Title: Dear Scorpius
Author: Susannah Wilde
Pairing: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2063 words
Warnings: EWE, mention of possible miscarriage
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: First off, thanks to the mods for all their help and for putting up with my forgetfulness and late entry. To my beta, M, for all your help. Prompter, I hope you enjoy this. Written for the Harry/Draco Mpreg Fest over on LJ.
Summary: On the day his son is born, Harry writes a letter explaining the unusual way he arrived in this world.
Dear Scorpius
17 March 2016
Dear Scorpius,
As I sit here writing this letter, you are a few hours old and very tiny, all wrapped up in a blue blanket sleeping next to your father, Draco. You have my green eyes, but everything else is his, from the wisps of blond hair, to the somewhat less pointy features on your face. I wouldn't be surprised if you inherited his smirk. However, even if you had arrived looking like a young mandrake, I wouldn't have cared. You are finally here and I've waited so long to meet you. We both have.
Scorpius, you are a surprise, but not a mistake. You came into this world and into my life under circumstances that are considered unusual, even for a wizard. That, I suppose, is why I'm writing this letter, to give you my explanation of certain events leading up to your birth.
By the time you are able to read this, you would have heard everything about my life to know that I never began truly living until after the war. I wanted some sort of normalcy in my life. I thought that after defeating Voldemort I would fall in love, settle down and get married before I started a family. Except I never even made it to the first step. It's my fault, really, because I found out that I'm terrible at dating women. Men, too. The majority of my twenties and thirties were spent on endless dates, convinced with the idea that I could find love and happiness without only being seen as the Saviour.
When that turned out not to be the case, I pushed aside my hopes for something more realistic, a child that would love me unconditionally. From the few photographs I have of my parents, they were happiest when all three of us were together, as if they weren't surrounded by war. Would you think it selfish of me to want that? I wanted a family, something that I never had, to fill my days with a new purpose now that being an Auror had lost some of its appeal. I thought I deserved at least that.
Adoption was my first choice, especially since there had been so many orphans after the War. However, under the Ministry regulations, I couldn't adopt until I had a blood heir to preserve the family line.
The second choice was to use a surrogate. Filling out the paperwork to begin the process and answering questions was a nightmare. Everything imaginable was asked, from preferences on hair colour, eye colour, and body shape to intelligent quotients, heritage, and blood lines. I thought it was too much, so at the end, where it asked for any additional comments, I scribbled, "I really don't care what this baby looks like as long as it gets here." Looking back, perhaps that was a bit uncalled for, but the questions made it seem as if I were designing a perfect baby. I didn't want that; I would love you anyway, flaws and all.
When St. Mungo's owled me back three days later with the best candidate, Draco Malfoy, I almost didn't go to the appointment. Not because of the idea that wizards could get pregnant, but just based on the fact that these specialists thought that this would work. Did they not know our past? Yet on paper, the results showed that our bloodlines and magic was compatible, thus ensuring that any child conceived would be carried to full term. I still had my doubts until one of the healers mentioned that Malfoy had already agreed.
When I asked him why, his answer surprised me.
"While you no doubt have friends willing to give you a chance to have a family, I have no one. I'm not the Death Eater people still see me as, Potter, and if this is my chance for a child then I will take it."
"The child won't be your heir."
"Does it matter? Merlin knows that even you wouldn't deny me the rights to see the only child I'll ever have."
As blunt as those words were, he was telling the truth. While I could never quite forget the person he was in the past, he was right. Even though you would be my child, I wouldn't deny him from seeing you if that's what he so wished.
A contract was signed, with all the stipulations and parental rights agreed upon before you were conceived. You are, as the Muggles would say, a "test tube" baby because we were not close enough to consider having sex, not even while intoxicated. (It will be an interesting conversation, I think, when you ask where babies come from. At least we'll have a different answer to give you.)
A month later he moved into Grimmauld Place and those first few weeks almost convinced me that I had made a huge mistake. Our fights never reached the level as those we had at Hogwarts, but they came close. We fought over stupid things, what I cooked, my choices in books, and his tendency to move things around so that I could never find them. I blame the necessity of me giving up smoking while he gave up drinking, coupled with morning sickness, that made it hard to keep our tempers in check.
