Something was coming; Draco could feel it deep within his bones.

Everything had been going too well.

Over a week had passed since Hermione had seen the first sign of her memory returning, since the day she had come across her parents again. Through the week, she'd retrieved two other small, inconsequential memories. One of a Hogwarts class from their early years, and the other from a point in her childhood before she had learned she was a witch.

They didn't make any sense, and there was no connection between the three, but Huxley remained optimistic that it was a good sign.

Draco agreed.

His work was going well, and he and Potter had been venturing out on some more interesting cases. Not every day, and certainly not as much as the rest of the Aurors in the office, but it was more than nothing.

But he wasn't used to things going well. In fact, things had steadily declined for so long, and every time he allowed himself to believe something good was coming, something bad would follow in its stead.

A nervous quake coasted along his spine almost ubiquitously when he thought of everything that had gone wrong, even in recent months. His mother's illness; his father's sentencing.

Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction. Maybe Draco needed to accept that sometimes things went right, and he didn't need to question everything all the time. But he couldn't help it; the instinct was one that had been ingrained within him ever since the war started going bad.

If he prepared himself for the worst, he couldn't be surprised when it inevitably happened.

And things still weren't perfect by any stretch. His mother's healers were no closer to a cure to the illness that had ravaged her body and begun to chip away at her magic. Draco knew that, while Hermione didn't bring it up, she still hadn't entirely shaken the odd feeling that had taken her about them when her recollections began to creep back in.

But there were no fires to put out at the moment, and it left him anxious.

"Any luck?" Potter asked, dropping into the seat beside him.

Draco jolted. "Not yet." They'd spent the day in the office, and Draco had been sorting through the files from the string of seemingly insignificant robberies up and down Diagon Alley. He'd been picking through the cases when he had a few spare moments, but no one in the department viewed the matter as a priority.

Draco found himself wondering about the connections―if they were even connected at all. For all he knew, the timing was simply suspect, and there was nothing to draw the line from one to the next. Maybe it was a Hogwarts student, bored at home for the summer, and Draco was looking entirely too far into it.

He didn't know, and no one else cared enough to bother him over it.

Wrenching a hand through his hair, he shot Potter a grimace. "Please tell me we have a case."

Potter snickered and checked his badge. "Nothing yet, but I'm sure Robards can come up with a task for you if you really want."

"No." Draco rolled his eyes. "I can only imagine what that might be. I'll stick with petty stationery thieves."

"Just watch," Potter quipped, "maybe you're going to unravel a smuggling cartel if you keep at it. There's got to be something in there somewhere."

"I highly doubt it," Draco clipped.

With a great sigh, Potter sank into his seat. "Then why are you so set on this?"

"I'm not, really," Draco mused, flipping a sheet of parchment. "Though I suppose I do enjoy the obscurity and the challenge of it. If there's a link, I intend to find it." Potter snorted but remained otherwise silent until Draco cocked a brow and fixed with him a hard look. "What?"

"Nothing." He waved a hand and chuckled to himself. "It's just―I'm really seeing why you and Hermione are so compatible. That's exactly the sort of thing she would say."

Draco felt colour infuse his cheeks, though inwardly, he appreciated the comparison. And the recognition. He had long admired her for her intellect―even before he would have admitted such a thing to anyone, including himself.

"Speaking of," he muttered as his phone buzzed in his pocket. With a furtive glance around, he drew it from his pocket and flipped to the message.

Good news―Unspeakable Caldwell wants to meet for an interview next week.

A smile pulled at his lips, even as alarm bells rang in the back of his mind. Maybe Draco would just have to get used to the idea that not everything that happened in his life had to be negative.

"Only Hermione Granger would get an interview with one of the most prestigious, analytical departments in the whole British Ministry whilst missing nineteen years of long-term memory," he drawled, idly tapping a message in response.

Potter's brows lifted in surprise. "Which department?"

Draco smirked; it always felt good knowing things Potter obviously didn't yet. "Mysteries."

"Merlin," Potter muttered, dragging a hand through his messy hair. "Of course, she would want to be an Unspeakable. She's going to be more important than either you or I soon."

"Are you surprised?"

Flashing him a grin, Potter checked his badge. "Not even a little; I firmly believe she's going to take over the world one day. I hope you're prepared for that. Put your pet project aside for now―Knockturn calls."


Hermione flipped through a book on magical theory, an intent furrow in her brow. "Draco," she mused softly, dragging her eyes up to his belatedly. "I've been thinking a lot about something. Do you remember that day we went to the joke shop?"

