A/N: *bounces in my seat because I get to share this with you all*
More notes at the end.
Chapter 2: Kings Cross
"Mila, Milo, can you two please for the love of Crice, stop picking at each other and keep your hands to yourselves. You're thirteen, not seven, act like it." Hermione scolded her twins with a quick glance at the two of them, still pinching each other's sides. Looking around the platform, Hermione easily spotted Harry and his family already gathering around their own two Hogwarts bound children with their youngest hugging her mother's leg with a visible pout on her face.
Hermione waved her hand as high as she could above the crowd, but it was clear that she was slightly too short to be seen
"Oi! Potters!" The tall lanky teen called, turning the heads of the family that she had been trying at attract the attention of.
"Milo, people will think you have no manners." Hermione hissed at her son at they made their way across the platform towards the family gathered there.
"Please mother, it's King's Cross, not bloody Buckingham Palace." The boy snarked rolling his eyes as he turned to wink at his sister and took off at a run before his mother's hand could smack his arm.
"LANGUAGE, MILO BENJAMIN GRANGER!" The only reply was awarded to Hermione was her son turning his head and shooting her a smirk that made him look exactly like his father when they were in their own third year. White-blonde hair, light grey eyes, pale skin, tall, and the lean wiry build. Even his more pointed features with his aristocratic straight nose were all his father. The only difference between Milo and his father? Where's the former had straight hair, Milo had inherited her wild curls that he insisted looked best when it was slightly longer and could hang in his face.
"At least you don't have to live with him year-round anymore." Hermione turned to face her daughter who hadn't run off to join their friends. A warm smile crossed her face as she looked into the light grey eyes of her daughter.
"You could have always asked to be in a different house than your brother, you know." Hermione teased the girl that aside from the eyes looked like she'd hit ctrl c, ctrl v on a keyboard. The heart shaped face, button nose, dark chocolate brown hair that didn't have a chance to being tamed, and her petite build. Mila Granger was just like her mother in looks and personality, well, aside from the girl being a bit of a quidditch enthusiast.
"You do remember that the sorting happening in alphabetical order." Mila gave her mother an exaggerated eyeroll of her own as they finally arrived at the Potter family, where it appeared Milo was already making a nuisance of himself picking on the youngest Potter child, who was still two years out from attending Hogwarts herself.
"Hey Mione, uh, Ron not with you today?" Hermione was greeted by her raven-haired best friend as he stepped up to pull her into a warm hug.
"Afraid not, he somehow managed to screw up his schedule and wasn't able to make it today. He got himself pulled into a trip and won't back until Monday morning." Hermione replied giving Harry a pointed look. While neither was going to say it aloud, they both knew that there was no way they would be getting Ronald Weasley to join them at today's sendoff, or really any for that matter.
"Yeah, well. Can't say I'm surprised at Ronald's 'oversight'." Hermione said using her hands to give the air quotes. "Especially since we know a certain someone will be here today with his own first year. Merlin, fourteen years really hasn't been long enough time without seeing him, if you ask me." Hermione's last thought was paired with an eye roll that rivaled her teenagers when she thought about her ex-boyfriend. "I honestly wonder if he's even going to give the twins a second glance, yea know. Milo has been on edge since I warned him last week and Mila has been unusually quiet about the whole thing."
It was no secrete in wizard society that her ex, the twins' father, would be showing up today. While he had done the same as she had, and kept his youngest out of the tabloids, it had still been talked about in all the tabloids that his son and the second son of Harry Potter would be attending Hogwarts together in the same year.
If only Rita Skeeter knew the truth.
Hermione was pulled from her thoughts when the two oldest boys of the old rivals stood in front of her calling her name again. "Mum? Hullo? Mind if Jack and I go ahead and find a compartment." Hermione met the silvery eyes that she'd grown to associate with her children looking confused.
"Well, if you must, take Remy with you. You and your sister need to watch out for your cousin." Hermione reprimanded her son with a quick swat to his head when he tried rolling his eyes at her. Hm, if this child continued to grow at this rate, by Christmas she wouldn't be able to do that unless he was sitting.
