The Request by redhead414

Chapter 38

It was a beautiful spring day. The backyard of the Malfoy Manor was decked out for what everyone in the wizarding world was calling the wedding of the century, with the added notation that they'd been waiting for this wedding for a decade. Rows of white chairs filled with the closest family friends of both Hermione and Draco as they waited for the bride to make her presence down the aisle. Draco stood at the end of the aisle with Teddy on his right. His attention snapped to his grandson, three-month-old Jamie who was happily sitting on his father's lap in the front row, drooling like a broken faucet as he gnawed away on his little fist.

"Cute kid," Teddy said with a grin, making a silly face at his nephew.

"Of course he's cute," Draco replied, as if his grandchild could be anything else.

He was quite positive after witnessing his five children be brought into this earth that nothing would ever quite top that moment. Draco vividly remembered holding each of his children for the first time, and the overflow of emotions that wracked his brain. But when Draco was handed a swaddled up Jamie - the last of the grandparents to hold the newest addition to the family, all he could do was stare, completely dumbfounded at the sight before him. He could tell the boy was definitely a Potter, but he definitely had his and Anya's nose, and maybe, just maybe, a Malfoy chin. As he carefully sat down in the chair, holding his new grandson, he glanced over at his daughter, who was grinning from ear to ear. How did she get so old? he thought to himself. Wasn't she just a little girl the other day, sticking her tongue out and rolling her eyes at the man who sat next to her? Draco couldn't understand where the time went, or how any of them got as far as they had, with everything they'd been through. All he knew in that moment, looking back down at Jamie, was that this was the first Potter he'd ever come in contact with that instantly had his love.

Jean and Richard sat on the end of the first aisle, Richard on the end and Jean in between her husband and James. He remembered how over the moon the two of them were when they told them of their engagement back in the fall. I'd welcome you to the family, son, but I don't think it's necessary, Richard said to Draco when they broke the news. I couldn't be happier though, he added, giving Draco a fatherly hug. You've done the only thing I've ever wanted for my daughter - and that's making her happy.

When the music began to play, everyone in tandem turned to look at the back of the aisle, and Draco looked up, smiling at the three girls walking towards him. Anya and Claire stood on either side of Katie, holding their little sister's hands as they made their way down the aisle, smiling brightly at their father. His older girls wore matching, strapless crinkled chiffon dresses in a pale peach color while Katie wore the same color, only she wore a short sleeved, tea length, crinkled chiffon dress that she would have been wearing for the past month since it arrived from the dressmaker, had she been allowed. It's the…most fancy dress…ever! Katie exclaimed when her mother showed it to her. Katie of course wasn't a frilly, dress up kind of girl like Anya and Claire were, but she loved that dress.

Anya's hair, pulled back into a classic French twist with a pearl studded barrette holding it all in place, reminded Draco of Astoria, only she never knew how to smile like Anya's did. Claire's hair wasn't much different than she usually wore it, with the exception of a small section of her long, platinum blond curls pulled back and pinned right above her ear. She looked much older than her seventeen years, and as he caught Albus giving Claire a small smile, in which she bashfully returned, Draco knew the inevitable wasn't far behind.

"Daddy!" Katie loudly whispered as the three of them reached him. "Daddy look at my dress!"

Laughter murmured through the small crowd in front of them as Draco squatted down to her eye level, taking her hands from her sisters' and looking at her. "It's the most beautiful dress I've ever seen."