Strange Twist of Fate
By: LiquidVamp
A/N: My muse, Maggie, is simple girl. All she likes are plot bunnies and reviews. So be kind to Maggie and feed her review cookies please.
No copyright infringement intended. All characters are the property of JKR, Scholastic, and any number of other companies with more money than I've ever dreamed of seeing. I didn't make any money off of this, so please don't sue.
DM DM DM DM DM DM DM
He was supposed to be a quidditch father. He had it all planned out. He would teach his son to fly circles around any Potter or Weasley offspring by the time he was out of nappies and come his son's second year at Hogwarts he would show them all just what Malfoys were made of on the pitch. He had dreams of it from the moment he had announced his engagement to Astoria to the public; after all a child of the marriage was all but required (if unspoken). No Malfoy progeny would go forth, marry, and not procreate. It simply was not done. The Malfoy line must continue and since he was an only child, a son, it was his responsibility to continue that line. To have children until a son was produced in order to carry on that name for further generations.
In his mind, this son was going to be the next great quidditch sensation to rock Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and, possibly later, the entire wizarding world. In fact, he was going to be everything his father was not. But mostly he was going to win that bloody quidditch cup every year possible, and not by hook or crook as his father had tried to do. He was going to do it by being the better player on the pitch. Yes Draco was he was pasted his prime himself, but his son could show them, show them all a Malfoy could best them and do it without any underhanded maneuvers. It wasn't exactly the most Slytherin plan, but none the less it was what his son would need he had decided.
The day Astoria had come to him and told him she was expecting he had screamed for joy in the most undignified way that Malfoy manor had ever bore witness to. He had promptly left, leaving his wife in a state of shock and confusion as to why her clearly exuberant husband would up and vanish with no word as to where he was going or why. He returned some seven hours later with his eyes bloody, stinking of fire whiskey, grinning like a common loon, and holding the tiniest wizarding broom she had ever seen. She knew right then and there that things were going to go askew, but kept that observation to herself. Sleeping dragons are best as they are and all; or in this case, completely pissed, dragons.
Seven months, to the day, Draco was awakened by the tormented screams of his wife who had gone in to labor during the night and felt it not necessary to wake him 'just yet'. He "was a man after all, what good could he possibly be," she would later tell him. By the time she chose to, she was too far along to make the trip to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries to deliver their child and so her healer was called to them. Three hours and twenty-seven minutes after he woke to his wife's screams it was his daughter's tiny screaming voice that alerted him to her entrance into the world.
Three months later he was sleep deprived but holding his own as a father in the ways of most fathers. He had avoided changing all but a few dirty nappies to his delight and much to Astoria's vexation since the proud father insisted no house elf would raise his daughter, all the while enjoying the quiet moments that he couldn't recall ever having in his own childhood. There was nothing he liked more than to sit in the nursery in the early morning hours with his daughter and rock her after her mother had fed her. He would sit, rocking her, telling her fantastical tales of a little girl who grew up to be the best quidditch player the world had ever seen. She would defy them all. No one would be prepared for how talented she would be and not just because she was a girl (he had altered that dream just the slightest bit) but because she was also a Malfoy and most people didn't believe them to be worth the dirt on their shoes but he knew, she would show them all wrong.
On her fourth birthday Draco had gone out, as he had the three previous ones, and bought out the stores. But this time he had purchased a toy wand. It only allowed a child to create colorful sparks or to add a new level of control to certain pre-spelled magical toys (most of which she already owned). He had given no thought previously that his darling daughter had not once made even the slightest bit of accidental magical. She was still young after all, and wasn't the least bit inclined to fits of temper as he had been at that age.
When she opened the package, eyes bright with excitement, and pulled out the toy wand he smiled. When she gave it a wave and nothing happened he quirked an eyebrow in concern but calmly told her to try again. He had read the instructions very clearly; he always did, for fear of any harm coming to his as of yet only child. A simple wave by a new user should produce a flourish of blue and silver sparks, nothing more and nothing less. When she waved it several more times and nothing happened he looked at Astoria over her curly blonde head, his eyes filled with a fear that he did his best to not let his daughter see. He turned to his tiny daughter and asked her to set it aside, it must be broken, and they could return it the next day, before quickly turning the conversation towards the waiting tea and cakes with Grandma Cissa and Papa Lucius.
