Title: Celebrating the First of June
Summary: Draco Malfoy celebrates his 42nd birthday with the people he loves most.
Rating: PG
Warnings: suicide attempt (unsuccessful); fluff; father/son relationship; undeclared love
~ = = = ~
SCORPIUS
Consolations, by Liszt. Number 6, I recognized from the curvy melody. That is my favorite term for the technicalities of the piece — “the melody is very curvy, Mummy.” I was six when it was taught to me.
It followed me as I descended the grand staircase, and became louder until I finally approached the source in the drawing room.
He sat tall and handsome at the piano, his figure swaying along with the movement of those slender fingers across the keys. The long blond hair was gathered low at the base of his nape, tied with a single black satin ribbon. The tips of it curled in the middle where his shoulderblades met. He was dressed in a dark, long-sleeved formal jacket, paired with crisp black trousers. He looked majestic that morning.
I chose the leather loveseat opposite the piano to sit on, directly behind him so that I could watch and listen. Beyond the piano, our eight-paneled window showcased a beautiful morning outside. Sunshine began to sip through despite the early hour, and a gentle breeze created a slow, waltz-like sway of the greens by the window. What a lovely way to welcome summer.
I’d loved listening to either of my parents when they played. Mum played with a smile on her face, whether a rhapsody or ballad from the romance era, or a melancholy tune by Chopin, she always approached any piece of music with a positive attitude. “Sadness marks a beginning of happiness along the road,” she’d used to say. “Always remember that. When there’s sadness, joy is sure to come soon.” At seven years old, that sounded very cryptic to me. At thirteen, the saying made absolutely no sense as I experienced such immense grief that I never would have wished on anyone else. At sixteen, I’m still trying to comprehend the meaning of it, if it at all existed.
Dad always played wholeheartedly, like he put his every thought and emotion into the piece he was playing. His style tended to be very bold; if it had been a waltz, it would’ve been suitable for a royal banquet, and if it had been a ballad, people would weep listening to it. There was never halfway with Dad; it was always all or nothing. He did not play very often, but when he did, it was tremendously profound.
When he finished the piece, I gently clapped. He didn’t startle, but paused for a moment to register my presence. When he turned to address me, I nodded at him and offered a smile.
“Good morning,” he greeted.
“Happy birthday, Dad. Quite a melancholy one to start off summer, don’t you agree?”
He tilted his head to one side, then turned back to the keys and started something that sounded like Sergei Rachaminoff’s Sleeping Beauty. I chuckled and clapped again. I noticed the side of his face stretched; he was smiling, too.
House-elves appeared as if on cue, pushing a silver cart of breakfast things. Thick, hot tea with fresh cream on the side, strawberries, champagne for the celebration, and the Full English on two round plates. The fried eggs were litterally still bubbling when they were served to me. I thanked them properly; they still blushed when I did so (though they’d stopped hitting themselves with cleaning broomsticks by now).
I poured the champagne into two crystal goblets. Nibbling on a strawberry I watched him play until the piece was done. I gave another hearty clap, and invited him over to the table. I prepared the tea for him.
“What are your plans today?” He asked, sipping on the tea and humming in gratitude at the perfect brew.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that instead?” I teased. “It’s your birthday. We can go to town, do some shopping, then early dinner and theater? Would you like that?” I took a big bite off a sausage and chased it with a forkful of gooey eggs.
“That sounds lovely. Sure. What play do you have in mind?”
There actually was Sleeping Beauty at the West End that the both of us agreed to see. It ended up being marvelous. I bought him a nice set of leather journals for his upcoming travels. We had dinner at a Muggle-run establishment nearby where the food was served on authentic chinaware and crystals, and the table hosted silk napkins that felt so soft to the touch. We dined on succulent poultry and drank robust wine (he let me have my own full glass; the server did not question). We talked and laughed and talked some more. It was a beautiful night.
“Scorpius,” he said just as we Floo’d into Malfoy Manor, “thank you. For everything. I had the best birthday.”
“I’m glad—“
“But it is the first week of your very last school summer holiday, son. The next one will be very, very different for you. You’ll be in the last year of Hogwarts soon. So go out, have fun. Enjoy it.”
“I appreciate that, Dad, but I’m really ok staying with you.”
“Go see Albus,” he said gently. “I thought you said he invited you to stay with them for a bit?”
That was true. Albus did. He’d owled just the night before, too, to remind me the invitation still stood openly.
So I packed up and gave Dad a lasting birthday hug. Then I Floo’d to the Potters’s.
~ = = = ~
HARRY
He’d found Draco in Romania two years prior, at a monastery of all places. It was a dingy room with one rectangular slit of a window on a stone wall. He’d sat on a small wooden table sporting a deep, horizontal gash on his left wrist. A Muggle-made razor was clasped in his right hand. His face was raised to the burst of sunlight coming through the window, eyes open but unseeing, lips slightly parted.
It had been his birthday afternoon. He’d been staying there for a couple of nights. The monks began to worry when Draco did not appear for the fourth time during their routine daily meals and contacted the one name Draco had provided when he’d checked in. Harry was suspicious when his Muggle-made cell phone had rung that day showing an unrecognizeable international number.
