Thanks for putting up with the fact that this story isn't always about Dramione and indulging me as I develop this universe and everything that is going on around them. I'm glad people can enjoy this story in spite of my wide focus. I think this chapter is more what people were waiting for. It's also going to be awesome for those who love anguish.

LCailan

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Impossible, it was impossible.

Hermione felt her head pound in furious rhythm with her heart. For days, Merlin – maybe even weeks – she had existed in a floating darkness with only occasional moment of clarity where she would see a face, or feel the touch of one's hand. Nothing – no potion, or words – had ushered in the cruel reality the way Draco's words-

No. He's wrong, I know he's wrong. He has to be.

She stared down at her belly, horrified, and eyes transfixed on something that wasn't there. Her hands were twisted into stiff claws.

Ron and I never had children. I was never blessed. Babies are a blessing.

"No."

The denial was evident in her voice as she suddenly looked up at Draco plaintively. He stood, as if hesitating between going to her and dashing from the room. He looked white – too-white – she realized, and his eyes were a reflection of the sudden twisting darkness within her own heart.

Hermione swallowed, the dryness filling her mouth, making it difficult to form words. She forced a smile she didn't feel, trying to muster up nonchalance.

"No, Ron and I didn't have children. It's not possible! You can say what you want, but there was no baby."

Her jaw trembled, as she glared at him.

Ron and I didn't have babies. Ginny had babies.

The strange thoughts she was having didn't seem to make sense although her feverish mind tried to grasp a hold of something – anything – to find a semblance of sense. This didn't make sense. This was having to admit that Marcus Flint had killed something growing inside of her, and Hermione couldn't, shewouldn't accept that.

Her eyes prickled hotly.

"I want to be alone," she croaked, staring down once again at her offending middle. It was flat, just like it always had been. She was weak, yes, from the blood loss. But blood loss could have come from anything. A fall, a break, some sort of strange curse.

It wasn't a baby.

The denial was all Hermione had to cling to, and she did so fiercely, for she feared the cold, dark fingers of insanity that loomed just on the horizon of her mind. No. No, it just wasn't true.

She straightened her stiff fingers, gently placing them on her middle, shaking her head.

"See?" She whispered. "I'm flat, Draco. There's no baby, I'm flat!" she exclaimed, shaking her head and looking up at him.

He could see her trying to handle the news he had broken, praying that somehow, they could deal with it together. Nothing had been as difficult as trying to keep from breaking down in front of her, but Draco did so, remaining strangely impassive.

"Hermione," he whispered, his heart breaking at the expression on her face, the trembling mouth, the way she was tenaciously holding onto her safety net of denial. She was glorious in her denial. He moved to reach for her, but with a vehemence he had not expected, she shoved at him.

"No," she spat. "I don't want you here spewing your lies."

Her expressive eyes flashed dangerously.

"Hermione, you weren't that far along! The Healer said you bled out and-"

There was suddenly a glimmer of tears in his eyes which he tried to furiously blink away, but Hermione saw them and they infuriated her.

"You lie!" she cried out. "You're a liar, and I don't have to believe you! There wasn't a baby!"

Now, her face flushed with color as she attempted to stand, denying her weakness. For a dizzying moment nothing made sense to Hermione, for Draco was hatefully tearing down her walls of defense with his disgusting words.

"I won't believe you! There was no baby, Draco! No baby, and I'm flat you lying cad!"

She stumbled then, her vision blurring. She heard his voice buzzing in the unsteady background, and suddenly she felt herself falling into his arms, as if her legs wouldn't hold her any longer. Slumping against him, she began to sob.

Draco held her, willing himself not to cry because he knew he had to be the stronger one. He would have stood in the place holding her for all time if it meant helping her.

"Hermione…"

It was all he could muster when suddenly she began to struggle against him, her body going rigid and the sobs turning into mewls and then soft howling. Hermione began to pulling at herself, running her fingernails across her middle at first with frustration and then increasing wrath. Her howling increased as she thrashed against him, ripping at her flesh, leaving red marks behind.

