The Baby Project

Author's Note:

okay...many of you may not like me too much for this chapter....but all i am going to say is that it HAD to be done for my secret plot developement (and yes, there is a hell of alot more plot to come, i assure you!!!!!).

You will see what I mean at the end of the chapter...
Also, I apologise if anyone thinks that their relationship is continually 'backwards and forwards'....i know i put you all through hell when i do this, but if you loath someone for so long and then suddenly you are around them all the time, its not possible to adjust right away.

And just a note about some points further on in this chapter;
Although Hermione feels rather alot for Draco...please remember that with Hermione, friends always come first...(we have seen this in the books. No matter how bossy and demanding she can be, she ALWAYS stuck by her friends).


Thanks!!
xxx



Chapter Thirty

'I'm Crazy.
I'm crazy for you,
and there’s nothing that I won't do.
I'm caught by that look in your eyes,
and it's all for the love of you.'


All the angry eyes in the room were trained on her. She did her best to hide her
anxiety, but she was certain they could all see her embarrassment. Perhaps that would
be to her favor.

"All that Professor Dumbledore and I can do is apologise for not informing you all sooner."
She started, twiddling her thumbs slowly in front of her. "We miscalculated the transformation
progress, and sadly we were just as unaware as any of you were."

"But you're supposed to be watching over us," came Lavender Brown's voice from the back of
the classroom. She held her toddler in her arms, trying to remove her tiny fingers from her
shiny gold necklace.

Professor McGonagall nodded sympathetically.
"I can only apologise to all of you," she began. "There have been a few
hiccups along the way with this experiment, and I have to say that thus far,
you have all handled it exceptionally well."

"It's been a case of having to," Parvati piped up glumly, casting a glare in Ron’s direction as
he attempted to put his restless twins back into their prams before they tried to escape again.

"Be that as it may," McGonagall interrupted. "Myself and Professor Dumbledore
had calculated that your children would change into toddlers exactly a week from
today, which was obviously a mistake."

"Well obviously," Seamus butted in while watching Luna as she put their daughter’s small
stray hairs into tiny pigtails.

"This is the first time that this experiment has ever taken place within this school,” the professor
continued, sounding a little less sympathetic now. “We have tried to run it as smoothly as
possible, but I'm afraid that we have not completely ironed everything out just yet."

Draco had to smirk at that. Damn right they hadn't ironed everything out.

How would that old coot like it is she woke up in the morning, expecting to
see a tiny baby sleeping in her cot, only to find an impatient toddler
sitting there that really didn't like the idea of being dressed in the
morning?

It had taken Hermione and him twenty minutes to put the pink dress on her;
and even then, she had protested to wearing shoes and had started kicking her
legs around and trying her best to crawl away from them.

Still, she was as gorgeous as ever and everyone knew it.
Draco glanced down at his baby, who was currently staring around the room
with those wide grey pools of hers. Every now and again she would bang on
the side of her pram to get either his or Granger's attention, which seemed
to scare Potter's baby, because he kept whimpering every time he heard a noise.

'What a pansy,' he thought with a smirk.

Then he thought on and looked to the back of the classroom.
She sat there with Bert on her lap, his dark brown curls glued to the top of
his head, as if she had somehow tried to straighten them out. The kid was
trying to make a grab for Longbottom's wand, which was lying hazardously on
the table. If the boy was anything like his father, then that would only spell trouble.

"Last night was torture, Professor," Hermione piped up, sitting next to Draco
and trying not to make herself too conspicuous within the classroom for once.

Draco glanced out of the corner of his eye when he saw Weasley's head glance
around to look at her.
Draco's blood boiled. He was about to raise his voice when McGonagall spoke
up once again.

"You're not alone, Miss Granger," she announced. "I suspect that most of you
had a terrible night trying to calm your young ones down?"

You could say that again.

"It's part of the transformation," the Professor explained, perching herself on her
desk. "Your child was trying to explain to you that something was going to happen."

"Couldn't she have started laughing or something?" Seamus asked again, tickling Antonia
under her chin as she began to giggle. "It's a hell of a lot better than the bawling and the tantrums."

