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From the moment Draco met Astoria after the War, he knew life would never be the same. Gone was the annoying younger sister of one of his friends. Instead, Astoria was a woman with beliefs of her own, a witch who captivated him from the moment she said, “You don’t remember me, do you?”
He hadn’t, at least not in the way that was important. For the first time when it came to the opposite sex, he stumbled over his words and stammered out a “I… Not in… That is… Astoria Greengrass?”
She laughed, a tinkling sound that reminded him of faeries leading the lost home, and had luckily taken pity on him. “Would you like to have tea with me? Tomorrow afternoon?”
He’d said yes, of course he had. When he met her the following day, she sat at a table in the Muggle cafe she’d chosen, chin propped onto a fist as she read a book. As he approached, she looked up, smiled, and said his name.
And he was lost.
During their courtship, she was patient, helping him unlearn the prejudices he’d been taught since childhood, and questioning him on why he believed the things he did. Their discussions were plenty, the arguments few, and for once in his life, Draco felt like he’d found someone who fit. He didn’t care that his parents were less-than-happy with his choice, that they thought Astoria was too free, too open-minded for the Malfoy name.
Because that was what he hoped she would take - his name, his ring, his vows. He wanted to share a life with her, have her as the mother of his child - not his heir, but his child or possible children if he were to be so lucky. So on a blustery spring day, after they’d chased her large-brimmed hat and stolen it back from the wind, Draco held her tightly against him. His arm wrapped around her waist, his hand tipped her chin up, and he asked her if she would consent to being his wife.
He wasn’t expecting the tears that welled in her eyes and tracked down her cheeks. He hadn’t expected the trembling of her lips right before she told him, “I can’t.”
His chest constricted, threatened to shut down completely, as he asked, “Why?” Despite the exchange, he refused to move away from her, refused to let go of the woman he loved. He knew she loved him back so the refusal confused him.
The words came tumbling out of her mouth. A curse, she said, a family curse that ran through her blood would one day take her life and she couldn’t - would not - do that to him. Fumbling fingers gripped his robes as she leaned her forehead on his chest. Confessions of not knowing if she could bear him a child, of not knowing when the curse would begin to ravage her body, surrounded them.
“Stop,” Draco said quietly. “Astoria, my love, stop.” She lifted her face to him then, wide-eyed and wondering. And he said words he never thought he’d say. “I don’t care if we never have a child, if the family name ends with us, but I love you and if you’d be willing, I will love you and take care of you until the very end.”
They married that fall, an engagement so short it left their friends wondering if there was a specific reason for it, but the couple laughed and promised, “No, not that. We just didn’t want to wait.”
And so their marriage became one of love and respect. They found joy in their lives but also terror, especially when the curse sprang into being just a few years in, coursing its way through Astoria’s veins and settling into the blood that kept her alive. It was quiet at first, a cold here or a feverish nightmare there, so they watched it and waited.
The fight about a child was vicious, Astoria wanting the Malfoy name to be carried on, and Draco refusing to put her life even more at risk. The Healers warned them against a pregnancy. When Draco went to his aunt for advice, Andromeda was torn - she knew what it was like to want a child and give birth to a precious new being, but she refused to lie to her nephew.
“Why must you keep bringing this up?” Draco yelled one particular bad day when Astoria lay in bed, dark circles under her eyes and gasping for air to fill her lungs.
She reached out a hand and despite his anger and worry, Draco took it and sat on the edge of their bed. He pressed his lips against her knuckles, blinking back tears that threatened to fall.
“Draco,” she said quietly. Silver eyes blinked at her. “I… I don’t want you alone when I…”
He dropped her hand as though it burned him. How dare she say such things. How dare she shatter his hopes that they would find a cure, that she would live longer than him. Words began to form in his mind, terrible words that made their way to his vocal chords.
“Don’t,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, so you’re a Legilimens now?”
“Draco.” His name on her tongue was a calling, a hammer that broke the floodgates and he bent over her body until his head was nestled upon her chest. He sobbed, the sound muffled by her body, and she soothed him with shushes and fingers in his hair. “We know it will happen. And I want someone who will be our love, our perfect child, to be there for you when I’m gone.”
He gave in to her. He always did. For a while, nothing happened, and he wondered if they were both cursed - she with blood, and he with his last name.
But then she circled her arms around his neck one morning as he was getting dressed and said she was pregnant. She took his hand and pressed it against her still-flat stomach. Draco buried his face in her neck and wondered if the tight feeling in his chest was happiness for his child or terror for Astoria.
They named him Scorpius Hyperion, following the Black naming tradition, even though Draco attempted to convince Astoria to use a plant to follow the Greengrass traditions. She laughed and said, “Absolutely not.” And so their son was named for the stars and the gods.
