Chapter Text
October 2, 2006
Hermione
Hermione had to admit that Draco was an excellent driver. He maneuvered the car through dips and turns as though he’d been doing it his entire life. She had always found him most attractive when he was flying or absorbed in a book, but watching Draco guide a fast car through darkened roads with one hand on the wheel? That might just top everything else.
They rode in silence on the way to the Muggle restaurant, both seemingly lost in their own thoughts.
It was during that quiet stretch that Hermione decided she was going to be completely honest with him. About everything.
He’d been right this morning. They both needed closure. She had never truly been able to move on; not with Ron, not with anyone. She owed it to herself to lay everything bare, and if he chose to walk away… well, she would respect that.
He pulled into a nearby restaurant alive with music, conversation, and the hum of laughter. The building itself was a large, converted house, surrounded by open farmland. They were seated on a secluded second-floor balcony, where Hermione had a sweeping view of the darkened hills beyond and the band playing below. It was beautiful. Comfortable.
They ordered nonalcoholic drinks and a few appetizers to start. Polite conversation ensued for a few minutes, but it was strained. Draco kept glancing at her, tension written across his features, and it was clear he was waiting.
Waiting for her to begin.
Draco
Draco watched Hermione take one last steadying look at the view beyond the balcony before she inhaled deeply.
“Where do you want me to start?” she asked.
The question caught him off guard, but he recovered quickly.
“Why did you leave?”
She flinched, just slightly. “It wasn’t by choice. Not really.”
His jaw tightened.
Explain, Granger. Please.
“Okay,” she said quietly, seeming to read his thoughts. “I’ll start at the beginning.”
He nodded, bracing himself.
“Two weeks after you left, I still felt awful. I wasn’t sleeping, but I was exhausted all the time. No constant sickness—just headaches, body aches. I thought it was you leaving. I figured I was depressed and it would pass.”
His chest ached at that remembering his own state at that time.
“By the end of the second week, I was in a conditioning course for Auror training, and I passed out. I woke up hours later at St. Mungo’s.”
She took a sharp, trembling breath.
“They told me I was pregnant.”
The words landed like a bomb.
Draco went completely still. He felt the blood drain from his face, the world narrowing to the sound of her voice and the violent pounding of his heart.
“Pregnant?” he repeated faintly. “But- we were careful. We-”
“I know,” she said quickly. “But there were a few times we weren’t. After you gave me the signet ring. After I got into the Auror program. By the time I found out, I was already two months along.”
Two months.
Fucking hell.
“Hermione-”
“Please,” she interrupted. “Let me finish.”
He nodded again, unable to speak.
“The only person I told was Harry. Mostly because he was there when they told me. I was going to tell you. I got an emergency Portkey. I started making plans to move to America so we could be together.” Tears slipped down her cheeks now. “Draco, I need you to know, I was happy. I was so happy. I was excited to tell you.”
His chest burned.
“Then what happened?” he asked hoarsely.
“A few days before I was supposed to leave, I got a visitor.” She hesitated. “It was your mother. Narcissa came to see me.”
His brows drew together sharply. “My mum?”
She nodded.
“Somehow she found out about the baby. She tried to convince me to get rid of it.”
Hermione dropped her gaze, wringing her hands together. “She said… she said ‘my son can wet his feet in the mud, but she’d be damned if she allowed him to bathe with the pigs.’ She said no grandchild of hers would have dirty blood.”
“No,” Draco said immediately, standing halfway out of his chair. “No. That can’t be right. My mother knew about us. She told me; she told me she was happy for me.”
“I’m not mistaken,” Hermione said firmly. “It was her. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
The room felt like it was tilting.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, the words breaking free despite himself.
“I was going to,” she said desperately. “I made her leave. I told myself I was still going to tell you; that I’d let you decide. I heard you, Draco. Every conversation we had about choice. About freedom. I would never take that from you.”
His throat closed.
“The next day,” she whispered.
“Granger?”
“Just—hold on. I haven’t talked about this in a long time.”
He stayed silent. A heavy dread began creeping in his chest. He knew this didn’t have a happy ending and with that he was reminded of Hermione’s earlier words.
“You may not like what I have to say.”
“I was at St. Mungo’s for a check-up, making sure I could travel after fainting. Everything was perfect, that’s what they said. Then something happened. They told me I fell down the stairs, but I don’t remember. I remember leaving the room. Heading for the exit.” Her voice cracked. “Then I woke up in a hospital bed and-”
She stopped.
Draco reached for her hand instinctively, as if he could stop the words before they reached the air.
“I lost her,” she whispered. “I lost our baby. And it’s my fault because I’m so bloody clumsy.”
Something inside him shattered.
Tears spilled down his face before he could stop them, his vision blurring as the truth settled like a weight in his chest. A baby. His baby. Gone before he’d even known she existed.
“I’m sorry,” Hermione sobbed. “I’m so-so sorry, Draco.”