McGonagall rolled her eyes and decided to ignore that question.
"From this point on you’ll be able to notice the signs for the next transformation process, as
they are much the same."

'I hope to God they actually give us the right dates next time,' Hermione thought,
looking past Malfoy and down into the pram where her beautiful girl was sitting, Airyn was minding
her own business and finding out exactly why her nose had holes big enough for her fingers.

"So what now?" Draco asked her, sitting back in his seat and watching the
back of Weasley's head.
No, he daren't look around when it was someone other than Hermione who was speaking.

"Now I will monitor your babies’ progress, and how well you have all been coping so far,"
she told the class, getting up from her place on the desk and making her way to a cupboard
near the entrance to the classroom. "I shall give you each one of these thermometers and
you will place them into your children's mouths for five minutes."

The class frowned. What was that supposed to achieve?

Expecting the reaction, McGonagall continued as she made her way around the
desk's. "Now, it’s not technically a ‘thermometer, but it has a similar purpose. Depending on the colour that the thermometer goes during the
testing, is how well you are doing so far."

Anxiety set in amongst the students.
All of them thought they had been doing rather well up to this point... but
maybe the thermometer was going to prove them wrong.

"I will also need your diaries that you have been keeping, please," the
teacher announced.

Half of the class groaned, completely forgetting about the diaries that they
were supposed to be writing in every time something worth noting happened.
Draco was among them.

However, Hermione clambered into her bag and withdrew a dog-eared diary likely full of information.
Had there really been that much to write about?

As McGonagall passed the table, she picked up Hermione's diary and gave her a
small smile. "It looks like Miss Granger has been keeping up with her
diary, unlike the rest of you."

Draco caught the girl's attention with his eyes.
"When did you manage to write in that?" he asked her.

"Whenever I had the chance," she answered back, shrugging and smiling.

Draco picked the thermometer up from the desk.
Crafty witch... she had bewitched it to make it look like a child's dummy.
Therefore, Airyn had no qualms about putting it into her mouth and sucking
on it avidly, looking up at her Dad with her big eyes as if to thank him for the present.

"All of the thermometers are white," Hermione whispered to him. "They must
change colour when the five minutes are up."

Draco was starting to panic.
Maybe something had gone wrong along the way and they had started rearing
Airyn badly? Then again, they had been doing pretty much what the rest of
the students had been doing, so it wasn't as if they were on their own or anything...

Draco looked down as a letter floated into his lap from nowhere.
Hermione was around on his other side now, picking Airyn up from the pram
and making a fuss of her just so she could see that gummy smile of hers.
Draco glanced at her momentarily, before reaching down and opening the
note.

His anger at the words on the paper began to make him feel irrational,
almost as if he should have got out of his seat and caused an uproar in the
class. What he would have given at that moment to tear the bastard limb from
limb.

I'm Sorry

Obviously the piece of paper had never been intended to find its way into his lap.

That was all that it said, and yet somehow the fury these words provoked cut Draco so deep
that he felt he had to do something about it. He would be sorry; Draco would make
damn sure of that. Who the fuck did Weasley think he was? How dare he even contemplate
apologising to Granger... he didn't even deserve to talk to her. Draco had thought that after his
rational reflections last night, that he would let Hermione get on with what she wanted to do and
let her sort it out, but this had brought it all back to him again.

"Time’s up," McGonagall shouted around the classroom, stirring Draco from his
thoughts. His anger continued to bubble, but that would be rectified once
they were out of the classroom where he could get a good shot of the twat.

The buzz around the room was one of excitement and anxiety all mixed in together.
The very colour of the thermometer would allow the Professor to know whether
the students were finding the project hard or not.

"As you will notice," McGonagall began in explanation, taking out a notepad as
she jotted down the colours of everyone's thermometer. "There are three
colours that the thermometer can change to."

Harry looked down from Freddie’s thermometer and glanced at Airyn's with a
worried expression.
"How come we have different colours?" he asked Hermione worriedly. She shrugged.

