Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I. O' Courage, My Soul

The wind cut sharper than glass. It came howling down the narrow London street, sending sheets of snow spiraling into the dying day and pressing them into the cracks between cobblestones. Outside the deceptively dim doors of St. Mungo’s, a lone figure stands motionless, white breath catching in the air before being torn away, swaying slightly.

The flakes melted where they touched his overexposed, fevered skin, running in thin rivulets down his wrists to his numbed fingertips. He tightens them into the fabric held in his arms, not to warm them but to bring the fragile bundle into his chest, shielding it from the cruel elements of the world— nature's unrelenting press, society's unforgiving judgment, the flat, clinical voice of the nurse as she said coldly: We don’t treat your kind here.

The words pulsed in rhythm with the thud of his heartbeat, each repetition hammering deeper. Your kind, she spat it like a polite slur. He wasn’t sure which kind she meant—purebloods, Death Eaters, or simply Draco Malfoy, the sum of all that was left when titles and coin and family pride had rotted away. Perhaps it didn’t matter. Whichever version of himself she’d meant, it was one the world had already decided to discard.

He staggered down the street, worn shoes slipping on ice, socks soaking through. The snow had begun to fall heavier, thick enough that the lamps above him glowed like faint orbs in a sea of grey. His thoughts drifted as he walked, circling emptily. He could try the shelter near Waltham Cross; the man there had been kind once, even offered him bread when he hadn’t earned it. Kindness had a way of feeling like pity, though—something that used to make the haughty, familial magic in his blood curdle in disdain.

But Draco had long since run out of things that once mattered. He had no galleons, no dignity, and certainly not an ounce of the magic that had once defined him as something or value.

A gust of wind caught him off guard, bending him nearly double. He pressed his forehead to the fabric bundle, breathing shallowly, feeling the faint weight shift beneath the cloth. “Shh,” he murmured, though he wasn’t sure who he meant to soothe—the soft cry within his hold, the drained core within his body, maybe even the looming storm. The world beyond and reason blurred from his fever.

He pushed on, but every step felt like walking through water. The streets were empty, save for the shadows that clung to the walls, and each breath burned hotter than the last. 

He wasn’t going to make it. The thought came not as panic, but as weary resignation. His knees buckled, feet dragging him toward the mouth of a narrow alley. The snow there was deeper, half-frozen and quiet, but at least the wind could not find them. He sank to the ground, back against the brick, and slid down until the cold wall gnawed at his spine.

His arms tightened once more around the bundle. He could feel it breathing faintly against him—life, small and persistent, like a delicate winter flower in bloom. The fever was a blessing, he thought in slight delirium, for even as it scoured the life from him, it still provided warmth. 

Somewhere, a church bell tolls, each ring a declaration of the hours successfully survived. Draco counts each one a as blessing as he nuzzles against the layers of stolen coats and gifted blankets. He catches the sight of wide, tired grey eyes, peeking through a tunnel that a defiant hand had made through the fabric barrier. The sight fills him with a warmth the winter could never rob him of.  “We'll rest here for just a bit, my stars,” he promises. “Just until the storm passes."

Nuzzling closer, he smiles sweetly as he hums, voice cracking from the cold and the sick and the utter exhaustion: "O' courage my soul and let us carry on," he sings, words stolen from a church that had once filled their bellies and sheltered them— until a bout of accidental magic had robbed them of that mercy. But Draco does not dwell on the hardships; if he did, how would he find the strength to go on? Instead, he thinks of the red velvet of the pews and the sweet sound of the choir. "For the night is dark, and I am far from home. Thanks be to God. The morning light appears." And it does, flashing in his vision in a kaleidoscope of dizzying white as the wind finds their hiding spot in this filthy alley. "The storm is passing over. The storm is passing over. The storm is passing—" It comes out as a prayer, a beg. He hopes, foolishly, that something out there hears it.

He laughs at the foolish thought, shivering as the sound rattles the last of his strength from him, leaving him feeling strange, but only because he is suddenly so weightless and warm. How merciful, he thinks, that dying could be so gentle.

The wind picked up again, scattering flakes across his face, and for a moment, he thought he could hear someone calling him— not his name, but something kinder, an endearment made holy by someone too pure for this world. It sounds very far away, and he wants to chase it. His arms loosen, wanting. The cruel, cruel world blurs, softening into something nearly kind.

There is a pillow of white on his cheek, and he sighs into this comfort he has not known in so very, very long. He thinks of his mother's bosom, the soft sound of her voice loud against his ear. He thinks of the pillow in his dorm, pulled against him as he whispers to others— faces that had names, once, that he categorizes as friends, but now are nothing more than ghosts.

He thinks of white linens in their first flat—the only thing that had ever been his and hers, the sacred piece of haven carved from ruin. He thinks of soft, white curls, of the only good he had ever been gifted in his entire existence.

The snow deepens. The world hushes. His breath escapes him in a sigh that sounds almost like relief.

Then the cold claims him—swift, quiet, complete—and everything falls to black.

The cold bit at him, but it was nothing compared to the fire still clawing at his chest.

Harry stomped through the empty London streets, boots slamming against wet pavement, each step punctuating the steady churn of anger that had nowhere left to go. His red Auror robes flared behind him like a bleeding wound, snapping in the wind, open and unfastened. The fabric caught the dim glow of the streetlamps, gleaming almost too brightly—oversaturated where the badge had once sat, the ghost of its outline burned into the cloth.

That badge had lived there for ten years. Ten years of devotion, of sacrifice, of letting the world hollow him out piece by piece in the name of something he’d once believed was noble. The greater good.

What good had he ever seen from it?

A system that preached of justice, but rotted beneath the weight of its own hypocrisy. A Ministry that spoke of reform with the same mouth that silenced its dissenters. He had tried— Merlin, he had tried. Tirelessly, endlessly, until he had nothing left but the exhaustion.

Ron and Hermione had seen it coming long before he did. They’d walked away when it became clear the war had ended everywhere except in him. They built something small, something peaceful, leaving Harry behind in the ruins of the world he refused to abandon. Even Ginny, crying as she left, begging him to stop trying to heal a wound that was being purposefully recut, tried to make him see that the rot was eating him alive from the inside out.

But he’d stayed. Because that’s what Harry Potter did—he stayed, he fixed, and he burned himself down to keep others warm.

Until today.

Until he had stood in the Minister’s office, fingers still slick with someone else’s blood, the smell of ash clinging to his robes. The suspect had been dying—some poor bastard from Knockturn Alley, struck down by an overeager recruit with more temper than training. Harry had done what anyone decent would do: he’d healed him. Simple, instinctive.

