Chapter Five: The (Re-)Definition of Weirdness
Author: leopion
Beta: dormiensa
A/N: none
“Professor,” exclaimed Parvati and Lavender in unison.
Madame Nickolia Centis snorted, all the while swaying her hips in graceful circles as she approached the four girls. “I told you two to reserve that title for my untalented alter-ego.”
Then, her eyes alighted on Hermione. “How lovely it is to see you, my dear.”
Hermione didn’t have a chance to respond before the madame closed her eyes and started shaking, as if in a trance.
“Here she comes,” whispered Lavender.
“They really hate each other,” added Parvati, leaning in for maximum gossip-y effect.
“Both are true Seers, though,” said Lavender, and Hermione decided that she’d better inspect the happening for herself.
Quite disturbingly, Madame Nickolia Centis was shrinking. In a puff of smoke, before Hermione’s eyes, appeared Professor Sybill Trelawney, complete with the huge, thick glasses, dreamy eyes, trailing shawls, and everything.
After a moment’s disorientation, the professor pointed one skeletal finger at Hermione. “You. What are you doing here? You are an insult to the noble art of Divination. Full of disrespect for the Inner Eye ...”
As if on cue, Lavender began shooing Hermione out of the shop. “You’d better go,” she said under her breath. “She’s in one of her moods.”
Although slightly fazed by this bizarre turn of events, Hermione paid no heed to it. After all, Divination was all a load of dragon’s dung (or worse, since the latter could be very useful in certain potions, such as Vimore’s Multi-purpose Cleaning Brew, as absurd as it may sound).
She was only a bit dismayed that there was no chance to further discuss the pregnancy spell with Luna, who had stayed and studied Trelawney with interest, no doubt concluding that the condition of their ex-professor was caused by some imaginary creature.
In any case, real experiments were better than pure theory, so Hermione got home and cast the spell again on Draco. She didn’t tell him outright that she had pronounced it wrong the last time, but his hysterical chuckling clearly stated that he’d noticed.
Unfortunately, Draco’s abdomen did not glow at all, even after her fourth try.
“I told you it wouldn’t work.”
Hermione chose not to dignify his statement or the accompanying smirk with an answer. Instead, she stormed into her room and set out to pen a letter to Narcissa, detailing the results and asking for her opinion on the experiments.
That being done, Hermione was determined to temporarily forget about the issue until the older witch replied. She failed spectacularly, though. To make things worse, ice-cream-her comfort food-had been repeatedly going missing from the fridge, no matter how many times she re-bought it. Especially the Rocky Road flavour, which she’d been a hundred per cent positive that her flatmate would never touch under normal circumstances. It had become somewhat a full circle of misery for Hermione: No ice-cream. Draco must be having his cravings. But the spell failed. It doesn’t make sense. Narcissa hasn’t answered. My head hurts so bad that I need ice-cream. Again, no ice-cream. And so on ...
Eventually, Hermione decided to confront the ice-cream thief, his sensitive pregnancy hormones be damned. She caught him pink-handed, licking at the last of her precious strawberry-vanilla delight.
He responded to her accusation and various death threats by calmly washing his hand at the kitchen sink. “You know what, I’m sick of this crappy ice-cream you buy from the supper-market,” he said, casually striding towards her and taking her hand. “We’re going out for some real ice-cream.”
Hermione was so flummoxed that she didn’t protest when he Apparated them both to the Leaky Cauldron.
“You will become very unfit if you continue with your gluttony, Malfoy,” she admonished as they walked into Diagon Alley.
“Not any more than you,” he retorted. “Want to bet on who can run to Fortescue's first?”
“Hey, that is unfair! You have longer legs!” Hermione yelled her objection to thin air. Draco’d already gotten a head start. On his long, graceful, attractive legs. A part of her brain was blaring with warnings of potential danger to their extremely platonic relationship, but she pushed them all to the back of her mind to concentrate on the race.
When she arrived at the ice-cream parlour, Draco was nowhere to be seen. Bracing herself with one hand on the shop counter and the other on her aching stomach, Hermione managed to gasp out her query. “Have ... have you seen ... a blond-”
“Oh, Draco Malfoy?”
