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Draco had never known happiness, evading peace and safety since childhood, he had lived his whole life without being unequivocally and unconditionally loved.

Not like this. 

Not before Hermione .

Together, they lived a perfect life. Devoid of pain. Free from persecution. Safe from the torment of sorrow and despair. 

After everything they had been through, Draco and Hermione deserved as much. They fought their wars, dedicating their adolescence to causes that should not have been their responsibilities. 

They had earned a quiet home. Something peaceful and serene. Away from naysayers, the disbelievers. They needed to be away from the critics, from people so unsupportive of their relationship, they would have proudly crushed Draco and Hermione’s affection into ash before it had even had the chance to bloom into the overflowing garden it became.

Draco carved their nirvana with his bare hands, putting his blood, sweat, and tears into creating a sanctuary– their very own garden of Eden, just for them. With bloody knuckles and bruised lips, Draco changed the tide, fighting and clawing his way to a life where they could be together. Hidden from prying eyes and scandalous rumors; sheltered from gossipy whispers of speculation.

Their journey had been harrowing. Large sacrifices were made by both. Many concessions, too. It had been painful, but they were no strangers to pain. Nor, to heartbreak, or loss. To achieve peace, they left loved ones behind, heartwrenching goodbyes to their families and forlorn farewells to their friends. They endured long-standing chaos and trekked through Hell. 

Draco knew that Heaven could not be sculpted by the slothful, nor by the timid, the people unwilling to commit wholeheartedly to their vision. So, Draco and Hermione had laid their old lives to rest, opting for a whimsical existence away from the madness of reconstruction in the wizarding world. In the end, all had been worthwhile. For now, his miraculous wife looked up at him with affection in her eyes, glimmering like the stars at night, so bright and beautiful in the clear country skies.

Draco was the reason that they were here. The reason that they were happy and safe. The reason they lived a life of joy and affection. 

He had only done what any good man would do – what any good husband would do – what any good father would do.

Whatever means necessary to keep his family safe. 

Whatever means necessary to protect their oasis.

His hands might have been dirtied, covered in mud and blood that seeped through his skin and into his bones. He scrubbed at them until his hands were chapped and raw, turning into an angry, ruby hue, ridding them of the grime. Still, it lingered below the surface; he felt it festering deep within–inside of a dark abyss, Draco shoved it down inside of him, locking it inside a metal box and throwing away the key. Sometimes the box shook, rattling violently, but it always remained locked.

And now, as proof of his endeavors, they lived in Heaven, a sanctuary of their very own. They lived a carefully curated existence, handcrafted by Draco himself just as Michaelangelo carved David out of marble. 

But, there were still things he must do to keep things running smoothly. To hold the ever-looming hurricane off-shore and keep their heads above the rushing rapids.

Just as he had gone to the ends of the earth, immolating any obstacles within his path, Draco extinguished and eradicated any nuisances or pests that popped up, threatening the delicate harmony they had achieved. He would rearrange the constellations to make Hermione’s cheeks turn rosy and to see the corners of her lips upturn with mirth.

Draco had everything he had ever wanted. His labors were fruitful. They lived in utter bliss, sunshine and rainbows lingering on the horizon as far as the eye could see. He had a wife who loved him and two children he adored with a third on the way. They had a beautiful home and a large plot of land.

Their two toe-headed tots were cherubic with rosy, fat cheeks and ecstatic giggles. Little Scorpius with straight silvery strands like his father, and little Lyra with flaxen curls and chocolate eyes. Scorpius was nearing age four, not even two years older than Lyra at age two. Draco had chosen to continue the Black family tradition of astral names; he felt it fitting considering how they filled his universe with light.

Their life was simple and slow . Tucked away in the French countryside, with the closest neighbors dozens of kilometers away, it was not exactly the life Draco envisioned for himself, but it was perfect nonetheless.

Draco and Hermione made a good team. Their relationship was stronger on the farm than it had been before. Their bond was fortified by their increased reliance on one another.

They were practically self-sufficient, near completely disconnected from proper civilization, living happily in their own little bubble. Whatever they were unable to grow or raise themselves, Draco could obtain easily from his connections by selling potions or trading ingredients. He was a skilled brewer and many plants utilized in the most complex concoctions bloomed on their property.

Their small cottage was quaint and cozy. There was plenty of room for their ever-growing family. Their expansive plot of land extended as far as the eye could see in every direction, with green and golden fields extending until reaching the treeline and then continuing further.

Hermione was not sure where their property ended. She knew Draco had papers tucked away somewhere– the deed to their house, their marriage certificate, and identification documents for themselves and the children. Financial statements. She was not sure how much Draco earned, but she knew their income was steady. They did not have to worry about money. They were lucky in that way. 

In the back of her mind, she remembered seeing Draco hunched over the kitchen table with sheets of paper haphazardly scatted across the wooden surface. He kept huffing in frustration, brows pulling close together and the muscle in his sharp jaw twitching. 

Hermione had asked what he was working on– if it was something she might be able to help with. She thought it might be an issue she could solve. She enjoyed being useful. A flash of anger crossed his face, her chest tightening at the sight. 

She had a vague sense of deja vu like this was not the first time he had looked at her, sneering with rage. It was odd since she could not remember a time he had been harsh with her. He treated her like she was delicate, fragile– like she might crack at the slightest disturbance. He was gentle with her, excessively so. Sometimes Hermione felt like a porcelain doll, something he would prefer to keep on a shelf to display, where she could stay precious, stay perfect.

His face evened out into a neutral expression. He smiled hollowly, but she felt the tension dissipate all the same. He said she didn’t need to worry her pretty, little head about this. That he would take care of it. Of her. Draco said it hurt him that she doubted his capabilities. He asked if he had ever let her down before. 

This was in their early days. Before Scorpius had been born. The cottage was still sparse, furnished but not decorated. Their relationship was intimate. Tender. She knew that they had known each other for a long time, but her memories before the farm were fuzzy at best, mostly black and blank.

Hermione loved their little house. The adorable cottage with a thatched roof, tendrils of ivy crawling up the pearly trellis, creeping up the faded wooded slats, once a crisp creamy white, now chipping in places, revealing the natural, tan hue underneath. Draco would give it a new coat of paint soon. Maybe when the days were longer in the summertime. She imagined Scorpius and Lyra helping him, giggling and speckled with ivory splatters on their faces and overalls. The thought made her smile.

Their bedroom was warm, bathed in natural light flowing through the large windows, scattering rainbows on the floor as the rays reflected and refracted. Their sheets were soft, adorned with cornflower bouquets in an almost polka-dotted pattern. Their bed was large enough to fit the four of them, cuddled up together for a story or when the children were scared during a storm, thunder roaring outside the windows with knifelike rain attacking the windows, coming down near sideways.

The cottage was a little small, but it felt cozy rather than cramped. It was simple, yet lovely. Hermione was proud of her home. Most of their decorations were handmade. The patchwork quilts on the beds were sewn by Hermione along with most of their clothes. She knit blankets for the couches, soft afghans in woolen yarn, necessary for warmth in addition to the firewood crackling beneath the mantle. She crocheted lacy curtains and doilies, even little toys for the children; she embroidered wallhangings. Slowly, she turned the house into a home that they were filling with life, little feet to pitter-patter on the stairs and tiny hands sneaking into the cookie jar.

Her kitchen had sage-colored cabinets and open shelves to display their mason jar glasses and floral-patterned plates. She kept pies cooling on the windowsill– apple, blueberry, rhubarb; maybe a cobbler– peach or cherry. Whatever was in season, growing plentifully in her garden. Warm bread, recently baked, for breakfast and tasty, healthy dinners with freshly harvested vegetables and lean protein.

Hefty servings for Draco, less so for her. She saw a disapproving look in his eye if she overloaded her plate. He shook his head if she reached for desserts too often. It was nice that he cared about her. She wanted to make him happy. He did so much for her, for their family.

She liked tending to the garden best. Planting the seeds and nurturing the sprouts, aiding their growth until they were ripe, ready to be gathered then cooked. She grew carrots and beets, tomatoes as large as her fist. The bushes overflowed with juicy berries that burst sweetly in her mouth. Fruit grew from the ground and on trees. The orchard was shady, with crisp apples in the fall and citrusy lemons and oranges to add a certain zest to her recipes.

Her favorite plants were herbs. Fresh thyme and parsley. Rosemary and chives. It elevated her cooking and she loved the scents, earthy like loam. It lingered on her hands; she’d let the savory aroma waft through the air, a slightly sappy residue on her palms until the next time she washed them. She grew mint for Draco. He liked to add it to his tea, a warm cup each night when winding down, and cool, iced glasses after he returned to the house from choring, sweaty and parched, muscles bulging, veins prominent along his sturdy forearms.

Draco tended to the larger crops. The massive fields of corn and grain, the tall stalks standing higher than Hermione’s head where Scorpius and Lyra liked to dally, playing tag or hide-and-seek. He focused on their animals, feeding the chickens and goats, tending to the cows and pigs, and taking the horses out of the stables to gallop in the corral. 

Their son liked the sheep most. He liked to pet them, tangling his tiny hand in their soft fur. When the months turned warm, Draco would shave them bare so they would stay cool under the scorching heat. Scorpius would gather the fallen tufts, overjoyed to play with the soft fibers until Hermione had the chance to wind it into yarn or use it as a filling in a stuffed animal. She made each of them a little dragon, and Scorpius slept each night with a small sheep Hermione crocheted for his last birthday.

Lyra liked the farm animals, but she loved their cat, Crookshanks. Orange and mangy, never failing to put a frown on Draco’s face. She did not understand why Draco disliked the sweet kitty. He was helpful, ridding the property of mice and other vermin. The feeling was mutual though. Crookshanks hissed when Draco approached but purred contently at Hermione’s attention. The cat was sweet with the kids, too, curling up on Lyra’s lap while she sat on the sofa stroking his long, squash-colored fur and cooing endearment to him. Hermione made Lyra a stuffed animal that resembled Crookshanks.

The farm was surrounded by rolling hills, the lush green mounds extending past the horizon. Their property was encased by woods– tall pines and sycamores at the boundary of their land. Hermione was unsure how far their bounds extended into the forest.

Sometimes, when she brought the children to frolic amongst the trees, succumbing to their puppy-dog eyes and pouty pink lips, she daydreamed about exploring the greenhouse, fingertips dancing across petals and stems, feeling the ridged veins along flexible leaves. It was nice to imagine.

The children liked to explore the woods, imprinting the damp dirt with handprints and making mud pies. They pretended sticks were swords and stacked stones into precarious piles, arranging them in towers up to Hermione’s thighs. The woods made her uneasy. Sometimes she expected to find a tent somewhere past the treeline. She thought she had been camping before, but Draco did not own a tent. She was not sure when or why she would have gone. Her connection to nature was strong enough on the farm. She did not know why she would feel the need to delve further into the wilderness. Worse, sometimes, she got a feeling low in her gut, like a dark-robed figure might be looming out of sight, hidden in the darkness behind a moss-covered cypress.

Hermione hated how these fears felt, so they spent more time in the garden or out by the pond than in the forest. Something about that part of the landscape was unsettling. Draco offered to come with them. His presence usually loosened the coils of anxiety in her stomach, but the idea of him joining their forest journeys felt like a cold, heavy weight on her chest. Hermione could not explain the feeling; she just knew what she felt. She thought the fear would be more intense if Draco was there. It was a silly thought, she felt it was true all the same.

