A/N: A chapter that isn't plotless fluff? Who can believe it?! The chapter that comes after this one was originally going to be this one, but as I was writing it I realised that part of what I discussed should have been a chapter in its own right, and it would only make sense for this to come first, so here we are. If that makes sense. Eve is ten, M & D are therefore in their late thirties, and Caelum is around 7/8. There'll be more parts of this little storyline to come, since there's a loooot to explore here - practically enough to form a sequel in its own right, really.

Marilyn watched Draco worriedly. When they'd decided that tonight would be the night, he'd seemed largely unbothered. But Draco always seemed largely unbothered, and it was being able to discern when it was genuine and when it was not that was the trick. Considering they'd now been together for the better part of twenty years, though, she was pretty good at spotting it. Tonight it showed itself in the fact that, though he was talking normally and fairly present at the dinner table, he couldn't quite look at any of them as he ate.

Of course, she was nervous too - it was a conversation they'd known they would need to have at some point or another ever since their children were born. Hell, ever since they were conceived. But it was harder for Draco. There was more to relive for him there, there was more fault that could be placed at his feet, and he and Evie were so close. So bloody similar. Marilyn doubted he'd show his upset if she took it particularly badly - and he definitely wouldn't in front of Evie herself - but he would be upset. If anything "upset" was a laughably understated word for it, like referring to a monsoon as 'drizzle'. There was potential for the night ahead to go very badly in their house indeed.

But it was time. They'd both agreed on it easily enough, even if neither of them were happy about it. One day, when she's old enough had quickly become now - and maybe they'd even left it too late, considering the events of the last week. Evelyn was ten now, due to start Hogwarts next year. It was a miracle that she hadn't read something that explained it to her before they could. Even Caelum, although a couple of years younger, was a voracious reader for his age. If he saw something, he'd tell his sister in a heartbeat - definitely before he brought it to them. Marilyn could only thank the universe that Narcissa and Lucius had never seen fit to offer their own explanation to the children - perhaps fearing that if they did, it would put an end to unsupervised visits with their grandchildren. It was a wise fear.

No, the point was that, they'd left it long enough. It was time. She just wished it was not. Not least because Draco sat unnaturally still in the dining chair to her right, his hands curled into fists where they sat atop the table. Under the table, she rested a hand atop his knee for a moment. He offered an almost imperceptible nod in response. Evelyn watched them both from across the table, blue eyes darting between the two of them in suspicion.

"You're not in trouble, love," Marilyn said "You don't need to worry."

"Why isn't Caelum here, then?"

"He will be - one day," Draco responded "But he's too young for this conversation at the moment. You're not to tell him of any of this, Evie. I know you're close, and I'm very fond of that fact, but it isn't yet time for him to hear what we're about to speak of. Do you understand?"

Evie blinked, and then she nodded slowly. When Draco did not continue, and her daughter's worry started to seep into her face, Marilyn broke the ice.

"Do you remember last week, you got into an argument with little Hugo Weasley?"

"You said I wasn't in trouble."

"You're not, but you remember, don't you? He said some things about your father, and you…"

"He said that dad was a Death Eater, and I told him that he was an idiot and a liar," Evie finished.

Either she was content that she really wasn't in trouble, or she was truly just very very pleased at her ardent defence of her family, for she recounted it with a touch of pride, her shoulders straightening and her tone screaming that she would happily say it all again if given half the chance. Marilyn didn't doubt that she would, either. It was why they had to have this talk.

Draco shifted silently in his chair, and some of Evie's confidence left her, the frown returning to furrow itself between her pale eyebrows. It was a fair response. While Marilyn didn't think either one of them was the fun parent or the strict one, in a situation like this Draco would always be the one not to bother hiding his amusement over their daughter's hearty denouncement of the Weasley boy. But now he was not laughing, and Evie didn't know why.

"He is," she doubled down "If he doesn't want me to say things like that, he shouldn't lie. It's a terrible thing to lie about, too, I don't know what else he expected!"

Marilyn looked to Draco. It was all she could do, really. This wasn't her story to tell - she hadn't even known it was happening during the time period they were speaking of. She could get them on the right track, she could break the ice, she could try to smooth the way, and she could offer moral and emotional support for her husband and her daughter both, but she couldn't tell her for him. Nor, she suspected, would he want her to.

"Evelyn, darling," he sighed heavily "The war…the war was a very difficult time. For everybody."

"I know," she frowned.

"No," he disagreed gently but firmly "You don't. It's the sort of thing you can ever only know by living through it, and you - thank Merlin - have not, nor anything like it."

