Chapter 23

Hermione was way beyond merely seeing red. She was now blind with rage as Kingsley marched her through the Ministry with a firm hand to her back, Scorpius perched on her hip. She assumed that Draco was following them, though at this point she almost wished he wasn't.

Boxing Day had been such a good day, it had been just the three of them, hanging out, spending time together and when Scorpius was napping Draco and Hermione celebrated their decision to move in together some more by making love. It would be the day Hermione thought of as her first day at home, with her family.

And then they were awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of shouting throughout the house. By the time she'd identified the voice as belonging to her best friend, Draco had jumped out of bed and gone to confront him, naked.

When she reached them after hastily pulling on a robe, Harry had his back turned to Draco who was just standing there shamelessly with his hands on his hips. "I'm sorry, what did you say? I didn't quite catch that, Hermione and I were in the middle of something that I'd really like to get back to," he taunted the other wizard who was, somewhat alarmingly, dressed in his auror uniform, confirming that this was not a social call.

The sounds of Scorpius' cries filtered down the hall and, more irritated than embarrassed by the entire situation and Draco's method of dealing with it, she left him to speak with Harry and went to tend to Scorpius.

"Thank you for waking my son," she heard him say as she walked away.

She retrieved the baby and when she returned to the corridor neither Harry nor Draco were anywhere to be seen. She found the latter in the master bedroom pulling on a pair of boxers.

"Couldn't you have done that before?" She sighed, allowing her annoyance to come through in her voice and rubbing Scorpius' back as he whimpered against her shoulder.

"There was an intruder in my house, you expected me to pause to pull on clothes?" He scoffed as he began to search his dresser for a shirt.

She narrowed her eyes at him, not buying his excuse. "You knew it was Harry, you just wanted to embarrass him."

He only shrugged. "We have to go down to the Ministry," he said, in lieu of really answering her.

"Why, what's wrong?" She knew that something must have happened, but Harry was prone to exaggeration when it came to her safety and she assumed he'd just come to check on her.

"There was an incident at Malfoy Manor, an attempted break in. They were almost through the wards before my father noticed and locked them down again."

"Well, that's... troubling, but why do they need us in the middle of the night? You don't live there anymore and I'm on holiday."

"They left a calling card, it was the Lestranges, we're considered targets which is- I assume- why your best friend thought it appropriate to just come storming in here in the middle of the night without bothering to contact us first."

"Shit," she muttered, placing Scorpius on the bed so that she could get dressed. She should have known something like this would happen. Their relationship had actually made front page news in the Prophet the morning after the Yule Gala and it had certainly upset plenty of people, and now it had apparently brought some more unstable elements out of the woodwork- the timing of this couldn't be a coincidence. She assumed Harry would be retrieving Andromeda as well, the Lestrange brothers had a history of going after her and Teddy too, she hoped he at least remembered to call first, that witch would curse first and ask questions later.

They dressed, packed a bag for Scorpius, made their way through the floo to the Ministry, and then up to the Auror Department. They walked in to find Harry in the bullpen surrounded by aurors, he appeared to be briefing them. He looked up when they entered and immediately went bright red.

"What's the matter, Potter?" Draco called. "One would almost think that if you walk into another man's house in the middle of the night you might see something you don't want to see."

Hermione felt her own cheeks begin to heat at the obvious implication- didn't he realize she worked with these people? She shifted Scorpius slightly in her arms, he was getting heavy and she should probably see if he would be willing to go to Draco but his little head lolling against her shoulder was a great comfort in what was quickly becoming a stressful situation.

"Oi, don't talk about Hermione like that!"

Hermione whipped her head around at the sound of that familiar voice and murmured an explicative under her breath. Harry had obviously called in the reserve aurors, because Ron Weasley was standing there, also red, but with fury. Had Harry thought through anything he'd done tonight? First, he thought it was a good idea to just barge into their house and now he thought it wise to put the two of them and her volatile ex in the same room?

"I'm sorry, are you hearing impaired? I didn't say anything about Hermione. And who are you to tell me how I'm allowed to talk about my girlfriend?" Draco drawled, she didn't look at him but she could practically hear him roll his eyes.

"I'm actually her friend," Ron spat, and it was Hermione's turn to roll her eyes, who did he think he was kidding? "You're just a bad phase. Once she sees what you really are she'll leave you and never look back."

