Antarmada Cottage, outside Ottery St. Catchpole

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The old cuckoo clock on the parlor wall ticked its merry seconds away without care, its clicks and whirs nearly deafening in the heavy, awkward silence. Only the knowledge that it had been a trinket of his late grandfather kept Ted from hopping up and pulling it off the wall. As if this situation wasn't already awkward enough!

After the war, his Gran'd made an effort to extend an olive branch to the remaining of her estranged sisters. Miracle of miracles, Narcissa Malfoy accepted. Since then, these tea-times in one another's homes had become...well, not exactly common, but also not unheard of. Ted could remember maybe half-a-dozen previous, all of them strained and fragile, but ultimately not unpleasant.

Still, this was the first to his recollection that involved Narcissa's son, Draco. Draco, who had been Harry's greatest rival while at school. Draco, of whom Uncle Ron still occasionally spoke at parties, usually telling stories of how he'd been made a fool or turned into a ferret. Draco, who had been his mother's cousin.

Family, Ted decided as he eyed his cousin from across the room, was weird. Going by blood alone, Ted was more closely related to Draco than to any of his uncles or aunts or god-siblings, yet he'd never spent any amount of time with the man. He wouldn't have spent time with him now,  except that Gran and Great-Aunt "Cissy" had to gone to next room to sort out some paperwork involving their parents' estate or their sister's estate or something, and Gran had told Teddy to be a "good host" and not wander off.

So here he was, perched on the settee with his sneakers swinging off the ground and his hair -- sky-blue -- falling into his eyes. His very pale cousin sat across from him, looking different that he did in the various albums Narcissa had brought before. Maybe it was age, or maybe it was because he hadn't been dressed up for a portrait; Teddy couldn't say.

Between them, on the coffee table, sat a charmed tea set, a tin of Molly Weasley's best biscuits, and a small bowl of chocolate Smarties, which Ted had been hogging. Padfoot II lurked in the shadows under Ted's chair and seemed to sense the boy's nerves. He too watched Draco with his burning ember eyes.

"Sooo," said Ted, stretching out the word as he fished for a conversation piece. "How's, um, Astoria?" He winced. That was Draco's wife's name, wasn't it? "And, er, Scorpio? He's about, what, Albus's age, yeah? So...Four?"

His mother had begged and pleaded, well not so much the last one, for days to get him to agree to accompany her to her sister's house for a visit.  He had no desire to go with her beforehand, and therefore had no desire today, but he agreed for one reason.  His wife.  Astoria had told him point blank that he needed to get out of his Potions lab and get some fresh air and it would be good for him to go with his mom, (whom he had been avoiding lately), and attempt to get along with some of his relations.  So he went.

The minute he stepped through the door he felt like Andromeda's and the boy's eyes were on him constantly.  He felt like what had happened to her daughter and the boy's parents was somehow his fault and the paranoia set in.  Like maybe his mother had lured him here for the family to get restitution for their lost family members.  As he watched his mother and Aunt wander off into another room talking to one another and left him sitting in a chair facing a young boy, his mind was going a mile a minute, most of the thoughts were how he could escape and go back home.  There were reasons he didn't make it out in public unless he had to.  He was too afraid someone would take a shot at him or think he was his father and then it would be all over.

The clock on the wall was doing it's job, making the time seem to drag by slowly, and then the whirlwind of panicked thoughts in Draco's mind ground to a halt when the boy, Ted maybe, spoke up in the silence. 

"How's, um, Astoria?"  "And, er, Scorpio? He's about, what, Albus's age, yeah? So...Four?"

Without thinking Draco spoke up, though his voice came out harsher than what he had hoped it would, "His name is Scorpius." He winced and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his right hand and then dropped it back to his lap, "Scorpius," he tried again, "he's a good boy, full of energy." He didn't really know what to say, as much as he wanted to, he couldn't bring himself to spend much time with his son, full of fear that he'd turn out like his father.  It was the cause of many a fight between him and his wife.  "You're what, 10 now." Draco wasn't exactly sure of how old the boy was, but he tried to guess high.

All the while he had been attempting conversation with the boy, he'd seen the dog, but looking at it just gave him more feelings of paranoia, so he felt the best thing to do would be to ignore it all together.

"His name is Scorpius."

Ted winced at the same time Draco did. Padfoot II responded immediately, lifting his head from his paws and growling a warning. Ted nudged the dog with his foot and shushed him. Padfoot was a good dog. Just protective.

"Sorry," he said, tugging restlessly on a lock of hair that grew a bit with each yank. Across from him, Draco rubbed his nose and spoke again, this time with less of a bite. Ted tried the grin again, that award-winning smile that could win over a fair few of his teachers at Hogwarts. "You should bring him next time. If you come next summer, I mean. I'm good with kids. I've loads of practice."

Being so long a guest of the Weasleys, he'd always thought that children were a great topic for small-talk. Someone always had some new achievement to brag over or a new bit of trouble to bemoan. But Draco didn't seem interested. Ted got the sense that it might be a tricky topic.

"You're what, 10 now?"

"Twelve." The response was softer, no offense taken, just a bit of curiosity. Nearly everyone from Back Then knew when and where Ted's parents died. He was surprised that Draco, who had been at the battle site, had lost so much track of time that he didn't know how long ago that was.

"I'm going back to Hogwarts in a month. Second year." He eyed the closed door again, feeling a pang of guilt. "I think that's why Gran's keeping me around the house. She gets lonely when I'm at school."