"What are you saying, dad?"

"I was brought up with a certain set of ideals by your grandparents - the same ones they were brought up with by their parents, and so on and so on spanning back centuries, and so none of us had any reason to question what it was those ideals taught us," he said "When the war came about, we realised the truth as to what those ideals truly were, and exactly what those ideas entailed, and by that point it was much too late to stop and question them."

"You…you can't be serious," Evelyn said slowly "What? No - because it sounds like you're telling me Hugo was telling the truth, and that can't be right, that…mum's a Muggle! What are you on about?"

"The ideas we had were terrible, and they were misguided, and they were wrong," he pressed on "But…you have to understand, the Dark Lord - Vo-…the Wizard who was defeated during the war. Many, by the end, followed him out of fear rather than a passion for what it was he wanted to do. We saw what happened to those who disobeyed, and those who he deemed traitors. He was cruel enough to those who obeyed him enthusiastically, but to those who…"

He trailed off, and then he sighed "Anyway. That's not what we're discussing. Not truly. Perhaps one day we will, when you're older, but for now it's…do you know why the papers are so nosy about your mother and myself? Why we have security? Dimitri? All of it?"

"Because we're Malfoys - and because mum's famous."

Marilyn breathed a laugh. That first part could have come from Draco's own lips.

"In part," Draco allowed "But not entirely. A lot of it is because of my realising just how wrong the views I was raised with were. There are those on the other side - those who remain on the other side, those who I was once friends with, who take a dim view of my change of heart, and of your mother because of it."

"And there are those on the winning side who don't believe in second chances, and hold how your father was raised against him," Marilyn added.

"Because he worked for Voldemort!"

Draco twitched beside her, his shoulders jerking upwards slightly in the barest hint of a flinch.

"Your father was very young, Evelyn," Marilyn said "He believed what his parents taught him, as most do. Imagine if…oh, I don't know, you grew up and found out all ballerinas are actually evil and I'd been teaching you incorrectly about ballet your whole life. It wouldn't be your fault for believing it."

"Ballerinas don't order the audience to go out and kill people."

"Evelyn…" Marilyn sighed softly.

"Why are you telling me this? You've kept it a secret my whole life, and you're telling me now. Why?"

"You got to Hogwarts next year," Draco answered "You'll be surrounded by people who have their own opinions, and who think they know us. It seemed only right that you were prepared for that. We didn't want to send you in blind."

"Okay. Great. Now I know. Can I go?"

"No, love, we need to-"

"Yes, you can go," Draco interrupted.

Marilyn sighed, and Evelyn didn't wait for them to convene and come to a consensus before she was up, her chair scraping against the hardwood flooring, and then she was striding from the room, her head ducked down low.

When she made to move, Draco stopped her, a hand at her arm gently pulling her back down into the chair.

"She's upset, Draco."

"I know," he nodded "And she's angry with me - and you're more eager to defend me than I am, which I often find incredibly attractive, but in this particular case it isn't helpful. So I'll go. I'll face the anger, and I'll hopefully explain things a hell of a lot better than how I just tried. Really, we've anticipated this for so long, you'd think we'd have come up with a fail-proof script, and all I did instead was fumble."

"It was never going to go well," she offered with a sigh, squeezing the hand on her arm.

Dipping his head, he kissed her on the cheek and then he took his leave, trailing after their daughter with a look of dejection that didn't often settle itself on his features.

Draco lingered at the foot of the stairs, counting to sixty. Then he added another sixty for good measure. He told himself it was to give his daughter a moment to breathe - that the only way this could be made worse was if he chased her across the house like some sort of nutcase. Really, he needed the moment to breathe just as much as she did.

Only when he could not face adding another sixty did he begin to climb the stairs, his lips set into a grim line. When he knocked at her bedroom door he received no response, and so he knocked a second time, and then he entered with a sigh. Evelyn was curled up atop her lilac bedspread, her back to the door, her face buried in her pillow.

"I thought we might continue this conversation in private," he offered.

Closing the door behind him, he approached the bed and sat down at the edge of it. The ball she was curled up into tightened. This territory was wholly unfamiliar with him - with not even a blueprint from his own childhood that he might act upon. His father would curse himself with his own wand before he offered anything resembling an apology to his own son, nor even an explanation. While Draco had always been adamant that he would be a different father to the one his own was, he'd never faced anything quite like this before.