As quickly as she had set the 'broken' toy aside and dashed off to the breakfast room for tea and cakes, she had forgotten the incident. He and Astoria had not forgotten the incident. Nor had anyone else. When Lucius tried, not so subtlety, to bring the topic back up over after-dinner drinks that same evening Draco firmly told him he wasn't talking about it, not until he had talked to Astoria first. Lucius badgered in the way aging grandfathers do until Draco told him to shut up or get out.
Two firsts happened in the immediate family of one Draco Malfoy that day. A squib daughter was discovered for what she really was; no longer the hopeful quidditch star but just a regular little girl with sunshine blonde curls and the deepest blue eyes Draco had ever seen. And a son had finally stood up to his father, face to face, about a topic that had long been one of great distaste in their sometimes very distasteful family.
True colours had been revealed all around. She was his daughter, his flesh and blood. While it hurt that the fates had seen fit to strip her of the magic that he felt so desperately vital at his very core, he would not turn his back on her for her lack of it. No matter what previous generations of Malfoy rule had said, she was his and damn anyone who tried to tell him otherwise. He would fight them all should they try to tell him to give her up.
Suddenly, in the course of one afternoon, he knew unlike he had throughout the war, exactly why wars had been fought. He knew suddenly why muggle-borns were so important and why squibs, God, his daughter was a squib, should have more right than to be considered the trash of the wizarding world.
The later 'discussion' with Astoria had gone much the path that the one with his father would have, had Draco not threatened to kick Lucius out of the house before it could begin. She was horrified that their 'perfect' daughter was sullying their 'good name' by daring to not having magic. How dare she not be magical! Draco had scoffed at the sheer stupidity of the woman before him before turning from her and sleeping the night curled around his daughter in a bed far too small for him.
Morning came and with it a visit to the solicitors office. He had been correct in thinking that colours always run true and Astoria's were deep, dark and ugly at best. After five years of marriage he found that he couldn't spare a tear for the idea that in the course of one revelation she had earned herself a one-way ticket back to her family home. Astoria Malfoy would find herself once more Astoria Greengrass by year's end and she wouldn't take a knut of her bride price back with her. So help him, he would show her just how far you pushed him before the Malfoy family chewed you up and spat you out. He had taken the first steps that very morning and by noon she would find herself no longer a resident of their less than humble home.
The end of a wizarding marriage isn't as drawn out as one might think. At least not when one is Draco Malfoy and has more galleons in the bank than most could dream of in a lifetime of dreaming. Just three months after that fateful birthday, Draco and his daughter would find themselves legally free of wife and mother. Astoria had retaken her maiden name and returned home to her parents without so much as even visitation rights (not that she had requested them for her "squib disaster"). Draco was left to raise his four-year-old daughter by himself as best he knew how which trying his best to lessen the impact of the simple fact that her mother simply didn't want her. He found himself wholly out of his depth.
As such, he learned things right alongside his pint-sized daughter as they navigated uncharted territory together. When after over a year's worth of trying he discovered he was no teacher of reading, writing, or even the most basic maths, he found himself forced to find out how muggles educated their children. Worse still, because he was so woefully ignorant of such matters and more than a little terrified of making a mistake with the child that was now his to raise on his own at the tender age of five and half he found himself on the doorstep of one Mrs. Hermione Weasley with daughter in tow almost literally begging for aid in an introduction to the muggle world and whatever it was they did to educate their children. He had expected to be hexed off the doorstep or possibly banished to the pits of some unknown hell. What he received was at first not exactly friendly but not cold and uninviting either.
So that's how it came to be that a year later, divorced and alone and more than a little in over his head with single parenthood, Aria Malfoy ended up the sheer center of her father's world and did something no one else could have dared to do: she introduced him to the muggle world and all its wonders (out of sheer necessity, he told himself).
Hermione Weasley had helped; gone over and above, in fact. She had helped him enroll Aria in a premier private primary school. Her own children, as well as the Potter children attended there. While that might have bothered his younger self he found his reformed mind found some comfort in it. There were other Weasley children that attended there as well. Fred and Roxanne Weasley, the children of George Weasley, while older and nearly out of attendance, were still there and very notably like their father; always full of mischief. They entertained Aria endlessly with their minor mischief and reminded Draco what fun it could be to be a child.
