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Draco Malfoy was a headstrong person. He liked being right, even prided himself on his ability to always see reason and prove himself to be the smartest person in the room.

There were three things that he hadn’t been right about in his entire life:
1. He had been wrong to go along with his father’s wishes and take the dark mark.
2. He had been wrong to appease his mother and insist that his daughter was to be named according to his family tradition, only giving his wife the satisfaction of choosing her middle name.
3. He had been wrong to talk badly about Hermione Granger’s scrapbooking tendencies.

If anyone had told Draco where he would have ended up on the night of the nineteenth of September, 2025 when he was younger, he would have called them an idiot, probably adding a hex onto the end of his slew of insults. He most certainly would not have believed them, especially not if they told the truth and said that he would be sitting with his daughter on the eve of her wedding, going through old scrapbooks and pictures on her mother’s birthday. He would have believed them more if they said that he was to be rotting away in a cell, sentenced to die in Azkaban, alone and afraid, held together by nothing other than the shackles on his wrists. He wouldn’t have been right, but he would have insisted that they were wrong.

Draco was a family man‒ he always had been. His parents had been the most important people in his life when he was growing up and it was true that he would do anything for them. He had done everything for them, sacrificed his mind and his physical form to a man he despised just to ensure that they would be safe.

Lucius had told Draco from the start that his destiny was held in the hands of the Dark Lord. That was how he was to become a man, to take the mark and abide by his wishes. Lucius had done it after he graduated Hogwarts, just as Abraxas had before him. It was the destiny of a Malfoy to do such things. Draco didn’t dare to debate such things with his father, knowing that at the end of the day, he would end up doing exactly what he asked, knowing that it would keep them safe.

But that didn’t mean that it was right.

No, Draco knew very early on that he had made the wrong choice in going along with his father’s wishes. He knew that he was wrong when he was first told that he would have to kill his Headmaster. He knew that he was wrong when he accidentally hurt Katie Bell, albeit indirectly through Madam Rosmerta’s Imperius Curse. He knew he was wrong when he stood there and watched Dumbledore tumble backwards off the Astronomy Tower. He knew he was most wrong, though, when he stood there and did nothing while his aunt tortured Hermione Granger on the floor of his drawing room.

He just fucking stood there. He couldn’t watch‒ no, he turned away before he could retch‒ but he didn’t stop Bellatrix. He could have done more to get them out alive and unscathed, but he didn’t.

Draco thought that he shouldn’t have received anything good after that. He had let his aunt torture Granger, and while he might not have liked her during their schooling together, he most certainly never wanted to watch her writhe and scream and lay in agony on his floor.

Violet, his daughter, was opening the pages of a blank scrapbook as she sat on the floor, newer pictures scattered about with tickets and letters and other mementoes as she pulled him from his almost-reverie. Violet, the light of his life. There had been so much darkness, almost too much, but she had been there with him; he had done everything for her.

And now she was getting married. His daughter, his baby girl, was getting married.It seemed to him that only yesterday she was taking her first steps, only a few hours before that when he was holding her in his arms for the first time, only the day before that when he was kissing her mother for the first time, their entire lives ahead of them…

Draco wasn’t ready to give her away yet, but he knew it was what was necessary. Vi wanted this; she had picked the date specifically so that she could feel close to her mother and so that she and her father could spend her birthday together and honour her for the last time on their own. That was why they had the rehearsal dinner the night prior, to ensure that the father and daughter would have time to themselves to prepare and grieve and feel all of the emotions that flew at them.

That was why Violet was sitting on the floor, her bare scrapbook in front of her while pictures and clippings and colourful folded papers were strewn around her. She looked as if she was existing in the middle of a storm, in the eye of a hurricane, just like her mother always had when she was doing the same craft.

Draco crossed over to her from where he had just exited the kitchen, two glasses of wine in his hands as he extended one to her. She took it without raising her eyes from her materials, sipping as Draco settled into the couch opposite where she was positioned so that he could watch her, his daughter, the reason he persisted, on the last night that she was truly his.

Just as he lifted his glass to his lips, her voice effused through his ears in a tone that he had come to recognize very well over the years. She was his daughter, and whinging was a Malfoy trait, after all.

“Dad?”

“Yes, darling?”

When her eyes met his, Draco almost choked on his wine. They looked exactly like her mother’s. Her voice was different though, harsher and more like his. That’s what she got for growing up with him instead of her.

She was timid, her words only barely louder than a whisper when she said, “I don’t know where to start.”

Draco would have gasped mockingly if he hadn’t learned anything from the twenty-two years he had cared for Violet. She was just like her mother most of the time, an incessant know-it-all, and just like her father, she could never accept the fact that she was wrong at times. Something must have been worrying her enough for her to admit to it.

That was when the idea hit him, with her wide amber eyes on his, her emotions characteristically displayed on her sleeve in true Gryffindor fashion. Almost instantaneously, he was standing, placing his wine glass on a coaster as he walked from the room with a quick, “I have an idea, stay here.”

He ignored her questions as he bounded the stairs, much slower than he used to, before turning and walking directly into the room that had been left untouched for the more than ten years since his wife had died. Upon returning home from St. Mungo’s without her, the space never felt quite right. He didn’t dare to move her things, her piles of scrapbooks from her desk, her jumper flung over the wingback chair from when she last placed it there. It existed with her, stuck in the same moment of time when she had been with him, when she had been here.

He knew she wouldn’t mind his bothering of her things, not now, not for this reason. She knew what he was doing‒ he was sure of it. The dust had accumulated atop of the scrapbooks, bound with leather and seeming to have not aged a day since she left him. Maybe she had enchanted them to do so, so that he would always feel as if she was still here, bouncing around him excitedly with an energy he could only match on his best days.

He thought it was quite ironic how he was fetching her collections of memories after holding such contempt for them in the first years they had been together. He could never understand it, even after she had explained it to him. He only began to understand it after she left, but even then, those moments of complete comprehension were few and far between.

Three volumes. She always had three scrapbooks in her collection. One for them, one for her friends and family, and one for her daughter. The one dedicated to Violet had used to live in her room until it didn’t, until the pair of them decided to return it to her mother’s desk. Draco figured he would need all of them, so he grabbed them, breathing in the air that still faintly smelled of her perfume before closing the door behind him and returning to his daughter, aimlessly staring at the stationary in front of her.

“What are those?” Violet asked, sitting up as soon as she noticed him returning.

“You know what they are,” Draco quipped with a smirk, setting them down on the floor in front of her before sitting down next to her.

She turned to him, her eyes wide and her mouth gaping. “We haven’t gone through these in forever. Are these your copies or are they‒”

“They’re the originals, Violet.” His daughter’s head turned back towards the volumes in front of her, her expression disbelieving. “You said you didn’t know where to start. What better way to find inspiration than to go through the originals of the queen of scrapbooking?”

Violet was still hesitant, seemingly afraid to place her hands on her mother’s most prized possessions. Draco wasn’t. This would have been what Hermione would have wanted. She made her collections for a reason. Since she had left, they weren’t serving their original purpose, and Draco knew she wouldn’t want them to sit around gathering dust. He reached out, pulling the volumes off of each other so that they were sitting on the ground in front of them where they could see them all.

“Which one do you want to start with?” he asked, gesturing to the leather bound memories. “One is completely of you, another is of your mother’s friends and family, and the last is of the two of us.”

