Already breaking the rules. Chapter 2.
He did not come home the next day. Or the day after that.
A full week later and a jackpot of four conspiring Death Eater sympathisers (Draco's personal record for a single mission) now safely in Azkaban, he finally made it back to the Ministry with his team. He sent the tired bunch home to their families and was sitting at his desk, preparing the necessary reports, when he saw Ginny Potter enter the Auror Department, her face white and struck with sadness.
"Draco!" her voice cracked. "You're back? What are you still doing here?"
"I know," he said lightheartedly, not catching her tone or disheveled appearance in his exhausted state. "Can't wait to get home!"
"No, you idiot! Did you not check your memos? You need to get home!"
"What?" Draco asked, his jaw now twitching stupidly.
"Hermione…"
He didn't stick around long enough to hear whatever else Ginny was going to say.
He found her at home, curled in a ball on their bed where he had left her. Where one was supposed to be, whilst on bedrest.
"Hermione! Sweet Salazar! You're okay!" he exclaimed.
Except she wasn't okay. She was sobbing into her pillow and he knew what had happened before he had even climbed into bed behind her and felt the soft, empty abdomen that was only days ago, a bulging haven for his unborn son. He pulled her tighter, to comfort her cries as his own tears slid silently down his cheeks. His right hand rested in it's usual spot beneath her navel, only feeling the empty quiver of Hermione's sadness radiating there, rather than the usual taps and pops that greeted him at this hour.
They stayed in bed for the rest of that day, not really speaking as neither could find the words they wanted to say. Even so, he could feel her undeniable coldness toward him. A few more days passed before she finally shattered.
Draco had woken up the day after the funeral, driven to do something to keep himself from going mad. After cleaning up the pile of clothes that had been growing in size on the floor at the foot of their bed, and tidying up the discarded takeaway containers their friends had been kind enough to hand-deliver, he began preparing to go to work. It felt as if he didn't occupy his mind, he would lose it.
"You weren't here," she said quietly from the bed.
He hadn't realised he had woken her. "What?" he said, sliding his left foot into its shoe. He wasn't ready for this argument. "You know I got here as soon as I knew."
"But you weren't here when I needed you. When I was losing our baby at St. Mungo's. Alone." She was unusually calm. This worried him. Her voice was steady and strong as if she had recited this in her mind for days. She spoke each word with purpose, as if her marathon of silence had been spent busily selecting the perfect ones to twist the knife that was currently taking refuge in his heart.
His face fell. He knew she was right. He couldn't imagine how she had felt or how she was feeling at that very moment. She wasn't just calm, she was emotionless. He was furious with himself and terrified of losing the love of his life to this nightmare. Like an idiot, he did the only thing he knew how to do in this sort of situation; he put his defences up, and instead directed his frustrations with himself, at her.
"How dare you!" he ground through his teeth, his cold grey eyes ablaze. In three words he felt transported back in time to their typical interactions back in Hogwarts. He had not spoken to her like that in years and had never intended to again. Especially not right after they both had lost their child. Idiot.
"Me? What about you? I couldn't contact you! We lost our baby and I couldn't even tell you! And now you're going back! You're leaving again!" She had begun to lose her cool. He didn't blame her. In that moment he caught himself wondering how she had been with such an insensitive toerag for the past four years.
If he were being honest, he didn't want to leave her... but he needed to do something. He needed to get out of that room and away from that flat, and that argument. Call it an excuse, or unfinished business, but he needed to get back to work on the one connection he still had with his child, and that was reversing all of the damages Malfoys had done on the world six years prior, in the war. Like he had promised Hermione's peacefully quaking womb one quiet morning, many months ago.
"You need to choose," she said calmly.
Pulled from his thoughts, he stuttered a reply. "W-What?"
"I can't bear to do this again. And what if next time it's you? You know I don't care about your past. I love you!" she paused, "But I won't - No, I can't - live my life worrying over you. It's too hard. So choose."
"We'll talk about this later," he said, dismissing all that she had just said. He saw the tears build in her eyes and her lip tremble once before she steadied it with her teeth. Then, without another word, he stood and walked out to the Floo, disappearing to the Ministry.
She was gone when he returned.
