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hp_goldenageTitle: when by now and tree by leaf
Author:![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
aibidil
Pairings: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Scorpius Malfoy, Astoria Greengrass, Albus Severus Potter, James Sirius Potter, Lily Luna Potter, Teddy Lupin
Rating: E
Word Count: 45,672
Content/Warning(s): falling in love, mpreg, past infidelity, past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, past Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, minor Teddy Lupin/James Potter, minor character death, parent death, switching, angst, angst with a happy ending, parenthood, family dynamics, alcohol, grief/mourning, ageing, growing up, non-penetrative sex, frottage, getting together, getting back together, non-linear narrative, pov alternating
Summary/Prompt: Summary: When Scorpius Malfoy is saying goodbye to his dying mother, he doesn't expect to hear her confess, "Your father slept with another man and became pregnant with you." Grappling with his grief and his identity, Scorpius sets out to discover the identity of his other father, who it turns out has a lighting-shaped scar and no idea that Scorpius exists.
Prompt: On her deathbed, Astoria tells Scorpius that she's not his mother. Draco had carried him and gave birth to him and because of *whatever reason up to the author* Draco had to marry Astoria. They had a good marriage but were just friends and not partners. Now it's up to Scorpius to find his father's true happiness.
A/N: Context for content warnings: This fic contains mpreg, but not of an explicit variety. There is very little on-screen pregnancy, though there is one scene that contains vomiting associated with morning sickness. This fic contains past infidelity, wherein Harry and Draco cheated on their wives with each other. The affair is on-screen in flashbacks, but occurred decades ago. There's no Ginny or Astoria bashing.
Huge, enormous, gargantuan thanks to T and F for betaing and discussing this story at length, especially when I was in danger of drowning in feels and angst. It wouldn't exist without them. Thanks, too, to J, G, and K for helping me think through some character and plot points.
The title is from E.E. Cummings's "anyone lived in a pretty how town."
Read at AO3 or below:
Chapter One
Scorpius Malfoy stands outside the Manor, his stomach roiling from Apparition and his heart beating rapidly from the anticipation of grief. He's not sure what will be worse—if he's too late, or if his mother is still alive and he has to watch her die.
He sucks in a shaky breath and walks quickly towards the door.
The Manor looms above him, and he looks up briefly at the house he grew up in, squinting at the stone turrets in the late-day sun. He reaches the stately steps, and the doors open to reveal his father. Draco's posture is too good; his eyes are too dry; his robes are too immaculate. Scorpius runs up the last few steps and wraps his father in a hug.
"Dad," he says.
Draco reaches a strong hand to Scorpius's shoulders and pulls him close. "She doesn't look very well. You should prepare yourself."
Scorpius doesn't have anything to say to that.
Draco pulls out of the hug and walks briskly through the front hall, his dragonhide boots clicking on the marble floor as he leads Scorpius to Astoria's rooms.
Scorpius usually chatters incessantly whenever he visits the Manor or sees his parents, but right now he has nothing to say. Neither does Draco, it seems. Even Scorpius's favourite Malfoy ancestral paintings are quiet. Ordinarily they launch into a retelling of all notable events Scorpius has missed in his absence; today, they only offer encouraging, pitying smiles that increase the sense of otherworldly foreboding.
When they arrive at the doors to Astoria's rooms, Draco stops. "Scorpius, are you—. Do you need—."
Draco seems not to know what he wants to say, which is remarkable in itself. Scorpius spares a moment to marvel at the fact that Draco, about to lose his wife of thirty-three years, still has the wherewithal to attempt to parent his grown son.
"I'm fine, Dad. It's—we'll be okay." Scorpius steps in front of Draco and opens the door.
Astoria is in bed, three house-elves scurrying around her. Her hair, which has always been a beautiful mass of thick brown, lies thin and limp on the pillow. Her cheeks are sallow, her lips dry and cracked. She wheezes when she breathes.
Dying, apparently, robs one's good looks before it robs one's final breath.
"Mum," Scorpius says, reaching the bed in two long strides and falling to his knees. He takes hold of her hand, and it's the feel of her hand in his that finally breaks his defences; tears begin to stream down his cheeks.
He's surprised he kept it together this long, really.
She turns her head to get a better look at him, and her facial expressions aren't right at all—the blood curse has stolen her characteristic smiles and knowing looks, her shrewd, humorous gaze. But when he looks deep into her eyes, he can just detect that spark that's still her.
She manages a small smile. "Scorpius," she says. She doesn't sound like herself; the voice is wheezy, but at least she knows it's him. "Come to my arms, my beamish boy."
If he wasn't already crying, he'd have started now. "Mum." He gives her a watery smile. "Mum. O frabjous day."
She smiles when he answers her as he should.
And in Scorpius's despair, he starts to laugh that desperate, anxious laugh that only sounds in the worst of times—because the day is anything but frabjous.
Scorpius feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up. Draco is standing there, guiding him into a chair that one of the house-elves Conjured.
"I'll give you two a chance to—I'll give you a few minutes," Draco says. "I'll be just outside if you need me."
The door closes, and Scorpius is still holding onto his mother's hand. The phrase "holding on for dear life" pops into his brain, and he stares at her hand.
He supposes now is the moment he's supposed to say goodbye. But what can he possibly say? There's no way to sum up neatly thirty-one years of their mother-son relationship. There's nothing to say.
"Mum. I love you. I love you so much."
"I love you, too," she returns.
Goodness, she sounds awful. Scorpius looks around at the house-elves who are attending her, the specially trained house-elves that come at times like these. Deaths. Births. They don't seem concerned at her voice.
"Are you in pain?" he asks.
"Mr Malfoy," one of the house-elves answers, "she is on potions for pain. She will ease out of this world in comfort."
Scorpius turns back to his mother, squeezes her warm hand.
"I have to tell you something," she rasps.
"No, no, shhhhh," Scorpius says, smoothing a hand down her hair, pushing it away from her face.
"No," she says, more forcefully, and Scorpius looks up at her eyes. "I have to tell you something. I should've told you before." She coughs.
Scorpius tries to see two things at once: the visage in front of him, but also beyond the blood curse to her real, healthy self. He tries to imagine the honeyed tones of her voice the way it sounds when she sings and laughs.
"You are my son. My everything."
Scorpius's tears stream off his cheeks, hitting his robes.
"But we are not blood related."
He blinks, looks up at her brown eyes. "What?"
She coughs again. "Your father slept with another man and became pregnant with you."
"What?" he repeats, his face blank. "What?"
"It's magic," she says and tries to smile, but her eyes don't twinkle the way they did when she used to say those words in response to his wonder as a small child. "We're not blood related." She smiles. "It never changed how I felt about you."
Her words make no sense, but Scorpius can't think about it right now. Right now all he can think about is making sure that she knows before it's too late. "Mum, I love you." He takes a deep breath and tries to imbue his next words with enough emotion to express what he wants to say, that which no words could ever capture. "Thank you."
She smiles briefly, but then she's overcome with a wheezing fit that brings the house-elves scuttling over to cast spells at her. He squeezes her hand, whispering, "I love you, thank you, I love you, thank you," as the door opens and Draco enters.
"You're not trying to prolong her life with those spells, are you?" Draco anxiously asks the nearest house-elf. "We don't want to extend her pain."
"No, Mr Malfoy, sir," the elf replies. "We is easing her passage only."
Draco nods, and stands there looking like he has no idea what to do. Scorpius pulls his wand and Conjures a chair on the other side of the bed. Draco nods again, walks around the bed, and sits.
Scorpius looks at his mother's hand in his and has the thought that he'll stay right here, he'll be with her like this when she dies.
Astoria is past the point of speech, sucking in rattling breaths that actually sound like death. He has a million questions for her, wants to hear her read a million more poems, wants to dance with her at a hundred more of his grandmother's stuffy balls.
They all sit in silence but for Astoria's wheezing, rattling respiration. Scorpius has no idea how much time is passing. It could be minutes or hours.
Scorpius looks across the bed at his father. Draco is tired, stiff, like he has no idea what type of behaviour is expected of him. He always knows what type of behaviour is expected of him. It's one of the things Scorpius admires most about him, the way he makes his way through the world with such ease, even after his tumultuous past.
He looks at his mother's contorted face. Could what she said possibly be true? His brain starts to whir.
But that would mean that—that he isn't in danger of this horrible blood curse manifesting in him. The Healers suspect that it manifests mostly in witches, but no one is really sure what the mechanism is, so he'd always thought there was a chance it could hit him. And while the Healers had managed to delay the onset of the curse in Astoria, giving her a full life until age fifty-five, there is no cure.
But if she isn't his blood relation, there is no chance of him having the curse. That is actually…a huge relief. And how awful to feel relief at time like this.
And this means—it means that Daphne is not his aunt, that the Greengrasses are not his grandparents. Not by blood, anyway. They've all been lying to him for his whole life.
His dad had been with a man. And because his parents had been married a year and a half before he was born, that means his dad had been with a man while married to his mum. Oh. Draco and Astoria had moved to France when she—he!—was pregnant with him. Oh!
Scorpius stares at his mother, then turns to look at his father. Oh, Merlin. How is he supposed to deal with all of this at once? Screw them for not telling him!
But also, of course, he understands. They must have been scared of the social reaction, of the prejudice against wizards who become pregnant. A wizard becoming pregnant hasn't been grounds for losing legal standing in over a hundred years, not since the abolition of couverture in the nineteenth century, of course, but public opinion lags behind the law. His parents would not have wanted to deal with that, or for Scorpius to have to deal with that. They had always tried to raise him in a new world without prejudice and hatred. Things would've been harder for him if everyone knew, if kids had made fun of him and his father.
Holy shit. He has a father—a different father. Who? Is Draco gay? Scorpius has always wondered. His parents clearly loved each other but never seemed to have any sexual relationship. They'd always had separate rooms. He'd never even seen them kiss. He'd never seen a spark in either of their eyes—
So who is his other father? Holy shit!
His mind is going crazy, the shock of his mother's impending death mixing with the shock of this news is causing him to embark on wild speculation when really he should just ask. He should just ask. His father is right there.
He looks up, about to say something, to ask his father, but Draco is crying. Scorpius closes his mouth.
Has he ever seen Draco cry? He tries to remember. It's not right.
It's not right, and his whole world is crumbling. His mother is dying, is not related to him. His father was pregnant with him. If someone walked in and told him that the house-elf casting spells at Astoria was his real father, in this state he'd probably take the news in stride.
He can't add to his father's stress today. He can't make Draco talk about these secrets right now. They need to concentrate on Astoria, on making sure she knows how loved she is as she leaves the world.
Scorpius grasps her hands tightly.
"Excuse me," Draco says—Scorpius realises that Draco must not remember the elf's name because he always refers to elves by name, but there have been so many elves in recent weeks—and one of the elves stops his work. "How long….?" Draco continues, gesturing at his wife.
"It's impossible to say, sir, unless you are liking to sign the paperwork to administer the potion."
Scorpius chokes in a huff of air and feels like he's swallowing his larynx.
"I—" Draco says, and Scorpius stares at him in wonder as he realises that Draco has no idea what to do. His father always knows what to do.
"Master," the elf continues. "If I may. Sometimes people is not able to be letting go until their loved ones leave the room."
Draco looks up and Scorpius has the sudden and somewhat unwelcome feeling that he is completely grown up. Draco is looking at him not because he has to, but because he actually wants to know what Scorpius thinks they should do. Because he and Scorpius are in this together.
Being an adult sucks.
Scorpius stands, leans over the bed, and kisses his mother's cheek. Her cheek doesn't feel right; it's supposed to feel plump and welcoming. "I love you," he says one last time. "Goodbye."
He can hardly believe he managed to force that word from his lips.
Scorpius wills himself to drop her hand and reach out to his father.
Draco stands and presses a kiss to Astoria's forehead. Then he turns to Scorpius with a broken look on his face that Scorpius has never seen before, grasps his son's hand, and they walk out of the room.
Scorpius tries to talk to Draco the next day, but the Manor is a flurry of alighting relatives and funeral preparations, so Scorpius says nothing and acts as host at supper.
He tries to talk to Draco the evening after the funeral, but Draco hands him a tumbler of Firewhiskey and sits in silence in front of the fire, so Scorpius sits next to him on the sofa and drinks in silence.
Scorpius tries to talk to Draco when all the hubbub is over, but Draco has buried himself in paperwork that is probably unnecessary, so Scorpius walks behind the desk chair, wraps his father in a hug, and goes home.
His flat feels small and empty after his time at the Manor, and reminders of his mother are everywhere—the book on the coffee table, the mirror in the corridor, the dragon figurine on the mantel.
He'd known his mother was dying long before it happened, so he'd processed much of his grief months ago. He doesn't feel denial or anger or any of those other things. He feels grateful that the worst of it was short-lived, that he's seen her so often these past months.
But just like that, he has no mother. No one to owl about funny things that happen, no one to buy books for in Muggle used bookshops. It's just—over.
Still, he thinks he's handling his mother's death extremely well.
But the news she'd dropped on him? That he is still processing.
Scorpius finds himself thinking that the news about his paternity shouldn't change much, he should just say "okay" and move on, because a detail as small as sperm origin can't possibly erase thirty-one years of lived experience. Astoria is his mother.
But he still wants to know. He needs to understand. His father has always been such an enigma, so loving and supportive, but also so closed off about so many things. It makes sense now, he supposes.
Scorpius walks into the kitchen and puts the kettle on for tea. He selects a bag of earl grey (another reminder of Astoria and her bergamot-scented shortbread) and leans against the counter.
The thing that stings is that Draco never told him. Didn't he know that Scorpius would always love them and that nothing could change that? Why had they felt they needed to live such a big lie for so long? Scorpius has always considered himself the kind of person who is understanding and accepting and easy to talk to.
He walks into the corridor and looks into the mirror his mother had bought him in Italy. He stares at his face—maybe if he stares hard enough, he can figure out what bits are from a stranger. But no, he just looks like Scorpius. Blond hair like his father and grandfather. Pointy nose. Grey eyes like his father but with some specks of green. His face is rounder than Draco's or Lucius's, his skin a couple shades darker. The stubble on his face is thicker than his father's, and darker, not that Scorpius has ever really seen his father with facial hair—Draco systematically casts Charms to prevent stubble. Scorpius doesn't, though, and he rubs his fingers across his cheek.
If I were a teenager, he thinks, rubbing his darker-than-blond stubble, I would flop onto my bed and wail, 'Who am I!?' But I'm a grown-up and I'm rational so I'll have to pretend I don't feel like doing just that.
The kettle whistles, and Scorpius turns away from the mirror.
Two weeks later, Scorpius decides to do the very mature thing and sneak into the Manor when he knows Draco will be at his Hogwarts Board of Governors meeting.
The Manor is empty except for the house-elves, and Scorpius remembers loving those odd times he found himself home alone when he was younger. He'd blast music in the marble corridors and dance around the house singing. Most of the portraits gave him stern glares, but Brutus Malfoy in the East Wing has a talent for beatboxing and Drizella Malfoy in the corridor near the dining room does an incredible Adele.
Scorpius smiles despite himself and heads for his father's office. He feels a tiny bit guilty as he stands outside the door, and then he remembers that his parents lied to him for thirty-one years and that he surely has a right to know his own story, and opens the door.
Scorpius draws his wand. He doesn't know what he's looking for, but there must be something. Healer records, a certificate of birth, magical lineage reports, letters—something.
He smiles, because he's at an enormous advantage. He's an historian, a trained researcher, and knows dozens of Charms for discovering relevant information. Generally he uses these Charms with permission in archives and libraries, so it's a little exciting to be using them without permission in his father's office.
He decides to start with a Charm that will locate everything related to his birth. It might locate too many things, but it could also locate nothing, so it seems a good place to start. He waves his wand, and beams of purple light shine from a filing cabinet, a drawer, and books on the shelves.
He sits in Draco's chair and opens the top desk drawer. A stack of magical photos in the back of the drawer draw his eye. Scorpius smiles, pulling them out. A photo of him, just born, blinking his eyes. A photo of Draco and Astoria on a bed, Astoria looking at him as if he's the most amazing thing in the world, and then turning to smile at Draco. A photo (that his grandparents had once thrown a fit over) of Astoria breastfeeding him.
He's seen all of these photos before. But. He looks more closely, not allowing his eyes to avoid details they've seen before. He looks at Draco. Draco, at twenty-six, looks exhausted, his hair sweaty and slightly stuck to his forehead. Draco's middle is covered by a pillow and Astoria's body, and Scorpius wishes the photo would continue past the point where it loops back to Astoria looking at his baby face.
Could he really have grown inside Draco? He knows it's possible, of course, if rare. Usually same-sex couples take a regimen of special fertility potions to achieve conception, and witch-witch couples need to do some sort of inseminating procedure with a Healer. But sometimes, rarely, two men with uncommonly compatible magic and histories of pureblood magic to encourage heirs can conceive without the aid of potions. It could have been an accident. He could have been an accident.
He thinks of what he knows about wizards who have been pregnant. Merlin, why hadn't he thought of this before? Draco has it all: the slightly wider hips than one might expect on a man his stature, the extra fluff around the belly that doesn't exactly seem like fat (nothing like the small belly Lucius developed in later years), the voluptuous butt that had once been called "a pert posterior" by Witch Weekly (Scorpius at thirteen had nightmares for a week). He'd really never seen Draco without a shirt on (and wasn't that a little suspicious? Because they'd been on holiday to places with beaches?), but he bets the reason was Draco's desire to hide a bunch of silvery stretch marks and wrinkled belly skin.
Scorpius can't help think that is kind of adorable. Draco can be stiff sometimes, and Scorpius loves when things soften his edges.
He smiles at the photo of Astoria breastfeeding; she looks so happy. Knowing that she took lactation potions makes it somehow seem even sweeter, like the fact that it was a conscious choice made it special. Why did she do that? Did she want to bond with him? Had she been worried Scorpius would reject her? Had she wanted to play a part in his coming into the world?
Purple light streaming out of the bottom drawer of the desk draws his attention and he replaces the photos in the top drawer. The bottom drawer opens easily but he can't figure out where the light is coming from. It seems to be seeping out of the edge of the drawer. A secret compartment!
Scorpius presses his lips together. Screw it, he's in too far to stop now. He waves his wand and watches as the secret and, apparently, warded compartment releases under his magic. He leans over, wondering what he'll find in there. More photos—of the actual pregnancy?
But no, it's just a black leather book.
Scorpius pulls it out of the drawer, the purple light blinking out as he touches it and turns it over in his hands.
He opens it up to a random page and begins to read.
23 February 2034. Ernie Macmillan is acting like an utter maggot with regard to the proposed changes to the bylaws of the Magical Orphans Charity. He had the audacity to suggest—
Oh, holy bogies. It's his father's diary!
He sits back, feeling like he should absolutely not be reading this, but also like he's definitely going to read it. He waves his wand and mumbles, "Seventh of October, 2006." The pages flip.
7 October 2006. Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy was born at 5:31 this afternoon. Everyone is healthy. Never have I seen such a perfect human.
Never in his life has Scorpius so bemoaned a vague pronoun reference and use of passive voice. And what's worse, Draco always employs deliberate language. In Scorpius's childhood, Draco constantly smiled and gently corrected his grammar until Scorpius became a beacon of posh speech befitting the Malfoy name. Scorpius's academic training interrupts his memory to remind him that this sort of socialisation into the linguistic trappings of the upper classes is one of the factors that perpetuates class inequality. He shakes his head, willing his brain to concentrate on what's important here: Draco's uncharacteristic sloppy language on the day of Scorpius's birth. "Was born" and "everyone," indeed.
Scorpius sighs, then smiles at the sentiment in the diary entry. But he doesn't want to read his father fawning over his newborn self with ambiguous antecedents. He waves his wand and murmurs, "Prima Mentionis," concentrating all his magical energy on the circumstances surrounding his conception.
The pages of the diary flip violently backwards, landing eventually on a page from 1999. Shit, what? That was seven years before his birth.
1 September 1999. Today is a day that should be spent on a train. Instead, I got pissed at a Muggle pub, and who did I run into but P.? The wanker was sitting on a barstool looking like absolute arse, as always, and when I walked in—
Scorpius looks up from the page, feeling like an interloper. He glances at the clock; Draco's meeting should last at least another hour. Scorpius casts a Charm that will alert him when his father returns, shakes off his guilt, and reads.
Draco walked into the pub, the first one he found walking at random through Muggle London. He wanted to get pissed and forget about his inane back-to-school feelings. He was an adult now, he shouldn't have been feeling weird about Hogwarts starting up without him. He shouldn't have felt so robbed of his childhood and of a normal education.
Alcohol would be good. He frowned, trying to remember Muggle alcohols. Maybe he'd get the non-smoking whiskey or a beer. Or better yet, gin. Yes, yes, gin.
He approached the bar, then stopped in his tracks. Because Harry bloody Potter was sat at one of the stools.
Well, fuck it all to hell. This day was determined to be horrible and also to make him maudlin like a Hufflepuff at a wedding; there was no point in fighting it. He sat down next to Potter.
"That's quite a pink drink," Draco said by way of greeting.
Potter's head whirled around satisfyingly quickly. "Malfoy," he said, squinting his eyes, and Draco couldn't tell whether the squint was due to suspicion or inebriation. "It's not pink. It's red." Potter held up his drink.
Draco hummed. "Looks like something my mother would serve at a medium-sized birthday gathering."
"It's a serious drink!" Potter claimed, then his face scrunched in confusion. Merlin, he must have had a few drinks already. "I don't understand why we're talking about my drink. What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?" Draco shot back. "And don't try to change the subject. Is that a fruit punch-based cocktail?"
"What? No!" Potter huffed. Then, "How do you know what fruit punch is?"
What a prat, insulting the extent of Draco's Muggle assimilation! "I know things," Draco said warningly.
They stared at each other for a long moment, then Harry said, "It's a Negroni."
"What's in a Negroni besides fruit punch?"
"It's not—" Potter groaned. "You are impossible! It's gin, vermouth, and Campari. The Campari is red. I think it's made with beetles or something. I'm trying not to think about that."
"Oh. Probably not beetles, but the Cochineal insect," Draco said, grasping at the detail he knew something about.
Potter's face was a mess of confusion. "What?"
"Don't look at me like that—it's used in potions sometimes."
Potter took a sip of his fruit-punch coloured, insect-dyed drink.
Draco licked his lips, watching Potter's eyes on him. "That sounds good, though," Draco said. "I was hoping for gin." He raised a finger to catch the bartender's eye and pointed at Potter's drink.
They sat in silence until he had a red drink to match Potter's. Draco took a sip. "Circe and Cassandra," he coughed, "that is bitter. It doesn't taste at all like it looks."
Potter turned to him. "I would drink it even if it were pink."
"What?"
"The drink. I would drink a pink drink if I wanted to."
"Yes, I'm sure you would," Draco said slowly, as if Potter were a very slow learner.
"What is that supposed to mean?!"
"Nothing!"
"I am comfortable with my, you know, my masculinity," Potter said, waving his hand around indistinctly like a complete moron.
Draco stared at him for a moment. "Do you want a round of applause?"
Potter sighed. "Give the drink two more sips and you'll start liking it. This is the strangest conversation I've ever had."
"You're strange," Draco retorted, as if he were still eleven.
"You're strange," Potter said, and at least their immaturity was well-matched.
"Why are you here all alone, O Strange One?" Draco asked, sipping the drink again—and Potter was right, it was already tasting better, the twist of orange peel lending it a citrusy aroma and the slight sweetness from the vermouth offsetting the bitterness.
Potter shrugged. "I dunno. No one else seemed to have bittersweet feelings about the first of September. I just wanted to get pissed and be sad about being a grown-up and everything I've missed out on."
Draco stared at him and blinked. What was the appropriate thing to say when one's nemesis expressed an emotion that matched one's own exactly? He settled on honesty. "I feel exactly the same."
Potter's green eyes looked up in surprise. "Really? When I said that earlier, Ron and Hermione just looked worried and, you know, like I was off my rocker."
Draco swallowed the rest of his drink and smirked. "Maybe we're both off our rockers." He signalled the bartender for two more drinks. Gin was good.
"How are you?" Potter asked suddenly, the words bursting out of his mouth with a hint of mania.
Draco quirked an eyebrow. "I'm well, Potter, and yourself?"
Potter scowled. "Don't give me any of that meaningless pure-blood polite response nonsense. That won't work on me."
"Well, what do you want me to say, Potter?"
"I dunno, I haven't seen you since the trial and I just, I've wondered how you are."
Draco looked at him, trying to solve Potter like he was a puzzle, but Potter looked genuine. That bastard always looked genuine; even when he was angry it was a genuine anger.
Draco took another sip of his red-not-pink drink and sighed. "I'm fine. Doing community service. Trying to help my parents rid the Manor of the stench of Voldemort."
Potter raised an eyebrow, amused. "The stench of Voldemort?"
"Well, I mean that literally—because you know, different types of magic have different scents, or maybe you don't know that, you grew up with Muggles—and also figuratively because we're just trying to expunge the memories." Draco stared at his drink. "There's been a lot of redecorating."
"Oh," Potter said. "Funny, I've sort of been doing the same thing with my house. Except, you know, ridding it of house-elf heads and um, cursed wallpaper."
"Cursed wallpaper?" Draco asked in confused amusement, taking another sip.
"Yeah, I was surprised, too. So was Ginny—it glued her hands to the wall when she walked by talking a little too loudly and a little too progressively."
Draco raised his eyebrows. "So you and the littlest ginger are—?"
"Huh? No." Potter frowned at his drink. "Didn't I just tell you that I'm gay?"
"What?!" Draco cried. "No! I would've remembered that."
"When we were talking about the pink drink."
"Potter, no. You said you'd drink a pink drink and I, clearly, did not assume that implied anything about your sexual preferences. Do you even know how sexuality works?"
"No! I mean yes! I thought I said it after that."
"How many of these have you had?" Draco asked, clinking his glass into Potter's.
"Er, three? I'm bi, actually."
"Didn't you bring this whole thing up to explain why you weren't with Ginny?" Draco asked, completely bewildered. "If you're bi, that isn't even relevant."
"Yes it is!" Potter said, tipsy and defensive. "It's relevant because I've been totally preoccupied with cock lately."
Draco's mind blanked for a moment, and he looked up at the dingy ceiling as if for strength. He took a bracing sip of his drink, realising he was going to have to meet Potter's confessions with his own if he wanted to maintain this precarious and bewildering truce they had going on. "I'm gay."
Potter turned slowly, and Draco wondered if time had slowed. "Are you just saying that to make me feel comfortable?" he asked.
Draco scowled. "First of all, since when do I do anything to make you feel comfortable? Second of all, you can't actually think I would 'just say' that."
"Yeah, s'pose."
"So how are dating opportunities for the Saviour?" Draco asked, only allowing the tiniest bit of resentment to creep into his voice.
Potter fixed him with the surliest scowl Draco could ever remember seeing on his face. "Oh, perfect, Malfoy," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Dating opportunities are awesome. Everyone wants to date me but no one gives a crap about knowing who I am. They just want a photo in the Prophet or to dose me with love potions or try to get me to make babies. On one memorable occasion someone sent me a literal human egg in the post."
Draco's mouth dropped open. "In the post?"
Potter shrugged. "It had a Cushioning Charm. And something else. Preservation? Stasis? I dunno."
Draco just stared at him.
Potter suddenly smiled, and it lit up his face. He held up his red drink for a toast. "So I'm not dating at all."
Draco's mouth was dry, and the bitterness of the Campari lingering on his tongue seemed to mask his usual hesitation. "Really?" he asked, only when he said it, it came out much too low. That "Really?" sounded like a come-on. It sounded like a promise.
Potter's eyebrows shot up in response to Draco's tone. His mouth opened and closed, and Draco was not meant to find that endearing, he really wasn't, but Potter looked adorable when he was off-kilter.
"Uh," Potter said. "No. I'm unattached." He held his hands out to either side as if to indicate his lack of attachments. "Are you?"
Draco wanted to smirk. He tried, he told his brain to tell his lip to curl up like he'd smelled something nasty, but he had the horrible suspicion that his face was blank and open. "Unattached."
Potter smiled and his eyes burned into Draco. And just like that, Draco knew it was a foregone conclusion that they'd be fucking within an hour or two.
Draco returned Potter's smile with a slow and heated one of his own. Potter downed the rest of his drink.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
Scorpius leans against the brick in front of The Hopping Pot, his favourite lunch spot. He's waiting for his father, his fingers fidgeting nervously in his robe pocket.
Draco comes into view, turning the corner on Diagon Alley, and smiles when he sees his son. Draco has always cut an imposing figure; he appears distinctive and aristocratic, but with a war-earned humility that makes him more approachable. His robes are always impeccable and of the latest fashion, something that sets him apart from many men of his social class (many of whom continue to wear stodgy robes that one imagines would've filled the closets of Nicolas Flamel or Elphias Doge). Scorpius knows he looks startlingly like him, though he dresses in a more casual, Muggle-influenced manner. But today he's meeting his father for lunch, so he wears a set of robes.
"Scorpius," Draco greets with a smile, leaning in for an embrace.
"Hey, Dad. How's it going?" Scorpius has been worried about his father, and his worry seeps into his greeting.
Draco raises an eyebrow in mild exasperation, and Scorpius winces, knowing that Draco is tired of being asked how he's doing in the wake of his wife's death. "It's not as if I'm the first man to be widowed," Draco had exclaimed the other night. "You'd think people would have figured out what not to say!"
In an attempt to show that he's not at all treating his father with overzealous solicitude, Scorpius exclaims, "I'm famished. Ready for some lunch?"
Draco smiles and opens the door. They find a table near the window and sit. "How's work?" Draco asks, pulling out a pair of glasses to peruse the menu.
A few years back, Draco had gone into a strop for a month about the glasses. He didn't want them, but his eyesight had degenerated to the point where a Vision-Correcting Charm no longer worked. Astoria had eventually gotten through to him after he had accidentally, at this very cafe, ordered a roast beetroot sandwich thinking it was roast beef. Draco had ranted for five minutes about the "absolute brazenness" of "the vegans" in making a sandwich out of root vegetables. "My love," Astoria'd said, interrupting him, "you are in your mid-fifties. Please, can we dispense with the vanity and embrace functionality?" Since then, he'd begrudgingly worn the glasses. Scorpius suspects he still blames the glasses on the vegans.
Scorpius wants to order the roast beet sandwich (it comes with chèvre and arugula on sourdough bread), but he doesn't want to stir up bad feelings, so he orders the quiche. Draco orders the beef stroganoff, and makes the waiter confirm that it is made, in fact, with beef.
"Can I ask you a question?" Scorpius asks, realising that he's mumbling a bit, which grates on Draco's nerves, and resolves to speak more clearly when next he opens his mouth.
Draco looks at him with concern. He's forgotten to take off the glasses, and really, they suit him. The crinkles around his eyes and mouth make him look distinguished, and the modern frames he'd chosen give him a very "hip dad" look. He could probably be featured in Witch Weekly's "Venerable Warlocks" issue. Scorpius smiles.
"Of course," Draco says.
"How did you and Mum get together?" Scorpius tries to say this casually, but he worries it comes out with the same tone as a Minister telling their constituents not to panic.
"You know that already," Draco says smoothly. "Our parents were friends; it was a good match."
"Yes, but," Scorpius starts, and he almost drops the topic and starts babbling about his latest research project about the classed linguistic conventions of Latin versus vernacular incantations, but decides to power through. "Yes, but, how did you find out about it? Did you know her? Had you had other relationships? How did you feel about it? Did you love her before you got married?"
Draco's face flashes for a moment with something like apprehension, then quickly shutters into a practiced facade. "Goodness, Scorpius, you might have made quite a feelsy Hufflepuff if you'd attended Hogwarts." He smiles.
"I'm serious," Scorpius says, and he knows his tone is startlingly firm. He usually babbles and laughs and rants.
"What's brought this on?" Draco asks.
Scorpius blows out a huff of air, because it's pretty obvious what's brought this on. She just died. But he feels it would be a little salt-in-wound to say that aloud.
Draco frowns and takes a sip of water. "We knew each other vaguely from Hogwarts, of course. She was two years below me. I knew of her parents through my parents. After the war ended…" Draco pauses, and Scorpius looks at the table to try to give him some space. "We raised you differently," Draco says, his voice pleading for understanding.
Scorpius looks up. He hadn't expected that.
"We always tried to let you be your own person. After what happened in the war, we didn't want you to feel like your life had been planned out for you."
Scorpius knows that his parents had raised him differently, but he's never heard Draco talk about it. He watches in fascination as his father absent-mindedly rubs his left forearm.
"It wasn't like that for me," Draco continues. "Even after the war, especially after the war, it was expected that I would do certain things. First and foremost, get married to an eligible witch and produce an heir."
Scorpius feels his heart drop. He's overcome with sadness for his nineteen-year-old father. He feels guilty and resentful about his father's lost choices.
"No. No!" Draco, who must've seen something on Scorpius's face, reaches across the table and grabs his wrist. "We never regretted you. I don't regret you."
The waiter arrives Levitating their plates and sets their food in front of them. Draco picks up his fork and cuts into a piece of—oh, indeed—beef.
"I just—" Scorpius huffs a sad laugh, popping a cucumber into his mouth. "It shouldn't have been like that."
Draco's face falls for a moment before he remembers to mask it. "I imagine it's hard for you to understand. I didn't even resent it at the time—not really. It was…just the way things were." He chews a mouthful of food in silence for a moment, then adds, "I had a few relationships, but I knew they wouldn't—couldn't—last. I knew my parents would arrange a proper match."
"How could you just—" Scorpius waves his fork around inelegantly. "I can't imagine—. When you were my age, you had a five-year-old son. I don't even have a relationship. I wander around archives and occasionally write a paper!"
Draco's face is kind but serious. "The wishes of my parents are not the reason you're here. I was meant to have you when I did—I'd never change it. Stop worrying so much."
Scorpius sighs, a sad smile on his face. His mother always used to tell him to stop worrying so much.
When Scorpius gets home, he kicks off his oxfords (Malfoys never wear trainers, though his oxfords are scuffed and the laces are fraying) and flops onto the sofa. It's hard to know that someone is lying to you when they don't know that you know they're lying. Granted, Draco seems to be attempting as much honesty as possible, and Scorpius can't help but respect that. Scorpius is a remarkably accepting person, regardless how much his father maintains he would've sorted Slytherin had he gone to Hogwarts.
He sits at his dining table, which is covered with books and a duplicate he'd guiltily made of his father's diary. He has a book from the library about what Healers call "spontaneous male conception," but decides that he can't bring himself to read dry theory about it. He's too emotional for dry theory and facts—it's his life, not a medical phenomenon.
He picks up the diary. After the first entry he read, he'd wanted to keep reading chronologically, but he'd progressed through six months of entries (and Merlin, did his father have a lot to say) with no further mention of the mysterious P. He did read about a few of his Aunt Pansy's disastrous love affairs, a hilarious anecdote about Blaise Zabini's short-lived foray into wine-making, a sad story about Greg Goyle's post-war depression, and a subsequent happier story about the opening of his cake shop.
But he is feeling impatient and decides to treat this like a researcher would. "Prima Mentionis," he says again, concentrating on his conception. The diary flips to that first entry he'd read. "Deinde Mentionis." The diary flips again, this time landing in 2003, still three years before his birth.
15 January 2003. Father forced me to go to a Ministry function yesterday in hopes that it would somehow improve the Malfoy name. I wanted to tell him that there wasn't much I could do on that count given his effect on the name, but instead I put on my silver dress robes. I was sat at a table with a group of single young people—and who sits next to me but P. He starts prattling on about how we were a table of leftovers but at least they hadn't sat him with Elmer Fostenbudge again. I hadn't seen him since that night a few years ago, and, if I'm honest, he looked amazing. He was wearing a set of gorgeous dark green robes and I had half a mind to ask who dressed him. In any case, we started talking and…
"I started Auror Training," Potter said at the table of the Ministry's "Destroying the Mist" charity function, his mouth turned up into a half smirk. "Go on, take the piss." They'd been talking for awhile, and his willingness to sit and talk and laugh with Draco was a bit unexpected, if not unwelcome.
Draco pressed his lips together, trying to quell a smile. "I would never dare poke fun at the Saviour."
Potter smiled, and it felt blinding. Draco had to look away; he trained his eyes on the Charmed ice sculpture, but Potter's smile felt like a beacon.
"Oh, come on, Malfoy," Potter said. "Everyone else is telling me how noble it is, but I thought for sure you'd say something like, 'I feel so comforted knowing that our fates rest in the hands of an imbecile' or something, and then I'd say, 'You think your fate rests in my hands, Malfoy?' and you'd say, 'I'll tell you what can rest in your hands, Potter.'"
Potter was still smiling, and Draco laughed in a manner that was much too honest. "Thought about that a lot, have you? And that was the worst innuendo I've ever heard."
Potter shrugged, though his face flushed. "Maybe I have thought about it. About what you'd say."
Draco couldn't suppress the shiver that ran down his spine. "You're wrong."
Potter looked at him in confusion.
"You're wrong about what I'd say. I saw the articles in the Prophet about how the Boy Who Lived to Endanger Himself started Auror Training. But I didn't think you were an imbecile. I thought you were making a bad choice because you'd never be happy doing," Draco paused, waving a hand, "that."
"What?" Potter asked, a small smile on his face. "What do you mean?"
Draco leaned towards him. "I think you're doing what other people want you to do, not what you want to do."
"What do I want to do?" Potter returned with an impish smirk, and Merlin, Draco had underestimated him back in school.
"Are we still talking about Auror Training?" Draco asked, sitting back in his chair.
"Are we?"
Draco had been hoping that Potter would agree to a fuck since he saw him walk into the room, and the insinuation in his voice made Draco's heart race. He didn't say anything.
"Look," Potter said, twirling a fork in his fingers nervously, "I'm kind of dating Ginny now."
"The Littlest Weasley?" Draco clarified, his neck cold with jealousy and disappointment and something else that felt like a sharp pain in his gut.
"Yeah," Potter said. He sighed. "We're not, um, exclusive yet, really. But I just felt like I should tell you that before we—"
"It's fine, Potter," Draco said roughly. His stomach still felt unsettled, though more settled now that he realised Potter was still game. "And I'm going to marry a pure-blood witch at some point in the near future. This is just for fun."
"If you're sure," he said, his eyes on Draco's lips.
"We may as well have some fun now before we're forced to settle down with a pair of wives, eh?" Draco had meant for that to sound flippant, but it came out resentful.
Potter frowned at the table. "It's not really like that, with me. No one's making me—but," he stopped, looked at Draco's eyes. "I want to, with you."
Draco couldn't look away. "Have we stayed here long enough to fulfil your obligations as Saviour?"
"Fuck my Saviour obligations," Potter said with a grin. "Harry Potter lives at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place."
Draco stared at him in confusion for a moment, then realised what Potter was doing. "Oh. Right."
Potter stood and casually walked out of the ballroom without looking back.
Draco stared at his drink, his plate, the flowers on the table, the ceiling, the ice sculpture, and then finally gave in to his impatience and walked to the Floo. Careful to speak quietly, Draco said Potter's address in the flames, spun, and emerged in a truly hideous sitting room. He gaped at the room for a moment.
"Agrippa's pants, Potter," Draco hissed. "Did I come to the right place, or did I accidentally land in the home of a nonagenarian practitioner of the Dark Arts?"
But before Draco could continue his rant—and he had planned to continue—Potter was standing right in his personal space staring at him with a look of unbridled lust. Draco swallowed, stood taller.
"Shhh, or she'll hear you. She's only a portrait though—I live alone."
Draco wasn't sure where to start with that, so he said nothing, opting instead to take one step closer.
"Can I kiss you?" Potter asked, his eyes flicking from Draco's mouth to eyes and his hands reaching for Draco's hips.
"Oh, Potter," Draco drawled with a smirk, "you don't need to ask with me."
Potter launched himself forward, and as their lips met Draco couldn't believe they'd let over three years pass since the last time they'd done this. It was as brilliant as he remembered. His body was flooded with the same rush of adrenaline and anticipation that he'd used to feel when hexing Potter, only it was overlaid with intense pleasure and a feeling of contentment that could never come from duelling.
"Did you think about me?" Potter asked, pulling away with an unfairly adorable grin.
What an idiot. What a complete idiot.
"No. Not once in three years."
Potter pushed his shoulder. "Liar."
"No, really, I haven't thought of you," Draco said, trying to keep a straight face but feeling a smile. "It's a hardship for me to look at you, that's how ugly you are. And you're a terrible kisser. And your cock is—"
Potter didn't wait to listen to what Draco had to say about his cock, opting instead to push Draco back against the wall. Draco wondered for a moment if that was going to ruin his robes—the wallpaper was covered with creepy amulets and hadn't Potter mentioned it was cursed? But then Potter was grabbing his hips and pressing his hot tongue into Draco's mouth and sucking on his neck.
It was a sensory overload—Potter's stubble scratched his chin, Potter's hair tickled his cheek, Potter's smell filled his nostrils. Merlin. Potter's extremely hard cock pressed against his groin.
"Fuck, Malfoy," Potter moaned, and Draco was relieved that Potter seemed as overwhelmed as he was.
His body was inundated with sensation, which was not a normal sort of feeling for him. Generally, his body felt unremarkable; he never thought about it. Usually he wandered around life, seeing friends, attending events, arguing with his parents, trying to put off his inevitable marriage to Astoria Greengrass. Even when he managed to find a person to have one off with, his body just felt good. But this was so much; his skin was burning. It was stupid, really. How could humans be expected to ever act rationally if their bodies were capable of feeling like this?
Draco pressed forward into Potter, rocking his hips forward. Potter moaned at the friction, which made Draco want to do it again and again. "What do you want?" Draco asked, nipping at Potter's earlobe.
"Mmmmmm," Potter responded. "You." He stopped, breathing heavily and kissing Draco's neck. "Mouth, anything. Want to fuck me?"
Draco pulled back, surprised. Last time they'd sucked each other off in an Colloportused loo at that Muggle pub. This time he was in Potter's house and Potter was offering to bottom? It seemed bigger, somehow.
He must've waited too long to answer, because Potter was saying, "If you—do you do that? I like it all. I mean, I'll top, if you want. Or we don't have to—"
Draco smiled, and watched as Potter's shoulders relaxed minutely when he realised Draco wasn't uncomfortable. "I like it all, too. And yes, I want to fuck you."
Potter huffed a relieved laugh. "Merlin, you sound good saying that." He leaned in for another kiss, his whole body pressing into Draco's, and Draco's head swam with lust and wonder—that Potter wanted him, wasn't just putting up with him.
Potter pulled away, whispered into Draco's ear, "Take out your wand."
Draco raised an eyebrow, but did as he was told. He was powerless to do anything but obey Potter when he talked like that. He wondered if anyone ever disobeyed Potter when he talked like that. Or if Potter ever talked that way to anyone else.
Potter reached around, wrapped his hand above Draco's on the wand, pointed it at himself, and whispered a series of protection and preparation spells. Draco could feel Potter's magic flowing through his wand, through his fingers, and Potter's forehead crinkled in displeasure as the spells hit his body. Potter dropped Draco's hand, walked backward towards the stairs.
"You coming?"
The Saviour. Ginny Weasley. A Fidelius Charm.
Scorpius sits cross-legged on his sofa, staring at his wiggling toes in a pair of thick, knit socks he likes to wear when home alone—the socks are much too thick to fit in shoes, but they make him feel a sense of home and belonging and comfort. He tries to stop his fidgety movement, but his mind is consumed with a torrent of thoughts, his heart is fluttering.
Harry Potter?
He must be mistaken. There must be some other person in magical Britain who is a Saviour and dated Ginny Weasley and had to put his home under a Fidelius.
Except Scorpius is an historian, so he has to think about this rationally. All available evidence points to one solid conclusion: years ago, his father and Harry Potter had an affair.
He wants to Floo to the Manor and confront his father right now. He wants to say, "Dad! How could you keep this from me!" Well no, he doesn't want to accuse. He'd say, "Am I right? Harry Potter? The Harry Potter?" No, that wouldn't do; he can't act like an overzealous fan over a man who may very well be his other father. He'd like to ask his father, "Was he good in bed?" but in truth Draco and Scorpius don't have that type of relationship. He wants to, but will never, ask, "Did you love him?"
His brain buzzes with everything he knows about Harry Potter, a man so famous that he'd always been in the periphery of Scorpius's consciousness, even when they'd lived in France. Harry Potter is always in the papers, his face on book covers, his name in history papers Scorpius studies.
He tries to remember his father ever mentioning Harry Potter; he knows they went to Hogwarts together, were in the same year. Scorpius remembers asking Draco about it once. "What was it like to be at school with Harry Potter?" he'd asked with excitement, and he remembers his father saying tersely, "Exactly as you'd imagine, except the books don't tell you what a prat he was." When Scorpius had tried to ask more, Draco had ended the conversation with a short word and a raised brow.
It's not as if Draco had dropped clues that they were talking about his secret father.
Harry Potter is divorced, has three children. Merlin—half-siblings? Scorpius fidgets again, rubbing his thumb and index finger over the pad of his foot. He doesn't know what he thinks about that. Being an only child (Scorpius doesn't even have any cousins!) is one of the primary parts of his identity. He'd spent his childhood jealous of other children, of characters in books who had large families. At Beauxbatons, he'd struggled more than most to learn how to live in close quarters with so many other people, and he'd started to understand how deeply his status as "only" was imprinted on his identity. He'd long ago embraced his "only"ness, but now the voice of a long-abandoned child Scorpius sounds in his head, excitedly saying, Siblings!
At this shimmer of excitement, he is immediately overcome with a wave of grief, a feeling of being a terrible, ungrateful son to his mother—she's been gone such a short time and he's already trying to replace her with new family. Scorpius knows she wouldn't see it that way—in fact, it's probably part of why she decided to finally tell him the truth—but he still feels twisted up and conflicted. He takes a breath, twisting his jumper in his fingers. He's not trying to get a new mother; he's trying to find the rest of his family. Another father. Siblings. Cousins, probably.
But no. He's getting ahead of himself. He should research. Yes, that's what he should do. He's trained for this sort of thing, after all. Gathering facts, piecing things together, making evidence-based conclusions. He picks up his phone and opens Wizkipedia. Harry Potter, he thinks, focusing his magical energy, and the words appear on the screen, followed by an article. A long article.
His mind flashes to a time a few years ago when he was working on a project about powerful magical auras in oral history. Many people throughout history had reported being able to feel the auras of powerful magical folk, but there had never been an attempt to systematise this data. Scorpius had been working with old documents in which people described powerful wizards, going as far back as Merlin, and he'd turned to Draco one day and asked, "Does Harry Potter have a palpable aura?" His father had stopped what he was doing and turned to him with a blank face. "Pardon?" Draco had said. "A strong magical aura," Scorpius explained. "Could you feel his aura when you were near him?" Draco had stared for a moment, then said, "Yes. I mean. No. I'm not sure." Scorpius remembers thinking it was odd; Draco, in general, is a precise observer of magic in the world and also a precise speaker. And yet…
Scorpius takes a breath. He won't get invested in this. He could be wrong. Harry Potter could be nothing to him. He could be merely the most famous magical Brit, exactly as Scorpius had always known him.
Or Harry Potter could be his father. Scorpius laughs, and the sound is anxious and terrified even to his ears. He knows he's already invested, even if he's pretending that his rational, measured side is winning.
"Harry Potter (b. 31 July 1980) is a British wizard who is best known for defeating "Lord Voldemort" (Tom Riddle), thereby ending the Second Wizarding War. Son of James Potter and Lily Evans Potter, Harry attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from 1991 to 1997. He married Ginevra Weasley in 2003; the couple had three children (James Sirius b. 2004, Albus Severus b. 2006, and Lily Luna b. 2008) before their divorce in 2010. Potter served as an Auror from 2001 to 2008."
The article then splits into detailed sections; the heading of the first reads, "Early life (1980–1991)."
Scorpius stares at the screen. If Harry Potter is his father, he has a brother born the same year as himself. He taps "Albus Severus," and the screen reads, "Albus Severus Potter (b. 27 February 2006)." Some quick math and Scorpius lets out a slow whistle: Albus Potter is less than eight months older than him. Which means he was conceived when Albus was in his last trimester. Fuck. Fuck.
Scorpius grabs his wand and Summons his father's diary. "Prima Mentionis," he says, concentrating on the second Potter child. The diary flips open, landing eventually well past where he had stopped reading. And there's his answer, isn't it? The magic would've found nothing if Harry Potter's second son was never mentioned in the diary.
23 July 2005. H. was looking more haggard than usual today. Nothing about his behaviour does much to endear me to the prospect of having an infant in my house someday; he is perpetually tired and brings with him the distinct sterile smell of a person who has foregone showers for Cleaning Charms one too many times. I told him he looked like shite, and he collapsed onto me, murmuring into my shoulder that he and his wife are expecting another child. I asked him, "Are you crazy? Already?" but the question I really want to ask—"Are you happy with your life?"—is the one question neither of us ever dare ask.
Draco Apparated to his usual spot in the back garden of Grimmauld Place. He looked around, swallowing back his typical paranoia about being found, but the only thing he saw was a bat flying out of a tree. He pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders and let himself in the back door.
Harry was already there. He poked his head out of the sitting room and then walked towards Draco.
"Hey," Harry said, wrapping his arms around Draco's waist and pulling him close. He laid his head on Draco's shoulder and just held tightly. Draco wrapped one arm around him, squeezing Harry's shoulders.
"Alright?" Draco asked.
"I'm so tired," Harry mumbled into Draco's lapels. "You're a sight for sore eyes."
"I'm always a sight for sore eyes, given my extraordinary good looks," Draco said, ratcheting up the posh in his voice.
Harry laughed. "You're a smell for a sore nose, too. You smell like Draco."
"I'm going to assume that's meant to be a compliment," Draco said, burying his face against Harry's hair. He couldn't help himself, if he was around Harry. Harry made him act in all the ways he never thought he'd act.
"Is something wrong?" Draco asked lightly. "Or is this extended embrace the natural effect of another sleepless night with toddler Potter?"
"Nothing's wrong, but something's happened. I just want another minute to stand here before I tell you. You feel like a calm in the storm."
Draco didn't quite know what to say to that, but it made his chest clench with something—affection, possessiveness, jealousy. He knew that Harry loved his wife, more than he'd ever love Astoria (at least in a romantic way), but Harry still needed him. Harry couldn't get everything from her, from their life—he still needed Draco.
Draco spread his legs apart a few inches for better balance and stood tall, cradling Harry's head with the arm wrapped around his shoulders. "What's the storm?"
"Life," Harry whispered.
Draco didn't ask what Harry meant; he knew. He felt the same way, most of the time, though he had many fewer demands on his time than Harry. Since the war, he felt like he was being buffeted about by the winds of family, of expectation, of society. He felt like he had no say over his life. Marry Astoria. Rehabilitate the Malfoy name. Get ready to make an heir. (Have you taken your virility potions, my darling son? The kind with the folate? Must do everything to improve sperm quality for our beloved heir, of course.) Life was the storm. But not Harry. Harry wasn't something he had to do. Harry was the only thing in his life that he wanted, just for him.
"Gin's pregnant," Harry said, finally pulling away from Draco. He stood tall, leaning against the wall.
"What?" Draco asked stupidly, but he couldn't help his inane response because it felt like something—a stupid foetus—was going to tear Harry away from him again, was going to take away the one thing in his life that wasn't part of the storm.
Harry didn't say it again. He knew Draco well enough to know that Draco was processing. "Due in February."
A long moment passed. "Congrats, old chap," Draco said with faux enthusiasm, and his voice sounded spiteful, sarcastic, toxic.
Harry frowned. "Don't be like that. It doesn't change anything."
Draco scoffed, but hearing Harry say that it didn't change anything loosened the vicelike feeling in his neck, in his chest. He lived in constant worry that Harry would leave, would no longer need him, had never needed Draco like Draco needed him. Something would happen someday that would make Harry realise it, and where would Draco be then?
He wondered if Harry had the same worries.
