Chapter Text
AXIOM
BOOK FOUR OF THE RISK’VERSE
Axiom
[A statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.]
1. Ready For The Funeral
Wednesday, September 22nd, 1999
It was raining in Ottery St Catchpole.
The sky was crowded with grey, heavy clouds, the rain light but steady; a miserable drizzle that suited the occasion.
“It’s the pathetic fallacy in the flesh,” Hermione murmured to him as they crossed the churned-up grass to the open grave, she holding the umbrella while he supported her – still unsteady on her feet, having discharged herself from St Mungo’s only hours ago, against his pleas. She refused to miss the funeral.
“What?” Draco asked ineloquently, his voice low – they followed at a distance behind the casket in the wake of the Weasley family, and he didn’t want to disturb them.
“The weather reflecting the mood,” she said softly, glancing up at him with reddened, puffy eyes, her grip on the umbrella wavering. It was times like this, as he reached out with his right arm only to meet the umbrella handle with a stump, that Draco wished he had two hands again. Neither of them had a working wand at the moment – Hermione’s with Ollivander for mending and his broken beyond repair – so they couldn’t cast an Impervius Charm. “It feels as though the world is crying with us.”
He looked up at the sky beyond the edge of the umbrella, rainwater dripping off the spokes and spattering on the grass, and on his exposed shoulder; Hermione found it difficult to ensure he was covered, given their height difference. He’d told her not to bother at all – a little rain wouldn’t kill him – but she’d insisted, of course. His stubborn praecantrix.
“It does,” he agreed and held her a little tighter. The war was over, but it seemed as though the grief was only just beginning, and Arthur Weasley’s funeral was just one of many that had been held over the past week.
It was the only one he’d attended though. He didn’t think he’d have been welcome at most of them; Oliver Wood, for instance, would’ve hated to have him there.
Arthur Weasley’s service had been held inside the small Muggle church building and most of the attendees had left afterwards, only close friends and family attending the burial itself. Of course Hermione had been included, and Draco along with her – he wasn’t sure if they would have invited him to the graveside if she’d still been in St Mungo’s, where she should still be, in his opinion.
He looked down at her as they made their way over the grass, her hair done up into a halo of plaits, in a black wool coat, black trousers, and a dark grey jumper; similar clothes to those Draco wore, bought especially for the funeral. She still seemed so fragile – like blown glass, precious and breakable in his hands. “I want to go to the funeral and then home,” she’d told him that morning, her tone utterly resolved – meaning the house at Greamachary, the closest thing that they had to a home, now.
Draco lifted his gaze again, watching the family procession through the falling rain.
All of Arthur’s sons, Fred Weasley excluded, carried his casket to the grave, Molly Weasley following behind with Ginevra and Fred at her side, Angelina, Fleur, and Cho behind them. Draco and Hermione followed after them, and were trailed by Madeleine Dubois-Volkova, walking beside Tonks, who had left Teddy with Andromeda for the day. A few others brought up the rear, including Hagrid, who towered over the other mourners.
Given their history Draco felt awkward around the groundskeeper, which was ridiculous really, considering how it paled in comparison to so many other things. But a part of him felt as though the half-giant would always see him as a nasty, bigoted little boy, not good enough for Hermione, whom Hagrid had hugged very gently upon seeing before the funeral.
He appreciated Hagrid for that – for the fact that he cared so much about Hermione – but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend time around the man, who had eyed him suspiciously although he’d said hello politely enough. The groundskeeper was a reminder of a petty, shameful past, and Draco had enough shame to carry as it was.
Memories stirred and he occluded; it was a continuous cycle these days. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to deal with more difficult emotions, if he was capable of dampening them instead – which he often wasn’t, unfortunately.
They came to a halt by the open grave as the pallbearers eased the casket down into the burial vault that would protect it from the earth, ready to be lowered into the ground with a charm. Draco took the umbrella from Hermione and shifted to her left side, and she hooked her arm through his right one, leaning against him. She was recovering well according to the healers, but still weak, and the funeral had exhausted her, though she would never admit it. There was a pinched look about her that made him want to tuck her up in bed and bring her hot soup, instead of having her out in the rainy autumn chill of Devon.
He wouldn’t mind sitting down himself – his leg had been reset and Skele Gro had mended it enough to shed the splint and walk normally, but it still ached a little if he spent too long on his feet.
The other funeral guests had mostly cast Impervius Charms to protect themselves from the weather, although Hagrid used his umbrella, the cheery pink looking incongruous in the miserable tableau as he stood behind the mourners, clad in dark robes and cloaks.
Silence reigned, only whispers here and there amongst the onlookers.
The important words had been spoken inside, during the service. Minerva McGonagall had given the main eulogy, and each of Arthur’s children had shared a story about their father, while Molly Weasley had sat there silently in a neat black gown, a small hat pinned over her grey-streaked ginger hair. Now she stood clutching Ginevra’s arm with one hand, pressing a drenched handkerchief to her face with her other, her fingers white-knuckled as she quietly wept.
