A/N: Please forgive any errors as it's 4 AM and this has been lightly edited.

TW: Reference to Suicidal Ideation
TW: Grief
TW: References to ED Symptoms

"Do you believe I am ready to get married?"

Penelope did not so much as raise an eyebrow at the question. She did not pause her notetaking even as she replied,

"Only you know the answer."

Draco shrugged and admitted, "I believe I am, but … I am comfortable enough to admit I still think about skipping meals. When I see Hermione struggling, I feel like I must be strong for her and it would be easy to take control of everything in our lives by taking control of that one thing. It stabilizes me."

"You believe it stabilizes you."

"Exactly. I am working to remember that, to remember skipping meals is nothing more than an illusion of control. I hoped by the time I propose to Hermione that I wouldn't need to remind myself. I hoped it would be instinct, that I would know how to cope properly."

"Sometimes recognizing the illusion is coping properly."

"But—"

"In my experience, there are three questions you must ask yourself before you agree to take that step."

"Your experience?" Draco asked, surprised. "You were engaged?"

Without looking up, Penelope revealed, "I was once, yes. He was a Muggle man, intelligent, very handsome, quite wealthy, everything I thought I wanted. Then we fell apart because I did not fit into his family."

"How could you not fit? You are the sort of person who is so kind, and you have a gift for making people understand themselves better than they did before."

"You will find many people would prefer to live in their own ignorance. Many are ashamed of where they are and do not like welcoming people who see through the façade. If there is one thing I am able to do well, it is to see people for who they are. Which is why I know you are strong enough to recover."

Draco smiled at her and said, "Thank you."

"The first question you have to ask yourself when considering marriage, however, is, 'When I lose a job or someone important to me, whom do I trust enough to go to first?' If the answer is anyone other than the person you wish to marry, just stop. It won't work. It has to be a partnership."

"Hermione and I would go to each other first for solace. We are a team."

"I know." Penelope nodded. "Then you ask yourself, 'If one of us takes ill, will the other drop everything to be with them?'"

"Unquestionably."

"Then you ask yourself, 'When we look at the future, do we see the same family?' You obviously want children, but does Hermione? If she does, how many children do you want? Who would be the godparents of your children? What would their last name be? Will Hermione take your na—"

"Oh, God, no." Draco shook his head. "I would never ask her to do that. Hermione is the sort of person whose name will be remembered for a thousand years, and Malfoy does not need to be a dark cloud shadowing her legend."

"Are you in agreement on children?"

"I haven't asked."

"Are you afraid to ask?"

"No, I am afraid she will say she wants to have as many children as I want. It makes me feel responsible, makes me feel she is doing this for me and not because she truly wants this for herself. I try to tell her that she is enough for me, and most of the time I think she believes me. Hermione said something to me that really made me understand why I want to have a child with her."

Penelope looked up from her notes and asked, "What was that?"

"She said our relationship is the one place she feels safe, and she knows I would do the same for our son. It is one of the highest compliments I have ever received."

"From my vantage point, and I only hear your perspective on your relationship so take that under advisement, I believe you and Hermione have learned to be honest with each other. That was the pivotal mistake you both made the first time you tried to make this relationship work. You learned from it, you rebuilt the trust between the two of you, and you care for each other. You are true partners now, and I believe you are ready for whichever path you choose."

Draco nodded.

"I love her. And while I know I still have recovery things to go through, and Hermione certainly has a longer path, I want to do it together. We have had sex maybe three times in the past four months, but I can hardly bring myself to care because that is not what I want from her." Draco frowned and amended, "It is, I mean, I enjoy having sex with her more than I have ever enjoyed it with anyone else. But it is secondary. I love waking up with her, and secretly taking her hair supplies to replace them with better ones. I hate watching her struggle, but I love that she trusts me to help her through it. All of it is better than I could have imagined. If you told me at age twelve that sixteen years on I'd be discussing proposing to Hermione Granger, I probably would've tried to hex you. And missed, of course, my wand aim was shit then. I would not have believed you, and now I cannot even think of living my life without her."

