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Chapter Text

Prologue

“Thank you for the happiest year of my life.” 

Draco's voice was a weak rasp, his jaundiced skin shifted over the too sharp planes of his face, but his eyes were bright, crinkling at the corners as he grinned up at Harry. At least until he winced, rolled his eyes in exasperation when his pale lip cracked and red beaded.

“Pfft. You were right, too much joy is dangerous.”

Harry tried to smile as he teased, tried to pull some joy into his expression. The best he could do was purse his mouth, tighten his cheeks and crinkle the skin around his eyes as if fighting a smirk. He dipped his thumb into one of the screw-top tins that littered the little table next to his cot. Draco's lips felt papery, dry and fragile under the pad of his thumb as he smeared the balm on the split flesh. He didn't have to hold his fake happiness long before Draco's heavy lids shuttered.

“I'm so tired.”

“Well, you'll have forever to sleep soon,” Harry pointed out. Each word was a stab to his own lungs, but he said them for Draco.

A huff of a laugh, the twitch of boney fingers on a white sheet, and then he was asleep again. Harry let the muscles in his face relax fully, leaned back in his chair and turned his head away from the dying wizard before he allowed his tears to fall. 

“It'll be soon. A few hours at most, I think.” 

Harry nodded in acknowledgement of Hermione's soft-spoken, unnecessary words from the doorway to the little private room. He could tell it was time, could almost feel Draco separating from the fragile shell no longer capable of holding him. 

“Give a ring if you notice any pain, or if you want some company, or if…” Hermione trailed off, her own voice tight. He nodded again and she left as quietly as she had come. 

Part of him wished they were at home, at Grimmauld, and not in this windowless, sterile-smelling room in a hospital that had only allowed Draco past the entrance at Harry’s wand-point. St. Mungo's didn't deserve to have Draco here, but Harry knew that Draco didn't want to die at Grimmauld, to leave such a memory for Scorpius, or for Harry and the rest of the kids. He didn't want them to have an entire room that none of them would be able to set their eyes on for the rest of their lives without pain. He didn't want to leave a mess for Harry to clean up. Draco was so painfully practical sometimes.

A faint, wheezy whine drew his attention to the bed, a crone's hand clutching his heart. He reached out for Draco's frail finger, surprised at their warmth, and leaned his elbows onto the cot to listen for the sound of his breathing. Shallow, quick, but smooth, barely a wheeze as his chest lifted and fell. Was he hurting then?

“Draco?” Harry wiped at his wet face, reminded of his tears by the grating of his voice. He cleared his throat and called again, drawing a tiny lift of one corner of his mouth, but no other response. 

His own breath hitching, Harry stood, stared down at the man who had dared to come back into his life and rearrange it all. It wasn't fair. He was so fucking angry. He leaned down and pressed his lips to Draco's salve-coated ones. He was so angry, but he knew by now anger was a symptom of grief for a love lost before it had even been fully grasped. 

He collapsed back into the uncomfortable visitor's seat, hand still clutching that warm skeletal one, and pressed his face against the mattress. It shoved his glasses askew, but he could see and hear Draco without the effort of holding his body upright any more. 

“I love you, stupid git.”

Chapter Text

April 2010

The steady ticking of an invisible clock echoed throughout the tiny, cluttered home office in which Draco sat. Or perhaps, given his current state, the echoing tick-tick-tick was simply a product of his imagination, egged on by the dread settling over his chest.

“So, you don't know who cast it?”

“I didn't even know it was a curse, Granger. I thought I was just sick, one of the new magical flus or something.” Draco dragged his palm over his face, trying to rein in his irritation. It wasn't Granger's fault he'd been cursed, nor was it her fault Astoria was dead and Scorpius was lonely and the world at large hated him. He hauled in a breath before admitting, “I'm sorry, I don't mean to snap at you.” 

He ignored the surprise at his apology. Of course she'd be surprised, he'd been an arse for most of his life. You wouldn't know it from her expression, quickly and expertly rearranged into something neutral with a hint of curiosity, but he imagined she was thinking quite a few negative things as she observed him. 

“This has been a stressful year for you, hasn't it?” He appreciated her matter-of-fact tone, calm and confident and precisely what he needed to shove aside the dread to think.

It had been a stressful year. He'd bounced around employment for years and was still bouncing. They'd lived mostly on a fraction of the Black inheritance that had passed to him through his mother and on Astoria's dowry, both of which had limits. Limits far outstretched when Astoria had gotten sick, started to succumb to the physical manifestations of her inherited blood curse- an inheritance decidedly less helpful than funds. She'd refused all treatment, largely due to the expense, no matter how much he'd argued with her over it, and had died barely nine months later, leaving Draco and Scorpius behind. 

Now he was sitting in Granger’s tiny home office on the outskirts of Tinworth, staring across a desk at a witch who had been tortured in Draco’s childhood home as she informed him that he, too, had been cursed. 

“Is it… will I die?”

“I don't know. This isn't a curse I'm familiar with. It will take research, and if it's a new curse… I'm sure you're familiar with the complexities of curse and counter curse development.” 

Of course he was. He was an ex-Death Eater after all, and his wife had died from a generations-old blood curse with no cure. He nodded rather than risk opening his mouth. 

“I can say that it doesn't appear to be a traditional blood curse, nor are there markers for familial inheritance,” she added, tone considering. Merlin, he hadn't even considered the possibility that it might affect Scorpius more directly. Hermione Granger tilted her immensely haired head to one side, then to the other, eyes on him all the while. “I'm happy to do this for you, Malfoy.”

When he scoffed, she frowned. “I'm not… I'm not laughing at you. I'm just not in a position to acquire your services.” He couldn't bloody afford to hire anyone to research this, never mind the Golden Girl, Curse-Specific Healer Extraordinaire, with her endless commendations and bloody muggle certifications to boot. 

“Oh! Zabini didn't tell you? My services through this practice are free, Malfoy. I’ve only just started up, but, I research, discover, heal, in exchange for access to your physical body, occasionally to your magic, and your agreement to cooperate during testing and potential treatment procedures. Basically, you just have to cooperate with me throughout the process. And promise not to sue me if I fail. Zabini insisted on that particular clause, but I assure you, I try not to fail,” she added dryly.

Draco shifted in the creaky leather seat upon which he sat, unsure about engaging in business, even this business, with Hermione Granger. At this point in his life, it was hard to trust anyone, even the Golden Girl.

“Do you think it'll get worse?” She didn't know if he would die, but even if it wasn't lethal, it was bloody difficult to be a father to a child magical like this. 

“You said symptoms started a few months ago?” He nodded. Not long after Astoria's funeral his dizzy spells had started. And the headaches. “They’ve increased in frequency and severity since?” Nod. “Given that limited amount of information, it would appear this a progressive curse. Which is to say, yes, I do think it will get worse. How much worse, how long it will take, whether it is terminal, I can't answer without performing more tests.” 

“My son-” What was he supposed to do with Scorpius during these tests? Should Scorp be examined just in case? Would he be able to care for him in between procedures? And if Granger didn't find a cure, a counter curse…

“How old is Scorpius now?” Granger's question dragged Draco from his spiral. 

“Six.” Six and sensitive and scared and currently being watched by his heavily pregnant Aunt Daphne. Not a long-term solution, considering she had turned down her blood-elitist, cold-hearted parents’ wealth in favor of marrying for love. Marrying poor and non-magical and American, for love. 

Granger's considering hum was perhaps the most sympathetic utterance he'd heard from her thus far. “This is outside the scope of my position, should you agree to work together, that is, but… you do have an aunt left, Malfoy. Andromeda. And her grandson, Teddy. Family.” 

Family. The good side of the family. An Aunt he'd laid eyes on maybe twice in his life, had never spoken to, who had been burned off the family tapestry decades ago. A first cousin once removed in Edward Lupin. A great-aunt and a second cousin for Scorpius.

“I… am not sure how to even go about that,” he admitted honestly.

Granger smiled at him, her usually stern face suddenly rather lively with a wicked gleam in her brown eyes. “Lucky for you I excel at sticking my nose in.” 

Draco chuckled despite his current state of overwhelm. Apparently, some things didn't change. 

…

May 2010

“This isn't your decision to make, Harry.” 

“I said nothing,” Harry pointed out truthfully, making his godson's grandmother scoff. 

“You don't need to say anything. Your expressions are loud enough, and your overall body language louder.” 

Harry shifted instantly, correcting the cross-armed, spread-footed stance he'd unwittingly taken on, trying to relax his face into something that didn't scream, ‘you’re introducing my Godson to a nasty, ex-Death Eater shite, why?’ just as a knock sounded at the front door. Andromeda cast his a despairing look as she glided from the sitting room.

At least she had conceded to meet with Malfoy without Teddy first, and with Harry present. He understood Andromeda was starved for family after losing most of hers. He also believed Teddy deserved to have a huge family- Harry had done his best to knit his own adoptive family as closely around Teddy as possible to make up for his own lack of living parents and immediate blood relatives. He would never deny Teddy more; he just wasn't sure why Draco Malfoy was doing this. He'd never reached out before, whether out of well-earned shame or, more likely in Harry's opinion, disdain. So, why now? 

He did his best to maintain a certain level of indifference as he stood by the fireplace in the sitting room of Andromeda's cottage and watched blue and orange butterflies flit and flutter from flower to flower in the gardens beyond the glazed windows. He heard the front door open, Andromeda’s ‘stranger voice’ -a forced politeness that was noticeable only because Harry knew her too well by now- and a deeper, quieter voice responding. It sounded nothing like the Malfoy he remembered from his trial ten years ago. 

Ten years ago. He winced at his own vague reflection in a windowpane, forced to consider the fact that he was holding grudges and judgements against someone he hadn't seen hide nor hair of in a decade. Christ, he was getting old.

“Draco, I'm sure you remember Harry?” Andromeda’s more informal, sarcastic drawl had Harry spinning around mid-self-pitying rumination to take in the little group that had entered. While Draco Malfoy, who also looked little like the one Harry remembered, nodded in a silent greeting, Harry blinked at the miniature Malfoy he had entirely forgotten existed- pointy features, pale, very blond. He looked more like Malfoy than Malfoy did.

“God, Malfoy, if he doesn't look exactly like you,” Harry said on a huff of amusement. It was odd, really, to be face to face with a present-day adult Malfoy who had grown into those sharp features, and his childhood image. Uncanny.

“So I've been told,” Malfoy said quietly, giving a lopsided attempt at a smile. “Tori did all the work, got none of the credit.” Both Malfoy and his son flinched in unison, sobered. 

He'd never interacted with the younger Greengrass sister in school, had no idea what she had been like, what their marriage had been like, how she had been as a mother. Decent, if the grief on both faces was any indication. Losing your mum at age six, old enough to know, to understand, to miss her… Harry watched the small boy lean into his father's leg when Malfoy squeezed his shoulder, felt a little pang of kinship with the tiny human. 

“Sorry for your loss, Malfoy, Scorpius,” Harry said awkwardly, drawing twin nods as Andromeda waved in a floating tea service.

As they sat and Andromeda made polite small talk with her nephew, Harry watched. Malfoy really had grown into himself well, Harry decided. His chiseled face was handsome, clean-shaven, his mouth pinched slightly at the corners at first, but relaxing over time. His shoulders were broader than they had once been, and stiff in posture. He would have come off as stuffy and formal if not for his quiet confidence in movement and the occasional half-smile. 

He spoke softly, his voice deeper in pitch and timber than Harry would have expected, and always polite. He joked once or twice, making Andromeda smirk, but he never belittled or sneered or implied anything nasty. If his change in appearance and the fact that he had a six-year-old son hadn't been enough of a reminder that ten bloody years had passed, his behavior reminded Harry that he didn't know Malfoy anymore. He wasn't an arrogant, whiny snot of a teenager now, but a grown man, a parent who spent a lot of his time casting concerned glances as his entirely silent child. With three of his own kids and Teddy as examples, it was almost alarming to see a young boy sit so still, so quiet, for so long. Even Harry had shifted in his seat a dozen times.

“Scorpius?” Harry asked after half an hour of nonverbal six-year-old. The boy looked at him, pointy chin and nose, large hazel eyes. “Do you fly?” A flash of interest quickly buried, and Harry smiled. “The kids are all getting together next weekend at The Burrow for Quidditch. Maybe you'd be interested?” 

Harry raised his brows in question but turned towards the older Malfoy. He'd have to either be comfortable leaving Scorpius there or be willing to visit The Burrow himself. Scorpius, too, was also looking up at his father with an entire, real facial expression- pleading. 

“That is very kind of you, Potter. If the Weasleys are comfortable with our presence, we would be delighted.” Another real facial expression- relief. And Andromeda's- approval. 

Harry snorted, mostly at himself. “It's been ten years, Malfoy. Can't hold a grudge forever, otherwise our quidditch teams will be perpetually short on members.” 

A lot had happened to Harry in ten years, he could only imagine the same held true for the man sitting before him.

…

The clack-clack-clack of the knocker on the front door interrupted yet another argument between Ginny and himself. They both froze, mouths open and upper bodies leaning towards each other, eyes wide and shoulders heaving.

“Oh, fuck,” Ginny muttered, deflating entirely. “I'll get it. You're…” she pointed to his shoulder, and he turned his face to see a singed bit of fabric giving off a tendril of smoke as she jogged up to the entry. He cast a repair-o, not entirely sure if it had been Ginny or himself that had taken issue with his clothing this time. This always happened- a spark and then suddenly they were nearly brawling and couldn't even remember how they'd gotten there.

He forced himself to take several deep breaths before making his own way up from the kitchen in time to hear Ginny say, “Well, I don't think I've ever been quite so charmed by a Malfoy, before.” She was squatting in front of an awed, red-cheeked, wide-eyed Scorpius wearing in denims and a T-shirt. Draco stood uncomfortably behind his son, no doubt questioning his very existence. “Does this mean you're interested in playing chaser? Or are you more interested in seeker like your dad?”

“I'm not sure. Papa says I can play whatever I want, but I never have anyone to play with,” Scorpius said, quiet as ever.

“Well, you do now,” Ginny stated firmly, pushing to stand once more and shooting Harry an apologetic look.

Harry shrugged. Just because the Malfoys had been the subject of this particular fight, didn't mean they hadn't had a million others. He couldn't blame her upset in this case, and frankly didn't want to dwell on the fact that they'd probably fight about nothing important at least once more before the day was out. 

“You're welcome here anytime, as long as you can put up with… well, you'll see.” She smiled at the confused boy and even cocked a brow at an apprehensive Draco, before walking towards the stairs. Harry propped his fingers into his ears and nodded at the other two to do the same. 

“Oi! Potters! Get your backsides down here. We're going to be late!”

An immediate rumbling- what could easily be mistaken for a herd of rampaging hippogriffs- sounded from the upper floors, growing steadily louder until four children appeared in order of size. 

“Teddy, James, Albus, and…. Lily,” Ginny explained, pointing to each head as its owner leapt the last step onto the carpeted landing, Lily a toddling half-staircase behind the rest. 

Scorpius had wedged himself into his father's side, suitably terrified at the noise and chorus of hellos, while his father was smiling in a bemused kind of way. His eyes moved back and forth between Harry and each of his children. They were a fascinating example of genetics, he supposed, each one of them so obviously his and Ginny’s, but none of them really resembling each other unless one looked very closely.

“It's nice to meet you all,” Malfoy said politely, nudging his son's shoulder and inducing a shy wave from him. 

Harry, too, nudged a shoulder, leaned down to whisper in Albus’s ear. Albus dug around in one of his denim pockets and produced a pair of ear plugs, offering them to the miniature Malfoy with a shy smile. 

“I wear these sometimes, because… well, if you think we're loud, you'll want these I promise. At least until you get used to us.”

Ginny made a face, still at odds with her middle child's noise sensitivity, but thankfully said nothing. Harry was happy to wait a little longer before their next row. With a clap, he rounded up their group and began sending them through the floo after Ginny in pairs until only he and Draco Malfoy remained in the blessedly quite foyer.

“I've prepared them. They will all be good to Scorpius, and you may find he's been stuffed so full of sweets you're unable to fit him through the return floo, but…” He met the man's gray eyes briefly, trying to find a tactful way to tell him that a few of the Weasleys still hated his guts. 

“It's alright. I'm not doing any of this for my own comfort, Potter. All of you have plenty of reasons to hate me. I'm just grateful you're all willing to give him a chance. He's not like me.” Malfoy sounded matter of fact but his eyes showed strain. Standing with his hands in his gray trouser pockets, shoulders stiff, with a blue pinstripe button down rolled to the elbows and his dark mark glamoured, he projected world-weary professor. 

“Why are you doing this?” Harry asked. He hadn’t before, hadn’t felt the need to, but he was curious.

“Merlin, for so many reasons, honestly.” Malfoy tilted his head to one side with a slow exhale. “Foremost, because he deserves to have family and friends, no matter how awful his father is.” 

Harry studied the angular planes of Malfoy's face for a moment long. He was handsome in that sharp, cold way he always had been, but he looked worn out, with slight bruising under his eyes. The past few months must have been difficult, widowed, with a son and no one else. 

Harry smiled at him, jerked his head towards the floo and bowed Malfoy through to an amused tsk. 

…

Draco covered his wide grin with one hand, looking away from the makeshift pitch entirely when that failed. Merlin, what chaos! 

“Insane, isn't it?” Granger asked from her seat on a blanket beneath a trailing willow whose green stems swayed prettily in the light breeze. 

“It is certainly lively,” he admitted, failing to bite back a chuckle as he watched the tiny, red-headed, tan-skinned Lily Potter shriek with glee as she flew a full loop. Her ginger hair danged as she hung briefly upside down, her father shouting at her to knock it off until she was at least five all the while. “Quick way to give a person a heart attack,” Draco added. Both the little girl and the general atmosphere.

“Oh, yes. Harry is the worrier of the two. Ginny is more friend than parent, and Harry is the one that follows along and catches them as they fall from the sky.” She spoke dryly, lightly enough that it could have been a joke, but he could pick out the undercurrent of disapproval regarding Ginny Weasley in her drawl.

Granger's own children, quiet nine-year-old Rose and the as-of-yet unknown personality that was five-year-old Hugo, were shockingly well-behaved considering their father was none other than Ronald Weasley, currently running amuck with the craziest of the gathered children. He was about to comment on it, without mentioning Ron Weasley's part of course, when a crash and a shriek drew their attention to the pitch. Draco shot out his wand, summoning before he realized exactly what had happened, and found himself with an armful of shaking, ginger toddler. 

“Nice catch, Draco,” Hermione gasped, patting her chest from where she now stood beside him. “Teddy, go fetch that broom, would you?” she called to the turquois-haired boy who had been mid-dive after Lily when she landed in Draco’s arms. 

“That was terrifying,” Draco told the little girl beginning to cry into his shirt front. He shoved his wand into his pocket once more and rubbed her back and swayed a bit, his gaze moving over the swirling mass of bodies to find Potter dragging James and one of the part-Veela children across the pitch on foot, their three brooms following like punished puppies. “I've got you. You're alright,” Draco hummed to the girl as her father approached.

“Sit. You can watch everyone else fly for the rest of the morning. And if you annoy your Aunt Hermione, Merlin help you,” the man growled, full predator, at the shrinking pair settling themselves at the rear of Granger's blanket. He turned to Draco with a chest heaving breath and reached for his youngest, green eyes widening in a delayed panic Draco was plenty familiar with. “Thank you.” 

Draco shook his head as he handed Lily off. Honestly, he'd done it on instinct -falling kid, bad- and was mostly surprised he'd been faster than Granger. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he was… not feeling his best. He cleared his throat, tearing his gaze from Potter and his sniffling offspring as they approached the two in time-out, to locate his own offspring. Flying rather responsibly at a reasonable height with Albus and the youngest Veela child, Scorpius was tossing a miniature quaffle back and forth, while Rose and Hugo hit adorably wild child-bludgers at them.

