Archive of Our Own ^beta

It's oh so quiet, my love, my love…

Anyone who has walked through a house of healing knows there are many kinds of quiet.

There is the quiet of dreamless sleep. The quiet of pain and holding tight to the shreds of the self, through grief and intolerable cruelties. It goes without saying that there is the quiet finality of death. That friend, that foe who one day we all must greet. But before then, there is quiet of thinking, of new beginnings and unfamiliar paths unfurling beneath one's feet.

The path was cold beneath Hermione Granger’s bare feet, and there was no end to it as she wandered up and down, up and down. It wasn't a path, per se, rather a corridor tiled in light-coloured stone. Overhead, a line of glass bubbles floated serenely, their golden glow muted in respect of the very early hour.

All was quiet — except for the din in her mind. Since the day she received a life-altering letter at age eleven, she’d walked the line between two worlds. All these years later, and both of those worlds had opinions. They merged and diverged, these opinions, but there was one cliche that magical folk and muggles alike espoused with unshakeable confidence.

Sleep when the baby sleeps.

Well, her daughter was sleeping, and once again, Hermione was not.

She adjusted the bundle of blankets in her arms, and looked down at the face peeking out. Rose. For she was entirely made of petals. The hint of hair on her head suggested she would be red like her father, and her eyes were warm and dark… like her mother’s. Hermione surrendered to the irresistible need to kiss the button of that little nose, then turned on her heel — from down the corridor, back to up.

When Hermione laboured through the long, thin night, the moon was full and ripe in the veiled sky. Rose arrived into the world at a very punctual 8:55am, on a grey summer Monday. Hermione had prepared for the birth and beyond the way she prepared for everything: meticulously, with an edge of ruthlessness. Her books were alphabetised; her notes were colour-coded. She attended both a muggle and magical antenatal class, and raised her hand repeatedly in both of them. Not only to answer the questions, but often to expand the conversation by adding information that the patient women running the classes had glossed over or missed. Somehow Fiona the witch, and Penny the muggle looked almost exactly alike.

Hermione invited Ron to Penny’s class, but went alone to Fiona’s. There was a statement in this, but he didn’t ask and she didn’t push. He was quiet amongst descriptions of electric breast pumps and paled noticeably when Penny’s Powerpoint presentation included a large picture of a pair of forceps.

Ron and Hermione’s relationship ended when she entered her third trimester. It was a thing she had not anticipated… She loved him fiercely, and did not doubt that he would be a warm and loving father. Yet one day she looked at him, and knew that she couldn’t go on. What she saw that day was not a bad man, but a man who wanted to be mothered. It was a fact she had known for some time. Previously, there had been beauty in feeling needed.

Beauty fades. She would not mother her child and mother her partner too.

Ron was shocked. Months on, he still tiptoed around her with an abiding disbelief, but now Rose was earthside and they were as inside out as each other. Ron had knelt at their side and told them he would be there. No matter what.

Still, she sent him home at night. The rest of the entourage had heeded Hermione’s neatly handwritten sign that communicated she would only accept visitors between the hours of one and three p.m.

Hermione turned again. Kept walking. Her mind was searching for a plan—any plan—and had been for days. Who was Hermione Granger without a plan? Ginny had repeatedly told her that having a baby would require that she incinerated many of the notions that helped her stay sane all her life, and still Hermione fought for control.

Hermione had planned to birth at home, like most witches did. Her healer took her to the Agnodice Centre when Rose’s heartbeat flattened to near-nothingness, and spells cast to counteract the decline did not improve the issue. There Hermione and Rose had stayed, for five days so far, for her lovely, perfect baby needed a course of potions and close supervision. It was not the plan, but the magical birthing centre was certainly beautiful, warm and serene, as if everything in the building took place inside a soft sunset. It was a cocoon of sorts, surrounded by the gentle healer midwives and views of the sea, Hermione had quickly become agnostic about returning home.

There were four private suites in the Centre, two on each floor. Another witch left that morning, with her twins and a shaky, uncertain smile. Hermione found herself alone with Rose, and the closed door.

The closed door was upstairs.

The hallway on the second floor was much the same as the one she paced down, but she mounted the stairs anyway. It would count as a change of scene.

Rose had reached the stage of sleep where her breath was almost non-existent. Hermione stood still at the top of the stairs, and watched the minute rise and fall of the rusty orange blanket, knitted by her busy grandmother. The one who knew she existed.

Hermione had prepared herself for crying, and wakefulness. Planned for it. But Rose was quiet, and slept for hours at a time.

Hermione walked down the second floor corridor, intending to pass the closed door, and walk back down the stairs again. She knew the room was occupied, for healers came in and out. There was commotion when Hermione arrived, and it wasn’t all for her. Another baby was born, just before Rose. That was all she knew. But the healers carried the weight of something, and when she asked, they looked away, their tongues tied by more than just contract clauses.

A few more steps and she would be level with the closed door.

Only… the door was open.

Something ancient shivered down her spine. Something turned her bare feet towards the darkened room.

A soft rocking chair that looked recently vacated sat next to a woven bassinet made of pale reeds. Inside the bassinet was a tiny baby, the sole occupant of the large suite. He was perfect, like Rose. Pale under a shock of dark hair. His fists were balled on the soft mattress, on either side of his sleeping face, as if he were ready to fight the world.

There was a chart hanging on the bassinet, the kind of chart Hermione was now well-acquainted with. Hermione saw the name without really seeing it, even though the two words were the largest on the chart. The only words that registered were ‘mother deceased’ as though the parchment were screaming at her.

Mother deceased.

Hermione’s will to live had always been strong. Yes, it had wavered, when going on felt impossible, but she had a great deal to do in this world. That much had always been clear. And now that Rose tethered her to the earth, there was only ever going to be onwards.

Hermione’s faith needle moved from agnostic to atheist there and then. Only the cruellest of Gods would take a mother from this baby. She looked down at her lovely Rose, and when she looked up again, a pair of serious grey eyes seemed to be studying her. This was impossible — no infant so small could see that far, and yet Hermione felt like she stood on a set of silver scales.

Then the baby did what babies do best and let out an ear-splitting shriek.

In her haste to prevent Rose waking up, Hermione acted on instinct. Still holding her daughter, she scooped the squalling baby up to her shoulder and held him tight against herself using only one arm. Nearly staggering, she fell back into the welcoming arms of the plush rocking chair.

Electricity travelled down Hermione’s chest, and it was easy, so easy to push aside her soft robe and bare a breast, rounded and ripe where once there had been only a gentle swell. White droplets had already gathered and started to spill. It was instinct that had her guiding her nipple into the flowerbud of a mouth, open in a wail.

Instinct, magic, beauty. An unignorable pull.

Milk flowed from her to him, and she shuddered with the feeling of it, still new. But he had been born knowing what to do. Grey eyes looked, and closed again. In her slumber Rose started searching, and Hermione could only answer her daughter in kind, holding their soft bodies against hers and against each other's.

Hermione sighed, and let her eyes flutter shut. Just for a moment.

And that was how the healer who had excused herself to the bathroom found the trio, in that darkened room.

“I'm sorry,” Hermione whispered, though she didn't move

The healer, Adriana, with mahogany skin and long silver hair, did not offer a rebuke.

“That’s no easy feat Hermione, feeding both when they're so new.”

“I… saw the chart.”

Adriana’s face hardened, a stone wall in front of something dark.

“Yes.” Was all she said.

Hermione's finger traced the curve of Rose's cheek, and the boy's dark hair.

“Where's his family?”

