A/N: Thank you to my readers, reviewers, followers, and to those who have favorited this fic!
Thank you to: Anjali Katari, Guest, Guest, Vaneesa85, chyaraskiss, Angelus Draco, Jordana Babe, Katherine Julia, and anna for the reviews.
To Anjali Katari: Thank you, thank you, thank you for your kind words. I'll have to keep a lookout for that movie or find it somewhere. And I agree. It's so tempting to pass by the typical Head Relationship and or a Marriage Law fics. I've read some good ones, but there are so many out there with the same cookie cutter storylines. I respect the authors who put a lot of writing time into those types of stories, but...I don't read them. I'm a fic snob, I guess. And there are those out there who really like Head Relationship and Marriage Law fics and woudn't even dare to click on the link to this story. I mean, siriusly, I killed Draco. Even I would be all...I don't know if I want to read that fic. It sounds morbid with no hope for a happy ending. So thank you and to all who gave this story a chance.
To Vaneesa85: Thanks so much! I'll tell her your congrats.
To those who want Draco alive: *Shakes head* I'm sorry. I cannot undo my plot. I understand your pleas, though. You want him to be with Hermione and his son, but that's not my story. However, I will give kudo cookies to a reader/author who can write a fic similar to this with Draco being alive. There can be a happy ending for Dramione and Alex in another world. The catch is if someone does write the fic, I'd like a little credit for the idea. If no one does, that's okay, too.
Now on with Chapter 17! I apologize for any mistakes and hope the chapter is enjoyable. Read and review, please!
The fairgrounds were packed with witches, wizards, tents filled with activities, and mouth-watering smells of sugary sweets and salty meats. The sun shined brightly, casting warm temperatures throughout the town, and Hermione was especially relieved to not have been wearing something heavy and hoped Alex wouldn't get terribly hot in his chick costume.
"He's not sweaty, is he? Should I cast a Cooling Charm on him?" Hermione asked Draco who was carrying him, both adults having decided to leave pram behind on their short trip to the fair. They were only going to stay for the contest.
And maybe some frozen custard.
Mr. Wimple's sign caught her eye. The plump man was jovially serving some customers in his designated tent and caught sight of her, gave her a wave, and Hermione returned it politely.
"Hope to see you over here soon," the man called out to her with a wink.
"Who's that?" Draco asked and looked like someone had shoved something revoltingly smelly up his nose.
"That's Mr. Wimple. He makes the best frozen custard in Salem. We should get some on our way out. It's really good, but I admit, is the reason I have not been able to shed the last ten pounds of baby weight."
"Just keep it on, Granger. I like being able to cling to something while I'm-"
"Not in public, Draco," she chastised with a heated blush, a group of squealing children running in front of them chasing a purple ribbon-decorated pig.
"Your mum is no fun," he said to Alex with a fake a pout. "How can you stand to be around her?"
Alex made a grunting sound at him, sounding eerily similar to the grunts he made while nursing.
"Aww." Draco nodded his with a leer. "Me, too."
"The tent where the contest is being held is up there." Hermione pointed to the far right tent where smartly dressed women were pushing prams passed the heavy curtains. She led Draco to it and took Alex from him, the man frowning at her because of it.
"You can go do something else if you want. They are having a Quidditch game over somewhere and you can go watch. There's also an archery contest and a lot of other activities if you want to check them out," Hermione informed him while adjusting the baby on her hip.
"Do you not want me here?" Draco gestured to the tent with hurt in his eyes, and Hermione smiled quizzically.
"Do you want to be? I don't think any of the fathers are going to be present. It's usually a mum thing. I don't think dads really care."
"That's rubbish. What father wouldn't care about their child being the best in something?"
"So you want to come with?" Hermione asked and nudged her head at the tent. "You'll most likely be the only male in there."
Draco did not answer but stole Alex away from her to make his point and kissed the boy's cheeks to emphasize it. Hermione's belly felt gooey and warm and grinned at the man, coyly linking her arm around his free one and resting her head on his shoulder. In this manner, they entered the tent and was instantly bombarded with Annabelle Cameron with her clipboard and peacock feather quill.
"Miss Granger, I almost thought you wouldn't come," the plump woman in a bright pink, skin tight robe as she jotted down something on her clipboard with haste. She looked up with a squished smile on her pink lips and did a double take when seeing Draco. Her rouged cheeks darkened further and brought a hand up to her hair like she was smoothing the strands and asked, "And who is this?"
Withholding the urge to roll her eyes, Hermione answered, "This is Alex's father."
