To Kaleesha on the happy occasion of her first break up. And congratulations, your whole first relationship has been chronicled in this story. Next time, no personal remarks, I promise.

The End

It was different when it was yours, they'd always told him. He'd doubted the validity of that statement, because he couldn't imagine himself ever regarding a child with more than strained indifference, especially given his background and the knowledge that for his father, at least, it hadn't been different. Draco had hated his father for many reasons, but never truly being a father in the first place was first and foremost on the list. As much as Draco didn't want to be like the bitter old man, he couldn't see a way out of it; he was his father's son, and as much as he hated it, he couldn't seem to find a way to tear his soul from the skin that fettered it.

He'd always been the first to glare at a squawking baby and its ill-advised parents, just like his father had been. He'd never really liked children, not even when he was once himself. He couldn't imagine that life-long peculiarity changing.

His wife had thought he was crazy.

"Of course you'd like it!" She had shouted at him, aghast after his confession in the early days of their marriage. "Everyone likes their own children!"

And yet, her heartfelt assurance hadn't assured him at all. And then a few years later, she was pregnant, and he was more terrified than he'd ever been in his life. He was going to screw it up, he knew. He wanted so desperately to be a good father, and to love his child, but he was sure he wouldn't be able to.

His thoughts and fears kept him up late at night. He had nightmares about the baby all the time. Usually, they were scenes from his own miserable childhood, but changed; instead of his father, it was him, and the eyes through which he saw the scenes unfold had been his in memory, but became the eyes of his child. To remedy the situation, he usually didn't sleep at all, or, when he was desperately tired, would take a dreamless sleep potion.

And then there was the night that neither would do. Astoria was sleeping on her back, something he vaguely recalled the healer's telling her not to do because of blood flow, but he couldn't help from staring at her swollen belly. A baby was in there, he knew, but it seemed so strange, so surreal. She was seven months pregnant, but he'd never felt the baby. He was afraid the baby would feel his presence, and he, in return, would feel nothing.

But that night, his exhaustion limiting his insane fears, and with the quiet dark blanketing him, he reached out a tentative hand and touched the bulge where he knew his child was growing.

"Hi," he whispered as his thumb grazed the soft flesh. He felt silly, but compelled nonetheless. "I'm your daddy." He felt both giddy and nauseous with the word. "I don't really know how to be, but I'll try, I promise, and if you hate me, I'll understand."
It was a quiet admonition and only a small step, but for him, it was relief enough. He turned his wife onto her side and wrapped his arms around her pregnant stomach, and for the first time in months, he slept unaided and without nightmares.

And that was the beginning of the end of Draco Malfoy.

Then the baby was born, and Draco realized with a sudden flood of relief, that they'd been right all along; it was different when it was your child. Scorpius, he loved, beyond any measure. It didn't matter that his father hadn't loved him, so long as he loved his son, and that was what would make all the difference.

He'd given full credence to the saying for the next few years, but then had begun to doubt it again, when he realized that he could actually at least tolerate, and sometimes even appreciate, the little brats that his son called "friends". It was strange for him, but not a wholly unwanted feeling.

But then the myth he'd put so much faith in shattered completely nearly a decade later, after divorcing Astoria and while engaged to Hermione, when he realized that it wasn't different just when they were your own. He'd been at her home for the holidays, with his son and her children, when he found himself alone in the library with her daughter.

Without preamble, Rose had marched up to him and looked him squarely in the eye with confidence that far exceeded her years. "If you hurt my mom like my dad did, I won't kill you or castrate you or something silly like that." She informed him. "I will make you wish I would just kill you, but I won't, and instead, you'll suffer in pain and guilt."

And with that declaration, she left the room, and he became a father again.

While he'd met her children before and liked them just fine, he'd never expected to love them. That made the sudden shock of realizing that he loved his future-step-daughter even more unexpected, and yet, he understood, for Rose was just as protective as Hermione as he was, and that was endearing to him. It made him what to protect the little girl that had been so hurt by her father's betrayal.

But now he was going to lose that little girl who had grown up and had her own child. He was going to lose everything and everyone, now, he knew; this was the end. His grief for his wife was compound, encompassing both sorrow for the woman he had loved and the life she had inevitably taken with her when she was gone. Namely, the family. Their family.

Because they had been a family, somehow, the five of them. It had never been a matter of yours and mine, just ours; he had loved her children as if they were his own, and she, his. They parented together, and equally. They hadn't been a perfect family by any means, but it was a better, happier, healthier family than he had ever imagined of having. He realized at last that the ubiquitous "they" had been wrong; it wasn't different when it was yours, it was different if you loved them.

