Geneva Molly Malfoy

Chapter Two

Geneva Molly Malfoy

"Shh, please Geneva, everything's okay," Draco told the tiny steel-eyed baby in his arms. He gently rocked her side to side as he looked around the many people surrounding him. Harry and Ron had been part of one of the few search groups, and had not yet returned to see the limp form of Hermione. There was some insane pride Draco felt at knowing he would have to show the pair his daughter when they came back. He would have to say, "Potter, Weasley, this is my daughter...our daughter, mine and Hermione's...yes, she really is..."

His daughter was wailing loudly, looking up at him with eyes almost exactly mirroring his own. "Would you like us to send for your father, Mr. Malfoy? Your Mother?" they had asked him an hour ago.

"No!" he said aloud now, without thinking about it. No, he had told them. And to himself he had cried, call Father? He would disown me in a flash for marrying a Muggle-born witch, for conceiving a child with that particular Muggle-born witch. And only at seventeen years old!

Hermione was not dead, as fate would have it, but it had taken several long hours of testing for the Healers to determine what had happened, and Draco shuddered to think of it, upsetting the baby momentarily. Hermione had gone into hiding when she had learned she was pregnant. She had been attacked several times by long-distance spells; some intentional, some unintentional. It was a miracle the baby was alive, the Healers had told Draco. And, they'd added, it was the work of some god that Hermione was still breathing, even if was just barely.

"Mr. Malfoy," a soft, yet firm voice said as a gentle hand was laid on Draco's shoulder. He looked at his shoulder, and saw the ripped, torn and dirtied white shirt he had put on in the middle of the night when he had been told of what happened. His shirt was torn and dirtied not from war, as one might think, but from trying in vain to kill himself when he'd been told everything about his young wife and child.

Draco bit his already bleeding lip to fight any oncoming tears. He turned his head to look into the cool blue eyes of Headmaster Dumbledore. "Hello, Professor Dumbledore," he said in an unconvincingly calm tone.

"Mr. Malfoy, the Healers have informed me of a decision that needs to be made, and we have all agreed that only you can make this decision."

There was no reassuring twinkle to those eyes. Draco looked at the barely breathing body of his seventeen-year-old wife.

Professor Dumbledore continued, "You need to decide, Mr. Malfoy, whether you would like to stick it out and see how your wife progresses, if she gets better. Or, taking into consideration her current condition, you also have the choice of having her taken off life support."

Draco looked again at the entrance of the labyrinth of caves where Hermione had been seen stumbling out of late last night. Where Ron and Harry had yet to be seen returning from. "Sir, I--I think I would like to wait until Harry and Ron come back--"

Professor Dumbledore interrupted. "Draco, only you can decide. During the war, I watched all of my soldiers very carefully, heard their every spoken word, their every thought. I watched Hermione all along, and I saw the birth of your daughter. I could speak to my soldiers mentally, and I told Hermione time and time again that things would be all right, and I told her when the war was over, that my army had won, but she had sunken so far into her misery, Mr. Malfoy, that she refused it. She had convinced herself that she would never see her husband again--you, but she would never tell me who--she had convinced herself that she would die in that cave, with her child. Your child."

He touched the baby's necklace. "You gave this to her," he stated softly. Draco nodded. "This necklace told me all I needed to know. It told me her mysterious husband, and the father of her baby. You're smart without realizing it, Mr. Malfoy. Now, look--look at her forehead. What do you see?"

Draco looked carefully, and noticed something he had no before. It was a scar...and an unusually shaped scar at that. Draco looked even closer, and let out a sharp breath. It was a lightning bolt. "Pro--Professor Dumbledore, I--"

"They told you, Mr. Malfoy, about the intentional attacks on your wife and daughter?" Draco nodded silently, still in shock. "What they did not tell you, they did not on my request," Dumbledore continued. "Mr. Malfoy, your daughter has killed Lord Voldemort for good. We know it for a fact, and we have his full deceased body. Lord Voldemort attacked Hermione and Geneva, Draco. That child you hold in your arms is the daughter of the two smartest students at Hogwarts, and she is also...The Girl Who Lived."