Twelve Years

It was tough, very difficult, to uproot their lives and move to a place Cass had never known. It wasn't without its difficulties but now here they were, shopping for school supplies while Hermione figured out how to explain to her daughter that the man she just met was her father.

They finished up buying robes and had just gotten Cass's wand, a perfectly pliable 10 inch Hawthorn with a dragon heartstring. Hermione couldn't remember if she ever knew what Draco's wand was made of but she knew her own core was dragon heartstring.

Olivander had told Cass that the wand was perfect for potions and could easily accept most tasks asked of it. Cass was positively beaming at this.

They sat, fully laden with bags of the school essentials at the ice cream shop that was no longer Fortescues. It saddened Hermione to see how much had changed. Sure, she'd been gone 12 years and Her friends had kept her in the loop, but she had somehow expected everything to be just as it was upon her return.

She sucked on her spoon long after the ice cream had been licked off, throwing around words in her head that would be suitable for her to tell Cass about Draco.

Cass knew her father had been a beautiful one time romance, caught up in the heat of the moment but definitely not a regret. Never a regret. Never an accident and absolutely not a mistake. She had walkways been up front with her always wanting her to know as much as necessary. Always desperate for her to have an open and honest conversation with her daughter in hopes that, when this exact situation arose, it would be easy.

But...

It was anything but.

"That was him, wasn't it?" Cass said from no where.

Hermione just looked at her.

"You've been in a tizz since you ran into him, and you were practically drooling all over him" she said.

"Cass... I..." tears filled her eyes.

"It's OK mum, really. I know the story, I know how hard you tried to find him. Sad. He seems like a nice guy" she said.

"He was horrible. Then he wasn't. Now... I have no idea" she said. "I'm sorry I should've said something when he was there. I think... Well, I think he figured it out anyway" she said, wiping her tear away with her thumb.

"He was going to owl you, remember? You waited. He lost. Too bad. You don't have a great night without casting the necessary spells and then think, wait a minute, did I just make a baby with that woman?... See, his fault not yours. He disappeared" Cass said.

"How did you become the voice of reason?" she asked her daughter, wrapping an arm around her.

"I'm smart? I'm half of you and... Well, he seemed pretty intelligent so... If I'm half of him, then watch out Hogwarts" she said.

"Watch out Hogwarts indeed" Hermione muttered to herself.

The day arrived for Cass to go to school. It would be their longest separation. Their only separation. She had no idea how she'd manage, but she didn't want Cass to know that.

She arrived at a kings Cross, pushing, not a trunk, but a 4 wheeled muggle suitcase. An owl cage perched in top with a grey owl hooting, annoyed, from inside.

Harry, Ginny, Ron and their assortment of red haired children had arrived to see Cass off, a real party.

The prophet was there to take happy snaps of the first generation of children of the 98 war go off to school. It was daunting. Hermione was desperate to keep Cass out of the limelight, but somehow, she managed to get herself in there all on her own.

The Hogwarts express gleamed happily as they entered the platform. She reminisced about her own days, her own excitement about getting on this train and chugging off into her new life. Really, it was the beginning of her distancing from her parents. The beginning of the next war. The beginning of what was to come for Hermione.

Then, she saw it. Him. She saw him, looking over the heads of everyone. Tall as he was. She couldn't miss him.

Why was he here?

He didn't mention having a child of his own. It would have been fast, that's for sure.

"You're here" he said, as he approached her and Cass.

He looked from Hermione to Cass and back. Hermione's eyes filled with tears as she nodded her head.

"I tried to find you" she said quietly, as Ginny pulled Cass aside. "After" she added, looking over to Cass, who was almost bursting out of her skin to come over.

"Does she know?" he asked.

Hermione nodded.

"Can I... Could I meet her?... Properly?" he asked, and nodding once more for Cass to come over.

"Cass, this is Draco Malfoy, your... He's the man who..." she couldn't say it. She'd thought about it a million times. Imagined this exact day for 11 years. But now they were face to face, grey eyes to grey eyes, it felt impossible.

"You're my dad, right?" she asked.

He laughed.

"So I'm told" he said.

"Well, we already met but nice to meet you... Again" she said.

"Likewise" he said.

Hermione saw a tear in his eyes.

This was his child.

Their child.

Part of him.

Part of that night that they shared.

The train's whistle blew signalling 5 minutes till departure.

