February 2010

So Draco had just learned, not every baby enjoyed playtime in the same way. He was now frantically trying to calm down little Sophie who was screaming her lungs out just because he had lightly thrown her into the air.

"Are you really just going to stand there while your daughter bursts a lung?" Draco asked Hermione as he cradled Sophie in his arms. It didn't help much. She seemed to scream even louder as he did so.

Hermione laughed as she stared at him and her daughter who was getting red in the face. "How on earth do you calm Scorpius down when he starts to fuss?"

Draco's cheeks began to grow red just as Sophie's as he walked over to Hermione with the squirming girl in his arms. "Honestly? I just hand him over to Astoria or my mother."

Hermione shook her head at him and took Sophie from him. With the girl over her shoulder, she began to calm down immediately. Draco was obviously relieved. "Merlin forbid you're ever left alone with him and he starts to cry."

Draco massaged the back of his neck out of embarrassment. "I swear, Hermione. Most days I feel like I don't know what I'm doing."

"Who does?" Hermione said with a gentle shrug of her shoulders. "What new parent feels that what they're doing is right? And just when you think you've got everything down, your kid starts doing something new and throwing you for a loop again."

Draco chuckled. He knew that quite well. When Scorpius started crawling that's when Draco started to panic more than usual. He and Astoria began babyproofing everything right at that moment. Turns out there was a lot of things babies could get their chubby little hands on once they got mobile.

Hermione sat down next to Draco and put her feet up on the sofa. Draco hadn't even realized that she had gone to set Sophia down in her playpen. Now that her arms were childfree, they could get down to serious business.

"Come on, Draco, talk to me." Hermione said as she put a finger under his chin to make him look at her. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's the matter."

"You're a terrible liar." She accused. Draco smiled.

"On the contrary, I'm a wonderful liar. Just not with you." Draco sighed then and cupped his hands. "I just want to raise him right, Hermione. I don't want to mess up."

"You're not raising Scorpius alone, you know." Hermione pointed out. "It's not solely on you."

"To raise him, no. But to raise him right, yes. Think about it. My parents raised me and Astoria was raised by parents just like my own. You know what my childhood was like; the ideals that were forced into my head."

"And look how you turned out." Hermione grinned. "You're sitting here spilling your guts to a muggleborn and you had those same influences you're afraid of. Think how much better Scorpius will turn out with you as his father."

Draco hadn't thought of it that way. He was so focused on everyone else that Scorpius would grow up around that he had completely forgotten about himself. With no choice but to, Draco had to agree with Hermione and then rested his head on her shoulder.

"Promise to keep me sane throughout this whole kid thing, will you?"

Hermione nodded and hugged him. "Always,"

By time Draco returned home it had been dark for at least an hour or two. When he stepped out of the fireplace he was surprised to find Astoria sitting on one of the chairs. It appears that she had been waiting for him. Just as Draco was about to be happy to know that his wife was anxious to see him home, he realized that her face was contorted with anger. This, unfortunately, wasn't out of the ordinary as of late.

"Where were you?" She asked him. Draco rolled his eyes as he slipped off his coat.

"I was out with a friend. And," Draco said as he raised a hand to stop Astoria's pending avalanche of questions. "No, you don't know the friend. Yes, it was a man. And yes, I know what time it is."

Astoria was positively fuming at his response and let her eyes follow him as he passed her and ventured further into the house. "Well, I just thought you'd ought to know that Scorpius said his first word today."

Draco stopped and turned to face her as pure joy filled his face. "Did he really? That's fantastic. What did he say?"

"That's for me to know and something that you would have known had you been here." Astoria said to him and then rudely ran into his shoulder as she headed towards their bedroom. Draco growled as he followed her and slammed their bedroom door shut behind him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You're what's wrong with me!" Astoria shouted at him. "You can't just take off all the time whether you're off seeing a friend or not. You know what? Forget about me. Let's just talk about Scorpius. He needs his parents, Draco."

"You make it seem like Scorpius was left here alone. You were home, Astoria."

Out of everything that was said, it was those words that made Astoria blink twice. Afterwards she just huffed and walked away from Draco so that she could lay in bed. Draco on the other hand groaned out of frustration. It was times like this when he just wanted to leave; take time for her to calm down and then go back home again. Had he not spent most of the day away from said home, Draco would've done it. But doing so now would only give Astoria more ammo to slam him with. Instead he gave in with a silent defeat and climbed into bed. In the morning he would make it up to her. He'd get up earlier than usual, make a pit stop at one of her favorite boutiques and buy her something to smile about. Problem solved.

When Draco did wake up that morning he thought that he had overslept. As it turned out, Astoria had woken up earlier than him for a change and was out of bed. So much for buying her something… He had thought. It was in that instant that he had sprawled himself over the entire bed; a luxury that he was rarely ever able to do. Once in a comfortable spot, Draco's ears were assaulted by the cries of a one-year-old. He and Astoria had charmed the house so that Scorpius' cries could be heard no matter where they were.

Draco tried his best to tune out his son's banshee screams. It would be over soon as it always was. Astoria would tend to him, soothe him, and magically send the boy back to sleep for another hour or two. However, no matter how much time passed, Scorpius kept crying. It got to the point where Draco couldn't ignore it anymore and he slipped himself out of bed and to his son's bedroom. In the room he could see young Scorpius crying his lungs out with his face red from utter exhaustion. Draco nervously picked up his son, mimicking the way Hermione had done with her daughter in order to soothe his crying. To Draco's pure contentment Scorpius' screams toned down. Draco stayed in the middle of the room with his son over his shoulder as his gaze went towards the door. He expected Astoria to come to the door at any minute and take their boy into her arms. She didn't.

