p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"Draco Malfoy felt young. As he watched his son run madly through the streets of Hogsmeade and into his waiting arms, a trail of friends he had managed to make in the first months of school winding behind him, he felt light and carefree for the first time in…well, he couldn't remember when. Perhaps when he'd been Scorpius' age himself and the most frightening thing in the world had been the possibility of Potter making the Quidditch team before him./p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;"He had refrained from visiting his son during the first Hogsmeade weekend to give Scorpius the change to enjoy the exhilarating sense of grown-up freedom that made the village so enchanting to Hogwarts students. But Christmas was still months away, and even though Scorpius' letters assured him that he was fitting in better than either of them could ever have hoped, Draco found himself desperate to see the truth for himself. Although he had been prepared for Scorpius to greet him with all the awkward reserve of an eleven-year old desperate for his father's respect, there was something enormously satisfying in seeing his son so overcome with joy that he forgot he was supposed to be embarrassed by his appearance./span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;"Draco ushered them all into the raucously crowded Three Broomsticks for a round of butterbeers, and was surprised to see a plethora of houses represented in his son's little band of friends. The only Slytherins among them were Scorpius and, of all people, Albus Potter (what a scandal that sorting must have been!). The Hufflepuff Weasley twins and a Gryffindor girl with the long blonde braids were joined by a Ravenclaw boy who proved to be Scorpius' only cousin. They'd heard the rumors in France, of course, of a short-lived relationship between Neville Longbottom and Daphne Greengrass, but Astoria's pregnancy had not been easy and by the time it was all over, Daphne had refused to ever speak on the subject. However, Cecil Longbottom was living proof that something indeed had taken place; he was shockingly good-looking, incredibly brilliant, and perpetually injured from a generational curse of clumsiness. Scorpius related the story of why Cecil's arm was in a sling at least three times, but all Draco managed to understand over the din of the pub was that it had involved a boat and the Giant Squid./span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;"By the time the children had to return to Hogwarts, Draco's hearing had been permanently damaged. Life in France had often been too quiet, especially during the dark days of Astoria's illness, but Draco had forgotten just how /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"loud/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt;" a group of children could be. He watched with a certain wistfulness, though, as the little boy who only two months ago had been afraid to stray too far from Draco's shadow bounded away after his friends without a thought. He was glad to see the fear of loss gone from his son's eyes, but he could admit to loneliness now that his son no longer needed him in quite the same way./span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"It had been nearly a year since his wife's death, but in many ways the pain of her passing had not truly faded. Or perhaps it was merely the guilt that would never leave him be. Although he often assured Scorpius to the contrary, Draco and Astoria had not shared any deep passion. To all outward appearances, theirs had been a love-match, as his parents had not been pleased with Astoria's public disavowal of blood purity. But Astoria had been a choice of convenience - as a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, she had been the perfect compromise between pleasing his parents while at the same distancing himself from their political views. He and Astoria had been good friends, certainly, and perhaps by the end there had been a sort of comfortable affection that might have passed for love, but nothing that one could call romance./p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;"Perhaps that was why he had fought so hard for her life. Scorpius had been five years old when Astoria revealed that she/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt;" /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt;"was suffering from a blood curse and would not live too see her son go to Hogwarts. In denial, Draco had dragged her to every specialist he could find in both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds. When the specialists proved worthless, he dove deep into every academic field he could think of. However, his in curse breaking, potions, and medi-wizardry (all of which he finished in less time than it usually took to complete just one) also proved useless, and he had still had to watch helplessly as she wasted away. Even today he could not shake the feeling that Astoria's suffering had been a kind of cosmic punishment for his own incompetence as a husband. He could only hope he did not fail Scorpius the same way he had failed the boy's mother./span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;"These melancholy thoughts were what occupied him as he wandered slowly along the road from Hogsmeade to the apparition point nearest Hogwarts. There was something about autumn in Scotland that invited introspection and feelings of nostalgia, particularly here in this place where so many childhood memories were wrapped up in every bend in the road. As he reached the edge of town, there was a sudden rush of wind and leaves and a murmur of starlings that made him feel suspended in space and time. When the world settled back down he looked up to see, of all things, Hermione Granger emerging from a cottage, a basket on her arm and her nose buried in a book./span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;""Oh, I bought a cottage here ages ago," she explained after they exchanged bewildered greetings. "I wanted something in the country to get away from London to, and this seemed as much home as any place. I don't use it half so often as I should, but Luna convinced me to take a break - well, she actually did so months ago, but everything has been so busy. And I'm rambling terribly, aren't I? Did you see Scorpius? Tell me how things are going at Hogwarts - I love my godson, but Albus is a terrible letter writer."