Draco opened his eyes as his knees buckled under the dense, damp sand. It was as windy here as it was in the resistance, but the air here was different; salty, thick. He trudged along the beach, bowing his head and squinting against the sand whipping up around him, prickling his face like tiny needles. The tide was out, leaving a blanket of dark, matted seaweed to stretch along the coastline. Facing the water on the other side to the sand chalky cliffs rose high above, hiding the beach from the rest of the world and making the small slit of a sandy bank feel like the edge of the entire universe.

Of course, this wasn't the first time Draco had been on this beach, and he wasn't particularly keen to question the reasons he chose this place to take stock before he used himself as snatcher-bait. He had been here as a child, brought by his mother in the summer, and then again as a place of refuge with Amelia when they had fled from Hogwarts after the battle there. As he spotted a small alcove in the white jagged cliffside, all of this previous life felt like a million years ago.

He trudged over towards the opening in the cliffside, bowing his head against the strong winds. He was the only person on this beach – it was late December so this didn't surprise him. The feeling of solitude screamed at him though on this lonely piece of the world and he longed for the comfort of the resistance: the rows and rows of tents, smells of small bonfires and chatter in the dining hall. He couldn't go back now even if he wanted to; the protective charms around the shanty town would make sure of this, and carrying a portkey would've been far too dangerous. There was no turning back in his solo mission. The only way was forward now.

The nook was tiny and damp, with beads of dirty water dripping from the ceiling, as if the cliff was crying. There was a musty mildew smell which suffocated the air and he coughed into his arm, grimacing at how uninviting the small cave was. An image flashed across his mind of him and Amelia sitting in a cave very similar to this, probably a few hundred yards up this very beach.

The tears had dried from his face but his chest still felt tight, like he was fighting for breath under water. Surely nothing could ever be harder than having to let go of Amelia's hands in those moments. He brought his hand up to reach inside his shirt and let his thumb circle the ring hanging from the silver chain. The warmth against his skin did little to comfort him in this lonely cave though.

Clearing his throat and trying his best to push his angst aside, he pulled a roll of parchment from an inside coat pocket.

"Lumos," he muttered, his whisper bouncing around the cold stone walls.

He stared down at his own handwriting: information he'd gathered on the snatchers when he was still working at the ministry, when he was planning to go on the run and having to avoid them. Ironic that now he'd use the same information to seek them out…

He muttered his scrawled notes aloud to himself, reciting the information: how many of them travel together, what their methods of capture are, areas they frequent when trying to catch blood traitors. He looked at the rest of the plan, word for word what the others at the resistance had written on another piece of parchment, reading it over and over as if trying to learn an incantation. When he felt satisfied enough, he mumbled 'incendio' and watched as a flame emerged from the tip of his wand and jumped onto the parchment. It spread over the words on the page, banishing them from existence and ensuring that the resistance's plan would remain hidden.

He checked his belongings: the small hidden wand, veritaserum antidote, two-way parchment and quill, the fang. He shrunk the bag with the fang, parchment and quill and stuffed all this in his sock alongside the tiny wand. As he rose to his feet he pressed his hand to his chest, feeling the lump of the ring beneath his shirt and once again feeling the warmth of Amelia's love for him tingle through the fabric. With a final sigh, he closed his eyes and apparated for the second time that morning.


Amelia was sure her legs would give way under her. It had been only seconds since Draco had apparated but he felt impossibly far away already. She could feel him fading from the air around her as the wind whipped up leaves and made her shiver in the morning chill.

"I'm so sorry Mills," A voice said from behind her. She turned around, not bothering to wipe the tears from her cheeks, to face her brother. He squeezed her shoulder; she examined his eyes – dark like hers – and saw regret swimming around in them. She had half-planned on taking some anger out on him – they were siblings after all and what were they for if not for this – but the look in his eye made this thought fizzle out as quickly as it was born.

Harry, Hermione and Kingsley were walking past, their heads bowed low and their expressions dejected. Hermione squeezed Amelia's hand as they went past her. "I'm going to spend the day in the duelling tent, if you're up for it," she said kindly, correcting assuming that Amelia would not be sitting sadly in her empty tent until Draco came back. Amelia managed a short nod and the slightest of smiles.