And Kingsley—calm, level, endlessly reasonable Kingsley—had looked at him with something that might have been disappointment, and said, That was a waste of magic and valuable time, Potter.

Something inside him broke cleanly at that.

He remembered the sharp sound of his badge hitting the Minister’s desk. The satisfying crack of his Ministry-issued wand. He remembered shouting, words that had tasted like ash, and the stunned silence that followed.

Now, his breath came out in angry bursts, fogging before his face. Somewhere, he knew the Prophet was already printing its first drafts. The Savior Quits Ministry in Fit of Rage. They’d make it poetic, dramatic, a tragedy fit for column inches. The public would turn as quickly as they’d once cheered—nothing new there.

He didn’t Apparate. He didn’t even think of it. Instead, he walked, each step dragging the heat of his fury against the cold stone of reason. The city around him was half-lit, half-dead, muggle lights glowing faintly through the snow, everyone with sense wisely sheltering from the impending storm.

Harry, with his steps growing heavy and tired, stilled, chest burning as though he had been running for hours. He tilted his face upward, letting the flakes sting his cheeks and gather on his glasses until the world blurred into white noise. The anger didn’t fade, but it softened, leaving behind the ache of regret.

He could still turn back, a small voice within him whispered; that incessant part that ached to make a difference. Kingsley would listen if he asked. He’d done worse things, survived worse things. They needed him—surely they still needed him.

Somewhere above, a church bell tolled its last for the evening, the sound dull and distant, swallowed by the falling snow. When it faded, all that was left was the hush—the quiet that follows confession, the breath before surrender.

Harry sighed, shoulders sagging. He turned back the way he’d come, already rehearsing his apology in his head. He made it two, maybe three steps before stopping dead.

There it was—quiet, almost swallowed by the wind, but unmistakable: crying. Small, muffled, rhythmic.

He frowned, the instinct rising before thought could catch up. He glanced around, eyes narrowing, scanning for movement. The muggle street was empty, but the snow told its own story—scuffed, uneven footprints, dragging slightly, already being erased by the storm.

His hand slipped into his coat, fingers tightening around his holly wand, the familiar warmth steadying him. His anger, his exhaustion—all of it receded into the sharp, cool focus that training and habit demanded.

He followed the prints, the soft sounds of crying guiding him between the narrow shadows of two buildings. The world dimmed there, swallowed by the dark. He moved carefully, boots crunching softly through the snow, until he reached the mouth of the alley.

He peered around the corner, wand angled low, every sense sharp and ready. The storm muffled the world into silence, but through the curtain of falling snow, he made out a shape slumped against the wall—large, motionless, body too exposed for the cold that clung to the air.

Closer inspection revealed more: a blanket draped lumped on the ground, its edges stiff with frost, and kneeling beside it— a child.

The boy couldn’t have been more than five, small enough that the world seemed to swallow him. He was bundled in a jacket several sizes too big, the sleeves swallowing his hands. A woolen hat, far too big, drooped over his brow; a scarf, tangled twice around his neck, leaving only his wet eyes exposed. His boots, mismatched and overstuffed with socks, left clumsy prints in the snow where he shifted and trembled. Every article of clothing was mismatched, oversized—but warm. Properly warm.

It was the contrast that struck Harry—the careful wrapping of the boy against the cold, and the man lying behind him in clothes too thin for winter, too ruined for dignity. Scuffed leather shoes, cracked and soaked through. Torn flannel shirt, the buttons missing, the fabric clinging to skin that looked far too pale.

The boy hiccupped. A sound so small, so human, it tore right through Harry’s instincts.

“Daddy, wa’e up,” the child whispered, voice broken by cold and fright. “You’ll get cold, Daddy, pwease…”

He tugged off his scarf—green and silver, frayed but clearly cherished—and pushed it toward the motionless figure, tiny gloved hands shaking. “Pwease, Daddy, wake up…”

Harry’s heart stuttered, clenching in his chest. He lowered his wand slightly, the instinct to comfort overriding the one to defend. He crouched, making himself small.. “Hey—hey there.”

The boy jumped violently, twisting around with a frightened gasp. He scrambled between Harry and the prone man, arms spread wide, as though his little body could shield him. His chin trembled; his grey eyes welled bright with tears that froze before they fell. The air trembled around them—magic, raw and wild, flaring with the boy’s fear. Harry felt it instantly: the sharp, metallic pulse of accidental magic, tasting like ozone and the first crack of spring water.

“Shh, shh, it’s alright,” Harry said quickly, dropping to his knees so they were level. “It’s alright. You’re fine. I’m here to help.”

A little gloved hand fisted in the man's— the boy's father’s shirt. The boy shook his head so hard the hat slipped sideways, white curls peeking through. His words stumble over themselves as he stammered, “He—he sick.” He shakes, voice thick with tears. “Daddy sick a long time.”

“Alright,” Harry soothed, “that’s easy to fix. We’ll just pop over to the hospital—”

A sudden surge of magic hit him like static. The hairs on his arms rose. The air tasted familiar somehow—something in its cadence, in the way it hummed, tickled a memory just out of reach.

“The ho’pital say no,” the boy burst out, voice breaking. “The mean lady told Daddy to go way! She say they don’t t-t-treat our kind!”

Harry froze, the words hollowing the air between them. Before he could ask what that meant, the boy’s sobs deepened—grief too large for such a small body. He pressed his face into the man’s chest, shaking them both. "Why eve’body mean to my Daddy? He just sing. He show me stars, he show me the wo’ld.”

The grief in the child’s voice cut through Harry like a blade. As the boy clung tighter, Harry moved closer, carefully, letting his magic stretch outward in quiet assessment. That was when he saw it— the slipping of a threadbare sleeve, revealing the skin beneath, pallid and clammy. It wasn't the veins, visible even through the fever’s flush, that froze Harry, but the black mark inked into the flesh—the familiar serpent and skull, half-faded but indelible.

For a moment, everything inside Harry stopped. His gaze followed the arm up to the shock of white-blond hair plastered damply against a clammy forehead.

Malfoy.   

It took a long heartbeat for the recognition to settle fully. He hadn’t thought of Draco in years—not since the trials, when Harry had stood in front of the Wizengamot and spoken for him and Narcissa. They had been spared Azkaban, but stripped of everything else: titles, fortune, reputation, even their place in the story. Freedom comes with a price, the Ministry had said.