"You know," Penelope smiled, "I remember the day you sat down and told me you fancied Hermione Granger. You told me she said you could be a good father, and it was the best compliment you ever received. It is nice to see you are consistent."

Draco laughed.

"We learned to see the best in each other because we spent so many years seeing the worst. I do not know what the future holds for us, but I will always love her. We are not perfect together, but we are good and I am happy. I never knew I could be happy. It was always happy-adjacent, almost happy or I am happy but for … There are no qualifications with Hermione. I look at her and think, 'That is my girlfriend.' My heart does this weird little jump when she laughs at my jokes. I love watching her with her nose in a book in the manor library. You and Blaise and everyone else in my life helped me to better understand myself, but Hermione is the one person who showed me why I should love myself. Why I should love who I am."

"It takes so many people, and I am happy you had such great friends around you to help you see the value you bring."

"I couldn't have done it without you."

"It is my job, Draco, to help you look inward."

"It all started with you, Penelope, and no one could have helped me if I hadn't known where to begin."

Penelope grinned.

"Thank you for saying that."

Draco shrugged and admitted, "I am feeling rather good today. It just … feels like today will be a good day."

.oOo.

Draco found Hermione before dinner, exactly where he knew she would be: in the library with five books spread out on the table in front of her. He plopped into the seat next to her and Hermione jumped a bit.

"How was your day?"

"I've spent it all in here, actually. What time is it?"

"Six."

"Oh!" She laughed. "Sorry, I only meant to be here a few hours."

"Don't worry, I know this is your happy place."

"Any library with books this old is my happy place."

"Exactly."

Draco took a deep breath and before he could form his question, Hermione revealed,

"I figured out what I want to do!"

"I am on the edge of my seat."

"So." Hermione grabbed a book off the table and flipped through it. "It turns out that there have been four attempts at establishing pre-Hogwarts education. No one was able to convince the Wizengamot their system was sustainable. I think I can do it."

Amazing. Hermione saw one massive problem and thought she could solve it herself. As one person. Draco shook his head and laughed.

"I love it. Tell me more."

Hermione's eyes lit up.

"Right, so I thought we could create a day school for children ages five to ten. Courses in basic history, maths, reading, geography, perhaps even science since they won't be able to learn magic at that age—"

Draco hummed and asked, "Do you see the issue with that?"

"Of course. How can we get every child from across the country to one school five days each week? I was thinking Portkeys, but—"

"No Wizengamot will approve a Muggle curriculum."

"But—"

"Everything else sounds wonderful, Hermione. I love it. If you want to draw up a plan, I will fund it. God knows the Malfoy fortune has been spent on enough rubbish over the years, it'd be nice to put it toward something useful. Could probably even get you a facility, if you like, but you cannot teach Muggle curriculum to students."

"Then what will we do with the children who are Muggle-born?" asked Hermione. "We can't pull them from primary school and not teach them about Muggle history and science."

"I recognize this is the beginning stage of whatever plan you have drawn up, and you know I will support you. In fact, I think it is brilliant. Do you know how students got to Hogwarts before Muggles invented the train?"

"No."

"Look it up." Draco shuddered. "As much as Wizards have avoided Muggles, they have been useful. I can only imagine what the world would be like if we had spent the fast few centuries working in tandem. Perhaps we would have, I dunno, been to the moon or something."

Hermione laughed, then frowned.

"Muggles landed on the moon about forty years ago."

Draco's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"You're joking."

"No, there have been quite a few moon landings, actually. They are working on Mars next."

"Well why the bloody hell don't we have any books on that?!" shouted Draco. "Good God, that would be far more interesting than anything that ever left Professor Binns's mouth. The moon?!"

