Chapter Text
After
0 Years, 0 Months, 0 Weeks, 2 Days, 16 Hours
For the 4 years, 5 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, and 19 hours he had after Hermione’s diagnosis, Draco assumed her death would feel like breaking a limb. He expected a torturous combination of denial and numbness before his agony would become incapacitating.
All he had was the pain.
He had experience with the conflicting sensations associated with trauma, so he thought he knew what to expect. He prepared himself for Hermione's death by comparing it to the arm he shattered when he was 7.
40 years ago, Draco wobbled atop a branch too thin to be safe. Too confident a boy to know the danger, he chose fantasy over safety. His imagination proved more powerful than his mother’s warnings about how dangerous his favourite tree was.
Poised above the world, he daydreamed about wild or otherworldly places. Some days he saw himself as a dragon, curled around his valuables to protect what was rightfully his. Other times he was a knight, travelling across the land to be the hero for someone who needed rescuing.
He didn't yet realise that most knights went places to save a princess. The girls he knew weren’t worthy of his rescue attempts, so he always envisioned a nameless, shapeless person who needed him to do the impossible.
The person in his imagination begged for his help, and Draco valiantly reached out to save the figure. He put all of his strength into protecting this other person, and then he lost his balance.
There was a wonderful moment of free-falling through the air right before he landed in the mud below. Still stuck in his childhood fantasy, he thought it was another step in his hero’s journey. He didn’t realise the extent of his troubles, even as he sat with dirt and leaves and branches covering his face along with an arm that refused to bend.
His underdeveloped brain looked at his arm, bones sticking out in strange places, and felt nothing. He was smart enough to know that seeing your own bone was never a good thing, but there was no pain.
His pompous upbringing told him he was too good to feel pain. A Malfoy was above feeling the pain of a broken bone like a commoner. His father had clearly explained how he was better than other children. Lucius Malfoy had raised his son to excel above the rest and held him to higher standards than most to ensure his excellence.
Everything came to Draco in slow-motion as his eyes struggled to piece together all of what happened. Too young to understand what was happening, he didn’t know the pain was waiting to creep up and incapacitate him. He should have made himself enjoy the pleasurable adrenaline that swam through his brain to protect him from the pain. Every single part of his body, his brain, worked overtime to make him feel as little as possible.
Then, suddenly, agony.
Like trying to maintain his balance atop a tree, Draco’s grief felt like a game of acrobatics. He wobbled across a tightrope of suffering and enduring. He juggled everyone’s expectations of his sadness and the feelings that he was desperate to release.
Everyone expected him to be sad enough to prove how much he loved her, but not too sad that it made people confront their own mortality. That day, at her funeral, everyone expected him to have a tear slip down his cheek, but any more than that would have been excessive. Any less meant he was heartless. It was a balancing act and he wished he could stop performing
How did his life turn into this? Maybe Hermione was his punishment for his awfulness. He was an awful child, an awful teenager, an awful adult. Maybe everything he had suffered through was the ultimate recompense for his sins. Maybe everything stemmed back to the fucking mark on his left arm, or the slurs that used to fall from his mouth.
For whatever reason, the world had dropped him in the middle of the ocean. He had no life raft and no way to save himself. Hermione clamped her hand on his ankle and pulled him under the current with wave after wave of despair. Drowning would have been preferable to his torture; in that case, he’d know there would be an end to all of it soon. But it suspended him between life and death, with nothing but his grief for her flooding his lungs.
He looked up when he heard people speak to him. He didn’t know who they were or why they thought he wanted to talk to them.
He was so tired of people trying to help him. Widower casseroles and promises of a future he’d have one day were exhausting to listen to.
“You’ll be okay one day,” one of Hermione’s old coworkers said.
“You’ll feel better soon.” His neighbour from across the road clasped a hand on his shoulder.
Pieces of advice framed in a self-deprecating manner were given in condescending tones. “I know this is a cliche, but you really will be fine.”
If they knew how stupid it sounded, why say it?
