A Big Black Sky

Draco clutches the small, trembling form in his arms against his chest, tight and close, as the two of them lay on a park bench in the dead of night. 

The world around them is quiet and empty, but the pounding anxiety of his heart, the curdle in his gut, and the gnawing of insecurity under his skin and over his curved back does not let him sleep, afraid that they will be found, or that someone will come and try to steal away the only thing that's left for him in this horrible world, that someone will recognize his face and try to harm the only thing left that can really hurt him too anymore.

The night is cold, the chill of frost in the air forming goosebumps over his skin and numbing his nose and hands. He has layered numerous clothes over the body in his arms to keep it warm.

"Daddy?" the bundle against his chest whispers, small and tentative.

Draco can not help a quivering kiss to his son's forehead, and tries not to let the quiver of fear and anxiety in his chest reach his voice. "Yes, Scorpius?" He manages to sound calm and steady enough, if not for the tremor of the cold seeping into his shivering muscles.

But he is afraid, and there is no denying it. They have nowhere to go, not the muggle world from where he is barred by the Ministry, for who will allow a Death-Eater entry into the very world their cause had once been to end?

But even without being barred from that world, he and his son have nothing that will make them belong there, no muggle credentials nor the knowledge or guidance to navigate through it.

They don't belong to the Wizarding world either anymore, where Draco will be shunned and abhorred, where they will be unsafe and privy to violence, no certainty that they will not turn their hatred of him to his son, who has already been exposed to enough of it in that small house they'd left behind two weeks ago.

They have no one to turn to, either.

Draco is afraid, but if he doesn't keep his head, then what hope can he give to his son?

"You're cold, Daddy," Scorpius says, high and innocent, with the collapsed syllables of a child still learning to pronounce phonetics. He's wriggling his head out of his arms to look up at him worriedly.

At five years old, his boy already worries too much about things five year old boys should not be worrying about, such as his father being cold or not eating enough or being in pain by the bruises on his ribs, and Draco thinks it's just one of the many ways that he has ruined him as a father.

Draco smiles, his nasal breaths shuddering slightly. "Not very."

At five years old, his boy has also learned that his father lies a lot.

"You keep me warm enough," Draco adds, the words true in all ways but how he means for them to be. It seems that Scorpius is now his only source of warmth and comfort in a life cold and devoid of it. He squeezes him closer, stroking a hand through silk white hair. "Did you know that the best way to keep warm is by huddling together with other people?" 

Next to warming charms, at least, but Draco's wand was confiscated and broken ten years ago, and one of the many legislations approved by the then Minister against Death-Eaters was outlawing any dealing of wands to them, among being allowed entry into healthcare centers or any educational institutions (thereby shown that the Minister was unconcerned about being lenient on minors such as him), for security purposes. 

Scorpius most probably can only guess what warming charms are. His magic has only just started to show up at this age.

It has mostly shown when Scorpius was afraid. He would rattle all the objects in the room, his eyes wide as he trembled in the doorway, Michael yelling at him until Draco sent Scorpius to his room quickly and diverted Michael's attention once again. When Michael was done with him, Draco cleaned himself up and went to Scorpius' room, knowing he would be lying awake and terrified, waiting to see his father.

Or so that was the dance, for years and years and years. Draco is now living the life that the thought of had once kept him from taking his son and their things and leaving. He took his son and their things and left, and now they are cold and starving and without a home.

Scorpius blinks, quietly observing him for a moment through big eyes that he is still too small for, that he still hasn't grown into. He then burrows his face into Draco's chest again, small hands fisting his shirt.

It's only when Scorpius' breathing evens out, softly squeaking as the air exhales out of his nose, that Draco buries his face into his hair and cries.

...

By the time people were picking up the pieces the war had left in its wake, all the Slytherins had disappeared off the face of the Earth, and that means most of Draco's friends are no longer available or in his life anymore.

Draco's father is in Azkaban, and he and his mother have just had all their property and wealth taken away by the Ministry save for a few thousand Galleons. They purchase a small flat somewhere in a sketchy part of the Knockturn Alley, while Draco looks around for a job to keep him and his mother afloat to not much avail.

A month after, his father is given the Dementor's Kiss in Azkaban, and his mother falls apart in her grief and despair. She falls and she never gets back up ever again, and so it falls on Draco to keep them both standing.

For a long time, it doesn't work. There aren't a lot of shops left in Knockturn Alley, many of them closed down due to the Aurors looking around, keep an eye out for any and all suspicious activity in search of escapee Death-Eaters, and Knockturn Alley has always been full of suspicious activity. Therefore, not a lot of jobs are available there either, and by jobs, he means those that didn't require NEWTs and still paid an acceptable salary.

He can't go back to Hogwarts to complete his education anymore. Not too long ago, the Aurors had tracked him down and had taken a strand of his hair after the new legislations against Death-Eaters had been passed, only a month after his trial. Thus, from what little knowledge Draco has on the muggle studies regarding DNA, he gathers that his hair was used to detect his identity so that he may be denied access from all the places that would do well to have extreme safety measures and precautions against Death-Eaters. Hogwarts, obviously, is one of those places, among other institutions of magical education, the Ministry itself, and healthcare clinics.

Professor McGonagall's letter of deep and sincere apologies find him some days after the laws have been announced. Naturally, there is not much she can do about it, but Draco appreciates it nonetheless. The Head of Gryffindor and now new Headmistress of Hogwarts had never been fond of him during his school years, and he imagines she likes him even less now after being a crucial component in causing the first round of deaths and demolition on her school, but she has still somehow found it in her heart to wish him the best, and Draco feels a part of his heart soften towards her for this.

Not having much luck close to their residency, Draco moves his search for work out into the places where he is fairly certain that he will not be welcomed, but the thought of his broken mother and their trickling wealth forces him to brave into those parts of the world anyway. 

He is accepted into one job by a kindly old witch as an assistant shopkeeper of Helga's Hellebores, related to all things botanical, but his newly turned luck, or lack thereof, strikes soon enough when Helga's Disillusionment Charms wears off at the wrong time and he is recognized. Hiring a Death-Eater as a worker is very clearly bad for business, which will be bad for his own salary, but moreover he admires Helga too much to cost her her livelihood, so he resigns and tells her to tell anyone who asks that she was unaware of his identity, that he had deceived her as well. He hopes no one will wonder or speculate on this too much, considering he doesn't have the wand to cast any Disillusionment Charms. Helga is rather old though, so that might help the story she'll tell.

Thus, his desperate attempts to hold him and his mother above water continue, to no avail. It's the same response everywhere, in varying degrees of unkindness, anger and fear; either that they will not let someone like Draco work with them, or that no one will want to come into a place where someone like Draco works.

By the end of the next two years, he and his mother are close to running out. His mother manages to convince some old acquaintance of hers to lend them money, just enough to keep them scraping by for perhaps another year, and the relief of this comes at the price of one more burden on his shoulders, to pay back the loan.

Draco finds his mother on her bed with an empty vial clutched loosely in her hand one morning, and her old acquaintance never comes back to ask for her money again.

Draco stops looking for work after that.

He stops everything. 

He just—

Stops.

He stops eating and sleeping and showering. He falls like his mother did once and he doesn't get back up for a long, long time.

So he has lost his entire family by now, and sometimes (most of the time), he thinks about going to find them again.

On the streets of Diagon Alley where Draco goes looking for a sleeping draught at an apothecary, he sees Potter with his girlfriend, his friends and a small infant that could change his hair colour one day. Potter is laughing beside girl Weasley, and Weasley is standing beside him, grinning and saying something to the baby. The infant looks at Weasley and then changes his hair colour to ginger red, and while Granger, girl Weasley and Potter burst into surprised laughter, Weasley staring on baffled, the baby remains unaware to the amusement of the four surrounding him.

For a reason Draco cannot fathom at all, he walks away unsettled and heavy in a chest that has mostly been hollow for months, and after that he is perhaps much more easily irritated on his trip to the apothecary than usual. He can't remember what he exactly said, or how he said it, but he made the man behind the counter rather angry, if he wasn't already by the mere dawning realization of his identity. Add to that Draco's impertinence and sharp, unkind snipes, and it is shortly followed by the potioneer pulling out his wand and threatening him out the door.

He goes to his little sad grey flat and falls into the makeshift bed on the floor, beside the small bed his mother used to sleep in and where he found her cold and pale and still once, not too long ago (could never quite bring himself to look at that bed anymore, at the ghosts of her memory still haunting him).

Draco does not let himself cry.

...

In the summer of 2002, Draco falls in love with a man named Michael Lancaster.

He is four years older than Draco's twenty-one, and he has green eyes and curly dark brown hair. He doesn't wear round glasses and his eyes are smaller and his hair is a little too rumpled and long, and he is broader with a square jaw. He is nice and sweet, but not too noble. He knows who Draco is and he loves him anyway, so Draco loves him too.

They meet when Michael bumps into Draco and causes him to drop a bag full of calming draught ingredients. Before Draco can snap in annoyance, Michael quickly apologizes and leans down to help him pick up his things. He stands up and hands him his bag, and when Michael looks up and sees his face, he stops and just stares for an entire moment. 

Draco is frozen, not too inclined to snipe at the first man to show any kindness towards him in a long while, but also feeling the walls come up around him, ready to snap back if needed. He waits for vile names and insults, and then wonders why he is waiting for that.

As he is about to turn around and walk away, before Michael could call him something that hurt, Michael quickly shakes himself, like breaking out of a trance, and looks away, and he is mumbling,  "sorry, you're just very…"

Draco pauses and narrows his eyes in a sort of defensive snarl. "What was that?"

Michael's eyes snap up at him then, and he looks charmingly sheepish in some way that calls another name to his mind distantly. "Beautiful. You're beautiful. And this is weird. I should just go."

Draco should have let him go right then and there, but he didn't.

In the next three months, after countless dates and nights spent together, Draco sells his little sad and grey flat so that he can move in with Michael into a small house. He is in love, he is loved, he isn't alone and he no longer worries about surviving on scraps. Things seem to be getting better, finally.

Two months later, they marry quiet and beautiful on a beach, like a fairytale story. It is just the two of them there and the priest that officiates their marriage.

Later, Draco will realize why they never invited anyone to their wedding. It is not because Michael disliked his dysfunctional family and because Draco didn't have anyone to invite, and because he wanted it to be special and intimate with just the two of them, but because Michael simply didn't want anyone to know who he was pledging himself to.

Later, Draco will wonder if Michael had known that he had the only key to the locked door that was Draco's life, that Draco had nothing but Michael, and there was nowhere he could run.

He should have run anyway.

Draco learns things fast. He learns that Michael has a habit of being very handsy when nobody's around, which Draco doesn't mind at all. He likes black coffee and turkey sandwiches and pot roast. He likes the taste of Acid Pops, which Draco doesn't understand at all, but Michael says that it hardly hurts him anymore to eat those. He doesn't like dancing or cooking, and has scrawly and wide handwriting. He has a dark sense of humour that Draco can appreciate. Draco learns that he is messy and lazy, a contrast to his own tidiness and restlessness, and he is logical and analytical, knows how to look calm even when he's not, knows how to make his opposition look and feel stupid, and he is stubborn and doesn't always know how to take no for an answer, feels inexplicably entitled at times, is impulsive, opinionated and expressive about it, unpunctual and virile.

Michael is impatient and quick to temper, so very quick, but so is Draco, and those are some of the traits that they have in common. They clash and fight, and sometimes in his anger, Michael says terrible things. Terrible, terrible things, things that hurt far worse than they do on the streets when they are said by strangers instead. Draco learns that it is rather easy to make him back down in a fight, because all Michael has to do is bring up his past and Draco will clam up, frowning in some mix of betrayal and hurt and shame.

But Michael apologizes and promises he didn't mean it, and he kisses Draco until he smiles again, and Draco didn't think anyone could ever love him again but Michael loves him, and so Draco loves him anyway, despite it all. He is happy for the most part anyway, isn't he? Happier than he had been in three years, even if they have their difficult times.

Ten months in, they decide to have a child, mostly on Michael's desire. Draco is a sad fool too in love to say no and too desperate for a tenderness that he doesn't believe would be given to him a second time. 

And later, Draco will understand that if this one pivotal decision hadn't been made at this point in his life, he would have left a long time ago, one way or another, and that Michael knew this long before he did.

Draco brews the fertility potion himself and carries the being that will one day be the only reason he is still bothering to breathe and live.

…

"You know, I work hard as an accountant at Gringotts," Michael says after a long, comfortable silence, lying down on the bed with an arm around Draco, both of them satiated and content. Draco hums in acknowledgment of his words. "It seems a bit unfair that all you do is sit around here at home."

Draco raises an eyebrow, shifting his head against his chest to lift his gaze to him. "I'm unclear as to what you want me to do about that, Michael. You already know that no one is going to hire me for anything."

"I don't know." Michael shrugs. "Make yourself useful around the house or something, you know."

"Like a servant," Draco drawls.

Michael scoffs, looking away as he bites the corner of his lip, like he doesn't want to say what he's about to say, but can't help himself.  "Like someone that doesn't leech off of their lover and offers nothing."

"Excuse me?" Draco pushes himself up on his elbows to look down at Michael, his eyes narrowed as the flush of anger and embarrassment simultaneously fills his face and chest. "Right now, I'm carrying a bloody—"

Michael rolls his eyes. "I'm out there working all day. What do you do, except spend my money, Draco?" he says. "Is it too much to ask if I want you to be of some use too in return?"

"Oh, well, I didn't realize this was a bloody bargain rather than a relationship!" Draco grits out, a satirical, mirthless smile that tries to hide the burn in his eyes. He sits up fully, gathering his clothes up into his hands. " I don't even have a wand, Michael. You do, and your wand doesn't obey me at all. All you have to do is wave it around and say some words for everything."

"Right, so I come back tired from work—" Michael snarls.

Draco shrugs on his shirt, snorting derisively. "Well, all you do is sit there and—and count Galleons or whatever. And it's hardly difficult to take care of this bloody house when it is so small that you don't even have room to breathe in it!" 

That is the first time Michael hits him.

Michael apologizes for that soon after, says, "I'm sorry. It just seemed like you were being very ungrateful and unfair, you know? I just got so mad, and you know I'm rather quick to temper. I'm sorry. It won't happen again." And then he kisses Draco until he smiles again and forgives him, and that's that.

Draco supposes that, perhaps he was sounding rather ungrateful and unfair, if he is being objective and honest. He was surviving on hardly anything before he'd found Michael and had moved in with him, so his anger wasn't entirely unwarranted if he thinks about it with a clear head.

Michael's mother was a muggleborn, so he has a lot of muggle items and supplies around the house that Draco has no idea how to use. Eventually, however, he has to learn. So he does.

…

Scorpius is three, and Michael takes his favourite dragon toy because it makes too many roaring sounds and little harmless fire breaths, and he tells him that either he breaks it himself, or I'll break your daddy's face instead. How does that sound?

Draco held a small, warm and pink bundle in his arms three years ago and learned that becoming a father can have the strangest of effects on even the coldest of hearts.

It has made him boundlessly selfless, and even brave.

And it is all for this one small being that came into the world through him and smiled at him before he smiled at anything else. Draco has never been selfless, or brave, but for Scorpius, he can be anything.

Draco once watched huge green eyes open to stare up at him, a pink rosebud mouth, that looked a lot like his own, curving into a drowsy smile, his own nose, but smaller, wrinkling in distaste at the too bright lights, and he touched his little chin with a feather-light finger and whispered to him, you are my everything, and there is nothing that I wouldn't do for you.

And that means taking whatever it means for Draco should Scorpius choose to keep his dragon toy, because he simply does not want his son to lose something that makes him happy, and certainly in a life already so scarce of it. He is three years old and he shouldn't have to choose between things like these.

So Draco tells his son calmly, staring Michael right in the eye, "Scorpius, take your toy and go to your room. I'll be there in a minute."

Scorpius stares, wide-eyed, shaking and shaking and shaking, always shaking whenever Michael is even in the room. He looks down at his toy, pink rosebud lips crumpling downward as tears glisten in those big eyes that have already seen too much for a child his age, and then looks up to Draco, just looks at him for the longest moment. Draco smiles softly at his little boy and shakes his head in a it's okay, everything is okay, suddenly much less afraid in the face of whatever violence is to rain down on him, the stillness of a calm borne of love settling the storm of fear in his gut.

But Scorpius throws that dragon toy against the wall, and he runs to Draco crying, silently because he has learned a while ago that making too much noise means terrible things, and Draco's heart shatters into pieces with the jostle of catching his son in his arms.

It's just one more memory to the list that reminds him of his failures and faults as a father, one more way that Scorpius has to be ruined, has to have all the childlike joy and innocence sucked out of him.

That night, Draco thinks about leaving, like many times before, like whenever Michael uses his sick little mind games on Scorpius. Draco has not let him turn his wand or his hands on his child, not once, not ever, but sometimes he cannot protect him from things like these.

Draco observes his son in silence for a moment, clutched to his side in their bed as his fingers run through his silky hair languidly.

Two months ago, when Draco's nightmares began to grow too loud, Michael kicked him out of their bed and told him to stop with your fucking crying or go sleep somewhere else.

Draco didn't know what to do, so he stumbled out of the room and slept on the couch. He woke up again to Scorpius whimpering in his sleep from his room, the sounds much clearer now that he was out of the bedroom with a closed door, and he'd gone in to soothe him to sleep again. Draco fell asleep there that night and Scorpius hadn't let him sleep anywhere else ever since, his small hand clutching Draco's own whenever he got up to leave at night.

He thinks of leaving, but where will they go?

Draco has no hope of getting a job with his image and status as a Death-Eater, no hope of earning his own money and getting his own place and putting food on the table for Scorpius without Michael. There isn't anyone that will bother with him and by extension, with his son. He and Scorpius can leave right now, but they will be cold and starving and homeless.

It seems that the day Scorpius Abraxas Malfoy came into this world as Draco's son was the day he was damned to a merciless and unkind life, and sometimes Draco thinks it would have been kinder for Scorpius to have been born somewhere else, somewhere better and to someone better.

But Scorpius is his whole world, and as unkind as it may be, he cannot bear to live this life without him.

"Pot," Scorpius says, but it sounds like 'Paat' because of the childlike pronunciation.

Draco smiles, even as it pulls on the burning purple swell on the corner of his mouth. He tugs Scorpius closer into the side of his ribs, ruffles his silk white curly hair and kisses the top of it. "Pot it is, then."

And so begin the tales of a young boy with round glasses and bright green eyes, just like yours, Scorpius, and his rumpled hair is as black as raven birds. He is a little thick in the head, yes, but he is kind and brave and far too noble for his own good, and he is the boy that defeated a dark and evil wizard when he was no more than a baby.

But the evil wizard comes back, again and again and again, in different forms. Draco regales his son with stories of Pot and the man with two faces, and then Pot with the big snake in the hidden room, and several other tales.

One day, the evil wizard comes back in a body of his own, and this time, he looks like a human snake that has no nose. They call him the Dark Lord and nobody says his name because they are too afraid of him. But not Pot. Pot isn't afraid of him. If he is, he doesn't show it, and he always says the evil wizard's name fearlessly. The story goes on and on about war and heroism and victories of light against dark, more hopeful and bright and awe-inspiring than it ever was.

In the end, Pot, with the help of his friends Weasel and the Smart Witch, deceives the Dark Lord into thinking he has managed to win, that Pot was defeated by him, and the Dark Lord, so lost in his arrogance and joy at his false victory, doesn't see this, and this becomes his downfall. But Pot's nobility and heroism doesn't end here, because after that, Pot also puts a lot of bad men, who worked for the Dark Lord, away too. 

(One day, his son will learn that he was one of those bad men, and Draco doesn't know what he will do then.)

Scorpius' eyes are half-mast by the end of the stories, and on the edge of sleep, he mumbles around a drowsy hesitant near-whisper, "Daddy?"

Draco hums inquisitively, pushing silk-white curls up between his fingers, massaging the scalp at the base of his small head gently.

"Sometimes I think of Pot- Pot puttin' Papa away."

…

Draco sits at the table with Scorpius on his thigh, his hands trembling around the spoon it is gripping. The mashed peas and carrots spill out as Scorpius' thrashing and his own shaking tips the cutlery to and fro. He is nearly pleading, "Scorpius, come on. What did I say? Growing boys need to eat their veggies."

Scorpius shakes his head, writhing this way and that as he tries to free himself from Draco's arm around him. "No, Daddy. No. I don't like it."

"Scorpius," Draco warns, but his voice is quivering, everything of him quivering inside and out.

"No!" Scorpius yells.

"Scorpius," Draco grits out, trying not to snap, to scream, to—"For Merlin's sake, you can't survive only on the things you like. You need all the nutrients if you want to grow big."

Scorpius makes a frustrated, whining sound. He arches his back, rigid as he slides out of Draco's grip. "I don' like it,  Daddy."

Perhaps it is just all the past four years accumulating together and weighing heavy on his swollen and raw heart, all of it hitting all at once, or maybe it's the sound of Michael's disparaging jibes and vicious taunts and names echoing in his head and beating him down inside just before he left for work, or just pure, utter exhaustion because he didn't sleep last night. Not that sleep makes him any less exhausted. Some days it's like he can sleep for a thousand years and still wake up feeling like his bones are made of lead.

Perhaps it is all of it.

But the spoon clatters out of his shaking hand and onto the plate, and he sets Scorpius down onto his feet with his other shaking arm, and he is just shaking and shaking and shaking all over. Draco pushes the plate of food away quickly and puts his elbows onto the tabletop and digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, holding his head in his hands as one hard, gasping sob escapes him, and then he just sits there.

For the longest time, he just sits there, the only sounds his quick and heavy and shuddering breaths as he fought to control an inexplicable tide of panic and despair washing down his insides, the only movement the tremors of his back and arms and shoulders.

"Daddy?" Scorpius whispers.

Draco's breaths tremble even more, growing even heavier. He knows he should move. He knows he is upsetting his son by being upset like this. He knows he needs to stop and act like the father and not the child, but he can't breathe right or stop shaking. He can't move and he can't speak and he thinks that if he does try to move or speak, he will end up crying or screaming or just losing his whole damned mind.

"Daddy, I'm so'y."

He can hear his son, and he can feel his little hands on his biceps, shaking him. He can't move. He can't speak. He is trembling and his breaths are hitching in low, short and frantic gasps, and all he can do is sit there and try to keep it together.

"Daddy, I'm so'y." Scorpius shakes his shoulder, his voice trembling and afraid. "I'm so'y. I eat the veg'ies."

Draco tries to breathe, deep and slow, and he does it over and over until he can feel some of the pressure in his throat and his chest fade. Scorpius' breaths are hitching, and he's weeping, his chin wobbling and scrunched, and Draco would have fallen apart all over again for being the one to make his son cry if he didn't need to take care of him first. So when he finally calms down some, a bit further away from the edge of losing his mind, he pulls himself away from the table, hands running down his face hard to ground himself.

"It's okay," Draco murmurs. He picks Scorpius up by the underarms and places him on his lap and folds his arms around him. "Everything's okay. We're okay. Look." He smiles feebly down at him, wiping Scorpius' tears with the flat of his fingers. He kisses his face, once, twice and thrice until Scorpius' breaths slow slightly, but his rosebud lips are still crumpled downward, tears glistening over his eyes.

"We can leave the veggies for today," Draco murmurs in some desperate need to compensate, his nose smushing fondly into Scorpius' cheek before retreating back to look at him. "But only for today, okay?"

"I eat."

Draco's throat flexes, the burn returning to his eyes along with the burn of sick shame and guilt.

It will later be a sign of one more of his failure that Scorpius will hardly trouble him with anything ever again.

That night, as Draco puts Scorpius down to bed, he hears Scorpius mumble into his shoulder, quiet and tentative, "I love you, Daddy."

Draco stills for a moment.

Usually, it's the other way around, Draco saying it first, and Scorpius responding with his baby-toothed smile and an, I love you too, Daddy.

Draco smiles. "I love you too, Scorpius."

He climbs into bed, lays down beside Scorpius and puts one arm around his little body. He shifts a bit, adjusting his own body on the mattress to make himself comfortable. When he finally settles down, he looks up at Scorpius, and they play their game of Did You Know, where they can each tell the other something new to learn about anything.

"Did you know that we were named after groups of stars?" Draco says. 

"How many sta's?"

"So many," Draco says with a smile, in a feigned breath of awe, and then begins to name some of them. Antares, Theta Scorpii, Upsilon Scorpi, Gamma Draconis, Thuban. He laughs softly and kisses Scorpius' forehead when Scorpius repeats each one with him and can't properly say the names due to his childlike pronunciation. Aantayes, Scorpius repeats, with a hard bob of his head, his curls bouncing, as if he can make his tongue cooperate by doing this. Up-ee-on 'copi. Tuwan.

In the end, when they've named almost all of the stars of their constellations together, they lay quiet and content, each in their own heads for some time.

Draco shifts his head as he turns to look at Scorpius, his cheek touching the pillow. "Did you know that…" He pauses, his throat convulsing, and it sounds audible in the pure silence, besides Michael's steady, even breathing from the other bedroom.

Scorpius is staring back at him, in wait of something new to learn, a beautiful and intelligent child. He has Draco's mind. He has Draco's eyes and nose and mouth and hair. He is his. All his. All he has of Michael are his wild curls and the green of his eyes, and sometimes he looks into them and imagines that they aren't Michael's, but someone else's.

Draco leans his head closer, biting the quiver out of his lips before he breathes a laden and shuddering exhale, and he whispers, "You are my star in a big black sky."

Draco thinks Scorpius won't understand what that means, hopes he won't, because it is not something that little kids should understand at all.

But his boy is four years old, and sometimes he smiles only with his lips and not with his eyes, and it might just mean that he understands much more than little kids should.

...

Draco leaves the morning after the unthinkable happens.

Michael does not lay a hand on Scorpius, and he never will for as long as Draco is around, but he does do something equally vile.

"Let me take Scorpius to his room first," Draco says, trying to appear calm and collected as he clenches his fists at his sides, trying not to let his voice tremble, or his body tremble, because Scorpius is standing in the doorway and he should not know that his father doesn't always feel as strong as he tells him he is.

Scorpius accidentally knocked off an old vase, of some sentimental and ancestral value that Draco was not made aware of before, when they played blindfolded tag on Scorpius' insistence. His son has him all wrapped around his little finger, and even afraid of something exactly like this happening, he did not say no, and that is his fault. 

Even so, as much as Draco wants to tell Michael to go fuck himself, that it's hardly an issue when you own a wand and are one word away from fixing it, he knows that the problem is not that. The problem is that Michael likes feeling big and powerful and in control of things, because he is small and powerless and without control everywhere else, and so he needs to hurt someone even worse off to feel better about himself and his pathetic life.

"No, you know what, let your useless little devil spawn watch what happens to his scum father when he fucks up," Michael snarls, and he grabs Scorpius by his thin arm and drags him roughly into the room and locks the doors, and the strangled whimper that tears out of his son may either be of fear or pain or both.

Draco sees red all the same. The white-hot rage explodes in his head, coursing flames through veins and into his chest. His body is tensed even more in an entirely different way, his fingernails cutting into the palm of his skin.

"And then he'll think twice next—"

Draco does not hear the rest. By the next second, he has crossed the room and thrown a fist right across Michael's face so hard he's slammed head-first into the wall. It is one more thing that Scorpius had to see that no child should.

It isn't going to bear very good consequences for himself, no, but Draco hardly gives a damn right now. If anything, there is satisfaction and relief loosening something in him, as if he has gotten something he'd yearned for a very long time, something that has built and built and built to the point of being suffocating.

But wands always win, and it isn't long before Michael has him pinned down under one, bloody and bruised.

And it has all happened right in front of Scorpius' eyes. In the blaring sound of his own blood pulsing in his ears in time to the residual throbbing of his wounds, he hears his son's voice, crying and screaming, for Michael to stop, to not hurt, promises that he will never do anything like that again. Promises that he will never be a kid and make mistakes that hardly mean anything just like every other kid.

"Scorpius, it's okay." Blood dribbles out of his mouth. He spits it out, trying to hide his battered face away. He wants to see his son, but right now he is afraid his face will just scare him even more. "Just look away. You don't have to see this. Close your eyes, like when we sleep, right? Close your eyes."

Michael grabs him by the hair, drags him over to the space between the bed and the wall, and bends him over.

When the realization strikes, Draco can no longer be as strong as he tells Scorpius he is, it doesn't even hurt, and how can it hurt when I have you and your kisses with me, and can only manage a shaky whisper of, "Michael, what are you—"

Michael does not answer, and he goes on with no intention of stopping. Draco thrashes against the weight of his hand and body on him, wild and desperate.

"Michael, what the fuck?" Draco yells, panicked and terrified and trembling, finally trembling. "Let me get my son out of here, please, he doesn't need to see this—

Michael does not listen.

"Michael, please," Draco sobs, shaking and crying. "Merlin, please, not in front of him—"

Scorpius did not understand what had happened, but Draco can no longer tell him that his father is strong and that nothing ever hurts when he has his boy there with him.

Sometimes it only hurts worse.

That night, Draco holds Scorpius a bit tighter and closer than usual, and he can't stop kissing his hair, and he tries not to cry because he isn't supposed to cry in front of Scorpius but he cries anyway because Scorpius keeps shaking and shaking and shaking and he won't speak. Draco tells him all the tales of Pot and tells him he is smartbravestronggood I love you more than anything in the world, okay? I love you so much I'm here I'm here I'm here and sings his mother's lullaby, over and over, until Scorpius finally falls asleep.

…

The next morning, when Michael has gone for work, Draco takes his son and their things and leaves.

...

In an empty space leading out into an alleyway, Draco clutches Scorpius on the hip of his crossed legs and against his chest, shows him dragons made of little balls of flaming light with wandless magic, and hums a long distant tune that reminds him of his mother's sweet and soft voice, that brings to mind an image of her sitting beside him on the bed and singing to him, her black curls falling over the shoulders of her nightgown as she smiled down at Draco like he was her whole world, just like Scorpius is Draco's whole world.

He sways his son in his arms and murmurs the melody of a lullaby, rough and slightly off-tune.

Cities will fall

under the weight of my love

Scorpius' head is tipped back, gaze fixated up at him. He is quiet and droopy-eyed with oncoming slumber, trying to stay awake so that he can hear his father sing for him. He still hasn't spoken a word since that night, and that had been four nights ago.

I will place you on the stars if

the world never felt like enough

Draco wants his son to get to sleep, so that he can sleep too and perhaps forget the gnaw of hunger in his gut, like it's devouring itself upon finding nothing else. Perhaps it won't let him sleep at all. Perhaps the best he can get tonight is a light slumber of cold, hard discomfort and his body begging for food.

He has managed to scrape up some money or food by some questionable methods; stealing off of grocery marts, pickpocketing with the help of wandless magic--- prostitution, the only options left to a man that has insufficient qualifications and, even regardless, that no one will ever hire for a proper job. He's fed Scorpius twice today, but his own last meal was yesterday morning, and it is leaving him faint and light-headed now.

I will bring down the sun for you

to give you warmth

I will pull down the moon for you

if you're afraid of the dark

Scorpius' nose is pressed into his chest, his small body fully leaning against his own. He is squeaking softly when he exhales air, his breaths lilting and even and soothing in its rhythm and familiarity. Draco slowly and carefully lays down, keeping Scorpius' body on his own chest. He is far too small and light for a boy his age, but the weight on Draco's chest along with the bruises and fatigue make it somewhat difficult to breathe. His own body is softer than the ground, however. He lays one protective hand on his son's back, the other loose and light over his shoulders.

His last thoughts, before he falls asleep, are of his mother tonight. He wonders if she is watching him, watching them, if she's fallen in love with her sweet grandson the way Draco has, and if she is disappointed and sad over what Draco has turned out to be.

"Yes, my love, I will ruin the world for you," Draco murmurs quietly to the sleeping boy on his chest, slurring and cracking as sleep tugs at his mind. His eyes slowly close upon the sight of a big black sky, one little star glowing high above him. " And I'll do it again and again and again. "

...

Draco finds men and women, hides Scorpius somewhere safe and tells him to stay put. Ever the untroublesome child, he listens and stays right where he is until Draco comes back with some money in his pockets.

The first time he comes back with a bruise on his cheek, Scorpius cries at the sight of it, and it seems, even after getting away from that house, Draco isn't quite done ruining him.

"Hey. Hey, come now, what are you crying for, huh?" Draco frowns, wiping at Scorpius' tears with his fingers and kissing his nose.  "I just walked into a wall, that's all. It was really dark there."

There are more fresh tears rolling down Scorpius' cheeks. He frames Draco's face in his little hands and presses a kiss to his wound, just like Draco did when Scorpius used to scrape his knees on the carpet of Michael's house. Something shifts over his skin, the throb of the bruise fading. Scorpius' face lights up through his tears, because the wound is gone when Draco brushes his fingers against it. Draco grins, so soft that there's only a small glimpse of teeth between his lips, and cranes forward to nuzzle their noses together. "My boy is talented and smart, isn't he?"

The second time it happens, it is worse because the man remembered his face a little too clearly and, this time, Draco can't tell his son that he walked into a wall because his boy is too smart for his own good, and he knows often enough when his father lies. When Scorpius' desperate kisses all over his face do not heal him this time, Draco pulls him into his chest quickly upon his breakdown in frantic tears.

It seems everything comes at the price of pain these days.

...

By the third week, Scorpius falls sick.

It is magical, certainly. It seems to affect Scorpius' magic. It hurts him when Draco tries to perform wandless magic, as if he is highly sensitive to it even if the spells are unrelated to his attempts at healing, but even without it, it leaves Scorpius in a fiery sort of pain and discomfort. 

Draco knows he won't be allowed there, but maybe his son will be, so he gathers up the small body in his arms and his things and makes an hours long trek over to St. Mungos on foot. It is times like these that he wishes he still had his wand with him.

He gets there exhausted and ready to pass out, but he is turned away, some alarm sounding off as soon as he tries to walk through the entrance and is barricaded from entering further. It must have detected his Dark Mark, he knows it does that, but it doesn't explain why Scorpius can't get through. 

A passing nurse sees him and comes over on the other side of the barrier.

"Please. Please, my son." Draco is trying not to cry or panic, has been trying not to cry and panic for a long while and if this doesn't work, then this might just be the last straw. His legs hurt, his heart pounding rapidly, and his knees are about to buckle. He swallows hard. The rise of controlled emotion in his voice makes him sound clearer and stronger this time, "He's sick. I—he's in pain. Maybe if—i-if there's a way that—

The nurse has a blank and cryptic expression on his face.

"These wards are placed by the Ministry. It is really out of our hands to allow you or your son in," he explains, clinically impassive. "Even so, treating your kind is illegal. It can lead to an investigation and cost anyone involved their careers."

"My son is not a Death-Eater!" Draco hisses in a snarl, fury burning raw and hot in his chest, as he slams one hand hard against the barrier. Scorpius whimpers against his shoulder. "He has a right to be treated, you bloody bastards!"

"The wards seem to imply otherwise. I'm sorry." He looks rueful, but nowhere near as he would have been if it were someone else. "But I'm sure it's nothing serious, only a case of a harmless and common magical fever that's been rather prevalent in the air these days. You have to leave before we'll have to resort to manually escorting you away from here."

He understands the laws, even understands their hatred and resentment against Draco and the Death-Eaters, but how one can be so unsympathetic to a child, no matter whose, this Draco does not understand.

By the third day of his fever, Scorpius is even worse than before. He isn't getting enough to eat, but what little he is, he can't keep down. Scorpius is growing weaker, and he is in so much pain that he cries himself exhausted from it. Draco holds him and gives him body massages that only seem to help for as long as they are being given.

He holds Scorpius in his arms, finally, finally asleep, and gulps down his terror and tears, holding him just a bit closer.

And he considers it that day. Going back to Michael. He feels sick to his gut at the thought, but he doesn't know what else to do. He doesn't know what this is. And what if it's deadly? What if Scorpius doesn't—Merlin, what if he—

If Draco loses his star, all he will be left with is a big black sky, and he doesn't know what he will do then. 

He doesn't know what he will do.

On that very day, he finds Harry Potter.

When Teddy was four, Andromeda grew ill. It was an incurable, degenerative and terminal disease that ate at her magical core, something that her great grandmother had passed away from as well. She had to be hospitalized not too long after receiving the diagnosis, and so Harry stepped in to take her place as Teddy's caretaker.

She passed away within the year, surrounded by all those that loved her and would grieve her, except for Teddy. In the past few months of her illness, she'd pleaded to Harry to not bring Teddy along on the visits, because she did not want him to remember her like that. 

Sometime during that year, Harry quit his job as an Auror so that he could look after Teddy. He hadn't needed the money anyway, so it hardly mattered and could not be prioritized over focusing on his godson. However, even without this sudden turn of events, the terrible circumstances that led Harry to resign, he'd been considering long before whether this job was for him or not. He had loved the outcome of his work, when everything went right and they saved lives, but he had also often wondered if he really wanted to spend any more years fighting evil after his entire childhood and adolescene was washed away in it. Ron, who had worked alongside him as his partner, was rather rueful, but understood the necessity of his decision.

Ron followed him six years after, choosing to help George run Weasley's Wizardly Wheezes, which had become a huge success by that point. Hermione has made her way into the Ministry as an Unspeakable, but is at present taking maternity leave due to her pregnancy. Among Harry's other close friends that he's still kept in contact with, outside of all the Weasleys that is, Neville has been working as a Herbology Professor for the last five years, and Luna has taken up the Quibbler since her father's passing.

With Andromeda's death, Harry knew the toll it took on Teddy to lose his grandmother and guardian on top of his parents, sorrows that he was too young to bear, sorrows that Harry could only wish his sweet godson didn't have to face.

And so all he could do was love him so much that he didn't feel the empty spaces where his mother and his father and his grandmother's love should have resided. So Harry did. It was simultaneously the easiest thing in the world, and the hardest. To love Teddy was easy, yes, but to make sure that he grew up right when Harry didn't exactly know what it meant to grow up right or to be a parent, that Harry didn't project all of his own issues onto his godson on the bad days when everything hit all at once, that he gave him the best he could give… that wasn't always easy then, and it isn't easy now either.

But he thinks he's done it. He thinks he's done okay, because he looks at Teddy and he is proud of the sweet, kind and caring boy that he is. He is smart and curious and funny, and he is Harry's whole world, and he has been for these last nine years ever since his first visit to Andromeda and Teddy after the war, the little human being that gripped his finger with his tiny hand and somehow soothed something hollow and horrible left inside of him by the war.

Harry hadn't thought he would be having kids before Teddy. Before Voldemort was destroyed, it had been because he wasn't sure if he'd even live that long.

But after came with a lot of self-doubt at the prospect of having children. He'd wanted it with Ginny back then, that normal, perfect life, once, but after the war, they never got back together, or not quite in the same way, and it didn't take long for them to fall apart after. Looking back on it, he didn't think she'd wanted that. She was far too focused on her career as a Quidditch player, even then, and nowadays she was doing well with the Holyhead Harpies.

When Harry thought about it long enough, he realized that he didn't entirely know what it meant to be a parent, or how to be a good one. His one paternal figure had been his own godfather, but that was rather short-lived. Back then, he didn't entirely know what it meant to be a well-rounded child that had grown up right. He could only take a guess, because he was surrounded by friends who were rather well-rounded, but how one raised a child to be such a person, Harry had no clue.

Most days, he's only just doing what feels right, even as he constantly questions whether it really is or not. The Weasleys, Hermione, Neville and Luna, with their consistent patience and support and advice, their outsider's perspective that he relies on far too much as a way to examine himself, however, helps him through.

Even so, there are many days that he wishes he'd had his parents and Sirius with him, for advice or comfort or even just company. He wants Remus and Nymphadora, because Harry misses them, and Teddy misses them, and because sometimes Harry thinks that no matter how hard he tries, he can never compensate for what Teddy has lost.

…

Being ambushed by Draco Malfoy on the streets of London is the last thing Harry expected when he woke up this morning. How the man had even recognized Harry under his layers of concealing clothes, even heavier in the winter, Harry cannot understand.

He's made a habit out of wearing hoodies and caps whenever he ventured outside, in fear of being recognized and tailed by reporters. He has grown his hair out to cover the scar at his temple. The overwhelming attention has died down some after years of staying on the low, ever since he took Teddy in and moved out into a house somewhere less populated, but it was particularly awful the first four years after the war, during his Eighth Year with all the starstruck students and the three years of his career as an Auror. Everything about his personal life, who he dated or hung out with or where he was spotted last, every capture of a Death-Eater, every life he rescued, everything stamped all over the papers the next day.

Being recognized has become a sort of rarity nowadays, to his relief, so he has to wonder how Draco Malfoy, a man that hasn't seen him in nine years and hardly even liked him throughout all the time they knew each other, can pick him out on the streets like this.

So here the man stands, long before believed to either be dead or to have left the country for some place isolated. Nobody has seen Malfoy for years, and in all brutal honesty, not many around him really wondered or asked, but when it did come up on occasion, they all said that they hadn't run into him for a long time. Harry did run into Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini some years back, which was by the time the discrimination against Slytherins had died down some, and when the topic of Malfoy came up at some point, they admitted that they hadn't seen him either.

Curiosity led Harry to wonder for some time, but he didn't dwell too long. Malfoy had been the least of his concerns in the last many years, really.

The last they had interacted was after Harry had testified in his favour at Malfoy's trial. Malfoy had stopped him on the way and tried to say thank you, with much apparent difficulty and reluctance. Harry, not quite sure of what to say nor in the mood to hold a conversation with Draco Malfoy of all people in his horrible haze of grief and fatigue and dissociation, had simply resumed walking forward.

Now, nine years later, Malfoy stands in front of him, looking on the verge of tears. He is dirty and bruised, far too thin and drained of what little colour he has, the contrast stark against his sunken in and scarlet-circled eyes, his grime-streaked, white-blond hair wavy and long enough to curve just so around his ears. He is shaking, struggling to speak through a crumpled, quivering chin, one trembling arm pointing in the general direction of something Harry doesn't know.

What he says is the last thing Harry expects.

"My son…"

…

Potter is clearly unhappy at the sight of Draco, bright green eyes as cold and blank as the day he testified at Draco's trial, when Draco tried to thank him and Potter walked away, indifferent and exhausted and without response.

Draco may have had hoped for something, at the very least, civil to form between them after Potter had done what he did for him at the Fiendfyre and the war and the trial, but that moment seemed to have had solidified the fact that Potter could never feel anything more than either scorching hatred or cold indifference towards him. The more upsetting and frustrating thing was the fact that Draco didn't even have the right to be angry at him for it no matter how much he was, or how much he wanted to be, given his severe mistreatment of Potter and his friends for years on end.

Right now, however, Potter has to know that Draco isn't coming to bother him for himself. He would not have even thought about approaching Potter if it were about him, but this is about his son.

When it comes to his son, there is no pride or ego or dignity, or whatever he has left of it, and his son is ill and in pain and tears, and Merlin, what if—

Draco shakes, swallows hard to loosen the tightness in his throat and tries to speak. He points to the sleeping bundle hidden in the space between two buildings, his arm trembling, "My son…" His face twists slightly against his will, even as he tries to keep it rigid, his throat convulsing again. "My son is sick."

Surely Potter will not turn him away, at least not if it is about a child. He is Potter, far too noble and just, and nobility and justice cannot entail leaving a child sick and in pain, even if Potter loathes the child's father.

"I-I tried to take him to St. Mungos, but they… they wouldn't... I—he's in a lot of pain. Potter, please. Fuck. Please just—" But Draco doesn't even know what he wants Potter to do about this, really. Perhaps he is only making a pathetic fool of himself for nothing here. His chin crumples, his body now fully shaking. He clenches his fists, clenches his jaw, and he can't look Potter in the eye anymore.

"Where is he?" Potter then asks, quiet.

Draco's head snaps up, and he must have looked like the most blatant picture of hope right then. The relief is so immense he almost weeps outright, or smiles, but he swallows hard and controls himself. Maybe Potter can heal his son. Potter has a wand and he can fix his son and save his life—Merlin, it seems his luck has turned around, then, even if just for today. But he can worry about the rest once Scorpius is well again. He will take on anything as long as he gets to keep his son, healthy and well.

Draco leads Potter over to the wrapped bundle shivering under a pile of clothes. Scorpius is pale, his eyes pinched shut and dark-circled. His small face is furrowed in discomfort and pain, his slumber very clearly fragile and light and troubled.

Potter kneels down beside Scorpius, touches his burning forehead for a second, and then sits back, frowning worriedly. Draco is about to ask if he can make his son well again, but Scorpius' eyes have opened at Potter's touch.

Potter smiles down at him a little, in some soothing way. "Hey little man," he whispers.

Scorpius jerks hard, his head frantically twisting around and trying to lift off the ground. "Daddy—"

Draco quickly leans into his view, running a hand down his heaving back. "Hey, hey, hey. Right here. Daddy's right here. Don't be scared."

It all happens rather fast after. With a single warning, Potter gathers up Scorpius in his arms, careful and close and protective, and Side-Apparates both of them over to his place. He carries Scorpius upstairs as Draco hastily scrambles to his feet and follows, unsettled at the sight of somebody else holding his boy for the first time in too long. He takes Scorpius into a room and lays him down on a bed.

"I'll Firecall a friend I know. She's a Healer."

Draco's nerves fire up then, anxiety curdling his gut. What if she refuses, if she knows whose son she is coming over to treat—

"She won't mind," Potter reassures, upon catching whatever expression he must have on his face.

"Don't tell her," Draco says anyway, trying to repress the tremors in his fingers by gripping the edge of the desk beside him tightly. "Don't tell her he's mine. I'll just—I'll hide away and you can make up something." He can't risk anything right now. If the only way to help Scorpius is by the help of a Healer, then Draco can't muck it up like this.

Potter nods, eyes flickering with something unfathomable, flickering downwards in silence. He taps his fingers on his knee for a moment, then stands up and heads over to the fireplace.

Hannah Abbot's voice filters in through the walls soon enough.

"Who is he?" she asks softly, her careful voice accompanied by a low creak of the bed as she presumably sits down.

"Friend's dropped him off. Single parent. He had to go for work, some important meeting."

"Oh. I see," Abbot says idly. She seems to have bought it simply because Potter lies well enough to sound as if he himself believes it too. Either that, or she is much too gullible. She murmurs some words, perhaps some examining spells.

"Daddy?" Scorpius murmurs, sleep-thick and soft.

"Hey, little man." The bedsheets rustle slightly, as if Potter may have been leaning forward. "Your Daddy's not here right now, but he'll be back soon—"

"Daddy!" Scorpius cries out. Draco roots himself to his spot inside the adjacent bedroom, planting his feet firmly into the carpet to stop himself from running right out to him. The bedsheets are rustling, fast and frantic, and there are objects rattling in the other room.

"Hey, hey, hey, come now, you're hurting yourself—" Potter's murmuring, soothing and gentle.

"Sweetheart, hey," Abbot pacifies.

"Daddy, my Daddy," Scorpius cries, the rustling growing slower and quieter. "I want my Daddy—"

"Calming draught. Just a drop, not too strong," Abbot says. "That is a rather unusually extreme reaction. Concerning, even. Is this the first time he's been left here?"

"Yes. He's just not very good with new people." Potter swiftly changes the subject. "What's happened to him, Hannah?"

"Oh, it's nothing serious," Abbot says. "It's not very common, but it does happen, particularly in very sensitive children. His magic has just started becoming active, you see, and as it is growing more and more active, his body is trying to adjust to all this new energy and power, resulting in heightened body temperature and magical sensitivity. It should be over within a week or two. Keep sending cooling charms to his magical core every now and then. It hurts a bit at first, but it is immediately followed by relief."

"Thank you, Hannah," Potter says, polite and sincere. "I understand you have a rather hectic schedule."

"Hey. Anything for a friend," Abbot says, a smile in her voice. "He's actually a cutie, isn't he? All curly hair and big green eyes."

Potter chuckles at that. They say their farewells and she Floos out from the fireplace.

…

"Finally up, my man?" Harry says with a greeting smile, looking up from the Quibblers papers to a rumpled and bleary-eyed Teddy walking into the kitchen.

Teddy slides onto a chair at the table. "What's for breakfast?"

"I'm making pancakes," Harry answers. He puts the papers down and stands to his feet, grabbing his empty coffee mug from the table.

"Oh, yes!" Teddy bounces on the chair, suddenly lit up. Harry chuckles fondly and ruffles his hair. Teddy scowls and pats down his grey curls as if they even cooperate in any way.

Harry makes twice the usual, to Teddy's bewilderment and excitement, until Harry explains that they have guests staying over.

"Oh," Teddy says, somewhat deflated, and then straightens back up. "Wait, who are they? Do we know them?"

"You don't," Harry said. "At least, you haven't met them before, but they're actually your family. One of them is your mother's cousin, so that makes you his nephew. He has his son with him, so that's your cousin."

Teddy's eyes have enlarged, his whole body still as his hair colour changes rapidly. It eventually settles on the colour of his joy. Purple. His face splits into a wide smile. "My… my family…"

Harry's heart may have broken at the sight of such a simple joy, his joy at such a simple, common thing. If there is one thing Harry never holds back on, it is his urge to hug his godson, who is just as open to such displays to affection, and so he does. He crosses the kitchen, wraps his arms around his godson and settles his chin on top of his head. "Yes," he says softly. "Your family."

Teddy holds him back around the waist, his grip tight and trembling slightly.

"Can I see them?" Teddy whispers.

Harry brushes a hand over his hair, steps back and kneels on the floor before him, hands on his shoulders. "Not yet, okay? They had a long trip and they need some time to rest."

Teddy nods, ever the sweet and understanding child (except when it comes to desserts), and says, "Okay."

…

Draco strokes his fingers through Scorpius' hair, lying down next to him on the rather wide single bed, one arm draped lightly over the side of his small body. 

The relief at his diagnosis, that it isn't anything serious, is downright overwhelming. He does feel somewhat embarrassed now, at the way he acted when he sought Potter's help, but cannot at all regret it. He'd thought he was going to lose his son, and just the mere thought seems to cause something inside of him to wither and die.

Potter hasn't said anything about wanting them to leave yet. Before he left the room, he handed Draco his wand, told him to cast a testing spell, and when it worked just fine for Draco, he asked him to keep casting cooling charms to Scorpius' magical core. How he trusts Draco with something as personal of a property as his wand, he does not know, but he supposes even Potter has to see that there is hardly anything he can do that would be out of line, no matter how much Potter distrusts him. He left quickly after, without further words or questions.

Draco supposes Potter would be demanding their departure once Scorpius is well. Potter doesn't have nearly enough cruelty in him to send a child out like this right now, even if it isn't anything life-threatening. 

To distract himself from the onslaught of anxiety and uncertainty, he glances around the room, as bare and impersonal as spare guest rooms are, but there are colours of burgundy and chalk-white painting the walls in alternate, a burnt ember brown wardrobe built into the wall towards his left, and a desk with a chair at the front of the room and a nightstand beside the bed of the same colour. Not terrible taste for someone like Potter, who Draco wouldn't have taken to be very apt at interior designing.