“There's urgent litigation,” Adriana sighed. “Goddess-willing, it shouldn’t be long now.”

Adriana pulled her wand out of the pocket of her white robes. She had accepted Hermione as a guest behind the door. “Can I get you anything?”

By magic, the back of the soft rocking chair lowered slowly, and a rest raised beneath her feet. The soft embrace of protective charms closed around them like an embrace.

“No. Thank you.”

“I'll be right outside if you need me.”

More than acceptance, Hermione could see that it was an endorsement of her impulsive decision. A thing she would not deny Hermione or this brand new life, who had lost so much already.

Rose was asleep. At peace with the world next to her mother's heart. He was asleep too. Perfect. Dark and light.

Rose.

“Scorpius,” Hermione murmured in benediction.

*

That Hermione stole into Scorpius’ suite became the worst kept secret amongst the small staff at the Agnodice Centre. Hermione didn't leave that night, and slept in the chair with two babies on her chest while Adriana watched over her like a shepherdess. Ron's arrival downstairs had her handing back the sleeping bundle in the dark blue blanket, embroidered with silver constellations.

Ron talked and laughed and unpacked delicious food sent by Molly Weasley, who was rather put out that she had been relegated to ‘visitor’s hours’. While Hermione ate a still warm pear and ginger muffin, Ron melted over his daughter.

The soundproof enchantments on Agnodice's walls were flawless, but Hermione knew Scorpius was crying.

Her mind raced. She wanted to go to him, but she didn’t want to leave Rose. She was a piece of parchment being torn down the middle.

She stayed.

At length, Rose was fed, changed, and happy to sleep in her father’s arms. Hermione whispered that she would be right back. Ron nodded once, not taking his gaze away from soft cheeks and paper thin eyelids.

Thanks to the skill and attentions of the Agnodice staff, Hermione was mostly healed, but still tender as she walked briskly down the corridor, and crested the stairs. She all but burst into Scorpius’ room, heedless of what, or who she might find in there.

But it was just Adriana, trying to coax milk into Scorpius with a syringe type contraption. Scorpius was indeed crying.

She looked up when Hermione flew in, and gave her a knowing look.

“Can I help you with something Hermione?”

Adriana’s eyes moved down, for Hermione had started to leak. Her breasts were asking the question she would have danced around for another five minutes.

“Can I feed him?” Hermione asked.

The healer considered her, but not for long, not with the baby’s wails becoming more and more urgent. It was the kind of sound that wedged itself in, like a splinter under the skin. Soon they had swapped positions and Hermione lifted Scorpius to her breast. When she felt him latch, she cast a gentle spell to support his head and closed her own eyes at the relief.

Scorpius fell asleep against her skin within a few moments. Hermione’s fingers smoothed down dark hair that wanted to stand up in tufts.

“Any news?” Hermione asked Adriana who was dictating notes to a grey quill.

“It is expected the father will win custody for now, but it will still be days. Maybe a week.”

The father. “I see.” Her mind looked for the way forward amongst a tragic mess that had nothing to do with her.

But it did. It did.

“While Rose and I are here… I could help.” Tension in her fingers had her wanting to cross them. It was mad to ask, perhaps, but to Hermione, the true madness would be to do nothing.

Hermione held her breath before she received her answer.

“Alright.”

So, she returned downstairs with a sleeping baby.

Ron, naturally, was shocked.

“Hermione… have you taken someone else's baby?” Concern for her mental acuity coated his freckle-covered face.

“His mother died… his family haven’t come yet.” This was explanation enough, in her eyes. Sure enough, Ron wilted with sadness.

“Oh.” It was too much to expect Ron would find words of comfort or perspective. “Does he have a name?”

“Scorpius.”

“And who are his parents?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione lied.

*

Rose's course of potions ended, and Hermione was reassured that she was as healthy as any baby could ever hope to be.

Yet, they didn't leave the Agnodice Centre. She offered no explanation to any who asked, only that she and Rose were safe and well, and their homecoming was imminent and anticipated.

Whatever conflict was keeping Scorpius’ remaining family from him wore on. It had been eight days. Most hours of the day and night, Hermione and Rose could be found in the room on the second floor, looking at the restless ocean waves beyond the window. Rose slept and Scorpius did not; he was always looking, searching. Waiting.

Nine days. Ten days.

Hermione didn’t realise she was waiting too until he came.

In the confusing space between deepest night and pale morning with Rose asleep and rocking in a hammock suspended in thin air, Hermione held the dark head to her breast. He was not hers, but she knew him. It had only been days and she was sure that she loved him, that she was a wolf and she would protect her cubs, even those not of her blood.

She made musical sounds, wordless and sweet, and rocked the chair in time with Rose.

Awareness prickled along her scalp, like magic washing over her when she first held her wand. Like something primal sent from the past.

In the doorway stood a man in black, stark and silhouetted against the soft light of the glass bubbles. What little of his face Hermione could see was marked with grief and exhaustion, but it was the hint of his eyes that took her apart.

No one had looked at her like that before. It was a look that cleared away the meaningless meat of her, picked clean her bones and discarded the lot, leaving only the shivering soul underneath.

"What are you doing?" he whispered into the quiet.

Hermione knew it would come. Knew that she’d borrowed time because she couldn’t stay away. "He's almost asleep. Just... please. And then I'll go."

One eternity of the life and death of star systems passed. Her soft gaze moved from the son to the father and beckoned him forth. Draco was slow and careful and so confused as their hands brushed and he took the warm slumbering body into his arms for the first time, and looked down into the face of his son.

Hermione bit her tongue, balled one fist and drew Rose in close. She left without a word and fled back down the stairs.

One door closed, and a second door too.

Later, Scorpius cried, and quiet little Rose, and her muddled-up mother joined him in the chorus.

you arrived, yet never left

or perhaps had always been

“The days are long but the years are short.”

There were so many cliches flying at Hermione that she couldn't keep track of them, nor remember who said what. She and Rose came home to the large brick house she grew up in that was somehow emptier and fuller than it ever was before. Visitors became a faceless mass of high-pitched voices and endless cups of tea that no one made quite right and Hermione could do without everyone — except Ron and maybe Ginny and sometimes Harry. Sometimes, she missed her mum so much it hurt. Sorrow for what she’d done threatened to undo her. Erasing someone’s child from them was unforgivable, she knew that now. Imperio, Avada Kedavra, Obliviate.

Ron foiled her plan to ward all visitors out. Still, she planned the intricate enchantment in her head. Guests could stay for five minutes, drop off food, say hello, tell her Rose is without a doubt the best baby that there ever was, and then they would be promptly zapped from her sight out onto the front lawn.

Rose found her voice and it was loud and nearly constant for a few terrible days, though she still enjoyed her sleep. Hermione tried to sleep. Tried to nap. Tried to read. Television became a lifeline. Graham Norton. The IT Crowd. 8 out of 10 Cats. BBC News. Panorama if she was desperate.

When she wasn’t busy being besotted by her daughter or beset by visitors, she thought of Scorpius. In her mind she saw Draco’s grey eyes finding the wonder of his son’s face. And she’d fled. In that moment, she knew that despite the stillness, Draco shattered completely. And she’d fled. It wasn’t like Ron, when he saw Rose and knew beyond doubt that she was his sun.

Draco was still floating in space, she was sure of it. And she’d fled.

For once in her life, she wanted to talk to Draco Malfoy. Powerfully. It was a very strange feeling, like her blood was suddenly carbonated and she was being shaken up like fizzy drink.

