Author's Note: Hopefully the story is getting better now that it's going where I wanted it to go. Unfortunately, this chapter is a filler. Thanks for keeping with me. JKR totally owns everything you recognize. Happy Reading!



"I don't wanna live without you

I love the way we stay up late

The way you laugh at your mistakes

I love everything about you"

"Come Back to Me"-Plain White T's

Chapter Fourteen: Back to Where We Were

"Mr. Malfoy, I suggest you leave." I could hear Minerva saying as I started to regain consciousness. I opened my eyes and noticed that I was in her office and not in the hospital wing as I expected. I was on a couch and Draco was standing in front of me as if he were standing guard.

"I have some business to discuss with my son." Lucius replied.

"You should take it up with him over the break. Family matters come second to my students." Minerva let him know firmly.

"Father, you should go."

"This discussion is not over."

"Are they ever?"

"Do not take that disrespectful tone with me."

"I'm twenty-two years old, Father. I will make my own decisions. Now please leave."

"Fine, but as I said, this is not over, and your Halfblood trash is awake." He said as he left the castle.

Draco turned to look at me. He squatted next to me. "How do you feel?" He asked.

"Great, besides your father showing up with threats when we've only been back together for forty-eight hours."

"Well you have to be fine. Your sarcasm is still very much intact."

"Maybe you two would like to talk about this alone. You should see Poppy dear." Minerva suggested. We nodded and left.

"This is what I was talking about Draco. I don't want to be in danger again. I especially don't want the children in danger."

"I told you, I will handle it." He said sincerely. He took my hand and led me to Madam Pomfrey. She did a few check-up spells, and let me go because there was nothing wrong with me. I just had a shocked fainting spell. We walked down to Madam Moore's office and picked up the children. I watched them with an eagle eye. I was nervous that Lucius would jump out at any moment and take them from me. Both of them sensed my panic.

"Mummy, why are you so worried?" Medea asked as we neared our living quarters. Draco gave me a concerned look.

"Mummy's just had a hard day today. She's fine." He answered for me while taking my hand and whispering in my ear. "Calm down. You're scaring them."

I nodded my head in response and demanded myself to calm down. I said the password to my living quarters and we entered. Minerva had been overly generous with these living quarters. We had three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a common room area. As a first time teacher and only nineteen-years-old when I first got the position here, I told her I did not deserve all of this, but she refused to listen because I had a four-month-old daughter and was three months pregnant. I looked around the common room. It was the third place I've ever called home. The first two places both belonged to my father, one in the States, and one here. My father had been sad to hear that his daughter and granddaughter (we hadn't known about Scorpius yet) were not returning to the Mallerd Estate in the northern Chicagoland area when I graduated. He had really hoped that I would do the same as he did, go to Hogwarts and then return to the U.S. and live with the rest of the family. My grandmother and grandfather also lived at the Estate. It was the natural order of things.

"Jordayna?" Draco asked in a voice that made me realize I must have been lost in my thoughts.

"I'm sorry I was thinking. What's up?" I asked as Scorpius came to my side.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine. Just lost in my thoughts, everything is so different from what I had envisioned for my life."

"Tell me about it. We'll put the children to bed and you can talk to me." He mentioned just as I shook my head. Both of them started to cry and whine that they were old enough to stay up longer. Yeah, my two toddlers were old enough to stay up past eight. I doubt it.

"You shouldn't have mentioned bed, because now they'll be determined to stay up. I have this tendency to lure them to sleep and carry them back to their rooms."

"Sorry."

"It's fine. They'll wear themselves out trying to stay up." I said as the two of them ran around the room protesting sleep. It took them about forty-five minutes before they both fell asleep on the sofa. I bent over Scorpius.

"No, let me." Draco said as he scooped up the mini-version of himself. He followed me to Scorpius's room. Inside, there was a small bed with rails on the side not touching the wall. It was a vivid green. He set his son down and covered him with the black blanket with a silver etching of a dragon. I saw Draco eye it.

