A Grain of Rice on His Jumper
He’s made an assurance. That they are exclusive. Which really, means fuck all when Hermione thinks about it.
She can’t have a baby. She’s not a mother. There is no part of her that is prepared to be motherly. She forgets dinner at least once a week. How will she remember to feed a baby when she can barely feed herself?
Hermione is panicking. Running the numbers, the variables. Trying to figure out child care, her job, schooling, and a billion other things she cannot provide a child right now.
Not to mention the chances that Draco discovers he is the father.
If she has an abortion, he need never know.
It isn’t a very kind thought. She knows that certain people in her life would rebuke her if they found out she was considering it. But it is the only rational choice.
She is too young.
Too cold.
Too alone.
She has no idea how he would react but none of her imagined scenes play out to a successful conclusion.
He reminds her that she is a mudblood and that she isn’t fit to carry his heir.
He tells her to get an abortion.
He tells her he wants nothing to do with her or her bastard child.
And the worst.
He is supportive and kind and wants to have a child with her. To be a parent. To have school recitals and hundreds of terrible drawings hung on the walls.
He feels pressured into staying with her for the sake of their child.
Eventually, he resents her for it. Resents their son or daughter.
The worst thing that Hermione can imagine is that Draco stays out of obligation. Some sick antiquated notion that he is responsible for both her and her baby.
She avoids him at work and ignores his owls. He’ll move on quickly enough, she’s pretty sure. There are a thousand other witches he can screw without knocking up.
He’s brought takeout again. He’s standing outside her flat with a huge brown paper bag that she knows is from June’s Chinese restaurant.
She can’t open the door. If she opens the door he will want to come inside. He’ll want to ask her about her day. He’ll want to fuck her. And she will want it too.
So no, she isn’t home.
“I know you are in there, Granger. Come on, open up. I don’t care if you are in those atrocious pajama bottoms already,” he calls through the door.
She looks down at the soft flannel pants her Mom had given her for Christmas three years ago.
They are her favorite. Draco had seen her in them a handful of times and he never let her wear them for long. They have cats on them.
“I’m feeling a bit under the weather, Malfoy,” she calls back, hoping he’ll take the hint.
“I know, hence the June’s. I also come offering foot rubs and back massages. And for dessert, red velvet cake.”
What is he going on about? Has he never taken care of a sick person before? And who told him she wasn’t feeling well?
“Open the door,” he repeats after she doesn’t answer. “I’m not one of those wizards who ignores his witch just because she’s menstruating.”
What the fuck did he just say?
Hermione nearly pulls the door open just so she can tell him that she is most certainly not menstruating.
And then her mind freezes.
She is supposed to be menstruating. If she weren’t pregnant, Draco would be exactly correct in his assumption that she is on her period.
“Granger?”
He’ll leave soon. Surely if she just continues to ignore him, he’ll take the hint and-
“Please?” He asks, quietly. She barely hears it.
It’s quiet and a bit pitiful really.
Hermione opens the door, finally able to see the small white bag hidden behind the chinese food that must have the red velvet cake.
“Finally,” he pushes past her and heads for the kitchen, the pitiful- no, manipulative tone, is gone.
“I’m not in the mood for company, Malfoy,” she follows after him, watching in mild objection as he unpacks the food and opens the silverware drawer.
“Go sit on the couch,” he replies.
He’s impossible.
She doesn’t have the energy to fight. Now that he’s here, she’s got to tell him.
Maybe it won’t be so bad.
She heads for the living room, trying to remember the story of how her Mom told her Dad she was pregnant.
Of course, they’d been married already.
And they were in love.
And she probably knew more than just his carry out order.
Chow mein with white rice and half an order of dumplings. Hermione ate the other half.
When Draco comes in, he has the platter she uses to host tea piled high with food.
And wine.
She just watches as he sets it down and makes two spots for them on the ground. He bends his knees and sits criss-cross applesauce, like she had taught him weeks ago when they’d done this for the first time.
“Dinner is served,” he says, handing her a fork.
“I’m sorry I wouldn’t open the door,” she accepts, fiddling with it.
“Already forgotten, Granger.” He doesn’t force her to sit on the floor next to him. He just starts eating, like everything is normal.
Which for him, it is.
It won’t be normal once she tells him.
He’ll leave.
Or overcompensate.
He’ll only see her as pregnant.
As a mistake.
So Hermione slips off the couch and settles beside him, digging into her own vegetable fried rice.
