Songs – Rosyln by Bon Iver and St. Vincent, Dreamland by Glass Animals, and All of Me by John Legend

Chapter Twenty-One: What Took You So Long?

Draco watched as Hermione wandered around the edge of the lake, her hands resting on the top of her swollen stomach. There was a chill to the air, and steam was rising from the surface of the water, enveloping her in an almost eerie haze, but there was also something incredibly beautiful in how her skin glowed in contrast to her dreary surroundings. He smiled as he looked on, perfectly content to stand back and let her explore without his persistent limp slowing her down. Out of every spot he had shown her on the Manor property, this one had been her favorite, and every single morning she insisted, rain or shine, that they venture out here.

He savored these moments when things were almost normal, when he would forget, just for a moment, that she was in danger. But they weren't, and she was. And he wished, more than he had every wised for anything in his entire life, that he could promise her that everything would be alright.

I can't lose her, he thought, returning the smile she gave him as she glanced over her shoulder. I can't lose either of them.

In contrast to when he had first come home, the pain in his bones had been reduced to a much more manageable ache, one that seemed to only nag him when his body was a bit too still in the cold, but it had been quickly replaced with a pain in his heart that he knew wouldn't going to go away until he could ensure she was safe. Most days, he walked around fighting a tightness in his chest, trying to keep her from seeing just how scared he was. Because if she knew, if she ever saw what the panic was really doing to him, she would have stopped being able to sleep through the night.

Even his father, who held a general disregard for people who wasted precious time worrying, had been walking around the Manor as if he was the newly crowned lord of melancholy, whipping his wand out at the smallest of sounds. His acceptance of Hermione had been yet another surprise for Draco when he had woken up, but his sudden bout of protectiveness over her was perhaps the biggest bombshell of all. To Draco's knowledge, only one other woman had ever succeeded in penetrating his father's icy armor as effortlessly as Hermione, and that had been his own mother.

It didn't help his nerves that the relative calm of the past few weeks had come to abrupt halt three days ago when Harry had discovered that Rodolphus' memories had been tampered with. It was almost implausible that someone had managed to get into Azkaban without being detected, but then again, they all knew they were dealing with something that was far bigger than one Death Eater seeking revenge. The proverbial shoe, it seemed, had finally begun its long-expected drop.

Draco couldn't think of a time when he'd been more on edge. It was difficult enough trying to keep Hermione calm, especially after Harry's discovery, but he was still struggling to stay afloat in the rapids of his own emotions, and not even Kingsley's order to the double the security team protecting the Manor was enough to pull him away from the mental cliff he was on. He needed answers, he needed to know what the hell was going one, because not knowing was the only kind of torture that he wasn't sure he could survive.

"Motherhood suits her," a soft voice announced beside him, momentarily dragging him away from his worries.

Draco turned to find his mother facing the lake, watching as Hermione continued her stroll along the water.

"It does," he agreed, his fingers moving over the silver serpent head at the top of his cane.

He he had reluctantly, despite trying for weeks to prove his father wrong, conceded that carrying the gaudy thing around was better than using the geriatric monstrosity the hospital had sent him home with to manage the limp that annoyingly still plagued him. And sure, he could have transfigured it into something else or purchased one of his own, but each time he thought about it, he couldn't let the blasted thing go.

"A letter just arrived," Narcissa said after a moment, tearing her eyes away from the lake to study her son, "from Harry."

"Mm?" Draco inquired somewhat absently; his attention already returned to the witch wrapped in one of his old jumpers near the water.

"He says that he'd be happy to do it," she told him.

"Good," he muttered quietly, his face not giving much away.

"This came with it," Narcissa continued, holding out a small package.

Draco's eyes traveled to the object in his mother's hand. "Portkey," he explained, smiling weakly. "Keep it," he told her. "If anything happens, if anyone breaches the wards, I need you to take her–" he gestured at Hermione "–and run."

