They were next to the lake. He didn't know why.
But he and Luna and the two boys sat on a blanket next to the Great Lake at Hogwarts, with Luna urging the toddlers to watch the lake for a glimpse of the Giant Squid.
Suddenly they were surrounded, and Luna and the babies were pulled away from him. Draco struggled to get to them, but found himself held from behind, staring up into the face of Neville Longbottom. Finnegan and Corner stood at his elbows.
"Give back my family!" Draco ordered.
"You're the one destroying families." Longbottom snapped. "You and the Death Eaters are killing innocent people. Women and children."
"I haven't killed anyone!" Draco cried.
"You're guilty by association with the Death Eaters." Longbottom informed him. "You haven't done anything to stop what they're doing."
"So you're going to kill my woman and children, and you think that makes you better?" Draco asked in disbelief.
"We haven't killed anyone either." Longbottom folded his arms. "But we will do whatever we can to protect innocent people. Join us if you want to save your family."
"Are you crazy?" Draco shook his head. "If I joined you it would condemn all of us to death! The Dark Lord is after the lot of you. He's not after my family."
"Are you certain of that?" a soft voice asked. He looked over to see Cho Chang holding Caelum. "Do you really believe he won't destroy your family?" she turned and walked away with his son.
"Luna! Caelum! Scorpius!" he shouted, fighting with everything he had, but he couldn't move.
"Draco." Luna's voice came from far away. "Draco come to me. Open your eyes."
He was in his own bed, Luna beside him, brushing his hair from his face.
"His name is Scorpius." Draco said, looking somewhat dazed.
"Who?" Luna asked, puzzled.
"Our son." He shook his head as her eyes narrowed. "The second one. Caelum's little brother. I've seen him in my dreams several times. A blond baby."
"Oh." she tilted her head at him. "Does that mean it's time for us to start trying to have him now?"
Draco frowned, thinking. "No. Not yet. I just know what his name is."
"Okay." she said, leaning over to kiss his forehead. "Goodnight, Draco."
She started to stand but he pulled her back down.
"Stay in here with me." he said.
"Do you want me to get Caelum?" she asked.
"No." he pulled her down to lay beside him. "Just us."
He snuggled her against his chest and went to sleep.
Luna woke up with her back pressed against something hard.
And that something hard moved her hair off of her neck and pressed his lips there before his hand slid under her pajama top. She sighed, involuntarily arching her back while her hand reached up to the back of his head. His hand closed over her breast as his erection ground against her hip. He kissed from just below her ear to where her neck met her shoulder.
She pulled away just enough so that she could turn to face him, momentarily taken aback by the way his eyes had darkened.
"Good morning." she whispered, pressing her lips to his. Their lips parted and tongues met as she slid her hand down his back to just above his waist, finding a spot that made him shiver. His hand was creeping back under her pajama top. Their mouths separated, and as his dropped to the neck of her shirt, hers found his ear, causing him to buck against her. Emboldened, she flicked his earlobe with her tongue, causing him to gasp. His hand left her chest to reach back and grasp hers, directing it toward the front of his pajama pants. Their eyes locked and neither could look away. Luna's hand touched him through his clothes, and his lips moved toward hers again.
"Muh-meeeee!" a voice called from the next room. "Duh! Muh-mee!"
Draco's face scrunched. "Remind me that I love that child." he sighed.
Luna laughed and slid out of bed, returning a moment later with Caelum, who squealed at his daddy.
Draco took him and snuggled him for a moment, while Luna went to the bathroom. By the time she returned, Caelum was sitting on the bed making his "mmmmm" sound.
"Call her." Luna instructed him.
"Eff! Eff!" he shouted, giggling.
Rinka popped in, promising to return with the breakfast tray in just a moment. Luna took Caelum and put him in his high chair while Draco got up.
Narcissa stopped in just as they started eating, telling Draco the Dark Lord wanted to see him as soon as he was dressed.
Caelum picked up a piece of crispy bacon with a little too much force, causing it to break and the larger part to land on the floor. He leaned over, watching it fall to the carpet, then looked up at Draco and said "Fuh!"
Narcissa burst into laughter. Luna and Draco both scolded the child, reminding him that he was not supposed to say that word.
When she finally composed herself, Narcissa looked at her son. "I told you he would pick up that word."
"Draco," Voldemort called him back as the others filed out of the room. "Something is troubling you."
"No, my lord." Draco dipped his head in reverence. "I fully agree with striking the Order tonight."
"My boy, I know you too well." The Dark Lord's eyes bored into his. "It does not bode well for our relationship if you cannot trust me enough to be honest."
Draco took a deep breath and plunged in. "My lord, the members of Dumbledore's Army. they're kids. Don't you think they could be retrained? Look how well the retraining has gone with Luna. She was one of them."
Voldemort gave him a pitying look. "Draco, perhaps some of them could be retrained. But you're talking about expending time and manpower on an impractical project. In every war there is collateral damage. If you cannot accept this, you do not have a place as one of my generals."
"Yes my lord." Draco nodded. "It just seems like such a waste, to destroy so much talent."
At 2:13am, the shouting began.
It was coming from downstairs.
Luna couldn't make out words, only loud voices of apparently several different people, and the sounds of movement. She silently crept over, picking Caelum up out of his crib, and hiding him under the edge of her bed, soothing him so that he never fully awoke. By the time the door opened, she was in the middle of the room, the vial Professor Snape had given her in one hand, and Draco's dagger in the other.
