"Come on, come on now. Settle down, you lot."
At the shuffling of feet and little conversations here and there, Kingsley Shacklebolt leaned a little to his side towards Molly Weasley as she tried to assemble everyone together in her cozy living room. "Does not matter how old they get they still never listen."
Huffing in agreement, Mrs. Weasley nodded her head as she watched disapprovingly as Ron gave his sister a shove; pushing her away before she took the armchair he loved to proclaim as his when they visited the Burrow. "Their children act more orderly than they do,” she replied to the dark-skinned man, an old family friend. "Just hopeless, they are."
"Shove me one more time, Ronald, and you'll lose that hand, I swear it."
"Well, move, Ginevra!" The tall redheaded man had retorted to his sister, patting the armrest so his wife could sit by his side. "Your fat ass is getting in the way of things."
Clenching her jaw tight, Ginny Potter was pulled back a step for fear of that dangerous look in her eyes. "You're one to talk about someone's weight, Ron. Put on another twenty pounds, have you?"
"Alright, that's enough!" Molly scolded before Ron turned completely red in the face and someone started shooting spells from their wand. "Sit, all of you. Now,” she commanded as Harry pulled Ginny to the seat next to him and one of her older brothers.
Stepping from behind his wife and the Minister of Magic, Arthur Weasley looked brightly at all the expecting faces waiting for someone to speak. "We have called you here today for a few reasons, and one of them being that most of you are still members of the Order of the Phoenix."
Raising an eyebrow, Pansy Weasley looked skeptically at her father-in-law. "Then what are Zabini and I doing here?" She asked. "Isn't there some kind of no-ex-Death-Eaters policy?"
Mister Weasley looked momentarily confused. "Who told you that, Pansy?"
"Zabini."
"Only because that's what Weasley said when I tried sneaking into one last time!" Blaise Zabini, sitting on the floor with his legs crossed like an obedient child, had blurted as everyone looked at him. "You lied to me, you slimy git!"
Grunting as the ex Slytherin glared at him, Ron shrugged casually. "Well, you shouldn't have pissed me off that day, Zabini. Who's the fool now?"
"Alright, alright, forget it!" Mrs. Weasley had shouted at the crowd before Zabini could launch himself towards her youngest son. "Pansy darling, you’re family, obviously we trust you. And you, Blaise, dear, you’ve proven yourself more than loyal all this time. We trust you just as much."
Scoffing but looking pleased, Blaise muttered a, "you lot better."
"Can we just get on with it?" George Weasley had asked, frowning at his mother as he tapped his foot impatiently. "It was Teddy's day off, and ironically, so was Victoire's. And if I take longer they'll think it'll be alright to close up my shop and use it like a five-star hotel!"
From a seat next to her scarred husband, Fleur glared at her brother-in-law. "My daughter would never in 'er life do such a zing!"
George snorted. "Obviously you haven't heard the story of the violated archive room in the Auror Department."
Getting tired of the pointless discussion, Kingsley stepped next to Arthur and in a rough voice said, "listen carefully Aurors and Order members alike because this information will not be repeated ever again." And the silence fell. "Listening to the recording that Auror Lupin took from his interrogation with Gregory Goyle the Wizengamot reevaluated the sentence that’d been given to him. As an Auror Department we gave him five, but the Wizengamot gave him twenty years."
Blaise looked up from his seat on the floor, not really acknowledging his wife but at the dark-haired witch that had once been a fellow Slytherin and friend; both of them sharing some sort of discomfort at the mention of Goyle's sentence in Azkaban.
"Now, all of you know that the Wizengamot's word is final,” the Minister continued, “but after the Head Auror and I talked to the Council, we managed to shorten Mister Goyle's sentence to six years of prison for his forced participation and cooperation with the Auror Department."
Expecting to hear some sort of protest from at least Ron and Pansy Weasley — because the latter had expressed deep desire to punish Goyle for his misleading participation in the kidnap of their daughter — Kingsley continued without interruption. "And, referring to Mister Goyle's case, the body of his wife Parvati Goyle née Patil is assigned to be buried in the grounds of Hogwarts along with all those fallen war heroes. Are there any protests?"
Looking saddened in her hazel-eyes, Ginny shook her head as the rest remained silent. "No, Parvati deserves to be buried there,” she said in a gentle voice as Harry nodded slowly in agreement. "She was a member of the D.A and she deserves the respect and admiration of her fight during the war and the way she…died."
"After failing to find the whereabouts of Padma and her family, Mister Goyle has requested that his daughter be cremated and her ashes spread around Australia, the place she knew as her home, since there’s no living relative that can claim the body."
