Title: What Could Have Been (And What Was)
Author: 
amanuensis1
Team: Fanon
Prompt: Judgment
Wordcount: Just under 7,000 (MS Word says 6826 without the headers
Rating: R
Warnings: Infidelity
Summary: Neither epilogue-compliant nor EWE; seven separate demonstrations that you can't stop the signal.
Author's Note The prompt for this story was the tarot card Judgment, whose meanings include rebirth, resurrection, changes and improvements, decisions that change the pattern of life for the better.
It happens like this:
Harry watches his sons walk away from him, watches them board the train and the train slide out of the station until it's gone from sight, the phantom hand which grips his heart squeezing him breathless. When his wife's hand slips into his, fingers interlacing with his own, the pressure in his chest eases.
Lily is involved in a thumb war with Hugo and will probably mind herself well enough for a few minutes. Harry looks back through the dissipating steam at the figures of Malfoy and his wife.
Nineteen years, since he has seen Malfoy face-to-face. It had been on the tip of Harry's tongue to tell Albus Severus Don't let Scorpius Malfoy beat you at Quidditch, before Ron had opened his mouth and said nearly the same thing to Rose and Hermione had come down on him, scandalized that he'd be promoting the rivalry already. Hermione never changes—neither does Ron, and it's why he loves them so.
Though in this case he has to agree with Hermione—Ron warning Rose about a boy would probably have the opposite desired effect. His daughter'll come home dating the Malfoy spawn, more like.
And what if Albus is in Slytherin? Harry hopes Ginny didn't hear quite all of their conversation—she'll take Harry to task for it if she did, because that's all the motivation Albus Severus needs to do the contrary thing himself—ask to be in Slytherin, make that dubious house his personal project, change its reputation from within. He's eleven. Eleven. Harry's sure it wouldn't have stopped Hermione at that age, had she understood the workings of the Hogwarts houses enough to ask, and Albus is like Hermione in many ways.
But Ginny is still squeezing his hand, so likely she didn't catch quite all of what was said, unless she's saving the scold for a time when Harry's less vulnerable. Harry knows it's not right to have a favourite child but he knows Ginny has to see, even if she never says it outright. Putting Albus Severus on the train to Hogwarts for his first time has been a particularly wrenching day for Harry.
So he's glad he didn't make the crack about Quidditch or about Scorpius Malfoy. By tomorrow he'll know what house Albus is in when the news arrives by owl—Albus will surely write to tell them, if he isn't sorted into Slytherin, and James definitely will write if Albus is.
Harry has the feeling tomorrow may be too late.
Gently he releases Ginny's hand, turns and begins to move through the last wisps of steam towards Malfoy and his wife, who have not moved. Neither do they as he approaches.
"Mrs. Malfoy." Harry gives her a nod and a bit of a smile, not wanting to obligate her to shake hands. "Draco." He thinks it is the first time he has spoken that name aloud, without appending Malfoy onto it. To Draco he gives another nod, another bit of smile, neither of them as deep as those he gave to Astoria Malfoy.
From both he gets the nod in return—Draco's is more of a quick jerk. Astoria returns the smile a bit broader than Harry had given it. "Mr. Potter. Good day."
It is greeting, not dismissal, so Harry forges on, thinking of Albus and of Scorpius and of a handshake never completed, twenty-five years ago almost to the day. "Scorpius is your only child, isn't he?" Bugger, Harry thinks—now he's made it sound like they should have more, that Harry's got something to lord over Malfoy. To cover the gaffe he forces a laugh. "God, it's hard sending them off for the first time. Thought I was over it once James had done, but I was wrong—it's no easier this year either."
"We will miss him very much," says Astoria, a touch of wistfulness and warmth in it as if to make up for her lack of tears. Malfoys wouldn't be so classless as to cry in public, would they now. "Scorpius was so eager to go, though—he had his trunk packed for nearly a fortnight before. That was how we knew, even though he pretended not to show it." She glances at Draco. "He does try to imitate his grandfather at times."
From that look Harry knows she doesn't mean Granddad Greengrass. God. Scorpius trying to take after Lucius Malfoy. Maybe Harry's friendly overture was a bad idea after all.
