"Daddy!"
Draco was almost knocked off his feet as he stepped out of his floo network and was pounced upon by his four year old son. Scorpius wrapped his little arms around Draco's legs as he hugged his father. Dropping his briefcase onto the floor, Draco reached down and swung his son up into his arms.
"Hey, Scorp. What you've got there?" he asked, gesturing to the book clutched in his son's hand.
"A new book," Scorpius said, waving the book in front of Draco's face. "It's about dragons."
"A new book, fancy that," Draco said, raising an eyebrow at Hermione as his wife entered the floo room. "Doesn't he have enough books?"
"You can never have too many books," Hermione replied, walking over to her husband and giving him a peck on the cheek before ruffling Scorpius's hair.
"You spoil him," Draco chuckled.
Hermione smiled in response, knowing that when it came to books, Scorpius was pretty spoilt. He only had to ask for a new book and Hermione couldn't say no. It was easy to say no to too many sweets and other things that should be had in moderation, but when it came to books Hermione didn't see any problem with letting Scorpius build up a collection. In her opinion it was great that he loved books and reading.
"Daddy, will you play with me?" Scorpius asked.
"Sure," Draco told his son as he put him back down on the floor. "I'll just go and get changed, you go and get your toys out in the front room."
"Don't get anything else out, Scorpius," Hermione warned her son as he began to run off to the front room. "You've got enough out already."
"Let's guess, the room is a mess with his various toys," Draco laughed. Scorpius had a habit of getting something out to play with, before getting bored and moving on to the next thing without tidying his other toys away.
"It is," Hermione nodded. "Do me a favour and try and get some of the mess cleaned up. He doesn't need dozens of toys strewn around the room."
After promising Hermione he would try and tidy up a bit, Draco headed off to change while his wife went into the kitchen to make dinner. A quick change of clothes later and Draco was heading back downstairs. When he reached the doorway of the front room he paused and took in the mess the room was in. Scorpius was sitting on a cushion in front of the coffee table with his Lego spread over the table. The floor was dotted with dozens of books, in one corner his mini Quidditch pitch was set up and the figures were flying around playing a match, and in another corner dozens of toy animals were lined up.
"Don't," Scorpius cried as he looked up just as Draco was about to enter the room.
"What's wrong?" Draco asked his son.
"Sharks," Scorpius responded with a serious expression. "Use the stepping stones."
Draco nodded, knowing what game his son was playing. Carefully he stepped onto the nearest book and using the books on the floor as stepping stones, he made his way over to his son. Scorpius was watching him the entire time, and gave Draco a satisfied nod when he reached the safety of the coffee table.
"Can I play?" Draco asked.
"Grab a cushion," Scorpius ordered.
Draco grabbed a cushion from the nearby sofa and placed it on the floor on the other side of the table to where Scorpius was sitting. Settling down on the floor, he watched as Scorpius returned his attention to his Lego. The four year old was studiously studying the bricks and carefully building them up.
"What are you building?" Draco questioned.
"Hogwash," Scorpius replied.
"Hogwarts," Draco corrected, even though he knew full well that Scorpius could say Hogwarts and he was just being a little imp by calling it Hogwash. "Do you want any help?"
"I need a door," Scorpius said. "You build a door."
"Yes boss," Draco chuckled as he set about building a door. He didn't have any idea what size door to build, so he just threw a few green blocks together.
"Not green," Scorpius tutted, looking up at what his father was doing. "I don't like green."
"Since when?" Draco asked. "All Slytherins like green, and you are a mini Slytherin."
"I'm not a slither, I'm a Scorp," Scorpius giggled. "Silly Daddy."
"So what colour door do you want then?" Draco asked his son with an amused smile.
Scorpius pouted thoughtfully as he tilted his head to one side. "Red."
"I should have known," Draco muttered, searching for the red blocks. "This will be your mother's influence. Her and her Gryffindor connection."
"There's nothing wrong with my Gryffindor connection," Hermione's voice called from the doorway. "And I thought I asked you to help tidy up, not get more stuff out."
"We haven't gotten anything else out," Draco protested. He was going to get round to tidying up, but first he wanted to spend some time with Scorpius.