Those were annoying, but they weren’t even the worst ones. The words that made him want to pummel someone with his fists were the ones that tried to make it seem like a good thing.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, but at least she’s not suffering anymore. She’s in a better place…”
Why were there so many ways to belittle death? In his experience, it was brutal and ugly. It involved crying and screaming and prayers for an ending. But at the end of it all, people said things like pass away, or at rest. Did it help to view death as something small? Was the big bad wolf less scary if it sounded like a puppy?
Something he couldn’t stop had forever fractured his life, and he didn’t know what to do about that. And people still expected him to grieve in the right way. Whatever the fuck that was.
Standing in silence, he watched dirt fill a hole that had been dug too soon. He didn’t stop looking down at the end of his future until his mother’s grip around his hand pulled him away.
Before
10 Years, 3 Months, 2 Weeks, 2 Days, 6 Hours
Over the years, Draco had seen so many versions of Hermione, it made him dizzy. On their first date, in a dress too short and tight, she was a seductress attempting to steal his (admittedly absent) virtue. Then, two years later, she transformed into a goddess floating towards him in a white gown. Since then, she played his favourite role, the one of a wife. A sight he had the privilege to wake up next to each morning as the sunlight’s warm glow bathed her body.
Unfortunately, hunched over her desk scribbling god-knows-what on a piece of parchment, she played the part of a sleep-deprived hag.
It was almost 1 am, and all he wanted was for her to join him and go to sleep, or at least turn out the light. Both options were fine by him.
“I have a new theory,” Hermione said, shuffling through the random files on her desk.
He covered his groan by sitting up in bed and stretching. He wondered if he could pause her thoughts long enough to get some caffeine.
She turned to face him, her eyes shining like she knew the secrets to the universe and she wanted to give him a sample.
“It’s about luck, and, I suppose, economics as well.”
Recently, philosophy became her newest passion project. Draco was fairly certain that she’d be applying for a degree in the subject soon enough. She had just finished up her charms mastery and she liked to rotate between a muggle and wizarding education.
“Luck and economics?”
“Yes, I think life is like economics.” The words tumbled out of her mouth like they couldn’t wait to be heard.
He laughed. “I think that’s the nerdiest thing you’ve ever told me.”
“Even more than the time I brought up getting married in a library?”
“Okay, that was nerdier. This one is weirder.”
“Stop talking, I’m about to say something brilliant.”
“Will there be a test?” he asked.
“There might be. You should probably take some notes.”
“I love it when you speak academic to me.”
Hermione rolled a chair in front of her to use as a lectern for her notes and cleared her throat. “As you know, life has good and bad and bad things happen in it,” she said in a silly voice. She over-exaggerated her manner of speaking, but her eyes had a spark in them that made Draco lean forward. “The universe, both horrible and wonderful, is the distributor of luck.”
“Brilliant, Hermione, ‘good and bad' things can happen' you should write a book about it."
“Don’t make fun of me, I’m getting to my point.” She continued with her professor bravado. “Everyone gets an equal share of good and bad luck. Once you have your fair share everything else spills over to the nearest person who still has room.”
“Okay…” If that wasn’t the most Gryffindor bullshit he’d ever heard.
“The world never gives you more than you can handle. So, there’s a limit to it all. Everyone gets their fair share. It’s equal.”
“Like communism?” he said with a dry laugh. Hermione, ignorant or immune to his sarcasm, kept building her excitement.
“Yes, exactly like communism. Everyone gets the exact amount of luck that is suited to their needs.” She left her notes forgotten on the chair as she paced the room. She gestured with wild, jerky movements, like a broken ballerina.
He leaned back on his elbows, content to watch her go wild with her ideas. “Whatever you say, Karl Marx…”
“No, listen!” Her body shook with her excitement. “Each person has their own ration of luck. So one person having something bad means someone else will have something equal to it. To even it out.”
“I think you’re crazy.”
“You’ll understand if I give you an example. Remember when our pipe burst last summer? That was because Teddy broke his arm."
“Our home flooded because a 12-year-old fell out of a tree?”
“Yes!”
“That doesn’t seem fair to the boy, or to our home.”
She batted her hands to quiet him. The thoughts were running rampant in her head, and she needed to get them out before she exploded.
“The time you had mono and couldn’t kiss me the entire summer—”
“That was the worst ,” Draco groaned.
