A/n: Yes, damn me. I didn't and wasn't able to post the updates for what, 3-4 weeks? (Oh my bruttles, is it that long!) And I am terribly sorry.
As you can see, christmas is up and coming. And school is as always panicking by this season. Everyone's up to hurry on the lessons and give out exams as soon as humanly possible. And of course, they let us work like droids.
I am really sorry. Please forgive me.
I had to do those damned reports and study for my lessons...
I had to put this aside.
It hurts my ears hearing myself say that.
Anyway, on with the story.
By: Aningme
Chapter 4
Dilemma: The Sequel
The house never seemed so gloomy. The parlor still looked as it supposed to be: grand and exquisite. But the air of it wasn't the same, its heaviness resting on their shoulders coldly.
He was still holding her hand even as they crossed the room.
"Sir, ma'am." Harvey greeted; his face sternly blank. "The guest is in the dining room."
His hand on hers gripped harder after just a beat. "Are the papers ready in account for tomorrow?"
Changing the topic, Hermione mused. Is this situation really that big a' deal?
Harvey made a sound similar to a sigh. "Yes sir, ready as scheduled."
"Thank you. That would be all." Draco muttered and dragged Hermione towards a hall.
Harvey sent a reassuring look at Hermione before he disappeared in the shadows.
Opening the double doors, she stood in horror.
The warm aroma of sea food and pasta swarmed through the doors and eddied below their noses. Music was minutely playing along the walls of the dining room, its strings and wind pipes seemingly hypnotizing. The perfect lightning of candles stood in a glow as the small button flames swayed with the music. And the room was nothing but implausible. Flowers of different breed displayed its beauty, standing in vases of different origins. The curtains and portraits flaunted abstract splendor along the walls. Glass and marble were perfectly mixed together in a magnificent design.
It still takes her breath away seeing a room so luxurious, and think of it as hers.
Well, her husband's, that is.
"Welcome home. Both of you are finally here." Her voice was calm and cool, fitting perfectly with the music. "Come in and dine with me. I prepared this all by myself."
She stepped out holding a bottle of champagne, tubes of thin glass set on a tray. She poured the champagne in a womanly grace, and held out two glasses for them.
"Good evening to both of you." Turning to Hermione, she smiled. "Especially to you, Mrs. Malfoy."
She held in a wince at that. "Hermione would be fine."
"I see. Well then, Hermione, have you eaten? You look like you indeed need something to eat!" She gestured for a helper to set up the table. "Draco, you're keeping your wife thin."
Draco just sipped his champagne and stared at his mother over the rim of his glass.
"Oh, it's really not that." Hermione tried to lift the mood. It was awfully stuffy. "Work at the hospital is just really stressing."
"Then you should quit it." Narcissa straightforwardly said. "It's better just to stay here at home and relax, with all of these." She stretched out her arms and pertained to the house. "It would be better for the two of you."
"She can decide her own decisions." Draco intervened. He held out a protective arm around her and pulled her towards him. "And besides, she loves her work. She won't stand it sitting here doing nothing."
"Well then, enough professional talk and let us all eat. Have you both eaten?"
"Yes." Draco replied abruptly before Hermione could say otherwise. "We're quite full."
"Actually, I'm feeling a little hungry again." Hermione uttered, deserving a look from Draco. "A little pasta won't hurt."
He would, in any ways, let things happen according to his decision, in his command. But just a look from her gave his heart a tug, his breath seemingly rushing out of him. In a sigh, he sat down, defeated.
Sitting quietly in her chair, Narcissa stared and watched her daughter-in-law. The way her golden brown locks flow down on her shoulders, the way her hazel eyes glitter against the teasing flares of the candle lights, the way her skin glows through the dark contrast of the gloomy atmosphere surrounding them, Hermione sat still, beauty radiating from her.
And, may Merlin forgive her, Narcissa hates her. Hates her so like a pureblood ought to do to a mud blood.
She couldn't accept the fact that her only son, so perfect in his nature, grew up only to marry an impure woman. Only those of her kind infuriate her just as this much.
Her kind was what took her husband from her.
She won't let them take her son now.
Hermione's hazel eyes never left her food, dazed and exhausted. Her hands were doing nothing with her food but play with it using her fork. But underneath the exhaustion, the tiredness, a certain glow was shining on her.
She had seen that before, Narcissa mused. She's certainly seen that with herself.
When she conceived her only son.
