Hermione was hiding behind an armchair in the Malfoys' drawing room, her lungs desperately pulling in air. She brought her knees up, keeping her feet out of sight. Holding in her breath now so she would not be heard, she peeked around the furniture.

Draco was standing still, narrowed silver eyes scouting for her.

She pushed herself back against the chair when he blinked in her direction. For a moment, she thought he had seen her, but she heard him turn, looking somewhere else. In the second it took Draco to look away, Hermione pushed herself back up to her feet, climbed on the chair, and then lunged.

"Give up," she said in his ear as they tumbled down. Her hands were on his back, pushing him onto the carpeted floor, keeping him in place. "It's over. You've lost."

Draco managed to free his right hand from under him; he reached behind, gripping her hip and startled her. It allowed him the opportunity to flip them over, her back now against the floor and his legs on each side of her.

"Malfoys never lose," he said against the crook of her neck, stealing the last bit of oxygen Hermione had left to power her lungs.

His eyes fluttered to her mouth when her lips parted. Hermione felt Draco lose his breath, too. It gave her enough time to bring her left knee in, loosening his straddle on the tops of her thighs. He tried to grab the right, but Hermione had been quick.

They fumbled a third time, bringing Hermione back to the top, her body pinning Draco down. "Wrong," she breathed. "Wrong, Draco Malfoy. The Light Side always wins."

He pulled himself up on his elbows, a smirk slowly coming to life. "Is that so?"

"You know so," Hermione told him confidently, but the edges of it started fraying when his nose was now touching hers. Again, her lips parted and his eyes were drawn to the action. This time, however, both of them were holding in their breath.

This time both started leaning in—

"Mine!" Something hit the side of Draco's head, forcing himself to look away from the gold glittering in Hermione's eyes.

Teddy Lupin was standing before them, grinning wide, just before he bent and retrieved the snitch from the floor.

"I was going to say the same thing—about the snitch, I mean," Draco cleared his throat, nudging to the winged ball in the boy's hands. Hermione rolled her eyes at him. "Well, it is mine."

"Like you need this snitch," Hermione told him with a scoff, pulling herself (if reluctantly) off from Draco's lap. "You didn't even know you had it until we went into your treehouse."

Draco could still feel the press of her body against his, her breath against his skin, but somehow he still managed to stand, too. There was an expression on his face that had no traces of the hunger and disappointment he had felt over their moment ending abruptly as it did. "Not the point, Granger."

"All right then, take the snitch from him."

"Of course not. It's Teddy's now. He caught it." Draco saw Hermione kicking him before it actually happened. Still, he laughed when the tip of her shoe collided with his calf. "He's going to make a good Seeker one day. Aren't you, kid?"

Teddy only grinned, releasing the snitch. His gray eyes tracked every slow movement the snitch made; Hermione had enchanted it, decreasing its speed and altitude so the little boy had a fair enough chance to physically catch it without getting on the death trap that was a toy broomstick (no matter how much Draco assured his was top of the line and very safe for toddlers). With Teddy as Seeker, Hermione and Draco filled in the other positions as they ran and hid throughout the bottom level of Malfoy Manor in their lousy rendition of a quidditch game.

"You sound just like Harry," said Hermione. As expected, Draco scowled at the comparison. "Well, you do. He bought Teddy a toy broomstick in the summer. Spent weeks chasing after him, explaining how quidditch is played as they watched Ginny train. Obviously Teddy didn't retain all of that, but Harry's convinced they can make a player out of him."

Draco watched as Teddy chased after the snitch again, climbing over the armchair Hermione had overturned when she lunged herself at Draco. For a moment, he did not say anything; he just followed the boy's movements throughout the drawing room. His loud, excited laughter seemed to repel the darkness that lingered behind the wallpaper of the walls surrounding them.

"You didn't have to agree, you know," he found himself whispering, turning back to Hermione. "Minding him here, in Malfoy Manor. You could've gone back to the Burrow, or...or asked me to join you two at a park, but instead you agreed to let him be here."

