A/N: Ahhh, I love Tom Riddle. This is a happier chapter! (A little ways in, of course...). And our couple is brought together again! Hope this answers more questions than it raises. Not much else to say except enjoy.

Thank you to: Alexybath, whitestripes123, semantics, JRRTFrk (x2), weirdgiraffe, and xenaz3 for reviewing. You people are lovely.

Chapter 38: Be With Me Always

Draco:

One day I woke up and it didn't surprise me anymore to see the spot next to me in bed empty.

Sure, it had taken months upon months to get to that point, but I suppose it was progress. Quite a big step, indeed! In fact, I was quite proud of myself that I had gotten this far. This was one step closer to the goal everyone wanted me to achieve.

It hadn't always been this great.

/

For days, I hadn't been able to get out of bed because it had been too painful. I hadn't been able to cope with the fact that every fibre of my being still refused to believe that Hermione was really, truly gone. The sunlight burned, my skin turned waxen, and Scorpius probably thought I was crazy.

Eventually, Potter got sick of me.

He had barged in one day, pulled open my curtains (ones that Hermione had argued and bought in the place of shades), and forced me out of bed. I'm stronger than I look, people. Surprised? But unfortunately, he had had his wand on him, and forced me out of bed with magic.

And then of course, proceeded to undress me.

"Get off me! I call this sexual assault!"

He only paused for a moment. "Yeah, well, I call this unsanitary. You reek, Malfoy. If you don't take a shower right now, I'm calling in the elf and we're giving you a sponge bath."

He seemed pretty serious, too. I had no other option but to go into the washroom and bathe. "Doesn't mean you have to see me starkers, mate. Didn't know you were into that..." I muttered.

He had the audacity to laugh. "Are you already making jokes? I should've done this sooner!"

"I'm telling your wife you fondled me!" I shouted from the shower.

He poked his head through the door. "Would you like to tell her this before or after I hex your balls off?" I rolled my eyes. He seemed to take this as a good sign, smiled, and shut the door behind him. "Hurry up, will you? Lunch will be ready in fifteen minutes!" he yelled. I heard my bedroom door slam behind him as he left to go downstairs.

I waited a few moments just to be sure he had really gone, then slid down the shower wall. That had been exhausting. I couldn't breathe. So I just sat there, my head pressed between my legs, gasping for breath. The pattering of the shower water on my back didn't help with the nausea or the desperate panic that was still present deep in my chest.

I quietly sobbed, hoping everyone was too busy to come and find me in such a vulnerable position. After all, I had to be strong. I could play the part easily. Very easily. Malfoy's were actors... I'm an actor.

I can act. Yes, Draco, act! Potter had fallen for the banter, hadn't he? Yes, he had.

Ten minutes later, I had stopped crying. I pulled myself together, fixing my stature. It wouldn't do to slouch or cave into myself in front of other people. I practised in front of the mirror and then proceeded to shave. It seemed that in a few short weeks I had aged ten years.

There was a sick pallor about me. I felt diseased. But that didn't mean anyone else had to be aware of the desperate hopelessness eating away at my insides. They did not need to witness how weak I was becoming.

Weeks passed, then months. Life became a slow routine.

Eventually, enough time had passed that the pain had dulled. I didn't feel it quite so much anymore. Sure, the aching and damning loneliness that threatened to tear apart my insides was still there – it was always present. But I had cultivated the ability to ignore it.

After a while, you get used to things.

I was slowly deteriorating from the inside, but no one took notice. Not even me. I would weaken over the years, slowly, but my acting skills had been honed to the extent where no one really had cause to worry.

And, of course, I didn't give a damn.

Scorpius, too, adjusted to this lifestyle. We had decided to move back to London so that when it came time for him to go to Hogwarts, I would be able to reach him relatively easily.

And soon, he did go to Hogwarts and I was left alone at home to socialize with Hermione's old friends and build my ever increasing empire at work. At home, I would write, slowly. And as the number of pages grew, so did I as a person. Life isn't really about yourself. I wasn't living for myself anymore, was I? I was living to pass on a legacy.

Or really just make enough room for my son in the world so that he could create a legacy.

And he was well on his way. He was just as studious as his mother, just as noble and kind hearted. And of course, she had passed on the bookworm trait early. He was first in every single one of his classes (except for Divination, which isn't surprising at all considering...) Prefect, then Head Boy and Quidditch captain.

I had a distinct feeling he only worked so hard because I praised him for it.

