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Calliope and Thalia and Their Inspiration by lucilla_pauie

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Chapter Notes: My apologies for this mad update. Mad because of the ginormous gap between this and last one. Sorreh! I’ve now entered an agreement none would damn. An agreement with my friend/beta, Misdemeanor1331, that I shall update every week on pain of... oh, just pain. I’m not good with pain! That said, thank you for the nudge and shove and threats, Mel! And excuse my new favourite word. Ginormous. Just let me get it out of my system. :D
~o0o~ Getting cosy ~o0o~




Draco had been eager and positively chomping at the bit to tease Hermione a little more after breakfast, but as soon as he got up and past the staff table, a distraction so huge and effective strangled and wrangled every plan and thought in his mind. A distraction in the shape of Thalia Maura Granger.

Oh, certainly he had also been prepared (ecstatic) that he would see her, but this... this was madness and torture. He was used to Callie’s occasional bursts of affection, but as far as he remembered, Callie had never squeezed him this hard in public before. He thought he even heard a rib protest.

“I’m Lia Granger, Professor Malfoy. I’m sorry-- but I’m so glad there’s a Potions professor again! It’s my favourite subject. If you’re going to have electives as well, can I sign up for them? I’ll be nice and quiet and not disturb the higher years.”

She paused for breath and Draco grew aware that half the great hall was watching them and the other half was looking at Hermione. There she was, heading to the entrance hall with her chin held high, as though her daughter was not attached like a chizpurfle to her new colleague and old... ehem, sweetheart.

Not that Draco would compare his daughter to a parasite. And not that he was ever Hermione’s sweetheart. He’d always thought that particular noun effeminate and maudlin. And what was wrong with him? Why was he having difficulty breathing? He looked down at his hands. They were still there. They felt like they were not.

He took a deep breath and clasped his hands behind his back, against the urge to rake his fingers through his hair or return Thalia’s embrace. She was positively ogling him. He chuckled to himself. “Nice to meet you, Miss Granger. I’m glad you are predisposed to Potions. I hope I teach you to your satisfaction.”

He turned away, nodding to her as a goodbye. But she sidestepped around him until she was facing him again, and walked backwards to keep her position while Draco walked forward. “I think you will. My sister says you’re good at Potions.”

“Did she now?”

“My sister, Calliope Malfoy. She’s kin to you, isn’t she, Professor?”

Draco nodded affably. Inside, he was cursing the agreement, Hermione, the agreement, Zabini, and the agreement.

“Then am I kin to you as well?” This with a smirk Lucius would have been proud of.

‘I will not allude to, admit or acknowledge my kinship to my other daughter, Thalia, on the possible event that we should meet or be questioned.’

Right. He couldn’t call her his daughter, not even jokingly or fondly, as elderly men sometimes do to much younger friends. Hermione was right. They’d been so stupid and selfish and so arrogant in assuming their agreement wouldn’t bite them in the arse in this manner.

Draco clutched his stomach in pain. Melodramatically. “I knew there was something off about the flapjacks. Tea food for breakfast. Aren’t we all weak for them? I’ll see you in class, Miss Granger.” Without waiting for her to reply or trap him again, he sidled into the crowd moving toward the entrance hall. He still clutched his stomach. He’d slandered the flapjacks, but he did have a pain there.




Hermione wanted to immerse herself in her work. But one step into her classroom and she was gone. Thalia and Calliope were sitting together. Front row, centre. Hermione set the class to spell practice and hid behind a book, to think.

She fared not much better with the rest of her classes.

This was too much. The twins together. Angry with her. With their father, too. Their father who was strutting around Hogwarts as if... as if he was a decorative or restorative item the rest of them couldn’t do without and as if he didn’t have two eleven-year-olds with Gryffindor and Slytherin traits clashing and conniving in their minds, bent on mayhem. The maddening prat.

When the fourth year Slytherins and Hufflepuffs left, Hermione sighed with relief. She was sorry she’d been useless to her students today, and she would atone for it (which might admittedly overwhelm the poor dears), but for now, finally, she could brood and dissect things some more.