She wanted to tell Draco she was not entirely convinced she made the right choice—even after the three of them had breakfast out in the garden, rummaging through a forgotten treehouse, or meeting Mrs. Malfoy by the pond, Teddy on her hip as she showed him a peacock that had wandered over, Hermione and Draco in the background observing, or Beta chasing after them inside the manor, picking up stray toys, socks, or cushions as Hermione and Draco ran after Teddy before he found a small space to hide in.

Lucius Malfoy's absence spoke to a history Hermione could not entirely forget.

He might have escaped Azkaban with nothing more than two years of house arrest, he might have willingly cooperated with the Wizengamot in providing details of where fugitive Death Eaters could be, as well as names of those who did not bear the mark and still did Voldemort's bidding, but none of it erased what he had done. Even if he had fallen from Death Eater grace, Lucius Malfoy had still been one.

He was guilty—guilty of hating those not of pure blood.

Still, despite her own grudge against Mr. Malfoy, Hermione could not ignore what she had seen in Narcissa's eyes when she first saw Teddy, or how careful Draco had been when he bent down to meet Teddy's curious face. It was not up to Hermione to grant pardons in matters that did not wholly involve her, but if she could, even for a bit, give Narcissa and Draco glimpses of what awaits on the other side of forgiveness, then she would do so.

Because she believed Draco worthy of having it.

"You didn't have to invite me here either, but you did," Hermione said softly, reaching out to grab Draco's wrist. "If we're doing this the proper way, then...I want to be involved. I want you to be involved, too. I don't want to share a name but not our lives. More divides aren't what life after the war is supposed to be. It can't be. Not after everything we all lost."

Slowly, Draco twisted his wrist, his fingers sliding down to lace through hers. He looked down at it, at their hands clasped tight, and storm clouds appeared in the silver of his eyes. Before Hermione could decipher it, he said, "You'd take my name?"

Truthfully, she had not given the matter much thought. Hermione had been too preoccupied with the idea that the new Ministry of Magic had passed such an archaic law to begin with, by the time Draco Malfoy's name had been called, she could hardly think of anything else but how to survive as his future wife. Later, Hermione told herself that she would keep Granger despite forming a truce with Draco. Tolerating each other was not enough to strip her of her name. Yet, seeing him with Teddy, after speaking to Narcissa about her wishes for Draco, Hermione kept playing over what Headmistress McGonagall had said to her at the start of term.

You have a chance to make this impending marriage into something revolutionary, Miss Granger, but you are giving up before you break barriers.

Hermione wasn't giving up anymore.

"You've made mistakes, Draco," she whispered, lingering on the feel of his first name on her tongue, "some of which I can't forgive because they don't belong to me. But for the ones that do concern me, I forgive you for. I'll take the Malfoy name not because we're what the Ministry wants this new world to be, but because I believe you're good. And I want to build something true out of that."

The storm in Draco's eyes became hurricanes. Hermione regretted her words at the solemnity that took up space in the lines of his face, but then his free hand came to her hip, reeling her flush against his own body.

His mouth descended to meet hers, but as Hermione rose up on her toes to meet him halfway, the doors of the drawing room opened.

"I've come to take Teddy off your hands," said Mrs. Malfoy, only sparing a fleeting look at Draco and Hermione as they instantly tore away from each other at her sudden appearance. She grinned into Teddy's hair as she pulled him into her arms, masking indifference once she turned back to the other two. "Not that you were watching him to begin with."

Draco frowned. "We looked away for a minute, Mother."

"Darling, with children, that is like an hour of negligence," said Narcissa. "You will come to learn that when you two have your own."

Hermione watched horrified as Narcissa walked back in the direction she came from, telling Teddy about the chest of Draco's old toys she was now passing on to him. She had conveniently been pushing that idea out of her head, too.

If the slight tint of pink on Draco's cheeks was anything to go by, Hermione assumed he had done so as well. He, of course, might have known he was always going to have children—the curse of being a pureblood heir, right? He had to ensure the bloodline. Hermione, on the other hand, could consider herself nurturing—especially since she had spent a good chunk of her life caring for Harry and Ron—but that didn't mean she was sure she wanted to have kids. Whenever she envisioned her life, Hermione saw herself working for peace, for equality, for the world, but now that, too, had been taken from her.

