Chapter Four: Ready for Your Pregnancy Test, Malfoy?
Author: captainraychill
Beta: dormiensa
A/N: None
Draco was done with Granger’s tricks.
He’d woken up screaming because she’d placed a pillow under his pyjamas top last night to give him a baby bump. He’d complimented the omelet she’d made for him, which he later discovered had been filled with finely chopped pickles. He’d opened the freezer to find twenty pints of ice cream. He would never tell her how much he craved the Rocky Road, a flavour he usually abhorred. It was just there, all alluring and marshmallow-y, calling to him.
He blamed the corned dogs.
No, he blamed Hermione Granger.
And he would take his revenge as soon as he could concentrate. Which was hard to do when she looked so pretty in her yellow sundress, with her chestnut curls piled on top of her head.
When his mother’s eagle owl flew through the open window and perched on the edge of the breakfast table, Draco reached for the note on its legs, prepared to Incendio it. The bird pecked his hand.
“Eeeep! Bloody hell!”
“Nice squeal,” Hermione scoffed. “This owl is obviously for me.”
For the next two minutes, she studied Narcissa’s diagram and swished her wand through the air with precise movements. She muttered, “Gravidanza Uomo Rivelaire. Gravidanza Uomo... This isn’t hard at all. Ready for your pregnancy test, Malfoy?”
“Not happening,” Draco answered.
“You owe me.”
“What?”
“You said you’d win me that stuffed unicorn with the glitter hooves last night, and you didn’t. Therefore, you owe me. Plus, your mother’s owl is waiting for the results.”
“Fine,” Draco snapped. He stood up, glared at her, and began to unbutton his white shirt.
Oh boy, thought Hermione. Her heart started to race. She hadn’t expected this.
That sharp, gray glare of his was a nice touch, too. It made her think of their sunny breakfast table - their table-and of Draco leaning her back onto it as he swept aside pickle omelettes and eagle owls. Her body flushed with heat as he threw his shirt onto the floor.
She’d seen Draco’s naked chest plenty of times. It couldn’t be avoided whenever she noticed the household’s shrinking towel problem. However, she’d never stood quite this close to his naked chest before. The sight of it, so strong and fit, made her feel fluttery inside. It was just there, all alluring and hard, calling to her. She clenched her hands into fists, resisting the urge to touch the muscles of his flat abdomen.
“Well,” he said impatiently.
“Right,” she whispered. “Yes.” She held out her wand and performed the spell’s movements flawlessly.
“Gravidanza Uomo Rivelaire!”
Nothing happened.
Well, that wasn’t true. Crookshanks strolled into the room, meowing for tuna. But other than that, nothing happened. No flash of light, no thrill of magic. No baby. No male pregnancy. The prophecy was false, the product of a Muggle charlatan’s imagination.
“Want to try again?” Draco asked softly. “Maybe you mispronounced it.”
Hermione looked up into his eyes and saw his glare was gone, replaced by a strange, intent expression she couldn’t interpret. She caught her breath and swayed forward slightly.
Just then, Crookshanks hissed at Narcissa’s owl.
“No,” Hermione said, blinking. She took a step back. “I’m sure I performed it correctly. Guess you dodged that hex, Malfoy.”
“And here I had already chosen colours for the nursery,” he said. His voice was almost solemn as he picked up his shirt and shrugged back into it.
“Green and silver are no colours for a nursery,” she said.
“I beg to differ.”
Hermione refrained from answering as she fed Crooks and the owl and penned a note to Narcissa, informing her that her only son was not up the duff.
Now, it was time to move onto the second important matter at hand: the best way to discover if her hot, twenty year old, billionaire flatmate was a blushing virgin.
Consulting the two biggest gossips in Wizarding Britain seemed like a good place to start.
*****
“I never slept with him,” said Parvati Patil.
“I thought you did,” said Lavender Brown.
“No, I thought you did.”
“I lied.”
“Oh. I lied, too. I’m so sorry that I lied to you, Lav-Lav!”
“Oh, me, too, Par-Par! Can you ever forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive!”
“Best friends forever!”
Hermione felt her stomach lurch as she watched the two girls hug and coo. Merlin’s Dead Goldfish, Lavender was actually crying. And Parvati’s dark eyes were shiny, too. If they didn’t stop soon, she would hurl all over their cramped, stuffy Divinationlove-nest. Otherwise known as 81 Diagon Alley or The Cryptic Mystic, for all your divination and lifestyle accessory needs.
