Harry squeezed her shoulder comfortingly, but she saw the way he was looking at her. He was wondering the same thing. Really, she used to be brilliant. She definitely was not smartest person she knew anymore.
"Come home, Hermione," he whispered to her. "Come home and grow up."
His words were harsh just like the portkey to England and the Apparating trip to Grimmauld Place where she stayed for a week dodging Ginny's questions and insistence to contact Ron and restart their relationship as soon as possible.
"Do it before Thursday," Ginny had said eagerly.
"Why?" Hermione asked with narrowed eyes.
"Because he's getting married Friday."
"Oh."
"That's all you have to say?! Just a simple 'oh'! Don't you care? Aren't you jealous?"
"It's been so long, Ginny; I would have been surprised if he hadn't moved on. To answer your question, I am not jealous."
"But he's marrying Parkinson!"
Hermione did raise a brow at the revelation, but she held her ground. Ron Weasley was her past and would stay that way forever. She did attend the wedding despite not having been invited, and Ginny had paraded her like a prize horse in front of Ron who was nothing but kind and genuinely worried of her well-being but not in the least bit love-struck or regretful.
There were times in the last eleven years Hermione wished she had made different choices in her life. For a while, she had wished she would have not attended Ron's wedding. Draco Malfoy was there showing his respect for the bride and flirting with anything wearing a skirt. It wasn't long before he had found Hermione outside the Parkinson Mansion during the reception.
"Where the hell have you been?" he drawled, leaning up against the stone exterior of the mansion with a knowing smirk.
He knew nothing of course. He never did, but Hermione knew he probably liked to think he did. Pretending to know made his opponent feel nervous or paranoid, and it was a very Slytherin thing of him to do, but Hermione was not fazed in the least of the little boy who was dressed up in Daddy's clothes.
"Around." Hermione shrugged and dropped her cigarette on the ground and stubbed out the embers with the toe of her shoe.
He chuckled and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "Oh, I suppose you think that it's none of my business where you've been."
"It's not," Hermione monotonically said.
"You look good, by the way," Malfoy said, leering unashamedly at the exposed expanse of her throat and the bodice of her dress. "Let me buy you a drink, and we can catch up."
"It's an open bar, Malfoy."
"Even better." He beckoned her to come with a tilt of his chin. She frowned at him rushed past him into the reception hall and easily lost herself into a crowd. Nevertheless, she found herself at the bar, promising herself to only sip at the champagne. She wasn't a drinker in the least, but free alcohol was free alcohol.
Draco eventually found her and attempted to chat her up with compliments and questions, all to which she ignored. His pickup lines were becoming slurred and his interrogation repetitive. Hermione had stood up to leave, tiring of him and the celebration, but Draco stood up with her and kissed her soundly on the lips and then she was sprawled on the floor and looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Draco popped into her vision with a silly grin. "My flat."
"I see that," Hermione replied dryly and climbed to her feet and looked around. "I believe you just kidnapped me."
He pouted. "Don't be like that."
"I will."
"Stay."
"No."
"It'll be fun."
"No."
"Please."
"No."
"But I've fantasized about you for years."
"I don't believe you."
"I used daydream back at Hogwarts all the time. Remember when we'd get paired up in Potions. You would lean over at the table, and not even that unflattering robe could hide that luscious rump. I wanted you bad, Granger. You can't tell me you didn't want me, too."
Hermione blinked at him. Honestly, the thought of wanting Draco never crossed her mind…like ever. She wasn't even sure if she had ever perceived him to be attractive.
"I've never wanted you; I don't think," she replied with a shrug but looked at him. Really looked at him. She started with his shoes and absorbed ever detail as her eyes traveled upwards, stopping here and there on the way and ended at the top of his blond head.
Well, well, well. He certainly was attractive, wasn't he?
"Like what you see?" Draco grinned lazily, purposefully hooding his eyelids.
Hermione tapped her pointer finger on her chin pensively. The last boy she went home with tried to kill her, so she wanted to be careful. It would be so easy to leave, but if she did, she'd be back at the Grimmauld Place with Harry and Ginny and their disappointed faces because they thought she was wasting her life away with untreated PTSD and cigarettes.