Narcissa nodded quietly before dropping the object in her pocket. "Do I know where it leads?" she asked curiously, acutely aware that her son had stiffened uncomfortably next to her.

"I'm not sure," Draco replied quickly, already having decided it was safer for everyone if fewer people knew the actual details. "But you'll know what to do when you get there."

The Manor, while the most spectacular of the bunch, wasn't the only piece of property that the Malfoy's owned; it certainly wasn't the most covert. And while Lucius had never disclosed the locations of everything in his ledger, for rather obvious and often legal reasons, Narcissa didn't need to ask if the one attached to the portkey was traceable or not. There would be no record of it even existing.

Unfortunately, Narcissa knew that didn't mean it couldn't be found eventually.

"Wouldn't it be safer to take her there now?" she asked, pulling her wool shawl tighter around her body as she shivered slightly in the brisk morning air.

Draco frowned, a flicker of something that looked like indecision crossing his eyes before he answered. "I did consider it," he admitted finally, pausing to take a deep breath, "but I'm afraid it would only prolong the inevitable." There was a hint of anger and worry in his voice, as if he wished what he was saying wasn't true.

"You want to wait until you can provide a distraction to give her a chance at a clean escape," Narcissa guessed, her heart dropping as she realized what that meant for her son.

"Yes," he replied simply. "I may not be able to win the fight, but I certainly can keep whoever is coming for her busy long enough so that she can disappear without being followed."

"Does she know?" she queried, fighting to keep her voice level and calm as she cast her worried gaze back toward the lake.

Draco shook his head. "No."

On some level, she had been expecting this to happen, and so despite every bone her body begging her to ask him to rethink his plan, she knew that fighting him on it would only make it harder for him to do what needed to be done. Love was a powerful thing, that was one thing she would always be able to understand, but the love her son had for Hermione, well that was something else entirely.

Even from the outside, it was obvious how well the two of them fit together. They were practically inseparable, not that they could get very far from each other being locked down on the property, and they spent precious little time out of each other's line of sight. Their similarities were plenty, but then again, so too were their differences. They challenged each other. They could communicate with a single look. They bickered only like a couple madly in love could. And no one, much to her husband's dismay, could keep up with them when they set to work researching something new in the extensive Malfoy library.

But they weren't simply just a good match; they were like two halves of a puzzle, each of them filling holes in the other that they didn't even know they had. On one hand, it reminded her of how she had felt when she first met Lucius – equal parts relieved and overwhelmed to have found someone who understood her completely and for whom she did the same. On the other hand, however, she couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't something else drawing the two of them together, if they weren't quite literally destined for each other.

And it certainly wouldn't be the first time a Malfoy danced with destiny.

"Your father has grown quite fond of her, you know," Narcissa said, placing a hand on her son's arm. "He won't listen if you tell him to leave with us. He won't let you face this alone."

A soft hiss escaped Draco's lips as he exhaled slowly. He didn't relish the idea of putting anyone else at risk, but he was already resigned to the fact that his father, even after years of barely speaking to one another, wasn't going to let his own flesh and blood (or Malfoy Manor for that matter) go down without a proper fight. He had told him as much last time they'd had the conversation.

"You're incredibly frustrating, you know that right?" Draco groaned, dropping his head to hands. "Why can't you just listen to me?"

"I will not run away from my home like a coward. I will not allow this family to be torn apart by some fanatic," Lucius replied, somewhat angrily. "If you recall, I tried that once. It didn't quite work out well for any of us."

Draco sighed heavily, looking back at his father. "This is different, and you know it."

"Is it?" Lucius asked, raising an eyebrow. "Or am I just finally doing the thing that's right even though it's hard?"

"You don't need to sacrifice yourself. I've already volunteered myself for that job."

Lucius slammed his fist down onto his desk, a bit angrier than he intended. "Enough," he demanded, struggling to keep his voice calm. "This is not up for discussion."