It was Draco that came through the door. She knew instantly something was wrong. He was closed in on himself. She laid the knife and the vial on the desk and rushed to him.
"Draco? Sweetheart? What's wrong?" she tipped his head up, forcing him to look at her.
"It was a trap." he whispered, his arms wrapping around her and pulling her close.
Her hands smoothed over his back and hair. "Are you hurt?" she asked.
"No." he replied, somewhat dazed. "Not me. My father is hurt. Uncle Rab is hurt. Rookwood and MacNair are hurt. Rookwood is bad. Judson is dead. Woodley is dead. Mulciber and Henry Nott have been captured. Someone else. I'm not even sure who it was."
She led him into the bathroom, where she dampened a cloth and wiped his face and hands as she would with Caelum. She slid his outer cloak off, throwing it onto the bathroom floor, not wanting to know whose blood stained it tonight.
She brought him out and sat beside him on the bed, leaning his head against her shoulder.
"The Dark Lord told us this morning that Kingsley Shacklebolt had violated the taboo on his name. The snatchers had tracked his location, so the Dark Lord wanted to attack them tonight, to strike against the Order. It was a setup. They were waiting for us."
She pressed her lips against his forehead. "You made it home. You're safe."
"I almost didn't." he said softly.
They sat there for a long time, until he finally composed himself enough to take his shower. She retrieved the baby from under the edge of the bed, putting him back in his crib.
She waited for Draco with a Dreamless Sleep potion, but he refused to take it. "Just stay with me." he whispered.
She climbed into bed beside him. Draco spent most of the night awake, watching Luna sleep and thinking.
He arose early the next morning and headed to his parents' suite.
His mother offered him a cup of tea in the sitting room.
"Lucius is doing well. Severus came last night to patch everyone up. He left potions for your father, said he should be up and about later today. " she sipped her tea solemnly.
Draco nodded.
She flicked her wand, adding to the permanent protective charms.
"Now, what is it?" she asked.
He sighed. "I almost didn't make it back last night. Arthur Weasley had me cornered. He hesitated for just a second, and it was long enough for me to get Uncle Rab and apparate out." he looked at his hands and back at his mother. "It's given me a lot to think about. Mostly what would happen to Caelum and Luna if I didn't come home."
She nodded, waiting for him to continue.
"So first thing this morning, I'm going to the solicitor's office. I'm going to have them draw up the paperwork so that if anything happens to me, Luna will have custody of Caelum, and to draw up my will so that he will be taken care of. Then I'm going to Gringotts to transfer some funds to an untraceable account in Switzerland." he paused and looked at her. "I'm going to get us out."
"How?" she breathed.
"I'm working on the details. The Dark Lord is planning another siege on Hogwarts. He's going to kill kids." Narcissa gasped, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. Draco looked away, clenching his fists. "He's tentatively planning on the tenth of May. I won't be here for that. I'm tired of not being able to leave my room without Bella being all over me. I'm tired of worrying myself sick over what could happen to Caelum and Luna when I'm not with them. I'm tired of being in the middle of a war I can't afford to lose, and can't afford to win."
She looked up at him with both hope and tears in her eyes.
"The Dark Lord has the idea that Luna may be pregnant." he continued. "So I'll line everything up, and then a few days before his plan for Hogwarts, we'll fake cramps, possible miscarriage, something like that. I'll take her to St Mungo's. You'll bring Caelum, and we'll run from there."
Narcissa smiled at him sadly. "Draco. I love you. I want you to take Luna and Caelum and run. Get yourselves to safety. But I'm not going with you."
He jumped to his feet. "Mother! You can't stay here!"
"Darling," she reached for his hand. "Your father will never leave."
"You don't need him!" Draco cried. "Come with us! We'll start over, somewhere far from here. Somewhere they've never heard of Death Eaters."
She tugged him back down to sit. "It's not that I need your father. It's that he needs me. I know you don't believe it, but he does love you. If you and I were both gone, your father would have nothing left. No reason to make him think about what it is that he's doing."
"If he thought about what he was doing, he wouldn't have sold me to the Dark Lord! He wouldn't have opened our home to be the headquarters of the Death Eaters!" he roared.
"He did these things because he thought he was acting in your best interest." his mother insisted.
"Yeah, well having Bellatrix Lestrange in this house hasn't exactly been in my best interest, has it?" his hands began to tremble.
"Draco." the tears finally spilled over, leaving streaks in her face powder.
"Leave with us, Mother." he begged softly.
"When I was seven, Bella went to Hogwarts. I missed her so much, I used to go into her room just to see her things, to pretend she was just downstairs or something." she looked at her son, silent tears continuing to fall. "She had a doll that Aunt Melania had given her for Christmas one year. It was a beautiful doll. It looked so much like Bella. I don't think she had ever played with it. It had been up on her shelf for as long as I could remember. My mother gave it to me, so I could feel closer to Bella since she was gone. When Bella came home at Christmas and I met her at the train station with the doll, she was furious. She grabbed the doll out of my hands and destroyed it. She didn't really want it, but it was hers and she didn't want me to have it." she looked at her son sadly. "You're her doll now. She doesn't want Luna to have you. You've got to get away from her."
"Please come with us." he asked one more time.
She sighed. "I'll think about it." .