"C'mon, I'll make us a coffee," Henry said. Amelia nodded again as her brother put a strong arm around her shoulders. She couldn't stop staring at the spot where Draco had just been standing though, as if disappearing from this place would be some sort of betrayal to him. Henry seemed to sense this, following her unfaltering gaze to the flattened frosty grass where Draco's boots had just stood, and gently steered her away. "He's okay, Mills."

Amelia spent the next half an hour in Henry's tent, much like how she had spent her first night ever at the resistance: sat on the couch, coming to terms with being torn apart from Draco Malfoy. Eventually, after taking two sips of coffee and trying her best to take part in the conversation Henry was doing his absolute best to keep light-hearted, she let her brother walk her back to her own tent a couple of rows away.

"You sure you're going to be okay?" He asked as he leaned in her doorframe.

"Absolutely fine," she said, though both of them knew that wasn't true. Nobody felt 'fine' in the resistance at the moment.

"Well, you know where I am, yeah?"
She nodded, smiling.

"Love you," he said, pinching her nose in a way he and her father both did when she was younger to annoy her.

She laughed as she started to close the door – something only Henry could've achieved in these moments. "Love you too, Hen."

A click of the closing door, and then silence. She walked through her tent slowly, as if walking on very thin ice, her fingers grazing over the furniture in her path. She hunted for signs that Draco had existed here and found them just about everywhere she turned: the empty coffee mug on the kitchen table, the dent in his pillow, his clothes hung over the back of a chair. The walking stick he hated so much, conveniently left behind on his solo mission and now standing propped against his bedside table.

She didn't have any tears left in her. Instead, the loneliness compressed against her chest, her head, her stomach as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. A wave of nausea bolted through her and she ran to the bathroom, crouching over the bowl just in time to be sick. She sat on the floor, the cool tiles soothing her clammy body, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The nausea was still there, lurking in all the corners of her body, but she couldn't be in her tent any longer. She grabbed one of Draco's jumpers, letting his scent calm her, and left her lonely little home for the duelling tent where she vowed to spend every waking minute of each day while they prepared for battle.


Draco peaked out of the alleyway he'd apparated to; he was in a small wizarding dwelling in the Midlands of England, a place called Finlay's Crescent. He kept his wand securely in his pocket as he looked side to side out onto the street before him: not another wizard or witch in sight. This was his first glimpse of life outside the resistance since he had been taken in by them, and it was clear that fear amongst the wizarding world was higher than ever.

The idea was that snatchers would jump at the opportunity to catch him, but he couldn't look like he was deliberately baiting them – it would rouse suspicion. Instead, he would look as if he were getting supplies for the resistance – something that the snatchers and Death Eaters knew was done routinely in order for them to stay well enough stocked. As this village was purely full of wizarding folk, the snatchers often hung about, bullying the residents and causing trouble.

Hours went by as he crouched in the corner of the alleyway, apparently completely inconspicuous to any passers-by. What he did notice from the shadows, was that those who did walk by were skittish if alone, and talking in urgent whispers if in pairs. There were a few who wore the Death Eater symbol of a skull and snake embroidered onto their robes or clothes, often on the sleeve, which signified that you were a proud supporter of the Dark Lord. These people walked with more assurance.

The day dragged on until the sun set in the late afternoon and streetlights loomed over the wintery street. Standing still caused a deathly cold to run through Draco, and the warming charm he was using kept fading as he focused instead on the goings-on along the high street. With a final glance at his watch – 8pm – Draco decided that it was best for him to leave the small village and try again tomorrow. He sighed and apparated, back to the damp beach he had come from to spend his first lonely night away from the resistance and Amelia.

.


.

It was the morning after Draco had left the resistance: an entire day without hearing anything from him. Amelia lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and worrying her lip, wondering where in the world he was. Surely if he had been captured, they would've heard from him by now? Was it a good thing that they hadn't heard anything?
Once again, she'd woken up with an intense nausea – she counted that this was the fourth day in a row - and had already run to the bathroom twice to be sick. She kept telling herself it was a response to her anxiety, but it was hard to convince herself as the evidence began stacking up.