"This is exactly why we need this plan to work!" Hermione insisted. "I have always believed in international magical cooperation, but I'd forgotten about non-magical cooperation. How important it is to embrace everyone. How important it is that children understand they are welcome anywhere and everywhere in our world."

"Hermione—"

"Muggle children need to understand that Muggles have value, are just as valuable—"

"Hermione!" shouted Draco. "I know how much you enjoy proselytizing, but as the reigning heir of the Pureblood dynasty, I understand what you are up against. You may be right. Hell, I know you are right, but while you are drawing up plans for this you need to prepare for opposition."

"I know." Hermione nodded. "I know you're right, but the Wizengamot won't tell me no."

"There was a time when that was true, but now …"

"What about now?"

"Now you are with me." Draco sighed. "Now they have an excuse to say no. They will find a reason to discredit you, using me."

"I won't let them."

"I am afraid you don't have much of a choice."

"No." Hermione shook her head and insisted, "I will make this so good, so completely unbeatable they will have no choice to let me give it a try."

Draco placed one hand on her knee and smiled.

"I almost believe you."

"Almost?"

"If anyone could be Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin all in one, of course it would be you."

Hermione pressed a quick kiss to Draco's cheek and asked, "Do you think this is completely mad?"

"Yes," he answered with a laugh. "But you have always tried to help people and creatures no one else cares for. When we were first dating, I think I believed that was what you saw in me. A man who needed someone to care for him."

"No, I saw a man who was caring for everyone except himself. That is what I have always done, and you helped me to see that not caring for myself ends up hurting the people I love. I think you learned the same thing."

Very true.

"I have a question for you, which you don't have to answer, but I'd like it very much if you did."

"You know I will tell you anything."

"Yes, yes I do." Draco finally mustered up the courage to ask, "Do you still want to have a child together?"

"I do," Hermione replied without hesitation. "The more time that passes, the more I consider it, the more it seems like the logical thing to do."

"And I know how much you love the logical things in life."

"Do I detect a bit of sarcasm, Mr. Malfoy?"

"What does your logic tell you, Ms. Granger?" Draco shot back.

"Don't be cross, I told you how I spent my day. What prompted this question from yours?"

Draco asked, "How many?"

"How many what?"

"How many children would you like to have?"

"Two."

"Two?"

"Yes," Hermione confirmed. "You are an only child, I am an only child, I think it would be nice for our son to have a sibling."

"Our son?" teased Draco. "You seem very confident we would have a boy."

"I think so. It is only a feeling."

"Penelope said something to me today, and it hasn't left my mind."

"Hmm? You didn't mention it earlier."

"I needed to think on it for awhile. She told me that before you marry someone, there are three questions you need to ask about your relationship. Three questions that will give you clarity on whether marriage is a decent avenue to pursue."

"Right then," said Hermione. "What are the questions?"

"When I lose a job or someone important to me, whom do I trust enough to go to first? Then, if one of us takes ill, will the other drop everything to be with them? Finally, when we look at the future, do we see the same family?"

"I will always come to you first when I lose something or someone important to me. You help put things in the proper perspective; it is sort of your superpower. If you took ill, I would be at your side as long as you needed me there. If the Healers did not know how to treat you, I would take you to a doctor, and if the doctors couldn't figure it out then I would find the cure myself. Finally, when I look at my future I see you. If there is anything I learned from my marriage to Ron, it is that you marry into someone's family. As much as the Weasleys liked me, that family was not right for me.

"I look at Blaise and Dean or Bastien or Theo and Tracey and I understand the places they hold in your life. You are all a team, and I have been chosen to be part of it. My parents will like you eventually, they are only clinging to their loyalty to Ron. As for the rest of my family, well … I don't really have much. Harry is distant and Ron carries so many horrid memories, it will take time for us to heal. To be a family again." Hermione shrugged and said, "We both want children. We want to spend our lives with each other, helping each other, seeing each other through recovery. The truth is that I know what it is like to live life without you, Draco Malfoy. It felt like I ripped my own heart out and stomped on it. I want to be in your life however you'll have me. You are my family."

