Chapter Text
December 2009
There were always so many people.
It was a snowy early December afternoon and the streets of Hogsmeade were flooded with students enjoying their reprieve from schoolwork. Tiny bundles of green and silver and red and gold and yellow and black and blue and bronze travelled in packs, their mittened hands full of holiday parcels for friends and family. Among the brown parcels Draco spotted at least three bright purple gift bags from Weasley Wizard Wheezes’ new Hogsmeade branch.
In his cloak pocket, Draco had an iron grip around the letter he’d received from Teddy. He’d read it at least a dozen times before reaching out to McGonagall for special permission to meet Teddy during the older students’ monthly Hogsmeade trip.
Each re-read of the boy’s hasty scrawl cleaved another paper thin slice off Draco’s soul. He’d known at some point the day would come where he’d be confronted with the question printed on the page. He’d just hoped he could’ve put it off for a little longer.
He kept his head down, not keen to be recognised by any curious students, until he reached the tea shop where they’d agreed to meet. It was a new addition to Hogsmeade, having taken over Madam Puddifoot’s spot when she retired. He wondered where haplessly besotted fourth years now went for stilted first dates.
He spotted Teddy’s turquoise hair straightaway at a table in the back by the fireplace.
The boy was now nearly to Draco’s shoulders, solidly in that awkward pubertal limbo where his limbs and torso were growing at disproportionate rates. His hair was longer, falling in waves and ending just above his brow bone. His baby fat was just beginning to melt away, making his Black nose that much more prominent against his soft cheekbones and jawline.
He moved to give the boy a hug and was relieved when Teddy didn’t rebuke the offer.
It’s not totally fucked, then.
“Hey,” he said gently as he slid into the seat across from Teddy. Between them was a live-edge slab table and some dusty skeletons crammed into a long-forgotten closet. “How are things? How is school?”
Teddy was wrapped in a thick yellow and black knit scarf; it had been a surprise to no one when he was sorted into Hufflepuff. He had gone from an intuitive toddler to a sensitive child to a thoughtful, introspective pre-teen. He had what Granger called an “old soul”, and Molly sometimes weepily remarked how much he reminded her of his late mother and grandmother.
When he wrote to them to tell them of his Sorting, he apologised to Harry for not ending up in Gryffindor. Harry responded by mailing an embarrassing amount of black and yellow paraphernalia to everyone in the extended family, instructing them to wear it for Teddy’s first Sunday dinner back from school.
“School is good,” Teddy said honestly. “Brilliant, actually. Even better than you all said it would be.”
“Have you gotten tricked by the staircase yet?”
“Only once,” he said with a wry grin. “Nothing a Cushioning Charm couldn’t handle.”
“And your professors?”
“Mostly good. Binns is a drag.”
“Don’t tell Hermione that.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Teddy said with a smirk. He looked most like a Black when he smirked; otherwise he was all his father. Potter cried about this one night, Granger told him, right before Teddy left for school.
I think I know how his dad felt when he looked at me.
A heavy silence fell over the table and then Teddy squirmed uncomfortably in his seat.
Draco sat up straight, cleared his throat, and reached for the rusty knob of the closet door. “I’m here about your letter, I’m sure you know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Teddy blurted out, his cheeks red, his vision locked on the swirling grain of the table.
Alright. Straight to it, then. Lithified bones came tumbling out the closet door, scattering fossilised sins onto the table between them.
“I… I didn’t know how. Or when would be the right time.” Draco sighed. “I don’t know if there ever is a right time to share something like that.”
“I wish you had. It was embarrassing to learn from someone else.”
Shame had become less of a mainstay in Draco’s life over the past few years, but it embraced him like an old friend now. “I apologise for that, Teddy. I wish it hadn’t happened in this way.”
“It was horrible. I was putting up the photos Hermione sent and my bunkmate tore yours right through the middle. He told me… you were one of them.” Teddy’s voice turned low as if he was whispering forbidden, taboo words. “A Death Eater.”
