A/N: Hello,
I'd just like to say thanks to everyone for the reviews and personal howlers I've received throughout the chapters. Some were good and some, well. . .
But I appreciate the time you took to read my story.
I know some readers were very upset with certain parts, especially Hermione's. But, then there were some, that were equally upset with Draco. Regardless of it all, the story was set in stone, and I wanted to keep it that way, or as close as I could. Not to be influence by disapproving reviews or request. This final chapter, unlike the others will be very long, so I hope you enjoy it, because I enjoyed writing all the chapters. And so, with the story's good-bye behind me, here you are. . . . the ending of "Wrapped so Pretty. . . ."
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my imagination. I was inspired by another romance novel i read and J.K. Rowlings wonderful world. Enjoy!
Chapter 59
"Wrapped so Pretty"
She made herself face the truth. He might very well come around, but Hermione trusted that it would be out of duty instead of love. This entire thing was over and she had to accept that and start living her own life again. It was time for her to leave Grindlewald.
Later that night. . . .
The wind had whipped up dreadfully outside, and the entire castle had grown chilly. Although it was warm under her covers, the chill in the night air seemed to have settled into her bones. She curled deeper into the bedclothes and although miserable, she finally fell asleep, only to be jolted awake by a crash of thunder and a cold, wet hand settling over her mouth. She sucked in her breath to scream, but the cold, wet hand clamped down tighter, and a deep, familiar voice whispered to her. "Shhhhh. . . . .It's me."
Her eyes shot open. A dark shape loomed over her. Wind and rain blew in through the window and whipped the curtains against the wall. Draco eased his hand from her mouth and left her bedside to close the window shut, just as a boom of thunder shook the castle walls.
Petrified from the fright he had given her, she struggled to sit up. "Get out!"
"Shhhh. . . .lower your voice before the Dark Over-Lord and his Wickety chamber witch show's up and creeeeesh. . . ." Draco made a imitating slice at his own neck.
She had no idea why but she started whispering too. "What, Those are your parents and don't you dare say anything bad about either one of them."
"Ha!, those two, They'd rather eat their own child for dinner, than give him a chance to explain." he whispered.
He placed his hands on his hip and stared down at how beautiful and how inviting she looked, so snugged and warm beneath her covers. He gave her a serious glare. "I came to kidnap you, but it's wet and cold out there, so I'll have to do it some other time." He lowered himself to his knees, beside her bed. Beads of water glistened in his blonde hair, pasting it to his face. As another flash of lighting lit the room, she saw that he was still just as unshaven as this afternoon. Some may not have liked the idea, but his new haggard look took her breath away.
"You planned to kidnap me?" she whispered back. This was cruel, Why couldn't he just leave her alone. The baby started moving and turning about, even though they were both being as quite as they could be, Hermione wondered if just maybe, the baby knew that father, was here.
He nodded. "You don't seriously think I'm going to let you stay here, what about the baby Hermione. I know she misses me." he reached out a wet hand and before she could protest, he placed it upon her stomach. The baby did a set of flips in her belly. He gazed down at her gown where he'd just seen a smidgen of a movement beneath its silken fabric, and brilliant, lit sparkles flickered in his gray eyes.
Suddenly it reminded her how tender he'd tried to be through her pregnancy. Even now when she was at her fattest, he rested the weight of his head against her abdomen, just has he had done many nights before and then kissed the mound that was his seed growing. He told it how it was the most beautiful baby in the world, and that every thing was going to be ok, he promised, as his hands encased both sides of Hermione, stroking her, hoping that the sound of his voice penetrated through. . . .
. . .Tiny bird-like flutters filled the inner walls, and one of the flutters tickled her premature foot and she kicked. . . .
. . . .A very close and familiar sound, found its way into his tiny, newly formed ears, and he listened. . . .
Hermione stiffened, as he sat on the edge of her bed.
"Come on home, Hermione. You know I'm sorry about what happened before, don't you?" He caressed his hand over her arm, where it lay beneath the covers. "I should have calle Ballimore as soon as my feeling towards you changed, but I guess I just bloody forgot, and then it was the fact that I wasn't ready to really face what was happening to me with the team. We can make things work, don't you want to try, I mean you paid me back right, made things even for what I had done. We can get past this. We just need to be alone for a while to do it."
He was breaking her heart. "I-I didn't post that story to hurt you Draco, god you're so unaware of. . . . —I let go of my secret, to let go of the guilt. You would have understood that if you'd read the paper —did you even read it?" She was crying now. "I wanted for everyone to know how it all started, secrets between lovers can be as bad as devil's snare if left in the dark, and away from the light for too long. It grows and it festers away at everything that they loved about each other, before either of them realize. By then its to late, I didn't want that to happen." She wiped her eyes and took a breath to continue. "In that article I said to the world, how sorry I was for what I'd done, and more than anything I wanted to release the fear that had been building inside from the moment I entered this whole thing. The fear that someone would someday know. That someone would one day, years from now find out and spill my shame as some filthy dark secret. After I'd probably lived years at being so perfect! Like the perfect Gryffindor, everyone expects of me! I told you. Being me, my life it not easy Draco. Sometimes I feel so concealed that I want to rip my hair out and scream for anyone to please, please let me out. And has far as that messy Rita Skeeter, Ooohoooh, she has her's coming as soon as I able to drop this load. That part she included into the title, the big And Dumbest, part, that was never included in my interview. I hate that woman!"
Draco released a sigh, not only because he was relieved that Hermione hadn't done it to provoke him. No he sighed because he was so intoxicated with fire whisky, that the idea of reading escaped him entirely. "Hermione baby, I'm so sorry. . . .I didn't."
She looked at him and she knew. "You didn't read any of it did you Draco?" He closed his eyes as her voice began to rise and catch behind her tears. He shook his head, it was his mistake. "Any of it? how could you not have read any of it? Draco if you'd simply read it, you would have known—"
She was becoming hysterical again like she always did whenever she was upset with him. "Hermione, be reasonable it was two pages. Two . . .really. . . .long pages." he said, he'd wish she stop shouting, why did she act like this. He had his own spell of tantrums from time to time, but hers. He couldn't figure out if he made her such an unraveled mess with her emotions or if the baby was the influencer.
She hardened herself against the weak, in love, girl inside of her heart, the one that wanted to agree, and understand him. She refused to be another witch victimized by her emotions. "I going back home to London."
"Sssssh, don't say that." Once again he tried to quiet her anger and her voice. "Love, you've got a perfectly beautiful home here, with me."
"That place is your's not mine!"
"That isn't so Hermione."
A rap sounded at the door, startling them both. Draco shot up from the edge of the bed.
"Hermione?" Narcissa called out. "Hermione, I heard something. Are you alright. —Maybe it was the storm Lucius." she muttered to her husband behind her.
"Let's be sure, that's all." he answered her with a secure kiss.
"Hermione, are you alright?" Narcissa repeated.
"I'm fine."
This time it was Draco's father's voice coming from the other side. "We heard voices. Do you have someone in there?"
"Yes."
Draco shot his hands into the air. "Why did you have to go and tell him that for?" Draco hissed in the darkness.