Harry sighed. "Look, I—I can't handle thinking about any of it. It's like a constant stress, yeah? James is the light of my life, but he never gives me a moment to breathe, or to sleep. Gin makes me happy, but sometimes it just feels like all the shit and responsibility in my life has taken on the shape of her and it's a lot of pressure. I've got all the crap shifts at work because Junior Aurors have to put in their time. And I—you know I—I'm still fucked up. I don't want to think about any of it. The only time I ever feel free is when I'm here with you. Another baby doesn't change that."
Draco wanted to be mad, but Harry looked so overwhelmed. Draco felt a sudden wave of indignation—he was furious at his parents, their society, everyone who put pressure on Harry, everyone who made Harry think he should get married and become an Auror and have a horde of babies, everyone who constantly told Draco to think carefully about making an heir, about positioning the Malfoy name to achieve influence, every fucking person in this world who somehow contributed to the farces that were their lives. Draco wanted to grab Potter and Apparate away to someplace far—as far away as they could get. Where would that put them—New Zealand? Bring it on, they had good wine and Māori chanting magic.
But he couldn't.
Draco took a breath, let it out. Then he pushed Harry against the wall and pressed his lips to Harry's neck. He sucked gently, relishing the feel of Harry's stubble against his face. "I don't want to think about it either."
Harry reached behind Draco, pulled him close, and whispered, "I brought cashews and chocolate frogs."
Scorpius looks at the parchment in his hand for what must be the twentieth time in the last minute. He's nervous, and when he's nervous he fidgets, and right now his nerves are at a state where he's worried he's going to tear the paper in half.
Chapter Two
"Put that aside to see if Scorpius or Daphne wants it," Draco instructs, feeling weary. He's not sure he should be clearing out Astoria's rooms this soon, but he can't bear to have the task looming over him for the upcoming weeks or months. Better to face the shit now, all at once. He worries he's acting like a Gryffindor.
"Yes, Master," Jimsy replies, sending a clock zooming across the room to a growing pile.
Draco sighs, trying to loosen the tight feeling in his chest with deep breathing. It doesn't help. He feels bad knowing that he's going to have to impose on Scorpius and Daphne to decide what they want to keep. There's no way around it, though—he can't make all of the decisions. Astoria was important to a lot of people, not just him.
He doesn't want any of it.
He misses her—it feels like a soul ache. He doesn't know who he's supposed to be without her. But he doesn't want her stuff. The stuff just makes it worse. Even the smell of her rooms is painful. She's meant to walk through that door, her laugh tinkling through the room. She's meant to sit on that chair, read those books, use that blanket.
Draco raises a hand to his forehead. It's too much. "Jimsy."
The elf stops, looks up. "Yes?"
"I'm going to my office. Can you please put anything that Scorpius or Daphne might want in the pile and continue cleaning the rooms? I want to get rid of the furniture, and try to get the smell out of here."
Jimsy crooks her head. "Of course, master."
Draco knows perfectly well he's not acting rational—Astoria's rooms smell good, much better than his rooms. They smell like lavender and bergamot and Draco's never been sure where those smells come from.
He nods. "Thank you, Jimsy." He turns and walks quickly from the rooms, inhaling deeply when he reaches the corridor. He continues without stopping through the winding passages of the Manor until he reaches his office, where he settles at his desk.
He lets his head drop onto his hand. He's sure he looks undignified, but there's no one fucking there to see.
He is no longer married, and it's so strange. There'd been a time, so long ago, when the idea of being free from the expectations—no, not free from them, but having fulfilled them and being on the other side of duty—would've been his dream. But now he doesn't even remember what he would've wanted to do with himself, had he had that sort of freedom back then.
Well. That's not true. He does remember, of course. Harry.
And then, like it always does when he allows his mind to stray to Harry, a wave of guilt and grief washes over him. Fuck, but he's let his defences slip.
He remembers those first, hard years when he could no longer see Harry. He remembers sitting in France with Scorpius as an infant, trying not to think about it—about any of it. He remembers reading a Muggle book he'd found in the library. "Crimestop," it had read, "means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought." He'd read it so many times, the sentence burned into his memory. That's what he had to do. It was the only way forward. He learned how to do it out of sheer force of will—Slytherins can accomplish a lot for self-preservation.
But he's slipping.
Even Astoria's death doesn't give him permission to slip. If he thinks about it, he'll drown in it. Crimestop.
It's not as if he can run back to Harry, like he'd once wished he'd been able to. It's been a lifetime, but beyond even the thirty-two years separating them is an enormous deception—Harry doesn't know the truth about Scorpius. Harry could never forgive that. The bridge to Harry is burned.
No one knows the truth about Scorpius. Only his mother and Astoria. And with his mother in France and Astoria dead…it's only him. His hand shakes as he reaches up to brush his hair out of his eyes.
He's always had this premonition that Harry would figure it out, if they met. Harry had written to him, once, after his divorce, but Draco hadn't been able to read it. Crimestop. He's always worried that someone will suspect, that someone will look at him and see the secret in the shape of his body, in the way he moves. None of that has changed.
So what in Salazar's name is he supposed to do now?
For some reason, it feels like more of the same isn't an option. He's supposed to just live alone in this enormous house, bossing house-elves around and attending occasional meetings of the organisations for which he sits on the board?
He'll go bonkers faster than Great Uncle Brutus.
He's supposed to have conversations over supper, holidays planned by a thoughtful companion. Astoria is supposed to push him to get involved with things she comes across that she knows he'll enjoy. She's supposed to debate with him about the issues facing the Hogwarts Board of Governors.
Without her, he has no distraction. He's left alone with himself, and he's slipping.
He tries to remember before Scorpius, before Astoria. He tries to grasp the essence of Draco—just Draco—to figure out what he wants. But he has to go back further, doesn't he? Before the war. Before his parents.
Fuck, there is no just Draco. And, excellent—now he's acting like a morose Ravenclaw philosopher.
He knows when he'd felt most authentic. When he'd felt like he was doing something for him and not for his parents, society, the rest of the fucking world.
But back then, with Harry, it'd always been about living in the moment, because they'd both known it couldn't last. He doesn't remember having any ambitions or hope or life goals during those years. He doesn't remember what he wanted—beyond Harry's young, firm body, his lopsided smile when he arrived in his Auror uniform, the too-strong tea Harry brewed for him.
The memories, now that Draco's stupidly let them in, flood him. He closes his eyes; he can hear the way Harry's laugh had sounded when Draco teased him. He inhales sharply, and he can almost feel the way Harry would reach out and touch his cheek.
How can it hurt this much after so much time?
Draco reaches for a glass of water that Jimsy has left on his desk. ("Master must hydrate!" she's always saying.) As he drinks, he tries to remember what he wanted from life. He can't recall any moments of hope for the future amid all the coercion and obligation of those years.
But then he remembers a child's laugh and a head of turquoise hair, and he can't help but smile even as his stomach clenches, trying to protect him from the emotional force of the memory.
Spring 2003
Draco Apparated to the back garden, a sense of anticipation and eagerness bubbling in his stomach. He steadied himself with a hand on the brick wall and walked quickly into the house.
The "Potter!" that he was about to holler died on his lips as he heard soft voices. No one was supposed to be here but Potter. His stomach clenched; he drew his wand and walked down the corridor on tentative feet, taking extra care as he passed the portrait of his belligerent aunt. His constantly calculating mind told him that the smart thing would be to leave immediately, but he didn't want to leave. He wanted to see Potter.
And fuck, that was a sobering thought. Since when was Potter more important than Draco's self-interest?
The voices didn't sound dangerous, though. They sounded calm. Draco approached the sitting room and slowly peered into the room.
Potter was sitting on the floor with a little boy in his lap. The boy had bright turquoise hair, and Draco realised with a start that this must be the Lupin child. They were related, if only tenuously. He had a sudden, vivid memory of Lucius's intense reaction to the news that Narcissa's niece had married a werewolf. He took a breath, pushed that out of his mind.
Potter was smiling, his face luminescent with happiness, or rather, the closest thing to true happiness that Draco had ever seen on his face. They were looking at a picture book, and Potter was pointing at the page as the boy—Teddy?—laughed.
Draco tried to ignore the way his chest constricted. This thing he was doing with Potter was time-limited. It could never last. He wouldn't let it last. He would marry, produce an heir. Potter would do his Saviour thing, having babies and being an Auror, even though it was clear to Draco that Potter hated everything about Auror training.
But watching Potter like this, looking relaxed and almost happy, threatened to tear apart Draco's well-constructed defences. All those rational walls he'd built—we'd never last, we'll each get married, I'll be the Malfoy heir and make another Malfoy heir—threatened to come tumbling down. Because Potter looked like something real. Like something Draco could maybe, possibly, want enough to risk everything for.
Potter looked up and saw Draco watching. "Hey! I'm sorry, I didn't have time to owl. Andromeda had an emergency—she asked me to watch Teddy. I couldn't say no."
Draco didn't know how to answer. He tried to push his emotions back to where they came from.
"I didn't want to stand you up," Harry continued. "So we just came. Teddy, this is Draco. His mum is gran's sister. Draco, this is Teddy."
The boy looked briefly at Draco, but then his eyes flicked to Potter as he said, "Hello. Pweased to meet you."
Draco smiled. Of course a Black would make sure their grandchild was raised with proper manners.
"Hello, Teddy," Draco responded, finally walking into the room. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"We're reading fairy tales," Potter explained with a smile. "I know this isn't what you came here for. If you want to leave, you can."
But Draco was already sitting down on the sofa, peering over their shoulders at the illustrations. "I don't know this one."
"It's a Muggle fairy tale," Potter said, looking closely at Draco's face. Draco had the uncomfortable sense that Potter was checking to make sure he didn't have an offensive reaction.
Draco wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. "Oh really? What's it about?"
"It's about a girl who was cursed and needs to figure out a little—what'd they call it, Harry?"
"An imp."
"Needs to figure out the imp's name, or else she has to be married to the king and they'll take away her baby!"
"Really?" Draco asked, bemused. "Sounds like a good story. Do you think they'll discover the imp's name?"
"Of course!" Teddy answered, pointing his chubby hand at the book. He whispers, "It's Wumplestiltskin. There has to be a happily ever after."
Potter caught Draco's eye, and his face was surprisingly sad. Draco gave him a small smile, trying to reassure him. It was sobering to think that Harry Potter, the magical world's patron saint of happy endings, looked so downcast at a child's innocent expectation of happiness.
"Quit the Aurors," Draco blurted.
"What?" Harry asked with a surprised, dismissive laugh.
"Quit the Aurors. Be happy."
From the look on Potter's face, he seemed to suspect that Draco might be talking about more than his career.
"I can't do that. I'm meant to be—I want to be—an Auror." Potter smiled, but it looked sad.
Teddy looked up at Draco. "Harry fights bad witches and wizards," he announced proudly.
Harry squeezed the boy's small shoulders with a wistful smile, then looked up at Draco. "Want to play a game with us?"
"Alright," Draco said, trying not to feel they were play-acting at a life they could never have for real.
Draco stands in front of his wardrobe, a frown on his face as he scrutinises the contents. On a whim, when Jimsy had finished clearing out Astoria's rooms a few weeks before, Draco had asked her to rid his wardrobe of the clothing and robes purchased by Astoria. He'd been thinking in particular of a set of purple robes she'd bought him years earlier in Milan that were bold and distinctive and that he'd never be able to wear without thinking of her. But it turns out that Astoria must have bought many of his clothes, because the wardrobe is now sparse.
He's due to meet Scorpius for lunch at a restaurant he's never been to, and all of his appropriate robes are gone.
He sighs. There are formal dress robes, there are casual robes, there are Muggle clothes. But all of his versatile robes are gone.
"Jimsy," he says.
Jimsy appears with a crack! "Yes, Master Draco?"
"What would be the most appropriate thing to wear to a luncheon?"
Jimsy walks closer to the wardrobe, her hand cocked on her neatly tailored silk pillowcase as she surveys the contents. One of her huge ears twitches as she turns tentatively to look at him. "Master, sir, you is asking me to—"
"I know, Jimsy," Draco assures. "You are not to blame for my haste. I do need something to wear, though."
The little elf turns back to the wardrobe. She holds her hand up, and the hangers move to allow her to visualise the available options. "We is going Muggle, sir," she eventually declares, and Draco sighs. Draco hates wearing Muggle clothes, because, though he's always sure he looks good, he never fully understands the social connotations behind the different choices. Once he'd shown up in a "morning coat" to an evening event. He's just never quite sure. But there's nothing for it.
"Change is good!" he says, trying to sound enthusiastic, though he's quite sure it sounds a bit manic.
Jimsy gives him a concerned look.
A few minutes later, he walks to the Floo, wearing a pair of grey wool trousers, a smart blue shirt, and a blazer. It will have to do.
He's set to meet Scorpius at noon, and after checking the time (precisely five to twelve), he throws a handful of powder into the fire, and steps in.
"Good day," he says as he steps out. "Reservation for Malfoy."
"Yes, sir, just this way."
He follows the waiter, taking in the decor, which has a bit of a vintage, traditional feel. He wonders if Scorpius chose this restaurant on purpose because—
All thoughts abruptly leave his mind as he sees his son—his Scorpius—sitting at a table with Harry Potter and another man who can only be Albus Potter.
He's not sure how long he stands there, agape, before the waiter turns around and says, "Sir?" with a touch of impatience.
"Dad!" Scorpius says, hopping up from his chair.
Draco is still frozen as Scorpius puts his hand on Draco's elbow. The touch brings him back to his body, but he knows he's still staring impolitely as he allows Scorpius to steer him into a seat.
"My father, Draco Malfoy," Scorpius says. "This is Albus Potter, and, er, you know Harry Potter."
Draco tears his eyes away from Harry to look at Scorpius. His shoulders are slightly scrunched, his cheeks slightly flushed—Scorpius is nervous. Holy fuck, Scorpius knows. How does Scorpius know? Draco's eyes fly back to Harry. Harry looks back at him curiously; he seems a bit nervous, but like he has no idea why they're there. Harry didn't expect to be seeing him. So Harry doesn't know. Draco properly looks at the son—Albus—for the first time, and it makes his chest constrict. Albus looks so much like his Harry had looked, only happier, only without a lifetime of trauma in his eyes.
"Dad," Scorpius says gently, and Draco looks back at his son.
"Hello," Draco finally manages, and he has no idea how he manages to speak at all. His parents' incessant lessons in pure-blood manners must have been worth it, really.
"Hi, Draco," Harry says with a tone of bewilderment. "I didn't expect to see you here." His gaze turns to his son, and his voice has the tone that parents use when waiting for their children to explain something. Then he turns back to Draco and awkwardly adds, "I'm sorry for your loss; I saw the notice in the paper."
Draco nods an acknowledgement, feeling utterly discomposed.
Scorpius is looking at Albus; Albus raises his eyebrows, Scorpius responds with a nearly imperceptible nod. They both know. Albus—the actual human man and not the abstract idea of a baby that had once ruined Draco's life—and Scorpius—the actual human man who would've ruined Harry's—are sitting here conspiring. Fucking stupid, idiotic children! They have no idea what they're meddling in! They have no idea what their fathers have sacrificed for them to be sitting here! And they probably think that they, at thirty-one years old, know everything there is to know about the world and that their officious meddling will somehow make things—
"Look, so," Scorpius says, twisting his fingers in his jumper.
A stop fidgeting almost escapes Draco's lips; his hand almost reaches out to touch Scorpius's arm in a gentle reminder to stop moving. But for once, Draco's shock has overpowered his habitual instinct to parent.
"I'm just going to say it," Scorpius continues, but then he doesn't just say it.
Draco has a wild urge to launch himself across the table and press his hand over Scorpius's mouth, but he has retained enough rationality to recognise that he has no way to explain that sort of behaviour to Harry.
"Yes, just say it," Albus echoes. "Do you want me to do it, Scorp?"
Draco narrows his eyes at Albus. What the fuck? How do these two even know each other? Albus is calling him by a preposterous nickname? Malfoys don't adopt nicknames.
"Alright," Scorpius says in a shaky voice. "Dad, I'm sorry to spring this on you, but I didn't think you'd agree to meet Mr Potter otherwise. We know that you two had an affair when you were young."
Draco's neck is suddenly blazing hot. He wants to keep his eyes on his son, but his eyes are drawn to Harry's and they stare directly into each other's eyes for the first time in over three decades. Harry is shocked. Draco can't breathe; he knows that the shock Harry's feeling is nothing compared to what's coming.
"We don't think it's our place to judge you for that!" Scorpius continues, speaking too quickly for proper elocution. "In any case, well. Dad, I know that you were pregnant with me. Mum told me right before she died. And we know that my other father is you, Mr Potter."
Draco's stomach responds as if the floor has just been Vanished. He cannot believe that this is happening, that the entire foundation of his life has just been pulled out from under him, like a Muggle pretend-magician pulling a tablecloth out from under a spread. Only he knows he won't stay upright like those dishes.
He can't look at Harry. He can't. He can't see the betrayal on Harry's face—Draco had never been able to contemplate what Harry's face would look like on hearing this news—that was part of the reason Harry could never know.
Even without looking, though, he can hear.
"What?" Harry says, his voice completely devoid of emotion.
Scorpius lets out one nervous laugh, an old habit that Draco hasn't heard in years. "By blood," Scorpius clarifies, "you're my father. Teddy did the spell to confirm. So um, spontaneous male conception. Unless you two planned me with fertility potions, which seems unlikely given the circumstances. Your kids and I are half-brothers."
Draco stares resolutely at the table. He can't look at any of them. They were never supposed to know. Scorpius has always had two loving parents—isn't that enough? Why does he need this, too? Harry has had his life with his and Ginny's children—isn't that enough? This news will only hurt them both.
"Dad," Albus says. "It's okay. It'll be okay. None of us are mad."
"Draco."
He looks up. Harry's face is blank, but somehow intense. An intense blankness. Albus's arm is on his shoulder, but Harry isn't looking at Albus—he's looking directly at Draco.
"How could you not tell me?"
How can Draco possibly answer that question? He'd need a week of talking, a book's worth of words, to answer that question.
"I—you'd left. You were having a second baby. I couldn't—I needed an heir, wanted him." Draco stops. He sounds petty, defensive, vindictive. It was never supposed to be petty or defensive or vindictive.
Harry's face is devastated, and Draco thinks that's the face he's been trying to avoid for all these years.
Harry turns to look at Scorpius, as if seeing him for the first time. He stares. "Scorpius, I—I'm so sorry. I—. Thank you for telling me. I need some time to process this, okay? I can't—" His eyes flick to Draco. "I can't be here right now. But I—Merlin, please don't think I'm rejecting you. We'll—we'll talk soon, okay? I can't—"
Harry stands, pauses next to Albus's chair, reaches a hand around Albus's chest, leans over, and squeezes his son. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'll owl you later, okay, Al?"
Albus nods with Harry's face pressed into his messy hair, and with that assurance, Harry strides out of the room.
Draco wants to follow, not to run after Harry, but to go hide from this himself.
Instead, he sighs. He owes it to Scorpius not to run.
"Well," Draco says, his voice quavering, "that went about as well as I would've expected."
Scorpius and Albus give tentative, encouraging smiles, and Draco wonders how he and Potter, of all people, had ended up raising such understanding, empathetic humans.
Draco manages to get home after the disastrous lunch, even if he doesn't quite remember leaving the restaurant or stepping into the Floo.
He'd like to to go to bed, but it's only two o'clock in the afternoon. He walks to his office and collapses at his desk. He isn't sure if he's overwhelmed with emotion, or completely numb to it: it's some sort of extreme case where the two are indistinguishable.
"You were right, Astoria," he says to the empty room. "We should've told him!" He laughs, wonders if he's finally lost the plot, and lets his head drop to the cool wood of the desktop.
For a few minutes, he tries to focus only on the way his head feels against the desk. He thinks that's a meditation technique Astoria had once told him about. Every time his mind wanders, he's supposed to focus on the sensations in his body.
It doesn't work.
If he's going to wallow, he may as well do the thing properly. He sits up, reaches into the desk drawer, and pulls out his diary. His fingers shake as he flips through the pages looking for February 2006.
4 February 2006. Today H. broke it off. I can't really blame him—he's overwhelmed, needed too much with his kids and work, his wife is about to have another baby—but I do. I do blame him. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now. If I'm honest with myself, which I try never to be, I've been obsessing over him since I was eleven. And now…the only way forward is to just stop thinking about him. Well, I can do what I put my mind to…
Draco let himself through the back door. "Harry, you giant wanker! I brought that swill beer you like!" His stomach had objected to the mere sight of the beer in the market, but he thought Harry would appreciate it after the raid he'd been on yesterday.
He walked through the corridor towards the kitchen so he could put the bottles in the cupboard. When he stepped in, he was surprised to see Harry sitting at the table, his head in his hands.
"Are you alright?" Draco asked, feeling suddenly worried about that raid.
Harry looked up, his hands on his cheeks, and he looked awful. He looked tired, and sad, and worried. He looked a lot older than twenty-six, though he'd always looked older than his age, hadn't he?
"What happened?" Draco asked, dropping the beer to the table and sitting down in the chair to Harry's right.
"We need to stop this," Harry said, scrubbing his face with his hands. "I'm so sorry. I need to stop."
"Wha—we've said that before," Draco put in, though that seemed a bit pointless. "Before James was born. It didn't take. This is the same thing—baby nerves." He could feel a cold chill creeping down his spine.
Harry shook his head, and he just looked so sad.
"Is it Ginny?"
"No," Harry said. "I just—I don't know how to explain this. I feel like I'm being pulled in a thousand directions at once. I need to be there for James. I need him to have a dad who is around, and Ginny is overwhelmed, and I love Gin, I do."
Draco bristled, the familiar jealousy prickling through him.
"And work is calling me in constantly, and I constantly smell like peanut butter and regurgitated milk, and I haven't had a full night's sleep in years, and the new baby is coming any day now, and." Harry's face was heartbreakingly kind. "Something has to give, Draco. I'm so sorry it has to be us. It's the only thing I can give up."
Draco wondered idly whether he should cast a Warming Charm on himself, because he felt like he'd just been hit with a Glacius.
Draco stood up.
"Don't go yet!" Harry pleaded, surprised that Draco seemed poised to leave. "Seriously, Draco, I can't give up my kids. I can't give up my job. What am I supposed to do?"
It was the job one that stung most, Draco thought. He knew Harry Potter—world's most famous orphan—would never abandon a child. But it was clear to Draco that Harry hated being an Auror. He could give that up. He didn't need the money, or the prestige.
But he wasn't going to say that, not again.
"I'm going to miss you," Harry said, and it was too genuine to bear.
Draco turned and walked out the door, not hearing the rest of Harry's words, and the vaguely queasy feeling he'd had all day intensified as he rushed outside, Apparated home, and vomited on his mother's rose bushes.
"Dad."
Draco opens his eyes, blinks; he'd fallen asleep at his desk? Maybe his body had decided to shut down from all the stress. He blinks again.
"Dad."
He sits up. Scorpius is standing next to his desk, a gentle look on his face. He looks so grown-up. How is Scorpius not angrier about all of this? Since when is Scorpius so mature? Draco feels old.
He remembers how it felt, after the war, when suddenly he was the functional head of the Malfoy family and his father was in disrepute, incarcerated; he thinks wryly that he understands now how Lucius must've felt back then, watching the generational power dynamic shift before his eyes.
Scorpius walks behind Draco's desk chair, wraps his arm around Draco's chest, and hugs him. Draco brings his hand up to return his son's squeeze. Draco doesn't know what to say. "I'm glad you came."
"Can we talk?" Scorpius asks, and his voice has that slight hitch that indicates he's trying to be brave. Draco remembers hearing it in Scorpius's voice before he went off to his first year at Beauxbatons.
"Yes. Let's go to the drawing room. Jimsy." The elf appears. "Can you please bring us tea in the drawing room?"
"Right away," she says, and disappears.
Scorpius leads the way through the corridors, past the judgmental portraits and the demanding antique furnishings. Draco wants to get out, and he hasn't felt that way about the Manor since those first few years after the war.
Scorpius waves his wand at the grate, starting a merry fire, and sits in his regular armchair.
Draco sits in the next chair, attempting a smile. "Tell me how you're feeling. You can be honest; I deserve that."
But Scorpius doesn't get angry; he wouldn't, of course—it's not his way. "I'm just—" Scorpius starts, "I'm so sad for you, Dad."
Draco is not expecting that. "You're sad for me?"
"I'm sad you felt you had to keep such big secrets. I'm sad that you felt like you couldn't be happy."
"I've been happy!" Draco says, but he hears how defensive it sounds. "No. Scorpius, honestly. I've been happy. You make me happy. I loved your mum."
"I know," Scorpius says, rubbing his thumb on the arm of the chair. "But you know that's not what I mean. I'm sorry, by the way. I'm really sorry for ambushing you like that. Albus and I thought—well, we thought we had one chance to get the two of you together and that we'd better use it. It was a bad idea."
Draco leans his head back against the chair, looking up at the high, ornate ceiling. "It's not as if there was a way you could've planned that reveal that would've gone well," he says, and laughs. He hears a tinkle of ceramic; Jimsy has served the tea. He takes a breath, brings his gaze back to Scorpius. "What do you want to know? Ask me anything. Well. I might not answer anything."
Scorpius laughs. He raises his knee as if he is going to tuck his leg underneath his bottom, but then seems to remember he's wearing shoes and can't act that way here, ultimately settling on crossing his legs. "Why did you go through with the pregnancy?" he asks quietly.
Draco smiles. "That's an easy question. Your mum and I needed a baby, but didn't particularly want to have sex. That is to say, we would've done it, somehow. I'd have girded my loins—perhaps that's too apt an idiom—and done it. But we knew she had a family history of the blood curse, too, and that pregnancy might weaken her. Which gave us pause." He stops and exhales. "We considered the possibility of adopting, but the details of the inheritance magic specified that the heir had to be related by blood." He notices Scorpius's face twisting in annoyance. "Offensive, arbitrary, outdated rules—yes. In any case, I never intended to become pregnant. In retrospect, it solved the heir problem quite neatly. Your mum and I found ourselves with a blood-related child who would not be predisposed to ill health, who was conceived in an act of love. You understand how important that is for a child's magic, do you not?"
Draco pauses, searching his son's face. Scorpius has never had a long-term partner; Draco hasn't had much need to discuss baby-making with him beyond the compulsory and important lessons of protection and contraception. (Draco wonders whether Scorpius is now reevaluating all of Draco's sex talks in light of this recent revelation.) He's not sure how much Scorpius knows about the way magic passes from parents to child, or about the specifics of male-male conception.
"I know," Scorpius says with a smile. "I'm a researcher, remember? I've read about it."
"Well, in the case of spontaneous male conception, the two wizards' magic must be perfectly compatible. In short, the fact that you were conceived at all was an assurance—I knew I was pregnant with a baby who would be healthy, have robust magic, and who would likely flourish. And you have." He smiles. He really is proud of his son.
"So you loved him, then? You just said 'conceived in an act of love.'"
Draco blinks. He'd just said that, hadn't he? Crap. He hadn't really meant to say that. There must be limits to this whole openness and honesty thing, mustn't there? He should ask a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff how they know where to draw the line beyond which honesty is superseded by pragmatic deceit.
"I don't know, Scorpius," he says eventually, weariness creeping into his voice. "I know that you exist. It wasn't probable."
"So Mum knew everything."
It's not really a question, but Draco senses that Scorpius needs an answer. "Of course. She knew about Harry before, too. We—our agreement was that we'd always be honest with each other. She knew that I was gay before we got married." He can't believe he just said all that out loud. He can't remember the last time he declared his sexuality out loud. It's not something he's ever been at liberty to talk about with anyone, with the exception of Astoria.
But Scorpius doesn't even blink. "I'm glad she knew. I mean, I'm glad you had someone you could talk to." He picks up his cup, takes a sip of tea. "Did it—did any of that mean you couldn't love me?"
"No!" Draco says. "No, Scorpius, never. We enjoyed you. Your mother loved you before you were born, and so did I. She took potions to induce lactation, you realise." Draco smiles. "She wanted to be part of it."
Scorpius smiles and wraps an arm around his middle. "It's fairly dangerous though, isn't it? Male pregnancy."
Draco tries to look encouraging. "It was fine. Healers are adept at dealing with it. And they've made breakthroughs since you were born that make it even safer, now."
Scorpius doesn't say anything, and Draco feels the need to fill the silence. "It was…amazing. You were miraculous."
Scorpius laughs. "I didn't do anything, though. I rather think you were the miraculous one."
Draco scoffs.
"No, really, Dad. And you—you know I would never think any of that stupid shit people think about men who've been pregnant. It doesn't change anything about you, doesn't make you a woman or feminine or any of that stuff, you know? I mean, not that I'd care if you were a woman or feminine, but you're not. I know, especially back when you grew up, you probably heard a lot of stuff like that and I—I'd hate to have caused you grief over that, you know? You've always been an incredible man and role model. I hope you never worried about what I would think about you, or thought that I'd think less of you. I think it's incredible."
Draco can feel tears prickling at his eyes, and he has the ridiculous thought that he can't cry now or it would undermine Scorpius's defense of his manhood. He laughs, memories of some his long-ago-settled qualms about what a pregnancy meant for his gender rising up again.
"Thank you, Scorpius. I can assure it didn't cause me a great deal of stress."
Scorpius smiles. "But see, you didn't say it didn't cause you any stress. I've always wondered why you and Mum were so progressive and knowledgeable about gender. You Ravenclawed it, didn't you?"
Draco laughs, unexpectedly delighted to be able to talk about this. "We read some books, yes. I had accepted my sexuality long before I was pregnant with you, but when my body looked like it was being taken over by a maternity monster it was a little confusing. I never felt like a woman, but I looked a bit like one, and I fancied men….I needed to figure out how all those things—sexuality, gender, body—were different in order to be confident about it." Draco frowns. "It's amazing how many people have no idea what they're talking about with these things."
Scorpius smiles, and he really looks alright. He doesn't look mad, or resentful, or upset, or conflicted. "Like I said, Dad. You're amazing."
Draco doesn't know what to say to that. For a few minutes, they sip tea in silence and listen to the crackle of the flames in the grate.
"I'm sorry," Draco says finally, setting his cup down. He knows he should elaborate, say more, explain, but he doesn't know how.
"It's okay," Scorpius says, and Draco is overwhelmed with love and pride for this man in front of him. "It really doesn't change anything, you know?"
Draco smiles even if he's not sure he believes that. After Scorpius leaves with a warm embrace and a promise of an owl, Draco drinks his tea and, for once, lets the memories of those days in.
February 2006
Draco hurled into a basin, the stink of vomit filling his nose. He was filled with disgust at the vomit and at the way his whole body was full of nausea and aches. But the sick, disgusted feeling matched his mood since Harry had broken things off.
In truth he'd been wallowing in it.
He sat up, eyes watering, and Astoria waved her wand to Vanish the contents of the basin.
"It'd save us a few steps if I could just Vanish the contents of your stomach," she said with a teasing twinkle in her eye. "Though that doesn't seem wise without Healer supervision."
Draco moaned. "This is repulsive. What illness could I possibly have caught? Why are you not sick yet?"
"How many days have you been ill?" Astoria asked, tilting her head slightly and fixing him with a calculating look.
"Three? Four?" He groaned again, leaning back against the marble wall of the loo.
He'd been sick since he got home from seeing Harry. From his last time seeing Harry. At first he'd thought he was sick from grief or shock or something horribly romantic like that, so it had been a bit of a relief to discover that he was legitimately ill. Illness didn't make one weak. Well, actually, it did make one weak. But he'd rather be weak and ill than healthy and sentimental.
"Give me your finger," Astoria said, suddenly.
Draco, too nauseated to argue with anyone taking care of him, held out his hand. She waved her wand and a drop of blood bloomed on his finger.
"Ow! What the fuck!" He trusted his wife, but a little warning would've been nice.
She Levitated the drop of blood into a cup and distractedly whispered "Episkey" at Draco's finger.
"What are you doing?" he queried.
"Nothing," she said, ignoring him.
"Well, you're clearly doing something."
"Kindly shut your mouth," she said. She waved her wand at the drop of blood and began a long, chant-like incantation.
"Are you performing a blood magic ritual? Because this hardly seems the time—"
"Shhh!"
The drop of blood, now a tiny shimmering orb, glowed a luminescent green.
"Wait a moment," she said, holding up a finger.
Draco had no idea what they were looking at, but he watched. It was pretty—captivating, even. The orb pulsed, and then the green changed abruptly to purple.
"Well," Astoria said, her voice a bit breathless, and sat back on her heels.
"Well, what?" Draco asked. "Do I have dragon pox?"
"I didn't actually expect that niggling suspicion to be correct," she said, sitting next to him on the cold floor and grabbing his hand in hers. She felt warm, and small.
"What suspicion?" Draco demanded weakly, his voice now full of suspicion.
"Well," she said, resting her head on his shoulder, "you're pregnant."
"What?" Draco asked, inhaling too much air. "How is that even—"
Astoria, to her credit, didn't answer. She wasn't the one fucking a man on the side, so it was not exactly reasonable to demand an explanation from her. They sat silently for long minutes.
What the fuck.
Draco's mind scrambled to collect every bit of information he knew about male pregnancy. It was common enough in gay male couples when the men took a course of fertility potions. It was exceedingly uncommon without the potions. His mind swam with a vague memory of his father scoffing and saying that male pregnancies were "unnatural." Then he recalled a scene from a famous wizarding novel in which the protagonist claimed that male pregnancies occurred only in cases of the truest love and the most compatible types of magic.
Fucking hell.
He was fucking pregnant with Harry Potter's illegitimate baby. Not that Draco put much stock by offensive, backward concepts like calling a human being "illegitimate"—but the pure-blood world sure did, his parents sure did. He could easily imagine what the Prophet would say, if it came out. It'd probably have a play on "two-timer"—like "The Boy Who Lived Two Times to Two Time" or something absolutely fucking ridiculous like that, and that was just what he got for fooling around with Harry fucking Potter, wasn't it?
The Prophet would do something like run side-by-side photos of Draco with his baby and Ginny Potter with her baby and it would probably say something like, "The Baby Who Shall Not Be Named" or "The Boy Who Laid." And, on top of everything else, it seemed that the hormones were already fucking with Draco's intelligence because he couldn't even come up with any good Potter puns. He could always come up with good Potter puns.
Eventually, Astoria said quietly, "It's up to you, of course. Do you want to keep it? Not to rush you. Only it takes a week to brew the Abortus Faciens potion and we can't exactly buy it from the apothecary without people noticing."
Draco closed his eyes. A baby. A baby who would be half him and half Harry. A baby who had already beaten the odds by coming into existence. He and Astoria had been trying to figure out how they were going to do it—make a baby. They'd tried having sex once before, but Astoria couldn't stop laughing at Draco's attempts to get himself hard and he'd ended up pinching her breast to bring her back to the task at hand and in retaliation she'd flicked his cock, which was still limp, and Draco had finally sat back on his heels with a raised eyebrow and an amused look and said, "This isn't happening, is it?" She'd covered her mouth with her hand to quell her laughter and said, "I'm sorry—it's like trying to fuck my brother." He'd laid next to her, his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her close.
So. It had looked like the conception of a Malfoy heir was going to involve wanking into a cup.
But now…
Draco turned to look at her. Her kind, brown eyes were sad, like she wished she could protect him from it all. "Yes, I want to keep it," he said. "It's an answer to our problems, isn't it."
"I suppose," she answered, squeezing his hand. "No one need know that I am not pregnant. If pure-blood families are prepared for one contingency, it's hiding away unplanned pregnancies. I would raise the baby as my own, of course."
Draco hummed in an absentminded manner, his mind still whirring with thoughts. "We'll have to go away."
"I don't mind," she replied easily, leaning back against the wall. "Are you going to tell him?"
"No." His voice was sure, forceful.
She didn't say anything to that, even if he thought she might have opinions on the matter; she understood what was at stake.
"We'll have to leave soon," she said, after a while. "You need intensive Healer monitoring, and we can't trust anyone in Britain."
"Fuck," he whispered, and she rested her hand on his stomach.
"For this to happen, you two—" She stopped. "Are you certain it's over between you?"
He nodded.
"Alright."
"Astoria."
"Hmm?"
"How did you know that Charm?"
"Madam Pomfrey taught the girls along with menstruation, protection, and contraception charms in third year. She didn't teach it to you?"
Draco began to laugh. This entire thing was really rather preposterous. "No. They didn't teach the boys anything."
"Are you serious?" Astoria fumed. "What a bunch of patriarchal fucking bullshit!"
"I agree in full," Draco said, still laughing, now doubly amused because Astoria only cursed when she was incredibly angry.
Astoria leaned forward, waved her hand indistinctly at Draco's torso, and declared, "I blame Dumbledore."
Draco barked a laugh, and with a nod, replied, "Yes, I blame him for a lot." But then he reached for the basin as he was overcome with another wave of nausea.
"Master Draco," Jimsy says, snapping him out of his reverie, "Mr Harry Potter is here. Should I be bringing him in?"
Draco blinks. He has a wild, vestigial desire to hide. But there's no one left to hide from—everyone knows, Astoria's dead, the house is empty. Well, there's no one to hide from besides Harry himself.
Life is strange.
"Yes, show him in." There's no sense putting it off. He's had more sincere, momentous conversations today than he has had in the rest of his life combined; he may as well stuff them all in before he retires for the night.
Jimsy leaves, and Draco waves his wand to send the empty tea service to the kitchens. He stands and walks to the bar cabinet, pulling out a dusty bottle of gin.
"Master Draco, Mr Harry Potter," Jimsy announces.
Draco turns around, holding the gin.
Harry has on his determined face. He looks surprisingly calm, though, given the circumstances.
"Draco," he says. Then, after a deep breath, "I'm sorry I left before. I know it was rude to Scorpius and don't worry, I am going to talk to him."
Harry seems anxious, so Draco cuts in. "Hello. Do you still drink gin?"
The question seems to surprise Harry. "Er, no? Not usually."
Draco frowns and looks down at the bottle. "Me neither." It suddenly seems huge, this thing between them. Everything they knew about each other is gone, old, moot.
"I'll take a brandy, or a whisky," Harry says. "If you're offering."
"Why did we always drink gin?" Draco asks, putting it back and selecting a much-less-dusty bottle of Ogden's.
"We were young and wanted to forget our problems?" Harry asks with a touch of grim humour.
Draco turns around, Levitates two tumblers of whisky to the seats, and gestures for Harry to sit.
"I quit drinking for awhile, you know," Harry says out of the blue, and Draco aches with how much he's missed him. Harry's always blurting out personal details and stories and thoughts in a way that Draco never does. It has always made for lively, interesting conversations, and Draco has always latched on to every detail Harry is willing to share.
"You did?" Draco asks with a small laugh as he sits and retrieves his glass from where it's bobbing in the air. "Why?"
Harry shrugs and takes a sip of his whisky. "I'm not even sure anymore how I would've explained it at the time. In retrospect, I think I was trying to exert control over my life. Everything seemed uncontrollable, I guess, and it felt like there wasn't anything I could do. But I could stop drinking." He smiles, and Draco feels flooded with the force of what it's like to be on the receiving end of Harry's smile. "Anyway, it made no difference," Harry continues. "Turns out I never had a drinking problem and needed to take control of my life in other ways that actually mattered."
"If you had never started drinking, I seriously doubt we'd be sitting here right now," Draco observes, raising his glass towards Harry. "I seem to remember finding you thoroughly soaked in Negronis that first time we got together."
Harry smiles, and it looks sad. Draco understands. He doesn't particularly like to think of those years either, of course, especially that first year after the war.
After a moment, Draco says, "You're taking this much better than I would've expected. You haven't so much as raised your voice. You used to have quite the temper."
Harry frowns. "For fuck's sake, Draco. I am not taking it well. I'm angry, upset, confused. I'm reeling. But I'm a fucking grown-up now, I can manage not to yell at you. I have a child. We can't fuck this up—for Scorpius."
Draco blinks. In all his years of remembering Harry, he hasn't spent much time thinking about how he might have changed. "Fair enough," he says. "Well, go ahead. Say what you came to say."
"Don't be dismissive," Harry says, his brow furrowed. "We haven't talked in thirty years and then this gets sprung on me. I think it's reasonable that I want to talk about it."
Draco sighs. "Sorry. I know. I'm—go ahead."
"How could you not tell me?" Harry asks, and he looks hurt. "I thought we were…" He trails off.
"You thought we were what, exactly?" Draco asks, trying to keep his voice calm. "Because I didn't find out about the baby until you'd already broken it off between us."
"I meant—I thought you cared about me!" Harry's forehead is crinkled, and his glasses are different, and he looks so incredibly, unfairly good as a fifty-seven-year-old. He continues, "At least, I cared about you."
Draco wants to yell, "You cared about me just enough to break it off completely!" but he's had so much practice at being a mature adult that he's learned how not to yell when provoked, he's learned to keep his temper with his ageing parents, and with an anxious and moody teenager. He guesses he and Harry have both grown up.
And Harry's right, of course—they had both cared, back then. Draco takes a breath. "I did care about you. You know that."
"And I know you knew how messed up I was from being unwanted as a child. You knew how I felt about my kids. Well, about James anyway. Draco, you must've known how I would have felt about having a child and not knowing it!"
Draco crosses his legs. He honestly doesn't know what to say. He'll either sound patronising or heartless. "I did know that. Which is why I thought you'd do something moronic like insist on co-parenting even though you made it clear you didn't want me anymore, and you would cause your marriage to fail, and it would be stressful for your other kids—your real kids—and it would've splashed us both all over the cover of the Prophet, and you'd have been dragged through the mud, again, which you hate."
Harry's face is broken.
"It's not as if Scorpius was an orphan," Draco continues, trying to keep his voice gentle but knowing that he's ramping up in intensity. "I wanted him. Astoria and I wanted him. He's had two loving and attentive parents, a full life."
"But I didn't know him," Harry says, and he looks like he might cry. Oh, Merlin, Draco can't handle that. If Potter cries after all the rest of the shit that's happened today, Draco will almost certainly cry, and then the two of them will be like a couple of barmy old men at a Hufflepuff reunion.
"I don't know what to say," Draco replies. "I did what I thought I had to do. I thought I was protecting myself and protecting you." He looks at his drink, the way the ice swirls through the liquid. "It would've been a disaster any other way. You must know that."
Harry runs a hand through his hair, which is as messy as ever but now about half grey. It suits him. He looks distinguished. "Life sort of ended up a disaster anyway, didn't it?" Harry says after a moment. "I think what I've learned since then is—life is going to suck in some ways, no matter what."
Draco's mouth tilts up. "Eloquent as ever, Potter."
"No, I'm serious," he says. "Back then, I thought I could hold it all together and everything would go the way it should. I could love Ginny. I could be an Auror. I could be the kind of dad that doesn't exist outside of storybooks. Spoiler alert: I couldn't."
"'Spoiler alert'?"
Harry laughs. "My kids say that a lot. But what I mean to say is, I get why you did it. But I wish you hadn't. I wish you'd given me a chance. I've missed three decades of one of my kid's lives! I—"
"You had three kids of your own," Draco says, a little annoyed. "It's not as if you haven't had the experience."
"It's not about the experience!" Harry cries, now thoroughly flustered. "He's my son! And I—I missed it."
"You have every right to feel betrayed," Draco says wearily. "I betrayed you. Be upset with me. But Scorpius hasn't lacked for parents or for a good life. So it doesn't make sense to agonise over him. He wasn't yours, then. He couldn't be. He can be yours now, if you want. He wants to get to know you now, I think." Draco pauses, not sure how to relate to Scorpius's other father just how incredible Scorpius is. "He's the best person I've ever met."
Harry stares at him until Draco starts to feel uncomfortable. When Draco's finally scrambling to come up with something to say to fill the silence, Harry says, "I've been a shit dad in a lot of ways, you know."
"Oh, Potter," Draco sighs. "Good grief. There is no way that's true."
"Oh, shut up. I was fucking you for my first two years of parenthood, so that was a good start. It took me another two years to realise I had to quit my job, and another two after that for Ginny and I to realise we needed to divorce. I was so fucked up back then. You know that. There were so many things standing in the way of me being the kind of dad I wanted to be. So yeah. Add to all that the fact that I somehow managed to completely miss one kid's existence."
"Have they ever doubted that you love them?" Draco asks, pointlessly, since he knows the answer.
Harry sighs. "No."
"Then I think you did okay, Harry." Draco looks at his drink. "If the experience of parenthood has taught me anything, it's that there's no such thing as a perfect parent."
Harry raises his glass. "Hear, hear."
"I was proud of you, when you quit the Aurors," Draco says, and then kicks himself because he really didn't need to say that. Why did he say that?
Harry looks up in surprise. "Proud?"
"I only mean, I know how hard a decision that was for you." Draco tries not to concentrate on how wrong-footed he feels. "Are you happy now?"
"As happy as anyone," Harry says with a half-smile. "I love running the Quidditch shop. I like going to work. Al works with me, so I get to see him all the time. I love my kids, my nieces and nephews, and grand-nieces and nephews. I babysit them when I can. I see Ron and Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys." He pauses. "I watch James and Teddy's crups when they travel."
Draco can't believe that is the extent of Harry Potter's reflection on his life's happiness.
He knows how Harry feels, though. When he was a teenager, before the war, Draco had imagined so much greatness in his future. He'd imagined power and intrigue and excitement and important children. Real life hasn't matched up in any sort of meaningful way. And what's more, when his life has been exciting, the excitement has been painful, awful. Sometimes he thinks about the way his life has turned out and he can't believe that it hasn't been more.
"Are you happy?" Harry asks.
"Happy as anyone, Potter," he echoes, not sure why his chest feels so tight. "Astoria was the perfect companion for me." He sips his whisky. "We had good times. I miss her."
It's true—Astoria was the perfect companion for him. It didn't matter that they weren't lovers; he pulled the occasional bloke, and he had his hand, and when that wasn't enough, The Liberator from that incredible Italian magical sex shop.
Harry would've been a shit companion. They would've argued and yelled and been in the papers and made their children's childhoods volatile and dramatic. Or at least that's what he has to believe, because thinking they missed out on something more is entirely too painful even to consider.
"I'm sorry about Astoria," Harry says, and he sounds sincere, if a bit uncomfortable. They'd always been uncomfortable when talking about each other's wives.
Draco shrugs. "It is what it is. She was sick for a long time. I'm just glad she's not still suffering."
Draco wants to fidget in the ensuing silence, which makes him think of Scorpius. He'd always wondered, when Scorpius was growing up, whether his tendency to fidget had somehow come from Harry. And yet, here he is, wanting to fidget himself.
"I'm sorry," Draco blurts impulsively. "It would be a lie to say I wish I had made a different choice, given everything. But I am sorry."
Harry stares deep into his eyes for a moment, and then nods. "I—I want to forgive you. I really, really do. I just need some time, okay?"
It hurts more than Draco anticipated not to get immediate absolution, even though he hadn't really been expecting it.
Draco nods. "I want to forgive you, too, you know."
Harry continues looking straight at him.
"For leaving," Draco explains.
Harry turns his gaze to his drink, which is nearly empty now. "It'd be a lie to say I wish I hadn't."
Draco feels like one of those Muggle cartoons where the force of a blow causes the character to double over in pain. Something must show on his face, because Harry is suddenly trying to clarify.
"No, not like, no. Merlin, I wish it hadn't happened that way. But I know the way I felt back then and I know it was the choice I had to make, then. But I missed you constantly; don't think that I—" Harry sighs.
"I get it, Potter," Draco says, and he hears the sharpness in his voice. "I'd never have left, you know. It feels like shit to know that you did, and I could never have done it."
"Draco," Harry says, standing up and Levitating his glass to the tray at the side of the room. "I know you don't have much reason to believe me, but—I won't leave this time. I'm going to be there for Scorpius."
Twentysomething Draco would've said, "For Scorpius. I see how it is." But Draco sees something in Harry's face that hints at possibility, like maybe Harry is saying something more, and Draco's not going to poke him. No one here is blameless, after all. Well, except Scorpius.
"Do you want to go out for coffee soon? Or a drink?" Harry asks, looking a bit awkward.
"Coffee?"
"I just—I think we ought to get to know one another again. We can see how it goes, but just, for Scorpius. For us. Get coffee with me. Tuesday?"
"Alright. I'll owl you." Draco nods and stands to see Harry out. Harry starts to walk out of the room.
"Harry," Draco says, and he turns around. "You're going to love Scorpius. He has your determination. And your big heart. And his magic has a—a certain intense, concentrated quality just like yours does. If he casts a Warming Charm on me, it feels just like you." Fucking hell, why is he saying so much? "Of course, he has better hair."
Harry opens his mouth, but then shuts it and nods with a small smile. "I'll see myself out, okay?"
Draco watches him go, then collapses into his chair. He remembers how he felt cleaning out Astoria's things a few weeks ago—he had felt like he had no idea what he wanted from his life now. He groans, and it turns into an incredulous laugh. Well, at least it's clear now what he wants.
He hears Astoria's teasing voice in his ear saying, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Chapter Three
Scorpius stands on the pavement shading his eyes from the sun, staring up at the shop's sign. "Quality Quidditch Supplies," it reads, and then in smaller letters, "H.J. and A.S. Potter, Proprietors."
He's walked past this shop hundreds of times, but he's never been one for Quidditch, and he's certainly never scrutinised the signage before. It's a nice sign, made of thick wood and carefully painted with bright magical paint that is visible from any angle and in any light.
He reaches into his robe pocket and fiddles with a piece of string. Chasers pass the Quaffle and try to avoid the Bludgers, which are launched with bats by the Beaters. The Quaffles go through the hoops not the Bludgers, Chasers pass the Quaffle…
The door to the shop opens with a tinkling noise. A witch and a child come out holding hands; the child is carrying a long, wrapped parcel—"Can we open it, Mum? I want to see it. Can I ride it home?" "Certainly not, we're taking the Floo just like earlier. We can unwrap it at home." "Can I just take the end of the paper off, then, please Mum?"
Scorpius watches them with an amused smile. It must be a pretty nice life for Harry, to make children (and adults) happy like that all the time. He ought to go in, he tells himself; he looks like a right tit standing on the pavement like this.
He grabs the door before it can settle shut and walks inside. Scorpius's immediate impression of the shop is one of cosiness. There are shelves stocked with Quidditch apparel of every type: kits, shirts with professional players' names on them, athletic tops and bottoms with every team insignia, Hogwarts house team clothes, shirts emblazoned with the English national team logo. One whole wall is stacked with brooms of every size, colour, and purpose: Racing Brooms, Quidditch League Certified Brooms, Cross Country Brooms, Commuter Brooms, Training Brooms, Toy Brooms. The back wall is covered with Quidditch balls in every colour and pattern imaginable—Scorpius even sees a set of sparkling, rainbow Quaffles—full-size posters of famous professional Quidditch players (including one of James Potter giving saucy winks to everyone who walks past), and an enormous display of shoes labelled "Broom-Certified Footwear - Compatible with Nimbus Brooms!" All along the ceiling, held in by some sort of invisible magical barrier, thousands of Snitches flit merrily around. Most of them are gold, but Harry and Albus stock every colour imaginable. The tiny wings shimmer as they soar about, some of them zooming here and there while others flutter about languidly.
Scorpius breaks into an awed smile. The place is incredible, and the magic settling on his skin feels strangely and comfortingly familiar.
"Scorpius!"
Harry Potter, Mr Potter, Harry, his father—Merlin, what is he supposed to call this man?—is waving from behind a till.
"You made it!"
Scorpius smiles, takes a deep breath to calm his nerves and hammering heart, and walks towards the till. "Hello," he says, feeling awkward. "I love your shop!"
Harry answers with a wide, genuine smile. "Thanks! I love the shop, too. You haven't been in before?"
Scorpius's attention is drawn to a corner of the shop that's dedicated to children's things, including a toy Quidditch pitch with players that fly around following voice commands, a mobile that hangs magically above a child's bed with dreamy little Quidditch players on brooms flying in slow circles, a small Quidditch kit for dress-up, toy brooms that hover just off the ground, and stuffed Bludgers.