"He chose it." I said in my defense.

"Must have been hard for you to see him everyday, and not think of that year." He mused.

"It was." I answered simply as I brought Medea into her room. It was a slight contrast to the dark and strictly Slytherin room that my two-year-old son had demanded. It had pale orange, pale green and silver with black here and there.

"She is your daughter." He said with a slight smirk. I lost thought for a moment. I had forgotten how that simple act could affect me. I set Medea down on her own bed. It was a black frame (including rail…she insisted she didn't need it, but as a mother I had a right to worry) holding up a mattress covered in a pale green and orange cover. I gently glided the blanket up to her chin. She moved a little in her sleep and mumbled something. "Sleeps like you too. I remember exactly how you would move and talk in your sleep. You did it so much in those three months between Valentine's Day and your birthday that year."

I nodded. I missed him now that he brought it up. I had gone back to not sleeping the moment he left my life.

"I'm going to grab something to change into from my quarters. Get something comfortable on and we will talk. I know I said I had some catching up to do with the children, but I have some to do with you too." He instructed as he headed out of the portrait hole.

I went into my room, and grabbed some pajamas from the wardrobe. I had put on a pair of green pants and an orange camisole. It wasn't exactly a matching ensemble, but it was extremely comfortable. I had just sat down on the couch with two glasses of pumpkin juice sitting on the table, when Draco came back in. He smirked when he saw what I was wearing. My breath hitched in my throat when I saw him. He was standing there in a pair of black sleeping pants, and a black T-shirt that hugged all the new muscles from being a skilled Auror.

"Glad to know I still can get that reaction from you, and as much as I would like to take advantage of it like the depraved Slytherin I am, we should talk." He said, and I could tell he really meant the part about taking advantage.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"What about whatever was on your mind earlier?"

"I don't know where to start. I mean my thoughts started with stuff long before I moved here."

"So tell me them." He insisted. Knowing that I would never get him off the subject, I decided I might as well give him what he wanted.

"I was just thinking of my life's progression. I was born to Lenni and Robert Mallerd, a Muggle and a wealthy pureblood in Chicago. My father really believed my mother was the only person in the world for him, except she found out what he was and hated him. They divorced when I was two. I think she still cared for me at that point. And I know you've met her, but I guess this is all relevant to my thoughts." I rambled, feeling stupid for describing my mother when he knew her.

"No, it's fine. Continue." He replied.

"Well, my mother decided she didn't want to have anything to do with my father, and that she would not move to London when the time came for me to attend the 'freak' school as she put it. For ten years, I lived in the Mallerd Estate with my father, grandfather, and grandmother, and spent some weekends and summers with my mother, stepfather, and siblings. When I turned ten we moved here, and at first I was devastated. I mean we have a mansion here, you've seen it, and it's not bad. Every Mallerd lives in it from ages ten to eighteen as they attend Hogwarts, but I loved Chicago so much. It was all I had ever known. And then that July day came when I received my Hogwarts letter, and suddenly I wasn't so scared. My father had told me that I would be a great witch someday and maybe even get a great job. I've always been ambitious and the very first thing I wanted to do was be a part of the American Wizarding Government. Teaching hadn't crossed my mind until that year. Anyways, first year, as you well know, I was sorted into Slytherin, which I was ecstatic about until I got to know you jerks. I remember feeling like I had two heads most of the time. I spent a majority of my time in the library, reading. I stayed away from everyone, wishing once again that I was home. You didn't make it any easier. I'd come back to the common room before curfew, and there you would be ready to make a snide remark about the Halfblood that acted like the Mudblood. You said the only dignity I had left was I still didn't talk to Granger. Pansy spent most of her time scoffing at me too. Second year, we had one run-in. It was the day that Hermione had been attacked by the Basilisk." I said with a shiver as I remembered it.

"I remember." He said ashamed.

