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"Everyone thought I bought my way onto the Quidditch team."
"Did you?" Scorpius asks as Draco hands him the broom he's just dug out of his old closet. Not his Nimbus Two Thousand and One, but the even older one – the one that doesn't go so fast. He does not want to have to explain to Astoria why he had to take their son to St. Mungo's before ten in the morning.
Draco keeps himself from giving Scorpius a wounded look. "Of course not. I've always loved Quidditch, and I had a head for strategy."
"Sounds like you should've been Captain, then, not just Seeker."
"And I was fast, even without the fancy broom, which is why I was Seeker. Now, hold it like this." Draco keenly remembers his first Quidditch lesson and the looks on everyone's faces when Madam Hooch had told him he'd been holding his broom incorrectly for years. (In fact, he still sometimes catches himself holding his broom incorrectly.) He purposely makes sure that Scorpius' grip is flawless. "Yes, just like that." He then lays the broom on the ground and nods. He and Scorpius have spoken about this before (Draco had been waiting for Astoria's go-ahead to teach their son – which he still hasn't gotten, truthfully – but they've both become too impatient to wait), and he knows what to do in theory.
Scorpius looks over at him, eyes already wide, and Draco smiles at him, part excitement and part reassurance. "You ready?"
A slow grin spreads over his son's face, and Draco feels his heart swell until his chest feels tight. Even after all these years, he's still not sure he likes the sensation.
Scorpius nods, and Draco takes a step back. His old Nimbus is lying on the ground. "Up," he says, and it jumps into his palm with old familiarity. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed this.
Immediately, Scorpius copies him. He only has to say it once, and then his broom leaps into his hand. He catches it properly, gripping it just the way Draco showed him, and grins smugly. Draco nods approvingly, saying, "Good. Now, just as we discussed, push off the ground firmly—"
"And lean forward. Got it."
"Well, in that case, what are you waiting for? Let's get going!" Draco says. He kicks off, and his broom seems to be extremely eager to fly after so many years stuck in the closet, zipping off at such speed that Draco laughs out loud, turning it sharply to head back to where Scorpius is rising slowly into the air.
"Very good!" Draco says, hovering about ten feet above his son. He's breathless and can tell that his hair is sticking every which way, but he doesn't care, too busy absorbing the look of awe and concentration on Scorpius' face. Draco wonders if his own face looked that way the first time he flew. Either way, he doubts that Lucius would have treasured it like Draco does, as he hadn't been much of a mentor. He hadn't even noticed that Draco had taken off (telling a house elf what to cook for dinner) until Draco'd been shakily skimming treetops, and when he had realized it, he'd then taken it upon himself to criticize Draco's flying without mercy from the ground. When Draco had touched down, his father had said, "You'll never make Quidditch Captain at that rate."
Scorpius suddenly shoots up toward Draco, and Draco just barely manages to roll in midair to avoid a collision. Scorpius laughs. "Still have your Seeker's reflexes, then, pa?"
"Luckily, it seems so."
"Let's do a loop! I'll race you!"
Before he can respond, Scorpius takes off toward the back of the Manor, and Draco follows, pulling up alongside his son with ease. Scorpius looks over to him with a smile that quickly turns into gritted teeth as Draco pulls ahead. It seems the old Nimbus still has some kick to it.
Their one lap quickly becomes an unspoken best out of five. Draco wins the first two almost without effort, but then Scorpius begins flying like a true Slytherin, slamming himself unexpectedly into Draco's side, causing him to fishtail drastically for a moment. "Oh-ho. Playing dirty, now, are we?"
Draco figures it would be an ideal opportunity to bring up some rubbish about winning with honor and integrity, but he decides that that particular moral lesson is best taught by Astoria for several key reasons (the least of which being Draco's pride in his son's determination, if not his means). Besides, he wasn't actually hurt, and it could wait until after.
Narrowly, Draco wins the last match, breaking their tie. When they land, they're both disheveled and sweaty. Scorpius, true to his Malfoy heritage, scowls petulantly.
"Don't look so put out. It was your first time and you flew magnificently. Besides, I have the better broom, otherwise you'd have won," Draco says, partly to repair Scorpius' ego, sure, but mostly because it's true.
Immediately, his son looks smug. "Better than Albus, you think? He's expected to become Gryffindor's Seeker."
"As a first-year?" Draco asks, surprised. (He needn't ask which Albus Scorpius refers to, either. He and Albus Potter have been best friends/rivals since they met once in Diagon Alley. Several sleepovers have ensued.)
"No, but eventually."
"I think it's reasonable to assume that you're every bit as good as him." Draco has never seen Albus Potter fly, but with Harry Potter, Head Auror, and Ginerva Weasley, Quidditch Coach, as parents, Draco can assume that he'll be good. "It's practice that counts, Scorpius. And having a few tricks up your sleeves."
Scorpius grins shrewdly at his father. "And you have the best tricks, father?"
"Don't I always?"
"So when can we practice? You have to teach me everything you know!"
Draco chuckles. "Well, we have to indulge your grandparents with brunch first, and then you very well know we have all afternoon open."