Feeling a knot in her throat, because even though she had hated Goyle for hours, Pansy had never wished him to lose his family the way he had. Not especially after he had traded his liberty for their safety. Something only a real man, a father and a husband would’ve done. (Because Salazar knows that if it ever came to it, Pansy would’ve no doubt committed unthinkable crimes to keep Ron and their children safe in a heartbeat.)
"What about the boy?" Her voice was low and unsteady. "Garrett, Goyle's son? What's to become of him after he leaves St. Mungos?"
Noticing that worry that only a mother can have sparkle in her dark-eyes, Mrs. Weasley decided to answer for her daughter-in-law. "As he was rescued from Malfoy Manor and the culprits, the boy was already registered as an orphan. And unless Padma is found the boy’s eligible for adoption seeing as his only living parent is unfit to take care of him."
And this time, Blaise looked at Cho; his sorrow and grief for his old friend's family spreading in his bright eyes.
"Now, in the matter of Aries Yaxley,” and not letting the silence deepen, Mister Weasley continued, “as full accomplice to Tanya Rowle's blood-stained plans, he is sentenced to forty years in Azkaban prison without a chance of parole; alongside his recruiters."
At that, no one said anything. Ron muttered a curse word, Pansy rolled her eyes, and George chuckled as the rest nodded.
"As tortured victim, forced and used in these accounts, Eliz Wilkes, cousin of Aries Yaxley, was released immediately after her interrogation with the Auror Department."
"I found no reason to hold her prisoner,” adding his own, Harry Potter cut across his father-in-law. "She was innocent right from the start. She's just a girl trying to get on with her life and that’s what we decided to grant her. We're giving her full protection as she returns to Italy to continue on with her education. Though…."
"Though?" Pansy questioned. "Though what, Potter?"
The Chosen One shrugged. "She has asked permission to visit Garrett Goyle as much as she possibly can while he’s in the hospital and after he’s transferred to his designated orphanage."
"Cute," George snorted, looking down at his watch. "Are we about done here? Not that it hasn't been lovely, but peak-hour is about to start in Diagon Alley."
His mother scowled roughly. "Yes, George. That seems to be it."
"Great." The tall redhead clapped his hands, standing from his seat as he pressed a kiss to his wife's head who frowned at him too. "Unless you lot have anything else to say, I best be—”
"Well, since we are all here, I have something to say." Interrupting her brother-in-law's farewell, Pansy smirked as he scoffed at her. "Trust me you'll want to hear this, Weasley."
George glared as Angelina brought him back down to his seat. "I doubt it,” he grumbled.
Ignoring him, Pansy looked down at her husband's face — Ron was already boring his eyes into hers with a questioning look on his face. "I…" She paused for a second, her hands shaking as her heart thumped. "I had an…."She shook her black hair, inhaling deeply."I'm pregnant."
(Yeah, that would do it.)
Coughing like he’d accidentally swallowed an entire mince pie, Ron bolted upright from the armchair, knocking Pansy out of the arm rest in the process.
"Oi, watch it, Ron!" Bill had hissed at his brother, steadying Pansy before she tumbled to the floor. "She is pregnant!"
"But - But -But…."Ron kept coughing, spluttering every other word as his mother rushed towards his wife.
"Oh, darling!" Molly cried, reeling her daughter-in-law into a tight embrace. "Oh, this is a blessing! Another grandchild!"
Grinning mockingly, Ginny also stood up from her seat as Angelina and Fleur made their way to Pansy. "Guess this is why you've been putting on weight, eh, Ron?"
"But - But – But,” the redhead spluttered again as his best friend joined his side, clapping him hard on the back.
"Congrats, mate." Harry grinned. "You're going to have a baby."
And just as the congratulations was being passed around to a glowing Pansy and a chocked-up Ron, Blaise turned to his wife with a grand smirk and wiggle to his eyebrows.
"You're mad," Cho scoffed, shaking her head. "We are not having another child, Blaise. It took me a year to get my Quidditch-body back after I had Savanna. Absolutely not."
Zabini crossed his arms in an indignant way. He was never allowed any fun.
X
Exiting the dining room with a copy of the Daily Prophet, he turned into the living room with his mind wondering off in every which way it wanted to. And just as he looked over the front page of the newspaper, his mind decided to settle on a recently new member of Azkaban prison. But right before he could let his memory wash over to that tape he’d heard from the evidence room of the Auror Department, he noticed that the door at the end of the hall that lead to the backyard was open.
And hearing a few voices entering his home from the outside, Draco Malfoy settled his newspaper on the center-table of the living room, where a medical-potion and a cup of tea laid there no doubt for him. But choosing to ignore the latter, he continued walking towards the open door as the voices began to clear themselves.
