Disclaimer: Harry Potter isn't mine.

The song referenced towards the end is Jumpin' Jumpin' by Destiny's Child, if you want to listen to it to know what's playing.

Chapter 15 Looking Towards the Future

Today was the one year anniversary of their first date, and although Katherine made no indication of remembering, Draco had been planning their day for weeks. First, they were going to take Edward to the magical section of the London Zoo. Then, the two of them were going to go to the best restaurant in wizarding London. He made reservations at a hotel for the evening. What he didn't count on was Katherine being disposed of.

"Kat and Dad is sick!" Edward announced shortly after he stepped through the floo. "I'm a healer!"

"Sick?" Draco had a bit of a stomach ache, but he didn't think much of it. A million thoughts ran through his mind before Edward filled him in. He doubted Katherine had the proper vaccinations as a child.

Edward nodded as he hurried up the stairs. "Daddy says that they gots food poy-zoning."

Food poisoning. Of course. That would explain why Edward and Lupin weren't ill. He doubted the werewolf would allow his son to consume whatever toxic waste Black and Katherine ingested last night. He entered Katherine's room to find her curled up in bed. He didn't dare look into the bucket that she had next to it.

"I'm sorry!" Katherine moaned as Edward ran off to get Black some soup. She reached for her nightstand but grabbed her wand instead of her glasses. Silently, she cast away the sick in the pail. "Sirius wanted to try the new buffet a few blocks away, and Remus wouldn't go with him because it got bad reviews!"

"I wonder why." Draco conjured a stool. Once he sat down, he brushed her sweaty bangs out of her eyes. "Do you know what day it is?"

She nodded and slid her arm out of the covers to weakly point to a horrendous looking sweater hanging on the doorknob of her closet. "I asked Mrs. Weasley to make it for you."

Draco squinted to get a better look at the creature that was sown onto the green sweater. Oh for Merlin's sake! She's lucky she's sick. "Is that a ferret?"

Again, she nodded. "Hand me the bucket. I think I'm dying."

Draco handed it to her and leaned away when she started retching. "No… You're just learning what it feels like to be an idiot. I'm assuming you ate several times the amount of artificial food that you normally eat?"

Katherine glared at him before covering her face with the blanket. "They had rainbow ice cream."

Draco sighed and took the bucket from her. "Happy anniversary, darling."

"Happy anniversary, ferret face."

Katherine stuck to soup and bread for a while after she stopped getting sick, so they didn't get a chance to reschedule their anniversary date. First, they had to go to couple's counseling. Katherine still wanted to get out of it and pouted the entire day until their appointment.

"Isn't our love enough?" she grumbled as they walked into the building.

Draco smiled. Not according to his mother. Since he was still hoping for living at the Manor after they married, he didn't add that, however. "No."

Like a petulant child, she slumped in her seat in the waiting room and had her arms folded over her chest. Draco hoped she didn't scare the therapist into quitting on them. At least patience was part of the job.

"Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy?" the therapist called out from the waiting room when she was ready for them. Katherine immediately soured. Wonderful.

"It's Potter. Miss Potter," Katherine said as soon as they entered the room. She sat on the beige couch without being invited to and continued her sulky slouching.

The therapist blinked in surprise. She had rectangular glasses that rested on her thin nose and her frizzy light brown hair was tied back in a scrunchie. "Oh. Then that's always the first discussion we'll have. Are you going to keep your last name? Or perhaps hyphenate it?"

Katherine laughed as if she thought the therapist was stupid. "Of course I'm going to keep my last name."

"You are?" Draco tried to keep the hurt out of his voice but couldn't help it. He didn't think he even needed to ask. They were going to be the Malfoys.

Katherine frowned, not understanding why he was offended. "I'm the last Potter left."

"Yes but…" Draco glanced at the therapist, who only gestured for him to continue. "But I feel like part of us becoming a family would be the both of us having the same last name."

