, tucked between them in the mornings, watching Draco cradle him or her with comfortable, loving ease, seeing the Malfoy inheritance of prejudice and intolerance broken with one little half-blood baby.
Hermione didn't say everything she was thinking - that if Draco died or went to Azkaban, at least this way she would always have a little bit of him. And that she saw the way he looked at Teddy - the way he was with Teddy now, so comfortable and easy - and she thought that Draco Malfoy would make a good father, and it would give him something more to cling to. Another reason to live, and get through this damn war. A new era of Malfoys, their blood irrevocably tainted - the thought made Hermione grin. She thought that they deserved a chance at being a family, however brief that chance could end up being. But those were thoughts, flashing through her head in a matter of seconds, were far too private to share with Tonks, so Hermione just held her tongue and let Tonks grin and hug her around the shoulders tightly.
"Well, congratulations then, Hermione!" The older witch beamed at her excitedly. "So, when are you going to tell Draco? You don't have long if you want to tell him before the mission - go on, tell him now, before you lose your nerve." Tonks grinned, reminiscing. "I remember telling Remus - Merlin, now that was bloody nerve-racking. I thought he was going to keel over and faint when I finally got the words out. He went as pale as a ghost, I swear. It was rather awkward at the time, actually, but it…got better in the end."
"I can imagine his reaction. I remember how shaken he was when he turned up at Grimmauld Place and told us." Hermione could recall it quite clearly, actually, and she desperately hoped that Draco would react somewhat better than Remus had. But even Remus had come around in the end, which gave Hermione some reassurance that even if Draco was horribly upset or angry about her being pregnant, he might end up coming around to the idea. Eventually. Merlin, Hermione wondered what Narcissa Malfoy would think of Draco having a little half-mudblood baby. Christ, she couldn't help wondering what Draco would think of having a little half-blood baby. Despite everything, there was the smallest, tiniest twinge of worry in Hermione's mind that a half-mudblood child might not be all right with Draco. An irrational worry, yes, she realised that, but it was still one that was hard to tune out.
"Hermione?" Tonks was smiling at her with bright, cheerful encouragement, and Hermione raised an eyebrow. "You best go tell him now…if you're going to tell him yet, that is…"
"I'm not," Hermione said decidedly. "I'm not telling him until after this mission. This mission could be a huge deciding factor in the war. I'm not going to risk the chance that Draco will get all silly and protective and decide I shouldn't fight."
"He doesn't make the decisions, Hermione. You're a grown woman, and Draco can't bloody well stop you from going if you want to."
"Yes…but Harry and Ron might be able to convince Remus to stop me, and Draco knows that. If I tell Draco I'm pregnant and he decides that means I shouldn't be fighting, he'll go straight to Harry and Ron and tell them, because there's no way they'd want me fighting either. Stupid overprotective boys - I love them all, but sometimes they get this idea in their head that they get to tell me what to do, and I'm not risking them trying out their whole overprotective act now. No, I can't tell anyone until after the Order has successfully taken Hogwarts." Hermione gave Tonks a pleading look.
"Please, Tonks. Don't tell anyone? I absolutely refuse to stay out of the fight just because of some silly, archaic notion that even though I'm just as fit and capable as I was yesterday, the fact that there's a foetus in me makes incapable, somehow."
"Of course I won't, Hermione. You think I liked having to stay out of the action when Remus decided I was too pregnant to fight? I hated it. Remus and I used to argue about it constantly." Tonks patted Hermione's shoulder comfortingly, and gave her a firm nod of solidarity. "I won't say a word to anyone, I swear."
"Thank you, Tonks. I appreciate that more than you could imagine. And…thank you for listening to me ramble, too. I still have no idea how any of this is going to work out, but I'm glad I have someone to talk to, and help me sort through my thoughts." Hermione got up, with a last look at the still sleeping Teddy - picturing hers and Draco's child and feeling nervousness wrench in her stomach at the thought of having a little person to look after. Oh well, Hermione thought glibly with a hint of hysteria, she doubted it would be any more difficult than looking after Harry and Ron used to be. She gave Tonks a wide, tight smile, her hands knotting themselves nervously over her abdomen again. She'd need to get the impulse to touch her stomach under control - it was a dead giveaway.
"I better go start preparing for the mission, then, I suppose. Wish me luck?"
