A/N: Today is my 30th birthday! I started writing Bean when I was twenty-three, so I'm happy to be even more in love with them seven years on. Another chapter with a lot of dialogue, but we'll get back to a better ratio soon. Your friendly pre-chapter reminder that Lucius Malfoy was a homophobic asshole and a very bad father. Chapter has been lightly edited so please forgive any errors.
TW: Biphobia
TW: (Reference To) Child Abuse
TW: Homophobia
TW: Physical Abuse
CW: Strong Language
"Dad?"
Draco was leaning on the back wall of the lift and looked down at his son. He asked,
"Yes?"
"You smile really big when you kiss Hermione."
"I do, yeah?" Draco couldn't keep the grin off his face, even as he tried. He shook his head and conceded, "She's a pretty good kisser. Is it okay that I snogged her in front of you?"
Scorpius nodded.
"Uncle Bastien kisses Auntie Padma a lot, and he smiles big, too."
The lift doors dinged as they opened. Scorpius and Draco walked out together and Draco was still smiling as he fastened Scorpius into his car seat. Scorpius wondered,
"Is kissing better than holding hands?"
"It depends," replied Draco. "When you love someone the way I love Hermione, you kiss them to say hello and kiss them goodbye. You hold hands when you are out around other people, just to let your person know you're there. You hold hands to tell everyone else, 'We're here together.' I have not gotten to hold Hermione's hand yet."
Draco closed the door and made his way to the driver's seat. The moment he pulled away from Hermione's building, Scorpius continued with questions.
"How do you know someone's a good kisser?"
"You don't, really, until you kiss them."
"How do you get good?"
"Practice." Draco admitted, "Lots and lots of kisses, Scorp."
"Was my mum a good kisser?"
"Tori was excellent at snogging. Your mum was quite tall, so she'd put her hands on my waist when she kissed me because we were so similarly matched. When you're kissing someone so much shorter than you, the way Hermione has to do with me, half of the kiss is where you put your hands."
"Hands are important?"
"I suppose so, Scorp. Hands are always important."
"Hmm."
Draco glanced up toward the mirror to see Scorpius deep in five-year-old thought. He wondered what could be going through that tiny brain. Not thirty seconds later, Scorpius asked,
"You kiss Hermione but don't hold hands. What if you hold hands but don't kiss?"
"I don't know." Draco supposed, "If you hold hands, that is about being a unit, being together. Me and Hermione, Hermione and me, and when your mum was alive it was me and Tori, Tori and me. When you're kissing someone, that is about you. Kissing is a way to show someone how much you love them, and how much you want them."
"So you don't kiss your best friend, but you can hold hands?"
Draco laughed and trailed off with a heavy sigh.
"I am not the best person to ask about that. Who would you say is my best friend?"
"Uncle Blaise!"
"That's right. We did kiss and we held hands, but we don't anymore."
"Why not?"
"Because we're not in love." Draco frowned at the traffic and added, "I do think we love each other in a way I don't love your other uncles. Blaise was the first person I ever gave my heart to, and he helped make me into a better person. Really, he's the reason I was a good enough person for your mum."
"Were you a bad person?"
A loaded question. How, as a father, was Draco meant to explain the ten years of derision he was subjected to by the public? He couldn't. Scorpius wouldn't need to know about that for years. Yet, this question deserved an answer.
"A lot of people thought so. I likely was a bad person in many ways, Scorp, because I didn't have any reason to be a good one. Blaise was my best friend, but when he was my boyfriend I wanted to be better for him. I suppose he showed me that to be a good friend and a good boyfriend, you have to listen. I think that was the lesson I had to learn."
"You listen to me," replied Scorpius. "Do you want to listen to my secret?"
"Oh?" Draco did a tiny fist pump as he made the left turn onto A3220. "Are you ready to tell me?" He watched Scorpius shrug in the rearview mirror.
"I said to tell you when Hermione was happy. Hermione was really happy when you kissed her."
Draco felt himself blush.
"You think so?"
"You both smiled big, and I want to smile like that, too. Somebody held my hand and it was nice."
Oh.
Oh.
When was that type of thing meant to begin? Scorpius wasn't even six years old, yet he'd already formed that sort of attachment? According to Blaise, Scorp's best friend was Potter's youngest son. His other friends seemed to be a product of the Potter boy, as if they were a package deal. Was this normal? Who held Scorp's hand? How the hell was he, as a father, meant to ask? Draco wondered,
"Is that why you were asking about hands, Scorp?"
