Note, There is a lot of swearing on hermoine's part in this chapter.
This story is rated M, but i will warn everyone before there is content that not everyone might like :)
Sirius and I don't have the strength to move from our positions on the floor. He tells me all about his encounter with the mother of his future child, how she shot back any attempt he used to try and make it work and how she just wasn't looking at him for anything. "She doesn't want me to be a part of this child's life, Hermione. My child. My son." He starts crying again and I hold him tighter around the waist.
Nothing is going right anymore; for either of us. "You can't end up anywhere lower than rock bottom, Sirius." I tell him, "And we have been sat on the definition of rock bottom for a long time now, we have to be on our way up soon." I tell him, and I hope to Merlin that it is true.
"My son, Hermione." He moves so that he is resting his head against the wall, "I need to be a part of my son's life; I never wanted a child, Hermione, but now that I was so close to having one it feels like some sort of sick joke. It is like someone is trying to pay me back for everything that I have ever done wrong." His head lolls back against the grey painted walls and then he smacks the back roughly against the paper. I wince and pull on his arm so that he leans away from any sort of medium with which he could do permanent damage.
"Sirius, I will help you with anything you need to make this better for you, you can get a custody agreement so you can see your son," I tell him, gripping onto his left hand and squeezing it tightly.
He shakes his head, "That is not the point Hermione, I do not want to have to schedule an appointment to see my child; I want to be there through everything, the ups and the downs. I want to help choose his name and to watch as he takes his first steps, to hear him say his first words and teach him how to fly a broom. What sort of relationship would I have with my child if I got to see him for an hour on weekends?"
"Have you told her this?" I ask; it is not easy to see Sirius Black – the usually nonchalant man – so full of emotions. "Have you told her this?" I repeat when he doesn't answer.
"No, not in so many words," He tells me. He runs his hands through his hair, absentmindedly forgetting that he had it cut short, he palms his eyes and looks up at me through thick lashes with red rimmed eyes.
"What are you waiting for?" I ask, motioning to the floo, "Sirius, in her eyes you have changed only changed all the material things. You have not told her how much you want this! Money is not the most important thing in raising a child," I punch his arm lightly, standing up and hauling him into a standing position at the same time, "You can change your clothes and your hair, buy her toys and visit her, but how is she supposed to know that you are serious about this. How is she supposed to know how much you'll work for this if you don't tell her?"
"I didn't think that there was any point, she obviously doesn't–"
I cut him off, hands on my hips and doing the best impression I can of Molly Weasley; truly terrifying if I do say so myself! "Go, NOW! And tell her what you just told me!" I use my hands to shoo, "And don't come back until this is sorted! Or I'm going and neither of you will come out alive because you are both doing my head in!"
"You are mean!" He pouts, inching closer to me and further from the fireplace.
"NOW! My sort-of-guy Draco Malfoy thinks that I am dating you because of what you said, so I am losing my patience; I didn't ruin my relationship to end up just where we were. I will rip your balls off so this can't happen again if you return without some sort of agreement." I all but throw him into the floo, willing him to leave so that I can break down on the floor and start crying again.
My heart, though I have only been infatuated with Draco Malfoy for a very small amount of time, yearns for him. It feels like there is a knife inside my heart; cold as the steel of his eyes the last time that I saw him.
Every time I shut my eyes, I can see his face; feel his hate radiating through the space between us and squashing me flat. It freezes me in place and I can't seem to breath, and then I open my eyes again and the feeling is gone until they fall closed once more.
It's not like I haven't seen this emotion from him before, because I have. Countless times. But this time it is different, this time it is sad and lonely and pain vibrates through my body. Something is wrong. Nothing has ever hurt like this before.
I stumble to the toilet and I throw up; rather ungracefully. I heave, clutching onto the bowl and feeling my knees give out underneath me. Something is wrong.
I don't manage to get up again that night, so I pass the hours on the bathroom floor too weak to move. I drift in and out of dreams.
Finally, at around two thirty in the morning I feel my eyes start to droop.
The air around me is stale; you can taste the mustiness in the air as if no one has lived here for a long time. I wander round, black satin sheets line a bed so inviting; so soft.
I crawl in, my body sighs relieved at the sensation of falling into something so comforting; like an embrace. Sheets cocoon my body, caressing and folding over every angle. My eyes close with a flutter and then blackness overwhelms me... until I hear the crying.
I look over to the corner. A man lies there, hugging his knees to his chest and cradling his head between them. The sobs become earth shattering, heart wrenching, painful. I can't lie in wait anymore so I throw my feet to the ground and let the iciness from the stone shoot up my body and vibrate through my spine. Shivering, I take a tentative step.
Then another.
And again and again and again. Until I can feel the pain radiating off him in waves. My heart beats seamlessly with his staggered breaths. He hasn't appeared to have realise that he is no longer alone. My chest thumps with tension. Bending down, I allow one of my hands to push forwards tentatively and before I can even reach him, one of his hands shoots forwards and traps my wrist between pale, slender fingers.
Ice races through me, stabbing shards into my heart as I feel the pain he is experiencing, my breathing stops and my knees give until I crumple beside him leaning on my kneecaps.
Suddenly, his head moves. He tilts his neck back and our eyes meet. The truest silver stares back.
I'm retching over the bowl again, pulled suddenly from my dream I can't help but relieve the pain and the hate burning inside the boys eyes. Eyes so familiar in a face belonging to a stranger.
Monday morning I force my aching bones to get up. Adamantly refusing to give in and stay at home because of the obvious consequences – that Draco thinks I am avoiding him – I move slowly to the bathroom.
The vomiting stopped sometime yesterday, but the weakness in my limbs hasn't yet faded. I find a dress to wear and pull that over my head. For how retched I feel, the dress looks better than I had hoped.