Details about what happened dripped in through conversations and mentions in the Prophet. The rumour mill ground out fine flour: the Greengrass women carried a curse in their blood and in their wombs. Draco didn’t know he was to be a father until it was far too late and Astoria was already wasting away. Astoria’s family blamed him, and he blamed them. They fought for Scorpius and he won. For now.

Hermione’s breasts ached fiercely, but she continued pumping milk. By feeding the little baby with the dark hair, she had told her breasts to produce more. So she used charms she learned in antenatal classes to keep it fresh and warm. It was waiting.

Waiting for what? She asked herself.

Rose and Scorpius were fifteen days old when Hermione put all her milk in a box and sent her screech owl Newton to look for them.

Scorpius Malfoy

She wrote his name on the box. She remembered Rose receiving a parcel from Fleur and the jolt of realising she made a human and that little human had an address and people could now send her things.

Draco, she wrote, and paused, her pen between her teeth. What could she possibly say to him?

I hope it’s okay to call you that.

And I hope it’s okay to send him this.

If you ever want to talk —

She wrote her address, and a single initial.

H.

And she sent Newton flying into the dusty pink evening, before she could change her mind.

*

No one told Hermione about the boredom. Ron sometimes slept on the couch, but she sent him away in case of any false hope. She and Rose wandered around the quiet house, looking at family pictures depicting moments that she remembered but that Rose’s grandparents were forced to forget. Over cool polished floors, and through merrily wallpapered rooms. It was a family home, just for the two of them.

Always, every day, the realisation crept up on her: I’m a mother. I’m a mother. I’m a mother.

Hermioned played music. Danced with Rose to her father’s records. Bowie, The Stranglers and Joy Division.

Love will tear us apart again, she sang along to Rose and she saw the smallest curve of Rose’s rosebud mouth. Rose was too young to smile, probably, but Hermione chose to believe that despite all the evidence that suggested she was tone deaf, Rose could hear her voice and in that moment she was happy.

Days passed. Weeks. Hermione wondered how muggles cared for infants without magic. It was hard enough with magic. When she was trapped under one of Rose’s epic naps she summoned everything to her: Accio this, and accio that. She could adjust temperature with a thought, and vanish the contents of Rose’s nappy in half a second flat. Magical creams and oils cured rashes in no time at all.

Still, Rose could cry and Hermione would desperately ask her what do you want? In her head, Hermione screamed and screamed because there was no magical translator. In bed at night, Hermione could cast charms to keep Rose safe beside her, but dreamless sleep was not recommended for nursing mothers. Few potions were. Except pepper-up. Hermione didn’t need to pepper-up, she needed to fucking sleep.

She sent another box to Scorpius, wherever he was. And another. Nothing arrived in return.

Until:

I don’t know what the fuck to write

Sunday, 3pm. If you want to visit. And Rose.

D.M.

Hermione read the words until they were another imprint on her brain. She was going, of course, if Draco had written in his looping cursive that they could come within the hour she would have left in her threadbare sweats and her greasy topknot. But it was three days until Sunday and she filled the time with reading: titles both magical and muggle, subjects both stimulating and mindless to remind her of who she was and maybe still could be.

Molly arrived on Saturday with Ron and she cleaned and cuddled Rose, and Hermione escaped to fill up the tub. In the warm soapy water she examined her stretch marks. Like four pink versions of Harry’s lightning scar. She knew she could erase them but wondered why she should. Her fingers traced the shape and her floating hair stuck to her and bones relaxed even as her mind wandered to tomorrow.

Upon reflection, she should have known it would cause an argument. Lying was not her strong point, and lying to Ron about where she and Rose were going when she was wearing a dress rather than trackies seemed redundant. Her curls were loose and long.

“You're going to see Malfoy?” Ron was incredulous.

“I'm going to see Scorpius,” Hermione said, trying to fill her voice with conviction.

“At Malfoy Manor?”

“Why does that matter?” she asked, knowing why.

“You know why it matters!” he countered hotly.

He saw it as a house of horrors.

“Ron… I don't know how to make you understand.” There can't have been a mistake in Rose and Scorpius sharing a birthday. There can't have been a mistake.

And Draco… What did she know about Draco? She knew he played quidditch professionally. A chaser. She knew he'd written a piece in an anthology about surviving the war, and she'd read it again and again, unable to imagine the words taking shape under his quill.

I could write about choices, and the ties that bind us to the ones we make. I could write about choices and explain why I didn't make the right ones. Or I could admit that the only choice is the one right in front of all of us. The choice to live. The choice to get out of bed, to accept the realities we cannot change, and hope that we will pick our battles with the wisdom and forbearance we once lacked. And then to do it all again tomorrow.

“I just… I want to see him, okay?”

Ron looked like he wanted to yell; to withdraw and keep Rose in his arms.

“I would never let anything harm Rose,” Hermione entreated. “Tell me you know that?”

Ron paused, as if he wanted to spit the lie. But, he conceded. “I know.”

“Then please.” She held out her arms for Rose, and slipped her into the woven sling she wore over her shoulder.

*

As soon as she and Rose stepped out of the floo, there he was. Waiting for her. Her mirror with a baby wrapped to his chest.

Like many other witches, Hermione had been able to admit to herself and also to Ginny that Draco’s adult beauty had settled over him like a blanket of fallen snow. With every rare glimpse of him at the Ministry, or across a crowded bar, she saw details that once sneered grow thoughtful, and angles fill out into strength and softness. He still smirked, however, and light lines bracketed his mouth and eyes suggesting that he laughed too.

Presently, for a tall, extremely handsome man, Draco looked absolutely terrible. His face was on the grey side of pale, his hair was greasy, and there were purple smudges under his silvery eyes.

Hermione, tired and unfiltered because of it, told him what she thought before he even had the chance to say hello: “You look awful.”

He raised his light brows. “You’ve looked better too.”

It stung since she’d made an effort, but it was true and fair because she’d insulted him first. Suddenly, she realised being here probably meant she was going to have to have a conversation with Draco Malfoy, even if she was here to see his son. Scorpius was currently bound so snugly to his chest that they were essentially the same person. Like her and Rose… for now, there was no one without the other.

“Come on,” said Draco, and he led her down a whispering white corridor, into… what appeared to be an entire apartment, which must have been his home within the wider walls of the cavernous Manor. The walls were cream, and the wood was dark. They stood in a central sitting area, with doors leading off on either side. At the end of the room, there was an enormous window overlooking a fountain in the grounds, and low hedges surrounding immaculate garden beds filled with roses. Light streamed into the space.

With one hand Draco indicated she should sit in a chair made of spring green velvet, and when she did, he did the same. Food and drink popped into existence on the table as soon as their flesh found upholstery.

“Will you judge me if I drink wine?” Draco asked, even as a bottle of red was already hovering in the air before him, uncorking itself with a pop.

“That depends — will you judge me if I join you?” Many people did judge a breastfeeding mother, monitoring everything that touched her lips as if she ceased to exist in the presence of the needs of her baby. Hermione knew one wine wouldn’t hurt, but this was more of a test, than any particular desire for wine. Though she was sure it would be a rare and singular vintage.

Draco flicked his wand and poured Hermione a glass of wine, equal to his, without comment, or judgemental facial expression. He earned himself a single tick in a column that she hadn’t realised was in her head. The wine was spicy and Draco directed a plate of tiny custard tarts to hover next to her. Breastfeeding left Hermione perpetually starving, and she’d eaten two before she had a chance to consider etiquette.

Fuck it. She ate a third. They were sweet, but not too sweet, crumbly and delicious.

