Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my imagination and whatever else is in this story that doesn't make sense. I was inspired by another romance novel i read and J.K. Rowlings wonderful world. Enjoy!
Chapter 15
"Wrapped so Pretty"
"Home sweet home." said Draco sarcastically.
Within seconds the swirling color of lights disappeared and so did the pentagram beneath their feet. "What…what is this place?" she said now feeling a little weak and she swayed before him when a sharp spell of sickness hit her.
"Our new home…for now. Are you alright?" he asked watching her titter. His fingers laced around her wrist to hopefully give her some balance. Hermione gripped his arm with both her hands.
Was afternoon sickness a thing? She'd have to make time to read her books as soon as they were settled in. She nodded and closed her eyes for a moment, her stomach began to rotate and turn sour. She inhaled deeper like Mrs. Weasley had told her to do and tried to make it go away. "Must you?" she demanded when he attempted to make her take a step or two from their portkey.
Draco stopped, didn't say anything, he just looked at her, and looked and looked and waited. Her hands instinctively went to her mouth and she raced over to a small patch of grass where she collapsed immediately to her knees.
"What is it?" was all he could say over and over.
Hermione shook her head answering him as her breathing grew faster. She stretched out on all fours over the grassy spot. "oh...oooh no." sobs took over as the inescapable sickness rose up to consume her. Draco grabbed a handful of her brown hair back as she retched out her breakfast. He kneeled down beside her and half attempted to rub her back, her bushy brown locks tangling between his fingers.
After a long while of them kneeling there, Hermione gained control after losing her stomach twice. She was thankful he tried to assist her and now noticed that he was holding her hair back and that her hair clamp must have come undone. She found his wrist behind her neck and grabbed it when the dry heaving continued before slowly dying off. He laced their fingers together, she lifted her watery gazed back towards him and returned the show of gratitude with a smile that said thank you.
A minute or so had passed before either one spoke or moved from the spot. She keep a slow pace beside her husband and soon she began to notice the tiny shops lined closely together in a valley below. "So we'll be staying in town, at a hotel? But I thought you said a home." she said and struggled to hold down a steadily rising sour stomach.
"Draco looked at her strangely. "You've not even meet my mother and already you're sounding like a Malfoy, Hermione? Perhaps you should sit down." He insisted eyeing her breathing. She wasn't looking very well after that second flight from his mother's. "It's been a long trip." he stated.
"No…I was simply asking." An unfamiliar heaviness expanded and made a tiny flutter in her stomach just then, but she ignored it, because she didn't want him to worry anymore.
"Well, to kill your curiosity. No, we will not be living in town. I need my privacy, and are you saying, this is your first time seeing this place?"
Hermione looked down from the cliff more closely at the town. The buildings were snug and compacted. Several of them nestled closely together in rows, whilst others sat admirably apart. Even from up high you could make out the wild display of oddities and fresh produce beside the market doors and window displays. She watched a wizarding family going about there way shopping. Another witch was being tugged by a set of toddler twins. A younger, dark-skinned male wizard stood on the corner shouting sales for the Quibbler. The quaint little valley was surrounded by three spectacular snow peeked mountains. Hermione was beyond ecstatic as she soon began to recognized the quaint little village. The assortment of stores, including the charming rustic restaurant that she often enjoyed dining in from time to time on her lunch breaks, and next to it her favorite Café shop with its twig furnitures was the third cottage with blue-and-gray window awnings. The Apothecary and spellbook store right beside it. The Ingles apothecary store she knew so well and their display was that of freshly grown squash of odd sorts, roots, powders, dragon roots, imported ashes and many types of unusual live vegetations.
"This is the valley of Grindelwald." she said with enjoyment tittering in her voice as Draco stood there with her.
Once she felt up to it the apparated to the cobble streets below. Draco stopped and craned his neck to peer inside of the bakery window. The fresh smell of pastries escaped as an elderly witch and her husband depart with their purchases in a basket.
He and Hermione rounded a small curve, where Draco pulled her by the wrist to signal they needed to go this way. She felt a gentle pull in the pit of her stomach. "This may not be a good idea, its to high to climb." he told her looking up to another hillside high above the town and suddenly they were upon the hill top.
The unexpected journey made her vomit again. They both agreed, she would have to find a different way to travel until after she gotten past her sickness. Next, her attention was drawn to an impressive view of the wizarding town below them. Her eyes then followed up a trail, beyond a thicket of high pines. A streaming brook that trickled back down the hillside to the town, the houses and shops below. Beyond the pines about a minute or so she and Draco followed a path lain with large earth stones that ended and was soon replace by a stone path.
"This should give us enough privacy to hide your little secret for a while." he said rather roughly. Using his wand he clear away a curtain of wild growing native vines. Hermione's caught her first glimpse of the home. If she could in fact call it such. It was enormous and on a wonderfully large and leveled amount of flat land. Its style was very old, seventeenth-century England, but so untouched it looked as if it had only been frozen in time.
"Draco, that's a manor, not a house." she said in awe. He nodded walking up ahead of her.
