Chapter Text
“I don’t want to read it.”
“Read what?”
“This letter.” Draco Malfoy tossed an envelope across the kitchen table. It landed with a hearty thwack in front of his wife, who looked down at the scarlet wax seal, stamped with a P.
Astoria picked up the letter and turned it over, smiling. “You don’t want to read a letter from Harry? Your best mate?”
“He’s not— he’s just—it’s not good.”
“What isn’t good? The letter? You haven’t even opened it!” Astoria weighed the letter in her hands and then set it down. She picked up her mug of hot chocolate and hummed into it, “It’s heavy.”
Draco looked out the kitchen window and watched the owl that had just dropped the letter onto his head fly farther away, barely discernible in the darkness. It was half past ten and in the middle of his and Astoria’s typical evening snacking, when a loud rapping at the kitchen window pane startled them both. “I don’t have to.”
He was sure that the letter couldn’t be anything good. A sealed, thick letter from someone who probably— or definitely—hated him could never be anything less than devastating.
And even though Draco was used to rejection, he didn’t feel like indulging in that particular brand of loneliness.
He’d had his fair share of it.
For a long time, Draco considered his despondency to be something permanent, an immutable force of the nature of his upended, pathetic life. And he had come to terms with this sad state of affairs, keeping close to the shadows of his past mistakes and willfully pushing away anyone who would know him. Not that anyone wanted to know him beyond what they already knew.
After Hogwarts, and after the War, Draco had found the infamy and attention that he’d always craved. And Merlin, was he sick of it.
Because after his hearing before the Wizengamot and his narrow avoidance of time in Azkaban, Draco was on the receiving end of pointed looks and violently-aimed spittle in any wizarding village he’d dared walk through, head down, cloak clasped tightly up to his neck, his mother following close behind with none of her usual grace but plenty of shame covering her face as they plowed onward.
He couldn’t attend Quidditch games, or draw money from the bank, or even owl-order books without getting hissed at, threatened, or outright ignored. And while part of him stung—would always sting—another part simply felt… numb. And for months, this continued. Draco lived at Malfoy Manor in one wing, his mother in another, his father locked away on an island in the North Sea. He read musty books and sorted through dusty antiques and sat in hidden corners of a grand house in dire need of a cleaning. He trampled through the wilting flowers in the garden outside and took down threatening notes plastered on the gates. He lived, and he didn’t.
Until one day, Draco left.
The irony of finding solace in places inhabited exclusively by Muggles was not lost on Draco. As a child he’d scoff at the seemingly plain, ordinary ways of non-magical folk, their shortcomings, and their inability to channel spellwork by waving wooden sticks. But as an adult, faced with his own fallibility and inability to work a television remote, Draco appreciated Muggles and all their charm.
He liked the way they solved problems, how they adapted, and the lengths they went to make life more bearable for themselves and others. And it didn’t hurt that not one of them knew who he was or judged him on his past, no matter how much he believed he deserved it.
(As it happened, sitting under a bright pink umbrella at a seafront bistro in Worthing, Draco was pleasantly surprised to find that no one had spit in his wine-poached pears and spiced ice cream. And yes, he realized very quickly how sad it was that he considered this day one of his best.)
So, with a newfound, though weak, sense of self-preservation and desire to push forward, Draco continued on.
He moved out of Malfoy Manor, away from his shell of a mother, who had decided that her life was better spent mourning what she used to have. He left Wiltshire and, with a trunk of freshly-pressed clothes following behind and scarcely-used wand up his sleeve, traveled throughout England by car and by bus and by plane and by train, hating every moment, thank you very much.
He eventually found himself just off the Norfolk Broads, trunk still following obediently behind him, and the proud new owner of a fully-skippered traditional wherry. He’d lay back on his boat as his skipper, Woodforde, sailed, remarking idly about the current and the weather. Draco would take his meals on the bench and rest through the night, his troubles slipping away as his wherry slipped down the river. It was a peaceful life that Draco enjoyed.
And one sunny morning, as the wind thwacked the sail of his boar and his skipper maneuvered down the River Bure, Draco stumbled on the best thing in his life, in the shape of a young woman hollering at him from a village bank.
