Chapter Text
The Manor no longer had old echoes: it sounded of basil, warm wood, and small footsteps at improbable hours.
That night, soft rain tapped at the window of the new room — pale walls, stick-on stars, a short cord of cranes — and Draco paced in circles with a warm bundle against his chest.
—Three breaths, he murmured, out of habit and faith. Inhale four. Exhale four.
The baby replied with an indignant squeak and then, defeated, with a sigh that felt learned: Orion took the world in sips, as if each mouthful of air was a small promise.
—He looks like you when you don’t want to sleep, Hermione murmured, appearing in the doorway with loose hair and eyes happily tired. And like Scorpius when he manages a crane with even wings.
Draco smiled without turning, guarding the perfect curve of neck against his arm.
—I daresay, he whispered, Orion came with an instruction manual: breaths, arms, little table.
Hermione stepped closer, brushed the back of her fingers over the baby’s nape, and kissed Draco’s temple. The crane cord — four pieces: Astoria’s with the bent wing, the train one, a tiny one with Plan Z = Yes in green ink, and the new, bold white — stirred slightly in the draft. On the white crane, Scorpius had written in careful letters: Welcome, Just-in-Case (and beneath, in parentheses softened by Hermione): Orion.
—Think he’ll mind if we call him Just-in-Case sometimes? Draco asked, conspiratorial.
—No, Hermione said. You should know, Mr Malfoy, that in this house Just-in-Cases are how we say “there’s room.” Besides, Scorpius named him first; older-brother baptisms are binding.
They laughed low.
In the hall, the shuffle of slippers and Scorpius’s silhouette appeared — dinosaur pyjamas, short hair on a mission.
—Not fair, he declared, without anger. Orion gets forbidden cuddles and I don’t. He climbed onto the round rug and sat at their feet. Can I hold him a bit?
—Three breaths first, Hermione set the rule, method-mode engaged. Scorpius obeyed, fixing that Malfoy gaze that no longer hurt like the past but promised an attentive future. Draco knelt in front of him, adjusting arms and baby with ship-in-a-bottle care. Orion opened his eyes in brief wonder and found his brother’s nose like a lighthouse.
—Hi, Just-in-Case, Scorpius said solemnly. It’s me. I’m Scorpius. Don’t be scared if I sing. Sometimes I sing in F, like Aunt Luna’s moss.
Draco met Hermione’s eyes. She, already with her hand on his arm, agreed with everything.
—Remember when we chose the name? she asked softly. You insisted “Just-in-Case Malfoy” was legally unworkable.
—I still think so— Draco deadpanned.
They’d chosen Orion one afternoon in the park, Theo’s crane-kite keeping time.
Scorpius had said: I want him named after a constellation, so we can take turns with the sky.
Hermione had told the myth in playground words: that Scorpio and Orion never chase each other in the same sky; when one hides, the other comes out.
Draco, who’d learned to read in the stars the maps he’d lacked as a child, had kept the image: turns. No chasing; guarding the gaps.
—I like it when you get poetic— Draco murmured.
—I like it when you look at me like that— she answered.
Orion began the small dance of nods and noises that heralded sleep (or hunger, or the world, or all at once). Hermione took him, kissed Scorpius’s crown, and disappeared toward the rocking chair. Draco stayed on the rug with his eldest, now inspecting the room like a crane-cord inspector.
—Think Grandma will come soon? Scorpius asked, no hidden tone.
—Narcissa already said yes, Draco answered evenly. She’ll come to the little table. Bring stories from France. She’ll also do long silences that aren’t punishments. They’re… listening.
—Good, Scorpius approved. And Grandpa Lucius… can send short letters. The long ones bore me.
Draco managed a smile and respect at once.
—Short letters, he agreed.
In the hall, two soft knocks in familiar rhythm. Pansy and Theo peeked in with the manoeuvres of seasoned godparents.
—We bring croissants, Pansy announced, lowering her voice for the first time in her life. Soft-fact reinforcement. And golden clips, in case you want to hang illicit photos.
—And a calming rune, Theo added. Stick it to the crib; it helps muscles remember rest.
—Thanks, Aunt Pansy and Uncle Theo, Scorpius said with his own protocol. Orion accepts bribes.
—You more, Pansy winked, kissing his cheek before retreating with shadow-efficiency.
The house settled back to its four breaths. Hermione returned with Orion curled in sleep, head in that curve that is all mothers and none alike.
