A Second Beginning

By

Sannikex

"For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning."

– T.S. Eliot

Ginny Weasley was woken up by what sounded like monkeys on crack crashing through her windows and ransacking her house. She sighed and rolled over. Teenagers were supposed to sleep in, not wake up at…she glanced at her alarm clock - 8:30 on a Saturday morning. The music – if you could call it that – was normal. Or so the many books she'd read on the topic of raising a teenage son on your own told her.

Knowing that short of cutting the power in the house there wasn't anything she could do to make him turn it down. Bribes, threats and cajoling would be to little avail, so she got up and put on her ratty bathrobe over her pajamas. Heading down the stairs in the tiny house she now shared with her son she compared it to the house she had lived in with Harry. It was positively minuscule but it was all her salary from the Ministry and the money she got from Harry (that she accepted only so her son could avoid the cross to bear that was second hand robes) could afford.

Still, it was all theirs and she liked it. She'd loved the house she and Harry had shared, the spacious, bright rooms, the roses that climbed the outside wall, the big garden. It was perfect for the large family she had wanted to raise. She had wanted more children and maybe a dog or two to run in and out of all those rooms. But it wasn't to be. Harry was and always would be, everybody's. He couldn't be just Harry Potter the husband of Ginny or dad of James. He was the Savior and he'd never stop being the one people looked to in times of trouble.

He had never been able to say no to people who depended on him for help and no matter how much she loved that about him it left him with no time for his family. The first two years after James had been born he had stayed at home more, declined requests and screened visitors and calls. But slowly he had slipped back into it. How did his wife's claim to his attention compare to that of a despairing mother of a murdered child?

It wasn't as if she had ever thought she was more important than the victims who reached out to him for help, but when she realized she and James would never be Harry's first thought she had gotten fed up. She deserved to be her husband's first thought. Her son deserved a dad who didn't just drop in a few times a month to ruffle his hair and then sink into thought, still at work in his head.

So she'd left him the choice to be the Savior of all or James' dad and when the fighting had subsided she could swear he had looked relieved to leave them behind. He still saw James once a month but the few visits seemed to upset her son more than they settled him down. Maybe they only served to remind him of a life that could never be.

As she filled the kettle she wondered, for the millionth time, why her son, the easy-going, funny, charming boy she'd known had so abruptly turned into a teenage terror, decisively laying all the blame for his father's absence on her. Where had the sweet-natured little boy who would pull at her sleeve to show her something, take her hand and lead her to it, all the while smiling with his brown eyes shining, gone? Her little darling with the twinkling eyes and the quick laugh, where was he? Who was the brooding menace she had gotten in return?

She heard the music decrease in volume and thanked Merlin she hadn't called him on it. It was apparently no fun to torture your mother if you got no response for it.

o.O.o

"You look tired, Gin."

"Gee, thanks, dad." Her father's eyes followed her as she entered the office, hanging her cloak and depositing her briefcase on the desk with the tiny sign spelling her name. Next to it was a picture of a six-year-old James, smiling with a gap in his teeth and a miniature toy broom she played with on slow days.

"Did you not sleep well?" Since he was her dad and one of the people she trusted implicitly in the world, she sat down heavily as her shoulders slumped.

"James was in a right vicious mood all day yesterday. Finally I called it and we had a shouting match that probably woke the neighbors. I doubt I slept more than a few hours. I just don't know what to do anymore. I think he hates me, dad."

"He doesn't hate you, dear. He's a teenager. I recall you telling your mum and I you hated us and slamming a few doors during your teens." How could she tell her dad that it was so much worse? How could she tell him when she looked at her son she didn't recognize him anymore? "Why don't you send him over to your mum for a few days? She'll set him straight."

It was ever so tempting. Send James to her mum; see how he handled the wrath of Molly Weasley. After seven children there was little she couldn't deal with. But she shook her head.

"I need to figure this out myself. He's my son, I should be able to get through to him."

