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"Draco Malfoy, I swear to God-” Hermione snaps under her breath, causing Draco to laugh lowly as he ducks under a hanging plant pot.
“Draco Potter, ‘Mione,” Harry murmurs with a helpless grin; they’re not really supposed to be speaking – they're walking through the halls of Antonin Dolohov’s beach house, on their way to arrest him – but Harry can’t help marking the difference, even a year after they got married.
“Be quiet,” Ginny says, rolling her eyes. “If he hears us and escapes-”
Draco signals at them, and they all steel themselves for when he throws the door of the bedroom open.
“Shit,” Draco says loudly, lowering his wand and stepping in.
The rest of them step in after him, and Ron whistles lowly. The bedroom is absolutely trashed; there are pieces of broken glass on the floor, furniture tipped over, the window shattered.
“Do you think he escaped?” Ron asks.
“No,” Hermione calls from where she’s opened the bathroom door. “He’s here.”
Antonin Dolohov is lying on the floor, face bruised and bloodied, unconscious.
“Shit!” It’s Ginny who says it this time, kicking at a tipped over night table. The Police Department has been trailing Riddle’s criminal organization for almost three decades, and Antonin Dolohov was going to be their first major arrest; they’ve managed to catch some low ranking people who were mostly unimportant and couldn’t tell them anything even if they wanted to, since they had no clue as to what they’d really gotten themselves into, but Antonin Dolohov could’ve given them what they needed to take down Tom Riddle, the leader.
Harry curses under his breath, and Hermione steps into the bathroom carefully, stepping over the broken mirror and Dolohov’s broken wand. She kneels over him, grabs his wrist, and places two fingers on his neck.
“He has a pulse,” She says, after a few seconds. “We need to apparate to St. Mungo’s.”
* * *
“Hey,” Draco says, and Harry immediately brightens up.
“Hey.” He smiles. He’s sitting beside Dolohov’s hospital bed, waiting for him to wake up; when he does, they’ll question him, and, hopefully, get him to turn against Riddle after the attempt on his life. Harry can’t wait. “What are you doing here?”
“McGonagall let me stay with you.” Draco says. Minerva McGonagall’s been Head Auror for over twenty five years now, longer than Harry’s been alive; appointing her was the single best decision the DMLE ever made. “Everyone else is going back to the precinct.”
“Alright.” Harry says. “Sit with me?”
Draco nods and moves to sit on the chair beside Harry’s. As soon as he’s within reach, Harry reaches over and links their hands together, peppering kisses on Draco’s knuckles.
“How are you taking this?” He murmurs against his husband’s wedding ring.
Draco’s tense, Harry knows, even without looking at him. Riddle’s criminal organization has always been personal for him, because he practically grew up in it. His father, Lucius Malfoy, has been Riddle’s right hand man since the start, and Draco was being groomed to become everything his father was.
Harry still remembers it, the first time he saw Draco; everyone had known who he was. Anyone even remotely familiar with the Riddle case knew his face better than they knew their own. Harry had practically seen Draco grow up through pictures and magical security feed, in his parents’ pinboard at home, where they kept everything relevant to the Riddle case. Even now, that James and Lily are retired from the force, they keep their pinboard up.
Harry couldn’t believe it when he’d seen Draco in the Auror Academy. A face he knew so well, a face he’d memorized, suddenly standing right in front of him and Harry could do nothing. No one had liked him, at first – more because of who he was more than how he was – and Harry had loathed him.
Harry doesn’t know exactly what had changed. Maybe it had been one too many late nights for both of them, or how much time they spent together after they’d been paired up as dueling partners, both the top of their class. Harry had thought he’d greatly enjoy the chance to knock Draco on his arse – and he had, thoroughly – but he’d also been grudgingly respecting of the fact that Draco had been the only person to last more than two minutes dueling Harry. They’d dueled nearly an hour before Draco had slipped up.
It was hard to hate him, too, after Harry had caught sight of a long scar webbing through his back, evidently Crucio damage, a night where they were the only ones left in the showers, and had suddenly, nauseatingly realized what it would really mean to grow up around someone like Riddle.
“I’m fine,” Draco says, clipped. For all his husband can lie, he can never lie to Harry.
Harry kisses his knuckles one last time and then lets their joined hands drop between them, squeezing rhythmically.
“I’m glad,” he says, even if he knows it’s a lie. Part of being with Draco is, sometimes, letting him lie. Letting him keep his own space.
Sometimes, Harry thinks he doesn’t know how to do anything any other way; without lying, without manipulating, without carefully thinking and planning it out cynically. That he doesn’t exactly understand how things work in situations where a mistake won’t get you killed.