"Sirius and Remus have different last names. And Teddy has Tonks-Lupin because Remus doesn't want him to forget about his mum. So the four of us all have different last names," Katherine said flatly, sounding like she was getting a little annoyed. "But I still think of us as family. And Teddy calls you his brother, but you have a different last name as well."

"I know." Draco didn't feel comfortable arguing against it, but he could feel the therapist staring at him, like she knew he was still hurt and wanted him to voice it. "Would you be willing to be Potter-Malfoy then?"

Katherine finally sat up straight and tilted her chin up so she was looking down on him. "Would you be? Do you want to be Draco Potter-Malfoy?"

No, Draco thought. His family was very important to him, and he didn't want to change his family name, even if it was just adding to it. "What about our children?"

Like it wasn't a big deal, Katherine shrugged. "I figured they'd decide."

Draco snorted. "So they wouldn't have last names until they were able to?"

"Well-I- No." Frustrated, Katherine growled to herself and glared at the therapist as if this conversation was her fault. "It'd just be Malfoy until then because I don't want the tabloids saying that we aren't legally married."

"Oh really? So Rita Skeeter has determined the fate of our children?" Draco snapped. "At least she's making the right decision!"

Katherine stuttered several times before thinking of what to say… Well, yell. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I want my children and my wife to share my family name!" Draco shouted.

Furious, Katherine shot out of her seat. "Well sorry for thinking something so superficial isn't important to you!"

Draco didn't feel funny until after Katherine slammed the door. He smiled awkwardly at the therapist who didn't look up until she finished writing down a few notes. She didn't seem fazed in the slightest and said, "I'll see you next week."

Later that night, Kat slipped into Draco's bed, feeling guilty. She wrapped her arms around his waist and whispered, "I'm sorry. It's not superficial. That's why I reacted so strongly. I know I have pictures and jewelry and stuff, but Potter is my parents' last name. I don't want to get rid of anything that's theirs."

As she suspected, Draco was still wide awake despite the late hour. "It's alright. I just never thought about it. I thought it was something automatic, that maybe one of the children would take the name Potter to be the heir… But I thought you would want to be Mrs. Malfoy."

"That's your Mum." Kat kissed his shoulder and laid her head on his chest like she always did. "I like being Katherine Potter."

"I like Katherine Potter too." Draco shook slightly with laughter. "Even though she has the worst temper."

Kat closed her eyes, ready to fall asleep now that Draco forgave her. "Katherine Malfoy would be much worse. Everyone knows Malfoys are spoiled rotten."

"Yes," Draco said dryly. "We storm out of therapist appointments when we don't get our way."

Kat snickered. "I love you too."

The next appointment didn't start with an argument, thankfully. They started off with an exercise. Katherine was taking forever to draw their future. Draco's picture had two stick figures and a lump in his arms because he was holding their son Scorpius. There was another lump that was supposed to be their crup, and the Manor with his parents was in the distance because he wasn't sure what was going to happen with that situation yet. He was waiting for her to make fun of his horrible drawing skills, but she was still hard at work.

"Okay." Katherine held up her drawing to show him. "I'm done."

Draco stared open mouthed at the crowded picture. Even the therapist was shocked. "You do know that this is only five years in the future, Katherine?" she asked gently, not wanting a repeat of last week he supposed. "I don't think this is possible to accomplish in that amount of time."

"Yeah I know," she added, thankfully. Five children in five years? Draco didn't think he'd survive. "But I didn't like that rule, so I just drew ten years in the future."

The picture also had stick figures, but there were several children along with several pets, including a giant squid in the loch that he assumed was by the Manor. He hoped the blue haired tall child was Edward and not their eldest. When he recognized her spikey black hair and glasses, he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Why are you shaped like that?"

One side of the stick figure Katherine was shaped like a capital "B" while the other was a backwards capital "P." She smiled like it was funny. "Well I'm not sure if I want six kids, so I figured we'd talk about it. So that's me maybe pregnant but maybe not."

