Chapter 4

Theo exploded through the fireplace like an opera singer mid-final act, a storm of soot, flailing limbs, and raw emotional chaos, coughing dramatically as if the very Floo Network had betrayed him. A blackened shoe flew off in one direction, his scarf uncoiled like a distressed serpent, and by the time he landed on the rug in a heap of melodrama, his robes looked like they'd survived a war. Hermione, nestled into her armchair with a mug of tea and a copy of Witch Weekly's Magical Theory Digest, barely looked up. The only reaction she gave him was the long-suffering sigh of someone who had absolutely seen this before.

"Granger!" Theo cried, staggering upright like a sailor tossed ashore by a shipwreck, then throwing himself onto the nearest chaise lounge with the passion of a man who had known love, loss, and probably a minor wardrobe malfunction. "Granger, I have arrived bearing tragedy—a calamity, an emotional apocalypse! My life is in shambles, dust, ruin, like a broken Time-Turner abandoned in a puddle of despair! I am perishing, darling! My very soul is fraying like poorly-hemmed velvet!"

Hermione blinked slowly, setting her book aside with a thump, and lifted her tea for a long, steady sip before answering with perfect, surgical dryness. "Oh, Merlin. What now? Did you just find out Destiny's Child broke up?"

Theo froze mid-rant, a hand pressed to his chest as if she had physically stabbed him. "MY. GIRLS. BROKE. UP?!" His face contorted in a mixture of horror and heartbreak, his knees buckling as he flung himself dramatically onto the rug like a dying poet in the rain. "No. No. Granger. Granger. Say it isn't true! Say it's just one of your cruel Muggle rumors!"

Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose, already regretting the joke. "Theo. That happened years ago. Beyoncé's been solo for ages. She's practically a magical goddess. You literally went to a party themed after her last album."

Theo gasped, as if remembering something sacred. He clutched his heart, staggered upright with the grace of a tragic widow, and exhaled shakily. "Oh, thank Morgana. She's still ascending. The others? I mean—Michelle was… sweet. But Beyoncé?" He threw his head back. "She's a deity. She walked so veela could fly."

Hermione arched a brow, setting her mug aside with a soft clink. "Alright, drama king, now that you've mourned Destiny's Child—again—what brings you here this time? Is this another fashion emergency or are you being haunted by a ghost of your own indecision?"

Theo, eyes wide and voice suddenly grave, clutched the nearest throw pillow like a lifeline. "Granger… this is no laughing matter. I am—" he lowered his voice to a hush, as though confessing a dark curse to a priestess at a sacred temple, "—cursed."

Hermione blinked. "Cursed."

"Yes!" he leapt from the chaise, striding to the center of the room like an actor taking stage, one arm raised toward the heavens. "Afflicted with the most devastating, unrelenting, soul-destroying affliction known to wizardkind!"

She leaned forward just a touch, amusement blooming behind her eyes. "Dragon pox?"

"WORSE."

"A love potion accident?"

"WORSE."

She tilted her head, utterly deadpan. "You ran out of your stupidly expensive enchanted beard oil?"

Theo gasped. "Rude. No. Worse than all of that. I am suffering from the most ancient, most irreversible form of human torment: feelings!"

He turned away, one hand dramatically pressed to his temple, the other thrown out as if conducting a silent orchestra of his own suffering. "I have feelings, Granger. Emotions. The embarrassing kind! The messy kind! The kind that make you want to write sonnets and bathe in starlight and scream into your pillow like a fourth year!"

Hermione chuckled under her breath and leaned back in her chair, eyes warm with reluctant fondness. "Alright, you lovesick banshee. Who is it this time? Don't tell me you've fallen for that third-year divination tutor again. She's literally seventeen, Theo."

His expression dropped the theatrics for a moment—just a moment—and something unexpectedly soft passed across his face. He clutched the pillow tighter, suddenly silent. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, he said, "Luna Lovegood."

Hermione blinked.

Theo nodded, clutching the pillow like it contained the last fragments of his dignity. "Yes. Luna. Her. The ethereal creature of stardust and madness. She wore radish earrings to the Ministry gala, Granger. Radish earrings. And I swear to the gods above and below, I've never wanted to propose to someone faster in my entire life."

Hermione stared at him for a beat, completely unsure whether to laugh, sigh, or summon a calming draught. "…You've lost your mind."

"She is my mind!" he wailed, pacing in circles. "She floats. Like a moonbeam! Like she doesn't even walk! She glides through existence as if the laws of gravity were mere suggestions. I saw her feeding a bowtruckle a cherry tart last week and I haven't stopped thinking about it since."

Hermione rubbed her temples. "So you're in love with Luna."

"Yes!" He spun toward her, eyes wild with wonder. "And I fear I am not built to handle it. I am weak. I am but a fragile poet with a shattered heart. She smiled at me in the greenhouse and I dropped my wand, Granger. DROPPED. MY. WAND. IN FRONT OF SPROUT."

Hermione finally let the laughter out, full and bright, covering her mouth with one hand. "Oh, Theo."

He collapsed onto the floor beside her chair, resting his head against her knee with a pitiful sigh. "What do I do? I can't tell her. What if she looks at me with those celestial eyes and says something devastatingly kind like 'I think you're interesting in a plant-adjacent way' and then just floats off into the woods forever?"

She patted his hair, still chuckling. "Then you follow her into the woods, Theodore, and marry her in a circle of mushrooms with a bowtruckle as your best man."

He gasped again, his entire body seizing with theatrical longing as though Hermione had dangled some forbidden, celestial fruit just beyond his reach. "Don't tempt me, woman," he whispered with the weight of a Shakespearean ghost, staggering back a step with one hand pressed to his chest like she'd physically struck him. "That sounds like a dream. A dream crafted by veela and woven by love-sick nymphs in a moonlit glade. A dream I would walk into willingly and never leave. And therein lies the problem!" he cried, throwing his arms to the heavens like a prophet mid-apocalypse.

Hermione blinked, utterly unfazed by the passion storm unfolding in front of her, letting his operatic spiral run its course before folding her hands in her lap. "And that's… a bad thing, how exactly?" she asked dryly, brow arched. "You've literally been assigned to marry her. You didn't even have to go through the painful, messy part of falling in love with someone unavailable. If anything, I'd say the Ministry's terrible social engineering finally got something right for once."

Theo whirled around like she'd just told him gravity had been revoked. "Great timing?" he echoed in disbelief, pacing like a man preparing to deliver his final monologue. "Granger, this is not great timing! This is a tragedy of the highest order! A romantic farce with dire consequences! It's a disaster, an emotional avalanche barreling down the mountain of my otherwise perfectly curated aloof mystique! I was doing fine being cryptic and elusive and unreadably mysterious—and now I'm in love?! With Luna?! The most celestial being to ever exist in this cold, cruel world?!"

Hermione calmly picked up her tea, letting him swirl in his vortex of melodrama. "Falling in love is the worst thing?" she asked, casually sipping. "Theo, you're literally being forced to marry her. Wouldn't it be worse if you didn't love her? Like most of us poor bastards?"

"No!" he shouted, stopping dead in the center of the rug and throwing his head back in a tortured wail. "No, you don't understand! It's worse because I do love her! What if she doesn't feel the same? What if she finds me… I don't know, unremarkable? What if she looks at me and thinks, 'Ah yes, that disheveled man who smells vaguely like expensive cologne and existential dread—what a charming waste of potential!'"

