The morning Hermione was toasting her marriage at breakfast with Bill and Fleur, Draco went back to Andromeda's cottage to prepare for his visit with Headmaster Snape to see how his parents were getting on since he refused the Dark Lord's call. Andromeda turned the concealment wand on him, casting a Disillusionment Spell so perfect he may as well have been under Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak.

"Everyone thinks I'm dead? Really?" Draco marveled as Tonks held out the jar of Floo powder in the general direction of his voice.

"Yeah, they read your name on the casualties list over the radio last night," she said. "So if anyone notices you, act like a ghost."

"Right," he said, his mind reeling with the implications of his being dead, especially for his parents.

"Don't fuss over all of that yet," Andromeda said. "Concentrate on making a safe visit and coming home. Hermione will be here tonight, won't she? Make that your guiding star. Off you go."

Stars bless Aunt Andromeda. She had been openly relieved when he'd given the concealment wand back to her that morning. It showed Draco how difficult it must have been for her to lend it, and for his mother to send him her healing wand, and how rabid Bellatrix must be to get her battle wand back. All witches hated to lose their wands, but the Sororal Triad wands were different – dangerous.

As expected, Crabbe and Goyle were guarding the Hogwarts Floo when Draco arrived, their backs to the flames as they scowled outward at the students crossing the Entrance Hall. Invisible, Draco charged between them, green flames flaring as he dashed over the hearth and out of their reach. They stumbled forward, beating out the embers smoldering on the hems of their robes, snarling and blaming one another.

Draco didn't look back, dashing toward the Headmaster's tower office. He could hear Crabbe howling for Filch, threatening him about the malfunctioning Floo.

Draco threaded his way between the students hurrying past, all of them keen on not bearing the brunt of Crabbe and Goyle's tantrum. Students didn't meander and linger through the corridors like they used to. There was a tense, rushed kind of fearful order.

Still, Draco heard someone whispering, "All I'm saying is that if the Malfoys can't keep their only child safe and alive, what chance is there for the rest of us? It's too dangerous. It's the wrong – "

"Shut up, they'll hear you."

Arriving breathless at the door to Snape's office, Draco rapped hard on the wood. Inside, the spiral staircase grated into place and Snape himself swooped through the door and into the corridor, his lips pursed, his eyes wide and dark. Draco slipped past him, creeping up the stairs to the office as quickly and silently as he could before Snape twirled once in the corridor and swooped back inside.

It was time to be a ghost.

There was a large mirror hung in a heavy gold frame over the fireplace. Draco fogged it with his breath and wrote his own name on the glass with his finger. The word was fading quickly and Snape had yet to look at it, standing over his desk, flipping through parchments. Ghostlike, Draco nudged a thick, dusty book off the mantlepiece, letting it slap loudly against the floor.

Snape froze, his eyes tracking toward the noise in time to see the puff of dust rising from the book's pages. With a flick almost too fast to see, his wand was drawn. He read aloud in a whisper.

"Draco."

Draco kept still, minding where Snape's wand was aimed. In another burst of speed, Snape vaulted over the back of a sofa, standing at the mirror, rubbing the name off the glass with his sleeve.

"Here, sir," Draco said, so quietly and close to Snape's ear that none of the portraits or anyone else spying in this space could hear.

Snape splayed his fingers, reaching toward Draco's whisper. Draco reached back, linking their little fingers. Snape sucked in a sharp breath but kept silent, leading Draco into his inner office. The door slammed and Snape grasped Draco's hand, feeling up the length of his arm, to his shoulder.

He uttered a sound between a cough and a laugh, taking Draco's head between his hands and peering into the finest Disillusionment Spell he had ever encountered. Now that he knew how to look, Snape could see a slight bend in the light where Draco's image began.

"You're alive."

"Yes. Do my parents know?"

Snape's hands fell away from Draco's head. "It isn't as simple as knowing or not. Though your father is sure you are dead. He is in heavy mourning. Rather terrible."

Draco's heart sunk. But he said, "And Mother?"