She nodded, still short for breath. The waiter in front of her shuddered and promptly turned a rather fetching shade of green. “He ordered take-away.”
Of course, thought Hermione. Her own need for ice-cream forgotten, she hurriedly Apparated back to their shared flat to find him lounging on the couch, looking like a kid who’d just gotten his favourite treat. Well, judging by the contents of the bowl that currently occupied the coffee table, her analogy was only half-correct. No sane kid would go anywhere near a bowl of anchovy-topped sundae, whose colourful swirls suggested that Hermione might be sick just by deducing their flavours.
“Seriously, Draco, you should stop running around like that. You may miscarry the baby.”
“For the last time, I am not pregnant,” growled Draco.
“You are too.” She pointed accusingly at the sundae on the table. “You’re craving for things so weird you’re afraid of eating them in public.”
“What if I am?” he snapped back, much to Hermione’s surprise. “If that’s the case, I’ll gladly have a miscarriage, thank you.”
“You don’t mean that!” Hermione found herself suddenly on the verge of tears. Blast it! Mood swings were supposed to be his specialty. “That is ...” she forced down a hiccup, “so cruel.” Another hiccup. “What if the baby heard you?”
Before Hermione could stop herself, she dropped down on her knees and clambered to the spot next to Draco. She wiped away the errant tears, gently pressed one cheek against his still-very-well-defined abs (Focus, Hermione, focus!) and started murmuring soothingly. “There, there, baby. I’m so sorry that Daddy was being so mean. But don’t you worry. Mummy is here. Mummy loves you very, very much.”
When she finally looked up, Draco was staring at her strangely. Blood rushed to Hermione’s cheeks. Oh Merlin, I just called myself “Mummy” to ... to his ... his ...
Her brain decided that it was becoming too distressed to pursue the thought and instead directed her to flee from the mortifying scene. Hermione jumped back from Draco, this time managing to knock her knee on the corner of the coffee table and crashing to the floor with a thud.
Narcissa chose that precise moment to appear in the fireplace.
“Now, now, Draco, what have you done to the poor girl? Again.”
“She only hurt herself with her own clumsiness,” said Draco. Then, thinking better of it, he mimicked his mother’s tone. “Mother, what are you doing here? Again.”
“I was hoping to invite you over for dinner at the Manor tonight.”
“Today is not Sunday, Mother.”
“Of that I am well aware,” replied Narcissa indignantly. “However, your father and I have very important news to announce.”
Hermione, who had been blissfully forgotten during the whole exchange and had been trying mightily to remain so by suppressing her groans of pain, was being silently enlisted to help Draco. Ignoring his pleading look and concentrating on her I-need-to-avoid-Draco-Malfoy-until-this-embarrassment-wears-off goal, she said, “You’d better get going, then, Draco. Don’t worry about the laundry. I’ll stay at home and do it for you.”
“Oh, no, no, Hermione, you are very welcome to come,” said Narcissa. “In fact, I had meant to invite both of you.”
At this, Hermione did groan aloud. She blamed it on her bleeding knee. Surely, Narcissa would understand. So, after much fussing on the atrocious state of Hermione’s knee, which mainly meant procrastinating on Draco’s part, Narcissa and her none-too-eager dinner guests Floo’d to Malfoy Manor.
Lucius was already waiting when they arrived at the dining room. If Hermione hadn’t been so pre-occupied with her newly-healed but still-sore knee, she would have found herself viciously murdered by the look Lucius gave their whole party. Narcissa didn’t even flinch. She had apparently developed the perfect immunity over the years. Draco, whose attention was not quite so diverted and whose immunity was not quite so strong, suffered the full force of the “attack”. He cowered a little before regaining his composure, after which Lucius focussed his glare solely on Narcissa.
With a few graceful strides, the Malfoy matriarch came to stand next to her husband. She tenderly put her hands on his shoulders and grinned. It was an expression Hermione had neither seen nor thought she would ever see on the regal woman, but as always, it only served to make her look more elegant, if that was even possible. Meanwhile, Lucius was still scowling at his wife.
“Draco,” began Narcissa, “you are going to have a little sister.”
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