A/N: Warning: This is complete, utter fluff. But it's fun. It's also a songfic. Which I originally thought was corny but I kind of like them. It's based on the song "My front porch looking in" by Lonestar. I heard it one day and this idea just popped into my head, mostly because of the hair color. I should be working on my other story but I just had to get this down.
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The Most Beautiful Girl
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"Oh yeah, yeah oh yeah
The only ground I ever owned was sticking to my shoes
Now I look at my front porch and this panoramic view"
***
When I walked out of Hogwarts at the end of my seventh year I walked away from more than just school. I left behind everything I had ever known; family, friends, money. It was a very uncharacteristic move but I felt it was necessary. I wanted to be my own man, and I couldn't do that with my past and my reputation following me around.
I went to the Leaky Cauldron and exchanged work for room and board, since I had no money with me. My Gringott's vaults were all in my fathers name, and therefore effectively impossible for me to get to. Tom gawked when I offered my services and more than a few patrons shared shocked looks when they saw me. I just ignored them. I had never worked a day in my life and everyone knew it. But I found I was actually enjoying it. I never knew it could feel so good to work and earn money. The first thing I bought with my own money gave me the greatest feeling ever. This was true power, the ability to be self-sufficient. I was hooked. I worked hard for Tom and I eventually got a second job at Quality Quidditch Supplies. With this added income I managed to get my own little flat in Diagon Alley. I felt like a king. I had started on my own, with nothing, and I had survived. Not only that, but I had thrived. I had my own little flat and enough money to buy everything I needed. Not everything I wanted, like when I was a child, but everything I needed. And I was free. But I discovered that something was missing. I couldn't put my figure on what it was until I saw her. Then I knew.
***
I can sit and watch the fields fill up
With rays of glowing sun
Or watch the moon lay on the fences
Like that's where it was hung
***
When I found her I knew what I was missing. I had money, my own home, nice clothes, food. But I still had no friends or family. I was a loner, and what's more I was lonely. I suppose I always have been, even when I was younger and surrounded by family and "friends." I've never had a real connection with anyone, and when I saw her, I knew I wanted to have one with her.
She walked into Quality Quidditch one day while I was working. She was looking for a new broomstick for a birthday present for a nephew. She looked at me hesitantly when I came up to help her. I know she was shocked to see me working and even more surprised to see me being polite and helpful. At school I had never spoken to her, and certainly not politely. My father would have beaten me if I had befriended someone like her. But my father was not in control of my life anymore. I was. So I asked her out. And amazingly enough, she said yes. I think she was so in shock she couldn't think straight. But it didn't matter. She gave me one chance and that was all I would need.
We went out to dinner two days later. I took her to a nice, semi-fancy, Muggle restaurant. Score one for me. She couldn't believe that I would take her someplace Muggle, or that it was a place I frequented. It was the easiest way for her to see how much I really had changed. And it opened up the lines of communication. Once opened, they never closed. We talked all through dinner and then I invited her back to my flat. We talked until the sun came up and then I cooked her breakfast. She was shocked to hear what I had been doing since school but she seemed to enjoy hearing about it. She told me about her last year in school (she was a year behind me) and that she was going to be starting at St. Mungo's in a month or two. I was proud of her. It was silly really, I barely knew her. But she was just so special. I asked her out again and she said yes. Six months later we were married. A year after that, our first daughter was born.
She looked like me. It was the most amazing thing. I held her in my arms for hours and didn't want to let anyone else near her. My wife's family was quite perturbed. They wanted to see the newest addition to their family, teased me about needing to die her hair so she wouldn't look like me, and basically made fun of me. My heart was on my sleeve for the first time in my life. There were so many emotions I had never felt before. I was head over heels, walk across fire in love with the little bundle in my arms. I talked to hours to the nurses, family, hospital patients about how beautiful my little girl was. Finally, my brother in laws threatened to beat me. I wouldn't have cared, but there were a lot of them. So I shut up.
After her birth we realized our little flat was just too small. Between my wife and I, we made enough money to purchase a new house. It was large and in the middle of the English countryside. It was far away from everything, but we both could Apparate to work, so it really didn't matter. It was gorgeous. It was huge, but it was cozy. So unlike my childhood home. We bought comfortable mismatched furniture and decorated with hand-me-downs and homemade presents from her mother.
The country surrounding it is gorgeous. I'm sitting on the porch right now, staring out watching the sun set over the meadow. There aren't any other people around for miles. Just me and my girls. My wife teases me horribly about being the only male, especially after the birth of our second daughter. Our second daughter was a bright, bubbly redhead who looked just like her mother. She teased me about that too, since I had made such a big deal about the first girl looking like me. She should have known I didn't care. The girl looked like her mother and to me that just meant one thing, beautiful.
