Draco popped into the chateau and ran his hands down his face. He was bone tired from a draining day in Italy with his mother. She had asked him about Paris and how things were going with Hermione. She mostly wanted to know when she'd be seeing her only Grandson and Draco had lamented that she hadn't told him yet. He was giving her time but his patience was wearing thin and when he walked into his room he stopped dead in his tracks.

What had he been thinking, letting it carry on this long?

He should have had a better head on his shoulders but Salazar, the sex was better than he had remembered it and when he had entered her for the first time in such a long time he felt like himself again. He had found the piece of the puzzle that seemed to be missing all those years and she had been so tight and tasted so sweet. He looked down and closed his eyes tightly, rage building up inside him. He was angry at everything; the war for driving them apart, his parents and their stupid arranged marriage keeping him from her, her keeping Scorpius from him.

He opened his eyes and stumbled back onto his bed.

Scorpius.

He was the reason she was moving back to England, he'd be eleven soon although he wasn't entirely sure when. He stared at a spot on the floor and thought about what house Scorpius would be in. Would he be in Gryffindor like his brave mother or in Slytherin like his cunning father, maybe he had their smarts and was in Ravenclaw but Merlin help him if he was Hufflepuff. There wasn't a Hufflepuff in the Malfoy family in centuries, maybe a Ravenclaw here or there but never a Hufflepuff. He shuddered at the thought. Cedric Diggory made a good case for the badgers though.

He recalled Scorpius having a bit of that Gryffindor bravery when Hermione had been sick. He had crawled up on his lap and had fallen asleep. Draco studied the boy, he looked so much like himself but he had a lot of Hermione in him as well. The soft slope of his nose and the way it softened out, how it wasn't pointed like his at his age. He silently thanked Merlin for softening his own features as he grew older. His skin had been pale but some freckles danced their way on his nose like Hermione's and the shape of his eyes resembled hers as well. He wondered at one point if he still had the same colored eyes from the photo he kept in his wallet or if they darkened into brown like Hermione's. Draco remembered running his hand down his hair, comforting the sick boy in his sleep. It was soft and thick and Draco's heart hurt just thinking about it. How they must have looked like a family and how he wished he'd had been a fly on the wall to watch the one precious moment he had with his son.

He shook his head and grabbed his wand flicking it slightly, the clothes packing themselves in a nicely packed knapsack. He took a deep steadying breath and ran both hands down his face, he wasn't going to let this ruin Christmas, he decided he would give her until the first, that was plenty of time to give her, after ten years. He searched quickly for the present he wanted to give her before disapparating on the spot.

.xx.

"Okay you first" Hermione sat down in front of the tree, her black yoga pants stretched slightly over her knees and she seemed to swim in his Slytherin sweater. He was impressed that she had kept it after all these years and it seemed to still be in great shape. He looked up at her and took the box she held out to him. The excitement that radiated off her seemed to dissipate his bad mood from the chateau. The way Hermione had pounced on him and wrapped her legs around his waist as soon as he popped in told him that he was thinking all of the right things. "Are you going to open it or are you just going to stare at it?" She crossed her legs like a pretzel, her self-proclaimed cozy socks bunching at the top of her ankles.

"It's just so elegantly wrapped. I hate to tear into it."

"You act like unwrapping a gift is the worst thing. Go on then, open it!" She practically vibrated in excitement.

He laughed slightly and tore the paper away revealing a large brown box he looked up at her and she grinned at him, resting her hands in her lap and it seemed that her hair had grown in excitement too. He looked back down at the box and gently opened the lid and stared at the contents in the simple brown box.

"Are these—-?"

"The shoes I threw up on? Yes." She crawled over to him and held up the shoe to his face "smell it. No vomit or anything!" He took a small sniff and was pleasantly surprised they in fact didn't smell like vomit but instead like lavender "I had apparated into your chateau a couple weeks ago when I knew you'd be gone and I snatched these and some twigs of lavender. I know that they were your favorites and I felt like rubbish that I had thrown up on them."

"How did you—?"

"Get the smell out? I went to madam Malkins and she cleaned them out really well then she referred me to a cobbler who took care of the rest. He said the shoes were well taken care of but he put new soles on them and stitched the dragon hide a little tighter so they felt like new. He also shined them for free because I was Hermione Granger war Heroine." She rolled her eyes slightly and crawled back toward the tree behind her to grab another present "and I saw this and I knew you had to have it!"

He bit his lip and looked at the brightly colored gift "you didn't have to—"

"Rubbish." She sat back down next to him and placed it in his lap. He had been wearing black sweatpants and a fitted grey sweater pulled up to his elbows. He was very comfortable.

He ripped the paper off and threw his head black laughing "the idiots guide to ferrets."

She bit her bottom lip and beamed at him. Merlin he loved her, her secrets and all. "I saw it at the bookshop and I knew you had to have it." She reached over his arm and opened to the second page "it's even a first edition. You know, for your collection!"

He laughed and kissed her deeply "it's perfect, I love it." He kissed her again before crawling over to his knapsack "okay, your turn!" He searched through his bag and found the book he bought her "now I only got you one thing" he sat back down next to her hand handed her the present "and it's not as wonderfully wrapped as yours was."