/span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"And that was how Draco found himself in a tea room tucked away at the end of the high street in Hogsmeade with Hermione Granger. The conversation flowed as easily as the excellent brew. Perhaps she was just as surprised as he was at how easy it was to slip into old habits; he could easily imaging them back in Snape's old classroom arguing over ingredients… or Binn's span style="font-style: italic;"History of Magic /spanon the rare occasion the ghostly professor had let anyone else get a word in edgewise…or in Hagrid's "Care of Magical Creatures"…had they really spent so much of their childhoods arguing?/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;""Of course we did," Hermione replied with a laugh when he belatedly realized he'd said that last out loud. "I love Ron and Harry dearly, but they were hardly worthy sparring partners. Beating you at anything was always so much more satisfying."/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"Reflecting on his own experiences, Draco realized this held true for him as well. Even in his worst haze of pretension, Draco had always instinctively known that Hermione Granger had been a foe worth opposing. Impervious to his money, status, or childish attempts at charm, she had challenged everything he believed about the world just by being herself./p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;""Did you go back for seventh year?" he asked. He had wanted to desperately, but his parents had urged him to move on./p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;""I did. I didn't know what else to do. Everyone scattered to the winds after the war, but…I needed to go home. And Hogwarts was the only home I had left."/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"At a gentle question, the whole tale of her parents came out. He hadn't known, of course, and now that he did he was even more impressed with her conduct during the war. Even at eighteen, she had shown greater strength and courage than he had in his whole life./p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;""Nonsense, Draco," she said as she tidied her place and paid the bill before he could stop her. "The closest I ever came to Tom Riddle was during the final battle, and I was so scared I wasn't of much use, frankly. But he was living in your house for almost a year and you still had the courage to save Harry's life when it mattered most. Without you, the war would have ended very differently."/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"With a gentle pat on his shoulder, she was off and disappeared into the bookshop next door. Not for the first time, Hermione Granger had left him speechless./p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;"He had refrained from visiting his son during the first Hogsmeade weekend to give Scorpius the change to enjoy the exhilarating sense of grown-up freedom that made the village so enchanting to Hogwarts students. But Christmas was still months away, and even though Scorpius' letters assured him that he was fitting in better than either of them could ever have hoped, Draco found himself desperate to see the truth for himself. Although he had been prepared for Scorpius to greet him with all the awkward reserve of an eleven-year old desperate for his father's respect, there was something enormously satisfying in seeing his son so overcome with joy that he forgot he was supposed to be embarrassed by his appearance./span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;"Draco ushered them all into the raucously crowded Three Broomsticks for a round of butterbeers, and was surprised to see a plethora of houses represented in his son's little band of friends. The only Slytherins among them were Scorpius and, of all people, Albus Potter (what a scandal that sorting must have been!). The Hufflepuff Weasley twins and a Gryffindor girl with the long blonde braids were joined by a Ravenclaw boy who proved to be Scorpius' only cousin. They'd heard the rumors in France, of course, of a short-lived relationship between Neville Longbottom and Daphne Greengrass, but Astoria's pregnancy had not been easy and by the time it was all over, Daphne had refused to ever speak on the subject. However, Cecil Longbottom was living proof that something indeed had taken place; he was shockingly good-looking, incredibly brilliant, and perpetually injured from a generational curse of clumsiness. Scorpius related the story of why Cecil's arm was in a sling at least three times, but all Draco managed to understand over the din of the pub was that it had involved a boat and the Giant Squid./span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;"By the time the children had to return to Hogwarts, Draco's hearing had been permanently damaged. Life in France had often been too quiet, especially during the dark days of Astoria's illness, but Draco had forgotten just how /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;"loud/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt;" a group of children could be. He watched with a certain wistfulness, though, as the little boy who only two months ago had been afraid to stray too far from Draco's shadow bounded away after his friends without a thought. He was glad to see the fear of loss gone from his son's eyes, but he could admit to loneliness now that his son no longer needed him in quite the same way./span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"It