Chapter Four: Platform 9 ¾
Hermione looked at Draco, wondering if she had ever met him, but a crowd began to push through the aisle, pulling Miles with it. Draco called over the crowd to tell Miles to wait at the gate for him, but a group of businessmen began arguing over a deal was pulling them apart. He looked from Hermione to Miles, but was pulled along with Miles in the crowd.
By the time Hermione was able to fight her way into the crowd, after wondering what to do, Draco and Miles were on the other side of the gate looking for her.
"At least tell me you got his number." Hermione whipped her head around and looked at Ginny.
She shook her head slowly and looked around once more. "He said he was staying at the Leaky Cauldron." She looked at Ginny with an excited smile.
"Plus your daughter found out where his brother's going to school."
Hermione's eyes flew open and she clapped her hand onto Ginny's mouth. "Gin!" she hissed. Ginny was the only person Hermione ever told about Elina, though she actually found out on her own and became Elina's godmother when Flora was sent away to an all girls boarding school in France by her parents for the next three years. Hermione and Flora wrote to each other though until Flora's return two years after she was supposed to come home.
"Sorry Hermione," Ginny said when Hermione let her breathe again. "I still don't get why you still refuse to tell Harry and Ron."
"Because if I do then it might slip about you "accidentally" kissing Jacques while you were in Paris a year before you two decided to split." Hermione told Ginny.
"He already knows, Hermione." Hermione gaped at Ginny. Why would she have told Harry? "But it's your secret so it's your choice. Now back to hottie."
"Drake."
"Hot name."
"You sound like we're still in school," Hermione said, rolling her eyes.
"Back to Drake. Hermione, you have to get out there and-"
"Oy, girls, we're going!"
Hermione and Ginny looked over at Harry, Ron, and Selene with the girls. Elina had Stella on her back and was jumping around in circles as if trying to make the small girl fall off. She was disappointed about having lost Drake, but she knew where he was going to be staying for the next few weeks. Maybe they would "bump" into each other.
"So where are we off to first?" Hermione asked.
"Harry thought that since Luna is going to be working until six we could all go back to Ron's house and relax so we can go out for dinner," Elina said, putting Stella into the cab.
"Well as long as the word 'relax' is part of our plans…" Hermione said, getting into the front seat. With Stella sitting securely beside Elina, the taxi drove off to Ron's house twenty minutes away. Ron, Ginny, Harry and Selene apparated to get there more quickly.
Ron's house was a modestly large, two story house with six bedrooms where everyone stayed when they were all together, despite Ginny's flat thirty minutes away and Harry's house down the block. Whenever they didn't have enough rooms they would use magic.
"Daddy!"
A small, three-year-old girl and boy walked into the entrance hall of the house. They both had sandy-blonde hair and a candy bar in hand.
Ron got on one knee and grabbed his fraternal twin children in a big hug.
"There's the terrible two!" Ron exclaimed. "How were you two for mommy while Stella and I were away?"
"Mommy's fat!" Tammy, the girl, said with a mischievous smile.
"Well that is because mommy is popping out another one of you monsters," Ron told them.
"I wanna be Frankenstein! Roar!" Peter, the boy, broke his candy bar in half and held the two pieces on his neck and began to walk around the house like Frankenstein's monster.
"That's Frankenstein's monster dummy," Stella said from the doorway.
Elina and Hermione walked in with their bags and picked up a twin each.
"And how have you been little Peter?" Elina asked.
"I'm not little! I'm Frankenstein!" Peter yelled.
"And a very scary mad scientist at that."
"Luna! Are you home?" Ron called out.
"I'm in the kitchen!" Everyone heard. A small, blonde woman waddled into the hall and kissed her husband.
"Watch it," Ron joked. "You could put an eye out with that stomach."
Luna playfully slapped his arm before going over to hug her old friends.
"Hello Harry. How's the team?"
"Well if you would come over and see a game you would see how wonderful he is," Selene told her, not meaning to be rude.
"Sorry Selene if running daddy's magazine, which by the way is now ranking number three in the country, and raising four kids with another on the way is getting in the way of catching your fiancé's game, which I have covered by a big fan of Harry's to ensure that nothing negative is said about him or the team," Luna said with a tone of hostility. She never completely warmed up to Selene, like the other girls and Ron. She turned to Ginny and Hermione who were playing with her middle daughter. "So Gin, how's the public relations business?"
"Not bad," Ginny replied. "I just got a new client in the States so that's where I'll be for the next few months."
"Ah, a nomad, just like our little friend Hermione." Everyone in the room laughed except for Hermione, who only smiled.
"Well don't worry guys," she told them, "this year we will be in the same place and then back in September again and again. We're not flaking again." Everyone wooed and cheered. Hermione rolled her eyes at them.
"Hear hear!" Elina said. "I say dinner at the Cheesecake Factory!"
