He watched the witch. As she stood in the middle of the three of them and could see her frustration. He wanted to blurt it out, or try and explain what they were thinking but he didn't know how. How to say what they all thought without damning his son. Tray too, pushing her away and Blaise has been less than helpful with this particular part of their whatever this was. Reunification maybe.
Her eyes flicked between them and he knew what showed on Theo's face. Nearly nothing. Something stern and controlled. He wasn't sure if his mask was actually functioning but he could tell he wasn't showing much because her frustration flared after she looked him over. Blaise was frustrating her because he clearly wasn't dealing with her as he normally would. Their friend couldn't talk straight with her because it was them and not him involved. He was trying but it wasn't working.
He thought over her words and finished his glass. Then began rolling it in his hands. Trapping the last drop and keeping it in motion. She said she wanted them, to see them and to go do things with them. To have a life and have them have one too. Blaise seemed sure that if she just knew what to say then she would. He looked back up to her and she was facing Blaise. Her shoulders were slumped and her little hands fisted. Blaise was telling her silently that he couldn't say anymore.
"The problem is what it will do to you, being associated with us like that. If you are seen with the boys and with us." He had been right to speak. To just find a way to sort of cover what he meant and force the words out. Granger spun and was intent on him instantly.
"This is ridiculous. I don't care what people think. You are all so stupid sometimes. What is the problem? Lay it out for me. What you see as the problem." She held his eyes and he could see she meant it. Meant all of that. Really didn't care what people would say and he looked to Theo, who he could clearly see didn't believe her at all. Or didn't trust the situation was maybe a better way to phrase it. Then he looked to Blaise who looked relaxed. Far more than before.
Granger was still looking at him though. Expectantly, as if since he had spoken he would do so again.
"So you are fine with being photographed with us and having people speculate about everything. Openly, you know they will. I've read a few papers and you being gone is still openly mentioned and speculated on. The witch photographed barely looked like you but had big hair and so you were spotted in San Antonio or something." He watched her blink at that and turn to Blaise who looked both sheepish and stubborn.
"Not once did you ask exactly what was said about you im the paper. You requested anything personal about your friends." He said defensively and she huffed before looking back at him. Then she moved to the couch and sat beside Blaise again.
"Isn't there anything other than that stuff?" Her tone made it clear she wasn't her usual even self. Blaise acted though and a wand wave had a bottle of red open and a glass in her hand a minute later. It was helpful to have had Blaise make some blanket statements and infer that he would indicate whether she was behaving normally or not.
Then she pulled her feet up under her again and looked back at him, then to Theo. He did too and his friend was looking at her, Draco could see the curiosity. He should have payed more attention to her in school. More time thinking about her but he hadn't. Hadn't wanted to see and so was playing catch up now. He didn't think she would do it and was agonizing over costing Trayden a mother, something he had never had. Something Theo had wanted more than anything.
He didn't think that's what would happen but he didn't want her to be scared off or not understand what would happen. Exactly what he was afraid of, he wasn't sure. A lot of it was asking for anything at all from her, she had given more than he would ever have asked for. It wasn't a familiar place to be but part of him thought it a decently safe place to be.
She had asked him once, only once, if he was alright during their sixth year. The witch had made comments and answered his increasingly angry snide remarks but once she had stopped and grabbed his arm. Asked him if he was alright and he had walked away. The way she had asked and the look on her face had been so concerned. Frightened and determined too. All he could do was walk away and try not to think about it later. If it would have changed anything to answer her. What she would have done if he had answered her. His mother was dead now anyways and he wondered if he threw himself at her feet now. Asked for help and was honest, would she give it.
Blaise was watching him now and there was something in his eyes. Something understanding and it was hard too. In that moment he wondered what his friend knew. It wasn't that important though and he looked back at the witch who was staring into her glass. Her hair was less of a mess but it was still wild and it was longer now. Halfway down her back at least. She looked small and he marvelled at the tiny package that held so much witch.
Maybe it would sink in, become more acceptable. What she had done. The way she apparently viewed her actions. As if it were only normal to keep two kids, kids of men who had never done anything for her. Not only to keep them but to clearly love them and have prepped them and herself for this crazy situation. To be sitting in a room with them, easily too. Well not right now but she had sat alone with them before the boys came to breakfast and had sat sandwiches between them on the couch while they read earlier too. He was trying not to think about that, how it had felt to have Scorpio's relax into him and the content grin he had gotten from him several times. As if sitting there, all together, and reading was all the boy could want.
Draco knew it was selfish and that they would probably hurt her. There was no way she wouldn't be tainted by this, but if she wanted to do it then who was he to tell her no. No doubt Potter had agonized over these kind of things too. The thought was not new to him but it felt different now. She was his sons, Scorp's My, had chosen the boys over Potter and everyone else. Selfish surely, to even let her, but it was his son and he wanted this too. To have her show them how to do this, help them be family. He had no idea how she would do it, but if she would he already knew that her way was what he wanted. Neither Theo nor him had ever trusted their fathers and he wanted that.
Seeing Scorpio's smile and be so confident. He wasn't sure what would happen, and Draco could see his apprehension, but when she was there the boys were alright. She trusted them, or was showing the boys she did, and so they did too.
Deciding, and taking comfort in the way Blaise was relaxed and easy, he waited until she looked toward him and caught her eyes. Tried not to let himself get lost in his thoughts and waited until she straightened some and he knew he had her attention.