Hermione lied, saying she would just prefer to increase their time on other parts of the property. She did not want to tell Draco about the icy sensation filling her veins. He had trouble comprehending her gloomy moods and occasional bouts of panic. He was understanding, but it would hurt his feelings that she did not want him to join them. Hermione did not want to hurt him like that. She could not bear it; she hated to disappoint him.

There was also a small pond on their property, barely into the trees. Hermione liked it there. She found it tranquil. A good place to think, to be. It did not rattle her like the deeper, darker parts of the woods.

From the pond, she could see Draco’s greenhouse. He was private about his work, the work he did after farming chores were finished. Hermione wasn’t allowed in there alone. There was a large locked cabinet up against the back wall. The greenhouse itself was constantly locked. Draco locked up while he worked, and he locked up when he finished each evening.

And, Draco did not let her visit often. She could only remember a handful of times she had been inside the clear enclosure filled with multicolored flowers and odd plants she had never seen and could not name. She was brimming with questions, they danced on her tongue with feverish passion. She wanted to know each plant’s name and purpose. She wanted to learn about each flower, which ones liked sunlight over shade, which plants needed lots of moisture, and which ones preferred a dry environment. She had a book on her nightstand detailing the meaning of various flowers. She thought it might be nice to visit his beautiful workroom again, bringing her book along so they could study each petal and talk about the symbolism of each.

Her questions and words died on her lips, ideas deflating as he pressed her against one of the tables kissing up her neck and across her jaw. Her hipbones ached a bruising bite as he pushed her further into the rigid surface, lifting up the long skirt of her emerald-colored gown, bunching it around her hips, and running a long finger through her slick folds. He liked when she wore green, saying it made her look radiant and heavenly.

Draco often picked out her outfits, setting out pretty dresses for her each night to wear the next day, like she did for the children and Lyra did for her dolls. He was quite particular about her clothing. He hated when she wore red, even though Hermione thought the color brought a lovely warmth to her complexion, bringing out flecks of gold in her eyes and hair.

Draco hated when Hermione’s hair grew somehow larger, spanning into a frizzed ball in the summer humidity. He helped her tame it into braids– he liked when she was polished, refined. He was very helpful like that. 

He helped with her body hair too, carefully running shaving blades against her skin until her legs and armpits were bare. Her pussy too. He despised the hair growing between her legs, coarser and darker than the curls she wore like a crown. He made sure she was bare to him, scheduling shaving sessions biweekly. Nothing should obscure her tight, wet cunt – his marital right – from him. Even underwear was nothing more than a nuisance and a barricade. Hermione was rarely allowed to wear them; she was not allowed them now.

Hermione felt cold metal against her inner thigh– two silver rings, a signet ring on his pinky with an embossed ‘M’ and his wedding band, pressed into her delicate skin. He slowly drew a callused finger along her soggy slit, collecting dew as he ran it up and down her damp, freshly shaven lower lips.

A hushed gasp escaped her. Draco chuckled, “so wet for me already, dear. What a warm, willing little cunt. So pretty and pink, dripping and begging for my cock. Is that what you need? Is that why you came to see me?”

“Draco,” she started nervously, offering neither confirmation nor denial. “The children– Scorpius and Lyra are alone in the house.”

“And?” He sounded bored, an inkling of irritation sneaking into his aristocratic vowels.

“I just– Well, what if they wake before I am back? They might be frightened. They could get injured. They–”

Draco shushed her reassuringly, sliding his middle finger inside her slick heat. Hermione’s hips pushed back against him, leaning into the electricity as he curled the digit slightly, brushing against the rough, sensitive patch against her front wall.

“You need not worry, little wife. I take care of you, hmm ?” Hermione heard his words, but they slipped in one ear and out the other; her mind was focused on the heated throbbing between her thighs and the erect cock pressing into her arse. “I take care of you. I take care of our children.” 

He added a second finger, crooking it against her and causing white stars to flash behind her closed eyelids. Her mouth hung open, an unabashed moan filling the air. 

“I take care of everything.” His tone, leeched of boredom, grew mean. It cut her like barbed wire. “All you need to do is listen. You do not need to burden your silly, small mind with worries. You live an easy life. I provide you with an easy life.”  He stilled inside her and she whimpered, wiggling her arse in search of the missing friction.

Hermione started to apologize but he cut her off with a pinch to her clit. The pressure on the swollen nub made her scream. “I do everything for you. I keep our family safe, and you still do not trust me? You think that I would put our children in harm’s way?” He scoffed, spraying droplets of spit onto the exposed skin of her lower back.

Hermione wanted to explain, but she rightfully bit her tongue, not wanting to upset Draco with further disobedience. She would never doubt Draco, but uncontrollably, the worry had bubbled up on its own. 

It was her fault for speaking the blasphemous thought.

Draco was right– he was always right. She did not need to bother herself with things like this. Draco always took care of them. He knew when the children napped. He would keep track of time for her. Regret and remorse flamed her cheeks into a strawberry flush.

Verging on a growl, “do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Hermione’s time to shine— honey-laced apologies gushed from her lips like a repentant waterfall. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry , repeated like a prayer.

He cleared his throat, biting back a groan. Conveying his acceptance, Draco’s fingers began to thrust inside her once more, rougher this time, relentlessly stroking her g-spot. Hermione struggled to continue apologizing, speech turning rather incoherent as her words became whimpers.

Wedged between his body and the steel table, Hermione could not move, completely vulnerable to his deft assault. The hand not lodged in her cunt moved to tweak at her nipple, slipping up the front of her dress, still messily ruched around her waist. His left thumb brushed over her clit, circling around the puffy bundle of nerves in concentric circles, and her whole body seized.

It felt like flying like Hermione was an albatross soaring high above the sea under open blue skies, salty winds in her hair, and mist on her face. It felt like every atom of her body was electrified, pulsing with an invisible current of undulated erotic explosions.

She pulsed around his fingers, slick evidence of her orgasm dowsing his skin. Draco preferred her this way, dumbed from arousal, her meddling mind empty of fears and doubts and her plump lips pleading for his cock instead of asking stupid questions, minimizing everything he did for her.

Hermione’s back arched as her orgasm surged through her and her palms moved from their perch on the edge of the table. She outstretched her arms, leaning down on her slender forearms, knocking one of Draco’s plants to the floor.

It shattered with a clattering clunk as it collided with the cruel concrete.

Abruptly, while Hermione was still processing her erroneous behavior, tensing with nerves rather than pleasure, Draco removed his fingers from her quivering cunt, lodging the fat, leaking tip of his cock at her entrance.

“I’m sorry,” Hermione cried, still reeling as she came down, taking a breath to continue her rueful ramble. “I didn’t mean to knock it over. I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful; I’ll be more careful.” He nestled his swollen head inside of her, slightly stretching her slick opening. He kicked her ankles further apart, opening her legs wider to him.

“I have heard enough of your apologies for one afternoon.”

Then, just as abruptly as he had emptied her, he rammed his entire length inside her tight channel with one thrust, forcing the air out of her lungs. Without abandon, he hammered away, brutally clanging her hipbones into the unforgiving table edge.

She cried, breathing ragged gasps and hiccuped sobs while Draco feverously chased his own release, savaging slapping his hips against her and groaning in her ear. “You do not need to think. You do not need to talk. You do not need to apologize.”

He shoved her down so her chest was flush with the metallic tabletop, flushed cheek pressed against the cool counter. “ Fuck, Hermione , you feel amazing” he growled before regathering his composure. She was a velvet vice, tightly wrapped around him, milking his thick, veiny cock.

“All you need to do is open your legs and let me bury myself inside your pretty pussy so I can paint your cunt while you clench around my cock.” His pace grew erratic listening to Hermione’s coos while she fluttered around him, climbing toward another peak. “You like it when I am rough with you. You, my slutty little wife, you do not like to listen; you like to question me.”

Draco brought his thumb against her clit again, the taut nub ready to convulse beneath his steady rhythm after a few swipes. “You like it when I put you in your place.” She was hovering on the brink of ecstasy. “ Where you belong , as a quivering, drooling slut beneath me.” She could taste her apex, tingly on her tongue when he slid from her slippery cunt, stealing away her climax and leaving her to clench around nothing .

 Hermione heard a grating scrape as Draco dragged his work chair across the floor, hooking it on his ankle. The vinyl was a briny teal color, with a hole worn in the center and faded yellowed chunks of foam starting to poke through. She made a note of the distress, a quick reminder to patch it later. At one point, the chair had rolled smoothly on three wheels, but now it only clambered along, one wheel missing and another broken.

Hermione made a pathetic sound, dissatisfied and so, so empty . She could hear Draco’s arrogant smirk. He teased her weeping pussy, dragging his cock from her puckered hole to the desperate bundle that caused her body to jerk with each rub. She quickly turned to a blubbering mess beneath him. “Draco, please. I– Please. Please . I was so close. I just, I need–”

He wound a mass of curls around his hand, tugging tightly until she grunted, head yanking backward. “Ungrateful little brat,” he snarled, quiet as a pin dropping, “ so fucking needy .”

Sensing her mistake, Hermione prepared to beg and plead for forgiveness, ready to show her sorrow and make the transgression up to Draco.

“Well,” he notched his cock in her drenched opening once more, “tell me, darling wife, what do you need ?”

Hermione knew the time for silence had passed. She had missed the opportunity to listen. To be good. “Your– Your cock, sir.”

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly at her manners. He pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades, soft lips against her warm skin. “Do you deserve that?”

Tears welled in her eyes. Hermione pushed her hips back against him, trying to reunite her cunt with his thick length, but Draco moved with her, not giving her any relief. “No, sir,” she choked out. His muscular arm was wrapped around her waist, a strong and steady restraint, holding up her skirts and secure around her ribcage.

“No,” he agreed, “I appreciate your honesty, princess, but there is something that you can do. If you can show me that you know how to listen, I will give you what you need.” He gave her a moment for his words to set in, but most of it was lost to the lust she felt, unable to focus on anything other than the feeling of his bulbous head, taunting her with its proximity.

Draco sat down on the vinyl chair; the foam wheezed, compressing under his weight. Surprising Hermione, the arm he had wrapped around her waist, brought her down onto his lap, impaling her against his full length. 

She shrieked at the impact, tattered mewls replacing breaths. Readjusting to the stuffed sensation, Hermione gasped, wriggling in search of a motion that would send her into the stars.

His hands stopped her, forcing her hips to be still. Hermione whined.

Draco tsked, “Not yet, dear. You need to prove yourself first. Show me that you can listen to instructions.”

“That’s not fair,” she pouted. “You haven’t given me any instructions.”

He squeezed her thigh harshly in a silent warning. Her mouth snapped shut. “It is simple. Sit still.”

Sit still . 

Innocuous. Easy. Or, so Hermione thought.

She was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Draco plucked a flower from the only plant in arm’s reach, the cracked pot on the floor. He gripped the stem delicately, arms circled around her so she could watch. His chin rested on her shoulder.

Hermione wanted to move. She wanted to bounce and writhe, riding until colors blended together and blood rushed hot and heavy in her ears. Until she squirmed, thighs vellicating from stimulation.

“For– for how long?”

“Too many questions.”

The answer was until he picked the flower bare. Draco slung her legs over his, spreading her wide in his lap, exposing her swollen sex to the cool air. Hermione tried to stay still. She pretended that she was a statue, immobile and rigid. The slip of her arousal was pooling on the stool beneath them. She could feel Draco pulsing maddeningly inside her, but he appeared unaffected, above the animalistic desires that she could not ignore.

