Archive of Our Own ^beta

The international portkey station in York was a strange and lovely place. It was built like a fortress—a labyrinth of stone, with rib vaulted ceilings, and windows that sieved the sunshine and worked the shadows. The heels of his black oxfords clicked on the steps as he walked out, just in time to see the train pull into the station.

He recognized her unruly curls first, and then, if it weren’t confirmation enough, he heard the tiny cheerful voice of her daughter, Rose. She chattered away animatedly, but the sound was nearly lost under the chuff of the train.

“—but is it still a locomotive if it’s compelled by magic?”

“Propelled,” Hermione corrected in a barely audible voice. He moved a bit closer, curious about them both, glancing warily around for any sign of Rose's father. The last thing he wanted was a run in with Weasley. 

“It is a locomotive. Excellent work remembering your lessons.” 

Rose smiled up at her mother proudly.

She was alright, for a Weasley. Probably because she was seven and shockingly adorable, and she didn’t yet know him well enough to hate him. Or for him to properly return the sentiment.

Eventually, her parents would tell her all about big, bad Mr. Malfoy and she too would avoid him like the Great Plague, but for now, each time he and Scorpius had seen her in Diagon Alley, she never failed to smile. Further, she seemed insistent on making friends with every child she met, which included his son.

“Can he come to Gram’s house with us?” Rose had asked her mother, tugging on her robes outside of Flourish and Blotts just a month earlier.

The blood had drained from Granger's face as she looked down at her hopeful daughter and the little blond Malfoy beside her.

“He’s due at his mother’s in an hour,” said Draco, kneeling down to Rose's height, as she was far easier to look at than Granger, “but thank you for your kindness.”

“Will I see him again?” the girl asked him cautiously, studying his face like she might catch him in a lie if he attempted one.

He tried to keep the tension from his shoulders, not wanting either of them to count on a playdate.

“We’re in the alley often enough. You’re bound to run into one another from time to time.”

Her lips had pursed in a little line that reminded him too much of her mother.

The train had only a passing resemblance to the Hogwarts Express, but it was sufficient to conjure old memories as he handed off his luggage and stepped into the queue. Snacking on Cauldron Cakes with Blaise and Pansy. Crabbe vomiting out the side of the train car after too many Chocolate Frogs. 

Breaking Harry Potter’s nose with the heel of his boot.

Oh...the memories. 

It wasn’t exactly regret he felt as he watched Granger and her daughter step onboard. There was a time and a place to ruminate over what he might have done differently when he was younger, and it wasn’t in a queue at a train station. But he did allow himself a moment to wonder what the world would be like if he and Hermione Granger weren’t enemies.

He hadn’t asked for a luxury cabin. He truly hadn’t. Yet he’d been ushered toward one, very likely because it was empty and they knew he could afford it, and he didn’t decline because he was so fucking tired of socializing, he might hex the person who next spoke to him. So he made himself comfortable on the long chenille seat and watched the train pull out. Watched the station disappear in the distance, and the vast squares of verdant grass take over the entire landscape.

They’d been moving twenty minutes when a little girl with a shock of red curls peeked through the window to the compartment. He tipped his head to the side, inviting her to open the door.

“It’s lovely to see you, Mr. Malfoy! Is Scorpius with you?” 

She said the words so hopefully, he was certain a glacier chipped off within his ribcage, exposing a weakness he barely knew existed.

“He’s at home with his mother,” Draco replied, watching as her smile faltered. He expected her to turn and walk out, or for her mother to usher her along, but instead she pulled a box out from her bag.

“Do you like jigsaw puzzles?”

His brow furrowed. “Well enough.“

“Rose,” Granger said as she stopped in the doorway, eyes widening almost humorously as they landed on Draco. “Sorry… she likes to run off…”

“It’s the age for it,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes.

“Mum, Mr. Malfoy has a table—“

He held back a smile, certain suddenly that the little sneak had been scouting for a place to work on her jigsaw. Somehow, he liked her better for it.

Hermione grimaced as if she knew the course of his thoughts. “We’ve bothered him enough.”

“Mum, he likes puzzles. I asked him,” Rose whispered.

Draco stood from his seat. “The table is yours if you want it.”

Rose bolted ahead, unperturbed by the irritated look her mother wore.

“It’s kind of you, but not necessary,” said Granger. 

Sharing a compartment with her was the quintessence of suffering, but his foot was already in his mouth.

“I’ll trade you seats,” he said, but his offer was met with a cheeky huff of air.

“Draco Malfoy in coach. That’s almost worth it.”

His tongue ran along his back teeth, a handful of scathing comments passing briefly through his mind. He looked back at Rose, happily unpacking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that would challenge a child twice her age. He met Hermione’s eyes. “Your daughter's happiness is worth my comfort.”

Her eyes softened instantly. Indeed, it was a rare thing for him to give anything up with such selfless intentions, but apparently there was something about small children that transformed him into a complete stooge. 

“And mine,” she replied, standing up a little straighter. “Please, join us.”

Draco blinked, hiding his own surprise at her sudden about-face.

“Mister Malfoy,” Rose said, drawing his attention away from her insufferable mother. “Do you like granians?”

He glanced at the puzzle box, a winged horse standing majestically on a boulder with its wings outspread.

“Granians, abraxans, horses,“ he answered, nodding in agreement.

“Oh, I love horses. I’ve never seen a granian before but I’ve heard they’re great fun to ride. When mum and I were in Australia, she bought me this puzzle from the village. And a book about equines which I’ve already read three times.”

He wasn’t sure what to make of the girl. He’d never met a child who talked quite so much, but it was rather endearing the way she spoke to him like they were old friends. Draco sat down on the bench seat. “Is that where you’re returning from?”

“Yes,” Rose answered before her mother had a chance. “Mum was very stressed out.”

“Rose—“ her mother growled.

“That happens to adults sometimes,” Draco said, scratching his temple. Rose shrugged, still indifferent to the plights of adulthood.

It might have been better to sit beside Granger instead of across from her. Then he wouldn’t have to see the way her cheeks reddened or the way her hands fidgeted. It was hard to look at her, and yet equally hard to look away.

“Where are you returning from?” Hermione asked, forcing herself to make small talk. He wished she wouldn’t—every syllable she spoke triggered a little brain zap.

“A business trip to Japan.”

Rose perked up, forgetting all about her puzzle as she turned to him. “Do you know Japanese?”

“A bit, yes.”

“Konnichiwa!”

“Jouzu desu ne!” he replied, the corner of his lip pulling upward. She glanced at her mother.

“That means you’re very skilled,” Hermione replied in a whisper.

“Arigatou…gozaimasu!”

“Are you taking lessons?”

“No, but I really want to,” Rose said wistfully. “Does Scorpius know Japanese?” 

Her wide, brown eyes displaced another glacier.

“Just French and German, I’m afraid.”

“Same as me! We should practice together,” she said, speaking quickly. “James and Albus hate learning languages and so does Teddy—but he knows French well enough. And it’s so much fun because when we talk to one another, none of the Potters can understand a word of it.” She smiled, immodest in her rambling, just as her mother had once been.

But in a decidedly tolerable way.

“Almost like a secret language,” he replied. “Scorpius and I sometimes speak German around his mum. It makes her furious.”

The most unlikely thing happened in response to his comment: Hermione smiled at him, genuinely smiled for the first time since they were eleven and she didn’t yet know what an absolute prick he was. He was under no illusion that what he said was funny enough to elicit such a reaction. Rather, it was his kindness toward her daughter.

She was decidedly less irritating with a smile on her face. Smooth lips. Warm eyes. Freckled cheeks that rounded delightfully when she grinned.

And so he did what he’d been far too young and stupid and prejudiced to do back when they were eleven: he smiled back.

Over the course of the next hour, he learned more about Rose and her mother than he had ever thought he would. The child might have told him their entire life story if Hermione didn’t clear her throat to draw her daughter's attention every few minutes. 

“—My dad works at the joke shop. And my mum works at the ministry. But neither of them like their jobs very much so when I grow up, I want to be a veterinarian—“

“What’s a veterinarian?” Draco interrupted.

“It’s like a healer, for animals. Muggles call them veterinarians, which sounds much better than animal healer or magical creature healer, don’t you think?”

“I suppose.”

“My grandparents were dentists, which are like healers for teeth, but they don't work anymore. Grandma said if she could go back, she would rather be a vet, but it’s a good thing she wasn’t because then she wouldn’t have met my grandpa and my mum and I wouldn’t exist!” She looked positively aghast at the thought.

“Very good thing,” he replied, honestly.

“What do you do, Mister Malfoy?”

“Rose, love, let’s focus on the puzzle for a while and let Mister Malfoy read his book. Maybe we can finish it before we get to Gloucester.”

“It’s alright,” he replied. “I have a business importing and exporting goods from other countries. Mostly potion supplies.” Granger seemed suspicious, so he added, “Don’t fret. Nothing dodgy,” with a smirk.

“You must travel a lot,” said Rose.

“Not as much since Scorpius was born. I like to stay close now. I think your mother wants you to wrap up the puzzle,” he said more quietly.

She smiled and nodded. Her puzzle was more than half done, which was a miracle at the rate she had been talking, charming though she was. The three traveled in companionable silence for a while, but Draco’s mind remained fixed on the mother and daughter who shared his compartment, watching from the corner of his eye as they slid puzzle pieces around the table. They were focused and methodical.

A puzzle piece fell to the ground and he picked it up, placing it on Granger's side since she was working on the wing of the horse.

She smiled again, and he wondered if he might overdose.

On smiles. 

Not just any smiles, but her smile specifically. The ones he hardly deserved, but she was offering anyway.

After a healthy stretch of quiet time, Rose glanced toward him, expressive eyes teeming with curiosity. “Why do you always wear black?” 

“I like black,” he said, flipping the page of his book. “And I don’t have to waste time color coordinating in the mornings. It’s a waste of energy.”

Rose was contemplative for a few seconds before she continued, “That’s very smart. We should all do that.”

He felt oddly warm. “Fashion is more important to some people than it is to me.”

“Not to us,” she replied with a shrug.

He glanced at Hermione with a brow raised, observing her jeans, black boots, the sweater that looked twice her size.

“Don’t say it,” she murmured.

He averted his eyes, unable to hide his amusement. “I wouldn’t dare.”

Which he wouldn’t. In spite of the joke that begged to surface, he’d always found it hard to care about women’s fashion. Clothes were either flattering or they weren’t. Either they were color-coordinated or they clashed.

All the other nuances were lost on him. 

