Edited 10/14/15

13. That's What They Say

Was this to show you

I would not fail you

Was that the reason you were looking back

So I'm trusting in existence

I'm thrusting on momentum

I don't wanna see these threads of love collide

Not ever again

[No Ordinary Thing, Opshop]

Draco's mother flung the door open and stared at Draco - completely ignoring Hermione standing next to him, but he couldn't blame her for that. He shifted uncomfortably under his mother's gaze as she feasted her eyes on him hungrily. She was looking painfully thin, with a hectic red flush to her cheeks and too-bright eyes, her faded blue gown hanging a little loose on her. Draco supposed that having your son missing wasn't great for your appetite, even when you didn't seem to care that much for him. He cleared his throat, trying not to think resentful thoughts and focusing on the relationship they'd been starting to rebuild before the Gringotts' mission, and his and Hermione's capture. His fingertips just barely hooked around Hermione's, discreetly but tightly curled together.

"Hello, mother."

"Draco…" Narcissa breathed his name and then pulled him to her, embracing him like she was afraid he'd vanish into thin air if she didn't hang onto him. She murmured his name over and over, interspersed with 'my darling boy' and 'thank Merlin', and little strangled sounds as though she was holding back tears. It was extremely fucking awkward. Draco settled for patting his mother on the back gently, letting her cling to him as long as she wanted, rather than struggling to extract himself.

Pansy was smirking at him from within the kitchen, standing by the kettle and seemed very satisfied, and happy - not just to see Draco, but in general. She looked much better, too; her air was glossy and cut in a short, neat bob, her eyes and complexion had some life and brightness to them, and she wasn't quite so painfully gaunt.

Draco extricated himself from his mother finally, and flashed Hermione a quick little smile, before crossing the kitchen to give Pansy an almost-hug. He clasped her hands in his and kissed her cheek, beamed down at her, feeling ridiculously happy at seeing her looking so much better than she had been. "Pansy," he'd nodded, and her smirk had twitched and widened. "Draco. Got yourself a hand, I see," she'd answered in that sharp, careless manner she had - still a right bitch, obviously - and Draco shrugged and grinned. "Stunning observational skills, Pans. I'm impressed."

"Pansy," Hermione's voice came from just behind Draco, and he stepped aside to see her smiling coolly at Pansy, and Pansy smiling equally-coolly back. And then Hermione smiled properly - that expression that lit up her face, and held out a hand to Pansy. "You're looking well."

"Thank you," Pansy said contentedly, as if she'd been paid the proper respect rather than having gotten a voluntary compliment, and shook Hermione's hand briefly. Typical Pansy; Merlin, Draco had missed her the past few months. "Please, don't take this the wrong way, Granger, but you're not looking well. You're looking bloody awful, in fact."

Draco glared at Pansy. "Oh, way to be tactful, P-"

Hermione held up a hand, cutting him off, still smiling, although the expression was a little strained now.

"It's fine, Draco. I realise I'm hardly looking wonderful right now." She sighed and turned to Draco's mother, and he saw Hermione through Pansy's eyes as she greeted Narcissa politely, if stiffly. Her hair was dragged back into a rough French braid, some bits frizzing free, and her complexion was looking rather ashen, her eyes dulled and sunk in hollows, her lips dry and chapped. It was the morning sickness, Draco knew. Hermione had thrown up so much lately Draco was surprised she hadn't vomited up her bloody stomach lining, but she couldn't take any nausea-easing potions until Madam Pomfrey had whipped one up, which she'd started on this morning, and had said would be ready in two days.

"Would you like some tea?" Narcissa asked them nervously, looking flustered and worried; her eyes constantly darting between Draco and Hermione, and Hermione declined politely, but accepted the offer of a mug of cocoa after Narcissa offered what seemed like a dozen drink options. Draco nodded impatiently yes as well, and his mother quickly had them all ensconced in the big, high-ceilinged drawing room with cups of cocoa and a tray of scones on the low table between the couches.

