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The first thing Scorpius Malfoy noticed when Albus Severus Potter walked into the room was that his tie was crooked.
Not slightly crooked.
Catastrophically crooked.
Scorpius stood at the front of the small enchanted garden beside the rebuilt Potter cottage, surrounded by floating candles and white roses charmed to bloom silver at the edges, and thought, distantly, that perhaps this was fitting. Because Albus had been ruining Scorpius’s ability to think clearly since they were fourteen years old.
“You’re staring,” Albus whispered as he reached him.
“Your tie looks tragic.”
“My husband-to-be is supposed to fix it.”
“You’re not my husband yet,” Scorpius murmured, fingers already reaching for the tie anyway.
Albus grinned. “Three more minutes.”
His smile was unbearable. Warm brown eyes, dark messy hair, nervous excitement hidden beneath false confidence. Twenty-seven years old and still incapable of standing still for longer than five seconds.
Scorpius straightened the tie carefully. “You’re shaking.”
“So are you.”
“I’m elegant when I shake.”
Albus snorted loud enough that Rose Weasley, standing nearby as one of Scorpius’s witnesses, rolled her eyes dramatically.
“Merlin,” she muttered. “You two are disgusting.”
“Thank you, Rosie,” Albus said brightly.
“Please stop flirting before the ceremony starts.”
“We literally haven’t kissed in six hours,” Albus complained.
“You say that like you survived a war.”
“I did survive a war. Your mother made us separate while getting ready.”
Hermione Granger-Weasley looked up from the front row immediately. “And I would do it again.”
Scorpius laughed softly despite himself.
The garden shimmered under twilight magic. Tiny golden lights floated through the air like drifting stars. Hagrid’s enormous pumpkins sat charmed along the edges of the aisle because Albus had insisted autumn weddings were superior. Somewhere nearby, enchanted violins played quietly.
Draco Malfoy stood in the front row beside Harry Potter.
That alone still felt slightly unreal.
Years ago, the idea of a Potter and a Malfoy marrying would have caused half of Wizarding Britain to collapse from collective outrage. Now Draco looked mildly emotional while pretending not to be, and Harry kept smiling at them like he couldn’t quite believe this was real either.
Life was strange.
Beautifully strange.
Scorpius looked back at Albus.
“You ready?” he asked quietly.
Albus’s expression softened instantly. The nervous humor melted away, leaving something achingly sincere underneath.
“With you?” he said. “Always.”
That nearly destroyed Scorpius on the spot.
The ceremony itself blurred together after that.
He remembered Professor McGonagall officiating because apparently retirement had not stopped her from being terrifying.
He remembered Albus fumbling his vows halfway through because he got emotional and forgot an entire paragraph.
“I had this memorized,” Albus whispered helplessly.
“You cried the ink off the page earlier,” Scorpius whispered back.
“I did not—”
“You absolutely did.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“I unfortunately do.”
Everyone laughed.
Scorpius remembered saying his own vows with shaking hands.
“I spent years thinking I would always be defined by my surname,” he said quietly. “Then I met you, and somehow… somehow loving you became the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
Albus’s eyes immediately filled with tears again.
“Oh no,” Rose groaned from somewhere behind them. “He’s crying again.”
“Shut up,” Albus sniffed.
“You’re literally getting married.”
“I’m emotional!”
“You’ve been emotional since breakfast.”
Scorpius smiled so hard his cheeks hurt.
Then came the rings.
Simple silver bands.
Warm against his fingers.
McGonagall looked between them over the rim of her glasses.
“Well?” she said dryly. “Are you going to kiss, or must I assign homework first?”
Albus moved first.
Of course he did.
He grabbed the front of Scorpius’s robes with both hands and kissed him like he’d been waiting years for permission.
And Merlin, Scorpius melted.
The entire garden erupted into cheers around them, but Scorpius barely heard any of it. He only felt Albus’s mouth against his, warm and smiling and impossibly familiar.
The kiss deepened for a brief perfect second before someone wolf-whistled loudly.
“That’s enough!” Draco called.
“Absolutely not,” Harry immediately countered.
“Dad!” Albus shouted against Scorpius’s mouth, laughing.
“Which one?” Harry asked innocently.
Scorpius broke into helpless laughter then, forehead resting against Albus’s as the world blurred warmly around them.
Married.
Merlin.
They were actually married.
Albus touched their foreheads together gently.
“Husband,” he whispered like he was testing the word.
Scorpius felt his chest ache.
“Husband,” he answered softly.
Albus smiled.
Then he kissed him again anyway.
The first night Esther Potter-Malfoy came home, neither of her fathers slept.
Not because she cried.
Quite the opposite, actually.
“She’s too quiet,” Albus whispered anxiously from where he sat upright in bed.
Beside him, Scorpius cracked one eye open. “Al, she fell asleep twenty minutes ago.”
“What if she stopped breathing?”
“She’s fine.”
