Not In Kansas Anymore

Chapter Seven: Tacit

The two paper bags of groceries hit the floor and exploded over the carpet. It took Hermione one shocked moment to calculate the expanse of the situation. One woman + her husband +nudity on the kitchen tile =sex, which in turn =affair.

The world blurred in her eyes and she forgot every piece of advice the doctors and Lavender had told her about the last nine weeks. She didn't know where she was going and hadn't actually intended to turn up in the lavish study of one Draco Malfoy, but she knew it was all for the best as Harry wouldn't dream of coming after her in this Manor, especially this Manor.

Draco was not in said study, but Hermione was very intent upon finding him, and it only took one scream of, "DRACO GET THE FUCK DOWN HERE!" from the echoing expanse of the entrance hall to attract his attention.

He was there in a flash to catch her as she started to cry. "Hermione, I'm here, what is it? What happened?"

Hermione clutched at his shoulders and buried her face in the crook of his neck, sobbing and crying harder than she ever could have imagined. Draco stopped asking questions as the tears stopped and started several times, because no body ever gets all their tears out in one expulsion. So he rocked with her in his arms as he waited for her to tire herself out. "Bastard," was all she could get out through the water works, she managed that one word several times. Draco was pretty confident that she was not referring to him, and his suspicions of his innocence were confirmed when she added new words to her vocabulary. "How could he? Who was she? What's wrong with me?" and then there was the flood of "Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!" that quickly followed each of these questions that Draco assumed he wasn't supposed to answer.

It took him fifteen minutes of hugs and pats on the back, and reassurances that he wasn't going anywhere to get her into the study where he settled her on the plush sofa. "Draco," Hermione breathed, her tears seemed to be drying and she just buried her face in his hair for a long while before she lay back down and accepted the water he handed her.

"Hermione?" he asked, taking the empty cup back from her and setting it abstractedly on the table.

"He was cheating on me Draco, after all this time, all the arguments, he was cheating one me," she choked out.

Draco took in her appearance as she told him about going to the store only to come back and see Harry and some woman together on the kitchen floor. Hermione was well into her third trimester, she was wearing a stretched black skirt and red and white striped shirt with a denim jacket despite the fact it wasn't very cool out of doors. He did notice she had a very bizarre pair of shoes on, they only had one strap that went between the big toe and the second one and they had no heel. Draco had not been aware that Hermione was going to be a mother, though it didn't really surprise him. By looking at her he could tell she was a mess of hormones and raw emotions that really only showed themselves in times when you pregnant or saw your husband shagging on the kitchen floor. In this case both.

Hermione finished her story and Draco hugged her again, when he let go he held her upright and said, "I haven't touched a thing in your room since you were last here, its all yours."

"Thank you."

"I'll go get your stuff, shall I?" he asked standing up.

Hermione looked at him gratefully as though she were about to accept when a sadistic smile twisted on her face. "No, I think Parvati and I will go get it. Come to think of it I think she has the day off, we'll go now."

"Not alone you two aren't," said Draco helping Hermione to the drive where he kept a very extensive selection of cars.

*

Harry was boiling with rage, and he was pacing, the latter of the two made Hermione decisively cross with him. Ron just looked as though he was never going to talk again. "I'm going," said Harry finally, throwing his hands up and looking to the fireplace as though half expecting the head of an Order member to appear there and tell him to do no such thing. Then he looked at Ron who was rather occupied with his mouth and stomach, and finally he looked at Hermione who held her tongue and didn't tell him not to do anything rash. Though she would have sorely liked to.

"I love you guys," said Harry starting for the portrait at a jog.

Ron looked at him and said to his back, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Harry sighed and rolled his eyes. "I'm off to save the world."

"Oh," said Ron, "If that's all then I think I'll join you, I have some experience with such things. Especially if there is chess involved."

"There won't be," said Harry, slapping his mate on the back, and they both looked considerably happier despite their impending dooms.

"We love you Hermione."

"Like hell you do," muttered Hermione, tossing a book at their heads.

"Pardon my ears." Ron began, "They seem to be deceiving me."

Hermione looked at him sideways, "No, they heard right. I said I'm not letting you two go alone."

That was the night they killed the Lord Voldemort.

*

"Bastard," was the first thing Parvati said when Draco dragged her into the car by giving her the cliff notes version. The second thing she did was hug Hermione tightly and demand to Draco, "Drive faster."

When Draco explained that there was a speed limit Parvati made the car invisible and then proceeded to steer them through very small crevices.

It took her two minutes and thirty-one seconds.

