Nine hours later, Draco stood there in the delivery room of St. Mungo's holding Hermione's hand as they heard their son cry for the first time. Finally letting his guard down, showing his weakness, he cries onto Hermione's hand. "Do you hear him Hermione? Do you hear our son cry?"

Hermione nods lightly, still in shock from the pain, the potion that the Healers had given her to help ease the pain and the blood loss from the traumatic birth of their son. It hadn't been an easy one and for a while, Draco thought he was going to lose her as the Healers had thrown out words he couldn't understand such as Abnormal Presentation, breech, and umbilical cord compression. The words meant nothing to him, not knowing what they could possibly mean, but the way the Healers said them, the way they scuffled around nervously, shouting out that they needed assistance and that the baby needed to be born as soon as possible was enough for him. I did this to you, he thought as the Healers stood around and Draco held Hermione's nearly limp hand during the delivery, I was the one who put you in this situation to begin with.

He kissed her hand lightly as he looked up at her numb eyes, seeing the same look he had seen there at the Manor whenever his aunt had forced them into the bedroom. The same look whenever she lay there on the floor as Potter and Weasley burst into the room, saving her.

"Do you want to hold him?" The Healer asked Draco, breaking him out of his trance.

"I'm sorry." Draco answered.

"Do you want to hold your son?" She replied, looking over at Hermione. "We need to work on Miss Granger a bit, if you want to hold your son. To show him to the family you have out in the waiting room."

Draco nodded, still thinking more about Hermione's health than anything as the Healer handed over the bundle in the light blue blanket. Pushing the blanket back, Draco sees a small tuff of the white hair that had been passed down through generations of the Malfoy family. He stood in awe, looking down at the sleeping child, the delicate white eyelashes and his tiny little nose. He had Hermione's jawline, a very delicate one that seemed to curve perfectly, and her thin lips and slept like Draco, where it looked like his eyes were simply closed and not him sleeping. A smile crossed Draco's face as the baby's eyes opened, exposing not the silver of Draco's own eyes, the silver he had gotten from his father, but the chocolate brown shade that Hermione's eyes carried. Suddenly, it all made sense. He wasn't Lucius raising another Draco, he was Draco raising his and Hermione's son, Perseus Draco Malfoy.

Holding his son cautiously, Draco walked out into the waiting room to see his mother, Blaise and Pansy, Harry and Ginny, and Ron waiting on edge. Narcissa quickly taking the baby out of Draco's hands, holding him lovingly as Pansy and Ginny hurried over to see the bundle of joy.

"What happened in there?" Ron asks, having been there since he got the Peacock Patronus from Narcissa stating Hermione was in labor.
He couldn't fight the fact that he hated Malfoy but this wasn't about Malfoy, it was about Hermione.

Draco's face went white as he replayed everything that had happened over the past nine hours in his head. Taking a deep gulp, he tries to fight back the urge to throw up as he tells Ron, Harry, and Blaise what had happened. "She lost a lot of blood." He starts off, sitting down and looking at the bundle the women on the other side of the room were cuddling up to. "They said that the baby was backwards. That Perseus' cord was..." He stops, taking a deep breath as he put his head in his hands. "His cord was wrapped around his neck." Draco continues, "They were worried that he couldn't breath. That he was gone and that...that all of this was for nothing." Looking up, he looks Harry in the eyes, blocking out the fact that Blaise and Ron were even there anymore. "I thought that after everything I had really lost them both." He tells Harry, getting a nod in return.

"Mr. Malfoy" A female healer said softly, coming back out into the waiting room. "Hermione is ready if you want to take the baby back to see her."

Walking over, Draco picks the baby up from a reluctant Narcissa, her giving the baby one last kiss on the forehead before Draco walked back to the delivery room where Hermione waited. "Are you ready to see your son?" He asks her, walking over to the bed.

Her hair was a mess, being a relief to Draco as that was the Hermione he had always known. Even in the sloppy ponytail the nurses had put it in, it still went out in a hundred directions. Her face was paler than usual and her lips chapped but she was still the beautiful Hermione he knew. "Who does he look like?" Hermione asked, her voice scratchy from screaming out in pain before.

"Find out for yourself." Draco answers, putting their son down in her arms. He looked nothing like what Hermione had dreamed about and for a split second, she was nearly shocked that the baby in her arms wasn't Bellatrix as it had been in her nightmares.

"He...he's beautiful." She whispers, tears streaming down her face. "He...he looks so much like you."

"He has your eyes." Draco answers, looking from down at their son back up to Hermione. Before he could think, his lips were on hers kissing her passionately. "I'm sorry," He whispers as he pulls away, remembering what his mother had said. "I painted Perseus' room while you were leaving with my mum."

Hermione looks at him confused, not wanting to have this argument again. "How?" She asks, trying to place the time between when he had left them alone in the room, when Narcissa had taken her to St. Mungo's, and when Draco had shown up, nearly twenty minutes later. "When did you have time?"

"I cast a spell before I left. Painted the room the way I prefer it." Draco answers, trying to sound like his usual cocky self.

"Draco..." Hermione starts, frustrated that they were discussing this here.

"No Hermione, you don't get a say so in it. We are going with purple, it's already done." He answers, catching her off guard.

"Purple?" She asked, looking up at him. "But I thought-"

"And I thought you wanted a neutral color Granger, but all you women seem to do is change your minds." He says with a sigh, "I guess when we get home I will change it again, but we can't keep doing this. It is rubbish."

"No," Hermione whispered, looking at Draco with a new amount of respect. "I...I like it." She says with a smile.