Disclaimer: Still not JK Rowling or anyone really important in the grand scheme of things;)
Author's Notes: My last update for the next few days unless things really come together and won't stop. I just need a teensy bit of a break or I'm afraid I'll burn out. Of course, now that I'm saying this, the story won't stop and I'll get back to Tallahassee and finish the entire story in one night! Well, maybe nothing that drastic. Sorry, it's one in the morning. I'm all alone with the dog and the roach I just killed with my shoe. No time for deep thoughts or comments. Enjoy the chapter. And thank you so much for your support.
PS: For everyone who wants to kill Malfoy, bravo. Person who can come up with the most creative way for him to die gets a gold star;)
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An Organ of Fire
by Kristen Elizabeth
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She was tired of fighting and her muscles ached with spent adrenaline. His fingernails still dug into the raw flesh of her jaw, but the pain had long since faded. He was too close to her; she could feel the muscles of his legs against hers. Sandwiched between Draco Malfoy and Sirius Black, Hermione was completely helpless to their every machination. If she only had her wand...the tables would have been more than just turned. But it was still in her robes. Back at Hogwarts.
"Harry," she whispered, the taste of the latest forced mouthful of Draco's potion still strong in her mouth.
"Call out for him." Draco laughed. "He can't possibly hear you."
Hermione's shoulders sagged. Despite her every attempt, too much of the concoction was making it down her throat, settling into her stomach. How long would it be before it took effect, whatever the true effect might be? Minutes? Hours? "How can you hate...so much?"
"Years and years of practice," he replied, smoothly. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this day. Waiting for everything to fall into place...to rid myself of so many thorns...so many birds with just one stone. It's almost been too much. I'm like Bronson at Christmas. Don't want to peak too soon..."
It was then that she felt the evidence of his arousal pressing into her hip. The worst thing was that it had nothing to do with stimulation; he was getting off on the pure experience of holding lives in the palm of his hand. Causing pain, raping people without ever touching them sexually. "You disgust me." Her voice trembled with repulsion. "You always have."
"You won't feel that way soon," Draco assured her, checking the amount of potion still in the flask. "Before you know it, you'll have a whole new take on the world. And me."
Hermione spat in his face, something she had seen in a Muggle movie as a child. Just as it had shocked the recipient in that case, it caught Draco completely by surprise. He stumbled back, wiping at his eyes. Even Sirius was startled; his grip on her loosened considerably. She wasn't about to waste the chance, for it might be her only.
With her last reserves of energy, Hermione made a break for the doors she had entered through. She could hear Draco behind her, yelling to Sirius, "Get her!!"
She had to keep going, but the door was so far away. It was like running a mile through sand, each step seemed to hold her back more than it propelled her forward. Finally though, her fingers touched wood. Her smile was one of pure triumph.
Pain wiped it off her face. From deep within her stomach she could feel lava bubbling up. Her hand fell away from the door; she clutched at her body just as Sirius grabbed her once again.
"It's begun," Draco called out, his voice resounding throughout the empty hall. "Can you feel it?"
Hermione tried to reply, but all that came out was a low moan. There had never been pain like this and she had endured childbirth. Childbirth. The baby. "Stop it...Draco. Make it stop. You've got to..." A sharp sensation, like a fire-forged rod being thrust through her abdomen seized her and she cried out.
"That might be enough," Draco said to Sirius, ignoring her agony. "Anymore would just be overkill." He thought about this for a second, then shrugged his shoulders. "Overkill never hurt anyone."
"No..." The only thing keeping her from collapsing to the floor was Sirius' arms. But they were so cold, so cruel. "No...no more. I can't....for the...for the baby. I can't."
Draco stopped, flask in his hands. "The baby?" After an eternity, his lips contorted into something that resembled a smile. "Is the great Harry Potter going to be a father?"
She barely heard the question, but even if she had she was in no position to be able to cover up her slip of the tongue. Quite the opposite, the potion seemed to have the effect of a Truth Serum. At the very least, it stripped away her ability to keep her internal thoughts internal.
"He's already a...father." Hermione gulped for breath. Her lungs felt like anchors holding her entire respitory system down. What little light existed in the room hurt her eyes; she squeezed them shut as hard as she could. "My babies...please...let me go, Draco."
