Title: A Child of Their Own

(CHALLENGE RESPONSE - Secret Santa Fic Exchange – w w w . q u i e t o n e s . o r g)

Author: hasapi

Rating: PG / K+

Summary: Hermione has a Secret to tell Blaise…a Secret she is afraid could destroy their marriage.

Hermione stared at the Christmas tree, a mob of green and twinkling lights, blurry from the tears that were crowding in her eyes. She thought about why she was here…and her husband wasn't.

There were secrets, and then there were Secrets. The little ones were easy—little white lies that didn't really hurt anyone, and sometimes helped them, like lying about buying, or not buying, a gift. It was Secrets that got people into trouble, that ruined relationships and turned lovers, brothers, sisters, friends, and families against each other. Those Secrets burned holes in the hearts of those who held them—unless that person didn't have a heart already.

Hermione had a heart, and it was hurting horribly. She had a Secret, and she had to tell her husband. She hadn't had her Secret for very long, luckily, so the hole wasn't that large yet and didn't bother her as much as it could have. But it was getting worse with each passing day that she didn't tell him, and she knew if she didn't tell him soon that something bad would happen. What that something was, she didn't know, but she knew it was bad.

Two days before Christmas. And here she was with news that would probably break up her marriage. She couldn't imagine that their marriage could survive something like this…maybe it seemed cold or cruel, but the way she saw it—it was the truth. Maybe she was panicking, though. That was always possible. She didn't panic often, but when she did it was at least a dozen times worse than anyone else who panicked more often.

She and Blaise had been married for two years now, and had been trying to have a child for most of that time. Blaise had come from a large family, being the youngest of five, and Hermione had been an only child. For different reasons, they had both wanted a family. Blaise because he felt lost without one, and Hermione because she'd always longed for a larger one.

Her worst fear had been that it was something genetic, that there was something wrong with her, some reason she couldn't have children. She'd never asked her mother why she didn't have any siblings. What if it had been because of something that she might have inherited? What if she had been something her parents had waited years for? They hadn't exactly been young when they'd had her. She remembered the last time she had tested herself for pregnancy, the bitterness she had felt tracing her heart and the sadness that had pressed tears against the edges of her eyes.

She couldn't believe that she wasn't pregnant. It seemed impossible. She'd even figured out when her "most fertile" time of the month would be and made certain that she and Blaise...didn't have any other plans.

She'd been particularly excited this time, because she was now a week late for her period. But she knew that didn't mean she was pregnant. There were plenty of reasons her period could be late, chief among them being stress.

But she wasn't pregnant. The bright red she'd hoped for had instead been a bright white light. A bright, white, annoying little light, taunting her.

Hermione swallowed, blinking back tears. She and Blaise wanted children so badly. Every time she checked and it was negative, she told Blaise. And every time she told him, he just hugged her and said it was only a matter of time. They were both stressed, he said, and he knew that only made it harder. Their jobs weren't always easy, and coming home exhausted wasn't conducive to baby-making.

Blaise walked into the kitchen, stretching his stomach by putting his hands on his hips and jutting his chest out. He groaned, his eyes half-lidded, then smiled at her as he straightened. He leaned down and gave her a peck on the cheek. "Hello, darling."

"Blaise," Hermione paused, waiting as Blaise gave her his full attention. He cocked one brow up, looking utterly dashing. Why had he ever married her? He could have had any number of beautiful, thin, photogenic women falling at his feet.

Instead he had chosen her.

And he didn't even know her worst fault, the one that was going to hurt their marriage irreparably.

Hermione tried to smile, her eyes watery. Blaise looked instantly concerned and pulled a chair over so that he was sitting right next to her. Hermione reached over and took one of his hands, cradling it in hers.

Wishing it was a baby, their baby.

"Blaise," Hermione began again, "I need to tell you something."

Blaise nodded. She was glad he knew her well enough not to say anything. It would have tampered her resolve, and her courage—and at this point she needed everything she had if she was going to get this out anytime within the next five years.

"Three weeks ago, I administered a pregnancy test on myself again." She sighed. "It was negative."

Blaise opened his mouth, but she placed two fingers over it, shaking her head. She knew he'd been about to comfort her, and as wonderful as it would have been, she wouldn't have finished, and she needed to finish. For both their sakes.

"Since we've been trying for so long with no luck, I made an appointment with Georgiana Huxley, a Mediwitch at St. Mungo's specializing in fertility…"

Georgiana Huxley seemed to be a kind woman. She was older than Hermione had expected—she looked at least sixty—but she supposed it didn't matter as much in the Wizarding world as it did in the Muggle world. Georgiana, as she'd requested Hermione call her, had obviously been doing this job for any number of years, so much so it was second nature to her. She moved about the room, her gray hair in a bun—not as strict as Professor McGonagall's ever was, much looser, with stray hairs tucked behind her ears—humming a Scotland ditty Hermione couldn't recognize.

"Now, how long have you and your husband been trying to have a child?" she asked, taking a seat behind her desk and pulling a clipboard over from the side.

Hermione pulled in a fortifying breath, trying to let at least a tiny bit of tension escape as she said, "About two years, ever since we got married."

Georgiana nodded, making a few notations on her clipboard. "Have you tried any fertility potions, charms, or Muggle products?"

Hermione began to shake her head, but paused. "I did take a Muggle pill last year. It was only once, and I'd gotten a prescription from my parents' practitioner. It didn't make any difference so I never used it again."

