They sit in their usual corner of the Leaky Cauldron at their usual time, the four of them – Draco, Pansy, Theo and Blaise – in their usual seats, nursing their usual drinks. Pansy is on her second, swilling the dregs of something mauve and pearlescent in the hand that isn't holding a gold-tipped cigarette. They are never so comfortable, never so themselves, than on these nights that they are together.
Draco Malfoy leans against the wall, half listening to his friends' chatter, half listening to the room directly above them where his son sleeps. The pub is old and the floorboards creaky. It comforts Draco to know that he'll know as soon as Scorpius stirs.
"I'm just saying," says Pansy, through a long inhalation of sweet-smelling smoke, "I wish we could branch out a little. I've heard there's a splendid little cocktail bar opened up on the corner of Nocturn Alley where they tailor-make the drinks to the characteristics of the customer. Doesn't that sound fun?"
"If you like frilly drinks and have galleons to spare," Theo mutters through the foam of his pint.
Pansy purses her lips. "You've never been adventurous, Nott. You find something you like once, then nothing else ever stands a chance. Blaise, tell him he's boring."
"You're boring, Theo," says Blaise obligingly, raising his half-full glass of Elf-Made Cabinet. "But we knew this. It's part of your charm. Never change."
Pansy rolls her eyes and sighs with a smile in one corner of her painted lips. "I don't know why I bother coming back here. I could be out dancing you, know. I had ten offers of a fabulous time tonight, and I passed them all up for you three dullards."
"And I suppose Andrew isn't one of those ten?" Theo asks with a quirked eyebrow. "One year of dutiful dominos enough for you, Pans?"
"More than enough," Pansy replies feelingly. "Fortunately the man is still utterly besotted with me. I'm fairly certain he'd give me fifty galleons and send me off with love if I said I wanted to go to Paris to spend a month sampling all the male delights the city has to offer." She stubs out the smoldering remnants of her cigarette in the murky glass ashtray and immediately reaches for her handbag, "It's all rather pathetic, really. I almost wish he'd kick up a fuss about it all. I'm certain he knows, though I try to at least be decent enough to keep my private affairs private. It's embarrassing. But as long as I at least pretend to try and give him his damned heir, he's satisfied."
"Pretend?" Blaise leans forward in interest. "How does that work, then?"
"Well…" Pansy feigns concentrated interest in lighting a new cigarette with the tip of her wand. "Let's just say I've discovered a rather marvelous little muggle invention called 'the pill'. I can do whatever I like with whomever I like whenever I like, and not have to worry one jot about being landed with a brat." She inclined her head after a pause. "No offense, Draco. You know I think Scorpius is a darling, but it's not for me. I've seen what babies do to women, and I can't think of anything more abhorrent." Her voice grates with bitterness, and Pansy smokes steadily in the boys' thick silence. They are all familiar with each other's demons, the ones that have been following them since they first held council eightneen years ago at seven years old. Verbal sympathy is unnecessary and embarrassing; it's silence that brings the Slytherins together and says 'we love you'.
Draco squeezes her fingers under the table. His own drink – half a shandy – is untouched. She squeezes back, though her face remains cool and impassive; her dark hair cut into a bob that curls at her chin. Sex is a weapon, she had decided more years ago than she cares to count, having watched her father wield it against her mother time after time after time, child after child after child, keeping her bloated and bedridden until her body couldn't take it anymore. Sex is a weapon, and she will use it to beat them all.
"So let me get this right." Blaise leans closer, dark eyes bright. "With this 'marvelous little muggle magic', you're now free to fuck like a man."
Draco flinches in his corner.
Pansy glares at Blaise. "Threatened, Zabini?"
Blaise laughs, a genuine laugh that's free of anything but pleasure. "On the contrary, my dear. Now you must give me the real reason you look at me like that."
Pansy rests her chin on a hand and looks up at him through her eyelashes. "And how's that?"
"Uninterested."
"In you?"
"Indeed." Blaise mirrors her and Theo rolls his eyes at the pair of them as Draco smiles. "You must be the only person, magic or muggle, who has absolutely no desire to – pardon my French – get in my pants."
Theo chokes on his drink and Draco goes red.
Pansy is entirely unimpressed. "I'm sure that whatever you have in your pants is nothing I haven't seen before. Anyway—" She offers her slim cigarette case to each of them in turn. "—never mix money, sex or love."
"Words to live by." Blaise is the only one who accepts. He dips towards the flame at the tip of Pansy's wand. He inhales deep and releases slowly, languidly, with an amendment of, "I always knew I'd live a short life."
The air around the table chills considerably. Pansy stiffens, Draco withdraws, and Theo thumps his glass down with a glare and a growl. "Don't, Blaise."
