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Harry presses his hands over Teddy’s ears as Spider rushes past them. He has his legs situated on either side of the blue-haired boy so he doesn't topple over from the gust of wind. Harry's hair bats against his face as the wind beats against his ears.
Once Spider is flying toward the mountains opposite them, Harry crouches by Teddy, wrapping his arms around his middle.
Teddy’s laugh is ineffable. His whole body shakes, and his smile reaches high. Harry doesn’t attempt to restrain his own as he stares at the boy.
The moment is quickly broken.
“Well, look who it is?” Draco says, stalking out of the tunnel before joining Harry and Teddy on the ledge. In his hands are a pair of protective headphones that he’d had specially made for Teddy. He crouches in front of the boy and gently places the headphones over Teddy’s ears.
Safe to say, Teddy is buzzing. Swaying back and forth from his heels to his tippy toes, Teddy gives Draco his toothiest grin. Draco grins right back.
“Spider is so big now!” Teddy exclaims.
Draco hums. He waves his hand, casting the incantation he created solely so that Teddy could hear him and Harry whenever he was here, since the boy rejected the other charm that was made to replace the headphones. No, Harry, they’re cool! he’d chanted.
“Yes, he is. I’ve been out here with him for a while, and I think he’s a mix between Hungarian Horntail and Chinese Fireball. How that came about, I’m not sure,” Draco states matter-of-factly, scrunching his face in thought.
Harry resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Maybe one hell of a honeymoon,” he mutters.
Draco rolls his eyes. “Charming as ever.”
“Tragic, really. I try so hard.”
“Not that hard. Clearly.”
Before they can continue their exchange, Teddy's hair changes to match one of the older dragons they’d passed earlier.
Draco perks up. “Hey—”
“Mhm,” Teddy affirms instantly. He’s a very good listener.
Draco begins to stand. “You know Effie?”
Teddy is still nodding. “Yes.”
“And you are aware that she was heavily pregnant the last time you visited?”
The boy’s active listening face quickly shifts, eyebrows raising. “No way…”
Draco leans down just to whisper, slowly and intently, “Way.”
The gasp that Teddy lets out is comical. “Can I—”
“Yes, yes, yes, go!” Draco urges, giving him a gentle push toward the tunnel. “Careful, petit feu!” he calls after him.
When he turns to Harry, his smile is gone, and his look can only be described as one of distaste.
This time, Harry does roll his eyes.
Draco Malfoy will forever vex Harry. He now stands before him, head tilted down so their eyes can meet. His clipped hair falls into his eyes, and—for a moment—Harry imagines gouging them out.
“Finally invested in that haircut?” the blonde snarks, eyes flicking to Harry’s now-shorter hair. Harry raises an eyebrow. “Are you planning to invest in a personality anytime soon, or are we still living off the trust fund of Daddy’s charm and Voldemort’s disappointment?”
Draco scoffs. “Ah, yes. The father jokes. How bold. You’ve only been dragging that material out since—what was it—1991?”
Harry adjusts his stance, standing straighter. “How long are you meant to be locked up out here again?”
Draco sighs, glancing out toward the mountain range. “Spider is... temperamental. It’s complicated.”
Harry's eyes trace a thin trail of smoke curling off the ends of Draco’s singed hair. “Right. ‘Complicated.’ You mean he tried to flambé you and your fragile ego, and now I’m going to have to explain to my sweet godson that his favorite emotionally stunted cousin got reduced to charcoal.”
Draco snorts. “This from the man who attempted to fight a troll. At eleven.”
“He was born seven years later, Malfoy,” Harry says flatly. “Are you going to hold me personally accountable for your own lack of self-preservation instincts?”
Leaning forward, Draco tilts his head, mock thoughtful. “Well, you did literally die. More than once, if memory serves.”
Harry shrugs. “And yet here I am. Still outperforming you in life.”
“Outperforming?” Draco repeats with a laugh. “You have a nameless job and live in a house that creaks with unresolved trauma.”
“And you live in a dusty bunker in the mountains, talking to dragons and pretending it’s a career.”
“It is a career,” Draco says, insulted. “And it’s not a bunker, it’s a conservation site.”
Harry nods gravely. “Of course. Conservation. Is that what we’re calling exile these days?”
