Harry Potter OneShots!

Dramione-A Long Broken Road

By LittleTree of Fanfiction.Net

Draco allowed a small smile to form as he watched from his place in the shadows of the doorway of their room as his wife slowly rock their daughter, Astra, to sleep. Merlin, it had been a long week. Little Astra had come down with a mild new variant of Dragon Pox. Draco blamed his new cousin-in-law - a proud dragon handler - for the source of the sudden illness since he had visited them within a week of their child developing that damned pox that had killed his grandfather and caused his daughter to scream such a horrifying high-pitched cry of agony. Thankfully, that awful cry had sprung them into action and they had immediately taken Astra to St Mungo's.

Draco sighed as the hurried mess of memories and emotions from that day - just a week ago - came flooding back.

Waiting impatiently, helplessly as the Healer ran diagnostic scan after diagnostic scan on a crying, restless Astra. Holding his wife - giving and taking support - as the Healer informed them that Astra's chances were not good, even with Gorsemoor's famous cure, since she was so young and dealing with a new strain of the magical virus. The three nights his daughter had to stay in St Mungo's newly fashioned PICU on the second-floor. Those two events alone were something he never wanted to relive ever again. Even if the sight of his parents sitting beside Hermione's parents while exchanging encouragements and support was something that he could have happily enjoyed under any other circumstance since his parent's, his father especially, had yet to fully embrace his 'union' with a Muggleborn witch, much less her Muggle parents. Only under threat of losing their granddaughter did they shed most of their prejudices and had, hopefully, prompted a major step in the direction of friendship between the Malfoys and the Grangers. That was the only good thing from the terrible ordeal.

Draco had thanked his lucky stars that Astra had proven to be her mother's daughter, as she bravely fought and survived through her stint in PICU and, miraculously, showed signs of a full recovery. Well, minus the new addition of a pale green skin tone she was now cursed with for the remainder of her life.

The start of a gentle melody being softly hummed stirred Draco out of his reverie. The low, setting moon cast a soft glow onto his family before him. Highlighting the blonde streaks in Astra's hair and emphasizing the tiredness in Hermione's hazel eyes as she slowly hummed a lullaby. A Muggle one by the sound of the whimsical lyrics, her buying odd trinkets like a mockingbird had to be from a Muggle mindset.

He found that he quite liked it.

Smirking to himself he considered how much he had changed from the spoiled prat of a school-boy during his early years at Hogwarts. Fastly holding onto his father's ideals and prejudices trying to force them to be his own. To follow in his father's footsteps.

Ha! How naive he had been back then!

His father's footsteps were nothing to brag about or try to imitate but he didn't even begin to fathom that till after his fifth year. After He Who Must Not Be Named returned and the war truly began. . . it had almost been too late then, almost. But he had recognized the faulty logic and idiotic dogma of the Death Eaters before being forced into taking the mark.

Forced into betraying Hogwarts by allowing Death Eaters into the school and into the Astronomy Tower. . . he would never be able to fully repay his godfather for taking his place as Dumbledore's executioner. Nightmares of that night still haunt him albeit not as frequent as they once were thanks to the calming presence of his wife sleeping next to him, but even then - like the faded scar on his arm - the nightmares would never truly go away.

It had been Hermione's presence that had helped the curtain of prejudicial lies to tear from his eyes. Her power, her intelligence, and her beauty were proof-positive that, "Muggleborns were inferior" was complete and utter bunk. Tommy Rot. Nonsense. She was, is, the Brightest Witch of their generation and a living example that Muggleborns were equal or even superior to closeted, mollycoddled purebloods like himself.