But Draco looks, not at his wife but at Harry, when he answers. "His good qualities, we hope."
And it's all Harry can do not to gape—for Draco Malfoy, that's an apology. As close as the man has ever come, at any rate. It makes Harry feel charitable enough to choke off the thought of what good qualities and instead say, "Albus Severus couldn't wait either. And that one—" he turns, points at Lily, who is jumping up and down in front of her mother, wanting something— "would have leapt onto the train today, two years early, if we hadn't kept hold of her."
Astoria keeps the same smile on her face. "They're so eager to grow up."
"I think," says Draco, and he's looking after the departed train as if unaware that he's contradicting his wife, "that they all just want to be children together. I don't recall wanting to grow up at that age, just eager to show off in front of a bigger audience."
"Yes, well, that was you, darling," Astoria says, still smiling.
Harry thinks of about six different responses, including Yes, that was you, Malfoy and Your father's influence again, before settling on, "It's probably different for boys and girls. That's what my wife is always telling me." And he's not sure he's happy with that response—has he just lumped himself together with Malfoy, admitting he wanted to be a show-off? That wasn't true, wasn't true at all.
It doesn't matter, he answers himself. It was a thing to say. To keep the conversation polite. To be friendly to Malfoy. Isn't that what this is all about—so that if Albus Severus does become friendly with a Malfoy offspring, he won't have the baggage of My dad hates yours?
Yes, that's what it's about. And when Draco Malfoy's mouth twitches and he says, "Ah. Well, it must be true then, if your wife says it—a wife's always right, Astoria keeps telling me," and there are chuckles all around the three of them—Harry discovers several things.
One is the ease of saying, "Nice to talk to you. Good luck to Scorpius, then," and to accept the murmurs of Malfoy and wife returning the sentiment for his own children.
Another is a lightness in his chest that completely displaces that phantom hand from earlier. It doesn't matter what house Albus Severus goes into. He'll never let his son feel less than worthy.
The last is strange enough that he doesn't quite recognize what it was he was fixing on until later. Much later, driving home with Ginny and Lily.
He's seen Draco Malfoy smile before. Frequently. All were sneering or superior, and all were ugly. That mouth twitch today, a smile that included him, was for him...Malfoy isn't nearly so pointed when he smiles like that.
He can't possibly be thinking Draco Malfoy's mouth is interesting. But he is.
***
He thinks it more than once in the days to come. The memory rises when Ginny makes a comment about Astoria Malfoy's robes. When they get the owl from Albus two days later—he's in Gryffindor after all ("The hat said, 'Oh, Merlin, another one. Gryffindor. Don't argue with me. I don't need that sort of grief—I said don't argue, young man!' So I didn't.") And it's in the back of his mind while he's at work—he won't let it any further forward than that, because he's too busy to be distracted by that kind of rubbish.
Only. Only it's starting to disturb him how frequently it comes back to him, because it is rubbish, of course it is. It's making him regret he said anything to Malfoy in the first place, and clearly that's utter rubbish, it's shite, to be afraid of—what? What exactly? There aren't even words for it.
So when Albus Severus's next owl does mention Scorpius Malfoy by name—not in a "we're best friends" sort of way but in a read-between-the-lines context that suggests they've made it safely past "blood enemies at first glance," Harry pointedly tells his fears to get stuffed and sends an owl to Draco Malfoy. A friendly one.
Later he will not remember the exact text of what he sent. The note is casual, the writing of it is not—it's his attempt to act casually, to act so fiercely casual that he can become so, in the acting. To prove how groundless his fears are. So he makes himself forget the exact wording.
But it says something about their sons (Scorpius is in Slytherin, of course) and Harry does not make any false excuse for writing but instead baldly admits he'd appreciated Malfoy's charitable war efforts (Malfoys don't have professions; the idle rich have charity work, instead, but at least Draco has gone beyond mere monetary donation and actually spent some years personally aiding war orphans; even if he's only done it for his reputation's sake he's done it), and isn't it a good thing that their children seem to be growing up with fewer prejudices. That last he deliberately includes. If Draco and Astoria are still harbouring the "pureblood is best" attitude in their hearts then Harry'll probably never get a response to his letter, and that will be for the best, won't it.