"Just don't take what he says to heart, Gin-bug." It was hard not to, when all he said were things she had accused herself of in her head. With a sigh she pushed the problem away, for now.

"What's on the agenda today then?"

The Department of Magic-Muggle Cooperation was fairly new but had a lot of responsibilities already.

"Check-ups on M-in-Ms, mostly." M-in-M stood for Magics in Muggle World. After the war, when the stigma of Muggles largely disappeared, many wizarding families had moved to the other side. There was more housing, more space, more jobs and all the wizards had to do was keep their magic use discreet. It was a popular trend and their department was flooded with check-ups, as the use of magic had to be controlled.

Home visits with a spell performed to see what magic had been used within the house was one useful way to make sure the wizards weren't overstepping too much. Just last week Ginny had discovered a man who set fire to things in his apartment to get money from his Muggle insurance company. As the fires couldn't be explained the company kept having to pay.

With risks as those, check-ups were required. She didn't mind them, they got her out of the office and she got to talk to people. In fact she had been considering moving to the Muggle side as well, to get James away from all who knew he was the son of Harry Potter, to make the reminders of his dad less frequent. Most seemed happy on the Muggle side, glad to get away from houses with ghouls banging on the pipes and less problematic pests than gnomes.

"Okay, hit me." Her dad handed her a list and Ginny scanned it quickly. It didn't look too bad a day. After grabbing her cloak again she set off.

o.O.o

The last name on the list gave her a start. Malfoy? She couldn't imagine anyone less likely to move to the Muggle side, but there his name was on the list, plain as day. Two registered wizards, Malfoy, Draco and his son Malfoy, Scorpius, along with an address in London. Carefully she followed the Apparation directions and found herself in a lush, green glade. Confused, she looked around. This couldn't be London.

It was quiet and the air was perfumed with the smell of fresh cut grass and something floral. Around her were trees that must be centuries old, and a somewhat unkempt hedge. She saw a trail of stone slats and followed them, marveling at how pretty and peaceful the place was. As she went she began hearing sounds of traffic, muffled, but still there. She turned a sharp corner and saw the house. It was a beautiful Regency-style town house with a stucco porch, all white and graceful, with little wrought iron balconies and blue planters with flowers spilling over them.

"Incredible," she breathed and curiously approached the door. It was obviously the back of the house but being able to Apparate into your own garden in the middle of Muggle London had to be convenient. She knocked and as she waited let her gaze drink in more of the beautiful surroundings.

There was a little French café style table with two elegant chairs around it on a small patio, surrounded by greens. It had to be amazing to have coffee out there in the morning sun, maybe read the paper or stroll through the gardens with a mug in your hand. Under a shelter from rain was what looked like a comfortable rattan armchair. Someone had slung a blanket over it and there was a dent in the pillows, along with a novel and a cup. Her heart yearned a little. When was the last time she had cozied up with a book in a garden? Her little house had only a speck of token grass by the front door facing the street.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the door opened. Then her brain could only form one coherent thought. Wow. The man in the doorway was devastatingly handsome, tall and lithe, in grey dress trousers and a pearl-white shirt. His thick blond hair fell in front of eyes the color of liquid mercury that just seemed to draw her in. They were dark compared to his hair and complexion and she just couldn't look away. His features were sharp, like the men in those Muggle ads for suits, with high cheekbones and a defined jaw. He lifted an eyebrow in inquiry,

"Weasley?" Hearing his voice, the same slight sarcastic lilt to it as the last time she'd heard it, back at Hogwarts, brought her back. What was she doing, drooling over Draco Malfoy of all people?

"Mr. Malfoy. I'm here on account of the Ministry." She tapped the silver badge pinned to the lapel of her black Muggle suit.

"Oh, you're our Magic-Muggle liaison." He said it with an air of slight amusement, as if it was funny to have such an office.

"Yes, I'm here to perform standard check-up procedure."

"Come on in then, Mrs. Potter." Straight-backed, she walked past him, into the house.

"It's Ms. Weasley, actually."

