Friday morning found Hermione rather reluctant to get up. It only took a second of consciousness for her brain to review last night, and she didn’t like it, didn’t like being that bare, that vulnerable, that culpable. The follies in that agreement she’d instigated just mounted and mounted by the hour. But Draco had been nice. She’d have liked it better if he had laid blame and called her names, like he’d once done. For once, she deserved it. She was a horrible mother. Instead, he had held her while she cried, and only shook his head at her when she broke away from him with an impatient huff (at herself) and a glare (at him, for refusing to let go of her immediately).
And then she’d left him in her sitting room cum office without another word. Like she was six years old and sulking at not being allowed to watch the telly.
She forced her mind onto benign things like her N.E.W.T. classes that day and showered and dressed. She would have to make an appearance at breakfast and groaned at the thought of facing Draco so soon after last night. For some stupid reason, she even peered around her door at her sitting room before fully entering it. Of course he wasn’t there anymore.
With a sigh, she went to her desk to gather her students’ submitted homework, only to stop short at the two familiar photos lying face up on either side of Callie’s miniature.
One portrait showed a plump, blonde baby at her mother’s breast. Thalia.
The other was an exact copy of Hermione and Lia’s professionally done photograph, but the baby had reddish brown hair, lambent grey eyes and on the tiny hand grasping a lock of Hermione’s hair, you could see a dark brown spot just below the baby’s thumb.
Callie.
Hermione laughed and impatiently swatted at the tears that overflowed. Why on earth hadn’t she thought of this before? Because she deserved to suffer, of course. All right, she was going to breakfast and she was going to kiss Draco. Before she could leave, however, an owl called her attention. A golden owl with a red envelope on its beak. She was going to kill Julius. Thank goodness she was still in her rooms.
“Dear Hermione,” shrieked the Howler. Hermione couldn’t not roll her eyes at the absurdity of it. “Forgive me. I had to resort to this method because I can’t bear it if you ignore me again. We are simply lost without you. I am lost without you. Please see me this weekend. I beg you. Saturday or Sunday, you name it. As for the place, what about someplace nice in Muggle London? Well, this is ridiculous of me, but I also need you in a professional matter. In fact, I’ll be taking your whole weekend. I’m sorry but it can’t be helped. Yours, Julius.”
“I knew it would fade. But don’t worry, flibbertigibbet, maybe it takes time and more expertise before your magic has staying power.”
Before Kia could think to injure Thalia, Callie intervened. “Actually, it was just as red when I woke up. I couldn’t resist, so--”
“You fixed it!” Thalia embraced Callie. “Oh, you are my mother’s daughter. Thanks, priss!”
Callie rolled her eyes. “I didn’t fix it. Look, they’re still red.”
“But they look like hands now, if a little pink, not lobsters. That’s an improvement. Dionelise, can you ask your brother to detach himself from Prissy for a bit?”
“We heard that, girls,” said Prissy, pushing Quillian away with an audible smack and patting at her mouth with a handkerchief as they all trooped to the Great Hall. And you better have a good reason for the interruption. We barely have time for each other as it is and you-- Why do you look like a Kneazle that’s just swallowed the Snidget, Miss Granger?”
Thalia looked at Callie, who only looked back at her with puzzlement.
“Does that make you nervous?”
Hermione jumped at his question and scowled at him. Draco retreated back to his sausages. What was the bint so irritated about so early in the morning? He hadn’t done anything yet. He rather thought she’d be happy today. If not happy to see him, well, then just happy. Hadn’t she seen his little gift to her? He’d had to dodge Pansy’s wrath and pay Pansy’s contact quadruple the price for that thing because he’d roused the man (and Pansy, hence her wrath) from bed and rushed him to do the photo. It wasn’t ordinary magic anyone could do. Hermione should know that. If she had seen it, how on earth could she be annoyed with it?
She looked delectable while at it, too. It was his turn to jump when she spoke. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to glare at you like that. I just had a lousy start to my day, that’s all.”
“Lousy how?” She didn’t like the photo?
Hermione flapped her hand. “Never mind. I’ll deal with it. What were you saying?”
“Doesn’t it make you nervous that your child and mine aren’t here for breakfast?”
Hermione scanned the tables, eyes narrowed. “They better not be up to something. I can’t take it today.”
Draco chuckled. “If you won’t tell me, I won’t ask. But at least let me remedy it. How about you come to my cottage tomorrow? You’ve been hankering to see the place, haven’t you? It’s presentable now. And I’ll show you Callie’s photos.”
