Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe and all its lovely characters are not mine.
Chapter 2: Twidditch and Toddling
"No," said Hermione, her eyes narrowed at the tall, red-haired man in front of her. "An absolute and resounding, 'no.'"
The man stood his ground in front of her, a Quaffle in one hand, and a bit of yellowed parchment in the other.
"Can't back out of this, Hermione," he said. "This is just the first one. Plenty more where this came from." He waved the piece of paper in front of her face, goading her.
"Ron, I don't know what you think I've been doing for the past five years, but it wasn't playing Quidditch," she said venomously. "Am I just supposed to hop on this broom and fly about with you lot – six people who have played on some sort of league since childhood, and one person who actually plays professionally – and expect to hold my own?"
"No, but you've watched us play plenty of times," said Harry. He was standing a safe distance behind Ron, looking like he was trying to keep the mirth off his face at her sudden agitation. "Smart girl like you, I'm sure you've picked up the rules of the game by now. You know how it works."
"I also know how a piano works, Harry, but it doesn't automatically make me Chopin," Hermione said impatiently.
"Pish-posh, Hermione, you'll be splendid," George said, putting a casual arm around her shoulders. "At any rate, you can't be any worse than Percy."
Percy was standing at the edge of their huddle; he puffed up his chest at a show of outrage, before quickly deflating. He looked back at Hermione with a sheepish smile and an acquiescing shrug.
Hermione turned to her left. "You. Are you going to just stand there and let them bully me into this ridiculous ploy?"
Draco put his hands up in mock surrender. "Keep me out of this, Granger. Last time I took a side between you and a Weasley, I got a bat-bogey hex for my troubles."
Hermione rolled her eyes heavenward, and blew a long, exasperated sigh. She snatched the broom from George's hand and arched an eyebrow at Ron.
"What position do you want me to play, then?" she said, with a sweet smile that, Draco knew, was just on the wrong side of dangerous. "Beater?"
Ten minutes later, everyone was mounted on brooms, zooming around the backyard pitch behind the Burrow. Hermione was put in as a Chaser with Draco; Charlie and George took positions as Seeker and Beater, respectively. Percy was hovering a bit unsteadily near the goal posts behind them. They faced off against Bill, who was Beater, and Harry and Ron, naturally, as Seeker and Keeper. Ginny, a professional Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies, counted as two players; at least, that was George's argument when they were determining teams.
Draco had initially thought that he would have to fly alongside Hermione, both to give explicit instructions during the game, as well as keep a close watch in case she becomes too skittish in the air. Her fear of flying, after all, was well-known in their social circle.
But after a few minutes on a broom, he was surprised – and a little more than impressed – at her skills. She was proficient, though not particularly great. Ginny certainly flew circles around her, as was expected. But she caught the Quaffle whenever he threw it at her, and she was steady and quick on her broom as the two of them flew toward the goal posts.
As a bit of time passed, he could tell that Hermione was becoming more comfortable with Quidditch. Forty minutes into the game, with their team trailing behind by twenty points, Draco held the Quaffle tucked under his left arm as he flew to the opposing team's goal posts. He saw George's mischievous grin one second before he noticed the Bludger hurtling toward his chest.
Draco threw the Quaffle to his left, where he spied Hermione at the corner of his eye, before quickly maneuvering out of the Bludger's way.
As he righted his broom, he saw Ron smile indulgently at Hermione's direct approach toward the goal posts. Draco was about to fly to her to assist, when she suddenly took a sharp dive under Ron's broom, only to fly up and over Ron's head in a tight corkscrew.
She was still flying upside down on her broom as she tossed the Quaffle through the hoop behind the dumbfounded Keeper.
~xx~XX~xx~
"For someone always so rigid, you are quite unpredictable, Granger," he said, marveling at the witch sitting comfortably in front of him across the table. He leaned over her books and gave her an inquisitive look. "Have you been doing this the whole time?"
"What are you on about now, Malfoy?" she asked as she took her silver flask out of his hand. He had just been smelling it to make sure it was whiskey, as she had told him, and not, as a part of him suspected, Polyjuice potion.
"In all these years you've been sequestered here instead of up in your crimson-and-gold tower, have you just been…" he trailed off as he made a drinking gesture with his left hand.
