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Being a single father had proven easier and far, far more difficult than expected. There was a certain logic and persistence in raising a child.
Until there wasn’t.
For example, time between revering bananas as the immaculate fruits of heaven and declaring them poisonous with a yelled “I hate bananas!” was shorter than a millisecond.
Parenting the newest Malfoy heir was a discipline divided between autocrat management and nursing slash shepherding slash wrangling him into clothes, not to mention shoes, coupled with unholily early mornings.
And since the mother of said heir wasn’t there to share the load, Draco was left to experience all the beauty and mayhem of raising Scorpius alone.
Bitter as it was, Astoria had passed two days after giving birth from a blood curse she had — fortunately — taken with her. The most devastating blow to Draco’s life, apart from the one where a certain Dark Lord had occupied his home and threatened to kill his parents.
But unlike the Dark Lord who had left misery and broken people in his wake, Astoria had left Draco with the most beautiful baby boy, and also an irreparable hole in his heart.
That didn’t mean his heart had no room for others. Just that the limited space only allowed a carefully curated number of people. In short, Draco’s heart beat for his son, his two friends and one particularly stubborn inhabitant of his dreams.
Since Scorpius’s birth when she — Hermione Granger — had cooed at his son like she was holding the future king of the world in her arms, she had occupied a still expanding part of his heart.
She was a living, breathing wonder of kindness, intelligence and untamed, curly beauty. With tons of glorious freckles.
She had been divorced for a year now. The Weasel, ever the dumbest twat that had survived the war, had walked out of her life and into some stupid broad’s bed.
Pathetic. But at least he was ceding the place for a better man.
“Make it count today, mate.”
“Count! One, two, free!”
“That’s right. Three.” Draco held up two fingers. “We are two, and we want to be three.” He flipped up one more finger.
Scorpius cheered. “Free! Free!”
“Mm, three. I’m counting on you, son. Do your magic.”
“Albus says magic is only for big kids. His father…”
“Albus’s father says a lot of useless things,” Draco groaned. “But please, don’t tell him I said that.”
The most adorable little Cupid sat on Draco’s arm as they made their way across the Potter-Weaselette lawn. Platinum hair, eyes blue like the summer sky. White wings attached to his back with magic and a ridiculous, little bow in his tiny hands. The arrow even had a shiny red heart for an arrowhead.
The boy had picked the costume entirely on his own. Swear to Salazar. Something about the wings had won Scorpius’s heart over, Draco’s too — and maybe, if they were lucky, it would work on Granger.
“Malfoy,” she said in greeting, her voice so gentle his last name sounded like a blessing, rather than a cursed legacy.
She had wandered to the far end of her friends’ garden and was admiring the — admittedly — handsome view of the countryside.
“Hello Granger,” he drawled, suddenly unable to find the words he had rehearsed the past week.
This was the Granger effect at its finest. Positively devastating.
He reached for the usual antagonising antics.
“So, shall we continue our endless discussion about the fallacies of Arithmancy, or are we debating Thomas Delpirou’s latest book today? I must warn you. I’ve brought my most potent weapon.”
He tipped his head in Scorpius’s direction, just so she didn’t pull her wand on him.
“Ahh. Armed and extremely dangerous,” she lilted, winking.
Was she talking about herself?
She stepped closer and booped the arrowhead.
“Can I shwoot her?” Scorpius said.
“Don’t kill her,” Draco whispered. “We need her alive.”
“We?”
She was laughing, and Draco wasn’t dead yet. Instead of hexing him, she put her hands over her heart — a soft expression gilding her face.
She was marvellous. Everything that was missing in Draco’s life. She just had to realise it.
And that he was missing in hers too. He and Scorpius.
His son chose that moment to rocket himself out of his arms. If Draco hadn’t been so attuned to sudden bursts of stupidity — mostly his own — he could’ve dropped him, and those wings were, unfortunately, only a decoration. Bless young, foolish hope.
“Easy Batman,” he groaned as he lowered Scorpius to the ground, just to see the little winged man take off towards the house with a happy whoop.
“Batman?” Granger asked with a surprised but amused look on her face.
“Mm, Uncle Theo introduced my son to the Muggle world of morally grey heroes.”
“Can’t have too many of them, can we?”
“Think so? Maybe I have a chance after all.” Draco congratulated himself on the first actual Hint™, but he was still too much of a coward to escalate further. “When Scorp saw the wings in the store, I couldn’t bring myself to burst the bubble.”
They watched the small bundle of joy scuttle away, and Draco mourned the loss of his accomplice.
After a few half-baked fits and starts about books and work, the conversation settled on Granger’s baking adventures. It was more Granger telling and Draco nodding sheepishly at the right places.
When a quiet moment finally presented itself, Draco jumped at it like a man grabbing a lifebuoy mid-sea, mid-storm.
“We’d like to…”
He didn’t get to finish the first actual Invitation™ he had drummed up in seven years, because a distinct bawling sound echoed through the garden, and when they turned towards the source, they saw the miniature Malfoy angel crying, stumbling down the lawn like the devil was at his tiny heels. His wings were flapping after him like he was trying to take off.
“Albus said my wings look dumb!” he hiccupped as he buried his head in Granger’s skirt.
