Chapter Text
It was early evening, the hour when the light went gold; a small angel with hair the colour of sunlit straw was seen attached to the hem of a tall man’s coat like a very determined limpet. In his free hand he clutched a teddy bear by one ear, the way a soldier might hold a fallen comrade, and between soft, hiccuping sobs declared his position to the world.
“Daddy, I don’t want to go to kindergarten.”
Several passing people paused to admire the scene; then the tall man turned, grey eyes faintly cold, though the sharp chin and porcelain skin softened the impression, as if sternness had been painted by an artist with too gentle a brush.
“Scorpius,” he said, in the tone of one who had negotiated with goblins and found them more reasonable. “I thought we’d already reached an agreement.”
He crouched down so his cloak whispered across the pavement. “You are not permitted to unilaterally breach the terms.”
The little boy, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, age five and already mastering the delicate art of guilt, tilted his head up. His silver-grey eyes shimmered, tragic as a hero in a bedtime story. Then, with great dignity, he wiped the crumbs of an illicit biscuit from the corner of his mouth on his sleeve and looked pitifully at his father.
“But I’ve changed my mind,” said Scorpius, solemnly. “And the teddy-bear biscuits are all gone. I’ve no money to pay you back.”
Draco Malfoy’s left eyebrow gave an involuntary twitch, once, twice, as if trying to detach itself and leave the situation entirely. His son’s utter lack of grace could have shocked a portrait off the wall of Malfoy Manor.
After a moment’s silence, he asked, “Where is your handkerchief?”
Scorpius spun on the spot. Once. Twice. The way a compass might turn in a magnetic storm. Then, he mumbled, “I don’t know, Daddy.”
“That was your one hundred and eighth lost handkerchief, my love,” Draco sighed, as though personally counting each one had aged him a year apiece. He made to press his fingers to his temple, only to realise both hands were currently occupied by groceries, and one very clingy child.
Scorpius leaned in, arms wrapping around his father’s leg like ivy around a gravestone. “I don’t want to go to kindergarten,” he whispered, his voice a soft rebellion.
Draco sighs, surrender hidden in the creases of his robe. “Why is it you refuse to go, hmm?” he asked, though the question already sounded like defeat.
Scorpius lifted his gaze, eyes rimmed with red and glimmering like dew on stormy glass. “Because the other children can’t fly high,” he said softly, “and they can’t make glass shatter. I’m not like them.”
A single tear clung stubbornly to his thick lashes, trembling there with the poise of a raindrop ready to fall.
Draco’s heart sank like a stone into cold water. Since the war’s end, the Malfoys had been spared the indignity of Azkaban, but mercy had its price. The Ministry, in its infinite bureaucratic benevolence, had frozen their accounts and locked most doors to the wizarding world.
Fortunately for the Malfoys, guile was hereditary.
Lucius, ever the strategist even when the game was long lost, had retrieved a discreet Muggle-world fortune. An emergency stash tucked away for the sort of day when the Dark Lord, common sense, or both failed to deliver.
His plan was simple: flee to France with Draco and the rest of the family, somewhere with decent architecture and a more forgiving Ministry.
Draco refused.
He said that Scorpius’s greatest misfortune was not being born at Malfoy Manor, and that one day he would reclaim every last marble, chandelier, and crest that bore their name. Pride dies last, and in the Malfoy family it tended to resurrect itself regularly.
Lucius’s health had already begun to fail during his brief sabbatical at Azkaban. London’s damp Muggle weather did him no favours, so Draco arranged for Narcissa to take her husband to France while he and Scorpius remained behind in exile among Tesco aisles and bus schedules.
Draco hid himself well.
He used hardly any magic, just enough to toast bread evenly, and thus committed no technical crime. As for Scorpius, the Ministry left them alone; one doesn’t prosecute toddlers for accidental levitation. So father and son managed, side by side, through three quiet and uneventful years.
“That’s because you’re a wizard,” Draco murmured now, voice as soft as his son’s hair. “Not like the foolish Muggles.”
He had told Scorpius this when the boy was first old enough to understand secrets, and instructed him never to reveal what they were. Scorpius was clever and obedient in the unnerving Malfoy way, and for three years no one had suspected a thing.
“I just don’t want to leave you, Daddy,” said Scorpius gently, no tears this time. In the matter of tenderness, the child had outdone his father by leagues.
“If I go to kindergarten,” he added, eyes wide with solemn logic, “then you’ll be the only ‘special’ one left here.”
