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 19
"Wrapped so Pretty"
"Draco, finished his studies in Drumstrang Academy?" Hermione asked at once the moment she had found Mrs. Malfoy down stairs exactly where she had left her.
"Yes, I take it you ran across a few of his later awards. I told you he's smart as a whip, but dumb as a troll in other matters. Especially in matters of the heart."
"He-" Hermione swallowed hard and fought the roaring hum of panic that was growing in her head. "He-he received the Apprentice Honor as well...?" Hermione quickly asked next.
Narcissa had begun lining the prepared apples in a Dutch pot that she would later hang over a low flame.
"Now didn't he tell you that? Lots of boys his age fancied playing Quidditch and would take the easiest classes just to get by, but not Draco. He was never like that. I suppose his father was partly the reason. Lucius always instilled in our son to take on the challenge that no other would dare." Narcissa smiled inwardly at that fact for a moment and kept right on talking. "He started out doing wonderfully after Hogwarts, finishing his seventh year at Drumstrang and then that Pansy girl come waltzing back into his life and knocked him off track again."
Mrs. Malfoy sat another peeled apple into a baking pot and filled with three ounces of buttered mead. "Oh his grades fell faster than a poorly cast spell... He went away you know, he wanted to continue is studies after Drumstrang, but with that girl kept popping in and out."
Struggling against herself Hermione forced the corners of her mouth to rise and her eyes to crinkle away the tears that were surely on the way. She then turned around to face Narcissa with more questions. "There was a Maxima Cum Laude?"asked Hermione, suddenly the room seemed to rock back and forth as Narcissa nodded yes, without looking up from her cooking "..and-and he brought back the Barnabus Finkley Award too?" Hermione was feeling sicker with each question and with each nod of Narcissa's head. Each nod of yes was as if she'd just taken a punch to the gut.
By now Narcissa could hear the alarm in the girl's voice. And with narrowed curious eyes the older witch looked up at her. "Yes, This is all true. Strikes me strange that you don't know any of this Hermione Malfoy."
"I guess the subject never came up." And then it came the panic, the swelling of tears, the hard truth and the room began to sway, Hermione knew she was going to faint. She turned awkwardly and collided into the kitchen island, spilling a small cauldron of hot mead over her left hand. She screamed in pain and cursed, sputtered more profanity as the boiling hot liquid covered her skin spilling onto her leg.
"Hermione? oh my Merlin's! What's wrong with —" Narcissa was quickly by her side, rushing her over to a running faucet of cool water.
Hermione couldn't speak. The liquid was so hot and she knew it would leave her scarred, she felt the cooling comfort the running water gave. She pressed her free hand to her mouth and began to cry. How could she have been so stupid? Despite all her conniving, she brought the very disaster she'd tried so hard to avoid. No! Her child was going to be everything but ordinary...it was going to be a freak!
As Narcissa tended to the burned area of her arm, it grew irritated and red. She carefully ran Hermione's arm beneath the faucet, holding her hand turning it ever so slightly when Narcissa came face to face with her sister's cruelty left upon the young witch. The words 'MUDBLOOD' ripped into her flesh, so jagged, yet so vividly clear and so disturbing that Narcissa sucked in a deep breath as anger towards Bellatrix filled her almost instantly.
Hermione clutched the edge of the kitchen counter. Now following Narcissa's eyes; realizing at once that she'd forgotten to apply her usual charm to cover the shameful scarring from years before.
The dirty mark upon her, had become as normal to her as a born blemish and she had come to accept that it would be a part of her forever. She often forgot it was startling for others to see it there.
"Really, I'm fine." Hermione lied tightly as the pain began to subside into just a tolerable throbbing. She pulled her arm away slowly. All the taunting laughter of her childhood years while attending various muggle schools fading in and out of her memory like a forgotten storm. She never learned things or played like the normal children and then to born of magic. It all set her apart from an entire neighborhood of kids that would never understand her or understand why her mother kept her away from the neighbor's kids.
She was often labeled odd by the muggle school teachers, but when the letter from Hogwarts arrived on her eleventh birthday, she felt as if she had at last been saved from isolation. But even in this world of magic it was difficult at first for her to fit in perfectly. Other wizarding students set her apart from them here as well, she was indifferent even to them; indifferent, unusual, not pure, the mudblood Granger.
Her rambling thoughts then directed itself to her husband, someone she came to admit that she had lied to and cheated. She used him to escape her own painful lonliness. she turned her head to glance She knew that Draco was keen on most subjects in school, but she hadn't believe him to be serious about any of them. Didn't most of his friends Crabbe and Goyle do the minimum studies to skate by in those classes? Ron and Harry always had.