Snape paused. "She is trying to act as if you are dead but…" Snape's shoulders heaved up and down. "She sent you her wand. And I believe she did so for just such a time as this. You have united the Sororal Triad wands, and through them you have defied the Dark Lord's call, and survived, have you not?" Snape swallowed hard, as if his mouth had gone dry. "How? Who have you found who can use them?"

Draco explained how Andromeda's image had been restored to the tapestry and it allowed her descendants to use the Triad wands.

"And this is how you defied the Dark Lord's call? With the help of Nymphadora Tonks?"

"It's Nymphadora Lupin, sir," Draco said. "And, yes. With her help, and her husband's."

Snape sneered. "Lupin. Remus Lupin's face is on the Black Family Tapestry while Sirius Black's is not. Oh, they must find that funny, very funny indeed."

"Sir, please," Draco said, "what has the Dark Lord done with my parents since I refused his call? Has he punished them?"

"He might have if he hadn't been punishing them already for losing Potter," Snape said. "They're all still under house arrest at the Manor. Though I suspect Bellatrix is moving about, intent on mayhem."

There was a rustle of upholstery as Draco sank into a chair with relief. "House arrest. That's it? Thank the stars."

"Thank nothing. And mark this," Snape said, pointing a finger though he was no longer sure where Draco was. "This will not be the end of the matter. Like your mother, your Aunt Bellatrix is not convinced you are dead. Until she has proof, she will not trouble the Dark Lord about it, but when she does…"

Draco didn't want to hear any more. "Look, I need my parents to know for certain I'm alive," Draco said. "I need you to send them a sign."

"Listen to me. Your mother already knows," Snape insisted. "She and Bellatrix both. They must know that the Triad wands have been united against the Dark Lord, and they will know that means you are in contact with Potter. Bellatrix will be hunting her wand more desperately and violently than ever, which means she will be hunting you."

"And what about you, sir?" Draco said. "It will appear to them as if you have broken your vow to protect me. They will be demanding your life – "

"Not now, Draco," Snape called over his voice. "For now, you must return to Andromeda and use her gifts to remain hidden from Bellatrix. If she finds you, tell her you did have the Triad wands but they are gone now. Tell her I have confiscated your mother's and brought it to the school for safekeeping. And when she demands her own wand, tell her Potter destroyed it once he saw its power."

"She'll never believe that – "

"Then when she comes for the wand, destroy it yourself," Snape said. "Go back now. I'll send you by my Floo."

He opened the door and stood back as Draco's heat and scent moved out of the inner office and past him. There was a sweetness to it, like something feminine overlaying his usual air. Maybe it was because of Draco's new closeness to the Tonks women, or maybe it was something more.

"Is there anything else you need to tell me?" Snape said. "Anything that has changed recently?"

The Disillusionment Spell was waning, the outline of Draco's profile visible as he turned away from Snape and said, "No, sir." Without a word more, he vanished in the flames.

At Shell Cottage, Hermione was astonishing Ron and Harry with how marvelously quick, precise, and powerful the Triad battle wand performed for her. Wide eyed and laughing, they ran dueling drills, chasing Hermione up and down the beach until they couldn't take any more punishment from her new wand. Even though she was only casting stunning spells, they hit like hurricanes and never missed.

"Nasty," Harry said, sitting hard on the ground, jabbing Draco's old hawthorn wand into the sand at his side and pulling off his glasses to wipe the sweat from his brow. "That new wand of yours is brilliant but nasty, Hermione. Glad it's finally on our side."

"Which means we are one step closer to being ready to carry out the plan," she said.

"One huge step," Ron said, flopping into a heap next to Harry. "I'd say that thanks to that awful wand, our mission just got a little less suicidal."

So far, Ron had been very good, not saying anything about how the wand was not worth the price Hermione had paid to get herself on the tapestry. But their conversation was tight, as if it was taking all his strength to keep quiet about it. Harry seemed like it was taking all his strength not to ask her if she was alright. And it was taking all her strength not to rave about how sweet and gentle her new husband was, and how happy he made her.

But instead of talking, Hermione was tucking the walnut wand away, gesturing with her chin over Ron's shoulder to where Luna was jogging toward them.

