Author's Note: Hello again, Readers! As you can see, I survived my holiday. In fact, I'm lucky; we had beautiful weather for the time I was away. Since I got back, it's been all rainy and nasty. I shouldn't feel smug about this but I do! Anyway, enough about that and on to the chapter you've all be waiting so patiently for!

Thanks once more to arosesinnocence for her betaing skills. The amount of work she put into these first 3 chapters was phenomenal and the result is a much improved opening to the story. You guys have been pretty phenomenal too with your response to the first 2 chapters!

The Awful Truth

Hermione wasn't one to cry for long periods of time. If she had been, then she would never have recovered from her first awful couple of months at Hogwarts, and, if her initial isolation at Hogwarts didn't get her down, she certainly wasn't going to allow Draco Malfoy and his threats to stop her now. She realised that she was going to have to do what she never wanted to do: tell her friends exactly how she had become pregnant. Oh and tell them that she was pregnant in the first place.

She heaved herself off the sofa and washed the tears from her face. These hormones were going to be the death of her. She sat at her desk and pulled some parchment and a quill toward her. She debated for a brief while on whether she should tell Harry and Ginny and let them pass on the news to Ron. Ron was volatile at the best of times, and his temper when it came to Malfoy was never stable, but both Harry and Ron were her best friends, and she knew how hurtful it was when you were the one cut out. So, she penned a missive to both asking them to come over to her flat tomorrow evening for dinner. That would then give her twenty-four hours to prepare exactly what she was going to say to them, which wouldn't be easy.

Hermione cursed her luck once more. Why Malfoy of all people? Couldn't it have been a mix-up with another sperm donor, or someone who was willing to act as a sperm donor for this child and allow the clinic to pay for the next treatment for free? No, she had to get the world's biggest git as her child's father; one who didn't want to bury his tainted half-blood baby under the rug. She rubbed her forehead; maybe he would see reason once he spoke to his father. She couldn't imagine that Lucius Malfoy would be at all happy at the inclusion of a non-pureblood baby into the Malfoy family tree.

Hermione couldn't help but feel a little curious that Malfoy was seeking fertility treatment. She had always thought the pureblood inbreeding would end up coming to bite them on the backside. The gene pool for pureblood witches and wizards was too narrow these days. Even blood traitors like the Weasleys were related to the majority of the blood supremacist families. The emphasis on keeping your line pure couldn't continue for much longer without severe consequences to the children, and it seemed that, in Malfoy's case, it meant that he was struggling to conceive a child. She tried not to snigger at this but couldn't help it. She felt mean afterwards, but really - Malfoy, the boy who had been so arrogant about his magical heritage, needed Muggle-developed technology to keep his so-very-pure bloodlines going. It was amusing when you looked at it that way.

She hadn't paid too much attention to the Malfoys after their trial after the war. She was annoyed at the injustice of them avoiding prison. She could forgive Narcissa Malfoy not going to prison. She lied to Voldemort and gave Harry the opportunity to catch the psychopath unaware and kill him, but, in her opinion, Lucius and Draco Malfoy certainly deserved a stint in Azkaban. Draco pleaded that he was under duress when he became a Death Eater. Unfortunately, he had a point. He was ordered to kill Dumbledore, and his family would have been killed if he failed. However, she couldn't have imagined the sixteen-year-old swaggering little prat refusing the Dark Mark anyway. He probably considered it a big honour. As for Lucius, how the Wizengamot believed that he 'defected to the other side' during the final battle was beyond her. Hook, line, and sinker, they swallowed his excuses about not wanting to defect earlier due to concerns about his wife and child. Harry had stressed to Hermione that it was true; Voldemort invited himself to Malfoy Manor and took Lucius' wand in punishment and she knew she should believe this because it came from Harry, but she couldn't help but be sceptical. She found it hard to believe that it hadn't been a big honour for the Malfoys to have Voldemort based at their house. Harry insisted Lucius was telling the truth, and Hermione sat in disbelief as many were swayed by Lucius' emotional pleas.

