We Can Work It Out

“Plan B? Muggle world?” Draco echoed her sentences as if he were simple.

“Yes, my plan was that if I couldn’t find anything amongst Dr. Feldman’s ‘wares’ I’d go to a muggle fertility clinic and try.” Hermione began walking towards the edge of an alleyway when Draco pulled her back.

“Granger, listen to me,” he said, starting out. “How many half-bloods do you know?”

“There’s Professor Snape and Seamus Finnegan, why?”

“Because, if you hadn’t noticed, they are extremely rare. True, purebloods are dieing out or producing squibs, but most have circumvented that problem with muggle-borns.”

“What’s your point, Malfoy? I don’t care if my child is magical or not. Unlike most people I’m not afraid of the muggle world or going back to it.” Hermione prepared to leave again and Draco stopped her.

“There is only a fifty percent chance that you’ll have a magical child with a muggle. Don’t do that to your child, please.” He looked so sincere that Hermione actually paused and motioned her head for him to continue. “Don’t show them the magical world and then take it away from them. You have no idea what squibs go through.”

“What on earth do you mean? They’re just as good as anybody else and believe it or not, happiness can be found in the muggle world.”

“You’ve never seen a wizarding family send their child to Oxford. Yes, it’s a prestigious learning institution, but that person has to turn their back on an entire way of life. You turned your back on muggle life, but if you had to, you could go back to being muggle. A squib can never come back to the wizarding world. They have to deny that goblins, giants and unicorns exist, not to protect their families, but because they will never be a part of the world they were born into. Look at Filch, he was miserable. Imagine how much worse he would have felt if his mother was one of the Golden Trio, the Saviors of the Wizarding World?”

It had occurred to Hermione that any child she had might not be magical, but it also had never occurred to her how it might feel if she was shut out of the wizarding world. How would she have felt if she had been like Molly’s cousin or Arabella Figg, unable to even transfigure a tea bag? He was right. It was a possibility, but why risk it when the odds of producing a magical child were much higher with even another muggle-born?

“Okay, fine. I’ll move to Plan C. Find a personal donor who will help me in the raising of my child.” She paused. “This is the least attractive route,” she pouted. Draco looked pleased with her decision.

Her leaned over her and asked, “Who did you have in mind?”

“I’m not sure. I think I’ll make a list and approach each one privately. The last thing I want is for this to get out.” Draco hung his head exasperated, but decided to let it pass. The two made it out of the alley together and apparated back to her flat. Neither one noticed the tiny beetle that had followed them from outside the clinic to the alley.

******

Monday morning dawned bright and early and Hermione used her bum to nudge the door to her and Draco’s office open as she was holding her work satchel, several folders of statistics and a cardboard carrier with two toffee lattes and cinnamon scones in her hands.

“I got us something special this morning as a way of saying thank you. I think you’ll like it. Cinnamon scones are your favorite, right?” Hermione got no answer, so she merely shrugged and shut the door with her foot and set their breakfast down on his desk. Draco was glaring at something above her left shoulder and the quill he had been holding in his hand was now snapped in two. Turning around, Hermione expected to see Christine with some sort of geriatric liniment in her hands for Draco’s creaky quidditch hip, what she saw instead made her stomach drop.

“I always knew that if I waited you’d finally come to your senses and see how perfect we could be together,” Cormac MacLaggen smiled at her in what he obviously thought was a heart-stopping grin.

“I beg your pardon?” Cormac had been hidden by the door, so she hadn’t seen him when she had come in. Even though he had cooled his heels after she and Ron had gotten together, he always, always sought her out at ministry functions and tried his own self-centered attempt at seduction. The Scottish man was quite fit and very attractive, but the second he opened his mouth, Hermione found him repulsive.

“I knew that eventually you would want to settle down and that when you did, I’d be at the top of your list. I can’t wait to knock you up. You’ll be so adorable and I think we ought to take a few practice shots before I actually do make you the little woman.” He lurched forward, but found himself upside down instead of wrapping Hermione in a constricting grip.

“You are taking up valuable ministry time, MacLaggen,” Draco said, curtly. “I suggest that you vacate my office and not return unless you have a question or problem pertaining to wizarding education.” Draco flicked his wand and sent Cormac flying out the door and into the hall. Another flick and their door was shut, locked and silenced.

