Chapter Text
Silence had fallen over the house like a curse too heavy to break. The last glow of the Portkey had faded only hours ago, and yet for Hermione it felt as if entire years had passed since she’d last held Lyra and Scorpius. Her arms still burned, as if absence weighed more than presence; her temples still throbbed with the echoes of their laughter, with the memory of those small voices calling her Mum in the half-light of dawn. The void was brutal.
The first night was unbearable. Hermione stayed awake, clutching the little blue blanket that had once belonged to Scorpius, breathing in with desperation the fading scent of him on the fabric. Her throat was dry from crying, and every time she closed her eyes she saw them again—reaching for her with the innocence of children who did not understand what it meant to lose. There was no spell in the world that could cover that gaping wound in her chest.
Draco was no different, though he wore his grief better. He never said their names. He pretended to bury himself in reports, in duties, in a Ministry that demanded a composure he no longer had. But Hermione heard him pacing the house at night. She heard him stop in front of the little box where Lyra kept her hairpins and ribbons, heard the tremor in his breath before he returned to bed to feign sleep. His eyes were bloodshot in the mornings, his hands clenched tight. And still, he never admitted anything.
It was a shared mourning, a silent grief that bound them together more than either of them would ever confess. They were no longer two young people brought together by chance or convenience or destiny’s whim. They were parents without children, lovers who had never dared to be so, companions in a sorrow that marked them forever.
Weeks passed like this, learning to live with absences. Hermione left a cup of tea ready every morning; Draco made sure she always had a coat draped over her shoulders on their walks, though he said nothing. They didn’t need words—grief had its own language, one they both spoke fluently. And little by little, from that grief, a new intimacy was born.
One cold autumn afternoon they walked together through Diagon Alley, still half in ruins. The air smelled of dust and fresh timber and spent magic. Hermione crossed her arms under the oversized coat Draco had draped over her shoulders without asking. The pale sun slid down scaffolds while distant laughter from workers echoed like it belonged to a different world—one they no longer fit in. Hermione stopped abruptly, lips pressed tight.
“We can’t go on like this forever,” she said quietly.
Draco glanced sideways at her, shoulders taut.
“Like what?”
“Waiting,” she whispered. “Waiting for two children who may never return.”
The silence after was heavy as lead. Draco closed his eyes tight, as if the word never had split open a wound too deep to contain. When he opened them again, Hermione saw something he almost never allowed himself: pure, devastating vulnerability that made her chest ache.
“They’ll come back,” he said, voice shaking but steady with conviction. “I know they will.”
Hermione swallowed hard. She didn’t answer. Because even though her mind screamed they were only words, her heart clung to them with desperation.
That night Draco made a decision. For weeks the ring had been waiting at the bottom of a drawer—an heirloom from his mother, meant for the woman who would mean everything. He had never believed he would use it, least of all for Hermione Granger. But as he watched her sleep, tears dried on her cheeks, he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer.
The next morning he took her to the outskirts of London, to a quiet park where the trees had begun to turn gold. Hermione wrapped her scarf around her neck with a curious smile, puzzled by his secrecy. Draco walked beside her with his hands in his pockets, fighting the tremor in his knees. The cold air filled his lungs with every shallow breath.
“What are you planning, Malfoy?” she asked, that mix of irony and sweetness that always unraveled him.
He stopped, met her gaze with storm-grey eyes made wet with feeling, and for the first time let every mask fall.
“I’m not planning anything. I don’t have speeches or promises or a future neatly laid out. I only know that with you… with you, time doesn’t belong to me. I always feel like it’s borrowed, like it could be stolen away at any second. And I want—whatever’s left of it, whatever we’re given—I want us to live it together.”
Hermione’s eyes widened. Before she could speak, he pulled the small velvet box from his pocket. Inside, the ring glimmered softly: white gold, delicate, with a clear stone that caught the pale light of dawn.
“Hermione Granger…” Draco’s voice cracked. “Will you marry me?”
Her eyes filled before she could stop them. She covered her mouth with one hand, but the emotion was too strong. She didn’t answer with words at first—she kissed him. A kiss urgent and trembling, spilling everything she hadn’t known how to say. When they parted, she rested her forehead to his.
“I always knew it would be you,” she whispered through tears. “Even when I hated you, even when I despised you. Because some part of me was always looking for you.”
Draco trembled as he slid the ring onto her finger. She looked at him with her face bathed in tears, and for the first time in so long, destiny felt less like an enemy and more like a promise.
The wedding came weeks later. It wasn’t grand, nor crowded. It was intimate, held in the gardens of Malfoy Manor beneath a charmed hall where white blossoms drifted gently in the air. Hermione walked toward him in a simple lace gown, small flowers in her hair, and Draco could hardly breathe at the sight. She wasn’t Granger, she wasn’t Malfoy. They were simply two souls who had found each other in the ruins.
Narcissa wept from start to finish, a handkerchief pressed to her hand. Lucius held his composure, but when his son whispered a trembling “yes,” even his eyes betrayed their shine. Harry and Ron were there, wary, but when they saw Hermione’s smile, they understood nothing else mattered.
When Draco kissed her in front of everyone, a reverent silence fell. Narcissa applauded through tears, Lucius bowed his head in silent respect, and even Ron looked away so no one would see him swallow hard.
Life as newlyweds was a slow lesson. It wasn’t perfect: there were arguments, painful memories, silences heavy as stone. But there were also shared breakfasts, late-night walks, unexpected laughter. There were hands intertwined in the dark, promises exchanged in glances. And above all, there was an empty space they both knew one day would be filled again.
One morning, Hermione emerged from the bathroom clutching a piece of parchment. Her eyes were swollen from crying, but her smile trembled with light. Draco stood at once, alarmed.
