Chapter 18: Odium Potion
Legs bouncing, Mila looked over and shot her twin a quick smile before she stood up and began pacing the private room that she'd reserved. Walking over to the window, she looked down on the snow-covered village where she could see her classmates running around going from shop to shop.
"If you just sit down…" Milo started to say, before Mila whipped around landing a glare on him.
"Sit down? You think we're going to be sitting here just telling our parents that someone drugged our father and split up the family is going to go smoothly. And you think I should just sit down!" Mila all but shrieked at her brother, making him roll his eyes at her dramatics.
"Look, Scorpius said that Draco would pick him up around noon and it's quarter till. That means that they still have to walk from the castle and down to the village. Mum isn't here yet and while I truly appreciate your talents for the theater, I'd much rather not listen to you acting like telling our parents that we broke into Draco's home office and used his pensieve is the end of the world."
"You two did, what?" The chair that Milo had been leaning back in on two legs fell completely backwards, toppling him to the ground at the sound of their mother's voice from the doorway. "I'm sorry, I must have misheard you, Milo Benjamin, but did you just say that you broke into your father's home office?"
The door snapped shut and with a wave of her wand, the twins felt the silencing charm settle over the room, essentially cutting them off from any help that they would desperately be needing.
"You don't understand, mum." Mila said, rushing forwards to where her brother was sitting on the floor. "We were just trying to help, honest. It wasn't like we were trying to find anything incriminating on him or something, we just wanted to find out why he left you, left us."
Hermione ran her hand over her eyes with a heavy sigh before looking back down at her children, sparks flying off the ends of her hair. "Any why, pray tell, do you think he would store something about our relationship in his home office?"
"Well, he did, he had the memory of your breakup and well…" Mila started to say, but her mother cut her off.
"You watched our breakup!? Mila Emmeline, of all the stupid and inconsiderate things you could have watched! That is a private moment between me and Draco, something that we, as the adults and as the couple in that moment, have to work through. That had nothing to do with you!" Her mother scolded, her face was red, but Mila could feel her own face heating in furry at her mother's dismissal.
"Nothing to do with me! You mean to tell me that why our father abandoned us had nothing to do with me!" Mila said, standing so that she was hovering over her brother now and facing her mother. "Have you even watched that memory recently, mother?" Mila asked, stalking closer to the witch that looked so much like her. "You say it has nothing to do with me, but it has everything to do with me and our family!"
"Watched it? I don't have to watch it, Mila! I lived the bloody moment, and let me tell you, I'm not exactly thrilled that my children went behind my back to witness the single worst event of my life! You lost your father; well, I lost my entire world at that moment!"
"Well, if you hadn't been such a coward, you would have been able to see what actually happened instead of letting your emotions take over! If you would have sucked it up, you would have seen that my dad was drugged and taken from me!" Mila shouted, just as the door opened, revealing Draco and Scorpius.
Milo stood from the ground, where he had remained after falling, and put a hand on Mila's shoulder. In the doorway, they could see Scorpius clutching his school bag that they knew held the two books, Runnings of a Pureblood Estate and Potions Most Rare. This had not been the plan at all in how the children had discussed breaking the news of the Odium Potion being used on their father.
In fact, they'd had an entire conversation laid out and what part each child would play in the explanation. They were going to start off with Mila's suspicions that there was foul play in their parents' breakup, following up with Scorpius showing them the books and if it came down to it Milo explaining his observations in the pensieve. Obviously the pensieve was their last resort because they were still Slytherins, and they weren't willing to throw themselves to the wolves to prove a point.
"Does someone want to start explaining what is going on here?" Draco asked, his voice strangely calm for what he'd just walked in on. "Mila, why were you raising your voice towards your mother and claiming that I was drugged?"
Cringing, Mila looked over at Scorpius, who luckily was already digging into his bag and pulling out the books. Glancing back towards her father, Mila felt the weight of his silver stare as his eyes stayed on her. In the short amount of time she'd known him, she'd never had him look at her with such intensity, as if with just a look he could pull every answer he wanted from her.
"We broke into your office and used your pensieve. There was a memory of your breakup with mum, and we watched part of it. You had a golden tinge around your jaw, and you were sweating, clear indicators that you were under the influence during the interaction. It called into question whether or not you'd severed your relationship with our mother of your own free will or not." Milo said, stepping forwards and putting Mila behind him. Always the protector.
"I found these in our library, Father." Scorpius whispered in such a low voice that had the room not been filled with a tense silence, he would not have been heard. "Pip helped me obtain them, and I apologize for using her to circumnavigate the wards on the restricted books."