Internally Draco latched onto that topic like it was a life-line. Hogwarts, that was a safe topic, sort of.  He looked just to the left of the boy, still unable to catch anyone's eyes at this point in his life, "Second year, hard worker are you?" he asked, slightly curious.  Contrary to popular belief, Draco adored kids.  It was killing him not being close to his son and knowing that he had a legitimate cousin sitting right in front of him that he had not cared to even try to get to know at all.  He was terrified of being even the slightest bit like his father.

Then, of course, with Ted, there was the added benefit of possibility of running into Harry Potter and that was one person Draco seriously thought could make him break into a panic attack from the mere sight of him.  Maybe he could try and get out of the potions lab once in a while.  And the boy did suggest letting Scorpius come over one of these days. 

Softly, "It's good that she keeps you close." was all he said in response to the reason why Andromeda gets lonely.  It was as close to the words,  'I apologize for what happened to your parents' that he could come up with that didn't sound completely pathetic.  He groaned in his head, he was screwing this up, he knew coming wasn't a good idea and he'd make sure he told his wife and mother that when he finally got to escape and go back home.  But he couldn't abandon his mother here so he tried a different subject, "You fly?"

"I try to be. I mean, I'm no Hufflepuff, but I keep up with my classes and grades. That sort of thing."

Ted swung his feet, idly massaging Padfoot II's shoulder. The dog looked content in his place, though the perk in his soft ears warned that he was still wary. All things consider, Ted didn't think this conversation was going too bad. Draco still looked uneased, but at least they were talking now. That could only mean that things would improve.

"You fly?"

Ted perked up immediately. He loved flying.

"Sure I do! Ginny taught me. I aced the flying exam." A thought occurred and his face lit up as he leaned forward eagerly to tell his tale. "Oh! This one time, during flying class my first semester -- it was amazing -- somebody played this prank where I had this bloody record player following me around playing music that kept changing to go with whatever I was doing at the time.[1]

"So we're flying, and it's playing music, and it's already pretty fantastic, like something off the telly. And we're doing this bludger-escape drill, and bloody record player got between me and the bludger and exploded! And then--" His voice raised with excitement, eyes all but literally lighting up. "It turned into a whole swarm of tiny record players and chased me all around the pitch! It was crazy. And amazing."

He fell to laughing, arms wrapped around his stomach for extra support. That story was one of his favorite. He'd been a mix of scared and annoyed at the time, but looking back, it was genuinely awesome. He wished someone had taken pictures.

"I love Hogwarts," he said through his chuckles. "Where else could something like that happen?" He wiped his eyes and straightened up, dabbing his cheeks on his sleeve. The grin he shot Draco was bright and strong as ever. "Right? I bet you had fun at Hogwarts as a kid, yeah?"

1.	Quaffle! [Flying Class #8; October 20, 2009]

As he sat there and listened to the boy talk about his exploits on the pitch he remembered so well from when he was at school, he was tossed back into memories of some of he best moments he could remember while at Hogwarts.  Quidditch was one of the main things he could remember that he actually liked, along with Potions class.  Draco's mind began to wander as he realized that he had spent the better part of 7 years hell bent on making Potter's life miserable and in turn, it made him miserable as well.

He remembered his father taking him to task over the fact that Granger did better than him in almost every class, except maybe Potions and how he hated the fact that a muggle-born witch was better at him at everything.  He hated that Potter, despite his constant saying how he hated the attention he always seemed to get, seemed to get into trouble which only got him more attention, and the fact that he almost always got away with everything.  And he hated Weasley the most.  For Weasley had what Draco had desperately wanted when he was younger.

He barely heard Ted when the boy said who taught him to fly, or how much he loved Hogwarts.  And there was the question, asking if he'd had fun at Hogwarts when he was a kid.  "Sure kid, loads." was all he said when he snapped himself out of memory lane and began to pay attention again. 

Teddy's smile wavered. It took conscious effort not to pout at his cousin's obvious lack of interest. He'd grown up around enough old warriors and trauma survivors to know darn well that the moodiness and distraction wasn't Draco's fault. That didn't make it any easier to interact with the man when he clearly didn't want to be reached.

Fidgeting, Teddy skimmed the room for something else to talk about, as a lack of response left the conversation quite dead. His eyes settled on the tray of biscuits, which sparked an idea. "You want to see a trick?"

He snatched up a shortbread, making sure to grab on that didn't have chocolate on it. Holding it aloft, he clicked his tongue and called, "Padfoot."

The dog perked up, lifting its head and ears.

"Go catch!"

With a flick of his wrist, Ted tossed the biscuit across the room, through an open door, and into the hall. From under the coffee table came a sound like the world's largest candle being blown out. In the same instant, Padfoot II appeared in the hall with thick smoke wafting around him. He opened his mouth just in time to snap up the biscuit as it came down. As his jaw snapped closed, he disappeared with another fwoof and re-appeared on the settee beside Ted.

"That's a good dog," said Ted, scratching his pup behind the ear. He looked to Draco for a reaction, kicking his feet and generally looking pleased as peach. "He's real smart, innit he? Didn't even have to teach him that much. Just took a bit of talking-to and he picked it right up."

Padfoot lay his head on Ted's knee, chewed the last of the biscuit, and grumbled contently over all the attention. There was now a small cloud of smoke hovering in the living room and the pillow beneath him had been slightly scorched.