Draco invites him to visit.
Harry thinks this is not a good idea. No—he doesn't think it, rather his instincts tell him. But those instincts are the same voices that tell him there's something very wrong about thinking about Draco Malfoy this much (about Draco Malfoy's mouth) and he can't hear them, can he—he mustn't, because they're rot, they're idiocy. He finds himself speaking to those instincts with the stupidest, most ridiculous answers, such as I love my wife, because what the hell has that to do with anything that he's feeling, and I love my children because that has even less to do with it, or maybe it doesn't except it doesn't matter because none of it makes any sense at all. At all.
He's telling himself this when he visits Draco Malfoy. Telling it to himself when he invites Malfoy to lunch after, telling himself the same thing over and over each time they have their forced-goodwill, determined-to-be-civil, friendship-for-their-children's-sakes meetings—all the words he uses to describe them to Ginny, because he isn't hiding them from Ginny just like Draco isn't hiding them from Astoria, they're not hiding, what is there to hide. Except there's not much about their conversation that's forced, and when they aren't civil to each other they don't seem to mind much, and they talk about their children but that's hardly all of it. And Harry's telling himself this right up to the day they leave their lunch table at the London Muggle hotel they've dined at three times before and this time go upstairs to one of its rooms and spend three hours fucking each other into the mattress, consummating Harry's fascination with Draco Malfoy's mouth and pretty much every other part of him, and both of them go from being "Draco" and "Harry" back to "Malfoy" and "Potter" for every minute of it because there's nothing polite and nothing of new-found friendship in it—and that's one of the things that shakes Harry especially, when he thinks about it later: that it's not how much Malfoy has changed that made Harry want him, but to realize it was the same Malfoy from back then that he wants. Or wanted. Back then.
And three hours have bled into early evening, and Harry sits on the side of the bed as Malfoy lies there, wanting nothing so much as to drag Malfoy's fascinating mouth back to his cock again, and he has no idea what he is going to do.
He thinks of Ginny's face when he tells her, and what it will be like to pack up his clothing and leave their house for good, and of Lily, burying her face in his lap and saying no, Dad, no no no, don't go, and his sons' faces, pale as paper and James asking him in a cracked voice why, why do you have to leave Mum and Albus saying nothing at all but looking at him and looking at him. He sees all that before him and realizes: he thought he knew what it was like to go through death but to go on living, but he didn't know. Not really.
And he stares at Draco Malfoy's closed lashes, and he has no idea, none in the whole wide world, what in the hell he is going to do.
—No. No, it doesn't happen that way. Like this:
Three months after Lily's birth, Ginny looks over her shoulder at her bum in the mirror and declares, "I'm starting training again tomorrow."
"You look beautiful," Harry reassures her, checking Lily's bottle to make sure the warming charm hasn't overdone it. His warming charms are always precise but it's force of habit.
Ginny turns and eyes him in a way that delivers her meaning even before she speaks; Harry feels the surprise wash over him even as she says, "No, Harry. I mean training. I've already spoken to Rowan."
Harry wonders why he should feel so awkward, standing there with Lily's bottle as Ginny's words hang in the air between them. It isn't as if he hasn't fed all of the children in their time, that the bottle of infant formula should make him fumble, feel at a loss. "I thought you'd decided..." He doesn't finish the sentence.
"I said I thought I might. I changed my mind. I miss it, Harry. I wonder that you don't, sometimes."
"I enjoy Quidditch well enough, whenever Ron and—" He stops. "This isn't about whether I like playing Quidditch. It's just that—" What is it, exactly? "You surprised me, that's all. If you want to go back to it, well, fine."
"But you're disappointed."
"I'm surprised, Ginny. That's all I was saying. Since you said you were retiring for good after Lily."
"'For good.' Listen to you! You are disappointed."
"I—it's a phrase, Gin...!"
"You didn't just want me to stay home with her, you wanted me to give it up. You were looking forward to it at last, weren't you?"
Harry doesn't even try to interrupt her, only stands holding the bottle, staring at her. "I like my career," she continues. "Just because it's fun doesn't mean it's less of a career. You've always been jealous of it, but that's not my fault. I'm happy with what I do, and you should be too. There have been years where I've had more income than you! So just because I've had year-and-a-half interruptions to have the children, that more than makes up for it."
