The Proposal

[Lana Marye Allen]

Yay!
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[Lissandra Sylvania]

The bitterness of saying goodbye.



Never had the apparation time from Malfoy Manor to Jonathan’s apartment in London felt so long, as the afternoon when she went to tell him about the baby she was expecting.

She landed just outside his door with a quiet plop.

It was safe to apparate into his building because it was a straight wizarding one, and she had done so many times before, it wasn’t polite to apparate straight into people’s homes.

She stood on his doorstep for a moment collecting all her courage before she knocked on the door with the cat-shaped doorknocker she knew he had gotten on his fifteenth birthday from Eliza.


It wasn’t long before he opened and invited her in with his usual smile, which she felt he always saved especially for her.


Maybe he sensed her distress, because he didn’t say much before they were both seated on the couch with a cup of tea each and a comforting fire I front of them.


This is even harder than when I had to tell him about Draco’s and mine little escapade with firewhiskey she thought and breathed in deep while turning towards him.


“Jonathan I’m pregnant.” She jumped straight into it knowing that it wouldn’t get easier even if she told him in polite and sugar covered phrases.


“It’s not your baby. It’s Draco’s,” she spoke in short sentences trying to get it over with as fast as possible, even though it made her sound like she had only just learned how to speak.


Jon’s blue eyes turned a deep, almost black colour she had never seen before and didn’t know what meant. She hesitated before continuing her speech but he told her firmly to go on.


“We made one lousy drunken mistake. But I can’t and I won’t get rid of it.”


“No one is asking you to,” he said and she couldn’t interpret what the tone in his voice was saying. He looked like he always did, maybe just a little less relaxed and his eyes had that strange colour, but otherwise he seemed like nothing had happened.


“But it’s not fair to the little one to raise him or her under these circumstances,” she could see that he already knew where this was leading, but he let her say all her words, and it actually comforted her in a strange way. If she never got the chance to say them, she couldn’t ever completely understand that they were real.


“I would never offer a child a life where her mother and father was married but wasn’t together and had other boyfriends instead.”


He nodded in agreement.


“It’s confusing even for me, and I’m living this life for crying out loud.”

He nodded again as if he understood her point. She started braiding a lock of her hair just to occupy her hands while she was talking.


“It would be okay the first couple of years. The baby would be too young to understand, but when he got older he would start asking questions. How can you explain to a five year old that mummy and daddy are only married out of convenience, and that his existence really was a mistake?” a look of despair crept into her features.

She realised that she hadn’t fully grasped the extent of problems that would come along with this child if they continued to live like they did. It suddenly hit her full force and almost drowned her with the knowledge.


Jonathan shrugged his shoulders and she figured he knew as little about child raising as she did.


“And when it gets even older? How can it ever have a normal relationship if its role models were someone like Draco and me?” she was getting herself pretty worked up, but Jonathan sat still and listened to her with a huge patience that he normally didn’t posses while she babbled on. For short moments she felt like she was standing outside looking at herself going nuts, but back in her body she couldn’t do anything about it. It was like standing on a runaway train, which kept speeding up until it would finally crash into a wall and stop in deadly silence.


“How will this child ever feel normal?” she ended and looked at Jonathan as if he had all the answers. He didn’t say anything, just kept staring at her with the unreadable expression on his face.


She sat down beside him, she hadn’t even realised that she had gotten up.


“I have never loved you more than I do right now.”


A glimpse of pain flew over his eyes, but it was there for such a short while that she wasn’t sure it had actually been there at all. She wanted to reach out for him to comfort herself, but she didn’t think she deserved any comfort for what she was about to do and therefore pulled her hand back. He hadn’t even flinched.


“Never.”


The word came out as a single tear rolled down her cheek and landed softly on her right shoulder, where the blue fabric of her t-shirt ended. At that moment she felt for the first time since she had made her decision that it might hurt her just as much as it would hurt Jonathan.


He seemed to have completely frozen.


“I love you, I really do,” she repeated. She tried to get some kind of reaction out of him, but ever since her long speech on all the abnormalities her child would suffer from if she continued her current lifestyle he hadn’t spoken or moved at all. It frightened her more than if he had hit her or yelled at her. That way he would at least have done something. It was freaking her out and it scared her more than she wanted to admit to be faced with him when he was like this.


“But we can’t continue seeing each other, or we can see each other, but just not as a couple.”


To her defence she didn’t cry as she said it, but it was dangerously close.

He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them slowly again and pointed at the door.


“The door,” he said in a strange distant voice, “is that way.”

It was a dismissal, and Hermione almost fled the apartment, with just one though in her head; I must not cry.




“It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever had to do.”


It was the only thing she said as she entered the manor, her hair messy and the look of despair still in her eyes. She almost ran into the library, took the nearest book and sat down in front of the fire. After finding her bookmark she opened the book and stared at the page before her.

Draco entered in a more normal tempo. He seated himself next to her and watched her stare at her book, he knew she wasn’t reading and she knew that he knew. With patience like the angel he looked like he sat beside her more than thirty minutes without moving or saying anything. It was too big for words right now.

It would have been easier if she could just talk about it, but she couldn’t and he didn’t push her. It never helped to force someone to talk; they would only regret their words as soon as they were spoken.


She pretended to read because it was the only thing she knew how to do at the moment, she couldn’t get sense out of them, but it gave her comfort to fell the solid frame of it between her hands. Draco stroked her arm gently and waited.


She honestly tried to read a few lines but the only full thought she could think was; I must not cry and she repeated it religiously inside her head until it was printed into her conscience as deep as if someone had carved it in stone.


At some point Draco disappeared for a moment but he returned few seconds later with a bar of chocolate in one hand, which he placed on the coffee table in front of them. She didn’t move to take a piece, or to do anything at all not even to flip a page.


Minutes passed before he reached out and broke of a piece which he offered her, at first she shook her head, but he insisted and got her to eat it eventually.

With a sad smile she looked at him.