"Do you want him there?" Narcissa asked.
Hermione fought the tide of misery rising in her heart. "No." she answered through a stuffy nose.
There was a long pause. "All right, then. Come in my room. You can sleep with me."
Hermione pushed back the covers. Draco caught her arm. "Hermione please, please don't do this. Hermione we need to talk. I've been doing a lot of thinking and I have things I want to say." She was going to bolt and Draco couldn't let her do that. Not in a million years he couldn't let it happen. He loved her!
He should have told her he loved her the minute he came into her room, while he still had his hand over her mouth. Told her all the things he'd practiced on saying and had focused on saying. Until he saw her, then his tongue got all twisted and he gone on about kidnapping, and they started talking about the paper, and the reporter. She started jabbering away instead of him stopping her and saying all the things he meant to say.
Maybe he was ashamed that it had taken all of this, for him to figure it out the reality of his ways. But when he saw the hurt in his father's eyes it struck him like a bolt of lighting this afternoon. The expression on his face—the look of absolute regret. He nearly thought for a brief second, of stupefying his own father. That's when he understood, that she meant everything to him. Weeks ago, when he'd been dismissed from practice tryouts on the team, he admit it cut him pretty bad, but only with Hermione by his side did it take the pain away. Now that he made the cut, he didn't care for it as much as he dreamed he would, because she had abandon him, left him devastated and alone. Now he understood that loving her wasn't just a feeling anymore, it was his only way of life. It was all he knew, or wanted to know until the day he died.
Looking back, he figured it all out the second he spoke to the tiny life she was carrying. He knew he couldn't let their marriage end. As much as the idea of ending his career scared him, it didn't come close to scaring him as much as losing her had. But first he had to get her to listen. Thunder rumbled the floor beneath their feet.
"Hermione! Hermione open the door what's going on in there?"
"Draco let go of me."
"Hemione for god sakes wait!"
"Lucius! LUCIUS! —OPEN THE DOOR!"
Pulling back, he moved Narcissa to the side and kicked the door open and the lighting flashed. Draco held out his hand for them to stop. Begging for them to simply wait, and to leave them alone for just a moment. Hermione stopped struggling then. "Draco, this has to stop." said Lucius as she wretched free and sprinted for the door.
Narcissa shielded Hermione away and swept her from the room.
"I'm trying so hard." The emotion was as clear in his voice, as clear as the storm raging outside. "I love her! Can't she just understand that I love her, she want give me a chance, she want even hear me out."
Draco covered his face, and collapsed on the bed behind him. She wouldn't listen, why didn't she believe anything he told her. Draco looked up at the blurring ceiling above, refusing to accept what his father was about to do: throw him out, lock him out, out of their house and away from her. He refused to lose it here in front of his old man. Especially like this, he was made of stronger stuff than that, he was better than that. So why in the hell was he still crying.
Draco's love for Hermione was as clear to Lucius as his own love for Narcissa. How had everything gotten so twisted with him and the girl. Lucius could see that the thought of living his life without her would be emptiness, nothing for a long time, if not for forever. There had to be a way to reverse the damage. Had Draco thrown her love back into her face, just as he, himself had done with Cissy, so many times. And as a consequence, lost her trust to a point that she no longer felt safe with him.
Despite the girl's flirtation with the dark side to get herself pregnant, she had more love to give and more integrity than any woman he'd knew besides his wife. Lucius had to put his trust in the belief that, once Hermione loved someone, that devotion lasted forever.
Still, when he looked straight on, the heart-broken and shattered young man lying on the bed now, drowning in his own tears, made Lucius wonder if he truly deserved what was happening to him.
This afternoon, gave him a glimpse of the things that were driving the marriage into the pits of hell. But Lucius himself had to learn that if you failed to see the value in a woman that loved you with all her heart. And if you broke her deep enough and long enough. Then hell, was where you belonged.
His Cissy, nearly losing her it put him through hell. It wasn't until the very last, that he saw what he'd done. He cried too. Any soul would, once you knew that hell was where you took the one's you loved. Lucius cleared his throat and prepared himself to talk. "Draco. . . .Draco, get up son." He closed the bedroom door behind him, closing away the world that was tormenting the only child he'd ever loved.
Noon was approaching and Hermione was still sleeping. Narcissa came in to wake her long enough to eat and then she was back to sleep faster than she could finish. Narcissa sighed a breathe of relief, as she began stacking Hermione's dishes back onto the tray..
Dark rings had formed beneath her daughter-in-law's eyes.
The baby would hopefully come soon. Maybe her own calculation for Hermione's due date was off just a little. It was possible, she could live with that.
Narcissa dropped a teacup, it slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor.
She began picking up the pieces.
All she wanted was for the baby to be born safe and healthy. As she gathered the jagged broken bits, she tried not remembering. . . . but like a ghost does, the lives she'd destroyed each time she learned she was with child, came back to haunt her.
If only she could've have saved one, just one, she thought. But it was too late for such a meaningless regret. She would go to her tomb with their lost lives sealed away in her past.
But not this one. Not her first grandchild. She would be born into this world, healthy and happy. She would learn to live, laugh, play games, make friends and do all the things that she, Narcissa, had stolen away from little ones just like it, time and time again.
She collected the last piece of shattered porcelain from the floor as Hermione slept.
Narcissa knew, she would spit between the very eyes of Hades himself before she allowed harm to come to life Hermione was carrying. This was why she guarded and protected her daughter-in-law so dearly, Narcissa knew that even though it would not make amends with her ghosts. This could be her only chance to finally look into the tender eyes of another little Malfoy, and hope to say, to all of those that she could never save, that she, their mother, was so very sorry and how she wished that things could have been different.
The evening came and went, again night settled over the castle. There had not been any sign of Draco or Lucius all that day. There estrangement was finally over, and after the tender love-making shared between Lucius and Narcissa, she longed for him to be there beside her tonight.
The following day the same, again there had not been any sign of either Malfoy.
Hermione felt horrible, she hugged herself and rubbed her arms. Trying to clear out all the cobwebs from her brain. Why was she doing this to herself, beating her self up this way. Pain cut through her. But she was so tired now, she wanted a lasting relationship. It couldn't always be raging fights and knockdown arguments that was no way for a marriage to survive; if it could survive such an existence.
"We're leaving tomorrow." she spoke softly as she stroke the low dip of her belly. Pressure was building more and more there everyday. She knew from her skills as a Healer, that the baby was on the way. Her shape had changed a little but she was still practically all baby. And she could barely sit or stand without needing to use the lavatories or taking short breaks from room to room. To make matters worse she'd had also missed her doctor's appointment yesterday.
Nature dropped its dark veil for another night. Pushing forth the sparkling jewels from the constellation Orion, and Canis Minor. Hermione, had just slip into her satin night gown, and stood by the window and located the star that Harry once shown her to be known as Surius, it would connect to the large dog of the heavens, Canis Major, and was always the brightest star. But if her child wished to arrive later rather than now, then she will live in the house of Gemini, realm of the twin brothers.