***
My blessings are in front of me
It's not about the land
I'll never beat the view
From my front porch looking in
There's a carrot top who can barely walk
With a sippy cup of milk
A little blue eyed blonde with shoes on wrong
Cause she likes to dress herself
And the most beautiful girl holding both of them
And the view I love the most
Is my front porch looking in
***
The most beautiful girl I've seen in my whole life and she married me. I certainly don't know why. Yes I'm handsome, smart and sophisticated. But I also spent the majority of my youth making fun of her, her family, friends and everything she believed in. I'm only glad that when she walked into my show that day she realized I wasn't that person anymore. It was harder to convince her family and friends. They didn't want to believe I had changed. They thought I was using her for some selfish, evil purpose. They managed to get used to it eventually. But first they watched me at work, showed up at my flat unannounced and uninvited, and followed me everywhere I went. When they determined that I wasn't going to hurt her, they relented and accepted me. And when they finally accepted me, they did it all the way. They treated me like family. Like my own family never had. I felt like I belonged somewhere for the first time in my life.
***
I've traveled here and everywhere
Following my job
I've seen the paintings from the air
Brushed by the hand of God
***
Shortly after we were married, one of her brothers came to visit. He had been in my year at school and we had been bitter enemies. So I was very surprised when I learned the nature of his visit. He had managed to get me a tryout for Seeker on the Quidditch team he was Keeper for. I was shocked and overjoyed. This boy who had passionately hated me for years was now offering me a job I had always wanted. I had played Seeker at Hogwarts and when I graduated there had been many offers from professional Quidditch teams. But when my father realized I was leaving the family he paid the teams to retract the offers. And now, I was getting a second change from a boy I had spent years treating like dirt. A chance that had originally been taken away from me by my father. I will never how life works sometimes.
I made the Quidditch team. We traveled all over Britain and Europe. We went to some amazing places and saw some amazing things. And we were brilliant. I caught the Snitch almost every match. But I barely saw my beautiful girl. We were travelling or practicing for weeks at a time and when I did see her I was exhausted. She was six months pregnant before I even noticed. I asked her why she had never told me and she burst into tears. She had wanted to surprise me and she thought I would notice months ago. She kept waiting for me to notice; the morning sickness, the cravings, getting her chocolate at 3am, the expanding belly. But I had been too busy to even pay attention. She had been showing for months and I had laid in bed, touching her and not even realizing her belly had started to grow until it was huge.
***
The mountains and the canyons reach from sea to shining sea
But I can't wait to get back home to the one he made for me
It's anywhere I'll ever go and everywhere I've been
Nothing takes my breath away
Like my front porch looking in
***
I shouldn't have, but I went back out on the road. I loved it too much and I wanted to at least finish the season. The traveling, the camaraderie, the games that lasted for days, I loved it all. It was heaven. It was all I had ever wanted. I was the star player on the best team in the league. My father would know he hadn't been able to hold me back. I had won. I had the power. I had made my own name, my own money, my own family. My father could sod off.
And that's when I realized it. I was turning into him. I had become so focused on winning and money and being someone that I had neglected my pregnant wife. Wasn't that just like something my father would do? Put his needs over that of his family? We won the championship and I went home. My brother-in-law was dissapointed. I had announced my retirement the day after my first baby girl was born. He stormed into the hospital and demanded to know if I was off my rocker. I just held the darling little girl with her bright eyes and halo of golden curls out to him and asked "Could you leave this behind most of the year?"
"Of course I could. She looks like you." He joked, but he understood. I had a family, which was all I wanted and needed, right here at home. I didn't have to travel the world being a superstar to find fulfillment, I already had it.
***
There's a carrot top who can barely walk
With a sippy cup of milk
A little blue eyed blonde with shoes on wrong
Cause she likes to dress herself
And the most beautiful girl holding both of them
Yeah the view I love the most
Is my front porch looking in
I see what beautiful is about
When I'm looking in
Not when I'm looking out
***
I sigh and get up from the front porch swing. I watch them through the window for a few minutes before going in. They're cleaning up in the kitchen. My girls had spent the afternoon baking cookies. The little blond has chocolate smeared on her face and the red head looks like she might fall asleep standing up. I walk into the room and scoop her up in my arms. I get her ready for bed, wash her face off and tuck her in. She wakes up long enough to whisper "I love you daddy." And I kiss her goodnight. As I stand up her mother is bringing the blond in the room to bed. This little vixen is clean, in her pajamas and desperately trying to stay awake. She asks for a story. I pick out a Muggle book about a princess in an enchanted castle and I start to read. She falls asleep before I can even get past the first page. This is a bedtime ritual. I'm certain she has never heard how the story ends.
I grab their beautiful mother in my arms and kiss her lightly on the mouth. "I love you Ginny." I whisper against her skin.
"I love you too Draco." She grins wickedly as she pulls me towards our room. "Think the girls might want a little brother?"
***
There's a carrot top who can barely walk
With a sippy cup of milk
A little blue eyed blonde with shoes on wrong
'Cause she likes to dress herself
And the most beautiful girl holding both of them
Yeah the view I love the most
Oh the view I love the most
Is my front porch looking in
***
A/N 2: In case anyone wonders, I wasn't trying to make Draco and Ginny's identities a secret. It's just that the story was just Draco thinking to himself and it didn't seem to fit for him to make proper introductions or anything. The end was where it seemed to fit to put the names. So yeah, I hope you liked it.