A month passed. Hermione and Tom met every afternoon to work on their debate, which they earned an A+ on; it was the longest and most well written one in the class. As Hermione's stomach grew, though, so did her relationship with Tom. Although they did not love each other, they were a bit nicer to one another, and Tom agreed to support Hermione and the child. Hermione had been thinking a lot about the child, she knew Voldemort did not have a child in the future. She was afraid her son or daughter would be killed. She sometimes got moody around Tom when those thoughts came about or she would become extremely emotional, which Tom confused when she had a sudden outburst and began crying for what seemed to be no reason. Although they finished the fukal fae debate, they had a new project to do together (Hermione kept Bianca after a lot of crying. . . Dumbledore was going to take all of the fae away, but Hermione and Bianca had a very large bond).

"AH! Hermione, please stop crying!" Tom exclaimed. "You are getting the parchment all wet, too!"

"But. . . but. . ." she sniffed then abruptly stopped and put a charm on her to make it look as if she had not been crying. "Sorry," she apologized and cleaned the parchment off with a spell. They were working on a bizarre creature; it had two heads: one of a dog and one of a bird. Their bodies resembled that of a lion and had the tail of a mouse. Luckily, they did not have to take care of one, seeing as they are ferocious, and extremely ugly as Hermione said, animals. "What are we doing now?" she asked.

"Their life span. It is quite hard to find," Tom said, not looking up from his book as he flipped through the pages.

"Oh. . ." Hermione trailed off. She stood up and walked over to the bookshelves, scanning them for a useful book. "Hm. . ." she said as she came across a book called 'Very Hard Information to Find on Monsters.' She laughed silently "How convenient?" she asked no one in particular. She brushed the dusty cover off and sat down at the table with Tom. "Check this out," Hermione said as she pushed it over to him. He looked up from the book he was reading and swapped books with her. He laughed a bit and smiled.

"They need a better title, but still, it is very convenient," Tom said and flipped through its contents. He came across the monster and began recording information. Its name was a dord. Hermione thought it was the strangest name, but she ignored it. After realizing Tom had practically finished the book she was working on, she put it down and pulled out some other homework. She reluctantly made a pact with him; if one of them had no work to do on one of their projects, then they would have to work on their, and their partner's, homework. She pulled out Tom's since she had already done all of her homework for the next week. Hermione spent a long time working, which caused her to think, which led to more tears. Because of the charm she used, her face did not turn red, her eyes did not become puffy, nor did her face stain from the tears, they just rolled right off her cheeks. Tom looked up when he heard a small whimper.

"What is wrong now?" he asked.

"Nothing," she sniffed and lied.

"Hermione!"

"What?"

"You are a terrible liar," he said and shook his head as her hands began to shake. "Your hands betray you." She looks at her hands resting atop the table then quickly put them under the table and looked down at Tom's work. He rolled his eyes. "Stop being so stubborn. If you want help and support from me, you have to talk!"

"I am not stubborn!" she exclaimed and crossed her arms. Tom surrendered and went back to their report. She continued to cry silently and began to rock back and forth.

She eventually finished Tom's homework and they decided to call it a night. They walked back to the common room together then split to go to their rooms. Bianca was in Hermione's room, where she now resided. Hermione plopped down onto her bed, exhausted. Bianca stood on the nightstand next to her and looked down on her worriedly.

"I'm fine, Bianca," Hermione said, even though her eyes were closed, she knew Bianca was looking at her. "Go to bed," Hermione said and turned on her stomach then put her pillow over her head. "Wake me in the morning, please," Hermione's voice was muffled by the pillow, but Bianca still understood.

The next morning was hectic, Bianca slept in and had to wake Hermione up last minute. She only ate a piece of bread for breakfast before she was off to her classes. The day was extremely slow and long. Hermione was not paying much attention in her classes, but most teachers forgave her. The end of the day was the usual; Tom worked on the project (he called the only book available) and Hermione did his homework, and got moody and cried again. She always denied her stubbornness, and Tom would always surrender. It was becoming routine. Hermione of course finished before Tom did. She sat at the table for ten minutes, doing random things. One minute she would be crying, but the next she was twiddling her thumbs impatiently. They eventually went back to the common room for the night and went through the exact same thing for the next few days.