—He’s asleep, she announced, wonder intact.
—Hero, Scorpius decreed. Can I put my note up?
Hermione raised a brow, smiling.
—Note?
Scorpius pulled a folded card and a golden clip from his pocket. The card had glued stars and letters shaped with lunar patience. He read it aloud, solemn and cheeky:
Note for the cord:
And for those who don’t know yet… PROCESS is PROMISE.
—Scorpius M.
Draco swallowed a lump that wasn’t pain, just knowing his place. Hermione took the clip, rose on tiptoe — careful not to move the air too much — and hung the card beside Orion’s white crane. The cord, without asking, had become a timeline.
—Can I sleep here? Scorpius bargained, pointing to a mat beside the crib.
—Yes, but condition, Draco said. You stay if you accept that we take turns. If you get up, I come in. If I fall asleep, Hermione comes in. Sky shifts.
—Deal, Scorpius closed, with Malfoy chin and a house’s heart.
They’d married simply, months earlier, in the school garden that was almost their second home. Luna wove lavender garlands “tuned to D”; Ginny pinned down the wind with golden clips; Harry made sure no one with bad ideas crossed the gate; Blaise provided decent lemonade and an unrepeatable toast; Pansy directed guests with general-grade precision; Theo sealed a discreet charm that obliged nothing: remember the good reasons on cloudy days. Daphne sewed the impossible hem — Hermione was round with Orion —; Ron kept the plate-tower under emotional height limits; Rose carried the rings (in a crane-jewellery box that earned a private ovation); Hugo tossed star confetti that took weeks to leave their soles; Albus finally hit his dramatic look number five; the Lovegood-Nott twins declared the moss “sang in C major with joy.” Narcissa came. No speeches. Just hands. Lucius sent carved wood; a mobile of constellations crowned the crib with exact sobriety.
The vows were at the little table, even with people watching.
Hermione said “hands that don’t run”; Draco, “sky shifts”; Scorpius interrupted with a single word from the front row: process. No one protested.
Back in the present, the kitchen clock neared midnight.
Orion slept, Scorpius yawned out his willpower, and Draco looked at the cord like it was a map he finally knew how to follow.
—Susan’s coming tomorrow, Hermione said softly. She said she’d drop by to meet him and bring thick pencils “for when Orion wants to draw by breathing.”
—Susan knows time, Draco nodded. And not to push.
—Like you, she said.
He looked at her with the new respect they’d earned through rituals: three breaths, ice cream after the hard things (not prize: ritual), short letters instead of speeches, little table > podium.
—Like us, he corrected.
Scorpius was already sliding onto the mat, mid-hug with his pillow, when he sat up again.
—Dad, he said, voice wrapped in wool. When Orion’s older and scared, tell him he doesn’t run alone. Tell him I run ahead to scare off the ugly owls.
—I’ll tell him, Draco promised, tucking the image into himself.
Hermione switched off the light, leaving only the stick-on stars that looked like they’d been made by a Muggle nostalgic for magic. In the dim, Scorpius’s note glowed as if it had its own ink.
—One last thing, Hermione whispered in the hall. Tomorrow, after Amaya leaves, want to plant the cuttings Luna brought? She says they grow better in pairs.
—Everything grows better in pairs, Draco said. Or threes. Or fours.
—Or all together, Scorpius finished from the mat, with five-year-old philosophy.
They laughed. Kissed in the doorway — hands entwined, shoulders meeting at the right height — and tiptoed to the kitchen, purely out of respect for a new-learned sleep.
The house breathed with them. No applause, no curtain.
Just a cord with papers carrying exactly the right weight, a basil pot stubbornly alive, a secret Pansy croissant for emergencies, and a golden clip holding up a new definition, hung forever:
And for those who don’t know yet… PROCESS is PROMISE.
Scorpius had signed it with a proud, oversized M that no longer hid anything. Draco traced the lifted corner — to let it breathe — and allowed himself to understand the obvious: that fear hadn’t left, but it had turns; that Orion was Just-in-Case made into a laugh; that Hermione was “little table” turned into a verb; that Scorpius had translated their secret language into the house’s.
They turned off the last light.
The rain kept time on the roof.
And the cord — with Astoria, with the train, with Plan Z, with Orion, with the note — held, as things you choose every day hold, without need for epic: the promise to keep going.