Harry remembered the last time they’d spoken: Draco’s quiet thank you, eyes lowered, hand twitching before he turned away and vanished. Harry hadn’t seen him since.

Yet here he was— lying in the snow, breath too weak to form in the air, his cold body not even shivering, pale skin flushed too bright with fever. Alive, barely. It did not take much to tell Harry that something was terribly wrong.

But there wasn’t time to assess anything in this freezing alley, not with the boy trembling and the air humming dangerously around them like a curse.

“Okay,” Harry said, nodding to himself as he tried to take control over the situation. “No hospital, I promise. How about we get you out of the cold instead, yeah? Where’s your house? Is it close?”

The boy went mute, eyes huge and wet. He shook his head hard. His lips were turning blue. The warming charms Harry cast fizzled uselessly in the heavy cold.

No time.

“Right,” Harry muttered, decision made. “We’ll go to mine.”

He reached out, scooping the boy up. Immediately, the child shrieked, a sharp, panicked sound that sliced through the night. He thrashed in Harry's arms, kicking and crying. “No! Daddy! Daddy!”

Harry flinched. “Hey, hey—easy—”

But the boy clawed at his father, kicking, crying, thrashing so hard Harry feared the boy's magic would explode outward and splinter them both. “I can’t take you both at once,” he hissed, desperate. “The Fidelius—damn it—”

Useless. Reason meant nothing to a terrified child. Cursing under his breath, Harry cast a Confundus, soft enough to momentarily cloud the child’s senses—just long enough to keep him from splinching and hurting himself. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and twisted.

They landed in the dim hall of Grimmauld Place. “Kreacher!” Harry barked, and the elf appeared with a scowl that melted into shock as Harry shoved the confused child into his arms. “Watch him!” Before the elf could protest, Harry Disapparated again, back into the alley. Snow now half-buried Draco’s legs. He grabbed him under the arms, shocked by the heat radiating off his skin, and twisted once more.

When he landed in Grimmauld again, chaos had erupted. The ancient house groaned and rattled, glass shattering in the upper halls, curtains whipping wildly as the child’s magic screamed through every crevice. The little boy was on the floor, wailing, the air vibrating with the sound. Kreacher cowered behind the couch, ears flat.

“Kreacher!” Harry shouted over the din, trying to snap the elf out of his shock and back into action.

“Look, I’ve got him! You're daddy's here!” He shouted at the boy as he dragged Draco to the sofa, nearly tripping as furniture shuddered. “See? Look, I’ve got him—shh, it’s alright!”

He laid Draco down, gently, chest heaving. The magic in the air wavered, then slowly began to settle. The boy’s screams faded into hiccups, then small, broken sniffles. The magic eased, still humming, like a thunderstorm retreating over hills. Harry sank onto his heels, dragging a shaking hand down his face. His heart was hammering, the adrenaline still sharp.

From behind the couch, Kreacher peeked out, eyes wide. “Harry Potter has brought the Blacks back to their ancient and noble house,” the elf said in awe.

Harry groaned, rubbing at his temples. “No, Harry Potter’s having a mid-life crisis. He quit his job and brought a dying man and his magically feral son into this bloody fickle house.”

A small, choked cry. “Daddy’s dying,” the boy whispered from the floor, crawling onto the couch and sprawling against Draco’s chest, pressing his face into the torn flannel.

Harry’s throat tightened. I'm a fucking idiot. “No—no, I didn’t mean—”

Kreacher straightened, eyes glinting. “Not dying,” he muttered, stepping closer, voice a sort of cooing calm that Harry had never heard. “Just hungry. The master’s magic has atrophied—gone too long without tending. Like a garden left to rot. Magic this ancient and pure must be cared for, or the weeds will choke it. Kreacher has seen it before. Kreacher can fix it.”

Scorpius looked up, wide-eyed. “You make Daddy better?”

“Of course, young master,” the elf said gently. “It is Kreacher’s duty to sustain the blood and magic of this ancient and noble house.”

And for reasons Harry couldn’t quite name—midlife crisis, exhaustion, divine insanity, his unshakable savior complex—he let the old elf take charge.

They managed to coax the child— Sco’pus, he'd whispered shakily to Harry— to give his father a little space. Harry draped the wool blankets over Draco’s shaking form, then pressed a damp cloth to his flushed face. Up close, Draco looked both ghostly and unbearably human—lashes stuck to his cheeks, lips chapped, a line of stubble ghosting his jaw.

Kreacher worked swiftly, popping in and out with phial's from Goddrick knows where in his wrinkled hands. Harry lifted Draco’s head, carefully tipping each one to his lips.

“This one for fever,” Kreacher grumbled, “another for strength. The yellow draught will wake the magic. The oil behind the ears clears the mind’s humors, and this balm on the magic points—yes, there, wrists, throat, heart—will feed the spark back into the well.”

Harry followed each instruction, methodically, quietly. His movements slowed as the fever’s flush began to fade, replaced by the soft rise and fall of steady breathing. When it was done, Harry sank to the floor, back against the table, arms resting on his knees. He stared at Draco—at the even rhythm of his chest, the faint color returning to his cheeks.

Across the room, the small boy crept back onto the couch, looking timidly towards Kreacher's hovering form. When the elf nodded, the boy scrambled desperately onto the couch, desperate to return to his father's arms. He was such a little thing, Harry thought as he watched him burrow into the space between Draco's body and the couch's cushion. He wriggled about, settling in for the long haul.

Harry watched as Scorpius stretched his neck to look at Draco, eyes swollen and red. His eyes were still wet, lashes clumped together, but they shone with a kind of fragile determination—as though he were remembering what came next. His little hands cupped at his father's face, his bottom lip seemingly stuck in a permanent, trembling jut. Then, so quiet Harry could barely hear it over the dancing flames in the hearth, he began to speak. The words were sure and clear, taught and trained through practice, like a prayer ingrained on the tongue after years of repetition.

“One for sweet dweams,” he murmured, pressing a trembling kiss to Draco’s forehead. “Two for smiles,” another on each cheek, the sound small and wet. “And thwee…” he paused, breath hitching, his little brow furrowing as if thinking very hard, “…for you, me, and eve’ting in between.”

He leaned forward, peppering Draco’s lips with quick, earnest pecks—the sort of sloppy affection that is certain to leave a child giggling wildly. But tonight, there was no laughter. When Draco didn’t respond, Scorpius gave a small, wounded noise, his face crumpling slightly, chin dimpling as he fought to hold back his tears.

