Chapter Text
Draco Malfoy found himself, three years after the war ended, a year after his house arrest and probation ended - at home in the middle of the night, his best friend in front of him blubbering like a firstie, silently gawking at said bestfriend.
“She needs you, Draco. I need you. I know it’s not ideal, I know it’s crazy, but it’s a matter of life and death. Please, Draco.”
Draco Malfoy, scion of two ancient and noble houses of Magical Britain, the purest of the pure and Prince of Slytherin could not understand his best mate’s words past his first frantic, “Hermione needs you” when said best friend first stepped through Draco’s floo at the dead of the night on a balmy September morning.
That Hermione Granger needed him, specifically, was not something Draco Malfoy thought he would ever hear in this lifetime. Maybe not even the next.
Bare foot and bare chested, the tall pale man regarded his harried looking mate and asked, “Can you slow down? I don’t understand half of what you are saying Theo!”
Conjuring two glasses and accio-ing his best fire whiskey from the side bar of his floo room, Draco filled the glasses and gestured for Theodore Nott to sit across from him.
Theo took a healthy swig of said liquor that was given and then took a deep breath.
“Hermione Granger is my sister.” He began, “No, don’t interrupt or I won’t be able to get it all out right again.” He said as Draco tried to question him.
“She’s been in Australia all this time you know? After your trials, she fled there to restore her parents’ memories. Fuck. She obliviated them Draco! At 17, she was forced to obliviate the Grangers in fear of what our parents - of what Voldemort - would do to them!”
“Fuck”
Theo nodded somberly. “Just so. Only thing was, when she got there, their brains were beginning to melt. Her obliviation was interacting with a previous memory charm on them. Fuck. Took her a while and almost all of her savings and reparations from the war to get them better. By the time they got better, they remembered everything - including being told they can never have a child.”
Draco only stared, already guessing where this was going.
“So Hermione was frantic, or as Potter tells it, fuck she didn’t know what to do, so of course she called on her two side kicks.”
Draco snorted and Theo let out an unpleasant huff.
“Right. So they tried to question them but the Granger’s memories of Hermione were gone. As if it wasn’t even there in the first place. So Hermione did what she thought was best, the Grangers went back to their own lives, oblivious of having raised a daughter and thinking they were only in Australia for vacation. Meanwhile my sister was fucking losing her mind and the ginger prat decided to take advantage. Of course she doesn’t see it, but it’s so obvious Draco! She was inconsolable! Her whole life, the whole reason she fought in the war was just turned upside down and what does the Weasel do? He gets her knocked up and leaves when he finds out! He just ups and leaves! And then of course the savior of Wizardom had the bright idea of going after the ginger scum, leaving Hermione alone, petrified and pregnant! Who does that?”
Theo was visibly shaking in rage, and Draco wasn’t far off. He was in house arrest, he wasn’t there for her and she got hurt. It was his fault for not being there, he should have been there, even from a far like in school, watching out for her even if she didn’t know. Like the time he was in the inquisitorial squad with Umbridge, protecting Hermione Granger without her knowledge.
Theo interrupted his self flagellation by continuing, “So she did what she knows best, she researched. She found a way to find out her heritage. It was a nifty spell too. Fuck. Smart as she was, she did, but she didn’t try to find me, not right away. By what she tells me, she couldn’t come to terms that her own father was a Death Eater. Fucking hell, Draco! He was there, you know? Our father dueled her in the Department of Mysteries in fifth year! Merlin!”
“Shite”
“Exactly! So she sat on that information for months, only telling the two twats when they came back, just in time for her to give birth. I have half the mind to tell her they shouldn’t have even bothered. And guess what the ginger menace did when he found out?”
Theo glared at the fire, unseeing. Draco had a pretty good guess how Ronald Weasley reacted. It was how he reacted to everything he did not like, with fire and righteous indignation as if he was the only one right in the world, and everyone was wrong and evil.
“He called her a Death Eater’s spawn and then denied his child, his own child, Draco! Said he couldn’t bear to be the father of a Death Eater’s grandchild! Thankfully, for once, the Bespectacled Git aka Harry Potter the Chosen One chose that time to stand up for the girl who was there for him his entire miserable life, and kicked the ginger git to the curb. Finally.”
At this point, Draco couldn’t care less about the dumb duo, wanting to get to the point of Hermione needing him. Did she need funds? But she’s rich, the Nott’s were only third to the Malfoys and Blacks in terms of wealth and Theo was generous to a fault. Was she sick? Why is Theo here then, he could easily send for the best healers in the world from wherever Hermione and the child are. No, Draco was missing something.
“What exactly do you need from me, Theo? Do you need help burying the Weasel’s body?”
“No, I’m getting there, hold on. I just found out what needs to be done in the last forty eight hours okay? I’m also still processing and I think my body is still on Australian time and well, fuck it, my niece is dying.”
“WHAT?”
“Yeah, exactly, so let me get the rest of the story out so I can tell you, alright?”