Hermione looked out the window as they crossed the idyllic countryside, toward far-away clouds that disappeared beyond the horizon. The ruins of an old abbey caught his eye in the distance.

“We’re nearly home, Rose. I don’t think we’ll finish. Let’s pack up now.”

Her daughter was silent. Disappointed. Working feverishly to try and prove her mother wrong.

The announcement came quickly after, and Rose let out a deep and exaggerated sigh. “Mum, just a bit longer. It’s almost done.”

“We can put a stasis charm on it and finish it up after supper.”

Her daughter's continued silence was strange after an hour of almost non-stop babbling. Hermione pulled out their train tickets, discreetly reading the small print. 

“The next stop is in Wiltshire,” said Draco. “Not far.”

“Our ticket is for York to Gloucester. They’ll expect us to exit.”

He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and instead peeked out the compartment door, waving to the nearest attendant—a girl who looked like she was only a year or two out of Hogwarts. “Hello—“ he glanced down at her name tag, “—Sophie. Would you tell Miss Granger and her daughter that they can stay on until Chippenham?”

“Hermione Granger?” Sophie said, starstruck. “Yes of course you can stay. Anything Mister Malfoy wishes.”

Hermione looked more annoyed than appreciative, and he wondered if he had read the situation wrong. “Thank you. Pleasure to meet you, Sophie.” 

Though Rose seemed ecstatic, Hermione’s smile looked far less authentic than the one she’d offered to Draco a few minutes before. 

Once Sophie walked out, she cast a sideways look at Draco. “Anything Mister Malfoy wishes?”

He offered her the most innocent look he could muster. “She’s barely of age, Granger. What sort of man do you think I am?”

“I admit,” she said, studying him for the briefest moment. “I’m not certain.”

Draco opened his book, which now served as nothing more than a prop to avoid Hermione’s eyes. “Safe to assume that’s an improvement from two hours ago.”

Hermione placed a puzzle piece on the table, completing the granian’s tail. and spoke her next words without looking up. “You’re not wrong.”

It was twelve minutes past four when Rose set the last puzzle piece in place, and her proud grin was so wide he could see her missing bottom incisor.

“Granger,” he said as they stepped off the train car. He wasn’t sure whether to expect a quick rejection, so he said it quietly where her daughter wouldn’t hear. “If you have time, I’d be happy to take you and Rose to see the granians. At the manor.”

A war of emotions played out in her expression. Excitement quickly followed by reluctance. Of course she wouldn’t want to go to the Manor, nor would she want her child there. But as with everything in life, perspectives changed. The war was long over. 

“You have granians?” she whispered for clarification.

“And horses.” He stepped closer and leaned down toward her ear, careful not to get too close. “The offer is open. Floo into the manor library anytime. I’ll leave it open to you.”

Her eyes widened. Rose, who had noticed their quiet conversation and was only then attempting to eavesdrop, tugged at her mother’s arm. “Did he say library?”

Granger glanced down at her daughter with a sideways smile. “It’s decided then. We’ll have to visit the Manor and see it for ourselves.”

Friends were an abstract idea to Draco. He had people he called friends, but outside of a shared drink at an event, he didn’t go out of his way to socialize with them. Or anyone, for that matter.

He’d learned at a young age that everyone wanted something from him, and he hated that he’d assumed it would be the same for his son. As he witnessed the burgeoning friendship between Scorpius and Rose, he began to understand how wrong he had been. Draco had expected little Rose to love the granians, but it was Scorpius she didn’t want to leave behind.

“Please, mum. Can’t he come to our house with us?”

Hermione’s reluctance said it all. Her husband would be upset.

“Father,” said Scorpius,” I’ll come back right after supper.”

“Not this time, but Rose is welcome to return whenever she wishes.”

They returned the next weekend, and the next, always with a gift in hand for Scorpius. Banana bread. A book of fables. A suncatcher they had made with things around the house.

He usually kept his distance, not wanting to give them any reason to depart, but on their third visit, he plucked up the courage to walk out to the grounds.

Hermione was on a blanket in the grass, reading a book from his library as she watched Rose and Scorpius feed the granians. Her hair flew around her in a gust of wind, and she twisted it up in a messy bun on top of her head, shoving her wand into the knot to hold it in place.

Interesting look.

“Granger.”

Her head popped up, curls springing loose. She pulled her wand out of the tangle and met his eyes with a sheepish expression.

“Malfoy,” she said, wrapping her skirt below her knees so it wouldn’t fly in the breeze. “The kids are over there by the stables.”

He nearly used the out she had given him and went to find the children. They’d likely be happier to see him. 

Pushing a hand through his windblown hair, he pressed on. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, Scorpius has riding lessons after lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Rose is welcome to join if your schedules allow it.”

Her lips parted. She looked out toward the manège, pondering the offer. “I’m sure she’d love that. I’ll see if I can work it out.” 

Work it out with her husband, Draco inferred, who he could only imagine did not like her visits to the Manor.

“Malfoy—“ she said before he walked away. “Your custody arrangement with Astoria. How does it work? For lessons and things.”

He looked off toward Scorpius and Rose. “She has him every other week, but he comes and goes for his lessons, playdates. The floo makes it easy for him to travel between us.”

“You get along, then?”

He blinked twice, not expecting such a personal question. He took a breath, trying to decide how honest he was willing to be with her. “Better than we did when we were married.”

Her shoulders lifted slightly and then sagged as she exhaled. He thought perhaps he should leave her to her thoughts, but then she did what he hadn’t expected.

She scooted a foot to the left, making room for him to sit, if he wanted.

The warm sun and the cool breeze prickled the back of his neck. He alternately loved and despised nature. It was majestic to look at, but easier to appreciate from atop his broom or his horse. As he sat down on her quilt, he felt entirely out of place.

He’d never been an easy man to talk to, oscillating between dark humor, barely suppressed irritation, and deep thoughts he’d never speak aloud, but after a few attempts, she learned how to disarm him. Engage him.

“If they aren’t captive, why don’t they just fly away?” she asked, crossing her legs like a pretzel. Once she’d finished grilling him about his house-elves, she had moved on to the granians.

“Why would they? They’re safe from predators, they have a steady food supply—”

“To explore. To test their freedom.”

“What is freedom if not the absence of constrictions?”

“But maybe they don’t know they’re free. Maybe they’re used to being here and they don’t understand what the world has to offer them.”

He watched Scorpius climb up on the first rung of the fence, carefree and as happy as he’d ever seen him. 

And it occurred to him. Maybe Hermione was projecting.

He met her eyes, warm and brown. “They see the birds flying, Granger. They stretch their wings sufficiently to know the world around them. If they weren’t happy, I assume they would move on.”

She looked up at the sky, at the white clouds that briefly obscured the potent sun. “Maybe they would.”

Time was a tricky thing. Some days it moved too quickly, and other days, not quickly enough. Like a river, it had an intrinsic direction that tugged people along, willing or unwilling, from placid waters into the turbulent and almost unnavigable.

Just when he started to get comfortable, the river would bend again and Draco was forced to acclimate to a new pace. A new climate.

Hermione and her daughter brought a warm gale of change into their lives, but with it came a silent storm.

They didn’t talk very often, but he sometimes felt Hermione's eyes on him when he wasn’t looking, trying to figure him out. He had opened a door to her and her daughter that he’d never opened to anyone, and though Scorpius had given him a convenient reason for the armistice, he knew his son wasn’t the only reason he’d invited them into his home. Their lives.

Making amends with her, the person he’d perhaps been the cruelest to, felt like an inlet to redemption that he’d never known existed. He’d be a fool not to try.

In the following weeks, he learned many things about Hermione. First, she worked painfully long hours for what he suspected were meagre wages. Yet, her years of tenure meant she had a schedule nearly as flexible as his own. She and Rose arrived promptly at noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hermione sat out on the grounds with paperwork strewn across her quilt, watching the children in the manège with their riding instructor. When they finished, the kids would pick plums from the trees beyond the stables, and join Hermione on her quilt in the grass, or sit in the old garden folly if the day brought rain.

The second thing he learned about Hermione was that she didn’t accept handouts. He didn’t think it was pride that drove her, rather a desire to teach her daughter by example never to take advantage of anyone’s generosity. While they were on the grounds after riding, Hermione gave the children lessons on reading and writing both in English as well as Japanese, since they both seemed keen on learning.

The third thing he learned, and perhaps the most interesting, was that she was completely miserable.

“Can you take the floo to Australia?” Scorpius had asked one evening at the dinner table.

“No. You have to take the train to the international transit station and portkey to Sydney.”

His normally good posture fell, shoulders slumped. “And owls?”

“They take a few days,” Draco replied, setting his fork gently on his plate. “Why the sudden interest in Australia?”

Scorpius avoided his eyes. “I’m not supposed to say.”

“If something is bothering you, it’s important that you talk to me or your mother.”

The boy was silent for a minute, sliding his food around his plate. He hadn’t eaten much, but it didn’t seem like the right time to encourage healthy eating habits. Something was clearly wrong. He felt a twinge of discomfort, not quite knowing the words he should use to get his son to open up.

“Would you prefer to talk to your mother about it?”

“No,” said Scorpius quickly. “I don’t even know if they’re really moving. I’m just—“

His son’s eyes widened, knowing he’d just said the words he wasn’t meant to. Rose and her family were thinking of moving.

“You’re worried you’ll lose touch,” he said, and Scorpius nodded once. “They have a lot of family here. I’m sure, if they move, they’ll return often to visit.”

“She’ll be home every few months, to visit her dad,” Scorpius continued. Draco nearly sputtered in disbelief. “But he won’t let her come over for lessons.”

“We’ll figure it out. If and when the time comes, I know ways you can communicate.”

Draco usually worked in the study during the day, but after the unexpected revelation from Scorpius, he found himself wandering the grounds often when Hermione was around. Finding her wasn’t difficult, but approaching her was near impossible. She was always busy, and even when she wasn’t, she had an air about her that said, unless you’re under ten years old, please leave me the fuck alone.

And people called him unapproachable.

When he finally did run into her, it was when he’d least expected it. She was in the stables, keeping company with his silver caspian, and when he saw her he froze in the doorway and watched her stroke the horse’s mane.

“…supposed to know what’s best, but I don’t this time. The only thing I know for sure is that it’s time to change direction.”

She hooked her foot behind her calf and rested her chin on folded hands, smiling sorrowfully as the horse nudged her for more attention. 

“You’re a very good listener.”

“His name is Xanthus,” said Draco, making his presence known. She straightened her spine and turned to look at him, but her eyes drifted down his form with a confused look. She turned back to the horse. 

