A/N: Thank you so, so, so much to everyone who has followed along with this monster of a fic, and its predecessor, aka 'The Risk'verse'. Over the 3 years period I've spent writing these fics I have felt feels, met amazing people who are now amazing friends, and gotten so much incredible, positive and helpful feedback! It's been an awesome ride, and I hope you've all enjoyed it too.

Also just FYI, my profile has a link to the OneDrive folder where all my completed fics are being collated, if anyone is interested in them :)

While a sequel to The Just World Fallacy has been plotted, it may not be begun for quite some time (if ever) due to other priorities. Thus, this epilogue brings The Risk'verse to a close at 600,000 words in length... with the hopes of perhaps one day revisiting the issues that will be mentioned in this chapter in more depth, in the planned sequel, Axiom, (because I'm not quite ready to say a permanent goodbye just yet!)

Epilogue: We've Got That Much

A heart suspends then bends it into three
A broken piece of what we used to be
I'm a knot but I'm never alone
I'm a knot that's smiling filled with hope
Don't say it's all
don't say it's all been lost
My throat gets caught
The loose ends will make knots
You're all I've got

[The Loose Ends Will Make Knots, Stars]

Hermione stretched; arms above her head and back arching, toes pointed and eyes screwing tight shut as she made an nnnghing sound of satisfaction, and then went boneless and limp on the soft bed, dreamily smoothing her hands over the growing swell of her belly. There were nudges and bumps against her palms, she smiled as she pushed back, feeling the small, rounded shape of either a head or a bottom shove against her right hand. She took stock of herself as she lay sprawled beneath the blankets; her back ached a little, and she was starving, but for the first time in weeks she felt well-rested. There had been no nightmares last night; neither her, nor Draco, which was a rare occurrence, and as a result, she'd slept the night through - except for when she'd gotten up shortly before dawn to pee.

Which she needed to do again. She blinked her bleary eyes open to their small room, sun streaming in the crack between the curtains - it must be past eight at least, she realised, which was positively over-sleeping for her these days. With a yawn she patted at the right side of the bed, and felt nothing but blanket - Draco must have already gotten up. Probably hours ago, when the sun was first starting to stream in against their curtains. He slept restlessly still; worse than her. Often she woke in the night to find him by the windows - curtains opened slightly so he was silhouetted by moonlight, his wand in hand as he watched for danger that wasn't there anymore.

With a huff of effort, Hermione rolled onto her side, detangling her legs from the bedclothes and swinging them off the bed, sitting up with her arm wrapped supportively around her belly. At nearly eight months, it was starting to get a little difficult to move about - and both magical and Muggle midwives had warned her not to put too much strain on her already stretched abdominal muscles. It made low chairs and beds a pain in the arse, although she was still limber enough to sit herself on the floor, despite looking utterly ridiculous getting up again.

She flung the curtains wide, letting the sunlight pour in, bathing her and their bedroom in the gentle golden warmth of spring. The fields beyond the house were green and lush now, and this morning they glistened wetly with the rain that must have fallen earlier, because the clouds that crowd the sky were not rain clouds - white, fluffy billows that were moving briskly as she watched. She thought maybe they should go for a walk out to the stream today - exercise was good for her - and see how rain-swollen it was. And then the baby - they'd opted not to find out the sex yet - thwacked her hard in the bladder, a sharp, insistent kind of pain, and Hermione winced and hurried for the loo.

After peeing, washing her face, and trying to smooth down some of the extra fluffy bits that had come out of the braid she'd put her hair in before bed, Hermione made for the kitchen. She needed coffee - weak coffee, thanks to being pregnant, but not decaf - and food. Everyone else was already up, it seemed; Dean, Seamus, Ron, and Cho all sitting around the kitchen table with mugs of coffee or tea, and Cho with a bowl of muesli as well.