Hermione smiled at him and he beamed with pride at the book in her hand "it's wrapped just fine Dra—-"

"Just open it would you?" He fidgeted as she laughed slightly slipping her fingers delicately under the paper. When she had finally tore off the paper and looked down at the large green leather book with its brown spine she gasped, a hand coming to her mouth.

"Is this what I think it is—?"

"Beauty and the beast the complete fairy tale in French" he watched as she ran her fingers gently over the cover "first edition."

She looked up at him, dumbfounded "but that was—"

"1740." He nodded and opened the book in her hands gently to the same page she had for him and she once again brought her hands to her mouth "it's been in the Malfoy library forever. My grandfather knew Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve quite well." He wiggled his eyebrows "if you know what I mean"

She gasped slightly "they were lovers?"

He nodded "according to my grandfather."

"But she was a muggle."

He nodded slightly "Malfoy's weren't always associated with the dark arts. A lot of us were aristocratic heirs and heiresses, my grandmother was one of Madame Pompadour's best friends in court." He shrugged "it started with my closest grandfather with Grindelwald, and probably sometime before that."

She looked up at him wide eyed "that's amazing. I'd love to sit down with you and pick your brain about it all!"

He threw his head back and laughed "well you'd have to get my mother to tell you about that. We have a tapestry in each house that we check once in a while. It magically adds people when they get married or they have children." He side eyed her and he was certain she had blanched a bit "we haven't checked it since the war." He fibbed slightly. They indeed didn't check it until Blaise had said something about Scorpius and lo and behold there he was, attached to Draco's name but without Hermione. "Most of everyone on that tapestry is either dead or alive. My mum talks to everyone alive on the tapestry, she reconciled with her sister after aunt Bellatrix died and there's me." He shrugged and decided to change the subject "I hope you know that I had to scavenge the library a quite a bit for this book. When you mentioned it I had told my mother and she said we had it. It'll do much better in your care than on a dusty bookshelf."

He watched as her fingers traced over the moss green cover delicately "shouldn't I be wearing gloves? Something this old shouldn't be handled with bare hands." He watched as she opened the book with her bare hands anyway.

"It's charmed, of course. My grandfather loved her very much and wanted to keep what she had given him forever." He shrugged.

"I think it's wonderful, I don't know what to say, Draco." She put the book down gently on the floor and wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly "thank you so much."

He wrapped his arms around her waist and rubbed her back "you're welcome."

She jumped back and grinned "do you want to go read these in bed?"

He grinned back and jumped up "loser has to give winner a back massage."

Hermione jumped up and sprinted down the hall, Draco followed after her and laughed when she missed the turn and ran into the bathroom instead. He was laying neatly on her bed, a bit out of breath with his ankles crossed and the idiots guide to ferrets in his hand, upside down. Hermione stood at the edge of her bed, her hands on her hips with the book tucked securely under her arm. Her curls seemed to go every direction and like him she was a bit out of breath.

"That's not fair! You knew you were going to win."

He shrugged and turned a page unconvincingly "did not. If you didn't run into your bathroom you'd be the one getting the massage, not me."

She plopped down on the bed and he felt her curl up next to him "I hope you don't expect it tonight." She stifled a yawn and opened her book "I have date."

.xx.

Draco woke up several hours later, stiff and sore and when he went to move he felt Hermione beside him. He gently moved the open book off her lap and placed it on the bedside table along with his and slowly he got up, padding to the bathroom quietly. Scorpius' bedroom door loomed in front of him but he shook his head and decided to quickly do his business and get back to bed and get back to her in a more comfortable position than sitting straight up.

He washed his hands quickly and shut off the light and quickly slipped back into bed.

"Draco?" Hermione groaned rubbing the back of her hands to her eyes.

"Shh." He whispered "I'm here." He laid down pulling her down with him, wrapped tightly in his arms.

"Thank you." She mumbled "for everything you've ever given me and more."

"Shhh" he smoothed down her hair and kissed her on the forehead "go back to sleep"

"I love you."

Draco froze slightly. They both had been avoiding the L word and he wasn't sure why. Out of fear of the unknown? Knowing that once one of them said it, it became real, that it wasn't just a fling even though he'd never thought that way, or was it because he knew once she said it she'd start crying and once she started crying he'd start crying too? He bet it was the last one.

"I love you too, Hermione." He whispered, wrapping her up in his arms. Her lavender scent wafted through his nose and infiltrated his thoughts and he laid there for quite some time remembering her scent as it was at this moment.

Authors Note: thanks to Backtome2, Black Banshee, TeamCullenPotterJackson, nanny922 & Green Eyed Lana Lee for the reviews! Every review and every view is much appreciated and I couldn't be more thankful! I wanted to show how conflicted Draco is at the beginning. Like he's starting to get frustrated and I don't blame him, because I'd be frustrated too. There's two more chapters before I get to THE chapter in this story! Both of them are flashbacks. I'm also super ahead of the writing game as I have about 32 total chapters written, it's just going to be the editing part that's going to be a pain in the butt. I don't know how this story is going to go after the chapters I've written, I don't know how much longer it has either I know the end goal and I know the end chapter but it's just getting there that's going to be the journey. I hope you'll stay along for the ride, I don't think anything after THE chapter will be as frustrating though ;) As always, please read and review and I'll see you next week!