Draco nodded politely in neutral, masculine way of saying, 'Hello.'
"Oh," Annabelle blinked in astonishment. "How exciting. Well, I'll just send you over towards the stage. We are running a tad late, but we'll be up and running in a few minutes."
The woman shuffled off, leaving behind a strong waft of perfume smelling similar to Slick-Easy Potion and nail polish remover. Hermione frowned in her wake, sighed wearily, and said to Draco, "And there she goes to tell everyone that Alex does have a father. Stupid cad, I can't stand her and most of the women here. They do nothing but spend their fat husband's money and give birth to the milk man's baby."
Draco laughed heartily at her and wrapped an arm around her waist as they walked through the tent towards the shiny black surface on the ground that was acting as the stage. "The milk man must be a handsome bloke then."
"Oh, he is." Hermione smirked playfully and squeaked when she felt his hand drop and pinch her bum. Still, she continued to taunt him. "He always gives and extra jug. He's always welcome to leave the milk on the doorstep, but he's such a gentleman. He hand delivers and...Mmmph!"
Alex was sandwiched between his parents, his father having kidnapped his mother's mouth for a ransom that could not be met. Draco nibble possessively on Hermione's lips as she carefully, as to not smash Alex, brought the man's face as close to hers as possible.
"You like to make me jealous, don't you, minx?" he hummed into her mouth.
"I don't make you do anything, Malfoy. You choose to be jealous. I'm just saying facts." Hermione shrugged innocently..
Draco kissed her again, this time lightly and whispered raspingly, "I'm going to have again tonight, Granger. Once this bloody thing is over, I'm taking you back to the flat and I'm going to-"
"Miss Granger," Annabelle piped up from beside them with a scandalized expression. "You need to take your baby to the stage. It's starting."
SLAM!
Hermione winced at the sound behind her and awkwardly juggled her sleeping baby and the paper cup of lemon and berry custard. She went into the kitchen and stuck the half-empty dessert bowl into the freezer and then supported her son with both arms, sending a sympathetic look at Draco who was pacing the sitting room and tossing his arms up in the air while belting out curses.
"I know you're upset, but Alex is sleeping. I don't want him to wake up in a snit. Will you please calm down?" Hermione gently asked, her voice low and full of care.
"I can't bloody calm down when that soddin' contest was nothing but shit!"
"I know you think it's unfair, but I knew Alex wouldn't win," she offered while rubbing the baby's back, the hot puffs of breath on her neck keeping her from having a tantrum like Draco.
He stopped mid-pace and glared at her. "You said you knew he would win!"
"I was just saying that because I knew it'd make you happy. I knew Alex wouldn't even place. I only entered him because I wanted to be a part of the community, to get to know people. I admit, the ladies and the judges are not the kind of people I like to associate with, but I have no regrets entering him in that contest."
"I just don't understand." Draco shook his head and sat down on the sofa with his back hunched and his arms resting on his knees. "Scorpius was the best looking one out of all them. He should have at least won some prize. Is it because…Is it because of…Blood Status?"
Hermione shook her head and sat down next to him and handed him Alex, knowing Draco would calm down with the baby in his hands.
"No, Blood Status doesn't mean a whole lot here. At least not in Salem. Being a Squib is still an embarrassment, but they are few and often move to the Muggle World. The reason Alex didn't win was because we're not married. I told you that the majority of the high-class people look down on me. They are the ones who are over the contest. They have an idea of what a family should be like, and Alex and I are not it."
Draco rubbed Alex's back while the boy rested on his shoulder. He was quiet for a long time and for a while they sat on the couch not saying anything.
Finally, Draco broke the silence. "We should get married."
Hermione was not at all surprised by his proposition. Hours before, he had suggested they get married when they had been in bed. The suggestion had been lighthearted with a roll-off-the-shoulder tone, but she knew he would have liked her to accept the barmy proposal. And to her, that's what the idea was—completely mental. She was aware many couples married if a child had been conceived before matrimony. In fact, her parents had been married in April 1979 and she was born in September.
With the memory replaying in her mind of watching her mother remarry and father escort his pregnant wife into the hospital, Hermione wondered if her parents had only needed her gone to gain the courage to divorce. She also wondered if they even really loved each other. While growing up, they never gave her the impression their marriage was faulty. When Hermione had left for Hogwarts, she naturally did not see her parents as much as she had before. Summers were often filled with time away from home, vacations to keep their small family busy. Thinking back with a parent's point of view, hers did seem like they were more than compliant in her leaving to spend the second half of the summer with the Weasleys and she hoped it wasn't because they love her. She knew they had, but maybe they loved the feeling more of not having to act like they loved each other.
