Let No Man Steal Your Thyme - Older Dramione
This feels very much like a Part One, and if you’d like more please let me know! (if anyone even sees this!).
Draco, eight months after becoming a widower, nearly loses his son too in a vicious attack at Malfoy Manor. In the aftermath, while he’s being questioned by the aurors, there’s no one to look after little Scorpius, who just won’t stop howling. In desperation, and remembering how good Hermione had been with his kids, Harry brings the baby up to her office. In the end, the only thing that will calm the child is the soft hum of Hermione’s voice as she sings to him. Of course, that would be how Draco Malfoy finds her, wouldn’t t it? And then, eleven years later, Hermione meets him again…
(Warnings for past Ron/Hermione, and implied infertility. No explicit Ron-bashing, but it’s implied that their relationship couldn’t take the strain and he looked elsewhere. I may develop it later, but it won’t be a Ron-bashing fic. They’re just ultimately incompatible in this universe).
“Hermione…” Harry’s voice cut through her thoughts as she stared at the paperwork in front of her.
“What? What’s wrong?” she asked, jerking to her feet behind her enormous desk, eyes wide at the sight of Harry’s face. He was ashen, and it took a lot to shake Auror Potter these days. “Is it Ginny? James? Albus? Merlin, Harry, what’s happened?”
“They’re fine,” he said heavily and with a strangely detached intonation. “It’s… It’s Malfoy.”
That drew her up short. “Draco?” she frowned, wondering why he’d be so concerned about his former schoolboy nemesis. They hadn’t seen him in years. No one had. “What about him?”
“He… There was an attack.”
Her world tilted strangely. He’d always been there in the background, though the last time she’d seen him had been years ago at Theo’s wedding. He’d looked so good then, and happy too, with Astoria smiling at his side. She seemed to have softened his sharp edges, though the two had merely nodded when their eyes met across the room while Theo kissed his husband silly in the middle of the dance floor. That had been a good night, but that had been years ago.
“Harry, what happened? Is… Is he alright?”
“I’m not really here about Draco…. It’s about his son, Scorpius.”
Harry stepped into her office and closed the door. With his status as Head Auror, he was the only one who could barge in on the head of the DMLE like this, and she welcomed it. “As I understand it, he left Scorpius in the care of his nanny for the afternoon so that he could go to Gringotts and sort out some business there, and while he was gone… the nanny and Scorpius were attacked. The nanny… she died protecting him. We’ve managed to keep it from the press at the moment.”
“Harry, where’s Draco now?” She scowled, coming around to the side of the desk. “I should have been informed, this is my department, Harry…”
“Questioned? By whom? Why? Harry —”
“We need to know all we can about it. There were Dark Arts involved, Hermione. Some really nasty curses. This is Auror stuff for now. If it becomes your department, you can handle it personally if you like but…”
He sucked in a breath and suddenly looked much older than he was. She was viscerally reminded of Remus Lupin for a heartbeat.
“Mione, I haven’t got anywhere I can leave Scorpius, and he hasn’t stopped screaming since he got here. You… You were always so good with my lot… is… is there any chance I can leave him with you. I know he’ll be safe here…”
She blinked. “Harry, I —” What was she about to say? That she didn’t have time? That she didn’t have time to take care of a frightened child? What could be more important than that? The stacks of parchments and fluttering memos orbiting her desk would say otherwise, but she was head of the department, dammit. Someone else could handle that. “Of course.”
Harry’s shoulders went slack and he exhaled. “I’ll bring him up.” And with that, he was gone.
She heard Scorpius long before she saw him, howling like a mandrake.