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Draco never thought teaching would be for him. He didn’t have the patience to handle that many children, and Merlin forbid they say something stupid—he worried he’d hurt their feelings. But the more he studied Charms, got his Mastery and pursued different avenues, he realized that teaching was his calling. He enjoyed teaching the next generation and got excited each time they understood a new spell.
For the most part, teaching at Hogwarts was fun. The students were challenging but rewarding. The other professors were easy to get along with and he had no problem with any of them. The only snag was when he had Scorpius and debated about taking a year off to be there with him. Draco didn’t want to get a nanny or a house elf to help raise him, he wanted at least one parent to be there, and it just wasn’t possible any other way except for him. He had tried to go on a sabbatical with Minerva, but she flat out refused and told him to bring Scorpius with him. Said that they could baby proof his classroom and even the Great Hall if required.
Draco didn’t use his Hogwarts assigned quarters often if ever, but with Scorpius, he liked to take him there instead of the Great Hall during lunch. Too much noise and Scorpius never liked to be the centre of attention, made him antsy before the waterworks came out and then it took ages to get him to stop crying.
Scorpius didn’t seem to care where he was. Whether at home or Hogwarts, he didn’t really change, but Draco chalked that up to being nearly a year old. There was only one major difference and that was his reaction to Magic. There were moments when he would watch the students perform Magic and seem entranced but then he’d go back to biting on blocks and playing with floating stuffed animals. It was such a stark difference from Scorpius at home that it worried Draco.
So, he initiated a new class rule. Anyone that could entertain Scorpius enough with their Magic by laughs, giggles or clapping hands would receive extra credit for the day.
Cue chaos.
So many students lined up in an attempt to be the one to get him to laugh or play along and none of them ever managed to—not a single one.
“I don’t get it,” one of the students complained, giving up on using her wand in favor of dangling it like a carrot in front of Scorpius’ unimpressed face. “He just doesn’t care.”
That was what worried Draco the most. It was unusual for Scorpius to not be interested in Magic. At home he would giggle happily, fingers reaching out for any wand he could grab as he tried to babble spells that he made up.
“Step aside losers, I’ll be the one getting the extra credit,” Julian, a sixth-year prefect, said, pushing people aside to get closer to Scorpius. “I got this at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes yesterday in Hogsmeade. If this doesn’t work, nothing will.”
Curiously, Draco paused in his Cleaning Charms to watch as Julian handed Scorpius a Trick Wand. It was amusing that none of the students thought that his son wasn’t already familiar with Trick Wands. They had a whole slew of them in Scorpius’ closet that needed to be re-charmed.
Scorpius held the wand with both hands, eyebrows furrowed as he turned it over a few times. What had Draco and the rest of the students confused was when Scorpius smelled it. Whatever it smelled like, Scorpius took offense to it enough that he looked up at Julian with an angry expression before he chucked the wand right at his face.
A pause, before the whole room erupted in laughter, Draco unable to pretend he wasn’t right there with him.
After that the attempts lessened and lessened until there was only one try once a week. It worried Draco to the point that he tried to talk to some of his colleagues about it. Minerva reassured him that some children don’t take interest in Magic until they were much older. But that wasn’t what worried him. Draco could care less if Scorpius didn’t care for Magic. His point was that Scorpius did like Magic, just only at home. Hagrid thought it was some kind of performance anxiety, but Draco wasn’t sure that was it either. There was no pressure for Scorpius to interact with Magic at all.
Draco tried himself when the class was either distracted or gone, and it kind of worked. Scorpius gave him his full undivided attention, would smile at him and crinkle his eyes which melted Draco’s entire heart, but he wasn’t interested in his Magic—not even a little bit. It was hard to not feel defeated, and he couldn’t help but wonder what he did wrong. Was it his fault? Was it the school? Was it the students?
Something was wrong, and he just couldn’t figure it out.
Until now.
Whispers broke out and while that wasn’t surprising, it was annoying. He could remember being their age, and while sixteen was old enough to know better that didn’t mean that they wanted to follow the rules.
“Less chatter and more wand work. If you can gossip amongst yourselves then I’m sure by the end of the class all of you will have mastered the Drought Charm.”
Draco could hear the scrape of chairs and rustling papers as they all got back to work. He was curious as to the cause, but he was too absorbed in the newest edition of Charms Monthly to care.
At least until—
“Strict, I see.”
Draco’s head snapped up to see his husband walking toward him. There was a smile on Harry’s face, but he could tell that something had happened, or he wouldn’t be there. Before he could ask, Scorpius clapped excitedly, using the bars on his playpen to help him stand up as he babbled over and over.
