Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I also don't own the many headcanons popularized by the HP fan community, some of which appear in this story. Credit goes to their respective owners; I only claim the plot.
This story is a follow-on to Weight of the World and Bridge of Light. It should stand alone but those stories do provide important background to the details of what's going on.
There's a rhythm and rush these days
Where the lights don't move and the colours don't fade
Leaves you empty with nothing but dreams
In a world gone shallow, in a world gone lean
But there is a truth, and it's on our side
Dawn is coming, open your eyes.
When Draco first saw Thestrals, he didn't actually see them. He saw strips of meat ripping off a carcass, apparently animated on their own, before disappearing into thin air. The existence of Thestrals as real magical creatures was something he had to take on the word of a professor he loathed and on the reactions of a handful of his classmates—who, at the time, he both scorned and envied for the attention bestowed upon them.
When he first saw Thestrals, upon his return to Hogwarts for his sixth year, he found them disturbing. Their large, pale, orb-like eyes and skeletal bodies made it only too easy to associate them with death and bad luck, although they were supposed to be harmless to humans. He had developed an immediate dislike for them, and even a decade and more after the end of the war, he still viewed them with deep wariness.
When Scorpius first saw Thestrals, it broke Draco's heart because it meant that his five-year-old son had already seen death. It was not unexpected—the memory of his wife's death was still clearly branded into Draco's own mind—but somehow, watching Scorpius's eyes follow the movement of the Thestral herd circling the outskirts of Hogsmeade brought the loss that much closer.
"They're called Thestrals," he told his son. "Don't worry, they won't hurt you. I think."
But it hurt him to watch Scorpius's delight as the Thestrals spread their wings and soared of into the air, away from Hogsmeade and back toward their home in the Forbidden Forest. He returned Andromeda's sad smile, and wondered what Astoria would think of Scorpius seeing the Thestrals.
They sat at a table by the window, where Teddy glued himself to the glass and kept up an inexhaustible chatter about his upcoming return to Hogwarts, which was just visible at a distance on the green lawns beyond Hogsmeade's busy streets.
"—hoping she'll be in Hufflepuff like me and my mum, but Vicky wants to be a Gryffindor—"
The tea shop was a lively place, loud with the chatter of its patrons. "—as if they were real wizards," a witch was saying sniffily at a neighbouring table, waving a copy of the Daily Prophet at her dull-looking companion, "honestly, next they'll be saying that house-elves are magical persons too—"
"—just as long as she's not in Slytherin," Teddy finished breathlessly. "Gran says it's not bad, but I bet their common room is all slimy and gross—"
"Daddy was in Slytherin," Scorpius said, sounding mildly offended. Draco smothered a grin as Teddy turned an interested stare on him.
"The common room isn't usually slimy," Draco said. "Not unless Peeves has been there recently."
Teddy launched into a volley of mixed rumours and stories about the Hogwarts ghosts, to which Scorpius listened with wide eyes.
"It's the principle of the thing!" the witch at the next table was saying to her companion, who nodded vapidly over a mug of something thick green and foaming. "Squibs just aren't like us! Why, I'd be all for Obliviating the lot of them and putting them where they belong, with the Muggles…"
"Excuse me," Draco said mildly to the witch, aware of Andromeda's curious gaze, "may I borrow your paper for one moment?"
She stared down her nose at him, clearly not pleased to be interrupted in the flow of her opining. "I beg your pardon?"
Draco was tempted to tell her that she was pardoned, but he didn't want to pick an argument in front of his son and young cousin, so he easily adopted a respectful and slightly deferential manner. "I'm terribly sorry to interrupt," he said smoothly, "but I couldn't help overhearing your fascinating conversation, and it interested me in what you were talking about. May I see your paper?"
The witch swelled importantly. "Why, haven't you heard?" she asked, as if it were the most shocking thing in the world that he hadn't yet read this morning's news. "It's just shocking—what the Ministry is doing these days, I'm sure I don't know…"
"What are you doing?" Andromeda murmured as Draco took the paper and inspected it. The article that had so offended their tea-shop neighbour was on the second page, with the title: Magical Squibs? New Ministry legislation defines Squibs as 'magical persons' under Wizarding law. Draco politely returned the paper to its owner, who peered over the page at him.
"Isn't it dreadful?"
"Quite a surprise," Draco said, and in her eagerness to continue her diatribe against the Ministry, the witch did not appear to notice that he had not agreed with her. With the faintest hint of a grin on his face, he turned back to his own table, where Scorpius was listening with a very serious expression to Teddy's increasingly wild fables about Hogwarts ghosts.