"I haven't, no," Scorpius says, looking back and smiling. "I've never been very interested in sport."
"Really?" Harry asks with a laugh. "With your dad, I'd've expected you to have been out flying all the time."
Something in Harry's assumption makes Scorpius's heart clench. "Well, no. Dad doesn't fly anymore. I'm not sure I've ever seen him fly."
Harry's happy face shutters a fraction. "Ah," he says, clearly trying to smooth over the awkwardness. "Well, Puddlemere games on the wireless, then, of course."
"Dad's not really into Quidditch," Scorpius says.
Harry puts down the quill he's been holding. "Right. Well, people change. I suppose." He smiles, and this time it's not genuine—it's pained.
"True. He played at school, right? You too?"
"Yeah. We were Seekers for opposing teams," Harry says, then grimaces. "That sounded like a bad metaphor, but it wasn't. We were pretty intensely competitive, back then."
Scorpius tries to smile, but he worries it looks sad.
"Of course," Harry continues, and Scorpius wonders if he inherited his desire to babble during awkward moments from this man, "I'm not the famous one of the family. James is still one of the star players for the Montrose Magpies, and Ginny was Chaser for the Harpies." He points, and Scorpius follows his finger to a set of framed shirts on the wall; one reads "J. POTTER" with a large 2 on a black and white top and the other reads "G. POTTER" in gold with a 13 on a dark green top. "Although," Harry continues, sounding more awkward by the moment, "she hasn't been Ginny Potter for a long time."
"Still family, though," Scorpius says, hoping that's a reassuring and not a strange thing to say.
Harry smiles. "Funny how that works, isn't it?"
For a minute a looming silence gathers and Scorpius feels like he needs to say something, but he has no idea what. He's met this man twice in his life and knows nothing about him. Well, that's not true, he knows plenty about him, but nothing real. He doesn't know how he takes his tea, or what kind of jam he likes, or what kinds of books he reads.
A few customers walk past, talking and laughing, and Scorpius eventually says, "So. You like running the shop?"
"I love it!" Harry says. "Has your dad—" He pauses, runs a hand through his greying hair. "It's so strange to talk about that time. I could never talk about it to anyone, and now I'm saying it out loud to you and it's—it's just odd. That's my problem, though. Not yours. Er. What I meant to say was, did your dad mention to you about how he was always trying to get me to quit the Aurors?"
Scorpius reaches out to touch a display of broom stickers. One says "RESTING WITCH FACE." The one next to it says, "HUFFLEBUFF" with a flexing badger. Scorpius takes a breath. "He hasn't talked to me about any of it, much. And not about that."
"Oh," Harry says, leaning on the counter. "Well, I hated being an Auror, but I was too young and too stupid to realise that. Your dad realised, though. He was always trying to tell me to quit. When I finally did, a long time had passed, but I still felt like—I'm not sure exactly—like it might not have happened if it hadn't been for Draco."
Scorpius doesn't know what to do with that. He smiles. "My dad's really good at helping people realise what they want. When I was at Beauxbatons, I went through a phase of saying I was going to become a Healer. He would've supported me, I know, but he listened and eventually made me realise that I was saying it for the wrong reasons." Scorpius feels exposed, with Harry watching him so intently, but he keeps talking. "He sees through bullshit."
Harry laughs, and the sound fills the shop. "Yes," Harry says. "He certainly does. Come with me, I'll show you the back."
Harry steps from behind the counter and Scorpius tries not to be completely obvious about the fact that he's drinking in the sight of him. Harry looks like what Scorpius imagined from his photos—they're about the same height, Harry is broader than Draco or Scorpius but has the kind of soft middle that indicates a lifetime spent enjoying food and not being obsessed with fitness, his hair is more than half grey and just as wild as in his younger photos. He looks comfortable in his body and in his life, and Scorpius suddenly wants to know everything about him.
As Scorpius follows Harry towards the back room, he blurts, "What's your favourite film?"
Harry turns around, a surprised look on his face. "Hmmm," he ponders, turning away. "Die Hard."
"I don't know that one," Scorpius says.
Harry turns around, smiling as he walks past a display of Quidditch-themed Christmas ornaments, "We can watch it someday. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker."
Scorpius chuckles. "Er, okay?"
Harry laughs. "Albus?" he calls, walking into the back room. All available surfaces are covered with broken items, boxes, and giant books that seem to track inventory.
Albus wanders into the back room through a door that leads into an alleyway. He's reading a comic book, and when he looks up, he smiles. "Hey Scorp!"
"Were you smoking?" Harry asks, with a note of restrained accusation in his voice.
Albus's eyes flit to the side and up, and Scorpius has to laugh at his flagrant shiftiness.
Harry sighs, mumbles something under his breath that Scorpius can't make out, and then says, "You're an adult. I'm keeping my mouth shut."
"You already opened your mouth," Albus whispers at Harry, then grins at Scorpius. It feels strange. It feels like camaraderie.
"Can you go work in front for a bit while I show Scorpius around?" Harry asks. "Do you need a Nolite Odor Fumus?"
Albus groans. "No, Dad. I might not be responsible enough to stop smoking, but I am at least responsible enough to cast a Charm."
Harry stares with loving annoyance at his son as Albus throws the comic book onto the table and walks into the front of the shop.
As Albus passes Scorpius, he whispers loudly, "Tell him to see your dad again!" and then he's gone. He doesn't, Scorpius notices, smell like smoke.
Harry sighs. "I'm sorry about Albus. If he's making you uncomfortable. My kids—" he pauses imperceptibly like maybe he should correct himself to specify he's talking about his children that aren't Scorpius, but he decides to just keep talking, "they aren't subtle. Ever. About anything."
Scorpius laughs. "I like it. My parents were always pretty open with me, but my grandparents? Geez. It is impossible to know what they are thinking. Anyway, the lack of subtlety is nice."
Harry barks a laugh. "I imagine that's true. What would your dad do if you showed up having clearly just been smoking?"
"Blood magic."
Harry's eyes widen, his lips curl up. It's clear he's not sure whether it's a joke.
"No, I mean," Scorpius rushes to explain, "I actually heard him talk once about how he felt bad for Muggles with addictions because they don't have magic to help them trick their brains. And he said that he knew that there was a way to use blood magic to change the way one's brain responds to the problematic stimuli."
Harry is still staring, but now his eyes are twinkling and his mouth is agape.
"So really, I think he would actually do blood magic. But it would be like, you know, er, benign blood magic."
Harry presses his lips together, quelling a smile. "Your dad would probably accuse me of being an overly permissive parent."
Scorpius opens his mouth to say something, but he has no idea what to say because that's absolutely true.
"He'd be wrong, of course," Harry says, smiling. "I believe my children are whole, autonomous humans and should be treated as such." He looks towards the front room and winces. "Which means they are free to destroy their own bodies."
Scorpius laughs. He wants to mention the new magical adaptation of Muggle e-cigarettes that he'd recently read about in Scientific Magician (the idea is that a combination of Potions and Charms can render the e-liquid completely innocuous while still retaining the sensation of a nicotine hit), but Scorpius knows he sometimes talks too much and that it can create awkward situations. He has to save his nerdy enthusiasm for people who know him well.
Harry walks out of the cluttered workspace and through the back door. Scorpius follows, and to his surprise, when he crosses the threshold the dingy alleyway rushes about twelve metres away from the shop, revealing magical space with a pleasant garden. Harry doesn't blink as the space changes—he only waves his wand to Vanish the cigarette butt he finds on the path—but Scorpius looks around in awe.
There are plants all around, mostly shrubs and grasses, but a few flowers here and there. There's a fire pit in the far corner surrounded with cosy-looking logs for seating, and, on the other side of the path, a long, wooden table that could probably seat twenty people. The table is studded with wide pillar candles with wax dripping down the edges. Against the wall of the shop is what looks to be a bar, and a sign on the wall above it reads, "Potter's Garden." A smaller sign underneath it, which hangs crooked, reads, "We're in the garden drinking wine."
It's lovely and homey and so unlike his own home and his own work, and Scorpius smiles. "This is incredible."
"Oh, thanks," Harry says. "Getting this garden set up was a fun project after I bought the shop. That was years ago, now." He sits at the end of the table and gestures for Scorpius to join him.
After Scorpius sits and shoots Harry an awkward smile, Harry sighs. "Thanks for coming."
"Of course!" Scorpius reassures. "I wanted to."
Harry looks right at him, and it's disconcerting. It's very unMalfoyish. "I'm so sorry," Harry says. "That I wasn't there. That I didn't know about you. That you didn't know me."
Scorpius hadn't been expecting that. "It's not your fault," he says, feeling confused. "You didn't know."
"I know it's not my fault," Harry says. "But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I'm so sorry I missed it. I'm so sorry we didn't know each other. I'm sure you know that I didn't know my parents growing up, and I—I wanted to know them more than anything. I swore I'd be there for my children. I didn't—. What I'm trying to say is, I would've. I would've been there, if I'd known. And I feel—cheated? No. Er, like I missed out. Like we missed out."
Scorpius wonders what it would've been like, to have this man in his life earlier. It's not something he's really thought about—that he'd missed out—he's only really thought about the truth, the duplicity, what it means now. How would he have reacted if he'd found out earlier? Would he have freaked out? Would it have caused an identity crisis? How would it feel to know your existence ruined marriages?—because, if he had known about Harry, marriages would definitely have been ruined. He'll never know. He only knows he's dealing with it pretty well now.
"You're clearly an amazing father," Scorpius says, wanting to offer solace. "I don't—I have an amazing father. Different, granted. But still amazing. I had an amazing mum, too. I—" He has no idea how to say what he's saying, or even what he's trying to say. "I'm happy to know you. But maybe we're meant to be together now, you know? It would've been painful for you and my dad, when I was little. It would've been too much."
Harry smiles wistfully. "I'm really sorry about your mum."
"Thanks," Scorpius answers, well-practiced these days in accepting condolences.
"I never met her, but I knew your dad then—fuck, this is awkward. I could tell she was a good friend to him. Supportive."
Scorpius smiles. "She was the best," he says, and then stops talking because he can feel tears rallying for a cry and his throat constricting.
Harry nods and reaches across the table to pat Scorpius's hand. It's awkward and makes Scorpius think it must be hard for Harry not to throw all of his standard parenting at Scorpius. But he can't, really—they're strangers.
"Can I ask you something?" Scorpius ventures.
"Of course."
"Did you love him?"
Harry smiles with raised eyebrows, purses his lips together, and lets out a puff of air. "Yes and no? Honestly, I don't know how to answer that. My first reaction is to say yes, but that doesn't feel entirely right. Or at least it feels like not the whole story. I—I'm not sure I knew how to love myself, back then."
Scorpius looks down at his hand, which is tracing a groove in the wooden tabletop. He isn't sure what kind of answer he expected. He just—he wants for his dad to have had happiness, love, something. Something more.
"At the time," Harry continues, "I think I would've said that I loved Draco and Ginny both. And there's truth to that. Ginny was tangible support and stability and family and laughter. Draco—your dad—was, I don't know. Realness. Authenticity. Lack of expectations. I don't know. We were always intense together. But I—I'm not sure you can understand, my other kids never do—I was so messed up after the war. I don't know if I really could love anyone, then. It wasn't a fast recovery for me."
"I don't think it was for my dad, either."
Harry stares right at him. "No. It wasn't. Well, not when I knew him, anyway."
Scorpius nods, thinking of his father's uncertainty about his reputation, the ways he'd worked to prove himself, thrown himself into causes, and dealt stoically with continued hostility. "They're not wrong," Draco had once said quietly to twelve-year-old Scorpius, who had been horrified after someone spit at Draco, hollering "Death Eater!" on the street.
"I saw your dad for coffee the other day," Harry says.
Scorpius hadn't known that. It had been about two weeks since the momentous lunch. "Oh?"
"It's a little hard to know how we're supposed to act around each other now. We each have a lot to forgive."
Scorpius smiles sadly. "I can imagine."
"It's frustrating, in a way. It's hard to trust each other. But he seems like he's doing well, considering everything that's happened lately. It's strange how easy it is to reconnect with someone you knew in childhood. I don't have to explain anything."
Scorpius laughs. "That's true. When I get together with friends from Beauxbatons or Daisy Parkinson, it's always like no time has passed. That feeling never seems to come from friends I've met later." Scorpius tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear. "Does he seem the same?"
Harry smiles. "No. But in a good way. Neither of us is—turbulent anymore. I mean, neither of us will ever be what you'd call serene. But we've grown up. He's still Draco, though." Harry laughs. "That made no sense."
Scorpius shakes his head. "No—it does."
"You know," Harry says, "every Thursday my kids come for family dinner night. Well, almost always James and Teddy and Albus. Lily, if she's in the country. Sometimes other family—Ron and Hermione, or a niece or nephew. You—you and your dad—are always welcome."
Scorpius smiles in a you-don't-have-to-do-that way.
"No, really," Harry says, and something in his eyes convinces Scorpius he's being completely truthful. "I want you to come. My kids want you to come. We're all—well, adjusting. But we would love it if you would come."
"Alright, I'll think about it," Scorpius says.
"I'll make you your favourite pudding," Harry offers with a tempting, arm-twisting voice. "What is it?"
"Treacle tart," Scorpius informs with a smile.
Harry's mouth opens, then closes. "Me too." He smiles. "Want a game of Exploding Snap? James came up with a new set of rules that make it more challenging."
Scorpius laughs. "Er, alright," he says, and Harry Summons the cards to the table.
When he gets home hours later, Scorpius's head is swimming with the day; he grabs Draco's diary and flops onto his sofa. He's avoided looking for this particular entry before, but right now he just wants to understand. His birthday is the seventh of October, which puts forty weeks earlier at right around the new year. He flips the pages manually, skimming until he finds what he's looking for.
1 January 2006. Saw H. for the New Year after going to a horrid party at the Oakby estate. I was feeling anxious from the party, and then he was in bed reading in flannel pyjamas and—he's like a balm. I had a momentary breakdown about the heir debacle…
Draco landed in the back garden and reached up to unfasten the fussy clasp of his dress robes as he walked through the door.
"Harry?" he called, pulling off the midnight blue robes and throwing them onto a bench near the door. The New Year's party had been mind-numbingly posh. Boring. He'd stood there with Astoria, chatting with diplomats, laughing at puns, his skin itching with the need to be somewhere else.
"Harry!" he yelled, louder.
"I'm upstairs!" came a faint reply.
Draco kicked off his shoes, then remembered to grab the bottle of champagne and glasses that he'd swiped from the party and stowed in his robe pocket under a Cushioning Charm. He dangled the glasses upside down from his right fingers, tucked the bottle under his arm, and ran upstairs.
The light was on in the bedroom. Their bedroom, really. No one else ever came to this house, though everyone knew Grimmauld Place belonged to Harry. Draco crossed the landing in three long strides and stopped at the door.
Harry was on the bed, cross-legged in a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms and a white t-shirt, reading a book. He looked up. "Oh good, you're here. Happy New Year." His smile was crooked and Draco felt his tension start to slip away. "I was starting to fall asleep."
Draco pulled his wand and Levitated the champagne and glasses to the bed. "I couldn't get away any earlier, but I did steal us some very nice champagne."
Harry laughed. "Do you even like champagne?"
"No," Draco answered, reaching up to unbutton his ruffled dress shirt and not missing the way Harry's eyes tracked the movement. "What are you reading?"
Harry turned his hand to reveal the cover. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It's quite shit, actually, but I can't stop reading it."
"Well, stop," Draco said with a smirk, and Harry put the book on the table, smiled, and leaned back on strong arms. Draco felt heat gathering in his belly. Merlin, Draco wanted everything about him. When had he got in so deep?
Draco reached down to begin the tortuous process of unfastening his traditional wizarding trousers. "Why does the girl have a dragon tattoo? If anyone has a dragon tattoo, it should be me."
Harry smiled. "You would look fucking hot with a dragon tattoo."
"Of course I would," Draco said, finally getting through the hooks and ties and letting his trousers pool around his feet.
"What kind of dragon would you get?" Harry asked, flopping back on the pillows.
"Hebridean Black," Draco answered easily, stepping out of his trousers and kneeling on the bed in his boxers and socks.
Harry frowned, and he looked adorable. Draco crawled towards him and pressed a kiss to his cheek, relishing the scruffy stubble.
"Aren't Hebridean Blacks famous for eating deer? Is this some kind of tortured metaphor?"
Draco laughed, letting his lips brush Harry's ear as he said, "Don't worry. I'm not going to eat you, Harry."
"Aren't you?" Harry said suggestively.
Draco groaned, turning onto his back and flopping next to Harry, tangling his left leg over Harry's. "I hope you never have to try those pickup lines on anyone else. You're a disaster."
Harry laughed, reaching across to thread his fingers through Draco's hair. "How was the party?"
"Fucking unbearable," Draco said, relishing the feel of Harry's fingers on his scalp, the way Harry's touch made tingles blossom down his spine. "Lucius started asking veiled, invasive questions about my sex life when I didn't give a satisfactory answer to the question 'When will we have an heir.' Astoria finds this sort of play-acting much easier than I do, so while she is lovely, she's no solace at an event like this. Gwenllian Trevarthen politely insulted me, and none of my friends were there."
Harry groaned. "That sounds like my definition of hell."
"See, you would be a good date to something like that. Because you would indulge my whinging and whinge right back."
"I would definitely whinge," Harry said, his hand dropping to Draco's arm.
"Exactly," Draco continued, angling his body towards Harry's. "Everyone else seems to expect me to act like a proper adult. At least you understand how difficult it is, what with the way these cretins expect me to make small talk and to fertilise eggs on demand."
"On demand?" Harry asked, amused.
"You know," Draco said, "I wouldn't put it past them to try to have some sort of traditional magical sex ritual where they parade me out naked and have Astoria on a bed on a dais, covered in fucking red glitter or something. I think that's where this is headed. It's the only logical outcome of their twisted views."
"Hey Draco," Harry whispered, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. "Can we stop talking about you fucking your wife?"
"Well that's the funniest part of it," Draco continued, well and truly on a rant now. "If they paraded me out there, it would be a mighty disappointing performance for those gathered round, ready to cast fucking Fertilitatis Charms at us and to chant to invoke the ancient power of Priapus."
"Draco."
"Because as you well know, Priapus would have a difficult task with me. I mean, unless they put you naked on the dais. I would have no trouble then. But you wouldn't want to be naked on a dais, would you?"
"Draco, shut up." Harry pressed his lips to Draco's, effectively staunching the flow of pent-up anxiety. "Don't worry about any of them. They don't care about what's best for you. I'll even help you come up with a plan for the, er, heir-making, if you want. But not right now."
"I can't help the fact that I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with any kind of sex act that would be approved of by my parents or the Church."
Harry laughed and reached behind his neck to pull off his shirt, which knocked his glasses askew.
Draco reached forward and pulled the glasses off Harry's face, stretching behind himself to put them on the table. "Everything okay at your house?" Draco asked, quietly. They didn't talk much about Harry's family—it was too fraught. But Ginny was about seven months pregnant, and James was a wild toddler, and Draco knew that Harry was overwhelmed. And fuck it all to hell, Draco cared.
"Yeah," Harry answered, not going into detail. "I'm tired. I missed you."
"Good," Draco said, rolling on top of Harry and leaning in for an unhurried kiss that spread warmth through his body like a spring thaw. He relished the feel of Harry's chest firm against his, the scratch of their cheeks, the promise in the way Harry linked his foot over the back of Draco's knee. He could forget about everything else, because all that mattered was this.
"What do you want?" Draco whispered against Harry's ear, feeling the way that Harry's body responded to his words and drinking in Harry's reciprocal arousal.
Harry moaned, leaning his head back against the pillows and exposing his neck, to which Draco immediately moved his mouth. "No one ever asks me what I want," Harry whispered.
"I'm asking," Draco said, pressing his hips forward, pleasure swirling through his body, his worries slipping away.
"I want, ahhh," Harry broke off on a moan. "Can I fuck you this time?"
Draco grinned. "Whatever you want, Harry."
Scorpius is supposed to be working. He's sat at his table surrounded with books on the rise of Latin incantations in Western magical traditions, trying to determine when Ilvermorny's pedagogy diverged from the Latin-based Hogwarts style to embrace a vernacular incantation style, but all he can think about is the Potters.
The week before, a couple weeks after he'd first visited Harry's shop, he'd gone to Thursday Family Dinner at Harry's house, where he'd laughed with Albus, James, and Teddy—Merlin, he has brothers—and told Hermione Granger—the Hermione Granger!—about his research project. James and Teddy had brought their crups through the Floo, which Scorpius hadn't even realised was possible, and which was quite a sight to behold. It had all been a bit awkward, and also lovely.
He'd also gone flying with Harry and Albus. Flying! He'd not flown since mandatory lessons at Beauxbatons! But Harry and Albus had been itching for a fly and they were so enthusiastic that, after they sent him a total of five owls, Scorpius had agreed.
He'd asked his dad to come with him to both events, but Draco said he wasn't ready, to give him time. He said that he'd been out with Harry a few times and that was easier than the whole family, for now.
Scorpius isn't so sure. His dad had that and-I-won't-hear-another-word-on-the-matter look, but to Scorpius he seemed vulnerable. Draco doesn't usually seem vulnerable, he always seems poised and in control and authoritative. Now Scorpius wonders if it's always been an act, as if the reveal of the news about Harry has torn away Draco's armour. Or something. Scorpius also suspects he may be overthinking it, or being overly poetic.
He can't believe he'd actually enjoyed himself flying. They'd gone to a field near Ron and Hermione's house. Harry had gifted Scorpius a beginner adult broom, equipped with all the latest safety and stabilisation Charms. When Harry handed it to him, he said, "When you touch it, it will register your magical signature and hereafter be attuned to you, in particular. If you have a strong intention, it may even adjust its appearance." Scorpius had smiled, closed his eyes to visualise his magical core (the way Draco had taught him long ago, for tasks that require magical individuality), and then unwrapped the broom. When he touched it, the handle lengthened, the stirrups moved down, and it turned a brilliant purple. "Whoa!" Albus cried. "I've never seen one change colour." Scorpius smiled at the broom. "I've always liked purple." Harry had clapped him on the back, and then they'd flown for over an hour. It had felt warm, fun, loving.
He can't remember the last time he did something like that just for fun. Sometimes it's hard to remember that being a grown-up doesn't mean he can't just do things on a whim, for fun.
A photo on the mantel catches his eye and he abandons the pretence of work, crossing the room and picking up the frame. It's a photo of him and Astoria; he must be about five. Astoria is sitting on a bench in a garden, her arm around Scorpius, who hides his face in her armpit, then turns around, smiles, sticks his tongue out. Then they both laugh, Astoria throwing her head back, her face crinkled with fondness and enjoyment, and then it loops back to armpit-hiding. Scorpius's hair sticks up at his cowlick—this was long before he'd learned Sternuntur Capillum—and his cheeks have just the tiniest lingering bit of baby chub. His mum looks happy, so happy to be with him, and Scorpius has to blink his eyes and put down the frame.
He misses his mum.
It's been a few months, and he's surprised how clearly he still hears her voice in his head, saying the things she would've said. He wonders if it will ever stop. He doesn't want it to; it's like she's still with him in the ways that matter. It's not what he thought people meant, when they always said, "They live on in you." He thought that was pabulum meant to do nothing but offer meaningless reassurance and the vague promise of memories. But it isn't that. He actually hears her voice.
And he feels guilty. He worries that she would feel like he's trying to replace her, which he isn't. He doesn't think he is. Harry is nothing like his mum, could never be anything like his mum. But should he even want another parental figure right now? Isn't it too soon? Isn't it disrespectful, or something?
It's strange to be slowly enveloped into the trust of a different family. He hasn't thought much, over the years, of the ways in which he's been privy to the Malfoy and Greengrass secrets. Like the way that Lucius's deterioration before his death was never discussed with non-family, or the way that the details about the Greengrass blood curse are thoroughly discussed, but only with the immediate family. That was just life, not something to consider.
But now he's slowly learning not only more secrets about his own family—and it's wild that Draco's pregnancy, that he was one of those secrets for so many years!—but also the Potters'. He knows that Harry is beside himself with worry about Lily's safety on the dragon reserve, but feels like he can't talk to her about it because she thinks he coddles her. He knows that Harry really wants grandchildren, even though he doesn't nag his kids about it. After three drinks at the bar a couple nights ago, Albus had disclosed that he'd always thought of Teddy as a brother and had always felt ignored because of middle-child insecurities, and that when Teddy and James had married he felt like his two brothers were abandoning him. "It's stupid!" he'd said. "And also, Teddy and James aren't actually brothers, you know. Just for the record." And Scorpius had laughed and Albus seemed to relish the ability to confide in someone. It was nice.
And it is also causing him a bit of anxiety.
Tap, tap, tap.
Scorpius looks up from his hand-wringing to see an unknown owl pecking at the window. Strange. He doesn't usually get unknown owls. His father's eagle owl, Treningham, is the only frequent visitor, and lately he's developed a rapport with Harry's small barn owl, The Angry Inch, and Albus's long-eared, Hooter.
He walks to the window and raises the sash. The prim, grey little owl holds out his foot efficiently, and flies away before Scorpius can even offer it one of the fancy owl treats he keeps nearby.
The return address reads Hornebolt and Dagworth, MLLPs. Scorpius turns the letter over in his hands, wondering why he's being contacted by the Malfoy family solicitors. He realises with a jolt that the letter is brimming with his mother's magic; he can feel it.
He collapses on the nearest chair—the uncomfortable straight-backed thing he took from the Manor to avoid having to buy one—because he can't make his legs carry him to the sofa. He waves his wand to open the envelope, not wanting to tear it.
Draco was still sulking.
Astoria had tried to cheer him up after supper (they were finalising the small portion of the wedding plans they'd been given any say over), but he'd sulked one sulk too many and she'd left for her house ("Where no one looks like a parody of despair").
Draco figured that, if he was going to sulk, he may as well do the thing properly. There was no parody here. There was only a pair of joggers, a bottle of wine, and a raunchy paperback.
He was glad his parents were not in town—it was surely not the Manor aesthetic they had so carefully cultivated.
The true measure of his doldrums was that he couldn't even keep his mind on Ronaldo the Seer, who was about to use his Inner Eye to spy on the love affair of Dionisio, the famous Quidditch Seeker, and Teodoro, the wandmaker's apprentice.
He couldn't believe he'd allowed himself to get so wrapped up in Harry. Of course Harry had called it off—he was a father now. Draco had always known this thing between them couldn't last. He would be marrying Astoria in a few short months. So it wasn't a surprise. And yet...
He opened the book, but the words swam on the page. He was numb to even the prospect of Ronaldo watching the sexual escapades of Dionisio and Teodoro. Fucking Potter.
A chiming sound interrupted his moping. Someone had Apparated to the front gate. Fucking hell, he couldn't even mope without interruption. It was Neeny's day off, and his parents were on a tour of magical places in Japan.
He glanced down at his attire. He looked like a slob, but he couldn't be arsed with changing. It would serve whoever was showing up unannounced after supper right. Yes, unannounced visitor, this was what the Malfoy name had been reduced to: Muggle loungewear.
He set down the paperback (Ronaldo blinked up at him with a suggestive leer), picked up his wand, and Apparated to the front gate.
When he landed, he thought for a moment he was having a vision. But no, it was Harry.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
Harry was dressed up. Well, dressed up by his standards: he was wearing trousers that weren't jeans.
"I need to talk to you," Harry said, and he sounded desperate.
Draco crossed his arms over his flimsy t-shirt; he felt even less appropriately dressed now that he was contrasted with Harry, of all people, wearing moderately nice clothes. "We're not doing this."
"You haven't even heard what I have to say."
"I'm not going to just wait around so you can come fuck me when your wife isn't feeling randy."
Harry looked like Draco just slapped him. "It is not like that." Harry stopped, looking like he was trying to figure out how to say something. "I miss you."
Draco had no words. How could you find words to say "I miss you too, you giant, fucking wanker, and I want to smell your hair and also punch you in the gut"?
"Look, can we go and talk somewhere?" Harry finally said.
Draco sighed. He might as well relent—it was obvious he wasn't actually going to send Harry away, even if that fact exacerbated his usual self-loathing.
"You can come inside. No one's here." Draco waved his hand to open the gate, and Harry stepped through awkwardly.
"Does that explain your, er, attire?" Harry asked.
Draco wanted to hate him for joking at a time like this, he really, really did, but he also couldn't help but find Harry somewhat amusing.
"I'm still upset with you, Potter. You ought not to insult my appearance."
Harry laughed. "I'm not insulting. You look—fuck, you look fit."
Draco needed to ignore that, so he turned to contemplate the walk to the house. It was a long walk, and it would be a long, awkward walk with Harry here. But Harry couldn't Apparate into the Manor because the wards only allowed family to Apparate. Which meant the choice was between a long walk with uncomfortable conversation or touching him to Side-Along.
But Draco had long ago come to terms with his worrisome desire to touch Potter. He grabbed Harry's wrist and, with no additional warning, Apparated them to the drawing room. The guest drawing room, which did not have any racy paperbacks strewn around. At least Draco was pretty sure there weren't any racy paperbacks in there.
He let go of Harry and walked directly to the bar cabinet to pull out a bottle of gin. He sure as fuck wasn't having this conversation sober. "I'm having gin and tonic. I will begrudgingly make you one if you want it."
Harry sighed with a chuckle. "Er, since you offered so generously, sure."
Draco glugged some gin imprecisely into two glasses and topped them off with tonic. He waved his wand at a lime, splitting it into slices, and Levitated two to his glass. Harry wasn't getting a fucking lime.
He grabbed the glasses and walked to Harry, thrusting the limeless one out to him.
Harry took the drink. "So you're pretty mad."
"I'm not mad," Draco claimed. "Tell me why you're here. Has something changed since last time I saw you?" He raised one finger to his mouth and mocked, "Did you get a Time Turner and stop the Chosen Conception so that you no longer have to worry about being the perfect father?"
A tiny crease appeared between Harry's eyebrows. Good, Draco had rattled him.
"Are you going to let me talk? Or are you just going to keep being a twat?"
Draco took a sip of his drink and raised his eyebrows for Potter to go ahead.
"No, nothing has changed. But." Potter sighed and sat down on the sofa, staring at his drink. When he looked up, his eyes went straight to Draco's. "I miss you, Draco. I have no idea how to do all of this. James is the most adorable thing I've ever seen in my life. He's literally perfect. I'm going to fuck him up. He's perfect, and I am not, and I'm going to fuck him up."
Draco could feel the anger and outrage seeping out of his body and he tried to grasp at it. Part of him wanted to stay angry.
"I still feel like we shouldn't be together. I feel like my parents are staring down judging me. I feel ungrateful, like I'm throwing away this second chance at life I've been given after I actually died. I feel like who am I to not be satisfied? I feel like my dad would've given anything to have this, and I am, what, just an arsehole?"
Harry was about to cry. Fuck.
"Yes," Draco said, but his voice was gentle. "You're just an arsehole."
Harry laugh-sobbed and cracked a watery smile. "I feel like Remus is going to come back as a ghost and slap me, too. And I feel like my mum would turn her back and say I'm a disappointment. Merlin, Draco, I just—I don't know what to do. I can't walk away from it all. I don't have a fucking choice! I've got Auror training—you know the certification exams are in just a couple months—and Ginny is all wrapped up in the baby, and I love James, I love them, but I just. I thought that—I don't know what I thought."
And that was the thing, wasn't it: Harry was the only person Draco knew who really seemed to understand the lack of choice. Even Pansy and Greg didn't understand why Draco couldn't just refuse to marry Astoria. But they didn't understand, because what would he do then? Come out as gay? That was absolutely laughable. He was already completely despised by everyone. End the Malfoy lineage after thirty-two generations? He couldn't even imagine what would happen.
Draco stared at Harry's sad eyes. "You're allowed to love James and still think the whole thing is a bunch of bullshit."
"I do love James," Harry said, taking a sip of his drink.
"I know." Draco watched the bubbles in his drink.
For a moment, they were silent. Then Harry spoke again, staring straight at him. "I feel real when I'm with you."
"Fuck, Harry," Draco said. The last of his defences crumbled as he set down his drink with a shaking hand and crossed quickly to the sofa. He grabbed Harry's face, which looked momentarily surprised before Harry reached up to pull Draco down. Draco sank against Harry and pressed their lips together.
Harry's lips were hot and his hair smelled like Harry and Draco's whole body seemed to wake up all at once, like he'd just chugged ten cups of coffee or taken some of Theo's herbal hybrids—he could feel his magic welling up in his fingertips. He pulled back, his face tingling, the faintest hint of a smile on his face.
"You fucking prat," Draco whispered. "I missed you so fucking much. I thought it was over."
Harry groaned and reached for Draco's back, pulling him closer. "I can't do it without you."
Draco laughed, and he was surprised at how hopeful it sounded. "Can't do what without me? Fuck a man? I'm sure there are others who would be willing."
Harry tipped his head back and wiggled so their bodies were closer to horizontal. "It's not just the sex, you doofus."
"Sure," Draco said with a teasing voice, leaning in to suck on Harry's neck. It was scratchy and Draco straightened his knees to lower himself onto Harry. Fuck, Harry felt good.
"I don't know how to do it, either," Draco whispered in Harry's ear, the admission feeling like a stab of pain and a catharsis all at once. "Astoria told me I looked like a parody of despair."
Harry laughed, grabbing Draco's arse and pulling their bodies closer together. Draco could feel Harry's erection through their clothes and felt dizzy with arousal. "Fuck," Draco hissed, reaching between them to unfasten Harry's trousers. Harry moaned when Draco's fingers found his cock, and then Harry was pulling Draco's joggers down over his arse, his fingers greedily touching Draco's skin. Draco braced his arms to push up and pull the joggers over from where they were snagged on his cock then pressed back down, grabbing both their cocks in his shaky hand. Harry managed to pull out Draco's wand and spell some lube onto Draco's hand. It was sloppy—probably the sloppiest they'd ever been together—but Draco couldn't remember ever feeling so good. Harry was groaning breathy pleasure into Draco's ear and pressing his hips forward, thrusting his cock against Draco's, and Draco's whole body was on fire with want and lust and love and Harry whispered "Draco" in his ear and he could feel the sound waves of his name zing through his body straight to his cock, and he was incoherent—hot, tongue, Draco, tense—"Yes," Harry hissed, and "Fuck," and Draco pressed into Harry's magnetic, encompassing heat, wrapping himself in the pleasure of this man, Harry's mouth on his neck, on his ear, the sensations concentrating, his balls tightening, "Ah, fuck fuck fuck," and the tension broke, he was coming, and Harry was coming, hot, wet, throbbing pleasure.
Draco collapsed on top of Harry, and Harry raised his hands to Draco's back, hugging him tight.
"We're idiots," Draco said after a moment, in a low voice.
"We're fucked up," Harry answered.
"We're fucked up idiots."
"So are we doing this, then?" Harry asked. "I mean, not just today."
Draco's heart clenched, and he felt scared but he also wanted. "Yes."
Harry tightened his grip, and Draco pressed his face against Harry's neck.
Scorpius stands when he hears the Floo roar; a moment later, Draco steps into his sitting room.
"Dad," Scorpius says, and bounds across the room to hug his surprised father. Draco wraps his arms around Scorpius's shoulders and Scorpius is so glad he's there. "I missed you."
Draco hums with concern. "Are you alright?" He leans back, assessing his son, then pulls him close again.
Scorpius melts into him. "Yep." After drinking in the embrace, he steps back and drops his arms. "Want a cup of tea?"
"Sure," Draco says, sitting in an armchair. "How's your research on linguistic pedagogy of incantations coming?"
Scorpius walks into the kitchen, waves his wand at the kettle. "It's going about as well as a disrespected hippogriff."
"What happened?" Draco asks with concern. He has that slightly awkward look that parents get when visiting a child's flat—he doesn't quite belong there.
Scorpius pulls two tins of tea from the cupboard. "Er, nothing. Just distracted lately. It's okay, though, I made really good progress in the past few months, and I don't have another grant application until the autumn."
He measures earl grey into his mug and lapsang into his dad's.
"Well, no one said your work has to progress linearly," Draco says from the next room.
"Exactly!" Scorpius pours the hot water into the mugs. "Do you want one of grandmother's chocolates? I still have some from—where was it?—the Bellagio?"
"Yes, please," Draco says. "I finished mine weeks ago."
Scorpius Vanishes the tea leaves (his grandmother would scold him for not straining, but what she doesn't know won't hurt her), casts a Sugar Dispersal Charm at his, and Levitates them into the sitting room. He grabs the box of chocolates and joins his father.
"Try the one with the nibs on top," Scorpius suggests.
Draco does. When he finishes chewing and has taken a sip of tea, he says, "Harry told me he's seen you a few times. Have—how is that going?"
"Good! He told me he's seen you, too."
Draco sits stiff with discomfort. "Yes. We've been out to dinner a few times."
Scorpius wants to ask a million questions—foremost, "Oh my goodness are you dating?"—but he doesn't want to scare off Draco's newfound forthrightness, so he ignores it. "Yeah. I went to his shop—it's super nice. Have you seen it?"
Draco shakes his head.
"Oh, you'd love it. There's every kind of broom imaginable and all sorts of Quidditch balls of every colour and Snitches all over the ceiling. A whole section of Quidditch-themed children's toys."
Draco smiles. "Really? Sounds nice."
"Better than nice. Like you walk in and the entire place just feels like him. I don't know if that makes sense."
Draco pauses, then says, "It does."
Part of Scorpius—the reflexive part—wants not to say anything. His instinct is to politely not press the issue. But that sort of polite not-talking is what got them into this bizarre situation, isn't it? Scorpius fiddles with the handle of his mug, takes a sip, and barges ahead. He's not going to ignore the erumpent in the room. No more of that.
"So Harry's pretty great, isn't he?"
Draco nods slowly. "Rather."
"He has a big heart. He's constantly caring for everyone in his huge extended family, having people over to his house for weekly dinners, hosting parties in the garden of his shop. He puts people at ease, you know? Like I just want to tell him things."
Draco smiles. "You always want to tell people things."
With a laugh, Scorpius admits, "Well, yeah."
Draco sighs, and seems to come to the decision to say more. "I missed him. I—we—I don't know. It's good to see him again."
"Did you ever get over him?" Scorpius asks with a quiet voice that he hopes won't be too much.
Draco sips his tea, and Scorpius recognises it for the stalling mechanism that it is. "My instinct is to lie. But no," he says eventually. "I'm not going to lie to you anymore."
Scorpius smiles. "After so much time, does he live up to your memory?"
Draco sighs. "Scorpius, Harry Potter lives to exceed expectations."
Scorpius laughs.
"And how are his children?" Draco asks, and Scorpius thinks Draco looks properly interested.
"They're great," he says, and takes another sip of tea. "You know James is married to Teddy Lupin—he's sort of related to us, right? They are so palpably infatuated with each other Being around them feels like, I don't know, bubbly. And Albus is more reserved but so funny. We get along great. I've only met Lily once because she's usually out of the country." Scorpius frowns. "I think maybe I need to learn how not to get caught up in their antics."
Draco laughs. "What for? Get caught up. You only get one life."
Scorpius smiles. "Er, Dad. I just want to say—" He puts down his cup and looks at Draco. "I forgive you. For keeping all this a secret. I forgive you."
Draco's face goes blank and a bit pale. He opens his mouth, but then closes it again and nods.
"Anyway! So! Yeah, Albus is a lot of fun, and I think he's happy to have another brother in the family who's not married to another brother," Scorpius prattles on. "Not that Teddy is related to them by blood. Course, he is related to me by blood—I'm blood-related to all of them. That's pretty funny, actually. So you've enjoyed seeing Harry?"
Draco sips his tea. "Yes."
"Would you care to elaborate?"
Draco laughs. "Would I care to? Not particularly. But it's nice. He—we were both pretty messed up in those years we were together. Not because of each other, because of everything else. In retrospect, we probably both should've been seeing Mindhealers. Or taking Seratonin Potions or something." He pauses. "It's nice to see him happy."
"I like seeing you happy, too," Scorpius says softly.
Draco smiles. "I'm happy enough."
"Nah, like, I want to see you transcendently, ecstatically happy," Scorpius says with a smile.
Draco laughs and lets out a sigh. "So, no pressure, then."
"Hey, Dad. I'm not going to trick you anymore—and I'm really sorry about hitting you with that news at that restaurant like that—but I'm going to ask you something and I really want you to agree. Or at least seriously think about it. We're invited to Harry's for supper tonight. I'm going—will you come with me? You can meet his kids and everything."
Draco stares at his mug.
"Dad," Scorpius says, "please. I want you to be happy."
Draco looks up. "What makes you think he'll make me happy?"
Scorpius raises one brow, knowing he's echoing Draco's characteristic look.
Draco sighs. "Alright—alright. I'll go. We can go."
Scorpius smiles. "It will be great!"
Draco laughs and then groans good-naturedly. "Why isn't life ever straightforward?"
Scorpius shrugs. "Because then it'd be boring?"
An hour later, they Floo to Harry's house, and when they step through they hear Harry saying, "You came!"
Harry walks over wearing an apron that says, "HOT STUFF COMING THROUGH." "Scorpius!" Harry pats Scorpius on the back. "Hi Draco. I'm glad you came."
Draco sticks his hand out and Harry reaches out to shake it, a slightly bemused smile on his face.
"Thank you for inviting us to your home," Draco recites.
"Of course," Harry says. "I have to run back into the kitchen; I'll be back in a moment."
Scorpius elbows his father in the rib. "Dad, relax. What the heck?"
Draco glares at him.
Scorpius laughs. "I'm just saying—you can't rely on me, with this. I'm a terrible wingman. Do you need to drink?"
This time Draco laughs. "I do not need a wingman, Scorpius."
Scorpius hums in a disagreeing manner, but they're interrupted by James, who calls them over to the sitting room.
As they walk over, Scorpius whispers to Draco, "I'm joking. Just try to have fun." Draco wraps his arm around Scorpius's shoulder and squeezes.
"Hello Malfoys!" James says from the sofa, where he's squinting at a complicated-looking magical puzzle. "I'm being timed. Albus always buys me puzzles. I think this one requires a magical intention as you rotate the—" He trails off, slowly rotating the clear sphere.
Albus is sitting on the floor near James with a red countdown shimmering in the air next to his head. "Hey Scorp, Mr Malfoy."
Harry's house is warm and inviting, with wood floors and trim and yellow walls. The floor is covered in bright, braided rugs, and the walls are covered in framed photos and art. Most of the art looks homemade, and much of it by children. There's the cross-stitch that reads "My Grandchildren Are Crups." Around it are frames of children's artwork with tiny plaques underneath with the artist's name and date. He spots "James Sirius Potter, 2008," "Teddy Lupin, 2003," and "Maud Granger-Weasley-Bell, 2033" before his attention is drawn away.
"Hello," Teddy says, standing up and holding out his hand. "Teddy Lupin."
"Pleased to meet you," Draco replies, shaking. Scorpius sits on the sofa and smiles when his dad sits next to him.
"I've almost got this fucker," James whispers, his tongue between his teeth, and Scorpius has to hold back a laugh.
"So Teddy, I understand you're a Healer," Draco says, and Scorpius can only imagine that all those years growing up with Narcissa's lessons in good-breeding are still paying off, what with the way Draco can seamlessly handle social situations. Well, social situations that don't involve Harry, anyway.
"Yes!" Teddy says, clearly thrilled to talk about his work. "I'm in Spell Damage at St Mungo's. The joke is that I had to choose Spell Damage as my specialty because I need to be ready to deal with this one." He points his thumb at James with a grin.
"Har har," James says, turning the sphere the other direction. He must be concentrating his magical energy, because his hair is starting to stick up.
A plate soars into the room and lands with a clatter on the coffee table. It's filled with crisps and a bowl of dip.
"Dad, what kind of dip is this?" Albus yells. "Is it the cheese and chive?"
"You know what dip it is, Albus?" Harry calls from the kitchen. "It's called you're thirty years old, eat the fucking dip without whinging."
Scorpius thinks he hears Draco snort, but he can't be sure.
Teddy helps himself to a handful of crisps. "Jamie, we should've brought the crups. You know how much Prongs likes crisps."
James doesn't answer—he's too focused on giving the sphere a tiny jiggle as he whispers, "Come on, you little fuckface."
Harry walks into the room and sits next to Teddy. There's a moment of horrible silence. Teddy, bless him, speaks up. "So you two used to play Quidditch together at Hogwarts, didn't you?"
Scorpius turns his head just in time to see Draco and Harry look straight at each other and smile. Scorpius can't help but grin at them.
"Yeah," Harry says, still smiling at Draco. "He was rubbish."
"Says the man who caught the Snitch accidentally in his mouth."
"It was fair play!" Harry cries.
"Technicality," Draco shoots back.
And holy moly, Scorpius sees it. This…thing…the two of them are doing. He hadn't understood it before, even if he'd realised it was a thing. Or at least a potential thing. But now he suddenly gets it.
His father is used to being fawned over by pure-blood sycophants or eyed with suspicion by self-consciously upstanding progressives. No one ever gives back to Draco, except Astoria, sometimes.
Scorpius's eyes trail to Harry. It's probably the same for Harry. He's the Saviour—who would ever challenge him? Of course, Harry has dozens of family and friends who surround him with warmth and comfort, and teasing, if the way Ron acts around Harry is any indication. But it's different, somehow.
The others in the room seem to be seeing the same thing as Scorpius; even James has looked up from his puzzle, which is now glowing faintly orange.
"Yeah," James pipes up, "Dad's well-known for being the most rubbish player in the family. Hard to compete with me and Mum, though."
Draco laughs, seemingly a bit in awe of the entire situation.
"Oi!" Harry objects. "I was the yo—"
"The youngest Seeker in a century," James, Teddy, and Albus all mimic.
Draco leans his elbow on the side of the sofa and rests his chin in his hand, covering his laugh.
"Should I tell them about how your father had to buy your way onto the Slytherin team?" Harry asks Draco, raising his eyebrows.
Draco sits up, crossing his leg primly. "He would never."
At that, Scorpius loses it and dissolves into a fit of laughter. Draco gives him a look. "I'm sorry, Dad—it's just—grandfather once bought an entire coffee shop near my uni so that I wouldn't have to 'handle a bankroll'."
Draco glares.
"When I got my degree and wanted to do archival work, he tried to bribe the head archivist, and then he bought the archive."
"Yes, alright," Draco sighs, holding up a hand. "Thank you, Scorpius."
"YES!" James cries, holding up the sphere in victory. Tiny fireworks are shooting off inside it.
Albus looks at the countdown. "Over fifteen minutes. Bad show."
James doesn't seem bothered by Albus's shade. "Anyone else want a go?"
Scorpius knows it's the exact type of thing that Draco loves, but Draco won't want to work a puzzle right now. When no one takes him up on it, James starts Levitating crisps through the air towards Teddy's and Albus's mouths. Harry laughs and heads for the kitchen.
"Would you like some help?" Scorpius asks.
"Sure," Harry says, "if you like."
Scorpius stands and Draco follows them into the kitchen. Scorpius can't really blame Draco for not wanting to be alone with the Potter sons as they perform crisp tricks.
Harry hands Scorpius a head of lettuce to chop for salad, and Scorpius casts a charm to Vanish the dirt from it, then a Chopping Charm.
Draco looks around the room while Harry peers in the oven. "Harry, what in Merlin's name is this?"
Harry starts laughing, and Scorpius turns to look. There's a frame on the wall, and the canvas in it reads, "James, if you want to touch your penis, you need to go upstairs. 2011"
"It's a Quote-a-Matic. George sold them at Wheezes for awhile. Basically, you hang it up, and when someone says something it decides is worthy of posterity, it adds it to the rotation. It brings up a different old quote a few times a day. We've had it since the kids were little, so there's usually something amazing on it."
Draco gapes at the frame with smiling eyes. "Does it only capture funny things?"
"Pretty much," Harry says with a shrug. "Here, watch." He taps the top of the frame with his wand, and the words disappear. A moment later it reads, "Moony! Stop humping Padfoot! 2035"
Draco laughs, and turns to Harry with wide eyes. "You are ridiculous."
"Whatever," Harry says with a smile. "You love it."
Draco presses his lips together and turns to look at the books on a shelf.
A few minutes later, everyone gathers at Harry's farmhouse-style dining table. When they sit down, a large purple candle in the centre of the table comes to life with a whoosh, and with a wave of Harry's wand, squares of lasagne zoom to plates.
"How's the funding for hogs at St Mungo's?" Harry asks Teddy as he serves salad onto his dinner plate. Scorpius imagines how his grandmother would react to the fact that there are no salad plates.
"It's going alright," Teddy replies. "We may need an extra push at the end of the year, if you want to donate or help with a fundraiser."
"Anytime, Ted, you know that," Harry says.
"Hogs?" Scorpius asks, raising a bite of meaty lasagne to his mouth.
"Oh!" Teddy says, his eyes lighting up. "I'm co-founder of a programme advocating for queer health issues. HOGSS—Healers' Organisation for Gender, Sexuality, and Safe Sex."
"Their logo is a rainbow pig," James adds.
"We do sexuality education and sex ed, support transgender and non-binary folks, fund research on magical-Muggle hybrid hormone therapies and potion-based supports, advocate for queer patients in the rest of the hospital, mental health support, et cetera."
"That's amazing," Draco says with genuine admiration.
"We host talks about queer issues and politics, too," Teddy says. "You should come sometime."
Scorpius glances at his dad. His dad has, of married necessity, never been out. He wonders if Draco would've, had it not been for Astoria. It doesn't seem like Draco had been in denial or anything, just pragmatic. Scorpius wonders how he'll deal with it now.
"I'd love that," Draco says, glancing briefly at Harry before turning back to his salad.
"Have either of you heard from Lily?" Harry asks.
Albus and James both say "No" with full mouths. Harry sighs.
"I wish I'd had a chance when I was young to travel the world working with dragons," Draco says.
Harry smiles at him. "Me too. I don't know why I didn't fuck out of here, back then. But I'm still allowed to miss her, though."
"Incidentally," Albus informs, "there are a lot of dragon-themed quotes on the Quote-a-Matic you were looking at. Let me see if I can get one on." He stops to affect a leering tone. "I'd like to tame your dragon." He listens for a moment, then frowns.
Harry laughs. "Albus. You know it doesn't work if you're trying to trick it." Harry looks at Draco. "We had an entire year when they were teenagers where they just constantly said ridiculous things trying to get them on the wall."
"I'm utterly certain you, of all people, Harry, do not need to try to say ridiculous things," Draco says with an amused brow, and then there is a faint ding!
Albus and James erupt into laughter. "Yes! Mr Malfoy for the win!"
Draco looks around the room, confused.
Harry tips his head back in laughter. "You're on the Quote-a-Matic."
Draco smiles and looks at his plate. "I feel so accepted," he says, and Scorpius suspects that the sarcastic tone is masking a genuine emotion.
"You should be proud," Teddy says. "We are a very accepting bunch, but the Quote-a-Matic is hard to please. Albus had a girlfriend for three years and she never got on the wall."
"Oi," Albus objects, poking his food sulkily. "I don't want to talk about those wretched years."
Scorpius watches Harry's eyes flit to Draco.
"So Mr Malfoy," James says, reaching for a second helping of lasagne, "was Dad as much a paragon of safe sex as he claimed to be when teaching us about it? Because it sounds to me like nah."
"James!" Harry cries, choking on a horrified laugh, and Scorpius feels his face flushing with heat.
Teddy turns in his chair to glare at his husband.
"What! We're all adults here," James says.
"I beg to differ," Teddy says, and a ding! sounds from the kitchen.
"Twice in one day!" Albus enthuses. "Yes!" He reaches up to high-five his brother.
James is still looking at Draco, though, seemingly waiting for an answer to his invasive question. Scorpius has the sense that James is testing Draco.
"All the more reason to listen to his advice," Draco answers. "Don't you think?"