Hermione snorted into her mug. "Oh no. Not existential dread."

Theo whipped around. "Don't mock me! She's perfect! She floats, Granger. She floats. Like she was born of dream logic and dew. She has this aura—this ethereal stillness—and I turn into a fainting Victorian heroine every time she breathes in my direction. I'm useless. I dropped my wand the last time she said my name."

Hermione couldn't help it anymore. She laughed—loud and bright and very unhelpful, and Theo clutched at the lamp he had almost knocked over, as if it were the only thing keeping him from collapsing entirely.

"She sparkled in the moonlight the other night," he hissed. "SPARKLED. I didn't even know people could do that. I swear to Merlin I saw a halo forming."

"She wore glitter, Theo. It was a bottle of enchanted body shimmer. She probably picked it up in Diagon Alley."

"WELL THEN DIAGON ALLEY NEEDS TO BE RECOGNIZED FOR PRODUCING THE MATERIALS OF GODDESSES!" he shouted. "I am doomed. She's going to wake up married to me and realize she could have done so much better. She'll look at me and think, 'Oh no. I've wed a man who cries at poetry and once got emotionally attached to a cursed mirror.'"

Hermione set down her tea, sympathy finally softening her laughter. She stood and crossed the room to where he was now kneeling beside the lamp, cradling it like a newborn. "Theo," she said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder, "Luna won't think that. She sees people. Really sees them. And you? You see her. Not the Ravenclaw oddball everyone whispers about. Not the girl who talks to creatures no one else believes in. You see the way she feels, and that means something. You don't have to be perfect. She doesn't want perfect. She wants true. And you're terrifyingly true, Theo."

He blinked up at her, lip wobbling slightly. "But what if I ruin it? What if I say something and she laughs?"

Hermione crouched beside him, her hand still resting on his shoulder. "Then she'll laugh with you, not at you. She's probably waiting for you to say something. You'll never know if you keep hiding behind sarcasm and swooning theatrics."

Theo groaned, burying his face in the crook of his arm. "I hate it here. I hate emotions. I want to go back to being a cryptic, morally ambiguous enigma with emotional intimacy issues and an aesthetic wardrobe."

"You still have the wardrobe," Hermione said helpfully, patting his back. "And the intimacy issues."

"Thank Morgana for small mercies," he whimpered.

She smiled. "Now pull yourself together, lover boy. You're going to ask Luna Lovegood if she'd like to have tea with you. And then you're going to marry her under a moonbeam with a choir of singing puffskeins like the romantic lunatic you are."

Theo let out a long, miserable sigh, slowly rising to his feet like a man condemned to joy. "Fine. But if she says yes, I expect you to plan the wedding. I'll be too busy hyperventilating into lace samples."