There sounds a knock at the door. 

Draco sits up, untangling himself from his son. For a moment, he can't speak, seems to have forgotten how to respond to such displays of courtesies, or perhaps it is merely the anxiety and reluctance of having another person in the room besides himself and his son. For a long time, the only other person in the room with them had been Michael, and that had never meant anything good.

"Yes?" 

"Breakfast," Potter calls from the other side of the door.

When there is no response—Draco isn't sure of what to say at all—Potter opens the door and walks in anyway.

Potter comes forward and places the bowl of soup and a plate of pancakes on the bed.

"Need anything else?"

Potter's expression is blank and unreadable, an overly formal host, all distant and polite.

Draco shakes his head, and can't think of what to say other than a quiet, "No." It is rather confusing and difficult to interact with a man that was once, a decade or so ago, the boy he tormented and loathed more than anything, and now seems to be the only person in the world willing to help him and his son. Whether or not this will come back to bite Draco in the arse, he doesn't know, but he sees no better option left to him as of now.

Potter turns swiftly, then, and leaves the room, closing the door with a click.

He runs a hand through Scorpius' hair. Hunger gnaws at his gut, but he feels self-conscious eating in somebody else's home, somebody else's food, the burn of shame and guilt coiling in his gut that leaves him uneager to feed the hollow pit of his starvation. Another person that he is leeching off of, because he can't make something of himself, and he can already guess that Potter will not be able to tolerate his presence for long.

He looks down at Scorpius, the only one in the world left that seems oblivious to the evil and sickening energy of his presence. Some day his son will grow up and he will learn too, with the rest of them, just who his father really is, and perhaps he will become a part of the rest of this world that day.

Some day he's going to learn the things about you that everybody else knows, and he's going to wish you weren't his father.

Draco can only hope it will be a long time from now, that the day his star eventually fades back into the big black sky is a day that is not at all too soon.

…

Call it some strange parental instinct that simply makes Draco more inclined to like kids, even if he hadn't at all before, or Teddy's oddly irresistible energy, or simply the purity that came from the boy's attention, unaware of who he is speaking to and so indiscriminate because of it, but Draco grows to like his nephew rather quickly.

On their first meeting, Teddy launches himself at Draco to wrap his arms around his waist. He is holding Scorpius against his hip and nearly topples over, paralyzed in his astonishment and confusion. Potter, with his lips pressed together in annoyance, had come rushing forward, side-eying Draco warily as if he is perhaps afraid that Draco will act in an unkind manner and push Teddy away. Draco does not. He merely waits it out, hoping some explanation will soon be offered for this strange encounter.

"Teddy, come now. Perhaps you should—" Potter begins to say.

"Hello!" Teddy says, stepping back a bit, but he is still fisting the bottom of Draco's shirt with both hands. He's grinning widely up at him. "I'm your nephew! Teddy Remus Lupin. You, of course, may have known my mother, Nymphadora Tonks, and my father, Remus Lupin..."

Something sick churns in his gut, then, a mixture of a ball of emotions sitting heavily in his stomach; shame, guilt, mourn that hits much closer when he sees their eyes and mouth and nose in this child. He hadn't known them much, but he'd been on the side of the war that took them away from Teddy.

Potter seems genuinely concerned and afraid that Draco will hurt him, more so emotionally than anything Draco imagines, and he steps forward, reaching for Teddy"s shoulders to pull him away. "Teddy—"

"Hello," Draco says. He adjusts Scorpius in his arms and kneels down to Teddy's eye level. He lets go of Scorpius' back to hold out a hand. Teddy takes his hand and shakes it rather forcefully due to his enthusiasm, with a huge smile that lights up into his brown eyes. Draco smirks, somewhat mellow, at his energy and excitement, tipping his head at him. "I'm your uncle, then, Draco Lucius Malfoy."

"This is my cousin!" Teddy says with a bounce of his feet as he points at the small boy wrapped around Draco's torso, his purple curls bouncing along. He leans forward and around, trying to look into Scorpius' face.

"Yes," Draco says. He twists slightly so that Teddy can look at his cousin. "Scorpius Abraxas Malfoy."

"Scorpius? Like the constellation?"

"Yes, like the constellation. He's a bit unwell right now though, so he won't be able to speak to you."

"Oh," Teddy says. "Okay."

When Draco catches sight of Potter, he finds green eyes boring into him, his brows drawn together in another one of his unfathomable expressions, except this time, for some inexplicable reason, it unnerves Draco rather severely, enough for his insides to jolt as if they're dunked in ice-cold water, enough for him to feel his hands tremble again. Draco blinks and quickly glances away, his muscles rigid and tense.

That night, he lays awake for hours, Scorpius breathing evenly into his chest, and tries to tell himself that, while Potter may loathe Draco as Michael did, he is not so cruel as to hurt Draco in front of his child.

Potter interacts rather kindly with Scorpius, doesn't he? It clearly shows that Potter has already grown fond of him, so much so that he is unquestionably the only reason Potter is keeping Draco around, so he imagines Potter won't harm him even if only for the sake of his son.

Draco falls asleep trying to convince himself of this.

…

"Song."

"Again?"

"Song," Scorpius insists with a feeble bounce, his curly-haired head tipping back to look up to his father and away from the golden lights drawing images in the air. They are settled on the rug of the living room, Scorpius on the gap of the loose cross of Draco's ankles. Harry can only see the top of Scorpius' head from where he halted in the doorway, the tuft of white-blond hair pushing up against his father's bicep, and the back of Draco's woollen navy-blue sweater and the back of his head and the arms surrounding his son. Scorpius is so small that they almost seem to cover him up. "Ple'se, Daddy."

Harry wants to turn around and continue walking towards the stairs up to Teddy's room, to say goodnight, and then to his own room to get ready for bed. It seems a rather tender and vulnerable moment, one that Harry feels out of place being present for or like an intruder on. Given the way Draco feels awkward around Harry, just as Harry feels awkward around Draco, he is certain his entry will cause the man to clam up.

But Harry is certainly curious to know what it is that Draco Malfoy sings to his son. To imagine Draco Malfoy singing at all, really, is an image so bizarre Harry can laugh.

Draco vanishes the glowing outlines of a majestic dragon and a scorpion with a graceful twist and curl of his hand. He looks down at his drowsy and ill son. As far as Harry knows, which is as much as Draco tells him, Scorpius' fever is mostly mild now, but the fatigue and weakness still remains. "You know, with how many times you've asked me to do this by now, I'd think I could be the next Celestina Warbeck."

But even despite his fond and clearly feigned exasperation, he presses his nose to Scorpius' hair and begins to hum a low, soft tune to his small forehead.

Harry doesn't move. He thinks about moving, thinks about going to Teddy's room to say goodnight and then to his own instead of lurking around so strangely like this, but for some reason, he stays right where he is in the doorway, and he listens to a quiet little hum that falls into a lullaby of falling cities, of stars and the sun and the moon, of love and warmth and light.

—Yes, my love, I will ruin the world for you—

He tries to remember if he knows any lullabies, if anyone ever sung him to sleep. Aunt Petunia used to sing to Dudley, and sometimes Harry sat outside the room and listened, because he had still hoped then that someday she would sing for him too, that he could somehow make himself mean something to them if he'd tried hard enough. Even so, he would return to his cupboard after with something tangled up and aching in his chest, something that he hadn't been able to make much sense of back then, just that it felt bad and he cried.

Harry wonders if his mother would have sung to him, if she were here. He thinks she would have. He tries to imagine her voice, as sweet and soft as flower petals the way she always has been in his mind, tries to imagine her sing, but he doesn't really know.

As all thoughts eventually lead to his godson whenever he thinks of his childhood, as a way to learn what he can give to Teddy that he himself didn't have, he wonders if anyone had ever sung to Teddy. Had Andromeda sung to him? He knows Nymphadora had, but Teddy won't have remembered. It has never occurred to Harry to do that for Teddy, but then again, he supposes they got by just fine without it, seeing as he can hardly hold a tune.

Harry sits down outside the living room against the wall, drops his head back, and just listens.

In the complete silence and stillness of the world, Draco continues to hum the melody into Scorpius' sweaty forehead long after, and he has a simultaneously rough and soft voice that soothes something deep inside of Harry's chest, something tangled up and aching, if he closes his eyes and focuses on it and nothing else.

Scorpius grows completely well by the next four days. He is still somewhat drowsy and weak, but he is walking around and speaking, if only to Draco. Later on in the day, he plays with Teddy and his chest box full of toys. Uncertain and reluctant at first, he shakes his head at every one of Teddy's pleaful insistences until Draco tells him to go play. 

Scorpius is a quiet and lonely little boy, having grown isolated with no one but his father for company, but Draco also knows his son well enough to know that, sometimes Scorpius refuses to let go of him because in his little child's mind, he thinks this is how he is protecting his father.

"You worry too much about your Daddy when it's not your job," Draco murmurs with a rueful smile. He kisses his little shoulder and sets him down on the ground between his knees, pushing him forward by the back gently. "Go be a kid and have fun." 

Teddy takes Scorpius' hand and leads him over to the chest box off to the side of the living room, babbling about all the different types of toys he has.

"I got a Hungarian Horntail too! Harry once fought a Hungarian Horntail! Mister Malfoy, did you know that Harry fought a Hungarian Horntail?"

Draco nods. "Yes, I was there."

Teddy gasps. "Yes, you would have been, because you were in school together! It must have been amazing to watch, right, Mister Malfoy?"

He vaguely wonders if, once, under entirely different circumstances, he might have been just petty enough to have taken this opportunity to drop Potter in the eyes of his godson. Now, however, he can't see the point of doing such a thing, except that it would hurt a child that he's already caused enough hurt to. Now all he wants is the opposite, in fact. "Yes, rather spectacular, indeed. He avoided its fire breathing just by a hair, I can remember."

Teddy's mouth grows into an 'o', impressed and in wonder. He is setting down more toys between himself and Scorpius from the chest box.

"Did you ever fight a dragon, Mister Malfoy?"

Draco shakes his head, a half-smile squinching up one corner of his mouth. "It's not exactly my kind of thing to do."

"Oh," Teddy says. "Well, what is your kind of thing to do, then?"

Draco shrugs. For the last six years, there really hasn't been much he's done except slave after Michael and try to be the best father he can be to Scorpius in spite of everything.

He tries to think of what he used to do, when he was free, when there was no Michael and he was still a person.

"I brew potions," Draco settles on. He's rather good at charms too, but his expertise and interest lies mostly in potioneering. He liked Quidditch, once, but he wasn't good enough at it.

"Oh." Teddy wrinkles his nose. "That sounds sort of boring, doesn't it?"

Draco snorts. It seems Teddy shares his dislike for the subject with Potter. "Well, you can make a lot of interesting things with it. For example, I can make you a potion that will make you able to float in air, or make you change your appearance—though I don't suppose you need a potion like that, do you?" 

Teddy smiles proudly. "No. I am a Metamorphmagus!" He looks even prouder about being able to say the word without a stutter. "I still haven't learned to control it fully, except change my hair colour and one feature at a time, but Harry says I will be able to look like a whole other person one day."

"Rather useful." Draco nods, and then quirks a smile at one corner of his lips. "Imagine you disliked someone at Hogwarts."

"I could change into them and get them in trouble!"

Draco smirks. That would have been his own idea first and foremost, but he was trying to go for something a bit more conscientous.

This one can definitely be sorted into Slytherin. Although, in a world like now, he hopes for his sake that he won't be.  "Not a bad idea. But I was going to say you could change into a Professor and scare them off."

"Oh." Teddy then lights up. "Yes."

Teddy then turns his attention to Scorpius. They play around with the toys for a while, with building blocks that can expand and shrink to any size and merge upon being positioned, unless they're pulled apart, and a dough-like substance that can be shaped into anything, hardens and comes to life with a few hard taps, and all these other kinds of charmed playthings that Draco didn't remember having in his own time.

Scorpius seems mostly to have taken to the Hungarian Horntail. He's always had a fascination with dragons, just like Draco used to in his own childhood. He thinks of Scorpius' favourite toy among their packed things, broken and still and silent, now haunted by a terrible memory in the cracks of it.

Some time later, Teddy starts to get bored and pushes aside everything. He reaches into the chestbox and pulls out a board, and then asks his cousin if he's ever played it before. On Scorpius' tentative shake of head, little baby-pudged fingers letting go of the dragon and fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, Teddy scoots forward on his crossed legs with a bounce and begins to explain to Scorpius some board game involving figurines of centaurs and chimaeras that act however they are commanded to. Draco isn't entirely sure a five-year old can play a game requiring such strategy skills, or if Scorpius even understands the instructions and rules, but his poor confused boy, bless him, listens and nods whenever Teddy asks, okay, Scorp? Do you understand, Scorp?

Scorpius keeps glancing over at Draco all throughout the game. Unfortunately, he does not seem to be enjoying it, but Teddy doesn't notice the way kids don't, too engrossed in his own play. He does pause every so often to give Scorpius tips and instructions, but it's clear the gears in his head are too busy turning for his own victory.

Draco pushes himself to a stand, crosses the room in slow steps. He lowers down to sit behind Scorpius, gripping his underarms and pulling him onto his hip as he crosses his legs over the rug.

"So what's happening here?" Draco asks, leaning his head over Scorpius' curly white hair to see the game field.

Teddy, ever so excitable, beams at Draco's interest and launches into an explanation of what's where at the moment on both sides. 

"Me and Harry play this all the time. Oh, and Uncle Ron too! He's really good at games like these. We play checkers, and chess..." From that, Draco can deduce that Potter's still in touch with his old friends, then. He certainly remembers Weasley and his winning the Wizard's Chess Tournament for several years in a row during their time at Hogwarts.

Draco wonders of his own school friends, where they are right now. He's long since moved on from whatever bitterness and resentment he'd held against them for their disappearance, that once felt much like abandonment as well, but even as he ponders over what their life must have turned out to be, he hopes he never sees them again. They can be gone this way, completely and forever, and somehow he knows that having Pansy, Blaise and Greg back in his life would only tear open the old wounds he's managed to stitch back a long time ago. Draco supposes they've never been those kinds of friends anyway, friends like Potter, Weasley and Granger, friends that lasted.

He wonders what Vince would have turned out to be.

People would be surprised to know that Vince had enjoyed singing, particularly in the opera genre, but had never been able to build on his skills as much as he'd wanted to. He was embarrassed of it because of his disparaging parents and knew the other Slytherins would tease him for it. Draco only knew because he'd once walked in on Vince alone in the Slytherin common room, making strange faces with his eyes closed, looking hysterical when there was no sound due to the Muffliatio spell. Draco was ashamed to remember his initial reaction was of mockery, and it hurts something terrible to think of it now, after he's gone, because it had clearly meant a lot to Vince. Draco does not, however, have to regret spilling that dear secret of Vince's out to everyone else the way he was tempted to then, because Draco knew, even back then, when he had to keep his mouth shut about certain secrets.

The game continues on and on for a while, and with Draco constantly whispering into Scorpius' ear on what to do for their next move, his little boy seems more inclined to enjoy the game, quirking a shy smile whenever Teddy gasps and scowls.

"You know this is cheating!" Teddy huffs, squinting at Draco. "You're not suppose to tell him what to do."

Draco snorts out a laugh, small and choked behind tightened lips and a bit off like he's forgotten how to. He lets go of Scorpius to hold his hands up in surrender. "Alright, fine. No more. Now it's just you and Scorpius. Yes?"

"Yes. Good," Teddy says with a firm, serious nod.

…

"That is...bizarre," Ron says, his face green in the fire and looking thoroughly bewildered.

"Bizarre, indeed," Hermione agrees with a soft huff. "Some people even believed he was... well, dead, you know. His disappearance was quite sudden."

"And now he's staying in your house. And he has a son?" Ron's forehead furrows. "I'm not sure I can imagine him being a father."

Harry can't imagine he'd believe that Malfoy sings lullabies to his son and kisses his forehead like he's something precious and is painfully tender in the way he holds him to himself.

And Harry wonders what they'll say if he tells them that he is fascinated by that side of Draco Malfoy.

"Who's the mother?" Hermione asks.

"I don't know. I didn't ask," Harry says with a shrug. "It's just...weird, I suppose, to try to have a civil conversation with him. It's just not us. But now he's different, and he's as weird around me as I am around him, so it's just—it's all weird, you know."

Hermione hums in understanding. "Yes, I imagine it is."

"How's it going with you guys?" Harry asks with a smile. Hermione is seven months pregnant now, her first to be due in January next year.

"I will not be answering that." Ron clears his throat, leaning back with his palms up in surrender.

"Good," Hermione says, with a tight, ironic smile shot towards her husband. "Very good, yes, Ron?"

"Yes! Yes. Absolutely." When Hermione looks away, Ron mouths with an overly exaggerated pleading expression, she's a monster, and all she eats is ranch sauce, or so Harry thinks that's what he says. He isn't the best at reading lips, but he is forced to hide a tight-lipped smile by looking away, lest Hermione catches the silent communication between Harry and Ron and rains Hell down on her poor husband after the Firecall ends.

Coming back from the Firecall, there are muffled and vague sounds coming from Teddy's room, high and stilted, almost like screaming. When Harry gets closer, he can hear spurts of laughter, unfamiliar and familiar. He knows the voice but has never known its laugh, not like this, and underneath his laughter are more peals of laughter,  squealing and giggling.

"You said you wouldn't do it again!" Teddy shouts, but there is a clear giggle in his voice.

Harry curves around the corner, and standing in the doorway, he can see Teddy beside Draco, fingers digging into the ribs of his curled up and cowering body.

"Scorpius, save your—poor father from this—this monstrous child!" Draco is trying to puff out between his own fits of uncontrolled mirth, his voice cracking in laughter.

Scorpius, instead of saving his poor father from the monstrous child, joins in and starts wiggling his fingers into Draco's ribs similarly to Teddy, giggling uncontrollably, all baby teeth in full display and big green eyes crinkled. Harry can't deny that he is a rather beautiful child whose smile the world deserves more of.

Teddy cheers Scorpius on, who seems to take that as encouragement to drive Draco even more hysterical.

Harry leans silently on the doorway and watches, unnoticed, a faint smile playing at one corner of his lips.

At the end of the scene, Draco grabs the two of them and pulls them into each of his shoulder to break it off, kisses Scorpius' hair hard and murmurs with a residual half-smile, "turncoat." And then settles his cheek against Teddy's purple curls.

"You should stay here forever," Teddy whispers, shifting his head under Draco's jaw to stare up into his face. Harry's heart twists into a throb, because he knows Teddy's longing for family, knew it himself at his age, and also because maybe that really does mean that Harry can't be enough.

Harry decides to make his presence known, finally, pushing off the doorway and walking inside. "What's going on here?"

"Harry's here!" Teddy exclaims as he sits up. "Oh, we can make this a team game now! Then it'll be fair if you help Scorpius, Mister Malfoy."

Draco is also now sitting upright, arms folded around Scorpius as he clutches him to his chest, seeming to be rather engrossed in brushing off some dust from Scorpius' knee before splaying a hand over it, thumb brushing back and forth over the top of his kneecap.

"We can do that," Harry says with a shrug, and then comes over to plop down next to Teddy. He would prefer for this barricade of awkwardness that he and Draco have between them to break, which will certainly make this easier on both of them, and maybe playing a board game together is a start.

From here, he can see Draco's face, his features sharp and elegant and delicate without the twist of a sneer or a deadpan, his white-blond hair tucked behind his ears, intelligent silver eyes fixated on the top of Scorpius' head, his narrow shoulders tensed and stiff beneath his loose grey jumper.

While Teddy starts rearranging all the pieces on the board for a new game, Harry leans down a little, to Scorpius' eye level. "Hello." He waves a hand and smiles at him.

Scorpius glances up at Harry, one little hand lifting tentatively in a twitch of a wave, but he doesn't reciprocate with any verbal response. His hand returns to the Hungarian Horntail toy he's clutching to his chest.

"Would you tell me how you're feeling now, Scorpius?" Harry asks softly, his head tipped down, brows raised. A small smile quirks at his lips, keeping his expression of a careful mellowness that he reserved for the children he used to speak with in his time as an Auror. "You gave us quite a scare there, you know."

Scorpius fidgets with his toy, biting his lip. When silence reigns, leaving Harry hanging, Draco answers in his son's place, low and civil, "He's all well now, Potter."

Harry nods with a smile that turns a little squinched at one side, his eyes dropping back down to Scorpius.  "Good. I'm glad."

...

It is the night that Draco assumes will be their last here at Potter's house, now that Scorpius is well. They're eating the last proper dinner they will have in a while here at Potter's table, and Draco's mind is already running restless and anxious about the next morning.

Scorpius, sat on a chair beside his own, pushes at his hand gripping the spoon back towards Draco. 

"Yes, yes, I'm eating too. I have my own plate right here," Draco murmurs to him with a sort of fond exasperation, taking his small hand in his own and kissing the palm of it quickly before letting it go. Scorpius has been doing this since they've been on the streets, since he's realized that sometimes there isn't enough food for the both of them, and it is as saddening as it is frustrating that he worries so much about things that are not for him to worry about. "What did I say? Little ones first."

If Potter or Teddy have ever thought their entire dynamic odd, they've refrained from saying a word. Draco imagines not everyone still spoonfed their five-year olds, but taking care of his son has been his one source of comfort at times, the one thing he's been able to put above whatever troubles his mind, and maybe it's just easier or maybe he just isn't so ready to let go of any aspect of that job or maybe it is some strange need to compensate for all that is wrong in his son's life, but even though Scorpius can eat fine on his own, it has never stopped.

"I've never known a kid who ate all his vegetables without a fuss," Teddy comments, looking impressed at Scorpius' ability to 'eat all his vegetables without a fuss'.

Potter smiles faintly, even as his bright green eyes flicker with something, the look of it singing a curious sort of tune, telling a curious sort of story.

Draco keeps his face blank and impassive, even as the guilt burns in his gut. Scorpius has hardly complained or caused trouble deliberately about anything since he was four and his father nearly lost his mind over him refusing to eat his vegetables.

Towards the end of dinner, as Scorpius is trying to hop off his chair, his hand accidentally knocks a glass of water right off the table.

And everything inside of Draco jolts cold as ice.

For a moment, Draco can only stare at the shards of glass scattering across the tiles, and he can't breathe or move or think, his heart pounding hard like it's about to burst out of his chest, terror and anxiety gripping at his throat. He is at Michael's house again, and it is his glass that Scorpius has knocked off from his table and all over his ground, and Michael is going to stand up, slow and falsified calm and silent, and maybe he will go after Scorpius or maybe he will go after Draco—

He really is your son, isn't he? Seeing as there isn't a fucking thing he can do right.

Draco blinks, and he is at Potter's again. He is just at Potter's. Potter, who might loathe Draco as Michael did, but isn't so cruel as to want to hurt Scorpius, and he will never hurt Draco in front of Scorpius either, so maybe—

Draco's throat convulses, his curled fingers quivering on the table. He lifts his head and glances at Scorpius, cannot, will not look at Potter, afraid of what (who) he might find staring back.

Scorpius is wide-eyed and shaking all over on the chair, his face drained of colour, staring right at Potter. His chin crumples and wobbles, pulling his mouth downwards, his eyes blurred and shimmery with tears.

Draco quickly slides off his chair to kneel beside him on the floor, only vaguely registering the glass shards digging into his knees. He grabs Scorpius' small hands in his own and rubs his thumb in circles over the back of his hands. "Scorpius, it's okay." He flickers his lips into a smile, and it feels terribly strange and off on his face. "It's nothing to worry about. Not—it's not a big deal, right? It's just an accident. Kids make accidents happen all the time."

Scorpius isn't looking at Draco, or listening. He just stares at Potter, trembling, and the first sign that something is wrong is the silence in the room.

Potter hasn't said a word.

"Tell him, Potter. It—it's alright, isn't it?" Draco's dry throat convulses hard, the tendons of his neck seizing from the force of it. He shifts his knees slightly on the ground, barely noticing the bite of the shards. 

He tries to maintain the smile on his face, for Scorpius, but it is quivering and on the verge of falling apart. The silence persists, and suddenly Draco isn't sure if it's alright anymore.

What if this is how far Potter's patience extends towards them? It certainly can't have been a great extent for Draco, whom Potter has a lot to hold against, years worth of hatred and grudges alone without Draco's actions in the war being taken into account, without him being who he is, disgusting and sickening to most people, to people like Potter.

But surely he won't... surely he won't take all of that out on his child, will he? He has been nothing but kind and gentle with Scorpius. It's Draco that he can't care less about, and—

He'll take it, maybe. If Potter really wants to...as long as it's not Scorpius, he'll take anything.

Draco suddenly wonders what he was thinking, turning to somebody who loathed him for help.

You really could do better with teaching your brat not to fuck up, you know?

—just as worthless as a father, it seems, as with everything else—

Draco frowns, blinking the blur out of his eyes as he glances down at his knees, at the miniscule pieces embedded into his trousers, scattered around him. His breaths are growing shallow and short and quick. He tries to bite the tremor out of his lips, trying to compose himself and keep the panic at bay. He looks up again and smiles at Scorpius, stroking his little thin arms. "It's fine. It's all fine. Say—say sorry to Mr. Potter, Scorpius, and then go to the room. Teddy will go with you, won't you, Teddy?"

...

There are some things that Harry thought he'd left behind nine years after a War, things that weren't supposed to affect him as much anymore after sorting them out with a Mind-Healer in countless sessions for years, things that, after having understood more about what he went through and how he could heal from it, he thought he was done with.

He didn't think he could ever feel like that child again, trembling where he stood as Uncle Vernon loomed over him.

But looking into Scorpius' face now, wide-eyed and pale and on the verge of tears that were desperately trying to be gulped down, he remembers. 

And suddenly, Harry is six again, carrying a pile of plates over to the sink, towards a tall stool, where he will stand and wash them as his aunt, uncle and cousin got ready for bed.

But he is tired, his body aching and overworked, and the pile of plates are too heavy for his arms, and so he falls and it all falls with him to the ground.

In a blur of dizzying motion and crashing sounds, he is on the floor on his hands and knees, surrounded by ceramic shards cutting into his palms. He is crying because his hands hurt and he got scared from the fall, but he can't cry too loudly because it makes Uncle Vernon angry and it makes Aunt Petunia annoyed and and it makes Dudley laugh.

There is a shadow growing bigger and bigger over him, booming footsteps that grew louder and louder. There is a grip in the front of his shirt that hauls him up with a nauseating speed, his uncle's face so red and bloated that there is a vein popping in his forehead, and he is yelling so loudly into Harry's face that his heart batters in his chest even harder with every rise in volume, terror and panic ice-cold throughout his body as he trembles and tries not to cry.

Later, it will leave him shaking and crying quietly all through the night, the constriction in his chest not letting him sleep.

And then he is back again, in his house at twenty-seven, staring into Scorpius' face.

Scorpius' breath hitches, one shallow sob leaving him, tears falling down his cheeks.

"Why is Scorpius crying?" Teddy asks, confused.

"I think he just got scared of the sound, Teddy," Harry said softly, his eyes not leaving the crying child.

"Oh." Teddy sounds concerned. He looks to Scorpius. "I could give him a hug. It'll make him feel better."

"Maybe later, yeah? I don't want you stepping on any glass, Ted. If you're done with dinner, why don't you go to your room? I'll be there in a minute."

Teddy glances at Harry for a moment. Harry twitches his eyebrows at him in a sign to not ask questions right now.

Teddy shrugs. "Yeah, okay. Goodnight, Mister Malfoy." Draco's head is bowed, but he gives a small, half-hearted nod. "Good night, Scorp."

And then he climbs off the chair and leaves.

Harry looks to Scorpius, who was now fully crying as more hitched, shallow sobs left him through twisted rosebud lips, his face flushed pink and his eyes glistening with tears. 

"Ple'se don' hurt my Daddy," Scorpius whispers shakily.

Harry frowns, doleful, and shakes his head. He slides off the chair and slowly lowers himself to his knees before the child, bracketing Scorpius' legs as he places both his hands on the edge of the chair.

"Hey." Harry's lips quirk into a small, soothing smile. "Nobody's going to hurt you or your Daddy, okay? You don't have to be afraid."

Scorpius' bottom lip wobbles, still contorted, bemused, and Harry can't stand that look on his face.

"You know, Teddy and I break things all the time," Harry says with a little laugh, closely observing Scorpius' face. "Teddy once threw a mug at me, so I would catch it, but it fell right over my head. And I once broke a table while playing tag with Teddy because I fell on it." Scorpius' face smoothes, but his eyes are still wet, his chin slightly scrunched, and that does not do. He imagines Draco is thinking something along the lines of, to be expected of you, Potter, at the stories, but when he glances over at the other man,  his head is bowed. "It's okay if you break things, you know, or if your Daddy does. They're just things. And if somebody hurts you for it, then they're wrong, and they're a prat." 

When Scorpius has gone to his room, after much soothing and persuasion and kisses to his face by Draco, Harry stands up and walks over to the counter, where he left his wand after making dinner.

He turns around to find that Draco is looking at him, rigid and tense and washed of colour, trembling hands clutching glass shards in the process of picking them up. His grey eyes flick down to Harry's wand, swallowing and blinking rapidly. He looks down to the mess on the floor and his hands frantically begin to gather up more glass shards—

"What are you—Merlin, Malfoy, stop. Stop it!" By the next second, Harry is knelt by the other man, gripping his wrists. "Let it go. I'm cleaning it up—" Draco's shaking hands open, then, letting bloodied shards fall to the floor.

Harry gathers all the glass with a simple cast of Reparo, all the shards coming together like it never broke at all, and then casts healing charms to Draco's legs and hands. It is the most effective due to his lack of skill in healing, leaving scabs and scars, but it has to do for now.

"Who was it?" Harry asks, quiet.

Harry's gaze follows Draco as he raises himself by the edge of the table painstakingly to sit on the chair, and then buries his face into his hands.

"Who hurt you?" 

Draco shakes his head, unable to speak.

Harry relents. The man is clearly not ready to talk about it, least of all with Harry, he imagines.

But he has to ask.

"Did they ever…" Harry's mouth goes dry, his breaths stilling for a moment. His throat flexes. "Did they hurt Scorpius?"

As soon as the question comes out, his heart flips into his throat.

Merlin, he's so small. Harry can't bear the thought—

Draco shakes his head, and then swallows and says through a scratchy throat, "I never let him."

Harry can only assume he was a lover.

Harry looks down to his hands. It seems that life has not been kind to the man in front of him after the War at all. Life had not been kind to many of the students at Hogwarts, but most of them had moved on and learned to make a life of peace and contentment for themselves in different ways. Not Draco, it appears. The world has not allowed it.

"You're safe here, you know. You and your son," Harry says to him after a long moment of silence. It is all he could do, perhaps, give them his home and let them know this. "Nobody's going to hurt you here."

Draco lifts his head up, and he looks at Harry, his silver eyes red-rimmed and raw. In that moment, Harry sees it all, sees all the years in them that have greyed out the loud and boisterous and overconfident boy he used to be in school, the heavy, red pain and sorrow that weighs him down, all right there in those eyes.

And there is something else, something unfathomable and almost mellow, that Harry simply can't name.

"Take him," Draco says, so quiet it's almost a whisper.

Harry stills.

Draco's face contorts painfully for the briefest moment, his face scrunching pink as he rocks forward slightly, like something inside of him just ripped apart, just by saying the words, before he schools his face into something stiff and controlled.

"My son," Draco clarifies. He clears his throat. "Take him. Just him. Give him a loving home, or find him one. You know a lot of good people that might—that might take him if you don't tell them he's mine, but you just have to make sure that they'll take care of him and treat him right—"

Harry's brows draw together, and he doesn't know what to say or think. "Malfoy, I don't—"

"I trust you." Draco nods, and inhales a shuddering breath that seems borne of rattling something fragile. "I was a little too late when it came to understanding this, Potter, but you are a good man. I—I know you'll take care of him. My son."

Harry sits there looking at the wrecked and hunched over man in front of him, and he still doesn't know what to say or think of this, because this is too much and too fast and all at once. Harry breathes out a soft breath, and right now, all he knows is this.

Draco looks like a man that's just about to hand over the only thing he has left, the only thing keeping him tethered here, and he is dying inside for it. Harry can do as Draco asks, find some way to give Scorpius another family the way his father wants for him, but he's not entirely sure what that will mean for Draco. Draco, who sings to his son and kisses his forehead like he is something precious and is painfully tender in the way he holds him against himself, whose whole world seems to revolve around Scorpius.

And Harry thinks if he had to hand over Teddy to somebody else, then Harry would hardly care for his own world to keep revolving either.

"Malfoy, think about what you're saying right now," Harry says, low and careful. "You can't possibly be alright with being separated from your son."

Draco blinks, hard and fast, and then frowns down at his knees. "He—he has seen too much for a child his age. I can't keep letting him."

Harry sees the cracks in that child. Scorpius is five years old and he has eyes that are older and far more aware of things than they should be.

"It's too much to ask, I know, but—" Draco breathes out, tremulous and desperate. He pushes his face into his hands, struggles to breathe and regain control for a moment, and then withdraws, blinking hard. His grey gaze is haunted and rigid, but his voice shakes, "Surely you agree that he deserves a better life than what I can give him."

"I don't think he wants it with anyone else."

"He won't ever have it with me," Draco scoffs, mirthless and rueful. He glances away, and then glances down at his hands, cut and scabbed. "I've ruined him."

"No you haven't."

"You like him." Draco looks up from his hands, doesn't acknowledge Harry's rebuttal. "I know you do. You just don't like me. If—" He pauses, trying to compose himself for what he's about to say, for what it will mean. "If it is what you want, you'll never see me again. But Scorpius—he's a good kid. He's a  really good kid. He won't cause anyone any trouble."

Harry has also seen the way Scorpius looks at Draco, like he is the one that keeps the world revolving. He doesn't know how Draco hasn't seen it, because he must not have if he can say these things, if he can believe anyone will make his son happier than he can.

"I understand that there isn't much I have that you could want, Potter," Draco mumbles. "But I will do anything."

Harry nods like he's heard him, careful and considering. Off to the side, his gaze is vaguely fixated on the spot where the wall and floor meet. "Anything?"

Draco glances up at him, weary and resigned.  "Anything."

"Stay, then."

In the haze of him in Harry's periphery, he can see Draco's head twitch up a bit higher from its bow. Harry looks up at him, and now he can see the pinch of the frown on his face, puzzled and incredulous as if this was the last thing he would have expected.

"Stay here." Harry shifts a bit closer, raises himself slightly on his knees as he does, trying to put the weight of his sincerity into his words. "Find your way into the world and give him that better life that you say he deserves, because he certainly won't want it with anyone else. The way your son looks at you, Malfoy… he won't ever be happy if it's not a life with you."

When Harry wakes up, Draco isn't home. His bedroom door is open a crack, showing the vacant space on the bed beside a sleeping Scorpius, and Harry tries to tell himself that Draco's just somewhere else as he scours every part of the house without calling out for him, not wanting to wake the kids up.

He doesn't find him anywhere, and the lurch of nauseating panic in his chest overtakes him as his mind frantically runs through the terrible scene of having to tell Scorpius that his father—

And then he sees the note on the dining table. Harry walks towards it with a dry mouth and clammy hands and a pounding heart, slow and careful as if everything will break around him if he takes a step too hard. His hands are still trembling when he picks it up and unfolds the crane.

Potter,

I went out to test the waters a bit, see what I can do about my situation. I'll be back soon.

DM

The note is vague, but Harry finally breathes, the relief loosening the vice-like grip of anxiety around his lungs.

A quick Tempus spell shows that it's half past nine, which is around the time Teddy should wake up. He goes over to his godson's room to check on him and finds him asleep, innocent and smooth-faced in his slumber and his hair his normal blond, just like Remus' was. 

The swell of the aching fondness in his chest tugs the corner of his lips as he comes to sit on the edge of the bed, just observing the peace and contentment on his godson's face.

Sometimes he looks down at him and he still sees a little baby that held Harry's finger with his tiny hand a month after the war and gurgled a smile at him, painfully unaware that the people that were meant to raise him into the wonderful child he was were gone, and Harry held him and cried into his hair for a long, long time after for the boy who'll never know the people that loved him more than anything in the world.

But Harry loves Teddy more than anything in the world too. Even if it may not be the same, he does.

As much as it had hurt then, to see that innocent and untouched smile, it had also felt like a sign sent down from the universe, that there are good things here, still, even after all the ruin and sorrow. There will be nightmares of war and death and grief, and bad days when Harry will doubt that he's any good as a godfather, and Teddy will look at other  families and see all that's missing in his own.

And there will be good days, good moments, like when Teddy will be one and he'll call him yee and he'll walk his first step towards him, and Harry, Ron, Hermione and George will make him laugh at the Burrows by playing peek-a-boo whenever Teddy puts his hands to his face, Oh Merlin, Teddy, where did you go? Teddy? Teddy! Oh, there you are! Your grandmum would have hexed us if we didn't find you. Teddy will laugh and laugh and laugh, open and uncontrollable squealing and from the gut the way babies do, his grin all wide and gummy and rosy-cheeked as he puts his little hands to his eyes again. They'll all slide on the floor in their socks on mornings to blaring rock tunes when Teddy learns to walk, Harry pulling him gently by his hands, and play Catch the Snitch all around the backyard of the Burrows with all the Weasley siblings (and no one will talk about Fred, but they'll all be thinking of him and about how much he'd have loved Teddy), and they'll all do everything to make sure that Teddy never feels short of love.

And on and on and on life will go, days to weeks to months to years, terrible and beautiful all the same.

Harry kisses Teddy's hair with the force of a painful nostalgia and adoration that hits out of nowhere at times (and sometimes confuses poor Teddy very much), stands up from the bed and then leaves the room.

He spends the next half an hour preparing for breakfast and being on edge at the thought of Scorpius waking up before Draco returns. Scorpius is clearly not used to being away from his father, and he doesn't know what to expect if Scorpius wakes up and becomes aware of his father's absence.

Harry hears short and quick pattering of feet from the corridor then, growing clearer and clearer as it comes closer to the kitchen. He knows the way Teddy's footsteps sound, and that is certainly not him, the feet distinctly much smaller and lighter. Oh, Merlin.

The pattering comes to a stop behind him, and Harry turns around to find Scorpius standing in the doorway in his pyjamas, his platinum hair flying all over from one side, clutching a broken dragon toy to his chest. He is staring at Harry, his lower lip wobbling in a watery pout, his cheeks flushed pink as he looks on the verge of tears.

Harry puts down the bowl of French Toast batter on the counter and begins to move towards him. "Scorpius, hey—"

Scorpius jerks back a hasty step with a cried out whimper of fear, and then he turns and disappears down the corridor, his tiny feet pattering against the tiles again, this time growing muffled and distant.

Harry rounds around the counters and rushes after him, afraid that he might end up falling and hurting himself with how fast he's running. He imagines that if Draco returns and sees even a hair out of place on his son's head—well, Harry doesn't want to be on the end of Draco's paternal wrath at all.

By the time Harry has caught up to him, Scorpius has closed himself into the wardrobe of his room, sliding the door shut frantically with a low thud. Harry, knowing that trying to open the door to carry him out will only scare him even more, only crouches outside of it and tries to talk him into coming out.

"Come on, Scorp. You can't stay in there—"

There is the sound of muffled hitching breaths, breaking into shallow, hushed sobs. The items in the room are rattling, a few things falling to the ground with a thud. "Daddy…"

"Hey, your Daddy's going to be back soon, okay? He'll be alright, I promise." Except now Harry is aware of the thought that Draco is out there alone and he has no wand with him, and his gut churns with fear and concern. What if something happens to him and Scorpius—

"I want Daddy..."

"I know. I know you do. But he had to go out for something very important. It won't take too long."

When no amount of soothing and reassurances appear to help, Harry puffs out a soft breath, drops down to the ground to sit against the wardrobe door, and tries to think of something else that can give comfort to Scorpius and, hopefully, ease him out of there.

Scorpius' greatest comfort is Draco, obviously, and it soon comes to Harry.

The lullaby.

He tries to remember the lyrics and the tune, something about falling cities, something about the sun and the moon and the stars, love and warmth and light, but he can't remember the correct placement of all the words and lines. The tune is a frustratingly vague and distant memory that he can't reach in his mind, and for nearly five whole minutes, he sits there as Scorpius cries quietly inside, trying to remember, testing tunes under his breath that keep sounding too off from what they should be.

When the tune comes to him just as an ache has started in his temples, the memory of it finally clicking into place, Harry begins to hum the low and soft melody that was at the start, just before the lyrics, and the end after, that went on and on and on until Scorpius had fallen asleep.

Eventually, Scorpius goes quiet, the sobs dying out as he listens, so Harry continues to hum Scorpius' song, much rougher and less softer than Draco and just a little too off, but it seems to be enough for the little boy hiding inside the wardrobe. The room calms into still around them.

"You're safe here," Harry says, after it's over, an echo of the words from last night, and he's willing to keep echoing them until Scorpius finally believes this. "You and your Daddy. Teddy might tackle you into a hug, so you should watch out for that." His lips break out into a small smile, lingering as he hopes for some response. It doesn't come. His smile fades, and he ducks his head, mouth squinching sadly. "But if anyone tries to hurt you, either of you... I will put them away. I used to be an Auror, did you know?"

Scorpius sniffs, but he gives no other response. It seems that he may be adamant on staying in there until Draco returns, and all Harry can do is stay with him and talk to him.

Harry sighs under his breath at the lack of further progress, leaning his head back against the door, and murmurs, "I'll take care of the two of you, okay?"

...

"Uncle Ron! Auntie 'Mione!"

Harry catches Draco's gaze from behind Teddy, his expression unreadable and guarded as he eyes the visitors that have just Flooed in from the fireplace. His arms go around Scorpius to nearly cover him up when his son climbs into his lap, tucking his head under his father's chin and hiding his face into his sweater.

"Teddy, my man!" Ron exclaims, crouching down as Teddy zooms past Harry to tackle him into a hug. Ron sways back a little with a laugh, but wraps his arms around Teddy tightly, his cheek pressing into the side of his head. When they let go of each other, Teddy hugs Hermione too around her pregnant belly, much more careful, and Hermione grins fondly as she encircles her arms as best she can around Teddy's shoulders.

Harry smiles as he stands up to his feet, and then steps towards them to greet them with a hug too, Hermione kissing his cheek in greeting. The exchange of visits between Harry and Teddy and the Weasley-Grangers, with all four of them together, has become a constant part of their lives nowadays. It wasn't so when life was much more hectic with their careers, Hermione as an Unspeakable, Ron as an Auror, and Harry staying home after he quit his job to care for Teddy, but now that they have much more time on their hands, it's a far more regular thing.

"How long now til we get Hugo, Auntie Mione?" Teddy asks, bouncing slightly on his feet.

Hermione smiles, glancing down to touch her belly. "Not too long now, Teddy. He's still got to grow a bit, but he'll be here soon."

"Oh," Teddy says. "Okay."

Harry flicks Teddy's forehead. "You say 'oh' a lot."

"Ow!" Teddy scowls and rubs at the spot. "So what if I do?"

"So get a new word."

"Why?"

"Teddy..." A low, forlorn murmur of a childlike voice reaches Harry's ears. He glances back at the Malfoys to see Draco murmuring something into his son's ear, brushing a hand over his curls in a soothing manner.

"Malfoy," Hermione says suddenly, just as Ron notices as well and glances over in the direction of the father and son.

The tenderness on Draco's face drains into something as blank and compartmentalized as before. He almost seems unaffected and apathetic, but Harry sees the taut muscles of his narrow and alert shoulders. "Granger." Draco nods at her, and then looks to Ron. "Weasley."

Ron nods at him in greeting, equally stiff and uncomfortable.

Harry thinks that they're about to collapse into a deeply uneasy silence, until Teddy, thank Merlin, speaks up. "Were you all friends in school?"

Ron breaks his stare away from Draco to look at Teddy. "Um...not—not quite."

"Oh."

"Teddy, do you want to introduce your cousin to us?" Hermione asks with a smile, a clear attempt at distracting Teddy from delving further into that topic.

"Oh yes!" Teddy then runs forward as Hermione and Ron follow at a more hesitant, slower pace. He wraps his arms around Scorpius from behind, resting his chin to his smaller shoulder with a grin. "This is my cousin, Scorpius." He leans forward and sideways to look into the smaller boy's face, but it's half smushed into Draco's chest, peering sideways at Ron and Hermione.

Hermione smiles and waves a hand at Scorpius, crouching ever so slightly, hardly much, to try to meet Scorpius' eyes. "Hello. I'm Hermione Granger. Just Hermione to you, of course. I'm—I'm Harry's friend."

Scorpius' green eyes fixate curiously upon her.

"Ron Weasley," Ron pipes up from behind her with a friendly smile, removing one hand out of his pocket to hold his hand up in a wave. "Also Harry's friend."

Scorpius curls up further into Draco's arm at the sight of him, fully turning his head away into Draco's chest again. 

"Oh, he's a shy one, is he?" Hermione murmurs with a small smile, unclear whether it is directed to nobody or whether it's to Draco, but simply feels as uncomfortable looking him in the eye as Draco seems to with her. The thick and viscuous tension in the room is nearly suffocating.

"Yeah, he's pretty quiet," Teddy says, having now released his cousin in favour of resting his hands on his shoulders. He plops down beside the Malfoys, so very oblivious of the fraught and strained dynamic between Draco and everyone. "But it's fine 'cause I talk enough for the both of us. Right, Scorp?" He pokes Scorpius in the shoulder, grinning widely as if he's trying to draw a smile from him.

Hermione waddles over to the couch, and Ron rushes forward to take her arms and to help her sit down. For all of Hermione's protests at the beginning of when she started having trouble lowering herself down, Ron hasn't stopped, and eventually, Hermione stopped protesting too. She rolls her eyes, exasperated and fond.

Ron stands up straight, then, glancing over at their strangely quiet—for Ron, at least, Harry's grown rather used to it—former childhood rival as he rubs the back of his neck. It's pretty clear that nobody knows how to act at the moment, except for Teddy, and judging by the unease on Draco's face, he appears to prefer that they stop trying as well.

For nearly the entire time they've all known Draco Malfoy, all of their interactions and encounters have been based on enmity and bitterness and anger, all of which had died down years ago after the War, when there were much more important things to focus on than such petty feelings of rivalry.

Malfoy was gone out of their lives completely not long after, too, and the negative emotions were all they've ever known with him.

Now that the foundation of what all their interactions were based on has gone, it's as if they don't know how to interact with him anymore. The hippogriff in the room of their complicated history is still there, it seems, hanging over them in the back of their minds, just old and trite and no longer of much invigorating emotion.

"Merlin, this is weird," Ron mutters under his breath. He then straightens, rolls his shoulders as if trying to release tension, and then breathes out deeply.

And surprisingly, he is the first to start a conversation with Draco, perhaps compelled by a strong need to break through this discomfort.

"So, er... what have you been up to all these years, Malfoy? I mean, we heard nothing about you for ten years, and now all of a sudden, you're—you know, here." Draco's gaze flicks up at him, one pale eyebrow arched. Ron realizes soon enough just how his words can be taken the wrong way. "Er... it's a genuine question. I mean, just curious as to where you've been all this—"

"Ron," Harry says, quiet and intent. Ron stops, brows drawing together in puzzlement as he glances at him. Later, Harry mouths discreetly. 

"Ah... you know what. Whatever. Just... guess it's just good that you're okay, then..." Ron trails off, awkward.

Hermione, having noticed their silent exchange, tries to shift the topic. "Where's Scorpius' mother, if—if you don't mind me asking?"

"No mother, Granger," Draco responds, and then sets his jaw in some sort of defiance and mental preparation, as if he's expecting mockery or backlash. "I conceived him."

Harry's face scrunches in a perplexed frown, but he doesn't want to voice his confusion, lest it turns out that this is a fairly common thing in the Wizarding World that Harry's never heard of. Even so, it certainly nags at him to wonder how. 

Ron beats him to it by sputtering out, "but you're... you know, like... a bloke. I mean..." Harry's relieved to know he isn't the only one who was ignorant of this. 

"It's not common, but I don't believe it's unheard of either, Weasley," Draco answers, unclear whether there is something of a taunt underlying his words or not. "Fertility potions."

"I had no idea those even existed," Harry mutters. 

"That is quite fascinating," Hermione says, and genuinely seems to mean it. "I see that he's inherited much of your own features, which I believe is due to the effect in which the genetic distribution of the one giving birth is much more prominent in comparison to the other party."

"Indeed," Draco says with a nod. It seems they've found their ice-breaker, then. "The Maternal Genetic Dominance effect."

Hermione leans forward in interest, the way she does when she's about to talk about intellectual topics that neither Ron nor Harry will understand a word of. "I remember reading something about—about how the potion makes it so that the combination of alleles that cause the characteristics of the one giving birth are emphatically inherited. Of course, if the other party has homozygous alleles of the dominant characteristics, then it simply can't be helped—"

Teddy, clearly no longer understanding anything of the conversation just like Harry, turns to Ron and says, "Uncle Ron, can we play Catch the Snitch?"

"Oh yeah, definitely, mate!" Ron stands to his feet with a pat to his thighs, looking rather relieved at the out he's just received.

...

Having the Golden Trio altogether in the same house along with Teddy is, Draco finds, noisy.

He's grown rather used to silence, to there not being anyone in the room besides himself and Scorpius, to the high and uncontrolled emotions churning his insides sickeningly when there is. He isn't used to this anymore, to noise and people and the terror and anxiety dulled down to a discomfort and guardedness that's more background than anything.

There is Granger talking to him, somehow like there isn't a terrible history lingering heavy and bitter between them, even if there is a decade's time between then and now. Draco doesn't know how she's doing it, acting like he hadn't had a hand in verbally oppressing her kind once, but he feels a shameful and conflicted sort of gratitude and relief for it, at the silent and unspoken forgiveness.

There is Teddy and Weasley, on the other side of the living room, bantering as Weasley brags about his captainhood of the Quidditch team in Eight Year.

"Yes, Uncle Ron!" Teddy groans out, all hyperbolically exasperated as he throws up his hands and looks heavenward. "I heard you the first nine years of my life."

There is Potter's laughter.

There is Potter laughing, open and carefree, his crinkling bright green eyes even brighter with mirth and amusement, his face set alight. Draco's breath catches in his throat, inexplicable as always.

By the next minute, there is a Golden Snitch whizzing all around the vast expanse of the living room. It is spelled to be of a much slower, more manageable speed, dodging furniture and obstacles as Weasley and Teddy chase after it, Teddy's delightful laughter is ringing all throughout. Potter lingers on the sidelines, leaning casual and relaxed and at home against the wall. His arms are crossed over the chest of his knitted ivory and teal sweater as he watches Ron and Teddy play with a faint, absent-minded half-smile, one curl of his wild ebony hair falling gently against the hinge of his round glasses.

