Draco POV

I didn't want to leave them. Kalili or Hermione. I felt that if I left them there alone, Hermione would be overwhelmed. An overwhelmed Hermione isn't exactly something that I'm ready to witness yet, and I don't want Kalili to be the blunt of it all when I'm not there. Although, I requested to be able to stay there with her on weekends, understanding her need to keep Kalili out of the castle, at least until she was 11 and went to school.

I couldn't tell her what I had planned. I didn't want her to get her hopes up. I had requested that I received all of my godfather's research, there would have been something in there that would be beneficial to Hermione's needs. I knew it wouldn't bring her Anthony back, but seeing her with Kalili, she was made for children. She handles the Potter's kids very well, and someday I wanted her to have my children. Maybe not within the month, maybe not even the year, but someday, Hermione will be made my wife and we'll start our lives together how we had both always wished them to be.

I knew I needed to somehow mix a scarring salve with a healing potion designed specifically for the effects of a cruciatus, but wasn't sure exactly how that needed to be done. I had already made copies of Hermione's notes, and her research. Exceptional as to be expected. But so far, I still couldn't find how it could be missing something.

For weeks I went back and forth between Hermione's and the school. And for weeks I came back to her house with no result for her. I made it a point that in my spare time after school, or even sometimes during classes while my students were working, I would work on putting different things together, trying to merge the salve with the healing potion in a compatible way. Nothing seemed to work. I even researched medical spells that might help, to combine spell work. I didn't know how well that would work, I figured I'd have to go to the hospital and test it on someone.

Before I knew it, I had been teaching two months at Hogwarts. All of the back and forth was beginning to take it's toll on me. I spent as much of my time as I could with Hermione, and being the father that my father never was to Kalili. But while I was at Hermione's one night, slowly kissing her, I froze.

"Why didn't I think of that!" I shouted jumping up from the bed, throwing my pants back on.

"Draco, what in the world?" Hermione complained.

"For the past two months, Hermione, I have been working on the same thing you had been." I watched Hermione's eyes widen. "And I couldn't think of anything. Everything I tried just didn't seem to be the right thing."

"What are you getting at, you look excited, but all I'm hearing isn't exactly great news..." Hermione looked uncertain.

"Don't you see? Bellatrix didn't just use the Crucio on you!" I was smiling, though I knew that she thought I had gone mental.

"Why are you smiling about my torture Malfoy?" She growled at me. I saw my mistake at once when she said my last name rather than my first.

"The knife Hermione. The knife. It's the same kind of knife that Weasley had made you use on yourself. With it not being here, you don't have the urge to hurt yourself, but the dark magic from that particular knife is still taking it's toll on your body. Your problem has nothing to do with the curciatus, no other case has been found that a woman could not carry a child because of being under that spell for too long. It affects the nerve endings in your body, not your reproductive system!" I was trying to explain to her, I saw her eyes cloud over as comprehension came to her.

"The knife is gone, Draco..." she whispered. "What would you even plan on doing with it? Destroying it like the other one?"

"That's exactly what I planned on doing."

"But...It's gone." She whined. "When she threw it at us, it hit Dobby while we were apparating and killed him."

"Where did you apparate to?" I asked, sitting on the bed next to her.

"A place called Shell Cottage, it's off of a beach, so I don't know what could have happened to it." She looked down at her hands, folding and unfolding them. I knew she didn't want to go near a knife that would make her feel that awful, but I had no other choice but to bring her when we looked. Otherwise, we would never find it. She had been cut by it, not me.

"Hermione, you and I are going to have to go to Shell Cottage." She looked at me, wide eyed fear evident in her eyes. "I know you don't want to, Hermione. But I've never been cut by it, so I don't know how to tell if it's there or not. It can't be summoned by wand, it has to be found. You're the only one who will be able to find it. You're going to have to be brave about this, love, there's nothing else we can do. We have to get the dark magic out of your body before continuing on with anything else." She knew I was right, I knew she knew. She didn't fight me on it either, seeing the logic in what I was saying. "I will never hurt you, unless there is no other option. And even then I will fight like hell to make sure you aren't alone."