Everyone agreed. After Hermione and Harry introduced them all to Serendipity in New York they had become addicted to any muggle restaurant famous for anything desserts. They decided to take some time to relax, shower, and decide where they were going (A/N Does the UK have Cheesecake Factory?).
Four hours later they were seated at a booth in a crowded Cheesecake Factory catching up on everything since they last saw each other, thought they spoke at least once a week. The adults also reminisced about Hogwarts and down-talked about all other schools Hermione sent Elina to.
"I don't care how bloody high it ranks in academics," Ron began in the middle of his third piece of cake, "no school could ever teach you more than Hogwarts."
Harry nodded his head. "Where else can you find a Death Eater impersonating an auror to place you under an unforgivable?"
"Exactly," Hermione agreed, almost accidentally splashing Ginny's face, which was across from hers, with the Calypso Coffee in her hand.
"I said this seventh year, in university, at all of our weddings, and I will say it right now. Give me the alcohol, you can not hold it", Harry said with a serious smile, leaning over to take her drink.
"If you think that's something, remember your bachelorette party Ginny?" Luna said with a giggle.
Everyone looked at a red Ginny, who remembered the bachelorette party that they had…after promising Harry that they wouldn't.
With a sly smile to his ex-wife, Harry leaned over and whispered, "I just hope it was better than the one Ron threw for me," with a wink.
Selene pulled Harry's arm a little tighter around her shoulder and smiled. She knew about everyone's hostility in the beginning of hers and Harry's relationship and that everyone had been friends since school, but sometimes felt left out because of those reasons.
"So now that the ceremonial 'taking the alcohol away from 'Mione' has come and gone, let's pay the check so we can get the little ones to bed," Ginny said, trying to change the topic.
Everyone looked over at Tammy, Peter, and Stella were in a tangle off on the inside of the large booth beside Luna with their youngest sibling, one-year-old Damian, asleep in the stroller beside the only person to be able to get him to behave in a muggle restaurant, Hermione, on the end of the table.
"They look so innocent when they're not running around, high on sugar," Ginny said, knowing what trouble her nieces and nephews were capable of.
Ron rolled his eyes and replied, "as soon as I learn the spell, we are done."
"What do you mean we?" Luna laughed. "I don't see you squeezing eleven pounds of baby out of your vagina every year."
Mile walked around the bizarre shopping area. There were stores as far as the eye could see, all magical. Back home it was nothing like this. It felt like an outdoor mall where you could buy a flying broom.
"Okay, put your eyes back in your head kid," Draco said. He looked around at the old stores. They had been there his entire childhood, the last time he was there thirteen years ago. It was as though the only thing to have changed was him. "We're here to meet mum."
Miles knew why he had to pretend that his grandmother was his mother, in fact, until Draco moved them to Ireland, he thought that she was his mother. He even still thought that for two years after they moved there, as Draco didn't just throw it in his face and because he was too young to understand right away. Now they were having their first English meal in years with her after meeting her in the pub they were staying in. Draco had brought him to Diagon Alley a few minutes before they were supposed to meet her, though, as it was his first time seeing it.
"I thought I might find you two here," a warm voice said from behind them.
Draco turned around and swept his mother in a hug. It was no secret that she loved Lucius Malfoy and wasn't under a spell or potion when they married, but the transformation she made after his death to her old self did not go unnoticed throughout the magical community. Her blonde hair, now almost silvery, still flowed down her back and she still looked frail enough to break in two with just a hug, but she was stronger and had more of a light in her eyes.
"Mum!" Miles cried out. Despite knowing that his 'mum' was his 'gran', he still continued to call her 'mum,' especially after she told him several times that 'gran' meant that she was old, something that was an insult to a woman with her beauty. Something shared between grandmother and grandson were their vain and age jokes and comments Besides, she was like his mother. She was the one who raised him for the first years of his life. "How are you?"
"I'll be better once you give a young mother a better 'hello' than that." Miles chuckled and put his arms around her. "Much better. So how are you little bugger?"
"Taken from my home and friends, going into my fourth year where I will be able to insult people in another language without them knowing, not bad" Miles told her with a smirk.
"That's my boy." She looked up at his father. Oh, how her Draco had grown in these thirteen years. "And how are you professor?"
"Just hoping that this one doesn't get me into too much trouble this year," Draco replied. He held out his arm. "Now where are we off to milady?"
"I have reservations at a wonderful little Thai restaurant in twenty minutes. I thought we could have a quick drink first then apparate over, with Miles at my side, of course," Narcissa said, taking Draco's arm and leading them into the Leakey Cauldron. "And do not even think of protesting when I buy this one all of his school supplies tomorrow."