Ginevra herself was white-faced, her chin up and her jaw clenched, looking as though she was desperately trying to hold back tears by force of will. She’d spent a good deal of sleepless, worried time in St Mungo’s since what they were calling the Final Battle – Potter still hadn’t woken – and the Weaslette had been besieged by ill-timed, intrusive questions about his health before the funeral service had begun.
Weasley stood beside Chang, who – like Hermione – was a little unsteady on her feet. Or foot, in Chang’s case. Crutches, wet grass, and sodden earth didn’t mix.
Draco’s eyes met Weasley’s across the grave, and he tried to communicate a sympathetic expression – an awkward grimace that Weasley returned. Hermione’s fingers curled more tightly into Draco’s sleeve, resting her head against his upper arm as Molly Weasley mopped her face and then straightened her shoulders. She patted Ginevra’s hand and murmured something to her before stepping forward to the head of the casket.
Any whispering amongst the mourners was silenced, a hush falling.
“My husband was a good man,” Molly said, her voice trembling but her tears stemmed, blue eyes wet and bright. “The best of men. People have told me since his death that he was a hero, but that’s neither here nor there. What matters is that he was a good husband and a good father, and he always did what was right, whether it was easy or not. And there’s nothing more important in the world than that.” She looked around the gathered mourners fiercely as though expecting disagreement, before she went on.
“Thirty years we had together. Thirty brilliant, mad years, and it wasn’t anywhere near enough. We should’ve had another thirty, and then another thirty after that.” Her voice broke, an edge of anger shredding it. “I love you, Arthur,” she said, fresh tears trickling down her cheeks. “Forever and a day. I’ll always be your Mollywobbles.”
Hermione sniffed, and Draco glanced down to see she was crying silently. His own eyes burnt hot.
There was a terrible, tragic dignity to Molly Weasley as she drew her wand from the folds of her robes, conjuring a bouquet of lilies that floated down onto the casket. And then she stepped back, and Bill Weasley moved forward, Fleur beside him.
“I love you, Dad,” he said very simply and conjured more lilies for the casket, placing them down by hand.
“Tu vas nous manquer (You will be missed),” Fleur said in a quiet voice before laying her own lilies, and the two stepped away for Percy to have his turn. All the Weasleys laid lilies and said a small goodbye, and eventually, it came Draco and Hermione’s turn.
He escorted her forward, rain still falling steadily. Weasley – Ron – conjured a bunch of lilies for each of them, his expression bleak and his eyes reddened, and Hermione whispered thanks to him as she took the umbrella from Draco again, so he had a free hand. He moved forward out of the umbrella’s cover and into the rain, the droplets falling cold and heavy, spattering on his head and sliding chill over his exposed skin.
“Manibus date lilia plenis (Giving lilies with full hands),” he quoted quietly from The Aeneid, tears stinging behind his eyes. He didn’t occlude; it felt wrong to stifle this grief. It deserved to be felt. “A little hope never killed anyone. Thank you, Arthur,” he said as he laid the flowers on the casket, nestling them amongst the others, and then wiped at his cheeks, grateful to the rain.
A good husband and father; a good man. Molly had described him well. Arthur Weasley had personified those things to Draco – when he’d felt at a loss because his own father had done everything wrong, when he had worried he was destined to fail, unredeemable, Arthur had been there. Quietly, without fanfare. The steady, undemanding presence, brimming with a compassionate understanding that could only come from successfully raising seven children into fine people.
Another loss, and it was strange how much it hurt, like another piece of him had been carved away. He had lost his father, his hand, the sacrosanct boundaries of his own body – he had lost his dignity, his innocence, his free will. And now he had lost a good man, who’d believed in him, who had told him kindly that it would all be alright when Draco felt as though everything was lost, and who had carried such certainty that Draco had believed in him.
Hermione squeezed his elbow, trying to give paltry comfort, sighing as she stepped up to the casket – nervous. She’d told him that morning that she wasn’t good at things like this. “Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt (The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart),” she said, quoting Virgil too. “May you be at peace, beyond such mortal suffering.”
Her lilies joined the heaps that already covered the casket.
By the end, Arthur’s coffin was mounded with flowers – spilling over the edges and dripping down toward the grass, and all that was left was to sink it into the ground.
“Do you believe in an afterlife?” Draco asked curiously as they walked away from the graveside, leaving the Weasleys alone with their grief for the coffin lowering, as Bill Weasley had asked of the gathered mourners. The rain was lessening. Hermione looked up at him, her firewhisky eyes honey-flecked and mournful.
“I don’t know, honestly. But if there is one, I’ll be there with you, in the end.”
“A long time from now,” he said, regretting bringing it up at all as he thought of Hermione dying. He’d come too close to losing her, and without her, he had nothing.
She gave him a wobbly smile. “A very long time,” she confirmed and then caught Nymphadora’s eye and waved at her – his cousin was the one who would apparate them both back to the cottage at Greamachary. “Come on,” she said, hurrying him a little. “I want to go home.”
