Last chapter was hard. Here's the fallout. Told from Draco's POV, it's not pretty. Graceful Lioness is still angry about it.

So... brace yourselves? Grief doesn't come out in pretty ways for some people.

MsMerlin and Graceful Lioness are my heroes for this fic.

Nothing had been the same from the moment that Healer gave them the news.

For Draco, it had been like the Earth had stopped spinning; like all the magic had gone from the world, drained away to some dark, faraway place. Everything felt harsher, now. Colder. Yet at the same time, he was numb to it all. Days had passed like this. He simply went through the motions of life, unaware of what was really going on around him.

The alternative—feeling something, anything—was just too much.

At night, when he wasn't able to put a shield around his mind and his heart, is when he heard it.

His son's heartbeat.

It was always steady, strong and beating a rapid staccato. That's how his dreams always started, anyway. But then the thump of the heartbeat would begin to move away, just out of his reach. It was then that he always filled with panic. In a frenzy, he'd follow the sound down corridor after corridor, calling out for Scorpius, his own heart pounding inside his chest.

He turned corners, sprinting, his lungs on fire. If he only ran a little more, went just a tiny bit farther, he knew so clearly that he'd see his son alive somehow, heart beating again.

But his dreams always ended the same way.

The heartbeat faded.

Draco was left alone, frantically searching for a sound that was no longer there—for his son, who was gone from the world and would never come back.

Draco had woken up from this exact nightmare every night since they lost Scorpius. He was always coated in a cold sweat, limbs heavy and face covered in the vestiges of tears.

Sleep would elude him after.

In those quiet hours, he laid awake in the dark beside his sleeping girlfriend, wondering how everything could be the same as before, and yet completely changed.

That's when the anger usually came.

Anger at the world, for taking his son.

Anger at himself.

Anger at Hermione.

It was usually small at first, like a freshly lit match sparking to life in the pit of his stomach. But in the middle of the night, vulnerable and raw, his whole body turned to kindling, lighting his entirety ablaze from head to toe.

That was exactly what happened when he saw little Teddy turn his hair blonde. He had been trying so hard to act normal, to pretend that everything was okay. And it was all going well enough until he saw the ghost of his son sitting there, right in front of him.

In an instant, the rage that had been sitting just below the surface tipped, and he was aflame with an anger so intense that it boiled over into his hands. Without stopping to think, he grabbed the first thing he saw—a brass telescope on the mantle—and lobbed it out of the nearest window.

Only when the crash of smashed glass reached his ears did he realize what he had done.

All eyes were on him, not for the first time since the war. In any other situation he might have felt heat creep up the nape of his neck or curled into himself, but this time was different.

Everything was different now.

Somehow he and Hermione ended up in a room alone, the door locked and silenced.

He didn't want to be with Hermione right now. In the state he was in, he knew he wouldn't be able to bite his tongue, to stop himself from saying all the cruel thoughts that were whipping around his head.

What concerned him more was the voice inside his head that wanted him to say all those things to her—that wanted to see her hurting as much as he was.

Standing three feet away from him, Hermione had her arms wrapped around her middle. Her eyes pleaded with him from the moment the door snapped shut.

"Draco, what's going on?" He watched her brows furrow with concern under nervously blinking eyes. "Why are you so angry? I know you're hurting. I'm hurting too, but we can't destroy Andromeda's house."

"Why am I angry? Are you serious?" Draco felt himself start to shake, first at his fingertips. Before he could get another word out, his whole body was vibrating. When he began speaking, the words came out in a rush, like water trapped behind a dam for too long. "You're hurt? You have no right to be hurting, Hermione! You made the decision to get rid of our son without even blinking an eye. You never even asked if I needed more time to think—to process. You just went right on ahead and did what you wanted. Did you ever stop to think that maybe I wasn't ready to say goodbye yet? That maybe I needed a little time?"

Hermione, at least, had the audacity to look ashamed. Her eyes widened, as though she was only now privy to his sorrow. She hung her head, and her face had gone slightly green. "I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I didn't stop to think—"

"That's right. You didn't."

"I just… I couldn't bear the thought of carrying him inside of me anymore… knowing he was gone."

If Draco had been more clear-headed, perhaps this would have struck a chord with him. Perhaps he would have paused to think about his next sentence, but his brain was so fogged with fury that her words merely washed over him. "Well he wouldn't be gone if it hadn't been for you."