Harry felt useless as he watched Scorpius wipe the sadness away with his fist before reaching for Draco’s hand. He lifted it slowly, like something sacred, and pressed his lips to the center of Draco’s palm. “I love you, Daddy,” he whispered into the hollow there, the words vanishing into skin. Then, with a kind of solemn care, he guided Draco’s hand back, laying it flat against his father’s chest—right over the slow, unsteady beat of his heart.

After a moment’s pause, Scorpius mirrored the motion. He cupped his own little hand, pressed it against Draco’s mouth—catching something unseen—and brought it quickly to his own chest, as though trapping a secret there. He yawned, the sound small and wavering, eyelids heavy as he nestled against Draco, hand cradled securely against his own heart. “I pwomise,” he mumbled, already drifting, “to keep your love safe till mo'ning.”

Harry felt it first as a pulse beneath his ribs—a thrum in the air that prickled against his skin. The warmth rose from where the boy lay, a soft shimmer that spread through the room like breath on glass. The house itself seemed to sigh; the tremor in its walls eased, the lingering chill retreating from the hearth. Even Draco’s body stirred, not waking but… responding. The color crept faintly back into his face, the tension in his jaw easing. The fever’s sharp edge dulled into something gentler. His breathing deepened—slow, even, steady.

Harry did not notice Kreacher was at his side until a steaming cup was nudged into his hand. “Tea,” the elf said matter-of-factly.

He took a sip, wincing as the tea burned his throat. “What have I gotten myself into, Kreacher?” he muttered, voice low—more to himself than to anyone else.

Kreacher tilted his head, eyes patient, kind in a way that only age could make them. “For once,” he said quietly, “Kreacher thinks Harry Potter has gotten himself into something good.”

Harry huffed a laugh at the foreign concept as he stared at the sleeping pair on the couch—the boy nestled against his father’s chest, their breaths rising and falling in quiet unison. 

Chapter Text

II. Let Us Carry On

The water ran hot—almost punishingly so—and Harry let it.

It poured down his shoulders in steady, hissing sheets, a rhythm that bordered on holy. Steam bloomed around him, wrapping his body in warmth that seeped into tired bones and quieted the restless tremor of his hands. The air was thick with it—dense, heavy, alive with the scent of soap and iron and something faintly metallic, as though the pipes themselves were exhaling after years of disuse. He stood still beneath the stream, head bowed, eyes half-lidded, letting the scalding heat bite at the back of his neck until the sharp sting blurred into something close to relief.

He hadn’t realized how long it had been since he’d felt clean. Not just in the physical sense, but deep down—beneath the skin, beneath the armor of the Ministry’s red robes, beneath the layers of years spent serving something that had long since stopped serving him. This—this small act of washing, of standing under the water until his skin flushed pink—felt ritualistic, almost sacred like shedding a decade of ghosts one drop at a time.

He pressed his palms flat against the tile and watched the rivulets trace paths down his arms, washing away dirt, ink, and perhaps some vestige of the world outside these crumbling walls. There was something about the hiss of the shower that sounded like confession—the kind of silence that comes only when everything else has been stripped away.

What now? He thought.

The question had haunted him since last night—since the snow, since the alley, since the weight of a fevered man collapsing into his arms. What now, when he’d already thrown away the only thing that had defined him for a decade? What now, with a child asleep downstairs whose magic hummed like living light, and a man whose name once meant everything he’d fought against?

Every path of thought—every desperate attempt to think rationally—led him to the same conclusion:

He should call Hermione.

He could almost hear her voice: brisk but kind, patient even as she scolded. Honestly, Harry, what were you thinking? Bringing them into Grimmauld without so much as a healer? She’d lecture, pace, wave her hands, then—because she was Hermione—she’d fix everything. She’d always fixed everything.

But then he pictured her and Ron in Australia, in that quiet coastal cottage he’d seen only once, sunlight spilling through white curtains and the laughter of their children echoing faintly through the open windows. He thought of the peace they’d carved out of the wreckage—the normalcy they’d earned. He thought of how much it had cost them to find it.

He couldn’t bring himself to disturb that. Not again.

They’d given enough of themselves to the world already. He had taken enough of them already.

The water stuttered, then began to cool. Harry turned it off, the final rush echoing like an exhale, and the bathroom fell into quiet.

He wiped the fog from the mirror with the side of his hand. The reflection staring back was someone he half-recognized. His eyes looked bruised, the green dulled beneath the weight of exhaustion; the scar that once defined him had faded to a thin, pale thread. His hair—still stubbornly unmanageable—stuck to his forehead in damp curls, and the curve of his shoulders looked heavier than it used to.

“You’ve really done it this time, Potter,” he muttered, voice hoarse.

He dried off quickly, tugging on an old jumper that smelled faintly of woodsmoke and age, then stepped barefoot into his bedroom. Morning had begun to seep through the grimy windowpanes, painting the floorboards gold and revealing the dust motes suspended in the still air. His eyes fell on the bed—the large, neatly made thing that sat untouched most nights. The sheets were crisp, the pillows untouched, a relic of a comfort he rarely indulged in.

For a long moment, he just stood there, staring.

Downstairs, the couch was narrow and frayed, its cushions sunken with time. It had looked ready to collapse even before last night, and now it held two bodies pressed together in uneasy slumber—Draco Malfoy, still fever-warm and waxen, and his small son wrapped around him like an anchor. 

He sighed. “Alright,” he murmured to himself, dragging a hand through his hair. “First things first: Let’s get them somewhere proper.”

That, of course, was easier said than done.

Grimmauld Place had always been fickle—alive in the way that ancient, enchanted places are, its moods dictated by the ebb and flow of the blood that once sustained it. Kreacher said the house was built on familial magic, that it thrived when its halls were full and decayed when they were not. Over the years, as the Black bloodline thinned and faded, Grimmauld had begun to shrink in on itself, shedding rooms and corridors like a tree letting go of dying branches.

Entire wings had sealed themselves off behind layers of wards Harry couldn’t break. Closets vanished overnight, doors that once opened to staircases now revealed only blank walls. The house had become a maze of absence—a living monument to loss.

It hadn’t bothered Harry much. He didn’t need the space. He and Teddy made do when the boy visited, building pillow forts in the parlor and sleeping near the fire. It had been enough for him. But now, faced with an unconscious man and a child with nowhere else to go, the house’s absence felt almost cruel.

He gave the bed one last resigned glance before turning and making his way down the creaking stairs. The morning light filtered weakly through the windows, breaking through the warped glass like soft fire. The smell of faintly burnt tea still lingered from the night before.

When he reached the parlor, he paused at the doorway.