It was the moment of truth then. The stage was set for… a conversation. Though she prided herself on her knowledge and to some extent, wit, she’d never attempted to converse with Draco Malfoy. She didn’t know the rules.

She went with a starting point: “How are you?” And immediately regretted it. Why was one of the most common conversation starters in the English language so fraught? ‘How are you’ automatically invited someone to tell a half-truth, or to outright lie.

Draco outright lied: “Fine.”

Maybe Hermione didn’t know the man, but no man thrust into fatherhood the way he was, was fine.

“You definitely look fine,” Hermione agreed, dripping sarcasm.

“Didn’t you know it’s rude to insult your host, Granger?”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could fast forward to the point in the conversation where we’ve cut out the bullshit?”

“You’re suggesting we would’ve reached such a point. I’ve been raised in society, I only know how to bullshit. I could bullshit on my deathbed, and probably postmortem.”

“Right, well. I’m too tired for all that,” she said.

“Then…” He swirled the wine in his glass. Shifted. “How are you?”

Draco Malfoy asked how she was. Planets realigned. Galaxies dimmed and died.

“I feel like—a meteor crashed into my house and I’m the only one who can see it. I feel like a sketch on a piece of parchment instead of a real person. I feel like I will curse the next person who tells me to ‘just enjoy it’.”

For a moment, she feared she has said too much. She had definitely said too much. But then…

“He doesn’t sleep,” Draco said, in a hoarse, haunted voice.

“He’s sleeping now,” she pointed out.

“Yes. For twenty minutes at a time. Upright. And on me.”

“Oh.”

“I keep bursting into laughter but there’s nothing funny about any of this,” he confessed, he was confessing to her.

“You’re tired.”

“No, it's beyond that now. There isn’t a word for what I am. Utterly fucking wankered, is probably closest. I’m drinking replenishing potion like it’s water, but there’s nothing to replenish. And now I’m telling Granger, fucking Granger… you all of this.”

She tried not to feel hurt, but everything was always raw, now. “Why not me?”

Draco looked up, but whatever he might have been about to say was interrupted by an almighty wail at his chest.

Rose twitched in her sleep at the sound of Scorpius, but Hermione patted her gently and she settled quickly.

Draco checked his watch.

“Twenty minutes exactly. It’s really very impressive that he can tell time at such a young age. Accio milk.” In a graceful series of movements, Draco deftly caught the bottle of milk that had zoomed in through a gap in one of the doors leading off the sitting room, and withdrew Scorpius to cradle him in the crook of one finely muscled arm.

Hermione couldn’t take her eyes off the milk. It was her milk, she felt sure of it. Draco followed her gaze and his lips parted, as if he would say something, but he thought better of it.

And because she was cutting all bullshit, she said it: “I could… could I… feed him? If you like?”

And because Draco was utterly fucking wankered, he blinked twice, and then softly said: “If you want to.”

She hadn’t expected it. “Will you hold Rose?”

Babies were carefully and awkwardly exchanged, and Hermione found herself looking into the serious face with the clear grey eyes. He hadn’t forgotten what to do, and she hoped he hadn’t forgotten her.

Draco pointed his wand, and locked the door.

“Why did you lock it?”

“If my mother walks in—” Draco pushed his hair off his face ineffectually. “Look, we just don’t want her digging, okay?”

Hermione had a million questions she wanted to ask, but she sensed she shouldn’t. When she looked up from Scorpius, she saw Draco with Rose laid out on his chest, asleep in the same tucked up way she must have been when she was in utero. The expression on Draco’s face was one of bewilderment and something else that Hermione couldn’t possibly name because perhaps it didn’t have a name, but it flayed her once again.

“She sleeps.”

“A lot,” Hermione confirmed. “Seemed rude to tell you that though.”

“It is rude. I’d like to make a complaint.”

“You’ll probably have to address it to God.”

“I’m composing a strongly worded letter in my head. I have a few topics I’d like to cover, actually.”

There was silence and it was comfortable and awkward and very, very loud.

“This is really strange. If someone told me this exact situation would happen one day I would’ve told them to go to a mind healer,” Draco mused.

“No you wouldn’t have, you would have told them to go fuck themselves and called me names.”

“Have I mentioned I used to be a cunt?”

“Used to be?” She grinned. Teased.

“If we continue spending time together, are you going to be bringing that up a lot? I don’t want my son to realise I am a terrible excuse for a human being until he’s at least eleven and I can send him to Hogwarts and start drinking heavily without him watching me.”

“You’re not.”

“Not what?”

“Not terrible.” He wasn’t, that much was clear. His long fingers were stroking gently down her baby’s back and she knew instinctively, deeply that Rose was safe on Draco’s chest.

He huffed a laugh. “High praise.”

“Your son won’t think that.”

“I thought that about my father, and he definitely hated his father. The stage is set.”

“So perform a different play.”

The words stopped but eyes lingered, on her face, on her breast where Scorpius had closed his eyes in bliss. It was odd to have Draco looking at her bare breast. It was a lot of things, and she was far too addled to apply Golpalott’s Third Law and separate them into separate components.

For something to do, or simply to pierce the intimacy that was overinflating like a balloon in the creamy room, Hermione shoved another tart into her mouth.

An endless braid of bloodlines and spilt milk; it wraps around my wrist

my love

It started as a drip, and then it increased to a flow, and soon it was a torrent. Hermione enchanted little glass balls to allow her and Draco to send whispered voice messages to each other in the middle of the night from across the Isle. The quiet and the mundane felt different knowing that over the miles, someone else—countless others were pacing, singing, looking up at the stars and praying that their little ones will just please please go to sleep.

A message whispered out of the orb as Hermione fed Rose to sleep. She enchanted the warm room so that the sounds of water and birds rippled around them and the lights were low and pink. Draco’s voice was overlaid over the twittering and warbling of robins and blackbirds.

Do you think you’d know it if you went completely mad or do you think you’d just carry on not knowing anything was amiss?

She sent back: I’m assuming you have an anecdote to share?

I just spent five minutes talking to an olive to send you a message. Thought it was the bloody orb.

Hermione pressed her fist against her mouth so she wouldn’t shriek with laughter. What were you talking to me about for five minutes?

I don’t even remember. Tell me though, why am I still wearing so much black? I’m covered in sick. I’ve learned nothing. Scourgify doesn’t seem to be helping. Do you think Scorpius has magical spit up? Does he even retain any milk? Why is it so much easier when you’re here? Why won’t he sleep? Mother keeps sending house elves and they just keep asking me what I need but I just need to sleep, but I don’t want them to look after him because then it’s just my childhood all over again—raised by house elves who probably would’ve smothered me in my sleep if they weren’t enchanted into being unable to express their true feelings. Is Rose sleeping? I bet she’s sleeping. Why won’t he sleep?

Draco said a lot, but one thing echoed in her ears. Why is it so much easier when you’re here? Her heart jolted.

Did you try the white noise charm?

Made no difference. Made me feel like committing murder though. Do you have anyone you need me to off?

Maybe try rain noises?

Considering digging up some Mandrakes, at this stage. Hermione could hear Scorpius crying in the background, but there was a vibrato to it, as if he were being vigorously jiggled. If she was there, she would’ve fed him too. But she felt sure he was drinking her milk.

You know, muggles call the part of the evening when babies are particularly unsettled the witching hour.

That’s discrimination. I think ‘the demon hour’ would be more apt.

The troll hour.

Erumpent hour.

Blast-ended skrewt hour.