"Stop," he whispered, suddenly grabbing her arms and holding them against her sides.

She looked up at him and Draco was suddenly overwhelmed by a deep sadness for the look in those wild eyes was enough to break his heart. The light – that forever burning light that had filled him with hope and which he had clung to in his darkest moments – was put out, leaving him drowning in a sea of blackness. She struggled against his grip, making gruff, animalistic sounds of fear and despair, pulling away from him, and then shoving against him, willing herself free from his clutches.

"Stop!"

This time, his words were more adamant but Hermione only yanked harder, looking up at him wordlessly, her eyes darkening with vehemence. When he countered by tightening his hold on her, she only spit in his face, struggling with increasing rage.

"Let me go!"

"Stop this," he hissed over the sound of her wails. "I know it hurts, Hermione, but you have to-"

Glaring up at him with unbridled despair, she shook her head.

"No, you don't know," she growled hatefully. "You don't know! Look what they've done to me! Look what they've done to everyone I love, everything that means anything to me!"

She choked on her own words, coughing and struggling still.

"I want to die! What kind of life is this, Draco? They try to take everything away, don't they? They destroy and defile everything pure, everything good in this world! They've killed my BABY! My BABY!"

She began to sob, and Draco held her as closely as he dared, for she was shaking as if with convulsions, though he knew that it was simply the force of her sobbing. The net of denial was gone now and Hermione had begun a swift descent into despair, and he clung to her tightly, as if just his touch could save her from the pain she was experiencing.

Guilt raged within Draco, guilt over his loss, and what he could have and didn't do to prevent it. Guilt over the fact that he couldn't protect her from a world that wanted to completely destroy her. Some things were worse than death, he knew. And he could only imagine what she was feeling, the loss of a child she had not known compounding everything else – her physical pain, the loss of her family, her husband her friends, and the fear of what would happen to her eventually.

And here I stand, helpless and worthless to her. Yet, still she loves me.

She sobbed his name, and Draco felt the warmth of her tears wetting his shirt front as he whispered against her hair – words he couldn't understand and would never recall. Words that he knew she wouldn't hear anyway. He found himself aware that Hermione had stopped struggling and now her fingers had curled around his upper arms, her fingers running up along his shoulders and against the skin of his neck, cool against the heat there. He felt her digging into his flesh, the sensation sharp but not unpleasant, and Draco welcomed the pain. She dug harder, her body wracked with sobs of abandon, pressing herself closer to him. Words fell from her lips, thick and unintelligible, but he could hear his name, and he could hear the utter devastation in every syllable. Over and over she sobbed his name, and he felt his own tears mingling with hers.

They stood there in that way for an indefinable amount of time until Hermione shifted, lifting her face towards his. She was no longer struggling but instead pressed limply against him.

"He killed the baby," she whispered, and Draco ran his fingers across her face, brushing aside her thick hair which was dampened by her tears.

"I know."

"Why?"

It was just a word, he knew. But it tore at him in ways he couldn't explain and killed a small part of him because no matter how much she wanted it, there were no answers. His eyes searched her face, following a single, glistening tear as it made its way down her face, trembling in the edge of her chin and then falling. The tear was no more. Gone, like their baby. Gone, and having taken a part of Hermione – a part that she hadn't known even existed, and dimming something inside of her.

"No one knows why."

How was he to explain the overwhelming pain that pressed upon his heart? How was he to explain the loss that he felt – the same loss that he had felt at the death of his first baby? Impossible, he knew.

Gently, Draco leaned down and pressed his lips against the coolness of her forehead, feeling Hermione sigh. She smelled of mint and herbs, like the potion that the Healer had been administering to her for days.

Hermione's expression was unreadable, a faraway look in her brown eyes, a glimmer of contemplation.

"Just a baby, Draco, a beautiful, innocent life."

And how was one to explain how quickly Voldemort's Ministry desired to crush just those things? Beauty, innocence and hope. The possibility of a bright future, laughter, joy?

