Hermione felt as though her heart was in her throat.

It was girl. A little girl.

It made the pregnancy so real that it was jarring.

Stroud inspected the diagnostic further and sighed. "Well, not what we hoped."

She banished the reading with a flick of her wand.

"It's unfortunate, we've had several surrogates unexpectedly miscarry after it turned out they carried girls." Her eyes slid past Hermione, over to Draco. "Of course that won't be a concern here, given that the pregnancy is primarily a mechanism of memory retrieval. In your case, High Reeve, there's always the next surrogate—for a real heir."

Hermione felt herself grow cold. Her throat tightened, and she looked away from Stroud, her eyes darting over to Draco.

He was staring at the fluttering orb as though he couldn't look away, but his posture shifted slightly.

Hermione wished she could touch him, hold his hand. It felt like a moment they should be sharing. She was pregnant with a baby girl but she felt as though all the reaction she could make was to sit quietly, avert her eyes, and wonder how it might have been under different circumstances.

Draco still barely acknowledged the pregnancy beyond how it related to Hermione's health. Despite her repeated insistence that she wasn't going to get an abortion, he refused to treat it as having anything to do with him. It was her pregnancy, her baby. When she tried to talk about it, he grew terse, and if she pushed, he excused himself and left.

He blinked, and the muscles in his jaw rippled as he caught himself and averted his eyes, staring stonily out the window.

Hermione looked back as Stroud continued to cast spells and scribble notes.

Stroud cast another spell, and a projection of Hermione's brain appeared.

Hermione's memories were glowing gold in the same hue as the fluttering orb. All the little glowing lights scattered across her brain had changed colour and some appeared to have fractured. There were splinters of light running along what appeared to be the neural pathways.

"How interesting," Stroud said as she prodded it. "What did the mind healers say when they saw the development?"

Draco's looked away from the window and stared at the projection. His nostrils flared as though he smelled something foul. "To keep her calm if she ever woke and to prevent further seizures if I wanted to avoid permanent brain damage and loss of the memories." He sneered at Stroud. "You should be grateful your method of forced recovery didn't kill her. I can't imagine the Dark Lord would have taken the news well."

Stroud folded slightly and looked nervous. "I said, when I proposed it, that it was theoretical," Stroud said, her voice stiff. "I made it quite clear to the Dark Lord. Has she shown any signs of having recovered more memories?"

"No," Draco said, his lip curling as he glanced derisively at Hermione, then focused on Stroud, intent. "The only discernible difference in her behavior since pregnancy is that she's more unstable and barely able to leave her room."

Stroud sighed and prodded at the projection. "It's a pity we can't just dose her with veritaserum. How long did the mind healer say not to use magic on her brain?"

"As long as the magic levels remain critically heightened, anything that disrupts the brain magically, with the exception of anticonvulsants, is to be avoided. He estimated my legilimency would be safe to attempt by the beginning of the third trimester, assuming her stress levels drop to a point where her anxiety stops being a trigger for the seizures." Draco's eyes hooded, and he looked impassive. His hand was near his wand.

Stroud's pursed her lips. "That's an unfortunately long wait. You informed him that the memories were urgent?"

Draco waved his hand dismissively. "You've seen the reports; based on the mind healer's analysis, the more crucial the information is, the more protected it is. Attempting to extract it prematurely could result in recovering nothing but non-essential information. Memories are not discrete; they overlap associatively. The memories the Dark Lord is most eager for will not be the first memories recovered but the last ones."

Stroud prodded at the projection of Hermione's brain once more before banishing it. "Well, now that she's reaching the end the first trimester, she should begin eating and recovering physically. It may not be a concern for you, given that the child won't be the heir, but elevated cortisol levels can affect a baby. With the restrictions the surrogates have on their behavior, stress can manifest in unusual ways if unaddressed. Exercise is a crucial way of channeling it. You should command her to exercise as soon as she appears stable enough to manage it."

Draco gave a short, indifferent nod of acknowledgement.

He escorted Stroud out a few minutes later. Hermione went over and pressed her ear against the door. She could hear Stroud's voice receding down the hallway.

