The Road You Take Don't Always Lead You Home

"This is where Draco Malfoy lives?" Hermione said incredulously, looking up at the house beyond the gates.

"This is the address he gave me," Yekyl shrugged, parking the car. "Randi, unbuckle Paul, please."

"Sure thing, Papa."

Kelsey tumbled out of the car and squinted up at the sign on the gate. "Ass-pen-loch," she read, pronouncing the "ch" like "church".

"Aspenloch," Hermione corrected her, peering at the sign. "It means 'Mountain Lake', I think."

"Oh." Kelsey looked around.

Yekyl held out his arm to Hermione. "Ready?"

"No, but here goes nothing." Hermione slipped her arm through Yekyl's and followed the garden path to the front door.

"Can I knock, Papa?" Kelsey asked eagerly.

"Go ahead, Cadpig."

Kelsey knocked on the door as loud as she could. A few moments later, the door opened, exposing Draco.

Hermione was surprised. She hadn't got a very good look at him at the skating rink; besides, he'd been leaning against a railing, looking flushed with excitement of skating, and wearing a ski cap. Now, though, she could see that he had gained a good two inches on her. His hair had turned darker and grown considerably longer; he had it tied back with a dark green ribbon. His skin was a bit more tanned, his eyes held a sparkle they hadn't had in their school days. He was wearing a cream-coloured turtleneck sweater and wheat-coloured jeans, and he was smiling--a nice, welcoming, country-inn-host smile, not a hostile, snobbish, cat-that-ate-the-canary smirk.

"Oh, hey, good, you made it," he said cheerfully.

"Hey, Draco," Yekyl said, shaking his hand. "I like your sweater."

Draco flushed slightly. "It was a gift from one of my more talented housemates. When he found the spare time to take up knitting I'll never know." He gave Hermione a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. "Welcome." He knelt down on the kids' levels. "Hi, guys."

Paul broke into a huge smile. "Hi, Unca Skate-man."

Draco raised his eyebrows and looked up at Yekyl and Hermione. "Unca Skate-man?"

Kelsey giggled. "It's only Uncle Yossel who ever greeted Mommy with a hug, so he thinks you're our uncle. And he calls you Skate-man because he remembers you from the skating rink."

A grin tugged at the corners of Draco's mouth. "Uncle Skate-man, huh? I kind of like that."

"Can I call you Uncle Skate-man too?" Randi asked wickedly.

"Randi!" Hermione scolded.

Draco laughed. "If you want to, you can. Hey, guess what?"

"You're going to be king of Pride Rock?" Randi guessed.

"Close. I think, if you go in the living room and ask really nicely, there might be a present for each of you."

Kelsey's face lit up. "Really?"

"But you have to be nice, remember."

"Oh, I will!" Kelsey said eagerly. Draco laughed and shepherded the kids in.

Yekyl shook his head. "You've just become their favourite person in the world."

"I'm honoured." Draco straightened up and dusted off his knees. "Come on in, everyone else is here."

"And who exactly is 'everyone else'?" Hermione inquired.

"My housemates, their friends, and what's left of their families. Mostly university students, really."

"That's right, some of your housemates go to MU, don't they?" Yekyl recalled.

Draco nodded. "Three of them, actually. Plus two Healers, a Beater, and a freelance humour columnist."

"Sounds like an interesting house," Yekyl said lightly.

Draco led them down the hall to the living room. It was quite crowded and Hermione looked around in a brief panic.

"Are you agoraphobic?" Draco asked her, an odd look on his face.

Hermione shook her head quickly. "No, it's just...I can't find the kids."

"Paul's tearing at the paper on the present we gave him, Kelsey is opening hers very carefully, and Randi is involved in conversation with Justin," Draco told her, instantly spotting all three children. "They're fine, Hermione. Loosen up. Mingle a bit."

Yekyl chuckled. "Will you be all right if I go talk with other people, Jitterbug?"

Hermione smiled weakly. "I'll be fine, I suppose. Maybe I'll find a few people to mingle with myself."

"Why do you call her Jitterbug?" Draco asked as he and Yekyl moved into the crowd.

