X-Ray Spells And Unexpected Pride

Dear Mr Malfoy,

My name is Albus Potter. I've never actually met you but I'm very good friends with your son, Scorpius. I'm writing to you because I'm worried about him. He says you never really talked about the War much, but that his Grandad has told him lots of stories he is now discovering weren't really true. I think he's finding it quite difficult, learning that you weren't really much of a hero, no offence. Anyway, a lot of the other kids don't really like him much because of who he is. They make fun of him quite a lot, and make jokes about you in front of him and stuff. He tries to stick up for you sometimes, but can't deny the things they say, because he doesn't actually know what's true and what's not. I know you probably find it hard to talk about the War – most adults I know do – but I think it would really help if he could hear the whole truth from you. I think he's being bullied at the moment too, but he won't talk to me or Rose about it. I'm not sure what to do, but I thought you should know.

Yours Sincerely,

Albus Potter

P.S. Please don't tell Scorpius I wrote to you. I don't think he'd like it much.

Draco sat and stared at the letter he had just received. His hands were shaking slightly.

"Dad? Are you okay?" He looked up to see Faye standing in the doorway.

"I'm fine, honey," he replied, trying to keep his voice steady, "Aren't you supposed to be doing your maths?" As they got older he was giving the girls more of a timetable, allowing them to work on their own and come to him whenever they had a problem, rather than him having to sit with them the entire time.

"I finished mine," Faye said, "And Lyra got annoyed cos I kept fidgeting and stuff while she was trying to concentrate. So I decided to come through here."

"Why don't you read for a bit or something then?" Draco suggested, "Just until Lyra's finished, and then we can have lunch."

"But I don't want to read," Faye moaned, "Reading's boring." Draco sighed. He missed Scorpius, who had always been happy to sit and read for hours, and was far more dedicated to his schoolwork. Lyra and Faye had much shorter attention spans, and had to be taught in smaller blocks with frequent breaks and activities that would capture their interest. It was fun, but rather exhausting sometimes.

Normally he would have played a game with Faye or something to pass the time, but right now he couldn't think about anything other than the letter. He needed some time to digest it and decide what to do.

"Start preparing some stuff for lunch, then," he said, "There's bread in the cupboard, and you can decide what you want in your sandwich."

"I could make the sandwiches myself!" Faye exclaimed, suddenly rather taken with this idea, "We'll have cheese sandwiches, and tomato! Except Lyra, cos she doesn't like tomato."

She wandered out of the room, deep in thought. Draco sighed in relief, then unfolded the letter and reread it for the third time.

He couldn't believe Scorpius was being bullied. It just didn't make sense. Scorp was such a likeable kid. No one who got to know him could ever feel any sort of animosity towards him.

But that wasn't the point really, if what Albus Potter said was true. Scorpius wasn't being bullied for his own actions. He was being bullied for Draco's. It wasn't right.

His immediate instinct was to storm up to the school and demand that something be done to stop the bullying. But that would probably only make the situation worse, and would definitely embarrass poor Scorpius, who would blame his friend Albus for telling him.

His second, slightly more reasonable, idea was to write to Neville. He'd been thrilled when he'd heard that Neville was taking up the post of Herbology teacher. Letting Scorpius go off to Hogwarts on his own hadn't been quite so hard when he'd known his best friend would be there to keep an eye on him.

But what could Neville do? He wasn't even Scorpius' Head of House, and it was unlikely he would know who the culprits were. And even if he did, they would probably assume that Scorpius had told on them to Neville, which wouldn't help his attempt to seem less like Draco.

He wished Astoria were here. She would have a better idea of what to do. But she was on a business trip to France. He could write to her, he supposed, but he didn't think he could stand waiting for a response. He wanted to do something now.

Really, the best thing he could do was take Albus' advice. Scorpius needed to know about the War, and not just the official version he had taught him as part of his History course. Draco had to share his own side of the story. It was going to be hard, though. Scorpius had always looked up to him so much, seen him as his perfect, wonderful Dad who was always right. He didn't want to give that up. But he had to. Scorpius was going to hear the whole story at some point anyway, and it was better that he hear an accurate version.

