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Age 0
Find the horizon, where the sky touches the earth. Always be aware of that. That’s the most important part, knowing what’s up, and what’s down.
Lyra was a happy surprise.
Draco informed Hermione at the outset that Malfoys were under strict blood magic spells that allowed only for one male heir at a time, per married couple. Something about logistics and potential feuds and inheritance, definitely sexism. Mostly, at its most simplified, it was a generations-long contraceptive spell because apparently Malfoy heirs were determined to fuck their way through life and bastards just wouldn’t do.
So Scorpius was expected and welcome, and that was that. Draco’s son was the spitting image of him (blood magic) and he was a complete and utter mummy’s boy (perhaps blood magic).
When she became pregnant with Lyra six years after Scorpius was born, Draco strutted around taking it as a sign of his virility until his father told him all the good things to happen to Draco were because of Hermione, including this child.
Lucius remarked, “It’s likely due to her being a muggleborn. Malfoy’s have never— procreated with muggleborns before.”
“Is that a problem, Father?”
“No, Draco. You’ve done well, and she’s done better.”
The birth wasn’t easy. Magical births never were but this, this was a disaster. It almost killed Hermione and the baby. Again, something to do with the blood magic they were fighting against, something that was Draco’s fault.
Hermione lost so much blood, more blood than should even be possible and the irony, the tragedy of it wasn’t lost on anyone.
The Healers weren’t sure how either of them survived.
It was, without a doubt, the worst and most harrowing events of Draco’s life.
Some time later, Draco held their daughter against his chest and again tried and succeeded for the tenth time not to cry. Later he’d vent to Potter and Weasley, also fathers, about his manly fortitude. They’d ply him with drinks and wonder at their wives, their children, and how they got to be where they were in that moment and Draco might cry then.
But for now, he endeavored to keep it together.
“Honestly, Draco. We’ve been through worse,” Hermione tutted, drinking a restorative broth and looking at them with a fond smile. Apparently he wasn’t keeping it together as well as he thought.
He knew she meant the war and he vehemently disagreed, though he kept it to himself. He had everything to lose.
1
You have to know up versus down. When you fly, it’s easy to forget, like being deep underwater.
Draco’s wife rose above him in the dark and he held onto her hips and reveled in her, traced his thumbs up the stretch marks on her thighs, her belly, the sides of her breasts. She felt unsure about them and he told her that these scars, these marks belonged to him, they were proof of something good and perfect twice over that he gave her.
“So possessive,” she whispered, covering his hands with her own and going on the journey of her body with him.
“Yes, always,” he said before flipping them so she was underneath him. He kissed her neck.
Then they heard their daughter crying through the Sonorus Custodia cast enchantment around their room and hers. Hermione huffed.
“To be continued?” she said pushing at his chest and he rolled off her. She got up and pulled on a dressing gown, padding to the nursery.
Not to be continued. Lyra was teething and cluster feeding.
Draco sighed but he was happy.
3
Once you know where you are, you start searching for gold.
Sometimes Draco wondered if love was responsible for the conception and birth of their daughter.
Hermione scoffed.
They were watching Lyra scream and chase after her brother who dashed away every time she got close.
“Are you saying Scorpius wasn’t the result of love?”
“No, but Scorpius was meant to be, allowed to exist. Lyra broke generations-old blood magic. Love seems to be the culprit, don’t you think?” Draco said, watching a light breeze ruffle his wife’s eternal, beautiful frizz.
Hermione considered this, and nodded, eyes looking glassy. She blinked rapidly. “You’ll have to tell her one day.”
“I will.”
He was going to say more but he was interrupted by an exclamation of “IT’S NOT MY FAULT” which was only slightly quieter than the wail that carried on the same breeze.
7
You cannot be distracted. That’s not something that normally comes naturally. But it does for you. You’re a Malfoy. Eyes always on the prize.
When she was a toddler, Lyra rarely spoke. Hermione was concerned that Lyra’s development was behind and she fretted. No, she didn’t fret. She went insane with worry.
“This can’t be brushed away because she might be considered a squib. Backwards, the wizarding community is so backwards! There’s no primary education! “
Draco didn’t understand what she was talking about. Nor did any of their inner circle, other than Potter who just nodded and agreed.
So Lyra went to muggle school. With time, she found her words, though not many. She found her shapes and numbers and letters, just a little later than others. At the age of 7, they had to pull her out of muggle school quickly after she started exhibiting an absurd amount of wandless and underage magic that resulted in an impressive display of violence after she was slighted in any way.