"Yes."
"And whether holding hands is like kisses?"
"Mhmm."
"Do you …" Draco doubted whether this was an appropriate question. "Do you like it when they hold your hand?"
"I don't know."
"Do you want them to kiss you?"
"NO!" Scorpius shouted. "No, kisses look gross. I like when you kiss Hermione because you're happy and Hermione is happy. I like happy kisses, but I dunno if I can have happy kisses. I would only have gross kisses."
Draco's heart dropped down to be about level with his bum.
"Did someone try to kiss you?"
"No, but I thought about it and I don't wanna kiss him."
"Thank God." Draco admitted, "I don't know if I am a good enough dad to know what to do if you did."
"You're getting better."
Draco smiled and asked, "You think so?"
"Yes. You're not sad today."
"That's right, Scorp. I am not sad today."
"It's easier to be happy when you're happy."
It's easier to be happy when you're happy.
.oOo.
The following Monday, after a workday that ran long and a dinner with his son that was all too short, Draco plopped onto his bed with a massive groan. He was in his pyjamas, ready to fall asleep, when his phone rang. He tilted his head to see the name: Golden Girl. Draco shook his head in fond exasperation before answering. He held the phone up to his ear and said,
"You need a contact photograph, Miss Granger."
"Google Images, Mr. Malfoy," Hermione quipped.
Draco found himself smiling at the far wall, imagining what she must be doing. What she must look like. What she was wearing … How he wished she were there in bed next to him, wearing next to nothing. Hermione steamrolled everything with one simple statement:
"I finally read the GQ article."
Draco's shoulders fell. Hermione continued,
"Bastien said something to me last week about your father and you mention it in the—"
"You're asking about him tossing me down the steps?" guessed Draco.
"Yes."
Draco tried to relax. He'd had this conversation with Astoria as well. He had dealt with it, and watching his father suffer through prison for fifteen years had softened the ache. Sort of. Those years had, at the very least, made it easier to place the incident toward the back of his mind. Draco asked,
"What do you want to know?"
"I suppose my question is why it doesn't seem to have been as impactful for you as it was for Bastien."
That was certainly a new way to frame things. Draco tilted his head to the left and kept pushing down until his neck popped. He repeated the action toward the right, then tilted his head back to crack the joints in the centre.
"You have to understand the relationship between me and my father. The Malfoy lineage is an icon, it is nineteen generations and my son will be the twentieth. The topmost responsibility of every Malfoy man is to have a son. That's been made abundantly clear to every Malfoy from the moment we're born. My father didn't care much for me except I was proof he had fulfilled that duty to the Malfoy line. The older I get, the more I wonder whether he cared for me and didn't know how to show it. I can't imagine hating my son the way it felt like he hated me." Draco shook his head. "At any rate, I was always a bit indiscriminate with my romantic pursuits."
Hermione laughed.
"Flowery phrasing."
"It's difficult to explain otherwise. One of my best friends was a lesbian and she worked it out probably about the time we were twelve. Blaise always knew he was gay. You've met Bastien, so you know he thinks with his dick and Theo is painfully straight. All my mates were in a lane and I simply … wasn't. I was fourteen when someone mentioned bisexuality to me, and it was a relief to know I wasn't some testosterone-controlled budding whore and actually quite normal."
"Oh. I never would have guessed you ever felt abnormal about something."
Draco laughed.
"Not much, but that? Absolutely. Having a word for it made me feel too normal, as I went to tell my father straightaway. It was perfect, in my mind. I told him I'd still give him a son, obviously, because I am attracted to women. I knew that he, like everyone, suspected I was gay. Blaise is my best friend and I have functioning eyes, it's impossible to not be attracted to him. I said I like boys and I like girls, not to worry, I can fulfill my duty. I simply might wind up married to a man."
"Oh." Hermione's voice was quiet when she added, "I see."
"He said things." Draco tried not to go back to that moment. "I don't wish to repeat them because it's efficiently vulgar and quite offensive. He gave me a chance to tell him it wasn't true, to take it back, and I wouldn't do it. For the first time in my life, I felt normal about the way I am meant to love people. My father put his hand on the back of my head and grabbed my hair at the roots, pulled me down the hall, and tossed me down the steps." Draco sighed. "My mother wasn't home."