"—and if you touch one, you have to get your hand cut off, or you'll turn into a ghost too—"
"What was that about?" Andromeda asked.
"Nothing important," Draco said, and thought, nice one, Granger. He wondered what the witch at the next table would say if he told her that not only was he pleased by the new legislation, but he had been the one to draft and propose it. Not that his name would be attached to it, of course; he'd brought the proposal to Hermione Weasley—who he could never think of as anything but "Granger"—and trusted her Gryffindor idealism to take it the rest of the way.
Andromeda was still looking at him curiously, but Draco was distracted by Teddy's continuing soliloquy on ghosts.
"—but nobody likes her, I think, because she lives in a bathroom and she's always moping around—"
"Are you talking about Myrtle?"
Teddy looked interestedly at him. "Do you know her?"
"I used to," Draco said thoughtfully. "Don't make fun of her, Teddy. She's a bit strange, but people treat her badly. She doesn't deserve that."
"Oh," Teddy said, and for a moment Draco thought he was about to be subjugated to a thorough interrogation on Myrtle; but then Teddy launched off onto a tangent about Nearly Headless Nick, and the subject was forgotten.
The bright morning had grown cloudy and cool when they left the tea shop and strolled down the main street of the village towards the castle in the distance; Teddy wanted to get as close as possible to his adored school. Scorpius tagged happily after him.
"Are you going to tell me what was so interesting about the Daily Prophet?" Andromeda asked, glancing searchingly at him. Draco smiled.
"That article—did you see it?"
"Yes," Andromeda said soberly. "Draco," she added in a low voice, "you do know you're not a Squib, don't you? Nymphadora had trouble with her magic too, once. It doesn't mean you're a Squib, just because—"
"I know," Draco said quickly. The amusement he'd felt on seeing the article in the paper soured. He did not want to think about how difficult it had become to perform the simplest spells since Astoria's death, as if his magic itself were encased in heavy lead. He could barely even produce a light with his wand anymore, and despite Andromeda's optimism that, given time, his magical ability would return, Draco himself did not feel quite so sure.
"It has nothing to do with that," Draco added. "Sort of…a personal grudge."
About a month previously, Draco's son had become seriously ill with what turned out to be an obscure Muggle disease. The nature of the illness had only been discovered by a Muggle physician who had been brought in as a last resort by one of the Healers at St. Mungo's. However, due to political squabbling within the hospital, the Muggle's memory had been altered on the pretence of upholding the Statute of Secrecy. The Muggle had already been aware of the Wizarding world, since his wife was a Squib, and he posed no risk; but since, at that time, Squibs were not officially classified as 'magical persons' under Wizarding law, the Muggle had not been protected by the legislation which allowed Muggle relatives of magical persons to possess knowledge of the Wizarding world. Feeling snubbed by his inability to properly thank the man who had saved his son's life, Draco had made it his mission to alter the legal definition of Squibs under Wizarding law. He'd found an unexpected ally in Hermione Weasley, whose influence in the Ministry had, as Draco had just discovered from the paper, been enough to have the change written into law.
Andromeda was already aware of the details of Scorpius's illness, so Draco was able to explain briefly. "I wrote the proposal," he finished, the momentary sting of recalling his own loss of magical ability fading in his amused incredulity that he'd actually succeeded in changing Wizarding law—even if no one would ever know that he'd been the one to do it. "I hadn't heard anything about it until now."
"That's quite an accomplishment," Andromeda said, pleased. Draco knew that, as a Slytherin herself, Andromeda would appreciate the subtlety of his revenge against the politics which had spited him.
"Not my accomplishment, really," Draco said graciously. "I only wrote it."
"Still, I believe congratulations are in order," Andromeda said, "although it seems that not everyone would agree. I'm sure I don't know what the Ministry is doing these days," she added, in a snobbish tone, and Draco chuckled at her imitation of the conceited witch in the tea shop.
"Not too far ahead, Teddy," Andromeda called after her grandson, who had traversed some distance along the path towards Hogwarts, with Scorpius a short way behind him. Teddy did not seem to hear her, and Andromeda quickened her pace with a sigh. "Sometimes I wonder if he'd come home at all if he didn't have to…"
Her voice faltered. Draco could feel why—there was a sudden strangeness in the air. It felt heavy, almost waterlogged, and seemed to deaden sound around them. Certainly the village had become unnaturally silent. Draco looked back toward the village and saw that most of those visible in the street had stopped, apparently feeling the change too.