“So, neither of you have slept with Malfoy,” she said. “But can you tell me who has?”
“Oh, sure,” said Lavender, wiping her tears with her fringed scarf. She and Parvati had adopted the Bohemian style of their mentor, Trelawney, only with shorter skirts and more leg. “He’s slept with everyone. Padma, Hannah, Millicent, Cho...although I’m not sure if I believe her. She was mad at Harry when she told me.”
Parvati continued, “Daphne, Astoria, Seamus, and Pansy, of course.”
“Pansy’s a lesbian,” Hermione said.
“She is now, but... wait, do you think she lied, too?” Parvati asked. “What are you getting at, Hermione?”
Resigning herself to a visit, Hermione sat on a comfy pouffe and told them about the carnival, the Muggle fortune teller, the prophecy of Draco’s virgin pregnancy, his blush, Narcissa’s Quibbler article, and the negative results of the Gravidanza spell.
“Did his belly glow blue or red?”
The question hadn’t come from Lav-Lav or Par-Par. It had come from a wispy, girlish voice somewhere behind a display of crystal balls.
“Luna?” Hermione said.
“Hello,” Luna Lovegood answered. She walked toward them, smiling pleasantly, her infamous radish earrings swaying. Her long, blond hair was twisted up into a loose bun and secured by two tarnished forks.
“Did he glow blue or red?” she repeated, sitting down on a silky, floor pillow.
“Um... neither,” Hermione said.
“Then, the spell didn’t have a negative result. It didn’t have any result at all.”
“How do you know?” Parvati asked.
“Because I wrote the article. I was researching interesting bedroom techniques when I ran across the phenomenon of male pregnancy. The Ministry’s trying to keep it secret. You know how they like to control everything. But as sure as there are Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, men are conceiving.”
Before Lavender could turn the conversation to interesting bedroom techniques, Hermione said, “Luna, this was my wandwork for the spell. How does it look?” She flicked her wand in the complex motions.
“Perfect.”
“And I said Gravidanza Uomo Rivelaire.”
“Ahhh,” said Luna.
“What?”
“It’s Grav-i-daan-ZAAH, not Grav-i-DAAN-zaah. That should help. Red if he’s pregnant, blue if he’s not.”
Lavender and Parvati immediately started chattering with excitement over the prospect of a pregnant Draco Malfoy, the crystal beads of their bracelets winking light all over the shop as they made gestures about big stomachs and baby showers.
Luna took this moment to lean close to Hermione and whisper, “And if you want to test his virginity, all you need to do is see if he attracts unicorns.”
“What?”
“The unicorns in the Forbidden Forest. They frequent the waterfall about six hundred steps into the forest, east of Hagrid’s hut.”
Hermione knew the place. She’d gathered aconite there. It was lovely, but she had never seen a unicorn before.
“Don’t tell them the location,” Luna said, rolling her large eyes toward the cryptic mystics. “They’d harass the poor creatures, which want nothing to do with non-virgins.”
“How do you know that?” Hermione asked.
“I used to go there to read and think, and the unicorns would approach me. Half of dozen of them. It was like standing in the middle of the brightest possible light. They really are whiter than snow. But after Neville and I got busy in the potting shed, I never saw them again.”
“But aren’t unicorns attracted to purity of body and spirit?” Hermione asked. “Draco has the Dark Mark. He may be reformed now, but it’s a powerful taint, nonetheless.”
“Oh, unicorns are highly literal creatures. They wouldn’t care about that as long as he’s still got his cherry.”
Draco Malfoy, unicorn bait? How could such a thing even be possible? He was gorgeous! And smart and funny. And rich, if you cared about that sort of thing. She remembered the sight of his bare chest that morning and felt fluttery again. Seriously, you could bounce a Galleon off his stomach and make change. How could someone with a body like that be a virgin?
The bells on the shop door jingled cheerfully.
“Oh, gods, she’s here!” Lavender cried out.
Parvati answered with a squeak.
They both rushed toward the figure standing in the doorway, a stocky woman with caramel-colored skin, dark hair, and silver bangles.
None other than Madame Nickolia Centis.
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