It felt good to be back at Kinbrace, nestled in the blanket bog and surrounded by hills and streams, nothing but nature spreading out around them for miles. Isolated in the best way. The cottage felt like coming home. It wasn’t raining but it was overcast and gloomy, and warm lights burnt at the windows, a cold wind rustling through the twin oaks at the front of the cottage and driving Hermione, Draco, and Tonks inside.
No one was there, the place empty as Draco led the way through the front porch into the hall, Tonks taking up the rear, and Hermione feeling tired and out of breath in between them. Merlin, she hated being injured. She looked into the kitchen and then the living room from where she stood in the front hall – it seemed even cosier and homier than the last time she’d seen it, a month ago now.
With the lights burning, boots lined up in the hall by the coat cupboard, dirty dishes by the sink, and parchments strewn over the coffee table, it was somehow welcoming.
Ron, Cho, Dean, and Seamus had been staying here since shortly after the final battle – almost two weeks ago now – and would be for the foreseeable future. It was rather nice to know she and Draco wouldn’t be entirely alone, and they were used to living with the other four – they all rubbed along well together. She didn’t know where Dean and Seamus were, but Ron and Cho would be at the Burrow until later in the day, attending the wake.
Hermione had wanted to go, but Draco had said it would be too much for her, and annoyingly, he would’ve been right.
“Thanks for the side-along, Tonks. Do you want a cup of tea?” she offered and Tonks smiled wearily, shaking her head, her hair a mousey brown as it most often was these days.
“No, thanks. I better get back to Mum and Teddy.” Andromeda had moved back into the family home after the war’s end – abandoned for over a year, it had required a thorough spring clean, according to Tonks, but was otherwise untouched. Tonks was staying there for the foreseeable future, although she spent most of her time at St Mungo’s with Remus.
“Anyway, you need to go to bed, dulcissima (sweetest),” Draco murmured in her ear as he moved to stand behind her, his hand at her waist, his breath hot and tickling. Hermione felt a thrill run down her spine. She tipped her head back, leaning it against his chest.
“Oh?” she asked in an arch, very meaningful tone, teasing him. “Will you be joining me?”
He snorted. “To rest,” he said chidingly. “Not for that. Cliodna’s sake, you’re incorrigible.”
“Mm. I think I’d better give you two some privacy anyway,” Tonks added with a laugh in her voice, but moved into the living room instead of heading back outside to disapparate.
“For fuck’s sake,” Draco began exasperatedly. “She’s recovering, Merlin’s beard, Nymphadora.”
“She is fine,” Hermione said, “just for the record. I’m not an invalid.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Funerals do have a habit of provoking life-affirming hanky panky,” Tonks interrupted as she stopped by the fireplace, clearly taking some amusement in Draco’s discomfort. “A bit of ‘how’s your father’. Knocking boots. Playing some blanket hornpipe.”
Hermione was laughing – quiet wheezes – by the time Tonks was done listing euphemisms, and when she looked up at Draco again, even he had cracked a smile. It was nice to have a moment of levity – despite their victory, they’d had few enough since the battle ended.
Even Hermione’s birthday a few days ago had simply consisted of a few more visits from friends than usual, and a cake that Molly had brought in, with Draco getting her a stuffed mooncalf from St Mungo’s gift shop. “An interim present,” he’d said. “Until I can get you a proper one.” She’d still appreciated the wall-eyed thing, cuddling it like a child whenever he was gone from the room – not often.
At any rate, some humour was welcome, and Hermione didn’t think Arthur would want them all to be miserable in the wake of his passing.
“Either way, I’ll be off – via floo, no less,” Tonks added as she scooped out some floo powder from the urn on the mantel. “We got the fireplace connected to the floo network for you.”
“Oh! Thank you,” Hermione said, although Draco didn’t seem overly pleased, stiffening behind her.
“There are still Death Eaters on the loose,” he said tightly. “Is it safe to have the floo connected?”
“It is – the network is being tightly controlled. But I thought you might be worried, so we only have outward-going connections set up here at the moment – you’ll need to make sure you can apparate back if you leave.” Tonks raised an eyebrow. “Oh – and are you still going out with Goyle tomorrow night?”
Hermione’s stomach lurched, fear accompanying her bewilderment. “What?” she asked sharply, and Draco hissed a breath, his hand sliding away from her waist as he pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes shutting for a second. When he opened them again, he avoided meeting her gaze, looking instead over at Tonks.
“Shit. Thanks, cousin,” he said acerbically, and Tonks winced.
“Well, sorry! Excuse me for thinking you’d told her.”
“Told me what?” Hermione demanded, turning to face him.
Tonks cleared her throat. “I think I’ll leave you two to it,” she said apologetically. “I’ll probably see you tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah. I think you’ve done enough sodding damage,” Draco said impatiently, and then Tonks vanished in a flash of green flame and smoke as she declared her address, leaving Hermione glaring at Draco, the pair of them entirely alone in the house now. He glanced down at her, grey eyes veiled.
“You really do need to go to bed, mea lux (my light),” he tried, and Hermione clenched her jaw.