Harry didn't quite know what hit him when Parvati began her verbal assault. "How could you do something so selfish? Where is the hero that saved us from Voldemort?" Parvati asked her questions and ranted at him with such an almighty conviction that when she spat out the name Voldemort he jumped a foot in the air.

Hermione was quite content to cast a packing spell while all this went on and toss the green powder in the fireplace as Draco piled in the boxes. Parvati took a deep breath when Hermione smoothly cut in. Pulling off her wedding ring she gave it a fleeting look before dropping it down his front pocket, if it were not for her state Hermione felt she might have backhanded him a few more times, but instead she summoned all her will power and walked to the door. With one foot in the hall and one foot still on the carpeted floor of the flat Hermione said the most cutting thing she could, "What would your father think Harry?" She had both feet out the door and was pulling it shut behind her when he heard her voice add, "Or Sirius, what would he say?"

Then Hermione Potter walked out of her husband's life.

*

Ron had been raised in the mentality that Harry Potter was the one and only savior, that Harry Potter was the holiest damn thing on earth. Harry Potter himself had been raised to obedience. And she, Hermione Granger, had been raised in the Catholic faith.

Three people, three entirely different religions, all walking toward the same suicide mission.

Hermione didn't like to admit it to herself but she didn't really believe that they were going to save the world. She had been raised to the knowledge that sins never went unpunished. So she had always thought that Voldemort would be conquered by his own sin.

Ron had always known Harry Potter would save the world, so he loyally followed him to their Last Supper.

Harry, just as his childhood had taught him, was doing as he had been told. He had stopped dreaming of a world without evil because the Dursleys did not allow imagination. He didn't question his destiny because his Aunt Petunia told him not to. And finally he just settled for his cake because he was thrilled by the essence of having cake.

Hermione wished he wasn't so determined on having his cake and eating it too. She wished he could see that he was so much more than a prophecy, but he didn't because that was what Dumbdlore had labeled him.

Silently as they walked to the lake Hermione sent up a prayer to any God who choose to listen on that particular night. Ron was walking with the disposition that the deal was already in the bag, and Harry was hoping because as a little boy he had only had hope to sleep under at night.

That night three very similar things happened to one man, he faced penance for his sins, he died, and he gave his worst enemy the key that would lead to a boy taking off his shackles.

Hermione smiled as the robes that had held Voldemort deflated; it had taken more than lighting to destroy evil. It had taken the three most wonderful prospects of a fairytale, faith, destiny, and trust.

The fates were cutting at their threads and using them to sew the destined a future lined with trust.

Hermione silently welcomed the world to the age of mythology.

*

Draco watched Hermione pour over the children's books, myths, fables, and legends on the lowest shelves of the library. She would take a collection out and read it out loud to her unborn children, sometimes he strolled in to listen to the Muggle ones she would tell from memory.

It was nearly one in the morning and Draco was reading a family history in a twisted insomniac fit when Hermione came barreling in with a bowl of what looked suspiciously like peanut butter and cottage cheese. She had bags under her eyes and she looked to be approximately the size of a house, but she also looked in the mood to bash something in so he didn't comment on this.

She glowered at him moodily and he quickly wiped the smile off his face and went back to his book, watching her out of the corner of his eye. Parvati had been living with them for the past few weeks but her wedding planning had come and she had to leave so now Draco felt very responsible for Hermione's well being. Not to mention Ginny Weasley had threatened him with some of her more creative incantations that he felt no need to investigate.

Hermione walked back out, a heavy book under her arm and her spoon clanking loudly in her empty bowl. Draco wished she had stayed so he could watch her like a hawk but there was no arguing with a woman who was more than twice his size.

He fell asleep after that last worry, his sleeping potion finally taking full effect.

*

Hermione had never been in the library after hours, but it seemed Draco had so she followed him quietly, picking the floorboards she walked on. The library doors made a noise Hermione did not like; the sounded amplified by the moonlight. To her knowledge the doors didn't do anything apart from being an unholy weight during the day, but now when night flooded the school they had to alert most of the world to the fact they were being opened.

However nobody arrived to see if the Head Girl and Head Boy were sneaking around in the dead of night. To her relief the book she wanted was on the correct shelf and she snatched it hesitantly while Draco kept watch.

Draco looked at the book in her hands, it had a brown leather cover, a bit worn on the edges and the pages were yellowing. In other words it was thoroughly plain.

"That little thing is what we came all the way down here for?" he hissed.

Hermione nodded and pressed her finger over her lips. Draco looked like it wasn't worth his time, such an unobtrusive and inconspicuous text. He would also have preferred a title he could have said he had already read, or at least knew of. But he could say he had never heard of the book in Hermione's hands.