With a sigh, Draco set down the letter, which he would reply to later, and headed through to the kitchen to rescue Faye's disastrous attempt at making sandwiches.

"Astoria, thank goodness you're here." Draco looked exhausted as he jumped up from the seat by the hospital bed.

"How is she?" Astoria asked, glancing down at her daughter, who was currently asleep.

"She's fine," Draco said, "The only reason they decided to keep her in hospital at all was her age. Fixing broken bones can be more complicated with young children, since they're still growing. But the Healer says she'll be able to leave in the morning."

"So what happened? Your mother didn't really explain in her owl. She just said Lyra had broken her arm and that you'd taken her to St Mungo's."

"She fell off her broom," Draco explained with a slight smile, "Not surprising, really. She and Faye were showing off, competing to see who could perform the most ridiculous stunts. I'm so glad I put a charm on their brooms to stop them going above a certain height, otherwise she'd have fallen from a lot higher."

Astoria looked down at Lyra fondly. She and Faye were such daredevils, and so competitive, that it was a miracle they hadn't ended up here sooner. But it had practically given her a heart attack when she'd heard her daughter was in hospital. She took Draco's hand and squeezed it gently. She was impressed by how calm he'd remained. He smiled at her, and they shared a moment of relief that the injury hadn't been worse, which it could so easily have been.

Meanwhile, Faye was chattering away to the Healer.

"That spell you used to check where her arm was broken was cool," she said brightly, "How does it work? Is it a bit like an x-ray?"

The Healer looked bemused. He glanced at Draco and Astoria, but they merely shrugged, having no idea what Faye was talking about either.

"What's an x-ray?" he asked her.

"Oh, it's this machine that muggles use to find out about broken bones and stuff," she explained, "The boy in the flat under ours was telling me about it. He broke his leg a few months ago, and he had to go about in a wheelchair for ages. But apparently the x-ray was really cool. He got to see a picture of his leg, with all the bones and stuff showing so they could see where it was broken. Is the spell a bit like that?"

Astoria exchanged an amused look with her husband, deciding to leave the Healer to deal with the questions.

"X-rays …" she laughed, "Whatever next?"

"Scorp, I need to talk to you." Draco knew his son had only just got home, but he needed to get this over with. Something in his tone must have made Scorpius worried as he abandoned his unpacking, looking nervous. Draco sat down on Scorpius' bed, gesturing for his son to join him.

"Is this about Potions?" Scorpius asked, "Because I know I'm not as good as you were at it, but I'm getting better. Rose has been helping me, and my marks have been going up a lot."

Draco was momentarily thrown by this unexpected outburst. Scorpius looked so genuinely worried that he felt his heart clench. He'd hoped to prevent Scorpius developing this need for approval that he'd had with his own father, but somehow he hadn't succeeded.

"No," he said, "It's not about Potions. I'm not sure I was ever that good at it anyway. The Potions Master was a friend of my father's, which was probably the main reason I always got such good marks. I certainly never tried as hard as you do."

"Oh," Scorpius looked relieved, and then worried again, "So what is it about?" Draco took a deep breath.

"It's about the War," he said slowly. Scorpius was silent for a long moment.

"Oh," he said again.

"I've only ever taught you the version of the War that's in all the History textbooks," Draco began, "And I know your Grandad has told you a lot of things about the Malfoy family's role, but most of those probably aren't very accurate. And by now I'm sure you've heard a lot of things about the Malfoy family at school which probably are more accurate. But I want you to hear my version."

"Okay," Scorpius agreed, "That would be … good. I've kind of wanted to ask you about it for a while, but I didn't want to … well I'm glad you're going to tell me."

And so Draco told him. He talked and talked and talked. Astoria had taken the twins out to do some flying practice on their brooms (which now had a lot of safety charms on them) so there was no interruption. And so he talked. It was strangely liberating to let it all out. He hadn't ever talked about the War in this much detail before. The person he'd told the most to was Astoria, but he hadn't had to explain quite so much to her because she'd known a lot about it already. Scorpius hadn't lived through the War, hadn't known what it was like to be a part of that.

