Chapter Text
Draco yelps and sets his tea cup down so hard it chips the saucer. “You just had to let her pick a pet while I was out of the country?” Draco sooths his socked foot as he complains to Harry.
Harry gives Dahlia a look and she quickly scoops up the brown kitten and cradles it to her chest. “I’m sorry,” she says to her dad, “but Guinevere saw you shaking your leg and thought you were playing. Grandmother Cissa would say that fidgeting is a bad habit, anyway.”
“Oh, so now you listen to her lessons? That’s convenient,” Draco snaps.
“I always listen to her!” Dahlia shoots back.
“At least you listen to somebody!”
“ENOUGH!” Harry pulls the kitten from Dahlia’s arms and sets it on the floor, where it is immediately chased into the hallway by Rion. Then he turns to Draco and glares. “I know you are not screaming at our daughter about something as unimportant as a cat.”
Draco crosses his arms and slumps in his chair, pouting. “What is this world coming to that a man can’t be mad when his foot is bitten by an untamed animal?”
“Dahlia has had her for all of two weeks, and if a kitten can get the better of you then you have no room to complain.” Harry leans across the table to get in Draco’s face. “Now, tell me what this is really about!”
Draco rolls his eyes and huffs dramatically before risking a glance at his daughter. What he sees is sobering: Dahlia has unshed tears glittering her eyes and an angry, stone-blank face. He uncrosses his arms, scrubs at his face, and mutters a response.
Harry sits down and nods at Dahlia to do the same. “We can wait as long as it takes, Draco. May as well say it loud enough for us to hear.”
He first says to Dahlia, “I’m not ready for you to go to school!” Then he says to Harry, “Is that alright with you? Am I allowed to be wistful about our daughter getting older and leaving us?”
Harry softens. “Of course you’re allowed to have feelings but you know she’s going to the same place we are, right? We’ll see her more than we did all of last year.”
“I know bloody well she’s going to Hogwarts, too, but you know it’s not the same! She’s going to be in classes all day and her dorm at night and you’ll have dueling club and I’ll have NEWT revision and we’ll both have Quidditch and she’ll have her friends and we’ll be old and-”
“Get it together, Dad!” Dahlia grits out. “You act like one day at Hogwarts and we won’t be a family anymore! Do you remember what you told me last summer when you found me in the library?”
Harry wishes he could capture the look of pure adoration that Draco aims at Dahlia before he walks over and kneels beside her. Draco takes her hands in his and says reverently, “There is nothing more important than family. Family kept Harry and I alive during the war. Family brought you to us. Family gave us Orion. We wake up every morning and make the commitment to be a family all over again. There is nothing in this world that will take us away from each other.”
Dahlia is smiling down at Draco. “Even a pesky kitten to likes to bite toes?” she asks.
Draco chuckles. “Guinevere could bite off my whole foot and I would still love you. I’m sorry I yelled. I know that I’m not really going to lose you, but understand that I may act weepy for the next few days. It’s my prerogative as a parent.”
They can hear the sound of a kitten screech and Rion’s laughter before the pair comes racing into the room. Harry swings Rion up onto his lap and scolds him for pestering Dahlia’s cat. Guinevere scrabbles up Draco’s legs and torso, tiny claws scratching, before settling on his shoulder. Draco gasps and squeezes his eyes closed but refrains from crying out. He grits his teeth, plasters on a sarcastically over-large smile, and looks up at Dahlia. “I still choose you.”