There was a long pause at the other end of the call.
"Your father dragged you out of the house by your hair?"
"Easy to do when it's this long."
"Sorry, that's not in the article. You didn't mention—"
Draco repeated, "My mother wasn't home."
Another long silence before Hermione confirmed,
"You think your mother doesn't know."
"I—"
"Draco," Hermione's sigh crackled through the receiver, "I don't mean to make assumptions about your family. Having met your mum, there is nothing that happens in her home that she doesn't know."
Draco nodded to himself.
"You're probably right, but I would prefer to pretend she doesn't know."
"So you walked to a neighbor?"
"I can't tell you. I don't remember much, I, um, …" Draco's breath caught in his chest for a moment. "You've been out front of the manor. There are steps up from the ground, then a small landing, then more steps up to the door. I missed the first set of steps completely, landed on the second set with my knees and face-first onto the walkway. My face barely missed the final step and my throat didn't. Lost my breath and it felt like I was choking. I remember flopping onto my back and staring up at the sky; that was when I realized my father truly hated me. I didn't have a mobile with me; I had nothing. I can't tell you what happened, how I made it to Bastien's door. I think I blacked out. All I remember is the fear that comes with losing everything in your life."
"You were under the impression your father had disowned you?"
"He had disowned me. Bastien's father took me in." Draco paused to will back the tears forming in the corners of his eyes. "He took me to hospital and it turned out I had a nondisplaced fracture in my left kneecap. Some sort of miracle, apparently, given that I'd clearly walked somewhere on a broken bloody knee. Mr. Queensbury fixed up the spare room for me and didn't tell Bastien what happened. He let me wait to come out to Bas on my own."
"That seems exceptionally considerate."
"Bas's dad is exceptional."
"Did Bastien resent you for that? It sounds like you might have taken attention away from him."
Draco laughed softly and shook his head.
"He is not like that. Bas does not need anyone to give him attention; he loves himself well enough. Except perhaps Padma. If she stopped paying attention to him I think he'd die of desperation. However, Bastien didn't change at all once I told him what happened. I mean, he hated my parents after that. He still doesn't quite trust my mother."
"Did she truly serve your father with divorce papers?"
"That's …" Draco sighed. "A story of its own."
"I have time, if you have the will to share."
Draco leaned further back into his pillows and stared up at the ceiling. He revealed,
"My mother came home a few days after the incident with my father. I believe he gave her a sanitized version of events amounting to, 'Our son is a bloody queer fairy boy and I'd rather give it a go with another child if you're willing.'"
"Oh my God."
Draco couldn't see Hermione's face, but everyone seemed to have the same shocked expression when he mentioned that bit. It was hardly surprising, it was Malfoy tradition. If one son failed to be a proper heir, have another. Preferably one who won't stick his cock up another man's arse.
"My mother was not keen on that idea."
"No, I would imagine not."
"She threw something at him. Her shoe, I believe." Draco smiled softly to himself and admitted, "I like to imagine what that must've looked like. There were many, many moments when I would have loved to have thrown something at him. Large things, heavy things. At any rate, my mother drove to Bastien's house and demanded to see me. I hid in the bathroom because I knew she would say all I had to do was take it back and if I ever found a bloke I wanted to be my boyfriend we would deal with it then. I was an asshole most of my life, but I have never been a liar."
Hermione said, "I believe that about you."
"My mother went home and waited for my father to go on a business trip. She had her stuff moved out of the manor while he was away, everything down to her shampoo. My father used to pick fresh flowers from the garden and place them in a vase in her office, so my mother cut off the tops of the flowers and left the stems. Her cars were driven to her hotel and my father came home to find no trace of her in the house except divorce papers on their pillows."
"That must have jolted him out of—"
"My father would have killed himself if my mother didn't take him back."
"She knew that."
"Yes," Draco confirmed, "she did. My father showed up at Bastien's door probably ten days after he threw me out. Now, Bas's dad is massive."
"Bastien is quite a large man," replied Hermione.
