Disclaimer/Note: In the arts, there is often a fine line between imitation, inspiration, and stealing. Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton is an excellent example of this. There is not a single song in that musical that is wholly, 100% original (and there are 46 songs, so that's quite a lot). And like, I love Hamilton and I am still saying this. It's not a matter of like or dislike - it's simple fact. And in most cases this actually works to make the art stronger, more impactful. Alexander Hamilton's introduction ("What's your name, man?") echoes the introduction of other famous rappers like Ja Rule and Eminem; the line "Nobody needs to know" at the end of "Say No to This" is directly plucked (with permission) from The Last Five Years; even the melody and lyrics of the finale recall the opening song of Once on this Island, another musical with a theme around storytelling. That doesn't mean Lin-Manuel Miranda is stealing, or that he's not a genius - it's a fine, fine line, so to speak.
This is not a fine line scenario. This is fanfiction, which means that basically everything in this world is the brainchild of J.K. Rowling, and I'm just playing around in it. I receive no financial benefit from writing this, unless you count reviews and feedback as payment, which the IRS definitely does not.
Prologue: Draco
"Scorpius, dear, you'll be late if you don't hurry," Astoria said to the empty room, "You know how your father hates that." She sprawled on a couch that Draco insisted was called a chaise in the living room of a large house that Draco insisted was called The Manor – capital letters implied.
Draco rushed in, fiddling with a set of silver and emerald cufflinks. "Did you tell Scorpius to hurry?" he asked as he deposited an enormous sheaf of parchment from the writing desk into a slim case that certainly wouldn't hold everything, until it did. He snapped the case shut. "Astoria?"
"Yes dear," Astoria said, sitting up, "But I'm not sure he was listening."
"You're not su – did you go to his room and tell him?"
"No, dear."
"Did he pop in here?"
"No, dear."
"Astoria, did you call an empty room 'Scorpius' and tell it to hurry up?"
"Well – " Astoria said, smiling like a Cheshire (even though she was in Wiltshire).
"I swear, someday you will be the death of me," Draco muttered, sweeping out of the room. He poked his head back around the door, "And I mean that in the most loving, genuine way, my darling wife."
"Good save." Astoria stood and smoothed her hands over her dress robes. "I'll ready the fire, then, if you'll call Scorpius down."
The midsummer Ministry function had been a fixture of the year since the end of the War. Ostensibly, it was intended to honor the rebuilding of British Wizarding society, which had, in reality, taken much longer to repair. But the Ministry had been (more or less) operational by July of 1997 – that is to say, the lobby had been repaired and there was a living Minister of Magic acting under his own free will by that point. So they threw a celebration every year, and one of the Potters or the Weasleys or the Boneses or the Longbottoms gave a sentimental speech, and some people dabbed their eyes, and everyone went home relieved that it wasn't 1997 all over again because the ballroom would have been in shambles and that would have ruined the mood. It was the same as Ministry functions always were these days: there was food, drink, and general merriment. People were kind to each other. Muggleborn wizards brought their parents, who wore dress robes that were clearly only taken out of the closet once a year on this occasion. Parents brought their older children, even if they were Squibs. Draco hated it.
He attended entirely out of a sense of obligation – and because it was a good chance to catch up on important goings-on in the community. Not that he cared about most members of that community, but his father had always kept a pulse on things, and it seemed best to know which way the wands were waving. It also, sometimes, yielded good opportunities to find sellers. Draco wasn't one to blather on about his collections, but word had spread nonetheless. Most times, now, new items came to him rather than the other way around.
Astoria attended because she liked wearing the same dress robes every year and watching Draco's old friends and their wives stumbling over compliments, trying not to say the exact same things they'd said about it the year before.
Scorpius attended because he's been informed at age three that he had to, and had, of course, acquiesced meekly.
Lucius and Narcissa obviously did not attend. Which was another reason Draco felt obligated to go – as though his presence could negate the years and years his father and his father's friends had spent murdering people in cold blood. It couldn't, Draco knew. But Lucius and Narcissa were not strictly welcome at Ministry events these days, and he thought it important that the Malfoys still be represented. They were, after all, one of the oldest Wizarding families in Great Britain.
And they were going to be late if Scorpius didn't hurry.
Draco knocked on Scorpius's door. Or, rather, Draco raised his hand to knock on Scorpius's door, but Scorpius emerged, fully dressed, before he got the chance, leaving Draco standing in front of the door with his fist raised in a very silly manner. Scorpius gave his father a quizzical look, then brushed past him and headed downstairs without a word.
The boy was almost a complete mystery to Draco, who could only remember blindly idolizing his own father at age twelve. He'd wanted to be just like Lucius from the first moments he could remember until his father had been sent to Azkaban at the end of fifth year – but Scorpius seemed to have realized much earlier on that his father was not infallible. It was, Draco reasoned, probably somehow his fault that the boy had been Sorted into Gryffindor. Some sort of universal retribution for his and his family's previous crimes. It was much more directly his fault that Astoria was so much closer with their son than he was. The two of them were thick as thieves, and, for the most part, Draco thought that was for the best. After all, it wasn't as though he had learned from his parents how to be a particularly good role model to a child.
But he did think Scorpius was taking it a little far in the opposite direction, sometimes. And he did wonder. Scorpius had been a meek child. He'd loved to read. He was kind to his friends – well, mostly to Azalea, but still, that must have taken a good deal of patience. He'd never shown interest in Draco's extensive collection of Dark artifacts (which, granted, were kept in ensorcelled, triple-locked, charmed cases. But still, Draco as a young child would have been sorely tempted to at least try to break one open). And then he'd been Sorted into Gryffindor. And then he'd essentially refused to talk about any of the friends he was making ("I spend most of my time in the library, Dad.") or whether or not his professors were being fair to him, given that he was a Malfoy ("Everyone treats me fine, Dad."), or even the most benign things like what his favorite dishes at dinner were ("I eat the same things as everyone else, Dad."). Most suspiciously, he'd evaded every attempt Draco had made to question him about the incident that landed him in the Hospital Wing in the spring. He clearly wasn't aware that Hogwarts was required to notify parents or guardians when their child was sent to the Hospital Wing, and had feigned ignorance at every one of Draco's not-so-subtle attempts to get an explanation from him.
