Author's Note: I own no person, no place, no thing – except the plot! If you recognize it, it probably belongs to Ms. Rowling or some other awesome super-human.

Chapter 21 Draco Malfoy's Family

"Good God, your toes are freezing, Little Girl." Draco tried to shift away from Hermione's questing feet as much as he could without falling to the floor. It was Christmas Eve, and the two occupied opposite ends of the couch, engrossed in their own books and enjoying the ambiance of the twinkling lights from their nearby Christmas tree.

"All the more reason why they're trying to snuggle up to you, my dear." Hermione mused as she sipped her mug of lovely hot apple cider. She sat her mug back down on the coffee table and re-commenced rubbing Draco's stockinged feet that were perched on her belly with her free hand. In her other hand she held a battered copy of Oh Jerusalem, one of her beloved Holmes and Russell detective novels by the brilliant Ms. King. She discreetly checked the time on the wall clock as she flipped her page. Nearly ten thirty. Lindy would be arriving in an hour. Hermione needed Draco to be well asleep before that happened.

Hermione smirked behind the cover of her book. She knew of one way that, without fail, would knock Draco out for the night. Hermione quietly marked her book and set it on the table next to her mug, and then changed her modus operandi from 'rubbing the stress out of Draco's feet' to 'sensual foot massage for the purpose of getting Draco out of his pants'.

Piece of cake.

Draco quirked an eyebrow behind his paperback copy of Dickens's A Christmas Carol, which Hermione had said was a literary holiday classic, as he felt his lovely girlfriend give up on her book and devote both hands to massaging him. He sighed in appreciative happiness as she pulled off his socks and scraped her fingers along the tops of his feet. Draco continued to read as Scrooge was confronted by the Ghost of Christmas Present, and subsequently dragged around London to see the holiday celebrations of his employee and family member. He'd progressed through only one paragraph before he felt his groin twitching to life.

Draco lowered his book slightly, showing Hermione his bespectacled and bemused face. "What are you doing?" he asked quietly.

Hermione bit her lip and batted her eyelashes innocently. "Rubbing your feet? I thought you liked it, Draco."

"Oh, I do, Little Girl. I was just wondering if you're stimulating certain reflexology points on purpose or purely on accident."

"Maybe a bit of both, but now that you mention it…" Hermione applied pressure in the appropriate spot, and Draco shuddered.

"Behave yourself, Little Girl," he commanded as he raised his book back up to continue reading. He smirked behind the cover of the paperback. Nothing got Hermione riled up faster than being unnecessarily ordered about, he'd learned that in the Order. But in the privacy of their home, Draco had noticed that Hermione loved it when he assumed an authoritative role with her. He mused that she might have some kinky schoolgirl/professor fantasies they could play around with one day.

Hmmm… role playing with Hermione. Hell yes.

Hermione rubbed that certain spot on his foot again, and Draco's sleep pants became significantly tighter. He considered writing to Mafalda to see if he could get his hands on a couple of Hogwarts uniforms…

Hermione bit his big toe. Draco hissed, but resolutely kept his book in front of his face. "That wasn't terribly nice of you, Hermione," he said in a low, gravelly voice. He turned the page on his book, not that he'd needed to since he could hardly remember what had happened in the last few paragraphs, but he didn't want Hermione to think she'd distracted him so thoroughly just yet. But she bit him again, at the same time as she pressed on that spot, and he tossed his book on the floor. He crooked his finger at her in a 'come hither' gesture, and Hermione abandoned his feet to crawl up his body.

Twenty minutes later Hermione stood at the kitchen sink to wash her hands and rinse her mouth, and then collected a towel to clean Draco up. He was lying on the couch still, but his glasses and shirt had fallen to the floor, and his flannel pajama bottoms were still pushed down his hips. He was already fast asleep. Hermione chuckled in amusement at his predictability, then straightened his sleep pants out and covered him up with a spare blanket. She'd bring him to bed later, after she took care of her special delivery.

/…../

Draco dreamed of Christmas at the Manor. The scent of pine and cookies and spice permeated every room and hall, and the candles burned just a little bit brighter in those few days before and after the holiday. As a very young child, he'd thought Christmas time to be the most magical time of the year, when his family home sparkled and glowed with gifts and friends, music and merry-making and festive décor. By the time he became a Hogwarts student, Christmas at home turned quickly to a time of nostalgia for those holidays of his early youth, as Lucius descended into the madness necessary to carry out his master's will and his Mother tried to stay out of Father's way. Oh, the smells and décor were still in place, but the friends and merry-making took a much darker turn.

It was only in later years that Draco realized that the late night carousing that went on after he'd been sent off to bed by his Mother were really precursors to the notorious Death Eater revels common during the Dark Lord's campaign of terror.

