Blaise felt her warm breath tickle his chin and swallowed insecurely and hoarsely said, "I don't think-"
"Me neither," she interjected placed her lips on his.
"Hmmph," he said into her mouth and moved his arms away from her form with his fingers spread out, not wanting to touch her. Well, he wouldn't say he loathed the idea of touching her. He just…Bloody hell, he hadn't even really thought about it…ever. He wasn't like one of those daft creeps in the Slytherin pit who fantasized about all the different ways of removing the stick from Granger's arse. When he saw her on Friday, he didn't think about touching her then, either. Or kissing her. Or doing anything remotely intimate with her.
"You're a really bad kisser," Hermione mumbled into his mouth and then completely removed her lips from his with a disappointed frown.
Blaise snarled at her and said, "I've never had any complaints."
"You just did." She maneuvered over him, uncaring that she was digging her knees into his legs and hands into his stomach so she could sit adjacently upon him to glower down at him properly.
"You weren't that spectacular either," he replied honestly. "Besides, I didn't even want to kiss you. You just attacked me. I should have listened to you when you said you do foolish things when drunk."
"Yes, you should have, and what do you mean you don't want to kiss me?"
"I'm not going to argue with you. You're not in your right mind, so why don't you go to bed and hope you can't remember this in the morning."
Her glare softened into a sleepy expression, and he could tell she was having trouble focusing on him. A yawn escaped her lips and then she smacked them lips together and grimaced like she was finally determining that butterbeer and vodka was, indeed, revolting. She then slumped to the side, pressing her shoulder into the cushion, her eyes fluttering closed. She whispered, "I didn't want to kiss you either."
"But you did," Blaise said in a perplexed tone.
One of Hermione's eyes slightly opened. "It's not you I want to kiss, no offense. I just thought you would do for the moment." She went to climb off of him but lost her balance and fell to the floor with an 'oomph' and a thunk, groaning in pain. Blaise sat up straightly and went to help with an offered hand which she batted away and got on all fours and carefully rose up straightly with her arms out for balance.
"Do you need help?" asked Blaise.
"No," she snorted unattractively and zig-zagged her way towards the hallway and disappeared behind the corner. A few moments later, Blaise heard a door open and then close, indicating that Hermione was done for the night.
He relaxed his neck muscles and let his head fall back against the couch cushion and absentmindedly prodded his lips with his thumb. They were still wet, and curiously, he licked them and got a hint of the vodka and butterbeer.
Yep, it truly was vile.
He took the collar of his shirt and wiped his lips and thought that he had just experienced the worst kiss of his life which was saying something. His first kiss had been nightmarish. Fifteen years old, he had been and was kissing the prettiest girl in school—Daphne. Neither of them knew what they were doing. He had been too proud to ask his fellow vipers for pointers on how to kiss a girl because most of them had already done it and that would have been embarrassing, so he consulted Play Wizard for assistance, unknowing of the number one rule concerning first kisses—Keep It Simple, Sod!
Thinking about it, Blaise wondered where Daphne got her information on how first kisses should go. Wherever she had gotten it from, it hadn't been good for either of them. According to Pansy, using tongue was a privilege not a right. If not used properly, the right should be stripped from the kisser(s).
Blaise was relieved Hermione had kept her tongue out of the brief equation, but her lips had been wet and sloppy enough due to her drunken state. In all honesty, though, that was not the entire reason the kiss had been terrible. Plenty of times he had been on the receiving end of awkward snogs. No matter, he simply detached himself from the female and tried again. The reason Blaise was going to hate himself in the morning was due to the present circumstances. When he, Draco, and Theo had been practically lads—at the age of liking girls—an oath was made between them. They had been thirteen and huddled together in the Slytherin Common Room, promising each other that neither of them would pine after each other's current or former bints. He and his friends honored that trust for a whole two years.
Since First Year and up until the Yule Ball, Draco and Pansy had always been labeled "unofficially official." Everyone knew the two would hump each other someday once they figured out how. However, knowing all that did not stop Blaise from stealing a snog from Pansy whilst she was "official" with Draco in Fifth Year. At the time, Blaise technically had been with Daphne. When she found out, she broke things off with him, and Theo found his poor soddin' self in her clutches. Since then, he managed to escape from her talons a few times, but she always found him and him and dragged him back. Two years ago, she coerced him into an engagement. They have yet to marry.
The point was, though, Blaise didn't usually feel all that shameful when gettin' cozy with his mates' women, but he had his limits. If the girl was truly that special to his friend, he kept away. Hermione was that kind of special. She had been Draco's bint, and he wasn't going to mess with that. Not that he wanted to. Regardless of his mate's death and of Hermione's physical attractiveness, Blaise did not imagine her as a potential candidate for companionship.
Done with his musings, Blaise got up from the couch and walked to this room, dimming the lights in his wake.