“What happened?”
She could barely speak. She held the parchment out to him and whispered:
“Draco… I’m pregnant.”
He froze. The world stopped. He took the paper with trembling hands, barely glanced at it, then let it fall. And then he pulled her into his arms, holding her with desperate force, as if afraid she would vanish too. He buried his face in her neck, hot tears slipping onto her skin.
“They’ll come back,” he sobbed. “This time they’ll come back to stay.”
Hermione held him, hands pressed to her still-flat belly, tears streaming. Inside her, a promise was already beginning to grow—the promise of what they had lost, and found again.
That day they understood: time had finally chosen to be on their side.
The house was no longer silent.
Where once the walls echoed with absence, now they vibrated with laughter, with small footsteps, with playful shouts racing up and down the stairs like fresh wind. Hermione—barely twenty-one, with a new light in her eyes—could hardly believe how quickly life could transform. Two years ago she had felt hollow, broken, hands empty and heart torn apart. Now every morning she woke to children’s laughter, to a small body climbing into her bed, to a soft voice whispering Mum.
Lyra had inherited Draco’s gestures. The way she arched her brow when something seemed unfair was so identical that sometimes Hermione laughed out loud, and other times shivered—it was like seeing the arrogant boy she had once despised, softened now by sweetness and tenderness she had never expected. Lyra’s amber eyes glowed, questioning everything, even her. Stubborn, willful, she would fold her arms and refuse to eat until Draco gave her one look—and without a word, both would relent.
Scorpius was different: serene, with platinum hair falling in soft waves over his forehead and storm-grey eyes that seemed to hold the whole world. Not as pale as Draco, his skin carried Hermione’s warmth, and his quiet smile filled rooms with calm. He was observant, often silent, but when he spoke, his words were too wise for his age. Hermione saw in him the serenity she longed to have herself.
They were, without question, their children. Theirs in every gesture, every glance, every babbled word. And though Hermione still woke some nights crying, thinking it had all been a dream, the sight of them running down the hall at dawn convinced her: this time, they were here to stay.
Draco had changed. He would never admit it aloud, but anyone could see it. The proud, aloof boy who once seemed incapable of belonging to anyone now melted when Lyra climbed into his lap, or when Scorpius called him Dad with the easy certainty of someone who had always known it. It wasn’t a role he had sought, or one he thought he could play. But each time those two small voices claimed him, his heart broke and rebuilt itself softer, more human, more alive.
Hermione saw it in the details. In how he rose at night to check their blankets. In how he carried Lyra when she woke from nightmares, whispering comfort only she could hear. In how he read solemnly from Scorpius’s favorite books, feigning boredom while pride gleamed in his eyes. This was a Draco no one else had seen. A Draco who existed only because he had stopped fighting the inevitable: because he was a father, and he loved with every fiber of his being.
One morning the chaos was greater than usual. Scorpius had decided to help in the kitchen. Standing on a chair, spoon in hand, he stirred with such energy that half the batter ended up on the floor. Lyra, meanwhile, insisted her dolls’ bottles needed to be warmed just like real ones, demanding her father’s help with such imperious sweetness that he couldn’t help but smile. Hermione, caught in the middle, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and ended up with tears of pure happiness in her eyes.
“This is a disaster,” Draco said, wand already raised to clean the mess, though his smile betrayed him.
“This is our life,” Hermione answered, guiding Scorpius’s little hand. “And I like it this way.”
Draco looked at her in silence—and realized she was right. Because in that chaos, there was peace. In that disorder, there was fullness.
That very day Narcissa and Lucius visited. Hermione’s stomach knotted at the suggestion. Though the Malfoys had changed, though they had accepted her, old fears lingered. But Narcissa arrived with eyes shining, a bouquet of fresh flowers in her hand, arms open. The moment she saw Lyra and Scorpius running toward her, she broke.
“My darlings!” she cried, tears streaming down her perfect face. “At last, I have you here, safe, with me!”
She crushed them in her arms, and Hermione’s throat tightened. Lyra, shy at first, soon nestled naturally against her; Scorpius stroked her hair softly. Draco watched with pride and relief, as if reconciling with everything he had once feared to lose.
Lucius was different. He entered with his usual poise, straight-backed, eyes cold as judgment. Hermione held her breath. But when Scorpius looked at him with those same grey eyes and called him Grandfather with innocent certainty, something in Lucius cracked. His lips trembled, and for the first time in years, his mask fell.
“Yes, child,” he said, voice deep and breaking. “I am your grandfather.”
Lyra reached for his hand without hesitation, and the man who had once been pride incarnate closed his eyes, letting a tear fall unchallenged. Hermione watched, astonished, realizing that the love of these children could break walls that even war had not.
The afternoon passed with laughter and stories. Draco found himself watching as his father told Scorpius of an ancient dragon, while his mother brushed Lyra’s hair as if she were the most precious jewel. Hermione observed from afar, heart overflowing, understanding that despite everything, this was the family she had built—the one her children deserved.
When the sun began to sink, Narcissa clasped Hermione’s hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered, eyes wet. “Thank you for giving us our lives back.”
Hermione couldn’t stop her own tears. She embraced the woman she had once feared, and in that embrace found certainty: the past was finally redeemed.
That night, with the children asleep and the house quiet again, Hermione and Draco sat together on the sofa. His arm around her shoulders, her head on his chest. Outside, the moon lit the garden where their children had played hours before.
“I never thought this was possible,” Draco murmured.
“Nor did I,” Hermione admitted with a tired smile. “But it is. And I’m never letting it go.”
Draco kissed her forehead. They stayed there, listening to the house breathe, knowing that this time—at last—time was on their side.
