Chapter 3
Draco sat in his chair in Potter’s office. Potter!! His Thursday just couldn’t really get much worse.
He considered Potter’s question. He cast his mind back. He remembered the manor. It had been beyond horrible back then. His sentence had been two years house arrest, which had started the January after the war. The month before his sentence was up, his mother- who was stuck in that house for much longer than he- had presented him with a marriage contract. Well, a marriage contract of sorts. It was a magical bond that would dissolve when an heir was born. It also stipulated that the heir remain with the Malfoy's. Draco hadn’t seen a choice.
Weeks away from freedom, he shackled himself instead to the vapid, cruel and oh-so-young Astoria Greengrass. She had agreed, because the bond gave her lifelong access to a hefty portion of the Malfoy vaults. She had been eighteen, with all the softness of youth and all the sharpness of teenagehood. She had done her duty though, diligently. A bit too diligently, if his memories of soft touches and lacy undergarments served him correctly. And he had done his in return, with much less enthusiasm, and then the wonderful month came when she was late. Narcissa had insisted that the couple stay in Malfoy Manor for the duration of the pregnancy. Astoria had hated watching her skin stretch and mar, and Draco had avoided everything. He holed himself up in his study with his father’s law books and a small, budding dream.
Nine months of waiting culminated in a blood curdling scream in the middle of the night. Draco had run across the manor to Astoria’s apartments and found her there, sweating and screaming, bent over the edge of the bed. He demanded they go to Saint Mungo’s but Narcissa had refused, letting slip that the bond used had not been a legal one, and instead Draco had worn a hole in the west wing carpet with his pacing as he watched his mother deliver his pride and joy into the world. The labour had lasted five hours, all told, which Draco now knew to be fast, but at the time each minute had felt like a year. Astoria had yelled and cried and screamed and pushed. Narcissa had knelt between her legs and whispered sweet encouragement and wiped her brow with damp towels and Draco had never seen his mother so… motherly. He did not know she was capable of such gentleness, but her hands were gentle where they rested on Astoria’s thighs, and her words were gentle as she coached Astoria through, and her arms were gentle when Scorpius rested in them.
Once Scorpius was breathing, and the cord was cut, and he was swaddled in the same thick, green blanket Draco himself had been swaddled in, Astoria had left. still bleeding, still dripping in sweat, she had gone through the floo into her mother’s waiting arms. Narcissa had cooed over the baby before going to bed and Draco…
Draco had fled. Scorpius with him, Draco had gathered his pre-packed things, and he had run away in the early hours of the morning.
“Malfoy? Did anyone do any tests on Scorpius as a baby?” Potter said again, pulling Draco out of memory and back to the world of the living. Draco couldn’t speak, wrapped up in the past. He shook his head, ashamed.
He should have done better by his son but the idea of his son spending his first days in that Manor, surrounded by dark magic and pain and a long terrible legacy of violence and cruelty, under the thumb of his parents, was abhorrent to Draco. He couldn’t stand the idea of something so pure and Good as a newborn baby in a place so abjectly evil, so he had just left.
“No, no tests were done. Scorpius’ birth was somewhat… unorthodox. It was quite a difficult time.” Draco said, voice hoarse. He still felt too ashamed to look Potter in the eye, so he hung his head and stared instead at his fingers. At the Malfoy signet ring he wore everyday, the only concession to his past he made since leaving, apart from Scorpius’ name.
“I understand. It's okay. You didn’t do anything wrong, we just might have found the problem a little earlier. As it stands, I will have to do some more research and get back to you. Like I said, I’ll sort out a course of potions for the current symptoms, and those will get Scorpius back to normal within a week tops. I’ll send you off with some extra, just in case he starts to get sick again, which is likely, but with the medications, it hopefully won’t reach this stage again. Is that okay? I know I’ve likely left you with more problems than answers, but I want you to know that whilst I don’t know what this means for Scorpius’ magic, I know it doesn’t mean anything serious for his long term general health.” Potter explained, and Draco nodded, trying his best to listen, when his head was still stuck five years in the past he tried to run from every day.
“Right then, let's go get Scorpius and get the two of you home. Does he attend school?” Potter asked, standing up and heading over to his door, which he held open for Draco, like they didn’t have a long, bloody history between them.
“He goes to a muggle pre-preparatory school in our local area.” Draco said, angling his body as he passed so they didn’t accidentally touch, as if that would somehow break the spell of their civility.
“Well, I’d recommend he not attend tomorrow, even if he seems well enough to. The potions work fast but he will need lots of rest for them to work to their full extent. I understand this could cause issues with your work but-”
“I can sort my work, or find him a babysitter. I had no intention of sending him tomorrow anyway. I’ve never seen him this sick.” Draco said, hurrying along the corridor to Scorpius’ room, ahead of Potter’s more measured stride.
Draco found Scorpius sitting up in bed, giggling gently at something Nurse Daisy had said. He nearly collapsed under the relief.
They finally arrived home about an hour later. Potter had taken a blood sample from Scorpius’ upper arm, which had caused a few tears, and then Potter had administered the first potion, explaining the dosage to Draco, before they were finally able to go home. Draco apparated them both into the living room, and settled Scorpius on the sofa before going into the kitchen to store the potions in his tea cupboard. When he returned, Scorpius was asleep, but some of the colour was already starting to return to his cheeks, and Draco carried him upstairs and got him settled into bed properly, with some clean pyjamas, before Draco himself dragged himself to his bed room and collapsed in bed, barely managing to get his shoes off before falling straight to sleep from the stress, no matter that it wasn’t yet noon.