Static: A bit of a shorter one this time.
Wang: But plenty of action!
Shadow: If you call what we did as action, then yes.
Time Stop: As usual, we don't own a thing.
Chapter 4: Mudblood
Elizabeth was still at the point where she didn't like sleeping, and that meant that despite his best efforts on getting her to sleep most of the night he ended up pulling all-nighters time and time again. A week had passed since the grand reveal of Dumbledore's genius games. Or whatever the hell they called it now. He didn't care.
What he did care about was the lack of sleep he was getting. Sleeping in was a luxury he could only afford on weekends. And while he could catch an hour here and there it didn't help that his daughter wanted his constant attention. Now don't get it wrong, he loved his daughter more than himself. But being a single parent with full time school and a part time job was exhausting to say the least.
During the week, sans Wednesdays, he couldn't see his kid until late at night. At that point Blaise would leave and he would be left with a sleeping child. He would frantically finish his work load before she awoke a few hours later, hungry and cranky. Then the rest of the night was a fitful fight to get her to sleep between feedings.
He knew why she acted out like that. She wanted her mother, the mother that she never got to have. There were times in the middle of the night where he would sing to her softly the same songs that his beloved sang before she had died.
He missed her so damn much.
To call what he had for her as love was not completely accurate. Draco never experienced a true love before. He had a mother's distant love; a mother who would put her husband over her child in almost every facet of their relationship. He had a father's tight upbringing. Saying he was abused as a youth would not be accurate. But saying his father was negligent in his early years would be more true than he would have hoped. Even Parkinson and the short stint that they had together couldn't be called love. Rutting like animals in their fifth year, pretending they were madly in love; it could hardly be called love.
But with Elizabeth, with Elizabeth he could feel something. He could feel butterflies in his stomach as they sat their together. He could feel warm when they touched or held hands. He could feel whole as they lay together under the covers at night. With her love could almost be called a reality that a Malfoy could hope to hold.
Of course now she was dead and he was with a tiny little thing that wailed and cried and cooed.
What Draco was slowly learning, through all the sleep deprivation, was the love of a father towards his daughter. Which in turn frightened him to no end because he didn't know how to deal with that. Even Blaise couldn't help him, not that he would ask a man what love was. Perhaps that was why he stayed up all night without sleep. Not only because his daughter wouldn't sleep, but because his own feelings and thoughts haunted his every waking moment.
That didn't mean that Draco didn't want to see his child. He came back to Hogwarts, away from the outside world to a world he much would rather he had left alone, only to protect his daughter. So it didn't surprise him so much that he found himself arguing with Granger inside an unused classroom on the sixth floor.
"Really?"
"What, Granger? You keep on pulling me aside to talk to me and people will think things."
She blushed. "For the past week you've left patrolling early."
"Point being what?"
"You have to finish patrols! You only have a half hour left, why not just stick to it?"
"I don't feel like it." He offered. He leaned back against the table. "I've got better things to do."
"I'll believe that when I see you actually do something." She stared at him, frustration etched into her eyes. "All you do is hide away in your room."
"I also eat. And attend classes." He held up two fingers. "So at least two other things."
She narrowed her eyes. "How you got to be Head Boy is beyond me."
"Obviously McGonagall saw something you didn't."
He smirked. She shook in anger and started pacing. She had dark bags under her eyes, much like his. He shook his head. Maybe he wasn't the only one not getting sleep anymore. In her pacing, she passed in front of him and tripped over her own two feet.
Call it what you will, but with his reflexes he caught her before she hit the ground. With one hand, he grabbed her shoulder, and kept her body upright until her own two feet could work properly again.
"Watch where you step, Granger."
She brushed him off and stepped back. Confusion was clear as day. "Why catch me?"
"Can't have you fall and hurt yourself." He smirked. "Students will think I did something that I didn't."
"Like that's something you need to worry about."
"Actually, that's closer to the truth than you would think." He stood up. "We done here? I have things to do."
"We still have Hogsmede visits to go through. We still need—"
"Do what you want with them. Choose whatever." He looked pointedly at the bags under her eyes. "Then you might be able to get some sleep instead of staying up all night worrying about this bull."
She definitely was taken aback. "I don't lose sleep over that, Malfoy. I lose sleep…I lose sleep over other things."
He nodded, understanding. "You too?"
She looked up at him. "Yeah."
Nightmares about the war was the other thing that kept Draco awake at night. Mostly his dreams consisted of Laura and how they were together. But the other ones were about the war and its horrors. Either or, that and his kid kept him up all night. And it looked like Granger had the same strain of dreams.
