Pansy Wisteria Parkinson (pugmylife) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2017-04-12 22:48:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, [plot] future kids take 4, ~2017 april, ~25 points, ~~draco malfoy (d_l_malfoy), ~~pansy parkinson (pugmylife) |
WHO: Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson
WHERE: Draco’s flat
WHEN: During kidplot
WHAT: Draco and Pansy have a kid.
RATING: PG
STATUS: log; completed
The dome hated her. That was the only explanation she could think of for these...shenanigans. First it had given her a halfblood son with a Muggle (although that had turned out rather well) and now a daughter with her ex-boyfriend. A delightful, raven-haired daughter who was extremely vocal about wanting to see her father. So to her father Pansy took her, and hoped that he was in and fully clothed. “Draco,” she called, using her wand to help her voice carry through the door, “your daughter wishes to see you.” *** As he had a free evening, Draco was deep into research. The idea of a promise ring had quite struck him. But Draco didn’t want to make an immediate decision about when or what without information. So he was gathering information about what he needed. He was going to have to convince Sydney it was a good idea as well as let her know what it stood for. So on the coffee table were several books, a computer to search the internet (not his favorite way to research) and a pile of parchment covered in notes. The decision was not coming easily to Draco. Other than it was the right path. But how to convince Sydney? Standing from the mess, Draco moved into the kitchen, putting on the kettle. He leaned against the counter as he waited for the water to boil. Pansy’s voice startled him from his reverie. “Daughter?” he repeated to himself, pushing away from the counter. Moving to the door, he yanked it open, demanding, “What in the name of Salazar are you talking about Parkinson?” *** “Father!” A cloud of lace and ribbons enveloped him as a ten year old girl threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around his legs. She smelled like frosting and lollipops, and Pansy was certain someone must’ve put a permanent spell on her, because no child ever smelled that good, ever. “Good afternoon Draco,” Pansy said, enjoying his reaction. It was so much better when the bafflement was being experienced by someone else. “Cecilia has missed you.” *** His grey eyes widened in shock as the arms wrapped around his waist and squeezed. That was not what he expected when he opened the door. What he had been expecting he couldn’t define, but a little girl was not it. Staring down at the top of the head, Draco held his arms wide, not wanting to touch the child. Children were decidedly not his thing. Raising those cool grey eyes to Pansy, Draco barked, “What is the meaning of this Parkinson? We do not have a child. Nor will we.” He frowned fiercely at the crown of the dark head of the girl who still clung to him. *** “Darling,” Pansy admonished, rather enjoying herself now. Her eyes sparked in warning, however. Cecilia might be extremely unlikely to be under current circumstances, but those circumstances weren't her fault. Pansy wasn't about to let Draco be mean to her. “You'll upset her.” Indeed, Cecilia pulled back at Draco’s words, looking crushed. “But I'm your princess. You said so.” *** Yes, he was definitely not prepared to be with children. It was not something he had been exposed to. And he was definitely not interested in children. “I…” Draco opened his mouth to explain and looked down into the face and swallowed his words. Just because he wasn’t prepared to have a child nor interested in having one, did not mean that he had any right to treat this child with disdain. A sigh escaped him. Meeting her gaze, he tried quiet, firm logic, “I am not the Father who said that to you. I apologise that that man is not here.” If she truly was his child, he would expect the forthright explanations and logical thinking. “I do find,” he continued, “that I agree with his assessment. You are a princess. I apologise if my exclamation upset you, but your arrival is not something was I was prepared for.” He didn’t add that anything that tangled him together with Pansy was something he prepared for. *** Her father spoke all very reasonably, as Cici was accustomed to, but she didn't understand why he was saying her father was not there. He was there, right in front of her! She looked uncertainly at her mother and released her father to take Pansy’s hand. “Mum?” she asked, her eyes starting to water. “It's all right, sweetie,” Pansy assured her. Over the girl’s head, Pansy glared pointedly at