State of the Union

Of course, I have to start with the obligatory apology for not updating in so long, but I can assure you that no matter how much time passes, I will NOT abandon this story. I can promise that, even if it takes me a year to post an update.

As you know, I like to try to respond to everyone who was kind enough to leave a review and answer any of the questions people asked (or comments that I felt the need to defend), so here goes:

Anathema (formerly Moonstar, who was formerly Given2Fly) – Yay, still the same name! =0) Good to see you still reading; I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations!

jamieblye – I know, I know… I hate them, too, but I couldn’t help it! We needed a cliffie for this next chapter to be good…

Kates – No need to beg, here it is for you! I hope you continue reading!

gcgirl345 – Well, I’m glad you like it! Here’s an update for you and I hope you still like it!

Jennifer Carter – You’re right, it was terribly mean of me… but at least I came back, right…? Enjoy the new chapter!

HannaDelacour – I’m glad you’re enjoying the story! I can’t guarantee this chapter is longer, but I can at least provide the whereabouts of the leading lady… =0)

catysmom – Thanks for the review and here’s your update!

Panther Eyes – Don’t worry; Hermione’s note said she’d be back before the baby was born. And Hermione’s feelings are still fairly unknown, which is how I wanted it.

rayn – I’m sorry, I’m sorry!! Here’s your update, and I hope you’ll keep reading!

errika – I know it’s not ASAP, but here’s your update, and thanks for the review!

blondiexoxo – Cliffies are terrible, aren’t they? But they make you want to read more! I hope you enjoy the new chapter!

magical heather – Ya know, I never actually thought about writing what happened to Draco’s parents (just like I didn’t write what happened to Draco between the end of the HP books and the beginning of my story to make him as he is, now). In both cases, I’m worried that whatever I write will be too far gone from the type of reality that HP is, and I’m afraid it’ll end up ruining what I have going, which is why I haven’t bothered to try to write an explanation. Because I don’t think I’d be successful, I’d rather leave it up to the reader’s imagination, and just have them know that Draco is not necessarily a friend, but neither is he a foe and that he is the master of the Malfoy manor.

vivnow – Wow, evil? Harsh… =0) Here’s an update for you, I hope you enjoy it!

joanna – Don’t worry, you’ll see! All will be made clear…

oxcab – Glad you like it; here’s your update!

wicraven – I’m glad you like it; sorry this isn’t as soon as you probably would have liked, but here you go!

BuffyXO – Thank you for reading! I know that her being pregnant was fairly predictable, but when a couple is having sex without protection everyday (sometimes more than once) for months, the chances of the woman turning up pregnant are pretty darn good! I hope you enjoy the new chapter. =0)

Skylar Schaeffer – Thank you, I’m glad you’re enjoying it! Here you go!

silverserpent – I’m sorry this isn’t ‘really soon’ but I hope it’s soon enough! Thanks for reading!

Anon – LOL, I’m glad you like it! Here’s another chapter for you!

Anon (second one) – Thanks for the review and here’s your update!

Swoosh – Don’t worry; if I have to write the final chapter on my 50th birthday, I promise I will never abandon this story. I hope you like the new chapter!

tuleh – I’m glad you like it; here’s your update!

ItzTumTum – Thanks for the triple reviews and I’m glad you liked the ending of Chapter 5! Don’t worry, it doesn’t end there. =0)

Aka Kitsune Rei – A bitch? I don’t know about that. I’d consider her more apathetic than bitchy, but I guess that’s just me. Thanks for the review and I hope you like the new chapter!

iluv2dance – WHOA, 8 more chapters?!? I don’t even know if I have that much in me! I’ll see what I can do, o.k.? =0)

miah – Although the baby may be part of it, ultimately that won’t be what ‘snaps her out of it’ so to speak. You’ll see. =0)

sheedy – I’m glad you like it! I hope you’ll continue reading and thank you for the review!

May – I hope you keep reading; here’s the next chapter!

Manda – Thank you for the review! I have the tendency to write more when I’m writing in general terms, rather than specific situations, I think, so since the majority of this chapter was a general look at how their lives were progressing, I think it ended up long. I hope you’ll forgive me my short chapters, sometimes!

Sani – I’m glad you like it! If I told you where she went, that would ruin things, now, wouldn’t it? =0)

marwed – I’m glad you’re enjoying it and I hope you continue to read!

ccrawley – I know, cliffhangers aren’t very nice, especially given that I don’t update as quickly as I should… forgive me?

AMAZED – Thank you for the review! Never read one like this, really? I always kind of think that the situation is a bit overdone, so I’m glad that you feel otherwise.