Aria, however, had been desperately behind when she had begun. Almost two years behind the muggle education system, he as a father felt he had let her down. But it was once again Hermione Weasley that helped her catch up while helping her own son, Hugo who was struggling in his own right (he was clearly Weasley's son without a smidge of Granger in him at all). By the year's end, Aria had caught up with her class despite her teacher's original estimation that it might take several years of in-depth tutelage to help her reach the level of her peers. Clearly the woman didn't know his daughter like he did. She was his little bright morning star, capable of whatever she put her mind to.
It was in, her sixth year of life and second year of muggle school that she discovered football. It was a normal outside activity to kick the ball around during play-time. Aria was very familiar with the ball itself but not the actual game until Mr. and Mrs. Harry Potter decided that everyone needed a break and decided that the World Cup play-off matches might be a good place to take eight children while their parents had a long afternoon to themselves. They volunteered to take Aria along with their three children, Hermione and Ronald's two, and George and Angelina's two ("the sheer insanity," thought Draco.)
Aria had come home with her hair a tangled mop, her fair skin burnt to an angry red, smiling so widely it made her whole face light up, and carrying every trinket she could possibly hold. Draco knew the moment he saw her he was in deep, deep trouble.
She spent weeks talking about how much fun it had been to watch, how she would love to go to watch again sometime, how she wished that there were things like that in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade when they went there instead of quidditch, and most importantly how when she grew up, how she was going to play and score one of the goals so that daddy could see her.
Some weeks later, she would repeat those same sentiments for what seemed like the millionth time in front of the now beloved "Auntie" Hermione. Auntie Hermione took that moment to point out that she didn't have to wait. Unlike quidditch, which didn't have organized clubs until you turned twelve and went to Hogwarts or somewhere similar, football had clubs all over for all ages from the very young to the very old. If Aria really wanted to play, Hermione could help her father find her a place to play. There might even be one at their school. Rose and Huge had never shown any interest so she hadn't paid any mind, but there might be.
And so it was that the once "quidditch father" became the "football father" of the perky, blue-eyed and blonde little girl. The same little girl who loved nothing more than those wonderfully cool spring Saturday mornings when her father would tell her if she didn't get her lazy bones out of bed she was going to miss her football game. This same little girl's father loved nothing more than watching how his little girl would carefully gather each piece of her uniform from the shelf that her daddy always stored it on. Putting her shirt and shorts on first, then her shin guards (magically shored-up because he was able to ensure her safety that much more), then her socks (that always made her giggle because they reached all the way up to the top of the tiny thighs before being rolled down), then her tiny black and pink cleats that inflicted so much pain on his own feet when she stepped on his toes ("the ones with the stars and sparkles daddy, please!"), and then she would gather her matching hair bow and brush and come patiently sit for him to fix her hair (taught to him by Mrs. Ginny Potter because Auntie Hermione is utterly pants at hair).
On those mornings as soon as she had dressed they would find their way down stairs to the dining room to have a full English breakfast. Six years in Slytherin had left a mark. If one is going to participate in high-energy sports, then one must eat 'hale and hearty' lest they not have the energy to actually participate. The fact that his daughter could eat him out of house and hearth prior to a match had nothing in the least to do with it at all. It was their little routine and he wouldn't break it for the world any more than he would turn back time and change his decision to keep his squib daughter.
He stood on the side of the small pitch watching as his daughter once again turned the ball around just before it was kicked out of bounds and ran it back towards her team's goal. He smiled and cheered her on. A small, dark haired boy, Albus Potter, was right on her heels backing her up. The two of them had turned out to be quite the little duo on the pitch. As it turned out once Aria had expressed an interest, Albus no longer could refrain and his father certainly wasn't going to be shown up by a Malfoy and tell his son no. Now the children were fast friends, much to the chagrin of both of their fathers, and extremely well matched on the pitch.
Draco found that he couldn't be more proud of her however and in moments like these he was honestly happy that fate had dealt them the hand it had. They had each other and an insight into each other and the world at large that they likely never would have had if she had been the child he had dreamed her being.
She kicked, hard, and the ball sailed into the corner of the goal. A cheer rang out into the early morning from the families of other players and the friends that they had collected in their short time since they discovered she was blessedly non-magical. Auntie Hermione was bouncing up and down in a rather 'bouncing-ferret-like' fashion. Draco grinned despite himself at the rather odd mental image that called up. He would never have dreamed this life up, yet it was exactly the one he wanted.
Draco smiled and waved to his daughter as she ran back to join her teammates. Yes, this is what life was about. Aria was exactly the child he had dreamed of; his perfect reason for becoming a football father.