Draco. He couldn't have pretended, just a little? “Father’s obviously distracted at the moment. We’ll come back.” “Will you take me riding when we come back?” Cecilia asked Draco uncertainly. “You promised you would.” *** It was the look. There are few things Draco feared in the world. One of them was his Father’s anger. Another his mother’s disappointed look. The last - Pansy Parkinson’s glare. It was the thing his nightmares were made of. A shudder rippled through him. It was clearly saying ‘fix it or be hexed’. Not in the mood to be hexed, Draco looked down into the child’s face. He didn’t feel any love or paternal interest in the slightest. But fear of Pansy meant ‘play along’. He couldn’t imagine how to play along in this instance, but he did the best he could. “I’ll tell you what,” Draco commented, mind trying to rapidly come to a solution, “how about you stay and tell me all about you and the things you like to do with me and then we can have a ride later on.” It wasn’t like he had a broom here so he couldn’t agree to that. “How often did we go riding?” Draco asked, hoping that Pasny was no longer actively glaring at him. *** He'd managed to escape her death glare with his suggestion, and Pansy relaxed. “Well then,” she said, all sweetness and light again, “why don't we come on rather than have this conversation out in the hall?” Cecilia, however, having just been rejected, clung to Pansy’s hand. “We don't ride much,” she told him, a hint of the Malfoy pout in her voice. “You're always too busy.” *** That sounded rather like him and the relationship he had with his Father. Draco had a sinking feeling about the kind of Father he actually was. “Come on in,” he said, letting the ladies into the kitchen and shutting the door behind them. “I was just about to have some tea, would you both like some?” As Sydney was not around, Draco used magic to pull out the cups and set them up. Looking back at the little girl, Draco considered her for a long moment. Her words made him think about the kind of person he would have grown to become at home. Without any catalyst to change - here provided by Sydney - Draco would have molded himself into a semblance of his father. It wouldn’t have been a mirror image of his Father, but similar enough. A frown creased his features. Did he really want that? Not particularly. And this child certainly didn’t deserve such treatment. “I’m afraid I’ve not got any biscuits,” Draco apologized. “I do have something these barbaric Americans call cookies though. You might appreciate them.” Draco reached up and rummaged in the cupboard for the container and then looked at Pansy as if hoping for full marks for doing the right thing. *** That was more like it. Pansy nodded approvingly and took a seat at the kitchen table before encouraging Cecilia to do the same. For all her hard and brittle edges, she'd always wanted to be a mother one day, and she took to the role well. Of course, compared to Draco’s reaction, anyone would win parenting awards. “I do like cookies,” Cecilia said, perking up. “Have you got any chocolate chip?” The promise of food had boosted her spirits. Pansy wasn't quite sure where she'd gotten that trait from. *** “They’re my favorite too,” Draco commented, grinning at the little girl. Maybe they did have something in common. Pulling out the unopened packet, Draco took several from the package and set them on a plate. As he finished with the tea, he brought it over to the table and sat down himself. Pushing the plate of cookies to the little girl, Draco realised he didn’t actually know her name. Parkinson hadn’t said so - at least it left him with a conversation starter. “So tell me your name. Have you started school yet?” It was the best he could do - so far Pansy wasn’t glaring yet so he hadn’t failed further. *** Cecilia, in the midst of reaching for a cookie, gave him a Look that she had obviously gotten from her mother. “Silly,” she tsked. “You know my name, Father.” “Cecilia,” Pansy interjected. “He must have forgotten. You know how he gets.” That got a nod from Cecilia, who seemed to think there was nothing odd about her father forgetting her name. “My name is Cecilia Malfoy,” she recited. “I am six and one-quarter years old. I am tutored at home, because the local school system is absolutely appalling and don’t live up to educational standards.” They were big words for a six-year old; she’d obviously memorized them from someone else. *** And it sounded precisely like Draco which immediately made him grin at the little girl. “I am glad to see you have learned the first most important lesson - Malfoys learn best from Malfoys.” He smirked at her. “I am glad you are