Conversation with Granger faded off into a neutral silence some minutes ago. Together, they watch the ruckus as Weasley falls to his knees dramatically and cries out a, "No!" with his fists clenched up to the air.

Teddy is waggling the Snitch in his hand, feigning a wicked laugh, "Captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, my ars—"

"Edward Remus Lupin!"

Teddy halts to a still, cowering slightly as his wide eyes dart onto Potter's stern and scolding face. His expression takes on a sheepish downturn of his lips. "Sorry."

Draco bites back an amused smirk at the scene, glancing away. He shifts his attention to Scorpius in his arms, bending down slightly to see his face.

And his heart breaks.

Scorpius is watching the scene intently with a sort of wistful expression, a nearly imperceptible smile playing at his lips as he fidgets absently with the hem of his shirt.

Draco cranes his head down and kisses his face. Scorpius breaks away from the scene to look at him, the expression fading away.

"Go play with them," Draco says, brushing a hand over the side of Scorpius' hair to pull the curls behind his ears.

Scorpius shakes his head, burrowing his head back into Draco's chest.

"It'll make Teddy happy if you do." Scorpius has grown a clear attachment to Teddy, and vice versa. He talks about his cousin a lot when it's only the two of them, so Draco hopes it will convince him.

It doesn't. Scorpius just stares up into Draco's face, his gaze troubled and reluctant. 

"Nothing's going to happen if you detach from me for a while," Draco says with a small snort, and kisses the faint scrunch of his forehead. "Go have fun." But Scorpius shakes his head and clutches the stomach of Draco's jumper and he doesn't let go no matter how much Draco tells him to go.

In the end, it's the damnedest thing that makes him.

Draco puffs out a frustrated breath, caught between giving up and wanting his son to go be involved in something he clearly wants to be a part of, but won't let himself be. He lifts his head and catches Potter's eyes observing them closely, mostly observing Scorpius, with a contemplative frown. He must have understood something about what's going on, because he pushes himself off the wall, arms uncrossing from his chest as he does, and makes his way over to them.

When Potter has crossed the expanse of the living room and reaches them, he lowers himself down to a crouch in front of Scorpius, meeting green with green. "Hey. What do you say we play as a team, Scorp? I run, you catch?" Potter smiles and holds out an inviting palm, but Draco gets the feeling that they both know even an oncoming tornado won't make his son budge.

Or so they thought.

Scorpius glances up at Draco, looking troubled and uncertain again. Draco squeezes him close, leans forward to brush his nose against his with a pursed and soft smile, and then lets him go, giving his back a light, encouraging push. "Go have fun and let Mister Potter do all the grunt work."

Potter laughs a little with a flick of a glance up at him, the first time he ever has at anything Draco's said, and it does something strange to his heart. "Hey, I'm willing if you are, Scorp."

Scorpius takes Potter's hand in his, tentative but seizing it nonetheless. His hand is too small on Potter's palm, hardly able to curl around it, and Potter's grin is blinding and beautiful as he does—

Draco blinks and shakes the thought out of his head.

Potter picks Scorpius up carefully by the underarms, lifts him up high and onto his shoulders, hands gripping Scorpius' legs. "Ready?" Scorpius nods, even though Potter can't see it.

In the next second, Potter is charging into the ongoing game, yelling, "Step aside, people, we've got a new champion in the house!" 

Throughout the entire time, his boy is laughing as Potter holds him on his shoulders and runs around the house, laughing in a way that Draco can't remember him laughing in years, his pale rosy cheeks high and wide in a beaming grin, his eyes set alight. One of his little arms are wrapped around Potter's forehead tightly, the other one out for the Snitch.

They are clearly the slowest because Potter is trying so hard to be careful with Scorpius, running fast enough for it to be exhilarating for a five year old child, but not too fast and not making any swift turns. Weasley and Teddy are always just a little too far away, just a few steps behind from the duo.

They all make a big deal out of it when Scorpius catches the Snitch in his hand, jumping and whooping around him and chanting his name in victory, Granger joining in too with a grin as she claps in rhythm to the chanting, and then cups her hands around her lips and whoops loudly.

"Scorpius! Scorpius!"

Potter lifts Scorpius off his shoulders and over his head, lowering him down to his torso and then turning him around until he has him held against his hip, one arm under him and the other one around his back. Scorpius is grinning widely at Potter, open and unrestrained and exuberant, all baby teeth in full display, and Potter is grinning right back, blinding and beautiful. Breathtaking.

Michael had never looked at Scorpius like that.

And Draco knows why he trusted Potter, why he was willing to hand over the most precious thing Draco had in his life to him that night. He knew it already before, but he knows it even more now that if he did, Potter would have done everything he could to ensure his son lived a good life.

Scorpius twists around in Potter's arms to look at Draco, still beaming. Draco smiles back, his swollen heart a warm throb in his throat.

"What did it feel like?" Granger asks, looking at him, a residual smile still lingering on her lips. "When you had him?"

"It can't be explained," Draco says, simply. "You'll know when you have yours, Granger."

...

"...round glasses and bright green eyes, just like yours, Scorpius, and he had hair as black as raven birds…"

Harry halts to a stop at the sound of Draco's voice, dramatically soft and beguile, right outside the door of Draco and Scorpius' room.

He frowns in confusion. That description sounded an awful lot like…

Or he was mistaken, of course. There are many people in the world who can fit that description, and Draco certainly must have met a few people in the decade he'd been gone.

"He was a bit...?"

"Thick in the head," Scorpius fills in with a giggle.

"Yes, thick in the head." There is a smile in his voice.

Harry scowls. Well, he supposes that makes a bit more sense, if this does turn out to be about him that is, that Draco is telling his son fabricated stories that make Harry seem stupid.

"But he was also kind and brave and noble." Draco's voice quiets a bit, with something almost unfathomable and strange and far too mellow for a man like him when it isn't in relation to his son. Harry's heart startles, skipping beats like he's just about to fall off his broom from a great height. He reminds himself that this is most likely not about him at all.

"His name was Pot."

Oh.

Harry's eyebrows jump to his hairline, and now his heart does feel like he actually has fallen off the broom, his heartrate beginning to speed up to a pounding rhythm for a reason he can't quite explain.

He doesn't know what to think or feel about this, the idea that Draco tells his son stories about him at night in such a voice, the way he sounded when he called him kind and brave and noble.

And on and on go the tales of Pot, of his defeating the evil wizard as only a baby, of the two-faced man and the huge snake in the room and the evil wizard, of Pot defeating the Dark Lord once again with the help of his friends, Weasel and the Smart Witch, and putting away his followers. Some are borderline close to the truth, if mostly filled in by imagination, some clearly manufactured with only a vague knowledge of the gist, and some completely made up.

At the end of it, so quickly over that Harry has to pull himself back into reality as he lifts his head off the door and straightens, Scorpius says in a tentative whisper, "Daddy?"

Draco hums inquisitively.

"I think Mister Potter is Pot."

Silence.

"Oh," Draco says, sounding feeble and caught off-guard. "Do you think so?"

Scorpius makes an affirmative 'mhm' sound. "'Cuz he looks like him, an'—an' he use ta put away bad people too, like Pot does, and if you take away the ter in his name, then his name is Pot too."

There is silence again, and then the sound of a soft laugh, and the sound of a soft kiss.

"My boy is smart, isn't he?" Draco says, the depth of his fondness aching in his voice. "You know, I think you may be right."

It brings back memories of school, staying up at two in the morning, just like this, as they talk about everything and nothing.

Ron and Hermione are telling Harry about the nursery they've started to decorate in their home, adding touches of all the colours of the Hogwarts Houses, because even if they'd love for their son to end up in Gryffindor just to keep up the family tradition, they don't really care what House Hugo will end up in. They will love him no matter who he turns out to be.

Then the conversation devolves into all the new product ideas George's come up with for his shop. He has been ambushing Ron with them in order to test them. Ron tells them about the current captain of Holyhead Harpies establishing that Ginny is to be the next captain of the Quidditch team when she resigns in a couple of months or so, about Molly knitting a dozen pair of clothes for her upcoming grandson and Arthur already dreaming about all the things he'll teach Hugo, and the dinner at the Weasleys next Sunday when Charlie and Ginny will visit too, and going to Bill and Fleur's at the Shell Cottage the week after for Victoire's birthday.

When Ron excuses himself to the loo, Hermione takes the opportunity to gush about how amazing he's been throughout these last seven months, ever since he's found out about her pregnancy, even though she hasn't been making it easy on him at all because of her mood swings.

When Harry expresses his fears of doing wrong by Teddy, Ron and Hermione tell him, with a certainty and conviction that's reassuring, that he's doing well, that Teddy is amazing and it is in no small part because of you, Harry. It settles down some of the whirlwind of his anxiety.

They reminisce over old Hogwarts memories, the good ones, and remember all the people they lost, forever keeping them alive by the thoughts of them and how the grief may have lessened some, but love for them never will.

And then eventually the conversation lands on the topic that's related to all of today's events. Draco Malfoy and his son.

"Cute kid," Ron comments, absent-mindedly massaging Hermione's head where it's on his shoulder. "I'd have thought his children would have been a menace like he was in his school years, honestly, but... I mean, he's different, isn't he? Like really different."

"Awfully quiet, too," Hermione inputs.

"Yeah. I suppose we all changed after the war," Ron says, and then shrugs. "But I mean... he seems like a whole other person with his son." And then, as if he has just remembered something, he looks to Harry curiously, saying "Mate, you were going to tell us something, were you? About him?"

Hermione straightens. 

Harry isn't entirely sure if it's something he should even talk about, hence having kept quiet about it. But now that the topic has come up, the words press up into his tongue from the unsettled weight in his chest, and he finds himself telling them everything, properly, in a way he couldn't on a Firecall. He tells them about coming upon him on the streets, about Scorpius being ill, all the way to that night after dinner and what he thinks it may imply.

"Blimey."

Ron's speechless reaction encompasses much of his own feelings. Hermione's head has raised up from his shoulder, brows creased. They don't seem to know what to say.

"I wondered about how he was doing sometimes, with those ministrations in place." Hermione shakes his head. "It hardly even makes sense anymore to maintain those! Not when all the criminally dangerous Death-Eaters have long been dead or locked up in Azkaban. It's barbaric if it affects only those that were forced into that side of the war because of their family ties."

"Right," Ron agrees. "So it affects only those that weren't really dangerous at all, just under duress. It's basically useless in that case."

"Do you think I could do something about this?" Harry asks. "Talk to the Minister?"

"Yeah, he does have a great deal of influence," Ron says, looking to Hermione.

"Changing the laws is a bit much, Harry," Hermione says. "Even for the Chosen One. You can try, but I don't know if it will work."

"What about taking Malfoy's name off the Death-Eaters list, then? Asking them to no longer legally consider Malfoy as a Death-Eater?" Ron suggests.

Hermione nods. "That could work."

...

The next morning, Harry, Ron and Hermione traipse into the kitchen to the wafting scent of frying bacon and a table full of breakfast; eggs, buttered toast, hashbrowns, waffles and one plate full of sliced fruits, salad and nuts.

Harry, in his sleep-hazed mind, is incredibly confused for a couple of seconds as to how this all happened. He blinks his drooping and gritty eyes and lifts his head to find Draco bustling around in the kitchen.

Scorpius is sitting on a chair at the end of the table, bright green eyes peeking over the edge at them. The table is coming up to only half of his face, his little legs are kicking back and forth lightly underneath.

Harry comes to stand next to one of the chairs closest to Scorpius and smiles at him amicably. "May I sit here with you?"

Scorpius nods, the tiniest quirk of a smile lighting up his face. He leans over and pats down on the chair invitingly with one little palm, and then sits back again, legs still kicking to and fro.

Hermione lowers down on one of the chairs with Ron's help, who then takes a seat beside her. She huffs a surprised laugh. "Well, this is unexpected. I didn't know you liked cooking."

"It's a bit like potions," Draco comments with a shrug. He nods at the one plate full of leafy vegetables and fruits and nuts. "That's for you, Granger."

Harry is somewhat touched by the consideration, and so is Hermione, it seems.

When Draco's come to join them, pulling a chair between Scorpius and Harry, Ron says, "Harry tells me you're looking for a job."

"I am," Draco says. He wipes at a residual smidge on the corner of Scorpius' mouth with his fingers, and then cups a hand under his son's chin to feed him another spoonful.

"Well, how is it going?" Ron asks.

"It's—it's going. My options are rather limited, however, without my NEWTs, and it doesn't help either to tell them who I am, so..."

"Did anyone give you trouble?" Harry asks, straightening with concern and alarm.

"Nothing more than verbal, and nothing I haven't heard before," Draco answers, sounding unfazed. Even so, it still doesn't sit well with Harry. "They don't recognize me right off the bat anymore, at least."

"There's a lot you can still do without your NEWTs. We thought we could ask around in our circle," Hermione says. "I think they might have something for you, you know?"

Harry swallows down his food quickly. "The Patil twins have a clothing line. You could do something in the charms department there. If I remember correctly, you weren't the worst at it. Dean and Seamus started a wizarding tattoo shop in Diagon Alley, if you have a knack for arts. Or maybe Luna could take you up in the Quibbler, if you're any good at writing."

Draco pauses to look between them all in some combination of incredulity and hope. "You would—you would do that?"

"Of course," Hermione says, with a small, amicable smile.

Draco throws a quick glance over at Teddy and Scorpius, and then leans his head close to the nearest of the three of them, "And you think any of them will take me? After—"

"It's worth a try, right?" Harry murmurs back with a shrug. Draco is so close their temples are almost touching, and when Harry looks up into his eyes, he can see almost every speck of colour in them. "I can go with you if you want."

Draco's eyes meet his in return, one corner of his lips twisting in reluctance. He shakes his head. "No, it's fine."

"Not sure what you'll think of this," Ron says, hesitant. "But what do you think about trying your luck with—er, me and George? At the jokes shop?" The unease and uncertainty on his face matches Draco's, who glances over once more at the kids, silent.

Once Teddy and Scorpius are done with breakfast, and Teddy drags Scorpius off to play, Draco says, "I'm not sure that would be the best idea."

"Yeah, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure about that either," Ron says. "I can tell you that I've forgiven you for, you know—everything. More for myself than you, honestly, but yeah, I'm past all that now. And in the end, we were all just kids that got caught up in the war, and you just got caught up on the wrong side of it so, really... I don't blame you."

Draco nods. "I understand it's been years, but for what it's worth, Weasley, I am sorry about your brother. I was sorry then too."

Ron nods back in acknowledgment of his words, his mouth squinching in a rueful sort of gratitude. "Like I said, I don't think any of that is on you. But I don't know about George. I don't know how anyone in my family's going to feel about it, because we never really talked about you or your parents. The closest we discussed you lot was with Andromeda, once, just weeks before she passed. She said she missed your mum and wished she had gone somewhere and—you know, said goodbye."

"Yeah, I owled your mother that day," Harry says as he glances over at Draco. "But the letter came back unopened, so we figured, you know... she didn't want to..."

Draco blinks, something unreadable flashing across his face. He schools it away, all neutral and guarded once again, and then he nods. "I see."

The conversation fades into an odd and unpleasant sort of silence. Draco stands up and begins to gather the dirty plates. Harry stands up too and helps him clean up the mess, fully intending to do his own dishes, but before he could take them from Draco, the man had already moved away from him, quick as a blur.

"How is your mum anyway?" Harry asks, standing awkwardly at the table as he watches Draco move over to the sink, just to break through the strange energy that's taken over the room. He's already missing the somewhat civil and easy dynamic they were having a few moments ago. 

Draco puts the dirty dishes down on the counter, and he doesn't look up as he fills the basin with water and begins to clean them. 

"She's dead."

The room falls into a confounded silence at the blunt and terse revelation. 

"I'm sorry, Malfoy," Hermione is the one to speak.

"What happened?" Harry asks.

"Poison."

Draco is brusque about it enough that he almost seems unaffected, if Harry didn't already know how close he had been to Narcissa in the momentary glimpses he'd seen of the mother and son, if he didn't already know that she had loved Draco so much she lied straight to Voldemort's face so that she can run into a school in the midst of war for her son.

Harry throws a glance over at Ron and Hermione, both of them just as stupefied as he is. Did someone poison her? Or had she... it seems wrong to ask.

He walks up slowly until he's standing next to him. He can't see the upper half of his face, hidden by white-blond locks falling over his profile from where his head is bowed adamantly over his task. "When did this happen?"

Draco pauses, his lips pressed together in some unfathomable, exasperated sort of emotion, like he doesn't want to talk about it. "Eight years ago."

"But how did we not know? I mean, we would have heard about the funeral from Andromeda, at least, right? She was her sister." Hermione's saying, and then she frowns. "Unless you didn't—"

"I did," Draco says, still in that carefully crisp and terse tone. "I owled everyone my mother knew, but a lot of people didn't come. Andromeda was just one more."

Silence drapes over them for a moment, as they take this new information in. It seems that Andromeda was the first to not want to reconcile with her sister, then, even if it had been at her funeral, perhaps out of unbearable sorrow and remorse and an immense need to let go, for the last time, of what she had let go a long time ago.

Eight years ago.

That's two years after the war, which had still been rather fresh in all of their minds, even then. People were still haunted and bitter and angry, still afraid and wary, still seeing Mind-Healers and trying to work past all that had happened and all that they had seen. There were still people by then that weren't ready to return to school to complete their NEWTs. Some of them went to other schools, but some of them couldn't afford to go anywhere else and came back years later to complete their final year. Discrimination against Slytherins were still high during that time, and many of them, including most of the people that Harry remembers were Draco's friends, were still off the grid by then—

Harry blinks. "Did—did you have anyone with you when it happened? A—a friend?"

Draco breathes slowly, puts down the cloth and the dish he was drying with a calmness that seems deliberate, as if he's trying not to slam it down instead. When he looks up at him, his grey eyes are red-rimmed and flat, his jaw set, and Harry is startled. "Why are you asking me all this?"

Just as Harry's about to open his mouth, not even sure what he'll say, Scorpius comes pattering into the kitchen. Draco's face smoothes completely upon the sight of him. He crouches down just as Scorpius reaches him, his fingers gripping his father's sleeve and trying to tug him in the direction of the door.

"What's wrong?" Draco asks with a frown, brushing one consoling hand over his son's hair. Scorpius pulls insistently on his sleeve again. "I'll be there in a bit, okay? I just have to clean up—"

Harry shakes his head quickly, slipping over to stand in front of the sink. "I'll take care of it. You go see what he wants."

...

"Past feuds and personal feelings aside, Malfoy," George Weasley is saying. "Ron's put in a good word for you, which was... shocking, to say the least. He says you've always been brilliant at potions, and lucky for you, we are looking for someone who's skilled in that particular field. We had Sheila up until a week ago, but she resigned when she found a better job, so that's been left to me nowadays, and while I'm not terrible at it, I won't mind doing without that part of the job."

Draco certainly doesn't mind doing that part of the job. The best part of it will be that he won't have to be at the forefront of the shop, where people can see him.

It's been a long time since he's dabbled in potions, but Ron said that the products they create don't usually require more than OWLs level knowledge. He did have mostly Os in all his subjects and an E in Defense Against the Dark Arts, which is more than enough qualification for the job, and he doesn't mind putting in the time and effort to build his skills back up.

"If I give you this job, I won't tolerate any sort of disrespect against my staff or customers from you. Ron tells me you've changed, and I'm sure you have, but I have yet to see that myself. So fair warning, if you cause any trouble in here, you're out, Malfoy."

Draco nods. "Fair enough."

George leans back in the chair as he shrugs, his fingers tapping on the table of his office, which is scattered with ideas in the form of formulas and sketches and instructions. "Guess you're hired, then. You start Monday at nine."

When Draco is alone to have a look at his new potions laboratory in the back of the shop, he leans back against the cabinet full of ingredients, the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes as he breathes and shakes with overwhelming relief and fear, praying to whatever that this time—this time, it all works out.

 ...

Ever since Draco confirmed Scorpius' 'Mister Potter is Pot' theory, he's noticed a significant change in the way Scorpius sees and interacts with Potter. Whenever Potter is in the room, Scorpius' eyes are alight with an admiration and hero-worship that Draco simultaneously envies as well as finds endearing, simply because it's good to see Scorpius wanting to open up to another adult that isn't his father. In a vague, passing thought, he thinks of how history repeats itself, but this time towards something better than what it had been with him, it seems.

Potter always makes a point to involve Scorpius into everything, and Draco can appreciate that because despite his son's hesitance to leave Draco's side each time, he can see that it makes him happy. Teddy, too, always wants to play something or the other with Scorpius, some board game like Wizarding Ludo, which is somewhat less about strategy than chess and more suited to his son once he's learned the rules, or acting out amusing scenarios using the toys with his cousin or something new that he's made up himself.

On Saturday, Potter and Teddy go out to the zoo and they take Scorpius along with them. This means that Draco is forced to come along as well for his sake, even though he knows it'll be a terrible idea to be around muggles after what the Ministry's done with him. He worries that the symptoms of the barring curse will begin to show too soon, which will most definitely end up ruining the entire trip for everyone else, but he can hardly say no when his son is clearly wanting to go even if he won't say so. Thus, there isn't much choice left, but to hope that they'll be back sooner rather than later.

Scorpius has warmed up to Potter enough to hold his hand on the footpaths, toddling next to him as his much shorter legs try to keep up with Potter's bigger steps. 

Draco trails behind with Teddy rambling on beside him about everything. He listens, responding every now and then with a comment of his own, with interested interjections and nods. Scorpius keeps glancing over his shoulder at Draco every few seconds, but ultimately is fine so far about holding somebody else's hand on the streets as long as Draco's within sight. Surprisingly, maybe only because it's Potter, Draco is too.

The malaise, unfortunately, doesn't take all too long to prickle under his skin and sink into his gut, the first signs of the curse before it will eventually grow deeper and worse the longer he stays closely among muggles.

For now, Draco can only attempt to distract himself from it all. He watches as Potter picks Scorpius up, one arm around his back and a hand under his thigh to hold him against his hip, so that Scorpius can see better over the fence at the lions. Potter points at a sleeping baby cub in the far end, saying something to Scorpius with a smile, who is smiling down in reciprocation at Potter, the bright green of both their eyes speckling with golden in the sunlight.

There is a tug at Draco's sleeve. He looks down to find Teddy, whose hair is blue with the colour of his curiosity.

"Mister Malfoy, do you think I would be in Gryffindor?"

"Do you want to be?"

Teddy shrugs. "Harry says that all Houses are great in their own way, but I think, yes, because my Dad was in Gryffindor too. But Harry thinks I could be in Hufflepuff, like my Mum. So I guess I want to be in either of those Houses."

Draco hums in agreement, trying to focus over the physical unease as well as the emotional unease, the pang of guilt that comes with every mention of Teddy's parents. Sometimes he's not sure if he should even be in this child's life, but he can hardly turn away the last of his family. "You could be in either of those, yes. I see both of them in you. Or you could be in Ravenclaw, seeing as you're quite creative and intelligent."

Teddy smiles, beaming at the praise. "Do you think so?"

"Absolutely."

"What about—Slytherin?"

Draco isn't sure if it will be a compliment to affirm that. Teddy doesn't seem afraid or opposed to the idea, but eventually he will hear things about that House, so he goes with the safer answer. "I don't think so, no. I think you would be better suited to the other three Houses." 

"Oh," Teddy says. "Okay."

Draco realizes, then, how that might have sounded. The last thing he wants to do is make Teddy feel short of some quality. "Not that you're not quick witted or clever or ambitious, of course, just that—"

"What's an ambitious?"

"Someone who has big dreams."

"I have big dreams!"

Draco nods with an amused smirk. Teddy does have big dreams, but they're never fixed and certain, always changing from one thing to another. One day, he wants to be an Auror, just like Harry used to be, and the next day, he wants to be working with magical creatures. "You do. Everyone has some qualities of every House, but some are just more—clearer than others, I suppose. Personally, I say you're more a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff than anything."

"Oh, okay." Teddy then looks out into the cage again. Potter and Scorpius have gone off to look at the giraffes two exhibits down. Scorpius has his arms raised up high, as if to comment on how tall they are, and both of Potter's eyebrows lift up as he gapes hyperbolically, feigning wide-eyed awe. "What House were you in, Mister Malfoy?"

Draco pauses at the question. Someday Teddy will hear things, and what if he will see Draco that way too, then? Then again, there are a whole host of other things, besides the things he'll hear about people of the Slytherin House, that Teddy will hear about Draco. So even if he may not be proud of himself, but he is still proud and fond of his Hogwarts House. "I was a Slytherin."

"Oh. Cool. Do you like snakes?"

Draco hasn't liked snakes since he met Nagini, really. "Not quite."

"Oh, okay."

"Do you?"

Teddy frowns in contemplation. "I don't know. I like lizards more. I tried to keep a lizard as a pet, but he ran away." And then he lights up the way he does when something exciting has just occurred to him, his hair turning purple under the Disillusionment Charm that prevents muggles from seeing the changes. "Oh hey, Mister Malfoy, did you know that Harry can talk to snakes? He once set a snake on his cousin, by accident, of course, he didn't mean to, he didn't know he was a—a…"

"Parselmouth?" Draco supplies, amused. To be expected of Potter, really, to do something just like that.

"Yes! A Parselmouth!"

Teddy then begins to tell the whole story of Harry inadvertently siccing a snake onto his cousin from the start. Draco's head begins to spin half-way through the tale, his stomach aching and swirling with nausea. He leans sideways against the fence to ease the weight on his feet, his body growing cold and weak, and tries his best to pay attention to the child in front of him as his voice grows faded and distant, the laughter and chatter of the surrounding muggle men and women and children making his temples pound with a sharp, rhythmic throb.

…

Scorpius twists in Harry's arms, his lips downturned in a distressed, pouty frown. He began to grow restless soon after Harry caught him looking for Draco again, who is still in sight, but remained next to the lions as Harry and Scorpius looked at the next couple of exhibits. Teddy is waving his hands and arms in wild gestures due to an intense storytelling.

"Let's get Teddy and your Daddy before we go see the reptiles, yeah?" Harry says, ruffling Scorpius' snow-blond curls, and then begins to make his way over to Teddy and Draco.

By the time Harry and Scorpius are about to reach them, Teddy's arms have fallen to his sides. From up close, Harry can see, with a quiver of alarm and concern, Draco appearing ashen and ill.

"Mister Malfoy, you don't look well…"

Draco huffs and shakes his head, in an attempt to reassure Teddy that all is well, even as he sways on his feet, hands gripping the rail of the cage behind him with all his life as he swallows hard, the tendons in his neck seizing as if he is trying not to be sick.

And then he drops to the ground.

"Harry!" Teddy shouts, turning frantically with panicked eyes roving around in search for him, until they settle on Harry right in front of him some distance away. He breaks into a hasty run, then, and quickly places Scorpius down next to Teddy, who immediately wraps himself around the smaller boy.

Harry drops down in front of the other man. People are beginning to turn their heads, and Harry's heart pounds as he wonders how he'll get Draco out of here without any magical transportation. In a time like this, he regrets not bothering to get a driver's license and a car.

"Daddy..."

"It's okay, Scorp," Teddy murmurs.

"Malfoy?" Harry touches a hand to Draco's face. He is cold and shivering, appearing on the verge of passing out.

Harry clamps down on the rising panic, trying to keep a level-head. "Can you walk?" He has to get them somewhere hidden, where they can use the wrapped up portkey in his pocket.

Once they are all on the living room of the house, Harry helps Draco over to the couch and looks back over to Teddy and Scorpius, dazed by the portkey and still shaken.

"It's fine. Everything's going to be just fine, okay?" Harry tells them, steady and calm, and then stands up to make his way to the fire. He can call over Hannah Abbot, maybe.

"Potter," Draco rasps, feeble, as he grabs at his shirt. "It's nothing. There is no need—"

"Well, it didn't look like nothing," Harry snaps, stressed and afraid, and Draco flinches. Harry exhales a slow breath to steady himself, lowers his voice and says, "You look like shite."

"It's just muggles."

Harry stills, frowning in puzzlement. The relation to this and muggles makes no sense to him whatsoever.

"I can't be around muggles too long. It was a part of my—" Draco's throat convulses, glancing over at Teddy and Scorpius standing some distance away, closely watching them with wide gazes. He lowers his voice, "My verdict. Do you remember?"

Harry doesn't remember, in fact, with a fair amount of remorse and shame. The trial wasn't too long after the War, and at that point, he was too out of it to pay much attention to anything around him besides that Malfoy wasn't going to Azkaban. That seemed to be good enough then, but suddenly it doesn't seem that way anymore.

"The Ministry… they did something to me after. They put some curse on me that makes it so that I can't be around muggles without getting ill."

"Merlin, that is fucked up." Harry blinks, his brows drawing together in disgust and anger. "That basically means you can't be out in more than half the world."

"Yes," Draco says, and he looks at Harry with some obscure, curious sort of expression. "I'll be fine in a few hours. Just—look after Teddy and Scorpius, okay? I think they're scared."

"Well, obviously they are! Why didn't you say something about this before?"

"Scorpius—he wanted to go with you and Teddy, that's why. He wouldn't have gone without me." Draco purses his lips together in a thin line, and then sighs. "I... I didn't think it would get bad this fast."

Harry's face softens. "Fuck, Malfoy."

He gets a blanket from one of the bedroom upstairs, drapes it over Draco, and then sets off to console Scorpius and Teddy, crouching down upon reaching them and pulling them into each of his shoulders.

…

Scorpius clambers over onto the couch and curls up into the side of Draco's ribs, clutching his torso tightly.

"I'm okay," Draco whispers down to him as he folds his arm over his son, and then kisses the top of his head. "I just got a bit sick, is all."

Scorpius nods, even as he sniffs into his collarbone. Draco pushes a hand through his curls, turning his head down to look at him.

"May I have a kiss?"

Scorpius leans up on his chest and drops one little, damp kiss to each of Draco's cheeks.

"Two kisses?" Draco smiles, his eyebrows arching in feigned, merry surprise. "I'd have felt better with just one, you know. Now I feel even better."

Scorpius still seems a bit too shaken to smile at that. Draco puffs out a sigh, pulls him back down into his chest with a squeeze and kisses the distress on his forehead.

"Mister Malfoy?"

Draco looks up to see Teddy's head hovering over the back of the couch, his big brown eyes worried and afraid.

"I thought you were dying," Teddy whispers, tremulously.

Draco doesn't know whether to find the extreme assumption—or so he hopes it's extreme, he's obviously never stayed around muggles long enough to find out—amusing or to feel bad about it. His poor nephew sounds so afraid, however, that he can't help but be more inclined towards the latter.

"Not dying," Draco reassures. "Just ill."

"Can I come too?" Teddy asks, with some plea for physical comfort so deep that Draco can't say no even if he wanted to. He doesn't want to, of course. He's fairly certain he already loves the boy like family, even though he hasn't known him all too long.

With that, he sighs and prepares himself for the discomfort of cramped space and too much heat underneath his blanket and sweater. He lifts Scorpius onto his chest and scoots inward to make space for Teddy on the couch, who immediately runs around and climbs up and fits himself into Draco's side, his green curls tucked under his jaw.

Not long after, Potter comes over, hovering over the back of the couch the same way Teddy was. His mouth quirks into a smile, highly amused at the cuddlefest happening at the moment.

"Come to join as well?" Draco asks wryly.

Potter laughs slightly, and Draco's heart startles as it always does, every bloody time the bastard laughs at anything he says. "Tempting," Potter's emerald green twinkle with mirth. "but then we'll all either tumble off the couch, or you'll asphyxiate, neither of which sound appealing, I'm sure."

Scorpius twists his head up from under Draco's chin to look up at him, all rumpled curls and doe green eyes that Draco already knows Potter is as helpless to as he himself is, and he whispers, "You can come too."

Potter hesitates for a moment. He shoots a glance at Draco, who shrugs in an insouciant manner, jostling Teddy's head just the slightest bit as he does. He can hardly discourage Potter from doing as Scorpius asks.

"Okay, Scorp."

And like a man all wrapped around Scorpius' little finger, Potter has plopped down on the rug next to the couch by the next minute, leaning his bird's nest of a head against Teddy's back. 

Salazar, this is absurd.

On a particularly restless night, when Draco can't sleep, he carefully untangles himself from Scorpius, climbs out of bed and onto his feet and pads out of the room.

He needs something productive to do, something to get his mind off his thoughts, to get out of his body and forget himself for a while.

To forget a lot of things.

So he cleans. He starts with the kitchen first, setting the scattered items and supplies, the washed dishes and cutlery left next to the sink from dinner, back into the cabinets in neat arrangement and order. He rubs at the stains left on the table and begins to wipe down the counters with a cloth until it is polished and spotless.

"Malfoy?"

Draco jumps, frozen and tense for a whole moment at the abrupt cut through the pure silence. The voice is groggy and rough, and he relaxes when the identity of the owner registers in his mind. He mentally shakes himself and resumes his task, his gaze rooted to the task at hand. "Potter."

There are footsteps nearing him from behind, hushed pads of feet against the tiles. In the next second, the hazy form of Potter is standing there in his peripheral vision, where he's leaned his hip against the side of the counter, one shoulder hitched up slightly to somewhat support his inclined head, still not quite out of the daze of his slumber.

Potter sighs. He is standing a little too close. "What are you doing?"

Draco finally looks up to see a very muddled and dishevelled Potter, wild ebony hair flying all over and his bright green eyes, looking even bigger from the swell of slumber, squinting at him in his half-asleep state. One corner of his plain grey shirt is tucked slightly into the waistband of his black sweats, slung low around his narrow hips. Draco's lungs feels a bit tight, his breaths slightly smothered as they catch in his throat, something hot settling into the bottom of his gut at the sight.

Draco snorts and arches his eyebrows in an expression that probably clearly asks, what does it look like? Until he remembers himself. He shakes his head, glances back down to the cloth fisted in his hand and begins swiping it over the counter again, scrubbing hard at a particular spot of dried filth. "Cleaning, Potter."

There is a long silence from Potter, and then a, "it's fucking four in the morning."

"I see," Draco says, and then continues wiping down the counters. Potter is standing a little too close and it's making it a little hard to breathe, so he's somewhat relieved to be able to step away from Potter to move on to the next adjoined counter.

Potter doesn't say anything anymore, but Draco feels his gaze boring into him. There goes his nerves again, being on edge in conflicted kinds. He does this often, usually from afar, when he thinks Draco doesn't notice, but he's noticed his eyes skitter away from him quickly whenever Draco catches him. He doesn't know what exactly Potter is thinking when he does, but on the bad days, he worries that it isn't anything good.

When he gets sick of it, of the silence and Potter's relentless, half-mast scrutiny, Draco places both his hands on the top as he pauses his cleaning, schools his face into a blank civility as he musters up scraps of courage, and then meets Potter's eyes, "Do you need something, Potter?"

Potter startles, and then shakes himself, straightening to his feet. "No. I… sorry. I just zoned out, is all."

Draco nods, slowly. "Okay."

Potter then goes quiet again for a moment. "You look tired," he says, softly. Rather obvious, seeing as he's up at four in the morning. "Not just now, but..."

Draco doesn't know how to really respond to this. His sleeping patterns haven't been their best for years, but Potter, who is meant to have the observational skills of a brick, is the last person he would have expected to notice. "I get enough sleep."

"Why aren't you asleep right now?"

Draco contemplates on how to best answer, and decides on an insouciant shrug. "Can't."

And that's that. And then Draco keeps on working and Potter, for whatever reason, keeps on watching.

The next time he speaks, Draco is getting ready to scrub the floors.

"You do realize that I could just—you know, wave a wand, say a few words, and be done with it in several minutes at most?"

Draco shoots a side-eyed glance in his direction. It sure doesn't look like he bothers to enough with the state of the house, but he can hardly say that. He then kneels down on the ground, pulling the bucket full of soapy water closer.

"Yes, okay. So I'm a bit of a lazy bastard when it comes to these things, and this does make it a whole new level," Potter concedes with a small, sheepish sort of smile. "I mean, I do clean, just...not everyday? But this... I mean. I'm just not entirely inclined to allow my guests doing my housechores."

It is a sort of habit, a familiarity that's almost comforting, even though Draco initially loathed to do it all for a long time, swathed in a burning indignation and humiliation by the parts of him that only knew being surrounded by house elves to do all this work, as if he himself was being treated like one. He did it anyway, if only out of some mixture of a desire to gain approval and love and, eventually, anxiety and fear of his husband's wrath and disparaging.

His husband. Still his husband. Draco is still tied to him by legality and marital bonds.

Mostly, he just needs to move, to do something to get his mind to focus on anything but what it keeps going back to. Physical activity, busy hands, demanded focus keeps his mind from drifting towards thoughts of cold and pale bodies with empty vials in a bed and another green-eyed man in another small house, who once kissed him until he smiled again and loved him when no one else ever could again and told him he made him sick and hurt him in front of his son—

Potter waits for a response, and when none comes, he averts his gaze awkwardly, scratches the back of his neck, and then pushes off from the edge of the kitchen counter, seemingly done with the now rather one-sided conversation. "Okay, um… but well, you should know that the only thing you need to worry about here is getting back on your feet, and about Scorpius."

"Thank you, Potter," Draco says, when he doesn't know what else to say, but he finds that he really does mean it when he does.

Potter nods, discomfitted, and they collapse into silence yet again.

When there's nothing else said, Draco turns away and to the task at hand, kneels down to the floor and gets to scrubbing soap. The silence persists until Draco thinks Potter might have left, until Draco twists his upper body around in his cleaning and finds Potter staring at him again, or somewhere below him—Potter's eyes flick up from wherever up to Draco's face, and there is a faint tinge of mortification spreading across his face. Before Draco can dwell on it long enough, Potter's clearing his throat and speaking again.

"So er… you're… you're supposed to stop...now…" Potter says, awkwardly. "You know what? I'll just…"

Draco raises an eyebrow when Potter leaves the kitchen.  He returns a moment later with his wand in hand.

He keeps his body as deliberately relaxed as possible when it tries to stiffen up, his muscles growing rigid and tense, his heart beginning to speed to a battering in his sternum. It's just Potter. It's just Potter, and Potter won't hurt him, even if Scorpius isn't here, and Draco knows that now—

"I'll just clean up right now, and then you can..." Potter's mumbling. He lifts his wand, says Scourgify several times and other cleaning charms that leave the kitchen spotless and polished all over.

But Draco doesn't want him to do this, because then he'll go back to a mind racing full of thoughts and a gut loaded with remorse and a chest full of sickening sorrow and anger whenever he looks at his sleeping son and thinks of all the pieces Michael left of himself in him—

Draco sighs. "Potter."

Potter was about to leave the room to tidy up the other rooms, but he pauses at Draco's voice, turning around to look at him with a curious eyebrow.

He feels a bit stupid for what he's about to ask of Potter, who will definitely think he's gone batty. "Leave it."

Potter blinks, brows drawing together in confusion. "Why?"

He doesn't answer for a moment, and then sighs. He decides to opt for honesty, because it is the only thing that will make sense now. "I just need to keep my mind off some things," Draco says. "This is helping."

"Oh..." Potter's expression shifts into one of understanding, and then grows into something mellow and rueful. He rubs at the back of his neck, but makes no move to leave, which should be his cue to right about now.

"Leave now, will you?" Draco says, growing rather impatient and irritated with Potter's hesitant lingering and all his awkwardness smothering the room.

Potter stares at him for another moment, still rubbing at the nape of his neck in discomfort. He then turns around slowly, finally, and then heads towards the door, his bare feet scuffing against the tiles.

Draco turns back to the very polished floor, and the scuffing of Potter's bare feet stills.

"I'm going to set myself on fire," Potter mutters in a heavy, longsuffering exhale. Draco frowns and looks up, and Potter turns right around and marches back into the kitchen with a renewed energy, grabs a mug from his newly ordered cabinets and makes himself coffee in the span of a minute with the help of his wand and swallows it all down in one gulp.

And then he turns around to Draco with a clap of his hands. "Alright. Let's do this."

...

When Harry walks into the study room slash library, he finds Draco standing at the bookshelves, distracted by a thriller novel authored by a wizard, Magnus White. 

Hermione has long ago stopped hounding him about arranging his books in an alphabetical order, insisting that it'll make it easier for him to find what he's looking for, but it seems Draco is now adamant about unknowingly filling her wishes.

"Hermione will love you for this," Harry comments with a snort as he comes to a stop beside him. "Do you like reading fictional novels?"

"I used to," Draco says, not looking up from his reading. "It's been a while since I have."

Harry throws his arms in a wide gesture of the entire bookshelf. "Feel free. I've got novels by both muggle and magical authors. I'll say muggles certainly have far more variety and creativity, so I reckon you'll enjoy those far more."

"I honestly never took you to be the reading type, Potter," Draco says with a snort, glancing up at him with eyebrows raised to convey bewilderment.

Harry shrugs. "I like reading. I read all my books before I came to Hogwarts, actually," he says. "I just don't like reading anything that's not to my taste, I suppose."

Draco nods, and then goes back to reading the page of the book.

Harry catches sight of the spine of a familiar book, one that swells his heart with fond memories and nostalgia. He smiles softly and reaches for it, index finger on the top of it, and his thumb and middle finger wedging into the space between books to hold it, and tugs it out of the shelf.

It's a muggle book about two hares, one younger and the older, who competed in telling the other how much they loved them. I love you down the lanes and across the river. I love you across the river and over the hills. I love you right up to the moon.

I love you right up to the moon... and back.

Teddy used to say Harry was the Big Nutbrown Hare, and he himself was the Little Nutbrown Hare, and one day, on the anniversary of the day Tonks and Remus passed away, Harry had whispered to him after he finished reading the book, I love you to the moon and back, Teddy. And Teddy had smiled, still unaware of the true sorrow of that day, and Harry had kissed his little forehead with the force of his heartaching love. It became their thing from then on. Teddy doesn't need bedtime stories anymore to sleep, but he still waits for Harry's, I love you to the moon? so that he can finish it with, and back.

"This was Teddy's favourite book up until he was six," Harry says softly, still smiling. He opens it and begins to thumb through the pages.

Draco looks up and at him. He then looks down at the book in Harry's hand, craning his head slightly to see it, clearly wanting to know his nephew's favourite childhood book. Harry holds it out to him, and he takes it. He thinks Draco might find it incredibly soppy, but then again, this is the same man that sings about bringing the sun and the moon for his son these days.

"I reckon Scorpius could use a few books like these," Draco comments, after a momentary silence in which he reads through the book. There has been a small, imperceptible smirk at his lips all throughout, something fond that Harry can only ascribe to Teddy. "The stories I tell him are so old and trite that I get bored telling them. Merlin knows how he still enjoys them, but he's heard them enough times that I'm fairly certain he could be telling them to me instead."

Harry nods, and then begins to dig through the vertical stacks in search for children's storybooks that he can give to Scorpius. He tries to bite back the rise of a grin twitching at his lips.

He clears his throat. "So, er... what stories do you tell your son, Malfoy?"

"Dragons and scorpions," Draco answers, smooth and without hesitation.

Harry lets himself smile, just for a moment, before pursing his lips to straighten his face. "Right. Well... what about..." He squints in feigned contemplation, like he's trying to remember a detail. "The tales of... Pot, is it?"

Draco freezes next to him, and when Harry throws a glance at him, the look on his face breaks all the control Harry has maintained against his face splitting into a grin. He is wide-eyed as he stares at Harry, brows drawn together in bafflement, his mouth thin as the gears seem to turn in his head as to how Harry might have known about that.

He narrows his silver eyes, adamantly trying not to act according to the clear display of mortification and embarrassment spreading a faint pink across his snow-fair cheeks. Harry is rather fixated. "How do you even know about that?"

 "I have my ways—"

"By ways, you mean eavesdropping?"

"Accidentally listening," Harry corrects, flicking a glance and a teasing grin in his direction as he stands up on his toes to leaf through books, currently holding an uneven stack of four in one of his elbows. "I was just passing by, and I heard your voice talking about—round glasses and bright green eyes and... hm, what was it? Oh yes." Here, Harry takes on a dramatic and beguile tone of voice, somewhat stilted and breathy with laughter, "Hair as black as raven birds—"

The way Draco's glaring at him, Harry knows he's digging himself a grave, but he can't help the cheeky grin breaking across his face. He likes this, getting a reaction out of him. He's been so guarded and on edge with him all this time that it's refreshing to see him react rather than keep himself compartmentalized, to see him feel something other than weariness and discomfort and fear.

And the faint pink blush across his cheeks is rather beautiful.

Harry arches a mock-curious eyebrow, a thoughtful hand to his chin, with full intention of milking it for all it's worth. "That does sound an awful lot like someone I know..."

"Potter, if you don't shut up right now..."

"The Weasel and the Smart Witch... now who could they be based on? I do wonder..."

...

Draco comes upon the sight of Potter fallen asleep on the floor of the living room, his face mushed into the cleaning broom as he snores in a volume equivalent to a dragon breathing fire.

With no one to see him, Draco leans against the doorway and smirks, amused and mellow. He briefly contemplates waking him up in a less than conscientous manner, out of spite and vengeance for Potter's teasing session two hours ago, and also simply because it will be rather entertaining to watch Potter spring upright from a glass of ice-cold water to his face.

But instead he is lost in observation, in long black lashes brushing against skewed glasses, pink lips parted slightly in slumber to show a glimpse of the pair of his upper-front teeth, the slope of his nose and the small mole on the length of his neck, all lean biceps and shoulders and slim waist leading into narrow hips, the morning sunlight pouring in through the window that makes all of him golden and warm and beautiful.

And suddenly he doesn't have the heart to wake him up at all.

...

On Monday, Draco stands there with his head against the wall besides Potter's fireplace for a long time, a curdle of inexplicable anxiety overtaking his mind and heart, his stomach aching and tight. He tries to steady his breathing with slow, even inhales and exhales. He tries to tell himself that Potter will be able to take care of Scorpius when Draco is gone, like Potter has reassured him he will. Draco trusts him, and Scorpius does too. He tries to tell himself he has a wand now, if something is to go wrong, if he feels unsafe, so he needn't worry.

Potioneering is an activity that is quite possible without a wand, if only arduous and requiring the correct equipment. Having a wand certainly speeds things and makes the work easier, but Draco hadn't known he'd be having one, so he was planning to go off and invest the Sickles he still has left from when he was on the streets into some of that equipment. But then Potter gave him his wand, which works perfectly for Draco, and he'd said, legally, I'm still the owner, but it's yours now. Just until things change and you can buy your own. And today he'll go to Diagon Alley to buy himself a new wand at Ollivander's.

Draco's heart is still in his throat at the gesture and the hidden promise in those words in a way that he doesn't really want to dwell on, a slow, swollen throb that softens the lines of his face and mellows him inside and out. He doesn't let himself think about it. He gathers his nerves and floos out into George's flat, stepping out into the world once again.

His day at the jokes shop goes by well enough. He does what he's assigned to do by George, working on the several new products in perfect accordance to the set of instructions provided. If he feels confident enough in his own intuition, he adds some of his own touches and by the time lunch has rolled around, Ron and George are impressed enough with his work. Even though he works at a much slower and more careful rate than he did years ago, it seems that potions still comes as easy to him as second nature.

On an invitation to lunch with Ron and George, he tells them he'll work a bit longer and that they can go on without him. He's not all that hungry anyway and is rather engrossed in his task at the moment.

Eventually, however, his lack of meal in as many hours leaves him somewhat lightheaded, which means food can no longer be avoided. The good thing about working in the back of the shop as a potioneer is that he can take that lunch break any time he wants, so he does.

By the time he returns, shop has opened again, but no customers are in yet. Ron and George are crouched at the counter in front of Teddy, Potter and Scorpius, who is standing at Potter's side, little hand in his, and is rubbing at his eye with a fist, his face contorted pink and his brows furrowed in a watery frown. Ah, Salazar. The whole floor around them is covered in long neon confetti, giant colourful bubbles creating shapes in the air, indicating the Weasley brothers' attempts to keep his son distracted and entertained, to no avail going by Scorpius' expression.

George catches sight of him, and looks to Scorpius as he waves both his hands at him in a brandish. "Ah, there's your Daddy!"

"Oh, thank Merlin you're here!" Ron exclaims, the relief on his face palpable. "Confetti Spaghettis and Bubble Trouble only go so far. He is just not having any of it!"

Scorpius sniffs, one little arm reaching up at Draco as the other hand is still busied in rubbing at his eye, standing on the tips of his toes. Draco picks him up by the underarms and lets his son wrap himself around his hip, Scorpius fitting his head between his jaw and neck immediately.

"He was doing well at first," Potter said, scratching at his head sheepishly. "Er... then he just got really agitated and upset, so I thought maybe if he saw you..."

Draco is suddenly not sure how this will work, between his job and Scorpius having trouble being away from him, and how long will Potter, no matter how patient and noble and bleeding-hearted, stand all this? He can hardly keep Scorpius with him in a Potions Laboratory. Even the untroublesome child he is, it's not a safe place to let a five-year old into.

"Freebies! Freebies freebies freebies, Uncle George!" Teddy chants, bouncing on his feet in excitement.

George laughs and ruffles Teddy's purple curls. "Only the best and the newest in store for you, Teddy Bear."

"Uncle George!" Teddy whines, exasperated. "Don't call me that."

"Just yankin' your wand, Teddy Bear."

Teddy sighs, longsufferingly. "Just give me my freebies," he grumbles and then grabs George's hand to drag him off.

...

On Teddy's suggestion, they all move into Potter's room, the only room with a television, for 'movie night'. He chooses something called a Disney movie which goes by the name Lion King, and while Draco has observed all muggle entertainment for children to be absurd over his years with the television at Michael's house, he does find himself somewhat engrossed into the images and the story.

Several glances at Scorpius, Teddy and Potter shows that he isn't nearly as pulled in by the other three, however. Potter is leaned casually against the headboard as he watches closely, Teddy leaning forward over his crossed legs next to him, and Scorpius is pressed into Draco's side, his wide, enthralled gaze not budging from the screen.

When the father lion, Mufasa, is found dead by his son, Simba, Draco's attention is diverted by the sound of a small sniff to find that Teddy has curled up into Potter's side. Potter looks like a sad and kicked crup himself at the moment, but holds Teddy tightly by the back and presses his cheek into his godson's red curls, that Draco discovers now is his colour of sorrow.

He and Scorpius share a silent glance, neither of them nearly as affected by the tragic circumstances of a fictional world. Draco does not know if Potter and Teddy are simply more emotionally invested in such things or if it's something bigger and rawer, something like being reminded, somehow by this, of the common grief that they share. 

Before the movie even ends, Potter, Teddy and Scorpius have fallen asleep, Draco being the last to doze off as the credits rolled. The last thing he sees before he drifts away is Teddy being wrapped around Scorpius, his arms clutching at the tiny waist and his nose smushed into Scorpius' cheek, Potter beside them on the other end of the bed, his breaths cadenced lilts of deep, even inhales and exhales over Teddy's and Scorpius' soft squeaks of breathing, his arm stretched over both their heads and his fingers just brushing Draco's arm.