Hermione just laughed, and Theo clutched at his chest once more. "Pray for me, Granger. I'm about to confess to a woman who once made eye contact with a thestral and said it was 'good vibes only.'"

~~~

Draco returned to the manor late that evening, his coat dusted with a fine mist of frost from the night air and his thoughts still tangled in half-formed ideas about work, schedules, and how unreasonably smug Blaise had been during their last meeting. He was expecting the usual—silence, stillness, that heavy, centuries-old quiet that clung to Malfoy Manor like a second skin—but instead, as soon as he stepped past the threshold, he was greeted by a thunderous, unmistakable sound that made him freeze mid-step. From somewhere deep inside the house came the unmistakable, unapologetic beat of Beyoncé's Diva, echoing off the marble floors and antique walls like the manor itself had decided to host a nightclub.

He blinked, disoriented, his ears catching the fierce, unmistakable chorus—"Take it to another level, no passengers on my plane!"—screamed more than sung by a voice that definitely belonged to someone not Beyoncé. It was followed by another voice, just as enthusiastic and at least two octaves off-key, harmonizing—or attempting to—with the first. Draco pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled through his teeth, the corners of his mouth twitching despite himself. With a resigned sigh and reluctant curiosity blooming in his chest, he followed the chaos, the thudding bass guiding him like some kind of enchanted breadcrumb trail straight to the living room.

What he found when he stepped into the doorway was nothing short of a drunken fever dream: Hermione and Theo, arms slung around each other's shoulders like loyal war comrades mid-battle, swaying side to side in an uncoordinated rhythm, their wine glasses sloshing dangerously with every movement. Hermione's hair was a mess of curls frizzed out by humidity and mischief, and Theo had removed his shoes and socks and was currently waving his arms in the air like he was headlining the Celestina Warbeck farewell tour. The room looked like the aftermath of a celebration gone slightly sideways—empty wine glasses littered the coffee table, snack crumbs dusted the carpet, and there was a feather boa involved for some reason Draco didn't want to know.

Leaning against the doorway, arms crossed and one amused brow arched, he took in the scene with a mixture of confusion and bemused affection. "What in Merlin's name is happening here?" he asked, his tone dry but touched with genuine curiosity, because nothing about this screamed normal, even by their chaotic standards.

At the sound of his voice, both Theo and Hermione turned like a pair of startled nargles caught mid-heist. Theo, eyes glassy with wine and self-pity, grinned like a man who had no shame left in his soul and raised his glass in triumph, splashing half its contents onto his already stained shirt. "Draco!" he cried, beaming like a man reunited with a long-lost lover. "You're just in time, mate! We're having a Beyoncé appreciation night—a cultural event, if you will!"

Hermione, flushed and sparkling with alcohol-induced mirth, stumbled toward him with a grin that practically split her face. She clutched her wine glass like it was her lifeline and gestured grandly toward the speaker, still belting Beyoncé at top volume. "He's not lying! We're taking it to another level—no passengers on our plane!" she warbled dramatically, before collapsing in giggles and nearly tripping over Theo's discarded socks.

Draco blinked at the both of them, trying very hard not to laugh. "I see," he said slowly, stepping over an upturned cushion as he walked toward the couch where Theo had now collapsed like a swooning debutante. "And here I thought you two would be doing something mature this evening, like reading The Prophet or perhaps plotting world domination."

Theo let out a dramatic groan, clutching at his heart. "Oh, Malfoy, you don't understand the depths of my despair. The tragedy of it all. The weight of unspoken love!" He threw his head back against the cushion as if gravity itself was too much to bear.

Draco arched a brow and nudged an empty bottle aside with his foot. "Still hopelessly in love with Lovegood, are we?"

At that, Theo let out a sound that could only be described as a wounded falcon in a soap opera. "It's not hopeless, it's epic! It's the stuff of doomed poetry and star-crossed sonnets! I am a man consumed by longing!" He pointed a trembling finger toward the ceiling. "She haunts me, Draco. Like a beautiful, ethereal ghost who smells like peppermint and questionable tea."

Hermione had made it back to the couch and was patting Theo's shoulder with a sympathy that was about seventy-five percent mockery. "I told him she's probably just waiting for him to say something," she said with a shrug, then leaned closer and added in a stage whisper, "But nooooo, he's convinced she's going to reject him and go live in a tree."

Draco snorted. "I'm fairly certain Luna has better things to do than reject you and live among the squirrels, Theo."

Theo sat up, eyes wide with exaggerated offense. "How dare you insult the whimsical migration patterns of Luna Lovegood?! She is a creature of mystery! A goddess! I'd live in a tree if she told me to. I'd become one with the bark."

Before Draco could muster a retort, Theo staggered to his feet with the air of a man taking his final bow at a tragic opera. He thrust his arms out dramatically toward the fireplace. "But alas, I must take my leave! My heart can bear this torment no longer! I shall return to my lonely, echoing manor, where the wine flows freely but love—love remains just out of reach!" He tripped on his own foot, caught himself on the armrest, then straightened like it was all part of the plan.

Hermione clapped daintily. "Bravo. Ten points to Hufflepuff."

Theo wiped an invisible tear from his cheek and stepped into the fireplace with the gravity of a man marching into exile. "Farewell, cruel world! Don't let the nargles bite!" he cried, and with a swirl of green flames, he was gone.

The room fell quiet save for Beyoncé crooning in the background, and Draco turned slowly to look at Hermione, who was still giggling into her wine glass.

Theo vanished in a dramatic flourish of green flame, his final wail about "unrequited lunar love" still echoing faintly off the manor walls, and as the smoke dissipated and the chaos finally settled, Draco let out a long, indulgent sigh—the kind of weary exhale a man only released after surviving something equal parts absurd and endearing. The silence that followed was almost sacred, a calming balm after the dramatic storm Theo had brought with him, and Draco took a moment just to breathe, to savor the rare tranquility that now drifted through the halls of Malfoy Manor.

When he turned back toward the couch, he found Hermione still curled against the armrest, looking like something out of a painting that belonged in a private, well-guarded gallery. Her hair was a halo of wild curls around her flushed cheeks, her wine-sparkled eyes unfocused but brimming with a sleepy, mischievous sort of joy. She looked entirely at home and entirely too tempting.

"Hello, my drunken little princess," Draco said, his voice a rich, teasing drawl as he crossed the room in slow, measured strides, his boots muffled by the thick rug. He sank down beside her, careful not to disturb the delicate moment, and tilted his head to study her with a half-smile that betrayed far more affection than he'd ever willingly admit aloud.

Hermione's grin widened at the sight of him, her glassy gaze locking onto his like he was the only thing worth looking at in the entire world. "Hello, Prince," she slurred, the title tumbling off her tongue in a drunken purr, and then—without warning, without hesitation, without giving him a moment to prepare—she leaned forward and pressed a slow, feather-soft kiss to his cheek, the kind of kiss that wasn't just sweet but unreasonably intimate. The kind that lingered. The kind that made his stomach twist in the most deliciously uncomfortable way.

The heat that shot through him was immediate and devastating. It wasn't a fire; it was a slow, smoldering burn that started at the place where her lips had touched his skin and spread like molten lava beneath the surface, low and wicked and impossible to ignore. His heart kicked up, his breath stuttered, and desire pooled deep and heavy in his stomach with a humiliating swiftness he couldn't control.

It was maddening. Ridiculous. Infuriating. How could she do this to him—completely unravel him—with something so innocent? A kiss on the cheek. That was it. But every time she touched him, no matter how subtle, no matter how casual, his entire body seemed to short-circuit. It wasn't fair. It wasn't normal. It was… her.

And she didn't even know what she was doing to him. Or maybe she did.

Hermione blinked up at him with a lazy, disarming smile, her fingers trailing down the front of his shirt like she had every right to touch him, like they hadn't spent years hating each other. Her hand was warm, and her touch slow and soft and maddening. "Did you miss me?" she asked, voice dipped in playful syrup, the words curling around him like smoke.

Draco bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from groaning aloud, because he could feel it—that line between restraint and surrender fraying with every heartbeat. She was tipsy. Gloriously tipsy and utterly unaware of the power she wielded, and Merlin help him, it was torture. "Incredibly, love," he murmured, and it wasn't even a lie. He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, inhaling the scent of her shampoo and the underlying scent that was just her, trying to ground himself in the motion.

But then she shifted again, nuzzling against his side like a sleepy kitten, and her fingers—those damned curious fingers—trailed lower, slow and teasing, until they hovered just above the waistband of his trousers, and Draco felt every nerve in his body go on high alert.

He caught her hand with gentle firmness, lifting it and pressing it back against his chest before she could go any further. "Now, now, princess," he said, his voice thicker than he wanted it to be, barely managing to disguise the heat bubbling beneath his calm exterior. "You're quite drunk, and as much as I would love—so very much love—to indulge you right now, I think it's best if we get you to bed before I lose the last of my common sense."

Hermione pouted at him, her bottom lip jutting out in a way that was completely unfair, like she knew exactly how much it tested his willpower. She leaned back into the cushions with a dramatic little sigh, her expression the picture of innocent disappointment—except she wasn't innocent, not really, not when she looked at him like that and touched him like that and acted like she didn't know the storm she was stirring inside him.

Draco ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly as he tried to regain control of himself. Merlin, this woman was going to be the death of him. And yet, as he reached over to pull a blanket around her and watched her eyelids flutter closed with the soft, contented sigh of someone who knew she was safe, he also knew—without a shadow of a doubt—that he wouldn't want to die for anyone else.

~~~

A month later—just when she had begun to believe that things were settling, that her strange new life had found a semblance of rhythm, that perhaps the war was finally far enough behind them to allow for peace—Hermione's worst nightmare arrived not with a bang, not with shouts or chaos or the trembling ground of battle, but in the cruel hush of morning light, in the rustle of owl wings, in the innocent thunk of a letter sliding through the mail slot and landing softly on the manor's cold, marble floor. It was harmless at first glance—a crisp envelope sealed in red wax, bearing the official crest of the Ministry, polished and formal and utterly unassuming—and yet the moment her fingers touched it, a chill crept up her spine, some buried instinct warning her of what was inside, what fresh hell bureaucracy had conjured this time.

Ministry of Magic Decree: Marriage and Procreation Requirements

Dear Mrs. Malfoy,

We are writing to inform you that, in accordance with the newly established Decree for the Preservation of Wizarding Kind, all married couples are now legally required to produce at least one child within three years of their union. This measure has been enacted to ensure the survival and continued prosperity of the wizarding population.

Failure to comply with the decree will result in severe penalties, which may include substantial fines, enforced community service, or, in extreme cases, imprisonment. We understand that this mandate may cause concern, but it is crucial that you and your spouse fulfill this obligation to avoid further action.

Should you require assistance or guidance on matters of family planning, fertility, or any related concerns, please contact the Department of Magical Family Services at your earliest convenience. Our experienced and compassionate staff are available to provide support and address any questions you may have.

We trust you will handle this matter with the seriousness it deserves and fulfill the Ministry's expectations.

Sincerely,

Kingsley Shacklebolt

Ministry of Magic

Whitehall, London

She stared at the letter in stunned silence, her eyes wide and unblinking, her heart crashing against her ribs in erratic, panicked thuds. It was as if the words weren't real at first, as if her mind refused to comprehend them, refused to believe that this—this—was the reality she now lived in. But the longer she looked, the clearer they became, until each syllable burned itself into her brain like a brand.

Her fingers, once so steady, began to tremble, the parchment quivering in her hands. The delicate black ink seemed to blur before her eyes, the sweeping curves of the Ministry's elegant script now distorted by the welling of tears that threatened to fall, thick and hot and relentless. She tried to blink them away, tried to hold on, but it was futile—one spilled, then another, then more, until the entire letter swam in her vision, until the words themselves bled down the page like open wounds.