Just how big were the holes in that agreement? And was there a hole she could use to crawl out of this mess with her daughters?




Overall, counting past that incident in the morning when he had to dodge someone he absolutely didn’t desire to dodge (except perhaps when she reached a certain age and asked certain questions), his first day hadn’t been that bad. It had been even downright amusing most of the time. Half his students were either in awe or revulsion of him, the other half were infatuated. He dealt with the first half accordingly, with kindness and sneers. The other half he’d decided to leave well enough alone. He still remembered Lockhart and what a poof every male had thought him to be, with his smiles and winks and droopy-eyed gazes. The girls would still coo without that anyway.

He sat down at the staff table and was immediately aware that Hermione wasn’t there yet.

“Does Hermione eat supper here or elsewhere?” he asked, leaning to his left and having a tiny scare upon discovering the one seated there was Hagrid. Draco had been rather blind, hadn’t he?

Hagrid raised his bushy eyebrows, and then drew them together in what was probably suspicion. Draco mutely turned away. But Hagrid surprised him by answering peaceably enough. “She’ll be along. Ye can’t count on her to be on time. Not to meals. Trivial to her, food is. Except when it’s an occasion, or when she’s eating with Lia. But she’s not, is she?”

Draco nodded his thanks for Hagrid’s long reply. They both looked toward the Slytherin table. Lia wasn’t there.

Their heads swivelled next to the Gryffindor table, which was also empty of Malfoys (both official and unofficial) and then he and Hagrid looked at each other.

“Ye don’t think Hermione’s with yer kids, do you?”

“You mean in detention, maybe? Unless it’s that, she can only be with one kid.”

“Huh. Where are those girls then?”

As if on cue, they came in. With their respective... accomplices. There’s the unfortunately-named Ronquilla, who seemed to be bickering with Thalia, who was rummaging in her bag with both hands.

Unknown to Draco, this was the argument:

“You should have reddened it yourself, if you’re so clever!”

“Just how long will I have to walk around with red hands?”

“You can ask a teacher to fix it.”

“Really? And when the teacher asks how I came by that hex, shall I tell the truth that you did it?”

“You asked me to!”

“You volunteered!”

“And when the teacher asks why I volunteered, shall I tell the truth that you wanted to guilt your mother at how supposedly hard she’d hexed you?”

And then Draco saw them sit down, and Thalia seemed to get bored of the debate, and began pouting at the dishes in front of her. Callie had her nose in a book. A spellbook. She closed it with a look of defeat as she sat down beside her sister and began dishing some of everything onto Thalia’s plate.

Again, too far for Draco to see or hear, this was Callie’s remark and Thalia’s reply:

“Are you sure you don’t want me to try?”

“No. Dodgy and bad luck. Maybe this is comeuppance. Let’s leave it for the night. Not to insult your abilities, but I don’t want to risk having a swollen hand or a different hand or paw altogether. Spells don’t last that long anyway, at least not ones cast by untrained flibbertigibbets. It will fade.”

Said flibbertigibbet elbowed Thalia, and Draco saw the other Slytherin girl, Thalia’s friend, retaliate with a vengeance. Ronquilla almost fell over backward, but the same girl who had sent her toppling grabbed her and righted her on the bench. The four then laughed in each other’s faces.

Kids.

With his children’s smiling faces in his vision, he got up. He nodded to Hagrid and was surprised again when the half-giant not only returned it, but even pried. “Where’re ye goin’?”

“I’ll hunt up Hermione. We do have a lot to catch up on, you know.”

“Ye bet your kidneys I know,” Hagrid said, a little brusquely. “Ye watch your step now, Malfoy.”




Draco had plenty of time to watch his step, in a manner of speaking. All the way to the Charms corridor, he thought of backtracking and just spending a quiet night in the now-cozy dungeons. Hermione was probably in bad shape, having just gotten used to accepting the gigantic holes in their agreement and almost certainly finding ways to patch those holes now or making the agreement entirely all-holes, so they could all be happy. Being thus occupied, she wouldn’t appreciate being pestered with his company.