Draco kind of wanted to do the same.
Without hesitation, she lifted the little boy up in her arms, and Draco nearly fainted from all the concentrated wonder.
They were meant to be, weren’t they? All three of them. Anybody with eyes could see that.
“When I was a little girl,” she said. “Albus’s father said my teeth looked like a rabbit’s. You know what I did?”
“Don’t give him ideas,” Draco huffed. “I’m not particularly in the mood for losing my job because I had to unhex my boss’ son.”
Her eyebrow quirked in light challenge. Smug witch.
“I vanished his glasses for two days. He tripped so many times on the stairs I felt sorry for him.”
In an instant, Scorpius switched from snivelling to beaming, with the speed only kids could change their mood. Draco, on the other hand, was still recovering from the failed attempt at Invitation™. The Potter story, though, comforted him immensely.
Served him right. Old wanker.
Then Scorpius ran his small fingers over the skin on Granger’s shoulder, and his dad was jealous.
“Did you have an askident with caramel?”
“Caramel?”
“Daddy says so. He loves caramel.” The boy dug a nail in and scraped. “Dad, they don’t come off.”
Draco might have thought about licking the freckles off at some point. Frankly, at many points.
“I happen to like caramel very much,” she said, her face the human equivalent of sunshine.
“You’re number free,” Cupid said, unfazed, his blue eyes doing all the things his father wanted to do.
“Number three?” Her lips crooked in a quizzical smile.
Scorpius pointed to his father, then to himself. “One, two… free.”
His eyes sparkled when he pointed at her, and for a moment, Draco felt as if the wings had been strapped to him and carried him straight into the sky.
“We’re practicing counting,” he muttered, determined not to give away the Flirt by Proxy™.
“Mm, you’re a clever boy,” she mused, and Draco wasn’t entirely sure who it was aimed at, or if she was being sarcastic.
The way her eyes flicked over him did nothing to cool his suspicion.
Scorpius saved him by slouching out of Granger’s arms in his direction. As Draco rescued him from his second attempt at flying, his mouth went off-script.
“Marry me, Granger.”
The space between the adults imploded.
“I said that out loud?” he gasped, cycling through millions of ways to excuse the outburst.
Oh, bloody, merciless, acid-burning hell.
“Marry, kiss or erm, you know...? Aren’t we too old to be playing games like that?” she laughed, offering him the one face-saving trick he hadn’t thought of.
“Yes. Yes. Option three, please.”
It’s never too late to engage in a mercy kill. Think of the good it would do for the world. One Death Eater less.
He couldn’t say all this with Scorp on his arm, but he saw the same impulse flicker in her wide amber eyes.
“Mewwy? Like Chwistmas?” the little fry helped, and though Draco wanted to die, he was also too selfish to forfeit Christmas with his son.
He buried his face in Scorpius’s curls, avoiding the gaze of the intended number three. “Merry Christmas, mate.”
“Scorpius, why don’t you check out Molly’s biscuits?” the only woman in the world said.
The boy was nothing short of a traitor, darting across the lawn before Draco could stop him, and now, he was left with the stupid little bow. For a moment, he considered aiming at Granger’s heart — hoping, hoping, hoping that it would work its magic.
That she would fall so stupidly in love with him, because he’d be the first one she’d lay her magnificent eyes on.
But alas, he was no Cupid. He was a rather tall, obnoxious prat with nothing more to boast about than a beautiful, perfect son with a speech impediment.
Maybe he shouldn’t have let him run. Scorpius had served as the perfect wingman with his irresistible charm, and now, Granger was surely going to feign an illness or make up some half-arsed excuse to leave the conversation.
She did no such thing. Instead, she lifted her angelic face to him.
“I thought about going to Cornwall next weekend. One of my colleagues has a small cabin there, and I was lucky to be able to borrow it. Maybe you’d both like to join me.”
Yes, yes, yes!
“Does it have running water?” he drawled like the idiot he was.
And because her eyes did that incredibly sexy roll, he blurted, “How many beds?”
Please, let there be only one adult bed.
She must have seen through his charade, because she just laughed. “Enough.”
“You know I’ll need a very large bed with this long frame,” he gestured down his body.
“You can have the master bedroom.”
“Want to share?” It shot out of him before he could stop it, but honestly, the last half hour of trying to sway the only witch that mattered had been a disaster, so this was probably not going to deepen the hole by much.
She stepped closer, eyes narrowed. “Bold, Malfoy.” Her fingers pinched his shirt, coaxing him to bend closer. ”Want to count my freckles?”
He nodded like a fool.
“See if they taste like caramel?” she said, her voice turning husky.
She bit her lip, like the terrible vixen she was.
The nodding went berserk. Utterly undignified. “Don’t toy with me, Granger.”
“Kiss, marry, or kill me, Malfoy?”
“I’m sure any of the three would be the end of me. Please, don’t break me, Hermione.”
“Start with the kiss.”
“Keep your healing spell at the ready. I don’t want to die yet.”
The countryside view had never looked more picturesque than at that moment. A ray of sunlight bursting through the English clouds like the sky was looking for a missing angel. A long overdue kiss. A small Cupid running around like he had won it all.
For all Draco knew, they both had.