In his free time, Draco walked that path to the beach, visited the library, and looked out from the tower over the city. He taught some kids Quidditch and had dinners with his new long-distant relatives. Somewhere in between tossing a handmade golden snitch into the air for a little blonde kid to catch, laughing alongside his distant cousins over white wine, watching Leander make the  right  decisions ruling the city– that little piece of himself that he didn’t quite understand, the one that he couldn’t trust Hermione to keep safe, it grew. Tenfold, twenty-fold, until her  "i love you’  didn’t scare him anymore. 