A/N: sorry this took forever to bang out...but, it is the ending. sorry, everyone, but this is how our story ends!

George appeared that night holding a sleeping Colm. He shifted the boy lightly in his arms, smiling. Colm was utterly exhausted. Per Brynn's request, he had taken her son out for a day so she could regroup.

"Brynn?"

He heard coughing in the next room and walked in, setting Colm down in his little bed. "Brynn? Are you okay?"

In the small bathroom, Brynn was bent over the sink trying to muffle her horrendous coughs. With her hand covering her mouth, it was obvious to see the blood leaking between her fingers.

"Oh Merlin, Brynn!" George rushed to her, concern etched on his face, but she waved him away.

"It's nothing," she said, trying to take steady breaths. "It's just a cough."

"That's blood, Brynn! That's not nothing!"

"Please don't shout." She looked past him to Colm's sleeping form. "You'll wake him."

"It's not nothing," he hissed lower.

"I've had it for a while, I'm fine."

"How long is a while?" He eyed her suspiciously.

She coughed again a few times before answering. "About a year."

"Brynn! We need to get you to St. Mungo's! There could be something really wrong—"

"I know what's wrong," she whispered. "I'm sick."

"No shit you're sick!"

"I mean, I know what it is. My mother had it. It's a genetic disease. It's…terminal."

"That's it, we're going to a hospital right now."

She stared at him long and hard as he tried to pull her out of the room. "What for?"

"To get help!" he cried exasperatedly.

"They can't help me," she said. "My mom was in and out of hospitals for two years, I never saw her, and she still died. I would rather be dying and spend time with my son than be unsuccessfully treated and never see him."

"That's just stupid, Brynn, what will happen to him if you die?"

"I've planned for that, George. Don't you think I've planned for my death since the moment I started showing symptoms? I can't cure my illness, I'm going to die before I'm ready and that's inevitable. But at least I can give my son the memories and love I never got from my mother."

Draco stared in the mirror with a sigh. Today, he was getting married.

There was a knock on the door, a loud and violent knock, and the door swung open as a female voice said, "Sir, you can't go in there—"

The door slammed shut again, and Draco was alone, in a tux, in a room with George.

"What do you want, Weasley?" asked Draco numbly. He was too tired to try and put any sort of malice in his voice. "I'm getting married in a few hours."

"Brynn is in the hospital."

And with that, Draco's world shattered. "What's wrong?" He whirled to face George, his usually expressionless face openly concerned. "Is she alright? What happened?"

"She has a genetic disease that's killing her."

The breath left his lungs in a whoosh. George looked at once angry and sad.

"How long does she have?" he whispered.

George stared at him harshly. "There's no way to tell. If you love her, go to her now."

"I—" The wedding briefly crossed his mind.

"If she dies without knowing you love her, you don't get Colm. She wants me to be his guardian. You need to prove to her that you care. About the both of them."

Brynn hated how breakable she felt in this damn hospital bed. Her son was looking at her with such a look of fear that she wanted to cry.

"Mum?" he asked. "Are you going to die?"

Merlin, what a question…

"Come here, Colm." She opened her arms and he crawled onto the bed, settling in her embrace. His thumb snuck its way into his mouth, a place it hadn't been since he was two. He was afraid. "You know I love you, don't you?"

"I love you too, Mum." Colm sniffed.

"Don't cry, Colm," she whispered. She placed a kiss on his forehead. "I'll be alright."

The little boy had fallen asleep in his mother's arms when Draco stormed into the hospital room.

"I have something to say—" He froze at the sight of his son and the woman he loved. It was so peaceful. Who was he to disturb that?

Maybe I should just leave.

Then Brynn opened her eyes and said, "Draco?"

His resolve crumbled and Colm woke up, rubbing one eye sleepily and said, "Daddy?"

"Colm," said Draco in a shaking voice. "George is just outside the room. He's going to take you to the cafeteria for something to eat, okay? Your mother and I need to talk."

The boy nodded obediently and got up, and once he was out of the room Brynn stared at Draco. "What are you doing?"

"I'm here to make you listen to me."

"Aren't you getting married today?"

"No, I'm not." He sat by her bed, taking her hand and holding it firm even as she tried to pull it back. "I'm not getting married to Astoria at all."

"What?"

"I called it off, Brynn."

"How did you know I was here? Why did you—" Her mind didn't comprehend it.