"Morning 'Mione," Ron mumbled from behind his coffee, hair mussed beyond all reason, in a vest and pyjama trousers, and she ruffled his hair further as she went past him, on a beeline for the man in an apron at the stove, minding a pan full of eggs and bacon.

"Morning Ron, everyone," she said as she waddled for the stove, receiving a chorus of good mornings in return. And then she slid her arm around Draco's lean waist and went up on her tiptoes for a kiss - he turning his attention from the frying eggs and bacon, to her, kissing her firmly on the mouth. "Morning," she said softly, and he smiled, sliding a hand down to pinch her bum - unnoticed by anyone else, thankfully, although Seamus looked up at her stifled squeak, eyebrow raising.

"G'morning." He kissed her again, soft and sweet on the corner of her mouth, tucking a rogue lock of hair behind her ear, before flipping a couple of bits of bacon. "You slept well."

"Mmhmm." Hermione leant back against the benchtop by the stove, elbows on the bench, and belly sticking pronouncedly out in front of her. "No bad dreams." It was a quiet, private exchange even though it's in a room filled with people. Everyone else was otherwise occupied, and anyway now after months sharing the ex-safehouse, they're all used to politely tuning out the conversations that happen in murmured tones and soft touches. Although Dean and Seamus tended to roll their eyes a lot at the two couples...when Pansy Parkinson wasn't around, and coyly flirting with Seamus.

"Me neither, actually. Except that I woke up at five when you flailed and whacked me in the chest with your bony bloody elbow, and then called me a jerk when I tried to stop the flailing." Draco smirked a little to show he wasn't really annoyed, but Hermione apologised anyway, trying not to laugh as she did. The more heavily pregnant she became, the more restless she was in her sleep, it seemed. Several nights ago she'd accidentally flung her fist rather hard into his eye, and he'd yelped loud enough to wake her up.

"Sorry."

"Sure you are," he said as he adroitly slid each of the perfectly cooked eggs onto a slice of toast on a plate - five plates in all, laid along the bench - adding the freshly cooked bacon, and opening the oven to pull out a tray full of bacon and hash browns that had been keeping warm, piling the plates up with food. "I can tell that from the way you're trying not to giggle your arse off."

"Sorry," she said again, lips twitching a little, and Draco rolled his eyes as he kneed the oven shut and pushed the now-emptied frying pan onto the back of the stove, laying the tray on top of it. He did most of the cooking now, actually - oddly enough. But Ron and Seamus didn't want to cook and couldn't, and Dean thought he could cook, but really couldn't, and Draco actually enjoyed it. So while Hermione and Cho cooked dinner for everyone several times a week, or Hermione helped Draco out, mostly the kitchen was Draco's domain now. Ron had even gotten him the apron he was wearing as a joke - a pretty floral print of the sort someone's grandmother would wear - only for Draco to make a point of wearing it.

It was sweet, the way the two of them interacted; all sarcastic remarks and casual insults, with affection running deep between them. Hermione never could have imagined it would be possible for Ron and Draco to get over their enmity, and yet...sometimes the impossible was possible. Her smooth and healthy pregnancy was proof of that, she thought, lost in her own head as she splayed her hands over her belly and felt the baby shift and kick, vigorous and healthy. Draco's hands joined hers then, and she looked up and around, startled, to see that he'd served breakfast and everyone was eating except for Cho, who was nowhere to be seen now, her empty bowl by the sink.

"Earth to Hermione," he said softly, hands stroking over her belly and grey eyes serious and intent on hers. The floral apron was gone, and he was in a white tee shirt and grey pyjama trousers, feet bare, silver hand shining mutedly in the sunlight that streamed in the kitchen windows, the Mark on his left arm so faded now that it was barely visible.

"Sorry. Lost in my thoughts."