The Malfoys kept out of the limelight for a while, but Hermione saw the small article in the Daily Prophet that covered Draco Malfoy's wedding to Astoria Greengrass. There was a picture accompanying the piece and she giggled at the stiffness in their solemn pose, although Astoria's smile had been reminiscent to the cat that caught the canary. She hadn't given the married couple another thought until Malfoy barged through Sebastian De Braun's door this morning. Now all she could think was that there was no way such a po-faced couple were going near her little Iris.

Draco arrived home, exhausted. As soon as he discovered who the mother of his child was, he knew that he faced a battle. He walked through Malfoy Manor and straight to the library where he knew his father would be. His father was sitting behind his desk, looking through his papers. He didn't bother raising his head as his only child walked through the door. "Well?" he asked.

Draco wasn't too sure how to explain the situation to his father. On the one hand, he was desperate for the Malfoy line to continue. Usually, Malfoys made sure they gained an heir early on in their marriage, preferably conceiving a baby in the first year of marriage. Draco was now nearing thirty, had been married since he was twenty-three, and there was no sign of a baby on the horizon. "It's more complicated than I thought," he replied.

"Can we buy her off?" Lucius responded.

Draco snorted. "Not this woman. She has iron-clad morals."

His father looked up at this with a vaguely concerned expression. "Who is it?"

He wasn't sure how to break this news to his father. Lucius had never been a fan of the 'Granger girl'. He berated Draco constantly for allowing her to beat him in exams while they were at school. Lucius didn't understand how a Mudblood could be so intelligent and gifted when it came to magic. He decided there was no way to sugar coat this. "It's Granger."

His father smirked a little at that. "Draco, I hardly think now is the time to make jokes."

"I'm not joking, father. It's Granger. She's carrying the next Malfoy heir," he said seriously.

Lucius gulped and headed towards the cabinet where he kept some alcohol. He poured two glasses. "Well, this just got interesting," Lucius remarked.

Draco scoffed. Interesting didn't even begin to cover it.

"So what did she say?" Lucius asked.

"She hoped that I would be happy to walk away because the child will be a half-blood."

Lucius grimaced slightly. A half-blood heir hadn't been in his reckoning. "Hmm … it's not ideal. But a half-blood heir is better than no heir. We could always put Astoria in confinement for nine-months and pretend it is a pureblood."

"Not if it inherits Granger's hair we can't. Besides, I doubt she'll disappear quietly."

"Well, a half-blood child could come in handy. There are still many who are suspicious about our motives. Times are changing, and a tainted child would cement the Malfoy family into the fabric of the new society."

"It would be a hard sell amongst the pureblood circles."

Lucius scoffed. "I'm not afraid of the pureblood families. Most of them owe us money, and I have too much dirt on them all."

He bowed to his father's superior knowledge of how to navigate pureblood politics. He'd done it successfully for most of his life, apart from the two years where they were ridiculed and mocked by the Dark Lord. "She's adamant that I will play no part in this child's life."

"Can her husband be bought off? Surely he won't want to raise another man's child."

"This is where it gets a little easier for us," Draco informed his father. "Granger isn't married, isn't in any committed relationship, and was at the clinic to be impregnated by sperm donation."

Lucius smiled. "Now, that does even the field a little more for us."

"Yes, I was thinking that we should keep Astoria around until the court case plays out. That way I can present our marriage as a happy one that can provide a stable and loving relationship with two parents," he said.

"Hmm … it's a good plan, Draco, but I'd rather our names weren't splashed all over the Daily Prophet, which will happen if this goes to court. We don't want the world to think that we have fertility problems," Lucius commented.

"If?" he remarked. "This is Granger. She's hardly going to just hand the baby over and disappear back to whichever rock she crawled out from under."

"No, I know that. She's a Gryffindor and Potter's little friend. She'll be more difficult to shake off than a leech, but I'd like to try a different tactic first. I think you should try and get close to her and charm her into handing the baby over."

Draco couldn't help the laughter that escaped his mouth. "Are you insane? She'll never fall for that."

"Give it a go, Draco. We need to try and keep this as secret as possible. Whilst you do that, I'll contact Horatio and start working on a case against her. If anything, this will bide us some time," Lucius said.