“I need to know what the hell is going on. What did Tonks mean, going out with Goyle tomorrow night?”
“Come on then,” Draco said tiredly, his shoulders slumping – at least he knew when to admit defeat. He shed his coat and hung it up in the cupboard, before taking Hermione’s and hanging that up too. “I’ll make you a bloody tea and tell you.” He shot her a sideways glance. “I was going to, you know. I just – hadn’t yet.”
“I’m sure,” she said tartly, even though she wasn’t sure she believed him, and she hated that he’d kept her out of the loop. So much had been happening over the past two weeks – the wizarding world was in turmoil, with the situation changing from hour to hour – and Hermione felt as though she knew only half of it.
She traipsed after him into the kitchen and dining room, taking a seat at the table and watching as he put the old stovetop kettle on the gas stove, lighting it with a match in lieu of magic. He had to do everything one-handed again – striking the match against the window glass, and using his stump to shut the kettle lid, to press the lid back down on the jar of teabags, and nudging the fridge door shut. He wasn’t as fluid one-handed as he’d been before Voldemort’s magical construct, but he seemed less bothered by using the stump.
“Explain,” she said as she watched him move around the kitchen, digging a packet of biscuits out of the pantry and putting them in front of her as the kettle rumbled away. He sighed, turning a chair around and sitting on it, arms braced across the back, opposite her at the table.
“The Ministry contacted me on Monday,” he admitted, staring down at the opened biscuit packet; Jammie Dodgers.
“Yes. After you asked Tonks about getting a new wand. They insisted on adding a trace to it,” she said impatiently. They’d been over this already. She’d been angry on his behalf – furious, raging from her bed about the injustice of the Ministry, and utterly helpless to do anything about it.
It wasn’t fucking fair.
Draco had destroyed Horcruxes. He’d been captured and tortured in the line of duty. He’d nearly died in countless missions and battles, fighting for the Order. He was a hero, not a threat. At most, he’d been coerced into being complicit in crimes while in fear for his life, prior to his defection – everything else he’d done had been while he was under the Imperius Curse. He couldn’t be held responsible.
Hermione was terrified that the Ministry didn’t see it that way.
“They did, yes,” Draco acknowledged and rubbed his hand tiredly over his face. “Later on, while you were sleeping, Truffle and Nymphadora came to speak to me. During the battle, Goyle switched sides—”
“I remember.” That had been one of many things that Hermione had learnt long after everyone else. Goyle, who had helped them while they were captured – even if only in the smallest of ways – had turned on Voldemort as soon as possible and fought on their side. Like Draco before his defection – and Theo, Blaise, and Pansy – Goyle’s loyalty to Voldemort had been bought by fear more than anything else, and as soon as he’d had the chance, he’d turned on his old master.
“I thought he was being held in remand, in Azkaban,” Hermione said, frowning.
“He was. Is. But the Auror Office – Gawain Robards is interim HoD – made a deal with him. He knows a lot of the current Death Eater safe houses and locations where prisoners are being held, and he’s willing to share the information with the Ministry in exchange for leniency.”
Hermione felt tension hum through her at that. “So you going out with him tomorrow means…?” Her right hand drifted to her throat, to the kingfisher necklace, anxiety a knot in her stomach. She knew what it meant. She wasn’t stupid.
The kettle began to whistle, shrill in the quiet room, and he stood abruptly, chair legs scraping on the floor. “It means I’m getting the same deal,” he said grimly, and she stared at him.
“What?” The war was over. It was meant to be over. She squeezed her left hand into a fist in her lap, nails biting into her palm, trying not to cry – after Mr Weasley’s funeral, her tears shivered just beneath the surface, begging to break free.
Draco pulled the kettle off the stove and set it on a cork mat, turning the stove off with a vicious twist of his fingers. Tension radiated off him too.
“The Auror Office and the Order are working together to mop up the last Death Eater nests and try to save any prisoners who might still be alive.” He banged mugs down on the worktop, talking without looking at her. “Goyle will be instrumental in giving them up-to-date locations, but I also know some that might still be useful. And the Ministry is currently very low on skilled fighters who are willing and capable to take on Voldemort’s remaining people.”
The teabags went in, followed by the steaming water, and then he turned to face her as it steeped. He looked older than nineteen, his hair raked back carelessly from his forehead, his eyes like stones and his mouth hard, all sharp angles and weariness. “Tonks asked if I wanted to volunteer – that kind of cooperation with the Ministry, it goes in my favour. When I go up on trial—”
“If,” she said weakly.
“When,” he repeated mercilessly, his eyes turning flinty. He raked his hand through his hair again – frustrated with her stubbornness. “When I go up on trial, having it on the official record that I assisted the Auror Office will make a difference.”
“You destroyed Horcruxes! You nearly died for the Order, more than once.” The scar at his throat was only a very thin silver line now, but he had so many more, and the worst of them left no marks. “You’ve sacrificed so much to win this war” – Merlin’s pants, she was crying – “and they think that’s not enough?”