They'd thought about having children of their own, in the beginning. They'd reached the conclusion, though, that as much as they wanted a child with her hair and his eyes, they didn't want to start over. They knew it'd be like having two families, with the two sets children being so far apart in age. They'd realized that could never have it all, their children from their failed previous marriages and children of their own in one nice, tidy package. They'd given up the chance to raise children together, to experience pregnancy and birth and childhood together, for the prospect of the family they already had. They'd been happy, the five of them; it would have been hard for an outsider to tell that they were a blended family. He'd never regretted the decision until now, now that it was too late, now that it was all over. Now that it was the end.

It was back yours and mine, now; now that her children were no longer tied to him through her. They'd be kind about it, he knew, but nonetheless, they would leave him, because he wasn't really their father, and they weren't really bond to him.

He thought about all of them, because it was easier than thinking about her, because he had some degree of control in losing them, at least. He would lose Hugo first, probably, and so he would lose the Serena, the daughter-in-law he did not love, but was fond of, and their four children. Rose would be next, and Rose would cling at least a bit, he knew, for he had been more of a father to her than he had been to Hugo. Little Gwen would go with her mother, he knew, if only because she was too young to have a choice in he matter.

Gwen would hurt the most. Gwen, the only one of Hermione's progeny to have that awful hair he loved so, and yet, her mother's eyes and the pale skin he could pretend was his own. Gwen, who made him wish he'd known Rose when she was that young, unspoiled by the emotional trauma of her parent's divorce. Gwen, who had already suffered so much in her short life, and who was so much stronger than the other grandchildren.

"Dad..." Scorpius said from behind him, laying a tentative hand on his father's shoulder. Scorpius would be last, Draco knew, and it would hurt even more, because the bonds between them wouldn't be severed so cleanly. The two of them alone didn't make much of a family; he'd spent his holidays with his wife's family now, Draco knew. The family they'd once been a part of had died with her, and things would be different. "Dad, we should go to the reception now. I'll take you side-along apparation."

Draco shook his head. "I can do it," he said dully, and with a crack, he was gone from that wretched place of green despair, and he went from the frying pan into the fire itself, to the reception, full of people who wanted to talk about their memories with her, and what a great woman she was, hurt more. He didn't want to listen to people drone on about what a shame it was she was muggleborn, for muggleborns typically didn't have the same incredible longevity normal wizards did. He didn't want any more reminders that death had taken her, and nothing he could do could bring her back.

He talked to her former friends as little as he could and avoided her tactless ex-husband as much as he could, and when sufficient time had passed, he went to a back room to hide until it was acceptable for him to leave completely. He'd just found a nice place to sit and watch the gloomy rain through the window when the door opened again, and he heard the tell-tale pitter-patter of those little feet in the shoes in the tiny patent leather shoes he'd bought her on an impulse the last time he'd taken her shopping.

"Poppy, are you sad?" The little girl climbed into his lap, and he held her close.

"Yes, angel, I suppose I am," he said slowly, not wanting to tell her that "sad" was a terrible understatement. He didn't want to tell her the words that better described his pain, as if not giving them a name would prevent them from being able to hurt her. Seven year olds didn't need to hear phrases like "horribly and completely torn with an emotional agony that rivals physical torment".

"Mummy says that nana is with daddy now, in heaven," Gwen supplied.

"Your mummy is absolutely correct," he assured her. He didn't add that he only believed in heaven, only believed in God, because he had to believe that somehow, someday, he'd see his wife again.

He didn't see them much after that. The flower deliveries had finally stopped, and every last sordid bouquet had been summarily destroyed. The house elves kept him relatively well-fed, and Scorpius dropped by with red eyes every once in a while to check on him. He was fine, he always promised, and he really was, so long as he had a bit of Odgen's finest to knock him out for the rest of the night so he wouldn't have to remember the way she'd always sat in that chair reading late into the night, or the way she'd always loved those pictures in the hall. Every room was a reminder of her. It was torture for him, but he was a masochist, and it was a torture he wouldn't do without.

When the door bell rang, he was surprised, and took his wand, promising himself that if it were another florist making a delivery, he really would hex them this time. Instead he found his daughter—his ex-step-daughter, he reminded himself forcibly—balancing her daughter on one hip, and her supernaturally large bag on the other.

"Well, you look like Hell, now, don't you?" Rose said brightly as she thrust her daughter at him as best she could with one arm. "Here, take Gwen," she said unnecessarily as he scrambled to catch the little girl. She was really too big to be carried, but he didn't protest.

Rose reached out to touch his cheek. "You've lost weight," she noted. "And you could pack to spend a fortnight in Paris with the bags under your bloodshot eyes."

"Good to see you too," he retorted emotionlessly.

"Hi, Poppy!" Gwen squeaked.

"Hi, angel," he replied, mustering a small smile for her sake.

