"She stood before him like some miracle.

And he couldn't help but pray to that god

he never believed in —

If miracles could exist,

Let it be this.

Let it be this."

— B. L. Cortez

Click.

Scorpius and Hermione looked up at the sound of a camera shutter only to be met with the face of Draco Malfoy, eyes narrowed and cursing as he fumbled with his muggle cellphone.

"Everything alright?"

"There's something wrong with this ridiculous muggle contraption," Draco grumbled, pulling the flip phone close to his face and jabbing the keys with his pointer finger a touch too violently.

Hermione shared a look with Scorpius before scooting closer to Draco and peering over his shoulder.

"Is that — " Hermione broke off with a bark of laughter and snatched the phone from his hands. On the screen was a blurry picture of her and Scorpius. She deftly flipped through the phone finding more blurry pictures of Scorpius' face up close and her bushy hair in the corner. There was even a shaky video of her and Scorpius playing accompanied by a voice cursing in the background followed by the camera turning around to show Draco's suspicious face glaring into the lens.

"Have you been practicing your photography skills?" she teased. Draco scowled at her.

"It was an accident. The stupid device has a mind of it's own, Granger," he muttered. "I reckon it's cursed."

"Right. And this cursed device just happened to make its wallpaper a blurry picture of me and Scorpius," she said, grinning despite his icy glare.

"Like I said," he gritted out, "this thing has a mind of its own."

"Well you wouldn't mind then if I remove the wallpaper?"

Before she could even move her finger, the phone was snatched out of her hand. She looked at him, gaping. "I won't have you tamper with it, Granger — it might worsen the contraption even more. It's already gone temperamental and doesn't need you playing around with it," he sniffed.

"Fine," she chuckled. Feeling an impulsive rush, she leaned forward and kissed the corner of his lips. She smiled to herself as she left the room with Scorpius to get a snack, Draco's still scowling face and warm flush on his cheeks seared into her mind.

***

Hermione coughed into the sleeve of her cloak as the smoke caught in her lungs. It felt like she was inhaling crushed glass. She kept her wand raised, navigating through the crossfire of spells. They knew it wasn't going to be an easy rescue mission. It was one of their riskiest attempts trying to save thirty Order members. But they had no choice — they were down on too many people.

"Where's Dean's group?" Hermione asked an exhausted looking Parvati as they stood shoulder to shoulder, using a stone wall for coverage.

"They should be heading into the prison now." Both witches shot out spells as the chaos of the battle rang out. Hermione hissed when an acid hex grazed her shoulder. She wordlessly waved away Parvati's concerned gaze, assuring her that it wasn't as bad as it looked.

"If he doesn't send out the signal to call on the houselves in ten minutes, we need to get out. We can't hold the Death Eaters off. Find a way to spread the message." Parvati sharply nodded and they split.

As Hermione fought, she caught a flash of red hair. Ginny. Hermione's lips straightened into a grim line. At least Parvati and the rest of the Gryffindors were civil with her, but Ginny had ignored her since the incident with the Slytherins. She even snubbed her on the mission even if they were both team leads.

Hermione jumped back from a purple spell coming her way, not realizing it in her distraction. Just in time, a shield blocked off another spell headed her way.

"Distracted?" Draco grunted just before dropping the spell and harshly slashing his wand downwards, sending a deep cut through the Death Eater.

Briefly, Draco quickly assessed her, his eyes zeroing on the acid burn on her bicep. He blinked when she erected a shield in front of him. "Distracted?" she lifted a brow.

He muttered something under his breath before waving his wand quickly to bind her shoulder. She nodded in thanks before they were forced back to back as Death Eaters surrounded them. She could tell they were new recruits by the lack of force in their spells. Spells were about intention. Even with perfect wand work and enunciation, it was intent that determined the force and nature of the spell. Every spell had a signature and an underlying force that stemmed from the intent to create, to heal. But also to hurt, to maim. To kill.

"We can't hold them off," Draco shot spell after spell, curses of dark magic that even Hermione had difficulty recognising.

