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Chapter Text

Air was quickly funneled out of the room, leaving behind a thick layer of the healer's words in its wake. The more Draco tried to breathe, the more he felt as if he had been hit square in the chest by a bludger. But no, that couldn’t be right. Draco had been hit by a bludger before, and it hadn’t hurt this much. 

He knew Hermione wasn’t sharing in the sentiment. Her brain was most likely in a state of overdrive, thinking through statistics and possibilities and solutions. He could tell by the twist of her brow, the way her lashes fluttered and covered the pretty brown of her eyes he so loved to fall apart into. 

The healer kept talking. Draco wondered if she knew no one was listening to her. 

“—magical or muggle. Typically, most ailments are treatable through our remedies, but this one is a conundrum for us, Mrs. Granger-Malfoy. We don’t like to refer out, but we think seeing a muggle healer could really be beneficial for you. If they are unable to provide a diagnosis, the next step would be the curse department—”

“You think my wife is cursed?” Draco bit out sardonically, the first words he’d spoken since the label untreatable through magical means permeated the air. “You think I’d bring Hermione Granger to the healer without having attempted to help her through all other avenues? That she wouldn’t have considered a curse herself?” 

Healer Tatovich blanched. “O-of course not, Mr. Malfoy. I was just reporting what our team concluded. Of course you would have already attempted to parse out any potential curses.” 

Draco’s eye twitched. Hermione shifted on the bed, her knuckles turning white with the force of her grip on the crisp linen sheets. 

“Right, well thank you ever so much for your enlightening information,” Draco threw out, vicious in every way but the hand he placed on Hermione’s back. “Please do keep in touch when you’ve found—quite literally—anything else.” 

The pop of apparition cut off any response from the young healer. In any other circumstance, Draco knew Hermione would have reprimanded him to death for apparating in a hospital, but today, Hermione did not. 

Draco landed rather unceremoniously in their home. His grip on Hermione was likely the only reason she was still standing, and he tightened it before heading towards the living room, pulling her so close to his chest that her curls drifted under his chin. The kiss he placed there was unconscious, meant more for him than anything else. 

“Come now, Hermione,” Draco murmured, gently guiding her to the chaise. He sat her in his lap, situating her legs over his own. He didn’t like the far-away look she’d adopted at St. Mungos, and he hated even more that it hadn’t let up once they returned home. Home was the one place she always looked truly open. 

“Darling?” Draco coaxed, fingers running lightly over her cheeks. Her lashes fluttered more. “Hermione, talk to me.” 

He watched as her chest took in air, and then released it with great effort. Perhaps she was feeling the same effects Draco had fallen victim to in that blasted hospital room. He moved one of his hands down to the flat plane between her breasts, allowing the warmth of his hand to ground her. 

It took several moments, but a few words slipped past her lips. “I don’t even remember the last time I went to a doctor.” 

Doctor implied muggle, and Draco didn’t know much about muggle doctors. “We will find you the best,” he assured, even if that meant little to him at the moment. 

Hermione finally turned her gaze to her husband, bewilderment and uncertainty twisting the lines of her mouth. Draco wanted to smooth them out with his fingers, to kiss away the fear that rested there, but he refrained. “How—how could a muggle remedy trump a magical one? How were they not even able to locate the cause of my illness? Magic is supposed to… it’s supposed to—” 

Draco could hardly fathom the war raging in Hermione’s mind. He had grown up knowing magic. There was never a muggle equivalent to anything that he needed to make a comparison to. The floo was for traveling, brooms were for sports, owls were used to communicate. But since meeting, and loving, Hermione Granger, Draco had learned of many differences. Aeroplanes, baseball, cellphones; muggles and magic peoples were different, but the same. 

There was a discrepancy, however, with medicine. A large one. And magic, according to all accounts Draco could find, was superior. Growing bones with a simple potion was only the beginning of such a delineation, and Draco was also having a hard time seeing how his wife was to be cured by a population that had to force their patients into a hard-shell cast for weeks when with magic it took mere hours. But he would not let Hermione see that fear.

“The healers could be wrong,” Draco attempted to comfort, running his free hand over her curls. “There are plenty of healers outside of England—in America, France. I will take you to all of them. And the muggle healers.” 

Hermione fell to the side, head coming to rest in the juncture of Draco’s neck. This had been a long day. Such a long day. A plethora of diagnostic spells had been cast on her, and yet none could discern the root of her symptoms. Draco eventually forced them to stop after the twelfth one, watching Hermione flinch a few too many times in one afternoon. 

“That sounds expensive,” she droned. “And time-consuming.” 

Draco only continued the soft movement through her hair. “First of all, we have plenty of money. And second of all, this isn’t some troublesome chore, Hermione. This is your life.” 

“But aren’t you tired of this? I’ve been sick for months. Fainting, fatigue, vomiting—I keep you up most nights with my restlessness. This appointment isn’t the first. Draco, now there is even more—” 

“Stop.” 

An abrupt silence overtook the bubble they had placed themselves in. Hermione instantly sewed her lips shut at the sharp intake of air from Draco. Draco shut his eyes and took a few more breaths, attempting to calm himself before he snapped at his wife. 

His next words were low, full of warning. “I will never grow tired of taking care of you. Never wish I was free of this imaginary burden you seem to think you have placed on me. I would spend every night of my life awake at your side, every day cloistered up in some gods-awful healer’s office if it meant you were alive, Hermione. I do not appreciate the insinuation.” 

For the first time since she began to feel unwell, Hermione had tears on her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she cried, hiccuping. “I’m sorry, Draco, I just—I am just so tired of feeling ill. I want to feel better, to make life easier for you.” 

Draco did not wish to take back the words that caused the tears. In truth, Hermione had been far too stoic for his liking. He had been the one angry and crying and inconsolable over the past weeks. He had been fretting and worrying and distraught. Hermione had simply laid down and taken her lot in life. It was alarming to Draco to see the fight missing in his Gryffindor. To see her shut down. 

So he did not regret that his words made her face the reality of their situation. He only regretted the pain and defeat in her tone. The way even her breath shook. 

“I would take a hard life if it meant you were in it.” 

Chapter Text

Draco’s nimble fingers twisted the curls away from Hermione’s face. The braid was tied off at the end with one of the stretchy circles his wife called hair elastics, and Draco took a step back, admiring his work. With a jut of his chin, he looked up, then admiring his wife in the mirror. Her nose was shoved into a book and her knees were curled up to her chest and Draco wished he could sit in this very moment and pretend nothing was wrong. 

Hermione had tried to bat his hands away when she sat down at the vanity, as she did every morning since she became ill. Draco let her put up a fight, but Hermione had been struggling to do her hair for quite some time now. Her arms got tired easily and the battle was often lost to her unruly curls. Draco had learned to braid very soon after that first morning of frustrated embarrassment. 

He had been very bad at it, at first. After relinquishing his pride and asking Ginny Weasley for a private lesson, it had taken quite a few terrible hair days before Hermione’s hair sat the way she liked it to. In Draco’s defense, Ginny had shown Draco how to braid very straight, very orange, hair. Hermione’s was nothing of the sort. 

“Done, love,” Draco whispered, leaning down to press a kiss on the back of her head. “Toast?” 

Hermione smiled up at her husband through the mirror, a soft sort of smile that made his chest feel tight. She brought her hand up and trailed it over her shoulder, intertwining her fingers with his as they rested there on her skin. 

“I can’t eat, Draco. Remember?” 

Draco fought the scoff that crept up his throat. “Preposterous muggle tests. Right.” 

Hermione’s smile turned teasing, and Draco pretended that her skin wasn’t so pale. That she was only not eating breakfast because of the tests alone, and not because eating had become so hard for her. 

“Not preposterous. Different. They take a biological approach which can’t be muddled by the metabolization of food,” Hermione rambled off. “Thank you for doing my hair,” she added shortly after, in a much softer, meeker tone. 

Draco wanted to tell her that he loved doing her hair. That when he got her to sit down and relax and read stupid muggle romance books in their bathroom vanity chair, he felt that he finally had some semblance of control in this situation. That he lightly scratched along her scalp as he went just to hear the pleasing hums fall from her lips—the same lips that quirked up in a smile as she read. 

Draco wanted to tell her that he kept buying those books, kept going to random muggle bookstores and asking the ladies at the counter what was “good,” just to make sure that routine never changed. He loved the smell of her shampoo, the softness of her hair between his fingers, the simplicity of braiding his wife’s hair in the morning while the tea boiled in the kettle. 

But instead, he simply said, “Of course, darling,” and offered her a hand to guide her up from her chair. 

At the front door, the dressing began. Hermione had walked out of their bedroom in a simple t-shirt and jeans, but it had been raining last night, and Draco knew the bite of the upcoming winter was sharp in the air. So, opening the coat closet, Draco donned Hermione in a sweater, coat, scarf, gloves, and then shoved a hat over her head for good measure. He adjusted the scarf to cover her nose just a centimeter more and then threw a coat over his button-up to match her. 

Hermione clearly didn’t agree with the comparison.

“What’s this?” she accused, raising her padded arm up to tap against Draco’s chest. “Why must I look like an overstuffed duvet while you look ready for a meeting at Gringotts?” 

Fixing the collar of his coat, Draco raised a brow. “It’s cold, Hermione.” 

“I’ve gathered,” she hummed back. “But I do not think the muggle doctors will even be able to proceed with their tests with the amount of layers you have on me.” 

“Well, obviously we can take them off once we get to the hospital. Given that muggles understand the principle of central heating.” 

“Draco.” 

“Hermione.” 

Hermione huffed, looking rather ridiculous and a tad bit chastised under the heaviness of her coat. “Let me at least take the scarf off.” 

“No.” 

“You are being unreasonable. It’s not even snowing and—” 

“I am not negotiating. We have to take the car and then walk from that blasted parking lot. I will not have you getting… getting sick right now. You can’t even maintain a warming charm, Hermione.” 

That shut Hermione up, a pink hue dusting her cheeks. She twisted her mouth to the side and avoided her husband's gaze, her hands falling limply to her sides. Draco sighed, heart thudding in an uncomfortable way. He dragged Hermione forward, letting her slump her forehead against his chest. 

“I don’t say that to be cruel.” 

“No, no I know. I know that,” Hermione responded. “It’s just—hard.” 

“I know, my love.” Draco leaned her back, a light grasp along her shoulders. “I would be remiss not to expect a fight from you, stubborn Gryffindor. I’m glad to see it, even.”

He leaned down, a ghost of a kiss along her lips. Hermione eagerly reached up to meet in another one. And then another. And another. Draco relished in the small smile she left lingering on his mouth. 

“No scarf. But I will be casting a warming charm and you can’t shake it off until we get inside. And you leave the hat on.” 

~~

“Right this way, Hermione.” 

Draco grumbled under his breath, Hermione’s coat hanging off his arm as he followed the pair down the bleak, blindingly-white hallway. He had her gloves shoved in his pocket and her hat back in the car. After a short but mighty argument. 

“Thank you very much,” Hermione offered, throwing a pointed look behind her to her husband. 

The nurse knocked on solid wood and then opened the door for them to enter. “Sorry again about the wait. The doctor will be in shortly.” 

Draco hated this room. Even more than he hated the waiting room, and he hated the waiting room a lot. 

Posters lined the wall with glossy renditions of the human anatomy, arrows pointing to neon bubbles with facts about bones and blood and teeth. There were jars of cotton and small sticks of wood, a bright orange box in the corner with a worrisome warning, and a stool with wheels that looked rusted. It was all rather mundane in a way that was obviously meant to be stirring. There were many aspects of muggle culture that Draco found endearing, and this was certainly not one of them. 

God, he missed the zoo. When Hermione was better, he was taking her to the zoo. 

“You didn’t have to make your displeasure so obvious,” Hermione mused, kicking her feet as she sat up on a table with loud, crinkling paper. “I think you made her nervous.” 

Draco leaned back in yet another chair that creaked horribly, trying to ignore the poignant smell of disinfectant. “Good.” 

“I used to get stickers here,” Hermione said, a strange, almost lost, look in her eye. “I wonder if they still do that—if kids still like stickers.” 

“I’m sure children still enjoy stickers.” 

“They used to be just there.” She pointed to the drawer by Draco’s elbow. “I always got the ones about books. I used to save them in this felt box back at home. My parents would give me stickers after teeth cleanings as well, but those never felt as special.” 

“Hermione, would you like me to see if there are stickers in this room?” Draco asked, amusement boarding on unrestrained adoration seeping into his tone. 

Hermione looked aghast at the suggestion. “We can’t just go rooting through the doctor’s drawers, Malfoy.” 

“And why not?” he asked. 

“I don’t know!” she exclaimed. “The WHO?” 

“The what?” 

“The World Health Organization. They probably have some law against it.” 

“Against looking for stickers?” 

Draco felt something unfamiliar and pleasant lick up his chest. He was laughing—chuckling, even—in a muggle doctor’s office. It was unfathomable as just this morning he was filled with dread and looming trepidation. But Hermione brought it out of him. She always seemed to. 

A curl came loose from her braid as she let out a particularly aggressive sigh. He would fix that later. “ Yes , Malfoy. Don’t…don’t touch anything, okay?” 

He threw his hands up in surrender, a smirk still playing at his lips. Those hands were quickly stuffed under his arms as a knock resonated in the space, and a short, bald man came through not a moment later. He introduced himself as Dr. Something Or Another, and Draco craned his neck to try and catch whatever he was writing on his clipboard. He was using a ballpoint pen. Hermione used those sometimes—said she found quills to be a mess. 

