The Baby Project

Chapter Twenty One:

'Lay a whisper on my pillow,
leave the winter on the ground.
I wake up lonely,
the sound of silence in the bedroom,
and all around.
Touch me now>
I close my eyes,
and dream away.

It must have been love,
but it's over now.
It must have been good,
but I lost it somehow.
It must have been love,
but it's over now.
From the time that we touched,
to the time I ran out.'

"Does Malfoy still take the piss?" Ron asked her, as they took a stroll with
Benny and Joon in their buggy, around the grounds of the Castle.

The sun had descended now, leaving the moon to shine brightly in it's place.
The whole of the Castle was covered in white, with snow having fallen within
the last few days.
It looked like a winter wonderland.

"Not really" Hermione told him, walking slowly so she wouldn't slip on the
icy parts of the path. "He's calmed down a hell of a lot...but I guess you
could see that from the other week when he helped you to change nappies"

Ron didn't really want to think about it.
Malfoy didn't really help him...just set him along the right path.

"That doesn't change who he is, 'Mione"

Hermione looked over at Ron, seeing his face use that usual expression when
he was thinking of talking about Malfoy.
What was all of this about?

"I'm aware of that, Ronald" She told him testily, pulling her winter coat
further around her.

She was well aware that a few months couldn't change a person's personality
altogether...
But she saw Malfoy when no one else was around.

Hell, she had been close enough to him to practically see it in his eyes.
Those steely, lustful, totally engrossing eyes...

"I'm just saying" He told her, as they walked further away from the School.
"Just because he shows that he might be capable of change; doesn't mean that
he will actually come full circle"

Hermione rolled her eyes.
She really appreciated Ron being protective of her.
And under any other circumstances, she would probably take his advice -

'To please him because you fancied him so damn much!'

- and keep her distance from Malfoy...but there was just something there
niggling away at his surface...and she was sure that if she could just keep
scratching away at it, that some sort of facade would fall away from him,
and he would prove himself as someone worth fighting for.

'Whoa, Hermione!' she thought to herself. 'Malfoy...worth fighting
for?'

In the logical - he's the father of her child and therefore she would
have to fight for him to stay that way - sense...

What a big fat lie.

"Malfoy is coping well" She told her red haired friend, in her own defense
as well as the Slytherin's. "He might not come full circle, but he's certainly
doing a one-eighty when it comes to Airyn"

Ron didn't care.
It was a stupid project....

A stupid project that had opened his eyes.

When he had first been paired with Parvati, he was quite gleeful at the fact
that he secretly admired her...until she started getting possessive and
jealous and demanding and everything else that was causing him to dislike
her more and more lately...

Maybe it was the stress of the twins...
He didn't really know, but at the moment he knew that his gaze had actually
gone elsewhere...

And the girl in question was standing right beside him.

It was the day he had seen Hermione and Malfoy in the baby shop in
Hogsmeade...something seemed to click inside him.
It was the way Malfoy kept looking at her...the glances he threw at her when
he thought no one was looking.

Ron had come to realise that Malfoy may have a soft spot for his curly
haired friend...
but his curly haired friend belonged to him...

He had known for a while that Hermione had a crush on him.
Harry and Ginny had both confessed to him, but Ron didn't want to do
anything...mainly because he just didn't really feel the same way.

But you know the saying;
You always want what you can't have...

And now that she was partnered with Malfoy...that meant that Ron couldn't
have her.
So obviously, he wanted her now.

"I just hope you know what you're doing...old ferret face could turn on you
in a second if you said the wrong thing to him"

Hermione didn't want to admit it to herself, but she knew that Ron could be
right.
Today's display on the way out of McGonagall's office had been an example of
it.

It scared her.
Would this be where they were heading?
Thinking they were in one place, and then turning it around so quickly so
they were in another?

"I know what I'm doing" She told him quietly.

But she knew without a doubt that she didn't.

___________________________________


Draco laughed as her arms splashed around.
Her legs kicked out at the yellow rubber duck that was trying to swim away
at the bottom of the baby bath, making agitated quacking noises when the
water washed over it.

After his little chat with Blaise, he had decided that him and Granger
needed to have a talk.
He was shitting himself, obviously.
Draco and proper adult conversations just didn't happen in the same
proximity.

He had decided that he needed to get out how he really felt.
It was the only way that wires weren't going to be crossed
again...especially since their little episode last week.

But then...if they didn't like each other, then why had everything transpired
like it had?
Why was he constantly thinking about her?
Why was he getting annoyed at her when he didn't think she was feeling
something for him?

'You're getting in deep, Draco...too deep'

He gently wet Airyn's head with the water, loving the way she would blink at
him with her baby blues...

If only she hadn't of woken up that night...

But...what if she hadn't?
Would things be different now?
Would himself and Granger be going at it like rabbits every five seconds?

He doubted it.

