Author's Notes: I was going to post this yesterday but the website seemed to be having a problem which meant I couldn't get into my account. New chapter will be up tomorrow since the last couple have been quite short!

Chapter 19: Parents

It really didn't take long until they were both slicked with sweat, clinging desperately to one another as they gasped against each other's mouths, occasionally kissing until they were forced to break apart again for air.

When Draco felt like his heart rate was somewhere approximately normal he used his wand to clean them both up and then leant his head back on the compartment wall, giving Isabelle a lazy grin.

"I think," he said, licking his lips thoughtfully, "That there's a lot to be said for sex on a train."

"Hmm." Isabelle seemed to have her eyes fixed on the wall of the compartment behind him, lost in her own thoughts. "This probably isn't the best time to say this Draco, but I apologise in advance for my father's behaviour."

"What?" Draco blinked in confusion.

"He doesn't know you're the Head Boy. In fact I told him…"

What she had told him Draco never found out because at that moment the train gave a jerk as it started to slow down for the approach to King's Cross. Draco glanced out the window in horror.

"Shit."

"Double shit!"

They both scrabbled at their clothes, pulling them back on properly and using their wands to repair the damage to their hair. For one brief moment just before the train reached the station Draco pulled Isabelle into his arms.

"See you after the holidays sweetheart," he drawled, and kissed her briefly before letting her go. She had given him that smile again just before she'd turned to leave. That wonderful, genuine smile that did funny things to his stomach.

There was no time now to think of such things. He flew back to his previously abandoned compartment, noting that his friends had already left and quickly charming his belongings to follow him down the train as he descended the steps.

He dragged his eyes over the crowds at the station, not seeing his mother anywhere. She had said she would meet him, but Draco hadn't been entirely sure it was a promise she would be able to keep.

"No, dad, you can't… What are you doing?"

A familiar voice assaulted his ears and he turned to see a dark haired man frowning as he bore down on him, with Isabelle almost having to jog to keep up with his long strides. The man was at least as tall as Draco as well as broader and quite frankly Draco would not have believed that the petite girl next to him was his daughter if it hadn't been for the fact that they shared some of the same facial features.

Looked like he'd been wrong a few minutes ago when he'd said he'd see her after the holidays, he was seeing her again right now and she was looking at him apologetically as her father swept his eyes up and down him as if evaluating his suitability.

"Who are you?" The man's voice was clipped and sharp, and Draco felt imperious rage surge through him. Who the hell did he think he was talking to?

"Draco Malfoy," he said coldly, drawing himself up and fixing the man with the haughtiest glare he could muster, "I assume you are Isabelle's father."

The man seemed slightly taken aback by this and his eyes snapped round to Isabelle who was standing besides him looking down at the floor. Draco looked at her too and had some trouble identifying whether she was amused, or scared, or a mixture of both.

"A pure blood," the man snapped at Isabelle, as if this was something both surprising and personally offensive to him.

"Indeed he is, Mr Fawley." Draco felt a hand on his arm and heard the cool voice of his mother as she appeared besides him. "The Malfoy's do not go around marrying muggles." She fixed Isabelle's father with a glare to rival Draco's, just as Isabelle jerked her head up.

"Mother!" Draco said, not in admonishment, but in shock at his mother's appearance. She looked thinner than she had done last time he'd seen her, her face tight and pinched, dark circles under her eyes, though none of these things did anything to lessen the force of her glare.

"Dad, please, leave it!" Isabelle was saying, tugging at her father's arm, "This is completely ridiculous."

"It is not ridiculous, Isabelle," Mr Fawley had now turned his attention back to the two Malfoys and was looking at them, Draco thought, as if they had crawled out of a sewer. "He might be a pure-blood but we all know what his family are, what their beliefs are."

"Dad!" Isabelle had blushed bright scarlet. It was, Draco was distressed to find, still devastatingly attractive on her, even when her father was insulting him. "I don't think that's a very sensible thing to say right now. You're being ridiculous," she repeated. She was looking around the platform, as if expecting someone to emerge from the crowds and arrest them for his impertinence. They all knew comments such as the one he'd just made were dangerous in times like this.

