Everything the Light Touches

Hermione crept out of bed before the sun had begun to rise to make a thermos of coffee and find a blanket before waking Draco. When he attempted to protest she hushed him and threw some comfortable clothes for him to put on and promised it would be worth it. She’d revisited the memories Draco had written about his life and realised that there was something important she needed to do. He groaned as she pulled him out of the house to an area in which they could apparate.

When they arrived, Draco could hear the sound of crashing waves and he wondered why she’d brought him to the beach. Not that he didn’t love the beach but, he definitely preferred it during daylight hours. They were on a sand dune. He watched her lazily as she laid out the blanket, deciding that if she wanted to do something at this time in a morning, then she could set up the silly blanket herself. She sat down and patted the space beside her, he joined her silently as she handed him a small plastic cup of coffee. He took a sip of it and sighed as he felt like he had finally woken up. The sun began to rise slowly over the horizon as she laid her head on his shoulder, and he laid his on top of hers. They sat silently in each other’s company, watching the daybreak and listening to the sea greet the shore in steady rhythmic waves. Once the surrounding area had been thoroughly lit up Hermione sat upright and gave him a soft glance.

“I wanted to show you something..” She told him.

“I could have seen the sun anywhere to be fair.” He joked. She smiled.

“Not that.” She took hold of his hand. “I reread the stuff you wrote after we spoke about my book, and I realised you needed to see this.” She pointed at a large stone standing in front of them.

He looked at her, his expression betrayed the fact that he already knew what it would be. He blinked several times before he looked over in that direction and let go of her hand. He stood and closed the short distance between himself and the gravestone before crouching to read the words etched on it.

Here lies Dobby, a free elf.

Hermione wanted to give him some privacy, so she walked down to the water’s edge. Dobby had truly made a lasting impact in the lives of everyone she cared about, she almost felt ashamed that they never visited his grave anymore. But now she was back again, with his old master’s son, who never got to say goodbye.

She heard Draco as he walked up behind her before stopping right beside her. She had been looking down at the water that was just about reaching their shoes as she noticed the missing sock on his right foot. She huffed a quiet laugh as he rocked back onto his heels slightly.

“I had to leave him something didn’t I?” Draco smiled at her as she looked up at his sad expression. She took his hand in hers and planted a small kiss on his knuckles before he let go and pulled her in for a hug. “Thank you” He whispered into her hair.

“I’m so sorry that you never got to say goodbye..” He merely squeezed her tighter in response.

“Can we go see that baby again today? I think I need to see new life after this..” Draco whispered, almost shyly into her hair. She smiled and obliged.

Draco sat in the shade of a parasol in the Potter’s back garden, slouching back just so for Lily to curl up on his chest. Hermione had gone inside with Ginny to make drinks, so he sat in an almost comfortable silence with Harry – which is something he’d have thought impossible mere months ago. Draco’s experience with babies was as limited as his experience with adulthood, but he couldn’t resist the way it felt to have a baby sleep on him. It felt like an honour of the highest order.  

“What’s it like?” Draco asked Harry, looking over at him.

“What?” Harry glanced back. “Having a baby?”

“And a wife..”

“All I ever wanted was a family.” Harry said with a half-smile as he looked at Lily, Draco felt a pang of guilt for even asking. “I had so many father figures but never a dad, so I’m just hoping I can get it right..”

“I can’t help you there.. But if the saviour of the wizarding world doesn’t have what it takes to be a good dad then what hope do the rest of us have.” Draco joked as the women joined them.

“Thinking about becoming a dad are you, Draco?” Ginny snorted as she passed Harry a glass of something fizzy.

“I’m just going to put this one up my shirt before I leave, save me the hassle of giving birth.” He looked at Hermione as she laughed and nudged his foot with her own.

“Honestly though, it’s been very easy for me in comparison to Ginny, I’m just glad I get to be part of it.” Harry smiled at his wife as she kicked her legs up to rest on top of his.

“Well, you do everything other than feed her on account of having useless nipples.” She smiled back sweetly.

“They are pretty useless aren’t they..” They shared a laugh and Draco, for the first time, felt like he might one day have what they have. Draco glanced at Ginny again and caught her eye.

“I still can’t believe women can just..” He moved his hand to indicate at Lily in general. “Make a baby. Like, you made this from scratch..” He peered down at her, as she began to wriggle a little and she opened her eyes. “Yes, you. She made you.” He touched her nose with his finger as she peered up at him.

“Didn’t even mean to either..” Harry joked as Ginny nudged him with her foot, grinning at him.

“That’s even scarier! You can just make one by accident..” Draco gasped.

“Well, not entirely by accident, we are all aware of how they’re made. Right?” Ginny looked at Draco pointedly.

“Har har, yes I know how babies are made Ginevra.” He rolled his eyes at her playfully. “I’ve had sex at least three times. Right, Hermione?”

