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“You know, you really needn’t indulge every one of their whims,” said Draco, pulling his scarf tighter around his neck, “I mean, at some point, you have to set limits for these children.”
Charlie simply raised a doubtful brow and stared at him. Charlie could always see right through Draco and this time was no different.
Draco scoffed. “At the very least, you need to learn when to say no to our kids when what they want puts the family in danger of dying in the Arctic.”
A particularly large iceberg floated past their vessel, which had been cruising for two hours into their four-hour tour of Hudson Bay in the Canadian Arctic. Draco eyed the jagged blue-white mass of ice as if looks alone could keep it from hitting their ship. When it cleared the stern, Draco let go of the breath he’d been holding and it rose from his lips in a plume of white vapor.
“Come here,” Charlie relented with a beckoning gesture, welcoming Draco into his embrace. “Maybe if I reinforce the warming charms on our coats you won’t be so cranky, hm?”
Draco nestled himself in his husband’s arms and pouted. “Perhaps. But it won’t change the fact that we are sailing in a sea full of icebergs.”
“The captain assured me that he does this crossing several times a--,” Charlie began, but was promptly cut off by a shrill cry of utter delight.
“Daddy! Father! A polar bear!” Areia pointed in the direction of the alleged creature, if a bit ineffectively with her thick mittens covering her little fingers.
Draco and Charlie narrowed their eyes, trying to pick out a white bear amongst a sea of white ice chunks, against a nearly white overcast sky.
“Female polar bear and cub, off the portside bough, about two-hundred yards out,” the captain confirmed over the public address system.
“Where? I can’t see it?” Scorpius nudged his sister aside even though there was plenty of room on the deck for everyone in their very intimate tour group to see. “This is bollocks. All I see is ice.” Draco handed his son a pair of omniocculars, but it didn’t make Scorpius any less petulant. “It’s just a stupid, white bear. This is boring. I want to see penguins. When are we gonna see penguins? We’re supposed to be seeing penguins on our holiday.”
Areia snatched the omniocculars out of Scorpius’ hands “You’re a stupid white bear. Everybody knows that penguins live in the southern hemisphere.”
Draco gasped and glared at Charlie, clearly scandalized. “Are you telling me we went all the way to the entirely wrong pole?”
Charlie shook his head, amused. “I figured we’d check out both ends of the earth on this trip. For comparison. Anyway, Areia really wanted to see polar bears”
“Best trip ever!” Areia declared with both mitten-clad hands in the air.
Draco rubbed the arms of his navy peacoat with his leather gloves and chattered his teeth for dramatic effect. “You’re bloody lucky I love you.”
“Hey, you always said you’d go to the ends of the earth for me. So now you are.” Charlie smiled that infectious grin that always managed to melt Draco’s heart.
Draco gazed upon his little family and, somehow, he felt warmer.
“Father, can we have ice cream when we get back to base camp?” Scorpius asked with a hopeful expression on his pink, cold-nipped face.
“Absolutely not,” Draco replied without a second’s hesitation, then added after seeing the disappointment in his children’s eyes. “Not until we return to the hotel.”
“Limits, hm?” said Charlie, nudging him gently with an elbow, clearly still not convinced that Draco really knew the meaning of the word.