This, it seemed, struck a nerve. Hermione's head snapped up, and behind the tears welling in her eyes, he saw fire. "Excuse me?"

Draco sneered. "If you hadn't been so bloody reckless, ignoring Healer's orders and picking Shiloh up when they clearly told you not to, we'd still have Scorpius! None of this would have ever happened and I wouldn't feel like breaking something when I see Teddy fucking Lupin."

He saw the redness in her eyes, the downward tug of her lips as she fought back angry tears. He saw how her jaw clenched as she stared at him with something caught between confusion and horror and rage and it felt good.

Hermione squared her shoulders. "How da—"

"How hard would it have been to not pick her up? I was carrying everything! Doing everything to help you, and I was happy to do it! And yet you still had to go be a bloody independent witch who can't let others take care of you.

"That's your problem, you know? Just like a Gryffindor. You think you know everything—think you know what people want and that with a little bit of bloody courage, you can do anything. Well, you can't."

Draco paused to breathe and to give Hermione a once-over. He needed to know that she was hearing him—was understanding just how wrong she had been. She needed to feel as hurt as he did.

He kept pushing. He wanted her to break. To feel broken. Just like him.

"You were just the same with Shiloh, weren't you? Running around in a bloody tent for months while you were pregnant. And the dragon!" Draco heard a hollow laugh escape from his throat. He didn't recognize the sound. It tasted strange on his tongue, but he pressed on. "Don't even get me started on that bloody dragon! And wanting to fight at Hogwarts with her still inside you?" He was past hysteria now, his arms in the air, every muscle in his body pulled taut. It was as though he couldn't stop the deluge of words spilling out of his mouth.

In front of him, he watched as Hermione shrunk in on herself, her shoulders hunching as she drew her arms into her chest.

"You know, the more I think about it, the more I see that you've always been this way, haven't you? Reckless. Selfish. Hell, it's why you erased your parents' memories, wasn't it? You thought you could do anything, and now? Now it's come back to bite you, hasn't it? They don't want anything to do with you any more. They're scared of you. They think you're a monster."

Draco took a step toward Hermione. She began to back up, but there was nowhere for her to go. Inside, he felt every organ ignite with rage and a grim sense of satisfaction. He sneered, his body looming over hers.

"But I don't think you're a monster, Granger. Oh, no. You just think you know everything. You think you're better than everyone. But you're not. You're just a small, damaged Mudblood who should know her place!"

His words echoed in the airy bedroom. It felt cathartic to put all his pain out there, to let it fly around like a swarm of angry Billywigs. The tightness that had been inside of his chest dissipated into thin air, and the mind that had been so clogged by rage now flowed freely, allowing for other emotions to peek inside. And they did flow in. Relief. Sadness. Glee.

That weight was gone, and for the first time in weeks he was beginning to feel free from the burden of pain—almost.

In the silence that followed, the vestiges of his words filled the room like the deep, lingering clang of a mighty bell. But unlike a bell, whose rich tones filled vicinities with warmth and life, the room around Draco only vibrated with misery.

The anger within him was no longer a fiery inferno, but rather, a pile of ashen embers.

He had needed this—needed to get his frustrations out. It was with a much clearer head that he now looked at Hermione.

The look on her face was enough to smother any remaining embers of anger he felt.

Hermione was the one shaking now.

Though it seemed, not from anger, but from something else. Her eyes were wide and watery and filled some emotion Draco couldn't properly identify.

It wasn't until he saw the first tear fall that he realised he had made a grave mistake.

One tear trailing down her cheek turned into a rainfall, but Hermione never scrunched her eyes or turned away from him. Instead, she stood before him, frozen, eyes wide and face flushed. Only then did Draco recognize the look on her face.

Disgust. Vitriol. Fear.

Draco retraced his words and felt a sharp pang of horror when he arrived at the turn of phrase that had made her look at him this way.

The way she used to look at him.

You're just a small, damaged Mudblood who should know her place.

Shit. He hadn't meant to—

She had to know—

"Hermione—" he began, panic rising in his chest. "I didn't—"

"How could you?"

Betrayal bled from her voice, cold and painful, tainting every syllable until all he could hear was how utterly disgusted she was with him. She grit her teeth as she spoke, tears still dripping along the edges of her lips.

She was hurt. That much was clear.