“Hi baby,” Harry cooed, swerving from Draco and heading straight to Scorpius. “I missed you. I didn’t get to give you any good morning kisses this morning, did I? Daddy is so mean.”
Draco positively melted. Seeing Harry with Scorpius never failed to make his heart swell with so much love for his family. Sometimes, it also made him want another child, but he shoved that desire somewhere deep that he hoped wouldn’t come back out until Scorpius was older.
Harry pressed several kisses to Scorpius’ face, causing him to giggle as he tried to kiss Harry back and that had the whole class letting out a joined, “Aww.”
“Enough gawking,” Draco scolded his students. “Get back to your books and practice before I assign a three-foot essay on the subject.”
Wide eyes and panicked expressions had him smiling in a way that had them rushing to do as he asked. Merlin, he loved teaching. It was so easy intimidating the youth.
“What are you doing here?” Draco asked as Harry set Scorpius back in his playpen. “You aren’t supposed to be home until later.”
Harry winced, not meeting his eyes as he chose to let Scorpius chew on his finger instead.
“I quit.”
Draco blinked rapidly, sucking in a sharp breath. He wouldn’t admit it, especially to Harry, but he used to dream about Harry quitting the MLE. He would come home battered, bruised and exhausted. He would obsess over cases to the point that sometimes he forgot to live in the present. Draco never would and never has told him to quit, he made sure to talk about the issues he had with Harry’s job without trying to come off as accusing, and it worked. Harry would come home on time, make sure to take better care of himself in the field and he worked less whenever possible.
“What? But you love being an Auror!”
“No,” Harry shook his head, letting Scorpius pull on his hand until he was partially bent over. “I like helping people, but the MLE wants to bench me. A desk job.”
Draco narrowed his eyes? That didn’t sound like the MLE he had grown to hate. They acted like Harry was the only Auror that existed, the only one that could take on overtime or handle a fourth case at the same time as the other three. They acted like just because Harry was good at his job meant that he had to pick up the slack from the rest of the Aurors.
“Why?”
Harry pulled out his wand, letting a string of Magic take on the shape of a bunny so that Scorpius could play with it.
“I turned in Sparks to Internal Affairs and this is their retaliation. Sure, they won’t say that, they are claiming that they need a new trainer for the Auror Academy, but I didn’t sign up for that either.”
Sparks had been an old Auror partner of Harry’s, and while that had been a long time coming, Draco couldn’t focus on what his husband was saying. His attention was solely on Scorpius who was laughing as he tried to chase the bunny around the playpen. When Harry pulled out a Trick Wand from his thigh holster and gave it to Scorpius who immediately began to babble fake spells and giggled as the wand exploded into a cluster of flowers, Draco fell in love with his husband all over again.
He pulled Harry into a fierce kiss, ignoring the way the class cheered around them. Hands wrapped around his waist and pulled him forward as the kiss deepened.
“If that was your reaction, I should’ve quit a long time ago.”
Draco laughed, pinching Harry in the side. “No, it wasn’t that. It was Scorpius.”
Harry blinked a few times, head tilting before he looked down at their son. “I’m not following.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Draco said, grinning through another kiss.
Turned out there wasn’t an issue at all. Scorpius had just been missing his dad.
“Do you—” Harry paused, looking away. “—do you care if I stay at home for the foreseeable future? I want to be there for you both. I want to raise my son and not only see him at night when he’s in bed. I want to be a stay-at-home father.”
“Of course I don’t mind.”
Draco was pretty sure his smile was glued to his face, never going to leave. He would miss having Scorpius with him during the day, but it would allow him the chance to be a more proactive teacher, he could even pick up extra patrol duties if Minerva needed the help.
“Work all day and come home to my hot husband and my adorable child? What more could I ask for?”
“Oh ho!” Harry laughed, pulled Draco into a strong embrace. “I see, I’m just the trophy husband.”
“But of course,” Draco teased, pressing a kiss to the tip of Harry’s nose. “It’s why I married you after all.”
Harry’s loud laughter caused Scorpius to laugh too as he waved his Trick Wand and more flowers showered out of it. And when Scorpius set the wand down and demanded to be picked up with tiny fists opening and closing, who were they to deny him?
Scorpius was sandwiched between them, squealing as they both pressed a kiss to each cheek, and Draco knew that he couldn’t be happier than he was. His life leading up to his family hadn’t been the best, but he would do it all over again if it meant having them in his life.
Draco loved his family with everything he had, and they both loved him just as fiercely back. It was everything he had dreamed of but didn’t think he’d get. It was everything he had hoped for, and it was better than anything he imagined.
His life was pretty great, and he couldn’t wait to see what the future had in store. Whatever it was, the three of them would tackle it together.
Always.
