Draco was busy with Blaise, sorting the details for the opening of Gold Diamond, which was rapidly approaching, when he got word that Hermione had been hurt and had been rushed into hospital. Immediately fearing the worst, he uncharacteristically began to panic, but fortunately Blaise was on hand to calm him down and to remind him that if Hermione had been badly hurt, she would need him to be calm and collected. Ensuring that Draco wasn't about to have a total meltdown, Blaise then sent him off to the hospital with a promise to be with him as soon as he'd finished at the hotel.
When he arrived at St Mungo's, Draco quickly found his wife was on the pre-natal ward, and it wasn't until he reached the ward and a Medi-Witch informed him that so far all seemed fine with Hermione and the baby that he started to really calm down. However, it wasn't until he was shown into a private room, where his wife was waiting, that his heart rate began to drop and he felt as though he could breath easily.
"I was so worried," he gasped as he pulled Hermione into his arms. "Are you okay? What happened?"
"I seem to be fine," Hermione assured her husband. "Healer Mills is sorting a scan, but it's just precautionary. Luckily, I wasn't badly hurt. I was more shaken than anything else."
"So what did happen?" Draco asked, feeling a bit better now he knew the healer who was overseeing Hermione's pregnancy was treating his wife. "I got a message about an accident in Diagon Alley, but to be honest as soon as the word hospital was mentioned I couldn't stop thinking the worst."
"There's no need, the baby and I are fine," Hermione said, squeezing Draco's hand reassuringly. "Scorpius and I were coming out of the bookshop and a couple of boys on bikes were riding around the street. One of them swerved to avoid running into someone, and almost ran into Scorpius. I got Scorpius out of the way, but I ended up getting hit and I went down."
"Where is Scorpius?" Draco questioned, scanning the room in case he'd missed his son, even though he knew Scorpius wasn't in the room as he would have noticed.
"He's up in paediatrics getting checked out," Hermione replied.
"I thought you said he wasn't knocked over," Draco remarked with a confused frown.
"When the young lad knocked me over, he came off his bike and the bike knocked Scorpius down. But don't worry, he just grazed his hands and knees. Like me his check-ups are precautionary."
"I should go and see him, he shouldn't be alone." Draco looked towards the door, feeling the pull to go and check on his son, but very aware that he didn't want to leave his wife until he was a hundred percent sure that the baby was fine.
"He's not alone," Hermione admitted. "Your father is with him."
"Father?" Draco's head whipped back around to face Hermione, shock written all over his face. "Do you mean Lucius?"
"How many other fathers do you have?" Hermione chuckled.
"What is he doing with Scorpius? What aren't you telling me, Hermione?"
"He was in Diagon Alley and he saw the entire thing," Hermione explained. "All I know is one minute I'm sent crashing to the ground, and the next, your father is there ranting about his family getting hurt."
"Family?" Draco raised a sceptical eyebrow, wondering if his wife hadn't banged her head and wasn't a bit confused.
"Yes, family," Hermione confirmed with a nod of her head. "He yanked the poor sod who'd knocked me down to his feet and froze him in place. He then insisted the Ministry was called and the incident was dealt with. And he was the one who insisted we come to hospital, Draco. He brought Scorpius and I here, and he made sure we were seen as quickly as possible. And all the time he kept making a big deal about his grandson and daughter-in-law."
"Maybe mother was right after all," Draco whispered, not quite sure what to make of what he was hearing. "Maybe he does want to make amends."
"No matter what, you owe him your thanks, Draco. He was there for Scorpius and I when we needed him."
Draco nodded, agreeing that the least Lucius deserved was a thank you. However, thoughts of his father were soon put on the back burner as Healer Mills entered the room with a Medi-Witch. Greeting Draco, Healer Mills set up the scanning equipment so they could double check that Hermione and the baby were just fine. Throughout the scan, Draco held onto Hermione's hand and they both shared a relieved smile when they saw their child projected on the wall in front of them and Healer Mills confirmed that everything was just fine with the baby.
"I know you have an appointment next week for a scan, and you were thinking about finding out the baby's sex," Healer Mills said. Thanks to magic, they could find out the sex of the baby a lot earlier than muggles, and unlike muggles who could sometimes get it wrong, it was virtually impossible for a magical scan to make a mistake. "I can tell you now, if you want."
"We did say it would be easier for Scorpius if we could tell him if he was getting a brother or a sister," Hermione remarked, glancing up at Draco to see if he wanted to know the sex of their baby. With Scorpius they had chosen not to find out his sex beforehand, but things were different with their second child.
"Let's find out," Draco replied with a grin as both he and Hermione turned expectantly to Healer Mills.