He can't listen any longer. "Have I ever once said anything about money? Where the hell is this coming from?"
Her voice doesn't rise. She folds her arms and addresses him like a parent with a child. "I'm starting training again tomorrow. Rowan's happy to have me back, and I'm still younger than a good third of the team. Much younger than most of the players retiring this year. I want you to understand that, Harry." And she turns and leaves the room.
After several moments, Harry realizes that his mouth is open, and shuts it.
He wonders if it might be that postpartum thingy, when women get depressed. When has he ever said a thing about money? When has he ever implied that he was jealous of Ginny's career? Ginny was the one who had fussed about wanting to give it up, wanting to stay home and be a full-time mum at last. He'd never said a word.
In the nursery, Lily is starting to cry. Harry turns, goes to give his daughter her bottle.
***
Later, Harry tries to apologize for things he hasn't said and hasn't done but which still seem to need apologizing for, apparently. Ginny is cool to him and Harry still can't understand what she wants from him.
He doesn't understand then, he doesn't understand later. Except he does, much later.
Understanding still doesn't come when Ginny comes to him three months after and says he doesn't understand her needs and never has, and she wants him to leave. She says she'll leave if he refuses, but she didn't think he would turn her and their children out of the house and of course the children need their mother more. Understanding does come, however, when she mentions that her teammate Robert Hanford will likely be moving in by the end of the week "but of course, Harry, that's nothing to do with all this."
And he stands there wanting her words unsaid because she's just killed everything that matters in him—his home, his family, and he doesn't want to leave because how are his children going to manage without him, how are they going to manage with just Ginny, and he remembers that Robert fucking Hanford will no doubt be perfectly happy to give Ginny all the help she needs and he's out the door before he can seriously start to think about committing murder.
He ends up in a pub, of course, not tasting what the barman serves him—not really drinking it, either, because he's already numb from Ginny killing him dead there in their living room. And the hours stretch on as he sits there with his glass, sipping at it every so often to remind himself that swallowing means he must still be breathing too—and it's then that he hears it, a voice he hasn't heard in the same room for years.
"Potter. Fancy that."
No one else ever put quite the same nasals on the word fancy like that. Harry looks and Draco Malfoy has sat next to him.
Ten years, since he has seen Draco Malfoy face-to-face. Part of Harry's mind is trying to process what Malfoy would be doing in a pub—all right, it's a wizarding pub but it's still a pub—and he remembers that Malfoy has spent the years since the war trying to cultivate a neighborly, less elitist reputation than his parents had. Actually went out and laid hands on some of those war orphans rather than just starting scholarships in their honor—probably in fear that the Ministry would get nosy about any ugly skull-and-snake tattoos on the Malfoy forearms, no doubt.
"Malfoy," he manages to pronounce through the haze fogging the connections between his brain and his mouth.
"You look like shit," Malfoy says without malice.
And he says, because what does it matter now who Malfoy is, what does it matter who knows, "My wife's with someone else."
He expects laughter, and he gets it, but it's not the kind he did expect. "Yeah?" Malfoy tosses back another mouthful of his own drink. "So's mine."
It actually gets Harry to turn his head and look. "Tonight?"
Malfoy turns and looks as well. Now his laugh is exactly what Harry expected. "What, no, I didn't just find out tonight, Potter. No wonder you look like you do." He drinks again. "Our solicitors are still busily screwing each other over, though. She's trying to get custody."
Harry makes enough of a connection to ask, "You're fighting her for it?"
"Of course." Malfoy doesn't look at him. "That's my son. He's a Malfoy."
And mine are Potters, Harry thinks. Should that matter any less?
"Tell me about it, " he says to Malfoy. "What your solicitors are doing."
And Malfoy looks at him, and the corner of his mouth quirks into a smile that Harry notices, through his fog, makes Malfoy's face look a little less pointed.