"You were drugged, sir. With an Odium Potion." Mila finished, peeking her head around Milo's shoulder. She wasn't sure if Draco had heard her or not, because he didn't respond, too absorbed into the texts that he'd taken from Scorpius.
Letting her self-preservation skills kick in, Mila pointedly avoided making any eye contact with her mother. It wasn't that she was scared of the woman, per say, however, she had no intentions of getting into another row with her so soon. Mila watched as her mum walked over and placed a hand in a comforting gesture on Draco's forearm. He lowered the book so that she could also read the pages that Scorpius had marked and had previously shown to his sister.
The silence in the room was tense, and the three children watched as realization washed over their mother's features while their father's face remained impassive. Mila reached out a hand to each of her brothers as they watched their parents flip through each book individually.
"It all adds up…" Their mother whispered, tears brimming in her eyes as she flipped through the potions book again. "Draco, who would have done this to you?" She asked, looking up at the man standing next to her.
"If you'll excuse me, Granger, would you be able to escort Scorpius back to the castle?" Draco asked as he turned to leave, obviously not waiting for an answer. "Thank you, children. I'll be in touch, Granger." He said, nodding his head as he stepped out the door.
"DRACO!" Hermione shouted, turning to look at her children for a moment before turning and chasing after the man who had just swept out of the room. "DRACO MALFOY!" They could hear her heavy footfalls, running down the stairs, probably trying to catch up to their father before he left the village.
The three kids stood together looking at the doorway where their parents had just left through. There wasn't anything else to be done, so Mila sat down in a chair and kicked her feet up on the table, pulling her previously discarded butterbeer towards her. "Well," she said looking at matching silver eyes, "that could have gone better."
"Couldn't have gone much worse…" Scorpius said, sitting down, letting his head drop in his hands. He ignored the mug that Mila had pushed towards him after casting a cooling charm on the liquid inside.
"They believed us, Scorp, and that's what's important. Did you see how Draco reacted?" Milo said, letting a hand rest on his younger brother's back, "he doesn't want us to see any weakness, and I can't imagine that he can hold it in much longer."
"Where do you think he's going?" Mila asked, taking another sip from her drink and looking at her twin who had just ordered lunch for all of them.
"Azkaban, where else?"
ooo
"Draco, wait damn it! Don't run off on me and leave me to deal with this by myself!" Hermione was yelling after the blonde as she chased him down the main street of Hogsmeade towards the Apparition Point.
"I have to get to Azkaban, Granger. I have to go speak with Lucius and find out what he knows about this." Draco replied over his shoulder, not turning around to look at her as he continued his pace down the street.
Running so that she was ahead of him, Hermione stopped, the slush of the melted snow splashing up on the legs of their trousers. Both hands on his chest, Hermione was finally able to get the blonde to stop walking. She looked up into his molten eyes that were shimmering with rage, while he'd been able to contain all his emotions while they were in front of their children, she could feel the heat from his magic pulsing off his body and through his black peacoat.
"You have to take Scorpius back to the school; I'm not his guardian and I'm not allowed to have him outside the castle alone." She said, trying to reason with him and stop him from going to confront his father while he was so emotionally charged.
"You can," Draco said, surprising her with his answer.
"What, no I can't. Just because I'm the mother of your other two children doesn't mean that I have any rights towards Scorpius." She said, quirking an eyebrow in his direction.
"You do, I filled out the permission form naming you as an emergency contact for him and granting you permission to contact the school in my stead. Including being able to retrieve and return him to Hogwarts as you would the twins. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to be on my way."
"Draco, you cannot go and confront your father about this," Hermione said, stepping in front of him again when he tried to go around her. "You have to think logically. You don't have any evidence against him, and if you go in there now, he'll be able to prepare a defense against this when we bring up charges against him for it."
"He's in prison, Hermione! He shouldn't have been able to drug me at all!" Draco sneered, his lip curling as he again tried to step around her only to be stopped again.
"No, he shouldn't have, but clearly, he did. Don't you remember, Theo's father got slapped with an attempted murder charge while incarcerated. Drugging someone shouldn't be that difficult." Hermione said, watching as the tension in Draco's shoulders started to give way. Taking her chances again, Hermione stepped back into Draco's personal space, putting her hands up on his chest and forcing him to make eye contact with her. "We are going to figure this out, and we're going to fix this, together."
