November
tick tock tick tock
"So this is why they made you his godmother? Free childcare?"
Draco stood, limbs uneasy, caught between wanting to relax and feeling utterly disallowed to do such a thing. He didn't much care for inhabiting Potter's home without him present. Nor did he find that the addition of various baby accoutrements improved the already ghastly interior design choices that burdened Grimmauld Place.
"Harry and Ginny haven't had a night to themselves since August. I'm hardly put out."
Hermione didn't look put out, true to her word. She looked comfortable, happy, bouncing a baby in her lap as she settled into a large, plush sofa.
Draco unlocked his joints, finally removing himself from the general vicinity of the Floo, where he'd stood since the Potters disappeared through it, just as Ginny dropped a parchment of emergency Floo addresses in his hand with a wink and a smirk.
His general distaste at being inside Harry Potter's home, trusted with his child, warred with an invasive warmth, shot straight through his veins, every time he looked at Hermione with her godchild. He wrangled his discomfort, forced it away, and joined her where she sat. As casually as he could manage, he let his arm rest along the back of the sofa, just above her shoulders. With the right sort of twist to his wrist, a careful brush of fingers, he could touch her upper arm. Lacking a reason to resist, he did just that, lightly dragging his knuckles against her skin.
Hermione smiled at the baby in her lap, releasing a contented sort of sigh.
"He's hardly a handful, anyway," she said, presumably in continuation of the conversation he'd already long forgotten, transfixed by the texture of her skin. "Especially if he keeps sleeping like this." She glanced over at Draco, chin tucked behind her shoulder as she looked up through her lashes. "If he starts crying, I'll just hand him off to you since you seem to have some kind of gift with babies."
Draco fought the blanching sensation that overcame him, head tilted as he tried to discern her level of seriousness. His face twisted, he felt it, and it must have looked hilarious because Hermione had to cover her mouth, stifling laughter.
"It was a compliment, Draco."
"Was it? It sounds like a conspiracy to rope me into babysitting. Or slander. I haven't decided which."
"You're ridiculous."
He smirked, dipping in to drop a kiss to her cheekbone.
She sighed again: that same contented sound that he'd formerly believed she reserved exclusively for her most sated post-coital hazes.
"He's beautiful," she said, forefinger traveling the length of James's tiny brow line.
Draco's throat constricted, dried out, a drought where his capacity for speech ought to live. He swallowed; his fingers hovering at Hermione's shoulder shifted, finding her neck. He dragged his thumb down one side of her spine, then the other, holding his agreement inside.
"Draco?"
He hummed, focus lost somewhere in an ether composed of indistinct futures.
"I think—we should genuinely try."
"Try what?" His question came out automatically, seeking clarity, as her implications seized his lungs. Try? He'd only just come to the conclusion that he rather liked children. And while he liked them in theory, he didn't know that they were quite there. She hadn't even let him propose to her yet. Surely she didn't mean children.
"To make amends with your parents. You haven't eaten with them in nearly a month. Have you even owled? I don't—I can't destroy your family—" She broke off, eyes fixed on the baby in her lap.
"Hermione."
He shifted, body tilted, an angle designed just for her: his entire world.
"You are my family, if you'll recall." A smile fluttered through her features as she rolled her eyes. "You are not at fault. And nothing is destroyed, it's—just tense. At the moment."
She tilted her head, a suspicious lift to her brow.
"You're too optimistic," he said, an attempt to duel at a different angle. "I know you want us to find some kind of—equilibrium, even if it isn't one where we're all unendingly fond of each other." His fingers slipped from the back of her neck to the top of the sofa. "I don't—not want that. But, I'm not overly hopeful."
Hermione's gaze shifted back to the dozing child in her lap. She frowned, delivering a very serious face to a baby.
"I almost lost my parents," she said. Draco wondered if she meant to tell him or James. "It took work, but we've figured out how to—put the unforgivable things behind us and move forward. So that we can preserve a relationship with each other."
Draco only realized he'd shifted slightly away from her after he'd done it, warmth absent from his chest no longer pressed to her side.
"I haven't lost my parents," he said. He pressed his tongue against the inside of his teeth as he restrained himself. "We're figuring out our new reality."
"I know what it felt like to almost lose them," she said as if he hadn't spoken at all. "I don't think I could bear being the cause of that for you."
He leaned back in, desperate to erase that terribly sad look from her face.
"I could ask. If you really want to try."
"We could have them over for Christmas dinner? We spent last Christmas with my parents; it would be fair. A gesture."
"I could ask," he said again, confidence seeping from a leak he couldn't identify. She just kept pouring her hope into him.