Draco’s jaw twitches. “You’re not even clever, you’re just loud. It’s amazing how far mediocrity can go when it’s wearing a scar.”
Harry smiles tightly. “And it’s amazing how long someone can coast on being a victim of their own personality. What’s your excuse this week—trauma, or just garden-variety narcissism?”
Draco doesn’t flinch. “You know, for a Chosen One, you’re surprisingly forgettable in person.”
Harry’s grin sharpens. “And for someone who’s had so many second chances, you’re remarkably unimproved.”
Harry is just about ready to unload the carefully catalogued list of barbed insults he'd mentally queued when his internal bitching screeches to a halt—because of course Garren fucking barrels into the scene like a golden retriever with a hormone imbalance.
“Draco!” Garren calls out breathlessly, waving like he’s at a bloody Quidditch match.
Draco’s jaw tightens. “Hello, Garren,” he says, voice clipped with the enthusiasm of someone greeting an unsolicited Ministry audit.
Garren is already panting when he reaches them. “I saw you with Spider! Merlin, I don’t know how you managed to wrangle him—looked like a bloody dance. All I could see was leather and hair and...” He trails off with a sigh.
His eyes perform a leisurely crawl down Draco’s figure, trailing over the curve of his arms and the unforgivable fit of those fireproof leathers. His gaze lingers on the boots with the kind of reverence usually reserved for sacred relics.
Harry, standing a respectful half-step away, watches it all unfold with a slow-building glee. He leans slightly toward Draco and murmurs, just loud enough for only him to hear, “Wow. You really are a conservationist. Preserving thirst—one tragic soul at a time.”
Draco exhales sharply through his nose, barely a breath away from physically evaporating out of the situation. “Do shut up.”
But Garren’s still in motion, totally oblivious. “Those boots, though. Are they dragonhide? Because damn.”
Draco’s expression has now collapsed entirely into a blank stare of cosmic regret.
“They’re standard issue,” he says tightly.
“They’re not standard on you,” Garren replies, beaming.
Harry blinks. “Did he just flirt with your shins?"
“Potter, I swear—”
“Don’t worry,” Harry says smoothly. “You’re doing great. Very intimidating. Very broody. He’s practically combusting.”
Garren finally seems to notice Harry’s presence and squints at him, mildly puzzled. “Oh, you’re here, too?”
Harry gives him a dry smile. “No, I’m just a hallucination conjured by Draco’s emotional repression.”
Draco, barely holding on, mutters under his breath, “You’re a walking migraine.”
“And yet,” Harry says with mock cheer, “people keep inviting me places.”
Draco turns abruptly to Garren. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Like far, far away?”
Garren shrugs dreamily. “Not really. I was on break, but... this is better.” He looks Draco up and down again.
Harry lets out a quiet, “Merlin help us,” and gestures vaguely. “Would you like me to give you two a moment? I can go get water since you're clearly parched. Or maybe I can just walk off the ledge.”
Draco shoots him a death glare. “You are not helping.”
Harry grins. “Oh, I know.”
Teddy’s hair is now the same platinum as Draco’s. Harry squints at the boy, who is currently intently watching Draco pack his duffle. Teddy tilts his head when his eyes lock with Harry’s.
Edward Lupin was Harry’s gravity. He was the force that kept him grounded and the sense that kept him sane.
Post-war Harry was—for a short period—entirely and utterly lost. Unhinged, if you will. Freshly eighteen, with the cold bodies of the few remaining family he had on his conscience, his forced return to Hogwarts had been… eventful.
For the first few months before his return for his supposed “Eighth Year,” Harry felt like he was floating aimlessly, as if his body had never left the floor of the Forbidden Forest.
It was Hermione who knocked some sense into him. Or rather, she worked it out of him. She guilted him into going to Australia with her and Ron in search of her parents, rather than remaining holed up in Number 12 Grimmauld Place. She insisted they find at least one new place to eat each day they were there and that they visit every bookstore they passed. Harry knows it was her stubborn insistence—her refusal to dwell. We will mourn, but we will not go backwards is what she said. There were nice hotels and a fancy dinner at least once a week, a stark difference from the gray and silent nights spent in the tent—those nights where the tension was palpable on their skin, and the dull wave of dread never ceased.