"Lucius sweetheart, I'm sick of all this commotion!" Narcissa said as she lit a scented candle. Draco stood quietly by the fireplace. And after speaking his part, his mother had her say on the matter. "Well alright, here's your chance. But, Lu, you go upstairs and get Hermione right this minute and make her come out. She hasn't spoken a word all day. It's time things settled between you two, or simply go their separate ways. So that I can have some peace and quiet."
"Thank you mother." with a flicker of a smile at his mother. Draco waited patiently by the hearth as his father made the journey to retrieve one sulky Gryfinndor.
Hermione looked up from the suitcase she begun packing and saw Mr. Malfoy standing in the doorway. It was a brown one, one of the very baggage carriers she brought with her months ago.
"You have to come down stairs, you have to face Draco before you leave, if that's what you truly wish to do."
"I already faced him, I don't want to do it again."
"You have to I'm afraid."
"No."
One of Lucius' eyebrows shot up. "What did you say?"
"Hm. I said no?" Unfortunately, it came out as a question instead of a statement, but there was definitely something intimidating about this wizard and his cocked brow.
He walked into the room and deliberately invaded her space. "Now you listen to me Hermione Malfoy! I have a son downstairs, that you alone are ripping apart. My son! And he's the only one I've been fortunate enough to have in this life. And as it stands, you —young lady are the only antidote that his mother and I have to save him from a darkness that is on the verge of swallowing him whole . . . .again! I know I am not your father, but I'm telling you to get down there!"
She watched as he poke and jab his snake head cane in the general direction of the door. He wasn't her father, but he sure had a way of making her cringe like only her real father could've done. "Yes sir," she uttered as she slipped past him as if he had every intention of giving her a royal thrashing. She couldn't help comparing the authoritarian look in his eyes with the way her own father had looked when she was six, and she had taken his prize winning gold fish for a summer walk in her dolly's stroller.
"Not another word," he ordered. Still pointing in the direction of her bedroom door. "March, he needs to have his say!" he said. She thought about asking him how long her punishment would last if she decided not to go. But decided that Mr. Malfoy unlike her father would not negotiate a grounding option.
As she left the room, he hid a sigh of relief that his demanding had worked at all. With a whisper and his face turned up to the heavens "By the Gods! why are Malfoy witches so impossibly ornery?"
Draco was down stairs as she entered the formal dining room. He stood beside the fireplace mantle waiting patiently. Clean shaven, groomed and dressed in a formal black and gray muggle tuxedo. He wore no bowtie, but instead allowed the neck to relax and lay open. A single red rose tucked into the pocket square of his satin jacket.
Draco's eyes followed her as she made her way, to the farthest point of the room. It was then that her eye's caught the marvelous bouquet of red long stem roses, clinging in his right hand.
He straighten his pose when his mother coughed slightly to indicate that a lady had indeed entered the room. He snapped into a proper stance, just as his father came bellowing into the room behind her.
Lucius held a look that seemed as if he nor her were even visible. Then, Lucius addressed them both equally. A second ticked by and Narcissa came to stand beside her husband.
"Here are the facts. . . " Lucius said with his strongest parental voice. "I love you, Draco. You are my flesh and bone, you are my son, my only son. Everything that I lived for, has always been for your happiness. Hermione, Narcissa loves you beyond any means that can be applied with words. You are the daughter she never had, and waited all her life, to have as her own. We, Narcissa and I, we love you both, and we hope that you, Draco —and you Hermione, will put this feuding behind you. I want you to stay married and your mother, wants you to stay married. But you must both want to love and I mean truly love, and respect one another. . . .as equals."
Draco gazed across the room and his eyes found hers. He felt as if this day, this hour, would determine if he lived or faded from existence. And then his father's voice broke into his thoughts. But he would not take his eyes from her. He felt if he did, then the power bonding between them at that moment would break, and he would be lost.
"Draco," he father spoke his name. "You must accept the truth that should you harm Hermione, or cost her despair so grave, then you just as well to sever your right arm, entirely.
"Hermione," Narcissa called out her name. "You must accept the truth that should you choose to go through this life with out Draco by your side, even though your heart bleeds for him, my love. Then you just as well to cut your heart from your chest and cast it into the fires."
Everyone in the room stiffen as Draco took a step forward. "Hermione I am so sorry, I can't tell you enough how much it has hurt me to think I could lose you completely."
She was crying and could barely catch her breath, with the baby kicking and with Draco here, and he looked exactly the way she'd dreamt he'd looked someday, when they were happy and a real family at last. "I'm sorry too, I'm so sorry, I love you so much, I. . . ." her voice caught in between her chest and throat. She wanted to say more but she had to pee so badly, and her hiccups were coming back at the worse moment.
"I physically stand before you, in mind, body and with all my soul, in this hour I ask, no I beg that you please accept me back as your husband. I can't live without you in my life and —" She ran into his arms. Her heart open fully and she kissed him with every ounce of devotion she'd kept locked away.
Lucius sputtered a series of coughs, to make their presence re-known. Hermione, smiled and stared into eyes, the purest of grays and so embracing, that she nearly forgot to breathe. She laughed at how blissfully he'd started kissing her again.
She'd found the playful, lover she'd nearly lost. Draco then smiled over at his father, who was standing arm and arm with his mother. He flashed his parents a smile, and Lucius gave him an approving nod, before throwing a arm signal up to remind him of the flowers still waiting in his hand.
It nearly escaped him, the roses, the only thing he saw was her smile. He lifted the bouquet of twelve long-stem, beautifully, scented red roses. Almost instantly he saw how they reflected against the iris of her brown eyes, as if they alone turned on a light that would lead him to the very depths of her heart.
Although she'd notice them when she entered the room, it felt as if she had never seen anything more wonderful in her entire life.
"In this world, a rose is a simply a rose. It's color has no value. But in yours," he added with a kiss. "Things are quite the opposite and red roses symbolize love. . . The yellow ones, for eternal, are so I'm told. . . ." He flashed a look at his father to be sure he got the meanings right and not mixed them up.
Lucius nodded and his mother leaned over and whispered something into his father's ear.
"You don't deserve these. . . ." He held them for her to take, and when she did, he nibbled at his lip shyly. "back home if you'll come with me, I have as many yellow roses as your heart can stand. And if its not enough, then I'll order an entire field if you ask me too," He leaned forward and nuzzled her neck, planting a gentle kiss there "Please come back home."
She agreed, and after a moment more of kisses and I love you's. She ran to hug Narcissa, and then Lucius. And although she wanted to depart with Draco that moment. She begged for him to give her just a moment more, she simple had to relieve herself first.
Together hand and hand, she trusted him as he apparated them both from his mother's home to their own. The night sky was clear, with only a few clouds to mar its beauty. A on set of joyous tears jammed her throat, and for a moment she couldn't let go.
"Oh Draco!" she whispered tears down into her mouth. "I don't know what to say." she looked at him as she let go of his hand and her bare feet touched the first flat stone. It opened out into a path surrounded with an array of colors.
"Say you love it."
"I do, I love it — oh my god, I love it!" her eyes took in the beautifully crafted boxed hedges, as the flat stone path winded out into a spectacular curving walkway. A man moved into her line of vision. Tall, elegantly dressed in his fine black tailcoat and matching top hat.