Narcissa sat forward, a nervous twitchiness to her that set Draco even more on edge than he had been. He didn't know how his mother would take the news that he and Hermione were engaged, and having a child. He still didn't quite know how he had taken the news, to be perfectly honest. And he didn't know how he'd feel if his mother was horrified.

Pansy sat composedly on the sofa opposite Hermione, her legs crossed neatly at the ankles, her eyes unreadable and lips curled with a faint polite-but superior smile as she stared at Hermione fixedly. Hermione ignored the Slytherin witch placidly, sipping at her cocoa beside Draco, eyes on her lap. She was tired and worried, Draco could feel it pouring off her, in the tense, stiff way she sat, and her tight grip on her mug, and the way her thigh pressed into his firmly, like an anchor to steady her. It steadied him too, the warm press of her against him, as his mother talked voraciously. The words poured out of her, although Draco was awkward and stilted, and he found himself hating every minute of it. His mother's concern seemed like pity, and her worried questions like macabre curiosity, her whole air gratingly hypocritical, because Draco knew the one question hovering trapped behind her lips.

Neither of them mentioned it yet, but he knew it was there, and he knew she would ask, eventually. He felt very cold, the fragile warmth that had been building up between him and his mother before the Gringotts mission battered by her manner now. By the question in her teeth, and her eyes. Draco pitied her a little, because he knew that she didn't want to ask it - he knew from their conversations before the mission that she felt terribly conflicted and guilty about her love for his father. Especially after discovering what he'd done to Pansy, and being around Pansy and seeing the damage he'd dealt to the young witch with her own eyes. And yet, Draco thought bitterly, as he parried another too-hurtful, too-personal question about what their capture had been like, Narcissa still loved Lucius. Despite everything.

He supposed he couldn't really blame his mother for that; Draco had hardly wanted to love Hermione, at first. And for a good long while, he'd wanted to stop, convinced it was best for her - for both of them, in the end. But hearts were not convenient, or kind, or somehow purer than anything else. They were brutal and hurtful and primal, just like love itself was. Love was like a force of nature, unstoppable, and terribly destructive just as often as it was breath-taking. And if some glorious sort of selflessness came out of love, Draco was convinced that was only luck, and not the nature of love itself. He was a cynic, even now. He had Hermione to provide optimism for him, so he could revel with grim contentment in his realism. His mother's words rolled over him, and he handled them automatically, tuning in and out.

"When they told me what had happened…Merlin, I couldn't believe it at first. I didn't want to. I was so afraid…" She was pale, and he knew her remembered distress was genuine.

"The Order didn't tell us anything, Pansy and I -" A fond look at the younger witch, before she continued, "- But then I suppose there wasn't anything to tell, to be fair. But I was so frightened for you. For what they'd…do to you."

If only she knew, what exactly they'd done. He didn't think she'd even thought that could be a possiblity. But Draco would never, ever tell her that. Never tell her about Rostan and the others. He'd rather die first.

"…I was absolutely sick with worry, my darling, my boy. I - I kept thinking about…all the things I'd done wrong. All the ways I'd let you down…so many times…I should have protected you…" A faint blush rose in Narcissa's cheeks as she admitted that in front of the others, and Hermione nibbled intently at her scone, trying to politely ignore the exchange. "…I thought about what a failure I'd been, as a mother. And to think that you were probably dead and there was no way I could try to make up for what I'd done…that it was over, and I'd never get another chance."

Tears shone in his mother's eyes, real, raw emotion, big and blue and hungrily desperate on Draco, and he felt a pang of sympathy for her that overpowered the distance he'd tried to cultivate, the irritation at her rushed, garble outpouring of emotion.

"Well, I'm…not dead," was all he could think of to say, in a dry, brittle sort of voice that papered over the cracks in his composure. His mother hitched in a delicate breath and began to cry, very quietly, and from the corner of his eye, Draco could see Hermione looking rather panicked at his mother's sudden breakdown. He didn't know what the hell to do, his mother was trying to hide her tears, and Hermione looked as though she'd rather be anywhere but here, in the middle of this awkward moment. Draco wished he'd just told his mother by floo-call, or owl. Fucking hell. His mother kept crying, very faintly, very composedly, tears seeping silently down her cheeks and eyes red-rimmed.

