Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters and core personality traits are the property of J.K. I own nothing, nor do I plan on profiting from using her work. No copyright infringement is intended.

You might remember this story posted on my other profile by a different name. I pulled it because I was way over my head with FF and wasn't sure if I would ever be able to finish it. I didn't want anyone else to get invested in something that might not go anywhere. I happened to have some rare free time and some muse for this piece. It is now finished. Some of the chapters were perviously beta'ed, some are not. I'm going to post a few chapters at a time and look over them to try to weed out some of the typos but I'm not great at seeing my own mistakes so I apologize if you still have to read through a few.

The story should be completely posted, start to finish by the middle of next month if you want to wait it out and read it all at once.

It is pretty dark, various triggery themes. It is not my intension to glorify certain unacceptable choices or behaviors. I am simply writing a story about fallible characters and twisted circumstances.

The story more or less follows the cannon Harry Potter universe with small difference, then completely varies after the events in DH.

THIS STORY IS NOT TOLD IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. These Chapters are short glimpses and jump around. Sorry if this confuses anyone. It is intentional and just the style I wanted to try out for this plot.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

CHAPTER 1

Chicago, IL.

The imperial blonde stood beside a private hospital bed, brimming with masculine accomplishment as his usually hard grey eyes took in the stunning, exhausted woman between the stark sheets. After nine painstaking months of a saint-like endurance, she had finally purged his tiny son from the safety of her womb and was nursing the hungry babe at her breast.

Until three hours previous, the young man had cared for only one thing in this large, cruel world; had only one pulse of light in the darkness.

Now he had two.

With gentleness most would assume was beyond him, he brushed the damp, curling hair away from his wife's lovely face. Only at his touch did she manage to peel her eyes away from the lazily suckling newborn. They were flooded with the same gut-wrenching adoration that had been pounding in his chest since he'd watched the woman he loved laboring to bring his progeny into the world.

The small, tired smile she beamed at him took his breath away.

"Only hours old and he's already nearly as gluttonous as his father," she laughed like a bell, lifting the arm that wasn't busy holding the child to her and running the back of her finger across the velvet-soft, sweet smelling skin of his chubby cheek.

Her stoic husband's thin lips twitched with amusement at the sight of the little tyke's mouth moving with gusto around his mum's nipple, trying with all his might to get more than the meager colostrum her newly producing breasts were giving him.

"You did well, wife," he praised dryly, his version of playful teasing. She rolled her honey colored eyes, trying her very best not to smirk. The devilishly handsome blonde shot her a wink before his features smoothed with sincerity. "I mean it, dove. He's a perfect little specimen," he said thickly, reverent gaze on the most precious gift anyone had ever given him.

She blushed under his genuine appreciation. The truth was that there was nothing in her power to provide that she would ever deny him. The gorgeous girl would bear him a dozen babies if it meant he'd always be this happy.

"Of course you'd thinks so, Draco, you vain man," she tittered, "He already looks exactly like you. I'd never seen such light hair until I met you, love."

He puffed to his impressive height with paternal pride. His son was the vision of a Malfoy, the culmination of centuries of impeccable breeding. "Fair skin and hair runs in my family. He looks like me just as I looked like my father, and his father before him…"

The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could realize his mistake. Draco didn't make mistakes, had never in his years of meticulous layers of deceit let something slip unintentionally. Not even the birth of his first child was a reasonable excuse for the variance. Such carelessness could cost him everything. Everything.

Hermione's eyes widened in surprise. Her husband never spoke of his family, clammed up the moment they were mentioned. After three years of marriage she barely knew anything about them. With her parents long buried after a car accident, and his mother and father lost in a house fire just before they'd met, the couple was an island. It was he and she against the world.

Well… now they were three.

She sprung on the rare opportunity, thinking maybe new found fatherhood was causing him nostalgia.

"He… He still needs a name, love," his wife noted softly, peering up at him as he expertly hid his sudden spike of stress, "If you want to name him… after your father…"

"No," Draco barked instantly, eyes flashing. "He's my son. He's innocent and unblemished… our future. I'd never taint him with the rubbish we left behind in London," he vowed, tone as hard as steel.

For a moment, Hermione felt a jolt of fear at the harsh edge in her partner's voice. She'd heard it only when he was in his office and didn't know she was near enough to hear—his reputation as a reputable businessmen driven from his no-nonsense demeanor—but he'd never, ever used it with her. He was unendingly tender to his cherished wife.

Draco watched as her arms tightened securely around their baby, a reactionary impulse to protect. His perfect features contorted in horror at his loss of control.

Pale lids clenched tightly and he took several calming breaths before addressing her again. He bent gracefully at the waist and pressed a smitten kiss on his son's tiny forehead, then another into his wife's wild locks. His heart returned to a much more manageable speed when she tipped her chin up and nuzzled against his cheek.

"Forgive me, dove," he implored her, never one for grand scenes.

The new mother, overflowing with Zen-like patience, shook her head in a gentle dismissal. "Nothing to forgive, Draco. I shouldn't have pushed."

She hadn't a clue what his childhood was like, nor did she plan on making a fuss about it if it caused an issue. Hermione loved the man he was now, her sweet husband.

Draco sighed quietly and continued to watch his now sleeping boy. The feelings that swirled in his head when he took in his vulnerable little family were startling in their intensity. He'd kill to hang onto them, to keep them safe.

He already had.

As if sensing his dark thoughts and eager to bring him back to their cheerful moment, she placed her small hand in his and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"You're everything to me, Draco. I love you to distraction."

He knew he was everything to her.

He had made sure of it.

The man with too many secrets ran his lips across his wife's temple, taking in the very essence of her.

"As I love you, Mrs. Black."