Thoros Nott had become accustomed to Azkaban. The food was terrible, most of the inmates half-blood and peasant scum, and he didn't care for the drafts. Still, he had become accustomed to this life and didn't expect surprises.
When he was told his son had come to visit and had brought a girl with him he shrugged. Theodore visited irregularly but with sufficient frequency that a visit did not count as a surprise. The boy generally arrived with as many comforts as he was allowed to bring into Azkaban and thus Thoros had accumulated blankets and books. Notts protected family even if that family had been handed a life sentence to prison.
"He's got some blond kid with him too," the guard said as they walked to the visitor's area. "Boy's so pale you'd think he'd never seen the sun."
"Probably Draco Malfoy," Thoros said. "Lucius' boy."
The guard made a rude noise. No one liked Lucius Malfoy. Thoros, pragmatic to the end, had become a model prisoner. He read. He was polite. He shared the Muggle fags Theo brought him. Lucius sneered at the guards and openly insulted their ancestry. Sometimes Thoros wondered how the man had gotten sorted into Slytherin.
"Well, he didn't file a request to see Mr. Malfoy," the guard said, his tone making it clear that anyone who didn't want to see Lucius couldn't be all bad.
Thoros found himself interested.
Theo was standing next to a bushy-haired girl he didn't recognize. Some continental pureblood, he assumed, here to be presented to the father of the man she'd be marrying. Thoros smiled. You could lock the paterfamilias up in prison but the good sons would still bring their brides for inspection. It was unfortunate he'd not be able to give the couple some token of his approval; his own father had given him a cottage in the Cotswalds suggesting that "a young couple can sometimes want to get away from the world for a few days."
He hadn't thought about the time he'd spent with his love in that cottage for years.
After the pregnancy – after the baby – she'd never wanted to go back. They'd put that time behind them and moved on. He'd eventually obliviated her at her own request; when Theodore had been born she'd been overjoyed her first baby had been a boy. An heir.
Funny how he hadn't thought about that in so long.
He looked at that heir now, and the girl at his side, then over at the third visitor who was, indeed, Draco Malfoy. Thoros had never cared for Lucius' son even though he and Theo had long been friends. He'd always considered Draco to be a craven bully, desperate for his father's approval and utterly lacking any kind of backbone. Now the man lounged up against the wall in the visitor's room, some substantial ring on his hand, radiating an aura of menace.
The boy had finally grown up. Well that was interesting, Thoros supposed.
"Theodore," Thoros said as he sat down in the hard chair.
"Father," Theo said. "I've delivered some tokens of my esteem; once the staff is done checking them for contraband and making off with whichever things they like the most they should be delivered to your cell."
"Very kind of you," Thoros said. "Might an old man ask who is this lovely girl at your side?"
Theodore pulled out a seat for the girl and she flashed him a gracious smile before taking it. The boy stood behind her, almost hovering, and regarded his father for several long moments before he said, voice unusually controlled, "I'd like you to imagine my surprise when I received an owl that a girl I'd known at school had recently discovered she had been adopted and was, in truth, my sister."
Thoros controlled his startled response. He hadn't thought about his poor bastard daughter in years and now, the very day he'd thought about her, Theodore was bringing her up. He looked at the girl in the chair.
"Not your fiancé, then, I take it," was all he said.
"No," Draco drawled from where he was leaning. "While purebloods do tend to be fairly comfortable with marrying cousins, I think taking a full sister as a wife might make some people raise their brows in polite distaste."
Thoros looked at Draco. "Your fiancé?" he asked.
Draco tipped his head politely. "Not yet," he said.
Thoros looked at the girl. "What's your name?" he asked. "We called you Asteria but I'm sure your adoptive parents gave you a different name."
"You left her with Muggles," Theo nearly hissed, unable to contain himself. "She was raised by Muggles."
"Hermione," the girl said.
"Helen's daughter?" Thoros smiled.
"She's Monica now," Hermione said, her voice tight. "Helen Granger is, for all intents, dead."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Thoros said. "They seemed like nice people."
"They were Muggles," Theo said again.
Thoros looked away from this girl – his daughter – and into his son's furious eyes. "I had to protect your mother from scandal," he said, voice level. "She would have been ruined. My own father would have withdrawn his consent to our marriage. You, Theo, would never have been born." He let a little anger of his own creep into his voice. "I protected my future wife and our House."
"At the expense of your daughter," Draco said from the wall.
"We found her a good home," Thoros said, almost snapped the words. "She was raised by people who wanted a baby and who loved her." He looked back at the girl, at Hermione, at his little Asteria, and asked, "They did love you, didn't they?"