"You can tell Scorpius that very soon he'll have a little sister to look after," Healer Mills informed the couple with a smile.
"A girl," Hermione sighed wistfully, resting her hand on her stomach. As much as she would have loved another boy, she would be lying if she said she wasn't secretly happy she was having a little girl.
"And you're sure everything is alright?" Draco checked with the healer.
"I'm positive," Healer Mills assured the anxious father. "Hermione and the baby are perfectly fine. And another young man with a clean bill of health is waiting in the relatives room with his grandfather."
"Go and see Scorpius," Hermione urged her husband. "And remember to thank Lucius."
"I'll sort the discharge papers, and then you can all go home," Healer Mills announced as she left the room.
Draco followed Healer Mills out of the room, and headed towards the relatives room she pointed him towards. However, instead of entering immediately, he took a few moments to gather his thoughts. Now he knew his family were all unhurt, his mind was filled with thoughts of his father, and he couldn't help but wonder if he was ready to see him again. Although he didn't have any choice in the matter as like it or not, it was time to see Lucius again.
Pushing open the door of the relatives room, Draco entered the room just as Scorpius was asking Lucius about his long hair. His son was sitting on a chair beside Lucius, his fingers playing with his grandfather's long platinum blond hair. Draco winced as Scorpius declared that only girls had long hair, but he stayed quiet to see how his father would respond. Surprisingly, Lucius chuckled at Scorpius and informed the young boy that he'd grown his hair to annoy his father, which was something Draco had never known. He'd often wondered why his father had grown his hair, but had never had the nerve to ask.
"Is your Dad also a Malfoy?" Scorpius asked. "Can I meet him?"
"My father is dead," Lucius replied.
"Oh, that's sad," Scorpius said softly as he gave Lucius a gentle pat on the arm. "So why is your hair still long then?"
"That's a good question," Draco piped up, clearly startling Lucius who suddenly looked awkward. "If you grew your hair to annoy grandfather, why didn't you cut it once he'd died?"
"By then I'd grown to like it," Lucius replied with a slight shrug. "Besides, even now it feels like a rebellion to keep it long. I didn't have the guts to rebel in any other way. I wasn't strong enough to stand up to him on other important matters, so all I had was my hair."
Draco wondered if Lucius was referring to him standing up for himself, but he didn't get a chance to ask before Scorpius launched himself at him, firing questions at him about Hermione.
"Your Mum is fine," Draco assured his son. "And so is your sister."
"Sister?" Scorpius questioned with wide eyes. "I've got a sister?"
"Not quite yet, but in a few months," Draco answered. "But we now know the baby is a girl, so we can prepare for her arrival."
"But I wanted a brother," Scorpius protested. "Boys are cool, and girls drool."
"Where did you hear that?" Draco questioned with a laugh.
"Max," Scorpius answered with a shrug. "He said it to Mina last week."
"Is that why she was crying?" Draco asked, recalling how the previous weekend, when all their friends had gathered for a picnic, Mina had thrown a tantrum worthy of her mother and created a right scene by wailing over something Max had said to her.
"I don't know, she's always crying," Scorpius replied with a dramatic sigh. "I heard Uncle Theo saying she was high something or other."
"High maintenance," Draco predicated. "Just like her mother. Be a good boy, Scorpius, and go and check out the toys in the corner while I speak to my father."
Obediently Scorpius trotted off to check the toys which had been left for waiting children to play with. Draco waited until his son was totally engrossed in what he was doing before he sat down in a chair opposite his father and really looked at the man he hadn't seen for eight years. Looks wise, Lucius was still as handsome as ever, but for the first time in his life, Draco could see doubt swimming in his grey eyes.
"I should thank you for today," Draco began. "Hermione said it was you that insisted that she and Scorpius come to get checked out."
"I didn't want anything to happen to them," Lucius said with a slight shrug. "And I will make sure that the hooligan than knocked them over will be punished."
"I'm not sure you can be arrested for knocking someone over," Draco remarked with a half-smile. "Hermione said it was accident."
"One that could have been avoided if those boys weren't riding around on those muggle death traps," Lucius protested. "I am going to make sure those contraptions are banned from our streets. And even if I can't get the boys arrested, I'm going to make sure they do something to make amends to Hermione. They just need to think themselves lucky that both she and the baby are okay. They are okay, aren't they? You weren't just trying to ease Scorpius's mind?"
"Hermione and the baby are truly okay," Draco assured his father. "Although I am very surprised by how much you care. Especially about my wife."
"Truthfully, so am I," Lucius replied honestly, deciding that if he was to make amends with his son he needed to be honest with him. "I've regretted disowning you from the second I did it, Draco."
"It doesn't seem like it," Draco snorted. "You've had eight years to make amends, yet you've done nothing."