"The Lego was not out earlier," Hermione replied.
"But we're building Hogwarts," Draco told his wife.
"Yeah, look Mummy, it's you," Scorpius cried, holding up one of his small figurines that he had fished out from his toy box. "And here's Daddy," he added, holding up a second figure.
"Lovely," Hermione replied, smiling at her son, before turning her attention back to her husband. "Dinner will be ready in half an hour, make sure the place is a little bit tidier before then."
Draco nodded in response, before turning back and finishing his door. Once he'd given Scorpius the door, Draco got up and started tidying up a bit. Scorpius was adamant it still wasn't safe for the books to be removed, but he did agree that Draco could put his animals and quidditch figures away. Once Draco had at least tidied up some of the toys, he returned to the coffee table where Scorpius was putting the finishing touches to his version of Hogwarts.
"That's brilliant," Draco told his son when Scorpius asked for his opinion.
In reality all Scorpius had done was build a large square, with a door and a higher section of one wall which he claimed was a tower. Inside the square he'd placed the figures that were supposed to be Draco and Hermione.
"Look Mummy, Hogwash," Scorpius cried as Hermione entered the room, making sure she used the books as stepping stones.
"Hogwarts," Hermione corrected her son. Like Draco she knew he could say Hogwarts, but just liked calling the school Hogwash. "It's great, Scorp. But now it's time for dinner, come and wash your hands then we can eat."
Taking great care not to step on the floor, Scorpius scrambled to his feet. Very carefully he made his way over the floor via the books, all the time making sure his parents also stayed on the books and didn't venture onto the floor in case they were eaten by sharks. Once he reached the doorway, Scorpius took a big leap into the hallway before he set off running towards the kitchen. Draco quickly caught up to his son and helped him wash his hands before they took their seats at the kitchen table for dinner.
Over dinner Hermione and Draco chatted about their respective days, while Scorpius added his opinion every now and again. Once dinner was ate, Hermione let Scorpius have a treat and she made him a small bowl of ice-cream. By the time he'd finished eating, Scorpius was a bit of a mess so Hermione took him off to have a bath while Draco washed the dishes.
After an adventurous bath, where Hermione and the bathroom floor had ended up soaked thanks to the four year old, Hermione and Scorpius returned downstairs. Apart from Scorpius's Lego Hogwarts, all the other toys had been put away and Hermione shot Draco a grateful look as she settled on the sofa beside her husband. Scorpius was already settled in his pyjamas and he happily climbed up onto the sofa and nestled in between Draco and Hermione.
"Where's my new book?" he asked Draco.
"Right here," Draco answered, picking the book up from the coffee table. "I thought we could read it for a bit before you went to bed."
Scorpius nodded enthusiastically and snuggled closer to Draco as his father began reading his new book to him. After half an hours worth of reading, Draco announced it was time for Scorpius to go to bed. Scorpius briefly argued about going to bed, but Draco wouldn't be swayed and he ushered his son off to bed once he'd given Hermione a goodnight kiss.
While Draco was putting Scorpius to bed, Hermione went into the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine. Pouring two glasses she returned to the front room and settled down to wait for her husband. Considering he'd been reading to Scorpius before he went to bed, Hermione had expected that it would be a quick trip to tuck their son in, but Draco was gone nearly twenty minutes.
"What took you so long?" Hermione asked as her husband settled down beside her. "Surely he didn't con you into a bedtime story."
"We did have a bedtime story, but he was the one reading to me," Draco answered with a smile. Lately Scorpius had been eager to show off his developing reading skills and he would often read a bedtime story to his parents, rather than them reading one to him. "That boy definitely takes after you. He's turning into a bookworm."
"There are worse things he could be doing," Hermione replied with a shrug.
"True," Draco agreed with a nod. "He really is great, isn't he?"
"Of course he is, he's our son," Hermione returned with a chuckle.
However, her humour didn't last long as she knew that now she was alone with Draco it was time to mention what had happened that day. Scorpius had been oblivious to their audience in Flourish and Blotts, but Hermione's hadn't, and she knew she needed to discuss it with Draco. She only hoped her husband wasn't going to get too upset as even after eight years his parents were a touchy subject.
