"Aurora?!"

My vision was suddenly obscured as arms flung hard around me and bushy hair tickled my face.

"How did you- we thought-"

"You're here, you came." Harry had stepped into the hallway of Grimmauld Place, cutting off Hermione's frantic chatter.

I pulled away from her, turning to face Harry.

"Dobby..." I said weakly. "Dobby saved me."

Harry and the hallway seemed to tip at an odd angle and then came the darkness.

*****

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on a bed in a familiar bedroom.

"How are you feeling now?"

I looked up to see Hermione sat on the end of my bed, watching me carefully.

"Achey." I said groggily, my whole body feeling as though I'd been run over by a bus.

"Here, take this potion. It'll help." Hermione said, standing up and offering me a small bottle of liquid.

I took it without question, feeling an instant warmness flow through me as the pain subsided.

"From the state of you I can only assume you were tortured. Was it him?"

I nodded as I proceeded to tell her everything that had happened over the last few days, hardly being able to believe it wasn't longer.

"I can't believe I'm about to say this but Malfoy did the right thing," Harry said later as I brought him and Ron up to speed about it at the dinner table.

Ron's knife and fork clattered down on the floor.

"Blimey, Harry! I'd never thought I'd see the day!"

"We will get you back with your child, Aurora, even if it takes years, I promise you we will fight this fight until either Voldemort or I am dead in the ground."

"Let's go with the former, mate." Ron laughed nervously.

Apparently I was just in time to join them for a little trip to the Ministry, where we managed to get hold of a Horcrux - the locket. The slight problem being, we had no means of destroying it.

And to top it off, we couldn't go back to Grimmauld Place due to a complication during the Disapparition out of the Ministry, so instead we had to start camping in a forest.

The whole time my thoughts never left Malfoy Manor, wondering desperately how Nova and Draco were.

"I'm so scared she's going to forget me," I sobbed to Hermione one night when I was finding it particularly difficult, "but then I hate the thought of her missing me."

It was literally tearing my heart up into pieces.

"At least you know she's with Draco," Hermione soothed me, "surely that's got to give you some comfort?"

She was right, I was intensely glad that Nova had someone I knew she loved, and loved her just as deeply as I did.

Weeks went by without anything happening, and tensions were getting fraught in the tent as we continued to pass the locket from person to person.

And then one night, Ron kicked off.

"We thought you knew what you were doing!" He shouted at Harry, after a particular gruelling day when our food rations had run out.

"Ron, stop. He's doing his best." I said, desperately trying to calm him.

"Don't you fucking interfere!" Ron growled, his fierce eyes piercing mine. "What are you even doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be at my brother's, lying to the world that he's the father of your baby?!"

"Ron!" Hermione gasped.

"Take off the locket, Ron," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I knew it was the Horcrux's influence but I still didn't like him talking about Nova.

"But here you are gallivanting around on a camping trip whilst Fred is at home heartbroken and your daughter is being looked after by a fucking ferret!"

"Don't you dare talk about Draco like that!" I yelled, "you have no idea of what he has been going through!"

"Oh yeah, poor ickle Drakie who is soon going to be forced to have sex with a hot bitch. I bet he told you he won't enjoy it, that he'll be thinking of you the whole time? Well, that's a complete lie."

"I think you better step outside, mate." Harry said darkly, as Hermione gave me frightened, furtive glances.

I could feel my heart hammering horrifically in my chest. I kept telling myself over and over again it wasn't really Ron talking.

But his words were hurting me; forcing me to think about things I didn't want to imagine.

Draco in bed with Pansy.

Our daughter lying in a cot nearby.

I ran out the back of the tent and vomited behind a tree.

By the time I reentered, Ron had gone; Disapparated away, leaving the locket behind.

I couldn't even pretend I was disappointed.

*****

"The wedding has been moved forward."

The spoon Draco was using to feed his daughter paused halfway to her mouth. He barely noticed her frustratedly thrusting her head forward as she tried to get her mouth to the spoon, but to no avail.

"Mother, no! I thought he wanted us to finish school first?" Draco cried, fear causing his heart to beat uncomfortably fast against his ribcage.

Nova started wailing, grabbing at Draco's arm, angrily trying to get the spoon of food out of his hand.

"He's impatient for you to start a family." His mother sighed sadly, he wants it to happen in the Easter holidays and has arranged for you and Pansy to have a special marital suite for your final term in Hogwarts.

"This is nuts." Draco growled, resuming the feeding of his daughter, who scowled heavily at him for having made her wait.

It was Christmas and Draco had returned after his first term at Hogwarts. It filled him with joy to be reunited with his little girl, who had grown so much in his absence. At ten months old, she was now firmly on solids, crawling about everywhere and generally a lot more vocal.

It hurt Draco so much that Aurora was missing all of this. He thought about her all the time, wondering where she was and if she was okay. He longed to hold her again, to kiss her soft lips and smell her beautiful hair. He tried not to think about the possibility that that might never happen again; refused to believe it. He needed hope, needed it for himself and their daughter.

But now the wedding was being brought forwards, and we was expected to start a family with a woman he couldn't stand. He briefly wondered how he was going to prevent her from getting pregnant. Perhaps slip her a potion everyday?

He wondered if he would ever be able to look Aurora in the face again once he started having sex with Pansy.

He looked sadly at their little girl, who looked so much like his wife.

"I'm sorry, darling," he whispered to her, "I should have done more for Mummy."

*****

Ron returned to us after Christmas, grovelling and full of apologies.

"I'm sorry, Aurora," he said, shamefaced.

I couldn't be mad at him though; he had helped destroy the locket upon his return. We were one Horcrux closer to being reunited with my little girl. I'd now been apart from her for almost half her life, and it hurt every single day.

There were still so many more to go, and our trip to Godric's Hollow had left us with just more questions.

Harry had the idea of going to visit Luna's father.

"I just feel that he maybe able to shed some light on a few things." He simply said. None of us argued; all too exhausted and fed up of doing nothing.

Returning to Devon was strange. I could see my old house off in the distance as we traipsed across the land. Old house, old life. All those years we spent thinking Mum was dead. It broke my heart.

Voldemort had taken so much away from me. I couldn't bear it if he took anymore. I vowed to myself that one day I would go back to that house; with Nova and Draco and my mother.

It would happen.

But then everything went wrong again.

Xenophilius called the Death Eaters. Hermione manage to grab Harry and Ron and escape. However, I wasn't so fortunate.

But to my surprise, they didn't take me back to Malfoy Manor.

They took me back to Hogwarts.