A/N:Thank you for all the reviews. Hope you enjoy Ch 5 let me know what you all think. PS. Congrats to my two best friends on their new belt in Karate.
The morning of the first day of classes Draco got up to go for his run and was surprised to find Hermione not Laykyn sitting at the bar. "Where's Little Granger?"
Hermione smiled "She was so nervous last night about starting school she started feeling sick so I let her sleep with me. She tossed and turned all night. I don't think she got any sleep. I was letting her stay in bed a few more minutes."
"She's that nervous? She is miles ahead of where she should be. I have seen her read books that I wouldn't have dreamed of reading till I was at least 8."
She laughed.
Her laugh was almost musical. Were her eyes always that rich of a brown?
"I know," Hermione shook her head. "I don't know that anyone is as driven as her. I wasn't even trying to teach her to read. She just picked up a book and told me to show her how. She was barely 3."
"Sounds like she is on par to be the brightest witch of her age." Draco said studying Hermione, looking for a reaction.
Hermione bit her bottom lip trying to stop the smile that was starting to show. She was saved at that moment when her bedroom door opened and Laykyn shuffled in her thumb in her mouth and her stuffed lion dragging behind her. "Good morning, baby." Hermione knelt down and scooped up the little girl and sat her on the bar. Laykyn snuggle closer to her mom. "You ready to start school?" Laykyn shook her head. Hermione and Draco chuckled. "Well ready or not today is the day," she kissed Laykyn's curls.
The smile left Draco's face. He took a deep breathe she was right, ready or not today was the day. Draco went back to his room deciding to skip his run the morning.
As After they finished breakfast in the great hall, and Hermione walked Laykyn to her class. Laykyn had her school robes on and had her backpack hanging off her shoulder. She had wanted to bring her lion with her but rethought it as she would be spending all day with James and he would undoubtedly pick on her if she needed a stuffed animal to get her through the day. The primary classes were being held on the second floor. Just one staircase easy to get to. When Hermione and Laykyn walked in Laykyn took in her surroundings.
There were four small tables were set up around the room with three to four chairs set up at each. On the tables in front of each chair was a paper name tag. There were centers set up around the walls, one had a junior potion kit in it with very basic supplies and ingredients, another was set up like a like a house with muggle and wizarding options, there was third with toy wands and "spellbooks", another had blocks and Legos. The walls were covered in colorful posters and number charts.
Laykyn shifted her feet nervously. Hermione knelt down so she was eye level with her daughter. "You are going to be fine, baby. Have fun and just be you. I will see you tonight." She ran a hand down the light brown curls so much like her own.
Laykyn wrapped her arms around her mother's neck, "please don't leave me."
She returned the hug. "You are gonna be just fine. It's only a few hours and Ms. Delacour has a lot of fun things for you to do today." At the last words she looked up at the beautiful blonde witch that was cautiously approaching.
Gabrielle crouched down beside them. "Hello," she said her French accent nearly non-existent. "You must be Laykyn. I believe you know my niece Victoire." Laykyn nodded slightly. "She has told me so much about you. Said you two built a giant fort out of pillows last summer and that she said you are quite the quidditch player."
A smile split across Laykyn's face and she began to tell Gabrielle all about the fort that Uncle Bill had help her and her cousins build and all the games she and her cousins had played at Grandma and Grandpa Weasley's. Gabrielle took her hand and they walked toward one of the tables. Gabrielle waved to Hermione as Laykyn continued her story.
Hermione stood in the doorway for a minute longer watching Laykyn interact before she headed to her classroom. She's growing up too fast, Hermione thought.
She arrived at her classroom thirty minutes before her first class. First was advanced transfiguration. 6th year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors. The notes from their teacher the previous year said that they were on the track for their NEWTs. She reviewed the pages from the textbook that they would be covering first. The students all filed in and took their seats.
"Good morning. And welcome to Advanced Transfiguration. I am Professor Granger and I hope you are all looking forward to this year as much as I am. According to your previous teachers you are all well versed in Transfiguring inanimate objects and animal transfigurations, so I thought we would start with Human Transfiguration. This is really advanced magic so please be patient. So find a partner and begin reading pages 36-38. After that we will begin with something simple. Changing the color of your partner's hair." She split the students up into partners and then moved through the pairs helping here and there and answering questions as they came up. By the end of the first class three kids had actually managed to change their partners hair color. Nothing major just a couple shades darker or lighter.
In another part of the castle Draco's first class wasn't going quite as well. He walked into find his classroom full. First class was second year Hufflepuff and Gryffindor. He walked to the front of the room, the students watched warily. He picked up a roll of parchment off his desk. He opened it and scanned the list of names.
"Ames, Anthony." A small red headed boy in the third row raised a shaky hand. Draco nodded and the boy shot his hand back down sinking as far back in his seat as possible.
"Ayres, Courtney" A brunette in the back row gave a feeble "Here."
"Burke, Jordan." No answer. "Jordan Burke?" Still nothing. "Burke, anyone here named Burke?" He scanned the room closely. Five rows from the back a small strawberry blonde was hiding behind her book and the girl next to her was elbowing her in the ribs. Draco walked toward the pair. "Ms. Burke?" She gave a tiny nod.
He finish checking the roll and looked at the second years. They looked terrified. Draco took a deep breath, "As you all know from last night I am Professor Malfoy. I believe that Defense against the Dark Arts is something that you can't learn purely from a book. It's something you need to practice. So I thought I would be a good first lesson to teach you all what some people believe is Potter's signature move." He reached in his robe and pull out his wand, the entire class seemed to dive under their desks. Choosing to ignore this he pointed his wand across the room at the dummy in the corner and shouted "Expelliarmus!" The fake wand in the dummy's hand flew high in the air, he reached up and caught it with ease.