"Good luck tonight," Tonks said brightly, assurance that Hermione would do just fine oozing out her comfortingly. "And…good luck with Draco, too, when you do end up telling him. I'm sure everything will work out, Hermione - life has a habit of making sure things do work out, one way or the other."
Hermione nodded dutifully, but she couldn't help but doubt Tonks' words as she hurried out of the bedroom and down the stairs, tucking her hair behind her ears and taking deep, even breaths. Things didn't always work out - at least, not the way Hermione might want them to. She could die tonight, or Draco could, or anyone else she loved. They could fail to take back Hogwarts. They could all be massacred. They could lose the battle, and then the war. Hermione's hand crept to her stomach involuntarily again and she jerked it away, wrapped her fingers around her wand instead - shoved in her shorts pocket, the butt of it sticking out - and lifted her chin, straightened her shoulders as she went down the stairs. She couldn't let that any of that happen; she refused to let it happen, no matter how frightened she might be of facing the Death Eaters again. No matter how scared she might be of all the dreadful ways things could go wrong, she wouldn't let those fears affect her performance tonight.
These past few weeks at the cottage, Hermione had gotten a taste of what life could be like if the war was over. Smiles and meals around the table, and late night cups of tea and walks through the fields, and little moments of simple happiness that pierced through her to her core, and Hermione was going to do everything in her power to ensure that that happiness came into permanent being. Every wand made a difference, and Hermione's presence at Hogwarts tonight could be the tipping point, the small thing that enabled the Order's victory, that allowed the war to end, and she and Draco - and everyone else - to get a chance at a future that wasn't filled with unending death, battle, and fear. So Hermione wouldn't tell Draco she was pregnant with his child, and she would go out and fight tonight, like more than just her life depended on it.
Draco watched Hermione as she got ready in the privacy of their bedroom, her hands shaky and her eyes darting away from his, her whole demeanour nervous and secretive, so at odds to her behaviour just an hour before. She'd gone upstairs to talk to Nymphadora when they'd dragged themselves away from each other's bodies and returned to the house. She'd gone up there flushed and windblown, her hand tight in his before she let go and nervous energy pouring off her, making her jittery and clingy. And then she'd come downstairs with a grim determination about her, and something tightly hidden. Draco tried to tell himself that he had no right to demand her secrets, but he didn't bloody like the fact that she felt the need to keep secrets from him, after everything they'd been through together. He bit his tongue and stayed silent on the matter though; she'd tell him when she was ready, Draco was sure of that much, at least.
Draco pulled his trousers up and wished for his old leathers. Neither he nor Hermione had the ancient charmed Auror leathers anymore; the Order had only found so many sets, so when Hermione and Draco had lost theirs the Order hadn't had any spares to give them. Hermione still had her chausses at least, which she was lacing on right now, her fingers fumbling with the laces clumsily. He gritted his teeth as he pulled on his shirt, watching her fluster herself, her jaw set and her eyes hard, but a certain teary desperation about her. There was no way in hell she had her head in the game. Hermione was obviously on the verge of going to pieces; not focused at all. And if she didn't pull herself together fast, there was no fucking way Draco was going to let her go on the mission and endanger her life, and all of theirs.
"Hermione?"
She ignored him, finally jerking the laces of her chausses securely done, and reaching for a shirt - tight, black, long-sleeved and plain, that Draco himself had put several shielding charms on while she was upstairs with Nymphadora. They were only weak charms, unfortunately, but they would at least help deflect more minor stunning and incapacitating hexes.
"Hermione." He stepped in front of her, staying her hands before she could pull her top on, and she stood there in lavender cotton bra and worn chausses, her hair dragged back and tamed into a tight French braid, and blinked up at him, looking half-dazed.
"Sorry, what were you saying?"
"Fuck…All right, that's it - what the fuck is wrong? You're not with it, Hermione. You're unfocused. Off with the bloody faeries. You're sure as hell not ready to go charging into a fight. You'll get your fucking head blown off before you take a single bloody step." Draco eyed her carefully and Hermione's gaze flickered away from his face down to his shirt, she frowned at the harshness of his blunt words, and shook her head in denial.
"I'm fine. Just…nervous. You know what it's like. I never do well with the…before."
"This is more than just pre-mission nerves. Merlin, Hermione, I can't have you going out tonight if you're not focused." Draco tried to catch her eyes but she refused to meet his gaze, her hands knotting around her top and balling it up tightly. "I can't have you getting hurt, or lose you because you're distracted from the mission. I can't. I'm not risking that."