It wasn’t long before Astoria began to fade. Draco, in a blaze of panic and fear, secluded his family in a Malfoy property in Italy, where few people were allowed. He heard of the rumors back in England, but ignored them to take care of his weakening wife and newborn son.
The years passed. Despite Astoria getting better, they stayed away, content in the life they’d made for themselves. Draco traveled to and from England for business and refused to answer questions regarding Time Turners and illness and the Dark Lord. In fact, he had sneered and almost caused a riot when one journalist pushed too hard about Astoria possibly having a child of Dark Magic. But still his wife and son stayed in Italy, where Draco always returned.
The Hogwarts letter arrived on his 11th birthday, when the young boy was at his mother’s bedside. She was the worst she’d been for the duration of Scorpius’ entire life, so it was no surprise when the young boy begged his parents to allow him to continue with private tutors. Their answer was a firm No .
And so the Malfoy family returned to England and prepared to send the child to Scotland.
While Scorpius was in school, Astoria prepared for the end. She wrote letters and insisted on visitors. She created a list of things she wanted to do and made Draco accompany her on most of them. They went to the Muggle opera, spent a weekend on a private beach in Nice completely nude. Draco took her to new restaurants until she admitted she couldn’t taste anything anymore.
In between it all, Scorpius came home for holidays and summers. The three of them created fun spells and concocted potions. They went to the cinema in Muggle London. And Astoria told him stories upon stories about her years at Hogwarts, how she fell in love with Draco, and all the dreams she had for Scorpius. Through it all, Draco listened to the voice he loved and watched the happiness on her face.
After Scorpius returned to Hogwarts after the Easter holiday of his second year, Astoria sat up in bed. She waited for Draco to join her after his shower and asked him to sit with her. Warily, he did as she requested and settled into the bed by her legs, tucking the sheets around her limbs.
“Draco.”
“Not yet,” he begged her. “Astoria, I can’t…” but he wouldn’t finish his thought, not when it was selfish of him to think of his own pain before hers.
“Not yet,” she said softly. Her fingers traced invisible letters onto the back of his hand before she grasped it tightly. “Draco, I love you.”
“And I love you.”
She smiled. “I know you do.” She hesitated. “And I know… That you would do anything for me.”
“If it’s within my power, I will,” he promised.
“This is within your power. This is something I know you can do.”
Something in her tone made Draco pause. He caught her gaze and held it with his own. For a moment, he was tempted to use Legilimency on her but he’d promised her long ago to never invade her mind without her permission, so he waited.
“I need you to obliviate our son.”
Draco recoiled at the words. Surely he heard her incorrectly but Astoria sat there with a serene but determined look on her face. He had heard correctly.
“Obliviate? Scorpius? Why in all things magical would I do that?”
“To save him.”
“Save him? From what?” He was baffled, unable to fathom any idea for which obliviating their only child would be okay.
“From himself, Draco.” Astoria leaned forward and grasped Draco’s forearms. “When I’m gone, when I die, he shouldn’t have to remember me!”
The silence was thick, incredulity winding around the space in the room. Astoria breathed heavily, the energy spent yelling too much for her, and Draco just stared at her. Slowly, he slid his arms from her hold and stood from the bed. Husband and wife stared at each other, a heavy weight settling into both of their chests.
“I would do anything for you, Astoria. I have done as much as I could for you, not because it was expected or because it was my duty, but because I love you and want you to be happy, even when… Even when I know my happiness will come to an end when you’re no longer with me.”
Astoria’s mouth started to curve into a smile.
“But I will not remove you from Scorpius’ memory. I can’t believe you’d even ask that of me or wish that upon him.”
“Draco.”
“No. We’re not talking of this ever again.”
He left the room in a seething quiet anger, but returned that night to wrap Astoria in his arms when her sobs echoed throughout the house. The days grew longer with the coming summer but she turned paler, smudged bruises across her body forming in the fading moonlight.
Scorpius returned home, another year of Hogwarts finished. He told his mother stories about his best friend, about the girl with large curls that formed a halo around her. When he said her name was Rose Granger-Weasley, Astoria laughed while Draco let out a defeated sigh.
She grew weaker. Draco kissed her one night and said she was his reason for wanting to continue living after the War. She made him promise to keep living, no matter how much he might want to join her in the afterlife. Scorpius crawled into his parents’ bed, far too old and with gangly limbs that didn’t belong anymore, but they allowed him.
And when Astoria smiled at them one afternoon, said “I’m tired, my loves,” and closed her eyes, both Malfoy men cried, and were grateful for the memories seared into their minds, and into their hearts.