Hogwarts had been its own horror. Harry, no longer in a constant state of grouch, had resorted to a constant state of movement. The quicker he did things, the faster he could get to the next, and if he was always occupied, there was no room to think. So he studied and completed every assignment as soon as it was assigned. And studied some more. He even wrote essays for fun. Ron had given him stares that said enough, while Hermione seemed as though she wasn’t sure if she should be proud or concerned. And when he wasn’t cracking away at an academic outlet, he was out. Shopping, drinking, dancing, fighting.
It started when he followed Draco. He didn’t have any reason other than boredom. And when Draco managed to catch a bus out of Hogsmeade one night, Harry liked to think he was inspired. He started Apparating to random cities, often small villages, hopping on the buses and getting off when he felt like it.
This is what led to the excessive shopping—he quickly learned he liked collecting odd rings. Which then led him to the pubs, thus the drinking. And when he met people at the pubs, they brought him to other, much smaller, pubs where there were small bands playing. And then he heard about the underground fights. It wasn’t long before he got in the ring himself.
He only stopped the fights when Ron could no longer bring himself to tease Harry for always returning with one bruise or another. Harry stuck to working out solo. The punching bag was a great friend for a time.
But right after his NEWTs, when he Apparated while totally plastered and managed to get himself splinched, he knew he had to put an end to it. Mrs. Weasley had been at his bedside in the Hospital Wing when he awoke—her head in her hands. He knew that after Fred, she couldn’t bear more.
He only heard how he’d made it to the Hospital Wing that afternoon, not having remembered anything from the latter half of the previous night.
Apparently, he had Apparated right outside the bus stop at Hogsmeade. And right into the arms of one Draco Malfoy. Of course, this had forced Draco to break his court-ordered regulation on magic, thereby breaking his probation.
“Potter,” Malfoy spoke harshly, just above a whisper. “You are interrogating me far more than any of the bloody Aurors did. No, I will not face any form of punishment for using my wand outside of school premises. McGonagall vouched for me. And so did Granger and Weasley.”
He ducked his head as he spoke the last part. He shifted uncomfortably at Harry’s bedside. “It will only make me look bad to my probationary officers. And—let’s be honest—it won’t make those opinions any worse than they already are..”
Harry had raised his eyebrows at that. “They’re meant to be entirely neutral.”
Malfoy snorted. “Yes, of course.”
Harry sat up to eat the treacle tart Ron had snuck him not twenty minutes prior, rolling up the sleeves of the sweater Luna had knit for him, insisting it would improve his health. “Why do you take the bus?” he asked, brows furrowing.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. The corner of Harry’s frown twitched upward. “An Auror through and through.”
Before he could stop himself: “I don't want to be an Auror.”
“No?” Malfoy said, quirking an eyebrow. It seemed—horrifyingly—genuine.
“No. Maybe something in teaching. Or training, perhaps. I’m tired of fighting—” Harry scrunched his nose. “You’re changing the topic.”
Malfoy sighed. “If I time it just right, I can take enough buses to go see my cousin. Without breaking my parole.”
“None of the buses go to France.”
Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Yes, what an astute observation.”
Harry stared. And when Malfoy returned it with a blank look, Harry raised his eyebrows, exasperated.
Malfoy sighed. “I've been visiting Teddy.”
Harry was, admittedly, surprised. “Yeah?” he murmured, his voice coming out far softer than intended.
Malfoy lolled his head back. “Yeah. My Aunt Andromeda, she… I think she actually appreciates it. Since Mother’s been on house arrest and Father’s been… well, you know.”
And before Harry could stop himself: “Can I come?”
“What?”
He pushed, “Next time you go. Can I come?” He fidgeted with his hands and his hair, and his eyes were intensely trained on the sheets.
Malfoy stared, silent.
“He’s my godson, you know—”
Malfoy shook himself out of his daze. “Yes. Yes, I’m well aware.”
“So?”
For a moment, Malfoy didn’t move. Then—
“Tell me where you got your rings, and yes.”
Draco regrets it daily. Because from that day on, they saw each other all the time.
First, when they went to see Teddy, but then shopping together became a regular thing. And then, when Harry became a tutor for Muggle children before Hogwarts. And when Draco met Luna’s partner’s ex-girlfriend’s fiancé, who was over the moon to meet someone with as much passion and knowledge of dragons. They still managed, planning excursions for the kids to the conservatory.