"Your home awaits you my lady," he said and extended his arm, he gave a low bow. Hermione took the attendant's hand. She was barefoot and wearing a satin, maternal, night gown. Her hair loose and untamed with bushels of wavy rumples, and frazzled locks.
A moment passed and it was at that moment he saw the forthcoming vision of their little girl, dancing in this very garden, with intense gray eyes like his, but looking like her mother.
Hermione looked above her head and there was criss-crosses of mini-sized, floating lanterns illuminating the path, and it lit her way up a trail that was lavished with elevated beds of wild exotic flowers, painted with radiant colors.
She waited for him. . . .At last his gazed found hers.
Boat orchids, now married the once bare and dull trunk base of the sycamore tree that she'd loved so dearly during tea time. She would always haul a chair with her when she wanted to sit beneath it. Now there was a Victorian style lawn setting placed admirably under it for shade. Each chair with matching pillows.
Draco walked beside her. His father told him that he was so accustomed to the girl he knew, that he failed to see the woman she'd become. Draco disagreed with his father and denied that it was true. But, his father insisted that it was. He said that the evidence was in their home.
Hermione was like any woman, that all women needed tangible things, personal possessions, that animated the love, a husband could not often express in simply words. His father said this home was nothing more than a structure of walls and windows. That he saw no real sign of a man with a family here.
. . . .Lucius walked out of the French doors of the study, which had obviously become his son's temporary bedroom. He surveyed the land. The house even though large and spacious was little more than a structure of walls, and a roof. Baring only the basic necessities. Like hidden cracks on a newly painted canvas, he found the little things that were slowly choking the life from their marriage. Such as, why was there a mere chair, from the dining room out by the tree, sitting alone, in the middle of nowhere? And why were there tentacle bushes growing along the fences? The dark and crawly vineyard beyond his son's backdoor had nearly consume the entire back half of the wall-high fencing.
He found the shabby potted arrangement of herbs and foliage that she'd began to consider her own little personal space. It had been as she left it, neglected and unaltered.
Next, he found a distinct attempt to grow rose bushes, the ones she'd tried to plant on her own. They were dying under the heat of the sun, left unattended and without care, and for those that never made it into the soil, their roots had reverted back into the tight, dehydrated nubs of brittle roots.
His father had begun shouting at him, and said that neither of them knew what their roles were, and that it would take time, work and a great deal of willingness and patience. He also said, that there wasn't a marriage form between heaven and earth, that didn't share a few dark secrets in some form or the other. "But you have to embrace it together," his voice was rising. "or it will grow into something powerful, if given time, larger than the both of you. And that it will cut off your air, and suffocate the life from your children while they sleep."
When Draco stated that Hermione had told him something similar just an hour ago, Lucius only nodded. But then that was when he discovered that Draco had not even fully understood the intentions behind his wife exposure of their story, nor had his son read it.
Lucius had to admit, that he, himself, had not clearly recognized the addition to the headline. It had been cleverly disguised.
Rita Skeeter, had intentionally blown up the photo Hermione requested into a mega-sized copy. It was a ingenious distraction, to over shine the title below it, where she'd plugged a fat, sizzling, Rita curve-ball.
Afterwards, once his father had calmed down. Draco read the entire article.
If a pile of dragon dung could walk and talk, he had to admit that it would be him after reading the paper. Lucius, helped him to understand that even if she went about it the wrong way, being foolish enough to entrust that the paper would be publish in good faith. Her intentions were at least on the right track, just aimed in the wrong direction and unfortunately, had landed, into the wrong claws, of the right witch. . . .
Hermione wandered along and marveled over bold, and dazzling pink epiphyllous flowers that over-lapped baby, soft plumerias with their yellow and milky white petals.
New trees, grown, full and shady ones had been planted. Their once flat and grassy terrain was almost unrecognizable.
So many breeds of flowers, they were countless. Long-stemmed margin orchards' towered over smaller clusters of bedded purple bougainvilleas. Her eye's played tricks on her as she spotted a pair of red booties kicking among a set of tickle me pink begonias.
When she eyed a second pair of booties and a matching red gnome's hat, she warned Draco. She knew from her past with the Weasley's what havoc gnomes could cause on the land.
"No," he said, his voice near a laugther. "They are house gnomes. They'll tend to the garden for you, I hope you don't mind, I insisted on a four sets. Father said one would be enough. But they're entertaining to watch." He pointed far in the distance, past the Sycamore trees and the Victorian setting. Hermione had never walked further than the tree. But he said that they'll been living in the new gnome-cottages past the hillside. "Father says they're very knowledgeable, they haven't been cross-breed so they can speak fairly well."
"You said four sets? How many-"
"—Yea, well eight really. Four males, four females. They'll pair off in time and even choose a gnome king, like I said they're really entertaining, as long as they're cared for properly and given homes."
Strolling beside her, a minute or two had passed. She noticed his silence but didn't say so. "I thought about giving up Quidditch." She turned and stared at him flabbergasted.
"You can't do that. . . . you love your career. I know you do." her tone was a-matter-of-fact kinda way.
"I do, but its okay, Its time I put my mind to finding something more than a golden snitch, besides, the recruits are getting younger. And. . . .well, we have a load of new Falcons that made the cut this year, all seventeen, except one. He's sixteen. Do you remember a kid named Creevey? Well his kid brother made the team, . . . .he's pretty quick up there on a broom. Me and the guys, we're not seventeen any more. . . . . Zabini left, did I tell you?"
"No."
"Yea, well he's got a good thing going. Remember Madame Hooch?"
"The flight instructor, from our old school."
"Yep." he said, and tucked his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo. Hermione reached out and took his right hand as they strolled along. "Well, that his job now." He slowed his pace to a meager crawl. "I don't want you to think of me as aimless Hermione. I know I haven't got much planned at the moment but —"
"—aimless?" She stopped then and stared at him a little confused. "I've never thought of you as aimless Draco, and I know, that I've never said it."
"You don't have to. I know how you are about hard work, and making your name mean something to the world. You're great at it. My father is a natural. My mother, she's always into something new, She'll start fumbling around with a new series of Martin Muggle are something. That is, if she can find the time with her new career as the town's florist now. —You work, and you have a promising career as a healer, in time you'll earn your license for Advanced Healing, and then there's that Magical Squib Theory that you've been working on. I know you're going figure the whole thing out some day, and the world will know your name for something so huge. . . .kids will read about you in, A History of Magic, and other books.
"And you'll. . . . publish those books, for the whole word to read. . . . ."
"Publish them?"
"Yes, you own one of the largest printing companies in our world. Surely it has the might to publish something grander than fibbing columns and sporting reports."
"Hm. I never thought of that. No, business is a bore. Honestly think I'd like to coach. It's been an idea. It'll get me out of the air and on solid ground for a while. Give some of these old scars time to wash off."