And fuck, if she'd didn't look so deliriously hopeful, staring up at him with a baby in her arms, so startlingly warm and domestic. That feeling burrowed straight to the center of his chest. It didn't feel new, or intrusive, or unfamiliar. Somehow, some way, it had become something closely tethered to his heart; a sensation that said all his futures involved Hermione, all his branching pathways narrowed down to the idea of her and a home and a family.
He could run a potions shop; he'd just signed a lease with Blaise. He could occupy his time brewing with a purpose again. He could look into what it would take to sell or share or lease or whatever the technical terminology would be for letting St. Mungo's see his research for the dark magic removal potion he'd invented. These things were all within his reach, failsafe ventures he'd been either consciously or subconsciously planning for.
Sometimes guilt hurt, a physical tear at his ribs, a battering at his bones. His father had nearly died and Draco spent most of his time planning for a life that barely included his parents as footnotes. He breathed deeply, arm tightening around Hermione. He could do better. She was probably right; she usually was. He'd barely made any real effort to overcome the hurdles between them; he'd just expected his parents to accept Hermione how he wanted them to accept her. How very disturbingly Gryffindor of him.
"I might be pessimistic," he said. "But I can be hopeful, too. I'll stop by tomorrow—ask them in person. I promise."
Not so long ago, Hermione would have had serious reason to doubt his ability to keep that promise. Now, she smiled at him, grateful, hopeful, and the face of everything he was willing to do this for.
—
"It's not very big, is it?"
"Theo, I will hex you."
"I'm just saying, I've seen bigger."
"You're being intentionally antagonistic and it's not appreciated."
Theo snorted, crossing his arms. He leaned against the wall opposite the front door, appraising the empty shop.
Draco's shop, just barely in his possession as of that afternoon. He held the keys in his hands, freshly owled from Blaise. Draco, being the generous friend that he was, invited Theo to share in the excitement of visiting his new business venture for the first time.
"The rent is reasonable, especially with how close to Diagon Alley we are."
Theo released a small huff Draco assumed he was meant to take as a laugh. "Barely in Knockturn, this."
"You are such a shit. I won't invite you next time."
Theo lifted his hands in defense, palms out. "Sorry, sorry. Personality calibrations are still a touch off."
"That's not—how that works, Theo"—Theo rolled his eyes in response—"But Blaise said you've been—feeling better?"
"Gods, are you two talking about me? Strategizing my happiness?"
"In a sense."
"Revolting," he said, entirely without inflection. "A couple of Hufflepuffs, the two of you."
"We've been worried."
"My family vault was empty. It was my entire purpose for five years. I was allowed to be upset about it."
Lacking any furniture in the shop, just open space waiting to be filled, Draco could practically hear the tension grinding in Theo's jaw.
"I didn't say you weren't. I'm glad you're—recalibrating."
Theo rolled his shoulders, tilted his head, and a crack rattled through the small, empty shop. He released a sharp breath through his nose and dragged a finger along the lip to the wainscotting lining the shop walls.
"Touch dusty, don't you think?"
The whiplash grew less painful the more Draco experienced it. And in the last year, he'd toughened, a stiffened spine less susceptible to painful twists and turns.
"Blaise and I have a lot of work to do."
Theo cracked a smile: sly, snakelike.
"So, he's your boss now?"
"Absolutely not. He's my investor."
"With a majority investment. So he can order you around."
"Fantasy of yours?"
Theo's eyes narrowed. "I can't decide if I deserved that."
"Neither can I."
"Do you parents know about this place?" Theo waved his wand, casting a scourgify.
"I told them it was likely happening."
"And are they—pleased?"
"They did not seem overwhelmingly enthusiastic, no."
Theo nodded absently, casting meager attempts at cleansing charms that Draco might have made fun of for their inefficiency if he had any room to joke. It wasn't as if he had much experience with them, either. He'd gotten quite skilled in kitchen cleaning charms, as he'd discovered the easiest way to ease Hermione's general tension was through a clean kitchen. But dust? Peeling paint? Creaky, uneven floorboards? Draco didn't have the first clue.
Then there was the matter of stocking and organizing the space into something actually resembling a shop.
"You know who you need?"
Draco turned to find Theo perched on the counter at the back of the shop, far too comfortable for his own good.
"Who?"
"Pansy's been brokering art and furniture and stuff lately; she could furnish the place."
"She'd have to be willing to talk to me first."
"I really don't understand you two."
Draco sighed, "I don't, either. She needed space; I'm giving her space."
"Well, she moved to France. It's been five years. And now she's moved back to England, did you know? Seems like plenty of space to me. Time, too."