Hermione's anxiety grew tenfold. She knew this was coming, she knew both of these events would some day come but never had she thought they'd come at the same time.

She had almost missed their entire conversation.

"Mum said I could be in Ravenclaw just because I'm so smart, but I think I'd do OK in any of them. Mum was a Gryffindor, but you already know that. We're you a Gryffindor too?" she asked, her Australian accent heavy.

"No... No, I was a Slytherin" he said.

"Oh, well, I suppose that explains it then. What are the dorms like? I heard they're cold" she said.

"They are underneath the lake, so they can get quite cold" he said.

"I hate the cold. I wanted to go to AWW but mum wanted us to come here" she said.

He looked to Hermione.

"Australian school of Witchcraft and Wizardry" she said, receiving a nod in return.

The whistle blew for the final minute and Hermione’s tears started to fall.

She wrapped her arms around her daughter and tried hard not to look like a fool.

"I love you, have a great time, don't lose your owl, listen to your teachers" she said.

"OK mum, I will I promise" she said.

"I'll write to you everyday" Hermione said.

"Well, maybe not everyday" Cass said.

"Most days. I'll write to you most days" Hermione said.

Cass, who had stepped towards the train, stepped back and looked to Draco.

"Can I write to you? She asked.

"I'd like that" he said, and he was met with her killer knock out Malfoy smile.

"Go, get on the train, it's about to leave. Find Teddy and Vicky" she said.

Cass stepped into the train and waved her mother goodbye. Hermione was glad but also annoyed at Draco for being there. She had planned out to the minute how her goodbye was going to go. But... Now everything was out in the open and he was there, and she was leaving, and it was all too much.

Ron came to stand beside her and wrapped an arm around her. Their platonic relationship had never been questioned, despite Ron's brief failed marriage to Lavender and their two children, Rose, 6 and Hugo, 4. She turned and sobbed into his chest as the train disappeared behind white smoke, leaving them standing there among the other parents.

"Come on, we need to go before there's a spectacle" Harry said, looking around at reporters who were watching on, confused.

They walked to the barrier and she crossed through holding onto Ron the whole time.

"Hermione, you need to talk to him" Ginny said, as Draco stepped through behind them, looking lost.

"What on earth do I say?" she asked quietly so he didn't hear.

"That you thought he was dead. That you've been madly in love with him since he rocked your world that one time and you want to have his babies... Wait... Too late for that last bit" Ginny said quietly.

"Merlin Ginny, you're so..."

"Crude"

"Something like that" Hermione said, sniffling and patting her face with her fingertips.

As they found their way towards the exit of Kings Cross station, Hermione let them go ahead and slowed to walk to Draco.

"I'm sorry I didn’t tell you" she said.

"I'm sorry I wasn't around" he said.

"I tried. I waited... I waited weeks and then I went to see my parents and... Well, I never came back"

"Hence the accent?" he asked.

"Yeah, she's completely one hundred percent Aussie"

"Not hers, yours. Yours is almost the same. It's... Different" he said.

"Not that we ever spoke much" she said.

"We spoke plenty" he said.

"Enough to have made a child together"

"That wasn't talking" he said with a smile.

"No, it definitely was not" she said feeling awkward.

They stood in silence. The one question she wanted to know, sitting on the tip on her tongue.

"What happened?" she asked.

He looked at her quizzically.

"You were going to owl me. I waited. I tried to owl you but it just came back" she said.

"I... I had to leave. My parents... It was complicated" he said, leading them to sit on a nearby bench.

"You missed it all. Every little part. The day she was born, her first smile, her first words, her first steps" she said. "I tried so hard to find you. Ginny went to Malfoy Manor, Harry tried to track you down through the ministry. I even tried using the Australian Ministry. It's like you disappeared. I checked the Prophet every day thinking you had died. I... Part of me hoped you'd come and... Stupidly, want to be..." she couldn't finish it. Couldn't tell him what she had hoped for.

"A family?" he asked.

"Stupid really" she said as fresh tears travelled silently down her cheeks.

For the first time in 12 years, she felt him wrap his arms around her. For the first time in 12 years, she felt a spark of something. But... She couldn't.

She shouldn't.

But she did.

And she wanted to.

"As soon as I saw you both I felt like I knew. Somehow I was connected to her" he said. She felt his chin move on the top of her head with every word as she settled into his chest.