"Of course not," she said. "In the past. But I am an adult witch now, living in a castle that was a decimated pile of rocks only a few month ago, after spending almost a year camping about in the wilderness with two unkempt, teenaged boys. I learned to take my luxuries when I can get them."
"But in the library?" he mock-whispered, only half-joking.
She shot him an irritated look. "Oh, do stop clutching your pearls."
Draco took the flask from her once more, this time taking a healthy swig before replacing the cap and putting it in the pocket of his own robes. He stood up and twitched his head in the direction of the exit.
"Come on, Granger, before you further infect me with your bad habits."
"Where are we going?"
"I find it insulting to my sensibilities that downing cheap swill from a metal flagon in a dusty corner of a library is your definition of luxury," he sneered. "If you want to experience the best that life has to offer, then I should probably show you how to do it right, before you become too entrenched in your gauche ways."
He stalked off toward the double doors and waited there as she gathered her books.
They spent the rest of the night at the eighth years' common room, sharing a box of bonbons from Paris and a bottle of Cote de Nuits wine.
~xx~XX~xx~
Lunch had started late due to the pick-up Quidditch game, which his team had astoundingly won, thanks to Charlie's quick flying. Although Harry was usually the faster flyer, he was off his game this morning, and Charlie flew head and shoulders ahead of him to catch the Snitch.
Draco sat on a tartan blanket on the tall grass at the Weasleys' garden. Everyone else had a similar idea, lounging on the settee or the low steps of the porch or the odd chaise scattered around the yard, exhausted from the game and drowsy from overstuffing themselves with Molly's delicious cooking.
He kept his eyes on the bright-haired toddler exploring the flowers, ready to jump to action in case the child decided to find out if the plants tasted as good as they looked. Andromeda had dropped his son off at the Burrow just a few minutes before, after a long playdate with his cousin Teddy.
Draco felt Hermione approach and sit down next to him on the blanket.
"Ready to meet your godson?" he asked her.
She smiled, almost shyly, as she eyed the young child, whose fine, white-blond hair was tousled on his head, giving him an angelic halo when the low afternoon sun shone behind him. Draco knew better than to believe his eyes, of course; his son had inherited his penchant for mischief.
"Scorp, come here," he said, and added, after a moment's pause, "please."
The toddler ambled toward them, and Draco put him on his lap to face Hermione.
"Scorpius, this is your Aunt Hermione," Draco said.
Scorpius's face lit up. "Mamayanee!"
"Let's try that again, Scorp. Her-my-oh-nee."
"Muh-my-uh-nee," Scorpius said slowly and confidently.
Draco's mouth twisted into a smirk as Hermione shot him an amused look. "We'll work on it," he assured her.
Hermione held out her arms, and the suspiciously well-behaved toddler went to her without complaint.
"Hello, Scorpius. What did you do at your cousin Teddy's house today?" she asked.
"We pwayed!" he replied enthusiastically.
"What did you play?"
"Twidditch!"
Hermione arched an eyebrow at Draco.
"Never too early to foster a love for the game," said Draco. At her pointed look, he rolled his eyes and continued, "Relax, Granger, they're just toy brooms that don't even lift off the ground. And the balls, including the Snitch, are all the size of melons, so there's no chance of choking on small parts. The two of them just toss the balls back and forth."
Scorpius started wriggling in her arms, already distracted by a butterfly near the rosebush a few steps away. She let him go and turned to her friend.
"He's even more beautiful than in his pictures, Draco," she said.
Draco pretended to preen. "Of course, everyone says he takes after me."
She chuckled and dug an elbow into his ribs. "Well, here's to hoping he only inherits the looks and not the giant ego."
"Too late, Granger. Just last night, I caught him kissing his reflection in the hallway mirror."
Hermione shook her head and murmured, "Trouble."
"Speaking of trouble," he said abruptly, giving his friend a peeved look. "Your team, Granger. Your people are a menace to my department."
"How so?"
"They're…messing up my filing system," he said tragically. She only laughed. "They asked for access to Investigation's case files dating back three years, and when I returned to the file room at the end of the day, they had put back the files in alphabetical order, rather than by date! It's going to take my Aurors days to go through and re-file everything."
"I'm sorry about that," she said. "I'll talk to Velazquez, and I'll put a couple of people on my team on it tomorrow."
