Written for The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Ballycastle Bats practice round two.
Keeper's Prompt: Friendship.
Words: 1,940
"Aaaarrgh! Bloody cat!"
"Crookshanks, no!"
With an undignified yell, Draco sprawled backwards on the carpet, wand sailing from his hand as he landed hard, the wind crushed from his lungs. A triumphant yowl announced that the cat had dived beneath the sideboard in pursuit of the object, and Draco struggled to sit up, furious.
"Come back here, you mangy beast!" A low hiss was the only response; over by the kitchen doorway, he could hear the damned woman laughing. "It's not funny, Granger."
"Actually, I find it highly amusing. Does this happen often?"
"It happens every time, as you bloody well know, Granger! Where's my wand?" The blonde man scrabbled to his feet in time to watch Crookshanks trot briskly from the room, the wand clasped proudly in his teeth. "Get back here, damn you!"
"Don't antagonize him, Draco; it'll only make him more determined. Just be patient, and he'll bring it back eventually," Hermione advised, pointing a batter-covered spoon at the man like an admonishing finger. Grumbling, Draco acquiesced; with an irritable huff, he cast himself into the nearest armchair and observed the room through glare-narrowed eyes.
"You're lucky I've grown fond of you, Granger," he muttered, causing Hermione to raise an incredulous eyebrow.
"Lucky indeed, Draco," she countered drily, "Considering I'm the one you fire-called frantically half an hour ago, begging for help with the baby. Where is he, anyway? I thought you said you'd bring him along." Draco's eyes went comically wide.
"Didn't I?" he exclaimed. "I thought I — but he was just — " Abruptly he stood; whirling about, he began to frantically search beneath the couch cushions. "Honestly, Draco? How could you possibly lose a baby?" The set of Hermione's lips was annoyingly smug.
"I don't know, all right!" Draco whined desperately, now checking the interior of a nearby goblet. "He was right there when I left; I swear it — there one minute, gone the next, how was I supposed to — "
"It's a one-year-old." Hermione appeared to be having difficulty withholding laughter. "Children are never silent; it would be nearly impossible not to realize he was gone."
"Yes, well, you get used to it!" was Draco's rather hysterical explanation. He had gotten his head stuck in the shade of a standing lamp, convinced that the child was concealed within one of the nonsensical Muggle contraptions the witch insisted upon keeping in her flat — light bowls, or something to that effect. Exasperated, Hermione dropped her spoon on the counter and set about extracting him. "After a while, it becomes a sort of — thank you — ringing in the ears." He yanked his head back, a thin red line now pressed into his forehead from the wire. "Where's that blasted cat with my wand? Merlin's — give me your — right. I'll be back."
"Draco!" But with a determined face, Draco succeeded in wrestling away the witch's wand, and a moment later, Disapparated with a deafening crack.
Half amused, half indignant, Hermione shook her head; sometimes she struggled to comprehend how relationships after the war had played out. Never, before the defeat of Voldemort, would she have considered the possibility of forming anything more than a contemptuous alliance with a Malfoy. She certainly wouldn't have imagined this scene, and yet, somehow, it was how the circumstances had played out, and now she was here, wandless in her own living room, aiding Draco Malfoy with his fatherly ineptitudes.
(She harbored no doubt that he was a marvelous father, certainly a fair sight more so than Lucius had been, but he was still Draco. She didn't know what delusion had taken Astoria that had convinced her that leaving her husband alone with their one-year-old son for a weekend would result in anything other than panicked, misplaced attempts at impressive parenting clothed with unintentional overcompensation.)
A roar of emerald flames caused her to jump, and she spun about to watch Draco come spinning into view and stumble over the grate of her fireplace, a wailing baby now clutched in his arms.
"There, now, don't say I'm entirely incompetent!" he declared, giving his robes a sharp shake to rid them of the worst of the soot. "The moment I got home, I remembered exactly where he was!"
"Draco — "
"Now, perhaps my father's liquor cabinet might not have been quite the optimal spot to stash him, but it didn't do him any harm, now did it? He didn't even get into the whiskey, though why one would ignore that fine malt when one is at the perfect liberty to sneak some unsuspected, I completely fail to understand — "
"Draco — "
" — Of course, I always was a Bourbon drinker myself — only on special occasions, of course; it was merely practical use — don't let that reach my mother's ears, by the way, Granger; she'd pitch an awful fit if she ever knew what had really happened to her Cognac. I told her it was the house-elf, see, and she never questioned it . . . I repaid Dobby in Licorice Wands, of course, and the poor fellow always said he forgave me — "
"Draco Malfoy, you are suffocating your son!"
"I — wha . . . Bloody hell, Granger, why didn't you say so?" Hermione, fortunately, chose to ignore this blatant obtuseness, instead opting to reach for the baby herself. Little Scorpius, freed from his father's accidentally strangling grasp, howled furiously at the indignance he had been subjected to, and outstretched his own arms for his father's friend.