The time was nearly eleven, and Pansy needed to return home. She turned her focus from her the clock on the wall and looked at Narcissa, who hadn't made a sound in the last ten minutes. The woman sat rigid in her chair, staring at her barely touched tea, a pronounced scowl adorned on lips.
"I understand this is a bit much to take in, and we can talk more about this tomorrow or anytime, but it's getting late. You probably need time to…absorb."
Pansy stood up from the table to leave, but the older witch stopped her by asking in a hallow voice, "Were you told the gender of the child?"
Pausing before answering, Pansy replied, "I was."
"And?" Narcissa croaked.
The younger witch stepped away from her chair and smoothed out the wrinkles in her robe, smiling painfully. "Are you sure you want to know? It won't do anything but upset you further, Mrs. Malfoy."
"I'd like to know," Narcissa stated flatly, her gaze still fixed on her teacup.
Pansy nodded, her eyes soft. "It was a girl."
The younger woman left, and Narcissa was unaware of how long she sat there alone in the Yellow Tea Room, dwelling upon what was revealed of her son and Miss Granger.
This was horrifyingly tragic. The girl had gotten pregnant again and lost the baby. It had certainly not been a typical miscarriage like Narcissa experienced herself three times before Draco was born. Those times she hadn't even known she was pregnant until the pain and blood, only being two-in-a-half to three months along. Though the physical pain had been agonizing, the emotional loss had been unbearable. Narcissa could not imagine what it would have been like for Hermione to lose a child not terribly far away from birth. To have the belly swell and to feel the movement of kicks and twirls of life inside of her and to know she was having a little girl and then having all that ripped out of her by an absurd mistake.
Narcissa disliked Hermione. Nothing Pansy said made a difference, but the older witch was not heartless nor was she stupid. Miss Granger had been repetitively dealt with malignant cards and forced to play a hopeless game. She saw the worst in people and felt threatened around anyone who could alter her world or impose upon her family. Perhaps the girl was suffering from the past traumas.
The practicality in Narcissa's musings vanished when she no longer wanted to dwell on Hermione but on Draco. Oh, Merlin, he was devastated when finding out about the baby according to Pansy. He had to have been distraught. How had she not noticed?
Narcissa tried to remember her son ever showing an inkling of anger around three years ago and then sighed. Yes, she did. She recalled a memory that happened a few days before the New Year of 2008. Goodness, it happened the day after Pansy's visit to Draco's flat.
December 28, 2007
Narcissa Apparated inside her son's flat and thinned her lips at the shambling mess greeting her. Pieces of broken vases, splintered picture frames, shredded portraits, torn parchment and shards of glass littered the entire floor of the sitting room. Carefully, she walked towards the hallway and saw that the floor down to Draco's room was in the same state.
"Draco," she called to him worriedly. "Is everything alright?"
She heard a faraway sound of glass hitting a hard surface and shattering from behind her. Turning around, she looked at the door of her son's office.
"Draco," she called for him again and instead of hopping over the catastrophe on the floor, waved her wand to clear a path. Gripping the door knob, she turned it and stepped inside the unlit room. Blinking to adjust her vision, she saw her son face down on his desk with an empty glass bottle.
"Leave," he groaned at her, his demand muffled by the wood surface of the desk.
"What on earth, Draco?!" exclaimed Narcissa and pointed her wand at the windows to draw back the blinds and curtains to let some of the outside light shine through. Her boy lifted up his head to glare at her, and she saw that his hair was unwashed and in disarray, his clothes rumpled and his usually handsome face gaunt and watery-eyed.
"Leave," he repeated gruffly.
Appalled by her son's inconsiderate attitude and lack of physical and verbal decency, she balked, "Excuse me? What did you say?"
"You heard me!"
"Draco Malfoy, you will not speak to me in such a manner. I am your mother. Do you need a reminder of that? I still know the Auris Pugilatu Hex very well, and you are not too old for bruised ears, young man! Is that clear?!"
Turning his glare on her, he muttered, "Crystal."
"Now you tell me what the matter is this very instant! You're flat is obscene! Have you no respect for you belongings?!"
Her son snarled at her and she gripped her wand, readying to cast that Ear Boxing Hex. He said gravely, "I had a not so enjoyable time in Brittany, Mum. Francois backed out again. He placed his blasted signature and every bloody line except for the final one. I go over there and," Draco paused and looked away from her like he was ashamed, "he bleedin' tells me that it's over. He's not signing. He's keeping the acreage in the family. All of a sudden his niece wants the land and wants to build an effing house on it. Can you believe that?!"