Elina woke up the next day bright and early to go into Diagon Alley. The first place she wanted to head out to was Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes where she got whatever she wanted for free if she could stump three pranks. She looked out the wet window and threw on a pair of baggy brown pants with a yellow Sugarlips tank top and threw her hair into a ponytail. The weather outside looked like it had just rained all night, but that wasn't going to keep her from going to Diagon Alley today. She and Hermione left in five days and no crummy looking weather would keep her from seeing her store-owner friends she made whenever she came to her birth-country.
Hermione, Harry and Ron were all already in the kitchen. As usual, Ron was eyeing the food Hermione was putting out on the table and Harry was reading the newspaper.
"So are you guys coming with us to Diagon Alley?" Hermione asked the boys.
"I have to go with Selena and Ginny to find a place for the wedding, but I'm sure I can sneak out by lunch," Harry said.
"You've only been engaged for five months," Ron aid, "are you sure you want to jump in and find a place so soon?"
Hermione rolled her eyes at Ron and Elina silently giggled from beside the door. "Ron, your sister, Harry's ex-wife, is okay with this wedding and is even the bride's maid slash wedding planner slash the one who suggested that she and Harry take time off," she turned around. "Let it go."
Ron crossed his arms on the table and mumbled into his forearms.
"That's what I thought now help me with this delicious breakfast," Hermione said as she pulled Ron up by his shirt and dragged him to the stove.
Harry laughed at his friends. He missed the days when they would just fool around, nothing serious, unless you counted having to fight Voldemort every year.
Elina thought that this was a good of a time as any to come into the kitchen. She greeted everyone 'good morning' in Italian.
"How many languages does this girl know?"
Miles woke up the next morning in his twin bed beside an open book he fell asleep reading. Mum (Narcissa) always gave him interesting books whenever he came to visit, constantly bringing down Draco's bringing 'culture' and 'literature' into the house, though she never truly meant it.
He sat up and groggily made his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth and take a shower, but when he looked at his dad's watch on the sink and saw that he had only thirty minutes before he had to be downstairs to meet with Narcissa to go for breakfast then school shopping.
After jumping on the other bed in the room, fighting over the bathroom and throwing on the first clothes he could find, Miles was out the door, locking it from the outside to run down to beat his father to the Leaky Cauldron, only to see that Draco apparated from the bathroom and was drinking a cup of tea.
"Took you long enough."
Miles sneered at the smug blonde and walked out with his two favorite people in the world.
The next five days were uneventful. Hermione brought Elina to Diagon Ally in hopes of seeing 'Drake' and Draco looked around in hopes of finding 'Mye.' They didn't call the other, not wanting to seem to needy or like they were trying too hard. Hermione picked up her phone many times and dialed the first five numbers several times before stopping, wondering what he wasn't calling her. Drraco, on the other hand, would stare at the phone, begging for it to ring. His divorce didn't scare him enough to be afraid, but something still held him back from making the first move, at least this time for some reason.
Harry, Ron, Luna and the children went with Hermione and Elina to Kings Cross on September 1st. Ginny and Slene had a mystery wedding appointment and couldn't come. Hermione and Elina made sure to hug everyone, as they would most likely not see them until the end of the school year and boarded the big train with the rest of the students.
"A teacher on the Hogwarts Express," Harry said so only Hermione and Ron could hear, "remind you of anything?"
The trio laughed and bid each other farewell once more before separating once again so that Hermione could move to another home.
Hermione threw a red robe over her black slacks and white button-up shirt (with the top three buttons undone, of course). She carefully fastened her gold necklace with a gold lion head with ruby eyes around her neck. The lion hung perfectly, ending right where her shirt buttons did.
"I'm going to go pretend to do something and find the heads. They're probably at the prefect meeting at the head of the train receiving instructions," Hermione told Elina. "Do you want to meet up later or something?"
"I think I'll go wander around for a while," Elina replied. "Maybe a boy will lose his toad and I'll meet my new best friends?" She flipped her long hair over her shoulder and walked away.
Hermione laughed and watched her daughter's retreating figure as it went down the train. Maybe she shouldn't have let Elina wear the baggy red miniskirt and yellow shirt outfit with the black shoes that made her look seventeen and foreign, she thought with a chuckle as she walked down the train in the other direction.
Miles jumped out of the limousine and grabbed his bag from the seat as Draco helped his mother out the door. Narcissa had to go to Pipperny Hall to help finish setting up for a fund raiser she was organizing for that night. With quick 'good-bye's, Draco and Miles were running late onto the platform and jumping onto the train less than a minute before the doors closed.
Draco had already spoken to Professor MdGonagall and had told her that he would patrol the train every so often for her on the way to the school. Miles left Draco almost immediately saying something that sounded like "Told Elina I'd meet her in compartment three."
Draco had never heard of an Elina, so assumed that he had misheard the boy and threw a black robe over his slacks and green button-up shirt before heading off to see if he could make the trip up more interesting than walking up and down a train. After fifteen minutes of having to avoid the older girls, though, he decided to hide away in one of the back cars and read a book.