"His dad was probably about that size at the time, and he took up the whole doorframe when my father arrived because he didn't want me to have to acknowledge my father at all. That man—" Draco choked on his own words. He pressed his thumbs into his eyes for a moment before admitting, "That man protected me better than anyone ever has. I don't remember much of that either except hearing him say, 'I've got a little blond boy in here with a broken knee and a bruise on his neck. You take him, you take the credit for that, too.'"
"After you left Padma's house, Bastien said something that makes my heart ache in a way I wasn't sure it could, anymore. I have seen so much destruction that I worry I may have become callous toward all sorts of suffering. Bastien said that I made his home an unwelcome place for you. Me and Padma both. Bastien said that he was angry because his father taught him the value of providing an open door and I'd forced him to shut it in your face. I see now why that continues to be so important to him."
"It is important to me, too."
"Of course."
"So that's that," Draco added rather lamely. "That is what happened with the steps."
"Thank you for telling me. I apologize again for making you feel as though Bastien was off-limits, even for as small a timeframe as it was."
"I appreciate it, and I accept."
Hermione hedged a bit as she wondered, "Can I say something that may sound a bit banal?"
Draco chuckled.
"I didn't know Hermione Granger could do banal."
Her voice was low and sincere when she said, "I don't think you know what that story says about you."
"How so?"
"When I was thirteen I had awful buck teeth and was teased constantly. I hated that about myself so much that I begged my parents to fix them. They're dentists and I couldn't understand their logic, something about development of the jaw … I wouldn't listen. They wouldn't fix anything until they believed it was the proper time. I joined the girls' rugby team—"
"You?" Draco snickered. "You played rugby?"
"I played rugby until, three months in, I happened to get whacked in the mouth with another girl's elbow. Messed up my mouth enough that they decided to fix my teeth."
"You hated your teeth so much that you played rugby and intentionally injured yourself."
Hermione confirmed, "Yes."
"You must have been an insane child."
"Desperate. I was a desperate child just like you, and I don't know anyone who would've held true to themselves at fourteen the way you did. You know yourself so well, a skill I continue to struggle with. Every day I think about how Percy, the most unlikeable prat I've ever met, got a political appointment over me. It is difficult, on occasion, not to bend toward something I'm not. I won't, but it takes work. I admire that you don't have to work so hard to stay true to who you are."
Draco closed his eyes and frowned, turning Hermione's words over in his head. No one had ever reacted that way before; it was always pity and a variation of that shouldn't have happened to you. No one had ever been impressed he came through it. He said,
"It's just me, Hermione, I can't deny who I am."
"You can, and you had a world's worth of incentive to do so. Perhaps the reason Bastien and Blaise are your friends who stuck around because they are just as secure in who they are, as you are in yourself."
"Are you telling me that you aren't?"
"Unquestionably." Hermione admitted, "I'm feeling things with you that I've never felt before. There is more and more of me that you seem to open up and it terrifies me."
"You think you're the only one?" Draco half-teased. "When you kissed me on Friday, Hermione, I haven't felt that sort of genuine happiness since my son was born. I never even celebrated that. I was worried for my wife and then she died, so that concern transferred to my son. It wasn't until I had you in my arms, standing next to my son, that I stopped worrying."
"Dizzy."
Draco could hear Hermione's smile in her voice. She repeated,
"You said it made you dizzy."
"It did."
"Did your wife do that, as well?"
"Not in the same way, no." Draco admitted, "Astoria and I saw the world similarly, we rarely disagreed, and she helped me settle into what it meant to be a man. My father imparted it was one thing, and Astoria helped me to unlearn that and become a proper man. Tori and I were very relaxed, very happy, and not a lot of dizziness to be found. The sort of happiness you can only access when you're that young. You've found a much more difficult, hardened version of me."
"I quite like you as you are."
Draco smiled.
"You're not so bad yourself."
"High praise. Oh!" Hermione sighed heavily and asked, "Would you like to host a party?"
"At the manor?"
"We thought it might be a good idea to get all our friends together now that Blaise and Dean are dating. We also thought it might be a good time for Dean to meet Scorpius, if you—"
"Yes." Draco couldn't say it enough. "Yes. God, Hermione, I swear the only reason Blaise hasn't already dropped to a knee and asked your boy Dean to marry him is that Dean hasn't been officially approved by my son. I'll invite an officiant to the party just in case."
"Next Friday?" asked Hermione.
"I can do a Friday dinner party, but I presume many of our friends would be overnight and require breakfast as well."