They called it “special.” Draco had told him magic was Merlin’s blessing, and that only fools feared what they couldn’t do themselves.
Draco set down the groceries. Then he gathered his son into his arms, holding him tightly enough that regret couldn’t slip away. His lips stayed pressed thin, but it didn’t stop the ache that swelled behind them.
He wanted to give Scorpius the world, or at least a better one. But for now he was, damnably, elegantly, helpless.
“Need a hand?” said a voice behind him.
Draco turned sharply, eyes narrowing with the precise chill of someone who’s been ambushed one too many times in his life. The newcomer flinched under the gaze, quite a feat for someone tall, broad-shouldered, and mildly handsome. He looked, Draco thought, like a frightened rabbit that had somehow wandered into a suit.
“Er, sorry,” the man stammered. “I just thought you might need a hand. Your son looks a bit… upset.”
Draco adjusted Scorpius in his arms, lifted him slightly by the small of his back, and pursed his lips in the universal language of reluctant acceptance. “If you insist,” he said at last, the words clipped but polite enough to pass for consent.
“Of course! No problem,” the man replied, flashing a grin.
Draco’s eyes narrowed further. There was something familiar about this cheerful oaf, something buried in the fog of memory.
They walked together down the narrow street, Draco carrying his son and the stranger carrying on, lightly, noisily, but just within the limits of Draco’s tolerance. Until, halfway through the alley, the man’s bright smile shifted.
“Mr. Malfoy,” he said pleasantly, “fancy meeting you alive.”
Draco barely had time to breathe, let alone reply. Instinct took over. He turned, pulling Scorpius tight against his chest, and the first curse missed them by inches. The air cracked; shopping bags burst open; a rain of everyday groceries, bread, milk, spilled across the concrete.
In a single motion, Draco’s wand was in his hand. He cast Protego around his son first, priorities properly arranged, and ducked behind a low wall just as a second spell hit. He didn’t have time to shield himself.
“Bang!”
A curse struck the brick beside him, shaving off a neat layer of cement. Dust filled the air. Scorpius clung to his father’s robes, his small hand knotted in the fabric like a lifeline. He didn’t cry, didn’t even whimper, only kept his wide grey eyes fixed on the fight, the way a fledgling hawk might watch its first storm.
“Diffindo!” Draco retaliated, wand flicking in sharp, practiced motions. The spell cracked against stone and fizzled; too weak, too rushed. He shifted, dodging between debris with the wary grace of a man who’d once survived a war and hadn’t quite stopped living like it.
“Daddy, watch out!” Scorpius shouted, voice small but fierce.
A flash of blue split the shadows.
Draco saw it, too close, too bright. He had no time to think, no chance to counter. He did the only thing left to do: he threw himself over his son, arms curling around the small body like wings closing.
The explosion came with a deafening crack.
And then, nothing.
No pain, only the rough scrape of stone and the rush of another person’s breath right beside his ear.
When he opened his eyes, Draco Malfoy was on the ground, pinned beneath a weight that was very much alive. Shattered concrete rained around them, stinging his arm as it grazed the skin.
He heard a strained sound, half a grunt, half a curse, and then a rush of air as another Protego flared around him, shimmering faintly in the dusty half-light.
The weight pinning him down moved; fast, precise. There was the sharp crack of magic being cast with professional irritation, and then—
“AHHH!”
A scream, short and ugly, cut through the alley.
Draco turned, still clutching Scorpius to his chest. He sat up awkwardly, white dust clinging to his sleeves and pride alike. The world had gone oddly quiet again, except for the ringing in his ears and the rapid heartbeat beneath his hand, his son’s, not his own.
And standing there, framed by broken brick and the kind of authority that made everyone else feel underdressed, was a man. Tall. Disheveled in that infuriatingly heroic way. Jaw set, shoulders squared, wand raised with military neatness.
A flicker of recognition, like a bad penny returning after years of trying to spend it elsewhere.
The Auror’s mouth was a grim line; his green eyes, sharp behind the cracked edge of his glasses, glowed like a curse that had learned manners.
“Potter… ” Draco breathed, disbelief and twenty years of complicated history packed neatly into one name.
```
Draco’s head hurt.
Not the dignified sort of headache one gets from expensive wine and good conversation, but the dull throb that came from being surrounded by idiots.
Aurors, Merlin bless them, were still the same breed of well-meaning fools they’d always been: noble, loud, and addicted to cheap coffee that could strip paint off a cauldron. The smell alone made his stomach mutiny.
And then there was Scorpius. His son had been gone, four hours now, and the ache of it had become something physical, a ghost limb in his chest.