“—well that was because the Macmillan’s were going through their divorce. My torn ACL was because Mrs Vance just lost her husband of 50 years.”
“You just described bad things. Bad things happen to everyone.”
“Exactly!” Her eyes lit up like he had said he agreed with her, which he most certainly hadn’t. “No one can escape the bad in their life, but each person gets their fair share of it.”
She argued the theory with herself under her breath. Her pacing ended when she landed in front of him. “The same thing applies to good luck too.”
“Does it now?” he asked, pulling her to his lap. The woman was insane, but it was fun to watch her experiment with her genius. “Tell me more.”
“Well, for starters, we had our first date because Ron just had that raise at the Ministry.”
He angled his face so he could leave soft kisses on her neck. She seemed immune to his lips, so his wandering hands waltzed down to her collarbone.
“Thank Merlin for your ex.”
“My promotion at work was because Ginny just gave birth to Lily.”
“We have a different definition of good things if you think more Potters in this world is something to celebrate,” he mouthed into her jaw.
She grabbed his cheeks and moved his lips away from her inviting neck.
“We got married, not just because we love each other, but because St. Mungos agreed to distribute Theo’s potion.”
“And to think, when we were kids, I tried to stop him from getting his potion’s mastery,” he mumbled around her grip on his face.
His hand around her neck pulled her forward so he could catch her lips with his. She let him stay there for a few seconds before she pulled back, her eyes still wide with thoughts.
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not. I’ll workshop it some more,” she said. “What do you think?”
“It’s… an interesting theory.”
She frowned. “You don’t agree?”
“I have to think it over before I have a definitive answer, but right now? I disagree.”
She looked surprised that he wasn’t as accepting of her idea as she expected.
He put up a hand to quiet her immediate protests. “It’s an excellent theory, and it’s definitely something to think about. I’m sorry, but I don’t think everyone gets an equal amount of good and bad. Some people just have worse luck than others.”
She pushed herself off of his lap and positioned her body for a debate. He wondered if he should go ahead and agree with her. He’d never win an argument, especially not when she’d likely been planning counter-arguments for hours."
“No, no, no. It only seems like that from the outside,” she said, “but everyone goes through their own bad things. Some people wear their scars more obviously than others.”
Draco shrugged with a sad smile. “Sorry, love, I don’t agree. Honestly, I don’t see how you could be friends with Potter if you think everyone has the same amount of luck. He literally defeated the most powerful wizard as a baby.”
“Well, Harry’s good luck is just more obvious than others—”
“And my luck is shit.”
“Don’t be dramatic.” She rolled her eyes and patted him on the cheek.
He was lucky Hermione was so patient with him. Unfortunately for her, he had never been shy with his complaints about his bad luck. He took everything personally, as if he was the only one that ever struggled with anything. Simple things like getting rain on his favourite shirt, inconveniences like his father’s begrudging acceptance of his wife, or the dreadful events like her miscarriages all added to his general feeling of unluckiness.
“I think it looks that way to you,” she said, her excitement waning. “I don’t think you’re any more unlucky than the next person.”
“Sorry, I don’t think the world is as good as you do. I think some people have bad things that happen to them, and others don’t go through that. I wish I had a more positive answer for you.”
She reached out to touch his forehead with the back of her hand and then moved down to his cheeks.
“Oh no,” she hissed. “I think you’re getting sick.”
“Stop it.” He tried to glare at her. “Do not start that.”
She bit her lip to keep from smiling. “I think you have a severe case. We need to see a healer immediately.”
“I hope you know this is the most annoying thing you do.”
“Looks like you’ve got a pretty severe case of the ‘overdramatics.’ This is serious.”
Her hand kept travelling over his face, checking him for a fever.
“That is such an immature word,” Draco groaned and flipped them so he lay on top of her.
“Maybe the healer can prescribe some medicine for you,” Hermione said with a giggle.
Draco leaned down to kiss her. “You know, I’ve heard the best cure is a naked wife.”
That seemed to be his solution for most of his problems.
“Hmm, I think I read that in a new study. Maybe we should test it out. For science, of course.”
“I’d do anything for science.” He kissed her, glad they had something they could agree on.