She pops the telly on too, and they spend half an hour barely talking, as a new episode of Blackpool plays.
They’d missed the start because of her refusal to open the door but it doesn’t matter.
“Not in the mood for wine?” Draco breaks the silence as the advertisements start.
She shakes her head, not sure what to say.
“I could get you something else,” he offers.
She hates him.
She really fucking despise Draco Malfoy.
Who does he think he is?
So chivalrous and thoughtful. So fucking earnest all of a sudden.
“I’m pregnant.”
Fuckity Fucking Fuck.
They’re sitting on the floor.
He’s got a piece of rice on his jumper.
She’s wearing her atrocious pajama bottoms.
“What?”
She can’t tell what he is thinking.
She’s not sure what to say.
Panic. She’s panicking.
“I’m pregnant. And it’s yours. Of course it’s yours, you are the only person I’ve been with for months. And, well I am. Pregnant.”
“Granger, slow down,” he rests a hand on her knee and she bursts into tears. She’s not really sure where they’ve come from, but her vision is blurry and her chest is heaving.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened,” she cries, wiping at her face and hiding behind her hands.
“Granger,” he says louder. “Stop.”
She lowers her hands and blinks at him, hiccuping.
“How far along are you?”
“Six weeks.”
He nods, thoughtfully.
“Have you been to a healer? Or a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“What did they say? Is everything alright?”
“Draco, you don’t have to do this. I told you because you have a right to know. Not because I expect anything from you,” she wrings her hands in her shirt.
“Granger, what did they say?”
He’s staring at her stomach. His eyes are a bit misty.
Not upset. Not angry.
“Everything is fine. It’s too soon to tell anything really. I’ve made another appointment with a muggle doctor. In three weeks.”
He’s nodding again, and she wishes she could use legilimency to know just what he is thinking.
Neither one of them says a word for a minute. Then another minute. After the third she thinks about getting up off the floor. Fleeing the room.
“Granger, do you plan on having this baby?” He speaks first, not looking at her face.
How can she answer that?
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
He swallows.
She wonders if he didn’t hear her.
“It’s your decision, Granger.”
It’s exactly what any woman wants to hear.
But it makes her angry. He should have an opinion on this. He should have more to say.
“And if I decide to have an abortion?” She asks, far too flippant for how she really feels. How her chest gets so tight she wonders what a heart attack feels like.
His face goes pale and tight. His shoulders stiffen.
“Granger, what do you want from me here?”
“I don’t know! We’re not exactly parent material, Malfoy!”
He opens his mouth as if to snap back at her, but then doesn’t say a word.
She tries not to reach for the grain of rice on his jumper.
“Except you being pregnant sort of makes us parents,” he finally says, as though he can’t quite wrap his head around it.
She nods, fully aware of that fact.
“I don’t want anything from you, Malfoy. You deserve to know and you deserve to have an opinion. We don’t have to figure anything out today.”
“Were you planning on telling me?” He asks, seeming to remember how adamant she had been that he left her alone.
She has no idea what to say to him.
“I just did tell you,” she says, going the petty route. The route that doesn’t admit that she might not have. Had he not turned up on her doorstep, seeking him out probably would have been pushed off until she felt she could say he was the one who stopped things between them.
And then she would have been able to say that he had no right to know she was pregnant because he didn’t want anything to do with her.
“Are you… happy?” He asks.
She looks at his face and is surprised by the open look there.
“What?” She asks, stalling for time.
“Are you happy? About being pregnant? Because, Granger,” he inhales and then sighs, moving his hand from her knee to take her hand in his, squeezing gently. “I am happy.”
He looks happy. Sounds like it too.
“Draco,” she sighs.
“Why not then?” He asks, his hand tightening.
She thinks about everything that is between them. Everything that isn’t.
“I’m not… not happy?”
“Granger-”
“Draco, I’m pregnant with your kid, the least you can do is call me by my first name,” she says, exasperated by the way this conversation is going.
“Hermione-”
“What does it mean if I am?” She asks, barely noticing that he has called her her first name
He opens his mouth but no sound comes out, likely anticipating her interrupting him again.
“What does it mean if I am happy about this?”
His mouth closes and his thumb traces over the skin on the back of her hand.
“You’re happy?”
She looks into his eyes and wonders what her life would look like as the mother of Draco Malfoy’s child.
“I’m happy,” she nods.
Draco smiles and leans towards her, kissing her slowly, softly.
She kisses him back.