"Yes," Draco clipped. He'd been hoping she had forgotten; a mild shimmer of unease ran through him. "What about it?"

"Well." She sighed, making a face. "Harry's suggested the Weasley family wants to see me. And I don't―I don't know if I want to go, but I don't know how to say no."

"It's easy: no."

"Draco."

He forced a thin smile. "I mean it. If you don't feel up to it, I don't want you doing anything that makes you uncomfortable. You have more than enough going on in your life right now, between your treatment, your parents, this interview... I say this as objectively as possible because they've never been my favourite people, but the Weasleys are a lot to handle. They're loud and plentiful and rather lacking in social nuance."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Harry said you wouldn't be keen."

Draco couldn't deny it; he shrugged. "I'm not. But if you asked me to go with you, I don't know how I'd be able to say no."

"Theo would be there," she mused. "And you and Harry get on well, don't you?"

He offered a noncommittal hum. For as much as he cared about Hermione, willingly going to a dinner at the Weasleys' house felt like a line he didn't care to cross, even with Theo and Potter present. Largely because he could only imagine how uncomfortable it would be for everyone involved, surely they wouldn't want him there any more than he would want to be there.

"At any rate," she said softly, glancing away. "I told Harry I'd give it some thought. And I'll not force you to go with me."

Draco sighed, drawing her close and planting a kiss to her forehead. "If you genuinely want me to go, I'll go. I just want you to be prepared for the fact that there will be bad blood, particularly between myself and your friend Ron; you saw some of that yourself when we ran into him. I can't imagine he's keen about Potter dating Theo, either." He thought about it for a moment. "Especially since Potter dated the only female Weasley once."

Maybe the situation would be chaotic enough for it to become amusing.

"I know," she said, her face softening a little. "And to be honest, I don't know that I'm ready for it yet anyway. Even Harry said it might be a lot to take in."

"On that note," he said, "Andromeda's invited us to dinner on Sunday if you're interested."

"Sure." She smiled. "That sounds a little more like what I can manage right now." As she turned back to the book she'd been studying, she sucked in a sharp breath and pressed a palm to her temple.

Draco lifted a brow. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she huffed, pressing her eyes shut tight. "I've been having a lot of sudden, brief headaches. Healer Huxley says it's part of the process." She blinked her eyes open wide again. "He figures the more my brain processes the new memories that have returned, the easier it'll be able to locate others. But the whole thing is rather a strain."

"Naturally," Draco returned with a nod. He still felt a little trepidation about her memories of him returning, but it was overshadowed by the hope he felt. The sparkle that came into her eye when she talked about it. "What day is your meeting with Unspeakable Caldwell?"

Hermione winced again and released a harsh breath before responding. "Wednesday. Healer Huxley is going to draft a letter for me to give her that will explain the situation." Burying her face in her hands, she choked out a quiet, "Sorry."

Frowning, he rubbed a hand along her spine. "You don't look alright. Do you want me to owl Huxley?"

For a long moment, she didn't respond, and when she sat upright again, her face was pale. "No, it's alright." She nodded once with a thin, unconvincing smile. "Furthermore, I've been thinking about whether I want to return for the fall term at Queen Mary. It's a decision I'll have to make in advance of the interview if there's a chance I might be able to get on with Unspeakable training."

"That makes sense," Draco said, considering the thought. She was on summer break from her studies, but she wouldn't be able to continue attending Muggle university if she were working at the Ministry. Following her lead, he didn't dwell on the way she appeared to be experiencing a major categorical rearrangement in her brain. "I suppose it just depends on which you'd rather do."

Hermione worried her lower lip, casting him a glance; moisture leaked from her eyes. "I think if I'm honest, as soon as I learned about the wizarding world, my priorities shifted. I just... I don't want to cast off everything I've spent the last years doing. It's left me feeling trapped between two different people. Of course, that's sort of been the case for the last number of years. I suppose this just feels like the path I'm meant to pursue."

Draco turned to face her on the sofa; she always grew talkative when she was nervous. "I think," he said quietly, "you should do what feels right. If you want to carry on with your studies, do that―and if you feel like you want to get on with the Ministry, then do that. It's no one's choice but yours. One day you're going to get through all this―I promise―and the different parts of yourself you've nurtured will come together."

Brows knitted, she stared at him and whispered, "Okay."

"Honestly, it's part of what makes you so special," Draco breathed. "You've always been unapologetically convicted in who you are." He ducked in, trailing a hand along her cheek before pressing a kiss to her mouth. "And I love every part of you."