"It's not easy to break away from decades of thinking and acting one way," Lucius admitted. "Even though I regretted my actions, I reacted how I was raised to behave. As I said before, I never had the guts to really stand up to my father. His teachings are ingrained in me, and it's hard to change that so late in life."
"You're not that old," Draco pointed out. "You'll likely live for years yet."
"True, but I've still lived for a long time," Lucius countered. "I'm not trying to make excuses Draco, I just need you to know how hard this is for me. I was raised to toe the line, and I've done so my entire life."
"I was raised the same way, but I still had a mind of my own," Draco protested.
"And that is why you're stronger than I can ever be," Lucius said quietly. "Even when I shouted at you, and disowned you for disobeying me, part of me respected you for being able to stand up for yourself. I just wish I'd made different choices and had the guts to break free of my father's teaching back then."
"And you can do that now?" Draco questioned, his expression showing that he wasn't quite sure if he believed his father.
"I'm not saying it's going to be easy, and I'm certainly not saying I won't make mistakes, but I'd like to try," Lucius replied sincerely. "I agreed to your mother making contact, partly because it was what she needed to do to be happy, but mainly because I was hoping that if you could forgive her, you could forgive me."
"Then why have you waited so long?" Draco asked. "Mother's been back in my life for a few months now. She kept saying you weren't ready, and even though I wasn't sure if I was ready to see you, I thought she was deluding herself. I thought that you would never be ready, and that you would never accept my choices in life."
"I've always known that to really earn your forgiveness, and to deserve it, that I would have to accept all your life choices," Lucius admitted. "I've long accepted that your business choice was the right one, and I couldn't be prouder of the empire you've built for yourself. I was even pretty sure I could accept that my grandson wasn't a pure-blood, even if it did grieve me somewhat, and even if it would have disgusted your grandfather."
"But you weren't sure if you could accept a muggleborn as part of the family," Draco finished for her father, not quite able to hide his irritation at Lucius's attitude.
"I knew I couldn't expect to make things right if I didn't accept your wife," Lucius agreed. "And I've tried, Draco. I've lain awake on countless nights trying to convince myself that her blood doesn't matter. But every time I think I'm making progress, I hear my father's voice in my head ordering me to uphold the family honour. Even earlier today if you'd asked me if I could accept your wife, I couldn't have given you an answer either way."
"But now you can?"
"Now I can," Lucius confirmed. "When I saw her being hurt, all I could think of was that she was my family. Her blood didn't matter in that moment. All I saw was my son's pregnant wife being knocked to the ground, and I reacted instinctively. I proved to myself that I can overlook her blood status. I'm not saying I'm perfect, Draco, and I'm certainly not saying I won't mess up and say something rash, but I can promise you that I will always try my hardest, and I will always remember that despite her blood, Hermione is a Malfoy."
Not quit sure how to respond, Draco silently digested everything Lucius had said. He believed that his father was genuine, and meant every word that had come out of his mouth. And he especially appreciated the fact that Lucius hadn't hidden how hard this entire situation was for him, and he hadn't made rash promises that he wouldn't be able to keep.
"I don't think this will be easy for any of us," Draco finally said. "But I want to try. Despite my initial misgivings, I've been pleased to welcome mother back into my life, and I'd like the same chance with you. But as with mother, we take things slowly. Scorpius is my priority, and I don't want him getting hurt."
"I wouldn't hurt him for the world," Lucius vowed. "I already think he's the most remarkable little boy I've ever met. I would be proud to be a grandfather to him, and I would give anything to be a father to you again."
"Let's see how we go," Draco said. "Maybe you and mother could come to ours for Sunday lunch at the weekend."
"I'd like that," Lucius replied with a smile. "And thank you for giving me a chance, Draco. I'm not sure I deserve it, but thank you."
"Everyone deserves a second chance," Draco said as he rose to his feet. "But it's also your last chance. Blow this, and you lose me and your grandchildren forever."
"I'm not that stupid," Lucius said. He'd been stupid enough to lose Draco once, and he wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.
"Come on Scorp," Draco called to his son. "We'll go and collect your Mum and go home."
"Is Grandpa coming with us?" Scorpius asked.
"Not today," Draco replied as he took hold of Scorpius's hand. "You can see him again at the weekend."
"Cool," Scorpius grinned. "Bye, new Grandpa, see you soon."
"See you soon, Scorpius," Lucius returned in a thick voice as he fought back his emotions at being given a second chance with his son and having the chance to get to know his amazing little grandson.
Saying goodbye to his father, and feeling as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, Draco steered Scorpius to Hermione's room and when she was fully discharged, they headed home and spent the rest of the day together – just the three of them.