She understood what he was trying to say. He wanted to find a field of work that satisfied him and made her proud of him as a husband and a father. "Coaching would be great, Petur says he's learned more about quidditch from you than he ever learn in his entire life. But even if that doesn't work out there's a load of honors just waiting for you to put them to good use." She named them all off: "Maxima Cum Laude for Dark Arts and Defense against the Dark Arts, Summa Cum Laude for mastering potions, the Barnabus Finkley Award for exceptional spell-casting, the Apprentice's Honor in Magical Medicine. . . ."
He chuckled and playfully nipped at her chin with his fingertips, "Aaa. . .wrote them all down did you?"
"No," she smiled with laughter and high spirits tittering in her voice. "But when I was at your mother's, and when I missed you too much to bare it. I'd go to your old room there, find all your pictures and stay for hours."
"Did you really?"
She blushed and nodded like a shy, school girl. "I'd circle them around the bed, and scolded each one, until I felt better." He reached over and covered her lips with his.
They walked on until she came to the open center, it could have easily swallowed a pool.
Draco told her it was four hundred square feet, in both directions. She was impressed that he had taken the mermaid fountain from their foyer and placed it here. The enchanted stoned statue turned her head, with her flowing urn, to watched them as they pass her newly lit waters. Where, at the same time, a small school of golden koi kept her company now.
He knew what was just around the bend, following the water fountain. "Hermione," he called her name and held out his hand for her to join him there by the fountain.
She abandon the narrow stone trail and circled back to her husband.
A corner smile tugged at his mouth, as if he was about to say something ridiculous "You're the best birthday present I've ever had."
"Ever?"
"Yes, ever." he smiled. "I want to ask you something." His eyes came alive, as if she'd revealed the secrets to the universe for him. He got down on one knee, took her hand into his. "Hermione Jean Malfoy. . . .will you marry me. . . .—again!"
"WHOOOA!" She yelped, before she could answer, and grabbed the base of her stomach. The sudden little kicking had startled her. He jumped up, surprised too, and held his hand in the same spot over hers. "I guess, that was a yes!" she beamed up at him. "Yes Mr. Malfoy, yes I'd be honored to marry you."
He kissed her. Then took her wedding hand and slipped off her ring and then his removed his own. She looked confused when he handed the rings over into the waiting hand of the stone mermaid. "Thanks." he said to the statue.
The mermaid took them and dropped them into the open mouth of her urn, before resuming her pose. Draco looked down into an expression of bewilderment and misunderstanding.
Now she really was confused, but would never admit it, not while he was gazing at her with his heart in his eyes and a forever kind of love softening his voice. "Come on." he said with a teasing tug at her arm. His feet began to scurry along the walkway "We can get married whenever you like. We can do it right now. . . . tonight if you want. Or, we can wait and plan one with everyone, there. . . .loads of food, and—" he was consuming the narrow path with gleeful trot.
"—and a band," she huffed, trying to keep up with his pace. "can we have a band, with live music?" She asked nearly out of breath. "—Draco, easy!" she barked.
She was thrilled that he was so excited but it didn't take a medical doctor to tell her that any sort of sprinting, even as a mild exercise, simply wasn't the best of ideas for a pregnant mother, plus she was barefoot for Merlin's sake.
"Oh my G—Yes, love we can have a band. sorry! . . .I'm so sorry, are you alright?" he asked, a bright flash of panic assaulting his eyes. He winced, and squinted and focused on the strain he'd just caused his wife with running. Kissing her quickly, hoping to help her recover. She nodded yes, that she was alright, now.
He kissed her again. The wailing of a musical harp followed by violins filled the air with his kiss, on cue. "We can have what ever you want, it'll be our day. Your's and mines. But I'll leave everything up to you and mother. She always wanted to plan my wedding day."
"Wha-Draco!" she smiled up at him, as the familiar sounds of Mozart's, Canon in D Major, lifted into the night as if it were a nightingale and summoned her to follow the path.
The lights grew brighter, as she circled a bed of Scottish roses. She walked on the tips of her toes. Soon, the beautifully lit sight of a enormous gazebo came into view, it had been built high upon a dais and at the lower base of its platform, it was surrounded with a small orchestra of twenty to thirty finely dressed men and women. All stroking and playing in unison, to the Mozart's melody.
"Good evening Mrs. Malfoy." said a female's voice, and Emelie stepped out wearing a lovely shaded, pearl-tone dress. With matching jacket that trimmed high above her waist. "This way." she said as she lead Hermione up the white steps. Where Petur stood oddly dressed as an attendant wearing a black formal cloak and matching top hat.
The atmosphere inside the arched entrance, held the ceremonial beauty of a wedding. Lovely walls of yellow roses decorated the wooden post like a golden floral banner. More yellow roses decorated the lined walls in waist high white potteries.
Silence fell. . . .
The director, tapped his wand-tip softly upon his podium, just as Hermione found her way to the top. The orchestra, then began the soothing notes of Claire dé Lune.
Before Hermione there lay a wide arrangement of sparkling, clear glass cabinets. She inhaled deeply and covered her mouth, her heart felt as if it were going to blow right through her chest. It was pumping so fast. She glanced at the vast amounts of pricey pieces, then looked back to Draco. He was exchanging a hand shake and thanks with Petur at the first archway.
She stepped up to the first glass counter. Its white, velvety interior as milky as summer clouds and it held an irresistible assortments of matching wedding bans made of Goblin silver. So beautifully crafted, it was flawless when compare to the others. A chubby face, goblin greeted her with a razor sharp smile. He stood proudly beside his jeweled beauties, should Hermione decide to select one from his collection.
Next, a pair of kind elderly witches, wearing green pointy hats, happily displayed their golden bride and groom sets, with a vast selection of diamond ones, pewters and platinum princesses. All at her disposal, to choose as she liked.
Every glass setting, and there were eight in all, perfectly buffed to a spit perfect shine, and with its jeweler ready to assist her. The merchants each spoke politely as she passed their counters. Seconds later, Draco was there squeezing her lovingly. "Choose one." he whispered softly into her ear.
Two weeks later, she decided it was best to wait until after the delivery. Hermione doubt she could stand long enough to recite her vows. And walking had become a battle.
"Geez Hermione, this is the craziest thing I ever let you talk me into. I don't know why I listened."
Draco listened because he'd been jumping through hoops for the past week trying to please her with their due date pounding at the front door. Her doctor's appointment, scheduled today had been rescheduled on short notice. There had been an incident just off the coast of southern France, in the parish of Olot. Her doctor stated it would be at least several hours before his return. But assured her there was no need to worry, she hadn't shown any signs of a progressing labor. She was four days past his initial due date, and Hermione simply accepted that Narcissa's was correct in her prediction. If that were the case she would last another two more weeks.
It was hot, and stuffy in the heavy fabric of her maternal dress. She was bigger than Hagrid's house and grouchier than a blood-sucking bugbear. Even now she wanted to bash him over the head, just on general principles. But she loved him too much. She settled for snuggling into his arms instead. They had gone to the Veranda for lunch after the doctor snupped their visit for a bizarre outbreak of spattergroit.
Once at the Veranda, they ordered turnip and pea soup with hollow bread and cheese. Draco insisted they wait at the hospital. He was prepared to reserve a room for her nights' stay. But she'd been aching for the mouthwatering stew all day. So against his better mind, he reserved a table at the Veranda for two. And even though she thought he was being too paranoid, he requested for a ready room in Grindlewald's Hospital as well.