"If you don't want to keep a female, the lab will take it immediately after delivery. The Dark Lord understands that not everyone wants the obligation of multiple children. The ones with good potential will be raised to contribute to the program's next phase, and the others will be useful lab subjects. There's still so little understood about early magical development..."

Hermione's tongue curdled in her mouth, and her stomach wrenched so violently that she nearly vomited in the middle of the floor. She shakily went and sat on the edge of her bed.

Draco would never let it happen. He would never let it happen to her, to their baby. But that wouldn't save the other surrogates or their babies.

She closed her eyes.

She hoped Draco would return soon so she could ask to have her books back. Otherwise there was nothing to do but worry, and worry, and worry.

It was impossible to do anything but worry and then worry over the fact that she was worried.

Elevated cortisol could impact the baby.

Stay calm, otherwise she might have a seizure.

Then Draco might not let her research.

Then—

She tried not to think about it.

She mentally reviewed healing spells and developed theoretical potions for counteracting hemophilia and stopping hemorrhage.

It was nearly an hour before Draco reappeared. As soon as she saw him, her mind immediately returned to the appointment.

It was going to be a girl.

Now that she knew the gender, she could picture it more clearly. Before, it had been more abstract, a baby. Now it was a girl. A baby girl.

There were portraits of Malfoy children in the manor, always blond and grey-eyed... and male.

The Malfoy line was predominantly—entirely male.

Hermione couldn't think of any portraits featuring female Malfoy descendants. An heir, and occasionally a spare.

Hermione didn't know if it were a genetic anomaly or, more likely, a selection process; perhaps the Malfoys didn't traditionally keep female pregnancies.

Draco stopped a foot away from her and stood. He seemed only partly-present, as though his mind were elsewhere. Hermione's hands were laid against her stomach, and she watched him carefully.

"So—it's a girl," she said.

His expression instantly closed, and he gave a short nod.

Her mouth twitched. "I didn't know Malfoys had girls."

"No," he said, shrugging.

Hermione felt as though there were a stone lodged in her throat. "Does it—does that matter to you then? That it's not a boy?"

Draco blinked and seemed to be suddenly roused from wherever his mind had been.

"What? No." He stared at her. "The gender has never mattered to me."

The feeling in her throat was replaced by a heaviness in her chest. Hermione nodded. "Alright. I just wondered."

Draco eyed her. "It's an enchantment on the bloodline intended to keep the estate intact. Malfoys require a marriage bond to produce an heir with a witch."

"Oh," was all she could think to say. After several seconds she added "Stroud doesn't know."

He shook his head and looked down and appeared to be studying the polish on his shoes. "It never seemed worth mentioning, given that the necessity of an heir made my efforts appear earnest."

Hermione looked away.

Get married. Have children. Grow old with someone.

There'd been a point when she'd been resigned to the fact she'd never have those things. She'd told herself that there'd be more important things to console herself with; Harry and Ron would still be alive, Voldemort would be defeated, the world would be better. That knowledge would be enough to fill the emptiness.

But Harry and Ron weren't alive. Voldemort wasn't defeated. The world felt so broken she didn't know how it would ever be better.

Now she felt the loss of the simple things.

"Can I have my books back before you go?" she asked, looking up at him again.

"I'll have Topsy bring them."

She looked down at her shoes. "I'll try to go for walks again. Stroud was right, it is important for the baby, so I should do it."

She looked up and gave a small smile.

Draco stared at her, and eventually her smile faded. She looked away towards the window. It was so—open. Her fingers twitched, and she slipped them behind her back.

"I'll go with you," he said. "You don't need to go alone."

He extended his hand, and she took it.

They went outside and walked slowly along a lane lined with fruit trees, their fingers entwined. The blossoms had faded and been replaced by leaves; their path was canopied by the arching branches.

"I used to climb these trees when I was a boy," Draco abruptly said.

Hermione looked over him in surprise. He'd always been silent during the walks before. It was unfamiliar to have him be conversational.

He stared down the lane, his expression far away. "I was told not to climb them, but when my lessons for the day were done, I'd come and try to."

He looked over at a gnarled apple tree near them. "I got stuck in that tree. It seemed enormous to me at the time. Topsy tried to get me down, but I wouldn't let her. I sat on that branch, shouting for my mother for an hour before she came home from Diagon Alley."

