Title: Raw Meat

Author: Tinuviel Henneth

"Tell me again why we're here on a night like this," said Blaise Zabini, looking curiously across the table at Hermione Granger. The restaurant, a high-volume, horrendously busy Italian eatery in the middle of Muggle London's poshest shopping hub, was packed well beyond the maximum capacity probably legal in any establishment in the entire Commonwealth.

She raised an eyebrow at him after a moment, looking distracted, and not because he looked delicious in his cadet blue turtleneck. Actually, she hadn't noticed what he was wearing or that it was successfully Muggle, which had left him dismayed at first. "Because I want wedding soup and chocolate panna cotta and I can't get it anywhere else quite as good," she said. "Now shut up, here's our food."

He shrugged and unfolded his cloth napkin to arrange it in his lap as their waiter, very handsome and very gay (openly flirting with Blaise as he went; Hermione thought it was adorable), presented him with his slab of basically uncooked cow. "Your steak, sir," said the waiter in possibly the most affected voice Blaise had ever heard. "Your soup, madam," said the server as he placed the plate of angel hair with marinara sauce in front of Hermione. "Can I get you anything else?"

"Another glass of wine, please," requested Blaise, earning a deep nod and an appreciative look from the waiter. Hermione shook her head, then nodded.

"Balsalmic vinegar, if you please. Oh, and a glass of milk. But only if it's nonfat." She smiled sweetly at him and tried to ignore the meat gracing Blaise's plate and the salivating look he was giving it. The waiter disappeared into the noisy crowd with a curt nod and Hermione watched disgustedly as Blaise raised his fork and knife and cut a strip off the end. The inside practically oozed blood, so red it was. "How can you eat that knowing it was quite recently an animal?"

He shrugged and took a bite. He chewed, his face the epithet of pure pleasure. After swallowing and finishing off his first glass of zinfandel, he smiled. "If we weren't meant to eat animals, why were they made out of meat?"

She rolled her eyes but didn't bother to answer such a question. "I'm not opposed to eating animals. I eat veal, even; poor baby cows. I know, I'm wretched. But that," she said, sneering and pointing at his plate, "is completely raw." She shivered.

"I lived in France for three years after Hogwarts. They don't cook their meat at all in France." He took another bite and again seemed to go into throes of ecstasy.

She twirled a small amount of her pasta onto her fork and gingerly took a bite. "Yes, it definitely needs something," she said. "Maybe some yogurt. Do you suppose they have yogurt here?"

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Yogurt?"

"This is what the vinegar is for, but I'm thinking something else, too." She took another timid bite. "I just can't tell."

The waiter returned before Blaise could properly comment on the oddity of someone putting dairy products on tomato-sauced pasta. He downed half of the glass of zinfandel before the waiter could even put it on the table. Hermione rolled her eyes and thanked the man. She quietly unscrewed the lid on the bottle of vinegar. "So, how was your week?" he ventured, deciding neutral might be the way to go. Things were awkward enough and their friendship was still young and oddly forged.

She watched him carefully as he finished off the second glass then took a deep breath. He glanced at her questioningly and she motioned for him to take the bite he had already speared with his fork. Satisfied the chunk of meat was in his mouth, she bit her lip. "Well, I think that I might just possibly maybe almost certainly could be pregnant, but I'm isn't quite sure and am therefore making no guarantees as of yet in any way that might ruin the rest of our lives."

He choked and the half-chewed bite of beef flew across the table to land with a splat against her empty water glass. She watched it slide down, turning gradually greener with its slow progress. He stared at her, speechless and wide-eyed. "Pregnant... what's that exactly? Like, I've got an idea, pregnant? We're going to have a nasty complication to the plan, pregnant? What?" He stared at her like she'd just told him Quidditch had been canceled forever. Possibly, she just had.

She coughed and continued to stare at the meat projectile sticking to her water glass. Finally she covered her mouth and left the table at a dead run, making her way to the restroom. After fighting her way through a particularly stupid group of American tourists in the lobby to get to the bathroom she encountered a line out the door that made her want to scream, and she might have if she wasn's afraid of opening her mouth. Not especially caring about the feelings of others at that point, she shoved her way into the restroom. Because there was no toilet available, she settled on emptying her stomach into the trash can next to the door and glaring at all the women watching her vomit like they'd never seen anything so fascinating in their lives.

She glared at the nearest few and staggered over to the sink to get some water to rinse the rancid vomit taste from her mouth. "Yech," she mumbled to herself. "I suppose I'm not going to be able to go out there for a while." She sank to the floor against the wall and wished she could disappear. Historically, in times of great stress, Hermione had proved that she was remarkably proficient at forgetting that she was, indeed, a witch and that she owned a magic wand.

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