Thanks to misslexilouwho for all your help. Any remaining mistakes are my own. This was originally written for the DramioneLove Minifest on LiveJournal.

Sleepless in Somerset

-oOo-

"But he can't just keep on crying!" Draco was wild-eyed with tiredness, his face almost as haggard as during The Year That Must Not Be Mentioned. "They're meant to sleep twenty hours a day – he hasn't got time to cry any longer. Look here, it says so in the book."

"I don't think our baby has read the book, Draco." Hermione could feel herself swaying a little, and the edges of the room seemed blurry. The constant screaming, abating into hiccuping sobs every now and then, before returning with full strength, seemed to have gone on for hours this time. There had been a much too brief period of sleep recently, but she couldn't quite remember when, or why it had ended.

Then, suddenly everything was different. The fog in her head cleared a bit, and her ears no longer ached at each pitiful little scream. It only took one look at the contorted red face of the baby in her arms to figure out what had happened.

"Draco!"

"What?"

"You can't use a Silencing Charm on your own child!" Hermione was quickly running out of outrage, she was spreading it on so thick.

"Yes, you can. I just did."

He only got a furious glare in return, but it was enough.

"Oh, all right then. I'll lift it. Soon."

Hermione kept rocking the furious little bundle in her arms, so arguably it made no difference to Julian Abraxas Malfoy-Granger whether his cries were heard or not. She was pretty sure a child psychologist would disagree, but for now she allowed her shoulders to unclench – just for a minute.

"Mother says I never cried," Draco said by-the-by. "Maybe we should ask her for advice."

"And you turned into such a sweet child, too," Hermione mumbled, trying swinging instead. It didn't work either. "Listen, babies cry. All of them. Your mother may just be suffering from selective amnesia, considering it was more than thirty years ago and she probably was off her head with insomnia and hormones at the time. Just like I am right now, incidentally."

"Right," Draco agreed dubiously, clearly realising pushing it might the last mistake he'd ever make.

"Does the book say anything else that could be remotely useful?" Hermione didn't want to admit it to herself, but she was quickly losing any faith in the little library of Muggle and wizarding baby books she had assembled. The books were full of advice that sounded sensible in theory ("Put the baby down drowsy but awake;" "Some babies grizzle a little before going to sleep"), but that failed to account for the apoplectic rage Julian exploded with whenever they tried to put it into practice.

"I read something... Ah, here it is." Draco flicked his wand and a Muggle book opened neatly in the middle of a chapter. "'If in doubt, breastfeed.'"

"But I just fed him!"

"Worth a try, no?"

Hermione couldn't argue with that – it wasn't as if things could get worse, was it? She sat down on the bed again, nodding wearily at Draco. He lifted the Silencing Charm at the same time as she tried to latch on the baby, and unexpectedly, miraculously, it worked – Julian's sobs turned into noisy sucks and then contended into real silence, as if he couldn't get milk into his hungry little mouth quickly enough.

"Bloody hell. Not even Weasley needs to eat every half hour," Draco said weakly, as he joined her on the bed, watching his son feeding like he was going to be torn away from Hermione any second. Hermione didn't say anything, being too busy making sure Julian was in the right position, but she could feel the corner of her lips lifting a little.

Together, they watched Julian feed himself to sleep, a little trickle of milk running from his mouth when, at last, his head lolled backwards. Hermione gingerly extracted him from her arms, handed him to Draco, and collapsed on the bed. As she turned over, she caught a glimpse of Draco speaking sincerely to his sleeping son, held securely in his arms.

"... and we'd better make sure you bring a broom to Hogwarts. It's rare for first-years to be on the team but it's not unheard of, and there's no harm in being prepared. As for rugby – I know your grandfather has plans for you, but since when is using your own body as a battering ram considered a sport?"

Hermione drifted off to sleep, dreaming about toy broomsticks and trips to Platform 9 and 3/4, and the way life takes your expectations and throws them back at you, all topsy-turvy and a hundred times better that you'd ever dared hope for.

THE END

Just so you know, the magic trick works on Muggle babies too.