"When I told you I loved you, I meant it, dammit! George told me you were in the hospital, that you were…dying…and I don't care if you don't feel the same way, I'm at least going to make you listen to me."

She looked too stunned to argue with him, still reeling from the fact that he had once again forcefully appeared in her life.

"You are so damn stubborn. I told you four years ago how much I cared, and I've been telling you at every opportunity. I've missed so much and I regret every minute I wasn't with you. I should have known you didn't need someone to protect you. I should have thought about what you wanted instead of what I thought you needed. I don't want to lose you because I was an idiot."

He took her hand and, as he met her eyes, she saw he was close to crying. The great Ice Prince was tearing up.

"Brynn, please." He kissed her forehead. "I don't care about my family name if it means you die hating me."

"She's not going to die."

"What?" Brynn glanced past Draco, to the doctor behind him standing in the doorway.

"You're not going to die, Miss Hether." The doctor was tall and smiling. "It's true you have the same genetic disease as your mother, but medicine, both magical and mundane, has come a long way since she died. What you have is a blood disorder that is completely treatable with a few pills and some magic therapy."

"I'm not…I'm not going to die." Brynn's eyes were wide. "Colm isn't going to lose his mother. Oh thank Merlin…" Then her eyes met Draco's silvery blue ones, and she waited. She was waiting for when he took everything back, when he apologized for his rudeness, when he sped back to save his wedding to Astoria.

"Brynn Hether, say you'll marry me?"

"Draco, how could you!" screamed his mother.

He stood firmly with his arm around his wife, his other hand holding firm to his son's shoulder. Colm was shying away from Narcissa's yelling.

"What about our family honor?"

Draco snorted. "Honor will never be attainable if I choose to abandon the woman I love and the son I helped bring into the world for a girl I can barely stand. If bringing honor to the family means bringing personal dishonor upon myself, I will have none of it."

"You married her! You married the harlot—"

"No, Mother. I married the one I love."

Draco Malfoy observed his son, who poked absently at his food. "How has school been?"

"Fine."

Colm had certainly grown in thirteen years. His face was that of his mother's now, more than his father's, though the eyes remained distinctly Malfoy, and his blonde hair was the exact shade of Brynn's.

"Nothing to report on your last year of Hogwarts?"

"Not really," shrugged Colm.

Draco repressed a sigh. His son had become so introverted since… "You're Head Boy, aren't you? Slytherin Seeker too."

"My grades sort of suck, Dad."

"You'll pull them up. School work has never been a problem for you in the past."

Colm looked up at him. "The new Divinations teacher hates me."

"I doubt he hates you, son—"

"He does." Colm stood up, his chair scraping against the floor. "Thanks for dinner, Dad."

When his son left to his room, Draco looked at the plate of roast beef and potatoes. Not a single bite had been eaten, just most of it shifted around by Colm's roaming fork.

Draco's gaze turned to the framed picture of his wife that sat on the table at her place. Neither of them had looked at it during dinner. They were scared to, but he couldn't bring himself to put it anywhere else. There was a picture from their wedding on his nightstand, but this picture was just her. Beautiful, smiling that rare smile, eyes focused on him as he had snapped the picture, and then she had opened her mouth and said, "Draco, you know I hate pictures."

He had believed the doctor when he said she'd be cured. How naïve of him. Yes there was a cure for her blood disease…but they had started too late. She was gone within the year. It was a painful loss as the hope was ripped from him, and it hit poor Colm the worst. He hadn't spoken for days, weeks, months, until finally an impatient Draco, with no knowledge on how to raise a child, had broken downs and screamed, "How would your mother feel if you never spoke again?"

Colm had immediately burst into tears—those had been the magic words. He had buried his face in Draco's jacket and sobbed, "I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry."

Now, his son was not the happy child Brynn had raised. He was reserved, quiet. He did well in school until now, mostly because Draco kept mentioning his mother to keep him focused. He was, of course, keeping an especially close eye to make sure that in case his son showed symptoms of the genetic disease, they would catch this early. He would not lose his son, too.

I love you, Brynn. You would be so proud of Colm.

Then Draco stood up and prepared to wash the plates. He would call George tonight, ask him to come over. That way, Colm wasn't alone when he left on his next Auror mission. That way, Colm would have someone with him on the anniversary of his mother's death.

A/N: okay, i lied, i wasn't going to add this part buuuut i'm not satisfied about how i ended this...so added ending. sorry.