There were numerous reasons as to why she would never marry Draco, the number one being his family. His horrid, retched family. The idea of being a daughter-in-law to Lucius Malfoy made her stomach retract and coil in severe revulsion. She remembered all too well how he aggressively encouraged Draco to name names at their manor when she, Harry, and Ron had been captured during the war. A part of Hermione knew the Malfoy patriarch was just trying to keep his family alive and providing Harry Potter, a Blood Traitor, and a Mudblood to Voldemort would have been a lovely way to ensure survival. Nevertheless, that pathetic excuse for a man got him and his family into the mess, not once, not twice, but three times and had evaded proper conviction two of those times. Harry had been the reason why Draco and his family got to walk out of the Wizengamot free.
Hermione was not under any illusion the man sitting next to her holding her baby was one hundred percent innocent, but he probably would not have caused so much trouble if he had been blessed with a better father.
The second reason she would not marry Draco was he had yet to say he loved her, and she did not love him the way a wife should love her husband. She loved him for giving her Alex. Every prank, name-calling, and or illicit stint Draco had ever pulled was forgiven when the baby was born.
After her weekend fling with Draco the year previously and before find out she was pregnant, not once did she think about him, dwell on his face or impeccable physique. She had not liked him in school and she had not liked him when experiencing those admittedly pleasurable forty-eight hours at his flat. He was merely her last hoorah before doing what Harry had told her to do—grow up. The weekend was supposed to be about two adults fulfilling their needs, and she clearly remembered him waving his wand and casting the Contraceptive Charm on her the moment she agreed to stay with him, naïvely thinking nothing of the extra R twisted up in the spell.
When Hermione had her Healer's appointment where she found out about her pregnancy, she had thought of Draco then but only briefly and with many curse words. Sporadically throughout the remainder of her pregnancy, she rarely thought of him. She didn't curse his name whenever she was stooped over the toilet puking chili cheese fries or when a Healer's bill came in the mail. She didn't think of him when her hormones were coursing heavily and thickly through her veins, and she wanted nothing more than to find the nearest attractive male to calm her. But she had thought of him when Alex was making her more rotund and giving her Braxton Hicks which was when she had decided to send that letter, simply stating:
Malfoy, you are a fumbling-tongued moron and have gotten me pregnant. Thought you should know.
-Hermione
With Draco standing at the foot of her hospital bed post-partum, it had been difficult to not think about him. His stupid, smug mug was in her face and saying shite like he had a right to do so.
Alex had been perfect and consumed all of her thinking space in her brain. She had to kiss Draco like it didn't matter he was an utter bastard.
Since Draco left her and the baby in the flat the first time, promising to visit for Christmas, she often let her mind wander back to England where he was and if he was truly coming back and certainly not for her sake alone. He had seemed genuinely interested in Alex and being around for him; nevertheless, she had been shocked to have him sneak into her bed minutes before Boxing Day.
Draco Malfoy, underneath his arrogance and snobbish, rich boy demeanor, was a probably a good man. He was not a hero like Harry, a martyr like Professor Dumbledore, or a sincere gentleman like Neville. However, he was not Voldemort, Salazar Slytherin, or even his father. The man sitting next to her holding their baby was simply a pain in the arse with likeable qualities, and Hermione loved him for only one reason and that was Alex. She liked Draco and shamefully lusted for him ever since holding the baby in her arms for the first time, but she could not love him wholly. Fear plagued her heart and had set up a barrier to keep him the way he was—her secret. If she chose to lower her guard, he could hurt her and hurt Alex and probably not even mean to. She could very well accept his proposal and marry him, fall in love with him properly, and be toted back to England where their relationship and Alex would never be accepted by his family or the friends she left behind. The war was over back home, but it was still incredibly fresh, for those who had survived, to accept an enjoinment between a war heroine and a former Death Eater.
"Oh, Malfoy," Hermione sighed and maneuvered to her knees and rose up on them, so she could caress his hairline affectionately. Her fingers moved to his ear where she toyed with the lobe and then to the back of his neck and dug her fingernails into the tense muscles and scratched. His eyelids fluttered shut and he leaned his head back into the support of the couch, trapping her hand between the two. "You know the answer to that."
Draco's hand rested firmly on Alex's back as the child continued to sleep. With closed eyes, he rubbed the baby's back soothingly and turned his head away from Hermione to kiss the boy's head resting on his shoulder.
