Chapter Text
The day he apparated to his house was one of the first sunny springtime days. The sun beamed the cold of the winter away and he could hear the birds chirping zealously. Not that he would have noticed, since he lived on the opposite side of the globe. After all this time, they had finally tracked him down. They had to get a special permit from the government to operate there a portkey with his whole Auror unit all across the globe which had meant a lot of paperwork.
He was the first on the location, as always, the quickest Apparition. However, this time he was actually eager to be the first one there. It gave him time to take in the scene. He was standing in a meadow at the edge of a village, with bees buzzing and the smell of grass in the air. Taking some time to orient himself, he threw a few detection spells into the area. He could feel in this magical buzzing in the air his destination was close. One of his spells came back positive from his left side, which made Harry walk there while firing detection and disarmament spells. The man could feel that the wards of the property were very strong. This person really did not want to be found. However, they were no match for Harry’s power, and he took them down easily.
He found the house he was looking for on the other side of the field. It looked different than he had expected, not that he thought about it, but he certainly didn’t expect how quaint and cosy the little cottage looked. Striding quickly nearer he could see a figure with a sun hat working in the garden, tending to a patch, unaware of the newcomer.
Was this him? Harry was drawn nearer, the figure still digging with a garden shovel in the patch. He could make out the unmistakable blond hair and tried to stay calm, trying to suppress the emotions that were in danger of bubbling up. Standing nearer now, the figure started to notice the newcomer, removing the fringe that fell in his eyes with the back of his hand, involuntarily staining his forehead with mud and gazing with squinted eyes upwards, against the sun, staring directly at Harry.
“You’re here”, Draco whispered, gazing wide-eyed at the man in front of him as he got up from the ground, dropping his shovel.
Harry took the sight of Draco in.
He looked the same, but yet so different. His hair was a bit longer and no longer accurately gelled back, combined with the earth-stained white shirt and vintage blue jeans, giving him a more casual look than Harry was used to. Not that Draco with his aristocratic posture and high cheek could ever be mistaken for a commoner, but this version of him looked domestic. His cheeks were rosy, breathing heavier due to his garden work and the heat. The pale man has even sported a slight tan, Harry noticed. Harry and Draco stared at each other what felt like hours, both at loss for words.
Then, Draco gulped and moved to walk nearer to Harry, not taking his warm grey eyes off him. His voice was soft when he spoke.
“Harry, I …”
Suddenly the air was filled with a quick succession of pops followed by voices yelling orders from behind Harry.
“Shit”, Harry thought. The other Aurors had arrived.
Draco’s expression instantly faltered, panic written all over his face. He stumbled back and grabbed his wand eying the house behind him to his right side and the meadow to the woods behind him on his left side. Harry knew that Draco probably would run into the woods, where he would have a high chance of managing to apparate away. Shit, they should have planned the mission better.
“Draco, it will be okay, you just have to come with us now.” Harry tried to keep his voice calm but loud, almost as if talking to a frightened animal.
But Draco was already running. Unexpectedly he ran to the house, which path was already blocked by the incoming Aurors. He fired spell after spell which was countered by Harry’s colleagues. Only Draco was an exceptionally skilled duelist, Harry had always marveled at his spellwork that seemed to effortless and light, almost like a dance.
And now his spells were directed at the Aurors in front of the garden door, while he was running towards it, while simultaneously firing protection spells to shield his back. Due to a fire blast from Draco’s wand the shocked men moved to the side, giving Draco entry to his house. Harry and the Aurors moved to follow him.
Harry couldn’t make out the man’s objective. Maybe there was some sort of safe room or portkey? While Draco was running away from them into, what seemed to be the living room, a spell hit him. Draco had to put his hand in front of his mouth and coughed. Looking at his hand, it was full of blood. Harry was surprised. Which of his Aurors had used that spell? Making somebody coughing up blood was not a spell they were allowed to use as Aurors.
“Cease fire, cease fire”, Harry yelled angrily at his team.
But before Harry could turn around to see who was responsible and take control of the situation, another spell hit the still fleeing Draco on his back making him fall down. But Draco stubbornly crawled forward, leaving a bloody streak on the ground. Laying on his stomach, trying to inch forward, Draco breathed heavily, now seriously injured. He moved his arm to rip his necklace with a gilded round pendant off his throat and pushed it to roll in front of him. The Aurors stopped next to the crawling figure and Harry took in the state of the crumbled body in front of him. What was that? Red lines were appearing on Draco’s white shirt. Shit, someone had used a Cutting spell on the man, which were known to be extremely deadly. Just as Harry crouched down, the rolling of the pendant on the wooden floor stopped.
As Harry looked up to see what had happened a small voice appeared.
“Papa?”