"Ron, my relationship is none of your business, but I assure you it's not like that," she said quietly, she didn't want to engage, but she couldn't let that accusation go unanswered in front of so many people.

Draco said nothing, just leaned back on his heels, regarding Ron steadily for a moment, and then he began to smirk. "Scorpius, who is this?" He pointed at Hermione.

"Mama," he responded immediately, tugging on her hair, never lifting his head from her shoulder.

Hermione's breath caught and she could have sworn her heart skipped a beat. Draco had been prompting him a little obsessively all day and a few times she thought he'd gotten close to saying it, but she wasn't prepared for the way it would feel when he actually did.

"Does that sound like a phase to you?" Draco continued, sounding incredibly self-satisfied. "You see Weasley, she's consented to be the mother to my children."

His emphasis on the word 'my' would have been meaningless to a random bystander but she, Draco, and Ron all knew that it was a dig at the multiple marriage proposals she'd turned down from the redhead, as well as the number of times she'd refused to start a family with him. His eyes went hard and Hermione's heart dropped, she just knew this was about to get really bad.

Ron looked back and forth between them. "Is that what this is about, the kid? I should have known, why else would you be willing to bed a Death Eater? But he's not really yours and he's never going to be, you know that right, Hermione?" She automatically cupped the back of Scorpius' head and pressed him more firmly against her body. "And you," he sneered at Draco, "did she tell you about her little problem? Did she tell you she probably can't have kids?" He must have seen something in Draco's eyes because he laughed nastily. "Oh she did then. But maybe you're okay with that. Yeah, that works out just about perfectly for you, doesn't it? You get a woman willing to spread her legs for you, and somebody to take care of your kid, but you don't have to worry about sullying your precious bloodline."

Hermione heard herself inhale sharply- just when she thought this wizard couldn't injure her any further, he found a way. She wanted to beg Draco not to respond, to get her out of here and away from this humiliation but she was frozen in place even as she felt several dozen sets of eyes on her and heard Harry telling Ron to be quiet.

"Merlin, you really are a terrible excuse for a human being. No wonder the only witch who'll have you is a total slag," Draco snapped.

Ron had always been about as subtle as a freight train and she read his intentions immediately, but she was still frozen in shock, and it must have been the same for the aurors surrounding him- she was going to have to take another look at their training regimen- because nobody attempted to stop him as he charged at Draco. But Draco, seeker reflexes apparently as good as ever- or perhaps having anticipated this because he had clearly been provoking Ron, easily dodged him and punched him square on the jaw as he went by for good measure.

It was Harry who stopped Ron from charging Draco again, catching him around the chest and then ordering three others to take him out of the room to cool off. It was fairly obvious to her that almost everybody else in the room had wanted to see them fight.

Hermione wanted cry. She wanted to kick them both in the bollocks, and maybe Harry too, for good measure, but frankly, she was much more upset with Draco. She was used to Ron hurting and letting her down, but this was new territory with Draco. She didn't know how he knew that Scorpius would respond to that question as he had, but she couldn't believe he'd just used the first time Scorpius had called her 'mama' to taunt her ex. She wasn't thrilled about him hitting Ron in front of Scorpius either.

But mostly, she was terrified. How could he have been so reckless?

But she kept her mouth shut, that was not the sort of discussion to be had in public. Instead she squared her shoulders and raised her chin proudly as if she wasn't completely humiliated and her personal business hadn't just been aired in front of a good portion of the auror corps, and turned to her best friend.

"Harry, where would you like me?" She asked.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly.

"I'm fine," she snapped, refusing to look at Draco, she was not going to appear weak. "Where would you like me?" She repeated.

He looked completely confused. "What?"

"What would you like me to do? I realize that I am technically your superior but this is your investigation, so where can I start? You're going to need me to determine what went wrong with the wards."

He just shook his head. "You can go with Malfoy to the family waiting area." He glanced significantly at the baby on her hip at that pronunciation and she most definitely did not appreciate that piece of emotional manipulation.

Also, she didn't believe Scorpius needed her right now, at least not to just wait around, he needed her to solve this threat on their family.

"Scorpius and Draco should retire to the family waiting area, I agree," she said. "But I am the Deputy Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I belong in the war room."

He took her arm and led her away from the crowd so they could speak more privately. "You are a target."

She huffed out a breath. "So are you, far more than I ever will be, and that has never stopped either of us before."

"Hermione, this is different."

"You are choosing to make this different because you hate the Lestranges! I do too and I can help!"

