Risen- Drarry COMPLETE

Chapter 63

—Harry POV—

"Look... I get that it's tough. I wouldn't want to do it either, but he just wants to know... and wouldn't him not knowing make life more difficult? When he gets to Hogwarts, well, basically everyone over there will know, and then you've got-"

"I know..." Draco sighed, turning over in the bed. "And I'm planning on telling him, too. It's just..." he sighed again. I tilted my head to look at Draco. His eyes were closed and he gave a long swipe to his face, as if he were trying to rub the stress out of his mind. I let him organize his thoughts for a minute, opting out of continuing for him. Unfortunately, he decided to stop speaking as well, leaving us in several moments of silence before I realized that if I didn't continue, the conversation would fail.

"... Are you scared?"

He didn't respond right away.

"...That is a possibility."

"Why, though?"

"Well, Harry, while it might not be so difficult to explain that you saved the universe-"

"Well I didn't really-"

"It's at least five hundred times more difficult to explain that I was helping the wrong people," he finished. An invisible weight settled itself on my chest.

"It's worse if he learns it from someone else, though," I began to tell him. "If he doesn't learn it from you soon, he's going to learn from other people who probably have a bias against you. It's going to be worse for him."

"I know!" He shouted, before immediately bringing his voice back down, covering his face with his hands. "I'm sorry, yes, I know. And I'm going to tell him soon."

"Well how soon is soon? We're already a week into August, Draco."

He didn't respond to that. He didn't remove his hands from his face. He didn't move at all. Not until finally, his hands went up from his face to sweeping his hair back, and he stared wide-eyed at the ceiling.

"Would you feel better if I sit there with you when you tell him?" I offered.

"No. It's... yes?" He huffed out a breath. "I don't know! I'm terrible at this, Harry, and Scorpius has no idea the person I was before him. He has no idea the things I said or did... they go directly against everything I've taught him. He looks at me and he sees a father who is kind and gentle and loving and who could never do anything so wrong... if I- when..." he shuddered before continuing:

"When I tell him everything, it... how could he possibly look up to me? Trust me? When I've been so vile and cruel... how could I possibly be expected to sit him down and say 'I'm so sorry, Scorpius, but your amazing father is not perfect, and he has done things so exceedingly unforgivable, that now the entire Wizarding world thinks we're both evil.' How can I sit him down and say it's my fault that people will want to stay away from him? That I ruined his life all in the name of... what? Something as stupid as saving my own parents? Mother and father... they were awful people, and I didn't care because they loved me and cared about me..." Draco's breath hitched, and he began to cry through his speech.

"They cared about me, and they told me I could reach the stars if I tried hard enough, and they took care of me when I was sick and they made me feel happy and welcome... why would I have let them die, when I know that they would have made the move to save me, just as I did for them? I tried so hard to keep us together and fucking Voldemort ensured we would never really be a family ever again, no matter how hard I tried, to be the perfect son, to obey, to stick by mother and father's side...

And would Scorpius even care? He met my mother two weeks ago and if that single encounter wasn't enough for him to gather that there is a gaping canyon between the two of us that can't be fixed," he gasped, pausing, and then shut his eyes again.