A/N: I'm taking a break from writing Name Games as the writing wasn't flowing as well as it should. Hope to return to it eventually.
Disclaimer: All characters in this fic are the creation of J K Rowling.
The Perfume of the Roses
Sometimes by night the perfume of the garden roses stole inside as though seeking the lost wraith of a dream.
Astoria liked the windows of their little house that nestled deep in muggle suburbia to be flung wide open on summer nights such as this. For the night-time scents to creep gently through the darkness and entwine their magic around minds and souls. His wife had always loved flowers. He had taken her a huge bunch of red roses the early rising morning the child he now sat watching in the deepening, rose-perfumed night was born.
She laughed. The private ward in the maternity unit of St Mungo's was filled, floor to ceiling, with the flowers, both magical and muggle, that he'd already brought in. The Healers and medi-witches and wizards were always grumbling about how they were constantly having to perform shrinking spells just to arrive at the patient's bed and had extracted from him a firm promise he would bring no more. A promise he never intended to keep. He was a Malfoy. If a Malfoy wanted to bring flowers, then he would.
Astoria laughed her clear, infectious laugh at the latest gigantic bouquet that half hid her husband's tall, lanky frame, that were responsible for his most unMalfoylike stumble in his haste to kiss her, and he blushed red as the roses he lay down to lift instead, tentatively, wanting to and yet so uncertain, the small sleeping bundle held close to her breast. She was the only person who could ever make him blush. The only person then in whom he confided any weakness.
"What if I drop him?"
"You won't."
"What if he breaks?"
A gentle, teasing laugh. "He won't."
"What if he doesn't love me?"
Astoria didn't laugh then. She smiled her reassuring smile and smoothed comforting circles on the back of his hand. "He will," she promised quietly.
So he reached to pick up their beautiful, perfect child – slowly, carefully, anxiously – ah, clumsily! - and with a terrified I-told-you-so breath and a heartbeat missed drew back in alarm.
"Draco," Astoria reassured, locking her fingers into his. There was strength there. Not strength as in physical; she was tired still, a mother only in hours, and even pureblood witches know the exhaustion of childbirth. No, her touch was no more than feather-light, yet when it brushed against his wedding ring a jolt of belief in himself ran straight to his heart, as though the vein of love the wizards of old spoke of in days long ago really did exist. So he tried once more.
The little boy was beautifully light though afterwards his arms owned to a delicious aching. He had held him many times since. He didn't drop him, the boy didn't break, and, while he couldn't know for certain, there was no indication so far that Scorpius, as they named their son, didn't love him. There still wasn't.
Weeks passed by. Scorpius, even though born a pureblood wizard, was quite happy in his muggle home, and had no qualms at all about living amongst muggles instead of in Malfoy Manor, or about his parents being somewhat impoverished due to the Malfoys' War damage reparations and the Greengrasses disowning their daughter for her pro-muggle beliefs. But there were things that seemingly puzzled him. Sometimes he would open his silver-grey eyes and stare at Draco as if trying to make up his mind who and what he was. Well, the who was easy. Father, Dad, Daddy.
Draco cringed the first time Astoria used the latter word. Nobody in the whole history of the prestigious Malfoy family had ever been called something so muggleish before. But Scorpius didn't seem to mind; he merely gave a little gurgle and transferred his gaze to the other admiring face leaning over his cot and then back towards Mummy – yes, she had firmly established herself as Mummy and not the pureblood preference for being called Mother – as if he would answer "In reply to your rather odd question, Mummy, Where's Daddy? Why, there he is. Don't you see him? Daddy is right there beside us and I imagine he always will be."
The what was rather more difficult for Draco to explain. What was he? Sometimes while sitting with his baby son he ran through the list. Wizard. Tick. Pureblood. Tick. Pureblood Supremacist. Never. Again. Death Eater, Failed (thankfully) Tick. Observe this is classed as a triumph, Scorpius. We most certainly do not wish Daddy to have been a successful Death Eater. Bully. Ex. Snob. Rain check. Arrogant. Hard not to be with looks and charm. Coward. Ah. No. Yes. Wait. But... Pass. Manipulative. Not very good at it anymore, Scorpius. Don't know what happened. Friend of Muggles. Hmmm...Wouldn't go quite that far. Yet. Working hard on this one, Scorp, trying to turn everything around. Not at all easy. Yes, well you try dealing with my parents and your Mummy's parents in the little matter of refusing to bring up their grandchild in the belief muggles are scum. Oh, it's all very well for you, Scorpius, widening your eyes, poking out your tongue and wrinkling your button nose like that and telling me it was a ridiculous notion in the first place, but it was a very different wizarding world in your Mummy's and Daddy's day and we were brought up with very different views on muggles...
When Daddy wasn't singing him songs or telling him stories or talking about Mummy and a thousand and one other subjects – all in a very low voice because Astoria was resting after being Mummy all day and Scorpius was meant to be going asleep, not chuckling at Daddy's smiles and tickles and funny faces - they often debated like this and somehow Draco always had the last word, although, to be fair, he did carry the conversation, with Scorpius's only contribution being facial expressions, gurgles, blowing bubbles, burping, flailing arms and legs, churning out baby-sick and breaking wind. Oh, and not to mention soiled nappies, which was when having a Daddy who knew how to cast scourgifying charms was enormously helpful.