Confident in her acquiescence, Draco was absolutely mortified at Hermione’s answer. “I can’t. I have a date this weekend.”
Hermione had said that with exasperation and even a touch of loathing and was about to launch into a tirade about her intolerable and presuming tosser of an ex-boss, but Draco stood up, his expression neutral. Icy.
“You have a date.”
“Yes, all weekend. It’s--”
Hermione stopped because she was talking to Draco’s balled up napkin.
“You know,” said Lia while watching the third-years trim and shape their potted Flutterby bushes on one corner of the courtyard. “We haven’t even done it that long-- we’ve barely done it, really-- but punishing them is already getting old.”
“What I really want to do is-- well, I wish Mum would notice me outside of class.”
Lia sat down beside her sister with an angry growl. “They’re so stupid.”
“Not really. It would have worked perfectly if we remained in two separate countries--”
“Fat chance of that. I wouldn’t have let you go to Beauxbatons instead of Hogwarts.”
Callie giggled ruefully. “How do you know that? You didn’t know I existed!”
This only made Lia scowl more. And thinking about it, Callie lost her own light mood. Neither of them could imagine that scenario any more, not knowing each other, not seeing each other. Already, Kia and Dionelise had drifted together to give way to the twins’ growing attachment to each other. They were somewhere else in the castle just then, while Lia and Callie chose to spend their break freezing their fingers off in the courtyard.
Well, freezing their fingers off in the courtyard and plotting against their stupid parents.
That Friday’s N.E.W.T level Potions class retreated from the dungeons almost weak at the knees in relief. Professor Malfoy was in a nasty temper. He had set them to prepare whatever potion they pleased and then proceeded to insult their choices until they were all of them furiously stabbing their sopophorous beans for the Draught of Living Death.
Quillian, after a particularly vicious stab, sent his bean ricocheting off his table just as the professor passed by. It happened too fast for anyone to have seen it. When a spot of red bloomed on the professor’s cheek, the class turned to stone.
“Oh f-- I’m sorry, Professor!”
Professor Malfoy didn’t even look at him. Instead, he continued back to his desk and they heard this dangerous-sounding drawl. “Twenty points from Gryffindor for infantile ineptitude, and because you’re the Head Boy and should have done better, another ten points from Gryffindor. If any of you so much as make another noise or another such ludicrous blunder again as if you’re a bunch of ninnyish brats instead of N.E.W.T level students, this whole class will spend the Hogsmeade weekend shut up in the dungeons dehorning and debagging amphibians.”
As they left Potions, the seventh-years met the first-years already waiting for their turn for Potions class. The first-years wondered at those pale, pitying faces.
Hermione smiled in thanks to Quillian Ellington-Shaw, who had held the classroom door open for her. Her smile was jolted off her face as she bumped into someone. A murderous someone. Quillian scampered off like a spooked mouse. Funny to see, considering the boy’s considerable height.
“Hello, Professor Malfoy,” said Hermione, undeterred. “I was just about to look for you.”
She stepped around him, intending to talk to him as they walked to the Great Hall, but Draco grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to step backwards as he stepped into her classroom. He slammed the door shut.
Slapping one of his hands, she glared at him. “I hope you got that out of your system because you will not be doing that to my door again. Not without--”
“And you--” He returned her glare and continued advancing on her until he had backed her onto her desk, “--will not hex our children again.”
“I beg your pardon?” She pushed him off-- to no results-- and stared at him incredulously. He was practically smoking at the ears. “What are you talking about?”
He gritted his teeth. “I’m talking about-- your child, Thalia. Have you seen her hands? They’re still pink from that Stinging Hex you sent at her! That was last Wednesday! And they’re still pink today!”
“First of all, will you stop growling at me? You’ll do your teeth injury, talking like that. And I don’t understand. It can’t still show today. I doubt it even left a mark, let alone something that’s lasted two days.”
“Well, it has. What do you have to say for yourself? Do you even know your own strength?”
“Isn’t that line usually directed to the father?”
“Don’t play with me, Granger. This isn’t funny. You--”
“Are you sure it’s not from something new? Something that’s happened in your class? My Gryffindors tell me it’s been frightful today.”
“Your Gryffindors?”