"I gave Dean ten minutes." Hermione let her instincts take over, letting her magic entwine with Draco's as they wove around each other in tandem, taking each Death Eater down. His magic fuelled hers, their spells dancing together like darkness and starlight, shadows and flame.

"Now!" Draco growled. Hermione ducked as Draco spun and blue fire roared from the tip of his wand, burning their attackers in his path as she shielded his back.

"The signal!" A golden phoenix illuminated the dark sky. Hermione sighed in relief. "They got the prisoners out."

Hermione let herself relax into the arm that wound around her as they apparated away.

***

Draco hissed.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I didn't even dab it that hard."

Draco glared at her pointedly, raising a brow.

"Ok maybe a little," she conceded, "but I need to make sure it's clean. If you weren't so sensitive..." She bent down again to continue cleaning his chest wounds from where he sat on the infirmary cot. She was grateful for some privacy with the closed off curtains and continued disinfecting his wounds. Hermione tried to leash her curiosity, controlling her gaze to stay focused instead of roaming his naked torso marred with silver scars.

"Some healer you are, Granger," he muttered under his breath. He watched her distractedly from underneath pale lashes as she peered closer at the gash on his pectoral. She hummed in response before closing up the last wound with a stitch.

"I'm sure you'll feel better," she blinked up at him and straightened. Perhaps it was the proximity, the adrenaline rushing through her, but she boldly settled herself on his lap. She blushed as she adjusted herself then stopped when firm arms gripped her hips, halting her movement.

She looked up at him. Under the warm lamp light, his hair was a pale gold like the soft early dawn. His face up close held a quiet tenderness to it as he wordlessly watched her back. Draco dipped his head closer. The thumb on her hip rubbed circles into her skin and she felt him relax and lean into her as if pulled by an invisible string.

"You look like your mother." The words were out of her mouth before she realized it. She almost panicked when he flinched but he continued to hold her tightly.

"Thank you," he finally responded. "I usually get comments that I look like my father." Draco had a far away look, brows pinched as if he was struggling with an internal war. Hermione waited patiently.

"Lucius in his earlier years wasn't a terrible father. My mother on the other hand was quite the rebel," his lips quirked into a fond smile "She would do things like let me run barefoot with her in the halls, have her hair undone and wild. We jumped in the fountain once. My father tried to be strict but he knew what we were up to and pretended not to notice. But as I got older he became more... serious. He loved my mother but more pressure fell upon him. It was also more difficult for my mother to persuade him to relax his rules, but she also knew the pressure. Perhaps that's why growing up she took the liberty to break the rules a little when she could."

"She sounds like a wonderful mother," Hermione placed her hand on his cheek. He finally looked at her. She thought she felt him leaning into her touch. "And I can see her in you, and in the way you raise Scorpius," she said quietly, unsure if she was intruding too much. It was so fragile this thing between them, still some hesitancy. But there was no hesitancy in the way he crashed his lips into hers. His lips were sure and demanding. Her mouth parted for him. His tongue was searching, exploring, tasting — as if he could not get enough.

"Hello!"

Hermione gasped and pulled away, her head snapping to Luna entering through the curtains and blinking at them with her large, thick-rimmed glasses. Hermione turned in Draco's lap to face the witch and tried to get up, but large hands kept her in place.

Draco hissed in her ear. "Give me a second," he said in a rough voice, only for her to hear.

Hermione's cheeks burned. "Uhm, hi, Luna."

Bug-eyed and bewildered, Luna twirled her bottle cap necklace and cocked her head at them. "Quite the strong fertile energy in here," Draco coughed. "Sexual energy looks good on you Hermione. Brings out your eyes."

Hermione shifted, embarrassed, but Draco's hands tightened around her hips almost bruisingly to keep her still.

"Thank you, Luna," Hermione tried to say levelly, but it came out more like a squeak. She felt like she was burning inside out. It took all her self control to stay still on Draco's lap.

"I was just going to check on you, but it looks like you're both quite rejuvenated. I'll leave now."