"I'm sorry."

She turned her gaze up towards his and then leaned in to press her mouth against his, sighing as she did so. He dared to close his eyes for a split second, relishing the velvet softness of her kiss, trying to imagine that they were somewhere else. It was impossible.

"It was yours too."

Her voice trembled but was no longer a whisper.

"Ours."

Draco nodded and felt Hermione resting her head against his chest.

"You don't have to be sorry," she told him softly. It was those words which made his heart weep with indescribable guilt.

"I do have to be sorry. I said I'd protect you. I've done nothing but hurt you. I'm not just sorry about this baby, Hermione. I'm sorry about everything that I can't protect you from. I'm sorry about the way that those others treat you and the position I'm in."

His fingers reached down to tip her chin up so those glorious, haunted eyes met his.

"I can't explain how you make me feel, Hermione. Not if I tried. My life was dead until you breathed your life into it. Everything I had meant nothing until you touched me. You've given me hope and reason." He took a breath. "I can't say how much that means to me."

She remained silent, feeling a hollow emptiness at the despair written harshly in the lines of his beautiful face. She wanted to reach up and smooth those lines away, to ease his pain even if for a moment. She wanted to have those few but precious moments in which he was smiling at her the way he had the morning she had awakened in his arms…

"Draco…"

The reality, however, was infinitely crueler.

"And what have I done to deserve what you've given me?" Draco asked bitterly. "I'm ashamed of what I've said and how I've reacted. I'm weak, and can't protect you from all those who want to hurt you!"

His hands stiffened around her waist.

"I can't even look at you without feeling disgusted at myself," he hissed with vehemence. "I let our baby die! I've let you get hurt over and over again! I can't stop any of this and I feel so…fucking inadequate, Hermione! Everything falls apart around me, don't you see that? I can't protect you! I couldn't even protect my-"

He choked on the words, on his self-hatred. Suddenly, Draco couldn't bear to look at her face another second and pushed away, feeling the cold hand of hopelessness grip him.

The image of his baby boy smiling up from the small faded photograph assaulted each of his senses, and a small, choked sob escaped Draco as he tried to swallow back the sudden desire to cry. Now, in light of their great loss, he felt the wounds so carefully healed bleed once again.

"I can't protect anyone I love."

There was a long, tense silence and Hermione wondered what she could do to ease the pain that gripped him. The pain of loss was so poignant that she felt it with each breath, every single heartbeat. Her voice quavered.

"You protected Lily! You protect me! You may choose to quickly forget that, but I can't!"

Draco turned at the sound of her voice, shaking his head.

"I was selfish. Lily ended up safe because you would have taken her place."

"And you convinced Pansy to leave me alone," was her whispered reply. At this, Draco shook his head.

"I was afraid to lose you."

"Because you love me!"

Her eyes were tear-stained, glittering jewels.

"I'm alone in this world," she managed to say, her eyes swimming with the pain of ridicule and rejection. "It's hard to understand how I feel each time you tell me you love me."

Before he could say more, she continued.

"I'm not afraid to say his name," she managed. "The whole time we spent our last year searching for those horcruxes and running from Voldemort, and even that day at Hogwarts when I laid eyes on him the last time…"

She looked away, her voice ghostly. Draco found it so strange, because in the years after the fall of the Ministry, no one talked about Voldemort. He simply was.

"I wasn't afraid of him, but I was afraid of the way the world was. Evil is…we're all capable of it, you know."

She sighed.

"I think he knew that. So in some ways, deep down, he always had the advantage. I know they say that good always triumphs, but the truth is that in the world there's this…this propensity for evil, and sometimes all it takes is a weak will and a strong personality and…"

Draco nodded stiffly.

"Voldemort found more than one of those," he replied hoarsely, more afraid than Hermione, ironically, to say his name. Hermione nodded, looking towards the small window on the other side of the room. The sky was gray.

