Hermione followed him slowly.
He paused at the door of the veranda and looked over at her. “We won't go near the hedge maze.”
He led her through the rose gardens and then along one of the lanes lined with blossoming fruit trees. The estate was lovely in spring. Hermione couldn't deny it, but the beauty felt bitter and poisonous as she took it in.
Neither she nor Malfoy spoke until he had escorted her back into her room.
As he was walking away she managed to speak.
“Malfoy.” Her voice wavered as she said his name.
He stopped and turned back to her; his expression closed, his eyes guarded.
“Malfoy,” she said again. Her jaw trembled and she gripped the poster of the bed. “I will never ask anything of you—“
His mouth twitched and his gaze hardened. She felt something inside her break with despair but she forced herself to continue.
“You can do anything you want to me. I will never ask for any mercy from you. But — please, please don't hurt the baby. Even — if you have a different heir, it's — it's still half yours. Don't — don't — don't—“
Her chest started to stutter as she struggled to breathe and not start crying. She shook.
“Don't let Astoria hurt it…” she said in a broken voice. “Please — please—“
Her voice cut off as she started hyperventilating. She clung to the bedpost as she struggled to breathe.
Malfoy crossed the room and took hold of her shoulders.
“No one is going to hurt your baby,” he said, meeting her eyes.
She pulled away from him, freeing one shoulder. “Don't — don't make promises to me that you don't mean.”
His expression flickered and he caught her shoulder again, running his hands along her arms. “You have my word. No one will hurt your baby. Astoria will never touch it.”
Hermione bit her lip as she stared up at him and struggled to stop over-breathing. Her lungs kept spasming without her control. Her whole body shook as she kept dragging in sharp panting breaths and then immediately releasing them.
“No one will hurt it. Calm down now,” he said firmly. “You need to breathe slowly.”
She leaned into his hands for a moment, resting her head against his chest as she tried to draw a slow breath; then she froze and tore herself away from him, backing up to the wall.
“Don't— amuse yourself with me,” she said, her voice trembling. “I don't want your promises or attention in order to 'maintain' my 'environment.'” She sobbed faintly under her breath. “After all — you made it quite clear how pathetic I'd be — to mistake your mandatory care for anything—”
She wrapped her arms around herself and slid down to the floor, shaking and pressing her mouth closed as her whole body shook.
“You — you needn't concern yourself further — I'll take care of myself. You needn't walk me again.”
Malfoy stared down at her unmoving for several minutes, while she pressed her hands against her mouth and tried to calm her breathing. His hand twitched forward slightly before he curled it into a fist, gave a sharp nod, and left.
She didn't see him again for three weeks.
Topsy's presence grew constant, although the elf was rarely visible. When Hermione so much as sat up in bed, the elf would immediately materialise and ask if she wanted anything.
During those three weeks, Hermione developed morning sickness. It arrived early and with a vengeance. Hermione could hardly bear to smell many foods, much less try to taste or possibly swallow them.
Fortunately, the smells of the outdoors did not bother her. When she was not rereading her pregnancy guide, she went on long walks around the manor. She made herself walk along the hedges, reminding herself again and again that Montague was dead.
She started getting headaches. It was a grinding pain that started as as a vague sensation in the back of her skull, but seemed to grow slightly worse every day.
When she was not walking or reading, she curled up in her bed and slept.
As her pregnancy continued to progress, her head began hurting so much she began clenching her jaw subconsciously to try to deal with the constant pain. The daylight worsened the headaches; bright sunshiny days kept her bed as she tried not to vomit from a combination of morning sickness and pain. Within days, the pain grew so severe she couldn't read.
Topsy added dark, heavy drapes that kept out almost all the light in the room.
She ate steadily less and less. When she didn't eat or get out of bed for two days Malfoy finally reappeared.
She heard him enter but didn't pull her arm away from her eyes to acknowledge him.
“You need to eat,” he said.
“Really?” she said in a weak but sarcastic tone. “I had no idea. The medical textbook never mentioned that nutrition was necessary during pregnancy.”
She heard him sigh.
“It's a magical pregnancy,” she said bitterly. “Even Muggles suffer morning sickness, it's just worse for wizarding folk, even the Mudbloods.”
There was a pause and she heard him shift.
“Is there anything you'll eat? That you think you could eat?”
“Chips from a greasy spoon,” she said drolly, “Or perhaps a bag of crisps.”
There was a long silence.
“Really?” he said in a doubtful tone.
She scoffed faintly, and it made her head throb so painfully it was as though someone had driven a metal rod through the base of her skull and into the centre of her brain. She gave a low sob. The unending, growing pain was like having her brain slowly crushed and ground into dust.
“Even if I could think of anything that sounded edible, I doubt I could keep it down,” she said in a strained voice.
She could almost hear him trying to think of something else to say. She rolled over and cradled her head in her arms.
“Witches have been having children for thousands of years. Statistical probability indicates I'm unlikely to die from it,” she told him.
There was a pause.
“My mother nearly did,” he said. His voice sounded hollow.
Hermione said nothing else. Malfoy didn't leave. He was still standing by her bed when she fell asleep from pained exhaustion.
Healer Stroud arrived a few days later. Malfoy loomed behind her like an ominous shadow.
When Stroud conjured an exam table in the centre of the room, he sneered at her. “Walk the additional ten feet to her bed and cast your diagnostic charms there,” he said in a cold voice.
Stroud huffed faintly under her breath and walked over to where Hermione was curled into a ball.
Stroud barely glanced at Hermione as she cast a complex diagnostic over Hermione's stomach. A tiny orb of pale, almost blinding bright, yellow light appeared; pulsing so rapidly it was nearly fluttering. It looked almost like a golden snitch but it was miniaturized, a little bigger than a pea.
Hermione froze and stared at it. The light made her nauseous with pain, but she couldn't tear her eyes away. It illuminated almost the entire room.
“That is the magical signature of your heir,” Stroud informed Malfoy.
Hermione's eyes darted over to Malfoy; he looked rather as though someone had struck him upside the head with a bludger bat. His face was ashen and he looked half-dazed.
“The fluttering is the heartbeat. The size corresponds to the growth of the fetus. And the brightness indicates the magic levels; which are exceptional, as I had predicted.” Healer Stroud's last words were smug. “Although it may make the pregnancy more traumatic for her. Powerful children often do.”
Stroud glanced over at Hermione and gave an insincere smile.
Stroud spent several minutes casting various spells on the orb of light and on Hermione; finally she cast one on Hermione's head. Hermione looked up. The glowing lights scattered across her brain all seemed the same, except there was a faint tinge of gold to the light.