"It should be," Draco asserted, refusing despite his father's insistence to drop the subject. "How many times do I have to tell you that there's no surviving this? You've seen what this magic can do," he paused, his voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. "I need you to keep her safe when I'm gone."

A flicker of pain crossed his father's face. "You are my son," he said, studying him sadly. "I may have spent most of your life making all the wrong decisions, but I am not going to make the wrong ones now. If standing by your side means you have even the slightest chance of making it through this to see your own child grow up, then I'm going to do it."

They had been having these kinds of conversations since Draco had woken up, in small doses and not always as direct as this one, but it was still unsettling to hear his father talking as if he had made sort of grand life epiphany. Two wars and a couple of short stints in Azkaban hadn't quite succeeded in completely stripping the Malfoy patriarch of his arrogant and sanctimonious ways, and so whatever was happening now, was almost too good to be true.

"Why?" Draco prompted. "Why now?"

Lucius smiled. It was the kind of smile that Draco hadn't seen from his father since he had set off for Hogwarts for the very first time.

"You know why," was his response.

And Draco did. It was the exactly the same reason that he was doing any of this.

Leave it to Hermione to melt even the coldest of Malfoy of hearts.

"I know," Draco said, pulling himself away from the memory. "I guess the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?"

Narcissa allowed herself a small laugh. "No," she chuckled softly. "It does not."

The two of them were quiet for a few minutes, both enthralled with Hermione's slow movements among the line of oak trees closest to the water.

"Do you need anything for tonight?" Narcissa asked, finally breaking the silence. She knew he disliked her meddling, but she couldn't help feeling excited; besides the baby, there had been precious little to be happy about since he had woken up.

"It's still going to be a firm no on the peacocks, if that's what you're asking," Draco replied, his voice much lighter than it had been a minute ago.

"Well, I wasn't talking about them specifically," Narcissa clarified, slightly amused. But Lucius will be so disappointed, she thought, holding back a smile. "I just meant that I'm happy to help if you need it," she clarified.

"Believe it or not," Draco began, trying not to roll his eyes at his mother, "I actually think I can handle this one on my own." He stopped, shoving a chilled hand into his pocket as he readjusted on his feet. "She's not really one for elaborate to-dos anyways," he explained. "I just wish I could give her one night free of worry, you know?" he added after a moment, the happiness quickly fading from his voice. "Just one fucking night where she didn't have to think about all the terrible shit going on around her."

"I know, Draco," Narcissa told him, not even bothering to reprimand him for his language, "and you will."

He had almost proposed the moment he woke up in the hospital and found Hermione by his side, without even a ring to prove to her that it was something he had been thinking about before he had been attacked. And there had been at least a hundred times when he had almost popped the question since, so it was shocking that he had managed to hold himself back for as long as he had. But then a few days ago, while in the midst of minor panic-induced rage, he had decided that he couldn't put it off any longer, that he couldn't keep pretending that each second with her wasn't as precious as it was.

Before he could manage a reply, however, a sharp noise, a yelp almost, rang out from the edge of the lake, causing both mother and son to jump in surprise.

"Draco!" came Hermione's worried voice a moment later.

Without a second thought, he was running, ignoring the sharp pain now shooting through his left thigh as he rushed toward her. His cane lay forgotten on the ground next to where he had left his mother, and his wand was raised in the air, poised to attack anything that appeared.

Hermione called his name again, and even though his heart was beating uncontrollably with panic, he was finally able to register that the edge to her voice was rooted in something far more pleasant than fear. He lowered his wand as he reached her and motioned for his mother to stay where she was.

"What's happened?" Draco demanded, still a little weary.

When she didn't answer right away, his eyes followed her gaze which was fixed on the top of her heavily sweater-ed stomach. One of her hands was resting on top of her bump, while the other was draped delicately on the side. She didn't appear to be harmed in any way, but his hands were still shaking as he took another step closer.

