A/N

Hello again! This story was based on the Three AM Challenge made by Macceh on Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum.

Disclaimer: I don't own the freaking books or movies, but I wish I did.

Enjoy!

A girl paced the length of a small cramped space that resembled something like a room, but it was much too small to actually be a room. Wasn't it? She carried in her arms what looked to be a bundle, and as she walked she would gently rock the bundle up and down in a seemingly calm manor, though she was anything but calm herself.

Her hair which normally hung at gentle curls down her back was now frizzled and stuck out in different directions. Her eyes were shadowed with dark rings from lack of sleep (and having been jarred awake at 1:30 in the morning and being unable to go back to sleep for the past hour did nothing to help that either) and she had to blink several times, even sometimes keeping her eyes closed for periods of one wall to the other—which wasn't very long, for the room's width might have possibly been eight meters, give or take a few.

The bundle in her arms was motile and noisy. Its middle would raise and lower slightly as it whined and the woman seemed to be unable to stop its constant plea. The little parcel stuck a chubby human hand out and the hand reached for the apparent mother. The mother's name was Hermione.

The mother's hand that held the baby's head had no ring on it, though she wished there was. The one time she had decided to have a good time, it had turned about to be something terrifying. But the one who she thought loved her; the one she thought she could trust more than anyone in the world ran as soon as he had learned the news. She should have known, but as the saying goes, Love is blind.

And she had been blind; oh so very blind. How could she not see that he was a conniving idiot who wanted nothing but her virginity?

Because he had been charming and charismatic. He was the one who asked her to dance the night they reunioned and he was the one to kiss her hand after the first number and he was the one who told her that she looked beautiful in her ball gown and he was the one to compliment her on the way she blushed every time he did something rather alluring. He was a charmer and he could twist anybody he wanted around his little finger. Unfortunately, this time had been a bit more of a disaster for the girl.

Typically for a coward like him, he would simply break their hearts and leave them with no extra baggage. Typically for a wizard at his stature, nobody would believe that he was a goddamn heart breaker. Typically, they would think he was the most amazing man in the world. But those who had known him knew that he was a bad thing.

So here's the kicker. She knew he was a bad thing. She knew he had done some pretty shitty stuff…but she fell for him anyways. They all did.

"Shh…shh…hush. Please. Sleep darling, please sleep." Hermione begged letting the child grab hold of her finger with its quarter sized hand.

The little girl was obviously a fairly new baby, probably not older than a month, yet it cried like one of a further age.

Hermione trudged on, constantly begging her baby to quiet, but to no avail.

A man perched on a chair in his luxurious office sat troubled. Had it really been nine months already?

Just as the woman before, he did not look his best either. This man was ruffled and obscurely tired. His brain had seemingly not gotten any sleep for the past weeks.

Even his normally soft hair was thick with grease and sweat and the shirt he was wearing was not crisp or ironed and it reeked of day old foods that stained the chest area.

This was unusual for this man for he was always prim and proper, never a hair out of place, but for some reason, he was unnerved.

Unceasingly, he stared at a piece of paper. All of the words were in large print and though he stared, he did not see them. A barn owl had brought it and it read as the following:

Draco Malfoy,

Though you have

brought on me great

struggles and

heartache, I wish you

to know that you now have

a daughter.

Her name is Ophelia.

-Hermione Granger.

A daughter. He had a daughter. These words he had memorized front and back, and though he knew exactly what they said word for word, he could not unglue his eyes from the crumpled piece of parchment.

Through a split-second decision, Draco jerked from his seat, snatched his coat, wallet and wand, and rushed out of the doors that allowed entrance to his home.

She kept up the steady rhythm of walking seven paces easily towards one wall, then turning herself around and returning the seven steps, all the while her body bounced with the child she carried so carefully.

There was a rapping at the door. The knocker seemed to urgently need the girl to open up.

Hermione lay her baby down in the beat up, old crib that took up most of the space in the room—the baby wailed and wailed for her mother to resume the bouncing—and her mother took the four steps it took to open the door.

It was he who ruined her life. It was he who ran away after she announced to him of her pregnancy. It was he who completely demoralized her lifestyle and left her to rot in this tiny cell of a room. It was he who tricked her into falling in love with him and making love to him one night many months ago. It was he who broke her heart after playing with it like a child's toy.

Fear and hatred filled Hermione's eyes as she remembered all he had done to her. Break after break after break. Was he really at her door after all that?

"I got your owl." He stated blankly. His tone was awkward, and why shouldn't it be? This was not to be your average daily conversation. Hermione simply nodded in confirmation that she had heard what he said.

Draco looked down at his toes and pretended to study them. Here in front of him was the woman that he loved. This was the woman he was too cowardly to tell her what she meant to him. The woman who stole his heart when all he wanted was a roller coaster ride. This woman standing in front of him so obviously hurt and blindly beautiful made him realize what he fool he had been. She made him realize that he feared commitment almost as much as he feared You-Know-Who.