“Xanthus. Like the horse that belonged to Achilles.”

Draco lifted the latch and stepped into the stall. “Do you want to ride?”

She chewed her bottom lip adorably as she watched him with his horse, and though he was crap at legilimency even after six years of practice, he was certain when he met her amber eyes that he could hear her thinking a single name over and over. Ron. Ron. Ron. Ron…

He scratched his temple, wondering if it was a figment of his imagination. Perhaps Weasley had dosed her with a love potion to keep her in England. 

“Everything alright?” he asked.

“Yes, fine,” replied Hermione. “I have a lot on my mind today.”

Draco suppressed his amusement. Perhaps she had a lot on her mind before he walked in, but at that moment? She was practically catatonic.

He summoned his riding gloves and slipped them on, unable to miss the way she watched as he tugged the leather toward each wrist.

Xanthus clomped his heels, bringing him back from the verge of a nonsensical thought.

“I’m headed to feed the abraxans. Usually I take the broom, but I thought Xanthus could use the exercise.”

“You have abraxans?” she said.

“They’ve made a home for themselves on the other side of the woods. Best to keep them away with the children around.”

They weren’t as friendly as the granians, and were quite a bit larger, not to mention—territorial.

“You feed them yourself?” she asked with a raised brow. “I thought you had your elves do that sort of thing.”

Ah, so she was still trying to find the worst in him. He could hardly blame her. He wasn’t known for his generosity toward animals or elves, but there was a thing or two she didn’t seem to understand about him.

He had learned to take good care of his own. That included his family, his animals, elves, and any other beasts and beings who lived on the manor grounds.

“They’re frightened of the abraxans, and rightfully so. Elves are bite-size.”

“Abraxans aren’t carnivorous,” she replied, crossing her arms.

“Like a kneazle with a mouse. They like to chase and pounce.” He affixed the saddle over Xanthus's back. “And nibble.”

He heard a clatter from her side of the gate and looked up, but nothing was amiss. Except maybe her usual wit.

“Are you riding with me or not?”

Hermione blinked, and it occurred to him that he hadn’t technically asked her that question. Further, her mind today was mush, and he’d likely have to spell it out. 

“It’s through the path in the woods. Five minutes, or half that if you’re alright with riding at full speed. Xanthus can take us both.”

She looked from him to the horse and back again, but then she stepped backward. “I’m not feeling so well. Maybe next time.”

Draco frowned and put his boot in the stirrup, flinging his leg over the horse. “Go lie down if you want. Any room in the north wing.”

The horse stepped forward and paused beside her, and she moved her hand along its neck in a quiet goodbye.

He didn’t have to look back to know she was watching as they left the stable. The heat of her stare was curiously unnerving.

Late that night, he saw brown curls and soft lips behind his eyelids, and he wondered what it would have been like if she had found his room in the north wing, and slid under the covers to rest away her worries. What it might take for her to chant his name as methodically as she had her husband’s. Whether they were divorcing or reconciling was unknown and none of his business, but it hardly mattered. In his private thoughts, Ron Weasley didn’t exist.

It was an illimitable error, fantasizing about Granger. He’d only wanted to show a small measure of kindness to her and her daughter—the brightest Weasley in a millennium—but every time he saw Granger she burrowed deeper under his skin.

She was brilliant and fearless, but also tired and melancholy. Overworked and under-appreciated. Stressed. He found himself analyzing her behavior, cataloguing her strengths and weaknesses, earnestly searching for a way to fix whatever ailed her.

But he didn’t know.

She was a complete mystery to him.

A complete, married, mystery.

His next few weeks were spent in multinational hell, finalizing a deal that would expand his business and potentially shift trade flow between Asia and Europe.

“I just fucking left, Blaise—“ he spoke into the green fire in his study.

“Daizen got back to us. The Japanese ministry just signed.”

“And our fees?”

“Just went down eight percent.”

Draco dropped into his chair, relief coursing through him. “That’s good.”

“It’s fucking brilliant,” said Blaise, far more ecstatic than Draco. “Have a drink. Pay tribute to Hades. Whatever it is you do to celebrate.”

“Sure. Yes.”

The truth was, Draco did nothing to celebrate. His wins and losses were largely unrecognized by anyone except Blaise and a small group of business associates whose profits relied heavily on his company.

An invisible win. 

He would walk out of the study, and everything would be exactly the same. Like a tree falling in the forest.

He wondered sometimes, what he was working to accomplish.

It had started with a strange desire to explode things. 

Instead of wrecking perfectly good furniture, he’d gone out to the woods to blast down a few overgrown trees and widen the path that led through the woods. And then he had the corpses of the trees to dispose of. It seemed like a waste.

So in direct opposition to his desire to destruct, he created.

Scorpius was at Astoria’s house, and after nearly working himself into the ground over the last few weeks, he’d come up for air to find himself intolerably…alone.

It was a shite idea.

He was overstepping by a mile. 

She probably liked working in the grass, on her quilt. Teaching the children in the open garden structures. Hermione Granger wasn’t the sort to require much beyond the necessities of life, and she’d probably turn his handiwork into some sort of personal insult. If she had wanted to work indoors, she would have settled down in her favorite room in the manor: the library.

Yet, the deed was done. He had sat on the split rail fencing of the manège, drinking firewhiskey directly from the bottle, and he’d built her a studio office. It had four walls of clear glass and carved wood, a pitched roof, built in bookcases on the far wall.

It wasn’t difficult, having some experience with woodworking spells thanks to that fucking vanishing cabinet, and a solid understanding of architectural principles from the renovations he’d made to the manor when his parents moved to France.

Draco stood up and walked into the small building he’d created, transfiguring the door from wood to glass with a careful turn of his wand. He wasn’t particularly skilled with glasswork, especially while half-drunk, but he was at transfiguration so it would have to make do. He took another drink from his bottle and sunk down the wall.

It was a fool's errand, to try and make someone else happy. You couldn’t make people happy. It was a fleeting emotion, one which was rarely where it was supposed to be when it was supposed to be there. In Draco’s experience, the times that were meant to be the happiest were often bittersweet. Vice versa, he’d found a way to cling to small shreds of happiness in the most unfathomable of times.

His mind swam in a vortex of alcohol and visions of deep brown curls. Vanishing cabinets. The twisting branches of an oak tree that had lived a much longer life than him.

He could tear it all down in the morning. Raze the entire building and pretend he’d done nothing more than practice a bit of wandwork out on the grounds.

But he didn’t tear it down.

Because as embarrassing as it was that he’d gotten drunk and built her a garden office with a sun deck and tall windows and wisteria that climbed around the corner, it was a bit of a masterpiece.

She didn’t have to know it was hers.

He didn’t want to see her reaction. In fact, he hated reactions so much that he actively dodged people in the moments after he’d done something he considered impressive. It was years of seeking praise from his father and instead receiving unexpected criticism that had broken his brain. 

That said, the sound of the kids outside his study, running back and forth through the magical passage he’d built from the new studio to the library, was a more pleasant reaction than he’d expected.

The knock, however, was less than welcome.

He ran his fingers through his hair.

“Come in.”

Scorpius peeked through the door, with Rose on his heels.

“It’s Hermione’s isn’t it? I told her you probably built it for her.”

He scratched his temple. He could just lie and say it was for a playroom for the kids. An office for the riding instructor, or for himself.

“Yes,” he said to his son. “But I don’t—“

I don’t expect her to use it. I don’t care if she likes it. God, he was supposed to be a decent example of a man for his son, not a defensive prick.

“Yes. It’s for her.”

“See—I told you so,” he said to Rose as he turned and ran back through the corridor. The girl stood staring at him with a look he’d never seen. She shifted on her feet as though she had something to say and didn’t know how to say it.

It was unlike her.

“Come in if you’d like,” he said.

She stepped slowly across the room and hopped up into the mahogany chair across from his own, looking hilariously smaller than any other person who had ever occupied it.

“Is something on your mind?” he asked. He’d never known her to shy away from conversation, typically taking the reins before he had a chance to initiate one.

“My father said something last night.” She swallowed, her voice tight and wary for a seven year old.

A stone dropped in his stomach as he considered all the things Weasley might have said to upset her. Things about him. He was honestly surprised it had taken this long.

“If you tell me what he said, I can help you understand.”

“I wasn’t meant to hear it.”

“But you’re quite the eavesdropper, aren't you,” he said fondly. “I was as well, when I was a child.”

She studied each of the personal items on his desk with careful scrutiny. The leather folio. The tall, black quill in its crystal holder. A set of carved wooden boxes he’d been tinkering with in his spare minutes. 

“He said you were a Death Eater. That you almost killed him.”

“I wasn’t technically trying to kill your father.”

Rose's face crumpled. 

He was an idiot.

Draco remembered how imposing his own father had looked to him when he was behind this same desk, the way the rolled arms of the chair felt beneath his hands as he looked across into cold, gray eyes. 

Draco stood up, rounded the desk and knelt down beside her. He’d had this conversation with Scorpius, but the words didn’t come any easier the second time.

“I did a lot of horrible things when I was young,” he said. “But that was a long time ago. I’ve grown up and I know better now.”

“You fought for Voldemort. You have a—”

She looked down at his wrist, like she’d find the evidence of his crimes somewhere right around there, and she would if there weren’t two layers of clothing and a glamour hiding it.

“—a mark.”

“I wish I could say it wasn’t true. It was a mistake.”

He’d never seen such a cacophony of feeling play out on a child’s face. Scorpius was very much like his father, all pensive looks and reticent emotion, but Rose was unrestrained, searching for his remorse like there had to be physical evidence of it written on his face somewhere.

Behind her, he saw Hermione peek her head in the cracked door, and from the horrified look that wrinkled her brow, she at least suspected what her daughter had said. Draco rubbed his forehead, feeling the start of a tension headache. Whatever he had expected from this day, it wasn’t this.

Looking at Hermione brought it rushing back. The halls of Hogwarts. The insults he had slung around so carelessly. The lies and cowardice that had reeled him into the wrong side of a war.

He’d been such a fool. 

When he looked up at Rose, her expression had drawn into something more neutral, more closely resembling the girl who won his heart on a train a few months earlier. And he knew he would do anything to earn the child’s forgiveness. Anything to keep her from questioning whether he was a man or a monster.

“Mum says we all make mistakes. The important thing is to try and make amends.”

He felt chastened. He’d never once apologized—to anyone. Never spoken of his remorse to anyone except Scorpius and now Rose. Making amends was a less tangible concept than a mere apology. As intelligent a man as he thought himself to be, he wasn’t able to wrap his mind around what it meant or how to accomplish it. Improve his behavior? Offer kindness? Was there a larger reservoir he’d left untapped that might convey his regret?