Some of the bolder Gryffindors had begun to climb out from under their desks. "Anyone care to try?" Draco asked as he went to go place the wand back in the dummy's hand. When he turned back to face the class there a girl with strawberry blonde hair had her hand in the air. Draco smiled "Ms. Burke, come give it a shot."
He showed Jordan the exact wand moment and after a few tries the dummy's wand clattered to the floor. "Excellent," Draco smirked, "10 points to Gryffindor." After this success the others in the class began to relax they all tried the charm by the end of the class and about half had successfully cast the spell. It wasn't very strong but it had been right.
"Alright I want eighteen inches on the history of Expelliarmus and its use in famous duels to be turned in next Monday." The second years filed out of the classroom all talking excitedly. That went fairly well, Draco thought. The rest of the day seemed to fly by. All his other classes were like the first. It took a bit for them to warm up to him but once they did he couldn't have asked for a better first day. He looked at his schedule last class of the day was seventh year Hufflepuffs.
He pulled out a book on nocturnal beasts, he was going to start the seventh years with Vampires. As he reviewed his notes the Hufflepuffs filed in finding their seats. When the desks were full he began calling roll again as he had with every other class that day. Everyone answered when their name was called and Draco began his lesson.
Draco stared with a few passages from muggle books about vampires starting with Dracula,and The Vampyre then working his way through several decades of stories until he reached the laughable description of vampires in The Twilight Series.
A hand drifted lazily into the air. "I thought this was Defense Against the Dark Arts, not Muggle Studies."
Draco looked up from his notes, "I decided that learning what muggles believe about certain fantasy creatures", as they call them, would be an interesting way to approach these dark creatures, Mr?"
"Diggory. Nathaniel Diggory. You know thanks to you and your kind I never got to really know my cousin but I think he would agree with me that you being a teacher is a disgrace to this school."
Draco's eyes hardened. "I had nothing to to do with what happened to your cousin. I am very sorry that…"
Nathaniel cut him off, stand to face Draco. "Don't you dare!" His voice was a dangerous hiss. "What happened was he was murdered. And you are just as guilty as every other Death Eater. If it was up to me you would all be dead."
Draco fought to control his temper. "That's enough Mr. Diggory." He said his voice cold.
The boy whipped out his wand as fast as lightning and a gash formed on Draco's cheek and his left sleeve was torn from his robe revealing the dark mark on his arm. Fire flashed in Draco's eyes. "Detention, Mr Diggory. And 25 points from Hufflepuff."
Diggory glared at Draco. "Take as many points as you want. You are scum Malfoy. McGonagall only gave you this job out of pity. She's an old fool. You should be rotting in prison and Godric help me I will make sure you rue the day you were ever born." With that the boy swept from the room the rest of the Hufflepuffs followed.
Draco stood for a moment stunned. He focused on controlling his breathing. He might have escaped Azkaban he thought but he didn't escape punishment. He magically closed and locked the door to his classroom and collapsed into his chair. He wasn't sure how long he sat there. Images flashed through his mind, faces of victims. The screams of those he had tortured still echoed in his ears. Whether he had done it by choice or by force it didn't matter, both haunted his thoughts and his nightmares.
Finally Draco shook himself from the daze he had been under. He ran his hands over his face and felt the blood and the cut. He pulled out his wand and easily healed the wound and began to clean off the blood. He checked his face in the mirror on one wall. Back to normal. He used a spell to quickly stitch the sleeve back on his robe and left to find his way to his common room and a shower.
Draco emerged from the shower half an hour later to the unmistakable sound of laughter. How could anyone be laughing after all that has happened today? He slid on a green t-shirt to go with his pajama pants. He sighed deeply and opened the bathroom door.
"Mr. Draco!" Laykyn squealed tackling him in a hug. He returned the hug halfheartedly. "I drew a picture today," she tugged him over to the bar and proudly showed her work of art.
The drawing was entitled "My Family". In the center was obviously Laykyn holding Hermione's hand. There were two people to the right that were dressed in long white robes. "That's Grams and Poppy," Laykyn said pointing, "They are dentists, kind like a muggle healer, but they only work on teeth. And that," she pointed to two people with what looked like tiny reddish/blue squares in their hands. "That is GiGi and Gramps. They live in America. See the flags." Draco nodded and she continued showing him everyone else she had drawn most of which had red hair. Draco couldn't stop the laugh when she pointed to a figure with black hair laying on the ground. "That's James," she said anger flooding her voice.
"Why is he laying on the ground?"
"He laughed at my drawing and said it looked like a Hippogriff had pooped on the paper and then decided to play in it. I wanted to hit him but didn't want to get in trouble so I drew him after he had been hit by a bludger instead. "
Draco nodded admiring the work with a smirk. He liked this kid more everyday.
At that moment Hermione reappeared with two boxes in her hands. "We have time to play a game before bed," she said addressing Laykyn. "Candyland or Chutes and Ladders?"
"Candyland!" Laykyn scrambled from her chair and took the box from her mother's hand.
Hermione had been studying Draco since she had reentered the room. Something was wrong. "Go set it up on the coffee table I will be right there." Laykyn ran into the adjoining room and knelt in front of the couch and began to set out the game board and pieces. "Malfoy, what's wrong," Hermione asked tentatively.
Draco jerked out of his thoughts, "uh… nothing Granger. Just a long day."
She looked at him not quite believing him but nodded anyway. "Come on, Come play," she said holding out her hand.
Draco looked at her hand unsure. "What?"
"Candyland. Its simple and it will help distract from whatever is bothering you. Plus Laykyn would love it if you played."
Draco reluctantly stood up and took Hermione's offered hand and walked to the living room.