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Harry has been teaching Scorpius Malfoy for months now. He’s never met Astoria Greengrass before, but he’s seen her pictures in the papers; all grace and black curls and a pretty, clean smile, her hand on Draco's bicep. He saw her pictures spread all over the Daily Prophet on the announcement of her passing. Scorpius would have only been a few months old, at most.
He is a lovely child, with his father’s signature white-blond hair, but his curls and dark gentle eyes are all hers. That's what Scorpius told Harry, My daddy says I look like her the most!
"Mister Potter," Scorpius says as he comes to sit next to him at lunch break. "Why's you... why's your hair so long?"
"I just like having it like this. I think it suits me, don't you?"
"Mhm." Scorpius smiles, hands pressing tightly between his knees. "You look nice."
Harry returns his smile and rolls back a small laugh, glancing down briefly at the clasp of his hands between his lap to hide it. He knows the answer, but he still asks, "Why do you want to know?"
"My daddy was talking 'bout it to Auntie Pans." His daddy seems to talk about him a lot, Harry muses. "She said he thinks you look very nice too."
"Scorp!" Annie runs in, cradling something carefully in her hands. "Scorp, look!"
Scorpius clambers off the bench and looks closely at her hand, the two of them beaming up at each other. Harry can't see what's happening anymore, but Annie catches sight of Harry over Scorpius' shoulder and comes running over to show it to him.
Harry smiles slightly as he inclines his head to see.
Annie opens her hand, a big insect there. "I think we should name him Mr. Beetle."
"Oh yeah, he really looks like a Mr. Beetle," Harry says. Scorpius nods vigorously in agreement.
Annie takes Scorpius' hand and drags him towards the school playground.
These last eight years, Harry has found his corner of peace here, with these children that he loved like his own; his very own home after Grimmauld Place that he shared with Ron and Hermione.
After the war, he thought he could never be the kind of person that children should be around, didn't think he would ever know what to do with them when he had been a child with nothing, when war had made his life so grey, but he put himself through healing, learned, and got better, and there is no better way to learn what life is about than to live as witness to such innocence and freedom.
...
Harry has become quite fascinated by the picture Scorpius paints of his father.
My daddy makes the best chocolate pancakes!
My daddy has a nice voice when he sings. But don't tell him, I think yours is nicer.
My daddy tells me I have my mummy's kindness. He says he wasn't very kind when he was young, and he learned why it was important from her.
My daddy is the best daddy in the whole world.
He is fascinated by what he sees of Draco, when he walks Scorpius to school hand-in-hand, the way he lowers on one knee before his son and fusses over him, touches his hair sweetly as he speaks to him, parts ways with a kiss to the side of his hair.
He is fascinated, even, by the contrasting stiff and uptight man that finds him at home time. Draco wears his pressed dress shirts tucked into his slacks, his sleeves squared at his arms, and Harry is sometimes annoyingly overwhelmed by his attractiveness, how neat and fresh and handsome he always seems to be. Scorpius is toddling along next to him, backpack bouncing.
"Potter." Draco's shoulders are held straight, his chin tipped a little too high.
"Malfoy." Harry leans against his car, elbow on the roof. "How can I help you?"
"My son tells me you will be holding Career's Day this Friday?"
"Yeah?"
"But I'm sure you're aware that the work I do is not fitting to speak of in this setting," Draco says.
"Oh," Harry says. "Oh yeah. You can just, you know, improvise, find something similar to potions. Like, uh...like a muggle chemist?"
He hums, but doesn't say much else.
Harry stares at him. He's been around Draco long enough to know what that look on his face means. "Do you, um... know about muggle chemists?"
"Of course I know," Draco says in that cool, quick tone. He is so stiff, Jesus Christ .
Scorpius raises his head back to look up at his father. "That's what you sound like when you—"
"Anyway, we must be leaving," Draco says, checking his silver watch at the same time he squeezes Scorpius' face into his side by the back of his hair. "I have deliveries to make, errands to run, so I can't be standing around here all day having a chat."
"You were the one that—" Harry begins to say, and then sighs, giving up. He shakes his hair off his temples. "Alright. Fine."
Draco clears his throat, his body stiff but for his eyes darting to him and then away again, staring at nothing in the distance. "Wonderful."
Harry shifts on his feet. "If you need any help, just give me a fire—"
"I'm perfectly capable of helping myself," Draco cuts him off. Scorpius straightens beside him, fixing up his hair and frowning in confusion.
Harry blinks. "Right." He gestures at his car. "I should be off now too. So."
"Bye bye," Scorpius says in a sing-song voice, waving at Harry.
Harry's face softens and he smiles. "Bye Scorp," he says, waving back with his hand full of car keys.
...
Career Day comes around. The parents enter the classroom, introduce themselves and talk about what they do for a living, and leave to the sound of the kids' applause with a smile.
Draco comes in fairly late. His lips are pressed together, but he is clearly nervous in the roomful of children, eyes everywhere, tugging at his collar with two fingers as he clears his throat.