"Look what's come!" Luna was calling. "It arrived in the post from Mr. Ollivander. Isn't it beautiful?"

Ron sat up to see Luna's new wand. It was birch, a hardwood. But this wand was so supple it must have been from a weeping birch. She let him hold it, balancing it on his palm.

"He's on his third wand," Hermione said with a slight roll to her eyes. "He's got opinions."

Ron gave the wand a slight toss, catching it in his fist. "That's unicorn hair in the core, init?" he said. "My first two were the same. Not like this blasted thing." He waved at Wormtail's wand half buried in the sand.

Luna was tugging him to his feet, walking him into the open where they could practice their new wands together until he loved his more. Ron, who'd been flat on his back exhausted a moment before, followed her without complaint.

Harry slipped his glasses back on and looked out at the sea.

"Is that what I used to look like?" Hermione asked him.

Harry gave a start and joined Hermione in watching Ron and Luna.

"The way she looks at him, and stands too close with her face turned up to his – was I like that?" Hermione pressed.

Harry hummed. "A bit, I guess. You'd look at him, yeah. But then you'd always look like you were mad at yourself for doing it. And then sometimes you'd turn that into being mad at him. But Luna…"

"Luna lets him make her happy. She enjoys watching him and doesn't give a toss if everyone knows it. Even him," she finished.

"Yeah," Harry said.

Hermione sighed. "Well, good for them."

As soon as it was dark, Hermione left the cottage by Floo, arriving in Andromeda's kitchen to find Tonks hanging up her cloak.

"Oh, Hermione, welcome. I'm just getting back myself. My first meeting of the Order since the baby," she said, spinning toward the sitting room, shouting. "Mum, where's Teddy?"

"He's here…"

Only it wasn't Andromeda answering and bringing the baby into the kitchen, it was Draco. Teddy was awake and facing outwards, waving his arms and legs, calling back to Tonks. Not expecting to find anyone but Tonks in the kitchen, Draco stopped in his tracks, mouth open mid-speech, blinking at the wife he could still hardly believe was his.

Hermione was speechless as well. "What are you wearing?" she asked him.

Tonks shouted a laugh. "The clothes are down to me. You know my talent for blending in when I want to. I thought Draco might be able to get around a bit better if he had some Muggle clothes in his wardrobe. What do you think, Madam Malfoy?"

Hermione blinked back at Draco as Tonks eased the baby out of his arms. He was wearing a white T-shirt topped with a blue zip-up jumper from a football club she'd never heard of: the Swinton Cobras. For trousers he wore a pair of black jeans that fit well enough but looked so new and stiff they might have been able to stand up by themselves. He braced himself for her review.

"Well it's," Hermione began, "uncharacteristic. I've never seen him dressed in blue."

"Right? Isn't it lovely? Lights his eyes up with a bit of colour. I based the rest of the items on how those Muggles dressed Harry during the summers," Tonks beamed.

"You what?" Draco burst.

"It's fine, darling," Hermione said, a slight laugh in her voice. "It's got –"

"It's got to go," he said. "There's no way I'll be stood here done up like I've raided Potter's rucksack."

Tonks laughed, shaking her head. "Harry's very inconspicuous in the Muggle world. You'd do well to take a lesson from him, coz. I'll leave you to your evening. Say goodnight, Teddy." She waved the baby's hand at them and trotted away toward her bedroom, happy as a Hippogriff and its colt.

Draco tugged the zip of his jumper down, squirming out of the sleeves.

She lifted it from the chair he'd thrown it on, squinting at the club logo. "Is this a real team?"

"How in the world should I know?" he said.

She smirked, looking him straight in the eye as she slid her own arms into the sleeves still warm from his body. "I've always wanted a boyfriend jumper."

His frustration ebbed a little, replaced with a frustration of a different kind. "That's not a boyfriend jumper. It's a husband jumper. And these trousers aren't right either," he went on, pinching the side seam of his jeans. "They're supposed to be like the ones you wear most of the time but – yours are nice and soft, and they fit you like a second skin and…"

A breath rushed out of him and in one long stride he'd crossed the kitchen, taken her in his arms, and sat her on the counter. He stepped between her knees, his hands running over the outsides of her thighs, his eyes drifting closed. "Yeah, soft like this."