"Mother. Mother. I'm not dead." Fuck, that was a really bloody difficult thing to say, for some reason, and his voice cracked and broke and he swore up a storm in his head. Hermione and Pansy were both rigid with that embarrassment of seeing people that one wasn't that close to caught in a moment of vulnerability. They both stared mutely at each other, and around the room, their uncomfortableness positively radiating off them and Draco gritted his teeth, silently willing his mother to stop up the damn waterworks. Malfoys' were not supposed to show emotion like this. Damn her for abandoning that family motto now, off all fucking inconvenient times. He didn't want to have to deal with her emotional crisis, and Hermione and Pansy shouldn't be stuck witnessing it.

"I'm fine. Honestly, mother. I'm fine - you can see that."

She nodded, but her breath was hitching, and her cheeks were getting blotchy and wet with tears - her delicate lace-trimmed handkerchief was saturated, and Draco just wanted to turn and leave. He'd come here to tell his mother and Pansy the news about him and Hermione, and their little spawn-of-a-Muggleborn baby, not soothe his mother over the guilt that she damned well deserved. Hermione kept darting glances at him, as if she expected him to do something, and he just gave her a helpless look, because what the fuck could he do? He wasn't going to go over there and give his mother a bloody hug in front of Hermione and Pansy, and baby her like she deserved his sympathy - because honestly she didn't. And that would just be embarrassing, because he didn't do that kind of shit.

Hermione gave him another pleading look, and mouthed: "Do something," and he glared at her and shook his head, pursed his lips and wished to sink into the floor, or cease to exist, all while Narcissa sat there on the couch opposite and wept silently into her hanky.

Pansy, of all people, came to the rescue. Somewhat, at least; more than Draco would have expected from Pansy - but then he was starting to learn that he wasn't the only person capable of change, as Hermione stamped the self-absorption slowly out of him.

"Granger." Pansy raised an eyebrow at Hermione. "Would you like to see the gardens?"

"I, ah, yes, thank you, Pansy," Hermione said quickly, with a quick glance at Draco to check it was all right to abandon him to his mother, and he shot her a helpless, weak smile, and nodded slightly. An abject look of relief crossed her face, and she and Pansy retreated quickly, leaving Draco alone in the cavernous drawing room with his weeping mother, caught halfway between wanting to hug her and wanting to slap her for turning his - and Hermione's - capture and torture into something that was all about Narcissa Malfoy, and how upsetting it had been for her.

"Stop crying, mother," Draco said sharply at last, losing all patience, and refusing to go over there and hug her, no matter how much he itched to do so. He loved her. He loved her and it was brutal and hurtful and primal. He loved her because she was his mother and she loved him, and there she was, crying - because of the guilt that she had brought upon herself, but still. Draco hated seeing his mother cry.

"For Merlin's sake, mother. You're embarrassing yourself," he snapped, appealing to her sense of propriety, feeling stifled and locked up under the mask that hid what he really wanted to say, and do. Draco wasn't a Malfoy anymore; no, he really wasn't. Once upon a time, he would never have felt so tangled up between wanting to shake his mother and soothe her, to show his true feelings.

Draco was beginning to realise that it wasn't him corrupting Hermione; it was, if anything, the other way around entirely.

His mother gave him a startled look, sniffled daintily into her handkerchief, and brought herself together with a visible effort, pulling her rent seams tight almost visibly, drawing herself in and up. Her entire composure altered and smoothed, until she looked like the Narcissa Malfoy that Draco was most accustomed to; cold and sweet and beautiful, with that worried but distant mother-love in her eyes. He didn't know what to make of her, anymore. She loved him, and he loved her - more than he wanted to - and yet she wasn't what she had once been to him, anymore. Not after what she'd let happen to him. Not after her unflagging loyalty to his perfectly monstrous father.

Anger snapped up in Draco, too sudden to be stifled, and his silver hand clenched into a fist on his lap as he eyed his mother, his heart stuttering and then breaking into a ragged race.

