Darling Coda: 12th August, 2004

Author's Note: Codas to Darling can be read in any order and are meant to illustrate Draco Malfoy's path from terrified teen to fairly decent adult in the years between the last chapter and the epilogue.

~~~

12th August, 2004

Draco fled from the room draped in silver and blue, one hand to his mouth. The hallway wasn't much better, except that now he had an audience standing witness to his minor breakdown. He turned slightly to the wall in the hopes that passersby would remain that way and leave him to his grief.

"Son?"

Draco swiped at his eyes clumsily before turning. "Father. I didn't - I didn't expect you."

Lucius Malfoy smiled gently, and it didn't reach his eyes. Never did, any more. "Your mother told me."

Draco slumped backward against the wall. "Oh," he said, sliding down it to sit on the floor.

Lucius dragged a chair over and sat next to him. He regarded his son for a moment before sighing heavily and dropping a hand onto his shoulder. "I would have come, if you had said something. We're only in France."

Draco blew out a breath. "What do you want me to say?" he murmured, staring straight ahead. "I know you only came to the wedding because Mother made you."

"That isn't true!" Lucius hissed.

Draco looked up at him, brows lowered. "Don't try to deny it, Father. Mother told me as much."

"You're doing it again," his father said, after a moment. He sounded so sad. When he said, "You told me to tell you if you did it again," his voice hitched.

Draco hung his head, then leaned forward to rest his forehead on his knees. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Don't apologise, Draco," his father chided mildly. "It doesn't suit you." They sat in silence for a couple more moments before Lucius added, "I'm sorry as well, for what it's worth."

"Not much," Draco said. He lifted his head immediately and said, "Sorry. I'm sorry."

Lucius laughed a little. "That's all we seem to be saying to each other, isn't it?" Another awkward pause. "What'd you do for your 24th birthday, then?"

Draco sighed and leaned his head back against the wall. "'Stori and I took in a Muggle movie," he said.

"Why do you do that to me?"

Draco laughed a little. "Old times' sake? Fine. We went to London and I took her shopping."

"For your birthday, you took Astoria shopping?"

Draco looked sidelong at his father. "And what did you do for your last birthday?"

Lucius frowned. "Oh fine. I took your mother shopping in Nice."

Draco smiled a thin celebratory smile. "The ladies we love, eh?"

"Indeed." They sat in silence for another long beat. "And you do, don't you?"

"Love her? Absolutely." Draco swallowed drily. "Do you?"

"Love your mother?" Lucius narrowed his eyes. "How can you even ask such a question?"

"Could ask the same of you," Draco shot back. "What were you thinking? There was a war on, and you just what? Wanted progeny? Someone to carry on in case you were killed or caught? I guess you got that, then."

"I've apologised for that," Lucius snapped, standing. He grabbed Draco by the upper arm and yanked him to his feet.

Draco nearly stumbled but held his ground, staring at his father in alarm. Lucius froze, stung. He snatched his hand away from Draco's arm like he'd been bitten, balling it up into a fist at his chest. He looked off, unable to meet Draco's accusing stare. For his part, Draco could keep it up for only a few moments before he relaxed again, slinking back a step and leaning against the wall.

"I'm sorry-"

"I know."

"How's your-"

"It's fine." Draco rubbed his right wrist without thinking. He looked away, feeling stupidly ashamed for making his father feel guilty. Because he was right. He had apologised and they'd agreed it was over and done. He'd apologised for everything. For not being there, and then for being there, and then for not being all there - eventually Draco'd had to just give in and forgive him for everything. "There was a war on, though," he said wearily. He looked at his father. "How did you decide it was the right time?"

"We didn't. It just happened. War has a way of bringing other things to a head, in love and in hate alike. I did, and do, love your mother. You weren't..." He looked pained to even say it. "You weren't a failsafe, Draco. You weren't a tool or a convenience. And damn me for raising you in such a way that you could even come to that conclusion."

"You didn't-" Draco began, then stopped and reconsidered. "It was the combination of everything, maybe. Coming from wealth, going into Slytherin, where we played at House politics and everything seemed life or death. Then our... the last few years of the war - every move had to be so calculated, and it really was life or death. I looked back and saw how you'd been doing it since I could remember. And then everything seemed to make so much more sense. You gave those brooms to Slytherin so I'd be on the team. You timed things so we'd run into the Weasley family in Flourish and Blotts just before Second Year. Stupid, small things like that." He paused and took a steadying breath. "You know, for a while, I thought you timed me so I'd be born in time to be in Potter's year."

"Oh don't be silly, Draco-"

"I said for a while," Draco snapped irritably. "Not any more, obviously. It's all just so silly now. All of it. It seemed so important at the time..."

"It was," his father assured him. "At the time." He put a hand on Draco's arm and tensed when Draco did. But rather than pull away, he gave it a comforting squeeze.

Draco looked up at him, shaking his head. He felt weak-kneed and overwhelmed. "I can't do this," he whispered. "I'm not ready. I don't know how-"

Lucius grimaced. "Blaming me?"

Draco paused, breaking eye contact. "Not on purpose. You kind of made your bed with this one, pater."

His father sighed heavily and took his hand away to shove it into the pocket of his trousers. "I suppose you think you could have done better."

Draco shrugged listlessly. "I guess that's the question," he muttered. "I was..." He waved a hand vaguely. "Unkind. To people. I get it, now. I mean I really get it, now that..." He gestured to the room he'd fled from. "And I'm worried. Worried I don't have a good idea how to... be the right kind of person to..."