Going up on her toes, Hermione reached forwards and let her lips brush against the dark blonde stubble that had begun growing in on his jaw. "You don't have to do anything alone again," she whispered against his skin as she moved her lips towards his, lingering there not wanting to make such a public move if he wasn't comfortable.
She didn't have to wait long, because Draco crashed his mouth against hers, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her body into his. Hermione's hands snaked up from his chest and into the hair at the base of his neck, threading her fingers in the silky strands. Draco nipped her bottom lip, causing a moan, leaving her mouth opened so that Draco could slide his tongue inside.
His hands began to wander down, until he was gripping her arse, and as if it were muscle memory, Hermione jumped from the ground, wrapping her legs around his waist. Hermione let her tongue battle with his as they fought for dominance within their kiss when suddenly a loud whistle broke the couple out of the trance they had found themselves in.
"Looking good, Ms. Granger!" Hermione heard the voice of her children's teammate Matteo Zabini call. Hermione struggled to get out of Draco's hold, but he only gripped her closer to his body as he shot a look towards the children. A laugh rang out from the boy that was nearly identical to the ones she remembered coming from Blaise when they'd been in school.
"I'd really hate to hex the son of one of my best mates…" Draco was murmuring into her ear as his hands squeezed her arse again.
"Put me down, you neanderthal," Hermione scolded, slapping her hand against his chest. "You're acting like an animal in the middle of the street in front of school children."
"I'm acting like an animal? You're the one who kissed me!" Draco exclaimed, giving her bum one last squeeze before setting her back on her feet. "And for the record, I'm not opposed to continuing what you started someplace, more privately" Draco said, whispering the last part in her ear, making Hermione shutter in anticipation of the possibilities.
"Oi, don't stop on account of me!" The Zabini boy yelled out again before a string of curse words left his mouth. Hermione tucked her wand back in her arm holster just as Draco noticed letting out a laugh.
"Stinging jinx?" He asked, throwing an arm around her shoulders as they made their way back towards the Three Broomsticks.
"Of course, always worked wonders on his father anytime he opened his mouth in school." Hermione said, smiling up at her wizard.
"Very true, the kid for sure got his mouth from his father. Alright, let's go feed the kids, get Scorpius back to Hogwarts, then you and I are going on a date tonight to finish what you started in the middle of the street."
Hermione nudged Draco with her shoulder as they neared the front door, "you, okay?" She asked, looking up into his eyes.
"No, but you're right," she raised an eyebrow and he let out a huff in irritation. "We do need to play this close to the chest. We know Lucius is involved, and we can't give him any advantage."
"We'll figure this out, together." Hermione promised, squeezing Draco's hand as they walked up the stairs to rejoin their children. Regardless of whatever else happened, she was not letting Draco go ever again.
A/N: Hello everyone! Welcome, welcome, and I hope you enjoyed this update. As you've noticed my update schedule is a bit all over the place. Not going as I planned, but that is how life goes, right?
Well, ANYWAY, I've decided for my peace of mind that I'm tossing an update schedule out the window (so to speak) and will be posting updates as they come to me instead of trying to keep up with a schedule. I apologize if that upsets anyone, but it is what it is.
This is work NOT abandoned or even on a hiatus, but with me writing what is coming to me instead of forcing anything, that means there will be more stories and content coming from me...just not this one in particular.
I do have another Dramione and a new Dreomione that I'll be throwing up this week. First two chapters of those are done, just going through the beta stages. The Dramione is called 'The Great and Noble House of Nott', a pureblood Hermione story where she is the twin sister of Theo Nott. Going to be sad, going to be dark. The Dreomione is called 'Grief Group' and as you can gather from the title alone, it will be a sad fic as well, AND it is based a lot on my personal experience as a mother who has lost a child. SO, yeah, once those are done with the betas, they'll be up. So, could be this week or next...
ALSO, just finishing up THREE pieces (one I co-wrote) that are for fests and won't be released for a hot minute (one is being revealed in June the other two are slotted for September). Let's see, oh, I have a very fluffy Theomione that I've outlined and is a short, will probably be 8-10 chapters (or more) that I'll start throwing up once I've gotten the first two chapters written. So, there are goodies!
News for 'If Only', fear not, I have the next three chapters outlined and plotted...I just have to write them and I want them to be GOOD, so they'll be coming out in the near future (just no dates being promised)
Alright, love you all and the support I've been getting for this fic! I am close to finishing it, we have the big climax coming, the next chapter is SMUT and Dramione fan service, so you have that to look forward to.
See you all soon!