Scorpius is standing next to him, whispering something to him. Draco gently pushes him to go sit down, and Scorpius does so in the back of the class. The children's hubbub of conversation settles down after Harry's calls for silence.
Draco has both his hands on the paper, and by the time the class has gone quiet, his eyes stop alternating between going everywhere and glancing at his paper, and is now just focused on his paper. Harry can't say what it is that he feels upon seeing him — an inexplicable kind of endearment and tenderness, seeing him be so human.
"Hello," Draco mumbles, clearing his throat roughly. He straightens his back and lifts his head higher, says it again, louder. "Hello."
The children greet him in a loud chorus, drawing it out the way they do, hello-o Mr. Malfoy . Scorpius beams at his father from the back.
Draco introduces himself with his full name, and then presents himself as a chemist, explaining what it means by adapting it to his work as a potioneer, what his tasks are; to analyse chemicals and see what they consist of, to measure how fast a substance reacts with another, to understand a new thing that they don't know much about or to create a new chemical that can help in certain fields or areas of life. He works from a lab in his home, creating a lot of new chemicals and medicine, delivering them for the people that place their orders.
Harry can tell Draco has tried his best to put it in simple words for the children, but he still uses words that he forgets to explain, and kids have to ask the meaning of them. He drags the explanations too long, trying very hard to make the children who asked understand what he meant to say, but Harry can also see when they lose focus, their eyes going distant.
A brunette boy, Matthew, raises his hand, his palm resting on his cheek.
"Yes?" Draco says, when he sees him. Matthew perks a little.
"Have you ever made stuff burst? Like in the cartoons when your hair goes all crazy and your face goes burnt?"
Draco looks a bit at a loss. "Well, no. I'm very careful with everything I do. Perhaps small explosions, only, but nothing like what you've described..."
Matthew looks very disappointed at this. "Oh."
Jenny raises her hand. "Is your lab a secret room?"
"No, no, not a secret room. It's just a normal room with a lot of po — chemistry stuff in it."
"This is so boring ," Matthew sighs under his breath, dragging his fingers down his eyes and cheeks. He is sitting at the front of the class, so it's not hard for Draco to hear it.
The silence persists so long that Harry begins to think of how to break it. But he is also not entirely sure if Draco would want him to step in and defend him from a roomful of children...
Even so, Draco's face goes pink up to his ears, obviously mortified. For all his composure, this has always been what has given him away. A second later, his eyes dart quickly, mystifyingly, onto Harry , and he goes even pinker. But he turns away and clears his throat, facing Matthew again.
"Pardon me, little boy, what did you just say?"
"This is boring!" Matthew says, all exaggerated groaning.
"No it's not!—" Scorpius shouts from the back, scowling at the back of Matthew's head.
"I'm so bored— " Matthew is saying, Sally next to him whispering, and now several children are talking again.
"Can we please be nice and let Mr. Malfoy finish what he was saying?" Harry says loudly from the corner, but nobody listens.
"Matty! You shouldn't say that—" Annie is admonishing at the same time, frowning. "Look, you're making Scorp and Mr. Malfoy very upset!"
"Hey!" Harry exclaims louder to gain their attention, and the class settles, around the same time—
"No it's... I'm not..." Draco says helplessly, flustered. He finally settles on, "Thank you, Annie. It's alright, Scorpius. Well, it... you see, it sounds boring in theoretical discussion—"
"What's that?" Sally asks.
"I mean." Draco sighs. "I mean that it sounds boring in words but it really isn't. It's fascinating, really. It's only hard to explain..." He stands there, trailing off slightly, and then, "Did you know that when you mix two substances of different colours together, it can change into an entirely different colour?"
"I can just do that with playdough," Matthew points out.
Harry tries to repress a small, amused snort.
"Yes," Draco says, with a nod, simultaneously shooting Harry a glare. "Yes you can, but in chemistry it's different because it can change into an entirely different colour even when the colour combinations aren't — Actually, wouldn't you say it's very cool that we can create something that makes sick people feel better faster?"
"I don't like that nasty stuff we have to take when I get a cold," Jenny comments, scrunching her nose up.
"Yes but it makes you feel better! Isn't that so wonderful?" Draco is looking at her keenly, hopeful. She only nods politely.
This goes on for quite a time, Harry so fixated by Draco as he works almost desperately to find facts and concepts that he thinks the children would find fun, and the children don't seem to understand.
"No really," Draco's saying, edging on a nervous huff of a laugh. "It's very cool. If you only saw it! But there's a lot I can't—"
Harry hides a smile behind his fingers, one arm folded across his chest. Draco somehow manages to catch him anyway and glares, that scowl of his that Harry's noticed Scorpius take on at times. Harry wipes it off quickly.
Then the class starts talking to each other in a loud chorus as Draco loses all their attention. He awkwardly stands there now that nobody's listening.
"Boring! Boring! Boring!" Matthew chants.
"You don't know anything!" Scorpius exclaims, having made his way to Matthew now.
"It's my opinion!"
