Scorpius's Decision 5

He couldn't sleep. That much was painfully obvious after fifteen minutes of staring at his ceiling. Where was bathtime? Where was that last apple, please daddy, before bed? Where was Perry landing on him just before Scorpius's little body followed because he couldn't sleep without just one more hug?

Bloody hell, was his sleep cycle really that reliant on his son? He rolled out of bed, padded across the hall to his office to grab a sheet of parchment.

Harry,

I realize how late it is and I do hate to bother you. I find myself

What? What could he write here? He missed his son, missed the routine. He vanished the last line.

Could we chat? A floo call would be simpler, if you don't mind.

~Draco

Shaking his head, he rolled up the small sheet and wandered up to his little attic. There was hardly enough room to stand in it if one looked at the house from the outside, but Draco had always been fond of the charming little idea of having a big attic bedroom. It was made up as a guest room at the moment because Draco couldn't quite tolerate the idea of being all the way up here while his son was downstairs, but...

Well, he supposed he could stay up here this night. Though the thought was brushed aside as quickly as it came. It wasn't his and Draco had always been fond of things that were his. He lifted an arm and the owl that descended upon it was a rather bulkier breed than he would normally have chosen. Since Arthur often had the burden of carting entire books, or at least sections, all the way to London (or beyond if Ernie was traveling at an inconvenient moment) bulky was better.

"You'll have a rather easy flight tonight, I imagine." He tied the note to his leg. "To Harry Potter. Return with the note if he's asleep, give it to him if he isn't. I don't expect a reply." He fished a treat from the bowl on the sill, a spot he only trusted the treats because Arthur was well-trained, and offered it. Arthur plucked it from his fingers with the grace of a much smaller bird and was gone.

And Draco felt foolish. One bloody night without his son and he was going mad. Grumbling to himself, he made his way down the stairs and to his kitchen. He grabbed one of Scorpius's apples purely out of habit and then decided to just keep it. They needed more anyway. A quick perusal of his fridge informed him that they needed more of everything and he vaguely wondered when he'd last gone out.

A quill was in his hand with a thought, the notepad stuck to the fridge via magnets was filled as Draco began making a list. Shopping. He could do that while Scorpius was out. While the boy was generally well-behaved in stores, there was always the inevitable "I want-" The moment those words were out, Draco would get absolute essentials if they weren't already in hand and get out. It was much easier to say "Not today" once and leave to get nonessentials later than to say it on repeat until Scorpius was just asking to ask.

"Little brat," he murmured fondly.

"Draco?"

He nearly jumped out of his pants which, Draco realized as he rounded on Harry, was still all he was wearing. Floo calls didn't require clothes. Floo calls... Shite, how long had he been in there? Entirely too long, judging from Harry's stance. His wand was in his hand and he was glancing about warily. When that emerald gaze finally settled on Draco, they widened a fraction and Draco cleared his throat. Well. Shite.

"Hello. I'm afraid I got a bit caught up."

His wand was tucked in his back pocket, which nearly made Draco smile. That was such a... childish place to put your wand. If it went off... "Caught up doing what?"

He tapped his quill to the list on the fridge, added bread to it before vanishing the quill. "Shopping list. It's easier to go without Scorpius. He's good, but-"

"When he wants something, he wants it." Harry tucked his hands in his pockets, leaned against the jamb and grinned. Draco's mouth watered. "The first time I took him anywhere, he behaved the entire time until we got to produce. He fell in a box of watermelons. Climbed right out of the little trolley and toppled in when my back was turned."

Now Draco did smile, but turned to dispose of his apple core before he could see the way Harry's eyes widened again. But he was biting his lip, just a bit, when Draco looked back. Smile gone, he gestured to himself. "I'm afraid you're the second person to catch me in this."

"Who-?"

"My mother. I was writing."

"Do you, ah, forget they're there?" At Draco's lifted brow, color flitted into Harry's cheeks. "Some of the things you write. How do you do it when your parents can walk in at any moment?"

"Well, it isn't as if they can lean over my shoulder." There was bitterness in his tone that he tried to wave away, but Harry's curious gaze didn't waver. Well, the curiosity he could deal with. It was the concern, the genuine quality of it that was harder to resist. "It's difficult to know that they can't. But I keep that portrait in my office because mother enjoyed my books and it was always a good, simple way to communicate without sending owls or waiting for floo calls. Or getting distracted from possible calls," he added in an effort to move the conversation along.

"You miss them."

Draco started to run a hand through his hair, changing the motion to brush something invisible off his shoulder instead. He was entirely too comfortable with Har- Potter if he was going to muss his hair. It was bad enough that he was in his kitchen in his boxers. "Daily," he replied at length. "But it's getting easier. I snapped at mother tonight, so it's weighing rather heavily."

