Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and no profit is being made through the writing of this, monetary or otherwise.

A/N: Written for dreamwidth's fan_flashworks amnesty challenge for the prompt, sweet and sour. AU, set in the future, canon-divergent, features OC children.

"When did you know you were in love with Dad?" Violet asks.

She's got a bit of dirt smudged on her nose and scrunches it in a way that is adorable when Draco wipes it off with his thumb. She squirms away when he starts to work on the dirt that's caked on her cheek and pins him with a no nonsense look that Draco swears she adopted from her Dad's mother; a woman that Draco both fears and respects.

Hands on her hips, Violet juts out her chin in stubbornness and Draco sighs as he thinks back to life before children, a life before he'd been welcomed into a large, extended family, a life before Ronald Bilius Weasley had wormed his way into the center of his heart and made off with it. It was a much simpler life then, if a bit dull.

"Why do you want to know?" Draco asks, running a hand through his hair as he tries, and fails, to think of the exact moment that he knew he was head over heels in love with the man who'd once been his enemy.

It hadn't happened all at once, not like in the bedtime stories that he heard as a child, the same ones he's read to Violet and her twin brother time and time again over the years that he's known them and been a father to them.

There was nothing romantic about how he and Ron had met, how they'd 'fallen' in love. Hell, there was nothing romantic about Ron or him. Neither of them were given to overly romantic gestures or notions, though, upon occasion (a birthday, their anniversary - coming up on five years in a couple of months) one or the other of them has brought home a bouquet of flowers or ordered up a special meal.

"I don't want to know," Violet says, exasperated. "I need to know."

Blowing an errant lock of hair out of her eye, she fixes Draco with a look that he's seen often on Ron's face. It does not bode well for him. Like a dog with a bone, he knows that Violet won't let this drop until she has an answer. He's just not sure he has an answer to give her.

"Alright," he concedes, stalling for time, grateful that her brother, Victor, isn't there to back her up with his twin glare (together, they're a formidable force to reckon with). He's out in the field, flying with his father and cousins.

"Why do you need to know when I fell in love with your Dad?" Draco asks, settling down on the Burrow's porch step because he knows the little girl won't budge until she has an answer.

Violet bites her lip, a rare look of uncertainty crossing her features as she shuffles her feet and crosses her arms over her chest. At eight, she's thin and willowy, clearly taking after Ron in her build and looks rather than her absent mother (a woman that Draco's only seen in photographs; which is a good thing because if he ever meets her in person, he will hex her to Hell and back again for what she's done to Ron and the twins).

"Because," she says at long last. "Victor says that you're going to leave Dad, just like she did, and that you don't really love him, or us."

Draco bites his tongue and silently curses Violet's birth mother in a dozen languages before he rises and pulls the little girl to himself and envelops her in his arms. She's trembling with suppressed emotions and bravery (a Gryffindor, like her father, through and through) and Draco wishes that he could take away the pain that her mother has left all of them with.

"Little bug," he says, pressing a kiss to her hair, rubbing her back. "I love you and your brother, and your Dad very much. I would never leave you."

"But, Victor says that -"

"Victor doesn't know everything," Draco says, cutting the little girl off and pulling her into his lap.

"He says that you and Dad can't possibly be in love because you don't have a story like Pappa Arty and Granny Molly and Grandfather Luci and Grandmother Nessy do," Violet continues as though Draco hadn't said anything. Her brows are knit together, and the keen look she gives him is almost accusatory.

"Not everyone has a story, bug," Draco says.

"Auntie Gin and Uncle Harry do, so do Uncle Sev and Uncle Remus," Violet says, ticking the couples off on her fingers as she lists them. "And-"

"I know, I know," Draco says, holding up a hand and rolling his eyes. "I see your point. Just because your Dad and I don't have a story, doesn't mean that we are not every bit as much in love as everyone else is."

"But how did you fall in love and when did you fall in love and why don't you ever tell us the story?" Violet, not to be deterred, asks.