He'd been caught only once, and it had only taken one beating to gain his complete obedience to never come back down the stairs again once Mother had sent him to bed when his Father was entertaining during the holidays. He'd been thirteen, and curious of the many new faces at their supper table on Christmas Eve. When he'd snuck back down well after even his Mother would have retired to her private chambers, he'd stumbled right into his friend Theo's father, who'd been urinating into a potted poinsettia in the grand hall. Nott Senior had been less than delighted by Draco's righteous indignation that he immediately desist in his violation of the plants, and had cuffed him across the face before dragging him to Draco's Father's lounge. There, in front of a dozen or so of Lucius's friends, Draco had been whipped mercilessly for his disobedience and insolence. His Mother had found him Christmas morning, lying face down in his bed, his back covered in blood and gore, and being tended to by the house-elves as they tucked his torn flesh back together so they could heal his back properly.

He'd cried in her arms for the first time in many years. The humiliation and the pain had been too much for him to handle. Little did he know then how much worse it would get, and how many more times he'd be subjected to the kind of endurance training Lucius expected Draco to shoulder in order to become a tougher Death Eater. A crucio here,a stupefy there, and always, Lucius's signature whip-lash.

Once his extended family got their 'early release' from Azkaban Prison, Hogwarts became a sanctuary. Holidays were a terror to be endured or avoided at all costs. He'd first met his Aunt Bellatrix, scary demon-woman that she was, during Christmas of his Fifth Year. She'd sat across from him during their Christmas Eve supper, flashing her mossy, jagged teeth at him and spilling one hundred year-old wine all over the front of her dress. Later that evening she'd snuck into his room and propositioned him. His Aunt. She'd been less than enthused when he'd gagged and vomited at the sight and smell of her in his bed, and he'd spent the rest of his holiday trying desperately to elude her in the many rooms of the Manor.

It had been, by far, the worst Yule season ever. But he'd persevered, and his vile Aunt had given up on her quest to conquer her own bloody nephew by the next time he'd had to spend a holiday with her.

But Draco couldn't abandon his Mother, and his Father would only wait so long before he expected Draco to come to heel. So Draco kept returning, and every time he did, things just got worse, and worse, and worse.

"Draco, dear. Come to bed."

Draco stiffened at the words, and felt a warm hand stroke his cheek. He cracked open one eye, expecting the worst.

Hermione.

Real life came flooding back to him in bright, vibrant color. Sea green eyes flashed with the twinkling of the lights in the tree, and pink lips whispered his name again.

"Draco, it's time for bed. Come on, or else Saint Nicholas won't come," Hermione said as she leaned in to kiss his forehead and push the blanket off of him. Draco groaned in abject relief that his nocturnal trip down memory lane was at an end and far removed from his new life. He sat up and snaked his arms around Hermione's waist to drag her onto his lap, and kissed her fiercely.

"God knows how much I love you, Hermione," he whispered against her mouth, then stood up with her in his arms and marched to their bedroom. Hermione leaned her head against the side of Draco's for the briefest moment, inhaling his scent and reveling in the scratchiness of his stubbled cheek and jaw.

"I love you too, Draco. Happy Christmas," she whispered back to him as he laid her down in their bed and clambered in next to her. She was surprised when, instead of pulling her against him to sleep, he laid his head on her chest and wrapped an arm around her waist. Innocent, child-like, and beautiful, Draco drifted right into peaceful dreams against his girlfriend's breast as she stroked her fingers through his cropped hair.

/…../

"Hermione, hey, Hermione!" Draco jostled his girlfriend out of a deep sleep.

"What, Draco?" she whined as she burrowed deeper into her pillow.

"Hermione, there's loud scratching and wailing coming from the storage room. I think we've got some big rats or something trapped in there," Draco said as he wiggled her shoulder.

"Wha? Rats? Where?" Hermione sat up.

Draco chuckled. "Possibly in your hair, Love. Honestly," he drawled as he snagged a hair tie from her bedside table and scraped her hair into a haphazard ponytail, "this kind of chaos is practically illegal."

Hermione batted his hands away from her and resolutely dove back into her pillows. "Let me sleep, Draco."

"Hermione, come on. Look, I was out in the kitchen making coffee and I heard some kind of crying and scratching coming from across the hall. It's got to be really big rats, or maybe some cats got in there," Draco said as he bounced up and down on the bed.

Draco's words finally connected in Hermione's brain, and she sat up with a gasp. "Oh my gosh! It's Christmas!" she exclaimed, then pushed the blankets off of her body so she could climb out of the bed. Then she turned around to see her boyfriend sitting on the side of the bed with an amused smile on his face. Hermione tackled him. "Happy Christmas, Draco!" she cried, then kissed him on his surprised mouth as they fell back into the blankets.

Draco pushed her straggling hair away from her face as she sat up on top of him, and said, "Happy Christmas, Little Girl. Now, what do you want first? Clean teeth, coffee, presents, or rats?"

