Disclaimer: I am not JKRowling. Therefore, I do not own Harry Potter. Savvy?
Summary: Draco and Hermione are married and have two kids, Emily and Eric. One day, Emily asks the question they've all been dreading to answer: Where do babies come from?
A/N: Inspiration struck me while I was taking an afternoon nap. Read and review please, it will make me ever so happy. (:
Where Do Babies Come From?
"Mommy? Can I ask you a question?"
Hermione tore her eyes away from her book and turned to the her five-year-old daughter, Emily, and her three-year-old son, Eric. Emily was a youngster who thought herself an adult, and constantly bullied her little brother into participating in all kinds of devious schemes. With her platinum blonde hair up in a ponytail today and her hands on her hips, Emily looked exactly like a little business woman. And Eric, with his ruffled brown hair and twinkling grey eyes, was Emily's little lackey.
"Sure," she replied with a smile, putting the book face down on the side table. "Ask away, sweetheart."
Emily drew herself up to her full height – which, by the way, was not very tall at all – and gave her mother and brother a self-important look. "This is a very important question, Mommy," she said seriously, frowning slightly as if to emphasize the seriousness of the question.
"Mommy, can I sit on your lap?" piped up Eric suddenly, tugging on the hem of Hermione's skirt.
Grinning kindly, Hermione scooped her son up and shifted so they'd both be comfortable. "Of course, darling," she said as Eric laughed merrily and buried his head in her bushy mane of hair. Turning to Emily, Hermione continued, "So, was that your question?"
Emily gave Eric an exasperated look. "No, that was not my question," she replied matter-of-factly. "That was not part of the plan at all. That was a random bit of, uh, randomness on Eric's part. What I really want to know is this: Where do babies come from?"
With a feeble grin, Hermione responded, "What?"
"Where do babies come from, Mommy?" Emily repeated, her large brown eyes sparkling with curiosity. "I mean, Eric was a baby once, and I must have been a baby once, and so must you and Daddy. So where did all of us come from? Did we just drop from the sky?" To punctuate this statement, Emily waved her arms around and gestured wildly at the sky. Then she placed her hands on her hips again. "You do know where babies come from, don't you?"
"Of course I do," Hermione said quickly. A little too quickly, she realised, for – on hindsight – telling Emily that babies fell from the sky wasn't too bad an idea. Better than the alternative, at least. "But it's a little … tricky to explain," she added, and Emily's face fell. "Why don't you ask your Daddy?"
---
"Daddy? Can I ask you a question?"
Draco glanced up from the sheets of papers on his desk to look down at his daughter, Emily, and his son, Eric.
"Sure," he replied, a little cautious of the devious glint in Emily's eyes – a glint that reminded himself too much of, well, himself. "What is it?"
Emily walked around the ornate oak desk so she stood directly beside Draco, who swiveled his chair around so he could face her directly. The same serious look that she had used with Hermione fell over Emily's face again as she looked her father directly in the eye. "This is a very important question, Daddy," she said, mentally running over the plan in her head. It wouldn't do good if she jumbled up the question, like she did the last time – she ended up asking why grass ate cows. "A very important question indeed," she added spontaneously, nodding to emphasize her point.
"Very important, yes," Draco replied, smiling at his daughter. "So what is this very important question?"
"Daddy, can I sit on your lap?" Eric interrupted once again, tugging on the leg of Draco's trousers.
With a gentle laugh that no one could imagine Draco would be able to produce, Draco picked his son up and dropped him lightly into his lap. Ruffling up Eric's brown hair even further, he said, "Of course, squirt. You comfortable?" In reply, Eric wrapped his arms around Draco's neck. Turning once again to Emily, Draco asked, "Was that the question?" He raised an eyebrow skeptically.
"No, of course not!" exclaimed Emily. "Eric, you need to stop thwarting my plans." Emily pursed her lips and looked Draco in the eye. "That was not my question at all. My very important, very serious question is this: Where do babies come from?"
Draco spluttered in a very undignified manner. "What?"
Sighing at the prospect of repeating her question for the fourth time, Emily said, "Where do babies come from, Daddy? We were all babies once" – here she gestured at herself, Eric and Draco – "but where did we come from? Did we grow on trees or drop from the sky?"
Smiling sheepishly, Draco replied, "You know, this is a very complicated question, and good for you for thinking of it. But I think I'll need some time to, uh, ponder on this question, so why don't you go ask Mommy first?" Grinning in a self-satisfied manner – as if he'd just deflected a major crisis – Draco nodded eagerly at Emily and made shooing motions with his hands, but Emily simply grinned up at him in return.
