When everything blew up in their faces, it wasn't the Daily Mail, it was the News of the World, in a two-page spread by one Rita Skeeter under the headline "THE SECRET MALFOY BASTARD, HEIR TO A FORTUNE OF BILLIONS", and Hermione was the first one to see it.

Disregarding Draco's advice to just ignore the tabloids, she had instructed Dobbson to regularly buy a number of different publications, and she'd taken to spending some time each day checking them for any articles that mentioned her. For a few weeks there was nothing of note in any of them and she was starting to relax, and then she saw it.

The main picture took up half a page, and it showed Draco holding a crying Scorpius, and Hermione saying something with a concerned expression, one hand on the baby's back. They had been at the A&E, and it had not even occurred to her to worry about paparazzi there, with a crying baby and surrounded by sick people and incoming emergencies.

"Oh god," she said, reading through the article, which included her full name and the harrowing tale of how Draco Malfoy's latest fling and mother to his love child had a long history of mental illness and had tried to kill herself in a shocking incident that had shaken the small community in which they lived. There was a picture of her lying unconscious in a hospital bed, dried vomit on her gown, and she had never even seen that picture. She hadn't even known it existed.

"What's wrong?" Draco paused at the entrance to the kitchen and she waved him over without looking away from the newspaper.

According to the masterly, well-researched piece of journalism in front of her, she had tried to kill herself when Draco had refused to acknowledge the baby and left her for some rich heiress who had in the meantime broken up with him over the whole illegitimate child debacle.

"I'm going to murder that woman," Draco said. "I'm going to sue that fucking rag. I am going to put them out of business."

A detached part of Hermione's brain knew that she ought to talk him down, but she was far too busy thinking that she could never again show her face outside the house for as long as she lived. The article, which described her as an "unstable, ambitious young woman who had known how to ensure her future by means some might consider rather unscrupulous, to say nothing of incredibly cliched", went on to speculate that even if Draco didn't marry her, the child was still set to inherit a considerable fortune, to say nothing of the money she would no doubt receive for his education. That was, of course, if she didn't completely lose it in the meantime, and was it right that such a clearly disturbed person be in charge of a young child? It was not the place of the writer to speculate, of course, but one had to wonder.

"Hey, look at me." He cupped her face with his hands, urging her head up. "Say the word and I'll put a hit on that hack. I can. I'm exceedingly rich and Blaise knows people."

Hermione forced herself to smile, but there was something else nagging at her. "If they look into Scorpius—"

"They won't."

"But if they do."

"If they do, they won't find anything they shouldn't. Come here." He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. "Between Skeeter and Blaise, my money is on Blaise. I'd stake my fortune on the fact that she won't find a damn thing. Not that she'll look, mind you. Rita Skeeter was never one to let a good story be polluted by facts. She'll write a few more pieces, get her hands on a few more photos, and then find someone else to harass. In fact, what we'll do is get out of town until this whole circus dies down. Dobbson!" he called. "I don't know why I pay him. He's never where he's supposed to be. Dobb—"

"You bellowed, sir?"

"Draco, we can't just go. It's the middle of term. We have—"

"We can and we will. The university won't go anywhere. It's been here for the past five hundred years."

"But—"

"Just for a couple of weeks until things settle down," he said. Hermione hesitated. Running away was more than a little cowardly, but the thought of facing her teachers and colleagues filled her with dread. She glanced at the picture of her in the hospital gown and nodded. Sometimes discretion was the better part of valour. It was all the agreement Draco needed. "Dobbson, we're going down to Wiltshire. I want the house prepared."

"Sir, there's no full-time staff at the manor. I'm not sure—"

"We'll be there in three hours. Make it happen."

"Yes, sir."

Malfoy Manor was a grand old house surrounded by acres and acres of land, which included the stunning English gardens closer to the house, and miles of forest farther away from it. The estate was encircled by a wall, on top of which security cameras ensured that no one trying to make it over would do so unobserved. Should anyone be foolish enough to attempt it, the security staff was usually quick to show them the error of their ways and persuade them to make better life choices going forward.