“I appreciate this Draco, but right now I just need to be alone,” she said with a grim face.


“No you don’t,” was his comment as he took her hand and pushed the book away, “You just say that to punish yourself for what you have done.”

He was right. But after breaking Jonathan’s heart, and she felt quite sure she had done so, she didn’t feel like she deserved a kind touch and the presence of a person who loved her.


He knew her much too well, she thought with a sigh. He gently took the book from her lab, closed it and put it on the table.


Minutes passed. Afternoon turned into evening without either of them noticing or caring.


“I love him,” she finally said.


“I know you do.”


“And it was horrible to break up with him, I’ve never felt so low and so sad before, even though I knew I did the right thing for our baby.”


He was glad she was talking at last. She actually felt a little better after saying it and repeated the last part again to which he nodded solemnly: “I did the right thing for our baby.”


“You’ll be a great mother,” he smiled, and that somehow comforted her just as much as his presence did.




The owl tapped on her window frame until she got out of bed to open and let it in. The large grey bird soared in and sat on her outstretched arm. It had a note tied around its leg and she loosened the blue band that held it and slipped the note into her hand. The owl bowed its head gracefully and flew off into the sunrise again.


She recognised Jonathan’s mark on the envelope and sat down on the couch to read the letter.




Dear Hermione

I don’t know how to start this letter, I acted in a less than nice manner yesterday, but you carry your part of the fault too. I’m sad this is how it ends, I love you more than you can imagine and a lot more than I wish to.


I’m afraid we won’t speak to each other anytime in the nearest future since I’m leaving tomorrow for Russia where I am to work at the Russian Ministry of Magic as junior secretary for the minister of magical sports and games.


I hope you and Draco will be happy together and that you baby will be healthy, please don’t do anything stupid like naming him after me! I wouldn’t appreciate it.


This isn’t my longest letter or the most well written one, but it’ll have to do.


Мой самолет останавливается в России, так прощай моя любовь.


With all the love I now can’t have - Jonathan



She read the note several times until she knew every word by heart. He was right it wasn’t his most well written letter but it meant something to her that she at least knew where in the world he was, but she figured that she had hurt him much deeper than she had intended by leaving him, or else he would do anything so drastic like moving out of the country.

It wasn’t something he had ever talked about before and she imagined he had done so because of her. It made her sad that she had caused so much pain for a person whom she loved, but in this case there was no other option.


She had never known that Jonathan had connections to Russia or that he spoke Russian, but when she asked Draco, he told her that Jonathan’s mother was Russian and it was from that side of the family he had his dark hair and blue eyes.


She was glad though that the letter seemed free of bitterness except from the last line about the love he couldn’t have.


They should have known from the beginning that they could never have the fairytale ending that they might in their dreams have hoped for. Fairytales don’t come true, and you can’t bend the rules of the world no matter how much in love you are, she though with the bitterness that wasn’t present in Jonathan’s letter, but which she knew he had to feel.


Fairytales are fairytales, she thought, you live in the real world now.

[Hanna Mia Sunrose]

See osa ajas täiesti nutma, aga mulle ei meeldinud see.
Millal jõuab kohale see osa, kus nad Dracoga happily ever after fairytale'is elavad?

[Lissandra Sylvania]

Strange dreams and colourful presents.



Draco was a huge help the next couple of weeks when Hermione had a hard time telling her friends and family about her decision and condition, he did what he could.

He was there if she wanted to talk and he even offered telling the news to her friends for her if she wanted him to. That offer she didn’t accept, it was something she had to do herself even though she wanted nothing more than to avoid having to tell her mother that she was pregnant with Draco’s baby and therefore leaving Jonathan.

It was almost as hard telling others about the situation, as it had been to live through the actual break-up. She didn’t meet understanding everywhere she went; Ginny simply couldn’t understand how she could give up Jonathan. It didn’t make sense to her that Draco and Hermione didn’t think it would be fair to the baby to have to live with parents like them.

She had a big fight with Hermione because of it; but Ginny didn’t get her way. Hermione had made a decision already when she first decided to keep the baby and she stuck to that decision religiously. Besides that it was much to late to repair the damage that had been done.


She feared that Ginny would never really understand before the day she got pregnant herself and that day was far into the future, as she and Thomas nowhere near had the time for a child.




The sun was setting over the silent place at the edge of the forest where the young woman was sitting with her large pregnant stomach very visible under a loose blue gown. Around her blankets were laid out for a picnic along with various foods, drinks and in the middle of it all masterpiece of a huge strawberry cheesecake.

In the horizon a deep red sun was gliding down across the pink sky. Around her it was misty a few feet away from her like the place at the edge of the forest was the only place in the world. A light wind was lifting her damp hair from the back of her neck. The quiet was complete; everything was holding back its breath. They were all waiting for him. Waiting for the prince to arrive. The place was bathed in silence.


Out of the mist of the forest came a handsome young man with dark hair and blue eyes dressed in sapphire blue. He walked with confident steps and held his head proudly. The woman waved at him with one hand and caressed her stomach with the other. He didn’t see her even though he was looking in her direction.

She waved and smiled at him again, but he just walked right past her without noticing the picnic set out for him or the waiting woman. As he went by she reached out and touched his leg, but he just walked on and didn’t feel her touch.

As he disappeared in the mists again the woman started crying.

Hermione woke up shaking in her bed and looked around in the dark with large eyes trying to shake of the nightmare. When she touched her cheek she found out that she had been crying in her sleep.


The dream she couldn’t completely remember, but she had a clear feeling that it had been about Jonathan, and her not being able to reach him.

She turned on the lamp beside her bed and chased the shadows out in the corners of her room. She couldn’t sleep right away she was completely sure of that. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to sleep at all that night because she was frightened the dream would return.

She didn’t need to speculate about Jonathan at night too she did that all day as it was and having to face that at night too was more than she could handle.