He dropped heavily onto the grassy slope and waited for the buzzing in his ears and the clear wiggling lines in his vision to cease. This was what he worried about, the unreasonable drain on his physical body when he performed anything beyond the most basic magic. It wasn't debilitating, yet anyway, and it would pass in a few moments, but it was annoying and decidedly unhelpful as a single parent to a magical child. He let the glamour over his mark fall- everyone knew what he was anyway- thinking the excess magic was probably making things worse.

“Draco.” A cool hand encircled his wrist and Draco flinched. “Sorry. Tell me what's happening,” Granger instructed calmly, and quietly, as she sat next to him with her gaze only occasionally flicking to him from the field. Impressively discrete. Everything about her impressed him, honestly, and he was still kicking himself for taking over a month to agree to work with her.

“Bit dizzy. Buzzing. Translucent, rainbow squiggles set over everything else.” 

Granger turned to him with a half-smirk. “Hearing the word ‘squiggles’ from you is off-putting.” He chuffed and she let go of his wrist. “Heart rate was elevated but is calming now. You went quite pale. Well, paler, anyway,” she informed him. 

“I’ve two looks, Granger: vampire and tomato.” 

Her giggle surprised him, and her apparently. “Goodness. Anything else? Chills, hot flash, numbness?” He thought about it, shook his head. “Have you eaten today?”

“Tea with milk, water, slice of toast with a fried egg, and an apple for breakfast. Salad with too many different kinds of leaves and grilled chicken from that muggle takeaway place by The Leaky.” Draco snapped his fingers trying to remember…

“Esposito's Not Italian Grille?” 

“That's the one.” Silly name but accurate; they had what seemed like every conceivable cultural cuisine except Italian.

“Harry loves that place,” she told him, eyes back on the whirlwind of Weasleys and Weasley relations, which included a fully recovered Lily and her father. “How about sleep, Draco?”

“Ah. I do my best.” He fell asleep relatively easily but struggled to sleep for longer than an hour or two before he would wake sweating and alert for no apparent reason. He hadn't had nightmares, been startled awake or even gotten himself into an unfortunate routine, and yet he woke up after too little sleep and couldn't get back into it.

“Still struggling to stay asleep?” He nodded and she hummed. “That potion hasn't helped?”

“Not even a little,” he admitted. Nothing he'd done had helped, including taking the light-tasting, airy potion Granger had prescribed. 

“Let's leave off, then. Keep up with the muscle relaxing techniques, though. Next week we'll pull blood, like we discussed.” He grimaced and she patted his shoulder. “It sounds barbaric, but it's really not.” 

Draco looked out through his wiggly, wormy vision at his very happy child and sighed. Whatever it took. “Thanks, Granger.” 

They sat in silence, watching the chaos until Draco was grinning once more. After living such a solitary life, with no real friends, no family, seeing Scorpius here, playing, was… wonderful.

Chapter Text

June 2010

“Dad?”

Harry cocked one eyebrow at his oldest son and his habit of talking with his mouth full, picked up from his Uncle Ron, no doubt. James waited until he had swallowed his bite of cheesy potatoes before he spoke again.

“Is Scorpius also a vampire?”

“Pardon?” He must have misheard his son, even though the dining room was unusually quiet, largely due to Ginny's absence. His eyes moved from child to child- Teal-haired Teddy, auburn-haired James, dark-haired Albus, and ginger-headed Lily- all of whom were listening carefully. Also unusual, frankly. 

“Scorpius Malfoy,” James went on, as if Harry had suffered memory loss. “You know, the one who came to play Quidditch last weekend?”

“Yes, I do, in fact, remember Scorpius. It's the vampire part I'm confused about. Why would you think he's a vampire?” 

“Well, Teddy said you were all worried about him being a werewolf because his dad was one. We wondered if the same thing could happen with vampires.”

Harry valiantly fought the smirk trying to take hold, felt his lungs contract in the beginnings of a highly inappropriate laugh, as his eyes coasted along the blue walls of the dining room to avoid catching any of his children’s’. Good God, had they all thought the Malfoys to be vampires? And it had taken this long for them to ask about it?

“Scorpius is not a vampire. Nor is Mr. Malfoy. They are simply very fair-skinned, and possibly lacking sufficient outside time,” he told the group at large once he’d reined in his amusement. Lily shrugged, began shoveling her potatoes at speed, but Albus sent his brother a disparaging look. 

“I told you. You're such an idiot sometimes.” Harry cleared his throat at Albus, who squished his face into an expression someone less familiar with children might consider apologetic, even as James started defending himself. Loudly.

“But I heard Aunt Hermione!” he insisted. “Her and Mr. Malfoy were talking about pooling blood!” 

Harry frowned at that. Hermione wasn’t the gruesome type; she didn’t engage in casual conversation about anything that might be considered too explicit for younger ears. She was also a curse specialist, and a healer, and technically a muggle doctor, all of which frequently involved blood. But again, her work wasn’t a topic she typically discussed with the kids about. 

“They were talking about pooling blood?” Harry repeated slowly. James nodded. “To you?” James stilled and Harry sighed. “So, you were eavesdropping, heard something and decided it meant that he was a vampire?”

Guilt and obstinance, he could see both warring for control of James's face and sighed again. He wasn't surprised really; Hermione and Malfoy were both clever, and Hermione did love to talk about her work. The two had obviously hit it off despite their history, spending most of Quidditch day together. Whatever the hell they had been discussing- maybe it had been vampires- was none of his bloody business. He had enough on his plate, honestly. 

“Eat your food,” he ordered his oldest. “The Malfoys are not vampires, I assure you. I have no idea what those two were discussing, but since they weren't discussing it with us, it isn't our business. Alright?”

“Fine.”

It was very clearly not fine with his oldest child, but Harry ignored the attitude. Things had been unsettled, even more unsettled than usual. Gin was gone again for work, as she often was, but when she was home, she and Harry were like a match and tinder in the worst way. Everyone's tempers were primed at all times, and the younger kids were on edge, and the unusual mealtime silences and palpable tension nipped further at their waning joy. Harry wasn’t sure what to do about it. The gentle clinks and scrapes of silverware on ceramic plates seemed deafening, grating and nauseating, in the otherwise oppressive silence. Lily was the only one who didn't seem to mind, attention focused on making as big a mess as possible of the tablecloth. Harry let that go, too, pretended not to notice as he turned his attention to Albus, also focused on his plate, excruciatingly neat in comparison to his sister and stress evident in the stiff precision of his six-year-old hand as he ate. Across from them, James and Teddy, both studiously avoiding their vegetables, whispered to each other in short hisses. James kept sending looks Harry's way, and Harry set to counting his own breaths for patience. 

“Uncle Harry?” 

“Yeah, Teddy?”

It was Teddy he was the most worried about. Not because of Malfoy- the wizard, much like Harry, didn't seem to have the energy necessary to create strife, never mind the desire- but because Teddy was becoming a bit too observant at eleven years of age. He was almost positive Teddy had ushered the kids upstairs during his and Ginny's last row, one of his lowest parenting moments so far. He didn’t know what to do about it- about Gin, their crumbling marriage, Teddy’s clear recognition of the state of said marriage, his own exhaustion- any of it, but it bothered him that Teddy could see it all. 

“Do you think we could have a sleepover with Scorpius? He could sleep in Al’s room, since Al is the quietest.” Teddy winked at Albus who nodded his agreement, and both James and Lily were also looking at him again. 

Harry couldn't possibly take on the responsibility of another child, even the sweet, quiet, disturbingly well-behaved Scorpius. Even if it were only one night, it would just be too much. But maybe if they extended the thing to The Granger-Weasleys, and he had two extra pairs of hands… His eyes caught Albus’, and he sighed.

“I'll have to think about it and talk to Mr. Malfoy. They might not be comfortable enough for a sleepover yet. We’ll see.” 

With Ginny gone for most of the season, Harry was drowning. Andromeda watched the kids with their tutor three days a week, and the other two days, the kids went to The Burrow. Harry had a house elf, much to Hermione's initial disgruntlement and eventually acceptance, come in to cook meals, but somehow, he was still drowning between mornings and evenings of chaos, and days in a short-staffed Auror department, and the mental load of being a parent. Every week he just kept telling himself, ‘a few more weeks and we’ll figure it out’, and every week he failed to figure it out. Still.

Just a few more weeks. 

…

“That’s it?” Draco eyed the inside of his extended elbow, baffled. 

“That’s it,” Hermione assured him, chuckling. “Honestly, I know you purebloods were raised to believe muggles were simply barbarians, but I figured you’d have gotten past that by now!” She was teasing him, her mouth quirked in a clear smirk, her eyes bright with humor, but Draco still grimaced. 

“Perhaps it is because I lacked the appropriate paperwork for decent muggle employment, but a lot of what I saw living in muggle London was barbaric,” he admitted. He’d seen homeless muggles, skinny and worn out, addled by drugs, calling nonsense to passersby who ignored them or worse. He’d seen two men beat each other up over a parking space, and Merlin, the things he’d seen on the muggle television while he worked as a busboy in various pubs and restaurants. “I should know better, but I think I tend to believe all humans are barbaric now.”

Hermione sobered at that, puffed a stream of air from her pursed lips that sent a curl floating upwards in a haphazard dance. In her white muggle healer coat over pressed slacks and a black blouse, she looked exceptionally sharp. Like the future Minister of Magic, or maybe the person that would save them from the Ministry itself. Draco smiled at her. 

“You really are the best of both worlds, you know?” He shook his head as he pushed his sleeve down over his skin-colored plaster, which was nowhere near as pale as his flesh and made him roll his eyes when he caught sight of it. 

“If we hadn’t accidentally destroyed the Ministry’s entire stock of time-turners, I would definitely go back in time and tell teenager you that you said such a thing.” 

Draco laughed. She definitely wouldn’t do that, too clever to mess with time in such a way, but he wished someone had told teenage him to sharpen up sooner. Maybe if he’d been a better person, faster, if he’d learned more about the world, been less spoiled, prejudiced, wretched, he wouldn’t be sitting here now. He looked at his laced fingers for a few seconds as she labeled the half-dozen vials of his blood. 

“What will this tell you?” he asked at length. 

“A lot. Small things, like the shape of your blood cells, the amount of certain necessary chemicals in your body, all things that will give me a decent picture of your overall health. The health of your physical body, I should clarify. Because you haven’t been infected by a virus or a transferable curse, I can’t see anything magic-specific within your blood, but this will give me an idea of how your body is doing as a result the impact of the curse. Which, in turn, will allow me to give you medications and supplements to help you manage symptoms.” 

Draco nodded, not entirely understanding, but trusting her enough that he didn’t really need to fully grasp the concepts of muggle medicine. The tablets she had given him for his occasional severe headaches had been life-altering, so who was he to question muggle genius at work?

“We’ll do this every month or so, to help keep you healthy.” She loaded the vials into a blue plastic holder and placed it into a metal box set into the wall as she spoke. “The lab is on the other side, and my assistant will begin performing the tests. We’ll get results starting in as little as an hour, but some of the tests take several days to process.” She stripped off her tight rubber gloves with two odd snapping noises and tossed them into a rubbish container before she sat on a cushioned stool and rolled closer to him in his odd, winged chair. 

“As for the magical aspects of your curse, Draco… I have news.” She wrinkled her nose, and he chuffed. Not good news, then. “It appears as if magic use drains your magical core, as it does all of us, but for whatever reason, your core is not refreshing itself as it should. Each time you perform magic, whether the spell is large or small, it depletes your core and doesn’t allow for full recovery. Eventually, you will have nothing left.”

“So, I won’t have magic?” Honestly, that wasn’t so bad a future. Alive and magicless seemed worlds better than dead. Hermione wrinkled her nose again, and this time he grimaced. 

“For someone like me, a depleted core would be painful, difficult to recover from, but I would recover. For a pureblood wizard, and one whose family has a history of inbreeding, has suffered severe injury due to curses that leave residual trauma on the body, it’s another matter entirely.”

“Listen, Granger, it’s not my fault my ancestors were too into themselves, you know?” he joked, but he understood what she was saying. He’d been tortured rather a lot during the last two years of Voldemort’s life, had been sliced up by The Boy Who Lived and almost died, he’d been marked with a cursed brand that was impossible to remove. Add to that whatever genetic inferiority persisted due to lack of variation - a concept that he had begun to understand during a painfully detailed conversation between Granger and his sister-in-law- and his ‘goose was cooked’. He understood, and she knew he understood. 

“I have determined that you were cursed by someone who had likely never performed a curse before. Also, it is a conditional curse, meaning, if you meet whatever conditions this individual desires you to meet, the curse will essentially self-destruct, hopefully leaving your body free to recover. What I cannot determine, however, is what the conditions are or the parameters the individual had in mind, if they even used parameters in their casting. The spell’s structure is a clumsy-looking thing, a lopsided spider-web rather than a symmetrical one, which doesn’t fill me with faith in the caster.”

“Could it be, I don’t know, a forgiveness curse or something? Like, I need to earn the forgiveness of everyone I’ve wronged?” In the months since he had learned of his condition, he had spent many long, sleepless nights considering whom, what, and why. If the curse was conditional, forgiveness seemed to make the most sense to him, child menace and former death eater. 

“I doubt it. Honestly, I hope that’s not what it is, because the spell work is too poor for that level of complexity; it could mean that you’ll never meet the condition in that case. No offense, but you wronged a lot of people to one degree or another, and this curse simply can’t account for that variation…” She trailed off, eyes steady on his.

Draco shrugged. He couldn’t deny she was correct. In that case, he rather hoped it wasn’t a forgiveness condition as well. 

“No one has spoken to me besides my son, wife, sister-in-law, Zabini, and a few private healers and muggles in years, Granger. Even the chapel head would only talk to Daphne.” Draco looked at the ugly acoustic tiled ceiling. “Maybe it was Tori in her last moments,” he said, half-joking. Tori had never once made him feel bad for their circumstances, or her own impending death. She’d only ever wanted him to be happy, to be a good father for Scorpius. But maybe she had a clearing of sight just before death and decided Scorpius would be better without him? 

“I didn’t know Astoria Greengrass, but from what I can tell, I doubt it. She wasn’t in the condition to curse anyone from what you’ve told me. I won’t deny it’s a possibility, but it’s also equally possible that someone intended to bless you, and was so terrible at it, they accidentally cursed you.” Hermione pursed her mouth in a clear indication she didn’t believe anyone had attempted a blessing as Draco scoffed. He didn’t believe anyone would have tried to bless him either. 

“So, what now?”

“Now… I think it’s time we go pay Harry a visit, Draco. If we want to solve this, we need to figure out who cast the curse. Trying to unravel the magic itself would be exceptionally dangerous, if not impossible; I need the basis for the curse, whether it was a ritual, runic casting, it doesn’t matter, I need to see the recipe, so to speak.”

“And Potter will help us find out who?” he asked. Part of him doubted Harry Potter would be willing to put forth the effort. Why should he?

“I’m positive he will. He’s buried as I understand it, but he’ll take this on without question.” 

Draco raised his brows, but didn’t argue. Potter was a savior for certain, but he was also a busy Auror, a godfather, a father to an entire circus from what he’d seen, and Draco… he didn’t really deserve all this help. But Scorpius did. Scorpius deserved to have one of his parents, even if it was the shittier one. 

…

Harry looked up at the knock on his open office door, frowning. He blinked and frowned harder when he saw Hermione and Malfoy hovering on the threshold of his opened door with matching resigned expressions. 

“What are you two doing here?” And together. Had he forgotten an appointment? Had something happened? Should he be worried? And if so, about what? Who? He shook his head and glanced around at the clutter that covered almost every square inches of flat surface.

“Er- Merlin, I'm drowning here. Sorry, give me a sec.” He shuffled several piles of folders into a single, precarious stack that teetered in its new location on the floor in the corner, then summoned the box of evidence related to his primary current case from one of his chairs. A sack of clothes in need of washing or burning was waved into another corner to free up the second visitor chair. Harry cast an apologetic glance towards the pair watching with bemusement now. “That's as good as it's going to get, unfortunately. What's up?” 

He wasn't sure if this was a personal visit or an official visit or not, but he was sweating already. Hermione’s judgmental expression and Malfoy’s continued, baffled observation of Harry’s office didn't give him much to go on. He plunked himself back into his desk chair and let Hermione decide how to proceed. When she closed the door, he swallowed a groan.

“Please tell me that you are not, in fact, a new breed of Vampire?” At this point in his career, he wouldn't even be surprised, but thankfully Draco Malfoy broke into a grin. 

“Excuse me?” His voice wavered with a repressed chuckle and Harry smiled a little himself. He was still getting used to this Malfoy who wasn't a complete git, but he honestly really liked him. 

“My oldest overheard something, probably while he and his cousin were in time out,” he explained dryly. Those two and their reckless flying around the littles, he shook his head. “Something about blood, and suddenly you're a vampire and Scorpius a potential vampire baby.” Hermione was grimacing, but Malfoy was snorting, and now Harry was really smiling, his own eyes crinkling with delayed mirth. “I had to reassure them all that you're just a family of exceptionally pale people.” 

“Merlin.” Draco’s amusement slid away with a long sigh. “It's been a while since someone accused me of vampirism, but no, I swear that isn't why we're here.” 

Harry waited, eyes latched onto the not-vampire across from him, taking in those same bruises under his eyes, the faint crease in his forehead, the slight tensing at the corners of his mouth. Draco's sudden reappearance in their lives made instant, jarring sense.

“Are you sick, Malfoy?” Surprise, from both of his guests, and then Malfoy was looking at Hermione for help. 

“In a sense, yes.” She ruffled through her canvas shoulder bag, her entire arm likely disappearing within if he knew her at all, before she pulled out a thick accordion-like file and balanced it on her lap. 

“I appear to have been cursed.” Wry tone, an odd quirk to his mouth and one furrowed brow. He looked as if he didn’t really know what to think about that fact himself. 

“You appear to have been cursed?” Harry repeated, for confirmation as much as to buy time for his brain to catch up. Astoria Malfoy had just died from a blood curse, was this related? The two wizards eyed each other, Malfoy closed off and Harry thinking, until Hermione cleared her throat to indicate her readiness to proceed. Hermione would bulldoze right through any uncertainty and awkwardness and save them both a lot of dancing around.

“Draco has been cursed. He came to me just over two months ago at Zabini’s referral, with symptoms that began around or after his wife's death- dizziness, headaches, fatigue, disrupted sleep- all of which worsen with magic usage, and appear to become more significant over time.”

“Why did he come to you and not-” Harry cut himself off, sent an apologetic tightening of his mouth towards the wizard who had very likely been denied care at St. Mungo's due to his Dark Mark. 

“Yes. He came to me because I was the only option. It was obviously a curse, I could tell immediately, however, at the time, I couldn't determine much else. I have an idea now, though, and Harry, we have a problem.” 

He shrugged. They always had a problem. From day one Hermione and Harry and Ron had been stumbling through problems, many of which had included this wizard as well.

“Whatever it is, we'll handle it. Tell me what we know.” 

He took notes despite the sheets of paper Hermione provided- their communication and learning styles were quite different- frowning and marking questions for later rather than interrupting the flow of conversation. He'd found, especially with Hermione, that minimal interruption made for detailed information if you could handle the frequent tangent and unnecessary specificity. He waited until the end of her long-winded, too-nuanced, explanation before speaking. 

“An unknown conditional curse with unknown parameters, cast by an unknown magical with limited experience,” he summarized, earning a glare from Hermione and a snort from Draco. 

“Salazar, we could have been done an hour ago,” Malfoy teased the bristling witch beside him. Harry smirked, mostly to hide his disquiet, as he considered the scope of this investigation. He would obviously take on Malfoy’s case, whether his boss approved or not. 