At a loss for words, Narcissa cocked both eyebrows and gingerly sat down in the seat across from him and said, "That is not something to boohoo over, Draco. Look at this place. You had a tantrum like you were a child, again. So the agreement went sour and Mr. Francois changed his mind? It's not dreadful. The company will not be affected by this at all. The only ones who need to be upset are the ones promised employment in Brittany, but they will find employment other places. We have plantations being built annually." Draco snorted in response and Narcissa cocked her head to the side in inquisitively. "Is this really about Mr. Francois's change of mind, or is this about something else?"
Her son glared down at his desk. "What else could it be about? Everything was going soddin' perfect. I almost had him. I was this close." He pushed his hand towards her so she could see his thumb and forefinger parallel to each other with an inch between them. "This. Close. And everything had to go wrong. Everything! I really wanted…" Her son sucked in a sharp, resolute breath, "that land and everything it could've provided."
"I admit, the land was divine. It would have made a great spot for the natural medicine plantation, but we'll find another one just as good, if not better."
"There is nothing better," her son whispered and shook his head. "Nothing."
"Sweetheart, what is this really about?" she asked knowingly.
"About Francois," he clipped and leaned back in his chair and asked, "Why are you here, Mum?"
Letting the situation go, Narcissa jumped on the subject change, remembering as to why she was visiting. "I wanted to remind you of the annual New Year ball at home."
"Yes, because I would naturally forget that," he drawled in bitter sarcasm and then flinched and hissed while cupping his right ear. "Ow! Sorry, sorry!"
"You better be," she waggled her wand at him warningly. "You will be there, and you will be out of this soiled state of sullenness over a silly unfinished contract. Furthermore, look your best. Like I've been saying for years, it's time you have found a wife. You are twenty-seven years old, and all the respectable witches of good-breeding are being snatched up. Unless you want to marry a Hogwarts or Beauxbaton graduate, I suggest you retire you bachelorism and settle down. You're father agrees. We want grandbabies, darling. Do you have any idea how difficult it is for me to go over to the Parkinson Estate and hear that woman ramble on and on about her four grandchildren? I don't have one."
Unperturbed and eerily stoic, Draco merely stared at her while saying, "All in good time, Mother."
"No, Draco, now. What kind of respectable man of twenty-seven has yet to marry?"
"Blaise isn't married. Nor is Theo."
"They are not respectable. They are jokes, and I will no longer have you philandering and carousing about. You did it when you were young, but you aren't anymore."
"I still have time. I'm not some old codger on the brink of toppling over and cracking my brittle bones. I will not be coerced into the courting world." He stood up and briskly walked out of the office, leaving his mother alone.
Present Day
Narcissa walked the hallways of the manor, ignoring the silent pleas of the portraits. Lucius and she casted a Silencing Charm on all the portraits since the news broke out about Alex. Their yammering of questions was driving her and husband spare.
While quietly slipping into her and Lucius' bedroom, an ache of loss echoed in her body. She could not help but yearn for the granddaughter lost. Narcissa would have liked to have had a little girl running about in the manor in floral pink dresses and shiny Mary Jane shoes that clicked and clacked on the marble flooring. If the little child had lived, she would have been two and still small enough to be considered a baby.
Dwelling on the what-ifs of this depressing circumstance was not going to ease Narcissa's state of feeling cheated from another grandchild, but she had to wonder what the little girl would have looked like. From Blaise's description, Alex was almost identical to Draco. Would the little girl have had similar features? Or would she have had more of her mother's look? Perhaps a mixture of both. That would be lovely. Flowing blonde hair with brown eyes and a pension for trouble.
Sniffling, she climbed in to bed once donned in her nightdress and slid underneath the covers.
"What's the matter, darling? What did Pansy have to say?" her husband asked with a sleep-laced voice.
"I'll tell you later," she said to him. "Let's rest for tomorrow. You're right. Tomorrow is going to be a nightmare."
A/N: Thank you to all my readers, reviewers, followers, and those who put this fic on their favorite list.
Thank you to: hkmac, Kar-Kar93, Vaneesa85, Noctuas, Angelus Draco, aline290, Anna122, Andykins, Guest, BeWhoYouAre99, Musette Fujiwara, Aya Diefair, ladybug45, and yuki-chan25 for the reviews.
I got some questions and concerns about some things. Yes, Hermione only had one miscarriage. The argument at Easter was about the miscarriage and jealousy and what not. More details will be told in later chapters, of course.
I also got some questions about how could I hurt Hermione by making her lose a baby. In truth when I started writing this, I almost considered Hermione having two children: Alex and a little girl. I changed my mind and only did Alex and thought about doing a miscarriage. I debated that while writing the first however many chapters until I decided to throw it into the mix because I thought of it to be tragic enough to put a void between Draco and Hermione. I wanted something horrible enough to happen where kisses and touches of our cute Slytherin boy wasn't going to be enough to fix the problem. I'm sick, I know. But I'm okay with that.
Anyway, I hope the chapter was enjoyable. I know it was kind of filler-ish but the good stuff cometh, I promise.