Scorpius lay staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep. Beside him Lily was sleeping soundly and Scorpius envied his fiancée's ability to sleep so peacefully. Unfortunately for Scorpius his mind just wouldn't shut down enough for him to get to sleep, instead he was replaying the last few weeks and thinking back on the encounters he'd had with Lily's family.

Knowing sleep wasn't going to come anytime soon, Scorpius carefully slid out of bed and pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms. He then crept out of the bedroom and headed downstairs, where he poured himself a glass of firewhisky and settled down in front of the fire in the living room.

Scorpius had only been in the room for five minutes when he heard a sound behind him. Turning round he found his mother in the doorway of the living room. Hermione was wearing a long dark purple silk robe and looked as though she'd just woken up.

"Is everything okay?" Hermione asked in concern when she spotted the firewhisky her son was nursing.

Hermione knew that Scorpius was like her and when something was bothering him he couldn't sleep. When he was a child he used to get up in the middle of the night and play with his toys, but as he'd grown up Hermione would find him in the library reading. However she'd never found him sitting drinking in the middle of the night and she hoped he wasn't having second thoughts about getting married.

"You're not having second thoughts, are you?" She continued.

"Of course not. Marrying Lily is what I want more than anything," Scorpius reassured his mother.

"Good, because she's a lovely girl and the pair of you are perfect together," Hermione smiled at her son as she sat down next to him. "So if you're not worried about the wedding, what's bothering you?"

"I was just thinking about Lily's family," Scorpius admitted. "Apart from James and Albus, none of them have made the effort to get to know me, and I haven't even met most of them."

"Maybe we should arrange some sort of gathering that's a bit less formal," Hermione suggested. "So far you've had two dinners, a hotel tour and a cake testing to get to know Lily's family. Maybe we can arrange some sort of gathering where people mingle and you can get to know people on a one to one basis."

"Like a party?" Scorpius queried, not really sure that throwing a party would help matters.

"I was thinking more like a barbecue," Hermione said. "I'm sure your grandparents wouldn't mind if we commandeered their back garden for a few hours. We can talk to Lily and make sure she invites all her family. She can invite all her aunts and uncles and cousins."

"What are her other family like?" Scorpius queried after agreeing the barbecue was a good idea. "Are her other uncles all like Ron?"

"If you mean will they all be as against you as Ron, then I doubt it," Hermione replied. "I admit I don't know Bill and Charlie that well as they were both abroad for the majority of the time I was friends with Harry and Ron. However the times I did meet them they were really nice and I think they'd be willing to give you a chance. Percy will probably be a bit standoffish, but he's like that with everyone, even his own family. Now George, he's a character." Hermione couldn't help but smile widely as she thought about the fun loving George, someone who had always been a good friend to her.

"I take it you like George," Scorpius deduced, noticing how happy his mother was to mention Lily's uncle.

"I do," Hermione nodded. "George is lovely. Out of everyone he was the only Weasley to get in touch after Harry and Ron ended our friendship. George wrote to me and told me to follow my heart. He said that life was too short for regrets, and if I wanted to be with your dad then I shouldn't let anyone stop me. George also made it clear that he wasn't disowning me and he would always be there if I needed him."

"Why didn't you keep in touch then?" Scorpius questioned.

"I didn't want to cause problems for George," Hermione replied. "He'd just lost Fred and he needed his family. I wasn't going to do anything that would cause the rest of the family to turn on George. We wrote to each other occasionally, but as the years passed the contact dwindled."

"But you think George will give me a chance?"

"I think a few of the Weasleys will."

"They haven't so far, barring Lily's brothers," Scorpius snorted. "Her parents have barely said two words to me, and her grandparents haven't been much better. Then there's her uncle who does nothing but give me dirty looks."

"I'm sure with time you'll learn to get along with Harry and Ginny," Hermione soothed her son. "And I'm sure Molly and Arthur will come round as well. They are all being really helpful with organising the wedding. Even if they are a bit annoying at times."

"They're only helping because they know it's happening whether they like it or not," Scorpius pointed out. He was well aware that if Lily's family honestly thought they could get her to call off the wedding they would have already tried to separate them.

"As I said, they'll come round in time," Hermione smiled reassuringly at her son, who was clearly worried about the fact his future in-laws were being so difficult.

"Not all of them will though, will they?" Scorpius questioned. "Ron will never accept me, will he?"

"No, I don't think he will," Hermione admitted with a sigh.

"Why is he the most difficult one?" Scorpius questioned. "I understand the bad blood between our families goes back a long time, but why won't he let the past stay in the past."

"It's difficult to explain," Hermione shrugged. "I think it stems back to school. All the Weasleys had grown up hating the Malfoys, just like your father had grown up hating families like the Weasleys, but it was Ron who happened to be in the same year as Draco. I think that's why he finds it harder to let go of the past, because he had the most contact with your father and they hated each other back in school."

"Was Dad really that bad back in school?" Scorpius asked. He knew all about his father's history, but he also knew he'd worked hard to leave his tainted past behind him.

"Actually I think most of your father's badness was a front he put on to hide his true self," Hermione said. "I'm not saying he was an angel, because he wasn't. I would say for the first five years of our school life he was no different from any other pureblood who'd been brought up to think they were superior to everyone else. Yes, he would hurl insults around and throw the occasional hex, but it was never anything worse than what other people did. And to be honest Harry and Ron weren't opposed to winding your father up and starting arguments."