He spoke honestly, to them both. “I don't always know how.”

“I also say actions speak louder than words,” Hermione said. They both watched as she walked toward them, and knelt down on the other side of Rose’s chair. “Draco’s consistent kindness to us is proof of his good character. Now, I wouldn’t allow you to be here if I thought he was cruel or dangerous. I hope you trust that.”

His good character. Those specific words had never once been applied to him in his entire life, and hearing them from her lips—

He wasn’t sure what he’d done to earn her compliment, but he found himself wanting to be the man she thought he was. Deep down, he knew he wasn’t.

Yet.

He held Hermione’s gaze. “Arigatou.”

Rose was more distant after their conversation, still trying to reconcile what she knew of him with what she had heard about him from her father, but it marked a new turning point in his relationship with Hermione.

With each visit, they spoke a little longer, until their ten second hellos and goodbyes turned into hour-long talks about almost everything—the children’s lessons, the places they had traveled, magic they’d discovered that wasn’t taught at Hogwarts, and history. They shared a love of it. 

“Fact-check,” she said, tapping her fingers on the desk. “That isn’t in any of the history books.” 

He crossed his ankle over his knee, indulging in a smirk. “Of course not. History is written by the victor.”

It was rare that he knew something Hermione Granger didn’t, and he relished in her discomfort as she tried to piece together how he might know specific events that occurred over two millennia ago—the fall of the first Persian empire.

“Sources, Malfoy. You can't expect me to just take your word for it.”

He ran his hand along his jawline, enjoying her frustration far more than he probably should.

Draco leaned closer to her. “Because Statiera, Daughter of Darius and second wife of Alexander…was a muggleborn witch. And I possess her memories.”

She nearly fell out of her chair. 

After years of annoyance at watching people over-react, under-react, pretend to care about things they really didn’t—he relished in her authenticity. She was a diamond in a mountain of shattered glass.

One he’d found in someone else’s coffers. 

One he coveted.

Not that she belonged to anyone. A woman like Hermione belonged only to herself. 

She knew her worth.

And yet, he couldn’t help but think she’d been on the receiving end of soul-crushing neglect. Couldn’t help his desire to rectify it.

He saw her from the corner of his eye as he wrapped up his impromptu meeting with Blaise. The door was ajar in case Scorpius needed him between lessons.

“I’ll send the papers over to Dez and see what they come back with,” said Blaise. 

Draco met Hermione’s eyes and smiled a little. She was a vision in blue, wearing a robe that hugged her curves in a markedly professional way, though it didn’t divert his lascivious thoughts. He refocused on Blaise hoping to usher him along quickly. “Tell me if they don’t reply by tomorrow and I’ll send a reminder to Haruo. He owes me a favor.”

“I’m perfectly capable of escalating it. Stay focused on Russia,” Blaise said. Noticing Draco’s sudden distraction, he looked over his shoulder and grinned. “Hermione Granger. Come in please, I’m just heading out.”

Draco stood up and loosened his suit collar. “You remember Zabini.”

“I do,” she replied. “Pleasure to see you again.”

“The pleasure is all mine.”

From the look on Zabini’s face, he too was thinking lascivious thoughts.

“Floo me when it’s done,” said Draco, a clear dismissal. 

Blaise raised an eyebrow at him and walked backward toward the fireplace. “Yes sir.”

He was going to kill him if he didn’t step into the floo or wipe the insufferable smirk off his face within the next three seconds.

Two.

One.

He disappeared in a flame of green.

“Ready for your proposal?” he asked Hermione.

“Hmmm?” she said, looking a bit out of sorts.

“The Wizengamot. You’re proposing the new bill in a few hours.”

“Oh—yes. Completely ready.”

He took a step around his desk, regarding her with an ever-new appreciation. She looked like she could take on the entire ministry, in that moment. “You’ll do well. I’m certain of it.”

“We’ll see this afternoon,” she said, only then showing the telltale signs of nervousness. Draco opened the carved wood box on his desk and plucked out a small diamond brooch shaped in a sigil that meant something personal to him—hope and protection.

“For good luck,” he said quietly, looking to her for permission to pin it at her collar. 

“Are those diamonds?” she said, simultaneously wonderstruck and horrified.

“No,” he lied with a smirk. “Just a cheap trinket I picked up from a flea market.”

He could tell from the way her eyes narrowed that she knew better, but didn’t object when he moved to clasp it at her lapel. And though it was a nearly impossible feat, he resisted the impulse to brush his fingers across her skin.

Trust had once been non-existent between them, but he could feel the marrow of it, standing so close to her. Not only was she willing to leave her child in his home without her for the first time, she mindfully allowed him to tether jewelry to her person, knowing that such trinkets often possessed charms or dark magic.

He’d never let anything unfortunate befall her or Rose.

She understood that now.

When she returned victorious, as he had confirmed with a court reporter, Rose and Scorpius had decorated the parlor outside the library with flowers, confetti, and twinkling lights that spelled out the word, Congratulations!

“Oh,” she said, placing her hand on her forehead like it was the very last thing she expected. “How did you know?” she asked Rose as she leaned down to kiss her cheek.

“Draco told us,” said Rose.

“Father conjured the lights,” added Scorpius. “And Rose and I cut the flowers from the garden.”

Hermione took Scorpius’s hand and smiled. “That was so thoughtful. Thank you.”

Draco wasn’t sure what he expected when she looked at him, but it wasn’t her glassy eyes. She swallowed back a small sound as she looked at the decorations once more, and then she excused herself to the washroom. He scratched the back of his head, feeling strangely like he’d done something wrong. 

“She doesn’t like people to see her cry, is all,” explained little Rose.

Scorpius took the words out of his mouth. “Why is she crying?”

“Hard to say,” said Rose, picking up a dropped flower. “She does that a lot.”

Draco cut the banana bread silently—he was told it was her favorite—and then excused himself to his study while the children indulged, hoping she might leave without another supremely awkward encounter. 

Part of him wanted to ignore the knock at his study door. It was too firm to be Rose or Scorpius. It sounded decisive.

“Come in,” he said, against his better judgement.

The door creaked open and she stepped inside, closing the door behind her. Her hand lingered on the brass handle for a few seconds before she turned to look at him.

“Granger,” he said as he set down his feather quill. With a brow raised, he jumped into the deep end of the conversation. “Were the decorations not to your liking?”

It was a defensive, poor-tempered thing to say, but he was a defensive and poor-tempered man at his core so… fuck it.

Her lips pursed, an expression that held a similar sentiment. He readied himself for verbal sparring.

“You—You’re spoiling us.”

Not what he expected. Far more interesting.

“Spoiling you,” he repeated, rounding the desk.

She nodded once. “It’s got to stop.”

Her grimace, her crossed arms; it would all be rather cute if they weren’t both itching for an argument. He leaned back against his desk, crossing his ankles. “Define spoil.”

“You know what I mean, Malfoy,” she scolded. As a man who had been called spoiled a thousand times in his life, he knew damned well what it meant, he just wanted to hear her say it. The know-it-all in her wouldn’t allow the question to go unanswered. 

She huffed a breath. “To overindulge a person by giving them everything they want, thus…corrupting their character.”

He fought a smirk. Far better than his own definition. Brilliant, really. 

“I’m giving you everything you want?”

“Stop trying to twist my words.”

“Then stop being vague. What is it exactly that I’ve done that is bothering you? The party?”

“And the office…and…” she balled her fists. “All of it.”

The two things he’d paid absolutely nothing for. She had not thought through this argument sufficiently, which meant her emotions were clouding her judgement.

“Would you say you work hard, Granger?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“And when people work hard, they deserve appreciation, don’t they?”

He could practically hear her scrambling to plug the holes in her own argument. “It isn’t your place.”

“It’s not my—it’s everyone’s place. Each person in your life should show you appreciation.”

“People show me appreciation!” she said, her shoe clacking on the French parquet. “You’re just—you’re—”

“Better at it?”

“Insufferable. Of course you’re better at it—you’re—you’re rich. You have more resources—“

“But let’s not forget what brought us here,” he said, stepping closer to her as his voice dropped low. “A party, which I spent nothing on. And it’s good for the kids to learn to acknowledge hard work, so please don’t give me any more bullshit about it corrupting anyone’s character.”

She blinked, looking glassy eyed once more. Every muscle in her body seemed fraught with tension as she whispered her next words. “You have no idea.”

“Then tell me. Stop making up shite excuses and be honest.”

She forced herself to relax. Her fists unclenched, shoulders dropped. When she met his eyes, they were that soft brown that he thought of so often. Long lashes. Muted makeup that seemed subtly displaced. “I have plans. I’ve made commitments. On days like this—perfect days, I almost want to give it all up. And stay.”

Stay.

In England.

Fuck. They were still moving to Australia.

He felt like he’d been struck by a bludger, but he made it a point to remain still. Reactionless. She likely didn’t know that Rose had shared the concealed plan.

“Then stay,” he whispered. 

“I can’t...”

He swallowed, holding her gaze. “Tell me.”

She ran her hand down her sleeve and then stopped to tinker with the cuff. “Rose and I are moving to Australia.”

He felt gutted.

“I’ve worked out a shared custody agreement with Ron. He gets to keep Rose in April, August, and December.”

As he watched her, he wondered if Hermione was aware of how her emotions played out on her face, in her body language, or if the thread that linked her mind and her brow and her lips and shoulders and limbs were all so invisibly intertwined that she didn’t notice the way they betrayed her. Suddenly he was concerned he suffered from the same plight. That she’d take one look at him and know all about his devastation.

She was waiting for him to say something, he realized, but he couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound like a lament. He opted for providing proof he had listened. “You and Weasley are separating.”

“We moved out a few weeks ago when our house sold. Rose and I are staying with Dean and Luna until it’s time to go,” she said. 

Wizarding Britain, minus Hermione Granger. It might have been different six months ago, but after getting to know her and Rose, he could hardly imagine a world where they were on another continent. 

She looked away, like his gaze was too heavy. “You were right—people don’t appreciate me here. The Australian ministry offered to double my salary, and I have a house in escrow in the same town as my parents. We’re moving at the end of the year.”

“Six weeks,” he whispered. 

Maybe he didn’t have a right to feel like his world was being turned upside down. She was a—friend. Rose and Scorpius were close, and he would need to help his son through this, but he personally… He shouldn’t feel this injured. Why hadn’t she told him sooner?

