Disclaimer for whole story: Of course, all rights belong to JK Rowling, et al. It's not actually a type of story that I have read before, though that may be my reading tastes, so I apologize if there are similar stories. I promise that I am not copying anything except from the great Jo Rowling.

Chapter 1- Meeting You Again

Those screams, he recognized them instantly. Hermione Granger's screams still haunted him, and they sounded just the same now. Like she was still being tortured. He hadn't seen her since a much delayed public memorial service for Uncle Severus over a year ago. They had to make sure everything 'important' was taken care of and that he was really "innocent" after all, pretentious bastards. As if people always had choices and as if lines were always so clear. Draco felt compelled both to run away and to look into the room. He couldn't run away the last time he heard those screams. He was forced to stay and listen, even though he was blessedly outside of the room. But he sure as hell could this time. Why wasn't he? What the hell was wrong with her, and why was she in so much pain?

Draco should have known based on the ward that she was in, but he wasn't exactly processing thoughts clearly at the moment. His insides ached at least as loudly as she was screaming, and his heart had been hurting for hours. Draco was shocked to stand in front of the open door and see a half-naked and very round Hermione Granger screaming at the top of her lungs with three healers around her. Someone should have at least given her the privacy of closing the door.

Draco was barely surprised when another healer, a young woman, walked past him into the room. "Are you family or a friend?"

"Uh, not really," Draco said before Hermione screeched especially piercingly.

"Do you know the young woman?" the healer asked.

"Yes," Draco admitted, knowing he shouldn't be here staring.

"I think Ms. Granger would like some support then. She can have a guest in the room with her," the young healer informed him. Draco had just noticed that the room was strangely devoid of redheads and freckles. Hadn't Granger married the Weasel? Even if the one red head had bolloxed things up, where was his family? Or her family for that matter? And Potter? Did the healer say 'Ms. Granger?' Wasn't she a Weasley? How did an acclaimed war heroine come to be in a delivery room screaming by herself?

"I don't think I'm someone she'd like to see," Draco managed to say.

"Can't know until you try," the witch said cheerfully, nudging him gently into the room before closing the door. She must not have recognized him. Draco suddenly thought that the young woman might have been a Hufflepuff, maybe on the quidditch team a year or two ahead of him. Damn happy Hufflepuffs.

He stood by Hermione's head awkwardly, at least staying out of the way of the healers. Hermione looked confused when she saw him, though she quickly appeared to stop caring when the next pain hit her.

"We might be better off working like a Cesarian," one of the healers suggested. "I wouldn't want to have to tell the papers that we lost one of the Golden Trio or her baby on the table." Draco's head snapped up, shocked at the appalling bedside manner. Hermione screamed loudly again, and the young female healer made an irritated noise. The youngest healer might have been here mostly for observation, possibly still in training, or at least significantly junior to the unpleasant middle-aged male.

"Just knock her out. She doesn't need to push anymore if we have to open her up," the eldest healer said. He was equally terrible. Did anyone in this damnable place have any manners?

Hermione looked alarmed, actually seeking out Draco's eyes as she moaned. "Does she have to?" Draco voiced, not at all sure why he was speaking. "I don't think she wants to." It might have been his imagination, but he thought Hermione looked grateful. "Can you give her more pain reliever?" he asked as well.

"She hasn't been very receptive to it before. We could try again, but she'd probably choke on it at this point," the older man grimaced. "And charms can only do so much to reduce the pain. Most of her discomfort is because the baby is turned a bit incorrectly, and she isn't dilating properly."

"You can let her squeeze your hand if you're brave," the young healer offered. Though she was Hufflepuff, she seemed the best of the lot. "It helps, and I'll heal it afterwards if she hurts it."

Surprising Draco, Hermione took the offered hand and squeezed tightly. "Sorry," she gasped.

"It's fine," Draco muttered, undoubtedly in the strangest conversation of his life. She seemed weak enough that even her tightest squeezes did not hurt very much.

"It will be best for you and your baby if you hold very still. We will stun you if we need to," the last healer warned.

Hermione whimpered.