All of a sudden everything was bothering her, the seats at the restuarant were crummy and made her back ache terribly. Either the cheese, the bread, the soup, or all three had just given her the worse heartburn she'd had in weeks.
He insisted that they go back to the labor unit, now, by floo. It would be faster. Then they could just wait for the doctor's opinion.
But, she waddling towards the pentagram anyway. "Your mother said not until June Draco!"
He caught her by the elbow, before she reached it and helped her aboard.
She was lying in their bedroom when it gradually occurred to her that maybe Draco was right. But still, a first-time labor took forever, and came with loads of misread false labor pains.
To be on the safe side, she asked that he send an owl to his parents, and for them to be on alert. To be honest her desire to have a natural birth had been growing on her a lot lately. Medical potions and healer charms didn't belong in the delivery room. She seen so many complications come from using tonics and quik-spell brews to moderate labor contractions, and the hospitals attempts to ease the discomfort of delivery, always turned something that was meant to be beautiful, into a fustrating, and complicated book procedure. She didn't want to that with their baby.
"What's wrong?" she asked pacing the floor of their bedroom.
"My mother hasn't replied back from our owl." his voice sounded agitated. "What if go into labor, right here sweatheart."
"I don't want to rush back to the hospital again, and just to have them send me back! I can't take that kind of fustration. . . ." she started. Then Draco checked his watch, and his expression grew frantic. She had been hiding the idea of a home birth from him, from the moment she decided it was the best way for their baby to go. She was sure this was just another false one, but she also felt now, was the best time to be sure he learned of her plans for a natural birth.
"Draco," she wailed in between her ow's and oh's "Draco sweety, now I don't want you to blow things out of the waters, but I've been planning to have the baby here."
He paid no attention, then the reality of what she was saying hit him. "Here!"
She nodded. "Yes, baby here. At home."
"Hold on Hermione, When you say you want to have our baby here, you do mean here as in this general area as in home, don't you? I mean, you do mean home —here in Grindlewald and more specifically a hospital!"
"Could you fetch me a glass of water, please sweetie?"
"A. . .a glass of what?"
The lights were on at Narciss's castle but she and Lucius were a bit pre-occupied at the moment. His eyes locked with hers, as he slid back inside.
The moment he entered her, they both exhaled together. Hearing the other, they both laughed a little.
Lucius growled deeply as he moved deeper within her.
"I missed you so much." she whispered in between the short breaths his thrusting allowed her to have. She pushed her hips upward with a skillfulness that had wheeled its way into perfection over the span of their marriage. She drew him further inside. That's when the fire ignited. His erection raced through her soft opening, until he'd hit the bulb of her g-spot, she clung to him, pulling him even tighter into her.
Lucius eased back and thrust again, and again, moving so fast she could hardly breath even with all her effort. "Oh Cissa," he said softly, raising up his hand, pressing down firmly at her pelvis. He pumped deeper. Harder. Further.
Narcissa's hand were firmly glued to the sides of their dining table. While his other hand held her leg upright. She fucked him, blow after blow, thrust after thrust her sweet nectar coated him. His power to control his own ejaculation was frantic now. He couldn't get enough. The familiar feel of her body, it blurred his mind, yet he fucked her deeper when she asked him. He lowered his face to hers, dropping her long, beautiful legs to his side, and like a savage warrior, he lifted her bottom, and arched her back. His tongue dove into her mouth just as he came. She cupped his face, holding his kiss there as her orgasm burst through her.
He caught his breath slowly, breathing deeply with his face nuzzled between her breast. They laid there with their bodies joined.
Lucius shifted first. "What is that bothersome sound?" he breathed deeply into her neck.
Narcissa's body stiffened, when she turned her head in the general direction of the tapping. She knew the owl was Draco's and Hermione's at once.
"Owwww. . . .Owwww. . . .Okaaaay. . . .okay."
Draco's face reflected a weird combination of frenzy and fear as he rubbed his wife leg. My God!, he thought. I married the brightest witch and she's as dumb as a post. "Hermione this is insane sweetheart. You're not thinking with a straight." he frowned and growled with fustration when she nodded her head between her breathing exercises and insisted she knew exactly what she was thinking. "Hermione you not having this baby in the damn house! You're going to the hospital!"
Oooowwww. . . .Owww. . . ." she whined through tears. "Oooo. . . .You're yelling at meeee. . . . ."
He groaned. Kissed the top of her head, then reached down and rubbed her thigh for comfort. "Hermione, women are not suppose to have their babies at home." he growled, pleading for her to agree with reason one last time. " The hospital is more equipped."
"Yes, they are. But today, it's just as practical to have a natural birth without going to a hospital. There were loads of . . . Ow. . .Oowwwww. . . . .mothers today rejecting facility births, with half a dozen Healers and Doctors all poking and jabbing up your cunter."
Narcissa and Lucius both appeared in the hallway, at the precise moment the baby score a ten on the recto scale. That time her back pain hit hard with a fierce contraction that didn't fade like the others before it.
Draco lifted her head, and placed a pillow there. . . .
Hermione swallowed a groan when an strange thud, sounded off somewhere near her bottom. She told him, that she believed the baby had just dropped into the birth canal. This really upset him further, and Hermione could see the panic in his eyes. She tried to distract him from the pain she was having by starting a quarrel.
"Draco! Hermione!" Narcissa shouted from down the hall
"In here, Mum. We're in here!" Draco answered over his shoulder.
"You don't fight with me anymore."
"What! Well, do you wanna fight now, because I will if I thought it would get your ass to the hospital.
Hermione burst into tears of relief when Narcissa opened the door. "Mum, I think the baby is coming!"
"WHAT! Hermione for gods sake, we've been planning this for weeks now, have you sent for Molly and the mid-wife? Draco you should have come for me sooner."
Lucius turned around on the spot after getting a rather undesirable view of his daughter-in-law's exposed underside. He then circled around to his wife. Another spasm hit Hermione. "But thank you for holding out." Lucius suppressed a smile towards Draco. "Are you saying she's in labor? NOW!"
Draco shot his parents a horrified glance, and tried too not think about the two making out at a time like this. "Yes now father, and from the looks of it she and mother having been planning on this insane idea of an in-home delivery."
"I sent for the mid-wife, an hour ago. When I asked Draco to fetch me a glass of water from the kitchen." she gave an apologetic look towards her frantic husband, who wasn't taking this easily. In fact he looked down right dreadful.
"Are you having contractions?" Narcissa propped Hermione onto her sides and shoulders with additional pillows. She began to massage her just as she had been instructed to do. Long deep and wide circles were made down her back to sooth her.
"Some, a little more than last time though, and I think, I think the baby has dropped." Hermione preferred walking to ease the pain, but found that she couldn't move very far any more. She knew at this stage her body was preparing for the delivery. Narcissa squeezed her hands as waves of pain began to rise and fall. Spasm after spasm they began to hit her, and she groaned and squeezed.
"How often are you having them?"