"I've brought you food, and dreamless sleep potions, and some very official-looking forms. Go play; I'll call you when lunch is ready." With her mother's sanction, Gwen squirmed to be let down, and then the little girl took her grandfather's hand and all but dragged him outside.

The playground had been added to the manor gardens nearly thirty years previous, when Scorpius was still too small to walk. The brightly-painted wood beams had lasted the ages with a bit of magical aid, though, and looked almost new. Draco ran a hand over the thick varnish, thinking of how different his life had been back then, and then Gwen asked tugged at his hand again.

"Poppy, are you still sad?" She asked, and her concern was endearing

"Only a little, angel," he lied.

She looked at him. "Mummy is a lot sad. She cries like she did when daddy died. Does this mean we're going move in with you again?"

"No, angel." No, it's going to be rather the opposite, actually, and you probably won't see me much at all anymore. Your mother and I will try to act normal, probably, and will indubitably fail, because everything is different now. But he couldn't say that to her. Something in her demeanor piqued his interest, and he realized that she was worried. He squatted down to see at her eye level and put his hand on her little shoulders. "But if your mummy ever acts like that again, you can come tell me, and I'll take care of it. You can always tell me anything, alright?"

"Okay," and then her pudgy little arms were around his neck in a fierce hug, which he easily reciprocated. "Now, what do you say about the swings?" He asked with a forced smile as he pulled away. "I do believe they've missed you."

"Playing" was not exactly Draco Malfoy's thing. It never had been, even when he was a child; it was too juvenile, too feminine, and too innocent. Nonetheless, when Rose called the pair back into the house for lunch, he was playing, if somewhat absently. He gave Gwen a piggy-back ride to the kitchen, but couldn't muster the energy nor the will to add the customary sound affects.

"I've put some vials of dreamless sleep in the medicine cabinet, and there are some frozen casseroles with directions on them in the freezer-cabinet. Gwen, eat with a fork like a big girl, please."

And then she'd taken her place at the table across from them, and he ate his first meal in weeks. He didn't taste the food, but it was food, at least, he knew, and knowing her, it was laced with all sorts of nutrients.

"You said something about papers?" He prompted between bites.

She nodded, but gave a pointed look to her daughter. "We'll talk about it later," she said, and he understood what she meant, and knew they wouldn't have to wait long, for Gwen still liked to take her afternoon nap, as he recalled, and would more than likely collapse soon.

Sure enough, the little girl had crawled up and fallen asleep in his lap before he was done with the simple meal. He lifted her easily, meaning to carry her to the spare room, but then Rose took her from his arms. "You eat more," she ordered. "I'll be right back. I have some forms for you." She made it halfway to the door when she turned around. "And I'll keep your secret," she added as an afterthought.

He didn't get a chance to ask her exactly what she meant, for then she was gone. He washed the dishes and was putting them away again when Rose returned, and wordlessly helped him clean the rest of the kitchen.

"What secret did you mean, exactly?" He asked finally.

She gave him a small smile. "That Gwen is your favorite grandchild. I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but don't really mind, as I'm rather partial to her myself, given that she's my daughter and everything."

"I love all my grandchildren equally," he protested weakly.

She shook her head. "I know you do, but that's not the same thing, is it? Gwen is your favorite. It's okay, though; she was mum's favorite too, I know, although mum would never say so."

"She's an extraordinary little girl," he admitted, as if it were the same thing, but he couldn't bring himself to look at her.

Rose nodded slowly. "Sometimes, though, I worry about her... she hasn't had a normal childhood. She's strong for her age, I just... wish she didn't have to be." He thought about the child who worried that her mother would relapse into despair, and he privately agreed. "And it's not fair, really, that of all the children, she has the fewest memories of Patrick, when he was herfather."

He heard a sniffle, and looked up to find her crying. "I'm sorry, I'm fine," she lied, pulling tissues from her back to blot her eyes. "I didn't come just to cry on you, I'm sorry."

He looked at her a spell, and the finally allowed himself to ask his question. "Does it ever go away?" He asked.

She sniffled. "Does what ever go away?"

"The grief." The word was simple, but a knife in the air.

A few more silent tears dripped from her eyes as she shook her head. "No," she told him simply. "It gets... easier, to live, day by day, but it doesn't go away. And the worst isn't even reminiscing on the sad days; the worst is when it hits you, suddenly, unexpectedly. Like the mornings when I've just woken and wonder why he isn't in bed, and then wake up a little more and remember, and the days when I think I'm doing just fine, and then see a car like the one we had or a man with a baseball cap like the one he loved so, and its back to square one. And that day... do you remember that day I went shopping with Gwen when we were still living here? We were supposed to meet you and mum for ice cream after we picked up some books and stopped by Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes to see Fred and George.

