Chapter 18

"Kids drinks." said Andy as she went out in to the garden.

It was earlier September. She realised this time next year her daughter was not going to be there. She was going to be on a train which was Hogwarts bound.

She didn't believe her baby had got so big so quick. It didn't seem so long since she had been born. How could they be thinking about sending her to school already? The time really had flown.

It didn't seem so long since Draco had been a baby either.

Yet now the two of them were both growing she found at a truly alarming speed. Too fast for her liking.

"Thanks mum."

"Thanks aunty Andy."

Draco had come over to play. She was glad the settlement at the end of the custody trail had told Lucius he had to let her see him. Otherwise there was no doubt in her mind she would not have known who the little boy really was that day.

The things she did now know. Had she not been given rights by the court then Lucius would have taken the boy away from her without a second though and she knew she never would have seen him again.

His favourite colour, food. The little things that made everything worth while. The little things that made him a part of her life.

Sitting out in the garden she watched her nephew and her daughter together. She knew Draco was going to miss his big cousin when she went off. They were so close. In fact she was sure they were one another's best friends.

It was going to be a big change for the both of them. After all they had grown u pp together and tended to miss each other if they were apart for longer than a week. And now little Nymph was going to be away for months at a time.

As a mother she knew it was going to hurt her as well. Yet as a mother she also knew the right thing for her daughter to do was to go and get herself an education. She was going to have a whale of a time up there. Everyone always did.

And bedsides she would still have her dragon.

Watching him made her heart swell. He was such a good boy. And he made her proud. He was like a son to her after all. The way he had grown up level headed even when he had been raised by his father.

His father…she and Lucius had never and were never going to see eye to eye they had accepted that. They had had too.

But the fact remained she just didn't like him. And she cursed that out of all the men in the world Narcissa had chosen him to father her son.

But she had. And so the ones she had left behinds carried on. As they had these past five years.

Andy tried to be there for the lad when he needed her. She would always talk about his mother to him if that was what he wanted.

But he rarely did want to talk about her.

She was so far just the women he never knew. He didn't seem to miss or want her.

She could't help but get the feeling he didn't really understand what had happened to her. She wanted to bring the subject of his mother up with him but she wasn't sure if it was going to be the right thing to do. Besides, he was but five years of age. And death was such a hard thing to understand at that age.

"Half an hour kids." she called to them. "Then daddy is going to be here to pick you up Draco."

"Ok aunty Andy."

The most frustrating thing about Lucius was that he had never struck her as a very punctual person. In fact she remembered before she had left home hearing Narcissa complain about his constant lateness.

But when it came to picking his son up from his aunts he was always if not on time early. He didn't give her a second longer with him than he had too.

And Draco was always so pleased when his dad came that his aunt and cousin were forgotten.

There were times when he was there she could not help but wonder what might have happened if things had gone differently. If they had had a different judge all those years ago…

But you couldn't live your life on what ifs.

-

"Good evening sir, young master." Jane said as she saw the two Malfoy men had returned.

"Good evening Jane." Lucius nodded.

"Would you like me to do the young masters reading with him tonight?"

"No, I am here, I can do it." the master said.

And so once his son had chosen a book the two of them went through to the living room where the fire was burning. The old manor was always hard to heat in winter with out the use of magic and he always put of using magi to heat the place as long as possible as that was admitting summer had gone and winter was here to stay. He preferred the cold, but the winter he found was now the loneliest months.

He had to say he was delighted with the progress his son was making already when it came to his reading.

Since they had had the talk on holiday Draco really seemed to have taken on board what he had said to him and he was putting in effort when it came to preparation for Hogwarts.

One day soon he thought he might start talking to the boy about the right houses and the right people to mix with. Even when it was six years off.

And yet he still seemed to young to be thinking about house and blood politics. He could hear Eliza in his head telling him that while the boy was young now, he was not going to be a child forever and he had to understand these thing and yet he also heard his sons mother pleading with him to let Draco be for just a little longer.

And in his heart he knew Narcissa would be right. He would listen to her voice.

Since he had been out of jail he had dedicated himself to making sure his son was innocent and happy and secure. He was not going to take the innocent he had from him. Not yet.

He could keep it for a little longer.

Ever so slowly he heard his sons reading getting tired and more slopping. Lucius run his hand through his sons hair and as Lucius could have predicated five minutes later he was cradling Draco like he was but a month old in his arms. His sons fingers had curled themselves about his shirt as had been one of his habits since he was a baby. The other hand was placed soothingly over the much larger one of his fathers. Shutting his eyes Lucius pressed his lips to Draco's forehead and breathed in his scent. He still smelt like a baby.

Lucius didn't want to move. He wanted to live his life in that very moment.

Just the two of them. In his heart he knew that was all that mattered. Ever since they had been alone in the world together that had been the truth of matters.

So what if he had to go to his aunts? So what if Eliza was going on about him taking a nice, shiny new wife, he thought sarcastically to himself.

At the end of the day this was what it came down too. The two of them, in their home, being together.

They were father and son.

"And you will always be my little prince beloved. Always."