"Well, it's wrong!" Scorpius pokes him in the chest, brows furrowed in distress.
Matthew gasps, clutching his chest and looking at him with hurt-filled eyes. "You poked me!..."
"Scorpius, don't go poking people. It's alright. Come here," Draco says, beckoning him over. Scorpius runs over and buries his face into his shirt, Draco's hand in his hair. He catches Harry's eyes, and Draco's mouth twitches back in a smile, sharing Harry's mild amusement.
"I'll talk to him," Harry tells him, uncrossing his arms and making his way to Matthew.
Jenny calls his name shyly, and Draco leans close so she can ask him a question that Harry misses, Scorpius still clinging to him.
Once the apologies are exchanged between Matthew and Scorpius, Harry calls for the class to settle down again and lets Draco finish up what he was saying, this time asking for all questions and comments to be at the end.
...
"Daddy, can I stay at Annie's tonight?" Scorpius asks, holding Draco's hand and looking up at him.
"Only if Mrs. and Mrs. Oakley say it's alright."
Draco takes a minute to look around for Annie and her parents. He finds them far across the parking lot, talking to another pair of parents. One of Annie's mothers, Maria, sees him and waves at him with a friendly smile.
Draco waves back and takes Scorpius over to them.
Once it's arranged that Draco will come pick Scorpius tomorrow at nine in the morning, he kisses the top of Scorpius' forehead, waves at him and Annie and her parents, and watches them drive away. By now, the parking lot is almost emptied of cars and people.
"Draco."
Draco stills by the sound of his name in that voice, perhaps for the first time. He turns around, one step after another in the near-silent space.
Harry's hair is tied up in a bun today, loose curls at his temples. He is all black turtlenecks,old jeans, and brilliant green eyes behind glasses. And he is so bloody irritating, being all annoyingly sweet to children that fawn over him and flock to him like bloody pigeons—
Worst of all, Scorpius adores him. Like it wasn't enough that he has always been favoured in everything Draco has ever wanted to be good at, now even his son worships the ground he walks on! I just like Mister Potter so much , he'll say. Isn't he so cool, Daddy?
And he is so infuriatingly beautiful that it makes Draco want to scream. And he understands it now, all these years later, why this man has always been a wonder to those around him.
"Potter," Draco says, slipping into that facade that hides exactly these feelings. He feels the need for it especially after the scene in class, Harry laughing in the corner, as lovely as it was exasperating when it was directed at him.
Harry bites his lower lip, gives him a flick of a smile. "I... I just wanted to say that, um..."
He trails off there, and lapses into awkward silence.
Draco raises an eyebrow. "Go on. I don't like to be left curious and hanging."
"Well, for the record, I know your work is really fascinating," Harry says, almost blurting it out. "I know the stuff you've done, like... the contributions you made to making lycanthropic transitions painless and all these other — what you do makes the world a better place and that matters a lot, and I think..." He fades off there again, and he puffs out a hard, frustrated breath, and of all things, Harry’s next words are the last thing Draco would have expected him to say. "Look, I like you."
Everything inside of Draco stills.
Harry goes on rambling, hardly looking at him. "I like you a lot. And honestly I... I guess I'm just sort of confused too, because the way you act with me, it doesn't feel like you like me at all but then with everything Scorpius tells me about what you say about me—"
"Scorpius what?"
Harry halts there, finally looking up at him. Draco’s eyes widen, terror travelling through him. He has no idea what he must look like to Harry, a whirlwind of emotions reflecting on his face. He knows Scorpius sometimes ends up listening to Draco talking about Harry to Pansy, but he's still reeling frantically on, I like you I like you I like you a lot —
Harry laughs.
"Um, yeah. The thing about being a primary school teacher that really likes listening to children talk? You pretty much know everybody's business. Do you really have the 'prettiest black alpaca' that you named Harold—? Okay, never mind," he backtracks sheepishly upon seeing Draco's mortified horror.
"Can we get back to the part where you said you liked me?"
Harry pauses, biting his lower lip. "I do. A lot." There is a pause. "Do you... do you want to go out with me tonight?"
Draco smiles slightly. He looks so nervous, preciously hopeful. "I'd like that."
"Okay," Harry says. They are the only ones there now, and his grin breaks across his face, reciprocating Draco’s. "Okay. See you at seven, then?"
Draco nods at him. "Seven it is."
...
They have a lovely dinner and take a walk through the city. Draco puts his coat around Harry's shoulders when he sees him shivering in the chill of the arriving winter. Harry slips his hand into Draco's and entwines their fingers together, neither of them letting go as they talk and talk until, at the end of it, they are standing at Harry's door, and Draco asks if he can kiss him, and Harry says yes.
"You've been driving me insane," Draco whispers, fingers touching the tie bundling Harry's hair up at the back of his head. He opens the tie one-handed, until Harry's hair is free. Harry smiles, laughs a little into his mouth as Draco pushes a hand into the back of his curls, pulls him close by the nape of his neck, and finally kisses him.