Manacled by Senlinyu

chapter 67

Hermione felt as though her heart was in her throat.

It was girl. A little girl.

It made the pregnancy so real that it was jarring.

Stroud inspected the diagnostic further and sighed. "Well, not what we hoped."

She banished the reading with a flick of her wand.

"It's unfortunate, we've had several surrogates unexpectedly miscarry after it turned out they carried girls." Her eyes slid past Hermione, over to Draco. "Of course that won't be a concern here, given that the pregnancy is primarily a mechanism of memory retrieval. In your case, High Reeve, there's always the next surrogate—for a real heir."

Hermione felt herself grow cold. Her throat tightened, and she looked away from Stroud, her eyes darting over to Draco.

He was staring at the fluttering orb as though he couldn't look away, but his posture shifted slightly.

Hermione wished she could touch him, hold his hand. It felt like a moment they should be sharing. She was pregnant with a baby girl but she felt as though all the reaction she could make was to sit quietly, avert her eyes, and wonder how it might have been under different circumstances.

Draco still barely acknowledged the pregnancy beyond how it related to Hermione's health. Despite her repeated insistence that she wasn't going to get an abortion, he refused to treat it as having anything to do with him. It was her pregnancy, her baby. When she tried to talk about it, he grew terse, and if she pushed, he excused himself and left.

He blinked, and the muscles in his jaw rippled as he caught himself and averted his eyes, staring stonily out the window.

Hermione looked back as Stroud continued to cast spells and scribble notes.

Stroud cast another spell, and a projection of Hermione's brain appeared.

Hermione's memories were glowing gold in the same hue as the fluttering orb. All the little glowing lights scattered across her brain had changed colour and some appeared to have fractured. There were splinters of light running along what appeared to be the neural pathways.

"How interesting," Stroud said as she prodded it. "What did the mind healers say when they saw the development?"

Draco's looked away from the window and stared at the projection. His nostrils flared as though he smelled something foul. "To keep her calm if she ever woke and to prevent further seizures if I wanted to avoid permanent brain damage and loss of the memories." He sneered at Stroud. "You should be grateful your method of forced recovery didn't kill her. I can't imagine the Dark Lord would have taken the news well."

Stroud folded slightly and looked nervous. "I said, when I proposed it, that it was theoretical," Stroud said, her voice stiff. "I made it quite clear to the Dark Lord. Has she shown any signs of having recovered more memories?"

"No," Draco said, his lip curling as he glanced derisively at Hermione, then focused on Stroud, intent. "The only discernible difference in her behavior since pregnancy is that she's more unstable and barely able to leave her room."

Stroud sighed and prodded at the projection. "It's a pity we can't just dose her with veritaserum. How long did the mind healer say not to use magic on her brain?"

"As long as the magic levels remain critically heightened, anything that disrupts the brain magically, with the exception of anticonvulsants, is to be avoided. He estimated my legilimency would be safe to attempt by the beginning of the third trimester, assuming her stress levels drop to a point where her anxiety stops being a trigger for the seizures." Draco's eyes hooded, and he looked impassive. His hand was near his wand.