A few stray tears broke from her eyes, but he wasn't certain whether that was from her emotions or the pain. He continued to ghost his fingers over her cheek and up towards her temple, and his eyes widened. Before she could respond, he bit out, "You are burning up."

"I don't feel well," she breathed, palming her own forehead.

"No shit," Draco huffed, fighting a bit of a chuckle. "You haven't been obvious at all. I'm taking you to the hospital."

Hermione's breathing grew laboured, her eyes squeezing shut again. "It's okay, I promise. I'm just―"

She fell silent, and Draco eyed her for a moment, and if he wasn't so concerned about Apparating her in her present state, he would have already taken her to see Huxley. Her fingertips drummed an anxious rhythm on the sofa, her lips mouthing over silent words; Draco's heart thudded dully in his chest.

"Are you remembering something?" he asked at last. All of the other memories that had broken through had been during her treatment sessions, so he didn't know what to make of the situation.

Her tapping intensified, but she offered a stifled nod. "If I think about it too hard, it can vanish." Although her eyes remained glassy with moisture, she flipped the page in her book. But moments later, she grappled for his hand and hissed, "Giant snake?"

"Basilisk," he said, squeezing her fingers tight. "Second year."

She grimaced, her hand clammy in his. "What else?"

Draco felt himself begin to panic and drew a slow breath, his heart racing. "Okay, right. So the basilisk was brought into Hogwarts by Salazar Slytherin and kept for a thousand years in a subterranean passage called the Chamber of Secrets."

"Pain?" she queried, giving up on her book entirely and plastering a hand over her forehead. "Why is there pain?"

His heart plummetted into his stomach. "Looking directly at the basilisk results in death. But to look at it through another method to obscure the contact causes petrification." He wracked his own memory, and the recollections churned uneasily within him. "It travelled from the chamber through the plumbing; you were petrified before it was caught."

She cracked one eye open as though she didn't entirely believe him, but then she nodded. "Please keep going," she whispered.

Although his mind suddenly went blank, he squeezed her hand. "From what I know of the matter, you figured it out. You saw the basilisk through a mirror."

"Harry can talk to snakes," she breathed, eyes scrunched shut. "Right?"

It took him a moment to recall that he'd known that. "Parselmouth, it's called. The language of snakes is Parseltongue. He picked it up from the connection with the Dark Lord formed when he was a baby." The words spilt from his mouth, trying to keep her as distracted as he could, even while his pulse raced with every word that she spoke. He hadn't even realised he'd chronicled so much information about Potter and their experiences at school; he felt nauseous at the next point. "Tom Riddle had a cursed diary, and my father planted it on a student―that's how the basilisk was being controlled."

Despite the visceral strain on her face, Hermione snickered. "You realise how utterly bollocks this all sounds," she whispered.

"I do," he conceded. "But this all happened. Potter stabbed the basilisk with a sword in the Chamber of Secrets. You weren't there―because you were petrified, I suppose―but shortly thereafter, you were restored with a draught made from Mandrake tears."

"Okay," she said, at last, her grip on his hand loosening. Her eyes slid open, watery and red, and she blinked at him several times. He could see her mind whirring as she stared at him. "Alright, I think it's settled. And it isn't... the others so far have all been just a snippet. This feels like―" Her eyes narrowed with concentration. "This is like a series of events. I can't quite piece them together, but I can tell they're related."

Draco's mouth fell open as he listened. "This is good news."

"It is," she murmured, still distracted as though playing over the freshly returned memories in her mind. Then she tittered. "I think I can see you in one of them; only it's a small version of you. You weren't very nice." The bridge of her nose scrunched up in distaste, but he could still see the beaming warmth in her face.

"Did warn you," Draco said, lifting a brow, "I wasn't very nice then."

Hermione snickered. "Your hair was interesting."

"I was twelve," he huffed. Even despite the mild irritation that she was intentionally prodding, Draco was overjoyed to learn about this latest advancement. Maybe Huxley's ideas held some merit after all―that she could use the first memories to unravel more. "I feel like you're discovering an album of my childhood photos or something, but I can't see them."

They shared a grin. Then Hermione abruptly threw her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck. Caught off guard, Draco sobered and drew her closer, pressing a kiss to her brow. Her chest tightened at the impromptu show of emotion. She drew back from the embrace after a minute, swiping a finger beneath the corner of one eye.

"It's remarkable," she mused and drew a blank sheet of parchment towards her to jot down a few quick notes. "That your assistance in talking me through all of it brought out more memories than I've so far been able to reach."

"It is," Draco agreed. "There must be something to it."