"…He's just seven, Katherine. What are we supposed to tell him?"
"We tell him the truth, John."
Carefully peeking through the glass sliding-door, Draco made sure that the figures on the either side of the grassy hedges that separated his house from the neighbors could not see him eavesdropping.
And in that little gap, Draco managed to see the Bakers in their own backyard; both looking exhausted and tortured in their own way as they whispered to each other.
"He's the only child, Katherine,” the muggle-man continued, staring at his wife with forced blankness. "Can you begin to imagine the torture that's going to be on him? He's just a child."
Through the sun that was gleaming up in the sky, rays of it highlighted the glittering tears that were accumulated in the woman's black-eyes; trying her hardest to keep them there and not let herself break. "…I know that. But, you’ve to understand that in the long run it's what's going to be best for Orlando, John. I cannot…I cannot have him grow up and watch me live full of resentment."
"Resentment?" Her husband repeated, staring at her with a bit of incredulity. "What can you possibly resent? I've given you only the best since we've married. I've worked my hardest for you and our son…How can you not be happy?"
Swallowing what had to be an emotional knot, the woman remained silent for a few seconds as her bottom lip trembled. "…I was only nineteen,” and her voice quivered. "I didn't know anything of life, of myself, of what I was going to do with our relationship. And you know that…We were already breaking up when I found out I was pregnant…I….I had dreams.
"There was just so much I wanted to do, and you cannot pretend that this was not forced upon us. We married because it was the right thing to do, because our parents were not accepting anything else from us. And….And you can't base a marriage on that."
The muggle-man shook his head, taking one step closer to his wife as the sunrays made his matching coal-eyes glitter with tears. He reached for her hand, looking equally as tormented. "That's not true, Katy, I loved you." He squeezed her fingers. "I still love you."
"But is that enough?" She asked in a murmur.
"—I was seventeen, fresh out of Hogwarts, when I married your father." Interrupting Draco away from his view of the muggle-neighbors, his silver eyes found the piercing blue of his mother's. "Arranged marriages were accustomed in the pureblood society, and I was not one to be left behind to uphold the values that my family wanted to keep alive with another pureblooded legacy."
Raising his eyebrow slightly, not knowing where exactly this was coming from, Draco continued to watch his mother stand by the center-table of the living room, looking thoughtful.
"All I got was a month — a month to get to know your father and to at least establish a friendship so our marriage could go smoothly," Narcissa Malfoy continued. "He was not an expressing man, as you know so very well, but I knew he cared for me. Even when I wasn't in love with him, he cared." She paused, taking an inhale of air. "But eventually I did fall in love with him. And so my mind began to ponder: had it been meant to be all along? Was our marriage just part of that?
"I had asked him the same questions my mind wondered a night we happened to be tucking you in. You were about three. And as I asked him so he looked down at you, this look glowing in his eyes that I’d never seen him give anyone else…any one that wasn't me. He turned to me and all Lucius said about the matter was, 'If there is one thing I am certain of, Cissy, it would be fate.' And I believed him."
Inhaling the same air, Draco could do nothing more than stare at his mother. Nothing wanting to be said by him as her eyes glowed with memories.
"Your father made a lot of mistakes in his lifetime, Draco, but he knew that the things he loved were meant to be his simply because he did not love everything around him. And you, I believe, inherited that from him." Smiling at her son, Narcissa bent slightly and picked up the copy of the Daily Prophet. "…Drink your potion, my son. Healer's orders."
With nothing else being said, Narcissa walked away from her son to head towards the kitchen without another look and her words lingering in the air.
Blinking at the retreating figure, Draco turned towards the open door once more; finding his neighbors gone from their backyard. But as the sun shone brightly, its rays pleasant as the air blew gently through the leaves, he began to walk down the pebbled pathway, heading towards a majestic-looking tree that Pansy had convinced him to grow for the children. (A failed attempt to build a muggle tree-house for all the children in the lot that he, nor Weasley or Potter ever got around to finishing.)
'Do I have to?' The sun was blazing in the sky, marking the hottest day of that summer as everyone seemed to be invading the Malfoys backyard for a certain celebration that a particular boy found no interest in. 'This is not even my party. I don't know why I'm being bombarded with this rubbish.'
Somewhere in the background, James Sirius Potter coughed a curse that emphasized his dislike for having to be involved as well.
Looking away from the lens of the muggle-camera he was forced to buy in case any neighbor from either sides of the house decided to take a peek at all the hectic noise that was coming from the usually-quiet house, Draco frowned at his son. "It's for your grandparents, Scorpius.'