"If you have a blue thermometer then congratulations," McGonagal applauded.
"You have done everything necessary to ensure that your child is happy and
you have thus far gained almost top marks for your project."

Harry beamed. Hermione's heart dropped.
Draco scratched his head in confusion.

"But ours isn't blue," he whispered to Hermione. "Ours is-"

"If you have a Red thermometer then I would give you a word of caution; buck
up your ideas before you completely fail the whole project." Her words were
stern and harsh. "Your relationship with each other needs to improve
drastically, and you need to re-think the way you are rearing your child
before either he or she grows up into an antisocial hellion."

Blaise and Lavender looked shamefaced, as did a few other couples around the room.

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. At least they weren't in that category.

"If your thermometer happens to be green, then you are neither here nor
there," the Professor told the group. The majority of people were in this
category, but it was not the one that Hermione thought they would be in.
"Your child is happy enough, but is having a hard time deciphering the
relationship between you and your partner. Also, I think a little more
authority between the two of you would not go amiss."

Hermione frowned. Authority was not something that a child needed at that age.

"Rota's would be a good start, and you can also create more unity between you
and your partner, so your child can see that you are a united front."


"Well, it's not so bad," Draco told Hermione, watching as everyone else
seemed to be packing their things away.

"Yes it is," Hermione told him with a frown. "We still have improvements to
make if we want to get a blue thermometer next time."

Draco rolled his eyes.
The thermometer didn't matter to him anymore. So what if Airyn was a little
confused? In time she wouldn't be if he had anything to do with it.

"Miss Granger, could you spare a second please?" McGonagall asked her from
the front of the classroom.

Hermione and Draco shared a glance before he shrugged and went to take Airyn
out of the room with him.

"It's okay, your daughter can stay with Hermione," McGonagall smiled at him,
for the first time. Strange.

Draco nodded, obviously realising that something was going to be said about
him. He left the room feeling anxious again, only to bump into someone who
drained the angst from his body, and brought his temper to a blow-out.


___________________________



"Is there something wrong, Professor?" Hermione asked curiously, sitting in
the seat opposite McGonagall just as she had been instructed to by the teacher.

The Professor smiled. "Not at all, I was just going to check up on your
progress," she answered pleasantly. "I noticed that young Airyn's thermometer
was green, and I was wondering if there was anything that I could suggest to help you?"

Hermione frowned. Why was the old witch asking her and not anyone else?

"I don't know Professor," Hermione answered, stroking Airyn's hair gently as
she say on her knee, playing with her feet. "She seems pretty happy to me, I
think that perhaps me and Mal-er, Draco could possibly come up with some kind
of rota, but I think we have been coping quite well so far."

McGonagall nodded her head.
"I can see that you have both taken necessary action to keep your child
happy, but to be honest I was rather expecting your thermometer to be blue
rather than green."

Hermione looked shamefaced.
"I was rather disappointed too, Professor," she admitted, smiling slightly
when Airyn looked up at her mummy with her wide gummy smile, as if proud of
herself for almost being able to shove her whole foot into her mouth.

"Perhaps you and Mr. Malfoy should think more about your relationship? Maybe
that would help the situation a little more?"

Hermione looked up at her teacher.
What exactly was she suggesting? The idea was simple enough, but the
suggestion within her voice told Hermione otherwise... and she wasn't sure if
she felt that McGonagall knew what was going on between herself and Draco.

"Just something to think about," the professor told her, standing up from her seat.

"May I go now, Professor?" Hermione asked her, taking hold of Airyn and
placing her back into her pram.

"You may."

Hermione nodded slightly and left the room with the buggie.

McGonagall watched as the door clicked behind the girl. She stared at the
door for a moment, lost in her thoughts. Nothing seemed out of place.
Maybe Dumbledore was wrong... maybe he hadn't tried to get in touch
with them after all.
She was sure that if he had, then Miss Granger's face would be telling a
very different story.


_________________________________


Hermione's head was elsewhere as she strolled along the corridor with Airyn,
not even noticing the cooing from the other female students as she passed by.