After
0 Years, 0 Months, 0 Weeks, 5 Days, 9 Hours
For how often he stared at his textured ceiling, he thought he would have already memorised its exact pattern. But that night he found another unexamined indentation.
He wished he could find some way to force himself to do something other than look at his ceiling with a blank gaze. He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut, or roll out of bed and do something other than stare at nothing and pray for sleep to come soon.
Maybe if he fell asleep, he would dream of her.
Maybe he could forget she left him.
The memory of a dumb conversation they had 10 years prior was stuck in his head, torturing him like a broken record player. He never changed his mind; the world consistently gave him more than he should have to handle. The universe wasn’t fair or equal. It gave him bad and kept giving him worse. He had been given an overabundance of horrible. Everything that could go wrong did.
Murphy’s law was the only thing in his life that didn’t fucking die.
He missed her voice. It was a strange thing to miss about someone, how they talked instead of what they said. But he missed her steady and even voice.
Her sentences had been wordy and verbose. Most of her words stuck to the next like they raced to see which could leave her mouth the fastest. It was at its worst when she became excited. She’d omit words and trail off in her various thoughts.
Despite that, she’d always had perfect diction. She punctuated her crisp and clear speech with the use of perfectly articulated consonants and vowels. Hermione spoke like she had a degree in phonetics. Honestly, if she had lived longer, she might have studied the subject next.
He rolled onto his stomach and covered his face with his pillow and groaned. He wished he could, for one moment of his life, forget about everything. Forget that she left him and that she’d never speak to him again.
He’d throw himself in front of the knight-bus if it meant she could give him a witty retort about how he was an overdramatic fool. He missed her lectures about topics that were only interesting to her. Hell, he’d even accept a horrible argument that ended with them sleeping in separate rooms.
She excelled at most things, and fighting was no exception. Hermione referred to herself as a productive arguer. A year before they married, she studied the ways to have a successful relationship and implemented the tips with a strong dedication. She always said “I feel,” instead of pointing her finger. She explained her displeasure with the exact amount of words necessary to get her point across, and she was always willing to compromise.
He was worse at arguing. Too emotionally driven, Draco took things too far and said things too cruel. But he knew, no matter whatever outburst he shouldn’t have said, she’d love him through it.
He wondered what their last fight was about. He didn’t remember it, and neither of them would have known it was the last one while it happened. If they had, they would have cherished it. In between the argument, they’d pause and take a moment to reminisce on some of their best moments before they resumed. They were experts at celebrating last times.
He missed the fights. He missed her .
Ever since her last breath, she hadn’t left his side. She never left his thoughts. She was always right there , right out of the corner of his eye. Maybe that wasn’t too strange; most widowers probably grieved their dead wives. Draco imagined that none did it in such a consistent or toxic manner as he did.
No one had loved their wife as much as he loved his. So, she became his ever present shadow that acted as a reminder of everything he’d never have again.
She wasn’t a ghost. He wished it would have been so easy. If she could just haunt him, he’d never have to learn how to mourn her.
She was there, but not there. Just close enough to always remind him of his pain, but far enough to remain out of reach.
She glared at him when he ate foods that gave him indigestion. He’d feel her force him to be nice during awkward and uncalled for check-ins from childhood rivals. Her comforting embrace ghosted over him while he sat at his dying mother’s bedside.
Another example of how he knew her theory of life economics was wrong. There was no way a just universe would force him to say goodbye to his mother while his wife’s body was still warm.
Life was sadistic. It forced him, with eyes taped open, to watch yet another slow motion car crash he couldn’t fix.
Stop .
He couldn’t—
He wouldn’t—
If he thought about—
He slammed his eyes shut and tried to focus on nothing.
He needed to fucking sleep, but he couldn’t stop the questions that slammed into his mind.
Could he have done more?
Should he have done less?
What if they hadn’t ignored the symptoms?
What if they stopped looking for a cure too quickly?
Hermione would have known the answers to all of his questions. He knew that. She always had the right answer.
She was always suspiciously absent whenever he tried to sleep. He laid on a mattress that he knew would one day become uneven, trying to smell sheets that had long since lost her scent. He only fell asleep when he tricked himself into thinking that she would join him in bed soon.
