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"Father, if I'm to carry along the Malfoy line, how do I do it? Do I need to learn a spell? Do I have to make a potion, perhaps?" A young Draco gazed up with identical irises as the steel grays of his father, albeit with much more innocence than that of the patriarch but with the same regality.
"Well, Draco. When a man and a woman are betrothed, they are to procreate, to make someone such as you." His father replied with careful words, turning a stern gaze to his son.
"But... can't a man and a man do pro-proc-crit? Or a woman and a woman?" Says Draco, head cocked to the side as he stumbled over the unfamiliar word.
"Don't be ridiculous, Draco. People of the same gender can not procreate. And therefore, to be attracted to them and to have such... proclivities would be forbidden in this household, understood?" Lucius reprimands harshly, making Draco widen his eyes and nod his head vehemently.
"Good. Don't you worry about that for now, son. I assure you, you will marry a woman that is up to our family's standard and you will continue our pure bloodline with someone worthy of holding our name."
-
"Mr. Malfoy. Can you list the beneficial properties of unicorn hair in regenerating potions?" Draco drags his eyes away from a dozing Harry Potter, his head near falling off his neck, the stupid speccy git. No wonder he was so abysmal at potions.
"Of course, sir. When unicorn hair is added to a concoction, it helps replenish blood cells and allows its smooth passage throughout the body. This is why this ingredient is commonly used in Blood Replenishing Potions." Draco says proudly, reciting its definition word for word.
"That is correct, Mr. Malfoy. Ten points to Slytherin." Slughorn nods in approval. A surge of pride courses through Draco and he relishes the murmurs of assent and encouragement from his housemates. Unconsciously, his gaze slides across the room, landing on a still-dozing Gryffindor (he disregarded the disappointment pooling in his gut with the lack of an acknowledgment from Potter) with the most horrendously messy bed hair he had ever seen. It was so horrendous that Draco thought about how it would feel like if he ran his fingertips in them and didn't look away for the rest of the period until Pansy was waving a hand in his face, impatient. Potter suddenly snapped into attention, looking around the flurry of activity in the room with heavy-lidded eyes and an endearing look of confusion, so oblivious that class had ended. Draco quickly looks away with cheeks burning and unwelcome thoughts of affection.
-
"Have you heard, Draco?" Blaise had asked one morning whilst eating their breakfast in the Great Hall. The weather was bright and just the right amount of warm today, Draco entertained the thought of going out to take his broom for a fly in his free period and decided his plan for the afternoon if the weather remained the same.
"Heard what?" Draco asks, tucking into his bacon and eggs.
"Milicent's uncle, you know Sergio? The homosexual?" Blaise murmured, looking around as if saying the word was a scandal in and of itself, before leaning over to Draco closer from across the table. Draco stiffened, a wave of worry overtaking him upon the discussion of the topic of Sergio Bulstrode's sexual orientation. The last time Blaise had brought up the topic, Draco had... defended the man's proclivities with a little more enthusiasm than he should've had.
"What about him?" Draco affected a dismissive, cool tone on the surface as if he was asking Blaise to pass the salt. But beyond it, he was afraid that Blaise would bring up suspicions about his views on homosexuality. Draco didn't understand it then, and he still doesn't now, about why he was vehemently defending something that doesn't move their world forwards but only lets it move backward. He ignores the voice protesting in his head that said he knew exactly why.
"Well, he's only gone and married a Muggle man, of course! Imagine his family's shock when he had been found laying with another man, much less him marrying one!" Draco was relieved that Blaise didn't bring up his... outburst, but he didn't think he could say the same with the topic now.
"And that's not the most outrageous part. They had also adopted a child, a squib from an orphanage. How did they allow that? Do they think a pair of sissies would do a decent job of raising a child?" Blaise spits the word out like it was dung under his shoe. He shakes his head, a deep frown overtaking his features. Draco can only hum in agreement as a response, he didn't think he was capable to form coherent sentences.
"I-I just remembered I have to finish an essay for Transfiguration. I have to stop by the library for... for... it. Just, yeah." Draco says haughtily and doesn't wait for a reply as he grabs his book bag in a hurry, turning to stride out of the Great Hall with fast, stilted footsteps.
-
"Nox."
Draco sighs heavily as he places his wand at his bedside table. He lays in his soft sheets and lets his mind run free. In those moments where the line between wakefulness and unconsciousness blurred together, where dreams and reality were indistinguishable, where everything outside his four-poster bed was nothing but background noise, it was then he let himself feel.
