Aria: Hey there! Yes, I am still alive, it was just a writer's block that had me stumped for a bit there, but I'm back :).

I was wanting to get people's opinion about whether this story should be rated 'T' or 'M', please let me know what you think!

I don't own HP, just the OC's and story ;)

Enjoy!

Chapter 7 – Malfoy

~ 26th October 2027 Sunday ~

One thing was certain. Time spent in the bathroom was something I always took for granted, until you have kids. Rose was in the bathroom while Lyra banged on the door.

"Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!" she whined, slowly descending to crying.

Rose rubbed her hands over her face and took a deep breathe, "Yes sweetie I will be out in a minute!"

The crying behind the door became louder and there was more hitting of the door. Rose flushed the toilet and looked at herself in the mirror while she washed her hands. She looked like a perfect Halloween zombie. Great, now all I have to do is audition for a movie with zombies and I'll pass with flying colours. She splashed water on her face and dried it before opening the door.

"See sweetie, Mummy's here," Rose bent down to pick Lyra up off the floor, but instead she crawled away and kicked her legs while she lay on the floor. Rose channelled her inner mother, "Now none of that, young lady."

Rose left Lyra to finish her tantrum and went to make herself some coffee.

Scorpius was sitting silently on Al's couch with his bandaged hand. Al sat on the adjacent armchair.

"Al, why didn't you write to me while I was in America?"

Al took a long sip of his black coffee then answered, "I did, but evidently you didn't get any of them so eventually I stopped sending them and trusted that you'd be fine."

"What I don't understand is that I sent Rose and your letters but I never got a reply. I thought you guys were mad, well Rose is still mad."

Al looked at Scorpius; he looked drained. "It means that somehow someone severed contact between you and everyone here."

Scorpius had a sudden look of surprise, "That's it! My father had something to do with this!"

Al nodded grimly, he knew what the next course of action was going to be, and it wasn't going to be pleasant.

"I have to talk to him. He arrives back from America with my mother and sister today." Scorpius grimaced at the thought.

"Alright, let's go," Al stated standing up.

Scorpius stood also, "Thanks Al."

"No problem, now let's go, time's wasting."

They flooed to Malfoy Manor and were greeted by the house elf, Daisy. Although she had been officially released from any obligation to stay, she had been serving the Malfoy family for generations and preferred to stay. She was allowed days off and other advantages of staying also.

"Welcome back young master and Albus Potter," Daisy greeted.

"Thank you, Daisy," Scorpius smiled as they dusted off the soot.

"Hey Daisy," Al greeted.

"Are my parents back yet?" Scorpius asked Daisy.

"Not yet young master."

With a distinctive pop of appariation outside, it was almost uncanny timing. The first one through the front door was Astoria Malfoy followed by Octavia and Draco. Al almost tripped seeing how much Octavia had grown since he last saw her. Considering she went to Beauxbatons Academy his family didn't see much of her, yet Lily and Octavia get along swimmingly.

"Oh, Albus it's been too long," Astoria stated while leaning in for a hug.

"It has."

"Scorpius help your sister with the luggage," Draco directed.

"Before that, Father, I have to speak to you." Scorpius clenched his fists and everyone in the room could feel the tension emitting for the two men. They were staring at each other and had it not been a serious topic Al would have laughed to break the tension.

"Scorpius it can wait, we just arrived back, there are things to do," Draco sternly stated as he crossed his arms.

"No, it can't,"

After a long pause, Draco conceded, "In the study then."

The two walked off down the hallway.

"Well, I should start on dinner," Astoria headed for the bedrooms with a few bags.

In a monotone voice, Octavia stated, "It's going to be ugly."

She was right, Scorpius and Draco never had any fights that didn't end in shouting and cursing.

"But of course, it's the best time to eavesdrop," Al smirked.

"Naturally," Octavia grinned slightly.

Draco sat at the desk as Scorpius stood in front of it.

"Father I want to know if you prevented my friends from contacting me while we were in America."

Draco brought his hand to his chin and stroked it thoughtfully. "Yes."

"Why? Why would you force me to leave Hogwarts without any notice and cut ties with all my friends?"

"I didn't have time for niceties, and the cutting ties was for your own good. I didn't know how long we were going away for."

"That's just an excuse, and why in the world would you send a letter to Chelsea Nott of all people, telling her we were engaged?" Scorpius' voice gradually became louder and louder.

"All you have to know is that I do things for a good reason and that's it. Now go and help your mother make dinner." Draco commanded in a dismissive tone.

Scorpius was surprisingly quiet until he said, "Don't try and pull the fatherly responsibility with me. I have a three-year-old daughter, that I only found out about last week. I could have been there for her if I had stayed here."

Scorpius stormed out of the room, almost running over Al and Octavia at the door.

"Al I'm staying over at yours for a while, let's go."

As Scorpius walked away, Octavia grabbed his wrist, "Scorp, I think that we should ask about the reasons, there's something else going on."

"I don't care, Avia," Scorpius pulled his arm away and kept walking.

The front door opened and Esme called, "Rosie! Guess what I have!"

Rose didn't bother to look up from her book and said, "If it's another Billywig then you can take it back to where you found it."

"Pfft no it's not a Billywig, but it is photos I found from years ago." Esme sat down next to Rose on the couch.

There were photos of Rose and her cousins during Hogwarts. One's from first year when Rose had frizzy hair and onwards.

"Look this one is Hugo and Lily when they started."

"They look so little." They laughed.

"This one was when we went to the Quidditch finals in fourth year, remember how the day before you tried a spell to tie your hair back but it made your hair pink."

Esme chuckled, "And I had to get a teacher to reverse it and got detention."

The detention slip was even in there too.

Name: Esme Cotton

Date: 5 March 2021

Reason: Inappropriate use of experimentation with spells, resulting in changed hair colour. Luckily reversible.

Duration: 1 week

Teacher signature: Professor Abbott

There was a photo of all of her cousins at the end of her last year of Hogwarts at the station taken by their parents no doubt. She couldn't help but notice how heavily pregnant she was when the photo was taken.

"I remember that photo was taken three weeks before you gave birth to little Lyra." Esme smiled warmly. Rose remembered it as an interesting year, to say the least. I can't even fathom how I managed to graduate.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw a photo with a certain blonde in it. She was drawn to it. Scorpius was giving Rose a funny-looking piggy-back on the Quidditch pitch, they were all rugged up and laughing. A smile appeared on Rose's lips, it made her remember that Scorpius and she had actually been great friends during most of her years at Hogwarts. She sighed, how did things turn out so messed up?