On the closest edge of sleep, just before he falls over, he imagines what Potter's hand might feel like in his.

...

Harry awakes in the middle of the night to the sound of quiet sobs and whimpers, shaking away flashes of green light and veils and the violent thud of a body hitting the bottom of the Astronomy Tower. He blinks his eyes open in the darkness, groggy and gritty and heavy, trying to reorient himself and clear the blur in his vision as he straightens his glasses. He slowly sits upright on the palm of his hands and tries to determine the source of the distressed noises.

Draco is asleep on the other end of the bed, and Harry is relieved at the sight, seeing as the dark circles around his eyes continue to grow deep by the day, sinking them into his sockets. Teddy is asleep beside him, his arms enveloping Scorpius' smaller form, the silhouette of which is trembling in the winking lights of the TV.

"Scorp?" Harry whispers.

"Dad'y—" Scorpius sobs out, his breaths hitching. "'I'm so'y—don' hurt—"

Harry leans over Teddy, gently untangles his arms from Scorpius, and then grips the small child by the underarms and carries him up and over into his own arms carefully. He wonders if he should wake Draco, but reluctance leadens that thought. He seems to be sleeping soundly and deeply, after Merlin knows how long, hence not waking to his son's distress. Harry rubs his hand up and down the small back to soothe him similar to how he'd do for Teddy when he had a bad dream. "Hey. Scorp, hey, wake up—it's just a dream, just a dream. Come now."

Scorpius jerks awake, his glistening green eyes flying open and wide to settle on Harry. He whimpers, once more, his gaze then drooping and drowsy again as he relaxes against him. 

Harry's heart aches in his throat at the pure display of trust, and he holds him closer, bowing his shoulders and body over him. "I'll keep you safe," Harry murmurs, his chin to curly white hair and the arm around his back squeezing the little boy inwards against his own throbbing heart. "You're safe, and your Daddy's safe too. See him there? He's sleeping right there. It's okay. It's all okay."

Harry continues this for a couple of minutes, even though Scorpius has grown quiet and still, his little chest slowing to a steady rise and fall.

"Do you want me to wake your Daddy?" Harry asked softly, whispering to keep from disturbing the others.

But there is no response. It seems Scorpius has fallen back asleep, having fully relaxed against him. Harry, not knowing how to place him back into the constricted space between Teddy and Draco, lays back down against the mattress and settles Scorpius over his own torso and abdomen. He clutches him with a light arm to hold him in place and follows him promptly into the world of dreams.

 ...

Draco isn't there tonight when Harry comes into the Malfoys' room to say goodnight.

Harry comes in anyway with the intention of keeping the little boy company until his father comes, so he can leave with a goodnight to both of them.

"Are you happy here?" Harry asks.

Scorpius nods, quick successions of bobbing his head in that endearing, little kid way. Harry smiles, and so does Scorpius, in a little twitch of his rosebud lips. Good.

"Is your Daddy happy?" He knows the man is dealing with a lot that he doesn't ever talk about with anyone, but he wonders if Scorpius might tell him something he can't ever get from his father. Children always tell the truth, as the saying goes.

And this is where Scorpius hesitates. He doesn't answer for a long time, long enough that Harry assumes he won't answer at all. He supposes that it's answer enough, really.

Just as Harry begins to shift the topic towards something else, Scorpius says, "My Daddy…"

And Harry knows that he doesn't share his sorrows enough, either. Maybe he does with his father, but he also tries so hard not to trouble Draco with anything, so Harry shifts a bit closer to listen to him. "My Daddy is sad all the time," Scorpius says, so soft it croaks ever so slightly. "He—he tries not ta' lemme see it, but—but I'm smart. My Daddy says so."

Harry's lips flicker into a small smile. "I think he's right. You are really smart." 

Scorpius looks down at the fidget of his hands, little baby-pudged fingers gripping the hem of his shirt, and bites his lip in uncertainty. "My Papa says I'm stupid."

Harry stills. He tries not to let the sudden course of anger and disgust burn through his face. "Well, he's wrong," he says, sounding steady and quietly certain. "You're only five, and you're already so smart."

"Das' what my Daddy says..." Scorpius says, still unsure and sad and it forms a lump in Harry's throat. "but sometimes I can't tell who's right."

Harry's throat convulses hard, a sharp, painful wrench in his gut. "Your Daddy knows you better than anyone, Scorp. And if he says you're smart, then you are."

Scorpius sniffs back tears, but he smiles a bit at that, his soft cheeks raising high just the slightest, even if it's wobbling and doesn't reach his eyes the way Harry wishes it would. 

"My Daddy says he's happy, 'cuz he has me, but I know he cries when he thinks I'm sleepin'." He swallows slightly, and then smiles just a little, then. "But I think you and Teddy… you make him happy. My Daddy."

"You make him happy too. He looks at you like you're his whole world, Scorp." His universe, more like, like the sun and the moon and the stars are all fitted inside this tiny human being.

Scorpius nods as the green of his eyes glimmer with a thin line of tears, his lips squinching downward. "He's sad 'cuz of my Papa."

Harry clamps down on the anger setting fire to his insides, swallows hard and keeps his expressions carefully mellow for Scorpius' sake. He doesn't know who this man is, but the sick bastard better hope they never meet, because Harry will lose his fucking mind and he isn't sure just what he might end up doing when he does.

"My Papa says—says lots'a mean things, and he calls my Daddy bad words, like—like—" Scorpius stops and frowns dolefully, his eyes watering as he looks down. "I… I don' want ta say it."

"You don't have to." Harry shakes his head, bites his lip and strokes his thumb in circles over the ball of his shoulder gently.

Scorpius' breaths hitch and tremble, his shoulders rattling with the force of it, his gaze growing somewhat glazed like he's back there in his mind all over again. "And he—he hurts my Daddy—I hear him scream and cry—even from m-my room—"

Harry lays down next to him and scoots closer. He puts his arms around him tightly, rubbing one hand down his little back, so at a loss for words it's as if he's forgotten how to speak. He fights back his own sorrow until he realizes that Scorpius is doing the same thing, making little choked noises like he's trying to keep himself quiet. Harry looks down at him, and he sees his little contorted face, his crumpled downward lips pressed together tightly, his green eyes wide and red and teary.

"You can cry," Harry murmurs, smiles a wavering smile, and can't help but run a hand through his curls. "You should let it all out. I… I used to try to keep myself quiet too, until I realized that I feel a lot better when I don't do that."

Harry realized that much later, at the age of twenty-two when seeing his Mind-Healer, who told him that part of why he was so hollow and empty, was because he didn't let himself grieve his griefs, that he didn't deal with things or let himself feel, not just because he was afraid of facing it all, but because he never cried. It had meant bad things when he was young, and it had meant being ignored anyway, and that mentality and habit remained well into adulthood.

When Scorpius finally lets himself cry, openly and unashamedly after much coaxing, Harry lets his own tears fall into Scorpius' hair and closes his eyes, ready to hold the child all night if he had to. He gives into the overwhelming urge to press a kiss to the top of his hair and tells him that he cares about him and his Daddy so much, because he does, and because he thinks it's been a long time since they've had anyone tell them that.

It's after a while that Scorpius begins to grow quiet, his sniffs the only sound in the silence. The chest of Harry's shirt is damp with his sorrow, Scorpius' hair damp with his own, and Scorpius has exhausted himself so much that his swollen and red eyes are drooping shut in the tug of slumber.

On the edge of sleep, Scorpius murmurs, croaky and tired, "Mister Potter?"

Harry looks down as Scorpius wriggles out of his arms to lift his head up at him. "Yes, Scorp?" He rubs the flat of his fingers across Scorpius' wet cheeks.

"My Daddy says s' not nice to stay in other people's houses too long." Scorpius says, quiet and drowsy, his little mouth thin and troubled. "But—I don't want ta leave here, 'cuz—'cuz people hurt my Daddy when we're not here."

He wants to ask what Scorpius meant by people, but Harry doesn't want him to remember any more things that would distress him and make him cry, even as the thought that there were others that hurt Draco left his stomach sick and turning.

Harry runs his fingers through his curls, squeezing him by the back and into his chest. "I want you and your Daddy to stay here for as long as you both want, and then when you get bored of being here, you can find a new home, and me and Teddy will come and visit you, okay?"

"I won't get bored." Scorpius whispers it like it's a promise.

"Okay." Harry laughs, soft and thick. "Then stay here forever."

The day starts like any other, for the most part.

Draco freshens up himself before he lifts his half-asleep son out of bed and carries him into the bathroom down the hall. He sits him on the marbled counter beside the embedded white sink, brushes Scorpius' teeth with meticulous care as his son tries not to droop back into sleep, bathes him with a dancing water show in the air, which fully wakes his son up and makes him squeal a laugh from the gut when the shapes come to wash gently over him, and then brings Scorpius back to the room in a towel to dress him up, setting him down on the foot of the bed.

Draco pulls up the brown trousers over Scorpius' legs and hips and zips it up and buttons them together, puts his little arms through his little white dress shirt and buttons it down from the top, and then tucks the hem of his shirt into the waistband of his trousers.

"Daddy…"

Draco hums inquisitively, straightening the collar of the shirt, and then picks up the cream sweater at Scorpius' feet, rolls it up by the sides and puts Scorpius' curly-haired head through the hole.

"Don't go today, Daddy," Scorpius says, almost a whisper, after his head pops out of the sweater and his arms have gone through the sleeves.

Draco pauses in smoothing the sweater.

He knows it's been difficult for Scorpius, this abrupt change in his routine after having his father as a constant presence in all his five years.

Draco's chest goes aching and tight at the sad plea. His boy is trying, but it's hard to let go of something that's been all he's ever known.

He gets terribly agitated and distressed some hours after Draco has gone for work, so Potter brings him, along with Teddy, to the shop every day, sometimes twice on the same day, to get him to calm down, with some help from the Weasleys who utilize their charmed gags and products for little children to try to cheer him up. He keeps himself awake at night to see Draco, who gets off work an hour late from his son's usual timings for bed.

Urged by the soreness of his heart, Draco leans forward to kiss his forehead, and then rests his own against it. "I wish I could, love. But you know I can't stay. I have to go to work, so that we can have enough money to get our own home, right?"

Draco keeps thinking of that night sky bedroom that Scorpius wants, with vivid illustrations of the moon among stars when it will go dark. He can believe it now, that some day they will have that, their own home that they can make into anything they want.

His wages are decent, having received an advanced salary when he started his job. Fortunately, he likes his work just enough that it doesn't even feel like hard work. He likes working with potions, and he likes his lab, and the Weasley brothers are rather decent to him despite knowing of his history, even if only due to his association to Potter. He doubts they'll ever feel anything beyond an indifferent sort of acquaintance towards him—the best anyone can feel towards someone like him, he supposes, and surely it's better than being loathed—but he doesn't mind being their coworker at all.

Draco snorts slightly to himself. If his father could see him now... living in Harry Potter's house and working with the Weasleys... he would have lost his mind.

"Mister Potter says we can stay here forever," Scorpius says, all bright and hopeful, little fists gripping the shoulders of Draco's black jumper. He is smiling so widely that it puts Draco's heart to his throat, a meld of melancholy and love that throbs slow and soft. "You don't have ta work then, 'cuz we don't have ta leave an'—an get a new home."

Draco's lips flicker into a nervous, hesitant smile. He's fairly certain Potter only said that to not hurt Scorpius' feelings. He'd have to be a right arsehole to tell Scorpius anything else, really.

Even so, Draco is not inclined to spend a life being indebted to Potter any more than he already is, and he is certainly not inclined to live off of him forever. That'll get tiring very quickly for the other man, for one, and two, Draco is beyond tired of his own sense of shame and disgust at needing to be so dependent on others just to survive. "That's very kind of him."

"So you won'—you won't go, Daddy?"

Draco's throat spasms, his lips squinching in a rueful grimace. Before he can answer, there is a knock at the door, which diverts both his and Scorpius' attention. "Yes?"

The door opens with a click, and Potter's messy-haired head pokes through, and Draco's chest flushes stupidly warm at the bright green eyes looking brighter in daylight.

"Good morning." Potter nods and then grins at Scorpius with a wave, who returns a shy, delighted one and then hides his face into Draco's shoulder, arms grappling to wrap around Draco's neck tightly. Potter seems to find that incredibly adorable, given the way his lips teeter into a softly amused grin, only a glimpse of teeth inbetween.

"Just came in to tell you both breakfast's ready. Bacon and waffles alright?"

"Just fine, Potter. Thank you."

Potter nods in response, and then backs out and closes the door.

Draco narrows his eyes in a small scowl when Scorpius isn't looking. Circe, the very bloody sight of Potter leaves his son smiling like he's just met his hero.

"You like Mister Potter, don't you?" Draco asks as he combs Scorpius' locks into a sort of side-sweep.

Scorpius nods enthusiastically. 

"Isn't it nice, then, to be with him when I'm at work?" 

"I want ta be with both a'you, Daddy."

Draco sighs and frames his little face in his palms and kisses his nose. "I do have to go, darling. We need money."

Scorpius blinks, his brows furrowing in distress. Draco feels a sharp pang of remorse in his chest, and it urges him to smooth a thumb over the soft skin of his son's forehead faintly scrunching together. "You'll see me again later in the day, won't you?"

Scorpius doesn't say anything, just crumples his chin like he wants to cry. Draco squeezes him in tightly against his chest again, kissing his shoulder. He lets go after nearly a whole moment and picks him up by the underarms and sets him down on the floor, letting him slip his small hand into his own. "Come on. Let's go have breakfast."

…

The day goes on like any other, for the most part.

Draco comes in through the floo to George's flat, traipses down the stairs to the door that opens into the Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes and nods at the pair of brothers in a polite greeting. George tells him his task for the day, and he closes himself into his lab and works without stopping. He leaves the shop for a wizarding café nearby when his stomach begins to gnaw with hunger and comes back after his lunch break.

Weekends are hectic for the shop as it is, but even more so when there will be new products launched. People are piling in at this time of the afternoon, the shop already growing crowded around the different aisles and sections, a chorus of chatter and laughter pervading the room.

The day goes on like any other.

Until now.

Just as Draco enters the shop and makes it a few steps, there is a flurry of a hand quickly grabbing his bicep and hauling him off to a desolated side near the wall, causing him to stagger as he's whipped around, and just as he's about to give the person a piece of his mind over the blatant disrespect and violation of boundaries, he sees the face in front of him, at green eyes and rumpled dark hair, and all the irritation drains out of him in a second.

The freezing-ice terror rattles his insides cold instead.

"Draco."

"What are you doing here?" It comes out a trembling whisper against his will, before he can gather himself together.

"I've been looking for you and Scorpius," Michael smiles, stroking a hand over his arm. "Where did you go, Draco? You just… just left, with our son. No note, no explanation for why—"

"An explanation?" Draco grits out, resisting the urge to shove at his chest, to scream at him, to run, to just turn around and fucking run. He holds his ground and holds his feigned calm, and rips his arm out of his grip violently. "You need an explanation now for why we left, do you, after you—you—"

Draco stops, breathing hard and heavy, trying to breathe through the sudden, mortifying burn of tears in his sore eyes and in his seized up throat when the memory of that night breaks through barriers and into his mind again.

Just the sight of Michael's face, bringing it all back.

"I went a little too far that night," Michael says, with a nod and a rueful squint of his eyes, as if his contrite acknowledgment makes it okay, as if it hasn't been a little too far for a long while now, as if it is enough of an admittance for when he locked his son in a room with them and made him watch as he— "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, Draco. I… I don't know what came over me."

"You never do, do you?" Draco snarls. He clenches his fists, to repress the tremors in his hands, hopes that it all just looks like the anger that's warring with his fear. The only thing that's giving him any sense of courage right now is Potter's wand in his sleeve, and the fact that Potter's going to come over with his son any minute now, and he needs to get rid of him before Scorpius has to see his face again. "Get out of here, Michael."

Michael grabs his arm tightly in his calloused hand again, desperate and quick. "Come on, love, I just want to talk—"

Draco shoves at his chest hard, forcing Michael to let go and stumble back a few steps. "Keep your hands off of me," he hisses, pointing a warning finger into his face. "I don't want to talk to you. There is nothing for us to talk about. There is nothing that you could possibly say that I would want to hear from you. Now get the fuck out before my son gets here and sees you—"

"He's coming here?" Michael asks, ignoring everything else, it seems. He huffs out an awed, overjoyed smile, as if he's ever even given a proper damn about Scorpius. "My son?"

Draco's mouth clamps shut. He wishes he'd thought a bit more before saying that. 

"Just get out," Draco says, wishes he'd sound angrier, but now all he sounds like is tired and afraid. "I have a wand, Michael, and I will use it if that's what it takes to get you out of here before he arrives."

"Draco, just come with me for a minute, okay? There's a little pub nearby, and we can—" Michael says, reaching out to touch him. Draco tries to dodge his hands, but Michael is too quick, curling a bruising hand around his wrist and blocking the way of that wand he really could have used right about now. "Please, baby, just hear me out—"

"Michael, this is the last time," Draco grinds out. His voice is trembling and beginning to raise in volume and he is too terrified to give a damn anymore. "If you don't let go of me right now—"

Michael hauls him in closer by his bicep, causing him to trip over his feet and nearly lose his balance at his brutal manhandling, forcing his shoulders to strain forward in an awkward and uncomfortable angle. "You're causing a scene, Draco. People are going to start looking."

Draco throws a quick glance around, skimming over the gazes of the two people looking their way with curious frowns from afar, the rest of them too busy in their own conversations and browsing through the shop. They break their gazes away when they see Draco looking.

He tries to thrash Michael's hands off of him, but Michael seems hellbent on not relenting his grip, and suddenly he can no longer control the tide of horrible, chaotic panic sweeping through him, rattling his shrivelling, hammering heart and rattling his tense and tight body and rattling his shallow and quick breathing. "Michael," he whispers, in a frantic hitch of a gasp, and hardly has the presence of mind anymore to be mortified about verging on tears. "Michael, get your hands off of—"

"I just want a minute. Is that too much to ask?" Michael says, all falsified calm and composure, but it says nothing of the way his hand grinds his throbbing joints together.

"Michael—"

Fuck, he can't breathe. He can't breathe. 

"You're making me angry, Draco."

But everything Draco does makes him angry, and it's been that way for years.

He is terribly tempted to use his wand, except he knows he's only been talking big all this time. He can hardly use it when it might cost his job. While the people here don't know who he is, the Weasley brothers do, and seeing as they don't know the full story, it will only look bad for him, a Death-Eater pointing a wand at a man in their shop. The image creates room for terrible assumptions and ideas.

He doesn't know what defines trouble, exactly, for George Weasley, but it might just entail causing a scene here, and frankly, Draco doesn't want to lose his job at all, not only because it's the best one he'll ever get, but also because it might just be the only one he'll ever get.

"You know what? I'm getting fucking tired of this. You're being ridiculous, Draco! So either you come along with me, of your own accord, or I show your boss over there—" He gestures in George's direction. Draco doesn't know how long he's been around for him to know who his boss is. "and everybody else here the ink on your arm. How does that sound?"

Michael won't let him go, and he needs to get him out before Scorpius comes here. He doesn't know where he will end up at the end of this, his stomach turning sick and aching at all the wheres it can be, but he doesn't know what else to do anymore.

Okay, he's almost about to aay, with only a foolish hope that maybe Michael might just let him come back in one piece, or even come back at all. He thinks of his little boy coming here and seeing him, seeing this, seeing it all over again before his eyes and in his mind, the face of a man that still haunts his sleep at night and wakes him up in tears. Draco clenches his jaw to draw some resolve and courage, tries to inhale in a sharp, shuddering breath, but he still can't breathe—

"Er, Malfoy?"

…

''Mione kept me up all night."

George grimaces, leaning on his elbow against the counter. "You really could word that better, brother dear, but okay."

Ron squints his sore and heavy eyes at him in a scowl. "Your brain really could use a scrub, mate, but okay." He sighs, rubbing his hands down his face. "I meant, she wanted massages. A lot of massages."

"Well, you're not the one carrying a whole-arse developing human being inside your body, mate, so I say she reserves the right," George reminds, and then shrugs at Ron's sulking expression. "Just saying."

Ron sighs, begrudgingly agreeable. "Yeah. You're right, you're right. She's… she's doing incredible, really. And all this… I know it'll be worth it in the end." He puffs out a breath, and then drops his head on his arms on the counter. "Still, s'just really hard not to fall asleep right here, right now. And it's a bloody Saturday, and with the product launch... This place is going to be full of children today. Screaming and wailing children. I love children, but Merlin, not when I'm running on four hours of sleep."

"You better get used to it, and the sleepless nights too, Ronniekins. You're going to have a lot of those in the next couple of months."

Ron scoffs. "Yeah. Easy for you to say. You're not going to have kids."

George shrugs with a shite-eating grin, reaching out to ruffle his hair as if they're still ten and twelve. Ron swats at his hand and glares at him petulantly. "I'll be the cool uncle. You can clean up the poopy diapers and the puke and I'll spoil your kids with candy and toys." 

George then casts a Tempus with his wand, showing the time as two minutes past one.

"Did you bring something today? Or are we going out for lunch?"

"I was already awake. So yeah, I made some bangers and hash browns." Ron takes out the lunch packaged and under a stasis charm from beneath the counter.

"Malfoy?"

"Didn't see him leave, so still working, I suppose."

George nods, as he grabs a fork and a plate. "A little bordering on obsessive, don't you think? Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the dedication, but the bloke does tend to forget he needs to eat at times."

Ron hums and digs into his lunch enthusiastically. Circe, he may be tooting his own horn, but he really isn't a terrible cook at all.

He'd started learning the skill properly three years ago, once he'd gotten out of the hectic lifestyle of an Auror. Hermione has always been pants at cooking, no matter how much she'd try. Ron only showed potential but he never got the time to learn, so they spent a lot of years eating subpar food.

Once he got into it though, he realized that he actually had excellent intuition for it, learned quickly the many tips and tricks of cooking, and loved the idea of being able to make anything for himself and his wife whenever either of them craved a certain food. These days in particular, Hermione craves a lot, and he quite enjoys her reaction to anything he makes, because it's usually good. 

Honestly, if he didn't feel more inclined towards helping George out with the shop, he might just have gone for being a chef.

At the end of lunch, George flicks his wand for the open to glow in neon again.

By the next few hours, the shop is full and crowded, the loud bustle of chatter and noise and laughter making Ron's head ache and his mood sullen, even as he tries to keep up a cheery front. He gets busy at the counter, casting quick spells that calculate the price of everything and counts the paid Knuts, Sickles and Galleons, removing the magically embedded numbers of the price onto the items, while George goes around introducing the new products to all the inquisitive and interested.

When some of the crowd clears up some from the way, he catches a flash of white-blond hair, and through the moderate group of people gathered in his line of vision, he can only see another head of curly dark hair in front of him.

For a split-second, he thinks it's Harry because of the hair, but the body stature is different from what he can see of him, much broader. It's probably a customer that might have stopped Malfoy on his way back to the laboratory to ask something, except they're standing way off to the side, away from prying eyes as if it's a private conversation. Eh, someone he knows, then.

The queue continues to fill, and Ron stays busy working at the counter. He loathes Saturday, even more so when he's sleep-deprived and there's a launch of products, but he knows why George does it. The weekends allow more people to come into the shop, and that makes for greater sales and profit.

The next time his gaze strays, it's just in time to see the brunette man grab Malfoy by the biceps and haul him close in a way that looks rather uncomfortable and rough.

Well, bloody hell, that does not look like a normal interaction.

There are people standing in line in front of him. Ron probably shouldn't be interfering with Malfoy's business, whatever it is, but the man he's talking to seems rather aggressive and unrelenting. His gaze strays over again to the two men. The brunette man is leaning way too closely into Malfoy's face, and he looks angry. Really angry.

"Er… excuse me, just a second." He rounds around the counter and out from behind it quickly, and carefully slides his way through people. "Excuse me. Thank you."

As he is nearing the pair, he hears the bits and pieces of their conversation. "—the ink on your arm. How does that sound?"

"Er, Malfoy?" Ron says, as he comes to a stop just a little behind Malfoy. He frowns. "What's going on here?"

Malfoy turns to look at him. His face is held together into a stiff expression, but it's ashen, and there is a quiver in his gaze and in his hands and his chest is heaving in deliberately controlled breaths. The red hand-print around Malfoy's wrist does not go unnoticed by Ron, nor the way the brunette lets go of him to settle a hand down his arm.

"Is—is there a problem here?" Ron asks, having to lean slightly closer to be heard over the noise and chatter, when no one speaks.

"No problem here, no," the man answers immediately.  He nods at Malfoy. "I'm his husband."

Oh. Well.

Bloody fucking Hell.

"We were just talking, so… if you don't mind now…"

"Well… er, that might have to wait, you see. 'Cause something's come up." Ron looks to Malfoy, jerking his head towards the lab. "We need you out in the back right now."

"Right. Well… it won't take long," the man says, his expression strung tight with irritation. "I'll have him back—"

"Can't wait that long."

Malfoy removes his arm out of his grip. "I have to get to work," he says, subdued and tense.

"I'll wait, then." The man crosses his arms. His jaw shifts, clenched in annoyance and inconvenience.

"I don't think you should," Malfoy says, and the words sound cool, but his voice doesn't sound like anything. "I'll be busy, Michael."

Ron nods in agreement. "Yeah. It''ll take a while, so..." Even though he's fairly certain this isn't the last they'll see of Michael, he is definitely not going to invite the man to come back later. That's clearly not what Malfoy wants, and neither does Ron, for that matter, seeing as he is the same sick bastard that had a little kid scared for his and his father's life once. "Maybe you should go." If his voice comes across as a little too cold and hard, then he hopes Malfoy doesn't notice.

The man's chest heaves in controlled anger, blazing behind the crinkle in his eyes of his tight, polite smile. They flick over to Malfoy. "I'll come back later, then, I suppose."

Malfoy doesn't say anything to the man standing in wait for some sort of affirmation. The man's gaze grows even colder, and with one hard glance at Malfoy that is not reciprocated, he turns and leaves, opening the door and walking out with a chime of the bell.

"Sorry if, you know… if it was something important," Ron says, like he doesn't notice the darkening colours around the other man's wrist, or that Malfoy didn't seem to want to talk to him at all, like he doesn't know why his son is always so restless and agitated until he comes to the shop and sees him.

Playing oblivious seems like the best course of action right now, though. Harry's told him and Hermione about the kind of life Malfoy had come from, and it seems like the sort of thing they shouldn't be knowing. They were two people that didn't have much to be linked by besides an old childhood rivalry and a long history of enmity and bitterness between their families and, distantly, a war.

It's not the kind of thing anyone can just go around telling, even to their best friends. It is a blatant breaching of Malfoy's privacy that Harry discussed this with them, he'll admit. Not that he did it out of any disrespectful intent. Harry was just too troubled by it himself to keep it in. It's how things have been between them since forever, but even more so after the war. They were sort of a unit, and secrets kept by one of them meant they were kept by all three of them together.

His best friend had spent a long time anyway trying to keep all the terrible things to himself, never letting anyone in, so he and Hermione are happy with the system they've built with him now.

As they walk back, he makes up some cover story about a bloke that wants to gift something fun to his daughter on her birthday, so he's paying good money to the Weasley's Wizardly Wheezes for a special order.

"Just figured you might want to get started right away, you know, seeing as there's little time." Malfoy opens the door of the lab and walks inside. "I'll get George. He'll tell you what you need to do." 

Meaning, he needs to go and tell his brother to make up something for Malfoy to do that will be absolutely pointless in the end.

Malfoy nods, and Ron turns to go do just that. The door closes with a click behind him.

He eyes the growing queue uneasily. He really needs to get back to work, seeing as some of the people are growing impatient and crabby, wondering where the bloody clerk's disappeared off to. Maybe he can ask Malfoy to take care of it in the meantime while he goes to talk to George. He knows the bloke prefers working out in the back, away from eyes and people, but it'll probably just be a few minutes at most.

He turns around and opens the door, the request on the tip of his tongue.

The room is echoing with panicked heaves of breaths, Malfoy bowed over his cauldron table. His curled hands are splayed on the top where he's putting all his weight into it, as if it's the only thing keeping him on his feet. His bowed shoulders are shaking, and he is frantically gasping for air.

Malfoy hasn't noticed his presence, clearly. Ron is not entirely sure if he knows how to deal with a Malfoy having a panic attack, but he supposes that Malfoy is the kind of man who wouldn't want to be found like this by him anyway.

Ron closes the door quietly, moves back up inside the counter in front of the peeved queue, and sets to work. He decides to wait a little before telling George to go in.

Merlin, this is turning out to be one hell of a disastrous day.

…

Draco's hands are shaking too much and he can't focus enough to work anymore. He needs to work. He needs this to be done by tomorrow. He needs to keep going because if he stops, then he doesn't know if he'll start, and if he stops working, he will—

He tries to keep working.

He can't.

He needs to get himself together before Potter, Teddy and Scorpius get here.

He can't. He can't stop shaking or thinking, can't calm down, can't settle his heart or his gut down.

His only breath of air is when George comes an hour later to tell him that Potter won't be able to bring Scorpius to the shop today. He doesn't entirely listen to the rest, something about some impromptu meeting that's come up at the Ministry—

It lets Draco give up on trying to keep himself together, then, just for a few minutes.

...

By the time Draco comes back to Potter's house, they were already done with dinner. He skips his own, just puts the food Potter left out for him in the fridge and heads right off to the bedroom, where Scorpius is waiting up with Potter for him.

Potter leaves with a goodnight (and maybe an unfathomable sort of frown at him, Draco doesn't dare look because then Potter can look back), after he gets ready for bed. By the time he's slid under the covers, he still can't quite think straight or breathe right. His mind is a tumble of frantic emotions and terror and he can't bring himself to sing Scorpius to sleep or tell him tales of Pot or read to him the children's storybooks on the nightstand that Potter picked out for Scorpius from his bookshelf. He can't bring himself to speak at all, only managing to choke out a whisper of,  "not tonight, Scorpius. I'm very tired." Even though he knows he won't sleep all night.

And Scorpius cares too much about not troubling his father, so he stays quiet all the way until he falls asleep to Draco's silence, sidled up into the side of Draco's ribs and his cheek burrowed into his shoulder.

It's one more reason for the burn of his eyes and the ache in his throat, the chaos in his chest heavier with the guilt of denying his son anything due to his own lack of control, especially when he knows Scorpius waits up after his usual bedtime for him to return, and that it's been an even harder day for his son because he hadn't gotten to see Draco all day.

He stares up at the ceiling, his hands quivering on Scorpius' back and his own abdomen, his eyes wide and hazy. He blinks to clear his vision, rapid and hard. His breaths are shallow and shaky.

He doesn't know what to do.

It's like he's in that small house all over again, on the streets exposed and open, afraid just the way he was then. He's gotten a bit used to safety and comfort, and the lack of it is hitting harder now.

For a long time, he lays there, his mind disquiet and racing with terrible scenarios that make his skin raise and quiver in fear, that make him squeeze his son closer to himself for reassurance and solace. He can't stop touching trembling fingers to his wrist and his bicep, the phantom of Michael's bruising hand around it still haunting his skin, and he is restless and trapped by his sleeping son's arms around his torso, his head tucked into the joint of his shoulder, his tiny leg over his abdomen. He tries to untangle himself, just to get up and move and do something to keep himself out of his mind, but Scorpius shifts in his sleep, and he lies back down.

Scorpius wakes up from a nightmare an hour later, whimpers and cries tearing out of his heaving little chest again. Draco hushes him, soothes him with hands in his curls, massaging the scalp of his head, and with kisses all over his face until his breathing slows slightly, the frantic noises subsiding. His eyes are half-open, heavy and drowsy with slumber, but he's too afraid to go back to sleep.

Draco can't feel it in his chest of swelling dread and suffocating emotions if he can speak at all, his mind too scattered and his throat constricted and the vice-like grip of his anxiety still clenching around his heart and lungs, but his son is fighting to keep his eyes open, jerking himself awake when he's about to fall asleep so he won't see what (who) he sees in his dreams.

"Would you like me to sing for you?" Draco asks, quiet and raspy.

Scorpius nods, sleepy and tired, his eyes droopy.

So Draco does. He presses his nose into Scorpius' hair and sings his mother's lullaby softly into his forehead, but this time his voice is unable to rise above murmurs, above hoarse whispers of melodical words. He feels the steady rise and fall of Scorpius' little back against his arm, and it's the only thing that loosens his vocal chords and brings his voice to his tongue again.

But Draco's voice begins to break anyway despite how quiet he is, chokes as he goes off-tune. He stops, clearing his throat, swallowing to loosen the grip around his neck trying to keep him quiet (and he thinks it almost feels like Michael's hands). 

"You're sad again," Scorpius murmurs, still drowsy and on the edge of sleep.

"I'm not sad. Just tired." Draco's throat bobs as he tries to collect himself again. He shifts his head on the pillow, so he can look down and see Scorpius' face. He brushes a trembling hand over his hair. "How can I be sad when I have my star?" 

Scorpius smiles in that way he does sometimes, that smile that's all a lift of his lips and doesn't light up into his eyes, like he's just trying to appease Draco. He lifts up on his chest, kisses Draco's cheek, and then settles back down next to him, wriggling. It only makes Draco want to cry even more.

"Mister Potter says s'ok to be sad, and you should—should cry, if you want ta, 'cuz you feel worse if you don't."

Draco forces a small snort at Scorpius repeating Potter's oh-so-wise words. He shakes him slightly with a squeeze of his back, trying to exude a playfulness he didn't quite feel. "You're learning a lot of things from Mister Potter, are you?"

Scorpius makes an affirmative 'mhm' sound, and then starts to talk in a soft, croaky voice about all the things he's learned from 'Mister Potter', along with 'Missus Granger' on the day they visited her along with Teddy; some funny spells and facts about dragons and other magical creatures, and some muggle science-related things, and then Scorpius tells him that Missus Granger has a baby in her belly, did you know, Daddy? Das' why s'so big.

It draws a small laugh from Draco, the storm of chaos and anxiety in his mind and chest subdued just for a moment by fondness.

He listens to Scorpius babble some more after, even though he's about to fall asleep. He brushes Scorpius' hair back as he does, and eventually his voice does trail off into slumber.

And there is one comfort.

There is one comfort, its warmth threading into the cold of Draco's veins inexplicably, just by the simple imagery of Potter and Granger teaching his son things. It settles something a little inside his chest, his heart fitting just a little better into its cavities.

He's spent a lot of days afraid in Michael's house, worrying over what might become of Scorpius if Michael goes too far in his anger one day, because Draco knows that if he's not there, then Michael might have no qualms about turning that anger onto his little boy instead, and the thought left his stomach turning over and over.

He's spent a lot of days afraid when he was on the streets too, thinking of what might happen to his son if somebody recognized him and decided to take their senseless idea of justice into their own hands.

But that was all before Potter found them, wasn't it?

His son is surrounded by good people now. He is surrounded by people who will take care of him if Draco won't be able to anymore.

Draco brushes a thumb over Scorpius' soft, sleeping cheeks, biting his quivering lip. He holds that bit of solace and hope close in his chest, and it carries him through the night into a light, troubled slumber.

From the doorway, Harry can only see the back of Draco's black trousers and Prussian blue turtleneck and wavy white-blond hair, curling just so at the nape of his neck, but he is so still and quiet that Harry knows he'll startle the other man if he doesn't make a sound.

He is standing at the kitchen counter, his head bowed towards the black mug in his hand. His coffee is untouched, full to the brim with no smoke rising out of the beverage anymore, having gone cold. As Harry nears him, he can see the silver eyes staring distant and afar, fixated deeply onto nothing, so lost in the haze of his troubled mind that he doesn't even notice Harry coming to stand beside him, even though Harry tries to ensure that the scuffle of his bare feet are noticeable.

"Malfoy," Harry says.

Even as hushed as it is, Draco still startles, violent and hard like he's heard an explosion, his breaths hitching in a low, stilted gasp.

"Just me," Harry says, backing slightly as he raises his hands up in a pacifying manner.

Draco blinks a few times, like he's trying to find his way out of that deep haze and remember where he is. There are scarlet rings around his eyes, exhaustion weighing them down. "Potter?"

Harry nods, can't stop the worry from drawing his eyebrows together. "You're awfully jumpy this morning."

Draco blinks at him again, and then turns back around to his cold beverage, putting his hands to the sides of it. He shakes his head. "Pardon me. I was merely lost in thought."

"Okay,"  Harry says, slowly. His own frown doesn't leave his face. Draco was particularly withdrawn last night, but Harry figured he was just tired after a long day at work. It doesn't look like he slept all that well, though.

He wonders if he should ask, but he doesn't know if Draco will answer him or not.

"Sorry I couldn't bring Scorpius to the shop yesterday. I—I had to leave him and Teddy with Neville and Luna—" Which had turned out to be a terrible, disastrous mistake, but an unavoidable necessity, seeing as the council of members who had the authority and power to remove Draco from the Death-Eaters list, and thereby all the heinous measures taken against him, agreed to a meeting with him just yesterday morning. "Had a meeting at the Ministry, related to your situation, actually."

Draco nods, but he doesn't look up from his coffee, nor does he say anything.

Harry moves over to the one of the cabinets, opening the doors and reaching in to pull out a mug. "They're being a bit difficult about it, taking you off the Death-Eaters list, but… rest assured, I won't stop until they change their minds either."

Draco arches an eyebrow as he looks up at him, his mouth downturned in mild bemusement. He tracks Harry as he pours himself a cup of coffee from the carafe. "Refusing the Boy Wonder, are they?"

Harry snorts wryly at the title. "So it seems. Fear is a strange thing. Although, fear of what, I don't understand, seeing as we caught the men that were truly evil and dangerous a long time ago. The ministrations they put into place after the war are beyond daft and absurd, as Hermione says." He shrugs, raising his mug to his lips. "I'll admit, I did hope that my status as the 'Chosen One'—" He twitches the fingers of his free hand in quotation marks. "would have made things much easier, just for this, but at least they're considering it."

"I suppose the fact that they're considering at all has much to do with your 'status as the Chosen One'." Draco mimics the quotation marks fingers with both hands, and it makes Harry's lips tug into a smile that he quickly hides into the rim of his mug, disguising it with a sip of his coffee.

Kingsley Shacklebolt, the current Minister, trusts Harry enough to be on board, only because I doubt you'd be doing this for someone that isn't worth it, Harry, and indeed, the man in front of him is certainly worth it (twelve year old him wouldn't have dreamt of coming to the days Draco Malfoy made his gut soften and ache with a tumult of emotions). Even so, not all power is in Kingsley's hands.

It seems his privileges are still somewhat in effect even after all these years, however, which is quite possibly the only reason they were still willing to consider his arguments and demands as of yet, even after his somewhat erratic behaviour in response to their claims and disputes against why they refuse to no longer legally mark Draco Malfoy him as a Death-Eater.

"You don't think me as—evil? At all?" Draco asks, just a bit too casual and conversational. He darts a quick glance at Harry, so quick he would have missed it if he wasn't already looking at him.

"No," Harry says, only missing a beat because he's taken a bit off-guard by the way his gut dips slightly at the question. He wishes it would have been a bit more obvious for the other man, the way he saw him (or, well, maybe not too obvious). "Would you be here around Teddy if I thought you were?"

"No I wouldn't be," Draco agrees. He then goes quiet, and then glances back up at him and quirks a smirk at one corner of his lips, a little one that crinkles just so in a glimmering moonstone eye. "Always the saint, Potter."

Harry would think he's mocking him, the name an echo of what they used to be once, if not for his hushed voice.

Draco looks away, and Harry doesn't. In the silence, they drink their coffee, Draco's most likely cold as balls now, but he hardly reacts to the taste. Harry takes another moment to visually outline the edges of his profile, pronounced cheek and the cut of his jaw and the sharp slope of his lightly freckled nose, the fairness of his skin shrouded in the bright daylight pouring in throughout the kitchen, faintly reflecting off the platinum of his hair and the silver of his eyes.

The scarlet stands even darker around his eyes in contrast.

Harry wishes he'd talk. Talk to someone. Talk to him. He doesn't know if it's his place to ask, if he even knows how to. He is not eloquent or good with having the right words to say, and if there is anything he has learned over the course of their month together, it's that Draco never speaks of what it is that haunts his mind and steals his rest, does not allow himself room to show any sort of vulnerability unless it is in relation to his son.

"Potter?"

Harry hums inquisitively.

"Do not bring Scorpius over to the shop anymore."

Harry frowns, putting down his coffee. He closely eyes the profile of the man standing beside him again, for an entirely different reason this time. He tries to gauge his reasoning for such a demand through his body language and expression, but his face is set and closed off, unreadable as always.

What Draco is asking of doesn't seem possible at all, not right now, at least. Not when Scorpius cries for nearly an hour after Draco leaves. He spends all the time he isn't with his father worrying, an anxious frown on his face, an anxious fidget in his hands at the hem of his sweater, like he is trying to comfort or ground himself. Harry and Teddy try to distract him as much as they can with things, with games and books and such, but none of it seems to keep the little boy's mind away from his anxieties for all too long, if at all.

His stay at Neville and Luna's yesterday was a sad disaster. Scorpius kept breaking into tears, even made himself sick from it at one point, and refused to remove himself from Teddy's side, who spent much of the day concerned and holding him. 

"Why not?"

Draco shrugs in an off-handed manner, but Harry catches the subtle flex of his throat. "He needs to get used to being away from me, doesn't he? Scorpius is—he's too dependent."

Somehow Harry gets the feeling that that isn't the reason at all. 

Harry frowns. "He will learn, Malfoy. Slowly."

"The sooner he can learn, the better."

"That is not how this works," Harry says, shaking his head. He's no child Mind-Healer, but he's fairly certain that something like this requires more time and patience. "You can't just throw him into it. He's trying the best he can, and his best is rather incredible considering everything." 

Draco's lips purse together tightly, twisting in impatience. "Potter, for the love of Merlin, just do as I say, will you?"

"You have to tell me why, and I mean the real reason, Malfoy. Scorpius isn't going to deal well with that at all. Not right now. It's far too soon—"

Draco's jaw clenches as his gaze darts away, frustrated. He doesn't say anything, but his chest heaves in a slow nasal breath, in the way he did when trying to regain composure and control.

"Is something wrong?" Harry asks, his voice going quiet. The threads of worry wove their way in through the pit of his chest, knitting his eyebrows together. 

And then there is something else breaking into Draco's smoke-grey eyes, a quiver of something Harry doesn't catch in time before there is the familiar sound of tiny feet pattering again, growing closer and closer. The spectre of whatever emotion it was, it evaporates from Draco's face with a swiftness that leaves Harry frustrated and scrambling to work it out.

"Daddy?" The voice is muffled from the corridor, and then Scorpius appears in the doorway, the troubled frown vanishing at the sight of Draco. His face goes beaming, green eyes setting alight with a smile.

Draco doesn't turn around immediately, staying still for a moment as he stares somewhere down at the ground, his chest rising and falling just a bit too high and low, and the threads of worry wound tighter around the inside of Harry's chest.

If something is wrong, he wishes Draco would just tell him.

Draco spins around, his cold and half-drunk coffee forgotten on the countertop, and moves towards his son. Upon reaching him, he picks him up by the underarms and lifts him up in the air to his face, kissing his nose. Scorpius smiles widely, baby teeth coming into full display as he giggles, his legs curled up slightly in the air. "Good morning, love. Let's get you freshened up, shall we?"

…

Harry tries his best to avoid taking Scorpius to the shop for the rest of the day, even as he is certain it is an exercise in futility. Draco won't tell him why, but there must be a reason, and it absolutely isn't the one he gave.

Teddy is staying over at Molly and Arthur's for the day, what with Charlie and Ginny visiting from abroad, and while Teddy is well-behaved, he can be hyper and overexcited. He loves his godson to bits, but he isn't sure he'd be able to focus on both him and Scorpius the way he'd need to on a day like this.

He'll be there at the Weasleys for dinner tonight to catch up with the whole family gathered together. He knows Scorpius won't do well there without Draco, so in the day, he takes him out and tries to stall as much as he can, going around Diagon Alley and buying Scorpius toys, clothes and way too many sweets and treats, rambling on and on about all the favourites of Teddy's and his own and his friends. He'd fixed Scorpius' broken dragon toy with a simple Reparo, but Harry wants him to have more things of his own.

The shopping spree doesn't distract Scorpius nearly enough. He tugs at Harry's sleeve every quarter or half of an hour and asks in a whisper, "Daddy?"

Harry swallows hard, and tries to smile. This just won't last long. It just won't, and he knows that.

He really wishes Draco had told him why, at least, because then it would make it seem a bit more like it's worth it, trying to keep a son away from his father when he is so in need of him.

Harry proceeds to point at something cool he sees through the windows, hoping it will distract Scorpius one more time. He doubts it actually does distract Scorpius, who doesn't seem to stop thinking about his father at all, but Scorpius' shy and subdued nature makes him compliant and polite enough that he doesn't entirely ignore Harry. Scorpius is not used to such activities, clearly, so Harry mostly brings items up to him, asks, do you like this? How about this? And buys it if Scorpius nods in response. Sometimes it makes him smile, just a little, as he touches the item softly with his tiny fingers, and it makes Harry feel like buying the whole bloody world for him.

But Scorpius always whispers, tugging at his hand as soon as they leave the shop, "See Daddy now?"

His only comfort is that Draco gets off early on weekend days.

By the time it's three, which is an hour past their usual visiting time, Harry is carrying four full shopping bags in one hand and Scorpius' palm in the other.

Scorpius has grown beyond distressed and upset. His eyebrows are drawn together dolefully, his mouth quivering in a teary pout, the movement of his hands restless and agitated. He clutches and twists at the hem of his shirt with his free hand, keeps tugging at his curls and running his palm over his flushed face, his nasal breaths keep hitching in his perturbation like he's physically uncomfortable and can't understand anything from the intensity of his malaise.

Scorpius reaches his arms up to Harry to be picked up, one fist rubbing furiously at his eye. Harry complies immediately, as if he could even resist, picking the little boy up by the underarms and against his hip, holding him up with an arm. "I want Daddy." His voice is thick and strangled, like he's trying not to cry.

Harry swallows hard again—he's doing that a lot today—guilty and conflicted. "I know, Scorp. S'just… er… your Daddy said he was—was going to be really busy today, you know? So… so he said he'll see you when he comes home, because he won't be able to be with you much while he's working."

Scorpius shakes his head and bounces insistently in his arms, his back going arched and taut, as if he can make Harry move to take him to see his father. His fists agitatedly tug at Harry's shirt,  his hand pointing somewhere forward to indicate a direction where he thinks Draco is to be, his face contorting and rosy with how overwhelmed and upset he is. It's as if he's feeling so much that he doesn't know what to do with all that he's feeling. He starts to cry in earnest, sobs leaving his twisted lips from the bottom of his throat, and Harry only feels cruel.

Just as he thought, it couldn't last long.

He resigns himself to the fact that he will have to face either Draco's wrath or Scorpius' tears, neither of which sound appealing, but right now, all he knows is that this is a little boy that presumably spent his entire life watching his father get hurt at the hands of another man, and that part of why he needs to see him is so that he can remember that his father is safe and okay, to feel safe and okay himself.

Harry can't deny him that.

"But I'm sure we can go see him for a bit," Harry quickly says as Scorpius cries in his arms. His heart goes sore and aching. "Okay, yeah. Yeah, we'll go see him right now, okay?" He begins to head down the street in the direction that will lead him to Weasley's Wizardly Wheezes. "And then you can show him everything we bought today. What do you want to show your Daddy first, Scorp?"

Scorpius doesn't answer, too upset to even speak. Knowing that they are going to his father, he stops crying, even though his distressed, watery expression remains. He blinks wet eyes and sniffs, turning around and burying his cheek into Harry's shoulder instead. Harry brushes a soothing hand down his back.

"Okay," he says softly, squeezing his cheek into his forehead.  "Okay."

It takes nearly twenty minutes to see the large figurine resembling the Weasley twins in a top hat, decoratively caged behind the sandstone-brown, small-squared windows curving in a cylindrical design, the sound of laughter charmed to emanate from the letters of Weasley Wizarding Wheezes in rhythm to it's blinking neon lights after a certain time interval.

The shop is moderately populated right about now, a low chorus of murmurs pervading the room. There is Ron working at the counter, George and Malfoy nowhere in sight. Harry heads towards his best friend, whose eyes catch his when they lift and sets alight. "Oh, hello Harry!"

Harry smiles as he reaches Ron, rounding around the counter to come to a stop beside him. "Hello. Malfoy here?"

Ron nods in the direction of the lab. "In the lab with George." He leans close, quickly murmuring, "You don't want to take Scorpius in there right now though, mate."

Scorpius has lifted his head up from his shoulder, staring at the door of the lab like he's waiting for Draco to walk through. Harry frowns, setting Scorpius down to sit on the counter as well as the bags, but he keeps his hands on either side of the little boy's legs out of protective caution. "Why?"

"Er… some potion thing...you know." Ron checks to see Scorpius isn't looking, and then makes an exploding gesture, throwing his palms apart. "George's helping him clear up. Bit of a mess in there, is all."

"Malfoy?"

Ron nods. "Just, er…" He then makes another hand gesture to indicate something on the arms and face. "Nothing too bad though."

Harry nods, and then they both glance at the little boy waiting forlornly for his father, both knowing that Scorpius can't see that.

"Your Daddy's going to be here soon, don't worry," Harry says, brushing a hand through his curls in a soothing manner. Scorpius looks at him, blinking as his fingers tug gently through a knot in his hair. "In the meantime, do you want to show Ron here what we bought today?"

Harry pulls up the shopping bags close, and Scorpius takes each item Harry takes out for him and holds it out in his hands to show it to Ron, laying a shirt to his front to show it to him or bringing a brand new plaything up to Ron's sight. Ron milks the praise and positive reactions for all it's worth, even when a few customers begin to line up at the counter and he works. The witch with a young daughter on the other side looks rather endeared by the scene.

Even so, it isn't enough to keep Scorpius' mind away, because he doesn't stop glancing at the door.

"How's Hermione?" Harry asks.

"Moody, in extreme discomfort, and incredible as always," Ron says, in a voice he's only ever reserved for his wife, like he's still just as in love with her as he was ten years ago. They're so different, but they make it work, and their love makes Harry as much as enviable as it makes him believe in it. 

"And what about you?"

"Alright." Ron shrugs. "Just sleep-deprived and worried about 'Mione and the baby, and well... just generally the whole being a dad thing."

"It'll be fine, and you'll do great. You already are doing great, actually." Harry smiles. The way Ron has transformed ever since he heard news about his firstborn has been amazing to watch. Not that Ron wasn't already great before this, but there is a greater air of maturity and responsibility and patience about him than before.

"Yeah, I hope so," Ron says, smiling half-pleased and half-humbled with a delighted flush to his face. He nods and smiles politely at the wizard sliding away with his items, and then greets the witch next in line with another nod and smile. He removes the embedded price on the items over the counter with a flick of his wand, and with another flick, calculates the total price.

