She sank back into thought, pacing in slow circles and geometric patterns around her room, until she felt an almost indescribable sensation occur in her lower abdomen. In some ways, it was not an actual sensation but a feeling that something had occurred.
Fluttering.
She froze and stared down at her stomach. There was the beginning of a small swell between the jut of her hip bones.
She almost forgot sometimes that she was pregnant. The fact felt too overwhelming to process in light of all the more immediate concerns she had. When focused on the immediate future, a pregnancy felt more like a medical diagnosis that she had to account for than a baby.
She had never planned to have children. When she'd been in school, motherhood had been an eventual goal so far removed from the present she'd barely contemplated it. Children, someday; after she'd graduated, and had a job, and found someone she'd consider a partner.
Then the war came, and having children then had felt almost criminal to Hermione.
Ginny had seen James as a promise and a beacon of hope, but to Hermione a child in a war was someone vulnerable; someone entirely helpless to protect themselves from the incalculable pain that existed. Selfish. Not worth the danger.
Get married. Have children.
She'd stopped expecting to ever have those things years ago when she'd kept secretively using more and more dark magic. She'd coldly smothered the idea when she gave her word to be a Death Eater's willing war prize. It was little more than fantasy by the time she'd become complicit in war crimes and eventually volunteered to coordinate and manage them.
She had meant it when she told Draco about the world she wanted but never expected to have a part in.
She didn't have any idea how to be a mother. None of the decisions she'd made in her life had entertained the idea of children. She wasn't sure if wanting to have a child wasn't just her desperate selfishness rearing its head.
Her jaw trembled as she looked down.
Maybe Draco had been right. Maybe that was what she was like. She'd always obstinately attached herself to those she'd thought might need her. Maybe she just wanted to keep the baby so she wouldn't be alone.
She pressed her fingers against her abdomen and stood unmoving for several seconds until she felt another flutter, quick as a heartbeat and then gone again.
“I'll take care of you,” she whispered. “I'll do everything I can to be a good mum. There's a potion I can make when you're older. Then — then I'll be able to go outside with you sometimes. You won't be trapped with me. When you grow up and want to go, I'll let you go, I promise.”
The doorknob abruptly rattled and then went still. Hermione started violently with surprise and then stood, pressing her hands against her chest as her heart pounded, staring at the door.
Nothing else happened.
She waited and waited, but her world had fallen silent again.
She crossed the room on her toes and rested her ear against the door.
Silent.
She couldn't hear even the faintest sound through the door, but she knew Draco had warded it.
Someone could be shouting on the other side, and she wouldn't know. The door didn't move again as she rested her hands against the wood and strained to hear.
It could be Lucius.
It was possible he was unwilling to wait six months for Draco to remarry and hoped by killing off the 'Mudblood whore,' he might accelerate the process.
Hermione stepped nervously away from the door but then hesitated. The way the door had shaken, it was almost as though someone had fallen against it.
She bit her lip and stepped back, pressing her ear more closely to the crack between the door and the frame.
She shouldn't.
She shouldn't.
Draco would tell her not to.
Her hand wrapped slowly around the knob, and she turned it as silently as she could, cracking the door open. She peered out, and her heart stopped.
Draco was lying face down on the floor. She flung the door open, rapidly glanced up and down the hall, and knelt down, dragging him into her room. She kicked the door shut as she rolled him onto his back and pressed her fingers against his pulse.
He was unconscious.
He was freezing cold. He was going into shock. His robes were shiny and smelled of rot. There were darkened silvery smears on his face. He was still breathing. She checked his eyes and found the pupils unevenly dilated.
She ran her hands over his shoulders and touched his face gently. “Draco? Draco… what happened to you?”