Chapter Text
The air in the house was different. For nearly five months, it had been a place of recovery, a pressurized environment of forced calm and relentless, supportive proximity. The "silent watch" had become a new, unspoken language. It was Blaise wordlessly showing up with a chess board. It was Neville asking for help in the garden. It was Pansy demanding his opinion on her outfit, three times a day. It was Theo, just sitting in the library with him, two men reading in silence, one guarding the other from his own mind.
Draco was still here. He was alive. And he was vibrating with an agonizing impatience.
He stood at the drawing room window, staring at the invisible line of the magical barrier at the end of the long drive. It was the 12-month mark. The second 6-month visit.
"She's late," he said, his voice too tight.
"She's not late, Draco. It's not even noon," Pansy said from the sofa, where she was pretending to read. The entire household was on edge. The house was spotless. Flowers, courtesy of Neville, were in every vase.
"What if she doesn't come?"
"Don't be an idiot," Blaise said, not looking up from the Prophet Narcissa had dropped off last week. "She's coming."
Then, a shimmer. A distortion in the air, like heat rising off pavement. Three figures appeared, stepping across the line.
Draco’s breath hitched.
Hermione. She was pushing a large, black Muggle contraption on wheels. A double pram. And beside her, holding a ridiculously large diaper bag, was his mother.
He was moving before he realized it, the drawing room door banging open. He was on the front steps, the rest of the house spilling out behind him—Pansy, Blaise, Theo, all of them.
Hermione looked up. She was tired, with the same deep shadows under her eyes that he saw on himself every morning. But when she saw him, her face crumpled in a smile of such profound relief that it mirrored his own.
She let go of the pram and ran, closing the last few yards between them. He met her halfway, his arms wrapping around her so tightly he lifted her off her feet. He buried his face in her bushy hair, inhaling the familiar, safe scent of her.
"You're here," he whispered, his voice thick.
"I'm here," she sobbed into his shoulder. "Draco, I've missed you so much it hurt."
"I know," he said, holding her tighter. The memory of their last meeting—that perfect, painful week after the twins' birth before he'd been forced to return here—was a fresh wound.
"Ahem." Pansy’s voice, artificially light. "Not that the reunion isn't touching, but babies."
Draco let Hermione down, though he kept one arm locked around her waist. He turned to the pram. He knew who was in there, but his heart hammered as if it were the first time.
"They... they slept the whole way," Narcissa said, her own eyes shining with tears as she looked at her son.
Draco approached the pram, his hands shaking. He looked down.
They weren't the tiny, red-faced newborns he'd left. They were people. Two tiny, perfect, identical people, fast asleep. Their unruly brown curls, identical to Hermione's, were thicker, framing their faces—his face, in miniature.
"They've gotten so big," he whispered, his voice cracking.
"Almost five months old," Hermione whispered, leaning her head on his shoulder. "They've missed you."
He reached out and brushed a single finger over the cheek of the girl on the right, Juliet Narcissa Granger. Her skin was impossibly soft. She stirred, her little mouth making a gurgling sound. Beside her, Helena Jean Granger let out a soft, sleepy sigh. Then, her eyes opened. His unmistakable stormy grey.
He was undone. The guilt, the nightmare, the terror, the cage of his own mind—it all just fell away, replaced by the crushing, agonizing pain of missed time, immediately overwhelmed by the joy of their presence.
"They're..." he choked, unable to speak.
"Hello, little ones," Pansy cooed, pushing past him. "Oh, you've grown! You're even more beautiful. Hermione, they're exquisite."
"They're Grangers, Parkinson," Blaise grinned, looking over her shoulder. "Of course they are."
The house, once a silent, tense place of exile, erupted into happy, ecstatic chaos. The pram was wheeled inside. Neville, Astoria, and Daphne, who had been holding back, finally descended, their voices a soft chorus of "oohs" and "ahs" at how much the girls had changed.
That evening, the house was transformed. It was no longer a prison. It was a home. The salon was a mess of Muggle baby blankets, strange plastic teething rings, and two travel cots. After a long, fussy, and ultimately successful attempt by the entire household to reacquaint the twins with their father and uncles and aunts, the seven of them collapsed onto the sofas, two empty bottles of wine on the table.
