June 11, 2030

7pm

Nott Castle, on an unplottable island off the coast of Lowestoft in Suffolk

The world felt like it was physically closing in on him; the darkness of the moonless night choking him as he stared out into the gloom from one of the castle's high windows. Theo's entire body ached, though it might have something to do with the fact that he had no idea when the last time that he had eaten anything was.

He hadn't slept since they'd gone missing, he couldn't. The nightmares of everything that his mind conjured of what was happening to Hermione and Draco was driving him mad. He couldn't even concentrate on his Time Turner research. The lack of sleep had his hands shaking like leaves. He wanted to scream, break things, beg for them to come home to whatever cruel gods had allowed them to be taken.

Hadn't he suffered enough in his life? His childhood, the loss of his mother. He'd struggled through his addictions and clawed his way out of the hole of despair he'd found himself in, just to be teased with a sliver of happiness.

Everything was falling apart. How could he do something as banal as eat and sleep?

It had been six days: one hundred forty four hours, five hundred eighteen thousand four hundred seconds. He could have told someone the number of breaths that he had taken since they had disappeared if someone had asked.

There still was no news of Hermione and Draco. How did the DMLE lose the Head Auror and one of the most senior Auror Healers in the department? Everyone knew that kidnappings for ransom had become popular over the last few years, but Aurors had never before been taken.

Theo's hand shook and he turned facing one of his ancestor's portraits blowing it to pieces with an outburst of wandless magic. The shards of wood flew through the air, cutting Theo's cheek, arms, and neck. He threw his head back, letting out a howl towards the vaulted ceiling. The echo made it circle him as Theo cried, the magic built up in him exploding through his body, decimating the room. The tapestries caught fire and the scorch marks from the outburst scarred the walls while the chandelier hanging above crashed to the ground. The panes of glass burst outwards, falling into the water below.

With the room destroyed, his throat raw, Theo turned and swept out the doorway. There had to be something more he could find. The ministry was dropping the ball on their disappearance, but Draco and Hermione were always bringing their work home with them. Surely something in their office could help find them…

Theo swept through the castle's halls, his mind racing as he thought about the response that his spouses' disappearance had thus far earned. How dare McLaggen be so fucking flippant about it! Every suspicion that Hermione had ever had about the sonofabitch was proved in Theo's eyes. No head of the DMLE should be so dismissive of the disappearance of the Head Auror. It made no sense. None at all! How could this be happening? Wasn't Narcissa's murder enough suffering for their family to bear? Scorpius and Viola were cuddled upstairs in one bed, unwilling to be parted for even a minute. Theo wished he could comfort them better, but he was barely holding himself together as it was. How could he console them? He'd be making a liar of himself if he tried. No! Draco and Hermione had to be alright! They'd keep each other safe. They always had.

Stalking into the room, Theo went straight to the desk Draco had claimed as his own. He began rummaging through the drawers, pulling out parchment with notes scribbled, but finding nothing of any use. When he lifted his gaze, his eyes settled on the liquor cabinet, causing his heart to clench and his hand to ball into a fist.

Theo stared at the cabinet where Draco kept his good Ogden's. He'd left it alone since Pansy had been here a few days ago, but now it felt like the tell tale heart, drawing him in. A promise of how he could survive until they were back…

It was supposed to have been an easy mission. Something to gather a bit of evidence to find out what had caused the magical blackout on the second of May. There was no sign that it was going to be difficult or dangerous, but they were taking on another Auror team and an evidence analyst anyway. His wife was fierce – IS FIERCE. IS FIERCE! She was alive. She had to be. Theo couldn't live without her; he couldn't live without either of them. They had been what had made his life worth living back then. Before them…it had only been pain.

He'd been sober for sixteen years, sixteen years in February. An entire lifetime. The twins' entire lives. One drink was all he needed. One drink to help ease the dark thoughts racing through his mind…

There'd only been some residual energies detected near some stone circle in Wiltshire. They'd kissed him goodbye with smiles on their faces. They'd made love in the early dawn light before they'd gotten dressed for work. He'd smiled at them from the rumpled sheets, promising that he'd be seeing them both later.

The three of them had plans to meet for dinner for Draco's fiftieth birthday that night. Only, Hermione and Draco had never shown up. He'd waited and waited. If he had gone looking for them immediately, would he have found anything?

Why had he trusted the DMLE to find them? He'd never deserved them, not really, and now he'd lost them, because he hadn't kept them safe. He'd never been able to keep anyone he loved safe. His mother's face flashed before his eyes, the details fuzzy with the intervening years. His father had burned almost every image that existed of her after he killed her, leaving Cassandra Nott lost in time.