Draco listened as his wife ran through her symptoms. She was lively today, full of much more energy than she had been over the past week, and Draco wondered if it was some sort of renewed hope in her.

Whatever, he’d take it. 

Dr. Ballpoint Pen turned to Draco. “And you are her husband, correct?” 

“Yes.” A raised brow and a nearly-there sneer. He was so tired of people telling him there was nothing they could do. He caught Hermione’s pointed look from the corner of his eye and gave himself a slight correction. 

“Well, there are a few things we can do for you both, many tests we should run, but this takes time,” the doctor relayed. “We would be willing to perform the tests today, but the cost will be substantial. If you were looking for a lower cost—” 

“We will do the tests.” 

“Mr. Malfoy—” 

“I will pay in pounds sterling.” 

The doctor looked at him strangely, and Draco was almost positive he had said something wrong. But Hermione had taught him about muggle money, and Draco did not have the time, nor the patience, to be looked down upon by a muggle. He stood, coming to stand at Hermione’s side. 

“I believe, when we made the appointment, we clarified that we wanted a full workup, yes? She already gave her symptoms over the phone, they sent us a list of instructions and we’ve followed them. The tests, then?” 

The doctor kept his dubious look. “I just want to make sure you are aware of the finances that accompany this type of testing. This amount is usually done over the course of months, sometimes weeks if the situation is urgent enough.” 

Draco reached into the back pocket of his trousers, yanking out the money clip Hermione had given him this morning. It was thick and almost overflowing with foreign money, but Draco held it by his face anyway. 

“This will be enough?” 

The doctor blanched. Draco seemed to have an affinity for making medical professionals uncomfortable. 

~~

Draco felt as if he was going to be sick. 

When he had requested—or rather, insisted —that Hermione receive every test that would possibly be able to help her, he thought it would be much like St. Mungos. Diagnostic spells were not very invasive, and the potions used to ascertain certain symptoms were generally harmless, but this … these muggle methods? 

They were barbaric . 

Draco’s knee shook as he sat beside Hermione’s chair, another vial of her blood exiting her body. She was tired now, her expression lacking the uncharacteristic glow he had admired this morning. He couldn’t exactly blame her—they had been there for hours. But she didn’t complain once. 

“Alright, Mrs. Granger-Malfoy. It looks like there is only one more test to run,” the kind nurse smiled. She had been with them throughout the morning, the doctor from earlier vanishing into thin air. Hermione assured Draco that muggle nurses typically spent more time with patients than doctors did. Draco didn’t quite believe her. 

“You’re not going to shove her in another one of those machines, are you?” Draco asked, the memory of watching his wife being mechanically maneuvered into a metal tube making him shiver. 

The nurse only laughed. They must have handpicked her from the staff, choosing a nurse who would be able to withstand Draco’s brash nature. Draco didn’t mind this nurse. Hermione seemed to like her and she explained everything to the couple in great detail. 

“No, the CT scan was a one-time thing, Mr. Malfoy. We just want to end with some basic vitals. Blood pressure and weight and the like. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.” 

Thank fuck. 

Draco stood as the nurse whipped around, her clipboard held tight to her chest. He turned to Hermione, expecting her to have already begun to follow, but found her with her eyes screwed shut and only halfway to sitting straight. Her breaths were careful and taken slowly. He knew the motions well. 

Draco discarded all annoyance. He took the two steps needed to reach the edge of her chair, and kneeled down in front of her, placing a hand on her knee. The denim there was abrasive against his skin, but he rubbed small circles there anyway, offering whispers of reassurance he wasn’t even sure she could hear. 

He hated this—hated that she got so tired so easily. That she had to spend an entire morning in a muggle hospital subjected to needles and loud machines and radiation. Draco had nearly popped a blood vessel in his forehead when he was told the reason why he couldn’t be in the room with Hermione during her CT scan. 

“What do you mean radiation? Why is she in there if it’s so dangerous for others to be? You practically ran out of there and your employee is wearing a full-body protective vest.” 

“Mr. Malfoy, it’s for her benefit in the long run. We wouldn’t be able to see inside to her bones and tissue without—” 

He had had to occlude, which he was sure was rather jarring for the nurse. It was preferable to putting a hole in the wall, to be sure. But he just would have paid for that as well. 

“Hermione?” Draco whispered, reaching up cold fingers to brush across her cheek. It was so damn cold in muggle hospitals. “Do you need to stop?” 

Her tongue darted out to her drying lips, another shaky breath following. Hermione began to shake her head, the action so slight only Draco was able to catch it. 

“I just got a bit light-headed,” she offered. She blinked her eyes open, meeting the broken gaze of her husband. He wiped the expression clean the moment she looked. “I can keep going, we’re almost done.” 

“Perhaps a wheelchair?” the nurse, with her soft, understanding voice, posed. Draco hadn’t even noticed her looming in the hallway. 

He was about to accept, the prospect of Hermione passing out in the hallway making his blood feel like it like it was running the opposite way. But then he caught the grimace on his wife’s face, the frustrated way she angled her brows, and he decided against it. 

“I think she just needs a moment,” Draco replied, his eyes never leaving Hermione’s face. 

The nurse replied with something about getting her a juice or maybe some water, but Draco wasn't paying her much attention. He watched as Hermione found her bearings again, holding her face in his hand, brushing her loose hair back behind her ears. She swayed a bit as she sat, ultimately finding her ground in Draco’s touch. 

“Are you going to be sick?” he asked.

“No,” she was quick to respond. “No, I’m really okay.” 

Another beat of silence. 

“Can we get ice cream after this?” 

Draco startled himself with a laugh. “What, darling?” 

Hermione cracked a smile, using Draco’s shoulders to wobble up onto her feet. He braced her wrists with his fingers. “Ice cream. I always got ice cream after doctor's appointments. There’s a small place around the corner.” 

Draco rose to his feet, placing his own hands on her shoulders. If she really was going to pass out, he would be there. He was always going to be there.  “Sure, my love.”

Chapter Text

“I think we should host a dinner party.” 

Draco froze mid-bite, a drop of ice cream falling from his spoon. 

The Malfoys hadn’t hosted a dinner in months. Looking back on it now, Draco didn’t think they’d had anyone over to their home at all since… well, since the first night Hermione lost consciousness in the kitchen. It had been a terrible night with Draco overwrought with panic and Harry Potter playing twenty questions with him in St. Mungo’s waiting room. The healers had chalked it up to dehydration and sent her home, but things had obviously worsened from there. 

“A dinner party?” Draco asked, masking his disagreement with interest. 

“Yes,” Hermione stated matter-of-factly. “It would be nice to get everyone together. We can invite Harry and Ginny, maybe Ron and Lavender. I wouldn’t mind seeing Blaise and that lot as well.” 

“Any reason for such a soiree?” 

Hermione’s brows raised as she took in a large breath. The ice cream shop she’d led them to was moderately busy—appropriate for lunchtime, but unseasonable given the weather. She had insisted upon sitting outside, making Draco cast an assortment of warming charms under the noses of the muggles in the building. 

She was avoiding his gaze, letting her spoon make circles in her vanilla ice cream. Draco was the exact opposite, boring a hole into her forehead with how intently focused he was on her. 

“Well,” she began, an uncomfortable inflection in her tone. “I just think it would be nice to see everyone. We haven’t seen any of our friends in ages. Who knows… who knows when we will be able to see them next?” 

Draco’s blood ran cold. The hands he had placed on the table slid down to cover the tops of his thighs, and he ran over the material of slacks with stiff fingers. His knuckles turned an unsightly white and then flexed out to return to their normal pale complexion. But he just repeated the action again and again, trying to keep his expression steady. 

“Granger,” he warned. “Tell me what you were going to say.” 

She blinked up at him with an owlish look. “What?” 

“What were you going to say, Hermione?” Draco gritted out. 

“I’ve just told you—”

“Do not lie to me.” 

His interruption had her biting the inside of her cheek. He didn’t need to hear her say it—preferred not to hear it, actually. But it had to be done. Draco fought the urge to occlude if only to stop his magic from lighting the umbrella attached to their table on fire as Hermione spoke next. 

“I was going to say—who knows if we’ll get a chance to all be together again.” 

And, Merlin, there it was. 

Draco’s back went stiff, his entire demeanor becoming rigid under his wife’s timid gaze. She was gripping her spoon in an equally stiff hand, knee beginning to shake under the table, and Draco attempted to take calming breaths as he stared back at her. 

It wasn’t working. 

He looked over her shoulder instead, eyes unfocusing as muggle London continued on with its life, and Draco’s fell apart. 

The topic of Hermione’s death had obviously been on his mind, and he would’ve been foolish to think that she had not been considering it as well. He had married the brightest witch of her age, the most logical, intelligent woman he had ever met. A woman who measured strengths and weaknesses and pros and cons with great consideration. 

A woman who understood what an undiagnosable, worsening illness typically led to. 

But Draco had also married a stubborn, headstrong Gryffindor with a will to survive almost as great as her propensity for self-sacrifice in the name of the greater good. She was honest and unwavering and so gods damned determined, he never thought she would simply give up. And this sounded a lot like giving up. 

But growing up from the roots of his disappointment was the fear—the fear of losing her . 

After the war, Draco had been living in a certainty that was chosen for him. He was to marry Astoria Greengrass and spend his days in the Manor, throwing apology parties and hosting dinners for the ministry. He was to keep up the air of Malfoy sophistication and crank out heirs at the same time. 

He was born to be an ornament, and the war—and the part his family played in it—only cemented that for him. 

Hermione had come into his life as a storm, flipping all of his expectations on their head. After a few ministry-sanctioned visits to the Manor’s library, there was nothing he could do to stop her from altering the trajectory of his life. Because Astoria never made him feel the way Hermione did. She never questioned him, fought him, made him think about what else he could be doing. Hermione knocked on his doors at four in the morning with a crazed look in her eye and her hair a wild mess, rambling on about needing the library at that exact moment, and Draco was enamored. Utterly devoted. 

He loved her. Gods, did he love her. There was no longer a version of Draco Malfoy that could live in a world without Hermione Granger, and there she was, sitting in front of him, talking about dying. 

About giving up . 

Draco abruptly stood, the chair behind him screeching against concrete. Startled, Hermione quickly followed him up, but he offered her no explanation. 

“Fuck the car,” he sneered, shooting his hand out in front of her. And fuck any muggles that might see them disapparating. Because the second her gloved hand took his, they were twisting through space until his polished shoes struck the wood of their living room. 

He started pacing immediately, seething and running his hands through his already overgrown hair. 

“You can’t—you can’t be giving up , Granger. You can’t do that,” His heel clicked against wood, and then carpet, and then wood again. “There is no chance. No chance .” 

He was somewhat aware that his words weren’t making perfect sense, but that only drove him to speak more, attempting to get some of the vicious thoughts out of his head as they banged against his skull. 

“We just had the appointment with the muggle doctors. They said they’d have us back in a week, correct?” he asked no one, shoving his jacket from his shoulders and balling it up. “How can you just…Hermione, you can’t— you can’t —” 

His hair was beyond repair as he tugged and tugged at the roots, his jacket lost somewhere during his indecipherable tirade. 

“We will figure this out. I don’t care what it takes—” 

“Malfoy—” 

“There has to be some clinic somewhere, some… muggle-born specialist that can do both. Someone on this ridiculous planet able to help my wife because I can’t—” 

“Draco—” 

“I can’t lose you , Hermione.” His voice broke, and he turned glassy eyes up to finally find Hermione in the room. 

Her knees were shaking. Her hand was clutching the back of the couch with so much vigor her nails had begun to dig into the velvet. Her face was drawn and pinching with such discomfort that Draco could have wept. 

“ Hermione ,” he rushed, arms enveloping her waist as her legs gave out. “Fuck.” 

They fell into a heap on the floor, Hermione still in her winter layers, Draco clutching at anything he could get his hands on. It ended up being the sweater he had shoved over her head just hours ago. He fisted it in an unwavering grip, pulling her over his bent knees as they sat on the living room floor. As he listened for her labored breaths and pressed his nose into her hair. 

“Merlin, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think—”

“It’s okay, Draco,” Hermione comforted, her hand clutching his. 

“It’s not. Apparition makes you nauseous and I didn’t even make sure you—Gods, and you’ve been going through those tests all day. You must be exhausted.” 

“Just as you are, I’m sure. You weren’t exactly on holiday.” 

Draco kissed her temple, his eyes squeezing shut. He was such a fool, such an idiotic fool to forget her state. To forget that she needed him more than he needed to be upset. Perhaps there were other times he was allowed to feel, but right now, until she was well, there was no time for that. 

He shifted off of his ankles, leaning his back against the side of the couch, but never letting go of his wife. “I’m fine. I should have made you eat lunch before I took you for ice cream.” 

Hermione let out a breathy laugh, knocking her head back against his shoulder. “I would have lost that lunch the second we apparated.” 

“I shouldn’t have apparated you so suddenly. You weren’t prepared. I’m sorry.” 

“Stop that.” 

Draco craned his neck down to take in the chastising look crossing Hermione’s tired face. She raised her brows when he shook his head in confusion. 

“You’re allowed to be angry, love,” Hermione explained, softer this time, less reprimanding. “This is happening to you, too. It’s not just about me.” 

“That is an absurd perspective,” he was quick to reply, eyes darting between both of hers. 

She smoothed her hand against his cheek, her glove absent. He hadn’t seen her remove it. “It’s really not. Draco, if I die—” he flinched “—everything in your life changes. Everything has already changed. You took a leave at work, you never see your friends, I don’t even remember the last time I saw you on a broom.” 