"Hermione?" he prompted softly, reaching out a hand to touch her.

It seemed this time she heard him, and when she finally looked up at him, there were tears glistening in her eyes.

"He's kicking," she told him, smiling.

Draco sighed heavily in relief. "Hermione, how many times do I have to tell you that it's not–" But he stopped in the middle of his sentence, the full extent of her words finally registering with him. "Kicking?"

Hermione nodded, still smiling as she grabbed one his hands and placed it on her belly. "Can you feel it?"

Instinctively, he dropped to his knees in front her, not caring how undignified he looked in the process, and moved his other hand next to the one she had already fixed in place. He didn't feel anything for a moment, but just as he opened his mouth to ask her whether she was sure she knew what she was talking about, a small flutter traveled under his fingers.

His heart nearly stopped.

"Holy shit," he breathed.

"Language, Malfoy," Hermione admonished jokingly, happy for once that it wasn't her swearing in disbelief.

But Draco wasn't really listening; his eyes were glued on her swollen stomach, studying it intently as if it held some sort of special power. Another flutter passed under the tips of his fingers, and he choked back a very un-Draco-like sob before finally looking up into Hermione's eyes.

"Pretty amazing, huh?" she said, moving a hand to the side of his face.

Draco was at a complete loss for words; he was completely entranced. And Hermione, who had grown quite used to the sullenness that had been following him around for weeks, had to keep herself from laughing as she watched the father of her unborn child come completely undone.

"He's a feisty little one," Draco observed when he had finally composed himself enough for words.

"Oh, it's a he now is it?" Hermione quipped, her eyes swirling with a mixture of love and amusement.

"He. She. Does it really matter?" Draco nearly shouted as he pushed himself back onto his feet.

Hermione chuckled. "No, it doesn't."

"We're having a baby," he whispered, bending his head toward her.

"Just figured that out, did you?" she replied, raising an eyebrow slightly.

He pulled her closer and gently moved his hands to the side of her face, his thumbs tracing soft lines along her cheeks before dropping his head and pressing his lips against her own.

It was the kind of kiss he usually reserved for when they were alone, but he didn't care. He needed to taste her; he needed to feel her gasp into his mouth as he greedily parted her lips with his tongue. He needed her to know how happy he was to be doing this with her. And very suddenly, almost faster than his brain could compute what his heart had decided, he silently Accio'd the small box hidden in his desk back in the garden home.

To hell with tonight; he was going to do this right now.

Without interrupting their kiss, he moved an arm to his side, his hand opened backward to give the box a target that wasn't the backside of his head. And only when, after what felt like ten minutes, it finally fell into his hand, did he pull away to study the woman in front of him, his heart beating furiously as he lost himself in her eyes.

"Why'd you stop?" Hermione mumbled, licking her lips as she returned his gaze, her eyes slightly unfocused.

Draco smiled. And it wasn't just the kind of smile he had been forcing out for the last few weeks; it was that devilishly handsome smile that had the wonderful habit of making his witch go weak in the knees.

"I love you," Draco said quietly. "So fucking much."

"Yes, yes, I love you too," Hermione told him, her hands already trying to coax him back to her lips. "Now can we get back to the kissing? I'm rather fond of that."

Despite the allure of her slightly swollen lips, he resisted until she got angry and looked up at him quizzically. But before she could open her mouth to demand that he explain himself, he was talking again, this time a little louder to hide the nerves bubbling below the surface.

"Hermione, I–" he began, struggling to think of the right thing to say. He shook his head frustratingly when nothing came to him. "Merlin, I can't even find the words to explain how much you mean to me," he blurted out, blushing when he realized he was how badly he was mucking the whole thing up.

Hermione smiled up at him sweetly. "You don't need to–"

"But I do," Draco asserted, tracing his fingers down the side of her face. "You are the single most brilliant and caring person that I have ever met, and I cannot even begin to express how happy you've made me since you came back into my life." He paused, running one of his hands through his hair. "I'm not really sure what I've done to deserve you or this–" he nodded toward her the swell of her stomach "–but I am going to do everything in my power to protect both of you for the rest of my life."