“I’m happy,” Draco says, and it sounds sincere. “We’ve been chasing him for so long.”
Harry knows he means ‘I've been chasing him for so long’. They don’t talk too much about it, but Harry knows enough. Draco doesn’t feel like he belongs in either side, because many Aurors alienate him because of his past, and everything from his past was no longer an option the second he ran away, so he’s eternally stuck in a limbo he didn’t want and doesn’t belong in.
“I know, love,” Harry tells him. He looks at Dolohov lying on the bed, and then back at Draco. “We caught him.”
“We caught him,” Draco says, disbelieving. He straightens and looks at Harry with a smile. “It’s our anniversary soon. What are we going to do to celebrate?”
Harry laughs, and allows him to change the subject. “Well, if this goes as well as I think it will, we could probably take a week off. Go to Brazil, sleep all day. How does that sound?”
Draco smiles blindingly. “Amazing.”
Harry presses a deep kiss to his lips, and pulls away when they hear a high coo.
“You’re so cute!” An old witch wearing a St. Mungo’s patient’s robe, is standing in the doorway, a pink ball of fur in her arms. It has bright yellow eyes, and is staring at them unblinkingly. Harry isn’t sure what it is, if he’s honest. “Did I hear anniversary?”
Draco and Harry look at each other.
“Err, yes.” Harry says, giving a sheepish smile. “One year.”
“One year!” She exclaims. “Good! Making it through the first year is the hardest I tell you, I wanted to murder my husband sometimes, but we all have our rough patches.” Harry’s pretty sure one isn’t supposed to want to murder their spouse, but he’s not going to contradict her in the middle of her rant. “After that you sort of get used to hating them, so it gets better! Are you two-”
She evidently sees Draco’s and Harry’s confused faces, because she pets the pink thing in her arms and waves a hand.
“Oh, how silly of me, I forgot to introduce myself.” She says. “I’m Aida Thomas. I’m in the room next door.” She looks at Draco and then at Harry. “You know, you should have kids soon. You’re both very attractive, but neither of you are getting any younger!”
“We, uh.” Draco begins, but she interrupts.
“And you know, back in my day mixed kids wouldn’t be very well seen, but the world’s changing quickly, they’re so cute now!”
“You’re - saying words.” Draco says faintly, as Mrs. Thomas continues.
“You know what you should do? Have seven. It’s the perfect number, because-”
“Right,” Harry says, a little overwhelmed. “Yes, we’ll begin trying soon, Mrs. Thomas, don’t worry. We actually need to be alone with Mr. Dolohov here, because he might wake up at any moment, and we need to speak to him.”
“Alright,” Mrs. Thomas nods, amicably enough. “But you two get on that, dear, it’s best to begin having kids as soon as possible.”
Harry nods as he ushers her out of the room, closing the door after she’s gone. He sighs, turning back to look at Draco.
“That was – something,” he says.
“Yeah,” Draco agrees warily, standing up and stretching. “We don’t have to set up cover, right? The Healers know we’re Aurors?”
“Right, yeah,” Harry says, frowning. “I wasn’t setting up cover, was I?”
Draco frowns. "Well, it's just - you said we'd be trying to have kids soon, and-”
“Oh, no.” Harry says, waving it away. “I didn’t mean right now, I just said it so she’d leave.”
“Right,” Draco says, hesitating. “But - I didn’t think we’d be having kids. Ever.”
“What?” Harry asks, surprised. “Never?”
“No.” Draco says. “I thought you didn’t want kids, either. We talked about it.”
“We did?”
“Yes, before we moved in together, we went to Hermione’s and Ron’s for Rosie’s birthday party and I told you, ‘I never want to do that’.” Draco exclaims. “You agreed, you said ‘me neither’.”
“I thought you meant organizing a historical figure birthday party!” Harry says. “I’ve always wanted kids!”
He has. Especially since he started dating Draco, he just – well, he loves his husband so much, and he thought it was something they both wanted; Harry has always imagined them later on, older, with their own little Quidditch team, the kids flying while the dogs bark in the yard. He’s always thought that’d be their life.
“I - hate kids, Harry.” Draco says, and he sounds uncomfortable, looking everywhere in the room but at Harry. “I hate messes, and that’s basically all kids are! Mess after mess after mess. And they’re sticky, and they cry a lot, and they’re always losing everything, and they’re dumb.”
“Not all kids!” Harry defends weakly. Draco gives him a look, and Harry sighs. “Alright, fine, most kids are sticky, and they cry, and they’re dumb, but you get to raise them until they’re not all of those things.”