Her hips rolled involuntarily. About half of the flower’s petals littered the floor. He paused, waiting to see if her disobedience would continue. She dug her fingernails into her palms, little crescent indents forming in her skin. She ground her teeth together, focusing all her attention on the display in front of her– nimble fingers moving at a dreadful pace, slowly ripping out and discarding blood-colored petals.

“I knew you could listen. My perfect, little wife. You are doing such a good job. Just a few more petals to go. I am so proud of you.”

Hermione straightened at the praise, pushing her shoulders back and sending her tits forwards, pert nipples poking the green fabric into twin tents. In vain, she tried to bring her legs together, to reprieve herself from Draco’s long-lasting nothingness torture.

“Not yet, dear,” he tutted. “We are almost done. See?” He held the stem up to her her nose, floral hues emanating off of the three petals remaining. He pinched the stem delicately, fingertips perched carefully between thorny spikes. “Such a good girl using her ears to listen and her tight cunt to warm my cock.”

With his other hand, Draco brushed his thumb lovingly against Hermione’s cheek. “You are too smart for your own good. It makes you,” he paused, discarding another petal precariously, “stubborn. Headstrong. Stupid .” He sighed heavily, breath hot on her nape, causing the wispy strands to tickle her flushed skin. Hermione sat like a painting, perfectly still though panting, using every iota of her focus on ignoring the insatiable impulse to swivel her hips, finding relief from the throbbing ache she felt.

“My smart, stubborn girl. I only want what is best for you. You need me . If I left to your own devices…” Draco shook his head, unable to continue, bleak implications hanging overhead.

Her voice was tearful, shaking slightly. “I know. I’m sorry, Draco.”

He pressed a kiss to the apple of her cheek, right where his thumb had been. He pinched and pulled another petal, dropping it to the floor. Her mind was empty, the only thing occupying her brain was the thick mast, hot inside her core, twitching tauntingly inside her. She tensed her body into stillness and Draco grunted at the sensation. “ Be quiet .” His voice cut like a knife and Hermione dared not breathe. Softening his tone slightly, “be a good girl and sit still for a little while longer.”

He picked the final petal. It fluttered to the floor, slower than a snail. Hermione remained motionless. Draco sat back, creaking the chair as he leaned back, jostling her as he adjusted. She bit her lip to stifle her moan. The metallic taste of blood oozed into her mouth. She tried to focus on the titanium taste instead of the twisting coil tightening in her tummy. She was so, so close. If he would just let her move a little.

A meaty hand rested against each leg. He squeezed firmly, right above her knee, running his hands slowly across the soft skin of her svelte thighs. She could not hold back the moan that escaped her, her vulgar siren song echoing through the greenhouse.

He moved his hands to her hips, gently lifting her, up and down so she bounced in his lap. “You have been a good girl . You have earned this, dear. I want to feel you twitching around my cock. I want you gushing on me, dripping onto the floor.”

Hermione hips ground into his own, settling into a frantic rhythm as she crooned at each impact, lewd sloshing sounds filling the air as her sopping cunt engulfed him.

“My slutty, little wife. You are so close, I feel your tight walls, fluttering around me. Are you going to cum around my cock, dear? Are you going to show me how sorry you are for your misbehavior earlier?”

She mumbled something affirmatively, nodding like a bobblehead.

“You feel heavenly around me.” He snaked his arm from her hip to toy with her pulsing bundle. “You look gorgeous like this, sitting pretty on my lap, bouncing and dripping like a sloven slut. Docile and–” Draco pinched her clit between two expert fingers, eliciting a high-pitched yelp from Hermione. “My slutty, little wife. Docile and cock-drunk .”

She convulsed at his filthy words, lost to the current of desire pulling her under like a riptide. It hit her suddenly, violently throwing her off the edge into a titillating tumble. She called out his name, followed by a series of unintelligible syllables.

Staying steady, Draco pumped her through her second orgasm, drawing it out with his fingers flicking at her oversensitive bud, continuing until she slouched back against him, head lolling lazily to one side, eyes slow and blinking like she was still floating down to Earth.

He thumbed across the expanse of her stomach, dipping into the hollow of her navel. “I am going to give you another baby. I am going to keep you filled with my seed– with my cock – until you are fat and pregnant. Until you cannot bend over or see your toes. I want to watch your belly swell like a balloon with my child inside of you.”

She gave him an eager nod and a coquette smile, shy and demure like she was not dripping her honey down his thighs. Somehow, Hermione managed to look innocent, begging like a whore for his cum with the flush of her arousal and the slick evidence of her orgasm heavy in the air.

He thrust into her quickly, firmly tapping against the velvet barrier of her cervix each time he buried himself to the hilt. He climbed quickly, racing after his pleasure. “You are mine ,” he growled against her skin, bodies biblically entangled. “Mine. Mine.” Draco erupted, twitching inside of her, shooting pearlescent strands into Hermione’s cunt, marking her as his .

He kissed her gently below her ear. “ Mine .”

When Draco had finished releasing his spend, he pulled out of her sloppy cunt, wiping his glistening cock, shiny with their combined fluids off on the hem of her dress. Satisfied, he tucked his cock back into his underwear, refastening his trousers.

Sluggishly, Hermione raised herself back to an upright position, standing unstably on wobbly legs. As he pulled the skirt of her dress down so it brushed against her ankles once more, sticky wetness dripping down her thighs, she wondered about what it might be like to explore the greenhouse alone, pleasantly losing herself in the daydream, mind still pleasantly buzzing from her second climax. Sometimes their sex unsettled her; it could get intense, but Hermione told herself that was passion, excitement– a benefit, a sign that their marriage was strong and that they were compatible.

Mostly, Hermione wondered what he was working on with all these plants that made him need to be so secretive. Draco hated secrets. Honesty was an important value in their family, one they were working hard to instill in the children, primarily at Draco’s insistence.

But, she was pulled out of her thoughts as Draco handed her a broom and dustpan. Of course. She chastised herself. She had almost forgotten about the pot she had carelessly knocked over. He watched as she cleaned up the broken shards of clay and spilled dirt. The acrid aroma of the soil wafted through the air along with something sinister and bitter. 

Her finger throbbed. Hermione looked down, feeling a prick. A small thorn was stuck to the pad of her ring finger, the same finger adorned with an ornate silver band– her wedding ring. She could not hold the question back, words tumbling past her lips before she had finished the thought. Quiet as a mouse, “what kind of plant is it?”

Draco was frowning and she knew that she had upset him, but he obliged her, answering that it was a rosebush. He said it slowly, overenunciating each word. She nodded, feeling stupid like she should have been able to decipher that from the prickly branches of the plant and the damn thorn in her finger. She thought it looked different than the rosebushes growing by the porch, but she did not know much about flowers or plants. Not like Draco did.

The fluid leaking from her legs puddled beneath her, a pearly pool on the gray concrete. She wiped at it with the hem of her skirt, disliking the feeling of the damp fabric against her ankle as she stood.

Draco quickly ushered her out of the workspace, placing a kiss atop her crown that should have elicited fond feelings but caused tears to prick at her eyes instead, stinging as the thorn had. She walked back to the cottage in a daze, feeling like the fog of her mind had leaked out into the world. She sat in the wooden rocking chair, tucked into the corner of the children’s room until they awoke from their nap, thinking of snakes hidden underfoot and shaking her ankles at the phantom sensation of one coiling around her lower limbs like shackles.

Draco found their existence idyllic. Though, he had to admit the cacophonous cock-a-doodle-doos of their rowdy rooster were an eternally grating alarm. He rose early each morning, before the sun and the reasonable, but he woke to his beautiful wife beside him, making each dawn tolerable. 

Most days, Hermione awoke to Draco cocooned around her, his chest flush to her back and their legs tangled between their crisp, starchy sheets with his cock, hard and erect, pressing firmly against her backside. Those were Draco’s favorite mornings, the ones they spent completely intertwined with one another, his hips meeting hers, the smacking sound of damp skin against damp skin, and Hermione’s mewls echoing softly throughout the room.

A gentle breeze flowed through the open window, a welcome whisper of wind against their sticky skin. His cock was nestled in her tight cavern, her walls fluttering around him in a way that made him groan as shivers raced up his spine. She felt heavenly, stroking him from within, smooth as velvet.

Hermione smelled of sweat and arousal, glistening with a salty sheen. Draco licked from where her shoulder met her neck, collecting moisture on his tongue. His mouth clamped upon her pulse point, sucking the sensitive spot as Hermione tumbled over the edge, crying out while her orgasm raced through her.

Draco kept a steady pace as she came down before chasing his own release. His hips met hers faster and faster. The tension in his sac grew tight, coiling like a snake ready to fight. He felt it tugging at him, the well-known indicator that he was about to cum.

He murmured in her ear, “such a good little wife for me. Do you like how I fill you up? You look beautiful, stuffed with my cock. Are you ready for another baby?”

She cooed, agreeably. “I’m so full . Please, Draco.” Hermione moved one of his hands from its grip on her hip to lay it flat against her stomach. “I need your baby here. Ple– .” The last word disappeared into a squeal as he pressed down gently on her tummy, right between her hipbones, leaving nothing but flurries of fireworks to flutter in her head.

Practically growling, “my good, sweet girl. Perfect, perfect little wife . Filled with my cum. Filled with my babies .” His rhythm stuttered as he released inside Hermione, the sticky cream starting to ooze out around him and onto the sheets.

Lost in the orgasmic haze, “I’m going to give you so many babies. So many babies .” Slowing to a stop, Draco pulled out of her, gazing at the creamy fluid sticking to her thighs and dripping onto the bedsheets. Idly, he pushed some of it back inside of her, pressing his lips against her stomach, just below her navel, whispering, “You were so good, darling. You deserve all of it.”

He came to lay beside her where she rested her head against his shoulder. Besides the curtains rustling softly, the only sound in the room was their heavy breathing, beginning to even back out.

Those were the happiest mornings.

Unfortunately, however, the mornings were not always happy.

Sometimes they began with storm clouds.

On the darkest days, Hermione would wander out past the garden, past the fields, and into the trees, until she reached their pond. Still and clear water, a crystalline cerulean pond where he taught the children to skip rocks, causes ripples to roll out against the calm surface. Surrounded by soft grass and wildflowers, Hermione relished in her seldom moments of solitude, taking advantage of the rare chance she had to sit alone with her thoughts without a child tugging at her skirt or Draco’s sharp gaze on her.

She knew she was happy. She had no reason to be anything else. Her life was good; she did not want anything that she did not already have. She moved through most days like she was floating, featherlight hovering inches above the ground.

But sometimes, she got a distinct feeling that something was wrong . Like she was living someone else’s life. It lingered on the tip of her tongue, the ghost of the truth lingering on her lips tasting smoke and anise.

In those moments of quiet reflection, she felt memories just out of arms reach. A kind boy with glasses and a flash of tousled umber locks sticking up wildly in all directions. Heads of ginger; she tried to count them, but there were too many, and the vision disappeared before she could finish.

At times, Hermione’s memories were rife with fear. She saw bright flashes of light crisscrossing violently in the air, whizzing past her face so close she could feel the energy pulsing off of them. These memories smelled metallic and molten, like blood. She felt strong though, clever. The boys were in most of these memories, the brunette to her left, fingers brushing against his forehead with a grimace on his face, and the redhead on her right.

