Hi, this is my new Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger fic. It was prompted to me on tumblr, and I put a big dent in this over the month of November, so it will be updating weekly since I'm so far ahead.

There will be angst in this story, more angst than I've written in others, I think. I'm so grateful for my friends who have encouraged me, and helped me craft this story even when I wasn't sure that I liked it. All of my love to mcal, dreamsofdramione, and Frumpologist. I'm not sure what I'd do without you.

Mostly edited by myself, so all mistakes are my own.

Ripping the zipper of his rucksack into place, and nearly causing all of its contents to spill out, Draco shot a glare at the man hovering at the foot of his bed. If you could call it that. The bed the inn had given them felt more like laying on a bed of fucking nails, and no amount of transfiguration would change that.

"You're hovering." He muttered, reaching for his wand. "Have you been hanging around Molly Weasley too much lately? I thought you were after her daughter—"

Potter's eyes sharpened. "Ginny and I aren't—"

"Together," Draco filled in sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Yes, I'm well aware of your sexual escapades. You and the female Weasley aren't dating anymore, but you can't help shagging each other stupid."

"I wouldn't put it that way."

Draco paused, his bag falling to the bed. "Really?" He asked, arching an eyebrow. "You wouldn't put it that way? Well, I would since she's always in our flat. I've had the displeasure of seeing your arse more than I would like."

Their previous conversation plummeted off the rails, which was what Draco wanted, and Potter went straight for the bait. "You're the one who never knocks."

"You need to learn how to use a locking charm, or for that matter, a silencing charm. Put a sock on the door for all I care." Slinging the rucksack over his shoulder, Draco slid his wand into the holster strapped to his forearm, below his sleeve. "I'll be back."

Harry side stepped in front of him, shaking his head. "Malfoy, don't do this. You got the same memo as I did. Robards wants us on that portkey in an hour. There's nothing to find here, nothing but—"

Pushing past him with a slam of his shoulder, Draco spat, "Nothing but ghosts?"

His features shifted toward pity, and Draco took another step. "If she were anywhere, she would have found her way back to us." Potter murmured, raking his fingers through his hair until it stuck in all different directions. "Hermione would have come back to you. We've been over this."

Pausing at the door, and tracing where it was splintered, hair fell into Draco's eyes. "Spare me the speech. It's nothing but a monologue with you, and I've heard it enough." The floorboards creaked under their combined weight as Draco made his way down the rickety set of stairs, and his partner rushed after him two steps at a time. "I'll meet you back at the Ministry after I'm done."

He'd reached the lobby before Harry's hand clamped down on his shoulder and ripped him backward. Draco jerked away from him, a sharp insult close to rolling off his tongue. "You may have stopped searching, and I get that, but I'm not going to stop. Not today, not tomorrow, and certainly not any day that follows."

Harry shifted his weight, his hand limp at his side even though it twitched toward his wand.
"She wouldn't want this for you."

His face fixed into a mask, Draco didn't say anything beyond that. It was always the same. He searched for her—and would continue to do so no matter how many years passed—and Potter attempted to help him move on.

Move on.

That was what he was supposed to do, Draco understood that very well. His mandated shrink during his parole after the war, and now as an Auror, had made it crystal clear how unhealthy it was to hold on to someone who was gone.

And Granger was gone. There was no mistake about that. He'd watched it with his own two eyes during the Final Battle as his aunt turned her wand, and Hermione vanished in an explosion of magic that Unspeakables still didn't understand. No one did, no matter how many galleons he promised to dole out if they could.

But there wasn't a body, and until he found one, well, surely that meant there was a chance he'd find her walking around. Alive.

Only there were a million things wrong with that, and Potter would list them if he was allowed to.

She would have never left us, Malfoy. Not you, not Ron, not me.

Not everyone who loved her.

That didn't change the fact that the inn keeper had recognised her. It might have been the smallest shred of recognition, and it might be another useless dead end that sent him into a spiral, but it was there.