Draco preened; Hermione continued to fret. Lyra was still behind.
Draco understood his wife’s concerns but he also resented them. He understood, conceptually, that their daughter was different per whatever standard established by muggles and wizards to determine “normal,” but in the end he thought she was perfect. Like her mother, like her brother.
It led to fights, long discussions. It led to a certain hyperawareness that didn’t exist with Scorpius. They observed their daughter for missteps more than successes.
Sometimes when Draco had a moment alone, he let himself be sad about it.
—-
At a casual Weasley get-together, he watched her raise her hand up in the chaotic path of a butterfly and it landed right on her palm and her eyes didn’t widen with surprise. She just smiled, like she always knew she could catch butterflies.
At another Weasley event (there were so many Weasley events), Lyra plucked a ladybug off a blade of grass before it was crushed by a Potter child. Draco watched the bug stay still on her fingertips, watched her breath quietly and just wait until it flew away.
Lyra could alway snatch a ball out of the air as much as her height permitted. Then she’d usually run away with it to the displeasure of all the children.
So really, it was inevitable when a true natural caught on to it too. Potter sidled up to him at an anniversary party (Maybe a renewal of vows? A wedding? He couldn’t keep up) and asked why it had been so long since Lyra had attended their Ministry Quidditch games, or gone to the Malfoy’s private box, which too many people had access to, quite frankly.
Draco scowled. “You’re aware of who her mother is, yes?”
Potter lifted his hands, palms out in surrender. “Easy. Scorpius was always coming along. He still does when he’s not in school.”
Draco shrugged.
Potter peered at him and then turned back to Lyra who was running for her life with the ball she had stolen. Again.
“You know why I’m asking,” Potter said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, not bothering to hide his excitement at the potential and Draco felt a rather immense sense of pride but he quashed it with practicality and reality.
—--
But his mind wouldn’t let him let up on the idea.
Tentatively, Draco brought his daughter to a quidditch game or two that consisted of his coworkers. He usually played seeker for the opposite (Potter’s) team, but he sat out this one. He wanted to teach her the game while she watched people she loved play.
Lyra was entranced. She tugged his collar and screamed and pointed.
“There it is! The snitch!”
Draco was startled, he hadn’t seen it. Neither had Potter until a few seconds later.
Potter caught it, Lyra screeched and clapped. Draco kissed the top of her head, pride blooming anew.
8
Other players on the opposite team will certainly try to distract you, if they’re smart. Bludgers will come for you, sometimes even Quaffles, but trust your teammates are looking out for you.
It didn’t take a lot of convincing for him to get Potter and Ginevra to join him at the Quidditch pitch on the Malfoy estate. Draco just told them his daughter wanted to fly and they immediately invited themselves over.
“Help me teach her, yeah?”
Potter frowned, clutching his broom. “Hermione won’t like this.”
Draco scoffed.. “I can already tell you want to do nothing more than this.You too, Ginevra. You Gryffindors are never subtle. If the three of us teach her and keep her safe, Hermione won’t be able to fret too much.”
Potter muttered under his breath. Probably something rude.
Ginevra grinned and asked Lyra, “Are you ready?”
Draco turned to her, and smiled as well. She looked so intense and serious, as always.
“I’m ready.”
—
Hermione wasn’t happy when he told her about the day they’d had.
“She’s too young! We were 11 when we learned.”
“You were 11. Many of us started learning when we could start walking,” he said.
“This might be too much for her to handle. She’s— she’s different.”
Draco lost his temper because Hermione was wrong. She rarely was but in this she was so wrong.
“Stop it. Stop fucking doing that! There’s nothing wrong with her and she’s good at this.”
“She’s—”
“No. Enough. Enough of that. She’s different and I know that scares you but you need to get over it. Let her have this. She wants it.”
She was so taken aback, she physically flinched and he watched a flurry of emotions pass over her beautiful face. Confusion, anger, shame.
“I am scared, yes,” she said quietly.
He wanted to comfort her, sweet nothings, tell her she was so good, the usual— no. This wasn’t about them.
“It makes her happy, Granger.”
Her eyes narrowed at the use of her maiden name but she didn’t know what to say to that. What could she say?
She paced around the drawing room. When they were younger and developing a tentative friendship, she asked if she could visit the manor, specifically the drawing room she was tortured and maimed in.
Draco didn’t understand it, and at first he thought she was trying to punish him and herself. But no, she was reclaiming the room for herself.
He saw who she was, then, in that moment. It wasn’t some caricature crudely put together based on brief encounters during their childhood, rumors, secondhand recounting, articles and his own opinions. He saw her. And he’d been done for.
