Draco quickly cleared his expression, only to see that Granger was staring at him aghast. "Oh, my God," she breathed, the exclamation sounding entirely natural coming from her. "I hope you used something, because if you didn't, you might already have a much bigger problem than you think."
It took Draco a second to follow her meaning, probably because in the circles he grew up in, you didn't bandy this kind of information about. It had been nothing short of criminal, criminal, for those Aurors to make him admit under truth serum that he'd had his hand up Pansy's skirt that day. None of their fucking business. And this, of course, was none of hers.
Though he didn't mind correcting her obvious mistake. "I don't have that problem, Granger."
"How do you know?" Her gaze was piercing as she leaned forward. "Even the best protection can fail. Condoms can break, or--"
Draco had heard that word before, from Harry, though he didn't understand it completely. "What are those, anyway?"
She blushed, a deep rose shade staining her cheeks. "Oh. Er . . . well, you, I mean, the man . . . he, uh, puts it on his, you know," She made a very vague gesture downwards, her voice sounding about as strained as he'd ever heard it. "To catch the, er-- semen."
Draco felt a shudder pass straight through him. He didn't think he'd ever contemplated anything quite so revolting. Oh, well, perhaps a few things to do with the Dark Lord and torture, but this ran a close second.
Granger, meanwhile, seemed absolutely oblivious to what Draco had told her, just a moment before. "You didn't use a condom, clearly, but I hope you planned ahead, because really--"
"I didn't need to," grated Draco, wishing she'd just drop it. "Are you with me, here? There's no problem, no possible way Rhiannon is . . ."
"Contraceptive spells can fail, too."
"I didn't sleep with her, not that way!" Draco all but shouted. Anything, to shut Granger up.
He should have known that was a forlorn hope, at best. "Not that way?"
Draco reached down and began yanking tufts of grass out of the ground. He stopped, though, when he realised how close his hand was coming to Harry's horrid little pet, who was lying coiled up now, tongue flickering out.
He shuddered again, then raised his gaze to Hermione's, and tried to pass the question off as nonchalant. "Do you really want all the details?"
She blushed again, a darker colour than before. "Oh. No, of course not. I just meant, you're sure you couldn't have got her pregnant?"
"So you do want details." Draco waited until she shook her head. "Then take my effing word for it!"
"All right, all right." Hermione held up both hands, and only then did Draco realise that he'd reared up a little bit. She waited until he'd settled back down onto the blanket. "You're obviously more involved than I thought at first, though. Which brings me right back to my point. If this girl's really going to be your future . . . well, what are you going to do? Refuse to have children with her?"
Draco had never given a lot of thought to children, for Merlin's sake. Who did, at his age? Though he had to admit . . . "I don't like your implication that Rhiannon isn't good enough to be the mother to my children."
"It's your implication, not mine."
"It is not! What have I ever said except that she's wonderful?"
"Only that she's barely a Muggle at all." Hermione's eyes looked a little sad now, as she regarded him steadily. "Draco, don't you see? If you tell yourself that it's all right to love this one Muggle, but all the while you keep on thinking that other Muggles are worthy of nothing but death, then--"
"I never said that." Draco glared at her. "It's just the interbreeding that bothers me, that's all."
She didn't look like she thought that was all, but what she said was, "Are you going to call it that if you have a son or daughter with her? Interbreeding?"
"I didn't mean her!"
"But singling her out like that . . . all it proves is that you'd rather she not be a Muggle. And you're surprised she wasn't too delighted to find out that you feel that way?" Hermione leaned closer again. "Draco, listen. Do you think she's going to leave her entire world to join ours, when she doesn't even have any magic to help her do that?"
Draco stiffened. Of course he didn't think that. Rhiannon would have to continue her singing career, after all . . . hmm, apart from that, he hadn't given much thought to the matter, he had to admit. "No . . ."
"Then you'll have to be in her world, at least part of the time. Go to Muggle functions, be around Muggles. Visit at her parents' home. They're Muggles too, you realise. Is Rhiannon going to be happy having you look down on everybody else in her life? Is this going to work for her, this idea of yours that she isn't really one of them?"
A lead weight settled into his stomach, because he knew the answer to that, didn't he? Rhiannon had made it very plain already.
Hermione was remorseless, leaving him no time to think, no time to breathe. "If you can't accept that she's just as much a Muggle as any other Muggle person, you have got no business whatever taking this any further than you have already. You don't want to hurt her, do you?"
Draco had been looking at his hands for a while, but that caused him to glance up. "No, I don't."
Her voice became very gentle, then. "Then perhaps you should break this whole thing off before you do."
"Oh, fuck you, Granger," snarled Draco as he yanked himself to his feet and stalked a short distance away. "You're so sure I'll hurt her? Yeah, you thought I was hurting Harry, too, didn't you? Well, you didn't know what you were talking about! Not to mention, your stupid letter on the subject helped get me expelled. Don't act like you know everything about me, because you don't."
"No, I don't," said Hermione quietly, leaning back on her palms and stretching out her legs. "And so?"
"So she's a Muggle," said Draco flatly. "I can deal with it, get used to them . . . to everything. Whatever it takes. You don't understand, Hermione. I can't do anything I know would hurt Rhiannon. I literally can't. It would rip me into little shreds, and I'm sure you know about Slytherins and self-preservation. So that's it, then."
It wasn't, though. Not for Hermione. "What are you going to do if you have children with her, someday?"
Draco glanced down at her like she was barking mad. "Raise them, maybe? At least now I have a decent father to emulate."
"Could you raise a squib?"
"Any child of mine would be highly, highly magical."
"You don't know that for certain," pressed Hermione. "What if one wasn't? Think about it, before you go any further."
Draco didn't want to, because after all, his first, instinctive reaction was a sort of horror of the whole idea. Him, with a squib child? Him.
A vision swam into his mind, of a little girl with Rhiannon's hair, Rhiannon's features . . . Rhiannon's utter lack of magic. She was ensconced in an opulent room, waited on hand and foot by obsequious elves, bowing and scraping, their filthy rags of clothing dragging on the ground as they backed away.
Horrid creatures.
Draco's features hardened. No, no. No child of his was ever going to be cared for by disgusting house-elves, that was for certain. And he definitely wouldn't wish to lock Rhiannon's children away where they couldn't be seen. Too much like what had happened to Harry, and look at the scars that had left. Those same scars on his own child, on Rhiannon's child . . . Draco closed his eyes on a rush of pain.
No, no, when he really thought about it, thought past the things he'd learned growing up to the things he understood now, he saw a different vision. He was holding that little girl on his lap, his hand tenderly stroking her hair as he read to her. A children's book, My Broom Can Zoom . . . and he was nodding, promising to take her up on his broom in the morning, and then Rhiannon was coming in and smiling at the picture they made, sitting together in a wing-backed chair.