"I can imagine how disappointed you must be. How confused. There was never going to be a good time to tell you - and perhaps we did leave it too long. But you've always been so mature. So precocious. I think you get it from your mother, and she thinks you get it from me. Both, maybe. We were always sure to not treat you as being older than you are because of it. We didn't want to place anything upon you that you weren't ready for just because you were more mature - but I can hardly pretend this was a conversation I've been looking forward to, either."

Still, no response. Draco did not push her for one, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees as he waited patiently for her to speak. When she did, it was difficult to say if it had been five minutes or twenty.

"The bad side thought Muggles were like animals," she said, her voice thick with tears "That they should all die or be slaves."

Draco wondered idly who had seen fit to fill her in on such details. It wasn't difficult to take a guess - one of Granger's children, if not Potter's. It was the sort of thing older children shared with younger with no care for how it might disturb them. Perhaps it was yet another nugget of information Hugo Weasley had seen fit to lay at his daughter's feet. But there were more pressing matters at hand now.

"Yes," he said "They did."

"Do you think that about me?"

"No!" He said, aghast "Even back then, half-bloods were different…lower in the hierarchy than purebloods, perhaps, but they weren't regarded with the same distaste as Muggles so long as they were loyal."

"Mum, then? What about her?"

The frown she levelled his way was filled with what could only be described as betrayal.

"I met your mother five years or so after the war," he said "I…I won't lie to you, I still viewed Muggles as being lesser than back then, although I no longer wished any harm upon them. It was she who showed me just how wildly wrong I'd been about them all along. I don't think I've ever regretted my former beliefs more than I did when I fell for her."

A small amount - a microscopic amount, really - of the accusation left her frown then, but she still hardly looked happy.

"There are others who still believe what they once did, even though their loss in the war cut off their ability to do harm. Plenty of them were like us - the Malfoys - and saw that what we thought we wanted wasn't what we actually did want. The Dark Lord was cruel, even to his followers, even when we were doing well in the war. There was little joy in it for most of us. Just fear, and danger. But some remember it differently, or even if they struggled, they weren't put off of their beliefs by what happened. Those people are why we have security. They view me as a traitor for loving your mother."

He didn't elaborate on that - the goal of this whole conversation was to educate her, not frighten her. There was no need to go into details, not until she was older. She didn't need to know that for some of those lunatics, she and her brother were the personification of that betrayal, nor of the threats they'd already faced long before she was born.

"As I said, the reason we're telling you about it now is that your peers at Hogwarts may well be aware of all of this, and so it wouldn't be fair for you not to know. Some of their parents may dislike me for who I once was, while others - although smaller in number - will dislike me because I'm not that person anymore. You'll hear a lot of stupidity from either side, and if you've any questions on the matter, you can ask us and we'll answer them honestly."

"As honestly as you have for my whole life so far."

"We didn't want to frighten you. You're mature for your age, Evie, but this is a lot to put on somebody. We wanted you to have a normal childhood without worrying about all of this."

She fell silent again. But this time when she broke the silence, his heart sank.

"My grandparents," she said quietly.

Sighing, he closed his eyes. This was the part of the conversation he'd dreaded most - well, beyond the fear that he'd lose any and all respect his daughter might have for him.

"What about them?"

"They believed this? They- they don't get along with mum. None of them speak about it, but they don't. There's always a weird feeling in the room whenever they're together. Is this why? When did they stop believing in all of the stuff about the bad side of the war?"

"Your grandparents were very unhappy with me for a long time when they found out about your mother and I," he admitted "Your grandmother came around more quickly than your grandfather. I'm not sure if you remember, but you didn't meet him until years after your grandmother - she saw you from when you were a newborn, but it took my father a little bit longer to get over his disappointment regarding my life choices."

"Disappointment?"

"He was a lot stricter with me than I am with you and your brother. I had to be a credit to the Malfoy name and fortune, and back then that meant choosing a wife from one of the most lauded pureblood families. Someone not from the Sacred Twenty-Eight would have been controversial. A half-blood would have been unthinkable. A Muggleborn, like your Aunt Hermione, would have been disastrous. An all out Muggle? That…well. He was not happy with me. We didn't speak at all for years, when I made it clear I would not leave your mother."

After a moment, he added "But you were never a disappointment. Not to anybody. Nor was Caelum. Do you understand that? It was always me they were upset with, never you."

"And mum."

"Your mother…" he sighed "It was a complicated time. Your grandparents had scarcely seen Muggles in person, much less spoken with them. They didn't have the same opportunity to realise they were wrong that I did - and they were far older than I was. They had longer to become stuck in their ways."

"I'm not going back to their house."

"Evelyn."

"I'm not. They're still weird with mum, and I always just thought it was because she was born poor, or that she's not posh like they are, and that was annoying enough, but this?"