“Godric, we better get started on this now,” Harry decided. Hermione didn't know how severe symptoms would get, or how long it might take, but her stern avoidance of hazarding a guess and their presence here told Harry that she believed this to be akin to investigating an attempted murder. Which meant, at least to Harry’s way of thinking, they had an unknown, ever-approaching deadline. 

They worked, Harry asking questions while Malfoy and Hermione attempted to answer, until Malfoy begged off, claiming the need to retrieve his child from Andromeda. It left Harry and Hermione in a rare, stilted silence he didn't have much patience for. 

“You think this curse will kill him eventually.” She pursed her lips but gave a little tilted half-nod. “But you aren't sure how long it will take?”

“I… would hazard an off the record guess at around twelve to eighteen months. The problems with that timeline are three-fold, however.” She extended a finger for each listed problem. “We aren't sure exactly when symptoms started- he was dealing with a lot, likely hadn't noticed at first. This curse appears to impact several systems within the body, making predictions extremely complex. There is also a link between magic usage and severity of symptoms, which could drastically impact the timeline.”

Hermione was the best. If she couldn't give him something more concrete, no one could. 

“The initial suspect list is impossible,” he admitted. Half of magical Britain was on it- anyone tangentially related to the Malfoys and their actions during the last two wars, anyone who'd glimpsed his Dark Mark and knew what it meant, even his dead wife and her family were on it. The last is where they would have to start, of course.

“I know. He did tell me that his sister-in-law attempted to get the Department to open an investigation into Astoria Malfoy's death and was denied. She died years earlier than expected, something Draco confirmed and suspected was due to the fact that Astoria refused treatment because of the expense.” 

Harry raised his eyebrows at Hermione, who waffled. Malfoy hadn't mentioned this, for one reason or another, but Harry obviously needed to know. If money was a factor, lack of care, or if there had been another curse cast on Astoria to bring about her death so soon, he needed her to be open.  

“If I'm investigating, I need all the information. I can ask him if that will be easier on you, but the more I know and the quicker I learn it, the better,” he prodded gently. She sighed.

“They’re bloody broke, Harry. They did alright at first from what I can tell. They lived off a tiny bit of money from Narcissa when she passed, and Astoria's dowry. Draco tried to find work with limited success. When Astoria was pregnant with Scorpius the financial strain was significant because they had to hire a private healer due to complications and St. Mungo’s refusal to treat her. They ended up selling the flat they had shared with Narcissa, and moved into a muggle rental studio in Barbican after Scorpius was born. With Draco doing odd jobs, muggle and magical- no one would hire him for anything decent- they lived there until Astoria became ill, at which point they moved into the guest quarters of Zabini’s mega mansion in Little Venice because they needed access to a floo.”

Harry listened as Hermione outlined a rather jarring story for someone who had been born into a prince’s wealth. He hadn’t considered the difficulty the Ministry’s seizure of Malfoys’ assets after war would present. A pureblood wizard without muggle identification and no way to obtain any, marked and refused employment in the only world he’d known.

“Astoria refused treatment, wouldn't allow Zabini to cover the cost. Draco brews for Zabini, under the table, in exchange for living there. Not that Zabini cares. He had a soft spot for Astoria, apparently, and would let them stay for free, but Draco worries about leaving a burden for Scorpius. He doesn't trust anyone, including Zabini, not to try to collect from his son if something happens to him.” 

“Can't blame him, really,” Harry admitted. “What about The Greengrasses, then?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Greengrass married Astoria off and washed their hands of her, cut ties entirely. Didn't even go to her funeral. Daphne married for love, a middle-income American muggle she met while he was attending The University of the Arts in London for his semester abroad. They live in the States, though Daphne came back for her sister's funeral, at which point she attempted to open an investigation and was denied. Draco suspects no one cared enough about the wife of a Death Eater to put forth the effort of opening an investigation.”

Harry grunted. She was likely correct. He hadn’t even heard that Daphne had made the request. He’d have to investigate that, too. If administration was refusing to file complaints and reports due to prejudice, he’d have to step in.

“Daphne came around anyway, once she realized how strained their financial situation was. She returned to the States a couple weeks ago and just gave birth to a daughter on Monday, so she will not be available to questioning at present.”

Harry blinked at her, surprised at the level of detail Hermione had about Astoria’s sister.

“Since the blood curse Astoria inherited runs through the female line, and Daphne did not have it, they incorrectly assumed their half-blood child would be fine. It wasn't until I met her that she realized her error, so she reached out upon the birth of her daughter. I'm working with an American colleague in regard to little Everly Astoria Whipple.” Hermione shrugged as if taking on a foreign consulting job in addition to her current one related to Draco, and her full-time healer position was no matter.

“Where do you find the time?” Honestly, he'd always been amazed at her time management skills. 

“Hm,” Hermione grunted. “Well, as much of a goofball as he is, Ron does actually perform his share of our household and parenting duties, so that helps,” she drawled, pure disdain. Harry's chest vibrated with his groan of defeat. He should have seen that coming. 

“Right. That reminds me,” he murmured, shuffling paperwork around until he could find his buried watch, removed when it had irritated him by repeatedly getting caught on evidence earlier and subsequently misplaced. “Merlin, what time is it ‘Mione?” 

“Time to head out, no doubt.” She stood, cast a tempus, making Harry feel like the exhausted idiot he was, and confirmed that it was time to depart. Past time. “Say hello to Andromeda for me, will you?” 

“Of course. I might reach out later, once the kids get to sleep.”

She waved a goodbye as he gathered several folders, including Malfoy's, case intake paperwork, and his sheaf of notes, and shoved the lot into his own bag. He locked up evidence in the cabinet behind his desk, grimaced at the several boxes still lingering from closed cases that he needed to deliver to archives, and closed his door with a resounding bang. He warded his office against intruders. Not that anyone would be able to find a bloody thing in it, he thought with a self-admonishing sigh. 

The walk from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to the lobby floo was a quick, uninterrupted one, most Ministry employees long since departed. He braced himself as he stepped into green flames, feeling guilty for being late. Again. He fully expected an irate someone to be waiting, but the kitchen was empty besides a mound of unwashed dishes indicating that the kids had already eaten.

Harry followed the faint sounds of laughter from the kitchen to the ground floor, then up to the first floor sitting room, the noise ratcheting up the closer he got. Grimmauld had been rather grim for weeks, with spots of true joy few and far between despite his best efforts. Almost hesitant, Harry poked his head into the wide cased opening to the sitting room, the crowd gathered cheering and gleeful.

“Dad!”

“Dad, look at Mr. Malfoy! Watch!” 

Harry was watching, gob smacked, as Draco Malfoy juggled several un-juggleable items- some kind of egg, a butcher’s knife, a lamp sans shade, a muggle stapler, a high-heeled shoe, and what appeared to be a plastic garden gnome that hopefully hadn't been stolen from the neighbors by one of his children. 

“Alright, Teddy, I'm ready,” Malfoy spoke calmly to his much younger cousin but kept his eyes aloft as the pink-haired boy tossed an innocuous looking cloth ball into the somersaulting mix. 

Everything exploded in a riot of many-colored smoke and gasps of alarm from the children until the smoke cleared. All the items had been placed neatly along the table in front of the still standing Malfoy, except for the egg, which had cracked upon his blonde head. 

Laughter peeled from each of the youths while Andromeda clapped, and Malfoy hid his smirk. Harry cleared the egg from the man's face before he could reach for his own wand then joined in on the clapping. He felt a bit… bewildered. How could he not? Draco Malfoy, pureblood wizard, former Death Eater, and muggle juggler? Ridiculous.

As Malfoy bowed, looking a bit rueful but pleased about the happy crew of kids, Harry had a rather brilliant idea. 

…

July 2010

“Why the bloody hell does everyone keep looking at us like that?” Ron muttered as the lunch time rush parted for them. 

Harry shrugged. People were always looking at him and at present he was with another member of “the gold trio” in full Auror dress, striding down Diagon Alley with purpose. The crowds were probably waiting for a raid or something. He was surprised Ron wasn't used to it by now, honestly. For his own part, Harry had his attention fixed on the top-hat waving sign designating Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. 

“George says he's been great. A real looker in his bowtie, all the mums go mad for him,” Ron chortled as they walked, missing Harry's furrowed brow. He hadn't considered Draco would have to wear the vibrant purple tailcoat and lime green bowtie when he’d recommended him to George a few weeks ago. Still, it was steady employment, outrageous uniform or not. Poor bloke.  

“Thanks mate,” he muttered as he ducked under Ron's arm to enter the shop. It was absolutely packed with what he supposed were back to school shoppers, though it was a bit early. He didn’t think Teddy had even gotten his letter yet- “Oh, Christ.” 

Harry and Ron both stopped short at the sight of what likely the only wizard who could actually pull off a purple three-piece suit and top hat with lime green accents. He should have looked ridiculous, but the teasing half-smirk Draco Malfoy wore just made him look-

“That's so unfair. No one should look fit in that getup,” Ron grumbled. Harry shrugged again. He shouldn't, but he did look fit. Harry thought he looked fit. Really bloody attractive, as indicated by the uncomfortable heat at the back of his neck and the alarming swoop in his stomach. The gaggle of not-quite-middle-aged witches around the bloke obviously agreed with Harry. 

“Well, looks like he is settling in just fine,” Harry announced, dragging his hand along the back of his neck. “We should head back.” 

“What? You hauled me all the way here and you're ready to leave already?” Ron squinted at him. “What's up with you lately?”

“What do you mean?” What wasn’t up with him lately? 

“You're all over the place.” Ron stepped closer, voice quiet, to ask, “Are you that worried about him? He looks fine, Harry.” 

“No, I'm not. I mean, of course I am, but that's…”

Harry sighed and shrugged yet again, because he was all over the place. Between the never ending fights with a mostly absent Ginny, work, essentially single-parenting, this thing with Malfoy, the curse thing but also the thing where Harry couldn’t seem to stop watching him whenever he saw him- which was often now- and wanting to see him if he hadn’t for a few days, and that extremely embarrassing moment just this morning in which Malfoy had debuted in Harry’s wank bank… That last was something he was positive would not help his disintegrating marriage. He was all over the place. 

“Now's not the time,” he settled on, instead of… anything that had filtered through his brain in the last thirty seconds.  

There was a sharp, very well-timed whistle from the counter and Ron, the only one tall enough, jerked his head to look. His ginger brows rose, fell, rose, and then his whole face creased in confusion. Harry snorted. 

“Hold on, I'll be right back. I've got no bloody clue what he's on about, the loon.”

Ron disappeared in the direction of the back counter and Harry sagged against a shelf of tanked pygmy puffs with relief at what felt like an escaped interrogation. From this spot, tucked into the front corner, he could occasionally see Draco's profile as he smirked and flirted with customer after customer. It looked exhausting to Harry, but he seemed to flourish under the attention, face alight, eyes bright, a slight flush inching up his neck by the time the crowd finally thinned. 

Yeah, this thing Harry had with Malfoy being attractive was… weird. Unexpected. They were friends, new but fast ones, and here Harry was occasionally picturing him naked, or worse. Wildly inappropriate.

“Erm, mate-” Harry jumped at Ron's sudden reappearance. “You haven't been getting The Prophet, have you?”

Harry scoffed. “Of course I haven't. I get to listen to Percy give a full run-down of the entire month’s publications at Sunday dinner.” Ron grunted at that, face paler than it should be. “Why?” 

“Ah. Well…” Harry frowned up at his friend, exercised his limited pool of patience. He hoped Ron didn’t take too much of it; he needed a deep well for the kids. “Gin’s in it,” he blurted at last.

“Okay…” Harry drew the word out in an obvious prompt. Ginny was always in the papers. She was a bloody Chaser, a good one, for one of the league leaders. And she was Harry Potter’s wife. There was barely a day when Ginny wasn’t in The Prophet.

Ron swallowed. “Not for Quidditch.” 

“Oh, for the love of-” 

Harry marched towards the counter, out of patience with Ron’s centuries-long attempt to get to the bloody point. Ducking beneath a Garden Ghoul and side-stepping a display of Fire-Breathing Chicken Pellets, he approached the uncharacteristically serious-looking shop owner and the normally serious Percy.. 

“Let me see it, George, whatever it is.”

The unrolled Daily Prophet was placed into his outstretched hand and Harry was treated to a front page spread of his wife looking thoroughly fucked as she stumbled out of a townhouse with some bloke. The same bloke, he could only assume (hope?), sat with Ginny on his lap in the left-hand bottom photograph, and snogged her with his hand up her skirt in the bottom-right hand photograph. Good Godric. How many mouthfuls of tea had been spat out over breakfast across Britain this morning?

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he stared at the photograph playing on a loop. He'd been expecting some insulting drivel, a ridiculous rumor, some silly “insight” into their lives, not… this.

“Oh, God. The kids…” he groaned as he shoved his glasses atop his head rubbed at his eyes. 

They didn't get the paper, any paper, for a reason. Not this particular reason, but a similar reason. No kid needed to grow up reading the up and down public opinions of their parents every day. But this… Jesus. There was no way they were going to get away with this. Someone would say or do something in front of the kids at some point, and then what?

“What am I supposed to even do about this?” he asked the two to three Weasleys that were undoubtedly still standing there, one hand digging into his eyes and the other squeezing The Prophet, wishing it would burst into flame.

“Potter, Ronald… what the bloody fuck is that?”

The paper was snatched from Harry before he could drop his hand from his eyes and resituate his glasses. He turned, gaze on the curled edges of The Daily Prophet as Draco Malfoy read about Ginny Potter's blatant infidelity.

“Merlin, Harry. Alright, come on, off we go.” He finally looked at Malfoy. And his purple top hat. Harry attempted to smile. 

“Nice suite, Malfoy,” he said weakly, as he was ushered out of the shop between Ron and Draco.

The two of them carried on a muttered conversation around him as they marched through the crowds. Harry took in those crowds clearly for the first time that day and realized Ron had been correct, people were looking at him oddly. God. He allowed himself to be ushered through the brick wall that acted as the entrance to Diagon and into The Leaky, and then into the floo. 

He was expelled from green flames onto an Axminster in an excessively large, lavish, wood and dark-walled study, stumbling out of the way just before Draco appeared in his stead.

“Draco… ah. Hello, Potter.” Harry looked from Draco, angry, to the deep-voiced Zabini, sympathetic, and wondered where Ron had gone off to. “I was surprised to read about your situation this morning,” the exceptionally tall, black man said evenly. His large hands buttoned his suit jacket as he stood from a high-backed chair near a window where he had evidently been studying something with a quill in hand before their unexpected appearance. 

“Not as surprised as I was,” Harry admitted at length. He wasn't surprised about the cheating, but about the carelessness. He'd thought Ginny cared about her family more than that. She was hurting everyone from her mother on down to her three-year-old daughter with this, never mind him. He looked at Draco again, because he'd brought him here, for some reason…

“Zabini can help. Cleanup. Mitigation.” Draco’s chiseled face was mostly neutral now, but the muscles in his jaw flexed as he ground his teeth. “Keep it from getting any more out of hand than it undoubtedly already is.” 

“Can he help me with divorce?” Harry asked, eyes still on Malfoy. He’d surprised him, apparently. Maybe divorce wasn’t a thing wizards did?  

“If that's the route you want to go,” Zabini offered. Harry looked at him now, relieved, and nodded. “It'll be cleanest if we can get her cooperation, but it isn't necessary.”

“She'll cooperate,” Harry assured him. One way or another, she’d willingly sign whatever documents Zabini needed. “My kids, though, they stay with me. I don't care what it takes.” She was a shit mum, and she knew it. “I'll buy her off if I have to. I'll buy the goddamn Harpies, but she doesn't get custody of them.”

She probably didn’t even want custody of them, she barely saw them as it was, and while he knew she loved them, she had obviously not wanted them. Christ, nowadays, Malfoy saw the Potter kids more than she did. Harry looked at him as Draco snorted.

“This is Wizarding Britain and you're Harry Potter. She doesn't stand a chance.” 

The floo flashed behind them before Harry could come up with a response for that. Ron appeared, followed by Hermione, then Percy, then-

“Gin.” Harry stared at his wife, all his anger vanishing at the sight of hers. What the hell was she angry about? He hadn't cheated on her, he hadn't been photographed half-naked. He blinked rapidly, ground his teeth together as he looked away. 

“Let's all have some tea and a tete-a-tete,” Zabini's deep voice towed the little crowd further into the study, then through a door to a room with a large oval table set with a full tea service. Harry allowed himself to be positioned between his two rabid guard dogs, too blown over to do anything else but sit and wallow in his own pool of disbelief squashed between the waves of tension that flowed from Ron and Hermione both. He looked, briefly, at Draco again. Christ, how had he gotten here?

…

Draco dragged his gaze around the gathered group. A neutral Zabini sat at the head of the table, a stone-faced Percy beside a red-faced Ginny Weasley on one side of the table, while Harry sat on the other side dogeared by the Granger-Weasleys. Draco took the other head opposite Zabini, where he had a clear view of everyone as they sipped their tea for several uncomfortable, silent moments. 

It didn't take long for the quiet to explode into a shouting match between the two youngest Weasleys, however. When Granger didn’t immediately muzzle her husband, perhaps too upset herself, Draco threw a biscuit at Ron first, then Ginny.

“Please stop. Shouting isn't going to fix anything. Ronald, this isn't about you, your opinion is irrelevant. Red…” Draco used her public nickname, like Scorpius did whenever he talked about his favorite Chaser, then paused. He was sure his own opinions were visible on his face without any of the words that fought to get free, but Ginny did settle back into her seat with a grimace at her husband. 

Silence. Draco waited, eyes coasting over them all once more, but returning time and again to Harry, who kept looking at him as if he held some secret knowledge, some answer to a riddle. He wished he did, if only to wipe that expression off Harry's face, the one that made him look lost, broken, like a little boy. Draco tightened his mouth in the mimicry of a smile, which seemed to help.

“I want a divorce, and I want full custody of the kids. Grimmauld stays with me, it probably won't even let you in right now.” Harry's voice was even, controlled. His Auror voice, like the one he'd used while asking endless questions in his office mere weeks ago.

“It won't. Door entirely disappeared, floo spat me out at The Burrow,” she admitted. Serves her right, really. Merlin, wife to arguably the biggest catch in Great Britain and surrounding, and she fucks around with an 18-year-old back-up beater for Puddlemere. Probably ruined that bloke's career. “That's… I mean, we all know I'm not a great mum. You'll still let me see them?”

“Of course I will, I'm not a monster. I won't force them, though. When they find out, and you know they will, James at least will hear something…” Harry pushed his glasses up on top of his head and scrubbed at his face. “Gah. What am I going to tell the kids?” 

“Probably the truth, Harry. That we weren't getting along, that I didn't figure out what I wanted in life early enough, that I messed up and this is the best solution for everyone.” Red's voice quavered as she spoke, her eyes filled, overflowed. “I've been a mess. It's my fault, not yours. I pushed you to get married, and it turns out I wasn't ready.” It wasn't an apology, but Draco supposed it was something. 

Zabini cleared his throat, lifting a handful of documents up. “Preliminary divorce proceedings.” He nodded to Percy Weasley. “Preliminary because I know you'll have important additions and improvements.” Percy gave a pleased little smile, and Draco hid his smirk at how easily Zabini pulled the strings. It was part of the reason he had a hard time trusting the man, but it was still nice to watch.

Two hours later, the Potter pair had a tenuous agreement to consider for the required 48 hours before filing. Harry would get basically everything, including the kids, Grimmauld, most of their wealth, while Ginny would get 50% of joint investments, and a clean separation of all assets from the moment of filing onwards. Neither would be able to go after the other for money down the road except for child-related expenses, of which Ginny was expected to cover a percentage related to her income level, and custody could only be revisited upon a full Wizengamot hearing (nearly unheard of). They also put forth a joint statement that favored the redhead- overmuch in Draco's opinion, but his opinion didn't matter. 