Well, he wouldn’t pester her. He could help. And she should bloody well let him. This whole mess was her fault. All her idea. Blame her stupid stubbornness and pride, the cow.

“What have I done to you?” she snapped, defensively and wearily.

Draco started a little. He hadn’t realized he’d arrived, knocked, and been answered. He also hadn’t realized he was scowling. He calmed his face and managed to smile.

“Sorry. Not you. A Ravenclaw third-year--”

“What are you doing here, Draco?”

“Came to fetch you to dinner.”

“Who told you to and who said I was coming with you?” She sighed. “I can have dinner here,” she added with no vitriol.

“Can I join you?”

She took a deep breath.

“Please?”

The breath came out in another sigh. She turned her back on him, leaving the door open. Draco followed her inside and closed the door.

Hermione went back to her desk and began rearranging the books, quills and sheafs of parchment neatly piled on it. Draco watched her for a while, amused at how she began to fumble the longer his gaze held. He perched on a desk, the same one where he used to sit as a student. A student with a grudge to certain Gryffindors.

Funny how grudges mutated.

“How was your first day?” she asked. She’d left her things alone and was now looking out a window.

Draco got up and took the desk in front of hers, not knowing it was the very desk his daughters had begun to share. Hermione gave an almost imperceptible jerk of her shoulders, as though she’d seen someone fall off a broom. Draco rolled his eyes. “Sit down. Why are you so jumpy? My day was fine, so fine I must nourish myself after going through it. How about you do the same?”

She shot him an exasperated look and sighed again. She’d be bloated and flatulent if she kept that up. “Fine. But let’s eat in my office. Not on that desk. Not on any of these desks.”

Draco stood up without protest. This is the second time he’d been invited to her office without much effort and trickery on his part. He was thankful, and therefore acquiescent. He’d leave this evening in her hands. He wouldn’t ruin it, wouldn’t push her, wouldn’t tease her. “After you.”

He hadn’t been in the Charms professor’s office before it became hers, so he had no comparison with which to look at how she’d decorated it for herself. It was homey. He wasn’t surprised, because ever since he knew her--really knew her-- he’d discovered she was a sea of surprises and contradictions. Deep, scintillating, never predictable. Except perhaps on some matters. She always took the noble route.

Entering her office made him feel and imagine he’d just entered a room in her home. Her childhood home. He had no idea how she and Thalia lived, but he reckoned this was how a Muggle home looked. Hermione had somehow papered the walls in a cool blue, the fireplace had a white wooden mantel, and there were Impressionist landscapes instead of bookshelf upon bookshelf. The only books in the room were stashed in shelves under the surfaces of the end tables beside the armchairs by the fire.

Her desk was in a corner, unobtrusive and almost an afterthought. He went to it and looked at the photo again. Framed in wood carved all over with pink and white daisies. Thalia curled up in a window seat, asleep, looking like a precious baby despite being a lanky pre-pubescent.

“Can I have a copy of this so I can look at it every time I feel like throttling her?”

To his surprise, Hermione laughed. He revelled in the sound. She didn’t stop until she was gasping for breath. “All right. Take it. I’ll even give you the frame, too.”

He felt himself grinning wide. He probably looked gormless and silly. He didn’t care.

“I’ll take this in trade, of course.” He reached into an inner pocket of his cloak and produced a palm-sized miniature of Calliope, on her tenth birthday, wearing a kimono, yellow with a pink obi. She was captured on canvas sitting by the pond in the newly-built Zen garden of the chateau and, on the insistence of her grandmother, had a Japanese parasol open on her shoulder, framing her pretty head. The life-sized version of this picture hung in his study. “Here.”

He saw Hermione’s breath hitch. She stroked the portrait like it was a puffskein. “Thank you, Draco.”

Draco’s breath hitched in turn. Was there something in the agreement that they couldn’t send each other photographs of the other twin? Why hadn’t either of them done this before? If a portrait of Callie was what it took to make Hermione smile at him like this, Merlin’s bollocks, he’d give Hermione so many she’d be buried.
Chapter Endnotes: Thanks for reading! And reviewing!