He stood abruptly, pushing his chair back and crossing the space between them in two strides. He guided her gently to the couch nearby and pulled her into his arms, holding her as tightly as he dared.
“I tried,” she cried against him. “I did everything right. Everything they told me to do and I still lost her.”
“Oh, Hermione,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers. “It wasn’t your fault. None of this was your fault.”
He held her there, refusing to let go, as if letting go might make the loss real all over again.
After a few minutes of just holding each other, each grieving the life they never got to meet, she pulls back enough to look at him.
“I went anyway, you know.”
“Hmm?” Draco answers, frowning slightly.
“To Connecticut. I took the Portkey. I was going to tell you everything. You were the only person that I wanted.” Her voice wavered. “But then I saw you in the library, laughing. You looked so- so happy. I know that if I told you, you would leave everything. You would have come back, you would have lost your mom. I couldn’t do that to you.”
His chest tightened. In grief or in anger, he wasn’t sure.
“So I did the one thing I promised myself I wouldn’t,” she continued softly. “I made the choice anyway. I wrote that letter. I ignored you. I hoped you’d hate me enough to let it end.”
Draco’s breath caught. “You were there?”
She nodded.
“Hermione,” he said, struggling to keep the edge from his voice, “why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you tell me? You couldn’t have known what I would’ve done. I don’t even know what I would’ve done.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I blew everything up.”
He hesitated, then asked the question that had haunted him for years.
“Was it Weasley?” His voice came out bitter despite his effort. “Was he who you ran to after?”
“What?” She blinked, confused.
“I saw you,” Draco said. “A few weeks after the letter. At your parents’ house. You were on the couch with him. Cuddling.”
Hermione frowned, thinking. Then her face fell.
“Oh. Oh- Draco, no. Ron and I didn’t- well, not until much later.”
She drew in a shaky breath.
“My parents died.” She clears her throat as she fights back tears. “A week after I got back from Connecticut. There was a carbon monoxide leak. They… they never woke up.”
The world tilted.
Fresh tears spilled as she continued. “It was a horrible time. Ron and Harry stayed with me that week because I’d said something that made them think I might hurt myself. I was on so many sedatives I barely remember it. Ron and I used to watch films after I took my medication. Maybe that’s what you saw.”
Draco closed his eyes.
Merlin.
“Hermione,” he said hoarsely. “You lost… you lost so much.”
She gave a sad, hollow smile. “I always thought losing the baby, losing my parents- it was karma. For hurting you.”
“No,” he said immediately. “You and I don’t believe in that rubbish. You never have.”
She looked away.
“Is that when the drinking started?” he asked quietly, a little more gently.
“Yes,” she admitted. “It got bad. The drinking. The pills. I just didn’t want to feel anything. But Harry and Ron wouldn’t let me disappear.”
His jaw clenched.
“I’m not there anymore,” she went on. “But it took a long time. I was good at hiding it. I could go to work, function perfectly, and then go home and drink myself into oblivion.”
She paused. “I used to hallucinate sometimes. Or have vivid nightmares. I still have the nightmares.”
“That’s why you thought I was…?” he asked.
“Yes. That’s why.”
Silence stretched between them, heavy and consuming.
Draco had too much to untangle.
First, a child. Their child.
Then his mother.
That part lodged itself beneath his ribs. He believed Hermione without question. She would never lie about something like that. She knew how close he was to Narcissa. But how could his mother look him in the eye and deny it? Had she truly held onto blood supremacy so tightly that she’d threaten Hermione?
The worst part was that he wasn’t sure.
He thought he’d feel anger. Anger at Hermione for not telling him, for deciding his life without him. And maybe it was there, but it was faint and distant.
When he looked at her, this beautiful, enduring, brilliant witch curled into his side; all he felt was grief.
Not pity. Grief.
She had lost their baby. Alone. Baring the news and loss without him being there to support her. Then sacrificed their relationship because she loved him enough to protect him from the fallout. And as if that wasn’t cruel enough, she’d lost her parents all over again.
She might see weakness in her survival, but Draco saw only strength. The kind it took to keep living after losing everything.
“You keep saying ‘her,’” he said softly.
Hermione glanced up at him and smiled sadly. “I didn’t know, obviously. But I always felt it. I dream about her sometimes. A little blonde girl with curls, running through a field, or flying around us.”
Tears burned his eyes.
He could see her. A child with Hermione’s warmth and his sharpness. And the realization hit him hard. He wanted that, badly.
No. He still wanted it.
There would never be another witch for him. Never another soulmate.
Her honey-colored eyes lingered on his face, and only then did he realize their position. Hermione tucked into his side, her head resting against his shoulder, his arms wrapped around her as if it had always been that way. He found himself memorizing her freckles, the familiar scent of apples and cinnamon.
They nearly jumped apart when the waiter appeared.
Hermione stood immediately, smoothing her skirt and refusing to meet his gaze. “Excuse me,” she said quickly, disappearing toward the loo.
Draco remained alone on the balcony, the night air cool against his skin—his world utterly, irrevocably changed.