A child. They wanted her to have a child. Not just wanted—they demanded it. Within three years. Or else. No privacy. No choice. No consent. Just an edict, cold and clinical, wrapped in the polished language of state-sanctioned expectation, as if reproduction were no more complicated than a signature on parchment. As if she and Draco were livestock to be bred for the greater good. As if her body wasn't hers at all.

The letter fell into her lap, but she didn't notice. Her hands clenched around it, crumpling the once-pristine paper until the edges tore, her knuckles white with rage and despair. The first sob ripped free of her chest without warning—raw, painful, the kind that left claw marks behind—and then another followed, and another, until she was folded over herself, her whole body shaking, arms wrapped tight around her stomach like she could hold herself together, like she could keep the weight of this decree from splintering her completely.

The walls of the manor, usually so vast and echoing, seemed to shrink around her, pressing in with oppressive silence. The light from the windows felt too harsh, too bright, like it was exposing something ugly inside her, some wound that had never properly healed from the war, from the trials, from the price they had all paid in blood and sacrifice. This was supposed to be after, wasn't it? The future. The reward. But instead, here she was, trapped in a golden cage, her body legislated by men who had never once fought on the front lines, who had never bled beside her, who had never lost everything and crawled back from it.

She wanted to scream. To throw something. To disappear. But there was nowhere to go. Nowhere the law couldn't follow. Nowhere this mandate wouldn't reach.

Her sobs, at first quiet and restrained, grew louder with every passing second, no longer muffled or hidden but raw and aching, echoing through the hollow stone corridors of the manor like a haunting melody of grief, bouncing off the ancient walls with a kind of aching reverberation that made the silence feel colder, heavier, more suffocating. It wasn't just crying anymore—it was a collapse, an unraveling, the sound of someone who had held on for far too long and was now breaking under the unbearable weight of one final cruelty. The decree—so clinical, so carefully worded in the Ministry's polished, bureaucratic language—might as well have been a dagger driven into her chest, its blade twisting with every syllable that told her her body was not hers, her choices were irrelevant, her future already written in ink by hands that had never held hers, never once thought to ask what she wanted.

The crushing force of those words—the cold, inked command that she must bear a child within a state-sanctioned timeline or face consequences like a criminal—pressed down on her lungs, stealing the air, making each breath a jagged, shallow gasp. Her hands trembled violently, her limbs curling inward as her body instinctively tried to protect itself from a threat it couldn't touch but could feel in every cell, every nerve. She had spent her entire life fighting—for justice, for freedom, for the right to be seen as equal in a world that had told her from the start that she wasn't—and now, after all the bloodshed, after all the victory speeches, after the ashes of the war had settled and they were promised something better, this was what she was handed.

Powerlessness.

Total, suffocating powerlessness.

The realization was too much, unbearable in its finality. Her body began to tremble, wracked with violent, uncontrollable shudders as sobs tore out of her throat, ugly and painful and merciless. There was no composure to cling to, no logic to reason her way through, no plan to make it right. The dam had burst. The fight in her—so resilient, so fierce, so legendary—was crumpling under the sheer force of helplessness, drowning in the flood of emotions that poured out in waves she couldn't stop.

The letter slipped from her hands, fluttering down like a discarded feather, but there was nothing soft or delicate about the way it hit the floor. It fell with a finality that felt cruel, curling at the edges where her fingers had dug into it like it had physically hurt her, like the parchment itself carried poison. She didn't even look at it. Couldn't. It was as though seeing it again would splinter her further.

Instead, Hermione curled in on herself, buried her face in her shaking hands, and let the anguish pour out. Her breath came in desperate, broken gasps, and each sob that escaped her chest was jagged and uncontained, the sound of someone who had given everything to a cause only to find herself betrayed by the very system she had once helped rebuild. It wasn't just sadness—it was rage, despair, loss, helplessness, fear. It was all of it, tangled into a single, overwhelming grief.

And beneath it all was the deepest cut of all: betrayal.

Not from an enemy. But from the Ministry she had once trusted. The institution she had fought for, defended, believed could be transformed into something just, something fair. The very place where her name had once stood for change was now the same institution that dictated what went on in her womb. They had legislated her body. Stripped her of consent. Demanded something so intimate, so sacred, without ever once asking her if she was ready. If she even wanted this with Draco. If she had healed enough from the war to become a mother. If she could even imagine bringing a child into a world that had already taken so much from her.

And Draco... sweet Merlin, Draco.

Their marriage was still new, still uncertain. They were trying—tentatively, awkwardly—but it wasn't love yet. Not that kind. Not the kind that led to lullabies and cradles and soft blankets tucked around tiny bodies. She didn't know what they were. Didn't even know what she felt most days, and now, the Ministry wanted her to perform the most vulnerable, irreversible act with a man she still barely understood. They wanted her to give birth to an obligation, not a choice. To carry a child out of duty, not love.

And so she wept, because there was nothing else she could do.

She wept until the room felt like it was spinning, until her chest burned from the effort of breathing, until her throat ached from the cries she couldn't contain. She wept because her fight had been stolen from her, and now, she wasn't a war hero or a brilliant witch or a woman at all—she was a vessel.