Draco looked at Sirius. "Oh, what an absolutely delicious surprise!" He set the flask down and reached for Hermione's body. She winced as though punched when he pressed his hands along her lower abdomen. "Yes...I can already feel it. Very unexpected..." He threw his head back, laughing. "But a perfect opportunity to test a theory of mine." Draco released her, leaving her in Sirius' arms. "Don't worry, *Hermione.* My potion will do nothing to harm your little Mudblooded bastard. At least...I don't think it will. And the pain will soon pass for you, too." He returned to his chair, dropping into it like a king into his throne. "But for Potter...I'm afraid it's only just begun."
Just because the entire situation pleased him so much, he began to laugh once again.
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For months, he had recognized, managed to accept, and ultimately laid to rest within the furthest reaches of his brain the knowledge that Ron and Hermione had been married and, thereby, sexually involved. She had told him herself, they had tried hard to have a baby together. Having a baby meant...
Harry shook his head vigorously, but the thought wouldn't go away. Perhaps because it wasn't just a thought. The reality he had tried to forget existed was being acted out before his very eyes. He was in hell, an unwilling witness to his best friend and the woman they had in common. All he could do was turn his back, and refuse to look at them. But what he couldn't see...he could still hear.
"Stop it," Harry said to no one in particular. To the lovers entwined in the bed, to Malfoy who had to be responsible for this blast from the past that he hadn't been present for the first time around. They didn't....couldn't hear him, and so continued their private act.
She sounded different with Ron. He was torn between male pride that he could bring out something different in her than Ron had....and the panic that perhaps what she had felt with Ron was better than anything he could give her. Harry fought this battle in his head until the sounds began to slow down. Groans gave way to sighs and sighs culminated in a long period of silence, save for the gradual descent of heavy breathing.
Just when Harry thought the nightmare might be over, she spoke.
"I've been thinking. About what you said earlier."
There was the moist sound of lips pressing against skin in a soft kiss. "Refresh my memory, love. I seem to have lost it."
She laughed, a noise that hurt Harry worse than her moans of pleasure. "You asked me to marry you."
"Oh yeah..." The sheets rustled. "I did, didn't I?"
"Yes."
He could hear Ron fluffing up a pillow. "So, what do you say?"
"I just said it. Are you going to make me repeat it again, Ronald Weasley?"
Instead of joy, a pause followed this. "Hermione. I need you to be sure about this. Because I am. I am so serious about this...like I haven't ever been about anything else in my life. But if you need more time..."
"I don't need anymore time." Hermione cleared her throat delicately. "He's not coming back, Ron."
"You don't know that. He could walk through that door right now and..."
She cut him off firmly. "No, he won't. His life has gone on. Now it's time for my life to, as well." More sheets rustled. "Do you love me?"
"I do," he whispered. "You and little Harry...so much."
"We love you, too. I love..." She stopped. "...the sound of 'Hermione Weasley'. Don't you?"
"I don't know. Sounds rather like a rare sort of rash to me."
Harry closed his eyes at the soft thump of her pillow against Ron's face. There was laughter, loud and joyous. And then....quiet. His eyes opened tentatively. But instead of the floral wallpaper, all he saw was dull white plaster. He frowned. What was going on now?
A scream shattered the silence and he whipped around. The four-poster love nest had been replaced with a metal-lined operating table. People in white scrubs milled about it, as oblivious to him as Ron and Hermione had been. Harry's head throbbed from the buzz of voices and the series of low, painful cries.
The crowd of medical personnel parted and Harry caught a glimpse of what their attention was focused on...and the source of the screaming.
"Hermione..." He moved forward, but only made it a few steps closer before his feet refused to do his bidding. Frozen to the spot, Harry watched the labor he had never known was taking place when it had.
It was hard to look past the blood-rush of red on her face, the glistening sweat, the corded throat muscles and see his beautiful Hermione, but she was there even through the trial of creating life. He tore his stare away from her and looked around. Ron's face wasn't among those attending to her. She was alone in a sea of unfamiliar doctors and nurses.
"All right, sweetie, relax," one of them told her. "You're doing just great. Won't be much longer."
There were tears on her cheeks now, mixing with the sweat to drip down her slender neck. "It hurts..." she cried. "It really hurts..."
"I know." The same nurse blotted her forehead. "But it's worth it. You'll see."
Hermione shook her head from side to side against the hospital pillows. "I want... I want..." She seemed unable to get the words out.
"What, love? Ice chips? Do you need to use the loo?"
"I want Harry." Her sobs turned into whimpers. "I want Harry."
Was it possible to feel one's own heart breaking inside one's chest? Harry Potter now believed so. His lay in a million pieces, shattered by the impossible weight of guilt and remorse. He hadn't been there when she had needed him. It was as simple and as damning as that.