Her choice had been taken from her.

"For the greater good, right?" Hermione looked up at Draco, unaware that her gaze had wandered away. He pressed on, "Having children. It's not really for us now, is it? It's for our world. To secure our magic."

Hermione struggled with her breath. How did he know what she had been thinking? Had she muttered her thoughts out loud without noticing, or was Draco Malfoy becoming attuned to her that he could read her without words being exchanged?

"If we're doing this, Hermione," he paused in the same way she had done when she said his first name, unsure and completely rattled by the taste of it, "if we're having children, I'm...I'm glad it'll be with you."

There was no mask of indifference stretched across his face. Draco was not trying to hide the sincerity behind what he had said, and it made her want to sit down so her knees would stop shaking at what it meant. Another part of Hermione wanted to lunge herself at him again, arms around his neck, mouth pressed against his. Before she settled on which course of action to take, the sound of apparition echoed throughout the drawing room.

"—You almost left my arm back there, you idiot!"

"—Oh, I'm the idiot?"

Again, Draco and Hermione added distance between each other, hiding evidence that they had shared an intimate moment, as Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson appeared at the center of the room.

"You're the one who didn't want to take the Floo Network, you cow!"

Pansy kicked Blaise on his kneecap, only to then drag her shoe down his leg, leaving a trail of wet grass on his trousers. He gasped, shoving her. "You said you knew how to Apparate! It took us three shots to get to Malfoy Manor. And don't call me a cow," she hissed. "You know it triggers me! I've lost those extra ten pounds."

"Ten?" scoffed Blaise, glaring up at the Slytherin witch as he frantically cleaned his trousers. "That's a lie—just like when you tell people that's your real nose!"

It was Pansy's turn to gasp, her hand flying up to her nose. "You promised you wouldn't tell!"

"I lied!" Blaise shouted back.

"Lovely, aren't they?" Draco said to Hermione just as Pansy flung another kick at Blaise. The latter, eager to protect his fine, expensive clothes, blocked her by jumping out of the way, but stumbled over the armchair Hermione had knocked over before their unexpected visit. "Are you sure you want to be involved, Hermione? Because this is mostly it."

Hermione let out a sigh, shaking her head at Blaise struggling to get back up as Pansy hovered over him, laughing hysterically. "Actually, this is typical Ron and Ginny. We're bringing the same things to this marriage.

There were a lot of things about Pansy's life she did not think were capable of being subjected to change: her status in pureblood society, her pride, the values of her blood, her parents' regard for her, her love for Draco Malfoy, and her hate for Hermione Granger.

All of that changed before and after Harry Potter had defeated the Dark Lord. Before the inevitable downfall, Pansy only had fragments of pride left when she came to learn that the Parkinson name had no real value to the Dark Lord. They cleaned up the mess other Death Eaters made, scrubbing floors clean of lesser or traitor blood, or they housed the other lowly demons, the ones Bellatrix Lestrange had released from Azkaban and the ones that were barely human at all, the ones like Fenrir Greyback. In that time of war, Pansy also learned whatever scraps of love her parents actually had for her were not strong enough to warrant protection, not when Pansy was a young, pureblood girl who could marry the right Death Eater that could help move the Parkinson family up the right ladder—if only Pansy knew how to honor the Dark Lord's cause the proper way. She learned the value of her body back then, too; when it was not worth anything, her beliefs were valued the same.

After the fall of the devil and his demons, Pansy was forced to let go of daydreams about blood status. She was forced to let go of Draco Malfoy, too. If her pride had not survived the war intact, how, then, could she expect Draco to come out whole? Especially when he had not been whole long before the war started, back before he had been threatened to murder Albus Dumbledore and bear the mark that ultimately destroyed his family. Contrary to the rumors that circled Hogwarts, Pansy was not his doormat. Was she a silly, fanciful girl who thought she could be the one to melt the ice around the Slytherin Prince's heart? Of course. Desperately, she wanted to be loved by him; she wanted the wedding, the children, the fortune—everything both had been groomed to be as pureblood heirs. But when Draco pulled himself away, no longer interested in seeking comfort from her, she let him go. Pansy could not beg to be loved by someone whose soul was just as tarnished as hers.