Without waiting for their joint choked farewell, Luna left. Hermione sagged in relief, biting her lip. Even in the middle of a war and barely coming out alive out of a mission, she had the strong urge to laugh. And she did.

Seconds later, Draco's arms wrap around her stomach. His head fell on her shoulder and she knew she wasn't imagining his smile against her skin.

***

Over the days that passed, Draco Malfoy began to suspect that his own son, Scorpius Malfoy, was out to sabotage him.

Draco and Hermione had managed to keep any intimate moments between themselves — in stolen kisses when Scorpius was playing, his lips on her shoulder the moment they got home from missions, and his hand entwining with hers underneath the Order meeting table when Ginny shot her hard looks across the room. Something had awakened in him, making him feel uncontrolled by an ache, a feverish desire for her — something he had long denied himself. And when she rambled when she got frustrated by another dead end to her research, he found that his favorite way to shut her up was to snog her senseless until she was breathless and spoke incoherently about snakes and Roslind's theory of alchemical deconstruction. Ever since Draco had had a taste of her, he memorized her every reaction. He committed to memory the sound of her gasp escaping her swollen lips when he brushed his mouth on that spot beneath her ear. And every day, as the weather continued to keep up the heat, he cursed Hermione Granger and her muggle jean shorts that threatened years of pureblood etiquette and breeding.

All these moments, he thought, eluded the little boy. But he began to notice that when he tried to spend more time with Hermione, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy employed every weapon in his arsenal to steal Hermione's attention away from his own father.

Just the other night when Draco approached her and Scorpius sketching on the kitchen table, the boy coincidentally stubbed his finger on the table, wailing in pain until Hermione picked him up. Hermione consoled him and his tearless sobs turned into sniffles. With her back to him and Scorpius' head on her shoulder Draco swore he saw the little tyke smirk with a triumphant gleam in his eyes as he held onto the witch tighter. This had gone on whenever Draco got the witch's attention — Scorpius would get a little "owie" or want to show her something. Draco had even made a comment that the boy was being quite sensitive lately, but Hermione simply responded that it must run in the Malfoy family since she remembered another pale headed boy pouting over a little scrape from a hippogriff. Draco merely huffed.

Even now, she still remained oblivious to the ongoing sabotage attempts from his son. Luckily, Scorpius was down for a nap and he finally had her to himself in the library. In comfortable silence, they flipped through more and more reports and books based on the samples they had gathered from the forest. Yet, Draco's gaze couldn't help but linger on the pale blue bruise marked on her neck. He swallowed as a recent memory flooded forward.

"What did Mclaggen want?"

Hermione raised a single brow as she walked out of the meeting room, just moments after Mclaggen had with an obnoxious smile on his face. It was just after sunset, the hallway empty and cast in lazy shadows. The voices of Order members from below were subdued.

"Just wanted to see how I was doing — he heard from Parvati I got injured during the last group mission," she said with an amused look as she approached him. "Why, Malfoy? Jealous?"

Draco blinked slowly, looking down at her with heavy lidded eyes. "Yes."

His response seemed to stun her as evident in the way she blinked rapidly back at him.

"Well," she said after a moment, boldly walking up to him and placing her hands on his chest, "like I told Mclaggen multiple times in between his stories about himself, I'm not interested in him." She lifted her chin and cocked her head. Draco's hands unfurled from where they were crossed, automatically grabbing her hips and pulling her flush against him.

He made himself stay still, keeping his features controlled even as she ducked her head and leaned forward. His fingers dug into her flesh the moment he felt her warm breath on his neck. A desperate, foreign hunger burned inside of him.

"Besides, I'm not an object to be fought over by you or McLaggen, Draco," she whispered against his neck, a slight bite in her words and a hint of amusement.

He chuckled. His hand cupped her chin firmly and turned her head upwards to meet his eyes. "I'm not jealous out of some male possessiveness. You are not an object to be owned by anyone," he searched her eyes. "I'm jealous that he can walk up to you in front of all these people without being met by angry glares. I'm jealous that you can be free to be seen with him without being tainted by the image of an ex-Death Eater. If he were to do this," he pressed his lips to her cheek, "this," - the other cheek - "this," - her nose - "and this," finally, her lips, "he wouldn't be stupefied and you wouldn't have whispers following you around nor your friends ignoring you because of your association with him."