She could handle this.
Hermione stopped pacing and braced her hands on her hips, staring up at the replacement chandelier far superior to the previous one that fell on top of her.
She sighed. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yes, Malfoy. Fine. Teach her to fly, teach her to catch the Snitch.”
He wanted to kiss her, but knew she didn’t want to be touched.
“Thank you.”
11
When you see it, it might be far away or just in front of your face. It’s an incredible feeling. It’s scary, electrifying, and everything you’ve ever wanted just there. Every time. So chase it as fast as you can.
Lyra was pleased to be like “all my uncles and aunts” and her mother after she was sorted into Gryffindor. Hermione held back tears, Potter and Ginevra beamed, a few other Weasley’s sniffled a bit. The Malfoys looked disturbed. Lucius was sure Lyra would be a Slytherin like her brother.
“Her single-minded pursuit…”
“What about that doesn’t scream Gryffindor, Father?”
“But— Gryffindor.”
Draco patted his father on his shoulder, a rare display of affection between them. “This family couldn’t do better.”
Lucius hummed in agreement.
—
Hermione insisted Lyra not get special treatment like Potter had. She would not be playing her first year and would try out her second year.
Headmistress McGonagall scoffed. Potter, the Weasleys, and hell, even a Longbottom scoffed (Pansy).
And she insisted to Draco and Lucius to not even bother with donating brooms to Gryffindor.
“Your father won’t hear about this, Draco, and if he does, it won’t matter because it’s not happening.”
Draco was deeply offended.
“I see,” he said, eyeballing the ad for the newest broom in the Prophet.
“Stop.”
“But—”
“No.”
“You’re a terrible wife. I’m leaving you.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
12
It’s a terrible, tragic fact of life that sometimes catching the Snitch doesn’t mean you win. It just means the match ends.
Lyra caught the snitch. Again and again.
Nothing, nothing matched Gryffindor arrogance, and while that existed in abundance around her, Lyra was still meek. She still struggled with her studies, many things didn’t make sense to her, and she was overwhelmed.
She told her brother, her best friend, that if she wasn’t a good seeker, she wouldn’t be worth anything to anyone.
It was likely the first time their son’s heart had ever been truly broken.
Scorpius told Draco and Hermione.
He relayed it viciously, and put them to task to fix it. Draco thought idly that Scorpius, a carbon copy of all Malfoy’s, never looked more like his mother in that moment.
Of course, he and Hermione spoke afterwards, then they fought.
What if’s, what should have been done, how they could have been better and why it fell to their son to carry the burden of his sister’s issues because of course this wasn’t the first time she confided in him. This was just the first time Scorpius felt the need to tell them.
She pushed too hard, he said. Made Lyra feel different and less than.
He didn’t push enough for the bigger picture, she said. He just focused on what made her palatable to the rest of the world.
They went to bed angry and they stayed angry for longer than they ever had before in their marriage.
—-
They still slept in their bed together, despite their anger. Just before Lyra was due home for the winter holiday, Hermione scooted closer to him and laid her head on his chest and he wrapped his arms around her.
“We talk to her,” she said. “We listen.”
Draco nodded, his lips pressed to her forehead, his hands finding their way under her pyjamas, tracing those marks, that evidence that he had it all.
“Draco?” she whispered after a moment.
“Hm?”
Her next exhalation of breath was shaky and stuttered across his skin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t do enough to make sure the people I love more than anything in the world know they are always enough—”
He grabbed the hair at the base of her scalp, let her hair wrap around his fingers as he pulled her head up to look at him. She gasped and quieted like she always did when he physically had to pull her out of her panic and spiral.
He loosened his grasp.
“Listen,” he whispered. “We’ll talk to her. We both fucked up in ways, but there’s no use blaming each other. I’m sorry that I did. But I know we did more right than wrong for our children. You know that, right? It’s essential that you know that.”
Hermione nodded and kissed him, just a peck. He let her hair go and stroked her back.
Between that strange place of awake and asleep, he heard her say, “I’m so lucky.”
15
The Snitch will change course at the last minute. Don’t try to understand it, don’t try to anticipate its movement, it’s not possible. There’s no strategy to be had when it’s just within reach. Let your eyes lead your body.
Somewhat out of the blue (at least he believed it was out of the blue) Draco and Hermione were asked to meet with McGonagall regarding concerns over Lyra.
