Author's note: Here you go, guys! Another chapter. You might be a little ticked with me at the way it ends, but I promise you that I won't make you wait long for the next chapter, okay?
Special thanks to Heaven for being a great sounding board and helping me out with this one!
Chapter 23
Since I Lost My Baby
"The sun is shining, there's plenty of light (oh yeah)
A new day is dawning, sunny and bright (oh yeah)
But after I've been crying all night
The sun is cold, and the new day seems old
Since I lost my baby. (Since I lost my baby.)
Oh, since I lost my baby. (Oh, since I lost my baby.)"
"Oh, determination is fading fast (oh yeah)
Inspiration is a thing of the past (oh yeah)
Can't see how my hope's gonna last
Good things are bad and what's happy is sad"
(The Temptations, "Since I Lost My Baby")
Draco had patiently waited to get Ginny on her own. It would draw too much suspicion if he just traipsed up to her in the Great Hall and asked her to step outside for a quick chat.
The damning problem was that she was never alone. She was forever trying to plant herself at the side of Harry Potter. What confused the hell out of Draco was the fact that Potter looked absolutely miserable. One of Draco's best qualities was his ability to pick up on the weakness of his enemies. He'd known all along that Granger was Potter's weakness. Malfoy saw Potter shoot glances in Hermione's direction when he thought she wasn't looking. That boy still had it bad for the mudblood, Malfoy mused to himself as he watched Ginny trying to engage Harry in conversation. Harry, however, was watching Hermione, who was sitting about as far away from Harry and Ginny as possible.
That's what's so confusing about this whole thing. Granger is still hung up on Potter and vice versa. They're such goody two-shoes that there's no way that Potter would have willingly cheated on the mudblood.
This brought him back to Ginny. He could still see the look of hurt on her face when he'd acted coldly to her when she'd told him about the baby. Her words held truth and they burned him just like a brand. It was true. He had been a follower. His father hadn't been a part of his life in over two years, but here he was doing what his father would have expected of him. He'd loved Ginny, of course, and still did, but he hadn't treated her very well. Instead of following his heart, he'd done what his father and friends would expect of him. He wasn't proud of that.
Over the past few days, he'd tried to put himself in Ginny's shoes. She was alone. She was pregnant. She was given the cold shoulder by the man she loved. If that didn't scream out "desperate times call for desperate measures", Draco didn't know what did. If she had done what he was thinking she'd done…well, she was a lot tougher than he gave her credit for.
Of course, there was the possibility that Ginny had been playing him for a fool and had been carrying on with Potter behind his back the entire time. But, he didn't believe that. He knew Ginny. She'd fallen for him. She wouldn't have gone after Potter, not while she and Draco were together. It was impossible. Call it ego or call it instinct, but he knew it wasn't possible somehow.
If that baby was his…he deserved to know. The fact was he had questions, and he was going to get answers from her, whether she wanted to give them or not.
*****
"So, did you want to walk me to class?" Ginny asked Harry, as they finished their breakfast.
"Hmmm?" Harry said, distracted. He'd been looking in Hermione's direction. He quickly tried to focus his attention back on Ginny. "What did you say?"
Ginny fought the urge to roll her eyes. She wasn't stupid. She'd seen what, no make that whom, he'd been staring at.
"I wanted to know if you wanted to walk me to class." Ginny repeated again.
"Um, sure, okay, I guess," Harry said, getting up from the table.
He felt guilty about acting so distracted around Ginny. Truth be told, he hadn't really been all that friendly to her, either. He'd gone along with her as she had checkups with Madame Pomfrey and he'd helped her out any way he could, but his heart hadn't been in any of it.
He was still dealing with the shock of what had occurred the night before.
Hermione had for all intents and purposes moved out of the suite.
In fact, she'd done quite a good job at cutting Harry out of her life, or at least it appeared so, on the surface. Yesterday afternoon, Harry and the rest of the Gryffindor quidditch team held tryouts to replace Ginny, whose condition prevented her from being able to continue as a member of the team. The tryouts had been quite strenuous, but they'd finally settled on Steven Dorsett, a fifth-year.