"Draco, really. It's your aunt's kitchen," she scolded, even as her arms met around his neck.

He bowed his face into her throat. "I thought about you every minute. All day. Could hardly stand it."

She had tipped her head back, laughing softly as his mouth opened on her skin. "You thought about me, or about what you'd like me to do to you?"

He hummed as her neck flushed pink against his face. "I have an active mind. Plenty of room to think about everything about you, and what you do."

"Where's your room?" she said, her voice low. Tired of waiting herself, she linked her ankles around his waist so he could carry her off.

But the Floo was flashing again.

"Remus," Hermione chirped, lowering her legs and hopping off the edge of the counter. Draco leaned against it with one hand, hunched over and flushed.

"Oh, good evening," Remus said in an overly jolly way, playing too hard at pretending he hadn't seen anything. "Hermione. And Draco, you're looking well. Considering…"

"Tonks had him dress up like this. It's a Muggle disguise she came up with," Hermione rushed. "This jumper is part of it too…"

Remus blinked, noticing Draco's Muggle look for the first time. "Yes, that sounds like something our Dora would do. The snake motif on the jumper is a bit on the nose. But no, that's not what I meant. No, I meant he looks well for someone who's supposed to be dead."

Hermione jumped. "Dead?!"

Draco scrubbed his face with his hands. "I hadn't got 'round to telling her yet."

Remus shrugged. "Yes, well first things first, I suppose. Like a snog on my mother-in-law's counter."

"You're believed dead?" Hermione went on, clamping her hand around Draco's forearm. "You refused You-know-who's call, so now you're presumed dead?"

"If only it were that simple," Draco said. "I've been to see Snape. He says my mother is playing along like I'm dead, but she doesn't believe I am. She knows the united Triad wands could have saved me. But so does Bellatrix."

Remus whistled between his teeth. "Now you're a threat to her master, you're in Madam Lestrange's crosshairs."

"Yes, and Snape's got his own problems with her too," Draco said. "He made an Unbreakable Vow to protect me. And even if Bellatrix doesn't believe I'm dead, she could still demand he forfeit his life over it. He has until the solstice at the end of June."

Hermione pressed her fingers to her temples. "So finding Draco and the wand are Bellatrix's top priorities. That means that – we've got to – oh, I can't think," she said.

"Nor should you. Not tonight, at any rate," Remus said.

"Yes, but if – "

"No, learn from my mistakes, Hermione," Remus said, earnest and a little pained. "Don't ruin the first days of your marriage overthinking. Now go and be together. You'll think better in the long run after having stopped thinking at all for a while. But do get out of the kitchen." With that, he nodded goodnight and left them alone.

Hermione raised a finger at Draco. "Presumed dead? You need to tell me these things as soon as possible. You need to check in with me about all our news before seducing me."

"Fine, fine," he said, pulling her back into himself by the zipped edges of his Cobras jumper. "So is there anything you need to tell me about your day?"

She hummed and let him fold his arms around her. She settled her ear against his heartbeat, her head under his chin, breathing him in. "Well, the Triad battle wand works smashingly for me, just like it did for Tonks. We spent the whole day training and the boys were completely satisfied."

"Glad someone was," he muttered into her hair.

"What?"

"Nothing, do go on. What else happened at Shell Cottage today?" he said. "How's mon amie Fleur?"

Hermione leaned back to look at him, her coy smile overtaking her. "She's brilliant, actually. We had lunch together on the beach. A special girls only lunch."

Draco swallowed, his eyebrows lifting, his hands stroking her back, finding their way inside the jumper, making her shiver and arch. "Yes, and?"

Catching her breath, she purred on her exhale before saying, "She explained some things to me – gave me some wifely advice I'm rather keen to test out…So when you and I – are together – it can feel for me more like it does for you."

Draco rumbled a hungry laugh and lifted her off the ground, her legs swinging as he pivoted toward his room under the sloped lean-to roof off the scullery. It wasn't posh, but it was private, no lumpy mattress, no smashed glass. "My friend Fleur indeed."