learning at home - what have you learned recently?” Draco was now interested, taking a cookie from the plate and biting from it. “We should continue to work on your education while you are here. Tell me what you have been working on.” His grey eyes watched carefully. Fascinating that he and Pansy had had a child. *** Hearing Draco’s intellectual snobbery come from her child’s mouth made Pansy roll her eyes. But then she began to talk of things she'd learned, and Pansy had to hold back a snicker. Some of Cecilia’s tutoring came from Draco himself, but most of it came from Pansy and other tutors. So much for Malfoy teaching Malfoys. In this reality, Cecilia had a much better rounded education. Good. Pansy hoped she'd had a hand in that. It was a good education, too. For six (and a quarter) years old, Cecilia was already terribly clever and precocious. *** As she talked, Draco nodded with approval. He could hear his own words escaping from her lips which was amusing and terrifying all at the same time. Not unexpectedly, he heard Pansy’s voice as well. There were others - clearly there had been some outside influence. That was likely Pansy’s doing as well. She was always more practical in that regard. With her discourse finished, Cecilia took a cookie, primly eating it down. Her manners were impeccable - no doubt Pansy’s influence. His pride swelled. How the hell had he managed to earn the right to raise a child? Right now he felt … There weren’t really words were there? He looked at Pansy and then Cecilia. “We did good,” he commented, smirking at her. *** Pansy was smiling fondly at the child, who was as clever and delightful as she could've hoped for. Back when she was madly in love with Draco and envisioning their future children, she'd imagined someone like Cici. And here she was. It was almost enough to make her think fondly of Draco again. “Yes,” she said, reaching out to smooth Cecilia’s already-shiny hair. “We did better for her than was done for us.” *** “As it should be,” Draco commented, offering Cecilia another cookie before moving the plate back. “Two’s enough,” he said to her pointedly before looking back at Pansy. “Together, we finally did something right, somewhere,” Draco said, giving her that slight half smile. “Who would have thought it was possible?” Certainly not Draco. They were so at odds so often, it was odd to imagine that they could create a child - and an ideal one at that. “How did you find her or did she find you?” he asked, while Cecilia frowned at the cookies, clearly wanting another. *** Pansy pushed the plate away so Cici couldn't sneak a cookie off it. “She was in the living room trying to practice spells when I woke up. More specifically, I was woken up by her trying to practice spells in the living room.” She looked pointedly at Cecilia, who smiled back at her with a guileless charm that had no doubt gotten her out of many scrapes. Pansy wasn't having any of it, though. “Wandless magic, practiced by someone who hasn't learned magic yet, is quite disruptive, isn't it, Cecilia?” The girl pouted. “When will I learn spells, Mum? I want to do magic too!” *** Draco couldn’t help it, he smirked broadly. He could have sworn he had the exact same issue when he was a child. Of course, it hadn’t gone well either and the consequences had been more memorable than the magic he had been able to create. Draco imagined that having a child like himself was some kind of punishment that his parents would have been quite gleeful about. Of course, that meant, he actually had to deal with it. “You have a great deal to learn before you can do magic,” Draco immediately cautioned her. “Control and patience for a start. And how to control and block the thoughts of your own mind. Those are hard things and require a great deal of practice.” Draco didn’t feel the need to sugar coat the truth for her. She was intelligent and deserved to hear honesty. “You can work on those things and when it is time for magic, it will come much easier to you. So no magic until those things are done.” *** It was obviously a lecture Cecilia had heard many times before, but she still crossed her arms and pouted. “But you said I was clever,” she pointed out. “And so good. Why can’t I start now?” Pansy let Draco answer that one. As perfect as their daughter was, she’d obviously picked up some less than perfect traits from both of them. Draco could handle this. *** “Good and clever are not the same as control and patience,” Draco countered. He was sure he had pulled the same argument with his Father. Of course Lucius has just given his own version of the look and Draco had known better than to continue to weddle. Draco knew