Her eyes were cemented onto the volumes. “Can we start with the one of you and her?”

Draco’s heart ached at her request, but he obliged, reaching out to the first book and placing it so that it was centred between the two of them. No matter how painful this would be for him, he would do it. He would do it for Violet because she needed this. Hermione would have wanted him to do this, would have wanted him to be strong for her. For them.

When he nimbly opened the leather cover, he wasn’t sure what to expect. He had seen the book many times over the years, knew exactly which pictures and notes were contained within the covers. Except, some deep part of him found himself wondering if it had changed, if some residual magic had erased everything that had happened, if it was all a dream that was too good to be true. The world wasn’t made for them, after all.

He didn’t expect the picture of them taken on the first day of their eighth year, the green and red undersides of their robes clashing perfectly so, their shiny Head badges adorning their fronts. Nor did he expect the flood of memories at the sight of it.

When Draco received an owl from Professor McGonagall the day after his trial had cleared his name with no punishments other than five years probation and a mandatory eighth year at Hogwarts, he was more than shocked to read that she was asking him to fill the role of Head Boy. Why would she ever do that? He was a Death Eater‒ the youngest in history‒ and somehow McGonagall still thought that he was the prime example of a role model for younger students? No, she must have gone batshit crazy as a result of the war. That was the only explanation.

He didn’t answer the owl, thinking it was an awful mistake that was meant to mess with his psyche. However, another one arrived a week later, the parchment filled with the same contents and requests. He wrote the Professor back with a simple, “Why?”

Because, Mr Malfoy, you have been exonerated. You are already returning to Hogwarts in the fall, and, unlike what many of your peers might think, your work as a Prefect was more than acceptable, even extraordinary at times. You have earned this.

He didn’t think he had earned anything. Nevertheless, he found himself accepting the offer, a heavy influence from his mother making the final decision for him. And on the first of September, he found himself on the Hogwarts Express, only able to focus on one thing.

He was Head Boy. Head Boys had to work with Head Girls. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew who McGonagall would choose as Head Girl. The choice was an obvious one. Except, that would mean that Draco would have to be Head Boy to Hermione Granger’s Head Girl. Granger, the girl he had watched writhe on the receiving end of his aunt’s wand on his drawing room floor. Granger, the girl who had spoken at his trial about how he had saved them that day at Malfoy Manor. The truth was that he hadn’t saved them. She had been tortured and he had stood there. It was probably her fault that he wasn’t locked up in Azkaban with his father.

Draco Malfoy liked to believe he was right about a lot of things, but he knew he was wrong to take the mark. He knew he was wrong to stand there and let Bellatrix torture Granger. There was no way they would be able to work together with the weight of their past hanging over them.

He was going to have to apologize to her.

As soon as the train had arrived at the castle and he had stepped onto the platform, he saw her. Bushy hair, tensed shoulders, standing next to none other but the incessant witch that had decided, somehow, that he had earned his new title. There was no way this would be ending well.

He took a deep breath, strengthening his natural occlumency for a moment before crossing over to them, assuming that the pair were waiting for him. The way McGonagall’s face shifted when her eyes caught him affirmed his suspicions.

“Mr Malfoy,” she smiled gently, as if she was his mother or something. “While the other students are brought to the Great Hall and prepared for the sorting, I will be showing you and Miss Granger to the Head dormitory.”

Head… dormitory? As in their dormitory? They would have to share a dormitory? No. Draco could apologize, but living with Granger? Completely ignoring his guilt, there was only so much swottiness he could take.

“I’m sorry, could you elaborate on that, Headmistress?” he asked, probably too rudely for the etiquette he was raised with.

“I told you this would happen,” Granger muttered, rolling her eyes and crossing her hands over her chest as she glanced off back towards the Forbidden Forest.

McGonagall seemed to ignore her, speaking directly to Draco instead. “The old Head dormitory was destroyed during the war,” she explained, her voice developing a slight edge, presumably in response to both his bite and her insufferability. They were quite the pair. “We now have a new Head dormitory, with a shared common space and two separate quarters for the both of you. Now, before we run out of time and appear late to the Sorting Ceremony, let us be on our way.”

Her hand was outstretched, something he didn’t understand until Granger placed her hand on top of the Professor’s. Draco did the same, remembering that Headmaster’s could apparate on the grounds, taking a deep breath as the world folded in around him and reappeared with a pop.

McGonagall showed them into the dormitory, pointing out each of their separate quarters and the kitchen, speaking the password to the portrait in hushed tones even though nobody else was in the space. And when she left, Draco looked around, telling himself that he could make this work. He would stay in his room whenever Granger was around and attempt to be elsewhere as much as possible. As long as she kept her know-it-all tendencies out of his‒

“We’re going to be able to work together this year, right?” she asked him, interrupting his thoughts and prompting him to turn to face her as she stared at the cabinets in the kitchenette.

Well, this wasn’t how he wanted to do it, but since he was given the opportunity he might as well. “Believe it or not, Granger, I was going to apologize to you tonight.”

“Apologize?” she interrogated further, turning over her shoulder to face him. “So you mean to tell me you plan on notbeing a massive prick this year?”

A wash of cold over his body. He cleared his throat, gruffly continuing, “That wasn’t what I was going to apologize for.”

Her face paled as her eyes widened. “Oh,” Granger said after a moment, silence following the word. “You don’t have to apologize for that. Any of it.”

He did have to apologize for it. He opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

“I’m serious. I’d much prefer it rather if you didn’t.”

She was tense, her entire body rigid as she regarded him halfheartedly, her eyes focused on his knees instead of on his face, her arms crossed over her chest almost defensively, as if he had done something wrong, something worse than standing there and watching as his aunt fried her nerves beyond pain recognition.

But, he still had a year left to survive with her. He could apologize another time. It wasn’t what he wanted, but creating a chasm between them this early on wasn’t exactly going to make his life better. So, he nodded.

“I should warn you though, Granger, that this doesn’t mean I’ll stop being a prick.You’ll have to forgive me for that much, at least.”

The corner of her lip quirked into something almost resembling a smile. “I guess I can forgive you for that.”

Draco had told Violet about everything over the years. Hermione had asked him to tell it, to tell her everything. It was the only way she would be able to go to Hogwarts and be prepared for the teasing and the names and the awful comments that would undoubtedly come from the fact that her father was who he was.

He hadn’t told her everything about him and Granger, though.

“She wouldn’t let you apologize at first?” Violet asked, turning to her father with a wild smile, her eyes ablaze at the story he had shared.

Draco shook his head as the corner of his lips quirked. “No. It was years before she let me apologize to her. Your mother always got what she wanted, you know.”

Violet’s eyes were back on the scrapbook in front of her, turning the pages nimbly as if she was afraid they would break under her touch. “Is that why you let her keep these scrapbooks?” Draco nodded. “When did you first find them?”

Draco was right brassed off. Potions was his thing, his one strength. He was always right when it came to potions. Except, sodding Professor Slughorn seemed to think he wasn’t able to handle the class anymore. NEWT level Potions was an easy class. Draco did the work. He always brewed an impeccable batch of whatever concoction it was they were working on. People used to call him the Slytherin Prince when he was younger, but now he was the Potions Prince, fucking supreme when it came to‒

He stopped dead in his tracks, the portrait still open behind him at the sight of Granger on the floor of their common space, papers and pictures and newspaper clippings around her like a hurricane. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She had classes now. It was Thursday, he always had the common room to himself after Potions on Thursdays. He was planning on coming back here and throwing some china against the wall. Anger management and whatnot. But here she was, ruining his plans, again.

