Parents!Dramione
Hermione was born to be a mother. She spent seven years of her young life being a surrogate mother to a boy who was just as alone in the magical world as she was, and somehow she managed to get him through it alive. She planned and protected and made lists and defended and attacked. Everyone lived. When suddenly, the need to protect and care for was gone, she couldn’t help but feel the void.
But she was a woman of many passions, and she was loath to throw herself at men just to get married and have children. She resolved to wait, to work and pursue her goals and hope beyond all else that the world had something wonderful in store for her. She had grown up with nurturing, kind, in-love parents, and she wanted to create that for her future children, her future family.
Draco Malfoy believes he ruins everything he touches. In his more cynical moments, he’d cite a blackened plant or a forgotten pet ant. At the bottom of a bottle, or at the end of the night, he’d conjure terrible memories of tortured classmates, broken cabinets, maniacs unleashed on his school.
And though he loves his mother and father beyond all else, he also views that as a flaw. How can he love the man who manipulated him, showed him little love in return, led his mother into a cult of murderers? But he does, and he’s given up trying to stop. He loves his mother because she is the person who taught him how to love, to worry for others, to protect your own. Narcissa Malfoy taught him sacrifice, the pain of loving those who don’t deserve your heart, and the danger of devotion.
Draco Malfoy has allowed himself to hope for a wife, to find a woman willing to accept and love with his flaws and to allow him to live in the future. Who knows his past and still looks upon the different person he has become without judgement. But he has never, ever desired or dreamed of having children. He’s convinced of his own darkness, so much that he’s too terrified to even imagine the possibility of progeny. Of continuing his bloodline. And maybe the Malfoys shouldn’t be allowed to continue, he thinks.
When he meets Hermione again, at work of course, she never even gives him a chance to defend himself.
“I just want you to know, Malfoy, that I forgave you years ago. We were children. And I truly don’t know you. So, can we be friends? Coworkers?” The way her voice goes timid, quiet at the end, doubting his response, breaks his heart a little.
He stutters an “of course”, eyes looking anywhere but her face, hands clenched in confusion. He feels a bit cheated, like his apology should have come first. But he also feels like a burden has been lifted—she didn’t need anything from him to come to forgiveness. He’s more confused than anything. He can’t fathom that type of kindness. He’s fascinated. And utterly screwed, he soon finds out.
He eventually breaks and asks her to dinner, and is met with a smirk that he knows so well it terrifies him. When did Hermione Granger become so...confident? Powerful? Crazy? He’s not sure what to do with her, but he also can’t look away.
They go on a date, and then another, and then a weekend away, and the rest is history. Then, as their one year anniversary approaches, he notices something strange. She’s started to fidget, to stare at him too long, to watch him when she thinks he isn’t looking.
At dinner, she reveals her dilemma, laid out in such a rational, organized way that it could only come from Hermione Granger.
“Draco, I love you. You-you know that. Of course you do,” she mutters, chastising herself and taking a deep breath, “I love you. And we’ve been talking about getting married. I’d love nothing more in the world than to be your wife. But there is something we need to talk about before we—before we go any further.” She ends, resolute and confident. Shockingly, he’s never been more relaxed. He will give her anything and everything, so long as she stops looking at him the way she is now. Afraid. Uncertain.
Another deep breath, and then a deep dive. “I’ve always wanted children. Always. And I just want to—“ she hesitates, as though looking for the right word, and then proceeds carefully, “discuss this now.” Her eyes are so wide, so bright, he’s almost stunted from the frozen, numb stance he reverted to upon heard the word “children”.
He can hear his heart beating behind his forehead, can feel the tips of his toes clenching and unclenching voluntarily. To respond, or not to respond. How inappropriate would it be to get up and run away? Would apparition be possible?
He feels a hand, warm and gentle, against his own. He looks up, or really out, to see her, gazing at him with sympathy. With forgiveness. But also with determination.
“Please, Draco. Just tell me what you’re thinking. Please just don’t shut down on me.” His chest clenches at the plea that hangs from every one of her syllables.
So they talk. In the middle of a crowded restaurant, he recounts a distant, manipulative, often times cruel father. He explains lessons on detachment and dominance. He tells about a mother who tried to teach him another way. He explains the burden of guilt, the fear of darkness within him that he can’t control.
She listens. She doesn’t cry, even though she wants to. She doesn’t tell him it’s not true, because that’s not the truth to him. She just listens, and to him it’s not just forgiveness. He already has that—if not from himself, than at least from her. It’s healing.
“And I’m too afraid to even think about having kids. I love you, Granger, I’m sure of it. But I don’t know if I can do this with you. I don’t know if I can give you the family you deserve.”
He says these words, and even as they leave his mouth and grace her ears and change her face he wonders if they will always be true. He knows they are true right now, but something about her and him and them together makes him believe it could someday be different.
She smiles, a bit of a sad smile, nodding, her head dropping on his shoulders and her fingers tapping a secret melody on his back. She whispers something, and his heart finally beats again, and he realizes he’s been holding his breath this whole time.
“I can wait. Or I can change. We can change and grow and decide together. I just know I want to do it all with you.”
And maybe they never have children. Maybe they are simply doting aunts and uncles who spoil the children of their friends. Maybe they adopt. But whatever they do, they do independently of their past. Together, they resolve to move forward and give themselves a chance at something pure, unburdened, and beautifully unexpected.