"Good, or bad?" he asked her cautiously, because all too often they were bad. Bad memories, bad fears, bad feelings, and if they weren't careful and wary it was easy to be swallowed whole by them - to tumble down a hole of depression and despair and loops of nightmarish memory. Too many times Hermione lost whole days to sullen misery, curled in bed hating everything and not even knowing why, angry and argumentative with anyone who tried to talk to her. Or Draco would disappear across the fields that surrounded the safehouse that was home now, and Hermione would find him hours later at the stream, his eyes bleak.

Hermione thought it likely that nearly all of them suffered from post-traumatic stress, but she knew for certain that she and Draco both did. And even though the war itself was over now, they were still being battered by its wake. "Hermione?"

"Good," she answered, looking up at him and smiling, sliding her hand along the stubbled curve of his cheek, the line of his jaw. "Good thoughts. I'm all right. Just need my coffee, I guess. Pregnancy brain." She scrunched up her nose, making a face - it was silly, but she did feel more forgetful lately, and was always losing herself to daydreams, or the feel of the baby moving within her.

"Well your coffee is waiting for you, along with your breakfast." Draco told her, jerking a thumb back at the table, where a full mug sat by a plate heaped with far too much food. "Now come and eat. The midwife Healer said you hadn't put on quite enough weight yet - you need it."

"Are you sure you're all right to go?" Draco looked up from lacing his boots, eyeing Hermione as she waddled into the room enveloped in a towel, hair damp. "We don't have to if you're not feeling up to it."

She'd been getting more tired than usual lately, and dizzy at times, and he worried. A lot. She told him not to fuss, but if he left it up to her she'd push herself and insist she was fine, right up to the point that she collapsed. Also, Draco kind of didn't want to go visit his mother. It wasn't horrible anymore, going to see her - they mostly ignored the unpleasant reality of his mad, blind father, shut up in St Mungo's. It was just...awkward. So any excuse to avoid the fortnightly visits that had somehow become a tradition, would be fucking fantastic.

"I'm fine, Draco," she said with a frown, shutting the bedroom door and dropping the towel, revealing heavy, rounded breasts, a ripe swell of belly marked at the sides by a smattering of stretchmarks, and when she turned away to rummage through her drawers, an arse that he just wanted to bite. She had scars too, but Draco didn't notice those - the ones from Bellatrix only faint traces now, thanks to the cream Mme. Dubois-Volkov had developed for her. "You just don't want to go. Which is fine. But don't use me as an excuse. I actually don't mind visiting, and I'm feeling good today."

Draco didn't bother arguing; his mind was on other, more interesting things now. He finished lacing his boots quickly and stood, crossing the room and turning Hermione away from her drawers just as she fished out a pair of pale blue cotton knickers. She gave him a questioning smile, arching a brow in query as he settled his hands at her naked hips - her skin was warm from the shower, and soft with the moisturising creams she used.

"Merlin, you're so fucking sexy." He bent his head, kissing the tops of her breasts, swollen with pregnancy, nipples a darkened shade of pink that he traced his tongue over teasingly, and Hermione made a muffled, wanting sound and fisted a hand in his hair.

"A-am I?" she gasped unsteadily, leaning back against the drawers. "I'm the -" his hand slipped between her thighs, fingers playing over soft flesh and dipping delicately into her delicious cunt "- s-size of a house..."

"Delicious," he murmured, lifting his head to kiss Hermione's mouth; long and thorough, one hand still playing between her legs. She tasted like toothpaste, melting into the kiss almost sweetly, her arms lacing around his neck as she went up onto her toes. Draco wrapped his arms around her, steadying her and lifting her a little...only it squashed the baby between them, and then he could feel tiny shifts and bumps against his stomach, and things...deflated. He grinned ruefully against her mouth, and then pulled back, running his thumb along Hermione's reddened, swollen mouth.

"What?" she asked, curious, lips moving soft against his thumb, before he slid his hand down, pausing en route to cup one full, soft breast, before pressing against her intrusive baby bump, fingers splayed wide over it.