"I mean," Hermione went on, her face in the crook of his neck, "It's been very, very nice, the way we've been doing it but – I guess there's even more to it…"

Her feet were still dangling above the floor as Draco reached his room, shouldered the door open, and kicked it shut behind them.

Her hands were ruching his t-shirt up his torso, ready to slip it over his arms and head. "Though Fleur says it will be a bit more work for you. And you'll need to listen to me – "

"Challenge accepted. Gladly, ecstatically accepted," he said, dropping her onto the small but soft bed, ducking as his shirt came off in her hands, tearing his belt out of the loops of the Muggle trousers.

She lay back in his pillows, kicking off her shoes, watching him with wide eyes, squealing as he pounced on her.

"I'm listening," he said. "Tell me where to start."

Draco had never seen her sleep so peacefully. In the crook of his arm, her face against his chest, Hermione was in a deep sleep, her breath slow and even, no emotion in her expression except maybe a blank, honest contentment.

He gathered her a little closer and pressed his lips to her forehead, indulging in a smirk. Yes, he was very pleased with himself. It took more than one try, but he had managed to give her every feeling she'd ever given to him.

It hadn't just been an act of physical prowess and following directions. It had started in their hearts, as they lay together in the quiet and he laced their fingers and asked her what it was about his Muggle clothes that had made her speechless.

She'd given a light snort. "So vain. I do like staring at you, but your looks are not always the reason why."

"They're not?"

"No, today was the first time since you'd married me that I saw you with the baby." She'd said it as if it explained everything, nestling herself against him under the quilt.

He'd laid next to her in silence, thinking it through. "So you like my caring side? Is that it?"

"Well – it is ridiculously attractive when you're doting on Teddy," she'd said. "But that's not all of it."

His fingers had found her chin and raised her face to look up at his. "Tell me. I want to understand."

Her arm had been around his waist, already hugging him, but she'd squeezed him even closer. "When people find out we're together, what they want to know is how we'll get through our past. That's not really the problem though, is it? I mean, it could be if we let it, but we've decided it's not going to hold us back, so it doesn't. No, the problem isn't our past, it's our future…"

Her words had trailed away, her voice shaking apart.

He'd sighed and palmed the back of her head. "Our future," he'd echoed.

"How are we going to have a future?" she'd said. "Getting married is starting a future. But will I ever see you walking toward me with a baby of ours in your arms? How can we survive that long? Look at how normal it is for everyone to accept that you're dead, even when you're not. And any day now, Harry and Ron and I, we're…"

Again, she couldn't speak.

Draco cradled her in his arms, rolling onto his side and looking into her face from above, filling her vision. He knew she couldn't tell him about her next mission. He had no way of judging the chances of her survival. But he could speak for himself. "It's alright that they think I'm dead. It keeps me hidden. And if I ever need to distract them from what you and Potter are up to, I can make a grand reappearance, a big, messy Malfoy scene, just like old times. It could buy you some cover."

She'd raised her hand to his face. "I'm not talking about war strategies. I'm talking about wanting to be with you for a long, long time when the far more realistic outcome is that I will lose you in this violence. And I've never wanted anything like I want to keep you."

She hadn't been crying but her eyes were shining – swimming, Harry would say. Her eyelashes had been damp, and Draco brushed them dry with his lips. "I don't know about the future, but this present of ours," he'd said, his lips close to hers. "I know being together in this present is better than any future. It's worth it. I want it. I love it."

His mouth had tracked along her jaw, back to her mouth. Their kiss had been deep, intense, as if she's decided she may as well devour him herself as let the war have him. She'd tasted her own unshed tears on him, and with a moan he'd reached for her. They'd come together perfectly after that. It was so satisfying and beautiful the aftershocks had lulled her to sleep, and he had stayed awake to hold her, and to wonder if it had been perfect as some sort of cosmic gift, because it might have been the last time.

He had stopped thinking such grim thoughts and was close to sleep himself when there was a sound at the door, not a knock but the slap of an open, frantic hand.

"Draco." It was Tonks calling through the door in a hard, staccato voice. "Take Hermione and go. There's trouble outside."