"Before you were born, your grandfather refused to even be in the same room as your mother. Did you know that? The impression you made upon him when you met him, and how proud of you he is now, is what sparked the change. They'll never like one another, and I doubt they'll ever communicate more than what is absolutely required of them, but your existence is what has stopped them from regretting the day I chose your mother. And before you, they would have easily regarded it as the worst thing that ever happened to me. Whatever feelings they have, however complicated the dynamic might be, they adore you. Your mother wouldn't want you to fall out with them on her behalf. Especially not because she knows how much you love them."

"How can I be normal with them now that I know all of this?"

It was a fair question. And it was one that filled him with yet more trepidation, too, because if she was reacting this way to the watered down, child-friendly version of events he'd given her, how would she feel if she ever learned the whole truth? Of the attempts on Marilyn's life, and the hand her own grandfather had in it?

"If you need time and space, I won't fight you on it, but I really don't think you should make this your fight, darling. It's one that ended long before you were born, and we're all on the best terms that we can be now."

If Evie chose this as her hill to die on, no doubt her grandparents would blame Draco, if not Marilyn herself - insisting that she was being turned against them with ancient history that no longer mattered. They were very good at brushing things under the rug like that. But he would also not force her to see them. She was young, and she was upset, and he would not be his father - he would not scold her and forbid her from feeling her anger, nor her hurt, confusion, or sadness. While the last thing he wanted was for this to spiral into something big and terrible, if she needed time and space to work through this, he would grant it. It would be a lot for anybody to process, much less a ten year old.

"I want to be alone," she said finally.

"All right," he sighed "But we'll be downstairs for the rest of the evening. If you want to speak with me again, or with mum, or with both of us, you need only come down. All right?"

She gave a small nod, and he rose, squeezing her shoulder before he stepped away from the bed. It was a mark of significant victory that she did not shirk him off.

Marilyn was curled up on the sofa in the living room when he returned, staring off into space, some film or another playing almost too quietly to hear. The faraway look on her face was not unfamiliar to him, and he knew that the events of the night had probably dragged her back into some less than pleasant memories. She looked as tired as he felt. As he stepped into the room, she blinked away the cobwebs and looked up at him, brow furrowed in worry - she didn't need to ask the question for him to begin supplying an explanation.

"She's upset, but not hysterical," he said "Mostly on your behalf. I do believe our daughter is ready to do war for you."

She gave a sad smile "I don't have the stomach for another battle, much less another war. I'd put money on you feeling that to an even bigger extent than I do."

The face he made in response to that signalled that she was not wrong. Undoing one of the buttons of his shirt, he then did the same with the cuffs of his sleeves as he joined her on the sofa.

"I told her you wouldn't wish for her to be upset on your behalf. That it's all long in the past. I think she'll forgive me in time, but she's even more upset with my parents. What we told her tonight was a missing puzzle piece as far as a lot of questions she already had are concerned."

"She's asked before why your mum, your dad and me are all so weird around each other," she admitted "I said we're not, we just don't mesh, but she's not stupid. Me n' your mum put on as good a show as we can for their sake, but your dad…well. Your dad is your dad."

"She doesn't want to see them for a while. So she can come to terms with all of this."

"They'll blame me for that," she replied mildly.

"I won't let them."

"They still will."

Draco couldn't much argue with that, so he only sighed.

"Are you alright?" Marilyn asked.

"She's still talking to me," he murmured "She doesn't hate me. It went as well as it could have."

"She could never hate you."

"I would hope not, but I'd hate to take it for granted. My parents took my obedience that way, and look how that ended."

"We're not them."

"That I cannot argue with," he hummed "She wants space. Time. I can hardly refuse her that."

"I'll check on her before bed," Marilyn murmured "See if she needs help mapping out battle plans."

Draco snorted, leaning back on the sofa and pulling her closer as she snuggled against him.

"We have to do this all over again in a couple of years, too. With Caelum. If not sooner, considering those two hardly keep a thing from each other."

Like any siblings they did bicker, but they'd been lucky so far in that more often than not their children were thick as thieves. He wasn't sure he'd be able to stand it if they were the sort who were always well and truly at one another's throats. Although there'd be time enough for that when their teenage years set in, but he hoped things would continue more or less how they'd started.

"Yes, but then he'll be able to talk it through with Evie, too. She'll have come to terms with it by then. She's just unlucky, being the oldest. There isn't a map for her to follow."

"I know something of that."

He tried to take comfort in the fact that it was less of a generational curse than being a Malfoy typically offered until recent years.