"But it was crowded, and I Gwen got away from me. She ran after a man that looked like Patrick. Listening to her scream for him, over and over again, and not being able to find her, was horrible. And then I did find her, and had to pull her away from some random wizard as she sobbed was worse. She told me everything would be okay again, because I was right, and she did see daddy again. That was worse still. And then pulling her away from a wizard who looked like Patrick as she screamed at me, and then told me that she hated me... that was the worst.

"You don't expect things like that to happen and set you back, but they do, for days. And then it's like it just happened again, and it's like being in one of those circle's of Dante's hell, where the demons rip you apart just as soon as you've healed, except you don't even deserve it. And yet, somehow, it manages to get easier, and the hole is still there, and it's a still a gaping chest wound, but the edges of cleaner, somehow, and it becomes an ache and not a throbbing pain."

They sat in silence a moment more. He did remember that day; when they finally got to the ice cream parlour, Gwen was still sobbing and trying to wrestle her way out of her mother's hold while screaming for her dead father, while Rose, in turn, looked thoroughly horrified, and barely functional. He'd been given the task of explaining to Gwen that when Rose had said she'd see daddy again one day, she'd meant in a very, very long time. Rose had just cried on her mother's shoulder.

"It'll be different for you, of course," she qualified. "I mean, Patrick and I just had a handful of years. They were good years—ridiculously good, in fact—but there were only a few of them. You and mum, though... you and mum had decades. You had a full life together."

He shook his head. "Don't discount what you had with Patrick. You waited so long for him—you wouldn't settle, though you had a fair number of wizards willing to offer you a nice, safe, life. And then you met him, and that was it. You mum and I... we knew. She was so happy you'd found him, and that he accepted you. You may have only had a few years with him, but you loved him."

She shook her head. "You and mum had a life together. We just had a few years, and this big promise of a life together."

"He was the love of your life, Rose. Don't think your grief is any less than mine just because you weren't with him as long as I was with your mother; it's different, but not less. You'll be single for the rest of your life. We both will. They were irreplaceable. Your life will just be a lot longer than mine." It suddenly struck him, despite the ache the conversation was giving him, that it was perhaps the most pointless argument he'd ever had with the girl. They might as well be comparing battle scars around the campfire while getting drunk. It didn't matter, though, so long as they weren't talking about the ache itself, and what it felt like to lose his wife. That, he could not do.

She shook her head suddenly, and the tears welled up. "Don't say that! You can't... you have years left..."

He, in turn, shook his head at her. "No, Rose. No, I don't."

She hit the table, tears falling freely. "You have to! I still need you! You can't go too! What about Scorpius, and Hugo, and Gwen?" She set her head on the table to sob a moment, and he looked up, towards the light. After an age, she lifted her head back up and wiped the tears from her eyes. It was clear, suddenly, that she planned to ignore the issue of his mortality.

"I'm sorry, I didn't come here just to argue with you and cry," she apologized. "I've got... I've got a form I need you to sign," she said, suddenly distracted as she shifted through the contents of her bag.

"What's this?" He asked, as she handed a small stack to him.

"I put sticky notes on the pages where you have to sign," she replied, not at all answering the question.

He looked at the papers for himself. Verification of guardianship. He looked up at Rose in shock. "What?" He croaked.

She rolled her watery eyes as best she could. "I know, it's ridiculous, but now that... well, now, if anything happens to me, Gwen will go to Patrick's sister, because she's the godmother, never mind that you and mum were listed as guardians in my will."
He looked up at her with wide eyes. She couldn't possibly mean what he thought. "You... still want me to be her guardian?"

She looked as if she had been slapped. "Of course!" She stalled. "Unless... unless you don't want to be" And then she reached a false realization and the words spewed from her. "Oh, Merlin, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have just assumed... I should have asked, should have discussed... I just thought you'd still want her, even without mum to help you raise her, even without the blood tie between us... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have."

He gulped, shaken by her admission, stunned with the realization that she still wanted him to take her daughter, should anything happen to her, regardless of the blood ties. Perhaps the family they had built together was stronger than he thought. Perhaps it wouldn't fall apart. But no, he wouldn't let himself have grand expectations. The only thing he could count on was the fact that she wanted him to take care of Gwen if anything happened to her, and that, he could do, and gladly.

And so, with a flourish, he flipped through the document, affixing his name with perfunctory panache beside every sticky note.

When he was done, he looked up at her, only to find that her eyes were shining with unshed tears.

"Oh...." she gasped. "Oh, oh..."

"Rose?" He moved to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she shook off his touch as she looked at him in horror.

"You don't get it," she whispered with awed dismay. "I thought.... I thought you understood..."