He was marrying a lunatic. "So my opinion is asked after five children?" Draco asked sarcastically. "Thank you for including me in important life decisions."

Katherine pointed at his Scorpius lump. "See? You want kids. Ugly kids, judging by the drawing, but I guess I'll love our ugly baby."

"I want children." Draco couldn't take his eyes off the drawing. Two of the children, brothers it seemed, were arguing. Another boy seemed to be talking to Edward like they were close. He himself was hugging a little girl with blonde hair. A black haired little girl was playing with all the pets, and the oddly shaped Katherine was smiling at them all. "Not a Quidditch team."

Katherine waved him off like he was being silly. "You like Quidditch."

Sometimes, Draco wondered if those wretched Dursleys liked to drop Katherine on her head for sport when she was a baby. Five children were way too much. "I'd prefer not to be outnumbered."

"Such a Slytherin." Katherine shook her head and tsked at him. "Well your parents make four. Plus the house elves equals ten. That's double what I wanted."

"So you want to live at the Manor?" Draco asked hopefully. He was planning on asking her if she wanted to start off in the guest house and try to slowly get Katherine and his parents to like each other, which he had a bad feeling would take a while.

Katherine shrugged. "I don't know. I don't like your dad. And your mum scares me." Perhaps he was getting too hopeful. "But they've been polite to Remus and Teddy… I think it's cool that you all live together, but they don't like me."

"They like you," Draco lied so poorly that even the therapist looked uncomfortable. "Well, they like you more than they did last year."

"We haven't really tried." Katherine didn't really sound upset by this, and Draco couldn't tell if she was bothered by it at all. "I like how we jump back and forth between Grimmauld and your house. I just want to see how it goes in the future. Same with kids. I thought we'd just know when we were done."

Draco looked at the paper again and laughed. "So you won't wait to talk to me until there's five of them?"

Katherine pretended to be annoyed. "I guess not."

Thank Merlin. Now all he had to do was figure out how to get his parents to like his future wife.

The following weekend, Draco was finally able to take Katherine and Edward to the zoo. Victoire tagged along too, and Draco was happy to say she only had one tantrum because she thought Charles Weasley was going to be with the baby dragons and was sorely disappointed to find out he was still in Romania. At least she didn't put up much of a fight when it was time for bed.

"Doesn't she look like an angel?" Katherine asked as they all crammed themselves in Draco's bed.

"No," Edward mumbled sleepily. His eyes were drooping, and he turned over in the crook of Katherine's arm.

Draco looked down at Victoire, who had spread herself out like an eagle on his pillow. He wasn't sure what would happen if he tried to push her to the middle of the bed. "I'm going to have to agree with Edward."

Katherine closed her eyes but smiled. "You love her." She grabbed her wand and slowly and silently magically slid Victoire to the middle of the bed. "That's why you bought her the stuffed blast-ended shrewt."

"I bought it because I didn't want to hear her high pitched wailing," Draco said as he slipped into the bed as gently as he could. "Why is she here again?"

"Because Mrs. Weasley is sick, and Fleur and Bill want another baby," Katherine replied with a yawn. "And Vicky keeps climbing in their bed at night. The little devil must know."

Draco sat up to try to study Katherine's face to see if she was joking. As usual, he couldn't tell. "They want another one?"

"Hmmm…" Katherine yawned again. "There's about to be a Weasley baby boom. Percy's wife is pregnant and so is George's. And now Victoire is going to have her Beelzebub. Mrs. Weasley is over the moon… And trying to see if Ginny, Ron, and Charlie are looking to get hitched." She hugged Edward, but the boy was in too deep a sleep to respond. "Teddy's my favorite."

"I'm telling Victoire." Draco stared at the ceiling. Katherine was usually the one who tried to initiate the next step in their relationship. She proposed, asked him on the first date, and tried to be the one to initiate the first time they had sex. She usually beat him to it. Not this time, however. "Katherine… I was thinking…"

"Don't hurt yourself," she mumbled.