Hermione studied the branch only a few feet above ground, and her mouth quirked up.

Draco turned. "If we go down this lane and cut across the field, there's a pond where I used to catch frogs. There are usually ducks and herons there. I was given a net for my fifth birthday, and I used to try to catch anything I could find. They were for my zoo. I used to say I was going to be a magizoologist when I grew up. I was very set on the idea that I would travel to Africa someday on an expedition. My father was horrified."

Draco was expressionless as he spoke. Hermione felt a growing sense of unease.

"I was the terror of fairies and gnomes," he added after another minute. "I got bitten once by a gnome, trying to dig it up. Bled everywhere." He gave an empty laugh. "My mother was terrified I'd end up with a scar."

He started walking slowly down the lane again, still holding Hermione's hand.

"I always liked flying. My father gave me a toy broom when I was two, despite my mother's objections. Theodore Nott and I used to race each other all over the estate. I nearly broke my arm crashing into the side of the manor when I was eight."

He was quiet after that until they reached the end of trees. "Topsy will go with you. She's cared for several babies. She nearly raised me for the first few years when my mother was unwell. She helped Ginny with James too." He looked over at Hermione. "It's arranged now—her ownership will transfer to you. She's a good elf. She'll know any stories about me you could want."

Hermione stopped walking as she realised what he was doing.

He was trying to give her what she wanted. For him, acknowledging that he would have a child meant acknowledging that he wouldn't meet it.

He was telling her stories so she could tell his daughter about what he'd been like before school, before the war.

He was making arrangements.

He stared out across the fields. "The magic on the estate will go dormant unless my father produces a new heir," he said a moment later. "Assuming he does not, the manor will recognise and accept a descendant—if she wants to claim it. There are documents I'll have for you to take, to make a formal claim on the estate if you want it legitimised. But there's no reason you'll have to return, there are vaults in your name already and other assets I've transferred that would be easier to liquidate."

Hermione's shoulders started to shake.

Draco looked at her. His eyes were a stormy grey and intent as he studied her face. "I brought you too far. You're tired. We'll go back."

Hermione still didn't move. Her throat felt thick, and her legs were threatening to give out beneath her. She had a thousand things she wanted to say and felt at a loss about how to communicate any of them.

He stepped closer. "Can you walk back?"

She managed to shake her head infinitesimally.

He stepped closer, moving slowly and gauging her reaction. He slipped his left arm around her waist and lifted her up into his arms, carrying her back towards the manor.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder as she started to cry. She cried in his arms the whole way to her room.

That night her head was rested on his chest as she lay in bed and watched the clock move. Draco had one hand on her head, twisted through her hair, while his other hand traced patterns along her arm through her robes.

She sat up, and stared down at him. He looked up at her, his expression guarded. She reached out, resting her hand on his chest, then leaned over and kissed him. She closed her eyes and memorised the sensation of their lips meeting, how their noses brushed against each other, the faint stubble along his jaw under her fingers as she pressed her hand against his face.

She deepened the kiss, losing herself in the sensation of him. She could smell the sharp bite of cedarwood oil in his clothes and the oakmoss and papyrus on his skin. His palm caressed her throat, and she shivered against him, pressing herself closer and tangling her fingers in his hair.

The kisses were slow and deep and so familiar. She knew this. This heat in her abdomen, the catching sensation in her chest, and the thrum in her veins. It was the most intimate and treasured thing she'd ever known. She'd hidden it away where it couldn't be taken, buried it until she lost it within her own mind.

She wanted it back.

Her hand on his chest began sliding along it, running down his torso. His hand closed around hers and stilled it. When she tried to pull it free, he stopped kissing her.

"What are you doing?"

Hermione sat back and looked down at him, drawing a deep breath. "I want to try to have sex with you."

She watched his eyes as she said it.

His irises darkened as his corneas bloomed, but his expression grew hard and closed. "No. That's not happening."

Hermione looked down at her hand in his. "I don't want the last time I had sex with you be when you were—" her mouth twitched, "when it was—forced."

Draco was silent for a moment.