more than anything he didn’t want to be Lucius so therefore a glare wouldn’t be an answer, but the answer would still be no. Reaching out, he tapped her nose, “And your thoughts are as plain as this nose on your face which means the last requirement hasn’t been met either.” Raising an eyebrow slightly, Draco said, “Now, as you are quite clever, perhaps you can explain to me what you will start doing to show how you are learning patience.” He didn’t have a precise answer to his question in his mind, but a rough idea. *** “I'm not reaching for the cookies even though I really, really want them,” Cecilia told him, as if it completely made her point. Pansy couldn't help it: she laughed. Her little girl was absolutely delightful, and a challenge for Draco. “It's a good thing she came at this age,” she said. “Can you imagine if she'd come after she'd discovered boys?” *** “There’s a bedroom and I know how to ward to make sure no one gets in or out,” Draco pointed out, shaking his head at the mere idea. He was never having a girl. He knew boys too well. Leaning towards his daughter, Draco added, “And, young lady, that merely means you are following the rules - not that you are patient or have good control. But it is a point in your favour.” He considered her for a moment and then got up from the table and came back with a small wooden puzzle. Setting it down in front of Cecilia, Draco said, “Take this. Practice with it. See if you can solve it. If you do, we can talk about magic. You’ll have to work hard and be very patient.” Lucius had done much the same for him, though the puzzle had been more harmful than the simple wooden one Draco offered to Cecilia. It had taken Draco several weeks to figure it out so she shouldn’t be able to figure it out any time quickly. *** Cecilia looked at it thoughtfully as she took it, and she immediately began to work on it. Pansy watched for a while until she got bored, and set down her cup of tea. “Well, if this is going to take a while, you can finish it at home, sweetheart. I’ve got a few things to do.” That got Cecilia’s attention, and she looked up with a frown. “Why aren’t we staying with Father?” Pansy lifted her eyebrows at Draco. He could answer that one. *** Why was it he seemed to get all the hard questions? Seriously - this child thing was mentally taxing. You’d have thought it wouldn’t be - they were younger and less experienced after all. And yet somehow managed to find just the right screws to turn. This question was a particularly sticky wicket to manage. How did you explain to a child who expected a father and mother who loved each other that here they’d both rather spend time bonding with Potter and a batch of blast-ended skrewts than be together? Draco rubbed a hand across his face as he considered what to say. A large part of him wanted to say something scathing about Pansy, but this wasn’t about him or her - it was about this little girl. Well shit. Deciding on a course of action, Draco said, “We aren’t staying together because the flats here aren’t big enough for all of us. We had to make arrangements to get a bigger place and that is taking time. So we decided to live separately until a larger place was available.” Hopefully it was a reasonable explanation and the child would be gone before she realised that neither Pansy nor Draco had any inclination of actually living together. *** Over Cecilia’s head, Pansy quirked her lips at him in appreciation of his quick thinking. “Oh,” Cecilia said, obviously disappointed. “How long will it be?” She looked between them. “And can I stay with Father for a while? You won't be too busy, would you?” *** “We weren’t given a timeline,” Draco said, and then added, “but I am working on hurrying them along. They do not seem to have a proper sense of what Malfoys are owed.” He smirked at Cecilia, assuming she would have heard something similar. “But for now, you can stay. At dinnertime, your Mother can come back and,” Draco swallowed and mentally begged for patience, “we can all have dinner. How does that sound?” And it would now be his luck that Sydney would appear and there would be more to explain. *** “Oh, but you should really take the opportunity to spend time together,” Pansy told them, only to wilt - actually wilt - at Cecilia’s pleading look. “Oh, very well. I shall return for dinner.” Merlin help her. This was really only amusing as long as Draco was kept off-kilter. She really hadn’t planned on spending more time with him. She slid off her chair and gathered her things. “I will be back. Cici, you will be good for Father, won’t you?” But Cecilia had already turned back to her puzzle, determined to solve it. *** |