Chapter Ten

A/N: Thank you to dream-on-sunday for reviewing, a lot.

Fifteen further minutes of silence had passed, in which the majority of the guests had left the ballroom, taking the awkward situation as a sign to bow out of the celebrations. Now, only the Malfoys remained, both past and present, and the atmosphere was far more tense that it had been when the public were involved.

"Why didn't you tell me that you were coming?" Draco questioned his former wife, trying to keep the note of annoyance from his tone, but finding that he was barely able to do so, his voice straining a little with the effort.

"I wasn't sure that I needed to, Draco." Elisabetta simply replied, shrugging her shoulders faintly. "After all, it is my daughter's birthday."

"Our daughter." the man replied instantaneously, having come to do so by habit. Immediately, a look of shock took precedence on the Selwyn woman's face at the words, while a large smile did the same of Phoebe and Capella's, and though they did their best to look impartial, even Asterion and Rigel smirked a little. 'Perhaps they are beginning to accept me, after all.' the Malfoy heir considered hopefully.

"Well, maybe she is now, but she has been mine for six years, Draco, and in all of that time, I have never once missed her birthday, or any of theirs. A fact I wish applied to the both of us, but unfortunately it doesn't. All I wanted was to wish my little girl a happy birthday, and I think that I have the right to do that." the brunette explained, relishing the look of guilt on her former husband's face, the reminder she had given him that, no matter how well he now got along with two of the children, he would never regain those years, the years when his offspring had had only their mother, and not him.

Draco wanted to argue with her, to merely tell her to leave the manor and to not come back, but even when he had opened his mouth, he found that the words would not come out. After all those years that he had been kept away from his children, all the years he had lost, he could not do the same to Elisabetta, even if it had been she who had taken them from her. And so he allowed the woman to come forward and embrace the younger of her daughters, the gift falling to the floor forgotten as she did so. He could never have taken her away when Phoebe held her mother so tightly, as if she was afraid that she would disappear again.

"That cannot be the only reason that you are here, Elisabetta." came a sudden deep voice from behind the embracing pair, and the woman pulled away slightly from her daughter to face Lucius, who had been the one that had spoken. The look of confusion on her face was clear, but each of the adults in the room was aware of her well-honed skills at acting. "I have known you for almost as long as my son has, and during that time, I have noticed your… shall we say quirk? You only return to something when there is something that you want, so if you had left the children for six months to become settled at a job in America, you would not return unless… unless…"

"Unless you wanted them back." his wife finished for him, more than a touch of sadness in her tone, and in her eyes. There was a slight gasp that sounded through the quartet of children, a mixture of joy, disbelief and sorrow, and another of shock and annoyance from Draco himself. He, for the past minute or so, had utterly believed in his ex-wife's reason for being in attendance at Phoebe's birthday party, but perhaps he had merely been wishing a little too hard. Of course she would not return just to leave again, because she would not do that to the children. She would only return if she was going to take them with her.

"No." he told the woman, before he could stop the words from leaving his mouth. Immediately, Lissy turned from the man's father to face him, a look on her face that suggested she was both shocked and annoyed by this outburst. Immediately, the man found that he did not care about this, and so continued with just as much confidence as he had begun with. "Lissy, you are not taking them."

"And how can you stop me?" the woman questioned, though her voice clearly showed that she knew the answer to this, most likely far better than he did. A smirk familiar from the early problems in their marriage spread across her face as she answered her own request. "Since our divorce, Draco, I have been granted legal custody of Rige, Ellie and Aston, and you never even met Phoebe until a few weeks ago, so you can't claim her either. They all belong with me, Mr. Malfoy, so I have the right to take them with me if I choose to. And that is what I am going to do, right here, right now."

"But I don't understand." he told the brunette, aware that he was unlikely to get any further, with regards to his argument against her taking the children. He would fight, of course, to get them back, once she had left the country, but for now, there was nothing that he could do, but ask the only questions of which he desperately needed the answer before she left. "Why the sudden change of heart? Why leave them with me for six months, then come back to claim them after two? What happened to make you take them now?"

"I'm getting married." she answered mildly, and yet her tone did not prevent Draco's heart from skipping a couple of beats. He vaguely heard her ask him a question, saw her lips move to form the words, but he did not truly listen, just gave an equally vague nod of his head.

He would not learn until later just how terrible a decision that had been, when he learned the question that she had asked him.

So, will you let me take them, for good?

A/N: In case anyone's wondering about the question, Lissy was using her Slytherin cunning to catch Draco off guard, so that she could get the answer she wanted. Please review!