At the same time, it was absolutely terrifying to be so incredibly honest. It was like those x-rays Faye was so fond of talking about, stripping back the outside mask to show what was really going on inside. And he was so scared of what Scorpius might think when he knew the truth. He didn't look at his son's face as he talked, staring instead at his hands. He wanted to put off knowing for as long as possible. Put off seeing the judgment in his son's eyes that he saw in the eyes of so many others.

He didn't leave out anything. He knew Scorpius was only twelve, but he was mature for his age, and Draco thought he could deal with it. He talked about his family's beliefs about blood purity, and about how he'd thought he believed them for so long. He talked about his father being thrown into Azkaban, and about the pressure to step up and redeem his family's honour. About how excited he'd been originally to be trusted with such an important task, but how he'd quickly realised what being a Death Eater was really like. About how he'd had to continue to protect his parents, but how he hadn't been able to kill Dumbledore. About that awful year when Voldemort (whose name he was only beginning to be comfortable to say now) had lived in the Manor. And about the final battle, when Harry Potter had saved his life and he'd realised he didn't want Voldemort to win, and that he'd rather die than go back to living under his command.

When he finished his throat was dry and he was trembling slightly. Reliving all that had been harder than he'd expected it to. His life now was so incredibly different.

Slowly, he lifted his head to look at Scorpius. Until the moment he looked up, he was expecting disgust and contempt to be written across his son's face, but the moment he met Scorpius' eyes he realised that his son probably wasn't even capable of those emotions. Scorpius looked … he wasn't even sure he could define the expression. He waited in silence for Scorpius to say something.

But he didn't say anything. Instead he leaned forwards and threw his arms around Draco's neck.

"I love you Dad," he whispered as he hugged him tightly, then he drew back again and said confidently, "And I don't care what the others say. I'm proud that you're my Dad. You're just as brave as Rose's parents, and Al's, and Professor Longbottom. I wouldn't swap you for the world. You're the best Dad anyone could have, and I'm not ashamed of being a Malfoy anymore. I'm proud of it."

And with that he jumped off the bed and ran to the front door to greet Astoria and the twins, who had just arrived. Draco remained sitting on the bed, slightly stunned. He wasn't sure what exactly he'd done that Scorpius considered so brave, but he didn't care. His son wasn't ashamed of him, he was proud to have him as a Dad.

It was probably pathetic that Draco depended on his son's approval as much as he'd once depended on his father's. But that didn't matter. Scorpius was proud of him. And that was all that mattered.

"Draco, it's a letter from Scorpius!" Astoria took the letter from the owl and tore it open eagerly. Scorpius wrote less and less often now that he was in second year, no doubt very busy with schoolwork and with his friends. She couldn't wait until the summer, which wasn't too far off now. It felt like far too long since she'd last seen her son.

"Let me know if it says anything interesting," Draco called through, "I'm a bit tied up at the moment."

Astoria scanned through the letter. It was about subject choices. She'd forgotten that they'd be choosing soon. Scorpius didn't say much about what he actually wanted to take, but seemed to be more worried about what other people thought he should take. Apparently he'd received a letter from Lucius advising him on the subjects most appropriate for getting a job at the Ministry. Clearly Scorpius didn't want to work at the Ministry, and certainly not in the capacity Lucius was hoping for. She sighed. Her father-in-law had certainly improved his views on things, but he was still very old-fashioned sometimes, and didn't quite understand that the position of the Malfoy family in society had changed. He ought to have realised from the fact that Draco had worked as a waiter and then become a stay-at-home dad, but he was determined to "redeem the family name" through Scorpius.

Astoria personally thought Scorpius could do a lot better than simply living up to the Malfoy standards.

She knew Draco would want to reply to the letter. What he would decide to say she wasn't so sure. She hoped he wouldn't try to steer Scorpius' decision too much. Then again, it was a parent's decision to give advice, and having been his teacher for years, Draco would probably know what sort of subjects Scorpius would be good at.