“I don’t care about quidditch.” 

“I know,” she smiled. “But that’s because of me. Because we’re married. We took vows and you’ve been damn good at keeping them.” 

Draco shifted forward, his forehead resting against her temple. “I don’t care if things are different. I just want you to get better.”
A stagnant silence followed his whispered words. Draco let out an anguished breath through his nose, and Hermione met it with a brush of her thumb over the back of his hand. 

“There’s a chance I don’t.” 

The tears in Draco’s eyes had never really gone away, but there was no chance they were subsiding now. A few fell silently down the slopes of his cheeks, but he ignored them, keeping his face hidden in Hermione’s curls. His sniff gave him away, and Hermione took that as a cue to speak up again. 

“Please don’t hide things from me. I don’t want you to feel alone in this, Draco. This isn’t a burden for just you to bear.” 

Another steadying breath, this one laced with a shakiness that could only be associated with poorly contained cries. Draco leaned back and met Hermione’s bittersweet expression. 

“I don’t want you to think—” he started, voice catching. But he pressed on. “I don’t want you to think I regret this—loving you. I don’t want to tell you I’m angry, because I’m not angry at you. I’m not even sure who to be angry at. I just know that of everyone, you are the least deserving of this. And, Merlin, I can’t fix it. Maybe I’m angry at myself.” 

He grabbed her hand from his face, kissing her palm before admitting, “But I will be angry at you if you give up. If you don’t fight to live. If you don’t fight for me, Hermione.” 

Her expression crumbled. Her bottom lip disappeared as she bit into it, and Draco sat in the echo of the most selfish thing he could have asked her to do. There was a time, not too long ago, that asking for such a thing would have felt trivial, unimportant. Who was he to anyone, other than another heir in a long line of duplicates? 

But he was someone to Hermione. He was loved. And gods, did he love her back.

“Oh, Draco,” Hermione whispered. “I will always fight for you.”

Chapter Text

Hermione’s laugh floated past the kitchen island, causing a twitch in the muscles of Draco’s mouth. He had been otherwise scowling, dismissing himself to the corner of the room where the stove met the cabinets. The glass of firewhiskey rolling around his hand trickled condensation down his pointer finger, and Draco tore his eyes away from his wife to watch the droplet escape onto the ground. 

Harry Potter was staring at him. 

Draco had unfortunately gotten used to Harry’s presence in his home. Or—rather—fortunately, depending on Draco’s mood. Currently, the scales were teetering towards unfortunate. 

“How goes it then, Malfoy?” Harry asked, avoiding eye contact and rolling onto his heels. 

Draco repressed an eye roll. Unsuccessfully. “Potter,” he greeted back, taking another sip from his glass. “How are the trolls?” 

It was Harry’s turn to roll his eyes. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t refer to my children as trolls.” 

Draco smirked, tilting his head to his shoulder and leaning back against the countertop. “Mandrakes, then? Or perhaps nifflers. The small one did steal Hermione’s wedding ring at our last visit.”

Harry snorted into his own glass. “Albus gave it back. And you love him. You don’t have to admit it, but I see that disgusting fondness every time Hermione picks him up.” 

Draco gave a noncommittal hum, feigned disinterested lacing the tone. He had been disappointed when the Potters hadn’t brought their children to their impromptu get-together, but he would never admit to that. And it was for the best; the fewer people Hermione was exposed to the better. The guest list she had conjured up last night had been whittled down from eight to two, and the Weaslette was obviously the most important. 

Draco let his eyes wander over to the pair across the room, huddled tight at the dining table and whispering about something as they gushed over the cell phone Hermione kept. Her hair was in a twisted sort of bun today, something new Draco was trying. It hung around her face in delicate wisps and reminded him of their fourth year at Hogwarts. 

She was so beautiful under the soft light of their home, bright-eyed and comfortable as she sent smile after smile to her friend. Draco would’ve had the Potters over ages ago if he’d known how much of an effect it had on her. 

“Hermione looks well,” Harry remarked, after a long beat of silence. They stood in the kitchen as their wives sat feet away. It felt normal. The conversation Harry had started broke that normalcy. 

“Yes,” Draco simply replied, because he wasn’t going to go into detail. He wasn’t going to tell Harry that Hermione had slept nearly the entire day before they arrived, or that she spent the night sweating out an unexpected fever. He wouldn't share that the soup they had served was the only thing she actually enjoyed eating anymore and that wine in Hermione’s hand had Draco funneling through stages of unadulterated panic because she hadn’t had any alcohol in months and he didn’t know how her body would react. 

Instead, he said yes, and he admired his love because she did look well. 

“Have the muggle doctors called?” 

Draco knocked back the rest of his firewhiskey. “No.” 

Hermione threw a sly look over her shoulder, apparently hoping to catch a glimpse of Draco without him seeing. She wasn’t very good at being subtle, however, and Draco sent her a warm smile in return. She bit into her lip and giggled against the rim of her wine glass, leaning her head on Ginny’s shoulder as she turned back around. 

“Sometimes it’s better to call them first. Muggle doctors can be slow at times.” 

“I know.” 

Harry sighed. “You're especially cold tonight.” 

Firewhiskey typically put Draco in a splendid mood. When Ginny came through their front door brandishing a fresh bottle, he was sure that was the couple’s intention—get Draco and Hermione drunk, get them happy, and then get them to forget for a while. Hermione was clearly drunk. But for Draco, the firewhiskey had put him into a taciturn state, contemplating and over-contemplating until his head spun. 

The only upside to this night was the pleased look on his wife’s face, the joy that seemed to radiate off of her. 

He wanted to bottle it. 

Draco kicked away from the counter and grabbed a camera from the drawer instead, leaving Harry’s words in the kitchen.

The shutter clicked and the flash went off and the two women at the table screeched in surprise and delight. 

Draco took another.

“You slimy oaf, I wasn’t ready!” Ginny exclaimed, stumbling out of the mahogany dining chair until it was empty and rattling. “Take another but wait .” 

Hermione’s cheeks were red and Draco knew that if he touched them, they would be almost uncomfortably warm. She placed her glass on the table with unnecessary care as it was completely empty, and allowed her friend to yank her up from her seat. It was probably the least amount of gentleness Hermione had received in at least a few weeks, but she said nothing, happy to be pulled and tugged any which way. Draco did not fight the smile that mirrored his wife’s as she posed for the picture, even when he felt Harry step up to his side to take in the scene for himself. 

“Another, Draco,” Hermione encouraged, wiggling her fingers towards the man beside him. “And you come, Harry. Come on !” 

Draco raised a brow, looking over to Harry expectantly. The shorter man stammered a bit, raising and lowering his hands as if to make a case for himself, but Draco was not on his side at the moment. With a villainous smirk, Draco used his fingertips to send Harry stumbling into the frame to be tackled by a gangle of arms and drunken laughs. 

Another picture. 

And then another. 

Draco was aware of what he was doing—that this scene, the act of taking pictures, was driven by an ulterior motive. It wasn’t simply a group of friends taking in memories. He didn’t grab the camera by chance. Hermione was sick. Gods, was she sick, even if that wasn’t obvious now. And he knew that if he took any pictures of her looking ill and weak and fragile, she would curse him into the next life. That if he didn’t remember her healthy and vibrant, she would resent him. 

So he took more pictures, even as his smile started to feel sickly and the warmth in his chest began to burn through him. 

“You now, love,” Hermione’s soft voice laughed. Ginny released her grip on Hermione’s shoulders and ran to Draco, taking the camera and ushering him over. 

Draco was not of the mind to deny Hermione Granger anything. 

She wound her arms around his middle, her head fitting perfectly into the dip between his chest and his arm. Draco was quick to pull her closer, ignoring how her body felt different now. How she didn’t— couldn’t —hold him as tightly as she used to. The simple feel of her had him smiling, softly at first, and then a grin after he looked down to catch her red cheeks and her frazzled hair and her hazy eyes. 

Her smile that reminded him of everything good and bright and worth being. 

Ginny took another as Draco’s lips met her forehead in an uncharacteristic picture of vulnerability. 

But he would be glad to have the memory. 

Hermione wasn’t dying. She couldn’t die. But Draco wanted to remember this —remember what it felt like to be so in love that any other alternative was unfathomable. That such a passion was possible and it was alive in him. 

But Hermione was not dying, and he reminded himself of that fact as the Potters made their departure, Ginny hugging her so tightly he could see the way her arms shook. The redhead brushed back his wife’s hair and looked at her with so much sadness and Draco needed to remind himself that she was not dying. 

“She wanted me to ask you to come back to work.” 

The voice startled Draco, his blonde hair falling into his eye as he turned to look at Harry.

“ What ?” he asked. 

“Hermione,” Harry was quick to reply, the name flat on his tongue. “Don’t… don’t bring it up tonight. But she wanted me to try and talk to you about it. Figured drinking would’ve helped loosen you up a bit, but I should have known better with Hermione the way she is.” 

Several emotions flickered across Draco’s face, none of them intentionally shown. He shook his head, and then blinked, and then furrowed his brows as he attempted to work through the nonsensical words. 

But before Draco could reply, Harry was clapping him over the shoulder and requesting that he think about it, exiting through the front door after a kiss to Hermione’s cheek. 

He would not be thinking about it. 

Hermione sighed contently as the front door swung shut, shoving her face into Draco’s chest with a huff. She laughed at nothing and then stumbled where she stood, causing him to steady her at her shoulders and place a hand at the back of her head when she found her ground. 

He shook off the ridiculous request to go back to work and the fear of Hermione’s death and everything else that had him on edge all night as he held her. His chin came to rest on the crown of her head as seconds ticked by. Everything was uninterrupted and everything was good. Hermione was in his arms and she was drunk and she was happy. Her knees wobbled as she stood but they both ignored that. For now. 

“We should dance,” Hermione joked, leaning her head back until her chin was resting against his chest. “I haven’t been this drunk in ages .” 

In the reflection of Hermione’s eyes, Draco’s own shone with inexplicable affection. “Dance?” 

“Yes,” she nodded. “Like at our wedding. That was a good dance, I’d say.” 

The affection turned to reverence.
“I’ll dance with you then, love.” 

Draco swung back with practiced grace, music from the bedroom trickling out into the foyer that had entirely too much space. Hermione had fought him on the size of their home many years ago, but that battle had ultimately been lost once she saw the library he had built for her. And the muggle appliances in the kitchens and the windows overlooking the lake and the garden that had the sole purpose of growing ingredients for her experimental potions. 

Hermione laughed as he spun her out and collected her back against his chest, his nose coming down to brush against hers. Draco’s hand found a home in the small of her back, his fingers inching her sweater up until his skin met hers. She shivered in response, her eyes fluttering shut. 

Draco watched her—watched her lashes fan over her cheeks as he bent further to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth and then her lips. His feet moved in a series of graceful steps that he hardly recognized he was making until Hermione’s laugh blew across his lips. 

“You’re such a good dancer. I’m practically a baboon compared to you.” Her playful gaze met his loving one. “Remember our wedding? I was a mess.” 

“I could never forget our wedding.” He spun her again, lifting her feet onto his when she returned. “There, no more baboon.” 

“That was incredibly rude,” she laughed, a drunken mumble meshing her words together. 

“My apologies,” he spoke back, low enough that the words were almost lost to the music. 

There were a few silent moments where all Draco did was guide his wife through a dance with his nose pressed to her hair and her breath fanning across his chest. This was very much not like their wedding. That night had been fueled by multiple dance lessons and a Hermione filled with panic and a desire to impress. He had tried to tell her that his parents’ opinion of her dance skills had little power over his own opinion of her, but that had done nothing to calm her nerves. 

The dance they shared once everyone went home was much more like this one, with Hermione drunk and carefree and spinning around the room. 

“I love you,” Hermione whispered, glazed eyes blinking up. “‘M sorry I’m sick,” she slurred. 

Draco’s expression twisted. “Don’t say that,” he pleaded. “I love you, Hermione. Don’t apologize.” 

Her face dropped against his chest again, and this time Draco could feel the weight of the day begin to drag her down. “I’ll be better soon.”

“I know you will.” 

Chapter Text

Draco woke with a start, his arms moving of their own accord as they tightened around Hermione. He pulled her closer to his chest as it heaved with labored breaths. His body was on full alert as his mind worked through the dreams that had begun to plague his sleep more often than not.  

She didn’t make it. 

By her bedside, in the kitchen, on some sidewalk in muggle London; Draco saw his wife die in every setting imaginable, his brain a cruel director, conjuring up his worst nightmare in new, creative ways as he slept.

When he woke, his only reprieve was Hermione. She was often awake when he finally battled his way of his dreams, but today, she slept. 

He was grateful. 

His nose met her shoulder, her skin so much colder than his own. She was having trouble regulating her body temperature lately, and Draco fruitlessly cursed the air of their bedroom. The duvet was smooth between his fingers as he pulled it up under her chin, and he twisted until she was flush against him. 

He pressed a mindless kiss to her cheek and sunk further into the bed. 

Last night had been good. 

So, so good. 

Hermione had been feeling well enough that she suggested a walk. Draco took some convincing, but he had built their home by a lake for a reason, and it was difficult to tell her no. He had held her close as her nose turned red from the cold and her words turned hoarse from overuse. She had gone into great detail about her current read—a historical piece that was apparently renowned in muggle society. Draco already knew what it was about. He had asked the girl at the counter for the full rundown before purchasing. 