Hermione was curled into Draco's side, her head on his chest, his arm a steel band around her.
"I have good news," she announced to the room, her voice sleepy but happy.
"I met with Kingsley. And my mother," Hermione said, looking up at Draco. "The first year... it's been a 'success.' The terms were... probationary."
Draco's heart hammered. "And?"
"And he's amending the visitation rules," she said, a wide smile spreading across her face. "He agrees that a weekend isn't enough. Not for a father. Not with children involved."
She sat up, her eyes shining. "Instead of a weekend... from now on, every six months, I get a full week."
A cheer went up. Pansy actually squealed and launched herself at Neville in a hug. Blaise raised his glass. "A full week. We can get them addicted to sugar and teach them to fly a broom in a week."
"No brooms," Hermione said, laughing.
Draco just pulled her back, his kiss desperate and grateful. A week. A whole week. It was a lifetime.
The week was a dream. It was a painful, beautiful, fleeting domesticity. It was Draco and Hermione, a united front, trying to bathe two slippery, giggling babies. It was the entire house taking shifts to walk a fussy Helena at 3 AM. It was Draco, finally getting Juliet to take a bottle, a swell of pride so fierce it ached.
It was also a week of stolen moments. Kisses in the kitchen. Hands held under the table. And on the fourth night, with the twins finally, miraculously, sleeping soundly in their cots, they were simply husband and wife.
Later, much later, Draco lay awake in the dark, Hermione's sleeping form a warm, comforting weight against his side. The house was silent, save for the soft breathing of his wife.
And the cold dread, which he had successfully beaten back for four straight days, returned with a vengeance.
"A new pregnancy... one that'll happen at her next visit."
This was the visit.
What they had just done, the act of love and desperation and missed time... it was the trigger.
He stared at the ceiling, his heart a cold, heavy stone in his chest. The clock had started. In nine months, a new baby would be born. And sometime between now and then, if the future Theo saw held true, the guilt over his father would finally, fatally, catch up with him.
His eyes drifted to the guest chair in the corner. Theo, as always, was asleep in it, a silent, loyal sentinel. The watch was still the watch.
Draco looked at Hermione's sleeping face, her brow furrowed even in rest, and a wave of protective terror washed over him. He was supposed to die. He was supposed to leave her, a pregnant widow with two infant daughters.
He slid out of bed, careful not to wake her. He walked to the window, staring out at the dark, indifferent grounds of his prison.
He wouldn't. He wouldn't.
He pushed the thought down, violently. Not now. He would not ruin the last few days he had. He held onto the window frame, focusing on the simple, miraculous fact that he was, for tonight, a husband and a father.
And he was alive. But for how long?
The "full week" was a cruel, beautiful lie. It wasn't a week. It was a series of stolen, frantic moments that evaporated like water on hot stone.
Draco was a man possessed. He all but abandoned sleep, existing on black coffee and the sheer, desperate need to be a father. The "watch" shifted. His friends were no longer just guarding him from himself; they were now his support system, running interference so he could maximize every second.
Pansy and Daphne became "baby wranglers," handling washing and sterilizing bottles. Blaise and Neville were the logistics, the ones who did the late-night nappy changes so Hermione could rest. And Theo... Theo was the shadow, the one who just appeared with a fresh coffee for Draco at 4 AM when he was rocking a colicky Helena, the unspoken, shared terror a constant, humming presence between them.
Draco, in turn, tried to pour a lifetime of fatherhood into seven days.
He memorized them. He learned the exact, stormy shade of Juliet's grey eyes—his eyes—and the way her tiny, perfect eyebrows drew together when she was displeased. He learned the specific, hiccuping gasp Helena made just before she let out a full-throated wail. He sat for an hour on the floor, just watching them kick their chubby legs on a playmat, his heart aching with a love so profound it felt like a physical wound.
Hermione watched him, her own heart breaking. She mistook his frantic, desperate energy for the simple, agonizing pain of a father missing his children.
"They'll be here in six months, Draco," she murmured one night, her hand rubbing his back as he stared into Juliet's cot, long after she'd fallen asleep. "This won't be forever."