Draco leans back on the step, catches his step-son, broom in hand, inching quietly toward the two of them, out of the corner of his eye. The boy, and this doesn't surprise him in the least, is just as eager to hear what Draco has to say as his sister is. Of the four of them, Victor is the one most given over to romantic notions. It was Victor who'd set up a candlelight dinner for their anniversary last year.

"It was the sweet and sour, love," Ron says, sidling up to them.

He's sweaty and sun-burnt from playing Quidditch all afternoon. There's a streak of dirt across his cheek that matches the one on Violet's, and Draco's heart lurches in his chest as he looks at the man he loves more than words can ever hope to convey. The setting sun silhouettes Ron in a golden halo of light and Draco's breath catches in his throat as it strikes him with sudden clarity that, even with hair plastered to his forehead and dirt on the bridge of his nose, Ronald Bilius Weasley-Malfoy is the most beautiful man that he's ever known.

Flinging himself down on the step behind Draco, Ron drags him (and their daughter) into a sweaty hug, pulling Draco up against his broad chest. Draco turns his head, and Ron kisses Draco full on the lips, making him blush, and his children groan, and then gestures for Victor to come over and join them.

"C'mere, son of mine, you might'se well hear this, too," Ron says.

Caught out, Victor digs the toe of his shoe through the dirt, and saunters over. He lets his father pull him down onto the step beside him and giggles when Ron tickles him to get him out of his somber mood.

"Sweet and sour?" Draco asks, frowning as he racks his brain for what sweet and sour has to do with anything, let alone falling in love with Ron. Surely their story begins with something a little more glamorous than sweet and sour.

Ron gives him a slow, lazy smile, the one that has been Draco's undoing more times than he's willing to admit, and laughs. "You don't remember, do you?"

Draco closes his eyes, rests his head against Ron's knee, and thinks back to the time before he and Ron had become a couple, before he knew that he wanted a family at all, before he knew what true love was and could admit to himself that it was something that he wanted, something that he craved and needed.

Ron's hand is in Draco's hair, fingers massaging his scalp and Draco moans and leans into the touch. Violet giggles and squirms until he loosens his hold on her so she can move to sit beside her father.

"It was winter, and a blustery one at that," Ron says, voice rumbling in his chest as he warms up to the story. "We'd been on a couple of dates, and when I asked you out on what was to be our fourth date, I was certain that you'd never say, yes, because I feared that I'd lost you after our third date when Violet vomited violently all over your expensive shoes."

"Ew, Dad." Violet shoves her father and, unperturbed, Ron laughs.

"It's true, little bug. You were so sick that one time that your Da came over that I thought it was over between the two of us even before it had even begun. He turned positively green and looked like he was going to faint," Ron says, voice fond. "Outside of Quidditch, I'd never seen your Da move as quickly as he did when you upchucked on him."

"But he came back?" Violet asks, looking up at her father through the fringe of her bangs.

Ron nods. "He came back, and -"

"And you made sweet and sour pork," Draco says, picking up the story as though they've told it countless times before though this is the first time they've even mentioned it to each other, let alone told it to the children.

"And it was awful," Ron says, laughing, fingers stilling in their scalp massage.

"How awful was it?" Victor asks, voice intrigued.

"Well, the pork was raw," Draco says, smiling at the memory of a madly blushing and apologetic Ron. And, it's funny, but Ron is right, this is the moment when Draco knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was in love with the man that he ended up marrying a year and three months later.

"And it wasn't so much sweet and sour as it was salty and spicy." Draco runs his tongue over his teeth as he recalls the burning sensation, and how he'd eventually quenched that particular fire.

"Yuck," Violet says, nose scrunching in disgust.

"I'm surprised that we didn't get food poisoning," Ron says, chuckling.

"What did you do?" Victor asks. He's leaning against Ron and Draco, hanging on their words.

"Well, I kissed him, didn't I?" Ron says, nudging his son with his shoulder.

Victor's nose scrunches up, much like his sister's, much like Ron's does when he finds something particularly disgusting, or embarrassing, or any number of things. It is completely endearing.

"More like I kissed you, " Draco says as the memory starts to unfold in his mind.

