This was written for the Strictly Dramione Yuletide Magic Fest. I wanted to challenge myself with something I have never done before.

If you have not realized this yet, this is a tragedy. Hermione is dead. This will not end in HEA. It's my hope you will read anyway. I'm very proud of this piece that laid my thoughts bare.

Thank you to Emily for editing this for me!

"Grief is the price we pay for love."

Queen Elizabeth II

The song played during her funeral was still rattling around in his head and he wasn't sure he would ever forget it. Not that he wanted to, for it would be forgetting a part of her. He didn't want to; Draco Malfoy would rather remember even her death than forget any part of her.

His fingers curled into a fist at his side and he could see his reflection in her tombstone. Crisp white snow had blanketed the muggle cemetery on the outside of London, and it made his stomach roll. It had been four months according to the epithet, but somehow it felt like an eternity.

The future was a wide expanse he couldn't understand - not with his wife in a casket beneath the earth. Her parents had been uncomfortable with his questions - something he hadn't been able to apologize for at the time - but answered them through their tears. The Grangers had expected him to fight for a funeral deserving of a Malfoy, but she wasn't -

She was Granger - even after he'd wed her in a church with vows that had made every eye in the building water. She was Hermione - the woman he swore he would cherish for as long as she would let him. While his heart felt like it had cracked inside of his chest, the sharp ends stabbing into his lungs and leaving him breathless, the worst part wasn't that he'd lost his wife.

It was that their son was without a mother and he was old enough to feel more grief than should fit in his small body. Scorpius was four and just as bloody brilliant as his mum.

Sucking in a shaky breath - watching it whisp in front of him - Draco fondly remembered how Hermione sat in their sitting room with Scorp, holding up flashcards - teaching him colours; numbers. She liked to take him on walks; loved to dance with him at Christmas, and Draco wasn't sure he could hold himself together if his son asked why Mummy couldn't dance with him this year.

Hot tears pooled in his eyes as he shoved his hands into his pockets. "I know it isn't your fault." He mumbled, kicking the snow and it melted on the toes of his dragonhide shoes. "Fuck, I know that, Hermione, but I should have been there. I should have been with you and I wasn't."

He fell silent, staring at her name as if she would answer him. "I know you've always disagreed, but it was my duty to protect you, and I didn't. It's inexcusable."

Once again, her soft voice didn't return to him with the gentle gusts of the wind, and he crouched in the snow. "Scorpius doesn't understand you're not coming home.. At first, he thought it was his fault," his voice broke. "Then he thought I had done something to make you leave ." A dry sob wrenched from his chest. "And I wish he was right because I can fix that."

He didn't mention how he couldn't fix her broken body because he had already thought of it over and over again. He had gone through every possible scenario - if he'd just been there, even if it was only to hold her hand - things might be different.

"You fucking idiot, how could you use more of your strength to send me a patronus?" He wept, raking his hands through his hair, his nails scratching his scalp. "To tell me that you loved me, that you loved Scorpius -" his voice cut off as a sharp howling of the wind ripped through the graveyard.

Draco would never forget the words of the sorrowful creature that had come to him in his apothecary.

"I love you. I will always love you, and I'm so sorry I won't come home from this mission, Draco. I'm alone, and I wish that I could hear your voice - that I could tell you where I was so I could hold your hand- but I.." her voice trailed off, shallow and shaky."I don't know where I am, Draco." Hermione cried.

He would know later that she was holding her organs in, applying pressure to a gaping wound that had been dealt by a nasty curse. In the room of the apothecary, his customers froze in place, taking in the final testament of Hermione Malfoy.

"I want you to teach Scorpius everything I wanted to, Draco. Read to him every night. When he picks the book with the green spine for you, pick the blue. It's his favourite but he wants to be a Slytherin like his daddy - he wants to please you. Teach him how to love because I think it is the most important lesson of all. Tell him how we met, all of it., even the bad ones. Don't forget the time where I hit you because it will make him laugh.

"I want him to know that you aren't always so harsh. You are everything he wants to grow up to be. Tell him how you used to make me laugh; how you were so terrified of dentists and telly's. Gods, I love you so much."

His eyes were filled with tears as the harrowing reality that this was the last time he would ever hear his wife's voice began to set in. His hand flew to his wand, and he cast his own Patronus. It was a flash of bright white, a fucking lion of all the things in the world, and he rasped "I love you endlessly, Hermione."

