"So what happened when Draco found out? What did he say in his letter?" asked Blaise, leaning over from his position on the sofa to pick up the hot cup of tea off the coffee table in Hermione's sitting room.
She dabbed at her eyes and nose with a tissue and smiled painfully at him, like a memory was stabbing her in the stomach with a dull spoon.
"He was that excited, huh?" Blaise inquired lightly with evident hints of sarcasm in his tone.
"He was…" Hermione tried to find the appropriate word to describe the response she had received from Draco eight years prior. She was not really up for the task of explaining to Blaise on how irritated Draco had been at the news of getting her pregnant. "Curious. I don't think he actually believed me when I wrote to him but promised to, and I quote, 'drop by to say hello.' I had only contacted him because I needed him for legalities and such and…" Hermione paused and fresh tears streamed down her face. "Blaise, you never told me what happened with Draco. Was there an accident?"
The man sat down his empty teacup, and a flash of bitterness curled low at the corners of his mouth and clouded his eyes. "The healers called it a…cerebral aneurism."
"A cerebral aneurism?" Hermione gaped. "That's awful! How? What triggered it? Were there signs?"
"There never are concrete symptoms before an aneurism occurs, Granger," Blaise said in a low, troubled voice. "It happened during a Quidditch game between Draco, me, and the rest of the boys. He was playing Seeker, and he caught the Snitch and fumbled off of his broom. It was only a few feet down, but he fell to the ground. He quickly got back up and brushed himself off and then fell back down." Blaise turned away from Hermione's watery orbs and focused on the pictures of Alex resting atop the mantle, having a difficult time rehashing the memory without succumbing to a sobbing fit.
"We thought he was playing some joke. He was always exaggerating an injury, so we all laughed and told him to get up. He didn't, of course. I don't know how long it took for us to realize he wasn't faking it."
"How long ago was this?" Hermione wept.
"About six weeks."
"Six weeks," she repeated in a whisper. "He wasn't answering my Owls, but the money was coming. I sort of just thought he was busy. On his last visit at Easter, he told me he was thinking about marrying Astoria Greengrass."
"Draco visited you? How often did he come?" Blaise did not miss the startled blink and the twitch of Hermione's lips at his latter question.
"It varied as Alex grew up. He was there when Alex was born if you hadn't guessed. I had a very difficult pregnancy with him, not to mention I was two weeks past my due date when I went into labor, which nearly killed me. I had lost consciousness halfway through the delivery from overexertion and blood loss. I woke up a day later only to find Draco had taken it upon himself in naming our baby and sign the important papers and do all the legal work for us. I was so upset." Hermione smiled regretfully. "I had wanted to give Alex up for adoption."
Blaise shot her an affronted look, upset from her confession.
"Don't look at me like that. There was one reason as to why I asked for Draco's presence: I wanted him to sign on the dotted line, assuring Mr. and Mrs. X and the Adoption Agency that the baby was not ours to keep. I was a poor college student, Blaise. I was on the verge of losing my scholarship and was 25,000 plinkets in debt with medical bills. I couldn't afford a baby and was still living in my dorm room with a roommate whom I told, as well as anyone who asked, I was giving the baby up. I wasn't ready to be a mum in any way, shape or form.
"I tore into Draco, furious he sent the nice barren couple away, but he didn't care. He just stood there and smirked at me at the foot of my hospital bed like he was pleased by ruining my life, and then the medi-witch came in and handed me Alex and…" A nostalgic smile wafted across her face. "Not much mattered after that."
Eight Years Prior...
"Why did you do that?! How could you?! It wasn't your place to send them away!" Hermione screeched from her hospital bed and picked up her cup of ice water from the bedside table and threw it at Draco. He scrambled to get away but was splashed in the face, his smirk wiped off completely.
Glaring at her, he swiped at the droplets and responded with equal venom. "I can't believe you were going to give away my child!"
"Oh, so now you're admitting you got me pregnant! You're such a prick, Malfoy! You give no inclination about when you'd show up, and now you're here now and telling me..." Hermione stopped to catch her breath, her body still very weak. "It's not yours. It isn't even mine. I asked you here for one reason. You were to sign the papers and hand it over to them."
"Him"
"What?"
"Him, Granger."
She stared at him wildly and jutted out her chin to show him she didn't care. "He is not ours. We cannot have him. I am a student, an impoverished one on the brink of losing all of my free financing. The dean of the school and my professors are not impressed that an unmarried student had to take time out of school to have a baby, Malfoy."
"Then I will take him home with me, and you can go back to her perfect Uni life and not be bothered!"
Hermione felt her womb spasm, and she winced at him, her chin wanting very much to wobble from his threat. Because that's what it was. Draco was not going to take the baby with him back to Wiltshire…right?