He walked to the door. "As I said, do what you want."
"Malfoy!" She hurried to catch up with his pace. "You need to finish patrolling."
"I'll think about it." He said. "I'll put it on the list of shite to do."
"And how high on the list would it be?"
"Pretty damn low." He smirked. The crest opened and the stairs appeared. She stormed past him into the common room first. He followed a step behind. He stopped moving just inside the entrance. Something was going on.
He assessed the situation quickly. One of the Slytherins was jinxing one of the other students. The rest of the common room was watching. Whether that was because of their own complacency or the three other Slytherins with their wands out. Granger was already striding to the Slytherins. In the corner of his eye he saw Blaise in a chair turned about, trying his best to ignore the situation. From the dorms he saw Granger's friends coming down, hearing the commotion.
"Enough!" Granger barked. "Avery, stop it!"
The tall Slytherin turned to her. "And why should I?"
The other Slytherins around her looked down at her, their eyes trained on her but their wands still on the crowd. She was completely surrounded. But she still was Granger. As much as he hated to admit it, one of the last things he wanted to do was to go up against Granger in a duel of any sorts.
'Cause she might actually win if that happened.
"Because I would do more than take away Slytherin's House points."
He towered over her, using every scrap of height he had to his advantage. "Like what?"
"You want to find out?" It came out as a whisper but in the silence of the common room it carried all the way to where Draco was.
During this little exchange, the poor student that was being jinxed managed to escape, and ducked into the crowd. She was enveloped quickly by her friends, who started to apply the counter curses. Avery sneered at the student.
"Fine. We've stopped."
Draco started to make his way through the crowd. The waters parted for him so to speak. Already they were whispering. Just whose side was he on? He smirked. He wasn't on anyone's side. But let them fear him. Let them leave him alone.
"Good. If I found out this happens again…" She trailed off.
"Don't threaten me, Granger." Avery snarled. "Else you'll bite off more than you can chew."
"I don't need to bite, Avery." Granger smiled sweetly at him. "But maybe you should stop barking like a little bitch."
She turned away from him, headed to the jinxed student. The crowd started ooo-ing, doing that annoying thing where they kept on provoking. Draco smiled and went past Avery and his fellow Slytherins, aiming for his room.
"That's right, turn around and run you filthy Mudblood!" Avery shouted.
The room gasped.
Draco whipped out his wand.
Avery was blasted through the crowd, slamming into the wall above the entrance to the common room before collapsing to the ground. Draco kept his wand trained on him, forcing Avery on the ground and unable to move.
"Don't you ever fucking say that again." Draco snarled. "Or I will bite."
Avery was frightened, his eyes wide. But his mouth couldn't work, so he lay there slack jawed at the Head Boy. Around Draco, the three Slytherin cronies all pointed their wands at him.
"Drop it." One of them grumbled.
Draco glanced about. "You sure you want to do that?" He smirked.
Granger already had her wand trained on one of them. Around the room Weasley, Longbottom, and Lovegood all had their wands trained at one of the Slytherins. The rest of the students just stood there in silence, glancing between the two of the different sides.
Grudgingly, the Slytherins dropped their wands. Granger and her friends all lowered theirs. But Draco still held power over Avery as he lay pinned before the common room entrance.
"Do you understand?" Draco snarled. "Or do I need to make you understand?" He applied more force down.
Avery frantically nodded as well as he could. Draco eased up on the pressure.
"Are you going to say it?"
"I-I understand." Avery managed to say.
Draco increased the pressure. "Louder!"
"I understand!" Avery shouted, tears starting to fall. "I understand! I understand!"
Draco released the pressure and Avery lay there quivering in pain and fear. He glanced about the room at the confusion. Without another word he turned about.
"You'll regret that, Malfoy." Draco stopped moving. "And to think I used to look up to you." He glanced behind him at the still quivering form of Avery.
He kept on walking in silence. He went through the portal to the Head's rooms. He opened his door and closed it. It was only after he had his baby in his arms did he collapse in the wooden rocking chair.
His muscles shook from the sudden exertion. His mind raced a mile a minute. But as he absently rocked his daughter one thought stood out to him amongst all of the others.
What the hell did he just do?
Shadow: So for those still thinking about it, this won't be a Draco x Hermione fic.
Wang: It's not!?
Time Stop: I mean, it could. Anything's possible.
Wang: Anything?
Shadow: sighs
Static: Please Review.