After Wilhelmina's naming ceremony, Hermione had witnessed the hope of a reconciliation with his parents die in Draco. He declined to inform them when he proposed after a little more than a year's dating, and he downright refused to send them an invitation to their wedding. Nor had she been able to persuade him to make the first move when she was pregnant, or after Scorpius was born. Now it had been well over three years since Hermione had even mentioned his parents, let alone suggest that he try and build fences.
"Something happened today I think you should know about," Hermione said carefully, not wanting to anger Draco, but wanting him to get the whole picture and see that maybe hope wasn't as dead as he'd thought. "While Scorp and I were in the bookshop, you mother came in."
"Did she see Scorpius?" Draco asked sharply.
"Yes, but she didn't speak," Hermione replied. "Scorpius was sitting looking at his book and your mother spotted him. She ended up watching him through the shelves."
"What did you do?" Draco asked his wife.
"I waited to see if she was going to approach him," Hermione said. "But it quickly became clear that she was just watching him. Then your father turned up."
"Please say you didn't let my father anywhere near Scorp," Draco snarled at the mere mention of his father. It had been Lucius who had initiated the disinheritance, and even though Narcissa's abandonment hurt him more, his father bore the brunt of his fury.
"He just watched alongside Narcissa. I would have been there in a crack if either one of them had made an approach to Scorpius," Hermione reassured her husband. "They both looked really dazzled by him," she added softly.
"This won't change anything Hermione," Draco said quietly. "With the family tree tapestry they would have known the second he was born. Hell, your pregnancy was even reported in the papers. They're not bothered about him, just like they're not bothered about me."
"You didn't see them, Draco," Hermione said gently. "They both looked at him with so much love, and such longing. I think seeing Scorpius with their own eyes might change things."
"I won't be holding my breath," Draco sighed sadly. "If they wanted to get in touch they would have done so years ago. They could have backed down at any time, especially once they saw we were serious."
"Maybe you should get in touch with them," Hermione suggested, not for the first time over the last eight years. Even though the estrangement had happened before she got together with Draco she still felt partly responsible as she knew her presence in Draco's life might well have stopped Lucius from swallowing his pride and making amends with his son.
"Why should I make the first move?" Draco demanded. "I'm not the one in the wrong, they are. They tried to dictate my life for me, then they abandoned me when I made it clear I was going to live my life as I saw fit. I'm not caving, Hermione. I'm not going crawling to them."
"Maybe they'll make the first move," Hermione replied hopefully. "I know you don't think they will, but you didn't see them today. Maybe the fact they had to spy on their own grandson will give them a wake-up call and make them realise their mistakes."
"I wouldn't count on it," Draco snorted. "My parents aren't like normal people, they hate to admit they're ever wrong. And I very much doubt Father thinks he was wrong. He cut me off for being in business with Blaise and not doing as he wanted and marrying a horrid pure-blood princess. Why would he now accept me when my business partnership with Blaise is going great guns, and my wife is a muggleborn? If anything, he's got more reason now to hate me."
"I doubt he ever hated you," Hermione said. She knew from Draco's friends that Lucius did love his son, even Blaise who had very few nice words to say for the senior Malfoy, admitted that Lucius loved his son and disinheriting him was never about him hating Draco.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Draco snorted.
"I'm sorry," Hermione whispered, wishing there was something she could do to make things easier for Draco. If only her husband wasn't so stubborn, and was willing to at least see if his parents would consider talking. Surely after eight years some sort of truce could be forged, and a fresh start could be made.
"Don't be sorry. I love you, and I wouldn't swap you and Scorp for anything," Draco told Hermione, pulling her towards him and connecting their lips. "Let's forget about my parents, and head to bed, I fancy an early night."
Hermione grinned at her husband as he stood up and pulled her to her feet. After checking the doors were locked and wards were set the couple headed off to bed. Within minutes Draco's parents were forgotten as the couple shed their clothes and fell onto their king sized bed together. However, Hermione wasn't about to let the subject drop and if there was a way to reconcile Draco with his parents she was going to find it. For eight years she'd kept out of things, but now it was time to try and put things right and reunite the Malfoys.