“I mean the Gryffindor N.E.W.T level students who’d just left my class just now. They said--”
“Oh, you worry about your Gryffindors, but not about your children--”
The sting of the slap zinged all the way to her shoulder. She was filled with remorse for half a second as red bloomed on his cheek. Only for half a second. And then her anger returned. She had been almost nothing but walking-talking guilt and and self-incrimination all summer, all month and all last night and she didn’t need him to help her on it, the filthy little hypocrite.
“I don’t know what happened to you today and I don’t care but don’t you dare, don’t you ever accuse me of not caring about my children. I probably care more about them than you do, because if you did, just what are you doing here, in Britain, when you know you should have bloody well stayed in France?”
Hermione realised what that implied and was stricken as soon as she said that. Draco saw it. He opened his mouth to say something, and no longer angrily, but Hermione shook her head impatiently and left. The day was turning from bad to worse. Curse Julius and his bloody Howler.
Dionelise nudged Kia, who nudged Callie, who nudged Lia, who jumped at the sight of her mother bearing down on them with such a look in her eye that Lia had already half-risen from the bench in an attempt toward self-preversation when Hermione reached them and pushed her back down on her seat.
“Let me see your hands.”
Lia held them out. Hermione grabbed them none too gently and examined every inch of skin from wrist to fingertips.
“Your f-- Professor Malfoy said your hands were pink.”
Lia had never lied to her mother before. She just never learned and never even tried because she had witnessed her uncles’ attempts, all attempts because her mother hypothesised and concluded the truth anyway.
“Professor, we were in the court--”
“You will speak when spoken to, Miss Malfoy. Otherwise, please don’t interrupt. Well, Miss Granger?”
Lia’s knees shook, but Callie had given her a lifeline. “We were in the courtyard during break. My hands must have been pink from the cold.”
Callie, Dionelise and Kia were all nodding their heads in verification. Thankfully, Hermione seemed to accept that, and marched off. They all slumped in relief. They’d all seen Professor Malfoy’s notice of Lia’s pink hands. They were dismissed so fast the Great Hall was still completely empty when they arrived for lunch, and that was after going to Madam Pomfrey to finally get Lia’s hands fixed.
They watched as Professor Granger reached the staff table and proceeded to mutilate her lunch. Hagrid arrived and looked on, intimidated and bewildered.
“I don’t know if we should be relieved or even more scared,” said Callie.
“You should be scared,” said Lia, reaching to gulp some pumpkin juice. Merlin, she was palpitating. The rush of doing something for the first time. “You just made me lie to Mum.”
“I hope you two are done with your wonky plotting,” said Dionelise, in her prim-and-proper alter ego.
“As it happens, we are quieting down until Halloween,” said Callie.
“To lull them into lowering their defences,” said Lia.
“Ugh, don’t do that,” said Kia. “Creepy when people finish each other’s sentences.”
“You’re just jealous.”
He dreamt of fire.
Draco bolted upright from bed, dripping with sweat and muttering expletives. He hadn’t dreamed about the Fiendfyre in years and years. Like with the rest of his nightmares, Callie had put a stop to it.
He half-ran to his en suite and filled the tub with water. Barely able to wait, he got in even while it still filled. If he wouldn’t freeze to death-- and if it happened to be close by just then-- he would have jumped in the lake. He scooped up the warm water and sank his face into his hands, splashing away the remnant images from his eyes. The tub overflowed but Draco didn’t turn off the tap. He cooled the water with his wand and then dunked his head and let the water sluice over him entirely, blotting out the scorching horror of the nightmare.
In it, he had revived Goyle, who then grabbed at Hermione in a reflex of half-terror, half-revenge. Crabbe had conjured the Fiendfyre and--
In it, Draco hadn’t pulled Goyle off her. Instead, he had grabbed a broom for himself and flew off, only to turn back and watch her be swallowed by the monstrous flames.
Draco shuddered. It never failed to horrify him, even though in reality, he had also lost her.
Thank Merlin it was the weekend. He could stew and sulk all he wanted and never bother or be bothered by his students. He exhaled and opened his eyes underwater to watch the bubbles ascend and erupt. He also saw the change of light in the room. Mustn’t have been that early then, if sunrise had come while he was under. He got up from the water and cursed at the cold. He shed his clinging pyjama bottoms, donned a robe and ran back to his bedroom, stamping in front of the fireplace. He wondered what Callie was doing. This had been the longest he hadn’t spoken to her, asked after her, held her. And he was right here with her at Hogwarts, too.
Still shaking off the nightmare, Draco got dressed. He was going to see Callie.