"Don't cry when I know what you're thinking. What you've been thinking this whole time." The words broke out of him, and he wished he could snatch them back as soon as he'd let them go, but it was too late, and his mother flinched and stared at him, wounded. She didn't deny it though. She prevaricated, and Draco could feel the blood starting to thump and thud heavy in his veins. "Mother."

"I chose you, Draco," she avoided, soft blue eyes looking panicky and trapped, and Draco swiped a hand tiredly over his face, sank back into the couch and sighed. He hadn't come here to argue.

"Just ask, mother. I won't hate you for asking; I already know that you want to."

"No. No. I made my decision, and I chose you. You, Draco, not Lucius. It…that part of my life…is over, now."

"All right then, mother," Draco said a little stiffly, and leaned forward, scooped up his mug of cocoa, and sat back with it, playing at acting normal. "I wonder when Pansy and Hermione will think it safe to come back," he mused aloud, a little cuttingly, but his mother was gazing very far away, and his words drifted over her without touching her. Draco swallowed hard, watching the pain in his mother's eyes and wishing like hell it didn't upset him so much, digging under his skin and worming around.

"I'm sorry," he said, like a little boy, getting up and round the low table between the couches and sitting on the edge of hers, sideways, his knees a hand's-breadth from her, leaning forward a little, earnestly. "I'm sorry that you -"

She smiled, very sadly. "No, don't be sorry, Draco. I just…I remember - what it was like, before. What he was like. And I wish…I wish that we were a happy family. All together. But we can't be, can we? Not ever again. And you're grown up -" Her pale hand reached out and patted Draco's jaw lightly, her face so tender that it made a lump clog in his throat and his eyes sting. "You're going to go off and live your own life with that - that Granger girl, most likely, and I'm…left with nothing. I know, it's terribly selfish, but I am rather selfish, Draco. I always have been."

Her smile widened but was no less sad. "Just like you. You'll be absorbed in your own life, and you won't want - want anything to do with me, anymore. Anything…" There wasn't any malice in her voice, but nonetheless Draco flinched back from what she said. He wasn't that selfish, not anymore. Only moderately - and Draco thought a healthy amount of selfishness was a good thing.

"He came back for me." Hermione's voice rang quietly but clearly through the room, and Draco glanced up startled, and saw her standing there in a dusty ray of weak sunlight by the doorway. A pale, tired angel with ashen skin and bruises beneath her eyes, and he wished again that they'd never come today. That he'd sent Truffle or Johns with a note telling his mother about their engagement and Hermione's pregnancy. She was too sick, still - they should have at least waited until Madam Pomfrey had made up the morning sickness potion. But he'd wanted to tell his mother in person, to try to restore what they'd lost, to show his mother he still cared, and that things could be at least similar to what they had been. And he'd wanted to do it before anything else could happen. Fucking idiot. He should have been the coward he'd always been accused of being.

Of course, Hermione had wanted him to tell his mother too, so he could always partially blame this horrible, awkward, emotional disaster on her.

"The idiot came back for me," Hermione went on firmly, lifting her chin and smiling faintly at him. "At Gringotts, he - he, even though he knew that he couldn't save me, could only be captured or killed with me, he came back. It was…my fault that they captured him as well as me. He could have just gone, left me behind and saved himself like everyone else did, but he didn't. And then when we were captured…"

Hermione licked her lips and her hands knotted in front of her - she was staring not at Narcissa, but directly into Draco's eyes as she spoke, and Merlin it was raw between them, and the memories hurt and throbbed, and shit he loved her so much at this moment. Seeing the wonder and gratitude on her face, and feeling a strange sort of pride warm him through at her expression. For once, he felt like he deserved her love, and it was a nice feeling. A very nice feeling.

"When we were captured, Draco did his best to get them to hurt him, instead of me. To - to protect me. When we were first taken, he was the one who kept me going, who kept me from breaking. He was so strong, and - and not selfish at all. Not even the tiniest bit. He - we…" Hermione's voice wavered and she blinked rapidly and then cleared her throat, walking across the room, gaze turning to Draco's mother.

