#19yearslater

Scorpius is a huge swiftie. The potter-weasleys immediately accept him once they find out. Teddy, James Sirius, Lily Luna and Scorpius have arguments over which album is the best. Albus hates Taylor swift purely out of spite.

Harry still insists that 90s grunge music is the best but when he has headphones on he’s definitely listening to Olivia Rodrigo.

I don’t believe that Draco Malfoy would have come back to Hogwarts to repeat his 8th Year.

To be a Malfoy is to be prideful, and no matter how much he lost in the war, I don’t think there is ANY WAY that he was able to swallow his pride enough to go back to school with people who had every right to detest him.

So he plunged into work immediately, he goes to Germany where his name isn’t really well known and he starts Healer School (it’s what he always wanted to do, and, suddenly, he sees no reason to hold himself back)

He works hard, impossibly hard, pulling all-nighters and working weekends at the cafe to pay for school because he’s forsaken his family fortune

And of course he graduates top of his class, and he becomes a well-know healer in Germany quickly (he even becomes one of the youngest head healers the country has ever seen)

And then whole time, he watches British newspapers and watches her, watches Granger as she climbs and succeeds and dates Ron and breaks up with Ron (when he sees this, his heart does a little skip he refuses to acknowledge)

He returns one weekend to visit his mother, and he’s in Diagon alley and he runs into her (physically, no metaphorically)

She’s carrying things and she starts apologizing and bends down and then she looks up and sees him and freezes

And somehow he’s 17 again watching her fight in the battle of Hogwarts and locking eyes with her and nodding silently at her

He’s 15 again and they are studying together and his hand moves slowly across the table and his long fingers brush her small hands

He’s 13 and he watches her giggle at some inane joke that Weasley made and he sneers

She’s speechless, warm brown eyes flinting gold in the sunlight boring into his silver ones, and her lips form a sad little smile

“Draco.” She breathes, voice tinged with sadness and pleasure and shock

“Hello, Granger,” he replies brusquely, trying to brush off the swell in his chest, “congratulations on your promotion. I-err—I read about it in the paper”

His eyes flutter downward in embarrassment, and he is stirred out of internal panic by her small voice

“Would you like to have a drink with me?”

“What?”

“It’s been a long time, Malfoy,” she smirks, something she picked up from him and never lost, “don’t make me repeat myself again.”

She turns on her heel, motioning him to follow and not waiting to see if he will

She knows he will, because all these years she’s been following him too and she knows why he stayed away and she knows why this is the first time he’s visited his mother in 10 years and she knows why she’s had an inexplicable void in her life for years

Because she realized the same thing he did, and it’s why she broke up with Ron, and it’s why he’s never dated seriously in Germany

Sometimes you can’t live without someone. And she’s finally willing to take the plunge with him, to reject whatever anyone says, to see what beautiful thing they can build together

And of course, Draco Malfoy follows after Gryffindor’s Princess, like he always has, without a second of hesitation