He had his skipper come in at the nearest open moor, the wherry gliding along the waterway, keeping pace with the woman skipping in the grass, barefoot with her trousers rolled up to her ankles and blouse flitting in the breeze. It was not normal for Draco to answer to anyone, or to pay mind to someone trying to get his attention, as he had been burned before. But the beckoning smile of the sunray of a person who met him at an inlet’s deteriorating dock surrounded by peat and sedge was too much.
It turned out that she wanted to both compliment him on his vessel but also warn him of a blockage down the course, where the nearest bridge was being repaired. The woman—Astoria—was bright and sharp and very inquisitive, asking Draco all sorts of things, from where he was from to what he was doing on the Broads to how he found himself in Aylsham that day, and yes Astoria did know exactly who he he was! Because you couldn’t forget a Malfoy and you certainly couldn’t forget Draco, and didn’t he recognize her?
Astoria had said all this very fast, and Draco, mouth-gaping, the laughs of Woodforde in the background as he anchored the wherry, could only stare back.
“What?” he finally said, which caused Astoria to laugh.
“I’m Astoria Greengrass,” she said. And she looked quite shy at that admission. “My sister, Daphne—”
“Oh! Yes—” Draco said, because hazy memories of a younger sister of Daphne Greengrass were becoming clearer in his mind. Of a little girl pestering the older Slytherins at breakfast in the Great Hall. Of a pair of wayward sisters trying to sneak out of the Common Room to fly over the Quidditch Pitch and under the stars and Draco, as Prefect, turning a blind eye because Daphne was always kind to him and because he was helpless to the the wide-eyed mischief alight in her younger sister’s eyes as she held over her shoulder a shiny broomstick stolen from Montague’s wardrobe.
So at Woodforde’s insistence, Draco Malfoy and Astoria Greengrass walked together alone across the hearth and to the nearest village.
“Have you been to Aylsham?” Astoria had asked him, and Draco said no even though he might have, who knows? It was hard to concentrate on anything with Astoria at his side, navigating him through a charming little market town, with shops and cafes and little red-brick houses. They ate and chatted and found their way to Astoria’s childhood home, a beautiful Jacobean country house, complete with its own walled garden and windmill, where she still lived with her mother and father.
And for days Draco stayed there, welcomed heartily and at once. A letter from Woodforde chalked it up to young love, but Astoria remarked that it was her mother’s cooking that kept Draco tableside every breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack.
It was a combination of everything, Draco admitted. Thornton and Laurel Greengrass were excellent hosts, and Draco loved them almost immediately. They were reserved but not withholding. Withdrawn but warm. And unlike that of his own family, their affection was not conditional. And the food, Merlin, the food. Laurel would take Draco and Astoria to the kitchen and together she and Astoria would attempt to teach Draco how to make babi kecap while Draco sampled and savored. Thornton would drag Draco away in between bites, keen on his opinion of his gardens and the magical construction of a small bridge running over a ria on the property.
Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and Draco still didn’t go back to Malfoy Manor, or whatever was left of it. He considered the Greengrass estate and its heathlands and streams his home and he knew, from their hushed conversations under the covers in his guestroom, bodies fitted warmly together, that Astoria thought the same.
“Stay with me,” she had told him one particularly lovely night, her finger tracing the bow of his lips. So he did.
He stayed in Aylsham for nearly a year before traveling with the Greengrasses to visit Laurel’s family for a month in a bustling wizarding community just outside of Jakarta. It was an annual affair for them, and Draco found that this side of Astoria’s family, the Wijayas, were even more welcoming than the small lot back at home. And that was saying something.
Yes, for the first time in his life, Draco felt loved, liked, and happy.
It was not long after that he and Astoria married, much to the dismay of his parents, who thought Astoria, with her fondness for Muggles and all things peculiar, a shameful match. Thornton and Laurel were chuffed, to say the least, as were Daphne and several Wijaya uncles, aunties, and cousins, who looked on and cheered when vows were exchanged in an intimate but lively ceremony in the Jimbaran Gardens.
Back at their property, Thornton and Laurel carved out an entire floor for Draco and Astoria, and the two lived happily there for a while, usually by themselves as Astoria’s parents, rich and retired, headed back out into the world to sight-see.
They lived quietly and contentedly for years, just him and Astoria, and a river and a wherry and an old windmill, until they wanted something more.
