Author's Note: I am very obviously not J.K. Rowling, and all characters belong to her. This is just something I got random muse for. It's based on this post by notactualhpcanon. I hope you enjoy it.

"Daddy?"

Draco Malfoy stirred in his bed, blinking a few times in the darkness before looking up. Light from the hallway flooded into his room, and when he squinted his eyes, he could see the figure of his four year old son standing in his doorway. He blinked a couple more times, thinking for a second that he was dreaming. Then he mumbled quietly, "Yeah, Scorp? Is something wrong?"

"I..." His son kicked at the ground, almost ashamedly. "I had a bad dream."

Immediately, Draco's heart melted. Since Scorpius had grown old enough to have an imagination, he had been plagued with bad dreams that woke him up in the middle of the night at least once a week. And every time, he came running to Draco's room for comfort, clinging to his father and asking for him to make the monsters go away. And every time, Draco couldn't bring himself to resist his son, no matter how early in the morning or late at night it was. He sat up in bed, yawning, and motioned for his son to come forward. "What was your dream about?"

Scorpius pulled himself up onto the large bed, occupying the empty space next to his father. Though Draco and Astoria had been together for years and had made little Scorpius together (after much pleading on Astoria's part), Draco still insisted on them sleeping in separate beds. His wife never complained - she knew there was more to Draco's romantic past than he ever let her in on, and she'd always harbored a secret suspicion that he didn't love her like he said he did, even before she agreed to marry him. She understood, though. Sometimes demons of the past just couldn't leave you alone. She got it. That, and Draco never seemed to complain when her other bed was occupied, and she didn't want to stir the cauldron and lose that, either. It was the price they paid for marrying for blood, but neither had ever been good at saying no to their families.

But thoughts of his wife didn't even cross Draco's mind as his son cuddled up next to him, resting against Draco's side. "It was about you," the little boy said. "And Mommy. And me. And we were camping like we did befores a-and there was something there." His voice lowered to a whisper. "In the dark." He then nuzzled into his father's chest to hide his scared eyes and receive comfort from his warmth. Again, the older Malfoy's heart melted. His wrapped an arm around his son and placed a soothing kiss on top of his head.

"Well there's nothing in the dark now, Scorpius," he said quietly. "I promise."

"How do you know?" His son looked up at him, eyes wide and curious.

"Well," Draco said, and he grabbed his son by his waist and pulled him closer while turning him to face the doorway again, "do you see anything in the hallway? That used to be dark."

Scorpius pouted. "Well it's light now, Dad," he said. "It goes away in the light."

Draco frowned. Then he looked around his large room and said, "Well, okay. Look around my room, then. Some of it is still dark. Do you see anything lurking there?"

Scorpius looked, his small eyes scanning the area, darting frantically in every direction. When he didn't see anything, he laid back against his father, visibly more relaxed. "No. I don't."

Draco smiled and kissed his son's head again. "It was just a dream," he said in his most soothing voice, trying to keep his son calm while he could. "Nothing's going to hurt you. Not while I'm here."

Scorpius smiled before yawning and making himself comfortable on his father's chest. "Can-can I sleep in here?" he asked quietly, and Draco laughed, soothingly rubbing his son's shoulder.

"Sure thing, Scorp."

"Alright." There was a pause. Then, "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you tell me another bedtime story?"

Draco grinned. About two months ago, Scorpius had had his worst nightmare to date. It was very violent and graphic for the dream of a four year old boy, and when Draco hadn't been able to soothe him by telling him it was all in his head, he had settled for telling Scorpius that if he stopped crying for a few minutes, he would tell him a story. Then he had dived into the first story to come to mind, one about a little boy just like his son who used to have nightmares, but who bravely overcame them by defeating the most evil being in the land. Scorpius had listened, entranced, as Draco told his own version of the Battle of Hogwarts, replacing the location and people with the first names to come to mind. When he got to the part where the little boy with nightmares confronted the evil presence head on, his son was in pure awe and begging his father to tell him what happened next. And when it was over, he was all over his father, asking him a million questions at once.

"How come when the boy confronted the evil thing, he talked to him like he knew him?"

"Well because he did, Scorp."

"How?"

"Well because they'd run into each other before. The boy was very heroic, you see, very...brave - if he'd gone to Hogwarts, he probably would be a Gryffindor. So the evil presence wanted to try and stop him before he could stop the evil."

"Wow...do you know those stories, too, Dad? Do you?"

Of course he did - he knew every last one of them like the back of his hand; sometimes he replayed the most recent of them in the back of his mind, remembering every minute detail of what had happened, every word that was spoken, every action that the boy took. After telling his son that he could tell him all those stories forwards and backwards, Scorpius had begged his father to tell him a bedtime story about the little boy every single night, and even when Draco told him that he had already told him everything about the boy, his son begged for him to tell the stories all over again. This carried on for a couple of weeks before Scorp found something else to hold his attention, and he hadn't asked Draco about the boy in a long, long time. Until now.

