A/N: Just a little fluffy one-shot that came to me accidentally. Inspired by sleepygrimm, who picked these prompts: "You know you want it, sweetheart.";"It's just you and me tonight. I was thinking we could have a little fun."; "You're competitive and so am I, and it's going to lead to a fight."
Written for sleepygrimm, one of the kindest souls you can meet in the fandom.
Without niffizzle, this would be impossible to read and understand. She always finds time for me, even when she really has none.
Snape lives. I don't know what he's doing at Hogwarts, but he's there and teaching whatever.
"You know you want it, sweetheart."
James giggled.
"Say 'Aunt Hermione', little pumpkin!"
More giggling and a bit of spit bubbled up from James as he laid on his back in the Potters' living room.
"Hermione, he's nine months old. It's a bit much for him to say your complicated name, isn't it?" Harry laughed at his son's godmother, who was stretched out on the carpet next to James.
"Hush, Harry. The books clearly state that it is important to expose babies to adequate adult language. This way, he will learn how to talk much faster."
"And that's why I asked you and not Ron to take care of Jamie tonight. Ron can't change a nappy, while you probably wrote a thesis on early child development to prepare for this." Harry adjusted his tie in front of the mirror, his formal robes neatly folded over his arm. "I am sorry this came up at such short notice, but Robards called in sick this morning and with me being the Deputy Head Auror I had no choice to represent the Department at this function."
Hermione got up from the floor and swooped up James. "No problem, Harry. I finished grading all my papers anyway, and Minerva had no problem letting me stay away from the castle for the weekend." And it wasn't as if she had plans for the evening except for having a drink with Neville and Severus in the Restricted Section. It was a weird ritual they had developed, but, like so many other unexpected things after the war, it helped them cope.
To the baby, she said, "It's just you and me tonight. I was thinking we could have a little fun."
Of course, James giggled at Hermione's words. Or maybe it was because he had spotted some curls that had escaped from her ponytail and found them excellent material to pull at. Who knew with babies?
"His concept of fun includes warm milk and many cuddles."
"We will manage, Harry. Don't worry."
"Oh, Hermione!" came a surprised voice. Ginny walked down the stairs and gave the other witch a hug, expertly untangling the brown curls from her son's little fists.
"Hi, Ginny. Are you really surprised to see me?"
"Well," the red head looked a bit sheepish, "I must have misunderstood my dear husband on the mobile. Darling, didn't you say Hermione wouldn't be able to come?"
"No, I clearly said Hermione would gladly come babysit."
"Darn, the noise in the background was too loud, it seems. I also asked one of my teammates to take care of James."
Harry groaned. "Ginny, don't say you asked-"
Before Harry could finish that sentence, however, the Floo flared up and out stepped a wizard that was too well known to Hermione.
"Good evening, Red."
"Hello, Draco."
Ignoring Hermione's open gasping, the Seeker of Ginny's team and favourite colleague (as said above: weird things had happened after the war) pressed a kiss on Ginny's cheeks and gave Harry a friendly handshake.
"It seems we double-booked the babysitters this evening," Ginny admitted. "I am terribly sorry, but we have to go now. You can sort this out yourselves, can't you?"
Harry hugged Hermione, whispering, "I am so very sorry. I owe you."
"You owe me big. And considering I've saved your life several times, that's saying something," Hermione hissed between clenched teeth.
Ginny pulled her husband into the Floo, throwing one last, "Don't kill each other! Milk for Jamie is under a Stasis Charm in the kitchen!" to a flabbergasted Hermione and a very straight standing Draco. And then, they disappeared.
Hermione looked at Draco. Draco looked at Hermione.
She glared. He smirked.
"Alright, so how are we going to do this?" he asked, his hands stretching out to transfer Jamie into his arms.
"We? I don't think it would be a good idea if we both stayed." Hermione tried to keep her tone friendly despite the condescension in it. After all, babies were supposed to be very sensitive to the moods around them.
"Why not? We could exchange some stories. I don't know much about what you've been up to since the war."
Sadly, Hermione couldn't say the same about him. Ginny and Harry sometimes couldn't stop talking about Draco Malfoy, the redeemed bad boy, oh-so-talented Seeker, generous sponsor of the Hogwarts rebuilding, significantly changed man since school, blah blah. Blah.
James now flapped his little arms, smiling at Draco. Hermione didn't like that one bit.
"You're competitive and so am I, and it's going to lead to a fight." There, that should end the discussion. Though, James had started squealing now, so she reluctantly let Draco take him. His hands brushed against hers in the process, and she caught a whiff of his shampoo or whatever expensive concoction he used. Male, delicious, too attractive. "Wouldn't you rather spend the evening going out with one of your conquests?" She distracted herself from taking another sniff of him.
"No, there's no place I'd rather be than here," he deadpanned. "And a bit of healthy competition doesn't hurt, does it?"
"We will see, Malfoy. We will see." Hermione really wasn't proud of how... villainous that sounded. But something that Draco Malfoy exuded in overabundance made her want to stomp her feet and raise her wand.