His hair hung in front of his face, void of gel, and the file in his rucksack weighed more than all of its contents combined. "I'm going," Draco repeated, the toe of his boot dragging along a crack in the floor. "Catch the portkey, and I'll meet you at the Ministry when I grab the next one out."

His partner groaned, knotting his fingers in his hair. "What do you think the chances are that she's here? Honestly?"

Refusing to meet Potter's eyes, Draco contemplated stunning him so he could walk away without an argument. Each second they spent quarrelling was another second he lost. "It might be nothing. Is that what you want to hear me say?" He snarled. Draco turned on his heel, and stormed out of the inn, leaving the door banging against the wall in his wake.

"Malfoy!" Leaves crunched beneath the footsteps that followed him. "I'm not your enemy here. If you say there's a chance, then we go. I'm in."

Draco watched him, his glare sharpening as Potter blinked several times. "I thought you were worried about Robards."

"He wants us on another mission by this time tomorrow," Potter grumbled as he fell into step beside him. "If I go back alone, he'll be that much more difficult when you land in the DMLE. If it's both of us—"

"I don't need a keeper."

"Then he'll let it go sooner. We're partners."

When Potter had said he was in, it apparently came with the stipulation of carrying on a conversation that Draco didn't want to have. Neither did Harry, not when they'd had it already so many times before.

"We've looked everywhere," he began quietly, and a branch snapped below his boot. "We followed down your lead, and no one here recognises her photograph."

Draco released a heavy breath, staring down at the well worn photo in his hand. It was a moment frozen in time. He remembered it well, the safehouse in the middle of the war they'd spent far too much time after the raid on Malfoy Manor. His jumper slid off her shoulders, a tad too large on her delicate frame. She was grinning.

At him, at something he'd said.

Draco couldn't even remember what it was anymore.

Back then, they had been living as if each day could be their last. From the start, he'd never imagined being trapped inside of a safehouse with her after destroying horcruxes went to shite.

For all their talk of living like each day would be the last, he'd never expected to lose her. She was so inherently good that—

"It should have been me."

Potter sucked in a sharp breath and laid a hand on his shoulder. "No, it shouldn't have. You can't think that."

"Anyone who knows about the two of us thought that." Draco countered, crushing a leaf under his foot. "You must have too."

His counterpart stiffened, and it was all the answer Draco needed. "Wait." Harry shook his head. "When Hermione disappeared, I wanted her back. I would have given anything to make it so, but I wouldn't have sacrificed you for it."

"I can't keep doing this. I search for her everywhere."

"I know."

Chewing his lower lip, Draco admitted, "I see her everywhere."

Harry bumped shoulders with him. "You're allowed to miss her, forever if you want. At some point though…" He trailed off. "You have to accept that you're not going to find her. It's been six years."

Draco knew that. There were only so many reasons Hermione wouldn't have returned, and none of them were good. "She wouldn't have given up on me. It's about bringing her home, even if it's not in one by whatever means necessary."

Harry dragged a tired hand down his face. "You don't sleep."

He opened his mouth, only to be cut off.

"We've shared a flat for three years. I have to admit that I've enabled this behavior, but you can only go so far before you don't come back. You ask about her in every city we visit. I know how much you loved her, but—"

The wind ripped past them, and Draco drew his jacket tighter around him. "Potter, wait. Do you see that?" He pointed up the hill, his eyes narrowing as his chest tightened. "That looks like—"

"For Merlin's sake!" Harry snapped, his eyes flashing. "I know what you're thinking, and no, it's not fucking possible. Crookshanks wouldn't be in France."

Draco's hands balled into fists inside his pockets as the large orange feline strutted down the hill, his tail swishing behind him. "It would make sense. Granger never went anywhere without that blasted beast, and I'm as certain as I can be that Crooks isn't in England, and neither is she."

Potter turned away from him, muttering obscenities under his breath. "You're going to drive yourself mad with this. Hermione is dead." He hissed, poking a finger into Draco's chest.

A soft meow drew Draco's attention, and he stared at his feet. The Crookshanks lookalike slithered between his legs, nuzzling his ankles. "Fuck you."

