Four Weddings and a Dragon - Charlie Weasley

Chapter 11

AN: Updating a day early because I'm sick and can't do anything else. Please let me know how you like it. And remember HEA is coming.

Draco Malfoy came striding into the library of Malfoy Manor carrying his wife in his arms like a new bride. Tender as he was, beautiful as the pair of them were, it was not an occasion for celebration. They had just apparated home from St. Mungo's hospital after Astoria Malfoy's third visit there in the last two years, each time for the same unhappy reason.

"Nonsense, darling," Draco said. "Of course it's not that you NEED me to carry you, but that I WANT to carry you. Please be patient and let me do it. There's my good girl."

She uttered a melancholy laugh as she gave in and let her head droop against his shoulder. "I'm not hurt, Draco. Just tired and sad. And there's no pregnancy for us to protect anymore."

Draco huffed. "That's all the more reason for me to dote on you. Whatever we've lost, we've got each other, and the closer the better." He stopped in front of a large green leather chair and sat in it, still holding Astoria, arranging her in his lap, smoothing her hair as she raised both of her hands to his face.

She blinked at him as he looked down at her, smiling wanly at him, finding that familiar edge of pain still in his eyes. "I'm so terribly sorry, Draco. If I'd - "

He hushed her, his finger against her lips. "No one has anything to be sorry for but me. Some stranger found you in the street and brought you to the hospital when it should have been me. How can I ever forgive myself?"

She boosted herself to kiss the sharp line of his jaw. "Nonsense. What kind of life would we have if you trailed around after me every moment I was pregnant? All you did was go about your normal life, taking care of business as usual. You did nothing wrong."

He nodded and gathered her closer. "I can accept that if you'll accept you did nothing wrong either."

He had caught her, tricking her into forgiving herself, and she loved him for it. She pressed her forehead to his chin and nodded. "Alright, we can say neither of us did anything wrong. It just - wasn't to be."

For a moment, they held each other in silence. Astoria's feelings were rising again, threatening to spill over into another bout of crying that might last for hours. She couldn't face another one - not yet. She needed to think of something else, something good. Clearing her throat, she sat up taller, almost smiling. "How can you say it was a stranger who brought me to the hospital? It was no stranger. It was Chester."

Draco played along. "Chester, the mystery ginger in shining armor."

"Yes, he was a dear," Astoria said. "Gentlemanly and kind and honest. Oh, and strong. Almost inhumanly so. Finding him out in Muggle London was my one and only stroke of good luck that day."

Draco tossed his head, flicking his fringe out of his eyes. "Honest, is he? It isn't that I'm not grateful to whoever he was, but I do think he gave you a false name. I've asked all over and no one knows of a red-headed man near that age named Chester from Gryffindor house."

Astoria gave her head a firm shake. "I heard him say the name. I know I did, over and over again. So he's Chester to me. I don't care what anyone else calls him," she said. "And I do hope he finds out somehow that I'm safe at home in the arms of my husband again."

Draco sighed and looked past her, toward the tall, arching, diamond-paned windows. They used the library as a drawing room now. The original drawing room, where the Dark Lord and Aunt Bellatrix had held court, had been sealed up after the war, after the pair of them were dead. The chandelier was never re-suspended. The only room left darker, more empty than the drawing room was the dining room. If Draco could have blasted the dining room out of existence without destroying the entire house, he would have done so long ago.