A vessel with a deadline.

~~~

Draco arrived home from the Ministry, his steps heavy, slow, almost reluctant, dragging along the polished marble floor like his legs belonged to someone else—someone hollowed out, someone barely holding together the fragile illusion of composure that had already begun to crack the moment that infernal envelope had been pressed into his hands with the words "urgent, private," scrawled in that familiar bureaucratic font that always meant bad news disguised as law. His grip tightened around the letter, fingers clenching until the thick parchment crinkled under the pressure, the wax seal already broken, though the contents might as well have still been burning a hole through it. His usual mask—cool, polished, aristocratic detachment—was shattered, discarded somewhere between his office and the front door, and what remained in its place was something far more human: panic, disbelief, and a raw, visceral fear that scraped at the inside of his chest like a dull blade.

He stood frozen in the vast emptiness of the foyer, staring at nothing and everything all at once, his eyes wide, unblinking, as if the walls themselves might offer answers, might explain how his life had twisted itself into such a grotesque parody of choice. His shoulders were tense, spine rigid, posture betraying a man who had just been handed a sentence rather than a piece of correspondence—because that's what it was, wasn't it? A sentence. A demand masquerading as duty, dressed up in formalities and wrapped in state-sanctioned cruelty. A decree from the very government he'd been forced to believe was different now, better now, reformed and noble. Ha.

His mind spun, spiraling so fast it made him nauseous. A baby. The word echoed like a curse. Not a suggestion, not a plan to be discussed with his wife—not that they even truly had that kind of relationship yet—but a legal obligation. A ticking clock now strapped to both of their backs, counting down the days until their very existence together was no longer just a political performance, but a biological requirement.

They had to produce a child.

Within three years.

Or face fines. Or imprisonment. Or public shame, more likely. The Malfoy name dragged through the mud again, only this time not because of dark allegiances or past sins, but because he—Draco Malfoy—had failed to perform.

And then the cruelest thought of all arrived uninvited, like a hex to the gut.

They hadn't even kissed.

That single, brutal truth hit him harder than any curse ever had, harder than Sectumsempra, harder than his father's disappointment, harder than the war. He and Hermione had spent the past few months dancing awkwardly around each other, teetering between politeness and passive aggression, tolerating one another in the quiet, lonely halls of the manor while carefully avoiding any intimate topic like it was made of live explosives. They had managed a truce, perhaps even the beginnings of a tentative friendship, but love? Sex? Children? They were galaxies away from that.

And he—Merlin help him—was light-years behind.

The humiliation clawed its way up his throat, bitter and suffocating. Because there it was, the truth he'd buried for years, the one secret he'd guarded so closely he barely admitted it to himself. He was a virgin. A twenty-something former Death Eater, supposed aristocratic dream, now husband-by-decree, and he'd never once been with anyone. Not fully. Not in the way the Ministry now demanded of him. Not in the way that produced children.

"Fuck," he muttered aloud, the word tasting like poison in his mouth, his voice hoarse with disbelief. His hands balled into fists, nails biting into his palms, and he could already hear the echo of imagined ridicule bouncing around in his head—the smirks, the whispers, the sneers of classmates and family members and strangers who would find out one way or another. Draco Malfoy, the great and terrible prince of Slytherin, undone by a decree and a lack of experience. How poetic.

He felt like a joke. Like the punchline of some cruel, divine comedy.

How the fuck was he supposed to do this? How was he supposed to navigate intimacy with someone he hadn't even held hands with? How could he bring life into the world with a woman he wasn't even sure knew how deeply he respected her, how much he was starting to… to feel things he couldn't name? And worse—how could he tell her any of that without dying of shame on the spot?

He stormed down the hallway, his boots loud and angry on the stone floor, the letter now a mangled scrap in his fist. He had to see her. He had to talk to her, even if the very thought of facing her right now made his stomach churn with anxiety and his chest ache with dread. He needed to know she was okay. Needed to see if she was as gutted, as furious, as afraid as he was. Because if she wasn't—if she was fine, if she was calm and composed and ready—then he didn't know what that would do to him.

Each step brought him closer to her room, but also closer to the truth he hadn't faced until this moment: he was terrified of her.

Not because she was cruel. Not because she was powerful, though she was both of those things in her own right. But because Hermione Granger had a way of looking at people and seeing everything. And he wasn't sure he could handle being seen right now—not like this. Not when he felt like less than himself. Not when he didn't even know who he was anymore beneath the weight of all this expectation.

He stopped outside her door, heart slamming against his ribcage like it wanted to break free of him altogether. What if she laughed? What if she looked at him with pity? What if she told him he wasn't enough?

What if she cried?

What if she already had?

That thought alone was enough to push him into motion. He raised his hand, trembling slightly, and knocked. Once. Twice. Then waited.

There she was—his wife, his impossible, brilliant, too-good-for-this-world wife—sitting on the edge of her bed like the very weight of existence had become too much to carry, her shoulders hunched and trembling, her hands clenched in her lap, and that dreadful, crumpled letter lying beside her like a snake on the floor, venom already seeped into her veins. Her face was pale, too pale, the kind of washed-out that only came after hours of crying, and her eyes, usually so sharp, so full of fire and wit and defiance, were red and raw, lashes stuck together with the residue of tears that hadn't stopped flowing. Her cheeks were streaked with misery, and the brokenness etched into every line of her expression made something inside Draco twist violently, like the world had tilted off its axis just at the sight of her this way.

Without even thinking, without planning or bracing himself, he crossed the room in three long strides and dropped to his knees before her, urgency spilling from his every movement as if he could outrun the pain in her eyes. He didn't speak at first, just searched her face—desperate, frantic—for something he could fix, something he could reach, something to make this better. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, a feral rhythm of panic and helplessness and something too deep to name. She looked so small, so breakable in that moment, and he hated it. He hated that the world had done this to her. That he had done this to her. That she was hurting and he hadn't known, hadn't been there when she'd first read the letter and shattered apart.

"I'm so sorry," he breathed, the words raw and guttural as they left him, thick with the weight of everything he didn't know how to say—how sorry he was for the decree, for the Ministry, for the mess of a life they'd been forced into, for not knowing how to hold her sooner, for not being better.

"So am I," she whispered back, and her voice was so fragile, so damn fragile, it made him want to burn the world down just to make it quiet for her again.

His brows furrowed, confusion lacing his expression as he reached up to cup her tear-stained cheek. "Why would you be sorry?" he asked, his voice full of honest bewilderment, because how could she possibly think any of this was her fault?

She looked down, unable to meet his gaze, and when she finally spoke, her voice was paper-thin. "That they chose me. That you have to be married to someone who isn't a pureblood." The moment the words slipped out, her throat constricted with the sob she'd been holding in, and more tears slipped free, tracking down her cheeks like rain against glass.

Draco's breath caught, his chest tightening like someone had just wrapped chains around his ribs. "No, don't—don't say foolish things like that, princess," he said quickly, shaking his head with something close to desperation, his hand still pressed against her cheek like he could anchor her to the truth. "You are the best thing that came out of this horrific situation. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I don't give a single fuck about bloodlines. You're everything." His voice cracked slightly on the last word, but he didn't care. He meant it.

But his words didn't seem to land. They hovered in the air like echoes, barely brushing her as she wept, her body shaking with the force of her sobs. The sound gutted him—absolutely gutted him—and before he could talk himself out of it, he reached for her, arms looping around her waist as he pulled her gently, almost reverently, into his lap. She didn't resist, just melted against him with a broken sound, her arms looping loosely around his neck as her face buried itself in his shoulder.

"Shhh, it's okay," he murmured against her hair, rocking her gently as his hands smoothed over her back, one settling at the base of her spine, the other cradling the back of her head. "You're safe. I've got you. It's okay now."

She straddled him, arms clinging to him like he was the only solid thing left in her world, and he held her tighter, like maybe if he loved her hard enough in this moment, he could soak up all the pain from her body and make it his own. He pressed kisses to her temple, her cheek, her jaw, and every single teardrop that trailed down her skin, his lips reverent, his touch soft in a way he'd never known he was capable of. "You are the best thing I've ever had in life," he whispered against her skin, his voice reverent, like a confession offered at the altar. "You give me hope, Hermione. You make all of this—everything—worth surviving. I don't care what the Ministry says. I don't care what anyone says. You are mine, and you are perfect."

She shifted, lifting her head, her eyes searching his face with a vulnerable sort of awe that made his breath catch. "Malfoy," she whispered, her voice so soft it was almost lost between them. "I never wanted this. I never wanted to be a name on a list, or a womb in a lawbook. I wanted a life. A choice. I wanted love. And now I don't even know what this is."

"I know, love," he murmured, one hand brushing her curls from her face, his thumb trailing gently over her cheekbone. "I know. And you deserved better. We both did. But we're here now. And I swear to you, we're going to find a way through this. Together. We'll fight the decree. We'll make them see us. Not just numbers. Not just names. Us."

She blinked slowly, her lower lip trembling, and he leaned in, resting his forehead against hers, breathing her in like she was the only air left in the world. "You're not just some obligation," he whispered, his voice trembling now too. "You're not a sentence. You're not a law. You're not a pawn in someone else's game. You're my partner. My…" He hesitated, the word pressing against the back of his teeth, huge and terrifying and honest. "My everything."

He didn't know when she had become this to him. He couldn't trace the moment. But somehow, through every fight, every awkward dinner, every accidental brush of fingers and late-night silence, she had carved her way into him so completely, he couldn't remember who he had been before her.

She sobbed against him again, softer now, the edge of the pain dulled just slightly by the feel of his arms around her, the whisper of his voice, the certainty in his embrace. Her tears soaked into his shirt, and still he held her, kissing her hair, her brow, her jaw, over and over again.

Then, in a moment that felt as though time itself had shattered into slow, glimmering fragments suspended between one breath and the next, she turned her face toward him, eyes still damp, lips parted, her expression unreadable until she surged forward with a sudden, desperate boldness. 

He didn't have time to speak, didn't have time to prepare, to second-guess, to blink—because her lips were already on his, and it wasn't the shy, hesitant kiss he might have expected from someone so emotionally frayed. No—it was blistering, aching, a collision of need and pain and everything unsaid between them, and it nearly knocked the breath from his lungs. It was fierce, almost wild, the kind of kiss that tasted like surrender and survival all at once, like a war cry smothered beneath longing, like the sky crashing into the sea. 

His body responded before his mind could catch up—his hands finding her waist, holding tight as if she might vanish if he let go, as if he could anchor her storm with the strength of his touch alone.

He felt her warmth spilling into him, her breath ghosting over his cheek as their mouths moved in sync, and he swore the world fell away—no manor, no Ministry decree, no looming threats or impossible choices—just the two of them locked in this fragile, chaotic magic they didn't yet know how to name. 

The taste of her was sweet with the salt of her tears, the touch of her lips soft but charged with something far deeper than lust—it was grief and defiance and the raw edge of hope, colliding in the form of something sacred. His pulse roared in his ears, his spine tingling with the pressure of her fingers curling into his collar. He deepened the kiss, slow and reverent this time, as if trying to memorize the shape of her mouth, the way she sighed into him, the way her pain turned to something precious and quiet between them.

And when they finally pulled away, lips swollen, breaths ragged, faces still far too close, he didn't move. He just stared at her, eyes raking over every delicate line of her face, searching—aching—for any flicker of regret, any flicker of fear. But all he found was something soft and soul-deep blooming in her expression: the dawning realization that they weren't alone in this—not anymore.

"Draco," she breathed, his name nothing more than a tremble on her lips, her voice thick with every emotion she'd buried deep.

"Shh," he murmured, catching her whisper with the tip of his finger, pressing it gently to her mouth—not to silence her, but to shield her from the weight of things she didn't need to carry in that moment. "No more worries, baby. We'll figure it out. I don't care what the world demands of us. Just know—know this—you mean everything to me. Every fucking thing."

And though the words hung between them like a fragile vow, he could tell from the distant glassiness in her eyes that she hadn't fully heard them—that the storm inside her was still too loud, too heavy, too real for his confessions to break through. It stung, that quiet absence of recognition, that weight of vulnerability unacknowledged, but he didn't show it. Instead, he rose to his feet with that same calm, quiet command she'd come to rely on, extending his hand toward her as she sat stunned on the edge of the bed.

"Come, darling," he said gently, sliding his arm around her waist with more care than she thought possible, "I'll run you a bath. A real one. Hot, relaxing, just the way you like it. Let me take care of you tonight."

"No, I don't—" she began, her voice hoarse with protest, but he was already lifting her effortlessly into his arms. He didn't wait for permission, didn't give her space to argue. She needed this, even if she didn't realize it yet—and he needed to do something, anything, to make her feel safe again.

"Just trust me," he murmured as he carried her down the corridor, her body limp against his chest, her cheek resting near his collarbone. Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment, and when they opened again, he saw something new there—not peace, but the first trembling hint of surrender. Not to him, not to the Ministry, but to the simple truth that maybe, just maybe, she didn't have to fight everything on her own.

When he reached the bathroom, he set her down with painstaking care, her feet brushing the heated tiles as his wand worked wordlessly. Her clothes vanished in a swirl of magic, and steam began to rise from the deep porcelain tub as it filled with water already infused with lavender buds and crushed chamomile—gentle, calming scents she once told him reminded her of summers before the war. He conjured rose petals too, floating pink and white on the surface like something out of a fairytale, because she deserved softness. She deserved to be held in magic that didn't come with conditions.

"There you go, princess," he said, his voice low and velvet-soft, motioning toward the bath. "Step in for me. Let it melt some of that weight off your shoulders."

She stood there, unsure, her arms folded tightly around herself, torn between protest and surrender. But the bathwater called to her like a lullaby, and his voice—his impossible, infuriating, tender voice—coaxed her the rest of the way. She stepped forward, slowly, and dipped a toe into the warmth. Then another. Then all of her.

She let out a long, trembling sigh as she sank beneath the surface, her head resting against the edge, eyes fluttering shut. And for the first time in what felt like days, her body relaxed. Not completely—but enough.

Draco sat down beside the tub, arms draped over his knees, watching her with an expression that was all softness and solemn devotion. "How does it feel?" he asked, his voice quieter now, as though afraid to break the fragile peace that had settled over them.

"It's lovely," she whispered after a long pause. Her voice no longer cracked with anguish. "Thank you."

He nodded, lips twitching into something that resembled a smile. "I'm always here for you, Hermione. I mean that. No matter how messy or unfair this all gets—whatever happens with that decree—we face it together. I won't let them take your choice from you. Not without a fight."

Her eyes opened, and this time, they met his. Clearer. Brighter. Still rimmed with red, but steadier. "I know. And I appreciate it, truly. I'm just… so scared."

"I get it," he said, his voice quiet and firm, a steady hand reaching for hers beneath the water. "But you're not alone anymore. I'll hold you through all of it. Let me carry some of it for you."

She didn't speak again, but she didn't pull away either. And in that silence—bathed in lavender-scented steam, hearts laid bare—they found something stronger than comfort.

They found a beginning.