She had spent her whole life in this, her body, and in the past four years it had often been the only company for her soul, and she knew it well. She didn't have a mother through her teenaged years, but she remembered her aunt once telling her when she was fifteen that a woman should always trust her own body. So she had always listened to it and as she had moved around the shanty town, she had felt her body telling her something. She just dreaded that what she was guessing, might be true.

The sun hadn't risen yet when she rolled onto her side, clutching at her belly as it turned uncomfortably. A sudden jolt and an uneasy wave shot from her stomach, down her arms and legs and she sprang from the bed, half-jogging to the bathroom to be sick. After, as she splashed her face with water and brushed her teeth she looked at herself in the mirror: a conversation between her body and her soul. Oh, shit.

There wouldn't be anyone in the medical tent this early on in the morning, so she crept out of the tent, a hand still hovering over her stomach and her legs shaky, and headed towards there. She exhaled loudly when, as she had hoped, it was completely empty.

With a flick of her wand, small beads of light shot from the tip and into the lamps up above, bathing the room in a warm, golden glow.

She rifled through the various potions and ingredients on the shelf, wondering if they would even have what she was looking for. Finally, towards the back of the shelf, half covered in a thick layer of dust, was the vial she was looking for.

She thumbed away the dust from the label, making sure it was the right one. 'Pregnancy Potion.'

With a quivering hand, she poured some of the potion into a cup. The liquid was glossy, gloopy and shimmering. She read the instructions on the back, already knowing vaguely what she had to do, and plucked a couple of hairs from her head. The instructions said that it had to be something with her DNA on it; perhaps she could've spat, but her mouth was completely dry.

She looked at the hairs, dark and limp in her fingers – unaware that they could be sealing a fate for her and Draco in a matter of seconds. Grimacing, she dropped them into the cup and watched as the silvery potion dissolved the dark hairs with a sizzling sound. Just as she thought that the colour of the potion reminded her of Draco's eyes, it began to bubble. She knew that if it did not change colour, then what she suspected of her body was not true. If it did change colour however, her life was about to change forever.

She dared not to breathe in case it somehow interrupted what was happening. She had no idea what she wanted to happen to the potion as it continued to froth and bubble. Had this been in happier times she would be standing over this potion with Draco by her side, both of them hoping for a baby to enter into their lives. But everything was so messy. And in any circumstance, good or bad, they were surely not ready for this kind of responsibility. Torment seemed to hover over their heads like a dark cloud and they were both in such danger. No baby deserved to be born into a war like this. She clutched at her stomach again.

The bubbles began to die down and steam started to rise from the potion in playful swirls. At first a clean, smoky mist but then it started to change. Only very faintly at first, but the faint splash of purple in the steam grew deeper and deeper. She looked down to the potion in the cup: a dark purple, unmistakably different from the innocent silver that had occupied it moments earlier as if it were a completely different potion altogether.

For almost a whole minute Amelia stood still, staring down at the taunting purple colour in the cup. She couldn't even breathe: it was as if her body was frozen in place and couldn't decide whether to cry, or cheer. Then, as her stomach lurched again she screamed and hurled the cup against a far wall. Thick purple liquid slid slowly down the wall and she did the same, slumping gracelessly to the ground. She hugged herself, wrapping her arms around the life she carried within her. She thought back to the times that she had Draco had made love since her return from Malfoy Manor. They had been so caught up in each other; so careless in the moment of needing to feel each other after so long apart.

The sun was rising and Amelia knew that soon the shanty town would stir and people would be in the medical tent. Hastily wiping tears from her face that she hadn't even realised had fallen, she rose to her feet on wobbly legs and muttered a spell to clean up the potion splattered on the wall. She watched as the last bits of purple evidence vanished. She swept her eyes over the room: it was as if none of it had ever happened.

The walk back to her tent was a slow one and she strained to feel the life inside of her. The new soul emerging next to hers. She knew that it was far too early; it would be a tiny bean floating in her womb right now. As the door clicked shut behind her the silence of her tent surrounded her again and her new worries pounded against her brain like a hammer. She whipped around and headed straight for the duelling tent; the only place she was capable of drowning out her own voice inside her head.