They had gotten on solid speaking terms back at the end of October. Now it was early December, and she seemed to think that solid speaking terms meant they were friends. No, they most certainly were not friends. She wouldn’t let him apologize to her still, so how were they supposed to be friends? Spending time together outside of their common classes and rounds was something that friends did. She always seemed to suggest they do extra patrolling when he planned something.

“Granger?” Draco grumbled, his tone clipped as he shut the portrait behind him and scowled at her, her bushy mane shielding her face from him as he stood behind her.

“Yes Malfoy?” she responded, not even bothering to glance back at him, the bint.

He had to take a deep breath to refrain from chewing her out. “Don’t you have class now? Why are you here?”

“How thoughtful of you to take notice of my schedule,” she hummed, her tone almost mocking. “I do have class, but as you can tell, I’m not there today.”

“Skiving off?” he scoffed, suddenly too intrigued with the concept to continue to be wholly angry as he moved over to stand behind their shared sofa. “I didn’t know Hermione Granger was capable of such juvenile acts.”

Almost instantaneously, she was glaring at him, her mouth pulled into a sneer as she spat, “Piss off.”

He almost laughed with incredulity. Granger had a bite, he always knew that, but it was fun to once again have it aimed at him. She had been far too cordial since returning to school. “Only if you tell me what this mess you made in our common room is all about.”

Her gaze immediately softened, turning back onto the folded papers in front of her as her shoulders sank. A pang of guilt twisted in his gut. Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed. Maybe something was wrong and he should have‒

“I’m making a scrapbook,” she said defiantly, her chin raised even as she glanced down at her materials.

Draco couldn’t stop the look of disgust that rolled over his features. “What the hell is a scrapbook?”

Her voice wasn’t filled with malice when she replied, “It’s a book where you can put pictures and notes and things. My mum used to make them and fill them with baby pictures and newspaper clippings and whatnot. I just wanted to make one so I could go back through and relive the memories.”

He couldn’t help his intrigue. “And why would you, a witch, spend time putting pictures and papers together when you could just bottle up your memories and use a pensieve to relive things?”

“Memories can be distorted, Malfoy,” she retorted, quickly, her tone harsh. Something he had said must have struck a chord. “Even if you save them for use in a pensieve, they can denature after every single use. There are no debating pictures and notes and descriptions.”

“Alright then,” he dismissed almost defensively, not wanting to deal with her ferocity about a few stupid pieces of paper. “I didn’t mean to make you defensive, I just don’t appreciate the mess. Just make sure it’s cleaned up by later.”

Granger didn’t make another sound as Draco turned and walked over to his bedroom door, pausing with his hand on the door knob to look back at her. The Gryffindor’s eyes were stuck on the papers and the pictures and the tape, her face pale as she regarded them. A thought for a split second crossed through his mind that she looked sad, forlorn even, but he dismissed it, stepping into his room and closing the door behind him, leaving her to her folded papers and crumpled pictures.

Violet turned the page again, her eyes scanning through pictures and clippings from the war, ones of both of them from his trial and others of her receiving her Order of Merlin. “Why was Mum so sad there?”

A spindle of pain weaved its way through his heart at the memory. It was years later that he found out why she was truly upset that night. “She had just gotten some bad news.”

His daughter stopped flipping the pages when she landed on a spread composed completely of pieces of parchment, marked with both her handwriting and his. Poems.

“What are these?” she asked, her fingertips tracing over her mother’s script like an old tome.

“Didn’t I ever tell you about her poetry obsession?”

Granger had forced them to come to the library. It was the third day this week she had dragged him here after rounds, shoving him down into a seat as they worked through their Arithmancy and Ancient Runes work together. She was better at runic translations than he was and he excelled more than her with arithmancy problems. She called it “a perfect collaboration.” He thought it was a ridiculous way for her to shame him for all of his past failures. Maybe he was her new pity project.

Draco fucking hated it. He hated the way she would obnoxiously grab his arm and physically drag him to the table that had apparently become “theirs.” He hated the way she would ask him about his day. He hated the way her fingers ran under the lines of text as she read through a reference volume, her nose scrunched up and her eyes far too close to the pages. Maybe she needed glasses. Most of all, he hated how he couldn’t tear his eyes from her as she worked through a translation. He could see the mechanics of her brain moving from her eyes, the little scowl that graced her lips when she was thinking, the way her fingers would tap out an unrecognizable rhythm on the hard top of the table as she worked. He hated how his eyes always caught on her lips.

He would have debated it in years past, but he couldn’t deny it now. Granger was… nice to look at. He attributed his observations to the fact that he couldn’t escape her, her jasmine scent everywhere he moved in their little dormitory, her things strewn all over the place, her smile facing him every time he turned the corner. He didn’t fancy her‒ no, he could never do that. She was just.. attractive. In the generic sense. She was smart and could be funny at times and while she was an insufferable swot, she wasn’t so bad when she would bring him sweets after a trip to Hogsmeade, even though he hadn’t asked for them‒

No, Draco. Stop it. You do not fancy Hermione Granger.

Speaking of smiling, why was she always smiling? Why did she bring him here? Their obligations were nothing more than rounds and paperwork, neither of which were accomplished while doing coursework at a library table. He tried to ignore it, ignore his questions, her absolutely delectable lips, and her brilliant brain as he focused on his arithmancy problem, but he found himself right back at the origin only mere seconds later. He couldn’t hold it back.

“What is this all about, Granger?” he asked, his voice gritty as he watched her turn the page of her textbook.

“Hm?”

She wasn’t paying any attention to him. Of fucking course she wasn’t.

He reached across the table and threw a folded piece of parchment in between the pages she was reading before slamming the covers closed. She frowned at him as her eyes met his. “Is there something that you need help with? I thought you were supposed to be good at Arithmancy.”

“Piss off,” he growled, his sneer undoubtedly plastered over his features. “I asked you a question.”

“Which was what, exactly?” Granger inquired, seemingly bored with the conversation.

He had to clench his fist to refrain from outright screaming at her in between the tomes. Madam Pince would have his head for that. “I asked you what this all is about.”

She seemed confused. There was no way she was that idiotic. Yet, she still said, “What is what all about?”

“This,” he snapped, glowering at her with as much malice as he could draw upon. “Why the fuck do you drag me down here to study with you?”

Granger paused, regarding him for a moment as if she was studying something for an exam, as if he was the book she had just been reading. A moment passed before her eyes went back down to the papers in front of her and words slipped past her lips. “Life is short, Malfoy. You probably shouldn’t spend all of your time sulking in the shadows alone. And, believe it or not, I like your company. You don’t ask me to finish your work for you.”

A pause. The frantic beating of his heart and the racing of his mind at the fact that she liked his company. He didn’t fancy her. He shouldn’t have been happy to hear it. But he was. He took a silent breath, forcing his occlumency back into place just so he could say, “Don’t speak so soon, Granger. Now I’ll just have to ask you to finish my work for me.”