At that moment, she knew.
She knows anything what she wants to know, anyway.
"I have baked some strawberry cheesecake while both of you were away." Narcissa tried on a smile, perfectly masking her fuming temper and disapproval. "I know it's your favorite." She glanced at her son who nibbled on pasta. "You always had loved strawberries."
"Yes, he had." Hermione muttered softly, trying to act as casually as she could. "He also loves eating strawberry ice cream. He even eats them during winter or rainy seasons. Imagine how cold it would be."
"Do you?" Narcissa turned on Draco, her eyes wide in pretend shock. "You were never careful of your health. You never changed your habit at all."
"I can take care of myself." Draco answered blankly, coolly. "And, if I do get sick, I have a doctor nearby to take care of me." His silver eyes drifted to Hermione. Stared.
Hermione held his eyes and couldn't stop her heart from stuttering, drowning in those eyes. "Well, we do keep an eye on each other." She remembered the way he worried about her the night before. And remembered the fact that she hadn't told him about her real condition at all. "He's really strict when it comes to my health."
"Is that so?" Narcissa's blood was humming in her veins. "I've never seen him worry like that before."
"Well, it's irritating sometimes." She humorously said. "But I can live with that."
Draco smiled at her and held her hand under the table. But he kept behind his temper that was long boiling inside him. He couldn't help himself but fume at the fact that Narcissa talks as if she really raised him as she sounded like she did. She never cared of him before. What more in this present time?
"Do you care for my son?"
"Of course."
"Do you love him?"
"It's very inappropriate for you to ask that in my presence." Draco interjected, mild irritation and amusement simmering under his cool eyes. "Wouldn't you rather save that to one of your womanly talks?"
"Yes, I believe so." Narcissa smiled, leaned back on her comfortable chair, and tipped her glass wine to her mouth. "What do you say we have a woman to woman talk tonight? Just to us women?"
Hermione almost choked on her pasta. "Tonight?"
"Why not? It's a perfect evening." Narcissa nodded.
Hermione glanced at Draco, only finding him sipping quietly at his wine, watching her over the rim.
She smiled and turned back to Narcissa. "That would be lovely."
He was waiting patiently inside his private elevator shaft on his way to his home office. He had reserved a room beside it from another room in Hermione's favor. Her own home office. He had convinced her once to have a clinic of her own nearby so she could be close to home. But of course, the matter of having people from the range of sniffling children to the sick, old and dying all crowding in their house freaked both of them, having them cease from the idea.
You could not entirely bring your job home anyway.
It's just not possible.
"The room is ready." Harvey reported in his clipped voice. "I have already set up the op. All systems go."
"Thank you, Harvey." He muttered and entered his office, all blinking in screen lights. He stared at one screen and watched his wife and his cursed mother sitting comfortably in their lounge room.
He would let all angels curse him if he wouldn't watch over his wife.
Especially if she's with the devil's advocate.
She gravely hates being watched and observed. And, it would take a minute of an idiotic brain to know she was being watched. She knows how those eyes flicker when doubt is present. Or perhaps disapproval. Or hatred.
"I was honestly surprised about the wedding news. It was so all of a sudden."
"We had a year of preparation for that. I believe that was quite enough." Hermione pointed out, her temper almost going over the edge. "We arranged all in that given span of time. If it wasn't enough, we wouldn't be married now, aren't we?"
"Well, of course." Narcissa sipped at her herbal tea, watching Hermione like a predator on hunt for its prey. "That reminds me. How did you two meet again?"
Is this a damn interview? Hermione thought and calmed herself. "There was an accident last three years ago. He was brought in my care." She wanted coffee. But, holding her belly, thought better for a cup of tea herself. "We shared some words and, well, it all lead to here."
"Well now, that was quite a lovely story." There was certainly more than that. Narcissa alleged, but pushed that away. "This was just all a surprising outcome. To think, both of you were seemingly destined to hate each other." It should have stayed that way. She fumed.
"Things do change in a span of time." Just accept it and swallow it in. Hermione demanded.
A smile was tugging on her mouth, sipping gracefully at her tea. She hoped Draco Malfoy could get a good shot at what she was about to say. He was just too predictable for her. "Well, didn't Mr. Potter get in the way?"
Hermione almost dropped her china cup, hearing the name again. But it only took her a second before she regained herself and gathered her bearings. "I would accept that as a rhetorical question."