"Draco..." He shuddered, committing the sound of his name on her lips to memory. She called out his name as if it belonged to her, and her alone. He bottled the sound as if it were the last time he would hear it.

Draco cut her off her train of thought with a kiss.

She pulled back and watched him a moment longer before pressing her lips to his and taking control of the kiss. He suppressed a groan when she pressed her body against his and took what she wanted from him as if he would not give it already. It terrified him how much he couldn't help himself. But no matter how much we wanted to go further, no matter how much his blood burned every time he touched her, his occlumency walls rattled when things got too fast — a sick feeling spreading. He couldn't, he couldn't — not yet. There were some wounds that had not healed and he was not yet ready, no matter how much he wanted to be.

"Draco?" Draco was brought out of his reverie by her voice. "Are you alright? You look a little peaky."

Hermione's brows furrowed as she assessed him from across the room, half buried in books and parchment.

"I'm fine — just a little tired," he responded, clearing his throat.

"Same," she sighed, rubbing her temple. "There's no information at all on the creatures that live in the Cistrine forest. I mean it's known for being undiscovered — it's home to the oldest fairy colonies for instance and magical creatures that not many wizards have even heard of. Every account from textbook passages to journal entries holds varying accounts. The forest has natural wards, many of which are used to repel strangers and when we were there, nothing seemed out of the ordinary," she sighed.

It wasn't often that books failed Hermione. Even though not all of the texts were useful or factual, they often left breadcrumbs of information to find. She would follow the traces left, unraveling the web of information and ideas built on top of and against each other. But lately it had all led to dead ends. She had not found even a single mention about how magical snakes related to souls.

"It's killing me not making progress." Hermione looked up when a shadow loomed over her. A slender hand offered itself to her. She looked at Draco's face — a flicker of conflict and hesitancy in them hidden by a stony mask that she was used to seeing. He was always like this when he initiated something — so unsure. She took his hand, letting him help her up.

"I miss exams, lessons, homework, and — and Hogwarts," she mumbled, letting herself sink into his warmth. She inhaled his scent deeply and it settled her nerves. "You know what they say: you never know how valuable something is until it's gone."

His hands paused from idly stroking her hair. "Yes, but I think what's worse is already knowing the value of something, knowing what is right infront you while simultaneously knowing that it will be gone — that there is nothing you can do. And every day you're waiting for it to be taken from you." His voice had a hollow quality to it and a detached kind of coldness.

A heavy weight settled in her stomach as his words rang in her ears. She wondered if he was speaking of the present or the past, if he was talking about now and whatever they had or perhaps someone else of a different time. She tried to ignore the fact that he always stopped them before things went too far. When she would let her fingers trail down his chest he would stop her wandering hands. Or when she pressed herself against him, feeling his reaction against her thigh and he would go rigid and pull away. At first she thought that perhaps he didn't want her in that way. But, she saw the conflicted look in his eyes, the way his face shuttered the same way it did when he woke from a nightmare — the look of someone haunted by his past. She couldn't stop the dark voice in the back of her mind telling her that perhaps he wasn't over his dead wife.

***

"Hi."

Hermione stopped dead in her tracks, halfway out the front door of the safehouse having felt a presence on the perimeter through the wards. She stood there, unable to breath at the sight of shaggy hair, freckles, and clear blue eyes.

Ronald Weasley.

"What are you doing here?" Her voice cracked, as did something in her chest at the sight of her best friend. Her best friend, with whom she laughed with, grew up with. Her best friend who abandoned her. Left her.

"Mione... "

Her heart clenched.

"I said: what the fuck are you doing here?" she seethed. She had heard nothing from him over the years. His parting words about how she had given up on Harry and the accusations he had hurled at had haunted her again and again in every nightmare she had since he left.

"I'm back — "