And there had been that whole unusual business with the medical records and news clippings for some Muggle. Draco was smart enough to know that, firstly, Muggle Studies classes didn't start until Third Year, and secondly, no Muggle Studies professor in their right mind would have students essentially stalking Voldemort's victims. Profiling, maybe. But the information Scorpius had requested certainly went beyond anything he would believably need for a class. Draco was many things – pretentious, arrogant, scheming, independently wealthy – but he was not stupid.
He'd gotten the information for Scorpius (by extralegal means) because, frankly, he'd hoped it would make up for his solid month of sulking when the boy hadn't wound up in Slytherin. It had seemed mostly harmless, just some files and clippings on some Muggle who was tangentially involved in the War; there didn't seem to be anything inherently dangerous in Scorpius having the information. But Draco had wondered all the same, and even Astoria seemed not to know what Scorpius was doing with Peter Marduin's records, or why he'd needed them in the first place. This put Draco in an uncomfortable position he was sure his own father had never faced: that of realizing he wasn't sure how well he truly knew his only son.
It was incredibly frustrating.
Still, he thought, as he sprinkled Floo powder from a faceted crystal bowl into the roaring fire Astoria had built, at least the boy was healthy. At least he was making good grades at school. At least he and Azalea seemed to have gotten over whatever tiff it was they'd been having during Christmas holidays. And at least, if he wasn't running with any crowd, he couldn't be running with the wrong crowd.
Draco arranged his face into something almost resembling a smile and stepped into the flames.
...
The ministry function this year had been so similar to last year's that, by the time the arrived back at the Manor, Draco already couldn't remember which of Arthur Weasley's progeny had given the speech. He was fairly certain Ron wasn't balding that much, but if you held a wand to his head and asked him to swear that the Weasley at the podium was not the Weasley he'd spent 7 years at Hogwarts hating, he wouldn't chance it.
Scorpius had disappeared almost the instant they'd walked in, presumably off to hide in the Ministry's rather grand Library. He reappeared as though he'd Apparated when food was served, but otherwise Draco didn't see him until Astoria had gone to collect him when they were leaving.
A child who liked to hide in the library during parties. Well, that was better than some of the antics Draco had seen tonight. He wasn't quite sure why two of the Francophone Weasleys were chasing Harry Potter's oldest son around with what looked like a tube of lipstick that emitted sparks, or why one of the elder Weasley boys had been so distracted by this that he'd walked straight into one of the hovering chocolate fountains and then tracked chocolate all around the room for the rest of the night – but he was surely grateful that Scorpius would never cause such a scene.
Overall, it was with a generally perplexed but pleased air that Draco thought about his son – as it had been for most of the summer. Nothing wrong with that, he supposed. Perhaps the boy would make more sense as he grew older, and could share more interests with his father.
Perhaps he'd get Scorpius a new broom this year.
Smiling with that thought, Draco finished buttoning his nightclothes and strolled to his bed. He pulled back the precisely folded sheets and slid in next to Astoria, who acknowledged him by turning a page in her book.
Several minutes passed with Draco fondly imagining broom shopping in Diagon Alley in just a few days' time. He'd buy Scorpius the top broom on the market, just as his father had done for him. Perhaps Scorpius could be a Seeker, too . . .
"Dear," Astoria said delicately, placing her book on the night table, "I'm going to tell you something that I don't think you'll like."
Draco was half-asleep already. Scorpius dived after a Golden Snitch in his mind's eye, and he smiled. "Mmmph."
"I found Scorpius talking with the Potter boy and the Weasley girl tonight."
The happy image evaporated. Draco opened one eye. "Mmmph?"
"When you asked me to fetch him at the end of the night, that's where he was. They were," she took a deep breath, "having a chat." She didn't add that Scorpius had looked both guilty and defiant when she'd caught him out. That both Albus Potter and Rose Weasley had stood up to shake her hand when Scorpius haltingly introduced them. That, as they'd said their goodbyes, Albus had added cheerfully, "See you back at school, Scorpius!" without a second thought, but Scorpius had just waved and desperately tried not to meet his mother's eyes after that. Astoria tried to break it gently to her husband. "I think they might be . . . friends."
Draco rapidly revised his opinion about "the wrong crowd."
"Should we still let him go back to Hogwarts, do you think?" he asked Astoria after a long pause.
Author's Note: Hello and thank you for reading! In case it was not clear from the title, this is a sequel fic, although this chapter can function as a standalone without too many spoilers. If you have not read the first story in this series (An Unusual Beginning), there are a lot of places where you may be very confused moving forward. If you're up for it, my recommendation would be to read part I first (The Rose Weasley Chronicles I: An Unusual Beginning). If you enjoyed this as a one-shot and want to continue without going back and reading part I (which is, in fairness, long), I've inserted a summary of the important points of An Unusual Beginning as the next "chapter" of this fic. I wouldn't say the summary represents my best writing because, you know, it's a summary and not actual storytelling. There's no dialog. It's not quite bullet points, but it's not that far off. But it gets you the background you need to continue the story (hopefully) without confusion if you want to start from here and skip An Unusual Beginning.
This story is set in the same universe as my Teddy/Victoire story (Right, Wrong, and the Element of Risk), but that's just a fun little two-shot and doesn't impact the arc here at all.