One week from that night, during which the only moments in Harry's existence which are not numb misery are the ones in which he remembers the shape of Malfoy's mouth, Harry accepts Malfoy's invitation to lunch. A week from that day, Harry calls Malfoy "Draco" for the first time. And three weeks from then, Harry, with utter disregard for the advice his solicitors have given him regarding "impeccable behavior" if he wants to have a satisfactory chance of winning a custody case against his soon-to-be-ex-wife, follows Draco Malfoy upstairs to a room in a London Muggle hotel and spends the entire afternoon fucking him, and being fucked, into the mattress. And when Malfoy invites him to move into the Manor Harry knows he's going to accept, and he's going to lose custody of his children for good when the gossips learn the celebrated Harry Potter is a tawdry pillow-biter. And he has no idea in hell how to stop what has begun.
Still not right. What if:
Potter, you stink, the note begins.
The grey owl is finishing off the bit of bacon Harry has given it as Harry continues to read the message it has brought. Don't think I didn't see the announcement. "The Potter family is pleased to announce the arrival of Albus SEVERUS." You utter git, Potter. Astoria is six days from her due date and what name had we settled on? Now we'll just be idiots who couldn't think of anything original. I hate your guts more than I hate your stupid family. And how dare you put "Albus" first, anyway. Go to hell.
It's unsigned and the hand is not as elegant as he would have expected, but Harry's pretty sure he doesn't have to wonder who sent it. Ginny is getting a rare moment of sleep upstairs and neither James nor the baby sound like they're stirring just yet; maybe he won't disturb her by showing the note to her at all.
And then there's a knock on the front door. A pounding, really. So much for not disturbing Ginny. He sighs and goes to answer it.
Despite the owl, he didn't expect this. Because Draco Malfoy is in a bathrobe—a rather elegant one but still obviously a bathrobe—Harry opens the door immediately rather than just eye him suspiciously through the window and leave him there longer.
Seven years, since he has seen Draco Malfoy face-to-face. Malfoy hasn't even used a depilatory charm that morning and the hollows under his eyes look like Dementors live in them. He sees the letter still in Harry's hand and his eyes round even as his face falls. "I did send it." His voice cracks. "Ah, fuck."
Harry barks a laugh. "You were drunk, weren't you."
Malfoy snarls, "Give it to me." He snatches at it but Harry backs away a step. "I mean it. You tell anyone and I'll sue you for libel."
Harry has the upper hand; he can easily remain calm. "How's your wife? Six days, you said?"
And Malfoy unexpectedly sags against the doorjamb. "I can't stand it a minute longer. How the hell did you do it twice, Potter?"
"You know, it might be longer than six days," Harry says. "Ginny went two weeks past her due date," he lies, by only three days.
Malfoy's only response is to turn his face against the doorjamb and moan.
Harry sighs. "Malfoy, name your bloody kid Severus if you want to, you think it matters to anyone?"
"Never. Won't give you the satisfaction."
Another sigh. "Then at least go back to your wife with the attitude that it doesn't bother you. Come up with something near it and tell her you always preferred that in the first place."
After a moment, there is a muffled, "I could do that." Malfoy straightens, his face only marginally less bleak. Humor and pity make Harry feel more gracious than he'd expected.
"Don't go back to her just yet—not looking like that," he says, opening the door wider. "We have about sixty congratulations bouquets in the house—take a few of them back to her and tell her you love her and can't wait for her to be the mother of your child, no matter what he's named."
Malfoy's chest rises and so does he, his old arrogance surfacing. "Are you offering me used flowers, Potter?"
"I'm offering you flowers and advice from a man who's been there twice before. Are you going to take it or not?" He holds up the note. "And you can have your bloody letter back."
In slippers and bathrobe, the youngest of the Malfoys—for a few days longer, at least—assembles his dignity on the doorstep of Harry's house. "I accept."
Harry can't help it; he snorts a laugh.
The corner of Malfoy's mouth twitches. Harry can't help but think that smiling makes Malfoy look far less...pointed.
One week after, he accepts Malfoy's invitation to lunch. A week after that—during which he finds himself thinking of Malfoy's mouth far more than is comfortable—he calls him "Draco" for the first time. Three weeks later, they lunch at a London Muggle hotel.
Not quite. Go further back:
"So: James, or no?" asks Ginny from her bed.
