penalty shot
pairing: hermione granger x draco malfoy
setting: modern, non-magical, single parent au
written for: @brightki [merry early xmas!!!!! i love you etc <3]</p>
It’s corporate tax season, so it takes Hermione a couple of days to notice that something has gone terribly wrong.
“Max,” she says slowly, staring at the crayon-smeared drawing stuck to the front of the refrigerator. It’s new. The drawing, not the refrigerator. The refrigerator has a ten-year manufacturer’s warranty. The refrigerator is not the problem. “Max, what is…where did you…is that a hockey stick?”
Max pokes at a tepid strip of grilled chicken with the blunted tines of his baby blue spork. His nose is scrunched up in disgust, and he keeps glancing at the cookie jar on the counter with transparently calculated longing.
“Yes,” he finally says, swinging his legs. “We played with Scorpion’s daddy.”
“Scorpius,” Hermione automatically corrects, even as she inwardly sneers. Scorpius. Honestly. Why not just tack on an –aiden at the end and be done with it? “You played with Scorpius’s daddy.” She blinks. “Wait. What?”
Max shrugs. “I shot a fuck.”
“Puck,” Hermione bleats, dropping her spoon into her own bowl of meticulously fluffed quinoa. “You shot a puck, sweetheart.”
“Puck,” Max repeats dutifully, leaning forward to slurp at his chocolate milk. “I love hockey.”
“What? Since when?”
“Scorpion’s daddy plays hockey on TV.”
“I…yes, I know,” Hermione says, dumbfounded and more than a little appalled. “Believe me, sweetheart, everyone knows. Did he—so, he came to your school? To play…hockey?”
“My stick was red,” Max replies sagely. “I love red.”
Hermione’s nostrils flare as she reaches for her wine glass. “Oh, yeah?” She swallows an enormous gulp of Chardonnay and furiously tries to remember the name of the Netflix documentary about concussion rates in youth contact sports. “And what color was your helmet? Was that red, too?”
Max sniffs and puffs his cheeks out, flipping a carrot medallion around and around the edge of his plate. His eyes are big and brown and utterly without mercy as he twists in his chair to look expectantly at the cookie jar.
“Mommy, what’s a helmet?”
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