He had wanted to hurt her. He'd just wanted her to feel the same pain he felt. But this—this didn't feel good at all. Instead, a pit in his stomach had grown where fire had burned just moments before; and it grew deeper with each second that passed.

Deafening silence stretched between them, but even looking at her—watching those melancholy tears leave trails down her rosy cheeks felt too painful to bear witness to. And he could only imagine what she thought of him—a coward. Weak. A traitor. All the things he'd fought against.

Hermione looked away from his face, finding a spot on the wall to stare at instead. When she finally began to speak, her voice shook so much that it was almost unrecognizable.

"I didn't want Scorpius at first." Draco watched Hermione swallow—watched her clench her fists before she kept going. "I was terrified to have a second child so soon. When we went to that first appointment, I somehow had it in my head that we were on the same page—that maybe we weren't ready. That we were still healing and adjusting to our new life."

Hermione hugged her middle as she spoke. Draco hated how flat her abdomen was… how emptiness replaced what once held life meer weeks earlier. "And when Madam Pomfrey told us about my uterus and his placenta and the risks I would undertake by carrying him, I'm not going to lie—I wanted to end the pregnancy right then.

"But you—you were in love from the moment Madam Pomfrey told us we were having a boy. You were so damn excited. I hadn't seen you that excited—that sure about anything in so long. Nearly everything you've done since your trial has been done with trepidation and fear. But not when you saw our son." Hermione turned her head back to face him. By now, only pain remained in her eyes. "So I did what I shouldn't have, and I gave in. I chose to accept the pregnancy."

Draco searched her face for any trace of a lie, but there wasn't one.

"Part of me wishes that I hadn't given in that day. That I would have gone with my gut and ended the pregnancy before we could get attached to him. Because that would have hurt, but not like this. It wouldn't have felt like the world was ending. But you can't see that, can you, Draco?"

A part of him wanted to ask what he couldn't see, but Hermione continued on, her voice sometimes dipping into such a shaky place that he could hardly understand her. But another part of him hadn't heard much past the part where she had wanted to get rid of Scorpius from the beginning. Her words were stoking the ashes inside of him bit by bit, and he felt his breathing slowly grow heavier as she continued to speak.

"I'm hurting, Draco. It hurts so much, just to go on. I—I'm already so small again, it's like he was never there at all. He has no birth certificate. We never bought him any toys or clothes. The only way anyone can tell that Scorpius ever existed is because of my damn breasts leaking all over the place. Every time I look in the mirror, I want to cry."

Real tears were falling down Hermione's cheeks again. Draco wanted to reach out and wipe them away, to wrap his arms around her, but the fire in his belly stopped him from stretching across the chasm between them.

"Out of all people, I wanted you to be the one to look me in the eye and tell me that it's all going to be okay. But ever since that day, you've just been so cold and far away. And now you've found it somewhere within yourself to call me a… to call me a M-Mudblood?"

Drado didn't miss when her hand wrapped around the place he knew her scar to be. She began begging then, desperation in the fine lines of her forehead and the crinkle of her eyes.

"What's happened to you, Draco? I know you're in pain, but can't you see that we both are? I need you, Draco. I need the real you—the man I love. Not the wounded animal who's trying to drag me down so low I can't get up again."

Draco watched as Hermione pleaded with everything she had for him to be the good man she thought he was. And he wanted to be that person, he really did. But there was something inside of him—something that was growing exponentially, cancerous and callous; it didn't want Draco to take back his cruelties. In fact, it wanted him to spit out more.

As Hermione looked at him, he saw a glint of hope still lingering in her eye. Oh, how he wanted to hold on to it.

But he couldn't. And as he felt cruelty rise up within him, quashing any empathy he had left for the woman pleading before him, he came to a singular, horrible realization: this was always how it was meant to be. He had done too many terrible things in his life to deserve anything good.

Not Hermione.

Not Scorpius.

Not even his daughter.

This was his destiny—to drive himself to loneliness through his own cruelty.

He opened his mouth to speak, unable to stop himself from digging further into that pit of self deprecation he was certain was where he belonged.

"I don't know how I can even stand to look at you, when you never wanted our son." It was wrong—logically, Draco knew what he said wasn't true but he couldn't stop himself. It was almost as if he felt like if he hurt her enough then maybe she'd leave and he'd spare her the pain of being with someone so utterly fucked up. "You're glad he's gone, aren't you?"

