Present Day

"Salazar! What the hell, Nott?" Draco narrowed his eyes at Theodore Nott accusingly. Draco was angry at the wizard for daring to sneak up on him, but also with himself for allowing anyone to get so close while he stood unaware.

Theo was poised with one hand in the pocket of his perfectly tailored trousers, while he held champagne in the other. Draco did not doubt Theo's wand was in the hidden hand. The man was notoriously paranoid.

No one had been allowed inside Nott manor in nearly ten years, other than the Malfoys and the Dark Lord himself. Ever since his wife, Daphne Nott,néeGreengrass, and their son had barely escaped alive from an attack while Theo was out of the country, he had stopped entertaining. Draco knew their Lord only made a token visit as to indicate that he trusted Theo not to be hiding anything.

Showing his face in public often enough to make up for the lack of entertaining at his home, Theo still was usually present at large events like this without his family. He rarely came to any private events. Daphne and Astoria insisted their sons grow up together, even if Scorpius was a year younger. Even so, they mostly associated at Malfoy Manor. Draco could count on one hand, the number of times he had stepped into Nott Manor since the incident.

"So, Astoria won out with bringing Scorpius tonight," Theo stated blandly, watching the younger Malfoy walk across the room towards his mother. Draco was not fooled into thinking Theo wasn't also watching for Draco's reaction to his statement, even though the other wizard appeared to not be looking at him.

Knowing that, he still could not help letting some bitterness creep into his voice when he defended the presence of his son. "We agreed it was time he started solidifying his position."

Theo barely turned his head to allow Draco to see a ghost of smirk. "I'm sure."

Coolly appraising his friend, Draco wondered what Theo was playing at. Out of all the people Draco chose to associate with, rather than the crowd he was forced to endure for political reasons, Theodore Nott occasionally manged to be an enigma to him.

They'd had playdates as young children, their mothers frequently coming together for tea and gossip. When Theo's father became a widower, the playdates had stopped. Draco had asked after his friend, but Narcissa had looked so sad each time she told him, "Maybe another day," he had quickly stopped.

Despite becoming reacquainted at Hogwarts, they were by no means close. Draco had Crabbe and Goyle as his goons by that time, and Theo showed little desire to be a follower. The tall, quiet boy operated alone as much as possible, preferring the library to studying in the common room. Rarely did he attend Quidditch matches, and it was not until classes grew smaller after OWLs, that Draco even sat with him during lessons.

"If Bryan were here, I am sure he'd be right by Scorpius' side," Theo remarked. "Thick as thieves."

"I'm sure Bryan would be in some dark corner with a witch, hand up her skirt," Draco replied. "Scorpius would be his lookout, waiting to hear the details later."

Draco neglected to add what he was sure Theo already knew, that his son would gladly use the salacious story as wanking material.

"Yes, my son is paving quite the path the nearer he gets to coming of age." Theo admitted. "I wouldn't be surprised if Scorpius might have tried a little touch and tickle, himself, with Bryan here to goad him on."

Daphne and Theo were a true love match, not arranged like Draco and Astoria. Nott Sr. had been found asphyxiated in a corner booth at a back alley pub just six weeks after Lord Voldemort won the war, before any marriage contracts could be signed. No one had ever been charged with his murder.

Now that he did not have to wait for his paterfamilias to negotiate on his behalf, Theo had not wasted any time in proposing a secret elopement to his longtime girlfriend. She had accepted, and much to her family's chagrin, the two had turned up married not a week later.

They held off a bit on producing an heir for Theo, insisting they were young. Draco was sure there had been pressure from a few fronts for the two to start the next generation of loyal subjects, but Daphne had not fallen pregnant until nearly two years into their marriage.

At the time of the attack, Daphne had been pregnant with their second, tragically losing the baby two days later. It was something they never spoke of. She had just begun showing; Astoria had been over the moon that she would be an aunt again. The Notts' second child would have been nearly seven years younger than their first.

Before Daphne's second pregnancy, Draco had grown sick of hearing Astoria worry that Daphne was going to anger their Lord by only having one child. She had not kept quiet on this opinion to Daphne and Theo either. Her insesient blathering about the righteousness of the cause and a woman's duty to help grow thetruemagical population got old after the fiftieth round.

Thankfully, she had the tact to keep her gob shut afterward.

Theo might be meticulous about showing up to events like these, but Daphne refused to come. After losing her child, she had been irrevocably broken... something else they never spoke of. The two men did consider their sons to be fair game, both agreeing that the boys were twats.

"Perhaps," Draco acknowledged, looking around at a few of the known slags in the room.

More than one of them had propositioned Theo un front of Draco before. He, himself, had been on the receiving end of Floo addresses slipped into his hand. Both men always said no. Draco would not put it past some of them to consider it fine revenge to tup his son. Or, for either of their sons to take something like that, if willingly offered.

Draco got the sense that behind closed doors, the Notts lived a very different life from him. The way Daphne laid small touches of her hand upon Theo, even in public, was his first clue. When it was just the two families at one of their homes, she was even more free with her affections, kissing him on the cheek or holding his hand.

When Bryan came along, Daphne nursed him herself, much to Astoria's thinly disguised disgust. All three of the Malfoy children required Draco to hire wet nurses. The young boy sat comfortably in his father's lap, enjoying freely given affection. Draco was not sure his own son had ever come to him when he was hurt or upset. Instead, there had been a nanny to offer comfort. Astoria insisted it was the way things were meant to be. No coddling a child.

Draco's relationship with his own father had been much the same, so he had gone along with it. Yet, up until the age of ten, he at least had his mother's arms to run into whenever he wanted. It was not until that final year before starting Hogwarts that Lucius had laid down a stricter way of behaving around Narcissa.

Draco wilfully ignored the differences between the two sisters, otherwise he would have found himself jealous of someone else's marriage more often than he cared to admit.

As if reading his thoughts, Theo whispered, "Ever wonder if things could have been different?"

Draco carefully cast a non-verbal, wandless Muffliato. He had practised that spell ad nauseum to be able to do it completely undetected. There was no point in trying to have a bit of privacy in a crowd, if everyone in the crowd knew you wanted your conversation to go unheard.

"What do you mean?" Draco moved his lips as little as possible, holding his glass up to cover them just in case.

Theo spoke into his glass, feigning the act of drinking, "Have you ever wondered what could have been? What if Granger hadn't disappeared?"

Draco stiffened. He could not stop his visceral reaction - and he knew he'd been caught. Shite. Could he still write it off as surprise that Theo was the one implicating himself as a traitor? Yes, that could work, he quickly realized. Looking into Theo's inscrutable face, Draco prepared to accuse his accuser.

"I had a peculiar otter show up on my property, back in 2002. It stuck around for a few months." Theo preempted him as he gave Draco a significant look.

Draco sucked in a breath. "Why are you telling me this now?" he demanded, forgetting to cover his mouth.

"How about we go to my place to continue this conversation?" Theo suggested, arching a brow before glancing around meaningfully.