Draco choked on the lump in his throat. “I was.”
Teddy recoiled with a heavy flinch. Draco silently begged him to meet his eyes again, but Teddy was staring at the table, his skin having gone slightly green.
“It’s not so simple, Teddy,” he said pleadingly. “I was a kid—sixteen. My father was in Azkaban and my mother…your grandmother’s sister…they were going to kill her if I didn’t agree to it.”
Teddy was shaking his head slowly. Draco couldn’t stop himself from continuing.
“I know Harry has told you some things about the war. It was horrible, to live through what we did. And it’s true that I made the wrong choices, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don't regret them.”
Teddy finally looked up, the greenness having faded. “You didn’t want to do it?”
“No,” said Draco emphatically. “I did what I thought I had to do to protect myself and my mother.”
Even all these years later, the skin on his arm itched at the memory of being sliced open and branded. He tasted metallic blood on his tongue and heard Bella’s cackle in his ear.
“My friend told me you were evil. He said your family killed his grandmother.”
Draco couldn’t stop the tears from welling in the corners of his eyes. He’d only gotten weepier with age. “You know me, Teddy. Do you think I’m evil?”
He waited, terrified, for Teddy to respond. Slowly, the boy shook his head left to right. “No. You’re not evil.”
Draco let out his breath very slowly, like a balloon with a needlepoint hole. “Do you have any questions?” he said quietly. “I want you to understand everything.”
Draco could see the way Teddy was straining to hold back.
“Really. You can ask me anything.”
“Did you kill anyone?” Teddy blurted, his neck and cheeks turning mottled red. He looked frightened of the answer.
“No,” said Draco firmly.
Relief flooded Teddy’s face for a brief moment before stress settled in again. “What about my parents?” he whispered. “Did you… did you have anything to do with them… being killed?”
Deep in his chest cavity, his heart fractured. “No,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure how they died or who did it. Everyone else… all of them, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Molly, Arthur, Neville, Luna… they all fought alongside your parents. They made the right choices and I didn’t. I was born into an awful family and I was too cowardly to challenge them. But I never wanted anyone to die. I just wasn’t brave enough to stand up against the people who did. It was more important to protect myself than to stand up for others.”
Teddy was staring Draco intently in the eyes, thoroughly absorbing everything he said. This boy, this eleven year old child, was looking at him with new pity. “I think I understand.”
“It’s alright if you don’t,” said Draco. “You can take your time with it.”
“I have more questions.”
“Of course.”
“Did you ever hurt Hermione?”
Draco opened his mouth to deny this—after over six years of loving her, it was easy to forget the decade before that. But there was a whole childhood of verbal and mental abuse he’d levelled against her.
“When we were kids, yeah,” he admitted. “Not physically, but I was cruel to her. Actually, she’s the one who hurt me physically. You should ask her about that, she’d love to tell you that story.”
“But she forgave you?”
“Yeah,” he whispered, his tear ducts threatening to give way again. “Yeah, she did.”
“She’s the smartest person I know,” said Teddy, and Draco understood him immediately: If she forgave you, there must have been a damn good reason for it. “And Harry doesn’t hate you. Or Ron, or Molly, or Arthur.”
“No, they don’t,” Draco whispered. “For a long time they did. But I worked hard to change that, and somehow it worked.”
Teddy nodded and took a sip of his cocoa. Then he fixed his stare on the left sleeve of Draco’s sweater. “Could I… see it?”
“See what?”
“The… y’know. The Mark.”
“Oh.” Draco pulled back the sleeve of his sweater to reveal the marled skin where his wound once was. “It’s gone.”
Teddy leaned over the table to get a closer look. “What happened?”
“It’s a bit of a long story, but it ends with you, actually.”
“Me?”
“You, Hermione, and a discarded ice lolly.” Draco smirked, recalling the memory. “You’ll have to ask Hermione about that, too. She loves to explain the magic behind it.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“I had tried everything to remove it, but it was a cursed Mark. I thought it would never stop plaguing me until you loved me enough to help us to heal it. You’re the reason everything changed for me. You’re the reason I came back to life.”