He just nodded, his throat too tight to speak. He couldn't tell her. He couldn't ruin this. He couldn't say, This is the last time I might be me. This is the week we started the clock on my death.
Too soon, it was the last morning.
The house was still. The salon, which had been a cheerful, chaotic mess of baby paraphernalia, was now sterile. The travel cots were packed. The diaper bag—a Muggle monstrosity that Draco now found himself looking at with a strange affection—was zipped and standing by the door.
The pram was waiting.
The goodbyes were a quiet, formal torture. Pansy, her eyes red, kissed both girls' heads and thrust a ridiculously expensive, tiny cashmere blanket into Hermione's hands. "For the pram. It gets cold."
Blaise just awkwardly patted Juliet's back. "Be good, Granger," he muttered, nodding at Draco, but his eyes were on the twins.
Draco held Hermione first, his arms locking around her, his face buried in her hair. "I love you," he whispered, his voice thick. "Don't... don't you ever forget that."
"I love you, Draco," she whispered back, her voice already trembling. "Be safe. Please, just... be safe. For them. For me."
Be safe. It was a useless, impossible request.
He let her go, his hands aching with the loss, and turned to his daughters. Narcissa, her face a perfect, tragic mask, was holding Helena. Hermione was holding Juliet.
He took Helena first. He breathed in her scent—milk and baby powder—and kissed the wild, soft curls on her head. "I love you, Helena Jean," he murmured. "Be good for your mum."
He handed her to Narcissa, who immediately turned away, a quiet sob betraying her composure.
Then, Juliet. He took her, and her small, starfish hand wrapped around his finger. Her grey eyes, his grey eyes, blinked up at him, calm and trusting.
He couldn't breathe. This was the one. A sob, hot and sharp, tore from his throat. He muffled it against her head, his body shaking. He held her so tightly that she let out a small, confused grunt.
"Draco," Hermione said gently, her hand on his arm. "We have to go."
He nodded, his eyes screwed shut. He kissed Juliet's forehead, his tears landing in her soft hair. "I love you, Juliet Narcissa. I love you."
He placed her in the pram, his hands trembling so badly he fumbled with the straps. Hermione's hands covered his, securing the buckle.
He stepped back. His friends instinctively moved, forming a line with him on the top step. A silent, supportive wall.
Hermione gave him one last, agonized look. Narcissa adjusted the pram. And then, they turned.
They walked down the long drive. Draco watched every second. The crunch of the gravel. The small, rhythmic bobbing of the pram.
They reached the shimmering, invisible barrier. Hermione looked back, one last time, her hand raised in a small, desperate wave.
And they were gone.
The silence that rushed in was violent. It was a physical, crushing thing. The house, which had been filled with life—with gurgles, and soft cries, and Hermione's laughter—was now just a big, empty, gilded cage.
Draco stood there, frozen, staring at the spot where they had vanished. He didn't move for a full minute.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Blaise.
"Come inside, man," he said, his voice rough. "It's cold."
Draco turned. He looked at his five friends. Their faces were no longer soft with the joy of the babies. They were hard, set, and grimly determined. The holiday was over.
He looked at Theo, who was standing at his other side, his gaze fixed on the empty drive.
"Nine months," Draco whispered, his voice a dead, hollow sound.
Theo met his gaze, his eyes pale with a shared terror. He gave a single, sharp nod.
"We're ready," Theo said.
The countdown had begun.
It was a bright, cold October morning. The persistent rain had finally broken, leaving the grounds washed clean, the air crisp and sharp.
The anticipation in the manor was a physical, vibrating force, but it was no longer the simple, excited impatience of the last visit. This time, it was laced with a coiling, unspoken dread, a low hum of anxiety that centered, as always, on Draco.
He stood at the drawing-room window, just as he had six months prior. He was vibrating, his leg bouncing, his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
"She'll be here," Neville said, his voice a low, steady rumble from an armchair. He'd long since given up trying to get Draco to sit down on visitation days.
"I know," Draco snapped, his voice too sharp. He wasn't worried she wouldn't come. He was terrified that she would.