Went nearly twenty years not thinking about those things, thanks. You’ve ruined my night.

I thought it was already ruined.

Don’t try to get out of this, ruiner.

Look, why don’t you come here tomorrow? I can look after Scorpius. You can sleep.

When?

Er, later. After dinner.

After Ron leaves, she did not say.

I would usually politely argue about not wanting to inconvenience you but at this stage I don’t care. I hope you are deeply inconvenienced by my hellspawn. Don’t tell him I called him that, he is my whole world.

Your secret is safe with me.

Right. See you tomorrow.

*

Ron was still being wonderful, but Hermione could tell that he was having to work very hard to be understanding about Hermione’s new found friendship with Draco. She had not told him she had invited Draco to stay, nor did she plan to.

“You took him to a muggle playgroup?”

She had, and it had taken virtually no convincing at all. It was held in a community hall at the back of an Anglican church. Scorpius and Rose, still being very small and with undeveloped motor skills, did nothing more than lie on a woolly blanket on the ground staring and waving her fists (Rose), and spitting up and wailing (Scorpius). Draco sipped instant coffee (“Disgusting” he whispered to Hermione) from a mug declaring that he was a ‘Super Mum’. Unsurprisingly, he was the only dad present. When the muggle women gathered found out he was a solo father, they flocked around him like hens, squawking and flapping. It probably didn’t hurt that he was devastatingly handsome. Hermione sat off to the side, unamused. When she heard one of the women use the word ‘daddy’ her eyes narrowed of their own accord. She picked up Scorpius to feed him, and got one or two interested looks from the chickens. All in all, Hermione wouldn’t be suggesting it again.

“I did,” she admitted to Ron. Hermione was buttering toast with rather a lot of force. All her confrontational feelings were being taken out on the poor bread.

“Why didn’t you take me?” Ron pouted.

Hermione plonked the toast in front of him on the kitchen island. By now, it had holes in it.

“Because you were working, Ron. You can come any time. I’m not keeping Rose from you, I told you I wouldn’t. Draco is a stay-at-home dad and he’s my friend, so we went together.”

Ron bit into the toast. “I just can’t get used to it.”

“Why don’t you spend some time with him?” Hermione suggested.

Neither Draco nor Ron wanted this, she knew, but she would keep bringing it up until she wore them both down. This much was clear: they would both be staying firmly in her life, and nothing would change that.

*

Ron left for the day. At the door, Hermione had given him a tight hug and told him that he was a great friend and a great dad, which was true. Sometimes, it hurt. Sometimes, he was obnoxious and she deeply resented his useless, milkless nipples and his inability to shut down his passive aggressive mother. Sometimes she was sure she’d made a mistake and wanted to kiss him and beg him to forgive her. But mostly, she was deeply grateful for Ron just exactly as he was.

An hour later, Hermione was sitting in the living room, holding a book about child development as if in the act of reading. In reality, she was watching a cooking show featuring a chef who seemed to yell more than he cooked. The fire to her left flared green and she jumped even though she’d been jittery while anticipating his arrival all evening. Draco, with Scorpius strapped to his chest, held a leather overnight bag in one hand. Hermione stared at the bag even though of course when you invite someone to sleep at your house and they bring an overnight bag there is nothing weird about it. At all.

“Hiya,” Hermione greeted. A little happy bubble jumped into her chest at the sight of them, and even though it was a happy bubble, she frowned.

“Hi.”

Draco plonked himself down beside her on the couch, wearing lounging clothes which were a soft, dark grey. He’d gotten better at remembering to cast impervius on his clothes, and the fine fabric remained pristine, unsullied by spew for once. Still, he looked worse than ever, which was to say, still quite excellent.

They then performed a choreographed movement in which Scorpius was swapped for Rose. Draco flashed Rose the softest version of his smirk while Hermione bent to repeatedly kiss Scorpius’ now chubby cheeks. Scorpius rewarded her with a sound that Hermione had never heard before. A gurgling, delighted, squeaky… giggle.

“Did you just laugh, my little pumpkin? Did you just laugh?” Hermione’s voice took on the high-pitched tone that it was impossible not to adopt when talking to an infant. As much as she accepted Scorpius as Scorpius’ name, and couldn’t imagine him being called anything else—it simply didn’t roll off the tongue. Thus, ‘pumpkin’. Draco complained at first, but eventually accepted the nickname. Especially as Scorpius steadily gained heft, and became more pumpkin-like in general.

Scorpius kept laughing and she kept kissing. Her heart soared. So far, Rose had offered her no more than a bemused ‘heh’.

When she turned to Draco, beaming and expecting him to also be in on the marvel, he looked… shell shocked. Like the day he’d first walked in and found his son in her arms.

“Draco?” she ventured, her face falling.

His voice was gentle, bitter. “Could you…?” He handed her Rose and suddenly she was holding both little bodies and Draco practically flung himself through the door and out of the room.

Then, Hermione didn’t know what to do. She wanted to follow Draco, but she had two babies and her wand was just out of reach on the floor. She carefully extended one foot, and picked up the vine wood with her toes. No one had told her that being a parent to an infant would mean wishing daily for extra arms (there was no charm for that, unfortunately) so she had become very dexterous with her toes.

A chain of charms and a bit of transfiguration had a woven bassinet floating in the air with both babies held safely inside a nest of blankets. She enchanted it to trail after her like a strange little zeppelin, and she followed Draco.

He was sitting on the stairs, elbows on knees, face in hands, hair messier than she’d ever seen it.

“Draco, what is it?” Hermione sat next to him, two stairs down. Closer, she could see that his shoulders were shaking. When he didn’t answer, she laid a hand gently on his thigh.

“Fuck.” Was all she discerned.

“Are you alright?”

He looked up, and his grey eyes were filled with unshed tears, his jaw tight. “Stop asking me that Granger, the answer is always no. I am not alright. I will never be alright.”

“You’re tired.”

“Of course I’m tired, but it’s not that.” Draco drew a shuddering breath. “He laughed for you.”

Hermione’s face must’ve said something, because he backtracked—put his hand over her hand. “No,” he said. “No, I don’t mean that wasn’t the fucking best sound I’ve ever heard in my life, and of course he did it for you. Of course he did. I just mean—I’m not enough for him. I… he’s mad at me, because I’m not her.”

Astoria. Draco never talked about Astoria.

Hermione knew she needed to find the right words but they were a jumble in her mouth and in her head. Some things could be said without words, so she squeezed his hand and pressed closer.

“I know you’re going to dismiss me, but you’re tired and it’s hard to think anything good when your cauldron is empty. Anyone in your situation would find it hard—impossible—but you showed up and that is the most important thing.”

Draco shook his head, as if to disagree.

But she wasn’t finished. “You don’t have to be perfect, Draco, only good enough. And you are more than enough, okay?”

His grey eyes searched her face. “Where did you come from?”

Hermione’s mouth went dry and she gently withdrew her hand. “I was born in this house, actually.”

But she knew that wasn’t what he was asking.

Before anyone could succumb to madness and do or say something irretrievable, Rose broke the tension by shrieking loudly—Scorpius had poked her in the eye with one of his flailing hands. Hermione stood, and plucked Rose out of swinging range and into her arms.

“Right.” Hermione switched to business. “Do you prefer showers or baths?”

“Er, baths,” Draco replied.

“Second door on the left.” She pointed up the stairs. “Go on and have a bath, and then it’s bedtime. No arguments.”

Draco stood. Two steps up, he towered over her… but he hesitated. “I should be looking after you.”

“You can—tomorrow. You can make breakfast.”