"No."

Her fingers spasmed, and she withdrew her hand from where he'd stopped it, giving a short nod. "Alright."

She lay down and rested her head on his shoulder, pressing her face into the heat of his body that radiated through his shirt.

They said nothing for several minutes.

"Why?" he finally asked.

"I told you."

"You always have more reasons than one."

She was quiet and pressed herself more tightly against his side.

"I can't remember what it felt like to have sex before," she finally said. "I know we were together, but it's so far away, like something in the distance that I can't make out the details of. When I try to remember—I just—I just remember what it was like here, when you had to every month. So I thought—" she paused and was silent for several moments.

There were so many ways it could go wrong. It wouldn't be the way it was in the past, it would be tinged and affected by everything that happened. She might panic or find that once they reached a certain point, she was unable to back out or ask him to slow down or stop. She might have a seizure.

It might destroy the fragile safehaven they found in each other, the sense of security she found in him.

It might poison the past.

She curled more tightly against him. "Never mind."

Draco didn't say anything.

She fell asleep listening to his heartbeat.

However, after that conversation, the way he kissed her was different. His hands lingered longer. His kisses weren't just searing adoration but something else.

Something hungrier.

Something she could feel in her blood.

When he returned after being gone for two days, his touch felt like fire. His hands tangled in her hair, she drew his left hand down, along her neck to the base of her throat and then further along her body. She felt him inhale so sharply through his teeth that the air moved against her skin.

She gave a shivering moan.

"Tell me to stop," he said, his mouth hot against her throat. "Tell me to stop."

She tangled her fingers in his robes and pulled him closer. "Don't stop," she said, "I don't want you to stop."

His teeth dragged across her skin as he nipped at her throat. She pulled his hand up to the buttons of her dress and started undoing them. His fingers brushed along her bare skin, and he peppered open-mouthed kisses across her shoulders.

This was good.

This was familiar.

He used to touch her this way. She could remember this.

He kissed down her sternum until her head dropped back and she was gasping. His hands slid over her shoulders and up her spine.

Her hands followed along the curve of his jaw, and down over his shoulders, trying to touch all of him. The sense of touching him was buried in her—a dormant, physical sense of familiarity that made her heart race as it was reawakened.

She drew his mouth back to hers and kissed him more deeply.

"I love you," she said against his lips. "I love you. I wished I'd told you a thousand times."

She started unbuttoning his shirt and pushing it off, running her hands across his skin.

"Tell me to stop, and I'll stop," he said against her lips.

"Don't stop."

Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she closed her eyes and focused on the sensation. The weight, and warmth, and sensation of his skin against hers. She breathed in against his shoulder and traced her fingers over the scars on his back.

"Close your eyes."

She felt her clothes slip off and a coiling heat spread through her.

His hand brushed along the side of her breast. It felt different. Highly sensitive, as though his touch had run electricity through her body. She didn't think it had ever felt that way before. She shivered into the contact and gave a low gasp. He dragged his thumb over her nipple, and her whole body shuddered.

She felt his mouth on the inside of her right breast.

Teeth.

She went rigid. Like being dunked into ice water, and suddenly the heat was gone.

She couldn't—

Sharp, cold little rocks.

She wanted it to stop.

She tried to breathe, but her lungs refused to expand. Just breathe, and it would go away.

Her throat closed. Her fingers twitched against Draco's shoulders.

She couldn't breathe. The memories were pouring over her in a rush.

"Just close your eyes."

Better than Lucius. Better than Lucius.

She just wanted it to stop.

She tried to blink it all away, but it wouldn't go.

"Stop," she forced the word out.

Draco froze instantly and started to draw back. She gave a dry sob and wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders, burying her face against his throat as she fought to breathe and willed her heart to stop pounding painfully in her chest.

Stop shaking. Stop shaking.

Draco sat immobile, not touching her. She couldn't even feel him breathing.

She drew several slow breaths and shakily lifted her head to look at him.

"I just—" her chest hitched, "It was too much for a moment. I think—I'll be better now that I know I can say stop. It was good." Her fingers on him tightened. "It was good—until it wasn't..."

She swallowed hard.