The room was dim, lit only by the faint, pulsing glow of the hearth’s dying embers. On the couch, Draco and Scorpius lay exactly where he’d left them—the boy nestled into the curve of his father’s chest, one small hand splayed protectively across the older man’s shirt. Their breaths had fallen into rhythm, slow and steady, the kind of unconscious harmony that spoke of long habit.

For a moment, Harry just stood there, watching them. The sight tugged something deep in his chest—something quiet and unnameable.

He moved forward softly, crouching beside the couch. The child stirred at the movement, nose scrunching, mouth turning down in a tiny frown. Harry smiled despite himself.

“Hey, little one,” he whispered. “Time to wake up.”

The boy made a soft noise, halfway between a groan and a protest, burrowing deeper into the blankets. His hair—pale, fine, and sleep-tousled—fell across his face. When Scorpius finally blinked awake, slow and suspicious beneath the weight of morning, his expression soured instantly, a miniature glare forming between furrowed brows.

Harry couldn’t help it. A quiet, incredulous chuckle escaped him.

Scorpius blinked blearily up at him, eyes narrowing against the dim morning light. His small hands immediately sought his father’s shirt, fisting into it with the determined grip of a child who has learned too early that love and fear can live in the same heartbeat.

Harry crouched again, keeping his tone light. “Hey, it’s alright. Your dad’s still sleeping—see?” He nodded toward Draco, who hadn’t stirred, though the rise and fall of his chest was steady now, the fever’s sharp edge finally dulled. “But we should move him somewhere more comfortable, yeah?”

Scorpius’s frown deepened, his little chin trembling with that stubborn, almost offended wariness children wear when they suspect adults of plotting something inconvenient. He shook his head quickly, curls brushing his cheeks.

The boy blinked up at him, the sleep still heavy in his lashes. His small fingers fisted tighter in his father’s shirt, but curiosity flickered across his face, cutting through the fog of exhaustion. He looked down at Draco again and asked quietly, “Like a flower?”

Harry smiled, warmth blooming unexpectedly behind his ribs. “Exactly,” he murmured. “Just like a flower. I knew you’d understand it.”

Scorpius’s gaze didn’t leave his father. “Daddy taught me,” he said after a long pause, his voice a little thicker, shaped by drowsiness and memory.

Harry tilted his head. “He did, yeah?”

The boy nodded, his curls bouncing faintly. “He says everything’s got som’fing that helps it grow—flowers need sunlight, an’ babies need kisses, an’ stars need names. He says…” Scorpius hesitated, fumbling for the words the way only children do, his lips moving around the syllables carefully. “He says if you love som’fing, you gotta take care of it. That’s how it grows.”

He glanced at Draco, still unmoving, the faintest hint of color finally returning to his cheeks. A thousand old arguments and images rose in his mind—of sharp voices in classrooms, of sneers and defiance and all the bitterness that had once defined them both—and none of it matched this quiet truth that had somehow survived inside the man sleeping before him.

“Your dad’s right,” Harry said at last, his voice low, almost reverent. “He’s a smart man.”

Scorpius nodded again, rubbing one eye with the back of his hand. “He’s the smartest,” he mumbled with conviction, his chin wobbling slightly.

Harry swallowed hard. “Then let’s take care of your daddy so we can help him grow, yeah?”

The boy hesitated, his small brow furrowing. “How?”

Harry leaned closer, tone conspiratorial again. “Well,” he began, glancing meaningfully at Draco’s long legs half-tangled in the blanket, “we’ve got to move him somewhere with more room. That’s the first step.”

Scorpius frowned deeply, uncertain. “But he’s sleeping.”

“I know,” Harry said softly. “That’s why we have to be very gentle. Like gardeners.” He lowered his voice even further, as though the house itself might be listening. “You ever move a flower before?”

The boy’s expression grew thoughtful. “One time. Daddy showed me. You hafta keep all the roots safe.”

“Exactly,” Harry said, nodding gravely. “We’ll do just that. Now the problem is, grumpy Kreacher says we still can't use magic on him. I’ll have to lift him, and you—well, you’re going to make sure I don’t fall over. I’m terribly old, and your daddy’s all spindly legs and elbows. One wrong step and I’ll topple like a stack of books. You think you can help me?”

Scorpius’s eyes widened slightly at the gravity of the task, his small shoulders straightening. He nodded solemnly. “I can help.”

Harry smiled again, something loosening in his chest. “I believe you.”

He moved carefully, peeling back the blanket, and Scorpius watched every motion with the intense concentration of a child on a mission. The air that reached Draco’s skin was cool; Harry felt the faint heat of fever still lingering beneath it, but the worst of it seemed to have passed. When Harry slid an arm beneath Draco’s shoulders, he startled at how light yet heavy the man felt—a contradiction of angles and bones and too many years of carrying burdens that didn’t belong to him.

“Blimey,” Harry muttered under his breath as he shifted his grip, looping one arm beneath Draco’s knees. “You always looked like a breeze could knock you over, but you weigh more than a bloody troll.”

Scorpius gasped softly, eyes widening. “Don’ say that! Daddy’s not a troll!”

Harry bit back a laugh. “No, you’re right. He’s not. Definitely not. More like… hmm. Maybe a stubborn tree. Stands tall no matter what the weather does.”

That seemed to appease the boy, who nodded seriously.

When Harry finally lifted Draco fully, the movement stirred a few strands of hair across his forehead. His head fell limply against Harry’s shoulder, the warmth of his breath grazing Harry’s collarbone. He glanced down, and in that unguarded instant, Draco looked achingly young. The sharp lines that life had carved into him were smoothed away by sleep; the tension that had once lived in every inch of his body was gone. Cradled like this, he looked so much like the child behind him—both pale-haired, both fragile things trying to survive the cold.

“Alright,” Harry murmured, breaking the moment’s stillness, “mission time. You ready, Auror Scorpius?”

Scorpius nodded fiercely, eyes narrowing with determination. He hopped off the couch and moved behind Harry, one hand clutching at the back of his joggers, the other pressed firmly against his calf like a tiny, earnest propeller. “I got you,” he declared.

“Brilliant,” Harry said, trying to suppress the laugh that bubbled up anyway. “Now—steady on, mate. One step at a time.”

The first stair creaked under his weight, and the old house seemed to hold its breath. The scent of dust and faint magic clung to the air, heavy and familiar, and each rise of the staircase groaned like an old friend roused from slumber.