“Deal. The fullest English you’ve ever eaten.”

*

Draco emerged with damp hair and a towel around his neck. Hermione had somehow wrangled both babies into their sleepsuits—though she amused herself by putting Scorpius in the one patterned with red roses, and Rose in the black and white stripe meant for him. She was reading from a magical pop up book, that had tiny versions of real animals popping out of the book and making real animal sounds when the page was turned. The snake hissed and then the dragon roared. It took quite a lot of the work out of reading when the cow “moo”ed for itself.

Draco was smiling at them and Hermione couldn’t take it so she closed the book. “Right. Bed. Scorpius can sleep with me and Rose, and you can take my old room and sleep all night.”

Draco scooped up his son and kissed him on the top of the head. “You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind, really. It’s easy enough these days, pop a boob out, they go back to sleep.”

“‘Pop a boob out’?” Draco repeated.

“I’m not sure how else to describe it.”

“It paints a picture. Anyway—it’s not that it’s not a very good offer, it’s just… I don’t think I’d sleep if I couldn’t see him.”

Hermione understood. She understood from the tip of her nose, to the ends of her toes. Right down to the atoms of her being. There was a solution, and it was madness but it was also the clearest, purest thought she’d ever had.

“I’ll extend my bed. We’ll all fit.”

Draco looked at her sharply and studied her, as if to check if she was joking… or if she was sane.

Then, a million terrifying years later, he nodded and followed her up the stairs.

In her eggshell blue room, with memories all over the walls, propped up against the pillows, Hermione fed Rose to sleep while Draco fed Scorpius his bottle. Hermione did indeed extend the bed, but Draco still seemed extremely, obscenely close. When he wasn’t looking she studied his straight nose in profile, and the way his clean hair fell over his face. The expression he wore looking at his son was exquisite—still there was pain, but it was the vulnerable, loving pain of having one’s heart beating outside one’s chest.

Hermione conjured hibiscus flowers, and hummingbirds to hover over the bed. She dimmed the lights to almost nothing and watched the birds drink nectar amongst the shadows. Finally, she cast all her protective enchantments, this time to include Draco and Scorpius.

“Goodnight,” she whispered, laying the sleeping Rose beside her.

Scorpius wasn’t yet asleep. He watched the hummingbirds with a serious expression on his face and Draco arranged his long body around the tiny one.

“Goodnight, Hermione.”

*

Several adjustments happened during the night. Rose woke once to feed and went promptly back to sleep. Scorpius woke four times, and Hermione eventually swapped him with Rose and let Scorpius latch most of the night. He seemed very content with this state of affairs.

Draco muttered something in the very wee hours about her warming charm being “hotter than the sun.”

When she woke, still too early, but not so early that she couldn’t start her day, Hermione realised two things.

One, that one of her feet was entangled with one of Draco’s.

And two, that Draco was still sleeping, and extremely shirtless. He was pale, and his skin was scattered with scars, some silver, some pink. She longed to ask about them, to trace them. He was strong too, slimmer than when she first saw him in the doorway, perhaps, but all the hints of his quidditch training were still there. When Scorpius was older, he told her he’d get back into it. He couldn't wait.

His eyes were open.

“How did you sleep?” she preempted any teasing with a question, cracked out like a whip.

He stretched, she looked away.

“Best sleep I’ve had in months. I feel like I could climb a mountain…” He pushed his hair back off his forehead. “But I’ll start with breakfast, as promised.”

Hermione needed to not think about the things she was starting to think she might… almost, quite possibly… want to climb. A lot.

Draco made an enormous mess in the kitchen. As a chef, he was inexperienced with muggle facilities. Still, Hermione held a baby on each knee, put on one of her dad’s old records and watched Draco work.

We can be heroes, just for one day…

Hermione watched as Rose stared for a minute at Scorpius, and made a swing for his face. She smiled and then he smiled and Hermione’s heart was about to self-destruct.

Breakfast was subpar. Hermione ate every bite.

*

If Draco and Hermione had crossed a line by sharing a bed, then they also found that staying on the new side of the proverbial line suited everyone just fine. Most nights, Draco and Scorpius stayed. A new normal had arrived, even amongst the constant change of developing babies. Rose rolled over. Scorpius despised tummy time. Rose was uninterested in banana and porridge and strips of steak, and mashed avocado. Scorpius excelled at eating from day one.

Hermione did not like keeping secrets from Ron, but she didn’t yet know how to explain what the hell was going on. When she figured it out, the first person she needed to explain it to was herself. Draco was occasionally still there in the morning when Ron arrived, but Hermione had explained that away by saying Scorpius woke daily at five am and Draco had offered to use the extra time in the morning to make breakfast. It wasn’t entirely untrue.

Draco endeared himself to Ron ever so slightly by giving him a plate of breakfast, and pretending he didn’t hate the Chudley Cannons.

It had been going on for months, and Hermione had had a hellish day of feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and a shell of her former self. Rose had a tooth coming, and there was no magic or muggle remedy that was helping. She. Would. Not. Stop. Crying.

Ron was away in France, and Draco was having dinner with his mother. Hermione was trapped in an armchair under a finally napping Rose and she had absolutely no idea where her orb or her wand was. She needed to pee, her nipples felt raw and tender and now that Rose had finally stopped crying, Hermione took over. Her entire, unfamiliar body shook with quiet sobs.

That was how Draco found her when he and Scorpius, chubbier than ever and facing forwards in his carrier now, walked through the Floo into the dark living room.

He was at her side in an instant.

“What happened?”

His hand was on her face, lifting her chin. He didn’t care that she was topless.

“I—I lost my w-wand,” Hermione whimpered.

“Oh.” Draco withdrew his wand from his pocket. “Accio Hermione’s wand.”

Nothing happened.

“I soak it in a repelling solution. No one can summon it except for me… old habits die hard.”

Draco smirked. “Me too. Don’t worry, we’ll find it. In the meantime—”

The lights went on, the temperature rose a few degrees and a low fire started burning in the grate. Draco summoned a glass and filled it with water and watched as Hermione drank before filling it again.

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

She shook her head. He strode towards the kitchen and was back in just a few minutes with a plate of cut up fruit and cheese and several delicate looking chocolates that he must’ve brought with him.

“Thank you,” Hermione whispered.

“Let me take care of you, okay? I want to.”

Hermione started crying anew and Draco sat on the floor next to her, pulling Scorpius out of his carrier to perch on his folded legs. Scorpius spotted the food on Hermione’s hovering plate within two seconds, and Draco selected a slice of soft peach and handed it to him.

It took Scorpius only another two seconds to mash the peach all over himself and his father and babble for more.

“There’s something else,” Hermione said, nervous to ask, but desperate all the same.

“Anything.”

“Can you summon the balm for my… you know… for my nipples?” She got the word out and then hurriedly added. “I haven’t needed it for a while, it’s just with Rose and this tooth—”

“It’s fine, Hermione. Nipples don’t scare me,” Draco told her. “Accio nipple balm.”

A tiny jar of ointment zoomed into Draco’s outstretched hand. He carefully placed Scorpius on the rug with his peach and opened the jar for Hermione. She dipped her finger in, and the sweet, dancing smell of calendula and camomile surrounded the armchair. With one hand, while trying not to disturb Rose, Hermione rubbed the concoction (a magical remedy, also charmed to stay cool) into her stinging breasts. Closing her eyes, she made circles and let out a sigh of relief.

She knew Draco was watching, and knowing this, this time, felt divine.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“If you say thank you again, I’m putting you under a silencing charm.”