Quidditch jocks didn't bother with the extremities of advanced NEWTs, and the fact that he mastered and graduated with honors from Drumstrang, one of the most prestigious schools next to Hogwarts was truly to much to for her to bare.
Narcissa was speaking to her and being very comforting towards her but sadly Hermione had taken in very little of what she was saying.
Her thoughts were still on Draco, had he deliberately withheld the truth from her? That possibility ripped her entire future apart the more she thought about it. The one quality she favored in him- his dimwitedness and for him to be just another slytherin thickhead to hopefully lower the baby's possibilities of being burden too smart for its on good. True worry clawed at her. Tears stung her eyes, as the painful memories of her tortured childhood and summers away from Hogwarts rolled back. Her precious child was going to be mind freak just like her. Her eyes stung with tears of regret for not doing deeper research about Draco. What had she done? How in the name of Merlin could she had let this happen? The cruel side jokes from her first year, she didn't want that for her baby.
Ron's cruelness toward her then was unkind as well…and even now as adults he despised her book smart way of doing nearly everything in their day-to-day relationship. He saw it as adorable at first, but in time he had left her because of it, left her for that dim-witted witch Lavender Brown.
"HERMIONE!... MOTHER ARE YOU HERE?" Draco's voice traveled from the front of the castle into the kitchen where the two with had been standing.
Hermione charged out of the kitchen at once "YOU DECIEVING FAKE BASTARD!"
Draco stormed forward too "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN HERMIONE, I'VE LOOKED EVERYWHERE FOR YOU?"
"God, I hate you right now Draco Malfoy."
"DON'T BRING HIM INTO THIS," He shouted back cutting her off. "YOU HAVE A LOT OF EXPLAINING TO DO. HOW IN THE BLOODY HELL DID YOU GET HERE?" Draco's eyes blazed with anger after searching all day high and low to find her.
She wanted to throw herself at him and scratch out those hideous pureblood eyes, chop open his blond head and pluck out his lying, little know-it-all brain.
He was suppose to be stupid! He read smutty magazines, they were everywhere, all over the house. How could he betray her this way, not warn her!
The last of her self-control shattered and she had to get away from him, from this place, from this life suddenly filled to the brim with lies, she had to get away from all of it. She whirled around and dashed back into the kitchen where she flew out a back door.
"Draco stop her, what have you done to her?" Narcissa grew furious with her son as she watched her daughter-in-law flee in a rush.
Draco stormed right behind her "Done, I haven't done anything to her!"
"HERMIONE! SWEETHEART!" shouted Narcissa
"HERMIONE, YOU GET BACK HERE!" Draco shouted.
She heard him order her again as she began to run. He was bellowing all sorts of rage from behind her. "YOU GET BACK HERE NOW! DON'T MAKE ME RUN AFTER YOU, DAMMIT GRANGER!"
"STOP! CALLING HER THAT WRETCHED NAME. YOUR UPSETTING HER." His mother screamed at him. "SHE'S YOUR WIFE, WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO YOU TWO?"
"STAY OUT OF IT MOTHER!" he broke into a full run.
"IF SHE HURT'S MY GRANDCHILD -I'LL HEX BOTH OF YOU TO HELL AND BACK, I MEAN THAT DRACO...!"
"HERMIONE" he shouted again.
She wanted to hit something. She wanted to throw herself in a deep hole and let the ground close in on top of her, anything to stop this pain, the hurt, the embarrassment, the unfortnate future she was feeling for her unfortunate child. This baby, her baby, someone that she loved more than anything, more than anyone, and now it was going to be her greatest mistake!
She heard him running up behind her, and she gasped when he spun her around. "I TOLD YOU TO STOP!" he ordered.
"You- You've ruined her, you've ruined everything!" she screamed back jerking away from his hold when he grabbed her arm.
"Me?" his face went pale with a sneer. "What are you talking about, ruined who?"
"I'll never forgive you for this!" She balled her hands into a fist and hit him against his chest so hard the pain shot up her burned arm.
He was spitting fury and grabbed her by both arms this time. Then suddenly she transported into a haze of white light and spun away, criss-crossing past the tree's, racing with unbelievable speed. She wouldn't be restrained.
"YOU STOP THIS RIGHT NOW! STOP IT!"
She turned to the side of her to see Draco's pale face emerging from the darken mass of speeding energy right beside her. He had taken flight and was chasing her like a black cloud along side Hermione's white whirling light.
She went even faster then, but Draco matched it, together they looked like a pair of gigantic orbs soaring, twisting through the garden, past it and into the forest.
He caught her and they swirled in a brief combat, she kicked and clawed and tried to throw him out of flight in anyway that she could.
"STOP! STOP IT HERMIONE!" His shouting shook the treetops as the chase continued.