"And can I ride the Nimbus?"
Looking down at the broom in his hand, Draco feels an odd clench of possessiveness over the broom. He clenches his hand, and then, with a sigh, loosens his grip on it. "Yes, but," he quickly adds before Scorpius can celebrate, "only after we lay down a few ground rules."
"By ground rules, do you mean rules for being on the ground exclusively or…"
Reaching out, Draco ruffles his son's hair, which they both know he hates. "You know exactly what I mean, you little horror."
At that moment, Narcissa stands from her place at the little outdoor table (complete with a tray of lemonade glasses sitting atop it) and walks over to meet them. Ignoring his sweat, she immediately wraps Scorpius – her beloved grandson – in her arms and kisses his forehead. "You were marvelous!" she praises. "Absolutely spectacular! Twice as good as your father was."
"That's uncalled for, mother," Draco says blithely, picking up a glass of lemonade for himself, secretly pleased that his son is being smothered despite his loud (yet polite) complaints.
"Well, it's true. Take it as a compliment, Draco. Your father is many things, but he has never been the teacher or mentor you are."
He fights back the threatening blush. "How very sentimental of you."
Finally, Narcissa releases Scorpius, but only lets him get far enough away so that she can fix his hair, carefully pushing it back into place. Even Draco has to admit that Scorpius is his look-alike, more like his clone than his son (with the exception of his cleft chin, which Draco suspects comes somewhere from either Astoria's ancestry or his own Black side), which is both good and bad for several reasons.
"Go get washed up, love. Lunch will be ready in just a bit."
Reluctantly, Scorpius props his broom against a chair and goes dutifully inside. Draco sits at the little table and, after a moment, his mother joins him.
"He really does fly quite well."
"He does," Draco agrees, taking a long drink from his lemonade.
"There's no reason he shouldn't make the Quidditch team, at this rate."
"And he's smart enough to be Captain, though perhaps a little aggressive."
"Competitive, is all." After a brief moment of hesitation, his mother continues, "You could have been Captain. A great Captain, at that."
Draco sighs. "Well, I wasn't." Between working for Voldemort plotting an assassination, keeping tabs on Potter, trying not to get his family killed in general, and Occlumency lessons, there hadn't really been much time for Quidditch.
"What I said about your father… it's true, you know."
"Better than anyone."
Narcissa pins him with a stern look that clearly discourages further interruption. "He can hardly bear to watch you and Scorpius together. We both realize that it's too little, too late, but… he knows that he should have been better to you, Draco. It eats at him these days. It's why he spoils Scorpius so."
"I know, mother. What I don't know is why you always insist on reminding me." It always puts a terrible knot in Draco's stomach, which he usually tries to harden into resentment, because that's a much safer emotion and, most importantly, he knows how to express it, even if he doesn't truly feel it. "I don't know why he can't tell me himself, though."
"You know why."
"Yes. He's too damned proud." Although Narcissa looks at him critically, Draco knows he's right and his defiant expression begs her to tell him he's wrong.
"Would it be so hard for you to make it easy for him?"
"I suppose not."
His mother smirks. "He at least taught you to evade straight answers well enough."
Draco quirks a brow. "I'd rather thought that I inherited that directly from you."
Narcissa looks away, but a small smile reveals her pleasure at the observation. "Astute of you," she says crisply, as if hoping it will cover her own pride.
They sit quietly sipping lemonade for a few more minutes before the door opens and Scorpius sticks his head out. "Grandfather says he's going to perish from famishment if you two don't hurry up."
Narcissa stands with a smile. "It seems you may have gotten your dramatic flair from your father though," she says, quickly turning and walking away.
Draco supposes that that's a fair assessment (much as he hates to admit it) and stands to follow her inside, bringing his half-full glass with him though he knows it's technically improper to do so. He gave up on such strict propriety a long time ago, living with Astoria and their son making it impractical.
"Dad," Scorpius says, coming to meet him in the hallway on the way to the small sunroom they'll be eating in.
"Son?" Draco responds, taking a sip from his glass.
"Your hair is messed up."
"The world must be ending," Draco says, "if a man's hair isn't perfect after a flying lesson."
Scorpius smirks. He, at least, enjoys Draco's sarcasm, although Draco wonders if that's not just because the boy's been forced to hear it everyday since his birth. "Let me fix it for you."
He eyes his offspring suspiciously and only says, "Alright," after Scorpius whines, "Daaad, c'mon, we can't stand here all day." He leans down, and Scorpius carefully fixes his hair, flipping strands with great concentration to get the part exactly correct. Truthfully, Draco couldn't have cared less to begin with, but he patiently allows his son to do him this small favor.
"Better?" he finally asks when Scorpius steps back.
"Perfect," Scorpius says, and when he takes Draco's hand in his own to lead him to the sunroom, Draco doesn't have to admit that his heart squeezes painfully with a depth of love that he had thought unfathomable before holding Scorpius for the first time all those years ago.
He holds his son's hand and allows himself to be led, feeling oddly outside of himself, as if his heart, after the initial contraction, has expanded so much as to push him outside of his own skin.
"It is," he says. Everything is perfect.