"How much did it all cost? Are you sure you bought this without looking at it first." she asked and took a few steps closer catching up with him, to get a better view.
Six massive columns stretched upward, giving way to a balcony of elaborately matching wrought iron work for the second floor. Windows that looked liked tiny cut pieces of jewels decorated the double-wide front doors in front of her. "This is our home?" she asked, thrilled to imagine their baby growing up in such a place.
"Of course it is." he said. "Don't you like it?"
"Like it? It's perfect." she said in an almost dreamy state. Hermione mounted the stone steps and opened the front doors. As she stepped inside and caught her first glimpse of the interior, it was just a beautiful as the outside. The open foyer could hold a house all on its own it was so large, and had in its center an overly grandiose fountain, upon it a marble sculpture of a Atlantis mermaid pouring water from her urn. She balanced it on her shoulders before turning to glance down at Hermione.
Hanging above the fountain like an inverted wedding cake was an enormous crystal chandelier made up of hundreds of prisms and teardrops crystals held together with gold. To the right she entered into a sunken living room that was furnished with what looked very much like French rococo furniture, elaborate fringed draperies, and enormous marble fireplace that was clearly used for floo-traveling as it stood several inches taller than both her and Draco's height and it was clearly meant to hold a large family.
With her fingertips she touched the pretty curves and natural patterns of its cavorting cupids on the stone mantel, tiny angelic babies carved into each corner. Next she pulled open two grand double doors into a dining area, that looked more like a small ballroom and at once she could see the room most exquisite piece, a elongated wooden dining table. She didn't bother to count the dining chairs, there was simply to many of them. She was a bit more captivated by the four carved centuars below, which supported it corners.
There was a study, more French style arches gave way to its entrance and emerald green drapes greeted her that made her want to puke again. She reentered the foyer just as Draco was coming down from upstairs. She looked up to the second floor which surrounded her with a balcony of white spiraling grillwork that was even more beautiful that the wrought balcony outside. "I'm afraid to see the upstairs." she said and couldn't conceal her smile.
He hit the bottom step at last "You don't like it?"
She could barely repress a shy smile as she moved past him and headed upstairs, where she found more rooms decorated with outdated but very elaborated swags and fringes and more french style cupids. She opened a set of double doors and stepped into what appeared to be the master bedroom, which was a nightmare of more slytherin green, mixed with pearl columns and darker wooden more modern pieces. It held another chandelier along with a king-size bed resting on a higher platform. Its canopy decorated with enormous black tassels hanging from the bed post. Something caught her eye, and as she walked closer, she saw the underside of the canopy which held an enormous mirror. She quickly backed away.
"Well what do you know? I always wanted one of those. This old house is better than I thought." He went over to the bed and looked under the canopy, to see what captured her attention. He gave a long whistle, and his usual smirk, he was clearly impressed.
"That's awful." she said.
"Doesn't bother me. Shouldn't bother you much either, we want be using it."
His chastising maddened her. He crossed the room to a set of chest of drawers and slid out a deep drawer to a cabinet.
"Perfect." he said.
Hermione walked over, and read the cover of an X-rated magazine. "Susie Slumber Witch and Her Panty Pranks was the first to catch her eye. Draco!" she dug into the drawer and filled her arms with as many smut magazines as she could, the pile was so large, she had to brace it under her chin and headed for the door.
"That's right," he called to her as she was leaving "You think that sex is only important when you want to get yourself knocked up isn't that it Granger?."
She felt as if he'd just kicked her in the stomach. She turned to look at him and dropped all the porn on to the floor. A centerfold open up and exposed a witch stark naked parting her thighs and exposing all of her lower glory. Heart bubbles surrounding her on the photo as she began to insert a finger. "Is this how we plan to live for the next few months?" she asked him quietly. "With the two of us attacking each other like we're still at Hogwarts?"
"Works for me." he shrugged picking up the busty centerfold from the floor.
"But we'll both be miserable, every day. Is that what you want? It's not what I want. Please can't we call a truce? For the baby sake."
"It's not what you want?" He turned the magazine vertically ignoring Hermione's question. "So you want a truce…?" he didn't look at her, but he scratched the back of his neck instead and staring at the model performing on the page.
"Yes. Let's stop all this personal attacking on one another an try to get along." Three witches on the cover wore pointy hats and began to unfasten their bra clasp.
He stared at the magazine for a long moment, then walked forward, tossing the book onto the pile she'd collected of the others.
"You're the reason everything in my life is so suddenly out of order…I want my life back in order and the most you have to offer is a truce. It makes me wonder, if you set out to get that kid just to trap me Hermione. You knew exactly what you wanted all along. Didn't you? Was it really only about the kid?" He brushed past her and headed down stairs.
What had gotten into him she wondered. She stood there with her heart pounding in her chest and nodding her head; yes, in response to his question. But, he had already gone so she fought back the rising pain in her chest…she refused to lose it…here in her new home, it would feel like a prison if she could not feel at home here with him. She would not cry. She refused to cry.