Blaise glares back behind his cigarette. His dark eyes flick between his friends then he sighs. "It's been eight years—"
"It's only been eight years," Pansy corrects. "And even if it were twenty, it would still be too soon. It will always be too soon." She raises her chin and her glass with a crisp smile that creases the corners of her eyes in a rare moment of true affection. "To life, love and happiness," she says. "To us."
They all relax, and chink, and Blaise is visibly relieved.
"To us," Draco echoes, almost absently.
The sound draws Theo's attention. He frowns. "What's the matter?" he asks. "What's happened?"
Draco looks startled, then anxious as three pairs of eyes fix on him with patient expectation. Of course he must tell them, and of course he's going to. They have always shared every part of themselves with each other. Trust is unconditional. It never means it's easy though.
He clears his throat with a cough and reaches with an unsteady hand into the inner-pocket of his jacket. "They wrote," he says, pushing a small, creased envelope bearing a broken seal emblazoned with the Malfoy 'M' across the table. "Mother and Astoria. They want me home."
Pansy purses her lips in distaste. "Your mother has always been tenacious," she says in a way that might've been admiring if it weren't for the circumstances. "Though I'm surprised Astoria is still playing the same tune. You'd've thought they might have realised by now—"
"This is different," says Theo quietly, staring down at Narcissa's slim handwriting. He runs a hand through his hair and looks up at Draco. "Shit."
Pansy snatches it from him immediately. Her face goes through the same motions – irritation on Draco's behalf, perplexion, comprehension, then, "Oh. Oh dear."
Draco swallows and holds himself steady, fixing his eyes squarely on his drink. The letter came this morning and he's done a half-decent job at not thinking about it. Scorpius is the perfect distraction and the perfect reason why Draco should not think about it, and the crossover between settling Scorpius down to sleep and his friends taking up the helm was flawless. The moments when he did catch himself thinking about it were few and far between, and as excruciating as the first each time.
This is the worst.
Now he has to confront it.
Blaise is the last to read Narcissa's note, and he reads it silently and sullenly, and when he finishes, he reads it again.
"I thought the sentence was longer," says Pansy uncertainly, looking between them for confirmation. They were all there, at the trial, flanking Draco as they had since they were children; unmovable in their support.
"It was," says Theo tersely. "It was supposed to be. What happened?" he asks Draco. "Do you know?"
Draco shakes his head, fiddling with the neck of his glass. "This is all I've heard. So far. I think… I expect Mother knows more. I expect she's withholding until—"
"Until you obey and go back." Pansy hisses through her teeth. "And I suppose Scorpius is part of the deal too?"
"I'm not taking him back to the Manor," says Draco sharply, eyes flashing a bright silver. "I swore I wouldn't. I promised him. And especially now."
"I can look after him," Theo offers at once. "As long as you need. If you choose to go."
"Of course he won't go," Pansy snaps just as Blaise says, "You have to go."
They all stare at him as though he's suddenly talking parceltongue.
He looks impassively back with a sleek smile. "You're not a coward, Draco," he says. "Don't behave like one."
Pansy makes a motion as though to curse him then and there. Theo stops her by gripping her hand and holding it tight. "Bit harsh, Zabini," he notes with none of Pansy's sharp outrage.
"How?" Blaise demands. "How is that harsh? I'm stating a fact and trying to help, which neither of you seem willing to do. Running away never helps. Especially when it comes to Lucius Malfoy."
Draco's fingernail goes between his teeth. Just his father's name sounding in his ear turns his stomach. The thought of seeing him again is nauseating. And imagining him with Scorpius—
"You don't have to be what they want you to be," he hears Blaise say above the rush of blood in his years. "But you don't have to be what they expect you to be, either. You've already proven so much by leaving. Don't you want to prove it to him, too?"
"I don't want anything to do with him," says Draco stiltedly. "I don't want Scorpius to have anything to do with him. With any of them."
"And you don't have to," says Blaise as though it were as simple as that. "You're Draco Malfoy. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Whether you believe it or not. But," he leans across the table, and for a moment it's only the two of them. "More importantly: you are not a child. You are not powerless." Blaise sits back again with a triumphant smile. "There is absolutely nothing he can do to you anymore."
Draco blinks in the silence; Blaise's words ringing persistently in his ears. They don't sound true. They don't sound possible. They don't make sense. He doesn't feel like a twenty-five-year-old man with a child of his own, he feels eleven again and dreading the end of the school year – watching the landscapes flash by as the Hogwarts Express drags him towards a dangerous near-future because he's too young to be permitted a will of his own. That feeling – the heavy dread settled permanently in the pit of his stomach – has never lifted. It never occurred to Draco that, maybe, he didn't need to feel it anymore. That he hadn't needed it since he came of age. He is a grownup, with independence and influence. Blaise is right: he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to.