Jacques (Jack) Sirius, Remy Albus, and Isabelle Lily Potter were her three wonderful godchildren, and children of Harry and Gabrielle (nee Delacour) Potter. While everyone thought that Harry and Ginny were going to be the pair that ended up married, the Halloween party of 2003 decided to align fates in very a different direction.
After her rather messy breakup, and the fact that she was pregnant with twins, Hermione had opted out of joining Harry at the home of Bill and Fleur Weasley for their Halloween party. It was at said party, where Harry and Ginny broke up in a magnificent blow up and Harry had fallen into bed with the freshly turned eighteen Gabrielle Delacour. It was also that same night that one Jacques (French for James) was conceived.
To no one's surprise, a Christmas wedding at wand point followed shortly after the announcement was made to Monsieur Delacour. Coming in screaming on the thirty of July (almost a full week after his due date) to share a birthday with Neville, was the terror that everyone knows and loves as Jacques "Jack" Potter.
Even with their rushed relationship, Harry and Gabrielle fit into a wonderful and loving marriage. Gabrielle held none of the jealousy of Harry and Hermione's relationship, even though when they'd first married, Hermione was still living with Harry. It was when after Harry and Gabrielle's first anniversary when they announced that they were expecting again that Hermione decided it would be best for her and the twins to find their own home to move into, so as to give the expanding Potter clan their own space.
As far as looks went for the Potter boys, neither of her godsons bore much resemblance to their mother. Wild jet-black hair that stuck in every direction, it was often questioned when Gabrielle would take the boys out if they weren't the set of twins with their birthdays being just over a year apart. The only true distinction between the two was that Jack had his mother's dark blue, sapphire eyes while Remy had the same bright green eyes that reminded everyone of his paternal grandmother.
The lone Potter daughter, was sweet Isabelle Lily. She was the spitting imagine of her mother and Aunt Fleur and her female cousins, Victoire and Domonique. Her silvery-blonde hair always hung straight and neat down her back and her twinkling sapphire eyes made her one of the most beautiful little girls. Being born on the twenty third of December, just shortly after Jack had turned three and Remy had turned two.
Hermione caught the sight of her darling goddaughter pouting next to her mother with her arms crossed over her chest and shot the tiny blonde a quick smile before turning back to scanning the crowd. "He might be trying to time it so they aren't standing on the platform any longer than necessary." Harry whispered into Hermione's ear, clearly knowing what she was doing.
"I'm worried about the twins. They've obviously seen his picture in the paper and magazines, so they will know who he is as soon as he shows up. I just don't want seeing him in person to set them off on a bad start of term. Merlin, what if either of them runs into him and he says something to them. What if he ignores them and pretends as if they don't exist even as they stand in front of him? Honestly Harry, I'm not sure what scenario is worse." Hermione complained looking around the platform again, still not spying that distinct white-blonde hair that she was searching for.
"Hey, Mila, Milo, Jack, and Remy are all already on the train. Maybe they just stay put and we avoid the whole scene." Harry ran a soothing touch up and down Hermione's arms in an attempt to calm her nerves, but nothing was going to work. She was just too nervus to be able to relax and live in this moment with her kids and godsons.
"Fuck, Milo. You have a twin." Hermione heard the voice of her daughter carry from somewhere Hermione couldn't see. Meeting Harry's eye, the two took off in the direction they'd heard Mila's voice.
"Obviously I have a twin, dumbass." The voice of her son carried through the crowd. Hermione quickened her steps, wishing to any deity listening that this not be happening. Without waiting for her friend to catch up to her, Hermione began pushing her way through the crowd that had considerably thickened.
"Mila, wait, fuck!" Milo's voice rang in Hermione's ears and she had a sinking feeling of what she was going to find once she found her children.
Of the twins, Mila's temper ran the most like hers. Explosive and slightly impulsive. So, it was really of no surprise when Hermione was finally able to push her way through the crowd and spotted, with horror, her tiny daughter looking straight into the face of Draco Malfoy; hands on her hips and tapping her foot. Looking shell shocked standing directly behind his sister, Milo was looking into the same, but slightly older face, that he saw in the mirror every day.