He smirked at his father's devious nature. He wasn't deluded enough to think that he would be able to get the baby off Granger without a fight, but it would give them time to build a case. Horatio Devereux could make things happen that other legal representatives couldn't. The Devereuxs were the Malfoys' lawyers for as long as anyone could remember. How he managed to keep Lucius out of Azkaban was beyond Draco. Lucius received just a year's probation. If anyone could get him this child, it would be Horatio.

Hermione was set up for her revelation dinner, as she was calling it. In order to quell any rash behaviour, she cooked Ron's favourite main course, cottage pie, and Harry's favourite dessert, treacle tart. Thankfully, Ginny and Luna would also be present, and they were experts at keeping their headstrong husbands in line.

She couldn't remember a time when she had been so nervous about telling Harry and Ron something. She heard the whooshing sound of her fireplace. She took some deep calming breaths before walking through her flat into her living room.

So far everything was going to plan. Harry and Ron were in sparkling form, and the food had gone down well. Hermione was making the coffee in the kitchen to serve with dessert. Her stomach was a mass of knots, and her hands were shaking, which was not a good thing when handling scalding hot water. She knew that she needed to blurt it out, but that was easier said than done. The disappointment and confusion from her friends was something that she wasn't looking forward to. They wouldn't understand her desire for a child without a significant other.

"You can do it," Hermione muttered to herself and then swore as she managed to drop the cafetiere, sprinkling broken glass and coffee granules around the kitchen.

"What is it you can do? Because apparently you can't make coffee," Ginny remarked, coming into the room.

"Ha ha!" Hermione replied before swishing her wand, repairing her cafetiere and sweeping the scattered coffee granules into the bin.

"So, are you going to tell me why you're so jumpy tonight?"

"I'm not jumpy," she objected.

"Of course you aren't. That's why you can't make a simple cup of coffee," Ginny commented. "Why do I get the feeling that it's something rather big? You've been anxious all evening."

"No, I haven't," she protested.

Ginny just gave her a look that said 'you can't fool me.'

Hermione sighed. "Fine, I've got some news, and it's not good."

"Sit down before you break anything else," Ginny said, eyeing Hermione's shaking hands and took over the task Hermione had been attempting to complete, refilling the cafetiere with fresh ground coffee and adding a cup of herbal tea for her. "Is it to do with your holiday fling? Did he give you some sort of disease?"

Hermione looked at Ginny and burst into laughter. "Really, Ginny, I think I know how to look after my health." Halfway through her laughter, Hermione started to cry.

Ginny looked alarmed Hermione didn't cry – ever.

"Here, sit down," she said, guiding Hermione to one of the stools by the breakfast bar. She grabbed some kitchen roll and gave it to her to wipe her tears.

"Sorry," Hermione said. "I don't know what's come over me. I just feel so emotional at the moment."

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're pregnant. The hormones are a bitch like that."

Her horrified expression made Ginny stop. "Merlin's beard! That's it, isn't it? You're pregnant?" She couldn't do much else but just nod in agreement. "The cad! Have you even got any details to let him know?"

This was exactly what Hermione had hoped for had her plan gone the way it was meant to. She could palm the pregnancy off as due to some unusual reckless behaviour, and the father as a toe-rag who'd left her high and dry, but now she had some difficult explaining to do. "Let's take the coffee and tart through. I'll explain it all when we're sitting down."

"Hang on; let me add a camomile tea for you. Caffeine isn't good for the baby and doubly so with the state that you're in."

They took the things through to Hermione's dining room where she made sure she piled Harry and Ron's plates with large portions of treacle tart before sitting down, and toying with her own slice.

She took a deep breath. It was now or never. "I've got something to tell you," she started. "I would really appreciate it if you heard me out before jumping in. It's not something I ever wanted to tell you and you're going to think I'm crazy, but please just listen then scream at me when I've finished."

Everyone stopped and stared at her, and she felt even more nervous. The bundle of nerves in her stomach wasn't getting better, and the morning sickness wasn't helping. She was close to vomiting from the sheer stress of the situation. She decided the only way she was going to get this out was to close her eyes and just say it. "I wasn't really in Switzerland for a skiing holiday, and I didn't have a fling with a Frenchman called Thibault. Instead, I went to a fertility clinic for artificial insemination using their sperm donor programme."