A tired, sweaty and dirty Harry made his way up the stairs to his suite feeling exhausted, both mentally and physically. He was looking forward to a nice bath and a quiet, peaceful evening. Upon entering the room, he was shocked to find that every trace of Hermione was gone. From her books, to her picture frames, to her jars of sugar-free candies, everything had vanished. And so it seemed was the feeling that this room was home. With her, it left too. He'd looked frantically about the place for a goodbye note, but had come away empty-handed.
As he looked around at the Hermione-free room, it hit him suddenly that it was really, definitely over. He'd known it was, but a part of him thought that maybe there was still a chance for them, somewhere.
She was trying to move on. She was trying to let go. He wished he could ask her how she was able to do it.
******
After reluctantly walking Ginny to her class, Harry quickened his pace to make it down to the dungeons in time for the start of Double Potions.
With not a second to spare, he made it just in time, a little out of breath, but on time. He took his seat next to Ron and tried to avoid looking in Hermione's direction. In the past few days, she'd taken to sitting with Neville during Potions.
"Nice of you to join us, Mr. Potter," Snape said coolly.
Harry's cheeks flushed red, but he wasn't going to say anything back to him to purposely incur Snape's wrath.
Snape shoved a handful of papers in Neville's hands.
"Distribute these to each of your fellow class members," Snape said.
With shaking hands, Neville took the papers and proceeded to hand them out to the class.
Harry and Ron pored over the parchment and saw list after list of potions. There was no explanations, no directions. Just lists and names of potions. Harry and Ron exchanged looks of confusion, as did much of the rest of the class.
"Well," Snape said when Neville had finished and taken his seat. "What you hold before you is a list of 200 of the most difficult and complex potions in the wizarding world."
Under his breath, Ron whispered to Harry, "And we would have this because…?"
Snape turned his attention to Ron, "Good question, Mr. Weasley."
Ron sank lower in his chair.
"You would have this list because your assignment will be to make 25 of these potions yourselves," Snape said smugly. "As this is a complex assignment, I am not expecting you to tackle these on your own. I will be assigning you each partners. These partners have been selected randomly. It will be the job of you and your partner, to complete the assignment and in two weeks time, you are expected to present to the class a report on each of the potions as well as a flask containing each potion."
The class inwardly groaned at this. In addition to their already busy schedules, they would now have to devote hours and hours of time to this project or face automatic failure, something that would no doubt please Snape to no end.
"I urge you not to waste your time looking for the easiest potions on the list," Snape said, knocking the wind out of the students. "There are no easy potions on the list. They are all equal in difficulty, complexity. There is no easy way out, I'm sorry to say. This will be the assignment that was separate the good from the bad, the strong from the weak."
The class stared back at him, utterly gob smacked at what this would entail.
"Now," Snape said. "I will read the list of partners. You will be given some time after the list is read to acquaint yourself with your partners and determine times that you can meet to complete the assignment."
"Without further ado," Snape said, unfolding a piece of parchment from his cloak pocket. "Let's begin."
Two by two, Snape read off the lists of names. Lavender and Parvati were miraculously paired up as were Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan. Harry couldn't help feeling that maybe Snape was going to do this house by house and pair up Slytherins with Slytherins and Gryffindors with Gryffindors.
But, Harry's expectations fell flat when Snape looked at Ron and said, "Ron Weasley and Pansy Parkinson."
Ron opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. He turned his head to Harry and mouthed the name, "Pansy Parkinson."
Harry shrugged.
Then, Snape went in for the kill. Harry wasn't stupid. His name hadn't been called yet and neither had…
"Hermione Granger and Harry Potter," Snape finished for him.
Both of them looked at the professor, their mouths agape. If there'd been any question as to whether or not Snape kept up with school gossip, this was the answer. Snape would never in a million years have paired up Harry and Hermione as partners if he'd thought they were still a couple. He would have separated them for sheer spite. Now he knew that they had broken up, he had placed them together for the same reason.
He gave them both a wicked smile.
"You may get together with your partners," Snape said, retreating to his desk in front of the classroom. All around them, students paired up. Ron sat there, in silent shock, not wanting to go anywhere near Pansy Parkinson.
Harry was about to get up from his seat and approach Hermione, when he saw her walk right past him and go toward Snape. Harry quickly got to his feet and followed her to the front of the classroom.