The sauce had been so spicy that it felt as though Draco had eaten acid rather than sweet and sour pork gone bad, and he did the first thing that popped into his head at the time - kiss the idiot who had made the fiery, raw pork. In retrospect, drinking milk would probably have been a smarter move to make, though it would not have gotten him where he is now - on the Weasley clan's front porch with a family all his own.

The kids had spent that night at Harry and Ginny's, which turned out to be fortuitous as Draco's impromptu kiss had led to more kissing and then to lovemaking such as Draco had never experienced before. As a matter of fact, the sex had been so good that Draco had blocked the sweet and sour incident leading up to it entirely from his mind.

"That you did, love," Ron says, kissing the top of Draco's head. "And that was the first time that your Da and I said those three magic words to each other."

"You got milk?" Draco quips, laughing at the way that Ron purses his lips and Violet and Victor burst into twin peals of laughter.

When the laughter subsides, Draco steals another kiss from Ron, and settles back against his lover's chest, Ron's bony knees on either side of him, reveling in the feel of Ron's strong fingers kneading the knots of tension in his neck. Victor and Violet share a look, and Draco wonders (not for the first time) if they have some kind of telepathic link. It's a scary thought. Together, they can rule the world.

Violet nods and gives her brother a smug look that he returns. "Your story is so much better than Auntie Gin and Uncle Harry's," she proclaims. "When I tell James, Albus and Lily, they are going to be so jealous."

Draco shakes his head and smirks. He should have known that the whole thing was a setup from the start, that Violet had an ulterior motive in asking him about when he'd fallen in love with Ron, not that he minds. His walk down memory lane has been enlightening and makes him treasure the man he loves even more than he did before remembering that night, and how touched he'd been that Ron had thought enough of him to make (attempt to, that is) dinner for him.

"I blame you, you know," Ron says, poking Draco in the side.

"For what?" Draco asks, replaying their conversation in his head, and coming up blank for what Ron is blaming him for.

"For turning our children into cunning Slytherins," Ron says. The big, easy grin on his face and light, teasing tone of his words, takes any potential sting out of his words.

Shaking his head, Draco says, "If you ask me, the sorting hat got it all wrong in the first place."

"Is that so?" Ron asks, resting his elbows on Draco's shoulders.

Violet and Victor groan loudly and rise abruptly from the porch steps. They roll their eyes at their fathers and run out into the house where the familiar sounds of family preparing dinner float out to Draco and Ron.

"You would have made a fine Slytherin," Draco says, craning his neck to look up at Ron.

"You would have made a sexy Gryffindor," Ron says, waggling his eyebrows.

"They're so gross," Albus' whispered words, filled with more awe than any true disgust, reach them even as Molly Weasley shushes the children and ushers them toward the living room where they will be out from under foot while she and the adults continue to prepare their Sunday dinner and converse. It's a family tradition, one that Draco's grown used to over the years, something that he looks forward to every week - meeting at the Burrow for Sunday dinner.

"Shall we?" Ron asks, pulling Draco to his feet.

Draco snakes his arms around Ron, kissing him before he allows Ron to tug him into the house where they join the rest of the clan. Once upon a time, Draco would have felt ill-at-ease being surrounded by so many people (Gryffindors) in such cramped quarters. Now, he feels safe and even comfortable. He feels like he's at home, especially when Ron slings an arm around him, tucking him into his side.

There's a familiar, tangy aroma hanging in the air, one that Draco hasn't smelled in years. It isn't hard to place and he smiles in spite of it, knowing that, this, more than anything else, means that he's been truly accepted as part of the Weasley family. He swears that Molly's eyes are twinkling with mischief when she answers his unasked question with a wink and a raised eyebrow.

Ron and his twins aren't the only Weasleys who would have fit right in with Slytherin, Draco thinks as Molly announces, "We're having sweet and sour pork for dinner."

Ron's throaty laughter is cut off with a kiss that has the adults whistling and the children speaking in hushed, delighted whispers about how 'in love' Ron and Draco are. Draco can hear Violet and Victor telling their cousins 'the story' of how their Dad and Da fell in love, and got married, and lived happily ever after. It's a fairy tale that Draco is more than willing to live out for the rest of his life, even if it does start out with vomit and sweet and sour pork.