He grinned, and Hermione had the impulse to hex him. Just because. She only refrained because he had James in his arms and the baby looked up at him in pure adoration. What happened to the genetically inbuilt dislike of Malfoys in the Potter and Weasley families?
"And it seems," the blond's nose wriggled in a devastatingly handsome way, "we have a start for our competition. Someone needs a clean nappy."
Hermione begrudgingly had to admit that Draco knew his way around a baby with a very full, very disgusting nappy. She gave the first point of this irrational game to him.
In return, he threw her a smirk that had her almost punching the wall.
She needed to win this. Seriously, she couldn't imagine herself being bested by Draco Malfoy in anything, not even babysitting!
Hermione felt her chance coming when it was time for Jamie's evening feeding.
"You're doing it wrong."
"How can one feed a baby a bottle the wrong way?" Draco wanted to know, perspiration already visible on his forehead. Little Jamie had been wailing for only fifteen minutes, and the former Slytherin was already at his breaking point.
"You're left-handed, yet you positioned him on your right arm."
"One baby point for keen observational skills," he drawled ironically, and Hermione smiled triumphantly.
"Of course, you can't know this, but when James was a wee newborn, he preferred Ginny's left breast."
Draco visibly swallowed. "Potter shooed me out of the room whenever the baby needed feeding back then. He said that even this strange friendship had borders one shouldn't overstep."
"Oh, really?" She cradled James in her arms, resting his head on her left arm. "I wouldn't know because Harry never had an issue with me staying while Ginny breastfed."
She cooed to James, who was greedily latching at the bottle.
There were maybe two minutes of silence when all that could be heard was the sound of
a baby contently nursing. Then…
"So Potter didn't throw you out? Does that mean you and him, maybe even Ginny, have already stepped over this particular border of friendship and he has seen you stark naked?" he asked, leering just a bit.
"No!" she whisper-shouted, busy patting James' back so that he would burp. "It means that I am one of Harry and Ginny's oldest friends and was there when strawberry week visited thirteen years old Ginevra for the first time." She almost grinned at Draco's slight blush and decided she would not stop there. "Who do you think explained Ginny how to use tampons? Her six brothers?"
The blush climbed up to his cheeks. Merlin, that was downright adorable.
That point was hers.
"You know, it is actually quite easy. First, you remove the plastic from the tampon, then-"
Draco groaned, hiding his face in his hands. Yes, definitely a win for her.
The next round, bringing James to bed, was unfairly won by Draco.
Unfair because Hermione had never expected that he could sing.
Or that seeing him rock James while singing to the baby with a beautiful baritone voice could truly captivated her.
It was unfair how utterly attractive Draco looked, his platinum blond hair a stark contrast to Jamie's black, the strands of hair softly mixing as the baby pressed his head into the crook of the man's neck.
She snorted very quietly and pushed herself away from the doorframe she had been leaning against.
Still huffing, Hermione plopped down on the sofa and reached for the TV remote control.
An hour and a half later, Hermione and Draco were on their third episode of Scrubs.
Draco had chosen this DVD from the Potters' collection after he had won a skirmish over the remote control due to unfair Quidditch player skills like good hand-eye coordination and strong, toned arms. Toned, unfairly strong arms.
"The two of them are flirting so heavily it reminds me of my parents," Draco commented on Carla and Turk on the screen. "Just before they sent me away and retreated to the Master bedroom. The things I heard from there when they forgot to cast a silencing charm once…" He shuddered as if to clear his head.
Hermione blinked, imagininging Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy talking, no, outright flirting dirtily with each other, and started laughing hysterically.
"You have a surprisingly loud laugh," Draco observed, an eyebrow raised. "Can't remember that I ever saw you doing that."
She stopped abruptly, a comment on her lips about how he never gave her any reason to or that they were too busy pointing their wands at each other. But she swallowed those words down, their weird situation too precious, too harmless to unload their past on it.
And when he genuinely smiled at her, saying that he should tell her about his parents' sexcapades more often if it makes her laugh like that, she knew she had made the right decision.
Then, James decided it was not okay to be in his crib all alone when he awoke and started crying.
Hermione carried the whimpering baby to the living room, cradling it in her arms. Sitting down, she felt Draco's eyes on her while she patted Jamie's back and rocked him.
"We should talk," Draco whispered.
"Should we?" Hermione didn't exactly know what he was getting at.
"Yes. Philomena Snotnose's 'Happy Baby - Happy Magic' clearly explains how much babies quiet down when they hear adult voices, calmly conversing. It gives them a sense of security."
Hermione couldn't contain her snort of laughter. "Who are you and what have you done with Draco Malfoy?"
He answered with a chuckle of his own and started talking, foregoing his initial whispering. "Then let's have some small talk. I heard you're teaching at Hogwarts?"
"Yes," Hermione replied. "I'm teaching Potions." He raised an eyebrow, cueing her to explain. "Why Potions? Well, it was the only subject a certain blond Slytherin Prince bested me in, and this circumstance made me study so hard that I found my calling in teaching it."