Her otter had never come back to him after it vanished, and he'd felt the marriage bond weaken. There was nothing compared to feeling your soulmate die half a world away while you stood helplessly in a public place. Draco's chest felt like it was caving in, and a man who stood with his wife caught him as he fell.

He'd never admitted that he hated that man for having a wife who was still alive, or been bitterly jealous of every couple he'd seen since.

Together for seven years and married for only five, it was too soon to lose her. Fuck, it could have been a century and it still would have been too soon.

He was meant to go first.

"Hermione, I don't know how to raise Scorpius on my own." He snapped, falling to sit in the snow in front of her picture. "Everyday I wonder if it's the day it will hurt less, but it never is. It's like fucking suffocating - not waking up to your warmth against me, or to your horrible singing while you make breakfast."

If she could have replied he knew she would have said, "I'm not that bad of a singer."

"Your parents are a wonderful help - they haven't left the manor in the last few months - but they're leaving on Christmas Eve. Your mum says it's vital for me to give Scorpius a sense of normalcy. She's right - always is."

Harsh December winds chilled him to the bone; snow still falling. "He wants to see you; wants to talk to your portrait when you finally appear. I think he's probably braver than me considering your mum is in that fucking automobile behind me. She practically dragged me by the ear into the car."

He paused, looking over his shoulder. His mother in law gave a small wave and a weak smile. Draco turned back to the headstone. "I should have come sooner." He admitted to the silence. In truth he hadn't been here since the funeral; not since they had laid roses on her casket and tossed dirt into the ground as she was lowered. "I was - still am," he corrected, "a coward. I haven't even returned to work fully; not with Scorpius terrified to be away from me."

He leaned forward, not sure what else to say, and brushed the slush away from the picture they had put on the stone. While it didn't move, it captured her beauty - the way her head tipped back as she laughed and the way her smile lit up whatever room she walked into.

"I wake up expecting to miss you less but I miss you more. People who pass me on the street always look at my wedding ring as if they expect me to have taken it off. You're still my wife."

When she first started going on more auror missions for Kingsley - a special request, one that he still regretted - Hermione talked to him about it. She was very specific about her desires should anything terrible happen and through her tears - even speaking of being parted from him for the rest of her days made her eyes water - she insisted that one day he would have to move on.

He deserved all of the happiness that could come his way, she said, and if that meant one day he should love another.

Angry, he'd shaken his head and kissed her between words of how she was the only witch for him. He wouldn't have another - it just wouldn't do.

When they brought Scorpius into the world she updated her final will and testament to include their son. She'd struck up the conversation again, repeatedly telling him that he was a wonderful father.

She knew her career was incredibly dangerous but Draco never worried that she wouldn't come home. Sure, there were bruises sometimes, and there were hospital visits, but this was Granger. Quick with a wand, and even quicker with wit, he wasn't worried. Even on the afternoon she'd told him there was a rogue werewolf he'd been confident in her skill.

Looking back, Draco regretted every second he hadn't spent with her, the petty fights in the early days of their relationship, the times he slept on the couch in the beginning of their marriage, and every second of Hogwarts and the second Wizarding War.

He stared at the words, rubbing his hands together in an effort to keep warm.

A loving daughter, wife, and mother.

"I love you even more now than I ever did before, and it's an absolute shame that I never realized I could love you more fiercely than I already did. If you were here, I know you would scold me for making your mum wait so long - another thing, the last one I promise. I never told you I loved your parents, but I do."

Truthfully he wasn't sure what he would do without them as his mother had succumbed to an illness two years after the war, and his father had died in Azkaban. As Draco slid into the passenger side of the automobile Jean reached across from the front seat, massaging his shoulder.

"It didn't help." He mumbled, catching the sight of his bloodshot eyes in the rearview mirror. His suit was crumpled; damp from falling snowflakes. He could have dried himself with magic but he didn't bother. "Wasn't it supposed to help?"

"Sometimes it doesn't." Jean murmured, bushing snow from his hair. "She'd have liked that you came to see her."

He nodded. "I would visit her every day if it would bring her home."

Her mother choked. "I would too, love." Tucking a piece of his hair behind his ear, she placed both hands on the wheel. "You need to get a haircut."