They had had a nice dinner that Hermione was able to keep down, and she fell asleep against his shoulder in the living room sometime later, her book sliding from her hands. Draco had carried her to bed and battled with a groggy Hermione as he removed her jeans and replaced them with cotton pants and a baggy jumper. 

And then she stayed asleep. 

Didn’t wake up once. 

Draco felt like crying. 

Sun filtered through the drapey curtains of the bedroom, pooling into shapes along the sheets of the bed. It was an orange light, its amber hues reminiscent of early mornings in the castle, the ones where he would escape the common room before anyone else and relish in the quiet. 

He remembered seeing Granger on a few occasions, a stack of books in hand and a determination clear in her quick bites of toast. She was always distracted, always on the go. Draco didn’t think much about her at the time—except, yes, he did. He found her incredibly annoying, with her constant windswept appearance and her know-it-all personality. He would make snarky comments towards his friends, teasing her without her even knowing, and he truly thought he meant them. 

What an idiot he’d been. What an idiot Ron Weasley had been, letting Granger go. 

Draco laid there for an hour, letting his arms rise and fall with her breath. He would’ve been content to lay there for the rest of the day, allowing her body the much needed rest, but they had a schedule. If she didn’t take the specialized potions in the morning, the rest of the day was shot. And at the rate Hermione was going, she would be furious if she lost an entire day to fatigue and weak limbs. 

“Hermione,” Draco whispered, a low rumble at her ear. “Wake up, love.” 

She didn’t stir at this, and Draco let a small smile curve at his lips when he stared down at her. The sleeves of her sweater had fallen past her fingertips and the slats from the blinds made lines on her cheek. He jostled his arms around her. 

“Hermione,” he called, a little louder this time. Her lashes fluttered, and Draco’s chest filled with warmth—the kind that made it hard to breathe. He couldn't remember the last time he had had to wake her up. 

Draco removed his hand from her waist and twisted a curl from her face, assuming she was just moments from joining him in consciousness. 

But then she didn’t. 

He rubbed his thumb against her cheek, ignoring the slight pressure encroaching upon the edges of his ribs. He was overreacting, just a byproduct of his dream. His mind was only having a hard time differentiating between what was real and what was fake. He could hear Hermione’s breath puffing against the pillows in the silence that followed. 

Still, he brought his fingers to her neck to find a strong, steady pulse. 

His own lashes fluttered as he calmed himself down. “Hermione,” he said again, this time a full word with something extra lacing his tone. “Wake up.” 

Only, she didn’t. Draco pushed her onto her back, his own form hovering over hers. His eyes tracked every corner of her face, trying to find any sign of pain, any difference that would mean something was wrong. That was silly—there were so many things wrong—but this was not happening this morning. Not right now. Not ever. 

Draco paused, and then he felt himself shattering. Every piece of his being felt fractured, splintered, broken. There was a book—a muggle book about diseases—that he had bought from the same bookstore he got Hermione’s novels from. It discussed end-of-life care and terminal illnesses and so many things he had never needed to consider in the wizarding world. Draco consumed every word reverently, but right now, he could only remember one part of it. 

“The surge before death, or terminal lucidity, which can happen days, hours, or even minutes before a person's passing. Often occurring abruptly, this period of increased energy and alertness may give families false hope that their loved ones will recover.”

“No,” Draco breathed. “Hermione, wake up.” 

The muggle doctors hadn’t called yet. They had to know what was wrong. They were taking so long it was impossible that they didn’t have answers—that they couldn’t help her. She needed to hold on a little longer and then he would spend every dime in his account to get her better. Since that’s what the muggle hospitals seemed to be concerned with—money and not his wife’s life. 

Just as Draco’s lips began to tremble, as his fingers grew cold and his skin lost its flush, Hermione groaned. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath, and Draco collapsed on top of her, his hands wrapping behind her back and looping to her stomach. He pressed his face to her chest and caught his breath. 

“Well, good morning to you, as well,” Hermione croaked, her whispered laugh healing the cracks in his ribs. Her hand came down to rub across his back and then slid into his hair. 

He didn’t say anything for a few, panicked moments. 

This was worse than waking up from his nightmares, and the embarrassment lingering at his unwarranted trepidation paled in comparison to all else. Maybe he would feel embarrassed after she was healthy. Maybe they would laugh at his overprotectiveness and his constant vigilance. Right now, though, everything felt so raw—so real and dangerous. 

“Are you alright?” Hermione’s sweet question floated by Draco’s ear.  

“Yes,” he replied. “I’m fine.” But he didn’t move. 

“Did you have another dream, Draco?” 

He said yes again, not lying, but omitting. The word came out shaky and muffled as he spoke it against her chest, but she didn’t push any further. 

“We should have—” 

The cellphone on the bedside table rang with a shrill.

~~

His hand was surely fused with Hermione’s, his fingers twined with hers the only thing keeping him steady as his knee shook and his posture remained stiff. They were back in the muggle hospital in an office on the top floor, because, apparently, they were not supposed to give “this type of information” over the phone. 

Whatever that bloody meant. 

He hoped it meant they had some answers, that someone could finally help her. Hermione sat still next to him, but Draco could tell by the way she twisted her mouth and bit into her lip that she was just as nervous as he was. She hadn’t even fought him on his doting this morning. Whether that was because she saw the way his hands were shaking or because she was inundated by anxiety herself, Draco didn't know. 

What he did know, however, was that he wasn’t doing his job as her husband at the moment. Tucking away all of his fear and anger and sadness—as he had been doing for the past few months—Draco brought Hermione’s hand up to his lips and offered a smile when she finally tore her eyes away from the bookshelf across the room. 

“It’s going to be okay,” he reassured, even though he had no clue himself.

She gave him a pained smile. “You can’t know that.” 

“I know that I’ll take care of you. No matter what they say.” 

Hermione's smile turned gentle and sincere, and she brought her forehead to his, leaning over the armrests of their chairs. “I know.” And then, in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, she followed with, “Even though you killed the shrivelfig plant Theo gave us as a housewarming gift.” 

Draco snorted. “That’s because I hate shrivelfigs.” 

“Hmm, not because you had your every need catered to until the age of twenty?” 

Draco pulled back from her, an amused brow pointing upwards. He had a smirk plastered on his face and admired the playfulness in Hermione’s eyes as he replied, “Watch it, Granger.” 

The doctor came in shortly after that, still as stout as ever, this time looking just a tad more nervous as he greeted Draco. He let out a heavy breath as he adjusted his white coat and took the seat across from the couple, and Draco took up his position at Hermione’s side. Her hand was once again in his, and his demeanor was once again purposeful, determined, and stern. 

His leg did not shake as the doctor gently placed a large file on the desk between them, nor did he squeeze Hermione’s hand to the point of pain. 

“I’m glad the two of you could make it in today,” the doctor began, lacing his fingers over his stomach. “I apologize for the delay in the results. There were many… unexpected variables. We didn’t want to give an update until we understood everything ourselves.” 

Draco’s jaw twitched. “And do you? Understand everything?” 

“No.” Draco fought the urge swelling inside of him to throw his chair out the window to his right. “But there are several conclusions we came to that can inform our treatment moving forward.” 

“Okay,” Hermione said, nodding encouragingly. “Please, go on.” 

The doctor licked his thumb as he pulled papers from the folder. “There was a particular interest in your symptoms as they seem relatively unrelated in certain regards. The nausea, fainting, headaches, weakness, trouble eating, insomnia—all of it is common in many diseases. But your localized pain scales were where we had some trouble parsing out cause.

“As you remember, we proceeded with multiple scans, Mrs. Granger-Malfoy, along with bloodwork and vitals. We—well, we found something, but it’s rather incongruent with the possible diagnosis. That is why it was taking so long to get back to you… we were trying to find something else.” 

A conundrum, the healers had called it. Now the muggle doctors were calling it something else. Draco felt his fingers cramp as he reached up and ran them roughly through his hair. 

“Just tell us what you did find,” Draco gritted out, ignoring the look Hermione threw him in favor of throwing his own scathing glance at the doctor. 

The man shifted uncomfortably in his seat and sniffed as he pulled a scan from the folder. He blinked up at Draco in a way that was almost disapproving and then slid it towards them on the desk with his fingertips. 

Draco didn’t react. Not at first. 

“Now, this is your left arm, Mrs. Granger-Malfoy—” 

Buzzing filled Draco’s ears—buzzing and ringing and none of the doctor's words. He was trying to listen, he really was. His eyes thinned as he attempted to read the doctor’s lips and interpret the diagnosis, but nothing was coming through. 

Hermione’s left arm. The one he had watched his aunt carve that wretched word into. The one Hermione had stared at as she laid on the manor floor after falling victim to the cruciatus curse and being screamed at and tortured. When he couldn’t do anything but watch. 

Her left arm that was now the focal point of this illness that had taken so much from her.

This was his fault. 

A few of the doctor’s words came back into focus, muffled over the sound of Draco’s racing heart. “—tumor. But many of your symptoms don’t come from osteosarcomas. A limited range of movement would make the most sense for this disease, as well as pain in the area. Have you been struggling with that arm—” 

Gods, her hair. He was such a fucking idiot. 

“Yes,” Draco choked out, hardly aware of his words. “She hasn’t been able to do her hair. She can’t keep her arms up for long periods.” 

The doctor nodded, and Draco wanted to punch him. To punch something. 

“That certainly makes sense. I think we should talk about treatment after the board has more time to discuss. There is still the issue of your other symptoms, as well as the unusual presentation of the tumor. This is a very complex case, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy, and our hospital wants to help you in every possible way.” 

By some impossible feat, Draco was able to will his gaze to examine the scan in front of him. He hadn’t needed to look, because he already knew what he’d find. Hermione’s smooth bone was disrupted by dips and hills along the line of the scar that was currently hidden on her arm. 

Draco had read about tumors. He knew that they didn’t look like this. This was caused by magic. While tumors were not part of magical diseases, there was no other explanation

Hermione was talking to the doctor with clear, sure words. She was not supposed to be taking charge. He was supposed to be the composed one. He was supposed to support her, but right now, he felt like he’d been dropped off of a very tall building with no ground to end on.

He felt like nothing made sense, but at the same time, it was so clear. 

And then he was angry—furious.

This was caused by magic. They had gone back and forth to St. Mungo’s countless times, and none of the healers had been able to make sense of Hermione’s ailments.

She’s only dehydrated, Mr. Malfoy. 

Could she possibly be pregnant? 

It’s only the common flu. If you see any dragon pox—

It didn’t matter that Draco couldn’t pinpoint his anger. He just knew that he was angry. Maybe it was at himself, maybe it was at Voldemort who was undoubtedly rotting in a grave ten feet under, or maybe, it was at the doctor who sent Hermione sympathetic smiles. 

None of that mattered, because he was going to St. Mungo’s. 

Chapter Text

Rage felt like an impossible anchor in an otherwise staggering bout of emotions. Draco apparated into St. Mungo’s with a deafening crack, parchment flying around him with the force of his arrival. Several girls manning the front desk abruptly stood, but Draco was not in the mood for pleasantries. 

“Mr. Malfoy,” one of them—Jane, Draco thought he remembered—stammered. “Is everything alright?” 

“Healer Tatovich.” 

“I’m sorry?” 

Draco had half a mind to feel sorry for the poor girl as she blanched under his seething expression. 

“Get. Me. Healer Tatovich.” 

She blinked several times in quick succession. “I—I’m sorry, Mr. Malfoy, but we can’t permit appointments with such short notice. There’s—there are appointments available later in the week—” 

“I am only going to say this one more time.” His voice had lowered, becoming eerily calm. “You are going to get me Healer Tatovich, and in return, I’m not going to light the roof of this place on fire, because—Jane—I would do much more for much less.” 

Jane, although now Draco wasn’t exactly confident that that was her name, took a shaky breath. Her lips became thin as she pressed them tightly together, and she picked up her wand when Draco’s hard eyes refused to waver. She sent a patronus down the hall, a small cat that slinked down the corridor and left blue light in its wake. 

“Thank you,” Draco managed to provide, and then he proceeded to stand stock-still for several minutes. Unmoving, breathing only because he needed to, with his anger pulsing beneath his skin. 

He wasn’t exactly sure what the young girl behind the desk had sent with her patronus, but Draco soon heard the sound of rushed heels clicking on linoleum. Very rushed.

Good.

“Mr. Malfoy!” Healer Tatovich breathed, the wand keeping her hair together reminiscent of how Hermione wore her own when she got lost in work. The sight of it on the much shorter, much more infuriatingly ignorant woman in front of him made him sick. “Is your wife with you? Is everything okay?” 

“I can promise you that if everything wasn’t okay, this would be the last place I would bring Hermione,” Draco sneered, voice like venom. 

Healer Tatovich looked taken aback, her head shaking in an odd sort of movement. “Excuse me?” 

“No.” 

“Mr. Malfoy, if there is something of urgent concern then I would be more than happy to assist—” 

Draco slapped the manilla folder down on the front desk, uncaring that there were multiple eyes on him. The waiting room could have been full—and it truly could have been, because Draco hadn’t spared the rest of the room a second glance upon his arrival—and he would be glad. Glad that their maddening incompetence would be revealed. 

“ This is from the muggle doctors.” 

Healer Tatovich halted what was becoming a reprimanding speech, following the folder with just her eyes. “You took our advice then?” 

“Merlin, even when you’re so obviously wrong you’re an insufferable bitch.” He heard a gasp from some corner of the room. It rolled off of Draco with ease. “You know what the muggle doctors showed us?” 