Yes, she had wanted it that night...probably wanted it more than she let on.
And he would be damned if he didn't want to give it to her...

But the rules of the project strictly stated that they weren't to have
sex...

Or was that WHILST she was pregnant?
Well, either way he looked at it, he couldn't have sex with her...not for
another two to three weeks anyway...she needed time for her body to heal -

'Will you stop thinking that you're actually going to have sex with
her?!' His mind chided him.

He couldn't help it, of course.
Lately, he found himself sitting there thinking about what it would be like
to have her underneath him...panting in his ear as he whispered sweet
nothings into hers, thrusting his cock inside of her over and over again
until she came with a shattering org-

'DRACO!'

He was losing his marbles.

'You lost them as soon as you started looking at Granger in that
way...'

Draco grabbed the fluffy fushia coloured towel next to the baby bath. He put
it over one arm and then brought Airyn out of the bath.
She whimpered slightly as the cold air hit her, but thankfully she didn't
start crying.

Draco wrapped her in the towel and held her to him.
She was looking up at him, knowing his face well enough by now to know that
he was her Daddy...the one man that would love her more than anyone else.

He heard the Common Room door open suddenly;
She walked through, rubbing her hands together. Her nose was pink and her
cheeks were rosy...he could tell she had been outside in the cold.

She looked over at him momentarily, wondering if she should speak to him.
Was he still pissed off at her?
And if so; why?
She certainly had no idea.

He looked her up and down, before turning his face back to Airyn and getting
up from the floor where he had been bathing his baby.

Hermione just stood near the door way and watched him.
Something was definitely still wrong with him.

Biting the bullet, she raised her voice.
"Did you take Airyn to the Slytherin common room?"

Draco didn't look at her.
He just nodded his head and sat on the couch, drying Airyn with the towel
gently.

Hermion tried again.
"Was she ok?"

He nodded again.

She began to get frustrated.
Why was it starting to hurt in her chest? He wouldn't look at her, and
suddenly she felt bad?
She felt pathetic.

"Will you just answer me?" She asked him, her voice sounding angry and
impatient.

He finally looked around at her.
His face told her nothing. He was a closed book; and he decided that he
would like to keep it that way.


"She was fine" He told her simply "What's the matter? Don't you trust me?"

Hermione didn't quite know what to say to that.
Yes; she trusted him because she knew that he would never let anyone hurt
one hair on Airyn's head...
No; she didn't trust him because up until these past few months, Malfoy had
been everything she had loathed about the opposite sex...and now suddenly he
was everything that she was secretly craving.

Draco finished dressing Airyn on his knee.
Anything to take off the pressure of looking at her and thinking those
thoughts that he shouldn't be...especially now that Granger was too
ashamed to even want to go there...

"I guess I know what your answer is" He said spitefully, standing up with
Airyn in his arms.
He walked over to the back of the couch, placing his young daughter in the
play pen that was situated there with the stuffed animals and the pink
night-light with the fairy inside of it to give the glow...

"What is all of this?" She asked him accusingly.
She took her coat off and flung it onto a chair as she passed it, getting
closer to the blond haired Slytherin.
"Why are you being so off with me?"

Draco wanted to shout the reason why from the roof tops, but he bit
his tongue.
"I'm not being off with you...I'm being my usual self"

Hermione felt her blood boil.
"Oh, you mean the evil little twat that hung around in your skin before
Airyn was born?"

Draco glared at her.
"That's the real me, Granger" He told her defiantly, still keeping his place
beside the play pen.

"No" Hermione told him accusingly. "This Malfoy is nothing but an
ignorant bastard who cares about no one but himself..." She looked at him
sadly for a moment, wondering if her words were hurting him as much as they
were hurting her to say them.
"The real Malfoy is the boy who spends all of his time doting on his
daughter...the real Malfoy is the man that stood before me not one
week ago"

"Things change" He answered in a snarl, turning his back on her and looking
down at Airyn.

"No they don't" She told him, taking a tentative step towards him. "Not if you
don't let them"

"What do you want me to do?" He asked her, his back still facing her. "Shout
it from the top of the Astronomy Tower? Bloody hell, Granger. So what if
I've changed a little?"

Hermione felt that familiar invisible hand grip her heart.
But this time it wasn't because of sadness or guilt...
It was because he had actually admitted it.

Draco didn't realise what he was saying. Words were just coming out of his
mouth before he could stop them.
"What am I supposed to do?" He asked her. "Tell everyone that I've
completely fallen in love with my daughter?"

He turned around then.
And she saw the resolve in his eyes.
He really didn't know what was happening to him.

"I think they've probably guessed that, anyway" He continued, looking
straight into her eyes. "But what gets me the most, is the fact that I could
even contemplate having feelings for you-"

Hermione was about to retort angrily, feeling completely affronted by his
words.
Was she really that repulsive?

