Chapter 5
It was the night of Blaise and Pansy’s engagement party and Hermione was running late. Matteo would be about an hour late to the party so that left Hermione to get ready alone, which would be fine if she wasn’t 32 weeks pregnant. Though her stomach wasn’t as big as most would be at this stage since her baby is a bit smaller than average, it was still a pain to get ready by herself.
Hermione had decided against her curls tonight and magically straightened her hair. She really needed a haircut as she realized her hair came down to the top of her butt straight. She was wearing a tight, black off the shoulder knee length gown that was silky and showed off her growing bump. She added a simple diamond necklace with the matching earrings Matteo had given her for her birthday. She had to use her wand to fasten the buckle of her simple silver heels since she had a hard time doing that without her bump getting in the way.
She heard the cab she sent for honk just as she was putting her jacket on, it was already 5:50 and it would take about 20 to 30 minutes to get there so she hoped she wouldn’t make too much of an entrance. She was hoping she could hide in the shadows since she hadn’t seen any of these people since school.
35 minutes later she arrived at the vineyard and a wave of nausea hit her. She could hear the voices of everyone chatting and was getting more nervous the closer she got to the door. She had promised herself she would be on her best behavior since this was Pansy and Blaise’s night, she just hoped the others would do the same.
As soon as she walked in, her eyes immediately landed on the back of a head full of red hair and next to him a head full of unruly black hair. They thankfully had their backs turned to her as they were engaged in a conversation with Neville, Theo and Blaise. She looked around the room and saw Luna, Ginny and Lavender huddled in a corner probably gossiping about everyone in attendance. She then caught sight of Pansy’s short bob standing next to what looked like Daphne, Astoria and Mr and Mrs Greengrass. She decided she would go talk to her later.
She made her way to the bar on the far right side of the room and hoped they had something for her to drink. She was able to order a mocktail and sat on the barstool observing the people around her. She recognized almost everyone from Hogwarts but there were a good handful of people she had never seen before. She sat there for a while just people watching until someone beside her clears their throat. When she looks over she saw the bright blonde hair before she even saw his face.
“Malfoy, it’s been a while.” She isn’t sure how he would act, they never got friendly in their last year of Hogwarts but they also stopped throwing insults each other’s way so that’s progress she supposed.
“Granger, or not Granger. I see you're knocked up but not sure if you’re married.” Of course he knew, he asked Blaise the first time he talked about seeing her that night in his restaurant but Draco didn’t want Granger knowing that.
“Yes I’m pregnant, obviously. But not married, not yet. Engaged.” She raised her hand so he could see the ring.
“Must have bagged you a good one because that is a huge rock.”
“I don’t care about his money Malfoy, I’m not shallow” he threw his hands up in surrender and shook his head.
“Look Gr- Hermione. I didn’t mean to offend, honestly. I'm trying this thing where I stick my head in my arse so when I said that I just meant he must care about you to spend so much on a ring, not that you were after his money. My apologies.”
Hermione couldn’t help but smirk “not only did you call me my name, but you actually apologized. My my Malfoy, you are getting soft with this old age.” He chuckled and Hermione couldn’t help but let out a small laugh of her own. Draco held out his hand for her to take to help her off the stool and he led them to a table to sit down at.
“Draco, if we’re doing first names you should call me Draco not Malfoy, right Hermione.”
She nodded and took a sip of her drink. “Of course, my apologies Draco.”
“So, where is your fiancé then? I’m not sure if I were him I would let you come to this party alone. Even pregnant, these men can’t keep their eyes off of you.” Sure enough she decided to look around the room and many of the men were looking at her as they made their way to the table. She noticed the tables had the guest names on them, she walked around the table and realized that she was seated with of course Matteo then Blaise, Pansy, Draco, Daphne and Neville. She was surprised that Blaise and Pansy decided on sitting with this group and not their parents.
As she sat herself down she noticed that the table behind and to the right of her had Harry, Ginny, Ron, Lavender, Luna and Theo and two other guests she didn’t recognize. The girls were seated closest to her huddled together and she could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. About 10 minutes later she heard Lavender gasp. She didn’t even bother turning around she just kept listening to Neville and Draco talk like they’ve been lifelong friends.
“Oh my good Godric, who is that man?” Lavender loudly whispered.
“I don’t know but he’s walking this way” Ginny said.
“He looks lovely.” Luna said in her usual dreamy voice. At this point the girls had gotten the attention of their entire table to watch as the new man walked towards them. They saw Blaise stand up and walk towards the mysterious man, pat him on the back and lead him towards his table. They haven’t even realized that the pregnant woman with the long straight brown hair sitting next to Draco was Hermione. They just saw the dark wizard come up and sit beside her and lay a gentle kiss on her lips.
“Of course he’s taken, all the most beautiful wizards are taken.” Lavender huffed out.
“Lavender you’re taken, by my brother. Remember.”
“Of course Ginny, how could I forget.”