Jayna – I dunno, why didn’t you? =0) Now that you have, I hope you’ll keep reading! And I am updating, I am, I am!

kazfeist – Thanks for your review and I made sure to send out an e-mail to everyone who asked for an update notice. I’ve never heard of CG, so it must’ve been someone else that posted over there… Regarding the use of ‘past’ instead of ‘passed:’ ‘past’ has an adjective definition of ‘gone by or elapsed in time’ so my usage of it is does work, although I think the standard accepted word, now, is passed as in the past tense of ‘pass.’ I was taught ‘past’ so it’s the one I still use for situational writing.

Jackie S – I promised I’d keep updating and I always keep my promises. Here it is! =0)

kris.t!n.e – Glad you’re enjoying it! AFF is the only place I’ve uploaded the story to, so it’ll always be the only one that gets updated. I understand that a few sites have posted links to it (which is just fine by me), but no place other than AFF has permission to have the story posted.

s – Wow, short name… here’s your update!

painfullystoic – Thanks for the review and here’s your update!

egella – Wow, now THAT was a review! You have quite a way with words; how could I not continue…?

Shantel(VeelaFeela) – I’m sorry! There’s a ‘Next Chapter’ button, now!

tanza – You’re honestly only the 2nd or third person to mention that Draco’s stuck in a marriage, too. Everyone seems to really be focusing on Hermione’s feelings. Hope you keep reading!

Guard Geek – After those first few reviews as well as all the ones that people like you keep writing, there was no way that I could NOT finish it. =0) I really owe all the continued writing to all of you.

Jesse – How dare I? *jumps up and strikes a pose* Because I’m the AUTHOR that’s how! Uh.. yeah.. Anyway, thanks for the review and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

hermdray – You got lucky! You read the story right before I posted another update, so as far as you’re concerned, I updated right away! Thanks for the review!

I have one more thing to say before we get started. It has been brought to my attention that links to my story have been posted on multiple Hr/D sites around the web. For all of you that liked my story enough to share it with that way, with so many other people THANK YOU! I’m so happy that the story has been that well received and I don’t mind links to it being posted anywhere and everywhere! I’d also like to toss out a huge THANK YOU! to all those of you who have felt that my story was good enough to share with friends.

I never would have thought this story was worth writing if not for all of you as well as all my other reviewers.

Obligatory No Ownership Clause: I obviously don’t own a single character portrayed here, but the situations and wording are completely mine.

I give and dedicate Chapter 10 to each and every one of you.

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Draco,

If you trust me, don’t look for me. I’ll be back before the baby is born.

~ Hermione

Every morning, the note stared at him from her bedside table. Every morning, he awoke and had to read it, once more, to remind himself that she was gone and that she didn’t want him to look for her. Reading the short, succinct note was the only thing that kept him from searching for her. Because every morning for the last month and a half, he’d wanted to.

Hermione had been maddeningly thorough. Apparently, the first thing she’d done was contact her office. She’d informed them that she’d be taking an extended vacation, doled out the project responsibilities and set up a reporting hierarchy until she returned. According to Maeve, she’d been all business. Hermione had packed only the necessities and the only thing she’d taken, besides some very basic clothing items, was the account book from her parent’s estate, previously untouched from where Draco had originally left it. She had taken her wand with her, but once she’d apparated out of the house, there was no trace of where she’d gone. Her money was all muggle, so he couldn’t track her through their accounts a Gringott’s and it seemed that she wasn’t anywhere in the wizarding world. That left the muggle world, which Hermione was well-equipped to survive in, at least in Draco’s mind.

Her friends, however, had not been quite so willing to accept her disappearance.

“What do you mean she’s gone…?” Harry had asked, suspiciously. Draco had contacted both Harry and Ron after getting over the shock, himself, so that they couldn’t claim, later, that he’d deliberately kept this from them. He had handed over Hermione’s note, which Harry read and then handed it to Ron with a frown. “Does she have money to support herself….?” Draco had nodded, solemnly.

“She has the full inheritance from her parents. According to my solicitor, just the liquid assets from that could keep her and the baby living comfortably for years without her having to work.” Harry had started to say something else when Ron had burst out,

“Baby?!” Harry and Ron, both, had widened eyes on Draco, now.

“She’s pregnant. A little under 2 months,” he’d told them, matter-of-factly. Both of Hermione’s friends had been silent for several moments.

“Are you going to look for her?” Harry had asked, quietly.

“No.” Harry had thought he’d detected a slight note of grudging in Draco’s reply.

“Why in bloody hell not?!” Ron had raged, his face flushing nearly as red as his hair, “You may hate her, but she is our friend and your wife! In case you’ve forgotten, you promised to protect her, and now you let her run off and-” Whatever Ron had planned on saying had been cut off when Draco, suddenly furious, had nearly knocked Harry over in his beeline for Ron and, for one moment, Draco had simply gripped him by the collar of his shirt, tightly enough to make sure Ron stopped speaking, while struggling to control his anger. When Draco finally had spoken, it was low and dangerous.