had been nearly a year since his wife's death, but in many ways the pain of her passing had not truly faded. Or perhaps it was merely the guilt that would never leave him be. Although he often assured Scorpius to the contrary, Draco and Astoria had not shared any deep passion. To all outward appearances, theirs had been a love-match, as his parents had not been pleased with Astoria's public disavowal of blood purity. But Astoria had been a choice of convenience - as a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, she had been the perfect compromise between pleasing his parents while at the same distancing himself from their political views. He and Astoria had been good friends, certainly, and perhaps by the end there had been a sort of comfortable affection that might have passed for love, but nothing that one could call romance./p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;"Perhaps that was why he had fought so hard for her life. Scorpius had been five years old when Astoria revealed that she/spanspan style="font-size: 11pt;" /spanspan style="font-size: 11pt;"was suffering from a blood curse and would not live too see her son go to Hogwarts. In denial, Draco had dragged her to every specialist he could find in both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds. When the specialists proved worthless, he dove deep into every academic field he could think of. However, his in curse breaking, potions, and medi-wizardry (all of which he finished in less time than it usually took to complete just one) also proved useless, and he had still had to watch helplessly as she wasted away. Even today he could not shake the feeling that Astoria's suffering had been a kind of cosmic punishment for his own incompetence as a husband. He could only hope he did not fail Scorpius the same way he had failed the boy's mother./span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;"These melancholy thoughts were what occupied him as he wandered slowly along the road from Hogsmeade to the apparition point nearest Hogwarts. There was something about autumn in Scotland that invited introspection and feelings of nostalgia, particularly here in this place where so many childhood memories were wrapped up in every bend in the road. As he reached the edge of town, there was a sudden rush of wind and leaves and a murmur of starlings that made him feel suspended in space and time. When the world settled back down he looked up to see, of all things, Hermione Granger emerging from a cottage, a basket on her arm and her nose buried in a book./span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt;""Oh, I bought a cottage here ages ago," she explained after they exchanged bewildered greetings. "I wanted something in the country to get away from London to, and this seemed as much home as any place. I don't use it half so often as I should, but Luna convinced me to take a break - well, she actually did so months ago, but everything has been so busy. And I'm rambling terribly, aren't I? Did you see Scorpius? Tell me how things are going at Hogwarts - I love my godson, but Albus is a terrible letter writer."/span/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"And that was how Draco found himself in a tea room tucked away at the end of the high street in Hogsmeade with Hermione Granger. The conversation flowed as easily as the excellent brew. Perhaps she was just as surprised as he was at how easy it was to slip into old habits; he could easily imaging them back in Snape's old classroom arguing over ingredients… or Binn's span style="font-style: italic;"History of Magic /spanon the rare occasion the ghostly professor had let anyone else get a word in edgewise…or in Hagrid's "Care of Magical Creatures"…had they really spent so much of their childhoods arguing?/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;""Of course we did," Hermione replied with a laugh when he belatedly realized he'd said that last out loud. "I love Ron and Harry dearly, but they were hardly worthy sparring partners. Beating you at anything was always so much more satisfying."/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"Reflecting on his own experiences, Draco realized this held true for him as well. Even in his worst haze of pretension, Draco had always instinctively known that Hermione Granger had been a foe worth opposing. Impervious to his money, status, or childish attempts at charm, she had challenged everything he believed about the world just by being herself./p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;""Did you go back for seventh year?" he asked. He had wanted to desperately, but his parents had urged him to move on./p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;""I did. I didn't know what else to do. Everyone scattered to the winds after the war, but…I needed to go home. And Hogwarts was the only home I had left."/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"At a gentle question, the whole tale of her parents came out. He hadn't known, of course, and now that he did he was even more impressed with her conduct during the war. Even at eighteen, she had shown greater strength and courage than he had in his whole life./p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;""Nonsense, Draco," she said as she tidied her place and paid the bill before he could stop her. "The closest I ever came to Tom Riddle was during the final battle, and I was so scared I wasn't of much use, frankly. But he was living in your house for almost a year and you still had the courage to save Harry's life when it mattered most. Without you, the war would have ended very differently."/p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;" /p
p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11.0pt;"With a gentle pat on his shoulder, she was off and disappeared into the bookshop next door. Not for the first time, Hermione Granger had left him speechless./p