Draco looked around his empty shop, a space now fully in his control, exposed bones over which he could layer flesh and create life. He could have something new, something his, something divorced of his very complicated past.
Pansy had been a part of that past, excised from his present, and Draco did not know if a reintroduction to his ecosystem would bring balance or a total collapse. He had so few pillars left, carefully arranged and painstakingly maintained. He knew enough about Pansy to know that she could topple them if she wanted to; he didn't know enough about her anymore to know if she would.
"I might have mentioned over tea the other day that you're with Granger now."
That shouldn't have made Draco nervous, shouldn't have dropped a cold stone of unease in the pit of his stomach. But as he turned towards Theo in the back of the shop, he felt the first chilly tendrils of dread making their presence known.
"What did she say?"
"She was surprised. Bit nasty, you know Pans. Laughed when I told her we like Granger now—"
"Oh we do, do we?"
"—but you want to know what she asked me?"
"Honestly not sure that I do, but I'm certain you'll tell me."
"She wanted to know if you're happy. And she was glad to hear that you were." Theo hopped off the counter and clapped his hands together. "So. I've done all the hard work for you, really. Just owl her."
"I already told Hermione she could help me pick out the fixtures."
Theo rolled his eyes at what Draco could freely admit had been a feeble excuse.
"Good thing you don't actually need to pretend you want Pansy's help to talk to her."
"You're a menace."
"You wanted me to be happy—fixing this is going to make me happy."
"You're a manipulative menace," Draco amended, already feeling aa a seedling took root from the idea Theo had so forcibly planted inside his skull.
—
Draco arrived at the manor mid-dinner service for no other reason than because it felt like the right time to go. Meals with his parents had always been a sort of constant for him, a beginning and end to his day. He started his days with family, closed them as well. The breakdown of that routine over the last year, as he discovered something else to greet his mornings and nights, still couldn't erase the lasting effect of feeling drawn to the manor at a certain hour, of rhythms in his body that reminded him of where he ought to be and what he ought to be doing at a specific time of morning or evening.
He didn't owl ahead, didn't ask for Topsy or Tilly or any of the other elves when he stepped through the Floo. He simply brushed the sparkling green cinders from his trousers and exited the parlor, headed to the dining room. He cast a lumos, letting the light from his wand illuminate the cavernous stone corridors that his parents evidently did not feel bothered to keep lit. They weren't expecting company, after all.
He paused at the door to the dining room, flattening a line from shoulder to shoulder, resisting the urge towards a rounded posture, caving in on himself.
He did not knock; he simply entered.
The heavy oak door swung open to reveal a dark, empty dining room. His brows dropped, lids narrowing as he dragged his gaze about the room. Confusion convinced him that perhaps he'd arrived at the wrong time. He pulled his pocketwatch from his trousers.
The watch told him what he already knew; it was dinnertime at Malfoy manor, and yet, the esteemed inhabitants were nowhere to be found.
Draco sighed and called for Topsy. When she arrived with a crack, she spun, ears flopping, giant eyes squinting at the concentrated light from his lumos.
"Hello Topsy," he said, crouching as he held his wand to the side, allowing the light to better diffuse around them. "I've come to speak with my parents. Are they out for the evening?"
"No, no," Topsy squeaked, hands holding onto the tips of her ears. "They is having their dinner."
Crouched at eye level with the elf, Draco tilted his head, a brow lifting. He looked pointedly at the vacant, dark dining table beside them.
"Not here," Topsy said. "The small dining room."
And before Draco could marvel, or ask a clarifying question, or do anything else in response to Topsy's words, she reached out with her little hands and whisked them away in a crack of elf magic.
A moment later, they landed in the small dining room with its table for six, seating two. Lucius and Narcissa sat together at one end, staring at him with identical expressions of surprise. Then it shifted. On Narcissa, surprise became a smile as she rose, already approaching with a greeting. On Lucius, surprise became suspicion, making no move to acknowledge Draco's sudden arrival.
"What are you doing here, darling? We would have prepared a full service had we known you planned to join us." She wrapped her hands around his forearms, as if to determine his solidity. Then, with confirmation of his physical form, she pulled him into a hug. A light jasmine scent followed her movements, lingering in his space even as she pulled away. She turned to Lucius, hands back on Draco's forearms. This time it felt like she meant to keep him in place, unwilling to let him go. "Did we receive an owl?"
"I would have told you if we did. Unfortunately, I believe we had no advance notice of this intrusion."
Narcissa ushered Draco towards the table, pressure from her fingertips insisting that he follow. "Don't listen to your father, darling. It's no intrusion at all."
"I didn't come to dine with you," he said. It was a weak protest, punctuated with defeat as he took a seat, regardless.
