A/N: I have felt rather excited and grateful to receive some positive feedback from the first fanfic I have ever written, which has inspired me to want to explore the Draco/Scorpius relationship more. Reading CC, it was obvious that Scorpius was aware about Draco's past as a Death Eater, as evident by his train conversation with Rose. As Draco was quite a changed person in CC, I imagine he would certainly felt a responsibility and need for educating Scorpius about his own past, here's my take of it.
This chapter may start off a bit slow, hope you can bear with me.
2014, Malfoy Manor
Draco was carefully dropping a sapphire-coloured potion into a glass vial in his private potion lab at home. The lab was lined with wooden shelves filled with carefully labelled jars of ingredients, a variety of ready-made potions of different colours and sizes. On the other side of the lab was a huge book shelf with hundreds of tomes, ranging from century-old to contemporary books, all related to the subject of potion-making. Near the middle of the room was a large work table with a bunch of his tools laid out on one side, with a drawer next to one end of the table. On the other side of the table stood a number of cauldrons, mostly occupied with different potions, some of them had been boiling for hours. A cooling spell was used to make the room more comfortable.
Looking at the shiny potion, he let out a satisfied smile. He had been working on this potion for months and it looked like he had finally got it perfected. He could not wait to let Astoria try this so she could have a good-night sleep. She had gotten very sick months ago but recovered weeks after. She had been suffering from muscle cramps every night ever since no matter how many healers she had seen and how much sleeping draught she had taken. Every night she would be waken by the horrible cramps while he in turn would be waken by her moans of pain. Draco would help massage her muscles until she felt well enough to fall back asleep. According to the healers, her problems were likely caused by her cursed blood, which was why the usual potions which worked on muscle cramps could not work. If everything went well, this potion would work on her blood to soothe her cramps. He had spent weeks looking up potions that could work from his ancient healing books before spending months trying to brew it and experimenting the potions on animals.
While Astoria had always been cursed, she had been fairly healthy before Scorpius' birth. Of course the couple would never blame Scorpius for the deterioration of her health, but there was no denying that the clock had been ticking for years now. She was taking four potions daily by now and a dozen more occasionally for various symptoms. Sometimes a potion that had been working well for years would suddenly stop working, leaving them frustrated and desperate for a replacement.
Draco urgently placed the lid on top of the glass vial then left his lab. On his way to the library, where he knew Astoria and Scorpius were, he picked up a goblet of water from the kitchen for Astoria. His wife always spent her day with Scorpius, usually reading in the library. He never read with Scorpius but he knew that his boy was highly intelligent and eager to learn about anything. Other times when Astoria was feeling well, she would sit at the garden table and enjoy a cup of tea with Scorpius, she would even bake a cake or take a scroll on a rare day when she did not feel tired at all. He walked up the stairs of the enormous Manor House quickly yet carefully, to avoid spilling the water. He picked up pace as he arrived on the corridor leading to the library. He was about to knock on the door when he stopped dead as he heard his son's excited voice.
"… of Harry Potter!"
It was fortunate that Draco generally had a calm and controlled demeanour, or he would definitely have dropped his precious vial of potion then and there. He was tempted to eavesdrop on his son's conversation with Astoria but determinedly backed away when he realised his hands were shaking. He could not risk breaking the vial even though he desperately wanted to know what his son knew about Harry Potter.
Draco did not hold real grudges against Potter but since Potter was the cause of many tense dinner arguments with his parents over the years, the Potter name had almost become a taboo in the Malfoy household. Although the subject of Harry Potter still inevitably came up now and then, by now he had never been referred to by his name that it was quite a shock that Scorpius seemed so familiar with the name. It was true that every child in the Wizarding world should know Potter's name but Scorpius was not any child. Draco was certain that the eight-year-old had been so sheltered that he had not seen anyone who was not a relation for at least five years that there could only be two possibilities: Scorpius had learnt about Harry Potter through his books or through Astoria. Draco began frantically trying to remember what Scorpius could have learned about Potter from the dinner table but his mind was in such a chaos that he decided to focus to get back to his room, where he could place the potion somewhere safe and sit down to think.
He took a deep breath as he finally collapsed onto his favourite armchair. A voice in his head asked, "Why are you scared that Scorpius knows about Harry Potter?" Was this true? No. He could care less what Scorpius think about Potter, his fear was about how much his son knew about the Second Wizarding War, more specifically about how much his son knew about his own involvement in the war. Draco had learned to live with whatever the world thought about him but he could hardly bear the thought of his precious son seeing him as an evil Death Eater. He thought with despair that he was indeed a Death Eater in every sense of the word no matter how much he would like to deny it, as his right hand unconsciously started stroking the faint scar of his Dark Mark.
Young Draco had been very much the creation of his own father, the Death Eater who had greatly regretted the first downfall of the Dark Lord. There was a point in time when he had shared his father's belief that he would love to be a Death Eater, which was meant to be the highest honour. It was through his family falling in favour that he had finally gotten his wish to be one and gradually realised with horror the Unthinkable he was tasked to do, to kill Albus Dumbledore. He was finally able to see Lord Voldemort as what he truly was. By then, it was too late and he had no choice but to do the Dark Lord's bidding for the sake of his family.
Who was he kidding? He could give excuses all he wanted but there was no denying of the crimes that he had committed. He had never cared about Katie Bell and Ron Weasley, in Ron's case he had actually enjoyed seeing him suffered, especially the time when he had vomited slugs, but did he like to have Ron killed? It did not matter that they were only accidental victims of his, the fact remained that they were almost murdered because of Draco's actions. He shuddered at the thought of what could have been. Dumbledore was right, Draco was no murderer. Also, there was Bill Weasley who was severely hurt with irreversible injuries because of his success in smuggling Death Eaters into Hogwarts' ground. The Magical Community had every right to send him into Azkaban, like they did with the other Death Eaters after Voldemort's ultimate defeat. He buried his face into his hands and let out a frustrated sigh.
What disturbed him the most was his own stupidity of not thinking about the possibilities that Scorpius could have learned about the Second Wizarding War. Hadn't he always been proud of the maturity, sense and intelligence the boy had shown despite of his young age? Had he seriously expect that his son could content himself with "The Tales of Beedle the Bard"? There was a reluctant part of him that wanted to feel angry at Astoria for betraying him. How could she? She of everyone should know the sensitivity he felt about this subject. She should have told him immediately when Scorpius first knew about Potter. But maybe it was because of his love for his wife, or the proof of her selfless love for him by giving birth, or his firm belief that Astoria was his better half, he just could not bring himself to blame her.
Draco had always expected this day would come that he would have to talk to Scorpius about his dark past, yet he could never have predicted how soon it would have come. For all he knew, his boy could have known about his past for years without Draco suspecting a thing. Even if Scorpius only recognised Potter's name without knowing much about his heroic acts, he had just been given the wakeup call that there was nothing he could do to delay this dreadful talk much longer as the last thing he would like was for his son to be able to think freely about Draco's mistakes without perspectives.
His antique clock chimed at 7, it was time for dinner. He stood and resolutely made his way to the dining room. If he could have a choice, he would prefer not ever looking back to his past. But this was something that he had to do, for the benefits of his son. He had sworn to be the best father he could be to Scorpius, therefore it was his duty to own up to his past and to teach his boy to learn from his own mistakes. He decided that he would first talk to Astoria to find out exactly how much the boy knew about his past, then to decide what to do from there.