Hermione heard the shocked gasps from her friends, but she knew she wouldn't continue if she opened her eyes to gauge their reactions. "Anyway, I found out several weeks ago that I'm pregnant."

"You're pregnant?!" Ron exclaimed.

She opened her eyes in annoyance and saw the amazed and shocked expressions of her friends. "Please, Ron, this isn't the end of the story."

"Hang on, what could possibly be left?"

"The worst part of the whole situation. The first bit went to plan. I was going to say that I was pregnant due to my holiday fling."

Ginny snorted at that. "I can't believe you were going to lie to us about this."

Hermione put her head into her hands. "It's not as if I wanted to, but I didn't think you'd understand."

"You're right, I don't understand. If you want a child so much then why don't you try dating someone? It's been years since you last had a boyfriend," Ron said.

"It's not as simple as that. There's no one out there who I want to date. I wish there was, but I don't feel enthusiastic about any man, and I'm not going to settle into a relationship solely for a child. I'd rather be a single parent than have a rocky relationship with someone and have a child in the middle of that."

"But Hermione, you haven't even tried dating anyone recently," Harry said, bemused.

"I swore after Anthony that I wouldn't date until I was excited by them. Everyone you've introduced me to has left me feeling lukewarm."

"You're too fussy, that's your problem," Ron scolded.

"Shush, Ron. Hermione's right to wait for someone she's passionate about," Luna said. Hermione smiled gratefully at the former Ravenclaw. Luna was the only one who wasn't giving her judging looks. Then again, Luna was unconventional. She was less likely to be shocked by these things.

"So who is the sperm donor?" Ginny asked, bringing the conversation back on track.

"They are anonymous. I picked someone with a high IQ and good N.E.W.T. scores. He works as a Healer now. However, earlier this week, I received a letter saying there was an error in my records. I scheduled an appointment with the head of the facility two days ago, and it turns out there was a mix-up with the samples in the laboratory. The father of my child isn't the sperm donor I picked," she said in a rush.

Ginny starting giggling and everyone looked at her in shock. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just don't think I take anymore of this. First, Hermione feels the need to go to a clinic for a baby, and then that clinic screws it all up."

"You won't be laughing when you find out who the father is," Hermione said darkly.

That got everyone's attention. She stared at the rapt faces in front of her before dropping her eyes to her untouched dessert. "So, as I was saying, there was a mistake in the laboratory and my sperm was mixed up with another couple's sperm, and the result is that I am now carrying Draco Malfoy's child."

Silence greeted this proclamation. Absolutely nothing was said for a good few minutes. Hermione was now wringing her hands waiting for the inevitable explosion. "Well, congratulations, Hermione. I, for one, am very excited about the new addition. It's going to be so nice now you will have a child too," Luna said.

Ron looked at his wife in disbelief. "How can you say congratulations? This isn't a happy event; it's a bloody farce."

"Ron!" Luna exclaimed.

"Don't Ron me! It is. Hermione's gone nuts and is now pregnant with the spawn of a Death Eater."

Hermione's over-wrought nerves gave way, and she burst into tears, fleeing upstairs to her bedroom. The last few days had caught up with her, and she wanted nothing more than to bury her head under her pillow and not come out again. She heard the sound of feet coming upstairs and she cringed further into her bedding.

"Hermione," Harry called out softly. She felt the bed dip as he sat down beside her and a hand stroked her back. "You know what Ron's like. He didn't mean it to come out as harshly as it did."

"But he's right. I completely messed this up. How could this happen to me, and with Draco Malfoy of all people?"

"Hey, it's not your fault. It's the clinic that messed up. It's not as if you thought this outcome would be possible."

"It's ridiculous. And when this goes to court and gets splashed all over the media, everyone is going to laugh at me. I'm the know-it-all bookworm who can't keep a man and has to resort to sperm donation to get a baby," she bawled.

"If anyone comments on this, then they'll find themselves on the sharp end of Ginny's Bat Bogey Hex. But why would this go to court?"

She sat up and wiped her eyes. "Malfoy barged into my meeting at the clinic. Instead of being normal and happy to sweep his potential half-blood child under the rug, he's demanding that he has rights to the child."

He looked at her nonplussed. "You mean he actually wants to claim this child?"