Instead of going to sleep again she took her book from the nightstand and tried to read for a while. The book soon got to her and got her involved in its light plot and funny characters. It helped her forget all about dreams and guilt for the hour it took her to finish what had been left of it, but as soon as she laid down and put out the light she was back in the dream universe.


The dream started over again with its light atmosphere, the feeling off excitement building around her. They were all waiting for the prince to come, but when he came he didn’t notice her. He looked right through her with those blue eyes, which she loved so much. And then he was gone; swallowed by the mist. And she was alone with her tears and heartbreak.




“You look tired,” Draco commented one morning about a week after the dreams started coming. He examined her closer. She shrugged her shoulders and continued whisking the sauce she was making for dinner. He’d stopped chopping the vegetables to taker a closer look at her.


“I’m not sleeping that well. Bad dreams,” she said in a tone that clearly said she didn’t want to talk about it, she whisked harder to make sure there were no lumps in the sauce, she wanted it to be perfect because her parents were coming over for dinner.


“What about?” he insisted and slowly started cutting salad leaves into thin slices.


She sighed and at the same time both wished he would stay out of her business and that she could tell him. With mechanic movements she poured the sauce into a bowl and put it aside for later.


“About Jon,” was all she said before she started to flip through ‘Magical Meals’ to check if there was anything she hadn’t thought about regarding dinner. Or just to seem busy and make him stop asking questions.


“What about him?” Draco inquired with a persistent mine. He just won’t give up! she thought and grit her teeth. With an ease she wouldn’t have expected from a three-month pregnant woman she slid up and sat on the kitchen table just beside Draco’s cutting board.


“I sit at a picnic. There’s a huge strawberry cheesecake on a blanket beside me. It’s near a forest but it’s surrounded by mist down at the earth and above I can see the sun setting. There’s no other people or anything around. My stomach is big and I’m waiting for Jon to arrive,” she told in a tired voice and fiddled with a lock of her brown hair, “but when he comes he doesn’t seem to be able to see me at all even though I wave at him and touch his leg as he passes by. I can’t get up because my stomach is weighing me down. He walks by me and disappears in the mist, just as I start crying.”


“And this dream returns every night?” he asked brows furrowed.


“Several times,” she admitted and shook her head so her hair fell down and covered her face in golden-brown locks.


“And it doesn’t help to sleep with the lights on?” he asked and she shook her head underneath all the bushy hair. She had tried that already the second night she dreamt the dream without any effect.


At the other end of the house they could hear the doorbell and the distant sound of voices, which she guessed belonged to her parents and Dinny opening the door for them.


“If this continues come and wake me up, maybe I can help?” he offered. She doubted that but she nodded anyway, it was very nice of him to offer it and she might take him up on it at some point.




Dinner was a quiet but comfortable affair. Jane and Greg asked about the baby clearly looking forward to becoming grandparents even though they had sounded extremely surprised when Hermione called and told them the news a couple of weeks earlier.

They wanted to know where the baby was to be born and if Hermione had been to the doctor and check if the baby was healthy and all those things the young couple would never have thought off if it wasn’t because Jane suggested them. Hermione dryly thought that she ought to be taking notes.


“We brought a small present for the two of you,” Greg told them as they were all seated in the living room after finishing dinner and dessert.


“You didn’t have to,” Hermione automatically said as her mother pulled out the nicely wrapped present from her handbag. It was square and wrapped in light green paper with a silver bow. Slytherin colours, Hermione thought, but figured that her mother probably wasn’t aware of that. Draco and her exchanged a look they’d both noticed it.


Jane gave the present to Draco and smiled as he unwrapped the square. It contained two books: one of them was a book about being pregnant which Hermione was glad to be given, she didn’t know much about it as it was. The other was a green book with silver writing - again the young couple exchanged looks - a so-called baby book, where they could put pictures of the little one.


She was sure they both had the same thought at that moment; they wondered if their child would be in Gryffindor or Slytherin.


“Thank you,” Draco said to her parents and smirked at her while she eyed him suspiciously.


The young man with the blue eyes stepped out of the mist into the little quiet place near the edge of the forest where the young woman sat on the blankets with the strawberry cheesecake. Her large pregnant stomach stood out under her light blue dress. Above her in the sky a red sun was setting in a haze of pink.
The young man walked across the space in confident steps without noticing the woman waving at him or her light touch as he passed by her. When the mist surrounded him and he was no longer visible the woman started crying.



“Draco?” she whispered loudly.


The sleeping man on the bed stirred but didn’t wake up. She was standing next to his bed with her duvet under one arm and the rest of her now dried out tears still on her cheeks.


“Draco?” she repeated a little louder and he opened his eyes a little to see her standing in her nightgown looking at him with red puffy eyes. It had been a couple of days since he said that she could come to him if she had the dream again, but she had refused to even consider it the first nights, but now she was so desperate for a good nights sleep that she tried this as a last resort. It might turn out a good idea, it might turn out pointless, but she at least had to try.


“Did you dream again?” he asked at shook his blonde head as if to wake up a little. She nodded vigorously. He seemed like he was speculating what to do for a second then padded on the bed next to him gesticulating her to lie down next to him. She spread out her duvet and crept under it wide-awake.

She felt strange about being in his bedroom again, it was the first time she had been in there in the three months that had passed since ‘that night’. Everything looked exactly the same, but that didn’t surprise her much. He wasn’t the person to change a setting that was perfectly well as it was.


His bed was soft and comfortable and she was able to relax a little, even though it still felt weird to be lying in a ‘strangers’ bed.


He was a stranger to her like that and it felt very personal to lie next to a person when that person was asleep, people looked different when they weren’t awake.


She cast him a glance but he seemed to be sleeping again already with nothing but his head visible, everything else was covered by his duvet. She wondered if he was the type who always made sure to be covered completely.


He looks younger when he sleeps, she finally decided thoughtfully and wondered whether all people looked ten years younger when they were asleep. It was possible.


