Cassiopeia Lily Malfoy (Harry X Draco)

Chapter 2

Malfoy was lying on the wire cot in his holding cell. He sat up when Harry entered.

"Potter," he said, cautiously.

Harry hovered near the door. He hadn't seen Malfoy in over ten years. It seemed unfair that Malfoy had got dramatically better-looking in the interim, when he was already too handsome to begin with.

"What are you in for?" asked Harry.

Malfoy sighed and leant back against the wall.

"Illegal potions trafficking, apparently."

"You didn't do it?"

"You think I'd risk Azkaban? When I'm Cassie's sole guardian? Fuck you."

"Wrongly accused. Got it."

Malfoy glared at him, then put his head in his hands.

"What did you think of Cassie?" he asked.

"Never would have thought you'd have a kid I'd like," said Harry.

"But you liked her. I knew you would, if you met her."

This was getting closer to the nub of the problem. The thing that had been making Harry feel so strange and uncomfortable, since the first moment Cassie had appeared on his doorstep.

"Why do you care so much if I like her?"

Malfoy sat up as if he'd been hit.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked, "With everyone else you're some kind of angel among men, but when it comes to me, you just..." He shook his head, burying his face in his hands again.

Harry didn't know what to say. The whole evening had been surreal and confusing. It seemed to follow dream logic, and Harry didn't know what to think.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For how harsh I was, the last time we spoke."

Malfoy laughed quietly.

"The way you said it is really besides the point, Potter. And I notice you're not apologising for your decision, only the phrasing."

"Oh, fucking hell, you're not actually still angry that I wouldn't be your boyfriend when we were eighteen, are you?"

"No," said Malfoy, "I'm angry that you abandoned me and Cassie, when I was eighteen."

Something cold stirred in Harry. A feeling that his muggle upbringing was about to have cost him dreadfully.

"1..." he spoke delicately, fearfully. "I abandoned... Cassie?"

She had such green eyes.

"I didn't expect you to, I don't know, play house with us, but Merlin, you could have... you could have visited once or twice... or sent her a birthday card, if her Death Eater heritage was too loathsome for you to face... God, Harry, I mean, she's your daughter...!"

"What?" croaked Harry, his whole world crashing.

"I get why you wouldn't want to own to her publicly, I get what that would do to your reputation, I do, but to ignore her completely...! It was just so callous, and I don't understand it, because you were never callous, it was something I lov— you weren't callous, never, only ever to me, and I..."

"Malfoy," said Harry. "I didn't know."

Malfoy lifted his head from his hands.

"Excuse me?" he said, his voice icy.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Now Malfoy looked so furious that Harry instinctively reached for his wand.