And the universe provided.
Astoria’s pregnancy flew by. Draco hardly recalled much of those days, aside from trying to assemble nursery furniture with and without magic and pointedly ignoring malicious rumors about the baby’s parentage that seemed to grace Daily Prophet columns shortly after Astoria was spotted out in public.
But being the woman that she was, Astoria took everything in stride—the questions about her baby’s parentage, the brunt of being married to a Malfoy, and later, on the day that Draco would come to call the most frightening and terrific day of his life, the terrifying ordeal of childbirth.
And even this Astoria conquered, but not without enormous cost.
Draco remembered her teeth chattering from the pain potions, the way she spoke, teeth gritted, of unbearable pressure. The determined look on her face as she pushed their baby out and—
Her head had lolled limply to the side. She was unresponsive to the baby’s—their son’s—wails. Draco was inconsolable. He was screaming at her, at the healers, at the whole sodding ward.
He was on his knees. Begging her to stay with him.
Draco was clutching their baby to his chest when Astoria finally came to. He kissed her chapped lips and placed the baby at her breast and held them both in that too-small, squeaky, pitiful excuse for a bed in the maternity ward of an underfunded wizarding hospital. Heard the dim warnings from staff that they should not try for another baby soon or possibly ever again.
Draco hardly cared. He had all he needed right there, alive and well.
Astoria was weak for a long time after. Emotionally, she was withdrawn and physically, she was aching. “Everywhere,” she had said. “It hurts everywhere.”
And when she was at her worst, raw, hurting, and sobbing, Draco did his best to take care of her and their baby, brushing hair back from her face and kissing her temple and whispering and listening, echoing promises, as they always did, to stay.
Together they did, in the Greengrass estate on its rolling hearth with its river and slowly-turning windmill. Until they didn’t. Because the talk about town and the next towns over and through the whole damn country was beginning again to get nasty. While Draco and Astoria were used to the rumors and the way they were treated, their child, Scorpius was not, and to force him to endure what he didn’t deserve would be cruel. So they left.
They called a little villa in the Oesling their home, hidden behind flowering gardens and walls with crawling ivy, on the outskirts of wizarding Vianden. Scorpius grew up with ducks and books and little Muggle friends down the road, and when he was old enough to go to Beauxbatons and learn to study magic and attempt to carry the heavy burden which his name carried, made some acquaintances, too. Never friends. Never anyone who wanted to visit during the holidays or go into one of the nearby villages on a weekend.
Scorpius seemed to quietly exist on the periphery. And this hurt Draco more than anything.
Thus, their pleasant life in Luxembourg was still a bit isolated, and Draco felt forever haunted by what he left behind and doomed to continue down that road for however long he kept running away, dragging his wife and son with him. So when his parents died, and the Manor was left to him, the threat of Ministry raids looming over it, the little family made the decision to return.
Draco was scared, Astoria apprehensive, and Scorpius thrilled.
“An adventure!” he had called it, with all the hope and naivety someone freshly sixteen would have. “Another chance! A fresh start! At Hogwarts!”
It was necessary, Draco assured himself. This move back. Necessary to overcome his own failings and to rebuild a life that would be better for his wife and son.
So there he was, back in England and in the kitchen of their bungalow. A year had passed since their return. Scorpius—now seventeen and still full of reckless hope—was off in his room dreaming of a new term at Hogwarts, and Astoria was at the table, grinning at Draco in between bites of jam-smothered shortbread. With her finger, she pushed the letter in his direction.
Draco Malfoy huffed and rolled his eyes. If he could cross his arms tighter across his chest, he would. He turned to stare out the window, though there wasn’t much to make out in the velvety darkness except a nearby lamppost. He could feel his wife’s eyes on his back and hear her footfalls as she came up behind him to smooth out his nightshirt, and to uncross his arms. He felt her head lay between his shoulder blades and her hands slide under the satin fabric to hold his chest.
“I hate that you started it,” he told her, relaxing into her familiar touch. “I hate that you made me do this.”
Astoria sighed. “I didn’t make you do anything. I gently suggested that you take up that initial invitation.”
“Funny how your gentle suggestions sound a lot like orders.”
“Funny how just weeks ago you were giddy at the thought of having coffee with Harry Potter and your new friends.”