"I thought you were over those, Scorpius," he found himself teasing, as his mind wandered back to the heroic boy in his stories.

"Well, I am," Scorpius said, ever the proud Malfoy. "But...I think they help you sleep after I wake you up. I was just looking out for you."

Draco laughed and settled back against his pillows, readying himself for the story. "Well aren't you a sweet boy, then," he said, and he held his son close. Scorpius looked up at him, ready to listen. "Alright, I'll tell you a bedtime story. Which one do you want to hear?"

"Uhmmm...How about the one with the Evil Chamber?"

Draco smiled tightly. It had always been Scorpius's favorite - something about the boy rescuing the girl he would later marry from the evil being seemed to spark some sense of romance inside him. Ironically, it was the very part of the story that made his father's stomach uneasy. But he told it anyway; anything for his son.

"Once upon a time," he started, "there was a small little boy with untidy black hair and an oddly shaped scar. He wa-"

"Dad, I know how it starts," Scorpius yawned, settling down in the sheets. "Skip to the exciting parts. Talk about the servant's pet cat getting petrified."

He did. He dived into the story about how the servant's cat, several students, and even a ghost got petrified that year at the boy's school. He told his son how everyone thought it was the boy who was doing all the petrifying. And when Scorpius asked, "Why did they think it was him?" like he usually did, he explained that the boy could talk to snakes, and the rest of the school didn't like that because it made him different. He talked about the boy's struggles to explain that it wasn't him but something more evil, about stupid magic teachers, and about how the two friends the boy did have were even beginning to doubt him. The only part of the story he altered was the part with the blond boy, whose friends the protagonist pretended to be in order to get information about the evil presence. In his version of the story, the blond was concerned for the well-being of the boy but was very proud, so he hid it behind insults to every person who could have been a danger to the boy. And the boy was so flattered at the blond's dedication to proving the boy's innocence that when he started to turn back into himself, he almost didn't want to go so that the blond knew who it really was. Scorpius seemed to really like this part, and though Draco knew it was stretching the truth, he figured that it was just a story to his son anyway and he could get away with a little bit of improvising. Everything else, though, was just as he remembered his second year of Hogwarts, and by the time he finished the story, Scorpius was close to falling asleep in his arms. He smiled down at him as he said, "The end," and then prepared himself for the usual questions his son asked him after every story. He had always been a curious little boy, and even made-up stories could not escape his careful scrutiny.

"Dad?"

"Yes, Scorp?"

"Were the boy and the blond very good friends after this happened?"

Draco tensed slightly. Scorpius rarely asked about that side of the story. He usually liked to ask about the boy and his future wife.

"Well, uhm...the blond cared about the boy very much but...w-why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering. Because in that part when he wants to tell him he's playing pretend, I thought it was weird they weren't friends in any of the other stories. I mean, that made them seemed like they like each other. And the boy did save the blond later on."

He felt himself relax a little bit. He was just being his smart little self. If the boy didn't get Sorted into Slytherin when he made it to Hogwarts, it'd be no surprise to him if he went to Ravenclaw instead. "Well I think the two boys always wanted to be friends, but certain cultural differences kept them apart."

"Oh." A pause. Then, "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think they could have been friends? You know, because you talk about him defeating the bad guy and then years later getting married, but you didn't talk about the in between time. Do you think...then they could have been friends?"

Draco raised his eyebrows. His son seemed to be desperately searching for answers. "Well it's just a story, Scorp-"

"Well yeah, I know, but I'm just saying. Could they have been friends?"

He let out a breath. "Tell you what, son," he said. "I actually have a story for that, but I think I'll save it for another time."

"Aww, Dad, no fai-"

"Hey, hey, wait. I'm not done. I'll tell you the whole story later. But for now, I can tell you that yes, they did become friends. Very good friends. Very, very good friends. But eventually things happened, and they stopped being friends. But the blond still thinks about the boy every single day."

This seemed to satisfy his son for the time being, and Draco laid back against his pillows once more to prepare himself for sleep. But Scorpius wasn't going to leave him alone.

"Dad?"

"Yes, son?"

"How good of friends were they?"

"Very good friends, Scorp. Closer than any other two people in the world."

"Closer than you and Mummy?"

Draco laughed. "Definitely closer than me and Mummy," he said quietly. "The blond loved the boy very much."

"Oh. Then why'd they stop being friends?"

Draco looked down at him. Scorpius looked very concerned, as if he just couldn't fathom why two people who loved each other so much could suddenly just stop caring. He sighed and kissed his forehead. "Life happened," was all he would say - all he could say. "But that's part of the story I'll tell you later. Now go to sleep, Scorpius."

"Okay." A pause. "Dad?"

"Yes, Scorpius?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too. Now sleep."

He did. However, hard as Draco tried to follow in his son's footsteps and pass out quickly, he couldn't. He found himself staying up late, staring at the ceiling, just thinking about the boy with untidy black hair and an oddly shaped scar.