Teddy, to his credit, didn’t seem put off by this overtly sentimental declaration. Instead, he cocked his head to the side, as if waiting to hear more.
“I don’t know if Harry ever told you, but you’re the reason I’m friends with him, and Ginny, and Ron, and all of the rest of them now. You’re the reason I’m married to Hermione.”
Teddy frowned. “I am?”
“Yeah.” Draco’s voice turned low and gentle again. “It’s ironic, actually, that blood is the thing that brought us together in this life but would have kept us apart in another.”
He pointed to the nose they both shared and Teddy touched his as well.
“We’re cousins, right? Second cousins. When your grandmother passed away, I was your only living blood relative. She gave Harry the opportunity to let you get to know me, and he took it. And that’s how I came to know them all again. Before you, we were just old school rivals. I was nothing more than an evil git who made their lives miserable. But when I met you, I had a reason to do better for myself. And now… here we are.”
Teddy nodded slowly, then curled his lips into a wry smile. “So I guess you kinda owe me, huh?”
“In a fairly major way, yeah.”
His grin grew. “In a Firebolt 4000 major way?”
Draco breathed a short laugh. “They said your grandmother was the most Hufflepuffian Slytherin to ever exist. I think you might be the reverse.”
Teddy giggled as he finished the last of his cocoa. Their conversation turned to Quidditch, and which position Teddy would try out for next year, and if he was nervous for exams. Draco told him about the Slytherin dungeons and Teddy described for him the botanical wonders of the Hufflepuff common room.
Eventually it was time for him to return to the dormitories for the evening. Draco passed along a parcel of sweets from Molly and a new winter cloak from Hermione.
“I’ll see you soon, yeah? Christmas break. We’ll go skiing like Hermione promised,” he said as they parted outside the tea shop.
Teddy nodded and pulled him into another hug, and gratitude was all that Draco felt as he left the bones of his past behind him, scattered with reckless abandon on the table in the tea shop.
—
When Draco returned home, there was chattering in the kitchen.
He’d fought hard against tying himself down to a place in London. It had been a nightmare when their relationship had first gone public; they couldn’t so much as grab coffee together in the wizarding part of the city without photos being published in the papers the next day. He’d enjoyed his life in Lymington and found Theo’s mansion to be similarly comforting in its seclusion.
But then the news came that Granger’s parents would be released from the treatment centre in Brazil to receive continued treatment at St. Mungo’s, any opposition was a moot point. They were moving to London.
They settled on a three-story townhome with little window planters and a wrought iron door. It was reasonably priced—reasonable price being something a disinherited Draco had learned to appreciate—and within walking distance of the hospital when the weather was nice. David and Jean Granger lived on the ground floor, with Draco and Hermione above them. Their recovery was a slow and tumultuous process, and building back trust had been the focus of Hermione’s relationship with them over the past several years.
He Apparated directly into the foyer. A sizable black-and-white candid of their wedding day greeted him whenever he came home: the looping photo caught Hermione’s vibrant smile as he dipped her dramatically during their first dance.
Draco had wanted to propose sooner, but waited until David was well enough for him to ask for his daughter’s hand. Hermione was indignant at this and flapped at him about archaic patriarchal tradition, until he reminded her she hadn’t a leg to stand on when it came to clandestine meetings with fathers.
He kicked off his shoes, peeled off his outer cloak and scarf, and made his way through the living room. It was a cosy space that bore great resemblance to the library in Hermione’s old flat, except with great cathedral windows between the bookshelves, and twice as many photo frames decorating the walls.
Cassandra and Benjamin, their muzzles now white with age, were snuggled on the couch. Between them was Hermione’s newest foster kitten, a little black thing with white socks that was snoozing with its belly facing up. The dogs spent most of their waking hours sleeping, their days of long morning runs far behind them. Draco stooped to give them both a pat on the head before padding into the kitchen.