"Rose?" He asked again, for she simply wasn't making sense.
"... Draco, even.... even without her, you're still... more than a friend... I mean, you're my dad...." And all at once, he realized that she was terribly afraid he would rebuke their relationship, for she didn't know that she was as dear to him as he was to her.

"This changes things," he said simply, because it didn't matter that that he loved her, because she was someone else's daughter, and the link that had made her his daughter as well was gone.

She gulped, glanced at the clock, and got up. "Ron was my father, but only biologically; he was never a good father to me, even before he married Lavender Brown and became more concerned with his new family," she told him, and though he'd suspected as much, he now added the neglect of his daughter to his list of reasons he hated Ron Weasley. "You've been the father figure in my life since I was thirteen years old; that's not going to stop just because things are different now. I refuse to let them. And I'd love to stay and tell you as clearly as possible that I'm your daughter, biology be damned, but I have an appointment with my grief counselor. Just remember that, though; this changes things, but not everything."

She walked away on shaking legs and then paused at the doorway. "I'll see you later," she promised. "And you better have eaten well when I get back," she added, and then, she was gone.

He went to the sitting room, where she'd left Gwen sleeping. He almost hoped she would have forgotten to collect the little girl, but he knew it was a foolish hope; as long as she was sane, Rose remembered Gwen. There was no trace of Gwen in the sitting room; no blankets disturbed, no stuffed animals left behind, not even a dent in the couch.
He shut the door, and then made for the kitchens again. On an impulse, though, he went upstairs, to the nursery. The room hadn't been opened in months, not since they'd moved out, but he still had the house elves clean it. The adjoining room her mother had lived in had been all but bricked it, filled with as many unpleasant memories as it was.

In the middle of the pink princess bedroom, Draco Malfoy wept.

He remembered shopping with Gwen, after Rose had her meltdown and Gwen had run through London for help. She had only been six, but had managed to find her way to the Potter's, a few streets over. Lily had carried her back to the house, and had been the one to discover Rose passed out on her bathroom floor.

He hadn't seen her like that, though. In fact, he'd hardly seen her at all during the week she spent at St. Mungo's. He'd seen her more after they discharged her, and it was decided she would move into Malfoy Manor to be taken care of. While the women worried over Rose, Gwen was thrust into his not altogether capable hands.

His first task had been to get her room ready. He suspected his wife had meant to get the sheets and towels washed and move her things in, but that didn't quite suit him; instead, he took the little girl shopping and let her decorate her room to her heart's content. The interior decorating was childish and haphazard at best, with more of a medley of things Gwen liked than an actual scheme, but it was her room. He had spent hours playing with dolls and making crafts with the child in this room while her mother sobbed on the other side of the wall. He hadn't been able to help Rose, but he could take care of Gwen.

He liked that he could make her happy. He felt if he made her happy enough, it would negate the image he had in his mind of her running through Godric's Hollow in the wee early of the morning with her barefoot exposed to the light frost on the ground, sobbing because her mummy wouldn't wake up, dressed in only a pink Barbie nightgown despite the frost on the ground. And yet, in the end, all the toys and books and games had proved too weak to distract her enough, and she still often asked for her mummy. He'd always lied to her and told her that her mummy was just fine, until he realized that once she got over worrying that her mummy was ill, she worried her mummy didn't love her anymore, and that's why she didn't get to see her.

"Poppy?" she whispered one night as he was tucking her in.

"Yes, angel?"

"Can you do anything with magic?"

He smiled. "Almost anything."

She chewed her lip, and he could tell that she was thinking deeply. He pulled the blanket over her and kissed her forehead, still waiting for her to ask her questions. He steeled himself; her questions were usually difficult.

"Do you think I'll have magic like mummy, or be a muggle like daddy?"

He relaxed; the question was easier than he was expecting. "I don't know, angel, but no matter what you are, you will be loved, no matter what," he promised.

She mulled over that shortly. "If I have magic, do you think I'll be able to bring daddy back so maybe mummy will be happy and love me again?"

He was shocked. "Angel, your mummy still loves you, very, very much."

She shook her head. "Mummy knows it's my fault daddy died. I was being loud when he was driving. That's why she won't see me anymore."

He realized she was fighting her tears at her confession, and he wanted to weep as well, or maybe punch whatever cruel fate had decided to punish his sweet granddaughter. He fought to remain cool and pushed her hair from her forehead absently. "Gwen, what happened was not your fault at all, and no one blames you. Your mummy won't see you anymore because she doesn't like for you to see her cry, because she's very sad, that's all."

"Do you promise?" She whispered, her voice quaking with the threat of tears.
"I promise." He kissed her forehead. "Don't worry about anything, angel, just go to sleep. Sweet dreams."