“One, I was not giddy, and two, that lot are hardly my friends.”
“You never told me how it went.”
“Should I start at the beginning?”
“You know you want to.”
So he did.
It was a warm day in August when, against all better judgment, Draco found himself pacing in front of an old red telephone box in the heart of London. As he walked back and forth, he’d catch his reflection in one of the broken glass panels, the cracks in the shards making his image look distorted and mangled. He felt just as warped on the inside—anxious for what he had to do and excited at the prospect of actually going through with it.
He hated being there, at the visitor’s entrance to the Ministry of Magic. He hated feeling like that. Like a visitor to this world to which he once belonged. Visitor. The word felt bitter on his tongue. Unfamiliar. Temporary.
Draco hated any place with large gatherings of wizards and witches no doubt still hating him and his family. But he needed a permit quickly and without relying on owl post, so it was with a great grumbling effort that on that morning, the first Monday in August, he put on his best traveling cloak and brogue boots and Apparated down to the old phone box at the blasted entrance of the country’s damned wizarding government operation.
Draco could faintly remember a time where he didn’t have to use this entrance to the Ministry. When his father would walk him, hand proprietarily curled over his shoulder, through the main entrance on the first level, and sometimes through the fireplace in the office of the Minister himself.
But that was Before.
Draco hardly believed that Hermione Granger would appreciate him Floo’ing into her fireplace now.
So there he stood, ignoring the curious glances of the Muggles walking by, tugging anxiously at some long strands of hair that had escaped being tied back, and contemplating the colorful graffiti sprayed over the wall in front of him. Clutching his cloak tighter around his shoulders and wondering why he’d chosen to wear added layers on such a fine day, he walked into the old telephone booth and shut the door behind him. Another shard of glass was knocked out of its frame and fell onto the pavement.
Cursing and how ridiculous he must look, Draco picked up the receiver of the phone hanging precariously inside. He dialed the code, 6-2-4-4-2, and waited.
“Please state your name, and your business,” a cool and monotonous voice said in his ear.
Draco clutched the receiver tightly and said back, “Draco Malfoy. I’m here to speak to someone about a permit because this bloody incompetent government cannot do anything right.”
The receiver was silent for a second before emitting a loud, dull hum. Bewildered, and slightly offended, Draco pulled the receiver away from his face. “Don’t take that tone with me,” he snarled, and then he slammed the receiver back onto its mount.
Another piece of glass fell to the ground.
But before he could curse again, a clatter caught Draco’s attention. Sticking out of the rusty coin return of the phone mount was a square badge. Draco picked it up and rolled his eyes. It read, Draco Malfoy, Grievance.
As soon as he pinned it to the front of his cloak, the phone box began to rumble. Draco hardly had time to figure out what was going on and whether any passerbys outside had noticed before he was descending into the ground below.
Through the cracked and broken and otherwise dull glass of the box, Draco could see that he was tunneling down, down, down into the underground wizarding world. When the phone box stopped, Draco opened the door. Before him were more doors, not unlike those of a lift. As he approached, they opened, revealing the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic.
He ducked his head as he walked through the din, glancing up only when he got to the main bulletin, where a large gold placard displayed the names of each department, along with the floor level number of each.
It was by process of elimination that Draco figured he could get what he needed from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, as what he required did rely on some kind of stupid law that may or may not need enforcing. So, with Level Two in mind, Draco headed for the lifts.
On the way, he heard others proclaiming their business (“We should just fly up the elevator shaft to Level Six and show these new brooms to Regulatory Control, eh?” and “The Pest Advisory Board is on Level Four, so get yourself and your Horklumps up there now!”) and saw things that gave him a hunch about what others needed (a group of ghosts chatting amicably simply floated up and up through the peacock-blue ceiling presumably to the Beast, Being and Spirit Division and a rowdy group of young women, all wearing matching kits and helmets for a local Creaothceann league, were likely marching toward a lift that would take them up one floor and to the Department of Magical Games and Sports, where—Draco surmised—they’d give an impassioned spiel to the Head on why their beloved sport should no longer be banned).
Draco tried to choose a lift that wouldn’t be too crowded, but as his bad luck would have it, several witches and wizards were already packed inside, with more following behind him as he stepped in himself, squeezing past others toward a corner in the back, where he could hide.
