Chapter Six

Disclaimer: My thanks to JK Rowling for having such a splendid imagination and for allowing us to play around with her characters in the fanfiction universe. She gets all the credit for anything you recognize; the plot for this story is entirely mine (though I don't get paid).

Chapter Six

Draco Malfoy Apparated inside the run-down, graffiti-sprayed servants' quarters on the outskirts of his property. It was crude graffiti, definitely not creative in artistic value or literary value for that matter. In fact, the blithering idiots couldn't even spell, for Merlin's sake.

Still, what would normally have fueled Draco's anger seemed to register only barely in his conscious mind. Wrapping his cloak about his body to ward off the chill in the air, he quickly made his way back up to the safety of the mansion. There were still a few lingerers-on who apparently didn't think his family had suffered enough in the war and afterwards, and this made being anywhere outside of the manor a little unpredictable.

He hung his outer cloak in the hallway, no house-elves to take it any longer...they had all been sold...and he walked determinedly into the study to ration himself a shot-glass of Firewhisky. It burned down his throat as he tossed his head back and swallowed it all in one go. The lead crystal glass fell heavily on the heavy oak of the carved bar, and he stared at the bottle. It was half-empty. He really shouldn't have any more; it was his last bottle, and finances were such that Firewhisky was not on the priority list.

"Oh, bugger all," he muttered and, grabbing a larger glass, served himself another, considerably more generous, serving.

He took his time, sipping slowly, deep in thought. The words 'What to Expect When You're Expecting' kept revolving around his mind, affecting his equilibrium. It couldn't be ... but apparently it was. Why else would she be reading a book with that title? She could be counseling a friend...but for some reason, he didn't think so.

Or perhaps, he didn't want to think so. It was the first stroke of luck he had had in five very long years: Hermione Granger was pregnant.

The first smile in months appeared on his lips...and it wasn't a pleasant smile.

~ o ~

Narcissa looked at her son with apprehension. For the first time in months, he seemed almost happy. She had no idea what he had to be happy about. Her pale hand clutched her robes about her body tightly, trying to keep the frigidness of the manor at bay, keep it from grabbing hold of her heart and squeezing what little life still existed within it. Her hands and shoulders shook as her body reacted to the near freezing temperatures.

She padded softly down to the study to see Draco slowly nursing a Firewhisky ... and more than his usual portion at that. He had gone out earlier to buy yet another bottle. Where he had gotten the money for it, she did not know; their liquid funds were still intact. He had been leaving the manor quite often these past few days, always Apparating from the edge of the property. She didn't know why; he could have done so from the front porch. She was growing concerned.

"Oh, hello, Mother," Draco drawled.

He was so much like his father, sounded so much like his father, looked so much like his father. Her own greeting was lost in a sea of memories that rendered her mute.

Lucius had always been a considerate husband, always looking out for her well-being, making sure she never wanted for anything. She knew what he had planned, though he had never found out that she knew. If he had, he never let on. It was never spoken of. Distasteful things like death were not a proper topic of conversation in their home, at least among family members.

That hadn't stopped Lucius from discussing that very topic with his dear friend Severus less than a week before the battle that had put Lucius in a coma. In hindsight, she wished that she had had enough common sense to keep walking and not eavesdrop after hearing her husband mention her name. But curiosity had bested her, and the partially open door concealed her from being discovered.

"All I'm saying is that I need to have certain precautions in place, Severus, just in case ... well, just in case the Dark Lord falls. I will not leave Narcissa at the mercy of the Ministry."

"Simple, yet conniving. I'd expect nothing less from you, Lucius."

She had indeed been approached by the Ministry. They'd come looking for Lucius that long week after the war had ended, and their search of the manor had come up with nothing, of course, because he wasn't there. She'd played the part of grieving wife perfectly. In fact, she was the grieving wife, for she truly believed her husband to be dead.

It wasn't until nearly a month had gone by and the Ministry had lost interest that Severus had shown up at her door. He was paler and gaunter than he had ever been in all the time she had known him. But all impressions of his appearance were soon forgotten as he limped through the door, levitating the limp body of her husband before him.

"Lucius!" she had cried, running to her unconscious husband, weeping over his still-levitating body. But he had not reacted. His eyes had remained closed, his body as still as death, and yet she could still feel the warmth of his body, the light beating of his heart.

"He hasn't awakened since the battle," he told her. "I've done the best that I could, taking care of him, keeping him away from the manor until the Ministry stopped coming, but now his care is up to you."

She had tried to register what he was telling her, but her mind wouldn't wrap around it. She had been so relieved that her husband was still alive, yet a sickening feeling of dread had begun to seep coldly into her heart.

"What is wrong with him?" she had asked weakly, looking up into Severus' eyes with fear.

"He has fallen into a coma. I've tried several potions and spells, but to no avail. I thought you'd rather care for him here. I could have taken him to St. Mungo's...."