Also contrary to a popular belief based on petty House rivalries, Slytherins were capable of caring for each other. As such, Pansy wanted Draco to one day find a light at the end of the tunnel. In the beginning, she was not sure how that would look. He was too caught up in his mistakes, scratching at what was left of the Dark Mark like he wanted to pull it off of his skin, but he would hesitate to enter the courtrooms like he thought he deserved to stay in Azkaban. Even when the Wizengamot decided to grant him freedom, Pansy saw him grip the chains on his wrists, like he was daring the Auror not to release him. If she had a heart, it would have broken at what remained of the boy she had once adored. All she could do was wish he would see what Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had said under oath, Draco didn't have a choice. Voldemort forced him to do those terrible things. He didn't want to kill Dumbledore. He lowered his wand. He gave his wand to fight against Voldemort. He helped in the end. He was just a boy.

Before, it was not all warped pride and maliciousness that made Pansy dislike Hermione. The Gryffindor was annoying—even her own friends knew that, no matter how much they denied it. Of course, Pansy thought the same about Zabini, Davis, and the Greengrass sisters, but she still called them hers, protected them like they were the bones in her rib cage, so she could understand the loyalty Harry Potter and the Weasleys had for Hermione. Still, it did not make her any less aggravating, with her hand always shot up in the air, with her nose wrinkled at others for having a laugh in classroom settings she so worshiped, for taking the good table in the library for hours on end, and for being unbelievably talented when Pansy had eleven years more of magic experience than her. Even if Pansy had to change her mind on blood status, she never thought she would stop hating Hermione Granger for being the insufferable know-it-all she would always be.

Until she doused Draco Malfoy in her light, that is.

Maybe Pansy was wrapped up in her own evolving relationship with Ron Weasley to notice what Draco got up to. She knew, of course, that he was searching for a truce when the marriage law first passed because he needed Hermione on his side, but it was more than that now.

Once she had stopped fighting Blaise, Pansy saw it when they arrived at Malfoy Manor. Draco was tangled in thin, gold threads that emitted out of his betrothed.

It tethered him to Hermione in a way Pansy herself was tied to Ron.

Yet, where Pansy had known she deserved someone who saw her worth, someone who was not afraid, not disgusted by who she had been, Draco was trying to tug at the threads like he would be safer in the dark.

Maybe Draco knew Pansy could see that, too, because he kept avoiding her gaze.

"Wait. Wait," Hermione's voice cut across Pansy staring Draco down. "You actually sent Cho an engagement ring? Via owl?"

"Yes," said Blaise, furrowing brows at the Gryffindor like she had actually been daft all along and her title as the Brightest Witch of the Age was bestowed on lies. "It's was the perfect Christmas surprise."

Hermione laughed, her forehead coming in contact with Draco's shoulder. Pansy watched his face remain impassive, but his arm came around Hermione, his hand resting on the side of her waist.

"What's so funny?" demanded Blaise. "It was covered in diamonds. It's probably worth more than her entire house—no offense to Mrs. Chang, but a Ministry salary isn't exactly impressive."

Hermione laughed louder, her head tossing back to fill the drawing room with her sound. Pansy smirked not only because Draco failed to hide his grin, but because, for the first time, she thought Hermione Granger was completely capable of taking the piss out of someone instead of chastising or comforting them when they did something stupid.

"You're a complete twat," Pansy told Blaise when he still looked confused (and annoyed) at the Gryffindor. "That's what Granger is trying to tell you, but the immensity of your idiocy is currently rendering an incoherent mess."

"What do you—"

"You owled Chang an engagement ring, Blaise. Fuck sakes," Pansy smacked him upside the head. "What aren't you understanding? No one wants to be asked to marry someone through the post. Even if technically you two are already betrothed, your little surprise actually told Chang you think of her as a homework assignment."

"Good luck getting the Ravenclaw to talk to you after that."