"Merlin's left — take him, Granger, before he has an apoplexy; I don't know why Astoria thought this would be beneficial. I've never gone for that familial bonding business anyway." Perhaps Hermione didn't glower at him as she took the relieved baby into her arms, but Scorpius did, glaring at his father so fiercely that Draco at least had the decency to look sheepish. "Right; sorry, kid, but your father was raised a wanker; it's going to take him a while yet to grow out of it, yeah?"
"Sweet Morgana, Draco, language," Hermione scolded, pressing Scorpius's head to her chest to cover his ears. "He's one." Draco scoffed, though he managed to look marginally contrite.
"Please, Granger. My first word was 'shite,'" he chuckled, falling back into his chosen armchair with a heavy sigh. For several long minutes, they refrained from speech, Draco staring exhaustedly at the opposite wall and Hermione rocking Scorpius, cooing to him quietly and remembering Draco's panicked fire-call to her earlier that morning.
"Granger, I swear on Potter's fabulously omnipotent scar, this is urgent. I'm begging you here!"
"Draco, really, it's a baby; it's not as though it's a bomb that needs disarming."
"Easy for you to say; I've dealt with a tantrum twice already, and it's hardly ten o'clock. I don't know where this child gets his attitude. It's like he thinks he's entitled to everything he asks for!"
"Yes, Draco, I wonder where your son got his personality."
"I might have been a prat, Granger — "
"Might still be one, you mean."
" — But this kid is something else. He seems to think that he deserves everything he wants, and while of course he does, I can't exactly tell him that, now can I?"
"Why are you really calling, Draco? For once, I find it hard to believe that you just want to complain to willing ears."
"And why is that, dear Granger?"
"Because it's ten o'clock on a Saturday, Draco. Why aren't you still in bed?"
" . . . perceptive little chit, aren't you, Granger?"
"So I've been told. Care to tell me what's wrong?"
"Astoria left me alone with the kid."
"Scorpius, Draco; you ought to use his name or you'll give him a complex. Astoria went shopping?"
"No, you bloody idiot, she left me for the weekend! She went to France with Daphne to some bachelorette party, and she won't be back until Monday morning! I'm in a crisis here, Granger, and I need your help."
"With what, precisely?"
"With the baby! I can't take care of him myself!"
"Honestly, Draco? It's not as difficult as you think."
"Yes, it bloody well is the difficult! He's been crying for an hour, Granger. Crying."
"Yes, Draco. Sometimes babies do that."
"I don't know how to stop it!"
"Have you tried feeding him? Changing him?"
"Yes and yes! Nothing's working. I think he's teething. I was going to rub some — "
"If you were about to say 'rub some whisky on his gums,' I'll have your head, Draco Malfoy. Try a numbing charm."
"It worked perfectly well when I was young! And I will not point a wand at my son."
"Merlin's sake, Draco, you wouldn't be cursing him!"
"Easy for you to say, Granger; you've never been on the receiving end of one of my numbing charms."
" . . . Fair point."
"So you'll help me?"
"Define help."
"You'll let me come over with the kid until Astoria gets back so that my questionably sane wife doesn't have to attend any funerals?"
"You're lucky I'm fond of you, Malfoy."
"Touché, Granger; I'm coming over."
Soaking in the amiable silence, Hermione reflected on the recognition that their friendship no longer felt odd or strained. Contrary to what one might have believed — certainly, what Ron thought to be true — their companionship was a comfortable one.
It had begun awkwardly, at first, a series of hesitant daily interactions when they joined the same department at the Ministry in the months following the war. The beginnings of friendship had been somewhat clouded by the essence of recent history that still lingered in all of them, a sense of mistrust and uncertainty born from the discordancy of a war-torn society. However, once they had managed to overcome their uneasiness, old childhood prejudices had not held, and past discrepancies had been easily overlooked. They never spoke of it, but both still remembered, now, the young boy and girl who had saved each other's lives more than once. Hermione didn't forget that he had not given them away that night at Malfoy Manor, and Draco had not forgotten who had pulled him from the Fiendfyre.
An unintelligible mutter fell from Draco's lips.
"If you expect me to understand that, you're full of it," was Hermione's prompt retort. Draco didn't remove his gaze from the wall.
"Thank you." Momentarily, Hermione froze, holding Scorpius still mid-bounce. "What?"
"Thank you," Draco repeated. He pulled his stare from the wall to gaze at a spot somewhere around Hermione's chest that made the witch eye him incredulously before realizing that he was staring at Scorpius.
"What do you mean?" Her voice trembled a little with the question; she tried to distract herself by gazing intently at the fine blonde hair on the baby's head, a little frizzed and sooty after Floo traveling.
"Damn it, Granger, don't make me spell it out," Draco growled, gesturing nonsensically with one hand. "Thank you. As much as I like to think I've matured since school, we both know I'm still a right prat. I wouldn't be able to do this on my own." Though it was simple in phrase, there was a heavy undercurrent of meaning. It would be ludicrous at this point to assume that he only meant to thank her for helping him with his son.
Feeling a little off-balance, Hermione hesitated. Her mouth fell half open, ready to unleash such phrases as you would if you had to, and no, thank you, and you're not such a prat as you think you are, but the words stuck in her throat.
If she could read between the lines and understand what he was thanking her for, she knew he would do the same.
"You're welcome."