Draco can never sleep after work.
This is why he was puttering about the hotel suite at arse o'clock in the morning, making some effort to keep the noise down given his family was slumbering in the adjoining rooms. Despite his half-hearted attempts to enforce some boundaries, he had gained two personage to his already small entourage on this stop of the tour.
"Not just any stop of the tour," Draco had been reminded by Astor. "You're headlining God damned Combustia."
Combustia. The premier European festival that saw millions troop to an impressive expanse of field grounds that for a long weekend transformed to a wonderland to house a carousing and assuredly very inebriated crowd of music lovers.
Many of them, Draco was chuffed to be assured, made the pilgrimage this year just to see his set.
"But it's hardly a suitable venue for children," Draco had pointed out, when Scorpius first displayed some interest in attending. "I will have to surrender whatever semblance of authority I have in advising him to stay away from sex and drugs and whatnot if here I am, ushering him into a sea of it."
"He wants to be there. He's proud of you."
And Draco, to his chagrin, had down right blushed at this statement.
Scorpius was now entrenched in adolescence, with its accompanying hormones and general overall indifference - if not outright opposition - to parental figures. He loved his father, of course, but ever since leaving for Beauxbatons there had been an inevitable breach to their bond. Draco made every effort to craft his tour schedule to accommodate the school holidays, but still - not even frequent Owls could account for distance the majority of the year.
Boarding school, Draco reflected, must be intolerable for some parents and a respite for others. He didn't have to stretch his imagination far to imagine how his parents viewed it. From the vantage of a middle aged parent, he could appreciate the sour brattiness of his childhood self. And also acknowledge the bitter notes that still permeated his personality to this day.
Pain fueled his art, Draco comforted himself.
"Oh well - he probably just wants to see Daft Punk," Draco had eventually responded, offering a breezy smile. Hs ego was stoked by Astor's words but felt too embarrassed to fully acknowledge them. "And who are we to bar him from culture?"
Draco had to admit that launching the deck that night at Combustia had a different sense of purpose, knowing that his son was somewhere watching in the crowd - ensconced by a discrete casting of noise-directed and ear protecting muffliato, Astor had promised.
It was his fucking job to put on a good show, every time, but there was a bit of mmph to the mix with the knowledge that his family was watching him, proud.
Donning his headphones, plummeting into the vortex of sound, searing the opening notes and knowing behind him a pulsating visual collage accented every drop and lift of beat - Draco got to fucking work. He would glance up from the keyboard occasionally to take in the sweat drenched crowd screaming - his name. The words to his songs. Countless hands in the air to Draco's hoarse cajoling, bodies absolutely surging against the stage at times. He eyed some particularly troublesome crowd member to the center left but paid no mind, satisfied that security would have it in hand.
There were to be some "throw back" songs in this mix, Draco had decided when compiling the set. And it all felt eccentric, but correct. A melodic tour through his career, like vignettes from his first hamfisted attempts at using a synthesizer now smoothed and remixed into his latest creations. Because it was God damned Combustia. Draco Malfoy had made it. And everything he had ever done or created - or failed catastrophically - had somehow brought him to this moment in time.
The height of my career, Draco thought absently as he scanned over the crowd. The crowd drawing themselves up in a fervor before collapsing with the crashing bass he brought down with a flick of his index finger. This is fucking it. Another flick and slide - lighting and strobe work, perfectly orchestrated and coordinated to the transition. Now to one of his more orchestral and heart rending songs. One of his classics. The crowd positively erupted.
Draco Malfoy loved attention - and the Muggle world had given it to him in spades. Who would have fucking thought?
The dejected and disillusioned loser Death Eater son of a disgraced house was now a music superstar.
The same man who was lynched in Diagon Alley and left with an initially gruesome and now mildly disfiguring facial scar. People had that face - his masked face, but still - emblazoned on T-shirts.
The man who cried, bitterly and so completely alone, chewed up and spit out like the sour person everyone discovered he was - that man had millions of people chanting his heart broken words back to him.
"THANK YOU COMBUSTIA THIS HAS BEEN INCREDIBLE!" Draco cried at the end of the set. He said more or less the same shit at every show, but he really meant it this time. "ONE LAST SONG AND IF YOU KNOW THE WORDS - PLEASE - SING WITH ME NOW!"
They fucking do. That was the thing. They always do.
"That was incredible!" Astor raved back at the hotel, looking exhausted but exhilarated - the mark of a successful set, Draco noted proudly. He hoped everyone in the crowd felt the same. "Incredible, Draco!"
"Yes," Draco replied. "It was alright." He turned to his son, who at sixteen was no stranger to late nights but did show some tell-tale signs of exhaustion. "What did you think, Scorpius?"
"It was alright," Scorpius parroted, yawning loudly. He loved it, Astor mouthed behind his back.
Draco hid a smile in a smirk. "Not bad for your old man?"