"Malfoy, I'm worried—"

"Stuff your worry up your arse." Draco knelt down, smoothing a hand down the cat's back. "Who are you?"

Another meow answered him.

"You're just as bushy as you ever were."

"Malfoy—"

"Are you still here?"

Harry huffed. "You need to look up right now. I think you might have been right about something."

Draco's head snapped up while small, razor like teeth nipped the end of his finger. "I don't," Draco wheezed, eyes widened as it felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. "I don't understand." The cat rolled onto his back, exposing his belly and there was a jingle from his collar. With shaking fingers, Draco reached down to turn over the little bronze tag on his collar.

Crookshanks

Under a set of normal circumstances, he would have gloated over Potter. He'd been right after all. This was the same half-Kneazle for an affinity for his trousers and covering them in hair.

However, he couldn't find his voice as a little boy ran down the hill, calling for Crooks.

A little boy with white-blond hair and pointed features boasting an all too familiar smirk when his eyes landed on Crookshanks.

He wasn't sure how he managed to stand upright as his vision swam. Meeting Potter's wide eyed stare, Draco forced himself to accept the fact that he wasn't imagining anything. "Is this your cat?" Draco swallowed, and his voice was raw. "I believe he may have gotten lost."

That's—This is—

"He likes to run down the hill. We were up there." His voice was small, childlike.

Of course it's fucking childlike. What would you expect? He can't be older than five.

He waved a handful of flowers around. "I was picking these for Mummy. Her birthday was last week, but I think she forgot. Mummy forgets things sometimes."

His lungs were going to collapse. Nearly certain of that, he looked to Harry while the child cooed at Crooks. Hermione's birthday had been last week, a night he'd spent locked in his study with a decanter and no glass in sight.

Draco was going to throw up.

He was going to—

"Mister?"

—stay calm.

"Yes?" Draco croaked.

Slate grey eyes peered up at him curiously, and a bundle of flowers remained in the boy's right hand. "Crooks hates strangers."

Draco nodded just as Crooks hissed at Harry, glaring while hiding behind Draco's legs. "I suppose I'm just lucky that he likes me." He swallowed again, his chest threatening to crack open. "Do you mind if we see you home? I would wonder if you've gotten lost."

He shrugged. "If you like." His accent wasn't heavily British, Draco notices, but it was there. "Follow me."

As Potter's eyes connect with his, Draco wondered why it was that a little boy would be so welcoming to a pair of strangers. Not that they looked like deviants, but Draco had to admit they both appeared to be rough around the edges. It must have been due to the atmosphere of a small town where no one was a stranger mixed with the childlike ideology that anyone can be trusted.

The end of the thought left Draco reeling.

Crooks dutifully stayed close to the boy, occasionally turning to look back at Draco.

The street veered to the left, leading them away from closely clustered shops and into a neighborhood of quaint homes. With a literal bounce in his step, the boy called, "This is our house. Oh no."

"Scorpius!" The voice cracked through the air like a whip, and the way Potter froze mid step didn't escape him. It was motherly, strict, and authoritative, but all her.

It was all Granger, and the ground below him threatened to give way. Draco's hand shot up, colliding with Potter's chest hard before he could run forward.

Potter returned the move in kind by squashing Draco's foot. "That's Hermione."

Draco didn't need anyone to tell him that.

Fact of it was that several things slammed into him at once.

She was alive, fawning over who Draco can only assume is her—their—son. While she looked so much of the same, he noticed the subtle differences between the woman in front of him and the girl in the picture crinkled in his pocket. There were lines from where she'd laughed, and a tiny scar at her right temple that sends anger unfurling down his spine because he knew it hadn't been there the last time he'd seen her. Granger's hair wasn't as wild anymore, just curly, and halfway tied back while the rest framed her face. She wore makeup, a thin line of black that made her eyes stand out.

Luckily, she didn't notice his staring.

His name was Scorpius. A constellation.

Draco.