Narcissa laughed and cocked a brow. "Would you?" She could feel her tension now. "Well, I supposed you still have feelings for him, being with him for almost your whole educated life."
She just gave her a cool smile, ignoring the nausea climbing up her throat. "I loved Harry. But he's dead, given the fate by He Who Must Not Be Named." She paused, drank tea, and calmed her nerves. "And I am obliged to move on with my life.
She had to admit, it was chocolate for the ears to hear that she wasn't the only one who was victimized by Him. But she loathed the fact that her son was the replacement. "Do you love my son as you would have to Mr. Potter?" She asked it so calmly, so casually, that Hermione hated her for it.
"Look, you could round your series of questions in all directions around me. But it all comes right down to the same thing. I love your son, Mrs. Malfoy. And I will assure you I will until death does us part." She started to stand up, walk for the door, and shut Narcissa's face with it.
"If my son dies, are you going to stop loving him then?" Narcissa began, stopping Hermione by the door. "And when that happens, another man will pass your way, and another vow will be made until you say again 'til death do us part.' What makes that of you then?"
Hermione turned her head over her shoulder and glanced at her. "I couldn't live without Harry. I couldn't face every single day of my life without him. I was even willing to kill myself and end it all, be with him. But your son saved my life and changed everything. He took my faltering hand into his and pulled me up back to life, showing me there's more than what I expected. And during those days, all I needed was him and him alone. I fell in love with him. Funny it may sound, but I do love your son. Very much. And I'm sorry to say: You can't change that."
She turned her back, closed the door, and hurried to the nearest bathroom, feeling awfully sick.
Narcissa stared at the door, feeling her eyes stinging in tears. She never had anyone love her like that. She only had her son, her only family left. And this woman was stealing him from her.
And she won't let that.
Draco sat on his plush chair, facing his console, his face all pale and cold. He wanted to go down and stop the conversation but, his legs didn't move. Couldn't move. He just sat there, and listened. And he hated himself for it.
Perhaps, he long wanted to ask her those questions, but he just couldn't. That part of her world was in a very deep mound of shadows and darkness. It was really delicate to touch that part of her.
He admitted, he was afraid of her answer too. He was scared to know that she still loves Potter. Scared the hell out of him.
But with what she said, he didn't dare question her again.
She loves him. That's all that matters, isn't it?
Staring at the screen, he saw Hermione rushing in one of the bathrooms on the second level. After calming himself, he stood up, gathered his bearings and went into the shaft. He'll be damned if he didn't talk to her.
She was feeling awfully tired already, her breath still ragged from puking. Her arms were shaking violently on the tiled floor, and her gaze was slightly darkening. She heaved out a sob and dropped on the floor, gathering her knees in her arms. Her surroundings started to spin. And her mind was screaming shutdown.
"Hermione." The melodic voice called out her name. A hand was caressing her brow too, lightly shaking her off from dozing off. She tried to open her eyes but only saw the golden mane of hair and silver eyes gazing down at her. "Herm."
"Tired." She mumbled, as he lifted her head and rested it on his torso. "Need to sleep."
"I know. We'll get there, But, I must say, that was a very fierce round back there." He pointed out and plucked her from the bathroom floor. "I'm glad you survived."
"You watched us?" She asked, her voice slurred in fatigue. "You listened?"
"Every word." He mumbled in her ear, kissed the top of her head, and carried her towards the shaft leading to their bedroom.
"I'll beat you up later for eavesdropping." She scowled at him lazily.
He laughed and planted another kiss on her brow. "I'll look forward to it. You beat her fair and square."
"Glad to hear that." She chuckled and wrapped her arms around his neck. "It's cold."
He lowered her to the bed and wrapped the sheets around her. "C'mon, you have to sleep now." He lay beside her and held her cheek. "You have a fever."
She turned into him and curled up in him. "Don't leave me like she says you would."
"I won't." He whispered and took her in. "I won't."
A/n: Vytiri, Zarroc, SpiritWell, priyax3, ashling, Queen of Duct Tape, caz-jket, evillizzy89, Foreverasecret01, and Kim...
I AM TERRIBLY SORRY!
I was actually crying every weekend when I'm not able to post even one chapter:( wah...(wails) I'm really sorry...
After the exams (which is this week) I will work hard on this story.
PROMISE.
But for now, I will post two chapters for your sakes...
I have some debts to pay...
I'm sorry again... And I hope you liked this chap.ΓΌ