Written By: xxPyRaxx

Disclaimer: claimed in the second chapter.

"Don't Marry Me"

Verse 4:

I hum a silly tune to pass the time
And when I sing, my voice should be crime.
I have irritating habits you'll dread,
Like the way I never show up on time .

Chapter Four

~.~

I Have Irritating Habits You'll Dread

September, October and November had quickly come and left, leaving December in their wake. The ground was frozen and large piles of the fluffiest and whitest snow laid on the ground. The sharp cold winter wind blew through the naked tree branches and nipped at any visible bare flesh. Outside in that weather Cassiopeia and Draco played. With the freshly fallen snow that fell the previous night, they built a snow man and his family in the Muggle fashion that Cass had insisted upon. Cass had also insisted they build a winter fort the Muggle way, which Draco had agreed since he had never built either the Muggle way. Being the kind child that she was, taught him how to roll the small hand-made ball around in the snow to make the different sizes of the body of the snow-wizards and how to dig through the piles of snow to make tunnels to travel through in the fort, like her mother had taught her. Together, like a father and daughter, they laughed and enjoyed each others' company. They played in the snow until Cass complained that she was getting cold.

In a fatherly manner, Draco assisted Cass back inside the house. With the door shut behind them to prevent the cold from coming inside the small house, he took off his winter gear and hung them in the closet by the front door and then helped Cassi take off her winter gear. First he took off the scarf that he wrapped around her neck to keep her little face warm, and then he slipped off the hood of her coat and pulled off her warm hat. He grabbed both her hat and her scarf and discarded them into the bin of winter garments. He knelt down to her level and began to unzip her winter coat and pulled her arms out of the sleeves, while Cassiopeia chatted about the life that their snow-wizard family were going to live out in their winter wonderland outside of the house. After her coat was off, he pulled her mittens off. He allowed Cass to take off her own boots while he hanged her coat next to his and put her mittens in the bin with the rest of their stuff. Once she tugged her boots off, he put them next to his on the boot mat by the door.

As Draco and Cassiopeia walked in throughout the house, they could hear the familiar off-tone singing coming from the kitchen. Cassi reached up and tugged on Draco's shirt tail to gain his attention. When Draco looked down at her, she pressed a finger to her lips and they crept to the entrance of the kitchen where they hid on the other side of the wall. Together, the two of them leaned forward so their eyes peeked over the edge and they watched Magnolia work from behind her back. Maggie cradled a large metal backing mixing bowl in her left arm and held a wooden spoon in her right hand and stirred the contents inside. As she mixed, she half hummed and half sung to 'Jingle Bell Rock' in her awful multiple toned vocal range. As she bounced on the balls of her feet and danced a little bit around the kitchen, there was no doubt that Maggie was having fun. Draco was happy that Maggie was enjoying herself but when he looked down at her daughter, he couldn't help but have a frown replace the smile that slipped on his lips when he was watching Maggie when he saw Cassi's sad looking face.

Draco placed a hand on her head and Cassi looked up at him. With his other hand, he beckoned her to walk away from the entrance and she followed. Once the two of them were well out of Maggie's ear-shot, Draco knelt down to Cassi's level and asked her what was wrong.

Cassi didn't answer at first but let her head bow slightly.

"Cass, tell me what's wrong" Draco prompted her gently, "I can't help unless you tell me what's wrong".

"At school, everyone's Mommy's sings to them but Momma never sang" Cass responded in a tone that sounded like a child had realized that a friend had betrayed them, "Not once".

"I'm sure she sang to you when you were a baby" he tried to reassure her.

Cassi shook her head, "No. Uncle Harry said she never sings, not even when she was a little girl like me".

"Are you sure you want her to sing to you? I mean, you heard her voice" Draco tried to tease but Cassi didn't appreciate that.

"Sure, Momma's voice is a little...rough around the edges, but I still wish she'd sing to me".

"Cassi, have you ever asked her why she doesn't?"

The six year old shook her head in a negative response, "No, thought that it would be rude to ask".

"Oh, Cassi. You are much too old and considerate for your age. Do you ever encourage her to sing, with you or with any of the other childrens Mommy's?"

Cassi nodded this time, "Uh huh. I even tried singing little songs around her but she told me stop, and she had a really scary look on her face".

"Scary look? What do you mean?"

"Like she was was scared that someone was gonna here me sing. Is Momma sick Draco?"

"Um...no Cassi. She's not sick. Would you like me to talk to her?"

Cassi nodded again, "Thank you Draco" and than she wrapped her small arms around his neck to hug him. Draco wrapped his arms around her body and hugged her back.

"You're welcome. Now, c'mon. Let's let your Mommy know that we're done playing outside".

"Okay" Cassi agreed.