Her lips quirked slightly before she was moving, shoving her papers into her bag and standing, preparing to leave. Had he said something wrong? Did he do something wrong? He didn’t hate the library visits anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling her bag over her shoulder. “I just forgot I have to be somewhere. I’ll finish the translations tonight and we can trade answers before classes tomorrow.”

Before he could answer her, she was gone, leaving him alone at their table. When he looked down at the parchment in front of him, filled with problems he hadn’t been able to decipher, he found a folded piece of paper. It hadn’t been there before Granger left. Maybe it fell out of her bag or something. He flipped it over, planning on not reading the contents but accidentally seeing the words of the first line in her script.

Stars didn’t shine. They burned.

He was too intrigued to do the right thing, so he unfolded it, continuing to read.

Stars didn’t shine. They burned.
And I spent my whole life
Looking at the stars in his eyes,
Just to find out the
Sparkle was an inferno
And I had fallen victim to the flame.
With every glance I burned for him.
Just like that, I was a slave to the ember in his eyes.

Who the fuck was that for? It was lucky that Draco was the one to find it so that he could return it to Granger without anyone seeing. That would have been more embarrassing than anything else.

Draco tucked it away, turning back to finish his work so that he could get back to their dormitory and give Granger her little love letter back. Except, when he returned to the dormitory that night, her door was already closed, locked with a locking charm that he recognized when he went to knock on it. The next morning, he placed a note atop of the paper, leaving it next to her bag so she would be sure to see it before leaving for classes. A simple “I think this is yours.”

When he returned to their dormitory much later that night, having joined the other Slytherins in their common room after their classes, the paper was stuck to his door, a note appearing above it.

Actually, this was for you.

“You never told me that story before,” Violet said, her voice quiet with incredulity as she traced over her mother’s handwriting on that particular note.

“It never came up,” Draco answered nonchalantly, inspecting one of the other notes on the page, the one that he gave to her upon the cessation of their eighth year. “Did I ever tell you the story behind this one?”

Her eyes followed to his fingers, pointing at the note in question. “No. Can you?”

The little thing that had emerged between them culminated in a kiss on Valentine’s Day. Cliché, but true. They had decided to drink that night, spending the evening in their common room with bottles of wine and only each other's company. A week later, they were walking around the school hand in hand between classes. She dragged him everywhere she wanted to go. The first time she had slept in his bed was after a particularly rough night in March. They both suffered from nightmares, but hers seemed to be so much worse than his. In April, she told him that Shacklebolt had offered her a job in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to fight for elven rights. He was happy for her. In May, he told her that Potter had owled him to ask if he would like to work at the DMLE in a position that would work directly with the Auror program, identifying dark witches and wizards so that the Aurors could apprehend them. He had accepted, and she was happy for him.

Once June had arrived, after they finished their NEWT exams, both of them passing with the highest marks of the school, he knew the end was near. Their little thing was going to come crashing down around him in a fiery inferno. She was going to go off and be an incredibly successful witch, throwing her name into the hat for Minister of Magic by the time she was twenty, and he would watch from the sidelines, so far removed from her that he wasn’t sure he would be able to remember the way her skin felt warm under his or how it glowed in the sunlight.

Granger had given him that note back in the middle of January, telling him that she “burned for him,” setting ablaze the fire in his heart that he had been denying to himself ever existed in the first place. They had continued their little game, passing each other notes every chance they got. She did most of the writing, though. She was simply better at it.

But as their eighth year drew to a close, the time moving exponentially faster even though he begged it not to, he came to the conclusion that he could only begin to come to terms with the changes occurring if he seriously thought through them. One night, while she was in the Gryffindor common room with Weaslette and a few of the others, Draco locked himself in his room, forcing himself to relive the memories and come to a conclusion on what he had to tell her.

His conclusion was written in ink on a folded piece of paper.

As time tells,
He didn’t know how to feel.
Heart flutters turned into heart break
When she entered the room.
It was like his heart mourned her already.
He found himself asking the words
How do you say goodbye to a heart you’ve barely said hello to.

He left it on her dresser, praying to Merlin that she wouldn’t notice it until much later, maybe even until after they had left King’s Cross and had returned home. He had his new flat waiting for him, so she wouldn’t be able to find him to reject him and end everything. He wouldn’t have to face her tears that way.

The next morning, he was awoken by a thud as his door slammed open and a presence was felt at his side. She was kneeling on his bed, the light streaming in from their common room blinding him from the abrupt change in environment.

“What the hell is this?” she asked, her voice nearly seven octaves higher than it usually was. She seemed angry, but Draco couldn’t make out what it was that she was doing.

“Give me a minute, Granger,” he croaked, his hands covering his eyes as he rubbed at them.

She didn’t wait, her hands grabbing his from his face as she stared down at him, her eyes wide as she waved a piece of paper in front of him. “I’m not playing around, Draco. What is this?”

He recognized it almost immediately, cursing the gods for not fulfilling one measly request of his. “What do you mean what is this? It’s a note.”

“I know it’s a note, I’m not an idiot,” she shot back, repositioning herself and unfolding the note as he sat up, squinting still because of the light. “It was like his heart mourned her already. What does that mean?”

“I don’t think I un‒”

“How do you say goodbye to a heart you’ve barely said hello to?"she continued, asking the next line as if it was a question. “What does this mean?”

“Can you not read, Granger? I know you’re not an idiot‒”

“Is this your way of breaking up with me?” Her eyes were wide, her chest heaving as she stared at him. He suddenly wasn’t tired anymore. “Did I do something wrong? Do you not fancy me anymore?”

“Granger, calm‒”

“Do you not have enough decency to tell a girl to her face when you don’t want to see her anymore?” she persisted, the tell-tale film of tears visible in her eyes. “What, you got in my knickers and now that school is ending you never want to see me again?”

He had no choice but to grab her face with his hands, his large palms covering almost all of her face. “Do you hear yourself? You sound like a complete nutter. No, I’m not breaking up with you. I was preparing for you to break up with me.”

Her jaw dropped, even from within Draco’s grasp. “Why would I break up with you?” she queried, her voice incredibly quiet all of a sudden.

Was she not going to break up with him? Had he misread the entire situation once again and caused pain for them both?

“Well, school is ending in a few days,” he stammered, unsure of his next words. “You’re going to work for the Ministry‒”

“And so are you‒”

“I just didn’t want to assume‒”

“Assume? Assume what? Assume that I would want to continue this? Continue us?” She was becoming frantic again, so he moved his hands, his thumbs brushing up and down her cheekbones soothingly. She closed her eyes for a moment, taking a breath before opening them and saying something he knew in that moment he would never forget. “Why would I ever want to end what we have?”

“Mum worked at the Ministry?” Violet asked, watching Draco intently as he told the story. “I don’t remember her working much.”

“She stopped working at the Ministry after you were born. She didn’t want to waste any time she could have been spending with you doing a menial job that wouldn’t end up mattering much in the end.”

His daughter was quiet for a moment before asking another question, less enthusiastically than she had the others. “Did you figure out what was wrong with her before she told you?”

Draco’s bones felt like lead in his body at that query. He knew the answer. He should have been able to say yes, that he realized something was wrong and asked her about it and she told him, but the truth was that he didn’t. He noticed small changes, but attributed them to the fact that they were both working and she never stopped. She was Hermione Granger, invincible Golden Girl. Nothing could ever touch her.