"Hhhmmm. . . .mmmmm. . . .every. . . .few. . . .minutes. . . .or . . . .so. . . .I . . . . .guess. Four maybe fiivvvveeee. . . . ." she groaned and pressed her fingertips deep into the center of Narcissa's palm.
Draco looked wild-eyed. "The hospital is only a few miles from here. If they were coming so close Hermione, why didn't you say anything before?"
"Because you'd rush me off to the hospital. Owww!" Hermione became deafly silent. "Mum! Look at the bed. I think my water just broke."
"The bed? No! Its too soon. I haven't prepared the birthing area." but then Narcissa made a unexpected, strangled sound when her knee made contact with the soak mattress beneath her. "Oh Hermione! Your water just broke. Lucius! Lu, her water broke. I need for you to go to the Burrow at once and bring back Molly with you."
Narcissa had spoken to Molly only a few days ago. And explain most of it last week in a owl just before midnight. Lucius didn't even leave the room, he simply took his wand and turn on the spot. He was gone in less than a second.
Draco's muscles went rigid. He stayed beside her, stroking her hair and holding her hand while his mother fetched the towels from the bathroom.
This was more than a labor for Hermione, this was their home, where she would live and raise their child and any children that she and Draco decided on together. She also wanted him to be a part of this moment, and to always know he did his part to delivery his first born. Draco reached down and pulled off the soddy brown maternity knickers he'd helped her into that morning. She then asked him to help her out of her shoes. He also pulled off the dress she had been wearing. By the time he'd slip her into a loose blue night gown, the mid-wife had arrived with her medical bag, and then his father had re-appeared with Molly Weasely along side him.
"Cissy!" shouted Mrs. Weasley when she popped into the room with a paoof of smoke. "Hermione what could you have been thinking of! Draco, how could you let her do this."
"Me, I been trying to—"
"—No, no he's been wonderful. . . .I want to have the baby here. . . MMMMMMMM. . . .ow. . .oowww. . . I want to have the baby in our homMMMMMMMM. . . . .Oowww. . . .Mum says, she's spoken with you about it."
"Step aside please!" said a heavy set, brown haired mid-wife. She darted about the room, setting up the items they would need.
"You see!" shouted Draco, pointing at the witch when she pushed pass. "She won't bloody well listen to reason. I've been trying to get her to the hospital and she refuses to corporate."
"I'mmmmm . . .theeee. . . Ooneeeea . . . .having this baby! STOP YELLING AT ME. . .. Owww. . . .Ooowww!"
Just then Narcissa reentered the room caring a heaping pile of white towels and blankets.
"Cissa, why yes, she did mention you fancied a natural birth. But for heaven sakes Hermione, Draco has a point dear. I'm as much for a potions-free birth as any mother but having twins is not easy task." said Mrs. Weasley, trying to absorbed the fact that this really was actually happening. She might not be a doctor, but she's had more experience in delivery and complicated births than all of them put together.
"Twins!" screeched Hermione between her spats of breathing aerobics and pain. "Who said anything about twins."
"Well what did you think! For Merlin's sake you're as big as a house!"
"Twins! What do mean by twins, what? What are you saying exactly." Hermione was becoming hysterical.
"Molly stop it you're upsetting the girl." argued Narcissa. For heaven sakes size didnt matter. Molly was over reacting.
"Well I'm dreadfully sorry, the last time I've seen anyone that large they'd either swallowed a river troll or they were having twins like it or not." Molly demanded.
The mid-wife stopped searching through her bag after partly listening to the conversation behind her. "Hèliga Merlin, she is right! Tis is the house of Tvillingarna, the realm of ze twins broth`rs."
"Auwooooo!" groaned Hermione and before she could sum up the load of swears she had planned for them and their ridiculous supersition, another contraction hit, this one was double the intensity than the last. A scream slipped past her lips, and through the wrenching pain, it occurred to her that something didn't seem right. It wasn't supposed to feel this way.
The mid-wife uttered a few direct instructions for each of them, as she took her postion between Hermione's open legs. "By the nad of Mungo Bonham. ." she whispered to her self when her eye did not see the crown of the baby, but a foot instead.
"Would some one make her speak english please!" shouted Draco.
"You! The father yes! You must get under `ur wife and take her into `urlap." the mid-wife instructed. Narcissa helped him as Hermione gave another hiss of pain and then another scream hit. "That's right." said the mid-wife to Draco.
He was beneath his wife now, both mildly in a sitting position upon the bed, the back of her head nuzzled against his chest. "Now! You going to get wet! Understand. . . . That's good, very good. Now keep her in `urlap and no close the legs. . . . Open, okay!"
Draco nodded that he understood, and kissed Hermione's head. "I love you," he said. "I'm here baby, it'll be okay."
Hermione nodded vigorously against his chest, to signal that she understood and loved him too.
"Now `ermione, you no push!" The mid-wife held onto the bloody minute sized foot protruding from Hermione's body. The mid-wife then directed instructions for Mrs. Weasley. They both knew the hope of not using potions or magic for this delivery was now a thing of the past. She instructed for the baby's grandparents to fill the baby's tub with warm water, and remove the blue bottles from her bag. She then instructed for Molly to use a detector's charm to determine if there was indeed going to be double the work for this new mother.
Mrs. Weasley cast the charm.
"I've only got back that it's a girl!" she sighed grateful of that, but then she knew that when she was carrying Fred, and George, rest his soul. That George hid his brother the entire time she carried them.
Those two had come into the world pulling pranks. She teared up just a little remembering George's face. And then she had an idea. "Wait!" she said and cast the charm once more, but this time she aimed the magic towards one side of Hermione, and when nothing came back, she circled the bed and just above Draco's leg she aimed on the right side. A bluish green light bounced back and elevated over the mattress. "There. . . .there, it's a boy! There's two! It's a boy!"
The mid-wife uttered another set of instructions to Draco, and he held Hermione's knees open during the examination. Pinned and filled with fear, she didn't understand. She gone to her visit on a regular, how could they have not detected that she was with twins.
She began to panic and cry. She couldn't do this, it hurt so bad. She was prepared for one child, no one told her there was two. She couldn't do it! She simply couldn't do it!
"Okay, `ermoine. You listen to everything I say. . . .okay! I say push. . .you push! I say no . . .you no push, okay!" Then the nurse dropped the stinker "The baby is satesbjudning — it is breech! And I have a foot."
Hermione didn't understand what the woman was saying, she had a foot. Who's feet? She gazed up in horror at her husband whose eyes locked with hers. "Draco! Draco what is she saying? Mum—what does she mean?"
"The baby is coming in breech." he replied to his wife. She uttered a groan of pain as the contraction were coming of free will. "Hold my hand baby." he said.
Hermione cried out in absolute pain. Breech births were extremely high-risk and ultimately life threatening for both the mother and child if not in the proper hand and well-equipped delivery rooms. Not on a mountain top, in a king size bed. Hermione looked up to the mirror that had always been over their bed and could see the woman's hand holding onto a little limp limb. Why hadn't she listen to Draco when he insisted that she go to the hospital. She'd endangered her baby, dear Merlin no! her babies life, by being so thick and stupid!