"She's always so nervous," Yekyl explained. "When I first met her--at a swing club in Brooklyn--she was jiggling her foot up and down and fretting. I just started calling her Jitterbug in my mind. It kind of stuck. I call Randi Bunny just as a kind of affectionate nickname...Kelsey I call Cadpig because she was so little, she was smaller than both of the other two. I call Paul Ducky because Hermione wouldn't let me name him Harold--My Fair Lady is my favourite musical--and in one of the songs Eliza called Harold Higgins 'Ducky'."

"It's probably from the expression 'Everything's just ducky', which means that it's going fine."

"I didn't know that. Sounds cool."

Ron noticed them and disentangled himself from a conversation with Catherine Finch-Fletchley, who was making sheep's eyes at him. Grinning at Yekyl, he held out his hand. "You must be Yekyl Fieldman. I'm Ron Weasley."

"Nice to meet you. Call me Jake." Yekyl shook the proffered hand. "I've heard a fair bit about you."

"Nothing complimentary, I'm sure."

Yekyl laughed. "What are you into these days, out of curiosity?"

Ron chuckled. "I'm finishing a Magizoology degree at Moonshine."

"You know what that is, right?"

"Moonshine? Yeah, it's home-distilled alcohol."

"Okay, just so we're all clear on that."

As the three men laughed, Harry joined them. "What's so funny over here?"

"Nothing." Draco managed to control his laughter. "Harry, this is my partner, Yekyl Fieldman. Jake, this is Harry Potter."

"I'd guessed as much," Yekyl said lightly. "Nice to--finally--meet you, Harry."

"Likewise," Harry said with a smile, shaking his hand. "Your daughter is quite a character."

Yekyl raised an eyebrow. "Which one?"

"Both of them, actually, but I was referring to Randi. She was most irate that I had misspelled her name."

"R-O-N-D-Y?" Yekyl guessed. "A lot of people spell it that way."

Harry shook his head. "It's Scandinavian, right? I knew the 'ah' sound was an A, but I accidentally wrote R-A-N-D-E-E."

Yekyl smiled. "Try having a name like Yekyl."

"You're Jewish, right?" Harry asked, catching all three of his companions off guard.

"Yes, but...how did you guess?" Yekyl asked, flabbergasted.

"Yekyl is a Yiddish name--Jacob in English, unless I'm much mistaken, which is why you go by Jake." Harry grinned. "Don't look so impressed. I read a book on etymology when I worked at Flourish and Blotts."

Yekyl grinned as well. "That's pretty good."

Draco shook his head. "Do you know what's really weird?"

"A pig in the bathtub singing Ave Maria?" Yekyl guessed.

"Is that pesky pig back again? That's it, we're having ham for Christmas dinner."

Yekyl looked so astonished that Harry had to laugh. "He's just having you on, Jake."

"Having me on what?"

"Toast," Ron replied deadpan.

Harry gave Ron a good-natured shove. "It's an expression. It means...teasing you, I guess. Pulling your leg."

"Oh." Yekyl looked a little sheepish. "Anyway, Draco, you were saying...?"

Draco chuckled. "I was just saying it would be really weird if your darling wife couldn't stop worrying long enough to notice these two characters."

"Still a chronic worrywart, is she?" Ron asked.

Yekyl half-smiled. "Draco already told you who my wife was."

"I thought it only fair," Draco argued. "She disappeared without a trace ten years ago. I didn't want them falling over dead when she suddenly showed up again."

Yekyl's eyebrows shot up. "Funny. She always gave me the impression that you knew exactly where she was...that she'd told you why she was leaving and where she was going."

Harry shook his head, suddenly looking weary. "All we ever heard was what was in the note she left us--that she loved us both but had to leave for a while. No explanations, no forwarding address, nothing."

Yekyl bit his lip. "I'm sorry."

"It isn't your fault." Harry nodded. "Nice to meet you, Jake...I think I'm going to go out on the veranda for a while." He disappeared into the crowd.

Ron shook his head. "I'm going after him. See you guys later." With that, he too was gone.