Bonding with Baby, they called it officially in the wizarding parent books. Our Special Time, was what Draco and Scorpius preferred to call it between themselves. It was a pattern they had slipped into every evening ever since Scorpius came home from the hospital ward that was in danger of being smothered to death by flowers. Of course by now they had thoroughly gotten over their early misgivings – Draco terrified he might drop him and Scorpius, sensing his unease, terrified that he would – and settled into a pleasant little routine.
Every evening Draco bathed Scorpius and put him to bed and during their Special Times told his baby son as best he could the story of his life. How the Battle of Hogwarts changed him forever. How he used to believe the lies of the pureblood fanatics. He told him, in faltering voice, about how he brought the Death Eaters into the school, about Snape killing Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower. Of the Fiendfyre and Crabbe's death, of how so many, many more died or were maimed because of prejudice and hatred. And when his voice grew hoarse and cracked, Scorpius, whether or not he understood, would reach up to touch his father's face and laugh and gurgle in delight when Draco kissed his fingertips and blew cold air on his tiny palm. When Scorpius fell into the arms of sleep, so Draco fell into thoughts of yesterday.
It was odd how nights could be so still now. Neither day nor night had been silent in his youth. In the early years, he had been a golden child, wealthy, demanding, spoilt and spiteful, dreaming of the heavy revenge he would wreak on his enemies when the Malfoys were honoured by Voldemort and a pureblood society reigned supreme. But the very same dreams turned into nightmares that haunted his shuttered eyes. A terrible burden was laid on his shoulders. Murder Dumbledore. Kill or be killed. Take a life or see the lives of those he loved taken. Everywhere death and destruction. Everywhere misery and pain. The Dark Mark scorched his skin. The screams of innocent victims rang in his ears. The heart he thought he'd hardened twisted with fear and guilt.
The world he used to walk with confident step spun off its axis and hurtled into space. Those he had been taught to admire had no compassion for him. Those he had been taught to despise reached out in love and friendship. Wandless and defenceless, Dumbledore gave his would-be assassin nothing but kindness and sympathy. Potter and Weasley saved his life. Even Granger, the girl he had tormented without mercy, bore him no malice.
The world returned slowly though his pace was never the same again. As though the breath was temporarily sucked out of his body not by Dementors but by a piece of himself that shook him inside out. But your wand was always unicorn core, Astoria said, when, wrapped in each other's arms, they shared their secrets. The night Scorpius was made.
Sometimes he wondered what would have happened if, in the sheer terror of the moment, hand shaking uncontrollably, he had committed the heinous act. Even now the memories at what he had so nearly become made him shudder. Scorpius gave a small cry in his sleep and Draco started. Was his son too hot, too cold? Wet, hungry, thirsty? Sick, anxious, afraid?
"Shhhh, shhhh...Daddy's here," he hushed, stroking his soft, plump cheek, though the whimper had lasted no more than a fleeting second before passing quickly on by. He knew he should, as the wizarding parent books advised, tip-toe out of the bedroom now his child slept contentedly. But should, could and would were aeons apart when it was so hard to tear himself away. "I love you, Scorpius," he whispered. "I love you and Mummy very, very much."
The strangest thing! The strangest thing to feel his eyelashes grow moist and tears pool in his eyes. Then drip - yes, drip! - down his face and through his long, thin fingers when he tried in vain to wipe them away. Somebody sighed. A tear-swept, wonder-touched, joy-filled sigh that echoed somewhere deep within his soul. And though he never knew who sighed so sweetly as he sat gazing at his sleeping son, all those years spent compartmentalizing his emotions snapped and broken in marriage and fatherhood, he pondered briefly on all that had beckoned to him in childhood. Gone forever now. Gone forever, pureblood supremacy. Gone forever, being feted and adored as the son of Voldemort's second-in-command. Gone forever, a yesterday that promised a future so unlike the future that came to be. He never mourned its passing.
One by one, the twinkling stars began to pepper the velvet sky and a curious moon peeped in through the windows, dancing merrily through shadows, bringing flickers of light where all was darkness before.
Creeping so gradually that the man barely notices the changes being wrought by time.
He sees only the infant, forehead wrinkled in sleep, eyes fast closed, one tiny hand curled into a fist and raised on his pillow as if in victory. He hears only the steady breathing of his baby son, to his own heart beating in perfect rhythm to each new breath. He feels only a tender, overwhelming love for his wife and child.
Sometimes by night the perfume of the garden roses steals inside as though seeking the lost wraith of a dream. And when at last the dream is found and peace settled in a heart that once knew only prejudice and hate, a heart that once yearned to be king till it learnt there were far greater riches than glory, power and wealth, then the roses too nod their heads in gentle, untroubled slumbers.
All is well.
END