“What if—”
“Albus Severus Potter.”
Albus went quiet immediately.
Scorpius reached over in the darkness and found his husband’s hand beneath the blankets, squeezing it gently.
“She’s fine,” he repeated softly.
In the crib across the room, Esther made the tiniest sleepy noise imaginable.
Albus instantly sat bolt upright again.
Scorpius sighed into his pillow.
“She snorted.”
“She sounded distressed.”
“She sounded like a very small piglet.”
“She’s our daughter. Be respectful.”
“Our daughter currently has drool on her cheek.”
“That’s distinguished drool.”
Scorpius finally laughed quietly.
Merlin, he loved this man.
Two years ago, Albus had cried through half their wedding ceremony. Now he was crying because a six-month-old baby had wrapped her tiny hand around his finger earlier that afternoon.
Scorpius had watched it happen in the Ministry Adoption Office.
Albus had completely stopped functioning.
“She’s so small,” he’d whispered shakily.
And Esther, with enormous curious grey eyes and wisps of dark hair sticking up everywhere, had stared directly at him before grabbing his finger with surprising determination.
That had been it.
Scorpius knew instantly.
Done for.
Absolutely doomed.
Their daughter had claimed Albus Potter within three seconds.
Not that Scorpius had fared much better.
Especially not when Esther had fallen asleep against his chest during the paperwork.
He’d looked down at her tiny face tucked beneath his chin and felt something in him split wide open with terrifying tenderness.
Now the nursery light glowed softly blue against the walls of their bedroom.
Because neither of them could bear to put her in the actual nursery yet.
“She’s staying in here until she’s at least eleven,” Albus announced quietly.
Scorpius snorted. “That seems healthy.”
“She’s little.”
“She will eventually become a teenager.”
Albus looked horrified.
“Don’t say things like that.”
Scorpius grinned sleepily and turned onto his side.
“You realize your father already bought her a broom.”
“She’s six months old.”
“He said it’s a family tradition.”
“Your father also tried to buy her a tiny pair of Quidditch goggles.”
“He cried while holding her.”
Albus softened instantly at that.
Harry Potter—famous Auror, war hero, terrifyingly competent wizard—had taken one look at Esther and burst into tears so aggressively that Ginny had nearly choked laughing.
Draco had been somehow worse.
He’d held Esther with visible uncertainty for exactly thirty seconds before Esther grabbed the collar of his robes and refused to let go.
Scorpius still remembered the look on his father’s face.
Utter devastation.
“She likes me,” Draco had whispered faintly.
Then Narcissa Malfoy had swept in like an elegant hurricane and informed everyone that Esther clearly had “excellent instincts.”
The entire family had been unbearable ever since.
A soft little noise came from the crib again.
Both men froze.
Tiny yawning sound.
Then silence.
Albus whispered, “Should we check on her?”
“We checked on her four minutes ago.”
“What if she needs us?”
Scorpius looked over.
Albus was already halfway out of bed.
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake.”
They both shuffled over to the crib together anyway.
Because of course they did.
Esther lay bundled in a pale green blanket, tiny fists tucked beneath her chin. Her dark hair stuck up in every direction imaginable, and her mouth was slightly open in deep sleep.
Scorpius’s chest physically hurt at the sight.
Albus rested his arms against the crib railing and stared down at her with the softest expression Scorpius had ever seen on another human being.
“She’s ours,” Albus whispered.
Scorpius stepped beside him quietly.
“Yeah,” he murmured.
Esther shifted in her sleep.
Then, without opening her eyes, one tiny hand reached upward blindly.
Albus immediately offered his finger.
Her little hand wrapped around it automatically.
And Merlin.
That expression on Albus’s face.
Scorpius thought he might die from loving him.
“You’re crying again,” Scorpius whispered fondly.
“I’m not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“One day she’s going to call us Dad.”
Scorpius melted instantly. “Al…”
“And she’s going to learn to walk and talk and—and—”
“You’re spiraling.”
“She’s so little.”
Scorpius leaned against his shoulder gently.
For a long moment, they simply stood there together in the dim nursery light, watching their daughter sleep.
Safe.
Warm.
Loved beyond measure.
Esther suddenly sneezed.
Both of them panicked immediately.
Esther blinked awake, startled for half a second—
Then looked up at them.
And smiled.
A tiny sleepy baby smile.
Scorpius actually made a wounded noise.
“Oh no,” he whispered. “We’re never surviving this.”
Albus looked equally devastated.
“She smiled at us.”
“She owns this house now.”
“She absolutely does.”
Esther made another tiny happy noise.
Then Albus leaned over and kissed Scorpius softly beneath the glow of the nursery light.
Slow.
Warm.
Full of exhausted happiness.
When they pulled apart, Scorpius rested his forehead against his husband’s.
“We made a family,” Albus whispered shakily.
Scorpius looked over at Esther, still clutching Albus’s finger in her sleep.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “We really did.”