Just when she thought that now her husband was deeply asleep again did he reach out and took her hand in the darkness, she smiled to herself suddenly comforted beyond anything she would have imagined. His hand felt solid and warm in hers and he held on tightly and squeezed it once or twice before falling asleep still holding on.


When she fell into a dreamless sleep half an hour later it was with the tiniest of smiles on her face and his hand firmly in hers.

[Liz-Miia Parker]

Awww. Armas

[Hanna Mia Sunrose]

NII ARMAS!
*naeratab*[/color]

[Lissandra Sylvania]

The love of a Malfoy




“Good morning beautiful,” Draco smirked as she opened her eyes next morning and found herself in Draco’s bed. This time with her clothes on though, she thought dryly.

“Good morning Draco,” she said and rubbed her eyes and looked around in the light room and remembered the last time she woke up in there. From those two she definitely preferred this time compared to the rough awakening she had last time she found her self in there.

“And here I was expecting something like ‘Good morning handsome’ but I guess one can’t have everything,” he winked at her and she hit him on the head with her pillow.

“Good morning handsome,” she said in a mock voice and he grinned at her.

He yawned and stretched with a happy smile on his face, while she just shook her head at him.

“It’s nice to wake up next to someone for once,” he said.

She did a bit of math in her head and figured out that it had been more than three months since he and Eliza had broken up and since he therefore had slept in the same bed as another person. Maybe he missed being near someone?

“Do you miss her?” she asked as politely as possible, she didn’t want to seem like she was prying even though she kind of was. He rolled over on one side and supported his head with one hand.

“I miss talking to her,” he answered truthfully and she knew that was all he was going to say about that subject. She decided that said enough; he missed having Elisabeth around but he didn’t miss the relationship part that much. That was an explanation and enough for her.

“When it’s been three months you start to get over the person,” he explained to her surprise, “three months is a long time.”

She had the feeling that he wasn’t just talking about Eliza and him but also about Jonathan and her. She hoped he was right; if she had to go more than three months feeling so bad about it and missing him so much she was afraid she would go completely nuts and then her decision would turn on her and have exactly the opposite effect than what they were trying to achieve. Then it would be bad for the baby and not good for it, as they wanted it to be.

The baby. Her baby.

Unconsciously she placed a hand on her stomach and stroked it gently. It wasn’t really showing yet but she knew the baby was growing inside her.

“They say time mends everything.”

He nodded in agreement.



“Hello Hermione,” a voice said from behind and she jumped like five inches up in surprise.

“Sorry,” the voice added and she turned around to say hallo to Harry.

He stood in the doorframe to the library and looked at her with his green eyes. The ruffled black hair was messier than ever.

She crawled down the ladder that had been pushed up against the shelves on the wall enabling her to reach the top ones with her dusting cloth.

Since she found out about her pregnancy she had started being slightly obsessive about cleaning everywhere, but she only shook her head when Draco pointed it out for her.

“Hi, Harry,” she greeted and gestured him to take a seat on the couch by the fire.

Outside the rain was falling, but her guest wasn’t wet so she figured he probably had apparated almost into their hall.

“Draco showed me in,” Harry told and settled in the comfortable sofa with pleasure, “He looks strangely happy at the moment.” The last part was said with a suspicious mine.

Hermione hid her smile behind a hand before she said: “He’s a father to be, what did you expect?”

He looked a bit uncomfortable when she mentioned it.

“Are you sure what you’re doing?”

She sent him an angry glance.

Why was he questioning her ability to do the right things? She had everything under control.

“Yes Harry I know what I’m doing,” she answered firmly in a way that indicated she did not exactly like to be questioned. She was twenty-five years old for crying out loud!

“I just mean, having a child with Malfoy?”

“I thought we went through all this when I first told you,” she said rather coldly and sent him her famous death glare.

He shook his head and clearly wondered whether it was safe to go on with what he had originally come to say.

After a deep breath he started.

He told her that he had just come across Draco Malfoy’s profile at the auror office earlier that day. If she knew that he had been to Azkaban for two years because the ministry considered him one of the most dangerous wizards. If she knew that he still had to report to the ministry of magic once every second year to be questioned about his actions, because they still didn’t trust him. If she knew how much money he had had to pay to get out of prison?



While he was talking Hermione’s face grew hotter and hotter until it reached an unhealthy shade of red when Harry finally stopped talking.

With a strength he clearly hadn’t expected her to posses she pricked his shoulder for each word she said.

“Do you have any idea how many nights he has had nightmares because of those years in Azkaban? Do you know how it feels to be there every single day for two years? Can your narrow imagination grasp what that can do to the mind of a sixteen year old?!” she shrieked watching his horrified face grow shameful.

That did not stop her from pricking his shoulder so hard that she was convinced it would leave a mark on his shoulder for weeks after, but at the moment she didn’t care. It had been okay with him when she married Draco, he had even behaved a lot more mature than she would have expected him to. Why then did he have to come now and question her like that? She knew better than anyone what had happened in Draco’s and furthermore what those events had done to him.

“Sorry, I just thought you might want to know those things before raising his child,” Harry defended himself. The rage of Hermione wasn’t a pretty sight.

“I already knew those things. You think he hasn’t told me?” she asked him sounding a lot more pulled together than she felt inside. She hated having to convince people all the time that Draco wasn’t a bad person. He had been and he had made some of the biggest mistakes of his life in that period but that was more than seven years ago, couldn’t people forget and get on with their lives?

“Will you honestly tell me that Malfoy told you that he blackmailed the minister to get out of Azkaban?” Harry asked with a small voice as a last attempt to keep his dignity intact.

“Yes,” she said coldly, “And I would appreciate it if you apologized for those accusations, or you can just leave now and not bother to come back!”

His face went pale she had never spoken to him like that before, not even when she was a teenager.

“I’m sorry I said that, I only wanted what was best for you,” he said and added in a low voice “I hope that’s just the pregnancy hormones yelling.”

She pretended she didn’t hear the last part.



