"What... are you... doing here?" the world's savior asked him through grit teeth.
 
Crossing his arms, Draco rolled his eyes at how slow they could be. "I live here," he replied, simply. "With my wife and my daughter. You've just met one, you're looking for the other. Does that clear things up?" he replied, becoming irritated.

"Yeah well, that's what happens when you disappear from people's lives. They don't remember to keep you up on the meaningful parts," Malfoy responded, frowning as he crossed his arms over his chest, staring out at them with accusing eyes. "I don't know why they sent you, you hardly know her."
 
"We know Hermione! She's our best friend," Harry shouted, his arms flailing emphatically. He didn't like just how much it hit home; there were a lot of things he didn't know.

"Wait, what was that?" she called out to him, confused but smiling. 
"Me taking a chance," he called back, waving his hand to her. 
"Well wait," she said, hurrying forward but not crossing the road. "What if... Where do you want the chance to lead?" she asked, tipping her head.
 Standing on the corner across from her, he stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet, quirking his head to the side in thought. "Have dinner with me," he called over to her...

“Thank you,” she whispered shakily.
“For what?” he asked, his arms settling around her waist and holding her close.
“You always do this, Draco, you always make it all seem so...” She shook her head. “You make me feel better no matter what the circumstance and it's a lot to ask when you have enough on your plate. But you... you just, you go out of your way and you really like to, don't you.”
He half smiled, shrugging lightly. “'Course I do. How often do I do anything I don't like to?”

He watched all five of Rowena's years pass by on papers, as Malfoy and Hermione grew into the adults they were now. He watches as two parents raised a daughter, tow people enjoyed a life with their friends, two lovers grew together. He witnessed through pictures as they changed into different people, met new friends, experienced the world. ... Anniverseries of husband and wife, family vacations, and milestones of their lives passed his eyes.

“You realize you have work in fifteen minutes, right?” she asked. ...
 
He nodded absently, still out of his mind with questions about what he had to do. Work... work... work. Something was nearly clicking. And just when he thought he had it, she tucked in his shirt. Her hands smoothed the shirt down and he felt them gliding across his sides and making him gulp as his eyes fell shut. “Easily distracted, that's what you are,” he thought, “Bird puts her hands down your pants and you go completely blank.”

Downing the last of his tea, he shrugged his shoulders and glancing up at the two men listening intently. “Our relationship was hidden from most people for safety and... other reasons. So we don't get to go out in public very often, or show off our daughter to the world... even though I've tried talking Hermione into it more times than I could count,” he said, chortling a moment before becoming very sober. “But that was just how it was. It has its problems and not everything is perfect. But I like my life and I know Hermione does too.”

His hands lifted, resting on her hips without him having to tell them to move. The contrast between her supple skin and the rough material of her skirt was telling. It reminded him of their relationship. The business end of things, the secrecy and hidden parts of themselves that nobody but each other knew was the rough material, but the deep meaning, the thick emotions that clenched them to each other, that was the smooth feel of her skin.

“You're just looking it in the view of two boys who don't know him. You want to think that Draco did this to her, that he had something to do with her disappearance. It's an easy out then, isn't it? ... It would prove a few things. Perhaps that her marriage was bad and so she didn't want you to know about it, because it would only fan the fire of her being inadequate. Or maybe you'd rather think that he did it simply because you could continue in your beliefs that he never changed and you were right to think it was wrong for them to be together..."

And then, his heart leapt. While it did a wild somersault, things all clicked into place. All her questions, her worries, the similarities between her and Marley that had her upset. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions, maybe she just loved the idea of having a baby. But there was something in his head, something expansive and beautiful. And he felt a burst of hope and excitement swell in his chest. Was it true? Could she be? Were they going to be parents? He wanted to ask her, wanted to shout the question with a loud, boisterous, hopeful voice.

Rowena had looked a little startled when he woke her up, even going so far as to cry and touch his face with concern. She kept asking him if he was okay, or if she needed to make him soup and put him to bed. He even saw her fetch her favorite blanket earlier, and watched sadly as she tried to put it across his legs while he sat at the table eating his dry porridge. She patted his leg after and left him with a hopeful smile and a reassuring kiss on the cheek, which she had to climb up him to do. She was a little Healer in the making, certainly her mother's daughter.

“Because from what I know, you've been a wavering existence in her life for quite some time now. ... There are some of us who know her far better than you. You know Hermione Granger, remember that. Because she's Hermione Malfoy now, and while she's still a lot like how she used to be, there are parts of her life that she never shared with you, and for good reason.

He could see the tiredness around her eyes, and checked his watch to see what time it was. She caught his gaze and distracted him by kissing him thoroughly. While she had managed to deter his attention for a time, he soon had it returned to him when she couldn't help but yawn. He laughed understandingly, but she frowned at him, exhaling heavily. “I picked the wrong career.” ... “I'm always tired, I work late hours, and by the time I get home, I'm too sleepy to properly seduce you!"

Draco's dreams were littered with memories of her. Old and new, from when he was just an ignorant boy to when he was a doting husband. They tore at his mind, pulling him farther into his intoxicating depression, and all the same gave him that little bit of her that he needed. That small sound of her voice, that ring of her cheerful laughter, that peer into her soul. It hurt and yet all the same, it was pure bliss.

Draco watched his wife make her way back to him, her head turned so she could keep an eye on Winnie. Her hand slipped into his pant pocket and deposited Winnie's new favorite rock, she'd have another in an hour or so, but she wouldn't be very happy with them if she realized they had tossed the one she'd just found. She had a large box sitting in her closet, filled with all the “pretty” rocks she found down at the creek and around the property. Draco couldn't see a difference in most of them, but he didn't mind her odd collection, as long as she was happy.

Hermione Granger, or Malfoy, or whatever her last name was, would always be one of the best friends he had ever had in his life. He had made mistakes, he had let them grow apart, but he was willing to work on that every single day if she came back alive and agreeable. ... He wanted answers, he wanted his friend, and he wanted to be apart of her life again. There was no stopping him, there was no getting in his way. He was Harry sodding Potter and he was bloody pissed that anybody thought he would just let Hermione's disappearance roll off his back.

Winnie closed her eyes tight and pretended to snore, just so her mum would think she really was waking her up and hadn't done it by accident with her mumbling or kicking the dresser with her foot. She heard her mum sigh though, and knew she hadn't convinced her. Peeking out from her tightly shut eyes, she looked up at her mum's smiling face and broke out in a grin of her own.