When he wasn't at Hogwarts, I did my best to do what Hermione would've done in my shoes. I cultivated him. Taught him everything I knew, good and bad. Soon, he knew things about me that no one else would ever dare to know. Things I'd only told his mother.

And for some reason, he didn't love me any less for them.

I had been raised without many values. For Scorpius, I made sure this was not the case. He learned respect early, he learned how to appreciate life. He learned how to smile with abandon.

He was everything I was not, and still he insisted to be by my side instead of gallivanting around with his friends. Was this what real families were like? I loved him with all my heart, I would do anything for him. He was my life and I'd given him my soul.

But soon, my body had weakened to the extent that even it could not hold out for such a noble purpose. I had done my best, with only a loyal elf at my side to guide me and friends I really didn't count because they were not truly mine.

A week after Scorpius came of age, I went to bed and for the first time in ten years, I dreamed.

/

I was in our old apartment, the very first one we'd gotten in New York. It wasn't technically "ours", but Hermione's. I still considered it as such though. She had.

I had loved this place. It had been the first instance in my life where I'd had love and comfort. Where someone had finally accepted me as a human and not a murderer. It had been the place where I had learned to live. It had been the place that had held the beginning of our relationship. I would love this place forever.

And it was because of this I knew it wasn't real.

I was lying in bed, Hermione was cuddled against me. Her eyes were closed, so I didn't want to disturb her. I didn't want to disturb anything. I had forced myself not to dream all of these years. Perhaps my mind and body had deteriorated to the extent in which I could not control such things anymore?

Yes, that had to be it.

"I've waited so long for this," she said, startling me. So she wasn't asleep after all.

"Me too," I whispered. My voice was hoarse. I was afraid that if I moved or said too much, I'd wake up and then Hermione would not be there anymore. I didn't reach out to touch her. She didn't seem to notice, putting her arms around me tightly nonetheless. "Why am I dreaming again?" I muttered more to myself than to her.

A brilliant smile broke over her face. It was so heart wrenchingly beautiful that I wanted to cry. "You're not dreaming, baby," she told me.

Well. That's strange. "Am I dead?"

"No. Not yet."

She began to stroke my hair exactly the way she would when we lay in bed and I'd had a bad day at work. Automatically, as if it hadn't been over ten years since this action had occurred, I rested my head just under hers, against her chest. It was a familiar movement, even after all this time. Some things you just don't forget.

"Then where am I?" I questioned, breathing in her scent. It was comforting. She smelled like lilacs.

"Right now, you're in a rift between your world and whatever lies beyond it." My eyes opened and I pulled my head away from its resting spot. She nodded at me, knowingly. "Yes, you still have work to do, Draco."

I lay back down into the pillows. "But I'm tired," I sighed.

She smiled. "Then sleep."

"Will you be here when I wake?" She nodded. "I don't believe you."

"That's okay, love. I'll be here, nonetheless." She smiled then, but I was too tired to smile back at her. This was more exhausting than acting. I wasn't prepared to go through something like this again. I hoped I'd stop dreaming, and quick. She came to put her arms around me again, and this time I couldn't help but hug her close to me as well. It had be so long since I'd felt this... my body sang in appreciation.

It was pure bliss.

"Sweet dreams," was the last thing I heard her whisper before I drifted off to sleep.

/

When I awoke, I was completely disoriented.

My vision was blurry, I was completely groggy, and it felt as though my mouth was filled with cotton. That was quite strange. I never woke up like this. My body never felt this way after sleep. Then again, I never dreamed either. Remembering the dream, I sighed. How had I allowed myself to dream after all these years?

I had promised myself I would never put myself through the pain of seeing Hermione night after night and wishing I could just go back to sleep. So I had worked with potions and such. Had I forgotten to take my potion?

I sighed again and attempted to curl into the fluffy pillows Scorpius had tossed into my bed.

The only problem was, these pillows were definitely not fluffy. And then, when I moved to get comfortable, I realized there was a pair of arms wrapped around me.

My eyes immediately flashed open to find a bushy head sleeping against my chest. My heart beat sped up. Was I still dreaming or was this some sort of hallucination? I didn't want to move to test either theory because I was afraid that if I did, I'd disturb the delicate balance of the reality I'd obviously created inside my mind.

But as always, Hermione beat me to the punch.

"How did you sleep?" she asked me without looking up.

"Um..." I shifted to sit up and she followed, her hair sticking up at awkward angles. It had always defied gravity. "I slept well." Looking around me, I realized I was still in our old apartment, the one in New York.

