-So this is a new story, just something I had to get written down somewhere. I have more chapters written so if people seem interested I'll upload them as well. Reviews are great, a smiley face makes me smile! Hopefully people will like this and will please, please review.
-I know it will upset some people but for this story to work I had to swap one thing, it was Ron who yelled out to Percy at the final battle and it was him who was killed and not Fred. So both of the twins are alive but their is no Ron. Hopefully people will read this anyway because I'm really trying to to change to much.
Fourteen Years
Chapter One: Ice Cream Meetings
Draco Malfoy couldn't believe it. He was sitting in Diagon Alley for the first time in about fourteen years, in the Ice Cream Parlor to be precise. What was he doing?
Everything had been going well. After his mother had died he'd left Europe and the UK for good. He'd just felt like something different and he had spent the last fourteen years floating around the America's. Well not exactly floating, he had several very well established homes all over North America and a couple down in South America. He increased his already massive fortune through an export-import company and though it would make his father roll in his grave he dealt partly in muggle goods because the money was good and there were crackpots like Arthur Weasley who would pay a fortune for that kind of stuff. He had made himself very comfortable actually. The European side of his company was based in Berlin so there was no reason for him to ever cross the channel, but despite all that he had. Not that he had any idea why, it was cold and rainy and he'd already seen one too many Weasleys. Draco couldn't believe that both of the twins had managed to have twin offspring's. Sure one of them was a pair of girls but it was still too many red heads in one street! He sighed and drummed his fingers on the table, he honestly had no idea why he was back here, he was almost thirty-one! He was happy, he had homes his mother would be proud of, a company his father would be shocked of and the accents in the Americas were a constant source of amusement even after fourteen years, what the hell was he doing here of all places!
Suddenly he heard the bell on the door ring and the quiet Ice-Cream Parlor was suddenly very crowded. It seemed there were people as crazy as him to want ice cream on a day like this. Whoever it was was making an awful lot of noise, was that a baby crying? It was, that was the last straw. Sighing in annoyance and cursing the temporary insanity that made him want to come back here Draco stood up to leave. As he walked towards the door something small ran into him and then giggling something along the lines of sorry mister was gone just as quickly.
"Sorry about that sir, they're just little kids." Draco stopped thinking of places he would rather be than here and focused on the person speaking. It was a teenage boy, with lots of messy dark hair, funny colored eyes, tanned skin and freckles.
"Excuse me?" He said.
The boy smiled. "My little sister, she just ran into you. She can get a bit excited sometimes. That's her there." The boy pointed to something behind Draco turned and saw a little girl with very long wavy hair. They boy was still speaking for some reason.
"...Yeah, that's my little sister Freya, she's only seven but she's real smart and she, oh hey mum!" Draco phased back in to what they boy was doing and saw him turn to talk to an average sized woman with thick dark curls loosely tied back in a pony tail.
"William what are you doing?" They boy, William, looked like he was frowning at his mother. Draco guessed he'd picked up on the panicky tone of her voice. She should learn to hide that, it was very obvious.
"I was just apologizing for Freya, you told me to watch her. "
"Well that's what you should be doing now, go on, look, she's helping Riley get on top of the counter!"
"Geez, sorry mum."
When William had moved to the front of the shop Draco was able to properly see his mother. She looked like she was panicking too, she really should learn to control that it was kind of alarming. She was average height, smaller than Draco but then most people were. She had dark wavy brown hair, dark eyes and was also tanned and freckled like her son. She was also looking at him like he was the devil incarnated, Draco might not have ever been exactly nice when still lived in this country but that was no reason for people to look at him like that. It was plain rude really.
"What the hell are you doing here Malfoy?"
Draco sighed not even noticing the woman had used his name. "I'm not really sure, I woke up this morning and I was in Arizona, big warm sunny Arizona, the people might talk funny but it was a pretty good place, you know, and then I was like, hey, let's go see Diagon Alley, don't know what I was thinking but I'm here now and…"
"Shut Up."
"Well that's just a bit rude, I don't even know you!"
The woman took a step back, and it was only then that Draco noticed she was pregnant, how had he missed that? Pregnant women do kind of stand out just a little bit.
"You don't know me? Are you serious? What were you doing talking to my son of all things? What were you doing near my daughter?"
Draco phased out as the woman went on. She was making a bit of a scene. He hadn't been cut down like this since he was at Hogwarts, and that was always by, oh hell no. Draco could have heard a pin drop, suddenly everything made sense. He held up his hand at the woman.
"Hermione Granger?"
The woman rolled her head at him and kept talking. Now that he knew and he could look really closely it was Hermione Granger. A little older, and much more pregnant but it was her. Wow, he almost couldn't believe it.
"Are you listening to me?"
"Sorry?"
"What the hell is your problem? You turn up here the one day that I'm coming here with my family, I thought we agreed it was only one night!"
Oh yes, they had agreed that, that must have been, almost, well, fourteen years ago, the night before Draco had left for the Americas the first time. He grinned at the memory, that had been a good night.
"Draco will you stop smiling!"
"Mum Alice is crying again!"