Draco nodded. His pupils had contracted until his eyes looked like ice. His expression was tense and drawn as he looked at her.

He looked like something she could shatter in her hands.

If she ruined this, she might be destroying the last good thing he had.

She slipped her hand along the curve of his jaw and felt his pulse in the dip behind the bone as she pressed her forehead against his.

She wasn't going to cry, she told herself. She wasn't going to cry.

They just needed more time.

She went to library. She had avoided it, but the elves were limited in their ability to cross-reference for her when she didn't know all the potential resources there might be there.

Topsy fidgeted beside her as Hermione stood in the doorway, hesitating and trying not to look up.

"I want to start in the Dark Arts section," she said.

"Which parts?"

"All of it. I want to see all the book titles."

Hermione kept her eyes fastened on the floor or the shelves as she moved through the library. Focus on the books. Focus on the words.

She had to save Draco. It didn't matter if she couldn't see the ceiling. She just had to breathe.

Sometimes repeating the reminder to herself worked.

Other times it didn't.

She woke up, dazed, in her room and every muscle in her body was burning. Draco was sitting beside her, her hand in his.

She stared at him in bewilderment, trying to remember how she'd gotten there.

"You had a seizure in the library," he said, expressionless. "You had a panic attack, Topsy couldn't calm you, and you had a seizure. A severe one, even with the interference of the anticonvulsant potion. I was in Austria."

Hermione didn't say anything. Her throat felt as though she'd screamed it raw.

Draco stared out the window for a moment and then sighed. He began to massage the centre of her palm without looking at it, tapping his wand across the pressure points until the muscles relaxed and her fingers unfurled. "You don't get to have everything, Granger. There's a point when you have to realise you aren't going to get everything you want, and you have to choose and let it be enough for you."

His hands stopped moving, and he just stared out the window for a minute. He swallowed slowly and turned to stare down at her. "The mind healer said if you have another seizure like that, you may cause irreversible brain damage to yourself and likely miscarry."

Hermione pressed her lips together and pulled her hand away, curling into a tight ball around her stomach.

"I can't leave you behind," she said, her voice thick.

She felt the bed shift, and Draco brushed her hair off her face, tucking a curl behind her ear as he leaned over her.

He gave a low sigh as his hand slipped down from her hair and rested on her shoulder. "You'll have other people to take care of. You promised Potter to take care of Ginny and James. You have a baby who needs you, and you know that."

Her hand pressed against her stomach, and she gave a low sob. "I don't want to choose." Her voice was rasping, and it hurt to speak. "I always have to choose, and I never get to choose you. I'm so tired of not getting to choose you."

He squeezed her shoulder before his hand slid down to hers, and he began messaging away the rigid knots in it. "You're not choosing. You promised—anything I wanted, you promised that. Don't—don't break yourself trying to save me. I want that more than anything else. Get away from this fucked up world. Let me get you out, Granger. Let me know you're safe, away from all this. Tell our daughter I saved you both. That—is what I want."

She clumsily pushed herself upright; her arms were not cooperative, but she forced herself up and gripped his hand. "Draco—I'm so close. Give me more time, and I'll find a way to remove your mark. I'm sure there's a way. Please—don't make me stop trying."

Draco sat back and stared at her. His eyes flickered. "I've never known anyone as bad at keeping promises as you. You are—quite possibly—the worst promise-keeper I've ever met."

Her throat tightened, but she pushed her chin up and met his stare. "I keep the ones that matter."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "No. What you do is make conflicting promises and then pick and choose which ones to keep depending on what you want. I've devoted some thought to your methodology—" His voice was light. Then lightness vanished, and he glanced away. "That's why you never seem to keep any of the promises that I care about."

Hermione looked down. "Draco—"

"Hermione."

She looked up at him. He still used her name so rarely.

He stared at her, his expression serious and tired. "You care about this baby. She was all you cared about before your memories came back. Protecting her was all you thought about, every minute of the day. Now—you're so preoccupied with trying to save me that you're letting yourself forget that she needs you, that she's dependent on you. I can't protect her from you. Endangering yourself to try to save me is risking her."

Hermione's jaw trembled, and she looked down. "I'm so close, Draco. I'm just missing one piece."