But when he arrived at the Gryffindor common room armed with a tray of breakfast, he was greeted by blank looks from the handful of higher years who looked as though they’d slept down there and third-years chomping at the bit for their first Hogsmeade weekend. He was gazing back just as blankly, because, idiot that he’d suddenly become, he’d completely forgotten he couldn’t just bloody march up to Callie’s room and breakfast in bed with her as they’d often done at the chateau. She was in a dorm. A girls’ dorm at Hogwarts.
“I hear she’s at the Slytherin dorms, Professor.”
“Excuse me?” It was one of his N.E.W.T level students. The Head Boy. The one who had shot him with a sopophorous bean, the one who was so solicitous to Hermione. Draco narrowed his eyes.
“Er--”
“What were you saying?”
It took an elbow dig from a girl who had a Slytherin crest to get the boy to talk again. Draco raised an eyebrow at the Slytherin girl. He also noticed their matching Head badges, but turned back to the boy, who said, “Your daughter. She’s not here. She’s been sleeping with your other-- I mean, Thalia Granger.”
Oh.
“Thank you. Good morning.” Draco went back to the portrait hole. The common room was so silent he heard each one of his footsteps and the faint tinkle of silverware from the tray. Before he climbed out, he decided the silence was too good not to fill with a parting shot. “Miss August, you just lost ten points for not being in your House where you belong. What if someone needed you and looked for you? But take ten points for getting your opposite number to talk. Gryffindors always need Slytherins.”
Pandemonium erupted before he was completely shut out of the common room. He was just about to grin when the Fat Lady laughed low in her throat and said, “I heard that, Draco Malfoy. How dare you! But it’s also the other way around, you know. Oh, what are you sneering at? Run along then.”
Draco ‘ran along’. He wanted to banish his gloom and time spent with Callie was sure to do so. However, he was faced with the same dilemma of the girls’ dorms in Slytherin. In answer to his summons, Callie went out to the common room in her pink bunny slippers, took the tray from him and shooed him away.
Shooed him away.
“Why? Can’t you breakfast with your father any longer?”
“No,” said Callie, in a tone that would have done her grandmother in France proud. She then gave him a ticking-off that would have done her mother proud. “I’d rather send you away than send my sister away. She’s here with me but you can’t be here with her, can you? Technically, you can. But what will you call her, ‘Miss Granger?’ We get enough of that treatment in class, thank you.”
With that, she flounced off and back to her dorm, levitating the tray in front of her.
The common room was just as silent as Gryffindor’s earlier.
“If you lot are still looking at me or at Callie right now, you’ll wish you’ve never attended Hogwarts.”
There were several cracks of necks hastily turned to the opposite direction.
Draco surrendered to his gloom for the day. It wasn’t like he fought it yesterday. McGonagall tried to get him to chaperone the third-years to Hogsmeade, but one look at his face at breakfast and she rescinded the request. Draco shut himself in his chambers after that and passed the time reading first words from several books before tossing the last one and opting for Thalia’s photographs. He had copied all of them. That was easy and didn’t require a professional at all.
From these pictures, he began to piece together Lia’s childhood. It was like his. She’d been the baby of the family. Spoiled rotten. There was even a photo of her and Potter in the midst of making mud pies (Merlin, Draco doubted he would have been allowed to make mud pies-- there hadn’t been any mud in the vicinity of his nurseries, so he couldn’t rightly tell-- and he hoped this pool of mud Thalia was plonked in was clean). Whereas Callie had been reared so carefully, so painstakingly. He and his parents had vowed they would raise the child as her redoubtable mother would have done. Callie had been made to learn and understand values Draco had only assimilated when his society drastically changed. They’d even been too severe at times. He could remember spanking his daughter when she was a wilful toddler. He doubted he’d ever been spanked himself.
Nevertheless, Thalia seemed to have turned out just as fine as Callie. How had Hermione raised her?
Damn that dim cow.
Draco’s mood simmered again in time to his stomach’s growling. He had skipped lunch, and now it was sunset. Where was she? Was she enjoying her date? Damn her. She could simply marry him. It was that simple. Marriage would merge their kith and kin. All that was his would be hers. All that was hers would be his. Her daughter and his daughter would be their daughters. He couldn’t believe she couldn’t see that. Or was marriage to him something she wouldn’t even deign to contemplate?
He went to dinner and was glad for the roast beef. Chomping on the meat did him good-- he pretended he was biting off the leg of a faceless man.