“Hermione,” he a said one morning, as they were both lying in his bed. After waking up and coming into his room the first four times because of the dream, he had finally gotten enough of being waken up in the middle of the night by her light footsteps and a gentle hand pushing him over and making room for Hermione by his side. He had asked her with a smirk if she shouldn’t just sleep in his room from the beginning since it would save them both a lot of sleep. She didn’t feel immediately fond of the idea, but when she entered his room at one o’clock that night for the fifth time in a row she realised that he was probably right. And she didn’t mind sleeping next to someone, it was a great comfort even though they didn’t speak at night, just to feel the warmth and presence of a person next to her.

It had felt extremely strange and a little uncomfortable the first time she came in before he went to bed and lied down beside him before he put out the light around them with his wand and placed it on his nightstand. It was odd going to sleep next to a person that wasn’t Jonathan, but it didn’t take long before she was overwhelmed by sleep and didn’t care if it was Jonathan, Draco or the pope lying next to her. The dream seemed to disappear after she started staying in his room and that helped her enormously during the daytime too.

“Yes?”

He asked if she remembered back when he asked her to marry him and she had said that he would have to learn to love her if he wanted to.

She rolled over to look into his eyes before she answered that she remembered that very clearly.

“I don’t think the problem is for me to learn to love you,“ Draco said quietly, “I think the real problem is for you to learn to love me.”

She closed her eyes and tried to sort out her feelings.

“You said Malfoys don’t love,” she replied as an attempt to buy more time.

“They don’t. I do.” Draco answered shortly.

She was angry with him, or maybe she was just angry with herself. He was right, of course he was! She had a hard time admitting that she loved him, but she had come to over the many months they had been married now. She appreciated that he cared about where she was when she wasn’t home, she liked the way he remembered what kind of books she liked and laid them out for her if he found something interesting in the library.

There are many kinds of love in the world, and her love for him was just one of them. It was nothing like the burning love she felt for Jon, nothing she had ever experienced had felt like that, but it didn’t mean that she didn’t love Draco, that she didn’t love her husband just as much as she had loved Jon, she just loved him in another way.

This was a quiet love much like the love she felt for books. And for Harry, Ginny and the Weasley family. They were always there, could comfort her or cheer her up. They didn’t ask questions she didn’t want to answer. They were her companions. And they were the ones who would be with her even after the burning heartache she felt for Jonathan at the moment was over. They would be there when she was old and sick, and they were there now she was still young and healthy.

“Malfoys must love,” she said then, “Because I am a Malfoy. And I love you.”

That was the biggest thing she had ever had to admit to herself and to another person. Both that she loved him, which she, now she had said the words, realised she had done for quite a while now, but because the love hadn’t come like it had with Jon as a sudden crush, but slowly crept up on her, she hadn’t noticed its presence before she was forced to.

And she had acknowledged the fact that she was a Malfoy.

He smiled at her just before she got up from the bed and disappeared down the hallway. She didn’t want to be in that room any longer when it made her say things like that. Somehow she didn’t feel comfortable that he knew her so well.

And somehow it just made her love him even more.

[Liz-Miia Parker]

Näädsa võttis aega aga asja sai ;D

[Hanna Mia Sunrose]

Mulle ei meeldinud tegelikult see osa.
See armastus oleks võinud tulla selliselt äkitselt ja ohtrate suudlstega, aga nii ... nääh.
Aga uut!

[Lissandra Sylvania]

Secrets and shames.



She noticed him staring at her as she went about the bedroom and drew the curtains, dusted a little and rearranged the logs in the fireplace. The book he held loosely in his lap, he didn’t read in it, only let his eyes follow her figure around the room being careful not to let her see it.


She did notice it though, the way he always seemed to have to flip a page when she looked at him even though she knew very well that he wasn’t reading at all.


His grey eyes following her wasn’t uncomfortable, just a little disturbing for her.


It was in the middle of November and outside it had been dark already at five o’clock and now at nearly eleven the darkness had only grown more intense. Hermione was happy that they had a cosy fire and a warm atmosphere in Draco’s room where they both were at the moment.


Before drawing the last curtain she stopped for a while to look out the window. The blackness was overwhelming and impossible to see beyond, like a dark blanket had covered the grounds. She had always known that the manor was rather isolated, normally she didn’t think about it, but at times like these she grasped how far out they really were. Nowhere a light could be seen, and it was nothing like last year in London, where it was never completely dark.

In London there had always been someone wake with the lights on or some neon sign that illuminated the street with yellow and blue.


Out on the country there was only the darkness.


With a resolute move she drew the curtain and turned to face the warm light of the room and Draco’s gaze again.


“It’s dark compared to London, isn’t it?” he asked and held her eyes. Surprised that he had said what she had just been thinking she answered that he was right.


“In London there’s always light and people,” she said and sighed as she sat down beside him on the couch. Unconsciously she placed a hand on her stomach, sometime she could feel the baby kick but her doctor had told her that it was perfectly normal and that she only had reason to worry if the baby didn’t kick.


“Do you ever miss it? London I mean?”


“Never.” It was a reply she didn’t have to think about at all. Not even the first days of their marriage did she miss her tiny apartment in London, the foggy air or the crammed spaces that made the London she knew. If there was anything that had been easy to accept it was her new surroundings, from the first moment she saw the manor she had fallen in love with it and now nine months later she still hadn’t fallen out of love with it.


He smiled distant minded and stroked her stomach with light fingers. She placed her head on his shoulder and they sat in silence for a while enjoying each other’s company in their usual evening ritual.


Hermione sat with an open book in her lap looking into the dancing flames in the fireplace while Draco had his arm wrapped around her shoulder.


“Can you believe it’s almost December now?” Hermione asked in a low voice and pictured Malfoy manor covered in Christmas decorations for her inner eye. She didn’t know if the Malfoy family had any traditions around Christmas and with decorating their house, but she knew it had to be a splendid sight. With garlands around the banister in the hall, spruce on the front door with a red ribbon and a huge Christmas tree in library.