“Do not ever imply that I cannot or do not protect what is mine.” With the final word, Ron was shoved away, hard, and he only barely caught himself as he had rubbed his throat, angry, but unwilling to continue provoking the other man. Draco had continued, still lowly, but the angry threat had left his tone. “I did not let her go; she left on her own. I am not going to look for her because she specifically asked me not to.” He sighed and passed a hand over his face, absently. “I’ve never failed a test in my life and I’m certainly not going to start, now.” Both Harry and Ron had looked surprised at that.

“You think she’s testing you…?” Harry had asked, incredulously.

“I don’t know,” Draco had replied, honestly, “perhaps it’s a test to see whether I trust her enough to let her be and to believe that she’ll return when she said she would. Even if it isn’t a test and she just wants to be alone, I’m going to respect that as well.”

“Maybe it’s the opposite kind of test,” this from the raspy-voiced Ron, and when Draco had looked at him, confused, he’d continued, “Maybe she told you not to follow her to see if you cared enough about her to ignore her note and find her, anyway.” Draco had considered this. Those may very well be the first intelligent words I’ve ever heard come from his Weasel mouth… he’d thought. He had dismissed both ideas, almost immediately, and sank down into a chair.

“No…” he had said, determinedly, “She wouldn’t write one thing and expect me to do the opposite. If she asked me not to look for her, she doesn’t want me to look for her. And I won’t.” He had glanced up at the other two men and for one moment, Harry had seen something in his face. Fear? Worry? Longing? Perhaps all three. Harry had sat down opposite him and run a hand through his ever-tousled hair.

“Well… you said she has the funds to keep herself until the baby is born…?” He had asked, finally. Draco had nodded, firmly.

“She has more than enough. I actually considered transferring some of what I have into the accounts I set up with her parent’s muggle assets, just in case… I could have pulled some strings in the financial department to be sure she got it, but she has the account book, already, and has to know how much is there. If I’d have added to it, she might have thought I was trying to locate her using Finances to back me. I don’t want her to think that I don’t trust her or that I’m trying to keep tabs.”

“So you do trust her?” Ron’s voice had sounded normal, again, by this time, though his question was asked, softly.

Looking back on the conversation, now, as he sat on the edge of their rumpled bed, her note resting in his hand, Draco felt he should have done something more than just nod in reply, but his throat had nearly closed by that point. Both Harry and Ron had simply sat, quietly, after that, offering reassurance that Hermione was infinitely trustworthy and that he had nothing to be concerned about regarding her safe and healthy return. After receiving only the barest of replies from Draco after that, both of her friends had taken their leave, solicitously.

What had apparently been obvious to both of the other men was only recently occurring to Draco. Not only did he trust her, but he cared for her. Not just about her as he’d originally admitted on their wedding day, but he found himself missing her and not just the sex. Although he wouldn’t pretend that he didn’t miss having a live-in bed partner, she’d become such a constant presence in most areas of his life over the last few months that he was no longer use to being alone all the time. Hermione had always been at breakfast, where they'd almost always made small talk regarding whatever happened to be in the Prophet that morning. Taking her out to lunch each day at work had become the norm and the dinner table seemed empty without her sitting across from him, unobtrusively providing company for him. Nights were, by far, when he missed her the most. Since their first nights together, he'd initiated a routine with her. Each night, she was waiting for him, already warm and snug beneath the covers. Each night he would slide in beside her and take her in his arms, resting his cheek against her forehead for several moments. At that point, he would either stroke her back until one them drifted off to sleep, or he'd begin to nuzzle her cheek or throat which inevitably led to sex. But it wasn't just that; it wasn't just the sex. He missed holding her while he fell asleep, missed waking up with her still in his arms, missed having to try to remove his arm from beneath her while she slept just a little later some mornings. He missed her.

If he was being utterly honest with himself, it wasn’t just that he missed her, either. Draco had never before considered the day when children would be a part of his life. Oh, deep down he knew that he’d have them one day; Merlin knows his parents had harped on continuing the Malfoy line often enough that he knew it was inevitable, but before now they had always been formless, soulless, nameless objects that were a necessity to keeping the family fortune intact. Now, however, it was real. Hermione was carrying the heir to the Malfoy line. His child. A tiny piece of her and a tiny piece of him now meshed within her body and would someday be a small person that would be living in the manor with them. Draco knew that his father had barely seen his mother while she was pregnant with him and that, normally, pureblood families simply didn’t consider pregnancy as something to be shared between spouses. Pureblood wives were almost invisible to society until the day the child was born and even then only the child was shown in public until the witch was back up and about as though she’d never given birth; it certainly wouldn’t do for a woman of influence in the wizarding world to be seen in such an unattractive state, or for people to see her haggard appearance so soon after having the child. Draco frowned as he thought of his early years. Although he’d been brought up to believe that pureblood children were raised by nurses, nannies, then by tutors and finally sent away to school, just as he and most of the other pureblood children had been, he found himself wondering what it would have been like to be raised by parents as he knew that some of the children at Hogwarts had been, including Hermione. More than that, he wondered what it would be like to see Hermione slowly grow and change with their child within her, feel the heartbeat of their child under his palm and perhaps see the baby on one of the mediwitch’s screens. Honestly, this was the only true anger in Draco, now… she’d taken away with her his chance to be a part of the baby’s early development.