Hermione gulped and sucked in a harsh breath, and her face seemed to clear a little, her eyes fluttered and focused, and she dropped her shirt on the bed behind them and her fingers went to his buttons.
"I'll be fine, Draco. Honestly. Once we get there, I'll be perfectly well focused. I'm just…worried." Her fingers were still unsteady as she did up his first few buttons, her breath warm on his chest, fingertips brushing against his skin and making it tingle ticklishly. "This is the first mission I'll have been on since - since Gringotts, and being captured, which is rather daunting to be honest. And it could be such an important turning point in the war. If we win…then everything changes, and this could all be over that much sooner - forcing Voldemort out to fight, and allowing Harry a chance to - to -"
"Do his Chosen Boy thing and save the world?" Draco asked dryly, looking down at Hermione's bowed head and slender fingers, the tops of her breasts swelling gently above her bra cups, the creamy skin faintly sprinkled with pale freckles. She chuckled faintly.
"Yes. That. But, if we lose…" She paused in her buttoning and finally met Draco's eyes, and the uncertainty and fear in the firewhiskey depths dug into his core. "If we lose, it could all be over that much sooner," she said, echoing her previous words, trying for humour and failing, her voice shaking a little. "And we could all be dead," she finished, humour gone completely now, and stark worry in her tone, and Draco folded his hands over hers.
"Anything could happen tonight, Hermione. We've got a good plan, but we don't know much about their defences or preparedness, so…yeah, anything could happen. But not being focused isn't going to fucking well help. Either pull yourself together, or you're staying here - and if I have to physically make you, I will." He was sharp and hard with her, because this was her life they were talking about, this was her acting strangely and worrying him, this was not okay. He didn't blink; his eyes boring unflinchingly into hers. "Well?"
She sucked in another breath and nodded quickly, and when she began buttoning up his shirt again, her hands were much steadier. "Yes. All right; I'll be fine, Draco."
"Hmm," he grunted, disbelievingly. She wasn't fine, there was something going on, and if Draco didn't get the feeling she'd dig her heels in and refuse to say a bloody word if he asked anyway, he'd try to wheedle the truth out of her. He didn't like this one fucking bit. She bit her lip and breathed deliberately and slowly, and her hands steadied further, her eyes flicked up to his as she finished with his shirt.
"There. All done." Her voice was as rock steady as her hands, and Draco nodded, pleased. Kissed her forehead lightly and smiled at her. "Good."
She turned away, scooping up her top and dragging it on while Draco sat on the edge of the bed and summoned his boots, lacing them on; enjoying the benefits of having two hands. He shot her a glance as she sat down beside him and began tugging on her own trainers, her lips flattened together and her eyes hard and nervous at once.
"So. Are you going to tell me what exactly is going on in your head - what it is you're keeping from me - after the mission tonight?" Draco asked Hermione abruptly, and she jumped, shot him a terribly guilty and apologetic look, her shoulders hunching up and her chin tucking down, like she was trying to shrink in on herself. "Or will I have to pry it out of you?"
"After tonight," she said quietly, not even trying to argue and deny the fact that she was hiding something, her fingers jerking the laces tight on her trainers and knotting them in a neat double bow while she avoided his eyes again. "I'll tell you after the mission tonight. I promise."
He stood, standing in front of her and checking his wand holster was secure, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "I will hold you to that, then." Grey met brown and he saw her gulp, nod, saw the nervousness and the fear all over her, and his worry only increased. He swore inside his head, suddenly scared, wanting more than anything to just make her tell him what the hell was going on. But he couldn't.
"I'll be in the lounge," he said, trying not to sound angry with her, but fuck, he kind of was. She smiled weakly at Draco as he turned and strode out of the room, but he couldn't find it in him to smile back. She was distracted, keeping secrets, nervous. None of that was a fucking good sign.
"Potter. Let's go over the plan again," Draco said, his words cutting the air and breaking apart Potter and Ginny Weasley from their canoodling. He ignored Potter's look of annoyance, spreading the papers out over the table again and sighing, hunching over them. "Come on, Potter - snog Weasley on your own time. We've got work to do. This has to be fucking perfect."
