A/N I am not JKR, I do not own Harry Potter, etc.

I've been gone from the scene for a while and thought I'd show up with something different on a new account.

If anyone had told Draco Malfoy on the day of his Hogwarts graduation where his life would end up, he would have laughed outright in their face, possibly fired off an unforgivable or two, and made his way to his father's office to give him an earful about the nerve that some people possessed.

And yet, here he was.

He hadn't seen his wife in close to a fortnight—she had claimed to be visiting her parents, but when he'd needed someone to watch Scorpius for the evening because of a Ministry engagement not only had her parents not seen her, but they hadn't heard from her in quite some time, making them reasonably unwilling to cooperate with her apparently sequestering husband.

Scorpius was sitting at the dining room table refusing to eat his dinner until he "saw Mummy again", and was making quite an awful lot of noise considering the fact that he was only about four feet tall. Despite Draco having one of the house elves bring in all of Scorpius' favorite foods, even those that he was rarely allowed to indulge in, he still wouldn't eat. Instead, he screamed and carried on as though he were being held at wandpoint—and at that moment in time, Draco was strongly considering the use of the Imperious to just get the boy to eat something, not that he would ever maliciously turn his wand against his own son.

Draco's middle name may have been Lucius, but he was absolutely nothing like his namesake.

So, instead, he sat at the table with his son, outwardly appearing patient with Scorpius' antics, while inside he screamed and cursed Astoria. The chances were really quite high that she was off somewhere with one of her many lovers on some extended trip in some sunny realm far from Wiltshire.

"Scorpius, for every bite of your dinner that you eat I'll give you a bit of dessert," Draco tried to bargain with his son. He may be reformed and the new face of the Malfoy name, but he was still a Malfoy, and as such was most certainly not above bribery to get what he wanted.

"I don't want my dinner! I don't want my dessert! I want my mummy!"

Draco raked a hand down his face, eyes rolling up towards the heavens. Are you there, Merlin? It's me, Draco...

"How about a bit of dessert for each bite of dinner, and I'll buy you that new broom that you wanted? Please, Scorpius. It's getting late and I have really a lot to do tonight after you go to bed."

The youngest Malfoy pushed his chin forward and his nose up in an almost exact mimicry of his father at the same age before concluding, "You will also read me a story tonight."

Draco shook his head, taking a long draw from his glass of wine. "No deal—I just told you that I have a lot that I need to do tonight."

Scorpius let his eyes slide shut and sat in his chair as primly and properly as only a Malfoy could. Draco was, understandably confused, but pleased that the noise had finally abated.

He really should not have been reassured, because this was only the calm before the storm, and Draco was sitting smack dab in the eye of the oncoming disaster.

Scorpius drew in a long, steady breath of air, filling his lungs to maximum capacity. His eyes flying open, he let out an absolutely horrendous ear splitting scream, pale cheeks turning a violent shade of red, small body shaking from the force of his theatrics.

"Oh Merlin's pants... Fine, Scorpius!" Draco had to shout somewhat to be heard over the noise and he bristled at the indignity of it all. Honestly, this is hardly behavior befitting a Malfoy. "Fine. You'll get your story. Just eat your dinner and stop screaming before every crup in Wiltshire comes running."

While Scorpius had been doing his best impression of a boiling teakettle, a rather handsome owl had arrived at the window and was attempting to tap its way through the glass in an effort to be acknowledged, given the commotion that was occurring in the dining room. As Scorpius finally began to eat his dinner, Draco opened the window and let the owl in, slipping the missive from its leg.

It was a rather fine stationary, and even he had to admit that it was high quality. Unrolling the note, he could feel his frustration with his son building again.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy,

As Scorpius' teacher, I have to admit to you that I am very concerned. He's clearly a very bright young lad, and has been afforded a good lot in life. However, he has a very difficult time with many of the other students in the class, and he often does not pay attention to his lessons. I've given him letters to pass along to you detailing the extent that this is occurring in order to allow the two of you to discuss it with him as a family. However, based on the fact that his behavior has not changed at all, and nor have his marks, I'm assuming that you never came to be in possession of the letters.

I am requesting that I meet with one or both of you at your earliest convenience to discuss what can possibly be done. I don't want to see him headed off to Hogwarts without proper preparation, and I know that he has the mental faculties to excel here, but he has not been applying himself to best of his abilities.

I'm generally at the school until six o'clock most days, but if you need to set up a meeting time outside of that please let me know so that I can accommodate you in my schedule. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you whenever you can make it in—although, for your son's sake, I really do hope that you find your way to my classroom sooner, rather than later.

Sincerely,

Hermione Granger

Draco looked over at the small body currently shoving bits of chicken into its mouth at an alarming rate. "Do you mind telling me where exactly the letters from Ms. Granger went?"

Scorpius' eyes widened almost comically, and Draco watched him struggle to swallow down the food in his mouth.

"She didn't—"

Draco shook his head. "Try again."

"I was going to—"

Draco sat back down in the chair across from his son, resting his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers, leaning forward ever so slightly towards the boy.

"I really don't think so."

Scorpius sat his fork down—directly on the tablecloth, Draco noted with a cringe—and burst into tears.

"The other children are just so... so... mean! They're all absolutely horrid and they say awful things to me, and I hate it there!"

Draco quickly stood and walked around the table to kneel down next to his son. Grabbing his tiny hands in one of his, Draco grabbed Scorpius' chin and tilted it down, forcing his son to look him in the eyes.

"Is that true? Why haven't you said anything?"