It must have been the way Draco’s knuckles whitened with the clench of his first that made the healer begin to twitch uncomfortably. She shifted her weight between her feet and Draco saw the way her fingers seemingly itched to grab the wand twined in her hair. 

“Open it,” he commanded, the stillness of his gaze unnerving to even him. Everything felt unnerving. Draco felt as if his skin wasn’t his own. “Open the fucking folder, Tatovich.” 

With slow, careful movements, and Draco kept firmly in her peripheral, Healer Tatovich did. Her eyes scanned through the scans and the test results, but there was the obvious moment she got to the final scan. The damning one. The one that obviously fueled the anger taking up residence in St. Mungo’s waiting room. 

“This is—” But Draco didn’t let her finish. 

“But she has the flu, right ? Maybe Dragon Pox?” he began, his jaw becoming tighter with each word he spoke. “No… No, maybe my wife is pregnant and that’s why she’s passing out on our fucking kitchen floor. Right, Tatovich?” 

The woman licked her lips, her shoulders rising and falling at an unnatural rate. “I—I can assure you, Mr. Malfoy, that we tried—” 

“What did you try? Other than brushing me off, and her off, when we came to you? We had Harry fucking Potter in your waiting room and you gave her a pepperup potion and sent her home.” 

His voice was rising. The lights in the room were beginning to become uncomfortably bright and a slight buzzing permeated the air. 

Healer Tatovich opened and closed her mouth, no sound coming out. 

“Tell me what you tried. I want to hear it. Because I sat with Hermione as you tried base-level diagnostics every time we showed up. I listened as you told her there was nothing you could do and that muggles would be better suited for her treatment.” Draco took a menacing step forward, close enough that when he leant down, he was eye-level with Tatovich. “I was angry, but I believed you, you know. Thought maybe it was a muggle sickness and this would be best. But then the muggles helped more in a single day than you did in months. And now, I’m beyond angry.” 

Healer Tatovich’s jaw trembled. 

“Now, I’m livid .” Draco braced himself against the front desk with a flat palm, craning his neck down further. “Want to know what I do when I’m livid, Tatovich? What I do when people hurt my wife?” 

She jumped as a light fixture burst across the room, whispering, “I didn’t mean to hurt her. I wouldn’t hurt any of my patients.” 

The corner of Draco’s mouth lifted in a wicked, cruel sort of smile. It was so drastically unkind that the room shivered. 

“Of course you wouldn’t. You would just let her suffer because of your negligence.” 

Another light popped. 

“You can’t hurt me, Mr. Malfoy,” the healer remarked, although the quivering in her voice contrasted the confident words. 

“Oh, I don’t want to hurt you. My wife would be extremely cross with me if I ended up in Azkaban.” The implication of Draco’s possible actions made the woman’s eyes widen. “I just want a different healer. Immediately. And I want your license burnt to a crisp. I want your life to be hell, just like hers has been.” 

A pregnant, buzzing silence filled the space. No one moved— nothing moved, other than the aggressive rise and fall of Draco’s chest. His piercing gaze was locked onto Healer Tatovich, and anyone else in the room held their breath. Speaking, it appeared everyone believed, would spark the live wire that was Draco Malfoy.

The pause made vexation lick up Draco’s spine in rupturing paths. 

Fissures erupted across the panes of the windows in St. Mungo’s hospital. 

In a tone that was overflowing with unbridled rage, Draco Malfoy set the room in motion. 

“ Now .”

~~
The living room felt too hot as Draco stumbled into it. His shoes felt too heavy as they slammed against the hardwood and his shirt was scratching at his skin in the most infuriating way. Draco pulled apart the top buttons as he once again found himself pacing in his home.  

He didn’t have an outlet for this type of anger. He wasn’t even sure if he’d felt this type of anger before. Not when his father had led them into a life of war criminals. Not when his mother announced his doomed, forced engagement in the daily prophet. Not even throughout his school years when anger and frustration were the basis of all his actions. 

Because this was anger for Hermione , and everything to do with Hermione made him feel so much deeper. If he hadn’t been thinking about the repercussions of his actions—if Hermione didn’t need him—he would have demolished that hospital. He would have burned it to the ground and left the wing the Malfoy’s funded last year standing out of pure spite. 

This was his wife. 

His wife.

And St. Mungo’s couldn’t get their act together long enough to determine the magical properties of the illness that was tearing her apart day after day. 

They were supposed to be the experts, and Draco had foolishly bought into such a notion and left his wife’s well-being in their incapable hands. On his way out, a few healers had tried to calm Draco—tried to emphasize that when muggle and magical ailments collide it becomes nearly impossible to uncover them. 

His responses had been littered with profanities and obscure threats, because he didn’t care what made sense to them. 

What made sense to Draco was that Hermione was sick and everyone was failing her. 

He was failing her. 

Draco tugged at his hair as that thought slammed into his mind. He thought he had been working assiduously to help her. Taking time off of work, not seeing his friends—it was all nothing. He would have done so much more for her. Will do so much more for her.

But he hadn’t even thought—didn’t even imagine —that she was sick because of him. 

“Draco?” 

The call from down the hall punctuated Draco’s descent to the floor. His back was pressed against the wall by the front door and he crunched up into a ball to protect him from…something. 

“I’ll be there in a moment, love,” he called back. His voice sounded wrong. It came from his lips the wrong way. 

He had dropped Hermione off after the muggle doctor’s appointment. She was in high spirits and he had done well to mirror that on his own face. The boiling, vicious anger he had felt had been reserved for St. Mungo’s shortly after. Only, that anger was morphing into something ugly and Hermione was now only a few rooms away. 

Draco tried to collect himself, tugged at the material of his shirt at his chest in an attempt to quell the ache there. It didn’t work. He tried to regulate his breathing next, and then tried to somehow lower his blood pressure, and then his body temperature. 

None of it was effective, because, above all, Draco felt ruined. 

The sound of Hermione’s screams from that vile night had been playing on a loop since the doctor showed him the scan of her arm. The screaming and the tears and the way the magic in the room rattled the chandelier overhead. He had done nothing.

Nothing. 

And now Hermione was sick because of it. 

Draco’s fingertips pressed into cool wood and he hung his head between his bent knees. 

She only charmed her scar when she was around muggles—it was easier that way. He was reminded of his failure each time the weather got warmer and each time he made love to her. The topic had been discussed in the past; Hermione did not shy away from the atrocity. But fault and blame and responsibility had never been breached.

Draco had apologized, but Hermione was always quick to shoot that down. We were children and Voldemort would have killed you and, Draco’s least favorite, there’s nothing you could have done . 

There were so many things he could have done, and now he knew, if he had done them, Hermione would be well. He might’ve ended up dead, but she would have been well . 

There were still many questions surrounding what was causing the tumors and the symptoms, but the origin was no longer a mystery. They would get more answers—as soon as Healer Tatovich was fired and Draco did further research on their next hire—but the truth would remain the same. 

Draco did nothing. 

Hermione was bearing the cost. 

He supposed that was the gravest punishment that could have been inflicted upon him. 

“Draco, are you alright?” Hermione called again. She had started taking sock-clad steps down the hallway. He could hear them. 

Draco heaved himself off of the floor, sniffed and then righted the rumpled mess he’d made of his shirt. “Hermione, lay back down, darling. I’m coming.” 

She met him at the base of the hall anyway, wearing muggle sweats and a sweatshirt with the name of some university she had never been to. A gift from Neville Longbottom, if he remembered correctly. 

Draco felt drained as he placed a hand on the small of Hermione’s back. He felt obsolete.

“Where did you go?” she asked in a small voice. 

“Nowhere,” he answered, because, above all else, Hermione did not need to endure more of his faults. She didn’t need to drown beneath this guilt that was consuming him. He deserved to drown for her.

Chapter Text

Today was better. Today was not like yesterday. Today, Draco woke up and Hermione had already sprung from the bed, leaving crumpled sheets and a cat in her wake. 

Draco scratched between Crooshanks’s ears as a dull pounding resonated between his own—remnants from the complete breakdown he’d had the night before, surely. 

He ran a hand down his face.

There would be no updates today.

Everything was new and fresh and there were very little answers to the abundance of questions they both had. Although there were more points of clarity, there were even more unknowns.

The bedroom curtains swayed in the morning breeze, lake air kissing the bare skin of Draco’s shoulders. The curtains were a light brown, those odious things, completely clashing with the rest of the room. But there had needed to be compromise, and Draco hadn’t been able to stand another maroon decoration in the space. Just as Hermione wouldn’t tolerate another green fixture. 

Old habits died hard. 

A loud clang bounced off of the walls, disrupting the superficial calm. Draco was out of bed before it had finished its blunted echo. His feet were harsh against the carpet as he skidded around the corner of the hallway, heart in his throat. A thousand possibilities plagued his mind, a thousand things that could have gone wrong, but they all came to a halt when he entered the kitchen and saw—

Hermione… removing every kitchen appliance from their cabinets. 

She hadn’t seen him yet, her hair held back by a clip in a low, messy knot, her back turned as she rifled through a cupboard that hadn’t been touched in months. There was a blender by her bent knees and a toaster on the counter, its plug hanging down towards the oven. Draco hadn’t used very many of these items, hence their home in the back of a cupboard. 

Hermione kept sifting through their belongings as Draco felt his expression twist. “Um, Hermione?” 

His wife gasped, a startled jerk causing her to hit her head against the top of the cabinet. Draco tsked, kneeling beside her as she rubbed her head and retreated from the depths. 

“Ow,” she muttered. 

Draco responded with a press of his hand along the small of her back. “Are you alright?” 

“Of course I’m alright. I’ve only bumped my head.” 

“I was mainly referring to your overhaul of our kitchen.” 

Hermione let out a small, breathless laugh, her brown eyes turning to meet her husband’s. “I was trying to make waffles.” 

“Waffles?” Draco mused, running his hand up to her hair and smoothing down the strays. 

“Yes. You love waffles.”

Draco ignored the swooping in his gut as he shifted his knees to the floor, lightness mixing with the heavy revelations from yesterday. “Any reason for the sudden culinary escapade?”

The next look she gave him made him pause. It was the look that had been the origin of too many bad decisions, too many sleepless nights, and too many mornings of her waking up far too early to work on things that could have waited.

The look Hermione gave him was the look of brilliance, but it was also the look of guilt and reproach.

“Well,” she began, fiddling with her fingers atop her thighs. Draco looked on with an expecting brow which she answered with a defeated sigh. “Fine, fine—I was trying to butter you up, really. I have a… proposition.” 

“A proposition,” he parroted. 

“Yes. A rather reasonable one, I think. One that would be better over breakfast which was my intention with my culinary escapade.” 

Draco wanted to ask more. He wanted to poke and prod until she gave up each and every one of her thoughts this very instant, but he did not. Hermione had that spark in her eye and although he was certain her “proposition” had caused her to get far too little sleep last night, she looked rested, alight. 

So he didn’t ask. He simply gazed at her for a second longer than necessary and then accioed the waffle maker from the depths of the cabinet. Side by side, they made breakfast—the muggle way, as Hermione had insisted, with garish plugs and beeping machines that Draco let out begrudging noises at. Hermione only laughed at each one, leaning against him as the beeping subsided. 

It wasn’t until they sat a the table joining the kitchen and the dining room that Draco’s loving gaze turned watchful. He carefully tracked her movements as she poured syrup and fruit along her waffle before motioning the toppings towards him as well. 

“Talk, Granger,” Draco demanded, the voice of an uncharacteristic coil. 

She let out an exasperated huff. “I said it would be better over breakfast. Meaning you would have to be engaging in the meal, Draco.” 

Draco stabbed a strawberry with his fork and promptly shoved it into his mouth, chewing and meeting her eyes. 

Hermione twisted her lips into a peeved grimace but relented. “Okay, well, I was thinking—”

“As presumed,” Draco added. 

“Ha ha,” Hermione jested. She had moved on from peeved to anxious and Draco wanted nothing more than to ease the tension in the room. His wife knocked her food around her plate before placing her fork down, resolute. “I think I know what’s wrong with me. I think I know how to fix it. Well, the magic side of things, I suppose. I think it’s likely that I may need interventions on both fronts, but, Draco, I’d like to try and figure this out.” 

Draco blinked and then set his own cutlery down beside his plate. He cleared his throat. “And I’m guessing you already know how you would like to do such a thing.” 

“Yes. Which is the reason for the waffles.” A pause. “I need the blade—the one Bellatrix used. It’s in magical evidence at the ministry. I think… Draco, I think maybe it was laced with something.” 

Draco had considered this. After the muggle medical appointment—after his emotions had calmed—he had spent the first half of the night thinking. Thinking about that night in the manor, thinking about each minute detail of the scene playing behind his lids, thinking about Hermione; he had the image of his wife on the drawing room floor ingrained in his retinas and it fueled about a dozen hypotheses. 

Draco considered this, and still, the thought of bringing that thing into his home sent painful licks up his chest. This place was free from the wrought violence of their past. Their home was a safe haven, an escape, an amalgamation of all the good things Draco had accumulated in his life. 

Draco glanced up at the pictures of their friends and family on the wall and settled his gaze back on Hermione. “While I agree with your conclusion—” he finally released the words from his throat “—do you not believe it would be better to send the blade to an expert? I could owl the curse-breakers my family has connections with. We could—” 

“Draco,” Hermione interrupted, the softness of her voice making his eyes hone in on her in a fervent rush. “We tried experts. We tried sourcing this out. I don’t—I don’t know if I can trust that I’ll get better that way anymore.” 

“You're ill, Hermione. You often don’t have the energy to stand for longer than a few minutes.” 