"I'll text you a full guest list?"
"Please."
"Tomorrow morning; I need to sleep now. I do miss speaking to you in person."
Draco admitted, "I fear that in person I won't stop snogging you long enough to speak."
Hermione laughed softly, not dissimilar to the breathy sounds she made when they were nearly intimate together. He couldn't stop thinking about those noises, about the warmth of her breath against his lips and the fullness of her tits against his palm. Draco pressed his free hand against his chest and added,
"I love making you laugh."
Hermione admitted, "I didn't realize how much I missed laughing until you came into my life, Draco Malfoy." She paused to yawn and offered a sleepy, "I love you."
"I love you like I've never loved anyone else, Hermione."
"I know."
"Good."
"I can't keep my eyes open." She laughed and mumbled, "But I don't want to stop talking to you."
Draco felt his heart settle into a steady, contented rhythm. He nestled into the pillow and half-whispered,
"I love to hear your voice."
Hermione teased, "Sap."
"Only for you, Golden Girl." Draco ended the call and, as his eyes fell closed, he repeated, "Only for you."
.oOo.
Blaise dragged Draco to a pub in London two days later, claiming it was the one place in the city he was never recognized. Draco doubted that was the case, but Blaise was the sort to believe that people glanced his way simply because he was gorgeous, not because they knew precisely whom he was. Conversation began with the banalities of business. Draco leaned back in his chair and asked,
"How's the restaurant?"
"Excellent. I considered opening another, but I would be spending too much time away from my godson." Blaise paused before adding, "And my boyfriend. Are you still dodging calls from Sotheby's?"
"Yes. They want to sell the penthouse in one of my buildings but the bloody process is agonizing. Professional photographer, video tour, brochure development, marketing, website listing SEO, and all that. I don't have the time."
"Have you given any thought to a COO?"
"No."
"Perhaps you should."
Draco watched as two glasses were placed on the table between them. The perfect opportunity to change the subject.
"How is Dean liking the upstairs office? Is he over often enough to make use of it?"
Blaise admitted, "I don't quite know what to do without Scorpius at the house five days each week. I've been filling it with Dean so my home does not feel so lonely. When he is with me, I feel a sort of love I have never felt. A love I cannot explain other than to say he understands me without explanation."
"I wonder …" Draco pressed his lips together for a moment, never keen on admitting Blaise was right about his life. "If I did consider a COO for the business, perhaps I would have more time for my son."
"For Hermione," added Blaise. "You cannot have an international business entirely on your shoulders and love a woman like Hermione Granger. At some point you will have to choose."
"Sooner rather than later, yes?"
"Yes." Blaise observed, "You seem relaxed today."
Draco nodded.
"I feel I've taken a step forward somehow."
Blaise sipped from his glass and guessed, "You've taken a step in Hermione's direction?"
"Wherever she goes," Draco confirmed, "I trust her enough to follow. Even if she insists we move at a glacial pace."
The pub was great. Draco had even been there a couple times on business, any time he wanted to dress down a conversation. He stared at the green wall behind Blaise's head where a giant dartboard occupied the upper third. The conversation around them was a manageable din, and it was nice to be out with his best friend without an agenda. It seemed normal, somehow, in a way these lunches hadn't been for a long while.
"I—" Blaise's face fell. "Cazzo."
Draco turned to see what caused Blaise's mood to drop so quickly. He shifted in his chair and faced right into the five-foot-six form of Seamus Finnegan.
"Godfuckingdammit!" Finnegan groaned. "This is my favourite pub, what the bloody hell …"
"Sit."
Draco turned to face Blaise and raised a single eyebrow. Blaise nodded toward one of the empty chairs and insisted,
"Please. Sit."
"Do you know who I am?" asked Finnegan. "Because if you did, I doubt you'd be asking me to sit at your table."
Blaise, as always, responded with a level tone.
"To most, you are Seamus Finnegan. To me, you are my boyfriend's ex-husband. I have questions about you, and I know no one better to answer them."
Finnegan's mouth quirked up at one corner, then he shrugged.
"Fuck it, buy me a beer and I'll sit."
Blaise insisted, "I will buy you two."
"Beer and good-looking men?" Finnegan shrugged. "I'm not thick enough to turn down that offer."