Harry grunted as he climbed, arms tightening around the deadweight in his arms. Draco’s head lolled closer, face pressed against the side of Harry’s neck. He could feel the ghost of a sigh there, the faintest puff of warmth that wasn’t quite conscious, but alive enough to make his chest tighten.

From behind him came a tiny grunt. “I pushin’!” Scorpius announced proudly, small legs pumping as he nudged at Harry’s calves with each step.

Harry huffed out a laugh between breaths. “You’re doing all the hard work, aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh!”

Step by step, they climbed. The smell of dust and old magic filled the narrow stairwell, the air thick with the faint hum of wards still alive beneath the plaster. Light filtered weakly through the crack in the landing window, slicing through the dim like a benediction.

Together, they made their slow, uneven way upward—one carrying, one pushing, both stubborn in their determination. Scorpius stumbled once on the final step but caught himself quickly, puffing out a triumphant “Made it!” as they reached the landing.

Harry turned his head enough to offer a quick grin. “Couldn’t have done it without you, soldier.”

He nudged the bedroom door open with his foot, carrying Draco carefully inside. The bed, still untouched and cold, looked impossibly wide in the soft light—a blank field waiting for something fragile to take root. Harry crossed the threshold slowly, his breath still uneven from the climb. Each step felt deliberate, measured, as though any sudden movement might shatter the silence or the man in his arms. The morning light had softened since he’d left the bathroom; it drifted through the curtains like the faintest mist, golden and uncertain, dust floating in its wake. It pooled over the bed, spilling across the pale linen like a promise of warmth yet to come.

Moving to the edge of the bed, Harry bent and lowered Draco with the kind of caution one gives to something breakable, something that had once been beautiful and could be again if handled correctly. His hands found the right angles instinctively: one behind the neck, the other beneath the knees, his motions slow, reverent. He could feel the uneven rhythm of Draco’s breath against his chest—a ghost of life still there, still stubborn— as he eased him down, guiding him into the cradle of the sheets as though returning him to the earth from which he’d been uprooted. Draco’s body folded inward, long limbs curling slightly, a natural response to comfort. The lines of tension in his face softened, the sharpness dulled by exhaustion, the ghost of sleep tugging him toward stillness.

He drew the blanket up to Draco’s chest and smoothed it once, fingers brushing over fabric that felt far too cold. The man beneath it looked washed-out in the half-light, bloodless against the white, his hair a spill of silver across the pillow. The contrast was striking—colorless and luminous all at once, like the fragile stalk of something that had fought too long through frost to survive.

Harry straightened the blanket again, more out of instinct than need. It reminded him of tending seedlings in the Weasley garden one long summer ago—how Molly had once told him that some things didn’t need fixing so much as patience. She’d said it with her hands buried in the soil, sweat shining on her brow, a laugh in her voice as she’d pressed a sprouting stalk into his palm. “You can’t rush life, dear. You just keep it warm and help it find the strength to grow.”

He hadn’t understood it then, not really. He thought patience meant waiting. But looking at Draco now, it struck Harry that patience wasn’t waiting at all. It was work. Quiet, thankless work. The kind that took your hands and your heart both.

He exhaled, the sound slow and steady, and stepped back to take in the sight before him. Draco lay cocooned in the wide bed, wrapped in light and linen, the fever’s flush softening into the faintest blush of color. The room itself seemed to lean toward him, the sunlight reaching just a little farther across the floorboards, like the house had decided to hold its breath too.

Harry rubbed a hand down his face, exhaustion slipping into a wry smile. “Right,” he murmured, half to himself, half to the room. “Mission one: successfully replant the aristocrat.” He glanced at the man on the bed—alive, though fragile as glass—and ticked an invisible tally in the air with mock solemnity. “Status: stable, if slightly pathetic looking.”

Harry turned on his heel dramatically to find Scorpius standing on tiptoe at the foot of the bed, peering up at him with solemn gray eyes far too old for their size.

Harry’s expression shifted into something mock-serious. He crossed his arms, straightened his back, and regarded the boy as though debriefing a rookie recruit. “Alright, Auror Scorpius,” he said gravely. “Mission number two.”

The child blinked, tilting his head. “Missun two?”

“Clean and feed the troops,” Harry said, nodding toward the mirror on the wall that reflected both their rumpled states. “That’s you, soldier. You look like you’ve wrestled a dragon and lost.”

Scorpius gasped, eyes going wide. He looked down at himself—shirt all twisted, socks wrong on his feet, hair a wild nest of blond curls, and a little dried patch of drool shining on his cheek. “I didn’ fight a dwagon,” he said indignantly, voice wobbling a little.

Harry bit back a smile, but before he could reply, the boy’s shoulders hunched, his head turning toward the bed. His fingers found the blanket near his father’s arm, clutching tight. “I don’ wanna go,” he whispered, almost too quiet to hear. “Don’ wanna leave Daddy ‘lone.”

Harry’s chest tightened. He crouched again, bringing himself level with the child’s wide, anxious eyes. “He’s alright,” he said softly. “He’s just sleeping.”

Scorpius shook his head, curls bouncing. “But… what if he wakes up from a bad dweam?” His voice trembled on the word dream, like it was something fragile.

Harry’s breath caught. “Does that happen a lot?” he asked quietly.

Scorpius nodded, gaze still fixed on his father. “Uh-huh. Sometimes he yells. Sometimes he jus’—” He paused, scrunching his nose, searching for the right word. “Shakes. But when I hol' his hand, it stops.”

For a long heartbeat, Harry said nothing. He knew that kind of fear—the kind that didn’t fade when you woke, the kind that haunted the quiet hours. He remembered his own nights after the war: the flash of green light behind his eyes, the taste of ash in his mouth, the instinct to reach for a wand that wasn’t always there. He’d woken shaking too. Alone, more often than not.

“Well,” he said finally, his voice gentle but certain, “we can’t have that, can we?”

Scorpius peeked up at him, uncertain.

Harry nodded toward the adjoining bath. “Tell you what—we’ll keep the door open. You can see him the whole time, yeah? That way, if he wakes up, you can wave at him. Let him know you’re close.”

The boy hesitated, bottom lip caught between his teeth. “So he won’ be ‘lone?”

“Not for a second,” Harry promised. Then, after a pause that let a faint smile curl at the corner of his mouth: “And when we’re done, we’ll have Kreacher bring us breakfast up here—breakfast in bed.” Harry leaned closer, his tone mock-serious. “What d’you say, Commander? We’ve got a big day ahead.”

Scorpius looked at his father once more, brushing the blanket with careful fingers. “Okay,” he whispered at last. “But I’m da guard. Gotta watch.”