Theo pulled the bottle from Draco's liquor cabinet. He grabbed the crystal tumbler, the smudge of Draco's lips still visible from the haphazard cleaning charm his husband had used. He could drink from the glass that Draco's lips last touched…

Somehow things had gone horribly wrong on their mission. When the Auror department went to find them, they'd instead found their various tracking devices – placed on them by both the ministry and Theo – to be left behind. Abandoned in the dirt at the crime scene, just tossed to the ground. The other Aurors with them were missing as well, but puddles of blood had been identified as belonging to them, but not Draco or Hermione.

Theo pulled the cork out, the pop echoing in the room. He took a deep sniff of the amber coloured liquid with its magical flame flickering inside. The smell took Theo back to how the burn felt as it slid down his throat. All it would take was one drink and he could relax enough to focus on finding them…

He'd shamelessly bullied Neville into giving him the coordinates and had searched the place himself. In the dust, he found their wedding rings, the health and location tracking charms useless where they lay discarded like rubbish in the dirt. Upon finding them there without any sign of Hermione and Draco, Theo had fallen to his knees. Weeping with the rings clutched in his hand, not giving a damn who might see him. The loves of his life had been stolen from him. The heartbreak was indescribable: his soul was fissuring.

They had been erased from the world as though they had never existed. If it hadn't been for Viola and Scorpius' existence, he would have believed that their lives had been a dream. A blissful image that his mind had so kindly conjured for him after a lifetime of agony. His spouses couldn't be an illusion though, their children proof.

He poured the fire whiskey into the tumbler. The liquid swished in the glass, spilling onto his trembling hand…

Pansy telling him that Lucius was the one who had murdered Narcissa ran through his head over and over. Lucius had kidnapped Draco and Hermione, Theo knew it in his soul. That fucking bastard had faked his death and hidden out all this time, only to show up to destroy his family. Lucius would never have been able to tolerate a Mudblood daughter-in-law, so wherever he had been he couldn't have known about their marriage and the twins. Theo had to keep the twins safe from that madman.

He lifted the tumbler to his lips, breathing in the warmth of the drink…

Just as he began to tip the glass, Draco's face when he woke up from his overdose flashed before his eyes. Hermione when she told him how proud she was when he hit his second year of sobriety. When Viola and Narcissa baked him special cookies to celebrate his fifth anniversary. All the years that blurred together when he was still drinking and using drugs and potions, whores, in and out of Muggle jail, and almost killing himself regularly with sheer disdain for his own life and bleak existence.

He couldn't go back to that place. He could drown in despair, but he needed to do it clear headed.

The tumbler dropped from his hand, smashing against the ground. Shards and liquid spread over the stone floor like a stream as it ran down the slight slant of the room. In a furry, he reached for the decanter and smashed it to the ground too, the mess was tenfold. The room now smelled of firewhisky, he could taste it without having had a drop, causing his body to shiver.

He might as well have failed.

He dropped to his hands and knees, the broken glass cutting into his trousers and the flesh of his palms. The firewhisky stung the fresh wounds, but he welcomed the pain. His blood and the amber liquid mixed together on the cold stone floor and now in his bloodstream.

Not a drop had entered his body in years and now he absorbed the forbidden liquid in a cruel manner.

He brought his cut hands up to his mouth to lick his wounds, iron and alcohol coated his tongue and the salty taste of tears.

He was pathetic.

A worthless animal licking self-inflicted wounds while the loves of his life were lost – missing.

He didn't deserve them. He would trade his life so that he could bring Draco and Hermione back. Bring them back so that Scorpius and Viola could have them, their real parents. Theo never belonged, what happened to them was somehow his fault, he knew it.

Every bad thing was always his fault.

"Papa?" Viola's quiet voice drew him from where he was kneeling on the floor. "Are you…drinking?"

The shame of his actions filled him as he looked over his shoulder where his daughter stood taking in the state of the room. The opened liquor cabinet and the shattered glass in pools of firewhisky that Theo was knelt in. Her brilliant blue eyes shined, unshed tears pooling just behind her glasses as she watched him.

"Viola…" Theo whispered, lifting himself from the ground and walking towards her. "I'm a weak man without your mum and dad."

"Did you have a drink?" She demanded, so much like her mother in both looks and spirit.

"No," he told her, but she looked sceptical at the broken glass all over the floor, but let Theo gather her into a hug. "I love you so much, you know that?"

She nodded into his chest, her own tears spilling as she held onto him tighter. Theo's body tensed at first before allowing himself to melt into the comfort he could only find with his child. They stood in silence, both leaning into each other for the support that they needed.

"They are dead aren't they? Like Aunt Ginny?" Viola whispered her voice desperate for reassurance. Theo looked up and saw Scorpius standing in the doorway looking like the ghost of Draco and he couldn't force the optimistic words past his lips.

And he couldn't tell his children the cruel truth. The words stuck in his throat and wouldn't come any more than empty platitudes.

There was very little hope. Theo could see on his children's faces that they knew it too.

End notes: Thanks to emotionalsupporthufflepuff and sobsinashell for a/b-ing.