Summary: Scorpius didn't know he needed this gift until he opened it, even if it stung just a little bit to look at.

Warning Tag: Mourning

Word Count: 785

Captured Moments

Scorpius glanced around the bustling ballroom of Malfoy Manor, gauging the atmosphere to see if anyone would notice if the guest of honor slipped away from his coming of age party to catch a full breath and regather his wits. It's the least they could give him, anyway.

He managed to find his way through the ornate doorways as fluid as water finding the sea, and he didn't stop moving through the foyer and up the grand staircase until the click of his door sealed him inside the sanctuary that was his room.

A long, well needed intake of breath was slowly released for the first time in hours.

Though his room was dimly lit, Scorpius scanned the space carefully until settling silver-grey eyes on something lying on his bed. Intrigued by it, since it wasn't there this morning, he found himself closing the distance and sitting on the duvet next to the square box. Sliding his wand into his hand from a sleeve, he flicked at the air to properly light the room before grabbing the hazel-wrapped box and resting it on his lap.

Taking a deep breath, Scorpius popped up the lid to find gold tissue paper and a small notecard with his father's writing on it.

May it bring you comfort.

The gold tissue paper hid a hazel colored photo album, and the photo that was on its front had Scorpius' breath hitch. It was his mother holding a baby—him—in her arms. She looked down at the baby with a smile on her face, and Scorpius swore that the action made her entire body glow.

After a moment he opened the album only to be greeted with several more photos of his mother and himself as an infant. One was him being rocked by Astoria in the chair that now sat in the corner across his room, another were them laying on a blanket out in the garden, baby him smiling as a butterfly fluttered by. There were ones of him being held in a towel after a bath, his white-blond hair askew and his toddler laugh touched his eyes as they looked up at Astoria. In a different photo he posed with his Hogwarts letter while sitting on his knees on the bed next to Astoria. Another where he was placing his first lost tooth under his pillow before his bedtime story. There even was one where he posed in his Beubaxons uniform for when he went as an exchange student for a year.

The photos were only of her and Scorpius, and with each photo-filled page he turned, he watched himself slowly grow up while his mother slowly start to dwindle away. It hurt him to notice this, but it was hard to look past his mother's smile. Despite the physical changes in her appearance, the frailty of her body taking its toll, her smile always touched her eyes. Even when the photos showed that she had to stop carrying him when he was still a toddler, she still smiled. Another turned paged showed him when Astoria had to be less mobile but he still cuddled up to her for a book on the couch, her smile still glowed. He turned another page and saw her in bed and he found himself taking a nap with her, even then there was a faint smile gracing her lips while she slept.

Scorpius felt the tears well long before he got to the last page of the photo album where there was a single photograph of him and Astoria. He was holding her hand in both of his while he sat on the edge of her bed. Her eyes were closed and did not open, but Scorpius could see even then that smile never truly faded.

He swallowed hard and flipped the page, a hopeless attempt to see if it contained, but instead of pictures, they were poems, songs, and stories in Astoria's handwriting that she used to read and sing to him. They were written primarily in Chinese, some in Greek, and some in English because sometimes things just didn't translate over well. It didn't matter because he mastered both written texts by now, but seeing them written in her hand warmed his heart. The last page had another simple note that had him let out a sob despite himself.

You're the best thing to have ever happened to me, my Starlight.

Scorpius already knew that what he held in his hands was already one of his most treasured gifts that came from his father. Even if it would sting just a bit every time he would open it, if he tried hard enough, it was like he never lost her.