I couldn't physically be here. Not at all. We had sold that apartment, and three years later it had burnt down in an unfortunate fire. Had they rebuilt it or something...?

But that wasn't possible, either, I realized. Looking around, I found the same exact furniture decorating the room. I knew this was the bed we had slept on because of the little nick in the headboard I'd accidently made one night with the buckle of my belt. Besides, those were my old clothes lying on the floor...

So I was either still dreaming or I was going insane.

Hermione had been regarding me as I'd gone through my calculations. No doubt, she had followed my every thought even before I'd processed them. She'd had an uncanny ability to know what I was thinking...

"You're not crazy, baby. I wasn't lying before. You're in my dream world. Remember? I told you about it..."

"You said Hogwarts." I looked around curiously. This was a magnificent replication. If she was telling the truth, then my mind had created this place. I remembered her telling me that a person's mind would create their comfort zone in this world. Or something like that.

Yes, this was my comfort zone...but... was I actually half dead or something along the lines?

Then the thought hit me. "So where is the rest of my soul?" I asked her.

She smiled. "It's waiting for you."

It didn't seem that she was going to tell me anything else about it, so I just went with it. After all, here I was with the love of my life again.

"I missed you." She hugged me to her and I drifted back to sleep.

/

I woke again to a bunch of whispering voices. At first I assumed it was Scorpius talking to Harry and I had half a mind to tell them to shut up and let me sleep some more, but when I opened my eyes I found myself lying with my head in Hermione's lap. She was speaking to a man with alabaster skin and dark hair.

So perhaps she was right about the dream world business...

"Who are you?" I asked, groggily.

"Tom Riddle Jr." he responded without even looking at me. "I will not take no for an answer, Hermione!"

"He needs his rest. You shouldn't be here, anyways –"

"I've just as much right to be here as you do! I can't believe you'd say –"

"I can't believe you'd be such a baby about this, go –"

"I'm not going anywhere! Why can't you for once just be –"

"SILENCE!" I shouted. Hermione cringed. "Who the hell are you?" I addressed the man dressed in suspiciously familiar clothing. Something about him just irritated me, but I couldn't place what. Had I known this man before? Perhaps we had gone to school together.

"Calm down, blondie. Want something to eat? I don't see how you can do anything useful looking like that." He regarded my body up and down and I felt... disgustingly inferior. Who the hell did he think he was, talking to me like that? "What will it be, sugar plum?" he grinned at Hermione's scowl and my confusion. "Eggs? Cereal? Go on, ask for some toast."

Well, at least someone found this funny.

Or not. I wanted to smack his face silly. "I shan't ask again. Who are you? And what are you doing here?"

He grinned. "Tom Riddle Jr. Heir of Slytherin. Half a dark lord, but not quite. Some call me a raving psychopath, but I really only consider myself a lunatic. Pleased to make your acquaintance." And then he gave me a mock bow.

"You're such a prick, Riddle," I heard Hermione grumble.

"What are you doing here?" I repeated myself.

"I thought you weren't going to ask again?" he smirked. My mouth opened for a comeback, but nothing came out. He seemed too amused for his own good, so I just scowled. That didn't really help. He only grinned a bit wider. "Don't worry, kid. I'll humour you. I'm here to save your life."

"He's not! He was just leaving –"

"I was not just leaving! Come on, you inbred mutt! Get up, we've got lots of work to do –"

"Don't talk to him like that! It's okay Draco, you can go back to sleep –"

"He can't go back to sleep! We've got work to do!"

"Fuck off –"

"How rude-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" I shouted, again. My head was hurting from their arguing and I was strongly reminded of Scorpius and Albus fighting over what activity they would be doing next.

I got out of bed, stared at Riddle dangerously and pointed to the door. "Out! You will sit there and think about how to cooperate with people before you open your mouth again." His mouth opened, probably to rebuke my order, but I beat him to it. "I don't think so, young man. Out! And while you're there think about what you've done." Riddle looked affronted, but amazingly, he followed my instructions.

Ahem... not that I'd doubted it wouldn't work or anything...

Thank God for parenting skills.

"And as for you," I regarded Hermione once Riddle had shut the door behind him. "You're going to explain what's going on right now."

A/N: Soooo? Don't you just love them? Only two more chapters after this... How heartbreaking! I'd say sorry for the cliffhanger, but I'm just not. Muhahahaha. (Yes, I've had four cups of coffee today).

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Alexybath: Happy endings are not my forte – but I definitely am trying in my own sick and twisted way. Hope you enjoyed!