Love is Worth Forgiving For

Chapter Two – Sweet Child of Mine

Oh, oh, oh, oh
Sweet child o' mine
Oh, sweet love of mine
Where do we go?
Where do we go now?
Where do we go?
-Sweet Child O' Mine, Guns N' Roses

Nearly nine months have come and gone since the night that haunted his dreams. In those nine months he had turned another year older, became a husband, grew up faster than any man should. He also hadn't spoken to Hermione since that morning before potions that changed everything. In fact, Draco didn't know a single person who had. When word leaked out that she has slept with the Slytherin Prince, a rumor surly started by Lucius in a fit of his usual malicious mirth, the Ravenclaws, the Hufflepuffs, and even Hermione's own Gryffindors all turned their backs on her. Harry and Ron, feeling feeling especially hurt and betrayed, did the same. After graduation no one knew where she had disappeared to and most people shrugged it off and suspected she had just run off in her shame. There was no pity or understanding in their hushed tones. Hermione's parents had died the previous spring, leaving Hermione both devastated and wealthy. Hermione sold the house she had grown up in and completely disappeared. Maybe just ran away and hadn't bothered to look back.

Harry Potter moved on and married his Hogwarts sweetheart, Parvati Patil, while Ron Weasley married his, Lavender Brown. Draco still hated Harry and Ron with a passion, and he seethed at the very mention of their names, just not for the reason anyone would have ever expected.

It wasn't that Potter and Weasley had happiness, but that they let Hermione out of their lives as if she had never meant anything to them at all. A ghost, a fly on the wall, an irritating little school girl that saved their lives and their education more than Draco thought they were worthy of.

Did they even miss her? Think of her? Love her? Draco was in a bitter mood, one that didn't leave his side. He thought of her daily. He thought of different and imaginative ways he could off her two former best friends as well. Toying with a very fine ring on his finger, he held the dark thoughts close to his heart like a winter cloak. It was in the shape of a majestic coiled serpent that had emerald jewels in its eyes, encrusted with rubies around the circumference. Draco bought this one and one other. The other, of course, resides on Hermione's finger. It was a familiar action that brought Draco some sense of comfort when he was lonely, which was often. He wondered if Hermione, wherever she was, still wore hers or if she even still had it. He would stare at the emerald eyes, as though mesmerized. He could recall all the moments he had shared with Hermione by staring into the depths of the green jewels. Draco wondered if Harry and Ron even know how to love, if they had just simply turned their back on their friend who needed them. Both Parvati and Lavender where large with pregnancy. Ron and Harry didn't waste anytime.

Draco sighed. The Malfoy estate was not a happy one. Although it had always been devoid of the love that made a home, as of late a thin veil of misery had enveloped the family residing in it. It had just been discovered by the private Malfoy family healer that despite the name, blood, and money, Pansy could not have a child. Fertility did not care about any of these things. She and Draco have been trying to produce an heir to please Lucius, but after several miscarriages they where quickly giving up hope . Lucius was furious, of course. Malfoy woman had one purpose, and Pansy had failed miserably at hers. Although Draco was not in love with his wife, he still loved her and cared for her deeply. He was afraid for her safety and was powerless to stop it.

Draco's life, too, had changed drastically since his mischievous days at Hogwarts. He was a man whom his father finally showed a margin of respect for and Draco worked closely with his father in the investment business and Ministry affairs that made the Malfoy's very rich. Draco succeeded spectacularly at adding more money to the family fortune.

Harry Potter had gone on to play Quiddich for England, but Ron decided he wanted to follow his father into the ministry. Ron was rapidly climbing to the head of his department, Muggle Interactions.

Ron and Draco would see each other from time to time, giving each other a curt nod and a forced smirk. Ron hadn't forgiven Draco for seducing his best friend, and Draco hadn't forgiven him for turning his back on her. They where on the same speaking terms with each other and they both were with Hermione, which was none. Draco sighed again as he dressed for his and Pansy's morning walk. It was his mothers' orders, and although she was the woman of the house, Draco respected his mother a lot more then he did his father. He thought ahead to what the future was to bring him, but all he could see where various dinners partied and meaningless social gatherings with Pansy at his side. He wished he where dead.

She wished she where dead. A woman in tattered robes of midnight blue was half walking, half running through a very dark forest. It must have been close to three in the morning, the spirits of her dead memories were circling around her head and all she could think about was that she didn't care. Nothing mattered. She held a small baby to her chest, trying to subdue its wailing. The woman stumbled through the bramble, blinded by the darkness that seemed to engulf her at all sides until she came to a clearing.