Before
4 Years, 6 Months, 2 Weeks, 6 Days, 13 Hours
It started with slight changes. Innocuous things that they blamed on an overindulgence of wine one night, or a natural part of aging. Hell, they used to joke that he was aging worse than she was.
Each difference went from unnoticeable to a slight inconvenience to the only thing they thought about for the rest of their lives.
She suddenly became very clumsy. Her gracelessness left her body filled with random bruises she couldn’t remember making. She had small accidents that had her twisting an ankle or falling backwards.
But… she had never been sure-footed.
He finally mentioned it one morning. She’d tripped and slammed her leg into the table all before taking a single bite of breakfast. He looked at her over the frames of his reading glasses and gave her his patented Draco Malfoy smirk. It was still powerful, even at his age.
“I didn’t know old ladies became less elegant the older they got. What part of age gracefully do you not understand?”
She rolled up her copy of the daily prophet and swatted at him, he laughed even as the blow landed on his shoulder. It was fun to tease her about her age. He made jokes about her needing a walker, spoke of too many birthdays, and delighted in pointing out grey hairs. Most women wouldn’t have put up with those types of jokes.
In fact, he’d been very cautious the first time he brought it up. He toed lightly around the subject to make sure it wasn’t off-limits. He made a small comment about her increasingly more defined crow’s feet, and she responded by poking him in the stomach, lamenting the loss of his abs.
“I’ll let you know, I am not old. I am a spring-chicken.”
“Of course, love.” He reached over the table to lift a curl and gasped. “Since when did young women have grey hair?”
She lifted her newspaper again and prepared to strike.
Draco ducked out of her reach. “Oh, do be careful. You don’t want to pull a muscle. I heard old women do that sort of thing.”
He didn’t even consider that anything serious was happening. She was just clumsy. People were clumsy
The next week she fell backwards and cracked open her skull.
He had watched her the entire time. He laid back in bed and watched her get dressed. Then she wobbled, lost her balance and slapped her skull on the edge of the bed. Nothing pushed her. Nothing was in her way. She just… fell. Her unfocused eyes spun in tight circles, and then she was suddenly sprawled out on the floor with a sickening crack.
He scooped her in his arms and rushed her to the hospital where he demanded a neurological specialist examine her.
Once nothing was critical, a pompous healer treated them. That man landed him on Draco Malfoy’s List of People I Hate That Aren’t Evil Enough to Want Dead. He ooh-ed and ahh-ed over Hermione, and even told her: “I’ll take extra care of you today, you need someone strong to keep you healthy.”
What a dick.
Each time he looked over at Draco, he gave him a look of pure disdain. The healer obviously thought the former-war hero deserved a better husband.
Draco thought the exact thing for the last 20 years, thank you very much.
The prick gushed about her accomplishments, asked her questions about the books she had written, and even requested an autograph. All of that would have been tolerable, except for the fact that his wife blushed and giggled over his compliments.
He didn’t blame the traitor for blossoming under the charms of a man who looked young enough to be her son. At their age, they’d learned to appreciate any and all attention from people 20 years younger than them. They had a limited amount of casual flirtations made by strangers left in their lives.
He interjected eventually, because he had some pride.
“Excuse me, aren’t we supposed to be discussing Mrs Malfoy’s health?”
The Mrs Malfoy in question did not seem to appreciate his chivalrous behaviour and gave him a look of annoyed affection that only she could master. She pointed to the ring on her finger, a universal signal for ‘I married you, you idiot.’
“Of course,” the man said. At least he realised how unprofessional behaviour was. He looked down at her chart and then back at her with a bright smile. His hand landed on hers in a touch too comfortable for a healer. “I’m sure this has been a very traumatic experience for you—” He looked over at Draco with barely a passing interest. “For both of you. And I know, Mr Malfoy you expressed some concern over her balance…”
Hermione batted her eyelashes at him.
Again, pure hatred for the man.
The healer flipped through her chart. “But, I have to say, there’s nothing here that concerns me. Falls happen, especially when you consider your age—”
“Excuse me, are you calling me old?” Like someone had flipped a switch, the giggling schoolgirl had lost her blush. Her eyelashes stilled, and her flirting seemed long gone.
