Author's Notes: I know I have not updated in a really long time, and I'm sorry for it. I've been suffering from horrible writer's block, but from this point on, things should be running much more smoothly, and the updates should be back to their regular schedule. :) Thanks to Embellished, who remained so patient to me during this time.

The bed was empty. He woke up reaching for her, but he was really reaching for nothing. He stumbled out of bed and into the corridor, running the length of it shouting their names. Lily’s room was empty – the whole house was empty.

Part of him had known it would happen – she couldn’t stay with him forever. She would have to leave him eventually. And after the previous evening, after she had seen people jeering and pointing, she must have realized again that it was just too much for her.

He felt as if his very soul was draining from his body. With each passing second a little bit of him slipped away, and by the time he reached his study, he fell into his chair in a whirring daze with the picture of Lily and Ginny on the bridge in Prague crinkling between his fingers.

Draco felt nothing. He didn’t know if it was day or night, if he was awake or asleep, if it was days that were passing by or seconds. He couldn’t see or hear or feel. He wasn’t even sure if he could breathe.

But then suddenly her hands were on his face, and her voice filled his ears, and even though he couldn’t understand any of it, she was there – and she was his. He knew that much.

She breathed words he couldn’t really understand against his skin, and he gathered her back into his arms and kissed her feverishly.

She pressed against him just as frantically, searing into him so forcefully that it felt like she might crawl beneath his skin. She held on to him so tightly that he couldn’t hear the screaming anymore, and he couldn’t see their faces. It was so easy to become lost in her.

The wisp of knowledge that Ginny had confronted her family hung over their lives, bright and shining but also presenting a glaring demand. Ginny herself was illuminated, waltzing through her days with a newfound sort of grace. She laughed louder, smiled wider, and fought harder. Draco felt as if she were whole again.

But the fact that she had tackled her doubts about their marriage made him feel that much more insignificant for not tackling his. For her sake, he wouldn’t allow himself to mope. He tried to treat her and Lily as he had in Prague, but something always felt wrong, and Ginny’s eyes never lit up like they used to. He could tell she appreciated that he was trying, but he knew his efforts were falling short of what she really wanted. Sometimes he lay awake at night as she slept soundly beside him, and he couldn’t help but feel like there was some sort of empty space between them, as if she were really somewhere else. It was almost as if she had crossed to some better place, and he could never really join her.

In the early days of May, Draco passed by a bedroom Ginny was working on, getting it ready for when Albus and James would visit in the summer. She was perched atop a small foot ladder, humming to herself as she made sweeping strokes with red paint across the walls. Draco was apprehensive about the visit already, especially after the horrible encounter Ginny and Lily had with them over the Easter holidays, but he couldn’t bring himself to mention his concerns to her, not when she was so happy.

Draco continued down the hallway, listening intently to the fading humming, but stopped short as he passed by Lily’s room.

She was sprawled out across the floor, scribbling furiously with what looked like magic crayons, no doubt a contraption of her uncle’s. Draco leaned closer, catching sight of a few redheaded figures marching across the paper before his daughter looked up instinctively and smiled at him.

“Hullo, Daddy,” she chirped, pushing away the crayons and sitting up eagerly.

“Hi, dragon.” He paused, looking at her thoughtfully. Her blue eyes were shining hopefully in a way that made his stomach clench and his heart pound.

“Erm, dragon, what do you think about doing something today?” he asked tentatively.

“Like what?” She turned back to her drawing, tucking her hair behind her ears.

“Well, I don’t know, what do you think about…?” He racked his brain, trying to think of something he had always wanted his parents to do with him when he was younger. “A pet! What do you think about going to buy a pet?”

She threw him a strange look over her shoulder. “From where?”

Draco shuffled restlessly. “Well, Diagon Alley.”

Her crayon hovered over the paper. “Diagon Alley?”

Draco nodded, his voice caught in his throat.

“But you don’t like Diagon Alley,” Lily said pointedly.

It still amazed him how perfectly perceptive she was. Her slightly darkened eyes drilled into him, turning him inside out as he stared back helplessly. He gave her the widest smile he could muster.

“But I love you,” he declared grandly. “So why don’t you get ready? I’ll go tell your mum.”

She gave him a dazzling little half smile and jumped to her feet, running to the closet. He took one more second to watch her as she scurried about her room before turning back down the corridor.

Ginny was still humming softly, standing atop the ladder on her tiptoes. Her small, paint stained shorts made him stare shamelessly. He admired the stretch of her long, freckle dusted legs and took in the graceful curve of her neck and shoulders. He let out a little sigh.

She turned and smiled at him, laying her brush across the can of paint. “Hello, Malfoy.”

He smirked at her, eyebrows raised, but drew her into a hug and held her close. “Weasley,” he breathed.

She laughed and swatted playfully at his chest, pushing away and striding back to the wall with a little more swing in her hips. “It’s Malfoy now,” she corrected laughingly.

He cleared his throat as she clambered back onto her ladder. “Erm, Gin? Lily and I are – er – going out. We’ll be back in a couple hours,” he added hastily.

She stopped mid-brushstroke, turning to eye him critically. “Out? Out where?”

“We’re just going to buy her a pet, you know, to make her feel more settled,” he mumbled, trying to restate the psychological babble Ginny was always going on about.

“You don’t mean Diagon Alley out, do you?” she said sternly.