Draco gave a sharp sigh. "Granger, if you miscarry, the Dark Lord will have you brought in to examine your mind." His voice was flat and matter-of-fact, and she flinched at the words. "You promised—if it stressed you, you promised you'd stop. How many panic attacks are you up to since you started going into library by yourself?"

She ground her teeth together, setting her jaw. "It's so stupid. It's stupid that it won't go away. I'm so close—I'm almost sure I can figure it out, but the harder I try to put the pieces together, the worse it gets. But I'm so close—what if I wait and don't figure it out until it's too late?" Her chest started spasming, and she pressed her hand against her sternum.

Draco gripped her by the shoulders, his expression hard. "Let it go." His teeth flashed as he spoke. "I was never supposed to be someone you tried to save."

Hermione shook her head doggedly, "What am I supposed to do if you make me stop?"

Draco's lip curled as though he wanted to snarl at her. She didn't blink. His hands dropped away from her shoulders, and he gave an exasperated sigh.

"Fine," he said in a resigned voice. "You can continue researching in your room. But if you want to go into the library, you will wait and go with me. I will have Topsy restrain you if you try to go alone. Understood?"

Hermione gave a small nod.

She stayed in her room for the most part. Whenever he had time, Draco took her outside to walk and then to the library, standing next to her and watching as she spent hours browsing. He cast analytic spells on his arm for her to study and wrote notes for her.

She was waiting outside the library doors for Draco to return for the evening when she heard two successive cracks of apparition in the foyer down the hall.

Her stomach immediately dropped.

No one should have been able to enter the estate unless Draco permitted it. If Draco were bringing someone back without warning, it was likely Severus, which meant she'd run out of time. Or else Draco had died, and the protections on the estate had collapsed.

Her heart was in her throat as she shrank back into the shadows and strained to hear.

"There has been a notable decline in your performance of late. The Dark Lord wishes to transfer the task to someone with less conventional methods." Lucius Malfoy's blood-curdling drawl floated down the hallway.

Hermione went cold with terror.

"One less matter for me to attend to. I'm hardly lacking in attention currently." She heard Draco say in a cool voice.

In the silent, empty house, the voices filled the foyer and bounced down the hallway. She could hear every word clearly.

"Indeed not. It seems I cannot pick up a paper without finding your face splashed across it. My son, the infamous High Reeve."

Draco made no reply.

"I must admit, I aspired to see my heir achieve slightly more than an international reputation as a mass murderer. A pity you couldn't maintain your anonymity. You're more a hunting dog than a protege." Hermione could hear the sneer in Lucius' tone.

Hermione began inching slowly down the hall, her fingers pressed against the wall.

"Why Father, I thought I'd inherited my exceptional talent for murder from you. I am, after all, the Dark Lord's humble servant, like my father and his father before him." Draco's voice was taunting, but Hermione could hear the tension hidden in his tone, the reserve.

"There is an art in the contributions my father and I made. Using Unforgivables is merely pouring out an excess of emotion. Agony is meant to be an art form. There is no craft in the service you provide the Dark Lord. You have allowed yourself to be used as a blunt-edged weapon. Of all the skills you could cultivate... I find your choices—disappointing."

There was a concealed passage in the wall nearby. If Hermione could just reach it, she could hide. Wait there until Draco came for her.

"There is also less blood on my clothes," she heard Draco say with a dismissive drawl.

"Do you think the Dark Lord achieved greatness simply because of the quantity of Killing Curses he could cast? Do you think such an ability launched Gellert Grindelwald to infamy? Greatness is more than merely raw power. It requires drive, cunning, and inspirational vision. You're a fool to think your fame as an executioner gives you true significance. You have no followers. No one is loyal to you. Fear is not enough; the Dark Lord learned that painful lesson during the first Wizarding War. The key to his success was his ability to expand his vision when he returned to power. An executioner is little more than a footnote. The Dark Lord gave you the opportunity to apprehend the last Order member. It would have immortalised you in history, but after four months—"

The floorboard under Hermione's foot creaked, and Lucius' voice stopped. Hermione froze, her heart in her throat.

"Is there someone here, Draco?"