After that the dinner went without a hitch. As the night got late Pansy had switched seats with Draco and was now in a deep conversation with Hermione. Neither witch noticed when a group of people came up behind them to say their goodbyes. Hermione stiffened when she saw Ginny come up and tap Pansy on her shoulder. She looked straight up at Ginny and you would have thought the redhead had seen a ghost.
“Hermione, is that you?” Ginny asked loudly.
At that moment almost everyone in the room had gone silent. Hermione turned in her chair best she could so she was facing the younger witch a bit better and nodded her head.
“Hello Ginny, long time no see.” She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice to seem unaffected by seeing her old friends again.
Ginny looked like she was getting pissed. “Yeah because of you! You were the one that left us behind without even a decent goodbye. You couldn’t even bother to tell Ron you were leaving and not coming back.”
“Excuse me he told you what?” Hermione stood up as fast as she could so she was eye to eye with Ginny. “I’m not sure where his story got twisted but Ron is the reason we aren’t together anymore.”
“That’s a lie! You broke up with me, remember.” Ron shouted at her from the back of the group, he pushed Lavender and Luna out of the way so he could get closer to Hermione.
“I may have broken up with you Ronald, but you gave me no other choice. You told me it was a stupid idea to go find my parents, that I didn’t need them because I could just start a family with you when I told you I wasn’t ready. You didn’t even bother writing back to me when I wrote to you. So tell me again how I failed to tell you I was leaving?”
“You still left me! And look you got knocked up anyway, so why couldn’t you have just started a family with me?”
“It’s not like I meant for this to happen Ron, but you would have pushed me to have children and I would have resented you for it. I couldn’t take it. You were not supportive of what I wanted or needed. It was just about you and what you wanted. You were selfish and didn’t even take my feelings into consideration. I found a man who would never force me to do anything. He loves me for me and puts me above everything else. You couldn’t even put me first to find my parents when they had no memory of me! So don’t blame me for anything when it was you who pushed me away Ronald Weasley.”
She could feel Matteo's arm wrap around her waist protectively and immediately felt comforted. Pansy stood up beside her and whipped out her wand.
“If you wanted to say anything else against my best friend Weasel I suggest you don’t. You will find that my wand won’t be the only one pointed at you. Now I suggest you take your loose leg wife over there and get the hell out of my party. I only put up with the two of you for Luna.” She looked at Luna and shot her a sad smile, which Luna returned. “But let me make this very clear. You aim to hurt Hermione and I will end you, and that goes for the rest of your little group. You have something you want to say against her then I suggest you get the hell out because I will not put up with it.” With one hand she had her wand pointed at Ron’s chest and the other was stretched out pointing towards the door.
Ron’s face was as red as his hair. He grabbed Lavender's arm and was about to walk towards the door when he turned around.
“I’m glad to be rid of you Hermione, who knew you would turn into a whore. I always knew snobby, stuck up, bookworm persona was fake. You were actually just a slut waiting for your time to shi-“ before he could finish he had been hit with three different hexes. A stinging hex right to the private parts from Blaise. A Horn tongue hex from Pansy, which turned his tongue into a horn making it impossible for him to speak, and a Bat-Bogey hex from Matteo. Which made Hermione internally chuckle because it was Ron’s sister's signature hex and her fiancé had just used it on her ex.
“Ronald Weasley I told you to get the hell out, now have fun trying to reverse that tongue hex, it’s quite the reversal spell with complicated wand work. Now get the hell out. Immediately!” Pansy was absolutely fuming. Hermione knew she would do worse than just a horn tongue hex if he refused.
Harry had now stepped up and took Ron by his arm and drug him out of the vineyard. Not even a minute later you could hear the sound of apparition, meaning they all had left and Hermione could finally relax.
She turned around and threw her arms around Matteo, she had tried so hard not to cry in front of everyone but between the exhaustion and the pregnancy hormones she couldn’t hold them back any longer. She didn’t notice that everyone from the party had left when she finally stopped crying. All that was left was Blaise, Pansy, Theo, Luna, Draco, Matteo and herself. She turned to face Pansy and she immediately engulfed the pregnant witch in a tight hug.
“I’m sorry for ruining your engagement party Pans.”
“Ha are you kidding me? I’ve been waiting to hex that red headed git for years so really I should be thanking you.” Everyone had laughed at that and it felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She realized that no matter what, Pansy would always be by her side.
“Well glad I could help a girl out then.” Hermione chuckled and then let out the biggest yawn. “I’m sorry to cut things short Pansy but I need to head home, I am exhausted.”
“Of course, are we still on for dinner in two weeks when I get back from London?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She gave Pansy one last hug and flood home with Matteo at her side, she didn’t even care about getting nauseous from flooing home, she was too tired to even wait for a cab.
She quickly got out of her dress and slid into bed in her knickers only. Matteo took a quick shower and by the time he was out Hermione was already fast asleep. He got in bed with a smile on his face as he slid closer to her and cradled her body against his. He knew tonight was rough for her but he knew without a doubt that he would do anything he could to make her happy.