They arrived in Aberforth Dumbledore's cellar without a problem, apparating directly in as usual; a ragged bunch of them, all silent with worry and pounding adrenaline, all instinctively gluing themselves to the shadowed edges of the room in little bunches of twos and threes. The portrait hole was open, and the tunnel stretched out behind it - dark and dank and a little cobwebby, and Draco wrinkled his nose - no matter what they bloody did, the cobwebs always came back each time they used the tunnel, although he was sure there weren't even any spiders there. Hermione thought it was just a charm woven into the tunnel - for atmosphere. Draco thought it was fucking stupid.
Lupin was looking around and counting heads as Draco did an automatic double check that he had everything he might need. Dittany, bandages, pain potion, thirty-second invisibility essence, and Peruvian instant darkness powder were at his belt, amongst other things. He made sure his bootlaces were tied tightly, because the last thing you bloody needed to do was trip over your laces in the middle of a duel. Draco had seen that happen before - Creevy. The boy had been running at a Death Eater, about to fling a hex, and had stood on his own shoelace and fallen flat on his face. Of course, with the boy's blasted luck, tripping had actually saved his life, because a Killing Curse had soared right through the space his head had occupied a second before. But falling over your own feet generally wasn't something you wanted to happen.
Draco's hair - long enough that his fringe reached the tip of his nose when it was wet, and straggled over his collar at the back - was slicked roughly back with a bit of Muggle hair mud-gel stuff with one of those funny fanciful names that Muggles gave things. It wasn't easy to fight when you couldn't see through your own bloody hair - quite often literally bloody - which was why Hermione usually trapped her wild hair back into some sort of plait or bun, and Draco had slicked his back tonight. The wand Voldemort had given him while he was under the Imperio was securely in its holster; a grotesque thing for all that it worked excellently for him, and Draco sometimes wondered what that said about him, that the wand worked so well for him. It was willow, 11 inches, yielding, with faerie spine core - that was the grotesque bit; the delicate spinal column of a faerie bound within the yielding willow - an ornate leafy pattern twining delicately around the wood.
Draco had refrained from telling Hermione what his wand was made of, and she hadn't asked. Why would she? But it gave him the fucking creeps to think that Voldemort had gotten a wand-maker to rip out a faerie's spine and magically seal it within the core of the willow wand. It sent chills through Draco, to know that was what he was channelling his magic through.
"Right." Lupin interrupted Draco's wandering thoughts, clapping his hands together and clearing his throat, moving forward into the middle of the cellar. "It's eight pm. We have to wait until Kingsley signals his group are in place, with his patronus, before we make our move. They should be at the gates of Hogwarts within ten minutes. Make sure you're ready to go." Lupin nodded around at the gathered white-faced and quietly nervous Order members surrounding him, and then turned away, putting his head close to Potter and talking quietly.
Draco turned to Hermione, who stood a little behind and to the side of him, up against the cellar wall, her face striped in dancing oranges and golds from the torchlight, and dark shadow. Hermione had been very quiet since he'd left her in the bedroom to go over the plans once more with Potter, but that wasn't unusual. She was always quiet before missions - nearly everyone was. There were a few chatterers in the bunch who just wouldn't shut up pre-mission, but generally the Order members were tight-lipped and grim-looking before a mission.
Draco stepped close to her, into the mingled shadows and light and illusion of privacy, and his hand slid over the planes of her face, the silver catching the torchlight and glinting brightly. She always looked different with her hair dragged back so severely, and coated with Muggle hair product - severe, her eyes dark and her parted lips pale and dry. Draco curled his hand around her neck and ducked his mouth to hers, kissing those parted lips, softly at first, and then harder. Hungrier. If the other Order members hadn't been there, it was the sort of kiss that would have ended with Draco shagging her against the wall until she screamed and moaned and came on his cock. He just wanted nothing more than to screw her brains out, and he swore internally as his cock stiffened, trapped uncomfortably in his trousers.
Hermione whimpered against his lips very faintly as Draco's tongue darted into her mouth, and her hands fluttered in the air uncertainly for a moment before she sighed and swayed into him and gripped his shoulders hard, fingers denting his flesh. She melted into him like surrender, and Draco could help the surge of victory that went through him at her capitulation, and his hand snuck around to grip her arse, the other still gripping her neck. The cellar faded away until it was just them - mouths and bodies and need, and - and then Draco dragged his mouth away from hers with a harsh gasp. He was breathless and hard and aching, and his breath came in sharp little drags as his hands came up to cradle her face, his forehead tipping down against hers.
