Freedom

Chapter 11

Hermione relaxed as the warm water rushed over her body, the bubbles forming around her until they slowly spread across the water to cover her. She laid her head back against the bath pillow and closed her eyes. With just a few candles burning, she thought that this was one of the most relaxing things that she had ever done. She ran her hand over her stomach, which was getting more rounded and firm by the day. She was almost four months along now. She smiled; she had gone to the healer earlier to determine the sex of the baby and she couldn’t wait to tell Draco the news.

Of course, she still had a hectic life: she had two lovers, a son, an ex-husband who she had a restraining order against, and a slew of newspaper crews that had just finally started giving her breathing room. But as she breathed in deeply the scented candles, all of those things left her mind as she relaxed completely…

It must have been at least an hour later when she woke up because the bubbles had dissipated, the water was colder and some of the candles had burned out. She sighed as she stood up out of the tub and grabbed her towel from the rack. She thought that Charlie and Draco should be home by now, since they had said that they would only be gone for a few hours with Jamie, but she wasn’t even sure what time it was.

She wrapped the big, fluffy towel around herself and stepped out of the bath. She opened the door and went into the bedroom. With all of her stuff moved into the flat, it was a bit crowded. They had taken all of her stuff from Ron’s house and brought it all here, but with now three incomes, they decided that they would be looking for a new flat soon, especially with Hermione being pregnant. They might even look for a house, which Hermione was hoping.

She walked into the room and put on some sweats and a camisole. She did a quick drying spell on her hair and pulled it back into a quick up-do as she left the room to put the kettle on.

“Silencio!” a voice shouted and Hermione looked up, confused. “Expelliarmus,” the voice said again and Hermione was thrown back against the wall. She finally focused and realised that Ron was standing in her sitting room.

“Ron Weasley, you are—” she tried to scream, but found that she couldn’t talk. He had silenced her. Well, that was just perfect, she thought, she couldn’t send him to Azkaban for violating his restraining order unless she could say the words: “Ron Weasley, you are violating your restraining order.” And since she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t say the words. She realised now how stupid of the Ministry it was to instill that part of the contract. She would be sure to make mention of it at work on Monday.

She gasped soundlessly as Ron stalked closer to her, slamming his body into hers against the wall and grabbing her wrists in his hands, pushing them up as he moved closer to her. “Not all big and bad now that you can’t talk, huh?” he asked with an evil smile. “Not able to take the piss out of me now that your two boytoys aren’t here, eih?”

Hermione shook her head as she tried to move away from him. She hated that he was so much stronger than her. If it was a battle of wits or magic, she would be the clear victor, but in sheer strength and magnitude, Ron was able to manipulate her any way he wanted. But she didn’t even care about the bruising that was sure to be around her wrists now, about the rib she could feel cracking under his massive chest, she only cared about what was below her ribs—her stomach. Merlin, please, she begged, please don’t let him harm my stomach.

“That wasn’t very nice of you, Hermione. Getting up there in front of everyone, in front of the whole world, telling them that I abused you, that I hit you, that I forced myself on you. That was just mean to tell everyone that. That was supposed to be between us, you know? That was what you were supposed to take for being so fucking high and mighty all the fucking time.” He smiled cruelly, putting both of her wrists in now one of his so that he could touch her cheek. “Do you know how good it felt?” he asked and she looked up at him with questioning eyes. “How good it felt that first time I smacked you? You were just standing there doing a perfect impression of my mother, hands on your hips, mouth in that angry little line, yelling at me over something stupid like the bloody cake, and it just felt so righteous to smack that fucking prissy look off your face.”

Hermione tried to push him away again, but his hand tightened on hers. His other hand softly rubbed against her cheek. “Because I realised in that moment that I could smack you. I could do it any time I fucking wanted and you could do nothing about it. All those years that you had acted so bloody superior and now I was the one above you. I could do what I wanted to you. Merlin, you don’t know how fucking hard that made me.”