"This." Draco rubbed her belly firmly and felt the baby respond to the pressure, shoving out against his hand, and Merlin he cannot believe that was his child growing in there, only a few months away from being born. "Hard to focus when the baby's doing its damnedest to kick us apart." She covered her mouth with her hand, huffing a laugh, and then pushed him back, awkwardly bending over and slipping her knickers on.

"I don't know why it bothers you - I'm constantly being kicked and I don't have any problem getting in the mood," she said as she straightened, and Draco flashed her a wicked grin.

"No, you really don't," he said low and dirty, and she actually blushed as she turned to dig through her drawer, fishing out a bra.

"Well, anyway," she went on pointedly, wriggling on Muggle leggings. "If we're not going to do that, then we may as well stop wasting time and go to Cokeworth now. If we leave now we can stay for morning tea, and plead off lunch?" Draco couldn't deny that was a tempting option. He stared at her for a long moment as she slipped a light grey dress-tunic thing over her head - them with leggings being about all she wore now, with her belly so big. She looked so fucking gorgeous, creamy skin all washed in sunlight, body all curves and dips and smooth expanses of touchable skin.

And then she was dressed and looking at him expectantly as she wove her hair into some sort of braid. "Well?"

Draco sighed, capitulating. "All right, come on then. Get your shoes on and we'll bloody go."

They travelled by floo - disapparition not being recommended while pregnant - and emerged faintly dusted with ash into the large fireplace in the library of Spinner's End.

Draco brushed Hermione off carefully, and ducked his head to let her ruffle the ash out of it. She grinned mischievously at him as he straightened, and he suspected she'd left his hair mussed and ran his fingers through it, trying and failing to slick it back.

His hair was getting too long now, but Hermione liked it when it was the perfect length for his fringe to flop into his eyes and annoy the shit out of him. ...So he'd left it, because according to Weasley, he was fucking whipped - even though Weasley'd do the same for Chang. Draco didn't particularly give a fuck if he was though; he was lucky to have Hermione, both with him and alive, so if she liked his hair long he'd keep it that way. There were too many times that he'd nearly lost her.

On impulse, Draco slipped his arm around Hermione's waist and kissed her temple.

Which was precisely when his mother bustled into the room. Draco looked up and smiled stiffly at her. She was dressed in a well-tailored bluish-green dress that fell just past her knees, and was only notable in that she never would have worn such a thing before the war, her long blonde hair pinned back into a practical bun.

"Mother."

"You're early!" she greeted him brightly, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. "Just in time for morning tea." She looked happy, Draco thought as he broke apart from Hermione to let her give him a hug, and dutifully kissed her cheek. She hugged Hermione next, a light, formal sort of embrace, and then stepped back and eyed Hermione's belly, before smiling at her.

"You're positively glowing, Hermione. How have things been since we saw you last? How is my grandbaby?" A hint of worry mixed in with the warmth in his mother's voice; she might have her faults, but since she'd finally let go of hope regarding his father, his mother had been...much better. She was supportive of Draco and Hermione in her own slightly formal way, and desperately excited about their child. It had been the baby, more than anything else, that had helped them bridge the gap of all the hurt and grief that his father and their pureblood beliefs had caused, during the war, and before.

"Thank you." Hermione returned his mother's smile, and Draco found himself noticing how much she was glowing. At the beginning of the pregnancy, during the war and in the immediate aftermath, she had been worn thin and ashen; unwell and over-stressed. Now, despite the nightmares and the lingering trauma, she was finally beginning to put extra weight on, and her complexion was radiant, her cheeks gaining fullness. "We had an appointment at St Mungo's last week, and according to the scans everything is going perfectly. A textbook pregnancy."

"That's wonderful, Hermione. I'm so glad to hear it." His mother clapped her hands together softly, smiling at the pair of them. "Well, you two should go on through to the sitting room and get comfortable - Severus will be pleased to see you both. I'll just put the kettle on for tea." And then she hurried off again, Draco and Hermione following in her wake. It was so strange still, seeing his mother like this. She was almost normal - like Draco remembered her being before Voldemort's return, only warmer, and more relaxed. It was a good change, but hard to get used to.