Despite our many disagreements, there were times when Draco had his moments. I know he may seem uncaring, but he will surprise you. Even I can admit that he had changed. His best and most sincere apology came after he insulted my choice for godparents. If it weren't for the fact that I wanted to keep you a secret, I would have kicked him out. I guess he knew that he had crossed the line, because for an entire week he worked on setting up your nursery. When I was allowed inside, I was surprised to see it decorated, not in any Hogwarts House colours as I expected, but a calming blue. He had moved all of his old baby furniture, only buying a rocking chair that now sits in the centre of the room facing the window. The charmed view out the large bay window is of his favourite beaches in France that he had visited as a child. He wants to take you there as soon as you are old enough to enjoy traveling.
After that, to keep fighting seemed petty.
Whatever his thoughts on me are, that has not taken away from the fact that he cares about you. As the months passed, he took to talking to you, whether it was just reading aloud a book or telling you about his day. He would always let his guard down when he spoke to you, and I think I learned more about him that way than any conversation I ever had with him.
The first time I had caught him talking, he had been sitting in the rocking chair staring out at the sunset, while criticising a Potions paper that had been published. His hands were resting on top of his stomach, gently caressing, when he stopped mid-sentence and stared down. For several minutes he sat still, before he cast a Tempus and Summoned a leather-bound book and a self-inking quill. He was too busy writing to notice that I had moved next to him, trying to read the words. Realising that nothing was wrong, I was about to leave when he took my hands and placed them on the left side of his stomach. When you kicked, it all made sense. I remember the wide grin on my face, because at that moment, Scorpius, you became real to me, a child that I would soon be able to hold and love.
Only later did I find out that he had been writing in your baby book. When you are older, I will show it to you, because anything and everything about you is in there. Draco had been writing in it since the appointment in St. Mungo's, adding notes and photographs every day, to document his pregnancy. It even explains you name, Scorpius, if you want to know how we chose it.
Then everything went pear shaped at the beginning of the seventh month. One night, I woke up to screams coming from Draco's room. Running as fast as I could, I opened the door to find him hunched over, arms wrapped protectively around his stomach as his face contorted in pain. The white bed sheets were bunched around him, spots of black that gleamed red as soon as I said Lumos. It was a miracle that we made it to St. Mungo's in one piece. What a sight I must have been; Harry Potter on his knees, trying not to topple over as he carried a semi-conscious pregnant man.
When the healers took Draco away, I felt like the most useless person alive because I could do nothing to help save him. Your father was on the hospital bed, paler than usual, eyes wide like a spooked horse, with a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead as he struggled to stay awake. That was the last time I saw him for a very long time.
What I remember most that night is fear. Fear that I had never expected to feel after defeating Voldemort and most certainly had never felt on any of the Auror missions. The twists and turns in my gut were my only company as I sat on the hard plastic chairs waiting for an answer. Hours later, the explanation I received was not one I expected. Somehow the foetus' magical signature had become incompatible with Draco's magic; it was slowly poisoning you both. I had found him in time to prevent him from having a miscarriage.
When I was finally allowed into the room, he had already been placed in a medically induced coma and no magic was allowed near him. Draco looked closer to death, surrounded by all sort of Muggle medical equipment, tubes that breathed for him, fed him, and monitored vital signs that beeped out different patterns, the only thing keeping both of you alive. I couldn't stay by his side as healers spent several days trying to figure out the cause. No one wanted to be responsible for losing Harry Potter's child.
Yet even if the healers had saved you, Scorpius, at the expense of losing Draco, I realised that I would have lost a part of myself. The snarky bastard had become someone I cared about. After all, he was your other father, and at the very least, a friend. For that, I begged him to survive, to keep fighting using the stubbornness that he had possessed at Hogwarts.
The healers found the answer early one Saturday morning, but it wasn't the one I wanted. I hated that the ghosts of our past still followed us, waiting to make an appearance. The cause was the Dark Mark, which had been dormant for years, but it had recognized that my blood had flowed through Voldemort's veins, and was draining the magic as time passed. The two options were to remove the Mark or the baby before it killed them both.
Before I could even react to that information, the healer said that a decision had already been made.
It took some time getting used to seeing Draco with only one arm. His left arm had been amputated just above the elbow. I would watch him as he struggled to do things one handed, since magic was still not allowed to be near him. If having no arm bothered him, he never let on. Only once did I question why, to which he replied, "Why should I live in exchange for a dead son?"
That, my dear Scorpius, is the only reason you're here. I know it's not the best way to tell you, but it is better than finding out from other sources that are prone to twist the truth to suit their needs. Based off the rumours that I've heard just this morning as to why Draco and I had a child together, I wouldn't put it past anyone to spread lies. No one knows the exact nature of our relationship apart from being parents, but as long as you are happy and know that we love you, then nothing else matters.
Yours,
Harry