Children Know Best 2

A/N: Title has been changed! Now called The Child's Atrocity. Also, Chase's dad is Viktor Krum (I did say this last chapter but one person missed it so I'm clearing it up).

Draco Malfoy grabbed his coat, cursing as he glanced at the charmed clock in the foyer. "Erwin!" he shrieked as he struggled into the coat. "Why in the hell did you not tell me it was eleven a.m.?"

Erwin appeared quite magically. "I'm sorry sir. I was under the impression that you were aware that you had an important business meeting at 11 a.m."

"Can you for once not speak like a newspaper? Honestly! You are the worst butler, worse than a house elf! You're fired!"

Slamming the door behind him, Draco walked down to his corporate headquarters in the cold London air, fuming angrily. This was the fourth butler he'd gone through in the last six months. Gods. Every time Ivy left for Hogwarts the butler problem got worse. He wondered briefly if his short temper was due to missing Ivy. Draco smiled. Of course, having a daughter—and a teenage daughter at that—was very, very difficult and sometimes he absolutely wished he could find an aging device and bump her up to twenty, but for the most part, it was rather…different. In a good sort of way.

Shaking his head to clear the thoughts, he took off his coat as he entered the building, wondering why exactly he hadn't apparated. Oh well. It wasn't as if he had the right state of mind at a time like this.

"Greswald!" he snapped at a middle aged man with a potbelly holding a large cup of coffee. "Where the hell is the Delcarius meeting?"

"Room 388, sir."

Draco cursed and ran wildly towards the room, arriving out of breath. Although he was the president of the company it didn't mean that it was acceptable for him to walk in thirty blazing minutes late for the most important meeting of the year. The Delcarius meeting, named in honor of Lisa Turpin's father. He hated Lisa. Why in bloody hell he didn't change the meeting name he didn't know.

Draco entered the room, out of breath and scanned it to make sure all his top employees were there. They were. "I am sorry I was a little late," Draco started, looking coldly around the room. "But my reasons were sound and I am sure none of you will dare question what they are?" His voice was crisp, laconic, and extremely powerful. Rumor was that nobody could break that harshness except for his daughter. The employees were scared out of their minds. They didn't say a word. Bugger, he could be on a trip to the Bahamas and they wouldn't care—as long as he asserted his authority.

"What's on the agenda?" Draco finally asked as nobody in the room spoke up.

Timidly his secretary spoke up. "Er, the wizard stock market and how Naswiz has fallen rapidly since yesterday."

Draco nodded but in truth he was not very capable of grasping the inner workings of the complicated wizard stock market, the WSM for short. He was in fact the President of the Corporate Headquarters of WSM, and the only reason he was there was because he was so manipulative. Stocks bored him, actually. For the rest of the meeting he zoned out and thought about how his daughter was coming home tomorrow, from her third year at Hogwarts. He hadn't spoken to her for a bit but in her last letter she had mentioned a new best friend, named something or the other. He couldn't really remember.

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Hermione was very excited, and whenever she was excited, she had to spend money to finally feel at ease. Tomorrow Chase was coming home—she hadn't seen him since she'd met him over four months ago at the seventh years recruitment talk. Happily, she apparated all the way to Hogsmeade's extremely famous sweets store, Honeyduke's, and picked up anything she thought Chase might be interested in. As she watched her galleons being swallowed greedily by the clerk, she finally reached her nirvana. Ahh, she thought happily, I can't wait.

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Draco waited impatiently at King's Cross Station, Platform 9 ¾, for the Hogwarts Express to arrive. Honestly, he thought angrily to himself, the damned train had gotten slower since his time at Hogwarts! Finally the train pulled into the station and the noise level escalated quite grandly. He scanned the crowd, looking around for a bobbing head of light blonde hair, finally locating it bobbing right alongside a boy with black hair, reminding him distastefully of Harry Potter, whom he had had the privilege of not seeing for the last eleven years. Life was going well.

Ivy Malfoy burst through the crowd and smiled broadly at her father. "Daddy!" she called out, using the term of endearment that had always embarrassed him to the hilt. Nevertheless, he handled it well.

"Ivy!" he responded with just as much eagerness as the girl flew into his arms. As she pulled apart she dragged up a boy that looked about her age.

"Daddy, this is my best friend, Chase."

Draco surveyed the boy with his eyes. As a father of a teenage daughter, he was very, very scrupulous about who he let his child mingle with. "Your best friend is a boy?" Draco asked nervously. He'd thought thirteen was a bit young to give her the little boys-will-be-boys-don't-sleep-around-please talk that he'd been planning on, but maybe he'd been wrong…

"Don't worry, Dad," Ivy said with a small smirk (inherited from her father, of course). "The relationship's purely platonic."