As he went up, the doors opened and opened and opened again as Ministry workers got to their offices, dodging little flying paper airplanes and hovering memos, scrambling past other workers keen to get to their desired level or off the lift as quickly as possible. Draco was being pushed and nudged and outright elbowed into the corner, but he didn’t dare speak up. He kept his head down instead, scowling at the little visitor badge with his name on it. By the time the lift made it to Level Two, Draco had been bustled about enough, and grumpy and frumpled, he pushed past the throng, ignoring indignant insults to his name and some creative swears, and made it out just as the doors tried to close in on him.
Straightening his lapels and smoothing out the sleeves of his cloak, Draco took a deep breath. He could do this. He could. He was a member of the community. He abided by most laws. He threw twenty Galleons into the Fountain of Magical Brethren just ten minutes ago down in the Atrium. So he earned some kind of ministerial assistance.
Probably.
He walked away from the lift door, down a well-lit hallway decorated with sconces and portraits of old Aurors, the subjects within shushing each other and watching Draco curiously as he passed. He ignored them, focusing instead on the click of his shoes on the marble floor, and the end goal growing ever larger as he got nearer: a curved reception counter.
Draco cleared his throat as he stood there, just before it and a tiny witch in checkered robes, wand twisted up into her hair. The witch didn’t look at him, but merely rapped her tangerine index fingernail onto a clipboard sitting precariously on the edge of the countertop before returning to the apparent task at hand, sifting through stacks of multi-colored folders that chirped back at her whenever they fell out of order.
Heaving a sigh, Draco took the clipboard and its accompanying quill and scribbled down his name and the time. He placed the clipboard back onto the counter and waited. Looking around, he noted to himself that he was the only one there. Not wanting to appear impatient, though he most definitely was, and not wanting to be rude, though he most definitely wanted to be, Draco resisted the urge to clear his throat and tap his foot and instead folded his hands behind his back and quietly paced nearby, admiring the ceiling, the floor, and the walls, as if there was anything remotely interesting about an out-of-date Ministry lobby.
As he looked at a patch of peeling paint, his belly rumbled. In the midst of his morning anxiety, he had skipped breakfast. Astoria and Scorpius were already at the kitchen table, cups of coffee in hand and, unsurprisingly for them, a sweet treat more appropriate for dessert split between them and coating the corners of their upturned mouths.
“Martabak manis?” Scorpius had offered, mumbling through thick bites of the buttery, nutty pancakes he and his mum loved so much.
“No, no, I should be off,” Draco had said, though he gave a longing look to the chocolate toppings they’d chosen that day before bidding them goodbye and heading out the door, their happy chatter filtering through the swirl of the air around him as he turned on the spot and Disapparated away.
That was how it often was with them. Draco’s days were bookended by Astoria and Scorpius, Scorpius and Astoria. And while he felt firmly in the middle, content and blessed, he also felt that sometimes his wife and son were merely looking over him, speaking in a secret language and forming a bond Draco couldn’t begin to comprehend.
It wasn’t envy he felt while he watched them joke together, console each other, or even argue. It was longing and a desperation to have the capacity to do the same. He supposed that it wasn’t his nature to connect with his son, and that his inability to do so stemmed from his deep fear that if Scorpius knew too much of him, that he wouldn’t like him. Because he was his father, yes, but he was also Draco Malfoy, and the Draco that Scorpius knew had only been around for a short time. No, Draco didn’t want Scorpius to know who he was before he became a father.
Astoria managed the parenting thing so differently. To Scorpius, she was always quick to respond, to know what he was about to do before he did, and how to solve a problem once it had been created. She was unafraid to be open with him and, in turn, accept an openness from him. Perhaps it was because Scorpius had once been so much a physical part of her. They were irrevocably linked.
Draco’s mind continued to drift to those late-night feedings so many years ago when he would watch as Astoria, rocking in a chair, held their baby close. Scorpius would search for his mother in the dark, his tiny hand reaching up and pressing feather-soft into her cheek, running across the bridge of her nose and into the dips of her mouth while Astoria chased kisses across his fingertips. The sight of it, and the memory, made Draco’s heart sing.