“And pregnancy sounds – Merlin, disgusting, Harry!” Draco’s worked up now, on the verge of freaking out, and Harry honestly didn’t know how opposed Draco was to this. “I’d have to take time off work, and my body would change, and who would even-”
“Draco, Draco, shush,” Harry says soothingly, pulling Draco into him, wrapping his arms around him and feeling how frantic Draco’s breathing’s turned. “It’s alright. You don’t have to get pregnant. We could always just – adopt, you know? Or I could-”
“It’s not just that,” Draco says. “Harry, I don’t even want to be around kids. I hate going to Granger’s because of it.”
“I thought it was because of Ron.”
“Obviously, him, too.”
“I - I don’t know what to say,” Harry says sincerely. “I - Draco, I've always wanted kids. A lot of them.”
“Well, I don’t,” Draco says. His face abruptly brightens, and he gasps. “You know what we should do?”
“Do not say structured debate-”
“Structured debate.”
Harry groans.
* * *
“McGonagall’s going to be our moderator,” Draco informs him brightly; McGonagall is sitting on Dolohov’s bed, regal as ever, in black formal robes and a pointed hat.
“Draco, I don’t think she has time for this-” Harry begins, but McGonagall shakes her head.
“Nonsense, Potter,” she says. “Mr. Malfoy-”
“Potter,” Harry corrects.
“Don’t interrupt me,” McGonagall says. “Mr. Potter called me and told me about the situation. I want to help.”
Harry regrets introducing the Auror Department to Muggle cellphones.
“Alright,” he says. “But Head Auror, it’s really not necessary-”
“I’m staying, Potter,” McGonagall says.
“Right,” Draco says, business-like, straightening and joining his hands behind his back. “We’ll start now. I’ll be taking the negative, you’ll be taking the positive. Do you have your opening statement?”
Harry nods, even though he doesn’t; he didn’t really research anything, either, and is now feeling a little intimidated, looking at Draco with a full binder as though he’d prepared for this all his life.
“Now, which one of you would like to begin?” McGonagall asks.
“I’ll begin.” Draco says. “I don’t think we should have kids, Harry. We’ve been married for a year, and we’re happy! It’s perfect, and I love you so much, and I know you love me, too. Why do we have to ruin that?”
“Having kids won’t ruin anything, Draco,” Harry tells him. “You’re right, I do love you, and I know you love me, too, but kids have nothing to do with that! They won’t change our feelings for one another, they’ll just enrich our lives!”
“That’s what you think, but you don’t know!” Draco says. “What I know, is that climate change is something very real that’s happening. The environment is collapsing, and the best thing we can do to help it is not have kids.”
“Point to Draco,” McGonagall says, nodding, and Harry shakes his head.
“Draco, we don’t have to have new kids, we could adopt! They’ll be ours, and you always say you hate babies, so we don’t have to adopt them as babies! They could be older, six or seven, and they’ll be out of the screaming stage you hate so much.”
“Point to Harry.”
“What’s the point of adopting them when they’re older if that’s not what you want, Harry? I know you; I’ve seen you get all starry-eyed for babies. That’s your entire fantasy, holding your baby in your arms.”
“Yes, but I don’t need that,” Harry says. “I love you, and I want to have kids, I want us to have kids, and I’m willing to compromise if that’s what it takes!”
“Kids aren’t something you compromise about, they’re people!” Draco exclaims. “Either you want them, or you don’t, there’s no halfway.”
“There could be, if you just-”
“No.”
“Why not?” Harry asks, exasperated.
“Because I’m fucking terrified!” Draco half-yells. Harry stays quiet, and Draco swallows looking away. “I don’t - I don’t remember my mother. And my father was terrible. You’ve seen – you know a lot of what happened during my childhood, and you don’t know all of it, you never could because I could never explain it. Kids are – they're nothing Harry. Everything they are, their parent teaches them. Even – even if we just tried to do our best, even if we tried not to mess them up - I'm not sure we could. I don’t think I could.”
Harry steps closer to his husband and grabs his chin, making him look towards him.
“Draco, I get it. I understand, and I’m terrified, too, but no one is asking you to be a perfect parent. We just – we should just try our best. That’s all.”
“I’m not willing to raise a human being on ‘trying my best’, Harry,” Draco says. “‘Trying my best’ means nothing.”
And he walks out.
“Well,” McGonagall says. “That was interesting.”
Harry sighs deeply.
* * *
“Here you are,” Harry sighs, when he goes into Dolohov’s room; he’d stepped out and looked for Draco all over the hospital, and he’d been honestly worried that he’d left entirely.