"Astoria?" Draco called as he walked out of Scorpius' bedroom with the child still in his arms. Draco walked down the hall as he peeked into every room on both sides of him. He went back the way he came and pass his bedroom in order to inspect more rooms. He went downstairs. Nothing. He tried the basement. Nothing. Draco calmly as frantically as he could searched his home for Astoria, but she was nowhere to be found.

Once Scorpius was calmed and fed, Draco set him back in his crib. "I'll be back, alright?" Draco said to him. The boy yawned as an answer, and Draco smiled just before leaving. Once he left he went to his personal Owlery and got down to business. He wrote to everyone he knew in order to figure out where Astoria might have gone. There had been no note on the nightstands when Draco woke that morning and Astoria always left one when she was heading out for the day. The fact that she was gone and that a note was nonexistent worried him. He grew more worried and paranoid when letters began returning saying that they hadn't heard anything on Astoria's whereabouts.

The more time passed, the more frantic Draco became. That one day became two and soon those two days became three. Draco sat in his living room with his mother who was holding a sleeping Scorpius in her arms and was wearing a grim expression.

"I still think you should file a missing persons report." Narcissa told her son. Draco's eyes glanced up at her for a moment, but then they quickly returned to his cupped hands. "This isn't like Astoria. You know this."

"She's not missing." Draco said indignantly. "She's just pissed at me is all…"

Narcissa arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. "For three days? What on earth could you have done that would cause her to abandon you and your son for three days?"

"As far as I'm concerned I've done nothing wrong." Draco snapped. He was staring at his mother now whose face showed doubt. It caused him to scowl then and continue gazing at his hands. Of course his mother would take Astoria's side. It didn't matter if Draco had deemed himself innocent of the situation that she knew nothing of.

"If she's not back by tomorrow I'm filing the report with or without you." Narcissa said decisively. "You may firmly believe that your wife is upset and teaching you a lesson. I, on the other hand, am thinking of all the unfortunate things that could have happened to her. And I won't rest comfortably until my thoughts subside."

Draco frowned. What if his mother was right? What if Astoria was really missing and instead of filing a report like his mother had told him two days ago, he had let three days fly by in which she could've been found? All at once Draco felt sick. Just as he was about to give in to his mother's wishes the fireplace in the next room could be heard. Draco turned anxiously to the doorway and held his breath. The seconds that passed were agonizing, but when Astoria entered the room, prim and polished, a smile on her face and a large carrying bag over her arm, Draco's anxiety quickly faded. It had been replaced with utter rage.

"Mother," Draco said as calmly as he could muster. "Could you take Scorpius into his bedroom, please?"

Narcissa hadn't needed to be told twice. She rose with her grandson in her arms and silently left the room. Once he was sure she was gone, Draco's fury was insurmountable.

"Where the hell have you been?!" He shouted. "You've been gone for three days! Three! No owl! No note as to where you went! You could've been dead for all I bloody knew!"

Astoria stared blankly at her raving husband. She suddenly smiled then and set her bag onto the floor next to her, slowly sliding off her white gloves shortly after.

"Oh, Draco, you're being melodramatic."

If possible Draco only grew angrier, but despite his flaring nostrils Astoria was unfazed. "Melodramatic? I'm being melodramatic?! Fine. You don't give a rat's arse about me, but what about Scorpius, huh? You left him! I had to take care of him by myself! Do you even care?"

Only then did Astoria's pristine smile falter. She took a few graceful strides and stood directly in front of him. "I'm his mother. Of course I care. Besides, my leaving didn't hurt him." Astoria began to smile again, but this time it held all the disdain and malice in the world. "You were home."

Draco's jaw clenched and Astoria's matched his well. "Half a day is not three days."

"With how often you're gone, it might as well be."

With that Astoria returned to grab her bag and casually walked pass him as though they hadn't been arguing. Draco was left standing in the middle of the room with no rebuttal and a guilty conscience threatening to raise its ugly head.

"Who is she?"

Draco turned to the sound of his mother's voice in surprise. "Sorry?"

"The woman you've been seeing." Narcissa clarified. "Who is she?"

Draco swallowed and began to shake his head. "I'm not seeing anyone."

Narcissa stared at her son with amusement in her eyes. She then gave a short-lived laugh and said something that surprised Draco even further. "You sound just like your father when I asked him that very question."

"Father cheated?"

"Oh, yes. Quite a few times actually, but I only dared to call him out on it once."

"And the other times?" Draco asked. "You didn't bother to question him on it at all?"

"Heavens, no." Narcissa chuckled. "If your father could lie so blatantly to my face the first time, why go through the trouble? Besides, after I had you I no longer cared what he did as long as he came home. And that's what I'll tell you, Draco." She continued in a serious tone. "Make sure that you're home. Scorpius can only distract Astoria for so long.

'And speaking of my grandson," she added. "I packed a bag for him while I was in his room. No child should be subject to feuding parents. He will stay with me until you and Astoria have calmed down."

Author's note: Hello everyone! First, as always, I must give my many thanks for all of the support. As for this chapter, words cannot express how much I loved writing it. You really get to see into Draco's home life and it's definitely not too pretty... I do feel quite bad for Astoria. Consequences of having to hurt a few of your characters.

Hope that you liked it :)

-WP