How she looked forward to celebrating the holidays in the manor. And how she looked forward to celebrating the holidays with her child next Christmas.


“I can see from the dreamy look in your eyes that you have already decorated the entire manor in red and gold,” Draco said dryly, but not without a flinch of humour in his voice.


She made a ‘humpf’ sound, but secretly she had to admit that he was right.


“I have never seen any pictures of the manor at Christmas time, so I have to imagine it all from scratch,” she said and thought that their dining room would be perfect for hosting a Christmas party, with a couple of candles and some spruce it could easily be turn into the ultimate Christmas setting.


“In fact I’ve never seen any pictures at all…” she added distant minded as continued to relocate some of the furniture in the library to make room for the tree.


“Well my father wasn’t exactly the sentimental type who took pictures at holidays and such you know,” Draco said and held her tighter for a moment. She sighed. Wished he’d had the same safe childhood as she’d had and not the turbulent life filled with evil and fanatics.




The next day she walked around in the library. The lights were on everywhere even though it was still early in the afternoon, but outside the rain was pouring down and grey clouds covered the sky in a thick layer making it almost impossible for the sun to shine through.


She threw another log on the fire before sitting down in her favourite chair and snuggled up with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate on the table beside her.

She stroked the cover of Hogwarts: A History lovingly before opening it on page four hundred and seventy-nine where she had left it the night before. A piece of paper fell out of it and landed blank side up on the floor next to the armchair.

When Hermione picked it up she saw that it wasn’t a piece of paper but a photograph. She brought it closer to her eyes and studied it closely.

It showed a wizard family standing in front of a beautifully decorated Christmas tree in the hall of Malfoy Manor. The photograph was slightly faded but she could see that the tree was decorated in white and silver and sprinkled with sparkling fake snow.


In front of the tree a little family of three persons stood and looked into the camera. At first Hermione thought that it was a muggle photograph, because the wizards almost weren’t moving at all. Then suddenly the young boy of about eleven years of age flinched and received a soundless scolding from his blond father until he remained still again.


There was a clear family resemblance between the three and the parents were a handsome couple dressed in black and green wizard robes. The boy held on tight to the wand in his hand and tried his best to stand still to avoid another scolding from his father, the handsome blond wizard with the cold eyes.


On the back of the picture the date was written in small neat letters, 9th of December the year Draco had been ten years old.


The picture had been placed just where she had gotten to in the book, and she was sure Draco had placed it there, because he wanted her to see it, but not to talk about it. If he wanted to talk he would have shown her it in person instead of leaving it somewhere he knew she would find it.




“Hermione, you weren’t supposed to put that picture where it can be seen,” Draco commented dryly when he walked into the living room the next day and saw the heavy picture-frame containing the picture he had given her of him and his parents.


“I kind of liked it, so I thought I’d put it up here,” Hermione answered and gesticulated towards the mantelpiece.


He shook his head and sat down beside her on the sofa and opened the Daily Prophet.


“The Malfoy family is very closed,” Hermione said, half to herself and half to her husband who looked up from the article he was reading as she said it.


“That is how it is to be wizard aristocracy. The Malfoys are a family of secrets,” he noted.


She sighed and closed the book in her hands and put it on the coffeetable next to the white sofa. With a loving glance towards the blond man on the sofa she got up and walked over to the window overlooking the garden. Even under the grey sky the grass looked as green as always, and the tea pavilion stood closed up beside the still lake. No wind was lifting the leaves of the trees as she pushed aside the light white curtain to get a better look outside.


“You have always been a man of secrets,” she said quietly as she continued to look out. Behind her the rattle of the paper told her that Draco was folding up the paper again.


“Not any longer.”


With steps to soft for her to hear them on the thick carpet he walked to her side.


“Once I had secrets, but I think you know most of them by now.”

She looked down, a small smile playing on her face.


“I never asked you to tell me your secrets.”


“I know. That’s why I told you them,” Draco said quietly and slid an arm around her waist to support her weigh. She leaned her head on his shoulder and took his hand in hers.


With a sudden clarity she remembered their wedding ceremony and the words the ministerial wizard had spoken. Forming a wholly bond of matrimony means more than just loving each other. It means trusting. It means knowing each other’s secrets. It means sharing. Sharing the burdens. Sharing the joys.


A small smiled formed on Draco’s face too and she knew he was thinking exactly the same as she was. Together they watched the sky turn black and the darkness covering everything they knew.


It was completely impossible to make out anything recognisable when the young couple turned away from the window.


“There is one last Malfoy secret I wish to share with you though,” Draco said in a solemn voice.


With a light pull of his hand she followed him out of the living room and across the hall to the library. There was a fire in the fireplace and Hermione sent a loving thought towards Dinny, who knew that the couple favoured to spend their evenings in the library.


With determined steps he led her to the right side of the library. With a slim finger he followed the titles of the books looking for a particular one. She knew the books in this section by heart and could almost mention the title of each one before his finger stroked it.


When he reached a large heavy book with the title Through Generations he stopped and let go of her hand to pull out the book. Along with it came a layer of dust.


“Could you hold this for a moment?”


She extended her hands and took the large book and put it down on the floor beside her foot. He lifted an eyebrow at her, but she just shrugged her shoulder.


The book had left a large empty space on the shelf and as Draco reached in she began to realize what was going on.


He smiled at her as he drew his hand back and the entire section of the bookcase started moving.

Like in the old movies the bookcase turned open to reveal a secret room behind it. Draco gestured for her to step inside and have a look around.

The room was square and without windows, in the enchanted fireplace an eternal fire was burning. She had read about those in one of the books in the library and guessed that was what the fire was, because Draco couldn’t have lighted it that day, judging by the layer of dust upon the key-book no one had been in there for quite a while.


On all four walls including the one they had just stepped through, which was magically closing on its own, there were shelves filled with books. In the middle of the room there was a sofa arrangement and a large desk with ink and feather pens ready.


