Unrequited

Don't own them, never will.



Since you’ve gone, I’ve lost the chip on my shoulder. Since you’ve gone, I feel like I’ve gotten older.
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January was sluggish and cold. After the initial shock of our separation hit the student body, life at Hogwarts settled back to normal. Ron and Harry had gotten a month’s worth of detention for ambushing Draco. I was inordinately glad. I was also missing my erstwhile husband sorely. We only ever spoke to each other during my monthly checkup with Madame Pomfrey. She pronounced us both healthy and well, despite the stress of the past few months.

“Madam, is it possible to know the sex of the baby?” he asked, politely.

“It’s still a little too soon to tell, Draco. Hermione has another appointment in a fortnight, I can tell you then.”

“Granger.” I was startled to hear him addressing me. “Do you want to know or do you want to be surprised?”

“I think…I want to know.”

“It’s settled then.” With a curt nod of his head he was off. I sat up from the cot and re-arranged my clothing. The mediwitch, normally fussy and rather dispassionate about her students, looked at me with something akin to pity in her eyes. I abhorred pity.

“Don’t worry about it.” I, too, left without another word.
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I lingered in the hallways watching her furtively – an ironic replay of how we were before our ill-fated collision. She seemed duller. Less sparkling. Even those irrepressible curls were somehow diminished. I saw her taking a walk through the snow-banked grounds and resisted the powerful urge to yell at her to come in from the cold. I only stepped away from the window.

I held back when I saw her sniffling her way through a mid-winter cold and wanted to demand why she wasn’t resting under blankets with her feet propped up.

I stood idly by when in Potions, Longbottom added an extra bit of cricket leg and the brew bubbled and exploded all over the two of them. I wanted to rail and scream and order her to wear protective gear. Thankfully, Severus did all three of those things on my behalf. It made it easier to stare after her dispassionately and pretend to examine the sorry state of my manicure.

Fuck it all. The fact of the matter was that I missed her – badly. But I’d be damned if I went to her first. She had led me a merry dance and now I was the one calling the tune. Our separation wasn’t the easiest or the neatest, but at least we were civil to one another.

The two weeks trudged by and were back in the Hospital Wing listening to the woosh-woosh of a fetal heartbeat. There was nothing wrong with the baby, judging by the bright net of green lights hovering over Hermione’s slightly swollen abdomen.

“I seem to remember the two of you wanting to know the sex of the baby?” Madam Pomfrey sounded almost chipper. Odd, that. The woman had never been anything but sour throughout my entire career at Hogwarts.

“If you would, Madam.” Hermione was also smiling softly, as if she already knew. I was on tenterhooks.

The mediwitch performed the necessary incantations and one by one the little lights began popping up as bright fuchsia.

“Well, I’ve lost my money after all,” Madam Pomfrey remarked. “Looks like the two of you are going to have a girl on your hands.” The woman sounded positively disappointed.

“A girl,” Hermione mused. And then a smile began to spread over her face. The smile turned into a chuckle and the chuckles grew to blown out laughter.

“And what,” I demanded haughtily, “is so funny about that?”

“The busiest zipper in Hogwarts is going to have a daughter!” she crowed, tears of hilarity beginning to run down her face.

“I don’t think that’s very funny, Granger,” I said, aggrieved.

“Neither do I,” Madam Pomfrey primly chimed in.

I watched Hermione bring her mirth under control. “So sorry. It’s just…well, fitting, is all.”

Madam Pomfrey allowed a smile to crack her pursed lips. “I do see the humour in it. Off with you now.” She winked out the diagnostic lights with a flick of her wand.

Hermione pulled down her shirt and jumper and eased off of the tall bed. We walked out of the Hospital Wing and along the corridor in silence. I watched Hermione trace small circles along her stomach, a faintly pleased look on her face.

I didn’t know what to say. I felt ecstatic and scared at once. What did I, Draco Malfoy, know about raising a girl? Nothing – except to tell her to stay away from bastards like me. I stared down at the top of Hermione’s head. Trust her to do the unexpected. For generations untold the first Malfoy (and generally only) offspring was always male.

“I suppose I can stop thinking of her as the Alien.” Her softly amused voice floated to my ears, breaking my reverie.

I chuckled in spite of myself. “Same here. It will be Allegra from now on, won’t it?”

“Hm.” The smile played around her mouth, making her lips curl attractively.

“Hermione?” Maybe it wasn’t the best time to ask, but I knew I wouldn’t get another one.

“Yes, Draco?” Her voice was polite and inquiring. She lost the tone of playful intimacy.

“Do you think you might…Well, that is, I’d like you to come back to our apartment.” There it was, out in a rush. No turning back.

She turned to me and looked almost amused by my statement. Her mouth quirked with a derisive edge that didn’t bode well for me.

“Give me a good enough reason to come back and I will.”

All of my misdeeds and misgivings poured through my brain at that and for the life of me, I couldn’t open my mouth to give her an answer.

“That’s what I thought.” She shook her head ruefully and walked away from me.

When her footsteps receded around a corner, I finally worked up the nerve to say what was on my heart.

“I love you.”