A smile slips across Pansy's lips as she watches the changes on Draco's face, and she exchanges a glance with Blaise, nodded her approval.
Theo is not sold. Pretty words are little more than a quick, temporary fix, and he knows Draco better than anyone else. He knows how persuadable Draco is. How easily manipulated, even when the intentions are good. Quickly bolstered by promises, and just as quickly to crumble when they are not met. There might be objective truth in Blaise's words, but it is not so simple and Zabini should understand that. Malfoy or not, twenty-five or not, it's going to take much more than a pep-talk before Draco is ready to face his father again.
He reaches for his friend, to say so; mouth opening with the words ready – Be careful. Be cautious. – when Draco's attention jerks away at the soft sound of footsteps above and beside them.
Fatherhood is the best thing that ever happened to Draco Malfoy. It's an objective fact, as inarguable as two and two equaling four. His face changes, softening into disbelieving delight, as though he still – five years later – cannot believe this child loves him so completely. Theo can understand why Draco is so keen to keep this away from his old life.
Hi, kid, Theo signs as Draco pulls the sleepy boy up into his lap.
Scorpius smiles across the table and signs back with one hand, the other lodged firmly in his mouth by his thumb.
You should be asleep, Draco chides, smoothing back the Malfoy-blond hair from his son's face.
Scorpius wrinkles his nose, mouth twisting, then emphatically taps Draco's watch.
Draco laughs. "I should be asleep too? Yes, you're probably right." He rises, Scorpius's arms looped around his neck. "Tom was complaining that business has been slow," he says to his friends. "There'd be plenty of rooms if you felt like staying."
He never asks, nor ever makes direct requests of them. None of them do, nor have ever done. They communicate as clearly and as indirectly as the wordless child in Draco's arms. They know, without words, that Draco wants them to stay. Theo will, Blaise won't, and Pansy – as ever – will remain uncommitted until the end. She will either be startled by rare gratitude to be pledged to a man who truly loves her and go home to Andrew and the stillness of their home, go out dancing with Blaise and revel in love, life and freedom, or curl up with Theo in the room next to Draco's and sleep more soundly than she ever sleeps anywhere else. Whichever she ends up choosing, the most important part is that she isn't alone.
"Sweet dreams, my darlings," she murmurs, standing to kiss first Draco then Scorpius. Children, in general, terrify her, but she has come to love this one, though she prays hard and often that Draco will never ask her to babysit. "Let me know, okay?" she adds, touching Draco's face and forcing him to look at her. "As soon as you know."
He responds with a flickering smile. "Of course," he says. "Always. And thank you, all of you. I couldn't do anything without you."
Blaise gives an awkward cough and waves the thanks away. Never apologise and never say thank you. It's a philosophy that has not caught on with anyone else.
"Always," Pansy echoes.
"I'm worried," she says as soon as they hear the door close upstairs. "It's too soon."
"It was always going to be too soon," Blaise points out, catching the barman's attention on the crook of a finger and deftly ordering another round. "Isn't it better to get it over with?"
"Better for whom?"
He shrugs. "For everyone. Waiting only ever makes anything worse."
"It shouldn't be a matter of waiting," Theo growls. "Unless waiting means waiting for a notice of death." He thumps the table suddenly, all the anger he's kept at bay for Draco's sake let loose. "This isn't right. I do not understand. How does this happen? How? The single good thing that came from the whole damn war was that it got rid of him. That made everything else… Not acceptable, not even tolerable, but you know." He looks imploringly between Pansy and Blaise. "You know."
Pansy lays a hand over the one that hit the table and squeezes. "We know."
"It's all about forgiveness, isn't it?" says Blaise, gesturing vaguely with his newly filled glass. "This whole new system. It's a Gryffindor's world now. All nonsense nobility and misplaced mercy." He gives a thin smile. "They think they're doing the right thing. They have absolutely no idea. No doubt Potter thinks he'll be able to score some favours, get some of his adversaries on-side if he releases a handful of purportedly repentant deatheaters."
Theo raises an eyebrow. "You think Potter's responsible?"
Blaise laughs. "Potter is always responsible."
Scorpius falls asleep as soon as they lay down, head resting on his father's arm as Draco curls around him. Draco is tired too, has been tired ever since his mother's letter arrived with breakfast. It's like a rock has settled at the bottom of his stomach and is getting heavier with every breath. Talking to the others helped, but now – in this stillness of the room they share – he can't help but think about the reality of it.
He looks at Scorpius, then imagines his father, and panic almost overwhelms him.
You are not a child, Blaise had said. You are not helpless.
But it doesn't matter how true those statements are.
When it comes to Lucius Malfoy, Draco has never been anything but.
Curling tighter around the sleeping boy, Draco buries his face in Scorpius's hair and swallows his tears.