Hermione giggled. "Let's multi-task. I'll brush my teeth and hair and meet you in the kitchen if you wouldn't mind fixing me a cup?" She scooted off his lap and wandered towards the bathroom, and paused as she heard him leave the room for the kitchen. Hermione's excitement overwhelmed her, and she did a wildly energetic, but very quiet, happy dance. Then she ran to the closet and grabbed trainers, a jumper and warm hat for each of them, and ducked into the bathroom to throw her items on and brush her teeth. She tucked her hair into her hat and traipsed out to the kitchen, where Draco leaned against the counter with his head cocked to the side, listening to the muffled, but obvious scratching and crying coming from the storage room.

"Why do I need these?" he asked as he exchanged her coffee mug for the shoes and hat.

Hermione shrugged as casually as possible, trying not to reveal her highly excited state. "Going rat hunting, aren't we? You're right, I definitely hear something over there." She sipped her coffee as Draco pushed his shoes onto his feet and accepted his jumper and hat. He pulled them on and snagged a set of keys as they drifted out the front door to open the door across the way.

"It's not rats," he said as he opened the door. "At least I hope not, ugh. I've never heard rats make noises like that."

"Been around a lot of rats, Lord Malfoy?" Hermione asked as she tugged him around a stack of plastic storage containers towards her Mother's piano.

"Houses and castles with dungeons tend to accumulate them, no matter how carefully one's house-elves try to ward against them. What is that noise though? It's like a baby crying." Draco said as they rounded the piano and his eyes fell on –

"Not a baby," Hermione said. "A puppy. Or rather, puppies." She knelt down behind the crate and reached forward to open the door that held back the adorable little creatures, and giggled happily as two white and squirming balls of fluff scrambled out of their blankets and tumbled out of the cage.

"Oh my God," Draco whispered, and dropped to his knees as the two sniffling, crying little things gamboled over to explore him. He picked one up, the larger of the two, and examined it closely. It had floppy white ears and big brown eyes, an adorable little brown nose, and a squirmy pink tongue that was trying desperately to – "Ugh! It licked my mouth!" he sputtered as he sat back on the floor. He tried to put the fur ball down, but was immediately set upon by both of the puppies, who scrambled onto his lap and eagerly tried to lick him as they wagged their little tails so hard they lost their balance.

Hermione laughed as Draco fell back onto the floor and surrendered to puppy adoration.

"Hermione! Blech, Oi, stop it you little mongrel! Hermione!" Draco laughed and covered his face with his hands to keep the puppies from licking the interior of his mouth and nose.

Hermione crawled over to him and snagged one of the puff balls off of Draco's chest, and snuggled her face into the top of its wiggling head. "Mmm, I love puppy-smell," she murmured. She watched Draco sit up and gather the second puppy into his arms to restrain it from trying to eat his face any further.

Draco looked at his girlfriend sitting next to him, holding a squirming white puppy, and smiled. "I take it these are not here on accident," he began.

Hermione shook her head.

"You got these," he continued.

She nodded.

"For me," Draco said.

Hermione nodded. "Happy Christmas, Draco. Do you like them?" she asked. She scratched the puppy she held behind its silky little ear, and it licked her hand enthusiastically as it whined.

Draco nodded his head. "I've never had a pet before," he said as the puppy he held licked his neck and tried to wiggle its way up his body. "They're rather silly little things, aren't they?" he mused.

Hermione nodded again. "Yes, very silly. And they will be for a long time. Puppies require a great deal of love and attention and discipline to make good dogs. They don't like to be left alone, and they thrive best with a great deal of guidance and companionship." She shrugged one shoulder. "They're rather like human children in that sense. These two are ten weeks old, and they were the last in their litter to be adopted. The one that you're holding was the biggest and strongest, but no one would take him because he refused to be separated from the little one I'm holding. She was the runt, and he protected her from the others. So, they're a team. Can't have one without the other," Hermione said, then stood and held the squirming puppy in one arm so that she could extend her free hand to Draco.

He allowed himself to be pulled up as he grasped the male puppy in his arm, then leaned down to kiss his girlfriend. The two puppies, overjoyed to be together again after fifteen seconds apart, wiggled and yipped and bit at each other in between their new parents.

"You know, I have no idea what I'm doing here, but, thank you, Hermione. This is… well... it's really unexpected, I'll say that," Draco said.

"But is it good?" Hermione asked hopefully.

Draco chuckled and nodded. "Yeh, it's good. It's bloody loony, you know. Two puppies is going to be-"

"Twice the fun of one?" Hermione grinned down at her little companion and rubbed their noses together. "You are the cutest little thing! Yes you are! Yes you are, you little sweetheart!" she cooed at the baby in her hands.