She walked through grim fairytales, seeing centaurs capture a woman dressed in a bubblegum pink blazer and skirt. There was a man who turned into a wolfish beast and a black dog snarling and tackling him to the ground. She stood in a room filled wall to wall with shelves extending in long aisles, continuing past her field of vision. She saw a tall blonde man there. She thought he looked like Draco, but older and with longer hair. She was not sure who he was. He wore robes like the imaginary figure she saw lurking in the woods. Long and intimidating, cloaking him in slippery darkness like an evasive watersnake.

Then, Hermione was in an enormous stone building, so large it had to be a castle, but it seemed academic like maybe it was a school. Hermione wondered about the school she attended. She had so many questions. She knew she had gone to school, but like the rest of her past, the details were missing. Draco said they had gone to school together in Scotland. She saw herself in robes and skirts, a red tie on her neck, and a ‘P’ sewn atop her chest. She remembered a library; it felt like home , somewhere she had spent countless hours surrounded by parchment with ink smudged on her fingertips and cheeks. She felt like she remembered the library inside this castle, but she could not be sure. Everything was stuck in a dense fog.

In her dizzying vision, the castle was chaotic, in disarray, walls crumbling and marred with scorch marks. People running and screaming, rapid bursts of light. In her hand, she held a stick. The stick erupted with beams of energy of its own, seeming caused and directed by herself. She saw Draco on a broom, flames licking at his heels as he followed her. Followed did not seem like the right word; she felt like she was being chased. Like he was a hunter and she was a hopeless fawn. She heard him shout; it sounded anguished, full of grief. 

These memories were the most dangerous, feeling like a heavy stone of dread sinking in her belly, weighing her down like an anchor. She did not feel like a fighter in her present life, though at times she felt like a rubber band pulled taut until the color blanched, ready to snap and break. Sometimes she imagined a caged lioness inside of her. The lion wore a muzzle, but she wanted to roar, to emit deafening sounds of rage.

In other visions, Hermione saw a sterile room, it looked kind of like a hospital, distinctly medical. There were reclined chairs, a teal-ish color under the bright fluorescent bulbs. Trays of metal tools sat beside the chairs. She thought they looked painful, maybe torturous, but a kind woman and a man lingered there. Hermione sat in a room filled with chairs, a book in her hands, nose buried within the crisp pages. She knew she was young here; her body was small, her face rounded with baby fat.

The woman had her button-nose, little tip pert and slightly upturned. The man had dark brown hair, darker than her own mocha hair, at least, but not quite shadowy enough to be considered black. He had coarse curls like her though. She thought they might have been her parents. Sometimes, when the man smiled at her, she felt like she was hearing gently piano music and she saw a living room with a sage-colored sofa against a wall and a black box in the corner opposite the instrument. She was not sure what the box did. She did not remember using it; they had nothing similar in the cottage. A whiff of jasmine and cedar burned her nostrils; it smelled comforting, like a warm blanket or a tender hug. She thought vaguely of Australia; it did not make much sense. Their accents were British, not Australian. Then, they faded too, floating away like leaves in the wind.

All these thoughts made her heart hurt. A sharp, stabbing pain grew behind her eyeballs. Her throat felt tight, and her skin felt warm like she was walking through the fiery blaze of hellfire. She felt hollow, like a black hole lived inside her stomach, slowly expanding. It felt empty and cold.

She would eye the rocks littering the shoreline where the water met the sand, gritty and pulverulent, clumping when she squeezed the damp grains in her fist. She thought it might be nice to line her pockets with the stones, the same stones she watched Scorpius and Lyra try to skip across the still surface as Draco could. She imagined wading into the water. She thought it would feel cool on her skin. Soothing. Maybe numbing, but she felt it would be a welcome reprieve from the flaming tangle she sometimes felt creeping forward in her brain, making a home inside her ribcage, nestled close to her palpitating heart.

These feelings did not come often, but when they did, they threatened to consume her. Devouring her whole, picking the meat off her skeleton until it was clean, then, swallowing her bones down, too. Even her memories, as rarely as they came, were still lost in a haze when she thought of them. It was just bits and pieces, floating into the frame to quickly leave before Hermione could truly digest them.

Hermione did not know where these thoughts came from. They did not seem like dreams. It felt almost like a parallel life like she was watching the world through her body but as a different girl. She asked Draco about her memories sometimes. About why they were so hazy. Less often, she wanted to ask about the melancholy that threatened to consume her, but she never did. Draco did not like when she was upset.

He did not like her questions. He would look at her for a long time. An indecipherable look would settle on his angular features; she thought she saw a glimpse of something primal, filled with rage before the neutrality settled in. She felt his eyes scanning her diagnostically, carefully calculating the best response. The moment seemed to stretch forever, the hole bubbling in her chest, icy and ravenous.

Draco’s reactions differed depending on which memory she asked about. She asked about that woman and man, the gauzy curtains of the living room, and the diagrams of teeth on the walls of what she assumed to be a doctor’s office. It seemed strange. She did not think there were doctors for teeth. She could not remember going to a doctor. Even when she was pregnant, they had handled it themselves, Draco catching the slippery infants caked in blood and placenta and cleaning them off. He placed Scorpius in her arms, then carefully stitched her up, mumbling seriously about a tear. Hermione had not heard him clearly, recoiling when the needle met her skin. He had not needed to do the same after she delivered Lyra. Her second birth had been easier, her labor blessedly shorter.

He always had that long, solemn pause before responding when she asked about her memories. She was able to bite her tongue in the greenhouse. That was Draco’s domain, but her mind belonged to her, even though it sometimes felt like Draco knew her better than she knew herself. It gave her palpitations if she dwelled on that too long.

He did not often answer her questions, but he provided information sometimes.

If it was about the woman and man, her probable parents, his expression would settle into something like pity. He confirmed her suspicion that they were her parents. He said he did not know much about them. She frowned when learning that Draco had never met them. She wished that she remembered the sound of her mother’s voice and her father’s laugh. 

She did not remember but Hermione knew she had met Draco’s parents. He said that they had died. He did not like to talk about them much, dismissing the subject as too painful to discuss. Draco grew cold at the mention of his father, but she thought he smiled slightly when thinking of his mother. They brushed past the subject too quickly for Hermione to be certain.

Draco did not like when she asked about the two boys. His expression grew grim. For a brief second, she had the impression that he wished to put his fist through the wall as his knuckles turned white, fist clenched tightly like he was squashing a bug inside. She did not ask of them anymore. It was not worth souring Draco’s mood. An unpleasant feeling would hang over her for the rest of the day, the image of his lips pursed with disappointment burned inside her mind until the morning after the tension had thankfully dissipated overnight.

The scariest memories she kept to herself. She could not predict Draco’s reaction to those. She knew he would not answer her questions about the room filled with orbs or the crumbling castle. He would not tell her about the stick held in her hand, an intricate vine pattern trailing up the wood, or why he had been chasing after her, like a wolf on the hunt, using a flying broomstick. Broomsticks could not even fly. Draco would think she was going mad.

She thought these memories might anger him greatly. More so than he had angered when she asked about the ginger boy. He was always so gentle with her, soft and kind. He treated her and the children like prized jewels. 

It was not right to provoke his temper, to force him to anger all because of some silly little visions she had sometimes. She had no proof that they were real, that they were anything more than dreams. All she had was the knowing feeling in her gut. Feelings could be wrong.

Besides, his details, on the rare occasions they were offered, did not make her memories much clearer. The conversations often left her puzzled, with more questions than she had had before. Hermione felt it might be better to keep it all hidden. She thought maybe these memories were obscured for a reason, like knowing the full extent of them would make her blissful life seem a hellish burden.

So when they arose, she usually tried to push them away. She imagined them sinking underneath the pond, just as a girl with stone-filled pockets would sink. They came to rest against the sandy floor where it was dark and cold. It was a perfect place to lay the memories to rest, matching their mood succinctly.

She was not supposed to feel like that– torn and tangled, icy and suffocating.

Hermione should be joyous as Draco was.

After all, they were trying for another child. It was only a matter of time before Hermione’s stomach would start to show, swelling into the familiar, irrevocable proof of their love as her abdomen started to curve.

Soon, they would be a family of five .

He loved being a husband. He loved being a father. It felt good to have people depending on him, people who needed him. He felt important to them, protective of them. Taking care of a wife and family came naturally to him. Draco felt his entire life had led to this purpose, to make his wife and children happy.

Luckily, there were more merry mornings than depressing dawns.

Some days, when Hermione was already up, and Draco found her side of the bed was cold, he would find her with one of their children on her hip or snuggling close to her in one of their beds. He used to find her curled in their well-worn armchair, nestled in the corner of their cozy living room with Lyra on her breast and Scorpius playing at her feet. In a few months, the cycle would repeat itself with a new baby suckling at her tit.

In bright times, Hermione was in the kitchen when Draco woke, gingham apron and butcher-block countertops messy with flour while she whipped up a bountiful breakfast. The sun crept on the horizon, tangerine and redwood hues bleeding into the stony dawn sky like Edward Munch’s The Scream . Fresh berries, grown by Hermione in their garden, and chocolate chip pancakes with homemade whipped cream for the children. A mighty meal for himself, scrambled eggs and sausage links piled high on his plate with a side of biscuits doused with butter and apricot jam.

While Hermione prepared breakfast, Draco always fixed her coffee, carefully adding just a splash of sweetness to the steamy beverage. Precision was key; Hermione hated when her coffee was overly-sugary. She’d wrinkle her nose and refuse to finish it, but the saccharine syrup was necessary to hide the bitter aftertaste of her medicine. Ever since the war, she needed a little something to lift her mood, to push past the storm clouds looming over her without it.

Draco brewed the concoction himself. A complex potion keeping her radiant and agreeable. His perfect, little wife. She was compassionate and caring, an ever-present smile painted across her freckled face, like a golden ray of sunshine. It was only a remedy for her melancholy, something healing and soothing, polishing her rough edges until she gleamed. His darling, docile wife. The tender, nurturing mother of his children.

He kept a close eye on her, monitoring her mood and diet closely, gently reminding her to complete her chores, and ensuring she stuck to their routine. Hermione did better when she was kept busy, so Draco established a variety of tasks for her to complete each day. The sadness stayed hidden this way.

Crossing each item off the to-do list brought a pleased, accomplished smile to her face. It reminded him of how she was at school, triumphantly grinning when receiving assignments back, smug knowledge that she had the highest marks in their year.

He saw it most while she taught the children. They learned about colors and shapes, counting and nature, how to be gentle, and how to share. Scorpius was starting to read. Draco had obtained a variety of children’s books for them. Stories of talking animals and princesses or ninjas and dinosaurs. A few magical books from his own youth snuck into the Muggle literature majority. On the rare nights he put the kids to bed by himself Draco would pull them from their hidden spot, tucked away beneath a loose step on the staircase, the one that creaked slightly when stepping in the wrong spot.

Chores were completed immediately after breakfast finished. The children played in the living room while Hermione prepped additional food for dinnertime. Draco started by tending to the land and caring for the animals bringing the children along with him. They played while he worked. He used magic for the mundane and tedious tasks, setting charms to feed the animals on a schedule and clear the muck from their enclosures. He knew spells to help their crops flourish with minimal physical labor required from him.

But it was hard work, even with the aid of magic. His hands had grown a thick, layer of callus, covering his palms and roughening the pads of his fingers. His hands were rough where they had once been soft. It had been odd at first, but now it felt natural. It felt right.