Again he tried to hold her still, and she sank her teeth into his arm. "OOOUCH! HAVE YOU GONE MAD WITCH! THAT HURT DAMMIT! HERMIONE! DAMN YOU STOP, YOU'RE HURTING THE BABY...STOP THIS!"
She lifted her knee to slam it into his groin, he caught it and flipped her in mid air. Draco went down with her, breaking her fall with his own body, then twisting quickly before she could revolt he pinned her to the ground.
The flight had taken everything out of her. She knew how to fly, but had never done it for so long and with so much infuriating energy feeding it. Yet, Draco wasn't even winded. He was however, completely pissed off and he let her have it. "You calm down right now Hermione, do you understand me? You're acting like one of those loonies. You're crazy! You've lied to me, cheated me, and now- now you trying to kill me, not to mention you're not thinking one bit about the baby with all this confounded madness. I swear I'll have to lock you up in St. Mungos mental ward before I let you hurt —"
Hermione slammed her eyes shut, and they stung with more tears. She didn't want to hear him pretend to care about their baby. "Y-You've ru-ruined e-everything." she balled finally.
"Me, I'm not the one going on like a lunatic, and I'm not the one blazing through the forest like a crazy person."
"Don't you dare try to talk your way out of this Draco Malfoy, This was important to me…how could you not tell me. You deliberately hide the truth from me."
"I deliberately what?"
"Oooh! Now the big dumb Quidditch jock can't be man enough to tell his own truth. Did you think it was embarrassing too? You, pranced around school for years...years with that asinine Slytherin stupidity act, and making everyone think you're just some spoiled Slytherin brat….and you are…you are an absolute moron, and the world biggest git Draco Malfoy, and I don't want this baby!"
"What are you talking about?"
She spat the words of his many honors. "Drumstrang School of Magic, Winner of the Barnabus Finkley prize for exceptional fucking Spell-Casting, and a fucking Maxima Cum Laude."
"Yes, and...," Some of the tension left his body.
"Yeeaaa and?" she cried "Merlin's beard I would've had a better chance at a muggle sperm bank."
"A what?" He was no longer angry with her. But Hermione's stomach had not settled, she could feel her sickness building and she was furious too. She had to ask, and she knew she was going to dread the answer.
"You graduated of Newt level. What was your final score?"
"What, I have no idea. Unlike you Hermione, I don't keep it tattooed to my bloody forehead!" He rolled over to his side and came to his feet and helped her up.
She regarded him bitterly. "You're a liar, everybody remembers their NEWT exams. Tell me!"
"I don't have to tell you anything." his voice was annoyed, but not angry.
"You tell me now Draco Malfoy…or I swear before Albus, I'll find a way to murder you! I'll put draught of death in your food! I'll hex you while your sleeping! I'll erase your mind and push you over the mountain! I'll- I'll jinx your bloody broom during practice, I swear I will!"
Draco was busy brushing the leaves from his clothing, when he stopped and looked up at her finally. "Tell me!" she demanded. He was deliberately stalling and she could tell.
"To have come from Gryffindor, you sure are blood thirsty. The draught of living death... did you know the odor from the mixture in its last blackest stage is extremely dangerous to expecting mothers? My mother could tell you. It causes still births." His breathing had eased and his tone was softer now. He would tell her anything she wanted if she would only calm down. Some how he knew now he would tell this particular witch far more about himself than he'd ever shared with anyone outside of his parents.
But if he were really smart he'd give her the old Draco routine she was so accustomed to and make up some wild story about how he'd cheated his way through every class he ever took at either school; he couldn't do that though. He had been less than honest with her for weeks now about his growing love for her and the kid they had coming. He still had a sour taste in his mouth from guilt about so many things when it came to her.
Hermione took another deep breath and tried to regain her composure. "Tell me your NEWT scores. You owe me that much. How many Outstandings did you recieve?"
He shrugged and lifted his hand to pull a twig from her hair. Another lie, if he gave her another lie and she found out it was bound to leave her with a rotten impression of him and although it took sometime for him to realize it, her opinion of him was beginning to matter, it was beginning to matter a lot.
"Nine and a half, or ten...something like that. Might have been a bit higher." he said it without hesitation, and then held his breath and waited for her reaction.
"A nine and a half or higher! The most anyone can score is a nine Draco, myself included."
He shrugged again "There were a few imperfect calculations with the ingredient measurements of Felix Felicis. I corrected them. They have me credit for it."
She lifted her arm and punched him in the nose as hard as she could, then stomped away from him. He was such a fake, a fraud, and she felt sick down to the very depths of her soul, because she could never get that fucking potion right.
"Hermione, wait!" he groaned squeezing his throbbing nose.
"Don't ever speak to me again." she screamed over her shoulder..