James nods, and he seems to be granting his approval of Draco in general. "Don't worry about that," James says, pointing at Teddy. "We're monogamous and both had the new magical vasectomy procedure years ago. They just magically sever the vas deferens and bam, sterile."
"Sweet Merlin!" Harry protests. "No vas deferens talk at the table."
Ding!
After supper, James and Teddy leave quickly ("Prongs has a weak bladder"), and Albus follows them shortly after ("I'm going on a date but don't tell James or my dad because I do not want them hounding me about it"). Draco offers to help Harry clean up, and Harry leaves Scorpius on the sofa with some old photo albums.
The first photo album is filled with shots of Harry's parents. It hasn't really occurred to Scorpius before now that he's not only the son of the Chosen One, but also the grandchild of James and Lily Potter, heroes of the First War. They look so joyful and vivacious, and it hurts to know they died at twenty-one. He's ten years older than they were when they died.
He picks up another album. It's full of photos of Teddy as a baby and toddler. In these, Harry looks crazy young. In many of them, Harry is chasing after Teddy, but in one Harry's asleep in a formidable chair with baby Teddy asleep on his chest. Scorpius watches their deep breathing, little Teddy rising up and down with Harry's chest. In another, Harry sits cross-legged on an impressive rug, little Teddy, hair jet black, crawling on and off his lap. In that one, Harry's eyes look haunted and tired.
Scorpius turns the page to reveal an older woman with brown curls holding Teddy. He realises it must be his great-aunt. He needs to show this one to his dad—Andromeda looks a bit like his grandmother, especially in the chin and the lips.
He walks to the kitchen, trying not to slam into the wall as he keeps his eyes on the photos, but as he gets to the door he stops short.
His dad and Harry are snogging. Snogging in the kitchen! He takes a small step back, but he can't tear his eyes away because his dad—his father—is pushing Harry against the counter and threading his fingers though Harry's hair.
"The last time I did something this reckless was the last time we got together," Draco says, pulling away a few centimetres.
Harry hooks one of his thumbs in the back of Draco's trousers, and he looks earnest as he says, "It's not the same, though."
"Do you really believe that?" Draco asks, leaning forward to kiss Harry's neck.
Harry leans his head back. "Yes. Yes. We grew up. No hiding this time. And I never stopped wanting you, you know. I never stopped thinking about you."
Draco grabs Harry's face, running his fingers over grey stubble, and they're kissing again, only this time Scorpius definitely cannot keep watching.
He tiptoes back to the sofa, drops the photo album on it, then throws a handful of powder into the Floo. As he steps into the flames, his hand stifling a bubbly laugh, he hears a moan from the kitchen before the flames swirl him away.
Chapter Four
When Draco gets home the next morning, his hand shakes with disbelief as the reality sets in.
Holy shit.
So much for taking it slow with dinners in neutral restaurants and being careful and protecting himself because he's vulnerable—they'd kissed. They'd laughed and kissed. They'd laughed and kissed and talked and fucked.
Holy shit.
He wonders if there was ever any chance of them resisting each other if they got back into contact. It had been the reason that Draco had stayed in France so long: it was better with the Channel in between them. It had been the reason he hadn't read the letter Harry sent that one time. He's always known, he thinks, that the only way to stay apart is to stay, well, apart.
But the funny thing is, it doesn't feel like it had been fast. It should feel fast. They've only been back into contact for a few months. If he'd met a new bloke a couple months ago, he'd feel it was fast. But this feels like it's been a lifetime in the making.
It feels like the theories he's read on predestination and divination; he's browsed a giant tome from the Malfoy library called Determinism, (Un)certain Futures, and the Wizard's Free Will. He could never fully devote himself to the theory because the entire thing seemed like Ravenclaw intellectual masturbation, but he remembers an image about how one's future path is set and has momentum, like a river or a vortex, though one can make choices that change the course, invalidating prophecies and Visions.
Right now, though, it feels like the river is—has always been—rushing to Harry, and he's no longer trying to change course.
He's too old to fight it now, he thinks ruefully and somewhat giddily as he walks to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.
All the reasons he used to fight it—the war, Voldemort, his parents, the social pressures on him, the need to rehabilitate the Malfoy name, the need to produce an heir—they all seem small. Maybe they were always small, though of course that's easy to say now, with time and perspective.
And fuck, he doesn't want to fight it anymore. Harry is everything he's always wanted—Harry is like the sun, smiling and laughing and thawing Draco from the inside out. And now Harry is so much more comfortable in his skin than he used to be. He's got a quiet confidence and stability to him that he hadn't had in those years right after the war.
He thinks about the way Harry's body is now, all softer skin and softer edges. When they were young it had been taut, hot, muscle, firm, lean. Now it is soft bellies and decades-old pregnancy skin with silvery stretch marks and wrinkles and grey hair, their war scars are faded, just barely visible, and Draco thinks it's a good metaphor for everything: the two of them are not taut anymore. They are untaut.
Last night, it hadn't felt like they were hiding from the world—which they always had been back then—it just felt like it was the world. They were the world.
Jimsy, promising tea, shoos him out of the kitchen, and Draco collapses into his desk chair, dropping his head to his hands and sighing. He wants to laugh at himself—it's all so ridiculous. He's fifty-seven years old! He shouldn't feel so jittery about one night of sex.
It wasn't just one night of sex, though, and he knows it.
He's bombarded with memories and sensations from their time together decades ago, and he reaches with shaking fingers into his desk drawer, where he had long ago hidden a stack of letters from Harry. He hasn't touched them, read them, thought about them—he hasn't allowed himself—for decades.
He swears he can feel Harry's magic crackling on the letters, but that's probably his imagination. He can't be blamed for being disturbingly sentimental—at least not today.
He turns the first letter over in his hands. The outside says simply, "Draco." Harry's owl had surely known how to find Draco; no address needed.
Jimsy sets a teapot and cup on his desk, and Draco is distracted as he says, "Thank you, Jimsy." He unfolds the parchment and, his brain still stuck in the sensation of having awoken wrapped up in Harry, he begins to read.
He scans the page (it's from 2004, right after Harry became a fully qualified Auror), and at first he's eager to relive what Harry was like back then. But as the letter goes on, he feels a cold sense of dread start at the base of his skull and seep downward, like a melting ice cube. His heart is pounding, his mouth is dry. Fuck. Fuck, fuck!
Suddenly all the fear comes rushing back. His reaction to this letter in 2004 would surely have been happiness and excitement, but now, in context, knowing what happened after, it makes him feel sick.
Harry will leave, no matter what he says. Harry left after the first time they got together. Harry left when James was born. Harry left before Albus was born. Draco is an idiot for letting himself get caught up—for letting himself forget.
It feels like a betrayal of his Malfoyness, like he's forgotten all his hard-earned lessons about self-preservation and donning impenetrable armour. It's that same error in logic he used to make: thinking that current pleasure and unwise hopes could somehow outweigh the terror and pain of uncertainty, the probability of disappointment.
He's suddenly and overwhelmingly furious with himself. The fates do not give gifts to Draco Malfoy.
Well, except Scorpius.
There's a tapping at the window, and Draco looks up from his melancholy to see Jimsy pop into the room to let the owl in. The owl is Harry's, a small barn owl that Draco's come to recognise but whose name he's not yet learned.
Draco grits his teeth. Jimsy makes to untie the letter, but Draco interrupts. "No," he says, and when Jimsy turns to give him a questioning look that borders on admonishing, he continues, "No, I do not accept the letter. Please return to sender."
The owl stares at Draco for a long, disapproving moment, lets out a hoot, and flies away.
Draco's face is pressed against the cold, hard surface of his desk. His whole body feels numb. He's revelling in self-pity and self-doubt and something else that starts with the prefix "self-."
He hears a door slam; he should move his body from the desk, but his body has decided it's done and he's unable to convince it otherwise.
Scorpius has always been loud, Draco thinks, as he hears footsteps coming down the corridor. The footsteps get closer and then suddenly there's a loud whizzing sound.
Draco bolts up, trying to identify the out-of-place sound. Scorpius is standing in the door, a huge smile on his face, wand in hand, with a Weasley's Wildfire Whizz-Bang zooming away from his body.
Draco's mouth falls open. What the fuck. Has the whole world gone crazy?
The firework makes an incredible racket of hissing and crackling and wheeeeeeee and splits into a million different sparkles around the office. Then, suddenly, it regroups, fizzes around in a frankly overwhelming finale, and ends with dramatic flair by spelling out the words, "WELL DONE."
Draco turns to face his son, who looks like he's just made the best joke in the history of the world.
"…What?" Draco asks vaguely, waving his hand in the air.
Through his grin, Scorpius says, "I firecalled late last night and you never got home, and since I saw you and Harry snogging in the kitchen, I figured a little father–son congratulations was in order." His smiles fades as he realises that Draco is not amused. "What happened?" The last whistling crack fizzles out over his head.
Draco doesn't know what to say. He sits quietly for a moment, watching Scorpius come closer, his face written with concern.
"It simultaneously feels like a dream come true and all my deepest fears. It's too much, Scorpius."
"Oh, Dad." Scorpius Conjures a chair (a comfortable modern wingback in a sienna-brown leather) and sits, leaning over to place a hand on Draco's arm. "What happened? You looked so happy last night. Not that I was watching! I mean, I was for a second, I couldn't help it, but then I left immediately because, you know, I learned how to make myself scarce in times like those at Beauxbatons in year five. What happened?"
"I found some old letters," Draco says, trying to hold it together. "And they're just—lies. Harry telling me that he wasn't going to leave. Well he left."
Scorpius rubs his arm awkwardly. "Don't you think it's totally different now? He had a wife and little kids back then."
Draco looks up, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable and knowing his eyes are watery. "I don't deserve it." The words somehow come out without turning into a sob, but it's a close thing.
"You don't deserve what?" Scorpius asks.
Draco inhales, trying to force air into the knot in his stomach. "Anything! Harry! Happiness!"
"Dad!" Scorpius says, and he sounds shocked. "Don't say that. You do."
Draco presses his lips together, shakes his head. "I took the mark, Scorpius. You know that. Then I did what my parents insisted, and I slept with a married man for three years while he had babies at home. And now he's upset I didn't tell him about you. I don't deserve anything. I mean, sure, I deserve some happiness, but that's what I got from your mum and you. You're my joy. I don't get anything else."
"You know what," Scorpius says quietly, "I think the problem is that it's not about what you deserve. It's not about that at all. I think you deserve more, but that's irrelevant. It's just about what you can have, making yourself as happy as you can be. And Dad, it seems like you might make Harry as happy as he can be, too. Simple as."
Draco manages to crack a small smile, because Scorpius sounds so naive. He sounds like a child who hasn't lived through a war.
"Didn't Harry say it was different this time?" Scorpius continues.
"Yes."
"Why do you think he'd lie? A lot of time has passed—he's single this time. You're single this time, even if that still feels strange."
Draco sighs. "I don't think he's trying to lie. I don't think he was ever trying to lie. He's too good a person for that. But I think—sometimes he doesn't know what promises he'll be able to keep."
"Dad, I have a confession. Can you try to not get mad when I tell you this?"
Oh sweet Merlin. It's been awhile since he's heard a "don't get mad!" from his son. He would've once thought that sort of thing would end at age ten, but he's come to realise that parenting is not a responsibility with any sort of time horizon.
Draco raises an eyebrow, and with it the atmosphere in the room abruptly changes back to the authoritative parent-child relationship of yesteryear. "You know very well that I cannot promise I won't get mad before I know what you're about to say."
Scorpius bites his lip, and Draco wants to laugh at how he suddenly looks like he's five years old again, come to confess that he spilled a pot of everlasting ink on the peacock rug.
"After Mum died, I came here looking for clues about who my other father was. I mean, I knew that you had been pregnant with me, but she didn't tell me more."
"What?" Draco blurts, his head spinning—he'd thought Astoria had told Scorpius everything.
"I don't know if she thought it was something you should tell me or if she just didn't have any energy left in her at that point to say anymore. Anyway so I, er, I stole your diary. Well, I Duplicated it and stole the copy."
Draco feels his jaw drop. It's always the sweet bookish types you need to watch out for, isn't it? Well, no. Maybe you need to watch out for all types.
"My diary?"
"Yes but! I didn't like, read the whole thing. I cast research Charms on it to try to find information about my conception and birth. That's how I figured out it was Harry."
"Scorpius!" And suddenly Draco is overcome with the completely inappropriate desire to laugh, and he does, the laughter bubbling out of him in chortles of disbelief. "This whole situation is…"
"Too much?" Scorpius asks, half a smile on his face.
Draco closes his eyes and takes a few breaths. "Alright. I understand why you took the diary." He looks at his son. "I am not happy about it, because generally I never have cause to question my trust in you."
"I know, Dad, I'm so sorry!" Scorpius bursts. "I really am. I would never have done it if I thought there was another way to figure it out. You were grieving and—and I didn't want to interrupt your process with this whole other stressful issue."
Draco raises an eyebrow again. He feels like he's back on normal footing, a bit.
"I mean, well, I did raise the other stressful issue, but after some time had passed. At least? Right? Dad?"
Draco sighs. "Yes. I'm sorry you had to find out that way. As you can imagine, it's been a difficult thing to contemplate—what the best course of action would be, with regard to telling you about your history. Especially because the path of doing nothing had so much inertia."
Scorpius puts a hand on Draco's shoulder. "I know. It's okay. Anyway so, er, the reason I told you this now is that I've read some of your thoughts about those times. And. Well, Dad, isn't it true that Harry only left because he was trying to be a good husband and father? It doesn't sound like he did it to screw you over. It sounded like he was just overwhelmed and wanted to use his time for his kids."
Draco, on some level, knows this is true, even if it still hurts and he wants to say something petulant like But he never made me a priority! Instead he says nothing.
"Dad," and Scorpius is rubbing his shoulder. "Don't you see that those same things that once made him leave would now make him more likely to stay? I know this sounds crazy, but I think he's really loyal. I think, in some ways, in the like deep-in-his-heart ways, he's always been loyal to you. That's the sense I get."
Draco shakes his head briefly. He doesn't know how to explain.
"Can I show you something?" Scorpius asks, reaching into his jeans' pocket and pulling out a letter. "Mum had Charmed a letter to be delivered to me if certain conditions were met. I'm not sure what the conditions were, but anyway, I got it. She mentions you—she worries that you won't move on. She, well, she said she thinks you're scared. Here, look."
Draco frowns at the letter. He had no idea she'd done that. Had she written him one? He wonders whether she wrote others to be delivered under different circumstances. He wouldn't put it past her, but he also needs to assume this will be the last correspondence he ever sees from her. He sighs. The hardest part of grief is that there's no clean break.
Scorpius hands him the letter, saying, "She wanted to tell me that I won't be disloyal to her memory by moving on, I think, but—"
They both fall silent, because the moment Draco takes the letter, the ink swirls, rearranging itself on the page. Scorpius leans closer, and they read.
June 2012
Draco was sat at the mahogany game table with six-year-old Scorpius. "The trick," he said, "is to imagine the next moves that the other player will make. You need to imagine it in your head before you do it on the board."
Scorpius scrunched his nose. "So I would move the pawn, but if I did that, the rook—"
"Excuse me, Master Draco," a house-elf said, appearing next to the table. "An international owl just delivered this letter and is waiting for master's signature."
Draco picked up the letter and immediately recognised the handwriting on the front that had scrawled, "Draco Malfoy, Mougins, France."
Draco could feel the blood drain from his face. For a moment, he stared at it. He held the letter out to Mipsy. "Please inform the owl that I will not be accepting the letter."
"But Master—"
"I will not be accepting the delivery."
The elf nodded and Disapparated. Scorpius looked at him curiously. "Why didn't you take the letter, Daddy?"
Draco felt his chest constrict with years-old pain but ignored it completely as he answered, "It was delivered to the wrong place. Now, you're right about the rook. Also, what about the queen?"
Scorpius turned back to the game.
The following day, at breakfast, Draco unfolded the International Edition of the Daily Prophet and felt the blood drain from his face again.
"HARRY POTTER BUYS QUALITY QUIDDITCH SUPPLIES."
There's a photo of Harry standing in front of the store on Diagon holding a large gold key and shaking the hand of the previous proprietor, a little old man. Just before the moving image loops back to the beginning, Harry looks at the camera and flashes a wide smile.
Fuck.
Draco's eyes rushed to look for the article.
Draco stands outside Waitrose working up courage, adjusting the bag in his hand. He's not going to be a coward this time. He's not. Get it together. He sucks in a breath and Apparates.
After he lands, Draco thinks, again, that Harry's house is lovely, especially in contrast with his memories of Grimmauld Place. Harry had moved out of the house he shared with Ginny, sold Grimmauld Place, and bought this house at some point after his divorce, and Draco appreciates the fact that this house has no connection to all the mess of their youth. It's a house that's just Harry.
He lingers on the front path for a moment, then he hears Astoria's voice in his ear saying, "I will be rolling in my grave until you pull your head out of your arse," and he knocks on the door.
The door opens, but it's not Harry—it's Teddy and three barking, jumping crups. Sweet Salazar. Draco takes two steps backward before he decides he can't let some crups drive him away and he reclaims the front step.
"Hello, Teddy. Is Harry home?"
Teddy gives him a stern, assessing look. His hair is medium-brown—no bright colours today, and Draco thinks he understands what it's like to have this man as your Healer.
Teddy opens the door wider, as if to let Draco in, but pauses to say, "Don't even think about hurting him." His tone is not aggressive, but he's deadly serious.
Draco hasn't felt so chastised in years. He nods.
Teddy opens the door fully, letting Draco in. "We're in the sitting room."
Draco follows Teddy through the house, crups bounding around his legs, and stops short when he sees James on the sofa with his arm around Harry's shoulders. Harry is sad. James looks up, recognises Draco and frowns. It's strange—Draco doesn't even know James well, but he can tell that this type of judgmental look is a rare one for him.
"Jamie, let's go home," Teddy says, and James shoots his husband a glare. They must have some sort of silent conversation, because James relents after a moment, hugging Harry before standing and collecting his share of the crups.
Teddy calls, "Six!" and a crup with brown fur runs into the room. James says goodbye to Harry and throws a handful of Floo powder into the grate. He says, "Cockerels and Crups!", reaches into his pocket and throws a few crup treats into the flames. Three crups run into the flames to catch the treats in midair before spinning away. James follows them, and then Teddy tells Harry they'll firecall later, lures the rest of the crups into the flames, and finally goes through himself.
Draco looks at Harry. "Six?" he asks. "And why is their house called Cockerels and Crups? They have pet cockerels?"
Harry cracks a smile, though it doesn't make him look any less sad. "When Teddy and James got their sixth crup, they couldn't come up with a name at first, and then Six stuck. As for Cockerels and Crups, James wanted to name it Cocks and Crups but the Floo Network Authority wouldn't accept it."
"Ah," Draco says, and then stands there with his Waitrose bag feeling stupid. He needs to say something, because Harry is just sitting on the sofa looking disappointed. "I brought you something."
"You know," Harry says, "I'm not really a flowers-and-gifts-make-amends kind of person. You refused my owl. Why would you do that?"
Draco walks fully into the room and sits on the other side of the sofa, angling his body towards Harry. "I'm sorry. I freaked out." He shoves the Waitrose bag onto Harry's lap. "Just open it."
Harry looks inside the bag. "Cashews?" He sounds perplexed as he pulls them out, then he looks into the bag. "And chocolate frogs." He starts to laugh. "Bloody hell, I haven't had cashews in years." He stops and looks up. "Why did you refuse my owl?"
Draco sighs. How the fuck is he supposed to answer that? The only choice seems to be blunt honesty. "I got scared you'd leave again."
Harry stares at him for a long moment. "We have no shortage of baggage, do we?"
Draco snorts, leaning back on the sofa. "No."
Harry sighs. "I was upset when you didn't accept my owl, because—well, you have refused a lot of my owls. After that first time we hooked up at the Muggle pub. After I sent you a letter when I opened up the Quidditch shop. So earlier today, it felt like. I don't know."
"Fuck," Draco says, running a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry. It's hard to break patterns, isn't it?"
Harry pulls open the bag of cashews and holds it out to Draco. "Ginny laughed her arse off at the idea of us trying to communicate about this."
Draco's fingers holding the cashew stop halfway to his mouth as he says, "You told Ginny?"
Harry pops a few nuts into his mouth. "Well, yeah. I had to tell her about Scorpius. I went and talked to her the day after I found out." He smiles. "We've been divorced for twenty-seven years. She's been remarried to Luna for twice as long as she and I were married. And I still felt awful admitting it."
"That you'd slept with me."
"Well, that we'd had a relationship," Harry says, like it's the easiest thing in the world to admit that.
Draco can feel his breathing speeding up. "You told her—you told her everything?"
"I didn't go into the lurid details. But yeah. I told her we were seeing each other from before our marriage until Albus was born. Merlin, I was a prick, wasn't I?"
"We were both pricks. But—you could've just told her you cheated one time."
Harry shrugs. "Not really. I mean, Ginny is still family, both because she's my kids' mum and because she's a Weasley. We're friends—I see her all the time. I can't make a proper go at being with you and keep lying about something that happened back then. I told Ron and Hermione, too. It feels—it feels incredible to have confessed, actually. No more lies."
Draco blinks, trying not to get caught up on the "proper go" thing. He knows the feeling of relief Harry's describing. "What did she say?"
"Oh, she was furious. She screamed at me. There were quite a few 'I should have fucking known's! But Ginny burns fast and bright—she stopped yelling pretty quickly. She was curious about Scorpius and happy that I was going to get to know him. She empathised with me about being sad I'd missed out on so much with him."
"You want to make a proper go?"
Harry shoots him an exasperated look. "Well yeah, Draco! Haven't I made that clear?"
Draco swallows. He supposes Harry has made that clear. "So our—relationship—didn't factor into your divorce?"
Harry shook his head. "Goodness, I think she would've murdered me if she found that out back then. It's hard for me to describe my mental state then. I dunno, as I started to recover from the war and everything, I started taking more control over my life. Like, first I quit the Aurors."
Draco smiles. "You know, if you'd listened to me, you could've avoided that from the start."
"I know." Harry eats another cashew. "Then when my life didn't suddenly get better after quitting, I realised it wasn't just that one thing. It was everything. Gin and I tried to make it work for awhile, but it just wasn't right. So we ended it. It was hard, but, you know, these things are. Then a couple years later I opened the shop. I've been happy. I remember the day I opened the shop. I felt like I'd finally taken my life back."
"I can't say I ever remember feeling that way."
"Never?" Harry asks sadly.
"Well, I had Scorpius to think about. I couldn't fix the things that were wrong in my life as easily as you could. Not that it was easy for you—but, you know what I'm saying. But maybe I felt that way a bit just now standing on your front step with a bag of cashews and chocolate frogs."
Harry shakes his head, a wistful smile on his face. "I can't believe you remembered that."
"Well, young men need to keep their energy up. How could I forget?"
"We don't need as many calories these days, do we, old man?" Harry jokes, clearly enjoying the banter.
Draco raises an eyebrow. "After last night, we may."
Harry laughs, his head falling back, and Draco feels so, so close to having everything he wants.
"And don't call me old," Draco teases. "Magical people live much longer than Muggles. Don't impose your skewed lifespan expectations on me."
Harry stops laughing and looks suddenly more serious. "You haven't said whether you want to give it a proper go. Does it feel too fast to you? Because we can—"
"Yes." Draco exhales. "I want to give it a proper go. It's the first chance we've ever had to give it a proper go. And no, it doesn't feel too fast—does it to you?"
Harry shakes his head. "Not at all. I feel like maybe I should feel like it's too fast, but it feels like coming home." He pauses. "Well, it feels like coming home and all the furniture is nicer and the weather is no longer rainy and there's more food in the pantry, but it's still home."
Draco thinks his heart is in danger of pounding out of his chest. "Since this is the proper go, and we both have clear—well, relatively clear—consciences, I'm just going to continue with this honesty drivel." He takes a breath. "It's always been you. Merlin's knickers, I sound like a prat. But seriously, Harry, since—I don't even know. At least since the first time I went home with you to Grimmauld. I've thought romantic love was over for me, but I never thought it could be anyone else."
Harry's eyes grow wide. "Do you really mean that?"
"Yes."
"I'm not a stupid young man anymore," Harry says, and he sounds like he's choosing his words carefully. "You've always been it for me—probably since that time you came over and I had Teddy and you didn't leave. I didn't realise it for a long time, but I can see it now. Do you know I've only been on a handful of dates since my divorce?"
Draco's body feels hot. "We're not stupid anymore. Let's not act like it."
Harry smiles. "Right. So, this isn't new."
Draco has to touch him; he can't wait any longer. He leans forward, pressing his knee next to Harry and moving the cashews and chocolate frogs to the coffee table. He crouches down, pressing his face to Harry's cheek and relishing the way he can feel Harry shiver. "This is forever, Harry, don't you think?"
Harry grabs his face and pulls him into a heated kiss, and Draco's head swims with emotions because Harry wants him and Harry said You've always been it for me and Harry told his ex-wife and somehow all of those things feel like they're pouring into him through the kiss.
Draco sits back, smiling and wishing he had younger knees and could stay crouched there; instead, he adjusts himself into a proper sitting position. "So let's be adults. Tell me what you want in life."
Harry laughs, and he looks rumpled, and Draco wants to rumple him more. "What do I want in life?"
"Well, yes. We've been apart for a long time, a couple months of dates and one night of sex doesn't change that. We're making a proper go. We need to discuss."
"I don't want to get married," Harry blurts.
Draco's eyebrows raise. "I didn't mean that."
"I know, I know, but I just. I really don't ever want to get married again."
"Me neither," Draco says.
Harry stares at him, and Draco somehow knows they're on the same page. "Good," Harry says. "Er, beyond that. I want to work at my shop. Hang out with my kids. Get to know Scorpius. I want boring things." Harry smiles. "We had enough excitement when we were young."
Draco laughs. "Fuck, yes. I want to go flying with you."
"Your life goal is to go flying with me? Let's go right now, that way you can be completely satisfied with your life before we go to bed." Harry looks good when he's teasing.
"Ha, ha," Draco says. "I think—I think I want to move out of the Manor."
Harry raises his eyebrows. "Really? I thought you had to—"
"No more 'have to's, Potter, eh?" Draco nabs another cashew. "I don't think I admitted it to myself until a minute ago when I was standing outside your house and thinking about how nice it must be to not live in a place with so much bad history."
Harry smiles. "Then do it. Do you—do you want to move in here?"
Now it's Draco's turn to raise his eyebrows. "I wasn't trying to imply—"
"I know!" Harry says. "I'm offering. Honestly, Draco, if we're really giving this a proper go, it's like you said. It's forever. It's always been forever. We'll fight, but it's not like we're going to suddenly get over each other. Don't you think you'd end up here in a few months anyway? We're too old to waste time, if that's what you want."
Draco is hit with a memory from that morning—waking up with tree-speckled sunlight shining through the window, Harry's face pressed into his shoulder, the feeling of being wrapped up in another person. He hadn't thought about it then, but it's immediately obvious that's what he wants. "Yes."
Harry starts to laugh in a nervous manner—it reminds Draco of Scorpius when he gets overwhelmed. "No more wasting time, eh?"
"Yeah, fuck wasting time. We've wasted enough." Draco grins. "What else do you want in life?"
"I told you, not much. I'd like a grandchild, but that's not going to happen. So I guess I'd like to see my grand-nieces and -nephews more."
"You don't think your kids will ever have kids?"
"James and Teddy are adamant, as you already know given James talking about his vas deferens at the dinner table."
Draco starts to laugh. "What was I meant to say to that?"
Harry chuckles. "There is no reply to that. James is just very—forward. Anyway, Albus dates sometimes but I don't really see him ever having kids. He says he doesn't want any. And Lily...who knows." Harry's faces brightens as he says, "Does Scorpius want kids?"
"Sorry to dash your hopes and dreams, but I doubt it. Scorpius seems perfectly happy just him and his work. I mean, he could change his mind, I suppose."
Harry gives him a curious look. "So all your angst about having to produce an heir—does Scorpius feel that?"
Draco frowns. "I certainly fucking hope not. Astoria and I spent his whole life telling him we don't care what he does. Once I even sent a Silencing Charm at Lucius when he wouldn't stop talking about it. I—I still have a lot of resentment about all of it, honestly. I would never pressure him."
"Isn't the entail built into the magic, though?" Harry asks, and Draco is surprised he remembers.
"We hired a solicitor who specialises in updating pure-blood magical entails. He modernised the details of all that, once I came fully into the estate."
Harry smiles. "That's amazing. Though I'm kind of disappointed Scorpius doesn't want kids. I thought maybe I'd been handed a fourth chance at grandparenthood."
Draco feels so much affection for Harry in this moment—that Harry has embraced Scorpius so much, that he is attacking their renewed relationship with so much honesty and vigour, that he has so much love he wants another small one to lavish it on.
"Why do you want to have a grandchild so much?" Draco asks bemusedly. It's not something Draco has thought much about.
"I don't know," Harry says with a smile. "When I had small kids, I was so screwed up. I mean, you know, you remember. I had depression, or PTSD, probably. Maybe both. It sometimes made it hard to appreciate the kids as much as I think I should've. I really threw myself into parenting later on, especially after I quit my job, but I feel like I didn't have a chance to really enjoy them when they were tiny. My memory of that time should be, I don't know, transcendent joy at new life, but instead it's a blur of stress and anxiety." Harry shrugs, then grins. "And I just really love being a dad."
Draco can understand all that. He remembers how he felt when he was pregnant with Scorpius and even after Scorpius was born—Scorpius was this joyful little human, but Draco had still felt so unmoored, trying to figure out who he was in life, to figure out how things would go.
And suddenly it hits him. Draco's mouth drops open, and he huffs an incredulous laugh. "Oh Merlin. Harry."
Harry quirks a questioning smile. "What?"
"So Astoria wrote me a letter. Basically she was encouraging me to move on. And one of the things she said was that I can't wait for things to fall into my lap, I have to take it."
Harry nods.
"Well, it's kind of what we've been learning all along, isn't it? You can't wait for things to fall into your lap."
"Yeah…"
"You want another baby."
"What?!" Harry croaked.
"You want another baby."
"Me? No! No. No! I'm fifty-seven years old! My youngest child is about to turn thirty. That's insane! No. That's not what I meant."
Draco smiles a slow, predatory smile and just waits.
"No," Harry says, shaking his head. "No? That's really not what I meant. I'm fifty-seven."
"You're a wizard, Harry," Draco says, still grinning.
"But—"
"Wizards age at a slower rate than Muggles, as you know, and that includes reproductive ageing. Magical people can reproduce well into their eighties."
"Holy shit," Harry whispers, his hand coming up to cover his mouth. "I do want another baby."
"Yes," Draco says, still smiling. "I think you do. It's not going to fall into your lap. Are you going to take it?"
Harry's mouth hangs open. "Are you serious right now?"
"Well, I'm certainly not volunteering to be the one to go through pregnancy again."
"But if I wanted to—are you serious?" The shock has fallen from Harry's face, leaving only a look of pure, earnest openness.
Draco thinks about it. Is he serious? He's never really given the idea much thought, what with all the difficulty he and Astoria had with attempting to produce their first baby and the circumstances surrounding Scorpius's conception. But he does resent that he felt coerced into parenthood, the first time around. And the idea of doing it again, of free volition, on his own terms, in a better mental place, with Harry—
"With you?" Draco asks, and he's never felt so certain of anything as he says, "Yes."
Harry starts to laugh, and he ramps up until he's cackling. "We are completely barmy, Draco. You know that, right?" Then he sobers up for a moment. "You do know that babies don't solve anything. Like, previous issues and problems. We can't expect a baby to fix things."
"It's not about a delusion that a baby will fix things," Draco replies. "It's about knowing what we want and taking it."
Harry nods, and then starts laughing again. "I'm sorry, I just, I get a little overwhelmed at big decisions and sometimes I can't stop laughing."
Draco laughs, too, because Harry's nervous tittering is infectious. He scoots closer on the sofa. "Does that mean you're willing to be the one who gets pregnant?"
"Why the hell not?" Harry says, still laughing, waving his hand in the air. "Fair's fair."
Draco leans in to press his lips to Harry's neck, revelling in the fact that he's actually allowed to do so. Harry stops laughing, and Draco is glad that he still knows how to affect Harry after all these years. He kisses right under Harry's ear. "I'm not sure we could manage the task without a course of fertility potions at our age, but I suppose there's no harm in trying."
Harry hums, pulling Draco on top of him. "Is that your way of asking if you can fuck me?" he whispers in Draco's ear, and Draco's feels goose flesh tingle down his spine.
"Yes," Draco says, pressing his lips to Harry's deliciously scratchy neck and sucking a mark there.
Harry moans, but presses his hands to Draco's chest and pushes him away. "Yes. Yes you can. But not here. We are well past the age where fucking on the sofa is a good idea."
Six months later
"Absolutely not," Draco says, crossing his arms across his chest for emphasis.
"Oh, come on," Harry says, affecting a sad face. "Dad jokes are my specialty."
"As much as I know that's true," Draco says with a sigh that does nothing to mask his affection, "that does not mean that it needs to involve me. I am not wearing it."
"But it's hilarious!" Harry says, face breaking into a smile as he looks at the shirt on their bed.
"I am not going to stop you from wearing yours," Draco replies, as if that's generous, as if he could stop Harry. "You're a grown wizard. But so am I, and I'm not wearing that."
Harry frowns. "Will you wear it when we tell your mother?"
Now that's a thought. He takes a moment to imagine what it would be like to show up at tea with Narcissa wearing a shirt that says "MY BOYS CAN SWIM" and bearing news that, though there's still no hope of a next-generation Malfoy heir, her son, who once became accidentally pregnant and had to be hidden to protect the family from shame, has impregnated a fifty-seven-year-old Gryffindor.
"I'll consider it."
"That's good enough for me," Harry says, pulling on his shirt.
"You're actually going to wear it, aren't you?" Draco asks. Apparently he thought that Harry would decide not to at the last moment. He's still learning that there's not much Harry won't do, these days. Harry does what he wants now. They both do.
"Of course," Harry says, looking in the mirror as he runs a hand through his hair. "My hair is even thicker than usual. This is wild. I should recommend pregnancy to wizards with thinning hair."
"Yeah, I'm sure that'll go over extraordinarily well. I can just imagine Seamus Finnegan saying, 'Ah yes, gestating a foetus in a rotund belly for nine months—the perfect solution to my vanity crisis.'"
Harry laughs. "What do you think the kids are going to say?"
He's asked this at least five hundred times. They had to wait until Lily was in town, because it seemed only fair that all of the children learned about their new sibling at the same time. And the Healer on the case (Harry was officially termed an "elderly male primigravida," which had caused no little consternation when he saw that written on his St Mungo's file) had suggested they wait until at least fifteen weeks before telling the family.
Harry didn't really look pregnant yet, though Draco could tell that he was because his comfortable belly no longer made a very good pillow. That didn't stop Draco from using it as one, though, and taking the time to talk to baby. Harry thought it was excessive to read Phineas Bourne's The Theory and History of Medieval Potionmaking to a foetus, but Draco caught Harry smiling at the scene, nonetheless.
Draco has to guard against his offspring inheriting Harry's potions skill, after all.
"And anyway," Harry kept saying, "it's good for the baby to hear your voice."
"That's absolutely not why I'm doing it, Potter," Draco claimed, though he suspected Harry saw right through that, too.
"Well," Draco says, "Albus will probably make a face."
Harry laughs and pulls on his socks. "Scorpius will probably squeal with joy."
"Yes, clearly," Draco says. "Teddy and James will…I'm not sure. Make an inappropriate joke? Decide to celebrate the news with an impromptu fuck in the loo?"
"You need to let that go, Draco," Harry says, though he's smiling. "It was only that one time. I don't want them to hate us."
"I have no idea what Lily will say, as I've only met her once." Draco pulls a cashmere jumper over his head. "What will she say?"
"I—I have no idea," Harry says. "I never have any idea what she's going to say. That's part of what makes her great."
"It'll be fine. They'll all be happy."
"They'll be relieved that I'm not actually giving up alcohol for no reason. Teddy looked like he was about to start running diagnostics on me last dinner when I turned down the sangria he made."
"You realise with a Healer in the family, you're never going to be left alone."
Harry smiles. "It's alright. I just want us healthy."
"Are we going to take down that ridiculous 'My grandchildren are crups' cross-stitch when the baby is born?"
"No way!" Harry says, and he looks honestly offended. "First of all, it's still true. Second of all, do you know how hard I had to work to learn those fucking embroidery charms?"
Draco laughs. He'd be sad to see it go, too, if he's honest. Harry's warm, ridiculous sitting room is one of the best things about the house.
"Let me see this outlandish shirt," Draco says, walking up to Harry, and Harry turns, flashing a cocky grin and holding his hands out to the sides.
The shirt says "Working on my Quidditch Team" across the chest, and down near Harry's navel is an image of an infant riding a broom. The infant is wearing a scarf striped red and green.
It's the most preposterous thing Draco has ever seen, and he loves it. "You look great."
Harry smiles wider. "I'm definitely going to sell these shirts in the shop."
Harry has been slowly expanding the shop's Expectant Parent offerings, to the point where it now has its own section near the toys.
Draco asks, "Are you feeling alright?" for probably the thirtieth time that day.
"Yes," Harry says, and Draco is grateful that Harry is letting him fret.
They hear the Floo roar in the sitting room and boisterous voices fill the house. Draco hears James cry, "Lils! Is that a new tattoo?" Harry groans, Draco laughs.
"Are you ready?" Harry asks.
Draco grabs Harry's face and presses a quick kiss to his lips. "Yes."
They turn to the bedroom door, and Draco can feel his heart beating rapidly from the anticipation of joy. He thinks of Astoria and sends her a silent, bodiless hug. It may be strange, but he wishes she were here to see this. He reaches for Harry's hand, sucks in a shaky breath, and they walk quickly through the door.
Author:
Pairings: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Scorpius Malfoy, Astoria Greengrass, Albus Severus Potter, James Sirius Potter, Lily Luna Potter, Teddy Lupin
Rating: E
Word Count: 45,672
Content/Warning(s): falling in love, mpreg, past infidelity, past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, past Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, minor Teddy Lupin/James Potter, minor character death, parent death, switching, angst, angst with a happy ending, parenthood, family dynamics, alcohol, grief/mourning, ageing, growing up, non-penetrative sex, frottage, getting together, getting back together, non-linear narrative, pov alternating
Summary/Prompt: Summary: When Scorpius Malfoy is saying goodbye to his dying mother, he doesn't expect to hear her confess, "Your father slept with another man and became pregnant with you." Grappling with his grief and his identity, Scorpius sets out to discover the identity of his other father, who it turns out has a lighting-shaped scar and no idea that Scorpius exists.
Prompt: On her deathbed, Astoria tells Scorpius that she's not his mother. Draco had carried him and gave birth to him and because of *whatever reason up to the author* Draco had to marry Astoria. They had a good marriage but were just friends and not partners. Now it's up to Scorpius to find his father's true happiness.
A/N: Context for content warnings: This fic contains mpreg, but not of an explicit variety. There is very little on-screen pregnancy, though there is one scene that contains vomiting associated with morning sickness. This fic contains past infidelity, wherein Harry and Draco cheated on their wives with each other. The affair is on-screen in flashbacks, but occurred decades ago. There's no Ginny or Astoria bashing.
Huge, enormous, gargantuan thanks to T and F for betaing and discussing this story at length, especially when I was in danger of drowning in feels and angst. It wouldn't exist without them. Thanks, too, to J, G, and K for helping me think through some character and plot points.
The title is from E.E. Cummings's "anyone lived in a pretty how town."
Read at AO3 or below:
Scorpius Malfoy stands outside the Manor, his stomach roiling from Apparition and his heart beating rapidly from the anticipation of grief. He's not sure what will be worse—if he's too late, or if his mother is still alive and he has to watch her die.
He sucks in a shaky breath and walks quickly towards the door.
The Manor looms above him, and he looks up briefly at the house he grew up in, squinting at the stone turrets in the late-day sun. He reaches the stately steps, and the doors open to reveal his father. Draco's posture is too good; his eyes are too dry; his robes are too immaculate. Scorpius runs up the last few steps and wraps his father in a hug.
"Dad," he says.
Draco reaches a strong hand to Scorpius's shoulders and pulls him close. "She doesn't look very well. You should prepare yourself."
Scorpius doesn't have anything to say to that.
Draco pulls out of the hug and walks briskly through the front hall, his dragonhide boots clicking on the marble floor as he leads Scorpius to Astoria's rooms.
Scorpius usually chatters incessantly whenever he visits the Manor or sees his parents, but right now he has nothing to say. Neither does Draco, it seems. Even Scorpius's favourite Malfoy ancestral paintings are quiet. Ordinarily they launch into a retelling of all notable events Scorpius has missed in his absence; today, they only offer encouraging, pitying smiles that increase the sense of otherworldly foreboding.
When they arrive at the doors to Astoria's rooms, Draco stops. "Scorpius, are you—. Do you need—."
Draco seems not to know what he wants to say, which is remarkable in itself. Scorpius spares a moment to marvel at the fact that Draco, about to lose his wife of thirty-three years, still has the wherewithal to attempt to parent his grown son.
"I'm fine, Dad. It's—we'll be okay." Scorpius steps in front of Draco and opens the door.
Astoria is in bed, three house-elves scurrying around her. Her hair, which has always been a beautiful mass of thick brown, lies thin and limp on the pillow. Her cheeks are sallow, her lips dry and cracked. She wheezes when she breathes.
Dying, apparently, robs one's good looks before it robs one's final breath.
"Mum," Scorpius says, reaching the bed in two long strides and falling to his knees. He takes hold of her hand, and it's the feel of her hand in his that finally breaks his defences; tears begin to stream down his cheeks.
He's surprised he kept it together this long, really.
She turns her head to get a better look at him, and her facial expressions aren't right at all—the blood curse has stolen her characteristic smiles and knowing looks, her shrewd, humorous gaze. But when he looks deep into her eyes, he can just detect that spark that's still her.
She manages a small smile. "Scorpius," she says. She doesn't sound like herself; the voice is wheezy, but at least she knows it's him. "Come to my arms, my beamish boy."
If he wasn't already crying, he'd have started now. "Mum." He gives her a watery smile. "Mum. O frabjous day."
She smiles when he answers her as he should.
And in Scorpius's despair, he starts to laugh that desperate, anxious laugh that only sounds in the worst of times—because the day is anything but frabjous.
Scorpius feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up. Draco is standing there, guiding him into a chair that one of the house-elves Conjured.
"I'll give you two a chance to—I'll give you a few minutes," Draco says. "I'll be just outside if you need me."
The door closes, and Scorpius is still holding onto his mother's hand. The phrase "holding on for dear life" pops into his brain, and he stares at her hand.
He supposes now is the moment he's supposed to say goodbye. But what can he possibly say? There's no way to sum up neatly thirty-one years of their mother-son relationship. There's nothing to say.
"Mum. I love you. I love you so much."
"I love you, too," she returns.
Goodness, she sounds awful. Scorpius looks around at the house-elves who are attending her, the specially trained house-elves that come at times like these. Deaths. Births. They don't seem concerned at her voice.
"Are you in pain?" he asks.
"Mr Malfoy," one of the house-elves answers, "she is on potions for pain. She will ease out of this world in comfort."
Scorpius turns back to his mother, squeezes her warm hand.
"I have to tell you something," she rasps.
"No, no, shhhhh," Scorpius says, smoothing a hand down her hair, pushing it away from her face.
"No," she says, more forcefully, and Scorpius looks up at her eyes. "I have to tell you something. I should've told you before." She coughs.
Scorpius tries to see two things at once: the visage in front of him, but also beyond the blood curse to her real, healthy self. He tries to imagine the honeyed tones of her voice the way it sounds when she sings and laughs.
"You are my son. My everything."
Scorpius's tears stream off his cheeks, hitting his robes.
"But we are not blood related."
He blinks, looks up at her brown eyes. "What?"
She coughs again. "Your father slept with another man and became pregnant with you."
"What?" he repeats, his face blank. "What?"
"It's magic," she says and tries to smile, but her eyes don't twinkle the way they did when she used to say those words in response to his wonder as a small child. "We're not blood related." She smiles. "It never changed how I felt about you."
Her words make no sense, but Scorpius can't think about it right now. Right now all he can think about is making sure that she knows before it's too late. "Mum, I love you." He takes a deep breath and tries to imbue his next words with enough emotion to express what he wants to say, that which no words could ever capture. "Thank you."
She smiles briefly, but then she's overcome with a wheezing fit that brings the house-elves scuttling over to cast spells at her. He squeezes her hand, whispering, "I love you, thank you, I love you, thank you," as the door opens and Draco enters.
"You're not trying to prolong her life with those spells, are you?" Draco anxiously asks the nearest house-elf. "We don't want to extend her pain."
"No, Mr Malfoy, sir," the elf replies. "We is easing her passage only."
Draco nods, and stands there looking like he has no idea what to do. Scorpius pulls his wand and Conjures a chair on the other side of the bed. Draco nods again, walks around the bed, and sits.
Scorpius looks at his mother's hand in his and has the thought that he'll stay right here, he'll be with her like this when she dies.
Astoria is past the point of speech, sucking in rattling breaths that actually sound like death. He has a million questions for her, wants to hear her read a million more poems, wants to dance with her at a hundred more of his grandmother's stuffy balls.
They all sit in silence but for Astoria's wheezing, rattling respiration. Scorpius has no idea how much time is passing. It could be minutes or hours.
Scorpius looks across the bed at his father. Draco is tired, stiff, like he has no idea what type of behaviour is expected of him. He always knows what type of behaviour is expected of him. It's one of the things Scorpius admires most about him, the way he makes his way through the world with such ease, even after his tumultuous past.
He looks at his mother's contorted face. Could what she said possibly be true? His brain starts to whir.
But that would mean that—that he isn't in danger of this horrible blood curse manifesting in him. The Healers suspect that it manifests mostly in witches, but no one is really sure what the mechanism is, so he'd always thought there was a chance it could hit him. And while the Healers had managed to delay the onset of the curse in Astoria, giving her a full life until age fifty-five, there is no cure.
But if she isn't his blood relation, there is no chance of him having the curse. That is actually…a huge relief. And how awful to feel relief at time like this.
And this means—it means that Daphne is not his aunt, that the Greengrasses are not his grandparents. Not by blood, anyway. They've all been lying to him for his whole life.
His dad had been with a man. And because his parents had been married a year and a half before he was born, that means his dad had been with a man while married to his mum. Oh. Draco and Astoria had moved to France when she—he!—was pregnant with him. Oh!
Scorpius stares at his mother, then turns to look at his father. Oh, Merlin. How is he supposed to deal with all of this at once? Screw them for not telling him!
But also, of course, he understands. They must have been scared of the social reaction, of the prejudice against wizards who become pregnant. A wizard becoming pregnant hasn't been grounds for losing legal standing in over a hundred years, not since the abolition of couverture in the nineteenth century, of course, but public opinion lags behind the law. His parents would not have wanted to deal with that, or for Scorpius to have to deal with that. They had always tried to raise him in a new world without prejudice and hatred. Things would've been harder for him if everyone knew, if kids had made fun of him and his father.
Holy shit. He has a father—a different father. Who? Is Draco gay? Scorpius has always wondered. His parents clearly loved each other but never seemed to have any sexual relationship. They'd always had separate rooms. He'd never even seen them kiss. He'd never seen a spark in either of their eyes—
So who is his other father? Holy shit!
His mind is going crazy, the shock of his mother's impending death mixing with the shock of this news is causing him to embark on wild speculation when really he should just ask. He should just ask. His father is right there.
He looks up, about to say something, to ask his father, but Draco is crying. Scorpius closes his mouth.
Has he ever seen Draco cry? He tries to remember. It's not right.
It's not right, and his whole world is crumbling. His mother is dying, is not related to him. His father was pregnant with him. If someone walked in and told him that the house-elf casting spells at Astoria was his real father, in this state he'd probably take the news in stride.
He can't add to his father's stress today. He can't make Draco talk about these secrets right now. They need to concentrate on Astoria, on making sure she knows how loved she is as she leaves the world.
Scorpius grasps her hands tightly.
"Excuse me," Draco says—Scorpius realises that Draco must not remember the elf's name because he always refers to elves by name, but there have been so many elves in recent weeks—and one of the elves stops his work. "How long….?" Draco continues, gesturing at his wife.
"It's impossible to say, sir, unless you are liking to sign the paperwork to administer the potion."
Scorpius chokes in a huff of air and feels like he's swallowing his larynx.
"I—" Draco says, and Scorpius stares at him in wonder as he realises that Draco has no idea what to do. His father always knows what to do.
"Master," the elf continues. "If I may. Sometimes people is not able to be letting go until their loved ones leave the room."
Draco looks up and Scorpius has the sudden and somewhat unwelcome feeling that he is completely grown up. Draco is looking at him not because he has to, but because he actually wants to know what Scorpius thinks they should do. Because he and Scorpius are in this together.
Being an adult sucks.
Scorpius stands, leans over the bed, and kisses his mother's cheek. Her cheek doesn't feel right; it's supposed to feel plump and welcoming. "I love you," he says one last time. "Goodbye."
He can hardly believe he managed to force that word from his lips.
Scorpius wills himself to drop her hand and reach out to his father.
Draco stands and presses a kiss to Astoria's forehead. Then he turns to Scorpius with a broken look on his face that Scorpius has never seen before, grasps his son's hand, and they walk out of the room.
Scorpius tries to talk to Draco the next day, but the Manor is a flurry of alighting relatives and funeral preparations, so Scorpius says nothing and acts as host at supper.
He tries to talk to Draco the evening after the funeral, but Draco hands him a tumbler of Firewhiskey and sits in silence in front of the fire, so Scorpius sits next to him on the sofa and drinks in silence.
Scorpius tries to talk to Draco when all the hubbub is over, but Draco has buried himself in paperwork that is probably unnecessary, so Scorpius walks behind the desk chair, wraps his father in a hug, and goes home.
His flat feels small and empty after his time at the Manor, and reminders of his mother are everywhere—the book on the coffee table, the mirror in the corridor, the dragon figurine on the mantel.
He'd known his mother was dying long before it happened, so he'd processed much of his grief months ago. He doesn't feel denial or anger or any of those other things. He feels grateful that the worst of it was short-lived, that he's seen her so often these past months.
But just like that, he has no mother. No one to owl about funny things that happen, no one to buy books for in Muggle used bookshops. It's just—over.
Still, he thinks he's handling his mother's death extremely well.
But the news she'd dropped on him? That he is still processing.
Scorpius finds himself thinking that the news about his paternity shouldn't change much, he should just say "okay" and move on, because a detail as small as sperm origin can't possibly erase thirty-one years of lived experience. Astoria is his mother.
But he still wants to know. He needs to understand. His father has always been such an enigma, so loving and supportive, but also so closed off about so many things. It makes sense now, he supposes.
Scorpius walks into the kitchen and puts the kettle on for tea. He selects a bag of earl grey (another reminder of Astoria and her bergamot-scented shortbread) and leans against the counter.
The thing that stings is that Draco never told him. Didn't he know that Scorpius would always love them and that nothing could change that? Why had they felt they needed to live such a big lie for so long? Scorpius has always considered himself the kind of person who is understanding and accepting and easy to talk to.
He walks into the corridor and looks into the mirror his mother had bought him in Italy. He stares at his face—maybe if he stares hard enough, he can figure out what bits are from a stranger. But no, he just looks like Scorpius. Blond hair like his father and grandfather. Pointy nose. Grey eyes like his father but with some specks of green. His face is rounder than Draco's or Lucius's, his skin a couple shades darker. The stubble on his face is thicker than his father's, and darker, not that Scorpius has ever really seen his father with facial hair—Draco systematically casts Charms to prevent stubble. Scorpius doesn't, though, and he rubs his fingers across his cheek.
If I were a teenager, he thinks, rubbing his darker-than-blond stubble, I would flop onto my bed and wail, 'Who am I!?' But I'm a grown-up and I'm rational so I'll have to pretend I don't feel like doing just that.