“I know,” she murmured. “I know that. I’ll take breaks. We can make a schedule of sorts. I could have Ginny come by on certain days.” 

Draco could feel himself slipping into a role he didn’t like to play with Hermione—one that had become too prevalent since she became sick. He steeled his shoulders back and attempted to soften his expression the best he could. He could tell the attempt was not very effective. 

“And why would Ginny need to be here?” 

“I want you to go back to work.” 

“No.” 

“Draco—” 

“No, Hermione. Absolutely not. Not now and especially not with whatever plan you have concocted. You have got to be mad to think I would agree to that.”

Hermione sighed and knocked her head to the side, the grimace playing on her face one of both defeat and determination. Draco would not be going back to work. Draco would not be devoting his time to anything of importance until Hermione was better. 

“Why now?” he asked slowly, tempering his voice to keep it low and stable. He missed the pretend calm of the morning that had greeted him when he woke. 

Hermione sat up straighter in her chair. “You get worried.” She ignored Draco’s scoff. “And I understand, I do, but it doesn't do us any good. We have answers now, Draco, and I believe I can do something with these answers. I just… think it would be faster—more efficient, maybe—if you weren’t worried I’d fall apart every time I get tired.” 

“You could.” 

“I wouldn’t.” Hermione rose from behind the table, rounding the softened corner until her hand made the attempt to push out Draco’s own chair. He helped her, his heel digging into the ground. Hermione perched herself on Draco's knee and ran soft fingers through his disheveled hair. “As difficult as it is to believe, I am not actively deteriorating. I still have my wits about me and just because I struggle doesn't mean I’m not capable. I… I know you went to St. Mungos yesterday—” 

“I didn’t—” 

“I’m not angry,” Hermione quelled. “But you have been keeping things from me, Draco. I told you I didn’t want you to feel that you were alone in this. That this is happening to the both of us, and you’ve still been keeping things from me. I think us both having something to do would help. I think you having some… distance from the situation would be good.” 

“Distance,” Draco whispered into the air between them, the hands he had placed on her waist tightening. “Hermione, I can’t.” 

And maybe it was the look of pure devastation on his face that made her relent. Draco could almost feel it in his expression—in the downturn of his mouth and the twist of his brow. The thought of leaving her for any amount of time when she was in this state made it difficult to swallow. 

Hermione looked on at her husband, twisting stray hairs from his face and attempting to smooth the hard lines that plagued him even in sleep. “Let me in then. Do this with me, not for me. I’m not dead yet.” 

Draco choked on air, the lingering taste of the sickeningly sweet syrup a sharp contrast to the way he felt. He pulled Hermione closer to his chest and leaned his forehead on her collarbone, defeated, relenting. 

He supposed he couldn’t keep this up. Just last night he had been so inundated by the feelings of loss and grief and guilt that he had barely spoken four words to her before bed. For months he had been traversing this battle at the head of the charge, protecting Hermione from both her symptoms and his own reactions, but he had been a fool to think she wouldn’t notice. 

Brightest witch of her age, he reminded himself, even when she was ill. 

“I worry that it will be too much,” Draco finally spoke against her skin. Her hands moved down to run along his shoulders. “That you shouldn’t be taking all of this on. I wanted you to only worry about getting better.” 

“I know that, Draco,” she softly replied. “But we tried that. We tried the act of me pretending not to notice how much this was affecting you. I took a backseat and you took care of me. I’m just—I just can’t pretend that I can’t do more anymore.”

It was then that Draco realized the implications of Hermione’s proposition. Not only was she asking for the blade, but she was still asking for him to stop. To stop hovering and worrying and dreading the day of his nightmares. She was asking him to be the one to pretend. 

Panic surged through him, a sort of feeling that would have embarrassed him in any other setting. He shot his head up from her chest and stared at her with wide, frantic eyes. “You can’t ask me to not be part of this, Hermione. You can’t ask me to step away from your treatment and not know if you’re okay. I can’t go to work and leave you researching and not know if—” 

“Okay, okay,” Hermione hushed, cupping his face in her hands. “The work thing was a bad idea. I’m sorry—Draco—we don’t have to have distance, okay?” 

His chest rose and fell with unnecessary strain. “I can get you the blade, Hermione. I can help.” 

“Okay. Okay, we can do it together.” 

“I’ll get you anything you need. Just don’t make me leave.” 

“Draco,” Hermione said with an anguished sigh. 

She pressed her forehead to his, and Draco knew, then and there, that he would have left if she asked. Draco knew that he would have done anything Hermione asked of him. 

~~

The Department of Magical Evidence was bleak. Draco sat in the overly red waiting room and felt the tendons of his jaw tense and relax in quick succession. His fingers were extended in stiff lines along his thighs and Draco kept his gaze locked on the clock behind the counter. 

Potter was late. And Draco was pissed off. 

The plump wizard at the front desk would not stop eyeing Draco, and the part of him that understood the hesitancy was not readily available in Draco’s repertoire today. His mind was still in overdrive, weighing the pros and cons of letting Hermione go through with this, and he did not have the capacity to empathize with the short man who so obviously feared him. 

Plus, Draco was pissed off that Potter was late. 

“Sorry,” the wizard cleared his throat with a meek expression. Draco flicked his eyes over to the stout man. “When d’ya say Mr. Harry Potter was coming?” 

“Ten minutes ago,” Draco spit out. 

“Right, well—you think he’s still coming then?” 

“Yes.”

The wizard let out a mumbled sound of acknowledgment and quickly turned down to his parchment. Unfortunately, Draco would continue to wait, all day if he had to, for Potter to show up. Hermione had already contacted the spectacle-wearing git—against Draco’s chagrin—and Draco would wait for him to use his all-great Harry Potter privilege to get the evidence Hermione had begged him for. 

Unfortunately, Draco would do anything for Hermione. Obviously. 

After ten more minutes of Draco’s silent seething, the chipped wooden door of the waiting room creaked open to reveal none other than Harry Potter. His Auror robes were out of place in the staunchly abysmal room, and Draco was reminded of his own collecting dust in the back of his closet. Draco, however, wore his with far more poise and class than Harry Potter currently did, his collar askew and the sleeves wrinkled. 

“Alright there, Malfoy?” Potter greeted. 

Draco’s brows jumped on his forehead. “You are twenty minutes late, Potter,” he sneered. “I have several other things to do today that do not include stewing in the waiting room of worn-down ministry departments.” 

The wizard behind the desk furrowed his brow and looked around as if unsure of Draco’s words. Potter only allowed a small upturn of his lips before slapping a hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Right. Sorry about that. You do realize that when you don’t work, the rest of us have extra responsibility.” 

Draco had been expecting this. He could almost hear Hermione’s subtle request to Potter to gently suggest that he go back to work, don’t make it obvious. In response to Potter’s poor placement, Draco only offered an unimpressed look. 

“I’m focusing on—” 

“On Hermione, I know, mate,” Potter interjected. He shook his sleeves up beyond his wrists and pivoted towards the man at the desk. “Hello, Ripley. Do you have the artifact I requested?” 

Ripley—who Draco now looked upon with interest—swallowed and picked at his fingers. “Why yes, Mr. Potter. Here’s the key to the file. Head on back.” 

A small skeleton key shifted over the granulated wood of the counter, and Draco became even more peeved that he had to wait in the first place. He could have gone back and got the blasted blade on his own, but because he was on administrative leave, he didn’t have the same privileges. That, and because this was evidence from the war in which he had clearly been on the opposing side, his requests for evidence often got… politely declined. 

He was an Auror, but mistrust was still an occasional presence in his life. 

“Thank you, Ripley. See you later, then,” Potter offered, heading towards the gated door with a casual air that Draco did not replicate. Potter clicked his wand against the silver-plated knob and the door swung open for them. 

The evidence room was reminiscent of the Department of Mysteries, just far more run down and far less shining. Rows and rows of shaking boxes and roaring cabinets erupted around the pair as they made headway down the aisles, their target locked behind yet another door that required the key currently planted in Harry Potter’s hand. All evidence from the war had been safeguarded with far more care than the run-of-the-mill crime, and Draco was reminded of just how jarring of an ask Hermione had made. 

The thing that had made her so ill—so unable to function in the way he knew her to—had to be locked behind several doors and required Harry fucking Potter to retrieve. 

Finally making it to the door, Potter took a step back, glancing at Draco with the key held between them. “Malfoy, have you… been in this room before?” 

“Of course I haven’t, Potter. You think under any other circumstances they would allow an ex-Death Eater into the war evidence room?”

Potter kissed his teeth and then drew the key closer into his body. Had he wanted Draco to open it? And decided against it? “You should know—there are several things from your manor in there. Things you’ve definitely seen. And they made Hermione relinquish loads of her stuff. Might be hard to see.” 

Draco grunted out a scoff he didn’t mean. He didn’t like to think about Hermione during the war for obvious reasons, but thinking about her then was mostly fueled by his imagination and the random times she would share a memory that was plaguing her. This would be real, concrete. 

“Well, open the door then,” Draco prompted, jutting his chin out. 

Potter did. 

Draco’s first thought was that the room smelled cloistered and musty. His second thought was that it was teaming with dark energy that he hadn’t felt since the war. The items at the front of the space were, in fact, from his childhood home. Broken bits of furniture and cutlery that he could remember being blown up for one reason or another where aligned behind cases and covers, and there was a bookcase along the wall that held several books that used to reside in his library. Cursed items that had made his kitchen uninhabitable were under enchantments now that he could smell, and then there were the portraits that knew too much in a pile at the back. 

“You could right move in, I think,” Potter joked, but his uncomfortable attempt to soothe Draco’s strained expression fell flat. 

It wasn’t Potter’s fault; Draco spotted Hermione’s beaded bag beside a locked chest, and he was too busy biting the inside of his cheek to respond. Alongside it were several vials of potions that had her handwriting scribbled on the edges, frayed books that emanated dark magic, and then—the thing that made Draco pause—the clothes that she had been wearing when she was tortured on his floor, folded up and stacked as if dry cleaned and ready for pickup. 

Draco cleared his throat. He couldn’t see Potter’s face, but he could picture his grim expression as he offered. “I told you, Malfoy, they made us give them almost everything that we touched during our search for the Horcruxes. No idea why. Abundance of caution, I guess.” Draco blinked and did not turn. He was startled out of his trance when Potter touched his arm once more. “C’mon, mate. Shouldn’t stay here longer than we need to.” 

Draco moved on. He wished he could speak to Hermione—maybe be able to touch her just to get reassurance. Reassurance for what, he wasn’t sure, but Draco was overcome by the thought that he needed his wife. 

The weapons and nefarious objects section of the room was far more organized and far less… sentimental, it seemed. Several wands were locked behind enchanted glass and several more objects illegally cursed to act as wands accompanied them. And then there were the knives and swords and blades. Potter jiggled the thin key into the cabinet furthest from the entrance, and it popped open with a deafening crack. 

Inside, his aunt's blade was sitting alone. No other items or weapons took residence in the space. 

“I don’t think you should touch it,” Potter advised. He kept his voice so low and careful, that Draco compared it to speaking to a frightened animal. 

“Hermione is going to spend the next… however long, touching and examining this fucking blade. I’ll be fine,” Draco replied, and then he picked it up at the hilt, turned it in his hand, and swallowed down the bile that was threatening to come up. 

The air in the evidence room became stagnant. 

“Alright, Draco?” Potter asked. 

“No,” he answered truthfully. Because Hermione had said to be honest from now on. “I don’t believe I am.” 

Chapter Text

November 

As Draco had expected, Hermione wasted no time once getting her hands on the blade. The small room serving as storage in the back of their home had been warded and stocked with a plethora of items she had requested. She hadn’t slowed down since the last ward was in place. 

Draco did his best to keep distance, but that wasn’t hard to do, seeing as he had been practically glued to Hermione’s side over the last year. Any distance would have looked like a miracle to an onlooker, so the three hours a day that he did not check on her was just that—a miracle. Granted, in those three hours, he was also doing extensive research on muggle cancer treatment and the like, but he wasn’t checking on her, and that was something. 

He still worried, and stressed, and watched for every slight twitch in her brow that might spell discomfort, but he now voiced each one. And he asked her instead of assuming. And, maybe, he felt a little less alone as he did so. Miraculously, Hermione did not break apart when he placed some of his burden onto her. It actually seemed to keep her motivated, knowing that Draco was trying and listening to her. 

So, fine, he did not need to suffer in silence. Sometimes. 

The youngest Weasley came by on occasion, typically hauling in a crate of whatever Hermione had requested from the ministry. She would huff inside and throw a look at Draco that clearly spelt if you were at work this would be your job, but she never outwardly complained. She cloistered herself up in that damn storage room and then left a few hours later when Draco was mandated time to check on Hermione. 

Things worked. 

Draco worried, but he did so in a manageable way. 

“There are just a few more components that I’m unsure how to deconstruct,” Hermione rambled, puffing her hair out of her eyes. This was the third week of her research. “The hilt seems to emit a miasma when tampered with and I don’t necessarily want to mess with that.” 

Draco nodded from the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. “Seems unwise.” 

“I’m thinking there could be a nullifying agent, but I would need to understand the components of the gas. Do you know if your aunt had a preference for poisons?” 

“Can’t say that she shared that with me.” 

Hermione pursed her lips in disappointment. “Rats. Figures, though. There’s no saying she was the one to enchant this thing to begin with.” 

Draco hummed, surveying her as she tapped a quill against the workbench. He caught the thin sheen of sweat on her hairline and the spasm in her fingers, and he decided that was enough for him to voice something. 