"Try to think about books or something," Draco tried, feeling completely useless and not at all sure why he was here.

Hermione almost seemed to smile before she involuntarily convulsed when one of the healers actually began cutting into her flesh with a cutting spell. 'Barbaric' was the only description that Draco could think of.

One of the free healers promptly stunned her, but it didn't exactly seem to be "stupefy." Hermione was still conscious and able to move her eyes at least. They looked at Draco in pure fear, still in pain.

"It's almost over," Draco said, throat barely moving. He squeezed gently on her hand that was still placed in his. He hoped it was almost over anyway. Bloody hell, the human race would have died off after contraception was invented if men had to give birth.

Draco glanced at her lower half and decided that however muggles birthed children, it can't be this bad. Astoria hadn't let him in the room. But he couldn't think of that anymore. Surely even a knife would be better than a wand? What if that old man had shaky hands? Two other mediwizards prevented blood flow as the head healer seemed to simply rifle through Hermione's internal organs.

Draco's eyes darted between Hermione's and the wizard making still more cuts inside of her body. Draco finally stared in fascination as a tiny wriggling body was lifted out. Large for a newborn baby, he though. Larger than... but still tiny for a little human being.

The baby was already crying as it- she, Draco noticed- was handed to the only competent young witch. Draco at least felt better about the Hufflepuff healer. Draco glanced back at Hermione to see that he eyes at least seemed to have relaxed. Her eyes met his before going to the corner where her baby was just outside of her sight. The still-crying baby was cleaned and wrapped in a pink blanket before, for some reason, being deposited in Draco Malfoy's arms. The other healers were still tending to Hermione's wounds. At least there was some part of this ordeal that magic could assist with. Hermione's eye's, however, locked on her tiny daughter, occasionally glancing up at Draco.

Hermione was released from the strange stunning spell once she wasn't bleeding from open wounds any longer. She was gasping and breathing heavily as she still looked, wordlessly, at her daughter.

One of the healers approached her with three potions in hand. "We're going to start the healing process, though some of it will wait until you are through breast feeding. Unless you don't plan on breastfeeding?" the man asked what Draco thought to be a very private question.

"No, I will," Hermione said a bit hoarsely.

"Well, it's still best if you were asleep for this part. Shifting bones back and regrowing some complicated muscles and tissues. We mostly let the potions speed up your body's normal process as you sleep," he explained.

Granger nodded, probably familiar with the whole process through research by now. She looked again at Draco and her daughter, "Will you stay with her? Her name is Rose," she said in a very small voice, not at all the voice Draco associated with the same Hermione Granger that punched him when they were children. She was a young mother, somehow alone, and facing having her child taken away from her, if only very temporarily by sleep.

"Yeah," Draco managed to say, at which point Hermione weakly and shakily grasped the offered potions and drained them slowly, ending with a sleeping potion that had her unconscious in moments.

"How long will she be out?" Draco asked, looking down at the slightly less loud baby now in his arms. Rose.

"An hour or two at the most. It would have been less if she hadn't had such a difficult delivery. We've had great improvements over the years. She'll be able to go home today," the man said, almost sounding proud, as if he were the ones that made those strides in healing magic, not just the one who helped administer it along with his atrocious bedside manner. Draco wasn't at all convinced that even the muggles didn't have something that looked less primitive.

"You can take the baby to the large room three doors to your right," the young female healer said. She'll be given a few potions before she can leave today, but she looks perfectly fine. She's a beautiful little girl," the healer said. "And so much hair for a baby," she smiled. It shouldn't have been a wonder to Draco that Granger's child would have a great deal of hair, but she did have to have a lot more than typical baby fuzz. It was over an inch long, thick and brown. Draco wondered absently if she would grow into the same… curls, if one could call them that, that her mother did.

Draco nodded, remembering to say a brief, "Thank you," to the bearable young healer before walking off as if in a trance to the instructed room.

When Draco arrived, he almost couldn't walk into the room. He hadn't planned on walking in here again. Why was he here? The healers knew. They were looking at him oddly. Staring at him holding a baby that they knew wasn't his. Everyone at this hospital needed to learn some fucking manners.