“What is this place?” she asked and thought that it reminded her of Hogwarts.


“This is the real Malfoy library.”


“Then what do you call what’s out there? The lobby?” she raised an eyebrow at him again, but he ignored her comment.


“This is where the Malfoy Chronicles are hidden. The entire history of the Malfoy family lies inhere along with the real treasures of this family.”

She couldn’t figure out what the look in his eyes meant. Was he proud of his family?


She went around looking closer at some of the book titles.

Some of them were diaries with the owners name, birth and death-year on.


“The Malfoys have a strong tradition of writing in journals. After they pass on their private diaries are provided with the name, birth and death year of the person who wrote it and placed here along with the rest of the family’s diaries,” Draco explained, he also pointed out where his father’s diaries could be found along with those of the first known Malfoy male.


“Over here,” he then said and pointed at one of the long walls with shelves from floor to ceiling, “we have the so-called Malfoy Chronicles. This is where the head of the family writes in the faith of the family every time something important happens.“


Hermione studied them with great interest, her fingers were itching to pull down the large book with the title The Malfoy Chronicles I and just start reading immediately.


“At the moment there are forty-nine volumes of the Chronicles… And I’ve never read a single one of them,” Draco added with a dry tone in his voice. She smiled at him.


He directed her towards a corner of the room where a large box hung on the wall in between the books.


“This is where the Malfoys keep their jewellery. And this is also where I found your wedding ring.”


They looked at each other with a sort of goofy happy smile. Somehow Hermione felt a little silly, being as happy as she was, but she couldn’t help smile at the man next to her.


“This is where the Malfoys keep their biggest treasures, their biggest triumphs and their biggest shames,” Draco said, and as he finished the sentence he pointed towards two small diaries in red leather with gold writing on. Almost every other book in the room was black or dark green with silver letters, but these small ones were bright red only darkened a little by time. Gryffindor colours, Hermione thought and stepped closer.


“Saint Agatha, 1733 to 1751,” she read from the cover then turned to Draco and sent him a questioning glare.


“Was there really a saint in the Malfoy family?” she asked curiously. The Malfoys had always been associated with the dark side so she couldn’t imagine there had ever been someone that good in the family.


“As I said, the Malfoys biggest shame…” he shook his head and continued,

“No one from this family will ever admit that we once had a saint among us.”


“Did you ever read her diaries?” Hermione asked interested.


“No I didn’t. I never read any of these books, but I know some of the stories about the Malfoy lines.”


“We could read them together?” Hermione suggested and her husband smiled at her and nodded.

[Liz-Miia Parker]

Ok igavaks läheb ;D next. hahaha.

[Hanna Mia Sunrose]

Täpselt.
Kus on action?
Ja armastus, tuline armastus?
Magemage
UUT![/i]

[Lana Marye Allen]

Jah, actionit võiks tõesti rohkem olla...aga lõpp on ju vägagi lähedal nüüd juba, ainult kolm ptk´d
Et siis uut, tahaks teada, kuidas see kõik siis ikkagi lõppeb!

[Lissandra Sylvania]

Jap, otsakorral on see tõesti, vahepeal on siin tõesti suhteliselt igav, kuid üldiselt mulle see story siiski meeldis

Ending a story of bittersweet love.



“Then after dinner Draco and I sat down in the library and read this very interesting book together about a saint from the sixteenth century, “ Hermione eagerly told her best friend, “She was very young when she died because her father killed her with an avada kedavra in the shame of having a good person in the family.”


Hermione didn’t mention that Agatha was really from the Malfoy family or that they’ve found the book in the Malfoy Library, because those were secrets between Draco and her.


“Hermione are you sure you’re not in love with Draco?” Ginny asked curiously and received a death glare from her friend.


“Are you even listening to what I’m saying Ginny?” Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow, a habit she’s adopted lately.


“Yes I am. And you seem to be mentioning the name Draco quite a lot,” Ginny winked and Hermione shook her head in disagreement.


“I was telling you about a book I was reading!”


“A book you were reading with Draco,” Ginny looked like she was having fun, but Hermione didn’t find the situation funny at all. She felt uncomfortable being questioned like this and she couldn’t see any truth in Ginny’s insinuations.


She made a statement out of looking out the window instead of looking her best friends in the eyes. It was ridiculous to say that she was in love with Draco, it had only been a little more than two months since she had had to break up with Jonathan and she couldn’t possibly be falling for someone already.

What a stupid thing to say.


“Face it Hermione, you talk about him a lot and any idiot can see the happiness in your eyes when you mention his name.”


Hermione didn’t answer, just stared continually out the window where she caught a glimpse of an owl flying across the sky even thought it was bright daylight. Or rather relatively bright daylight for the 1st of December where heavy grey clouds were hanging low and promising a shower of rain in a few minutes.


“You are married to the guy so it’s okay to love him,” Ginny continued, but she was talking to deaf ears.


“You don’t have to be mad at me for saying this…” Ginny tried.


Hermione closed her eyes for a second, then turned to Ginny and said: “I’m not mad Ginny. But really, now is not the right time to fall in love with Draco.”


“Nonsense!” her friend replied immediately and grabbed her hand, “Hermione now would be the perfect time, you’re pregnant with his child and even Jon would understand.”


With abrupt movement Hermione got up from Ginny’s sofa and walked across the cosy living room. She stopped in front of the fireplace where a small fire burned and illuminated the pictures in the frames on the shelf above it.


A picture of the entire Weasley clan at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, a portrait of Hermione and Draco on their wedding day, a portrait of Harry, a picture of Ginny and Thomas.


Compared to the picture of Ginny and Thomas, who were kissing and laughing, the picture from Draco’s and her wedding seemed much like a regular muggle picture. They were both standing a little stiff in each other’s company and looking very formal compared to the close intimacy between Ginny and her husband.