What did shake her from her thoughts however, was the sight of an extremely
flustered Ginny Weasley running up to her with so much pace that Hermione was
certain that she was about to knock her over.

"HERMIONE!" she shouted, scaring the rest of the students. Something was wrong.

"Are you alright?" Hermione asked her worriedly.

Ginny nodded quickly. "It's not me, its Ron," she told her quickly, watching
Hermione’s walking pace speed up instantly.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked in a panic, following Ginny along the corridor.

"Malfoy," was all Ginny could manage to get out, before she started back off
at a run. "Follow me!" she shouted, as Hermione started a jog, winding the
stroller through the crowd as she tried to keep up with Ginny.

Hermione's heart sped up as images flashed through her mind at what she was
about to find at the other end of the corridor.
She wasn't entirely sure who her heart was beating faster for; Ron being
beaten to a pulp by Malfoy, or Malfoy getting injured by Ron.

Hermione struggled to push herself through a dense crowd of people, whom all
seemed to be whooping and cheering. Hermione knew exactly what she would
find there. As she pushed her way through, using the stroller as defense,
she came face to face with her worst nightmare:

Draco had Ron pinned to the floor with one arm, while the other hit his face repeatedly.
Hermione looked over to see Harry being held back by Seamus and Blaise, but
the fury in his eyes was apparent.

"Liar!" Draco shouted, letting go of Ron's shoulder and standing up. "How
the hell do you have the audacity to stand here in front of everyone and lie like that?"

Ron pushed himself up and wiped his nose. "Fuck off Malfoy, it had nothing to do with you."

Draco took another swing at the redhead, and the two once again became
involved in a heavy tussle that made them collide with the floor.

"Stop it!" Hermione shouted angrily. She pushed the pram over to Ginny in
haste. "Look after her, please?"
Ginny nodded, turning the pram away from the commotion turning her attention to Airyn.

"Back off, Malfoy!" Harry almost screamed. "Ron's done nothing to you."

Draco didn't listen. He was too busy seeing Weasley get the upper hand on
him, as he embedded his fist into Draco's nose.

"What the hell started all of this?" Hermione demanded, looking at Harry.

"Malfoy just jumped on Weasley as soon as he laid eyes on him in the
corridor," Blaise answered, seeing that Harry was in no position to talk rationally.

Hermione needn't have asked. She knew exactly what had started it.

"Stop it, the both of you!" she screamed.

Almost as if by command, Dean Thomas and Greg Goyle made their way into the
middle of the fight and pulled the lads apart. They still fought their
restraints for a moment, but then stopped as they both looked
upon Hermione's face for the first time.

Draco felt triumphant. Ron felt guilt.

"What did you think this would achieve?" Hermione asked them both quietly,
almost as if they were now the only ones in the corridor.

Ron looked down at his feet.

Draco took the scenic route.
"I beat the living shit out of this prick, so right now I think I've achieved a lot more than he has."

Hermione glared at him.
"Why?" she asked him. "What gave you the right to beat up on my-"

Draco laughed. "Oh please, don't call him your friend."

The whole corridor murmured in speculation at Draco's words.
Ron's face was bright red, and he could not hold his head up.

"I'll call him what I want to," Hermione told him defiantly.

"There's loads of names you can call him," Draco told her, getting angry.
"But I prefer the term 'rapist'."

Gasps broke out. Ginny almost screamed and Harry went white.

Hermione gave Draco a saddened look.
He was supposed to be on her side. Last night he had told her that she
should forgive him, so what had changed?

"Take that back you bastard," Harry spat venomously. "You can't go around
making accusations like that without being able to back them up."

"And Ron isn't like that!" Ginny protested angrily. "He would never do anything like that!"

"Let's ask Granger, shall we?" Draco announced.

All eyes turned to her.
She closed her eyes and wished she was somewhere else. Why was he doing this
to her? Did he hate her or something?

"'Mione?" Harry asked quietly, breaking her from her thoughts as she looked at him.

Hermione stood in silence as the whole corridor watched her.
Then after a few moments, her eyes came to settle on sparkling silver ones.

"He's lying," Hermione said coldly. "Ron has never touched me."