"Who is this?" one of the healers asked. This one he recognized in particular. She would know better than anyone that he didn't belong here.

"She's a- friend's. She's Rose- uh Weasley maybe, or Granger," Draco managed to say.

"Rose Granger, yes," the healer confirmed. "We were expecting her then," the woman said, taking the baby away, not as delicately as she should have. She turned almost apologetic, but it was too late now, far too late. "I am sorry about your son, sir," she said before administering some potions in injection form to the now loudly screaming baby. Draco felt that Rose was making the sounds that he just couldn't make anymore. He didn't have any screams or tears left.

Draco walked around for a while, hating that room but oddly unwilling to go far from baby Rose. It was only because he promised that he wouldn't. Since when did he value something that he had told Granger? He continued to pace after the baby was awkwardly placed back into his arms. Rose. Not his baby. Her mother would be awake soon. He knew that he might as well wait there as anywhere else, but he could barely walk in the direction of the delivery room either. He walked the entire floor before returning to Granger's room. Life was out to cause him pain. The perfect little bundle in his arms cried softly until she fell asleep. Walking with the sleeping child was almost therapeutic, but not something that Draco tried to dwell on.

Granger was awake when he finally returned to her room. She smiled at him and looked at the now silent bundle. She held out her arms wordlessly, eyes wet but not crying. Draco handed her the child and sat down heavily in the chair next to her bed. Why was he still here? It wasn't like he was wanted or needed. He watched mutely as Hermione looked down at her child, tears now falling from her eyes. New mothers weren't exactly renowned for their stability, and he felt a sudden worry for the child. It wasn't like he had any reason to, any right to... Granger would be fine- good at everything as always.

"Can you hold her- Rose- again for a minute?" Hermione asked as she tried to adjust herself into more of a sitting position. Draco would not have admitted that he was more than willing to hold the nearly silent bundle again. The little girl was awake again, but only fussing quietly. She had apparently worn herself out with her post-birth tantrum.

She spoke again, "Not that I'm not- I'm glad, grateful that you were here to look after Rose, but what are you doing here- Draco?" Draco could tell that she almost stumbled over his name. It hadn't been so long since he was strictly "Malfoy" and she was "Granger" or worse. She was still Granger, of course, he told himself.

"My son was born today," The young wizard spoke before he even realized what he was saying, giving voice to the pain that he had been trying to hide for the last several hours. He looked down at the tiny witch still in his arms. They were all so young; he was young. Too young to have felt this much hurt. The pain was never over. He had never suffered enough. The war was more than enough, wasn't it? Or was that what he was being punished for?

"Congratulations," Hermione smiled, though Draco wouldn't quite read her expression. Maybe he just wasn't familiar with friendliness.

"He- didn't make it. Something was not- formed correctly that they couldn't fix," Draco mumbled, staring only at the healthy, sleeping baby in his arms. "Damn magic not even good enough," Draco muttered, still trying to come to terms with the inadequacies of magic, which was not at all a familiar idea to him.

"I'm so sorry. How's- Astoria?" Hermione asked, clearly trying to think of something to say and probably trying to remember his wife's name.

"Gone," Draco said, the statement not hurting the way it probably should have.

"I'm so sorry, Draco," the former Gryffindor spoke earnestly. She was probably still too hormonal for any of this anyway. He felt that shouldn't be burdening her, but Draco dimly wondered why he would be caring about Hermione Granger's feelings anyway. Her life didn't seem so bad, though she was here alone. Draco wasn't even sure why he was speaking, but he found himself almost laughing.

"She's not dead," Draco snorted, his tone reflecting the hollowness inside him. "She'll be at the ministry by this point with the divorce papers. She had me sign them before she even delivered. She'd done all that our contract entailed," Draco stated coldly. "Ours was not a marriage for love, and it wasn't exactly an agreement either of us had a say in in the first place, so I probably shouldn't blame her for it, though I do anyway. The contract was made before she was born actually. Getting rid of that sort of thing was one thing I'll admit that the muggles did right," Draco said, finally looking up at Hermione. He was mildly surprised that she hadn't even asked for her child back. She didn't even seem eager to jump on him for nearly complimenting muggles, but she wasn't that mean, at least not to him anymore.