"Draco, I don't–"

"Just let me finish," he added, grabbing hold of her hand.

For a moment, he thought she might protest, but she quickly nodded for him to continue.

"You make me a better man. Hell, you make everyone around you a better version of themselves. You never give up, even when things get hard, and you never let anyone's shit slide. You're stubborn, but endearingly so." He was rambling now, but he didn't really care. "I love everything about you. Your hair, especially first thing in the morning. The freckles on your nose. This mouth." He paused again, drawing a finger across her lips to be sure she got the message. "You're intoxicatingly beautiful, and I'm addicted to you."

"Draco, what in the world has gotten into you?" she asked, now thoroughly confused.

"I should have added frustratingly impatient to your list of attributes," he noted, somewhat amused that she hadn't figured out what was going on yet. "I still had an encyclopedia of things to get through, but since you're being so bloody difficult…"

He dropped to one knee, and only then did Hermione realize what he was trying to do. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she watched, bewildered, as he moved a small box in front of him and opened it. Nestled inside the velvet interior was a diamond ring sparking softly against the dark fabric.

"Hermione Jean Granger, will you–?"

"YES!" she shouted before he could finish the question, and if he hadn't been so overcome with happiness, he would have probably rebuked her for interrupting him… again.

Instead, he slipped the ring on her finger, tossed the empty box over his shoulder, and stood up, barely giving her second to digest what had happened before he was kissing her so fervently that they both forgot to breathe.

"Only you would shout the answer to a question that hadn't even been properly asked yet," he noted when he finally managed to pull himself away.

Hermione blushed, feeling slightly embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I just couldn't wait."

"You never can," Draco replied, a small chuckle escaping his through. "Hopefully you can live with never knowing the second half of that question," he teased, brushing a curl out of her face.

"Oh, it's not like you were going to ask me to be your indentured servant or something," she retorted, rolling her eyes.

"I guess you'll never know," Draco smirked in response.

Why does he always look his most handsome when he's being the most difficult? she groaned inwardly as she tried not to melt in his arms.

"Will it make you feel better if I let you try again?" she asked tenderly.

"Maybe."

Hermione pursed together the pads of her pointer finger and thumb and made a zipping motion across her lips to indicate that she was going to be quiet.

Gods, she was adorable standing there studying him with her big, golden brown eyes, and it was a moment before Draco found the strength to open his mouth again.

"Will," he began, pausing to place a kiss on the corner of her mouth.

"You." Another one on her neck.

"Marry." He moved his lips to the spot behind her ear.

"Me?" he finished, finally bringing his lips back to her mouth.

His touch had sent every nerve ending on her body into a tizzy, and in her haze, she almost forgot to answer when he pulled away. "I already gave you my answer, didn't I?" she told him dreamily.

"Say it again," he whispered, his lips still deliciously close to her own.

"Yes," she breathed. "Of course, I'll marry you, Malfoy."

This time, it was Hermione who threw her lips against his, and Draco smirked against her lips as her hands clung tightly to the sides of his face.

"Easy," he cautioned, grabbing her by the shoulders to steady her for a moment. "I'm not going anywhere."

She mumbled something incoherent in response, and he laughed.

"You're going to have to repeat yourself, love. I didn't quite catch that."

"I said," she began, pausing to take a deep, calming breath, "I can't believe it took you so long."

"Feeling cheeky, are we?" he said, poking jokingly at her nose. "Maybe I should have waited a bit longer," he taunted, laughing as she tried to swat his hand away. "You've barely looked at the ring I just put on your finger."

"Oh," was all she managed to say as realization crossed her face.

She felt Draco watching her, a bit too nervously she thought, as she finally extended her hand to study the new addition on her finger.

