Melting Ice

A group of children sat around the pale haired man telling the story. Two girls were his own, one platinum blonde with carmel eyes and the other, a fiery redhead with silver eyes. The others were various nieces and nephews, most with red hair and freckles. Next to his daughters sat a boy with messy black hair and vivid green eyes, along with a bushy haired, brown eyed girl in glasses. She was the first one to speak.

"So that's why Daddy and Uncle Ron never call you by your name, Uncle Draco?"

"Yes, Lily, that's why your Daddy and Uncle Ron never call me by name. And probably why they've told you to call me Uncle Ferret..."

Lily didn't say anything, but the look on Sirius James' face was enough to confirm Draco's suspicions. There were a few gasps and blushes from the children, and a giggle from the doorway that alerted the man he wasn't alone with the children anymore. Turning, he spotted his wife, one hand resting on her slightly swollen stomach.

"Uncle Ferret does have a certain ring to it..."

"Keep talking, Little Weasel." Draco grinned and stood, taking his wife's hand as the other adults came into the room.

They were at the Burrow for Christmas, and somehow, Draco had wound up with babysitting duty while everyone else prepared dinner and set up the tables. Ginny had just come in to tell her husband and the children that it was time to eat when she'd heard him talking about that fateful fall at Hogwarts. They'd managed to beat the odds, and were still doing so, each and every day.

Ron glanced at Harry, and the two looked over at Fred and George. They didn't realize that Hermione had already caught Ginny's eye and the two were already looking at Angelina and Katie, Ginny's eyebrow raised in a perfect imitation of her husband.

"George, Fred, do I need to remind you that I'm more than capable of teaching your children the hexes I developed to protect me from you?"

The two looked guiltily at their baby sister and then at their wives.

"Can't believe you..."

"Would let her threaten that. Not like we'd ever..."

"Cause any real harm to Malfoy."

Ginny interrupted their twinspeak with a grin. "Need I remind you that I'm a Malfoy now as well? Have been for the last thirteen or so years? And that your children are attending Hogwarts with mine, including the first Weasley to ever be sorted into Slytherin?" She grinned. Her own children didn't count against that, though she'd thought Draco was going to have a fit when Cissa was sorted into Ravenclaw. She'd taken the blame for that, and he was heard to admit that at least it wasn't Gryffindor as his nieces and nephews had taken over.

It seemed the original seven Weasley children were determined that the best way to really bring about Inter-House Unity at Hogwarts was simply to breed it. There wasn't a single house that didn't hold a child of Weasley descent these days, and Headmistress McGonagall was frequently owling Molly and Arthur asking how many more of their grandchildren would be attending. Of course, that was usually accompanied by the threat to retire and allow the newly reinstated Professor Lupin to take over the Headmaster position. But then, the Lupin children were just as much of a handful, taking after their mother and driving their father 'round the bend with their habits of changing their appearance every few hours.

Those students who'd been fortunate enough to find themselves in the Headmistress' office told their parents that it was uncanny how the portrait of Headmaster Dumbledore would simply laugh at their entrance and then proceed to tell them stories until McGonagall had to threaten to cover him with a cloth. It seems even in his death, from natural causes, he was still watching out for the combined Granger-Potter-Weasley-Malfoy families.