Hermione avoided meeting his gaze. "Sir," she said, trying to get Snape's attention.
Snape looked up from his book, expectantly.
"Yes, Miss Granger," he said, looking bored.
"Well, I was just wondering if it would be at all possible for me to switch partners." Hermione said timidly.
Snape looked back at Hermione and then to Harry.
"No," he said finally. "You may not. The list has already been decided. I don't see any of your other classmates complaining about this arrangement. I don't see why you and Potter should get any special treatment just because you happen to be Head Boy and Head Girl of this school. In here, that doesn't mean anything. For someone as bright as you, Miss Granger, I would have thought you'd realized that by now."
Hermione fidgeted. "Yes, sir, and I'm not asking for any special arrangements-"
Snape gave out an evil laugh. "My decision is final. You and Potter should really get started on this. Time is of the essence."
With that Snape got up from his chair and walked into his adjoining office, closing the door behind him. This left Harry and Hermione standing beside each other, at a loss.
"You could have said something too, you know?" Hermione hissed to him.
"Me?" he said, trying to keep his voice down so their fellow classmates couldn't hear them. "How long have we known Snape, Hermione? Have you ever known him to change his mind just because you asked nicely? You know as well as I did he assigned us as partners on purpose."
"Well, you know as well as I do that we shouldn't be working together on this project," Hermione retorted. "You could have backed me up on that."
"Since when has Snape listened to a word I had to say?" Harry asked her, incredulously. "In case you've forgotten, Hermione, the man hates me. He lives to make my life and the lives of people I care about a living hell."
Hermione looked a little affronted at Harry's last remark. "Oh, so spending time with me is your definition of
a living hell?"
"That's not what I said at all, and you know it," Harry said, his voice rising. "And if I recall, it was you that went to him wanting to switch partners. I didn't have a problem with it."
"Really?" Hermione asked hotly. She was about to say something else to him when she suddenly felt every eye in the classroom on her and Harry. She turned and felt her cheeks redden as she saw that indeed every student in the class was watching them intently, hanging on their every word.
"Maybe this isn't the best place to discuss this," Harry said, his voice barely above a whisper.
Hermione nodded her head and sheepishly followed Harry back to his desk. She took Ron's now vacant seat and for a moment, they were both silent. Only when the rest of the class went about their own business did Harry venture speaking.
"Look, Hermione," he said, turning in his chair to face her. "This is going to be awkward as hell. But we've got no choice here. We're stuck with each other, as it were. We might as well make the best of it. Our marks depend on it."
Hermione was silent, reluctant to agree with him, even though she knew he was right.
Harry, on the other hand, wasn't about to tell her that he was secretly pleased that this assignment would put them in close contact over the next couple of weeks.
"And, as I recall, we work quite well together. Always have," Harry said, giving her a shy smile.
To his surprise, a slight smile was playing on the corner of Hermione's lips, but just as quickly as it appeared, it faded.
"We did," Hermione said, looking away from him.
"We still can," Harry said, looking at her, willing her to meet his gaze. "Come on, what do you say?"
"Well, since we don't really have a choice," Hermione began. "I guess we're partners then."
*****
Nearly three hours after the last class of the day, Ron was still hung up on the fact that he would be spending hours with Pansy Parkinson of all people. He and Luna had ventured down to the library to do some studying after dinner. Well in actuality it was Luna who was studying, Ron had spent the better part of the hour discussing in detail his notion that Snape was out to ruin his life and was using Pansy Parkinson as the tool to accomplish his goal.
Although she sympathized, Luna had tuned him out and was preoccupied thinking of something else. Ron hadn't caught on to Luna's inattentiveness. When he looked across the table at her to gage her reaction, he was surprised to see her staring absently at her book. He snapped his fingers in front of her face to get her attention.
"Have you heard a word I've said?" he asked.
Startled, she smiled weakly at him.
"Yes, of course," she said, "Pansy…sick, sadistic Snape….off his tree. Does that about cover it?"
"Pretty much," Ron said, nodding. "But what's got you so lost in thought? Care to tell me about it?"
Luna looked down at her book, looking absolutely conflicted about something. Ron reached across the table for her hand.
"Tell me," Ron said softly.