~~~

But every miracle, no matter how tender or beautifully fragile, eventually bends under the weight of reality, and for Hermione, that miracle unraveled precisely two days later. Two fleeting days of relative quiet, of borrowed peace in a war neither of them had asked to fight. Two days where she'd allowed herself the foolish, dangerous indulgence of calm—of letting herself believe, even for a heartbeat, that maybe, just maybe, this marriage, this house, this man she'd been forced to tether herself to, could become something more than a prison sentence in gilded disguise. 

Two days where Draco's presence—his rare, unguarded softness, the careful way he watched her, listened to her, touched her—was enough to lull the beast of fear inside her into a brief slumber. But, as it always did, reality came roaring back like a wolf to the door, and with it came the embarrassment, the shame, the self-loathing.

The kiss.

That bloody kiss.

It hadn't been gentle or polite. It hadn't been a test or an experiment. It had been raw, fervent, desperate in a way that tasted like both salvation and surrender. It had torn open something inside her that she hadn't realized she'd been keeping locked away for years—something lonely, something hungry, something unbearably human. And now, with the crushing weight of reflection pressing down on her, she couldn't stop asking herself the same questions over and over: How had she let that happen? How could she have lost herself so completely in someone like him? And worst of all—why had it felt so damn good?

She'd thrown herself at Malfoy. Her supposed enemy. Her reluctant husband. She'd reached for him with the kind of wild need that terrified her now in the light of day. And the most damning part? She'd loved it. Every second of it. The warmth of his mouth, the desperate way he'd held her, the quiet groan that had escaped him when she pressed closer. It hadn't been just a kiss—it had been a confession, a plea, a wildfire. And now it haunted her, wrapping itself around her ribs like thorns, threatening to pierce through her skin if she let her guard drop again.