"You're a right bloody arsehole! I just want you to know, we've never needed you. Milo and I are just fine without you." Mila sneered at the man who had sired her, bringing three different reactions from the trio that had never met. Mila's face turned a dark shade of red as she flushed with anger and blue sparks shooting from the ends of her curls with her furry. Milo had become even paler, something Hermione hadn't thought possible. The most curious reaction of all, however, was Malfoy. He was looking between the twins with sheer shock and horror. Almost as if he hadn't been expecting to see his oldest children at Kings Cross this morning.
Even with Mila standing more than a head shorter than her brother, it had seemed that Malfoy hadn't been able to rip his eyes away from her face. When his eyes finally were able to pull away from their daughter and met his eldest son's face, his jaw actually dropped.
Before Mila could say another word, however, Milo had already wrapped his hand around his sister's bicep and had proceeded to all but run away from a stunned silent Malfoy. After the twins had retreated, a smaller, straight-haired version of her son appeared next to Malfoy, seeming none the wiser to the confrontation that had just taken place where he now stood.
"So that must be Scorpius Malfoy." Harry appeared over her shoulder now, having missed the brief showdown between Mila and Malfoy.
"Yeah. You just missed it though, the twins just met their father." Hermione said turning away from watching Malfoy with his youngest son and walking away back to where Gabrielle and Isabelle were standing together waiting for the train to depart.
Following behind her, Harry sucked in a breath. "Oh fuck. Was Scorpius there when it happened?"
"No, he must have been on the train or something. Now let's hurry so I can avoid seeing him face to face myself." Harry nodded in agreement, and helped Hermione move through the rest of the crowd until they were next to his wife and daughter.
The group that now had all four Hogwarts bound children gathered around saying their final goodbyes to Gabrielle and Isabelle when Harry and Hermione had finally reached them. With weary eyes, Hermione studied her children, who were being unusually quiet. Seeing that meeting their father had affected them, Hermione wrapped her arms around both her children and held them tight. They might not be her tiny babies any longer, but they would always be her babies.
"He's staring at us, mum." Mila's whisper broke the silence. Pulling away from her children, Hermione lightly cupped first Milo's face and then Mila.
"Are you alright?" The question was met with a shrug from Milo while Mila shook her head with tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.
"I'll write you, mum. I don't want to talk about it right now. I love you; we'll see you for the holidays." Mila's voice only slightly cracked as a couple tears dropped from her eyes, as she looked over Hermione's shoulder shooting a glare towards whoever was standing directly behind her.
"Hey, look at me." Hermione instructed her children, tapping Milo's chin to force him from looking away from his shoes and Mila to end shooting the daggers. "He's just a man, that made a choice. He choose to make a shit choice, but still a choice. I'm sorry he has hurt you, but he holds no power over you or any of us for that matter. Focus on your studies, enjoy the visits to Hogsmeade, maybe don't join the quidditch team again, and have fun." Her dig at quidditch was met with a snort from both children.
Bring them back in for one last hug, "I love you" was whispered into both their ears as she released them. With a mumbled reply of 'love you too' from her son and a tearful 'I'll see you at Christmas' from her daughter, the teens ran towards the train as the warning whistles began.
It wasn't long before the train's final whistle blew and with a jerk, the train began to pull away from the station. Hermione easily spotted her daughter leaning out a window waving towards her before ducking back inside and out of sight. Wanting to avoid the awkward confrontation, Hermione turned away from the engine, but was stopped by a small hand.
"Aunt Mione, we have to watch the train disappear." The tiny voice from Isabelle stopped Hermione's hasty departure. Hermione gave a bit of a forced smile towards her goddaughter and nodded her head. She was right, even though Draco Malfoy was on the platform, did not mean that he was going to stop her from watch the train with her children until she could no longer see it.
Together, Hermione, Harry, Gabrielle, and Isabelle stood and watched as the scarlet steam engine grew smaller in the distance. When nothing was left to see of the train, Hermione looked down at the nine-year-old with a soft smile. "It'll be your turn to go before you know it."
"Not soon enough" she replied with a sigh, turning away from Hermione and back towards her mother.
Only able to laugh at her goddaughter, Hermione was shocked when she felt a cool hand land on her bicep. "Granger, I do believe, that we need to talk." A silky baritone that she would never forget washed over her ear, making her wish that she could turn and disapparate instead of acknowledging him.