He snorted, craning his head back to watch Hermione's tombstone fade into nothing as they drove away. "Yeah, she'd have said the same thing." He replied, pulling out his pocket watch. A gift from the most brilliant witch he'd ever know, it was engraved with their anniversary and Scorp's birthday on the inside. He'd taken to carrying it with a small picture of their family taped inside - something his mother-in-law had done for him.

He didn't check the time much anyway. It always passed too slowly, but at the very least he was always able to see how she'd looked at him - once upon a time - when she was still at his side. Scorpius bouncing on his knee, he wished for the millionth time that all time turners hadn't been destroyed in the Ministry during the war.

With his in-laws gone, Malfoy sat on the sofa while he watched Scorpius flip through a photo album. "Daddy," he started, climbing to his feet and carrying the heavy book close to his chest.

Draco held his arms out, lifting the boy into his lap and settling his son with his back to his chest. "What is it, Scorp?" He murmured, brushing the light blond hair from his face. Of course he knew that it was a picture of Hermione waiting for him when he looked down.

"It's Mummy." He pointed to the picture, tracing her face. "I miss her."

His voice was lodged in his throat. "Me too." Draco mumbled, taking the book in his hands and flipping the page. Staring back at him was his late wife, cradling their newborn son in a room in St Mungo's. "This is you." He whispered, pointing to the little bundle in her arms. "Look at her smiling at you."

"She's pretty."

Draco knew without looking that tears were welling up in Scorpius's eyes. "Yes, she is."

For a moment his mind strayed back to muggle burials - to how his wife was rotting in the ground, and there was nothing he could do. "Can I see her?" Scorpius craned his head back, turning in his lap. "Grandma says you went to see her."

Draco nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I went to see her." He said dumbly, unsure of what else he could say. "Visiting your mum isn't what you think."

"She can't talk back." Scorpius said, and Draco knew his son had definitely overheard the conversation with Jean. "I want to talk to her."

"Okay." He agreed, his eyes burning as his son snuggled into his chest. He set the photo album on the couch, wrapping his arms tight around Scorpius. "That'll make her happy." Draco murmured, dropping a kiss to Scorp's forehead.

When he slept, his tossed and turned throughout the night. Shortly after the funeral, Scorpius would climb into bed with him, desperately seeking comfort Hermione had always given him.

After the first night terror, his son had been terrified of him and ran straight for his grandparents. It had been the first night that Scorpius willingly laid in his own bed, even having tucked himself in. He'd shown Draco that he could read the book with the blue spine all by himself - but he'd like for Daddy to keep reading them every night if that was okay, please.

Draco felt like his chest was caving in as he stood in the doorway. With his son now fast asleep, a content smile on his face, and murmuring "Mummy." He turned on his heel, hurrying into the master bedroom.

Draco locked himself in the master bedroom, casting a locking spell so Scorpius wouldn't wander into his bedroom at the worst possible moment. He also cast a silencing spell as he knew he wouldn't sleep.

He hadn't raged against the unfairness of it all since the night before the funeral. It was his job to remain steadfast for the child sleeping across the hall, and he'd already failed as a husband. Now he hurled an irreplaceable vase at the wall and watched it split into pieces. Had Hermione been there she would have told him how useless it was to scream and to take out his anger on material things.

Their shared bedroom destroyed, a tapestry ripped from the wall, he laid down on her side of the bed. Under a stasis charm, the pillow still held her scent - lavender and vanilla.

Rummaging around in the drawer in the bedside table, he felt around for a bottle of dreamless sleep. "Fuck." Lifting the empty bottle, he realized that he was out. There was a reason he swiped bottles of it from the shelves on his shop, and it was that there was something worse than living every day without his wife.

It was dreaming she was still alive.

She was always vibrant, and he wished he'd noticed it sooner - before the Ministry gala where Zabini pushed them together. So full of life, and spinning about the dance floor like a damned fool, she commanded the attention of everyone in the room. Her crimson dress was fitted to her small waist, and sweeping along the porcelain floors, Draco Malfoy hadn't been able to tear his eyes away from her.

Hermione Granger laughed and drank, spinning with Ronald Weasley despite their nasty breakup following the war. As he was leaving - Draco didn't want to run into Astoria Greengrass again - Granger caught his attention.