Georgiana asked a few more questions, which Hermione answered softly, feeling almost weak with terror.

"All right, Hermione, I'm going to take a blood and a urine sample from you. That should be enough to determine if there is something wrong. I do have a few ideas, from everything you've mentioned, but I can't really say anything until I see the results from these tests. It's going to take me a half hour to run them. Would you like to stay or would you rather come back tomorrow for the results?" Georgiana asked, pushing her glasses up her nose and looking Hermione in the eye.

She swallowed. "I'll wait."

Hermione finished the story, explaining the results to Blaise, who was looking at her with the look that she hated, the look she hadn't seen in years, since Hogwarts at least. She remembered in seventh year when Ron and Harry had termed it the Blank Blaise Look. Knowing him as she did know, she knew that it meant he was thinking about something seriously, and didn't want anyone to know what he was thinking. It hurt to think that he didn't want her to know his feelings. It hurt, but she reminded herself that it wasn't entirely unexpected.

She was infertile, something to do with her eggs and scarring on her uterus. And now he knew.

Then Blaise did something very unexpected. He leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth, not tender or sweet, but hard and almost bruising. She responded hesitantly, kissing him back lightly, before he pulled away. She opened her eyes and caught a glimpse of an emotion flitting across his face before it was carefully blanked again. It had looked like pain.

"I love you," Blaise said. But then, contrary to his declaration, he stood up and walked out the door. She heard him rustling around in the closet and then the front door slammed. It sounded horribly…final.

Hermione put her head on the table and closed her eyes, trying not to cry.

She failed miserably.

Hermione blinked, trying to bring the tree into focus. She hadn't seen Blaise in two entire days, and now it was Christmas Eve. She was all alone. She could have gone to the Weasleys' – should have, actually, as she and Blaise had accepted an invitation to spend Christmas Eve there. But she couldn't go, not without Blaise. She didn't want to deal with the questions, didn't want people to start wondering before she had time to sort out the story she was going to tell everyone.

Where was he? She was beginning to worry that something had happened. Where had he gone? She shouldn't be worrying though—it wasn't as if she'd already tried to find him. She had been afraid to Owl his sisters or his mother to ask if he were there. She didn't like to admit that she and Blaise were having problems. But she supposed that if he didn't show up by tomorrow, they would know, as she and Blaise always spent Christmas day with his family in northern England at their country house.

She looked under the tree, sighing. There were a lot of presents under the tree, but not very many were for her or Blaise. They left the wrapped presents beneath their own tree until they took them to the Weasleys' or the Zabinis'. It was convenient that way, and it didn't make their tree seem so bare.

Hermione curled herself up on the couch, pulling the blanket that had been folded over the couch on top of her and tucking her arm beneath her head. She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on anything but Blaise.

It was a few minutes later of thinking about other things, like Harry and Ron, that she could feel herself starting to drift off to sleep.

BAM!

Hermione sat straight up and threw her legs onto the floor. She nearly ran to the windows behind the tree and looked through them, trying to see what had made the noise. Another noise came, similar to the first but this time closer to the house. She sighed, frustrated, and started towards the front door—but it was thrown open before she could get there.

She stopped, with a hand over her heart, afraid it would be an axe murderer or Voldemort reincarnated.

"Blaise?" she whispered. He was covered in snow, his wool coat, hat and scarf obscuring him from sight. He turned his head towards her.

His eyes were red, much like she figured hers were now. She hadn't been able to look in the mirror since he'd left. "Hermione." He walked forward haltingly, before striding up to her and catching her up in his arms.

Hermione threw her arms around his neck and hung on for dear life as he squeezed her tightly. She could feel tears leaking out of her eyes and she buried her face deeper in his neck.

"I'm so sorry," Blaise whispered into her ear, not letting her go an inch. "When you told me, it was a shock. I couldn't… I…"

Hermione shook her head, and said, "No, no, Blaise, don't worry about it. Please, let's not talk about it," she whispered.

Blaise released her at that, bringing her away and looking her in the eye. "Hermione," he said, "I know we've both been thinking about this for the past few days. We have to talk about it."

She nodded minutely. "I know."

"I'm sorry I left like that. I'd always wanted us to have children, you know," he smiled at her. "When we first got married I used to dream about you getting bigger with our baby growing inside of you, feeding him after he was born, sending him off to school when he was older… It was something I'd started thinking about early on."

Hermione felt more tears leak out of her eyes. Blaise's hand came up, and he used his thumb to wipe the tears off her cheek.

"When you said that we couldn't have a child, that we couldn't make a baby and watch it grow up from the beginning, I panicked. I thought that we truly couldn't have a child at all." He looked into her eyes, then smiled. "I love you, Hermione Jane Granger, and I still want to spend the rest of my life with you. I think we should adopt a child." With that, he pulled a packet out of his jacket and handed it to her. "All the paperwork is right here."

Hermione looked down at the packet, feeling tears at the corners of her eyes once more. A child…of their own.

She threw her arms around Blaise's neck. "I love you so much it hurts sometimes," she whispered. "I couldn't think of anything better if I tried."

fin

12. Name/Pen Name: silverphoenix

Pairing of the fic you want: Blaise/Hermione

Rating(s) of the fic you want: Any

3 - 5 Things you want your gift to include:
Established relationship between the characters
post-Hogwarts
a secret to be revealed
happy ending

What you don't want your gift to include: Mistletoe