Day 5- I Believe in Father Christmas:
With their toddler shrieking and screaming, as he had been doing for the smallest of reasons recently, Hermione pulled up a website that tracked Father Christmas to distract him. Indeed, it worked, but seeing Draco staring at them with a set lip, she took her husband's arm and pulled him into the next room. "What's the problem?" She asked him, knowing from his expression that he had one.
Draco put his hands briefly on his hips then released them, the signal that he wasn't looking forward to it, but it was time to ramp up for a long discussion. "I don't know if I agree with this Father Christmas thing."
"What do you mean 'this thing'?" She turned on him immediately, glancing through the wood and glass door to see Scorpius still thankfully focused on the screen. "You don't want him to believe in Father Christmas?"
"No," he said decidedly. "I don't think it's healthy to lie to our son."
"It's not lying!" Hermione exclaimed. "Before I knew that magic really existed, this was the only type I had for years."
"And how did you feel when it was yanked away from you?"
She made a despairing hand gesture. "When I aired my carefully thought out suspicions to my parents and they delicately explained the truth, yes I was a little sad but I'd had so many wonderful years and it wasn't jarring, but a subtle realisation."
He shrugged. "But what if Scorp doesn't find out like that and is instead utterly traumatised?"
The sixteen month old in the other room's attention span had run out and he was now investigating the baubles on the tree just like Crookshanks used to do. "Draco, tens of billions of children around the world have been through this process and turned out just fine; better perhaps even than they would have been without it."
"Neither I nor any of my friends experienced it and we're the ones who grew up in this world."
"I think you could have done with Father Christmas," she told him stubbornly. "Maybe you wouldn't have turned out so..."
"So what?" He challenged her with a dangerous expression.
She shook her head. "You know exactly what I mean! So- so- cruel! If you'd have believed in him maybe-"
"I'd have been more nice than naughty?" Draco scoffed. "Darling please, people aren't good because they're worried some divine being is watching them at all times and will reward them! Plenty of evil people have in fact done what they did due to that faith! It's about values and beliefs- and biochemistry."
Exhaling, she put a hand to her forehead and sunk into the sofa, watching Scorpius next door. "Okay," she admitted reluctantly. "That's true, but look at the magic he had in his eyes watching that website! The excitement as we opened the last door on our advent calendar! He doesn't really know what's going on yet, but the awe and wonder is still contagious. I want to watch that develop every year, and show him how wonderful it feels to believe there's someone out there that marvellous and unique."
Draco landed beside her to watch their son together for a moment before turning to her and saying, "well that's both our closing statements wrapped up. Final decision time."
She chuckled. "Some good points on both sides."
Nodding, he lay his hand on hers gently. "I have concerns, as I'm sure you've realised, but yes, your childhood does sound good. I just-" he took a shaky breath as she squeezed the hand resting on hers whilst he stared at his mini-me as though he were growing up by a year a second in front of his eyes. "I never want him to lose faith: in us, in magic, in anything and everything wonderful."
"In this world," she told him, staring at the elf running over to pull Scorpius away from the tree, who he began to try to ride like a reindeer flying through the sky underneath the literal fairy lights that resembled the stars. "I think that's impossible. Personally, mine has only become more fantastical since I stopped believing." A chorus line of sugar plum fairies danced along the tree, allowing a distraction for the poor elf to direct the toddler towards! "But I don't want you to be uncomfortable, so how about this?" She reasoned. "If Scorp doesn't ask about this before he goes to Hogwarts, we tell him that summer. That way he has something wonderful to look forward to and prove to him that magic truly, deeply does exist. More incredible than he could ever have imagined."
"And you don't think someone will tell him at this 'primary school'?" Draco asked her nervously. They'd both decided they didn't want any children of theirs to be home-schooled. They wanted them to get to know other children before that, and be comfortable around them, as well as to get a normal, not just magical education. Draco had loved being surrounded by his family at the time, but now when he looked back he agreed he could have become more tolerant if he'd been schooled with a combination of blood types rather than only meeting a few of his parents' friends' Pureblood children. Nevertheless, he was still worried about how their son would be treated by the teachers and students after hearing many stories about Wizarding children bullied by muggles.
"Maybe that will be how he finds out, but we can do damage control. I believe in you and me." Grinning at the quote from his vows, Draco kissed her sweetly on the lips.
After filling up a glass with whisky and placing a mince pie beside the carrot on the plate, Hermione placed the glass down by the fireplace herself, handing the plate over to Scorpius, close to the floor to limit the risk of him dropping and smashing it. Luckily her coaching whispers to place it down gently worked out, and once they had done that Draco lifted him up with a playful roar, despite her complaints not to get him ramped up before bed! The three of them chased up the stairs, and whilst they tucked him under the covers, Draco gestured to the stocking at the end of the bed. "Now Scorp, you have to go to sleep nice and early tonight because Father Christmas can only come when you're asleep, and you don't want to hold him up, do you? You saw on the line how many places he has to visit." She stifled her laughter at his inaccurate modern terminology and instead nodded to encourage him, proud that he was taking the lead to show that they truly were on the same page. It had been true what she'd said on their wedding day; things weren't always easy, but they always managed to get through them.
"Ma-ma?" Said Scorpius as they were turning out the light and leaving the room. She turned around to ask him what was wrong. "What if I can't sleep?" He asked in a nervous little voice that sounded oddly like Draco's. There was no way she could have mistaken it, but something in the unsure tone...
She perched herself on the edge of his bed and traced a gentle pattern across his forehead. "Count the reindeers flying through the sky above us. "Dasher... and Dancer... and Prancer... and Vixen..."
Between each name Scorpius tried to repeat them, getting quieter with each name as he drifted off, until he didn't repeat them anymore. She turned to Draco in the darkness and smiled at him, receiving a broad grin back.
The two of them crept around giggling like they were both as young as their son, trying to keep as silent as possible whilst they slipped the fillers into the stocking, including the traditional orange Draco had protested against them wasting! She'd managed to convince him that it had to be done, even though she knew no child in the world actually ate the fruit in their stocking! Then they used revelio to pull the presents from his list out of their cupboard and carry them downstairs, returning to levitating after she dropped one and her husband began to panic that the Baby's First Chess Set had smashed. With a pile of presents assembled overflowing from below the tree, they went back up to bed, but it didn't stop Draco from continuing to worry. As she attempted to snuggle against him he continued to question whether they'd forgotten everything, getting up twice to check that the cupboard was certainly empty, and triple checking that the revelio charm hadn't missed anywhere.
"Drake," she told him sleepily. "It's fine! I have a list- I have multiple lists! Everything is perfect." And that was the same sentence she repeated in the morning when Scorpius came barrelling into their bedroom dragging a heavy stocking behind hIm. Everything was perfect; how could it get any better?