Lucius lifted a brow. At a much smaller table, the action felt more personal, so close. "You know what time we dine."
"I—" he faltered. His logic, his reasoning, it felt so sound not so long ago. Narcissa reclaimed her seat across from him.
"Yes?" she asked, resuming her meal as if his appearance hadn't been entirely out of nowhere.
"Why are you eating in here?"
Of all the things he might have asked: that was what he went with, still a bit stupefied from disorientation.
"We—hardly need a full service for the two of us," Narcissa said.
"But you always eat in the dining room."
Draco looked at the table between them: a tray of chicken, a bowl of greens, roasted vegetables, a bottle of wine. To the side, two crème brûlée under a stasis charm. Their full meal, every course, already on the table with them.
"As you have made abundantly clear, Draco. Things can change." And yet, Lucius's words still cut with the same precision, the same devastating accuracy as they always had.
Draco had no response, so he said nothing. Instead, he watched as Topsy set a plate in front of him, delivered silver, a wine glass that she filled from the decanter on the table. Draco thanked her, and then flinched as she disappeared in a crack.
He had waited so long. He'd searched for the right openings, the right opportunities to avoid rankling an already rankled situation. But to no avail. He ignored the place setting in front of him and did the thing Hermione had been asking of him all along; he decided to be bold.
"I want to spend Christmas with you. With Hermione." He inhaled, too heavy a breath. "I want for us, all of us, to have dinner together. On Christmas."
He certainly could have said it more eloquently, but he relished that he'd said it at all.
Draco never knew silence to taste so sour, so sickening, so completely wrought with clashing expectations and realities.
"You want me to dine with the Ministry Representative gutting my ancestral home?"
Draco forced himself to meet Lucius's eye. To speak with a level tone. To ask for understanding, not damn the lack of it.
"I want you to dine with the woman I have been in a relationship with for nearly two years, who has yet to formally meet my parents as my girlfriend." He shifted his gaze to his mother, more pleading. "She is willing, and gods know she shouldn't be considering the lack of effort made to welcome her here. But she is willing, and she is wanting. She is willing to do this for me, and for you."
His mother's face bore a look of shock, of unease, of tension drawing the muscles in her jaw tight, lips thinning. Lucius did not speak.
"Please. Mother, Father." He turned again to Lucius. "If what happened to you earlier this year has taught me anything, it's that I don't want to lose you. Did you know she waited at the hospital for hours? The whole time I visited you, she visited, too. But she stayed in the corridor. She respected that you would not care to see her—even though you weren't even conscious—but she stayed. We're balancing so much. I think we could all enjoy so much more of our lives, of each other, if we tried to be amicable."
Draco expended all his words, a well running dry, as much as he could think to say to convince them. His heart thudded high in this throat, each thump threatening to cut off his airway. He forced a calming breath through his nose, refusing to let his parents see the nerves that set his skin on fire right there at the dinner table.
"Christmas dinner," his mother said carefully, cautiously.
"Christmas dinner," Draco confirmed.
Narcissa watched him, very still. Her eyes volleyed from one side of his face to the other, from his hair to his robes and back to his face, as if memorizing him, cataloguing a sight she couldn't guarantee seeing again.
Then, slowly, her gaze shifted to Lucius, meeting his eyes, a silent conversation Draco couldn't hope to understand, a language he did not know, could not learn: party of two. At best, Draco could imagine a cord drawn between them, vibrating with the tension he could practically feel lashing the table, his nerves. He watched as concession met resistance, a battle balanced on the tight line.
Slowly, concession pushed further, past the middling point between them, encroaching on Lucius's seat at the table. He swallowed it with dignity.
Finally, Narcissa spoke, voice surprisingly soft. "We can—manage that."
With a tense nod, Lucius allowed an unwilling sort of assent. "At the manor, of course." He sounded as if he wanted nothing less.
Draco could make that work. He'd accept whatever agreement they were willing to offer. His diaphragm eased, releasing a pressure in his lungs he hadn't even noticed. It unfurled, unclenched, relief unwinding in a whole series of softening muscles: of tendons and ligaments and fascia all loosening with a single, disbelieving exhale.
"Thank you," he said, meaning it. He wondered when had been the last time he genuinely meant to give his parents thanks for something. "Thank you," he said again, still questioning his grasp on reality.
He hadn't realized how tightly he'd wound his fear of them denying this inside his chest. Having it unwind, he finally felt like there existed a future, somewhere out there, where Draco could have both. It filled him with a flammable hope; he could have both the woman he loved and the parents he missed.
He allowed himself to forget, in a moment of elation, how much tinder hid in his family home.