Draco glared at her with an almost betrayed look on his face. Cormac MacLaggen was a sore spot for him. He hated the former Gryffindor with a passion. Cormac’s flying skills were very good, but not great and he often loudly compared himself to Draco, stating that he was the better flyer and that maybe if his father were cheating scum and bought the entire team new brooms, he could have a position on his house quidditch team. It had galled Draco to no end that the boastful boy had gotten into the ‘slug club’ and he hadn’t. Cormac was a sub par wizard and he got more recognition than Draco simply because his father wasn’t a former death eater that had threatened and bought his way up the ministry ladder.

Draco also took special exception to Cormac’s attempts at groping Hermione during ministry functions. At the last Christmas Ball, Cormac had cornered Hermione under the mistle toe and Draco had almost had assault charges brought against him. Hermione had vaguely wondered if it was some sort of oedipal rage since the entire night he kept drunkenly comparing her favourably to his mother.

Pulling herself away from her thoughts she looked at Draco, “What on earth was he going on about? Don’t give me that look! I want him in our office as much as you do!”

“Have you looked at this morning’s paper?” he asked quietly.

“No, I was getting you a breakfast treat,” she snapped as Draco picked up his coffee and his scone and began to delicately nibble at the thank you gift. He handed her the folded morning paper.

Her jaw dropped as she opened it and saw a picture of herself walking out of the fertility clinic in a rage, Draco trailing behind her. The caption read:

“GOLDEN GRANGER TROLLING FOR SPERM: Trio member shops for a Daddy”.

The article that followed talked about her burning desire to be seen as a woman and how she couldn’t attract a husband, so she was taking applicants for the father of her baby in the most clinical way possible. The article also speculated as to who would be on top of the undoubtedly short list. Cormac’s name was number one, followed by Viktor Krum and Neville Longbottom. The article mentioned Malfoy as her Agony Aunt and talked about how the wizard was possibly manipulating her to his advantage. Everything was signed by Rita Skeeter.

Hermione’s blood began to boil and she saw red. The air around her became heavy and the lattes she brought in exploded all over Draco’s desk, the one he’d been about to drink from, splattering across his face. She charged towards the door, but Draco stopped her.

“Before you even think about it, you should know that you have a stack of owl post out there of men applying to be your baby’s daddy. There’s also a stack howlers from upset conservatives who think you need to find a man and quit your job before having a child. If you go to Skeeter’s office in a rage, you’ll confirm everything nasty she’s said about you. If you start looking through applicants and setting up meetings, she’ll be forced to report that you are in fact in very high demand. She wants you to be humiliated because of that jar incident. Show her you’re not what she printed.”

Hermione calmed down and grinned at Draco before taking her finger and wiping a dollop of whipped cream off his nose, sucking the frothy sweet off her finger. She opened the office door and Christine and Shinnston fell to the floor in front of her.

“Couldn’t you have purchased extendable ears? You are a witch and a wizard, you know,” Hermione said, exasperated.

“Merlin’s lacy knickers, Timmy! She is pissed! She threw hot coffee all over Dad!” Christine was too wrapped up in her whispering to Shinnston to hear Hermione’s admonishment.

“I didn’t throw it on him. I had a small bout of uncontrollable magic because that foul, loathsome, evil little cockroach of a woman!” Hermione could feel the magic roiling around her again.

“That’s my pet name, dear,” Draco reminded her sweetly before removing the coffee from his person and desk.

“So it’s true, then?” Tim Shinnston asked, his blue eyes round as saucers. “You’re trying to get pregnant?”

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose and looked at Draco. “You might as well tell them. The ‘children’ have a right to know that our little family is going to be enlarged.”

When he did things like this, Hermione could have happily turned him into a ferret. “I am going to have a baby, Christine, however, many things in that article were exaggerated, including the fact that I would attempt a relationship with Cormac MacLaggen. I had hoped to keep this quiet, but it appears that would be impossible. As a member of my staff and unofficial family, however, I feel I owe you the truth.”

A high pitched squeal almost deafened everyone in the room as Christine threw herself at Hermione. “We’re going to have a little brother or sister! I can’t wait!”

Christine and Shinnston exited the room and Hermione followed, prepared to sift through the offers of paternity. Maybe she should view this as an advantage. Now she didn’t have to look for potential fathers, they were looking for her. As she shifted through the stack of letters, Draco watched her. Turning around, she smiled at him and was unsure of what she saw in his eyes as he leaned against the door frame, not stepping into the room, and watched as she shifted through candidates.