Draco slumped in the huge armchair he was sitting on, glass of firewhiskey dropped and forgotten already since Theo started his tale. If Theo was like this, he couldn’t even imagine how Hermione was. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Right, so, the ginger git left. Again. The Chosen One needed to come back to Britain on Auror business and Hermione decided she would stay in Australia with her daughter. She couldn’t face everyone. The press, the Weasleys, me. She told me she could only handle one crisis at a time and so she did. She focused on the most important thing, which was her daughter, Lira. Everything was going great or as great as it is with no job and dwindling funds, until about 6 months ago, on Lira’s first birthday. All of a sudden she got sick. No muggle doctor or magical healer could determine what exactly was wrong, she was growing thin, pale and would cough up blood from time to time. Hermione’s funds were already low from taking care of the Grangers, but I guess Potter came through with the funding. Rightfully so, if you ask me. He would be dead if it wasn’t for my sister. It took a Shaman from the wilds of the Australian Outback to determine that it was a blood curse. A generational blood curse at that.”
“Salazar.” Draco’s mind was spinning. It was Astoria all over again. He had refused to marry the witch his parents chose for him when she told him that she had a familial blood curse that would kill her the moment she gave birth. She couldn’t do that to the witch, though he barely knew her as his friend Daphne’s little sister. Was it the same curse then? Why was Hermione’s child affected and not her?
“She didn’t think it was a Nott curse at first, of course she didn’t, she barely acknowledged that she was a Nott. The Weasleys denied any curse on their line, neither the Prewetts nor the Rosiers either. Hermione tells me Molly Weasley herself came and helped for a month or so. So it wasn’t from the git’s side. That’s when she sent for me. It took her a while to get the courage to tell me about herself in a letter. I got to Australia as fast as I could, bringing what dark tomes from Nott Hall I could smuggle to help. Merlin, Draco. She’s so tiny. Lira is so tiny and she’s so sick. And it’s our fault. Our family’s fault. It was a blood curse dating back hundreds of years. Took Hermione and I a few weeks to determine it. Even I have never heard of it.”
Theo was really agitated now, standing up and started pacing, dragging his hands thru his short brown hair.
“Gods Draco, we need you. It’s a curse that prohibits a Nott from parenting a bastard. Lira will die on her second birthday if she is not legalized.”
“What exactly are you asking of me, Theo?”
“You need to marry Hermione and do a full blood adoption on Lira so she becomes a Malfoy.”
Draco didn’t think he heard his friend right. Him? Marry Hermione Granger? Hermione Nott? What? He could only stare wide eyed at his friend as his brain refused to function. It was all he ever dreamed of since third year to be honest, yes, but also, what??
“Look, it’s not ideal. I know that. But she’s not a mudblood, not really -“
“Hold on there Theo, you know I never really believed that, I just had to play a role, just like my parents did.”
“Right. Right. I knew that. I know that. It’s just. This is mental. My ancestors thought it best to create a curse that would kill an innocent child if any Nott had a child out of wedlock to a Pureblood. It has to be a pureblood! Or else the child dies! My niece dies! Salazar, Merlin and Morgana, what kind of twisted family do I have?”
“The Weasleys are pureblood.” Draco chose not to comment on Theo’s family. He had several family members who were dark and twisted as well, he had no right to judge.
Theo pinned him with a look. “You think my sister deserves that arsehole for a husband? A blood bound husband? The fucker already left her twice! And Potter informs me it’s not even the first or second time he’s done it! The oaf actually left Hermione and Potter while on the hunt for Horcruxes! While snatchers were looking for them! Fuck! He up and left, Draco! Do you think my sister and my niece deserves a man like that?”
Draco stayed silent as Theo fumed. In his head he listed all the dark curses and hexes that his deranged aunt has ever taught him. Hell, the way he feels right now, he might just go muggle and kill the bastard with his bare hands.
“I only just got my sister back, Draco! I didn’t even know I had a sister, we haven’t even talked about it, we needed to know about the curse! I am not even sure what kind of brother I am, but I am sure as hell not the kind that would force her to bind herself to an arsehole like Ronald Weasley, not when I know of someone more decent and honorable.”
“You think I’m decent and honorable, Theo? I was a Death Eater remember?”
“Oh, we all know you didn’t want that. Even Hermione and Potter know. The whole world knows and they made sure of it too! They stood up for you and Narcissa at your trial, didn’t they?”
Theo turned and pinned Draco with a hard look, a look Draco had never seen on his friend’s face before. Theo was all things bright and shiny. Sometimes dramatic, downright Shakespearean really. Even with shitty upbringing and war and torture, Theo was eternally positive. Seeing such a hard and serious look on his face shook Draco to his core.
“There is no one in this world I would trust more with my sister or my niece than you, Draco. You know I trust you with my life. You are my brother. You are family. Now we just need to formalize it to save my niece’s life.”
Draco stood up and took a hard swallow.
“Look Theo, I would and will do this. For you. For Granger, hell, for the kid. But it all depends on what Granger wants.” He said solemnly as he placed both hands on his friend’s shoulders.
“I will not take Granger’s choice away from her. Not after what happened at the manor, not after how she defended me in court.”
“This is her choice, Draco. She chose you.”
Draco didn’t know how many more life altering revelations he could take in a night. To hear that he was Hermione Granger’s choice of husband and father of her child was earth shattering. If he wasn’t holding on to Theo he might have fallen down to his knees.
“We talked about it, she knows it needs to be a pureblood. Someone she can trust. Someone who actually values family. She knows you would and did do everything for your parents during the war and she respects you because of that. I know it’s a lot to ask, it’s a lifetime commitment, blood binding, and then blood adopting Lira. She would be your heir, I know it’s too much, but Draco - “
“I’ll do it.”
Theo could only look at his friend with love and gratitude. There was no need to say anymore.