She paced the length of her room like a caged animal, her bare feet whispering across the carpet as she chewed on her bottom lip and muttered to herself. "Stop it. Just stop thinking about it," she hissed under her breath, but her mind had already betrayed her, playing the memory on a loop with agonizing clarity. Every detail was seared into her: the rough drag of his fingers through her hair, the way his chest had shuddered when she kissed him deeper, the tremble in his voice when he called her baby.

But it wasn't the kiss that scared her. Not really.

It was the way it had made her feel—like she wanted more. Not just more kisses, more touches, more breathless gasps in the dark. No, she wanted more of him. More of his truth. More of the strange warmth he carried in the rare moments when he let his mask slip. And that terrified her down to the bone.

Because why him? Why Draco bloody Malfoy? Of all people?

And worse—he had kissed her back. With urgency. With hunger. As if he wanted her just as much. No hesitation. No pulling away. His lips had moved against hers with a hunger that mirrored her own, as if he too had been waiting for something to break between them. And it had. Something had cracked open. Something neither of them was ready for.

"Ugh, gross," she groaned aloud, flopping onto her bed like a teenager caught in the throes of her first crush. She yanked a pillow over her head, muffling the scream building in her throat. What the hell was happening to her? Since when did Hermione Granger fall apart over one kiss? Since when did she entertain fantasies about the shape of a man's mouth or the scent of his skin?

So she did what she always did when the chaos inside got too loud. She built walls. Tall, cold, indestructible walls.

And when Draco came knocking—gentle, curious, hopeful—those walls slammed into place like iron gates.

"Good morning, princess," he said softly, stepping into the room like he was afraid she might bolt. His eyes were careful, searching. "Did you sleep well?"

She didn't look at him. Didn't smile. Didn't even breathe deeply. "Fine," she replied, her voice clipped and empty. "Just… fine."

Draco blinked, thrown. He stood there in the doorway, his heart thudding with the weight of something unnamed. She was different. Distant. Icy. The girl who had kissed him like she needed it to live was gone, replaced by the old Hermione—the closed-off, rigid one who looked at him like he was a problem to be solved and not a person she had once wrapped herself around. He didn't understand. Something had shifted, and he was drowning in the silence of it.

"Princess," he tried again, stepping closer, his brow furrowed. "What's happened?"

Hermione's reaction was immediate. She backed away like his presence physically burned her, her jaw clenching, her arms wrapping tightly around herself as if trying to make her body disappear. "Don't call me that," she snapped, her voice suddenly sharp, her gaze cold. "I don't want to be near you."

His heart stumbled. "What do you mean?" he asked, confusion bleeding into the space between them. "What happened?"

She wouldn't meet his eyes. Her voice trembled, but her words were a blade. "Why did you let me kiss you?"

Draco reeled, stunned. "Let you?" he repeated, shaking his head. "I didn't let you—I kissed you back."

"It was a mistake," she hissed. "A stupid, reckless mistake."

His breath caught. "It didn't feel like a mistake to me."

"Well, it was," she bit out, crossing her arms tighter. "I was a mess. I wasn't thinking straight. I'd just had the worst news of my life and I—" She broke off, her voice cracking before she forced it steady again. "I've always wondered what it felt like to kiss a Death Eater."

The words hit him like a Crucio.

He didn't flinch. He couldn't. Not outwardly. But inside? Something shattered. The pain flared behind his ribs like a second heart.

"I'm not one," he said, his voice low and shaking. "I was never—"

"You were there," she interrupted, stepping closer now, her voice rising like a wave. "That night. You saw what they did. You saw me on the floor. You stood there and did nothing."

Draco's face turned white. His lips parted, but no words came. Because it was true. He had stood there. Helpless. Frozen. He had heard her screams and done nothing. He had watched it all unfold—too afraid, too broken to stop it.

"That girl who used to believe in second chances?" Hermione whispered, and the sound of her voice—soft, tremulous, broken by grief that had been buried far too long—felt like it cleaved through the air like a blade. "She died, Draco. She died on your fucking drawing room floor."

And it didn't matter if he'd held the wand or not. It didn't matter if his hands had trembled or if his voice had caught or if, deep down, he hadn't wanted any of it. Because none of that had changed what she saw every time she looked at him. None of it changed the fact that he'd stood there, just a few meters away, his eyes empty, his arms limp, while the person she'd once been screamed for help in a room full of ghosts and monsters.

He had no rebuttal. No defense that would've been anything other than insultingly hollow. The usual Malfoy charm, the sharp tongue he wielded like a blade, the cold indifference he wore like armor—none of it could help him now. There was nothing clever to say. Nothing that could ever undo what had been done. He simply stood there, his body unmoving but his soul splintering apart, silently crumbling in front of her under the unbearable weight of her gaze, wondering if she would ever—could ever—look at him again without seeing the blood that had once stained her skin.

His chest felt tight, as though her words had reached inside and twisted his heart into something mangled and unrecognizable. He could barely breathe, the air thick with the remnants of everything they'd never said. Her pain poured out of her like wildfire, burning down every fragile bridge they'd tried to build between them.

"I…" he began, his voice cracking on the syllable, reaching out with a hand that shook—not from fear, but from the sheer weight of his own shame. "Darling, please, you don't understand—"

But she did. She understood too well. And she didn't want to hear it.

Before he could get another word out, she closed the distance between them with the fury of a storm unleashed. Her body trembled with rage, her face pale except for the bright flush on her cheeks, and then—without warning, without hesitation—she spat in his face.

The warm wetness hit his skin and he froze, utterly stunned, not by the act itself but by the rawness of it, the unfiltered, seething hatred that had to be boiling inside her to make her do such a thing. His jaw clenched, breath stuttering in his throat as the sticky rivulet ran down his cheek. He didn't wipe it away. Not yet. He stood there and let it sting, let it remind him of exactly what he was to her in that moment.

He reached up slowly, finally brushing the spit from his face, his fingers shaking, and then—more as a defense mechanism than anything else, more out of the instinct to hide behind sarcasm than true amusement—he gave a bitter, humorless laugh and muttered, "Well. That was… quite pleasant."

But he didn't get another second to regroup.

Her hand came down on his cheek with a sharp, punishing crack, the sound ringing out through the manor's sitting room like a gunshot. His head whipped to the side, pain blooming across his face, and his lips parted in a shallow breath as his eyes squeezed shut. It wasn't the slap itself that hurt—it was what it meant. It was the final verdict. The gavel coming down. The sentence passed.

Her voice shook with rage as she stared him down, trembling in the aftermath of the slap, her entire body quivering with the force of her emotions. "That's what I think of you, Malfoy," she hissed, every syllable loaded with venom, but it was the grief underneath that made it so devastating. "Not the man you pretend to be now. Not the husband you try to play when it suits you. Just... you. The boy who watched."

Draco remained where he stood, stunned and motionless, his cheek burning, his throat too tight to speak. The weight of her loathing hit harder than any curse he'd ever endured. Because for all the pain she had suffered, he had never dared to imagine the depth of what she'd buried. Never realized how much of it she had stored up for him.

He had never felt smaller than in that moment—reduced to ash in the eyes of the only person who had ever truly seen him.

And still, all he could do was stand there and take it. Because she was right.