His wife was there, still in her white laboratory robes. She’d taken to working weekends lately, being on the cusp of yet another groundbreaking discovery. Her proclivity for therapeutic miracles put Jesus to shame.
“Hey, there,” she hummed when he walked in. “Missy and I were just going over some Fund numbers. It looks like we’re on track to add four new projects to the roster next year.”
Missy was standing by the kitchen counter. An orange quill was tucked behind her ear, which matched her orange fascinator and orange pantsuit. Her fingernails were long and painted the same shade of highlight yellow as the little pump heels on her feet. Draco had once privately called her outfits ridiculous and Hermione responded with a fifteen minute verbal lashing, so he now kept such opinions to himself.
“Mister Draco, you must thank Mister Blaise for giving us the discounted rate on his Lyon estate,” Missy chirped.
“The Yule fundraising tea must have gone swimmingly, then,” he said, nodding politely to his former elf.
“We raised 25,000 galleons.”
“Above and beyond expectations,” Hermione sang. She had left the Fund years ago but was on the Board and stayed intimately involved with their budgeting. The organisation suffered after her departure but was slowly making a steady comeback. A year ago, Missy had taken over the reins in a historic move as the first ever house elf to be Executive Director of a nonprofit. The first house elf to be an executive director of anything outside of a kitchen, really.
“Brilliant,” said Draco. “Sounds like you’re blowing all the naysayers out the water, hm?”
Missy gave him a suggestive smile. “And perhaps Mister Draco might be able to contribute to the Fund again soon?”
After much consideration of his existing and potential talents, Draco had decided to take a job with a private wealth management firm. Hermione did not approve of his work—she called it a waste of talent in service of compounding already insulting opulence—but he mollified this perceived moral failure by helping her brew her various experimental potions during his free time.
It turns out, as Theo had prophesied, that Slytherins did have a knack for turning money into more money, and Draco was quickly rising through the ranks at the firm.
“Talk to me again in five years,” he said to Missy. “And I might have a couple hundred galleons to spare.”
“You’ll have to excuse us, Missy, but I did need to talk to Draco about something important,” Hermione said politely.
“Of course!” she said, waving them off with her hands. “Missy will see you both next week for tea?” she asked over her shoulder as she tottered out the kitchen.
“Ten on Tuesday! I look forward to your biscuits!” Hermione called out to her as she Apparated away with a wink.
Hermione took three strides across the kitchen, placed her palms on his chest, and kissed him on the cheek. “Go sit, I’ll grab you some water.”
She gestured towards the couch and the dogs and kitten, sensing their impending eviction, scampered off to find a comfortable surface in another room.
He sat and watched her shrug off her white coat, revealing one of her staple grey dresses underneath. Her hair was twisted up in a clip. She followed him to the couch, a thin glass floating behind her.
“How was it?” she asked as she moved to sit opposite him. With a flick of her wand, the glass filled with water. She gave him her undivided attention, her brown eyes peering into his for any indication of how the visit with Teddy had gone.
He breathed in and let out a long sigh. “It was… fine. Good, actually. I prepared myself for the worst, so I suppose if he didn’t hex me, it could only exceed expectations. But he was actually astoundingly understanding.”
“Good,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I knew it would be alright. So did Harry.”
“You told Potter?”
“Teddy is his godson!”
“Oh, so shall I go spilling all your secrets to Ginevra since you’re James’ godmother?”
“Ginny already knows all my secrets,” she sniffed.
“Does she know about what we did with the charmed candlestick holder last weekend?”
Hermione’s face went bright red. “Rhubarb,” she squeaked.
Rhubarb was their failsafe. Sorry. Truce. Mercy.
It also served as their safe word, in such instances as the candlestick holder experiment.
She pulled the clip out of her hair and her curls came tumbling down her shoulders, kinked from where they’d been confined by plastic claws. “What did you talk about?”
“He asked a lot of questions.”
