Chapter 12

Hermione was speechless as she exited the pensieve and was pulled back to the present time. After everything she had seen, she wasn't quite sure how to react. And that was with the limited, and probably somewhat censored memories of the children. She was sure if she had viewed the memories belonging to any of the adults that they would be far more graphic and violent, and it would have left her feeling far emptier than she currently did.

They had started off light, but as the years went on, closer to the time the children came back, they grew far darker. There were things she had seen that she already knew would happen, like not being able to go to work anymore, or Ron's death, but the sight of it had cost her a significant amount of pain.

The last funeral she had been to, had belonged to Fred, the last one buried of the casualties she had known in the war. After the war, she had gone to everyone's she was even a bit connected to, and the pain of losing someone hadn't decreased that much as time had gone on.

And the sight of her friend in that coffin had been nearly too much to bear.

Everyone seemed to suffer so much loss in the future, including the child that she and Draco had lost. It was weird to think about, since she had never been pregnant with neither Scorpius nor their unborn child, yet knowing that that child would never exist anymore hurt far too much to think about.

"Are you okay?" Draco asked her, as Harry and Ron seemed to come to.

She shook her head, "No, I'm not. Draco, we can't let that happen. We can't let Scorpius grow up in that sort of a world. We can't let it!"

He looked just as shaken as she did as he placed a comforting hand on her arm, "We won't let it. We didn't know something would happen in that timeline to cause the events that they did. But we know now that someone is trying to head in that direction; we just have to make sure they don't succeed."

Harry walked over, "There is no way I'm ending up in a bloody wheelchair. Or that I'm letting Ron get killed. We just need to stop this."

Hermione scoffed, "You say it that like it's so easy. We still don't even know who is behind this. And from what I saw, it seemed like more than half the community seemed to be supporting them. How can we fight an enemy that we don't even know?"

"There is a reason that future you marked those memories," Ron said in a knowing voice. "There was something there that we have to find. Maybe it wasn't so obvious because we didn't know what to look for, but I bet now that we already know what's going to happen, we can be more observant."

"I don't think I can handle seeing them again," Hermione whispered softly. Especially that last memory. While she wasn't specialized in fatal wound treatment, she knew enough to know that the cuts she had suffered were life-threatening. And even if she had been able to heal them, after sending the boys back, there probably hadn't been enough time before who had hurt her in the first place came back. It also didn't take much for her to realize that if he wasn't dead, Draco had been hurt severely from the look on her future self's face when her son asked about him.

Harry pulled her in for a hug and she tried her best not to let her emotions overwhelm her. Now wasn't the time for that sort of thing after all.

"You don't have to see them again if you don't want to," Draco informed her. "The three of us are Aurors, it's our job to be observant and find those sort of clues."

She gave him a grateful smile without pulling away from her friend's embrace, "Thank you, Draco. It means a lot."

He nodded at her in response.

"I think I'll go make some tea," Ron announced. "After all of that, I feel like we could use some, don't you?"

Hermione pulled away from Harry as the four made their way down the stairs. She was slightly shaky, and there was a particular moment where she nearly tripped and fell, but felt an arm around her waist to steady her. She looked up to see Draco making sure she was okay as she blushed ever so slightly at her carelessness and his contact.

"Thanks," she said gratefully.

He gave her a small smiled as he continued walking down the stairs.

"Mommy!" Scorpius called out as she came into his line of vision. The boy ran over to her and hugged her legs tightly. She bent down to pick him up so she could wrap her arms around him. She took comfort in the hug, still feeling the shock of what she had seen. "Aunt Ginny made cookies!"

"Did she?" she asked, "Did you say thank you?"

Scorpius nodded, "Please and thank-you!"

She smiled as she pressed a kiss to his forehead, "Such a good boy," she told him, causing Scorpius to smile brightly.

"How many did you have?" Draco asked as he lightly brushed against her.

Scorpius held up three fingers, looking slightly guilty but flashed a cute smile at the both of them.

Hermione shook her head with an amused smile, "Well no more for now, okay? You have to eat dinner soon."

She felt bad saying it as he pouted slightly at the thought of no more sugar. Scorpius had been extremely well behaved, and she hadn't had to discipline him since his arrival. Part of her wanted to give in and just let the boy have another, but thankfully for her, Draco stepped in.

"Your mother is right," Draco said firmly. "But how about the two of us play with your toy Quaffle afterwards?"