Callie was at the Slytherin table with her sister. Draco hadn’t heard from his mother for some time now and wondered what Callie had written to her grandmother. No word from Narcissa meant bad words were being withheld. It wasn’t even Halloween yet and Draco already dreaded Yule.
With Ogden’s Finest helping him, he fell asleep easily enough. He’d welcome any and all nightmares. He deserved them. But none came. And he was actually relishing a different sort of dream altogether-- one that continued and built on the delicious cosiness of holding Hermione in his lap, that time in her office-- when he felt several hairs part ways with his scalp. Or did a patch of scalp part ways with his skull?
He damned the owl to the pits of Hades and then realised it was Callie’s owl. No letter anywhere, though. When the owl took flight upon seeing him awake, Draco scrambled to his feet and pelted out so fast he nearly bowled over Callie, who was waiting just outside the door with Thalia. Both of them raised their hands against him, the universal message of telling him to freeze where he stood. He froze.
“Daddy!”
“What? What is it? Are you all right?” He made to take her in his arms but Thalia body-blocked him and Callie backed away.
That was when he noticed the odd way Callie was standing. As if she had a large egg between her thighs. He clapped his hand to his mouth just in time before he vomited curses and maybe vomited, full stop. He felt lightheaded. He’d always counted on his mother or Pansy being there when this happened. Or the nurse at Beauxbatons, of course.
“All right, wait here, I’ll get Madam Pomfrey, she can--”
“No! It’s embarrassing. I want Grandmother.”
“We can’t just send for your Grandmother, Callie! And even if we do, she won’t be here fast enough!”
“Don’t yell at me!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just-- what about you, Thalia, can’t you help your sister?”
“She won’t let me. And I don’t really know exactly-- Mum’s told me, but-- And I can’t bear--” Draco saw Thalia peek at the back of Callie’s nightgown. Thalia turned faintly green. Great.
“That’s right, where’s your mother? Get her!”
Thalia hesitated. She only went when Callie nodded. Draco would have to warn Hermione about this. Apparently, their authority had been overridden by sisterly solidarity. And then Draco remembered Hermione was away for the weekend. Now he was alone with his daughter who was badly in need of a female. Not mortally, was it? Draco could feel the beef threatening to make a reappearance. He took deep breaths. This was normal and he was acting like an idiot.
“Cramps. Girls get cramps, right? Did you have one? Do you have one?”
Callie nodded. “It woke me up.” She was staring at the floor between her feet. It was quite an expanse, with the way she was standing.
“You won’t be dripping right there, will you?”
Callie burst into tears.
“I’m sorry! That was an idiotic thing to say. I feel like a complete idiot here, Calliope. Didn’t your grandmother tell you anything about this, then?”
Callie sobbed and both nodded and shook her head.
“You didn’t meet anyone who could help in your common room?”
Callie shook her head again.
“Were you too embarrassed to ask for help?”
Callie nodded.
“Why are you so shaken? This is normal, isn’t it? You’re scaring the crap out of me.”
Callie shook her head and tried to stop her sobs.
“This is real, isn’t it? You’re not just--?”
Callie’s glare stopped him cold and it was Draco’s turn to nod. He wiped Callie’s tears with his thumbs.
“Look, love, I’m sure my cupboard will supply your needs. Go in the bathroom. And your grandmother bought you a book for... this, didn’t she? If you tell me the title, I’ll Summon it and I’ll--”
“Mum’s here!”
Thalia flew back to Callie’s side and hugged her sister. Draco almost slid to the floor in relief. After a few moments, a breathless Hermione arrived.
“Don’t. Run. Like that again, Lia.” She looked at Callie and smiled ruefully. “It’s all right. No need for tears. It’s not that bad. There are potions for cramps and everything and it will be over before you know it.”
Hermione was wearing a skirt suit and matching shoes, perfectly put together except for wisps of hair that escaped her chignon due to her wild dash here. She looked like she came from the Ministry rather than from some accursed bloke’s bed. Draco momentarily forgot Callie’s distress in these happy observations and only remembered when he caught a glimpse of that splotch. Red on white. Wasn’t she too small for that? She was only eleven!
His vision tunnelled. When he could see all right again, two sets of bare feet and one pair of dark green boots were coming out of the bathroom. What was he doing on the floor?
“What are you doing on the floor? Oh, Circe. Your father’s so melodramatic, isn’t he?”
The girls giggled.
If the sweet normalcy of the scene had been lost on him, he would have glared at them. As it was, Draco just rolled his eyes and pretended to faint. Again.