Harry can hardly look away from the creature in his arms, with its coppery hair still damp from the first bath, face red and blotchy, hands and feet purple and head looking like someone put it into a vise and squeezed until it went banana-shaped. It's so small and he can't seem to hold it properly, as it thrusts all four limbs out of its blankets and its head wobbles in a terrifying way and he's sure he's going to drop it any minute. It's the most gorgeous thing he's ever seen. "What?" he asks.
"James," Ginny says with a little laugh. "You said you wanted to see him before we decided; well, now you've seen him. I'm fine with James if you are."
He looks at her, looks back at his son. She had suggested James, not him; he had opened his mouth to say are you sure and realized that he wasn't sure himself. Why hadn't it sat right with him? He didn't know, so he'd said let's see what he looks like and see if it fits.
And now he does see what he looks like, and this baby looks no less a James than he looks anything else. So why does it still not seem to fit?
He looks at Ginny. "I don't know," he says slowly. "There are —so many memories with that name. Some bad, some good...It's quite a bit for him to carry around."
Ginny looks puzzled, pushes a strand of her hair back from her face. "It's your name too."
"I didn't say I wasn't proud to have it," he says. "I just thought it might be fairer to give him something he doesn't have to live up to."
Now Ginny laughs. "Harry, you're already giving him Potter."
And Harry puts his head down (near his son; oh, how can something that just came out of all that blood and mess smell so good?) and laughs himself. "You're right," he says when he's done. "I'm being silly. James it is."
But it isn't completely silly, he thinks. James won't have to go looking in a mirror to find his parents, won't have to go to his own death to defeat some madman. And on a smaller scale, James isn't going to be a bully at school—Harry'll make sure of it. House rivalries are one thing but the kind of hatred Sirius and his father had for Snape—the kind he had for Draco Malfoy—he won't let it happen.
What would his world have been like had Snape had children? What will James's be like if Draco Malfoy does? Malfoy just got married to the Greengrass girl; no doubt they're already working on the next little Malfoy scion.
Though he doubts their children can ever be friends, Harry doesn't want that to be because he's the one who refused to make the first gesture. Six years, since he has seen Draco Malfoy face-to-face—maybe Malfoy wouldn't take too badly to a carefully-worded communication. If only for his reputation's sake—Harry's heard he's been doing hands-on charity work with war orphans.
Malfoy doesn't take too badly to the message. He invites Harry to lunch at a London Muggle hotel, in fact. Harry even refers to him as "Draco" for the first time that he can remember, and thinks that Malfoy's face is not quite so pointed when he smiles—not the sort of non-gloating twist to his mouth that he's aquired, anyway. Harry finds himself thinking about Malfoy's mouth more than he would expect, in the weeks that follow.
—Try again. This way:
"Come on, open."
Teddy doesn't.
"Come on, just a little."
Teddy won't.
Harry sighs, sets down the spoonful of mushy baby food and rubs a sticky hand over his equally sticky eyes. Teddy's sticky too, and so is the tray and the highchair and most of the kitchen, and, come to think of it, pretty much all of the house.
He isn't bad at this. He knows he's not; for an eighteen-year-old raising a godson, he thinks he's doing pretty well. At the end of each day, Teddy's fed and healthy, and if neither of them are exactly immaculate Teddy knows that Harry loves him. That the house is standing and Harry is holding onto his sanity, just barely, is a bonus.
Mrs. Tonks had said she wanted to keep Teddy, but at the time, really, there hadn't been that much to choose between them—obviously she'd have been more capable in better circumstances, but she was a numb, newly-made widow also grieving for her daughter. In the face of that, a seventeen-year-old boy who'd just faced down the Dark Lord didn't sound as laughably incompetent as it might have. Mrs. Tonks had heard what Harry had had to say about Sirius, and what he'd been unable to give and how much it mattered to Harry to do for Remus and Teddy what Sirius couldn't do for his father and for him. And she'd given in, and retreated to a grandmother's role (though a highly involved grandmother; Harry's deeply grateful for that, especially when she arrives with food).
"Grrrar."
"That's it, Teddy. You savage beast. Try another mouthful."
Teddy does.