Narcissa tried to ramble against reality. "The head was down when she went to the doctor, I was with her," she said. Ignoring the obvious fact that there were five toes pointing out now. Lucius slid behind her.
"Sometimes they turn," said the witch, shifting her position. "Tis not normàle, but it happens."
Draco lifted her higher against his chest, holding her with as much might as needed to keep her legs open. With her knee's pulled upward, he clasped down on them to keep them separated. Their babies were in trouble, and all thoughts of modesty fled from him. Sitting in his lap with his powerful body encircling her. Together they would fight the world and death just to keep their babies safe.
The mid-wife was surely going to need an assistant, and Mrs. Weasley being the most experience in child birth, would have to do. The mid-wife gave Hermione's knee a little squeeze. "T'is is going to be very painful my dear, because right now, I have to get the other foot down, and you no push, alright!" She looked over to the side of her where Mrs. Weasley was waiting. "We have to be very careful. With the cord when the baby is satesbjudning." She said to Mrs. Weasley. "Mrs. Malfoy." she called for Narcissa then. "You must, keep her from pushing."
A moment later, Hermione was bracing herself for the unimaginable pain she knew was surely coming. "Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe! That's it. Just like we practiced. You're doing great."
Pain consumed her. She felt as if she were being devoured by some wild animal, a werewolf! Not a mere innocent child. But Narcissa was there and made her breathe with her, all the time Draco, murmured words of love and encouragement. Funny words to humor her. Tender words to comfort her through all the pain.
The urge to push grew stronger, impossible to resist, blood saturated the blankets and horrible sounds came from her throat. She had to push!
But Draco, the leader, refused to let her give in. He warned her that their baby did not need for her to push. He threaten her. Then praised her, when she did as he said. She panted as Narcissa ordered, then blew out great puffs of air that ended in a scream as she fought against the natural instinct of her body.
"That's it!" The mid-wife said. "That's it, my darling! You're doing great."
She could no longer distinguish one pain from another. Minutes ticked by and her world was reduced to a thick fog of pain and Draco's voice. She followed him blindly.
His voice grew hoarse. "Keep breathing angel, and open your eyes so you can see what's happening." She looked down and saw the healers hands guiding the bodice of the baby out from her birth canal. She and Draco cried out together as the head appeared. Ectasy flooded through him, a sense of absolute bliss, at the sight of his child. The mid-wife's strong and skillful hands held his baby as Narcissa retrieve a tiny bulb used for suctioning the mouth and nose. They then wrapped the infant up in a waiting blankets.
The baby made a mewing sound.
"A girl!"
"It's a girl!"
"It's a girl!"
Narcissa brought their firstborn over to the beside where they waited. Draco reached down to touch a wet, squirming gooey infant. The mid-wife, cut the cord.
"Draco!"
"She's fine my love. She's fine and she's ours. Yours and mines. . . .god . . . .she's beautiful." He kissed Hermione sweat drenched hair. "I love you. Oh I love you!"
"I love you! -oh Draco!" They murmured nonsense and kissed each other, and cried together. Tears streamed down Narcissa's face, too, as she took the baby away when the mid-wife signaled for her to do so.
Narcissa laughed and murmured nonsense of her own as she used a soft, damp washcloth to clean up her grand-daughter's face.
The mid-wife told them that they were not finished yet. But Hermione was near death with exhaustion, she simply could not go on.
"You're doing great. That's it baby!" Draco coached her on. It was as if she could feel his strength passing into her overly exhausted body from his. She drew on it.
An hour later, the worst was over as their son gave his first cry of life.
Hermione closed her eyes and rested. Draco watch as Molly wrapped away a perfect Malfoy match of ten fingers and ten toes. A tiny, screaming newborn whose head was filled with fine, icy-blonde hair, that was plastered to his head from the afterbirth.
Mrs. Weasley quickly suctioned his mouth, and nose.
"Come here, sweetheart. Let's get a good look at you." said the mid-wife to Hermione as she began to examine her again. But she was so exhausted, that she barely noticed the healer's hand tending to her dog-tired body, or the fact that she had delivered the placentas.
Mrs. Weasley, held the baby boy in front of Hermione and Draco, so they could drink in the sight of their little unexpected wizard. Draco dropped his lips to the miniature forehead, and kissed him. "Welcome to the world, little one. We're so glad you're here."
Mrs. Weasley gently laid the infant on Hermione's stomach. . . .
"Well, well." Lucius' voice came from across the room. "Would you take a look at my grandson." He gave a watery laugh, then stepped a little closer. "This one," Lucius said. "has Malfoy written all over him. Just you wait and see son." He was speaking to Draco, and drew closer to the newborn and his new parents. "Malfoy blood runs true." Bemused and utterly at peace Lucius watched as mother and father became aquainted with the two little ones that would forever change their lives.
Narcissa found herself remembering those teary nights that she feared her son would never live to become a man, or live to know and love a family of his very own. Now, they seemed so long ago. . . .
Hermione gazed around the room at two grandparents who looked as if they'd been handed the stars, and a tear face Mrs. Weasley who would soon learn that she became a godmother on this day. She looked up to a husband who was head over hills in love with her, and she loved him far more than he could ever imagine. . . .
Draco's whispered in her ear. "I just figured it all out. I was meant to be a coach. It's amazing, being here with you, guiding you through all this. It made me see. After all this worry, it's been staring me in the face the whole time."
"Why didn't you tell me you were worried, love? Any one who knows anything at all about Quidditch. Knew you'd make history with it someday. . . . .You always looked amazing up there on a broom. I could of told you that years ago, if you weren't being such a meanie. — Slytherin!" He looked down into her eyes. She scowled playfully into his. "Anybody with half a brain could have figured out that Draco Malfoy was not only destined to become a great seeker. He was also destined to lead other's to dreams too large for their own hearts to see." She sniffed away a tears of joy. "You were also destined to become the father of two beautiful children and the husband of a silly witch, whose so happy she's found you."
"I can't think of anything I'd enjoy more than to say to the world that you're my silly witch. — always!"
At that moment a newborn little girl opened her mouth and howled. She decided she'd been ignored long enough.
Blimey! This was her big moment, darn it, and she wanted some attention! After all, she had lots to do. There was a pesky little brother to welcome into the world and too trick into doing things. There were friends to make, loads of books to read, brooms to fly, parents to appease, and, most of all, there was Hogwarts, School of Witch Craft and Wizardry. And it was waiting on her!
His big sister's constant whining was driving him mad. He started bawling too. She was making to much noise for him to sleep. There were lots of exam papers coming to flunk, he hoped she knew that! A Quidditch broom with his name on it, just waiting under the christmas tree, not to mention a Potion's Lab he had to accidentally blow up before his first game. But maybe it was better these two people looking down at him with those goofy expressions on their faces didn't know that yet. . . .
Together, they knew they'd be the first of their year, to discover the Room of Requirements. . . .but. . . .with all his sister's crankiness he opened his mouth and cried —We're here world! Ready or not!
The End!
Author's Note: For theme song chosen for this story please visit my profile. This song was chosen by a Fanfiction reviewer. . .Thanks for reading!