Finnegan sat in the available seat between Draco and Blaise, confused but nonplussed. They sat in silence until Finnegan's drink arrived. He spun the glass between his fingers and said,
"You must believe I am the worst arsehole for what I did to Dean. Then for leaving him."
"No." Blaise shook his head. "I do not hold your divorce against you; your divorce is the best thing to ever happen to me."
Finnegan laughed so hard he squeezed his eyes shut. Draco was shocked, a bit, that Finnegan had settled into their table so quickly. He didn't feel quite as out of place as Hermione made it seem he would. Finnegan shook his head and said,
"Yeah, I suppose it would be. I, uh, I'd had a massive crush on Dean since I was about fourteen. He was only an inch or so taller than me, then, if you can believe it."
Draco could hardly imagine Dean Thomas being any shorter than six-four. He seemed to need every inch to keep all that calming, soothing energy inside of him. If he could bottle that, every yoga studio in the country would close within the week. Then again, Draco had only spoken to Dean Thomas three times. Perhaps Finnegan knew something about that energy Draco was not yet privy to.
"Caught him coming out of the shower and you don't stare at your best mate's abs the way I was staring at Dean."
Draco winked at Blaise and said, "You don't have to tell me about falling in love with your best friend."
"Or catching me come out of the shower."
"Please," Draco replied, "If I wanted to see you coming out of the shower I'd get an Instagram."
Blaise laughed so loud that the table next to them looked over. Blaise bit down on his fist to quiet the noise, curling up in his chair. Finnegan looked between the two of them and shook his head.
"It was so strange to know my best mate was gay before he knew it himself. Watched him date Ginny for a whole year. Dean couldn't understand why he wasn't feeling the way everyone said love was supposed to feel. I couldn't tell him because I wasn't gonna out myself, not when Dean kept getting taller and funnier and I was so obvious to everybody except him. Gin finally figured it out and broke it off. Dean didn't figure out he was gay until he was nineteen, we started dating when he was twenty, got married at twenty-three, and we were happy for most of that."
"What changed?" asked Draco.
Finnegan shrugged and sipped his beer.
"He did, I did, and our marriage didn't. I think it's supposed to evolve with you, eh? Then we had so many friends that didn't overlap. My friends weren't his, his weren't mine, and they were all sort of skittish about things because me and Dean aren't the sort to shit rainbows, you know what I mean?"
Draco knew exactly what Finnegan was saying, but Blaise seemed to be a bit lost in the translation. Blaise blinked once, then twice, then said …
"No."
"Right." Finnegan took another sip then put the glass back on the table. "Both me and Dean are pretty typical blokes to straight men. I'd make friends, they saw the wedding band and assumed I was married to a woman. In their eyes I was like them in every other way, so why wouldn't I be like them in that way? I'd show up to a function with my giant-ass husband and they were always shocked I'm gay."
"Oh."
"Some were better about it than others, but his football mates were the same way. The exact same. Dean's tall, fit, way too interested in football, kind-hearted … Well, obviously, you know. You've met him, fucked him. He is pretty much everything a woman would want in a man. Then he brought me to a match and they were beyond confused. Started calling him Sporty Spice."
Draco tried and failed to choke back a laugh. Finnegan nodded to him and said,
"It's funny, right? Dean didn't think so, but I thought it was hilarious."
Blaise admitted, "You are not what I expected."
"No?" asked Finnegan. "You've heard enough about me to have formed an opinion?"
Draco admitted, "The look Hermione has on her face when you are mentioned would put fear into anyone with half a brain."
Blaise added, "Dean believes you fell out of love with him because of his finances."
Finnegan's entire body seemed to deflate. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head while mumbling, "Fucking idiot." Finnegan crossed his arms in front of his chest and said,
"I never fell out of love with him. I said I did because I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to suffer. That makes me fuckin' shit, and I know it. Hell, I knew it at the time but it made me feel better. Because I watched him go through school, get his master's in math so complicated that you need a special sort of brain to do. Just like with what I do, right? You've gotta be a calm sorta person under pressure with a steady hand, because if you're not then people will die. It's a niche and, yeah, when Dean started teaching I told him it was a waste of his time. He should've been making more money than me. He could have done a dozen different things that made more sense, but he loved going to school every day."
"You didn't love that he loved school?" asked Draco.