His mother and her father opened their mouths at the same time, but Draco, suddenly very much not wanting to hear them hurling insults at each other got there first.

"I agree. Completely ridiculous and totally unnecessary, Mr Fawley," he drawled, treating the man to another glare. "You have already insulted me and my family and I have nothing further to say to you. Your daughter's good breeding evidently does not come from your side of the family." He treated him to one last haughty stare, and before the implications of his statement could take root in either of their parent's brains he smirked at Isabelle and turned away, but not before he'd caught the smirk she was giving him back.

"Come, mother, let's go home," he said, and swept away down the platform, knowing that his mother would follow because she might be his mother, but right now he was the Malfoy heir and he knew he'd put enough of his inbred brattishness into his voice to have her obey him before she had thought about it.

Sure enough he had not gone more than a few steps before she was at his side.

"Do not speak to me like that, Draco," she snapped, and Draco sighed. The effect of his imperious voice had not lasted very long. It never did. "What did Mr Fawley want with you in the first place?"

"His daughter is Head Girl," he said, trying to keep his voice even and pressing his lips into a thin line, "He thinks I'm shagging her."

"Draco!" His mother sounded scandalised, and actually stopped walking for a second, forcing him to stop and raise his eyebrows at her until she resumed. "Do not let me hear you using such coarse language again," she rebuked, "And please tell me that you are not having relations with someone so unworthy."

"Oh please, mother." Draco rolled his eyes, knowing that she was referring to Isabelle's blood status.

"What is that supposed to mean, Draco?" His mother was eyeing him now with suspicion. Damn her for not being thrown off track easily enough! He pressed his lips together more firmly and luckily his mother decided to move on. "And by the way I've had a very distressed letter from Mrs Yaxley complaining of your behaviour towards her daughter. What have you been doing?"

Draco groaned. He could feel his mother's eyes boring into him as they strode towards the Apparation Point on the platform and he refused to meet her eye.

"Nothing, mother," he sighed, rolling his own eyes in what he knew was an overly dramatic way, "Honestly, the girl's a complete lunatic."

"Marissa is a very nice girl, Draco. Very suitable."

"Very suitable?" Draco choked out a bitter laugh, "Only if you're counting insanity as a qualification for being suitable."

"She is not insane, Draco," his mother responded stiffly, "And her mother complains that you threw her daughter into the corridor half naked, which is not the behaviour I expect from my son. What exactly were you doing?"

"Oh bloody hell, mother," he snapped, because seriously, was she really expecting an answer to that?

"I will thank you not to use that language with me, young man," she snapped back, "And you will take this a little more seriously. There are a limited number of girls who are suitable candidates for marriage and I will not have you blowing your chances with all of them even before you have even left school."

"Oh for Merlin's sake, mother, have you heard yourself?" he said, elbowing a sixth year out the way as they joined the remains of the crowd using the Apparation Point, "I'm perfectly capable of looking after my own life, including finding someone 'suitable' to marry when I'm older."

"I'm finding that very difficult to believe at the moment Draco," she replied, eyeing him reproachfully, "And indulging in sexual relations with a half blood is not the way to convince me otherwise."

"Mother!" Draco realised he'd said that just a little too loudly when several people turned to look at them and he dropped his voice, "Will you please stop talking about my sex life. You're my mother!"

"Exactly." She was pressing her lips together now in a thin line. "Which is why I am talking about it. I just want what's best for you. I want you to make sensible decisions. Decisions that keep you safe. And when I hear tales of influential people's daughters being slung naked into the corridor it makes it very difficult for me to believe you are capable of making those decisions."

"Enough, mother!" Draco felt suddenly and irrationally angry about the whole thing, not least at himself because he just couldn't bring himself to think about any of the other girls he'd slept with right now. "This conversation is over."

He stepped onto the Appartion Point, grabbed hold of his floating trunk and twisted on the spot, disapparating instantly and resigning himself to two weeks in the waking nightmare that was his home.