Hermione was equally breathless, and her hands stroked up and down his arms, her eyes nearly black on him in the light, her kiss-swollen lips reddened and damp.
"Kill me," she whispered, and Draco blinked at her, thinking he'd misheard. Thinking that she must have said 'kiss me'. She must have. Because…
"What? Hermione? What?"
"If - if it looks like they're going to take me, if it looks like I'm going to be captured; use the Killing Curse on me. Kill me." Her eyes were bottomless black with amber glints and utterly serious, and Draco felt like she'd scooped out his insides with a spoon, like she'd turned him inside out, like she'd confunded him and then jabbed him in the eye with her wand for good measure. His gut wrenched and he shook his head automatically, panic and revulsion sweeping through him hard.
"No. No. Fucking no way, Hermione." He shook his head, taking a step back. "You can't fucking ask me to do that. You can't fucking ask -"
"I'd do it for you, Draco," she said stoically, her eyes blackened by the shadow and light, very wide and clear on his, and Draco shook his head again. Shook it frantically, feeling cold and clammy and confused, and furious at her for even asking it of him. "If you wanted me too."
"You can't ask me to do that, Hermione. That's fucking insane. No."
"I won't be taken. I won't be tortured and -" She stuttered and looked down, awkward and uneasy, her hands twisting into his "- and raped, and used as bait to lure Harry in, or distract him from doing what needs to be done. I -"
Draco seized her wrist and jerked her closer, his jaw clenching and his chest seething.
"You want me to kill you so that you getting captured doesn't upset Potter?" The words hissed out of him like steam on the air, hot with anger but somehow insubstantial, because Draco knew Hermione had made her fucking mind up already and nothing he said would sway her. She gulped a breath as Draco glared down at her, silver fingers too tight around her wrist and furious enough that he wanted to fucking shake some sense into her, his teeth grinding as he gritted the words through them.
"Quite apart from it being totally fucked up to ask your fiancé to kill you, I somehow doubt you being dead is going to make Potter happy, you stupid bloody bint." It was the angriest he'd been with her in a long time, and Hermione blinked at him as though he'd startled her with the cold fury in his tone. He made sure to keep his voice low - they were half screened from the others by a large old support beam, and thrown in mostly shadow, but he didn't want to make a scene.
"Then do it for me, Draco, please," Hermione insisted. "Not for Harry, but for me. Because I don't want to be put under the Imperius, I don't want to be raped and tortur-"
"You don't want to be me? Fine. Fine, Hermione." It hurt, funnily enough. It hurt so fucking badly that she'd rather die than go through what he had, because what did that say about how she saw him? That he would be better off dead? Draco's wounds were still raw, no matter how well he was dealing with the trauma of it all, and he gritted his teeth and restrained the urge to yell at her, to fucking hex the living shit out of her, because whenever he heard that word - that word - his blood froze over in his veins. He knew he was being irrational, but he didn't care. Hermione would rather that he killed her than risk being captured, because to her, what Draco had been through was worse than death. Fuck. That was really, unexpectedly hard to swallow.
"That's not what I meant, Draco! I just -"
"Well what did you mean? Fuck it, never mind…" Draco wondered absently if it was the rape and torture or the Imperius she feared more, shaking his head in a vain effort to clear it. He swore under his breath, dropped her wrist as if it burnt him and glared at her.
"Ask Potter. Ask Potter if you want. I'm not fucking killing you. Never. Never, you hear me? I don't care if you abandon your noble fucking Gryffindor ways and become the next Dark Lord, I'm still not killing you. Got it?" His hands came up to her face, his fingers trembled over her cheeks as he met her eyes urgently, trying to make her understand. "You can't ask me to do that, Hermione, because I can't, not if there's a chance that I could get you back, just like I came back." He was begging her because he had the most awful feeling that if she insisted he'd do it and hate himself for it, and that scared him.
Hermione's hands came up to lay over his where they cupped her cheeks, and she nodded slightly, her lips found his jaw, kissed it firm and warm.
"All right. I'm - I'm sorry I asked you. I just…" The air drove out of her and her mouth hung open as she searched for words where there were none, thinking about their capture - he could see it in her eyes. "I just can't. I can't go through that again. Not now."