It had been the Malfoy seat for generations, but Draco had not lived there in the years since his parents' death. As a child he had spent most of his time at school, and the holidays in Bellatrix's house in London, while she traipsed around Europe trying very hard to find new and inventive ways to spend her husband's money and that of her ward. It was exhausting business, and one to which she devoted considerable time and effort.

Even as an adult he had never spent much time there. Draco did not have many memories of his parents — he had been very young when they died — but the few he did have were in that house. He remembered his mother walking with him in the gardens. He remembered his father putting him to bed. He remembered sneaking into the kitchen with Pansy and stealing half a dozen cupcakes left to cool on the table. Dobbson had not been impressed. His mother had looked very serious when told of his transgression and had promptly agreed that Draco must receive some sort of punishment. After all, it would not do for the Malfoy heir to go around stealing cupcakes. And then Dobbson had turned his back, and she had winked at Draco, and it was like the sun was back in the sky.

For many years he had thought of the house like a mausoleum — filled with silence and ghosts and the memory of the dead. The memories were still there, and ghosts still stared at him from paintings and photographs that showed moments frozen in time, but there was no amount of silence that could survive Scorpius. The little boy chattered and blabbed and prattled all day long in a language only he could understand — at Draco, at Hermione, at whatever maid or footman happened to walk by — and it seemed fitting, in a way, it seemed proper that there was once again a baby in the house, another Malfoy in a line that went back hundreds of years."

"We're going for a walk," Hermione said, she and Scorpius wrapped up in warm winter jackets. "Wanna come?"

Hermione looked more relaxed than he had ever seen her, as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Maybe it was the fact that the world seemed a little farther away in the middle of the English countryside, or that they didn't deliver newspapers at the manor. Whatever it was, he wanted nothing more than to keep that expression on her face, that easy smile that turned into an easy laugh at whatever bad joke he happened to stumble upon. He'd pay a king's ransom to keep her smiling like that.

"It's February. You'll catch your death. And don't expect me to put much effort in recovering your bodies, either. I'll leave you to the wolves."

"It's a beautiful, sunny day, and there are no wolves in England."

"I'll be sure to inform the search party of that." He turned his attention back to his PSP, unpausing the game, but it suddenly flew off his hands and up in the air. "Oi," he said, jumping to his feet and catching it before it could get very far. "That is cheating."

"What is cheating?" Hermione asked innocently. Scorpius, who tended to prefer shameless to innocent, simply giggled and clapped his hands.

"You know perfectly well what, you fiend. Fine, I'll go, but I'm doing so under duress." He slipped an arm around her waist and kissed her, his smile turning into a chuckle when Scorpius started poking the side of his face. "I saw her first, mister," he said, planting a kiss on the baby's head.

"Explain to me again why it's my turn to change him," Draco said, moving Scorpius to his other arm and holding the door for her. "I feel like it's my turn more than it should be."

"Nonsense." Hermione took off Scorpius's jacket, before taking off her own and putting them on the rack by the door. "It's your turn the exact amount of times it should be."

"Yeah, I don't feel like that's right."

"Would I lie to you?"

"Yes."

She laughed at his look of mock outrage and grabbed his jacket, pulling him to her and kissing him. "I'll make it worth your while," she said, her tone low and suggestive.

"Are you trying to trick me with your feminine wiles?"

"Yes. Is it working?"

"Yes. Damn you. Let's go, Scorpius. Women are the devil."

"Thank you," she shouted after him, still laughing. Stretching her arms over her head, Hermione headed for the drawing room. It had been easy to get lost in the first few days, but she had since learnt her way around. Bradford House was no cottage, but Malfoy Manor was absolutely massive — all of it high ceilings and large rooms and wide staircases. Hermione liked the gravitas of it, the sense of history. Most of it, she liked that despite all that, it still felt like a family home.

She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the woman in the middle of the drawing room. The stranger stood very straight in an elegant red and white outfit, her hair a mass of dark ringlets that cascaded down her back. She was staring out the window, but turned to face her when Hermione walked in.

"Well, well, well," she said, her voice clear, with a ring like glass. "You must be the trollop."