"Excuse me," she cut in, her smile never slipping from her face even though she didn't have a reason to look at him like that. "Malfoy, it seems that you took the last glass of wine, and you're leaving."

He arched a pale brow, following her gaze to the glass of red poised between his fingers. "Are you asking me for my wine?" Draco chuckled.

Her eyes lit up at the sound. "Well, if you're just going to waste it, you could give it to someone else at the very least." She scolded, her voice playful, and her whiskey coloured eyes wide. "Consider it a good deed, Malfoy."

"Would you forgive me for enlarging your teeth in Hogwarts?" He expected her to throw the drink in his face.

"Oh," she shook her head, giggling, and that might have been because of the wine she'd already drank. "Definitely not. You'd have to do a bit more to earn my forgiveness for that."

He rolled his eyes. Rather certain she was flirting with him, he flicked his eyes across the room to see Greengrass. "I'll get right on making that up to you then, Granger."

"Giving me your wine is a start."

He shook his head slowly, a smirk slowly curving his lips. "If you want this glass of wine, you'll have to do something to earn it."

Placing her hands on her hips, Hermione Granger asked if he was propositioning her for a glass of Moscato.

He laughed, loudly, and it turned several heads. "God's, no. I was just asking for a dance, Granger."

She tapped her fingers against her chin. "Let me drink the wine first, and I will."

When she tipped the glass to her lips, drinking it in two swallows and taking his hand, it was only the beginning.

The thing about her was that she cared a hell of a lot about anyone she came across. She was feisty and demanded respect, and if he was quite honest he wasn't sure how she ever came into his life - or why she stayed for that matter - but she liked to reassure him she wouldn't be leaving. "Not even if you kicked me out!" She'd insist, laughing and sliding her fingers through his as the strolled through Diagon Alley.

Draco decided he wanted to marry her when she brought Teddy with them for an afternoon in London. Watching her pick him up, throw him in the air and catch him, spinning with him until she lost her balance was riveting - he cast a levitation charm to break her landing more than once. There was no one else he would have wanted as his life-long partner, or as the mother of his children.

He chose the ring - white gold with a sapphire in the middle. Despite her Hogwarts house, her favourite colour wasn't red. Teasing her of how she ought to have been in Ravenclaw if it weren't for that rebellious streak she had was one of his favourite pastimes, and Hermione often lifted her left hand to see the ring sparkle in the light.

He married her in a church after her own wishes, and they had a private magical ceremony afterward. In a church with high ceilings - the sunlight filtered by stained glass tiles - she was all he could stare at. He frequently teased her that she could have worn a paper sack and he'd have been happy. She'd dressed in an ivory dress with a train that reached down the aisle, and a veil that hid the majority of her face.

Her lips, painted as red as the bouquet of roses gripped in her hand, were curved into a smile.

Getting pregnant so soon wasn't planned.

It was rough in spots. During the nights, Draco would stay awake while she slept, her arm caging her growing stomach in a show of protectiveness. He didn't want to be anything like his father; like the man who had invited the Dark Lord into their home. He made a promise every day to his wife's stomach, and she would comb her fingers through his dishevelled hair as she murmured it wasn't possible for him to be like his father.

There was too much good in him, she'd said.

Scorpius was born on Valentine's Day, and while it put a damper on any plans he tried to make with his wife in the years following, it was the best day of his life. Watching her, being able to hold her hand even though she nearly broke all the bones in his when it was time to push, was beauty at its rawest.

Of all the things he loved about her, all of the things that comprised Hermione Malfoy, watching her be a mother was his favourite. Scorpius was a mummy's boy. Hermione doted on him. Draco would come home to laughter; to his wife clutching their son while they rode down in the winding stairs in a laundry basket. Life was exactly as it should be.

Slowly, the wonderful dreams of her morphed into the ugly truths - into what she must have seen in her final moments. Hopefully, she had seen his Patronus, but even if she had, she had died a gruesome death.

There was a memorial for the Wizarding World, for the woman who had undoubtedly kept Harry Potter alive long enough to destroy Lord Voldemort. Draco had spoken at the funeral, just as he had the memorial. He addressed her directly, balling up the speech he'd written on parchment and shoving it into the pocket of his suit. "Hermione," he spoke, the charm during the memorial carrying his voice. "I told you once and I'll say it again. You're absolutely gorgeous and that's always been the least interesting thing about you.