They had days circled on their fuckass calendars for one another.
And then they were drinking together.
And Draco was over more nights than not.
And then Draco got really drunk and told Luna about how, during fourth year, he’d realized he thought Harry fucking Potter—the Chosen Fuck —was pretty, and how he was about ready to toss himself off the Astronomy Tower.
Luna—oh, sweet and lovely Luna—told him he should go for it.
Now, Draco knows that even though Luna meant he should pursue a crush he formed at age twelve, when he saw a boy accio a broom from a decently large distance, he likes to think the universe meant he should vault himself off the Astronomy Tower.
There were the days when a much smaller Teddy would swing between them, clutching their hands tight. And Harry would smile at him, and Draco would duck his head, conjuring images of the Astronomy Tower to discipline himself.
Post-war, Draco was tired. He was drained, lonely, and ashamed. He lazed around the manor and did nothing. He would go to Muggle pubs and drink—and drink some more—until he blacked out.
Until the letter came:
Dear Draco,
Though I might no longer be a Black (and no, nor are you—I didn’t miss your scorched face on the family tree), one thing I still live by is family first. Meet your cousin? Come for tea? Tell your mother I say hello.
Andromeda.
And suddenly, his feet could feel the ground once more.
Draco exhales sharply. There’s no winning here. He turns to Garren, aiming for civility and landing somewhere between headache and homicide. “Garren, could you please check on Spider’s wing restraints before he does a barrel roll and tosses someone into a ravine?”
“On it!” Garren salutes. Salutes. And jogs off like a well-trained Labrador.
Draco doesn’t need to turn to know Potter’s smirking. He can feel it, radiating off the man like heat from a kettle.
“Does he think you’re in the military?”
“Don’t.”
“I’m just saying, if he brings you a latte tomorrow with your name spelled ‘Drayco,’ I won’t be held responsible for my laughter.”
Draco rubs at his temples. Potter is pain, concentrated.
After a pause, Draco speaks again, softer this time. “I didn’t know Teddy was coming today. He usually only visits on even weeks.”
“He wanted to surprise you.”
Draco hums, and despite himself, something in his chest shifts. He did.
“He missed you,” Potter murmurs.
And Draco hears it— I missed you.
He narrows his eyes. “Is this some sort of compliment trap?”
“No,” Potter replies, a bit stiff. “Just... acknowledging what’s true.”
“Well, stop that.”
Potter huffs a laugh—barely audible, but it counts. “You’re insufferable.”
“And yet.”
“And yet,” Potter echoes, and Draco hates that it sounds almost like something.
Then: footsteps. Teddy barrels back up the hill, breathless and beaming, holding a feather nearly half his size like it’s the crown jewels.
“Spider shed this!” he yells.
Draco crouches just in time to catch him before he topples face-first into the dirt.
“Well, he’s molting. Lucky you.”
Potter leans in, voice low and conspiratorial. “Was Spider not just on a whole other mountain?”
“That’s his sister. Lily,” Draco whispers back.
Potter blinks. “So you sent Garren—”
“Yup.”
Potter shakes his head, almost fond. Almost.
“Can I keep it?” Teddy spins the feather like a sword.
“Sure,” Draco says. “But don’t wave it around like that near any of their eyes. Or mine.”
“I won’t! I’m gonna put it in my room. Next to the rock Uncle Ron said might be a horcrux.”
Draco snorts. Potter groans like he’s aged a decade.
“He what?”
And for just a moment—barely a breath—there’s no war, no past, no name heavy as a curse. Just a boy with a dragon feather and two worn-down men pretending, for his sake, that they’re whole.
When Teddy is in bed, tucked high in the conservatory under that weird stained-glass ceiling Luna swears brings good dreams, Draco doesn’t have to try hard to find Harry.
He’s back on the ledge. Of course he is.
“Hey,” Harry says, quiet and slow like he’s had something strong, though Draco knows he hasn’t. Not tonight.
But the way he says it—Draco is snapped right back to that night. Nine months ago.
Draco unlacing his boots. He and Harry stumbling through the doors of Number 12, Harry’s laugh echoing like a curse. They’d stumbled in together, giggling like idiots.
“More alcohol?” Draco had asked, raising an eyebrow as Harry pulled out tequila like it was sacred.