A heated debate broke out seconds later, but silver eyes never left hazel
ones for a second. They remained locked throughout the commotion in the
corridor... and Hermione’s eyes widened in despair as Draco’s became cold and
placid, something which they had not been for a long time.

Did he not see that it was easier this way?
Ron would keep his friends and Draco would live up to his usual reputation of
being an arsehole... almost as if nothing had ever changed at all.
She wanted to do the good thing, and if doing the good thing meant that
someone would inevitably get hurt then that was the way she would have to
play it. After all, she knew that Draco would be less affected by it that Ron would.

Draco averted his eyes, pulling his shoulders away from Goyle's grasp.
He made to move away from the crowd and push his way out of the corridor
when someone spoke up.

"You’re disgusting Malfoy," came the familiar female voice. "And to think, I
almost let you make love to me on boxing day."

Draco shivered.
He turned around and glared at Parvati. It was obvious that the girl was out
for revenge, so why not let her have it? Everyone else seemed to be showing
their true colours today.

"Go back to whatever dick you were sucking on and leave me the hell alone,"
Draco replied, getting a glare from the girl.

Then she smiled.
"It's a pity I never got round to your dick that night, Malfoy," she said in
an acid tone. Ron and Harry were seething again, while Hermione bit her lip
and decided that she really didn't want to listen. "If I recall rightly, you
were too busy thinking about shagging Hermione Granger to actually pay any
attention to someone with experience."

All eyes immediately turned to Hermione, who blushed crimson.
This was becoming the worst day ever. She looked up at Draco, who was now
staring at her with an unreadable expression upon his face.

"Patil, a three-legged bitch with no vagina has more experience than you." A
few of the Slytherin's tittered. "And besides," he looked Hermione straight
in the eyes, letting her see the pain that he had tried to hide. "I liked
the fantasy of rolling around in dirt with a filthy Mudblood."

Hermione felt her world crumble.

"But it's safe to say that the idea knocks me sick right now."

The whole corridor stayed silent as Draco went towards Ginny Weasley and
took Airyn and the stroller away from her.
She didn't say a word and let him take her. For some reason, she felt that
somewhere deep inside Malfoy that he had been hurt by Hermione... she could
feel it in his aura.

But why?
Hermione had told the truth about Ron, and Malfoy had been proven wrong. So
why did she get the feeling that something was still amiss?
She watched as Draco passed Ron by, glaring at him almost as if he could
spit venom. And yet, Ron still looked at him with a sheepish look... what was
really going on?

She realised as soon as Malfoy exchanged his last looks with Hermione.
His eyes held desperation and sadness, and something that also looked a lot
like betrayal. Hermione looked back at him with an identical look.
And that was when she realised the truth;

Draco Malfoy was not the liar. Hermione Granger was.

Hermione felt a horrible churning feeling in her stomach as she watched
Draco walk away with their baby.
Nobody stopped him, they just let him pass without saying a word.
Once he had disappeared around the corner, everyone began to talk in whispered tones.

"Why did he lie like that?"

"Why would he even call Ron a rapist?"

"So he didn't actually shag Parvati, then?"

Ron looked relieved but still rather guilty.
Hermione glanced over at Ginny, who was openly staring at her.
Her heart sank. Just by that one look in Ginny's eyes, she could tell that
the youngest Weasley knew exactly what was going on.

Hermione could hear her friends shouting her name, but she drowned it out
and pretended not to hear them.
Instead, she slowly turned her back and walked in the opposite
direction, back down the way she had come.


_______________________________



Draco wanted to slam the door behind him, but thought better of it with
Airyn sitting quietly in her pram.
Instead, he closed the door quietly and picked his little girl up. She
quickly put her chubby little arms around his neck and put her head on the
upper part of his chest.

At least someone still wanted him.
Anger was still bubbling inside of him, and he was praying to God that he
would calm down before he saw Granger again.