After learning of the children's arrival, Hermione shouldn't have been surprised when Molly showed up with a handful of her children's old toys, saying that the boys would need something to play with when they were bored. She had offered to babysit every now and then so Ginny didn't have to watch them all the time; something the younger ginger woman was grateful for.

Scorpius grinned at that, "Yay! Okay!" he squealed as he squirmed out of Hermione's arms and back on the ground.

Ron sat nervously in the café as he waited for his date to show up. He was still slightly shaken from seeing his body lying in the coffin, but they had scheduled to meet today before he had decided to see the memories, and he wasn't about to reschedule on her.

He hadn't told her yet. How do you tell a girl who you are just starting a relationship with, especially one as new as their two prior dates, that apparently in one version of the future, they end up married and had a child?

But he knew that it wasn't right of him to keep it from Luna any longer, especially since Hugo desperately wanted to see her.

So he fidgeted slightly in his seat, stilling only when he saw Luna walk through those doors.

He stood to greet her, and pressed a light kiss against her cheek as a greeting.

"Hello, Ron," she said, sounding slightly whimsical.

'How are you doing?" he asked her as she sat in the chair beside him.

"I need to tell you something," he blurted out, unable to keep it in any longer.

She seemed slightly surprised at that, but nodded for him to proceed.

He cast a quick muffilato so that no one else would hear as he took a deep breath, "Do you remember that magical explosion a little while back that caused the earthquake?"

"How could I forget?" Luna asked. "Personally, I say it was the Gigantrals feeling unhappy with the entropy in the universe."

Ron shook his head, "It was something else. That day, three people came back from the future to ensure that it never came to pass. More specifically, three children came back."

"How wonderful!" Luna's eyes widened. "Have you talked to them?"

He hesitated before forcing himself to keep talking. "Actually, that's what I need to talk to you about. Luna, one of the boys is Ginny and Harry's son, and the other is Hermione and Draco Malfoy's."

"I always suspected they would end up together," Luna said in a knowing track, causing Ron to backpedal.

"You what? Never mind. The thing is, Luna, the other child belongs to….us," Ron finished, in a pathetic tone.

She placed a hand over his, "I think that's absolutely wonderful, Ron," she said as she gave him a reassuring smile.

"So it's not going to scare you away?" he asked hopefully.

"It's absolutely terrifying," she admitted, "But no, I'm not going anywhere." She faltered for a second, "Can I meet him?"

Ron grinned, "We can go straight after dinner if you'd like. He's staying with Ginny and Harry."

"What's he like?" Luna asked curiously, as the waiter who was serving them placed a plate of pasta in front of her.

"Fantastic," Ron responded honestly, "He's amazing. Honestly, there are times when I can't believe he's mine, because of it. Like there are times when I can see myself in him and his actions, like the way he eats, or how he acts from time to time. I guess I just never really thought about what it would mean to actually become a parent, and not just picture yourself as eventually becoming one, if that makes any sense."

Luna nodded, "It does. Sometimes I find it hard to imagine myself as a mother, seeing that mine died when I was very young, but it has always been something that I've wanted for myself."

Ron smiled at her, as he stroked her hand with his thumb, "I'm sure you'll be a fantastic mother."

Draco took a gulp of his Firewhisky rather quickly, feeling a slight burn at the back of his throat, but he ignored the sensation as he went to take another sip. Hermione had insisted that he go out for a night with his friends, seeing how he had spent so much time with hers, and that he deserved a break. He had pointed out that she did too, but she ignored him, before practically pushing him out of the house. If he didn't see the sincerity behind her actions, a part of him might have accused her of trying to get rid of him, but he knew it wasn't the case.

"Slow down, Mate," Blaise said worriedly as he placed a hand over Draco's to prevent him from taking another drink.

"Is everything okay?" Theo asked hesitantly, "We've barely seen you lately, and even now we can tell that you're a hundred kilometers away from here."

Draco sighed deeply, "Not really. I can't really talk about it because its work related, but its weighing down heavily on me. And my mother is being well, her usual lovely self."

He hadn't heard from his mother since he and Hermione had gone to see her about Scorpius, which was quite unusual seeing that whenever he had done something in the past that his mother had disapproved of, she had made a point to annoy him about it with letter after letter until he conceded, or his father intervened. The silence was unnerving, and quite frankly, Draco wasn't quite sure how to take it.

"Is she still going on about purity and trying to set you up with some pureblood?" Theo asked knowingly.

Draco shook his head, "Kind of? We had a discussion about the potential of me being with a non-pureblood witch, and well, let's just say it didn't end that well."