Sometimes Draco resented her so much that it made him sick.

Sometimes even the thought of her made him think of his father and the way she had clung to him until the very last, until it had been clear he had sunk into total insanity and was never coming back. And then Severus Snape had been there in St Mungo's; on the verge of death and with no one to care for him...and somehow his mother had placed herself in the role of his caregiver, whether he'd liked it or not. Evidently, he had.

The sitting room was bright and well-cared for, the curtains at the narrow windows drawn wide, and magical lamps burning at the walls, filling it with a glow. In a chair at the window sat Severus Snape, in dark trousers and a white shirt that was unbuttoned at the collar, his head bent over a book. His hair was tied loosely back at the nape of his neck by a black cord, highlighting the gruesome scarring that marred his throat as he lifted his head at Draco and Hermione's entry. Despite the scarring, he looked shockingly young though, especially when his mouth twitched into half a smile at the sight of them; a genuine bloody smile, and Draco thought perhaps Snape looked so young because he was happy.

"Draco," he rasped, his voice a painful-sounding shadow of what it used to be, inclining his head in greeting but not getting up. "Hermione. Good morning."

"Snape," Draco smiled faintly and nodded, as Hermione murmured a friendly but muted 'good morning'. Despite her insistence on saving Snape's life at great risk to her own, Hermione was always initially awkward around the ex-Professor. She had told Draco after one visit, that the first time she looked at him every visit, she remembered two things vividly in her mind: the way it had felt when Snape had touched her naked breast, and the way he had looked at her as he'd lain dying. Even now, those two memories were still flayed-raw nerve endings in her mind. Draco could understand that.

He guided her to the loveseat that sat at a slight angle to Snape's armchair, and took the side closest to the other man, who shut his book and laid it carefully aside. A novel, Draco noted, and a Muggle one at that. Wuthering Heights, it was; Draco wouldn't have thought that to be Snape's sort of thing - it certainly hadn't interested him when he'd picked it up while browsing the Muggle classics. It was too similar to wizarding fiction - Draco liked the odd Muggle genres best.

"How is the child?" Snape asked in that raw whisper of his, and Draco glanced at Hermione, and saw her relax a little at that question - asking about the baby was the best way to get her to forget any awkwardness. Draco suspected Snape knew that, considering that he asked Hermione extensively about the pregnancy at the beginning of every visit now, and Draco somehow doubted Snape was actually that interested in Hermione's blood pressure. It was rather nice, actually, sitting there and listening to them talk; Hermione's clear tones a contrast to Snape's tortured rasp. The conversation slowly grew more and more animated, before veering off somehow into the effects of mandrake leaf when used in morning sickness curatives.

Shortly after the conversation had turned to other things, such as Harry's recent emergence from his mysterious coma, the Ministry's search for Hermione's parents, and the reorganising Auror department's round-up of the escaped Death Eaters and their allies - including his Aunt, Draco's mother came into the room with a loaded tea tray. The way Snape broke off in the middle of a sentence to smile at his mother when she came into the room was only slightly more disturbing than the fond look she gave him. Hermione nestled closer to Draco's side then, thanking his mother for the cup of tea Narcissa poured her, and Draco automatically did as well, one arm snaking around behind Hermione, keeping her close.

His mother perched on the wide arm of Snape's chair quite comfortably as if there was nothing unusual in that, and they all sat and sipped at their tea and nibbled at biscuits, and talked quite easily of inconsequential things. And after a while Draco noticed his mother's hand slide into Snape's as they talked, with the same sort of deep affection in the way his arm was around Hermione's waist, and Salazar it was so strange, in a multitude of ways. But Draco was glad that they'd come to visit - he always was, in the end, as he shook Snape's hand in farewell and kissed his mother's cheek, waiting for Hermione to give them each a brief, awkward embrace before they stepped into the floo one at a time.