"You are. Hermione keeps telling me."

"She is?" Ron asks, with a bemused glance at him. "She never tells me that."

Harry laughs, reaching out to pat his shoulder. "Probably just wants to keep you modest. You'd want Hugo to be modest like his father too, wouldn't you?"

Ron rolls his eyes, but there's a twitch of a smile at his lips.

"Can't believe it's only a few more weeks now until my kid will be here." Ron huffs an awed smile, another one of those times when the magnificence of it really hits Ron out of nowhere. His hands have stilled in their working. "My kid, Harry. Merlin, I'm going to be a dad."

Harry smiles. "You're going to be a dad," he echoes softly.

He looks to Scorpius, and his residual smile fades at the sight of the troubled and forlorn little boy.

After some time, when the queue has dispersed, Ron jerks his head in a signal to come over to the side. Harry darts a glance at Scorpius, and then moves away, staying just far enough that he won't be able to listen to them. "Did Malfoy tell you?"

Harry raises an eyebrow. "Tell me what?"

"That he was here." Ron darts a glance over at Scorpius, checking that they aren't being heard.

"Who was here?"

"Er... I think his name is... Michael?" Ron says, squinting as he tries to confirm with his memory. His face then smoothes and he nods.

Harry's eyebrows knit together. Who?

The realization dawns over Ron's freckled face that Draco hadn't told him anything. "That's Malfoy's piece of work of a husband," he explains.

Harry's brain halts to a stop, feels the muscles of his face go rigid and stony. The cold anger seeps in through his insides, stretches his heart taut and hard, and sweeps through his gut like wildfire with a burning intensity. It's an emotion he's grown familiar with over the years in his career, that he's learned to channel with a calmness and control that he didn't have when he was younger.

Ron nods, his lips squinching in understanding. "Yeah. I know… so until that's dealt with, maybe don't bring his kid here. I don't think Scorp should be seeing him."

"What happened?"

"I don't know much. He came in yesterday, being all in Malfoy's face and looking mad as hell. I went over, made up something about needing Malfoy in the back working. He was getting pushy about it, kept wanting to talk to him. We went back and forth a little like that until he said he'd come back later and left."

Harry tries to maintain a neutral and calm mask. Let him come, then. "Did he hurt him?"

"Grabbed his wrist and all. Left a bad bruise."

Harry nods, slowly, his jaw shifting, clenching, as he looks away, one hand curling tightly into a fist over the counter. He keeps his expression composed and blank.

This is why Draco didn't want him bringing Scorpius at the shop, then, and Harry realizes now that what he'd seen on his face last night and this morning looked a lot like fear.

Ron is looking at him like he's seeing right through his facade of neutrality. "I'm not going to stop you from giving him hell, Harry, because I say he deserves to get his arse handed to him for what he did." He glances over at Scorpius for a second, a mellow ruefulness taking over his features for the child, and then looks back to Harry. "But as your best mate, I do feel obliged to tell you to, er, maybe don't… do anything too stupid?"

Harry shrugs, maintaining his reposed demeanor. "Nothing stupid. We're just going to talk."

Ron grimaces. "The way you're saying that, mate? Not reassuring at all."

He may be terribly tempted to do something as 'stupid' as Ron thinks he is capable of, but he knows he won't be able to do all that much with all these people around.

The bell chimes. Ron's gaze strays over to the new incomer, and Harry follows to find a man with dark hair and a scruff of a beard has just walked in.

"Speak of the devil." Ron nods at him, a hint of disdain curling slightly at his mouth. "That's him there."

Harry straightens his back, rolling his shoulders. The queue is thankfully empty for now. He leans close to Ron and murmurs, "Take Scorpius up into the flat for a couple of minutes for me, will you?"

Ron is clearly second-guessing fulfilling that request. "You know, Harry, maybe I should be the one dealing with—"

"Ron, we don't have time to argue. We can't let Scorpius see that bas—" He stops, throwing a quick glance at Scorpius, who is still sitting on the counter, in wait of his father. Harry's mouth twists in frustration. He moves over quickly and picks Scorpius up by the underarms and carefully lets Ron take him into his arms. "Go."

Ron looks over at Michael, who has halted in his steps at the sight of Scorpius. He sighs in defeat and quickly carries a perplexed, frowning Scorpius away, opening the door and sliding in through the gap. The door closes with a click, the sound followed by rhythmic padding of shoes up the stairs.

Michael has begun to move again, jogging over towards them. Harry rounds out from behind the counter to meet him in the middle.

"That was my son," Michael says, pointing in the direction where Ron disappeared with Scorpius, only sparing Harry a short glance. He tries to move around and past him, but he steps in his way, blocking his path.

"What do you want?" Harry says, cold and brusque.

Michael steps back and narrows his eyes at him, his brows furrowing together. He stares at him for a long moment, like he's trying to place him, and then shakes his head. "I'm looking for my husband, Draco. Is he around?"

Harry shrugs, keeping up a nonchalant charade. "You're not going to find out, are you? Seeing as you're going to fuck right off by the next minute and you're not going to show your face here again."

Michael cocks his head and laughs derisively, his expression calculating as he eyes Harry. "Sorry, who are you to him?"

Harry lets his wand slip out of his sleeve and into his hand, making sure Michael can see it. "Get out of here, right now, before I hex you to hell and back and you can't recognize yourself anymore."

"Oh." Michael arches an eyebrow, tipping his head back in some understanding. He huffs a quiet, scornful breath, his gaze roving over Harry. His lips curl in contempt and disgust. "Already found someone else to whore himself out to then, has he?"

Something in Harry's head explodes white-hot into his vision, and by the next second, Harry has the pointed tip of his wand whipped right up to Michael's throat, pressing it hard into the ridge of his trachea. One of his hands are fisted into his collar, an incantation that he hadn't quite thought through tipping at his tongue, drawn from the scorching rage setting fire to his insides. It stops stuck behind the grind of his jaw upon the sight of a wide-eyed little girl watching from afar, her mother taking her by the shoulders and quickly turning her away from the scene.

"Do you want to repeat that?" Harry snarls.

Michael has his palms up in a surrendering manner, his head tilting back as far as it could go. His breaths are a bit unsteady, his eyes slightly wide. "The—the boy with the coloured hair, is he your kid? I've seen him come around here. You think you know Draco, but you don't. You wouldn't trust him around your boy if you knew what I know about him."

"I know him just fine." He hauls him in close with a furious tug of his collar. "so now you listen here. If I hear even a whiff of you touching Draco Malfoy again, of you coming anywhere near him or Scorpius, I will hunt you down, and the laws be damned, I will have you writhing on the floor in pain right where you stand the second I lay my eyes on you next, do you understand me?" He shoves him back hard, forcing him to stumble back a few steps, but keeps his wand pointed at him. "Stay. Away from them."

"Who the fuck are you to say that to me? They're my family. I have the right—"

"Don't play that card with me. You don't have the right," Harry says coldly. He steps closer as he raises his wand higher again, making Michael retreat a hasty step. His hand is gripping the wand so tightly it's trembling, the fury in his body dripping over his insides like melted metals. "Not after what you did. You hurt a man and you made a little boy grow up fearing for himself and his father. Trust me, Michael, your 'family' wants nothing to do with you."

"You know that he is a Death-Eater, don't you?" Michael narrows his eyes, huffing a derisive smile as he cocks his head. "Or has he neglected to mention that?"

"He was. He isn't one anymore. I was there for all of it, at the forefront of that bloody war! So whatever you're going to try to enlighten me with about Draco? Don't bother."

Michael swallows, his eyes flicking down at the wand quivering with rage in Harry's rigid hand. His lips twist in a sneer against the tremor of his features, his eyes flat and hollow. "What makes you think you can stop me from taking back what's mine? You can't keep him from me forever."

"He isn't yours." Harry leans up close into his face and whispers, "And if I can stop Voldemort, I can certainly stop you."

...

"I feel like a monster," Ron mumbles, staring miserably at the hiccuping child sitting on the countertop, covered up in Harry's arms. 

Harry shoots him a rueful, guilty sort of look. When Michael had turned and left, angry and silent, and he'd calmed down from the fury and adrenaline, he'd gone up to the flat to tell Ron that he can come down with Scorpius, but he'd found him kneeling on the floor and panicking, frantically trying to coax Scorpius out of George's cupboard. He looks down to Scorpius, whose breaths are still hitching in intervals from having cried too much. Harry rubs his hand up and down his back in consolation, shushing him gently, massaging his head the way he's seen Draco do to him.

"He's going to hate me forever, isn't he?" Ron says, his face still drained of colour.

"Not forever," Harry tries to reassure. Realizing that that maybe isn't the right thing to say by the way Ron's face falls even more, he adds quickly, "I mean, it's not that he hates you. He just doesn't know you, right? He just... he got spooked."

The door of the lab clicks open, and George and Draco come out, glancing over at each other as they murmur in low conversation. They are covered in soot and grime, hair ruffled and robes singed in places. Draco's features are twisted in a simultaneously exasperated and contrite grimace, brushing himself off with the back of his free hand, the other holding a wand in preparation to cast something—presumably a cleaning charm—on himself. He hasn't looked up and noticed them yet. Harry scrutinizes Draco's face closely, only relaxing and letting Scorpius untangle himself when he sees that whatever wounds he might have had are healed.

It turns out that Harry doesn't have to fear Draco's wrath. As soon as he catches sight of him and his son, a resigned sigh escapes him, as if he'd already know it wasn't going to work out. Scorpius scrambles out of Harry's grip to try and see Draco better, looking frantic and on the verge of tears all over again at his father's dishevelled appearance.

"Nothing," Draco hushes when he seems to understand where his son's mind is at, quickly moving over to him. "It's nothing. Everything's fine. See?" He casts a cleaning charm over himself, takes Scorpius' face in his hands and kisses his forehead.

"Harry!" George greets, throwing him a pat to his shoulder with a smile.

"Hi, George. Everything okay?" Harry nods at the lab.

"Yeah, yeah, fine. Just Malfoy here nearly set the lab and himself on fire trying to handle some particularly volatile and unpredictable ingredients. Left a whole lot of toxic fumes and stubborn little fires that won't go out, but nothing a few spells couldn't fix. We're okay. Anyways, you'll be at mum and dad's dinner for the family gathering? I reckon Ginny's really looking forward to seeing you. Charlie too—"

"Did you do something?" Draco's voice demands from behind him, interrupting their conversation. Harry looks over to find Draco narrowing his eyes at Ron, Scorpius clutched tightly to his chest, his face half-hidden in his father's robes.

Ron shakes his head, but the guilt still paling his face is not helping his case. "No, I didn't!"

"Care to tell me why my son was looking at you like you nabbed his crup, Weasley?" Oh Merlin. Draco sounds scarily ice-cold. It is apparently much more intimidating when combined with oncoming paternal wrath.

Harry steps in quickly. "He didn't do anything, Malfoy. I promise. I'll tell you what happened later." It is not a conversation for Scorpius' ears, who is clearly reluctant to let go of his father long enough for them to have it.

Draco looks like he's ready to demand answers right now, sharp light eyes scrutinizing the both of them. He then turns his head to his son again instead, holding him closer and brushing a hand over his curls, the silent plea on Harry's face making him back down, surprisingly.

...

Harry notices things.

He's never been good at noticing things, but he supposes he's also never been good at not noticing Draco, across Great Halls and classrooms and now again.

Draco's face is closed off and cryptic, but he notices the way his hand keeps slipping over the arm with a wand under his sleeve, the quick glances thrown at the door, the way his head snaps up whenever the bell chimes. Scorpius won't let go of him, still sitting on the counter and quiet in his father's embrace, and Draco is alternating between holding him close with a loose arm around his small and thin back or quietly murmuring to him in attempts to persuade him that he needs to get back to work, so perhaps he should go home with 'Mister Potter' for now. Scorpius' chin wobbles, his face still swollen and red from his prior weeping, and Draco caves, helpless to his son's tears and utter misery, pulling him back into his arms with a heavy sigh as he eyes the door guardedly.

Harry closes his eyes, swallowing hard. He wishes that Draco told him, that he knew Harry would have done something about it. He would have kept him safe. He would have made sure that Draco never had to see that bastard ever again, that he never had to deal with him on his own.

When Harry can't stand it anymore, the guarded glances at the entrance and the subtle convulsions of his throat, he steps close to him. With one glance at Scorpius, he leans close to Draco's ear. "It's okay," he murmurs, so quiet that it's almost a whisper. "He's already gone."

Something in Draco's mask breaks open, then, caught off-guard. Just for the briefest of moments, his face falls, paler than normal, as his grey eyes flick up at him, face so close to his own that Draco's moonstone eyes have to lower to meet his, so close that Harry can see the flaxen eyelashes fluttering when he blinks rapidly a few times, a quiver of emotion in his gaze. 

Draco's lips thin together. "Did Scorpius...?"

Harry shakes his head, imperceptibly soft, and a second too slow because he's a bit distracted by the proximity. He tries not to think about catching the trouble pursing Draco's mouth with his own, tries not to stare at it like that might just be what he is thinking about. "No. No, he didn't. Ron took him up to the flat before that could happen."

Draco nods, and then looks down to the top of Scorpius' head, his fingers running through his curls. Something has loosened behind his eyes and face, just slightly, and his throat bobs again, and Harry tries not to think about brushing his fingers over it, to the side of the jut of his Adam's apple through his skin (ends up thinking about touching his mouth to it instead).

He tells himself that this is hardly the time to be thinking of such things.

"And I trust you didn't do anything too Gryffindor-like?" Draco says in a near drawl as his gaze darts up at him again, a pale eyebrow arching slightly, but he is a bit too quietly still in the way he is looking at him, like he is trying to puzzle him out.

Draco's eyes lower even more over his face, roving down to follow the pull of his smile that he hopes isn't as tender as he feels it might be, and he almost thinks that, maybe, he isn't the only one trying not to think of such things.

And then he thinks that there is no way.

"I might have threatened to hex his bollocks off if he came back here, and he might have seen that I meant it." Harry steps away from him, and it feels a bit like unsticking his entire body from glue. "We'll talk about this later."

The conversation is delayed until the next morning, because by the time Harry and Teddy return from dinner at the Weasley Burrows, Draco is sound asleep around his son in their room.

Through the crack left open in the door, he can see that Draco looks more at peace than he ever does awake, his features smooth and delicate in slumber. His arms are loosely covering his son's back, Scorpius' head tucked over his shoulder and under his jaw. Maybe it has been a while since Draco has gotten a good night's rest, but Harry hopes that it's also because he feels safer, because he is calmer and at ease now.

Next morning brings the sight of Draco in the kitchen, all fresh-faced and looking soft in his grey jumper and his tousled coiff of snowy hair. Draco catches sight of him and pushes his hip off the edge of the counter, straightening to his feet.

"Morning to you too," Harry says in response to his expectant stare, eyebrows arched high on his forehead. He moves into the half-enclosed space between counters and grabs a cup out of the upper cabinets.

Draco's eyes follow him as Harry comes to stop beside him, pouring himself tea from the steaming kettle on the stove. "Well? You said we were going to talk later. So talk."

"Er, I don't know if there's a whole lot to tell, really." Harry shrugs. "But I can promise you he will certainly think twice about coming back."

"Right. And you think a few threats and Gryffindor displays means that it's over now, just like that?" Draco's face is flat, bordering on disbelief.

"I don't know, really," Harry answers candidly, because he doesn't really know how stubborn Michael is going to be.

He glances away and puffs out a composing breath. He isn't entirely sure, suddenly, how Draco will react. Maybe he would think Harry had gone too far in some way. Maybe he still had feelings for the man he married, no matter what he did and how sick of a bastard he was. Nonetheless Draco needed to feel like he wasn't dealing with this all alone.

He may not want Harry to keep him safe, but Harry wanted him to feel safe anyway.

He returns his gaze to him, meeting Draco's eyes unapologetically. "But I told him I'll Crucio him—" Draco's eyebrows go up to his hairline. "—if he lays a finger on you or comes near Scorpius again, and believe me, that was no empty threat or mere Gryffindor stunts, because I meant it. I will hurt him if he tries anything with either of you."

Draco is quiet, watching him with a small furrow of his forehead, smoke eyes fixated on him and roving over his face, perhaps trying to gauge something. Harry wishes to Merlin he could know what he's thinking.

Harry shifts his weight on his feet. He isn't sorry for what he said, not in the least, and maybe he is upsetting Draco for speaking in such a way about his husband, but it's about bloody time somebody says these things to him. "So if he is stupid enough to come back... we will deal with him together."

There was a time when, even as cold as he was, Draco used to wear his emotions all over his face clearly; the blaze in his silver eyes and the sneer that curled at his lip when he was angry or disgusted, or when he was mocking someone, the genuine distress that furrowed at his brows and pinched his eyes when Harry's sharp, retaliating barbs hit a little too hard, even if it's shown only for a split-second before it's covered up by an icy set to his features or fury, and the way fear and anxiety ran through his face and his body in tremors and left him wide-eyed and ashen, the exhaustion and terror and harrowing mourn that haunted him throughout Sixth Year and left him slumped in chairs and picking at his food, his gaze downcast and his voice low.

Harry longs for that emotional visibility now, even if not for the boy he used to be,  because right now he is absolutely unfathomable.

"Together?" Draco repeats, quiet. There is still that look that, when Harry looks closely enough, he begins to read it as a bit like he's trying to work him out, and then with one downward flick of his eyes, a slow blink, there is an inexplicable emotion slipping into his gaze and the delicate line between his brows.

"Yes, Draco. Together," Harry echoes back, softly, and it vaguely occurs to him that he's just accidentally addressed Draco by his name aloud, and that being for the first time ever.

He hopes one day Draco can feel him settle into some part of his life, as someone who is there and as someone that he matters to, like he and Scorpius have settled into his own now.

Maybe he has.

By the next second, Draco's mouth is on his own, soft and warm, pushing his head back just so by the suddenness of it, by the light pressure startling all his breaths right out of his lungs and all his thoughts right out of his head, leaving him blank and scattered.

There is a zap of pleasure breaking over the plush of his mouth, running down the flesh over his spine and back, shivering his skin into goosebumps. Just as he's about to retrieve his mind and breaths back, the pressure over his mouth is gone, letting go in a soft kiss and leaving behind phantoms of warmth and a throb of longing. Draco's gaze is fixated on him, the pupils of his eyes overblown black over grey, lips parted slightly as he tries to regain air of his own into his lungs.

And then, as if it's just hit him what he's done, his eyes widen to saucers. His face goes drained of colour, horrified and stricken, humiliation and fear flooding into his expression. "Merlin, fuck! My apologies, Potter, I-I didn't—" He is steadily growing rigid and tense, beginning to tremble something terrible. He stumbles back a few steps, a hand gripping the counter tightly to repress its tremors, and Harry doesn't think, he just acts.

He grabs his face in both his hands carefully, makes sure Draco sees them when they reach for him, and Draco halts still, wide-eyed in a different way now, perhaps in a better way.

Harry is the one to lean forward this time, growing slow and tentative when he's so close that their breaths are mingling through their parted lips, slow and heavy. His mouth lingers closely over Draco's, one flick of a glance meeting his eyes, seeking confirmation.

Draco blinks, all beautifully baffled, his silver gaze tentatively lowering to settle over the way Harry's chapped lips disappear beneath the lick of his tongue, comes back damp and pressing together in a twitch of restraint. Harry wonders if his heart is pounding just as fast as his own, and he thinks of splaying a hand against his chest to feel it beat, but he keeps himself rooted where he is, not yet sure if he can.

He crosses the last of the inches and catches Harry's mouth again with his own, opening slightly to let him in on their next kiss. Harry's bare toes curl ever so against the cool tiles in the haze of sensations, the heat, the tenderness and how his gut softens into a throb. Draco is leaning against the counter now, leaning his weight on his palm, and Harry's hand slides up into his hair, soft and silky between his hesitant fingers, as if afraid of making a wrong move and ruining it all.

In the stillness and quiet of the morning, of the kitchen, there is just this; just the quiet sounds of the movement of their lips, of tentative and tender kisses, sharp exhales of a breath when they break for air inbetween, lips hovering over each other's for no more than a few seconds before they're pulling each other close, keep pulling each other closer by hands curled into waists and stomach of woollen sweaters and jumpers, and then they're kissing again, one body melding into the other to trade warmth and comfort. The pale daylights swathes the whole kitchen in bright sun-golden, swathes them through transclucent curtains, as if trying to frame the two young men losing themselves in each other.

Draco pushes him back gently by his shoulders, breaking away the kiss with a breath of air, and this time, he doesn't pull him back in by the front of his sweater. Harry is startled for a second, blinking. His cheeks are flushed hot, his chest heaving slow and heavy. His lips throb with hunger and need for more, with the phantom little nips of teeth tugging at his bottom lip, a heated drop of desire diffusing low in his stomach.

"Okay?" Harry asks, a dry throat and breathlessness making his voice rough and strained. 

Draco nods, glancing over at the doorway, just as breathless from their kisses, and it makes Harry's heart feel funny to think he did this to him, made his lips swollen like this, made his cheeks pink like this, made him feel just the way he made Harry feel, or so he hopes.  "I reckon we ought to take this to your room, lest the kids wake up and see us."

Harry's eyes widen at the forwardness, not out of distaste, however. If anything—his swallows audibly in the silence at the possible scenarios, at the images and thoughts flooding into his mind of what this will lead to—

Draco rolls his eyes, unimpressed, "I don't necessarily mean that."

Harry blinks, feeling mortified at his own presumptions. "No, no, I—I understand." He laughs, nods quickly. "Yes. Yes, okay. Let's… yes, let's just—"

Draco smirks something hushed at his awkward blabbering, and Harry stops, even though it doesn't seem mocking or unkind. Almost the opposite, maybe. He doesn't know. He can hardly even think straight now. He feels hot and lightheaded and afloat, his heart all tight and strange in the best of ways. He feels a little out of his depth, a little out of his place in his own skin, nervousness and excitement fluttering rapidly in his gut. They've only just broken apart, and Harry already can't wait to kiss him again, and he feels a little like a hormonal teenager with his very first crush.

Draco takes ahold of his hand and drags him over to Harry's bedroom, and Harry is already thinking of getting his hands under his jumper and drawing up the warmth of his flesh into his own, the way his fingers would fit against the dips of Draco's waist, is already thinking of pulling him on top of him and kissing him senseless and blind. He can't remember the last time he's wanted things like these, can't remember the last time he's wanted, and certainly not like this. 

He wonders if Draco wants it just as much (hopes he does), when he's straddling his waist, knees dipping into the mattress of Harry's bed on either side of him, and kissing him senseless and blind just the way Harry was thinking of doing to him a few moments ago, the sound of breaths frantic and heavy between their kisses. The inside of Draco's mouth is wet and smooth and exhilarating, the ridges of his teeth only just slightly uneven at his canines, and his tongue is licking pleasurable tingles all over the inside of his own mouth in a way that radiates all the way down his spine in shivers. 

Without being on edge in the back of their minds over being walked in on by Teddy or Scorpius, Draco is more open and free in the way he mouthed and sucked at his lips and tongue, his hands flat on either side of Harry's head as he leans over him, sharing hungry open-mouthed kisses as their noses keep knocking together. Harry's hands are running down the delighted tremors and heat of his back and over his sides in light brushes, his own head craned upward as he tries to keep up with Draco's rhythm and speed.

Eventually, they have to pause for air again, and Harry can't help the pull of a grin at his lips, breathing hard as he stares up at the gorgeous man hovering over him.

They had once hated each other, a decade ago, and lying here now under him, it's strange to think they were the same two boys that fought and taunted and loathed each other to no end back in school. He laughs softly, the rush of the high and the lack of air from kisses making his head spin a little.

Draco's eyebrows furrow together. "What?" he asks, in a strained breath, and there is a quiver of insecurity beginning to twitch its way into his gaze, and Harry knows that if he thinks too hard about where it came from, his mind will go towards thoughts that don't feel as good as it does right now.

Harry shakes his head, his smile keeping itself when he lets his focus narrow down to Draco, to just Draco and how he feels on him, around him. He touches the thighs locked over his sides, stroking them soothingly. "It's strange, isn't it? The two of us here like this ten years later?"

Draco's forehead loosens, and he grins free and wide behind a bite of his lower lip, his hair hanging into the crinkle of his eyes and his face where it's leaned over Harry, and Merlin, he is fucking beautiful. "Having civil conversations," he adds.

"Not killing each other," Harry continues the chain, with a matching grin, until there is an image of a bathroom and blood beginning to push its way into his mind, and his grin dies, and something in him withers.

Maybe Draco notices. Maybe he doesn't. Before Harry can say anything, before he can think any further, Draco's hands are grabbing his cheeks and kissing him stupid again until his mind eases away from then and into now, and he supposes maybe that's a conversation for later.

Harry's hands drag up his thighs, over his hipbones and waist and the sides of his ribs, pushing against his flesh and bone to feel him thoroughly, draws a pleased little hum from the man above him, and it comes to grip his wrists, the heels of Draco's hands still cupping Harry's jaw and cheeks. Harry dips his thumb into the hollows between stretched tendons on the back of Draco's hands, a little above the corner of his wrists, and then presses them to the underside of them to rub circles into his skin.

"I like it," Harry says, in breaths between kisses. "Us not fighting." I like who you are now, and how it makes me think we might just fit perfectly.

"Of course you do," Draco says, pausing to gesture vaguely to point at their compromising position, and it makes Harry laugh. The pleased expression crossing over Draco's face, at having made him laugh, makes Harry pull him down by the nape of his neck, and then they're kissing like smitten teenagers all over again. Draco's hands roam up into his hair and grip it tightly, the folded up sleeves of his jumper over his pale forearms brushing over Harry's face, his arse shifting slightly over his lower abdomen as he does.

Not so much like lovesick teenagers, then, when Draco pulls apart again, smirking down at him in a wicked sort of way as he brushes his hair back behind his ears with his hands. Harry raises an eyebrow, curiously, and is answered by Draco lifting himself on his knees and scooting back and—

Oh. 

Harry's breaths snap out of his lungs in a gasp of baffled pleasure, ripped out of the bottom of his throat. Stars burst into his vision, his hands gripping at the soft material of Draco's trousers over his hips, his head thrown back and his feet digging into the mattress, his hips jolting. Draco's eyes are glassy, a twitch of thrill creating a curve at one corner of his mouth as he watches him closely. He bends his head down, then, mouthing kisses down the arch of Harry's throat, down the jut of his Adam's Apple, and Harry catches a whiff of the scent of his hair, something herbal and sweet—

"HARRY!"

They both still right where they are.

"HARRY! ARE YOU HOME?" Teddy is shouting, fully awake and alert as it seems, and that means Scorpius will not be far behind.

Harry groans, pushing his head back deeper into the pillows in frustration. Draco sits upright, his smile pursed in restraint of a laugh at the most probably disappointed and sad pout overtaking his face.

Draco presses his lips together. "This was a terrible time."

"The worst." Harry throws an arm over his head, the other hand brushing over Draco's thigh as he stares up at the ceiling. He sighs, shifting his head on the pillow so he can look up at Draco. "Tell me something gross."

"Bellatrix and Voldemort going at it," Draco says, absently glancing at the door as Teddy yells for him too now.

"MISTER MALFOY? WHERE IS EVERYONE?"

Harry blinks. His mouth works, and then closes. "...er, okay, too much. Honestly, if you weren't still sitting on me, that might have just done the trick, thank you."

Draco snorts, sliding off of him (and eliciting a strangled sort of sound from Harry). He drops down to his back beside him on the bed. "My apologies."

Merlin, has his posh accent and elitist manners always been this attractive?

Teddy's right outside his door now, knocking. "Harry? Are you in there? Hello!" 

"In a minute, Teddy!"

"How am I awake before you? Can I come in?"

Harry blinks and sighs. "Being a parent is so hard," he mutters, running his hands down his face. He raises his voice to yell, "I'm changing! Don't come in!"

"Oh, okay, but can you hurry? I'm really hungry." 

Draco bites back a smile, but it comes out onto his lips anyway, and it leaves Harry fixated on him all over again. He's not sure he's ever seen Draco like this, except with Scorpius, maybe, and he wants more of it, wants all of him. He leans up on his elbows, leans down to kiss him again because he isn't quite ready to stop, and then kisses his smile again because he actually can't make himself stop this time, and this does not help the southward problem straining in their trousers.

Harry sighs. "Umbridge in fishnets and stilettos."

Draco grimaces in disgust, shoving at his shoulder. "For the love of Merlin, Potter, stop talking and just go take a cold shower."

Harry looks up at him, amusement quirking at his eyebrow and at his lips. "You know, Draco, if there's ever a time for us to be on a first-name basis, I reckon it's now."

…

"Okay, people! Gather around!" Teddy shouts. Everyone turns to look at the boy standing up high on the table. "We're going to have a dance party! But... with a twist."

Harry smiles, sharing an amused glance with the others looking over as they stand up to their feet from the couch and comply with his godson's demand. While visits from Ron and Hermione have been fairly frequent nowadays, every once a week or so, it is certainly a treat to have Neville and Luna over for the small get-together. Times like these are rather memorable and, with Teddy's creative mind amongst them, full of entertainment.

Now, if only a certain beautiful, white-blond man would come out with his equally endearing little son to join them. That would complete his picture of a brilliant time.

Scorpius had ran in crying with a literal dark cloud over his head this morning, tears and rainwater soaking his face, and soaking his father in it too when he sought comfort in his shoulder, perhaps brought on by an erratic magic and the lack of his father beside him when he awoke. Draco had stayed home to give him some reprieve and comfort, seeing that his son's distress upon being separated from him for long hours is clearly reaching to the brim and leaving him overwhelmed.

"I call it…" Teddy pauses, stalling in wait for someone to do a suspenseful drumroll. Ron drums his hands over the table in compliance. "Switch!"

"Fascinating!" Neville grins with an encouraging clap.

Teddy nods at him in acknowledgment. "Thank you, Uncle Neville." And then turns again to face the room at large. "Now this is how it goes: we'll start by closing our eyes—no cheating!—and everyone will walk around until they touch someone. When you've done that, you move to the side with the person you got. This goes on until everyone has a partner. Do you all understand so far? Okay. So one person is chosen to call Switch after at least ten seconds. For what? I'll tell you. The music will start, and everyone will dance with their partners until the chosen person calls Switch, and then one partner will have to switch with the pair closest to them."

"That sounds...chaotic," Ron mutters.

"That's the fun of it, I suppose," Harry mutters back with a snort.

Neville raises his hand.

Teddy gestures at him with his arm. "Yes, Uncle Neville?"

"Is there a way to win?"

Teddy squints in contemplation. "We do this—until everyone gets tired and gives up! The last person standing wins!" There are clearly a lot of holes in the game, but nobody mentions this.

"That's not fair! Neville is clearly fit. It's pretty obvious he's going to win!" Ron protests.

"Then maybe you should work out more, Uncle Ron."

Ron gapes and clutches at his chest like he's been shot with a hex, affronted, as snickers explode around the room. Hermione pats his shoulder comfortingly, biting back a smile.

"I choose Harry to call Switch," Teddy announces with a prestigious bow of his head, and then hops off the table.

"Wait, why him?" Ron asks.

"Because I'm his favourite, obviously," Harry answers at the same time as Teddy's, "cause I made this game and I get to choose!"

"That is rubbish," Ron whispers to Harry. "I let him eat Chocolate Frogs before bed!"

"That's just bad parenting, and I'm his godfather." 

"That's being cool. And you want to bet on this? Five Galleons."

"You're on."

Ron turns to Teddy. "Teddy, who do you like the most out of us?" 

"Auntie 'Mione, of course!"

Ron furrows his forehead. "But I let you eat Chocolate Frogs before bed."

Harry narrows his eyes. "I'm your godfather."

Teddy looks at both of them with a raised eyebrow. "Yes, but… Auntie 'Mione clearly rules over all of you, and I need to be on her good side."

Harry shares a dumbfounded glance with Ron, both their faces fallen.

Hermione laughs and puts her hands on Teddy's shoulders as they share a grin. "Oh, Teddy, I really do love you. We could rule over the world, the two of us, wouldn't you say?"

 ...

Soon the room is a commotion of people spinning and half-circling around each other, hand in hand and hands on shoulders, all lost in the cadence of a loose and free dance to the drums and guitar synchronizing in a melody. When it is called for, there is the somewhat coordinated whirlwind of bodies flinging mid-spin into the hands of somebody else, catching each other's.

There are small smiles on all his friends' faces, permeating a bright energy through the air. Every now and then, there is an echo of laughter rising open and playful, most likely in response to some amusing antic of their dance partner or murmurs shared away from the rest of their ears. 

"Oh heck, Harry! I was hoping to get my wife!" Ron looks disappointed as he takes Harry's hand.

"Mate, she pushed me to you," Harry says with a laugh. "You might want to ask her why."

"I'm pregnant, so I couldn't be bothered to move," Hermione responds over her shoulder some feet behind them. "And I wanted to dance with Teddy."

He comes in quiet some time later, unnoticed by everyone but Harry, because it seems Harry has never known how to not notice him.

The rest of the world falls away and narrows down to him, and for a moment, he is all Harry sees.

Draco's hand is around Scorpius' as he leads them over to the armchair by the fireplace, moving close to walls as if he is hoping to remain unseen by the rest. He settles down and pulls Scorpius up on his knee, and when Draco lifts his head up, it's him he finds first, like he is just as aware of Harry as Harry is of him.

Harry doesn't realize he's smiling something soft and teetering on a big grin until he tears his gaze away to look at his current dancing partner. He finds Luna staring back at him with her typical little quirk of a smile, knowing, always knowing more than people know she does. The ones that really know her understand now, just how aware she is of things despite her dreamy and absent-minded demeanour. She glances over at Draco, and it's just another one of those things that she catches on to before the rest of them.

"You look alight," she says. Harry feels like he is.

All throughout, Harry can't help but glance over at the father and son sitting on the sidelines, keeping themselves outside of it, but still occasionally amused at the exchange of banters and the strange pairs made. At some point, Draco tilts his head to look at Scorpius' face with a smile, takes his smaller hands in his and claps them together to the beat of the music. It's sweet, and it maybe leaves Harry's heart a little too swollen and aching to kiss him again.

Hermione quits and sits down on the couch half-way through the song, and Luna joins her, both of them engaging in conversation. Hermione lights up, touching her swollen belly as she speaks, and Luna smiles fondly as Hermione takes her hand and lets her feel the kick of the baby.

Harry's gaze drifts again, over to the Malfoys. Draco isn't looking back at him this time, isn't looking back with his little smirk, like a secret between them, an arch of his eyebrow that does something fluttery to his gut. He looks distant and lost, his gaze hazy and somewhere far and deep into his own mind, and Harry doesn't like that look on his face at all.

Harry catches Teddy's eye and nods at the father and son, and Teddy glances over. His face goes beaming, pleasantly surprised.

"Scorpius, Mister Malfoy, come join us!" Teddy shouts over the music. Draco's head snaps up, blinking. It takes him a while to return, to react, but his eyebrows raise when the invitation seems to register. He shakes his head with an uncomfortable expression, glancing around at the attention called upon on him.

"You get Draco, I get Scorpius," Harry murmurs to him, and Teddy nods in approval of the plan before he bounds over to them.

Their attempts last nearly a whole song, unfortunately to no avail.

"Mister Malfoy, come on, please! I really really really really really really really—" It goes on and on and on, to Harry's amusement. "—really want you to."

Draco smiles, maintaining calm even over his lips pressing together in controlled exasperation. "Teddy, I'm very much not inclined." He bends down to look into Scorpius' face. "Would you like to join them?"

"We won't be far," Harry promises Scorpius. He points to a spot a few feet away. "We'll just be right here."

…

The music plays on, but most others have sat down, engaged into a group conversation at the centre where the couches are. They glance over at Harry and Scorpius, smile as they supposedly converse over them, and then return to their own topics, muffled murmurs and words drifting across the room. 

Scorpius seems to be enjoying himself, a smile blushing his cheeks as Harry teaches him how to dance, one of his steps involving a fluid roll of the joints of his shoulders to the rhythm of the song, his arms held up close to his chest as he moved in a rather dorky manner, before bending down to guide him. Scorpius tries to follow his instructions in hesitant and light movements of his little arms and legs, constantly glancing over at Harry to see if he's doing it correctly. 

"Look, Scorp! Like this!" Draco looks at Teddy just in time to see him do a funny sort of waggle with his whole body.

As Teddy takes over the responsibility of teaching his son abominable dance moves, Harry comes up to him with an odd and nervous sort of look on his face, one hand scratching at the back of his head as he ambles towards him, an endearing, crooked little smile on his lips that tugs at something in Draco. He holds out a hand.

"Dance with me?"

Draco doesn't respond for a moment, only stares at his hand like he doesn't know what to do with it. He rolls his eyes. "No. What makes you think I would agree to you when I didn't to Teddy?"

"Come on now, just one song." The soft acoustic guitar of a song starts drifting on low throughout the room. Harry glances in the direction of the record player and grins in delight, and something else bordering on some sort of nostalgia. "It's Oasis."

"I really don't know what that is, and thereby cannot share your enthusiasm."

Harry is not discouraged. If anything, he smiles. He seems to be doing that a lot today, and it is maybe the thought that he is the reason why that makes him somewhat weak, that makes his throat heavy and his heart a bit more reluctant to deny him. "It's a muggle band. One of my, Ron and 'Mione's favourites."

Dancing is not something Draco minds. He knows the skill well, has grown up learning the sophisticated arts that embed elegance and grace in a person, and he even enjoyed it once, ages ago. He enjoyed it at the Yule Ball with Pansy in Fourth Year, and it became a sort of thing with them after, something she and Draco used to do for fun every once in a while in the Slytherin Common Room, at times the only panacea for a terrible day. Blaise had dragged him by the hands into one in Sixth Year, because he was too quiet and he just wanted to make him smile. With Pansy, it was comforting and calming, but nothing would comfort or calm him that year and she stopped trying. With Blaise, though, it was inexplicably strange and funny, especially when he didn't even bother to put on any music. And then there were the times when Scorpius was one and two and learning to walk, and Draco would kneel in front of him, turn up the music when Michael was off to work, and sway their hands together gently, laughing at the way Scorpius waddled along to it, giggling uncontrollably as well.

Michael hadn't liked dancing, but he'd indulged him on rare occasions, when he was in a particularly good mood, and especially when their love was still so new, when he hadn't known all too much about just who it was that he'd married.

He hasn't had a dance with anyone in ages, but he can hardly start again now of all time. He doesn't want to call upon the attention of all the rest in the room, and having a dance with their best mate, even on the extreme end of a rather large living room, seems like a surefire way to do just that.

It seems to have caught their attention anyway, the simple scene of Harry asking him for a dance. He doesn't know what they will think if they knew, but he can't imagine it'd be anything good. He can't imagine they'd find him good enough for someone like Harry. He is just fine for a charity case, but he doubts he is to be a lover in their eyes.

Draco clears his throat and breaks his gaze off of them, putting it somewhere away to the side. "Your friends are looking," he mumbles, certain that this will divert Harry.

"So? Let them look." Harry frowns, like he doesn't entirely understand why that matters. "I don't care if you don't care. Now come on." He bobs his head in a sort of insistent gesture, shaking his hand as if to bring attention to it. "Don't leave me hanging, Draco. Dance with me."

It seems like a bad idea in every respect.

But there is Harry's hand, held out upward like he just might wait forever—stubborn wanker—and that damned smile, crooked and wide, an eyebrow cocked expectantly, and the Gryffindor boldness and indifference to how his friends will feel about seeing them together, and while Draco doesn't want any sort of attention, he can't say he hated the thought of Harry not minding being seen with him like this.

And there is the way his smile blossoms blinding and beautiful when Draco huffs out an exasperated breath, but slips his hand into his regardless. Harry reaches down to take his other hand as well and pulls him up to his feet, his reluctant body moving half-heartedly in accordance, and pulls him next to where Teddy is holding both of Scorpius' hands, slow dancing in a hyperbolic swaying, his face set in a goofily intense and serious expression, his chin raised and his eyes closed. Scorpius is giggling uncontrollably at him, looking to Draco and Harry to share his delight with them. Teddy peeks one eye open to see his cousin, his lips breaking into a pleased grin at his reaction.

Granger and Weasley are huddled together on the couch from where he can see them over Harry's shoulder, and Longbottom is holding his hand out to Lovegood (or perhaps she is Luna Longbottom these days, but Merlin knows) for a dance. She takes it, and they begin making their way over to join them.

Harry's hand slides into the spaces between his fingers, tangling them together at their waist level, and the other rests warm on the middle of his back. Draco looks back at him to find emerald green locked onto his own, his face so close he can feel the warmth of his breaths against his lips. He is smiling, leading the dance with a deliberate, slow sway of shoulders and waist, so that they both rotate around in circles of small steps.

...

Harry remembers being eighteen, after the war, and sitting around in a dorm room with Ron, Hermione and sometimes Ginny, Neville and Luna, listening to muggle music for hours on a walkman. It's where they grew fond of it, and passed their love on to Teddy, who in turn taught them the joy of dancing.

"Teddy's always loved dancing, ever since he was a baby. Now Teddy's always been a heavy sleeper too, right? He just won't wake up unless it's in his own time. But this one time, when he must have been two I think, we were trying to wake him, and we had music playing on low from our walkman. It must have a whole fifteen minutes, but he wasn't waking up, just made this little snuffing sound and then rolled over every time, and so we're about to give up. And then his favourite song comes on, and he just sits up, half-asleep, and starts wagging."

Draco snorts out a laugh, a bit stilted like it's drawn out of him without warning, his head dipping between his shaking shoulders, lips pressed together to control his mirth. Harry's crinkling eyes follow the drop of his with a laugh of his own, leaning in close to see him.

"It was the funniest bloody thing we'd seen in a while. Imagine, all we had to do was put on some ABBA and he'd be right up."

It must have been the first time they'd laughed that hard since the war.

"I have to say, Harry..." Draco squints, exaggerating a mock-impressed expression, and he looks just a little like the Draco he once knew in Hogwarts when he was about to make a underhanded comment, except it doesn't leave Harry guarded and on edge anymore. "I am rather surprised that you can dance at all, given those abominable moves you were teaching my son a while ago."

Harry gapes, affronted, even as a crinkle of mirth twitches at his narrowed eyes. "Your son loved my top-notch dance moves and you know it!"

So as Champagne Supernova plays on, the beats of the drums and the strum of guitars picking up, Harry grins and leads his partner up to spin in a circle under his arm, before they fall back into the sway of their dance. There is a small smile quirking at Draco's lips, his hands falling on Harry's shoulders, so Harry's go to his waist instead, and there is something bright and easy and grounded in his gaze that Harry isn't sure he's seen before today.

He looks happy, maybe. Harry hopes he is.

…

"So Draco and I kissed," Harry says, shifts slightly on the couch. He's somewhat certain he hasn't exactly been subtle, but he wasn't exactly trying to be. "This morning."

"We figured," Neville says around the same time Ron begins, "Shocker. Couldn't have worked that out with you two making googly eyes at each other all throughout this get-together, which you spent more time with him at than us, by the way, and he already lives with you."

Harry snorts, sheepish. "Sorry. Er..." He looks between them all. "How do you guys feel about it? I just—understand we all have history with him, you know."

Neville shrugs. "I hardly know him these days, really, so I can't say. But I have good faith that if you like him, Harry, then he's probably a changed man, and regarding our history, I reckon it's safe to say we've all forgiven and moved on, haven't we?"

Ron nods in agreement. "Right. I'm just mostly... surprised. It seems very unexpected for me, I suppose. I mean, if you were to ask me who you were most likely to end up, Malfoy would have been my last guess. Or he wouldn't have been one at all, really, seeing as you two are so different and the way you fought like cats and dogs. But that's sort of it. Whatever issues we had then, we're all over it, aren't we? He's not a git anymore so... so yeah. Your life is yours, in the end, mate. If he makes you happy, then we're all happy for you."
 

"'Mione?" Harry asks.

She has been silent all throughout, and when Harry catches her eye, she smiles tightly. Harry wants to think she's just tired, but he has the strange intuition that she wants to say something she can't at the moment.

"What they said," she says with a shrug, her bushy-haired head burrowed into Ron's shoulder.

While Scorpius is occupied with Teddy's and Luna's company, who is smiling at him with a kind crinkle in her eyes, asking him yes or no questions with a curiously inclined head, Draco slips away unnoticed.

Harry finds him in the kitchen, just as he did this morning, standing at the counter with a half glass of water.

"Alright?" Harry asks, knows Draco knows he's here because he always makes sure the scuffle of his footsteps are audible. He steps up until he's just a little behind him, looking at him over his shoulder, thinks about touching him without a specific point in mind because all he wants is to touch him anywhere and everywhere. 

Draco's lips quirk, almost but not quite a smile, as he glances over his shoulder at him. "Alright." He nods. "What are you doing here?"

Harry slowly slides over beside Draco and leans back against the edge of the counter. "I just… I came looking for you."

He chews on his lower lip for a moment, and then reaches out to curl a hand around Draco's wrist. He gently tugs him over to stand in front of him, fitting one of his ankles between Draco's, calves brushing together. Draco's almost-smile does become a smile then, quirking one corner of his lips more than the other, and Harry swallows hard at the way his breath catches in his throat at the sight. He can't remember if he's ever smiled at him like that before. He leans in close, brushing his nose against his, and looks back up to meet moonstone eyes.

"I haven't…" His words fade, hesitant, wondering if he's just going to sound soppy and stupid, but they're there in his throat, heavy, and he lets it convulse around them. The curved u of his hand is still wrapped around Draco's thin wrist, his grip nearly delicate. "I haven't felt anything like this in a very long time," Harry says, quiet breaths of words ghosting over Draco's lips where his own linger towards it, their foreheads nearly touching. 

Draco's eyes flutter in a blink, lowered to half-lids in order to meet his own, silver and green. His forehead twitches into a soft furrow, mellowing his face. His throat bobs, and he inches closer and brushes his lips with his own and murmurs, "Neither have I."

Harry crosses the inch of distance and kisses him, the gentle force of it drawing Draco's head back and drawing Harry in to follow, Draco's mouth plushing back to deepen the kiss. He looks content and blissed out, at ease. Beautiful. There is a soft and slow song playing out from the living room, a piano and violin melody, muffled and distant in the kitchen, and there is the quiet sounds of their lips moving against each other's, sharing kisses that are only tender, but many, one after another after another. Harry slides his hand up his waist and cups his jaw to hold him in place, Draco's fingers tangling into the stomach of his black sweater, dragging up to his chest and over his shoulders, and the tenderness and warmth of it all leaves his gut tight and aching.

"Ew."

...and there goes the moment. Again.

Harry lets go of the kiss and drops his temple against Draco's forehead in defeat. He clenches his eyes shut and sighs.

He looks over to find Teddy standing beside Scorpius in the doorway, his arms stretching over beside him to cover the smaller boy's eyes with his hands. There is a furrow between his eyebrows, disgusted.

Harry clears his throat awkwardly. "Hi."

"Honestly you two, there are children in this house!" He sounds much like Hermione whenever she catches Harry and Ron cursing in the company of a child, which mostly tends to be Teddy or Victoire, or sees a couple forgetting themselves and snogging a bit too much in their company.

In their defense, they did not know Teddy would be coming in here, although Harry supposes they should have, because Scorpius would obviously notice his father's absence and come looking for him, and it seems Teddy came along to help him look.

Teddy removes his hands from Scorpius' eyes once Draco steps back from Harry's space. Scorpius doesn't say anything, just blinks at the two of them with a baffled little frown.

"I think Scorpius and I will just be way over there in the other room," Draco murmurs to him, grinning in that wicked sort of way he sometimes did, that Harry wants to kiss right off his face (but everything Draco is doing is making him want to kiss him, so really, that's redundant). "Giving you our moral support."

"Thanks," Harry deadpans.

Draco moves over, then, takes Scorpius' hand in his own, and leaves Harry to deal with a narrow-eyed Teddy staring at him across the room. Teddy has never understood the big deal at all about kissing, about putting your lips to someone else's. He gets disgusted when he sees it in movies, and Harry sometimes teases him that he'll understand one day when he meets the person he likes, but in the end, if he doesn't, that's okay too.

"My godfather and my uncle?"

"Yes." Harry coughs. "Is that, er, weird for you?"

Teddy grimaces. "Maybe. Just don't be...gross all the time, I suppose." He squints, then. "So what? Are you two getting married now or something?"

Harry is struck speechless for a moment at the question. It's so sudden he isn't sure whether to laugh or blush.

"Er... not anytime soon, I suppose?"

"Oh. Okay." Teddy shrugs, and then turns around and leaves.

With Scorpius in his arms, cheek smushed into his father's shoulder, Draco had to lean so close to Harry that his lips brushed against the shell of his ear, and he whispered a low breath of, "Wait for me."

And Merlin help him, the way he smirked when he stepped away, holding it over his shoulder as he turned, his smoke-grey gaze breaking away fully from Harry's when he began to head towards his and Scorpius' room.

Everyone has flooed back home by now, and Teddy has gone to bed, and now here he is, lying on his bed completely awake, all fatigue chased away by an anticipation, by the fizzle of nerves and the flutter of excitement in his gut keeping him up. He's been alternating between reclining in bed, quietly waiting, and pacing back and forth in accordance to the racing thoughts in his mind, of the breathtaking possibilities of the night promised in three words.

Eventually, however, when it's almost midnight, his constant pacing and overload of emotions leaves him somewhat exhausted, and he ends up drifting in a light doze on his bed, half-sitting against the pillows up on the headboard.

Soon enough, he's drawn out of his faint slumber with a dip of weight on his mattress, the hushed rustling of sheets, the scent of sweet and herbal shampoo wafting in the air, hands on his face and a soft, warm pressure of a mouth on his, kissing him gently out into awareness.

"Now you're just pretending," Draco murmurs against his mouth, the pads of his fingers pressing into his jaw, a thumb dipping into his chin.

Harry grins, opens his eyes, finally, and finds moonstone eyes staring back. He looks fresh and clean, his hair slightly damp and wavy from a shower, clad in a white long-sleeved shirt and black sweatpants. "I could get used to waking up like that."

Draco hums. "Maybe you should." That's a prospect that settles warm into Harry's gut. Draco is scrutinizing his face, roving over his eyes, his nose, his mouth, before coming back up. "Are you tired? If you don't feel up for it right now—"

Harry grips his wrist, in case he thinks of moving away. "Merlin, no. If you think I'm waiting another bloody day..." 

Draco smirks. "Impatient, are we?"

"I'm not even going to pretend." He's fairly certain it's all there in his face anyway, just how much he wants. "Come here." Harry tugs him inward by the wrist, puts the other hand to Draco's hip to pull at him. Draco takes the cue and follows his guiding hands, scooting on his knees on the bed. He leans his palms on Harry's shoulder as he settles his legs on either side of his lap in a straddle, the side of his calves locked over Harry's thighs. 