Hermione spat in his face and he just wiped it off with a cruel smile. He rubbed it on her cheek and then smacked her hard. She closed her eyes and then started to do as she always did when he was like this; she let her mind wander to other things. She thought of Draco, of Charlie, of Jamie. She took her mind completely off of what he was doing to her. But he wouldn’t let her do it. He grabbed her face and turned her back to himself. “Open your eyes, you little chit, or I’ll throw you down the fucking stairs.”

Hermione’s eyes went wide open as she looked at him. Was he really saying…? He was going to purposely kill…? She couldn’t even think it. “That’s better,” he said. “And no, I haven’t forgotten about your little predicament,” he said, his hand now moving between them to rub her firm belly. “Getting knocked up by Salazar himself couldn’t have been worse, honestly, Herms.” She glared at him. “I mean my brother was one thing,” he said in a teasing voice, which suddenly became darker. “But even fucking my bloody brother is better than Draco Malfoy.”

Actually, they’re both pretty amazing, Hermione longed to say. Better by far than fucking you. “But even fucking Malfoy isn’t half as bad as carrying his spawn. I think I would do you a great favour by getting rid of the little bastard before it gets any worse.”

Hermione began struggling against him again. No! He was not going to do it! “Do you think he even cares about you?” Ron asked, getting closer to her once again, bending his head so that he was closer to her face. “Do you think he gives a shite about anything that happens to you? You know the only reason he likes you, Hermione?”

Hermione glared at him. She wished so badly that she hadn’t left her wand in the bedroom. If she hadn’t then she could have hexed his bollocks off and sent him straight to Azkaban. She didn’t need to say anything to use nonverbal magic. She just hadn’t been expecting him to retaliate. She hadn’t realised that there were so many flaws to the restraining order. She didn’t even think that when she had let Draco and Charlie go away for the day that she would have to worry about Ron coming back to exact his revenge.

“He likes you because you have a cunt, Hermione. It’s the only thing that Charlie doesn’t have. That’s why he likes you. Well, and because you can give him the other thing that Charlie can’t…” He pressed hard against her stomach. “An heir to the Malfoy fortune.”

Oh, like Draco cared about that, Hermione thought. Draco wasn’t even inherited anymore.

“Oh, that’s right,” Ron said in a mockingly innocent voice. “Daddy disowned him, didn’t he? Well then, he won’t need this then, eih?” He squeezed her stomach again. Merlin, she wanted to punch him. She wanted to hit him and kick him and scream out loud that he was a fucking bastard! But she couldn’t do anything and that just made this ten times worse.

Ron suddenly pulled her away from the wall and turned her around, one of his arms around her neck and the other holding her arms awkwardly behind her back. He pushed her forward to the front door. She was deliberately tripping and trying to fall, not knowing what he was going to do. She groaned silently as he pulled her to the door, opening it and dragging her into the stairwell. She heard the door click behind her and knew that there was only one way she could escape him now.

She looked down the stairs.

Oh, Godric.

Stairs.

Where were those bloody reporters when you needed them?

“That’s right, Hermione. I’m going to help you get rid of your little problem.”

And he pushed her down the stairs.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, Jamie?” Charlie asked with a smile, looking up at the boy on his shoulders.

“I’m hungry,” he complained.

“You’re always hungry,” Charlie commented.

“He’s a growing boy,” Draco smiled. They had just gotten back to the flat and were making their way up the stairwell.

“But he already had an ice cream,” Charlie said.

“I want pasketi!”

“Okay, okay,” Charlie laughed. “We’ll have to see if your mummy is planning anything.”

“All right,” Jamie frowned.

There was a loud crack from the floor above them, and Draco and Charlie looked at each other, wondering who was apparating to their flat. They made it up the last floor and saw that there was no one there. So someone was apparating away from the flat. They walked to the front door and found a note stuck to it.

Hey guys. Get to St Mungo’s ASAP. Harry.

They looked worriedly at each other. Charlie pulled Jamie down from his shoulders and held him close to himself. They apparated to St Mungo’s only to find the strangest congregation of people in the sitting room. Harry Potter was there of course, but so were Neville Longbottom and Lucius Malfoy.

“What the hell happened?” Draco nearly yelled.