This is my response to SlytherinPrincess02's 'New Year Challenge'.

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Draco Malfoy

The baby is small – smaller than he had expected, considering the magnitude of the changes it has brought about. It is lighter too, although Draco holds the bundle carefully, frightened of dropping him. After nine long months of waiting, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy is finally with them – a belated Christmas present. Astoria is sleeping, exhausted after the birth, and so father and son are alone together for the first time.

Quietly, Draco carries the baby over to the window so that he can take yet another look at his features. He takes in the tufts of blonde hair, the rounded little cheeks and the way that the perfectly defined mouth is set in a line that seems to show surprising character despite containing no definable expression. The only difference now is that two blue eyes, as round as coins, are looking up at him. Astoria told him that all baby's eyes are blue in the beginning, and Draco is curious to see if their son will inherit her hazel or his grey. The baby – Scorpius, he corrects himself – simply watches him. Draco opens his mouth, ready to call Astoria if their son cries; now that the child has arrived, he feels woefully unprepared.

However, Scorpius' lips do not quiver, and no mewling screams are formed in his strangely powerful little lungs. Instead, he regards his father with what could almost be described as curiosity. Draco gives a tentative smile, willing the child to like him. He knows that it's a foolish thought, because Scorpius hasn't the faintest idea who he is, nor is his infant son capable of the majority of human interactions, and yet Draco hopes that the little boy feels safe.

With more tenderness than he had thought himself capable, Draco slips his smallest finger into one tiny curling hand. He knows for the first time in his life that he has done something good: the proof is cradled in his arms, watching him intently. His son has no lines on those little fingers, and Draco thinks that his little boy has the potential to achieve any destiny – only, nobody knows what it is that the Malfoy heir will be. He is yet to be shaped and moulded by the people closest to him.

As of yet, Scorpius is free of any of the wrongs that Draco knows people are capable of making. He hasn't made a mistake in his entire life, the span of which is less than a day, and although Draco knows that he cannot always keep his son innocent, he is determined to keep him from following his father's footsteps into darkness. As the bells ring out, a fitting accolade for the newborn Malfoy heir, Draco makes a silent promise to ignore the mark on his arm and be a good father – nothing more, and certainly nothing less.

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Thanks for reading. Please review.