“We have the appointment with the muggle doctors tomorrow,” he said in place of a nag. Instead, he kicked away from the door and pulled up a stool next to her, ignoring the blade splayed out on the table. He twined a curl away from her face. “Treatment planning.” 

Hermione gave him a look. “Why are you saying that as if it’s not a real thing?” 

“I wasn’t saying it as if anything.” 

She rolled her eyes. He mocked an eye roll back. And then her breath in was haggard, uneven, and he decided he had the authority to cut in. 

“Maybe enough for the day,” he said casually, pressing a kiss to her temple. “You have to rest up before tomorrow.” 

Hermione sighed listlessly. “Right, of course. I’m going to pretend you didn’t want to say that the moment you walked in.” 

“Well, you are twitching.” 

“I am not twitching,” she shot back, smile etched into her offense. Draco smiled back, remembering how things were just a month ago—when he kept his worry to himself and Hermione did not allow herself to speak up. Terrible times. Things were still terrible, but less so. 

Draco’s chest rumbled as he guided Hermione from her seat, an arm secure over her shoulder. It was for show, but it wasn’t. Her legs trembled as she stood, and Draco did not point it out, but Hermione did not move away from him as they walked to the bedroom. 

“Twitching a little,” he murmured near her ear, and she swatted her hand back until it connected with his chest. 

As it turned out, treatment planning was a necessary evil that Draco had to grit his teeth through. Hermione sat beside him, eyes honed in on the plump medical doctor as chemotherapy and surgery and radiation were discussed. Draco knew about all of this without the doctor prattling off facts and information; he had a host of muggle medicine books now living in his library. 

“Next week, then,” Hermione nodded, gripping Draco’s hand on the walk back to the car. “I’m probably going to seem worse before I seem better.” 

Draco knew that as well. He had plenty of knowledge on chemotherapy, and while it read as barbaric, he was putting his trust in the treatment plan. In Hermione and her research. When she started chemotherapy next week, he was going to be beside her and ready for what it brought. 

He only wished that was the sole solution to the problem—that the infliction was not both muggle and magical. 

Draco leaned down and pressed his lips to Hermione’s head, squeezing her hand. “Whatever it takes.” 

December 

Chemotherapy was awful. Terrible. The worst thing Draco had ever encountered, and it wasn’t even happening to him. He had half a mind to barge into the muggle hospital the same way he had Saint Mungos, demanding answers for his wife’s declining state, but he had researched this. He had known the progression. That didn’t exactly make it comfortable to watch.

Hermione had moved much of her research from the warded workspace to the overcushioned lounge in the living room. The blade remained in the back of the house, but books piled around her and along the coffee table, pieces of parchment strewn about. Draco sat and watched, but he did not interfere. He instead occupied himself with research papers on clinical trials and medications, even though he knew they would not be the answer. 

It was comforting to him, somehow. 

After the first round of chemo, Hermione had time off from the hospital. Her strength was noticeably down from last month, and Draco had to fight with himself to not pluck her from the lounge and tuck her into bed. Tightly. In a manner impossible for her to remove herself from. Old habits died hard. 

“Toast, maybe?” Draco called from over his shoulder, ambling about in the small conjoined kitchenette. It hadn’t existed a few months ago, but when Hermione found the living room the most comforting, Draco had an expansionary wizard add-on to the house. 

He did not get an answer. 

“Hermione?” he called again, attempting to quell his worry. She had felt okay waking up this morning, and they agreed to be honest with each other from now on. She would have said if something was wrong. 

Still, Draco couldn’t help the way his heart skipped a few beats. He abandoned the loaf of bread on the counter and made quick steps to peek his head around the corner. He let out a held breath upon seeing her, her hair swept up in a scarf and her back hunched over a relic of a book. She was losing it slowly—her hair. Draco had gone to great lengths to preserve it through magic, although she hadn’t voiced any worry. Yet. 

“Are you alright, love?” 

“It’s Bloodroot Poison.” 

He fully exited the kitchen then, standing before her slouched form. Hermione didn’t look up from the book, the blanket on her shoulders sliding down her arms. 

“It’s what?” He kneeled, a hand placed gingerly on her knee. He stared upon her face even when she didn’t look for his. “Hermione.” 

“Bloodroot,” she replied, brows furrowing. “I—I don’t know why I hadn’t considered it before. It’s rare. Hardly even accessible and not even lethal when touched. But, I suppose, wrought into the skin and untreated, it could be lethal.” 

“I haven’t even heard of it,” Draco almost whispered. 

Hermione looked up at him, finally, gaze somewhat lost. “It’s rare,” she repeated. 

Nothing more. No in-depth lecture or excited ramblings. Draco had so many questions. How did she know? What was the antidote? Where did the poison originate because he was going to be in the first floo to find an expert. But he voiced none of them. 

He nodded, instead, earnest. “Okay,” he affirmed, hand reaching from her knee to hold her face. “Bloodroot. We can work with that.” 

~~

Christmas was a stilted affair. Not out of lack of trying, but everyone around Hermione was in the same state as Draco circa two months ago. Well, except Ginny, but she was also the one most around Hermione throughout all of this, and the one least afraid that she would break at the slightest touch. 

Potter was trying to seem casual, but compared to his last visit to the Mafoy residence, Hermione looked starkly worse. Mostly in the way she carried herself, exhaustion always just teetering in her voice, but there were physical signs, too. Draco could only illusion so much with magic.

Then there was Ron, who hovered his hands around Hermione’s shoulders in fear that a hug would be too much. And Lavender Brown was speaking in low tones as if to not startle a frightened animal. The only reprieve to the night were Potter’s two children bounding down the halls with the toys they’d received that morning, shoving them in Hermione’s face and treating her as they usually did. 

Hermione, to her credit, took everything in stride. Draco had voiced his concerns about hosting a dinner at their house, citing her weakened immune system and proclivity for falling asleep at the table, but she had insisted. The conversation went far better than their previous ones about visitors, and it had ended with Hermione falling asleep at the table. Draco had carried her back to bed with a shake of his head, and then subtly sent reminders to the guests that they needed to be disinfected before they arrived. 

“James, this is not your personal playground!” Ginny yelled past the main kitchen doors. “Stop running in your aunt's house!” 

“It’s alright, Ginny,” Hermione laughed, resting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “It’s Christmas. They can trip over the carpet if they’d like.” 

Dinner had gone smoothly, Draco sitting beside Hermione and trying not to eye the way her hand trembled slightly as she ate. No one else seemed to notice, or if they did, they politely ignored it. She and Ginny were now in the kitchen washing dishes the muggle way, Draco leaning against the wall and drying the plates Hermione handed him. She’d tried to shoo him off, urging him to talk with the other guests remaining in the dining room, but he had limits. Hermione had relented when he raised his brow at her shaking knees. 

“Yes, Weasley, allow your children to ruin our house. It’s in the spirit of the holiday.” 

Ginny shot an icy look Draco’s way. “If I recall, Malfoy, you were the one adamant that I brought them.” 

Hermione pressed her smile into a line and ducked her head near the sink. Draco felt his chest warm. “Polite thing to do,” he shrugged. “And Granger wanted to see the children.” 

“Yes, I’m sure it was Hermione and not the man who opened the door and kneeled for them as soon as they ran in.” 

“Also only being polite.” 

Conversation became dim as the night dwindled, everyone a few minutes out from leaving. It was apparently an appropriate time to finally ask about Hermione’s treatment, the children asleep on their father’s lap and the Christmas lights blurring against tired eyes. Hermione sighed and leaned further into Draco’s side in the armchair. 

“We have a new magical healer, a muggle doctor, and we’ve been in contact with a potions master in Brazil,” she listed off, wrapping her arm around her middle. She was tired. Draco could tell. “It’s all very dramatic. Lots of appointments. But we have answers now.” 

“Brazil?” Harry asked, perking from the other side of the sitting room. “Why so far?” 

“The blade was imbued with Bloodroot Poison. It’s why it took me so long to identify it—it’s rare and only found in the Amazon. We’re looking for the antidote through his knowledge of the poison.” 

Ron snapped his gaze over, confusion marring his face. “But why’d you need the muggle doctor then? With the antidote, it would be fine, right?” 

Draco had somewhat of a shorter fuse with the elder Weasley. Maybe due to his wife’s previous relationship with the git. Maybe not. No one could really know. “Yes, well, if we wait around for an antidote to a rare poison from across the country, we could be waiting a long, long time, Ronald,” Draco pointed out. “And it’s already into her bone.” 

“What he means—” Hermione offered in a gentler tone “—is that magic folk don’t get cancer. The fact that I have it is beyond magical probability. The healers and the potions master think a dual approach would lead to the most success.” 

Ron didn’t seem to mind the bite behind Draco’s words. He had grown used to it over the years, clearly. “Jeez, Mione. But you’ll be alright?” 

“Of course she will,” Lavender offered from beside her fiancé. She leaned over and smiled softly at Hermione. “She will be just fine. There’s nothing that can stop her.” 

Draco grimaced behind a glass of fire whiskey, but Hermione took on the affirmation with a stilted grin. Lavender’s positivity was a good way to end the night. 

It was reminisced about later, when Hermione was cradled in Draco’s arms and several blankets were piled high atop them both. Draco was sweltering, but it was nothing an isolated cooling charm couldn’t handle. 

“I can do anything,” she teased, eyes wide as she was held close to Draco’s chest. “Nothing can stop me.” 

Draco raised an amused brow. “I asked you about the guest list beforehand. She was a questionable addition.” 

“We couldn’t not invite Ron’s fiancée. And she’s… sweet.” 

“Sweet and yet incredibly tone deaf.” 

“A trait she did not grow out of.” 

Draco appraised his wife, brushing her thinner hair back to collect into her braid. “How are you feeling?” 

“Tired,” Hermione admitted. “Exhausted, actually. Tomorrow will be hard.” A pause. “And how about you?” 

Draco considered this reveal of truths. It was not easily done, but it was something he’d promised to do. “Scared,” he whispered near her. 

And he knew from the way she met his eye that she felt the same. But saying she was tired would do. 

January 

After another round of chemo and another few weeks of dead ends from Brazil, Hermione sat before Draco at the dining table added to the kitchenette. She had on a look of determination made pallid by her weakened appearance, but it was no less effective on Draco. He righted his shoulders and offered her his full attention. 

“I think it’s time we shaved my head.” 

He faltered, the mug in his hand shifting against expensive wood. “What?” 

Hermione took in a rearing breath. “I appreciate everything you’ve done to slow the loss, I really do, Draco. But it’s going. And with more treatments, it will only continue to thin. I need to let go of it.” 

“But I could try—” 

“There’s nothing left to try. The doctors say there will be a few months of this still. It will grow back. With magic, it would be far faster, too. But this battle you’ve been fighting with my hair is a losing one.” 

Draco considered her, brow furrowed at her determination. He looked up to her wild curls and mourned them, but only because he knew she had grown to love her hair. He had made sure of that early on in their relationship. It was why he had researched so much magic to help her keep that piece of herself. 

“Unless…” she began, suddenly unsure. “You think I need it.” 

His eyes snapped to hers. “In what way?” 

She played with her fingers on the table. “Well, if you think I would look ghastly without it, I suppose we could try a little bit longer to preserve—” 

“What—Hermione, no,” Draco quickly interrupted, covering her hands with his. “That is not why I’ve been trying. I love you. You are nothing short of beautiful to me, and while I adore your hair, that is not why you are beautiful.” 

Hermione stared up at him from her lashes, mouth twisted. 

“I wanted you to feel like yourself,” he explained. He reached up and pulled at a loose curl. “I didn’t want you to worry about losing your hair when you couldn’t even keep food down or get comfortable at night. And I read… well, in the books I read, patients said that was often one of the more distressing side effects.” 

“Oh.” 

“I would not care if you shaved your head and kept yourself bald for the remainder of your life.” 

“Okay, now you’re lying. And being dramatic.” 

Maybe he was, slightly. He did adore her hair. But he adored the witch more. 

“You accuse an innocent man.” 

They shaved her hair off that night, the muggle way. Hermione’s preference. 

February 

A bad month. A short month, but a bad one. 

Everything seemed to catch up to Hermione at once, all of the lingering symptoms of nausea and fatigue and brain fog developing into full-force illness. They had been there before, but they had been manageable. Something about this round of treatment was hitting harder. 

“We could try another pill?” Draco offered, leaning down by the bed. He ran his hand over Hermione’s head. “Or we could try a draught of peace. I don’t know if that would help with the nausea.” 

“Not supposed to mix magic with muggle,” she drearily edged out. “It’ll pass.” 

Draco bit the inside of his cheek, sitting on the edge of the mattress. He passed another touch along her head, a knitted hat retaining heat. Molly had made it for her. “I’m worried, Hermione,” Draco shared. Maybe it wasn’t the time to say that. His wife looked appreciative, anyways, a small smile forming. 

“Wouldn’t expect anything different. Why don’t you write Matheus? Put your mind at ease.” 

“Matheus said he would write us when he had answers. I don’t want to bombard him. Plus, his Portuguese is difficult to translate. He writes with sludge instead of ink, it seems.” 

Hermione laughed, and then wrinkled her face in pain. Draco was quick to assess. “What hurts?” 

“Terrible question. Everything hurts.” 

But there was lightness in her tone.

Draco latched onto it. “Maybe that hideous hat isn’t helping.” 

He caught her glare, partially hidden by the covers. “I don’t need to know every honest thought that pops into your head.” 