And then, when they ducked out of the fireplace in the small safehouse in the middle of nowhere, which they shared with Thomas, Finnegan, Weasley and Chang, it felt like coming home. And that was rather nice too.

"How's he been sleeping?" Tonks asked as she fished a chubby blue-haired toddler out from under the kitchen table. Hermione turned away from the window she was peering out through, at the men out on the lawn, and wove around Neville and Luna - in charge of cooking tonight - to sit herself down at the table beside Tonks. She cast a muffliato, because she knew that while Draco understands her confiding in Tonks, he wouldn't appreciate Neville and Luna overhearing private details about his problems. But aside from hers and Draco's bedroom, there was no other privacy available indoors, with so many people filling the house this afternoon.

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?" she asked with a smile, and nodded at the wriggling Teddy trapped on Tonks lap. It was technically his nap time, but he'd refused to go down.

"Oh Merlin. This one just flat refuses to go to sleep at all. Ever," Tonks said grinning, before her smile dropped away. "I suppose he's making up for his dad."

"Tonks...I'm so sorry - I didn't think -" Remus was still locked within the coma the curse he'd been struck with during the Third Battle of Hogwarts, as it was now being called. He was being intensively treated, but the Healers were not overly hopeful.

"No, no." Tonks waved Hermione's apology off, apologising herself. "Don't be sorry. I shouldn't have - but we went to visit him yesterday, and there's still no progress yet, and it's..." Tonks broke off, jiggling Teddy on her lap, eyes bright and wet as she looked down at him. "Teddy doesn't understand. He doesn't even remember who Remus is."

"Tonks..." Hermione tried to infuse that one word with as much empathy as possible, not sure what else to say, fiddling nervously with the delicate opal ring that had adorned her left hand for nearly two months, now.

"Harry woke up...?" she offered, as a token of hope. Nearly two weeks ago, in fact - his release from St Mungo's yesterday the reason behind this gathering, which had left their small house overflowing with people, and Draco, Harry, and Ron sitting together on the lawn, drinking. They'd become their own little 'trio' Hermione thought idly, amused. She'd have to point that out to Draco, and tease him mercilessly for it.

"It's different, Hermione. Harry's coma was induced by magical backlash, not a curse. But...but I'm not giving up hope."

"Good. Remus is a fighter, Tonks. He's not going to give up easily - if anyone can come back from what happened to him, he can."

"Thanks," Tonks sighed, and then smiled wanly as Teddy tried to flip upside-down in her arms. "At least I have this little one, and m' mum, still." And then she brightened her smile and turned it properly on Hermione. "Anyway, I was asking about Draco's sleep, wasn't I? Is it still as bad as it was last time we talked about it?"

"Not too bad last night, for either of us, but before that..."

"Bad?" Tonks finished with sombre understanding, and Hermione nodded.

"He tells me he just sleeps lightly, or blames my restlessness, but I recognise the nightmares. Some nights he has several, and after the third one he just can't go back to sleep. It's wearing him thin, I know it." And god, it was such a relief to be able to talk to someone about it all. If not for Tonks, Hermione would have been trapped with it all bottled up, and no one to confide in.

"And he still won't take the Dreamless Sleep?" Tonks asked, features shaping with sympathy and understanding, and Hermione shook her head in the negative as she took Teddy, who'd reached out for his 'Aunty Mine' with dimpled arms.

"No. He refuses. It's Draco - of course he refuses."

"Stubborn idiot." Tonks made a moue of annoyance, leaning back and taking a sip of her butterbeer. "How about you?"

"I've been trying to wean myself off it lately, but if I have a particularly bad dream...I'll take it. I'm not an idiot."