"They tell me that I'm supposed to make a speech," he addressed the attendees, "to tell you about all of her accomplishments. You don't need me to tell you any of that." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Hermione is the love of my life and my best friend. She's the mother of our son, who is old enough to understand she's gone. She was the Most Brilliant Witch of Her Age, and let me tell you that she absolutely loathed the moniker." He chuckled, wiping his cheeks. "She was a force of nature when she saw injustices. She was lively enough for both of us, and if she were here today, I know she would tell me hindsight would have changed absolutely nothing. My wife would have still gone, and she would have still given her life for the betterment of the Wizarding World."

He paused, glancing down at Scorpius who had taken his finger into his hand. "And as angry as I am that she's gone, I would be lying if I told you I wasn't proud of her."

"Daddy," Scorp tugged his finger. "Can I talk to Mummy?"

Heaving a sigh, he picking Scorpius up, and set him on his hip. "Go ahead. Talk to Mummy, she's listening." Draco whispered, though the gathering crowd could still hear him.

"I miss you." Scorpius said carefully, glancing up at his father. "I love you, Mummy."

Draco woke in a cold sweat, the sheets tossed off of the bed. Outside snow was still falling, and inside the room was still destroyed. Ignoring the tear stains on the pillow, he grabbed his wand and repaired the room, putting everything into its normal place once more.

Draco dressed in trousers, the first pair of shoes he dragged from the closet, and a heavy sweater. He closed his bedroom door quietly behind him.

Scorpius was already awake, having dragged out half of his wardrobe already. "Happy Christmas." He grinned, stepping into his trousers.

Draco smiled, crouching next to him. "You did a great job picking out your clothes." In truth, they didn't match at all, but it made the sight all the more endearing. Draco helped him into his red coat, zipping it over his green shirt, and smoothing his black trousers. The shoes were blue. Sniggering, he cast a warming charm on both of their clothes. "Do you want to visit Mummy right away? There are presents downstairs under the tree."

Scorp shook his head. "I want to visit first."

While he didn't have many words he could use, Draco assumed he was correct in assuming their son wanted Hermione to be a part of their holiday as much as he did. To open presents without seeing her simply wouldn't be right. "Come on then." he murmured, taking his hand.

The cemetery was quiet when they arrived; only one other person visiting in the icy hours of early morning. "Right here, Scorpius." Draco said, standing in front of the stone he'd just seen the day before. "What do you want to say?"

"I love you." Scorpius turned into his father's leg, his eyes filling with tears. "I love you." He repeated. "Happy Christmas." He fished for something in his pocket, pulling a drawing from it.

Draco knelt down beside him in the snow. "Are you leaving that because it's her favourite?" He asked with a sad smile as Scorpius set it in the snow. At his nod, Draco pulled him in for a tight hug. "She loves you more than anything in the world."

"More than you?"

Draco laughed, the sound that echoing in the graveyard. "Definitely more than me. She'd want you to open your presents." Draco kissed the top of his head. "It's freezing, Scorpius. We can visit anytime, okay?"

That Christmas day Scorpius opened all of his presents while Draco drank his tea, and a framed picture of Hermione sat in the floor beside their son. He played with his toys, especially a faux wand that he raised as he ran down the corridors with it.

Later that night, Draco stood in his study after he'd put Scorpius down as he rustled through the inventory reports for the apothecary. Throwing his glasses on the desk, he rubbed his temples.

"You know, the reason you have a headache is that you never wear your reading glasses." Came a familiar, bright voice.

His head snapped up, eyes landing on what had been an empty portrait, but now his wife sat there instead. "Granger?" He whispered.

"I hear it's Malfoy now, Malfoy." She smiled. "Happy Christmas. How was it for you?" She asked quietly.

His chair screeched against the wood, surely leaving deep scratch marks. "Fucking horrible, if you want the truth. Scorp and I visited you."

"I'm sorry I can't be there with you instead." She murmured. "I miss you."

His eyes burned with tears. "I love you."

"I know." She replied. "Did you get what you wanted for Christmas?" Hermione asked then.

"In a roundabout way, I suppose I did." He gasped.

Her eyebrows rose. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well," Draco stuttered, in a moment that certainly lacked finesse, "all I wanted for Christmas was you."

*dodges*This was a tremendous challenge to write, so if you'd leave me your thought I would be so happy!