"Oh. Pardon me." He was surprisingly civil and she decided if he could be a grown-up, then so could she.

"No problem. I have to scan all the rooms of the house for illegal use of magic, and ask you a few questions. Would you prefer I scan before or after?"

"Before, if you don't mind. I'll take you around, Ms. Weasley." At the moment they were standing in an entrance hall, she realized as she tore her gaze from the magnetic depths of his eyes, with black and white checkered floor and pale green walls. Black and white photos adorned them and Ginny itched to peek at a few. She could see they were good. Another door, that she assumed was the street entrance, was directly opposite the door she had come through and in between there was a stairwell on one end, and another door leading away to other rooms.

"Should we start upstairs?"
"Please." Who would have thought, a Weasley and a Malfoy, painfully cordial, walking through an interior designer's dream? He led the way and they reached the end of a hallway on the upper floor. Malfoy knocked on it and waited.

"My son is home for the summer", he explained and Ginny nodded. She'd forgotten he had a son. She heard a muffled "come in" and they entered. It was surprisingly tidy. James' room always looked like he'd just been robbed, all drawers pulled open and their contents spread over every flat surface. This room had some scattered pieces of clutter but the floor was fully visible.

"Score, this is Ms. Weasley, she's here from the Ministry to check up on our magic use. Have you been playing around with those disemboweling spells? Cause she'll see if you did." Ginny almost fainted at his casual tone and then realized it was a joke. The boy sitting in front of the computer turned and grinned at his dad.

"But you told me to practice." Ginny saw that even though this boy was as dark in his coloring as his father was fair, they were nearly copies of each other. She pitied the poor teenage girls at Hogwarts who had to be pining for the young boy already. He couldn't be older than her own son, yet he was smiling at his dad widely, before nodding to her in greeting. She couldn't get James to behave with such politeness for any kind of bribe.

"Ms. Weasley, this is the mutant I won in poker and pass off as my son, Scorpius. Score, Ms. Weasley and I went to Hogwarts together, once upon a time." She couldn't help smiling at the easy interaction between father and son.

"Nice to meet you, Scorpius."

"Score, " the boy corrected quickly. "But you look half my dad's age, Ms. Weasley, are you sure you went to school with him?" His face was innocent, but he ruined the effect somewhat by smirking at his dad. She laughed as Draco sent his son a dark look, softened by a smile.

"I'm sending you back to the mutants, miscreant."

"Finally, I'll get to see my real family again!"

"And admire the family resemblance. Hey, you left your stuff out in the garden, it looks like rain so you should go bring it in." Ginny expected to hear an excuse or a flippant "I'll do it later", but Scorpius only sent a wistful glance at his computer before leaving the room. How come Malfoy had this easy-going relationship with his son and she couldn't say good morning to hers without starting a shouting match? Was Draco Malfoy a better parent than she?

"Excuse the joke, that's what Gryffindors usually assume I do in my…lair." His voice was humorous but she saw some shadows lurking in his eyes.

"If you were disemboweling people I'd assume you would hide it better." She thought she saw him smile as he led her down the hall.

Automatically she checked the room and saw only lighting and cleaning spells come up in the chart. She followed as Malfoy took her through the rest of the rooms - a study, two guest bedrooms and his bedroom, before heading downstairs again and repeating the performance in a dining room, a kitchen, a library, a living room and a storage room.

All of it was beautiful. Ginny couldn't help envying the atmosphere, the comfortable elegance of it. She'd have pegged Malfoy as more of a contemporary steel, glass and chrome type, with no room for homey clutter. But there was beautiful old furniture; all rooms looked lived in and there were scatterings of personality throughout.

The rain started to fall just as they got back into the kitchen and Ginny gratefully accepted the offer of coffee. This was her last stop of the day and she would need a pick-me-up to summon the energy to go home and deal with her son. He'd probably dragged his butt out of bed a few hours ago, then cluttered up the place while playing video games, expecting her to bring home food, cook it and clean up the mess he'd made.