Draco glared at her, but it was too dark for her to see. "I was thinking…" Although he was starting to get nervous, he did his best to go on like she hadn't spoken. "That after the wedding, we could start trying. You know. For a baby… Katherine?"

She was sound asleep, and she was starting to snore, so he knew she wasn't faking. Draco sighed. He would have to ask her later.

"How did you last through sixteen years of this, Padfoot?" Kat groaned as they sat through the reception of Pansy and Nott's wedding. Sirius wasn't invited, but Draco bought Pansy a summer home in the Bahamas, so she figured she was entitled to bring an extra guest.

Sirius sipped his champagne and watched everyone dance and talk quietly. It was too quiet for their liking. "Well, I had James. But by the time we were ten, people started to not invite the Potters to parties because of all the pranking we were doing."

Kat wrinkled her nose as she watched Draco suck up to some business associate of Nott's. "Even the kids are quiet. It's creepy."

Sirius shook his head in disapproval. "They don't even have a chocolate fountain."

"We're having three." Kat smiled. "Don't tell Draco."

"Good." Sirius surveyed the crowd in disgust. "I bet everyone's asleep by eight. I think Remus and Teddy are having a better time bowling."

"I'd hug Pansy, if this was over by eight." Kat picked up a piece of asparagus and started chewing on it as if it were beef jerky. Even the food was boring. They could only make fun of them for so long… "If my wedding is this boring, Padfoot, kill me because that means Draco infected me with upper class pox."

"Sorry, Kitty Kat. I'm still feeling like crap from my last stint in Azkaban." Sirius smirked when she looked at him worriedly. He was going to live forever. He had to. "I'm joking."

"Jokes hurt." But Kat reluctantly smiled. "Remember? Angelina gave George a black eye for calling her a gassy penguin."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Some people have no class."

"I know." Kat scanned the crowd until she spotted Pansy and Nott. "Okay. They aren't looking. I'm going to tell the house elves to stop the music. The boom box is under my seat."

Sirius grinned. "The Electric Slide?"

"No." Kat started to walk towards the band but kept her eyes on the newlyweds to make sure they were still on the other side of the dancefloor. "I changed my mind. Number 11 on the CD is Jumpin' Jumpin'."

Kat did not expect Ginny to bail on her last minute for her bachelorette party. Luna was in Romania. Victoire sleeping over did the trick, because Fleur was currently puking her brains out. Audrey was so boring that she made Percy seem like a fun guy. Angelina was on bedrest because she almost had Fred too early, and Hermione said she had to be home by midnight because she was already worrying about her midterms. Kat was too annoyed to hear Hermione talk about what she was worried about flunking. Ginny was dog meat the next time she saw her.

And so, Kat was driving around, not wanting to deal with anyone. She knew Ginny still hated Draco, hated her wedding dress, and hated that Snape and several other Death Eaters were going to be at her wedding, but this was beyond rude. Ginny wouldn't even tell her why she couldn't come all of the sudden.

She stuck on empty country roads because she knew if she got in a road rage argument with some poor sucker, that she would hex them before they could so much as get their first f-word out.

When her phone rang, Kat let out every swear word she knew before pulling over. "What?" she yelled into the receiver.

It was Hermione, and Kat had to give her credit. She didn't say she was being silly and immature. "Kat. Leave your car and apparate. Sirius is in the hospital."

:0 I realized I needed to explain what happened to Sirius in the DoM. It's the reason he's in the hospital. So, I'm thinking flashbacks because I want to explain his relationship with Remus and why Kat thought he was dead. (It was mentioned in the chapter where she talks about losing her virginity.)

Thank you for the reviews gr8rockstarrox and justaislinn!

justaislinn- Victoire wants you to know that she is going to be the ring boy, thank you very much. ;)