By the time Hermione decided she could no longer ignore her bladder, she carefully transferred Rose to Draco and ran towards the bathroom. Fortunately, this was also where she located her lost wand. She resolved to attach her wand to herself somehow. Or master a wandless summoning spell post haste.

Draco carried both the babies up the stairs and Hermione stole away to brush her teeth, looking out the small bathroom window at the full moon, huge and yellow — just like it had been when she went into labour and brought her daughter forth into this strange world.

Some nights were filled with magic. Even in this leafy muggle neighbourhood, ancient energy pulsed through the air and across the bones of the house that held the memories of people who'd forgotten.

Hermione stripped off her clothes, loosed her hair from its bun and stood in blue lace knickers and the least ugly nursing bra that she could find at Marks & Spencer—a very plain black. She frowned at herself in the mirror, not letting the thoughts she was having surface, but feeling them there, tumbling in the depths.

She pulled on her pyjama shorts, and left the matching shirt open.

When she reentered the room, Scorpius was asleep with his arms raised in a cactus shape, and Draco was holding Rose and patting her back as he paced up and down the bedroom floor.

He raised a finger to his lips, shhh.

A few more minutes, and Draco had performed a sheer miracle and put both babies down in the centre of the bed. Over the bed, Draco had enchanted tiny glistening golden snidgets to fly in a figure eight pattern around the ceiling.

“If I'd known that you were going to manage that I would have gone to the pub,” Hermione quipped.

“You can,” Draco offered. “I'd hold down the fort.”

“Nah. I’d actually prefer to stay home.” With you, her mind added. And it was a little earthquake that continued as he rolled his eyes at her fondly, and slipped, shirtless, into his side of the bed.

She stared at his snidgets for a long time before she could articulate the jaggedness, the gaping wound that seemed to have opened up down her sternum.

“Draco… do we live together?” she asked.

The breathy silence stretched out long enough that she was willing to believe he had fallen asleep.

But then: “Pretty much.”

“And we share a bed when you're here.”

“Yes.”

“...Does that bother you?”

He turned to her on his pillow. Looked across two sleeping miracles.

“Why would it bother me?”

“I mean… it would be hard to explain if you wanted to date someone or—”

“I don't,” he said. Flat, emphatic. “Hermione, there isn’t any place on Earth I'd rather be, than here with you. Do you hear me?”

Like he'd yelled it from the roof, she heard him speak this truth that also belonged to her. Truths were easy then, and she was swept up in a tide of them. She looked at Scorpius’ slumbering scowl and knew that flesh didn't matter when loving a child—not like one might suppose. She knew that she was changed as a person but every fundamental fire still burned as glowing embers waiting to be stoked.

Hermione slid her feet over clean sheets and because she needed to touch him so badly, hooked her toes over Draco’s ankle. In sleep, they always ended up this way, but never waking. Sometimes their fingertips would brush beneath the pillows but always the babies were between them.

Another truth. Hermione thought about touching Draco all the time. Sometimes she couldn't resist flicking his nose, or squeezing his arm. Sometimes she hugged him. In dreams, she wrapped around him like ribbons. He was beautiful, vital, hers. Sent by the moon herself.

His foot journeyed higher up her leg and it wasn't enough—she needed to say something, make an impassioned speech so he would know that he was oxygen but all that came out was…

“I love you.”

His feet stilled. His breath locked.

He was out of the bed then, on her side, taking her hands, kneeling, whispering, praying. Don’t wake the babies; never wake a sleeping baby.

So many conversations interrupted or truncated because parents are called away. Not this one. The truths came fast.

“What kind of love?” he asked urgently.

“All of them, I suppose.” She hadn’t had time to look up the philosophers.

His grip was tight. “And what does it mean?”

“Nothing. This weird little life will change but right now it's perfect even though it's not perfect at all. I don't expect anything.”

“Expect something,” Draco whispered. “You can have everything. It's already yours.”

Then she was made up only of aches and itches and she was untangling herself from the sheet, standing, pulling him away from the bed and towards the hall. Never wake a sleeping baby. They almost made it before Draco pulled her by the hand he held and pressed her into the doorframe.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes please.”

There is intimacy in nurturing infants. Giving sustenance, touch… an act of giving love. It is an equation always unbalanced, and a guilty abiding thought Hermione had sometimes was a fantasy of being left alone for a week in silence, with no one touching her. Needless to say, sex hadn't been on her mind.

But perhaps that wasn't as true as she'd suggested to Ginny, for when Draco's lips touched hers, magic rippled and rolled over her skin, lighting her up like she was a wand in his hand.

Philosophers and poets writing about love sometimes forgot to consider minutiae—many that are remembered were men after all. A first kiss is treated as a footnote when considering love, barely worthy of mention.

But some kisses are monuments. That kiss was a cry of surrender—a recognition of being nothing but souls attached to bodies that bleed and breathe and need—a validation of the vitality of other people. No man is an island. Hermione was a supercontinent. An interconnected ecosystem.

Draco surged into her and aligned the centre line of his body perfectly with hers. Her chin tilted up and her lips parted for the wonder of his. There was toothpaste on their breath as nerve endings brushed nerve endings and he sucked her bottom lip and swallowed her soft moan. She wanted his tongue so she teased with the tip of hers and her tender breasts pressed against his broad chest.

Her fingers were in his silky hair and the doorframe bit into her spine.

“Is this okay?” Draco pulled away to whisper.

“Yes.” Fingers on his neck.

“What do you want?” Fingers on her neck.

Everything. Your heart on a plate, next to mine.

“What are you offering?” she asked.

“Seems like body and soul, at this stage.” He kissed her forehead, and the sweetness contrasted with the hardness at her hip.

“Hmm, can you sweeten the deal?”

“I assume you're aware of the professional athlete, sole heir, philanthropist thing?”

“Remind me we need to talk about capitalism at some point.”

“Is lecturing how you dirty talk?” Draco asked slyly.

“If we keep this up, one or both of them is going to wake up.”

“Teasing you is maybe my favourite thing in the world, but I haven't fucked you yet so I'll stop.”

Hermione made a noise, and another when Draco licked her throat. She grew bolder, swimming underneath his soft sweatshirt and onto warm skin.

“Yet?”

“Hmm?”

“You said ‘but I haven't fucked you yet’. Do you intend to?”

“With your permission and the grace of whichever God can keep my son asleep, yes.”

Her body was different. She'd been with Ron for so long that it was hard to remember the fumbles that came before. Still, fabric clung between her legs and her fingertips tingled on his skin. Desire blushed over her whole body, tightening and loosening and hollowing out.

Sometimes life was survival. Minutes at a time, clawing her way through.

Other times life was lucious, indulgent—abundant.

Hermione wanted Draco by her side for both.

So she told him what to do. “Fuck me, then.”

Languid became fevered. The air from the warm bedroom mixed with cool air from the hallway and they were the storm front created by atmospheric pressure—thunder—she hauled clothes off him, roughly, with no finesse about it. He managed finesse, but only just and he was gentle and slow as he unclasped her bra. He looked and pulled her apart again and whispered:

“You're so beautiful.”

It was the howling wind—their kiss resumed with tongue brushing tongue, and they had to separate to breathe before coming together again. Again. Trousers were kicked to the floor, followed by underwear. Skin-to-skin, they connected and—lightning struck—they tumbled to earth.

After the storm came the flood. Still on the threshold between two rooms, Draco kissed down her body and its rolling tide and parted her legs.

“Let me take care of you,” he murmured.