When Hermione had finished cleaning the kitchen, washing the dishes, and wiping the counters, and Draco had finished his farmwork, it was typically lunchtime. Lunches were simple, easy sandwiches– peanut butter and honey, maybe a BLT, or grilled cheese with tomato soup. They had snacks of fruit or raw vegetables– crisp snap peas and baby carrots or sliced cucumbers sprinkled with sea salt.

After lunch, Scorpius and Lyra split cookies or a slice of pie while Hermione tended to the garden and Draco worked in his greenhouse, toiling over steaming cauldrons until the sky turned amber again, the sun edging below the horizon. 

Many potions, he brewed only for his family– like Blood Replenishing Potion to aid Hermione after childbirth, Essence of Dittany for mending minor scrapes, or Calming Draught for when Hermione’s nerves got the best of her or to help the children back to sleep after rowdy nightmares.

The types of potions anyone– save for Squibs or Muggles –could brew themselves.

To be a mere homebrewer, however, would have been an abysmal waste of Draco’s abilities.

Draco was a skilled potioneer who began training under his godfather even before obtaining his wand. He brewed complicated concoctions, growing and procuring rare ingredients to create successful batches of tonics that were quite difficult to acquire. Almost impossible to purchase. Near unattainable unless home-brewed. 

Their large property offered Draco limitless space to grow and harvest ingredients. He foraged many key ingredients from their forests as well. Part of the reason Draco had chosen this Malfoy property, in addition to the seclusion it offered, was because of the ease of procuring the infinite elements and items he needed to concoct the elusive mixtures.

Since the war ended, potion ingredients were hard to come by, and potions themselves near impossible to obtain. As a result, his concoctions were in high demand, with witches and wizards across the globe fighting tooth and nail to purchase a single vial.

Draco brewed plenty, making a wide variety of tonics and tinctures so something suited the fancy of every witch and wizard. Not that Draco sold them to everyone. His products were an exclusive luxury– one not many could afford.

Primarily, Draco manufactured Veritaserum , an incredibly powerful truth serum as clear and odorless as water, completely indetectable to unsuspecting drinkers. It took a full lunar cycle to complete, precisely twenty-eight days, but once ready, it could cause anyone to babble, uncontrollably spilling their secrets to anyone around. It rendered the consumer unable to lie, forcing them to answer any questions honestly.

Draco brewed Felix Felicis , aptly coined ‘liquid luck.’ It took a long time, six months,  to develop, slowly turning into a molten gold color with droplets leaping in high arcs above the cauldron as dolphins jump above the ocean.

He also prepared large batches of Polyjuice Potion , a nasty, mudlike mixture that bubbled slowly when finished. The wretched potion allowed one to take on the appearance of another person by adding a single piece of their hair. Draco brewed an adaptable concoction; customers added the final ingredient at their own behest.

He sold them in secret, under false names in shadowy seedy places, while his wife and children slept unknowingly. It was incredibly, incredibly risky, but it was necessary.

Truth be told, this business venture made them extremely wealthy. Filthy, filthy rich even without the money still lingering in the Malfoy vaults.

Draco’s brews were unparalleled in potency, and their effectiveness increased with the high-caliber, freshly harvested ingredients. And, his production output was phenomenal; Draco believed it likely that he brewed more potions weekly (and at a much higher quality) than many larger operations were able to brew in a month of basic potions, like the rubbish even a first-year could produce. Anything was possible with the proper motivation.

Draco specialized in highly-regulated potions. Highly profitable potions . The type of tinctures that turned dangerous if they fell into the wrong hands. 

However, Draco did not think of them as dangerous.

Danger was an illusion, easily avoidable in reality if one was a methodical planner, methodically accounting for any potential degrees of deviance– quick on their feet, able to adapt at a moment’s notice– recalculating and recalibrating accordingly.

Draco’s life– his heavenly, wonderful life– could have been rife with danger. But it was not. Because Draco was a methodical planner, easily adapting to and overcoming challenges. He eradicated obstacles preemptively .

Nothing stood in his way. Not where Hermione was concerned.

Nothing motivated a man more than his family– more than his wife.

Nothing motivated Draco more than Hermione.

She was his world. She was his light. The reason he got up each morning and who he dreamed about each night. 

She motivated him to turn his life around. To leave behind his nightmares and rid himself of the chaos creeping through his soul.

She was the reason he tried so hard to be a good father. Draco loved his children. He completely adored them. Almost as much as he cherished Hermione.

Hermione, Hermione, Hermione .

Draco worried deeply– incessantly – about her. As the years went on, his worries only increased. Prolonged potion use was risky. It was incredibly easy to build a tolerance to even the most clever of concoctions. Draco had to adapt often to maintain his success.

Hermione’s potions were… tricky . It was a known issue with love potions.

Draco had created her particular potion himself, adapting the general recipe to serve their familial needs. The typical love potion was meant to manufacture romantic infatuation. Draco needed something different– something more . Especially now.

It was not enough for Hermione to love Draco; she had to love their children, too. This was outside the typical effects of a love potion.

So, Draco toiled, testing different brews to see which had the most desirable effects and the fewest unpleasant effects. Instead of thorns from red roses, Draco cut thorns from yellow and peach roses. Representing innocence, femininity, and purity, these plants turned the elixir from an infatuation serum into a domestic blend. He added the feather of a dove and the bark of an olive branch to bring an aura of peace to the consumer. A pinch of yarrow and the petals of a gardenia ensured long-lasting love and an inclination to mothering. 

After numerous attempts, Draco had created the perfect potion, only needing minor adjustments when Hermione’s moods began to swing, a signal that she was growing immune to the current regime. So Draco would tinker away, adding an extra pinch of pearl dust or the leaves of bay laurel, and all would be right again. He was clever, with boundless resources at his disposal. He liked the challenge. He felt successful when a new batch proved more effective than the previous.

He made other potions for Hermione as well. Like contraceptives– taken for a while after each birth, during the time it was too dangerous to resume the formidable fertility potions she usually took when her body was recovering and another pregnancy wreck havoc.

The contraceptives were a special blend– a few drops of neem oil, a sprinkling of seeds of Queen Anne’s lace, and ground buckwheat. It was a gritty mixture. Draco snuck it into her dinner, mixing it into her potatoes or vegetables, when necessary.

The fertility potion was easier to administer. He added it to her nightly potion, sneaking the tonics into the water she always drank before bedtime. It was also more complicated to create, requiring the scale of a dragon for each dose. It turned a dusty rose color when prepared properly, with precise proportions of ladybug wings, the feather of an owl, and crushed petals of the lotus and poppy flowers.

While her morning love potion was blended for domesticity, her nightly potion was geared toward carnal desires. While still a variation of the common love potion, it created insatiable pangs of lust for the drinker. He added sage and clovers, crushed cocoa beans, and ginseng. A few droplets of dragon’s blood gave the liquid a peppery aroma and a fiery kick which Draco obscured carefully from Hermione.

Instead of peach and yellow, he used thorns and petals from red and pink roses. Red roses symbolized passion and romance, while pink symbolized gratitude and affection. In combination, it caused the potion consumer to be an eager, submissive lover.

Just as Draco preferred Hermione to be.

In addition to the love and lust potions, in addition to a fertilizer or contraceptive, there was one other potion Draco gave Hermione daily.

Her magical suppressant .

Draco had created it from scratch. When finalized, he capsuled the sandy product, brimming with sawdust and ash. Capsules were the superior form of consumption. Even as a liquid, it was incredibly chalky and dry, making it almost painful to swallow.

Draco knew potion use like this was dangerous. It was not recommended. His worries festered away, eating him from the inside– gnawing on his bones and sucking out the marrow within.

The worst side effect seemed to be her memory. The love potions pushed Draco, Scorpius, and Lyra to the forefront of her mind, hiding away everything else and forcing them into annihilatory obscurity. He worried that the prolonged usage would chip away at her memories until erasing them entirely. Memory was a fickle mechanism, there were reasons Draco had not chosen traditional methods of memory obscuration when developing his plans. Memory loss could turn a person angry. It could make a person sad, as it appeared to make Hermione.

Memories make a person; they are integral to the core of being. Of living and thriving. Draco would not be who he was without his memories. Draco made sure Hermione remembered enough. That she was sure of who she was as a person. That she was strongly tied to her identities as a wife and as a mother. Draco had been kind enough to reinforce her early memories. Some before Hogwarts when she was tiny and young like Scorpius and Lyra were now.

Additionally, as time progressed and Draco needed to keep increasing her dosages, Hermione seemed to grow foggier, her mind a little less sharp and clever than the day before. Draco added fern leaves and aloe vera pulp into some of her elixirs. The new ingredients, symbols of protection and health, were meant to reinforce her intelligence and wit, preserving her brainpower while maintaining her cheery, loving demeanor.

He was playing a dangerous game, tempting fate with attempts to skirt the laws and limits of magic. He developed a new moral compass. As long as it protected Hermione, keeping his family close to him, the ends justified his means. One foot in the land of the righteous and one foot in the land of the sinners , Draco walked the line. Upon the thinnest wire, down the narrowest plank. One foot in front of the other, Hermione and the children following single file, like his little ducklings.

Yet for all Draco had suffered, for all he had sinned, he need not worry. Life was good. The sun shone blessings on him and his family.

The children played outdoors as Hermione tended to her chores, carefully watching over the mischievous pair. She had a weekly schedule. Hermione liked schedules, eagerly welcoming the structure to distinguish each day from one other. It was so easy for them to begin to slide together, blurring at the edges, her mind confusing little details. 

Draco also insisted upon following a set routine. He said it would be beneficial for her and the children. He said it would help her mind stay sharp and her spirits stay high. He believed it would help Scorpius and Lyra develop a good work ethic and a sense of responsibility.

Hermione trusted him. His word was her gospel.

The routine was nice. It kept her heart steady and her mind calm. The bad thoughts and memories stayed below the surface, not weighing her down. She felt airy, so light she might be able to float across the surface of the pond, creating rippling waves with each footprint in the water.

On Mondays, she did the washing, laundering their clothes with soap and a washboard in a bucket on the porch then hanging them up on the line with clothespins to dry in the sun. Lyra liked to play with the suds while she did laundry, often joining her again on Thursdays when Hermione washed their linens and cleaned their bedsheets, towels, and rags. 

On Tuesdays, Hermione spent more time in the garden, tending to any weeds or planting new seeds. Crops were harvested when they were ready, but she tried to do so on a Tuesday when she could.

On Wednesdays, she mended holes and tears within their clothing, fixing worn patches in the knees of Scorpius’ pants or fixing the collar of Draco’s shirt. Hermione would sew clothes for them on these days too, creating pretty, practical dresses for Lyra and herself and dashing shirts and trousers for Draco and Scorpius. Draco was so kind and thoughtful. He purchased her a million bolts of fabric, any texture she could desire. Yards and yards of cotton and tulles and laces. He purchased any frilly dress pattern her heart desired. He treated her well. Spoiled her, honestly. She could choose any color she wanted. Whichever pretty pastels made her heart sing. As many as she could fit in the closet housing her crafting supplies. Draco was a good husband that way. He made Hermione feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

On Fridays, Hermione cleaned the cottage from top to bottom. She started with the dusting, wiping away the powdery particles and watching them waver to the floor. She wiped each surface in the house until they sparkled, polishing the windows from the inside and the outside until they gleamed. She dusted and mopped their floors. She folded the blankets and made the beds, putting away out-of-place toys or left-out books. She labored until the house was spick and span, presentable like a magazine cover. Draco always commented on how nice their house looked on Fridays. She preened at his praise, straightening like a sunflower soaking up each golden light ray of adoration.