She had so many opportunities. Long conversations. Moments alone in her office or his study—there wasn’t any reason for her to hide it.

Unless.

Something had shifted in the past month. She had charted a course that would change her life, and was second guessing the decision.

She felt it.

“You don’t want to go,” he said.

She took a step backward, ankle wobbling in her flimsy heels. “I do want to go.”

Her fists balled up again, a sure sign he’d struck a nerve. “I’m tired of being recognized on the street for something I did over a decade ago instead of what I did… today. I want to take my daughter to the park without people snapping photographs of us and trying to sell them to the Prophet. I want to work in a ministry that’s more receptive to the changes I’ve been pushing to make. And I want to be close to my parents and far away from Ron and the almost constant reminders of what we used to have. And I want to live comfortably as a single mother, which is decidedly impossible when my employer is paying me shite.” 

She fell silent, her chest rising and falling quickly as she recovered from her diatribe. They were compelling reasons to want to leave, yet they all sounded feeble. Unconvincing.

“But—” she continued, meeting his eyes again. He certainly hoped that meant her next words would be more convincing. “There are people here we’re going to miss, and you and your son have made your way to the uppermost—” her voice cut out, and she ran her hand along her throat, as if she were trying to rid herself of a knot.

“I won’t pretend I’m happy for you,” he said, turning away to fix his desk. He picked up a pile of papers and shoved them in a file folder for later, set his quill in it’s crystal holder. “I understand why those things might make you want to leave, but—” he stopped and placed his hands flat on the desk, “—it doesn’t mean you should. This is your home.”

After a moment of silence, he turned around to find her more composed. “I’ve already turned in my notice at work. This was my last assignment.”

She had truly cut her roots here in Britain. Her marriage. Her home. Her job.

They were no great loss, however. She deserved better, on all counts.

“Then we should celebrate it.”

An hour later, after they’d all had their fill of banana bread and fizzy drinks, Draco sought them out on the grounds, the kids chasing after bubble creatures Hermione had conjured with her wand. The sun was setting, warm hues colouring the sky, but the air was cold enough to pinken their noses. He sat down beside her on her quilt in the grass and watched as an iridescent dragon leapt from her wand.

“I was thinking—” he started, still uncertain exactly how to phrase his thoughts. His eyes landed on the nude heels she had kicked off at the edge of the blanket. Her bare feet. Pink toenails. “—You should stay here with us until you move.”

She stopped breathing entirely for a few seconds, bubble creatures forgotten. “In the studio…?” she said, looking off toward her little garden abode.

“The Manor.”

She set her wand down and stared off at the horizon.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” he said, stopping her from declining his invitation all together. Once she said no, she’d never take it back. “The offer is open.”

She said nothing, but he felt her eyes on him when he wasn’t looking, and the weight of her stare was intense after months of unchecked late night fantasies.

He wanted to keep her, but he wasn’t sure how. She wasn’t the sort to change her life plans on a whim, and he had a feeling she’d been planning this move since before he met her and Rose on the train all those months ago.

Hermione wasn’t technically unemployed yet, but most of her work after that autumn day had consisted of training other people to take over her tasks. She’d vented about it once, for all of thirty seconds, before catching herself. 

What it meant for Draco was that her afternoons at the Manor were suddenly… open. While the kids had their riding lessons, she would sneak quietly into the library and linger in the old books on the second tier—the equivalent of the restricted section—where Scorpius and Rose couldn’t follow.

It also meant she wore jeans most days, with her knit jumpers and boots or loafers, her curls piled on top of her head.

One late November day, he climbed quietly up the spiral stairs while her nose was in a book, and he startled her so terribly her hair fell from its pin.

“You’re lucky I didn’t hex you,” she said, looking up through her lashes as she pulled her curls up and twisted them. Pinned them back in place. Her eyes dropped, and then dropped further, fingers fumbling for a split second. “Are you going riding?”

His riding breeches felt tight under her scrutiny.

“There’s a storm on its way. I’m going to check the wards in case it floods.”

She tugged at the sleeves of her jumper, hiding the old scar she usually kept glamoured.

“You can come along if you want.”

She bit the inside of her lip and then slipped the book she’d been perusing into the vacancy on the shelf. 

“Yes, alright.”

When she settled behind him on Xanthus, his heart slipped into a new rhythm behind his ribcage. 

“You’re sure we’re not too heavy?”

“There’s a feather light charm on the saddle. Just try not to lean back.”

As they began to move, her hand touched down on his abdomen and then jumped away.

“Sorry.”

“Why?”

She cleared her throat. “For feeling you up. Not much way around it, I’m afraid.”

He nearly laughed. A rarity with anyone but Scorpius.

“Do what you must, Granger. I’m not timid.”

She shifted behind him. “No, you’re certainly not that.”

Her arms circled his waist, and though her hands rested flat and awkward against him, he was burning up from the inside. The way she slowly relaxed and warmed up to him, like a frightened kneazle looking for the perfect crook to relax against... When she found it, he had nothing to compare it to—no quiet moments with other women that didn’t revolve around sex, whether pursuing it or recovering from it.

The warm feeling in his chest when she rested her cheek against his back, was something else entirely.

“I can get down on my own, Malfoy,” she said as he held out his hand to her, as any gentleman would.

He smiled and crooked his fingers. “Come on then, baby bird.”

She narrowed her eyes as she slung her leg over Xanthas, lowering herself carefully. The view she offered him caused his thoughts to backslide from benign affection to something thoroughly pornographic.

Fuck.

He held the horse steady and looked up at the gray clouds that threatened to engulf the sky. When he looked at her again, she had her feet firmly on the ground, tethering her fallen curls again. 

They demanded freedom, it seemed.

She admired the few flowers still blooming this late in the year—mostly of the magical variety—and stopped at the statue of Marcelline Malfoy, which was over 300 years old. 

“She’s lovely,” said Hermione, studying the details of her face. She stepped back and looked around her. “Are there others?”

“No, she was…unique.”

She had died there in the garden, but he didn’t want to tell Granger that story. It didn’t paint his family in a favorable light.

“Black forengia,” she said, kneeling on the ground and admiring the delicate flowers around the statue.

He took a seat on the stone half-wall and retrieved his wand, using an old charm he’d learned to force a blossom from the rose bush beside him. When the red petals sprouted from the bud, he severed the stem and snapped off the thorns one by one, watching them fall to the ground. When he looked up, she was staring at him, as still as the marble statue of Marcelline.

He wished he knew what she was thinking. Wished her thoughts were loud enough that he didn’t have to guess at this.

She was infinitely more complicated than any other woman he had experience with. Or perhaps she was simpler and they were just easier to understand—motivated by money, power, status. Things he knew how to provide. How to wield.

Granger was all heart, and his own, though fully intact, beat behind a sheet of ice that was thick and heavy. 

Well preserved. 

Never broken.

And here he was risking it’s safety for a woman who threatened to vanish from his life.

He stood up and walked around the statuary between them, stopping in front of her. 

It was a coincidence that the rose was red. He hadn’t known the color before it bloomed, but it couldn’t have been more fitting.

He brushed the petals lightly against her left hand, which was blessedly free of the cheap wedding ring Weasley had given her. She let out a puff of air.

“Turn around,” he said.

It took her a moment to digest his words and follow his instruction, but with an uneasy look, she turned her back to him.

He put the rose between his teeth, took the pin out of her hair, and watched her curls fall around her shoulders. As delicately as he could, he separated her hair and twisted it into a chignon—a thing he hadn’t done for anyone since his mother. He pinned it securely in place and tucked the rose into the side of her curls.

“It should stay put this time,” he said over her shoulder.

She touched her hair tentatively and turned around to look at him.

“Thank you.”

He thought about kissing her. He really did. And the way she glanced at his lips and then his shoulders said she would likely be receptive. Yet, he had a feeling it wasn’t the right moment to act on his impulses. He wasn’t sure there ever would be a right moment.

“The kids will be looking for us,” she said.

And she was right. By the time they returned to the stables, the kids were already sitting in her studio, finished with their riding lessons and indulging in an afternoon snack prepared by the house elves.

“Do you want to stay?” she asked as she stepped on the sun deck. “It’s helpful, listening to someone else speak. In Japanese, I mean. The sounds are different in a—well you have a deeper voice than I do.”

“Do I?” he asked, because he was nothing if not facetious. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Hermione glowered and grabbed his hand, pulling him up the step through the etched glass door.

She entered his study quietly, watching as he worked. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it, but it felt different. 

It was the last day of November. Her last day at the ministry.

Time was slipping away too quickly.

He stowed his quill and looked up, finding it impossible not to admire the sight before him. She wore a silky blouse tucked into a black skirt, with heels he knew she’d kick off as soon as the moment allowed. A light dusting of makeup accentuated her warm, brown eyes.

“How did it go?” he asked, rounding the desk so she knew he was done with his work for the moment. She had his undivided attention.

“Fine. Difficult to say goodbye,” she admitted, regarding him with a concerned look. “You look tired.”

“I’m fine,” he said, mirroring her lie. “Didn’t sleep well.”

Draco pushed his fingers through his hair. 

He had dreamt of her in a bath of red petals, beckoning him, but by the time he kneeled down beside her, she was gone. He searched the water, worried she might have fallen under, but she had just…disappeared.

He needed to say something. Make sure she was completely clear how much she and her daughter meant to him and Scorpius. He’d spent the entire night trying to find the right words, but they either sounded too pathetic or too indifferent.

He took another step toward her, bringing them nearly toe to toe. Her breath was warm on his collar, the scent of her shampoo filled his senses. He looked down and she looked up. 

“I’ve been thinking…” he said quietly.

His hands ghosted over her sides, her blouse like silk beneath his fingers, so thin he could feel the smooth texture of her flesh. He leaned in and watched her eyes flutter closed as he brushed his lips against hers.

Smooth as petals. Soft as pillows. Her chest rose and fell, gentle puffs of breath feathering against his cheek. It was just a little taste of what they could have, what they could be to one another, if she stayed. 

The sound of the children running through the double doors of the library broke what was already fragile. He stepped backward and turned away to face his desk because he was in a truly inappropriate state.

“Mum!” Rose said as she plowed through the door of the study. “Scorpius has never had a cannoli! He hasn’t had tiramisu either but Godric, cannolis are my favorite.”

Draco took a breath and ran his hand through his hair. When he turned around again, Hermione was staring at him, and the kids were pleading with their eyes. 

“Well?” Rose continued. “Can we make some?”

“Cannolis require a lot of thought,” she said, without looking away from him. “It’s not the sort of thing you can just make at the last minute.”