"While we were on the run, I started to forget what it was like to be loved," she whispered. "I knew those I was with loved me, but the world was such a different place and sometimes fear makes you forget all those other emotions. And when he died…"

There was a long, hard silence.

"I watched Ron die, and then Harry…and I just- seeing Justin the night of the raid…"

She shuddered, fresh tears leaking from eyes that she had thought could cry no more. It had brought back all those awful memories – the fear, the helplessness and horror she had felt as Ginny had tried to pull her out of their hiding place.

"I hadn't wanted to leave him behind," she whispered then, to no one in particular. "And I didn't want Justin to-"

Draco had been staring at her, and suddenly he moved to wrap his arms around her thin body, wishing there was more he could do to ease the obvious pain she was feeling.

"No one wants death."

His breath tickled her cheek and Hermione leaned in towards him. Slowly, she raised her eyes towards a face of hopelessness.

"When I came here I never thought I would see another face of compassion. I never thought someone would touch me again with anything but disgust. I never imagined still being alive now."

Hermione's trembling fingers came up to run along his bruised and pale flesh.

"No matter what you feel about yourself, Draco, it's all because of you. You've loved me in spite of what they taught you. You've showed me that even amidst such destruction and the way that things are now, there is still love."

She pressed her trembling lips against his cheek, closing her tired eyes.

"And I love you," she whispered. "I love you no matter what you've been through and what they've made you become. And I will love you no matter what is to come."

When she opened her eyes, his were filled with tears.

"And it breaks my heart to see you cry," she whispered, and her fingers came up to wipe his eyes. "I'm still here, Draco. Let me be your hope."

He buried his face against her neck, shaking with his tears, clinging to her.

"You always were," he moaned. "You always were."

They sat there like that for a time innumerable. She felt his fingers slip down to rest on her belly.

"I never wanted it to happen," he whispered against her ear, his breath hot. The words seemed pointless to Draco, but he needed to say them, even if to confirm in his own mind.

"I know," she replied. "It wasn't you. It was this whole-"

Hermione felt his fingers running through her hair ever so gently.

"I had a son."

The words were roughened by his withheld emotion. She stopped breathing for a moment, feeling his fingers tightening in hers.

"He would have been five this year."

Hermione had known loss and she knew how helpless she felt against the inability to change one horrible situation after another. Never had she imagined, however, that those on the other side, those she had hated for so long, could know that feeling. They were the strong; they were the ones who had the world at their fingertips. They served a leader who controlled everything and gave them everything. They were not ridiculed or stripped of their humanity and their choices. They were the ones Marked. They were the ones who suffered no loss and pain, those who were given what they wanted and more.

But as Hermione gazed at Draco's pale face, all she could see was a man alone and afraid, who had felt loss as powerful as she. A man who had been forced to make choices not his own and who…

What a fool I've been this whole time!

"Draco, I'm so-"

"You never have to be sorry," he spat from behind clenched teeth. Draco no longer looked at Hermione, but into somewhere she could not reach. "It was scarlet fever, the Healers say. I was so busy with work, with this damned Ministry to worry about my own son!"

His voice changed; it became a plaintive moan.

"It was just too much for me! I was young and confused, pulled in a thousand different directions, focused on my new life, my wife who needed constant coddling and reaffirmation and a job that was taking my life unbeknownst to me!"

He was trembling now.

"I could have taken more time for my family, but they wouldn't allow it. My father was pushing for the promotion, and I was spending so much time at work…"

He gazed at Hermione brokenly.

"I did love him," he whispered emphatically. "I loved my boy so much! He was my life, that tiny little sliver of light in a world that was so dark! None of us who worked in that Ministry really believed that…"

It had been hopeless.

"Only a few of them really loved what they were doing, Hermione. What Voldemort was making us do."

Hermione searched his face but said nothing.

"I resented having so little control over my own life, but I kept telling myself it was what was expected of me, what I was supposed to do! And then…Scorpius came along."

There was something beautiful about the way a little boy's name fell from the lips of his broken father.