A dramatic sigh jerked Draco from his thoughts and had him turning to look back at the reception counter so fast that he pulled something in his neck. Wincing, he walked back up and plastered a smile on his face. The witch at the counter didn’t return it.
Instead, she scrunched up her nose, peered back down to read his name on the sign-in parchment again, and then, after looking Draco up and down, asked, quite curtly, “Can I help you?”
“I need a form.”
“Which form?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I need one.”
“Well, I don’t have forms.”
“Then why did you ask which one I needed?”
The folders on the witch’s desk flapped as if agitated.
“So that I may direct you to the office that likely does have the form,” the witch said coolly. “Now, what are you trying to do?”
“I’ve been trying to apply for a permit,” Draco explains. “But every time I send in my application, the owl comes back with a notice stating that I need a certain form. So, I send back a request for the form, and another owl comes back with the same application I just filled out, but blank.”
“Have you tried sending in a complete application?”
Draco suppressed a scream.
“I complete the application and send it in, but then I get told that I need a form.”
“So your application is incomplete?”
“Sure. Fine. Can I just—” Draco took a very measured breath. “Can I just get some guidance on the form that I need.”
The witch smiled. “Of course. What are you trying to do?”
Jaw tight, Draco gritted out, “I’m applying for a permit.
“To do what?”
“Demolition.”
“Ah,” said the witch, and Draco felt hope blooming in his chest. Now he was getting somewhere.
“You’ll need to owl the Wizarding Planning and Development office and they’ll be able to post you the required paperwork.”
Draco deflated.
His visit was useless. He was no closer to getting this mystery form than he was weeks ago, months ago, or even a year ago when he first came back to the Manor. He stared at the witch, silently cursing her and her determined stare right back at him.
And they continued this little game until she broke, her eyes flitting past him and catching on something that made her sit up straight in her chair and smile with all of her blindingly-white teeth.
“Good morning, Mr. Potter,” she said, and Draco turned back at once. There, walking out of the lift doors and striding ever closer, was Harry Potter.
Draco rolled his eyes.
“Oh, hello, Granddad.”
Harry sighed. “Draco, for the umpteenth time, we’re the same age.”
“Tell that to the gray around your ears.”
“Your hair is nearly white—anyway, what are you doing here?”
Harry stopped at the reception counter and leaned up against it, reaching over and plucking a candy from a bowl near the witch’s many folders.
“I need planning permission. Well, demolition permission, really.”
“Oh?” Harry asked, the candy wrapper crinkling under his fingers as he twisted it open.
“The Manor, it has… outlived its use and welcome.”
“Malfoy, that’s—a big deal. Your home?”
“That place is not my home, Potter,” snapped Draco. “My home is, currently, the impressive bungalow hidden away in Hook where my wife and son are probably chasing a couple of insolent dogs. Though if you read the papers, I live in an opulent tent on the beaches of Croatia, which is not true, mind you, or in a cottage in the Netherlands surrounded by goats, which is partly true but only during the Easter holiday. Anyway, no, Wiltshire is no longer my home or anything close to that.”
“Er, good to hear,” said Harry, who looked as if he didn’t know what to say. “Even though I knew that already. What has it been, a year since you’ve been back?”
“Yes, and I’ve been cleaning the Manor out since,” Draco sighed. “Selling things off and breaking curses on everything else.”
“Well, your manor never felt homey to me,” Harry said, smiling weakly. An attempt at something funny? Draco wasn’t sure. But he did agree.
“My son calls it the Stately Home of All That is Murky.”
Tight-lipped, Harry nodded and then looked down at his shoes. Trainers. At the workplace. Draco sighed.
“Anyway, it’s apparently very difficult to just get something done.” Draco turned back to the desk behind them and looked pointedly at the reception desk witch, who stared back unflinchingly.
Harry looked back and forth between them before saying, “Er, let me. Felicity, I’ll take Mr. Malfoy to my office.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“Very.” And with that Harry led the way, taking a handful of the little wrapped candies before striding off.
It took everything in Draco not to revert to his teenage self and make a rude gesture at Felicity as he followed Harry around the desk and down the corridor, past several doors and narrow hallways filled with, presumably, even more doors. They at last came to a very large arched entry flanked by gilded paintings of assorted fruits. On a little gold plaque on the door read, Harry J. Potter, Head of Magical Law Enforcement.