He watched Percy escort his sister out, watched the Granger-Weasleys hug Harry and offer to pick up the kids for a sleepover- which he agreed to- and walk out. Zabini cocked an eyebrow at Draco before he too, left. 

“Well, Harry.” Draco stood and walked over to sit on the table next to the defeated-looking wizard slouched in his chair. He didn’t know what to say. This new friendship was something he valued, undeserving of it as he was, and he wanted to pick Harry up and solve all his problems. He didn’t know how to do that either.

“Can I ask you something?” Draco nodded, relieved at the broken silence. “Did you love Astoria?” 

“Did- no. Not when I married her, at least. It was arranged, and while we knew each other, we weren't even friends at first. But eventually we became friends, and by the end we loved each other, like you and Granger love each other.”

Harry frowned and Draco waited.

“How… weren't you lonely? Living like that? I get why Ginny cheated. We've been basically separated since before Lily was born, separate rooms and all.” 

Draco smirked and drawled, “Separate rooms are an expectation in the type of marriage I was raised for.” He and Astoria hadn't had separate rooms only because they were poor, at least until they'd moved into Zabini's. “I understand marriages based on love are different, but I don't have any experience there. I'm as lonely now as I always was, as I always knew I would be.”

“What? You expected to be lonely in your marriage?” Harry looked aghast and Draco snorted. He had always been an idealist, Harry Potter. Even now, after all he’d been through.

“I think any man in my position would expect to be unfulfilled in a traditional marriage, Harry.” He studied tired, bloodshot green eyes that were fully exposed since his glasses were still pushed up into his hair. It was a shame, really. Harry Potter, hero, good dad, good person, handsome, desired by just about everybody in one way or another, yet here he was, alone and miserable.

“What does that mean? A traditional marriage -” Draco huffed another laugh when Harry cut himself off, waited for comprehension to dawn. It did. Slowly, painfully slowly, until his eyes became round in surprise. “Oh.”

“As I see you now understand, I have no advice to offer regarding loving, romantic, fulfilling marriages with women. Or anyone, really, since my experience is very much limited to Astoria.” He wondered if he'd just muddied Harry's new faith in him but decided it probably didn’t matter to the wizard. Harry wasn't a homophobe, Draco was certain; there was a picture of him with Dean and Seamus from the pair's wedding on display in his sitting room. He wouldn't push away this new friendship over Draco being gay. 

“That must have been frustrating-“ He looked alarmed at his own dry statement and Draco chuckled again. 

“I mean, I sowed my wild oats prior to my wedding.” Which was true. The older Slytherin dormitories were a hotbed of ill-advised activities, and he’d even stumbled upon a partner or two in the post-Azkaban months just prior to his nuptials.

“And… after?” 

“No. Definitely not, neither of us strayed outside the bounds of our vows.” They’d been poor and tired, and Draco too busy to even consider such a thing after Scorpius had joined them. “Also, it's decidedly more difficult to have wild oats when you have children, I've noticed.” 

Now Harry snorted. “God, isn't that the truth?” Red's actions notwithstanding- she hadn't seemed to be all that involved in her kids’ lives as it was- sex and romance seemed far less important as an active parent to young children. Maybe things were different as they grew older, or perhaps if a relationship was a real love-based one, where everyone was healthy and happy? He didn’t know. He did know he needed to fetch his own offspring from his Aunt’s.

Harry pushed to his feet as Draco did, bumped their shoulders together. “I have no idea how I'm going to do this. I'm barely surviving as it is, and now things will be strained with Molly and Arthur… the kids are going to be a mess and I'm severely outnumbered.” He placed his gold-rimmed glasses onto his nose and gave Draco a rueful look. “You wouldn't by any chance know someone looking for room and board in exchange for childcare assistance, would you?” 

Draco blinked at him. Potter blinked back. They both snorted.

“A two-to-one ratio is better, right?” he asked. Potter nodded. 

“The kids have been asking for Scorpius to sleep over for weeks, but I didn't have the heart to tell them I couldn't handle more kids on my own. They already set up a cot in Al's room for him. Pfft. You can have Ginny's room.” They both chortled again as they approached the floo. “You and Scorpius come for dinner?”

“Sure, six?”

“Yup.”

Draco was somehow still smiling, still harboring a hysterical bubble in his gut, when he arrived in his Aunt's living room to find Scorpius and Andromeda reading, side-by-side. It soothed the sharp edge of hysteria into something less terrifying, seeing Scorpius with family he’d never had before. He heaved in a lungful of honeysuckle scented air as his aunt slid one finger between the pages of her book, leaving a trailing emerald ribbon in its wake. Scorpius took no such pains to mark his place in his text as he ran to Draco for a hug.

“Hey, Scorp. Why don't you go collect your things. We're going to go pick up some things and then have dinner with Mr. Potter,” he said into neat platinum blonde hair. “No kids, just Harry,” he added as his son broke away, to stave off the disappointment he knew would follow at not seeing his new best friend.

Scorpius had scampered off, not nearly as disappointed as he’d expected, when Draco met his aunt’s concerned brown eyes and realized she'd either seen the paper or heard about Ginny Potter some other way. A Weasley, perhaps.

“Divorce,” he said bluntly, and she winced. “He's alright, better than one would anticipate. Scorpius and I will be moving into Grimmauld, though.” He felt the tug of a smile at his mouth while Andromeda blinked.

“That's… that’s actually a brilliant idea,” she murmured. “You can help each other, and I can supervise everyone's tutoring at once. Molly has already invited him on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you know?”

He did know, and… “I’ll think about it.”

He didn't want to add a burden on the matron, kindly as she had been towards them. He already felt bad about placing the weight of Scorpius’ care on his aunt, who spent Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at Grimmauld and had been bringing Scorp with her. Merlin, what a whirlwind. 

“Poor Harry,” she sighed. “All he ever wanted was a family. Love.” Draco drew his upper lip high in a mock sneer and she smiled. “I know, what a notion,” she drawled just as Scorp bolted back with his bag banging over one shoulder.

…

“That's the last of it,” Draco announced, wiping his hands clean of Ginny's possessions with two quick slaps.

He'd very kindly offered to floo the lot of it to The Burrow once Harry had magically packed it, which he had done after dinner while Draco spoke to Scorpius about moving and set him to sleep in his new room as a ‘trial run’. The conversation had gone well, Harry assumed, since Scorpius was sound asleep already. At present, Harry was mostly grateful Draco had given him the opportunity to avoid Molly for just a bit longer.

“Molly's a wreck you know,” the pale man added, obviously a mind reader. “You'll have to go visit soon or she might work herself up beyond help. Arthur's hiding in his shed already.” Not a good sign.

“I'll go tomorrow before work,” he promised on a sigh. “She'll be on me to make up with her for ages, I bet.”

Divorce wasn't the done thing for Weasley's, not because of the pureblood wizard sentiment, but because one couldn't give up on love. It seemed rather hypocritical on this side of the last few years. Still, Molly would push and push, as she was wont to do.

“Hmm. I don't think she will, Harry. As I left, she announced to the empty kitchen that I would make a better wife for you.” Harry huffed at that. Molly must be beyond livid to be matching Harry up with Draco. Maybe he'd make out alright after all.

“You look dashing in your Weasley uniform, there was even a blurb in the Evening Prophet- right below the pictures of Gin, mind- about the new Wheezes employee. I'm sure you'd look just as good in a veil.” He’d received the paper via owl from George, who’d bemoaned the lack of picture of Draco. ‘Woulda been fantastic advertising, you know.’

“I would, I wager. It's the bone structure, goes with everything.”

Draco’s careless wave of one large hand ended in a somewhat embarrassed shrug. But Harry chuckled even as he eyed that exact bone structure, which did seem to go with everything. He seemed happy tonight, tired but almost giddy, which made Harry feel a bit giddy, too, as they plopped themselves down with matching dramatic exhaustion. 

“Scorp’s chuffed. Al is his first real friend.”

“Humph. Well, Scorp is Al's first real friend.” Al was smart, book smart like Hermione, but without the outgoing nature his friend had maintained, or forced, in their youth. Scorpius was a perfect match for his son, something he worried didn’t exist. “He struggles making friends, even with his cousins he struggles.”

“That's because that entire lot is rambunctious. Overstimulating. Exhausting.” Another wave of a pale hand and Harry grinned over at him.

“Ha, yeah.” He certainly couldn't disagree. Draco had spent more than one weekend surrounded by Weasley chaos at this point, so there was no denying it. “Rose and Victoire are alright.” 

“But girls are icky,” Draco mocked.

Harry snorted. “God, which one of them said that?”

“James, of course.”

“Ugh, of course.”

“But don't worry, Lily bit him.” Draco was grinning wide, a beam really. “Utter chaos. I don't know how you've managed for so long.” 

That was sobering. “Not very well,” he admitted. He tried though. He did better than the Dursleys, better than Sirius had in the short time Harry had him as a parental figure. Neither comparison really made Harry feel like he was doing well enough, though.

“Nonsense. You're an Auror- a good one- and a godfather, and a father, and all your kids are good kids. They're just a little wild, and I have it on good authority that it's the genetics from the other side. The redder the hair, the crazier the child.” Draco widened his eyes emphatically.

“What about Teddy?” Teddy could be wild, tit for tat with James most days.

“Doesn't count. He's changeable.”

Harry grinned. Metamorphosis had its advantages, he supposed. God, this was ridiculous. They looked at each other- sprawled in two armchairs in the disaster of a sitting room, exhausted single fathers, clueless bastards- and laughed until they could barely make it up to their beds.

Chapter Text

September 2010

“What the heck is going on here?” Harry asked from the sitting room doorway, arms crossed, expression probably bemused.

The Malfoys had settled in surprisingly well, Draco taking on a good amount of responsibility regarding their kids' education (including monitoring progress with their tutor) and general caretaking, and Scorpius's own demure behavior having a steadying effect on the others’ wildness. Even Grimmauld itself seemed pleased with the addition of the two blondes, often surprising them with new baubles and décor the two might appreciate -much to Draco’s amusement- and creating new nooks for Scorpius and Al to hunker down in their academic endeavors.

But right now… Harry squinted as his oldest child and waited for him to complete whatever tabulation he was working on. Harry had barely put in half a day’s work after they had all seen Teddy off for his first year at Hogwarts before he'd been called out for a drunk and disorderly breach of the international statute of secrecy (a mess), and now his 9-year-old was-

“Wagering. Want in?”

Harry snorted at his eldest’s fair impression of a Knockturn Quidditch bookie. Draco, meanwhile, sprawled on one of the sofas with Lily asleep on his chest, steadfastly avoided Harry's questioning gaze. 

“What are we gambling with?” he asked when Draco remained mute.

“Allowance!”

“You don't get an allowance.”

“But we do now!” Albus spoke for the first time from his spot on the floor by Draco's sofa. “We have chores.” Harry blinked at him for several seconds.

“Alright…” He'd see how long chores lasted. “What are we betting on, exactly?” 

“Teddy's Hogwarts House,” James said with undue glee.

Harry eyed the blackboard that had not existed previously, then he squinted at a guilty looking Draco, suddenly understanding why the man was laying prone and peaky at 5 o’clock in the evening. Instead of scolding the wizard for his idiotic use of magic, Harry turned back to James.

“That's a lot of bets.” 

“Yup! It's all the Weasleys and Aunt Andromeda, too. So, are you in? One sickle.” 

“What the hell, why not? Put me down for Hufflepuff.” 

“Hufflepuff! Ugh. Fine.” 

Draco snorted from his sofa and Harry rolled his eyes as he strode over to confer with the wizard encouraging his children in illegal activities while also performing magical tasks he’d been expressly forbidden from performing.

“What the hell, Draco?” He wasn't even upset, really. It was actually nice to come home to a happy crew, whatever they were getting up to, but he should at least act fatherly, right?

“He’s been having trouble with percentages and probabilities.” Draco shrugged his shoulders awkwardly. “We're doing the Corkney Quidditch tourney next. Work on some statistics.” He waggled his eyebrows at Harry.

“And the chores?” He ignored the burdensome pit in his gut that any expression from the wizard seemed to cause.

“Lazy knobs, the lot of them.” A signature, careless wave of one hand.

“Pfft.” Harry chortled, shook his head at the blonde man. Ridiculous.

“This house is full-up, Harry, and James is almost Hogwarts age. Don't want any of them to turn out like me, now do we?” Draco raised his brows emphatically.

Harry considered him, upside down as he stood at the head of the sofa. Laying there, paler the usual, but still handsome, with that wicked gleam in his eyes and Harry's sleeping daughter curled up on him, Draco was actually a treat. And that was before helping with their studies and managing their various behaviors. 

“You're not so bad,” he admitted, and grinned when Draco turned pink. Still couldn't take an honest compliment, the knob.

“I don't think that's right, though.” Scorpius’ voice reached Harry's ears, and he looked around, unable to locate him in the room. His pulse leapt when the boy stood rather abruptly from a pile of blankets and pillows stacked in the far corner. A nest of sorts, he supposed. 

It had taken Harry some time to adjust to the boy’s penchant for burrowing, but not nearly as long as it was taking him to adjust to the way Scorpius had pulled Albus into his interest in runes. Both boys seemed to approach them as a puzzle, much as Albus had approached reading when he started at the ripe age of three, and now they were continually shocking their tutor, impressing Hermione, and unnerving Harry, with their translations. Draco, of course, took it in stride with a half-hearted shrug and a self-satisfied smirk whenever the two got up to solving a new puzzle from the little book Astoria had made during her bedridden time.  

“Doesn't this combination mean ‘monetary wealth’?”

“Aunt Hermione said that it could, but that the greater context indicates the ritual is actually about the passage of time, and therefore that part should be interpreted as gaining time.” Albus scratched his head and looked at his friend. “I suppose she must be correct, because she's brilliant, but I’ve been thinking about the possibility that it actually means health.”

“Health makes sense. Maybe it's both time and health? A longer life?” 

“Oh! You think? That could be why Algiz is before Eihwas here! Protection from death?” 

Harry's stomach plunged as he turned his gaze back to the unbothered, prone wizard on his sofa. Sometimes he forgot, despite working daily to find the curse-caster, even when presented with the symptoms of his curse, that Draco was in the slow process of dying. Each time he remembered it seemed to be heavier, more painful.

Still, he looked alright today, missing even those under-eye bruises he had carried before as he winked up at him. Harry reached out and flicked one blonde strand of hair. 

“Do you need anything?”

“I’m just fine, Harry. Pretty great, actually.”

…

October 2010

“No. Sit your backside down and finish that essay.”

Harry paused on his way past the sitting room at Draco's uncharacteristically stern tone of voice just as James raised his in something far too similar to a wailing whine for Harry's liking.

“Why do I have to do this now? It's Saturday! I want to do something fun, something that makes me happy. This does not.”

“Too much joy is hazardous to your mental acuity, James.” Draco's dry drawl slithered out into the hall like a sand snake, and Harry bit back a snort. “Too much fun and you’ll end up a village idiot.” A chorus of giggles. 

“Like Uncle Ron?”

“Poor man. Yes. He doesn't even have a whole village to himself, you know? Thank Merlin for Aunt Hermione.” More giggles. “Now, focus. I want to hear only whining and complaining for at least the next hour, and then you may seek joy for balance.” 

Harry leaned against the wall of the hallway as Draco strolled out with his eyes appealing the ceiling for patience. 

“I can't believe that worked,” he whispered to the blonde.

“Let's hold off on any congratulations, Potter-”

“This is so stupid. I am completely miserable! This should be worth twice the happiness!” James half-shouted from the room. He didn't actually sound miserable.

“Stop whining and just hurry up and finish,” Albus ordered. 

“He'd be disappointed if I didn't give at least one good grumble, though.”

“That's probably true,” Scorpius offered. 

Harry’s whole body shook with his silent laughter as Draco nodded in hidden agreement with James and Scorpius. He shrugged his purple-clad shoulders in a self-satisfied way and winked at Harry. 

“I'm off to work, Halloween rush and all. Oh, Lily is hiding in the larder to surprise you, but I left a low-hanging box of that muggle cereal, the ‘healthy one' that’s only one third sugar and yet manages to taste like twigs.” He waved his purple top hat in farewell as he made for the floo. 

Harry tilted his head to watch the man stroll away, a grin stuck on his mouth. Draco Malfoy may very well be the best thing that had ever happened to No. 12 Grimmauld Place. 

…

“Did you overindulge, my dear?” Draco asked the drawn, groaning girl in his arms with a hefty dose of sympathy. He carried her from the back gardens where he had found her hiding behind the shed with a mostly empty plate of stolen, frosting-coated biscuits, and slid into the Burrow's crowded, overheated kitchen. The Dutch door clanged loudly in a sudden gust of wind and Harry and Molly jumped towards them in a mix of surprise and relief.

“I had too much joy, Papa Draco,” Lily whined, eyes squeezed shut and hands clutching her stomach. The three adults stilled and stared at her, Draco's face heating even as his eyes burned. Salazar, what was the matter with him? He cleared his throat, feeling two pairs of eyes on him. 

“By too much joy, do you mean the biscuits were so delicious that you couldn't stop yourself?” She nodded and he sighed. “Too much joy is dangerous, isn't it? I wager Grandma has something to settle your belly.”

“I certainly do. Come to me, dear.”

Draco passed the bundle of freckled, ginger hair to the matron with a half-smile, watched her tow the girl from the kitchen towards the back hall. 

“Papa Draco? How bloody adorable,” Harry muttered, almost to himself. Draco said nothing; his face probably said it all for him anyway. He was positively flattered, warmed from within, about to cry. “Christ, look at you.” Harry wrapped an arm around Draco's shoulders and shook him a little, his own face a bit flushed but his grin unrestrained. “You're such a softie.”

“I… suppose I am.” He stole a glimpse at Harry's happy, scruffy, beat-up face from the corner of his eye and sighed at the adolescent-like squirm in his gut. “Can't be helped, I suppose. Did you just arrive?”

“Yeah, just as you carried the princess in.” Harry smirked at him, a crooked quirk of his mouth that made him seem too flirtatious for Draco's peace of mind, and Draco grunted. Sometimes he was caught off-guard by that smirk, despite his best efforts. 

“How was trick-or-treat?” Harry pulled Draco through the heat into the slightly less-sweltering sitting room. 

“Trick-or-treat was…” Draco trailed off, thinking.

Trick-or-treat had been exhausting. He had witnessed the primarily muggle event before, when they had lived in the grungy, rundown studio in what Granger had informed him was one of the poorest and most dangerous areas of London. The first two years he had been alarmed, though by year three he had caught on to the premise, had even worn his old school hat and passed out ‘sweet treats’ candies to a variety of oddly dressed children. 

This year, Draco, the Granger-Weasleys, and Ginny had taken the kids around Grimmauld's square and the surrounding streets. Insanity. Fatiguing. His entire body hurt. He couldn’t say that, though. Instead, he said, “Lily made a very adorable bumblebee to Rose's rose. They were a very big hit with the women.” Draco was not exaggerating; the girls had even posed for two muggle photographs -masks on- for an old woman on Harrington Road. “The boys were a disaster of a dragon. After the ninth, or maybe tenth, domino-effect tumble to the ground, Red modified their costumes to be dragon steaks.” Gruesome, but safer overall. 

“God, I'm sorry I missed it. Happens every year, I get called in at the last minute.” 

“Well, that's what you get when you stupidly excel at your job, Potter.” Draco waved to Victoire when she called hello, lifted Louis onto his hip at the boy's raised arms. “They didn't call Weasley in, you know.” 

“That's right!” Ron added with a grin. “Mediocrity, mate. I got to see Count Draco-la in person.”