Scorpius rushed in to escape the rain and she noticed he had folded the throw and put it away, then put his cup in the dishwasher and brought his book with him upstairs. Tired after a long day, feeling strangely relaxed and at home in Malfoy's spacious kitchen, she couldn't help asking,

"How do you do it?" He looked up from where he was measuring coffee beans, putting them into a strange little machine.

"Do what?"

"Get your son to behave like that? My son behaves like the spawn of a bipolar grindylock. They look to be around the same age, you're raising him alone and yet he's so…well adjusted. Happy." He pressed a button on the machine and it made a terrible racket, but the smell of coffee, more intense than she'd ever smelled it, filled the room. He seemed to think as he got out something she did recognize, a cafétière, just like the one Hermione made coffee in. He put the now ground coffee into it and pressed a button on the kettle to boil it. It came to life and hummed as he turned and leaned back against the counter.

"He wasn't always. Score's mum was… is not interested in being a parent. She was never really there for him, always distracted by her own things. But I figured a little of her was better than none at all, so I stayed." He shrugged and looked out the window. "But as Score got older I came to realize her neglect was just too obvious if we stayed the way we were. So I told her to go. She didn't make a sound of protest. She's called a few times but I think she's happier without us." He turned back and got two blue mugs out of the cupboard and at her affirmative nod, milk from the fridge. As the kettle popped to signify it was ready he poured milk into a matching blue jug and she thought disconnectedly that her mother would approve.

"Score didn't handle it too well at first, he was just nine then, and had to realize his mother didn't really want him. It made him act out. I thought seriously about locking him up and not letting him out until he was behaving like a human being again. I was at the end of my tether. I just didn't know what to do." He poured the boiling water into the coffee and stirred it before replacing the lid. Then he sent her a quick glance before tapping the coffee pot with his wand. Sticking it back in his pocket she wondered what head done to it. He picked up the cups and the pot and turned fully. "In the end, I sat him down and talked to him like an adult. Told him I was sorry about his mother but that we were in it together now and that he would have make do with me, cause I was all there was. He seemed to respond to that. We're a team now and she's out of the picture. That's how we deal with things. He's my best friend as well as my son."

He set the brewed coffee on the table and when she thanked him, it was for more than the drink. Deciding he had been more honest than she could have ever hoped, and knowing he had been in a similar situation, she started to tell him the real story of what went on in her house. Haltingly at first, but faster and faster the words tumbled out of her mouth. To finally voice her innermost fears, about ruining her son's childhood, about maybe staying with Harry, about him hating her for leaving his dad was strangely relieving. Through it all Draco Malfoy just listened, slowly sipping coffee and nodding for her to continue. When she'd finished she felt as if she'd run for miles, slightly shaky and out of breath.

"He doesn't hate you, you know."

"I'm not so sure anymore."

"It sounds to me like he is pushing at you because he knows you'll always stay. He doesn't know that about his dad. It's easier to take it out on the ones you know love you, cause they'll stay anyway." He set his cup down and turned it by the handle. "At the root of it I think all children blame themselves for not being enough, for not making their parent want to stay. He probably feels it's something he did, or didn't do, and now he's testing you to see if you're going to run too." It made such sense when he said it. Why hadn't anyone been able to see it before? Why hadn't she?

"It's not his fault! Harry's just…" She didn't finish the sentence, suddenly she felt like she was betraying Harry by talking about him with a person she knew he hated. Well, maybe not hated anymore, but certainly wasn't fond of.

"Not father of the year?"

"He is." But really, what was the point of hiding it at this point? "When he has the time. It's not often." Malfoy nodded.

"Guess it's not easy juggling time between being the Savior, having people flock to you like goslings to a mother goose and maintaining your own life at the same time." She shook her head, surprised that he possessed enough empathy to put himself in Harry's shoes.

"No, it's not. There is always someone who needs help, desperately and he can't tell them no. I felt like a bad person for wanting more from him than what he could give but I think my son is better off without being benevolently ignored."