"Does this…request…have something to do with what you're going to tell me after the mission?" Draco asked, and her eyes dropped and he followed her gaze automatically, and then his jaw twitched. His fingers spasmed. His mouth fell open slightly. His grey eyes widened and his heart felt like it just stopped beating in his chest, frozen mid-pump. Draco was a Slytherin, and so he knew that Hermione dropping her eyes could have just been her trying to avoid his gaze, or, she could be instinctively looking at what she was trying to hide from him. He knew from experience that the latter was more likely, in Hermione's case. And Hermione was looking at her stomach. Or more precisely, her abdomen.
Shit.
Shit.
Draco's heart swelled and swelled, or his chest constricted - one or the other - and he couldn't breathe.
She.
She.
She was…
Oh no.
"You're…fucking shit, Hermione, you're…" Draco began dazedly, remembering now the way she'd been funny about the smell of meat, and had thrown up over the alcohol fumes of the vodka he'd drunk, and picked at her food, and just generally been not quite right, and he wondered how in the fuck he hadn't seen it sooner. What kind of Slytherin was he, anyway? All the evidence had been sitting there right in front of him, and Draco had just been completely oblivious to the fact that Hermione was -
"No," Hermione said sharply - not a denial, but a halting of his frantic words, and his flurried thoughts. "No. I told you we'd talk after the mission. After. I'm not doing this now."
"But that was before I knew -"
"You don't know anything, Draco. You don't. We can't talk about this now!" She was frightened and one of her hands fluttered over her abdomen, and Draco knew for certain then, that Hermione was pregnant. Shit. Fucking shitting bastard. Fucking shitting bastard cunt. Fucking… Draco blinked frantically, the world swirling around him and him a statue in the middle, terrified and not understanding a Merlin-damned thing.
"You -"
"Draco, Hermione - are you listening? Come on; it's time to go. Let's get a move on." Lupin's voice cut the air, and Hermione was past Draco and moving before he could even think of reacting.
Her scent filled his nostrils with vanilla and floral notes as she pushed past him, and all he could think was 'she's pregnant she's pregnant holy-fucking-shit-she's-pregnant'. Because he had no idea what he'd been expecting the secret Hermione had been keeping to be, but her being pregnant had not been it. Draco didn't have the first fucking idea how he was supposed to feel about that. At all. Inevitably, Draco's first thought was that his father would be so pissed that the Malfoy line was being tainted by a half-blood ba- but his mind stuttered over the world baby and Draco ended up just staring blankly at the place Hermione had been a moment ago, trying to make his mind start working again.
"Draco." He looked up at the sound of his name, head jerking like a hunted animal's. Hermione was staring nervously at him, standing alone in front of the portrait hole, a line of Lumos' disappearing down the tunnel as the rest of the Order team moved towards the Room. Her eyes were glowing in the torchlight and steady on him, her chin up and her wand clutched in one hand - the other straying towards her abdomen. Draco thought she looked beautiful. And frightened.
"Come on," she said and smiled at him tremulously, as if she was scared he was going to shatter apart, or scream at her or something else rather unwise and Draco blinked and unfroze, nodding numbly and moving toward her and the portrait hole.
Hermione was pregnant. And it had to be Draco who'd knocked her up… Unless, he thought, blood running cold, unless she'd lied to him about what the Death Eaters had done the times that he had passed out from the torture before she had, or the times Rostan had taken him and left her alone in the cell. His stomach turned at that thought but he didn't show it, merely gesturing casually for Hermione to head into the tunnel, and stepping through himself, the portrait swinging shut behind him. Hermione was off, hurrying after the others, her wand tip glowing with a Lumos, and it seemed like she was trying to get away from Draco; lest he question her any more, he supposed.
Draco conjured a ball of faint greenish-blue light to circle his head and followed behind Hermione, his long strides out of rhythm with her brisk steps. He wanted to ask her, 'is it mine?' but he didn't think that would be a good idea right now. It wasn't exactly the sort of conversation that lent itself to the tense final few moments before pitched battle. She had been right to not want to tell him about it until after the mission. Draco's mouth twitched into a small, weary smirk as he realised that she must have only found out herself this morning - it would explain why Nymphadora had taken Hermione into the local village for 'feminine hygiene' products, and left Draco with the baby. She must have gotten a Muggle pregnancy test thingy. It would explain her strange behaviour once she'd gotten back with Nymphadora, too.