Draco groaned. While the Granger-Weasley couple had elected to be farmers, in overalls and straw hats, Draco had decided to go as something he was often accused of being anyway- a vampire. And now he would forever be reminded of it. 

“He looked almost the same,” Ginny pointed out, scoffing at him from her spot across the room.

“Bloody hot. Literally,” Charlie interjected quietly from directly behind Draco. He felt Harry stiffen next to him and rolled his eyes. Despite several previous incidents, many of the Weasleys still popped up immediately behind the Auror with a shocking absence of self-preservation. Draco turned to shoot the dragon Weasley a disapproving look, swinging a squealing Louis as he did. 

“We could have used you, you know. The boys made a dreadfully unruly Hebridean Black.” 

“They made decent steaks, though!” Draco snorted at that. The steaks had been a hit with a very specific crowd, basically Charlie and two muggle blokes who'd gotten fondly exasperated looks from their partners. 

Bumping his shoulder into the now surly-looking Auror, Draco leaned in to confide, “Hugo was more of a rump cut, if I'm honest.” 

“What a shambles.” But Harry was smiling again, a miracle considering the date, his last-minute call out, his disheveled appearance and the scabbed cut he had over one eyebrow, which Draco thumbed gently. 

“Have Granger put something on that. Wouldn't want a scar to compete with The Scar.” 

“God, you're awful,” Harry chortled as he sidled through the crowded room towards Granger and her ever present bag of tricks. 

“He seems surprisingly happy for a bloke who's been publicly humiliated and divorced,” Charlie said offhand, and not quietly enough in Draco’s opinion. He shot the overly familiar, overly-large wizard a quelling look this time.

“Merlin forbid he be relieved after escaping that situation.” 

When Charlie opened his mouth- likely to defend his sister, because he was a big, loyal idiot who had no idea how awful she'd been to him- Draco hardened his expression further. He wasn't sure what had given him away, though he had his suspicions since Charlie had mentioned Theodore during that first Quidditch gathering months ago, but Charlie was becoming persistent in his pursuit. Draco was decidedly not interested in Dragon Weasley. He was more of an idiot than Ronald, heedless of the impact of words, too careless and self-focused. Too big, too brash, too clueless, though he at least shut up under Draco’s expression.

“What idiotic thing did Charlie say this time?” Harry's question drew both their attention to him and his cut-free forehead. Better.

“How do you expect me to keep track of such things?” Harry grinned while Charlie shrugged, unoffended and put off not at all, since his eyes were heavy on Draco once more. He heaved an internal sigh. “Louis, didn't you tell me Uncle Charlie gave dragon rides?” 

“You're ruthless.” Harry sounded impressed as he watched Charlie grimace at Draco before dropping to all fours with a toddler on his back. 

“Well, someone has to be, or he'll never learn,” he replied archly, gaze roaming the loud, exuberant crowd gathered in the tight sitting room, his back pressed comfortably against the wall next to the kitchen opening now. Harry leaned with him, the two of them watching Scorpius and Albus play Gobstones, a recovered Lily munching on a carrot, James and Victoire writing a letter to Teddy. 

“Oh, that reminds me!” Draco dug into his pocket and pulled a small sack of silver which he placed into Harry's palm. “Finally, our winnings. Dodgy lot, this. Took ages to collect. Cheers to Hufflepuff!”

Harry chuckled, and Draco beamed out at the gathered Weasleys, none of whom had bet Teddy would sort into his mother's house, the maroon-blinded loons, leaving Harry and Draco to split the winnings. 

…

November 2010

Harry rested his tired backside on Hermione's blanket as the two of them watched the first annual Weasley football tourney in between bouts of conferring about the case notes pertaining to Draco's curse. Honestly, he was jealous as he watched the kids stumbling and charging and making wild kicks at a black and white ball as Draco and Gin played referee, and Ron and Bill played referee enforcers. Grumpy.

“You'll be good as new in a few days Harry,” Hermione reminded him sympathetically. 

“I know, I know,” he grumbled, staring at the packet of endless scrawled notes that had led to nothing helpful. He just wanted to play with the kids, to move about a let off some of the tension that had started embedding itself in his spine. Leave it to him to get injured on his last day at work before his mini holiday. He could walk on his cursed leg, for short distances, which was better than being bedridden, at least. Being truly incapacitated would have driven him mad.

He looked up again just in time to see Draco bend at the waist, hands on his knees in deep concentration as he watched James charging across the chalked field towards Teddy in goal. He couldn't decide if he wanted to watch his son or Draco more, and groaned at himself, smacked his hand over his face, jamming his glasses into the bridge of his nose. 

Hermione snorted next to him. “What is the matter?”

“I'm just antsy,” he mumbled, feeling evasive even if it was the truth. He was antsy, frustrated, and constantly watching his roommate, who could bloody care less about Harry, at least romantically. He was a fantastic roommate, and a great friend, and he was bloody dying and here Harry was staring at his arse-

The field erupted in screams and Draco raised both his fists in the air as he cheered for James, who had actually managed to score. James, Mr. I'm Too Cool for Everything, who ran to Draco for a high-five, and some sort of congratulatory foot bump. Harry snorted.

“Where did he even learn how to play football?” Hermione asked suddenly. 

“He collected rubbish at Brisbane Road, saw enough games and practices to pick it up, I guess. Then he was a dishwasher at some restaurant that used to have a telly in the back, so he saw a few games there.” 

There'd also been the sports pub, Harry remembered belatedly. The man had done almost every form of menial labor one could without proper documentation. He knew how to lay a brick sidewalk, how to trim apple trees, had maintained public toilets, cleaned windows, etc. And he apparently knew how to referee a messy game of youth football. With a sigh, he turned back to his sheaf of parchment. 

“We've followed every lead, Hermione. We don't have any suspects left,” Harry admitted. They’d started at the only reasonable place, the senior Greengrasses, and moved on from there, to no avail. Draco and his family truly had isolated themselves from the wizarding world, for their own safety. It left the unwanted likelihood that Draco had been cursed during a quick, random sighting in muggle London, which could potentially explain the disastrous structure of the curse itself, but also meant they had no way of locating the caster.

“I can't help but think we're missing something obvious,” Hermione spoke her own reluctant truth, interrupting his too often traverse trail of thought. Missing the obvious was one of her least favorite activities. “Incoming.”

Harry stuffed his paperwork into his folder and then into his bag, Hermione doing the same next to him, as Scorpius approached their blanket. He knew about the curse, though not to the full extent, but neither of them wanted to upset him further by showing him more than necessary.

“What happened, Scorp?” Harry reached for the boy, who wasn't crying, yet. 

“I fell and it hurts, but I don't want Papa to know,” Scorpius whispered, his lip trembling and his chin all puckered. 

Harry pulled him down onto his lap. “Let's see, which leg?” He rolled Scorpius' right pant leg up to reveal a good bit of raw skin, not quite bleeding. “Oof. It's a good thing Hermione is here; she'll fix that good as new.” Harry wrapped his arms around Scorpius, who had a tendency to seek cuddles and enclosed spaces when upset, and they watched Hermione wave her wand twice. The first, a cleaning charm he had to assume, made the boy hiss, and the second made him gasp. 

“All gone,” Hermione said brightly, pulling a mini sucker from her bag, sugar-free no doubt. “Would you like one?” 

“No, thank you,” Scorpius shook his head and turned to curl into Harry's chest. Harry smiled and tried to further cocoon him in his overcoat as Hermione watched concerned. None of Harry's children had ever turned down sweets. 

“He doesn't like red candies,” Harry explained. He didn't really understand what about them bothered Scorpius, but the last time he'd made himself try one, he'd nearly lost his lunch. Fake cherry flavored anything, really, made Scorpius cringe. Maybe it was an association thing- all red candies tasted like fake cherry? He was perhaps the cleverest seven-year-old Harry had ever encountered, and full of personality nuances that Harry spent quite a bit of time trying to understand.

Hermione smiled as she slid the sucker back into her bag and pulled out a purple one. “How about grape-flavored?”

“Yes, please!” Scorpius’ head popped up from the confines of Harry's jacket making the adults chuckle. “Thank you!” He ducked back inside his burrow, and Harry smiled down at him. This kid, honestly. Hermione made a choked noise drawing Harry’s attention. He followed her gaze to Draco, who was watching them with an odd expression on his face, too far away for Harry to get a good read. 

“I think he's grateful to you, Harry. For stuff like this.” Hermione gestured to Harry's jacket and the bundled kid within, her eyes bright. 

Harry scoffed, “I'm the grateful one. I've never been so happy, honestly.”

It was a bewildering thought. Even in the beginnings of his marriage, he hadn't felt so… settled. The only things holding him back from what he believed was full actualization were the sheer amount of work he was trying to do and the fact that they had made zero progress on Draco's case. Hermione was becoming almost fatalistic in her predictions to Harry, even though Draco seemed to be carrying on about the same as he had for the last couple months. Harry had to trust her though. She was the expert, had seen dozens of curse victims progress. She would know if Draco was deteriorating, and that was… painful. There was also that part of Harry that wanted Draco in totality, which he hadn't quite figured out. But the rest of it was wonderful. Scorpius was wonderful. Harry chuckled when a blonde head popped out of his jacket again. 

“Feeling better?” he asked, taking the empty stick from him as he scrambled up from Harry's lap. 

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Harry smiled at him, and Scorpius smiled back before he scampered away to play, waving at his slightly confused-looking father as he ran by. “Adorable, really.”

Hermione hummed agreement. 

Chapter Text

December 2010

Harry slammed through his own front door, muttering an apology to the house for his violence and trusting it to close up shop as he bolted past the dining room and kitchen stairs. 

“In his room!”

Andromeda's shout chased him up two flights of stairs and down the Axminster that lined the hall in which Draco's door stood shut. He didn't knock, but tried not to slam it open with quite as much force as the front door had taken. 

“Stand quietly, Harry,” Hermione ordered absently, her back to the door, not even turning from where she stood by a horizontal Draco Malfoy.

He hovered on the threshold, mostly because he didn't know what else to do but stare in horror at a fully arched body and a pale, bluish face. He bit back his alarm when Draco's limbs began a wild, jerking, uncoordinated dance, and closed the door behind him. God, what if the kids saw this?

There was a tempus in the air near Hermione, the last digit changing quickly, ticking up through seconds into minutes as they stood, until it finally stopped at 01:34:45. Hermione breathed deeply once Draco's body had collapsed back onto the bed, and dictated to a small, dull quill on her other side that Harry hadn't even noticed.

“Shorter than the last one, at least,” she told the unconscious Draco as she recovered him with the sheet he'd nearly kicked off. “You may approach, Harry. If he starts up again, you'll need to move out of the way.” 

The last one? Again? Why was he still blue? Why hadn't she stopped whatever that was? How many times had that happened? Was he okay? Was this the curse? Was he dying already?

“What happened?” he asked instead, watching as she trailed her wand slowly over Draco's body, over and over, tracing each too thin limb, traveling the top sharp planes of his face, coursing over his bare chest. 

“There was an incident at the shop. Someone recognized him, and George didn't get there in time. Draco defended himself, protected a handful of customers. The draw on his magic was enormous.” She paused as Draco groaned, flinched, settled. They both relaxed after a few more seconds of continued stillness. “He passed out almost immediately, the Gringotts Auror arrested the attacker, and George tried to take Draco to St. Mungo's.”

Harry growled at that. 

“Yes, he knows he made a mistake and trust me, he feels wretched about it. He's probably still crying. He sent for me when they turned them out and brought him here, where I met them at the door.” 

“So, what's happening now? What does this mean for him, the curse and all?”

“I don't know yet, Harry,” she spoke sternly. “He's not even stable enough for me to perform the necessary tests. At present, he needs to go at least ten minutes without another seizure. If that occurs, we'll move to the next step.” 

Harry swallowed his own rising panic. Snapping and demanding answers wouldn’t get him answers; it would likely get him tossed bodily from his own house. He waited silently as she continued her work, the lack of sound adding layers of tension to his muscles he couldn’t seem to shake.

They both jumped when Draco gasped, eyes flying open as he panted. He wasn't blue anymore, thanks to whatever Hermione had been doing with her wand, but he looked terrified, confused. 

“Draco, you’re safe,” Hermione said immediately, and grey eyes shifted to her. “You are in your own bed at Grimmauld Place. All the kids are fine and have no idea what's happening. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Harry-”

“Here.” Harry stepped forward until his shins banged the side rail of the bed. “Scared the fucking hell out of me, though. Daft git.”

“Harry!” Hermione hissed, but Draco smiled, his body less tense and his expression less frightened. Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Wizard.” Harry frowned but Hermione nodded. “No choice. Kids...” He'd been attacked and had protected the kids. Draco’s face was slack, his eyelids fluttered. “Er- George crying… yelling. Mungo's…” 

“What's wrong with him?” Harry whispered as Draco's eyes slid shut and stay shut, his lips parted. 

“He's tired from the exertion, and that might be all he remembers. It's expected after seizures like that.” Harry nodded and they waited as Hermione's new tempus, now seeming to drag on very slowly, ticked along the minutes. 

At ten minutes, she hummed her approval. At twelve, she dictated a series of numbers to her quill. At fifteen minutes she nodded to the sleeping wizard.

At twenty, she ordered him away, to the desk chair if he wouldn't leave the room, and began casting complex spells Harry was unfamiliar with. Draco's whole body glowed as the effect of one, like a Portkey under activation. Another revealed progressively smaller networks of black and white string winding throughout his form, the areas in which a bright red showed received further attention from the healer.

Harry had to look away when she projected an image of his magical core. He knew what it was supposed to look like, a golden sphere of crackling electricity, the opaquer the better. 

“That looks not good,” he stated quietly, eyes on the distant wall and its series of colorful drawings the kids must have made for Draco, a few moving photos, too small for Harry to make out from this distance. During Ginny's tenure, it had been mostly loaded with paper clippings and pictures of her teammates. 

“That's because its bad,” Hermione confirmed with a sigh. “He’s going to be so disappointed come Christmas. He was really looking forward to The Burrow, but I'm not sure he'll be able to get there.” At last, she stepped away from the bed and moved to lean on the desk next to Harry. “His core is almost depleted. He’s been saying he hasn't been using magic, and I suppose it's possible even the passive magics have had an impact, though I can't for the life of me understand how. Either that, or whatever spells he used today were more draining due to his poor physical condition.” 

“What do you mean by that?” His poor physical condition.

“He hasn't been sleeping for months. His body is exhausted, so it's possible today's spells depleted him.”

“What? He seemed alright, though. He hasn't even had those under-eye…” Harry trailed off as Hermione studied him. “God, he's been glamouring himself, Hermione. Check his wand.” 

She hesitated, so he marched over and snatched the offending stick from the bedside table. He didn't even need to check, though. Looking at him now, Harry could see it- weight loss, hollow cheeks, those eyes bruises, even his hair-

“’Mione, his hair. Is it white?”

“Yes, I did notice that. I wasn't sure if it was a manifestation of today’s magical draining or not.” She sounded rather like she knew it wasn't. 

Grinding his teeth, he performed the Priori Incantatem and they watched the fired Expelliarmus, a translucent rapid expanse of a protego maxima, then the little flutters of several small sticking charms- 

“Christmas decorations. Shit, I didn't realize…” Harry hadn't even considered Draco would use magic when decorating with the kids. He should have made sure…

The glamours emerged, the first, the most recently cast, was long-lasting and potent enough to make Hermione growl. More followed, decreasing in strength the further back they went. He stopped after a handful emerged, far enough to know without digging further into the man's privacy, that he’d been foolish. God, how had he managed to cast those glamours and still function?

“Steep price to pay for vanity,” Hermione said after a while. 

“It's not vanity, ‘Mione. He did it for the kids.” Harry thought about that afternoon he'd come home to find Draco prone with Lily sleeping on him. He'd reached out and touched his still blonde hair, squinted at him as if looking for signs of illness. He was always doing that to him, studying him closely for more reasons than one. “Probably for me, too.” 

“Goodness, he's something isn't he?” She snorted derisively as she pushed from the desk towards Draco. “He knows just what we want to see, and just how to sneak it by. I've been wondering how he looked so damn good for someone whose blood tests keep coming back more appropriate for someone, well, someone who looks like that.” She jabbed her index finger angrily at the man, who tsked at her in return. 

“Rude, Granger.” 

“Oh, Draco. You're lucky you're incapacitated right now, or I’d have words for you.” She stomped a foot for emphasis. “I'm going to have some dinner and warn the children about your sudden change in appearance and then I'll be back!” She slammed from the room in a fit of pique that left Harry at a loss. 

“You've managed to revert Hermione to a level of immaturity I haven't seen in a decade, Draco.” Harry walked over to him, placed Draco's wand back onto the bedside table. 

“One of my many talents, I assure you.”

Harry sank onto the edge of the bed and pushed his back against the headboard to frown down at this sarcastic, ridiculous, attractive, terrible wizard who had wormed his way into their hearts. He didn't even know what to say. He wanted to scold him, but he looked exhausted; he wanted to make him promise to take better care, but he was being too difficult already; he wanted to tell him that he liked him, really liked him, but how could he possibly do that now, like this? 

“Do you, perchance, know how I came to be in the bare scud?” Draco asked lightly, lifting his sheet briefly with a frown. 

Perhaps it was relief, or insanity, but Harry was laughing before he realized it, with a self-satisfied Draco watching him. “God, you’re just… you're the worst.” 

“Mhm,” he agreed. “Help me into some clothing before one of the sprogs bursts in here, would you?” 

Harry agreed, clambering back up to find a pair of loose-fitting pajama bottoms, something he still marveled over him even owning, and pants. He tried not to think about any of this too closely, because he was not a randy, immature teenager, but it was difficult considering his likeness to a randy, immature teenager ever since Draco Malfoy had moved in looking bloody fantastic and being the ideal parental figure for his children. A bloody menace. 

As he moved to help the grimacing wizard, Draco ruined his collected calm entirely by reminding him, “I'm not at my best, so try not to look too closely and reserve your judgement.” 

Harry snorted even as his face began to melt off. “Jesus, Draco.” He knew what the man was doing, skating over the seriousness of his situation by infusing it with humor, but still. 

“You're very embarrassed.” His tone was heavily teasing. “Is it because you've pictured me naked before or because you've never seen a naked bloke?” 

“Definitely not the latter, after six years in a dormitory and ten years in ranks,” he drawled. He slid the under pants and bottoms onto his feet before he moved the sheet and helped him to stand and pull the articles up. He really had lost weight, his muscles and bones were overly defined beneath his skin, but he was still fit enough that he could be mistaken for unusually slim rather than dying.

Draco collapsed back onto the mattress, shirtless but clearly too worn out to bother with it and shifted slowly until Harry could sit next to him again. 

“Is that really true?” he asked after his breathing had returned to normal.

“What?”

“About picturing me naked.”

Jesus, really? Harry's face heated all over again, sweat gathering in his embarrassment. “Vain, aren't you?” 

“Well, yes. So?”

“Does it make you uncomfortable?” Harry chewed at the corner of his lip. He imagined, between the two of them, Harry existed at a higher level of discomfort about every aspect of relationships and sex than did Draco Malfoy. The man oozed confidence, and occasionally sensuality, which was part of his appeal with the mums of Wheezes, Harry knew. 

“Salazar, Harry.” Draco looked pained. “All the bloody missed opportunities.” 

The reluctant snort of amusement snuck up on Harry, surprising him into a second round of laughter, which a sleepy-looking Draco appreciated if the crooked grin on his face was any indication. 

“You couldn't have said something a few months ago, while I still had full function of all my systems, huh?” 

Harry hummed, partly sympathetic, partly worried, but mostly wanting to stay in this weird, giddy space. “I noticed your showers were shorter lately.”

“Oof!” Draco's brows furrowed over his shut eyes, then lifted. “You pay close attention to my bathing habits, which would be creepy if I didn't know for a fact that your showers are definitely longer than they need to be.” 