Hermione released a sigh and sank back into his hold. Her voice was quiet. "I'm starting to believe this might actually work, Draco."

"It will. I know it."


"So," Potter prompted, taking a swig from his bottle of water. "How was your interview? I've met Unspeakable Caldwell a few times, and that woman is intimidating as hell."

"She is," Hermione said, offering a smile. She had just finished her interview with the Department of Mysteries, and as Draco and Potter were in the department that day, the three of them had arranged to meet for lunch in the Ministry cafeteria. "But brilliant, truly. I can only imagine how much I could learn from her."

"And?" Draco drawled, cocking a brow. "What did she have to say?"

Hermione snagged a crisp from her packet and chewed it before speaking, her gaze drifting across the room to where a Ministry official appeared to be hosting a vampire. She jolted back to the conversation at hand. "She's naturally hesitant to offer me a job outright, of course, and I can't blame her. After all, I've only just started to remember things, and most of that doesn't comprise anything I learned in seven years of study at Hogwarts. But she and Healer Huxley have spoken at length, and she might be willing to take me on." Colour flooded her cheeks. "And apparently, Minister Shacklebolt also offered a recommendation."

"'Course he did," Potter said, barrelling through her evident embarrassment over the matter. "And you don't need to feel uncomfortable over that. You and Kings knew one another quite well during the war before he was made Minister."

As he finished his lunch, Draco could feel Hermione's stare on him, and he eyed her for a moment. "It sounds like it went well, all things considered. If it's what you genuinely want to do, then I think you should go for it if Caldwell offers anything. Then you don't need to worry about finding a shop job in the interim. To be honest, I've always found the Unspeakables to be fascinating."

"They're bloody terrifying," Potter added. "So you'll fit right in." He pointed at her with his bottle of water. "And you know―you probably ought not to tell Caldwell this, but we did break into the Department of Mysteries fifth year."

Draco eyed Potter sidelong.

"Only this one's father and his cronies," Potter went on, "thought it was a good idea to try and kill a group of teenagers."

Holding up his hands with a grimace at Hermione's wide-eyed astonishment, Draco said, "I take no responsibility for my father's actions. And honestly, you shouldn't have been trying to break into a Ministry department in the first place."

Potter fixed with him no small measure of derision. "It was with good reason, thanks." He fell silent, his face sobering. "And we lost a good man that night."

Draco knew that part of the story; his mother's cousin Sirius Black had fallen through the veil in the Death Chamber at his aunt's hand. "Yeah," he muttered, feeling the last of his appetite desert him. "Bloody Bellatrix."

"Bloody Bellatrix," Potter agreed with a grimace.

"The mad aunt?" Hermione asked, a little meekly as though she weren't quite certain. When Draco and Potter both nodded, she made a face and echoed, "Bloody Bellatrix indeed."

The table felt a little uncomfortable as such a heavy topic of conversation hung over the three of them. As Hermione began telling Potter about her plans to see her parents the following week, Draco glanced up when a DMLE memo came soaring towards him. He waved a dismissive hand when Hermione broke off mid-sentence and unfolded the lavender memo while the pair of them carried on.

Emergency Summons

Third Rank Training Auror D L Malfoy

St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

Time: Immediate

His heart felt as though it shuddered to a halt in his chest, and the idle chatter between Hermione and Potter faded to background noise behind the thudding of his pulse. His mouth went dry, and he realised belatedly his hand shook.

"There it is," he breathed to himself.

The chaos that had been missing from his life.

The hospital would only have sent an emergency summons via the department if something serious had happened.

"I have to go," he choked, meeting Hermione's concerned gaze. He tossed her the memo, already jumping to his feet, then turned to Potter. "Please tell Robards I'll be back as soon as I can."

Hermione's eyes widened as she read the memo, and she pushed her seat back abruptly. "I can come with you."

Draco's head felt full of noise, a dull buzz that cut him off from everything else. He brushed a kiss to her cheek. "It's alright. I'll call as soon as I know anything."

He dashed to the nearest Apparition point.


Upon arriving at St Mungo's, still clad in his full Auror robes and with a dull rush of panic building in his chest, Draco found Lucy, his mother's in-home caregiver.

"What happened?" he asked, the words coming out brusque as he wrenched a hand through his hair.

Lucy's eyes were watery as she shook her head. "She began to decline yesterday, but nothing beyond the ordinary fluctuations we've seen. Her magic has been waning, as you know, but as of this morning, there was nothing―and then―"

Draco scrubbed at one eye with the heel of his palm. "Where is she?"