Lucius turned Draco bodily by the shoulders, his hands firm and warm and actually kind of comforting. He looked his son straight in the eye and said, "You're having a child, Draco, my grandchild! This is an occasion for celebration! You have in you the ability to be strong in the face of the threat of death in order to save your family. You can certainly manage an infant."

Draco laughed shortly. "When you put it that way, I'd prefer having to laugh in the face of death," he joked lamely, then shook his head at his father. "Then Mum didn't tell you..."

His father narrowed his eyes. "Tell me what?"

His eyes welled up again without his permission. "She's early. She's early, really early. I'm afraid-"

The sound of shouting interrupted him as orderlies and Medi-Witches and Wizards rushed into the room draped in silver and blue.

Draco's eyes widened. "'Stori?" He pushed past his father, shaking off his cautioning hand. "'Stori?" he repeated, struck numb at the sight of his wife looking far too pale, attended by far too many shouting nurses. An orderly took him by the arm.

"I'm afraid you'll have to wait outside."

"No! That's my wife!" he cried, pulling forward. A second orderly joined the first to restrain him. "My wife, my child! Astoria! Astoria!" He struggled madly against them until someone stunned him. He woke up in a bed pushed up near to hers, and no sooner had the Medi-Witch murmured the last syllable of Ennervate than he was up and reaching for Astoria's hand. "'Stori?" he whispered. Staff fluttered around the room, but he was cognizant of them only in the distant logical part of his mind that noted the tone of finality hanging over the room, until one of them actually touched his hand.

"Mister Malfoy," she murmured.

Draco blinked a couple of times. "What is it," he mumbled.

The words came in like a tinny Muggle recording, like Snape's had done before he'd convinced him to take up residence in a Manor portrait. They repeated and sounded distant and then banged on the front of his brain and forced him to make sense of them.

"Mister Malfoy, I'm so sorry."

He swallowed, staring at nothing. "Do you..?"

The nurse handed him a tiny bundle, far too still. Draco took it gingerly and brushed his thumb across the cool cheek, way too small, but perfectly formed. Beside him, Astoria stirred.

"Draco," she breathed.

"A girl," he replied, hitching up onto the side of her bed.

She reached up to touch the tear that threatened to fall at the corner of his eye. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, then again and again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Forgive me, I'm sorry."

His face crumpled and he hugged the lifeless bundle to his chest a moment before collecting himself and laying down next to his wife. With a shaking hand, he cupped her cheek. "Oh, 'Stori," he breathed, leaning in to kiss her eyes. "Oh, 'Stori, shh." He caught her hand in his and settled it over their daughter between them. "Shh... D-don't apologise." He tried to smile at her, tried to make it okay. He feathered his thumb over her small hand over their child. "It doesn't suit you."

Astoria had the grace to laugh a little, and to Draco, it sounded like a fragile bell, threatening to break if he tried to ring it any louder. It was a silly, fey thought, to be sure - Astoria wasn't nearly so fragile as his mother, for example - but he needed it. Needed her to need him to be the backbone, because otherwise, he'd just break apart into millions. So he put it away, the grief, the unbearable everything, until some future time when he could find that he'd borne it already, and placed a chaste kiss on her sweat-damp forehead. He looked at her from eye to eye, then pressed his nose in next to hers. Her eyelashes brushed his cheek. "I love you, and I always will. Please don't apologise for this. I couldn't bear you taking on the blame - I won't allow it."

She shuddered a sigh. "Oh Draco. Don't say you won't allow things." She blinked up at him, a tiny smile touching her lips. "It makes me so angry."

He smiled back. "I know."

"You're lucky I'm too exhausted to do anything about it," she mumbled drowsily.

"Luckiest man in the world," he murmured, kissing her eyes closed. He meant to watch her sleep, but only managed for a couple of minutes before her steady, reassuring breathing overcame him and he dropped off as well.

"Mr Malfoy," the orderly said, looking awkwardly from the tall blond man to the room draped in silver and blue. "Did you want..."

Lucius Malfoy shrugged. "Just a moment alone, if you don't mind." He waited for the orderly to make himself scarce, then pulled the locket from his pocket.

"Has it happened, then?" Snape's voice murmured silkily, sounding not at all pleased.

Lucius smiled wanly. "You act as though you don't have a perfectly large portrait you could be sunning yourself in back at the Manor, Severus. I thought you wanted to be here."

Snape regarded him with displeasure. "Indeed. Well?"

Lucius' smile faded and he shook his head slightly. "Complications."

That was enough for Snape, who looked instantly concerned. "How's-"

"I've arranged for a little something to accidentally fall into his drink. He's resting." At Snape's look of revulsion, Lucius sneered. "Oh come on, Severus. As if you haven't done it yourself. He's a bit easier to bear when he's well rested is all. As I remember it, you even went so far as to dose him yourself in order to-"

"Keep him alive?" Snape seethed. "As I remember it, you were doing your solid best to drive him round the bend with fear and grief."

Lucius put his thumb over the tiny photo in the locket until Snape's muffled protests quieted. Then he looked the tiny Snape in the face. "Draco needs this. His mother said he's been up three nights in a row with Astoria this way, not a moment of sleep." He held the locket up to face into the room. "You see? How peaceful they are now. I honestly never thought I'd see the day." He cupped the locket back into his hand. "All right with you?"

Snape looked sour. "Yes, all right," he agreed.

"I'll see you back at home then?"

"Draco's home," Snape corrected.

"Of course." Lucius repocketed the locket and stood in the doorway of the birthing chambers, still half-decorated in the colours Draco had chosen to celebrate his new family. He must have been eager, starting so early on them. Even without a child yet upon which to dote, fatherhood suited him.