Hermione Granger-Malfoy looked round at her little family. Her husband was beside her, idly flipping through a book on cursebreakers that they had picked up in Egypt. Rose and Scorpius were seated in front of them. Rose had her earphones in, and was looking at her pictures of the Quidditch match they had attended the previous day in Ethiopia. Hermione had never understood Quidditch, and had struggled to follow the game, but the rest of her family had enjoyed themselves. Scorpius was scribbling in one of his notebooks, occasionally glancing up to check something in one of his books.

She looked around, checking that no-one was paying any attention to Rose's moving pictures or Scorpius' interesting book titles. They were waiting for the plane to take of, travelling to Madagascar where they would stay overnight and then they would apparate to Mauritius the next day, in hopes of seeing a diricawl.

They were an odd family, but then so were most of the families touched by the war. Rose had been an accident, the product of her and Ron's brief relationship, and while Hermione would never regret having her daughter, at the time she had been completely unprepared to be a mother, especially when Ron was killed on a mission, before he even knew she was pregnant.

It had taken her a long time to recover from the state of devastation that Ron's death had left her in, but Draco had been there for her every step of the way. She loved Draco and Scorpius, who was Draco's son from his previous (and very short lived) marriage to Astoria Greengrass.

Scorpius and Rose were both starting at Hogwarts this year, and they were taking a family sightseeing trip around Africa in the summer holidays. It was the first time any of them had been to Africa but so far they were loving their summer trip.

Many wizards thought that their use of muggle transport was very odd, but Hermione had decided to bring up her children so that they accepted the muggle community, and appreciated that wizards were not superior. Her children could blend into the non-magical world easily now, with Rose's love for her iPod and phone and Scorpius' addiction to muggle clothes and his tendency to write with a pen instead of the traditional quill. It was only on close inspection that someone might notice that the music Rose was listening to was definitely not from the muggle world, and that Scorpius' pen never seemed to run out of ink, and that he was currently writing in Ancient Runes instead of English.

Her husband had agreed with her, surprising most who knew him. He had changed drastically after the war. Even so, it had taken years for her friends ro accept him, especially after Ron's death. Her parents, once she had found them and restored their memories, had been concerned until they met Draco. Now the children loved to go and stay with their grandparents in muggle London. Hermione had been worried about Draco's mother's reaction, but Narcissa had been thrilled. She had hated Draco's marriage to Astoria- they had married during the war, forced by their fathers, and neither loved the other. When she met Hermione she could tell that she and Draco were very much in love, and gladly welcomed Hermione and Rose into the Malfoy family.

Draco had adjusted to the muggle technology but he still hated aeroplanes. Hermione thought it was funny, as he was so comfortable on a broom, but still looked over sympathetically as he went pale as the plane began to move.


Once they landed in Madagascar they checked into their hotel and decided to look around Madagascar. They walmed to the Wizarding Historical Society of Madagascar, and were listening to an interesting discussion on the origins of the disarming spell, when Draco realised Scorpius had wandered off. Luckily they found him almost immediately, talking to a short man with a crooked smile who had a brightly coloured bird perched on his shoulder.

Hermione gasped. "That's a fwooper!" They're native to Africa and really dangerous. The sound of their call can turn people insane." Rose suddenly dropped the hand she had been reaching out to the bird with and stepped away.

The man laughed. "Don't worry. She's under a silencing spell. Nothing to be afraid of. You are tourists yes?"

"Yes. We're on holiday, from England." They then had a pleasant conversation with the man before heading back to their hotel for dinner.


After dinner, which was delicious, they went back to their rooms. Hermione was reading up on the legend of the diricawl, muggle opinions versus wizards, and Draco was playing exploding snap with Rose and Scorpius. It was fairly peaceful (or at least, as peaceful as a game of exploding snap can be) until Scorpius broke the silence.

"Dad, how did you and mum get together?"

"What? Scorp we know that. Mum and Dad worked together, at the hospital remember? And they went to school together."

"I know that Rose. But that man we were talking to earlier, when he saw you and I said you were my parents, he said something about you two being a really weird couple and that you used to hate each other."

Hermione froze, book grasped tightly in her white knuckles, and then shot a nervous look at Draco. They'd always known that they'd have to tell the children one day, but somehow they'd avoided it. Rose and Scorpius both knew that they each had another parent, Astoria used to take Scorpius out on his birthday when he was little, and Rose visited Ron's gravestone whenever they went to the Burrow, but they'd never talked about it. They'd managed to keep the reporters out of their lives, and had always tried to protect the children from the rumours about their marriage. The simple fact was that neither wanted to tell their children about the horrors of the war, and so had never talked about their lives, and rivalry before they had got together.

"Scorpius, you know that I love you very much, and that I consider Draco Rose's father-"

"But he's not really. I know you both love both of us, but it's not the first time that I've heard people say that you hated each other at school. You didn't meet at the hospital, you knew each other from before, and when I asked aunt Ginny about it, she said that you didn't like to talk about it because of the war so I'm sorry to bring it up. It's just that... well we start school soon, and I know you try not to let people ask us questions about you but there will be hundreds of people there, and James says that everyone always asks him about his dad and then when the man spoke to me today I was scared that you didn't love each other and-"

Draco interrupted him gently. "Scorpius, Hermione and I love each other very much, but you're right, we didn't always. I wasn't a very good person at school, and a lot of people in the wizarding world are very suspicious of our marriage. The war was a bad time, and I'm sure you'll learn about it at school, so perhaps it is time for you to hear what we have to say. We have kept things from you, and perhaps that was unfair, or silly of us, but it is hard to talk about those times, and we only wanted to protect you."

Hermione looked at him. "I think your dad is right. You deserve to know what happened between us, but you must try not to be upset, because whatever happened back then, we love each other now."


A/N Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Witchcraft (Challenges and Assignments): Ancient Runes (Assignment 4) Write about a double date, any pairings you want.Write about doing something four (See what I did there?) Someone else. A favor, or exchange must happen.Write about any family that has four people in it (Romione, Rolf&Luna, Percy&Audrey, etc ) Note: OC's are fine, but I want one canon character in there.Write about anyone sightseeing around a place they've never been before.

Prompts: Noodles, Summer, or Fwooper