The kettle whistles, and Scorpius turns away from the mirror.
Two weeks later, Scorpius decides to do the very mature thing and sneak into the Manor when he knows Draco will be at his Hogwarts Board of Governors meeting.
The Manor is empty except for the house-elves, and Scorpius remembers loving those odd times he found himself home alone when he was younger. He'd blast music in the marble corridors and dance around the house singing. Most of the portraits gave him stern glares, but Brutus Malfoy in the East Wing has a talent for beatboxing and Drizella Malfoy in the corridor near the dining room does an incredible Adele.
Scorpius smiles despite himself and heads for his father's office. He feels a tiny bit guilty as he stands outside the door, and then he remembers that his parents lied to him for thirty-one years and that he surely has a right to know his own story, and opens the door.
Scorpius draws his wand. He doesn't know what he's looking for, but there must be something. Healer records, a certificate of birth, magical lineage reports, letters—something.
He smiles, because he's at an enormous advantage. He's an historian, a trained researcher, and knows dozens of Charms for discovering relevant information. Generally he uses these Charms with permission in archives and libraries, so it's a little exciting to be using them without permission in his father's office.
He decides to start with a Charm that will locate everything related to his birth. It might locate too many things, but it could also locate nothing, so it seems a good place to start. He waves his wand, and beams of purple light shine from a filing cabinet, a drawer, and books on the shelves.
He sits in Draco's chair and opens the top desk drawer. A stack of magical photos in the back of the drawer draw his eye. Scorpius smiles, pulling them out. A photo of him, just born, blinking his eyes. A photo of Draco and Astoria on a bed, Astoria looking at him as if he's the most amazing thing in the world, and then turning to smile at Draco. A photo (that his grandparents had once thrown a fit over) of Astoria breastfeeding him.
He's seen all of these photos before. But. He looks more closely, not allowing his eyes to avoid details they've seen before. He looks at Draco. Draco, at twenty-six, looks exhausted, his hair sweaty and slightly stuck to his forehead. Draco's middle is covered by a pillow and Astoria's body, and Scorpius wishes the photo would continue past the point where it loops back to Astoria looking at his baby face.
Could he really have grown inside Draco? He knows it's possible, of course, if rare. Usually same-sex couples take a regimen of special fertility potions to achieve conception, and witch-witch couples need to do some sort of inseminating procedure with a Healer. But sometimes, rarely, two men with uncommonly compatible magic and histories of pureblood magic to encourage heirs can conceive without the aid of potions. It could have been an accident. He could have been an accident.
He thinks of what he knows about wizards who have been pregnant. Merlin, why hadn't he thought of this before? Draco has it all: the slightly wider hips than one might expect on a man his stature, the extra fluff around the belly that doesn't exactly seem like fat (nothing like the small belly Lucius developed in later years), the voluptuous butt that had once been called "a pert posterior" by Witch Weekly (Scorpius at thirteen had nightmares for a week). He'd really never seen Draco without a shirt on (and wasn't that a little suspicious? Because they'd been on holiday to places with beaches?), but he bets the reason was Draco's desire to hide a bunch of silvery stretch marks and wrinkled belly skin.
Scorpius can't help think that is kind of adorable. Draco can be stiff sometimes, and Scorpius loves when things soften his edges.
He smiles at the photo of Astoria breastfeeding; she looks so happy. Knowing that she took lactation potions makes it somehow seem even sweeter, like the fact that it was a conscious choice made it special. Why did she do that? Did she want to bond with him? Had she been worried Scorpius would reject her? Had she wanted to play a part in his coming into the world?
Purple light streaming out of the bottom drawer of the desk draws his attention and he replaces the photos in the top drawer. The bottom drawer opens easily but he can't figure out where the light is coming from. It seems to be seeping out of the edge of the drawer. A secret compartment!
Scorpius presses his lips together. Screw it, he's in too far to stop now. He waves his wand and watches as the secret and, apparently, warded compartment releases under his magic. He leans over, wondering what he'll find in there. More photos—of the actual pregnancy?
But no, it's just a black leather book.
Scorpius pulls it out of the drawer, the purple light blinking out as he touches it and turns it over in his hands.
He opens it up to a random page and begins to read.
23 February 2034. Ernie Macmillan is acting like an utter maggot with regard to the proposed changes to the bylaws of the Magical Orphans Charity. He had the audacity to suggest—
Oh, holy bogies. It's his father's diary!
He sits back, feeling like he should absolutely not be reading this, but also like he's definitely going to read it. He waves his wand and mumbles, "Seventh of October, 2006." The pages flip.
7 October 2006. Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy was born at 5:31 this afternoon. Everyone is healthy. Never have I seen such a perfect human.
Never in his life has Scorpius so bemoaned a vague pronoun reference and use of passive voice. And what's worse, Draco always employs deliberate language. In Scorpius's childhood, Draco constantly smiled and gently corrected his grammar until Scorpius became a beacon of posh speech befitting the Malfoy name. Scorpius's academic training interrupts his memory to remind him that this sort of socialisation into the linguistic trappings of the upper classes is one of the factors that perpetuates class inequality. He shakes his head, willing his brain to concentrate on what's important here: Draco's uncharacteristic sloppy language on the day of Scorpius's birth. "Was born" and "everyone," indeed.
Scorpius sighs, then smiles at the sentiment in the diary entry. But he doesn't want to read his father fawning over his newborn self with ambiguous antecedents. He waves his wand and murmurs, "Prima Mentionis," concentrating all his magical energy on the circumstances surrounding his conception.
The pages of the diary flip violently backwards, landing eventually on a page from 1999. Shit, what? That was seven years before his birth.
1 September 1999. Today is a day that should be spent on a train. Instead, I got pissed at a Muggle pub, and who did I run into but P.? The wanker was sitting on a barstool looking like absolute arse, as always, and when I walked in—
Scorpius looks up from the page, feeling like an interloper. He glances at the clock; Draco's meeting should last at least another hour. Scorpius casts a Charm that will alert him when his father returns, shakes off his guilt, and reads.
Draco walked into the pub, the first one he found walking at random through Muggle London. He wanted to get pissed and forget about his inane back-to-school feelings. He was an adult now, he shouldn't have been feeling weird about Hogwarts starting up without him. He shouldn't have felt so robbed of his childhood and of a normal education.
Alcohol would be good. He frowned, trying to remember Muggle alcohols. Maybe he'd get the non-smoking whiskey or a beer. Or better yet, gin. Yes, yes, gin.
He approached the bar, then stopped in his tracks. Because Harry bloody Potter was sat at one of the stools.
Well, fuck it all to hell. This day was determined to be horrible and also to make him maudlin like a Hufflepuff at a wedding; there was no point in fighting it. He sat down next to Potter.
"That's quite a pink drink," Draco said by way of greeting.
Potter's head whirled around satisfyingly quickly. "Malfoy," he said, squinting his eyes, and Draco couldn't tell whether the squint was due to suspicion or inebriation. "It's not pink. It's red." Potter held up his drink.
Draco hummed. "Looks like something my mother would serve at a medium-sized birthday gathering."
"It's a serious drink!" Potter claimed, then his face scrunched in confusion. Merlin, he must have had a few drinks already. "I don't understand why we're talking about my drink. What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?" Draco shot back. "And don't try to change the subject. Is that a fruit punch-based cocktail?"
"What? No!" Potter huffed. Then, "How do you know what fruit punch is?"
What a prat, insulting the extent of Draco's Muggle assimilation! "I know things," Draco said warningly.
They stared at each other for a long moment, then Harry said, "It's a Negroni."
"What's in a Negroni besides fruit punch?"
"It's not—" Potter groaned. "You are impossible! It's gin, vermouth, and Campari. The Campari is red. I think it's made with beetles or something. I'm trying not to think about that."
"Oh. Probably not beetles, but the Cochineal insect," Draco said, grasping at the detail he knew something about.
Potter's face was a mess of confusion. "What?"
"Don't look at me like that—it's used in potions sometimes."
Potter took a sip of his fruit-punch coloured, insect-dyed drink.
Draco licked his lips, watching Potter's eyes on him. "That sounds good, though," Draco said. "I was hoping for gin." He raised a finger to catch the bartender's eye and pointed at Potter's drink.
They sat in silence until he had a red drink to match Potter's. Draco took a sip. "Circe and Cassandra," he coughed, "that is bitter. It doesn't taste at all like it looks."
Potter turned to him. "I would drink it even if it were pink."
"What?"
"The drink. I would drink a pink drink if I wanted to."
"Yes, I'm sure you would," Draco said slowly, as if Potter were a very slow learner.
"What is that supposed to mean?!"
"Nothing!"
"I am comfortable with my, you know, my masculinity," Potter said, waving his hand around indistinctly like a complete moron.
Draco stared at him for a moment. "Do you want a round of applause?"
Potter sighed. "Give the drink two more sips and you'll start liking it. This is the strangest conversation I've ever had."
"You're strange," Draco retorted, as if he were still eleven.
"You're strange," Potter said, and at least their immaturity was well-matched.
"Why are you here all alone, O Strange One?" Draco asked, sipping the drink again—and Potter was right, it was already tasting better, the twist of orange peel lending it a citrusy aroma and the slight sweetness from the vermouth offsetting the bitterness.
Potter shrugged. "I dunno. No one else seemed to have bittersweet feelings about the first of September. I just wanted to get pissed and be sad about being a grown-up and everything I've missed out on."
Draco stared at him and blinked. What was the appropriate thing to say when one's nemesis expressed an emotion that matched one's own exactly? He settled on honesty. "I feel exactly the same."
Potter's green eyes looked up in surprise. "Really? When I said that earlier, Ron and Hermione just looked worried and, you know, like I was off my rocker."
Draco swallowed the rest of his drink and smirked. "Maybe we're both off our rockers." He signalled the bartender for two more drinks. Gin was good.
"How are you?" Potter asked suddenly, the words bursting out of his mouth with a hint of mania.
Draco quirked an eyebrow. "I'm well, Potter, and yourself?"
Potter scowled. "Don't give me any of that meaningless pure-blood polite response nonsense. That won't work on me."
"Well, what do you want me to say, Potter?"
"I dunno, I haven't seen you since the trial and I just, I've wondered how you are."
Draco looked at him, trying to solve Potter like he was a puzzle, but Potter looked genuine. That bastard always looked genuine; even when he was angry it was a genuine anger.
Draco took another sip of his red-not-pink drink and sighed. "I'm fine. Doing community service. Trying to help my parents rid the Manor of the stench of Voldemort."
Potter raised an eyebrow, amused. "The stench of Voldemort?"
"Well, I mean that literally—because you know, different types of magic have different scents, or maybe you don't know that, you grew up with Muggles—and also figuratively because we're just trying to expunge the memories." Draco stared at his drink. "There's been a lot of redecorating."
"Oh," Potter said. "Funny, I've sort of been doing the same thing with my house. Except, you know, ridding it of house-elf heads and um, cursed wallpaper."
"Cursed wallpaper?" Draco asked in confused amusement, taking another sip.
"Yeah, I was surprised, too. So was Ginny—it glued her hands to the wall when she walked by talking a little too loudly and a little too progressively."
Draco raised his eyebrows. "So you and the littlest ginger are—?"
"Huh? No." Potter frowned at his drink. "Didn't I just tell you that I'm gay?"
"What?!" Draco cried. "No! I would've remembered that."
"When we were talking about the pink drink."
"Potter, no. You said you'd drink a pink drink and I, clearly, did not assume that implied anything about your sexual preferences. Do you even know how sexuality works?"
"No! I mean yes! I thought I said it after that."
"How many of these have you had?" Draco asked, clinking his glass into Potter's.
"Er, three? I'm bi, actually."
"Didn't you bring this whole thing up to explain why you weren't with Ginny?" Draco asked, completely bewildered. "If you're bi, that isn't even relevant."
"Yes it is!" Potter said, tipsy and defensive. "It's relevant because I've been totally preoccupied with cock lately."
Draco's mind blanked for a moment, and he looked up at the dingy ceiling as if for strength. He took a bracing sip of his drink, realising he was going to have to meet Potter's confessions with his own if he wanted to maintain this precarious and bewildering truce they had going on. "I'm gay."
Potter turned slowly, and Draco wondered if time had slowed. "Are you just saying that to make me feel comfortable?" he asked.
Draco scowled. "First of all, since when do I do anything to make you feel comfortable? Second of all, you can't actually think I would 'just say' that."
"Yeah, s'pose."
"So how are dating opportunities for the Saviour?" Draco asked, only allowing the tiniest bit of resentment to creep into his voice.
Potter fixed him with the surliest scowl Draco could ever remember seeing on his face. "Oh, perfect, Malfoy," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Dating opportunities are awesome. Everyone wants to date me but no one gives a crap about knowing who I am. They just want a photo in the Prophet or to dose me with love potions or try to get me to make babies. On one memorable occasion someone sent me a literal human egg in the post."
Draco's mouth dropped open. "In the post?"
Potter shrugged. "It had a Cushioning Charm. And something else. Preservation? Stasis? I dunno."
Draco just stared at him.
Potter suddenly smiled, and it lit up his face. He held up his red drink for a toast. "So I'm not dating at all."
Draco's mouth was dry, and the bitterness of the Campari lingering on his tongue seemed to mask his usual hesitation. "Really?" he asked, only when he said it, it came out much too low. That "Really?" sounded like a come-on. It sounded like a promise.
Potter's eyebrows shot up in response to Draco's tone. His mouth opened and closed, and Draco was not meant to find that endearing, he really wasn't, but Potter looked adorable when he was off-kilter.
"Uh," Potter said. "No. I'm unattached." He held his hands out to either side as if to indicate his lack of attachments. "Are you?"
Draco wanted to smirk. He tried, he told his brain to tell his lip to curl up like he'd smelled something nasty, but he had the horrible suspicion that his face was blank and open. "Unattached."
Potter smiled and his eyes burned into Draco. And just like that, Draco knew it was a foregone conclusion that they'd be fucking within an hour or two.
Draco returned Potter's smile with a slow and heated one of his own. Potter downed the rest of his drink.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
Scorpius leans against the brick in front of The Hopping Pot, his favourite lunch spot. He's waiting for his father, his fingers fidgeting nervously in his robe pocket.
Draco comes into view, turning the corner on Diagon Alley, and smiles when he sees his son. Draco has always cut an imposing figure; he appears distinctive and aristocratic, but with a war-earned humility that makes him more approachable. His robes are always impeccable and of the latest fashion, something that sets him apart from many men of his social class (many of whom continue to wear stodgy robes that one imagines would've filled the closets of Nicolas Flamel or Elphias Doge). Scorpius knows he looks startlingly like him, though he dresses in a more casual, Muggle-influenced manner. But today he's meeting his father for lunch, so he wears a set of robes.
"Scorpius," Draco greets with a smile, leaning in for an embrace.
"Hey, Dad. How's it going?" Scorpius has been worried about his father, and his worry seeps into his greeting.
Draco raises an eyebrow in mild exasperation, and Scorpius winces, knowing that Draco is tired of being asked how he's doing in the wake of his wife's death. "It's not as if I'm the first man to be widowed," Draco had exclaimed the other night. "You'd think people would have figured out what not to say!"
In an attempt to show that he's not at all treating his father with overzealous solicitude, Scorpius exclaims, "I'm famished. Ready for some lunch?"
Draco smiles and opens the door. They find a table near the window and sit. "How's work?" Draco asks, pulling out a pair of glasses to peruse the menu.
A few years back, Draco had gone into a strop for a month about the glasses. He didn't want them, but his eyesight had degenerated to the point where a Vision-Correcting Charm no longer worked. Astoria had eventually gotten through to him after he had accidentally, at this very cafe, ordered a roast beetroot sandwich thinking it was roast beef. Draco had ranted for five minutes about the "absolute brazenness" of "the vegans" in making a sandwich out of root vegetables. "My love," Astoria'd said, interrupting him, "you are in your mid-fifties. Please, can we dispense with the vanity and embrace functionality?" Since then, he'd begrudgingly worn the glasses. Scorpius suspects he still blames the glasses on the vegans.
Scorpius wants to order the roast beet sandwich (it comes with chèvre and arugula on sourdough bread), but he doesn't want to stir up bad feelings, so he orders the quiche. Draco orders the beef stroganoff, and makes the waiter confirm that it is made, in fact, with beef.
"Can I ask you a question?" Scorpius asks, realising that he's mumbling a bit, which grates on Draco's nerves, and resolves to speak more clearly when next he opens his mouth.
Draco looks at him with concern. He's forgotten to take off the glasses, and really, they suit him. The crinkles around his eyes and mouth make him look distinguished, and the modern frames he'd chosen give him a very "hip dad" look. He could probably be featured in Witch Weekly's "Venerable Warlocks" issue. Scorpius smiles.
"Of course," Draco says.
"How did you and Mum get together?" Scorpius tries to say this casually, but he worries it comes out with the same tone as a Minister telling their constituents not to panic.
"You know that already," Draco says smoothly. "Our parents were friends; it was a good match."
"Yes, but," Scorpius starts, and he almost drops the topic and starts babbling about his latest research project about the classed linguistic conventions of Latin versus vernacular incantations, but decides to power through. "Yes, but, how did you find out about it? Did you know her? Had you had other relationships? How did you feel about it? Did you love her before you got married?"
Draco's face flashes for a moment with something like apprehension, then quickly shutters into a practiced facade. "Goodness, Scorpius, you might have made quite a feelsy Hufflepuff if you'd attended Hogwarts." He smiles.
"I'm serious," Scorpius says, and he knows his tone is startlingly firm. He usually babbles and laughs and rants.
"What's brought this on?" Draco asks.
Scorpius blows out a huff of air, because it's pretty obvious what's brought this on. She just died. But he feels it would be a little salt-in-wound to say that aloud.
Draco frowns and takes a sip of water. "We knew each other vaguely from Hogwarts, of course. She was two years below me. I knew of her parents through my parents. After the war ended…" Draco pauses, and Scorpius looks at the table to try to give him some space. "We raised you differently," Draco says, his voice pleading for understanding.
Scorpius looks up. He hadn't expected that.
"We always tried to let you be your own person. After what happened in the war, we didn't want you to feel like your life had been planned out for you."
Scorpius knows that his parents had raised him differently, but he's never heard Draco talk about it. He watches in fascination as his father absent-mindedly rubs his left forearm.
"It wasn't like that for me," Draco continues. "Even after the war, especially after the war, it was expected that I would do certain things. First and foremost, get married to an eligible witch and produce an heir."
Scorpius feels his heart drop. He's overcome with sadness for his nineteen-year-old father. He feels guilty and resentful about his father's lost choices.
"No. No!" Draco, who must've seen something on Scorpius's face, reaches across the table and grabs his wrist. "We never regretted you. I don't regret you."
The waiter arrives Levitating their plates and sets their food in front of them. Draco picks up his fork and cuts into a piece of—oh, indeed—beef.
"I just—" Scorpius huffs a sad laugh, popping a cucumber into his mouth. "It shouldn't have been like that."
Draco's face falls for a moment before he remembers to mask it. "I imagine it's hard for you to understand. I didn't even resent it at the time—not really. It was…just the way things were." He chews a mouthful of food in silence for a moment, then adds, "I had a few relationships, but I knew they wouldn't—couldn't—last. I knew my parents would arrange a proper match."
"How could you just—" Scorpius waves his fork around inelegantly. "I can't imagine—. When you were my age, you had a five-year-old son. I don't even have a relationship. I wander around archives and occasionally write a paper!"
Draco's face is kind but serious. "The wishes of my parents are not the reason you're here. I was meant to have you when I did—I'd never change it. Stop worrying so much."
Scorpius sighs, a sad smile on his face. His mother always used to tell him to stop worrying so much.
When Scorpius gets home, he kicks off his oxfords (Malfoys never wear trainers, though his oxfords are scuffed and the laces are fraying) and flops onto the sofa. It's hard to know that someone is lying to you when they don't know that you know they're lying. Granted, Draco seems to be attempting as much honesty as possible, and Scorpius can't help but respect that. Scorpius is a remarkably accepting person, regardless how much his father maintains he would've sorted Slytherin had he gone to Hogwarts.
He sits at his dining table, which is covered with books and a duplicate he'd guiltily made of his father's diary. He has a book from the library about what Healers call "spontaneous male conception," but decides that he can't bring himself to read dry theory about it. He's too emotional for dry theory and facts—it's his life, not a medical phenomenon.
He picks up the diary. After the first entry he read, he'd wanted to keep reading chronologically, but he'd progressed through six months of entries (and Merlin, did his father have a lot to say) with no further mention of the mysterious P. He did read about a few of his Aunt Pansy's disastrous love affairs, a hilarious anecdote about Blaise Zabini's short-lived foray into wine-making, a sad story about Greg Goyle's post-war depression, and a subsequent happier story about the opening of his cake shop.
But he is feeling impatient and decides to treat this like a researcher would. "Prima Mentionis," he says again, concentrating on his conception. The diary flips to that first entry he'd read. "Deinde Mentionis." The diary flips again, this time landing in 2003, still three years before his birth.
15 January 2003. Father forced me to go to a Ministry function yesterday in hopes that it would somehow improve the Malfoy name. I wanted to tell him that there wasn't much I could do on that count given his effect on the name, but instead I put on my silver dress robes. I was sat at a table with a group of single young people—and who sits next to me but P. He starts prattling on about how we were a table of leftovers but at least they hadn't sat him with Elmer Fostenbudge again. I hadn't seen him since that night a few years ago, and, if I'm honest, he looked amazing. He was wearing a set of gorgeous dark green robes and I had half a mind to ask who dressed him. In any case, we started talking and…
"I started Auror Training," Potter said at the table of the Ministry's "Destroying the Mist" charity function, his mouth turned up into a half smirk. "Go on, take the piss." They'd been talking for awhile, and his willingness to sit and talk and laugh with Draco was a bit unexpected, if not unwelcome.
Draco pressed his lips together, trying to quell a smile. "I would never dare poke fun at the Saviour."
Potter smiled, and it felt blinding. Draco had to look away; he trained his eyes on the Charmed ice sculpture, but Potter's smile felt like a beacon.
"Oh, come on, Malfoy," Potter said. "Everyone else is telling me how noble it is, but I thought for sure you'd say something like, 'I feel so comforted knowing that our fates rest in the hands of an imbecile' or something, and then I'd say, 'You think your fate rests in my hands, Malfoy?' and you'd say, 'I'll tell you what can rest in your hands, Potter.'"
Potter was still smiling, and Draco laughed in a manner that was much too honest. "Thought about that a lot, have you? And that was the worst innuendo I've ever heard."
Potter shrugged, though his face flushed. "Maybe I have thought about it. About what you'd say."
Draco couldn't suppress the shiver that ran down his spine. "You're wrong."
Potter looked at him in confusion.
"You're wrong about what I'd say. I saw the articles in the Prophet about how the Boy Who Lived to Endanger Himself started Auror Training. But I didn't think you were an imbecile. I thought you were making a bad choice because you'd never be happy doing," Draco paused, waving a hand, "that."
"What?" Potter asked, a small smile on his face. "What do you mean?"
Draco leaned towards him. "I think you're doing what other people want you to do, not what you want to do."
"What do I want to do?" Potter returned with an impish smirk, and Merlin, Draco had underestimated him back in school.
"Are we still talking about Auror Training?" Draco asked, sitting back in his chair.
"Are we?"
Draco had been hoping that Potter would agree to a fuck since he saw him walk into the room, and the insinuation in his voice made Draco's heart race. He didn't say anything.
"Look," Potter said, twirling a fork in his fingers nervously, "I'm kind of dating Ginny now."
"The Littlest Weasley?" Draco clarified, his neck cold with jealousy and disappointment and something else that felt like a sharp pain in his gut.
"Yeah," Potter said. He sighed. "We're not, um, exclusive yet, really. But I just felt like I should tell you that before we—"
"It's fine, Potter," Draco said roughly. His stomach still felt unsettled, though more settled now that he realised Potter was still game. "And I'm going to marry a pure-blood witch at some point in the near future. This is just for fun."
"If you're sure," he said, his eyes on Draco's lips.
"We may as well have some fun now before we're forced to settle down with a pair of wives, eh?" Draco had meant for that to sound flippant, but it came out resentful.
Potter frowned at the table. "It's not really like that, with me. No one's making me—but," he stopped, looked at Draco's eyes. "I want to, with you."
Draco couldn't look away. "Have we stayed here long enough to fulfil your obligations as Saviour?"
"Fuck my Saviour obligations," Potter said with a grin. "Harry Potter lives at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place."
Draco stared at him in confusion for a moment, then realised what Potter was doing. "Oh. Right."
Potter stood and casually walked out of the ballroom without looking back.
Draco stared at his drink, his plate, the flowers on the table, the ceiling, the ice sculpture, and then finally gave in to his impatience and walked to the Floo. Careful to speak quietly, Draco said Potter's address in the flames, spun, and emerged in a truly hideous sitting room. He gaped at the room for a moment.
"Agrippa's pants, Potter," Draco hissed. "Did I come to the right place, or did I accidentally land in the home of a nonagenarian practitioner of the Dark Arts?"
But before Draco could continue his rant—and he had planned to continue—Potter was standing right in his personal space staring at him with a look of unbridled lust. Draco swallowed, stood taller.
"Shhh, or she'll hear you. She's only a portrait though—I live alone."
Draco wasn't sure where to start with that, so he said nothing, opting instead to take one step closer.
"Can I kiss you?" Potter asked, his eyes flicking from Draco's mouth to eyes and his hands reaching for Draco's hips.
"Oh, Potter," Draco drawled with a smirk, "you don't need to ask with me."
Potter launched himself forward, and as their lips met Draco couldn't believe they'd let over three years pass since the last time they'd done this. It was as brilliant as he remembered. His body was flooded with the same rush of adrenaline and anticipation that he'd used to feel when hexing Potter, only it was overlaid with intense pleasure and a feeling of contentment that could never come from duelling.
"Did you think about me?" Potter asked, pulling away with an unfairly adorable grin.
What an idiot. What a complete idiot.
"No. Not once in three years."
Potter pushed his shoulder. "Liar."
"No, really, I haven't thought of you," Draco said, trying to keep a straight face but feeling a smile. "It's a hardship for me to look at you, that's how ugly you are. And you're a terrible kisser. And your cock is—"
Potter didn't wait to listen to what Draco had to say about his cock, opting instead to push Draco back against the wall. Draco wondered for a moment if that was going to ruin his robes—the wallpaper was covered with creepy amulets and hadn't Potter mentioned it was cursed? But then Potter was grabbing his hips and pressing his hot tongue into Draco's mouth and sucking on his neck.
It was a sensory overload—Potter's stubble scratched his chin, Potter's hair tickled his cheek, Potter's smell filled his nostrils. Merlin. Potter's extremely hard cock pressed against his groin.
"Fuck, Malfoy," Potter moaned, and Draco was relieved that Potter seemed as overwhelmed as he was.
His body was inundated with sensation, which was not a normal sort of feeling for him. Generally, his body felt unremarkable; he never thought about it. Usually he wandered around life, seeing friends, attending events, arguing with his parents, trying to put off his inevitable marriage to Astoria Greengrass. Even when he managed to find a person to have one off with, his body just felt good. But this was so much; his skin was burning. It was stupid, really. How could humans be expected to ever act rationally if their bodies were capable of feeling like this?
Draco pressed forward into Potter, rocking his hips forward. Potter moaned at the friction, which made Draco want to do it again and again. "What do you want?" Draco asked, nipping at Potter's earlobe.
"Mmmmmm," Potter responded. "You." He stopped, breathing heavily and kissing Draco's neck. "Mouth, anything. Want to fuck me?"
Draco pulled back, surprised. Last time they'd sucked each other off in an Colloportused loo at that Muggle pub. This time he was in Potter's house and Potter was offering to bottom? It seemed bigger, somehow.
He must've waited too long to answer, because Potter was saying, "If you—do you do that? I like it all. I mean, I'll top, if you want. Or we don't have to—"
Draco smiled, and watched as Potter's shoulders relaxed minutely when he realised Draco wasn't uncomfortable. "I like it all, too. And yes, I want to fuck you."
Potter huffed a relieved laugh. "Merlin, you sound good saying that." He leaned in for another kiss, his whole body pressing into Draco's, and Draco's head swam with lust and wonder—that Potter wanted him, wasn't just putting up with him.
Potter pulled away, whispered into Draco's ear, "Take out your wand."
Draco raised an eyebrow, but did as he was told. He was powerless to do anything but obey Potter when he talked like that. He wondered if anyone ever disobeyed Potter when he talked like that. Or if Potter ever talked that way to anyone else.
Potter reached around, wrapped his hand above Draco's on the wand, pointed it at himself, and whispered a series of protection and preparation spells. Draco could feel Potter's magic flowing through his wand, through his fingers, and Potter's forehead crinkled in displeasure as the spells hit his body. Potter dropped Draco's hand, walked backward towards the stairs.
"You coming?"
The Saviour. Ginny Weasley. A Fidelius Charm.
Scorpius sits cross-legged on his sofa, staring at his wiggling toes in a pair of thick, knit socks he likes to wear when home alone—the socks are much too thick to fit in shoes, but they make him feel a sense of home and belonging and comfort. He tries to stop his fidgety movement, but his mind is consumed with a torrent of thoughts, his heart is fluttering.
Harry Potter?
He must be mistaken. There must be some other person in magical Britain who is a Saviour and dated Ginny Weasley and had to put his home under a Fidelius.
Except Scorpius is an historian, so he has to think about this rationally. All available evidence points to one solid conclusion: years ago, his father and Harry Potter had an affair.
He wants to Floo to the Manor and confront his father right now. He wants to say, "Dad! How could you keep this from me!" Well no, he doesn't want to accuse. He'd say, "Am I right? Harry Potter? The Harry Potter?" No, that wouldn't do; he can't act like an overzealous fan over a man who may very well be his other father. He'd like to ask his father, "Was he good in bed?" but in truth Draco and Scorpius don't have that type of relationship. He wants to, but will never, ask, "Did you love him?"
His brain buzzes with everything he knows about Harry Potter, a man so famous that he'd always been in the periphery of Scorpius's consciousness, even when they'd lived in France. Harry Potter is always in the papers, his face on book covers, his name in history papers Scorpius studies.
He tries to remember his father ever mentioning Harry Potter; he knows they went to Hogwarts together, were in the same year. Scorpius remembers asking Draco about it once. "What was it like to be at school with Harry Potter?" he'd asked with excitement, and he remembers his father saying tersely, "Exactly as you'd imagine, except the books don't tell you what a prat he was." When Scorpius had tried to ask more, Draco had ended the conversation with a short word and a raised brow.
It's not as if Draco had dropped clues that they were talking about his secret father.
Harry Potter is divorced, has three children. Merlin—half-siblings? Scorpius fidgets again, rubbing his thumb and index finger over the pad of his foot. He doesn't know what he thinks about that. Being an only child (Scorpius doesn't even have any cousins!) is one of the primary parts of his identity. He'd spent his childhood jealous of other children, of characters in books who had large families. At Beauxbatons, he'd struggled more than most to learn how to live in close quarters with so many other people, and he'd started to understand how deeply his status as "only" was imprinted on his identity. He'd long ago embraced his "only"ness, but now the voice of a long-abandoned child Scorpius sounds in his head, excitedly saying, Siblings!
At this shimmer of excitement, he is immediately overcome with a wave of grief, a feeling of being a terrible, ungrateful son to his mother—she's been gone such a short time and he's already trying to replace her with new family. Scorpius knows she wouldn't see it that way—in fact, it's probably part of why she decided to finally tell him the truth—but he still feels twisted up and conflicted. He takes a breath, twisting his jumper in his fingers. He's not trying to get a new mother; he's trying to find the rest of his family. Another father. Siblings. Cousins, probably.
But no. He's getting ahead of himself. He should research. Yes, that's what he should do. He's trained for this sort of thing, after all. Gathering facts, piecing things together, making evidence-based conclusions. He picks up his phone and opens Wizkipedia. Harry Potter, he thinks, focusing his magical energy, and the words appear on the screen, followed by an article. A long article.
His mind flashes to a time a few years ago when he was working on a project about powerful magical auras in oral history. Many people throughout history had reported being able to feel the auras of powerful magical folk, but there had never been an attempt to systematise this data. Scorpius had been working with old documents in which people described powerful wizards, going as far back as Merlin, and he'd turned to Draco one day and asked, "Does Harry Potter have a palpable aura?" His father had stopped what he was doing and turned to him with a blank face. "Pardon?" Draco had said. "A strong magical aura," Scorpius explained. "Could you feel his aura when you were near him?" Draco had stared for a moment, then said, "Yes. I mean. No. I'm not sure." Scorpius remembers thinking it was odd; Draco, in general, is a precise observer of magic in the world and also a precise speaker. And yet…
Scorpius takes a breath. He won't get invested in this. He could be wrong. Harry Potter could be nothing to him. He could be merely the most famous magical Brit, exactly as Scorpius had always known him.
Or Harry Potter could be his father. Scorpius laughs, and the sound is anxious and terrified even to his ears. He knows he's already invested, even if he's pretending that his rational, measured side is winning.
"Harry Potter (b. 31 July 1980) is a British wizard who is best known for defeating "Lord Voldemort" (Tom Riddle), thereby ending the Second Wizarding War. Son of James Potter and Lily Evans Potter, Harry attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from 1991 to 1997. He married Ginevra Weasley in 2003; the couple had three children (James Sirius b. 2004, Albus Severus b. 2006, and Lily Luna b. 2008) before their divorce in 2010. Potter served as an Auror from 2001 to 2008."
The article then splits into detailed sections; the heading of the first reads, "Early life (1980–1991)."
Scorpius stares at the screen. If Harry Potter is his father, he has a brother born the same year as himself. He taps "Albus Severus," and the screen reads, "Albus Severus Potter (b. 27 February 2006)." Some quick math and Scorpius lets out a slow whistle: Albus Potter is less than eight months older than him. Which means he was conceived when Albus was in his last trimester. Fuck. Fuck.
Scorpius grabs his wand and Summons his father's diary. "Prima Mentionis," he says, concentrating on the second Potter child. The diary flips open, landing eventually well past where he had stopped reading. And there's his answer, isn't it? The magic would've found nothing if Harry Potter's second son was never mentioned in the diary.
23 July 2005. H. was looking more haggard than usual today. Nothing about his behaviour does much to endear me to the prospect of having an infant in my house someday; he is perpetually tired and brings with him the distinct sterile smell of a person who has foregone showers for Cleaning Charms one too many times. I told him he looked like shite, and he collapsed onto me, murmuring into my shoulder that he and his wife are expecting another child. I asked him, "Are you crazy? Already?" but the question I really want to ask—"Are you happy with your life?"—is the one question neither of us ever dare ask.
Draco Apparated to his usual spot in the back garden of Grimmauld Place. He looked around, swallowing back his typical paranoia about being found, but the only thing he saw was a bat flying out of a tree. He pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders and let himself in the back door.
Harry was already there. He poked his head out of the sitting room and then walked towards Draco.
"Hey," Harry said, wrapping his arms around Draco's waist and pulling him close. He laid his head on Draco's shoulder and just held tightly. Draco wrapped one arm around him, squeezing Harry's shoulders.
"Alright?" Draco asked.
"I'm so tired," Harry mumbled into Draco's lapels. "You're a sight for sore eyes."
"I'm always a sight for sore eyes, given my extraordinary good looks," Draco said, ratcheting up the posh in his voice.
Harry laughed. "You're a smell for a sore nose, too. You smell like Draco."
"I'm going to assume that's meant to be a compliment," Draco said, burying his face against Harry's hair. He couldn't help himself, if he was around Harry. Harry made him act in all the ways he never thought he'd act.
"Is something wrong?" Draco asked lightly. "Or is this extended embrace the natural effect of another sleepless night with toddler Potter?"
"Nothing's wrong, but something's happened. I just want another minute to stand here before I tell you. You feel like a calm in the storm."
Draco didn't quite know what to say to that, but it made his chest clench with something—affection, possessiveness, jealousy. He knew that Harry loved his wife, more than he'd ever love Astoria (at least in a romantic way), but Harry still needed him. Harry couldn't get everything from her, from their life—he still needed Draco.
Draco spread his legs apart a few inches for better balance and stood tall, cradling Harry's head with the arm wrapped around his shoulders. "What's the storm?"
"Life," Harry whispered.
Draco didn't ask what Harry meant; he knew. He felt the same way, most of the time, though he had many fewer demands on his time than Harry. Since the war, he felt like he was being buffeted about by the winds of family, of expectation, of society. He felt like he had no say over his life. Marry Astoria. Rehabilitate the Malfoy name. Get ready to make an heir. (Have you taken your virility potions, my darling son? The kind with the folate? Must do everything to improve sperm quality for our beloved heir, of course.) Life was the storm. But not Harry. Harry wasn't something he had to do. Harry was the only thing in his life that he wanted, just for him.
"Gin's pregnant," Harry said, finally pulling away from Draco. He stood tall, leaning against the wall.
"What?" Draco asked stupidly, but he couldn't help his inane response because it felt like something—a stupid foetus—was going to tear Harry away from him again, was going to take away the one thing in his life that wasn't part of the storm.
Harry didn't say it again. He knew Draco well enough to know that Draco was processing. "Due in February."
A long moment passed. "Congrats, old chap," Draco said with faux enthusiasm, and his voice sounded spiteful, sarcastic, toxic.
Harry frowned. "Don't be like that. It doesn't change anything."
Draco scoffed, but hearing Harry say that it didn't change anything loosened the vicelike feeling in his neck, in his chest. He lived in constant worry that Harry would leave, would no longer need him, had never needed Draco like Draco needed him. Something would happen someday that would make Harry realise it, and where would Draco be then?
He wondered if Harry had the same worries.
Harry sighed. "Look, I—I can't handle thinking about any of it. It's like a constant stress, yeah? James is the light of my life, but he never gives me a moment to breathe, or to sleep. Gin makes me happy, but sometimes it just feels like all the shit and responsibility in my life has taken on the shape of her and it's a lot of pressure. I've got all the crap shifts at work because Junior Aurors have to put in their time. And I—you know I—I'm still fucked up. I don't want to think about any of it. The only time I ever feel free is when I'm here with you. Another baby doesn't change that."
Draco wanted to be mad, but Harry looked so overwhelmed. Draco felt a sudden wave of indignation—he was furious at his parents, their society, everyone who put pressure on Harry, everyone who made Harry think he should get married and become an Auror and have a horde of babies, everyone who constantly told Draco to think carefully about making an heir, about positioning the Malfoy name to achieve influence, every fucking person in this world who somehow contributed to the farces that were their lives. Draco wanted to grab Potter and Apparate away to someplace far—as far away as they could get. Where would that put them—New Zealand? Bring it on, they had good wine and Māori chanting magic.
But he couldn't.
Draco took a breath, let it out. Then he pushed Harry against the wall and pressed his lips to Harry's neck. He sucked gently, relishing the feel of Harry's stubble against his face. "I don't want to think about it either."
Harry reached behind Draco, pulled him close, and whispered, "I brought cashews and chocolate frogs."
Scorpius looks at the parchment in his hand for what must be the twentieth time in the last minute. He's nervous, and when he's nervous he fidgets, and right now his nerves are at a state where he's worried he's going to tear the paper in half.
Dr Malfoy, Sure—I'd be happy to meet you. My siblings and I were already planning to meet for lunch Tuesday next (noon at the Gnarly Gnome in Diagon). You can join us. -Albus Potter
Scorpius feels a little guilty when he sees the "Dr Malfoy." Of course, he is a doctor, but this isn't a professional meeting and he knows that he used his credentials to seem, well, credentialed. He'd also lied through his teeth.
He must have drafted his original letter to Albus Potter twenty times. As soon as he'd sat down to write it, he realised he was in danger of sounding like a crackpot, or an obsessed fan, or a stalker. "I know something about your father. Please meet." was sure to be Vanished with no reply, at best, or sent to the Aurors, at worst. He'd eventually settled on, "Dear Mr Potter, I am a magical historian specialising in the social history of magic in the British Isles. In the course of compiling research, I've found something that seems to belong to your father. I'm sure he has many demands on his time, and since I'm certain you will be interested in what I've discovered, I thought it best to go to you. Would it be possible to meet in a cafe or library at your convenience? Yours, Dr Scorpius Malfoy"
He'd decided to send the letter to Albus, the middle Potter child, because the oldest, James, was a famous Chaser for the Montrose Magpies, and the youngest, Lily, was a dragonologist who was often out of the country. Albus Potter worked with his father in his Quidditch shop, and therefore seemed the most accessible.
It was a surprise to hear that he was going to meet them all at once; he'd much rather meet them one at a time. That would be better for his nerves.
And he has no idea what he can possibly say to them. "The thing I found of your father's is me—surprise, it's a boy!" doesn't seem prudent. "Guess what? Looks like your father impregnated a man three decades ago!" seems rather blunt. "You've known a loving father your whole lives, while I've been lied to since birth and kept from my blood relations" seems to be throwing a bit too much of his baggage at his guiltless, unsuspecting half-siblings.
He's going to have to wing it.
He wonders if he should tell them at all. Getting the Potter children involved had seemed like such a good plan a few days ago. They could confirm Scorpius's suspicions, discuss their fathers, and come up with a strategy for telling the fathers that they'd figured it out. That's what siblings do, right? Conspiring and scheming? If he is going to discover at age thirty-one that he's got three siblings, the least he should get from this is scheming co-conspirators.
But now he feels like the bearer of bad news, about to march into their lives and shatter their misconceptions of their family. He wonders if they know their father is queer; it's certainly never been in the papers. Then, the papers are fond of speculating about how the Saviour doesn't date, which is as good as publishing veiled suspicions about his heterosexuality. What will the Potter children think of it? Their parents are long divorced, but revelations of an affair may shake them; it'd shaken Scorpius. If he just keeps his mouth shut, they never have to know.
Scorpius starts to laugh a bit manically, rubbing Albus Potter's letter between his fingers. That's the exact train of thought that had led his parents to keep the truth from him. No, the Potters deserve to know. If he were Albus Potter, he'd want to know he has a has a half-brother who is the same age.
Scorpius wishes he'd known all of this a long time ago.
He looks at the clock. Time to go. He grabs a handful of Floo powder, tells himself not to overthink it, and steps into the flames.
When he stops spinning, he steps out into a comfortable-looking pub. He looks around, trying to find the faces of the Potters based on the photos he's seen. A waiter says, "What are you looking for, love?"
Scorpius wants to laugh—isn't that a question. "The Potters?"
"They're in the corner," she says, pointing, and Scorpius looks across the pub.
They're quite noticeable, the Potters. He's seen them in the papers, of course, but they're louder in real life. Lily is the loudest, her red hair in a pixie cut, telling a story and waving her arm in the air. He immediately spots two tattoos on her arm, and he can't help but think that she looks like exactly the kind of person he'd want to sit and chat with, or take to the cinema and make fun of a bad film with. She looks like great fun. Albus, sat next to her, is looking on with amusement. He looks just like his famous father, only younger and without glasses. James, who is pounding his fist on the table with good nature to try to interrupt his sister, looks like he just stepped off the pages of Quidditch Weekly—goodness, it's a bit intimidating to walk up to a table with James Potter, star Quidditch Chaser. Next to James is another man, who looks slightly older, with medium-brown hair and kind eyes. Scorpius assumes that's James's husband, Teddy Lupin; Scorpius has read about him on Wizkipedia, but hasn't seen him before.
Scorpius walks over, feeling like an idiot, as four happy faces fall silent and turn to look at him.
Right. No one is here to make introductions for him.
"Hello," he forces himself to say, trying not to seem as thoroughly intimidated as he feels. "I'm Scorpius Malfoy. I sent you a….we corresponded?" He wants to kick himself, he sounds like such an arse.
But the Potters smile. "Have a seat," Lily says, pointing next to her. "I'm Lily."
Scorpius sits, still feeling profoundly uncomfortable.
He's met with a chorus of introductions: "I'm Albus, Al," "James Potter," "James's husband, Teddy Lupin." He wonders if being around the Potters always feels like a sensory overload.
"Hi," Scorpius replies, and smiles. A few waiters arrive, placing a number of dishes in the centre of the table. Everyone busies themselves grabbing food, but eventually all four faces turn to stare at Scorpius, the silence growing like an oppressive fog. Scorpius knows he should break the silence, though his mouth just won't seem to work.
But just when it's about to get unbearably awkward, Lily says, "So anyway, like I was saying, Lenda is a jackass and if he doesn't start seeing reason, I'm going to have to liberate these dragons." She pauses. "And I really don't want to do that. Especially after the incident a couple years ago."
"Mum might actually kill you if you do that, Lils," Albus replies, around a mouthful of chip. "Go through the proper channels. You can't Gryffindor this. Go over Lenda's head if you need to. Think like a Slytherin."
Lily sighs, reaches her freckled hand up to fiddle with a long earring. "I suppose. I hate acting like a Slytherin."
"Needs must, Lil," James says in sympathetic tones, before biting into a burger.
They turn again to Scorpius, and Scorpius feels profoundly grateful that they've diffused the tension and are checking to see if he's ready to talk. They are loud and boisterous, but they are kind. He can feel his tension slowly easing.
"Thanks for agreeing to meet me," Scorpius says, his voice less authoritative than he'd like. "I have something," he pauses, blowing out a huff of air, "I have something to say, and I honestly have no idea how to say it."
"Just say it, mate," James says. "You didn't go to Hogwarts, but I assume you know about the Houses. Times like this call for acting like a Gryffindor."
Scorpius sees Albus roll his eyes; he knows Albus is the only Potter who wasn't in Gryffindor. Scorpius laughs. "My dad says I would've been in Slytherin, like him, but I've never been so sure. I think I'd've been Hufflepuff, honestly."
Teddy shouts, "Badger power!" which is met with silence and bemused expressions. James laughs, throws his arm around Teddy's shoulders.
"'Badger power'? Really, Ted?" Lily asks flatly. "You're getting so old. You sound like dad. Pretty soon you'll be telling those jokes about the gnome and the lightbulb."
Albus groans, but Teddy laughs. "I am old, Lils," he says happily. "I'm about to turn forty. I can tell dad jokes even if I'm not a dad."
"Seriously," Albus says, looking at Scorpius. "Just say what you have to say. You said you had something that belongs to dad? Is it something scandalous?" He raises an eyebrow excitedly, and Scorpius can't help but smile.
"Okay, look, I'm just going to say this, but it's kind of a long story. My mum died last month—"
Scorpius was planning to forge ahead, but everyone interrupted.
"Oh no, I'm so sorry." "Sorry to hear that, mate." "Sorry for your loss." "How awful!"
Scorpius smiles at their kindness, but he really just wants to finish this story. "It's alright; we knew it was coming. Her family has a blood curse—it's lucky she lived to be fifty-five. Anyway, before she died she told me—she told me that she isn't my mum. Well, she is my mum—she raised me. But she's not my blood mum. My dad—my dad was pregnant with me. I have two dads—you know, rare but happens. And, er, I was curious so I stole a diary of my dad's. And." He pauses. Act like a Gryffindor. "I think—I'm pretty sure. Um. The person who—the sperm. Oh, Merlin. I am babbling. Come on, Scorpius. I think your father got my father pregnant. So. That's the, er, thing. That I wanted to say."
He tears his eyes away from the pepper grinder, which he's been unthinkingly staring at, and looks up. All four are staring at him with open mouths.
"What?" James says, and Scorpius is relieved that his voice, though shocked, doesn't sound angry.
Scorpius swallows. "In the diary, my dad wrote about the affair. He didn't use a name, called him 'P.' But mentioned 'the Saviour' and that they knew each other from school and that he was with Ginny Weasley. They were together—I'm not exactly sure how long. A few years, I think. It's a bit hard for me to read it, so I keep having to take breaks to avoid having a full-blown panic attack. So I'm not sure exactly."
Albus is the first to recover enough to talk. "What did your dad say?"
"I haven't told him I know. I tried to, but... He's grieving. I didn't know what to say." He pauses, not sure how much he should reveal.
Lily sighs. "Well, this is something."
"Do you want me to—" Teddy starts, but then seems unsure. "I'm a Healer. I could do the Charm to confirm—compare your genetics with one of theirs. But I don't want to push you to do it, if you don't want to. Medical ethics, blah blah blah."
"It's okay with me," Scorpius says. "I mean, thank you for offering."
Lily nods. "Hit me."
Teddy pulls out his wand, looking rather more uncertain than Scorpius suspects is usual for him. He seems like a nice bloke, and competent, and arse-over-tit for James. Teddy looks at James, James nods at him, and Teddy casts.
Scorpius feels the magic settle over him and Lily, feels the tingle of a diagnostic-type Charm. After a moment looking at a swirling pattern illuminated above them, Teddy declares, "Fifty percent genetic match." He tucks his wand away, and with it his medical authority. "Well, fuck," Teddy says.
They're all staring at him. Scorpius doesn't know what to say. "It's been a weird month," he ventures.
To his immense relief, the Potters laugh.
"Well, what the fuck is another brother to add to the rest of the family?" Lily asks. "Welcome, bro. Here are my rules for my brothers, and Al and Jamie, you'd do well to listen up. One, do not ever ask me if I'm dating anyone. I'm ace, and I can't stand that type of small talk. Two, don't ever tell me what to do. Three—nah, that's it. Only two rules."
Scorpius laughs, a bit taken aback. "Alright? No problem."
"What the actual fuck?" Albus bursts. "Not you, mate, you seem cool. I'm talking about Dad."
James catches Teddy's eye, his lips pressed together.
"I saw that!" Lily shouts. "Jamie, Ted, what do you know?"
"I don't know anything," James says, raising his hands defensively. "I just—Teddy and I have talked about some memories we have. Teddy remembers going with Dad somewhere and a man was there. I remember him getting owls, I don't know."
"What the fuck, James?" Albus yells, and he sounds mad now, for the first time. "Why wouldn't you tell us that?"
James sighs. He raises a hand and gestures at Albus. "This is why. Also, when Mum and Dad divorced, I was six. I was barely old enough to understand what I was seeing. You were four and Lily was two. There's no way I could've told you! And after—well, why dredge it up? Dad's philandering is his business. Well, and Mum's, I suppose, when they were still married."
"But Dad doesn't philander," Lily said thoughtfully. "How many dates has he been on since the divorce? It's been almost thirty years. He's been on, what, five dates?"
Scorpius, eating a chip, watches with morbid curiosity as his new siblings air all the dirty laundry of his very famous new father.
James turns suddenly to Teddy. "Would you have taken Dad for a top?"
"James!" Teddy huffs, covering his laugh with his hand. "You can't label people like that. Didn't we just go to a lecture a couple weeks ago on how heteronormative gender assumptions affect queer sexual desires and identities?"
James waves his hand. "Yeah, yeah, I know. But still. Would you have?"
"I always wondered if Dad was pining after someone," Albus interrupts. "You should see the wistful look he gets when he watches you and Teddy, like he's watching his kid do something he never got to do. I swear. It's sickening."
"But that's just Dad," James replies. "Wait. You think Dad is jealous of me and Teddy? Ew! Dads aren't supposed to be sexual."
Teddy is still laughing, but trying to pretend that he's not. "James. Grow up. Dads are supposed to be sexual. Because they're people." He pauses and looks at Lily. "Unless they're not sexual. No offense, Lils."
"Nah, it's okay. Dad's obviously not ace. He's just sad." Lily bites into a roll.
"Lily!" Albus says, exasperated. He drops his head into his hands, elbows on the table. For a moment, they sit there in silence, though it doesn't feel awkward, just contemplative. After a moment, Albus looks up at Scorpius. "What about your dad?"
"Well, he was married to my mum since before I was conceived and they were married until she died. But I don't think—they loved each other, but like friends, you know? I don't think they were ever involved romantically or sexually. They lived in different wings of the Manor. Dad said he had to get married, make a proper match, have a child. I'm not really sure I have a good reason for saying this, but I kind of suspect he's still not over your dad. I saw the way he wrote about your dad, and I know my dad hasn't had other affairs—Merlin, at least I don't think so, I mean maybe a one-night thing here or there but I am pretty certain he hasn't had anything real with anyone else—and he always seems a little bit sad like he wants something more and I just. I don't know. Is it silly of me to try to apply social myths about there being one true love?"