"Ugh, that was gross, Love. But, yeh, twice the fun of one. Although if you make those ridiculous noises again I'm going to ban you from helping to raise them. These are Malfoy dogs, and they will be treated with proper respect," Draco said as he poked Hermione in the ribs. His brilliant girl had already descended into baby-talk after two minutes with the puppies.

"No, darling, these are Granger-Malfoy puppies. You can try to fancy them up all you want, but I'm still going to baby them." Hermione said. Then her eyes suddenly opened wide. "Oh my gosh, speaking of babies, we need to get these little ones outside to go potty before they wet on us."

"Did you just say potty? Come on, Hermione. How in the world did you lose your dignity so quickly?" Draco asked as they wandered to the door to walk downstairs.

"Draco, they're babies, and babies go potty. And dignity has nothing to do with our life now. Deal with it," Hermione quipped.

/…../

Hermione jumped up and down in excitement, then she suddenly froze as her eyes widened.

"Wait!" she cried. "We have to plan! Oh my goodness, two weeks, let's see…"

Draco chuckled as she raced over to the bookshelves and started pulling down her collection of historical texts about ancient Rome, Roman architecture, the history of the Catholic church and the Vatican, maps of the Venice, a collection of archaeological texts about Pompei and Mount Vesuvius…

"Does this mean you like your gift, Hermione?" Draco drawled from his post on the floor, where two small sleeping bundles of white fur were crowded and tangled in his lap.

"YES! Oh, I'm so excited! When should we go? I think Spring would be a good time, with the warmer weather and the flowers blooming and the outdoor tours and hiking to the remote sites…" Hermione threw herself down on the floor next to her boyfriend and handed him a stack of books, then reached over to the couch to grab a few cushions so that she could comfortably explore…

Draco set the books down. "Hermione. We don't need to plan this out today. Just relax, Love. Besides, my legs are falling asleep. Help me out?"

Hermione huffed and narrowed her eyes in defiance, but then she looked over at the babies asleep in her boyfriend's lap, and a wave of love washed over her. She sat up and turned to rest her head against Draco's shoulder as she reached out to stroke soft fur.

"You know, we're like their parents now. They're going to look to us for everything. Even their names," Hermione murmured as she curled her finger around a tiny ear.

Draco chuffed. "Brilliant. My first children are white, hairy, and illegitimate."

"Oh, and they're mutts too, don't forget that," Hermione teased.

"What the hell are mutts?" Draco asked sharply.

Hermione bit her lip. "Ah, it means they're not pureblooded of a particular breed. I actually got them for free because of that. Their mum's a registered vanilla Labrador, but she went and got knocked up by the neighbor's bulldog, and of course no one wanted to pay money for her un-pedigreed babies. Lindy's mum lives down the road from the puppy's original home, that's how I found out about them."

Draco cut his eyes over at his girlfriend, who looked nervous. "But they're definitely one hundred percent dog, right?"

"What? Of course they are. What do you mean?"

"I don't know. You said mutt and I thought you meant they were some kind of half-breed, like, part polar bear or something. You know, like Crookshanks was half-kneazle."

Hermione laughed. "No, Draco, they're one hundred percent dog. No magical creature, no mutant half-breed either. Part polar bear, honestly…"

Draco pointed down at his lap. "White and hairy. Polar bear was a viable genetic option."

Hermione poked Draco in the ribs, then stood and marched back to the bookshelves.

"What are you getting now? I don't want to look at books about Italian history right now, Hermione."

"No, as excited as I am about the wonders of Italy, we'll worry about that later on. We have something much more important to do right now," Hermione said as she scrambled up to a high shelf to pull down a large picture book of…

"Stars, planets and constellations!" she cried. "Perfect baby name book, don't you think?"

Draco nodded. "If they want to be in my family, that will do perfectly. Thank you, Little Girl."

Hermione knelt down and deposited the constellation book next to her stack of Italy texts, then picked up one of the sleeping puppies so that Draco could rise from the hardwood floor. "Your very welcome, Draco. I'm so glad you like them."

"Oh, I'm sure by the end of the afternoon I'll love them. It's rather inevitable, isn't it?" Draco asked as he accepted the female puppy from Hermione, then walked to the bedroom to deposit the slumbering babies on the bed. He stood there and watched the male curl around the female and sleepily chew on her ear, while the female's little pink tongue lolled out to hang out of the side of her little mouth.

Hermione curled herself around Draco's body as he watched the sleeping puppies. Suddenly, Draco said, "They're too young to leave here by themselves, so we'll have to take them to the Fraser's tonight, won't we? That means we can introduce them to the four-legged wizard! Brilliant!"

The sound of their combined laughter finally woke the puppies from their nap, so Draco and Hermione bundled up and took them outside for a potty break just as the snow started to fall on Christmas day in Little Whinging.

"Stop saying potty, Hermione!"

"Shut it, Draco!"

To Be Continued.