“I came back a few minutes after I left,” Draco tells him. “I only went to get a coffee.”
He looks uncomfortably at Mrs. Thomas, sitting beside him drinking tea.
“Mrs. Thomas heard the debate,” Draco says. “She thinks we should have children now because I’m not going to be young forever, and a guy is only fertile for so long.”
“Yeah, sounds about right,” Harry says; he’d scared several hospital patients looking for Draco, and he really hopes they won’t throw them out for it.
“I’m telling him, I didn’t think I wanted kids, either,” Mrs. Thomas says excitedly. “But then you have them inside you, and you love them! I mean, I cried every day of my pregnancy, and I couldn’t move and had to be on bedrest for two months, and I got a horrible infection while giving birth, but in the end I got my own little Sophie!”
“All of that sounds like a nightmare, Mrs. Thomas.” Draco says.
“It was,” Mrs. Thomas assured darkly. Abruptly, she brightens again. “But I got a baby out of it!”
“But I don’t want-” Draco begins, evidently frustrated, so Harry interrupts.
“Mrs. Thomas, could you give us a moment? I want to talk to my husband about this.”
“Alright, alright,” Mrs. Thomas says, rolling her eyes. “But I expect details later!”
Harry nods and closes the door after she leaves, turning to Draco.
“Look, I wanted to talk to you about before-”
“Me, too,” Draco admits. “I - I'm sorry about the debate. It was a bad idea, and I should’ve just talked to you openly about why I was scared. I – I think I know how to fix this.”
“How?” Harry asks excitedly. “Because I thought we could just – wait a while, you know? Maybe you’ll feel differently, or – or maybe I will, and-”
Draco shakes his head.
“I want you to think about it,” Draco says. “Really think about it. A day, a week, a month. Whatever it is you want, but - I want you to be sure when we speak of this again, because if you still want children – for the rest of your life – then we should – we should break up.”
“What?” Harry asks. “Draco, that’s not-”
Draco shakes his head. “Harry, if you want children as bad as I think you do, and I don’t want children as bad as I think I do, whatever it is we do one of us is going to end up being miserable in this relationship, and I love you too much to make you miserable for the rest of your life.” Harry opens his mouth, but Draco shakes his head again. “And I love me too much to make me miserable for the rest of my life.”
“But Draco, I-”
“Hey!” The door opens, and Ginny and Hermione stand at the door, smiling.
As soon as they see them, they frown.
“The vibe in here is pretty weird,” Ginny says. “Are you guys fighting or something?”
“No, we’re not,” Harry says. “We’re just having a casual, devastating conversation about getting a divorce, so you’re wrong, Gin.”
“Alright,” Hermione says, dragging out the word. “Well, we’re here because word is whoever attacked Dolohov is coming here to finish the job on Riddle’s orders, so McGonagall wanted us to back you up.”
“Oh,” Draco says. “Well, you and Gin can go to the waiting room, secure everyone coming in or out, and Harry and I will secure the room.”
“Actually, I think it’s better if you go with Hermione,” Harry says.
Draco looks at him, hurt flashing in his eyes, and says a small, “Oh.”
Everyone’s quiet.
Draco clears his throat. “Yeah, I’ll - I’ll do that.”
And he walks out of the room with Hermione.
“Shit,” Ginny says, impressed. “You’re furious.”
“No, not really.” Harry grins. “But I love Draco, and I’ll be damned if I let him go without a fight, so he needs to spend time with Hermione. She’s practically a walking brochure on the joys of parenthood.”
* * *
“Do not do it.” Hermione says.
“What?” Draco asks.
“Children,” Hermione says. “Don’t do it.”
“I thought you loved your children.”
“Oh, I do.” Hermione grins. “They’re so cute, and so little, and their little toes, and hands, and ugh I love them. But if you’re not sure – look, it’s a big change, alright? I’m constantly sick, my home office has been turned into a fort I can’t take down because they’ll cry, they wake me at five in the morning by poking me in the eye, and I haven’t watched grown up TV for years. I know every Disney movie by memory, but I can’t tell you the ending of Friends!”
“Friends ended so long ago.” Draco frowns.
“I was only on season six when I had Rose,” Hermione tells him.
“Oh.”
“I just mean, you have to be entirely invested in being a parent to even have a chance of being a good parent,” Hermione says. “If you’re not sure you want them, they’ll make you miserable.”
* * *
“We have him,” Hermione’s otter Patronus says. “White man, mid-thirties, unarmed and wandless but with a picture of Dolohov.”
“Unarmed?” Harry asks, as he and Ginny grab their wands and walk out of the room. “Why would he be unarmed?”
