I'm back! Sorry it took so long to update. I got REALLY busy. But I'm very glad you're still reading this, and I appreciate every single one of my readers. So happy new year and here's to many more chapters (and faster updates hopefully maybe please)! :)

Kie stood under one of the pergolas in the Manor's garden, just watching the two best men in her life enjoying a game of catch outside. Leo, now the tender age of five, was quite enjoying this activity. He loved rolling the ball, throwing it, tossing it high overhead. Scorpius laughed every time his son gleefully clapped and celebrated a good play. They'd been at it for a long time now, stopping just once for a lunch Kie had fixed up. Scorpius insisted that little Leo begin a homeschool procedure at a very early age, so they could only play after lessons were completed for the day. Leo was proving to be quit intelligent at his age. Neither parent could be any more proud of who their son was and how special he was becoming.

But that didn't mean they were just masking his little problem either.

Narcissa, Lucius, Draco, and Astoria still didn't know a thing about Leo's ice powers. Kie's family knew even less, as they didn't visit quite as frequently as the Malfoy side. In fact, part of Leo's daily lessons included ways to prevent the magic from having outbursts. He wasn't perfect, and things often did go wrong (one time he'd gotten upset and turned his stuffed dragon to completely solid ice) but they couldn't say he wasn't trying. The mistakes only occurred because he was still so young.

Scorpius bounced the ball back over to his laughing son, who leapt up into the warm spring breeze to catch it. He cheered for himself eagerly. Both parents applauded him, playing along with his little mini-victory. Leo looked at them both. "I go play now," he said, setting the ball down beside him. Scorpius watched the boy toddle away towards the flower section of the garden. "Have fun!" he called after him. He rose up and stood beside his wife, wrapping his arms around her. "He's so imaginative," he commented. "He gets it from his mother." Kie giggled, squeezing her hands over her husband's. "He gets his intelligence from his father," she countered with a wink. The pair shared another laughed, then stayed in an embrace for a little while. Even though they'd already had a child and been married for years, planning another baby very soon, Kie and Scorpius found that their love just continually kept blossoming just as it had the very first day they met.

A few minutes later, Leo hustled back over to them, hands behind his back and a big smile displayed proudly on his face. "I bring something to you, Mama!" he said. He glanced at Scorpius (who'd secretly planted this idea in the boy's young little head) and got a slight nod of approval. With a sparkle in both little men's eyes, Leo pulled his hands out from behind him. Kie gasped when she laid eyes on a beautiful red rose that had obviously come from the rose pergolas. Scorpius grinned. He patted his son's little shoulder, pleased with how well he followed the instructions. Just before Kie reached for it as she expressed her gratitude, Leo raised his other little hand and flicked his fingers towards the delicate flower. Both parents gasped and pulled away when a blast of concentrated cold air burst from his fingertips and left the rose with a gentle frost brushing its petals. Leo smiled at his creation. But Scorpius was not so enthusiastic. He grabbed the boy's tiny hand. "Leo!" he scolded. "I told you not to do that! That's not allowed!" The even tinier blonde suddenly looked a little frightened. "I-I…I just want to make it better…" he stammered. But Scorpius didn't find that acceptable. "No, Leo. I told you not to use your powers, don't you understand? Why do you think I'm teaching you all this—so that you can disobey me? Don't do this again, is that clear? I've told you a hundred times now—"

"Scorpius, please!" Kie cried out, still cradling the beautiful rose in her hands. "He didn't mean any harm!"

"I don't care what his intentions were! I told him not to use those powers, and he went and did it right in front of me! He didn't listen to his father."

"Scorpius, you're overreacting. This is beautiful—he just created a…a work of art, honestly! How can you scold him for doing something he is good at?"

"This isn't a talent, Kie. This is a curse. A magical mishap. Even the Healers told you that on the day he was born! The point is to get him to render these powers inactive so that someday he won't even be able to tap into them at all!"

"Scorpius—"

"Enough, Kie! Leo, go up to your room right now and sit in time out. Right now!"

Scorpius pointed back to the mansion and Leo, eyes brimming with confused tears, bowed his head and trudged out of the garden. Kie stared hard at Scorpius and waited for the child to go completely. "What are you doing?" she asked quietly, but with a disgusted tone to her voice. "You're suppressing our child. You're molding him into what you want him to be. Forgive me, but isn't that exactly what you wanted to escape from when I first met you? That familial pressure? You're doing exactly what your maternal grandmother did to you—blaming all the problems on the person, not the circumstances. Poor Leo was only trying to impress us, to show us that he made so much good. And you squashed him. You stepped on him and ground your heel in it until you felt sure that you'd 'broken' him out of this." she bit. Scorpius avoided her hard gaze. He knew she was right—he knew he had treated his son unfairly and forced the same guilt upon him that had been shoved onto his own shoulders as a boy. But he couldn't let go of the fact that Leo was testing his powers instead of trying to ignore them. He'd hoped that eventually if the powers went unused, they'd go dormant in the child's body—just in time for Hogwarts. But the more Leo played with them, the stronger they'd get. "I'm doing what is best for him. Now whether you decide to support me or not is up to you, but I'm doing this my way." he hissed, unable to make it sound lighter. Kie clenched her jaw. She continued to stare hard at Scorpius's profile, searching for any sign of a twitch or break in the wall he was putting up. Wordlessly she took out her wand, held it just above the rose, and cast a nonverbal spell that would preserve the rose in its entirety—frosty petals and all. It was her way of showing that she intended to preserve Leo's abilities for good. "Keep it up and in a few years our son may have an eating disorder." she snapped quietly before turning her back and walking out of the garden.

Scorpius felt chilled. Kie had never, ever once used the eating disorder against him. In fact, she'd been nothing but supportive of him. She was definitely upset now. Scorpius sank down onto one of the stone benches and dropped his head into his hands. Oh, how he wanted to let his son just be special and unique. But he simply couldn't. Not when he knew how much scorn, ridicule, and torment there was out there in the world beyond the walls of the Malfoy Manor. A gift like Leo's would be ripped to shreds. He'd be destroyed. He'd end up like me, Scorpius thought. Tears flooded his eyes. What was he doing? How could he possibly be forcing this upon his child—this sort of imprisoning life?

Kie stepped quietly down the hallway to her bedroom, where she had the intention of putting the safely preserved rose on her bedside table. She peeked inside the doorway to Leo's nursery as she walked, but stopped when she discovered an unfamiliar sight. Her good little boy had indeed put himself in time-out, but it was the room that was acting strange. Leo was sitting with his back to the door, looking outside the window. The glass was frosted with ice. The floor around him had a jagged ice pattern spreading out from his stool. It was considerably colder. Kie watched for a moment, attempting to figure out what all this meant. She looked down at the rose in her hands. And then it hit her.

Leo's abilities were linked directly to his emotions. If he was happy, he could create something beautiful. If he was sad, there would be jagged patterns and frosty ice swirling about him in a cloud of despair.

What she hadn't figured out though, was what happened when he got angry.