Disclaimer: If it were mine, Severus would be faaarr too busy to be dealing with Voldemort. Trust me. Winks

Kasey

Chapter 3

Arthur and Molly had been very good with the young Malfoy boy, telling him that he was welcome to stay. They did, however, insist upon owling Draco and Lucy, his wife, and telling them where their son was. Kasey had sworn that his father wouldn't care, but they still told him they'd do it. Just in case.

For the boy's part, he seemed taken by Hermione. He hadn't let her out of his sight at all since dinner, not even when Molly and Arthur agreed to let Hermione stay over, telling her that she may end up sleeping on the floor though with about eighty children surrounding her. She'd laughed and shook her head, saying that that sounded perfect at the moment.

She'd gone up to Ginny's old room, where a couple of her things sat in the trunk in the closet, for instances such as this. She pulled a book out and sat on the bed for a little while, hearing the noises from outside telling her that Arthur was engaging some of the children again in a game. She just shook her head and read her book, watching Kasey out of the corner of her eye as he stared at her.

"Don't you want to go play?" She asked the young boy gently, setting down her book and marking her page with her finger.

He shook his head and pointed to the book. "What are you reading?"

She blushed. "Hogwarts, a History." While she didn't read it cover to cover once a week anymore, it was her comfort book that she returned to every time she was upset, thus the reason that her only copy was hidden in a trunk in her runaway house.

Kasey got closer. "Daddy reads that sometimes."

She looked at him for a second, then patted the bed next to her. He eagerly hopped up onto the bed next to her and snuggled close, and she was struck for a second by just how much this boy needed love, something Draco had always seemed troubled with showing. "Does he now? Does he ever let you read it?"

Kasey shook his head. "I'm not supposed to touch his books. I have my own books. They're m-muggly?"

Hermione laughed and shook her head. "I think you mean muggle. All my books were muggle when I was your age."

Kasey looked at her in surprise. "Really? Do you have a muggly parent too?"

Hermione nodded and mussed his hair. "Both of my parents are muggles."

Kasey's eyes widened. "So you grew up in Mommy's world?" He edged closer. "What's it like?"

"Haven't you ever gone into it?"

"No. Grandma and Grandpa always come visit us. Daddy says it's dangerous. Says I have to learn to control my magic and my mouth before I can see the mugglies."

Hermione nodded, remembering the strange things that used to happen when she got angry as a child. She imagined it would be even worse for someone who'd known about magic all of their lives and knew how and what to say. "Well, it's sort of like this world. Except without magic. Do you know what electricity is?"

Kasey shook his head and edged even closer, staring at her intently. "Well, I guess you can say it's muggle magic. But muggles call their magic science. But it turns on the lights and the appliances and the television."

"Television!" Kasey exclaimed, looking excited.

"Do you have one of those?" Hermione was surprised. She wasn't sure that Draco would accept his wife's heritage.

"No. But Grandma and Grandpa brought a portable one once for Mommy. They said that while she was in the hosbital she should have something to watch. She's got lugemia."

Hermione gave him a sad smile, inwardly shocked. She hadn't known what Lucy had, but she hadn't envisioned that it would be cancer. "Did the hospital help?"

Kasey nodded, bouncing on the bed. "At first it made her worse. And then she was able to play with me and go places for a long, long time. Then she did a relap."

Hermione closed her eyes, giving the boy a hug that he returned like it was water and he was dehydrating. She held him for a little while, and felt his breathing slow and his body went limp. She set him down on the bed slowly, stroking his forehead and watching his little eyes close. In the seconds before sleep overtook him, he asked. "Do your parents have a television."

"Yes," Hermione said.

"Next time Mommy goes into the Muggly hosbital, I want to visit her. And I'll go see your parents and watch there television, okay?" His voice was slow and sleepy, and Hermione knew he wouldn't even remember saying it in the morning.

"Of course." And then, he was asleep.

Hermione left Kasey to sleep in Ginny's old room and rejoined the chaos downstairs. Molly and Arthur stood in the kitchen, and Hermione could feel that the safety ward had been set up around the house to keep the kids inside and anyone else out.

"Kasey's asleep. Did you owl Draco?"

Molly nodded. "He hasn't responded though. Poor guy's probably busy with his wife, no doubt."

Hermione made a noise of consent. "I didn't realize she had cancer."

Molly, who knew very little of muggle diseases, didn't react. But Arthur looked at her sharply. "She has cancer?"

"Leukemia, Kasey said. Or, well, he said Lugemia. But I figured it was the same thing."

"Kid seems so sweet. Nothing like his father at that age." Molly finished putting the snacks away. "And he seems quite taken with you, Hermione. You may have two proposals on your hands if that little one has his way."

Arthur looked up in surprise. "Snape proposed?" Hermione nodded. "Then what are you doing here? I assumed you guys fought like cats and dogs today, rather than him proposing."

"We did fight. Or, well, we would have if I hadn't activated the portkey."

Molly gestured for Arthur to let it drop, and he obeyed, giving Hermione a last funny look before wrapping his arms around his wife. "Well, you know you're welcome to stay here as long as you like. Merlin knows we could use the help at this point."

Hermione laughed. "With so many children running around, you're lucky the Aurors haven't stormed this place yet."

"Oh, believe me, we sent in an owl to tell them about this little get together. Last time we did something like this, our neighbors thought that we were being attacked."

Hermione looked at her two "parents" in amazement. "How do you do it?"

"What?"

"Love each other after so many years of marriage? Deal with all these children? Have so many memories, both good and bad, and not dwell on them?"

Arthur gave Hermione a wry look. "Practice. And lots of alcohol."

Molly hit him and all three laughed.

The next day started much like the last day had ended: with Kasey right by Hermione's side. She woke up to find his little face looking right at hers, barely an inch away. She jumped, bouncing her head off the floor to keep it from hitting his. "Kasey!" she exclaimed, rolling away from the squatting boy and sitting up.

"Sorry, you were making noises. Did you have a bad dream?"

She shook her head. Her dreams hadn't been bad, and she wasn't sure that she could even classify them as dreams at all. They were more of memories, and she was pretty sure that was her brain's way of thinking over the decision she had been given yesterday.

She patted her wild hair down and sighed as she felt it bounce back up under her fingers.

"Your hair is big," Kasey observed, reaching out to touch one of the bushy sections. He stroked it twice, then let his hand drop. "It's very pretty."

"Thank you, Kasey." Hermione had never been good with compliments, especially not from a six year old. She couldn't help but feel slightly flattered though. Draco was the epitome of good looks, and his wife Lucy wasn't far behind. For the son of two such beautiful people tell her that her hair was pretty, she couldn't look horrible. Or the kid was blind.

"How old are you?" He asked, looking at her shyly from beneath thick, light eyelashes.

"Twenty-nine," she answered, hoping that her age would scare the little boy off a little.

He seemed to be doing a good deal of thinking, then looked up at her, smiling. "Daddy always told me I should go for an older lady."

Hermione shook her head. "I don't think he meant this old."

"That's okay. He doesn't care who I marry."

Hermione rubbed her forehead. So many men were trying to force her into matrimony, weren't they? "Is that your way of saying you're going to marry young man?"

He nodded and grabbed her hand, pulling her out of the room. "You're my girlfriend."

Hermione was shocked into silence.

A/N: There was a little bit of humor there, at least to my sick, twisted mind. Right::sighs:: Maybe I should change the genre to general rather than humor. But I like to think I'm being funny. So it stays, unless I get a bunch of complaints about it.

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