There was no reason to lie to his daughter. Hermione wouldn’t have wanted that. “No, I didn’t.” He could practically hear Violet holding her breath. “I noticed some things, her increased lethargy and the way she had to take more breaks, but we didn’t live together then, so it was harder to tell. She worked all the time, so I figured she was exhausted from that.”

“Did she scrapbook more after you both graduated?”

He nodded, remembering one particular night well‒ the night when she had told him about everything.

“When did she tell you about it?”

It was their monthly visit to Australia. Granger had told him about her parents after one awful night in the fall of 1999 and a failed attempt at her meeting his mother. She had obliviated them during the war and wasn’t able to reverse the memory charms that had erased her from their memories. Ever since then, they traveled to Australia by portkey on the third Saturday of every month to go visit Wendell and Monica Wilkins from afar.

This particular Saturday, a warm August night, they had decided to stay in a hotel instead of return back to his flat in London. They were both exhausted, but once they arrived in their room, Draco slumping down on their bed in a fight to stay awake, Hermione positioned herself on the floor, pulling a familiar leather book from her extendable bag and opening it on the floor in front of her, summoning quills and papers and tape from inside her bag as well.

“Granger, what are you doing?” he asked once he noticed what was happening. She was already frantically writing on one of the papers, her brain running a mile a minute as he could tell from her eyes.

She didn’t answer.

“Granger‒”

“Shut up and let me focus,” she snarled, finishing her writing before throwing her quill away from her and grabbing something else, something Draco had come to recognize as a tape dispenser.

Why was she so adamant on doing this now? She had just spent all of her emotions on trying to refrain from going after her parents, so why would she put herself through more turmoil?

“What are you doing?” he repeated, growing frustrated at her incessant need to cause herself more problems.

“I am using this stupid flimsy fucking tape to stick this paper into my scrapbook, thank you,” she shot back, her edge fully on display.

He rolled his eyes, as if that wasn’t obvious. “Would you just stop and come lay down? You must be exhausted. You don’t need to do that right now‒”

“Yes I do‒”

“Granger, come off it‒”

“What the fuck is your problem?” she shrieked, pausing in her work to look up at him.

That was more than enough. “My problem? I don’t have a problem, thank you very much. You’re the one obsessively scribbling into that stupid book of yours‒”

“Don’t you say a word about my scrapbook‒”

“It’s just fucking paper!” he bellowed, his frustrations completely removing themselves from inside his body. “You could come over here and talk to me about whatever it is that’s bothering you but instead you’re folding papers and taping pictures and it’s idiotic!”

“It’s not idiotic!” she shouted, rising to stand so that her voice held more power. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, so I suggest you shut up and let me do this before I hex you all the way back to London!”

“I have no idea what I’m talking about? We spend almost every day together! I wake up, and you’re looking through that book. I come to visit you on your lunch break and you’re cutting out pictures to bring home to put in that book. Something big happens, a good date or a party, or any little thing and the next thing I know you’ve disappeared to put something in that fucking book!”

“Well I’m sorry I won’t be able to remember anything in a few years!”

A crescendo to silence.

Confusion laced across Draco’s brain as he studied the witch in front of him, his witch, her chest heaving and her eyes on fire yet laced with tears, her hair bushier than he had seen it in a while.

“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked, the intensity from before still present but the volume lower than it had been.

She closed her eyes, a defeated expression coupled on her features. “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you‒”

“Tell me what? What do you mean you won't be able to remember anything in a few years?”

Her eyes opened and she looked at him, a weary glance that set his insides swirling with dread. What hadn’t she told him? What was he missing?

She flicked her wrist, the scrapbook closing underneath where she was standing as it repositioned itself on the coffee table in the room and she closed the space between them, taking his arms in her hands. “Why don’t we get ready for bed? I can tell you then‒”

“No,” he protested, staring down at her as they stood there, her eyes resigned upon his. “Tell me now.”

And so, she did.

That dreaded day at Malfoy Manor, the day where he had stood there and watched as Bellatrix tortured her, something had been taken from her. The curses were just too much for her body, her magic, to handle. She hadn’t noticed it until the beginning of eighth year, when she couldn’t remember things like she used to be able to. She had been increasingly more tired, so McGonagall decided to send her to St. Mungo’s one day to meet with one of their healers.

While Bellatrix had now been dead for years, her magic was still doing damage, ripping Hermione’s magic‒ her life‒ apart from the inside out. She was twenty now, and the healers predicted that she had ten, maybe fifteen years left. That was it. As time progressed, she would lose more and more of her memories until she was a shell, a being that wouldn’t be able to care for herself until she finally passed on.

Draco lost it about halfway through her story, the grief hitting him so suddenly that he had to sit on the edge of the bed as he clawed at his chest, his breath unable to form completely. He hadn’t even registered that the tears had started to fall until she wiped them away, kissing his forehead as she finished explaining how she would meet her end.

He physically hurt by the end of it, his chest in a raging pain that would not let up even as she guided him to lay down and wrapped her arms around him as he choked, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I should have stopped her. This isn’t fair. You can’t leave, you can’t. I’m sorry, Hermione, I love you, I’m so sorry.”

He should have been holding her. She was the one that was suffering, yet she was comforting him, consoling him as the world fell out from under his feet and slammed him smack dab into the pavement at the core of the universe, turning his life upside down before it ever even had the chance to begin.

It wasn’t fair. Hermione Granger was the Golden Girl. She was supposed to live a long life and become Minister of Magic one day and watch as her children were sorted into Gryffindor and grow old and scrapbook to her heart’s content. Instead, she was going to start to wither away before even turning thirty.

Draco mourned for both of them that night, his heart saying goodbye to another that he had barely said hello to.

Upon returning home, he owled the best Healers he could find, desperate to find something they could do, some experimental potion or other magical treatment that could reverse the impacts of the curse as it continued to leech into her being. Shortly after her twenty-first birthday, though, he realized how futile it was. Hermione had accepted it, and now he had to as well.

She was going to leave him here alone with nothing but her scrapbooks and his memories of her. Who knew if she would even have memories of him at the end? Maybe she would die thinking she was alone.

To Draco, Hermine was like the ocean, her exterior ablaze with the golden flow of the sunshine on the surface of the waves, hiding the dark depths of her true self below with masked everlasting beauty. He would forever be submerged in her waters, even as the tides calmed and the shore receded without her. Loving her as deeply as he did left him breathless, gasping for air. He didn’t mind the gasping, as it was the silencing caves of the ocean that allowed him to cry and express out his darkest thoughts. Draco was not like a man who could be bought or an angel doomed to fall at her grace, though he was a man that would let her waves crash into him for the rest of eternity. For her soft serenity, he would happily drown day after day, pulled under the currents until he was stuck there forever without her to drag him out.

He proposed to her at the beginning of November, not wanting to waste any of the time that they had left. He bought their house two weeks later, the occasion marked by the key in their scrapbook.

“Would you put that camera down and let us enjoy this?” Hermione asked with a bright smile, her eyes continuing to glower at him as he attempted to snag a picture of her in front of their home.

“Granger, I’m trying to capture you in front of our home in all of your Golden Girl glory,” he quipped, winking at her as he raised the camera again. “Don’t you want this for your scrapbook?”