"Auror Malfoy." Whirling at the sound of Healer Brooks' voice, Draco's heart froze at the sombre look on the man's face. "Please, come with me." The man kept a brisk pace as he led Draco through the labyrinthine corridors of the hospital, his stride so quick Draco had to hurry to keep up. "We're about to go into an intensive magical procedure."

"And?" Draco scarcely managed to ask.

Brooks glanced at him as they walked. "And it's a last resort effort, Auror Malfoy." His lips thinned. "I can't give you anything more than that."

Warmth prickled at the corners of Draco's eyes, and he didn't trust himself to speak; he simply nodded in return. He couldn't stifle the terrible feeling that had utterly overtaken him—that he might not see his mother again.

By the time they arrived in the room, all of Draco's strength had seeped from him, his shoulders sagging, despair breaking through all of his many cracks.

Brooks clapped a sturdy hand to his shoulder. "You've got five minutes, Malfoy."

It felt like a bad dream.

He drew in as deep a breath as he could manage and slipped into the room. Several healers in strange outfits prepared vials, but Draco's gaze slid almost instantly to his mother. Whatever he had expected, he wasn't prepared.

Narcissa's face was pale, the skin around her closed eyes bruised; she might have been sleeping if she didn't look on the verge of something worse. Upon seeing her, silent tears instantly sprung to the corners of his eyes and slipped down his cheeks.

"Mum," he breathed, the edges of her blurry as he sank into the seat at her bedside. Pressing his lips into a hard line, he took her hand.

Although her hand was unresponsive in his, her eyelids fluttered for several beats then slid open. A soft, fragile smile pulled at her lips. "Draco," she whispered. Her lips trembled. "You're here."

"I'm here," he muttered gruffly, swiping at one eye. "I've got you." He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "You're going to be okay."

Narcissa only shook her head, wincing as though the effort cost her. "I've always loved you, Draco." The words fell quiet, hoarse. "I'm so proud of you."

"You're going to be okay," he choked again. "Please, you can't―you're going to be alright."

A soft, sad smile pulled at her lips. "Tell Hermione," she breathed, "she must love you enough for both of us." Her frail fingers curled against his own. "She is a wonderful choice, Draco."

Tears spilt down his cheeks in earnest, and a sob slipped from his mouth. "You can't talk like that." He clung to her hand, and all at once, Draco was a small boy again, lost and uncertain without the support of his mother. "I can't lose you."

Across the room, the healers had stopped in their preparations; Draco heard the quiet snick of the door close behind him. Through the blur of his periphery, he saw Healer Brooks walk into the room.

"I love you, Draco," Narcissa said again, her grip on his hand loosening.

"I love you," Draco choked in return, leaning in close to brush a kiss against her temple. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many arguments left unresolved, so many tensions lingering between them. But he didn't know how to say any of it. In her eyes, he could see the same—and resolution. That, in the end, if this were the end, none of it would matter. He only said again, "I love you."

When he drew back, he met his mother's forced smile and forced one of his own. He reached out, tucking a stray bit of her hair into place. Narcissa nodded, tear tracks drying on her cheeks. "Thank you, Draco."

He wanted to fiddle with her hair a little longer; wanted to sit and hold her hand and make undue promises he had no right to offer.

Instead, he pressed another kiss to her cheek, rose to his feet, and breathed, "I'll see you soon."

"Soon," his mother echoed.

He couldn't bear to look back as he strode from the room.


Draco lost track of time.

It might have been hours; it was probably hours.

All he knew was fear, despair, the emptiness in his chest and when his eyes ran dry of moisture. Hermione joined him and sat at his side, and Potter, and shortly after Theo, too. His head spun, heart throbbing, and he clung to Hermione's hand like it was his tether back to reality.

Potter must have alerted Andromeda because she had arrived at some point, too, without Teddy. For some reason, that detail alone cemented what Draco already knew to be true.

He sipped a cup of tea someone had shoved into his hand, long grown cold, but he couldn't stomach the thought of food.

Draco felt depleted, spent, emotionally wrought.

The months of strain and struggle struck him all at once as he sat, staring at a blank wall across the room.

Some point later, after he could already see the sky darkening through the windows of the hospital, his gaze tracked the emergence of Healer Brooks. He idly noted the exhaustion in the man's countenance, the way Hermione's hand gripped his a little tighter, how Theo and Potter jerked out of their conversation.

But Draco could already see the reality of it all in the man's face, haunting his eyes, long before he spoke the words.

"I'm sorry, Auror Malfoy."


Author's Note: Thanks for reading xo

Alpha and beta credits, as always, to Kyonomiko and FaeOrabel.