Draco visibly relaxed and took in the boy's features more softly. There was something very familiar about him, but he couldn't place it. Perhaps it was déjà vu or something. Whatever. Draco wasn't one for intense curiosity, but nonetheless, he decided to ask him anyway.

"So, what is your name again?" he asked coldly. He couldn't help it, but he was 'disgustingly protective' of his daughter, as she so aptly put it (once when he wouldn't let her play Quidditch with their next door neighbor's sixteen-year-old son. As if!).

"Chase. It's a pleasure to meet you, sir," the boy said politely, holding out his hand. Draco's opinion of the boy increased slightly as he took his hand. At least his parents had taught him manners.

"And who are your parents?" he asked casually, his interest piqued.

"Oh, they're—" he was cut off by the arrival of presumably his mother. Draco hadn't turned around to see her but he could hear the voice behind him.

"There you are! Chase, I've been look—oh."

Surprised, Draco turned around and had to fight very hard not to let his jaw drop with utter surprise. Oh was right. Oh.

The frazzled witch standing in front of him was very short, with big brown eyes and long, curly hair that was a bit frizzy. She was wearing a set of stylish but conservative aquamarine robes and slightly heeled blue shoes. Oh.

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Chase and Ivy decided to break the silence, apparently, since the two of them looked at their parents and decided something was very, very wrong.

"Mum?" Chase asked, as Ivy asked "Dad?" at the same time.

"What is it?" Hermione said, tearing her gaze away from the bastard that haunted her school days and stared down at her son.

"What is it?" Draco said, tearing his gaze away from the annoying know-it-all bookworm who had bothered him in his school days and stared down at his daughter.

"Why are you behaving like this?" Ivy said, pouting in a way (Hermione noted) very similar to her father's and putting her hands on her hips.

Hermione was the first to come out of her stupor. "I'm sorry," she told the children. "I was just surprised to see…your father. I haven't seen him in a long time."

Draco eyed her. The situation was ten-fold more unpleasant for him; he had not been aware of the fact that his child was best friends (best friends, did she say?) with the son of one of his mortal enemies from school. "Hello," he finally managed. There was no need to be rude, after all. It was going to be a three-minute encounter, tops. Then he would grab his child and go home and never see Granger again. End of story.

But even the best-laid plans can go wrong.

"Daddy," Ivy said seriously. "I've invited Chase to come spend half of summer holidays with us."

Draco and Hermione looked at each other with utmost horror. How exactly were they going to inform their children that that was and would never be possible?

As if Chase and Ivy had sensed the tension between the two parents, identical tantrums started on cue.

"Not fair!" Ivy whined. "You never let me do anything!"

"Mum you were always like, why can't I go to a friend's house for summer and now that I want to you're not going to let me!" Chase screamed. "That's not fair! You're so hypocritical!"

"Dad!" Ivy yelled. "You always said I could have anyone over for break anytime I wanted and now that I want to take you up on the offer you cancel? Some dad you are!"

She stormed off, dragging Chase along with her, who called out over his shoulder. "Same to you mum! I hate you!"

Now in her thirteen years of parenting, Hermione had never been told "I hate you" by her son. Something had to be done. Looking up at Malfoy, Hermione could tell he felt the same way.

"Granger," Draco growled. "Your son is 'best friends' with my daughter?"

"Apparently, Malfoy," she answered coldly. "Why don't you contact your wife and ask her if it's okay for your daughter to come spend the summer holidays with us?" she asked quite sarcastically.

Malfoy seemed to seize up for a second before answering her. "If you must know, I am not married," he replied callously. "Ivy's mother walked out on the family when Ivy was a month old."

Hermione shut her mouth furiously and felt a wave of pity wash over her. That was terrible. "Who was she?" she asked, before she could stop herself.

"Lisa Turpin."

"That girl from Ravenclaw? How in hell did you meet her?"

"It's a long story and I am not about to tell you it, Granger. This is the first time I have seen you in eleven years—you, Potter, or Weasley—and I'm not too pleased about it."

"Neither am I, Malfoy, but apparently we don't have a choice. Our children seem to have inherited our stubborn streaks."

Draco sighed. She was right. "So," he asked dully. "my house or yours?"

From behind a horde of people, eavesdroppers Chase Granger and Ivy Malfoy sniggered.

A/N: Whew, that's done with. Next chapter is more Draco and Ivy interaction. And whose house. And all that other stuff. Anyway, star-you asked me to write you a note at the end of the chapter, here it is. Thanks for reviewing the story! Tell me what you think of this chapter as well. Eventuality- hope your question was answered, Ivy's mother was from Ravenclaw and that's why she's not as mean, also, she's got a different personality from her dad, but she will have her moments. Thanks to everyone who reviewed-please review this chapter as well!