Before Hermione could even turn to address her ex standing behind her, Harry had already turn on him and turned on his head auror voice. "Watch yourself, Malfoy and drop your hand." The command in his tone wasn't missed by the blonde that Hermione had still yet to face and acknowledge herself.
"Potter, sorry, but this doesn't concern you. Granger, you owe me an explanation and you know it. I'd rather not have this conversation where we could be overheard though." Finally reaching her limit, Hemione yanked her arm from Malfoy's grasp and turned on him raising her finger to his face.
"You don't come walking into my life fourteen years after the fact and tell me that I owe anything to you, you pompous arse. Acting as if I kept some dirty little secret from you. Fourteen years, Malfoy. Fourteen years almost to the fucking day since I last saw or spoke to you, and you think that I owe you anything? No, that's not how this works at fucking all. You threw me out of our flat.
"You went off and got you approved pureblood marriage, to an approved pureblood girl, and had your pureblood heir. You, Draco Malfoy, you made the decision that you didn't want anything to do with me or my children. Honestly, Malfoy, I don't care if we're overheard. I don't care if people know that we had a secret torrid affair for a few months and then we moved in together without telling anyone that either. I also don't give a rat's ass if everyone finds out that you broke up with me via a bloody letter! Nor do I give a flying fuck that when I came to try and talk to you in person that you were the most foul and loathsome cockroach as you threw all of my belongings out of our flat.
"There's nothing you can say to me, Malfoy. So, if you'll excuse me, I do still have to go into work today." Hermione could feel her chest heaving behind her ribs as she finished her speech to Malfoy. She'd been holding that in for so long, and finally being able to get it all out there and tell him exactly what was on her mind had been exhilarating.
Only, the look in Malfoy's face wasn't shame or remorse. In fact, he didn't even look as if he understood anything that she'd said. He looked confused?
"Granger, I'm not sure what you're playing at." The confusion in his silver eyes shifted into flickering bits of rage as her words seemed to penetrate his defenses. "We've never been in any type of a relationship, much less living together. Furthermore, I can assure you, I'm not some dead-beat father who would abandon his kids for fourteen years. If I'd known I'd sired children with you, I wouldn't have let you hidden them away from me all this time."
Hold the phone. Sorry, we're going to need to take a few steps back because what the actual fuck is he going on about? Hermione stood looking at Malfoy with a gaping expression. Did he just accuse her of lying about a pregnancy and then hiding her children from him? No. No, sir.
Harry laid a hand on her arm trying to get her attention, but Hermione just waved him off. This didn't involve Harry, and she didn't need him to try and save her.
"Excuse you? No, we didn't live together for much more than a month, and no we hadn't finished unpacking by any means. However, we were living together when you promptly toss me out on my arse! I'm not sure where you get off, but I never hid those children that you just met from you. Just because I didn't show up pounding on your front door after they were born doesn't change the fact that you knew they were on their way. Well, I mean, technically we didn't know there were two, but you still knew there was at least a baby, that we had made together on the way." Hermione had finally reached her limit as more stragglers were waiting around the platform watching the heated discussion with interest as both her and Malfoy's voices continue to rise.
Grabbing his arm and without warning, Hermione turned on the spot and disapparated them to a small alley behind a café that wasn't too far from her home. Dropping his arm as if the physical contact with him was burning her, Hermione walked away from the blonde without looking back, heading towards the park across the street.
"What the fuck, Granger?" She heard Malfoy scowl behind her as she quickly crossed the street, with her heels clicking against the pavement. She could hear his heavier steps as he easily kept pace with his long legs, following the path until they reached a gazebo that was slightly obscured from view. The natural cover from the bushes and trees weren't enough, so Hermione quickly pulled out her wand and threw up a few privacy charms around them to make sure no muggles stumbled upon them or overheard them.
"What do you mean you don't remember our relationship? We started seeing each other after the Gringotts New Year's Eve party. You asked me, not even asked, you begged me to move in the entire summer of 2003. A couple weeks after I finally conceded and moved my shit in, we, as in together, found out I was pregnant. Then on my bloody birthday, you wrote me a letter, breaking things off with me.