"Good," Tonks said decidedly. "And with him...what is it about? Is it...the trial?" Hermione grimaced; Draco always refused to share what his nightmares were about, but sometimes she got some idea of what was plaguing him in his sleep from the things he mumbled while still trapped within the dreams. And a lot of what he mumbled at the moment seemed to be about his criminal trial, which would be heard before the Wizengamot in just over a month - a week before Hermione's due date. There were other nightmares, but...

"I think so, partly. He's scared - he doesn't want to have to - to leave me, and the baby. I'm scared too, to be honest, Tonks. I know Harry is going to speak for him in regards to his actions at the Third Battle, and you and everyone left in the Order are going to speak for his actions in general, but..."

"I know. But the Minister is favourable toward Draco, and the newly reformed Wizengamot are a mostly trustworthy bunch - and as far as I know, not a one of them has close relatives affected by any of Draco's actions, so they have no personal stake in the matter. I know that back before any of this happened I wasn't hopeful about Draco's chances, but things have changed since then. The trial is a formality, really. I can't imagining them convicting him, let alone sentencing him to any time in Azkaban."

"I - I know," Hermione nodded, ruffling her hand through Teddy's currently bright purple hair, and then tickling her fingers into his armpits a little, smiling at his shrieking giggle. "But I can't help worrying. I'm going to until it's over, I know it."

"Fair enough. I'm sure I would too."

"And then after the trial, if he's cleared -" Hermione began unhappily "- he wants to join the Auror department."

"Oh, Hermione... But, to be honest, that sounds like that's precisely what he needs; to feel like - like he's making amends," Tonks tried to reassure her, understanding for Hermione's fear in her voice despite her positive words. Hermione could know that intellectually, and it still wouldn't make the fear for him any less. Hadn't he done enough? Hadn't they both done enough? But of course Hermione was well aware that civic duty was not really the main reason Draco wanted to become an Auror, like Ron was - who so far had been kept off active duty, and was assigned instead as a guard to the Dementor-less Azkaban, much to his annoyance.

"He wants B-Bellatrix." Hermione winced as she got the name out, shuddering a little.

"Oh..." Tonks was quiet for a long moment, mulling that over. "Well, that's not quite as healthy, but still - maybe he needs to do it. For closure."

"Oi, you two - stop talking about serious goings-ons,"George Weasley interrupted loudly, making Hermione jump in fright and whack him on the arm as he appeared beside the pair of them, grinning widely, and bending to tickle Teddy under the chin. "Hello Ted."

Hermione dropped the muffliato, thwacking the twin lightly on the arm again. "Don't do that, George."

"We're trying to have a party for the boy-who-finally-woke-up, and you two are sitting in here looking glum and sour," George protested. "I know you can't drink, Hermione, but Tonks you should be having something stronger than butterbeer, and Hermione...well, try to enjoy being teetotal." Hermione rolled her eyes, and George merrily ignored her look. "We're putting Arthur down now -" Arthur being Angelina, Fred, and George's little one "- up in Ron and Cho's room, so we can take Teddy off your hands if you like."

"Go for it," Tonks said immediately, grinning. "And good luck. You'll need it."

"I'll have you know, I am bloody fantastic with children," George said, scooping Teddy out of Hermione's lap. "A veritable baby whisperer. Come on, Teddy, let's get you off to beddy-byes, huh?" he said to Teddy, dangling the toddler out upside-down for Tonks to kiss, before wandering out of the kitchen with a final reproof to Hermione and Tonks to 'have fun'.

"He's right, y'know, Hermione," Tonks pointed out as she waved goodnight to Teddy. "Today is supposed to be a good day. And as for the trial, well...I honestly don't think you have to worry - but either way, there's no point in borrowing trouble."

"I know..."

