Unspeakable

Ten years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy returns from Azkaban-broken, haunted, and alone. With his parents still imprisoned and nowhere else to turn, Professor McGonagall offers him sanctuary as Hogwarts' new Potions professor. It's an act of mercy he never expected to receive.

What he expects even less is Hermione Granger.

Now the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor following her amicable split from Ron, Hermione is wary of Draco at first. But she remembers the terrified boy forced into impossible choices, the child who received his first embrace from Voldemort himself-a mockery of comfort that still makes her stomach turn. When she discovers the depths of trauma he carries from his time among the Death Eaters, she's determined to offer him the kindness and affection he was cruelly denied.

But Draco's nightmares run deeper than anyone knows. During the final days of the war, when Voldemort realized Harry Potter might destroy him, the Dark Lord orchestrated a horrifying contingency: an heir to carry on his legacy. Unable to conceive himself, he commanded Bellatrix Lestrange and seventeen-year-old Draco to create that heir-a child Voldemort intended to corrupt with dark magic and reshape in his own image.

The violation stole more than Draco's innocence. It shattered something fundamental inside him, leaving him unable to bear the touch or even the gaze of women. Now, as Hermione grows closer, trying to heal wounds she can't fully see, Draco faces an impossible dilemma: accept the compassion he desperately needs, or protect her from a truth so dark it could destroy the fragile connection growing between them.

Some scars run too deep for magic to heal. Some secrets are too terrible to share.