"And what about after fifth year?" Scorpius asked quietly. Even though he knew all about that particular part of his father's history, it was rarely spoken about.

"That's when things got tough for your father, and some of his actions had serious consequences," Hermione replied. "I suppose on one hand I can understand Ron holding grudges since he was caught up in things and poisoned. However, directly after the war Ron accepted that your father had never meant to hurt him, he was just trying to be caught and helped. Ron's problems with Draco only reappeared once we got together, before that he was more than happy to give your father a second chance."

"Did Ron fancy you?" Scorpius asked. Even though he knew Ron had been with Lavender since sixth year of Hogwarts, he had to wonder if Lily's uncle had unrequited feelings for his mother, hence his unwillingness to accept her relationship with his father.

"Maybe, once upon a time," Hermione answered. "But that was before Lavender. Once he got with Lavender, he never looked at me as more than a friend. I know Lavender was sometimes insecure about our friendship and it caused problems between them at times, but Ron never did anything that led me to believe his feelings for me were still present. I was Ron's first crush, nothing more."

"There has to be something more," Scorpius scoffed. "Why would he still be so against us Malfoys? Even Harry doesn't seem to resent Dad as much as Ron does."

"I would say that back in school relations between your father and Ron were worse than relations between him and Harry," Hermione said. "The bad feelings between Draco and Ron stemmed back to Arthur and Lucius and had been simmering for years. They hated each other on sight purely because of what their last name was. Harry however was a different story. I know for a fact that your father and Harry first met in Diagon Alley before school even started. They had no idea who each other was and there was no problems between them. By the time they got to school Harry had made friends with Ron and Ron had told him all about the Malfoys and their connection to the dark. Therefore when your father offered the hand of friendship, albeit it in his own high-handed way, Harry threw it back in his face. After that your father could never forgive Harry for humiliating him."

"So if that hadn't have happened things might not have been as bad between Dad and Harry," Scorpius surmised.

"Maybe, or maybe it had nothing to do with anything. Even without the incident, your Dad was still a Slytherin and Harry was still a Gryffindor and best friends with a Weasley. I think given those circumstances they were never going to be anything other than enemies."

"Sometimes I'm pleased I didn't go to Hogwarts," Scorpius admitted. When he was younger he'd often thought about attending Hogwarts and being sorted into Slytherin, but when his parents had given him the choice of where he wanted to go to school he'd chosen Beauxbatons so he could go to school with Alex. "I think if I had, Lily and I would never have gotten together. I think if I'd went to school with her and her brothers they might have taken against me because of my name, and then she might never have given me a chance."

"That's something we'll never know," Hermione said. "There are loads of instances in life when things could have worked out differently if only we'd made a different choice. For example, you wouldn't be here if I'd chosen Harry and Ron over your father."

"Do you ever regret your choice?"

"Not for one second," Hermione replied instantly. "Even the times when your father and I have been fighting and I would love nothing more than to hex his arse into oblivion, I've never regretted picking him. I wouldn't change my life with your father for anything. Draco, you and Lyra and the most precious things in my world, and you lot are worth giving up anything for. I love the three of you so much and I don't regret where my life's taken me."

Scorpius smiled at his mother, before leaning over and pulling her into a hug. Despite being surprised by the sudden action, Hermione wrapped her arms around her son and returned the hug.

"What's that for?" She asked when Scorpius pulled back.

"Nothing," Scorpius shrugged. "I just love you."

"I love you too," Hermione smiled. "Now since it's the middle of the night I think it's time we both returned to bed. We can talk about the barbecue idea in the morning, and don't worry about Lily's family. The Weasleys are hot-headed at times, but on a whole they're a good family. All they want is for Lily to be happy, and once they've accepted you make Lily happy, they'll accept you."

"I hope you're right," Scorpius sighed as he stood up.

"I'm your mother, I'm always right," Hermione smiled.

"Mother knows best, eh?" Scorpius laughed.

"Yes, she does," Hermione laughed along with her son. "And I'm telling you to stop worrying and everything will work itself out. Just look at me and your grandfather. He was not happy when Draco and I first got together and for a long time we merely tolerated each other, but now we love each other."

"How?" Scorpius asked as they began to slowly climb the stairs. "How did things change with you and Grandpa?"

"He realised that I loved your father more than anything, and that I made him happy," Hermione explained. "Once Lucius had accepted I was here to stay he let me in and I saw there was more to him that I'd originally thought. He let me see the man your father insisted was there, the man who would do anything for his son, even accept a muggleborn into the family."

"While I don't think I'll ever be as close to Lily's family as you are to Dad's, I'll settle for them accepting me," Scorpius said.

"They will, just give it time," Hermione reassured her son as they stopped at the top of the stairs. Leaning over she gave him a peck on the cheek. "Night Scorp."

"Night Mum."

Scorpius watched his mother turn and head towards the room she shared with his father, before he turned in the opposite direction and headed back to the room he and Lily were sharing. Lily was still sound asleep when he re-entered the room, so being as quiet as he could Scorpius stripped off his pyjama bottoms and climbed back into bed with his fiancée.

As he wrapped Lily in his arms, Scorpius drifted off to sleep feeling a lot better about things. A few hours ago he'd been seriously worried about Lily's family not really accepting him, but a talk with his mother had given him hope. It may take time, but hopefully the Potters and Weasleys would learn to accept him as Lily's partner when they saw she meant the world to him and he would do anything to make her happy.