With you in my Arms

9. Listen, Malfoy, you git!

Ginny had sent and owl to St. Mungo's to let them know, that Hermione might need a few days off. She had tried to persuade her to come back to the Burrow with her, but her friend had point blank refused. She was not going to get back to the house, where she would be seeing Ron and Parvati all lovey dovey.

For the next three days she just stayed in her room. Kreacher brought her something to eat at meal times and quite frequently she rushed to the loo next to her room to be sick.

On the evening of the fourth day Harry and Ginny were sitting in the kitchen for supper.

"Harry, I am rather concerned about Hermione."

"You and me both."

"What are we going to do? She can't stay in her room forever. She doesn't want to come to the Burrow because of Ron and..."

She sounded at a loss as what to do. The wizard beside her sighed.

"I am not even sure what has happened when she went to see Malfoy. Though whatever it was, it really got to her."

"Do you think, she told him about the baby and he sent her packing?"

"I have no idea. I don't know, how he managed to get her to... you-know-what with him in the first place." Ginny crinkled her nose at the thought.

"She told me, that he had been very sweet to her. He seemingly neither raped, seduced or at least persuaded her."

"What has he done then?"

Harry looked at the witch he loved.

"What would I have to do to get you to spent the night with me?"

Ginny thought about that for a moment.

"Ask me."

He contemplated that for a while.

"What, if that is exactly, what he did?"

"Just ask her?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't she say no?"

"Why would you say no to me?"

She thought about that one.

"Harry, I love you. Which makes it easy for me to say yes and hard to say no."

They looked at each other.

"She has never let on, that she has a soft spot for him, has she?"

There was a hint of worry in his voice.

"I don't think so."

"He has been very quiet all during last year. Kept away from nearly everybody. Though, I have seen him quite often in the library studying." He hesitated. "Actually every single time, I went to pick up Hermione."

"Do you think, that he has a soft spot for her?"

"Him? How likely is that?"

"Don't know."

There was a long silent stretch. It was Harry, that finally spoke first.

"You know, he tried to do something rather stupid, when he read that article about us all in the Prophet. He thought, she had found somebody else. He didn't know about the child being his..."

Silence again.

"Ginny, I think, he is serious about Hermione. I mean, if he has spend all his spare time in the library near her, he must have had the best part of our last year at school to observe her."

He blushed.

"I have observed you for quite a long time before..."

She smiled.

"Before you kissed me?"

He nodded.

"What if it has taken him until the Graduation Party to plug up the courage to talk to her?"

"It would have been his last chance."

"Yes, he would set everything on this one last time he would see her, be able to speak to her."

"So, Malfoy has been watching her all year and... what? Fell for her?"

"Why not? Just because Ron was to dense to realise she had always loved him, doesn't mean that he would make the same mistake."

"Assuming you are right, that means the ferret is in love with Hermione. She was persuaded to... with him and now she is pregnant."
"Yep."

"Where does that leave us?"

"With a friend battling raging hormones and morning sickness, as well as the father to the child stuck in St. Mungo's."

"We need to do something. We can't just let them... not get happy together."

"You think, there is a chance for them to be happy together?"

"They better!"

There was silence again between them while Kreacher served a luscious chocolate mousse.

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The same evening Hermione went back to St. Mungo's and her duties there. Ginny and Harry were yet again sitting together in the kitchen. As she watched Kreacher doing the washing up, the man in her life was watching her.

"What has Hermione said?"

"The ferret loves her. Though, she said that he had said, he had loved her in that night. Loved, past tense. I don't know, if he still does after the row they must have had."

"And Hermione?"

"She does love him and is scared out off her mind. She's not going to tell him."

"And the baby? What about him learning about becoming a father?"

"I don't think, that he'll have a chance with that one either any time soon. Not the way she was going."

"They love each other, they are going to have a child together and they are... the most stubborn people I have ever come across."

"That's it."

"So, what do we do?"

Ginny sighed.

"I don't know."

Harry thought about the situation for a moment and then muttered, "If Mohamed isn't going to the mountain, the mountain needs to come to Mohamed."

She looked at him.

"What are you talking about?"

He grinned.

"If Hermione isn't going to Malfoy. Malfoy will need to go to Hermione."

"How do you want to... After that row, I doubt he is going to want to speak to her ever again."

"Oh, he will. We'll just need to irk his curiosity and his brains."

"How?"

He smirked. A plan was slowly forming in his head.

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Draco had spend his days lost in his own thoughts. Nico had been trying to get him to speak to him, but he had just ignored him. The wound in his heart was just too fresh and too raw as that he could be bothered with what he regarded as idle chitchat.

He didn't know, if she was still watching him sleep, but he was working on a way to avoid the compulsory Sleeping Draught. Yesterday he nearly managed to get away with not taking it, as his healer seemed too exhausted to remember, if he had taken it or not.

It was a dismal grey morning. He wondered, if he should bother to wake up at all, as he felt a piece of parchment in his hand.

For a moment he was hoping against his better judgement, that it would be a note from Hermione. He opened his eyes and looked at the folded, slightly crumbled piece of parchment. He unfolded it slowly and just stared at it.

Listen, Malfoy, you git!
I am tired of having my house elf finding me at work, begging me to come home, because she has yet again either been sick several times or is bawling her head off because of you!
Get your act together and get her out off my hair!

He grinned maliciously. Seemingly the next bloke in wasn't capable to handle the witch he got himself! He read the note again. He frowned, something was wrong. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it was there right in front of him. Something just didn't add up.

He slowly looked at the words. Then read the whole note again and then it hit him. Somebody had addressed him directly, by name. Odd. That would mean, that the new man knew him. How could that be? Nico had told him, they had made sure that nobody knew he was a patient. Somebody obviously did after all!

Whom did he know, that owned their own house elf? Only the pureblood families normally kept them. The house elf was bothering his master at work? Sounded pretty desperate. Which elf would do something like that? Pureblood... house elf... No, he didn't get anywhere with that information.

She was sick several times a day? Sounded, as if she was really ill. Why was she not in St. Mungo's then? Being sick? An unsettling idea started to get hold of his mind. Sick as in morning sickness? He had heard the other Slytherins talking about that one, in fifth year, when one of the seventh years had managed to get herself pregnant shortly before the end of the year. She had been sick all the time. Morning, noon and night actually.

There was only one person he knew, that was pregnant: Hermione! Which meant that she was staying with somebody, who had a house elf and was sick of her being sick.

The next bit became even more unsettling, if he contemplated the idea, that the woman in question was his love of one night. She was crying because of him? Why would she? She had moved on faster than he had thought possible for anybody to move on. At least for somebody that had honest feelings for him.

If she was bawling her head off because of him, did that mean she felt something for him after all? He shook his head. He had no intention to twist his heart into hoping against all hope that she was truly feeling something, anything, for him.

He went back to the pregnant part of the puzzle. Who would be the father? It was neither Potter nor the Weasel as they both had other partners to content with. Which of the Griffindor males in their year would be eligible? Thomas? Finnigan? Longbottom? None of that lot sounded, as if she would be choosing them.

Any contenders from the other houses? Any Ravenclaw? Nobody really came to mind and she had too much class for the Hufflepuffs. So, that only left his own house. One of his house mates? He didn't see that. That was even less likely than her getting together with somebody from the Hufflepuffs.

He frown.

He wasn't left with many other possibilities. Or was he? For a moment he just stared straight ahead. What if... He closed his eyes. Tonight he wasn't going to sleep! He needed to find out for sure.