They weren't wrong.
"What are you offering?" Hermione asked. A look of surprise lit up Draco's features and he smiled.
"A weekend's time to get you out of my system. I'll return you home Sunday evening."
"Such honesty and chivalry. How sweet," Hermione clipped condescendingly and stole a glance of the flat. She appeared to be in the sitting room, so she walked over to the nearby sofa and collapsed upon it, casually kicking off her shoes. She figured if she was going to do this one last act of childish behavior, she might as well go for the gold. Monday morning she was leaving via portkey to the States. Salem, to be exact. Harry was right about one thing; it was time to grow up, and Massachusetts was an ideal place. The university there was supposedly one of the best in the Magical World and happily accepted Non-American Muggle-Borns, who were automatically qualified for funding: scholarships and loans.
"So you're staying?" Draco smiled eagerly and stole the place next to her on the sofa, plastering the front of his body to her side, his face shooting towards the crook of her neck.
Yes, she stayed. As promised, Draco returned her to Grimmauld Place late Sunday afternoon where upon arrival, she told Harry and Ginny of her immediate plans of travelling to the States and going to school. Expectedly, they were suspicious of her decision but pleased she chose to further her education.
Rusty had easily defined Hermione's first few weeks of school, taking her that long to get back into the swing of things and climbing to tiptop, academic shape. Easily, books became more distracting than boys. Not even the cute Texan wizard who played guitar without a shirt could pull her away from her studies. But by gods, he sure tried.
A few weeks before finals found Hermione in her desolate dorm room studying for her exams which were going to be held in only three weeks. She hadn't been feeling well but summed it up to the weather and stress. Fatigue nagged at her limbs and fogged her brain. She had been dozing on and off during her study sessions and, most unfortunately, during class time. Each time she slipped into a slumber, regardless of how short or long the nap was, she'd wake up with a sharp headache drilling into her frontal lobe and often would vomit right away, never having enough time to reach a rubbish-bin or the toilet. Her classmates thought she had a drinking problem.
Her appetite came and went. Hermione would have spouts of hunger where she would wake up at two in the morning and need a crispy burrito from Muggle Taco Time and fast. Unfortunately, the nearest one was in Brampton, so she purchased a portkey-pass due to the area being out of the country.
At first, Hermione had tried to satiate the hunger with the 24 hour Mexican restaurant on campus. It was a good place, and the first month of school, she had loved the authentic flavors, but the first time she tried to substitute her craving with something else, she barely had enough time to find a place to vomit. She ordered the best thing on the menu: the spicy, chicken burrito drizzled with hot sauce and three different kinds of cheese and was smothered with salsa and crushed tortilla chips with more cheese. It was incredible, and Hermione had kicked her smoking habit in favor of the burritos during the first few weeks of the semester. But her taste buds must have changed because it tasted wrong. The cheese was too pungent, the chicken sour, the hot sauce burningly bitter, and the tortilla chips too salty.
She also wanted chocolate.
All the time.
The good stuff, too, and Hermione's budget was not in compliance.
Magical Massachusetts fine chocolate was overly expensive, so Hermione to venture to the bank and exchanged her plinkets in for U.S. dollars to buy Ghirardelli fudge sauce and eat it as is. Sometimes she brought it with her to Taco Time and dunked her burrito and tater tots in it and had a feast.
And let's not get started on the peanut butter cravings.
Hermione had set her pen down, (because pens were cheaper than quills in the States), and rubbed her forehead with a whimper, sensing a migraine coming up fast, thinking maybe she should schedule an appointment with the campus healer.
Healer Schaffer lit up the tip of her wand and shined in Hermione's pupils as she sat on a sturdy, paper covered cot in a hospital gown.
"Let me guess why you are visiting me?" The woman smiled knowingly, showing off her perfectly straight, white teeth and how far she could stretch her full lips. The campus healer had graduated the year prior and was annoyingly pretty, and according to rumors, slept with her patients (meaning students and teachers alike).
"All right."