"Third year, I became more interested in Quidditch. It was the only sport to watch here, even if it did mean watching people fly." Another shudder coursed through my body and he lightly touched my arm. "I became an avid supporter of our team even if all of you hated me. That same year Daddy met and married Kathleen. I finally didn't have to worry about him being alone anymore. I never thought he would forget my mother. Then in our fourth year, something remarkable happened at school. Theodore Nott noticed me. He had asked me to the Yule Ball and everything seemed wonderful. You no longer noticed me enough to pick on me, and the Tri-Wizard Tournament was going on and I was now openly rooting for Harry. I had gotten to know them a little more after that meeting with Hermione in the library. Theodore didn't seem to mind, probably because the only people that knew we were dating were people who paid attention to me. Theodore didn't really make it known that he was dating the Slytherin Halfblood from America. Pansy stopped making life miserable for me for a few moments. I started to think seriously about becoming a member of the AWG. I even had thoughts of some day running it. Then Cedric died. I didn't know what to make of that. I was concerned about my family, but Daddy had said it had nothing to do with us. I believed him. When I got back to school fifth year, I broke things off with Theodore, and well you know the rest of that story. I sat in silence that sixth year as I watched you wrestle with something in your mind. Little did I know you were thinking of murdering the beloved headmaster. I'm glad I didn't know. I don't think I would love you now if I had known then. And you know about seventh year mostly, because you lived in the Heads' dormitory with me that year, up until the war. Finally, my whole life changed that eighth year of school." I had started to cry when I got to this point. He just pulled me into his lap and let me continue. "I started out the year doubting you, until Harry said it would be fine, and you apologized that first night. Then I realized I had feelings for you that night we fought over maturity. Then the stuff with Theodore happened, and then your father and I knew that I was not good enough for you now that you had grown up. I was an unwed mother of a child conceived from rape, and your father would kill you knowing you were with me. I made my mind up about leaving you once I had the baby sometime in March. Of course I did not know that Medea was going to grace me with her presence sooner than later. I got drunk that night, and all I can remember from the drunken haze was wanting to be with you one last time. Because of that night, I had Scorpius. I wouldn't trade either of my children for all the galleons in Gringott's, but it isn't where I expected my life to end up." I finished my story as tears fell lightly down my face. I wasn't sure why I was crying. He caressed my arm.

"This isn't where I expected my life to be either. I was raised as Lucius Malfoy's son. This is not where my life should be." He said with enthusiasm. I finished my bout of tears there on my couch in his arms. I wondered if he remembered our usual exchange.

"Draco?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks." I said sincerely. I would know in seconds if he remembered.

"The pleasure was all mine." He answered with a grin. I smiled. We hadn't lost everything, just time.

"Will you do something for me?" I asked hopeful.

"Depends, if you ask me to not be in your life again, then I would say no."

"No, it's not that. I was wondering, would you mind staying with me tonight?" I could hear the desperation in my voice and hoped he couldn't.

"I was bloody well planning on it." He said standing and lifting me with him. He walked to the room he assumed was mine, and glided the door open with his foot.


By the time I set her down on her bed she was completely asleep. I had wondered if she were sleeping, but now I know she wasn't. Her eyes were a pale green-blue color and I remembered she had said that meant she was tired. I thought about everything she told me this evening, and it was interesting to see my younger self through her eyes. I was an awful child. Then again I was raised by the second meanest wizard in the world. She stirred in my arms, muttering something unintelligible. I watched her sleep for about another hour before I decided to fall asleep next to her.

When I woke the next morning she was up staring at me like she had been that morning after the Halloween Ball.

"It never failed to amaze me." She said.

"What?"

"That you always woke up ten minutes after me."

"You shifted, I could feel it."

He was sitting with Nott.

"What do we need?" Nott asked.

"We need her."

"What about my daughter?"

"You can have the little rat. I do not need another child. Draco was enough and now he is a disappointment. I just want her. I just want to steal what she has."

"Draco?" She asked concerned. It pulled me out of the vision. The last time I had one was when I was with her.

"Sorry. Still kind of asleep." I assured her.