Beside him, Theo stood, his arms crossed, his face pale. Of everyone, he was the only one who truly shared the specific, acidic terror of this day. This was the 18-month mark. This was the visit.
A shimmer at the barrier.
"They're here," Draco said, his voice a strained whisper.
The house emptied onto the front steps, a practiced, familiar drill. Draco was first, his feet pounding on the gravel, the rest of them a tight phalanx at his back.
Three figures. Narcissa. The double pram. And Hermione.
Draco’s feet slowed. He stopped, dead, about twenty yards from the drive.
It wasn't the pram that stole his breath. It was Hermione. The coat she was wearing was open, and beneath it, she was unmistakably, visibly, heavily pregnant.
He heard it—a sharp, stifled gasp from Pansy directly behind him. He saw Blaise's hand clench into a white-knuckled fist at his side. Beside him, Theo simply closed his eyes for a single, agonized second, his face ashen.
It was real. The abstract terror of what he had seen traveling into the future all those times, the ghost of a future he'd been fighting for months... it was here. It was real, fleshy, and walking toward him.
The baby from Theo's vision. The one she would tell him about as he bled out. The one that signaled the end.
A high-pitched, joyful squeal shattered the frozen moment.
"Dada!"
A tiny figure was struggling against the straps of the pram. Helena. She was standing, holding onto the pram's bar, bouncing on her chubby legs, her wild brown curls a chaotic halo. Beside her, Juliet was sitting up, her grey eyes—his eyes—wide and fixed on him, her hand solemnly waving.
They weren't infants. They were toddlers. They were eleven months old, on the verge of walking, and they knew him.
The sight of them, so alive, so real, broke his paralysis. He ran.
He met Hermione, but his reunion was a fractured, desperate thing. He kissed her, but it was a kiss of pure, frantic fear, not just longing. "You're here," he breathed.
"I'm here," she said, her smile wavering as she saw the look in his eyes.
His hand, shaking, immediately went to the swell of her stomach. He felt a kick, a small, strong, definitive movement against his palm.
"Oh, gods," he whispered. It wasn't a prayer. It was a curse.
"Draco?" she asked, her voice full of a new, confused worry. "Draco, what's wrong?"
"Nothing," he lied, forcing his face into a mask of a smile. "Nothing, I'm just... I'm happy. I'm..."
"Dada! Up! Up!" Helena was now chanting, her arms raised.
He turned, scooping his daughter out of the pram. She felt solid, real, her small arms locking around his neck in a possessive, familiar hug. He buried his face in her curls, his body shaking. Juliet, not to be outdone, made a small, impatient noise until Hermione lifted her.
The rest of the group descended, their joy brittle, their smiles too bright. They were all performing, their eyes flicking from the chattering, happy twins to the impossible, terrifying swell of Hermione's belly.
The silent watch was no longer silent. It was a screaming, klaxon alarm that only they could hear.
Later that evening, after the girls were finally, finally asleep, Draco found Hermione in their bedroom, rubbing her lower back.
"They're a handful," she said, smiling wearily. "They're crawling everywhere. Helena's pulling herself up on everything. You should have seen your mother's face when she almost toppled a Ming vase."
Draco just stood in the doorway, his heart a cold, heavy thing.
"Draco, what is it?" she asked, her smile fading. "You've been... vibrating all day. You're scaring me."
He walked over to her, his movements stiff. He knelt before her, placing his hands gently on her stomach. He felt the baby move again. His child. The one he was meant to abandon.
"When?" he asked, his voice hollow.
"When what, love?"
"When is... when is the baby due?"
"Oh," she said, her hand covering his. "Late January. About three and a half months."
Three and a half months.
His window. The time he had left. The guilt he'd been wrestling with for over a year—the guilt over his father—was no longer a dull, chronic ache. It was an acute, active threat. It was the executioner, and it now had a date.
He looked up at her, his eyes hollow with a terror so profound she couldn't possibly understand it. He had to survive until late January. He had to see this baby born.
But the future Theo saw... he died before the baby was born.
The week, which he had longed for, had just begun. But it wasn't a holiday. It was a countdown. He looked past her, through the open door, and saw Theo standing in the hall, his face grim.
The watch was on.