She nodded, a couple of tears slipping down her cheeks. "I thought he'd try and convince me to have an abortion, but he's talking about taking me to court so he can see the child."

"I'm sure it will come to nothing. I mean, Lucius will never stand for Malfoy acknowledging a half-blood baby. Although you probably need to be careful when outside, I wouldn't put it past the Malfoys to try and hex you so you accidentally lose the baby."

Hermione looked horrified and clutched her stomach protectively. He realised what he said. "Sorry, I should have phrased that a lot better. Don't worry; I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

"I can't lose this baby now, Harry. I couldn't stand having to go through something like this again. The emotional upheaval would kill me."

Harry just kissed her on the head. "I've got your back, okay? If Malfoy wants to make this a fight, then he'll soon realise that he isn't just taking on you, but Ron and I too.

She smiled weakly at him. "Thanks so much. Do you think the others will mind if I don't go back downstairs? I just want to sleep. The first trimester is really tiring and I've had a rough couple of days."

"You go to sleep, Hermione. We'll clean up downstairs and I want you to put that brain of yours to bed too. Don't lie awake analysing this endlessly."

Harry slowly walked back downstairs to his waiting friends. He was struggling to get his head around this whole situation. Life was never simple for Hermione. He walked back into the dining room. "How's she doing?" Ginny asked.

"She's okay. Tired and emotional, but she'll be all right. I reassured her that we're right behind her."

"I can't believe she's carrying Malfoy's baby," Ron said for about the fiftieth time.

"She told me that he's threatening her with court if she doesn't allow him access to the baby."

Ginny gasped. "But he won't want to acknowledge the baby. Hermione's a Muggle-born. The Malfoys pride themselves on their bloodlines."

"It appears that isn't the case. I wouldn't put it past him to try to stress her into a miscarriage."

"Or maybe he wants a child as much as Hermione does," Luna suggested fairly.

Ron scowled. "This is Malfoy. What does he want with Hermione's baby? He's married, isn't he?"

Ginny nodded. "To Daphne Greengrass' sister."

"Well, they are obviously struggling to conceive if they were seeking help from a fertility clinic," Luna pointed out.

Ron and Harry both burst into laughter. Ginny rolled her eyes, typical men, judging their masculinity on being able to get women pregnant. "I blame us for this whole situation."

"What did we do?" Ron asked confused.

"We've let Hermione bury herself in work. She hasn't dated anyone seriously for far too long. Instead, we've allowed her to become some kind of glorified aunt," Ginny growled.

"I object to that. You and mum have been bugging Hermione to death about the whole dating thing. If anything you've pushed her so hard she's run in the opposite direction," Ron complained.

At least I've been trying - you and Harry are awful. You've happily sat on the sidelines and watched her be lonely because no man is good enough for her in your eyes," Ginny snapped.

"Hey, that's not fair. I would love to see Hermione happy, but I'm not going to badger her into relationships. Besides, it's obviously not worked when you have done it."

"At least I'm trying, which is more than I can say for you!" Ginny yelled.

Harry patted his outraged wife's knee. "Sweetheart, getting your blood pressure up this high isn't good for the baby. Anyway, all this arguing about what we could have done to prevent this situation isn't going to change the fact that Hermione is in this predicament. "

Ginny muttered something about patronising men but Harry ignored her. "We've got to make sure we keep an eye on what Malfoy is planning. It won't be good. He'll try to bully Hermione into giving him this baby."

"The ferret will find that he has to get through us in order to touch our Hermione," Ron said martially.

AN: I want to give you all a heads up. As some of you know, I've been having a lot of trouble writing the next few chapters of this story. I've been severely blocked and have been whining and moaning like Draco after Buckbeak gave him a much needed lesson in manners in POA. I'm hoping at some point it starts to flow (I had similar trouble at the beginning of And We All Fall Down and have just posted chapter 21!) but until I reach that stage, updates are going to be scarcer than my usual once a week. I will really try my hardest to keep giving you weekly updates, but I just wanted to let you know that it might become less than that unless I get some much needed inspiration soon. But I have no plans to put this story on hiatus or abandon it!

Anyway, please let me know what you think of the chapter. I know I say this all the time, but your views, comments etc really do help me write and right now, I need all the help I can get!