Albus and Scorpius are definitely the kind of people to co-parent a pet and Draco shouldn’t have been so surprised when Scorpius started referring to them as his child. He did after all attend many an afternoon tea with his young son’s collection of toys, who didn’t just have names but also complex and ever changing social circles that he could never quite keep up with. But he vividly remembers the day he gets a letter from teenage Scorpius congratulating him on becoming a grandparent to little William. Draco had already stood up and was about to apparate straight into his dormitory, laws of magic be damned, but then he sees something about mice??? Once it’s all finally clicked into place and his heart has stopped beating out of his chest, (he’s both too young and too old for this), he writes back to Scorpius telling him he’s happy he is so happy. And he is. That part is true. It’s everything he doesn’t say that makes him insist upon William staying at the Potter’s house over the holidays. Because I refuse to believe Draco fully recovered from the trauma of having to live with Nagini and he’s ashamed of that. He’s worked so hard to be a better person, to be the husband and father his family deserves. To leave the rest in the past where it belongs. The fact he had that immediate reaction makes him feel like he’s back at square one. So he doesn’t tell Scorpius why.
Naturally, Scorpius tries to change his mind about William’s summer living arrangements. He takes his parenting skills seriously. He’s learned from the best, after all. (He’ll later tell Draco this but that’s for another post.) So the weekly letters soon start to arrive with photos. One of a smiling Scorpius holding little William up in his hands to the camera. Another of a distressed Albus staring down at William smudging his homework. Another one of the two of them in the common room. The note on the back says he has to see if he can spot William. (He’s glad when he doesn’t. Then he realises he won’t be able to lie to Scorpius when he asks if he found him. So he searches until he sees the little pale tail sticking out of an abandoned cauldron on the floor.) Then a photo arrives of Scorpius sleeping. The sight warms his heart. It seems it doesn’t matter how old he is, his son still sleeps like he did when he was a toddler. Limbs all over place, hair even worse. But the smile falls from his face when he spots the snake slowly making his way towards his unsuspecting son. The loop resets as he reaches the pillow but it’s enough to trigger a string of nightmares. He remembers locking his bedroom door each night but still lying there, watching for shadows under his door. The sleepless nights were better than the feeling of vulnerability. But Draco is in his forties now. He’s not the same scared boy he was. And this isn’t Nagini. It’s William Snakespeare, his son’s tiny Palmetto corn snake. He can do this. He will do this. For Scorpius and for himself.
So when summer comes around, he reluctantly agrees to meet him when he drops Scorpius off at the Potters. He goes to knock on the door but Scorpius has already let himself in, frantically kicked his shoes off, and is taking the stairs two steps at a time. He calls out a reprimand but Ginny appears and tells him she’s been trying to get him to relax here forever. If she’d known all it took was a snake she would have brought them one herself years ago. Thankfully he doesn’t get a chance to think of a response to that before Scorpius starts shouting for him upstairs. He apologises for his son’s behaviour (“believe it or not, hearing them shout at each other is what makes this home, and Scorpius will always have a place here”), and he slowly makes his way up. He spots Albus’s bedroom straight away. The door is open but the green A makes it obvious. He walks past a door with a red J and smiles to himself at the scrap of parchment stuck next to it, where ‘uvenile’ had been written and then crossed out and now has ‘ealous?’ written over it. He really is grateful to have been an only child. He reaches Albus’s room and knocks on the doorframe. Albus and Scorpius look up in sync, their matching grins doing nothing to settle his nerves. He walks in and stops short of the tank. He sees William curled around a branch in the corner. Small and harmless. He stands there staring at it, determined to show no fear. Albus and Scorpius are spouting out positive facts and reassurances but he doesn’t hear them. He can feel the sweat collecting and the tightness in his chest though.
At some point Harry arrived in the doorway. He’s the first one to make the connection. Of course he is. He watches as Draco’s eyes widen and grip tightens on his wand as Scorpius leans into the tank and lifts William out. Harry wouldn’t exactly call Malfoy a friend (yet) but he has to admit how much he admires him as a father. He really will do anything and everything for his son. Because he knows how much he must hate this, he doesn’t need his Auror training to pick up on how stressed he is in this situation. But he watches as he reaches out and touches the snake anyway. He waits until there’s a hint of a smile on Draco’s face before he decides to say something in parseltongue. Draco immediately withdraws his hand and turns to glare at him. But it doesn’t instil fear in him as much as Scorpius’s reaction does. “You can still… Merlin! Ask him if he’s okay! Or if he needs anything? Oh! Teach me how to say hello! No, ‘hello William I’m Scor’- wait, what if that isn’t their name? What if we’ve been calling them the wrong name all this time?! Mr Potter, Harry, ask them what we should call them.”