Allegedly, Lyra was responsible for two older students always experiencing damp socks, always feeling the need to sneeze, passwords never working, a constant itch in their ear that couldn’t be relieved— among many other things. They complained to their parents and their parents complained to the Headmistress after Lyra made a blatant threat against them.
Hermione had, of course, in that political way of hers, explained that there was no proof Lyra cast anything, and if anyone had it would have been done by someone with very advanced magical ability and knowledge.
“Those are simple annoyances, irritations, those spells don’t exist. Lyra would have had to create the spells.”
Then Hermione went on to say she was appalled that these boys had gotten away with their egregious actions in the first place with so little consequence.
“The matter was being handled, Hermione.”
“Detentions and reprimands, no doubt,” Hermione replied. “Certainly sufficient regarding the level of antagonism they were exhibiting against other students.”
His wife and McGonagall stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time.
Then McGonagall said, “Lyra will receive two weeks detention for the hex that did happen in front of others.”
Hermione’s jaw clenched but she nodded. Draco knew he was missing, well, everything, so he said nothing.
They returned home. He watched his wife going through her usual evening routine. Putting on comfortable muggle clothes, consulting with Poppy about dinner for the evening, complaining that Poppy wouldn’t agree to a pay raise and some philosophical ruminating on the concept of purpose in humans and other sentient magical creatures, updating her non-magical planner in their shared study and—
Then he just couldn’t take it anymore.
“Well, are we going to talk about this?”
She put down her muggle pen and swiveled in her chair to look at him. He sat forward, elbows on his knees on the couch across from her.
“Lyra has talked to me about those boys,” she said.
“What? And she didn’t tell me? You didn’t tell me our daughter was being bullied?” Draco snarled.
“No, because you would have gone to Hogwarts and caused a fuss that would have been helpful to no one, especially to her and the others they were terrorizing,” she said, turning up her nose.
He gaped. “So. Wait… did she do those things?”
“Allegedly.”
“You said the precision of those spells was extremely advanced—”
Then it happened, a somewhat rare occurrence that never failed to get him very excited.
She smirked.
“Lyra has an aptitude for spellwork. We worked on it over the summer, you know that. She’s terrible at sitting for exams, but she excels in practical application. With movement.” Hermione said.
Draco stared. “So she hexed her classmates.”
Hermione shrugged. “I’m not certain.”
“Granger.”
“I gave her the tools to work on her spellwork and spell theory. I told her I used to be bullied, too. She didn't believe me at first. I should have told her sooner.”
Draco sat back.
Really, he wasn’t that surprised. His wife had a very morally grey sense of justice and it had served her and many others well. Apparently their daughter inherited the same trait. He knew he shouldn’t feel proud in a moralistic sense, but he did anyway. How could he not?
”Ah,” he said, swallowing. “Can we talk more about this later?”
She tilted her head. “Why not now?”
“You cruel thing,” he said, standing. “You know why.”
Hermione smirked again.
18
You’ll win, you’ll lose. All Malfoys are sore losers but learning what to do with a loss is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. I’m going to teach you that too. Have you been listening, love?
They always flew together during the summers, he talked less and she spoke more.
She asked him why he stopped teaching her.
He laughed, “You’ve far surpassed me.”
“I know,” she said without arrogance or artifice. “I just like listening to you talk about it.”
“Oh?” he asked, mounting his broom.
Lyra mimicked his movements, far more gracefully than he did.
She used her wand to hold her curls up, pushing it through a knot to secure it. She dropped her arms. “Yeah, like reading your favorite book again.”
“You hate reading.”
“Not when it’s my favorite book,” she said, looking thoroughly annoyed with him for missing the point even though he hadn’t.
They flew above the pitch into a cloudless sky. She did a few maneuvers that aged him significantly every time, free falling through the air, always laughing while he hollered. Eventually, they rounded back and hovered, panting, grinning, and made their way back down.
“I’ve met the requirements for Auror training,” she said, once her feet touched the ground. “I’m going to pursue that.”
His chest felt tight as he dismounted. “Your mother told me.”
“That’s not what you wanted for me,” she said and it wasn’t a question.
“Being an Auror is dangerous.”
“More dangerous than flying the way I do?”
“Yes. You know that. And I thought you’d want to do this forever,” Draco said, gesturing with his hand with a wide sweep across the sky.
She leaned her forehead against her own broom and smiled and somehow it was tired and bright at the same time. “I’m always going to do this. You gave this to me. I just want – more. Are you disappointed?”
Draco looked toward the horizon, where the sun was dipping low, then he met her gaze.
“Did I ever tell you why you were born?”