"Thank you," he grudgingly obliged.
"Still having fun at the Investigation Department?"
"More fun than sitting at the cubicles hoping to get lucky enough to be assigned an interesting case," he said. "Even during a relative lull, I can at least keep myself occupied with cold case files backed up at the ID."
"That's right, I heard you recently closed the Whitney file," she said, sounding impressed. "Remember during our second year at training? Well, my second year, your third. Jacobson ran around the ID pulling his air out of frustration for about a year trying to solve that case. I'm proud of you for figuring things out and giving his family some closure."
"Thank you," he said, a bit of warmth flooding his cheeks. "Yes, of course, I remember that year. That was the time I rotated at the ID. Who do you think Jacobson yelled at whenever he got too overwhelmed with that case? That's probably why I was extra motivated to solve it a few months ago, as a way to stick it to that old bastard."
Hermione rolled her eyes and laughed.
"How about you? Still enjoy being part of the machine that is the International Wizarding Police? Getting sick yet of all the traveling to exotic locales, meeting handsome men with alluring foreign accents, and the general arse-kicking that you get to do daily?" he said.
Draco belatedly snuck a peek at his son to make sure he hadn't picked up on the bad words that have been slipped into the conversation. Scorpius looked too busy pulling petals off any flowers in his reach to be paying attention to the adults. Draco pulled his son away from the bushes before Molly could catch him in the act of carnage.
Hermione transfigured a demolished flower into a large toy butterfly, which Scorpius promptly started chasing around the garden.
"If only my job was as glamorous as you make it sound," she said, with a sigh. "I do get to go to these 'exotic locales,' but lately, I've been stuck directing missions from an office. When I get a chance to go in the field, it's not exactly five-star accommodations. And I'm not really known at work as 'Deadly Arse-kicker' but more 'Professional Nagger' and 'She Who Goes to Meetings.'"
"And what about the handsome, alluring, exotic men?" he asked, smirking at her.
She turned her face away from his analyzing gaze, but the rosy blush on her cheeks betrayed her.
~xx~XX~xx~
He heard a quick rap on the door, but his visitor did not wait for an invitation before walking into his office.
"Hey, Draco, are you busy?" asked Harry, plopping down on the cushioned chair in front of the desk.
"Not at all, Harry," Draco said dryly, not looking up from the report he was writing. "Let me just finish writing this down. 'Dear Diary, it finally happened! Harry Potter's come to ask me out to lunch!'"
Draco narrowly avoided a ball of parchment as it sailed past his head.
"Wanker," Harry muttered.
"What do you want, Harry?"
"Actually," Harry said sheepishly. "I was going to ask you if you wanted to go for lunch."
Draco snickered.
"Hermione and I are going to that delicatessen across the street. Join us? I was thinking of roping her into helping us finalize plans for our party," said Harry.
Draco grunted. "Please don't call it our party. It's my son's birthday soiree, which you're hijacking because you happen to share the same birthday, and you're too damned lazy to throw your own party."
"First of all, Draco, your son is turning three. I don't think you should throw him a soiree until he can actually pronounce the word, 'soiree.' Just put him in a room with Teddy and Victoire, throw in a bouncy castle and chocolate cake, and call it a party. He'll be just as happy."
"My son may not be able to say 'soiree,' but he does know the word, 'tacky.'"
"Second," Harry continued, ignoring him. "Malfoy Manor is a much better space for a party than Grimmauld Place. And we know all the same people, so it would be pointless to invite them to two separate parties when we can have just the big one."
Draco pinched the bridge of his nose and wondered, as he often did, about his life choices that seem to put him in testing conditions.
Harry grinned. "So? Lunch?"
"Can't today," he said. "I have to get ready for a meeting this afternoon, so I have to finish this report."
"Hmm. Okay, then. Maybe I'll…maybe Ron is back from patrol…" Harry got up, seemingly mumbling to himself.
Draco picked up his quill and was about to start writing again when Harry stopped on his way out of the office.
"Oh, and Draco?"
He looked up to see Harry grinning impishly at him from beyond the doorframe.
"Should I swing by the Manor tonight, so we can pick out place settings for our party?"
He summoned a gale-forced wind to slam the door in the buffoon's face.