“Listen, you have to understand—it’s necessary for this next story.”
And they lounged on opposite couches, half-falling into each other as Harry recounted how Ron had “ate it”—face-first into the wedding cake.
“And now Hermione is making me and Ron help Molly bake a new one,” he wheezed, holding his stomach. “Fucking face first. It had preservation charms, too.”
“Shouldn’t you be the one setting those charms, Mr. Accelerated Charms and Defence and Philosophy and Origins Consultant?”
“Shut it.”
Draco—entirely sloshed and floating—shook his head, sighing, the grin stuck to his mouth like honey. They’d settled into that kind of silence only found at 3 a.m.—quiet, full, alive.
And for the first time in years, Draco had let himself look. Really look. Because Harry Potter would never not be stunning. His eyes were warm, his grin sharp, and he never backed down from a challenge. Draco might be (and definitely is) madly in love with him.
He looked away.
“Hey,” Harry whispered.
“Hm?”
“How’d you know you were gay?”
Draco’s head whipped around.
“What?”
“How’d—”
“No, I heard. Why?”
“Cause I think I might be,” Harry whispered.
And then promptly passed out.
Draco fell asleep over the moon.
The next day, Harry showed up to the conservatory with his new girlfriend, Juliane. She was lovely. They still talk sometimes.
Draco wasn’t even surprised to find out she was an architect. Who specialized in towers.
Harry’s fingers twitch where they rest on the stone. Draco watches them, not his face.
The sky has started to purple, that strange lavender haze that always comes just before dusk in the conservatory. The dragons have quieted too—Spider curled around the far spire like a cat napping in the sun, his sister lounging just beneath him, her tail flicking against the glass like a metronome.
Draco clears his throat. “Juliane still around?”
Harry doesn't answer immediately. Just breathes in, like the air might carry the answer instead.
“No,” he says finally.
Draco nods. He doesn’t say I told you so. He thinks it briefly. Then lets it go.
“Didn’t like towers?” Draco asks lightly.
“She said I was emotionally constipated.”
Draco barks a short laugh before he can stop himself. “She wasn’t wrong.”
Harry turns his head, just enough to catch his expression. “And you’re the picture of emotional vulnerability?”
“No,” Draco replies, deadpan. “But I also don’t date architects who mistake war trauma for shyness.”
That gets Harry to laugh, soft and tired.
They fall into silence again. Not heavy. Just... silence.
Harry leans back on his palms, eyes up to the clear sky. “Sometimes I think I ruined myself. Or got ruined. Like there was some fixed point back there where I could’ve turned into someone different.”
Draco doesn’t answer. He’s not good at this kind of talk. The kind that isn’t barbed at the ends.
So instead: “Teddy thinks you hung the moon.”
Harry’s jaw tightens. “Yeah, well. He didn’t live through me when I was sixteen.”
Draco shrugs. “Neither did you, really.”
That earns him a glance. A quiet sort of gratitude hidden beneath it.
Harry exhales. “I was such a mess.”
“You still are.”
“You like that about me.”
Draco doesn’t deny it. Just shrugs again and lets the words hover between them.
Then—
“You ever think about telling him?” Harry asks, voice suddenly too casual. Dangerous.
Draco blinks. “Telling who what?”
Harry turns to him now, gaze too direct. “Teddy. That you love him. Like, properly. Like family.”
Draco swallows. “He knows.”
“Yeah,” Harry says. “But so do you. About me.”
There’s a long, slow beat.
And then Draco laughs—sharp and short and ugly.
“You’re drunk again.”
“I’m not.”
“Then you’re stupid.”
“Also not.”
Draco stands, brushing off his trousers, heart racing so hard he feels it in his ears.
“I’m not doing this again, Potter.”
Harry doesn’t follow. Just watches him go with that same unreadable softness he’s worn all day.
Draco doesn't make it more than a dozen steps before stopping. Before turning back.
“He’s my godson,” Harry says quietly. “But you’re the one he draws in every picture. You’re the one he tells first when his teeth fall out, or when he catches a cold, or when he thinks Spider smiled at him.”
Draco hates him.
Hates that he says these things in that voice, the one that sounds like he means them.
He wants to run. He wants to stay.
Instead, he says, “You’re unbearable.”
Harry smiles like he knows. Like he’s always known.
And says, “And yet.”