But he did trust her; did believe she would be back. But when? Before the baby is born, she’d written. It had already been almost two months which meant that she was almost four months pregnant, now. He had no experience with pregnant women and wondered if she’d gained weight; if she’d had any morning sickness, if one could feel the baby’s heartbeat or even feel it kicking. Almost four months pregnant, he often thought to himself. Would she stay away until the day the baby was born? Would she expect him to be there in the maternity ward of the wizard hospital to support her during the birth…? So many questions and no one to ask.

His one consolation, at this point, was that he knew she was alive and knew that both she and the baby were alright. Two weeks after she’d disappeared, an owl he’d recognized as the same owl that had delivered the notice of her pregnancy had flown into the dining room where he was picking at his breakfast and dropped a thin envelope at his right hand before flying off without waiting for a reply. When Draco had opened the envelope, there had been a neat, precisely written note inside informing him that his wife had asked the mediwitch office to update him with any news each time that she was seen, there. This note included that Hermione had been seen the day before and that both she and the unborn child were in perfect health. Draco had since received two more such correspondences from the same office, both simply stating that his wife had been seen and that both she and the unborn child were in perfect health. The last one had included a small black and white type of photograph on shiny paper where he could actually make out the shape of the baby as it moved, as other types of photographs in the wizarding world did… and he could have sworn he could make out the small movements of a beating heart. He made sure to pass the notes along to Harry so that both he and Ron would know she was well, but the small picture had joined Hermione’s note on the bedside table and now he looked at it as often as he did the letter she’d written.

For his part, Draco continued to work and manage his affairs as he had before Hermione had gone. At the office, he had simply declined to answer questions about his wife, telling askers only what they already knew: that she was on an extended vacation and did not give a date for her return. His brusque manner and unwillingness to discuss the situation led many to believe that they’d separated, and the Daily Prophet hinted to this rumor. Draco did nothing to discourage the gossip, but chose to ignored it, completely, and found that it was much easier not to consider his marital situation while he was working. This, of course, led to long hours in the office and sometimes longer hours at home to keep his mind occupied.

One evening, well after 9:00 PM and almost two months to the day after Hermione had gone, Draco returned home from a deliberately long day and deposited his briefcase on the small table in the hall before removing his suit jacket and starting up the staircase to the master bedroom. He’d already removed his tie and unfastened the top button of his shirt when he pushed the door of the suite open and moved into the wardrobe to begin changing. As he hung up his jacket and was about to replace his tie in the rack, a quiet voice drew his attention from the bedroom behind him.

“Draco?” He spun around, quickly, on his heel and the tie slithered from his fingers into a small, colorful puddle at his feet.

“Hermione…”

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Oh, how can one author be so cruel…? =0) I’m sorry that it seems short; it seemed like a good place to end and I wanted to get something posted so you all knew I was still with you. Don’t worry, this one will end, I promise, and I won’t leave you all hanging like you probably thought I did, last time. Review if you haven’t, already, or would like to otherwise comment.

First, an apology for the lack of smut. Hermione isn't there, and I prefer couple smut to solo smut, so there is no smut. Think of it like The Matrix, "There is no spoon!" Anyway, I will make it up to you in the next chapter. I have a lovely homecoming (no pun intended) planned.

Second, I apologize for any of you that thought I had updated my story, yesterday, when I edited a chapter. I, personally, am not fond of people who make a single word edit to their stories or pretend to edit something just to get their story back to the top of the D/Hr list, and I promise that wasn’t my intent… I had to edit an earlier chapter because I recently read in the AFF TOS that I can’t post links to stories on other sites unless the story is also published here. Well, my other story isn’t published here and I put a link to it in a comment reply to someone in an earlier chapter, so I removed it and put it into my profile, which is allowed according to the TOS.

Finally, I noticed that many of you have e-mail addresses listed next to your names in your reviews, but I don't want to spam, so I won't send an e-mail notifying you of an update unless you specifically ask in your review, as a few of you did. I don't mind sending them, at all, but I don't want to bother you, either.

Watch for the next chapter! =0)

~§~ Duchess ~§~