They went inside.
“Take a seat, Draco. Coffee? Tea? I can have someone bring some up.”
“No, thank you,” said Draco, though he could have gone for anything. He took the seat opposite Harry’s desk, which was, for lack of a better word, a disaster. “My god, Potter, is all this your paperwork?”
Harry scratched at the back of his head, “Er…”
Parchment of varying lengths were scattered about, edges unfurling. Letters were crammed into wooden sorters, sealed and unread. Ink bottles were casually strewn about, dripping ink onto the already stained desk. And, to Draco’s horror, more clutter was being added to the pile as he sat there: tiny paper airplanes were swooping in from the open door and landing before Harry, each carrying a memo from someone else that he could only assume would be forgotten.
Harry dropped the sweets he’d pilfered on top of the mess.
“I’m a little behind—” Harry started, and he smiled weakly when Draco just gaped at him. Hastily, he pulled his wand from his cloak pocket and waved it around. The parchment and letters and other papers flew up into the air and sorted themselves out before falling neatly into piles in the corner of Harry’s desk. The ink bottles straightened up and flew back into a cabinet somewhere behind, and the spilled ink was siphoned off and dissolved into nothing. The candies aligned themselves in a perfect row, a colorful line of foil. Harry unwrapped another and plopped it into his mouth.
“Now,” Harry said, apparently pleased at his tidywork. “What can I do for you today?”
Draco eyed Harry suspiciously. “Why are you being so kind to me?” he asked.
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Because you’re you and, well, I’m me.”
“And our sons are best friends. You know this, yes?”
Of course Draco knew this. He’d known this for nearly a year now, since the boys met one summer day, accompanying their mums for brunch. Scorpius had come home, face flushed and shoulders nearly shaking with delight as he spoke about Albus Potter and all the funny things he did. Draco had seen more owls coming through his kitchen windows than he had his entire lifetime, as Albus and Scorpius exchanged letters and small packages, even when they regularly met with their mums in London to shop and eat.
After taking some placement exams and a very delayed sorting, Scorpius started Hogwarts. He was thrilled to not only be in the same House as Albus, but also paired up with him in almost all of his classes and bunked in the adjacent four-poster. It was with Albus that Scorpius had the gall to try out for the Quidditch team and the gumption to break some school rules and earn himself some detentions. It was when he was with Albus that Scorpius seemed better and brighter than he ever had before.
Astoria was in a similar situation. In the year that they’d come back, Astoria not only made a few friends, but also revitalized her career writing children’s books and, with her workspace just above Rita Skeeter’s office down at the Daily Prophet and an arsenal of threats and crafty jinxes, managed to keep her family’s name out of the paper. Draco had never seen her happier.
And what struck Draco as most peculiar was how none of the feelings his wife and son had for their new friends were one-sided. How warmly they were regarded by Ginny and Albus. How quickly they all fell in step with each other, like it had been like this all along.
Surely it had to be a mistake. A cosmic joke. Because why else would the Potters and the Weasleys, who hated Draco, be so kind to his family? And why was Harry being so kind to him now?
“What are you up to, Potter?”
“What am I ‘up to?’ What are you up to?”
“I’m wondering what I’m doing here.”
“Malfoy—Draco,” Harry said, and he pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes, as if he was experiencing a massive headache. Draco noticed how his fringe still fell a bit into his glasses. “Our sons are close.”
“Very close.”
“As are Ginny and Astoria.”
“Obviously.”
“And when it comes to the boys, well, I think we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, yeah?”
Harry wasn’t wrong. Draco had seen Harry at the train station every departure and arrival since Scorpius started at Hogwarts. And when both boys made the Slytherin Quidditch Team, Draco saw Harry at the weekend games, green and silver snakes painted on his cheeks and a rowdy wife next to him, screaming obscenities at the opposing team.
“Sure,” Draco agreed.
“So we should try to get along, yeah?”
“I’m getting along,” Draco said. “I’m getting along better than you.”
“Every time you see me you tell me how old I’m looking!”
“Then age better!”
“Draco.”
“Harry.”
“Let me help you. You want to tear down the Manor, yes?”
“For want of a demolition permit,” Draco sighed. And then under his breath, “And some magical fucking forms.”