There was silence as he crossed the room, flicked on her magical night light, and then went to the door. "I love you," she said suddenly, hesitantly.

He turned around and smiled at her, trying to not look so sad. "And I love you." He turned off the lights and shut the door, then, and made his way through the dark hallway to her mother's room. He needed to have a little talk with his step-daughter...

He hadn't understood then about her grief. He'd only experienced a handful of deaths in his life: his favorite teacher, his parents, some of his superficial friends. He'd liked his son-in-law reasonably well, and had shed a tear when Patrick died, but he hadn't wanted to tear out his hair, either. He'd been more concerned with his daughter and granddaughter in the hospital. He couldn't imagine, then, what forces were causing her to act so irrationally, causing her to neglect her tender daughter, for it had to be some amount of insanity. He couldn't imagine grief alone reducing the strong-willed girl he had known to a miserable mess of tissues and tears.

But now he understood.

He honestly didn't know why he even bothered to keep waking up in the morning. He cried only rarely, but when he did, he cried ceaselessly for hours, until he passed out from exhaustion and the house elves found him lying dehydrated on the floor. Without her, he had nothing. There was no more sunshine, no more joy. He felt like his senses had died; his fingers touched without feeling, his tongue swallowed without tasting, his eyes saw but without a concept of aesthetic appeal. He felt like a shell of a man, like a victim of a dementor's kiss, and he couldn't really bring himself to care.

He was lying on the floor of the closet when she walked in. She stopped at the door, and he could feel the questions forming in her mind, battling for dominance, but he didn't bother giving her time to ask.

"It still smells like her," he explained lazily, his eyes still closed. "I know she would want you to have her old clothes, and I know you'd like to find the same warmth she did in her old sweaters, but I'm not ready to part with it yet. Any of it."

She sat beside him and glanced around the closet. When it had belonged to Narcissa Malfoy, its contents could have rivaled that of any department store. Now, however, it was comparatively empty; Hermione had never been one for an excessive wardrobe, and she had always suspected, quite correctly, that her husband had more clothes than she did.

It smelled like her. It smelled of her favorite perfume he'd always given her, and the lavender posies she kept in her shoes when she wasn't wearing them, and there was the vaguest scent of cinnamon in the air, courtesy of her unnatural predilection for using far too much of the spice in her baking. It smelled warm and comforting and wonderful.

"The house elves told me you've been sleeping in the guest room when you do sleep at all," Rose told him quietly.

He didn't bother opening his eyes. "I can barely look at that bed anymore, much less sleep in it," he confirmed.

She couldn't deny that walking through the bedroom to the closet had unnerved her a bit, but that wasn't the primary cause of her concern. "I'm more worried about that "when master sleeps at all" part," she informed him.

"I'm not a child; I no longer require nine hours of sleep."

"But you're not twenty, either, so I imagine you need more than two."

He didn't say anything more, and neither did she. She'd never known him to give up a chance to say something snarky, and his reticence was unnerving. Lying on the floor of her mother's closet was unnerving. Talking to him in this state was unnerving.

"I brought you something," she finally remembered. He listened as she rummaged through her bag. He imagined she would have brought that awful oversized pleather bag she always carried around. He knew for a fact that she'd been given a number of smaller, more fashionable purses over the years, as he'd given her several of them himself, but she never seemed to give any of the others more than the requisite one-time-use in the presence of the giver. She was appallingly like her mother in that sense.

"Sweet Merlin, not a book," he muttered as she passed it to him.

"Only technically," she supplied.

A picture of his wedding smiled up at him from the cover. For a moment, looking at his young, radiant bride, he forgot to be sarcastic. She had been beautiful. She hadn't been her, with all that makeup and all the beauty charms, but she had been beautiful, and for a moment he couldn't breathe, because for a moment, the pain of losing her stabbed into his gut once more.

"A photo album," he finally scoffed.

"No, a scrapbook," she corrected, and he groaned, because that was worse. "You don't have to look at it now, if you don't want to. My grief counselor said that eventually, everyone wants to remember, and so when you're ready, it's here for you. All of it."

He looked at her. "Even—"

"Even the Hogwarts years."

He was stunned and yet pleased. "But we hated each other then."

Rose smiled. "Yes, but I included those pictures—the ones I could find, at least—because they still defined your love story."

He snorted in the half-hearted fashion he usually did when others mentioned "love stories". It was a lifelong habit formed from incredulity that had eventually died when he re-met Hermione, but the habit survived. It was part of his snarky façade. "How do you figure that?" He challenged.

"Because it defined how you approached each other later, when you were willing to forgive and forget. It was your history together."

"I see."

"Plus, I have a theory that beneath that veneer of hate you secretly wanted to get in each others' pants."

"Rose!"