Returning the frown as Pansy Weasley made her way to him, already tugging at the collar of his casual-blazer, Scorpius scoffed to himself. 'Grandmother Narcissa has enough photographs to last her a lifetime, what difference is this one going to make?'
'Well, you're exceptionally whiny today, Scorpius,' Pansy had said to her best friend's recently turned fifteen year-old son. 'Reminds me of your father at this age, actually. Always complaining about one thing or another. But let me tell you something, boy, let it serve as a life lesson: sometimes in life, you're going to have to do things regardless, so just shut it and suck it up.'
'Yeah, Malfoy, let it serve as a life lesson.' Laughing at the expense of the blonde boy, Rose Weasley paced her way towards her mother and him; smirking as she looked extremely fresh in her Sunday dress. 'Besides, with any luck, I hear that muggle-cameras tend to malfunction if the person being photographed is not attractive.'
Trying his hardest to control all that anger bubbling inside of him, Scorpius managed to pull on a smug grin as he shook off Pansy's hands away from his blazer. 'Well then, Weasley, we mustn't take any pictures of you with that muggle-contraption. It did cost a fortune.'
Rolling his eyes in annoyance as Rose stomped away from his son in a huff and Pansy went trailing after her, Draco shook his head at his son. 'Where's your sister in all of this, Scorpius?'
The boy shrugged, squinting his eyes from the shining sun as he motioned for Angelo Zabini to bring him a glass of pumpkin juice. 'Lupin's off with her, no doubt. Something about changing her clothes before mum notices that he let her play in the mud.'
'I meant Ariana,' Draco sighed.
Shrugging again, Scorpius took the glass from Zabini's hands as politely as he could muster in his frustration, the two taking a seat at the nearby table. 'You shouldn't have taken her off her leash. She's probably off in an adventure with that pack of dogs that come from the next block over.'
'Not as easy as it seems, eh, Malfoy—' Appearing on his right, a famous bespectacled man took a drink from his own glass of pumpkin juice. 'The family photograph.'
Draco grunted.
'It took us almost two hours to take one before we came here,' Harry Potter continued. 'Apparently Al thought it’d be a laugh if he magicked James' shirt pink; therefore causing a fight mid flash.'
Ignoring his better judgment, Draco chuckled at that. 'I wondered why Albus had a black eye, but I later just assumed your wife got tired of punishing and decided to start beating the lot.'
Harry took another drink. 'Believe me James is pushing her to that point.' He laughed silently himself, shaking his untidy black hair in the process. 'Would you have ever believed this, the having a family part?'
Looking down at the camera, pretending to adjust its settings, Draco sighed again to himself. '…I'm still wrapping my head around it.' He looked back up when his ears picked up a familiar voice; noticing two figures come out of the glass sliding-door from his home.
Hermione was adjusting Ariana's deep-purple dress as the girl attempted to fix her caramel-colored waves; the mother scolding the girl about the photograph her father had been waiting to take for the past twenty minutes.
'She looks beautiful.' Blinking like he was staring into a glowing star, Al Potter put a smile on his face as he pulled out a chair next to Angelo and Scorpius.
The Malfoys only son frowned, not saying anything as his best friend continued to stare in awe at his sister.
'Alright, come on,' Hermione said to her daughter, turning to Scorpius and motioning to get up. 'The faster we take this photograph, the more I can enjoy this party.'
And at her hidden angry tone, Draco handed Potter the camera, huffing something of his own underneath his breath as Teddy came rushing out with Demi in his arms; the toddler cleaned off from any traces that she was looking for worms in the garden when her mother went inside for a few minutes.
'Remind me why we’re here, dad?' James grunted to Harry as he walked over to him, scowling as the heat rained down on him. 'I did have important plans with Fred and Louis today, you know?'
'Flirting with the muggle-girls a couple of blocks from here, James, is not considered important,' Harry said to his son, lifting the camera to his bespectacled eyes as the Malfoy family huddled together: Ariana and Scorpius, looking their best, held on to their little sister's hand as their parents stood behind them. All of them looked like a royal family. "Besides, this is history here. The fifteenth anniversary of Hermione and Draco Malfoy's wedding.'
Flash.
It was fifteen years of marriage, of a family that most likely would’ve never been his if the cards would have been dealt differently. He knows that — he's known that for years now. That everything around him is like an optical-illusion that his surroundings are like a projection of the wildest of fantasies that could’ve ever crossed his mind.
