Disclaimer:I don't need a disclaimer.. I totally own HP and all it entails. -.- I wish. Alright so everything belongs to JK Rowling. Except the plot. I made that up. Because Brad Paisley wrote a song that made me think of it. ;D

Chapter 1 – Rock Bottom

"We're sorry, Mr. Malfoy but we're afraid you can't be here today." Looking up through the blonde fringe in front of his face, Draco Malfoy glared at the young woman standing at the hostess station. He didn't normally go out to lunch, unwilling to face public scrutiny, but his best friend had asked him to meet up so they could discuss the latest news between him and his fiancé.

"And just why, may I ask, am I not allowed to step foot inside? Last I checked you hadn't put me on your ban list." His voice had taken on a raspy tone from not being used very often, not to mention he had just woke up in time to try and make it to lunch. He tried to tamp down on the anger that was beginning to pulse through him at her words. He'd just been there last week and he hadn't done anything that should have warranted his exclusion from the restaurant. At least not that he could remember.

"Oh no, that's not what I meant, sir. You aren't banned, you simply cannot come in today." The hostess was looking at him fearfully as though afraid he would go back to his Death Eater roots and curse her for following protocol.

Seething at this point, he put a hand against his forehead and spoke into his palm so he didn't scare the girl enough to make sure that he did get banned. "And just what is so special about today that I am incapable of coming inside?"

"Hermione Granger and her daughter are hear, and when she came inside she handed me a letter to say that you are not allowed within 500 feet of them. I could get into serious trouble if I were to allow you inside today." The words that came out of her mouth were the last ones he expected and the anger on his face dissipated as soon as it had appeared. The shock must have been visible because she looked even more worried as she tentatively put a hand on his forearm. "Please, Mr. Malfoy. Please don't make a big scene. I don't want to see you get in trouble with the ministry. I've seen what they've done to others who breaks the rules of restraining orders."

Letting out a breath he wasn't even aware he had been holding, he nodded slightly. "I know the rules." He stepped back from the hostess' station, unable to make himself turn around and starting backing out the door.

"Drake! Hey, where are you going? You weren't just going to skip out on me, were you?" Blaise Zabini walked out of the restaurant holding his hand up like a visor in front of his face to warn off the sunlight. "I can't believe you were just going to leave without telling me."

"Mia's inside with Lydia. I can't go in."

Blaise looked at his friend with a mixture of sympathy and pity, making the blonde flinch. "Yeah well I just saw them paying the bill. They're getting ready to leave so just wait a few minutes and they'll let you in." Draco's eyes went wide at the thought that his ex girlfriend and his daughter would be walking by him at any moment and nearly hid behind a pillar so he didn't have to see what he was missing out on.

The Italian next to him just shook his head and grabbed his arm, restricting him from going anywhere but exactly where he was. Draco wasn't allowed near them, that much was true, but the ministry couldn't hold it against him for standing in the street as they walked by. It wasn't even Hermione that he was worried about seeing. It was his daughter, Lydia Granger, née Malfoy. The last time he had seen the little girl with the light brown curls and big blue eyes she had been turning three. He quickly did the calculations in his head and surmised that she would be turning eight this year.

Just as he finished figuring out that it had been nearly five years since he had seen hide or hair of his daughter or her mother, they pair walked out of the restaurant hand in hand. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Hermione got the papers from the young woman at the hostess station so that he would finally be allowed inside. All the while though, he couldn't take his eyes off the girl holding onto her hand.

Lydia Granger stood at nearly Hermione's bust line, her light brown hair pulled into a pony tail high on her head. Her deep blue eyes were a color like Draco had never seen before, almost mixing together the blue from his own eyes and the brown from Hermione's. She was thin, wearing a pair of muggle jeans and a shirt that looked like it had seen better days. It wasn't until he got a good glance at the front of it that he realized it was an enlarged version of a shirt he had sent her as a baby. He wasn't even aware that Hermione had allowed her to keep anything he gave her.

He pulled his hand away from Blaise and covered his mouth just as the small girl's big eyes met his, widening as they realized who he was. He hadn't been expecting that, so he supposed that either Hermione had seen fit to show her his picture so that she would know exactly who she was supposed to stay away from, or she'd been graced with Hermione's know-it-all attitude and had looked him up herself. He doubted that her mother would have shown her his picture just so the girl would know how to recognize her father out of the kindness of her heart.

"Hi daddy," he heard her whisper. He'd barely been able to hear it but he could read her lips well enough to know what she said. Apparently Hermione had heard her too because she looked up to meet the eyes of the only male Malfoy still living and quickly started walking away with Lydia in tow.

"Bye, baby," he said with a slight hitch in his voice as he watched them make it to the apparition point before they disappeared completely.

"Right, well then. You ready for lunch?"

By the time they had finished lunch and Blaise had informed Draco that Pansy and he were expecting their third child, Draco couldn't wait to get out of the public eye and make it back to work. For the last month he had been working as a bartender at the Three Broomsticks so that Rosmerta could take a few days off now and then.

"Oh, Malfoy, you actually came in today."

Draco looked up from the counter where he had been signing in and met the eyes of the owner of the pub. "Why wouldn't I be here?"

"Well I just, I thought I sent you an owl. You must not have gotten it. I – I don't need your help here anymore." The woman standing before him had been the one person who hadn't treated him like dragon dung since the end of the war so he was bothered that she'd just up and decided she didn't want him there. "It's just, you're a bother to the customers. I don't make nearly as much money on drinks when you are working and to be honest they are the reason that we are able to stay in business. But people don't trust you not to slip something into their drinks before you hand them over so they don't order. You're killing my business, Malfoy."

Without even finishing his signature he grabbed his cloak and fought through the crowd to get to the front door. He didn't bother saying goodbye or picking up his last paycheck. He knew that if she hadn't already, Rosmerta would send it to him via owl.

"Great. Because my life hadn't turned to shit enough already, the great Gryffindor know-it-all was proven right at last. Nobody will hire me, and those that are stupid enough to do so won't keep me. She was right to leave me. I couldn't have taken care of them no matter how hard I tried." The problem with Draco's current line of thought wasn't that he was wrong. Rather it was that when he started thinking about his failed relationship with Gryffindor's golden girl, he realized how many bad choices he'd made and he usually started drinking, which is what had brought about the breakup in the first place. It was a vicious cycle.

Picking up the bottle of firewhiskey from beside his overstuffed chair, he didn't bother grabbing a tumbler, just took a giant swig from the bottle itself. He hissed as the liquid burned his throat on the way down, taking a few more swigs of various amounts trying to numb his mind to the failures of his life. By the time he'd finished half the bottle he had drowned enough of his sorrows in his opinion. "It's too bad I can't go back in time, write a letter to myself so that maybe I won't end up such a miserable wretch."

He'd just begun to close his eyes, letting the alcohol drift him to sleep when his eyes shot open. "Bloody hell, it couldn't be possible, could it?"