With you in my Arms

95. Something like that

Just a bit of tidying up any loose ends before the moment approaches a lot of you have been waiting for: the Naming Ceremony.

Enjoy!

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Waking up was like surfacing from a long deep and very dark dream for Draco the next morning. His world had literally changed over night. The evil that had been out to destroy him and his loved ones was finally gone. In a way this finality was a bit frightening, but he was embracing it with a sense of relieve he had never experienced before.

He was free.

For the first time he was the master of his own destiny. He was going to make up his own mind about whatever he wanted to do. Nobody would ever again make a decision for him. He grinned. Well, maybe his lovely wife might decide for him which way she was going to have him beg her to kiss him, touch him...

The mental touch of his son derailed the train of upcoming, rather undressed, images of his lovely spouse.

'Yes, my son, I love you, too.' he thought.

There was a picture forming in his mind. It showed the three of them in a park. But there were a lot of other people there, too. There were a lot of other children. A playground could be seen in the back. Draco frowned. He was quite sure that his son hadn't seen a playground as yet. How did he know how one looked in order to show his father?

'Is this an actual place?' he wondered.

The feeling that was communicated seemed to be an affirmation of his assumption.

'Why do you want us to go there?'

The focus shifted and a small girl came into view. Her black hair was straighter than curled, but it was waving lightly in the wind. Her eyes were the deepest brown and her skin a bit darker than most kids that were with her in the sandpit. She had to be about two or three years old Draco reckoned, but she could have easily been older. Guessing the age of a child was not something he was good at, not yet anyway.

The little girl smiled at them and something deep within Draco stirred. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind a piece of information fell into place without him being able to see the whole picture as yet. His son joined her and he seemed to be about the same age. From somewhere to the right a woman approached. It was the little girl's mother. How did he know that? Though what really shocked him was the fact that he knew her. The moment he saw her face everything fell into place.

"Draco?"

The sleepy female voice intruding into his thoughts let the picture in his mind fade and vanish.

'Her eyes…' Draco wasn't quite ready to let go yet. He needed to remember whom he had seen, who the mother of that little girl was.

"Draco?"

Now his name being said in a soft tone was accompanied by the gently touching of his cheek. He sighed and turned to look sideways.

Hermione was gazing at him. She wasn't totally awake yet, but her eyes smiled at him. She had deep brown eyes. The eyes in his vision hadn't been brown though. His wife wasn't the woman he had seen. He sighed. So it hadn't been his daughter. But whose was she then?

"What are you thinking?"

He slowly exhaled and turned onto his side to fully look at her.

"Our son has shown me a little girl, but it wasn't one of our children. I saw her mother, but I can't remember who she is."

"Do you think it's important that you remember who she is?"

Draco tried to probe his own mind and feelings. No, it wasn't important as it being lethal, if he didn't remember. But for some reason he still thought... A wave of emotions hit him. Joy he himself had only ever experienced in the moments of abandon he shared with his wife, love so fierce it was bordering on obsession and sadness as deep as the deepest ocean were all mixed together. It was so intense it made him gasp.

Next thing he knew was him sitting and being held tightly by Hermione. His whole body was shaking. Sweet nothings were whispered into his hair while her lips were caressing it.

"Hermione." he sighed.

"Yes, my dragon." her fingers were slowly stroking up and down his upper arm.

"I don't know, what's happening. Why does he show me all those things? Why does he have me feel like... like..."

It had felt like the world would end, if she, whoever she might be, wouldn't share his life. The existence of everything had been based on her being by his side. Draco tried to remember, if he had ever felt like this before. Maybe not quite as strongly but... The moment he had found her alone in that courtyard at Hogwarts everything had been hanging in the balance. If she talked to him, it would make more than just his day. It would make his life. The apprehension he had felt was a mere shadow of what he had just experienced but he felt the similarity.

"Everything is going to be okay, Draco. He's not going to get away with it again." Hermione said.

Draco sighed. Of course she would be thinking of his father having put them through hell. Though that wasn't what this was about. It had nothing to do with... For just a heartbeat he saw something he would have never thought possible but it explained everything, the grey-blue eyed girl, the little girl with the brown eyes and him feeling like the world would end, it all made sense. It all made so horrible sense!

Hiding his face in his wife's hair Draco tried to forget what had been revealed to him. He didn't want to know how his son of all people had found out about it, let alone think about the consequences should this become known to some people.

"They'll find a way to execute his sentence, to execute him." Hermione's voice whispered, "He's not going to spoil our lives for much longer."

She didn't know yet. Of course not.

"He's dead."

"What?"

The now head of the Malfoy family pulled back to look at his wife.

"I got an owl late last evening. They did it. We're free."

"He's... gone? Truly gone?"

"Yes, dearest Lea, he's really gone."

Her reaction might have not been rational, but he wasn't going to complain as her lips crushed his a moment later.