"Birth control," she clipped smugly and pricked Hermione on the nose with her finger playfully as she would a child. "You want to be prepared for that special step forward when you finally meet that special someone. Would you prefer potions or pills?"
Hermione blinked. "Neither," she said slowly. "I'm here because I've been ill and can't seem to get better."
"Oh…" Schaffer flushed in embarrassment and giggle nervously. "Sorry. I'll just take your blood pressure then. My assistant weighed you, correct?"
"Yes."
Hermione's blood pressure was taken, and Schaffer took some notes in a portfolio, a frown forming on her lips.
"Is there a problem?" Hermione asked, and the other witch pursed her lips.
"When you came in for your check up on February 2nd, you weighed 105 pounds. Since then, you have gained ten."
Hermione smiled quizzically and shrugged. "Is it a crime to gain weight? But I do admit, I have indulged a bit. I'm having these violent cravings."
"Uh huh." Shaffer nodded, urging her to continue.
"I'm also getting these killer migraines which are causing me to throw up. I'm also very tired all the time. Even if I manage to get a solid eight hours of rest at night, I wake up and feel like I could go for another eight."
"And what time to these headaches usually occur, Miss Granger?"
"Um…there isn't really a pattern. Always in the morning yes but randomly throughout the day."
"Hmmm." Schaffer scribbled in the portfolio and then turned back to Hermione with an expectant look. "When was the last time you menstruated?"
"Last month."
"Can you give me the specific dates?"
Hermione frowned and thought back to all of April and March, trying to remember her cycle. She was irregular anyway. "Maybe I didn't have one. I'm sure I had one in March. My cycles are irregular and come and go as they please."
"Hmmm," Schaffer said again and jotted down some things before setting her pen down and shooting her hand towards Hermione and lightly squeezing a breast.
"Ow!" Hermione hissed and laid a hand over the tender, cotton-covered flesh and then shot Schaffer and an affronted expression. "What was that for?"
"I'm sorry, but I barely touched you. May I ask what kind of birth control use?"
Hermione cocked her eyebrow at the question. "I'm not on a prescribed birth control. I've always used the Contraceptive Charm because the pills and potions are extremely expensive where I'm from."
"The Charm." Schaffer grimaced and set down the portfolio and her pen and summoned a seat for her to sit on. "That would explain the irregularity in your cycles. The thing about Contraceptive Magic is that it's like any Charm performed correctly. It's powerful but is being cast on a very delicate and sensitive area. Contraceptive Charms tend to overcorrect and cause sporadic cycles within women. Another thing about the Charm is that it can only work before intercourse and by the caster pronouncing the spell correctly."
"What are you saying?" Hermione asked. "I don't know where you are going with this, but I can cast the spell just fine!"
"The partner you were with in late January, which I'm estimating. did he cast the spell correctly?"
Partner in January? Hermione inwardly boggled. Partner in January? Partn- Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
…
…
Oh!
"Are you saying-" Hermione's words fell short and realization dawned on her.
"We'll do the tests to make sure," Schaffer said with what was supposed to be a comforting smile, Hermione assumed, but was more like amusement.
The blood and urination tests came back positive as did the ultrasound. As Hermione travelled back to her dormitory, she held a picture of the parasite Malfoy had put in her.
She was going to kill him.
That is…if she decided to tell him which she was not.
Hermione was three months along, nearing the end of her first trimester and let nothing dissuade her from her final exams, promising to deal with the complication once the semester was over.
School ended and the summer in Massachusetts was blooming beautifully, but unfortunately, Hermione's wallet was not. Since she had chosen to attend a summer semester, she was able to stay in her dormitory, but her scholarship had not covered the Healer visits and the prenatal potions and the maternity clothes. She had tried to transfigure some of her clothing, but they only held their larger shape for a few hours.
A job search was in order, but all the ones she applied for had politely refused her, her tummy bump capturing the owners' or managers' disparaging eye. Finally, after weeks of searching, she got a job as a cashier at a bookstore but had to quit soon afterwards when her healer ordered her on bed-rest once she entered her third trimester. As her due date approached, she had swallowed her pride and sent Draco a letter.