"They did," she acknowledged. "They were so proud when I turned out to be a witch."
"She thought she was a Mudblood," Draco said and Thoros frowned at the language. Trust Lucius Malfoy to raise a son who spoke like that when ladies were present.
"Draco's word choice is poor," Theo said, noting the frown, "but he's quite right. And with the Dark Lord – a man you served – fixated on killing all the Muggle-borns it was worse than just letting your child be raised a third-class citizen. She could have been killed." He exhaled. "She nearly was, more than once."
Thoros looked at his daughter, searching for some kind of resemblance and not seeing any. "I didn't realize," he said. "I'm very sorry, child. I hope you can forgive me."
"She bloody well can't," Draco Malfoy snapped. "Or she shouldn't." He nearly growled something under his breath that sounded like, "Damn fool probably will, though. Fucking heart like a damn Hufflepuff."
"Did you miss me?" Asteria – Hermione – asked him. Thoros thought of how furious he'd been at himself when he realized he'd flubbed the contraceptive spell. How worried he'd been that he'd ruined everything because he hadn't had the self-control to double check it had taken before he'd just flung himself headlong into the pleasures of the flesh. How the baby had always been a mark of his failure. He'd done as well as he could by her. Duty would have demanded that even if he hadn't loved the baby against his will. He hadn't left her on some orphanage's doorstop. He'd found her good parents but, no, he hadn't missed her or, at least, not for long. He'd been glad she was gone. Glad that she hadn't ruined everything after all.
In the time he didn't respond the girl saw the answer in his face.
Her own hardened.
Not that much of a Hufflepuff, then.
"Do you plan to introduce her to Lucius?" Thoros Nott asked Draco, not allowing the calm courtesy in his voice to waver. "It is traditional, after all, to formally present one's chosen bride to one's father. I'm sure he'll be more than pleased to learn you've found a pureblood girl to wed. As I recall, he was concerned you lacked proper respect for your heritage."
"My father's opinion of Miss Granger is of no import to me at all," Draco said. "Especially since he can't possibly know anything more about her than that she's your daughter. It's hardly enough to base any kind of judgment on."
"Still," Thoros said. "He would be pleased to meet her. You did tend to rattle on about her when you were younger. He'll be happy to discover your fascination clearly stemmed from an unconscious recognition of her true value."
"Hermione," Draco's voice was low and dangerous. "Let's go. I won't have you sitting here insulted this way."
She pushed back her chair and Draco stepped forward for the first time, his arm out for her to take. He gave Thoros a look of utter contempt as the girl rose and took his arm.
"Don't be so quick to judge, boy," Thoros said. "You, I'm sure, want to protect her from every possible slight. I wanted to protect her mother the same way. What would you do to keep her from being despised by everyone who matters?"
Draco looked down at him. "She's already been despised by everyone I thought mattered and she did just fine."
He walked the girl to the door and, before closing it behind them, said, "Theo, we'll be in the main office. Please don't cut short your visit on our account."
Left alone with his son, Thoros sighed.
"How could you?" Theo demanded, his voice finally ragged. "How could you not tell me I had a sister who was probably considered a Muggle-born? I would have found her. I would have protected her during the war. She was tortured, for Merlin's sake. I would have hidden her." His voice broke. "I would have kept her safe."
"I didn't think," Thoros admitted.
"And if you're remembered her," Theo asked. "Would you have taken steps to keep her safe or just hoped no one ever found out?"
"I'm not sure," Thoros said, thinking of the baby he'd handed over to the Muggle couple, thinking of having to obliviate that baby's mother to stop her from crying every night.
Thinking of the hard-eyed girl on Draco Malfoy's arm.
"Will you bring her back to visit again?" he asked his son.
Theo looked at him. "That's up to her," he said.
. . . . . . . . . .
Blaise sprawled half on top, half to the side of Ginny Weasley, sated – nearly exhausted, to be honest - after sex that had been more than athletic. "You are just trouble," he said, as he ran his fingers through her hair. "Damn, this colour," he said. "It's so damn beautiful. You are so damn beautiful."
Ginny laughed as she peered at him through her lashes. "You are not hard on the eyes, either. Hermione told me you were pretty, but she doesn't know the half of it."
They'd come back to his flat after another perfectly courteous date designed to not arouse any attention while ensuring neither of them had to cook. She'd admitted she adored his sheets. "You," she'd said, "are insanely overindulgent with basically everything up to and including thread count and I love it."
Now they lay on those rumpled, sweaty and very much in need of a good wash sheets and he admired her as he said, "I do tend to avoid sleeping with any pureblood girl who is both related to one of my best friends and on the verge of an understanding with my flat mate so, no, she's not seen quite as much of me as you have."