Harry smiled, holding out his hand. “Deal." Harry straightened, still holding the tiny hand that slid easily into his own. Together they crossed toward the bathroom, the door left cracked wide enough for the boy’s line of sight to stay unbroken. Light spilled through it, soft and safe. The air in the house shifted with them, the faint hum of old magic pulsing gently, as though Grimmauld itself understood the promise that had just been made.

Scorpius stood at the threshold of the bathroom, small hands gripping the doorframe as though it were the last safe thing in the world. He craned his neck, eyes fixed on the bed beyond. From where he stood, he could still see the faint rise and fall of Draco’s chest, the sheets drawn high, the soft flutter of hair against the pillow.

Harry moved around the space with the measured ease of old ritual. He knelt by the ancient tub, tapping the rusted knobs to life. The pipes groaned in protest, coughing up brown water before clearing to a steady stream that steamed in the chill air. He tested it with his wrist, adjusting the temperature by instinct—just as he had done for Teddy years ago, when the boy was small enough to trust him with everything.

Once satisfied, he reached for the shelves where Kreacher had stored an assortment of tinctures and bath powders, their glass bottles catching the light in muted color. He poured a few into the water—soft green, a blush of blue—and soon the surface frothed with bubbles that shimmered faintly, iridescent and delicate. They rose and broke and multiplied again, the scent of lavender and honey curling into the air like a charm.

The sound of the bubbles seemed to pull at Scorpius’s resolve. His small form wavered in the doorway. He cast one more glance at his father—ensuring, perhaps, that Draco was still safely there—before curiosity overcame duty. Slowly, he padded forward, bare feet silent on the tile.

“Whoa,” he whispered, awe softening the word until it was nearly breath. He leaned over the rim of the tub, eyes wide. “It’s… shiny.”

Harry grinned, rolling up his sleeves. “It’s just soap and a bit of magic. Go on, have a look.”

Scorpius reached out tentatively, finger extended, and popped one of the bubbles. It burst with a faint shimmer, leaving a sparkle of light across his knuckle. His laugh—a small, surprised giggle—filled the room.

“There we go,” Harry murmured, smiling despite himself. “Reckon we’ve found something you approve of, eh?”

Scorpius nodded, transfixed by the bubbling water. When Harry began to help him undress, he lifted his arms without protest, obedient but serious, as if this were another mission. The clothes came off easily—worn, stretched thin at the elbows and knees, the fabric frayed from too many washes. Harry noted the small orange plastic tab sewn into the collar of the shirt, the kind he’d seen in secondhand charity shops scattered across London. A penny bin tag.

Something tightened in his chest.

Scorpius folded the clothes carefully, stacking them in a little pile on the counter. Then, turning to Harry, he raised his arms again, chin lifted and eyes squeezed shut as though bracing for something monumental. Scorpius didn’t open his eyes. “M’ready,” he declared solemnly.

Harry shook his head, then, with all the gentleness he could muster, lifted him under the arms and set him into the tub. The water splashed lightly around him, bubbles clinging to his arms and chin.

The boy squealed in delight at the impact, eyes bursting open in awe. “It’s warm!” he shouted, as though this were the greatest magic of all. He immediately began to kick his feet, scattering bubbles across the floor in his enthusiasm.

Harry leaned on the tub's edge, arms folded, watching as the child’s laughter filled the air like the first real sunlight after a storm. Scorpius scooped handfuls of bubbles into his palms, blew at them until they burst, and stuck frothy tufts beneath his nose like a beard.  For a while, Scorpius forgot everything but the game. He splashed, hummed, and sent fleets of bubbles sailing like ships across the surface. Now and then, he paused, remembering his “mission,” and scrubbed earnestly behind his ears or under his chin before becoming distracted again by a particularly large bubble wobbling across the water.

It wasn't difficult to recognize the signs—the hesitancy with which Scorpius touched the water as if it were a luxury, the way delight came with caution, as if unsure of how to handle it. Every movement told him what words didn’t need to: this wasn’t routine. This was new. Harry wondered, then, if Draco had ever had the means to give his son these small joys. If the man who’d once lived among marble and chandeliers now counted warmth and soap bubbles as rare treasures. Harry’s gut twisted at the thought.

Scorpius turned in the tub, pulling Harry from his thoughts as he leaned his back towards Harry, curls dripping wet and flattened to his scalp. Harry smiled faintly and moved without thought. The gesture was old muscle memory: the way Teddy used to tilt his head back the same way, trusting Harry’s hands completely. He dipped a jug into the water and poured gently over the boy’s hair, fingers combing through the soft strands to work the suds through.

“You’ve got curly hair,” he murmured aloud, fascinated by how the wet strands coiled around his fingers. Draco's hair was flat as silk, and Harry couldn't help by wonder where these delicate curls came from. His mother, perhaps—

“Daddy says I got it from my gran’ma Cissa," Scorpius says proudly, fixated on the bubbles in front of him.

Narcissa. Harry could see her perfectly in his mind—cool, elegant, precise. Hair sleek as silk, posture impeccable, eyes sharp with pride. He couldn’t imagine curls on her, but then he thought of the other sisters: Andromeda’s untamed waves, Bellatrix’s wild black mane. Maybe once, long ago, Narcissa’s hair had been like theirs before she’d learned to tame it, to iron it into the perfect reflection of control. 

"Daddy says she was the most pretty in the whole world, an' it was'n fair so she gave some to me befo' she went to be wif the stars." Scorpius looks back when Harry's fingers still, his eyes widening in childish concern. "Is otay, Hawwy. Gran'ma is not 'lone. Mommy went to keep her com-pa-ny." He annunciates the word carefully, grinning proudly as he turns back around.

Something cold settled low in Harry’s chest. He rinses the soap from Scorpius’s hair carefully, shielding the boy’s eyes from the suds. Harry helped him out of the tub, wrapping him in a towel that was too big by half. The boy disappeared into the folds, a small giggling bundle that smelled of soap and warmth. Harry lifted him and, when he spoke, it came softer, gentler. “That’s lovely that they're together."

Scorpius peeks from the towel as Harry carries him back into the bedroom, the floor creaking beneath their steps. “Do you got people in the stars, Hawwy?”

Harry’s throat tightened. He swallowed, forcing a smile. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Lots of them. Maybe I’ll show you them sometime— when your daddy wakes up.”

Scorpius nodded solemnly, as if making a pact.