Fucking hell. Did this mean he was going to be a father? Draco Malfoy, father to a half-blood child. His mother would murder him. She'd had such high hopes for him, once upon a time. That he would marry a well-suited, high-society, pureblood girl, and have lots of pureblood grandchildren for her to fuss over. Instead, he'd knocked up mudblood Hermione Granger. And they weren't even married. Yeah, his mother was going to die of horror; luckily, Draco didn't really care too much anymore, about how horrified his mother might be.
He did, however, care about the fact that Hermione was pregnant. Immensely. His mind whirled as his feet automatically plodded on behind Hermione, and he thought about all the many ways in which he could fuck a child up. Thought about what would happen now if Voldemort won the war - it wasn't just his life and Hermione's on the line anymore, it was their future child's as well. Fuck. And if it wasn't his? Draco's mind kept swirling back to that, to the imagined picture of Rostan raping her in that small torture room, while Draco hung unconscious and insensible from the chains, unaware of what was happening. Or someone like Snape, visiting the cell and taking his reward before he was supposed to, while Rostan was having his fun with Draco.
Fuck.
Draco nearly walked into her when she pulled up short at the doorway into the Room of Requirement, and he dragged his focus back to the present. He needed his head clear and focused, right now. He couldn't allow himself be distracted by the thoughts of Hermione's pregnancy, and Draco's probable fatherhood, and the fear that it could actually be Rostan's or Snape's and Draco might never know - Hermione might not even know.
Draco gulped down air, trying not to hyperventilate, the horrifying thought searing into his brain and leaving him more frightened than the prospect of the battle ahead of him. He shuffled up to hover at the back of the group assembled in the Room of Requirement, falling in beside Hermione and desperately trying to clear his head. Lupin was giving instructions that Draco already knew backwards and forwards, having helped lay the plans - thankfully, because he wouldn't be able to absorb a word of it right now. Instead, he turned his eyes down onto Hermione as she insinuated her hand into his.
"Focus, Draco," she whispered, lips hardly moving, eyes fixed on Lupin. Her hand squeezed Draco's hard, and he squeezed back.
"You too." Draco swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. "Be careful, Hermione. Be fucking careful." He spared her a brief, tight smile. "Don't go being a Gryffindor hero; leave that up to Potter, huh?"
Lupin finished his repetition of the instructions he'd already gone over once in Aberforth's, and then Longbottom opened a doorway from the Room into Hogwarts. Hermione and Draco's hands fell apart, and she was moving ahead of him, her braid bouncing against her back and her feet sure in her trainers as she skidded out into the seventh floor corridor behind Ronald Weasley, wand in hand. Draco swore inwardly, and then he was running after her, his breath sharp and shallow in his ears as his adrenaline began to flow.
Hermione felt sick. She wasn't sure if it was pregnancy sick, mission-nerves sick, or 'Draco just figured out that I'm pregnant' sick. She felt ill enough that it could possibly be all three, and she was swallowing down bile as her stomach roiled and her feet automatically hurried her along the corridor towards the staircases. She was sandwiched between Ron and Draco; Ron a step ahead of her half the time, and Draco keeping even, their shoulders brushing together occasionally, Ron or Draco's hands reaching out to unnecessarily steady Hermione now and then, or guide her around a corner. It was very selfishly nice to have them there, to have the feeling of being safe, of knowing that there were people who had her back - who would die for her, just as she would die to save either of them.
Hermione's feet thudded on the stone floors as she jogged along the seventh floor corridor in the middle of the group, breathing with deliberate evenness and clutching her wand tightly. She could remember all too clearly the last time she'd been in these corridors. She'd had her back shredded by Goyle, exploded Amycus Carrow, and set Nott Senior on fire, amongst other horrible, disgusting things. She could remember the pain and the blurred panic, the blood and the soot and the excruciating feel of Draco smoothing the numbing salve into the gashes on her back. The light kiss in the tunnel in the dark. The disgusting taste of Fred and George's Weasley's Wake Up potion. The sound of Draco's voice as he'd begged Blaise to just go, and the pain on his face when he'd killed his friend to save Hermione's life. It had been a nightmarish night - but they had gotten out alive that time, despite all the horrors they'd experienced, and they would again tonight. She had to believe that.
Remus was leading their group of just over twenty people, including Neville, Dean and Seamus, and the twins, and Hermione felt reassured by who she was with - they were all good fighters, all reliable. Their group was to get down to the main doors and seal them shut, and from there, split up into pairs and go throughout the castle, silently sealing off the other exits and entrances. Once they had closed off as many access points as possible, they were to go through Hogwarts, systematically eliminating the Death Eaters that resided there, guarding Hogwarts and teaching the students; although from what Neville had said, it was more like torturing the students.