"Merlin," Albus says, sighing and pushing some pasta around on his plate. "Well, our mum remarried ages ago. Dad's never been interested in dating, even when we push him about it. But he's clearly sad about it, too." He turns to Scorpius, trying to explain, "He's always trying to get us to come over. If one of us misses a Thursday night dinner, he sulks. He cross-stitched 'My Grandchildren Are Crups' and hung it on his wall. He's always offering to babysit our cousins' kids. He's…bored. He deserves more, to be honest."
Scorpius blinks, taking this in. "My grandchildren are crups?"
"James and Teddy have six crups," Albus informs, buttering a roll and raising his eyebrows in a lovingly judgmental look.
"Don't speak ill of your nieces and nephews," James says, smiling. "You love them."
"I don't love Padfoot," Albus says ominously.
"Padfoot has challenges!" James cries, a bit defensive to Scorpius's ears.
Lily hums, thankfully attracting attention away from the crup discussion, which seemed poised to teeter into full-blown debacle. They all look at her curiously. "It's just—and you know I hate this sort of speculation and matchmaking of all types—but what if our dad and Scorpius's dad are long-lost lovers? What if they're each, y'know...the one that got away?" She looks at Scorpius.
He thinks his face might be turning red. "I'm—I'm not sure. But I think. I think maybe. The way he wrote about him…"
James drops his fork and rubs his hands together, a look of pure mischief on his face. "Wicked. Let's do this."
"Oh, Merlin. No!" Albus cries. "No. This can only end in disaster. We can't just go setting them up. Dad can't possibly know Scorpius exists—if he did, he'd have insisted on parenting him. He parents everyone. He tries to parent random kids at Tesco. When he finds out, he is going to be devastated. This entire thing is going to be a complete shit show!"
"Yeah, that's true," James says, waving his arm dismissively. "But they'll get over it. And think about it, Al. How does Dad act whenever someone mentions Malfoy? Or sees him in the paper?" James raises his eyebrows, waiting for Albus to catch up.
"Bloody buggering fuck," Albus mumbles, and nods.
"How are we going to tell Harry and Scorpius's dad without them both freaking out?" Teddy asks.
"In the name of Merlin," Albus says, "all of you stop talking. If we're hatching a plan, the Slytherin is in charge."
"Wait though," Teddy says, "we need to see if Scorpius is okay with this." Four questioning, curious faces turn his way.
Scheming and conspiring. Scorpius smiles.
"Put that aside to see if Scorpius or Daphne wants it," Draco instructs, feeling weary. He's not sure he should be clearing out Astoria's rooms this soon, but he can't bear to have the task looming over him for the upcoming weeks or months. Better to face the shit now, all at once. He worries he's acting like a Gryffindor.
"Yes, Master," Jimsy replies, sending a clock zooming across the room to a growing pile.
Draco sighs, trying to loosen the tight feeling in his chest with deep breathing. It doesn't help. He feels bad knowing that he's going to have to impose on Scorpius and Daphne to decide what they want to keep. There's no way around it, though—he can't make all of the decisions. Astoria was important to a lot of people, not just him.
He doesn't want any of it.
He misses her—it feels like a soul ache. He doesn't know who he's supposed to be without her. But he doesn't want her stuff. The stuff just makes it worse. Even the smell of her rooms is painful. She's meant to walk through that door, her laugh tinkling through the room. She's meant to sit on that chair, read those books, use that blanket.
Draco raises a hand to his forehead. It's too much. "Jimsy."
The elf stops, looks up. "Yes?"
"I'm going to my office. Can you please put anything that Scorpius or Daphne might want in the pile and continue cleaning the rooms? I want to get rid of the furniture, and try to get the smell out of here."
Jimsy crooks her head. "Of course, master."
Draco knows perfectly well he's not acting rational—Astoria's rooms smell good, much better than his rooms. They smell like lavender and bergamot and Draco's never been sure where those smells come from.
He nods. "Thank you, Jimsy." He turns and walks quickly from the rooms, inhaling deeply when he reaches the corridor. He continues without stopping through the winding passages of the Manor until he reaches his office, where he settles at his desk.
He lets his head drop onto his hand. He's sure he looks undignified, but there's no one fucking there to see.
He is no longer married, and it's so strange. There'd been a time, so long ago, when the idea of being free from the expectations—no, not free from them, but having fulfilled them and being on the other side of duty—would've been his dream. But now he doesn't even remember what he would've wanted to do with himself, had he had that sort of freedom back then.
Well. That's not true. He does remember, of course. Harry.
And then, like it always does when he allows his mind to stray to Harry, a wave of guilt and grief washes over him. Fuck, but he's let his defences slip.
He remembers those first, hard years when he could no longer see Harry. He remembers sitting in France with Scorpius as an infant, trying not to think about it—about any of it. He remembers reading a Muggle book he'd found in the library. "Crimestop," it had read, "means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought." He'd read it so many times, the sentence burned into his memory. That's what he had to do. It was the only way forward. He learned how to do it out of sheer force of will—Slytherins can accomplish a lot for self-preservation.
But he's slipping.
Even Astoria's death doesn't give him permission to slip. If he thinks about it, he'll drown in it. Crimestop.
It's not as if he can run back to Harry, like he'd once wished he'd been able to. It's been a lifetime, but beyond even the thirty-two years separating them is an enormous deception—Harry doesn't know the truth about Scorpius. Harry could never forgive that. The bridge to Harry is burned.
No one knows the truth about Scorpius. Only his mother and Astoria. And with his mother in France and Astoria dead…it's only him. His hand shakes as he reaches up to brush his hair out of his eyes.
He's always had this premonition that Harry would figure it out, if they met. Harry had written to him, once, after his divorce, but Draco hadn't been able to read it. Crimestop. He's always worried that someone will suspect, that someone will look at him and see the secret in the shape of his body, in the way he moves. None of that has changed.
So what in Salazar's name is he supposed to do now?
For some reason, it feels like more of the same isn't an option. He's supposed to just live alone in this enormous house, bossing house-elves around and attending occasional meetings of the organisations for which he sits on the board?
He'll go bonkers faster than Great Uncle Brutus.
He's supposed to have conversations over supper, holidays planned by a thoughtful companion. Astoria is supposed to push him to get involved with things she comes across that she knows he'll enjoy. She's supposed to debate with him about the issues facing the Hogwarts Board of Governors.
Without her, he has no distraction. He's left alone with himself, and he's slipping.
He tries to remember before Scorpius, before Astoria. He tries to grasp the essence of Draco—just Draco—to figure out what he wants. But he has to go back further, doesn't he? Before the war. Before his parents.
Fuck, there is no just Draco. And, excellent—now he's acting like a morose Ravenclaw philosopher.
He knows when he'd felt most authentic. When he'd felt like he was doing something for him and not for his parents, society, the rest of the fucking world.
But back then, with Harry, it'd always been about living in the moment, because they'd both known it couldn't last. He doesn't remember having any ambitions or hope or life goals during those years. He doesn't remember what he wanted—beyond Harry's young, firm body, his lopsided smile when he arrived in his Auror uniform, the too-strong tea Harry brewed for him.
The memories, now that Draco's stupidly let them in, flood him. He closes his eyes; he can hear the way Harry's laugh had sounded when Draco teased him. He inhales sharply, and he can almost feel the way Harry would reach out and touch his cheek.
How can it hurt this much after so much time?
Draco reaches for a glass of water that Jimsy has left on his desk. ("Master must hydrate!" she's always saying.) As he drinks, he tries to remember what he wanted from life. He can't recall any moments of hope for the future amid all the coercion and obligation of those years.
But then he remembers a child's laugh and a head of turquoise hair, and he can't help but smile even as his stomach clenches, trying to protect him from the emotional force of the memory.
Spring 2003
Draco Apparated to the back garden, a sense of anticipation and eagerness bubbling in his stomach. He steadied himself with a hand on the brick wall and walked quickly into the house.
The "Potter!" that he was about to holler died on his lips as he heard soft voices. No one was supposed to be here but Potter. His stomach clenched; he drew his wand and walked down the corridor on tentative feet, taking extra care as he passed the portrait of his belligerent aunt. His constantly calculating mind told him that the smart thing would be to leave immediately, but he didn't want to leave. He wanted to see Potter.
And fuck, that was a sobering thought. Since when was Potter more important than Draco's self-interest?
The voices didn't sound dangerous, though. They sounded calm. Draco approached the sitting room and slowly peered into the room.
Potter was sitting on the floor with a little boy in his lap. The boy had bright turquoise hair, and Draco realised with a start that this must be the Lupin child. They were related, if only tenuously. He had a sudden, vivid memory of Lucius's intense reaction to the news that Narcissa's niece had married a werewolf. He took a breath, pushed that out of his mind.
Potter was smiling, his face luminescent with happiness, or rather, the closest thing to true happiness that Draco had ever seen on his face. They were looking at a picture book, and Potter was pointing at the page as the boy—Teddy?—laughed.
Draco tried to ignore the way his chest constricted. This thing he was doing with Potter was time-limited. It could never last. He wouldn't let it last. He would marry, produce an heir. Potter would do his Saviour thing, having babies and being an Auror, even though it was clear to Draco that Potter hated everything about Auror training.
But watching Potter like this, looking relaxed and almost happy, threatened to tear apart Draco's well-constructed defences. All those rational walls he'd built—we'd never last, we'll each get married, I'll be the Malfoy heir and make another Malfoy heir—threatened to come tumbling down. Because Potter looked like something real. Like something Draco could maybe, possibly, want enough to risk everything for.
Potter looked up and saw Draco watching. "Hey! I'm sorry, I didn't have time to owl. Andromeda had an emergency—she asked me to watch Teddy. I couldn't say no."
Draco didn't know how to answer. He tried to push his emotions back to where they came from.
"I didn't want to stand you up," Harry continued. "So we just came. Teddy, this is Draco. His mum is gran's sister. Draco, this is Teddy."
The boy looked briefly at Draco, but then his eyes flicked to Potter as he said, "Hello. Pweased to meet you."
Draco smiled. Of course a Black would make sure their grandchild was raised with proper manners.
"Hello, Teddy," Draco responded, finally walking into the room. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"We're reading fairy tales," Potter explained with a smile. "I know this isn't what you came here for. If you want to leave, you can."
But Draco was already sitting down on the sofa, peering over their shoulders at the illustrations. "I don't know this one."
"It's a Muggle fairy tale," Potter said, looking closely at Draco's face. Draco had the uncomfortable sense that Potter was checking to make sure he didn't have an offensive reaction.
Draco wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. "Oh really? What's it about?"
"It's about a girl who was cursed and needs to figure out a little—what'd they call it, Harry?"
"An imp."
"Needs to figure out the imp's name, or else she has to be married to the king and they'll take away her baby!"
"Really?" Draco asked, bemused. "Sounds like a good story. Do you think they'll discover the imp's name?"
"Of course!" Teddy answered, pointing his chubby hand at the book. He whispers, "It's Wumplestiltskin. There has to be a happily ever after."
Potter caught Draco's eye, and his face was surprisingly sad. Draco gave him a small smile, trying to reassure him. It was sobering to think that Harry Potter, the magical world's patron saint of happy endings, looked so downcast at a child's innocent expectation of happiness.
"Quit the Aurors," Draco blurted.
"What?" Harry asked with a surprised, dismissive laugh.
"Quit the Aurors. Be happy."
From the look on Potter's face, he seemed to suspect that Draco might be talking about more than his career.
"I can't do that. I'm meant to be—I want to be—an Auror." Potter smiled, but it looked sad.
Teddy looked up at Draco. "Harry fights bad witches and wizards," he announced proudly.
Harry squeezed the boy's small shoulders with a wistful smile, then looked up at Draco. "Want to play a game with us?"
"Alright," Draco said, trying not to feel they were play-acting at a life they could never have for real.
Draco stands in front of his wardrobe, a frown on his face as he scrutinises the contents. On a whim, when Jimsy had finished clearing out Astoria's rooms a few weeks before, Draco had asked her to rid his wardrobe of the clothing and robes purchased by Astoria. He'd been thinking in particular of a set of purple robes she'd bought him years earlier in Milan that were bold and distinctive and that he'd never be able to wear without thinking of her. But it turns out that Astoria must have bought many of his clothes, because the wardrobe is now sparse.
He's due to meet Scorpius for lunch at a restaurant he's never been to, and all of his appropriate robes are gone.
He sighs. There are formal dress robes, there are casual robes, there are Muggle clothes. But all of his versatile robes are gone.
"Jimsy," he says.
Jimsy appears with a crack! "Yes, Master Draco?"
"What would be the most appropriate thing to wear to a luncheon?"
Jimsy walks closer to the wardrobe, her hand cocked on her neatly tailored silk pillowcase as she surveys the contents. One of her huge ears twitches as she turns tentatively to look at him. "Master, sir, you is asking me to—"
"I know, Jimsy," Draco assures. "You are not to blame for my haste. I do need something to wear, though."
The little elf turns back to the wardrobe. She holds her hand up, and the hangers move to allow her to visualise the available options. "We is going Muggle, sir," she eventually declares, and Draco sighs. Draco hates wearing Muggle clothes, because, though he's always sure he looks good, he never fully understands the social connotations behind the different choices. Once he'd shown up in a "morning coat" to an evening event. He's just never quite sure. But there's nothing for it.
"Change is good!" he says, trying to sound enthusiastic, though he's quite sure it sounds a bit manic.
Jimsy gives him a concerned look.
A few minutes later, he walks to the Floo, wearing a pair of grey wool trousers, a smart blue shirt, and a blazer. It will have to do.
He's set to meet Scorpius at noon, and after checking the time (precisely five to twelve), he throws a handful of powder into the fire, and steps in.
"Good day," he says as he steps out. "Reservation for Malfoy."
"Yes, sir, just this way."
He follows the waiter, taking in the decor, which has a bit of a vintage, traditional feel. He wonders if Scorpius chose this restaurant on purpose because—
All thoughts abruptly leave his mind as he sees his son—his Scorpius—sitting at a table with Harry Potter and another man who can only be Albus Potter.
He's not sure how long he stands there, agape, before the waiter turns around and says, "Sir?" with a touch of impatience.
"Dad!" Scorpius says, hopping up from his chair.
Draco is still frozen as Scorpius puts his hand on Draco's elbow. The touch brings him back to his body, but he knows he's still staring impolitely as he allows Scorpius to steer him into a seat.
"My father, Draco Malfoy," Scorpius says. "This is Albus Potter, and, er, you know Harry Potter."
Draco tears his eyes away from Harry to look at Scorpius. His shoulders are slightly scrunched, his cheeks slightly flushed—Scorpius is nervous. Holy fuck, Scorpius knows. How does Scorpius know? Draco's eyes fly back to Harry. Harry looks back at him curiously; he seems a bit nervous, but like he has no idea why they're there. Harry didn't expect to be seeing him. So Harry doesn't know. Draco properly looks at the son—Albus—for the first time, and it makes his chest constrict. Albus looks so much like his Harry had looked, only happier, only without a lifetime of trauma in his eyes.
"Dad," Scorpius says gently, and Draco looks back at his son.
"Hello," Draco finally manages, and he has no idea how he manages to speak at all. His parents' incessant lessons in pure-blood manners must have been worth it, really.
"Hi, Draco," Harry says with a tone of bewilderment. "I didn't expect to see you here." His gaze turns to his son, and his voice has the tone that parents use when waiting for their children to explain something. Then he turns back to Draco and awkwardly adds, "I'm sorry for your loss; I saw the notice in the paper."
Draco nods an acknowledgement, feeling utterly discomposed.
Scorpius is looking at Albus; Albus raises his eyebrows, Scorpius responds with a nearly imperceptible nod. They both know. Albus—the actual human man and not the abstract idea of a baby that had once ruined Draco's life—and Scorpius—the actual human man who would've ruined Harry's—are sitting here conspiring. Fucking stupid, idiotic children! They have no idea what they're meddling in! They have no idea what their fathers have sacrificed for them to be sitting here! And they probably think that they, at thirty-one years old, know everything there is to know about the world and that their officious meddling will somehow make things—
"Look, so," Scorpius says, twisting his fingers in his jumper.
A stop fidgeting almost escapes Draco's lips; his hand almost reaches out to touch Scorpius's arm in a gentle reminder to stop moving. But for once, Draco's shock has overpowered his habitual instinct to parent.
"I'm just going to say it," Scorpius continues, but then he doesn't just say it.
Draco has a wild urge to launch himself across the table and press his hand over Scorpius's mouth, but he has retained enough rationality to recognise that he has no way to explain that sort of behaviour to Harry.
"Yes, just say it," Albus echoes. "Do you want me to do it, Scorp?"
Draco narrows his eyes at Albus. What the fuck? How do these two even know each other? Albus is calling him by a preposterous nickname? Malfoys don't adopt nicknames.
"Alright," Scorpius says in a shaky voice. "Dad, I'm sorry to spring this on you, but I didn't think you'd agree to meet Mr Potter otherwise. We know that you two had an affair when you were young."
Draco's neck is suddenly blazing hot. He wants to keep his eyes on his son, but his eyes are drawn to Harry's and they stare directly into each other's eyes for the first time in over three decades. Harry is shocked. Draco can't breathe; he knows that the shock Harry's feeling is nothing compared to what's coming.
"We don't think it's our place to judge you for that!" Scorpius continues, speaking too quickly for proper elocution. "In any case, well. Dad, I know that you were pregnant with me. Mum told me right before she died. And we know that my other father is you, Mr Potter."
Draco's stomach responds as if the floor has just been Vanished. He cannot believe that this is happening, that the entire foundation of his life has just been pulled out from under him, like a Muggle pretend-magician pulling a tablecloth out from under a spread. Only he knows he won't stay upright like those dishes.
He can't look at Harry. He can't. He can't see the betrayal on Harry's face—Draco had never been able to contemplate what Harry's face would look like on hearing this news—that was part of the reason Harry could never know.
Even without looking, though, he can hear.
"What?" Harry says, his voice completely devoid of emotion.
Scorpius lets out one nervous laugh, an old habit that Draco hasn't heard in years. "By blood," Scorpius clarifies, "you're my father. Teddy did the spell to confirm. So um, spontaneous male conception. Unless you two planned me with fertility potions, which seems unlikely given the circumstances. Your kids and I are half-brothers."
Draco stares resolutely at the table. He can't look at any of them. They were never supposed to know. Scorpius has always had two loving parents—isn't that enough? Why does he need this, too? Harry has had his life with his and Ginny's children—isn't that enough? This news will only hurt them both.
"Dad," Albus says. "It's okay. It'll be okay. None of us are mad."
"Draco."
He looks up. Harry's face is blank, but somehow intense. An intense blankness. Albus's arm is on his shoulder, but Harry isn't looking at Albus—he's looking directly at Draco.
"How could you not tell me?"
How can Draco possibly answer that question? He'd need a week of talking, a book's worth of words, to answer that question.
"I—you'd left. You were having a second baby. I couldn't—I needed an heir, wanted him." Draco stops. He sounds petty, defensive, vindictive. It was never supposed to be petty or defensive or vindictive.
Harry's face is devastated, and Draco thinks that's the face he's been trying to avoid for all these years.
Harry turns to look at Scorpius, as if seeing him for the first time. He stares. "Scorpius, I—I'm so sorry. I—. Thank you for telling me. I need some time to process this, okay? I can't—" His eyes flick to Draco. "I can't be here right now. But I—Merlin, please don't think I'm rejecting you. We'll—we'll talk soon, okay? I can't—"
Harry stands, pauses next to Albus's chair, reaches a hand around Albus's chest, leans over, and squeezes his son. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'll owl you later, okay, Al?"
Albus nods with Harry's face pressed into his messy hair, and with that assurance, Harry strides out of the room.
Draco wants to follow, not to run after Harry, but to go hide from this himself.
Instead, he sighs. He owes it to Scorpius not to run.
"Well," Draco says, his voice quavering, "that went about as well as I would've expected."
Scorpius and Albus give tentative, encouraging smiles, and Draco wonders how he and Potter, of all people, had ended up raising such understanding, empathetic humans.
Draco manages to get home after the disastrous lunch, even if he doesn't quite remember leaving the restaurant or stepping into the Floo.
He'd like to to go to bed, but it's only two o'clock in the afternoon. He walks to his office and collapses at his desk. He isn't sure if he's overwhelmed with emotion, or completely numb to it: it's some sort of extreme case where the two are indistinguishable.
"You were right, Astoria," he says to the empty room. "We should've told him!" He laughs, wonders if he's finally lost the plot, and lets his head drop to the cool wood of the desktop.
For a few minutes, he tries to focus only on the way his head feels against the desk. He thinks that's a meditation technique Astoria had once told him about. Every time his mind wanders, he's supposed to focus on the sensations in his body.
It doesn't work.
If he's going to wallow, he may as well do the thing properly. He sits up, reaches into the desk drawer, and pulls out his diary. His fingers shake as he flips through the pages looking for February 2006.
4 February 2006. Today H. broke it off. I can't really blame him—he's overwhelmed, needed too much with his kids and work, his wife is about to have another baby—but I do. I do blame him. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do now. If I'm honest with myself, which I try never to be, I've been obsessing over him since I was eleven. And now…the only way forward is to just stop thinking about him. Well, I can do what I put my mind to…
Draco let himself through the back door. "Harry, you giant wanker! I brought that swill beer you like!" His stomach had objected to the mere sight of the beer in the market, but he thought Harry would appreciate it after the raid he'd been on yesterday.
He walked through the corridor towards the kitchen so he could put the bottles in the cupboard. When he stepped in, he was surprised to see Harry sitting at the table, his head in his hands.
"Are you alright?" Draco asked, feeling suddenly worried about that raid.
Harry looked up, his hands on his cheeks, and he looked awful. He looked tired, and sad, and worried. He looked a lot older than twenty-six, though he'd always looked older than his age, hadn't he?
"What happened?" Draco asked, dropping the beer to the table and sitting down in the chair to Harry's right.
"We need to stop this," Harry said, scrubbing his face with his hands. "I'm so sorry. I need to stop."
"Wha—we've said that before," Draco put in, though that seemed a bit pointless. "Before James was born. It didn't take. This is the same thing—baby nerves." He could feel a cold chill creeping down his spine.
Harry shook his head, and he just looked so sad.
"Is it Ginny?"
"No," Harry said. "I just—I don't know how to explain this. I feel like I'm being pulled in a thousand directions at once. I need to be there for James. I need him to have a dad who is around, and Ginny is overwhelmed, and I love Gin, I do."
Draco bristled, the familiar jealousy prickling through him.
"And work is calling me in constantly, and I constantly smell like peanut butter and regurgitated milk, and I haven't had a full night's sleep in years, and the new baby is coming any day now, and." Harry's face was heartbreakingly kind. "Something has to give, Draco. I'm so sorry it has to be us. It's the only thing I can give up."
Draco wondered idly whether he should cast a Warming Charm on himself, because he felt like he'd just been hit with a Glacius.
Draco stood up.
"Don't go yet!" Harry pleaded, surprised that Draco seemed poised to leave. "Seriously, Draco, I can't give up my kids. I can't give up my job. What am I supposed to do?"
It was the job one that stung most, Draco thought. He knew Harry Potter—world's most famous orphan—would never abandon a child. But it was clear to Draco that Harry hated being an Auror. He could give that up. He didn't need the money, or the prestige.
But he wasn't going to say that, not again.
"I'm going to miss you," Harry said, and it was too genuine to bear.
Draco turned and walked out the door, not hearing the rest of Harry's words, and the vaguely queasy feeling he'd had all day intensified as he rushed outside, Apparated home, and vomited on his mother's rose bushes.
"Dad."
Draco opens his eyes, blinks; he'd fallen asleep at his desk? Maybe his body had decided to shut down from all the stress. He blinks again.
"Dad."
He sits up. Scorpius is standing next to his desk, a gentle look on his face. He looks so grown-up. How is Scorpius not angrier about all of this? Since when is Scorpius so mature? Draco feels old.
He remembers how it felt, after the war, when suddenly he was the functional head of the Malfoy family and his father was in disrepute, incarcerated; he thinks wryly that he understands now how Lucius must've felt back then, watching the generational power dynamic shift before his eyes.
Scorpius walks behind Draco's desk chair, wraps his arm around Draco's chest, and hugs him. Draco brings his hand up to return his son's squeeze. Draco doesn't know what to say. "I'm glad you came."
"Can we talk?" Scorpius asks, and his voice has that slight hitch that indicates he's trying to be brave. Draco remembers hearing it in Scorpius's voice before he went off to his first year at Beauxbatons.
"Yes. Let's go to the drawing room. Jimsy." The elf appears. "Can you please bring us tea in the drawing room?"
"Right away," she says, and disappears.
Scorpius leads the way through the corridors, past the judgmental portraits and the demanding antique furnishings. Draco wants to get out, and he hasn't felt that way about the Manor since those first few years after the war.
Scorpius waves his wand at the grate, starting a merry fire, and sits in his regular armchair.
Draco sits in the next chair, attempting a smile. "Tell me how you're feeling. You can be honest; I deserve that."
But Scorpius doesn't get angry; he wouldn't, of course—it's not his way. "I'm just—" Scorpius starts, "I'm so sad for you, Dad."
Draco is not expecting that. "You're sad for me?"
"I'm sad you felt you had to keep such big secrets. I'm sad that you felt like you couldn't be happy."
"I've been happy!" Draco says, but he hears how defensive it sounds. "No. Scorpius, honestly. I've been happy. You make me happy. I loved your mum."
"I know," Scorpius says, rubbing his thumb on the arm of the chair. "But you know that's not what I mean. I'm sorry, by the way. I'm really sorry for ambushing you like that. Albus and I thought—well, we thought we had one chance to get the two of you together and that we'd better use it. It was a bad idea."
Draco leans his head back against the chair, looking up at the high, ornate ceiling. "It's not as if there was a way you could've planned that reveal that would've gone well," he says, and laughs. He hears a tinkle of ceramic; Jimsy has served the tea. He takes a breath, brings his gaze back to Scorpius. "What do you want to know? Ask me anything. Well. I might not answer anything."
Scorpius laughs. He raises his knee as if he is going to tuck his leg underneath his bottom, but then seems to remember he's wearing shoes and can't act that way here, ultimately settling on crossing his legs. "Why did you go through with the pregnancy?" he asks quietly.
Draco smiles. "That's an easy question. Your mum and I needed a baby, but didn't particularly want to have sex. That is to say, we would've done it, somehow. I'd have girded my loins—perhaps that's too apt an idiom—and done it. But we knew she had a family history of the blood curse, too, and that pregnancy might weaken her. Which gave us pause." He stops and exhales. "We considered the possibility of adopting, but the details of the inheritance magic specified that the heir had to be related by blood." He notices Scorpius's face twisting in annoyance. "Offensive, arbitrary, outdated rules—yes. In any case, I never intended to become pregnant. In retrospect, it solved the heir problem quite neatly. Your mum and I found ourselves with a blood-related child who would not be predisposed to ill health, who was conceived in an act of love. You understand how important that is for a child's magic, do you not?"
Draco pauses, searching his son's face. Scorpius has never had a long-term partner; Draco hasn't had much need to discuss baby-making with him beyond the compulsory and important lessons of protection and contraception. (Draco wonders whether Scorpius is now reevaluating all of Draco's sex talks in light of this recent revelation.) He's not sure how much Scorpius knows about the way magic passes from parents to child, or about the specifics of male-male conception.
"I know," Scorpius says with a smile. "I'm a researcher, remember? I've read about it."
"Well, in the case of spontaneous male conception, the two wizards' magic must be perfectly compatible. In short, the fact that you were conceived at all was an assurance—I knew I was pregnant with a baby who would be healthy, have robust magic, and who would likely flourish. And you have." He smiles. He really is proud of his son.
"So you loved him, then? You just said 'conceived in an act of love.'"
Draco blinks. He'd just said that, hadn't he? Crap. He hadn't really meant to say that. There must be limits to this whole openness and honesty thing, mustn't there? He should ask a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff how they know where to draw the line beyond which honesty is superseded by pragmatic deceit.
"I don't know, Scorpius," he says eventually, weariness creeping into his voice. "I know that you exist. It wasn't probable."
"So Mum knew everything."
It's not really a question, but Draco senses that Scorpius needs an answer. "Of course. She knew about Harry before, too. We—our agreement was that we'd always be honest with each other. She knew that I was gay before we got married." He can't believe he just said all that out loud. He can't remember the last time he declared his sexuality out loud. It's not something he's ever been at liberty to talk about with anyone, with the exception of Astoria.
But Scorpius doesn't even blink. "I'm glad she knew. I mean, I'm glad you had someone you could talk to." He picks up his cup, takes a sip of tea. "Did it—did any of that mean you couldn't love me?"
"No!" Draco says. "No, Scorpius, never. We enjoyed you. Your mother loved you before you were born, and so did I. She took potions to induce lactation, you realise." Draco smiles. "She wanted to be part of it."
Scorpius smiles and wraps an arm around his middle. "It's fairly dangerous though, isn't it? Male pregnancy."
Draco tries to look encouraging. "It was fine. Healers are adept at dealing with it. And they've made breakthroughs since you were born that make it even safer, now."
Scorpius doesn't say anything, and Draco feels the need to fill the silence. "It was…amazing. You were miraculous."
Scorpius laughs. "I didn't do anything, though. I rather think you were the miraculous one."
Draco scoffs.
"No, really, Dad. And you—you know I would never think any of that stupid shit people think about men who've been pregnant. It doesn't change anything about you, doesn't make you a woman or feminine or any of that stuff, you know? I mean, not that I'd care if you were a woman or feminine, but you're not. I know, especially back when you grew up, you probably heard a lot of stuff like that and I—I'd hate to have caused you grief over that, you know? You've always been an incredible man and role model. I hope you never worried about what I would think about you, or thought that I'd think less of you. I think it's incredible."
Draco can feel tears prickling at his eyes, and he has the ridiculous thought that he can't cry now or it would undermine Scorpius's defense of his manhood. He laughs, memories of some his long-ago-settled qualms about what a pregnancy meant for his gender rising up again.
"Thank you, Scorpius. I can assure it didn't cause me a great deal of stress."
Scorpius smiles. "But see, you didn't say it didn't cause you any stress. I've always wondered why you and Mum were so progressive and knowledgeable about gender. You Ravenclawed it, didn't you?"
Draco laughs, unexpectedly delighted to be able to talk about this. "We read some books, yes. I had accepted my sexuality long before I was pregnant with you, but when my body looked like it was being taken over by a maternity monster it was a little confusing. I never felt like a woman, but I looked a bit like one, and I fancied men….I needed to figure out how all those things—sexuality, gender, body—were different in order to be confident about it." Draco frowns. "It's amazing how many people have no idea what they're talking about with these things."
Scorpius smiles, and he really looks alright. He doesn't look mad, or resentful, or upset, or conflicted. "Like I said, Dad. You're amazing."
Draco doesn't know what to say to that. For a few minutes, they sip tea in silence and listen to the crackle of the flames in the grate.
"I'm sorry," Draco says finally, setting his cup down. He knows he should elaborate, say more, explain, but he doesn't know how.
"It's okay," Scorpius says, and Draco is overwhelmed with love and pride for this man in front of him. "It really doesn't change anything, you know?"
Draco smiles even if he's not sure he believes that. After Scorpius leaves with a warm embrace and a promise of an owl, Draco drinks his tea and, for once, lets the memories of those days in.
February 2006
Draco hurled into a basin, the stink of vomit filling his nose. He was filled with disgust at the vomit and at the way his whole body was full of nausea and aches. But the sick, disgusted feeling matched his mood since Harry had broken things off.
In truth he'd been wallowing in it.
He sat up, eyes watering, and Astoria waved her wand to Vanish the contents of the basin.
"It'd save us a few steps if I could just Vanish the contents of your stomach," she said with a teasing twinkle in her eye. "Though that doesn't seem wise without Healer supervision."
Draco moaned. "This is repulsive. What illness could I possibly have caught? Why are you not sick yet?"
"How many days have you been ill?" Astoria asked, tilting her head slightly and fixing him with a calculating look.
"Three? Four?" He groaned again, leaning back against the marble wall of the loo.
He'd been sick since he got home from seeing Harry. From his last time seeing Harry. At first he'd thought he was sick from grief or shock or something horribly romantic like that, so it had been a bit of a relief to discover that he was legitimately ill. Illness didn't make one weak. Well, actually, it did make one weak. But he'd rather be weak and ill than healthy and sentimental.
"Give me your finger," Astoria said, suddenly.
Draco, too nauseated to argue with anyone taking care of him, held out his hand. She waved her wand and a drop of blood bloomed on his finger.
"Ow! What the fuck!" He trusted his wife, but a little warning would've been nice.
She Levitated the drop of blood into a cup and distractedly whispered "Episkey" at Draco's finger.
"What are you doing?" he queried.
"Nothing," she said, ignoring him.
"Well, you're clearly doing something."
"Kindly shut your mouth," she said. She waved her wand at the drop of blood and began a long, chant-like incantation.
"Are you performing a blood magic ritual? Because this hardly seems the time—"
"Shhh!"
The drop of blood, now a tiny shimmering orb, glowed a luminescent green.
"Wait a moment," she said, holding up a finger.
Draco had no idea what they were looking at, but he watched. It was pretty—captivating, even. The orb pulsed, and then the green changed abruptly to purple.
"Well," Astoria said, her voice a bit breathless, and sat back on her heels.
"Well, what?" Draco asked. "Do I have dragon pox?"
"I didn't actually expect that niggling suspicion to be correct," she said, sitting next to him on the cold floor and grabbing his hand in hers. She felt warm, and small.
"What suspicion?" Draco demanded weakly, his voice now full of suspicion.
"Well," she said, resting her head on his shoulder, "you're pregnant."
"What?" Draco asked, inhaling too much air. "How is that even—"
Astoria, to her credit, didn't answer. She wasn't the one fucking a man on the side, so it was not exactly reasonable to demand an explanation from her. They sat silently for long minutes.
What the fuck.
Draco's mind scrambled to collect every bit of information he knew about male pregnancy. It was common enough in gay male couples when the men took a course of fertility potions. It was exceedingly uncommon without the potions. His mind swam with a vague memory of his father scoffing and saying that male pregnancies were "unnatural." Then he recalled a scene from a famous wizarding novel in which the protagonist claimed that male pregnancies occurred only in cases of the truest love and the most compatible types of magic.
Fucking hell.
He was fucking pregnant with Harry Potter's illegitimate baby. Not that Draco put much stock by offensive, backward concepts like calling a human being "illegitimate"—but the pure-blood world sure did, his parents sure did. He could easily imagine what the Prophet would say, if it came out. It'd probably have a play on "two-timer"—like "The Boy Who Lived Two Times to Two Time" or something absolutely fucking ridiculous like that, and that was just what he got for fooling around with Harry fucking Potter, wasn't it?
The Prophet would do something like run side-by-side photos of Draco with his baby and Ginny Potter with her baby and it would probably say something like, "The Baby Who Shall Not Be Named" or "The Boy Who Laid." And, on top of everything else, it seemed that the hormones were already fucking with Draco's intelligence because he couldn't even come up with any good Potter puns. He could always come up with good Potter puns.
Eventually, Astoria said quietly, "It's up to you, of course. Do you want to keep it? Not to rush you. Only it takes a week to brew the Abortus Faciens potion and we can't exactly buy it from the apothecary without people noticing."
Draco closed his eyes. A baby. A baby who would be half him and half Harry. A baby who had already beaten the odds by coming into existence. He and Astoria had been trying to figure out how they were going to do it—make a baby. They'd tried having sex once before, but Astoria couldn't stop laughing at Draco's attempts to get himself hard and he'd ended up pinching her breast to bring her back to the task at hand and in retaliation she'd flicked his cock, which was still limp, and Draco had finally sat back on his heels with a raised eyebrow and an amused look and said, "This isn't happening, is it?" She'd covered her mouth with her hand to quell her laughter and said, "I'm sorry—it's like trying to fuck my brother." He'd laid next to her, his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her close.
So. It had looked like the conception of a Malfoy heir was going to involve wanking into a cup.
But now…
Draco turned to look at her. Her kind, brown eyes were sad, like she wished she could protect him from it all. "Yes, I want to keep it," he said. "It's an answer to our problems, isn't it."
"I suppose," she answered, squeezing his hand. "No one need know that I am not pregnant. If pure-blood families are prepared for one contingency, it's hiding away unplanned pregnancies. I would raise the baby as my own, of course."
Draco hummed in an absentminded manner, his mind still whirring with thoughts. "We'll have to go away."
"I don't mind," she replied easily, leaning back against the wall. "Are you going to tell him?"
"No." His voice was sure, forceful.
She didn't say anything to that, even if he thought she might have opinions on the matter; she understood what was at stake.
"We'll have to leave soon," she said, after a while. "You need intensive Healer monitoring, and we can't trust anyone in Britain."
"Fuck," he whispered, and she rested her hand on his stomach.
"For this to happen, you two—" She stopped. "Are you certain it's over between you?"
He nodded.
"Alright."
"Astoria."
"Hmm?"
"How did you know that Charm?"
"Madam Pomfrey taught the girls along with menstruation, protection, and contraception charms in third year. She didn't teach it to you?"
Draco began to laugh. This entire thing was really rather preposterous. "No. They didn't teach the boys anything."
"Are you serious?" Astoria fumed. "What a bunch of patriarchal fucking bullshit!"
"I agree in full," Draco said, still laughing, now doubly amused because Astoria only cursed when she was incredibly angry.
Astoria leaned forward, waved her hand indistinctly at Draco's torso, and declared, "I blame Dumbledore."
Draco barked a laugh, and with a nod, replied, "Yes, I blame him for a lot." But then he reached for the basin as he was overcome with another wave of nausea.
"Master Draco," Jimsy says, snapping him out of his reverie, "Mr Harry Potter is here. Should I be bringing him in?"
Draco blinks. He has a wild, vestigial desire to hide. But there's no one left to hide from—everyone knows, Astoria's dead, the house is empty. Well, there's no one to hide from besides Harry himself.
Life is strange.
"Yes, show him in." There's no sense putting it off. He's had more sincere, momentous conversations today than he has had in the rest of his life combined; he may as well stuff them all in before he retires for the night.
Jimsy leaves, and Draco waves his wand to send the empty tea service to the kitchens. He stands and walks to the bar cabinet, pulling out a dusty bottle of gin.
"Master Draco, Mr Harry Potter," Jimsy announces.
Draco turns around, holding the gin.
Harry has on his determined face. He looks surprisingly calm, though, given the circumstances.
"Draco," he says. Then, after a deep breath, "I'm sorry I left before. I know it was rude to Scorpius and don't worry, I am going to talk to him."
Harry seems anxious, so Draco cuts in. "Hello. Do you still drink gin?"
The question seems to surprise Harry. "Er, no? Not usually."
Draco frowns and looks down at the bottle. "Me neither." It suddenly seems huge, this thing between them. Everything they knew about each other is gone, old, moot.
"I'll take a brandy, or a whisky," Harry says. "If you're offering."
"Why did we always drink gin?" Draco asks, putting it back and selecting a much-less-dusty bottle of Ogden's.
"We were young and wanted to forget our problems?" Harry asks with a touch of grim humour.
Draco turns around, Levitates two tumblers of whisky to the seats, and gestures for Harry to sit.
"I quit drinking for awhile, you know," Harry says out of the blue, and Draco aches with how much he's missed him. Harry's always blurting out personal details and stories and thoughts in a way that Draco never does. It has always made for lively, interesting conversations, and Draco has always latched on to every detail Harry is willing to share.
"You did?" Draco asks with a small laugh as he sits and retrieves his glass from where it's bobbing in the air. "Why?"
Harry shrugs and takes a sip of his whisky. "I'm not even sure anymore how I would've explained it at the time. In retrospect, I think I was trying to exert control over my life. Everything seemed uncontrollable, I guess, and it felt like there wasn't anything I could do. But I could stop drinking." He smiles, and Draco feels flooded with the force of what it's like to be on the receiving end of Harry's smile. "Anyway, it made no difference," Harry continues. "Turns out I never had a drinking problem and needed to take control of my life in other ways that actually mattered."
"If you had never started drinking, I seriously doubt we'd be sitting here right now," Draco observes, raising his glass towards Harry. "I seem to remember finding you thoroughly soaked in Negronis that first time we got together."
Harry smiles, and it looks sad. Draco understands. He doesn't particularly like to think of those years either, of course, especially that first year after the war.
After a moment, Draco says, "You're taking this much better than I would've expected. You haven't so much as raised your voice. You used to have quite the temper."
Harry frowns. "For fuck's sake, Draco. I am not taking it well. I'm angry, upset, confused. I'm reeling. But I'm a fucking grown-up now, I can manage not to yell at you. I have a child. We can't fuck this up—for Scorpius."
Draco blinks. In all his years of remembering Harry, he hasn't spent much time thinking about how he might have changed. "Fair enough," he says. "Well, go ahead. Say what you came to say."
"Don't be dismissive," Harry says, his brow furrowed. "We haven't talked in thirty years and then this gets sprung on me. I think it's reasonable that I want to talk about it."
Draco sighs. "Sorry. I know. I'm—go ahead."
"How could you not tell me?" Harry asks, and he looks hurt. "I thought we were…" He trails off.
"You thought we were what, exactly?" Draco asks, trying to keep his voice calm. "Because I didn't find out about the baby until you'd already broken it off between us."
"I meant—I thought you cared about me!" Harry's forehead is crinkled, and his glasses are different, and he looks so incredibly, unfairly good as a fifty-seven-year-old. He continues, "At least, I cared about you."
Draco wants to yell, "You cared about me just enough to break it off completely!" but he's had so much practice at being a mature adult that he's learned how not to yell when provoked, he's learned to keep his temper with his ageing parents, and with an anxious and moody teenager. He guesses he and Harry have both grown up.
And Harry's right, of course—they had both cared, back then. Draco takes a breath. "I did care about you. You know that."
"And I know you knew how messed up I was from being unwanted as a child. You knew how I felt about my kids. Well, about James anyway. Draco, you must've known how I would have felt about having a child and not knowing it!"
Draco crosses his legs. He honestly doesn't know what to say. He'll either sound patronising or heartless. "I did know that. Which is why I thought you'd do something moronic like insist on co-parenting even though you made it clear you didn't want me anymore, and you would cause your marriage to fail, and it would be stressful for your other kids—your real kids—and it would've splashed us both all over the cover of the Prophet, and you'd have been dragged through the mud, again, which you hate."
Harry's face is broken.
"It's not as if Scorpius was an orphan," Draco continues, trying to keep his voice gentle but knowing that he's ramping up in intensity. "I wanted him. Astoria and I wanted him. He's had two loving and attentive parents, a full life."
"But I didn't know him," Harry says, and he looks like he might cry. Oh, Merlin, Draco can't handle that. If Potter cries after all the rest of the shit that's happened today, Draco will almost certainly cry, and then the two of them will be like a couple of barmy old men at a Hufflepuff reunion.
"I don't know what to say," Draco replies. "I did what I thought I had to do. I thought I was protecting myself and protecting you." He looks at his drink, the way the ice swirls through the liquid. "It would've been a disaster any other way. You must know that."
Harry runs a hand through his hair, which is as messy as ever but now about half grey. It suits him. He looks distinguished. "Life sort of ended up a disaster anyway, didn't it?" Harry says after a moment. "I think what I've learned since then is—life is going to suck in some ways, no matter what."
Draco's mouth tilts up. "Eloquent as ever, Potter."
"No, I'm serious," he says. "Back then, I thought I could hold it all together and everything would go the way it should. I could love Ginny. I could be an Auror. I could be the kind of dad that doesn't exist outside of storybooks. Spoiler alert: I couldn't."
"'Spoiler alert'?"
Harry laughs. "My kids say that a lot. But what I mean to say is, I get why you did it. But I wish you hadn't. I wish you'd given me a chance. I've missed three decades of one of my kid's lives! I—"
"You had three kids of your own," Draco says, a little annoyed. "It's not as if you haven't had the experience."
"It's not about the experience!" Harry cries, now thoroughly flustered. "He's my son! And I—I missed it."
"You have every right to feel betrayed," Draco says wearily. "I betrayed you. Be upset with me. But Scorpius hasn't lacked for parents or for a good life. So it doesn't make sense to agonise over him. He wasn't yours, then. He couldn't be. He can be yours now, if you want. He wants to get to know you now, I think." Draco pauses, not sure how to relate to Scorpius's other father just how incredible Scorpius is. "He's the best person I've ever met."
Harry stares at him until Draco starts to feel uncomfortable. When Draco's finally scrambling to come up with something to say to fill the silence, Harry says, "I've been a shit dad in a lot of ways, you know."
"Oh, Potter," Draco sighs. "Good grief. There is no way that's true."
"Oh, shut up. I was fucking you for my first two years of parenthood, so that was a good start. It took me another two years to realise I had to quit my job, and another two after that for Ginny and I to realise we needed to divorce. I was so fucked up back then. You know that. There were so many things standing in the way of me being the kind of dad I wanted to be. So yeah. Add to all that the fact that I somehow managed to completely miss one kid's existence."
"Have they ever doubted that you love them?" Draco asks, pointlessly, since he knows the answer.
Harry sighs. "No."
"Then I think you did okay, Harry." Draco looks at his drink. "If the experience of parenthood has taught me anything, it's that there's no such thing as a perfect parent."
Harry raises his glass. "Hear, hear."
"I was proud of you, when you quit the Aurors," Draco says, and then kicks himself because he really didn't need to say that. Why did he say that?
Harry looks up in surprise. "Proud?"
"I only mean, I know how hard a decision that was for you." Draco tries not to concentrate on how wrong-footed he feels. "Are you happy now?"
"As happy as anyone," Harry says with a half-smile. "I love running the Quidditch shop. I like going to work. Al works with me, so I get to see him all the time. I love my kids, my nieces and nephews, and grand-nieces and nephews. I babysit them when I can. I see Ron and Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys." He pauses. "I watch James and Teddy's crups when they travel."
Draco can't believe that is the extent of Harry Potter's reflection on his life's happiness.
He knows how Harry feels, though. When he was a teenager, before the war, Draco had imagined so much greatness in his future. He'd imagined power and intrigue and excitement and important children. Real life hasn't matched up in any sort of meaningful way. And what's more, when his life has been exciting, the excitement has been painful, awful. Sometimes he thinks about the way his life has turned out and he can't believe that it hasn't been more.
"Are you happy?" Harry asks.
"Happy as anyone, Potter," he echoes, not sure why his chest feels so tight. "Astoria was the perfect companion for me." He sips his whisky. "We had good times. I miss her."
It's true—Astoria was the perfect companion for him. It didn't matter that they weren't lovers; he pulled the occasional bloke, and he had his hand, and when that wasn't enough, The Liberator from that incredible Italian magical sex shop.
Harry would've been a shit companion. They would've argued and yelled and been in the papers and made their children's childhoods volatile and dramatic. Or at least that's what he has to believe, because thinking they missed out on something more is entirely too painful even to consider.
"I'm sorry about Astoria," Harry says, and he sounds sincere, if a bit uncomfortable. They'd always been uncomfortable when talking about each other's wives.
Draco shrugs. "It is what it is. She was sick for a long time. I'm just glad she's not still suffering."
Draco wants to fidget in the ensuing silence, which makes him think of Scorpius. He'd always wondered, when Scorpius was growing up, whether his tendency to fidget had somehow come from Harry. And yet, here he is, wanting to fidget himself.
"I'm sorry," Draco blurts impulsively. "It would be a lie to say I wish I had made a different choice, given everything. But I am sorry."
Harry stares deep into his eyes for a moment, and then nods. "I—I want to forgive you. I really, really do. I just need some time, okay?"
It hurts more than Draco anticipated not to get immediate absolution, even though he hadn't really been expecting it.
Draco nods. "I want to forgive you, too, you know."
Harry continues looking straight at him.
"For leaving," Draco explains.
Harry turns his gaze to his drink, which is nearly empty now. "It'd be a lie to say I wish I hadn't."
Draco feels like one of those Muggle cartoons where the force of a blow causes the character to double over in pain. Something must show on his face, because Harry is suddenly trying to clarify.
"No, not like, no. Merlin, I wish it hadn't happened that way. But I know the way I felt back then and I know it was the choice I had to make, then. But I missed you constantly; don't think that I—" Harry sighs.
"I get it, Potter," Draco says, and he hears the sharpness in his voice. "I'd never have left, you know. It feels like shit to know that you did, and I could never have done it."
"Draco," Harry says, standing up and Levitating his glass to the tray at the side of the room. "I know you don't have much reason to believe me, but—I won't leave this time. I'm going to be there for Scorpius."
Twentysomething Draco would've said, "For Scorpius. I see how it is." But Draco sees something in Harry's face that hints at possibility, like maybe Harry is saying something more, and Draco's not going to poke him. No one here is blameless, after all. Well, except Scorpius.
"Do you want to go out for coffee soon? Or a drink?" Harry asks, looking a bit awkward.
"Coffee?"
"I just—I think we ought to get to know one another again. We can see how it goes, but just, for Scorpius. For us. Get coffee with me. Tuesday?"
"Alright. I'll owl you." Draco nods and stands to see Harry out. Harry starts to walk out of the room.
"Harry," Draco says, and he turns around. "You're going to love Scorpius. He has your determination. And your big heart. And his magic has a—a certain intense, concentrated quality just like yours does. If he casts a Warming Charm on me, it feels just like you." Fucking hell, why is he saying so much? "Of course, he has better hair."
Harry opens his mouth, but then shuts it and nods with a small smile. "I'll see myself out, okay?"
Draco watches him go, then collapses into his chair. He remembers how he felt cleaning out Astoria's things a few weeks ago—he had felt like he had no idea what he wanted from his life now. He groans, and it turns into an incredulous laugh. Well, at least it's clear now what he wants.
He hears Astoria's teasing voice in his ear saying, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Scorpius stands on the pavement shading his eyes from the sun, staring up at the shop's sign. "Quality Quidditch Supplies," it reads, and then in smaller letters, "H.J. and A.S. Potter, Proprietors."
He's walked past this shop hundreds of times, but he's never been one for Quidditch, and he's certainly never scrutinised the signage before. It's a nice sign, made of thick wood and carefully painted with bright magical paint that is visible from any angle and in any light.
He reaches into his robe pocket and fiddles with a piece of string. Chasers pass the Quaffle and try to avoid the Bludgers, which are launched with bats by the Beaters. The Quaffles go through the hoops not the Bludgers, Chasers pass the Quaffle…
The door to the shop opens with a tinkling noise. A witch and a child come out holding hands; the child is carrying a long, wrapped parcel—"Can we open it, Mum? I want to see it. Can I ride it home?" "Certainly not, we're taking the Floo just like earlier. We can unwrap it at home." "Can I just take the end of the paper off, then, please Mum?"
Scorpius watches them with an amused smile. It must be a pretty nice life for Harry, to make children (and adults) happy like that all the time. He ought to go in, he tells himself; he looks like a right tit standing on the pavement like this.
He grabs the door before it can settle shut and walks inside. Scorpius's immediate impression of the shop is one of cosiness. There are shelves stocked with Quidditch apparel of every type: kits, shirts with professional players' names on them, athletic tops and bottoms with every team insignia, Hogwarts house team clothes, shirts emblazoned with the English national team logo. One whole wall is stacked with brooms of every size, colour, and purpose: Racing Brooms, Quidditch League Certified Brooms, Cross Country Brooms, Commuter Brooms, Training Brooms, Toy Brooms. The back wall is covered with Quidditch balls in every colour and pattern imaginable—Scorpius even sees a set of sparkling, rainbow Quaffles—full-size posters of famous professional Quidditch players (including one of James Potter giving saucy winks to everyone who walks past), and an enormous display of shoes labelled "Broom-Certified Footwear - Compatible with Nimbus Brooms!" All along the ceiling, held in by some sort of invisible magical barrier, thousands of Snitches flit merrily around. Most of them are gold, but Harry and Albus stock every colour imaginable. The tiny wings shimmer as they soar about, some of them zooming here and there while others flutter about languidly.