Why the hell was he telling her anything? They weren't friends, barely neutral acquaintances, and only that after about two years of ignoring each other. After a series of court trials that Draco would try to forget, they were nothing but two people who could attend the same functions and speak civilly for a few moments if absolutely necessary before another available distraction presented itself. Neither had attempted any sort of voluntary association in the past.

"Well, I believe that I'm an example that marrying for so called love doesn't always work out either," Hermione said simply and with a tone of honestly.

Draco nodded, accepting the information, marveling at her returned frankness. Draco rather uncharitably was not surprised that the Weasel managed to mess something up, but he still would have expected at least a few red heads hanging around. And Potter.

A healer took that moment to come into the room, which Draco was glad for, as he couldn't think of anything to respond to Hermione's last statement without slipping into what his childhood self would have said.

"Well, you seem to be in fine health right now, but you should take it easy for several days. Even magic can only do so much, you know. If you have any bleeding or strong pain, come back here in an instant, alright?" the friendly woman asked.

Draco decided that it was probably best to hand Rose- the baby- back to her mother. He tried not to dwell on his hesitation. There was no reason to pretend he was attached just because he was troubled, mourning his own loss.

"I understand," the younger witch responded as she looked down to accept her baby. Draco thought that perhaps she didn't want to meet the healer's eye, but he really had no reason to imagine this insight.

"Do you have family to take you home?" the suddenly nosy witch questioned, looking at Draco.

Hermione faltered, "We've just let the flat go, so I've been staying in the Leaky Cauldron for a bit," Hermione said a bit embarrassed. "It's not the money or anything. I just haven't had time…"

An unasked-for sense of protectiveness was making the strange healer begin to grate on his nerves. "A- pub is not a good place for a baby, Miss," the insolent woman said.

It must have been the worried way Hermione bit her lip that made him speak even before he could think, "She can stay with me," Draco said, bringing all eyes to him. Draco thought that even the infant looked up at him, though he knew his mother had told him that babies couldn't see much of anything for a while, especially not so far away.

"That sounds perfect," the young healer said with a smile. "I don't know if I could approve you for release in good conscience without knowing that you'd be looked after. I'll be back in just a few minutes with the release papers for you and your daughter," she said.

Granger just stared at him, looking thoughtful or maybe confused, "You didn't have to say that," she said. "And I can be just fine finding my own place. I don't need to be a burden," she said.

"You should think about your little girl," Draco said softly, growing uncomfortable. Why had he opened his mouth at all? Why was he not backing out now when the opportunity presented itself so easily?

To his surprise, Hermione nodded. "If your offer is genuine, I will accept it, at least for a while. I mean, I don't want to be a bother though," she said gently, sounding as tired as a woman who just gave birth probably should.

"You wouldn't be," Draco assured her gently. What the hell was wrong with him? Even if they could be civil, he shouldn't be- what?- caring for her and her child? Where were the Weasels?

"Thank you," she said as the healer returned, handing Hermione papers. She grasped them in a few fingers as she held Rose. Draco awkwardly held out his hands to help, and was surprised when Hermione placed her child in his arms again. He was expecting to be handed the paperwork. But then again, it was Granger, and that was something to read. She looked just like she was still in school as she quickly read the sheets and signed her name with the quill offered. "What I wouldn't give for wizards to embrace the ball-point pen," she muttered before handing the sheets and quill back to the healer. The healer left promptly, smiling annoyingly.

"Could you- um," leave for a minute while I get dressed," Hermione asked Draco quietly. Draco noticed that she was still wearing the thin blue gown that the hospital provided to patients.

"Yeah," Draco said, and stepped outside with the child that wasn't his until Hermione called him back inside. She wore black robes that allowed plenty of loose fabric around her middle. Her gaze was downward at her hands, looking nervous or awkward.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

"Let's go," Draco said simply, leading her to the floo to head home- well, to his home anyway.