"Weasley, however noble the reason, neglect is neglect. You have to consider yourself and your son and do what's best for you two. Potter made his choice and put others before himself and before you and your son. Now he'll have to live with it."

Her own family hadn't offered as much support as she had just gotten from the most unlikely source imaginable. They had all thought she was selfish for wanting more of Harry's time. But wasn't she allowed to be? She'd stood by him, never fully being part of his life for so long. She'd been supportive, tried to help, and he'd never turned to her. She wasn't sure he could. He was always going to belong to the whole world, not Ginny Weasley, and he wouldn't let her close enough to actually be part of his life.

It was time for a new chapter, a chapter for her and her son. Harry would always be in her life and part of her would always love him but it was time she stood up for what she wanted. She had to step out of his shadow, stop being Harry Potter's silently supportive wife. She had always been there to help him when he needed her and then disappeared back into a needless void without him until he had time for her again. It had never been about her. It was time her life was hers again.

With a decision made Ginny felt as if part of the weight shifted from her shoulders.

"You're right, I think. I'm going to have to sort this out. Thank you for the coffee and the advice." He stood as she left and as she cast a look behind her at the beautiful house she saw his silhouette, made shimmering through the sheets of rain, still in the kitchen. She thought he raised a hand in a wave and she responded before hurrying back to the Apparition point.

o.O.o

Draco Malfoy stood by the window, watching the rain fall in his garden, his mind on the woman who had hurried through it to the Apparition point. It had been a shock to see her again. The years hadn't changed her much. The vibrant red hair hadn't dulled and the figure in her dumpy suit was as supple as always. The second shock was to realize that she still made him want like he had as a teenager just from seeing her again. The years he'd spent denying it to himself had been of little use as one glimpse of her had his mind spinning the way it had when he'd been fifteen and she had been forbidden to him in more ways than he could count. How he'd hated her for it, for making him want her while she probably cared less for him than mud under her shoe.

He sat back down to fiddle with his cup. Hers was still where she'd left it and just the knowledge that she'd held it in her hands, touched it with her lips made his heart beat faster. Merlin, Malfoy, get it together. She was just as unattainable now as she had been then. The Princess of Gryffindor, she had been his opposite in every way. Everyone had loved her, he remembered. Flocked to her like moths drawn to a light. In many ways that's how he had thought of her. A bright flame among the fluttering, grey moths surrounding him. She'd whirled through his school year thoughts like the last bright leaf in an autumn breeze. A splash of color, of life. A reminder of something different. Beautiful, charming, funny and talented she had of course been destined for Potter all along. Married right out of school, a Quidditch career in the making and then a baby. Their happiness had shone mockingly at him from every wizarding paper. Then when he'd moved to the Muggle side he'd lost most contact with the wizarding news. He hadn't even known she was divorced. Which doesn't make a damn bit of difference, Malfoy. She'd rather date a hippogriff than look at you. And who could blame her? He knew what he'd been. Saw his son suffer for it every single day of his life. He'd moved him from the wizarding world to spare him the pain at least during summer but the boy was a wizard. He had to go to a magic school. There was nothing a worried dad could do for his son when he was hundreds of miles away at the mercy of the self-righteous victorious in the war. Nothing he could do about the children of his former so-called friends who shunned their housemate. Yet he could sit and pretend to be the best father in the world when Ginevra Weasley asked him for advice.

"Hey, dad, what's for dinner? Can we have pizza? Man, I'm starving. I could eat a whole…" His voice grew muffled as he stuck his head in the fridge and Draco smiled. Well, he did okay as a dad, if not exactly in a conventional way.

"We had pizza yesterday."

"So? You can never have too much pizza. Unless, of course, you're counting your calories, keeping fit for when sexy Ministry workers come to knock on our door." Draco arched an eyebrow as Score's laughing face reappeared from behind the fridge door.

"What do you know about sexy, midget, you're barely in your teens."