Inside her head she remembered the photo she had just sent her mother the previous day along with the traditional Christmas card. It was a brand new one Ginny had taken two days earlier, and on that picture Draco had been having his arms around her and a hand solid on her stomach while smiling out to the camera along with a radiating Hermione with her hair in loose curls and a pretty white dress on to match Draco’s handsome outfit.


It was obvious that there was a great change from when their wedding photo had been taken to the other day where Ginny photographed them in the hall of Malfoy Manor for the Christmas card.


“I should be the one to know how I feel,” Hermione finally said just as much to herself as to her friend.


“Yeah, but it’s just not always that easy,” Ginny replied with a sigh.


Outside it started raining.


“I scared Ginny,” Hermione admitted with her back still turned on the other woman. It was easier to say things like this if she didn’t have to look her friend in the eyes.


“I’m scared I’ll do something stupid. And I still don’t feel like I really closed matters with Jon. I can’t go into a new relationship if I’m still caught up with things that happened in my old one.”


Hermione could hear Ginny’s breathing close by her, but she didn’t turn around and instead she held on to the edge of the shelf with white knuckles.


“Then maybe you should apparate to Russia to talk to him?”




As she exited Ginny and Thomas’ apartment not long after the thought still lingered in her head. She could apparate to Moscow and try to talk to him. She wasn’t sure whether he wanted to see her, but she also felt like she had to try to talk things through, and maybe then she could have peace of mind completely.


She didn’t know how Jon’s new apartment looked so she couldn’t apparate straight to it, but by studying a picture on the internet at the public muggle library in the centre of London, she could see the street before her inner eye clear enough to apparate to it.


It was something she had only done once before, because it complicated the apparation process a great deal when apparating to an unknown destination and there was always the danger of leaving a part of herself back in the dark alley of London where she apparated from.

The journey would also have to be taken in steps because it was difficult for her to apparate across distances that large.

She reached her destination though without leaving any parts behind and could walk down the cold unfamiliar street in one piece.


In the lit windows she saw Christmas decorations and candles, but outside the wind was howling and a thick carpet of snow covered the ground underneath her feet. Luckily she had worn her winter coat when she went to visit Ginny or she would have frozen to death.


Finding Jonathan’s street and apartment proved to be easier then she would have thought and as she firmly knocked on the door with the cat doorknocker she could hear steps inside immediately.


It had taken a deep breath for her to bring out the courage to knock on the door, but she hadn’t come to Russia for nothing and she wouldn’t feel better by knowing that she had been this close to talking to him and then hadn’t had the courage to at least knock on his door.


The doorknob moved and the door swung open to reveal the tall dark Jon standing in the middle of a small but nice hall decorated in red and gold Christmas colours.


He was shocked to see her, but he bid her inside nonetheless and didn’t slam the door in her face.


They didn’t speak a word until he had hung her coat in the hall and fixed them a cup of tea in the living room.

The room was smaller than in his last apartment, but it felt homey with little angels and elves standing on shelves and in the windows along with candles and branches of spruce.


“Hallo Hermione,” he then said sounding very serious, his eyes devoid of a smile.


“Hallo Jonathan,” she answered and lifted her teacup. The tea smelled like cinnamon.


“What brings you here?” he asked his voice slightly cold and his blue eyes much like two icicles.


She sighed and took a sip of the tea feeling the warmth spread throughout her body after the cold walk in the Russian streets.


“I wanted to talk to you.”


His face was like set in stone, he didn’t move at all and she knew that she had to keep speaking if she wanted this to turn out a conversation.


“Our last conversation ended badly and it’s been haunting me ever since. I can’t go on without trying to straighten things out between us,” she explained sincerely and with a slightly pleading look in her brown eyes.


“You were the one to break up with me. What did you expect me to do?”

She shrugged her shoulders. What had she expected?


“Jon I loved you. I still do. But I’m also obligated to my child. I guess I just hoped you’d understand that,” she answered and all the pain of the break up flooded back on her.


He stood up abruptly and walked to the window just like she had done only an hour before as she spoke with Ginny. He stood there with two little angel candlesticks illuminating his handsome features only a little bit in an orange glow with the Russian night as background. Like a beautiful picture.


“Danm it! I understood you, I always have!” he yelled and turned around, “it was never a problem for me to understand you. Everything you said that night made sense. I would have done exactly the same if I were you!”


She was surprised by his loud voice, she could se the pain in his eyes and she wanted to get up and hold him in her arms, but that wasn’t an option.


“I understand you, I understand everything you do. Always have, always will. But that didn’t make your words hurt any less. Probably it made them hurt even more.”


She was on the verge of tears and it took all her willpower to stay seated on the couch and not storm up and embrace him.


“I thought it was only in books that breaking up hurt that much, but when you said that it really did feel like I was having my heart ripped out. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?”


She nodded she had felt the pain too.


“I love you like I have never loved another girl in my entire life.”


Sorrow filled her eyes as he said those words, because she knew that they could never share that deep love he spoke off. It hurt her a lot to admit to herself that she didn’t love him that much any longer that she had been able to move on a little even when he couldn’t.


“I don’t know what to say Jon.“


“Don’t worry, I know what you’d say if you could,” he assured her with a strange voice.


“Does it help if I tell you I really thought we were going to grow old together?”


He nodded a little and she looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap.


“Do you think we can maybe be friends some time?” she asked, but knew it was naïve to think so after their history.


“Maybe some day. But you’ll just have to give me some time to get my life straight again after you’ve turned it upside down.”


“Will you promise me that we’ll be friends some day?” she asked pleadingly.

He came over and took her hands for a second.


“I can’t promise you anything right now ‘Mione. You’ve really messed up my life, and it’s going to take some time to get it all sorted out again. But some day, yeah… I hope we can be friends.”


“Thank you Jon. This is much more than I deserve for treating you like that.”


He sighed and let go of her hands.


“I know. But for you I’ll try anyway.”

[Liz-Miia Parker]

Mmm, nojah. Ple sõnu naq. Next.