William was back. While he talked to Hermione Draco stared him down looking for the bits of Hermione in him. They had the same hair, the same skin, he was certain they had the same freckles and that he even had her large teeth before he'd fixed them for her. He'd never been thanked for that looking back on it now. There were only two things that didn't match, his funny colored eyes and that voice, the more he listened to it the weirder it sounded.
"Fine William, here let me take her, watch the twins, I'll be outside." William grumbled, Draco would have to he reasoned if he had to watch the two kids who were now climbing once again onto the shops front counter. He couldn't have been older than fourteen. Oh no, he couldn't be. That panicked look on Grangers face suddenly made sense. That was what, fourteen years ago, they'd used protection! Well, Draco thought they'd used protection. Oh no, no, no. That would just be too weird. After a moment Draco followed Hermione out of the Ice-Cream Parlor. It had stopped raining but it was still windy and cold.
Hermione was sitting under the covered walkway with her back to the road mumbling something to the toddler she was holding.
"Hermione?" Hermione ignored him. "Hermione, I haven't seen you in years! You're not even going to say hello?"
"Go away Malfoy, I don't know what you're doing here but I think it's time you left."
"Well that sounds good but I'm just a little confused about something." Draco paused for effect and momentarily enjoyed the fear that flashed across her face as she roated to look at him.
"Who is Williams father?" That question seemed to be the straw that brok the cammels back and Draco watched as Hermione's body seemed to shake for a second. She pulled the toddler onto her lap. Draco noticed she had lots of sunflower blonde hair.
"Guess you figured it out." Hermione said.
"Well you did kind of attack me back there when he was trying to apologize and he kind of looks around fourteen years old. " Draco paused for a moment before adding. "And you were also really bad at hiding your emotions, not something I remember you being bad at but I guess being pregnant could affect that."
"You're taking it better than I thought you would, I expected yelling, or glaring, or screaming but, you're being civil." Hermione sounded scared, she was waiting for him to blow up in her face or do something outrageous. Maybe fourteen years ago but he'd grown up a little since then.
"I'm not really myself today, I don't even know what the hell I'm doing here."
Sunflower head giggled. "Mummy he said hell!" She had a funny sounding voice too. Hermione didn't smile.
"That's because Alice, he's a very bad man, why don't you go inside now and ask William for an ice-cream? You're alright now."
Alice giggled and wobbled inside the Ice Cream Parlor, the owner holding the door for her. Hermione's eyes followed her all the way inside the store and she only turned back to face him when she could see that she had reached William, then she was quickly back to yelling at him.
"You don't seem upset at all, you just found out you have a teenage son! What's wrong with you?" Hermione was sounding angry. "You're not even saying anything! It's like you don't even care, not that I should have expected you to really, but half of him is yours. You could at the very least surprised!"
That annoyed Draco just a little bit. "I am surprised! For god sakes, I have a son I didn't know existed, we used protection and, and…" Draco seemed lost for words "He doesn't even look like me! There's nothing of me there! He doesn't look like a Malfoy, are you sure he's mine?" Draco really should have realised that was the wrong thing to say.
"Are you serious? You're seriously asking me that! Trust me Malfoy he's yours, and of course he doesn't look like you! I've beaten you in everything for our entire lives, what makes you think your genes would start beating me now! And honestly…" Hermione went on and on.
Draco just phased out, letting her rant and he just sat there. He had a son, a son, a half blood son. If his father wasn't tossing and turning in his grave already he would be screaming now. He wasn't sure what to think, the kids was already fourteen, he was almost all grown up and guessing by the size of Hermione's tummy and the number of kids running around inside there was someone playing father figure for him. What was he supposed to do now? Hermione had stopped talking and seemed to be thinking. She was rubbing her stomach thoughtfully.
"Can we talk to about this a little more?" Draco said eventually. He needed to talk about this and now seemed as good a time as ever.
Hermione glared at him and then frowned. "Not now, I need to round up my children and go find my husband." She didn't say anything else and Draco stood to leave but then she interupted him as he began to walk away. "I'm meeting Harry and Ginny tonight but I can meet you tomorrow for lunch." She looked like she regretted the words the moment they left her mouth. There was no taking them back now though.
Draco nodded, that was something at least and it seemed she was married, that explained where all the other children were from. Hermione nervously passed him a scrunched up bit of paper.
"I wrote then name of a café on it in Muggle London, It's near where I'm staying and it has good coffee." Hermione frowned awkwardly. They weren't exactly friends. The silence between them was palpable. "I'll see you there?" She was looking at him questionably.
"Yeah I guess I will then." Draco took the paper and looked at it briefly. "Bye then, I guess." Hermione tried a smile but then seemed to decide against it. The result was a pained awkward looking face.
As Draco walked away he couldn't help but wonder what the hell he'd just gotten involved in and secretly a part of him was wishing he'd stayed in bed back in Arizona. Rubbing his eyes he groaned into his hands. "What am I going to do now?"
As the rain returned he realised their was only one thing he could do. It looked like he was going to lunch with Hermione Granger tomorrow.
So that was it, please review and tell me if you'd be interested in reading some more! Thankyou very much.
: D Kellsabelle.