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, giving him a very mocking smile as the camera clicked and the picture was taken. “You know, I should spite you and not include it.”

“As if you would ever do that.”

She rolled her eyes once again, a habitual practice whenever he spoke, but smirked at him teasingly. “Besides, your entire statement is void because I won’t be Granger for much longer. Will you start calling me Malfoy after the wedding?”

He smiled genuinely, warmth spreading through him at the reminder that Hermione fucking Granger was going to be his wife in only a short amount of time. He was never happier than when he was reminded of that. “Maybe,” he played, crossing over to her and looking down on her through hooded eyes. “I guess you’ll just have to find out.”

“You have things in here from your wedding, right?” Violet asked, frantically turning the page from the one housing their key in an attempt to search.

Draco laughed, actually laughed. “Have you been missing everything I’ve been saying?” he teased, stilling his daughter’s hands over the pages. “Your mother would have skinned me alive if she couldn’t dedicate a few pages to our wedding.”

It was a small ceremony, just close friends. There was no need for family, what with Hermione’s parents still obliviated and in Australia and Narcissa not completely supportive of the rush, nor the age at which her son was getting married.

He was nervous and yet completely sure of the ceremony. Her favourite flowers‒ white lilacs‒ adorned every single chair. The sky was a beautiful blue in the early weekends of March, a warm day when it would usually be cold.

Potter walked her down the aisle, and Draco cried when he saw her, the reminder that he wouldn’t get to grow old with her nagging at his thoughts with every step she took closer to him. They were getting married so they could spend as much time together as her condition would allow for. They were getting married so that she could live as much of her life as possible before it was taken from her. They were getting married so that Hermione Granger could have as much happiness as she could in the short time she had left. Even if it killed him, Draco would make sure she got every inch of that joy, regardless of the way it pained him. It was all for her. It was always for her.

The kiss that they shared after their magic was bonded was one that he knew he would never forget. A promise and an apology all in one. A promise that he would make her life as beautiful and as brilliant as she had made his and an apology that he never got to give her back during eighth year.

Their first dance was to one of her favourite songs, the one her parents had danced to at their wedding. It made her feel like they were there with her.

The first thing they did when they arrived back at their house after their ceremony was work on Hermione’s scrapbook. The second thing they did was pack their scrapbook into their luggage before taking their portkey to Australia for their honeymoon.

Two years later, Granger threw him another curve ball at one of her visits with the Healers, where they would inspect her body and mind to give her a new estimated expiry date. Draco hated going, hated watching them just go along with the fact that she was going to die without trying something new. She asked a question. A question that had been put off the table after one of their visits a year ago after they said it was too risky. Draco wasn’t going to let her throw herself away like that, sacrifice the years they still had together.

And still she asked, the Healer’s only response to her inquiry was, “It would make pregnancy very difficult. Conceiving would be a struggle and carrying to term would be even more so.”

Hermione’s eyes never lost their spark, even with the words the Healer was saying. Draco could almost predict the next phrase to come out of her mouth, an eager and far too optimistic, “Very difficult doesn’t mean impossible.”

The Healer regarded her almost inquisitively. “You may be right, Mrs Granger-Malfoy, but I have to say that I do not recommend this course of action. However, if you were to find yourself pregnant, I would do everything in my power as a Healer to support you through the process. Now, if you don’t have any other questions, our examination is complete.”

“No other questions. Thank you, Healer Boyle,” she hummed, smiling graciously as the older witch crossed to the door and exited the exam room.

Silence for a moment, only a moment.

“What the fuck was that about?” Draco interrogated, his gaze hot on her as the fury resurfaced.

Hermione hopped off of the exam table and grabbed her purse, saying, “Why don’t we just go home?”

Draco did not like that. “I’m not talking about this at home.”

“Draco, we can talk about this at home‒”

“Hermione, no. I am not letting you take away my time with you‒ our time together. What would it even be for? A baby that you wouldn’t even be here to see grow up?”

She turned to him, lifted her hands and brought her palms to his cheeks. They used to be filled with warmth, practically vibrating with her electric energy. Now, though she was young, they were cold, throbbing unceremoniously with every movement she made. “Draco, you have to see that this isn’t just about us in this moment, in all of these moments we will get to share until the end.” She paused, swallowing as she choked slightly on her words, “When I die, you’re going to be alone. You don’t have many friends. You don’t go out on weekends except for if we go somewhere together. You stopped working to spend as much time with me as possible. You have nothing but me.” A rattled breath passed through her lips as she searched his eyes, her amber irises warm and welcoming and sad, so very sad. “And when I’m gone, I need to know that you won’t be alone. I can’t leave knowing that you’re going to be alone. It’ll break me.”

That night, their fingers intertwined as they made their way to their bedroom, the door locking automatically as they placed themselves in the other’s care, worshipping the other’s flesh until they were one. It was sad and romantic and a promise, a promise from Hermione that she wouldn’t leave him alone and a promise from Draco that he would do everything he could to make sure she had everything she ever wanted.

He didn’t want a baby, not really. When he was younger, before he knew about her ailment, he did. Their kids would be the most brilliant humans on the planet. But now, he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle a child that had her eyes, her hair, her fiery attitude, compassion, and sheer love of life. He wouldn’t be able to handle that child when all he would be able to see when he looked at them would be her. It was different, knowing that Hermione was going to leave him. All of the excitement that would usually come surrounding the impending arrival of a baby washed away, just as his desire for children had.

How was he supposed to care for a child, their child, without her? The answer was simple‒ he couldn’t. That was why he worked like the devil to ensure that she wouldn’t become pregnant. He knew he wouldn’t be able to bear it if she was to bear his child. He also knew that there was a good chance she wouldn’t survive it, according to Healer Boyle’s words from a year ago. That scared him more than the idea of caring for her child after she had left him.

But somehow, she still ended up pregnant. It was as if the universe had it out for him, for them. Hermione was so excited, throwing her energy into decorating the nursery and showing him how to diaper a baby and reading her stupid parenting books. When she wasn’t doing any of that, she was scrapbooking, writing down memories and flipping back through old ones that she had already begun to forget.

He had come to hate those stupid scrapbooks. They signified to him the end, the impending doom that was a life without Hermione. He never said anything, but he knew she knew of his disdain for them.

Draco was by her side for all 13 hours of labour, feeding her ice chips and using the diagnostic spells he had become far too familiar with for a twenty-three year old to ensure that she was all right when the Healers weren’t in the room to check on her.

He cried when Healer Boyle placed his daughter in his arms as he stood over the table where they had just been inspecting her. A girl. A little girl with Hermione’s eyes.

When he turned back around to show her, his wife wasn’t watching him as she should have been, as he had dreamed she would when he held their daughter for the first time. Instead, her gaze was focused in the other direction, the birds chirping outside of her window apparently more invigorating than her husband holding their daughter for the first time.

“Hermione,” he growled, biting back tears as he glowered at her, his heart shattering even though it was only just then that it had expanded into the caverns of his chest and brightened his soul. “She is your daughter. Ourdaughter. Don’t do this. Don’t sabotage the time we have left together. She won’t forgive you. Iwon’t forgive you.”

Hermione rolled on her side, her vision fully occluded of where he was standing, their daughter in his arms, beginning to cry for a reason that Draco couldn’t discern. He shushed her, looking at her with uncertainty as her wailing only increased. She wasn’t even an hour old and Draco already had no idea what he was doing.