"I don't really know what to do from here" she said, pulling away and dabbing at her face, yet again.

"Can we meet? Or can we go right now? Lunch? Dinner? Whatever. Can I just sit with you and ask you all about her?" he asked.

She nodded.

And they stood.

And they walked to the closest coffee shop where they sat talking about their mutual interest.

He was enthralled. And he said so, many times. He told Hermione how beautiful she was, how smart she seemed to be. They spoke about her life in Australia, about Cass's friends she left behind, about her reading and re reading every single text book Hermione had ever had. About her love of Hogwarts a History.

But then. Hermione couldn't shake it. The feeling of betrayal.

"That night, at school. You said you loved me" she said.

"I did"

"You did? You said it or you loved me?"

"Both"

"Why then? Why didn't you just..." she scrunched her hand into a fist. His one little inaction had changed their whole lives. "... We could've dated. Or just been friends" she said.

"I did, I tried to. I wanted to. Merlin I wanted to. I had the parchment out and the quil. I wrote your name a thousand times but it didn't look right. 'Dear Hermione', 'To Hermione', 'Dear Granger'. I ended up with so many messed up pieces of parchment on my floor. Every single one of them started with how I felt. How much that night meant to me. How much I was in complete awe that you had even given me the opportunity to be near you, let alone have the night that we had. But then my mother's Elf found them and took them to her. Mother was still entrenched and believed in blood purity to a point. She was completely under the thumb of my father that she was blind. Blind to how I felt. To how I saw the world. Blind to me. She packed us up that day and we went to the States. She also felt it was for the best, to get away from my father, the press, the bad energy here. I wanted to write to you. I tried. I wrote so many letters to you but I didn't know where to send them. I eventually got married as per the wishes of my mother" he said.

That last part made her want to throw up.

He was married.

Married.

Probably had another child somewhere.

"Merlin, I'm sorry, I should go, this... Cass will write to you and I guess... We'll arrange for you to see her in the holidays" she said.

"Wait, Hermione..." he said.

"You're married. You shouldn't be sitting around having lunch or tea or whatever this is with me" she said.

"My wife and son died 3 years ago" he said.

She sat back down.

"I'm... Shit. I'm sorry. God I feel like such a twat" she said.

"Remember Daphne Greengrass?" he asked?

She nodded.

"She had a little sister. Astoria. Painfully needy and completely high maintenance" he said. "We had a son, Scorpius. They were both killed by a drunk driver. Just like that. Walking to the park, not even two blocks away" he said.

"Oh Draco, I'm so sorry" she said.

"Somehow I feel like maybe they put me in Diagon Alley that day. Like they pushed for this" he said.

This?

Was this a... This?

"What is... This... Exactly? Cass is at school now. Whatever reason we have to spend time together... I can't... I have a child... I need to be focused" she said.

"This... Is whatever fate has in store for us?" he said.

Hermione watched as her daughter lept off the train with her small back pack, ready to celebrate Christmas.

"Oh gods I have missed you!" she said as she wrapped her arms around her child.

"I missed you too mum!" she said.

"Come on, let's go home" she said, taking her daughter by the hand. They hurried off the platform and into the muggle world, blending in with the crowd.

"I have a surprise for you at home and I hope you like it" Hermione said.

"I'm sure I will" she said.

They headed for the public floo travelled home together, hand in hand. Hermione was happy to have her daughter by her side but anxious about what was to come.

"uh, I hate that" Cass said as they were tossed out of the fireplace.

"It's not my favourite way to travel" Hermione said.

They were in the living room of the house Hermione had bought in October when it was decided she'd stay in England.

It was very muggle, no sign of magic, I lanterns. Full electricity.

"Oh my God, light switches!" she squealed.

"What's all that fuss?" came a voice from another room.

Cass looked to Hermione, who smiled bad at her daughter.

Cass ran through the house and into the kitchen, squealing again when she saw him.

Draco was in the kitchen with a frilly arpon around his bottom half.

Hermione knew they had become close since writing to each other over the last 3 months, but the flying hug wasn't something she expected. Then again, Cass had always been affectionate.

"Dad! Why are you here?" Cass asked.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about" Hermione said.

"You two have shacked up, pregnant I bet and probably going to get married? Am I right?" she asked.

Hermione stood open mouthed at her daughters suggestion, and all Draco could do was laugh.

"You didn't tell me she was a Seer" he said.

THE END