He turned away, busying himself with the tea, while Hermione wiped at her eyes.
“That wasn’t official,” he said shortly. “It wasn’t for the Ministry – it was for the Order of the Phoenix.”
“Jesus Christ, that’s such dragon dung,” Hermione swore, her pulse racing suddenly, her chest feeling tight. This was exactly the sort of shit the Ministry she was familiar with would pull – corrupt, useless, and utterly wrong-headed; but then they always had been. “How dare they? And why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded of him, irrationally furious with everything.
“Because you’re pregnant, recovering from a serious curse, and it wouldn’t fucking achieve anything,” Draco snapped as he shoved the milk back into the fridge, and Hermione’s heart twisted. He’d been carrying this alone for days. Her anger ran out of her, leaving her empty, until empathy welled up in its place.
“I’m sorry, meum cor (my heart). I’m not angry at you.” She made an apologetic face as he brought the tea over, holding both mugs by the handles in his one hand. “I’m just—”
“Angry,” Draco finished wryly. “I know.” He sat down on the chair with his arms braced along the back again, steam coiling up between them, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “You do have a well-known tendency toward anger.”
“I—” Hermione began indignantly and then yanked herself to a halt, smiling ruefully, and the way his expression shifted when she smiled made her feel warm inside – melting like hot candle wax.
“I didn’t want to worry you before I had to,” he went on, taking a Jammie Dodger. “I was going to tell you later – I promise.”
“Promittis (Promise)?” She took a biscuit too and nibbled on it, watching him.
“Spondeo (I promise),” he said with a nod, his gaze painfully earnest. “I just – I wanted to enjoy being back here first. I just wanted a breather. A few hours in which we could be alone in our bedroom and forget about the world.”
“Mm. I don’t like the world very much right now,” she said around her biscuit, blanketing her pain and anger with flippancy. “So they’ve said if you go out on missions, then it’ll earn you leniency?”
“That’s the idea,” he said, the muscles in his jaw flexing. “Goyle’s agreement with them was that he’d work with them as long as they raided where he thinks Theo’s being held first.”
“Really?” Hermione raised an eyebrow at that. “Huh. Were he and Theo close?”
“Not that I knew of,” Draco said with a shrug. “But I suppose things change. From what he told me, before he tried to help us” – he said the words slightly scathingly; Goyle had done very little for them really – “he apparently tried to do what he could to protect Theo, after he got grabbed in Portmeirion, and was punished for it.”
He drew his finger down his cheek, and Hermione remembered Goyle’s sightless eye and the twisted scar on his cheek.
“Oh.” Curiosity sparked in her. “Do you know what happened?”
“Not in any detail. I wasn’t in any state to pry at the time. I’ll have to ask Goyle, I suppose.”He shrugged again, sipping his tea before he went on. “But at any rate, he seems to think Theo might still be alive.”
“After two weeks, would any of them be alive?” Hermione asked – it needed to be said – and had a drink of her own tea. Hot, strong, and milky, it was perfect; deliciously restorative, warmth spreading right to her fingertips. God, she was tired. She wanted to curl up in bed with Draco at her back, the big spoon to her little one, and drift into sleep. A hospital bed in St Mungo’s was nothing like the comforting cosiness of their double bed in the cramped little bedroom.
They hadn’t lived in it that long, but Hermione had only good memories of it.
“Possibly,” Draco said. “It depends, really. If they’re being guarded by house-elves, they’ll definitely still be getting food and water. And if the Dark Lord’s people are holding prisoners, they could be keeping them alive for now as hostages.”
“Wouldn’t they be more likely to just run?” Perversely, Hermione found herself hoping that was the case, even if it meant prisoners had died, because it also meant that Draco would be raiding abandoned safe houses instead of engaging in battle. She knew already that she wouldn’t be able to join any missions – she’d be a liability at this point, wounded and pregnant.
“Yeah. Some of them. But others might be hoping to deal with the Ministry, or still be loyal to their last orders and willing to fight to the death.” His gaze was far away; strategising, his mug of tea forgotten in his hand as he thought things through. “We can’t assume anything.”
“God, I thought the war was over,” Hermione said aloud in a small voice and sighed. “I thought we could stop fighting.”
“And you can,” he said firmly. “It is over for you. But it’s different for me. I need to take any opportunity that I’m presented with to make a better case for the trial, whenever that is. When they’re done using me to round up Death Eaters, I suppose.”
The trial.
Hermione stared at the man she loved – at the exhaustion that saturated him, his eyes shadowed and his shoulders slumped, an air of grim resignation about him. Draco would keep going until they ground him into the dirt for their own agenda, and then put him on fucking trial as though he was a criminal instead of a hero.
She felt so angry she could scarcely breathe. The injustice of it suffocated her.
“We could run,” she said, and his gaze met hers, his eyebrow raising. “We could,” she insisted, her heart beating hard and fast in her chest. “I would. You shouldn’t have to go on trial. I don’t trust them – the Ministry – why put you on trial at all if they don’t plan on finding you guilty?”