She wasn’t talking about cannolis, he realized. Her mind was still on their shared kiss. He replied cautiously. “I don’t expect you to change all your plans on a whim. But if you decide it’s what you want, I have the resources.”

Her lips parted, brow furrowed. “I don’t want anyone’s resources. And if it’s sweets you’re craving, I’m sure you could find something less complicated.”

“I don’t want sweets, Granger. I want cannolis.”

“Me too,” said Scorpius.

“Please mum.”

If their situation were as simple as baking dessert, he had no doubt she’d have already said yes. She looked down at the kids fondly, but when she looked at him again, the little line between her brows returned.

Worried.

“You have a bit of time to think it over,” he continued. “Why don’t we see if we have what it requires.”

They all watched silently, waiting for her decision.

“You’re certain you have a kitchen?” She said with a half-smile.

“Oh we have a kitchen,” said Scorpius. “We just don’t know how to use it.”

Hermione’s laughter bubbled up as Rose tugged at her hands. Draco followed hesitantly behind, unsure if he’d just forged a path or blocked it.

The strangest thing about seeing Hermione make herself at home in the Manor was that it wasn’t strange at all. It was a foreboding place to many, but she had a fearless air about her that was more striking than ever as she swept through the corridors and plundered his pantry. She wouldn’t let a big house make her feel small, wouldn’t let the unknown dissuade her from exploring or encouraging the kids to do the same. When the pantry’s shadows seemed to stretch, she cast a lumos maxima. When a kitchen cabinet was too tall to reach, she swung the ladder across just as she would in a library.

“Who wants to climb for the mixing bowl?”

“Me!” said Scorpius.

If Draco were on his own, he surely would have levitated the bowl for expediency, but as he watched his son climb unaided, he understood the lesson. 

Self-sufficiency fortified his confidence.

After a light salad for an early dinner, because neither of them wanted to set a dessert before supper precedent, the four of them indulged in their homemade cannolis in Hermione’s studio.

She and the kids were comfortable there, and the windows all around them afforded a view of the ongoing storm which they wouldn’t find anywhere else in the manor.

“I have a gift for you,” he told Rose and Scorpius as they finished indulging in far too much sugar. He handed them each a carved wooden box, the size of his hand.

They opened them excitedly, certain there was something incredible inside, and when they found the boxes empty they exchanged confused looks.

“The boxes are magic.”

He conjured a marble and handed it to Scorpius.

“Place it in the box and close both the lids.”

They did as he asked, and when they opened them, Rose gasped. “It’s in my box!”

“How far do they work?” asked Scorpius as Rose closed the lid and passed the marble back to him.

“Anywhere in the world.”

Their smiles were priceless. 

“There are rules,” said Draco, interrupting their excitement. “Nothing living. No food. Nothing very valuable. We don’t want you breaking any international laws so if you aren’t sure, it’s important to ask us.”

They were both itching to test the boxes with different objects in the manor. With a promise to stay in the north wing only and a quick but sincere thank you—complete with a peck on the cheek from his favorite girl—they left through the passage in a hurry. He followed after to see them settled and make sure the house elves knew to keep an eye on them both.

When he returned with a bottle of wine, Hermione gave him a sharp look.

“Lighten up,” he told her. “It was your last day at the ministry. You deserve to celebrate it.”

She watched his hands as he uncorked the bottle, and by the time he’d poured her glass she had flushed a brilliant shade of pink.

He’d conned her into their first date, complete with her favorite muggle wine. She told him about it in passing once, while ranting about elf made wines and elf slavery and elves used as babysitters and loads of other rubbish he disagreed with. 

But he listened. He respected her thoughts on the subject, and she was learning to respect his.

After all, his elves had practically raised him, and as a single father, he needed the help. Desperately.

“What did I say about spoiling me?” she said softly, as he passed her a crystal glass.

“I’ve got you for four more weeks.” Draco leaned down to tug off her heels in a move she didn’t expect. He resisted the impulse to touch her calves while he did it, still uncertain where they stood. Hermione had agreed to make cannolis, and he hardly dared to assume what that meant. “I’d like to see you try to stop me.”

She sipped her wine and stretched her ankles. “A glass couldn’t hurt.”

At the top of their second glass, thunder shook the little building and she nearly spilled her drink.

“It’s safe,” he said. Draco had triple checked its structural integrity and all the charms in place to keep it secure.

“I’ve been reluctant to ask…” she said. “Where did it come from?”

It. The studio.

He took an inappropriately long drink to quell his sudden nerves. This was the first time she’d asked him directly about the little building that popped up between her visits, and he was reluctant to give too much away. 

“I had to uproot some trees at the edge of the woods and couldn’t bring myself to vanish them.”

“So you…”

“…Built this.”

“You built it.”

He scratched his temple. “I thought you knew that.”

“I assumed you hired someone, but the way you bonded the wood is unique. The transfiguration, and the sigils—“ she took a breath and sat forward. “They were on the children’s boxes as well. And the—”

She stopped short of saying the brooch, because that would be absurd, him crafting jewelry for her… so he said nothing at all and hoped she might just drop it. 

He looked up at the charmed papers stuck on the wall, which still had the Japanese Hiragana from Tuesday’s lesson. The smaller handwriting in English just below each character was uniquely her. Big loops. No slant.

The patter of rain against the glass grew heavier, slowly drowning out his thoughts. She’d either stay, or she wouldn’t. He’d survive if she—

Her knee settled between his, and her lips covered his own. The taste of wine and chocolate hit him first and then petals and pillows and fuck—her tongue was heaven.

He cupped her jaw with both hands and dragged his lips over hers, deepening the kiss. It was slow and smouldering, and the way her hands ran down his chest arrested his heart and swelled his cock. Lightning flashed behind his eyelids, and he couldn’t be sure if it was the sky alight or all the nerve endings in his body. 

She was pure rapture.

His hand wrapped around the small of her back, tugging her closer. Indecently close. She traced the sharp lines of his cheekbones and jaw, learning his features, his evening stubble, how quickly his heart beat for her. She flattened her body against his and pressed him back into the cushion, the weight of her body shifting above him as she made room for herself and took control of a kiss he hadn’t at all expected. He could feel the heat from her center against his thigh, scorching his flesh, igniting a tactile fantasy of how they would feel joined.

They couldn’t actually.

“The kids—“ he muttered.

“We should stop—“ she said, decidedly not stopping.

“In a minute—” he breathed into her lips, and then, “Colloportus.” He locked the doors wandlessly and cursed that he’d put windows on every wall. The studio truly wasn’t meant for this sort of activity. He hadn’t thought—

“Nox.” She put out the lights and whispered, “Just for a minute…”

Nails raked through his hair and his breath trembled, tight in his lungs. His lips traveled down her jaw and he sucked at her neck, thoughts flitting quickly through his mind about rushing things and teenagers stealing moments in dark closets and how much time they had and—

The entire world disappeared. 

They explored each other with soft sighs and heavy breaths barely audible over the sound of rain drumming.

He learned a lot about her in those brief minutes in the dark together. He learned the rhythm of her heart as the flat of his tongue traced the smooth lines of her throat. Learned the roundness of her breasts as they spilled out of his hands. Learned her quiet murmurs of appreciation when he teased her nipples through her blouse. 

He learned what it was like to be seduced by her. To find his carefully held control stolen as her center rubbed over him just right.

His groin tightened deliciously.

“Wait—“ he whispered, holding her hips away from his. He flipped her under him in one swift move and grazed his lips along her collar, dipping as close to her cleavage as he could reach. “Minutes up.”

She whimpered and he smirked, not that she could see it. He loved how reactive she was to each touch.

“Come over this weekend, if you can get away,” he said, stroking his hand along her inner thigh. “I’ll be alone.”

He trailed his fingers once along the seat of her knickers, finding her slick and wet. Her entire body shuddered.

“Yes,” she whispered in the dark.

By the time she turned on the lights again, she had stood up and righted her clothes, pinned her hair in place and whispered at least two spells. He had remained seated on the settee, trying to calm his aching erection as he watched her silhouette.

Seeing one another with the lights on was a revelation. Her cheeks were pink, love bites were scattered along her neck. He closed the distance between them and used his wand to heal them, his thumb tracing from her jaw dow the slope of her shoulder.

She was looking at him with an expression she had often worn in the months since he’d met her on the train, one which he finally understood. There was definitely something stirring between them. She’d felt it all along. This wasn’t new for her, any more than it was for him.

Misunderstandings were common in his line of business. Between language and cultural barriers with his clients, Blaise’s love of sarcasm, and his own occasional prickliness, he spent a fair amount of time resolving disputes.

Which he was surprisingly good at, in a business setting.

It was much trickier in his personal life. Those sorts of misunderstandings often involved feelings, which he wasn’t good at. By any means.

He wasn’t even sure if he had misstepped, but the more time that passed without hearing from Granger, the more sure he was—He was an idiot. Instead of asking her on a true date, one where he picked her up and bought her flowers, treated her to a fancy meal and offered her a kiss goodnight, he’d given her an open invitation to his bed.

And now he was cursing himself.

It was presumptuous of him to make the leap that she wanted sex. He usually tried to be a gentleman about that sort of thing.

They’d gotten carried away.

And now she regretted it.

By mid-morning on Sunday, he’d thrown himself into his work with very little sleep. Where building things and tinkering with magic afforded him time to think and exist peacefully, business was the opposite, consuming his thoughts and giving him something entirely different to worry about.

Problems he could fix with diplomacy and good business strategy, both of which came easier to him than matters of the heart.

It was late that night when he decided to wrap up. He stopped in the parlor, poured himself a half glass of firewhisky and made his way toward the north staircase. 

“Hi,” she said, peeking out of the library's double doors as he passed.

His heart skipped a beat. “Granger.”

“I hope it’s alright that I—You were working so I just…” Hermione gave him a cute smile. She read, of course. 

All his concerns about propositioning her were at the forefront of his mind, causing him to lose his words for a moment.

“You’re always welcome here. Where’s Rose?”

Her smile fell slowly. He took a step toward her, and then another, and—her smile was gone completely. “I have news I wanted to share. Ron will be keeping her for the rest of the year.”

His stomach fell. She rubbed her hands against her skirt, lips pulling downward.

“The new custody arrangement was meant for after we moved, but he insisted. He wants to spend as much time with her as he can before we leave.” She looked like she was putting on a show of being alright with it, for him or for herself, he wasn’t certain.

“Are you alright?” asked Draco, uncertain what else to say. He’d miss Rose terribly and so would Scorpius, but it wasn’t quite comparable to what Hermione was going through.