She headed through to her bedroom to show Draco the letter, and realised that she ought to have taken his earlier words more literally. He was tied to a chair in the middle of the room, while Lyra and Faye danced around him, laughing and waving his wand in the air.

"What happened?" she asked, "How on earth did they manage that?" Draco grinned.

"I'm not sure exactly," he said, "These two are very sneaky." She was sure she could hear a hint of pride in his voice as he said that, though he tried to frown disapprovingly. "However," he continued, "What they are forgetting is that I am a Slytherin, and therefore equally sneaky." He stood up from the chair, the ropes falling away from him. Lyra and Faye froze, staring at him.

"But we made sure we had your wand!" said Lyra, who was currently holding it, "How did you get out without a wand?"

"Those new time-delayed joke wands are really rather handy. Who knew the Weasleys could be good for something after all?" Draco said with a smirk, as the wand in Lyra's hand squawked and turned into a rubber duck. "Did you really think I'd keep my wand in such an obvious place as my back pocket?" He withdrew his real wand from his sleeve and brandished it at the girls. They simply stared at it, and for a moment it looked as though they might burst into tears, but then they both started laughing.

"We'll get you next time, Dad!" Lyra threatened, and she pulled her sister out of the room, already whispering urgently in her ear.

Draco laughed and turned to his wife.

"What's Scorpius saying?" he asked. Astoria held out the letter.

"It's about subject choices," she said. Draco scanned the letter quickly, his face darkening as he reached the part about his father's advice.

"Can you keep an eye on the girls?" he asked, "I need to reply to this." Astoria nodded. She just hoped his answer was going to be helpful, and not put more pressure on Scorpius than he already seemed to be feeling.

A week later, they received another owl, informing them that he had chosen Care Of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies. She watched Draco's face carefully as he read it, expecting him to react in some way to what must have been the last subjects he would have wanted his son to choose.

He didn't frown once, but wrote a quick note saying he completely approved of Scorpius' choices. She knew that must have been hard for him, just as it must have been hard for Scorpius to choose subjects that he knew Draco didn't really like.

She had never been so proud – of her husband and of her son.

"So how's Scorpius doing?" Draco asked Neville. They were sitting in the Leaky Cauldron. It was a Hogsmeade weekend at Hogwarts, and Neville had taken advantage of the opportunity to come home for a visit, which he did as often as possible. Draco had waited as long as possible, talking casually about Lyra and Faye, and about how the Leaky Cauldron was doing, and about Neville's work. But now he had to ask. Scorpius' letters always sounded very upbeat and he seemed to be enjoying school, having just moved up into third year and started his new subjects, but it was hard to know for sure.

"Well, as I'm sure I've told you before, he's a natural at Herbology," Neville said, "And all the other teachers rave about him. Even in the subjects he's not naturally good at, he tries so hard and is always so patient and polite. The sort of student every teacher loves to teach." Draco beamed proudly. He knew Scorpius was all of those things, of course, but it was nice to have it recognised by others.

"And what about … the other students?" he asked hesitantly, "I heard he was being bullied a little back in first year. Did that continue?"

"I heard about that too," Neville said, "But I didn't hear about it until much later. Apparently he began to stand up to them and they stopped pretty quickly. Particularly after Rose Weasley threatened to hex them all. And then a little later he rescued a Gryffindor first year from a group of bullies, which immediately gained him the loyalty of my entire house. Apparently he's seen as a bit of a hero, especially by the first years. And his best friends are Albus and Rose, but I've seen him chatting to people from all the houses. You're son's quite a popular kid."

Popular. That was a funny word. Draco had considered himself popular, back when he'd been at school. He'd had plenty of followers and admirers. And people hadn't really dared to cross him. But somehow he doubted Scorpius' popularity was like that. In fact, it sounded like Scorp was popular for standing up to people like Draco and his friends.

His son certainly was different. He might look like a Malfoy, but that was where the similarity ended.

Then again, perhaps he was just a different kind of Malfoy.

A better kind of Malfoy.