She at least had the decency to blush, he noted. "What?" She asked defensively. "It's true! Well, maybe-probably," she amended. "It's like how some people who are overtly cruel to homosexuals are secretly just terrified of their own sexuality themselves, and they think that maybe by convincing the rest of the world that they couldn't be that way at all, they won't be."

He rubbed his temples. "Trust me, I had not yet reformed enough to have any feelings for your mother."

"Whatever you say," she replied, obviously still set in her convictions. "Oh, but I also added the Hogwarts pictures for a more personal reason: looking at pictures of you and mum from back in the day is really quite amusing. You were quite the emo-goth kid. Let me guess: no one understood you?"

He sneered at her. "I was quite handsome."

She snorted. "And scrawny."

He shot her the look. "Careful, my dear: you may be family, but I can still hex you."

"Never bite the hand that brings you presents!"

"Funny," he drawled. "But I would have sworn that wasn't quite the expression, and I'm rather sure the present is unwanted."

"I adapted it," she supplied. "And you may not want it now, but you will, eventually."

"Because someone with a degree in psychology said so?"

"Because I know so, because after the accident, I convinced Gwen she was having nightmares so I could sleep in her room with her and avoid our room as much as possible, because I couldn't move any of his stuff, but at the same time, I couldn't stand seeing it. And so I had to avoid nearly everything in that house and it all but drove me insane. But after the breakdown, mum and I made a scrapbook about those few short years we had together, and it still hurt, but it was comforting. It was nice, to remember the good times, and not just dwell on the fact that the good times were gone."

He looked at the book in his lap again. There had been plenty of good times, he knew. He liked to think he had kept her happy, at least decently so. He, for one, had been horribly, uncharacteristically happy. This, he supposed, was God giving him the bill; he had loved her, and lost her.

But he wasn't ready to open the book. He wasn't even ready to sleep in their bed again yet, and he wasn't sure he'd ever be ready to do that again, not after he'd lost her in that bed. Being on the closet floor was just a fluke, he decided. He had needed a tangible reminder of her that didn't hurt as terribly as the other reminders scattered around the house. The closet, in comparison to the rooms she'd decorated and the tables they'd shagged on when the children weren't come, was mundane; it was hers, but it was not notable. It was, then, relatively safe.

The pictures would not be.

"Can I see yours?" He asked, evading. He didn't expect her to have it. He expected it to be a segue to a conversation about her instead. But instead, for some reason, she had the damn scrapbook tucked away in that damn oversized bag.

Her wedding photos were on the cover. Apparently, she hadn't been very original with cover art, not that he cared. She looked over his shoulder as he flipped the pages, through a few photos of them as children, from tiny chubby babies to recalcitrant teens. His pictures, probably supplied by his mother, didn't move. Hers did. Draco couldn't decide which was better.

He gave her a questioning look when he came across pages of them with other people. His prom with another girl. Her Yule ball with another boy. Nearly a dozen pictures chronicling their dating history. She was a strange girl, she was, he decided.

She finally caught his questioning look. "What?" She asked defensively. "I'm not exactly eager to think of him with other women, but it was a reality of our lives. And think, what if I'd settled for this bloke here?" She pointed to Terry Boot's son. He shuddered. Rose Boot. Thank Merlin she hadn't settled for him; the horrible jokes would have written themselves. "Everything would be different. Every failed relationship was a step in the path for us."

She looked at him with a peculiar look in her eye. He braced himself; he knew when he mother looked that way, she was about to release some sort of important decision or realization. "Did I ever tell you that you and mum inspired me?"

"Inspired you to what?"

"Never settle."

He gave her a look of his own. "And how, exactly, did we do that?"

"Well, like with Henri Zabini; I came frighteningly close to marry that pounce, just because I was nearly thirty and still single. Remember how you and mum would try to set us up? You'd have dinner parties for our family and theirs, and he and I "just happened" to be the only single people there, and he was nice enough and seemed to like me despite not liking being thrust at me, and we did date a while. And then at one of those dinner parties he was holding my hand during after-dinner coffee and you and mum were talking and I suddenly realized that I would never have what you had with mum with him. At the very most, we would be like mum and Ron, and I didn't want that, even if he hadn't cheated on her and ruined everything."

His breath caught in his throat. "And... did you have what we had with Patrick?"

She sighed. "I don't know. I don't know exactly what you and mum had; I had the outside perspective on you, and the inside perspective on Patrick and me. But I do know that I did not simply settle for him, and that I would still do it all over again, even if it were going to end the same way, and I'm glad—so, so glad—that I waited, because it was worth everything."

It was the best, strangest compliment he'd ever received, he supposed, and the weight was rather staggering; he had inspired her to wait for Patrick, and knowing what Patrick had meant to her, that was the biggest compliment she could possibly give anyone. He didn't quite know what to say, so he squeezed her hand slightly and tried to pretend he wasn't as affected by her words as he was.