After his second attempt at shushing her, repositioning her in his arms gently, her lamentations crescendoed to a consistent howl. He attempted a different tactic. “Hey you,” he cooed, rocking her slightly as he moved around, wondering if the movement would lull her back into calmness. “It’s all right. We’re all right.”

His daughter did not seem to think that it was all right, her yowls growing unrelenting. Draco looked back over at his wife where she lay, her shoulders tense from what he could see of her back. “Granger,” he implored, a harsh edge to his words as his frustrations began to mount, “I need some help here.”

No reaction.

The slight bouncing of the baby in his arms only worsened his problems. “Please, Granger. I can’t get her to stop.”

Another loud wail, and yet no reaction from the woman who had blessed him with the incredibly small bundle that was apparently capable of rupturing his eardrums. Every second that passed only made him angrier, not at the being in his arms, but at his wife, ignoring the both of them as they struggled to find solid ground.

It became too much, and he had to refrain from exploding as he evened out his breath and spoke to his wife, the woman who promised she would give him anything and everything he wanted for as long as she could. “Hermione,” he implored, begging her silently to just turn around and look at him. “Tell me what to do so I can get her to stop crying.”

A shrug was all he got. A stupid simple fucking shrug.

That was it for him.

“Hermione, she’s crying!” he shrieked, the sound bellowing from his lungs as his daughter’s screams echoed louder still. “She’s crying and I don’t know what to do or how to stop it and I need you to help me here! I can’t fucking do this on my own! You’re still here, so act like it!”

It was then that Hermione caved, turning around to look at the pair of them, her face streaked with tears as her eyes met Draco’s and then flitted down to their daughter.

The sound that came from her lips was so small and unlike her that Draco wasn’t even sure it was Hermione who was talking to him. “I can’t let her get attached to me. When I leave she won’t know what to do‒”

“When you leave, she won’t know what to do because you’re her mother,” he argued, stepping closer to the bed as the being in his arms cried for them, for her parents. “She’s attached to you without even trying to be, Granger. So you might as well hold her while you still can.”

They didn’t write that in their scrapbook, but they did write their daughter’s measurements. Aurora Violet Malfoy. Narcissa had visited the day after she had been born and insisted that Draco name his daughter according to family tradition. Hermione had wanted to name her Violet. They compromised, settling on the name Aurora as both an ode to his family and a wish of hers, seeing as the name was on her list of possible choices for the child.

Everyone called her Violet, though.

He wished from that day on that they had just named her Violet

“How did you find out that Mum was close to the end?” she asked, flipping through pages that he had missed during the recollection of his memories, nearing the other cover containing their stories..

“She told me.”

“Draco?” Hermione hushed, closing the door behind her as she snuck into their bedroom. “Can I talk to you?”

His heart dropped into his stomach as he turned to face her, dread filling his limbs as his feet carried him to her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Her eyes were cold and somewhere else, somewhere far away where it was warm and she was happy. “Maybe you should sit down.”

That was it. That was when he knew.

“We can figure this out,” Draco insisted, anchoring himself to her with his hands on her upper arms, his gaze boring into hers with the fire that she usually gave to him. “I’ll arrange for international portkeys to bring in the best healers. They can figure something out‒”

“No, Draco,” she interjected, cutting him off and sending his brain reeling at the suddenness of her reply. “No more healers. I don’t want any more healers.”

He was scrambling for a response, one that could convince her to go along with it, to go through the tests and take their experimental potions so that he could have her for just a little while longer, so that their daughter could live more of her life with her mother than six measly years.

“Maybe in a different universe we would have been able to have longer,” she sighed, her eyes forlorn as they scanned over his face, her form barely visible through his tears. “But it’s time. I’ve accepted it. This world just doesn’t seem to be made for us.”

Draco should have been the one to hold Hermione that night, but Hermione held him as he cried, his tears staining her skin as the weight of the road before them began to set into his bones.

He brought her to St. Mungo’s the next day while Violet was playing with little James Potter. She looked so frail in her comfortable clothes, the bed swallowing her whole as she laid there. He didn’t want go leave, but the Healers eventually forced him to, a folded piece of parchment stuck into his palm before he left his wife there alone.

He read her note when he got home that night and cried in their bed.

She always closes her eyes
Like life pains her and isn’t worth looking at.
But for him, they’ll always be wide open in admiration
Soul staring
Forever captivated in her lover’s hostage.

She was slipping through life’s hands like an hourglass running out of time, the sand falling coarsely through it no after how badly those watching wished for it to slow, each day becoming more frail and fragile. Like a flower she continued to bloom despite becoming more ill, playing with Violet during their visits and continuing to write poems for him to take home and read without her. It pained Draco to see his beloved wife, the love of his life, become so consumed by the remaining curses. But, in traditional Hermione Granger-Malfoy fashion, she would try to lighten the mood, joking about how her once caramel skin had become deathly pale, saying that it was only now that she looked “like a proper Malfoy.” He would laugh through the staring of his heart just to see her idiotic smile at his appreciation of her jokes, knowing that she didn’t have much time left and that giving her this was the least he could do. He was determined to capture every moment he had left with her before she faded in time.

Unfortunately, just as she had said, the world truly didn’t seem to be meant for them. He was picking Violet up from the Potter’s residence when an emergency Patronus landed at his side. He knew what it was referring to without even having to listen to its message.

Potter and Weaslette kept his daughter as he apparated to the hospital and ran down the halls to her room, the room Violet and him had visited every day without fail. And there she was. His witch. His Golden Girl. His Hermione.

She didn’t have much time left, so he crawled into bed with her, the tears already falling before his skin hit the sheets.

Her hair was just as soft as always under his chin, the curls tickling his nose in a way that he used to find annoying but knew he would miss more than anything in the living world. Her body was molded against his for what he knew in his heart was the last time, his fingers overlapping hers as he pressed kisses into her temples, accompanied by promises as his tears glazed her glass-like skin.

“It’s okay, Hermione. You can go, it’s okay.” She took a rattling breath and Draco kissed her temple again, squeezing her cold fingers in between his. “I’m right here, you’re not alone. I love you so much. It’s okay. You can go.”

He almost jumped when he heard her voice, quiet and not quite hers but determined as she stammered out, “V-v-v-v-v-Vi.”

Draco lifted his head from hers, finding her eyes as he sat up to face her. “What was that? Hermione?”

Her exhaustion was palpable, from the sweat across her brow and her gaunt complexion to the slight shaking of her fingers and the dead look in her eyes. “V-v-v-v-v-Vi.”

“You want Vi?” he asked, searching the little life she was giving to him through her gaze in an attempt to discern if this was a genuine request or a hallucination as she neared her end. When she blinked once, he continued. “You said you didn’t want her here to see you like this.”

It was true. They had sat down and planned out what she wanted and what she didn’t. She didn’t want to put that burden onto her daughter.

Hermione could only croak another “V-v-v-v-v-Vi.”

“You want her here?” he asked, desperately needing the clarification. “Just say the word and I’ll get her. I’ll do anything you want, Granger.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed, a laborious task, before stammering again, “T-t-tell v-v-v-v-Vi-“

Draco stood almost immediately, squeezing Hermione’s hand as he planted a chaste kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be right back. Hold on for me, okay?”