What kind of title was The Importance of Being Earnest? He knew he would have killed his father before Hermione had the chance if he had gotten tagged with the fancy name Earnest.

The doors protested as they were opened again, Draco and Hermione darted out of the moonlight and into the shadows. The picked their way up several hidden staircases and then it happened--Hermione's foot fell into a trick step...

*

The empty bowl had shattered over the marble floor, the spoon several meters away. The book had opened to a random page and the covers were bruised from the impact. Draco ignored all of this, just as he ignored his morning paper as it fluttered to the floor and just as he suppressed the dire need for caffeine.

The sunlight glittered off her mousy hair and bounced off her plain fingernails...she didn't notice as she lie there. She just lies there in her maternity clothes, her breathing shallow, eyelids peacefully closed, and mouth slightly open.

It didn't take Draco long to guess that from her bruised head and the line drying on the floor that she had fallen off the steps. A pang of some unknown and foreign emotion seized him and he sprang into action. He elevated her head to his lap and smoothed her hair as best he could. They bombarded him, the denials, the guilt, the what ifs, the perchance...

What if he had asked her to stay with him in the library?

Would she be in better shape if he had gotten a midnight craving and found her sooner?

Could he have stopped her from falling?

Could he have caught her?

Would she be all right?

What if...?

He never quite knew how he managed to summon the healers. But once the healers collected her they moved quickly...very quickly...with fearful expressions crossing their faces.

*

Acting quickly Draco pulled Hermione out of the step, but not before a beady pair of eyes peaked around the corner of the tapestry at the bottom of the stairs. "Crap."

Fumbling her book Hermione scampered up the steps behind Draco, holding it close to her chest Hermione ran as fast as she could without managing to let her bedclothes kill her.

They heard his wheezing before they saw him, knowing they had possibly half a second Hermione looked around her. They were on the fourth floor--which meant they had three to go before their dorm. The Room of Requirement was up on the fifth, Hermione didn't know how to call it to their aid, and not even a suit of armor was vacationing in this hall for them to hide behind.

Four hundred and twelve staircases and not a one of them was in this vicinity. Sighing Hermione leaned against the wall; her reflection stared back at her from the mirror across the hall. It clicked and Hermione tugged at the edge of the gilded frame, it popped free of the rusty latch easily and Hermione beckoned Draco over the threshold before Filch darted round the corner.

"How-?" wondered Draco looking at the space behind him which went on for about three feet before a wall of rock and stone appeared.

Hermione answered quickly with what was about one quarter of the truth. "A little birdie told me. Well, actually a big hairy dog, but what's the difference between bird and dog when detention is the alternate."

"Okay," said Draco, sliding the book from Hermione's hands and scanning the first few pages while she wrung her hands in hysterics. "Hermione-?" he said cautiously flipping the next few pages of the book.

"Hum?" she asked as she poked her head out from behind the mirror only to still see the light of Filche's lantern bobbing on down the corridor, casting eerie shadows on the wall.

"This book has nothing to do with Transfiguration and besides its faulty, not a single character is named Earnest."

Hermione looked down her nose at Draco. "Seriously, who gives their child the punishment of a fancy name like Earnest?"

*

Draco paced impatiently over the tile floor of the waiting area, his forehead was creased in worry and his hands were wringing them self in a fashion that might have made one think he was not completely in control of the situation. A tap on the shoulder sent him sailing into the air. "What?" he snapped.

An aging woman was standing behind him, appalled by his loss of decorum; she had on a pair of thickly framed glasses that rested a ways down her prominent nose. Her gray hair was twisted in a knot on top her head and she extended a stiff hand to Draco who shook it uneasily, under the distinct impression she was a Nazi. "Mister Malfoy, I presume?"

"Yes, and who might you be?" he asked coldly, regaining some of his cool attributes.

"I am Healer McKrey, I need to ask you a few questions about Mrs. Pott-"

Draco cut in. "Ms. Granger."

Raising a heavily penciled eyebrow Healer McKrey said, "A few questions about Ms. Granger then. I need her legal name, DOB, and place of residence for starters."

Draco looked at her, bewildered and wondering how he was supposed to know all these things when a hand fell on to his shoulder and the voice that went with it answered for him. "Hermione Jane Granger, September 19, 1980 and..." the voice faded uneasily, eyeing Draco who answered. "She's living at Malfoy Manor in Westchester." It gratified Draco a bit to be able to answer a question and he turned to see Ron Weasley standing at his side, their eyes met and they nodded a curt greeting to each other.