“I’m not making you – and our child – into fugitives, mea vita (my life),” he said softly – gently, pain in his eyes. “Besides, Nymphadora said she and the other senior Order members think it likely I’ll be sentenced to a magical ban or house arrest, not incarceration.” He stared into his mug. “Something that makes it clear to the public I’ve been punished for being a Death Eater, but that isn’t overly harsh.”
Hermione hoped so with a desperation that burnt in her blood. Even that was too much to inflict on him, and she said as much. “It’s not fair,” she added helplessly, and Draco sighed.
“Since when has anything been fair, dulcissima?”
“You should try to rest, but do you want a shower first?” Draco asked as he put their cups in the sink, their tea having been drunk in glum silence, Hermione clearly simmering with impotent anger and fear all muddled up together.
He should have told her about his deal with the Ministry as soon as it had been struck, but it had felt cruel to dump more bad news on her while she was still so fragile, and it wasn’t as though her knowing about it changed anything. It would’ve just worried her needlessly. But it also might have avoided the dark cloud that now hung over their return to the cottage.
He shot her a tentative look. A shower would make her feel better – it always did, as though it washed away her tensions and worry, everything fresh and new for a little while.
Hermione pressed her lips together and sighed, looking unspeakably weary, and Draco felt like an arsehole. An utter cunt. Their situation – her situation, with her fiancé and the father of her child facing trial for war crimes – was his fault, ultimately. The fault of a version of himself that no longer existed. He’d become a better man, who had ironically been forced to do worse things.
The last vestiges of the old, cowardly Draco Malfoy had been eclipsed by his love for Hermione, and burnt out of him by pain and suffering. His own, and others’.
“Okay. A shower does sound nice.” She bit her lip and shot him a look that carried a wealth of meaning. “But I might need some help. I am an invalid, after all.”
Oh.
“Of course,” he agreed mildly, his heart thundering, his body suddenly on pointless alert that he tried to crush down.
Between what had happened prior to the battle with Lenora Grey and his reclaimed memories, and then Hermione’s injuries, it had been well over two weeks since they’d done anything sexual. In that time he’d seen her naked more than once, but he’d been mired in his guilt prior to the battle, and afterwards she’d been bruised and battered – a wounded bird – and it had felt wrong to look at her with any kind of desire.
Draco had, though – of course he had – and then felt slightly guilty for it afterwards.
Now though, they were at home and Hermione was on the mend, her bruises faded to faint shadows and that wicked look in her eyes, and almost anything felt possible. His cock was already halfway hard in anticipation of those possibilities, his blood rushing and throbbing in his veins.
She paused in the doorway, waiting, and he followed her out of the kitchen like a lamb to the slaughter, his breath pulling tight in his chest, trying to tell himself that nothing would happen and desperately hoping that it would.
It felt strange being back in the familiar, shabby Muggle bathroom with the door locked behind him, leaning back against it as he pried his boots off, watching Hermione as she kicked off her own shoes and then leant against the sink, bending to peel off her socks.
Draco stripped to his shirt and undershorts with ruthless efficiency, his eyes on Hermione as she undressed with an easy grace, only to come to a halt at his damn buttons. Shit. He stopped there. He could have taken his shorts off too, but the thought of standing there in nothing but his shirt, his cock iron hard, seemed somehow emasculating. Sometimes he did miss the silver hand.
She was slower than him, her clothes falling like petal blossoms. The toned, slim lines of her arms revealed, the softness of her thighs, the burgeoning swell of her abdomen that clothing only just barely disguised now, and the full roundness of her tits, threatening to overflow her black bra. They were larger; the veins slightly more prominent, and when she unhooked her bra – after glancing over at him – her areolae were wine-dark.
Fuck. His cock twitched in his shorts, his mouth watering. He wanted to pull moans from her as he sucked on her nipples, the sensitivity heightened by pregnancy. He wanted to make her legs shake and her cunt clench on him as she came – on his fingers, tongue, or cock; he didn’t care, he just wanted to feel her pulsate and convulse as she moaned.
“What are you looking at?” she asked archly, and he huffed a laugh. What did she think?
“You,” he said hoarsely. “Or to be more precise, mea delicium (my darling), your tits. It’s hard to look at anything else.”
She grinned, her dimples showing. “Is it?” she asked and slipped her fingers beneath the sides of her matching black knickers, pushing them down. Once they were over her arse – her perfect arse – they coasted down her legs, pooling at her feet, to be stepped out of easily. She turned to face him slightly, and the last thing he was looking at was her tits.
“Cliodna’s sake,” he breathed as he stared at her. Dark curls made a vee at the crux of her thighs, and as she shifted her weight, he caught a glimpse of pinkness – of soft, exquisitely sensitive flesh that begged for his mouth. “Not anymore. I take it back. I was wrong. Fuck, leaena (lioness), you’re perfect.”
“Flatterer,” she accused and then reached out to him. “Do you need a hand?” Her mouth curved.