The first thing Harry’s eyes fell on was the dark blue pyjama trousers with small ducks prints. The small boy with raven black hair standing in the hallway must have come from the corner where Draco was heading to. The kid, who could not have been older than four, had picked up the pendant and looked scared at the men standing in his living room. The whole room was stunned by this unexpected development and before anyone could react the boy had pressed the pendant to his chest and magically a string appeared and bound the pendant as a necklace around the boy’s neck.
Harry was still too surprised to act, still staring at the boy whose hair was eerily like his own. Harry hadn’t known Draco had a son. The boy walked gingerly to his laying father while tears were forming in his eyes, started hiccupping, crying and calling for his father.
“Shh, it’s fine. Don’t worry, darling. It will be fine. I love you. Shh…” Draco whispered tearily and tried to reach out to the boy. But after having a coughing fit with more of his blood now pooling on the floor, he lost consciousness.
“Papa, Papa! Wake up, papa. Please wake up.” The boy now started crying openly, while putting his hand on Draco’s cheek.
The black-haired boy stood in a pool of blood shaking his father’s head to wake him up while he was on the verge of dying on the floor. The scene of the crying child watching his only parent die hit too close to home for the hardened Auror. As soon as Harry put his fingers on Draco’s pulse point on his neck which was frighteningly still, he made a radical decision in the split of a second and raised to work immediately.
“Ron, bring the boy away from here, calm him down and don’t lose him out of your sight, not even once. Do you understand? Jackson and Smith get out and check the premise outside. Annelin and Howson get forensics outside and start on the report and Jordon and Lewis you go upstairs and look for anything interesting.”
This would give him some privacy he needed.
Ron struggled to gently part the crying boy from his father, but in the end, he picked him up and just carried him outside. As soon as all his Aurors disappeared, Harry put a Stasis charm over Draco’s body, keeping his vital signs magically functioning even though his heart had stopped beating. Then he apparated home to England. To his relief he remembered he had put it in a hollow book in the library; He had placed it there tentative until he could think of something better.
The man grabbed the small black object and apparated back.
Harry took a deep breath trying to gather himself. International Apparation always made him feel slightly faint and dizzy. Especially when he went two times half around the globe. Long-distance Apparations were almost unheard of, not to mention this distance, and Harry tried to keep quiet about some of his powers not wanting to attract envy or the wrong kind of attraction.
Even bloodied and defeated Draco looked beautiful with his blond hair sprawled like a halo in this position. Harry looked at the lifeless body in front of him and struggled to keep his emotions at bay. He knew he had no time. He quickly spelled Draco’s clothes away until the man was only wearing underpants to see the extend of the damage. Deep angry cuts marred Draco’s whole body. Putting his hands over it, he felt that also Draco’s organs were not spared from the Cutting spell and deeply damaged.
Shit, that was a bigger injury than Harry thought.
Yet, he knew there was no way he could fail this. Fail Draco. Fail the boy. Harry let his hands hover over the blond’s body, feeling the magic rising through his body. His magic was a second nature to him. Although the formal spells he learnt at school were pretty basic, he knew himself, the buzzing in him, the powerful feeling of magic streaming through his bones.
With all his heart he thought about his need for Draco to be alright. To not die. His love for the man. He methodically went through the man’s whole body, slowly healing each organ, each strike on the ivory skin while the air around him filled with a contempt hum, surrounding him with a golden glow and magical sparks flying through the air. He cradled Draco’s face and slowly caressed him while Harry felt his own core magical energy being transferred to the unconscious man, repairing the damage done to his skin.
Harry knew he was no healer and could not heal the man completely, but he had to at least salvage the vital organs. Those, who would keep Draco alive. He was very throughout, checking multiple times each organ, bone, part of Draco’s body. There was no room for errors. But when Harry briefly lifted his Stasis charm, the man’s heart had stopped beating again. It was as Harry had expected. Draco had really died. Not being able to stop tears forming in his eyes, he took deep long breath. With the feeling of air entering his lungs, he tried to keep calm and not panic to be able to continue.
At some point one of his Aurors had tried to return to the room but Harry had cast a wandless protection charm. No one could see the next part. Harry retrieved the small black stone out of his pocket. It had worked for him, it must work for Draco, he thought, trying to calm himself. This had to work. He put the Resurrection Stone into the blond’s hand clutched it together, covering the pale hand with his. He signed heavily and reluctantly lifted the Stasis spell and pleaded that this worked.
Harry did not know how long he sat there on the ground, crouched in front of Draco’s lifeless body, clutching his hand tight and desperate tears streaming down his face. It felt like an eternity, with every second passed growing more desperate more scared of losing the man.
But then he felt it. Faint, so very faint, but unmistakably there, a pulse on Draco’s wrist. He let go of the breath he had been holding for ages. However, this was not over. Draco needed the care of the best magical hospital in the world to survive this. He gathered the blond in his arms, picked him up as though he weighted nothing and apparated to St. Mungo’s. He would somehow explain his travel around the world with portkeys to the others, but for now he had to focus on saving Draco Malfoy.