"You miss Scorpius."

Damn him and his astuteness. Draco flicked his gaze up. "I suppose it's silly. It's difficult to sleep without my child-driven routine."

"I had Teddy wear him out, so he dropped off pretty easily. They were running around the parlor catching snitches."

"Parlor? I wasn't aware your flat had a parlor."

Color tinted his cheeks again and Draco found himself smiling. It was nice to know that he could throw the auror off even in this rather... embarrassingly vulnerable position. He cocked his hip, rested against the side of the counter, and waited. "I stay at Grimmauld Place when I have Teddy. He feels more at home there; I guess it's an instinctual tie." He had some werewolf tendencies (including an extremely strong sense of smell) and particularly enjoyed staying in the room his own parents had stayed in when it had still been safe to use as Order Headquarters. "I've got more room, at any rate, and Kreacher can help me when I need it."

"The house-elf."

Mild surprise passed over his face before memory and then caution before Harry cleared his throat and straightened from the wall. "Yeah."

And Draco knew he was about to flee. Neither of them were really very good at discussing the past, or even thinking about it when they came in contact with one another. It was nicer, easier to believe it hadn't even happened. That was obviously not conducive to this - what had he decided earlier? - this tentative friendship. "Come." Draco strode across the room and left the kitchen to sit in the dining room beyond.

Harry went along, sinking warily into the chair Draco gestured for him to sit in. It should've been much easier to sit across the table from him and not be facing a surprisingly lean and virtually nude Draco Malfoy in his kitchen. It was virtually impossible to sit across the table from him when there weren't any signs that he was clothed at all. It left things to the imagination that Harry wasn't quite able to beat back, things that quickened his pulse and - depending on how limber that lean body was - would put Draco's writing to shame.

But then Harry hadn't been laid in... a depressing amount of time and he was holding one of those books. He wondered vaguely if Draco had even noticed that and then seized on the thought and set the book on the table. "Here. I finished this one. Wrote in the margins like you asked."

"Does it always take you this long to read a book?" Draco murmured, reaching across the table. He slid the book over and flipped it open, skimming a few pages at random. It seemed he'd spelled the word "raed" once or twice rather than "read" but little flubs like that were common when he typed too fast and he hadn't run this copy through the spell-check yet. He'd been curious to see what all Harry would catch.

And he found it interesting how well-cared for the text was. The pages were all relatively smooth, the corners not folded over as they too-often got when Draco had a piece of literature in his hands. It was when he got to one of the sexual scenes that some wear showed, at the edges where his fingers had gripped. Draco held the book out and up in both hands, his thumbs pressing over the creases. And it was the bottom corners, rather than the top that had been fiddled with.

It either showed great irritation while reading those scenes, or... Draco lifted a hand, bit his thumb, and heard an audible swallow. When he looked up, Harry's cheeks were red and his gaze was quickly averted. It was... well, Draco couldn't deny that he wasn't flattered... and turned-on to know that Harry focused so intensely on these parts. A quick flip-through, because he knew where each of those scenes were, showed the same intense focus and a lack of marking on them all. Clearly, he needed no extra assistance when it came to writing this.

He fingered the corner of a page where Harry had curled it already. "The auror sections?"

"Bits and pieces were off, but nothing too major. Nothing that'll harm the plot anyway."

"It isn't just the plot I'm worried about. I enjoy accuracy." Draco frowned and Harry wondered if he knew he looked pointier when he did that or when he sneered. He'd always thought during their school years that Draco was just a pointy-faced git, a ferret as Ron sometimes like to remind him. But even that amusing memory was tainted with the knowledge that what Mad-Eye had done had actually been what Barty Crouch Jr. had done. And then, of course, came the irritable thought that old Mad-Eye was dead, gone before he could learn the outcome of the war. Gone before he could even learn the outcome of that little battle over Little Whinging.

He looked up to find Draco gazing at him, eyes as unreadable as they'd been since Harry had walked in. There's been a mild embarrassment at one point, a flash of humor. But other than that, Draco Malfoy tended to remain decidedly unreadable.

"When I made it home tonight, I thought of how unbelievable it was that I had eaten a meal with the Weasleys. More, that I'd enjoyed it and even stayed for conversation afterwards. It made me think of the past, of the reasons why it was so surprising. Are you good with dates, Potter?"

Back to 'Potter.' Harry leaned back, tried not to take offense. "Not really."

"Today was the day you faced off with merpeople during the Triwizard Tournament."

A lifetime ago. "How do you remember that?"

"It was ridiculously dull. So much waiting in those stupid stands. So much complaining. I remember Nott sat in front of me and he was fidgeting and crabby and kept looking back. 'Bloody fuck, Malfoy, why do you think we even have to be here? I say leave it to the 'Puffs and the damned Gryffindors. Cold as Merlin's tomb.' Crabbe grunted; he was fond of that..."