“Mr. Malfoy,” said the short Auror across the table, tapping his quill with all the menace of an underpaid civil servant, “did you know the Death Eater you were attacked by?”
“No,” Draco said, tonelessly. “I did not.”
It was the third time he’d answered that idiotic question, and by now he could recite it with the smoothness of a confession in a poorly written play. He knew how interrogations worked, ask the same question until the victim starts doubting their own sanity.
The Auror tapped the table again, as if hoping truth might rattle loose from the wood. Draco regarded him with aristocratic patience, which is to say: he didn’t hex him.
Internally, however, he had called the man every impolite word known to English, Latin, and a few Dead Languages.
“Four hours, Joe. Let him go.”
The door swung open, and with it came a voice Draco recognized at once—warm, commanding, and infuriatingly familiar. He looked up.
Harry Potter looked back.
“Where’s Scorpius?” Draco asked, his voice quieter than he’d intended.
“In my office,” said Potter. Then, as if remembering how sentences worked, he added, “He’s fine.”
The short Auror, apparently Joe, bane of patience everywhere, snapped his notebook shut and handed it to Potter, who skimmed through it, frowned at something, and said simply, “You can go, Malfoy.”
Draco rose, a little too quickly. The room swayed; his knees didn’t quite approve of freedom. He pressed his palm into his own hand hard enough to leave a crescent mark, because pride required posture.
“I need to collect my son,” he said, every syllable as crisp as a frostbitten leaf.
“Oh. Right. This way,” said Potter. He adjusted his glasses, as if clearer vision might help the conversation.
The walk through the Department of Interrogations was a long one. The corridors hummed faintly, full of whispers and paperwork. They didn’t speak.
Draco could feel Potter’s glance flicker his way a few times, hesitant, almost concerned, but he ignored it. He was too tired, too angry, and too full of a quiet, desperate longing to see his son. For once, even mocking Potter didn’t seem worth the effort.
“Here we are.”
Potter opened the door.
And there, on the worn sofa of an Auror’s office, small limbs curled, face damp and red around the eyes was Scorpius. Asleep. Exhausted. Safe.
The tension left Draco’s body so suddenly it nearly took his balance with it.
His son was safe.
Draco’s gaze cut toward Potter like a blade testing for weakness. He opened his mouth, something sharp and elegant ready to launch, but Potter, in his eternal, irritating way, got there first.
“He was worried about you,” Potter said quickly. “So I used a Sleeping Charm, the gentle kind, not the Stunning one. No harm done.”
Draco swallowed the insult that had been polishing itself for delivery. He looked at Potter for a long moment, expression unreadable to anyone who hadn’t spent years learning its subtle gradations. To the untrained eye, it might even have looked like gratitude.
Potter, being Potter, didn’t make that mistake.
Draco turned away, lifted his son into his arms, and left without another word. Potter didn’t stop him.
He would not thank Harry Potter. Not now, not ever.
After all, it was Potter, the same old, self-righteous, Gryffindor disaster in glasses. Everything in Draco’s life seemed, somehow, to loop back to Potter: the downfall, the redemption, the indignities in between. Always Potter.
“Wait, Malfoy!”
The voice came from behind him, and Draco stopped, irritated that even the syllables of his own name sounded like an order when Potter said them.
He turned, frostily. “What is it, Potter? Desperate for my gratitude?”
Potter blinked, caught off guard, and then pressed his lips together. “If you’re heading back to your old place, don’t. It’s not safe. Death Eater remnants are watching it.”
Death Eaters. Again. Always bloody Death Eaters.
Draco’s temper flared, like an old wound reopening. Just seeing Potter’s stupid, concerned face made civility impossible.
“I thought Aurors existed to deal with Death Eaters,” he snapped.
“We are dealing with it,” Potter shot back, exhaling sharply through his nose like an offended stallion.
They glared at each other, the living embodiment of years’ worth of mutual exasperation. Draco’s position, of course, was awkward: too tainted for the Ministry, too visible for hiding, too proud to ask for help.
Potter’s next words came carefully measured. “We’ll find you a temporary place. Somewhere safe. Until we catch them.”
Draco’s jaw tightened. The very idea of owing Potter anything made his stomach twist. But the small weight in his arms, the warmth of his son, tipped the scale against pride.
“Fine,” he said at last. “Given the Aurors’ staggering incompetence, I can only hope you manage it before I die of boredom.”
Potter’s eyes narrowed. “Then try not to die too soon.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Draco replied smoothly. “I plan to outlive you by at least a day.”