The healer shot them both glances; undoubtedly she found them rude after some fashion. "And your name is sir?" she asked eyeing Ron reproachfully over her glasses.

"Ron Weasley," he extended his hand politely and the healer looked taken aback by his obvious manners. She smiled at Ron warmly and looked at Draco as though she thought he should act more like the red head.

Directing her question to Ron she asked, "Where does Miss Granger work?"

Ron nodded, thinking. "The Ministry...in the Department of International Magic Cooperation."

"A respectful occupation..." muttered the healer to herself, writing on her clipboard.

"How did this happen?" she asked Ron, and when he didn't answer McKrey looked from his puzzled face to Draco's grievously lined one.

Draco clenched his jaw and answered the wall just behind her right ear; "She fell down the stairs late last night, I'd say sometime after one when she came into the library to get a book."

Baffled the woman said, "But you just summoned us this morning?"

Draco met her wide eyes grudgingly. "I just found her on my way to the kitchen for coffee."

The woman wrote all this down in neat precise handwriting and then looked at the two men and said in a small voice, "In that case you are quite lucky. I'll be back in a bit to show you to her bed."

Draco and Ron watched her walk away; they both sighed and collapsed into armchairs when she was out of earshot. "Where's Potter?" asked Draco, his elbows on his knees, running his hands through his mussed hair and studying the ground.

Ron leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling. "He's being a prat and not coming. Something about being mad at the divorce and the custody rights she won."

Draco nodded and said, "That was a brilliant court battle."

*

Hermione couldn't say she was very proud of the fact that she had at one time been married to the man across the room. First he cheated on her, then he attacked her in every way he knew--using her low income against his extremely large one, pointing out that she had left him, and then going further to say that she had an eating disorder.

To say that she was aggravated with his presence was a terrible understatement, and his horrible solicitor was twice as bad. Mister Baldwin had a slimy way with words that Hermione, who was defending herself, did not quite appreciate.

The court they were facing was fairly understated and the formalities had been dropped radically from the previous Death Eater cases Hermione had witnessed. She guessed that this was partially due to the obscenity of a custody case. A wizerding divorce was rare; a custody battle as fierce as this was unheard of.

Hermione scanned the bowed heads that were scribbling on their parchment note scraps, some had asked questions. She wished some of them looked a bit kinder, actually apart from Fudge she only recognized the glowing white of Dumbdlore's beard and the yelling of Ron's red hair.

Fudge asked for any last questions and then asked for closing statements, Harry declined but Hermione stood up and faced the court gathered before her. She thought it was a bit humorous how aghast some of them were that she was three months along and standing up unaided. A few of the gray headed women looked absolutely amazed that she wasn't pretending to be fragile.

"I just want to notify the court of my intention to be a strong loving force in my children's lives. I do not want either of them to grow up missing mother or father, but I know you can not raise an infant on impersonal Christmas cards sent from half way around the world, and you certainly can't feed them with green light. These children deserve the chance to hear fairytales that aren't read by a nanny and they need their bottles to be filled with warm love and milk. Thank you for hearing me."

Silently the court began to vote and Hermione fondly looked to her baby-bearing belly before looking over her shoulder at the observation section. Parvati tried to smile encouragingly but she looked worried, partially for Hermione but also because Lavender had chosen the previous week to go into labor. Draco was leaned in the seat next to her and he, like Fred and George, was obviously trying to retain a look that was not biased.

Fudge startled Hermione by reading out clearly, "On a vote of sixteen to four custody of these yet unborn children is granted to Ms. Hermione Granger.

*

Ron nodded an agreement and looked at Draco very seriously before he said, "Thank you." He looked as though he might have stopped there but he bit his knuckles and said, "Thank you for everything you've done for her."

It surprised Draco to hear these words but he gulped down any emotion that was trying to make itself heard by saying simply, "She deserves it, after...everything."

"Just do me and Fred and George a favor, Mal--Draco. Take good care of her."

Draco gaped at Ron for a moment in puzzlement, those were very hard words to lay on a guy and he didn't quite comprehend them, but he didn't really get to ponder them because Healer McKrey was back. She tapped Draco gently on the shoulder and said, "Ms. Granger has had a miscarriage."

*

"No," moaned Lavender looking at the television that Hermione kept in her flat. She was watching a tape of that day's The Young and the Restless, sprawled out on the floor with Parvati in her pajamas on sleeping bags.

"What happened?" asked Hermione rushing in from the kitchen carrying a stack of bowls full of butter-pecan ice cream and a bottle of whip cream was clutched in her other hand.

"Ashley lost her baby!"

Hermione looked from Lavender to the television and said, "The Dumb and the Breast-less."