He hinted at a bow by lowering his head. "You are welcome. Although, I never expected to leave such an academical impression on you in our school days."
"It isn't entirely a compliment, just so you know," she felt the need to justify. "You weren't exactly a ray of sunshine back then."
Draco stared at her, expression frustratingly neutral, for some time. Then, he said, "No, I certainly wasn't. But when my presence indirectly led to the circumstance that pupils at Hogwarts today have an excellent and talented Potions professor, then my existence has had one good purpose."
"You forgot beautiful." She tried overplaying the sudden seriousness in his voice.
"That goes without saying." He smirked, and Hermione could think of at least ten witty reactions to that.
Instead, she said, "Hey, I hear your name more often than Harry's from my Quidditch crazy sixth year Ravenclaws. Seems you're a pretty good Seeker."
James had indeed calmed down and peeked up at Hermione from his half-closed eyes.
"Naturally." Hermione rolled her eyes at his arrogance. "But I'm thinking about taking up another position that has been offered to me," Draco continued.
"As a trainer?"
"No, as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts."
She stopped rocking Jamie, who was almost asleep by now. "I understand that in the past the standards have been pretty low, but you don't qualify for that."
Draco's smirk broadened, triumphant and a bit smug. "Dear Granger, do I sense a bit of pretentiousness in your voice?"
She blushed. Even though she recognised he was teasing, she knew he was right.
"Quidditch is a hobby, and I always knew that I would only do it for a few years. I'm actually a qualified Master in Defense." She blushed even harder, resuming her rocking as a distraction. "Did you really think I'd waste my intelligence by playing Quidditch my entire life?"
"Now who is pretentious?" she fired back. "Look at Ginny, your favourite teammate. Is she too dumb to do anything besides playing Quidditch in your opinion?" Her words were delivered less calmly than expected, and James immediately frowned and made noises like a displeased Bowtruckle.
Draco reached over, cupping the baby's head and lightly drawing circles on it. James instantly relaxed again and leaned into the touch. Hermione tried to ignore that this move had Draco's and her thighs and arms resting against each other.
"Yes, little wildcat, look at Ginevra. She's got keen observational skills, so maybe a reporter is what she'll become eventually?" He was right. Being the youngest child in the family, Ginny had often taken her time to observe and learn from her older brothers, making it easier for her to read and write, for example. "And I can't imagine her wanting to stick to the dangerous job of a Quidditch player for too long. Especially not since this little pumpkin probably won't be her last one."
Hermione blinked, processing his words. "Damn," she muttered under her breath, "You might be right."
He smiled at her admission but didn't deepen the topic.
"Master of Defense, you said? I need some references."
And Draco delivered. In a soothing, velvet-like voice to appease Jamie, he filled Hermione in on the parts of his curriculum vitae she hadn't witnessed first- or secondhand. To her surprise, he was an excellent storyteller, entertaining her with several funny anecdotes. All the while, he didn't stop his mission to put James back to sleep.
She was honestly impressed by the depth of his academic knowledge and his rapturous interest in teaching. In the end, and Hermione had no idea how much time had passed by then, they agreed on having tea at Hogwarts to discuss the curriculum and prepare him for his interview with Minerva.
In the process of their conversation, she began to feel tired, lulled in by this voice and the baby's even breathing against her chest. "Or you could join Severus, Neville, and me for a stiff drink in the Restricted Section," she mumbled sleepily and smiled at Draco's confused expression. Then, she only felt the comfortable warmth of a male beside her head and Jamie snuggling against the both of them.
Ginny and Harry came home shortly after midnight and found their son happily snuggled on the sofa between Hermione and Draco, who were both as asleep as the infant.
"What do you think, Gin? Did your attempt at matchmaking work?" Harry inquired, not believing that she had accidentally double booked their babysitter for one second.
"Well, they haven't killed each other. That's progress considering their past, don't you think?" Ginny grinned.
Harry shook his head, still not thrilled about his wife's ideas. If Hermione ever found out, there would be hell to pay.
"Maybe we should focus on the next step: physical proximity." With these words, she lifted the fast asleep baby and cradled it into her arms.
Harry involuntarily smiled when Draco's arms, which had been cradling Jamie until that moment, reached out for the next available being - Hermione. Harry held his breath, but when Hermione allowed herself to be pulled into the blond wizard's embrace, releasing a comfortable huff, he was appeased. Since Hermione didn't do anything by halves, the witch even snuggled so deep into Draco that the upcurve of her lips was barely visible.
"Oh, Ginny, what did you do?"
"Sowing seeds to become godmother."
Harry only shrugged at that. "Let's make one thing is clear - we can't have them naming their children something horrible like… Hyperion or Scorpion or Cassiopeia."
A frown settled on Draco's face at the mention of the names. Harry thought he would agree with him on the atrocity of the Black and Malfoy names.
Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, born several years later inside the walls of Hogwarts, became Harry and Ginny's first godchild.