"I'm going to finish this, and then find the firewhiskey," Tonks said with a wicked grin, lifting her butterbeer. "And you - you should go out there." She nodded toward the window, toward the small circle of lawn around the house where the fields that surrounded it had been cut low, where Draco sat with Harry and Ron, the three of them sharing Muggle beers and talking about rubbish, no doubt. Hermione stood and stretched, easing the crick out of her back, and then angled her head so she could see them, visible in angled profile from here; all three sitting in a row in their flimsy lawn chairs, a plastic bin full of chilled beer in front of them, and a box of empties sitting just behind Ron's chair.

Hermione smiled fondly, her heart feeling too-full as she watched them, rubbing the ache out of her lower back. The three people that she loved more than anyone else in the world, aside from the baby, all sitting together in the slowly blooming sunset. "I should," she said absentmindedly, turning her smile on Tonks. "Thank you, Tonks - for talking. I do feel better now."

"Good. Now go - relax. Enjoy," Tonks ordered, a hint of wistful envy in her tone, and Hermione did as she was told.

There was a movement at the front door; Draco caught it from the corner of his eye, even half-drunk as he was. He looked over not expecting her, and yet there she was, framed in the open door and lit fiery by the sunset, her belly looking ripe and round and precious. She came down the front steps carefully - prone to losing her balance now it was all put askew by her growing bump, a glass of something in her hand. He watched her as she approached, hair loose and wavy-wild down past her shoulders, feet bare in the grass, in leggings and a tunic, with a long woolly cardigan over-top - it got chilly in the evenings, still.

"God, Hermione, I still can't believe how huge you are," Potter said as she drew near, and she huffed out an indignant sound, raising an eyebrow. Hermione didn't mind her bump being called huge, or variations thereof, but ridiculously she was rather sensitive to being called enormous herself, despite her constantly mentioning it in amused complaint.

"Oh thanks, Harry," she answered him dryly, and poor Potter looked confused as to what he'd done wrong while Weasley just sat back and grinned into his beer, wisely not getting involved.

"But - but you're pregnant - you're supposed to be enormous..." Potter went on, and Hermione narrowed her eyes, and Draco stifled a laugh for fear of drawing Hermione's annoyance.

"Stop digging, Potter," he advised, holding out a hand to Hermione, and Weasley snorted.

"Come here," Draco said to her, and she took his hand, letting him reel her in, him assuring her the chair could hold both of them as he pulled her onto his lap. She was warm and heavy, holding her glass of punch carefully in one hand, her other arm snaking around his neck as she leaned in to kiss his temple. Her lips were soft, like the rest of her, and Draco swilled back the dregs of his beer and dropped the bottle to the grass beside his chair, freeing that hand to lay it over her belly. There was a hard kick, and then several big nudges and bulges as the baby tried to do a flip, distorting Hermione's belly oddly.

"He's awake," he said softly, too low for Weasley and Potter to overhear without straining.

"Or she," Hermione pointed out just as quietly, smiling as she put her hand over his and interlaced their fingers over her belly, her firewhiskey eyes catching the light and flaring with ambers and golds. And then she kissed him gently on the mouth, chaste but lingering, her hair falling around their faces so that all he could smell was the vanilla scent that hung heavy in her hair. When she finally withdrew, cheeks flushed and mouth plump, Draco felt more drunk on her than the beer.

"Love you," she murmured, lips curving and eyes alight in the sunset, and Draco couldn't believe that she was with him, that the child in her belly was theirs, that they were safe. It struck him suddenly, dizzying and too good to be true except that it was, and emotion made a hard ache in his chest.

"You too," Draco said roughly, so quietly even she would barely be able to hear it, unable to trust his voice. "Both of you." He kept his hand pressed firm over her belly, leaning his forehead on her shoulder, not caring how he might look to Weasley and Potter. Hermione smoothed her hand through his hair in small, soft caresses, and Draco sighed and shut his eyes, feeling the baby push and twist against his palm.

This was everything he needed; his entire universe in his arms, and how had he gotten so lucky?

And when Draco finally lifted his head, Potter and Weasley were gone, and he and Hermione were alone, facing the sunset.

Fin.