Draco sat down on the couch and let Airyn continue to rest against his
chest, as her hands came down from his neck and were not picking at his
shirt, feeling the fabric. Every now and again she made a gurgling sound in
the back of her throat, and gave a little giggle to herself.
For the first time in a while, Draco smiled. He kissed the top of her blond
curly head and then put his head against the couch and closed his eyes.

His mind wandered back to that moment half an hour ago.
Bumping right into Weasley in the corridor had been a big mistake. The
redhead had given him a disgusted look and walked off with Potter.
Draco had stood there for a few moments, feeling the fury consume him until
he walked blindly towards the boy and pounced on him unannounced. To say
that Weasley was shocked was an understatement, but as Draco knocked him to
the ground and started laying in punches, the twat got the gist of what was
happening and started fighting back.

When Granger had actually shown up he thought she was going to give him some
sort of unspoken 'thank you', but what he got was actually quite the opposite.
The look in her eyes said it all, she didn't have to actually stand there
and announce that Draco was a damn liar... any trust or feelings that he had
for her had been put on hold from that moment.

Truth be told, he had never intended on blabbing the reason for why he was
beating on Weasley. He could put it down to a number of reasons, but he was
well aware that the bastard would know exactly why he had done it. What he
didn't count on was Granger defending that dickhead, instead of defending
the person who was actually fighting her corner. That had made his resolve
snap, and therefore he ended up telling the whole story, just because he
didn't want to look like the fool. He should have expected it, really.

Granger didn't want a fuss about the problem, she had always made that clear.
It was obvious that she would stick up for her 'friend' rather than
her... whatever Draco was to her at the moment. She wanted to live in a
pretty little world where everything was okay and fine and
fan-fucking-tastic, and what right did he have to ruin that for her?
Well, as far as he was concerned she could have that life, because he was
washing his hands of her. She could put her friends first, above her
makeshift family, what did he care?

But he did care, and that was the problem.
The look in her eyes had burned into his brain and now he was finding it
hard to get the image to disappear. It pained him to think that he had hurt
her, and yet another part of him was glad that he had said what he had.
The Mudblood part had hurt her terribly, but if it made her realise what
kind of a mistake she had made, then he didn't care.

'Bitch' he thought angrily, feeling Airyn's head plonk onto his
shoulder as he stroked her hair. 'next time she comes running back she'll
have a big surprise.'

He knew he was wrong, however.
As soon as she would appear through those doors, he knew his resolve on the
situation would slip. After today, it had come to his attention that it was
more than sexual attraction that he felt for her... the hammering of his
heart had told him as much when she had looked at him the way she had.
It went further than lust... he could control lust and it didn't usually
effect his day-to-day activities. This was something much deeper and much
more serious than lust...

This was mutual affection, and it scared the shit out of him.

Draco opened his eyes and glanced down at Airyn.
Slobbering all over his shirt was usually something he would moan at, but
considering it was his little girl he didn’t care.
He picked her up and went to walk towards his rooms, when something on the
study table stopped him.

An envelope.

Draco looked at it curiously from a distance at first, but then his
curiosity overcame him and he walked towards it.
Plain white and nothing fancy, except for the familiar writing on the front.

Draco Malfoy

The Head Common Room
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Draco picked the envelope up carefully and immediately turned it over,
feeling the lead drop into his stomach as he looked upon the all too
familiar sealed wax crest on the back.
Counting to ten and calming himself down, Draco opened the envelope and found a letter inside.

"No, no," Draco said playfully to Airyn as she made a grab for the letter.
"You can have this," he told her, giving her the envelope and watched her
with a smirk as she put it into her mouth and blanched visibly when she
decided that she didn't like the taste in her mouth.

Draco unfolded the letter and read the contents within.
His blood froze as he read each word twice.
When he finally put the letter in his pocket, Draco was still in a daze. He
made his way up to his bedroom without realising that his feet were moving.
He then made his way over to the bed and lay back on it, taking Airyn with him.

He watched her crawl around for a few minutes, feeling the blankets
underneath her fingers. She looked at her daddy with that cherub face, that
gummy smile shining at him again.
Draco smiled back, but it quickly faded when he remembered what that letter had said.

Lucius Malfoy knew. And he wasn't pleased.