If Draco didn’t hate the man so much, he might have felt a little guilty for him. But considering he had been a willing participant in his wife’s shameless flirting for the past 30 minutes, he wished he had some popcorn. Draco leaned against the wall and prepared himself for the joy of watching his wife verbally eviscerate a grown man.
“Because, I am only 43 years old. I am certainly young enough to…”
She was so hot.
Once she had left the healer a sweaty and apologetic mess, he promised her he would run every test in the book and get second opinions until he could guarantee that everything was fine.
When he scampered out of the room, she looked up at Draco with a smug grin. “What did you think about that?”
“I think we should play doctor as soon as we get home.”
After
0 Years, 0 Months, 3 Weeks, 1 Day, 1 Hour
Theo visited three times a week. It was a comfortable routine that he established to make sure Draco didn’t loose his mind in a home that was never meant for one person.
Right after Hermione’s diagnosis, it was only one visit a week. Theo would come and force Draco to leave the house and remind him of life outside of the torture of watching the strongest woman he knew shrivel in front of him. Sometimes they’d bring Hermione with them when she felt up for it, other times she invited her friends over to spend some of her precious seconds with someone other than Draco.
It turned into twice a week when his mother got sick and Hermione got sicker. He stopped leaving the house then. It didn’t seem fair to do so when she couldn’t do the same. Theo would sit in a chair next to her and smooth back her curls, all while making snide remarks about Draco that would make her laugh. He did that every visit until she stopped understanding the jokes. Then he’d simply sit and hold her hand, or he’d pour Draco a drink.
During the last few weeks of Hermione’s life, Draco couldn't make himself leave her room. Hermione was dying, and his mother was dying. There was only enough in him to care for one of them. He couldn’t choose his mother over Hermione.
Theo became the son Draco’s mother needed then. He explained to her why Draco didn’t visit when she called for him and how all of his energy had to be devoted to Hermione.
He told Draco that his mother didn’t blame him.
Theo visited every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday after Hermione’s death.
They spent most nights staring at the fire in silence. Theo offered him tea or alcohol each night. The drink of choice depended on whatever mood Draco was in. That night? He reached for the bottle of scotch.
He was in a scotch mood most nights it seemed.
Draco liked to lament his bad luck. Honestly, it was hard not to. He was a widower at 47 and avoiding his need to deal with any of the things he could not make himself think about. Despite it all, Draco did realise how lucky he was to have Theo in his life.
Theo never offered the simple platitudes or words of encouragement that drove Draco crazy. It had been over three weeks since Hermione died, and he had never heard Theo utter the words, “you’ll be fine” once. Because Draco would never truly be fine.
Everyone loved to wax poetic about how things would get better soon. They belittled him with their explanations about how he didn’t understand the cycles of grief, and explanations about how the sharp pains would fade. They were all so fucking stupid. They made his grief seem smaller and less incapacitating, so they could feel better about themselves. Looking at a depressed widower was hard, so they told him that his grief was only temporary and not to worry about it. One day, they loved to remind him, he’d only think of their fond times together.
The problem was that he had fond memories, too many of them. He remembered her with so much clarity, that he wished he could get lost in his thoughts. It wasn’t just sadness because she was gone; it was torture because he knew exactly what he was missing.
Her death had forever scattered his happiness to the wind. He felt like a closed book, a metaphor he was sure his late wife would have appreciated, the pages on his joy were ripped out. His life had stopped in the middle of a sentence. He had no conclusion, no pretty epilogue.
And he couldn’t bring himself to come to terms with that yet.
He grieved Hermione, of course, but he also grieved his simple life with fixable inconveniences that he hadn’t appreciated enough before her diagnosis.
So, instead of dealing with any of the pain, he burned his throat with expensive drink and sat with an unconditional friend who watched him with passive eyes.
“I wish we’d had kids.” His whispered words were part confession, part desire for an exoneration.
Theo straightened in his chair. It was the first time he’d heard Draco talk in days. “Why?”
“I have nothing of her. No one looks like her, no one has her blood. Her parents are gone. There are no Grangers left…” He felt foolish when he spoke his desires aloud.
Theo said nothing, choosing to wait for Draco to finish whatever he needed to say instead.