They'd thought he was mad, of course, including everyone closest to him. But everyone closest to him also understood, and Harry thinks Teddy has one of the most caring extended families one can have—not just Mrs. Tonks but Ron and Hermione, Bill and Fleur, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley—Teddy has plenty of people to call aunty and uncle (when he learns to talk, of course).
Ginny visits from time to time, too. It was hard, crushing Ginny's hopes that second time, when she realized Harry was serious about raising Teddy, that he wasn't going to become a typical teenaged boy again, unburdened and free. But he knew she wasn't ready to have instant motherhood forced onto her. He's accepted that there will not be a third chance for them. He hopes she has.
"Dah."
"Oh, you like that one, do you? Okay, have a bit more of the peaches."
Teddy decides the peaches look best spat onto Harry. He laughs, and Harry does too. What's a bit more sticky at this point?
There's a knock at the door. "Don't go anywhere," Harry says to his godson, who is chewing on the edge of the tray.
He's so surprised to find who it is that he opens the door wide instead of just gaping through the window.
On his doorstep, Draco Malfoy's eyes register Harry, and go huge with shock. "I don't bloody believe it."
He doesn't believe it? "What the hell are you doing here?" It's been months since he's seen Draco Malfoy face-to-face.
Malfoy's jaw flaps a moment, then he gets out, "The War Orphan Relief Fund! This is my third address of the day—I do not believe that they didn't tell me," he huffs in no particular direction.
"You are making door-to-door visits? Not just throwing pureblooded Galleons at the charity to keep yourselves out of Azkaban? Now I've seen it all." From behind him there's a clatter and he dashes back to the kitchen, finding Teddy has merely upset the bowl of mushed peaches, and he sighs with relief. Teddy shouldn't be able to get out of that chair for at least another six months, he's been told, but you never know with a metamorphmagus.
"That's your war orphan?"
"Who the hell invited you in?" he says without turning, casting scourgify on the upturned peaches. "This is my godson. Teddy. He's not a war orphan. Not one you or your charity needs to worry about. Bye, Malfoy."
Teddy fixes on the newcomer. "Bwah!" he says. And Teddy's hair turns electric blue.
Harry stops in his tracks. "Wha—Teddy, you brilliant kid, you!" He gathers Teddy straight up into his arms. "When'd you learn that?"
Teddy's still looking at Malfoy. "Buwagh!" This time his hair shifts lime green.
Harry groans. "Oh, wonderful. You would have to be part of one his first accomplishments, Malfoy."
Malfoy's brows draw together. "That's cousin Nymphadora's baby, isn't it. The 'cub.'"
"The what?"
"Nothing." Malfoy ducks his head against his shoulder a little. "Something stupid. Hasn't he done that before?"
"His hair shifts black and ginger, and once in a while brown, but he hasn't done any non-hair colours before now." Harry looks back at Malfoy. "Fleur's hair's about the same shade as yours, but maybe it's the first time he's seen that colour on a man. Maybe you inspired him. Or maybe he's just trying to scare you off. Yes, that's the answer, isn't it, Teddy. Make the bad man go away." Teddy claps his hands and reaches out towards Malfoy. "So much for that theory. Shame on you, Teddy."
"Maybe he recognizes blood."
Harry doesn't know what to say to that, so he's silent. Fortunately Malfoy opens his mouth and insults him in the next breath. "This house looks like shit. Smells like it, too."
"You must have been a big hit at your first two addresses."
"They didn't have you there. I was the soul of politeness." He looks directly at Harry. "Is it just you?"
Harry's never been defensive about raising Teddy alone to anyone and he certainly isn't going to be to Malfoy. "He has lots of people who love him and visit him. It's just the two of us who live here, though, yes. And we like squalor just fine."
Malfoy snorts. "That's the word for it. Wouldn't have imagined you even knew that one."
"Hermione uses it a lot."
"Bwah," Teddy says to Malfoy again.
"I think you'd better go before he wants you to hold him. He's a bit sticky for company," Harry says, not as unkindly as he'd intended.
"So are you. You've got something orange in your hair."
Harry realizes this is Malfoy's way of informing him, not insulting him. "Strained peaches. Teddy's still trying to figure out if he likes it."