Draco had never seen Hermione break before. In his mind's eye, she was an impenetrable fortress of a woman, ceaselessly capable and strong. Even as children, he had never seen her truly lose herself to sadness or anger.

He saw her break now.

She crumbled.

He saw it first in her eyes. They went wide as the last of his words fell from his lips. Not long after, her lip began to tremble, followed by her whole body. When she opened her mouth, as though trying to speak to him again, no sound came out. Her legs buckled under her after that, and she fell to her knees as though she was wilting. She buried her face in her hands as she began to sob, great lung-rattling breaths punctuating her tears.

And while he did feel a sharp stab of pity, he didn't say a single comforting word. Instead, all he got out was this: "I can't even stand to look at you."

Leaving her crumpled on the floor of Andromeda's bedroom, Draco whipped his wand from its holster and undid the charms. The door flew open and he emerged into the party. Everyone was still gathered around Teddy, who was opening presents with Harry's help. He spotted Shiloh in Ginny Weasley's lap. Good. She could stay here for now. Safe. Away from the anger he suddenly couldn't control.

"Going so soon?" Andromeda asked as he approached the Floo. "Where's Hermione?"

"She'll be out in a moment, I'm sure," he said cooly, a familiar mask of apathy hiding all emotion. "I need to get going."

Though he felt eyes on him and a push from Potter to explain himself, he couldn't bring himself to care. He grabbed a handful of powder, cast it onto the flames, and returned to Hogwarts in a swirl of color and fire.

Anger still flickered inside of him like the flames in the common room fireplace as he stepped through. The room was largely deserted, leaving most of the chairs and couches empty. Only a few people were there, huddled together in a group of chairs closer to the portrait hole. Goldstein. MacMillan. Abbott. The rest of their classmates were likely outside, enjoying the lovely April weather.

Draco was glad for the nearly-empty common room. It meant he didn't have to talk to anyone. Without acknowledging the wave and greeting of, "Hey," from Goldstein, Draco began to cross the room, shoulders hunched and fists clenched. He needed to be alone—needed time to ride out his anger.

Draco had nearly reached the stairs when he noticed another occupant of the room. Tucked in a chair near the stairs, this person was clearly not a part of the other gathering. As Draco drew closer, his blood ran cold when he realized exactly who it was.

Blaise.

This was the bastard who had put them in this situation—the one who was responsible for months of frustration and anxiety. And for what? His own sick pleasure? A desire to ruin his family's lives?

Draco froze in the middle of the common room, eye strained on the dark figure reclining in the armchair by the stairs, feet dangling over an armrest, face relaxed and nonchalant. He seemed blissfully unaware of the pain he had caused.

Draco saw red.

How dare he have the audacity to just sit and read without a care in the world, as though it were of no consequence to him that his actions had caused so much turmoil. The part of his brain that considered the consequences of his actions vanished, leaving behind the impulsive, dangerous side of him he rarely gave into.

Without thinking of anything but the hatred he felt toward his former friend, Draco stalked across the common room until he stood knee-to-knee with Blaise.

The dark-skinned boy peered over the top of his book. He looked almost bored. This only stoked the flames within Draco even more.

"What is it, Draco?" he drawled, eyes returning to his book. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

Draco could have killed him right then and there. Pulled out his wand and Avada'd him and watched his body slump to the floor. It would have been satisfying.

He was tempted to do it, too. But thoughts of another dank cell kept him from taking that course.

Instead, Draco punched him.

His fist made contact with Blaise's face, and Draco heard a sickening crunch beneath his knuckles; he had broken something—likely his nose. Good.

"What the fuck, Draco?" Blaise screeched, leaping to his feet as he grabbed at his nose, blood pouring down his face and dripping onto his robes.

"That's what you get for sending all those fucking threats." Draco was practically feral now, his teeth bared and his lip curled. "Telling me to rot is one thing. I don't give a toss about myself, but telling me that my daughter deserves to be at the bottom of the Black Lake? Calling Hermione a Death Eater's whore? How fucking dare you!"

Blaise's eyebrows had drawn together, his whole body frozen as blood dripped freely onto the rug at their feet.

"I knew it was you. Knew it was you from that first letter back in September." Draco felt his heart pound in his chest, a war drum that only egged him forward. His skin prickled all over as he listened to the call, prepared to go to battle for his family—even if Hermione might not ever come back after what he said… how he left her. Reaching out, Draco jammed his index finger against Blaise' sternum as he spoke through grinding teeth. "Don't think I didn't see the way you kept looking at me. Looking at us! It was written all over your face, how much you were disgusted. And you couldn't just keep it to yourself, could you, Blaise?"

