Written for Hogwarts Speed Drabble - Prompts: Draco Malfoy/Hermione Granger, violent, giggle

Word Count: 566 without A/N

Maybe this is wishful thinking,

probably mindless dreaming,

but if we loved again, I swear I'd love you right.

Back to December, Taylor Swift

Hermione had known for years that Draco Malfoy was insolent and spoiled, but she'd never labeled him as particularly violent.

Yet in a mere three minutes, he had all but destroyed his own study room. Books lay overturned where he'd swept them off the desk. His chair still tilted precariously against the wall when he'd stood abruptly and knocked over his glass of water. He had wasted three perfectly good quills in his fury, and held one in his hand now as he waved it in her face.

"I can't permit this! I cannot permit this!"

"You can't stop it, either," Hermione said as she rubbed her temples. "For heaven's sake, Malfoy -"

"I allowed them to be acquaintances," he continued, looking a bit deranged if she was to be honest. "I even let him become friends with that - that girl! - and Potter's son -"

"That girl is my daughter, and Harry's son's name is Albus -"

" - and I let him visit Potter's house during the Christmas holidays, but if I had known what was going to happen, I wouldn't have allowed any of it!" Snap. The broken halves of the beautiful quill clattered onto the table with the rest.

Hermione pursed her lips. "Your son," she said in clipped tones, "is a hundred times more open minded than you are."

"I would be a hundred times more open minded if it was anybody but her!"

Hermione instantly rose from her seat and took a menacing step toward him. "Did you call me here today so that you could insult my daughter? Because if that's the case, I'm leaving this instant before I lose control and hex you. I'll even take Rose with me!"

"If it was anybody else," Draco said wildly, apparently not listening to her, "I would consider it more, especially since Scorpius seems to… Well, in any case, I would be open minded, as you said. I'd even accept Potter's son!" He hastily added, "Of course, after long deliberation -"

"So think about this longer, because it's actually happening!" Hermione hissed at him. "My daughter and your son are in love with each other. Are you really going to deny their happiness?"

She had known what he would say in response even before she'd opened her mouth to speak, but the words still hit her with the force of a hippogriff.

"Didn't they deny ours?"

Neither spoke for a long time. Hermione felt sure that he was reliving distant memories just as she was, but she could not allow herself to think of the nights spent at the Ministry and the way they'd helped each other heal wounds inflicted by the war when no one else could…

From below, in the Malfoy Manor drawing room, Rose and Scorpius's giggles drifted up to Draco's study. They were both unaware of what was going on upstairs - unaware and uncaring, Hermione knew, because they were blissfully stuck in their own world together. Twenty years ago, that had been…

She cleared her throat and stared at Malfoy, who had put his head in his hands. "I think you'll find," she said quietly, "that that should give you all the more reason to accept them."

His response came so quickly, she knew it was what he'd meant to say all along. "Why should I? She's the daughter of the one person I couldn't have."