"You," Ginny said, "tend to avoid any pureblood girl, no matter who she's related to. You, my sweet, have issues."
"I don't," Blaise objected, still sifting her hair between his fingers. "I simply respect your status."
Ginny snickered. "Is respect what you call it?"
"Well," he admitted, "I've not been especially traditionally respectful to you but you haven't seemed to object." He nuzzled her neck. "Are you objecting?"
She pushed him off of her and then sat up, swung a leg over, and straddled him. "I am not objecting," she said. "I have no more interest in a proper, pureblood marriage than you do, no desire to be chronicled in that tabloid we call a paper, no desire to delicately hold up my wrist so people can 'ooo' and 'aww over whatever bauble you've purchased to put an official leash on me. All these customs are such a load of antiquated crap. I can't believe Ron's so pussy whipped he's letting Lav make him do them all."
"I can," Blaise said.
"What?" she asked, eyes narrowed.
"Nothing," he said. "What about Hermione? How do you think she's handling the 'antiquated crap'?"
Ginny sighed. "She'd probably be ignoring all of it but she had to go and fall for Malfoy."
"What's that mean?" Blaise was the one who looked peeved now. Draco might be a prat and a frequently sullen flat mate but he also woke screaming most nights and, like all their friends, Blaise quietly drew a protective circle around the man.
"Just… you know how she is. Lost kittens. House elves. My brother. She's drawn to the needy like a moth to flame."
"House elves are more spiteful than needy," Blaise muttered.
"Well, she did kind of miscalculate there, I admit," Ginny said, admiring the contrast of her hands against his chest. "But… she'll go full-on pureblood if it makes the man feel happy and safe, you know? Because she can tell he's afraid to just tell the fuckers to sod off."
"He is," Blaise admitted in a low tone, "but he has good reason to be."
"I figured as much," she said. She leaned over and brushed a hand over his lips. "How about you? Are you really as terrified of putting a foot out of line as Draco is?"
Blaise laughed and kissed at her fingers. "I'm wary of your brothers showing up and ordering me to marry you but, other than that…" he paused and considered before he spoke again. "Other than that," he said, suddenly very serious, "I just want to protect you from the joys of being chronicled in the press. I'm not the official aristocrat you or Theo or Draco are, but the two of us out together behaving… inappropriately… would garner comments and you would hate that."
"I'm no aristocrat," she said with a snort. "I have the burden of working for a living, in case you hadn't noticed, and there's the whole blood traitor thing."
Blaise shrugged. "I didn't make up the damn list of who belongs at the top of the social hierarchy. I'm not on it, despite my perfectly pure blood, and I am free of your work thing."
"This is why I make you pay for dinner," Ginny observed.
"As if you could stop me," he scoffed.
She pressed her lips against his. "You're not only pleasant to look at, you're a sweetheart, Blaise Zabini," she said, "And I think I want to be on top this time."
"Thank Merlin," he said with a grin, "Because, honestly, I don't think I have the energy to do more than lie here. You're… you have really good endurance."
. . . . . . . . . .
When Draco got Hermione back to his flat he could tell she was trying not to shake. The tie casually draped over Blaise's doorknob made his eyes widen and a slight smirk cross his face, but he just pulled Hermione past the couch and into his room and when she made a small protesting noise he said, "You may want to break down without having to worry about Blaise walking in on you. This'll be a little more private."
She just wrapped her arms around herself and stared at his wall. He hovered, nervously, not sure whether he should hug her or talk to her or let her be. For all his life was bound on every side by rules and customs and Ways Things Were Done, something his mother said so often he always imagined it capitalized, there was no guide on how to comfort your girlfriend when she met her birth father and he was a perfectly reasonable prick.
"Thank you," she said at last and that was so unexpected he just stared at her even more. "For defending me," she added. "For… for saying it wasn't okay to base an opinion of me on nothing but my blood status."
At that he did pull her into an embrace and they stood in his room, silently, as she didn't weep and he didn't talk and he just held on to her.
"I'm sorry I thought it," he said at last. "I was a fucking arsehole."
"You weren't," she said against his shoulder. At his snort she amended herself to say, "Well, okay, you were, but you were that way because it was all you'd ever been told."
He tightened his grip on her. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you for giving me a second chance despite what an utter shite I was."
She settled down onto his bed, pulling him with her, and he was just breathing in the scent of her hair when she said, "Draco, when are you going to talk to me about your father?"
. . . . . . . . . .
A/N – I hope you continue to enjoy this bit of spring fluff.