Pictures

Hello All! This chapter isn't much and I'm sorry that it is so short, but I had to post something to help rid me of my writer's block. Thanks to everyone who leaves a review! You guys are awesome and I hope everyone is well. Cheers! G.C.


Draco entered his home to the sounds of pots and pans being angrily thrown around in his kitchen. These sounds followed by what seemed to be vegetables being angrily chopped made him wary as he opened the door that led to the kitchen, not even bothering to go upstairs and take off his ministry robes. Hermione was in a tiff and though his first reaction was to turn from the scene before him, he quietly shut the door behind him and asked, “What happened?”

His wife of two months glared at him for a few moments as she dumped a chopping board full of peppers and onions into the giant pot she had on the stove range. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” she asked, dangerously.

Licking his lips nervously, Draco replied, “The good, please.’

“Well, the good news is that the babies are progressing normally and are all healthy. Also, you’ll be pleased to know this, they are all boys.”

Draco sat down at the small table in the exceedingly large kitchen. “All? Don’t you mean both?” he asked, breathing heavily. What had he done?

“No, I mean ALL the babies, Draco. As in I’m carrying three of your children at the moment, not one, not two, but three. Therein ends the good news.” Hermione began cutting the homemade pasta she had just started into thin strips.

“Three babies is good news?” he asked.

“Yes, it is! I won’t have any of our children ever thinking they were unwanted. Our third little one, who was hiding behind his bigger brothers is a surprise, but not bad news.”

“And what of the bad news?” he asked, almost not daring to.

“The bad news is that the extra rest I’ll be needing as a result of my multiple pregnancy won’t be a problem seeing as I’ve been forced into a leave of absence. Apparently it is the Ministry’s prerogative that no expecting witches should be allowed in the department of mysteries due to its volatile nature. I won’t be expected back until the boys are at least three months old.” With that, Hermione threw the last of her chopped vegetables into the pot with the simmering tomato sauce.

Draco sighed in relief. Was that all that was troubling her? Here he thought that she had somehow found out about his meddling and was deciding to divorce him after only two months together. He watched her three month pregnant form move about the kitchen and smirked. Although she was only three months pregnant, she looked about six months along. It was probably due to the extreme amount of baby Malfoys she had growing inside of her. Deciding he’d better show some sympathy or else his ass would be sleeping alone that night he pretended to be aghast at what the ministry had forced upon her.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, “It’s awful! Isn’t there anyway you can work your way around it?”

‘No, they won’t let me back in, but they will hold my job for me.” She was tasting the sauce for her pasta and Draco was getting quite hungry smelling the delicious aroma.

“Well, there are lots of things that you can do that would be much more productive than sorting through old prophecies on Celestina Warbeck.” He said as he came up behind her and rested his hand possessively on the mound that was his children growing in her body.

“Oh? Like what?” she asked. “And another thing! These are definitely your children! I’ve spent all week wanting spaghetti and the second I get home, I start to make it, but oh no! They’ve demanded apple tart with pistachio ice cream. Fortunately I probably won’t have to put up with your demanding offspring in me for a whole nine months.”

Draco was still busy trying to digest the thought that he would be father three times over. “What do you mean you won’t be pregnant the whole nine months? Does the mediwitch think you’ll lose the babies? And if you’re craving apple tart with pistachio ice cream, why aren’t you eating it?”

“No, the babies are fine, but it isn’t uncommon at all for multiple births to come a month or two early. I might deliver at seven months; the mediwitch thinks it’s highly likely I will since the babies are so well developed already. I’m not making apple tart because I’ve wanted this dinner all week, I’ve prepared for it and I won’t let them dictate my life this early on in theirs.”

“So while I’m eating spaghetti, I guess you’ll be making apple tart, then, right?”

Hermione let out a defeated sigh. “Yes,” she said as she started pulling items out from under cabinets to make the dessert. She had calmed down visibly, seeming to need the little outburst. Draco was glad she had waited to let it out on him rather than calling her mother or Ginny Weasley. It meant that she was leaning on him emotionally.

Getting up, he walked over to her and pulled her into his embrace. Even with her enlarged belly she still fit to him perfectly. Every time he looked at her he got hard and his feeling of possessive euphoria had increased ten fold now that she was showing. Not wanting to do another battle with her hormones, Draco merely kissed the top of her head and said, “Now, back to what I was talking about earlier. There are lots of things that you can do to keep yourself busy.”