"I'm not so sure that I can," Luna said. "It's…it's about Ginny."
"What about Ginny?" Ron asked.
"About her and Harry, actually," Luna said, fixing her gaze on Ron. "I'm not entirely sure she's being truthful on this, Ron. I know she's your sister and she's my friend, but---" her voice trailed off.
Ron gave her hand a little squeeze to let her know that it was okay to say whatever was on her mind.
"Even you have to admit she's been acting strange ever since the school year began," Luna continued. "She retreated into herself. She didn't want to do anything with anyone anymore. She was always making excuses to go and be alone. And this was all way before the one-night she had with Harry."
Luna braced herself for Ron to go into his big brother mode, but to her surprise, he nodded in agreement.
"I've been worried about her for a long time, too," Ron admitted. "She's not been herself for quite some time. She used to be able to talk to me about whatever was bothering her, you know? She doesn't do that anymore. It's like she's not herself anymore. And now this whole thing with Harry---"
He looked at Luna, who was gazing at him with a shocked expression.
"What?"
"That was really quite profound and insightful," Luna said.
"I can be profound and insightful," Ron said, feeling a little slighted. "I'm not all laugh-a-line Weasley all the time."
"I know," Luna said, reassuringly. "I was just making a comment and observation. Please continue with your train of thought."
Ron couldn't help a laugh. "As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, it's just that I've tried to look at this from every possible angle and no matter how I look at it, I keep coming up with the same conclusion. I don't know what the hell is going on."
"Exactly!" Luna said.
She continued. "I mean, let's look at this from the night in question. You and the guys went to The Hogs Head, right? You got a little sloshed and you took Harry back to his room."
"Yeah," Ron said, following what she was trying to do.
"When you left him, he was pretty much out of it, right?" Luna asked.
"Yeah, he passed out on the couch," Ron said. "That's where I left him."
"So, according to Ginny's version, we're to believe that she shows up at his room in the middle of the night and in a drunken stupor, Harry and Ginny have a go at each other?"
"This is my baby sister you're talking about," Ron said, as he wrinkled his nose at the image of his sister engaging in any sort of sexual behavior.
"Sorry," Luna said. "But, that is basically what happened, in a nutshell."
Ron nodded.
"I know that I haven't known Harry or Hermione as long as or as well as you have," Luna went on. "But in the time that I have known them, I think I could safely say that there's not enough alcohol in the free world to make either of them cheat on each other."
"So, if that's not the answer, what's the explanation?" Ron asked her.
Luna looked thoughtful. "See, that's the problem. Harry doesn't remember anything about that night after you left him, passed out on the couch. According to Harry, he awoke the next morning next to Ginny, with no idea what had happened and how they had gotten where they were."
"Ginny told Harry that she'd come to his room to return the book she'd borrowed from Hermione and that one thing led to another and they…you know."
Luna looked conflicted as she debated telling Ron the secret she'd been keeping for awhile.
"Well," Luna said cautiously. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe Harry wasn't the one who got Ginny pregnant?"
"What?" Ron asked her. "What do you mean? That Ginny slept around?"
"Not slept around," Luna said quickly. "Just that there was someone before Harry. Someone who may have gotten her pregnant. Someone who didn't react to the news well. Someone who couldn't be there for her. Maybe she felt as if she didn't have any other option so she thought she'd move on to Harry to cover her tracks, so to speak."
"What aren't you telling me?" Ron asked, tensing a bit. He didn't tell her that he'd had the same suspicions himself, but had kept quiet out of respect for his sister.
"I should have told you this weeks ago," Luna said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I wanted to, but I didn't feel as if was my place to say anything."
"What?"
"A few weeks ago," Luna began. "I was running a little late and I came across Ginny in the halls. She wasn't alone. She was talking to someone. And this was weeks before this whole Harry thing broke."
"Well, what did she say and who was she talking to?" Ron asked, on the edge of his seat.
Luna looked down at the table and then, looked up into Ron's encouraging eyes.
"She was talking to Draco Malfoy, Ron."
Author's note: I'm evil, ain't I? I'm sorry. I know you guys hate it, but it was the only way to end the chapter…okay, that's a cop-out but give me a break. I won't keep you waiting for the next chapter long…I promise!