Merlin. Harry quirks a small smile, his fingers tentative, reverent, as they stroke down Draco's sides, his head tipped back slightly to look up at him, at the sharp and delicate features even more so in the dim, yellow lamplight, reflecting off the snowy hair and the soft haze of his moonstone eyes looking down at him, his hands smoothing over Harry's shoulders. Draco's body is warm and heavy, fitting just right over his own, and he smells so sweet and lovely that Harry wants to hold him and bury his face into the hollow of his neck and breathe.

And it's here that Harry thinks that he might just be more than a little bit smitten.

Draco leans in to meet his forehead against Harry's, the tips of their noses brushing as his arm comes up around Harry's neck, his gaze fixated low on the way his finger and thumb are sliding the collar of his shirt between them. He inhales a hushed, quivering breath, something vulnerable in the frown of his face, in the way he seems to be retreating into his own head again.

"What is it?" Harry brushes his thumb over the side of his ribcage, and it's a little too easy to feel through his skin, even over his shirt.

Draco doesn't say anything. He watches his fingers fidget with his shirt, his mouth thin and troubled. It's a facial expression that he shares with Scorpius when he's worried.

He bumps his nose into Draco's, and it makes the other man's lips twitch just so into a feeble, almost-smile. "Talk to me."

Harry prays to whatever gods that listen that Draco will just finally feel comfortable about sharing what's on his mind. He holds too much inside himself, and Harry knows better than most just how hollow and tired doing that leaves a person. He also knows that pushing someone to talk about things they're not ready for has never been helpful. A few well-meaning friends had tried that with him after the war, and the end-result was an explosive reaction that he regretted for a long time after, even if it had gotten them to give him some time and space.

"Is this wrong?" It's soft, uncertain, unlike anything Harry has heard the other man be, and it makes him want to kiss the trouble knitting in his brows and thinning his mouth away.

Harry waits for him to go on, stroking his hands over the sides of his waist in a way that he hopes is soothing and reassuring, that tells him that it's okay to say whatever he means to say. Draco's eyes flick up into his. 

"What with..." His voice fades, like he isn't sure if he should bring it up. "What with me being married, I mean."

It takes a few seconds to click into Harry's head, what he's trying to say, and Harry wants to say that a marriage like that is hardly worth counting or being loyal to, but he isn't sure if that's out of line for him to say, so he doesn't. "Does it bother you?"

"I should be the one asking you that, shouldn't I?"

"I'm not bothered," Harry says, kisses the corner of his mouth. "And as far as I'm concerned, after everything he did..." Harry doesn't know what that everything is, exactly, because Draco never talks about it, but he knows enough, and he can see what it's done to two of the people he cares about. "He doesn't deserve you, and you don't owe him anything." 

Draco's gaze darts down, still frowning in a way that tempts Harry to kiss it away, distracting himself with Harry's collar again. He bites his lip, snorts something wry and mirthless, and he can't tell if it's directed at himself or Michael. "He was rather fond of calling me certain names," he says quietly, and then scoffs. "And now I seem to be proving him right, aren't I? if I hadn't already from my time on the st—"

He stops himself, abrupt and quick, and blinks rapidly, pulling his forehead away from Harry's. He averts his gaze, his curled hands stilled over Harry's collarbones, a tremor running through them and against Harry's skin. It takes Harry a couple of seconds to fill in the blanks of the somewhat cryptic words, to understand, and it leaves him cold inside, his stomach turning.

He takes too much time trying to formulate a response to that, and Draco clears his throat, discomfitted. "Nevermind. I shouldn't have brought him up, and now of all time at that."  And there he goes again, closing himself off, shutting down. Harry wants to draw him back from that place he's put himself back into, but he isn't always good with words and he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know how to keep him open and comfortable and trusting, and now he's slipping through his fingers again. "It hardly matters what he thinks anymore anyway."

He sounds a bit like he's trying to convince himself of this.

In his time as an Auror, Harry had come across a few domestic violence cases, so he is well-aware of the phenomenon in which the survivors still hold feelings of affection and compassion for their tormentors, despite everything they'd put them through. He had had such feelings for the Dursleys, once, when he was too young to understand, but he isn't entirely sure if that's different enough to be comparable or not.

Draco doesn't wear a wedding ring on his finger, and Harry hopes that that does mean what he thinks it means, because he can't stand the thought of Draco still feeling anything like that for a man that hurt him so.

And he can't stand the thought of Draco feeling anything like that for a man that isn't Harry.

"He was wrong," Harry says, and it's a bit delayed, but he needs to say this, needs Draco to know this. "Merlin, Draco. He was so wrong. He was buggered in the head." It's now more than ever that Harry regrets not doing worse to him than what he did. He runs his hands over his thighs to comfort him, dips his head under and kisses his chin.

Draco pushes his forehead against Harry's, his red-rimmed eyes clenched shut and his face contorted, like he's trying to push back at something inside of himself. Like he's in pain and he wants to forget that he is in it. "I don't want to think about him," he whispers in a quivering, hurt and angry breath, his teeth grinded. His hands fist the shoulders of Harry's shirt. "I just don't want to think."

So Harry grabs ahold of Draco's face in his hands and hauls him in against his own mouth, colliding them hard together with one sharp nasal inhale, and it's a little desperate and sudden and he hauls him into himself so deep that it draws him back in an off-balance bob of head and shoulders, Harry's elbows pressing into his chest, but Draco follows him in, hands gripping the back of his hair tightly to pull him deeper into the kiss.

This he can do, then, for now at least. He can make him not think about Michael and all the things he doesn't want to think about, about all the things that make his eyes heavy and red with hurt, about anything but Harry and his mouth and his hands on him.

...

"What do you want?" Harry asks. His bottom lip is trapped behind a grin, one hand stroking over the jut of Draco's hipbones over his sweatpants. Merlin, he's beautiful, all acres of pale skin over his bare torso, the flush of his cheeks, his grey eyes alight and hazed with gorgeous desire and thrill, white-blond hair mussed up all over. Harry tilts his head up to kiss his throat and whispers against it, "come on. What do you want?"

Draco doesn't answer for a while. Harry retreats his head to look up at his face. He is surprised by the question, as if it's something he's never really been asked, and now doesn't quite know how to answer. He blinks in contemplation, long lashes fluttering as he stares down at him, Harry's hands feeling up gently alongside his bare waist.

"For the love of Merlin, Draco, please say something, because if I don't do something right now, I'm going to go mad. Anything you want, come on. The night is yours."

Draco's brow lifts in a cool, pleased manner that Harry envies, seeing as he himself is anything but cool right now, and the mischievous consideration in the purse of his smirk makes Harry somewhat concerned that Draco might have a knack for teasing, the bastard—

Draco's face mellows some way, then, his eyes flicking down below somewhere at Harry's chest, where his nimble fingers trace over the line of his sternum. He twists a corner of his lip, thoughtful, and then looks back up to him. "I want to feel alive."

So, alive he will make him feel.

Harry grabs his chin and kisses him, soft and sweet, and then smiles. "Maybe something a bit more specific though?"

Draco's lips quirk up at a corner, parted to show a silver of tongue between his teeth as he tips his head back. He reaches one hand up and traces Harry's bottom lip with his thumb. "Maybe something with this?"

Harry blinks, making an odd, strangled sound in his throat, so fucking aroused that he can't even think straight for a moment. "You. Are so fucking hot, Draco Malfoy." He sucks heavy kisses down the length of Draco's throat, murmurs between them, "I can—do that."

Lithe hands run down the small swells of his pecs, the pads of Draco's fingers deliberate over the pebble of his nipples, in a way that feels so fucking good. "Well, then," Draco says, his breathing shallow and quick as he cranes his neck, but Harry can hear the trademark Malfoy-smirk in his voice. "Get to it. Less talking and more doing."

Harry laughs, somewhat breathless and tight, because Merlin, he wants more of that. "For future reference, you should know that I love it when you get bossy."

And then lunges at the side of his throat just in time with Draco's drawl, "Duly noted," just so it ends on a soft, helpless gasp. Harry tips them over so that Draco hurtles down to the bed on his back with a grunt. Harry lifts his head to look at him, checking his expression. One side of Draco's lips is crooked more than the other, all leisure and allure, snow hair fanned out around his head like the halo of an angel.

Harry grins, hovering over him on his palms. He bends to mouth down kisses along the column of his neck, all the way down the jut of his sharp collarbones and the ridges of his heaving ribs and the slight curve of his slim waist and the soft skin of his belly. Draco's hands slide off his shoulders as he moves down, threading into his hair and gripping it tightly.

...

They pull on their pants and cast cleaning charms. Draco picks up Harry's trousers, and when Harry says, "wait, I think those are mine." Draco makes a satirically surprised expression, oh, I see, and tugs them on anyway, even though they're a bit short and loose on him.

For a moment, they just lay next to each other on their backs, silent and breathing.

And then a laugh, Draco's own, torn soft and wild and free out of his gut from the warm flutter of euphoria and satisfaction in his gut, something heady and bright and brilliant filling him up. It sweeps through his blood, gathers up in his chest.

He feels alive.

"What?" Harry asks, a hushed smile of his own at the sight of his.

Draco shakes his head. He tears his gaze away from the ceiling, looking at Harry, his smile growing just so at the sight of him.  "Nothing. I just… I feel good."

"Alive?"

"Alive."

They share a quiet moment, a quiet smile, staring at each other.

Draco thinks of rolling over to his side, thinks of sliding closer and burrowing himself into the heat of his body, thinks of sleeping to his heartbeat in his ears and the safety of his hands over his back. He looks soft and warm, all tired and droopy-eyed, his black hair tousled and blankets up to his bare chest, one arm folded under his face as he keeps his gaze on Draco.

Beautiful Harry. Kind and brave and noble. He makes him feel safe, and good. He makes him feel things and want things that Draco didn't think he would ever feel and want again, let alone have. He makes him want to fall in love again (and maybe he is already half-way there).

Draco swallows hard, his face flickering in hesitance. He thinks of closing the distance, knows that Harry will let him, but there is something inexplicable in his mind keeping him rooted right where he is, perhaps the thought that if he did want to be close to him in such a way, after all the high and the heat has died down, he would have been.

Draco didn't ever think he'd like to hold anyone after a night, didn't think he'd want the suffocating heat and confining grip of their arms until he spent three years alone, and then he went and fell in love with someone that didn't want to hold him back.

Michael wasn't much into such displays of affection after sex. At first, it was just funny, something to roll his eyes at, whenever he grumbled about Draco being so needy. He didn't take it seriously enough, and he pushed and scooted in close despite Michael huffing in annoyance, but indulging him anyway. Sometimes he held Draco back as well. You can't get rid of me, you bloody bastard, he'd say with a teasing laugh, playful and smitten.

And then one day Michael came home stressed from work, rigid and tense and angry. He didn't give Draco much explanation nor time to think or be ready before he'd taken him into the bedroom, taken it all out into him. It was rough, and it hurt, and perhaps it was because Draco wasn't expecting it and he wasn't ready, but he'd craved solace desperately afterwards. 

He can't understand now why he still scooted in against him anyway when he knew that Michael wasn't in the best state of mind. Perhaps he'd thought it'd be comforting for him too.

Nonetheless he never pushed again after Michael lost his patience and backhanded him right across the face.

Fuck, he'd said, running a hand through his hair. If you'd just listened to me, Draco, this wouldn't have happened.

His gaze drifts down to Harry's hand between them on the bed. He considers reaching over, something tugging in his chest at the thought of lacing their fingers together. He thinks he might just be brave enough to take the first step this time, to be the one to initiate instead of waiting for Harry to do it on his own choice, but he loses his nerve at the last second.

Draco's fingers curl back into his palm loosely, and his gaze falls away, staring up at the ceiling instead.

He thinks of what Michael would say now, if he knew of this, of what he did. The way he'd wrapped his legs around Harry's narrow hips, rutted up against him. The way he came hard, seconds before Harry did, how Draco had pulled him back before he could move away, stroked his fingers through Harry's wild raven hair and massaged the nape of his neck and kissed him on the mouth, and then his shoulder as Harry grinded against the V of his hips, gasping into the side of his neck through his orgasm.

How Harry hadn't cared about his Dark Mark, or his scars (it's not all smooth skin here either, Harry had said, traced the marred lines with gentle fingers, even though his scars were different, were of bravery and strength). The way Draco feels safe even when he's under him, feels in control even then, because Harry made sure he did, and how he feels wonderful in ways Michael hadn't in years, if ever. That he doesn't mind replacing his memories of how Michael made him hurt with memories of how Harry made him feel good, feel alive.

And how the sweet and careful ways that Harry kissed and touched his body didn't make him think of Michael at all.

Michael would call him a cheater, and perhaps he is, but he's so tired right now that he can't find it in himself to give a damn. Harry feels good in every way possible. He is good in every way possible. And maybe he is a little too good to be true as well, but Draco wants to think he's a bit overdue for some good in his life, even if just for a while.

There are fingers, then, slipping tentatively into the spaces between his own, strong and callous and warm, lying tangled between them on the bed. Draco glances up to find Harry's drowsy and green eyes locked on him, a raw and bare emotion smoothing his face and making him look ten years younger. One corner of his mouth twitches into a sort of lopsided grin, crinkling at his eye, and it puts Draco's heart to his throat, makes Draco wonder if this isn't just for a while, if Harry really could want something more with him than he is worthy of.

He isn't sure how to feel about that yet, but Draco hopes that the way Harry scoots closer to him on his back, the tangle of their hands on his bare chest, his face so close to him that he can count his eyelashes and they're sharing air between them, is an invitation for a kiss, because that's exactly what he does.

Draco rolls over onto his side, licking his lips, and he kisses him, chaste and sweet. Harry's eyes close to it, like he's trying to drink in the way it feels. With a soft peck to his lips, Draco lets him go.

With some strange urge to see Harry's face without his spectacles, see more of him, he reaches out with his free hand and removes them off his bemused face. He carefully folds the sticks back single-handedly and reaches behind him to put it on the nightstand without letting go of his hand. Draco settles back down and adjusts himself on the bed in front of Harry, much closer this time.

Draco squints, curiously. He doesn't entirely understand how these spectacles work. They're more of a muggle invention, after all, seeing as problems with vision are easily fixed in the magical world nowadays. He remembers some article he'd read, though, years ago, when the interviewer asked Harry why he still wore glasses. It had to do with his father more than any genuine need for it, like he was keeping a piece of him with himself. "How much can you see right now?"

It draws a small, amused laugh out of Harry. "I'm nearsighted, Draco. As long as you stay this close to me, I can see you."

Draco lifts an eyebrow, frowning bemusedly. "Why did you even keep these on, then?"

Harry shrugs. "I don't know. Got a little distracted, I suppose." There is that endearing little grin again, behind a bite of his lower lip. His smile fades slowly into something softer, a little like he's falling into some sort of trance. He shakes his head slightly, something resembling wonder mellowing the lines around his mouth and forehead. "Merlin, you're gorgeous." He yawns, but continues talking around it, "I could certainly go for another round, if you're up for it." He then proceeds to do a funny sort of waggle with his eyebrows, even as his eyes water from his fatigue.

Draco deadpans, unimpressed. "If I'm up for it? When you're the one who'll fall asleep half-way through?" He shakes his head. Even so, he can't help the hint of fondness to his exasperation. "Idiot."

Harry laughs. "You know, I'm actually glad to hear you call me that."

"Why so?"

Harry strokes a finger over the side of his hand, shifts on the bed a little. He shrugs. "You've just been so… so guarded and on edge. It feels like, maybe, you're starting to feel more open around me."

Draco absorbs that in the silence that follows. Harry doesn't stop brushing his thumb over his hand.

"You know," Harry says, quiet. "Everything that happened to you…" He pauses, the sharp jut of his throat bobbing. He traces patterns over his palm absently, soothingly. "No one should keep that in, Draco. If you don't—if you don't talk to someone, you're going to explode."

Draco tries to ignore the rotten fester of his loneliness in his chest, snorting wryly.  "You may have noticed that I hardly live the life of a social butterfly. I don't have a lot of people to talk to." 

"I can find you a Mind-Healer. I know a friend, actually—"

"I don't have the money for that. And don't even think about offering to pay for me. I don't want to be in your debt any more than I already am."

Harry frowns, baffled. "Draco. This is no debt here."

There is a debt, and Draco can spend his entire life trying to pay it back and it still won't be enough. "Then I don't want any more favours either."

"But I want to do this for you. I want you to— to—I want to help you. You can't move past all those things on your own, okay? It's too much to deal with for a person."

I don't want your help sounds absurd to say after all the help he's already taken from him, and Harry seems so upset that Draco does end up saying, even if just to appease, "I will consider."

He is silent, then. Draco doesn't know what the silence is of. He is worrying his lower lip, like he's pondering on whether he should say what he wants to or not.

"You have... me," Harry says, tentative, like he isn't sure if that would mean anything. "I'll listen to you."

He can't imagine why anyone would want to spend so much time listening to something like that. Either way, it isn't as if he even knows how to talk about any of it. They happened to him, all those things, and now they aren't happening anymore. All that is needed now is for them to be forgotten, to be moved past.

(Maybe he's having a bit of a hard time doing just that though, isn't he?)

He only needs to forget, only needs to get his life together, and more than anything, he needs to give his boy the life he deserves. That is what he needs.

"You want to hear my sob story." It comes out more of a drawl than he meant for it to be.

"I want you to not feel as alone as you do." His voice croaks ever so slightly, so kind and noble, so everything Draco isn't sure can last all too long for a man like himself. "Because you're not, Draco. You're not all on your own in this."

Draco takes too long to respond, it seems, because Harry nods, his lips squinching together sadly. He brings one hand up, follows the raise of his cheek under his eye with his thumb.

"Maybe another time then. Whenever you're ready."

Poor, beautiful fool, thinking he can save him. Thinking he is worth anything.

"Can I hold you?" Harry asks. It's soft, hesitant, and when Draco glances over, he finds that look again, that look that twists his chest into knots and makes it throb.

Draco smirks. "So the big, strong, powerful destroyer of the darkest wizard of all time is a cuddler. Who would have thought?"

"The Boy Who Lives for cuddles." Harry grins, as if he finds it the funniest thing he's ever said.

It's so stupid that Draco can't help but repress a laugh. He shakes his head. "Dolt."

"Made you smile, didn't it?"

Draco frowns, deliberately straightening his mouth as he feigns confusion. "Did it now? I don't feel myself smiling."

"A second ago, you were."

"If I can't remember, it didn't happen."

"Oh. Is that how this works? I suppose I'll just have to jog your memory." Harry bites a smile back, leans up on elbows and kisses him.

Draco raises an eyebrow, shrugging, as if unaffected.

Harry kisses him again, and then looks at him, raising his brows expectantly.

"I reckon you should try again."

So Harry sits up, grinning playful and big, settles himself between his ankles and drags him down the bed by his legs and rapid fires loud, obnoxious kisses into the side of his neck. Draco, unfortunately, is a rather ticklish bastard, so he loses the battle instantly against the guffaw of laughter throwing his head back, shoulders hitching up as he shoves at Harry's chest and wriggles away. Harry sits back and watches him with a smile, and he looks so sweet, tousled ebony curls falling into his eyes. Draco can't help but grab him by the chin and pull him down to his mouth in a hard kiss.

With a whisper of Nox, the lights go out. Draco rolls over to face the opposite way, putting his back to Harry, who follows his turning over with brushes of his lips from the side of his neck to the nape of his neck. He reaches behind him and tugs Harry's arm up across his waist as the mattress dips with his weight behind him, his bare leg wedging in between Draco's calves.

"You really can't keep yourself off of me for more than five seconds, can you?" Draco says, with an amused huff, a smirk. It occurs to him that he hasn't sounded this much like himself in years. He hasn't felt like a person, like himself, this much in years.

"Shut up." And then Harry kisses the nape of his neck anyway.

His smile presses into his shoulder blade as Draco hauls the duvet up to both their shoulders and says, "Don't hog the blankets, or I will hex you off the bed."

"Noted."

And for an unexplainable reason, he considers it then, in the dark, when he's facing away. Perhaps it will be easier to talk about it all now.

Perhaps talking about things is different when he has to see a face in front of him. Michael's face hadn't been all too welcoming whenever he did, apathetic, condescending, sardonic. He feels like a fool for considering it at all, the sort of fool that falls in love with men just because they called him beautiful before they called him anything else.

But it's Harry. It's just Harry.

Harry's torso is flush against his back, and they are so close together that there may as well be no air between them. There is Harry's lips pressing over the skin of the hollow of his neck, the flesh of his shoulder, the joint of his bicep, the shivers of goosebumps and the hot flashes of pleasure and the heat traded between their bodies underneath the covers, comforting and serene in the mild chill of the winter weather. They weave into his chest and soften the soreness. They make him feel braver, only just enough to let himself think about all the things he has tried so hard not to let himself think about, to put them into words in his head.

He is afraid that if he lets himself think, he'll let himself fall.

But there is Harry, and if there is Harry, then perhaps the fall won't be so hard.

I found my mother in her bed with an empty vial of poison in her hand.

I can't remember what happened after. I think I screamed. I remember a sound, loud and horrible and... I think it was me. I don't know. I blacked out after and I missed a lot of things.

I know it's been years, but I still miss her. I'd have liked her to meet her grandson. I'd have liked her to meet her sister's grandson.

I'd have liked her to know you better. She knew you were brave, but she didn't know how beautiful and kind and noble you are.

His name was Michael.

Perhaps Harry already knew that.

His name was Michael and sometimes he thinks his name brings worse memories than Voldemort's ever did.

Perhaps it's because he was the last straw, because he was all he had when he called him words that wouldn't have hurt coming from someone else as much as they did coming from him, but he thinks he never quite knew pain until he met Michael, until it was his hand and wand and body that he was under.

He was the first person in a long time to look at me and call me something that wasn't unkind. He kissed me until I smiled and he called me beautiful, and he loved me, so I loved him too.

I loved him even when he bashed my head into walls and told me that I wasn't good for anything.

There was a time when he understood it, even if just a little, and it made him forgive and forgive and forgive because at least he had him, and sometimes he was wonderful and sweet and he made him feel loved. Draco had been difficult to be with at times, easy to get angry at, hard to love. He told him things that he probably shouldn't ever tell anyone, and it made Michael sick, but it made himself sick too.

And then Scorpius came, and he didn't understand at all.

Ironically, he became the biggest reason why Draco couldn't leave.

Michael would do all these things with Scorpius when he was in one of his moods. Things that would really scare him. Like break his toys if it made too much noise, yell at him when he cried... he was just a baby, Harry. He was just doing what babies do, and even I of all people knew that, knew that it was just something you had to be kind with. 

But he'd come up to him and he'd raise his hand like he was about to hit him, just like he hit me. He wouldn't hit him but Scorpius had seen it enough times to know what it meant... and Scorpius would get so scared he'd just go quiet.

I had never let him touch my child, Harry, but Scorpius grew up so scared all the time and sometimes I wonder if I did the wrong thing by staying with Michael all this time, if I was just being a coward the way I've always been.

Michael took his favourite toy once and he told Scorpius to break it or he'd break my face instead. Just shite like that all the time. Just sick mind games that I wish I could have protected him better from, but I didn't know what I could do that wouldn't have made it worse. I could hold him back with my body and I could hurt him if he tried to hurt Scorpius, make him angry enough that he wanted to hurt me instead, but I didn't know what to do when he did things like these.

Our last night there, Scorpius broke this vase of his.  I don't even know what was so fucking important about it, but he got so angry he locked Scorpius into a room with us and he hurt me right in front of him and—

and then he dragged me over to this space, between his bed and the wall and he

and then he really hurt me.

Scorpius didn't understand, but he wouldn't stop shaking after, Harry. He wouldn't…

It went on for days. He wouldn't speak. He wouldn't smile or laugh or... he wouldn't even cry. He just wouldn't make a sound and he wouldn't look at me and

Sometimes the only thing that would make him look at me was when I sang to him, or when I told him stories about you.

Someday Scorpius will grow up and learn things about me and he's going to wish I wasn't his father.

But his voice never does come to his tongue, and all he is left with is a hollow, harrowing agony, jagged in his chest and fraying at the edges of his mind. Harry's breaths are soft and lilting in the silence, hot and steady against the bare flesh of the back of his shoulder.

Harry isn't sure what it is that wakes him at first. His mind draws back into the darkness of his bedroom, confounded and dazed. There is a trembling heat and solidity pressed flush against his chest, the sound of muffled breaths heavy and unsteady echoing throughout the otherwise silent room. It takes him a few seconds to give the body in his arms a name. Draco.

It's all coming back to him now, the hours spent before he fell asleep. The haze of heat and sensations and pleasure. Pale skin and glassy quicksilver eyes and flushed cheeks, the sweet and herbal scent of him.

Draco's body is stiff and shaking in the tangle of Harry's arms against his chest, seeming to be caught in an oncoming panic attack that he's desperately trying to clamp down.

Harry is still dazed and fog-headed, but he shifts up onto a shoulder so that he could brush the snow-blond hair behind his ears with a hand and press his lips to the side of his neck.

The room falls deafeningly silent, as if all the air is sucked into Draco's lungs and held there. His body is even more rigid, and in the dim lights, he can see the inside of his elbow thrown over his face.

"Draco?" Harry whispers.

Draco untangles himself out of Harry's arms, quickly sitting up on the bed, pushing himself over to the edge. Harry releases him, but runs his hand down his arm to take ahold of his.

It's the way Draco's hand is shaking in his hand, just before he moves it out of his grip tremulously. It's the silhouette of his bare back hunched and shaking too in the dark, his narrow shoulders tense from the way he's clenching the sheets in his hands tightly, and the way it takes him too long to speak.

"Go back to sleep." It's something like a choked, half-hearted, tremulous murmur.  Draco is good at control, but maybe it's just been so long that it's stretching thin, because right now, he sounds like it's slipping and he is frantically grappling for it.

Harry is too sober and awake to go back to sleep now. He gropes at the nightstand for his spectacles, putting them on his face when they come into his hand, and then pushes himself up to sit. He scoots over on the heels of his feet until he's on the edge of the bed as well, bracketing Draco's hips between his thighs. He folds an arm around him and kisses his shoulder, rubbing up and down his arm and bicep with the other hand soothingly. "It's okay. It's okay."

Draco twists himself away from his comforting hand, and Harry stops, but he doesn't move away or remove his grip. "For Merlin's sake, get off of me!" he grinds out, his breaths steadily growing heavy and fast. The heat behind it barely feels genuine enough to burn, because more than anything, he just sounds frantic. He grips Harry's arm around him and tries to remove it, making to stand up, except Harry doesn't budge. "Let me the fuck go, Potter."

Harry would have at his gritted insistence and the use of the surname again, if it wasn't for the way his voice trembled, strangled. Maybe Draco is pushing him away because he is afraid of being pushed away first, or maybe it's because he hates displaying vulnerability, and if it's the case of the latter, then Harry should respect it.

But he thinks of Draco going off somewhere to deal with this all on his own, thinks of him crying alone, and he can't bear the thought.

Harry forces himself not to tighten his grip, and instead loosens his arm. "I'm going to let you go, but don't—don't try to leave, okay? Please."

He doesn't entirely understand what happens, then, what it is in what he said that seems to break something in Draco, but Draco is suddenly rocking forward over Harry's arm, sucking in a gasping breath through his teeth as if his face is too contorted, bordering on a gutted sob that folds him in half. Harry is about to let go of him like he's been burned, afraid that he's only made things worse.

And then, so faint that it almost becomes a part of the silence, there is a choked whisper of, "Harry..."

And then Draco is shaking and shaking and shaking, his hitched breaths shaking with him, even as he tries to maintain a control that's long overexerted and snapped apart now. Harry gropes over his shoulder to pull him back against his own chest, tugs at him to turn around as he does, and Draco follows, follows him down to the bed as Harry grabs him by the back and pulls them both down to the bed together.

"Pardon me—" Draco manages to get out between his frantic, stuttering intakes for air. His hands are trembling violently against Harry's chest. "I can't—seem to—I don't mean to—"

Harry puts his nose to his cheek and his forehead to his temple. "Shh. Stop. Don't. Just—just focus on breathing, okay?"

Draco shakes his head quickly. He gulps down the erratic air, trying to speak through a quivering chin and shuddering breaths, "Michael would—Michael—" His breathing rate grows even more erratic and stilted, heaving and gasping, his hands shaking even harder as he works himself up over whatever Michael would supposedly say or do or think.

"Fuck Michael," Harry snaps, gritting it out, the anger coming in such a sudden and blinding rush that he doesn't think. Draco flinches violently, his already heaving breaths hitching with it. Harry clutches him closer, kissing his sweaty forehead. He murmurs into his hair, "Sorry. I'm sorry, just. Fuck him. Fuck what he would say, or think. He isn't here." And if he was, he'd be fucking dead on the floor right now. Harry takes his face in his hands, running them featherlight over his cheeks over and over. "He can't hurt you. Look at me. Draco, look at me. Focus on everything right now. Focus on your breathing. Focus on me. My voice. My face. My hands. You're here. You're safe. You're with me."

Panic attacks were a common part of Harry's life after war, whether it was his own or consoling his friends through it. Molly used to take his hand and put it to her chest and breathe in and out deeply for him, so he could remember the rhythm again. Hermione told him that focusing on her senses one at a time helped. Luna gave him charmed windchimes that had a calming effect with the sound of them.

But nothing seems to calm Draco down right now, and Harry doesn't want to cry because he's supposed to be the one helping, comforting, but his vision is blurring anyway, watching him fall apart in his arms. He draws Draco's head in close with an arm, in against his forehead, whispering all the soothing nonsense he can think of mindlessly, helplessly— it's alright you're safe he's not ever going to hurt you again I'm here I'm here I'm right here—kissing him anywhere he can reach all over his face, blind and desperate.

Harry tries to get Draco to breathe with him again, his hand against his own chest, tries to kiss his face into calm and ease. Draco's heart is pounding against Harry's hand, his chest jouncing up and down, and his breaths are erratic and fast and shallow, retching, sobbing. There are tears falling down his cheeks as he tries to breathe deep with him, in and out, in and out, but his breaths stutter and get caught and he chokes.

"F-fuck, I can't—" His voice shakes, and he heaves in a gasping, shuddering sob. "Harry, I can't breathe—"

When nothing else works, not the words or the kisses or the breathing with him, Harry just hitches his waist in even closer and holds him tight by his lower back, forehead to Draco's cheek as he cries, soundless from the lack of air. He closes his eyes, tries not to cry with him, and just hopes that Draco can feel him here.

...

When Draco finally calms, breathing even and slow and soft, he's so quiet Harry thinks he's fallen asleep. He doesn't let go even then.

Draco unwinds himself from his grip, then, rolling over to his back, running both hands down his face hard. He blinks and fixes his red-rimmed gaze to the ceiling, throws an arm across over it, and Harry fixes his own on him, both of them silent.

It's Draco who breaks through the quiet.

"Harry, I can't..." His voice rasps. He pauses, clears his throat to clear his voice. "we can't be..."

Draco trails off, and when there isn't anything more after, leaving Harry suspended in confusion,  he asks, "Can't be what?"

Draco doesn't say anything.

And then it clicks. "You don't want to be with me."

There is a pause, and then, "I don't want to be in a relationship right now."

Harry can't tell if it's an affirmation or a correction.

It's so sudden, abrupt. They were fine before Harry fell asleep, weren't they? He doesn't know what it is that made Draco feel this way. Had Harry done something? Said something that hurt him, or reminded him of Michael?

"Did I do something wrong?"

The momentary silence twists Harry's gut.

But Draco scoffs out a breath, and shakes his head. "No. No, you didn't. You did everything right. Just like you always do."

For a moment, it seems like he's being sarcastic, until Harry realizes that he isn't. It's a relief, but he wonders what brought this on then.

"He—he is in my head," Draco removes his arm from his face, his grey eyes opening as he does, and he looks at Harry. His voice is quiet, explanatory, bordering on desperate. "and I need to get him out. I need to get my head straight. And you… you make me so fucking weak." His voice croaks in a wry snort, goes as hushed as a whisper towards the end. 

Draco clenches his jaw, his throat convulsing. His breath trembles between his teeth.

"I can't be weak again." It's slow and enunciating, his gaze intent and holding like he wants to make Harry understand.

He wants to say so many things. He wants him to know that Harry won't ever treat him the way Michael did, that he won't ever hurt him, and if Harry has anything to say about it, then nobody will ever lay a finger on him again, that he is safe, that Harry is going to keep him safe.

But this isn't about him. 

"You're upset," Draco says. It's a statement more than a question. Harry isn't saying anything, isn't saying enough. He doesn't know what to say.

He isn't wounded or angry. He's just sad, perhaps. But he does understand, because what Draco needs comes above what Harry wants, even if what he wants is something so deeprooted that it hurts to have it ripped away from him.

And maybe he should have known that something like this with Draco can't be right now, that it was too soon.

Draco's forehead twitches in a pained, rueful frown. "It was unfair, what I did. I should have known that I wasn't... I don't know what I was thinking. Perhaps I didn't think at all. I just... I just wanted. I'm sorry."

"No, I... I understand."

"You'll find someone else," Draco says. Harry thinks he's trying to make him feel better, but he doesn't feel better because he doesn't want someone else. "You're you, after all."

Harry huffs, slighted. He can hardly want someone that only wants him for his fame. "Harry Potter, the Chosen One."

"You're Harry." Draco sounds clear, insistent, almost mellow. "Thick in the head, kind and brave and noble Harry. You're you. And I'm me."

Harry frowns. "What's that supposed to mean?"

For a few seconds, Draco says nothing.

And then his lips tighten, quivering. "It means you can do better."

"I don't want better. I want you."

Maybe Draco believes him. Maybe he doesn't. Harry can't tell, because he just looks away, hazed and lost in his own head.

It occurs to Harry, then, that Draco hasn't said anything about not wanting him.

Maybe it sounds crazy and overly hopeful, what he's about to say, but there is a deep, visceral feeling in him that this isn't how this is supposed to end, that there is supposed to be more than this. That they are right together.

"Could we be together when you're ready, then?"

It sounds even crazier and more overly hopeful out loud, and it is then that Harry wonders what he was thinking when he asked this. For all he knows, it will be years before Draco is ready, and he doubts Draco would want him all the way until then.

"Don't be stupid, Harry."

Harry won't take that for an answer. "Would you want me then?"

"Harry." Draco scoffs, shakes his head. "We'd only been together for a day. You're not going to want me in a month, let alone another year or two."

"I know what I want." Harry shrugs. "Will you want me?"

"You're making commitments that neither of us can guarantee we'll keep."

"It doesn't have to be a commitment. If you find that you don't want me anymore some day, or if you find someone else that you want more, then—" That's a day that will hurt, if it comes. But he hasn't wanted anyone like this in years, hasn't felt anything like this in a very long time and he isn't ready to let go like this after only a day. "Then that's fine. It is what it is, no hard feelings."

"Yes. Well. That's what you say now..."

"I'm not just saying it. I'm still good with Ginny, you know."

"That's an entirely different matter."

"How?"

"Let's start with how she isn't a Death-Eater—"

"Don't call yourself that. And I mean what I said. If this doesn't work out, then it is what it is. I'll deal with my own feelings."

Some part of Harry knows this is stupid and impulsive, even for a Gryffindor, that this can't work because Harry might want to wait for him, but Draco might not feel the same for Harry enough to want him after all that time. They'd only been together for a day, after all, and there is all this history that they'll need to unpack. They were school foes ten years ago. Draco has hardly opened up to him even now. It's going to hurt like hell if Draco falls in love with someone else before he can come back to Harry.

But he wants. He just wants.

"Would you want me when you're ready?"

Draco doesn't answer for a long time, for so long that Harry thinks maybe that's the answer.

"I used to look for you," Draco says, then, quiet. "In the papers, I'd… I'd look for your name, or for your pictures. I wouldn't even know why, but I would." He huffs a small, weak laugh. He seems tired. Harry doesn't think he'd ever be admitting such things if he wasn't so tired. "I'd tell my son stories about you, and sometimes I'd look at the colour of his eyes and I'd think of yours. And…" He swallows. "And it's fucked up, and I didn't want to understand why. Perhaps it's because some part of me already knew. But—sometimes I would think of you, when I was with him."

The confession knocks the air right out of Harry's lungs.

"So there's your answer." Draco snorts, mirthless and brittle. His jaw shifts, clenches, and he won't look Harry in the eye. "I've wanted you for a long time. And now I'll want you for another long time."

Harry smiles, but he can't feel if it reaches his eyes or not. He leans close to him, trying to get him to look at him. "Then I'll wait for you, if you will have me."

Draco looks at him, and something about the way he looks at him, red-raw and bare, wrenches the air out of him.

And then his head cranes, and his mouth touches Harry's, warm and tender and brief, in a kiss that feels final. It is for a long time, at least.

And it is here that something in Harry's chest pulls taut and tears apart. 

Draco lets go after a few seconds, gently, and it feels like it's over.

And so, after a moment of gathering himself, Harry pushes himself up into a sitting position, prepared to spend the rest of the night on the couch in the living room.

"This is your room," Draco says. "I should be the one leaving."

Harry shakes his head, scoots over to the edge of the bed. Draco looks too exhausted, and Harry's fairly certain he hasn't slept a wink all night. "It's just one night. Not a big deal."

He doesn't think he'll need the bed anyway, seeing as he won't be sleeping anymore.

"Harry."

Harry pauses, turning his head to look at Draco over his shoulder.

He looks warm and tempting and lovely, beneath white sheets up to his underarms, his tousled snow-hair nearly melding into the pillow. His scarlet-rimmed eyes are softened with fatigue, and with something more than fatigue.

"You can stay, if you want. Just for the night."

Harry doesn't know who he complies for more, himself or Draco. He doesn't know if he has it in him to be so close and so far from him, but he does want to stay. He does want this, because it will be a long time before he'll get to have this again.

He lays down next to Draco, keeps some distance as he settles in beside him again. Draco rolls over to his side, reaches for his arm over himself and looks up at him for permission, and when he sees no protest or reluctance, he wraps it around himself.

A tentative, bittersweet rendition of a moment.

Draco falls asleep in seconds after, but Harry still doesn't sleep. He lies there in silence, listens to the man in his arms breathe deep and even, feels the swell and sink of his belly on his arm as he does. He watches the dawn come awake hours later, watches orange-red set alight inside the room through the gap of the transclucent curtains, colouring white hair and fair skin in the soft haze of sunrise.

This isn't the end.

Harry looks at Draco, sleeping sweet and tender in his arms, and maybe someday this won't be their last night but their first morning before the rest of their days.

He kisses Draco's cheek, one last time for a long time, and then he gets up and gets on with his day.

By the time eight'o'clock rolls around, Harry finds himself at Ron and Hermione's, helping them make BLT sandwiches and waffles for a breakfast that's earlier than usual for himself.

Hermione and Harry take to slicing bacon, lettuce and tomatoes for the sandwiches, while Ron is at the stove flipping waffles on the fry pan, lost in his subtle bopping to the low, upbeat tunes playing from the wireless. Hermione watches him from the chair, a fond smile curving at her lips.

Ron stops dancing upon catching sight of her. "What?"

Hermione shakes her head. "Nothing." She grins. "I just love you."

Ron grins too, a delighted and shy flush colouring his freckled face. "Yeah? I love you too." He looks down at her swollen belly, grinning even wider. "I love you both."

"I love you too," Harry says, with a shite-eating grin that makes Ron roll his eyes and Hermione laugh, even though it's stupid.

"Your uncle is a bloody tit, you know," Ron says, directed at Hermione's belly.

"You're already teaching him to cuss, are you?" Harry tsks, feigning disappointment. Ron is rather well-known for not being able to control his cussing in front of kids, and watching him struggle to not curse around Teddy or Victoire is the funniest bloody thing ever. Fu— shit, I mean—oh, bloody hell—and then he just sighs and gives up when Hermione whacks him on the shoulder. "He's going to grow up with a sailor's mouth."

"No, he won't be," Hermione says, narrowing her eyes. "Because if he ever cusses in front of our son, he's getting his mouth Scourgio-ed." She lifts her chin up. "My Hugo's going to grow up polite, classy and well-mannered!" 

When they're having breakfast, Ron reaches a hand out to Hermione's face, gently thumbing away a crumb of waffle at the corner of her lips. He's been doing that since their school days. Hermione doesn't  bat an eye after all these years, just angles her face and lets him, and then lets him kiss her waffle mouth. 

"You guys are annoyingly sweet, sometimes," Harry says, and it comes out more of a grumble than he means for it to be. He remembers Eighth Year, all the third-wheeling and the trying to give them space and time to date. They always tried not to leave him out, but it still changed their dynamics a lot. Having Neville and Luna made it somewhat easier, then.

Right now, though, he thinks that odd and faint tinge of annoyance might have to do with the sudden fester of something sad and aching in his chest.

They seem a little amused as well as puzzled by his tone of voice.  "Don't you have someone of your own to be annoyingly sweet with now?" Ron asks, shrugging.

"I don't," Harry says. "Which is kind of what I came here to get off my chest."

There is a confounded pause.

Ron shakes his head. "What—it's only been a day. How have you two broken up already?"

Is break-up the right word for it?

"He's just not ready to be with someone."

"Oh Harry," Hermione says, sad and sympathetic.

"I guess it was just too soon, you know?" Harry says, can't stop himself from glancing down at his hands. He doesn't want to sound downhearted, or look like he is. He knows his friends can be overprotective. "He's still—he's in a really bad place right now. You guys didn't see how he was last night—" Ron and Hermione raise their brows at that, but they don't ask, and whatever Harry looks like right now, it sobers them up. "That bastard still has a hold on him."

Hermione nods. "It—well, it did seem like it was too soon, you know? Considering it's only been a little over a month since…"

"Ok," Ron says, puffing out a breath as he blinks and shakes his head. "I know he's been through stuff, but I'm not understanding why he didn't decide this before he got with you, Harry."

It's the loyal friend in Ron that makes him think like that, but this is exactly what Harry didn't want, for anyone to think that Draco did something wrong.

"It kind of happened fast, didn't it?" Harry explains. "He didn't mean anything bad by it. He just—I guess neither of us really thought much about it before we got into it, you know. I wanted him. He wanted me. We got together. And then maybe I—" Maybe Harry fell a bit too hard and too soon. He doesn't fall for someone often, but when he does, he falls fast. That was what happened with Ginny, and now that's what has happened with Draco.

It's a strange and surreal sort of realization that hits him at times, that he has fallen for a man that was once his rival, who hurt him and who Harry hurt, but a decade is a long time for people to forgive and move on, for people to change, and a war is a big enough reason to let go with the thought that they were petty kids with a petty rivalry that fought and hurt each other for petty reasons.

It's the person Draco is with Scorpius, with Teddy, that tells Harry what kind of a person he really is now.

"I told him I'd wait for him. Whenever he's ready."

Ron and Hermione inhale a sharp breath.

"Harry. That's a huge thing to say," Hermione says. "You don't know how long it will be until he's ready. And when he is, how do you know he'll want to be with you? That you'll want to be with him? "

"We don't know that really," Harry admits. "But he's said some things that—that might mean that he will. And I think I know too... I do fall hard, don't I?"

"Did take you years to get over Gin," Ron agrees. 

"But… Harry," Hermione says. "You've only ever been in love once before him. You don't know if it'll be the same thing here."

Harry twists a corner of his mouth. "Do I sound crazy if I say, you know, that I just kind of feel like it's right? That we'd work together?"

"A little bit," Ron says. "I didn't  believe Hermione wanted me for a long time, but I think—I kind of felt it with her, when we got together. That we might work and we were… right. Even though we were so different and we still fought like crazy even after. Some might say it was just, you know, hormonal teenagers being in love, believing they'd be in love forever, but… here we are, aren't we?" He smiles, glancing at her, and she's smiling too, her arm shifting beneath the table as she takes his hand. "but Harry, what are you going to do if it doesn't work out? 

"You have to be prepared for that possibility." Hermione nods.

"I am," Harry says. "If it doesn't work out, then I'll just have to deal with it."

And that's that.

"When did you start feeling this way for him?" Hermione asks, smiling. It's a clear attempt to divert the topic to something lighter.

When did Harry start feeling this way for him?

When he saw who he was with Scorpius, the way he held his son like he was holding something precious? With Teddy?

When he heard him sing about bringing the sun and the moon for his son? When he saw him sweet and golden one morning on the rug of the living room, making his son and nephew laugh, and thought, for the first time ever, that he's a little beautiful, isn't he?

When he learned of the life he came from and learned of his selflessness for his son, how he was ready to give up the little boy that was his whole world, because it would mean he'd have a life better than what he believed he could give and that he'd be safe?

At some point after in the hundreds of moments that followed where he caught himself staring, no longer to just observe out of curiosity and inquisition, but simply because he couldn't stop himself? Because he snatched the air out of him with a smirk or a smile or a rare laugh drawn out of him by his son, or by Teddy, or by Harry? Because he made them laugh with his much mellower form of snark and humor? Because of who he is now, of how he is smart and tender and beautiful and strong and polite?

A little over a month is a short time, but it feels like it crept in so slow that he didn't notice when he started caring for him like he was more than just a former schoolboy rival that came back ten years later, haunted and hurting and quiet, and with a sweet, equally haunted and hurting and quiet son that reminded him much of himself when he was younger, that he cared for like he cared for Teddy now.

He thinks he's felt it for a while, but he hadn't thought anything could come of it until Draco kissed him first, and maybe that was when it hit in full clarity, just how much he wanted.

And now he's had it.

Now he's had a dance with him and laughed with him in ways only lovers do and he's seen him smile for him in ways only lovers do. He's kissed him, has known the velvet-smooth inside of his mouth and what it tastes like, and he's kissed and touched his body and he's felt him against himself in the most intimate of ways. He's seen what he looks like and heard what he sounds like when he's aroused, how lovely he looks after, in his bedsheets and in his clothes. 

He's held him as he's fallen asleep, soft and warm in his arms.

And he can't let go.  

Not unless he has to, unless he would know that there isn't a chance.

Harry tries to convey all of this to Hermione and Ron, but he's still bad at expressing things that are not quite as straightforward.

"I don't know. I can't pinpoint the exact moment."

Mind-Healing sessions for years has made him learn to be relatively more in touch with his emotions, and less, as Hermione would say, emotionally aware as a brick, but it still gets complicated sometimes, and even more so when it's romantic feelings for a man that he was almost sure would never feel the same way for him, in part due to all the history they had. But he did feel the same way, and things are a lot more different now that he knows.

Ron snorts. "You really have it bad, don't you, mate?"

...

Life goes on, after, and as one does when living together, the two families learn idiosyncrasies and quirks of the other, and form their own, becoming entwined with each other's lives in little, intricate ways.

Hermione teaches Scorpius and Teddy all sorts of easy magic tricks and facts, and Ron plays card games and board games with Teddy and tries to teach Scorpius whenever they both come to visit. Neville and Luna have this beautiful pot plant in their garden that Scorpius is beyond fascinated by, or so it seems, because he always goes over to stare at it. They somewhat resemble peacock feathers, and thereby are named after them.

Neville and Luna let him take it home when they notice, and even give him a packet of seeds to grow his own.

Sometimes Harry helps Scorpius take care of the plant. He takes the pot off the windowsill and crouches down in front of him, holding it in his hands as he lets Scorpius pour from a small watering can. "Not too much, okay? Or else they're going to drown."

And when the sprout pokes out of the soil, Scorpius runs over to Draco, smiling wide and baby-toothed, "Daddy, look." He grabs him by the hand and leads him to the windowsill with the chair in front, on which Scorpius stands to reach it. He clambers up and over and puts his hands on either side of it, glancing at his father.

"That's beautiful," Draco tells him, kisses the top of his head and rests his chin on top of it, arms clasped around his little boy as they look at the small lifeform together. "Do you want to show it to Harry and Teddy?"

Draco makes tea every morning for himself and Harry, usually being the first to wake, and Harry asks him about the products he's going to work on. It's interesting stuff, but he mostly does it because on the good days, Draco really talks about it, and Harry likes seeing him like that, even if it's frustrating that he can't snog his brains out for it.

Harry lets Teddy and Scorpius sit on his back whenever he's doing push-ups (sometimes he catches Draco looking, and he thinks about that for quite a while after).

Harry sings in the shower at the top of his lungs, terribly so, and one day he finds Draco standing outside the bathroom, his face flat and bemused.

"I was searching for the dying animal."

(Harry doesn't know about the fondly amused smirk on his face just before he opened the door, and he never will).

Draco goes very, very quiet when he notices that Harry isn't in the best of moods after a dispute related to his case.

He has a habit of apologizing, either for something he remembered he did in Hogwarts, or something that shouldn't matter at all.

"You don't have to apologize or—or be afraid if you mess up," Harry says, once, after he broke a vase, and the way Draco shook upon this particular incident tells a particularly terrible kind of story. The good thing is that Scorpius and Teddy weren't here to see all this.

"It doesn't make sense." Draco shakes his head, rubbing his hands down his face. They're still trembling. "I'm—I'm not there anymore. Why can't I just get him out of my head?"

"Draco, you have to understand that—the kind of things you and Scorpius went through aren't something you can just get over just because you're away from the person that did those things."

"I have to. I can't bloody be like this, I can't be so—I—I have a son to care for, that I have to be strong for."

"You want to get better," Harry states.

The certain way he says that makes Draco look up at him, his brows furrowed. "I want to move past it all, so that I can focus on my son and our future."

"Well, you're going to. But you're going to have to give it time and patience and—" Harry takes his wand out. "Accio Penny's card." A card zooms into Harry's hand. He hands it to Draco, a card with a firecall number and address under Penelope Clearwater, Mind-Healer. "Keep this, for whenever you're ready."

Draco takes it in his hand, looking down at it.

Harry takes a moment to look at him, roving over his profile, the uncertain frown knitting his brows together. "It doesn't make you weak, the things that happened to you. And me." That deepens Draco's frown. Harry smiles, mirthless and tight. "It doesn't make us weak if we need help healing from them."

The following days after Draco learns of Harry's past with the Dursleys, Harry finds Draco taking over anything that's possible for him to take as a working man, which happen to be the tasks of cleaning and breakfast. He tells Draco he doesn't need to, and he doesn't mind doing any of it when it's for his own home and for those he cares for, but Draco is stubborn once he sets his mind to something and is rather talented at being dismissive when he wants to be.

Harry waits up for him every night with Scorpius. Draco tells him he doesn't need to do that, because Harry is almost always on the verge of nodding off sitting beside his son while he does, and Harry tells him that he doesn't mind because he likes to keep Scorpius company but he doesn't tell him that he worries too much to be able to let himself sleep without seeing him come home. 

Harry asks Ron to look out for Draco, and Ron tells him he already does.