He was out the door without another thought, expecting to see Violet waiting with Potter and Weaslette in the chairs right outside of Hermione’s room. Except, they weren’t there. He turned, starting down the hall towards the cafeteria, breaking into a sprint once he hit his stride.

It must have only been two minutes before he found them, his daughter’s sombre face lighting up like a muggle Christmas tree when she saw him running towards her. Draco ignored the questions from the Gryffindors as he reached down and hoisted his daughter up into his arms, starting his run all over again until they finally reached Hermione’s room. He put Violet down and crouched into her level, his fingers pushing back a piece of hair as he spoke calmly to her, his vice breaking only on the edge of his words.

“Violet, do you remember how Mummy taught you to be brave?” She nodded, so he continued. “I need you to be brave right now. Can you be brave, sweetheart?” When she nodded for a second time, Draco stood, extending his hand down to hers.

A hand on the door knob. Two pairs of footsteps along the clean tiled floors, completely in sync. A sight Draco had been dreading for years. His daughter whisked behind him as he turned her around, away from the body he knew was growing colder by the second.

When Healer Boyle entered the room, a quick exchange of words.

“Please take my daughter outside to the waiting room. Her godparents are there to sit with her.”

Healer Boyle’s eyes flitted from Violet to the bed that Draco knew was behind him. “Of course. I’m so sorry Mr Malfoy.”

Violet looked up at him, but he didn’t dare to move his eyes off of the wall across from him until the pair left the room. He turned around and felt his heart break, shattering like it had all those years ago when Hermione told him that she was breathing borrowed air. It was only then that Draco could allow himself to fold and crumple like one of those stupid papers that she always added to her scrapbooks.

“Granger, what are we going to do with you now?”

Those last few minutes with her were the most selfless of his entire life. Hermione Granger had wanted to see her daughter before she died and Draco Malfoy was determined to make it happen for her, even if that meant sacrificing the last few minutes he would ever have with her. If it would have eased her pain, he would do it a million times over.

But he hadn’t been fast enough. He had promised her, welded it into her skin with his lips, that she wasn’t alone. Except, she had died alone. Neither of them got what they wanted. Hermione wanted her daughter and Draco wanted Hermione.

He only allowed himself to cry for her then, her body growing colder with each breath he took, an act he would never get to watch her indulge in ever again. His daughter needed him. He was supposed to take care of her. He had to be strong for her, for Violet.

For Hermione too.

At her funeral, he left two folded pieces of paper atop of her casket as it lowered into the ground, poems just like the ones she had written him over the years.

Shooting stars of memories
Flood his mind
Broken fragments of their time together
Piece back into the
Picture perfect life they once
Lived together.
It all comes back,
But in the end she never does.

A life with her
Is all he asked for.
And all he got was
The memory of her without life.

The last page of their scrapbook, the one of Draco and Hermione, drew a memory from him that he had forgotten about.

Violet frequently asked about her mother. Draco had expected this. However, he hadn’t expected her to trek into his study with one of the scrapbooks she had made before she died. His daughter had asked and asked and asked all of the questions she had been holding back over the years until she had cried, clutching her father’s arms as she begged him to make her come back. She wanted her mother. She wondered why she couldn’t have her.

Draco had the same thoughts Violet did.

After he had gotten her to calm down and tucked her into bed for the night, he retreated to his new room, the one he had moved into after Hermione’s funeral, and walked over to the window, opening it so he could talk to her. He always talked to the sky when he needed to talk to her. It seemed as if he had been doing that more and more recently.

“I know that you would tell me to be vulnerable, but I have to hold it together,” he said, his voice breaking just slightly. “I have to do it for her, for Vi. She needs me, Granger. If I stop holding it together, I will break over and over and over again until we meet again. Our daughter deserves better than a father who cannot be there for her while he’s physically in her world.

“Violet is the best thing in my life. I love her more than everything else, I would do anything for her. She’s perfect and she’s just like you, Granger, right down to the mary janes. I wish she would’ve inherited a few of my mischievous genes, but she’s all yours.” He paused, another tear slipping free as a sob escaped his throat. “But you’re not here to see what this is doing to her, what it’s like for her to grow up without her mother. She’s folding in on herself like a piece of fucking paper, Hermione. and I’m trying so hard to make her happy, to give her everything she could ever want in an attempt try to show her how loved she is, by the both of us, but nothing is working. All she ever asks for are more books and-“ his voice broke, prompting him to pause momentarily- “and you. She just wants more books and her mother back.

“This is what I meant when I said I couldn’t do this. She wants a hug from her mother, and I can give her every hug in the world, hold her until the end of time but I can't give her a hug from her damn mother!”

He paused, the cold wind blowing through his hair for a moment as he centred himself, taking a few deep breaths. “We’re drowning without you, Hermione. Why can’t you come back to us?”

Draco Malfoy was being held together by nothing more than flimsy tape, just like her stupid scrapbook with her stupid pictures and their stupid memories. His heart has been caught within the pages, unable to unstick itself since that day that she left him all those years ago. The memories only solidified that fact more so.

He lifted his hands to his face and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes in an attempt to siphon the tears. A hand was on his shoulder a moment later, a gentle, “Dad,” to accompany it.

He took a deep breath just as he had in the memory, pulling his hands away as he forced his occlumency back into place so he could be strong for his daughter. “It’s her birthday,” he sighed, turning to look at her.

“I know.”

“You look just like her.”

“I know.”

The next day, he stayed with his daughter as she got ready, the pair of them downing chocolate frogs every chance they got, listening to his wife’s favourite songs on the gramophone she had asked for for her twenty-first birthday. Violet looked exactly like Hermione once she exited from her bathroom, white dress flowing and veil occluding her eyes. Draco could still see them sparkle, though.

When they walked arm in arm down the stairs together to the floor of the grand hall that led to the place where she would no longer be his, Violet only said one thing.

“I wish Mum was here.”

Draco stopped them on the next landing, drawing his arm from her elbow and turning to face her directly. He almost choked over his words at the sight of her, their daughter who looked just as her mother had on their wedding day. The dress, Draco had come to learn in the hour beforehand, was designed specifically to look like Hermione’s. The veil was the actual one Hermione had been wearing when they took their vows and bonded themselves to each other. Violet’s hair had been coiffed just like Hermione’s. She was a spitting image of her mother, right down to the fire in her amber eyes. Draco’s heart beat for the both of them.

“She’s here, Vi,” he whispered, his gaze tracking hers so intensely to attempt to convey what he couldn’t do in words without breaking in half. The tape holding him together was so old and flimsy that he was afraid if he started telling his daughter everything he truly thought, he would never stop until he was broken completely, utterly.

Draco didn’t have a moment to react as his daughter wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her head in his chest just as his wife used to do.

And for a moment, a small moment that dwindled before he could really recognize it had begun, he could have sworn he felt another pair of arms around them.

Draco beamed with pride as he walked her down the aisle, even more so when he watched her take her first dance to the same song that he and Hermione had all those years ago, the same one her parents had done before her.

The Gryffindor girl had changed his life, giving him something‒ someone‒ to help him through it, to remind him why he had done all of this in the first place. But other than making him better and giving him their daughter, the best thing Hermione Granger had ever done for Draco Malfoy was insist on making those stupid scrapbooks.

He wished he could tell her how wrong he was about them.