"And he became everything to me. I loved him in a way that I never though I would be able to love. I loved him beyond myself, and if it had been my choice, I would have taken his place."

He gazed down at her for a moment, and Hermione's heart broke at the tears glimmering in the depths of his lost gaze.

"You asked me once if I loved Astoria."

She had, Hermione realized. A lifetime ago, it seemed, though it had only been a few months.

"I couldn't really tell you what I was feeling, not then. And even now…"

He shook his head.

"I resented her. I resented her because I loved our son so fucking much, and she…I never felt that she…"

His fists were clenched.

"She was so cold! It was our son, for Merlin's sake! She treated him just like everything else in our lives! Like he was dispensable…like we could get another! If anything, he was just an accessory to a frivolous life, and so long as he didn't interfere with-"

His eyes rolled to the ceiling, to keep more tears from coming, and Draco felt bloody stupid for trying to hide his emotions from the one woman who might understand them. It was his stupid pride, whatever remnants of it that remained.

"Each day I resented her more. Any chance of us every having a real relationship had passed. I'm not…I'm not sorry."

He swallowed.

"I only miss my baby. She told me that he had the…the sniffles, and I believed her. I believed her!"

He grew agitated.

"If only I had spent more time with him! I could have helped him!" he cried brokenly. "I could have held him and taken him to the hospital sooner. I could have…I-I…"

When he began to sob against her shoulder for everything that he had lost, not only with his son but the baby that she had been unknowingly carrying, Hermione was reminded of the night at the Muggle hotel. The sadness and shock she had felt the first time he fell apart in her arms.

Now,I understand.

She had mocked him. She hadn't believed that he could be afraid. That he could have lost anything. She had resented him for who he was.

But now, she understood.

He was just as lost as she was. He felt as deeply as she did. Her earlier thoughts came rushing back at her.

They are the strong.

No, was that really the truth or what Voldemort wanted everyone to see? They were only as strong as he allowed them to be.

They have the world at their fingertips.

But only those things that he allowed them. And even those things they had to work for. He never just gave his followers anything.

They serve a leader who controls everything and gives them everything.

Yes, a man – no a creature – who controlled not just everything, but their very souls. He - a leader who gave them no real choices, and who erased conscience, destroying the possibility of love, of family, of hope and of happiness.

They are the ones Marked.

Hermione wondered if taking the Mark was as glorious as the Death Eaters believed. Or perhaps they forced themselves to believe such a thing because the alternative was too much to bear.

They are not ridiculed or stripped of their humanity and choices.

How true can that be when they are taken from their families, and forced to do things they not want? How can a great Ministry leave their followers empty and broken, sucking the life out of them as quickly as the Dementor's Kiss? How can they reduce a man as strong as Draco to weeping?

And in the arms of those they hate the most?

It wasn't fair; nothing was fair. As she held him tightly, Hermione cried tears not only for their baby but for Scorpius and for all those from whom the Ministry had taken what was most precious.

Hermione placed her hand over the one that was cradling her belly so protectively and leaned towards him, kissing the wetness of his flesh, tasting his bitter tears, the pain and the sorrow in his heart. And wishing that there was something she could do, even though she couldn't turn back time, no matter how she wanted it.

"I love you. I know you feel alone, but you're not. I'm here."

She felt the twitch of his hand, the way he slipped it into hers with complete trust.

"And we can deal with this together. As long as we have each other, we can make it through this, you'll see. They've only won if they destroy whatever hope that is left. Don't let them do that, Draco. Let me be the hope you need."

Draco pulled away, her words the most wondrous he had ever heard.

"How could there ever be hope after this?"

Hermione closed her eyes, pulling his hand and pressing it against her heart.

"Find it in me," she urged. "If there is nothing else, Draco, find it in me. I'm still here."

She clutched his hand.

"Promise me that we can try together," she whispered. "And it's all I ask."

Her eyes searched his face, and although he never opened his mouth to speak, Hermione knew that he would not leave her; she saw love in his eyes. Love like she had never known before.