“Perfect and vicious,” he said, but he was grinning as he stopped in front of her. “You need a licence for that tongue,” he added, and she poked it out at him. He could have undone his buttons himself, of course, but that wasn’t anywhere near as fun as letting her do it, just like she used to. Draco had missed it.
He plucked some of the pins from her hair as she unbuttoned him, her hair silky under his touch, little curls springing free. “This takes more pins than I thought,” he commented, and she huffed a laugh as she undid his last button.
“Usually I use a touch of magic to help hold things in place, but being unwell and wandless…” Her hands slid beneath the grey cotton of his shirt and flattened over his ribs, her fingers like little rays of warmth melting into him, and he sighed, bowing his head and pressing his lips to the crown of hers.
“Mmph,” he hummed and then drew back. “Yes, no wandless magic. The healers said.”
“I know.” Hermione rolled her eyes, her hands still skating over his skin, down his sides, making him feel ticklish. Her fingers pushed beneath the sides of his shorts, shoving them down, only to catch on his erection. “I’m being very good,” she said with a put-upon sigh – she was irritated she couldn’t use her wandless magic – and then curled her hand around his cock.
Oh fuck. His eyes rolled back in his head for a moment, swaying forward against her, trapping her between the bathroom sink and himself. Her hand moved on his cock and pleasure thrummed through him, hot in his veins, his balls drawing up tight and tension shivering through him.
“Mea bona puella (My good girl),” he managed to say teasingly, his hand sliding down to cup her right breast, his thumb dragging over her nipple, hardened against the cool air. She took a gasping little breath. “Lean back,” he said, and she released his cock to do so, the air cold on his skin after her hot, firm grip. He wanted to sink it into the tight heat of her cunt, desperate for her.
She braced her hands at the sides of the sink, and Draco bent his head to her breasts. He pressed his right arm to her side, his left hand at the dip of her waist, his right leg slotted between her naked thighs as he leant her backwards. They were puzzle pieces, fitting together.
His mouth enclosed first one nipple – sucking gently and swirling his tongue over it – and then the other. She gave soft little moans in response, the sounds coaxed out of her, her left hand coming up to graze over his hair before she remembered and gripped his shoulder instead. Her hand twisted in his shirt.
“Nngh – oh god—”
She felt like fire and silk; perfection. It was painful, prying himself away, stepping back and kicking off his shorts and shrugging off his shirt, his eyes fixed on her as she leant against the sink, breathing hard, her shoulders rising and falling. His cock was achingly hard, and he wrapped his hand around it, squeezing. Fuck. He wanted to be selfish. To lift her onto the edge of the bathroom vanity and fuck into her until he came. She was dizzying. Breathtaking – standing before him alive and safe, filled with his child, the war over. It was everything he’d hoped for.
“Shower,” he said instead of ravishing her, ineloquent and hoarse as he turned away and flicked the shower curtain aside, twisting the water on. “You’re supposed to be having a shower.”
Hermione’s laugh was husky. “You’re the one who derailed things, meum cor. I was just trying to unbutton your shirt.” She dripped faux innocence, and when he glanced at her – undoing her hair so that it fell around her shoulders – her expression gave her away. Wicked and teasing, her eyes bright and a little smirk at her lips.
“I did not,” he protested, his hand under the water, waiting for it to heat. “You know what you did, praecantrix (vicious witch).”
“It’s not my fault you can’t control yourself.” Her smirk turned into a grin as she dragged her fingers through her hair, fluffing it out wildly into a cloud of candy floss waves. The water slowly warmed on his hand.
“I feel like it might be,” he argued. “Just a little.”
Draco blamed her again when, in the shower with the hot water cascading over them both, he went to his knees before her. Worshipping her, unable to resist as water droplets slid down over her skin and dripped from her nipples, glinting in the curls between her thighs.
He feasted on the softness of her inner thighs as he knelt before her – a supplicant at her feet. His hand slid up over the swell of her hip to her abdomen, splaying over her bump as he rested his cheek against her thigh, and let out a sigh.
The tiled floor was hard beneath his knees and her skin so soft.
He pulled back and looked at her belly beneath his fingers as she leant her shoulders back against the tiled wall, her hair falling down around her shoulders, half wet and curling wildly.
“What?” she asked, the word breathless as she smiled down at him, pushing some of his wet hair off his forehead as the shower rained down over them both.
“It’s so small, still. Your stomach. It’s hard to believe there’s a baby in there.”
“Well, our avicula (little bird) is only very small still,” she said with a note of amusement, her fingers tracing over his eyebrows and down the side of his face. “Nowhere close to hatching. You’ve read some of the pregnancy books. Besides, it’s my first – first babies never show as quickly.”
“First,” he echoed thoughtfully, kissing just above her pubic mound, his thumb rubbing over the soft, taut skin of her abdomen, his right forearm braced against her left hip. “I like the way that sounds.”
“Oh?”
“Mm. It makes it sound as though there will be a second,” he said and kissed her dark curls, wet from the shower. She made a soft, breathy sound.