The diamond, which thankfully was not as large as she would have expected a Malfoy to go, was oval in shape and set in a beautiful gold band with an ornate – but not too ornate – bezel setting. But what really caught her eye though was its sparkle. It was almost as if it was glowing from within, and when she inspected it closer, she realized the surface of the diamond was actually multi-faceted.

"Do you like it?" Draco asked, his voice a little unsure.

He thought the ring was much like her; somehow both understatedly and impressively beautiful, and when he had found it crammed in the corner of a small Muggle shop, he didn't even pause to consider that maybe she wouldn't want something quite that unique.

"It's beautiful," Hermione said, tearing her eyes away from her finger.

Draco let a sigh of relief. "Just like you," he murmured, brushing a finger down the side of her face.

"Is it always supposed to glow like this?" she asked curiously, looking down again as she turned her hand for a slightly different view.

Draco chuckled. "It's a rose-cut diamond," he told her, running a finger over the hand. "It shines best under fire- or candlelight, so I charmed it to look like it was in case I couldn't get the lighting right." He pulled out his wand and muttered a few words over the ring to remove the spell.

Even without the glow, the diamond was still like nothing she had never seen before. It was easier to see the surface of the stone, and she watched in awe as the light bounced off each small facet in a different way.

She had never really been able to articulate what bothered her so much about the engagement rings that littered Muggle television and magazine ads, but as she stared at her own, something clicked. As it turned out, the problem wasn't so much the idea of the ring itself, which she had always feared was the case; the problem was simply that she didn't much appreciate everyone's obsession with flashy and bold – it made rings look, for lack of a better term, cold. And somehow, without perhaps meaning to, Draco had managed to figure that out before she could even do the same for herself.

"It's perfect," she said after a moment, finally dropping her hand back to her side. "I love it."

"Good," Draco said, pulling her into his arms. "And I love you."

Hermione nuzzled herself against his chest, inhaling deeply. "I love you so much," she said quietly, pausing to listen to the steady beating of his heart. "Seriously though," she continued, looking back up at him, "what took you so long?"

Narcissa knew she should have walked away a long time ago, but she couldn't help it. There was something so heartening about watching a young couple take another big step together, and when the ring box had flown by her head on its way to Draco, she knew she had to see how it ended.

"Spying again, are we?" a familiar voice jested from somewhere behind her.

She turned, her hand still clasped over her mouth, and motioned with her other hand for her husband to join her.

"Ahh," Lucius said, catching sight of Draco and Hermione embracing each other by the water. "He did it then?"

Narcissa nodded, finally removing her hand from her mouth. "And threw all of his plans out the window in the process."

"Sounds familiar," Lucius noted, the corner of his mouth turned up into a small smile.

She chuckled quietly. "Of all the things the Malfoy men have been said to be inflicted with, I think spontaneity might be the most underappreciated."

"Either that or the kind of stubbornness that can only be born from a knock you off your feet kind of love," he replied quite seriously.

"Yes," Narcissa agreed, her thoughts straying to the moment that she too had fallen hard for a Malfoy. "That too."

"They should hold the ceremony quickly," Lucius said, his eyes nervously scanning the sky above them. "I don't care what Draco thinks about our family vows. A solidified bond will ensure the wards will protect her the same as any other Malfoy."

"Something tells me that won't really be an issue anymore," his wife mused, gesturing toward the look on Draco's face as he guided Hermione toward them.

a/n: Surprise! I was going to wait to post this until next week but figured posting it now would force me to get the next couple of chapters ready to go this weekend.

I don't have much to say about this chapter except as much as I tried to avoid an OOC Lucius, I just couldn't do it. I like him better a bit reformed.

Shoutout to ThatLadyPotter, Calimocho, and Dramione5263 for their continued dedication to reviewing each chapter - your support keeps me motivated to finish this thing, so thank you! And to everyone else following along, I see your likes/follows/comments, and they warm my (icy, black) heart!