“Three, maybe four.” She waved her hand with uncertainty.

“We’ll call it three and a half.” He joked.

“Poor Hermione.” Harry laughed.  

They lay in bed late that night, when the world was still and quiet, when Draco took her by surprise and insisted that she write his book. He wanted her to tell his story, and he knew that she was the only one he could trust to deliver it in the right light. Her books had been multifaceted, and he knew that would be crucial when telling the tale of a death eater.

“I want you to tell anyone that wants to know exactly what my life has been like. I’m not proud of the things I’ve done, but I’m not ashamed anymore either. I did what I had to do, and every step of that led me here, to this moment, with you.” He rolled onto his back. “Merlin, I’m in Hermione Granger’s bed…” He sighed with disbelief as he dragged a hand down his face with a boyish giggle. “If I had to guess where I’d have ended up this would have been the last place I said. And now it’s the only place I want to be.” He looked over at her as she watched him with an amused smile.

“Yes well, it is rather comfy..” She joked as he turned back over and pulled her closer.

“I’m here for you, you donut!” He touched her nose with his. “I’d lie on the ocean floor with you if you only asked..”

“Unfortunately, that’s where I go to be alone..”

They spent the following week working through the pages of Draco’s notes, taking more details down on Hermione’s laptop. He found the device endlessly fascinating, but nothing amazed him more than the speed at which she typed. Had he not already known she was a witch, he would have believed her one from that alone.

Hermione had invited Theo and Pansy over to ask for amusing stories and titbits on Draco from school. She hadn’t wanted to even consider her own dealings with him back then, he almost felt like an entirely different person now. And hearing about the hidden side of him that they experienced before their world changed forever was somewhat healing for them both. It brought a human element to him that she’d never truly explored in her own books, he was just a teenager stumbling around the same castle trying to find his footing.

“Do you remember that time he thought he was cool when he turned you down for a date but ended up tripping over the rug?” Theo said through his laughter to Pansy, who began belly laughing until she nearly fell out of her chair, which only made Theo laugh harder. Draco rolled his eyes, thoroughly unimpressed as Hermione snickered.

“Or when he got so drunk he started chatting up the suit of armour we’d put a wig on?” Pansy grasped Theo’s arm as he shot back in his seat, kicking his feet at the pain in his stomach.

“Stop!” He howled, clutching at his chest. “The FROGS!”

Pansy and Theo were clutching at each other, red faced, gasping for air after that for so long that Hermione had to ask Draco to elaborate.

“I have an irrational fear of frogs, they put them in my bed in fourth year.” Draco eyed the pair who had began laughing in complete silence as he explained. “I threw up, honestly Hermione, I hate them so much. Look, I have goosebumps just thinking about it.” He thrusted his arm out to show her and she nodded her agreement as Theo landed on the floor with a thump.

“Ahaha.. hahaha.. Oh my gods.. Ha.. Then what happened?” Theo rasped out with wheezing breaths. Draco sighed indignantly as he looked away, reminding Hermione of exactly what he was like in school; a petulant child.

“I slipped in it as I tried to run away from one that jumped towards me.” He crossed his arms as Pansy erupted in a new wave of audible cackling. “They wouldn’t have even known about that fear if fucking Neville hadn’t have lost his stupid toad on the train in first year.” Pansy reached over to Draco and begged him to stop speaking. Clutching her stomach and claiming her precious cargo was at risk.

Hermione couldn’t help but laugh along with them, there’s something contagious about that kind of laughter. Especially when it starts afresh whenever a glance is exchanged. She promised Draco that these events would definitely be making it into the final draft of the book, which only made him give her a withering look.

“Say it..” Hermione giggled. “Say what you used to say when you felt like this..” She eyed him with a ridiculous grin that he couldn’t ignore, and his own mouth twisted into a grin as he looked over at his two oldest friends.

“My father will hear about this!” He muttered as he watched them dissolve into hysterics again.

Pansy had to leave the room on her hands and knees, she couldn’t take any more of it. With tears streaming down her face, she slumped onto the kitchen floor, where Luna looked down at her curiously. Theo couldn’t rein it in either as he tried to get back into his seat. Luna stood in the hallway between both rooms, looking utterly bewildered.

“Speaking of your father though..” Theo coughed to clear his throat of the dregs of laughter as he pulled himself back onto his chair. “Can you remember when he was out on the terrace at the manor?”

This time, Draco began to laugh. “Fucking hell, I thought he was going to skin us alive!”

Theo turned to Luna. “This one time, Lucius fell asleep on a sun lounger, and we dropped a full bucket of water over him.” The pair laughed to each other for a moment as Theo slapped his hand on the table.

“We cleared the path for our exit plan before we did it so that he couldn’t find us after.” Draco barked a laugh.