“If we had a kid, there would still be something left of her. I know it would have been harder with,”—his hand motioned to the topic they always talked around—“but, I would still have something of her. I want a kid so I don’t miss my—” His voice quivered. “My dead wife as much. It’s horrible.”
Theo fixed his eyes on the fire in front of them and took a drink. He was thinking of what he wanted to say in response to that, but Draco didn’t want to give him enough time to form the words.
“Did you know I was relieved when Hermione finally wanted to stop trying?” He scoffed at himself. “I hate kids, and we would have been awful parents. But now? I wish we’d never stopped trying, or adopted or something. Not because of the kid or the joys of parenthood or whatever, but because I’d be less lonely.”
He drained his drink.
Theo nodded and poured him another glass. “I don’t think you’re wrong for that.”
“I want a kid the same way people want a dog. I think that makes me a piece of shit.”
“It doesn’t make you a saint, but you shouldn’t expect that of yourself, or of anyone.”
“She would have handled this better,” Draco mumbled.
“Would she have?”
“I don’t know.”
Before
4 Years, 5 Months, 2 Weeks, 6 Days, 20 Hours
After a month of tests and visits to other specialists, their healer had finally called them back. Sitting next to each other in the waiting room, they could not have looked more opposite if they tried. He sat with a bouncing knee and clenched fists while she tapped a pen to her lips and hummed a tone-deaf melody. Hermione frowned at her wrinkled copy of the daily prophet.
When she tapped his shoulder, he jumped a metre out of his chair.
“What’s an 8-letter-word for a person trapped by islands and rivers?” she asked. He must have made a face, because she frowned at him. “What?”
“How are you so calm right now?”
Hermione shrugged. “I can either get nervous, or I can finish this crossword puzzle.” She waved the paper in his face. “The puzzle seems more fun.”
She squinted down at her paper when she realised Draco would be no help. She brought the paper closer to her eyes, and he wondered if he should bring up scheduling an eye appointment soon. He thought she would probably need a pair of readers. The thought of her looking even more like a librarian amused himself for a few minutes until he looked at his timepiece and groaned.
How long were they planning on making them wait for? They’d been in the waiting room for close to an hour and he thought that ridiculous. He moved to stand to complain, but at his first twitch, Hermione grabbed his hand and raised an eyebrow at him.
Wanting to prevent a lecture, he settled back into his chair. She squeezed his hand and rubbed gentle circles with her thumb.
He wished he would have known that sitting hand in hand with her would be the last moment of peace he’d ever get.
After
0 Years, 1 Month, 0 Weeks, 3 Days, 17 Hours
Everyday marked the last time she did something. Or it was a bitter reminder of things he’d never do with her again. He didn’t even know what anniversary he was lamenting most days. He just knew that he couldn’t force himself to get out of bed.
Theo came like clockwork. Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Even when all Draco could manage was staying in bed with an empty gaze at nothing. Theo sat on the floor, just within reach.
His mother had relapsed, and Draco didn’t think he could do it. There wasn’t enough left in him to grieve her like she deserved. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to yet another woman he loved.
“Draco.” Theo shook his shoulder. Draco wasn’t asleep, but Theo must have known that. “You need to go see your mother today.”
Draco stayed silent. He needed to, but all he wanted to do was submerge his head underwater and drown.
“Come on,” Theo said, and shook him harder. “I’m not leaving you alone until you get up.”
It took him too long to sit up in his bed. Draco focused on what he could control. A shower. He could take a shower. He’d need clothes. Oh, Theo had already laid them out for him.
He didn’t feel like he was moving. It felt like he waded through mud as he moved to get dressed. He focused on each button of his shirt. On stepping into his trousers. On walking to the door, staring at his feet.
He didn’t even realise that he left his house until he found himself in the recently re-established hospice wing of the manor.
He wanted to spit at the coincidences.
“I wonder if the funeral home will give us a discount,” Draco said. Theo walked a few steps in front and turned around to look at him with cautious eyes. “Maybe buy one coffin, get one free?”
He froze when he realised what he said. He looked at Theo for some admonishment, maybe a look of disgust at his flippant joke about his dead wife.
“I didn’t mean…”
“I know,” Theo said, watching him impartially as normal. “It’s okay.”