Scorpius.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Scorpius had white blond hair that glints under the afternoon sun and a sharp jab from Potter's elbow signaled that his Auror partner was thinking the same thing as him.

He needed to say something, he realised as Granger lifted her head, and granted him a smile. "Hello," Draco managed, both syllables feeling like razors as he did. "We were worried your son would get lost. I hope it's not a problem that we saw him home."

Scorpius swayed on his feet, a wide smile stretching his cheeks as he pressed the flowers into her hand.

The corner of her lips twitched. "It's no problem at all. Scorpius isn't supposed to wander." She shot a warning look toward him, and Scorpius rocked back on his heels. "But he doesn't like to listen."

Potter snorted.

That sentence had to be the only thing that could sum up her years of Hogwarts. "A constellation?" Draco asked, unable to help himself. "That's interesting; I was named after one as well. Draco." He introduced, holding out his hand.

She was warm, and he'd been cold since she vanished from just a step away from him. .

Hermione laughed, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Yes, I had an unfortunate accident, so I don't remember, er, the beginning of my pregnancy." Each word was like a stunner to the chest. "However, from the day I woke up, that was the name I'd settled on. I suppose it was so important that it stuck."

He was going to vomit. There had been a sleepy conversation toward the end of the war as they were trapped in a safehouse as the world burned. They'd joked about curly headed blondes with a terrible sense of justice. He could remember being selfish enough to want it even though she deserved more than any life he'd ever be able to give her.

Still, the memory was as vivid as the rest of them.

Scorpius, he'd said as she traced the Sectumsempra scar that stretched across his chest.

"That's a terrible thing to hear." Potter interjected, extending a hand. "Harry, nice to meet you."

"Scorpius told is it was your birthday last week. Happy belated birthday…" Draco trailed off, allowing the words to hang in the air as if he didn't know her name, and everything about her, only added to the turmoil rolling in his gut.

She supplied, "Hermione, and thank you."

He couldn't help himself from continuing the conversation, uncertain of whether he'd be able to walk away when she did. "Interesting choice. Shakespeare, or the Daughter of Troy?"

Unsurprisingly, Potter only looked confused by the question.

She faltered, her eyes widening at the comment, but then she grinned. "Shakespeare, I'm sure," Hermione said. "The Daughter of Troy fled, which was quite brave, and I'm the complete opposite."

"Mummy, is it time for lunch?" Scorpius tugged on the hem of her jumper. "Could we invite them?"

She looked from her son to them. "If you'd like to, we have the room." Hermione breathed, a smile curving her lips.

Potter swept in, his wand digging a hole into the small of Draco's back. "We can't, unfortunately. We're due back in England, and we're about to miss our flight." Harry explained easily. "Thank you—"

"Just a question," Draco interrupted. "Before we go, I'm actually looking to move here. Are there any homes available for sale that you know of?"

"What?" Harry hissed under his breath.

She didn't think him odd at all, which was fortunate. "Just the home across the street and down a way. It's been abandoned for over a year."

Draco nods. "Thank you. It was lovely to meet you both."

Each step that carried him away from them felt like blocks tied to his feet, but Potter didn't give him the chance to turn around. "Look. I know you want to run in there half-cocked, but we don't know what we're dealing with. We need to get back to the DMLE and talk to Robards."

Draco knew that. "She's alive."

With a short flick of his wand, Potter enshrouded them in a silencing charm.

"She had my son."

Harry dipped his head, weakly nodding. "Yeah, she did."

Draco's knuckles were a stark white as he sank to the ground, his hands clenched, and he imagined his face looks just the same. "That's my son. That's Granger, and she doesn't remember me."

Harry's words were far away as he pulled at the grass, hot tears stinging his eyes.

Hermione Granger, Gryffindor Princess, literal Golden Girl, not brave?

It's the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard.

Soooo, that's the first chapter. I'd love to hear what you thought. You can leave a comment here, or you can always pop into my ask box on tumblr at mrsren96, where you can remain anonymous as well if you prefer!

Thanks for reading, I'll see you next week! Have a good week/holiday/weekend.