“It’s just…” she looked up, “a month is a really long time.”

He put his hand on her arm and she leaned into his chest, allowing him to wrap his arms around her. Comfort her. The way her arms circled under his shoulders, body fitting snugly against his own, was stirring in an unusual way, like his limbs had been used incorrectly all his life and he only now understood their true purpose.

She swiped at her eyes, still not moving away. “It’s my own doing and I’ve no right to complain about it.”

“Of course you do,” he said into her curls. “You said it yourself, the arrangement was meant for after you’d moved. There’s no point in Rose being without either of you right now.”

Her shoulders rose an inch and then fell. “Ron pointed out to me that three months is quite a lot longer than one.”

“Yes well, it’s good that he grasps basic mathematics,” Draco drawled.

She laughed once into his button up and then quieted herself. “That’s not nice.”

“No one ever accused me of being a nice man.”

Hermione pulled back enough to look at him, swiping again at the moisture on her cheeks. He didn’t think he ought to think it, but her eyes looked pretty with their red rims and wet lashes.

“You’ve been kind to me. To my daughter.”

He brushed a curl out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. “I take good care of those who matter to me.”

She searched his face, looking for the meaning of his words, or maybe confirmation they were true. They more than mattered, he just didn’t want to label that feeling when she had a foot out of England. Not when he was still figuring out how to stop it from happening.

“And the rest of the world?” she asked.

It could burn for all he cared, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t appreciate his candidness. The entire world mattered to Hermione Granger, and for her he would do anything.

He shifted back on his heels. “Depends on the situation.”

Her smile was infectious, but it only lasted a second before the melancholy returned.

“I want to help,” he whispered. “Whatever you need, just say it and it’s yours.”

She swallowed, looking a bit nervous all of a sudden. “Can I stay here with you?”

Forever, yes.

But he reminded himself not to be presumptuous. He’d spent the last few days kicking himself, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. “As long as you want. Any room in the north wing is yours for as long as you need it.”

She took a step backward and looked toward the staircase on her left. 

“I’ll be up in a few minutes to see how you’ve settled in.”

There were five rooms in the North Wing. The one between his and his son’s had been turned into a playroom, which left two. Yet, when he walked up the stairs to check how she had settled in and offer her tea, she was in neither of them.

Hope unfolded as he walked toward his room. Door open. Light on. Hermione turned around as he entered, hands fidgeting. “Is this room alright?”

She was a lovely contradiction. Her words would be seductive if they had been said with confidence, but her world was upside down. She’d left the ministry, sold her house, was separated from her child temporarily, and while she had made all those decisions with her head held high, her supply of confidence was dwindling. She was a woman on a tightrope, still uncertain if he’d hold her steady or let her fall.

“More than,” he said, closing the distance slowly, letting her decide what this meant. She was hurting and he didn’t want to take advantage of that. “I can get a shirt for you to sleep in.”

She looked at his collar, and then down a little.

“Can I have that one?” she asked.

He said he would give her anything. He’d give her nothing less.

He responded by unbuttoning his cuffs. The top two buttons of his shirt. And then he reached over his shoulders and lifted it off.

She stood transfixed, eyes lowering slowly like she was memorizing every inch of his exposed skin. 

No glamours. Just him, with all his flaws.

Hermione tugged her shirt over her head and dropped it on the ground, breasts covered by a lacy white bra he couldn’t help but stare at. If this was a test, he was failing miserably. Mouth dry, blood rushing south—

He handed her the shirt, which she pulled close to her bosom, obstructing his view. “Don’t feel pressured to wear it,” he said with a sudden smirk. “Less would be fine.”

Her lips parted, blinking up at him with her long lashes. “How much less?”

“All depends on how much self control you want me to exert,” he said, eyes roaming over her bare shoulders. 

“Very little,” she whispered.

Kissing her hadn’t been a conscious decision, but more of a knee jerk reaction to her words. Like a child given permission to eat the candy they had already unwrapped. His hands were in her pinned up hair, his shirt dropped from her hands as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He tugged her clip and it clattered to the ground, curls falling around her shoulders.

Her lips and tongue beckoned him to do indecent things to her, teasing softly as his fingertips explored the skin between her shoulder blades and lowered to the slope of her spine. She shivered a little, goose flesh rising on her skin.

He could lose himself in her.

His hand slid up to caress her neck, and then back down between them, fingertips trailing over her curves, and all the while she warmed him with careful touches that made him drowsy with lust.

He was unhurried in his exploration but he was thorough, hovering at her bosom to circle and tease and pluck through thin fabric. Her breath quickened with his attention—eager to be touched. 

When she’d had all she could take of his teasing, Hermione pulled him backward in a lust induced haze.

“You’re sure about this?” he asked between kisses as she climbed on the edge of the mattress. Hermione Granger. In his bed.

She kneeled in front of him and said, “Mmhmm.”

“You’re having a difficult day,” he muttered as she sucked at his earlobe. “I don’t want to rush you—“

She put her hands on his shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “I’ve wanted this.”

Not new. Not for either of them. If only he’d known sooner, he could have had more time with her.

“So have I.”

Her kiss was gentle but persistent, breaking off tiny pieces of his glacier heart until he was sure he’d split into tiny shards. 

Fingers traced over his abdomen and downward, hooking into the waistline of his trousers. His groin felt heavy with her hands so near, tugging at his belt and then his buttons. The garment dropped around his ankles and he kicked it off his bare feet. 

He unclasped her bra and dragged the straps off her shoulders, but before he could pay her breasts due admiration, she tucked her hand in his boxers and wrapped her hand around the length of him. 

Crumbling ruins of ice and glass.

His forehead pressed against hers, unable to kiss properly with her hand stroking him for the first time. Her thumb rolled over the head of his cock and she moaned with him, watching him with a heated gaze as though his pleasure was her own.

The events that came next were a myriad of fading blurs, flicking by too fast and too slow. The sight of her bare skin replaced the darkness behind his eyelids. 

Closing his lips over her nipple. Tracing the hem of her knickers. Laying her back on his pillow and pulling the white lace down over her knees. Off her ankles. 

Her warm, brown eyes as he hovered above her. 

He wanted to know what made her breath hitch and her toes curl, to find out who she was when no one else was looking. The desire to learn her eclipsed his need for gratification, and so he took his time. He kissed constellations into her skin, fingers trailing patterns of spiral galaxies that extended from her rib cage down to the inside of her thigh. Her hips canted as he brushed against her center, waited two heartbeats and did it again.

“Draco—”

The negative space between each new touch was filled with anticipation. It enchanted him just as much as the inevitable caress that followed.

He dragged a digit up and down her center and her expression broke apart in pleasure. The sound she made as he nipped the hardened peak of her breast was short and quiet. Authentic. Punctuated by her quickening breath and the hands that splayed on his back. He painted circles on her clit, and she arched into him, holding him in place with a tight grip as he found a steady, circular rhythm. When she loosened her hold on him, he kissed down her belly and flicked his tongue in her navel, looking up to make sure she was comfortable with what he was offering. Her knees dropped outward and she bit her bottom lip, waiting and waiting until he was sure she’d combust.

Draco put his mouth over her clit and her head fell backward onto the pillow. A hand in his hair. A whispered curse on her lips. He rolled his tongue over her bundle of nerves with a steady, hypnotic rhythm, teasing her entrance with the tip of his finger. She glanced down at him, teeth tugging at her plump bottom lip. Smooth legs flexing at his sides. Round breasts half-covered by her hands. His tongue delved into her and swirled, hungry for the sounds she made, little moans and sighs that varied in length and pitch. He wanted to learn all of them.

When her thighs began to quiver, he pushed a finger inside of her and watched as her impending climax flushed her skin.

So wet. Hot. Taut silk inside. Her breath caught and she exhaled a soft whimper as he drew out her orgasm, slowing his pace just enough to capture all the details of it in his memory. When she dropped over the edge, he was lost in the tremble of her breath, the flex of her leg over his shoulder, the cry that resonated in his groin as he curled his finger inside her fluttering quim.

He climbed slowly up her body, retracing the places that had made her gasp. She touched his fevered skin, every inch she could reach, and kissed his lips dreamily as she recovered from her peak.

Each touch stirred his ardor. His skin buzzed with need. Her hand worked its way between them, fist circling his hard cock and guiding him toward her.

He pushed the first, thick inches of himself into her and pulled back from their kiss, just enough to see the shape of her parted lips as she received him. 

Draco rolled his hips forward and met her eyes, sliding one hand behind her neck as they found their rhythm. Soft sighs and heavy breaths filled the otherwise silent room as they kissed and rocked. When he was drawing himself out of her, she clenched around him with intention, and his hand fisted in the sheet. 

“Fuck, you feel so good,” he whispered into her ear.

Her fingers feathered in his hair as he thrusted into her again and she murmured her agreement with a string of affirmations spoken so low he wasn’t sure he was meant to hear them.

She clenched once more as she curled her legs upward, knees dropping to the sides to give him more room to move. Freedom to set their pace. His hips flexed forward in answer to her silent request, flattening against her and grinding.

Hermione made a noise like all the air was forced from her lungs. 

His next thrust would have been softer, shallower, but her heels pressed firmly into his backside, reeling him in. Wanting every inch. She invited him to quicken his pace with her soft whispers and welcoming hips, and he gave her what she wanted. He nuzzled against the rose-petal softness of her breasts, rolling his tongue over her nipple, and then he drove into her faster and faster, holding her steady as their jarring rhythm drove her upward on the bed.

Each breath she took reshaped itself into a sensual sound that rippled down his spine, clouding his thoughts until he was driven by pure instinct. The push and pull and white hot friction drew sounds from him he rarely made. They shifted their legs for a new angle and indulged in a slow and passionate kiss. It felt like anchoring down in a turbulent sea.

Hermione ran her nails through the fine hair behind his ear.

“Oh, god—“ she whimpered as he fucked her deep and quick, headboard protesting with a clatter. “The way you fill me—“

His head fell forward on her shoulder. She pulled her legs closer together, constricting him. “You’re gonna make me come if you keep talking like this.”

She scraped her nails on his thigh, which he’d never considered particularly sensitive until that moment. 

“Draco…”

“Fuck.” His hips stopped completely, slowing the spiral of tension that concentrated where they were joined. Catching his breath and his last few remnants of composure.