“Like what?” she asked, in a small tired voice. She waved her wand and the apples in front of her were sliced into thin strips and laid over the unbaked crust in the pan.

“Well, for starters, you could write a book.”

“A book? What kind of book?”

“Well, you’re well versed in dozens of subjects. You could write one on spell-craft for beginners, you could write a book for the muggle families of wizarding children to help them ease their way into the new stages of their child’s life, you could write an updated version of Hogwarts: A History, or you could write all of them. You love books so much that it makes sense to me that you’d be an author as well as an avid reader.” He was absentmindedly rubbing her stomach when suddenly he sensed what felt like tiny fingers lightly tapping his palm through Hermione’s stomach. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt his babies moving inside her, but every time he did, the miracle of it always made him pause with delight.

This was what he’d wanted for so long. He wanted someone to wait impatiently on him to get home just to so that they could talk to him, and not about money or redecorating the parlour for a dinner party. He had someone he could complain to without censure or reservation and even though he was once again residing in the house he was born in, he actually felt at home. Before, it had been a giant museum-like monument to the Malfoy name and one little corner of it had held his personal belongings. It was a place that he slept, but since going to Hogwarts, it hadn’t been home.

Now, with Hermione living within its walls, the Manor had become much more vibrant. Their rooms and the library and the kitchen all had special memories and since he now owned all the priceless antiques surrounding them, he no longer felt any kind of fear at breaking them. This made all movement throughout the grand house much more relaxed. He now moved with the ease of a cocky second year on the first day of school at Hogwarts: recklessly sure of himself and basking in the glory of his surroundings.

Even though it had never felt like ‘home’ to him before, it had been important to him to instate Hermione as mistress of Malfoy Manor because that would prove to all wizarding society that she was his and that this was no short little affair. Even though their wedding had been the social event of the decade and every bride in the wizarding world was clamouring for a ‘Hermione Malfoy’ wedding dress, there were still skeptics who saw Hermione’s bulging belly at the Ministry and insisted that it couldn’t possibly be a love match.

The thing that played on Draco’s fears and fed his paranoia was the fact that everyone was correct in their assumption that there was no possible way she could have fallen for him. Rita Skeeter had interviewed his mother asking if she thought that Hermione had gotten pregnant on purpose in order to get a hold of the Malfoy fortunes. His mother had artfully spun a tale in which she and Hermione were very close and that the two of them had been engaged for quite some time and had kept the details of the wedding very hush-hush on purpose and that the babies had been an early wedding present. Narcissa’s charm had sold the readers of the Daily Prophet on Hermione’s innocence as did her status as a war hero. However, it did turn a large amount of suspicion on to Draco. No serious newspapers ran speculations on his motivation for marrying her, but there were a few snide comments that hit far too close to the truth for Draco’s comfort.

However, Hermione was married to him and she generally scoffed at the accusations thrown at their relationship. If they did tell the real truth of their relationship now, nobody would believe them. At least, nobody would believe them until Draco pulled out the pictures from Hogwarts. Thinking back on those, Draco was reminded of the fact that he had Hermione about his plans of keeping her. They hadn’t discussed it since that evening and he really didn’t want to revisit the conversation because he felt there was nothing to discuss. All his cards were on the table and he now had pictures, a contract that included her brother’s life and three children to make her stay. Of course, there was also the fact that she had promised to love, honor and obey him until her death. She’d made that promise in a wizarding ceremony and it was similar to an Unbreakable Vow, except without the horrible death. She would just cease to function and fall into a horrible depression. He knew that she believed there was a way out of the vows, otherwise she never would have agreed to the ceremony and his insistence of expediency gave her little time to fully research the consequences of bending to her family’s will.

Draco watched her mull over his book options as she baked her dessert. They ate dinner and she shared her ideas with him and it appeared that she liked the idea of becoming an author. The sex they had that evening in the bathtub was slow and luxurious, with Draco running his hands over her gloriously curved body, biting her occasionally to further mark her as his. They went to bed naked and they entwined in each other’s arms, with her head resting on his chest.

As he drifted off to sleep, Draco thought about how he was going to ensure that this sense of belonging and serenity stayed with him. He knew that it all hinged on her never finding out how much he needed her and just how far he’d been willing to go to make certain that she was tied to him.