"I don't think I cared all that much. I made the mistake of telling Harry I thought Dean was wasting his life with the teaching rubbish. The thing about Harry is he's a shit secret keeper and he blabbed to Ginny. Ginny mentioned to Dean that I was upset about his career choices, and Dean interpreted that as me being upset he wasn't making enough money. Yeah, I bought the house on my own, but Dean paid for all of his own shit." Finnegan paused before amending, "Except the watches. I bought those. Neville and Ron were so pissy about the watches during the divorce, saying I should've let him have one."
Draco found himself agreeing with Seamus Finnegan; he'd never let anyone take one of his watches. His characterizations of both Potters seemed bang-on. Perhaps there was more to this separation than Hermione was willing to tell. Or, rather, more than she had been willing to listen to.
"That, Zabini, is what you're going to learn. People look at Dean and assume he has no flaws. He can do nothing wrong, nothing bad. For the most part they're right, but when you challenge Dean's decisions you are the villain. You will always be the bad guy for so much as asking whether Dean's made the proper choice. I couldn't take it anymore, couldn't stand being the villain in my own marriage so I leaned into it. If I was gonna be made out to be the asshole, then I was gonna be the asshole."
Blaise asked, "Is that why you cheated on him?"
"Yes."
"I see." Blaise nodded. "You falling out of love with Dean did not have much to do with him, so much as people's reactions to him."
"Correct."
"Does he have a flaw?" asked Draco. "He seems absurdly kind and genuine. The sort of bloke you'd want to spend your life with."
"One hundred percent." Finnegan insisted, "Dean is a great, kind-hearted man. That's the reason he teaches kids, you know, because his heart's in it. He doesn't get angry. He gets annoyed, occasionally he'll make some sort of remark that's a bit off-colour, but he is unflappable. The only time I ever saw him angry was when he caught me with another man. I'd finally found the person I wanted to bring out in him, just to see that the other side exists. He had rage in his eyes, a depth of anger I didn't even think he could feel."
Finnegan let out a low whistle.
"He'd snapped so far in the other direction I thought he was gonna burn the house down. We were together ten years, married for seven, and he rarely used his height advantage over me. But he grabbed me off the floor of our room and dragged me halfway through the house and into the snug. Fucking tossed me onto the sofa like I was nothing and I knew it was in him then. It's hard living with someone who's that good of a person because everyone will assume you are unable to match up. I got tired of my friends looking at me and believing I wasn't good enough for my husband. I blamed Dean for it more than anything, so I was an asshole and I did the one thing I knew would hurt him."
"The message you sent him," asked Blaise, "did you mean for that to hurt, too?"
Finnegan sipped his beer then shrugged.
"What message?"
"On Instagram."
"Oh! What? I said I was happy for him, how the bloody hell would that hurt him?"
Blaise replied, "He believed you were rubbing salt in the wound over his finances, saying that he's found a new man to support him."
"And he believed that was financial support?" Finnegan frowned. "Dean's well-off now. The books are incredible, why would I think he needs financial support? He put it in our divorce papers that he would never be liable for spousal support; he damn well knew those books would take off. I suppose if he still thinks of me as the asshole who cheated on him—"
"You are," replied Blaise. "You are the asshole who cheated on him. He blames himself for it, too."
"That's the part that kills me." Finnegan looked down at the table, regret etched into the lines of his face. "I was trying to be the asshole, I was pushing him to be angry, to be just a bit imperfect so that maybe our friends would see he's a man like the rest of us. He's just a damn good one and, yeah, I snagged him. I fucking did, and I threw it all away. But that's the irritating thing, you know? Dean blames himself and everyone else blames me. I wanted him to blame me. That's why I was so angry during the divorce, because I couldn't get him to stop …" Finnegan shrugged. "He is who he is. That's all I can say. You'll handle it better than I did."
"Yes." Blaise cooly insisted, "I will."
"Is it alright if I keep watching your stories on Instagram?" asked Finnegan. "I'll stop if you'd rather—"
"Anyone who likes my Instagram stories is welcome to them."
"Thank God, you were one of the first few people I followed years ago. Dean and I used to talk about your stories, which ones we liked. He's more of the relaxed, lounging in the sun type, and I prefer the just got out of the shower ones. Those are fucking art."
Finnegan prattled on, but Draco knew Blaise well enough to spot the faint blush working its way down his neck. Blaise asked,
"Does your fiancé mind?"