"I'm not arguing with you about this. You're emotional right now." She resisted the urge to hit him at his superior and condescending attitude, there had been enough of that already. "Kingsley," he called. "Will you escort them to the waiting area?:

Hermione looked over her shoulder to see the Minister for Magic standing there, looking apologetic, but determined.

Her mouth dropped open. She couldn't believe Harry had already gone to Kingsley and gotten him onside. "I'll quit," she threatened.

"I'll have to risk that," Kingsley answered. "But I think we both know that you won't."

Hermione's eyes pooled with tears. What was wrong with these men? She didn't need protection but she couldn't afford to do her reputation any more harm by continuing to argue in front of such a crowd. She glared at them both and turned on her heel, she almost immediately felt Kingsley's hand on the small of her back.

When they reached the DMLE's waiting area Kingsley opened the door and practically shoved her inside, and while she vaguely registered that there were more people there than she had expected, she paid that very little attention and just looked around for the one person who was her last ditch effort at getting her way.

If Harry could play dirty, so could she.

She spotted the woman flipping through a magazine, her grandson at her side. "Andromeda! Tell him he can't do this!"

Andromeda looked up and regarded them calmly. "What is it that he's doing, dear?"

"He won't let me on this case because it makes Harry," she spat the name like a curse word, "nervous. It's like I'm fifteen years old all over again being escorted out of an Order meeting because it's no place for children." She heard Kingsley sigh behind her and whipped around to face him and pointed at him accusingly with her free hand. "Do you know how else this situation is like that one?"

"I'm certain you're going to tell me."

"At the end of the day, I'll still be expected to do most of the bloody work! When Harry calms down from this mania he slips into when somebody so much a mentions the name 'Lestrange,' even though the only really dangerous one is dead. A fact which is important to remember in this situation, because Rodolphus and Rabastan don't have two brain cells to rub together and only one wand arm between them. There's no way they figured out how to get through a set of ancient wards like the ones at Malfoy Manor unless they had help, or there's something wrong with the wards. And in a few hours Harry's going to realize that he needs me to figure that out. We're just wasting time appeasing him right now!"

There was some murmuring from the people around her at this outburst but she ignored it.

"Oh Hermione," Andromeda chuckled, "only you would consider the most offensive thing about the Lestrange brothers to be that they're stupid."

"I have a list of things I find offensive about them," she countered on a hiss, "but the fact that two morons like that are still on the loose is just embarrassing."

Andromeda looked at Kinsley. "She has a point, several of them in fact."

"Hermione," he sighed, "I'm not going to countermand Harry's authority like that."

"I outrank Harry!"

"And you technically have a conflict of interest here."

Hermione looked back and forth between him and Andromeda. "Really, you're going to stand there with a straight face and say that to me? Given your relationship?"

Kingsley didn't respond to that and Andromeda stood, put an arm around Hermione and guided her into the seat next to her. "I think you've lost this one dear."

'Thank you' she saw Kingsley mouth and then he quickly turned around and made his way to the door.

"I won't be forgetting this!" She called after him and glared until he disappeared.

The sound of a familiar laugh drew her attention and she looked up at Draco who was smirking, and she found herself wanting to slap it off of his irritating face. She turned, plopped the baby she was still holding onto Andromeda's lap, "watch him please," she told the woman and turned back to Draco as she stood up. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"My office."

"Why? I really don't think they're going to let you work on this case."

"Not to work, but because I think it would be psychologically damaging for Scorpius to watch me murder you."

He not only didn't move to follow her out of the room, but he had the audacity to throw himself into a chair and spread his limbs wide, as if he didn't have a care in the world, even after all of the events of the night. "I'm sorry for messing with Potter, but I was just playing around, he'll get over it."

Hermione stopped walking as his words sank in. She breathed deeply as she tried to get herself under control. However, her magic still flared, but she tamped it down viciously- Scorpius was here, and Teddy, they were both deeply attuned to her and such a disruption could be deeply upsetting to them both. But at the same time she felt something snap within her.

He had no idea what he'd done. And that was even more terrifying than it was infuriating.

"That's why you think I'm angry?" And even to her own ears her voice was a low, dangerous hiss that didn't sound at all like her, and it brought Draco up short. He faltered for a moment.

"I know how protective you are of Potter," he answered slowly.