Now that the focus is off him and William is being shoved towards Harry instead, Draco politely makes his excuses to leave. He knows how Scorpius gets when he discovers something he needs to learn immediately. He smirks at Potter on his way out. He has no idea what he’s opened himself up to. Sweet, sweet revenge. He accepts a tea from Ginny and the two of them listen to an out of depth Harry trying to teach Scorpius upstairs. It’s very entertaining and lightens the feeling in his chest. The two easily fall into conversation. The boy’s upcoming final year. The new restaurant that’s just opened in Diagon Alley. The best gnome deterrent for Draco’s new vegetable patch. It means they don’t notice when it quietens down upstairs.
Harry has witnessed an excitable Scorpius, but he’s never had it directed solely at him before. It’s… something else. Definitely good though. He never thought they’d have this after fourth year. He’d tried hard to build his trust and mend their relationship. Not just for Albus but for them too. Scorpius is a good kid, he can see that now. One that deserves the support so many neglect to offer him. Harry also realises that maybe knowing Scorpius will also help him understand Albus. His son is usually the first to duck out to a quiet spot on Sundays at the Burrow. So to see him light up around such an expressive individual surprises him. Scorpius who starts a new sentence before he’s even finished the previous, who talks even louder with his hands than he does his voice, who drops in actual squeaks when he’s too excited to think of a word. Watching all that and seeing how it only brings Albus even more out of his shell has Harry realising he doesn’t even need to understand. He just needs to nourish this. So he takes a seat on Albus’s bed and gets to work. While Albus moans that he didn’t inherit any of the good stuff, Scorpius has scrambled for a quill and several feet of parchment. Apparently they’re going to be here for a while then. It’s not until Scorpius makes an offhand comment about practising at home that Harry stops. He asks Albus to go grab them all drinks and once he’s left the room, he quietly explains why speaking parseltongue at home might not be such a good idea. He knows it might not be his place, and that Draco will most definitely be annoyed he’s brought this up and to his son no less, but he hopes Scorpius understands why he felt he needed to. Scorpius is horrified that he didn’t realise sooner and upset that his dad didn’t say anything. Because looking back, his uneasiness was obviously more than reluctance. They drop the conversation as they hear Albus walking back up the stairs but the worried but thankful look Scorpius gives Harry hopes it means he’s finally done right by him.
Scorpius comes home two days later. Equally high on life and deflated with exhaustion. To say Albus likes his sleep, the boys rarely seem to get any when there’s no roommates to be quiet around. Ginny really needs to step up her random sugar raids because Draco definitely recognises an extreme sugar crash when he sees one. He goes upstairs to help him unpack and clocks the look Scorpius gives him when he pulls a new photo of William out of his bag. He then notices his son fiddling with his bag strap. He’s nervous. Ah. It seems he hasn’t hidden this as well as he’d hoped. He drops Scorpius’s worn clothes in the laundry basket and places Albus’s hoodie on the back of his desk chair. Scorpius hasn’t said it in words but he doesn’t wash the ‘borrowed’ hoodies, he seems to like the fact they still smell like Albus. But the reason behind that is another conversation for another time. Right now Scorpius appears to want the conversation he’s been dreading. With nothing else to delay or distract him, he sits down on the newly made space on his bed and begins. He hates reliving his past and he’s even more wary now that it could potentially trigger something for his son too. Scorpius hadn’t mentioned Nagini in the other reality but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. That she couldn’t have hurt him. Merlin, he hadn’t even thought about that. Before he can lose himself in a new nightmare, he tells him of his old one. Scorpius understands his reaction, what he can’t understand is why he didn’t tell him. “But you were so happy, and I didn’t want yet another thing from my past to take that away from you.” His honesty is enough for Scorpius. But his response feels too much for Draco. “It wouldn’t have, because our future is stronger.”
William is not so little by the time he visits the Manor. Scorpius promises to keep him in his room at all times and swears his tank has so many charms on it that not even Harry Potter himself could get out of it! Which he then promptly laughs at, since he was the one who actually helped him apply them.
“That’s not very reassuring, Scorpius. Potter takes things like that as a challenge. He’ll be out and slithering down for poached eggs by morning. Too much time spent in the company of Potters, that’s what it’ll be. It’s what always happens.”
“Hey! He’s lived with me too!”
“A Potter and Malfoy combination. A truly terrifying prospect. I’ve changed my mind. Send him back to Potter.”
Draco finally lets his smile slip through at that. Winding Scorpius up really is too easy. But then antagonising Draco isn’t exactly hard either.
“And anyway, he’s part Weasley too.”
“Too far, Scorpius. Too far.”