According to the Marauder's Map, there were eighteen Death Eaters in Hogwarts, not including Snape, and whatever senior students were fighting on the Death Eaters' side. Hopefully the Order team would take out any patrols they encountered, and neutralise the Death Eaters, before the alarm was sounded, and thus be able to avoid pitched battle. That was the plan, anyway, but in Hermione's experience, things very rarely went as planned, and she was expecting it all to go terribly, horribly wrong.
She worried about Harry as she ran down a staircase, feet flying, those quick little tap-tap-tap steps one used to get down stairs as fast as possible. He was going up to Dumbledore's - the headmaster's - office alone, hidden beneath the invisibility cloak, to try to speak to Snape privately. He wanted to know more about why Snape was helping them, and whether the ex-Potions Master could be truly trusted. He'd insisted on going to see Snape, and neither Remus nor Hermione had been able to dissuade him. She and Remus were the only ones who knew the real reason why Harry was seeking out Snape, because they were the only ones who knew Snape was on their side; everyone else had been told Harry needed to speak to Dumbledore's portrait, urgently.
Hermione knew for a fact that both Draco and Ron knew that was a lie - she'd overheard them talking about it in oddly conspiratorial tones shortly before they'd left the cottage for Aberforth's - but neither of them had pressed the issue. They seemed to understand the secrecy was necessary. It had been extremely strange though, to wander into the hallway and find Draco and Ron standing at the end by the back door, heads close together and whispering - maybe he's trying to take Snape out? Doesn't make any sense. Could be - and then they'd seen her and cut off abruptly, looking immensely suspicious. Ron had cleared his throat and nodded at Hermione, and Draco hadn't even bothered to try to hide what they'd obviously been discussing. It had made Hermione smile - Draco and Ron, conspiring together. Hermione wondered sometimes if the world had gone utterly mad; she rather liked it though, disconcerting as it was.
Hermione's breath came hard and fast and her legs started to burn as they raced down staircase after staircase as quickly as possible. On the sixth, fifth and the third floors, they encountered senior student patrols. The patrols were comprised of mainly Slytherins, as Hermione expected, but a sizeable percentage were Hufflepuffs, with several Ravenclaws, and even two Gryffindors that Hermione wasn't well acquainted with in the mix. Luckily, and not surprisingly, they were quickly and easily stunned, bound, and stuffed unceremoniously in a storage cupboard on the sixth floor, and abandoned classrooms on the fifth and third floors. And then they were down all the stairs, Hermione's thighs and calves aching and cramping and the stitch in her side digging into her, and Remus was sealing up the huge main doors, and directing everyone to split up.
Hermione was with Draco, of course - they ran along the ground floor, sealing off windows with charms and wards that shot in silver sparks from their wands, and encountered no trouble. Not yet, anyway. They, and Neville and Ron, were taking the dungeons, once they'd done what they could to restrict access points into the castle. They wanted to make sure any Death Eater reinforcements were channelled into several magically trapped points.
Once the alarm went out - because they had no doubt that eventually one of the Death Eaters would be able to raise it - Kingsley and his team would be able to enter Hogwarts' grounds without worrying about triggering the alarm with their presence, and bar the gates, holding them against any Death Eater reinforcements, until the team inside the castle had cleared it, and were able to come out and help hold the line. Hermione hoped to Merlin that the Death Eaters were unprepared, and that the attack would go smoothly as she skidded to a stop before she ran full tilt into Neville and Ron just before the entrance to the dungeons.
"Done? Ready?" she panted, and Ron and Neville nodded breathlessly.
"Let's go then," Draco said coolly, his face cast in sharp, grim lines, and then he was leading them down into the dungeons, his boots silent on the stone, his hair shining white in the dim light. There were three Death Eaters in the dungeon according to the Marauder's Map, as well as who knew how many students who were loyal to Voldemort, and Hermione was terrified. Only the four of them, most likely vastly outnumbered by the enemy, and she was almost angry that they were being sent down into the dungeons, just the four of them and no one else, but they were really the only people the Order could spare - the other areas of the castle needed to be covered too. Hermione took a deep breath, bit her lip, and followed quietly behind Draco, her heart in her throat and Neville and Ron at her back.