On Saturdays, she did most of her baking, preparing loaves of rosemary bread and batches of buttermilk biscuits for the week. She made sure there were some of Scorpius and Lyra’s favorite cookies left in the strawberry-shaped cookie jar. Snickerdoodles for Lyra; peanut butter thumbprints with chocolate centers for Scorpius.

Each day had a general pattern too. Cooking in the mornings. Gardening and chores in the afternoon. Scorpius and Lyra glued to her side as she went about each day, bickering incessantly, but also asking thoughtful questions about the world around them, deeply curious about the bugs and plants and the animals and trees. It was with rightfully childish wonder that they looked at their lives in the little cottage on the large farm. Hermione thought they might have been the luckiest children in the world.

Even when her emotions turned dark and murky, stormily swirling inside of her like a sinister riptide, she never doubted her love for the children. Never . Scorpius and Lyra were the brightest bits of her days. The giggles and the tantrums. The sour moments and the sweet. Hermione loved being a mother. The feeling was innate, simple like the need to breathe.

She dreamt once where Scorpius and Lyra had coppery waves and blue eyes. They did not resemble Draco in the mirage; they looked sort of like the ginger boy. The vision was even hazier than most, a small puff of smoke quickly dissipating, gone before truly materializing in her mind.

She had another dream where she lived alone in a city, stuffed into a teeny tiny flat. She traveled through the fireplace to a large room brimming with bustling people stepping out of green flames as she did. She rode a lift that went in all directions, jerking harshly. Up and down. Forward and back. She sat at a desk and worked until the sky turned dark. Hermione could not see the desk clearly enough to decipher what she was working on. She had a quill in her hand, surrounded by books and scrolls piled high on the floor.

Hermione swallowed the dreams down like she had been practicing. They sank into her stomach, heavy as a stone. It was growing easier to suppress them. They slipped through her fingers as effortlessly as water, sliding out, back into the secret depths where they resided.

Sundays were her favorite. On Sundays, they rested, spending the day as a family, exploring the land or reading together in the sunlit living room. They would watch the sunset on the porch, Lyra sitting on Hermione’s lap, damp arms wrapped around her neck and milky breath on her cheek. Scorpius sat between her and Draco, nestled snugly against them. They’d watch the birds fly in the sky and point out different constellations and stars, easily visible in the unpopulated area.

Sundays were lovely, perfect .

The evenings of each day were lovely too. Watercolor sunsets with vibrant streaks of carrot and heather zigzagging across the blush-tinged periwinkle sky. Happy dinners laughing at the table eating homegrown, homecooked meals. Bedtime stories and cups of cocoa in the winter. Freshly bathed kids wrapped in fluffy, plush towels with clean pink cheeks in adorable pajamas dotted with woodland animals.

Hermione put the children to bed by herself most nights, whispering words of love and wishes of sweet dreams into their small ears, pressing gentle kisses to their damp hairlines still moist with water from the bath. She often waited until they fell asleep, breathing slowing to a quiet hush, before leaving the room to spend the rest of the evening with her husband. Sometimes Draco assisted her in the bedtime routine, but he often opted to trek back to the greenhouse, sneaking in an extra hour of work while she tucked the kids under their covers. Rarely did Draco put them to bed by himself, giving Hermione an hour to read alone. They did not have many books. Well, not many books for adults; they had dozens for Scorpius and Lyra. 

She scanned over the pages of the well-loved book, filled with pictures of French birds and how to identify the different species. She thought it would be fun to point out the various types to the children. Scorpius, particularly, would be fascinated.

Draco waltzed down the stairs, scooping her into his arms and carrying her to their bedroom like she was a princess. She changed out of her day dress, opting for a new slip to sleep. The fabric was sheer– pure and white as snow, feeling silky against her skin. Draco sweetly went to fill a glass of water for each of them. He was so thoughtful like that, easily anticipating her every need.

She settled into the sheets, reveling in the soft sensation against her bare legs, welcoming the warmth of the blankets protecting her from the chilled air. Hermione cozied up in the blankets, pulling her favorite– a red and yellow striped pattern that Draco hated – up to her chin. Hermione turned onto her side, nustling her head deeper into the fluffy pillows.

Then, she sat straight up. Her stomach felt leaden, turning into a somersaulting queasy tangle.

A piercing sensation tore through her. 

The half-baked, eerie sense that something was terribly wrong raised the hairs at her nape. 

Hermione felt herself growing agitated like there was a disturbing danger lurking nearby. Primal sirens whistled in her head, warning her of an unknown threat.

Draco re-entered the room with a cup in each hand. The glasses looked small when encased in his massive palms. She gratefully accepted the glass, rapidly downing it in three large gulps and setting the empty glass on her sage-colored nightstand.

He was gazing at her curiously, almost like she was a sad movie he had seen many, many times before. Exhaustion and sorrow poked through his neutral expression.

She looked at Draco– at his face, the one she woke up to each day and went to bed with each night. She knew his face as intimately as she knew her own. She knew the fine scars crisscrossing all along his skin– from a childhood accident , he said, marring the expanse of his flesh, from his forehead to his torso to his limbs. She could chart them like a map as easily as he could identify constellations within the sky.

Only, Hermione looked at him and saw a stranger peering back.

No, that was not right.

Not quite a stranger.

More like an almost forgotten enemy .

The world shifted on its axis. She thought the floor might fall out beneath her. The walls began to spin and constrict. Hermione felt they might close in on her entirely, crushing her flat between them until she turned into nothing more than a scarlet splat.

She snarled at him. “Ferret.” Her sharp teeth gleamed in the light, protruding pearly peaks like fangs behind her curled lips. The cruel name felt right on her tongue.

Draco chuckled dismissively, expression shifting akin to amused. Her blood boiled at the patronizing reaction like Hermione was a child throwing a tantrum. Even though that was not a fair comparison, she was more respectful to the children when they were upset. 

He reached out to stroke her, so similar to how she pets Crookshanks. “It will be okay, little wife. In a moment, you will feel right again.” He said it like a reassurance, but it felt ominous, resembling a threat. 

The lioness inside of her rioted against its cage, growling ferociously. Hermione did the same, clamping her teeth on his extended hand until blood swirled in her mouth. She recoiled furiously, pressing herself back against the headboard, feeling splinters breaking through her sheer slip to slightly prick her skin.

“Shh, it will all be over soon. My strong, brave girl.” He hushed, “just a little longer, darling.”

Her heart was pounding, thundering chest. Blood whizzed in her veins, storming in her ears, fast and heavy.

Yet, she felt her limbs growing heavy; her body was turning loose and languid. She was growing warm, a pleasant flush spreading across her chest and neck, a pretty pink blush across her cheeks and atop the ridge of her ears.

An idea struck her. 

She swallowed the bad feeling down as she did with all the others. Hermione felt the sullen weight settle beside her intestines. The constant companion might have grown comforting if it was not such a cold sensation. The feeling sank down until she could not reach it at all.

The room felt impossibly hot. Flames flickered across Hermione’s skin, spiraling up her limbs and torso. Draco’s eyes were dark upon her, only a sliver of silver peeking out behind wide, inky saucers. The tip of his tongue darted across his bottom lip. Hermione trailed the movement, unable to tear her gaze away. There was a pulsing between her legs in dire need of attention.

Hermione thought time must have vanished, if only momentarily. When Hermione came to, her back was no longer flush with the headboard. Instead, she was kneeling at the edge of the bed repeatedly pressing her lips against Draco’s toned chest and stomach.

His hungry gaze, ravenous with desire, burned a trail along her skin, over her decolletage and the curve of her waist, down her slender, taut thighs, and over her ample arse. She felt his hands following his gaze, grabbing handfuls of her supple flesh and kneading it in his grasp like dough.

She heard herself moaning, lewd and lustful to her ears, yet almost foreign, like she was a puppet and someone else was voicing her lines, moving her lips and forcing the obscene, keening sounds out. She licked her tongue, broad and flat against Draco’s abdomen, up between his solid stomach, feeling hashmark scars on his skin and the firm muscles beneath it. She continued up her sternum, moving to flick the strawberry tip of her tongue over his left nipple. Once, then twice, encouraged by his ragged grunt.

She continued, leaving a slippery trail across his torso up to follow the carved curve of his collarbone, sliding hot against the flushed porcelain of his neck to nibble at his pulse point, where his blood rushed fast and heavy like the thump of his heart.

Fingers laced in a mass of brunette curls, Draco brought her face up to his, joining their lips in a passionate kiss. He nipped at her lower lip, and she gasped, inviting Draco to invade her mouth with his tongue.

When they broke apart, Hermione kissed back down his body, following the same damp trail her tongue made, still prominent, luminescent under the pale moonlight shining through their window. Deviating slightly, she kissed along the black etched into his left forearm, a faded tattoo of a skull and a snake, framed by blue-veined brawn. She ran her tongue along the slightly raised surface, following the outline of the skull and the body of the snake, flicking her tip against the forked tip of the serpent’s inky tongue.

Reaching for the waistband of his underwear, Hermione sat back on her knees, pleading eyes playful and bright and she bit her lip, batting her lashes as she asked, “May I suck your cock, sir?” She eyed his bulge hungrily, mouth beginning to salivate with need.

His perfect wife. “Anything for you,” he crooned, voice low and sultry. He tucked a thumb beneath the black elastic, dipping one side of his boxer brief’s down to expose the close-cropped patch of sandy curls decorating his groin. He pulled the black cotton lower until the swollen, red head of his cock popped out. A fat droplet of precum glistened at the apex, salty and enticing.

Hermione fought to keep her tongue from lolling out, striving to somewhat maintain her composure– an uphill battle given the damp patch of bedsheet growing beneath her drenched cunt. Her briny, tart scent wafted through the air– sensual and all-consuming, like a musky fog encircling them. She was salivating uncontrollably, feeling like she needed to have Draco’s cock in her mouth– in her cunt – more than she needed the blood whizzing in her veins.

She knelt on her elbows, arse arching high in the air and brows raising with a silent query. Draco nodded approvingly, freely giving his permission for her to pleasure his enlarged gland, rigid and erect, bobbing against his taut stomach in drumming aches. Her tongue darted out, effervescently lapping up his salty moisture, mewling as it collected on her taste buds.

Opening her jaw wide, Hermione engulfed him, sucking him deep within her mouth, tracing her tongue against the puckered ridge where his head met his shaft. Draco shivered, hips thrusting forward, further into her mouth. Hermione moaned around his girth, sending vibrations to reverberate through Draco, thorny tingles throbbing low in his bollocks. She forced her head down, gagging with the effort, until her nose ground against his stomach. The bristles ticked. She pulled back slightly, taking small breaths through her nose before diving back down, swallowing his full length in her gullet. 

Draco watched her throat expand where the tip of his bulbous cock urged deeper into her throat. His bollocks slapped against her chin with each thrust. Clasping his hands firmly, lacing his fingers behind her head, he held her head down against him, keeping his cock submerged to the base in her hot, wet channel. 

Her throat constricted. Hermione struggled to breathe. She clawed at his legs, leaving blood-red rakes where her nails dragged across his skin. On his arms. On his chest. On his thighs.