She laughed, and again, she almost didn't recognize the sound. "Harry acted rashly tonight, he has his reasons, but I can understand your irritation, so I had decided not to begrudge you your rather petty attempt to make him uncomfortable. He's a big boy, and as much as he may pretend otherwise, he's not ignorant to the nature of our relationship. And you should have realized by now that we have very few secrets between us, now, the grand mystery of what you look like naked is just one less!" She gestured theatrically as she spoke but she was too far gone to care.

"Sweetness-"

"Don't you dare! I will not be bribed or sweet talked so don't insult me by even trying. You can prance starkers through the Ministry for all I care, but how could you be so foolish as you were just now?"

"Wait- is this about Weasley?"

"Yes!"

Draco's mouth dropped open and his expression went hard. She was reminded that while not evil, he could be a dangerous wizard, which only made her angrier, because she was not the only one who was aware of that. "Are you seriously taking his side? That cretin is a waste of magic. I was defending you!"

Hermione resisted the urge to whip out her wand. She didn't actually want to curse him. "You were doing no such thing."

"Merlin, did you hear what he said about you? He was crude and he was cruel."

She snorted. "He was, it's nothing new, but why would you decide to sink to his level? He was almost forced out of the Auror Corps, did you know that? He was lazy and he depended too much on his reputation from the war. He was almost universally disliked, so he was persuaded to retire. And I question Harry's judgement in calling him in as a reserve tonight, but in a matter of moments you made them all rally around him. Do you really not understand that?"

"He shouldn't have said any of those things to you-"

"Don't you dare pretend that this is about me," she snapped. "You saw an opportunity to toy with somebody you've never liked, and you leapt at it. You turned back into that ugly teenage boy who I hated, who used his father, and his name, and his money to worm his way out of trouble he rightly deserved to be punished for. You provoked him into revealing some deeply personal things about me and worse you used my relationship with Scorpius to do it!"

"I didn't know he was going to say that." Now he just sounded petulant.

"Scorpius?"

"Oh no, I was counting on him wanting to claim you in front of all of those people, he is my son after all," he smirked. "But I never imagined Weasley would stoop that low."

She just decided to ignore that. "But that's not even the worst part, then you punched him!"

"He attacked me!" He roared.

"You goaded him into it and you know it. And you're right, technically he charged you, and you had the right to defend yourself. But that's not the story that's circulating right now. What is it that Pansy is so fond of saying? The truth doesn't matter, appearances matter? And what people are going to remember about this morning is that a Death Eater walked into the Ministry and punched a decorated war hero in the face."

There were several beats of total silence.

"Low blow," he hissed.

She stormed up to him, stopping just short of his knees, leaned over and pointed at him, holding her finger just an inch from his face. "Necessary blow, apparently, if you have somehow convinced yourself that the way you behaved was smart. You have responsibilities now Draco," she pointed towards Scorpius, "you've made promises," she pointed to her own chest. "You can't afford to behave like that in front of a room full of people who make their living putting people in Azkaban, and who are absolutely dying for any excuse to toss you in a cell and throw away the key!"

She just stared at him as he absorbed this and saw the moment that he finally understood. "Hermione-" his eyes were wide and he leaned forward to cup her hips in his hands.

She scurried away from him. "Don't touch me! I can't-" she let out a sob she could no longer swallow. "I love you very much, but I can't even look at you right now." She strode towards the door.

"Ma!" Scorpius called. "MA!" He screeched louder and Hermione realized that he was calling for her. She stopped and took a few seconds to try and compose herself. She plastered a smile on her face and turned around slowly.

"What is it sweet boy?" He was still perched on Andromeda's lap looking very concerned and she cursed herself for losing her temper, but he was holding out his arms for her. "You want up?"

"Mama up," he responded in a tone that suggested he thought she was quite stupid as he'd already made himself perfectly clear.

She let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. "Okay, okay, whatever you want." She walked over and picked him up and then gathered his bag as well and made towards the door. But a thought occurred to her and she stopped and turned to face Draco again. He appeared horrified, but somehow simultaneously very proud. She pointed at him again for emphasis. "Just so you know we'll be in my office, but don't you dare follow us Malfoy!"

He nodded and she walked out the door leaving a deafening silence in her wake.

Author's Note: So, I hope this doesn't seem like a bait and switch, I promise this fic isn't about to take a turn to angst town (though, I guess in some ways it just did) but I swear there's a method to my madness. I said last chapter that some things needed to be resolved and this in them coming to a head. Thanks for reading!