Scorpius breaks into an awed smile. The place is incredible, and the magic settling on his skin feels strangely and comfortingly familiar.
"Scorpius!"
Harry Potter, Mr Potter, Harry, his father—Merlin, what is he supposed to call this man?—is waving from behind a till.
"You made it!"
Scorpius smiles, takes a deep breath to calm his nerves and hammering heart, and walks towards the till. "Hello," he says, feeling awkward. "I love your shop!"
Harry answers with a wide, genuine smile. "Thanks! I love the shop, too. You haven't been in before?"
Scorpius's attention is drawn to a corner of the shop that's dedicated to children's things, including a toy Quidditch pitch with players that fly around following voice commands, a mobile that hangs magically above a child's bed with dreamy little Quidditch players on brooms flying in slow circles, a small Quidditch kit for dress-up, toy brooms that hover just off the ground, and stuffed Bludgers.
"I haven't, no," Scorpius says, looking back and smiling. "I've never been very interested in sport."
"Really?" Harry asks with a laugh. "With your dad, I'd've expected you to have been out flying all the time."
Something in Harry's assumption makes Scorpius's heart clench. "Well, no. Dad doesn't fly anymore. I'm not sure I've ever seen him fly."
Harry's happy face shutters a fraction. "Ah," he says, clearly trying to smooth over the awkwardness. "Well, Puddlemere games on the wireless, then, of course."
"Dad's not really into Quidditch," Scorpius says.
Harry puts down the quill he's been holding. "Right. Well, people change. I suppose." He smiles, and this time it's not genuine—it's pained.
"True. He played at school, right? You too?"
"Yeah. We were Seekers for opposing teams," Harry says, then grimaces. "That sounded like a bad metaphor, but it wasn't. We were pretty intensely competitive, back then."
Scorpius tries to smile, but he worries it looks sad.
"Of course," Harry continues, and Scorpius wonders if he inherited his desire to babble during awkward moments from this man, "I'm not the famous one of the family. James is still one of the star players for the Montrose Magpies, and Ginny was Chaser for the Harpies." He points, and Scorpius follows his finger to a set of framed shirts on the wall; one reads "J. POTTER" with a large 2 on a black and white top and the other reads "G. POTTER" in gold with a 13 on a dark green top. "Although," Harry continues, sounding more awkward by the moment, "she hasn't been Ginny Potter for a long time."
"Still family, though," Scorpius says, hoping that's a reassuring and not a strange thing to say.
Harry smiles. "Funny how that works, isn't it?"
For a minute a looming silence gathers and Scorpius feels like he needs to say something, but he has no idea what. He's met this man twice in his life and knows nothing about him. Well, that's not true, he knows plenty about him, but nothing real. He doesn't know how he takes his tea, or what kind of jam he likes, or what kinds of books he reads.
A few customers walk past, talking and laughing, and Scorpius eventually says, "So. You like running the shop?"
"I love it!" Harry says. "Has your dad—" He pauses, runs a hand through his greying hair. "It's so strange to talk about that time. I could never talk about it to anyone, and now I'm saying it out loud to you and it's—it's just odd. That's my problem, though. Not yours. Er. What I meant to say was, did your dad mention to you about how he was always trying to get me to quit the Aurors?"
Scorpius reaches out to touch a display of broom stickers. One says "RESTING WITCH FACE." The one next to it says, "HUFFLEBUFF" with a flexing badger. Scorpius takes a breath. "He hasn't talked to me about any of it, much. And not about that."
"Oh," Harry says, leaning on the counter. "Well, I hated being an Auror, but I was too young and too stupid to realise that. Your dad realised, though. He was always trying to tell me to quit. When I finally did, a long time had passed, but I still felt like—I'm not sure exactly—like it might not have happened if it hadn't been for Draco."
Scorpius doesn't know what to do with that. He smiles. "My dad's really good at helping people realise what they want. When I was at Beauxbatons, I went through a phase of saying I was going to become a Healer. He would've supported me, I know, but he listened and eventually made me realise that I was saying it for the wrong reasons." Scorpius feels exposed, with Harry watching him so intently, but he keeps talking. "He sees through bullshit."
Harry laughs, and the sound fills the shop. "Yes," Harry says. "He certainly does. Come with me, I'll show you the back."
Harry steps from behind the counter and Scorpius tries not to be completely obvious about the fact that he's drinking in the sight of him. Harry looks like what Scorpius imagined from his photos—they're about the same height, Harry is broader than Draco or Scorpius but has the kind of soft middle that indicates a lifetime spent enjoying food and not being obsessed with fitness, his hair is more than half grey and just as wild as in his younger photos. He looks comfortable in his body and in his life, and Scorpius suddenly wants to know everything about him.
As Scorpius follows Harry towards the back room, he blurts, "What's your favourite film?"
Harry turns around, a surprised look on his face. "Hmmm," he ponders, turning away. "Die Hard."
"I don't know that one," Scorpius says.
Harry turns around, smiling as he walks past a display of Quidditch-themed Christmas ornaments, "We can watch it someday. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker."
Scorpius chuckles. "Er, okay?"
Harry laughs. "Albus?" he calls, walking into the back room. All available surfaces are covered with broken items, boxes, and giant books that seem to track inventory.
Albus wanders into the back room through a door that leads into an alleyway. He's reading a comic book, and when he looks up, he smiles. "Hey Scorp!"
"Were you smoking?" Harry asks, with a note of restrained accusation in his voice.
Albus's eyes flit to the side and up, and Scorpius has to laugh at his flagrant shiftiness.
Harry sighs, mumbles something under his breath that Scorpius can't make out, and then says, "You're an adult. I'm keeping my mouth shut."
"You already opened your mouth," Albus whispers at Harry, then grins at Scorpius. It feels strange. It feels like camaraderie.
"Can you go work in front for a bit while I show Scorpius around?" Harry asks. "Do you need a Nolite Odor Fumus?"
Albus groans. "No, Dad. I might not be responsible enough to stop smoking, but I am at least responsible enough to cast a Charm."
Harry stares with loving annoyance at his son as Albus throws the comic book onto the table and walks into the front of the shop.
As Albus passes Scorpius, he whispers loudly, "Tell him to see your dad again!" and then he's gone. He doesn't, Scorpius notices, smell like smoke.
Harry sighs. "I'm sorry about Albus. If he's making you uncomfortable. My kids—" he pauses imperceptibly like maybe he should correct himself to specify he's talking about his children that aren't Scorpius, but he decides to just keep talking, "they aren't subtle. Ever. About anything."
Scorpius laughs. "I like it. My parents were always pretty open with me, but my grandparents? Geez. It is impossible to know what they are thinking. Anyway, the lack of subtlety is nice."
Harry barks a laugh. "I imagine that's true. What would your dad do if you showed up having clearly just been smoking?"
"Blood magic."
Harry's eyes widen, his lips curl up. It's clear he's not sure whether it's a joke.
"No, I mean," Scorpius rushes to explain, "I actually heard him talk once about how he felt bad for Muggles with addictions because they don't have magic to help them trick their brains. And he said that he knew that there was a way to use blood magic to change the way one's brain responds to the problematic stimuli."
Harry is still staring, but now his eyes are twinkling and his mouth is agape.
"So really, I think he would actually do blood magic. But it would be like, you know, er, benign blood magic."
Harry presses his lips together, quelling a smile. "Your dad would probably accuse me of being an overly permissive parent."
Scorpius opens his mouth to say something, but he has no idea what to say because that's absolutely true.
"He'd be wrong, of course," Harry says, smiling. "I believe my children are whole, autonomous humans and should be treated as such." He looks towards the front room and winces. "Which means they are free to destroy their own bodies."
Scorpius laughs. He wants to mention the new magical adaptation of Muggle e-cigarettes that he'd recently read about in Scientific Magician (the idea is that a combination of Potions and Charms can render the e-liquid completely innocuous while still retaining the sensation of a nicotine hit), but Scorpius knows he sometimes talks too much and that it can create awkward situations. He has to save his nerdy enthusiasm for people who know him well.
Harry walks out of the cluttered workspace and through the back door. Scorpius follows, and to his surprise, when he crosses the threshold the dingy alleyway rushes about twelve metres away from the shop, revealing magical space with a pleasant garden. Harry doesn't blink as the space changes—he only waves his wand to Vanish the cigarette butt he finds on the path—but Scorpius looks around in awe.
There are plants all around, mostly shrubs and grasses, but a few flowers here and there. There's a fire pit in the far corner surrounded with cosy-looking logs for seating, and, on the other side of the path, a long, wooden table that could probably seat twenty people. The table is studded with wide pillar candles with wax dripping down the edges. Against the wall of the shop is what looks to be a bar, and a sign on the wall above it reads, "Potter's Garden." A smaller sign underneath it, which hangs crooked, reads, "We're in the garden drinking wine."
It's lovely and homey and so unlike his own home and his own work, and Scorpius smiles. "This is incredible."
"Oh, thanks," Harry says. "Getting this garden set up was a fun project after I bought the shop. That was years ago, now." He sits at the end of the table and gestures for Scorpius to join him.
After Scorpius sits and shoots Harry an awkward smile, Harry sighs. "Thanks for coming."
"Of course!" Scorpius reassures. "I wanted to."
Harry looks right at him, and it's disconcerting. It's very unMalfoyish. "I'm so sorry," Harry says. "That I wasn't there. That I didn't know about you. That you didn't know me."
Scorpius hadn't been expecting that. "It's not your fault," he says, feeling confused. "You didn't know."
"I know it's not my fault," Harry says. "But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I'm so sorry I missed it. I'm so sorry we didn't know each other. I'm sure you know that I didn't know my parents growing up, and I—I wanted to know them more than anything. I swore I'd be there for my children. I didn't—. What I'm trying to say is, I would've. I would've been there, if I'd known. And I feel—cheated? No. Er, like I missed out. Like we missed out."
Scorpius wonders what it would've been like, to have this man in his life earlier. It's not something he's really thought about—that he'd missed out—he's only really thought about the truth, the duplicity, what it means now. How would he have reacted if he'd found out earlier? Would he have freaked out? Would it have caused an identity crisis? How would it feel to know your existence ruined marriages?—because, if he had known about Harry, marriages would definitely have been ruined. He'll never know. He only knows he's dealing with it pretty well now.
"You're clearly an amazing father," Scorpius says, wanting to offer solace. "I don't—I have an amazing father. Different, granted. But still amazing. I had an amazing mum, too. I—" He has no idea how to say what he's saying, or even what he's trying to say. "I'm happy to know you. But maybe we're meant to be together now, you know? It would've been painful for you and my dad, when I was little. It would've been too much."
Harry smiles wistfully. "I'm really sorry about your mum."
"Thanks," Scorpius answers, well-practiced these days in accepting condolences.
"I never met her, but I knew your dad then—fuck, this is awkward. I could tell she was a good friend to him. Supportive."
Scorpius smiles. "She was the best," he says, and then stops talking because he can feel tears rallying for a cry and his throat constricting.
Harry nods and reaches across the table to pat Scorpius's hand. It's awkward and makes Scorpius think it must be hard for Harry not to throw all of his standard parenting at Scorpius. But he can't, really—they're strangers.
"Can I ask you something?" Scorpius ventures.
"Of course."
"Did you love him?"
Harry smiles with raised eyebrows, purses his lips together, and lets out a puff of air. "Yes and no? Honestly, I don't know how to answer that. My first reaction is to say yes, but that doesn't feel entirely right. Or at least it feels like not the whole story. I—I'm not sure I knew how to love myself, back then."
Scorpius looks down at his hand, which is tracing a groove in the wooden tabletop. He isn't sure what kind of answer he expected. He just—he wants for his dad to have had happiness, love, something. Something more.
"At the time," Harry continues, "I think I would've said that I loved Draco and Ginny both. And there's truth to that. Ginny was tangible support and stability and family and laughter. Draco—your dad—was, I don't know. Realness. Authenticity. Lack of expectations. I don't know. We were always intense together. But I—I'm not sure you can understand, my other kids never do—I was so messed up after the war. I don't know if I really could love anyone, then. It wasn't a fast recovery for me."
"I don't think it was for my dad, either."
Harry stares right at him. "No. It wasn't. Well, not when I knew him, anyway."
Scorpius nods, thinking of his father's uncertainty about his reputation, the ways he'd worked to prove himself, thrown himself into causes, and dealt stoically with continued hostility. "They're not wrong," Draco had once said quietly to twelve-year-old Scorpius, who had been horrified after someone spit at Draco, hollering "Death Eater!" on the street.
"I saw your dad for coffee the other day," Harry says.
Scorpius hadn't known that. It had been about two weeks since the momentous lunch. "Oh?"
"It's a little hard to know how we're supposed to act around each other now. We each have a lot to forgive."
Scorpius smiles sadly. "I can imagine."
"It's frustrating, in a way. It's hard to trust each other. But he seems like he's doing well, considering everything that's happened lately. It's strange how easy it is to reconnect with someone you knew in childhood. I don't have to explain anything."
Scorpius laughs. "That's true. When I get together with friends from Beauxbatons or Daisy Parkinson, it's always like no time has passed. That feeling never seems to come from friends I've met later." Scorpius tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear. "Does he seem the same?"
Harry smiles. "No. But in a good way. Neither of us is—turbulent anymore. I mean, neither of us will ever be what you'd call serene. But we've grown up. He's still Draco, though." Harry laughs. "That made no sense."
Scorpius shakes his head. "No—it does."
"You know," Harry says, "every Thursday my kids come for family dinner night. Well, almost always James and Teddy and Albus. Lily, if she's in the country. Sometimes other family—Ron and Hermione, or a niece or nephew. You—you and your dad—are always welcome."
Scorpius smiles in a you-don't-have-to-do-that way.
"No, really," Harry says, and something in his eyes convinces Scorpius he's being completely truthful. "I want you to come. My kids want you to come. We're all—well, adjusting. But we would love it if you would come."
"Alright, I'll think about it," Scorpius says.
"I'll make you your favourite pudding," Harry offers with a tempting, arm-twisting voice. "What is it?"
"Treacle tart," Scorpius informs with a smile.
Harry's mouth opens, then closes. "Me too." He smiles. "Want a game of Exploding Snap? James came up with a new set of rules that make it more challenging."
Scorpius laughs. "Er, alright," he says, and Harry Summons the cards to the table.
When he gets home hours later, Scorpius's head is swimming with the day; he grabs Draco's diary and flops onto his sofa. He's avoided looking for this particular entry before, but right now he just wants to understand. His birthday is the seventh of October, which puts forty weeks earlier at right around the new year. He flips the pages manually, skimming until he finds what he's looking for.
1 January 2006. Saw H. for the New Year after going to a horrid party at the Oakby estate. I was feeling anxious from the party, and then he was in bed reading in flannel pyjamas and—he's like a balm. I had a momentary breakdown about the heir debacle…
Draco landed in the back garden and reached up to unfasten the fussy clasp of his dress robes as he walked through the door.
"Harry?" he called, pulling off the midnight blue robes and throwing them onto a bench near the door. The New Year's party had been mind-numbingly posh. Boring. He'd stood there with Astoria, chatting with diplomats, laughing at puns, his skin itching with the need to be somewhere else.
"Harry!" he yelled, louder.
"I'm upstairs!" came a faint reply.
Draco kicked off his shoes, then remembered to grab the bottle of champagne and glasses that he'd swiped from the party and stowed in his robe pocket under a Cushioning Charm. He dangled the glasses upside down from his right fingers, tucked the bottle under his arm, and ran upstairs.
The light was on in the bedroom. Their bedroom, really. No one else ever came to this house, though everyone knew Grimmauld Place belonged to Harry. Draco crossed the landing in three long strides and stopped at the door.
Harry was on the bed, cross-legged in a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms and a white t-shirt, reading a book. He looked up. "Oh good, you're here. Happy New Year." His smile was crooked and Draco felt his tension start to slip away. "I was starting to fall asleep."
Draco pulled his wand and Levitated the champagne and glasses to the bed. "I couldn't get away any earlier, but I did steal us some very nice champagne."
Harry laughed. "Do you even like champagne?"
"No," Draco answered, reaching up to unbutton his ruffled dress shirt and not missing the way Harry's eyes tracked the movement. "What are you reading?"
Harry turned his hand to reveal the cover. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It's quite shit, actually, but I can't stop reading it."
"Well, stop," Draco said with a smirk, and Harry put the book on the table, smiled, and leaned back on strong arms. Draco felt heat gathering in his belly. Merlin, Draco wanted everything about him. When had he got in so deep?
Draco reached down to begin the tortuous process of unfastening his traditional wizarding trousers. "Why does the girl have a dragon tattoo? If anyone has a dragon tattoo, it should be me."
Harry smiled. "You would look fucking hot with a dragon tattoo."
"Of course I would," Draco said, finally getting through the hooks and ties and letting his trousers pool around his feet.
"What kind of dragon would you get?" Harry asked, flopping back on the pillows.
"Hebridean Black," Draco answered easily, stepping out of his trousers and kneeling on the bed in his boxers and socks.
Harry frowned, and he looked adorable. Draco crawled towards him and pressed a kiss to his cheek, relishing the scruffy stubble.
"Aren't Hebridean Blacks famous for eating deer? Is this some kind of tortured metaphor?"
Draco laughed, letting his lips brush Harry's ear as he said, "Don't worry. I'm not going to eat you, Harry."
"Aren't you?" Harry said suggestively.
Draco groaned, turning onto his back and flopping next to Harry, tangling his left leg over Harry's. "I hope you never have to try those pickup lines on anyone else. You're a disaster."
Harry laughed, reaching across to thread his fingers through Draco's hair. "How was the party?"
"Fucking unbearable," Draco said, relishing the feel of Harry's fingers on his scalp, the way Harry's touch made tingles blossom down his spine. "Lucius started asking veiled, invasive questions about my sex life when I didn't give a satisfactory answer to the question 'When will we have an heir.' Astoria finds this sort of play-acting much easier than I do, so while she is lovely, she's no solace at an event like this. Gwenllian Trevarthen politely insulted me, and none of my friends were there."
Harry groaned. "That sounds like my definition of hell."
"See, you would be a good date to something like that. Because you would indulge my whinging and whinge right back."
"I would definitely whinge," Harry said, his hand dropping to Draco's arm.
"Exactly," Draco continued, angling his body towards Harry's. "Everyone else seems to expect me to act like a proper adult. At least you understand how difficult it is, what with the way these cretins expect me to make small talk and to fertilise eggs on demand."
"On demand?" Harry asked, amused.
"You know," Draco said, "I wouldn't put it past them to try to have some sort of traditional magical sex ritual where they parade me out naked and have Astoria on a bed on a dais, covered in fucking red glitter or something. I think that's where this is headed. It's the only logical outcome of their twisted views."
"Hey Draco," Harry whispered, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. "Can we stop talking about you fucking your wife?"
"Well that's the funniest part of it," Draco continued, well and truly on a rant now. "If they paraded me out there, it would be a mighty disappointing performance for those gathered round, ready to cast fucking Fertilitatis Charms at us and to chant to invoke the ancient power of Priapus."
"Draco."
"Because as you well know, Priapus would have a difficult task with me. I mean, unless they put you naked on the dais. I would have no trouble then. But you wouldn't want to be naked on a dais, would you?"
"Draco, shut up." Harry pressed his lips to Draco's, effectively staunching the flow of pent-up anxiety. "Don't worry about any of them. They don't care about what's best for you. I'll even help you come up with a plan for the, er, heir-making, if you want. But not right now."
"I can't help the fact that I'm fundamentally uncomfortable with any kind of sex act that would be approved of by my parents or the Church."
Harry laughed and reached behind his neck to pull off his shirt, which knocked his glasses askew.
Draco reached forward and pulled the glasses off Harry's face, stretching behind himself to put them on the table. "Everything okay at your house?" Draco asked, quietly. They didn't talk much about Harry's family—it was too fraught. But Ginny was about seven months pregnant, and James was a wild toddler, and Draco knew that Harry was overwhelmed. And fuck it all to hell, Draco cared.
"Yeah," Harry answered, not going into detail. "I'm tired. I missed you."
"Good," Draco said, rolling on top of Harry and leaning in for an unhurried kiss that spread warmth through his body like a spring thaw. He relished the feel of Harry's chest firm against his, the scratch of their cheeks, the promise in the way Harry linked his foot over the back of Draco's knee. He could forget about everything else, because all that mattered was this.
"What do you want?" Draco whispered against Harry's ear, feeling the way that Harry's body responded to his words and drinking in Harry's reciprocal arousal.
Harry moaned, leaning his head back against the pillows and exposing his neck, to which Draco immediately moved his mouth. "No one ever asks me what I want," Harry whispered.
"I'm asking," Draco said, pressing his hips forward, pleasure swirling through his body, his worries slipping away.
"I want, ahhh," Harry broke off on a moan. "Can I fuck you this time?"
Draco grinned. "Whatever you want, Harry."
Scorpius is supposed to be working. He's sat at his table surrounded with books on the rise of Latin incantations in Western magical traditions, trying to determine when Ilvermorny's pedagogy diverged from the Latin-based Hogwarts style to embrace a vernacular incantation style, but all he can think about is the Potters.
The week before, a couple weeks after he'd first visited Harry's shop, he'd gone to Thursday Family Dinner at Harry's house, where he'd laughed with Albus, James, and Teddy—Merlin, he has brothers—and told Hermione Granger—the Hermione Granger!—about his research project. James and Teddy had brought their crups through the Floo, which Scorpius hadn't even realised was possible, and which was quite a sight to behold. It had all been a bit awkward, and also lovely.
He'd also gone flying with Harry and Albus. Flying! He'd not flown since mandatory lessons at Beauxbatons! But Harry and Albus had been itching for a fly and they were so enthusiastic that, after they sent him a total of five owls, Scorpius had agreed.
He'd asked his dad to come with him to both events, but Draco said he wasn't ready, to give him time. He said that he'd been out with Harry a few times and that was easier than the whole family, for now.
Scorpius isn't so sure. His dad had that and-I-won't-hear-another-word-on-the-matter look, but to Scorpius he seemed vulnerable. Draco doesn't usually seem vulnerable, he always seems poised and in control and authoritative. Now Scorpius wonders if it's always been an act, as if the reveal of the news about Harry has torn away Draco's armour. Or something. Scorpius also suspects he may be overthinking it, or being overly poetic.
He can't believe he'd actually enjoyed himself flying. They'd gone to a field near Ron and Hermione's house. Harry had gifted Scorpius a beginner adult broom, equipped with all the latest safety and stabilisation Charms. When Harry handed it to him, he said, "When you touch it, it will register your magical signature and hereafter be attuned to you, in particular. If you have a strong intention, it may even adjust its appearance." Scorpius had smiled, closed his eyes to visualise his magical core (the way Draco had taught him long ago, for tasks that require magical individuality), and then unwrapped the broom. When he touched it, the handle lengthened, the stirrups moved down, and it turned a brilliant purple. "Whoa!" Albus cried. "I've never seen one change colour." Scorpius smiled at the broom. "I've always liked purple." Harry had clapped him on the back, and then they'd flown for over an hour. It had felt warm, fun, loving.
He can't remember the last time he did something like that just for fun. Sometimes it's hard to remember that being a grown-up doesn't mean he can't just do things on a whim, for fun.
A photo on the mantel catches his eye and he abandons the pretence of work, crossing the room and picking up the frame. It's a photo of him and Astoria; he must be about five. Astoria is sitting on a bench in a garden, her arm around Scorpius, who hides his face in her armpit, then turns around, smiles, sticks his tongue out. Then they both laugh, Astoria throwing her head back, her face crinkled with fondness and enjoyment, and then it loops back to armpit-hiding. Scorpius's hair sticks up at his cowlick—this was long before he'd learned Sternuntur Capillum—and his cheeks have just the tiniest lingering bit of baby chub. His mum looks happy, so happy to be with him, and Scorpius has to blink his eyes and put down the frame.
He misses his mum.
It's been a few months, and he's surprised how clearly he still hears her voice in his head, saying the things she would've said. He wonders if it will ever stop. He doesn't want it to; it's like she's still with him in the ways that matter. It's not what he thought people meant, when they always said, "They live on in you." He thought that was pabulum meant to do nothing but offer meaningless reassurance and the vague promise of memories. But it isn't that. He actually hears her voice.
And he feels guilty. He worries that she would feel like he's trying to replace her, which he isn't. He doesn't think he is. Harry is nothing like his mum, could never be anything like his mum. But should he even want another parental figure right now? Isn't it too soon? Isn't it disrespectful, or something?
It's strange to be slowly enveloped into the trust of a different family. He hasn't thought much, over the years, of the ways in which he's been privy to the Malfoy and Greengrass secrets. Like the way that Lucius's deterioration before his death was never discussed with non-family, or the way that the details about the Greengrass blood curse are thoroughly discussed, but only with the immediate family. That was just life, not something to consider.
But now he's slowly learning not only more secrets about his own family—and it's wild that Draco's pregnancy, that he was one of those secrets for so many years!—but also the Potters'. He knows that Harry is beside himself with worry about Lily's safety on the dragon reserve, but feels like he can't talk to her about it because she thinks he coddles her. He knows that Harry really wants grandchildren, even though he doesn't nag his kids about it. After three drinks at the bar a couple nights ago, Albus had disclosed that he'd always thought of Teddy as a brother and had always felt ignored because of middle-child insecurities, and that when Teddy and James had married he felt like his two brothers were abandoning him. "It's stupid!" he'd said. "And also, Teddy and James aren't actually brothers, you know. Just for the record." And Scorpius had laughed and Albus seemed to relish the ability to confide in someone. It was nice.
And it is also causing him a bit of anxiety.
Tap, tap, tap.
Scorpius looks up from his hand-wringing to see an unknown owl pecking at the window. Strange. He doesn't usually get unknown owls. His father's eagle owl, Treningham, is the only frequent visitor, and lately he's developed a rapport with Harry's small barn owl, The Angry Inch, and Albus's long-eared, Hooter.
He walks to the window and raises the sash. The prim, grey little owl holds out his foot efficiently, and flies away before Scorpius can even offer it one of the fancy owl treats he keeps nearby.
The return address reads Hornebolt and Dagworth, MLLPs. Scorpius turns the letter over in his hands, wondering why he's being contacted by the Malfoy family solicitors. He realises with a jolt that the letter is brimming with his mother's magic; he can feel it.
He collapses on the nearest chair—the uncomfortable straight-backed thing he took from the Manor to avoid having to buy one—because he can't make his legs carry him to the sofa. He waves his wand to open the envelope, not wanting to tear it.
Dear Mr Malfoy,
Your late mother, Astoria Greengrass Malfoy, Charmed a letter to be delivered under a set of circumstances dictated by her. The letter appeared in our outgoing post today, so the conditions that she set before her death have been met. The letter is enclosed.
Thank you for your continued business with Hornebolt and Dagworth. Do not hesitate to contact us if you require assistance.
Sincerely,
Agnes Footworth
Secretary
Hornebolt and Dagworth, MLLPs
Scorpius sets the solicitor's letter on the floor.
He's heard of this, of course. It's not common, but it's something that's mentioned throughout historical texts. Generally, people write these posthumous delivery Charms when they have some news to tell, as it's quite a lot of trouble to go through just to send a note.
But no one ever really expects to get one, even if they know it's possible. He certainly never expected it.
And now he has it, and he's shaking, because he knows that, for sure, this is the last communication he'll ever have from her, and it makes him feel like he's losing her all over again.
A tear escapes his eye as he casts a Charm to open the second envelope. It's written in her elegant but careless script.
Dear Scorpius,
If you're reading this letter, I am dead. I suppose this doesn't make sense, but what I want to say first of all is: I miss you.
If you're reading this letter, you also already know the details of your conception. I am glad that I was able to tell you. It's been a worry of mine—what if your father and I somehow died in a freak accident and you ended up finding out somehow on your own, without us to explain it to you?
But whenever I thought we should tell you, I wavered. It wasn't rational. I wanted to let you continue without the stress, the uncertainty. I apologise for that. I suspect you were always well-equipped to handle the news, even if it would have threatened your equanimity. Regardless, I know you can handle this.
I'm not sure what you would want to know from me. I can tell you that I've loved you since before you were born, and every minute of your life. You are my child in every sense of the word that matters, and nothing could ever change that. Thank you for being my son. It has been the highlight of my life.
There are lots of ways that I hope you'll think of me when I'm gone. I hope you'll remember our summer holidays. I hope you'll remember how to make origami birds (remember how many we made that one year?). I hope you'll remember the words to the songs we sang and the poems we read. I hope you'll remember dancing to "Despacito" when you were twelve and we had to do that Muggle Studies project. I hope you'll remember the lessons your father and I gave—perhaps too intently at times, which I bet you're laughing about now—about safe sex. I hope you'll remember all the conversations we had about respecting yourself and others. I hope you'll remember how proud of you I've always been.
I hope you won't worry about disappointing me. (You would never.) I hope you won't worry about moving on and living your life. I hope you won't worry about making new relationships, including with your other father. I hope you won't worry about living up to arbitrary societal expectations of relationships and parenthood. I will say this clearly: your father and I do not care if you ever get married or have a child. We remember how that felt, and we want for you whatever will make you happy and fulfilled in life.
I am happy knowing that your life will continue, in ways I cannot possibly anticipate, after my death. Remember when we watched The Lion King?
I'm worried about your dad. Make sure he gets this message, too, will you? He is stubborn. But more than that, he protects himself too much. I am Slytherin to the core, but sometimes the instinct to self-preservation stops being protective and starts being paralysing. I thought your dad would go after Harry a long time ago. When the papers reported the Potters' divorce. When the papers reported he bought the Quidditch shop. When the papers covered his coming out as bisexual. When you finished school. When Lucius died. Honestly I spent most of my life waiting for it to happen. Scorpius, he's scared. Let him know that you want him to be happy. Let him know that I want him to be happy. I've told him many times, but I'm not sure he was ready to hear it.
Remember, darling, when we bought that enormous book of magical poetry and fell in love with E.E. Cummings? And your grandparents kept scoffing at the syntax? Wish by spirit and if by yes. Sun moon stars rain.
I love you both.
Mum
Scorpius closes his eyes, then opens them and reads it again. On the third time through, he starts to cry.
He's cried about losing his mum before, both when she was still alive and after her death. But he hasn't yet bawled.
It feels like it's overdue.
He waves his wand at the letter, duplicating it, and Levitates the original to his desk for filing. The original documents must be preserved, even in the midst of his good cry.
His mum always knew exactly what he needed. He takes a moment to grieve the fact that he'll never have a relationship like that ever again, with anyone else.
When he's mostly recovered himself, snuffly and puffy eyed, his cheeks surely splotchy, and the pain of loss recedes for the moment (like a low tide, of course, it'll never be gone forever), he feels a quiet sort of confidence settle upon him. He's going to be okay; he can nurture new relationships and have new family—she wants him to live his life.
Then he chuckles quietly in disbelief: he can't believe that his mum, from beyond the grave, is also trying to push his dad closer to Harry. He'd thought that was the purview of the Potter children. His heart aches a bit at his mum's musings about his dad. If his mum was so sure he wants Harry—and she knew him better than anyone—what is his dad waiting for? Sun moon stars rain.
He's going to have to pull down that book of poetry again.
Scorpius runs a hand over his face; he's not getting any work done today. He sees his father's diary on the table and picks it up. He wonders how imprecise he can be with his research Charms—sometimes, depending on the document, one can locate passages with the most vaguely intentioned Charms, but other times, one needs precise intention to locate anything useful. It was a focus of his training; there's a whole speculative branch of theoretical magical history concerned with trying to sort out what it is about documents that makes some of them finicky with Charms.
It's worth a try. He waves his wand, incanting, "Mentionem" and concentrating all of his magical energy on the combination of Harry and happiness.
He's expecting nothing to happen with such an inexact use of the spell, but the diary flips open, the pages landing open in his lap.
1 June 2004. Harry came back. I didn't think he would…
Draco was still sulking.
Astoria had tried to cheer him up after supper (they were finalising the small portion of the wedding plans they'd been given any say over), but he'd sulked one sulk too many and she'd left for her house ("Where no one looks like a parody of despair").
Draco figured that, if he was going to sulk, he may as well do the thing properly. There was no parody here. There was only a pair of joggers, a bottle of wine, and a raunchy paperback.
He was glad his parents were not in town—it was surely not the Manor aesthetic they had so carefully cultivated.
The true measure of his doldrums was that he couldn't even keep his mind on Ronaldo the Seer, who was about to use his Inner Eye to spy on the love affair of Dionisio, the famous Quidditch Seeker, and Teodoro, the wandmaker's apprentice.
He couldn't believe he'd allowed himself to get so wrapped up in Harry. Of course Harry had called it off—he was a father now. Draco had always known this thing between them couldn't last. He would be marrying Astoria in a few short months. So it wasn't a surprise. And yet...
He opened the book, but the words swam on the page. He was numb to even the prospect of Ronaldo watching the sexual escapades of Dionisio and Teodoro. Fucking Potter.
A chiming sound interrupted his moping. Someone had Apparated to the front gate. Fucking hell, he couldn't even mope without interruption. It was Neeny's day off, and his parents were on a tour of magical places in Japan.
He glanced down at his attire. He looked like a slob, but he couldn't be arsed with changing. It would serve whoever was showing up unannounced after supper right. Yes, unannounced visitor, this was what the Malfoy name had been reduced to: Muggle loungewear.
He set down the paperback (Ronaldo blinked up at him with a suggestive leer), picked up his wand, and Apparated to the front gate.
When he landed, he thought for a moment he was having a vision. But no, it was Harry.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
Harry was dressed up. Well, dressed up by his standards: he was wearing trousers that weren't jeans.
"I need to talk to you," Harry said, and he sounded desperate.
Draco crossed his arms over his flimsy t-shirt; he felt even less appropriately dressed now that he was contrasted with Harry, of all people, wearing moderately nice clothes. "We're not doing this."
"You haven't even heard what I have to say."
"I'm not going to just wait around so you can come fuck me when your wife isn't feeling randy."
Harry looked like Draco just slapped him. "It is not like that." Harry stopped, looking like he was trying to figure out how to say something. "I miss you."
Draco had no words. How could you find words to say "I miss you too, you giant, fucking wanker, and I want to smell your hair and also punch you in the gut"?
"Look, can we go and talk somewhere?" Harry finally said.
Draco sighed. He might as well relent—it was obvious he wasn't actually going to send Harry away, even if that fact exacerbated his usual self-loathing.
"You can come inside. No one's here." Draco waved his hand to open the gate, and Harry stepped through awkwardly.
"Does that explain your, er, attire?" Harry asked.
Draco wanted to hate him for joking at a time like this, he really, really did, but he also couldn't help but find Harry somewhat amusing.
"I'm still upset with you, Potter. You ought not to insult my appearance."
Harry laughed. "I'm not insulting. You look—fuck, you look fit."
Draco needed to ignore that, so he turned to contemplate the walk to the house. It was a long walk, and it would be a long, awkward walk with Harry here. But Harry couldn't Apparate into the Manor because the wards only allowed family to Apparate. Which meant the choice was between a long walk with uncomfortable conversation or touching him to Side-Along.
But Draco had long ago come to terms with his worrisome desire to touch Potter. He grabbed Harry's wrist and, with no additional warning, Apparated them to the drawing room. The guest drawing room, which did not have any racy paperbacks strewn around. At least Draco was pretty sure there weren't any racy paperbacks in there.
He let go of Harry and walked directly to the bar cabinet to pull out a bottle of gin. He sure as fuck wasn't having this conversation sober. "I'm having gin and tonic. I will begrudgingly make you one if you want it."
Harry sighed with a chuckle. "Er, since you offered so generously, sure."
Draco glugged some gin imprecisely into two glasses and topped them off with tonic. He waved his wand at a lime, splitting it into slices, and Levitated two to his glass. Harry wasn't getting a fucking lime.
He grabbed the glasses and walked to Harry, thrusting the limeless one out to him.
Harry took the drink. "So you're pretty mad."
"I'm not mad," Draco claimed. "Tell me why you're here. Has something changed since last time I saw you?" He raised one finger to his mouth and mocked, "Did you get a Time Turner and stop the Chosen Conception so that you no longer have to worry about being the perfect father?"
A tiny crease appeared between Harry's eyebrows. Good, Draco had rattled him.
"Are you going to let me talk? Or are you just going to keep being a twat?"
Draco took a sip of his drink and raised his eyebrows for Potter to go ahead.
"No, nothing has changed. But." Potter sighed and sat down on the sofa, staring at his drink. When he looked up, his eyes went straight to Draco's. "I miss you, Draco. I have no idea how to do all of this. James is the most adorable thing I've ever seen in my life. He's literally perfect. I'm going to fuck him up. He's perfect, and I am not, and I'm going to fuck him up."
Draco could feel the anger and outrage seeping out of his body and he tried to grasp at it. Part of him wanted to stay angry.
"I still feel like we shouldn't be together. I feel like my parents are staring down judging me. I feel ungrateful, like I'm throwing away this second chance at life I've been given after I actually died. I feel like who am I to not be satisfied? I feel like my dad would've given anything to have this, and I am, what, just an arsehole?"
Harry was about to cry. Fuck.
"Yes," Draco said, but his voice was gentle. "You're just an arsehole."
Harry laugh-sobbed and cracked a watery smile. "I feel like Remus is going to come back as a ghost and slap me, too. And I feel like my mum would turn her back and say I'm a disappointment. Merlin, Draco, I just—I don't know what to do. I can't walk away from it all. I don't have a fucking choice! I've got Auror training—you know the certification exams are in just a couple months—and Ginny is all wrapped up in the baby, and I love James, I love them, but I just. I thought that—I don't know what I thought."
And that was the thing, wasn't it: Harry was the only person Draco knew who really seemed to understand the lack of choice. Even Pansy and Greg didn't understand why Draco couldn't just refuse to marry Astoria. But they didn't understand, because what would he do then? Come out as gay? That was absolutely laughable. He was already completely despised by everyone. End the Malfoy lineage after thirty-two generations? He couldn't even imagine what would happen.
Draco stared at Harry's sad eyes. "You're allowed to love James and still think the whole thing is a bunch of bullshit."
"I do love James," Harry said, taking a sip of his drink.
"I know." Draco watched the bubbles in his drink.
For a moment, they were silent. Then Harry spoke again, staring straight at him. "I feel real when I'm with you."
"Fuck, Harry," Draco said. The last of his defences crumbled as he set down his drink with a shaking hand and crossed quickly to the sofa. He grabbed Harry's face, which looked momentarily surprised before Harry reached up to pull Draco down. Draco sank against Harry and pressed their lips together.
Harry's lips were hot and his hair smelled like Harry and Draco's whole body seemed to wake up all at once, like he'd just chugged ten cups of coffee or taken some of Theo's herbal hybrids—he could feel his magic welling up in his fingertips. He pulled back, his face tingling, the faintest hint of a smile on his face.
"You fucking prat," Draco whispered. "I missed you so fucking much. I thought it was over."
Harry groaned and reached for Draco's back, pulling him closer. "I can't do it without you."
Draco laughed, and he was surprised at how hopeful it sounded. "Can't do what without me? Fuck a man? I'm sure there are others who would be willing."
Harry tipped his head back and wiggled so their bodies were closer to horizontal. "It's not just the sex, you doofus."
"Sure," Draco said with a teasing voice, leaning in to suck on Harry's neck. It was scratchy and Draco straightened his knees to lower himself onto Harry. Fuck, Harry felt good.
"I don't know how to do it, either," Draco whispered in Harry's ear, the admission feeling like a stab of pain and a catharsis all at once. "Astoria told me I looked like a parody of despair."
Harry laughed, grabbing Draco's arse and pulling their bodies closer together. Draco could feel Harry's erection through their clothes and felt dizzy with arousal. "Fuck," Draco hissed, reaching between them to unfasten Harry's trousers. Harry moaned when Draco's fingers found his cock, and then Harry was pulling Draco's joggers down over his arse, his fingers greedily touching Draco's skin. Draco braced his arms to push up and pull the joggers over from where they were snagged on his cock then pressed back down, grabbing both their cocks in his shaky hand. Harry managed to pull out Draco's wand and spell some lube onto Draco's hand. It was sloppy—probably the sloppiest they'd ever been together—but Draco couldn't remember ever feeling so good. Harry was groaning breathy pleasure into Draco's ear and pressing his hips forward, thrusting his cock against Draco's, and Draco's whole body was on fire with want and lust and love and Harry whispered "Draco" in his ear and he could feel the sound waves of his name zing through his body straight to his cock, and he was incoherent—hot, tongue, Draco, tense—"Yes," Harry hissed, and "Fuck," and Draco pressed into Harry's magnetic, encompassing heat, wrapping himself in the pleasure of this man, Harry's mouth on his neck, on his ear, the sensations concentrating, his balls tightening, "Ah, fuck fuck fuck," and the tension broke, he was coming, and Harry was coming, hot, wet, throbbing pleasure.
Draco collapsed on top of Harry, and Harry raised his hands to Draco's back, hugging him tight.
"We're idiots," Draco said after a moment, in a low voice.
"We're fucked up," Harry answered.
"We're fucked up idiots."
"So are we doing this, then?" Harry asked. "I mean, not just today."
Draco's heart clenched, and he felt scared but he also wanted. "Yes."
Harry tightened his grip, and Draco pressed his face against Harry's neck.
Scorpius stands when he hears the Floo roar; a moment later, Draco steps into his sitting room.
"Dad," Scorpius says, and bounds across the room to hug his surprised father. Draco wraps his arms around Scorpius's shoulders and Scorpius is so glad he's there. "I missed you."
Draco hums with concern. "Are you alright?" He leans back, assessing his son, then pulls him close again.
Scorpius melts into him. "Yep." After drinking in the embrace, he steps back and drops his arms. "Want a cup of tea?"
"Sure," Draco says, sitting in an armchair. "How's your research on linguistic pedagogy of incantations coming?"
Scorpius walks into the kitchen, waves his wand at the kettle. "It's going about as well as a disrespected hippogriff."
"What happened?" Draco asks with concern. He has that slightly awkward look that parents get when visiting a child's flat—he doesn't quite belong there.
Scorpius pulls two tins of tea from the cupboard. "Er, nothing. Just distracted lately. It's okay, though, I made really good progress in the past few months, and I don't have another grant application until the autumn."
He measures earl grey into his mug and lapsang into his dad's.
"Well, no one said your work has to progress linearly," Draco says from the next room.
"Exactly!" Scorpius pours the hot water into the mugs. "Do you want one of grandmother's chocolates? I still have some from—where was it?—the Bellagio?"
"Yes, please," Draco says. "I finished mine weeks ago."
Scorpius Vanishes the tea leaves (his grandmother would scold him for not straining, but what she doesn't know won't hurt her), casts a Sugar Dispersal Charm at his, and Levitates them into the sitting room. He grabs the box of chocolates and joins his father.
"Try the one with the nibs on top," Scorpius suggests.
Draco does. When he finishes chewing and has taken a sip of tea, he says, "Harry told me he's seen you a few times. Have—how is that going?"
"Good! He told me he's seen you, too."
Draco sits stiff with discomfort. "Yes. We've been out to dinner a few times."
Scorpius wants to ask a million questions—foremost, "Oh my goodness are you dating?"—but he doesn't want to scare off Draco's newfound forthrightness, so he ignores it. "Yeah. I went to his shop—it's super nice. Have you seen it?"
Draco shakes his head.
"Oh, you'd love it. There's every kind of broom imaginable and all sorts of Quidditch balls of every colour and Snitches all over the ceiling. A whole section of Quidditch-themed children's toys."
Draco smiles. "Really? Sounds nice."
"Better than nice. Like you walk in and the entire place just feels like him. I don't know if that makes sense."
Draco pauses, then says, "It does."
Part of Scorpius—the reflexive part—wants not to say anything. His instinct is to politely not press the issue. But that sort of polite not-talking is what got them into this bizarre situation, isn't it? Scorpius fiddles with the handle of his mug, takes a sip, and barges ahead. He's not going to ignore the erumpent in the room. No more of that.
"So Harry's pretty great, isn't he?"
Draco nods slowly. "Rather."
"He has a big heart. He's constantly caring for everyone in his huge extended family, having people over to his house for weekly dinners, hosting parties in the garden of his shop. He puts people at ease, you know? Like I just want to tell him things."
Draco smiles. "You always want to tell people things."
With a laugh, Scorpius admits, "Well, yeah."
Draco sighs, and seems to come to the decision to say more. "I missed him. I—we—I don't know. It's good to see him again."
"Did you ever get over him?" Scorpius asks with a quiet voice that he hopes won't be too much.
Draco sips his tea, and Scorpius recognises it for the stalling mechanism that it is. "My instinct is to lie. But no," he says eventually. "I'm not going to lie to you anymore."
Scorpius smiles. "After so much time, does he live up to your memory?"
Draco sighs. "Scorpius, Harry Potter lives to exceed expectations."
Scorpius laughs.
"And how are his children?" Draco asks, and Scorpius thinks Draco looks properly interested.
"They're great," he says, and takes another sip of tea. "You know James is married to Teddy Lupin—he's sort of related to us, right? They are so palpably infatuated with each other Being around them feels like, I don't know, bubbly. And Albus is more reserved but so funny. We get along great. I've only met Lily once because she's usually out of the country." Scorpius frowns. "I think maybe I need to learn how not to get caught up in their antics."
Draco laughs. "What for? Get caught up. You only get one life."
Scorpius smiles. "Er, Dad. I just want to say—" He puts down his cup and looks at Draco. "I forgive you. For keeping all this a secret. I forgive you."
Draco's face goes blank and a bit pale. He opens his mouth, but then closes it again and nods.
"Anyway! So! Yeah, Albus is a lot of fun, and I think he's happy to have another brother in the family who's not married to another brother," Scorpius prattles on. "Not that Teddy is related to them by blood. Course, he is related to me by blood—I'm blood-related to all of them. That's pretty funny, actually. So you've enjoyed seeing Harry?"
Draco sips his tea. "Yes."
"Would you care to elaborate?"
Draco laughs. "Would I care to? Not particularly. But it's nice. He—we were both pretty messed up in those years we were together. Not because of each other, because of everything else. In retrospect, we probably both should've been seeing Mindhealers. Or taking Seratonin Potions or something." He pauses. "It's nice to see him happy."
"I like seeing you happy, too," Scorpius says softly.
Draco smiles. "I'm happy enough."
"Nah, like, I want to see you transcendently, ecstatically happy," Scorpius says with a smile.
Draco laughs and lets out a sigh. "So, no pressure, then."
"Hey, Dad. I'm not going to trick you anymore—and I'm really sorry about hitting you with that news at that restaurant like that—but I'm going to ask you something and I really want you to agree. Or at least seriously think about it. We're invited to Harry's for supper tonight. I'm going—will you come with me? You can meet his kids and everything."
Draco stares at his mug.
"Dad," Scorpius says, "please. I want you to be happy."
Draco looks up. "What makes you think he'll make me happy?"
Scorpius raises one brow, knowing he's echoing Draco's characteristic look.
Draco sighs. "Alright—alright. I'll go. We can go."
Scorpius smiles. "It will be great!"
Draco laughs and then groans good-naturedly. "Why isn't life ever straightforward?"
Scorpius shrugs. "Because then it'd be boring?"
An hour later, they Floo to Harry's house, and when they step through they hear Harry saying, "You came!"
Harry walks over wearing an apron that says, "HOT STUFF COMING THROUGH." "Scorpius!" Harry pats Scorpius on the back. "Hi Draco. I'm glad you came."
Draco sticks his hand out and Harry reaches out to shake it, a slightly bemused smile on his face.
"Thank you for inviting us to your home," Draco recites.
"Of course," Harry says. "I have to run back into the kitchen; I'll be back in a moment."
Scorpius elbows his father in the rib. "Dad, relax. What the heck?"
Draco glares at him.
Scorpius laughs. "I'm just saying—you can't rely on me, with this. I'm a terrible wingman. Do you need to drink?"
This time Draco laughs. "I do not need a wingman, Scorpius."
Scorpius hums in a disagreeing manner, but they're interrupted by James, who calls them over to the sitting room.
As they walk over, Scorpius whispers to Draco, "I'm joking. Just try to have fun." Draco wraps his arm around Scorpius's shoulder and squeezes.
"Hello Malfoys!" James says from the sofa, where he's squinting at a complicated-looking magical puzzle. "I'm being timed. Albus always buys me puzzles. I think this one requires a magical intention as you rotate the—" He trails off, slowly rotating the clear sphere.
Albus is sitting on the floor near James with a red countdown shimmering in the air next to his head. "Hey Scorp, Mr Malfoy."
Harry's house is warm and inviting, with wood floors and trim and yellow walls. The floor is covered in bright, braided rugs, and the walls are covered in framed photos and art. Most of the art looks homemade, and much of it by children. There's the cross-stitch that reads "My Grandchildren Are Crups." Around it are frames of children's artwork with tiny plaques underneath with the artist's name and date. He spots "James Sirius Potter, 2008," "Teddy Lupin, 2003," and "Maud Granger-Weasley-Bell, 2033" before his attention is drawn away.
"Hello," Teddy says, standing up and holding out his hand. "Teddy Lupin."
"Pleased to meet you," Draco replies, shaking. Scorpius sits on the sofa and smiles when his dad sits next to him.
"I've almost got this fucker," James whispers, his tongue between his teeth, and Scorpius has to hold back a laugh.
"So Teddy, I understand you're a Healer," Draco says, and Scorpius can only imagine that all those years growing up with Narcissa's lessons in good-breeding are still paying off, what with the way Draco can seamlessly handle social situations. Well, social situations that don't involve Harry, anyway.
"Yes!" Teddy says, clearly thrilled to talk about his work. "I'm in Spell Damage at St Mungo's. The joke is that I had to choose Spell Damage as my specialty because I need to be ready to deal with this one." He points his thumb at James with a grin.
"Har har," James says, turning the sphere the other direction. He must be concentrating his magical energy, because his hair is starting to stick up.
A plate soars into the room and lands with a clatter on the coffee table. It's filled with crisps and a bowl of dip.
"Dad, what kind of dip is this?" Albus yells. "Is it the cheese and chive?"
"You know what dip it is, Albus?" Harry calls from the kitchen. "It's called you're thirty years old, eat the fucking dip without whinging."
Scorpius thinks he hears Draco snort, but he can't be sure.
Teddy helps himself to a handful of crisps. "Jamie, we should've brought the crups. You know how much Prongs likes crisps."
James doesn't answer—he's too focused on giving the sphere a tiny jiggle as he whispers, "Come on, you little fuckface."
Harry walks into the room and sits next to Teddy. There's a moment of horrible silence. Teddy, bless him, speaks up. "So you two used to play Quidditch together at Hogwarts, didn't you?"
Scorpius turns his head just in time to see Draco and Harry look straight at each other and smile. Scorpius can't help but grin at them.
"Yeah," Harry says, still smiling at Draco. "He was rubbish."
"Says the man who caught the Snitch accidentally in his mouth."
"It was fair play!" Harry cries.
"Technicality," Draco shoots back.
And holy moly, Scorpius sees it. This…thing…the two of them are doing. He hadn't understood it before, even if he'd realised it was a thing. Or at least a potential thing. But now he suddenly gets it.
His father is used to being fawned over by pure-blood sycophants or eyed with suspicion by self-consciously upstanding progressives. No one ever gives back to Draco, except Astoria, sometimes.
Scorpius's eyes trail to Harry. It's probably the same for Harry. He's the Saviour—who would ever challenge him? Of course, Harry has dozens of family and friends who surround him with warmth and comfort, and teasing, if the way Ron acts around Harry is any indication. But it's different, somehow.
The others in the room seem to be seeing the same thing as Scorpius; even James has looked up from his puzzle, which is now glowing faintly orange.
