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Notes: The Re-establishment of Endangered Species	By : T-W-O Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Draco/Hermione Views: 5048 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from anything in the Harry Potter universe -- stories, characters, settings, prior art.

Chapter List
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At (Arguing Over) 40
”The proof of our collective success is the number of species reintroduced into their natural habitat. That’s our job.” — The Bureaucrat’s Guide to the Rehabilitation and Re-establishment of Endangered Species page 498
Love and regret stayed his temper — but only just.

“I’ve lost years with you, witch. The challenge our daughter presents has exposed the size and quality of fool I’ve been. I… I’m tired of playing the cowardly cockroach to your Muggle-saving Tilly Toke. Had I done what I should have — what YOU would have done — Rose Cedrella would have known from conception that she was mine.”
“Your timeline’s twisted, Lord Malfoy,” Hermione snarled back — primal, angry magic lifting her loosening curls as if a gale approached. “You were already married that Imbolc. Had you NOT married Astoria, your arse would’ve been in Azkaban.”

Definitely steaming. Surprised her wand’s not out…

Her heart pounded like an Abraxan’s in full flight. Her forever love dared to force decisions mere months after her personal cataclysm.
She couldn’t even look at him…
…and so missed the cautious creep that glued him to the back of her. She tilted her head, out of habit, to make room for his descending kisses.

“What are we fighting about, hmm?” he hummed sotto voce into the sensitive skin of her shoulder. “You deserve these years. We’ve a new family to piece together. The children — our children — need stability. Merlin knows I came to love Astoria but I’ve never stopped loving you.”

The tempest diminished. She separated from him — her magic settling into a cocoon around them both — then wiggled herself onto the edge of the high-set four-poster monster she’d hoped they’d be making love in when he’d carried her to his suite.

“Draco, this… It’s too soon for me. You, above all, know the true state of my marriage — but Ron was my friend. We were raising children together —”

Hermione held up her hand to preclude his progress and plaint.

“I know: Rose is yours; but please see reason here. Ron raised her; he adored her. I can’t… I need time, Dragon. Bloody hell — I’ve not been back at the Ministry two weeks!”
“Resign, Kitten.”

His tone did wicked things to her logic.

“We’ll take the preserve private — don’t!” he interceded to restrain her rebuttal while still unspoken. “Astoria’s estate trust could cover 800 years of the preserve’s operating costs. Satisfy your heart for once! You’ve sacrificed enough — for Harry Fucking Potter and those ‘hero’ friends of yours, for the wizarding world, for the Ministry, and for your family.”

She needed to hear the logic behind this startling mid-life course correction on the heels of two spousal deaths — “What about for you?”
Flames lit his unwavering gaze.

“When do you live the life you want, Lioness?”
“Wh-Wh-What?” Hermione stuttered, caught off-guard by the tender inquiry.

She considered the last time she’d made a choice purely for selfish reasons…

“Remember uni? Your ‘Hermione takes over the wizarding world’ plan required a hectare of parchment; I dare say we could paper the entire Manor with it. Every decision you’ve made has been for someone else — to keep my cowardly arse out of Azkaban, to give our head-strong daughter a name, to support your failure of a husband, to save endangered pests, to protect wizarding Britain from its own incompetence.”

Had commitment to duty really become a trap? Her lower lip unerringly made its way towards her teeth.

“I’m not entirely selfless, Draco. Nor am I blameless in some very awful choices. Ron wanted a divorce…”

The ginger git wanting anything — unrelated to alcohol, Quidditch or scratching his sac — shocked Draco.

“You’re sure?”

A breath…
The creaking of ancient floorboards…
Then her reasoned speculation…

“He’d begun to make stupid jokes about taking a ‘marital break’. I threatened to stab him with a quill if he wandered off… as if… as if our marriage was worth the effort… Rather hypocritical of me, don’t you think? I convince him he got me pregnant after a single ‘virginal’ encounter and ruin our chances of finding loving partners… Rose was my mistake… I’ll never get to apologize to him for lying so convincingly…”
“Never — Rose Cedrella never was nor never will be a mistake. How could you have known that mad fuck Jugson didn’t comprehend the war was over? Azkaban twists you up — gives you the crazies…”

Her lip interfered with her spoken sin — “…and murdered a man I cared for, but hadn’t truly loved, since I can remember,” she corrected. “The heart can cheat as assuredly as the body, Draco. I’m not ready.”

“I disagree. Let me care for you all: Scorpius, Rose Cedrella, Hugo, you and whoever else gatecrashes — vermin or human. It isn’t as if you love your job as Minister…”

She hadn’t for some time, but she’d be damned if she’d let him rush her decision.

“You don’t get to do that,” she countered and stood up. “I’ve had enough of making ‘sound’ decisions that blow up in my face — or kill my husband. If I’m to consider making a clean break, it starts now.”

Fuck me — she’s going to leave!… Stubborn, willful, argumentative…

He made a blanket of himself and draped his sinewy form around her once more, halting her incensed escape.

“You’re right…” The change in tactics and tone threw her off. “I’m asking. Asking to spend the rest of my life letting you run my life for me. Astoria always claimed I was shite at it anyway.”

The silence held, but not uncomfortably. She was shrouded in warmth and love for nigh on ten minutes straight before poking back.

“Tory and I agreed; had a good laugh at your expense, ‘Lord Maladroit’.”

A grunt of dissatisfaction from him brought a smile as he snugged her closer.

“The Fates fucked us both from childhood. We’ve no constraints now, no confines — except our perpetual obligation to that ungrateful menagerie you saddled us with.”

Her chuckle to his perennial complaint vibrated through his chest and into his heart.

“It’s well past time to live our true lives… together… Be a brave lioness… Teach me to be brave…”

A spectral silence descended.
The Mobier mantle clock struck half-past the hour.
Druid blessings of Mabon saturated the Manor through every opening, barrier, crack and crevice, the Mist moving purposefully — skimming up the oak stairs — towards the master suite…
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Notes: The Re-establishment of Endangered Species