He sat up and rearranged their legs again, seeking less friction, less touches and lips—all those little things that threatened his sanity, but staring down at her, beautiful, naked, erotic—it wasn’t any less arousing. Flushed skin and curls spread out on his pillow, knees and arms hanging loosely at her sides as she waited patiently for him to recover—she was incredible. Draco rubbed away the beads of sweat that had gathered behind his neck and glanced down at where they were coupled. He licked his lips. Watched himself disappear into her and pull out. Her hand dipped between her breasts and trailed down, teasing him. Unafraid of her own sexuality. Unbothered by his gaze.

Any semblance of silence was lost after that. Her whimpers were as constant as his fingers on her clit. The bed rattled. Skin slapped rhythmically. Whispered encouragement heightened their tension, restless touches and frenzied thrusts driving them both toward a shared goal. She knew exactly what she was doing to him, staring up at him with those glistening eyes as her breasts bounced. A lock of his hair fell against his brow and she pushed it away, a rush of excitement tugging at him as she pulled his face toward hers and swiped her tongue over his parted lips. 

She chanted a desperate plea as he rolled her clit and ducked down to tease her nipple with his teeth, rhythm faltering again at the sound of his name.

Wound tight. Ready to shatter. She cinched around him and threw her head backward, lost to sensation and he buried his face in her soft skin. Her cry of pleasure sent lightning through his veins. Her tight, wet channel worked him over the edge.

Draco spilled out inside of her with a deep groan, his fingers in her curls and his lips on her throat.

The last few thrusts were accompanied by shudders and sighs, and the sort of long and languid kiss that lovers only shared when sated.

But the thing about being sated was its temporary nature.

Intimacy had several definitions. It could mean a warm and familiar friendship or…physical intimacy. To engage in sex, as they had done again and again. But the definition that went through Draco’s mind that night was shared vulnerability. Not because they were naked—with the exception of the ugly mark on his arm, which her eyes had skimmed over and thankfully set aside, he was rather comfortable in his skin. So was she, he assumed by the way she moved. 

They’d been skirting around what they wanted like it was hellfire threatening to burn them. And now they were in it. Together. Letting go of their uncertainties about the future for a short while, even with all the risks it involved.

Though officially, she was still “living” with Dean and Luna through the rest of September, she barely left the Manor. Her nights were his. Long nights spent wrapped in each other’s arms, sometimes talking until late into the night. Sometimes having sex until they were too exhausted to move, sleeping with limbs draped across one another, waking up with dazed smiles and making love in the early morning sunlight.

Her days were often with Scorpius, who missed Rose just as much as she did. Perhaps more, since she had the promise of years to come with her daughter and Scorpius had the fear of never seeing her again.

So did Draco, though he never spoke it aloud.

Scorpius didn’t question Hermione’s presence at the Manor. She was a close friend and they had plenty of room—the boy was just glad for the extra company. The extra attention, which she lavished upon him when Draco wasn’t stealing her away for secret kisses in the Manor’s many rooms and alcoves.

Selfishly, he’d considered pulling strings to complicate the purchase of her new house, or to get the Australian ministry to rescind their offer of employment. He had the resources. She’d never know it was him.

But he’d know. He would know he’d stolen her choices, and would wonder forever if she would have chosen differently in a world where all had gone to plan. He also liked to think she was becoming as invested in whatever this was as he had. The long looks, the way she sought comfort in his arms when she was upset. The way she checked up on his son sometimes, just to make sure he was alright. The way she missed Rose, owling and floo calling at scheduled times every day, which she wouldn’t be able to do from Australia.

She’d stay. He was sure of it. 

Almost.

“Oh, but you can visit us—“ she assured Scorpius over supper a few days before Christmas. And then her spoon suspended over her bowl, as though she had only just realized what she said and wished she could scoop the words back into her mouth.

The two of them had avoided the topic of her move almost entirely. He had hoped that meant she was reconsidering. Apparently not.

She looked toward Draco reluctantly, having opened a door to a conversation neither of them were quite ready to have. It had been impetuous of her to make that sort of comment in front of Scorpius without mentioning it to him first, and from the expression on her face, she knew it.

“Can I, Father?”

He stirred the broth in his bowl and made it a point to avoid eye contact with them both as he found an appropriate response.

“We’ll have to talk about it some more,” she offered, filling the uncomfortable silence with a strained voice that only seemed to increase the tension in the room.

Talk. 

Time was running out. If she hadn’t changed her mind about leaving by now— 

Fuck. He was arrogant to think she’d change her life plans for him, that he could have made her fall in love with him in so little time.

You can’t make people fall in love any more than you can make them happy. But he’d thought she was both, for a minute.

After Draco tucked his son into bed that night, he took a walk around the grounds, alone. He usually met her in the library and seduced her away from the cozy chair by the fire, where she liked to read after she’d floo-called Rose to tell her goodnight. 

But he couldn’t. He had to clear his thoughts. Calm his temper. Breathe in the cold and exhale the heat of fury.

At himself. At her.

The stables were quiet and dark as he walked past them. Blackbirds sounded off from the edge of the woods. The brisk evening air wasn’t cold enough to numb his thoughts, but he continued to try. The thought of their lives without her and Rose hit him squarely in the chest, like a rogue bludger that he’d seen coming and purposely ignored.

He’d thought she would make a different decision.

It had been reckless of him, to invite her into their lives when he knew she might leave. It had been a calculated risk, but a foolish one. He’d placed Scorpius at risk of heartbreak as much as himself.

The light flickered on in her studio and his thoughts raced. He remembered what the grounds had looked like before her. The plain expanse of grass that she’d thrown her quilt upon. Before that, it had been unused space. An empty expanse of green that stretched on between the Manor, the manège and the woods. He’d let her fill a void.

He kicked his foot against a nearby gate and marveled at his own inflated ego. He’d thought he was such a catch, she’d drop everything to be with him.

Though he’d gone out for a walk to get away from her, he felt the pull toward her like gravity itself. He was itching to say something he knew he would regret. By the time he made it to her studio he’d come up with a handful of scathing remarks and predicted her reaction to each one of them.

There was only one thing left to do. 

He knocked on the door and watched her startle in her seat. The feather quill dropped from her fingers and she stood up and crossed the room toward him, meeting his eyes through the pane of glass with her lips tugged downward.

“You disappeared,” she said as she opened the door. “I wanted to talk.”

“Talk? What about?” he said coolly.

Draco turned his back to her and pulled off his gloves, dropping them on the table as she tried to figure out how to answer a question he hadn’t needed to ask. 

When he turned to face her, she looked even more miserable, and he realized how hard it would be to change course after he’d spent months trying to bring her some measure of happiness. Riling her up about elf welfare and giving the kids flying lessons was fun.

This…would not be.

She wrung her hands and looked him square in the eyes. “It was presumptuous of me to think you and Scorpius would visit after I left. I don’t want to confuse him further, so it’s probably best if we’re clear.”

“What are you unclear about?” he said, trying to keep his face expressionless.

“What you want.”

Something twisted uncomfortably behind his ribcage for a second as he acknowledged the true answer. The one which he had no intention of saying aloud.

He unwrapped the wool scarf from around his neck because he wanted to be cold and he wasn’t. “What do you want?”

“I asked you first,” she snapped.

He raised a brow. “For starters, I’d like it if you would act your age. Spending too much time with the children, love?”

As her eyes narrowed into slits, he wondered if he ought to travel this path right now or leave it for another day. One where he felt less raw. More in control of himself. Where he’d given more thought to the words he was about to say.

“You don’t want to visit me in Australia,” she said on an exhale.

“No, I don’t. I’m not sure why that surprises you.”

The muscles in her shoulders tightened, graceful slopes he had memorized with his hands and lips.

“You’re right,” she said. “We knew this was temporary when it began. No reason to drag it out and give the children false hope.”

“False hope,” he repeated, closing in on her. The air between them was charged with a different sort of energy than it usually was, but no less intense. “Tell me…what do you think they’d have to hope for, living on different continents?”

She stood stiff. Wounded. “Something they couldn’t have.”

“Why can’t they have it?” he said, tilting his head an inch to the left. “Because you’ve made plans? Oh, we wouldn’t want to ruin those.”

She studied him for a moment in silence before letting out a huff of air. “I don’t have time for miscommunications, Draco, so please, be as blunt as you can.”

Stay.

He thought the word in his head. Screamed it, really. If she were any good at legilimency, she surely would have heard it.

“I can’t chase you around the world, Granger.” 

“I never asked you to chase me,” she said. “I asked you to visit me.”

“To what end? What do you suppose our visit might accomplish?”

“I don’t know! I just…didn’t want it to end yet and foolish me, I—I thought you felt the same.”

Draco stepped close to her, trying to bridge the gap, to let go of his fury and pride. He ghosted his hand over her jaw only then learning how it trembled.

“I feel the same.”

She leaned her face into his hand, relaxing just slightly into him. “Then why do you want to ruin it?“

“You have everything you could ever want,” he said, lips brushing her temple. “And you’re leaving it.”

“I can’t let you give us everything you think we want on a silver platter,” she said, her hands resting against either side of his rib cage. “I’ve got to earn it, and to teach my daughter to do the same. I’ve thought about staying. You know I have. But throwing over all of my plans for a relationship that’s so new—this isn’t who I am.”

He rested his chin on top of her curls. “I know.”

They embraced for a long while, finally curling up on the settee under her quilt, her head against his shoulder and his hand running lazily over her arm.

“If we visit you, you’ll visit us?”

She nodded her head against him. “As often as I can.”

The day they left, he and Scorpius took the train to the station with her and Rose, said a bittersweet goodbye, and rode back alone in their luxury traincar. 

The kids kept in touch, exchanging letters and things through their boxes almost every day. Rose, who had a tendency to overshare, detailed their lives in Australia—from the state of her grandmother’s garden to what they ate for dinner.

Though Draco expected to stop learning all those little details about Hermione when she relocated, he learned a great deal through their own shared boxes.

He learned her weakness for love letters and fresh flowers and the handcrafted trinkets that he made just for her.

And when they visited Australia each month, he got to know her mother and father, who both welcomed him and Scorpius into their lives.

The moments they spent together were few enough that they treasured every minute, always wishing for a little more time.

“I miss you,” he whispered as they were lounging in bed, enjoying the sunrise. His hands grazed the soft skin of her thigh and then her hip. “I love you.”

She turned over to look at him with her warm, brown eyes, and he was sure she could see the truth of it written on his face. She traced her fingers over his jawline, the stubble that had grown in overnight. “I love you too.”

The kiss they shared was deep and scorching, yet slow and needy. It was everything all at once.

She was everything. Their family was everything.

”Come home soon,” he whispered into her lips. “When you’re ready, but—soon.”

Hermione held his gaze, her bare legs slipping around him. “Yes. I think I will.”