Favoring The Strong {Drarry}

- ž -

I thought you would be happy for me.

I am happy for you. It's just...something came up.

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Draco you don't know what you want.

If I had never shown up here, would you have ever told me about James?

No.

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He fled. Cried. Ran. Sobbed.

--:--

Draco's head is spinning with painful memories forcing his heart to thump around in his throat when he awakens, yet somehow, he's able to scream.

The noise is guttural. He can feel it tearing at his vocal chords and tugging at his magical core, until something finally snaps. A rush of power surges through him, coddling his wounds and lapping at magical sores and injuries. His magic. Flowing in him like a river that's burst through a dam.

He opens his eyes with a gasp of power.

"Dad!" calls the two overlapping voices of his sons at the same time that his husband calls for him.

"Draco!" Harry is at his side in seconds, his hands reaching out to touch him as his magic reaches out to feel for him. It's the most intimate they've been since he was shot and they're barely holding hands.

"Dad, we're so glad you're okay!" Teddy says, his hair a nervous mass of blond and teal.

"You're alive," James says, his face covered in tears. Draco reaches a free hand out to his youngest son, his magic not far behind. Both tentatively reaching out. When they reach the boy he lets out a breath.

"I'm alive."

After that it's as though the floodgates open. It starts with the Aurors and their questions, then it's the Granger-Weasleys, then Pansy, then Blaise and Val (holding hands, he notes), then finally his mother. She's the hardest to speak to, he finds. He and his mother were close even before the war had forced them into lockdown, but now he looks at her and he sees how absolutely wrecked she is.

"The war is supposed to be over," she whispers, caressing his face with one of her hands. He leans into it, meeting her gaze and breaking a little more inside.

"Mother, don't."

"It's our fault," she says anyway and his heart aches to tell her otherwise, but parents aren't perfect. They're people just like anyone else. They're flawed. This is their fault. Dragging children into a war for a madman in a dash for power.

"You did what you thought you had to." Because she did. They all had back then.

"Your father's in the corridor," she says in lieu of an acceptance.

"He can stay there," Draco drawls. "I don't feel like dealing with him right now. I barely feel like dealing with this one." He motions to where Harry sits slumped over next to his bed. "But I'm married to him."

His mother chuckles and smiles softly at him. She leans forward and kisses his forehead softly.

"You'll be singing and dancing again in no time, my dragon. Even if it's only in the comfort of your own home."