"The lights at the end were a bit much. My eyes still feel a bit wonky."
"Well, thank you for your assessment. Will take it under advisement." Scorpius just blinked slowly and nodded.
"We should get to bed," Astor announced. "Way past all our bedtimes."
"Besides Dad's," Scorpius countered. "He never sleeps."
"Besides Dad's," Draco agreed. "I never sleep." He made his way over to the table where his work laptop and headphones were perched. "I'm good for another few hours yet."
Roll of the eyes from Astor as they went into the adjoining suite. "Some things never change. I suppose we will catch you for dinner. Lunch may be too much to hope for."
Draco directed his attention to his work once they were gone. Always feeling the pull to do more. He didn't know if it was the absurd amount of caffeine main-lined into his blood stream, the residual endorphins from the set, or his absurd anxiety that repelled him from bed and compelled him to his work station after shows. Possibly a combination of all three.
The antidote to what ails him, Draco knows, is work. Work and puttering about with a cup of tea. Which, thankfully, this hotel suite provided him with bountifully.
He was sat mulling over a troublesome bit of chord when he heard a knock at the door. At first he thought it was some transmitted sound from Astor and Scorpius' room - but it came again, rhythmic and insistent. Maybe a little pissed off sounding at being kept waiting.
Who the bloody fuck could that be?
Draco's team knew to leave him the hell alone, especially when he was with Scorpius. And isn't that what mobile phones are for? Not knocking at the bloody door impulsively like a badgering heathen.
Nobody appeared at the peep hole when Draco glances. An empty hallway leading to the lift is all Draco saw.
He muttered angrily to himself as he ambled about the entry way, wishing for a hot moment he still could use magic. A Revelio would be just the ticket. But. He cast that errant thought aside with over a decade of practice. Like an alcoholic considering but demurring over a cocktail. Not for me, thanks.
Maybe someone dropped an envelope on the floor. Or flowers. Draco adored flowers. Or a delightful present. Sometimes he accepted gifts from fans, once analyzed and picked over by his team to be rid of unpleasant surprises. He had a lovely room at home with various trinkets he had received over the years. He opened the door to scan the scene.
Nothing. No envelope. No flowers. No presents. No cake or fan-made statue in his image. Hmmph.
But then suddenly - Harry Potter is in front of him.
"You." The Saviour of the Wizarding World was seething in front of him.
Right. That bloody invisibility cloak.
Draco would feel surprised if he didn't remember this fool so God damned well.
"Me!" Draco confirmed, refusing to feel cowed by this unpleasant surprise. He forced himself to his full height and crossed his arms. "Well spotted, Potter. What the fuck are you doing here? How did you get up here?"
Potter seemed to be lost for words, his dramatic and irate entrance back into Draco's world completed. His mouth gaped then flapped up and down in a most unattractive and stupid manner. "How did I get up here? How did you get up - here?!" He flails his arms. "Where have you been? How did you - when did you - ?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "Here you are, Potter. Accosting me in my hotel, where I have been minding my own business, barking like a demented bulldog. But you have questions. Quelle surprise."
Potter flushed and narrowed his eyes. "Stick to English. And yeah, I have questions, Malfoy. Questions like - like - like - " Potter then seemed to change color almost concerningly quickly, going from an angry beet red to a pale sickly yellow.
Draco swallowed forcefully and clenched his fists. He met Potter's eyes and was taken aback by the emotion alighting them. "Yes?" He hissed. He knew there was a challenge in his own gaze.
Potter paused, then croaked: "You wrote...songs about me?"
If Draco were to be honest - and he hardly ever is, but sometimes he is - he had envisioned this moment for over a decade. And it was just as painful and uncomfortable as his day dreams had always painted.
The reunion. The reckoning.
They were finally doing this then.
Draco felt something inside him curdle and collapse. He really wished for a stiff drink. Or to disintegrate into dust and never be seen again. Of all fucking nights. Now. Potter continued to ruin his life.
"Come on in, Potter," Draco eventually sighed, angling his body in the door to allow Potter entry to the suite, should he agree. "I suppose we should chat. Though why you chose to rendezvous here, now, tonight, when eighteen years ago you couldn't be arsed to answer a single Owl - "
"What Owls?" Potter demanded. "I never got any Owls! You - you up and disappeared - "
"Oh, is that what happened?" Draco replied, his tone deceptively bland for the raging tempest within him at the sight of Harry fucking Potter, the sound of Harry fucking Potter, on his doorstep. Asking him questions. Demanding things of him. After all this fucking time. "Mmm. Our memories differ."
"Clearly."
"Come on in," Draco said again. He turned away from Potter, hoping that his face wasn't betraying the epic fucking meltdown he was about to experience. "Or don't. Whatever. Like I said, eighteen fucking years and suddenly you deign to acknowledge my existence - "
"Stupefy."