She turned solemn. “How do you feel?”
“A bit knackered, actually.”
“Well, save some emotional resolve for dinner. I have it on good authority that you’ll need it.”
He gave his wife a suspicious look but she made a face indicating she wasn’t at liberty to speak any further on the matter.
He shifted in his seat and gestured for her to lean her back against his chest. She did as instructed and closed her eyes as he began stroking his fingers through her hair.
“I was so scared he would hate me,” he whispered to her. “But he didn’t.”
“How could he hate you?”
She said it like it was a ludicrous idea, as if it were a total impossibility, but Draco knew intimately what it was like to be hated for his mistakes. It was not an easy thing to forget.
“He knows you,” she said firmly. “He knows your character, your heart. Your past is merely the stone that ground the axe of who you are now.”
He buried his face into her hair and pulled her backwards against him tighter. Their relationship was as turbulent as they both were. He’d spent more nights sleeping on this very couch than he could count. But at their cores, they knew one another as intimately as they knew themselves. They were forged in fire and all the stronger for it: if love could be summed by trials overcome, theirs would be immeasurable.
—
Sunday dinners at the Burrow looked very different these days.
The regular crowd has oscillated in size over the years but trekked on a steady path of overall growth. Padma Patil began making an appearance sometime around Christmas four years ago on Weasley’s arm, a ring came just six months later, and the two of them had since produced a set of very loud twins. Harry and Ginny had two children as well, with discussions of another on the horizon now that Teddy was at school. Lovegood had moved to Iceland with her fiancée Rolf, and therefore only stopped by when she was in town. Blaise, after departing the Phoenix Fund to join an internationally renowned consulting firm, had found love with a mogul’s daughter in India. They spent their weekends yachting, wine tasting, or otherwise indulging in the finer things life had to offer, but now and then he found time to join them for humble Sunday dinners.
“Draco, dear, would you gather the littles for dinner? They’ve been down for a nap,” Molly called to him when he popped through the Floo. At some point over the years he had gone from Draco to Draco, dear, and he hadn’t even noticed when.
He did as he was told, holding James’ hand and carrying baby Lily in his arms. James had been enamoured with his godmother Hermione from the day he took his first breath, but little Lily was absolutely obsessed with Draco. For a week after she was born, Ginny forced Draco to live on the couch at Grimmauld Place because the infant would only settle if it was he who dispensed her bottle. And Draco obliged, more thrilled than he’d ever admit to hold the little pink cheeked bundle and rock her back to sleep.
Inside, Hermione was chatting enthusiastically with Theo. During the time he’d lived with Theo, the two of them had become far too close for Draco’s liking. She successfully removed Theo’s Mark a year after Draco’s, a debt which Theo repaid with extravagant dinner parties in her honour. They had their own inside jokes, many of them at Draco’s expense; they had monthly movie nights in a room she’d convinced Theo to convert into a Muggle theatre; and on one occasion, she’d spent the night in his bed instead of Draco’s.
She called it a sleepover: they’d spent the evening doing face masks, baking cookies, and watching all three Godfather films. Draco called it nauseating and did not appreciate being made to wank off while his girlfriend was under the same roof as him.
He would have felt threatened had it not been for other cross-House romantic developments.
Charlie Weasley strode across the room with drinks in hand, depositing a beer in front of Theo and a kiss on his forehead.
“‘Lo, Malfoy,” he said, scooping up James and throwing him up in the air, making the toddler squeal with delight.
The dragon tamer handily won the Best Weasley competition. The first time Charlie spent the night at Theo’s, Draco had been horrified to stumble downstairs in his dressing gown and find a Weasley in the kitchen. Then the rugged redhead fried up the most excellent Full English Draco had ever enjoyed and shared embarrassing stories about Ron, and the rest was history.
Hermione reached eagerly for Lily, who turned away and buried her face in Draco’s hair.
“Not fair,” Hermione pouted. “Your hair is so much softer than mine.”