"Why don't you go upstairs and play in your room for a little while and I'll talk to your Mommy" Draco suggested to the little girl.

"Okay" Cass replied with a nod of her head and than headed up the stairs to her room.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

With the faint sounds of Cassi's footsteps disappearing as she went up the stairs, Draco made his way back towards the kitchen where Maggie was still singing to herself and occupying herself with Christmas baking. Draco stood in the doorway of the kitchen, with his right side leaning against the frame and his arms crossed against his chest, and watched silently as Maggie finished putting the small piles of dough onto the cookie sheet. With one hand holding the cookie sheet, like a waitress would hold a tray in a restaurant, she opened the hot oven with the other before she bent her figure down to deposit the baking sheet into the oven. Unfortunately, her attention was not on what she was doing and she accidentally touched her fingers of her right hand onto the red hot element. With a soft but surprise sound that was a cross between a gasp and a cry of pain, she snapped her hand away from the element and she backed away from the oven. Draco had an urge to chuckle at the disapproving look she gave the muggle contraption before she closed the oven door with a foot. At the sound of Draco's amused chuckle, Maggie stopped singing and whipped around in the direction of where Draco stood. At the sight of seeing him there, her eyes widened in surprise.

"D-Draco! How-how long have you been there?"

"Not long" Draco answered as he uncrossed his arms and pushed himself off the frame.

As Draco made his way toward her, Maggie couldn't help but take steps back and try to keep a distance between the two of them. It was an unconscious habit for her but it was one she always did when she was surprised or guilty of an act. She kept going backwards until she hit the counter and she stopped with her hands resting on top behind her. When Draco noticed the action, he stopped in his place.

"Mag, I'm not going to hurt you" he told her in a calm voice but there was a slight hit of wonder in his tone.

A sight escaped from her lips as Magnolia's head bowed forwards and the grip she had on the edge of the counter loosened slightly.

Draco began to walk towards her once again and stopped in front of her. Draco reached forward and gently took the injured hand in his owns to examine them and that arm flinched, for two different reasons. To Magnolia, it was because he touched her. To Draco, it was because he thought he had accidentally was too rough with the hand when he took it in his own.

Draco held her injured hand in his with the back of her hand on his palm. The pointer, middle and ring finger were turning red due to the element burning the fragile flesh. At the touch of one of his own fingers on one of her injured ones, she jerked her hand out of his grip out of reflex with a painful gasp and cradled it to her chest to protect it from further harm.

"I'm sorry Maggie, I didn't mean to touch it" Draco reassured her and he held out his hand for her injured one again, "I promise I won't touch it again".

Maggie didn't move from her position for about a minute or two as she thought about it. With a "I'm fine", she turned towards the sink and turned on the water to run the water over her burn.

As she soaked the burn she made a quiet request for the first-ad kit and Tylenol that was stored in the medicine cabinet in her en-suite bedroom bathroom. Draco vocally agreed and went to do the task.

As Draco went to do the task that she requested, Maggie stayed in her current position. She leaned against the edge of the kitchen counter and stayed still as the cool water soothed the swelling of her red skin. She tried to curl her fingers but stopped when she felt the familiar pull of tight skin. Being burnt was nothing new for her, since it happened quite frequently at the Dursley household. The burn was nothing compared to all the previous burns she received since neither of the burns touched the broken line of the beginning of the palm. Since she's been burned more times that she could actually count, it became almost second nature to know that the burn had to soak in cool water for about five minutes, Aloe Vera should be placed on it once the burn was dry of water and Tylenol would help tone down the swelling.

When Draco came back into the kitchen with the first-ad kit and bottle of Aloe Vera in hand, Maggie was patting dry the water from the burn with a kitchen tea towel. As Draco laid the kit on the counter beside her, she thanked him in a soft tone. With a practised skill that she learned from her past, she used her uninjured hand and twisted off the cap of the Tylenol. Still with her uninjured hand, she held the bottom of the bottle in her fingers and dumped two pills into the palm before the popped the two pills in her mouth and swallowed both pills in one shot. Magnolia than twisted the cap back on the bottle and placed it on the counter. With the look that she saw on Draco's face she explained that the Tylenol would help stop the swelling of the burn. She than asked in a quiet and polite tone for help. Draco nodded as he grabbed the kit and than told her to sit down in the living room.

