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Draco signs the last invoice with a flourish, pleased to have gotten so much work done this afternoon. It's a wonder what one can accomplish with a little peace and qui—
“Oh gods,” he groans.
It's quiet. Too quiet. He should've realised earlier.
Taking off his reading glasses, he pinches the bridge of his nose and massages the small furrow between his brows in a futile attempt to ward off the pending headache.
He exits his study and strains to hear something—anything—that will assuage his mounting concern, but luck is not on his side.
“Sweetheart,” Draco calls down the hall, trying not to let the anxiety creep into his voice. “Can you come here for a minute?”
His wife’s curly head pops out from the library. “Really? You couldn’t just walk over here to talk to me?”
“Just come here, please,” he requests.
Sighing, she pads down the hall to join him. “Draco, what’s going on? I was just getting to a good bit in my research and—”
“Shhh shh shhh,” he shushes her and places his index finger to her lips.
She bats his hand away, huffing a laugh. “Did you really just shush me?”
“Hermione, love. Listen,” Draco pleads, desperate for her to recognise the seriousness of the situation.
She rolls her eyes but clearly decides to humour him, keeping quiet for a few seconds.
“Can I get back to my research now? I don’t hear anything,” she finally says, hands on her hips as she stares up at him.
He watches her face and raises an eyebrow at her, waiting for the quaffle to drop. He doesn’t have to wait long.
The blood drains from Hermione’s face, making the light freckles he loves so much stand out more than usual against her ashen skin. “...I don’t hear…anything. You don’t think…?” her voice trails off.
He nods, expression grim.
She lets out a string of curse words that would make his mother roll in her grave (that is, if she weren’t currently living her best life in France with a new beau every week).
“I quite agree,” Draco says.
Because as the parents of an eight-year-old boy they both know that the worst thing that you can hear when his best friend is visiting is absolutely nothing.
They weren’t in the parlor, the ballroom, or any of the bedrooms and bathrooms in either wing. Draco is beginning to lose hope.
“Scorpius!” he calls out.
“Albus! Come out, come out wherever you are!” Hermione adds her voice to his.
“You don’t think they’ve locked themselves in the cellar again, do you?” he posits.
“No, I sealed that off earlier today. Oh Merlin, Harry’s going to Avada us if we've lost Albus,” Hermione says, voice tinged with worry.
Draco scoffs at his wife’s short-sightedness. “You're worried about Potter? I'm taking the first portkey out of the country so Weaselette can never find me.”
“Point taken,” she agrees faintly. “Can I join you? I have experience being on the run.”
“I don't think I fancy your version—far too many mushrooms.”
“All right then, I expect you to fund our lavish lifestyle as fugitives.”
He grins at her. “I always knew you were after me for my money. I’ll pitch the story to Rita—‘Golden Girl or Gold Digger?’”
Hermione sniffs disdainfully. “I still send her a terrarium every year, so I think you’ll find her quite reluctant to write that story. How many more rooms do we have left to check?”
He counts in his head. “At least twenty?”
"Circe's tits," she curses. "Remind me to ask Harry for his Map so I can make one for the Manor."
He casts a confused look in her direction. "We have blueprints of the Manor if you want to look at them, but I'm not sure how a map that Potter owns could help."
“Draco”—Hermione stops walking and squishes his face between her hands—“I need you to think very seriously about this. Harry and Ginny are due here in fifteen minutes and we need to find the boys. When you were eight years old and had friends over—Greg or Theo or whoever—where did you hide? What did you do?”
It’s like she’s cast a lumos in his mind. “I think I know where they are.”
Five minutes later, Hermione and Draco stare down at the two sleeping boys, curled up together in the walk-in pantry. Their lips and fingers are covered in sticky caramel and chocolate with only crumbs on the plate between them.
“A sugar rush followed by a crash. If we hadn’t just spent the last hour looking all over the house for them, I would think they look kind of sweet,” Hermione remarks. “How did you know they’d be here?”
He smiles ruefully. “Mipsy told me she was making a cake for pudding this week, and Scorpius must have overheard our conversation. Goyle and I must’ve done the same at least a half dozen times.”