"If you lose him it won't be because he's selfish or grown up, Mrs Malfoy. It will be because you drive him away by obsessing over the man who cut off Draco's hand, and r-r-hurt Pansy, and tried and failed to do the same to me and to take Draco's other hand too. Personally, I don't understand how on earth you can have any feelings left for L-Lucius, after what he's done, but I can tell you, I'm not having my child spend time around someone who's pining -"

"Child?" Narcissa asked, white to the lips and Hermione slammed her mouth shut and gave Draco a sudden terrified, pleading stare, her hands resting on the back of the sofa opposite Draco and his mother. She wanted him to explain? Merlin damnit. Pansy stood in the doorway behind Hermione, looking not half as shocked as Narcissa - and faintly amused, Draco noted - and Draco's eyes flickered from her to Hermione leaning on the back of the sofa and then to his mother, as he dragged in a deep breath and steeled himself. This was not quite how he had anticipated informing them. He'd planned on something little more measured and calm, not…this moment. This fragile, explosive tension in the air. He said it bluntly, outright.

"Hermione's pregnant. You're going to have a grandchild, mother. And we're going to be married after the war, if all goes as we hope it will."

His mother stared at him, her eyes wide, looking like a china doll in her shock, and he waited for her reaction, realising that in the end, she didn't care how she reacted. He'd like it if she accepted the reality of the situation, but if she didn't…well, Draco still had Hermione, and everyone else. Which was an odd thought. His eyes combed over his mother's face, looking for any kind of reaction, good or bad. But for a long moment, she was frozen. It was Pansy who broke the silence, her mouth tipping up into a wry kind of smile.

"Congratulations, Draco, Granger," Pansy said simply, without any great amount of feeling, but there was fondness in her eyes as she smiled at Draco. And a hint of…regret? Draco wondered if she wished the pregnancy she'd aborted had been a wanted one, one that hadn't come about through rape and torture. He had never thought Pansy would make a good mother, but there was the faintest trace of wistfulness in her face as she smiled at Draco, and he wondered if she was thinking of when they had been together, all but an assured match for marriage. When they had both assumed that one day they would be husband and wife, most likely, and if not in love, then at least friends, and good parents to the children they were expected to have.

"Thank you," Hermione said, not sounding taken aback by Pansy's politeness - he wondered what they'd talked about in the garden - and then he turned his face back to his mother, a tension thrumming in his bones as he waited.

"Well?" he asked her after a moment, impatience itching under the surface, and Narcissa blinked those soft blue eyes and focused on him.

"Are you happy?" she asked quietly, like she had asked him when she had found out he and Hermione were together, and Draco nodded once.

"Yes, mother. I - wouldn't want anything else but this." It was a simple statement of fact, but from the corner of his eye Draco saw Hermione's fingers clutch white-knuckled on the back of the sofa, saw her shoulders slump with relief. He nodded again, eyes meeting Hermione's. "I'm as happy as I can be, mother," he said, because he wouldn't lie, not right now, not to Hermione, not even a little bit.

"Then…I'm happy for you, my son. My dear boy. I - I can't pretend to…well, I'm afraid my views are still not exactly liberal, but…Miss Granger is an intelligent girl who obviously loves you a great deal -"

"I do. And please, don't talk about me as if I'm not here, Mrs Malfoy," Hermione interrupted, her chin thrust up and her eyes glinting determination; Draco's Gryffindor, all bravery and nobility, and fuck he loved her.

"I apologise, Miss Granger." His mother inclined her head gracefully, the only sign of her irritation at being interrupted - and by a Muggleborn at that - her fingers twitching around the wet hanky in her curled hand. "As I was saying, you obviously both care about each other a great deal, and I don't really see the point in…making a fuss over the two of you being together, and having a child together." Narcissa shrugged slightly. "What would my disapproval do, but exactly what you said, Miss Granger? Drive my son away from me. And despite what you may think of me, and my views, and the choices that I have made, I do love him, and I don't want to lose him."

"I know," Hermione said gently, and an understanding seemed to pass between his mother and Hermione, that Draco didn't quite understand, and the two witches smiled at each other.