"Are you honestly going to stand there and deny knowing of a full nine months of a relationship, fling, what have you. When I came to talk to you, after I got your letter, I checked you over, Malfoy. I checked and made sure that it was really you. That you weren't under the imperius curse or that someone wasn't impersonating you with polyjuice. It was all you, all those horrid and hateful things that you knew to say to cut me the deepest because you were the only person besides Harry that I ever let in! Only you would have known exactly what to say to twist the knife so that it cut into my soul and leave the most damage.
"Now, you're telling me that you don't even remember any of that? You were engaged to Astoria before you'd even broken things off with me. You used me, Malfoy. You used me to boost your own public imagine and then once it had succeeded, you tossed me as if I meant nothing to you. How do I know that you aren't standing here just playing dumb now that you've seen what you've missed out on?"
Keeping her eyes focused on Malfoy, Hermione watched to see his reaction. Surely, he remembered. He had to remember. Their eighth year at Hogwarts together where they were head boy and girl. How they'd found an unlikely friendship when they'd both discovered the other was wanting to become curse breakers. How they'd then graduated and gone into the curse breaker academy together and after graduation been hired at Gringotts together and become partners.
Malfoy and Harry had been the ones who went out and got her pissed the night her first go at relationship with Ron had imploded in towards the end of 2001. When they were relocated together to work in Siberia for almost all of 2002, there had been a shift from their strictly platonic relationship to something a bit more. Obviously, Hermione had dated Ron since the end of the second war and never before been available to explore more than just a friendship with Malfoy. She'd been around while Malfoy would welcome the hordes of witches that still threw themselves at the young rich bachelor. She'd even been instrumental on more than one occasion in helping him rid himself of more witches than she cared to count.
All that changed though, when they were leaving Siberia just in time for the New Year's Eve party. When Draco had thrown her out on her arse, it had been life altering. Now, he stands here claiming to not remember any of it.
Studying the man before her, Hermione could see that Malfoy held all the same ticks that she'd grown to intimately know. There was a slight tension in his jaw and there was a small crease next to his right eye. "Granger, the only thing I remember about you is that we worked together for a while after Hogwarts and then you quit and went to work for the ministry around the same time, I left to take over my family business and I haven't seen you since."
"Malfoy, we didn't just work together, we were partners at Gringotts. Also, before we became lovers, we were friends. We were best fucking friends, that's why I wasn't even scared when we took that muggle pregnancy test, and found out that we were expecting. I never thought you could hurt me, and then you did. You didn't just hurt me, you destroyed me." Hermione held her eye contact and watched as the confusion morphed into rage and hurt.
"Granger, I don't remember anything like that." Malfoy paused looking at her as if he were trying to reach into his mind and pull the information that she was telling him. "All my memories of you, or any events in my past with you, there's no solid memories. It's just shadows and slight imprints, as if you were just a passing thought and not a main part of my life." As she'd seen him do so many times over the course of their friendship and their relationship, Draco dropped his head into his hands then ran his hands through his hair. "What is happening to me?" He muttered into his hands.
With a gasp, Hermione pulled out her wand and started waving it over Draco's head. These symptoms were something that she was intimately and painfully familiar with. It couldn't be, could it? Could fate be so cruel? She'd done it to her parents to save them, but to be erased from her lover's mind? Although, if it was true, this could potentially be the exact type of case that she'd been looking for to include in her research.
Malfoy watched her with uncertainty, but he allowed her to finish her assessment before she let out a sad sigh and met his eyes. "Malfoy, I'm sorry, but there's traces of magic around your brain. Your memories were at one point altered." Eyebrows scrunched together showing that he didn't fully understand or believe what she was saying, Hermione let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.
"Draco, you were obliviated."
ooo
Mila Granger had just stepped off the Hogwarts Express, that was getting ready to take off to Hogwarts, to go and find her twin brother, but where did he go? Not really paying attention, Mila easily spotted a speck of white-blonde floating through the crowd, but it seemed a bit too small to be her brother.
"Maybe all these arseholes got taller than I'd realized over the summer." She muttered to herself as she pushed her way through the crowd. If it wasn't enough that the platform was already so crowded, but her damn body was still so tiny that she looked like she might as well have been a first year like Remy. Of course, she'd not only inherited her mother's looks, brains, but had to get her size too.
The closer she got to the white-blonde that she'd spotted the more she realized that it wasn't the right white-blonde head she should be looking for. His frame was too wide and filled out, his hair much too straight, and beside him was standing a smaller version of Milo.