"I'm sorry." He finally blurted out after a minute of blaring silence filled with awkwardness and lost thoughts.

Very nearly cutting him off, Hermione got to the point of his presence.

"What are you doing here Draco?" her eyes were tired and they were undeniably wanting no shit.

He was found speechless with shock at her aggression.

"I want you to take me back. I'm sorry for what I did to you; it was stupid, reckless, stupid, cowardly, stupid, and absolutely stupid. And…I want to help you take care of—of Ophelia."

Hermione brought her head down, shook it slightly and sighed.

"Draco, do you really think three in the morning is the appropriate time to be discussing this?" she pinched the bridge of her nose and scrunched up her eyes to try and clear her brain of all the nonsense floating around in it.

"Truthfully Hermione, I don't know if any time is the right time to discuss this. But now is better than never. Hell! Now is better than tomorrow!" there was a hint of hysteria in his tone and his eyes were wide with lack of sleep. Hermione would not accept this answer.

"But do you really think I'm going to let you back in, let you help me with our dau—with my daughter after what you did to me? Do you really think that I'm going to forget everything you've done? All the tricks you played?" her volume rose and so did the baby's. Hermione left her spot at the door to walk the few steps to get her baby. Just being in her mother's arms calmed her down.

Draco followed her in and saw his child. This was his daughter in her arms. His daughter.

Seeing this tiny being lit a spark inside of him and he cocked his head to the side. She was the most beautiful thing in the world.

"I—I don't expect you to forgive me…but I need to help you with her. Ophelia." He said everything quietly and calmly, but the name was said in an even more hushed whisper.

"You know I needed something a while back. I needed someone to help me with a problem they inflicted upon me. But I didn't have anyone. That someone I needed wasn't there. You weren't there!" she raised her voice, but remembering that her baby was rocking quietly in her arms, she lowered it to a harsh whisper.

Pain was instantly displayed on Draco's face and he turned his head away as if slapped. He may as well have been, for her words cut a deep wound.

If Draco had not experienced how hurtful this dilemma was he probably would have retorted back and most likely would have started a quarrel, but his mind had been cooled and he was not the man he had been nine months earlier.

All he could muster up to say was 'I'm sorry' and he knew even that was not enough.

A silence to loud filled the room as Hermione set the child back into her worn out crib and that blaring quiet ate at Draco like nothing he had ever felt.

Speak Draco. Tell her everything. Speak. Ask for forgiveness. Beg for forgiveness. Speak. Speak.

When he tried to speak, he found that the words were caught in his throat and unable to come out—a feeling unknown to Draco Malfoy. Why were things so damn complicated?

"All you can say is 'I'm sorry'?" Hermione's tone was nothing above a whisper, and it was lathered in pain and hurt. Draco turned his head once more as if slapped, though her words held no spite or anger. Only pain.

Draco hung his head, ashamed of himself and he shook it in a slight pattern of left to right three times. He felt a small amount of ignorance seep through his weakened composure and for the shortest moment, he felt it was below his dignity to hang his head at a mudblood, but it went away as quickly as it came, for she was not just some muggle born.

In a way, Hermione's shy, decrepit tone made him feel even more in the dirt. He wished that she would scream at him; push him down for what he had done to her instead of act so openly so he could read the barefaced asperity seeping from her voice. In that way he would felt better for being such a terrible being. He could have taken the mental beating and it might have been fine…but her manner was like the pulse behind a bruise (a particularly large bruise that ached as it throbbed).

"What else can I say? I regret it completely. It was the largest mistake I have ever made in my entire life. I broke you, and I know it. And I hate it. I hate what I did to you." Draco said, turning while pulling at the hair right above his temples and squeezing his eyes as tight as he could. He then took his bottom left palm of his hand and brought it to his forehead and bent at the knees slightly, still having furrowed brows and squinting eyes.

Hermione looked at this sight shell-shocked for she had never seen a man so openly broken in front of her and in all truth, it ached her heart to see. What she examined before her was someone who could not be lying (she had seen him lying many times before and this certainly was not what he would do to make her buy into his selfish schemes).

Instantaneously, Hermione brought herself forward and wrapped her arms around his waist and lay her head on his shoulder—tiny tears escaping as she did so. Draco was caught by surprise at the fact that she—the one who he hurt—would be hugging him.

She withdrew her hands and he turned around. Hesitant forgiveness shone in her eyes, but it gave him hope.

Hermione walked a few steps to the crib and gathered Ophelia in her arms and brought her to him, setting her little girl in his arms and Draco's eyes grew wide as he held the beautiful being that was his daughter.

"She's beautiful."

I hope I did a good job at writing the ending. Was it believable? I hope it was, please send feedback! CONSTRUCTIVE CRITISICM IS CRAVED! I need it to do better next time.

READ AND REVIEW! PLEASE!

I love you guys!

Happy writings

Caroline