"Yeah," James pipes up, "Dad's well-known for being the most rubbish player in the family. Hard to compete with me and Mum, though."
Draco laughs, seemingly a bit in awe of the entire situation.
"Oi!" Harry objects. "I was the yo—"
"The youngest Seeker in a century," James, Teddy, and Albus all mimic.
Draco leans his elbow on the side of the sofa and rests his chin in his hand, covering his laugh.
"Should I tell them about how your father had to buy your way onto the Slytherin team?" Harry asks Draco, raising his eyebrows.
Draco sits up, crossing his leg primly. "He would never."
At that, Scorpius loses it and dissolves into a fit of laughter. Draco gives him a look. "I'm sorry, Dad—it's just—grandfather once bought an entire coffee shop near my uni so that I wouldn't have to 'handle a bankroll'."
Draco glares.
"When I got my degree and wanted to do archival work, he tried to bribe the head archivist, and then he bought the archive."
"Yes, alright," Draco sighs, holding up a hand. "Thank you, Scorpius."
"YES!" James cries, holding up the sphere in victory. Tiny fireworks are shooting off inside it.
Albus looks at the countdown. "Over fifteen minutes. Bad show."
James doesn't seem bothered by Albus's shade. "Anyone else want a go?"
Scorpius knows it's the exact type of thing that Draco loves, but Draco won't want to work a puzzle right now. When no one takes him up on it, James starts Levitating crisps through the air towards Teddy's and Albus's mouths. Harry laughs and heads for the kitchen.
"Would you like some help?" Scorpius asks.
"Sure," Harry says, "if you like."
Scorpius stands and Draco follows them into the kitchen. Scorpius can't really blame Draco for not wanting to be alone with the Potter sons as they perform crisp tricks.
Harry hands Scorpius a head of lettuce to chop for salad, and Scorpius casts a charm to Vanish the dirt from it, then a Chopping Charm.
Draco looks around the room while Harry peers in the oven. "Harry, what in Merlin's name is this?"
Harry starts laughing, and Scorpius turns to look. There's a frame on the wall, and the canvas in it reads, "James, if you want to touch your penis, you need to go upstairs. 2011"
"It's a Quote-a-Matic. George sold them at Wheezes for awhile. Basically, you hang it up, and when someone says something it decides is worthy of posterity, it adds it to the rotation. It brings up a different old quote a few times a day. We've had it since the kids were little, so there's usually something amazing on it."
Draco gapes at the frame with smiling eyes. "Does it only capture funny things?"
"Pretty much," Harry says with a shrug. "Here, watch." He taps the top of the frame with his wand, and the words disappear. A moment later it reads, "Moony! Stop humping Padfoot! 2035"
Draco laughs, and turns to Harry with wide eyes. "You are ridiculous."
"Whatever," Harry says with a smile. "You love it."
Draco presses his lips together and turns to look at the books on a shelf.
A few minutes later, everyone gathers at Harry's farmhouse-style dining table. When they sit down, a large purple candle in the centre of the table comes to life with a whoosh, and with a wave of Harry's wand, squares of lasagne zoom to plates.
"How's the funding for hogs at St Mungo's?" Harry asks Teddy as he serves salad onto his dinner plate. Scorpius imagines how his grandmother would react to the fact that there are no salad plates.
"It's going alright," Teddy replies. "We may need an extra push at the end of the year, if you want to donate or help with a fundraiser."
"Anytime, Ted, you know that," Harry says.
"Hogs?" Scorpius asks, raising a bite of meaty lasagne to his mouth.
"Oh!" Teddy says, his eyes lighting up. "I'm co-founder of a programme advocating for queer health issues. HOGSS—Healers' Organisation for Gender, Sexuality, and Safe Sex."
"Their logo is a rainbow pig," James adds.
"We do sexuality education and sex ed, support transgender and non-binary folks, fund research on magical-Muggle hybrid hormone therapies and potion-based supports, advocate for queer patients in the rest of the hospital, mental health support, et cetera."
"That's amazing," Draco says with genuine admiration.
"We host talks about queer issues and politics, too," Teddy says. "You should come sometime."
Scorpius glances at his dad. His dad has, of married necessity, never been out. He wonders if Draco would've, had it not been for Astoria. It doesn't seem like Draco had been in denial or anything, just pragmatic. Scorpius wonders how he'll deal with it now.
"I'd love that," Draco says, glancing briefly at Harry before turning back to his salad.
"Have either of you heard from Lily?" Harry asks.
Albus and James both say "No" with full mouths. Harry sighs.
"I wish I'd had a chance when I was young to travel the world working with dragons," Draco says.
Harry smiles at him. "Me too. I don't know why I didn't fuck out of here, back then. But I'm still allowed to miss her, though."
"Incidentally," Albus informs, "there are a lot of dragon-themed quotes on the Quote-a-Matic you were looking at. Let me see if I can get one on." He stops to affect a leering tone. "I'd like to tame your dragon." He listens for a moment, then frowns.
Harry laughs. "Albus. You know it doesn't work if you're trying to trick it." Harry looks at Draco. "We had an entire year when they were teenagers where they just constantly said ridiculous things trying to get them on the wall."
"I'm utterly certain you, of all people, Harry, do not need to try to say ridiculous things," Draco says with an amused brow, and then there is a faint ding!
Albus and James erupt into laughter. "Yes! Mr Malfoy for the win!"
Draco looks around the room, confused.
Harry tips his head back in laughter. "You're on the Quote-a-Matic."
Draco smiles and looks at his plate. "I feel so accepted," he says, and Scorpius suspects that the sarcastic tone is masking a genuine emotion.
"You should be proud," Teddy says. "We are a very accepting bunch, but the Quote-a-Matic is hard to please. Albus had a girlfriend for three years and she never got on the wall."
"Oi," Albus objects, poking his food sulkily. "I don't want to talk about those wretched years."
Scorpius watches Harry's eyes flit to Draco.
"So Mr Malfoy," James says, reaching for a second helping of lasagne, "was Dad as much a paragon of safe sex as he claimed to be when teaching us about it? Because it sounds to me like nah."
"James!" Harry cries, choking on a horrified laugh, and Scorpius feels his face flushing with heat.
Teddy turns in his chair to glare at his husband.
"What! We're all adults here," James says.
"I beg to differ," Teddy says, and a ding! sounds from the kitchen.
"Twice in one day!" Albus enthuses. "Yes!" He reaches up to high-five his brother.
James is still looking at Draco, though, seemingly waiting for an answer to his invasive question. Scorpius has the sense that James is testing Draco.
"All the more reason to listen to his advice," Draco answers. "Don't you think?"
James nods, and he seems to be granting his approval of Draco in general. "Don't worry about that," James says, pointing at Teddy. "We're monogamous and both had the new magical vasectomy procedure years ago. They just magically sever the vas deferens and bam, sterile."
"Sweet Merlin!" Harry protests. "No vas deferens talk at the table."
Ding!
After supper, James and Teddy leave quickly ("Prongs has a weak bladder"), and Albus follows them shortly after ("I'm going on a date but don't tell James or my dad because I do not want them hounding me about it"). Draco offers to help Harry clean up, and Harry leaves Scorpius on the sofa with some old photo albums.
The first photo album is filled with shots of Harry's parents. It hasn't really occurred to Scorpius before now that he's not only the son of the Chosen One, but also the grandchild of James and Lily Potter, heroes of the First War. They look so joyful and vivacious, and it hurts to know they died at twenty-one. He's ten years older than they were when they died.
He picks up another album. It's full of photos of Teddy as a baby and toddler. In these, Harry looks crazy young. In many of them, Harry is chasing after Teddy, but in one Harry's asleep in a formidable chair with baby Teddy asleep on his chest. Scorpius watches their deep breathing, little Teddy rising up and down with Harry's chest. In another, Harry sits cross-legged on an impressive rug, little Teddy, hair jet black, crawling on and off his lap. In that one, Harry's eyes look haunted and tired.
Scorpius turns the page to reveal an older woman with brown curls holding Teddy. He realises it must be his great-aunt. He needs to show this one to his dad—Andromeda looks a bit like his grandmother, especially in the chin and the lips.
He walks to the kitchen, trying not to slam into the wall as he keeps his eyes on the photos, but as he gets to the door he stops short.
His dad and Harry are snogging. Snogging in the kitchen! He takes a small step back, but he can't tear his eyes away because his dad—his father—is pushing Harry against the counter and threading his fingers though Harry's hair.
"The last time I did something this reckless was the last time we got together," Draco says, pulling away a few centimetres.
Harry hooks one of his thumbs in the back of Draco's trousers, and he looks earnest as he says, "It's not the same, though."
"Do you really believe that?" Draco asks, leaning forward to kiss Harry's neck.
Harry leans his head back. "Yes. Yes. We grew up. No hiding this time. And I never stopped wanting you, you know. I never stopped thinking about you."
Draco grabs Harry's face, running his fingers over grey stubble, and they're kissing again, only this time Scorpius definitely cannot keep watching.
He tiptoes back to the sofa, drops the photo album on it, then throws a handful of powder into the Floo. As he steps into the flames, his hand stifling a bubbly laugh, he hears a moan from the kitchen before the flames swirl him away.
When Draco gets home the next morning, his hand shakes with disbelief as the reality sets in.
Holy shit.
So much for taking it slow with dinners in neutral restaurants and being careful and protecting himself because he's vulnerable—they'd kissed. They'd laughed and kissed. They'd laughed and kissed and talked and fucked.
Holy shit.
He wonders if there was ever any chance of them resisting each other if they got back into contact. It had been the reason that Draco had stayed in France so long: it was better with the Channel in between them. It had been the reason he hadn't read the letter Harry sent that one time. He's always known, he thinks, that the only way to stay apart is to stay, well, apart.
But the funny thing is, it doesn't feel like it had been fast. It should feel fast. They've only been back into contact for a few months. If he'd met a new bloke a couple months ago, he'd feel it was fast. But this feels like it's been a lifetime in the making.
It feels like the theories he's read on predestination and divination; he's browsed a giant tome from the Malfoy library called Determinism, (Un)certain Futures, and the Wizard's Free Will. He could never fully devote himself to the theory because the entire thing seemed like Ravenclaw intellectual masturbation, but he remembers an image about how one's future path is set and has momentum, like a river or a vortex, though one can make choices that change the course, invalidating prophecies and Visions.
Right now, though, it feels like the river is—has always been—rushing to Harry, and he's no longer trying to change course.
He's too old to fight it now, he thinks ruefully and somewhat giddily as he walks to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.
All the reasons he used to fight it—the war, Voldemort, his parents, the social pressures on him, the need to rehabilitate the Malfoy name, the need to produce an heir—they all seem small. Maybe they were always small, though of course that's easy to say now, with time and perspective.
And fuck, he doesn't want to fight it anymore. Harry is everything he's always wanted—Harry is like the sun, smiling and laughing and thawing Draco from the inside out. And now Harry is so much more comfortable in his skin than he used to be. He's got a quiet confidence and stability to him that he hadn't had in those years right after the war.
He thinks about the way Harry's body is now, all softer skin and softer edges. When they were young it had been taut, hot, muscle, firm, lean. Now it is soft bellies and decades-old pregnancy skin with silvery stretch marks and wrinkles and grey hair, their war scars are faded, just barely visible, and Draco thinks it's a good metaphor for everything: the two of them are not taut anymore. They are untaut.
Last night, it hadn't felt like they were hiding from the world—which they always had been back then—it just felt like it was the world. They were the world.
Jimsy, promising tea, shoos him out of the kitchen, and Draco collapses into his desk chair, dropping his head to his hands and sighing. He wants to laugh at himself—it's all so ridiculous. He's fifty-seven years old! He shouldn't feel so jittery about one night of sex.
It wasn't just one night of sex, though, and he knows it.
He's bombarded with memories and sensations from their time together decades ago, and he reaches with shaking fingers into his desk drawer, where he had long ago hidden a stack of letters from Harry. He hasn't touched them, read them, thought about them—he hasn't allowed himself—for decades.
He swears he can feel Harry's magic crackling on the letters, but that's probably his imagination. He can't be blamed for being disturbingly sentimental—at least not today.
He turns the first letter over in his hands. The outside says simply, "Draco." Harry's owl had surely known how to find Draco; no address needed.
Jimsy sets a teapot and cup on his desk, and Draco is distracted as he says, "Thank you, Jimsy." He unfolds the parchment and, his brain still stuck in the sensation of having awoken wrapped up in Harry, he begins to read.
He scans the page (it's from 2004, right after Harry became a fully qualified Auror), and at first he's eager to relive what Harry was like back then. But as the letter goes on, he feels a cold sense of dread start at the base of his skull and seep downward, like a melting ice cube. His heart is pounding, his mouth is dry. Fuck. Fuck, fuck!
Suddenly all the fear comes rushing back. His reaction to this letter in 2004 would surely have been happiness and excitement, but now, in context, knowing what happened after, it makes him feel sick.
Harry will leave, no matter what he says. Harry left after the first time they got together. Harry left when James was born. Harry left before Albus was born. Draco is an idiot for letting himself get caught up—for letting himself forget.
It feels like a betrayal of his Malfoyness, like he's forgotten all his hard-earned lessons about self-preservation and donning impenetrable armour. It's that same error in logic he used to make: thinking that current pleasure and unwise hopes could somehow outweigh the terror and pain of uncertainty, the probability of disappointment.
He's suddenly and overwhelmingly furious with himself. The fates do not give gifts to Draco Malfoy.
Well, except Scorpius.
There's a tapping at the window, and Draco looks up from his melancholy to see Jimsy pop into the room to let the owl in. The owl is Harry's, a small barn owl that Draco's come to recognise but whose name he's not yet learned.
Draco grits his teeth. Jimsy makes to untie the letter, but Draco interrupts. "No," he says, and when Jimsy turns to give him a questioning look that borders on admonishing, he continues, "No, I do not accept the letter. Please return to sender."
The owl stares at Draco for a long, disapproving moment, lets out a hoot, and flies away.
28 July 2004
Draco,
I just found out I passed my Auror Qualifying Exams. I had to tell you right away—I am so relieved. I know you said I had nothing to worry about, but I worried anyway. Ron passed too, but I'm not sure about the others. I know at least two people failed and another three were given a chat about how "they might want to choose a different path," but I'm not sure who.
I've got a week off now before I start as a Junior Auror—when are you free to meet up? I can probably get away any evening as long as it's after 8pm, because James is down by then. Just let me know when to expect you and I'll be there. I wish we could get away for longer than a night.
I am so glad to be seeing you again. I feel so much more settled when I'm seeing you. I think—I hope you feel the same way. I don't know, but when we were taking a break when James was born I just constantly felt like I was drowning in expectations, or like everywhere I went, no one saw me. I mean, they saw someone. They saw a war hero, or a good dad, or something. I dunno, Draco, the whole thing is such a sham. I feel fake everywhere I go. Like, have you ever read this Muggle book called Catcher in the Rye? Well this main character is a whinging twat and he goes around calling everyone "phonies"—and I don't want to be this arsehole, but somehow I am. Everyone around me seems fake, and I feel like a phoney all the time. Sometimes I suspect you and I are the biggest phonies of them all, but the funny thing is I don't feel like a phoney when I'm with you.
I just—I don't know, I'm feeling happy right now, and I wanted to say thank you for that. For making me feel like I'm not a phoney. And I wanted to make sure that you know that I feel that way. So, yeah. I'm not going to fuck off again, okay? Because it was a mistake. I don't know. I feel like I don't have a good answer for how things are going to go, but I know that I'm going to keep wanting you.
And I know you're gearing up for your wedding, and I know what you said about Astoria being cool and you two being friends and everything, but I also know that you're probably feeling nervous about it, because, fuck, but I just wanted to tell you that I'll still be here. Okay? Because I think that we can handle it. We can handle all the shit, as long as we have each other, right?
I'll see you soon. (We need to bring some food because I almost died last time, I was so hungry—and there's no food in that bloody house. What do you like to eat after sex? Will you take the piss if I tell you I like cashew nuts and chocolate frogs? I'll bring them, you bring drinks. What wine pairs well with cashews and chocolate frogs?)
-H.
Draco's face is pressed against the cold, hard surface of his desk. His whole body feels numb. He's revelling in self-pity and self-doubt and something else that starts with the prefix "self-."
He hears a door slam; he should move his body from the desk, but his body has decided it's done and he's unable to convince it otherwise.
Scorpius has always been loud, Draco thinks, as he hears footsteps coming down the corridor. The footsteps get closer and then suddenly there's a loud whizzing sound.
Draco bolts up, trying to identify the out-of-place sound. Scorpius is standing in the door, a huge smile on his face, wand in hand, with a Weasley's Wildfire Whizz-Bang zooming away from his body.
Draco's mouth falls open. What the fuck. Has the whole world gone crazy?
The firework makes an incredible racket of hissing and crackling and wheeeeeeee and splits into a million different sparkles around the office. Then, suddenly, it regroups, fizzes around in a frankly overwhelming finale, and ends with dramatic flair by spelling out the words, "WELL DONE."
Draco turns to face his son, who looks like he's just made the best joke in the history of the world.
"…What?" Draco asks vaguely, waving his hand in the air.
Through his grin, Scorpius says, "I firecalled late last night and you never got home, and since I saw you and Harry snogging in the kitchen, I figured a little father–son congratulations was in order." His smiles fades as he realises that Draco is not amused. "What happened?" The last whistling crack fizzles out over his head.
Draco doesn't know what to say. He sits quietly for a moment, watching Scorpius come closer, his face written with concern.
"It simultaneously feels like a dream come true and all my deepest fears. It's too much, Scorpius."
"Oh, Dad." Scorpius Conjures a chair (a comfortable modern wingback in a sienna-brown leather) and sits, leaning over to place a hand on Draco's arm. "What happened? You looked so happy last night. Not that I was watching! I mean, I was for a second, I couldn't help it, but then I left immediately because, you know, I learned how to make myself scarce in times like those at Beauxbatons in year five. What happened?"
"I found some old letters," Draco says, trying to hold it together. "And they're just—lies. Harry telling me that he wasn't going to leave. Well he left."
Scorpius rubs his arm awkwardly. "Don't you think it's totally different now? He had a wife and little kids back then."
Draco looks up, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable and knowing his eyes are watery. "I don't deserve it." The words somehow come out without turning into a sob, but it's a close thing.
"You don't deserve what?" Scorpius asks.
Draco inhales, trying to force air into the knot in his stomach. "Anything! Harry! Happiness!"
"Dad!" Scorpius says, and he sounds shocked. "Don't say that. You do."
Draco presses his lips together, shakes his head. "I took the mark, Scorpius. You know that. Then I did what my parents insisted, and I slept with a married man for three years while he had babies at home. And now he's upset I didn't tell him about you. I don't deserve anything. I mean, sure, I deserve some happiness, but that's what I got from your mum and you. You're my joy. I don't get anything else."
"You know what," Scorpius says quietly, "I think the problem is that it's not about what you deserve. It's not about that at all. I think you deserve more, but that's irrelevant. It's just about what you can have, making yourself as happy as you can be. And Dad, it seems like you might make Harry as happy as he can be, too. Simple as."
Draco manages to crack a small smile, because Scorpius sounds so naive. He sounds like a child who hasn't lived through a war.
"Didn't Harry say it was different this time?" Scorpius continues.
"Yes."
"Why do you think he'd lie? A lot of time has passed—he's single this time. You're single this time, even if that still feels strange."
Draco sighs. "I don't think he's trying to lie. I don't think he was ever trying to lie. He's too good a person for that. But I think—sometimes he doesn't know what promises he'll be able to keep."
"Dad, I have a confession. Can you try to not get mad when I tell you this?"
Oh sweet Merlin. It's been awhile since he's heard a "don't get mad!" from his son. He would've once thought that sort of thing would end at age ten, but he's come to realise that parenting is not a responsibility with any sort of time horizon.
Draco raises an eyebrow, and with it the atmosphere in the room abruptly changes back to the authoritative parent-child relationship of yesteryear. "You know very well that I cannot promise I won't get mad before I know what you're about to say."
Scorpius bites his lip, and Draco wants to laugh at how he suddenly looks like he's five years old again, come to confess that he spilled a pot of everlasting ink on the peacock rug.
"After Mum died, I came here looking for clues about who my other father was. I mean, I knew that you had been pregnant with me, but she didn't tell me more."
"What?" Draco blurts, his head spinning—he'd thought Astoria had told Scorpius everything.
"I don't know if she thought it was something you should tell me or if she just didn't have any energy left in her at that point to say anymore. Anyway so I, er, I stole your diary. Well, I Duplicated it and stole the copy."
Draco feels his jaw drop. It's always the sweet bookish types you need to watch out for, isn't it? Well, no. Maybe you need to watch out for all types.
"My diary?"
"Yes but! I didn't like, read the whole thing. I cast research Charms on it to try to find information about my conception and birth. That's how I figured out it was Harry."
"Scorpius!" And suddenly Draco is overcome with the completely inappropriate desire to laugh, and he does, the laughter bubbling out of him in chortles of disbelief. "This whole situation is…"
"Too much?" Scorpius asks, half a smile on his face.
Draco closes his eyes and takes a few breaths. "Alright. I understand why you took the diary." He looks at his son. "I am not happy about it, because generally I never have cause to question my trust in you."
"I know, Dad, I'm so sorry!" Scorpius bursts. "I really am. I would never have done it if I thought there was another way to figure it out. You were grieving and—and I didn't want to interrupt your process with this whole other stressful issue."
Draco raises an eyebrow again. He feels like he's back on normal footing, a bit.
"I mean, well, I did raise the other stressful issue, but after some time had passed. At least? Right? Dad?"
Draco sighs. "Yes. I'm sorry you had to find out that way. As you can imagine, it's been a difficult thing to contemplate—what the best course of action would be, with regard to telling you about your history. Especially because the path of doing nothing had so much inertia."
Scorpius puts a hand on Draco's shoulder. "I know. It's okay. Anyway so, er, the reason I told you this now is that I've read some of your thoughts about those times. And. Well, Dad, isn't it true that Harry only left because he was trying to be a good husband and father? It doesn't sound like he did it to screw you over. It sounded like he was just overwhelmed and wanted to use his time for his kids."
Draco, on some level, knows this is true, even if it still hurts and he wants to say something petulant like But he never made me a priority! Instead he says nothing.
"Dad," and Scorpius is rubbing his shoulder. "Don't you see that those same things that once made him leave would now make him more likely to stay? I know this sounds crazy, but I think he's really loyal. I think, in some ways, in the like deep-in-his-heart ways, he's always been loyal to you. That's the sense I get."
Draco shakes his head briefly. He doesn't know how to explain.
"Can I show you something?" Scorpius asks, reaching into his jeans' pocket and pulling out a letter. "Mum had Charmed a letter to be delivered to me if certain conditions were met. I'm not sure what the conditions were, but anyway, I got it. She mentions you—she worries that you won't move on. She, well, she said she thinks you're scared. Here, look."
Draco frowns at the letter. He had no idea she'd done that. Had she written him one? He wonders whether she wrote others to be delivered under different circumstances. He wouldn't put it past her, but he also needs to assume this will be the last correspondence he ever sees from her. He sighs. The hardest part of grief is that there's no clean break.
Scorpius hands him the letter, saying, "She wanted to tell me that I won't be disloyal to her memory by moving on, I think, but—"
They both fall silent, because the moment Draco takes the letter, the ink swirls, rearranging itself on the page. Scorpius leans closer, and they read.
Draco,
I suspected you might end up reading this—either because Scorpius is a sharer of the highest order (never change, my darling—I'm sure you're reading, too) or because you are nosy.
I'm not sure how best to encourage you to move on, to take risks, to be happy. You have so much life ahead of you. I suspect you need some closure from me, though it's hard to know how to give it to you. I love you. Thank you for this life we've had. I love you and thank you—what more is there to say?
There's your closure. Here's your kick in the arse: go get him. I swear to Salazar, Draco, I will find a way to rise up from the dead as a ghost if you do not stop this game the two of you have been playing your whole lives and go get him. You need to realise, my love, that happiness is within your grasp. Not just a content, sufficient life, but true, magnificent happiness. I'll tell you a secret: it's always been within your grasp, you were simply too much of an idiot to recognise it. But you have no such excuses anymore. You are an old man. (haha) You want Harry? You want to be happy? I guarantee you, all you have to do is take it. It will not fall into your lap. You need to take it.
I love you so much. I will be rolling in my grave until you pull your head out of your arse, so I hope you let this consuming guilt over your dead wife spur you into action.
With never-ending respect and affection, your,
Astoria
For a few moments, they sit in complete silence. Draco's eyes well up with tears, which break and trail down his cheeks. He can only suspect Scorpius is crying, too, but they don't look at each other. Some Malfoy-engrained habits run deep.
"How did she know exactly what we'd both need to hear?" Scorpius asks eventually.
"Well," Draco says, "she was smart and perceptive. Also, I suspect that you and I are both quite a bit less subtle than we fancy ourselves."
Scorpius laughs and rises from his chair to wrap Draco in a tight hug.
Two cups of tea (herbal, because neither of them have any business consuming caffeine right now) later, Scorpius leaves with a promise of firecalling later and stopping by the next day.
Draco starts a fire in the drawing room grate and sits in his favourite armchair. Astoria and Scorpius have made him think that refusing Harry's owl was an impulsive, bad idea.
It's what he would've done years ago. And in fact, he had done it years ago when Harry had sent him an owl. How can he expect things to change if he keeps doing the same thing? He drops his head back and closes his eyes.
June 2012
Draco was sat at the mahogany game table with six-year-old Scorpius. "The trick," he said, "is to imagine the next moves that the other player will make. You need to imagine it in your head before you do it on the board."
Scorpius scrunched his nose. "So I would move the pawn, but if I did that, the rook—"
"Excuse me, Master Draco," a house-elf said, appearing next to the table. "An international owl just delivered this letter and is waiting for master's signature."
Draco picked up the letter and immediately recognised the handwriting on the front that had scrawled, "Draco Malfoy, Mougins, France."
Draco could feel the blood drain from his face. For a moment, he stared at it. He held the letter out to Mipsy. "Please inform the owl that I will not be accepting the letter."
"But Master—"
"I will not be accepting the delivery."
The elf nodded and Disapparated. Scorpius looked at him curiously. "Why didn't you take the letter, Daddy?"
Draco felt his chest constrict with years-old pain but ignored it completely as he answered, "It was delivered to the wrong place. Now, you're right about the rook. Also, what about the queen?"
Scorpius turned back to the game.
The following day, at breakfast, Draco unfolded the International Edition of the Daily Prophet and felt the blood drain from his face again.
"HARRY POTTER BUYS QUALITY QUIDDITCH SUPPLIES."
There's a photo of Harry standing in front of the store on Diagon holding a large gold key and shaking the hand of the previous proprietor, a little old man. Just before the moving image loops back to the beginning, Harry looks at the camera and flashes a wide smile.
Fuck.
Draco's eyes rushed to look for the article.
"12 June 2012. Harry Potter, 31, has purchased Quality Quidditch Supplies, a well-known shop located on Diagon Alley in London. Mr Potter, who defeated Voldemort (Tom Riddle) in the Second Wizarding War, is leaving behind four years of full-time fatherhood. In 2008, Mr Potter quit the Aurors, and in 2010, he divorced his wife of seven years, Ginny Weasley.
"I am thrilled to be going back to work outside of caring for my children," Mr Potter said. "Sam Quinten is eager for retirement, and I'm eager to sell some brooms."
Mr Potter's enthusiasm is infectious as he hands out tiny promotional brooms…"
Draco dropped the paper onto the table. He remembered getting Harry's letter the day before—it's too much of a coincidence. Harry had sent him a letter about buying the Quidditch shop. What the fuck was Draco supposed to make of this? Perhaps he shouldn't have refused the letter. But, no—he had no choice.
But there was Harry's face—older, happier than he remembered—smiling at him from the paper. He felt strangely proud of Harry for taking a step like this—just like he'd felt proud when the papers reported that Harry had quit the Aurors. Was it strange to feel proud of a person you hadn't seen in six years? An ex of sorts, not that they'd ever really been a couple.
It seemed that Harry was taking some control over his life, and Draco felt proud and simultaneously jealous. Not that he had a choice. He needed to do what was best for Scorpius, and what was best for Scorpius was this. Draco was taking control, it just looked different.
He couldn't do anything more. He Vanished the paper and put Harry resolutely out of his mind.
Draco stands outside Waitrose working up courage, adjusting the bag in his hand. He's not going to be a coward this time. He's not. Get it together. He sucks in a breath and Apparates.
After he lands, Draco thinks, again, that Harry's house is lovely, especially in contrast with his memories of Grimmauld Place. Harry had moved out of the house he shared with Ginny, sold Grimmauld Place, and bought this house at some point after his divorce, and Draco appreciates the fact that this house has no connection to all the mess of their youth. It's a house that's just Harry.
He lingers on the front path for a moment, then he hears Astoria's voice in his ear saying, "I will be rolling in my grave until you pull your head out of your arse," and he knocks on the door.
The door opens, but it's not Harry—it's Teddy and three barking, jumping crups. Sweet Salazar. Draco takes two steps backward before he decides he can't let some crups drive him away and he reclaims the front step.
"Hello, Teddy. Is Harry home?"
Teddy gives him a stern, assessing look. His hair is medium-brown—no bright colours today, and Draco thinks he understands what it's like to have this man as your Healer.
Teddy opens the door wider, as if to let Draco in, but pauses to say, "Don't even think about hurting him." His tone is not aggressive, but he's deadly serious.
Draco hasn't felt so chastised in years. He nods.
Teddy opens the door fully, letting Draco in. "We're in the sitting room."
Draco follows Teddy through the house, crups bounding around his legs, and stops short when he sees James on the sofa with his arm around Harry's shoulders. Harry is sad. James looks up, recognises Draco and frowns. It's strange—Draco doesn't even know James well, but he can tell that this type of judgmental look is a rare one for him.
"Jamie, let's go home," Teddy says, and James shoots his husband a glare. They must have some sort of silent conversation, because James relents after a moment, hugging Harry before standing and collecting his share of the crups.
Teddy calls, "Six!" and a crup with brown fur runs into the room. James says goodbye to Harry and throws a handful of Floo powder into the grate. He says, "Cockerels and Crups!", reaches into his pocket and throws a few crup treats into the flames. Three crups run into the flames to catch the treats in midair before spinning away. James follows them, and then Teddy tells Harry they'll firecall later, lures the rest of the crups into the flames, and finally goes through himself.
Draco looks at Harry. "Six?" he asks. "And why is their house called Cockerels and Crups? They have pet cockerels?"
Harry cracks a smile, though it doesn't make him look any less sad. "When Teddy and James got their sixth crup, they couldn't come up with a name at first, and then Six stuck. As for Cockerels and Crups, James wanted to name it Cocks and Crups but the Floo Network Authority wouldn't accept it."
"Ah," Draco says, and then stands there with his Waitrose bag feeling stupid. He needs to say something, because Harry is just sitting on the sofa looking disappointed. "I brought you something."
"You know," Harry says, "I'm not really a flowers-and-gifts-make-amends kind of person. You refused my owl. Why would you do that?"
Draco walks fully into the room and sits on the other side of the sofa, angling his body towards Harry. "I'm sorry. I freaked out." He shoves the Waitrose bag onto Harry's lap. "Just open it."
Harry looks inside the bag. "Cashews?" He sounds perplexed as he pulls them out, then he looks into the bag. "And chocolate frogs." He starts to laugh. "Bloody hell, I haven't had cashews in years." He stops and looks up. "Why did you refuse my owl?"
Draco sighs. How the fuck is he supposed to answer that? The only choice seems to be blunt honesty. "I got scared you'd leave again."
Harry stares at him for a long moment. "We have no shortage of baggage, do we?"
Draco snorts, leaning back on the sofa. "No."
Harry sighs. "I was upset when you didn't accept my owl, because—well, you have refused a lot of my owls. After that first time we hooked up at the Muggle pub. After I sent you a letter when I opened up the Quidditch shop. So earlier today, it felt like. I don't know."
"Fuck," Draco says, running a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry. It's hard to break patterns, isn't it?"
Harry pulls open the bag of cashews and holds it out to Draco. "Ginny laughed her arse off at the idea of us trying to communicate about this."
Draco's fingers holding the cashew stop halfway to his mouth as he says, "You told Ginny?"
Harry pops a few nuts into his mouth. "Well, yeah. I had to tell her about Scorpius. I went and talked to her the day after I found out." He smiles. "We've been divorced for twenty-seven years. She's been remarried to Luna for twice as long as she and I were married. And I still felt awful admitting it."
"That you'd slept with me."
"Well, that we'd had a relationship," Harry says, like it's the easiest thing in the world to admit that.
Draco can feel his breathing speeding up. "You told her—you told her everything?"
"I didn't go into the lurid details. But yeah. I told her we were seeing each other from before our marriage until Albus was born. Merlin, I was a prick, wasn't I?"
"We were both pricks. But—you could've just told her you cheated one time."
Harry shrugs. "Not really. I mean, Ginny is still family, both because she's my kids' mum and because she's a Weasley. We're friends—I see her all the time. I can't make a proper go at being with you and keep lying about something that happened back then. I told Ron and Hermione, too. It feels—it feels incredible to have confessed, actually. No more lies."
Draco blinks, trying not to get caught up on the "proper go" thing. He knows the feeling of relief Harry's describing. "What did she say?"
"Oh, she was furious. She screamed at me. There were quite a few 'I should have fucking known's! But Ginny burns fast and bright—she stopped yelling pretty quickly. She was curious about Scorpius and happy that I was going to get to know him. She empathised with me about being sad I'd missed out on so much with him."
"You want to make a proper go?"
Harry shoots him an exasperated look. "Well yeah, Draco! Haven't I made that clear?"
Draco swallows. He supposes Harry has made that clear. "So our—relationship—didn't factor into your divorce?"
Harry shook his head. "Goodness, I think she would've murdered me if she found that out back then. It's hard for me to describe my mental state then. I dunno, as I started to recover from the war and everything, I started taking more control over my life. Like, first I quit the Aurors."
Draco smiles. "You know, if you'd listened to me, you could've avoided that from the start."
"I know." Harry eats another cashew. "Then when my life didn't suddenly get better after quitting, I realised it wasn't just that one thing. It was everything. Gin and I tried to make it work for awhile, but it just wasn't right. So we ended it. It was hard, but, you know, these things are. Then a couple years later I opened the shop. I've been happy. I remember the day I opened the shop. I felt like I'd finally taken my life back."
"I can't say I ever remember feeling that way."
"Never?" Harry asks sadly.
"Well, I had Scorpius to think about. I couldn't fix the things that were wrong in my life as easily as you could. Not that it was easy for you—but, you know what I'm saying. But maybe I felt that way a bit just now standing on your front step with a bag of cashews and chocolate frogs."
Harry shakes his head, a wistful smile on his face. "I can't believe you remembered that."
"Well, young men need to keep their energy up. How could I forget?"
"We don't need as many calories these days, do we, old man?" Harry jokes, clearly enjoying the banter.
Draco raises an eyebrow. "After last night, we may."
Harry laughs, his head falling back, and Draco feels so, so close to having everything he wants.
"And don't call me old," Draco teases. "Magical people live much longer than Muggles. Don't impose your skewed lifespan expectations on me."
Harry stops laughing and looks suddenly more serious. "You haven't said whether you want to give it a proper go. Does it feel too fast to you? Because we can—"
"Yes." Draco exhales. "I want to give it a proper go. It's the first chance we've ever had to give it a proper go. And no, it doesn't feel too fast—does it to you?"
Harry shakes his head. "Not at all. I feel like maybe I should feel like it's too fast, but it feels like coming home." He pauses. "Well, it feels like coming home and all the furniture is nicer and the weather is no longer rainy and there's more food in the pantry, but it's still home."
Draco thinks his heart is in danger of pounding out of his chest. "Since this is the proper go, and we both have clear—well, relatively clear—consciences, I'm just going to continue with this honesty drivel." He takes a breath. "It's always been you. Merlin's knickers, I sound like a prat. But seriously, Harry, since—I don't even know. At least since the first time I went home with you to Grimmauld. I've thought romantic love was over for me, but I never thought it could be anyone else."
Harry's eyes grow wide. "Do you really mean that?"
"Yes."
"I'm not a stupid young man anymore," Harry says, and he sounds like he's choosing his words carefully. "You've always been it for me—probably since that time you came over and I had Teddy and you didn't leave. I didn't realise it for a long time, but I can see it now. Do you know I've only been on a handful of dates since my divorce?"
Draco's body feels hot. "We're not stupid anymore. Let's not act like it."
Harry smiles. "Right. So, this isn't new."
Draco has to touch him; he can't wait any longer. He leans forward, pressing his knee next to Harry and moving the cashews and chocolate frogs to the coffee table. He crouches down, pressing his face to Harry's cheek and relishing the way he can feel Harry shiver. "This is forever, Harry, don't you think?"
Harry grabs his face and pulls him into a heated kiss, and Draco's head swims with emotions because Harry wants him and Harry said You've always been it for me and Harry told his ex-wife and somehow all of those things feel like they're pouring into him through the kiss.
Draco sits back, smiling and wishing he had younger knees and could stay crouched there; instead, he adjusts himself into a proper sitting position. "So let's be adults. Tell me what you want in life."
Harry laughs, and he looks rumpled, and Draco wants to rumple him more. "What do I want in life?"
"Well, yes. We've been apart for a long time, a couple months of dates and one night of sex doesn't change that. We're making a proper go. We need to discuss."
"I don't want to get married," Harry blurts.
Draco's eyebrows raise. "I didn't mean that."
"I know, I know, but I just. I really don't ever want to get married again."
"Me neither," Draco says.
Harry stares at him, and Draco somehow knows they're on the same page. "Good," Harry says. "Er, beyond that. I want to work at my shop. Hang out with my kids. Get to know Scorpius. I want boring things." Harry smiles. "We had enough excitement when we were young."
Draco laughs. "Fuck, yes. I want to go flying with you."
"Your life goal is to go flying with me? Let's go right now, that way you can be completely satisfied with your life before we go to bed." Harry looks good when he's teasing.
"Ha, ha," Draco says. "I think—I think I want to move out of the Manor."
Harry raises his eyebrows. "Really? I thought you had to—"
"No more 'have to's, Potter, eh?" Draco nabs another cashew. "I don't think I admitted it to myself until a minute ago when I was standing outside your house and thinking about how nice it must be to not live in a place with so much bad history."
Harry smiles. "Then do it. Do you—do you want to move in here?"
Now it's Draco's turn to raise his eyebrows. "I wasn't trying to imply—"
"I know!" Harry says. "I'm offering. Honestly, Draco, if we're really giving this a proper go, it's like you said. It's forever. It's always been forever. We'll fight, but it's not like we're going to suddenly get over each other. Don't you think you'd end up here in a few months anyway? We're too old to waste time, if that's what you want."
Draco is hit with a memory from that morning—waking up with tree-speckled sunlight shining through the window, Harry's face pressed into his shoulder, the feeling of being wrapped up in another person. He hadn't thought about it then, but it's immediately obvious that's what he wants. "Yes."
Harry starts to laugh in a nervous manner—it reminds Draco of Scorpius when he gets overwhelmed. "No more wasting time, eh?"
"Yeah, fuck wasting time. We've wasted enough." Draco grins. "What else do you want in life?"
"I told you, not much. I'd like a grandchild, but that's not going to happen. So I guess I'd like to see my grand-nieces and -nephews more."
"You don't think your kids will ever have kids?"
"James and Teddy are adamant, as you already know given James talking about his vas deferens at the dinner table."
Draco starts to laugh. "What was I meant to say to that?"
Harry chuckles. "There is no reply to that. James is just very—forward. Anyway, Albus dates sometimes but I don't really see him ever having kids. He says he doesn't want any. And Lily...who knows." Harry's faces brightens as he says, "Does Scorpius want kids?"
"Sorry to dash your hopes and dreams, but I doubt it. Scorpius seems perfectly happy just him and his work. I mean, he could change his mind, I suppose."
Harry gives him a curious look. "So all your angst about having to produce an heir—does Scorpius feel that?"
Draco frowns. "I certainly fucking hope not. Astoria and I spent his whole life telling him we don't care what he does. Once I even sent a Silencing Charm at Lucius when he wouldn't stop talking about it. I—I still have a lot of resentment about all of it, honestly. I would never pressure him."
"Isn't the entail built into the magic, though?" Harry asks, and Draco is surprised he remembers.
"We hired a solicitor who specialises in updating pure-blood magical entails. He modernised the details of all that, once I came fully into the estate."
Harry smiles. "That's amazing. Though I'm kind of disappointed Scorpius doesn't want kids. I thought maybe I'd been handed a fourth chance at grandparenthood."
Draco feels so much affection for Harry in this moment—that Harry has embraced Scorpius so much, that he is attacking their renewed relationship with so much honesty and vigour, that he has so much love he wants another small one to lavish it on.
"Why do you want to have a grandchild so much?" Draco asks bemusedly. It's not something Draco has thought much about.
"I don't know," Harry says with a smile. "When I had small kids, I was so screwed up. I mean, you know, you remember. I had depression, or PTSD, probably. Maybe both. It sometimes made it hard to appreciate the kids as much as I think I should've. I really threw myself into parenting later on, especially after I quit my job, but I feel like I didn't have a chance to really enjoy them when they were tiny. My memory of that time should be, I don't know, transcendent joy at new life, but instead it's a blur of stress and anxiety." Harry shrugs, then grins. "And I just really love being a dad."
Draco can understand all that. He remembers how he felt when he was pregnant with Scorpius and even after Scorpius was born—Scorpius was this joyful little human, but Draco had still felt so unmoored, trying to figure out who he was in life, to figure out how things would go.
And suddenly it hits him. Draco's mouth drops open, and he huffs an incredulous laugh. "Oh Merlin. Harry."
Harry quirks a questioning smile. "What?"
"So Astoria wrote me a letter. Basically she was encouraging me to move on. And one of the things she said was that I can't wait for things to fall into my lap, I have to take it."
Harry nods.
"Well, it's kind of what we've been learning all along, isn't it? You can't wait for things to fall into your lap."
"Yeah…"
"You want another baby."
"What?!" Harry croaked.
"You want another baby."
"Me? No! No. No! I'm fifty-seven years old! My youngest child is about to turn thirty. That's insane! No. That's not what I meant."
Draco smiles a slow, predatory smile and just waits.
"No," Harry says, shaking his head. "No? That's really not what I meant. I'm fifty-seven."
"You're a wizard, Harry," Draco says, still grinning.
"But—"
"Wizards age at a slower rate than Muggles, as you know, and that includes reproductive ageing. Magical people can reproduce well into their eighties."
"Holy shit," Harry whispers, his hand coming up to cover his mouth. "I do want another baby."
"Yes," Draco says, still smiling. "I think you do. It's not going to fall into your lap. Are you going to take it?"
Harry's mouth hangs open. "Are you serious right now?"
"Well, I'm certainly not volunteering to be the one to go through pregnancy again."
"But if I wanted to—are you serious?" The shock has fallen from Harry's face, leaving only a look of pure, earnest openness.
Draco thinks about it. Is he serious? He's never really given the idea much thought, what with all the difficulty he and Astoria had with attempting to produce their first baby and the circumstances surrounding Scorpius's conception. But he does resent that he felt coerced into parenthood, the first time around. And the idea of doing it again, of free volition, on his own terms, in a better mental place, with Harry—
"With you?" Draco asks, and he's never felt so certain of anything as he says, "Yes."
Harry starts to laugh, and he ramps up until he's cackling. "We are completely barmy, Draco. You know that, right?" Then he sobers up for a moment. "You do know that babies don't solve anything. Like, previous issues and problems. We can't expect a baby to fix things."
"It's not about a delusion that a baby will fix things," Draco replies. "It's about knowing what we want and taking it."
Harry nods, and then starts laughing again. "I'm sorry, I just, I get a little overwhelmed at big decisions and sometimes I can't stop laughing."
Draco laughs, too, because Harry's nervous tittering is infectious. He scoots closer on the sofa. "Does that mean you're willing to be the one who gets pregnant?"
"Why the hell not?" Harry says, still laughing, waving his hand in the air. "Fair's fair."
Draco leans in to press his lips to Harry's neck, revelling in the fact that he's actually allowed to do so. Harry stops laughing, and Draco is glad that he still knows how to affect Harry after all these years. He kisses right under Harry's ear. "I'm not sure we could manage the task without a course of fertility potions at our age, but I suppose there's no harm in trying."
Harry hums, pulling Draco on top of him. "Is that your way of asking if you can fuck me?" he whispers in Draco's ear, and Draco's feels goose flesh tingle down his spine.
"Yes," Draco says, pressing his lips to Harry's deliciously scratchy neck and sucking a mark there.
Harry moans, but presses his hands to Draco's chest and pushes him away. "Yes. Yes you can. But not here. We are well past the age where fucking on the sofa is a good idea."
10 June 2012
Dear Draco,
It's been a long time since we've talked. I hope you're doing well.
I wanted to tell you that I've bought a Quidditch shop. A shop! Can you believe it? It's Quality Quidditch Supplies on Diagon. The old owner is retiring and the sale went through today. I am so excited and have so many ideas for displays and things to sell to make the place homier and more inviting.
I know it's been ages, but on some level I feel like you are the reason I was able to do this. You were always hounding me to quit the Aurors, and I can't believe it took me so long to realise that was the right decision. I've been so much happier since quitting. And I've always wanted to do something for work that was for me, you know? Not for anyone else, but just for me. I didn't know what, though. And then I saw an advert looking for someone to take over the shop, and it felt like that was it. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I called the estate agent the next day.
Everyone else is excited for me, but it doesn't feel like they understand what it means. That it means that I'm taking control of my life, even if it's just a little bit. It feels like you'll understand.
I hope you're doing well in France. If you're ever back in England, look me up. In my new shop (!!!) on Diagon, or send me an owl.
I miss you.
-H.
Six months later
"Absolutely not," Draco says, crossing his arms across his chest for emphasis.
"Oh, come on," Harry says, affecting a sad face. "Dad jokes are my specialty."
"As much as I know that's true," Draco says with a sigh that does nothing to mask his affection, "that does not mean that it needs to involve me. I am not wearing it."
"But it's hilarious!" Harry says, face breaking into a smile as he looks at the shirt on their bed.
"I am not going to stop you from wearing yours," Draco replies, as if that's generous, as if he could stop Harry. "You're a grown wizard. But so am I, and I'm not wearing that."
Harry frowns. "Will you wear it when we tell your mother?"
Now that's a thought. He takes a moment to imagine what it would be like to show up at tea with Narcissa wearing a shirt that says "MY BOYS CAN SWIM" and bearing news that, though there's still no hope of a next-generation Malfoy heir, her son, who once became accidentally pregnant and had to be hidden to protect the family from shame, has impregnated a fifty-seven-year-old Gryffindor.
"I'll consider it."
"That's good enough for me," Harry says, pulling on his shirt.
"You're actually going to wear it, aren't you?" Draco asks. Apparently he thought that Harry would decide not to at the last moment. He's still learning that there's not much Harry won't do, these days. Harry does what he wants now. They both do.
"Of course," Harry says, looking in the mirror as he runs a hand through his hair. "My hair is even thicker than usual. This is wild. I should recommend pregnancy to wizards with thinning hair."
"Yeah, I'm sure that'll go over extraordinarily well. I can just imagine Seamus Finnegan saying, 'Ah yes, gestating a foetus in a rotund belly for nine months—the perfect solution to my vanity crisis.'"
Harry laughs. "What do you think the kids are going to say?"
He's asked this at least five hundred times. They had to wait until Lily was in town, because it seemed only fair that all of the children learned about their new sibling at the same time. And the Healer on the case (Harry was officially termed an "elderly male primigravida," which had caused no little consternation when he saw that written on his St Mungo's file) had suggested they wait until at least fifteen weeks before telling the family.
Harry didn't really look pregnant yet, though Draco could tell that he was because his comfortable belly no longer made a very good pillow. That didn't stop Draco from using it as one, though, and taking the time to talk to baby. Harry thought it was excessive to read Phineas Bourne's The Theory and History of Medieval Potionmaking to a foetus, but Draco caught Harry smiling at the scene, nonetheless.
Draco has to guard against his offspring inheriting Harry's potions skill, after all.
"And anyway," Harry kept saying, "it's good for the baby to hear your voice."
"That's absolutely not why I'm doing it, Potter," Draco claimed, though he suspected Harry saw right through that, too.
"Well," Draco says, "Albus will probably make a face."
Harry laughs and pulls on his socks. "Scorpius will probably squeal with joy."
"Yes, clearly," Draco says. "Teddy and James will…I'm not sure. Make an inappropriate joke? Decide to celebrate the news with an impromptu fuck in the loo?"
"You need to let that go, Draco," Harry says, though he's smiling. "It was only that one time. I don't want them to hate us."
"I have no idea what Lily will say, as I've only met her once." Draco pulls a cashmere jumper over his head. "What will she say?"
"I—I have no idea," Harry says. "I never have any idea what she's going to say. That's part of what makes her great."
"It'll be fine. They'll all be happy."
"They'll be relieved that I'm not actually giving up alcohol for no reason. Teddy looked like he was about to start running diagnostics on me last dinner when I turned down the sangria he made."
"You realise with a Healer in the family, you're never going to be left alone."
Harry smiles. "It's alright. I just want us healthy."
"Are we going to take down that ridiculous 'My grandchildren are crups' cross-stitch when the baby is born?"
"No way!" Harry says, and he looks honestly offended. "First of all, it's still true. Second of all, do you know how hard I had to work to learn those fucking embroidery charms?"
Draco laughs. He'd be sad to see it go, too, if he's honest. Harry's warm, ridiculous sitting room is one of the best things about the house.
"Let me see this outlandish shirt," Draco says, walking up to Harry, and Harry turns, flashing a cocky grin and holding his hands out to the sides.
The shirt says "Working on my Quidditch Team" across the chest, and down near Harry's navel is an image of an infant riding a broom. The infant is wearing a scarf striped red and green.
It's the most preposterous thing Draco has ever seen, and he loves it. "You look great."
Harry smiles wider. "I'm definitely going to sell these shirts in the shop."
Harry has been slowly expanding the shop's Expectant Parent offerings, to the point where it now has its own section near the toys.
Draco asks, "Are you feeling alright?" for probably the thirtieth time that day.
"Yes," Harry says, and Draco is grateful that Harry is letting him fret.
They hear the Floo roar in the sitting room and boisterous voices fill the house. Draco hears James cry, "Lils! Is that a new tattoo?" Harry groans, Draco laughs.
"Are you ready?" Harry asks.
Draco grabs Harry's face and presses a quick kiss to his lips. "Yes."
They turn to the bedroom door, and Draco can feel his heart beating rapidly from the anticipation of joy. He thinks of Astoria and sends her a silent, bodiless hug. It may be strange, but he wishes she were here to see this. He reaches for Harry's hand, sucks in a shaky breath, and they walk quickly through the door.
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Date: 2018-03-11 04:54 am (UTC)This was very heartfelt, very very real, very heart-breaking, and the ending was perfect. I loved that they were back in their banter from DAY ONE. It made me smile so much and I was teary eyed in a lot of parts. Scorpius was beyond perfect.
All the boys and girl were amazing. I adored James/Teddy. I totes ship them so that was really good.
I legit cried at Astoria's letter to Scorpius. What a wonderful character.
Thank you so much for sharing. My love for this is beyond words.
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Date: 2018-03-22 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-12 06:49 pm (UTC)It's just so real.
Your Scorpius is a gem, James/Teddy, Albus, Harry, OMG Harry and his adoration of kids, and Draco...Lord, I'm out of words for Draco.
You made them all wonderfully complex and nuanced, and the whole thing was a fabulous depiction of a family, quarrels and love and everything in between.
You did an amazing job, MA. Brilliant work!
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Date: 2018-03-22 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-14 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-22 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-03-15 01:08 pm (UTC)Love it
no subject
Date: 2018-03-22 08:55 pm (UTC)