“My showers are sacred, Malfoy!” Harry's showers were usually the only moments of peace he got in a day. They were also where he did his wanking. 

“Oh, I know. I had a front row seat the last time James played a prank on you.”

“Scared you right down a flight of stairs,” Harry said, wincing. He still felt bad about flying out of the bathroom in his towel shouting at his progeny. 

Draco scoffed softly, his eyes still shut. “Clueless. I wasn't scared, Potter. I was merely… distracted. You were naked and dripping. Honestly.”

Harry stared at the half-asleep wizard, who he knew was gay, had known since his divorce negotiations, and yet hadn't once imagined might actually be interested in him.

“Wow. Every time I think I've developed sufficient awareness…” 

Draco peeled one eye open as he trembled in hidden laughter. “Don’t worry, Harry. Up until about ten minutes ago, I was one of the undoubtedly entire population who believed you to be impossibly straight.”

“Even with…” how much I stare at you? All the times I've touched you? He sighed. “Well, I don't believe I can think the things I do and be categorized as straight, Draco.” 

“Unbelievable. I have… about three hundred and eighty-seven questions that I will have to save for after a nap.” 

“I may or may not answer them.” Harry, back pressed against the headboard and one leg stretched out along the length of the bed, reached out and touched a chunk of fine, white hair, a smile on his face and an ache in his chest.

….

“Scorp, is that you?”

Harry scrubbed his face in a vigorous bid to wake himself up enough to understand what was happening. Draco lay next him, glowing in his paleness, and Scorp stood on Harry’s other side, nearly as luminescent. God, he must be terrified. Harry scooted up until he half sat propped by pillows and headboard, and motioned for the boy to climb up. 

“Is he…?” The boy’s voice was shaky, almost to quiet, as he moved closer to the bed.

If he expected Scorpius to climb over him to reach his father, he'd been mistaken. The boy curled himself into Harry, legs tucked up and arms curled against his chest, almost a ball tucked into Harry's torso. He wrapped his arms around him and sighed into his tousled blond hair.

“He's just really, really tired. He'll have to spend a few days in bed, and then probably a couple weeks taking it easy.” Hermione, and then Harry, had explained all this to the kids while Draco had slept the afternoon and evening away, but even Harry needed to keep reminding himself that Draco was asleep, not dead. Which was precisely why he was here and not in his own room.

“His hair is white.”

“It is.”

“Mama's hair turned white, too.” Ah. Harry squeezed Scorpius tighter, once more at a loss regarding this very intelligent, gentle, terrified boy.

“You must be scared. I'm a bit scared, too, which is why I'm sleeping here. Would you like to stay?”

Harry and Scorpius scooted down, and he waited for the boy to settle in his chosen spot - wedged against Harry's side as seven-year-olds were wont to do- before he pulled the blanket over them both. 

They had a lot of explaining, comforting, and preparing to do. The kids, their close friends, their extended family would all need to be informed, and likely managed. Draco couldn't really hide the severity of his illness anymore. They weren't making any progress on finding the caster. It was time to come clean, face the wave of hurt and pity that was likely to swamp them.

…

“It's this or I can levitate you,” Harry pointed out. “Or we can just stay here.”

Draco sighed and gave up on negotiating with the grumpy man. He supposed he should be grateful they were allowing him to accompany them on their pre-dinner Christmas Eve outing at all, being half-carried through the house to the front stoop for apparition really wasn't that bad. 

It had been a rough couple of weeks, filled with children's confused tears, some rather hurt-filled looks from the adults with whom Draco had grown close to over the months, and a sullen, heavy silence from Hermione and Harry both. Draco stole a glimpse at Harry, still grumpy, and sighed again. 

He'd woken the day after his unfortunate experience in Wheezes fully exposed as the frail, white-haired, dying man that he'd been hiding from them all, to find Harry and Scorpius cuddled in sleep next to him. He’d had precious few moments like that; moments in which he suddenly saw a life he could have lived if things had been just a bit different. A life Draco didn't deserve but desperately wanted, impossible as it was. Studying the perpetual discontentment on his companion’s scruffy, handsome face, Draco ached for that life.

When Draco's breath hitched, Harry stopped their progress towards the front door. “What's wrong? Too much?” 

“No, no. I was just thinking about something,” Draco assured him, clearing the hoarseness from his throat quickly. Draco received one of Harry’s pressing, suspicious looks and presented a half-smile in response. “I promise to be on my best behavior.” 

Harry scoffed but pulled him out onto the stoop in their coats and with a stupid excess of blankets packed in an extendible bag. He wrapped Draco in his arms and twisted them into the nearby park, hands firm and steadying when they landed. Draco groaned weakly as he settled onto a bench and was buried beneath the aforementioned blankets, still a recipient of Harry’s quiet disapproval.

“Is this a magical park?” he asked, instead of admitting to the body-wide ache apparition had wrought.

“It is. Well, it's both technically. There's a magical section for the kids that muggles can't see or get into, which is where we are. That path there,” Harry pointed to a bricked walk about three yards away to their right. “That's where the muggle part begins.” 

Harry fell silent again as he plonked himself down onto the bench next to Draco and crossed his arms. 

“Are you going to be angry with me forever?” 

“Yes.”

Draco snorted. Git. He let his eyes roam over the park, both sides quite busy despite the cold. He grinned suddenly, when a man in tight muggle exercise gear, a knit cap and gloves jogged by on the brick walk. 

“Before we had Scorpius, Tori and I used to walk to a park that had a cart that sold soft pretzels and these fruity carbonated beverages,” he told the recalcitrant man next to him. “We’d sit on a bench and watch people walk on their lunch breaks. One day, Tori said to me, ‘if I had been born a muggle, I would have married someone who looked like that.’” Draco chuckled at the memory of it, of Tori in all her brutal honesty.

“Ouch. She sounds ruthless.” 

Draco nodded, still grinning. “She could be, yes. But for us, at that point… it was the real beginning of our friendship. She opened the door to a level of honesty we hadn't had before. When I saw the person she had pointed out…” Draco looked at Harry and shrugged. “I don't even remember what he looked like besides not like me, but I remember thinking he was attractive. So, I told her so.”

He could feel Harry staring at him long after he looked out towards the parks’ inhabitants again, a smile still playing on his lips. God, he hadn't thought about those day dates in ages. 

“How did she take that?”

“Exceptionally well. It became one of our favorite past-times, sitting with those disgustingly sweet beverages, and every time someone would pass, male or female, but mostly male, we'd look at each other, eyebrows raised, and sip if we found them attractive.” 

“Sounds like something Gin and I would have done before things fell apart for us.” 

“Tori would have had a blast playing with you,” Draco admitted. “She occasionally felt a pull towards a passing female, and she'd try to bully me into agreeing with her.” Harry tsked, but he was smiling now, too. 

“So, what's your type then?” 

Draco laughed at that. Harry bloody Potter was his type, but he played along, eyes roving the park. He smirked when a man about the same ridiculous size as Charlie Weasley but with blond hair walked by with a thin woman in a parka on his arm. 

“No! Really?”

“Pfft. Goodness, no. I just wanted to see your reaction.” Draco chortled when Harry bumped into his shoulder. “You look, too. I'm curious to see what you're into besides thin, over-energized ginger women.” He got another shoulder bump for that and bit his lip to hold back his grin. 

“God, this is more nerve-wracking than I thought it would be,” Harry said after a minute. “Every time I see someone, I instantly second guess myself.”

“Hm. This isn't a personality contest, Harry. This is purely based on looks. Be shallow for once.” 

Harry huffed. “Fine, fine. That bloke's… cute?” Draco chose not to tease him as he sought out ‘that bloke'. 

Draco snorted hard enough that his head pounded. “Harry, I believe that is a lesbian.” 

“Really? How do you know?” 

“Because she has the lesbian pride flag pinned to her knapsack. The stripes of pinks, white, and oranges.”

“How do you know that?”

“I was a commis waiter for a queer pub for a while, just after Scorp was born.” It had lasted a few months before he had reached the threshold at which they couldn't pay him without the appropriate paperwork, and he'd been forced to find new employment. 

“Wow. Well, she's cute, then.” He shrugged, looking embarrassed, but Draco only smiled at him. 

“I feel like being shallow doesn't come as naturally to you as it does to me,” Draco observed. Thinking on it, he’d never caught Harry eyeing anyone in the months since they had become friends, and definitely not since his divorce.

“I mean, I can find attractive people if I'm not actively looking for them, if that makes sense. I recognize it when people are good-looking, it just doesn’t necessarily mean I find them personally attractive?” He was steadfastly avoiding looking at Draco now, legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Like, that person is good looking.”

“Yes, she most definitely is good looking,” Draco said. “But are you attracted to her? Would you be up for casual sex, for example?”

“Erm… no, not really.” Harry scratched beneath the collar of his field jacket before returning his hand to his pocket. “I've never had casual sex, if I'm honest. I've never wanted to sleep with someone I didn't really know already.”

“There’s a label for that, too, though I can't for the life of me remember it right now. Oh, them. If I had any libido whatsoever, I might be interested in that bloke.” 

“Huh. He looks familiar for some reason.” Harry frowned at the dark-haired, strong-jawed, tan muggle walking by in denims and a peacoat. 

“Does he?” Draco drawled, eyeing the man's broad shoulders and fit silhouette. Clueless bastard. 

It became apparent to Draco very quickly that Harry Potter didn't immediately pick up on gender unless it was obviously expressed. By the time the rest of their enormous party ambled into the park, he realized Potter recognized traditional beauty standards, had his own standards of beauty that he appreciated -defined bone structure, slim to athletic build, straight hair- but didn't necessarily connect those with gender if biological sex wasn't extremely obvious. And he denied being attracted to any of them.

“My brain hurts,” Harry announced suddenly. “This was way harder than I thought it would be.” 

“It wasn't meant to be difficult. I'm sorry. I assumed you considered sexuality and gender and physical attractiveness in the same way that I do, which was foolish of me.” 

He couldn't claim to regret playing though; he'd learned a lot about Harry, and that felt like a reward. He reached over and tugged at one of Harry's escaped, over-long tendrils of hair- he'd started pulling it back, Draco suspected simply to avoid a haircut, even though it wasn't quite long enough- to get his attention. He looked uneasy. 

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Harry. People feel things differently, it doesn't make it wrong.” Draco winked and Harry smiled, but his eyes traveled over Draco's face for a long time. “Now you're making me nervous.”

“God, sorry.” He looked up at the sky with a chuckle. “I was just thinking about how stupidly good looking you are with white hair. You should look like an old man, you know, but you bloody don't.” 

Draco held his breath for a moment too long, buried his face in his blanket as he coughed. He had thought, in those off-putting hours after he'd woken up from what Hermione had described as seizures, that Harry had indicated some sort of attraction to him. But that had been so easy to brush off as nonsense. He was Draco Malfoy, ex-Death Eater, ponce, widow, dying. There was no way Harry Potter would… even if he wasn't the arrow-straight wizard the world assumed him to be. 

As he caught his breath, eyes watering slightly, he could feel Harry's warm hand on the back of his neck, and he wanted it. Like he'd wanted that life he'd pictured when he'd woken to Harry and Scorp curled up in sleep next to him.  He looked at the wizard next to him, blanket still pulled over his mouth and groaned. 

“You’re…” he sighed as Harry grinned at him and shrugged. 

“You're the one that said there was nothing wrong with me,” Harry pointed out, getting to his feet. 

“I lied. You're all kinds of messed up if you're looking at me like that, Potter!” 

Harry only shrugged again with that look he'd been giving Draco for months. A look he was only now beginning to understand meant something rather significant. 

“Hermione is coming, likely to assess your well-being in an effort to guilt me into bringing you home since you guilted me into bringing you out.” He twiddled his fingers in a wave as he backed away, then called over his shoulder as he turned, “that one's not so bad.” Draco looked over to the path and widened his eyes at the slim blonde man in a double-breasted overcoat and a pronounced, confident strut. Merlin. 

“That's a face,” Hermione observed with an arched brow that managed to be very judgmental.

“I… am in so much trouble,” he confessed to the bushy-headed genius of a witch who took Harry's empty spot. Both of their gazes moved towards the retreating figure. He felt like crying.

“Yes, I wondered if that might become a problem. Well, not a problem, but…” She grimaced at him.

But… he was dying, they didn't know how to stop it, and Harry Potter had lost quite enough in his life. 

“I only just realized,” he admitted. “About him, I mean. I knew about me for ages.” Harry had been attractive as far back as Hogwarts. He'd always been a good person, a powerful wizard, clever in a practical way. He was also funny, with keen insight and yet such a different way of looking at the world, endlessly devoted to his kids, his family and friends, with little quirks and hidden depths. By Draco's way of thinking, it would have been weird not to fall for Harry once he'd started seeing deeper. He'd been so careful not to let any of it show, though, to toe the line exactly, for so many reasons.

“He's been looking at you a certain way since summer, Draco. He can't hide it as well as you can. It's not your fault; you can't control how other people feel about you.” 

He wished he could. 

….

Draco was laughing, head thrown back and mouth open in full mirth, both hands clutching at his abdomen, even his legs curling up in an almost defensive position against the strength of his amusement.

A pale, freckled hand snapped in front of his eyes and Harry jumped and glared at Ginny. “What?”

“Harry James Potter…” she said slowly, eyes wide as she looked between him and the wizard across the room. “Tell me you aren't, Harry.” 

He ground his teeth together and glared harder. What right did she have to judge him for his feelings, after everything? She tightened the corners of her mouth and propped her hands on her hips. 

“Harry, he's dying… I thought Teddy was exaggerating but you really are in love with Malfoy!” Her voice became steadily quieter in her horror until Malfoy was an almost soundless hiss of air. 

“We're still looking for a solution, Gin. It's not a done deal.” Even as he said the words, he knew she didn't really believe them. Draco himself seemed to have given up all hope at reversing his curse, had asked him to stop looking for a culprit in favor of spending more time at home. Basically, a request impossible for Harry to deny. 

“Oh, Merlin.” She pulled Harry into a quick hug. “Just… if there's something I can do…” 

He nodded, more surprised than anything, his gaze returning to Draco as she walked away. He was frowning in Harry's direction now, so Harry shrugged and made his way over to plop down next to him on the sofa. 

“What the bloody hell was so funny?” Harry asked, squinting suspiciously at Ron, who was sitting on the floor with one leg bent at the knee to serve as an armrest and the other braced behind him. 

“Nothing, mate.” 

“Oh, definitely something,” Draco countered, a smile sprouting again on his slightly flushed face. “Weasley was just telling me about how you found out Dean and Seamus were together.” Harry winced. “You know, months after you barged in on them mid-coitus, but apparently noticed nothing odd?” 

Harry's face was hot, but he took solace in the fact that people couldn't usually tell when his face was on fire if he didn't let his expression waver. Draco, of course, noticed.

“Awww. No, don't be embarrassed. You're incredibly observant in almost every other area but this one, Harry.” Draco patted his shoulder. 

“Patronizing git,” Harry muttered. “You know, you've shown your own lack of observational skills recently, Malfoy.” He quirked a brow at Draco, who looked suddenly a bit nervous. Harry grinned. “Honestly, even Teddy noticed.”

“What?!” Draco managed to appear both offended and disbelieving as Ron scoffed from his seat on the rug. “Are you saying…” he trailed off, eyes flicking back and forth, probably worried about outting Harry, who had honestly never been not out. He'd just been bumbling along clueless and everyone else had followed his lead, because he was apparently an open book to his people. 

“He spent half the football tourney eyeing you b-”

Harry smacked Ron hard across the face with a pillow as Andromeda, sitting quietly in the armchair nearby until now, spluttered into her sherry in her amusement. 

Ron, undeterred by the pillow, was guffawing, gasping as he tried to speak. “D-Day-” Harry grimaced -because it was true Ron had sensed how off Harry was and asked him mere hours before he'd negotiated his and Ginny’s divorce- and Andromeda’s mouth popped open. “I noticed something then.” 

He hid his face in his hands and sank back into the cushions, fully understanding why Scorpius liked a good nest in which to burrow. 

“God,” he groaned. “That's not really fair. I didn't understand what was happening then,” he mumbled. A cool hand curled around his wrist and tugged until Harry gave in. They were all three watching him, Ron with a pitying smile, Andromeda with apprehension, and Draco with guilt. 

“What's that look for?” Harry asked. 

“Merlin, I really had no idea.”

“I know, hence this conversation, Draco. Keep up.” The wizard made a face at him but ultimately smiled. 

There was a perfectly timed explosion of sound from the hall, and Harry would have sighed in relief if the pictures on the walls hadn’t begun rattling. Ron scrambled up from his dangerously prone position on the floor as they all braced themselves.

“Utter chaos,” Draco announced happily, as about a dozen things burst into the sitting room.

Flesh-colored bouncing bludgers ricocheted around the room, two crows swooped among the bludgers, a couple of actual children rode two Abraxan through the double wide casement, ducking their heads, and a speckled tiger cub loped across the rug to leap onto Draco's lap. Harry chose to watch the tiger cub, a suspicious shade of ginger, curl up against her ‘Papa Draco' rather than watch the ricocheting flesh bludgers, which he knew were someone's offspring, but were absolutely grotesque to observe. 

Draco stroked the cub with long, thin fingers, chuckling to himself as Harry whimpered- at the noise, the knowledge that his youngest child adored a dying a man as much as Harry did, at the sheer amount of things happening inside him and around him. He jumped when a pair of earmuffs were clapped over his ears, caught a glimpse of blonde hair, wide hazel eyes and another pair of earmuffs, and smiled at Scorpius as he scooted around the sofa to burrow into Harry's side. 

Harry hauled him up and hugged him, leaned low to say, “I hope none of these beasts left droppings…” 

He giggled, hands over his mouth as he watched the Abraxans shudder, shudder, and then transform into George, gleeful, and Angelina, torn between her own glee and guilt. Harry grimaced and flinched dramatically as the two wild cards began to gather the bouncing bludger children and attempted to cajole the various animals to them and snuggled the belly laughing Scorpius. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Draco, arms firmly around Lily to prevent an escape, grinning into her fur. Chaos.

An hour later- which was precisely the amount of time it took to return all of the beings to their original forms for one reason or another, usually refusal- Harry was attempting to cajole a creature of his own into going upstairs and resting. He faced the same issue: refusal. 

“I'll rest right here, Harry. I've been resting all day.” Harry didn't like the tone Draco took, too close to begging. He felt like a monster, looked guiltily at Hermione loitering in the doorway, who frowned and approached. 

“He won't go rest. He says he's fine.”

“Tattler.” 

Hermione scoffed, waved her wand once over Draco's body, her face moving seamlessly into a glare. “You need to be laying down, Draco. Horizont-” she snorted. “God, you're so bloody difficult.”

Harry said nothing, too surprised at having suddenly become a pillow to one white-haired, extremely stubborn, wizard. Draco closed his eyes, the back of his head resting on Harry's thighs. 

“See, my eyes are even closed.” He was smiling, the handsome idiot. Harry sighed and summoned a blanket. “Thank you, Harry. You're surprisingly comfortable.” 

As Hermione stalked away, apparently no match for Draco Malfoy today, Harry pinched one hollowed cheek gently. 

“You're exhausting,” he told the ‘resting’ wizard. 

“And you're easily excitable.”

Harry flicked his shoulder, face hot but trying not to laugh.

“That's your Christmas gift.” He did laugh when Draco's grey eyes flew open in shock. “And it’s not what you think it is, arsehole.” 

Harry was still laughing at Draco's pink-cheeked attempt at pretending he wasn't embarrassed when Hermione returned with a vial of something smoking and a determined expression. 

“We've voted,” Hermione shook the vial gently towards Draco, who sat up with Harry's help and accepted it meekly. “We're watching a film.” 