Draco's brain had short-circuited somewhere around the time Hermione suggested he had a superpower. He swallowed thickly and admitted,

"Hearing you say all of that is amazing, because it is exactly what I would have wanted to say to you."

"I love you like I have never loved anyone before, and I will never love anyone like this again. No one else could have done what you did for me. Now, when will you see Peter again?"

"We are having coffee together tomorrow."

"Fantastic. I need you to ask him for a photograph."

.oOo.

Peter took Draco to a coffee shop almost exactly like the one Dean had taken him to nearly a year earlier. He managed to order the same pink drink, after a thirty second conversation with a very frustrated barista. They sat down and Peter immediately asked,

"How well do you know Gabrielle Delacour?"

Draco sipped his drink and revealed, "She is one of my closest friends."

"Were you ever …" Peter winced. "More?"

"More than friends, you mean?" Draco nodded. "We dated for about a month. Never slept together, though, because Gabrielle's intimacy is different. She connects with people because she asks the proper questions and never balks at the truth, no matter how difficult it may be. It is what makes her such a fantastic lawyer."

"I have no interest in dating again."

Draco nodded to Peter's wedding ring and said, "I can tell."

"I want to have Gabrielle in my life, though. I don't know what it is about her, but like you said, she asks the best questions. She understands my grief in a way no one else has tried to. I cried in front of her. Not, you know, the slow, manageable sort of tears. I was bloody well sobbing on her shoulder, and she didn't make me feel like less of a man for it. She talked me through it, asked me all sorts of questions about my wife, about her relationship to Naevia, then we started speaking about how terrifying it is for me to allow anyone into my life because I am afraid the universe might take them from me, too."

"So you know, Gabrielle is truly amazing. If I was not in such a horrible place when we were together, I truly believe we would have been a very happy couple. We could have made a nice little family together and we would have been happy. But I wasn't right, and Gabby did not deserve to be brought into all my darkness."

"Gabby?" asked Peter. "Does she prefer to be called Gabby?"

"I call her Gabby in English and Gabrielle in French. I do not believe she cares much for Gabby, but it stuck."

"She has begun explaining more of the magical world to me. I didn't realize you and Hermione Granger were so, um, famous?"

"Hermione is famous, a living legend. I am … infamous, I suppose is the proper word."

"It is all very new. I was scared, at first, but Naevia took it in such stride that I wondered why I should bother being frightened at all. You take Scarlett to ballet class, for Christ's sake."

"Truthfully, the only time your daughter should be terrified is if you are within three metres of her with a comb."

Peter laughed. He insisted,

"I am getting better."

"You didn't seem too put out by Blaise and Dean at the party." Draco admitted, "My experience with them has led me to believe Muggles are not very open to gay relationships. It surprised me that you never commented on it."

"I was watching a bunch of eight-year-olds fly around a mansion on broomsticks. Blaise and Dean snogging in the corner of the room did not make even the top ten strangest things I saw at your party. My tongue is still burning from that whisky, and Sebastien was correct when he said the cake was delicious."

"I can see why Gabby likes you."

"Why?" Peter asked just a bit too quickly. "Did she say she likes me?"

"She says that when she finally finds the right man to start a family with, she hopes he loves their children as much as you love Naevia."

"That little girl is my whole world." Peter shook his head and admitted, "Everything I do is to ensure she has a good life. Sometimes I fall short. I never learned to do her hair; can't tell you the difference between a plié and passé. But I want to teach her the difference between good people and bad people. You? You're good people, Malfoy."

Draco choked on his drink he laughed so hard.

"Merlin's fucking arse, if only you knew how ridiculous it is for you to say that."

"You saved me from giving my daughter cabbage hair. You told her that her curls were beautiful and that she was strong. That doing ballet showed how strong she is. It means something different when it comes from a person with no stake in her future. I don't care what you may have done in the past. Gabrielle implied you and your family are not readily liked in your world."