The dark circles under my eyes, however, scream of sleepless nights and I fear that it is going to make me look bloody pathetic, but there is only so much concealing makeup can achieve (and unfortunately, my face is beyond the help of even the strongest magical products.) So I try and make myself look better by adding a bright lipstick. But nothing seems to be going right because the only thought that I have once I see the bright shade on myself is 'Slapper' and I have to quickly take it off.
Instead, I avoid heavy makeup and just stick to the foundation. So what if he sees me. He hates me now so I don't have to try and make myself look good. That boat sailed already, Granger! I remind myself and I pick up a bag and make my way to the floo. No doubt he has already realised that he was stupid to even consider kissing someone like me. He has probably receive a thousand offers – much better than anything that I could give - already.
I see him when I step out of the floo and he moves out of the adjacent one. I never really envisioned Draco Malfoy travelling to work by floo, I always assumed he was the fancy sports car type – or the fancy boom stick type, maybe even a horse drawn carriage (At least that is what he turned up in when he made a brief, yet bloody fantastic, entrance in one of my dreams), but not really the floo. Anyway, the point is that it is just a little odd to watch him dusting himself off and stepping out of the grate and onto the marble floor.
He doesn't see me. Until, that is, the next person falls out of the floo on top of me and causes rather a large commotion because I was still standing in the grate. "Mind the bloody way!"
"Sorry–" I stammer, flapping my arms and trying to maintain any balance that I can.
He grunts, "Move out of the way child!" After running a hand through his thinning hair and cursing rather rudely he then says, "Get out of the way, Girl!" and pushes his way around me. But I can't move, because Draco Sodding Malfoy is watching me. And he has identical looking bags to my own crawling under his eyes, and the same clammy look about him.
I hold my head high, reminding myself that I have done nothing wrong, and I march past. Moving to the lift and climbing into it. Draco Malfoy purposefully stands his ground in the lobby, refusing to move and get into the same lift as my own. The door clangs shut and I find that I am thankful for the lack of company.
The office is quite. Theodor Nott sits a few metres off to my left, head down and pen scratching in an annoying way that makes me want to curse him through the glass even though it would probably shatter and cause a right mess.
He hasn't looked at me; save for walking into my office unannounced to place a bundle of files on my desk. Not so much as a hello. I'm not surprised really.
I'm sure that is I see Blaise Zabini, Marcus Flint or Adrian Pucey somewhere in the Slytherin crowded halls of Malfoy's company building, they would ignore me too. Considering that they are Malfoy's best mates, I wouldn't expect anything less. But the point that all of this is a huge mistake and Malfoy is not willing to listen or trust me has me fuming.
I pick up a wad of files. The snake on my desk hisses as I run my finger over it accidently and I find myself sticking my tongue out at it – a picture on my desk; I just tried to annoy a picture by sticking my tongue out at it. Please someone tell me that I am not going mad, for I fear that Draco Malfoy has shoved me to the edge of insanity.
For the moment, I decide to forget about the possibility that I am going mad, and instead I stride determinedly towards the lifts. Fuck Draco Malfoy and his judgemental attitude. Fuck the fact that Draco Mafoy obviously does not want to see me right now.
Fuck everything, because I am pissed off and ready to lay my opinion on to him – quite violently it appears if the tension crawling through my body doesn't leave before I reach the door of his office.
There is no one sitting at the reception desk on my way into Draco Malfoy's office, so I proceed to twist the handle on his door and push it open.
And by god to I wish I hadn't.
He sits there, in his desk chair like nothing is going on the receptionist standing off to one side. I stand cowering in the doorway, watching as he looks at me and pulls his leggy blond receptionist in front of him. She sits on the edge, opening her legs as he runs his hands up her thighs. He turns to me smirking and pulls her hips closer to him and bending his head down he...
I don't watch any more. I can't. My chest hurts; my eyes water and I can't feel anything.
I shut the door and sink to the ground.
Fuck Draco Malfoy. Stupid bastard.
I want to kick and scream and throw everything I can because it is not fair. Not fucking fair at all. Judgemental hypocrite.
In hindsight this might seem a bit rash. But I have made up my mind before I even regain the strength to stand. I fly up to my office block and shove file upon file onto the floor. I throw pages and pages around, muttering a spell under my breath so they continue to fly around.
Pansy runs into the room, screaming, trying to catch pages as the hurricane sweeps around me. I throw my arms down to my side, all motion in the room stops. Pages flutter to rest and I smile. Relief flooding my body now that all energy has been expelled. "Tell him that he can fuck anyone he wants for all I care." I tell her, my things jump into a bag with a wave of my wand and I march to the door. "Tell him that he can fuck his job too."
"Hermione wait, you don't understand, he doesn't know what he is doing."
"He knows bloody well what he is doing, and if he can treat me so nicely one minute and then sleep with another girl the next, I don't even want to be in the same building as him."
"He's going through bad things right now, you can see it in his eyes, everyone can. Have a heart Hermione."
"What? So he can trash it again?" I smirk, walking to the door, "No thanks."
"He needs you; you don't know what this is going to do to him." I don't really understand what she means and right at this moment I don't really care.
"He made his bed, now he can lie in it."
Sorry for the short chapter, but i wrote loads last time and i will write more, but it has been a hectic week and i wanted to update at least a small amount this week. I will write again soon, i promise. Please leave a review as well, because it will motivate me to keep going :)Her decision to quit might seem a bit rash, but it is a needed element to the story, and i would have just had to drag it out for a few more chapter and no one wants to read ten thousand words on how depressing her work life has become!
So yeah, this means that the next ten thousand words can be uber important and much more interesting.
Please review :)