He, Ron and George go out for lunch together, sometimes, or they just eat at the shop if they brought something from home. Ron tells him that sometimes Draco seems a little nervous and off, and it might have something to do with Michael, possibly that he'd shown up around, even if he doesn't come in. Anti-apparition wards mean that he's generally safe if he's in his lab, as well as Michael not wanting news of him being there reaching Harry, so he won't come any closer, but when customers are less enough that George can take care of it, Ron takes him away from work and they play chess in his lab, just to get his mind off of it a little. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Maybe it just helps for him to not be alone.

If Draco knows the reason behind these sudden developments, he doesn't say, but it results in a tentative sort of—friendship, perhaps, or at the very least something more than acquaintance—between them, and after years of unsatisfactory competition with Harry and Hermione, Ron finally finds a chess opponent that challenges his skill level. Similarly, Hermione has seemed to find her intellectual match, and while none of them are all too close as of yet, there is an implication of its possibility in the future.

A witch shows up through the fireplace one day.

Antoinette Styne is a stern-faced and sharply dressed woman, somewhat intimidating until she looks down at Scorpius, and her face shifts into a mellow and open expression.

"Hello," she says to Scorpius, hiding behind his leg. She crouches down before him, holding out her hand. "You must be Scorpius. Harry's told me so much about you."

Draco crouches down to Scorpius' eye-level as well, gently urging him forward by the shoulders. "Shake her hand and say hello, Scorpius." 

As Scorpius does that, raising his hand to hers hesitantly, Draco looks over at the sound of a scuffle of feet. Harry is walking over. "Hello, Dr. Styne." He nods. Upon her reciprocation to his greeting, he leads her over to the couch and asks the pleasantries. "Would you like anything?"

"Tea would be fine, thank you."

Draco sits Scorpius down on the couch across from her, as she seems to be here for him, and then turns to her. "Pardon me, but I haven't... I'm not sure I know why you're here for my son."

"Oh," Styne says, glancing over at Harry pointedly. "You don't? Rather strange, seeing as we'll need much of the parent's involvement and cooperation for the duration of the child's Mind-Healing."

Draco raises his eyebrows, turning to Harry.

"Right. Er. Come over into the kitchen with me for a minute?" Harry jerks his head sideways, and then turns and walks towards the exit. Draco brushes a hand over Scorpius' hair, promises he'll be back in a few minutes, and then follows.

Once in the kitchen, Draco once again pins Harry with an expectant stare.

Draco folds his arm across his chest. "Care to explain why you didn't tell me you were planning to call upon a child Mind-Healer for my child?"

He doesn't know how to feel about this, about Harry not finding it important to include him into such decisions regarding his son. Not to mention the fact that Draco can't exactly afford such services as of now.

"Because I know you'd find it difficult to say yes," Harry says. "And I didn't want to put you in that position to have to accept it, because this isn't a debt, nor a favour. I'm doing this because I care for Scorpius like I care for Teddy."

Oh.

"This is me doing exactly what I would do if my godson had been in his position—"

"Harry, I—"

"I know you would have wanted to do this on your own, but I don't want this to wait."

"Harry."

"I don't think it should any more than it already has. He's so fucking young and—"

"Harry, if you would shut up for a minute—"

Harry stops his rambling, staring back at him with those brilliant green eyes, and Draco is glad for it because he is fairly certain he would have done something stupid by the next second if he didn't stop talking, like shutting him up with his lips to his, like swallowing his words into his own mouth and kissing him senseless and blind.

"Thank you," Draco says. "I'll pay you back for this one day."

"But I just said—"

"I know what you said. But I'm still his father and I'm the one responsible for him. I can hardly refuse something that could possibly benefit my son, because my pride is not above what Scorpius needs, but I'd like to compensate for it one day. So when that day comes, let me."

Now that he's more capable, now that he's earning, now that he's saving up money, he has that bit of Malfoy pride restored, and it won't let him accept something when he can pay for it. He's had his first salary and he'd insisted on paying a small rent, even if Harry tells him he doesn't need money because he has too much of it in his Gringotts vault, but eventually he gives in, if only to appease Draco and let him have his peace of mind.

...

Harry learns that Scorpius has always wanted a night sky bedroom one day.

He spends hours setting it up while Draco is at work, with many firecalls to Hermione for instructions and resolutions to complications. When it's done, he shows it to Teddy, just to ask him what he thinks.

"I think I want one too," Teddy says. He's still turning around on his feet, his head tipped back as he gazes around mesmerized at the ceiling that seems endless and vast.

Harry laughs, ruffling his hair. "I'll set it up in your room too, then."

At night, when he comes home, Harry shows them both the room, and the awed grin on Scorpius' face at the end result, the beaming green gaze, the way he runs inside the room as he drags his father along, his head fully tilted upward as he takes it all in—it all makes every second of effort and time worth it.

"Hey. Watch this," Harry says with a grin. He pulls his wand out of his sleeve and lifts it to the night sky ceiling that appears only when the lights are out. "Scorpius."

All the stars rearrange themselves to form a glowing outline of a scorpion-like constellation. The starlights reflect off the wide-eyed wonder in Scorpius' gaze, catching the rapt fascination in Draco's silver eyes.

"Do you see that? That's you, darling," Draco says to his son, looking back at the blue-black sky with a smile. "That's my star."

Their eyes catch on accident, and Harry returns the residual smile curving into a smirk, his smile growing wider at Draco's lips moving around the words, thank you.

He hopes he gets it, what it is that he's trying to say. What he's been trying to say every time he says home to Draco. Let's go home. I think Teddy and Scorp are getting tired. We should head home. Do you want me to drop you off home?

Harry learns that he does, when Draco starts calling it home too.

...

On the eighteenth of January, Hermione and Ron have Hugo, all pink and scrunched and a tuft of ginger curls. He has his mother's brown eyes and his father's freckles.

Harry is deeply fond of him already, promising Ron and Hermione the many ways he'll spoil his little nephew.

But George.

George looks like he's living with a renewed purpose whenever he's around his nephew and godson. Harry remembered how he'd planned to close the shop down after Fred had gone, and to this day, he still doesn't know what it is that made George change his mind and come back determined to keep it going, perhaps to keep the last of his brother still alive in the world, but he had seemed to make a purpose out of it for a long time.

But having Hugo made him different, so much more alive and happier. George wasn't quite interested in having his own kids, but having Teddy, Victoire and now Hugo—being his godfather—seemed to be the closest thing he could want to it.

In mid-February, after much visits to the Ministry and disputes in the Wizengamot court, they agree to take Draco off the Death-Eaters list and all that comes with it.

Harry takes them to some of the best muggle places, a sort of tour, for all the things you'd missed out when you were too busy being a snobby pureblood and you couldn't enjoy the finest of the muggle world, Harry had joked, beguile and with an ease that spoke of absolution, of moving on, of Draco's past no longer being so defining of him because he's trying now.

Before they head home, they go to a newly opened ice-cream place in the wizarding district that Teddy's been wanting to try out. Harry pulls up his black hoodie over his head before they enter, just in case. They take a booth table, place their orders under the name, MP, through the winged menu, which flies away over the counter and to the chef in the kitchen. When their name is called, and Draco goes to collect their desserts at the counter, the witch smiles widely at him and hands the tray of ice-cream over. Her nametag reads Magda.

Draco gives her a polite little smile. "Thank you, Magda." 

"You're welcome." Magda looks over behind him at something and then glances back at him. "How long have you two been together?"

Draco frowns, bemused. "Pardon?"

She nods at something behind him, and when he glances over to follow the direction of her gesture, he finds Harry, arms atop the table where he's leaning his body into it, laughing with a glance at a Scorpius, who is also giggling at whatever awful joke he's just made, or so Draco assumes that's what he did, judging by Teddy's unimpressed expression.

"You and your husband. You have two kids, so I suppose it's been a long time?" Magda says.

Draco is struck speechless for a moment, at the rather forward question and the huge presumption. "I'm not entirely certain where you're getting all this from, but he and I aren't…"

She seems to catch on, and her eyes widen, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "Oh, Merlin! I'm so sorry. I—well, it's just—I mean, the way he was looking at you all this time, like you were—like he was so—I really thought—and I-I mean, the little one has green eyes just like his! I know some wizard couples do the whole fertility potion thing so I just presumed—oh, clearly I presume a lot of things! I'm so sorry."

"Clearly, you do." It's a somewhat absent-minded response. He's too busy staring at Harry, contemplative.

Harry's been good at making it all seem normal and okay between them, so much so that Draco sometimes wonders if he's the only one now, if Harry's already moved on. Sometimes he thinks that by the time he'll be ready, Harry won't be waiting anymore.

Here is a sign of hope, it seems.

(And he may be getting rather ahead of himself, but part of him doesn't mind the idea of them being one family instead of two some day.)

At the booth, Harry lets Scorpius and Teddy have a taste of his ice-cream, some flavour called Pralines and Cream, which he explains has some sort of sweet and roasted nuts in vanilla. He wipes Teddy's chocolate mustache off with his sleeve, to the poor child's mortification, and then steals some of Teddy's ice-cream. He asks for permission before he takes Scorpius' rasberry-flavoured dessert because no one can steal ice-cream from Scorp without feeling like a monster, and then steals Draco's too.

"What?" Harry says around the spoonful of Draco's ice-cream when he catches him staring, narrow-eyed and disapproving.

"You have appalling table manners," Draco says, holding up his cup to his mouth to hide the hint of a smirk. "Didn't your Weasley parents ever teach you that it's impolite to steal food off another?"

Harry shrugs. "I'll let you have some of mine, if that makes it even."

"Please do," Draco drawls, gesturing with his spoon to bring it closer.

Harry flicks a finger over the creamy top of his ice-cream, reaches across the table and smears it over his nose, grinning. "There."

It's so childish that all Draco can do is blink, bemused.

But it makes Teddy snort a laugh into his chocolate fudge dessert, and it draws a baby-toothed smile out of his son. Draco shakes his head, but the sight of his stupid grin draws a soft huff out of him. "I hate you."

He's a bit embarrassed to realize that it sounds a lot like the way people say I love you.

...

In April, he files for a divorce and takes the divorce form over to Michael's house, a form that, once both parties sign their magical signature over with their wand, will break all legal and marital bonds. 

Seated at Michael's living room across from him, Draco pulls out the divorce parchment out of his pocket and slides it over on the table.

Michael frowns. "What's this?"

Draco doesn't answer. He lets him lean over and read the large heading, Draco's scrawl of a name at the bottom infused with his magic, and work out the answer for himself.

"You can't be serious," Michael huffs, taken aback and incredulous. It seems he's been under the delusion that Draco will come crawling back once more.

"I am," Draco says, so low that it's nearly a rasp, just to hit it home and break through his disbelief. "It's over."

"And if I don't sign?"

Some part of Draco saw this coming, that he won't make it easy, but the words leave him sick anyway. He doesn't want to fight Michael anymore. He's tired. He just wants it to be over. He wants Michael to let him and his son go and he wants to never have to think about him ever again.

He swallows, steadies his voice and says anyway, "Then I suppose I'll see you in court, Michael."

"Come now, Draco. It doesn't have to be like this." Michael leans forward, clasping his hands together, all falsely sincere and reasonable and persuading. "You can come back to me. We can be a family again." He smiles. "You, me and Scorpius. Things will be better this time around."

The same old lies, but Draco is no longer too desperate to believe them, or too afraid to refute them.

"You're not coming anywhere near my son again, Michael," Draco says, his voice coming quiet and weary. "Not after what you did that night." Not after everything you did.

Michael's gaze strays over somewhere behind Draco, a tremor of an emotion breaking through the calm. He blinks after a second, his face smoothing.

"That was a mistake."

And then the weariness keeping him quiet drains right out of him, something in him snapping hard like a thick cord at the words.

"Pardon? A mistake?" Draco snorts, derisive and incredulous. "That's what you're calling it?"

"I have the right to see him." Michael is trying to divert the topic. His gaze strays again, and then it comes back to him. "Don't forget that he's my son too."

And Scorpius is always going to be his weakness as well as his strength, the thing that raises his voice and the thing that makes him lose all control of himself, and Michael talking about his son like he is in any way his after the way he's treated his little boy, his sweet and innocent and terrified little boy, is what makes him lose his whole damned mind, makes his teeth grind together and his hand slam down on the table, his finger whipping up to point at him. "No. No, you do not have a right to anything with my son, because you didn't do a fucking thing for him. Scorpius is mine, and he is only mine."

"Draco, listen to me—"

"I don't want to listen to you. I want you to get your wand out and sign the papers and leave us the fuck alone."

"I'll change. I won't make the same mistakes again—"

"For Merlin's sake, Michael!" Draco grits out, white-hot fury roiling all throughout his body to the point of nausea. "Stop calling them mistakes! They weren't mistakes, because you have always known perfectly well what you were doing, and that night was no different. I'm done being your punching bag and I'm done letting Scorpius grow up around you. He's terrified of you, Michael. He's always been terrified of you, and after what you did that night—"

"Look, I didn't mean to get so mad. I  didn't want to do that. I just lost control because that artefact was important to me, and it was important to my family and—"

"Right, so that makes it okay, then? A stupid fucking vase meant more to you than we ever did! Scorpius is a child, Michael! Children fuck up all the time. They don't deserve to be terrified out of their minds for it every time they do!"

"Then you should have known better!" Michael is losing control. This is where it starts, where the fists start being thrown around and the wands start waving, where it starts to hurt. "You should have stopped him, but instead you go around playing fucking blindfolded tag in my living room! None of that would have ever happened if even one of you had been a bit smarter!"

"Michael, don't you dare try to blame it all on me or my son—"

"You knew that I had a temper, you knew that when either of you do things like that—"

"You forced yourself on me in front of my child!" Draco screams.

And then everything goes quiet and still.

Draco is breathing hard and trembling, and saying the words out loud—they just make it hurt worse than ever, make it less of a distant memory that left him hollow and heavy and more real. It was everything that had happened over and over behind closed doors, but that night it had all happened in front of his son, and that was something that would haunt him worse than anything else.

They drain away all the anger from him and cut through the emptiness of his chest that didn't let him feel it. His eyes burn, his body shaking, his chin quivering, but he keeps his face set rigid, doesn't cry, he doesn't let himself. He won't ever let himself be weak in front of another person again.

And certainly never in front of Michael.

Michael swallows hard, his jaw clenched. His wide gaze slowly drifts over to somewhere behind Draco.

To someone.

He remembers, then, that it's not just the two of them here.

Draco turns his head around, looking over his shoulder, and there is Harry, leaning sideways against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, his face stone-cold and hard and taut, his icy-green eyes staring off into nothing. He hasn't spoken a single word since they'd come here, as he'd promised. He let Draco speak for himself, but he made sure he felt safe while he did.

Draco hadn't wanted to bring him along at first, afraid of what impulsive, reckless and emotional Harry might do, something like what he'd threatened Michael with the last time, something that might get him into legal trouble, something that, even for an overly noble pillock with a severe Saviour Complex, he might regret. Harry was stubborn, however, and Draco had caved, certain that if Harry tried anything, he'd be there to stop him.

But he'd only felt relieved to have Harry here when they Apparated over into Michael's house, when he saw Michael.

The pure cold rage on Harry's face might be the only thing that makes Michael get his wand out, his hand quivering.

Michael tries one more time, and Draco doesn't know why he bothers anymore.

"Draco. Come on, please. I don't want to lose you, I want us to be a family again and I—I'll do better. If you stay. I'll change. I—fuck, I love you, okay? I love you and I love our son and—I promise you that nobody is going to love you the way I do."

Those words meant something entirely different, once.

For a moment, Draco remembers himself at twenty-one, at twenty-two and twenty-three and twenty-four, believing that nobody would ever love him after Michael, besides Michael, and the day he broke and realized that the only people that could have truly given a damn about him other than his son were already dead and gone.

He thinks of his baby boy, who waits up to see him come home and lights up upon seeing him, who tells him everything about his day and tells him he loves him every night and kisses his cheeks when he thinks he's sad or sick or hurt, who worries about him in ways no child should ever worry about their father.

His baby boy, who Draco means everything to, and who is his whole universe wrapped up in a little being and given to him.

He thinks about another boy, an orphaned child that lost his parents to a war and can change his hair colour. A boy who launched himself at him before he even knew his name, who made him laugh in a way he'd forgotten to after years, who calls him Mister Malfoy but sees him as his family and is painfully dear to Draco.

There is a beautiful green-eyed man, kind and brave and noble, who kissed him and looked at him in ways he hadn't thought possible anymore for someone like him, who would have treated him like a prince if Draco had let him, who knew who he'd been, once, and who still fought the Ministry for him and cared for his son like he cared for his godson and is waiting for him, even if it might be for years.

Nobody will ever love you the way that I do, Michael has always told him.

"I sure fucking hope so, Michael," Draco sneers to that, cold and low. "Now sign the papers."

Before they leave Michael's house, Draco feels just brave enough to lean over the table and say coldly, "If you value your life, Michael, start packing your things as soon as we leave here." And then he straightens to his feet.

He turns around as he lets his wand slide out from his sleeve into his hand, walking over to grab Harry by the wrist, and Apparates them back home before Harry can even think about arguing.

The leap is much too sudden and jarring, the sensation of being squeezed through a tube making Draco's stomach lurch, and it slips the ground from underneath both their landing feet, catching fabric in their hands as they topple into one another, pushing and pulling to keep each other and themselves steady.

The vertigo and nausea from the overwhelming chaos of his emotions as well as the brutal Apparating makes Draco's head spin, leaning his head into the other man's shoulder to ride it out as he gasps through it all. After a long moment, it passes, his vision clearing, and he slowly grapples to pull himself up straight, discomfitted.

Harry throws his arm around the nape of his neck, then, keeping him there, tugging him close and pushing his nose into Draco's shoulder.

Draco isn't able to let himself reciprocate, but he isn't able to push him away either, hands brushing just barely at Harry's waist. He is caught somewhere between trying to keep himself together, almost certain that if he lets himself fall into Harry too much, he'll end up falling all the way through, and between needing the heat and solidity of him to ground himself, to calm the pounding of his heart and the turmoil in his gut and the way his breaths seem suffocated and heavy.

There is his hand brushing down Draco's back, warm and firm, clearing the fog of overwhelming emotions in his head somewhat, his heart settling down. He closes his eyes and inhales a subtle breath of the faint scent of cologne and something uniquely Harry. Goosebumps shiver down his spine, warmth flushing through his skin where their bodies meet, where Harry's face turns to bury into the side of his neck, so he takes a sharp breath and pushes a hand at his chest, stepping back out of Harry's grip as he rubs his palms down his face to gather himself.

"Sorry," Harry says. He's blinking hard and fast, unable to meet his gaze. 

"That was shite," Draco huffs, just to stop the moment from edging onto unease. That is a great understatement, really, but at least he's no longer legally and magically bonded to Michael. Even so, it doesn't sink in yet, that even if there are many ways he still isn't free from Michael, there is at least one. "Tea?"

They need to pick Scorpius and Teddy after, once they've calmed down completely. He'd promised Scorpius that it won't take too long.

Harry's lips twitch into a smile, but it seems much too off and it doesn't reach his eyes. One of his hands are a bit too close to the side of his body, almost behind him. "I could use a cup, yeah."

Draco eyes him for a moment, narrow gaze studying him.

Clearly, Harry has something on his mind, Draco suddenly has the strange intuition that by the time he comes back, Harry won't be here. 

It is then that Draco notices that there is a lack of a stiff weight underneath his sleeve, and when he moves his arm, there is no tip of a wand poking into his elbow.

Draco closes his eyes and inhales a slow breath to reign in his exasperation. He opens his eyes after a moment, pressing his lips together. "Muggle ways are just fine, but I do like making tea using my wand much better. It's rather time-saving."

Harry's face is impassive and rigid, his body stiff. He doesn't say anything.

Draco lifts an eyebrow. "I'd like my wand back."

"Only if you promise not to follow me."

"Don't do anything stupid, Harry. You said you wouldn't."

"It would hardly be stupid to..." Harry begins to mutter.

Draco cuts him off, "Yes it would be stupid."

Harry's lips tighten, quivering, and for a moment, he looks on the verge of tears, before he blinks and his face smoothes straight. "He's not going to touch you again. Ever." His voice is low, convicted. "He's not going to come anywhere near Scorpius again. Just—just let me make sure of that. Please, Draco."

"No."

Harry blinks again, hard. He swallows, his breaths growing heavy and erratic, his chest jouncing high and low. The anger is setting his green gaze ablaze, sorrow reddening his eyes. "After everything—after everything he did to you, to Scorpius—Merlin, Draco, how do you even have it in you to give a damn what happens to him?"

"It's not him that I give a damn about, you fucking pillock." Hurting people never feels good, no matter who they are. Draco knows. He's tortured bloody Death-Eaters and when his Occlumency skills couldn't keep his emotions at bay anymore, it all caught up with him and even knowing that they've done the same to others, it still made him feel like a monster. "He's not worth it, Harry."

"Does he come around?" Harry asks. Draco doesn't answer, but it's answer enough for Harry, whose face goes cold all over again. It's not every day, but sometimes he catches a glimpse of him outside the café, outside the shop, and it keeps him guarded and glancing at the door and through the windows every day. "If you just let me—"

"Let you do what, exactly?"

Harry stops, and though Draco doesn't know what, it's enough to make him think it's a terrible idea. He hardly cares for Michael anymore, hasn't in years, but Harry is angry and hurting. This isn't the best time for him to be making any decisions. "Protect you and Scorpius. I promised him I'd keep you both safe. This is how I make sure of that."

The restraint of terrible impulse making his body rigid, the wildfire  emotions in Harry's red eyes, the restlessness of his hands running through the mess of his hair—he seems out of control. He hasn't a clue what it is that Harry is desperate to do, at what extent he wants to go, but he can't let Harry go like this, the way he is now. All he knows is that it's going to end in something bad, perhaps something far worse than Draco initially expected, something he'll end up in legal trouble for (if Harry Potter can get into legal trouble at all, that is. Not when the whole world would be on his side).

Whatever it is, he can't imagine that Harry would be okay with what he did once he's seeing clear.

"And—and you've already done that," Draco says, forcing calm and composure into his voice, and it feels a little like talking a spooked, threatened beast down (he's angry for him, Draco reminds himself). "Michael's scared out of his wits, Harry. He will be long gone before the day is over. He's never going to come near us again." Draco looks at him intently, carefully. "That's what this is about, isn't it?" 

Harry's jaw shifts, his gaze darting away. His chest sinks low and deep, breathing hard and heavy as he tries to regain composure.

"He hurt you," he says, then, his voice wavering. "He hurt you. And Merlin, Scorpius—"

He looks like he's in physical pain, his face contorting tightly like something's torn apart inside of him. Draco wants to touch his face, soothe him, but he keeps himself rooted where he is.

Harry runs his fingers through his hair, turning away as he swipes the back of his hand under his nose. When he seems to gain some control over his emotions, he looks back at Draco. "I—I won't go too far. Just as far as you want me to." His face is edging on a desperate plea, his voice a whisper, "Draco, just say the word, and I'll make him regret the day he first laid his fucking hand on you." Draco has the feeling that whether or not he gives the word, Harry won't be able to rest until he does what he wants to. 

"I just want to forget."

It comes out much too weary, and for a moment, Draco thinks that Harry might just listen, a flicker of several emotions flashing across his face. Remorse. Pain. Reluctance.

"Well, I can't forget about it." His voice is quiet. "I can't stand anyone hurting the people I care for and just walking away."

Harry raises his wand, Draco's in his other hand, and vanishes with a pop. 

…

May second is a quiet day.

It's the kind of day that makes the world seem grey, the heavy grief sweeping throughout the rooms of Harry's home, throughout his body and hanging around all those he loved. It's on the Quibbler papers, Never Forget. It's on all the owls from people he hasn't heard from in months. It's in the way everyone is trying a little too hard to be normal, in the dip in Ron's usual energy, the way George goes distant and barely speaks, and the way it wears down on the kind faces of Molly and Arthur on the firecall. It's in the way Draco tries too hard to keep himself out of everyone's way, the way he can barely look any of them in the eye.

The only one free of today's sorrows seems to be Scorpius, and it's almost like a beam of light, a tinge of bright colour in the grey, the echo of his childlike laughter in the silent and still, his wide-eyed innocence amongst weary gazes.

At night Teddy huddles up into Harry's side and lets Harry talk about his uncle Fred, who was exactly identical to George in appearance (besides the little details, a mole, a scar, the certain way that he smirked) and would have been only a little more mischievous. He tells him the same things about his mother and father that Teddy's heard more than enough times, but that he never tires of hearing.

"Your mum used to sing to you. Did I ever tell you that?" That's something new. Something he's remembered this year. He tells Teddy a lot of the big stories, like how Dora had learned to perform the Patronus spell in Fourth Year and the time she accidentally sicced a Venomous Tentacula on Professor Snape, and how Remus was the best DADA Professor they'd ever had, but he doesn't tell Teddy enough of the little things. "She would hold you in her arms and sing you a song, and your dad would just—just sit by and listen."

"What did she sing?" Teddy asks, tilting his head up to look at him.

Harry brushes a hand through his deep red curls. He wishes he could remember it all, the lyrics, the tune. He wishes he could remember everything about Remus and Dora and tell them to Teddy. He wishes they were here so that he didn't have to be telling Teddy anything about his parents. "Something about sunshine, I think, and how happy you made her."

Teddy nods. His nose goes pink, his brows furrowing in the way they do when he's about to cry. "I wish I knew what she sounded like."

Harry kisses the top of his curls with the force of the ache in his chest. "I wish you could too, Teddy Bear."

They watch the Sirius star glow high in the night sky ceiling, brighter than the rest. Sirius would have loved Teddy so much, loved him like he was his own. His best friend's son. His godson's godson.

"I could sing for you," Harry offers, hopeful, even though he knows that they both know he's the most tone-deaf person to ever exist.

Teddy cringes. "Please don't."

"I'm not that bad."

"From the way I heard you sing in the shower? You are that bad."

Harry laughs a little, and it makes Teddy smile too, and it's all he wanted to do.

There is a rapping at the doorframe, then.

Harry looks over to find Draco leaning against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest.

"May I come in?"

"Of course."

Draco walks inside completely, then, closing the door behind him. His steps are light as he comes closer, crossing the room and lowering to perch on the edge of the bed. "I wanted to check in on the two of you."

Harry glances down at his godson, looking at his face. "I was just asking Teddy if I should sing for him."

"I'm going to guess that was a hard pass." Draco smirks, glancing at Teddy with a lifted eyebrow. Teddy nods, vigorously. "Good choice."

Harry squints. "I don't like this. The two of you teaming up to bully me over my less than great singing skills."

"Less than great is putting it a little too kindly," Draco mutters under his breath, but it's clearly meant to be heard.

They bicker a little like that for a while, just because Teddy finds it funny when they do and they both want to draw a laugh out of him. It works.

Eventually, the banter dwindles into silence.

"Draco?" Teddy says in a small, tentative voice, turning a little in Harry's arms to look at Draco.

"Yes, Teddy?" His voice is the way it has only ever been for Scorpius, up until now.

Teddy bites his lip in hesitance, glancing up at Harry for a second. Harry doesn't know what he wants to say, but he squeezes him against his chest to reassure him that it will be okay.

"Would you—would you want to sing to me, like you do for Scorp?"

Harry's heart breaks.

It's not the same thing. It will never be the same thing. Still, it must be something comforting.

And all Draco says is a soft, "of course."

Teddy looks up at Harry, squeezing his waist with his smaller arms, and then Harry lets him go, so that he can scoot over and curl up against Draco's side instead, and he thinks, if it were anyone else, he would have been a little more hurt, a little more jealous that the boy he spent years taking care of, the boy he raised, the baby that he still sees to this day when he looks at him sometimes, wants to seek comfort in somebody else, even when he rationally knows he will always be Teddy's number one.

But it's Draco. It's the man that makes him dream of things he probably shouldn't be dreaming about this soon, when he might not come back to him in the end.

"What shall I sing for you?"

"Anything."

Draco wraps one arm around Teddy's shoulders, and then the other one around his shoulder blades, cradling him close to himself as he huddles his body over him, and with his head bowed to him, he begins to hum in a low voice, almost as if he's trying to keep the song between himself and Teddy.

Harry stays all throughout, when the soft humming grows into words, into a melody of the sun and the moon and the stars, love and warmth and light, the air still and the world pin-drop quiet under Draco's song, under the rough and hushed murmurs of his singing, like it's making room for his voice, like it's making him be heard, and he is so beautiful. The only thing still standing in colour.

Draco's voice fades for a moment as their eyes meet over Teddy's head, emerald and moonstone. Harry wonders if he can see it all on his face right now, the way he feels for him, the way it swells his heart raw and tender and devours him inside at times. The way it is now. He can't keep it off his face, keep it down, how it's welling up in him.

I love you, Harry thinks to him. Draco blinks, his gaze breaking away, his voice returning again as he picks up from where he trailed off.  Merlin, I love you.

So it goes on, then, the man he is so desperately in love with singing in soft murmurs, holding his sad godson, his whole world, against his chest.

And Harry just sits by and listens.

...

The frantic sounds and cries tearing out of his son, the tremors of his little body against his arm, jerk Draco awake from his doze. He shushes him as he shifts closer and rubs his hand up and down his back. He kisses his son's face until his tears stop flowing and his breathing slows to an even pace, murmuring all the platitudes of solace that can come to him.

"What did you see in your dream?" Draco asks into his cheek, holding him close, brushes a hand over the side of his head to pull his curls back.

Scorpius' lip wobbles, jutted in a watery pout, his eyes red and glistening wet. "Papa hurt you—" Draco's heart stretches taut and tears apart. He squeezes him in against his chest, kisses his face, over and over, stroking his hand up and down his back to soothe him. "And you wouldn' move. He was comin' ta hurt me too..."

"I'd never let anyone hurt you," Draco says, when Scorpius' voice breaks, his breaths hitching and his lips quivering into a twist, fear and distress stealing his voice. "You know that, don't you, darling? No one's ever going to hurt us like that again. I'll make sure of that." 

"And Mister Potter too?"

"And Mister Potter too," Draco agrees, because it makes Scorpius feel even safer. Dr. Styne says that danger and threat is much of what Scorpius has known, which includes their time on the streets, and not only does his son need to feel like he's safe, but he also needs to know that his father is. Having a third person that he can rely on is one way, until they can get to the root of this. Who better than the man that Scorpius has grown up hearing stories about, that is a symbol of power, of protection and nobility and comfort? 

Scorpius eventually relaxes in his grasp, the tension and tremors of his body draining away. Draco strokes a hand through his hair again, silk strands tangling into his fingers. "Okay?"

Scorpius nods. He doesn't close his eyes to return to sleep, however, wide awake now and seeming to lose himself in thought as he stares up at the night sky ceiling.

"What are you thinking?" Draco asks, after a moment of letting him.

Scorpius looks to Draco, the way he does when he's hesitant and wants to ask a question he isn't certain of, his little fingers letting go of his dragon toy to fidget with the hem of his pyjama shirt.

"Did he love us, Daddy?" Scorpius asks, a faint frown scrunching his forehead. "Papa?"

Draco swallows hard, massaging the base of his small head. He doesn't think Michael had, but he'd realized that too late.

"Do'tor Styne says that people who love us aren't suppose ta hurt us. But he was—he was nice ta us sometimes, right Daddy? So maybe he did love us a little." He has an uncertain expression on his face, still.

This is what his son has learned about love. 

This is all he knows about love. He's grown up watching his father get hit and hurt by the man he sees in his nightmares, and he's grown up watching his father kiss that same man that he's so terrified of, that Draco was so terrified of. He's grown up learning that the person someone loves can be the same person that hurts them in the most violent and horrible ways.

And he loathes the thought that his son thinks this is what love can be, that this is the kind of love he can take, that it can only be intermittent moments of kindness in between a life of pain and fear, that it's enough if they were nice sometimes.

He has never appreciated Harry's decision to assign Dr. Styne as Scorpius' child Mind-Healer more.

He looks down to his son, the arm beneath his small head coming around to stroke back his hair with a hand. "Scorpius. Listen to me." He tilts his forehead back to make him meet his eyes. "Just because he was nice sometimes doesn't mean he loved us right or enough. That is not what love should be, do you understand?" 

Scorpius fidgets, his solemn gaze locked onto his, his brows lined.

"Promise me that," Draco whispers, putting his nose to his nose, forehead to forehead. "When you're older, you won't ever accept anyone treating you the way your Papa treated me. That you won't take love that isn't right or enough the way that I did."

Scorpius' lips thin together. Draco rubs a thumb under his eye, kisses his forehead.

"You are smart." 

Fucking idiot.

He really is your son, isn't he? Seeing as there isn't a fucking thing he can do right.

Is there anything you're good for?

"Brave."

Cowardice seems to run in the family. He's growing up to be just like you.

"Strong." 

You're pathetic.

"Good."

Death-Eater scum.

You'll never be anything more.

"And I love you more than anything in the world, okay?"

Nobody else left in this world to love Death-Eater scum like you. Nobody left in this world to love a Death-Eater's child either. Where are you going to go?

"And if anyone ever makes you feel like you're less than any of those things, of anything, then they are wrong. Even if that was Michael." He shifts his head closer to his little boy, looking him in the eye to make sure he understands. "And then you come to me, and I'll tell you who you really are, and how wonderful."

Scorpius blinks, staring up at him.

"Okay?"

"Okay, Daddy," he whispers.

Silence falls over them, comfortable and calm. Together, they stare up at the stars, the glowing lines of a dragon and scorpion twinkling down at them, Draco's fingers massaging his son's scalp in a way that has always soothed him to sleep.

"What's the right love, Daddy?" Scorpius asks.

Draco pauses at that. He isn't too sure he has the best answer.

Michael was his first. It was his only means to survive, once. It was the first show of kindness in very long. It was scraps that he'd take anything of as long as it meant that he had it. It was the only thing he had left, and it was all he'll ever have. Now all he knows is that it must be everything that wasn't what he and Michael had.

Draco's mouth twitches, thinning together, trying to fumble together words of an answer in his head until he has them, trying to think of everything that wasn't Michael, of the kind of love he would want Scorpius to have. 

"It is—it is to not like seeing you hurt, let alone hurting you. They make you feel safe no matter what." There's a name, called to his mind with that word. An image of green eyes, a smile, a voice murmuring, alright? Draco inhales a breath, trying to ease an ache low in his gut. The words come easier to him after that, "It is knowing all the things about you that aren't the best, and not using it to make you feel bad even when they're upset with you. They remind you of the good stuff about you instead. They listen when you tell them you don't want to do something. They try to help you when you're not feeling happy or strong. They protect you against people that aren't kind to you."

The only person he really learned anything of love from was his mother.

His parents' marriage wasn't quite exemplary. They were civil and formal with one another, a marriage that was more of convenience and duty than anything. They'd cared for one another, but he'd never seen them kiss or interact beyond what's necessary. His father had loved him, but he wasn't a loving man. What he knows of love is from his mother more than anything, and of what he feels for his boy, and now Teddy and Harry.

Harry. Harry.

He thinks of Harry, and he thinks love must be to want, or so it is with him, so much that it sits like a throb in his stomach. He wants him, and he wants the little things with him. To listen to him talk all the time. To make him laugh.

It's wanting to touch him, caught between always looking for excuses and always trying not to. 

Wanting to see him every morning as he leaves his room, hoping he's already awake. 

Wanting to kiss his damned face off all the time, at the stupidest things that make no sense. At the first sight of him every day, when he's rumpled and still half-asleep before his tea or coffee, at an awful joke he's made. A sweet word. A terrible flirtatious line. At a certain second that the light hits his face perfectly. Sometimes, for absolutely no reason at all.

At the way he tries so hard to keep his godson and Scorpius happy.

In June, Sirius' death anniversary had come around. Harry had done all he could not to show Teddy and Scorpius that he's not at his best, breaking into a spontaneous confetti fight just to make both their kids laugh, putting up movie nights even though he doesn't manage to pay any attention to what's playing on the television.

It's wanting to hold him when he's sad and tired and falling asleep into Draco's hip without meaning to (he didn't hold him, but he put his hand in his hair after he'd fallen asleep and tried to make sure he didn't wake him when he broke through the knots with his fingers).

He tries to think of people his son can see and learn from now. People that have something healthy and good and caring.

"I suppose it is what you see between—between Mr. Weasley and Mrs. Granger. Mrs. Lovegood and Mr. Longbottom. They way they care for one another." Why only mention the romantic kind, he supposes. There isn't only one sort of it. "It's even the way that Harry cares for you and Teddy."

He looks down at Scorpius, tilts his head. His son is listening to him very closely.

"And it is the way that I love you."

Scorpius' lips break into a smile, beaming. Draco can't help but pull him closer against his chest, smiling as well into his hair.

He hadn't always known how to be a father, besides what he knew of his own, and he hadn't wanted to be like his father. His father had spoiled him with materialistic things, but he'd known nothing of expressing affection and tenderness.

Draco wasn't an affectionate and tender man either, but Scorpius has always needed it more than most, not only because he is a sensitive boy, but because of the way he grew up with his fragile and soft heart and brilliant mind, so brilliant that he observes and understands things he should not at his age. He had to see and hear and feel things that no child should, one so little and tender-hearted and sweet, and so Draco shows him more affection and tenderness than he'd once thought himself capable of in nature.

It's hardly an effort anyway, to show the way his heart swells for his boy. His beautiful boy.

His beautiful boy that is all his. His first word, his first smile, his first laugh, they were all for Draco. His first steps were towards him. Draco cleaned his shite diapers and gave him baths and fed him. He gave him nearly all of his laughter before Harry and Teddy came (just like Scorpius gave him his). Somedays he looks at him and he still sees a baby that used to hide under his shirt when he was one and two, poking his head out of his collar and giggling, Draco kissing his nose each time his little face made a reappearance. A boy that was still unaware enough to be a little happier (Draco misses that, the playful and carefree baby he used to be before he understood more than little kids his age should).

Draco taught him how to read and write, how to count, the names of all his body parts. He taught him everything he knew about the stars. He took care of Scorpius. He did it all on his own, no thanks to Michael.

His beautiful boy, the only thing that kept him sane, kept him together, kept him here. He didn't know where he'd be without him. If he'd be here at all.

There are moments when he thinks that anything would have been better than meeting Michael. Maybe he wouldn't have been happy either way, but at least he never would have met Michael.

But he wouldn't have had Scorpius either, then, and that he can't even bear the thought of. In the midst of all the chaos and grief, all the terrible things that had happened, he had gotten the best thing that could ever happen to him. Bringing Scorpius into this world might just have been the only thing Draco has ever done right.

"Does Teddy love us, Daddy?"

There is a hope in his son's voice that makes him hurt. Draco has tried hard, has tried hard to love Scorpius so much that he didn't feel like his father was the only person in the world to love him, that he didn't feel short of people in his life.

But he's still just one person, and Scorpius deserves the world. 

"I think he does."

"Does Mister Potter love us?"

"I think he loves you very much." He'd grown fond of Scorpius rather soon. Since the moment Harry had met Scorpius, he'd been nothing but kind, and Draco still remembers the way he spoke so soft to Scorpius, held the bundle of him carefully to his own chest before he'd Apparated them over. The way he still is with him now, always trying to make Scorpius laugh. Draco understands now, after learning about his sick and despicable relatives (to whom Draco will have much to say should they ever have the misfortune meet him), that part of why Harry dotes on his little boy so much is because he sees much of himself in him.

"Does he love you?"

Love seems too big of a word. Sometimes Draco thinks it will always be that way now, that it will forever be too big of a thing to last for someone like him.

Sometimes he looks at Harry and all he wants to do is believe otherwise.

Draco clears his throat, and isn't entirely sure why the words come so hard. Why, even after everything, it still doesn't settle in his heart with any certainty. The idea that Harry could feel anything like that for him. "Yes. I—I think he does."

"I think he does too."

"Yes?"

Scorpius makes an affirmative 'mhm' sound. "'Cuz he makes you lunch b'fore you go ta work, like Mister Weasley does for Missus Granger, and sometimes he looks at you and his face goes a little funny. Teddy says it's 'cuz—'cuz he's in love."

Draco doesn't quite know what to say to that. He flickers a smile for his son anyway.

"Get some sleep now, Scorpius. I'll be here until you do," Draco whispers, touches Scorpius' soft cheek and pushes a kiss to his hairline.

On the night of the anniversary of when he and Michael had met, the twenty-third of July, Draco finds himself standing outside the small house that had been a home and a prison for a time that felt longer than it was, ten years that felt like ten decades. He's pissed out of his mind, the firewhiskey in his hand nearly empty of its contents, and his head is spinning and light as he lifts his head to look up at the house.

The haze of inebriation makes the world a little less real, makes everything feel a little further away than it already has ever since he'd left. Sometimes he can pretend that the man that had laid in his own blood countless times on the floor of that house had been someone else. He can pretend that it had all just happened to someone else.

It's an empty house he's staring at now, in the dark and silence of the streets. The little brown house that lays mostly desolate. It's quiet. It's so quiet here. It was always quiet here, when it was just him and Scorpius, when Michael wasn't home.

When he was, it was shattering glass and snapping furniture, hexes and curses and yelling so loud that he'd shrivel into himself with the fear and anxiety shriveling his insides. It was horrible horrible words and names that would keep him from sleep because they'd still be echoing in his mind at night. It was Draco, screaming, crying, apologising, trying to keep quiet because he didn't want Scorpius to hear him upstairs.

He'd been happy, once, going in there, moving in with all his boxes full of belongings, Michael helping him carry them in, laughing when they knocked into edges and doorframes because they couldn't see over the stacks. He hadn't thought, then, that he'd come back one day and see it through eyes that can barely see straight, thinking of Michael's voice, his hands, his wand, his body, and how they'd all hurt him in ways he still doesn't know how to speak of.

He hadn't thought, then, that things would ever go the way they did.

Now he just doesn't understand, how Michael had made it all make sense, how Draco let him make it make sense, because it doesn't anymore.

How did he let anyone hurt him like that?

How did he let Scorpius grow up around someone like that?

Sometimes, inebriation doesn't make things go away further. Sometimes it brings them closer than ever, it seems.

The world sways around him, and then lurches, and there is a crash of glass against pavement.  There is a yell, raw and hoarse, ripping through the silence and the winds, a terrible sound that he realizes a second after that it came from him, from the writhing anger and grief fighting to break free from the hollow and cold of his chest, torn up to his throat and into the air. The firewhiskey lays shattered and spilling somewhere far in the distance, where he'd hurled it towards the house. 

And it's not enough. It's not enough. It never is. Whatever he does, it's just never enough and it never makes it all go away. It never gets him out of his head.

He grapples for stones and pebbles and gravel from the ground, throws his arm back as far as they could go and hurls them hard at the house, over and over, one after another, uncoordinated and aimless and blind. Each time it rips the fury and grief out of him through his teeth, the sounds inhuman and wounded and coming from somewhere deep and rotten and festering.

He hurls them at the windows, the sidings, the porch, every fucking thing that went wrong in there but all they do is shatter glass and they don't change anything or make him feel better or break the haunted house of all his ghosts down. 

All they do is make everything blur and jolt as his uncoordinated body loses its balance and he falls to the ground on his palms and knees, drunk and shaking and hurting in every way as the firewhiskey tears apart all his restraint and inhibitions, folded over in half and crying so hard he can't make a sound, can't even feel himself breathe anymore. He slams his fists down on the pavement, and it's the only thing that sucks out a gasp of a sob, a sound, out of him.

...

Harry nearly drops the glass of water in his hand from Draco's sudden Apparition into the kitchen, dropping on his hands and knees.

"What the—" Harry moves over, rounding around the counters to reach him. It's nearly two am right now, and he'd thought Draco was sleeping in his room, as he should be. "Where the hell were you at this time of night?"

Draco sways on his feet. His hands are bruised, and Harry blinks, stepping closer to him.

"Are you pissed? Did you Apparate like this?" He knows he's edging on anger, and it's nearly seeping into his voice. Apparating while drunk is risky. "You could have been splinched, you pillock, for —" He stops, reeling himself in, trying not to imagine all the ways it could have gone wrong.

"I met—him, on this day."

Harry doesn't understand. He takes Draco gently by the elbow, making sure to move slow enough to see him as he comes closer, and guides him over to the couch. He Accios his wand, catching it as it zooms into his hand. "I'm just going to heal your hands, okay?"

Draco hums. He lets Harry take his hand.

"Where were you?" Harry asks. He casts a healing spell, watching the gravel fall off, the bruises and cuts on his palms fade. He takes his other hand in his own and does the same.

"Michael's."

That's when something clicks. I met him on this day.

"Let's get you to bed," Harry says softly. "I'll take you to my room, okay? I don't think Scorpius should see you like this."

He doesn't know what it is about what he says that seems to hurt Draco, but it twists red across his face and Harry doesn't like it.

Harry pulls his arm across his own shoulders and wraps a hand around his waist, guiding him towards his own room and then to his bed.

"He hurt me," Draco slurs.

"I know." But he won't hurt Draco any more, and he won't come anywhere near Scorpius anymore, because Harry left him bruised and battered and obliviated, unable to recognise anything or anyone or himself.

It was the second time in his entire life that he used the Cruciatus Curse on anyone. Draco had tried to stop him before he left because he worried Harry would regret what he did, but the truth is he does not. Not in the slightest. To him it was nothing compared to the years of anguish and grief Michael put Scorpius and Draco through, that still follow them to this day.

There was even a part of him that almost wanted to do something irrevocable, unable to stop his mind from whirling horribly on everything that this man put two of the people he cherished through. Harry thought he would have, standing over him, his wand trembling with rage in his hand as he pointed it at Michael.

But above all, Harry wanted Draco and Scorpius safe. Above all, he wanted to be there to take care of them when they needed him.

He pulls Draco's legs up on the mattress and carefully lies him down.

He doesn't expect Draco to grab him by the nape of his neck and pull him down to his mouth into a hard, uncoordinated kiss that knocks the inside of his lips into his teeth. It still snatches the air out of his lungs, sends tingles through him and shivering down his back, just because it's Draco and Draco tends to have that kind of effect on him.

Harry shakes his head, drawing away from him quickly and sitting upright. "Draco, you're drunk. You don't want this."

Draco frowns, his eyes squinting and his forehead scrunched in bemusement. His cheeks are pink with inebriation. One of his hands are still on the nape of his neck, the other sprawled next to his head. "You don't—don't want me anymore."

"I do want you." He wants him so much it drives him absolutely mad at times. "I just want you when you can actually talk straight and tell me you want me too. You don't want to be with me right now, remember?"

"S'just one night. It doesn't—doesn't have to mean anything—" Draco tries to tug at him by the front of his shirt.

Harry drops down next to him instead, taking his hand, just taking it and holding it for a moment, squeezing it. Sometimes he craves this more than anything, to hold his hand and hold him in his arms and fall asleep next to him again, tender and warm together, the heat of his body seeping into his. "Well," he says, soft. "I want it to mean something."

"Shouldn't wait for me, Harry." Draco's face is close to his on the pillow, grey eyes red-rimmed and sad and on the verge of drooping.

Harry shrugs. "Tough. Because I'm going to."

"Should go look for someone—someone actually worth your while." 

"You're worth every second I'm waiting for you."

Draco doesn't seem to be listening. "I'd—I'd have left. I would have. Put us both out of our misery. But Scorpius. Scorpius is happy here. Never been happy like this. Or loved by someone more than me. I can't—"

"I don't want you to leave. I don't ever want you to leave. I thought I made that pretty clear." Him leaving—that would make him miserable. He likes having Draco and Scorpius around too much, and so does Teddy.

"M'not good," Draco mumbles, his eyes a languid flutter as he struggles to keep them open. His breaths, slow and heavy, smell like firewhiskey. "Michael said m'not—not good for anything. Nothing good about me."

Harry's brows draw together into a doleful frown. It hurts, hearing him say these things, believing anything Michael had said to keep a hold over him.

"He was wrong. There is so much about you that—" that makes me fall in love with you. "How smart and strong and funny you are and—and how you changed from everything you've ever known to be to this… this incredible person that you are now, in spite of everything that had happened. It's not always the easiest thing, you know? To be good when you've been surrounded by so much bad." He knows this, after the Dursleys, after the war, after all the grief and injustice and anger.

He is still Draco Malfoy, all smirks and snark, but he's just Draco without the gritty parts, the malice, the prejudice. He's just lovelier and quieter.

"And the way you are with Teddy, and your son. You're a wonderful father. Scorpius is a wonderful child, in no small part because of you." He taps his chest with a finger. "And... and how beautiful you are." He's seen all the ways he is, not only in every day life, in every little thing he does, but also on that night of theirs. The way he went wild, the way he'd looked and sounded. It drove him bloody insane, and it still does, thinking about it.

Harry huffs a small, incredulous laugh.

"Merlin, Draco. You really have no idea, do you?" He doesn't know, how Harry misses heartbeats and how his gut clenches when he first sees him every morning, or when he smiles at him, not the usual half-smiles or the smirks, but a whole one, or when he laughs at anything he says, or when he touches him, on accident or otherwise, when he catches him looking at Harry a certain way, his head cocked, sometimes with something mellower. Just the stupidest bloody things that sometimes don't even make sense. 

For a moment, Draco doesn't say anything. He's just looking at him, half-mast eyes fluttering in languid blinks.

And then he shifts his head slightly closer, until they're so close now that he can feel his firewhiskey breaths on his lips, until he has no choice but to look into every speck of colour in his eye. "You make it so very difficult," Draco whispers. 

Harry is a little distracted by the proximity, by his lips so near to his own, but he manages to ask, "to—to do what?"

It's that red-raw and bare look again, mellowing the grey of his eyes, but it's not sorrow this time. It's desperation; it's longing—it's something else entirely. "To not be in love with you."

It snatches the air out of him, leaves his mind scattered and blank, and it doesn't help his lungs or his mind when Draco tilts his head and kisses the corner of his mouth. It just leaves a tumble of terrible aching emotions in his chest, leaves his stomach aching with need and longing.

He watches Draco's eyes fall gently to a close, watches him fall asleep next to him, breathing soft and warm and even. He lifts a hand, brushes a knuckle over his flushed cheek, and then he rolls over and lays his head back on the pillows.

When he slips out of the bed, away from him, it feels a little like going against gravity itself.

He goes to the living room and falls asleep on the couch. He dreams of snow-blond hair falling softly into silver eyes, crinkling in the sunlight as the sound of his laughter, hushed and beautiful, echoes through his spinning head.

…

Tenth of November is the day Draco tells him he's going to go see his parents. He doesn't ask Harry to come with him, but Harry comes along anyway, because the way scarlet rings his eyes with fatigue makes him think he shouldn't be alone.

On the gravestones are carved, Lucius Malfoy, 1954-1999. There is nothing else written beneath his grave. On his mother's grave is written, Narcissa Malfoy,  Jan 1955-Nov 2002. Devoted, brave mother and wife. He puts daffodils on the bed of the soil that lays over their tombs.

The rustle of the trees and the whipping of the winds are the only sounds, breezing past the hem of winter coats and collars and hair. He doesn't know what Draco is thinking as he gazes upon his parents, but he stays all through the silence with him.

"Do you ever stop missing them?"

Harry looks up at Draco. 