“Ah,” said Harry, and Draco’s eyebrows shot up. Did Potter actually know something about his job? “There’s new clearance you have to get before a permit’s granted. It used to be that you’d fill out your application, provide the site plan of where you’re doing the actual demolition, list all the wards you’re dismantling, then list all the Muggle concealment charms you’re going to put up, guarantee you’ll follow all Magical Waste Disposal regulations, make sure you’re not destroying anything of interest to the Magical Heritage Division, and then, finally, get DMLE authorization from yours truly.”
“And now?”
“Well, with the crackdowns on dark magic, the Auror Office has flagged certain, er, homesteads.”
Of course.
“We need to make sure that any jinxes, hexes, curses, or other dark magicks aren’t going to linger.”
“There have been raids already, and I’ve purified everything myself—”
“I believe you,” Harry said. “But our Head Auror probably doesn’t or any of her team or the Hit Wizards who will have to go in. So, yeah, there’s a new form.”
“Apparently,” said Draco, who guessed that he was one of the few people left to whom this special rule even pertained. “Well, if I could get that form then I’ll be on my way—”
“Let me submit for you,” said Harry. Draco cocked an eyebrow. “I’ll talk to the Auror Office, clear you that way. Just post me the rest of your application. I’ll even refer you to the usual demolition crew the Ministry uses.”
“You’d do that?”
“If it makes life easy and keeps you here, then Albus is happy. And when Albus is happy, I’m happy. Or at least a little less stressed.” A small smile played on Harry's lips.
“I—I would appreciate that very much.”
“Anything for Scorpius Malfoy’s dad, yeah?” And Harry was full-on smiling then, eyes crinkled behind his glasses and looking more like he did when they were boys, with his friends at Hogwarts while Draco glared enviously from afar.
Draco laughed. He couldn’t help it. The absurdity of sitting there with Harry Potter, who he used to hate, talking about their sons who, despite everything, were somehow the best of friends, was getting to him.
But soon the levity subsided, making way for an uncomfortable silence filled awkwardly by the grumbling of Draco’s stomach. How humiliating. He made to get up and sputtered out a quick farewell when Harry stopped him.
“Listen, er—my mates and I, well, we usually get together on Mondays for breakfast, and if you wanted to come along…” Harry trailed off as he tugged at his collar, looking down at his desk and then up at the ceiling. Anywhere that wasn’t Draco.
“To breakfast?” Draco’s belly rumbled in interest while he tried to keep an even, disinterested tone.
“Yes, we take turns picking a spot and get some coffee, me and Bill Weasley and our friend, Rolf—”
“Oh, like Astoria and Ginny and their friends?” Draco asked. This was all sounding familiar.
Harry stopped fiddling with his clothes and stood up. He and Draco were about the same height.
“Well, not unlike Ginny and Astoria and their Sunday thing.”
“No Granger or Weasley?”
“No,” said Harry, and Draco was surprised by that. “I see them all the time.” Because of course he did. “Bill and I have always got on really well and since Ginny’s been seeing Luna again, I thought it’d be polite to invite Rolf. Turns out he’s really funny. Bit weird, but who isn’t?”
Draco was catching on.
“And since Astoria’s in the picture, you thought you’d give me a pity invite as well?”
“What? No,” Harry scrambled. “I just thought—we’re too old for this right? This—this rivalry? Our sons go to school together and they’re friends so we should be—”
“I am not going to be your friend, Potter.”
“I was going to say ‘friendly,’” Harry supplied. “For the boys’ sakes.”
Draco chewed on this as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and toed at a frayed bit of rug under the desk. The door behind him was open. He could slip out, try to forget this entire conversation, and get on with his life. He could knock a few things off Harry’s desk before he left, too, for good measure. Though Potter would probably just work around the mess.
But when he looked back to find Harry looking pained, like it took every ounce of courage to just ask Draco to join him, Draco caved.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine! I’ll come to your little breakfast.” He turned to leave, swiping one of Harry’s sweets from the desk.
“Perfect,” said Harry, though he looked a bit ill. Perhaps he didn’t think Draco would agree. Maybe Ginny told him to invite Draco in the first place. Perhaps he’d change his mind— “I’ll owl you the details.”