"You said you would stay and help us." He watched her nod firmly and wait. Not much showed on her usually expressive face, she looked serious. He could tell this was serious to her and he shot a glance at Theo and his friend was not confident but stoic. Theo would let him try and was surely trying to figure out how he could tell Tray if it went wrong. Eyes back on her, he was reassured again. She was expectant and didn't look angry or anything.
"Would you stay part of their lives? Not temporarily." He couldn't make more come out and he could see she wasn't sure what he meant. She looked to Blaise who only met her eyes and he couldn't see hers. His friend looked back at her steadily and she gave up. Looked to Theo and then those honey eyes were on him again. Scorp and the seriousness of the situation made it easier to ignore all the other thoughts he had. Right now the boys and this huge transition were the priority and all the other things those eyes made him think of were irrelevant.
"You'd let me?" Her quiet words were like a slap and he knew from her face that his had closed down. Of course she would wonder about this. Rarely had he felt lower than he did at that moment. The witch thought he would politely thank her and then send her away. Maybe she thought it was her blood or their history. The muggle things even, it could be anything and she was only her logical self to have considered it. He didn't look away though, didn't let himself look away from the emotion on her face. He deserved to feel the creeping shame. Knew his son would be disgusted with how he had once thought and worse, how he had behaved even when he knew the prejudices he had been raised with were wrong.
"You are a brilliant witch Granger. More than that you are the closest thing to a mother that either of them will
probably ever have. Warmer and softer than anything the three of us have ever experienced." She blinked and then frowned at him. Not angrily but as if she didn't like his words. He looked to Blaise who had enough fire in his eyes to make sure he kept speaking.
"It is not wanting to take this away, that's what made this such a stilted and frustrating conversation for you. I can't ask, we can't ask you to mother them, love them and show us how to do this. To do it with us even. Surely you understand that." He couldn't say more and he looked away from the honest eyes meeting his. Her face had softened and then it had firmed. Waiting for her to speak or something was agonizing.
This wasn't survival but it was his son's happiness and he knew it was his too. That she would help, even if that wasn't the point. Had watched her prop up her friends for years. Be honest with them and affectionate. Make things normal with only her presence. Potter wouldn't have made it, flat out wouldn't have been sane or as emotionally stable as he had been, if it hadn't been for the steady way she stood beside him. If she would do that, for them and the boys, then he was sure they would be alright. Scorp would love him one day, trust him and he tried not to think about what being around her might be like. What it might be like to have breakfast be similar to today everyday. To spend afternoons together reading and watch the boys fly.
Even to live so casually, without the formalities of the families they had grown up in.
"Draco." Her voice was quiet and had his friends not been there, he would have closed his eyes at the voice saying his name, so softly. Knowing she wanted him to look at her, he did. Her posture had shifted and she was facing him.
"Is that really what you want? We can make it work for Scorp, without you having to be around me much after this first part." He stared at her and made himself not look to Blaise. The witch was all Gryffindor then, even he could see that this wasn't really what she wanted but she was offering and he felt worse again. It didn't look like she wanted him to though, only that she was offering if it was what he wanted.
"For my son to have a mother, someone to love him and be softer. He already has that. I don't know if I can do that. Give him that." His voice broke and she softened completely.
Part of him just watched and part of him wanted to move. Other parts of him weren't sure how to react to the sad compassionate look on her face. Speaking to her was the right way to go and he was sure Blaise would give him credit after. It wasn't the way he would have approached this ever and so totally foreign. Maybe it was good that he had been in there for so long. His mind had a big break between then and now. It was disorienting he didn't know really any of what was happening around them. The political climate or even who they would have to deal with about the boys. It made him less willing to ask or offer anything so risky as this. This was Granger though, grown and more than he had pictured when his hormone ridden teenage self had imagined her.
"Alright then. So we are going to figure our own shit out and be there for them. All of us." The satisfied way she said it was funny and Blaise did chuckle at her.
"I love that tone Cara. It always prefaces things being totally normal feeling, even when it isn't." Blaise slung an arm over her shoulder, careful of her glass and then he met his friends eyes. Needing to know if that had just happened. She had agreed just like that. To what he wasn't sure but it seemed decided to her and Blaise was looking at Theo now. Granger wasn't though, he watched her and she finally did look at his friend.
Draco could see that Theo looked at her finally, because she tensed. It lasted a bit and he watched her face. Different than with him, more stern and even prideful, as if she was daring him to make a comment or something.
"Tray mentioned you two were beginning to practice banishing things, wandlessly." The deep voice of Theo said into the charmed but not hostile tension around them and he wanted to flop back into his chair. He watched her scan his friend and then she looked to him. It was a glance only but she must have got what she wanted because she stood and walked toward the door then stopped and turned back.
"We should wait for him. He can show you the journal or his thoughts on magic. I didn't know how you guys did it and Blaise and Maria were rather curiously unwilling to explain how they were taught. So we did it partially the way I taught myself and partially what I thought would work for them." Something in her tone caught his attention. The way she said them, as if it they were different from her too. Blaise wasn't looking up when she sat down again and picked up her half empty glass.
"Do either of you want one?" She asked absently as she thought. Both shook their heads then Blaise gestured and the whiskey bottle moved between them. He caught Theo's eye and could see he was less alarmed but whatever was on his face had his friend sitting up straighter and watching the witch.