The anger and the hurt that she'd been burying down ever since she'd noticed all the other kids in her primary school who had fathers. Fathers that would come to the daddy daughter dances. The fathers who would bring flowers to present to their dancers after the ballet recitals. It had to be him.
The rage that she'd spent so much tampering down and throwing into her studies to have the best grades and also into becoming the best seeker, much better than he had ever been, came roaring to the surface. She didn't have anything to prove to anyone, logically she knew that, but she was going to be better than him at everything. Her potions scores were always on par with what he'd always achieved and it rubbed her to no end that she couldn't seem to best that part of him. Her eyes narrowed at the smaller boy standing next to him from a distance. That's who he'd chosen to be a father to. He'd abandoned her and Milo to go off and have a perfect pureblood heir, someone who he wouldn't be ashamed of.
Oh, she'd read all about the second wizarding war in the copy of Hogwarts: A History that her mother had gifted to both her and Milo when they'd received their Hogwarts letters on their eleventh birthday. She'd read all about his part in the war and what her mother and Uncle Harry had done to help him after the fact to stay out of Azkaban. Selfish bastard, never looked out for anyone beyond his own skin.
The fucking heir turned so that she could see him properly and her breath caught. "Mila? What are you doing?" Milo surprised her popping up in front of her, interrupted her thoughts as she looked away from the bastard and looked up into her brother's matching silver eyes.
"Fuck, Milo. You have a twin." Clearly, he hadn't spotted him or the heir yet, as his back was currently turned towards them.
"Obviously I have a twin, dumbass." Milo replied rolling his eyes. Shooting him a smirk Mila used her hands and turned her twin so that he was now facing the bastard and the heir. She heard the soft gasp letting her know that Milo had found who she was referring to.
Sticking her head around her brother's side, Mila saw the heir drag a trunk with an owl's cage on top towards the express. That left the bastard standing all by himself watching his precious heir walking away.
This was an opportunity that she couldn't let pass her by. She'd yelled at the pictures she'd cut out of any tabloid, but to actually get to say it where he could hear her. There was no way Mila was going to pass up this chance that had just fallen into her lap.
Slipping past Milo, she rolled when she heard him call out "Mila, wait, fuck!" behind her as she advanced on the man she resented above all others. She dipped around another couple as she anticipated her brother reaching out to try and grab her again. Milo might not want to confront him, but she wasn't going to let him stop her.
He still had his back turned towards her when she cleared her throat to get his attention. Right as Milo's hand wrapped around her elbow again, he turned to face them. Only, he looked right over her head and straight into her brother's face. Fucking hell, there was no difference between him and Milo besides Milo's curly hair. So, this is what her brother would look like when he was forty.
Clearing her throat to bring his attention back down to her, she saw as his eyes widened. Mila made sure that her scowl was in place as she put her hands on her hips, mimicking her mother's pose when she scolded anyone. At her movement, she felt Milo's hand drop from her elbow. Milo wasn't going to stay in shock for long, so better make this short and quick. "You're a right bloody arsehole! I just want you to know, we've never needed you. Milo and I are just fine without you." Mila took a breath to spew some more venom at him, but before she could open her mouth again, Milo's hand was around her bicep and he was dragging her away through the crowd of people that had turned to watch them.
Milo didn't stop dragging her until they were far enough away that they wouldn't be overheard. "What the fuck was that, Mila!" He hissed in her face once they were alone.
"Oh please, Milo. As if you haven't been wanting to say more to him. Leaving us to be raised by mum and whoever she's fucking dating at the moment." Mila turned her chin up so that she could look down her nose at her brother.
"He didn't want us, Mila! What, you just want to rub in his face what he's missing out on! We fucking top of our classes and quidditch stars? You want him to know that? You want him to know that we're in his fucking house and that I have to live in the same fucking dorm rooms that he lived in when he was at Hogwarts? Merlin, just fucking drop it. I don't want to see him or be around him, why can't you just leave it alone."
Milo stormed off, leaving Mila where she was standing by herself before she cursed under her breath and chased after him. Damn his long legs. Why did Milo have to get that blasted height and why couldn't she have at least gotten a little bit of it. Mila swore that she was even smaller than her mother was at her age. What gives, shouldn't she have at least been a smidgen bigger with how tall the bastard was.