"I did ask Mommy," she replied flatly. "But she told me to ask you."
With a grimace, Draco muttered, "Why, that sneaky little –" Then he caught sight of Emily and Eric and forced a smile. "I'll go look for your Mommy now. Why don't the two of you just, uh, wait here."
---
"Told her to come to me, didn't you?" Draco asked as he entered the room. "Thought it'd be nice to dump the problem on me, wouldn't it?" He stepped up to the couch that Hermione was draped across and moved her legs so he could sit on the couch too.
Hermione laughed as Draco ran his fingers down her calves. "You would have done the same thing if Emily had gone to you first, Draco," she said in a voice that told all too clearly of how well she knew him. "And I'm not even going after you for that." She put the book back on the side table and sat up properly. "So, what did you tell her?"
With a smirk, Draco replied, "I told her to go look for you, but she said that she'd already done that."
Smiling in a haughty manner, Hermione shrugged. "So I guess you didn't give her an answer?" she questioned. "We really shouldn't be hiding things like these from her. She'd have to find out one day, anyway. Better sooner than later, right?"
Draco ran his fingers through Hermione's thick mane of chocolate brown hair. "In my opinion, it's always better later than sooner. In this case, at least," he whispered into Hermione's ear and she shivered gently. "Unless you'd rather have The Talk with her now, in which case I have no objection whatsoever." He wrapped his arms around Hermione's waist, but she wriggled out and placed her hands on her hips, pretending to be angry.
"I've been mentally prepared for The Talk since the day I married you, Draco," said Hermione. "But I was expecting it to come some ten years down the road, when Emily's a teenager. Not now; not when she's barely even five!" Hermione wrinkled her nose and played with Draco's soft, blond hair. "And I'm barely twenty-nine!"
"Emily's not one to give up easily, you know," Draco added. "She's bound to keep on asking until she gets an answer."
Hermione laughed. "Her stubbornness comes from you," she retorted easily.
"Personally, I call it determination," Draco said quickly before adding, "And her annoyingly adorable thirst for knowledge comes from you."
Laughing again in response, Hermione covered Draco's lips with her own and before long, they were kissing passionately and thoroughly. Hermione wrapped her arms so tightly around Draco that nothing could possibly pry her off and Draco had one hand tangled in her hair, the other clenched in a fist in the small of her back. It was only when they both tumbled from the couch to the floor – a whole ten minutes later – that they both came up for air, breathless, panting, dishevelled and grinning from ear to ear.
"Kissing isn't going to solve the problem, Draco," whispered Hermione in a breathy voice. "Emily's going to ask again, and again, and again."
Draco, who was still reluctant for the kissing to stop, replied, "But kissing is fun. And I'm sure we'll find a way around the problem." He gave Hermione a reassuring smile. "Together, I'm positive we can solve the problem."
---
"So, where do babies come from?"
Hermione and Draco exchanged knowing looks. It was dinnertime and, as expected, Emily had not given up on her very important question. Her parents were still as flustered as to how to respond to this question as they were that afternoon, but knowing they had each other gave them a strange burst of courage. Irrational courage.
"Well," began Draco in a tortured sort of voice. "It starts out with a guy … and a girl." Hermione smiled at his words and Draco proceeded to turn scarlet, after which he was completely unable to make any distinguishable sort of sound.
Sighing resignedly, Hermione added, "When a guy loves a girl and the girl loves the guy back, they can get married." She nodded at her own words. "It is of utmost importance that they get married first," she repeated, figuring that she might as well start inoculating good values when her daughter was still young. "You can't have babies if you don't get married. You must get married first. Marriage is like the thing to do before you can have babies, all right?"
Emily looked tiresome, and so did Draco. And so Draco interrupted, "Right, exactly. So after getting married, you have babies!" He smiled brightly at everyone at the table, clasping his hands together with finality. Hermione nodded eagerly, Emily looked skeptical, and Eric played with his food.
"That's it?" enquired Emily. She looked a little disappointed. "So what determines how many babies you have, or when you have them?"
Hermione gave Draco a look that said 'it's all your fault she's so stubborn'. Draco gave Hermione a look that said 'it's all your fault she's so full of curiosity'. Eric played with his food.
"It depends on you and your husband," replied Hermione. "The two of you decide together how many you want, and when you want them. Then you have babies!"
Emily nodded, looking more satisfied. "So … two people who love each other get married and have babies." She paused for a moment before glancing at Hermione and Draco. "So you guys have always loved each other? Like, since forever?" There was a brand new twinkle in her eyes.
Draco laughed softly, reminiscent of the old days. With a small, nostalgic smile, Hermione replied, "Well, that's another story altogether."