An icy chill stole through the air, like the creeping cold from a door left open on a still, frigid winter night, and with the cold Draco felt a knife of fear stab into his chest. He had felt this before—he knew what the cold and the silence meant—
From the path ahead, Draco heard Scorpius scream. He tried to run forward, but it was like wading through a thick swamp. Andromeda had raised her wand.
"Expecto Patronum!"
Her voice sounded feeble and tinny, but a silver shape burst from her wand and sailed towards the sound of Scorpius's cry. As it swept past Draco, he experienced a momentary reprieve from the creeping numbness and rushed forward through the foggy darkness of the morning. Ahead of him, he could see a small form crumpled on the ground. Somewhere, Teddy was yelling—or someone was—and a tall, black figure was gliding swiftly toward the form on the ground—
Andromeda's Patronus reached Scorpius first and moved past him, toward the Dementor and Teddy's voice. But the Patronus was faltering, Draco could see, its bright silver shimmering into a hazy mist of light—it would not be enough. He tried to run faster, but found he had come to a halt, still more than twenty feet from Scorpius. He could not move. Someone was screaming; Scorpius's terrified cries mingled with the sound of his own voice that he could hear, echoing inside his head, pleading.
"No! Please—stay with me—someone will be here soon—you'll be alright—"
She was choking to death on blood, coughing up mouthfuls of it as if the bloodline curse were ripping her apart from the inside out, and there was nothing he could do to save her. Scorpius was screaming in terror, and so was he—
"Astoria!"
He was facedown on something hard and wet, and brightness glared through his closed eyelids. Draco felt as if a heavy weight lay over his entire body. It was an effort to open his eyes, and when he managed it, his blurry vision was blinded by something glowing brilliantly silver a few feet away. Footsteps rushed past nearby, and someone was shouting something that was incoherent in Draco's barely-conscious state. He turned his head to the side and vomited. It did not in the slightest ease the sensation of terrible sickness and cold inside of him.
The silver thing came closer to him, and Draco felt a touch of warmth against his cold skin. After a moment, he managed to raise his head. The silver shape resolved itself into what appeared to be a frog. It was a Patronus, he realized, which meant—
"Scorpius!"
His voice came out as a rasp, as if he'd been screaming. He could hear footsteps; they seemed to be coming from two directions.
"I've got the children, Hannah, I'm taking them inside—"
One set of the footsteps stopped beside him, and then there was a hand on his shoulder, rolling him over, and a female voice was speaking to him urgently.
"Are you there, can you speak to me? Are you alright?"
"Scorpius," Draco tried to say again, but he didn't seem to make sense to the woman.
"It's alright," she said in relief, half-lifting him into a sitting position. "Come on, I'll help you up. It's alright."
"My son," Draco croaked.
"We've got him," she said. "It's okay. He's going to be alright. I'll take you to him…come on…"
She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and helped him to walk back towards what Draco could once more recognize as Hogsmeade. The silver frog had at some point been joined by a second, identical Patronus, and the two glided beside them like guards. The air was no longer cold, and the fog over the town had lifted, but the sun had not returned. The main street of Hogsmeade was littered with people sitting or lying down. Many of them were sobbing; others sat shaking, staring wide-eyed at nothing. Peppered along the street were witches and wizards in the scarlet robes of Aurors or the light blue of Healers.
"Where is my son?" Draco asked again, half-expecting to see Scorpius lying somewhere among the scattered figures.
"It's alright," the witch said, "I'm taking you to him. He's alright. You're both going to be just fine, it's okay."
She helped him up the steps and inside one of the buildings. Wooden chairs and tables had been cleared to the sides of the room, and witches and wizards sat in pairs or clusters on the floor. Most of them were wrapped in blankets, and a blue-robed Healer moved among the groups. The witch with Draco took a blanket from someone who handed it to her and pulled it around Draco's shoulders as she guided him towards the back corner of the room, where he saw Andromeda, sheet-white and likewise wrapped in a blanket, sitting against the wall. Teddy, his face pale where skin showed through the mud, sat close by her side. A tall, dark-haired man knelt on the floor with a Healer beside him, and clinging for dear life to the dark-haired man was—
"Scorpius!" Draco cried, rushing forward on unsteady legs and dropping to his knees beside the man, who turned toward him with an exclamation of surprise which Draco did not hear.
"Daddy!" Scorpius sobbed, reaching out toward him. The dark-haired man transferred Scorpius gently, blanket and all, into Draco's arms.
"He's alright, Malfoy," the man said, and Draco did not even think to ask how he knew his name, "I've just had him checked out…we got him in time."