The nurse stood up. "The young man outside? I'll get him for you."
Hermione tried to stop her, but she was already gone. A moment later, she returned with a very worried Ron. He was dressed haphazardly in Muggle clothes and looked as out of place as an apple in a bowl of oranges. Harry watched him go to her and take her hand.
"Hermione, it's okay. Shh..." He bent down to kiss her damp brow. "Don't cry...please, don't cry."
"Harry..."
Ron folded her hand up in both of his. "I'm sorry. I know I'm not him. But I'm here. I won't go anywhere; I promise."
Her sobs slowed and her entire, tortured body relaxed as much as it could. Harry shut his eyes again, for all the good it would do. When he opened them again, the scene had changed once more. The hospital room had been replaced by another bedroom, a child's bedroom similar to little Harry's at Hogwarts.
His head had throbbed before; now it pounded. There seemed to be no order to these memories that were being forced onto him. This room's bed was narrow, just big enough for a child, but when he really focused, he could see Hermione and their son lying on it, wrapped in a maternal embrace. He was close enough to see tearstains on their faces.
Hermione's chin rested on the boy's rusty locks. "Ron wanted me to pick another name. Joseph or William or Ted. Something...that was yours only. But I wanted 'Harry'."
"Why, Mum?" The boy's voice sounded even younger.
"I've always liked the name," she replied a second later. "But whatever you were called, he loved you from the first time he held you. You have to know that, Harry."
Little Harry nodded against the swell of her chest. "I do." He sniffed. "Mum...I don't want to go to the funeral tomorrow."
"It's up to you." Hermione's eyes shut from grief and exhaustion. "But let me ask you this. Would you want your dad to come and say goodbye to you?" When her son nodded, she opened them again. "Then...I think you know what's best."
"I just don't want to put him in the ground on that cliff," little Harry explained. "We won't be able to go to see him whenever we want."
She rocked him as she spoke, "We're going to be with him from now on. He'll be at Hogwarts...and so will we."
"I miss him, Mum!" The boy turned his face into his mother's neck, little sobs racking his thin frame.
Hermione's own tears came, fresh and hot. "I miss him, too. I miss...a lot of things...that I can't ever have again."
"Damn you to hell," Harry cursed between his teeth. "Malfoy...I swear...I will kill you and I will enjoy it. Do you hear me?!!" He spread his arms. "Are you getting off on this?! Stringing me through time like your fucking puppet?!! Making me see..." Harry's face scrunched up in emotional anguish. Chunks of his soul had been ripped away from him. "Making me see....what I made happen." His hands clutched his knees as he tried to keep from crumpling to the ground. Doubled over, it was all Harry could do to keep air going in and out of his lungs.
When he finally managed to straighten, he looked up as though he were caught in a plastic bubble and his tormentor was looking down at him. "Show's over," he growled. "The puppet's done dancing. If you want to fight, fight. Quit hiding behind your powers and face me. Do you hear me, you fucking prat?! Come out and fight me!!!"
The last words were screamed with so much fervor that Harry couldn't see straight for several seconds. And then, when he could, he wished he couldn't again.
He wasn't in any bedroom or hospital delivery room. Neither was he in the corridor any longer. He was now in a long hall, warm from twin fires burning at either end. And he was no longer alone.
"Welcome," a coldly amused voice greeted him. Before he could blink, the owner of the voice stepped out of the shadows. "We've been waiting for you."
Harry's first instinct was to raise his wand, but Malfoy was quicker. With a wave of his hand, he froze Harry's arm at a ninety degree angle to his body. "Play nice," Draco warned. "Or else you won't get your surprise."
"Where's Hermione? I want to see Hermione and I want to see my godfather and I want to see them right now," Harry hissed, struggling to move his petrified arm.
"By all means." Draco stepped aside with a great sweeping gesture fanning his robes around his body. Behind him, Harry could see what he had requested to see.
Sirius was holding Hermione's limp body. He didn't move, didn't even blink until Draco motioned to him. "Sirius...wake her up. We've got company."
Too confused to have any sort of reaction, Harry was once again thrust into the role of witness as Sirius shook Hermione until she stirred. He set her down on her feet; she rubbed her eyes and looked down the length of the room towards Harry. "What is he doing here?" she asked.
Draco held out his hand to her. "He's come to rescue you." A moment passed like hours for Harry.
Hermione took his offered hand and molded the length of her side against his, clinging to him like he was the last piece of flotsam in a stormy sea. "I don't need to be rescued. Harry Potter...go home."
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To Be Continued