It was like the walls of his home were fragile. If he were to bang his fist among it, would it crumble and fall? Would it show what his true reality was? That knocking down the home he had built with Hermione Granger he would see himself how it was truly meant to be? Probably living a quieter life, probably addicted to Firewhiskey and living alone as he tried to adjust to the new world that was left after the defeat of the Dark Lord?
What was this, fate or an illusion?
"I've always fancied coming out here to think." Lifting his head away from his knees a few centimeters, Draco saw a pair of feet, strapped into a pair of black heels, approach him; sinking the grass with the walk. "When my mum and dad died I spent all night sitting underneath this tree." The person stopped in their walk. "You brought me a cloak, do you remember?"
Picking his head up a little more, squinting slightly from the glare of the sun, his eyes met the ones of his wife. "…I remember,” he responded simply.
Lowering herself on the grass, still keeping her eyes focused into those of Draco's, Hermione sat herself in front of him. Their bodies only separated by their crossed knees. "How are you feeling?" She asked almost casually.
"Better,” the blonde man replied in a flat tone.
She nodded, silence reigning for a few seconds.
"I saw the post on the kitchen table,” he was the one to break it, his chest feeling odd as he spoke. "Our divorce papers came in."
Taking a breath, Hermione blinked as she stared at him; her cheeks turning a pinky color from the feeble heat of the sun. "With Ariana's kidnap, with you…with you being in the hospital, I've forgotten all about that, actually,” she said truthfully.
Draco crossed his arms over his raised kneecaps. "Do you think it's for the better?"
"What is?"
"Ending this marriage,” said Draco straightforwardly, stunning his wife completely as her brown eyes widened themselves. "….It seems that I'm always hurting you in the worst ways possible."
Swallowing roughly, Hermione's nose-tip started burning. "You…you were bewitched, Draco,” her voice trembled. "It wasn't your intention to hurt me, it was that….it was that woman's fault not yours."
"Regardless of that, I still did it." He looked into her eyes, feeling his heart fall. "And you expected it from me, you believed it, Hermione. You were waiting for me to hurt you. You never fully trusted me again after what happened before we got married." He stopped, breathing in again. "This - us - we weren't meant to happen, ever."
She parted her lips and a puff of strangled air blew out, her brown curls shaking behind her shoulders as she did. "Meant to be?" She repeated in that huff. "What exactly do you think that 'meant to be' actually is, Draco?"
He said nothing, keeping his arms folded and his eyes on her as she turned pinker.
"What is it, Draco?" Hermione continued. "Was I supposed to end up living my life with Ron? Was I supposed to have lots of redheaded children? Was I supposed to be a Weasley?" The more she continued to speak, the more anger rose inside of Draco; hurting him deeply as he could see it, the Weasel and her.
There was another short pause as she huffed, stood up, and Draco glared in anger and followed her action.
"….There's a reason why the Ministry created that Marriage Law more than fifteen years ago." She stared into his eyes, the warm and cold colliding together. "There's a reason why, after being fully committed to erase myself from the Wizarding World, I could not,” her voice still shook, but she reached for Draco's hand; squeezing it as they stood a small distance from each other. "People that are meant to be together, that fate has brought together for one reason or another, ultimately end up together.
"And you — us, Draco, we are meant to be together. Because I’m the happiest when I stare at my children, those Malfoy heirs to a pureblooded legacy that could’ve torn us apart before but didn't. Because I’m proud every time I stare into Ana's or Scorpius' silver eyes, because I can't imagine another more beautiful inheritance you could’ve given them." A tear slipped from her eyes. "….Because I love you, Draco. Don't you love me?"
He blinked, looking down at her hand clutching his. His head was spinning, going in circles as he tried to imagine their children gone, their home gone, those years they spent together gone. And it just seemed impossible. They were his — all of it.
They were meant to be his, right from the very beginning when the sorting hat had paired him with Granger. It’d been written by destiny that all these beautiful outcomes be his, no one else's. (Especially not Weasley's.)
Blinking back up, Draco returned the squeeze. "I do love you, Hermione. More than anything imaginable."
And with a puff of a giggle, Hermione closed the distanced between her and Draco and kissed him; pressing her lips hungrily onto her husband's; right where they belonged.
"I've got a surprise for you, Malfoy,” she whispered to his lips as she removed her mouth from his a few seconds later.
Draco smirked, his heart racing as she grabbed his hand and started leading him towards the house.
"And it's not that, you troll,” she added as his silver eyes glittered with smugness. "It's much better."
Furrowing his brows in confusion and a bit of irritation, Draco stepped into the living room of his home only to be blown away by what he saw. His mother was holding hands with a little creature, a little girl standing happily, her brown eyes glowing in warmth like the woman she’d inherited them from.
"….Demi."