It wasn't that he didn't trust his friends with the knowledge of his son's existence. It was that he needed to keep it as secretive as possible to avoid bringing harm to the children. While Theo had been raised similarly to himself, and Blaise had never quite cared for the whole blood purity thing, Draco knew that his friends would not react along the lines of his mother, and that if he were to tell them, they would probably just tease him about his apparent future choice of a spouse, but be understanding otherwise.

"If I tell you something, I need the two of you to take a Wizard's Oath that you'll never tell anyone," Draco said softly. While the oath wasn't quite as strong or consequential as an Unbreakable Vow, it still entailed that the person would never be able to speak of it to another soul.

Blaise and Theo shared a look, but nodded.

"That explosion a while back was because my son came back from the future," Draco blurted out.

"I'm sorry what?" Blaise asked as he raised his eyebrow. Clearly neither he nor Theo had been expecting that.

Draco took a deep breath before explaining everything to them. He felt a weight lift off his chest as he told them everything that had happened, and quite honestly, it was nice to talk to it with people he knew. While Harry and he had become a sort of friends, and he and Hermione had their weird friendly relationship, it wasn't quite the same as it was with the other two Slytherins.

"And I take it Narcissa isn't all that pleased about it," Blaise said knowingly. "A half-blood son with the woman who debatably single-handedly used her brains to help Potter bring down Voldemort."

Draco snorted, "I disappointed her. Thankfully my father isn't allowed any mail in Azkaban, or I'm sure I would have gotten more pleasant letters."

Theo shook his head, "I never thought I'd see the day that you and Granger got together. Though if you think about it, all that fighting in school could have been simply sexual tension."

Draco shook his head, "It isn't like that. We've accepted that the two of us weren't meant to be in this timeline."

Blaise openly laughed at that, "I'd like to see how long that last," he said giving Theo a look.

"What?" Draco asked confused.

"Please," Theo scoffed, "You know that the two of you ended up happily in one time, and that you had one child, expecting a second. You saw yourself married to her, and being romantic with her. You basically have reassurance that the two of you could be happy and you're simply choosing to ignore it? Draco, the rest of us who didn't have a peek at our futures."

"It's not like that," Draco argued. "We just don't think we'd be a good match."

"Whatever you say," Blaise said, clearly not believing him one bit.

"So what are you going to do about all of this?" Theo asked him.

Draco shook his head, "I have no idea. Part of me wants to just pretend none of this is happening and just raise Scorpius. But then all of this is still going to happen, and we're going to have to send the children back again."

Blaise took a sip of his own Firewhisky, "I told you working with Gryffindors would lead to no good," he joked lightly. "So did you happen to see us in your memories?"

Draco shook his head, "We only saw a few that Hermione had marked as being directly related to the events that lead to sending the children back. So no sneak-peeks into your own futures, sorry."

"Well, if Narcissa never comes around, you'll always have a family in the two of us. We could be the cool uncles that save Scorpius from all the Gryffidors in his life," Theo said

"I'm pretty sure Hermione would kill you if you tried to corrupt her son," Draco laughed. "I've been on the wrong side of her temper; it's not all that fun."

Theo and Blaise continued to question and tease Draco for the rest of the night, asking on more than one occasion if he had seen any interesting memories between him and Hermione. While it was rather strange to be talking about, Draco felt a lot more relaxed than he had since all of this had started. He would worry about the future again tomorrow, but for now, he was more than happy to simply exist in the moment, pushing all of his worries out of his mind until a later time.

Luna waited apprehensively in Grimmauld place as Ron went to go fetch Hugo from the next room. It wasn't every day that one found out that they were a mother, and while she wanted to come up with some sort of explanation for the turn of events, her mind ran blank.

"Mummy?" she heard a tiny voice say as she saw a small red-head boy running toward her with his arms outstretched.

She smiled in spite of her worries as she picked up the small boy who seemed rather relieved to see her.

"Hi Hugo," she said softly. "Your father told me all about you."

The boy seemed slightly nervous as to interacting with her, but seemingly settled for hugging her tightly. Her heart broke as her son started talking to her normally, as if none of this had even happened, and she couldn't help but wonder what kind of future he must have had.

A part of her was scared by all of this, but with the tiny boy in her lap talking, she felt herself feel inclined to protect him at all costs. Luna Lovegood had been in Ravenclaw because she was a rational being, despite what others might have said about her, and it had always fit her well. There had been a few times in her life where she acted outside the rational scope, and in the current moment, never had she ever felt more like a Gryffindor in her life.