"Fuck no, he watches 'em too! Is there a gay man in the country who isn't following you on Instagram?"
"That," replied Draco, "is what I said."
"I will admit I don't know the proper etiquette for this. I have a boyfriend now, one I love, and I don't want him to be offended by the stories." Blaise conceded, "They are rather risqué."
"Would you like to hear my advice?" asked Finnegan. "I can shut the hell up about Dean, but if you'd like to know what my experience tells me, I will tell you."
"I would."
"Right, Dean's never going to ask you not to post them. He wouldn't do that if he believes you enjoy posting the stories. You have to sit him down and say, 'I will stop posting the stories if you don't want me to share them. It doesn't make you a bad boyfriend, you simply need to be honest about how you feel.' He needs explicit instructions to admit something bothers him. But you know what? I guarantee you that he won't want you to stop posting them. He'll say something absurdly romantic like, 'I don't want you to change who you are or what you do simply because I am in your life. I wouldn't change anything about you.'"
Blaise frowned.
"I think you're right."
"Ten years." Finnegan raised his eyebrows before downing the remaining half of his first beer in a single go. He let out a soft aah before saying, "I love that man so fucking much it makes me stupid. I've got signed copies of all his books. I send one of my friends to a signing for each one. He's never going to speak to me again. I deserve that, I do, but …" He slammed the glass down on the table. "Would you like to know the real catalyst for our divorce?"
"You already explained—"
"He wrote the first two books at night. He'd go to teach, go play football, come home and write. I didn't complain and let him focus on what he loved. Did I resent him for it? Absolutely, but I didn't complain. He wrote, vetted the concept art, and spent evenings talking with Hermione's publicist. The last year of our marriage he wasn't even there, and when I mentioned it to Ron, he yelled at me and said I should let Dean do what he wanted. Neville empathized a bit because he and Hannah were going through the opposite thing where they were spending too much time together working through both school and their marriage. But he still sort of sided with Dean. Hermione, Padma, Parvati, and Ginny were never people I was going to tell about feeling neglected by my husband."
Finnegan picked up the second glass of beer and kicked back far more than a man of that size should be able to down in one go. He wiped his mouth with the side of his wrist before saying,
"They talked about Dean like I should be kissing the ground at his feet. I saw my childhood friends turning on me, slowly, incrementally … So I snapped. But I gave him the space and the motivation to write those books. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't believe we would both be proud of them."
"Do you want Dean to be happy with someone else?" asked Draco. "Or do you want him to be so desperate that he finds his way back to you?"
"I'm happy." Finnegan shrugged and insisted, "I have a new bloke, and he asked me to marry him. Which was nice, being the one proposed to this time. We hike together. This is a new part of my life, and I don't need Dean to be involved in it. He has clearly landed a great, beautiful man for the next part of his life. I am sorry that he is still broken from what I did, but I did it because I was weak. Not because I didn't love him. I still love him. We were together in some way or another for twenty years."
Finnegan stood up from the table and offered his hand to Blaise. He said,
"You'll take better care of him."
Blaise stood to accept the handshake and confirmed, "Yes. I will."
Finnegan nodded, turned away, and left. Blaise sat down and pulled out his phone. Draco nodded to it and asked,
"What are you doing?"
"Following him on Instagram."
"Seriously?" asked Draco. "It took me four years before I could talk to Daphne. You've been dating Dean Thomas for a month and you're ready to be mates with his ex-husband?"
"I like him." Blaise admitted, "I find him to be quite honest, and I am happy to know he saw the same things I see in Dean. I think it was quite …" Blaise grimaced. "I don't have the word in English. Mature, but gracious about it."
"Amiable?"
"Perhaps. I do believe I have to discuss this with Dean."
"Hmm." Draco said, "I don't know if there is a good way to approach the 'I ran into your ex-husband and he's not horrible' sort of conversation."
"I know how to do it."
Draco raised an eyebrow, to which Blaise replied,
"If I mention it in the middle of a football match, he will give himself more time to consider my words."
"You're sure about this, then?"
"Without question."
For the first time in more years than Draco cared to admit, he could feel bits of his soul knitting themselves back together. Draco raised his glass and said,
"To our Sporty Spice."
Blaise smiled, raised his own glass, and clinked the tops together.
"For our Sporty Spice."