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Draco watched the lights of their Christmas tree shimmer over the menagerie of ornaments they’d gathered over the years. Small, sparkling timestamps of a life well-lived.
Time had moved absurdly fast, a decade gone in the blink of an eye. Birthdays, holidays, vacations, anniversaries, weddings… they marked each milestone with keepsakes, their love sealed in glass and glitter.
But this year was different. Special.
This was the year the Malfoys became three.
Soft arms slipped around his waist. He reached back without thinking and weaved their fingers together. Her squeeze was warm and grounding as she whispered, “Galleon for your thoughts?”
“Is it possible,” he murmured, “to feel nostalgia for a moment you’re still living?”
She huffed a quiet laugh against his back. “Maybe—but you’ve always been a yearner, darling. So for you? Probably.”
He pulled his wife into his arms, holding her against his chest. Eyes closed, he committed the feel of her to memory like he’d done a thousand times before: her heartbeat, her warmth, and the utterly perfect fit of her pressed against him.
Per usual, she was right. He’d spent so much of his life longing for love and softness, for a family that was his. Now he finally had it.
And somehow, impossibly, he already longed for these early days, even as he lived them.
He opened his eyes to find her gazing back, eyes full of mirrored devotion. She kissed him softly, then lifted a hand toward the newest ornament that marked another year together. The glass hummed beneath her spellwork, the charms she’d expertly placed whirring to life with her familiar magic.
A breath left him as the pensieve ornament began to play her favorite lullaby, the only one that calmed their little scorpion. A memory shimmered to life inside the sphere: Scorpius’s pillowed cheeks round with newborn softness, his lips twitching as he dreamed. The moment was quiet, golden… breathtaking.
Just as it had been when she’d placed their son in his arms for the very first time. She’d preserved this perfect memory for him.
Draco drew in a shaky breath, his eyes welling with emotion, certain of only one thing.
“This is everything,” he said. Then softer, reverent, “You gave me everything. I love you beyond measure, Hermione.”