Parvati threw her stuffed teddy bear at Hermione and said, "Ashley got in a car crash and now she can't have anymore children!"

"Why was she in a car?" asked Hermione passing out the ice cream.

*

Hermione looked at Draco and Ron and said, very clearly, "Come again?"

Ron sat down on one side of her mattress and Draco on the other; each took one of her hands. "Hermione," said Draco, searching her face for any sign that she hadn't actually heard and understood them. He couldn't find any signs that she hadn't understood. He eyed Ron over her head and Ron was just as unsure how to rephrase this.

"Pardon me?" Hermione, prompting the men squeezing her hands to talk again because if they didn't talk that meant they hadn't been lying and if they hadn't been lying then...well then...she didn't want to think of that option.

Ron took a deep breath and said in what he hoped was a comforting tone, "Hermione, you've had a miscarriage, you lost them both."

It hit Hermione like the catalyst. She took in a sharp breath and then another, her own bony hands were crushing Ron and Draco's and her whole body felt as though it were going to break if she let go of them. Her bushy head began to shake and her shoulders trembled.

"No," she gasped; noting how concave her stomach was once again. The impression of being a china doll reclaimed her and she held Draco and Ron tighter, knowing that if she was foolish enough to let them go she would surly float away.

Her silent denial went to explosive realization in half a second and the whole ward rang with her screams of anguish. There were nail marks digging into Ron's palms and Draco's hand was slowly turning purple, but neither of them gave the slightest hint of letting go. They too knew how delicate Hermione was.

The tears were warm against her icy skin, the veins in her forehead throbbed from the yelling, her knuckles white, and her feet beat a heavy tattoo into the mattress.

The tantrum subsided only to be replaced with the limp grip and blank stare that Ron knew was coming.

*

The candle was infuriating Hermione, the laws of physics dictated to her that if she blew out the flame it should stay that way until a match was taken to it again. This candle was being abstinent and a refused to do anything more than sputter and throw sparks at her while dripping red wax on to her birthday cake.

It was a delicious chocolate cake, and it was all hers. So were all the presents stacked under the neat bay window with their shining bows and flashy paper. Her father chuckled behind her and her mother was video taping every moment. Furiously Hermione blew at the five candles and they abruptly went out. For a moment they tried to re-light but she gave them a sharp look and they stopped lighting.

Merrily Hermione nodded smugly at the candles and her mother handed her a large piece with part of the red icing 'H' on it. She devoured the cake with a great gusto for one so recently five and dashed to the gift boxes with chocolate over her mouth and icing under her fingernails.

"Hermione," her mother warned and led her into the loo before letting her give her full attention to the boxes and bags.

Meticulously she pulled the tape off the presents as opposed to the violent ripping motions expected of one her age. It wasn't a big shock to anyone when she pulled out twelve books and an envelope of pounds so she could pick out her own book. Hermione carefully looked at the cover of each book and then cracked the spines gently to read the copyright dates and touch the smooth cover page.

"Hermione," started her father, "you've forgotten one." He pointed to a smallish box wrapped in starred paper with a technicolored ribbon perched precariously on the corner.

Without looking up from the Shakespeare collection her Aunt had given her Hermione said, "I know, it's too small to be a book."

Her mother arched an eyebrow and settled her coffee mug on the edge of the table before bending down and placing the box on top of the book. "It's from your father and I."

Still Hermione didn't look up and moved the box carelessly off her book with a brutal movement, there was a cracking from inside and her mother gasped. However Hermione didn't pay it a bit of attention and flipped to a tragedy near the back of her book.

Her Aunt leaned over to her father and whispered, "What was it?"

"A china doll that Murielle thought she needed."

*

Fred and George tried to wake Hermione up, but she was so listless, staring across the room at the empty bed, not eating again, and completely ignoring everybody.

She heard their voices, but the words were shallow and empty, meaningless to her. Fred and George walked in to look over her for the night, letting Ron and Draco go home for a few tortured hours of dreamless sleep. "She just shuts down," mused George one night, sipping at a strong cup of black coffee.

Fred shrugged a bit. "It's her way of handling problems bigger then her. It always has been, remember her fourth year when Harry got hurt there at the end? She cried and then she just stopped moving until he woke up."

"I wish it wasn't her way, or I wish she'd eat something. Fred it's been nearly two days this time. She's catatonic."

"Three days without water, five days without food," said Fred heavily, sighing into his cup of now cold coffee.

George added to that. "Five minutes without air." Her body was just too stupid to stop, if her body stopped then this would all be over and she'd be in peace. Peace would be of the mind.