Hermione frowned at the damp sensation soaking her dress. Looking down, she groaned and hurriedly got off the couch and rushed into the kitchen and pulled out the breast pump from the cupboard.
"I can wake him if you'd like," Draco offered. "He should probably eat. He'll only cry for a second."
Hermione made a feeble attempt to stop the milk flow by sticking her forearm down the front of her dress while she looked at the clock, considering to feed Alex then instead of later. If she woke him now, he would sleep a bit longer during the night.
"Okay," Hermione called out to Draco and came rushing back into the living room and took Alex from him. Her baby whimpered and his pacifier dislodged from his mouth and he began to suck on air. Draco pulled down the stretchy sleeve of her dress along with her bra strap, and she wiggled her arm out of both and brought Alex to her breast.
"He's still asleep," Draco stated fondly. "His eyes hadn't even fluttered open for a peak and still he eats."
"Babies often dream of nursing. He probably thinks he's having a vivid one," Hermione guessed with a grin and brought her sleeping baby's fingers to her mouth and kissed each tiny one with tenderness.
"It's not just babies who dream of nursing, Granger," Draco drawled lecherously and waggled his eyebrows comically at her. He leaned over towards her and placed his lips close to her ear and whispered, "I want you again tonight."
Hermione quirked an eyebrow and pursed her lips in consideration. Kissing him lightly on the lips, she proposed, "I'm hungry, and I'm going to be positively famished when Alex is done. Fix me dinner, and I'll eat it off of you."
"Uh…" Draco chuckled out nervously. "Granger, I can't cook."
"Shame." Hermione shrugged. "I was going to do," she leaned over a little and whispered into his ear and then pulled back with an expectant expression.
"I might be able to make a sandwich," Draco said hopefully, a pinkish hue coloring his cheeks.
"No, I want grilled chicken and zesty lime rice with steamed vegetables," Hermione said bossily. "That sounds really good to me, and you should find everything you need in the kitchen."
"Merlin, talk to me like that again," he begged, his eyes dilating and hands digging into the defenseless cushion of the couch.
Hermione looked at him quizzically and asked, "Talk to you like what?"
"You know…like when we were in school. Remember how you used to talk to me and to anyone that defied you? Like that. Talk to me like that."
Hermione blinked, her mouth wide open in dubiety. "Y-You want me to… reprimand you?"
"Yes." Draco shook his head eagerly, a smile forming on his face. "Punish me. Yell at me. I'm bad, Granger. I don't know how to cook for you. Make me do it anyway."
Mouth still open, Hermione furrowed her brow and then a chuckling scoff escaped her lips. "Malfoy, are you suggesting trying something a little extra for this evening?"
"It'll be fun."
"What? Me yelling at you?"
"Not like you're truly angry with me. Just…tell me that I've been bad. You have role played before, haven't you?"
"I'm not answering that. And who knew you had a fetish? You like to be punished?"
"Only by lovely birds such as yourself, and let me tell you, Sweetheart, I have fantasied being disciplined by you since Fifth Year." Draco leered at her and licked his teeth and lips hungrily. "Do you still have your Hogwarts uniform?"
Flushing deeply, chastisement filled her tongue and she was about to unleash it but decided the insufferable man would only be encouraged by the act. Instead, she played along with the inevitable, an accepting smile on her lips. "I don't know, Malfoy, do you have yours?"
"Not with me, but…" He leapt to his feet, unsheathing his wand from his inner blazer pocket and waved it at his clothes. His attire began to shift and within seconds, he was standing before her in a Hogwarts Slytherin uniform completed with a perfectly pressed, white button up shirt that was topped with a green and silver tie. Hermione snorted at the Prefect badge above his heart. She held Alex closer to her and looked down at him lovingly and said to him with poorly disguised giggles, "Your father is ridiculous," and then kissed his forehead and switched him to her other breast before looking up to beam and a smirking Draco.
"How do I look?" he asked while turning around and gesturing to his attire.
"Like a twenty-three year old man in a Hogwarts uniform."
"I look bloody handsome, Granger. There's no need to deny my fetching self."
"I didn't deny that, Malfoy."
"Well, get going on putting on your uniform. I want to see you in it."
"I'm a little busy." She bobbed her chin in Alex's multitasking act of sleeping and suckling at the same time.
"When you're done then, I suppose."
"I'm still hungry, Malfoy, and you have not made my dinner yet," Hermione whined.
Draco lowered himself to his knees and pouted at her with a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "I don't know how to cook. Should I do it anyway, Miss Granger?"