“The door next to where he sat was a full glass pane, we locked it so that he couldn’t get to us.” Theo gasped for breath. “It had just been cleaned, so he thought it was open.” Theo curled over himself as he howled with laughter.

“We heard him run into it and the next day it still…” Draco trailed off as he began to belly laugh.

“It still had the imprint of his face on it…” The pair looked at each other again before roaring with laughter.

Eventually the pair had calmed down enough to explain the whole thing. Lucius had fallen asleep after drinking too much wine. They’d snuck through a small upstairs window and onto a section of flat roofing to get to him. All of the doors between them and the hedge maze that sat on the grounds had been left open so that they could get away – hopefully – unscathed. Lucius was never able to find the humour in it, but it didn’t stop the pair of them finding it rip roaringly hilarious every single time it was brought up. Pansy had finally been able to rejoin them halfway through the story with a large glass of water for her aching throat.

“Can you remember the time we tried to dig our way to China?” Pansy giggled.

“Merlin, we’d have been about seven. Maybe eight. Poor Narcissa, she loved the gardens, she was furious when she found the hole.” Theo chuckled.

“Why did we use spoons though?” Draco laughed.

“At that I had to use a teaspoon!” Pansy added.

Hermione sat back and realised just how wrong she’d been about the three of them. In school she’d always assumed they were stuck up and didn’t even know how to laugh, since school she’d began to pity them and wonder about their upbringing. But she could see now that they’d just been normal children, troublemakers to boot. If anything, they probably had more fond memories of their childhood than she did, though she did have her moments too. The three laughed among themselves as they dictated to an enchanted quill what it should write down for them as Neville walked into the room.

“Have they had you running laps?” He joked as he leaned over to kiss his wife.

“Better, they’ve had me laughing so hard I nearly cracked a rib.” She grinned.

“Well, I’ve clearly missed a lot..” He looked around the room as they began to titter again.

“Don’t set them off. It’s headache inducing.” Luna jested.

But Neville was introduced to another set of stories, ridiculous things that unsupervised children get up to. Like flooding the kitchens and turning the stairs into a slide with the mattresses off the beds. Or, his personal favourite, buying enchanted singing roses and putting them in Narcissa’s garden only to find out that they exclusively sang reggae music.

Hermione had given up trying to type as fast as they were speaking but by the end of the night the enchanted quill had written on an obscene amount of parchment. She decided to leave it until the morning as she led Draco up to bed after Pansy and Neville left. Theo and Luna stayed downstairs, drinking wine and watching tv with Edgar, who was exceedingly glad the raucous laughter had ceased.

Hermione had a slight fascination with keeping copies of the Daily Prophet when they ran stories about her. She and Draco had been regularly discussed in the headlines since she decided to sponsor him, and she’d kept them all. She’d kept them when she’d sponsored Pansy too, they were at the bottom of the pile, which were now largely discarded as Draco sat on her bed surrounded by them. She hadn’t intended for him to find them, and hadn’t even considered it since he began staying with her beside the wardrobe she kept them in. She’d asked Draco to fetch her a cardigan, and admittedly she should have been clearer that she meant the one hung on her bedroom door.  

“You really shouldn’t read them; they have no idea what they’re talking about..” She muttered as she began to gather them up. He took her by the wrist and told her to leave them. He wanted to read them. He wanted to know what they had been saying about him. And then he politely asked her to leave, which she did.

Draco had lived in a blissful ignorance since he’d arrived at her home, he could see that now. The rest of the wizarding world hadn’t forgotten about the sins he committed, and several of the headlines questioned Hermione’s sanity for welcoming a man like him into her home. They spoke of his crimes, of the things he did as a child, misdeeds that would follow him for the rest of his life. They questioned his actions, speculated that he was manipulating them all into trusting him. They displayed photographs that he hadn’t even seen them take, including ones of them all laughing together as a group, and insisted something foul was afoot. She’d been completely aware of this rhetoric and still, she’d continued to support and accept him. She hadn’t let it get to her, hadn’t let it change her mind. He wondered – and not for the first time – what he could possibly have done to deserve any type of devotion from her. And then he realised, he didn’t do anything, hadn’t needed to, that’s just who she was.

“Are you okay?” She asked from the doorway, startling him out of his thoughts. He nodded. “You shouldn’t let it get to you..” He shrugged.

“Maybe I do belong to the darkness, maybe they’re right.” She tried to protest as he rose to stand in front of her, he refused to let her speak. “But I have fought every shadow inside of myself to live in the light. Then you came in and lit up the rest of me, you’re not just among everything the light touches, you are the light. And I’m no better than a moth, I am so drawn to you, whether that brings redemption or damnation, I don’t care anymore.” His hands softly cupped her face as he kissed her. “Their opinions mean nothing to me; I only want you and everything you are.”