"I don't think so," he says. They're there in the background, if not at the forefront. They're there behind many of the decisions he's made, the thought of them underneath nearly every moment. He wonders often if his parents are seeing him now, what they would think of him, and this is a huge part of what has made him who he is today. "I guess you just learn to live with missing them every day."

It's not the same thing, exactly. Harry lost his mother and his father before they ever got to know them or to know being loved by them in a way other than their sacrifice, and Draco lost them long after, having gotten to know them, having loved them and having been loved by them. But it was loss, another thing that made them understand each other in some way.

"I'm sorry," Draco says, hoarse and low. He clears his throat. For a few seconds, it's unclear where it came from, or why. "For how I was about your loss, back at Hogwarts. It was… it was cruel and—disgusting .  I… I just made it worse, didn't I?" He looks at Harry, his forehead scrunched with remorse and apology.  "I'm sorry."

"You were just a dumb kid."

"It doesn't make it okay."

It didn't make it okay, back then, but he hasn't really thought about this in years.

His mum and dad's death anniversary had passed ten days ago. Ron and Hermione had a lot on their plate, but they came by anyway as soon as they got free with Hugo. They usually stayed the night, but they understandably couldn't this year. After Draco had come back from taking the kids out for trick or treating and putting Scorpius to sleep, he'd sat beside Harry against the headboard all the way until he fell asleep.

It's a few minutes after that Harry musters enough courage to reach his hand out and place it over Draco's palm, gloved fingers clasping around his. When he darts a glance at him, Draco doesn't seem to react besides the barest tilt of his head. 

Harry looks back to the gravestones. He wonders if the people they lose are still around, if they watch them live their lives from where they are.

It's a constant question he asks that won't ever truly be answered, but he likes to think that they do, because it's the only thing comforting enough for him to make peace with. He wants to believe that just because he never got to know his mum and dad, it doesn't mean he never will. He wants to believe that Sirius and Fred and Dobby and Remus and Nymphadora and Andromeda, all the people he misses deeply even after all this time, and the countless others they'd lost in that war, that they all live on somewhere, that he will see them again.

He likes to think that his mum and dad are up there somewhere together, happy, seeing him live and be happy too. He hopes they're proud of the person he is. 

He hopes that Narcissa Malfoy is here somewhere up in these winter-gray skies as well. He hopes she is seeing that her son is no longer alone and that she doesn't need to worry about him anymore, because that is for Harry to do now. He hopes she knows that he will keep her son safe, and if Draco will let him one day, he will do all he can to make him happy, that he will love him and Scorpius like they are his own.

...

There is a card in Draco's hand, a number and a Floo address that he looks at some days and thinks of how there is no longer any reason why he shouldn't. He is no longer considered a Death-Eater legally, so no one should be too hesitant in providing him with any sort of service or treatment. He has his savings that he can pay with besides his rent now.

These people—they were well-versed in helping people struggling to get a grip on themselves, weren't they? They knew all these complicated spells that gradually wired the mind towards a better outlook and perspective, even if it had to be combined with the process of talking it out. 

What if they will just tell him that it was his fault?

He didn't want to make himself vulnerable, not in front of anyone, but it seems that's the entire basis of how this works.

He's sitting across Dr. Styne one day at her office, after her session with Scorpius. She'd let Scorpius leave through the Floo with Harry and asked to speak with Draco alone.

"I understand you may feel it is not my place to advise you, seeing as you're not my client. But you are related to my client, and are an extremely important part of his healing process, and I imagine what I am about to say would do your son well. Thereby, I may not be too out of line." She clasps her hands on her desk and leans forward. "I think you should look into getting yourself a Mind-Healer as well."

Draco partially guessed where this was going, and he was right. "If I'm too busy complaining about my problems to someone else, who's going to be there for my son?"

"On the contrary, you'll be able to better help your son when you're in a better state of mind yourself."

"I'm doing just fine, thank you." There is an edge of defensive satire to it, and he wishes he could take it back. He rather respects and admires Dr. Styne after seeing the progress Scorpius has made this past year because of her.

"The question is, for how long?" Antoinette raises an eyebrow pointedly. "Because one day it will all catch up to you, Mr. Malfoy, and I don't think your son should be there to see that day."

"I won't let that day come." It's a weak and indefinite argument, and he knows it. Some days he grapples for control and he almost thinks he's about to lose it.

"The only way you can make sure of that is by moving past it with the help of someone that knows what they're doing." Antoinette shrugs. "Mind-Healing is not an easy process, I can tell you that, but it's certainly worth your while. You're also lucky that you have someone who's willing to be there with you and your son when you need him on the difficult days. Mr. Potter worries about you very much."

Draco blinks, glancing away and down at his hands. Everything he can possibly say seems too defensive, too much like he's in denial. That doesn't always seem too far off from the truth.

"In the end, it's rather simple." Dr. Styne leans back into the chair. "A parent with a healthy state of mind can help maintain the child's healthy state of mind. In other words, you should take care of yourself first before you can take care of others."

"You make it sound like I'm physically incapable."

"Mind illnesses can sometimes be just as debilitating."

"I don't have a mind illness."

"Be that as it may, for a child as intelligent and well-attuned to his parent as Scorpius, he can see it when you're hurting, and that has a whole other impact on such a young and fragile mind. He finds it difficult to express his needs and troubles because he's worried about troubling you any more than you already are. He partially blames himself for the violence you've suffered at the hands of your ex-husband, believing if he were better in some way and hadn't made such mistakes, he could have avoided much of what had happened to you, including what he'd watched happen to you on your last night at that house. He finds it difficult to interact with people not only because he hasn't developed the social skills but because he has extremely low self-esteem due to the emotional abuse he suffered and doesn't feel safe or comfortable enough to express himself—"

Draco's throat goes heavy and burning, and he swallows it down hard, a doleful frown drawing his brows together.

These Mind-Healing sessions bring to light a whole host of things he hadn't even known his son was dealing with, because his son had never spoken about it with him. Dr. Styne had said that it's most likely because Scorpius could hardly understand or explain these feelings and thoughts himself. All of that, it's too much for such a little child to hold.

You know that it wasn't your fault, don't you? He'd whispered to Scorpius after the first time he was told about it, holding him tight and kissing the top of his head, his forehead, over and over. It was his job to keep his boy safe. Draco had only done his job. You didn't do anything wrong.

Draco had showed up to Harry's room after, sore-eyed and broken-hearted in his doorway. He'd let Harry step forward, take him in against himself, hold him close. He'd let himself be weak into the other man's shoulder, just once, Harry's hand warm and light on the nape of his neck. It was much easier to be weak when it was over his boy.

"It's not your fault, as I've told you before. I can tell you're a wonderful and loving father, who had tried and is still trying his best under the terrible circumstances you were dealt, but I can also tell you're tired and in pain. And Scorpius—he deserves his father at his best, don't you think?"

With that, the conversation ends, and she lets him leave.

When Draco is standing at the fireplace, Dr. Styne says, "Mr. Malfoy."

Draco turns to face her.

"I said what I said, not only with my client's best interests at heart, but because I believe you deserve help. That you deserve to be at your best," she says softly. "I implore you to consider my words carefully."

It's some days after that he finds himself at the fireplace with that card in hand.

Penelope Clearwater

Mind-Healer

(Floo Address)

"It'll turn out well, I promise," Harry says, with a hand on his shoulder, a thumb rubbing over the ball of it. He's been here too at some point. Harry. He's been right where he is. He should know, shouldn't he? "We'll be right here when you get back."

He looks behind him over his shoulder. At the centre of the room, near the couches, there's Teddy, and there's Scorpius, laughing and giggling with their heads leaning together over something.

He wants to be better for them. He wants to be a better uncle, and a better father. He wants to entertain Teddy more. He wants to take better care of his son. He wants Scorpius to look at him and see someone happy, not someone pretending to be. He wants him to see a father he doesn't need to worry about, a father he can talk about anything with. He wants to get Michael out of his head and never think about him again. He wants to move on. He wants to not be tired and in pain. He wants to feel more than the hollow of his chest lets him.

He wants to be happy. He wants to be at his best.

Draco looks back at Harry, and Harry smiles the tenderest smile for him, and—

He wants Harry. He wants to be with him without giving him all his grief and chaos, wants to not keep him suspended in hope and wait, to be the one to give him everything. He wants to be better so that he can remember his worth, so that he can feel that he deserves the good in this world, deserves someone as good as Harry. 

Keeping these wants and those words and that smile close to himself, he turns to face ahead. He breathes.

And he steps through.

2009

There comes a time when life is more of a flow and less of a trudge, an amalgamation of moments that come smooth and easy, when the world is less shrouded in a dim grey haze and more real. There comes a time when Draco breathes with purpose, each one a step towards something more alive and whole, towards the days when the hollow of his chest doesn't rot away at him inside and out.

He still has terrible dreams. He still hears loud noises like they boomed inside his head and rattled in his chest, still hears the echoes of a voice yelling terrible things, crude names that he's spent too long wearing on himself like a second skin. He lies awake some nights and thinks too much about all the ways he went wrong with Scorpius, all the ways he couldn't protect him, all the ways he isn't enough of something. He still looks at Teddy and remembers being on the side of the war that got his parents murdered. He still looks at Harry some days and feels like love is too big of a thing to last for someone like him. He still grapples for control and thinks he's just on the edge of losing it all.

But the difference is this; he knows what to do every time. He knows how to breathe, slow and cadenced, to inhale his winds and storms and exhale towards stillness and calm. He knows how to think, with reason, with clarity, with forgiveness, with power and control, how to see through the distorted and skewed glass of his illusive perceptions. He knows how to take himself back from the turmoil of his emotions and the chaos of his mind, from the ghosts of Michael still haunting him, and he knows how to let go if that is what he needs.

When the suffocating pitch-blackness of everything that had happened begins to close in around his heart and mind and lungs, he no longer feels like he's entirely on his own in the midst of it all.

Penelope, with her calm and open demeanor, is indeed competent at what she does. 

Scorpius remains of a shy and introverted nature, but there are clear changes in the way he acts around people now, the way he feels about them. He does not see danger at every corner, does not see the world through wary and uncertain eyes, protective of his father, afraid for himself, subconsciously expecting cruelty and hurt from almost every other person he meets. He learns that Michael and those people on the streets were not the world, but only a terrible part of it.

It's when they look at Harry and Teddy that they understand this better than ever.

With Dr. Styne's guidance, support and counselling, his boy learns what love is meant to be. He learns of the clear boundaries that are needed between people, how to express his emotions. He learns of how he should expect to be treated, and he understands in greater depth of all that was wrong with the way he grew up. He begins to believe in himself more. He learns to see himself in ways Michael never did, in ways Draco always has.

Scorpius is eventually encouraged to move into Teddy's room, and though it takes time and getting used to, though it takes a lot of anxiety that requires Draco to sit with him through some hours of the night with patience and tenderness, he eventually begins to sleep on his own. He still has nightmares, and it is here that Teddy learns that some darknesses exist even outside of horrible wars in the most mundane and unexpected places.

"Why would someone hurt their own family like that?" Teddy whispers to Harry, a doleful and pained frown as he curls up in his arms and in his room the morning after Scorpius had whispered it all to him, Teddy having laid next to him to make him less scared. My Papa was a scary and bad man.

"I don't know," Harry says, because he doesn't, not entirely. He remembers being four and six and eight and ten and only being able to make sense of it by believing it was something wrong with him. It was what he was told then, until Ron and Hermione and the Weasleys and Sirius. He looks at sweet little Scorpius' big green eyes and it breaks his heart. "But whatever the reason is, it is always senseless and it is always something wrong with them, not who they hurt."

Sometime in early March, Harry invites Neville, Luna, Ron, Hermione and the Weasleys over for dinner.

Molly and Arthur are still somewhat guarded around Draco, even if they said they trusted Harry when he told them Draco is not the same person, but they really only believe him when they see how he is with Scorpius and Teddy, when they see him smiling a genuine way with them, his eyes crinkling with fond amusement, and when he's making stupid faces out of the vegetables on the salad plate to make Teddy laugh and kissing the top of Scorpius' head and telling the two of them to go wash their hands.

They don't talk about their bitter, thornful history in depth, but it lingers heavy between them when they're gathered at the dinner table together. In the two minutes Draco has before Scorpius and Teddy come running back in, he says, demure and quiet, "I'm sorry. For everything I did." He gives no excuse or justification, because surely there isn't any. He doesn't ask them to forgive him, but what he does ask for is to be allowed to make amends in whatever manner they deem appropriate (there is a hand brushing against the side of his under the table, and it is the only thing that makes his heart settle down just so).

It is here that he learns that the only person that hasn't quite forgiven him is himself.

At the door, Molly glances between him and Harry a certain way (this may have something to do with the way Draco leans down and too close to look at Harry's face when they're laughing together, and the way his gaze roves down his face and comes to settle on Harry's lips sometimes when he's talking, the way he forgets himself when he's looking at Harry and Harry isn't looking back). She smiles at him, somewhat tentative, but kind and mellow nonetheless. She pats Draco's cheek with a gentle palm, the crows-feet at the corners of her eyes crinkling, and she invites him and Scorpius over along with Harry and Teddy for Sunday dinner next week.

He does go to Sunday dinner the following week, where Scorpius flies a broom in the backyard of the Weasleys' home for the first time in his life (you won't fall. I won't let you get hurt, Draco promises his son. He never has, in some ways. He wishes he could say the same for the other ways too). They all play the children's version of Quidditch, flying too low and the Golden Snitch zooming a little too slow and getting chased by soft bludgers that don't hurt.

In August, Teddy receives his Hogwarts letter.

They make a trip to Diagon Alley for his robes, for his books, for his school supplies.  He takes to a small snowy owl that takes a special liking to him, whom he names Nymph. She is a lovely little thing that fits in Teddy's palm and enjoys settling on his shoulder when she's out of her cage.

The last weekend before Teddy is to leave for Hogwarts, they stay at Ron and Hermione's for the day.

As an Unspeakable, Hermione's schedule can be unpredictable for surreptitious reasons. I'll have to kill you if I tell you, she always jokes whenever she's inquired about anything related to her work. She owls little notes home throughout the day whenever she can and firecalls the first chance she gets. Every day when she gets home, Hugo waddle-runs into her arms with a delighted squeal, and she picks him up with a broad tired grin and closes her eyes as she holds him tight. She kisses Ron hello, eats dinner with him and spends whatever hours she has after with her family. Ron, on the other hand, is taking some time off from the jokes shop to care for his son, only going part-time on hectic days when he has to leave Hugo at Harry's or Neville and Luna's.

Hugo turned two this January, waddling around and only just learning to talk in hardly comprehensible syllables. He is empathetic and stubborn, with a bit of a temper that nobody knows whether it came from Ron or Hermione. He's taken a lot to Harry, as kids seemed to, and in his toddling around at times often ends up dropping into Harry's awaiting arms, grinning gummily around his salivated baby-pudged fingers. There's almost always drool on his chin. 

Right now, he is babbling nonsense to his father, who is reclining sideways on his elbow beside him. Ron is smiling, responding back with interested 'oh's and surprised interjections 'really?' as if Hugo is actually telling a real story. 

Harry is quiet and content to sit away from the circle of others in the centre of the living room, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. Teddy is laying on his stomach in front of Hugo. He's learned to change three of his features at a time now and is morphing a combination of them into those of certain animals or magical creatures. Scorpius giggles beside him, hands pushing over his mouth, Hugo belly-laughing so hard that his cheeks have gone pink and tight, his eyes watery.

"Alright?" Draco questions, settling into the spot beside Harry.

Harry's brows lift, somewhat startled out of whatever thoughts he was lost in. He blinks at Draco. "Yeah. Yeah I am, I just…" He looks back at Teddy, and his lips twist slightly in a rueful smile. "I'm just going to miss him a lot."

Scorpius glances over at Ron to share his giddy delight at Teddy's antics, bright-eyed. Ron grins back at him.

Draco hums softly in agreement. "So will I."

Teddy is difficult not to miss. He is Draco's nephew, the boy who made him laugh in a way he'd forgotten to for years, the first person to not see him as most others do, even if out of blissful ignorance. He is light and chaos. He brings laughter and sound wherever he goes, and their home without him would seem so quiet and strange and incomplete.

"I've been sort of dreading this day for years," Harry huffs, glancing down at his hands. "I mean. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy and proud as well. He's going to be brilliant out there. I just know it. But I...I don't know. Part of me just wants to keep him with me forever." He lifts his head to Draco, squinting. The skin around his eyes are slightly dark. He sleeps, but not enough these days. "Does every parent feel like this? Or am I overreacting?"

Harry values family more than most, loves and needs them a little more than most. Draco knows this, and he knows all the reasons why.

"I believe that's fair. You raised him." Draco shrugs. "I'll most likely feel the same when it will be Scorpius standing at that train station." 

There will be other things that will keep him awake half the night like this, such as what his son will learn about him, and the way he will be treated because of who he came from, and the thought that someone might hurt his son when he's already been hurt more than any child should be.

"Thanks," Harry says. He throws him a small smile, and Draco's own lips quirk into an equally small smirk. Harry turns to look ahead at where the shrill ring of childlike laughter is coming from, and Draco keeps on looking at him.

Are you still waiting? he thinks to the man sitting beside him, his head leaning back against the wall as he watches the circle of laughter and sound that Teddy has formed around him. 

Draco can no longer tell. Harry doesn't look at him with any such underlying feelings anymore, the crooked little grin he used to give him out of nowhere, his eyes still full of hope for them, still full of dreams for Draco to come back.

It is this realization, this thought, that always halts Draco still, stops him from leaning in close to him and catching his mouth against his own and kissing him like he is air. It's the thought that Harry has already slipped through his fingers that keeps him rooted in place.

Draco is still learning to not be chaos and grief, still learning that he is more than that, but he learned weeks ago that he is ready, staring at Harry without knowing he is and thinking of kissing him and realizing that he doesn't want to hold himself back this time, doesn't want to hold himself back ever again. He feels it in the way his heart settles in his chest at the thought of love and Harry. 

If only it can settle long enough for him to do something about it.

He's looking at Harry, at the curve of his thick eyelashes and the slope of his nose and the sharp line of his jaw, unaware of him and the way he still leaves him feeling raw inside, even after two years, looking at him. Beautiful Harry. Kind and brave and noble.

His heart is a bird gone wild in his ribcage, and it holds him back. It hurls him forward. 

Draco shifts over closer on his knees, takes Harry's face and carefully turns it towards his own. Harry's forehead twitches into a frown as he follows his grip, startled and confused, his hands coming up to touch the backs of his on a baffled instinct. He understands only when Draco's gaze flick down to his lips.

There is a flicker of disbelief, then. Harry's eyes flutter in a rapid blink as the furrow in his brows deepens, his head tipping back as Draco's moves nearer. His gaze roves down to Draco's lips, lingering over his, breaths mingling and warm between them. Tell me you're still waiting, even if only for a minute more.

"Draco, is this…" Harry whispers. He swallows hard, the sharp line of his throat shifting under his skin. "Are you…"

There must be something in the way Draco is looking at him, because a tremulous huff passes through Harry's lips. He crosses the inch of distance and kisses Draco, tender and chaste, and it's answer enough. His fingers raise to hold Draco's jaw, his lips pressed quivering against his own, closes over into another soft kiss, and then again, one after another after another.

Harry draws back first, both of them breathless, and Draco feels like he's swimming in his own head. His heart is pounding hard and fast, an intangible hot-cold sort of craving underneath his skin, something starved and aching in his gut. Harry drops his forehead to his, his nose to his, his breaths shuddering heavy and slow. He closes his eyes, perhaps as overwhelmed as Draco himself, but Draco doesn't close his own. His gaze is lowered instead, trying to see Harry's face, watching as he breaks into a breath of a tender, beautiful smile, then, a grin, a laugh, his hands on his cheeks.

"MERLIN'S SAGGY TITS, FINALLY !"

For a moment, it doesn't register where it came from through the turmoil of emotions in his chest leaving his mind hazy. Everything has gone still, abruptly silent. Draco looks over, blinking bemusedly. Everyone is staring at the source. Ron is quickly growing red.

"You said a bad word," Scorpius points out.

"Oh," Ron says. "I did, didn't I?" Scorpius hums an affirmative mhm. There's an awkward long pause. "Right. So, er…. Who—who wants to go out for some ice-cream?"

"I do!" Teddy exclaims. Scorpius nods vigorously beside Teddy, both of them perked up, everything forgotten at the prospect of ice-cream. Hugo just says i-teem, staring doe-eyed up at his father.

As Ron is standing at the door, Teddy and Scorpius way ahead of him and Hugo in his arms against his hip, he puffs an uneasy breath. He tries to grin, but he ends up looking like a cornered dog instead, "Alright then. Er. No funny business while I'm out, yeah?"

Harry nods jerkily. "Of course. Totally." 

"I mean it, okay? Not on my carpet," Ron nearly pleads, desperate. "Or any surface of my flat, please. I know it's been a while since you two have—"

"Merlin's pants, Ron!" Harry exclaims, mortified, his face red. "Yes, okay! Yes! We promise!"

Draco sighs, trying to reign in his impatience. He shoots him a thin, satirical smile. "We promise you won't find any odd stains in here when you return, Ronald."

"Fuck, okay!" Ron hastens with a horrified expression, backing out of the door quickly with Hugo and slamming it shut.

"Fak!"

"Oh bloody Hell, Hugo, no." Ron's voice is growing muffled. "Don't say that in front of your mum. She's going to murder me—"

Harry meets his eyes again, and Draco's grinning, laughing, something heady and brilliant and bright making him feel alive all over. By the next second, he's thrown his legs on either side of Harry and his arms are around the back of his neck, and then he's on him, catching his mouth against his own, and he's kissing him and kissing him like he is air and Draco hasn't breathed in two years, and Harry is kissing him back like he hasn't either, helpless smiles knocking their teeth together. 

Harry's hands are warm around the dips of Draco's waist, and one of them goes around the light curve of his lower back, hauling him in impossibly closer against himself. Draco's hands run up into the tousle of raven-black hair, pulling him in by the back of his head and deeper into the kiss, his gut a tender and swollen throb, feeling hot and lightheaded and afloat.

They break away only when both their lungs have had enough, Draco's face warm and his lips aching. Before he can look into Harry's face, Harry draws him in again, burying his face into the side of his neck and pushing a kiss there that shivers down from his skin down his spine. He is silent and trembling. Draco strokes the mess of his raven black hair and presses his nose to the top of it, holding him by his head and the nape of his neck tightly.

Like that, they stay for a long time.

…

The night is much like another night a long time ago, except there's all these feelings gathered over the years that are only finding an outlet now, in kissing and touching and feeling, in remapping and exploring, in the movement of their bodies. It's intense and careful, gentle and desperate, slow and frantic and deep. It's making up for lost time. It's love more than anything.

After, when Harry grabs for the wand on the nightstand on Draco's side hovering over his face, Draco's arms come snaking around his torso, lithe wrists crossing between his shoulder blades so he can draw him down to press kisses at his chest.

Harry laughs, looking down at the top of his tousled white hair. "Hold on a second, would you?"

Draco hums, a leisurely and contented sort of sound as he pushes one last kiss. "We've held on long enough."

Harry can't disagree. So after he's done with the cleaning charms, he drops down beside Draco on his side and grabs him by the chin and kisses him hard.

Where Harry usually feels drained and sleepy, he feels more riveted instead tonight. Draco's face is close to his on the pillow, snow-blond hair mussed up all over, and there is a smile quirking at his lips, tightening his still pink cheeks. He's just as happy as Harry is. He's happy.

"I love you," Draco says, soft, almost a whisper but not quite, fingers circling on the inside of Harry's elbow.

Harry touches his fingers to his cheeks and kisses his mouth with a smile, can't seem to stop, can't seem to keep his hands off of him (and he doesn't have to now). "Say it again."

"I love you," Draco murmurs against his lips, again, smiling slightly. 

"I love you too." Harry says, and then kisses Draco again, like he still hasn't had enough after so long of doing nothing but, sliding his forearm up over his cheek to bury his hand in his hair. The other pushes in under the side of his neck and around his shoulders, his hand closed over his bicep joint, holding him. He can't seem to stop smiling either, but Draco is having the same trouble. "I get to kiss you whenever I want now."

He gets to fall asleep next to him every night and wake up next to him every morning. He gets to hold his hand and dance with him and snog his brains out whenever he falls in love a little more, whenever he leaves for work, whenever he comes home. He gets to love him. He gets to have him. All of him.

He'd thought he'd never have any of this. He'd stopped believing months ago that it could ever happen, growing surer by the day that Draco is long over him.

And now here they are. 

"You do," Draco murmurs, nose brushing against his. He pulls Harry's arm framing his face and wraps it around his own waist, and Harry gets to do that whenever he wants too. He hauls him in as close as he can without it being suffocating and uncomfortable, Draco's body warm and soft under Harry's shirt against him. Harry smiles at that, and Draco does too, like an inside joke that they're sharing.

"We have a very unconventional love story, did you know?" Harry says. They're so close that their breaths are the same.

"How so?" Draco lifts an eyebrow as he asks this. He is tracing his nimble fingers over Harry's ribcage in circular patterns.

"I mean. Usually, it's like. You're strangers, and then you get attracted to each other first, or you become friends first, right? And then the rest follows. Sometimes it ends in love. Sometimes it ends in hatred."

Draco nods, huffs a smile. "We started with hatred."

"Exactly. But that's whatever. Some love stories start off like that, I suppose. Remember Gabriella from Hufflepuff and that lad in Slytherin?"

Draco laughs. "Oh, that was a rather shocking twist for the entire school."

Harry nods in agreement. "But us. We started off strangers, and then we hated each other. And then we sort of didn't really hate each other… we weren't really anything."

"You were something to me." Draco told him that, on that night of theirs two years ago. Harry still can't quite wrap his head around that.  Draco traps his lower lip between his teeth. His eyes lower down, focused on following the patterns of his fingers on his chest, his nails scratching lightly over his skin.  "I thought of you a lot, after the Fiendfyre and the war. The trials."

Harry strokes his palm down his back, silent for a moment.

"I wish I had… I wish I had thought more of you," Harry says, then, softly. "I mean. There was the occasional glance at the Slytherin table in Eighth Year. Habit or something. And I wouldn't see you and it'd feel strange. But… I wish I had wondered more. I wish I had reached out and owled you or—I don't know. I wish we'd just reconciled sooner."

"That's unreasonable." Draco scoffs and shakes his head. "Why would you have?"

Harry bites his lip, a pained and doleful frown twitching into his forehead. "I could have helped you, with what the Ministry had done—"

Draco shakes his head, putting a hand up to quiet him. "There was nothing to be done, Harry. It was right after the war. Their fear was still too big, then, and they never would have listened to you, no matter your influence."

"Then maybe I could have stopped him from hurting you for as long as he did. Maybe you never would have gotten with him at all." Maybe it would have changed something somehow. Maybe it would have changed a lot of things. He just wishes things had been better.

Draco shakes his head, seems bemused by this. "Harry, what would you have done?"

"Something. Anything. I just wish you'd never met him."

"I don't."

Harry frowns, puzzled. "You don't?"

"Make no mistake, I could have gone without Michael in my life entirely. If there was a way I could have had Scorpius without having met him at all, I would have taken it. But there isn't. Without him, I wouldn't have had Scorpius, and that is a life that I can't imagine anymore." His face softens immeasurably. "I wouldn't be who I am without my son, which would be a shame, because I don't mind the person that I am today."

"I don't mind the person that you are today either," Harry says, understatedly, with a smile, grabs a hold of his hand and rubs his thumb over the bumps on the back of his hand. Kisses them. He loves the person Draco is today more than he can put into words.

Draco quirks a smile, letting it last a moment. He lets it fade, then,  tilts his chin up as he shifts slightly. "So you were saying…" Harry's thoroughly forgotten what he was saying. Draco raises an eyebrow, gesturing vaguely between them. "Our unconventional love story."

"Oh, right. So. We started off strangers, and then we hated each other, and then we didn't. We met again, and then I got attracted to you, fell in love, and then we got together, and then we kind of broke up, or took a long break, during which we became friends, and—do you see what I mean? It's the most disordered love story ever."

Draco's grey eyes crinkle in a stifled, breathy laugh, looking at him like he's endlessly amusing. "Indeed it is."

Harry inclines his head, thoughtfully. "Can you imagine it? If we hadn't gotten off on the wrong foot and became friends?"

Draco snorts. "Wouldn't that have been something."

"It could have been, you know. I was about to be sorted into Slytherin." Draco takes a long minute to let that sink in. Harry squints at him in an exaggerated display of incredulity. "But you know, I don't think we would have worked out even then. You were way too much of a pompous prat."

Draco's brows raise at that. "Well. You were too much of an annoying git."

They then proceed to do terrible impersonations of each other, Harry going so far as to slick his hair back with some quick charm to have one over him. It's childish and stupid, but he makes Draco laugh to the point of watering eyes, and nothing about that can ever make him feel too childish and stupid. 

"You're absolutely mad," Draco huffs.

In vengeance, Harry shoves his face into Draco's neck and rubs it against his skin, the most sensitive part of him and it can either be extremely arousing or extremely ticklish. It's the latter this time, Draco's laughter vibrating against his nose and lips. He raises his head up again, grinning, and kisses his face. "And that is all your fault."

…

Harry pushes through the burn in his back muscles, levering himself upward with his hands clasped behind his head, his feet planted into the carpet. He lowers himself back down on his back to the carpeted floor. Rinse and repeat.

There are footsteps padding on the floor above him, passing next to him. He smiles, craning his head up to watch Draco as he skirts around him.

"Morning, beautiful," Harry says with a grin, his back muscles melding into the floor, his gaze following as Draco comes to settle at his feet.  He folds his arms atop his knees, putting his chin down to it as he shifts, his lips pursed in a smirk.

"Morning."

"Enjoying the show?"

"Oh, very much so."

The next time he drags himself upward, Draco's mouth is catching his, kissing all air right out of his lungs. Harry hums a pleased noise as Draco draws away with a soft peck. "Thanks for making me forget my count."

"Ah well. I suppose you'll have to start over." Draco shrugs, putting his chin back on his arms.

"While you're here to distract me?"

Draco shakes his head. "While I'm here to motivate you." 

So much for that, when the work-out session stops by the tenth sit-up from starting over, because he's down on his elbows with Draco's hand on his chest and his lips on his again, hovering over him on his palms with his hips fitted between Harry's knees.

"I was thinking," Harry says, brushing against his lips as they move. Draco's eyes are so very grey, glimmering bright in daylight. 

They're glimmering with something that doesn't have much to do with daylight right now. "A dangerous thing."

"Shut up," Harry says. He's still hovering over him, his palms on either side of his head. "I was thinking, you should move in with me."

Draco's brows furrow, pulling his head back a little to eye him. "Did you miss the part where we skipped over that a long time ago?"

"I mean." Harry rolls his eyes. "You're still paying me rent. If you ' move in', then you don't have to do that anymore."

Draco's lips in a somewhat reluctant contemplation. "I don't mind it."

Harry kisses the purse of his lips. "I don't think your landlord should be your lover."

Draco hums a little in agreement, then, seeming to cave. He narrows his eyes, mock-contemplative. "Even if my landlord's sort of a catch?"

Harry grins. "Even then, I'm afraid. It can only be one or the other."

"Landlord it is, then." And then Draco snogs the hell out of his very attractive landlord until Scorpius and Teddy come running into the living room, all rumpled flying hair and pyjamas.

"What's for breakfast?" Teddy asks as soon as he sees them, thankfully missing the split-second that Draco jumped away from Harry.

"Morning to you too," Harry says as he pulls himself up to sit.

"Sorry. Morning, everyone," Teddy rectifies. "What's for breakfast?"

Harry snorts, shaking his head.

"Morning, Daddy," Scorpius says with a smile, running to Draco and giving him a hug, and getting a kiss to the top of his head in return and a morning, darling.

Scorpius then turns to Harry, who already knows what's coming. He jerks his head to beckon him over, and then rolls to get on his hands and toes. Scorpius clambers over his waiting back with a giggle and wraps his small arms around his neck, pressing his baby-soft cheek to Harry's ear. Harry smiles. He misses when Teddy still used to like doing this too, but he'd outgrown it over a year ago. "Morning, Harry," Scorpius says.

"Morning, little man. Merlin, you've grown bigger, haven't you?" Harry exaggerates a strangled grunt as he pushes up on his arms.

Scorpius smiles broadly. "I'm the same as I was last time."

"No way, Scorp. You've definitely grown bigger," Harry insists, and he grins when Scorpius laughs.

"Waffles alright, you two?" Draco asks Teddy and Scorpius, hanging at the doorway.

"Yes!"

…

In the second week of September, they're standing at King's Cross Station as Teddy hugs everyone goodbye, nearly vibrating in his excitement. 

It is a fairly large circle of people that have come to see Teddy Remus Lupin off, including almost all of the Weasleys. He saves Harry for last and it's only right because Harry is the one that finds it the hardest to let him go. He kneels down before his godson, kisses the top of his head and spends a long time keeping his chin buried into his godson's shoulder, holding him tightly.

Teddy looks back once more before he boards the train. He finds an empty compartment seven doors down and puts his things up on the trunk.

"Hello." He follows the voice to find a girl with black hair and dark skin, a pale boy at her shoulder with brown curls and blue eyes. "Most of the compartments are filled up. Is it alright if we sit here?"

"No problem," Teddy says, nodding at them as he sits down on the seat.

"Ava Montgomery," the girl says as she settles down across from him, the boy plopping down beside her. "This is Magnus Holmes."

"Teddy Remus Lupin. Nice to meet you, Ava and Magnus."

"Hold on. Remus Lupin? He taught my parents once. They said he was a brilliant DADA Professor!" Magnus says, excited. His smile fades, then, and he deflates. "Er. I heard that he's… he's passed away now?"

Teddy nods. "In the war."

"What about your mother?" Ava asks. Her brows are knit together.

"She died with him."

"Oh." Ava looks sad. "I'm so sorry."

"Was it hard?" Magnus asks, hesitant. "Growing up without any parents?"

Ava is horrified. She smacks him on the shoulder, eliciting a pained noise from him. "Magnus! You shouldn't ask things like that!"

"What? I was only—"

Teddy shakes his head. "No. It's alright." He looks at Magnus. "Sometimes it's hard. I do miss them a lot. But…"

He turns to the window, seeing the crowd of all the people that are standing here for him, watching him go.

"You see all those people there?" Teddy says, pointing at them. Ava and Magnus follow his gesture, squinting to look at them. "That's my family."

"Wow. That's a very big family! I only have my mum and dad here." She presses her face harder against the glass. "The man with the black hair looks so much like—like Harry Potter," Ava comments, frowning. "But he hasn't been seen in years."

Teddy grins. "That is my godfather, Harry Potter. He raised me."

They gasp, shoot a wide-eyed glance at him. "No way!"

Teddy looks out at them. There's Molly and Arthur, who are like his Grandma and Grandpa. There's his uncle George, who gives him freebies and teases him for his height and calls him Teddy Bear. There's his uncle Ron who taught him how to fly and plays board games with him and easy Quidditch. There's his Auntie Hermione who teaches him new things and has helped him be somewhat ahead than other kids in his coursebooks. There's Harry, who's raised him since he can remember and never let him feel like he is an orphaned child, and he is looking back at him through the window with a small smile that's proud but rests heavy in his eyes. There's Draco, waving at him with a small half-smile, his uncle, his last living family, who makes him laugh and sings to him, and Scorpius, his cousin who is more like a little brother than a cousin, who looks very sad to see him go, held tightly to Draco's side with a comforting hand in his hair.

Teddy faces Ava and Magnus again. "I miss my parents," he says. "But I didn't grow up without any parents." He's always had Harry. He has Draco now too. He has a whole family, even if they aren't like other families.

...

In Teddy's first owl home, he writes that he got sorted into Slytherin. Draco worries more than Harry does over this until Neville writes to them and tells them that Teddy is well-loved. He is the son of war heroes, the godson of Harry Potter, but in spite of this, he draws people in and makes his own name because of his character. 

He is kind where people expected him to be anything but because of where he was housed. He is best friends with Ava in Hufflepuff and Magnus in Gryffindor. He is smart and curious and extremely competitive, and sometimes helps other students with DADA because he is one of the best at it. He is almost always surrounded by a crowd, telling stories and changing his features and making them all laugh. He is mischievous and endearing.  

There are, unfortunately, still some people that won't look past his House, and this is often where the stereotypical Slytherin in him comes out in the form of cutting razor-wit and pranks that get him and his best friends detentions for weeks. He makes enemies, but he makes a lot of friends as well.

Teddy owls home asking questions about Draco's past one day, explaining what he's heard and asking what was true. Neither Harry nor Draco can tell just what he feels about it all, but Draco answers in the best and most factual way he could to allow him to form his own opinions, even though he dreads what they would be. 

(Draco doesn't know that Harry sends a letter the day after, defending him where it's due about why he was on the wrong side of the war and telling Teddy of all the good things about his uncle, and that his past shouldn't matter more than the person he is in the present). 

Teddy doesn't owl back for nearly a week.

"He isn't writing to me and Scorp either," Harry murmurs into Draco's hair after another day without an owl from Teddy, stroking the nape of his neck. "Maybe he's just busy with school and friends."

It's two days after that Teddy owls back to Harry and Draco in a jointed letter. He doesn't mention anything else of it, just tells him all the usual things he tells them in his letters, about school and Ava and Magnus and prank wars in the Slytherin common room.

When he comes home for Christmas Holidays, he launches himself at Draco just like he did the day he left for Hogwarts (like the day they met for the first time).

FOUR YEARS LATER

They're standing at King's Cross Station again, with two trolleys instead of one. Teddy is going to start his Fifth Year, and Scorpius his First.

By now, people recognize Harry Potter kissing Draco Malfoy at train stations. They've been all over the papers for the last many years, articles full of speculation and rumour. They don't bother reading a lot of it on The Prophet or the Witch Weekly, seeing as they're only a waste of time. The only newspapers they consider worth reading is Luna's the Quibbler.

With attention comes negative attention as well, but most of it has long died since Harry had exploded a year ago and gone on a whole tirade. People move on, eventually.

"They grow up so fast, don't they?" Harry mutters, wrapping his arms around Draco's neck. "We're going to be all on our own now. But on the bright side…" He smiles, leaning in close. "We're going to be all on our own now."

"And what are we going to do," Draco murmurs, a tiny smirk at the corner of his lips as he tips his head back, his hands gripping Harry's hips. "when we're all on our own?"

"You know. More time for candlelight dinners, and dates, and…" He waggles his eyebrows. Draco's silver eyes stray over slowly, his lips pressing together, and Harry follows the direction of his gaze to find Teddy and Scorpius staring at them. "...more candlelight dinners and dates." He lets go of his boyfriend and steps back, clearing his throat awkwardly as he rubs the back of his neck.

Scorpius is fidgeting with his shirt, looking lost in his thoughts.

Harry kneels down before him, leaning in to catch his eyes. "Nervous?"

Scorpius nods. Draco crouches down before him as well. "Do you want to tell us what's making you so anxious?"

Scorpius shakes his head. He does that sometimes, retreats into his own head, doesn't talk about things. They give him a certain amount of time and space until he's ready to talk and comes to them on his own, always putting the offer out, but if it goes on too long, they coerce it out of him. He comes to them on his own most of the time. They make sure he knows he can.

"You're going to be great," Harry says, softly. "You have your father's brains, after all. He was brilliant at this stuff when he was young. I have no doubt you will be too."

Teddy bends down slightly to meet Scorpius' eyes, a hand on his shoulder. "And you don't have to worry about anyone bothering you, because if they do, I'll fucking ruin them—"

Harry and Draco stand up to their feet, lifting a disapproving eyebrow at him. Teddy grimaces, knowing he's in for a lecture.

"We appreciate that you want to look out for Scorpius," Harry says, slowly. "But you are not allowed to use language like that until you're an adult. Understand?"

Teddy rolls his eyes. "People in my year say it all the time. It's not that big of a deal."

Draco crosses his arms over his chest at Harry's shoulder. "If people in your year jumped off the Astronomy Tower, is that what you ought to do as well?"

"Oh please. There is a world's difference between swearing and jumping off the bloody Astronomy—"

"That's strike two, mister," Harry cuts off sternly. "Strike three and you're getting your mouth Scourgify-ed in front of the whole of Hogwarts Express."

"Whatever," Teddy says, rolling his eyes again. "Scorp. You don't have to worry, okay? I'll take care of you."

"And we're here too, for both of you," Harry says. He brushes a hand over Scorpius' head and pats Teddy's shoulder. He pulls them both into his sides for a hug. "If anything happens, just owl us."

"We'll help you sort it out," Draco says, wrapping an arm around Teddy and putting a hand over Scorpius' head, drawing him in against his side.

Draco gives Harry a look over their heads. Harry smiles. It'll be okay.

He puts a hand to Scorpius' shoulder, bending down to murmur. Scorpius looks up at his father and nods, following him as Draco takes his hand and guides him over to the side. Harry watches as he crouches down before Scorpius, elbows hanging off his knees. He's talking to him, meeting his eyes carefully, and Scorpius is listening with rapt attention. Harry doesn't need to look too closely to know that his hands are quivering, because he knows all of Draco's nervous tics and distressed habits by now.

"Do you reckon they'll be alright?" Teddy asks, his shoulder under Harry's arm as they watch them.

"I don't doubt it," Harry says. "Scorpius is a smart and strong kid, isn't he?" In the end, he doesn't think anything in the world can come above his father for him.

Draco goes quiet, then, looking at Scorpius as he waits for a response, but he isn't saying anything either. Scorpius looks like he doesn't know how to react. Draco leans in slightly, his lips shaping around the words 'how do you feel?'. Scorpius takes a moment, and then he says something, and Draco's face wavers. He smiles softly, then, a little too composed, and then reaches out to brush a hand over Scorpius' head carefully, making sure not to ruin his hair. He nods in understanding, and then takes Scorpius' hands, holding his gaze as he speaks next, full of promise and reassurance.

"Harry!"

He and Teddy turn around at the voices. Harry grins.

Ron and Hermione are walking over, with six-year old Hugo holding Hermione's hand and seven-months old Rose in Ron's arms.

Harry and Teddy hug Hermione hello, pats Ron's shoulder because they can't do much else with Rose between them. Harry shakes Hugo's little hand, who gives him a baby-toothed grin, and takes Rose up in his arms. Teddy gives a high-five to Hugo and sets to talking to him and Ron.

"Is everything alright?" Hermione nods to Draco and Scorpius.

Harry shrugs. He wipes the drool off of Rose's chin gently with his sleeve. "I don't know about now. But I know it will be."

Hermione seems to understand.

"It's so strange, isn't it?" she says, glancing around. There are parents all around with children and their trolleys, hugs and kisses exchanged, a chorus of chatter surrounding them. Students are bustling into the trains, even though it's still quite early. "How time has passed. One day Ron and I'll be standing here too, sending off Hugo, and then Rose…"

"Remember when we didn't think we'd even make it past eighteen? Or at least I didn't." Hermione shares a rueful smile with him. She reaches out and strokes Rose' hair. "Fifteen years later, my best friends are married, I have nieces and nephews, two boys that I'm going to raise with a gorgeous man, whom I'm now also dreaming about marrying—" He pauses, exhales out an awed breath, grinning. He turns his head to look at Hermione. "who would have thought it'd all turn out like this for us?"

Hermione smiles. "It turned out well."

"It turned out well."

"So," Hermione says, raising her eyebrows as her smile grows wider. She nods at Draco. "When are you proposing?"

Harry shrugs. He glances over at Draco, who is standing up and walking over with Scorpius. "I'm waiting for the right time. Think he'll say yes?" He winks at her.

"The way he looks at you?" Hermione snorts. "Hardly a question, Harry. There is no way he won't."

…

Dear Dad,

I hope you've been well. I am well. My classes are going well so far too. We had a Charms Test this week, our first one, and I got the highest score. It was pretty easy though, except for this one really hard bonus question. It took some thinking, but I got it.

I made friends. Jamie Howell is muggbleborn, and he talks about all these fascinating things that I think even Mr. Weasley might not know about in the muggle science world. I think I'd like to tell him all about it when we visit them for Christmas. My other friend is Milo, and he's very calming to be around. We just sit and study quietly sometimes in the Hufflepuff common room, and other times, we talk a lot about some pretty weird and interesting stuff. He reminds me a little of Luna. 

I'm sorry I've been so short in my replies these days. I've been a bit busy, but there was also a lot that I wanted to work out before I got back to you, and don't get angry at Harry, Dad, I told him not to tell you, but I've been owling him and Dr. Styne and they helped me understand a lot of what I think and feel about what you told me. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Death-Eater part. I've just always seen you as this perfect and wonderful human being. 

I still see you as wonderful. I guess I just think maybe you should have told me a lot sooner, when you would have been here. Harry told me you just wanted me to see you the way I always have for as long as I could, and I understand, but I still think you should have.

He also tells me you've been sad these days. I'm sorry, Dad. I didn't mean to make you sad. I just needed some time.

Thank you for always offering to let me talk or ask about anything in all your letters.

People say things sometimes. I mean, they mostly leave me alone. I think it has a lot to do with Teddy always being there. He's made it known to the whole school that no one is supposed to mess with me, and sometimes he, Ava and Magnus come and sit with me and my friends, and he's always saying hi to us in the halls, so most people are okay with me because they respect Teddy. And people love Harry, of course, so that's one more reason they are okay with me. They ask me a lot of questions about him.  But Teddy isn't always here and there are still people that say things about you, about me. They call you evil and they call me 'Death-Eater spawn', and it hurts. It makes me so angry that I end up doing things to them without meaning to. I try to control my magic, but it acts up and I can't stop no matter how much I try to.

I'm angry, but not at you.

I don't hate you, if that is what you're afraid of. I never could. I never will.

I know that there are all these people that know this whole other person that you were before I was ever even here, but I only know my Daddy. I only know who you are now, who you've always been my whole life.

So remember this: you are smart, brave, strong and good, and I love you more than anything in the world, okay? I love you so much, and I am here. I am always going to be here. ***

With Love,

           Your Star

(Scorpius A. Malfoy)

…

The right time, it turns out, is in the middle of a spontaneous dance in their living room, in front of the window where the evening daylights are pouring in on them. Draco's chin is atop his wrist on Harry's shoulder, both of them moving in a light, deliberate sway, quiet and peaceful.

"Do you want to marry me?" Harry murmurs into his ear, his hands on his waist as they rotate around in slow circles of small steps.

Draco raises his head to look at him, startled, stilling the dance. The underside of his wrists are still pressed to his shoulders. "Harry..." He's staring at him, baffled, and then breaks into a breathless grin. 

"Do you think," Harry touches his temple to his, tipping his chin up with a smile. "you'll be able to stand me for the rest of our lives?" 

"I could try really hard," Draco whispers, his eyes closed as he pushes his forehead in against his. He's still smiling too, his cheeks pinked with it.

"I think we'll make it work, then," he whispers back. He lets go of Draco with one hand to take the box out of his pocket and opens it with his thumb.

He slides the ring over Draco's finger, a silver metallic band with intricate patterns, and then kisses him softly.

"We'll have it on Christmas Holidays, so that Teddy and Scorpius can be there," Draco says, putting his arms back around Harry's neck. The soft piano and violin melody plays on from behind them.

"A winter wedding," Harry says, thoughtfully, hands coming to rest on Draco's waist again. "I'd like that. Somewhere with snow. Only with family and friends."

Draco hums in agreement. "And I'll be picking the dress robes, seeing as I have the better fashion sense."

Harry frowns at him. "Hey. My fashion sense has improved."

Draco sniffs, haughty. "Only since I came into your life."

Harry holds back a snort, rolling his eyes. "Fine. You do that."

"Who's to be our best man?"

"Teddy, Scorpius or Ron," Harry says, in a heartbeat. "But Ron knows too many embarrassing things about me."

Draco raises an eyebrow, smirking. "Well, I'm certainly tempted now, just to hear what he might have to say."

"Probably a lot about how annoying we've been all these years," Harry says. "Hugo as ringbearer and Rose as flower girl?"

"Cute. Who'll walk you?"

"Molly and Arthur, of course. They're the closest thing I have to parents."

Draco's lips twist in something rueful, and they go silent for a moment. Harry thinks he might be thinking of his parents, just like Harry is of his own.

They would have loved Draco, and how happy he makes Harry. He knows this. He hopes Draco's mum would have loved him too. Well, eventually.

"I'd like Scorpius to walk me down the aisle," Draco says, then.

Harry kisses his nose, smiling. "That's brilliant. Groomspeople? Seeing as we have the same circle, we can split."

"I'll take Luna," Draco says, after a considering moment. "If she'll want to stand with me."

"Of course she'll want to stand with you." Harry shakes his head, bemused that Draco doubts this. "Anyone will want to. You've just got to ask." He holds up a hand, counting off. "Luna, Neville, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Charlie, George, Bill and Fleur.  That's nine people as groomspeople options, if I'm not missing anyone. So take your pick."

Draco's lips press together in a thin line, uncertain. "Charlie as well, I suppose. We get on well." He also adores Scorpius, who always wants to listen to his adventures as a dragon-trainer. "They're all closer to you. I don't mind that, but the general rule is that you have the people you're closest to standing at your side."

"Look," Harry starts. "Hermione likes you, or else she wouldn't look for you whenever she wants to ramble about things that nobody else understands a word of. Ron likes you, even though he'll never say it. Even Arthur likes you at this point, and you know how much he didn't want to. George and Ginny think you're hilarious. You take a genuine interest in Luna's wild theories and ideas, and she loves you for it. Molly thinks you're the politest gentleman ever, and if she didn't adore you, she wouldn't have bothered knitting you Christmas sweaters for the last three years. Any of them would love to be at your side." Harry kisses him on the mouth, and then again, holding his face with delicate fingers to his jaw. "They love you, do you understand? You are loved, Draco Malfoy."

Draco rolls his eyes, but there's a splotch of colour high up his jaw, on his cheeks. "You care about this more than I do."

"And you have a very hard time acknowledging that people care about you."

Draco shrugs, but his throat bobs. It's a very subtle movement. "Well. It's never been a long list."

"Well, it's a long list now. Stop arguing with me."

"I'm not arguing with you."

"Yes you are."

"I'm not arguing with you. You're arguing with me."

"And now you're arguing with me about not arguing with me."

Draco sighs longsufferingly. "I think we should call the wedding off. I'm second-guessing whether I can stand you for the rest of our lives."

Harry laughs, leaning his head on his shoulder, Draco's smile against his cheek. He lifts his head and looks at his face, green meeting silver. "Too late. You've already said yes to being stuck with my fine arse for life."

…

On the nineteenth of December, surrounded by snowfall under an arch of flowers and leaves, Draco Malfoy-Potter steps forward, grabs his husband by the face and kisses him hard.

When he looks at his life these days, he sees a big black sky full of millions of stars. There are so many of them that sometimes he can only see the stars and not notice the big black sky at all.

~FIN~