The world stopped spinning and pulling at her almost as soon as it began. Hermione fell on her hands and knees to dirty cobblestones beneath her. The dizziness and nausea that accompanied apparition overtook her and she heaved the remnants of her breakfast onto the street.
She shook almost involuntarily from the exertion for a minute as the cold wind whipped around her. She steeled her resolve and pushed herself back onto her heels, looking around at her surroundings for a moment.
A dull, dreary town with symmetrical houses peeked out from the chasm of the street she crouched in. The sky, darkening moment by moment.
A leather gloved hand reached down and extended her a square bit of stained handkerchief. She pulled it out of said hand and set to wiping her mouth. When she was finished she stood on shaky legs and faced her captor.
"You could have warned me," she began. Then, glancing down to her stomach,"I am obviously in no state to apparate."
No response.
"How were you able to apparate without a wand?,"
Slowly, Scabior reached into the inside of his jacket. A hidden pocket. He removed his wand and held it up to her.
"Follow me." He turned on his heel and began walking. After a few steps, realizing she wasn't behind him, he turned.
"I don't 'ave all day!"
Hermione glared at him. Just then a loud crack of thunder rang out and a millisecond later lighting danced across the sky.
"Fine!"
She walked slowly over to him, afraid any more jostling would upset her stomach more. They resumed walking and she moved behind him, following him, looking at the numerous rows of identical houses.
"Where are we?," she asked.
"Near mine," he responded, flatly.
"Yes, I've figured that out, but where are we?"
He stopped and turned to her. Her breath caught for a moment as she remembered him that first day in the forest when they'd captured her and Harry and Ron. Ron.
The line of his mouth twitched a little and he narrowed his eyes, but he responded.
"Cokeworth."
"They'll come for me. I'm sure they can find where you live."
"Not this place, they won't."
Then they were walking again. Another peal of thunder startled her and then the rain began. She hurried behind him.
The rain intensified as they approached one of the buildings, 2-1-B & C. He unceremoniously pushed open the heavy door and held it. Hermione met his eyes for a moment, those same steely blue-grey eyes, and he must have been able to read her mind. She was debating going inside. She could punch him in the stomach and make a run for it, but doubted she'd get far. She could go upstairs but then she'd be at his mercy. He seemed to sense this and without a word he held out his hand to her.
"Let's get out of that rain, yeah?"
She looked at him one more time, not sensing malice in his eyes and took his hand, allowing him to help her over the threshold and into the house. Now the stairs. As she climbed she wondered at how breathless her pregnancy was making her.
'Well yes, I suppose someone is pressing on your insides a little.'
The thought stopped her dead in her tracks.
Someone. Someone who would soon become a little living person.
'That's right…because…I'm….I'm pregnant…'
She felt her knees give way once more and her head spin until it turned off.
"Oi, now-!," Scabior let out some sort of sounds, trying to form words, as she sunk backwards against him on the stairs.
After the initial shock had worn off, in an instant he had lifted her, a hand behind her shoulders and one under her legs, and carried her the rest of the way.
Once he'd managed with the door to his flat at the top of the stairs (which was not easy with a fully grown human in your arms), he moved inside, setting her down on his newspaper-covered couch. The papers beneath her made crackling noises.
He stood, adjusting his back and looking around his flat. It was dirty, empty bottles of firewhisky and a layer of dust covering everything.
Reaching back to the couch, he pulled the newspapers from underneath her. He didn't want the noise to wake her if she moved about. With any luck she would just rest and shut up and and not bother him too much. He had severely misjudged her.