"No, no. Of course he's better off here at the manor."

What Severus hadn't told her was that her husband had indeed sought out a Mudblood to take on the role of his murderess, one Hermione Granger, a fact that he did later tell Draco in his father's abandoned study. Narcissa had been listening at the door, quite deliberately eavesdropping, wanting to know what others had deemed she should not.

"Your father had planned this in advance, to force a Mudblood to take his life in the event that the Dark Lord lost the battle. He wanted you and your mother to retain your standing in the community and not be pursued by the Ministry for his crimes. He wanted to make sure that your mother would not go to Azkaban for supporting the Dark Lord, and he wanted to make sure that his estate would fall to the both of you in the event of his death.

"He chose Hermione Granger to perform this deed, and he cast the Imperio Curse on her, forcing her to use the Killing Curse on him. However, as near as I can tell, if someone as strong in her magic as Hermione Granger most certainly is, is so unwilling to submit under the Imperio Curse, any spell she would be forced to cast would be indeterminately altered. That combined with the fact that your father most definitely did not want to die but was attempting to do so because he felt a duty to do so had the unfortunate effect of rendering him comatose rather than outright killing him."

For several months, Narcissa tried to hate this Hermione Granger that her husband had chosen to deliver his fate. She'd tried really hard. Then she'd tried hating Lucius. That was easier to do. After all, if he had just gone into hiding, she would still have her husband. Perhaps he would not be able to take her to all the social functions she was used to attending, but he would be there to love her, and hold her, and talk to her.

Oh, how she missed the way he would attend to her every night. Her baths, carefully jasmine-scented and candle-lit by house-elves would become sensuous foreplay as her husband lovingly washed and then brushed dry her waist-length, ice-blond locks. Her hair was always her weakness, and Lucius knew that. He also knew that such simple foreplay would fuel her desires for an entire evening of lovemaking.

No man had known her like Lucius had. In fact, no man other than him had known her at all. From small children, they had been betrothed to each other, promised by their parents. Oh, she knew Lucius had had his dalliances with several women, and probably a prostitute or two, before they were married, but her mother had told her of the experience a man would gain by doing such, and the knowledge...while it did fuel some jealousy within her...mostly served to fuel her fantasies of her wedding night.

Lucius was everything she had imagined...and more. From that very first night, he had paid attention to her needs, making his seem secondary to her own. He never rushed; the first touch was as well-placed as the last kiss. And his fingers! Oh, his long, graceful fingers knew exactly where she wanted to be touched; never hesitant; hard, yet never painful; never lingering long enough to cause her to lose interest.

And his stamina was astounding. In talking with her sister and friends, and even once her mother, she discovered that Lucius was truly skilled in that area too; everyone was jealous. Bellatrix had even threatened once in a fit of despair at Rodolphus's ineffectualness to experience true pleasure just once in her life at the hands of Narcissa's husband. That was until Narcissa jealously hexed her sister's hair sick-green and grew her a few warts that took nearly a month to remove.

Yes, her Lucius was truly endowed, larger and lustier than most. Narcissa couldn't get enough of him, and she discovered early on to keep that fact to herself. Lucius was her first love, her only love ... her last love.

After an exhausting couple years of trying to hate, and failing, she fell into a deep depression. She rarely spoke now. Sometimes she would think she had spoken, but gradually she came to realize that house-elves were neglecting to follow her orders, and her son would often give her expectant looks as though waiting for an answer to a question she had forgotten.

Lucius remained in stasis, his muscles being prodded by charms she had set to automatically massage and flex his limbs twice daily in hopes that he would eventually wake up and begin to use them himself. Even from the depths of her grief, she had never lost hope.

"... Granger." Her son had spoken, and that one name served to bring an abrupt halt to her reverie.

Her throat scratchy after several days of disuse, she asked, "What?"

Surprise peaked Draco's brow and had him walking towards her. "I said, I think I've found a way to get revenge on Hermione Granger."

Suddenly, her mind was crisper than it had been in years. Even her vision seemed to clear up. Draco had lost quite a bit of weight, it seemed.

"How?" she asked, reduced to one-word questions in her shock at being harshly brought back to the present.

"I paid her a visit a few days ago," he began, turning to pace the study floor, glass of Firewhisky still in hand. "I needed to feel her out to see how best to get back at her for father's ... situation."

Like the word 'death,' since Severus brought Lucius home, the word 'coma' had succumbed to the same fate. Draco took a rather long draught of the amber liquid in his cup, draining it and then pouring himself some more. Narcissa wanted to tell Draco he had been drinking entirely too much lately, but what he had to say about Hermione Granger was too important to interrupt.

"Anyway," he continued, clearing his throat of the Firewhisky-burn, "it seems that Miss Hermione Granger is pregnant." He paused to let that settle into Narcissa's wide-eyed comprehension. "And I've just figured out how I'm going to work this to our advantage."