He shrugged.

Ginny sighed, laying her brush down again and wiping her hands on her shirt. “Draco,” she began softly, “I don’t want you going into Diagon Alley. I appreciate all your efforts lately, and I wouldn’t want you to do anything that might ruin that.”

“I’m not,” he said firmly, grabbing her upper arms and forced her gaze to meet his. “I’m not.”

She shook her head, falling into his chest. “But what if you go and someone-”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” he whispered, rubbing her back. “I promise.”

“Are you ready to go, Daddy?” They both turned to see Lily standing in the doorway, her red hair in little braids and her smile tentative.

“Sure thing, dragon,” Draco replied, squeezing Ginny’s hand before letting go.

Lily skipped ahead of him down Diagon Alley, laughing and twirling along like a little fairy. The late spring sunbeams fell on her, illuminating her hair and her eyes with the mischievous sparkle he had come to love so much. Draco inhaled deeply, catching the faint smell of summer hanging in the wind, and smiled.

Lily ran back to him, taking his hand affectionately. “Are we going to the Magical Menagerie?” she asked shyly, swinging their intertwined hands back and forth.

“Of course we are, dragon.”

She let go of his hand again to spin around with her arms outstretched, face turned toward the sky. Draco missed the feel of her tiny hand tucked within his own, but felt it might be worth it to see her dancing down the street.

He looked past her to see an old wizard sneering at him, his eyes narrowed and sharp. Draco swallowed, his hands feeling clammy and his heart beating erratically, but smiled at the man, and then looked back to his daughter.

Well done. Breathe.

The small bell rang overhead as Lily bounced into the shop. Before Draco could even close the door behind him, she had disappeared into the aisles of cages.

“Lily?” he called tentatively. “Lily?”

“Dad!” he heard her excited yell. “Dad, come here!”

He followed the sound of her coos into the back of the shop, where he found her pressing her face against the shimmering magical wall of a cage.

“Look, look!” she squealed, pressing her finger against the wall.

Draco bent forward to examine eight tiny kittens romping across the expanse of the large cage, jumping across one another and tugging at each other’s ears.

Draco’s eyes were drawn to the two most rambunctious kittens first, and his heart did a funny flip in his chest. They both were ginger colored, such a rich, gorgeous red he would have thought them Weasley cats.

“Look at that one!” Lily insisted, jamming her finger more persistently against the wall. He followed her gaze, sure she was going to pick out one of the red kittens, but saw she was pointing to a kitten in the back.

He was huddled in the corner, small and shivering and pitiful looking beside his companions. Draco stared at him, and the cat stared back.

“Isn’t he a pretty color?” Lily asked.

The little kitten slinked to the front of the cage, blinking at Lily. Draco nodded at her. He was a wonderful shade of silver.

“He’s beautiful, dragon,” Draco conceded. “Would you like him?”

Lily nodded earnestly, pressing her hand against the cage.

Draco strode to the front of the store, searching his pockets for his galleons, and stopped at the counter. “Er, my daughter would like to see one of the kittens in the back…?” he directed his request to the middle-aged witch behind the counter, who was fiddling with something beneath the register.

She popped up suddenly and stifled a little gasp with her hands, staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. “Sure,” she squeaked, nearly running toward the back of the store.

Draco stood rooted to the spot for a moment, breathing heavily. His head was spinning, his vision blurring. After what felt like hours, he clenched his fists, exhaled magnificently, and forced his feet to follow the woman.

“That one, right there,” Lily was saying. The woman waved her wand over the cage and handed Lily her kitten, throwing Draco a nervous look over her shoulder.

The kitten shook in Lily’s arms, but seemed content to be there. Lily held him closer, beaming up at her dad with glazed over eyes.

Draco gave Lily a quick smile before turning back to the woman. “How much…?”

“Seven galleons,” she peeped, wringing her hands anxiously.

Draco fumbled for the coins, pushing them at her blindly, before taking a hold of Lily’s shoulder and steering her and her kitten from the shop.

Draco stumbled out onto the street, breathing deeply. Lily was looking at him with concerned eyes, stroking her kitten. She reached for his hand, squeezing it. “Thanks, Daddy,” she whispered.

He took another steadying breath. “Anything for you, dragon.”

He was lying awake in the bed, staring out the window at the full moon hanging low in the sky, when he felt her crawl into bed beside him and wrap her arms around his shoulders from behind.

“Is the room done?” he whispered, letting his eyelids flutter shut as she pressed her lips into his shoulder blade.

“Almost,” she replied. “It’s all painted, though.”

“Good,” he breathed.

They were silent for some time, and when Draco was almost sure Ginny had fallen asleep, he asked, “What was she like as a baby?”

He felt her stir and nestle at little closer into him. “She was beautiful,” Ginny murmured. “She was always laughing and babbling. She adored her brothers.” Ginny laughed, and he could tell she was close to tears. “Whenever I turned the Wireless on, she would clap and bounce like she was dancing.”

Draco turned in bed and wrapped his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. After a little while, her breathing slowed, and her body relaxed against him perfectly as he stroked her hair. He slid his hands to her stomach, imagining what it must have been like for her to carry Lily, for her sons to press their ears against her stomach and feel his little daughter kick for the first time. He held her tightly then, and fell asleep.

Author notes: A review, please. :) Helps with the writer's block.