He went back to looking at the book. He finally got to pictures of them together, and found a menagerie of images, both magical and muggle. He was astounded by the number of pictures of them from before they married alone; that year and a half of time covered as much space in the book as the previous twenty-something years.

He was shocked at how happy she had been. He knew, of course, she had been happy, but had somehow forgotten she was that happy. It was almost sickening.

Her wedding took up the next few pages, and then there were a few years of their married life, then Gwen's birth, then four more years. His obituary was on the last page, but there were plenty of blank pages behind it.

"It's not finished," she supplied, though he didn't ask when his gaze stayed fixated on those blank pages.

"It's not?"

She shook her head. "Because that's not the end of us. I mean, he's passed on, but I'm still here, still holding on, because it doesn't register all at once that he's gone, and its kind of like a non-necrophilia posthumous romance. Like when we were in the car after the crash, and I could hear Gwen and she managed to tell me that she wasn't hurt as she cried, but Patrick wouldn't respond and I couldn't move, just held his hand and screamed for him, not realizing that their was no pulse in his fingers beneath mine, and that he had died on impact. And then waking up in the hospital and asking for him because I still didn't realize what had happened. And then waking up nearly every morning for months afterwards and wondering why he'd gotten up early and without waking me before remembering. Because he's still everywhere and I still love him, and it's not over, not really, and it won't be until I'm gone too."

The horrible thing about her, he realized, was that she was always right when he didn't want her to be.

"So if I were to open my book, I would find...?" He asked hesitantly.

"Pages left for your grandchildren's graduation pictures and wedding pictures and even space for your great grandchildren's birth, and if all the grandchildren multiple like Hugo and Serena, then I'll add pages. They're all part of your life with her."

He handed her book back to her and looked at his own. He'd never imagined he could ever be so terrified of something with lace on it. He didn't think he could handle looking at his own wedding photos.

"I've got to go run some errands before I pick up Gwen from Scorpius's," Rose announced as he sat on the floor, still quietly reminiscing. "Scorpius insisted that he and Irene babysit for me today. I think he and Hugo have an arrangement to watch her for at least a few hours on alternating weeks, but they don't want to tell me that they're trying to be fatherly figures for her because they think that would set me off." She frowned, then remembered him. "Sorry for the tangent. Anyway, I'm going to go. You can go hide that somewhere out of the way where you'll ignore it just as well as you can ignore any elephant in the room, and I'll see you later."

She hugged him goodbye and left him still on the floor of the closet. He wished Hermione had known that it was their love that had inspired Rose not to settle. He wished he had told her he loved her more often. He wished everything had been different. And, for the first time in months, he wished he had more time.

Gwen shuffled into the living room not long before noon, still dressed in her pajamas and a robe. She sat beside her mother on the couch and curled into her arms. Rose kissed her forehead and held her closer, as if she were still a little girl.

"What are you looking at?" She asked, and Rose picked up the scrapbook again. Gwen traced her finger over the letters on the cover. "They looked so happy."

Rose nodded. "They were. They were really, really happy."

"Were you and daddy that happy?"

Rose nodded again. "I like to thing so."

They looked at the pictures together silently. Hermione, with her horribly bushy hair as a child. Draco, with his horribly greasy hair as a child. Obviously, the wrong person had all the hair products. Then Hermione in scarlet and gold; Draco, in green and silver. Hermione and Ron; Draco and Astoria. Both notifications of divorce in the Prophet. Hermione and Draco, finally together. The wedding. The next few decades of bliss. Her death. His death.

"I can't believe you put that in here," Gwen breathed, tears threatening to spill again. It was too soon. Too, too soon. She wasn't used to handling grief the way her mother was.

"It's part of their life story together. Love and marriage isn't always the happy stuff; sometimes, it's feeling absolutely miserable and knowing that it's worth it anyway."

Gwen was quiet again. There were no more pages after the few pictures from his funeral. Rose hadn't had to add more pages; he hadn't lived to see any great-grandchildren, though Hugo and Serena's oldest was already expecting, and Gwen's graduation was the only one not chronicled in the book. Rose picked up the last photo from the coffee table, and Gwen watched as she slid it into place on the last page of the book. It was an unmoving picture of the double headstone, his half finally filled. And then, that was the end.

And that, my dears, really is the end, of a lot of things, actually. I've had fun in fanfiction, but now that this project is done, I'll be taking at least a short hiatus, if not a long one. Look for me on fictionpress, though, and keep checking here! I'm not gone for good yet, just in need of some prioritizing: college stuff is my priority right now; reviewing is yours (hint hint nudge nudge).