"-It's not easy, you know. I see you standing there; and you're all I seem to
bloody think about!" He rubbed his face with his hands. "I know it's wrong,
and I know that neither of us want to feel like this, but I'm at my wits
end, here..."

Hermione was rooted to the spot.
Having had time to let his words sink into her brain, she momentarily
realised.
He did have feelings for her...maybe they were lust-filled
feelings...but they were there all the same...

On his end, she had put the other night down to hormones, and the lack of
sex.
On her end, she had put it down to really hormonally charged horny-ness, and
the lack of the touch of a boy since Viktor Krum.

And now he was turning it all around on her.

"...And then today, you stood there looking at me like you were ashamed of
me!" He told her accusingly. "Giving me the evils with your eyes! And for
some reason, it hurt like a bitch!"

Hermione didn't know what to say.
Seeing him standing there...letting it all out.
He felt exactly the same way that she did...but when had she looked at him
like she was ashamed of him?

She had been ashamed of herself for letting it get this far...they were
supposed to be concentrating on the Project...

"Will you say something?" His voice was almost pleading with her.

Hermione took a deep breath.
"What am I supposed to say?"

"Anything" He told her, taking a step closer to her. "As long as I'm not the
only one talking"

"I'm not ashamed of you" she admitted. she put her head down to the ground,
not wanting to look at him whilst she made her declaration. "I am ashamed of
myself because I have let other feelings get in the way of a Project that
was never meant to turn out the way it has"

Draco studied her for a moment.

"I don't know what this is" She continued. "And I don't think either of us
will understand it for a very long time..."

She looked up at him suddenly.
There was a small smile playing on her lips.

"...but when we do, I hope we both make the right choices"

Her words had washed over him without him even really understanding what
they meant.
Was she telling him that she felt the same?

"There are no right choices I can see in all of this" He told her
truthfully. "The only choice I can think of right now is the one my body
wants me to take...and I know that it definitely isn't the right choice"

Hermione took him in.
Standing there, breathing hard.
She could tell he was anxious, he always seemed out of breath and fidgety
whenever that feeling took over him.

His school robes had been replaced by a plain black t-shirt and a pair of
loose-fitting, black Muggle jeans.
His hair - which was usually neatly gelled back to his head - was all messed
up from his hands being ran through it so many times...probably in
frustration.

Why were girls such big conundrums?
Why was she looking at him so intently now?
If she was ashamed of all of this, then why did she hold that look in her
eyes?

Hermione wasn't sure what she was doing.
Her feet were moving towards him on their own accord.

Before she even realised it, she was standing a breath away from Malfoy.
She looked into his eyes momentarily, seeing the confusing playing there...
And then she did something she had promised herself that she could not do
again.

She brought his lips sharply down to her own.

To say that Draco was shocked was an understatement.
One minute they were at each other throats, and then the next they were at
each other lips...talk about crossed lines...

Hermione opened her mouth to him almost immediately, feeling that familiar
twinge of excitement roar through her belly at the thought of being in his
hold again...
His muscular arms that were enveloping her as he deepened the kiss ten-fold.

Draco searched the cavern of her mouth, wanting more of her. How was it that
she could do all this to him, just by kissing him?
His arms instinctively wrapped around her as he felt her hands go up into
his hair again, like they had that night.
She used this new angle to pull him in deeper, whilst Draco pulled their
bodies closer together more intimately.

Hermione suddenly withdrew from his embrace.
Draco momentarily wondered where her body heat had gone. He opened his eyes
and saw her standing there in front of him, her breath coming in quick pants.

He reached for her again, but she backed away.
She wasn't startled, however. She just reached for his hand and held it
slightly.

After a moment, Draco realised that she wasn't going to let him kiss her
again.
He tried to get his hormones in check before he spoke to her.

"So, what do we do?" He asked her, his breath still trying to catch up with
him. He sighed slightly from the thought of not knowing what was going to
happen from here-on-in.

"We just go with it" She told him, also trying to get her breath. "See where
everything takes us..."

Draco's eyes lit up at the prospect.

He could just see where this would end up taking them...right into his
bedroom.

"We need to remember that Airyn comes first" She stated. "She has needs
greater than our own-"

'I very much doubt that, at the moment' He thought to himself
guiltily.
But he knew she was right.

"-And we need to do what is best for her"

Draco knew she was right.
If they wanted to succeed with Airyn, then they had to put their own needs to
one side and concentrate on their daughter.

'But that doesn't help the hormones that are crawling around inside
me...'

But he would bide his time.
Whatever was happening with himself and Granger would have to develope
naturally...and if he wanted to see the end product, then he would have to
obey the rules of engagement...

'Looks like your in it for the long haul, mate...'

He hated it when his subconscious was right.


_________________________




A/N: So now they know that they both have some kind of feelings for eachother..I wonder how this will fair when they are on their own in Hermione's house at Christmas....Hhehe, oh the suspence!!!!!


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