Malfoy nods. He seems to be out of clever responses. "I'll take your address off the list, then, shall I."
"Do that."
"Fine." The door is still standing open, and Malfoy moves to it. "Can I...I'll send a gift for Teddy sometime, if that's all right. Don't think I'm going to babysit or anything, though," he adds hastily.
"Who asked you?" Harry frowns.
Malfoy snorts again. "You'd be surprised if I told you." He doesn't say goodbye, but there's a twitch of a smile in the corner of his mouth as he goes. Harry notices it makes him look less...pointed.
Harry waits until he's some distance away, then shuts the door, Teddy still in his arms. "That's...I guess that's your cousin Malfoy," he tells Teddy. "Arrogant little git."
But something about that twitch of a smile tells Harry Malfoy was at least trying for civil. —And why on earth is he thinking about Malfoy's mouth?
Better. But still not the truth. Perhaps:
"...I've had enough trouble for a lifetime."
Bed. Maybe a sandwich, but bed primarily. Harry trudges up the stairs to the Gryffindor boys' dormitory, his phoenix-and-holly wand a familiar and soothing presence in his hand.
His four-poster bed is waiting for him. Though something else that's in the room isn't.
At first he can't see whom it is that Neville is kissing, but in a moment he sees, even before they fly apart, and Harry's first thought is not shock or sadness; it's a quiet observation that they must have left the Great Hall soon after he did, to have got here first. Ah, he doesn't say. Of course, he doesn't say, though he thinks both of those things. He left her, after all. Told her she didn't matter enough to him to bring her along even though he would happily bring his two best friends. And she didn't matter enough. Should he be surprised that she found herself a new hero?
"It's all right, didn't mean to interrupt," he does say. "I'll go find another room. And—congratulations, you two."
It's Ginny who starts to speak and Neville that lifts a hand to hush her—good old Neville. He's not angry at him, not angry at either of them honestly. But, no, he doesn't want to hear anything Ginny has to say at this moment.
He wanders back down the stairs; he could just as easily fall asleep on one of the chairs in the common room but it seems too near, so he leaves the tower altogether. He's so tired at this point he could fall asleep on one of the tables in the Great Hall, or on top of the stone gargoyle, even.
He almost bumps into Draco Malfoy.
Malfoy had been coming from the other direction; the last Harry had seen of him, Malfoy had been in the Hall as well, with his parents. He must have felt the same impulse as Harry, to get away, find some silence.
He has no words for Malfoy; Malfoy doesn't appear to have any for him in return. But as they stand there, eyes too tired to be locked but not looking away, Harry grants him one small nod, not caring if Malfoy returns it or not. But Malfoy does, a nod no greater but no less than the one Harry gave. And neither makes way for the other, but rather both of them step aside at the same time, each to his right, and passes the other without any other conflict. Harry knows it is not the last he's seen of Malfoy's prickliness—nor of his insults. But he senses the hostilities between them are over.
He thinks about the thin line of Malfoy's mouth and wonders what he'd look like if he smiled instead of sneered, for a change.
Nearly.
But this is the way it did happen:
And he sees them: Malfoy with his arms around the unconscious Goyle, the pair of them perched on a fragile tower of desks. And Harry dives, even as Malfoy sees him coming and raises one arm, and Harry knows it's going to be no good, Malfoy's hand's covered in sweat and he can't let go of Goyle—
—and Harry doesn't care, he stretches down, because he's going to save them both, because Hermione's right, he does have a saving-people thing, and why should he be ashamed of that, because he's all there is to do it at this moment, and it doesn't matter if Malfoy deserves it; Harry's never stopped to think about whether anyone deserved it. And his hand locks onto Malfoy's wrist and Malfoy's locks onto his, both of their hands slippery with sweat and Goyle is dead weight under Malfoy's other arm, and Harry holds on, and holds on, and they are not going to die today, not while he can help it, and Harry holds on, and holds on, in the middle of the heat and the sweat and the weight and the fire and smoke and the screams of Ron and Hermione in his ears and as Harry looks down the look on Malfoy's face as his mouth twists up into something like terror but Harry knows is absolute faith that Harry will not let him die today—
—and Harry holds on and he never, never lets go.