Potter made the kind of face usually reserved for deep diplomatic restraint. The frustrated kind.
In the end, it wasn’t Potter who escorted them to the safe house, but the shorter Auror, Joe, patron saint of monotone paperwork, who delivered Draco and Scorpius to a narrow flat with cracked windows and more locks than taste. He handed over a set of keys and muttered, “Don’t leave without clearance,” before disappearing with blessed efficiency.
Draco considered this a divine sign that Merlin occasionally rewarded suffering with silence.
Half an hour later, Scorpius stirred awake.
Draco was in the kitchen, because even exiled aristocrats must occasionally feed their children, and the scent of butter and something attempting to be stew drifted through the flat.
“Daddy… hic… uuuh…” came a small, sleepy whimper.
The kitchen wasn’t far; Draco had made sure of that. He’d laid Scorpius on the long sofa, fortified by a defensive wall of cushions, his own little fortress against nightmares and gravity alike.
At the first sound of distress, Draco crossed the distance in seconds, his wand forgotten on the counter, heart suddenly louder than reason.
He scooped the boy up at once, arms tight, voice low.
“It’s all right,” he murmured, his tone softer than he’d ever allow in public. “Daddy’s here.”
And for a brief moment, the Ministry, Potter, the past, the war, all of it fell mercifully silent.
“I’m right here, darling. Feel my hair, see? I’m here with you.”
Draco’s voice was low, the sort one uses to soothe skittish creatures and small, trembling miracles.
Scorpius had never been a sturdy child. Too pale, too often ill, and, perhaps, too used to a world that came with one parent instead of two. Sleep had always been an enemy best defeated by pacing; Draco would walk the length of whatever room they called home until his arms ached and the boy’s breathing evened out. And then there was the habit: the gentle, searching touch of tiny fingers in his hair, proof that Daddy was real, alive, and not going anywhere.
“Daddy…” Scorpius sobbed, voice small and hiccuping. His little arms clung tight around Draco’s neck.
Draco pressed his cheek to the warm hollow of his son’s neck, breathed in the faint scent of biscuits and tears, and murmured nonsense comfort into the dark until, at last, the shaking stopped. Ten minutes, perhaps more.
When calm finally settled, they stayed where they were: father and son on the old sofa, Scorpius perched on Draco’s lap, his red-tipped nose quivering as he whispered every fear his small heart could summon, and, at the end, the question every parent dreads.
“Are you hurt?”
“Only a scratch,” Draco said, showing his wrist where a faint mark lingered. Aurors, it seemed, did not waste Healing Charms on former Death Eaters. So he’d mended it himself, discreetly, efficiently. A little magic, he reasoned, couldn’t make things worse than they already were.
Scorpius took his father’s hand between both of his, and with a solemnity that would have shamed a priest, pressed a kiss to the spot.
“Scorpius kiss. Kisses make the hurt fly away.”
Draco’s mouth softened. He brushed the boy’s fringe aside and returned the ritual with a kiss of his own.
“Yes. All gone now. So no more tears, hmm?”
“Mm.” A sniff, a nod. And then Scorpius folded himself back into Draco’s arms, a small, determined koala in striped pyjamas.
Draco said nothing. He simply sat, stroking the silken blond hair beneath his fingers, letting the silence do the work words couldn’t.
They stayed the night in that little Ministry flat. Draco didn’t sleep much; strategy kept him company instead, pacing in his mind where his body could not. By morning, he’d achieved nothing but a headache, and then the doorbell rang.
Draco dragged himself up, hair a spectacular monument to unrest, and stalked to the door in his robe. His mood was, in a word, abominable.
He flung the door open, and of course, there stood Harry Potter.
“Potter!” Draco barked, voice echoing through the hallway. “Are you here to duel, or have you finally run out of reporters to impress?”
Potter, to his credit, didn’t flinch. He looked… tired. The kind of tired that even fame couldn’t quite disguise. He adjusted his glasses with that infuriating composure that had irritated Draco since age eleven.
“My bathroom’s out of order,” he said softly. “I need to borrow yours.”
For several heartbeats, Draco could only stare. His brain made the faint buzzing noise usually associated with defective wands.
Before he could locate an appropriate insult, Potter added, almost as an afterthought, while pointing across the hall,
“Oh, and Joe probably forgot to mention, my flat’s opposite yours.”
There was a silence so dense it could have been bottled.
Draco blinked once. Twice.
Somewhere deep inside, a very old and very tired part of him sighed and said: Of course it is.