“Maybe he planned to smother him with a pillow.” Ginny shrugs. “Could be cleaner?”
“No, that’s-” Harry freezes. “Shit.”
“What?” Ginny asks, but he’s already running back towards Dolohov’s room. He doesn’t know what he expects to find when he opens the door to Dolohov’s room, but it’s certainly not Mrs. Thomas holding a glowing blue orb; Harry knows it’s a bomb, thankfully a steady one. Mrs. Thomas would have to break it to set it off; so as long as she doesn’t, they’re safe.
“Mrs. Thomas,” he says, slowly, stepping into the room. “You don’t have to do this.”
Mrs. Thomas shakes her head. “I do. I do! My Sophie – did I tell you about my Sophie? - she’s pregnant! The father wants nothing to do with the kid, and the man told me he’d give her a million galleons if I did this!”
“Who came to you?” Harry asks.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Mrs. Thomas laments, looking over Dolohov’s sleeping body. “You weren’t supposed to be here. It was only supposed to be me and him.”
“Right, well, but I am here,” Harry says. “And-”
“Harry, is everything-” Ginny begins, but Harry stops, refusing to tear his eyes away from Mrs. Thomas.
“Everything’s alright, Gin.” He says, keeping his voice calm despite the way his heart is pounding. “I just need you to evacuate the entire floor, call McGonagall, and tell her to call the magical bomb disposal unit.”
“Alright.” Ginny says uneasily; she closes the door and Harry can hear her walk away, and he sighs, relieved.
“See?” He says. “She’s gone. It’s just you and me. You can put the bomb down.”
“No.” Mrs. Thomas shakes her head. “No, I can’t, I need to-”
She swallows, and Harry puts his wand down.
“Okay, okay,” He says. “You know the only thing to do here?” Mrs. Thomas shakes her head. “Structured debate!”
“What?” She asks.
Harry tries to look half as excited as he knows Draco would at the prospect of a structured debate about whether or not to set off a bomb, but he’s not quite sure he manages it.
“I’ll be taking the negative stance, seeing as I don’t want to blow up, and you’ll be taking the positive stance, since you do want to blow up, which, I’m telling you Aida, is a pretty tough stance to take,” Harry says. “Okay, for my opening statement: I don’t want to blow up. I don’t want to die. I have a husband outside of this room, and he thinks I’m angry with him, and I can’t die while he thinks I’m angry with him!”
Mrs. Thomas shakes her head, “I don’t want to blow up either! But it’s one million galleons! Wouldn’t you do it, for your children?”
“But you won’t get to meet Sophie’s baby!” Harry tells her. “They won’t remember you, you’ll just be that one grandma that blew herself up!”
“But at least they’ll be financially taken care of!” Mrs. Thomas cries. “You know how hard it is to live without money? To hope to have just enough? And I’d rather be remembered as that one grandma who blew herself up to take care of her family rather than an old librarian who never did anything for her family!”
“Sometimes the best thing we can do for our family is be there,” Harry tells her. “And if you blow us up, you won’t be there!”
“You don’t have to stay,” Mrs. Thomas tells him. “You can just walk out. Tell that husband of yours that you love him.”
“You know I can’t do that.” Harry shakes his head. “Come on. You’ll get to meet this cute grandkid of yours. You’ll see Sophie again. You’ll be there to love them, the both of them!”
Mrs. Thomas looks more and more uncertain, and, when Harry puts his hand on the bomb to take it from her, she doesn’t protest.
Harry exhales, taking the bomb in his hand.
“Wow,” Mrs. Thomas says nervously. “Now that you’re holding it I can see it really is a bomb.”
“Yeah,”
“Well get it out of here!” She screeches.
“Alright, alright!”
* * *
“Harry!” It’s less than professional, but Draco throws himself at his husband as soon as the bomb has been taken from him, kissing all over his face and wrapping his arms around him.
“Whoa!” Harry catches him by the waist, hugs him tightly. “It’s alright. It’s alright, I’m alright, I’m fine.”
“I love you so much,” Draco says, pulling away to kiss Harry deeply. “I was terrified.”
“I was terrified, too,” Harry says. “And - listen, about before – I don’t need children, I just want to stay with you.”
“No.” Draco shakes his head, and Harry’s stomach sinks. “No. While you were in there, I was thinking, and - I want to have children with you. I do, Harry. Whether we adopt them or if I get pregnant, I don’t care. I want it with you, all of it. The rest of our lives.”
“Are you sure?” Harry asks, grinning.
Draco nods. “Entirely.”
Harry pulls him in for a deep kiss.