With that question, Scorpius burst into a new round of tears, his little shoulders shaking as all sorts of fluids began to run down his face. The thought that there was some little snot nosed brats out there mistreating his son, and Granger had the nerve to say that he 'has a very difficult time' with the other students? Oh no, Draco Malfoy would most certainly be making time to go talk to Ms. Hermione Granger, and it would be much sooner, rather than later.

TTWT TTWT TTWT

The next evening, Hermione Granger sat at her desk in her classroom at the Eaglecall Academy for Young Witches and Wizards grading a set of spelling tests when there was a sharp knock on her door. Waving her hand, the door popped open and in came Draco Malfoy.

Good. Scorpius was really beginning to show signs of being a problem child, and she was very grateful that he had responded to her owl in a very timely manner. Very rarely did she get next day turn around from parents. He and Astoria must be very eager to address the problem.

"Good evening, Mr. Malfoy. Could I get you something to drink before we begin? Water, coffee, tea—"

Draco sat down in the chair across from hers and crossed his arms, leaning back, and looking every bit the prat that he was in school.

"No. Now I want you to tell me exactly what it is that you hope to accomplish by having me here."

Slightly affronted, Hermione sat back down in her chair from where she'd half risen to get Malfoy something to drink. Merlin, she'd nearly forgotten how much of a berk he was.

"Will your wife be joining us, Mr. Malfoy? I would rather not get started without her if she's on her way." Hermione was a firm believer in including both parents in the lives of the children as much as possible, rather than having one parent act as the go-between between the school and the child. Not only that, but she was hoping that Astoria Malfoy's presence might help alleviate some of the nastiness in Malfoy's voice.

"No, she will not. She's... otherwise engaged. Now, I'd like you to answer my question. Why have you called me here?"

Somewhat shocked, Hermione reached down into her locked drawer and pulled out the file that was marked with the youngest Malfoy's name and face. "Well, Mr. Malfoy, the better would be why haven't I called you here? I've recorded every little incident and spat that the children have, and recorded all participants, and your son is at the center of all of them."

Draco nodded, relaxing slightly in his chair. "I'm glad that you've taken note of this fact. I had a long talk with him about this last night. What are you going to do to stop the other children from harassing my son?"

Shocked, Hermione dropped the folder, sheet after sheet of paper scattering across her desk. "Harassing your— Malfoy, I don't know what it is exactly that Scorpius has been telling you, but he's not the victim here. He instigates most of the strife that occurs here on the grounds, and I've had multiple parents threaten to pull their children if you can't get your son under control."

Before she had even finished talking, Draco was shaking his head. No, she couldn't be telling the truth, she just couldn't be. She was lying. The other children were lying. He'd talked to his son for close to two hours yesterday, and he'd detailed all of the things that they had done him while he was in the classroom or on the playground.

"There has to be some sort of conspiracy among the children to get him into trouble. He said that last Wednesday—"

Hermione interrupted him as she cast a sorting charm on her incident reports and slipped out the one from the last Wednesday, which wasn't even the most recent one in the stack.

"Last Wednesday, while Electra Wood was trying to tell her friends about the circus that her father was going to take her to over the weekend, Scorpius told her that only filthy mudbloods would find something like the circus fun."

Draco shook his head again, sitting up straighter in his chair. "That can't possibly be true. We don't use that word in our home," at that Hermione snorted loudly, before quickly covering her mouth with her hand. "No really Granger, we don't. So I don't know where he would have heard it that he would be calling that little Wood girl that name. He told me that he asked the girl if they had dragons at the circus and she called him all sorts of names for asking what she deemed to be a stupid question."

"Mr. Malfoy, I realize that it's not easy to accept, but I have, on average, three incidents a week involving your son since school has begun this term, and not one of them implies that he is the victim. Now, I think that you need to talk to him seriously, and find out why he's lying to you."

Malfoy shook his head yet again and held up a hand to cut her off. "There's surely some sort of oath or something that you took that shook guarantee that you're looking out for the safety of all of your students, and so I think its time that you put aside your stupid post-war prejudices Granger and get over yourself. He doesn't deserve to have this covered up and swept under the rug so that you can exact some sort of revenge on me."

Hermione flew to her feet, knocked her cup of tea to the ground, but hardly noticing in her ire. "Revenge? My 'post-war prejudices'? Your son is the one who has used hateful slurs against other students for an entire term! I thought that you might be willing to do something to help steer him in the right direction, but it looks like instead you'd rather groom him to be exactly like you! Just a hateful little boy who stomps all over his classmates and expects Father to come running whenever he has a mess to clean up! I did take an oath to protect my students, and right now my biggest goal is to protect them from your son."

She sat back down in her chair, brushing her hair back from her face. "Merlin, I thought you'd changed. I thought that you were some new, reformed, forward thinking wizard, but you're still preaching that same old blood-supremacy nonsense, and you're setting a dangerous precedent for you son. Now, either you talk to Scorpius and get him to stop antagonizing my students, or I will personally recommend to the headmaster that it is in everyone's best interests that he is removed from the school."

Draco stood up, his chair flying back behind him. "That sounded an awful lot like a threat, Granger. And I'll have you know, that I don't take kindly to threats. You don't know shit about me or my family, and your foolishness is going to lead to someone getting severely hurt."

He turned to leave, taking a step towards the door before pausing.

"And it might just be you."

And with those words, Draco Malfoy shut the door behind him with a quiet click, which somehow seemed to echo through her classroom louder than a slammed door would have.