Draco kicked off his shoes and he held her. That day, and then the next. It took a week and a half for her to get any semblance of strength back following the most recent set of chemo, and he saw that strength manifest in more research. More reading ancient, rare books that he had scoured the continent for. More scribbling notes that she would fold up and have him send to Matheus in Brazil.

“Time for a walk,” he announced, Hermione’s winter clothes draped over her forearm. She looked at him in faux offence from across the living room. 

“A walk?” she parroted. “It’s snowing. You wouldn’t let me out of the house at the sign of a chill a few months ago.” 

“Yes, well, that was before. Now the recommendation is light physical activity for your mood. And you’ll be wearing all of this along with my warming charm.”

“My mood? I’m not going to become depressed. I am quite content here, actually, and there is adjacent information about the Bloodroot plant I want to send off before—” 

“Please, Hermione,” Draco interrupted. He was not one to beg, but she was growing sickly in the way that met her skin. “You need fresh air. I need you to get fresh air. The books will be there after.” 

Hermione stared down at her stacks of information, some of it useful, some a clear dead end. “I’ll be too tired to research after. I can barely even focus as is.” 

“Then tell me about it while we walk. I’ll send things off for you once we get back.” 

And so, they walked. Or, they stepped—Hermione could only take a step at a time and then needed to pause, but Draco didn’t mind. He watched a cool breeze perk up Hermione’s pale face, and he didn’t mind standing. Or waiting. Or bearing the brunt of Hermione’s stance as he held her arm.

“The properties of Bloodroot, when isolated, are similar to Dittany, actually. I think if we were to create a one-to-one model of each, we could replace the poisonous properties of the bloodroot and overwrite them with the healing aspects of Dittany,” Hermione recounted, shivering into Draco’s arm. He increased the warming charm. “Matheus has been sending me the pieces he’s deconstructed, but he needs more bloodroot. The samples are running out.” 

Draco hummed in contemplation. He stepped, and then waited for Hermione to follow his path. “My family has old connections in Brazil. I’ll ask about their stock.” 

“Oh, really? Metheus was considering asking locals.” 

“He could do that.” A tilt of Draco’s head. He caught Hermione’s white-knuckle grip on the sleeve of his coat. “But something tells me the pure-blood lineages have old materials they probably shouldn’t. And I would want him to have the tools as soon as possible.” 

Hermione nodded jerkily and took another step with gusto. 

“You’re tired,” Draco noted, facing her fully. 

“I’m always tired,” she sighed out. 

He ran a thumb along her cheek. “I know.” It hurt to look at her; Draco was often consumed by how much he loved her, how much he wanted her to live. “I know, Hermione.” 

March

With the introduction of Spring came a revitalised hope. The Malfoys had funded a small but devoted research lab in Brazil, the sudden influx of Bloodroot plant spurring interest in the potion master population. They sent frequent updates and were heavy on the trail Hermione led them down, because the Malfoys had also funded an alarmingly expansive stock of Dittany for the research. 

The warmer weather also meant more comfort for Hermione, and the muggle doctors reported promising results from the ongoing treatment. They were still concerned by her “grossly incongruent symptomology”, but in that, Draco found some peace. He knew the cause of her symptoms, and he knew that Hermione had practically found the key to her own recovery. He looked upon her with an indescribable amount of pride in each room he entered. 

Pride, and also a withering amount of concern. 

Today, that concern was mostly directed toward Pansy Parkinson’s arm around her shoulders, his old friend jostling his sickly wife without care. 

“Months! Months and all I have received are blasted owls with two-sentence updates. I thought you could have been dead, Granger.”

“Poor use of that joke,” Draco reprimanded, his withering concern turning to an accusatory glare. “I don’t believe you were invited to our home, Pansy.” 

“Draco, be nice,” Hermione scolded. “Pansy brought Christmas gifts. And she has been worried.” 

“It’s March,” Draco deadpanned. 

Pansy rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, perhaps if I had been invited to your luxurious Christmas dinner, I could have brought them then.” 

“Hermione had just started treatment. We couldn’t have too many people in the house,” Draco replied. 

“Right, of course. And for the sake of my feelings, I am going to pretend that I was in the final rounds for that list. Just the last to be cut. Barely didn’t make it.” 

Draco rolled his eyes and left his wife to gush over the designer scarves Pansy had delivered from Switzerland. He would have had his own delivered, but Pansy had sent over a rather extensive list of the gifts she had planned, and scarves and hats for Hermione were high up on that list. 

He was halfway through making tea when Pansy met him in the kitchen. Her previously light tone was lost. “How is she? Really?” 

Draco peered over his shoulder, looking beyond Pansy as if Hermione were to appear in the doorway. When she didn’t, he turned back to his tea. “She’s… fine, Pansy. As fine as she can be. The muggle medicine is working and the research in Brazil is progressing. Some days are better than others.” 

“You’ve barely answered any of us,” Pansy accused, leaning against the counter to force herself into Draco’s eyeline. “Theo would be offended if it weren’t for Hermione’s weekly letters. We’re concerned.”

“I told you, she’s—” 

“Not just about Hermione. About you, too, idiot.” 

Draco shot back in confusion. “I’m fine.” 

“Are you? Hermione’s letters say you’re getting better, but not that you’re fine.” 

A sigh was working its way up his throat. He knew there had to be a reason why Pansy chose now to deliver Christmas gifts. Hermione had been subtly dropping more hints that Draco should get out of the house “just a little bit more,” but it still didn’t feel right to. Even if Ginny were taking over the helm and watching over his wife. It was uncomfortable. 

“She’s getting better. You just said that.” 

“Right. But she’s not better. Not yet,” Draco rebutted. 

Pansy bent her elbows, staring up at the ceiling. “She just wants you to go out once, maybe twice a month. See your friends. Not even go back to work, and I know she was stuck on that one for a while.” 

Draco abandoned his drink, his palms flat on the counter. “I can’t, Pansy. I’m—” He looked over at his friend. He was honest with Hermione now, but he only had Hermione over these past months. Everything else felt too raw, too open. “I’m scared to leave her,” he revealed, deciding to make things real. “What if—” 

“What if you can’t be there for her? Fully. What if you’re burnt out and she sees that, and it’s weighing on her?” Pansy adjusted the collar of Draco’s shirt. He remembered what it was like to open up to his friends. It felt like this. “Just think about it, okay? We miss you. Both of you. Give us something.” 

And then, on the way out the door later, “Hermione, please tell me you are going to throw out that awful hat now that you have better ones?” 

April 

They had done it. 

Five months since Hermione had begun treatment, and the owl from Brazil finally spelt good news. Great news. Hermione had ripped open the missive and shot to her feet with a vigor he hadn’t seen from her in a year, shoving the aged parchment in his face just a moment later. She was more frail now, more delicate, but Draco held her just the same, spinning her and holding her close when she laughed about dizziness. 

The second half of the treatment was complete. Accessible. Hermione’s muggle care had stalled, somewhat, the doctors unsure why her symptoms persisted. She had begun to feel stronger now that chemo was on the decline, but the effects of the poison were still prominent. But, now… 

“I can’t believe it,” Hermione breathed out, a hand on her forehead as she read and reread the letter. “Draco, they tested it a dozen times and it worked.” 

He laughed, fully, with an echo in his chest. “I know.” 

“I should… we should tell people.” 

“No,” he huffed out. “We should pack.” 

So they packed, and then Draco was trying to understand airline tickets because the magical alternatives for travel were too harsh for Hermione’s state. After a few phone calls to a few very unhappy people, Draco was casting lightening charms on the luggage and triple-checking he had Hermione’s passport in the pocket of the backpack he was allowed on board. His passport was not real, but a disillusionment charm would take care of that. 

Flying was fine. Long. He didn’t really care much for the journey, even if Hermione seemed very excited at the prospect of the first-class seats he’d purchased. He mostly hated flying because it made Hermione sick, although she was quick to explain away that downside. 

“I’m not—oh, god—I’m not usually sick like this on planes,” she huffed out, head in her hands. 

Draco ran his hand along her spine. “It’s the muggle medicine. It’s a side effect, remember?” 

“Right,” Hermione sighed out, as if the explanation helped. She looked a sickly color that had Draco snapping at the flight attendant for more ginger ale. She said it helped. He didn’t really believe that. 

Getting off the plane was a relief short-lived. Something was eating away at Draco’s psyche from the moment they landed in Brazil, and he couldn’t exactly place it. Hermione was tired but upbeat throughout the rest of the trip, so it wasn’t her. It wasn’t anything, really. 

He discovered the source only after they arrived at the lab, Hermione’s feet dangling off the exam table, a stock of Dittany leaves in jars above her head. It all struck him rather quickly, actually, and the livewire of Draco’s nerves was sparked.

This was novel—magical and novel. 

In the months leading up to muggle interventions, they had tried magical treatment, and it had led to nothing. Draco would wager that it actually made things worse. 

And now he felt that they were back at square one. 

A potions master entered the room, several tools and a vial of green liquid enclosed in a case rattling in his hands. Draco’s nerves became molten. 

“You’re sure this has worked?” Draco shot out, startling the meek scientist and snapping Hermione to attention.

“Draco,” she reprimanded.

“Yes. We’ve had multiple trials. All successful,” the man stuttered out. 

Draco’s jaw worked. “On multifaceted subjects? Or simple organisms?” 

“This is hardly the time—”

The man spoke up. “On other wizards, Mr. Malfoy. We had volunteers. We know how important this is to you and your family. To any remaining victims of the war, as well.” 

That struck a nerve. A large one. Draco’s head harshly turned. “This isn’t for victims of the war. It’s for Hermione. I didn’t pay for research to—” 

“Can you give us a moment?” Hermione asked, tone a touch too polite. She nodded encouragingly to the potions master, urging him away. It wasn’t until the door gently clicked shut that she whirled back around to her husband. “What is the matter with you?” 

Draco raised his hands up in a searching manner. “Me? I didn’t ask about victims of the war. I asked a simple question about the clinical trials. Overexplanation is a sign of weakness in the product.” 

“Or it’s a sign that he’s scared of you. You’re acting the same as you were at the first muggle doctor.” 

“Well, neither setting seems to have the full, correct answers now do they?” 

“Tell me. Now. What’s really the issue?” Hermione ordered, crossing her arms over her chest. 

Draco had a choice here. He could lie, say it was nothing, and seethe in silence. Worry in silence. Or he could be honest, and then part of this would be about him. About his reaction to this. The immediate instinct was toward the former; Hermione didn’t need the added stress. 

But he looked at her, truly and fully. She was smaller than she was at the start of all of this, and he could recall every night that led to that. He could trace back the sleeplessness while looking at her exhaustion. He saw each week of that wretched muggle treatment in the weakness of her posture. And he knew that it was about him, in some small way. Draco loved Hermione with every piece of him, and in everything that involved her, a piece of him resided. 

“What if this doesn’t work?” Draco posed, staying rooted in his stance across the room. “What if we do all of this, and you don’t get better. What if you—” 

“Can you come here?” 

He paused, tilting his head up to force the burn in his waterline to abate. He hadn’t expected this reaction from himself. He hadn’t cried since the beginning of all of this, and the news about Brazil—about the antidote—only elicited positive feelings from him. From both of them. 

But now they were in the jaws of the end, a mocking presence on a tray just a step away from his wife, and he was falling apart. 

“Hermione—” 

“Please?” 

He relented, taking defeated steps until he was before her. She took him in instantly, reaching up to his face, tucking his hair from his eyes. He missed doing that. He missed so many pieces of her. 

“I love you,” was the first thing she said, humming as Draco closed his eyes at the sound. Tears escaped down his cheeks and he cursed each one. “I love you and you have done so much throughout all of this. Worried so much. Let this be an end, maybe. Trust in one thing.” 

“It’s not easy to do that,” he admitted. “We’ve tried it before.” 

“I know,” she smiled, tilting her head to take him in. To look at him like she loved him. “But this time, I was the one guiding it, remember? Not Tatovich or that muggle doctor you refused to learn the name of.” 

Draco slightly sneered at the reminders, the look not intimidating as it was coated in tears. He paused and let her wipe a few away. “Can you tell me what you’re really afraid of?” she whispered, even though no one was in the room.

“I think you already know the answer to that,” he weakly replied. 

“Yes, but other than that.”

His nose burned. “You giving up.”

Hermione tutted slightly, bringing his forehead down to meet hers. Like this, he couldn’t really tell that she was sick. He only saw her eyes and felt her hands on him. “I’m a Gryffindor, love. Pretty sure you tease me for my inability to give up on a weekly basis.” 

Draco smiled, despite himself. He reached up and encircled Hermione’s wrists. “You and that blasted house.” 

The couple took a few moments in the silence, Draco counting Hermione’s breaths, Hermione evening out each exhale. He was giving in, he knew, but he was never really going to fight, not really. It was fear that had driven his crassness. Fear that made him mean. 

“Can you promise me?” Draco asked, his eyes closed again. 

“Promise what?” 

“That you won’t give up. If this doesn’t work, we try again.” 

It was a cruel thing to ask. Draco could recall, not too long ago, the defeat in Hermione’s posture, how she cried over feeling so poorly with no end in sight. That was when he first started to fear the end. When he thought he might be losing her not to the sickness, but to being beaten down by it. Things had changed now, improved, but the fear still remained. 

Still, Hermione didn’t hesitate. “I promise.” 

May 

Things were okay. They were not perfect, they were not wholly fixed, but Draco would take a hard life if it meant Hermione was in it. And she was going to be in it for a long time. Even longer now.