"Lots. I do a lot of research into what's sexy." His dark eyes twinkled, the same eyes his wife had looked at him with cold disappointment in. Yet in another's face they were warm and humorous. Sometimes it made him wonder if he'd ever seen Astoria really happy. He didn't think so, not after having proof of how those eyes did look when they were laughing.

"Research, is it?"

"Certainly, it's all in the name of science. Did you really go to school with her?" Score brought out the soda, poured a glass as Draco marveled, as he always did, how alike they were growing. His son was a real life copy of himself at the same age, save for his coloring - that was all Astoria's. He could remember seeing that face in the mirror, yet they were so different. As a teenager he'd been a little prick, quite frankly, and the most popular Slytherin since Tom Riddle. His son was rejected by all in his house but was funny and generous.

Sure, he could manipulate with the best of them and was proud and clever, a combination that placed him in Slytherin in the first place, but he seemed so out of place when Draco thought back to what he had been himself. There was no inherent meanness in Score, no sense of always having been wronged, no need to strike out at others. Maybe it was as simple as upbringing. Every step his own father had taken had added another layer to him, layers it had taken years to rip off, a painful process he had gone through to make sure Score would never have to become what he had been. Score would never have to feel unwanted or as if he didn't measure up. That he meant less as a person than as a vessel to be filled. Never would Score have to hear his dad say, "Malfoys do not" or "A Malfoy always". Those words had been his undoing. He'd tried so desperately hard to make his dad proud of him and always felt as if he'd failed. His son knew he would always be proud of him, would always love him.

"Well?" Realizing Score was waiting for an answer where he was sitting on the counter (he hadn't been allowed in the kitchens of Malfoy Manor but he was sure that if he had, he would have been told Malfoys don't sit on counters). As always glad to see his son do something his own father would hate he replied,

"I did. She was a year behind. In Gryffindor."

"Oh, don't tell me…It's her, isn't it? The one you had a crush on at school?" In the name of honesty Draco had told his son as much when he'd come home over Christmas brokenhearted because Marcia Prentiss didn't even look at him. To be honest he wasn't true he'd term what he'd felt something as pure as a teenage crush. He had wanted her, on several levels. Physically, because she had been gorgeous and he had been a teenage boy. Mentally, because she was funny and spirited. He had yearned for the forgiveness he had imagined she could give. And he'd wanted her simply because she represented something he could never be or have. That, tangled with rampaging hormones and a war raging outside had made sure it was never as simple as an unresolved crush.

"Yeah."

"Was she as pretty at school?"

"Sure. She hasn't changed much."

"You didn't stand a chance, did you?" Draco couldn't help laughing at Score's pitying tone.

"No, I suppose I didn't. Prettiest girl at school and absolutely off limits."

"You could ask her out now. I didn't see a ring."

"Well, aren't you the ever-observant, Sherlock."

"Like you didn't notice." Draco chuckled and shrugged, crossing his legs at the ankle under the table.

"I might have. Unfortunately, this woman knew me at my very worst. She probably still sees me as the horrid little git who tormented her brother, her future sister-in-law and future husband." Score swung his legs down to dangle over the edge of the counter.

"Whoa. That's a few."
"Well, I really did try my best to have them hate me." And he'd enjoyed it too. Being older and wiser he knew he'd been fuelled mainly by desperate jealousy but thinking back he still thought those three had been annoying. That holier-than-thou attitude and Potter's constant refusal to let other people help. He didn't care if it was self-sacrificing, to him it just sounded plain stupid. But they hadn't really deserved all he had thrown their way. And thanks to Potter's ridiculous personality he was still alive, alive to see his son grow up. He could forgive the man for being annoying for that gift.

"Well, she probably would have said no anyway, seeing that ugly mug."

"I'll agree with you there since we have pretty much the same face." Score laughed and slid off the counter.

"So, where did we settle on the whole pizza thing?"

A/N: Okay, this is something that's been kicking around on my computer for a while so I thought I'd polish up the first few chapters and see if anyone likes it. If you do, please tell me so I can start work on the later ones. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!