“You have my son,” was his reasoning to Harry. “You would’ve taken good care of him. I wanted you to find me.”
Harry had to force himself not to curse Malfoy to the pits of hell. He performed the quickest emergency first aid spells, just enough to stop the bleeding and keep Malfoy alive while he explained to the monks that they were leaving. Then he’d taken them on a long journey through various international Floo networks, and miraculously kept Draco breathing until they’d reached St. Mungo’s.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” Harry chastised at the hospital as soon as the pale blonde gained enough consciousness to comprehend anything. “Scorpius needs you. He adores the shit out of you, don’t you know that? Your son loves you, Draco, and he’s still here. So you need to figure out a way to cope with this grief and depression and be a father to Scorpius. You’ve got to do that much, because you two need each other desperately. Fuck, I can’t believe you did what you did…”
Harry had been distraught, once more, by Malfoy, years after school was over for them both. He despised that—at the same time craved for it. He continued to monitor Malfoy ever since, as inconspicuously as he could muster. He listened intently to Albus’s stories that involved Scorpius, because through those stories he could follow Malfoy’s progress. As long as Scorpius remained cheerful through Albus’s counts, that implied that Draco was also fine.
Scorpius stayed with the Potters last year, like he always did, and Harry decided to pay a visit to Malfoy Manor. Leaving Draco Malfoy alone on his birthday was no longer ever an option in Harry’s mindset. He’d stayed with Draco until the wee hours of the morning, sharing a whiskey, listening to him play the piano, listening to him cry his heart out. Then he’d left. They’d never said more than five words to each other that night.
So when Harry found Draco sillhoueted against the window in the Malfoys’s drawing room this year, he exhaled a huge breath of relief. It had been later at night when Scorpius had arrived by Floo at Grimmauld Place. Harry had listened to the boy’s quick recap of his father’s birthday celebration, meanwhile dressing quickly to Floo over to Malfoy Manor. He’d instantly departed once Scorpius stopped talking. Scorpius would never understand this behaviour; he found it quite bizarre, and Harry would never want the boy to find out.
Draco stood tall and lanky with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a glass of whiskey. The bottle sat on a round ornate table next to him by the window, a second empty glass next to it.
“You’re here,” was his way to acknowledge Harry’s arrival.
“Scorpius came in late; I was getting worried sick all day. Sounds like you had a great birthday, though. I mean, he sounded cheerful enough.”
Without turning away from the window, “You really love that kid.”
“He keeps Albus happy. He’s all Albus ever talks about, so yes, I do like him quite a bit. And you’d better take good care of him.” Harry picked up the empty glass and filled half of it with golden liquid. “Happy birthday, Draco.”
The blonde offered a sideways glance at Harry, the corner of his mouth curved into that smirk Harry had gotten so used to seeing over the decades. “You know, you should really try to stop chastising me, Harry. It’s been years; it’s getting really old.”
“Hm. You’d like that, wouldn’t you.” Harry met the glance, then gestured towards the piano behind them. “Play something for me.”
This time, the blonde straight out chuckled. It was a flat one, not mocking, neither joyful. Just pure reaction. “I played all morning for my son earlier. I need to rest these hands. Besides,” he checked the table clock, “it’s almost midnight. My birthday’s nearly over.”
“No matter. We can still do something. Anything. Whatever you want. I need to keep you awake.”
Just like that, the indigo summer sky suddenly cracked open and water doused the earth. The greens outside the window, happily dancing in the morning breeze just hours prior, now sulked downwards as rain fell upon them.
“And it’s been a fine day all day long,” Harry commented, taking another gulp as he watched droplets tap against the glass of Draco’s window.
“Even the finest days need to weep sometimes, Harry. You can only be fine for so long before sorrow catches up on you.”
He approached the piano despite his own previous words. With the whiskey glass settled on top, he sat down and placed his fingers on the keys. He looked up at Harry, genuinely smiling. “This is for you.”
A melody began to take shape as slender fingers danced, faster and faster. Harry moved to stand by the piano, his body leaning against the instrument.
“It’s a Schubert sonata,” Harry suddenly blurted out. Draco was honestly so shocked that he stopped playing for a second. It was Harry’s turn to smirk. “We have a piano at home, too, you know, and your son plays for us sometimes. He’s been doing that for years.”
“Still, not a piece anyone would recognize so quickly. I’m impressed, Potter.”
The rain tapping on the window served as an efficient metronome as Draco continued to play, one piece after another, switching from Schubert to Liszt then Mozart, then back to Schubert, until he honestly and thoroughly was tired. The table clock boasted one in the morning. His birthday had passed.
“Thank you,” Draco whispered, eyes on the clock. “Thanks for doing this with me every year. I’m really fine, now. You don’t have to… I mean, I’m grateful, but you don’t need to… if there was ever any feelings of obligation…”
“I’m staying, Draco.”
“I’m out of tunes to play anymore, Potter.”
Harry reached out to touch Draco on the cheek; his fingers caressed gently against Draco’s soft skin. The blonde leaned into it; his eyes fluttered closed.
“I’m staying.”
~Fin~
