Chapter 8
Parting Wishes
A/N: My muse, Maggie, is simple girl. All she likes are plot bunnies and reviews. So be kind to Maggie and feed her review cookies please.
Big thanks to my beta Lbandoly for her hard work. She has spent countless hours editing and providing plot help for my stories. She makes my writing possible.
No copyright infringement intended. All characters are the property of JKR, Scholastic, and any number of other companies with more money than I've ever dreamed of seeing. I didn't make any money off of this, so please don't sue.
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The tour had taken nearly all morning. Draco found it a rather nice to know more on a topic than his genius godfather. The tour had ended in Draco's office at the back of the barrel house with several bottles of wine open between then. "Ginny is going to kill me."
"Whatever for?"
"If you haven't noticed we have no less than six different bottles open and it isn't even lunch."
"Surely in your business you keep a stocked supply of sobering potion on hand."
"Of course I do, but as you might recall, it makes me pass out faster than the wine does."
"I seem to recall that now that you mention it. Perhaps the formula can be adjusted to allow you to take it and receive the desired effect without spending the following twelve hours asleep."
"Don't bother. I have spent most of the past seventeen years running a vineyard. I'm fully capable of holding my drink."
The two sat sipping from their glasses in relative silence. "Draco."
"Yes." Draco looked up to study his godfather.
"I'm proud of you. Had someone asked me twenty years ago what would become of you I'm not sure anything I could have said would have painted you in a very respectable light. You have proven me very wrong thankfully." He stopped to take another drink of his wine. "You have turned this place around completely."
Draco gave him a questioning look. "Yes I've been here before. Several times in fact. Though it has been many years."
"You were here when Mum was?"
"I was one of a few close friends that your father had to keep a watch over the two of you yes."
"That's how it started isn't it?"
Severus gave Draco an odd look of questioning. "I'm afraid I don't follow."
"Your tryst with Mum, that's when it started. I knew I was young, but I didn't realize how young."
"You knew?"
"For many years. I was nine I think when I caught you coming out of her bedroom in the very early hours of the morning. Father was gone on business, or so he claimed. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. There were other times I saw her at school when she shouldn't have been there. It's not like I'm upset by the fact. I know how Father treated her. It's good that she was able seek solace with someone else."
"I don't know what to say."
"There isn't anything for you to say. I was just confirming facts." Draco sat his glass down. "As long as she was or for that matter still is happy then it's none of my business."
"She is; far more so now than she has been in years past in fact."
"I can imagine she is. I am a bit surprised she didn't tell you where we were."
"I admit I am a bit so myself. But I know why she did it. No harm done. Though I suspect it will be a great surprise to her when she finds out where I have been the past two days."
Draco laughed. "I'm sure it will. Speaking of absences, how did she explain her long disappearing acts to you?"
"She didn't. It wasn't uncommon to go for days or even weeks without speaking to her when your father was alive. With him gone nothing really changed. I never questioned where she took off to. The woman detests being tied down. I've known that for going on forty years now. I saw no reason to question your mother's comings and goings. She has her own life led away from me."
"But?"
"But what?"
"I hear a `but' in that statement."
"No but. I'm just hoping that now that we both know where you are, she'll allow me to join her from time to time when she plans to be nearby."
Draco grinned. "Oh I don't think she'll have a problem with that. I'm fairly certain if you had asked her to run away and join the circus with you she would have done it long before I ever left Hogwarts."
Severus gave a slight grin. "She probably would have seeing as how she rather enjoys a good muggle circus show."
"I don't even want to know how you know that."
"No you probably don't."
The clock on the wall chimed for the hour of one. "Bloody hell, it's one already? We best vanish this mess and get in the house before we miss lunch."
"Yes lets." With a few flicks of their wands the open bottles were corked and placed in a wine chiller on the other side of the room, the glasses were cleaned and hanging in the glass rack, and the desk as tidy as ever.
The two made their way out of the warehouse only to find that lunch of a sort had come to them. The girls and Alex were all sitting around a massive oak picnic table. Food spread out everywhere. "There you two are. I was wondering if you would ever make your way out here to join us."
Draco took the seat next to his wife, giving her a peck on the cheek before reaching to fill his plate. "We were just enjoying a nice talk luv. Nothing to worry about."
"Quite. There are no skeletons in the closet if that is what worried you."
Ginny laughed. "I would never dream it. I rather thought you two might have fallen into a barrel or three."
Draco knew he was caught. "Not a whole barrel, just a few bottles. No tour is complete without tasting the vintage."
"Sure. Keep telling yourself that. Pass the antipasto."
Draco handed the platter to his wife. "So Professor how did you enjoy watching the girls this morning?"
"You have two very gifted daughters. I can't recall the last time I saw such talent in children so young. Most adults are lucky if they can pull off a simple Accio wandless. These two are true prodigies."
"Honestly Professor when you've seen them do it for years it becomes less of a miracle. By the time they are out of Hogwarts it will be just another thing I'm sure."
"Heavens no! There have been very few wizards who have the powers they do. In the past two hundred years I can only think of two."
Severus cut her off. "Minerva."
"Oh Severus stop being such an old fuddy-duddy. You and I both know that you're more than capable with wandless magic."
Both the girls perked up. "You can do it too. Dad can a little and so can Mum, but they both need wands for most everything they do. Do you?"
"No I do not. I rather loathe foolish…"
"Wand waving. I do believe that there isn't a student you taught that doesn't know that."
Severus gave Draco a rather menacing look. "Still haven't learned to not smart off I see. Such a pity. I figured you might have grown out of that when you had your own children."
Draco laughed. "No I think they made me worse instead."
"Drake, stop annoying your uncle. We don't want him to leave and never come back."
"We don't?" he said with a laugh.
"Oh stop it or you'll get no desert."
"Oh the woman comes out swinging."
"You've had far too much wine."
"I don't deny it."
"Wouldn't matter if you did."
Draco leaned over and kissed his wife.
Kat wrinkled up her nose. "Ew, Mumma and Daddy are gonna snog."
Minerva smiled. When she came here, she honestly never expected a happy family and public displays of affection. It was a pleasant surprise to say the very least. "Well I have accomplished all that I came here to do. I still have other letters to deliver." She rose from her seat. "I'll just go grab my bag and be on my way."
Ginny rose from her seat and the table and went to hug her former head of house. "Thank you for bringing her letter. I don't know that I would have been able to send her if I hadn't talked to you myself."
"Not a problem dearie. I'm just glad to know you're well after all these years. Don't be a stranger."
Ginny smiled. "Yes ma'am."
Minerva turned to Draco. "You did a good thing young man. I can't say I would have approved back then. But as they say hind sight is twenty twenty."
"Thank you ma'am."
"Serenity I look forward to seeing you soon. Remember those tips I gave you. Katharine, keep studying at the rate you are and Professor Flitwick won't know what to do with you when you get to Hogwarts my dear. Severus, if you ever rethink my offer there will be an office waiting."
"Perhaps now that I have good reason…"
"Indeed you do. I'll just see myself up to grab my bag and I'll be off."
"Goodbye Professor. You're always welcome here."
"Thank you kindly Mr. Malfoy. I just might have to take you up on that again sometime."
Draco watched the headmistress walk into the house before hearing the familiar crack of an apparation a few minuets later.
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