"Good evening, Henrietta."
I blinked and turned to look up at the portrait on the wall above my desk behind me. I had been sat with my head in my hands, waiting anxiously for Draco to return. I gasped as the figure of an old wizard appeared in the frame. A very familiar old wizard.
"Dumbledore?"
In all the years I had worked here, he had never appeared once.
"So it seems, Etta, so it seems," he chuckled softly.
I frowned, confused as to why he was here, after all these years, after all this time. It made me feel horrendously nervous.
"Where have you been, Dumbledore?" I asked, feeling childishly hurt.
"I'm here now," he said simply.
I felt an odd sort of rage fill my head.
"Go." I snapped, "Leave. I don't want you here, I don't need you. You were absent every time it really counted. I fought him three times without you. I'll face him again, if needs be - alone."
"Etta, don't you think I wanted to fight him on your behalf? I would have spared you if I could-"
"But you didn't did you?" I cried, "I thought- I thought you loved me. Loved me like a father loves his daughter. But the whole time you were just using me. Leaving me in a place where I was abused and unloved, until finally reaching the time where I would have to sacrifice myself - my life! You let all of that happen!"
Tears were pouring down my face now, I could no longer stop this flood of emotions than I could stop myself from breathing.
"I did love you, Etta," Dumbledore said sadly, "I loved you very much. I was trying to protect you, I did not want to hurt you. But I am no fit person to love... I have never loved without causing harm..."
"You would have hurt me less if you had told me this, then." I sniffed. I looked up and saw that Dumbledore was crying himself.
"I was blind," he wept. "That is what love does. I couldn't see that you needed to hear that this closed-up, tricky, dangerous old man... loved you..."
"I loved you too," I said sadly, wiping my eyes.
"I know." Dumbledore said as he smiled regretfully at me - and then - without another word, he left, walking out of the frame, and out of sight.
I was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of grief and loss. My whole body convulsed in sadness.
"Etta?"
I span my chair back round to see Draco standing in the doorway. I would have wept with relief if I wasn't already crying.
Instead, I got up off my chair and practically ran from behind my desk into his arms.
"I've just seen Dumbledore," I gasped, as I buried my head in his chest, welcoming the feel of his strong arms snaking around me.
"I know," he murmured softly in my hair, "I heard. Sorry. I didn't want to interrupt."
"I've had his portrait up there for twenty years and this is the first time he has actually graced it," I said morosely, lifting my face to look up at him. "Why now, Draco, why - after all these years?"
Draco shook his head, a look of regret flickering in his eyes. "I don't know, Etta, I'm sorry."
"I'm scared," I confessed. "I've always had to be strong in the past but I can't do it anymore, Draco. I just want the boys back and home safe with us."
"You don't have to be anymore, Etta," he insisted, tightening his arms around me. "You are not on your own anymore. Let me look after you, and..."
Dropping his arms - he stepped back, taking a deep breath.
"What if-" he coughed slightly, "what if I told you I had a way of going to find them?"
"But... how?" I asked faintly. "The only way to go and find them is to use a Time-Turner, and the only one we know of in existence is the one Nott and Zabini made. The one that the boys are probably using right now."
"My father." He said, putting his hands in his pockets. "He liked owning things that no one else had. The Ministry's Time-Turners were always a little vanilla for him. He wanted the ability to go back further than an hour, he wanted the ability to travel back years."
I swallowed, taking in what Draco was saying.
"And did you keep it, your father's Time-Turner?"
I already knew the answer before Draco pulled his hand back out of his pocket. Unfurling his fingers, he revealed to me the shiny gold trinket nestled in his palm.
"No five-minute problem," he advertised, as though it were simply a product he was trying to sell to me, "and it gleams like gold, just the way the Malfoy's like it."
"Draco," I breathed, I felt both horrified and awed at the same time. "You could have got yourself thrown into Azkaban hanging onto this!"
"I know, but I've never used it, even though I was sorely tempted - to undo all the crappy things I've done to you. But it wouldn't make us real, you know. And I wouldn't change the real us for the world - past mistakes and all." His eyes burned into mine with such love as he took my hand and forced the Time-Turner in it. "But now - now we need it. "
"Oh, Draco..." I said, starting to weep again, "we can't. We can't use it."
"We have to find them, Etta," he looked at me imploringly, his face full of anguish, "if it takes centuries, we must find our sons..."
"We have no idea where they are or when they are. Searching in time when you've no idea where in time to search, that's a fool's errand. Love won't do it and nor will a Time-Turner."
He nodded, understanding, yet his face still screwed up in pain. He knew I was right, even though it meant we were as hopeless as we were before.
"I just want them back, Etta," he shook, his hand flying to his face to wipe away the tears that had sprung from his eyes, "I want my sons back."
My heart broke and I took a step towards him, closing the gap between us as I cradled his sobbing body against mine.
"I want them back too," I whispered, allowing my own tears to fall freely, both of us holding the other as we shared each other's pain.
It was all down to Albus and Scorpius now. And I just prayed that somehow, some way, they would find a way back to us.
*****