Mila and Milo arrived where Aunt Gabrielle, Isabelle, Remy, and Jack were together and saying their own goodbyes. It wasn't that it was awkward being around the Potter family. Truth be told, they were some of the only family that the Granger twins and their mother had. Unofficially, of course.
With their father abandoning them before they were born, Mila and Milo had only had their mother. Their grandparents lived in Australia, not wanting anything to do with their mum after she'd recovered their memories. For at least a month during the summer holidays, the twins would travel to go and visit their grandparents without her. They certainly didn't consider any of Ron's family their own, he'd made it perfectly clear to the twins when their mother had agreed to marry the tosser that he was not going to be their father. Not that she wanted that red-headed twit to be her dad anyway.
Listening to Milo finishing giving promises of sending whatever sweet boxes they found on their newly permitted Hogsmeade trips to Isabelle, Mila was pulled away from the girl and into her mother's embrace getting squished up against her brother. A heavy sigh, Mila was reluctant and gave into her mother's overly enthusiastic display of affection and gave her a hug back. As her arm wrapped around her mother though, she felt a prick that someone was watching them and looked up to meet the stormy grey's that she had just introduced herself to.
"He's staring at us, mum." She whispered into her mother's ear. Pulling away from her mother, Mila kept eye contact with him until her face was directed with her mother's firm hand to looking into the chocolate brown eyes, she wished she had inherited instead of the silver.
"Are you alright?" The words were simple, but the question wasn't. With tears blurring her vision, Mila shook her head to answer her mother. As much as she'd always imagined getting to dress him down, the weight of actually doing it was much heavier than Mila ever anticipated.
"I'll write you, mum. I don't want to talk about it right now. I love you; we'll see you for the holidays." A few of the damn tears broke through, and she couldn't help but throw a sneer at the man who had caused them. How dare he stand there and act like this wasn't his doing. This was all his fault; he was the one who had left them. He was the one who hadn't wanted her.
"Hey, look at me." Mila's glare with the startled looking man was broken and she shot her eyes over to Milo who was scuffing the ground with his shoe. Nudging him in the ribs, Mila turned her full attention to her mother again.
"He's just a man, that made a choice. He chose to make a shit choice, but still a choice. I'm sorry he had hurt you, but he holds no power over you or any of us as a fact. Focus on your studies, enjoy the visits to Hogsmeade, maybe don't join the quidditch team again" yeah, okay mum, Mila thought rolling her eyes, "and have fun." Both Mila and Milo let out a snort, knowing full well that Mila would be trying out for the seeker position again and that Milo would be going for beater. As second years, they'd both made the team with ease and they were excited to get back to practice again.
Being pulled into a last hug, their mother whispered "I love you" where Milo muttered 'love you too' and Mila tried to hold in the damn tears still in her eyes and whispered 'I'll see you at Christmas.'
As soon as the warning whistles began to blast, Mila and Milo untangled themselves from their mother's firm grip and made a run for the engine. Milo had a firm grip on her arm to make sure that Mila didn't get lost in the crowd (happens one time) and they were jumping onto the train.
Holding out her hand, Mila quickly helped Remy file in with her before Jack was there clambering on right in front of Milo. His sparkling blue eyes, wait what, sparkling? Er, Jack's stupid blue eyes made her roll her own when he made some sort of stupid comment that she honestly didn't even hear. Apparently, she'd had the right response because he shot her a smile before he nudged Milo's shoulder and they led the way towards the compartment they'd already claimed with their belongings.
Feeling the jerk of the train, however, Mila rushed to the nearest open window and leaned her body as far as she could. Waving wildly at her mother before feeling Milo pull her back onto the train.
"Honestly, you'd think you were a firsty the way you're acting." He muttered beside her as they followed Jack the rest of the way to their compartment.
"Oh putain." She heard Jack say in front of her as he slid open their door before walking in. If he was cursing in French, then it was safe to assume whoever had decided to sit in their compartment wasn't a welcomed guest.
