A Second Look - A Dramione Story

Chapter 18

Warning: This is not my story. It is from RiverWriter on ao3.

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Hermione was distracted. The holidays were approaching and the Ministry was about to effectively shut down for a couple of weeks, but she had no such luxury. She had to ensure that things still ran on schedule. Her boss was out of town extinguishing fires in Eastern Europe where numerous suspected Death Eaters were still at large, and so the safety of the country largely rested on her shoulders, and she didn't take that responsibility lightly.

Still, she couldn't stop thinking about Draco. His hands. His mouth. His tongue. She was no longer a stranger to his naked body. And the thought of it was very diverting.

She'd spent two nights apart from him and Scorpius- something that was happening with continuing infrequency- but she'd had a major presentation to prepare for about her department's budget and had stupidly thought that staying at her own flat would help her concentrate. But as the hours built up to her presentation she realized how foolish she'd been. Being away from the pair of them just left her feeling unsettled.

Through luck and weeks of preparation it went off without a hitch. Almost better than she could have imagined. The committee agreed to take her recommendations in front of the full Wizengamot.

So it was in high spirits that she flooed to Draco's house. She just assumed he'd be expecting her and didn't consider the fact that she'd hardly spoken to him in 48 hours. She'd been so busy but Draco, who was obsessed with his new mobile phone, had relied on it to send her a few texts, and they'd all seemed upbeat enough.

She searched through all the main living areas, and finding them all empty, she began to grow concerned as she realized that she hadn't actually heard from Draco at all since they'd exchanged messages the night before; she'd only just been able to keep her eyes open long enough to bid him goodnight. She had texted him to wish him a good day that morning but had never received a response.

She went upstairs to what he'd termed the 'family wing' and made a beeline for the nursery, but it too was empty. Tamping down her irrational panic- Draco was an adult, there were any number of places he could be, and he didn't need to check in with her before leaving his house- she tried one more room.

She pulled the doors to the master bedroom open, and sure enough, there he was, pacing around the large space, Scorpius screaming in his arms- the wards on the room had kept the sounds contained inside. It was eerily reminiscent of that day in the apothecary. Her heart lurched.

"Draco, what's going on?" She looked on in horror at their twin pained expressions, her fingers actually twitched with repressed longing to just take them both into her arms, but something told her to tread carefully.

He glanced up, startled. "He's sick and he won't settle down." His voice was flat and though he was as gentle with Scorpius as ever, cradling his head carefully trying to prevent him from thrashing, she could tell that he was near the end of his rope.

"Sick?" It was the obvious question but she hoped it would prompt him to provide more information.

"He's been ill all day, I've had a healer in but she insists that it's just a bad cold and that he's still too little to give him a pepper up. I called Aunt Andromeda too and she confirmed that we just have to wait it out."

"Well Andromeda would know." The woman was one of the country's top healers, she was a little surprised that Draco hadn't gone straight to her, but then again she knew that the Malfoys had their own private healer. "You got him something for the pain though?" She confirmed.

"Of course I did!" He snapped.

She winced but didn't respond, she understood that he must be frustrated. She could hear from Scorpius' breathing that he was congested and the way that he was screaming in protest was probably mostly negating the effects of the pain potion- as he was still too little to take anything but the mildest of versions of that as well- but there was no way to explain that to him and convince him to stop.