“I told you you can borrow my potions.”
“And smell like a pompous prat? I’ll risk the coarse curls.”
Lily tugged hard at the hair on the back of Draco’s neck and giggled, the sound wet and gummy. He was quiet for a minute. A thought had occurred to him as he departed the cafe in Hogsmeade that afternoon, and it had continued to burrow its way into his mind throughout the evening. Now, with Lily threatening to scalp him with her tiny fists, he felt as though the thought might eat its way out of his skull.
“Granger, would you fancy a walk?” he said suddenly.
“Hold onto that thought,” Theo said quickly. “I need you in the room for the next two minutes.”
Hermione gasped and Draco looked between the two of them confusedly. His wife shook her head, a small smile growing on her lips.
Theo rose to his feet and cleared his throat. He was wearing his typically ostentatious garb: pale yellow robes with bell sleeves and blue trim. He’d grown out his brown curls and they now grazed the tops of his shoulders.
“Attention Weasleys and assorted guests!” declared Theo loudly. The chatter in the room died down as at least two dozen pairs of eyes turned to face him. Theo pointed to Charlie dramatically. “I love this man.”
“Yeah, we know, mate,” said Ron. One of his twins burped loudly from where she was situated on his knee.
“Hush, young Weasley,” said Theo, making Draco snicker. “I love this man so much that I have done a terribly dramatic thing.”
Charlie’s face was turning bright red. “Theo, what are you doing?”
“I’m proposing, is that not clear?” Theo said incredulously. He reached into his ridiculous robes and pulled out a midnight blue ring box. “I went into my family’s vaults, and after carefully reviewing the contents with a curse breaker, retrieved my great-great-great grandfather’s engagement ring. He was a war general, blood supremacist, and one could only assume a raging homophobe. And in the spirit of continuing to absolutely fuck over my family’s legacy, I would love nothing more than to put it on the finger of my gay lover.”
Charlie let out a long, tired chuckle. “Romantic.”
Theo dropped to one knee and Draco heard Molly begin to cry from across the room. “I love you, Charlie. You’ve tamed my heart like one of your terrifying dragons. You’ve made me a happier man than I ever thought possible. You make mornings brighter, you make highs higher, you make life worth living.”
“That’s better,” said Charlie.
“Is that a yes?”
“Of course that’s a yes.”
There was a kiss, and the room erupted into thunderous cheers.
—
The evening’s celebrations proceeded with champagne and rapturous noise. Once he was properly smashed, Theo took the time to credit Draco and Hermione’s union for his own newfound domestic happiness. Harry grumbled about another Gryffindor-Slytherin matrimony, and Ginny chastised him for still being obsessed with their school Houses.
Draco felt a calm, settled happiness on behalf of his friend. It felt like a different lifetime entirely when he’d confessed to Theo on the floor of the Slytherin common room floor about the fate he’d been promised to. It was difficult to believe they were the same humans at all.
Eventually Hermione found her way back to his side.
“You said something earlier about a walk?” she whispered into his ear, her breath warm and smelling of champagne.
He pulled her out the side door towards Molly’s garden, where the plants were hibernating under a blanket of snow. He cast a warming charm over them as they exited into the frigid December air. Tiny crystals of ice sparkled under the Lumos at the tip of his wand.
“You knew about Theo’s plans, I presume?”
“Of course.”
“I resent that he told you and not me.”
“He actually didn’t tell me. I guessed.”
He scoffed. “You’re so irritating that way.”
They came across a bench between two snow capped lavender bushes. He melted the ice and they nestled together the way they’d been on the couch earlier that day.
“The whole conversation with Teddy earlier… It made me think.”
“Dangerous things happen when you think, my love.”
She was right, of course. And this particular thought was a dangerous one indeed.
“I think I changed my mind,” he said softly. “I think I want to start trying.”
“This has been you not trying? Colour me impressed, you’ve nearly doubled the personal wealth of Wizarding Britain’s 1% in the past three years. I suppose that would make them the 0.5%, wouldn’t it?”