The moon was shining through the sparse trees of the small clearing as the woman took one last look at her small child, wrapped up in crimson velvet and still crying loudly. She thought she could just kill the bastard child, the proof of her murdered happiness, but she already loved her. She could couldn't bear the memories that came along with the tiny bundle, and the house ahead was a large wizard family. She had been told so by a kind witch that kept the tavern in town where the woman had given birth not even a week ago. If anything, the family would know where an abandoned baby might go, maybe they would sense the magic. The turmoil of the birth had the woman half out of her mind and wondering if she would die. Death would be a welcome guest. She uttered a small sob and lay the child down on a soft tuft of grass under a willow tree. She then ran, never looking back.

"Draco! What's that?" Draco snapped out of his daydream at the sound of Pansy's shrill voice. "What?" He said irritably, longing to escape back into the solitude of his mind.

"I hear crying!" Pansy exclaimed. "Don't you hear it? A baby's crying!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Pansy." Draco said, feeling more and more annoyed by the moment. He was growing concerned the weight of the miscarrages were weighing on his wife. Then he heard a delighted squeal.

"Draco! It is a baby!"

"What?" Draco said, disbelieving. He followed Pansy who was now crouched down under a willow tree, and in her arms was a beautiful baby. The small child was undoubtedly very young. Newborn. It had extraordinary hair, a sleek, silver blonde, resembling Draco's so much that it was uncanny, but it was it's eyes that were truly mesmerizing, wide honey brown eyes were screwed up with her cries. The baby had full pink lips, which it was using right now to let out a very high pitched wail. It reminded Draco of his dreams, and he turned away from Pansy and the baby in her arms. Pansy was cooing at the small infant, who was wrapped up in a very heavy, almost blood red blanket.

"Pansy!" Draco hissed. "Put it down! It's not yours! It's not like a cat you can just pick up off the street!" Draco looked around nervously, as thought waiting for enraged parents to explode out of the tree line.

"Draco, she's alone." Pansy said in a quiet voice. Draco had never heard her have a voice so full of emotion, and he softened. "Draco, look at her."

"How do you know it's a her?" Draco asked skeptically, now taking peeks at the bundle.

"Just look!" Before Draco could stop her, Pansy had thrust the bundle of baby and blanket into his arms. Draco tried to protest, but as soon at he felt the warmth of the small child, he shivered; a shock of emotion coursed though him. He looked down at the small being and immediately his heart was gone. Just like that, he looked into her eyes and the infant looked into his. She immediately stopped crying.

"There's something familiar about her." Draco was staring into the depth of the golden eyes. There was something so pure, so good, and undoubtedly familiar. "Impossible." And Draco dismissed the idea.

"Draco?" Pansy said cautiously.

"Mmm?"Draco replied, still mesmerized.

"May we? May we keep her? As our own? No one need know I was never pregnant! Look! She has blonde hair just like you. It was as though someone wanted us to find her and make us happy! We could make her happy! She can be our little girl! We will have the doctor make sure she is pure and if she is-"

Draco put a hand up to silence her. "Listen Pansy, I don't know about this, but you're right, we will inform the Doctor, if she is to grow up a witch, she will be ours, we will lie and say you have been covering a pregnancy do to your ego, you did now want to be fat. But if she is a muggle, she comes back here, without an argument, to this very spot, understood?" Draco said this all very firmly, but he still couldn't tear his eyes away from the eyes of the child in his arms.

"She is purely magic." The Doctor confirmed several hours later to a tense parlor of Malfoys. Draco and Pansy let out a deep sigh or relief, even Narcissa looked happy. Lucius stood abruptly and handed the tall doctor a large sack of gold. "This should be enough for your service, and, of course, you silence I presume?" Lucius asked it as a question, but everyone could tell by the look in his eyes that it was meant to be a statement. The doctor smiled and gave the child back into Draco's willing arms, then, saying good day, he left quickly.

Pansy and Draco smiled at one another for the first time in months.

"What will we be naming this child Draco?" Lucius's voice interrupted Draco's happy state. "Nicole." Pansy said quickly.

"No." Draco replied coldly. "I already have a name." Three pairs of surprised eyes looked at Draco, who was staring at the baby in his arms.

"Well then?" Lucius said impatiently. "Juliet." Draco said softly. "Juliet Nicole Malfoy."

"Oh what a lovely name!" Narcissa exclaimed. "Oh! Pansy dear! We simply must visit Diagon Ally for Juliet's things! She must have the best! She is officially a Malfoy now." For once, the spirits where high in Malfoy Manor.