She waved her wand at their sofa and suddenly Harry was half reclined himself, with his feet supported. Draco, next to him now and both of them angled perfectly towards the white screen Hermione erected, lifted one side of his blanket and draped it over Harry and left his arm there, too. 

“Pfft.” Harry scooped him closer, until his head was on Harry's shoulder and his body curled along his, as Hermione called down the stairs for the snack-eating masses to join them. “Your cuddle skills are lacking,” he whispered and got only a hum in response. 

“That was fast. Not tired my rearend,” Hermione drawled, arms crossed and foot tapping as she looked down at the sleeping Draco. When Harry yawned, she smiled at him. “Five Galleons says you don't last ten minutes.”

“I can't take that bet,” Harry admitted, voice already turning gravelly. “I'm bloody exhausted, ‘Mione. At least one of the kids has crawled into bed every night since-” he cut himself off as surprisingly hushed voices reached them and their entire lot shuffled in. 

“Well, take advantage then,” Hermione said, patting his head. She knew he was sleeping in Draco's room, because he was neurotic, and their whole family suspected Harry was half-in love with Draco Malfoy- as evidenced by the complete lack of surprise on the faces filing by the two of them cuddled on the sofa. It was basically as supportive as the lot of them could be, and he appreciated it.

Harry closed his eyes, huffing in amusement, as The Nightmare Before Christmas began. Teddy must have chosen it, somehow convinced the group at large that this was the perfect movie to watch at a Christmas Eve sleepover.

…

Draco regretted the previous day's bout of stubbornness around six o’clock the following morning when half a dozen children burst into his room. While the palpable excitement dragged him slowly from the claws of sleep, Harry woke rather immediately, wand in hand and naked from his very low-slung flannels up, breathing hard as he struggled to orient himself. 

“Harry, it's Christmas,” Draco reminded him, voice raspy with sleep and his unending exhaustion. He'd overdone yesterday, undeniably, and now his limbs felt like lead, his head throbbed enough for those magic muggle tablets he got from Granger. 

“Right, right. Okay, go down to the dining room and I'll be down in a minute, alright?” 

The kids tumbled out as quickly as they had tumbled in, but Draco remained still in his blankets, eyes on the specimen standing before him. He watched Harry scrub one hand over his face, the muscles in his arm twitching, the muscles in his chest and stomach straining over his deep inhale, the indentations of his hip bones positively indecent. 

Good Godric, why wasn't he wearing a shirt? Did he run that hot? Was that why Draco had slept so well last night, a combination of whatever tonic Granger had brewed and sheer heat from the poked bear trying to get his bearings. 

“How are you so bloody fit? I've seen you run once,” Draco rasped. Harry blinked at him, squinted for several seconds.

“God, I'm still half asleep,” he groaned, slapping at the bedside table for his glasses and jamming them roughly on his face. 

“Salazar, Harry, take it easy,” Draco scolded, or tried to. He could lose an eye with that sort of half-asleep violence, and Draco liked his eyes. He liked his shirtless confusion and his disaster hair, and his entire face, frankly, whether it was in desperate need of a shave or not. And it most definitely was. Draco smiled at the look as it spread across Harry's face, the one he hadn't understood for so many months, the one he certainly didn't deserve but really enjoyed anyway. 

“It's Christmas,” Harry said, as if just now registering what Draco had told him several minutes ago. “Shit, they're probably down there going wild already.” He bent and retrieved his shirt from the floor while Draco continued to watch him, shoved his feet into slippers, or so Draco supposed, and plucked something from the bedside table. “You have regrets today, don't you?” 

“Don't rub it in.” 

“I'm not. I'll send ‘Mione up,” Harry placed a festively wrapped tube-shaped something on the bed near Draco's hands. “Your Christmas present. I was going to give it to you last night, but you never woke up from your pre-film nap.” He grinned at Draco, and if Draco had been feeling more the thing, he surely would have turned into a very festive tomato at the reminder. 

“Yours is under the tree like a respectable present,” Draco rasped archly. Harry grinned wider. 

“You'll be glad yours wasn't,” Harry said before he strode out of Draco's room. Draco didn't watch him go, only because his neck, his whole damn body, hurt too much. He eyed the green and gold wrapping but didn't move to open it despite his curiosity. Harry had made it seem, unintentionally Draco was almost positive, like a rather intimate, inappropriate item, or perhaps that was simply Draco being a pervert even when he lacked any mentionable sex drive. Even ogling Harry had served only to inflate the ache in his ribcage, when at any other point in his post-puberty life, that same view would have had him salivating. 

Draco knew what it meant- the ache, not the lack of libido. He knew with a certainty he'd rarely ever experienced, that he was beyond lust and shallow attraction, and far into something he never even considered finding before. Of course, now would be the time Draco would grow to love someone, fully love them- physically, emotionally, intellectually, platonically and romantically. Now would be the time, now as life ebbed from him.

His head pounded too heavily for tears. They came anyway, warm, filling his eyes and plugging up his nose until he could only breathe through his mouth and the throbbing became splintering. His body ached, his skull was fracturing, but he still thought of Harry, and Scorpius, and Lily who had called him ‘Papa’ for months now, and Albus, who was that quiet, intellectual side of his father that never really had a chance to develop, and James who was all the arrogant wildness that Harry had been too abused in his own childhood to develop. And Teddy, who Draco was almost positive, had somehow orchestrated quite a few of Harry and Draco's accidental run-ins- from James’ shower prank which he'd insisted hadn't been him, to the time he and Harry had managed to get locked in the kitchen without their wands just before Hogwarts term start, to that entire sofa-cuddling movie watching scenario last night that had definitely not been Granger's idea.

“Oh, Draco! Goodness, is the pain that bad?” Granger. He hadn't even heard her come in, but the answer was yes. Yes, it hurt. The worst pain he'd ever felt in his life. And his head hurt, too. “Give this a minute to help, then I'll give you some paracetamol.” 

The cool relief spread slowly from his crown like gravity-driven slime, easing the pounding and the pressure little by little, unclogging his nasal passages. He sighed when he could, tried to sit up to swallow the magic non-magical tablets, but ultimately required help. 

“Draco…” she sighed, but whatever she wanted to say, she held it back for once. “Drink this entire glass of water. Do you need the loo?” 

“No,” he whispered. He felt cowed, more by his own revelations than Granger and her considering expression. 

“Was the pain so severe it drove you to tears?” 

“It was bad, but no.”

He continued to sip, little by little as Hermione watched him, until the glass was empty and taken. He looked down at his blanketed lap, saw the gift-wrapped cylinder which had rolled into his side during his attempts to get upright. Draco plucked the thing from the bedclothes and opened it, Hermione's wand moving over his body all the while. He was so used to these tests of hers, at this point she could try one while he was using the loo, and he'd probably barely notice. 

“What in the world is this?” It looked like a miniature spyglass, just longer than the length of his hand from heel to fingertip, carved wood and brass. 

“Wait for the medicine to kick in before you try it,” Hermione instructed. “There should be no ill effects, but just in case. You don't seem to be doing all that well today.” 

“I admit, I overdid it yesterday. I just…” he swallowed and looked back at the spyglass, traced his finger around a brass serpent, the antlers of a deer, the howling head of a wolf. There were constellations pressed into the wooden part- his own, and the one for which Scorpius was named. “I worry about them, the kids.”

“That's only natural. You've grown quite close to them very quickly. They worry about you.” Draco nodded. 

“Harry.” It wasn't an explanation. Even he didn't know what he wanted to say, but whatever it was, it was about Harry.

Hermione sighed, sat on the edge of Draco's bed in a shocking departure from her usual professionalism. She had two modes, he had noticed. There was Healer Hermione, compassionate, exceptional, professional, with little bursts of personality. Then there was Hermione, who was clever and a little wicked, empathetic and sensitive, utterly loyal and determined. Those two beings constantly seemed to fight for dominance when she treated him lately. He met her shiny-eyed gaze briefly, unnerved by Granger tears despite his own just moments ago. 

“We won't leave him on his own, Draco. We’ll all be here for them, all of them, including Scorpius and including Harry.” He nodded, because he knew this, but it was still a relief to be reminded. 

“I just…” he shrugged, felt far less pain in his neck and shoulders than he had since waking. “Just, Harry.” He brought the spyglass to his eye as she squeezed one of his shoulders in what he took to be understanding. That he felt things that he couldn't admit out loud, because he didn't deserve them, because he was scared of them, because he was dying. 

Draco huffed a surprised laugh as he watched a third-party view of the moment he caught a falling, summoned Lily during the first Quidditch day. He looked positively gobsmacked as he coddled her. He snorted again when the scene changed to one of his early nights in Grimmauld, when Teddy had introduced Scorpius to exploding snap and subsequently blown his own eyebrows off and left Scorp’s bangs standing soot-streaked and straight up. It was funny, but Harry walking in seconds later and dissolving into teary laughter at his Godson's accidentally overly-bushy, very dark replacement eyebrows was what Draco really enjoyed. This must be Andromeda's memory, because he could see himself grinning at Harry as he laughed. 

Memories of trick-or-treat with Lily on his shoulders and the dragon steaks wreaking havoc in a muggle neighborhood, of Burrow weekends and Harry giving Draco the look, and Draco giving Harry looks he hadn't even realized he'd shown. James and Draco playing football, Draco and Albus talking over a muggle novel, all of the kids piled on top of him and Harry on the sofa at The Burrow, Harry and Draco making eyes at each other on a park bench from just yesterday morning… there was no sound, just short visual clips taken from many minds.

“Merlin. Look at that,” he said mostly to himself. He knew Granger had already seen, had probably played a large part in the creation. “So much happened in such a short time.”

“Worth it, isn't it?” She raised both brows once. 

“Wouldn't trade it, honestly. It's been… this has been the greatest part of my life.” 

“We wouldn't trade it either, Draco.” She smiled at him, shook a little vial before his face. “You can watch until you fall asleep. I promised Harry you'd rest this morning, so that when you guilt him into going to the Burrow later, he won't feel like shite about it.”

Draco huffed, took the vial. “Fine, fine.”

He plopped back flat and brought the spyglass to one eye again, but he was asleep before Granger even left, the sight of a smiling Harry cocooning Scorp in his jacket the last thing he could remember seeing.

… 

“You know, this has all the makings of one of those muggle romance television films Molly's become so fond of,” Draco commented off-hand. 

Harry quirked an eyebrow at the wizard as he helped him dress. 

“I mean, if one of us was female, of course,” he added. “Illness overcome by the power of Christmas. The script writes itself, honestly.” 

Draco made a face at Harry once his head had popped through his undershirt, making a mess of his damp hair. His hair which was starting to fall out much to Draco's devastation. Harry smiled a brief apology, and returned to his grumpy, sulking. 

“You don't have to do this, Harry. I can dress myself.” Harry scoffed, which was fair. The man had been forced to help him bath and dress since early December. “I can find someone else to help, then. Merlin, don't glare at me, I'm trying to be less burdensome. You look miserable.”

A miserable Harry was the last thing Draco wanted. He could feel his eyes burn, and looked down to hide whatever tears might pop up against his will, as they had been doing all day. He was exhausted, his body felt frail yet somehow heavy, and all he wanted was to experience a Burrow Christmas with the enormous group of chaos that seemed to have adopted him and his son. 

“No.” 

He didn't know what that ‘no’ was meant to combat, but he supposed it didn't matter.

“Okay,” he rasped, annoyed with the sudden disappearance of his voice. He didn't say anything else while Harry finished dressing him like a doll, his throat too tight for words anyway, and half carried him downstairs. 

“We're late so we'll have to apparate. Molly will have her stuff set in the fire already.” 

Draco wasn't sure what that meant either, but nodded anyway. He allowing himself to be maneuvered into his overcoat and onto the front steps for a trip through pressurized air. He grunted involuntarily when they landed, his lungs burning and a stabbing in his side that intensified when Harry steadied him. 

“Fine. I'm fine,” he said quickly, which was a mistake, because Harry instantly knew he wasn't fine. Draco moved himself towards The Burrow, wincing once his back was to Harry, at how long the path to the door seemed. Perhaps he should have stayed home, after all. 

Harry's warm arm wrapped around his waist and Draco hissed. 

“Damnit, Draco. Why do you have to be so stubborn?” he growled, helping Draco up the path at a gentle crawl. 

So many answers flew through his head that he said nothing until they'd almost reached the door, which flew open to reveal Granger with a knowing look. Draco sighed. 

“Because I'm dying, Harry. This is my first and last Burrow Christmas. I've never had anything like this, I've never been this happy, and I don't want to miss it.” He reached for Granger and left Harry standing outside, because he was stubborn, and he was also positive his rib was broken and poking dangerously into his lung.

“You should have used the floo.”

“He said it'd be full of stuff or something.”

“Hm. Molly usually sets the scraps in the cauldron to boil as she goes, for “old fashioned” soup. Muggle broth,” Hermione whispered as they snuck through the kitchen and into a hall where she propped him against a wall and took out her wand. “Godric, what a mess.” 

He winced when one rib popped and another shifted, then relaxed at the cessation of pain. He waited patiently, eyes and body drooping from the immediate onset of post-healing fatigue, as she performed her usual schedule of spells. 

“Done?” Draco jerked his head up at Harry's overly cheery tone, frowned at his red-rimmed eyes. 

“Yes. Gentle with his ribs. Flooing only from now on. Molly said she can clear out the hearth ‘in a trice so don't be foolish’.” Hermione smiled at Draco. “Go sit, there's a new loveseat just for you,” she teased as she left them in the dim hall. 

“Come on, Grandpa.”

“Oi!” Draco glared at the git, who smirked and moved forward to divest Draco of his outer layers, then led him to a miraculously empty two-person sofa in a deep forest green. 

As Draco sat, he found himself with a rotating set of companions, including the kids, which ended with Harry carrying two plates. Draco felt immediately like the burden he was as the man settled next to him and handed him one dish. Molly herself appeared seconds later with glasses of water for each of them. 

“Thank you, Molly,” he said. She pinched his cheek and winked, making him blush. He remembered believing the woman to be little better than a beast once upon a time- poor, unrefined, overpopulating the world with her blood traitor children. In reality, she was terrifying, kind, devoted to her family and whomever they brought in. Even him.

He ate, or tried to, the chatter from the attached kitchen creating a comforting hum that lulled him. His plate disappeared at some point, and he smiled his thanks. He smiled again when he pressed against a warm body, not sure if Harry had moved him or if he had just fallen over.

“Sleeping is probably a good idea. It's almost Celestina Warbeck time,” Harry whispered. Draco squinted his eyes open to see the first few kids tumbling into the sitting room, with Arthur and Hermione. 

“I've got a cauldron full of hot, strong love, and it's bubbling for you…” Draco crooned to Harry, expecting exasperation, a groan, something to represent the reluctance the entire family had been displaying over ‘Celestina Warbeck time’ for the last few weeks. He got shock.

“You're pulling the mickey.”

“Hm?”

“Since when can you sing?” 

Draco tried to push himself upright as more Weasley's entered.

“Everyone can sing, Harry. I’ve heard you sing, in fact.” Harry cringed and Draco grinned slowly. Harry wasn't tone deaf, he had rhythm, and a pleasant voice, but that did not necessarily mean he could carry a tune. Draco still loved it when he happened to catch Harry singing, because he did it when he was happy, or when he was alone and not swamped by the stress he was usually buried beneath.

“You must know, Celestina was the poster child for anti-muggle sentiment in music?” When Harry shook his head, Draco explained. “There was a muggle that was accidentally transported to one of her shows decades ago after he picked up a portkey while cleaning a beach. The Ministry modified his memory, but did a poor job, and he ended up writing a muggle song, got very rich, etc. ‘Just another example of how muggles steal from magicals, Draco.’” Draco dipped his voice unnecessarily to imitate his long-dead father then rolled his eyes while Harry gaped at him. “What? It's the only music I was allowed growing up. No wonder I turned out the way I did.”

Harry scoffed, “Actually, it is a wonder. You're wonderful.” Draco blinked, felt his face heat unbearably, shook his head when Harry asked, “God, you still can't take an honest compliment, can you? I like how you turned out.” 

Chapter Text

New Years

Harry watched Fleur and Hermione conjure a series of fluffy-looking poufs and pillows and about three dozen blankets, arranging them in a cluster in the garden under the illumination provided by Ron and Bill. The kids, all of them, ran amuck, weaving between piles of cushions, chasing after charmed snitches on foot, squealing with glee as Charlie, Arthur and Percey tried to wrangle them. 

He knew Aubrey, Percey’s eternally patient wife, Gin, and Molly were gathering platters of sweets and hot beverages while George and Angelina were down in the field setting up their fireworks. Normally, Harry would be in the hubbub, too, but this year he had been told in no uncertain terms that his responsibility was Draco, and only Draco. 

The very same wizard who huddled next to him on the first enormous bean bag poof that Hermione had created, half a dozen blankets layered over him, eyes wide on the dimly lit chaos around them. 

“G-good Godric,” he mumbled. “Some-how I forget- what it's like every time.” 

“Are you cold?” he was pretty sure Draco shrugged, the blankets shifted a bit at least. Harry frowned at him. “God, why are you so stubborn?” Harry was in a sweater and open jacket, but Draco was bundled up until he appeared three times his normal size. 

Harry shuffled them around, un-layering and rearranging Draco until, at length, Draco rested between his legs, back pressed to Harry’s chest, all the jackets and blankets atop them both. Harry would probably die, but Draco had at least stopped trembling by the time everything had been set up around them. They watched the kids scramble onto their own cushions on the browned, crunchy grass, listened to Teddy tell James and Victoire that Hogwarts had snow when he’d left, and probably would when he went back. Albus and Scorpius sat on a cushion together, under a double layer of blankets and each wearing fuzzy, hot pink earmuffs against the inevitable bangs and roars from the Weasley fireworks. Lily scrambled into Ginny’s lap, eating what was likely her millionth biscuit of the day. Harry tsked.

“I don’t deserve this.”

 “What do you mean?” Harry craned his neck around to look at Draco.

“This. All this, them, you. After everything I did…” 

Harry hated that. Some part of him knew that Draco still considered himself unworthy of good things, happiness, love, but hearing it was infuriating. He was quiet for a long time, mostly because he needed to master his temper. 

“Neither of us are the same people anymore, Draco. We were kids, you were a kid. And now you’re a good man, a good father, a good friend. I hate that you think you deserve anything less than this.”

“It’s Karma, don’t you think, though?” 

“Karma isn’t real. It’d be impossible to achieve balance anyway.” If Karma was real, wouldn’t Harry get to keep Draco? Harry had done so much without expecting anything in return, because he didn’t believe that’s how life worked. But if it did work in some cosmically balanced way, wouldn’t he be able to live this life he’d been so happy with over the last few months? 

“Hm.”

“You think you deserved to be cursed? That you earned this?” He could feel Draco shrug against him. “I don’t. The kid you were then made mistakes, was undereducated, was manipulated and threatened, and yeah, he was a snot most of the time.” All truths. “But for the rest of your life, you haven’t been that kid. You don’t deserve this, and I hate that you believe you do.” 

The last couple weeks had been fantastic, tainted only by the knowledge that Draco was dying and had given up the fight against it, and apparently believed himself to deserve it. Harry found himself thinking about different kinds of death most days; he’d experienced quite a few kinds. Death of parents he’d never really gotten a chance to know, the sudden and calculated death of an ancient wizard in Dumbledore’s passing, the painfully unexpected but directly witnessed death of Sirius and Dobby, the death of a young Fred. But this might be Harry’s least favorite kind of death- a slow, agonizing one he could do nothing about, that haunted every good moment with its inevitability. 

“You’ll take care of Scorpius, right?” 

“Do you really have to ask?” Harry’s eyes burned. “I have all the paperwork. Zabini set everything up, remember? Scorpius is mine.” 

