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The house was quiet. Not in a “danger lurking around the corner” kind of way though. He’d thankfully left those days behind, safe in the past and those oppressive, looming shadows of his childhood home.
No, this was the quiet that spoke of good things, that all was well and his world was at peace. Fucking finally.
Rolling over, he reached for her only to find her side of the bed empty but still warm. It threw him for a moment and he sat up in a panic, until reality crashed back in and he took a breath.
He still didn’t like waking up without her beside him, probably never would, even while knowing she was a mere room away. He was a selfish man, to his core, that was no secret to anyone. He craved her attention, even in sleep.
But he was also a man who harbored a persistent fear that one day he would wake, and the bed would be cold and he would discover that these past years, and the peace, the joy, he’d finally found had been nothing but a dream.
After Years of reassurance, she would now simply roll her eyes and tell him he was being ridiculous. When she was particularly exasperated with him, she would call him dramatic.
The fear still remained, despite her assurances, although perhaps alleviated. But only just. He had become so accustomed to the warmth of his life with her, such a juxtaposition to his rather cold, stilted childhood. He hoarded his time with her, like a treasure that could be snatched away.
But suddenly everything had changed. He had to share her now.
He slipped out of bed with a yawn. He was honestly surprised that he hadn't heard her wake but sheer exhaustion would do that to a man. He stumbled down the hall, groggy and half asleep, drawn to the light spilling from the open door.
And just inside, seated in her rocker, radiant in the soft candle’s glow, was Hermione. She was so focused on the bundle in her arms that she hadn’t heard him approach.
It afforded him the opportunity to linger in the doorway and just simply exist in that moment, that one perfect moment in what had become a chain of such things. To watch her, with their son at her breast, running gentle fingers through his wispy blonde hair as she hummed softly in time to the rhythmic rocking of her chair.
A portrait of love personified.
And that other nightmare that often plagued him, the one where he had made different choices in a world that was ugly and bitter, dissipated like smoke, fading in the cadence of the musical words she was murmuring to their son.
Their son.
He didn’t think it was possible to be so, well, happy. Was it possible to die from the feeling? Because the weight of it in his chest felt too heavy, too much, like his body just couldn’t contain the enormity of his emotions.
And he realized, suddenly, that it was a terrifying thing, being happy.
That having so much, being gifted all of this, came with the sobering realization that there were now things he could lose, things that he would not survive losing. No one deserved this level of contentment. Certainly not him. Him least of all.
But she, she deserved happiness in multitudes, in every form and flavor. And for whatever reason, an ongoing mystery, he made her happy. So he would greedily reap the benefits of the gifts the universe had bestowed upon her, would gladly be the impetus for her joy.
She raised her eyes, and met his in muted surprise to see him there. He could tell she was trying not to disturb the baby, who had dozed off in the bliss of a full belly and his mother’s warm arms.
He crossed the room to kneel at her feet, drawn like a moth to her fire, to make obeisance before her. She was smiling, that soft, gentle smile that had lurked about her lips for the past few weeks since Scorpius had burst forth with a cry and had been laid, bloody and so very small, upon her chest. He couldn’t exactly name the emotion. Joy, absolutely. Wonder, perhaps. But whatever it was seemed to encompass all the things he was feeling.
Perhaps there was no word for a thing such as this. Truthfully no combination of letters or sounds could do justice to the depth of the emotions. It just seemed too small to give a simple name to such an overwhelming thing.
He reached up, gently moved a wispy curl from her face, tucked it neatly behind her ear. His hand lingered there, and she leaned her head into it. The baby stirred and they both looked down in mild alarm that they had woken him.
His cries could wake the dead, had been his father’s snide observation. Draco had to begrudgingly agree.
The fear passed as Scorpius slept on, heavy and sated, in Hermione’s arms. She grinned at him in relief and the breath caught in his throat.
Gods, she was lovely. Even with frazzled hair and the purple bags beneath her eyes that attested to these sleep deprived weeks. She was exhausted but it was the best kind of tired, the result of caring for a strong, healthy, albeit inhumanly loud, newborn. Yes, she looked tired but she also looked so fucking happy.
How had they come to this moment? He knew the steps, the progression of their improbable relationship, he’d obviously been there. But sometimes even he couldn’t believe it, he still waited for the moment the universe would pull the curtain back with a flourish and laugh in his face that he had fallen for some massive cosmic joke.
He needed to get over this, he was a father now.
He was a father now.
Holy fuck.
She had been watching the entire time, as all of those thoughts and emotions played out across his face. She turned to place a gentle kiss into the palm of his hand.
“I love you,” she mouthed silently. Her eyes, those beautiful amber eyes, filled with warmth and affectionate tears. Hermione did nothing by halves and that included loving him.
He couldn’t even respond. Those bloody emotions, that staggering happiness, he just couldn’t contain it. It all swelled up his throat and escaped from his mouth with a quiet sob.
“I love you.” His voice was thick but quiet as a sigh, he did not dare risk waking his son. “I just…” She was the eloquent one, he could never find the right words. “Thank you, Hermione.”
Thank you for…gods, he could live his entire life and never adequately tell her all the things he was so grateful for. He could make a list of thank yous for all the gifts she’d bestowed upon him, priceless things like her love, her understanding, her forgiveness. For all of that.
But this? This life she has created with him, with her strength, her body, her blood? There were no fucking words.
She gestured with her head, down to the small, golden, thankfully sleeping bundle in her arms. That tiny face was framed by the pale green blanket Hermione had swaddled him in. For someone so loud, he was just so achingly small.
Draco had been terrified to hold him, when he’d been born.
Scorpius had been a howling, red faced miniature of himself, angry at the indignity of being forced from the comfort of his mother’s warm and sheltering body into a cold, bright world he obviously didn’t understand. The healer, an old grey haired battle axe of a witch, would tolerate none of Draco’s hesitance and simply thrust that tiny person into his arms. And as he looked down into his son's face for the first time, the enormity of it all just overwhelmed him, broke him, and for the first time in possibly ever, he opened his heart and cried.
Draco was not built for such things. He really didn’t know what to do with that bundle, but he held it tighter to his chest, and rocked it gently, he wasn’t sure why, and somehow, unbelievably, Scorpius, his son, his son, quieted in his arms. That beautiful, tiny face, with maybe Hermione’s nose or those eyes that might eventually be his pale grey, relaxed and gazed up, up at him. This was his son, looking up at him. He was a father now.
He recognized that most parents believed their children to be perfect, but Draco suspected that their son was, in fact, actually so. Not only because he was beautiful - he was- but for the simple fact that he existed at all. That this child was here, had come into being simply, profoundly, because he had loved a woman, and that woman had, despite every reason not to, loved him back.
She was beaming at him, her joy so contagious he couldn’t resist but smile back just as blindingly. For a moment they both sat there grinning ridiculously at each other.
They were just so…happy.
He was a selfish man. He would take these gifts as his own, and never let them go. If he deserved them or not, well, that was a question for the universe to decide and he just didn’t bloody care.
He carefully wrapped himself around both of them, his wife and his son, (slowly, of course, he wasn’t foolish enough to wake the baby), pulling them closer to his heart and enveloping them both in the safety of his embrace.
The greatest of gifts, his family.
His entire world, there, in his arms.