He allowed himself to melt into his bed, tired and worn out from the day's work. His tense muscles mellowed out, his eyes getting heavy-lidded.
Sometimes, when darkness envelopes his vision, he falls right to sleep, out like a light and uncaring of the world as he rests.
Most of the time, when he lets himself feel, the feeling of yearning for someone he can't have was the strongest.
As if the feelings he weren't allowed to show or feel all day had been suddenly let free from imprisonment in the dead of night. And Draco releases them, he has long given up trying to keep them in when it was so difficult to. Draco reflects on his day, his conversation with Blaise triggering his imagination to conjure images he would rather keep to himself, to treasure in the privacy of his mind.
They had also adopted a child, a squib from an orphanage.
Blaise's voice echoed in his head. A strange sound in the middle of the silence. And then, a shining beacon of light comes from a mental moving picture.
"Come back, Scorp!" Harry's voice says with a breathless laugh, a faint giggle is heard in the background, but it was only Harry that Draco could see from the window.
Ah, Potter, of course. His laugh sounds like a song. His smile looks like a painting, as always. But there was something different to his face now, something like love and adoration. Age lines his face in soft, beautiful strokes, but it doesn't take away the magnificence of that dazzling grin. Draco thinks there was no other sight that would make his heart warm as this one, and then another face comes into the picture.
"Papa!" Scorpius pushes his little legs and runs straight to Harry's outstretched arms, laughing giddily. His hair gleams underneath the sunlight, Draco realizes he was staring at his shade of hair, and then he sees Scorpius's eyes. A verdant shade of green, like leaves after a rain, so identical to that of Harry's, Draco's favorite shade. A shriek comes from Scorpius as Harry carries him up suddenly, strong arms secured around Scorpius' waist.
"Dada! Come join us!" Scorpius calls towards the window once Harry has settled him down again. Harry turns to look in Draco's direction, now directing that brilliant smile up at him. It was then that Draco realizes that this is his and Harry's child, a product born out of love. Not for the reason to procreate and to carry an ancient bloodline, but for family.
"Come on, Draco. Join your family."
A tear slips out of Draco's eye unknowingly, a tear to mourn for something he never had, would never have.
His heart clenched painfully, his breath wavering, but he keeps his eyes closed.
"Have you missed me already?" Draco says, his smile growing with every step as he walks towards his family.
-
"Come back to bed, Draco."
Harry calls sleepily from the bed, voice scratchy and rumpled from sleep. Draco hums but doesn't turn around to go back to sleep. He had already started thinking and it seemed impossible to slip into unconsciousness with the number of thoughts in his head at that moment. He looks out their window to view their lawn from outside, the sky was still dark, only the beginnings of the sun rising visibly amidst the dark blue hues.
Draco hears a creak from behind, and then the warmth and the smell of Harry fills his senses as his arms wrap around Draco. He leans back to his husband's touch, welcoming the familiar scent into his nostrils. Harry rests his chin on Draco's shoulder, pressing a light kiss into his neck in an attempt to soothe, to comfort. With 10 years together, they didn't need words to communicate. A kiss or an embrace or a smile was enough.
"What's wrong?" Harry whispers. Draco closes his eyes and leans his head back, exhaling heavily.
"Is this a dream, Harry?" Draco says, still not opening his eyes. He feels Harry unwrap his arms around him, and for a moment he thinks this is a dream, that Harry was something borne out of his imagination, that he has drifted and been carried by the wind. But he feels Harry, his love, pull Draco into his arms from the front. Draco buries his head in Harry's sturdy chest, while his husband's chin rests on his head.
"It isn't, because we're real, Scorpius is real. Our family is real." Draco's eyes flutter open, leaning back only to stare back into an emerald gaze. He sees Harry smile a slow, small smile. Draco remembers his son, the stretch of his lips so like the man in front of him that sometimes Draco questions if he is only Harry's and not his own. And then he sees Scorpius raise his chin in that familiar way only Malfoys manage, although with less arrogance and more of an imitation of Draco.
Draco nods, beaming back up at Harry, and suddenly, all his doubts fly out of the window.
Sometimes, Draco is back in that night he had unearthed a long-running desire of his, having a family with the man he loves. He is back at the Manor, being lectured by his father that people like him were never going to have and deserve a family. Thinking it was impossible, that it was only ever going to be a dream behind close lids. But Harry and Scorpius are always there to pull him back to reality, to remind him that his life is now with them.
His family.