Mila pushed her way through the boys and away from Remy so that she could assess the situation when her eyes fell on a scrawny white-blonde first year wearing top of the line new robes. His silver eyes that were the exact same shade as her own and her twins were looking back at her with shock as his eyes flickered from her eyes and up to Milo. "Well, who do we have here." Mila cooed with a false sweet tone at the heir.
She'd never actually seen a picture of him in the paper or any magazine, but growing up following articles about the bastard, she knew that he existed. Just as the world knew that she, Milo, and the Potter kids existed, they had all been kept from the public eye. Well, until this year that is. Once they were allowed to visit Hogsmeade there was going to be no stopping the paparazzi from easily identifying her, Milo, and Jack since they all looked so much like their parents.
"Uh, hullo, my name is Scorpius Malfoy. It's very nice to meet you." Hearing the younger voice from the back of the older trio, Remy pushed his way through to stand in front of his brother and his two friends.
Before Mila could make any snarky remarks, Remy interrupted her and stepped on her foot. Fucking boy, Mila was irritated that even his first-year ass was slightly taller than her as she scuffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Hullo, my name is Remy Potter. These two here are Mila and Milo Granger, and this is my brother Jack Potter." As he'd said each of their names, he had used his hand to indicate to who he was referring to. "Blimey, you look exactly like Milo. Don't you think so, Mila?" Remy asked looking down at her while she scowled at him.
"Must be a long-lost distant cousin or something. I don't know, Remy." Turning her attention back to the heir, she said, "I'm sure there are other compartments that you can go sit in, yeah? So, off you go. Shoo, shoo." Mila held up her hand and waved it as if she were trying to brush away a speck of dirt out of their compartment.
"Oh, uh, well, they were actually all filled up. But, I can, yeah, I can leave." The heir made a move as if to leave when Remy shot daggers at Mila and put his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"No need, don't listen to Mila. She's always incredibly rude to people she doesn't know." The younger Potter shot her another look after he'd finished pushing the heir back into his seat. "You'd think for someone who's at the top of her year that she'd know when to stop talking. Alas, social situations have never been her strong suit."
"Whatever." Mila muttered as she threw herself into the seat across from the two first years who seemed, to her dismay, to be hitting it off and already forming a little friendship. Sitting down next to the window, Milo still hadn't said a single word and had positioned himself so that he wasn't looking at the heir and only leaning his chin on his fist watching the world pass by them.
Jack, bless him, sat down next to her so that he was close enough that their thighs were touching. "Want me to hex them both while they're being sorted." He whispered into her ear, causing Mila to make a muffled a snort behind her hand and shook her head.
"No, Victoire, Dom, or Louie might write home to their mum and then she'd tell your mum and you'd end up with a howler, again." Aunt Gabrielle could be a right cow when Jack pushed her buttons the wrong way.
The year before, his cousin Louie had just started at Hogwarts in his first year and was sorted into the same house as Jack and the Potter's oldest cousin Victoire. As Jack told it, Mila wasn't sure because she hadn't been hanging out with him in the Gryffindor common room that day, he'd slipped Louie some of the sweets from a skiving snackbox. Only problem was, he hadn't included the antidote treat and Louie ended up being rushed to the infirmary.
Of course, Victoire had disconnected her lips from her boyfriend's just long enough to see Jack discarding the wrapper into the fireplace. She'd written her mum and Aunt Gabrielle after telling Professor Longbottom what Jack had done and caused all sorts of issues.
The howler that had flown in the next day had enough colorful language in it that Mila and Milo, who both spoke fluent French, had been bent over laughing at their red-faced friend. Jack had even been treated to going and spending part of his summer with Uncle Harry's cousin Dudley working at his muggle boxing club as a janitor for the stunt.
"As long as he isn't sorted into Slytherin, we'll be fine." Mila said as she leaned her face against her brother's back and pulled out a deck of playing cards.
Famous last words.
A/N: And we have a start! Mila's sweet and sour personality is based off my own daughter preteen daughter, who, oh boy, does she make my head swirl. Like I said before, this is a bit of a parent trap vibe (obviously not following it exactly) so there's going to be some tension between the twins and Scorpius off the bat and for the first handful of chapters.
Next chapter you're meeting Ron, so brace yourselves. I did mention this is a Weasley bashing story, so if you're a Ron fan this isn't going to be a story for you.
Next Update will probably be Wednesday!