Draco sneered and grabbed Blaise, fisting his shirt and dragging him close enough that the coppery scent of blood overwhelmed his nostrils. Blaise's eyes went wide as Draco dropped his voice to a hiss, every syllable vibrating with hatred.

"It's your fault my son is dead, you know? Hermione wasn't supposed to feel any stress. Wasn't good for her. Wasn't good for the baby. Well guess what? That note you sent last week? Asking us how many would die for our son? Guess what, Blaise? She saw it, and within twenty four hours, our son was dead."

He released Blaise, shoving him back into the armchair.

In the silence that followed, Draco became vaguely aware that the scant other eighth years in the room were staring. Draco glared at them. Abbott looked away. MacMillan went very pale. Goldstein's eyes were the size of saucers.

He rounded on Blaise again. The bastard leaned forward on his knees, mopping up his nose with a transfigured handkerchief. When Blaise looked up, he had a funny expression in his eyes. Was it… sympathy? Annoyance?

Draco couldn't really tell.

The fury that had licked at his insides was beginning to die down. Punching Blaise had helped. But that look in his eyes now… it made Draco's insides twist.

"Look, mate," Blaise set the blood-soaked handkerchief down beside him. "I'm sorry Hermione lost the baby. I really am."

Draco raised his eyebrows. Blaise pushed on, his voice slightly nasally.

"But it wasn't me that sent you those notes. I swear to Merlin. I've been avoiding you all year, yeah. But that's because you fucking ratted my family out to the Ministry for nothing."

A new layer of confusion appeared on top of Draco's anger.. "I did… what?" He drew back slightly, blinking. "I didn't rat your family out—what are you talking about?"

"Then why did a squadron of Aurors bang down my front door, rummage through all our stuff, and scare the pants of my mother, claiming they were acting on a tip?" Blaise's voice was calm, though Draco could hear the venom in every syllable. "You had just been released from the Ministry, and don't think I don't know you, Draco. You'd do anything to save your own skin. It wasn't hard to connect the dots."

Draco scrubbed his hands over his face. He didn't know where all this was coming from. "I don't know who gave that tip. But it wasn't me. I wasn't interrogated at all during those three weeks. I just sat alone in a cell until I was dragged up to my hearing."

Blaise frowned, is brow furrowed in thought. "You weren't interrogated?"

"No. It's like I said. It was just me alone in that cell." Draco shook his head and collapsed onto the armchair Blaise had been sitting in. "And besides, I would never sell you out, Blaise. You're my friend. Or, you were… I-I don't know anymore."

It was too much. Just too much.

Draco wanted to cry. But not here. Not like this.

"Fuck." Blaise pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just… fuck."

"Yeah. Fuck."

They stood together in silence. It was the closest they'd been all year, but Draco still felt miles apart from him. From everyone here.

"Look, mate. Whatever look you saw me give you—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have thought you were enough of a bastard to do that to me. You had every right to think it was me sending you those threats. But Draco, I would never, never, threaten you or Granger or your kid. I may be a shitty bloke, but I'm not evil."

Zabini reached out and patted Draco on the arm. Draco didn't have the strength to swat him away.

Instead he leaned forward and placed his face in his hands. Everything shifted in that moment, and a horrible realization washed over him.

"If it wasn't you, then who was it?" The words came out choked.

"Look, whoever sent you those notes is a fucking wanker. But it wasn't me."

Draco looked Blaise directly in the eye. There was no need for something like Veritaserum to know that he was telling the truth.

Every drop of anger inside of him evaporated, leaving Draco limp and tired. Drained.

He had yelled at Hermione. He had yelled at Blaise. It was supposed to be cathartic—he was supposed to somehow feel lighter now that he had gotten all the anger out of him.

But he didn't.

He just felt heavier than ever.

Draco didn't say anything else to Blaise or the other eighth years as he summoned the rest of his energy to put one foot in front of the other and trudge back up to his flat.

This might be the least favorite moment I've ever written for Draco. This is truly rock bottom. A low, low moment.

But the good news is that it's only up from here. I swear. THIS was the worst of the worst.

Also, some of you have been guessing Blaise... thinking he's been suspicious. Try again!

Take care, everyone.