"Don't you call any of them by their first names?"

"Blaise and Pansy. For a time, Goyle was Greg or Gregory. He's decided to place himself on the outskirts of my familiarity, though."

"Obviously."

Draco tilted his head to the side, studying Harry carefully. He excelled with Occlumency, but he hadn't been able to master Legilimency. He'd always found his own mind so much more interesting than that of others. Though with Harry looking at him like that, Draco found himself wishing he'd studied both sides of that coin. "You sound angrier about it than I do."

"It was bullshit." Draco's lips quirked at that rather odd wording and would've asked where he'd heard it, but Harry continued. "That entire thing was. They had no right, none, to take you from Scorpius like that. And then to threaten the boy? No." Harry shook his head, clearly incensed. "Their reasonings were ridiculous and selfish, and abduction just isn't right to begin with."

"Ah." Draco toyed with his wand, considering something. "It's nice of you to be angry on my behalf."

Harry shrugged, looking away. "I've always been able to get angry."

"I'm aware."

It hung heavy between them for a moment, because Harry had looked back at him and was very obviously gazing at the top of a scar he'd inflicted eleven years before. Draco leaned back in his chair, lifting his gaze to Harry's. "I've managed to stay alive through your bouts of anger, luckily."

"I'm sorry about-"

"Don't." Draco shook his head. "It was rather obvious that you didn't have any idea what that spell was or did by your reaction. Myrtle panicked, didn't she?"

"Good thing she did," Harry said quietly and Draco rolled his eyes.

"The only thing that's greater than a Gryffindor's ability to be foolish is his ability to feel guilt. The fact is that I'm alive, several times over, thanks to you. I'm sure your Weasley has a running tally of all the times you've saved me. One accidental curse that I did not die from is hardly worthy of guilt over a decade later. I've certainly had worse markings."

Harry's gaze flicked to the Dark Mark on the blonde's forearm, then quickly back. Draco turned his arm, gazed at it. "If I'd known this was going to become such a heart-to-heart, I may have just forced myself to go to sleep."

"Sorry. You, ah, didn't answer the call and your note wasn't exactly informative."

"No. I wasn't entirely sure what to say. It seems my sleep schedule is child regulated." He ordered himself to get back to familiar territory, away from the past. "I was wondering how he was doing and trying to figure out how not to seem entirely pathetic because of it."

"It's not pathetic to worry about your son. I'd be dead if your mother didn't worry about you."

Draco slowly met Harry's gaze once more. "Do you know she never told me about that. Never. I heard about it during the trials and when I asked her about it, she wouldn't explain. I never asked again. Why did she do it? Had he realized or even suspected that she was lying..."

"She did it for the same reason my mother got in Voldemort's way, the same reason you hid Scorpius in an alley and kept him safe rather than let him get taken with you."

Draco leaned back, studying the brunette. "Parents are incredibly ridiculous creatures."

Harry laughed. "I've dodged a curse, then." He got to his feet. "Anyway, I should go. The boys were asleep when I left, but who knows now? Kreacher won't be able to handle them both."

"Of course." Draco rose, lifted a hand towards the kitchen and out to the living room. "I'll show you out."

His lips twitched as he made his way through the kitchen. "That Malfoy breeding just doesn't die, does it?"

"Please, Potter, would anyone with less than Malfoy breeding be able to face you in pants?" Reaching the living room, Draco went to the floo to get his powder pot from the mantle.

The twitching became a full grin. "Would anyone with Malfoy breeding be able to face me in less than pants?"

Grateful his back was turned so Harry wouldn't see the color that rushed to his face, Draco cleared his throat. "Well. That all depends on the occasion. Malfoy breeding naturally prepares one for all kinds of situations."

He turned to find Harry beet red, his own statement apparently catching up with him. Draco offered the floo powder and a pinch was quickly taken up. "Ah... Alright, then."

Draco returned the powder to the mantle. "For the record, Harry, I think you would make a rather excellent parent. The children clearly adore you and you're not exactly-"

Whatever else he'd been aiming to say was quickly muffled by Harry's rather warm, full lips. Harry had grabbed his arm to spin him and was still holding it, his other hand coming up to Draco's shoulder. In defense from the spin, Draco's hand had lifted and was now curled tightly in the brunette's shirt. But it was nothing, really, just a firm press of lips to his.

It was a good thing he was holding Harry's shirt, though, because that firm press of lips made his knees weak. Harry stepped back after a moment, swallowing hard. "Well... I probably wasn't going to sleep anyway." He tossed the powder in. "Grimmauld Place," he announced and stepped through.

Draco lifted a hand and clung to the mantle, staring into the flames long after they'd gone back to their natural hue. "Well... lovely chatting with you too, Potter."