A/N :: Sorry for delay! Two chaps today (:
Chapter Fifty Four || Slytherin Confidence & Malfoy Cockiness
Hermione's POV ::
"I'm not really sure what we will do today…" Lockhart admitted, looking around at the class.
The Parenting Prep group had gathered in the usual stone classroom. We were no longer separated by gender; instead we all took our seats at the three customary rows of desks. Four desks had a highchair at one end. One desk had two highchairs, one of either side of the couple. One desk—belonging to Draco and me—had three chairs. Evelyn sat in the middle, her knees bent and her feet on the chair, pressed close to the desk, squeezing her knees every time Lockhart spoke.
"He's so dreamy," Evelyn murmured to me.
I smiled at her. "Too bad you weren't here when I was in my second year. You'd feel just a bit different."
"Obviously we had a slight change to one couple," McGonagall addressed the class, her eyes traveling the room. "And now not every student is a parent to a baby. Most of you are taking care of a one year old. But the Granger-Malfoy pairing is now faced with a, uh, different, child. Those two are raising a seventeen year old."
The class turned around to look at us.
"No worries, class! We can still follow our planned curriculum!" Lockhart attempted to calm the visually distressed McGonagall. "Let's see here, first three groups circle up, last three groups circle up. Up you go!"
Seamus and Parvati, Ron and Astoria, and Luna and Blaise filled the first three desks. They looked at each other rather awkwardly before balancing babies and moving their chairs around to face each other in a sort of lopsided circle arrangement.
Harry and Pansy, Neville and Hannah, and Draco and I were the last tables. Slowly we got into a somewhat round order of chairs seated close together.
"Alright now, everyone should take an informational sheet for today." McGonagall wore a face of defeat when we received today's lesson. "Discuss within your group the points on the parchment!"
Our group faced each other. I watched Evelyn from the corner of my eye give the babies broken smiles. She was no longer one of them. Her grey eyes averted the others, staring down at her folded hands.
"I'll read first," Harry volunteered. "Milestones for your one year old include walking, improved communication skills, and motor skills. Your baby might also start to feel a need for independence."
"Walking, oh my, isn't that exciting?" Hannah whispered to Neville as Harry was still reading.
I listened quietly to the Gryffindor couple when McGonagall's voice reached my ears as she and Lockhart hurried to the front desk to plan.
"Gilderoy, I'm just not used to being this unprepared." Her hushed tone told Lockhart.
"Minerva, none of us could have predicted this. The truth is we weren't expecting Evelyn to return to us a seventeen year old!" Lockhart whispered back.
"The lesson plans are completely useless now." McGonagall's voice was muffled.
I looked over and saw her rubbing her face. She was stressed out. Lockhart's eyes met mine suddenly and I turned around quickly.
"Let's discuss our options," he replied to the witch, ushering her into the antechamber.
Draco's POV ::
At the end of the day the three of us returned to the head dorm exhausted. Evelyn climbed the stairs rapidly upon entering.
"Something's wrong with her," Hermione muttered to me as our daughter escaped the scene.
"I know, but what is it?" I answered, watching Evelyn disappear.
Hermione shrugged. "She can have feelings too. Evelyn's newly seventeen, beginning to deal with stuff we go through."
"Do I have to … talk to her?" I turned to Hermione.
She nodded slightly. "It's a good idea. You go first; I'll come up in a few minutes for reinforcements."
"I'm not ready for this!" I stammered, trying to keep my voice low.
"C'mon Draco, every father will have to talk to his teenage daughter at some point," Hermione urged me, pushing me slowly towards the stairway Evelyn ascended.
"I won't know what to say!" I said as one last cry for help, now almost half way up the stairs.
"Use some of that Slytherin confidence and that Malfoy cockiness, you idiot!" Hermione hissed as I reached the second bedroom.
I knocked. Once … twice.
"Yea?" Evelyn's voice called from inside.
"Do you want to, uh, can we talk?" I cringed, talking through the door.
It opened leisurely, Evelyn's face gradually showing in the doorframe. "Yes."
I followed her inside Hermione's old bedroom. "I haven't been here in a while."
Evelyn flopped on the bed and gave me a look. "Please don't tell me stories of sneaking into mum's bedroom."
I laughed loudly, catching Evelyn off guard. She grinned. "What?"
"Hermione and I, we didn't always get along." I said, taking a seat on her bed.
Evelyn sat up with a confused face. "What are you saying? You weren't always friends?"
I bit my lip, resisting the urge to cackle. "No. As a matter of fact, we used to be enemies. I used to hate her."
"Merlin's beard, are you serious?" Evelyn shot me a funny look, her grey eyes twinkling as she smirked.
"Where did you learn that language?" I asked.
"Seamus and Ron, they say it all the time," Evelyn waved a hand casually, as if she was brushing off this tangent of the conversation. "Tell me more about you and mom!"
"Okay, well it's a long story, I guess." I replied as she settled in against her pillows.
Evelyn shrugged. "I've got time."
"You know, I'm really supposed to be in here to help you out," I scratched behind my ear, recalling Hermione's shoves towards the bedroom.
"We can worry about me later, sort all problems out afterwards," Evelyn said, eagerly awaiting my story.
"If you say so," I chuckled, cracking my knuckles as I wracked my brain for a starting place. How do I begin? Where do I start a story going back almost seven years? Memoires flashed in my mind, all the times from when I first saw her in the Great Hall to now, when I had all these new feelings for her, ones I've never experienced before ...
"I'll begin when we were both eleven years old," I said, closing my eyes to remember the day more clearly. "I had just been sorted into Slytherin…"