*****Draco*****

Malfoy spent the first ten minutes or so giving Hermione and baby Rose an extremely brief tour of the manor, conscious of her small steps and that, even with magical healing, the woman did give birth only a few hours ago.

Draco mostly just pointed to doors and hallways, "Sitting room, more sitting rooms or parlors or whatever that way. The kitchen, the dining room. There's a small ballroom through the big doors down that hallway, but it's never really used now. The master suite is that way, but it should be empty now too. Astoria would have sent for her things hours ago. The library is upstairs," he said, pausing and actually smiling at this one. He found himself hoping that she would be pleased with the library's selection.

"Upstairs now?" he asked, readjusting Rose in his arms and looking towards Hermione who was nodding lightly, though her eyes still roamed around the sitting room they had first arrived in. He supposed Granger would always need a chance to study everything.

"My room," he motioned to the door closest to the top of the staircase that he took. He even felt compelled to open the door and lead them inside for some reason. "Bathroom that way, and nursery next door," he motioned to a connecting door that they then walked through. He tried not to question what on earth would have compelled him to take Hermione Granger walking through his room. At least he kept it neat. He imagined the brainy girl didn't do well with messiness.

The nursery was decorated in typical baby colors, mostly soft yellows and greens, which somehow passed for gender neutral in the minds of decorators. His mother had designed the room long ago and had updated it for him when they first learned about the baby. Stuffed animals lined the walls, perhaps with a few extra snakes and absolutely no lions, but there were also cats, owls, and unicorns in the collection, among a vast variety of others. Draco would not admit it to Granger, but he had enjoyed buying a few little toys whenever he found the time. When he looked down at little Rose, his heart didn't ache quite as badly. At least maybe she would enjoy some of them.

"It's perfect," Hermione said quietly.

A white crib stood in the middle of the room, along with tables and typical baby supplies. Though Draco never saw them, never tried to see them, he knew the elves took special care with this room.

"You can pick out any room you like, and I will make sure that your things arrive there shortly," Draco motioned out the door where several doors to other rooms lined the hallway. "When Mother visits, she uses a room further down the hall, but I don't expect her very soon," Draco stated.

"I have most of my things with me, but thank you," Hermione said, motioning to a small beaded bag on her arm. At Draco's raised eyebrow she explained, "Some extension and feather light charms. It is quite useful," Hermione explained. "I haven't really fully unpacked in years. Maybe not since Hogwarts," she said quietly.

"Just- ask if you need any help," he offered, knowing that Hermione Granger wouldn't ask. He put the small, sleeping child in the crib, and watched her for several full minutes of silence before turning to return to his rooms. He looked up to see Hermione standing near the other door, the one to the hallway, staring at him and nodding when he looked up at her before she slipped into the hallway, presumably to choose a room for herself.

Draco let the mother and small child spend the day by themselves, with Draco taking care of some accumulated post and business matters in his room. He checked on Rose occasionally, both when she was in the nursery and when Hermione had taken her roaming around the house. He was most definitely checking on the newborn and not the mother- the strange combination of childhood enemy, or rival, or whatever and now new house guest. Some things just shouldn't be too closely examined.

Draco briefly tracked down an elf to tell it- him- he thought the elf was a "him" anyway- about Hermione and Rose with as few details as possible, only to say that they were to be respected and brought food or anything else they needed. And that baby bottles and whatever baby supplies would be appreciated. The little elf seemed extraordinarily pleased and nodded a lot, saying that he would see to them personally. Draco spent the remainder of the day in his room, telling himself that he wasn't hiding and that no one could see a Malfoy cry.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. If you want to read more of my stuff, you can check out my completed HP fic, a Hermione/Remus story. I have been working on a few stories, when all of the sudden, this story simply demanded to be written. I'm filling in a lot of gaps now and fleshing out a few details. I hope you enjoy reading the story, and please review if you like it. Updates will be weekly on Friday or Saturday, though they might sometimes be more often when I get really excited. Positive reviews make me excited- *wink wink*.