"Well, then. Congratulations, Miss - Hermione. If I may call you that?" Hermione inclined her head in assent, and his mother continued, "Congratulations Hermione, Draco. Although, I must say, I wish you'd at least marry before the child is born. I'd rather not have a Malfoy child born out of wedlock; half-blood or no, we have standards to uphold."

Draco gave his mother a look. "Mother," he said warningly, thinking about exactly what standards the Malfoy family held to these days, standards which did not exclude torture, rape, or murder. Narcissa seemed to resist the urge to roll her eyes, but she just nodded and stood instead, and held out her arms to her son. Draco swallowed and stood, and hugged her; stiffly at first, still uncomfortable and uneasy, and not sure quite exactly where they all stood, how mended or broken things were.

And then, "You're going to make a wonderful father, my son," his mother whispered in his ear, her voice choked with tears, and his arms tightened around her, hard, and the emotion bubbled up in his chest and clogged his throat, made his eyes swim with tears he sure as hell wasn't going to shed.

"Thank you," he said shortly and let her go after a moment, ducking his head so his fringe hid his eyes, and blinking the tears away. And then a warm hand - Hermione's hand - slid into his and locked around his fingers, and he lifted his head and smiled at his mother openly, steadied and bolstered by Hermione. "Thank you," he said again, louder and clearer, and his mother smiled up at him with quivering lips and watery eyes.

"Well. This is all very nice, but boring as hell, for me. And I believe lunch is ready. I'm going to go eat, if anyone would like to join me," Pansy said with that perfect, prissy snark that was her trademark, and the tension fell away from the room, the weight lifted from Draco's shoulders.

"Lovely, Pansy. I see you're as tactful as ever."

The witch shrugged gracefully and smirked at Draco's retort, eyes bright in her face, and hair silky and shining - not the thin, bedraggled girl she'd been when she'd defected. "Oh, you adore me anyway, darling," she drawled and then raised an eyebrow, smirked wider, and turned on her heel and left for the dining room.

They did as Pansy said, traipsing after the Slytherin witch and settling in for a simple lunch that Pansy and his mother had apparently made themselves. The rest of their visit was surprisingly not too awkward, although they talked mostly about the war, and general affairs, not of Hermione and Draco. But it was still far better than Draco had expected. And Narcissa kissed Hermione on the cheek when they left; cool and distant, but the fact that she'd done it all was all Draco needed to know. His mother approved; his mother was happy for him. And although he didn't need her approval, it made him happy to have it. Because Draco already lost his father; he'd really rather not lose his mother too, however fragile and tentative the bond that remained between them might be.

The unfamiliar Auror, Celia Kippens, who had escorted them to the safehouse, apparated them back to the edge of Hogwarts wards and they hurried well within the bounds in her company, and then were left alone to make their own way into the castle. Hermione smiled up at Draco, catching his hand and halting him in his long, strolling strides and shifting around in front of him, the sun low in the sky behind her, catching her hair and threading glints of copper in it, and shadowing her face from him. He gave her a questioning look, and she slid her arms around his neck and went up on tiptoes; kissed him full on the mouth, and her lips were so soft and warm, and so deliciously greedy on his. Draco lifted his hands to cradle her face, thumbs grazing over her cheekbones, his eyes open, watching as hers fluttered shut, a content little sound issuing from her lips.

Hermione swayed into him, her body pressed full against his, as they broke the kiss and she tucked her face against his chest, breath deep and slow. Draco suddenly couldn't stop thinking about what was happening inside her still-flat abdomen; a thrill of anticipation and terror crawled down his spine, and he slid his arms around her. They were having a baby in the middle of a Merlin-damned war. They were having a baby in the middle of a war. There was so, so much that could go wrong.

So, so much.

And even if they won the war…Draco only hoped that the Order really could get him out of being sentenced to Azkaban, because…he couldn't even finish the thought. Instead Draco tightened his embrace, burying his face in Hermione's hair, and smelt chocolate and cinnamon, felt her breath hot on his chest, heard her whisper a muffled 'I love you,' and a warm feeling blossomed in his chest, obliterating the fear.