A sharp rapping on his office door disturbs his thoughts. It cannot be one of the elves, since they would just come directly in, and he carefully takes his head out of his hands and smoothes down the few, unruly strands, making a mental note to destroy whichever of the house elves allowed a guest into his house and then his office unannounced.
"Come in," he barks reflexively.
Hermione Granger is standing in the doorway, looking as ill at ease as ever, though Draco knows by now that it is because of the way he snaps when his brooding is disturbed and not because she doesn't want to be there. Draco nods that she can enter because Granger is one of the few people he can actually speak to anymore, probably because Granger is one of the few people who won't pretend Ginny never existed to make him feel better.
Granger's gaze falls unerringly on the box, eyes widening a little, and Draco mentally snarls that the woman Witch's Weekly called brilliant and inspirational for her three Magis Doctors ought to have more subtlety, but Draco will not resent Granger's sometimes painful gestures because she has taken Louis off his hands on more bad nights than he will admit to having.
Granger meets his eyes and immediately says, "Tell me you're not going to do it, Draco," and takes a seat on one of the heavy mahogany chairs on the opposite side of his desk. Her eyes are wide and guarded, and her hair is less controlled than he's seen it in years.
Draco pretends ignorance and avoids her gaze by looking around the room, taking in the photographs that have hung there for years now. There is Ginny from Hogwarts, and he and Ginny feeding each other pieces of wedding cake, and there are few photographs from some of Louis' birthday parties that Hermione had framed for him and insisted on hanging in his office, and more of him and Ginny, dancing at her brother's wedding, on vacation in Antigua, smiling at one another. There are no photographs of him with his son. There is a picture stashed somewhere in the Manor of Granger and Weasley holding the boy when he was first born, but he was at Ginny's bedside then, first holding her hand and talking to her as the mediwitches worked feverishly through the night, then screaming and throwing things across the room as they quietly cleaned everything. Granger had given him the picture at the wake, and while he couldn't bring himself to burn it, he also couldn't bring himself to look at it.
Granger's words are cautious and diplomatic, but her intent is perfectly clear. "I don't know that you're thinking clearly, Draco. The thing is, you mustn't do anything without considering the implications, and even then..."
"Did anyone say I had any intension of using it?" he asks. His tone clearly states, "Cease and desist at once or I will have no compulsion in making your life a living hell." The only person who can withstand the tone is his mother-in-law Molly Weasley, who has an irritating habit of raising her eyebrows while brandishing a wooden cooking spoon, and he is suddenly at a loss for words every time.
"Why else would you have an illegal timeturner?" she asks skeptically. "You forget that I had one at Hogwarts; I know exactly how difficult it is to obtain them. If you're going to go through the Ministry, you've got to take the exams and then have someone vouch for you, and that someone must have already owned one at some point, and honestly, Draco, you can't just abuse something of this magnitude for your own personal gains."
They stare each other down for a while, and finally she sighs. "Ron and I can pick up Louis and keep him for the night, if you'd like; Mathilda will be at the Christmas party too."
He nods, and she stands up. One hand on the doorknob, she turns around and looks back at him.
"Sometimes you've got to do the right thing and not the easy thing," Granger says softly, and she closes the door gently on her way out.
"I know," he whisper, but he slowly opens the box anyhow.