Hermione dripped out a yes and when he licked up her slit and gently added a long finger, then another, the word kept raining down yes yes fuck yes.

He was patient, experienced but still willing to learn her. He listened, but she was trying to stay quiet.

“Is it good?” he asked.

“It feels so good,” she answered.

Those are her last words as Draco lavished on her clit, with hot breath and gentle suction and curling fingers in her cunt. She rose and fell and bit her lip as she came. It was long and relentless; like nothing that had come before. She felt alive, so alive… even though she was made of nothing but dust and petals, blowing in the breeze.

It was hot. Perhaps her warming charms were too much. She was wrung out and sweaty but she repeated her desire.

“Fuck me.”

He moved up her body and claimed a light kiss. There was no more time to waste, every second was borrowed so Hermione wrapped her hand around his cock—velvety and thick—and stroked him against her flooded skin.

He groaned as he pushed into her and collapsed into her neck.

It was momentous maybe, having sex after having a baby. Hermione had expected it to feel different and it didn't, yet it did. It wasn't because birth had rearranged her physically. It was because she was new and it was because of him.

“Draco,” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Harder.”

She saw his grin close up, and kissed it on each corner—north, east, south and west. She was filled with him, stretched open by his cock… and when she started whimpering and whining, he pressed a hand over her mouth.

“Shh,” he admonished.

Rose emitted a gentle cry in her sleep.

They froze. Waited. Hoped it would come to nothing.

A minute passed. Two. They laughed nervously at the ridiculousness of it all.

“I think we're safe,” he whispered.

She nodded, and he wasted no more time. He pressed her leg against his chest to go deeper, harder. Without his hand, she would be screaming. He simply gasped.

They were reduced to sweat and breath. Draco's muscles tensed.

“Can I come inside you?”

She nodded under his hand and it was only another fractured moment before he came and she felt the rapid pulse of his climax dissolve into warm liquid filling her inside.

He dissolved too. Removed his hand and replaced it with a kiss. Now that they had come together, Hermione never wanted them to be apart.

Draco raised himself up, still inside her. He was flushed and his hair was messy. She loved it when his hair was messy. He looked down at her.

“You're leaking,” he said softly.

Indeed, white milk flowed down her left breast. Oxytocin did not know how to discriminate.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Don't apologise… May I?”

Deep trust had Hermione nodding, and Draco bent his beautiful head to clean her with the flat of his tongue. His cock finally slipped out and she keenly felt the slide of sweet mess at her core. She ached still. She wanted him back, again and again. His tongue circled her nipple and it was sensitive and too much by far, but her heart beat like hammer on anvil and it slipped out again, maybe because he was at her breast.

“I love you, Draco.”

He raised himself again, cupping her flushed cheeks in his fingers.

“I loved you from the minute I saw you with him.”

“Oh.”

And here they were, back in a doorway.

The full moon wove more miracles and the babies did not stir. Wand in hand, Draco conjured and transfigured and made them a nest upon the floor.

They talked in whispers, face to face.

“I need to talk to Ron.”

“You’ll find a way.”

Later.

“Astoria’s family. He needs to know them.”

“He knows Daphne.”

“But he needs his grandparents too.”

Hermione felt protective. “They treat you like shit.”

“It isn't about me.”

“Fine,” she sighed, as if she had a say. “But I'm coming.”

“Are you now?” He was smirking.

Scorpius woke first, then Rose. Hermione fed them both, a challenge now that they were getting bigger and discovering their own muscles. Draco sat by her, stroking her hair, stroking soft baby heads, and tracing a massaging charm across her shoulders.

In the morning they woke with hands joined under the pillows, a shelter for the children between them.

*

Ten days later, Ron was cheering for Rose who was screeching and determined to crawl, as if he was watching the quidditch world cup final.

He'd been unusually distant all morning, and this led Hermione to believe that he knew about her and Draco and just didn't know how to bring it up. So. She would do it.

She placed a cup of milky tea for him on the coffee table, and sat on the dark blue sofa. Rose was undoubtedly a ginger now. With her father next to her on the carpet, the similarities were plain to see.

“Ron,” she began.

He looked up, handsome and happy, but also there—hesitant.

“Is there anything you want to talk to me about?”

The grin faltered, and he paused to pull—a by now very frustrated—Rose into his lap. She started happily nibbling on the finger he offered her.

Silence then. “Er—how do you always do that? Yeah, actually.”

She sipped her tea and her eyebrows invited him to continue. She hoped she was projecting serenity in spite of the writhing of her internal organs.

“I'm dating… someone.”

Hermione almost dropped her tea. She had not expected that. So all she managed in reply was: “Wha?”

“It's only really been a few weeks but still I should have told you, asked you even! It's a bit of a blur to be honest, I can't say much because it's work stuff but she was mixed up in this gambling ring playing Russian Roulette with the draught of living death—I ask you—and then she agreed to be an informant for me and as soon as she wasn't and I got her out I just… I knew.” It was a massive jumble of words and Hermione tried to pick it all apart. “Fuck, I don’t know why I'm telling you all this. I’ll shut up now.”

“Do I know her?” Hermione had to know, but not because she had changed her mind.

“Er… yes. It's Pansy.”

Oh. “Parkinson?!”

“Yeah—ouch.” Rose bit Ron's finger and chuckled her soft little chuckle. Ron offered her a plush Hippogriff instead. It flapped its wings in her fat little fist, as if trying to get away from an inevitable chomping.

“Look, after you and Malfoy it doesn't seem that weird, but still a little weird. Good weird, maybe?”

“What do you mean ‘me and Malfoy’?”

“What do you mean ‘what do I mean’? You're still together, aren't you?”

“Er…” Hermione was completely lost for words. Did Ron… know? How did Ron know? And was he… fine with it?

“Don't get me wrong, when you sat me down and said ‘you're both in my life that's final’ it was all I could do not to duel him, but I just got really drunk with Harry instead and he was awkward and said like ‘it's about Rose, mate’ and that was it. Really.”

Hermione moved swiftly. She was crying and hugging Ron and Rose and hoarsely telling him she loved him and hoped he and Pansy would be so happy and have one hundred children.

For his part, Ron laughed richly and hugged her back.

*

It took months before the unlikely quad sat down all together at one table, with two highchairs parked nearby. Pansy was polite, but wary. Ron explained fondly that when Pansy felt out her depth she usually started insulting everyone and everything, but she was on her best behaviour. Pansy's glare said he would pay for that comment, later.

Hermione knew that the designer baby clothes for Rose that started arriving from Ron were not from Ron at all. Weasley jumpers and baby Chloé… they were a contrast indeed.

Draco cooked. He had improved markedly, and prided himself on making an entire linguine recipe without magic. Tonight's offering was minestrone. Scorpius threw his helping directly on the floor.

They talked, and laughed, long after the babies went to bed. Wine flowed and candles were lit.

Hermione knew there had been moments where everything was pain and confusion, and that it was certain there were more to come. The sharp edges wore down over time, and soon all that was left was smooth sea glass held in the palm of her hand.

Under the table, Draco's knuckle brushed against hers.

*

It's oh so quiet, my love, my love,

in the belly of the earth

where dwells shards of my former self

my love

ears and heart and hands

An endless braid of bloodlines and spilt milk; it wraps around my wrist

my love

and pierces through my chest

you arrived, yet never left

or perhaps had always been

Here in details

dimples, knuckles

eyelashes

a heralding cry goes up

my love

Echoing your name

I will sing of softness

in this quiet universe, my love,

of breath

of faith

of pain