A family picnic, one which looked as perfect as its surroundings. A wife, a husband, a boy and girl building a sandcastle a few feet away, a baby asleep in the shade of a big, colourfully striped umbrella.
The wife laughed as she was fed a spoonful of the husband's ice cream. She was small and slender, her brown, bushy hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her husband's hair was also dark, sticking up all over the place.
Bearing this in mind, an observer might have been surprised at the shockingly pale blonde hair of their daughter.
Since the observer in this instance was Draco Malfoy, he was not. She was, after all, his child. And Harry Potter had stolen her from him, just like he had stolen everything else Draco had ever cared about.
Everything that had given Draco's life meaning was now gone, thanks to Harry Potter. His father and Lord Voldemort had been killed by Potter in the war, as had many of the other Death Eaters, a lot of whom had been his friends. Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy. His mother, too. Draco and the few others who remained were now in Azkaban or lived in shameful isolation, hesitant to show their faces for fear of hatred and ridicule. Just because they had fought for something they believed in.
Harry Potter had everything that Draco had ever wanted. Fame, fortune, admiration. A place on a celebrated Quidditch team.
Draco's daughter.
And Hermione Granger.
She had loved him, once. Before the battle in which he had chosen the opposite side, and what had turned out to be the losing one. Back when neither of them had had anything more to worry about than getting an A in Transfiguration.
He stood on the cliff top, watching her, marvelling at the fact that his feelings for her could stay the same while the ones she had for him had changed so drastically. If she had known that he was up there she may well have killed him for betraying her like he had.
He had thought he was doing the right thing to side with his father, with his upbringing. And it had turned out to be for nothing anyway.
If there was one thing he wished he could change, it was the decision to leave Hermione, to devote himself utterly and completely to Lord Voldemort's cause. It had made him feel worse than he cared to admit, even then, but he had been forced to keep that to himself for fear of his father's reaction.
But there it was. Hermione hated him, and moments like this were the closest he was ever going to get to her or their daughter.
He sighed, then made himself close his eyes and slowly turn around.
Leaving the Potter family to their perfect picnic, he walked across
the long grass and back to his empty shell of a life.