He’d managed to find himself with four children and a godchild, and he wouldn’t allow anyone to take them from him. He’d also started considering leaving the DMLE. The job was too risky for a single parent, and he refused to allow the possibility that Scorpius would lose yet another one. 

“I forget how organized you can be, because I live with you. I know the real you.” Harry scoffed at Draco’s teasing but had absolutely no defense. He was organized chaos, and he knew it. He pressed his cold nose into the side of Draco’s neck, expecting an indignant squawk and getting only bony fingers lacing through his. He was losing weight too fast, his muscles disappearing, his bones were becoming too prominent, and according to Hermione, fragile. He couldn’t apparate anymore, a necessary rule after Harry’s side-along had resulted in cracked ribs on Christmas. He kissed that spot on Draco’s neck without thinking, smiled when he tilted his head to give more access.

“Do you need anything before this fiasco starts?” Harry asked. 

“Nope.” Draco dragged Harry’s other arm around him, all his weight resting on Harry’s chest. He’d be asleep before it started, probably. He was surprised when Draco turned and kissed his cheek. “You need to shave. You look like a homeless person.”

“Pfft. You’re an arse.” 

Draco smiled at him, flinched when the first explosion occurred, then laughed at what was clearly meant to be a bone-in dragon steak appearing in the sky. “So gruesome. Oh, Merlin…”

Now Harry laughed, all the kids giggling, at the cartoonish vampire made of glittering fire beneath big letters, COUNT DRACO-LA. Each of the kids, including Teddy and Scorpius, had a cartoon rendition plastered across the sky in between dragons, Veela, phoenixes, and a masterpiece of a quick Quidditch scrimmage made of fire. Brilliant. 

“Harry!” Harry jumped at Draco’s clawed grip on his arm. “Don’t tell me that’s… Salazar!”

Harry stared at the cartoon outline of a baby as it sizzled against the stars in the sudden silence from the gathered Weasleys. “Fred Weasley…” Harry read the scrolling letters as they appeared. 

“Arriving June 2011,” Draco breathed. “Good Godric, George is going to have a baby?” 

Harry snorted as Molly let out a scream that was nearly drowned out by the riotous finale of rainbow sparks and bangs. God. Another Weasley baby. Molly was going to be unmanageable. She’d already been beside herself when Harry had mentioned adopting Scorpius, had outfitted the boy with all the Weasley essentials for Christmas: an emerald sweater with a silver ‘S’, handknit mittens and matching hat, a crocheted blanket and an enormous box of homemade sweets signed, ‘from Grandma Molly’. He looked at Draco, who was already looking at him.

“Are you crying, Malfoy?” he teased. 

“I’ll pinch you.” 

Harry smirked, pressed his lips to Draco’s as the Weasleys cheered and shouted, “Happy New Year” and “Who thought it was a good idea for George to reproduce?” and “A Grandma again!”

He felt foolish, especially as the man who didn’t believe in karma or a higher power, but he knew the muggles believed that the person you kissed on New Year’s would be the person you were with for the next year, and it was worth a shot. He pulled back to see surprise, and more tears. 

“You’re such a softie,” Harry said with mock derision. Draco pinched him. Harry grinned. 

It was worth a shot. Otherwise, Draco would never get to meet baby Fred Weasley.

….

February 2011

“Harry,” Draco's whisper, just a hint of urgency, had Harry's face freezing momentarily, then relaxing. 

“If you're going to bring up how that Mediwizard looks like the love child of Lockhart and Snape again, I might just end this entire fiasco early.” 

“Bah,” Draco half-scoffed. This git. “I wasn't.”

“Hmph.” Draco watched him fuss with the cache of possessions on the side table. 

“Harry.”

Harry looked at him, cocked one eyebrow in question as Draco breathed, shallowly because that was as good as he could manage. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he couldn't say, not now, when he was so close to dying, when his body was too tired to cooperate. 

“Thank you for the happiest year of my life.” He knew he looked a fright, a mere husk of a man and certainly not the one that may have caught Harry’s eye just months ago, but he still grinned, because Harry still looked at him in that way. He rolled his eyes at the tell-tale slip of pain in his lip and the flash of sympathy in green eyes. 

“Pfft. You were right, too much joy is dangerous,” Harry teased him, spreading one of the salves the man had religiously collected for each part of Draco's body that had begun to fall apart, onto his lips. Tired as he was, he could tell Harry's fight against amusement was fake, he could see the pain in forced-crinkled eyes.

He closed his own eyes against it, the pain he couldn't fix. “I'm so tired.” 

“Well, you'll have forever to sleep soon.”

Draco huffed a laugh, tried to reach for him, but his arms were so heavy today. It wasn't fair that Draco should be the cause of more of Harry’s pain. He wanted to wrap Harry up, but he drifted in and out, voices and noises coming and going, his thoughts on Harry and how much this was hurting him all the while. 

“I hate the idea that you're going to spend the rest of your life believing you deserve this. You aren't that kid anymore, Draco.”

Harry had told him over and over since the day he decided he was going to die, because he didn't want Harry wasting any more time on figuring out who had cursed him. Honestly, Draco didn't care if he deserved it or not, didn't want to spend the time thinking about it when he had a life that was so perfect for the first time. Perfect and fleeting, so he had wanted to spend all his energy on living it. 

Now he wondered if he should have shoved off sooner, before Harry could get so attached to him, before the kids had become attached to him. They were all going to hurt, and, as astounding as it was, it was because they liked him. Loved him. 

Harry loved him. Unfathomable a year ago, but an undeniable truth now. He could see, hear and feel it in every little action, every look, every pain-laden teasing he received. If the universe was punishing Draco for past deeds, it was doing a poor job of it. He'd never been happier in his life. It was everyone else who was suffering. And that ticked him off. 

“Draco?” 

Harry. If anyone deserved happiness it was Harry, and Draco wanted to be the one to foster that happiness. He didn't want to die. Maybe Harry was right, maybe Karma was hogwash. He knew, deep down, that he'd been right about them being different men than they had been boys. Maybe it wasn't about deserving or not deserving but just forcing the issue. 

“Draco?”

Draco smiled at Harry, too tired right now to open his eyes, but wanting Harry to know it was okay. His hand was warm, and briefly, his mouth was, too. 

“I love you, stupid git.” 

Draco smiled again. He knew that. He wanted to stay in this world where he could accept that love, give his own. He didn't want to die, and he didn't want to leave Harry and their kids. He deserved more time with them, and he wished he could figure out a way to take it. 

…

“Harry!”

Harry shot upright, grunting at the shooting pain in his back, eyes wild on the cot, on Draco. Draco. God-

“Harry, what happened?” He jumped again at Hermione's urgent hiss, eyes blurry, panic biting into his throat, the air in his lungs like acid. Draco. He groaned or whined, something incoherent came out of his voice box. 

“He's alive, Harry. I'm sorry, I should have led with that.” Hermione was patting him between the shoulder blades. “Look, here, Harry.” She patted the back of his hand, in which he still held Draco's.  

“God, Hermione-” He stooped, unsteady on his feet, neck and back throbbing, eyes overflowing. 

“Goodness, Harry, I'm so sorry. I just…” She rubbed his back in soothing circles. “I’ve been coming by every hour to check. But he's still here, and it's been hours, Harry. He even looks a bit better.”

“He does?” He couldn't bloody see anything. 

“Not physically, but magically. I don't know what it means. Did something happen? Did someone visit?”

“No. No one since Theo when we first arrived, and the usual staff that I know of.” Theo, who had swooped in and kissed a grumpy Draco on each cheek before noticing how close Harry was to murder. Then he’d given Harry the same unsettling treatment. He doubted Theo had done anything to Draco, and there’d been no one else. Unless someone had come in the time he’d been asleep. He swiped at his tears, glasses sliding off one ear and nearly tumbling off his face. 

“God, Harry. I'm sorry I scared you like that. Sit. I'll have someone bring you tea. And then, I think you need to go visit the kids. You've been here all night.” Harry nodded, but he didn't want to go. What if…?

“I'll stay the entire time you're gone. My shift is over. Have your tea, then take a few hours to shower and comfort the kids.”

He drank tea as he watched Hermione run through a series of tests on a sleeping, skeletal Draco. He didn’t look better to Harry. He looked precisely the same as he had yesterday, but he was still alive when Hermione had been positive he wouldn’t be. So, he stared and listened to Hermione talk to herself, all nonsensical mumblings until, “it’s gone. Where the hell did it go?”

“What’s gone?” 

Hermione looked at him, wide-eyed with surprise, as if she’d forgotten he was there. “I’m not ready to say just yet, Harry. I will have answers when you return.” The sudden speed with which she forced him from the little room made him both more and less anxious. “Three hours, then come back,” she ordered.

He returned, three hours later, with Scorpius. He couldn’t deny him, honestly, so Scorpius gripped his hand as they stepped through the glass front of St. Mungo’s, and followed the path towards the upper, private rooms, the boy clutching his mother’s rune puzzle book to his chest all the while. Harry wasn’t sure why he had brought it, assumed it was a comfort item, like his father’s Weasley sweater, which he wore like a dress with the sleeves rolled up a half dozen times. He’d almost torn Ginny a new one when she had crouched before Scorp and asked if he was sure he wanted to wear it out, until she had used one of her hair ties to shorten it enough that he wouldn’t trip on it and given him a wink and a hug. 

And now, here they were, standing outside the closed door to Draco’s little room. 

“I’m scared,” Harry admitted when Scorpius looked up at him. 

“That’s okay. You do things scared all the time. Papa told me that’s who you are.” 

Harry huffed a little laugh. “God, he’s not wrong, I suppose. Alright, let’s go.” He turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly, peaking around at a smiling Hermione before throwing it wide enough that Scorpius could see, too. 

“Oh, Scorpius! I didn’t expect you, love. Come on in. He’s just sleeping right now.” She patted her lap and lifted him onto it so he could see his father, still frail and frightening looking, but breathing. “What do you have here?” 

“Mama’s puzzle book.”

“Is this the one she made for you? Where all your…” Hermione trailed off, her eyes moving to Draco’s form, glazed over, vacant. 

“’Mione?” Harry prodded her gently and received no response. “Hermione? You’re scaring us.” 

“Goddamn idiot. I’m such a bloody idiot!” Her outburst really did scare them. Scorpius reaching for Harry, who lifted him up and away from the trembling witch. “Give me that, please.” She took the book from Scorpius and flicked through it to the very end, then, “Excuse me.” She handed the book back, walked to the far corner, cast a bubble around herself and threw a silent, wild fit. 

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I… I can’t say for sure.” Harry watched Hermione screaming silently at the ceiling, feet stomping, arms thrown wide with her fingers curled into claws. She was crying, too. “She’s never done this before.” 

“She looks like Lily.” 

Harry huffed at that, and the two of them continued to watch the steadily decreasing veracity of Hermione’s tantrum until she finally emerged from her cocoon, swiping at her face and panting. 

“I apologize,” she said, rather stoic for a person who had just been compared to a four-year-old. “It would appear, that I missed something. I could have, potentially, saved Draco a lot of suffering, but I…” She shrugged and reached for the black book again. Scorp passed it to her as if she might bite him. “I’m sorry, Scorpius. I really dislike making mistakes, especially when someone else suffers for them.”

With a deep breath, Hermione flipped to the end of the notebook, turned the open pages towards them. 

“Hermione, I can’t read any of that,” Harry reminded her. She nodded, but her eyes were on Scorpius. 

“A Blessing,” he stated. She nodded. “For… forgiveness?”

Harry’s heart stopped. They’d talked about this, about the curse being one that required Draco to receive forgiveness for his ills. Harry had thought it stupid, ridiculous. No one would do that. 

“It was a blessing. I should have seen it, Harry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve been helping the boys translate these for months, I should have seen the similarities… I hadn’t seen this particular one, yet-“

“We just started this one last night. It’s really difficult, though. Albus says it doesn’t make any sense, but I thought, maybe… ” Scorpius looked at his father then back at Hermione. 

“You’re not wrong, clever wizard. This must be the last one your mother wrote down for you to translate. She may have been confused at the end. Confused enough to try casting it.” Her eyes moved from Scorpius to Harry. “It’s a blessing for self-forgiveness. Her weakened magical core, and her cognitive decline may have resulted in an accidental curse. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened, anyway. Curses and blessings are not that different in terms of mechanics. I have to sit and dissect this, compare it to the old curse structure.”

“So, does this mean you can cure him?” That was all Harry cared about. Nothing else mattered, really. 

“I don’t need to cure him. He must have met the condition on his own at some point during the night. The curse is gone, Harry. Now it’s all up to us, and him. Regular healing.” She cast something over Draco’s body and Harry stared at the image of his magical core, completely depleted except for a tiny spec of gold in the middle. “He may never fully recover; he was half through the veil, with no magic.”

“But I was fine.” He didn’t specify, Scorpius didn’t need to know Harry had died once. It’d probably scare him. But he had. He’d died, the healer’s had confirmed it, and he’d been perfectly fine. In fact, his magical signature had been magnified, old grievances and injuries had eased, he’d become more powerful. 

“You had a full magical core at the time. He had, well, probably that tiny little bit there. The cases are not comparable.” She was matter of fact. “It won’t be a fast recovery, but I refuse to look like a fool a second time!” She glared at the figure on the bed. “Of course, all this could have been avoided if you had just stopped wallowing in your own self-pity, Malfoy!” she hissed. Harry knew, having witnessed this exact exchange before, that Draco was awake. Sure enough, he tsked at the glaring healer.

“Hello, Scorp. Did you solve the mystery?”

Scorpius smiled and nodded, and Hermione sighed in defeat. 

“Excellent. Will you help take care of Dad while I get better?” Scorp nodded again, squeezed Harry around the neck until he struggled to breathe.

Get better? Harry stared at Draco until he blurred, until pudgy hands patted rolled up sleeves against his cheeks. 

Chapter Text

Epilogue - May 2011

“'St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries has announced that it is repealing its long-standing policy against treatment of former followers of He Who Must Not be Named.'”

Hermione scoffed as Ron read in a suitably lofty tone, but Harry and Draco listened with interest.

“'The decision comes after hospital staff were tasked with end-of-life care for one Ex-Death Eater many in the magical community may be familiar with. Draco Lucius Malfoy, marked at age sixteen and forced on threat of death and death of his mother, to attempt the murder of Albus Dumbledore during his sixth year at Hogwarts, was denied care at the hospital several times. His deceased wife, Astoria Malfoy, née Greengrass, was also denied care by the hospital during her pregnancy, the birth of their child, and during Mrs. Malfoy’s own end-of-life care as she succumbed to an inherited blood curse.

On February 14th, hospital staff were forced at wand-point by former Head Auror Harry James Potter, the individual credited with defeating the most powerful dark lord of modern times, and lawsuit-point by Blaise Zabini and Healer Hermione Granger-Weasley (also a celebrated curse breaker and muggle doctor), to admit the near-death Mr. Malfoy.'”

Hermione scoffed yet again, muttering darkly behind her tea, “Lawsuit-point, indeed.” Harry stole a glance at Draco, hiding his smirk behind his own glass of a sickly-looking green tonic- an essential aspect of his recovery, according to the lawsuit-wielding witch in their midst.

“'Several individuals tasked with caring for Mr. Malfoy expressed concern to management that he had previously been denied care, when a healer’s oath very clearly requires them to provide care for all. Medi-wizard Emanual Lumiere-'“

Harry closed his eyes as Draco interjected, “Oh, Medi-wizard Snape-Hart! Good chap.”

“Certainly, a bound above the average,” Hermione agreed, nodding to her husband when he cleared his throat. “Please, do go on.”

“’Medi-wizard Emanual Lumiere in particular, found the policy to be both a violation of patient rights and a violation of healer rights. “Beyond the fact that we all take a professional oath to provide our best care to any witch or wizard, denying necessary care is a violation of basic human decency,” Mediwizard Lumiere told The Daily Prophet last week. “Mr. Malfoy’s information is private, so I can’t answer any of your questions regarding his care. What I can tell you is that he was a joy to care for. Not only was he grateful to us, but he was kind and quite witty. Most of us left his room laughing every time. Perhaps it’s a reminder for the magical community at large that a few mistakes, actions taken as a child, do not define one for life.” 

The pointed statement from Medi-wizard Lumiere was backed by several other members of staff, including janitorial staff member Lucy Stafford, who told The Prophet, “Such a sweet boy, always a smile, and let me tell you, if I had been in that condition, no one would be able to pull a smile from me!”’”

Ron interrupted himself this time, looking at Draco with two raised brows. “Did you hear that? ‘A sweet boy,’ our Malfoy!”

Harry would have ignored them all if James hadn’t hissed something to Albus, the words “but he’s old” spoken loudly enough that an entire, buttered roll soared down the length of the dining table and collided with an indignant face.

“Hush up, menace,” Draco grumbled, swatting Harry when he choked back a laugh. “Go on, Weasley, or we’ll be here until Christmas.”

“Right, where was I? Ah. ‘When we tried to reach other members of Mr. Malfoy’s care team and family we received a written statement from their representative, Legal Counsel Blaise Zabini, on behalf of the entire Potter, Malfoy, Weasley, and Granger-Weasley families.’ We know this part,” Ron said with a flap of a hand.

“I don’t know it!” Lily’s shrill squawk made her uncle flinch and refocus on the paper.

“Right-o. ’While we are grateful to the individual staff members who treated Draco with such care and consideration, we hope that St. Mungo’s board members will be moved to improve upon their own management and policies regarding not only treatment of patients, but treatment of staff. Draco found it insulting that janitorial staff are paid pitiable amounts for a demanding job, are not permitted paid holidays, that Medi-wizards are often overworked and underpaid based on industry averages. As a wizard who had been forced to hire private healers for the care of his wife and son, he is familiar with the payment expectations of talented individuals and was shocked to learn that those healers employed by St. Mungo’s received, on average, less than half what private healers can make. Considering the Board of St. Mungo’s, whose jobs are rather limited to policy development, receive shocking compensation, perhaps they may consider paying the people who do the actual work. 

To those staff members who did care for Draco, either directly or indirectly through administrative roles, thank you. Our children, especially, are grateful to you. Over the last year, they have come to consider Draco an uncle, a cousin, a father, and were overjoyed when he finally came home.’”

Ron cleared his throat several times, face red, as Draco stared into his revolting tonic. All of the kids were staring wide-eyed at their uncle’s unusual display of emotion, James reaching a hand to pat him awkwardly on the arm until he went on.

“’The Potter Family, Harry, James, Albus, Scorpius, Lily, and Draco, have submitted a conditional donation to St. Mungo’s to be utilized specifically for improving working conditions for menial workers. This has prompted a flurry of activity with St. Mungo’s, including the push for staff members to unionize for better wages and treatment. For the full story on St. Mungo’s burgeoning union, please see page six. For a full accounting of the earnings and requirements for each position within St. Mungo’s, please referred to the table on page twelve. For readers who may be surprised at the full list of Potter family members, please turn to page three for a happy announcement.’”

“What’s on page three?” Lily asked. Harry snorted as all the kids fanned around Ron. They all knew what was on page three, but apparently seeing it was another matter altogether. “Oh! I forgot! How many more days, again?”

“Four months, Lil,” Draco told her fondly. “Still a lot of time.” He accepted the paper from Ron, holding it open for Harry to see. “Oh, for the love of- why’d you use that one?” 

Harry grinned at the color picture of Draco in his purple suit and tophat from some time in the fall when he hadn’t had time to change before they had converged on The Burrow for Sunday Dinner. Harry, in trousers and a button down, looked positively muted next to him in the crowded, chaotic sitting room, but when they caught each other's gaze in the picture, they both grinned. He hadn’t even known Gin had taken their picture at the time, had received it in a big album Draco had given him for Christmas, but it was one of his favorites.  

Sliding his fingers between Draco’s, Harry shrugged. “I just liked it.”