“You – you want more than one?” she asked him, her voice tight with emotion as well as pleasure, and he licked the bud of her clit, prompting a throaty moan. He circled his tongue and then sucked gently on her swollen flesh, water running down over them both, baptising them.
“I want as many or as few as you want, mea lux,” he said when he released it after a long moment, dotting kisses over her mound and across the top of her thigh. “But more than one might be nice. Eventually.” He pictured it; doing this again, on purpose, without the war, or their captivity and torture hanging over them. The idea was intoxicating.
“One at a time,” she said with a dreamy smile, her hand resting atop his head, her eyes heavy-lidded, gleaming in the light. Her lashes spiked wetly, her cheeks already flushing pink from the heat, cinnamon-sprinkled with freckles. “But yes. I think it might too.”
Hermione’s eyes slid shut as he pressed his mouth to her cunt again, done with talk and greedy to taste her. To lick her open and fuck her on his tongue. “Oh – oh god, that's so good,” she got out, her body tensing under his hand as he lavished attention on her clit. “Jesus.”
“Mm. I missed this so fucking much,” he told her as earnestly as though it had been months instead of a mere fortnight, and then nudged her legs wider with his right forearm, desperate to bury his face against her properly. She tipped her hips out and gave him easier access, the water cascading hot down over them both, steam clouding the air, heavy in his lungs.
Time lost all meaning. The world became nothing but her, and he traced his love on her flesh with his tongue. She was wet from more than just the shower, slippery and slick, and he revelled in it, feeling her muscles twitch and tighten under his hand, her breath beginning to stutter in and out, falling apart.
“I – I’m so close—” Her hand trembled on his head and she slid down the wall slightly – and he helped buoy her up, pushing his tongue into her, lost in her. “Oh – Draco.”
Her legs trembled and nearly gave out as she came on his tongue, a rush of sweetness, and Draco moaned, drunk on her, his cock hard and aching to come.
Despite Draco’s protests – she was still recovering, she didn’t have to, he was fine – Hermione took him in hand as he stood, his healing leg aching. He couldn’t say no to her, both because she was too sodding stubborn, and because it felt incredible. He ended up bracketing her between the wall and his body, his face buried in the crux of her neck and shoulder, boneless and hot, utterly helpless in her grasp as she jerked him to an embarrassingly quick orgasm.
With pleasure thrumming through him in the wake of climax, fire in his blood, he kissed her throat, murmuring incoherently against her skin. “Dulcissima, fuck, you’re perfect. Mea vita, mea delicium – amazing. Sum ita fortunatus (I’m so lucky).”
When he swayed back – feeling unsteady on his feet himself – he could see the state of her properly. His cum streaked her thighs and belly, and dripped from her fingers as she raised her hand and wiggled them at him, grinning. Her eyes were honey and firewhisky, her cheeks flushed and her neck reddened from his kisses, her hair a tangle of wet locks and damp curls.
“You didn’t take long,” she said, amused as she reached for one of the clean flannels they’d dug out of the bathroom cupboard, soaping it up and scrubbing at her hand beneath the shower’s flow. He felt the ridiculous need to defend himself.
“It has been a while,” he shot back as he took the other flannel, soaping it awkwardly, his reversal back to one hand still making everything a little difficult. He hoped he’d be fine on the mission tomorrow.
She snorted, yanking him out of his thoughts. “I’m not upset by it,” she said, still bright and grinning as she scrubbed at the cum on her skin. Somehow she looked glorious, even doing something so utterly mundane. “If you’d lasted too long, the water might’ve run cold.”
As it was, the water was beginning to cool as they got out, Draco wrapping a towel around his hips, Hermione swathed in one around her body, and another a turban around her hair. “I miss magic,” she said a little pathetically as she sighed. “Drying my hair like this always makes it go extra mad.”
“I love it,” he said, scraping back his own damp hair – much easier to dry. “However it looks, leaena.”
Their room felt still, somehow, as though it had been waiting for them in a frozen moment of time. The double bed straight ahead when they walked in, squashed against the left wall with a bedside table on the right-hand side – Hermione’s beaded bag atop it – the chest of drawers to the right of the door, and a rug on the wooden floor beside the bed, beneath the windows.
The ugly, dated orange curtains were somehow comforting, and Draco drew them open to reveal Ben Griam Beg looming behind them out of the blanket bog, the snaking path of the Greamachary Burn not visible. It was a grey, gloomy day here too, but it really did feel like coming home.
It felt even more like home an hour later, when Hermione was fast asleep in bed with her head resting on his chest and his arms around her, their limbs entwined like vines. Draco had insisted she rest, and for once she hadn’t argued – sleepy-eyed, having just finished twisting her hair into two loose plaits. Now she lay draped over him, warm against him in her thin pyjamas, her breath rising and falling steadily – safe.
For her the war was over, and he would do whatever it took to protect her from the vestiges of it that lingered – from the uncaptured Death Eaters, including his aunt, and from the fallout of his actions during the war – even if that meant he had to keep fighting.
He would accept that as his due.