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

Draco sat across from Magnolia in the living room. Draco sat on the coffee table, much to her dislike, and she sat on the couch in front of him. The first-aid kit was left open on the table beside Draco's right thigh. With gentle fingers, Draco held the gauze in place with a thumb and he used the other hand to wrap the gauze around the three burnt fingers. At first, he wrapped the gauze to tight, causing her to wince and hiss in pain. He apologized and re-wrapped it looser than he had it before. Also at first, he had trouble with wrapping it due to the Aloe Vera on the burns kept making the gauze slide out of place. A smile curled on her lips as she watched Draco became frustrated every time the gauze slid. With her unharmed hand, she showed and explained that the thumb thumb helps keep it in place. As Draco attended to her, they talked small talk like what he and Cassi did outside, which caused a relaxed smile to curl on her lips but it vanished when Draco started asking questions that were tough to answer.

"Why did you react the way you did when you noticed that I was watching you?"

His tone was smooth, relaxed and non-threatening but it caused a rush of panic to shoot through her body.

"What are you talking about?" she responded, trying to keep her face neutral from showing the emotions she was feeling but Draco saw passed her mask due to the emotions rushing to her eyes.

"You looked scared after you turned around and than when you backed away from me".

Maggie was speechless, he did notice her action. She bowed her head in shame, she was hoping that he wouldn't catch on. She should've known, he was smarter than she gave him credit for. Quiet filled the room, the only sound came from the sound of the scissors cutting the gauze and than the tape before he pressed the tape to the end of the material.

"What happened?" he asked, his tone still calm and soft; as if he was speaking to a frightened child and in a way, she was.

"I-I got scared, I guess" she answered with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Of what or who? Of me?"

"No. Not of you Drake, never of you".

"Than why were you scared?"

"I-I can't say. I pr-promised that I wouldn't" Maggie answered as she used her free hand to pull and strand of hair behind her ear and looked away from him.

Draco closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm the frustration he felt building inside him before he opened his eyes and again and raised her chin with a finger up so emerald eyes met his stormy ones, "Mag, I just want to help and how can I do that if you don't tell me?"

Mag smiled a smile that didn't reach her eyes due to the sadness that were held there.

"I can't tell you-" Maggie was cut off by the oven timer which she hurried over to take the cookies out of the oven.

She rushed to the kitchen and put on the oven mitts that laid to the right of the stove before she pulled open the oven door and pulled out the cookie sheet. With her foot, she pushed the oven door shut once again just before she put the hot metal cookie sheet on top of the stove. Magnolia took off one of the gloves to use to wave the heat away from the now cooling tray of cookies.

"Tell me Mag. Please?" Draco tried to get her to squeal her secret.

Mag stopped fanning the cookies to look at Draco for a moment before she continued the fanning action as she responded, "I can't Draco. I told you that I promised not to tell and that's what I'm going to do".

Draco sighed. He tried the easy way, by asking her politely but that didn't work. It looked like he would have to do it the hard way, by the form of blackmail.

"I guess I'll ask Harry. I'm sure he'll tell me, why you acted the way you did".

That statement caused her to freeze and stop her fanning motion. She than slowly turned her head towards her boyfriend and tried to call his bluff in the strongest voice she could muster, "Y-you wouldn't".

Draco crossed his arms against his chest and smirked his superior smirk, "Try me", he challenged.

Time stood still. Perhaps not time, but actions as Magnolia considered the actions of breaking the promise she made all those years ago and the pain that she knew would come after, right? No. Harry told her that the Dursely's wouldn't come back because they abandoned them years ago and they would never return. She knew without any doubt that her brother wouldn't lie about something like that. So she could break the promise, couldn't she? Magnolia closed her eyes as she took in a deep calming breath before she released it. She gently laid the oven mitt on the counter to the left of the cookie sheet before she turned her full attention on Draco.

"Alright. Alright, I'll-I'll tell you. But I will in my own way and on my own time".

Draco didn't seem to mind those conditions, "Okay. You can tell me when you're ready and in your own way".

"Okay. Good. Um...where's Cassi?" Magnolia wondered, and to change the subject.

"I'm afraid you scared her off with your singing" Draco teased his girlfriend with a smile.

"My singing isn't that bad" she tried to reassure, more herself than Draco.

"I mustn't tell lies" Draco joked as he walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, "you have a very obnoxious singing voice".

"Another reason you shouldn't marry me. I hum a little tune to pass the time and when I sing, my voice should be a crime. I have irritating habits, that you'll dread for the rest of the marriage. Like the way I never show up on time".

"Maggie-" Draco tried to counter her argument since he believed that it didn't count.

"No Draco" Maggie cut him off as if she knew that he was going to argue about it, "That is my fourth reason. I'm not changing it. Now, if you excuse me. I'm going to get my Christmas cookie tester from upstairs".

Maggie went up on her toes and pressed her lips against his cheek before she headed upstairs.

Leaving, Draco alone in the unresisting aroma of baked goods. When Maggie and Cassi returned to the kitchen, Draco was gone and two cookies were missing from the semi-warm cookie sheet.

To Be Continued…