Because no matter how many sleepless nights he spent trying to atone for it, no matter how many gentle moments they shared that hinted at something better, something real—deep down, some part of her would always remember the boy who watched her bleed and did nothing.

~~~

Draco was miserable in a way he hadn't realized was possible for someone who had once been so self-assured, so calculating, so good at burying anything that resembled a real emotion beneath layers of practiced indifference. But now, every second of every day, there was a dull, unrelenting ache settled in his chest that didn't throb or flare but just sat there—a slow, consuming pressure, like a stone wedged between his ribs, growing heavier with each breath, a physical reminder of the fracture in his soul that Hermione had caused, or maybe it had always been there and she was just the only one who ever saw it. It was a strange kind of pain—not the sharp agony of a fresh wound but the hollow ache of something deeply broken, something once beautiful now twisted and scarred. And the worst part, the truly torturous part, was that he had no idea how to fix it. He didn't know how to earn forgiveness, not when he'd spent most of his life being the villain in everyone's story—especially hers. How do you make someone love you when your very presence reminds them of everything they've lost?

He was Draco Malfoy, heir to a lineage of cold superiority and power-hungry legacy, trained since childhood to be ruthless, composed, unshakable. He had been groomed to lead with an iron spine and a frozen heart, taught that softness was weakness and that regret was for the feeble. But none of that armor had prepared him for the quiet devastation that came with falling in love with someone who couldn't even look at him without flinching. He had power, influence, money—every tool at his disposal to move the world at his whim—but not the one thing he wanted most: her.

And Merlin, he had tried. Every instinct, every scrap of strategy in his blood had told him to fix it, to act, to do something, because maybe if he did enough, bought enough, begged enough, she would look at him again with something other than loathing. So he'd started with flowers, the most innocent offering he could think of, desperate for a response. Roses first—dozens of them in every color imaginable, enchanted to stay fresh and impossibly fragrant. Then lilies, then orchids, then tiny gardenias that reminded him of the perfume she used to wear at Hogwarts. Her room was overflowing now, a chaotic, beautiful jungle of his desperation, petals and stems whispering apologies she wouldn't read.

Next came the gifts. Jewels, because that's what rich men did when they didn't know how to express emotion—they spent obscene amounts of money and hoped it would speak in the places they couldn't. Strings of diamonds with matching earrings, sets of emeralds so vivid he imagined them resting against her skin like morning dew. Silks in her favorite colors, velvet robes lined in starlight threads, Muggle-designed couture dresses tailored to her measurements, some he'd had made just because he wanted to see her in them, wanted to imagine what it would feel like to walk into a room with her on his arm, radiant and defiant and his.

But it wasn't working. Nothing worked.

She didn't come down for meals anymore. She didn't respond to the enchanted parchment messages he sent under her door. Her footsteps, soft and fleeting, were the only evidence she even still lived in the manor. And every time he heard the distant click of a door or the whisper of fabric as she moved through the halls like a ghost, his heart clenched like it had been seized by invisible claws. She was there, just a room away, but she might as well have been on another planet.

And it tore him apart.

The silence between them felt like punishment—slow, suffocating, deliberate. He kept going over that night in his head, the kiss they shared, the moment her hands had clutched at his shirt and her lips had met his like she meant it. He'd tasted her tears, felt her tremble, held her like she was the only thing tethering him to the world. And then she'd vanished. Emotionally, mentally, physically. Like she'd regretted it the second it ended. Like touching him had been some horrible mistake.

And gods, maybe it was. Maybe she really had kissed him just to hurt him. He still heard it, the way her voice had sliced him open, hissing that she'd always wondered what it felt like to kiss a Death Eater, and he would flinch every time that memory played again because it had hurt. More than he would admit. More than he even understood. Because she had looked at him in that moment like she saw all the worst parts of him under a microscope—like she wanted to hurt him, and it had worked.

But he couldn't stop wanting her.

And what scared him more than anything was that maybe that want had twisted into need. Not just for her body, not just for her kiss, but for her forgiveness. Her presence. Her attention, even if it came laced with hatred. He wanted her back. Not because of the decree, not because of the forced marriage, not because it was expected of him. But because she mattered. Because somehow, without even trying, Hermione Granger had become the one thing in this cursed, empty manor that made him feel like a person again.

He was pacing now, storming through the library like a caged animal, his thoughts chasing each other in endless, maddening circles. How do you make someone love you? How do you undo the past? How do you rebuild trust when every brick of your foundation was laid with guilt and shame and silence?

He slammed his fist down on the mahogany desk, the impact jarring through his bones. "What else am I supposed to do?" he growled into the silence, the question hollow, echoing. He could give her everything—every Galleon, every heirloom, every inch of his pride—but it wouldn't matter. Because the one thing she wanted was something he could never change: the past.

He sank into the chair, his chest heaving, the room spinning slightly around him as the hopelessness crept in again. He felt lost. Not in the physical sense, but in the way a man is lost when he realizes he's been walking in circles for years, and the exit isn't anywhere to be found. He didn't know how to move forward anymore. He didn't even know how to breathe without thinking of her.

And the most devastating part?

She didn't even know.

She didn't know that she'd become the gravity keeping him from floating into darkness. That every cruel word she hurled cut deeper because it came from the one person he wanted to protect, to adore, to be enough for. She didn't know that the reason he kept sending gifts, kept showing up, kept trying—wasn't just because he felt guilty. It was because he was in love with her.

And it was killing him.

Because she hadn't opened a single note. Not one.

And he didn't know if she ever would.

With renewed determination flaring in his chest like the last surviving ember of a fire he refused to let die, Draco rose from the chair, his movements slow but charged, every muscle taut with purpose. His jaw was set, his fists clenched so tightly at his sides that the crescent moons of his nails dug deep into his palms, grounding him in the moment. The weight of his helplessness didn't vanish—but it shifted, became fuel, something he could use. He would not let this end in silence and distance and heartbreak. He would not let her walk away from him emotionally, spiritually, physically—not when he had come this far, not when something as maddeningly fragile and impossibly beautiful had begun to take root between them.

He would find a way to reach her, even if he had to claw through every layer of anger and grief and mistrust she had wrapped around herself like armor. He would find a way to make her look at him and see—see the man he had become, not the boy he used to be, not the frightened shadow standing in the corner of a war he didn't choose. She could hate him, she could scream, she could rage against everything he'd been, everything he couldn't undo—but she would know that he wasn't the monster she believed he was. That he never wanted to be. That he had suffered too, and changed, and tried—really tried—to be something more. Something better. For her.

Because the truth was devastating in its simplicity: without her, he was nothing. Without her warmth, her fire, her impossible wit and relentless spirit, he was just another cold Malfoy echoing through the manor halls, another relic of a family built on arrogance and ruin. Without her love, he was a man who could disappear into all the darkness he'd tried to escape. And he would not let that happen. He refused to let her become another thing he lost to fear and silence.

So as the night stretched on, the moon casting its ghostly light across the windows of a manor that felt more like a mausoleum than a home, and the silence settled in like dust across every forgotten surface, Draco made a vow—not aloud, not to the stars, but to himself. To the part of him that still believed in redemption, in second chances, in love that didn't need to be perfect to be real.

He would not stop.

He would not give up.

He would fight—fight through the silence, through her fury, through every single barrier she threw at him—not to win her over with flowers or gifts or empty gestures, but to prove that he saw her. That he chose her. That despite everything, he wanted to build something with her—not because the Ministry demanded it, but because he did.

Because she was the only thing in his life worth fighting for.

And he would not rest until she knew that.

Not until she looked at him and realized he had been fighting for them both all along.