Loving the Lonely

Epilogue

15 years later

Hermione jerks awake with a sharp gasp. Her eyes shoot open and she bolts up straight in bed, blankets pooling in her lap. Lingering sweat from sleep clings to her skin and the abnormally warm morning is doing nothing to remedy the situation. 

Sprawled over her legs is her daughter, blonde hair a terrible tangle of curls and soft gray eyes shining with far too much energy for the early hour. She's smiling brightly up at Hermione, though, and despite the rude awakening and the pain lingering in her shins from where the girl had landed hard, Hermione returns the smile. 

"You're up early, Ella," Hermione laughs, blinking the remaining grogginess away. She opens her arms wide. "Why did you wake mommy up, sweetie?" 

Ella bounces her way up, making Hermione grunt with each impact, and then throws herself into her mother's arms. She kisses Hermione's cheek wetly, giggling all the while. "Daddy told me to!" She cries, gesturing with a wild flail of her arms to the door behind her. 

Glancing that way, Hermione catches a shadow lingering, attached to a form just out of sight. Hermione smirks and leans down to whisper into Ella's ear. "How about you run and get your brother ready for the day, then you can tell daddy that I said we'd take you both to the park," she offers. 

Ella's eyes blow wide and she bobs her head furiously in agreement. Rolling away from her mother, and accidentally elbowing her sharply in the side hard enough that Hermione hisses quietly, Ella takes off across the room and disappears into the hallway. Her deafening screech of, "we're going to the park, daddy!" is enough to make Hermione wince. Ella never did learn the meaning of an inside voice, but Hermione can't find it in herself to scold her daughter when she's so excited. 

Crossing her arms, Hermione sits and waits for her husband to enter the room. As expected, he comes in with his head bowed and a sheepish expression. His shoulders are shaking with suppressed laughter, so she doesn't believe for a moment that he feels guilty. 

"We're going to the park now, are we?" Draco asks, settling down at the foot of the bed. He searches out her feet under the covers and rubs them idly, a half-hearted attempt at an apology. She isn't mad at him, but when he presses his thumb into the arch of her foot, she thinks that even if she were angry, it would melt away with the release of leftover pressure from yesterday's workday. "What happened to the quiet day in you said you wanted last night?" 

Hermione raises her chin and glares playfully at him. "You brought this on yourself. Sending Ella to jump on me when I'm sleeping." 

With a roll of his eyes, Draco lets go of her foot and scoots farther up the bed until he and Hermione are pressed side to side. "Like I was ever planning on denying them," he scoffs. "You've seen Elijah when he's disappointed. He could topple armies and get them to do his bidding with that pout. And I thought Blaise was bad. Elijah would trump him any day." 

"Like Blaise would even complain. Elijah is only two years old and he's got the man wrapped around his little pinkie," Hermione snorts. 

When Hermione had asked him, just a week after she found out she was pregnant with Elijah, if he would like to be the child's godfather, she thought he might make some smart comment. It's just who he is. All evening she'd been nervous, her hands fluttering around her midsection like the child growing there will offer her the comfort she needs to actually shove the words out. 

They'd invited Theo and Blaise over for dinner that night, just the four of them. Theo spent the evening with Ella, watching over her as she buzzed around the yard on her training broom. Draco had told him earlier in the day that they planned to make Blaise a godfather, just as they had made Theo godfather to Ella. He gave them the space they needed to ask Blaise alone, so all Hermione had to do was get the words out.