"We are not."

"Well fuck your world, then. I see the way you are with Scarlett and Sebastien. I see the way you look at Hermione Granger. You have a hell of a lot of love to give the world, Malfoy. Same with Gabrielle. If us non-magical folks could be a bit more like that, I think we would all have easier lives."

Draco smiled softly and continued to sip his drink. He was not prepared for Peter's next question.

"If Hermione Granger hurt you, though, how could you go back to her a second time?"

That came out of nowhere. Draco sat his drink down on the table and sighed.

"Not everyone deserves a second chance. Most people who do what Hermione did don't deserve a second chance. She, um … She broke my nose and bruised my right eye. That wasn't what hurt, though. At the end of the day, losing her felt like I had lost the one person who could help me see value in my life. Without her, I wanted to kill myself. I was on suicide watch for a month. It took constant work month after month for me to be confident enough in myself to believe I could be in a relationship again. Hermione did not hit me to assert control or because she believed I was lesser. Hermione lost control. She wanted to be safe for me, and she made herself safe by learning to control her magic. I believe that warranted a second chance. Hermione has proven me right."

Peter absentmindedly stirred what was left of his coffee.

"My wife died in a car crash."

Draco did not reply.

"I kissed her goodbye on the cheek that morning, not knowing it would be the last time I would see her alive. When I think back on that day, my first thought is always that I should have kissed her full-on. I should have held her close and memorized how it felt to hold her. I should have taken more photographs of us as a family. There is so much regret, and Gabrielle helped me to let go of it. She looked at me and told me, 'People come into our lives for a reason. Some for a moment, others for a season, and some for a lifetime. She said Naevia and I—" Peter paused as he choked up a bit. He sipped his coffee before continuing. "She said that Naevia and I were special because we were with my wife for her lifetime. We were more than a season for her, and she will always be more than a season for us. I see so much of her in Naevia that I know she will be with me for a lifetime in a way I did not expect. Now it is up to me to keep that fire burning in Naevia, to ensure this loss does not dampen her spirit."

Draco assured him, "It hasn't."

"I know it won't because Scarlett is here to support Naevia. Scarlett isn't meant to be a star onstage, she is meant for athletics of a different sort. I am glad she has come into Naevia's life for this season, though, someone to help her see herself as the star she will be."

"Do you believe Sebastien is a season as well?" asked Draco. "Or do you see something more?"

"Naevia has a massive crush on him."

"It's mutual. Very, very mutual."

"Good."

"Speaking of Sebastien, he is working on a present for the two of you."

"Is he, now?" Peter smiled. "How sweet of him. Theo and Tracey raised a couple of good kids."

"Yes, they certainly have. But I am meant to ask you for some photographs …"

.oOo.

Draco walked into his father's study the following morning and sat down without introduction. Lucius shuffled some pieces of parchment around before looking up and asking,

"What do you want, my son?"

"I want you to be an active part of this family."

Lucius nodded.

"Then I will be. Truthfully, the Granger girl is an asset and I rather like her mother. Abigail and Jack are Muggle Healers who deal with teeth! It is fascinating."

"While I appreciate your enthusiasm for the Grangers, I do not want you and mother to continue leaving when things become difficult, or when something challenges your prejudice. If you intend to be part of this family, then you must play an active role."

"How do you propose your mother and I do that?"

"There is no one who knows the legal intricacies Malfoy estate better than you."

"Correct."

"Then there is one very important thing I need you to do."

.oOo.

Draco found his mother standing near one of the fountains in the garden. Draco stepped beside her and repeated exactly what he said to his father.

"I want you to be an active part of this family."

Narcissa agreed, "I will be, my son. However you need me, I am always here for you."

"Then I have a task requiring your assistance."

"Yes, what is it?"

Draco took a deep breath before he revealed,

"I want you to help me find an engagement ring."