“You look so pretty with my cock in your throat,” he praised when tears started to prick at the corners of her eyes. “You are doing such a good job. My little cocksucking princess. A perfect, pretty cumwife. I love to hear you beg for my cock.” He pulled back slightly, a short relief of air through her nostrils, before slamming back into the depths of her throat, continuing this process a few times.

When Draco released his grip enough for her to reel back, ejecting his cock from her throat, Hermione coughed and sputtered. Sticky strands of spit trailed between them, connecting them together. Draco scooped some of her slobber into his palm, rubbing the slick mess into Hermione’s face. He coated her cheeks and forehead in the thick mixture of slip, making her smooth skin shiny with saliva.

Catching her breath, Hermione’s mouth opened wide again, pink tongue hanging out invitingly. 

“Not tonight, princess,” he murmured, “I want your cunt, not your mouth. I cannot give you a baby if my cum runs down your throat.” 

She smiled up at him cheekily, dragging the petunia point of her tongue along her lower lip, followed by a pearly tooth. Her brown eyes had darkened with desire, near-black with unabashed lust esurient on her delicate features.

Draco moved Hermione so she was kneeling upright again. He pushed down on her shoulders until her back fell against the plush mattress. Eying the damp patch between where her pussy had leaked, Draco groaned. “Is that all for me? My dirty girl. Fucking soaked , just from sucking my cock. My slutty angel must have been Heaven-sent.” 

Hermione scooted back on the bed toward the pillows, wantonly splaying lithe legs across the sheets. Her golden skin lustered like polished metal, glowing under the faint candlelight. Her swollen clit peeked out through its hood, begging for attention nestled between her puffy pussy lips. Draco climbed onto the bed, stalking toward her. 

In one fluid motion, he gripped her lacy neckline and tore the sheer fabric in two, baring her to him. Draco tweaked one of her taut rosy nipples with his fingers, sucking the other into his mouth and swirling his tongue across the darkened skin of her areola.

Draco arranged her like sexy furniture, masterfully maneuvering her body into whichever position suited his needs most. Hermione was a human marionette, and Draco was her puppeteer. He pulled her strings, lining her into the proper stance (her legs flush to her chest; her hands spreading her gushing cunt to him).

Palming the flat of his shaft, Draco fisted himself, pulling from base to tip as he admired his masterpiece. 

Draco inched himself into her, slowly pressing into the velvety heat, moaning as she clenched, urging him deeper and deeper until he bottomed out. Hermione gasped, adjusting to the whole of his length inside her sex,-- a delicious stretch, even two kids later– then wiggling her hips, signaling that she was ready for more.

“So eager tonight, darling” Draco whispered.

“Mhmm,” Hermione agreed, “I always want you inside of me. I think about it constantly ,” pitch peaking on the last word as Draco started to thrust his hips inside of her. 

He sat back on his knees, pulling Hermione’s hips up so her arse rested on his thighs. He snapped his hips forward, bollocks slapping against the firm muscle of her arse. “Constantly?” Draco questioned, angling his movements carefully. With each thrust, he slid against the rough, sensitive patch of her g-spot with the fat tip of his cock.

“Constantly,” she confirmed.

With one hand, he gripped her hip, using it to leverage himself, driving impossibly deep into her tight channel. He used the other to play with her swollen nub, lightly flicking at the aching gland. He groaned, “All you think about is getting fucked. My greedy slutwife daydreaming about my cum sloshing in her cunt.”

“Want more babies,” Hermione whimpered. “Need your cum. Need your babies.” She felt a warm pressure swirling low in her belly, spiraling in on itself in cursive loops.

“ Fuck ,” he growled, “You are perfect for me. You were made for me.” Mine . Always mine.” He brought his fingers up to her mouth, holding them below Hermione’s mouth. Draco’s piercing gaze never left her face, but Hermione’s eyes remained locked where their bodies met, mesmerized by the sight of his cock disappearing into her taut core. “Spit,” he instructed.

She obeyed, promptly dribbling saliva onto his fingers. Bringing his newly lubricated hand down to her cunt, Draco circled his fingers around her reddened bud. He imagined that her stomach was rounded, not flat, beneath him.

She cried out beneath him, making a series of indecipherable shouts as she constricted around his cock. Leaning down, Draco boxed her in, forearms framing Hermione’s round face and his hips square between hers. Draco’s pelvis grazed against her still-buzzing clit.

He could taste his orgasm on his tongue. Corrosive and combative, sparking across his tastebuds. “Promise me.”

Even in her dazed, satiated state, Hermione furrowed her brows together, a precious crease forming between the dark arches.

“Promise that you are mine.” His breath was hot and minty against the damp skin of her neck. A bead of sweat rolled down, pooling in the hollow of her collarbone.

“I’m yours,” she promised.

“I cannot lose you. I love you too much. I need you, Hermione. I need you. You belong with me.” His relief lingered at his fingertips.

“I love you, too. So much, Draco.” Hermione gazed at him, expression open and earnest, skin flushed as evidence of her orgasm.

“Promise that you will always be mine. Promise to never leave me.”

Something in the back of her mind whispered, asking why Draco thought she would ever want to leave.

“Always yours,” Hermione swore, promising “Forever.”

Draco’s orgasm ripped through him, tearing like barbed wire across his skin, white-hot and burning. “Mine,” he grunted, continuing to rut while the bliss shuddered over his body. “My perfect wife. Mine, always mine .”

She whispered confirmation, “always yours.”

When Draco pulled out, he felt the rush of pearly fluid flow around him. He pressed a chaste kiss to Hermione’s lips, then one to each cheek.

Feeling thoroughly spent, Hermione slumped back, eyes drooping shut as she curled into a ball and pulled the blankets up to her chin. Draco, being the kind husband that he was, procured a warm, moist rag. He gently ran it across her sex, cleaning up the seed flowing out of her sore cunt so it would not dry into crusty flakes on her smooth skin.

Recovering her with the warm blankets, Draco stroked her cheek, brushing damp curls away from her forehead as she fell asleep. He waited until her breath grew quiet and calm, gentle snores sounding in the air, staring at her serene expression. Hermione jostled and twitched her leg, rolling over to her other side, facing away from Draco. He took this as a sign to resume with work and retreated to his greenhouse.

It was only when Draco found himself alone at night, late when Hermione and the children slept, when his only company was the constellations and nocturnal critters scurrying through the garden, that Draco worried. He could hold the anxious thoughts at bay, barricading them behind a demeanor of confidence and perhaps a dash of arrogance during the daytime. When Draco felt in control.

He busied himself in the wee hours of the morning, foraging ingredients in the moonlight or meeting with associates in damp dungeons and abandoned alleyways cloaked in shadows and secrecy. Draco was not alone in his isolation. Many former Death Eaters lived in hiding, shunned from polite society for their crimes during the war. Most were rotting away in desolate cells, slowly dying a mind-numbingly devastating death. Alone. Comforted only by cruel taunts from grim guards and the bone-seeping chill of Dementors.

Draco knew how to evade danger. He had kept himself and Hermione safe for years, protecting their family from Aurors that would try to tear them apart. Her bratty, imbecilic friends would commit murder before allowing his once-bloody hands to hold her. No matter to Potter or the Weasel that they had not made it out of the war morally unscathed. For fucks sake, Potter killed the Dark Lord. They knew that death and murder were to be expected. A man in Draco’s position, a servant to Voldemort, had no choice but to cause chaos and destruction.

He was a changed man now. He had been for quite some time.

He was reformed. Honorable.

Good for Hermione.

A good man. A good husband. A good father.

Unlike his father had been. Certainly, Draco would not fuck his children up as his father had fucked him up. Lucius, the cowardly fool– too stupid to evade or dodge a death sentence and too chicken-hearted to go through with the trial. He had killed himself, hung himself with rope like a Muggle, the night before Draco’s trial had begun.

Draco was a better father in his sleep than Lucius had been in his flattering idealist imagination. Really, Lucius viewed Draco as a means of survival as another tool to use at his disposal while scheming for power and wealth. Draco was a better man than that. He was a better father than Lucius could have ever been.

He loved his children unconditionally. Mini carbon copies of Hermione and himself. Perfect mixtures of the two of them. Draco did not even care that they were half-bloods. It did not really matter. Not when they were hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest wizarding village. Not when Draco intended to keep them home and teach them how to harness their magical powers himself. Surely, he would be a better teacher than the savage instructors at Durmstrang.

Draco was unsure how to explain their magic to Hermione when the time came. He had hidden the few bursts of accidental magic that Scorpius had exhibited, lying through his teeth that Hermione was crazy and denying what they had seen. Draco had needed to administer a double dose of her suppressant that evening. The ends of her curls had sparked, magic igniting in the tips, crackling fiercely as she glared at him, arguing her side until she was blue-faced.

Hermione did not understand things like this. It was not her fault; she had no way of understanding. She could not fathom all that Draco did to protect their family. To keep her safe at his side instead of torn away from him where she would be alone and outcast, labeled a Death Eater whore until her dying days. Their children would be misfits, never accepted into society, and kept at arm's length from all families out of fear of where their true loyalties may lie.

Draco was loyal to Hermione. He was loyal to their family.

Nothing else. No one else.

Hermione lived eternally at the forefront of his mind. Every action he took was done with her in mind.

Love made him foolish. Hermione was a weakness– one he could not restrain himself from. Self-preservation was no longer his top priority. All that mattered now was keeping his nuclear family secure, ensuring that he could live out the rest of his days in peace with Hermione at his side and a gaggle of their children at his feet.

It was exhaustive work, maintaining the secure perimeter of their property and managing to sell potions or purchase ingredients from less than desirable, albeit wealthy, clientele. It was difficult to hide an entire world away from Hermione, but it was necessary. She had tried to use her magic against him. 

She had tried to harm him like an unappreciative bitch, not caring slightly about the lengths he had gone to while readying the house and lands for their arrival. It had taken months and months of planning, arranging supplies, and furnishing the cottage perfectly. Draco had tamed Hermione now. She was no longer feral, eager to sink her claws into his chest and tear at his flesh. 

Draco tamed her . 

She no longer wanted her former menial Ministry job. His Hermione was happy to perch on his lap and slobber on his cock. She was happiest when her belly was large and growing, or when her thighs were sticky with semen. Hermione was happiest when she could not remember the absence of a pleasant ache in her pussy, stretched from a ravishing fuck at every opportunity Draco found.

Draco had to stay alert, guarded against all he met, never revealing his face or name. Never meeting in the same place twice or with the same person regularly. Never anything that could track Draco down, risking his capture. Nothing that risked the demise of his utopia.

He kept a watchful eye on Hermione and the children, monitoring their daily activities along with how Hermione was behaving on her current potion regime. Draco was having to update her formulas at faster and faster intervals. Over the years, Hermione had begun quickly adapting to the formula, rendering it useless until Draco could ideate a clever solution.

He also needed to monitor the children’s budding personalities. Potion use while pregnant was understudied and there were risks associated with conception under the use of love potions. So far, Draco felt lucky and secure in saying that Scorpius and Lyra behaved like any other set of children. They were not heartless or incapable of love like Severus had warned children conceived under those circumstances tended to be.

At times, Draco wondered why he had trusted his godfather at all. Severus was a traitor in the end, working for Dumbledore as a double agent during the entirety of the second wizarding war. Though Draco supposed he did not have room to judge, he had married a Mudblood. He was as much of a traitor to the Dark Lord’s ideals as Severus had been.