He thought he would have preferred shame over Theo’s calm acceptance.
Before
4 Years, 5 Months, 2 Weeks, 6 Days, 19 Hours
In his dreams, Draco took charge once the healer told them her diagnosis. He shoved aside his emotions and asked the valuable questions that he needed to know. His grip on Hermione’s hand assured them both that everything would be okay. He took care of his wife and found a way to fix her.
He thought when she needed him most, he would act like a man.
But that's not what he did.
He felt dizzy and nauseous as he listened to the growing list of symptoms she would soon exhibit. Draco’s ears rang loud enough to prevent him from truly understanding what he was told.
He never heard of her diagnosis before. The first and only thought that ran through his head was that they would have to explain the diagnosis to every single person they told.
It wasn’t Parkinson’s or ALS or Alzheimers. The diseases that people had heard of. They were the ones that elicited suppressed gasps and apologies for things they didn’t cause. For the rest of her life, and even for the rest of his, he’d have to explain to every single person what her disease was.
He imagined the conversations. ‘She has a type of dementia, no not that dementia. This is the one that no one has fucking heard of.’
His attention caught on a certain word.
“What do you mean, ‘no cure?’” Draco said through clenched teeth. “That’s your job, to find one.”
“I’m sorry sir—”
“Don’t be sorry. Be better. Find a cure.”
Hermione looked at him with pity in her eyes. “Draco, honey—”
He backed out of her reach. “No! This is ridiculous. Do you know how much money our family donates to this place each year? We don’t do that so you can sit on your arse while my wife—”
Dies.
While his wife dies.
He was going to be sick.
Her healer had lost his cheeky attitude and looked at Hermione like he was waiting for her to expire in front of him. It infuriated Draco.
“Sir, the only treatment we have is to diminish the severity of her symptoms and try to delay…”
“My death?” Hermione’s words escaped her in a puff of air. “You’re—you’re speaking about delaying my death?”
Resentment rushed through him at how easily she could say the word. He’d only just barely been able to stop the floodgates from opening. She shouldn’t have referred to her—
He couldn’t think.
He couldn’t breathe.
The words spoken to them both floated in his mind like a radio set at the wrong frequency.
“Mrs Malfoy… very severe progressive… a build-up of protein in your brain… motor deficits… wide range in life expectancy.”
If the healer didn’t stop talking, Draco was going to bash his face in. What good was he if he didn’t have a cure? That was his job. He went to school for how many years? Just to fail now?
No. He’d find her a different healer. A different specialist. Someone would have something different to say, or some new cure that the idiot in front of him wouldn’t have known about.
“You said it’s progressive. How does it get worse?” Hermione asked.
Somehow she could compartmentalise her feelings and focus on the facts. How did she manage it? He was barely breathing and trying as hard as he could to not vomit on the linoleum tile.
“Besides the symptoms you are already exhibiting, speech and cognitive decline along with swallowing deficits are to be expected.”
“I won’t be able to swallow?” she squeaked and looked up at Draco like he’d be able to give her a different answer. “How will I... I have to eat.”
“We have a specialist that we can refer you to so you can speak about all of your options.”
“Her options…” The entire room spun around him.
Hermione asked more questions that he did not listen to. Some of the healer’s words made it through his disassociation. Things like “aphasia” and “dysphagia.”
Whatever the fuck any of that meant.
Was her healer incapable of explaining things simply? Neither of them trained to be a medical professional, that’s why they went to him . Why the fuck would they know what those words meant?
He didn’t realise they had finished speaking until he felt Hermione’s sweaty palm intertwine in a tight grip with his. They headed home together in silence.
That night, he laid in bed and stared at the ceiling in horror. When he summoned the courage to turn on his side and look at her, she was already looking at him, tears in her eyes.
His hand reached forward to brush a curl off of her shoulder. She was so warm. So alive.
“I wonder what some poor son of a bitch is going through to give us this,” Draco said, “that is if you still believe in the whole luck economics thing.”
It was a risk, his attempt at levity, but he had to say something. He couldn’t keep watching her lose all of her hope in the world.
A laugh rushed out of her mouth.
They laughed and laughed and laughed.
Then they cried.