“No,” he said more sternly. “I mean… trying for a baby.”
She stiffened in his arms and he was grateful he couldn’t see her face, because he didn’t think he could stand it if her reaction was negative.
“Granger?”
“Are you serious?” she said, twisting around to get a look at his face. “You shouldn’t joke about that sort of thing.”
“I… yeah,” he said. “I’m serious.”
The subject of children had come up many times in the course of their relationship. They’d had a long discussion about it before getting engaged. The conclusion they had come to was simple: life would be good without children. It would be good with children. Neither of them felt strongly enough either way for it to be an ultimatum.
Draco believed her when she said she didn’t need a child to be happy. She’d been fiercely devoted to her parents and her career, and she had many other children in her life on whom she could dote. For him, the point had been moot. He’d written off fatherhood the moment he was Marked. There was no universe where he could cradle a baby of his own in an arm branded with the insignia of the Dark Lord.
But many things had changed since he was sixteen. Everything had changed.
Her brow was furrowed for a very long time and he saw her eyes move rapidly left to right. He knew not to speak when she was like this; she was busy processing.
After what felt like an hour, she finally spoke.
“We’d have to write it into our five year plan.”
His lips tugged into a grin. “It’s up for edits soon, anyway, isn’t it?”
“Yes, in a few months. I want to earn tenure at the lab first.”
“Of course.”
“We’ll have to get permits for an extension charm for the third floor of the house.”
“Easily done, I think.”
“Neither of us will get adequate sleep for at least a year afterwards.”
“I don’t get adequate sleep as it is,” he dismissed. “Are you looking for reasons not to do it?”
“Just making sure we’ve considered all the challenges. There are plenty of reasons not to have a child completely unrelated to your hang ups about your past, you know.”
“Oh? Like what?”
“Your mother will be a nightmare. She’ll want a baby shower, she’ll make it a whole bloody affair. And she’ll bring my mother into it too, and you know how terrible they are when they conspire. Remember my last birthday?”
“The synchronised swan dance was a bit much, I admit.”
“Is it awful that I thought I’d never have to worry about this given Narcissa’s past prejudices?”
“What a shame that my mother is no longer a blood supremacist,” Draco sighed.
“Alas. Now we’ll have a garden party to reckon with,” she said with a shake of her head. “And this is to say nothing of Molly, who will surely force-feed me those wretched protein shakes she made for Padma while she was pregnant.”
“What terrible dilemmas we face.” He traced a circle around the red gem on her ring finger. “You’ll be the most excellent mother.”
She, of course, understood immediately what was woven into that comment: you’ll make up for what I lack.
She placed a warm hand on the edge of his chin. “I’m writing it into the plan in my head as we speak: We’ll have the most horribly swotty, arrogant, irritating child on the planet. They’ll memorise ancient spells and quote Nietzsche and style their hair perfectly. And we’ll love them infinitely and they’ll absolutely adore you because honestly, Draco, how could they not?”
He kissed the top of her head. “I love you.”
She hummed. They could see through the kitchen window from where they were sitting. Potter was talking to the group animatedly—probably about one of Charlie’s dragon adventures, judging by his dramatic hand gestures—while Theo was drunkenly attempting to braid Ginny’s hair. Ron and Padma were bouncing their twins while George shot sparks from his wand to entertain them. Neville had James in his arms and was swaying along to the Muggle music Arthur was playing out of a charmed gramophone.
Draco hadn’t noticed the smile that had taken over his face until he spoke again.
“There’s an old wizarding saying—it takes a village to raise a child.”
“Draco, that’s a Muggle saying, too.”
He frowned. This happened often, further dispelling the indoctrination of his youth. “Oh.”
She squeezed his hand and turned to look at him, vibrant anticipation etched onto her face. She was busy drafting their new five year plan in her mind already, he could tell.
“We’ve got a pretty excellent village here, don’t we?”
“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “Yeah, we do.”