He knew that he needed to find another viable way of molding Hermione into the sweet, obedient housewife and mother he desired. The complex concoctions of countless potions had worked well initially, but Draco needed to change the recipes bimonthly now, and the period between each change was lessening significantly.

So, Draco was currently researching other methods of fostering their connection. He desired a solution, a way to bind them together inextricably. A way to bind their souls together as one. Soul bonds could not be forced but could be mimicked in a few ways.

Draco thumbed through the tattered pages of Secrets of a Darkest Art , traded months earlier for an ungodly amount of Polyjuice Potion , enough to sustain an army of identity thieves for a decade of daily transformation, in a slushy Russian backstreet just outside of Moscow. Draco had not asked the man, whose face was half burned away, charred to the bone on the left side of his jaw, leaving a visible window of the few yellowed teeth inside his mouth, any questions. The man had not asked questions of Draco either. 

Neither man sought to learn what the other planned to do with their respective materials. It was better to remain clueless. To have plausible deniability. Not like that mattered much when trading illegal substances, but Draco upheld the belief that anonymity was necessary.

He stalked stealthily through the night, hiding in alcoves under the clandestine cover of the starlit sky, imagining the celestial drawings were his children and mother keeping watch over him like guardian angels.

Draco would find a way to tie them together eternally, melding them together into one heart. One mind. One soul. Something less tenacious than the potions with no inclination for fluctuation.

Draco knew that Hermione loved him. Even when her potion wore off and she pretended to hate him. Draco knew that was not true. He knew that she loved him– truly, madly, deeply – just as he loved her.

He would rip every mortal man limb from limb, picking their bones clean with their teeth if that would prove his love to her. Draco would do anything for her. She meant everything to him. She was his motivation. His sun. His life .

He poured over the collection of books detailing various methodologies of dark magic. Some he had taken from Malfoy Manor. Some he had been gifted during his stint as a Death Eater. Some he had traded for, like the onyx and amethyst cloth-bound novel in his hands. The embossed, gothic letters were bold on the cover.

Draco was no stranger to dark magic. He had practiced more than most. He knew the toll it wore on one’s soul, sucking at their life from within, draining their spirit of light in payment. 

All magic has a price .

It was one of the first things Draco had learned. Skin raw and burning, freshly branded, twitching on the floor as his aunt and father switched off, torturing him. Brutal beams of red light assailed him, hitting him square in the chest until he cried and urinated, soiling himself like a bloody child would. He could still hear his aunt’s cackle ringing in his ears at the yellow puddle leaking from his crotch if he closed his eyes. He could still see the venom in his father’s stare, nose wrinkled in disgust at Draco’s pathetic display of masculinity.

But Draco was no longer a scrawny boy. He was stronger and wiser. Hardened, more cunning. He was not fearful or timid like he had been as a lad. He did not shy away from darkness. Rather, he utilized it like any other tool to achieve his goals.

He knew feeding Hermione a steady pump of love and lust potions was not necessarily moral . Not if one was strict about their ethical standards. Draco was okay with toeing the line of morality to keep Hermione by his side. He believed in necessary evils. He was actively seeking increased options– intricate ways of tying her to him forever. Ways to unlock the deep desires she felt for him and unleash them into the world.

He squinted at his page, yellowed and wrinkled in the corner, evidence of a careless twat dog-earring the parchment once upon a time. He had stumbled upon a type of magic only rumored among Dark Wizards, a feat so rare, many did not believe it was possible.

A way to bind oneself to another by ripping one’s soul apart and storing it within a vessel.

The book focused on using objects as a vessel. Any object could be used. Draco scoured his other tomes, searching for any other information that could aid his quest for the darkest type of knowledge. He discovered that this type of magic had been done before using animals as vessels. Draco implored further, dropping webbed openings into whispered conversations to learn what any of his seedy customers knew on the matter. 

People could be used as vessels, too.

When Draco crawled into bed beside Hermione’s sleeping body, she turned into him, cuddling close and swinging a leg over both of his, nuzzling her head into his chest and pressing a sleepy kiss against his pectoral muscle. 

His eyes were bloodshot and bleary, but Draco had devised a plan. One that would tie Hermione to him forever so that even if the bloody Ministry found them, even if they tried to rip his paradise apart, Draco would be bound to her immortally. 

They would be unable to exist without the other, connected more deeply and intimately than soulmates, spiritually intertangling at the atomic level.

For the first time in years, Draco closed his eyes and rested a dreamless sleep. A night free of terrorizing visions of Hermione’s lifeless body ripped from her eyes by one of the selfish losers that thought they had earned the right to call her a friend. Free from nightmares of himself in a jail cell and his children slaughtered by bastard revolutionaries hoping to eradicate the Malfoy bloodline entirely.

Draco would keep Hermione safe. He would protect Scorpius and Lyra. Anyone that wanted to deprive him of his life– of his family –would have to pull them from his cold, dead hands .

One year later

Cassiopeia Narcissa Malfoy came into the world on a quiet night when the sky was clear and the world was calm. Draco delivered her as he had delivered Scorpius and Lyra. As always, he could take care of his family. He was all they needed.

Upon arrival, Cassie was quiet, seeming apprehensive of her new environment. So bright and cold compared to the cozy womb she was used to. Draco gently slapped her on the bottom and Cassie wailed, loudly crying– a welcome beacon, signaling that her lungs were strong and she was healthy.

Swaddling the baby in a soft cloth, he handed the small girl to Hermione. Cassie was still caked with vernix, the thick, milky substance visible and flaky on her wrinkly pink skin. Hermione brought Cassie close to her, carefully counting that she had all ten fingers and all ten toes. Hermione kissed her head whispering words of love and happiness.

The smile Hermione gave Draco outshone the sun. Hermione brought Cassie to her breast, cupping near the nipple so the baby could latch successfully. Cassiopeia began to suckle.

Draco’s gaze met Hermione’s. Love radiated from her coffee-colored eyes, surrounding him in a blissful warm embrace. Her skin was flushed, shining with sweat from exertion, but he thought she looked radiant, like a goddess having brought life into the world for the third time.

He stared in awe, mouth slightly agape, gazing in wonder at the love of his life and his youngest daughter. He hoped they would have a whole gaggle of children to fill the cottage and frolic the grounds. Already, Draco was mapping out how long it would take for Hermione to heal from this birth, trying to calculate how long he should have her recover before filling her once more, watching her stomach grow large and round with a fourth, then a fifth, then a sixth baby. Maybe more. Ideally more.

Definitely more.

For now, though, Draco could be thankful for what he had. The population of Paradise had just increased by one. 

This life was so much better, filled with purpose and meaning, unlike the one he had lived before.

Before his family.

Before the farm.

Cassiopia was a warm, comforting weight against Hermione’s chest. Hormones swirled in her body, oxytocin orbiting around making her heady with happiness and exhaustion. The little girl was feeding ravenously– hungry and demanding, just like her father.

Hermione laid back, closing her eyes. She was just so tired, and the room was growing cold. She wished for a blanket to cover them up, something to halt the chills creeping up her toes and legs, crawling up her spine and chest.

“Hermione.” Draco’s voice was urgent. “Hermione,” he growled, desperation in his tone. “Hermione, open your eyes.”

She obeyed, fighting her lids struggle to stay sealed shut.

Hermione saw blood. More blood than she had ever seen before. It coated her thighs in sticky scarlet syrup. It pooled on the floor in currant-colored puddles.

So much blood .

Hermione thought she should feel scared. She had not bled like this before. Not with Scorpius. Not with Lyra. Yet, she did not feel much at all. Not even pain .

Draco held a vial to her lips. The liquid was dark and burgundy, tasting bitter as it went down her throat.

Her eyes drooped shut once more. The cold sensation was gone.

She did not feel anything .

She heard an anguished scream, wretched and barbaric. She heard a metallic clang, something thrown against the wall, then tools clattering to the hard floor. She heard Draco chanting her name like a prayer.

“I will fix this,” he swore. “You’re not going to die.”

It seemed like a silly thing to say. Hermione was not dying. She was only tired. She would feel better in the morning. Or in a few weeks, after her body had recovered some.

“I will not let you die.” His forceful voice broke, turning into a shattered whisper, “you cannot die.” She did not think she had heard him beg before. “Please, Granger , do not leave me here alone. Please, do not leave us alone.”

Her numbness, normally accompanied by a frigid shadow, felt freeing.

The firm surface beneath her faded away into nothing. Draco’s voice was fading too. She could hear him, shouting in a panic. He was not usually so frantic.

Another vial was held to her lips. She swallowed, but the motion was difficult, an extraneous excursion, more so than one swallow should have been.

Draco could fix this.

He would fix this.

He would save her. This was not the end.

This was not how their story would end.

Nothing motivated a man more than his family– more than his wife.

Nothing motivated Draco more than Hermione.

She would be okay. She would be okay. She would be okay.

She must live. She would live.

They would fill the farm with a dozen blonde children. She would teach the girls how to sew and bake. Draco would teach his sons– and, they would have many – how to care for the land and how to manage their magic. He would teach them how to brew. How to take care of their mother and sisters. Eventually, Draco would teach them how to take care of their wives.

She felt like she was floating within a cloud. Everything was white.

He had worked so hard for this. This could not be the end.

He gave her another blood-replenishing potion. The feverish stream had slowed but was still trickling down, covering Draco’s hands and clothes in the slippery doom.

Hermione. Hermione. Hermione .

She was his world– his purpose.

He could not let her die. He could not let her go. 

He drew his wand. There was one last thing to try. He howled in immense pain, sounding like a wounded animal after gnawing off its own limb to escape a trap. Draco felt the universe ripple as he staggered, unstable and off-balance, while a piece of his soul ripped from his chest.

He would have rather died a thousand times than suffer that momentous pain, the insufferable waiting to see if the spell took effect. It felt like dying, white-hot torment burning throughout his body and shredding at his mind. The pain was worse than it had felt to be branded with the Dark Lord’s mark, black ink still marred upon his pale skin. 

The room smelled of rot and iron. Simultaneously, all the candles in the room extinguished. The room turned dark and black, inhabiting doom. It felt like eons. It felt like seconds. Draco could not say how much time passed, only that it stretched over them like a black hole while he writhed and she stilled. Her pulse slowed beneath his fingertips.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck .

He had been wrong, flying too close to the sun and crossing the line, tearing himself apart irreparably only to lose everything in the end. Draco sliced a blade across his palm, stifling a groan behind his grimace at the dull, throbbing ache. He squeezed his hand into a fist, allowing fat, wet droplets of blood to fall onto Hermione, staining her frazzled curls and dotting Cassie’s swaddle with crimson splotches.

He did not notice how the child nestled in Hermione's arms grew pale and cold. Nor did Draco notice Cassie’s cries silencing into cruel quiet.

All magic has a price .

Hope felt lost, like a snake had coiled around Draco’s chest, encircling and constricting until he could no longer breathe, complexion turning blue with oxygen deprivation when Hermione’s eyes lazily blinked open. She looked upon him in a daze, confused like a stunned deer staring helplessly into headlights.

She looked at him like he held every answer. Like he carried the keys to every secret in the universe. “Draco?” Hermione whispered, lips moist and trembling.

Everything would be okay.

Hermione was safe. Draco had saved her.

Paradise was not yet lost. He reigned, king of their heavenly oasis forevermore.

Draco had never known happiness, evading peace and safety since childhood, he had lived his whole life without being unequivocally and unconditionally loved.

Not like this. 

Not before Hermione .