And why did she care? He could have the burden. The parasitical liability had given her nothing but nine months of torturous agony. Her pregnancy was not beautiful, enlightening, or special. Every two weeks from the time she found out about her state, she had to attend Healer visits because her OB was concerned about the sharp body aches, weight-gain, the continuous vomiting, and the heavy spotting that occurred more often than normally. The miraculous event such as pregnancy and birth had been atrocious for her!
"Fine." Hermione folded her arms protectively over her hospital gown and flung them away when coming in contact with something wet.
She stared down at the two circular wet spots on the material over her chest with a troubled frown.
"It's milk," Draco told her slowly as if he were telling a three-year old and not a fully grown woman. She snapped her head up at him at glowered at him with murder in her eyes. "I know what it is!"
"So sorry, but you looked confused. I thought I would help."
"You thought it would help to tell me I have milk spouting out of my boobs when it's been happening for days? Am I or am I not the one who just gave birth? I know the mechanics!"
"Merlin, you're such a bi-"
"Hello!" a woman in a medi-witch uniform greeted with a smile upon entering the hospital room while rolling in a small, crib-like gurney. "How're the Mommy and Daddy?"
Hermione and Draco stared at her blankly.
"As expected." She nodded, her beaming undeterred by the tension in the room and stopped the gurney near Hermione's bed. She picked up a small, swaddled bundle with careful and practiced hands and shuffled over to her. "So sorry for the wait. You two have been so patient, but his fever is down now, his lungs are clear, and his cry is piercing as a healthy baby's should be."
"There was something wrong?" Hermione asked with raised brows and tossed Draco a confused look, and he guiltily shifted on his legs and avoided eye contact.
The medi-witch gave a panicked look and winced an apology at Draco.
"He had pneumonia," he stated and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. "But he's okay now."
"Would you like to hold him?" The medi-witch offered the bundle to Hermione. "And if you're up to it, he does need to be fed. If not, we can get him a bottle."
Hermione apprehensively stared at the small bundle in the other woman's arms and hesitantly lifted her own. She had not taken any childcare classes like her healer suggested for financial and personal reasons. She could not afford them, and she had not planned to keep the baby, so she hoped her handling with the infant was passable.
When Hermione felt the light weight of the child pressing into her arms and chest, on its own accord, her hand slightly pulled the dark green fleece blanket away from his face, so she could see him properly. She placed her eyes on the tiny white cap on his head and saw thin, curly wisps of blondish hair poking out. His skin was thin, red, and splotchy, and his was nose small and pert. His lips were squishy and full looking as they puckered and sucked on air, his small tongue delicately poking out for something that wasn't there.
His eyes were closed, but it was like he could sense the scrutiny, for the small expanses of veiny skin fluttered open and revealed big, colorlessly grey eyes.
Catching a whiff of something sweet and wholesome, her heart melted and oozed into her aching womb, and she brought the baby closer to her face and pressed her nose just above his brow and inhaled deeply.
He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen and smelt.
Tiny licks at her chin evoked a laugh from Hermione. Not caring about the two other presences in the room, she tugged on the string of her hospital gown on her shoulder and brought her son to her exposed, leaking breast. She pressed her lips together to muffle the groan of discomfort twitching deep in her tummy and held her gaze steady on her feasting boy.
"Am I doing this right?" she asked the medi-witch, who came over and helped Hermione adjust the angle of her arms and breast.
Fingers caressed the slope of her neck and pushed back her mussed curls. Reluctantly, she tore her gaze away from the baby to look up at Draco. He was beside her, staring down at her with a self-satisfied smirk like he was the only one in the world to have managed a feat like getting a girl pregnant. There was also a hint of lust in the depths of those mischievous peepers.
"Oh, you think it's sexy, don't you, perv?" She curled her lips into a snarl which melted away when he stooped down and brushed his lips on her cheek.
"Yes," he rasped against her skin.
Hermione smiled ruefully and turned her lips to his and kissed him. She kissed him like it didn't matter she hadn't seen him for nine plus months. Like it didn't matter he had destroyed her already faulty life from a mis-chanted spell. Like it didn't matter he was an imbecile.
He returned the kiss, and she could feel his lips stretching into a grin.
Their smooches did not last long, due to a damp sniffle interrupting them. They turned towards the medi-witch who flushed and fanned her tear-stricken face.
"I'm sorry," she cried, "but you make such a beautiful family. I'll leave you alone now." But before she left, she turned to them and said, "And Scorpius Alexander Malfoy is such a strong name. It must've taken you two some time to think it up."
Hermione gaped at the empty space where the medi-witch had once been and then whipped her head around to face a smug-faced Draco.
"You named my son?!" she bellowed and pulled the baby closer to her bosom where he continued to slurp loudly and cutely.