Harry set him down beside the old wardrobe, filling the quiet with his own soft ramble. “Alright, now for the next phase of Mission Two,” he said, tugging the door open. “'Mione says I’m a hoarder, but I prefer to call it… sentimentally prepared.”

The boy tilted his head, towel slipping from his shoulders.

“It means I keep things,” Harry explained, half-grinning, “because someday, I might need them. And look at this— I was right.”

He knelt and pulled out an old trunk from beneath a stack of blankets. The brass clasps groaned as he opened it, revealing a jumble of small clothes—Teddy’s outgrown jumpers, hand-me-downs from the Weasleys, little socks and scarves too precious to throw away.

Scorpius gasped, eyes bright as he peered inside. Harry waved a hand. “Go on, pick what you like.”

The boy crouched, hands hovering reverently over the soft mountain of fabric before selecting a pair of fleece trousers, thick enough to drown him. Harry had to roll the cuffs up to keep them from swallowing his feet. Next, Scorpius settled on a pair of wool socks with snitches flitting to and fro, his little eyes chasing them with wonder.

Harry chuckled as he dug deeper into the trunk, rifling for one of Teddy's old shirts that might fit him. When he neared the bottom of the trunk, he heard a small murmur of letters slowly being blended together, followed by Scorpius’s puzzled voice: “Potter?”

Harry froze. Merlin, that sounded exactly like Draco.

He turned to see Scorpius holding up one of Harry's sweaters that had been abandoned at the bottom of his wardrobe. It, truthfully, should have been thrown out over a decade ago. But Harry is, unfortunately, a hoarder, and could not bear to part with it. The red-and-gold jumper was a Molly Weasley original— a rarity these days, given that she has a horde of grandchildren to knit for. It had clearly been washed too many times; the knit was tight and faded, but the name POTTER still stretched proudly across the back in gold letters.

“What’s Potter?” Scorpius asked, turning it in his hands.

Harry smiled faintly. “That’s me,” he said. “Well—my name. Potter.”

Scorpius frowned, brows drawing together in perfect miniature imitation of his father. “I thought your name was Hawwy.”

“It is,” Harry said, chuckling. “Harry’s my first name. Potter’s my last. I’ve even got a middle one strung in there—James—but no one uses it unless I’m in trouble.”

Before he could elaborate, Scorpius pulled the jumper over his head. The thing swallowed him whole, sleeves dangling past his fingertips, hem brushing his knees.

Harry’s laugh broke loose before he could stop it—a full, helpless sound that filled the room. “Oh, Merlin—look at you!”

Scorpius tugged at the collar, face scrunched in unmistakable Malfoy disgust. The sight—tiny Malfoy heir in a shrunken Gryffindor jumper, red and gold blazing across his chest—was too much.

Harry doubled over, laughter tearing from him until his eyes watered. He tried to speak, failed, wheezed, then laughed harder.

When he finally managed to look up, Scorpius stood before him, small hand extended with utmost seriousness. “Come on, Potter,” he said, mimicking Harry’s own stern Auror voice from earlier. “We haven’ finished missun two..”

Harry took the hand, still laughing, as he dragged himself to his feet. “Right you are, Commander,” he said, gripping it tight. “It is time for Phase Two: pancakes.”

They passed the days in small missions. Wake. Bathe. Eat. Sleep. Simple, necessary things, strung together into a rhythm that almost resembled life. It astonished Harry, in the quiet moments, how little it took to fill the day when the world stopped demanding anything grand of him. There were no reports to write, no endless debates at the Ministry, no faces of the lost rising unbidden from the recesses of memory. Just small, repeating tasks: coaxing a grumpy Scorpius out of bed in the mornings, filling the tub and testing the water with the back of his hand, slicing bread into neat squares because the boy liked it that way.

Harry realized, in the repetition, how long it had been since he’d allowed himself such simplicity. The domestic rituals grounded him in ways his old life never had; they were steady and quiet and asked nothing but presence. It was astonishingly easy to forget, for moments at a time, that the man upstairs had once been his enemy, that the child who hovered around him was born from a history soaked in bitterness.

At night, Harry took the couch. He’d built himself a kind of nest there—extra blankets folded under his head, his wand balanced on the coffee table within reach. When the house fell silent, he watched the fire until his eyes grew heavy, the flames reflecting off the old photographs along the mantel. The light shimmered over faces long gone—Sirius, Remus, Tonks—and sometimes, when exhaustion softened his thoughts, he pretended the house was full again, that laughter would drift down from the stairwell at any moment. The fire’s low hum lulled him into a strange half-sleep, weightless yet burdened, content and hollow all at once. He never stayed under for long; his dreams came too easily, and they were always too thick with noise.

His life revolved around Draco. Without even meaning to, everything he did found its orbit around the rise and fall of his chest. Meals were planned so someone was always near in case he stirred. Scorpius talked constantly in his father’s direction, as if his voice alone could reach through and call Draco back. Harry found himself checking Draco’s pulse without realizing it, pausing mid-task to listen for the faint shift of breath or twitch of a hand. It became their rhythm—an unspoken choreography between the living and the still.

Draco’s progress was glacial but unmistakable. His skin no longer burned to the touch, his breathing steadied, his face softened from the tight lines of fever into something more peaceful. Color bloomed faintly beneath the pallor, fragile but persistent. The first time Draco murmured something in his sleep—nothing intelligible, only a broken sound—Scorpius had gasped and grabbed Harry’s hand, eyes wide with a kind of radiant hope that made Harry’s throat ache.

Scorpius’s optimism was boundless at first. He never left his father’s side for long, curling beside him with books that he pretended to read aloud, chattering about stars and things Draco had promised to show him once he got better. He filled the old silence of the house like patchwork, his small voice bright and earnest as sunlight through old glass.

But as the days stretched on, that brightness began to dim. It was in the quiet pauses between his sentences, in the way his eyes lingered on Draco’s face longer than before, searching for movement that didn’t come. He stopped giggling at the bubbles in his bath, stopped chasing Kreacher’s disgruntled mutterings, stopped answering Harry’s attempts at distraction with more than a small smile. The boy’s resolve held, but it trembled like a thread pulled too taut.

Over a week into Harry's midlife crisis, he woke in the middle of the night with a sudden jolt. The fire had long since died; the house lay steeped in the hush of sleeping walls. But something felt wrong—his magic prickled under his skin, restless and alert. Grimmauld’s air was charged, alive with tension, as if the old house itself had stirred uneasily in its slumber. He sat up, the silence pressing against his ears until he heard it: a cry, small and broken, reverberating through the floorboards. The house seemed to carry it deliberately, amplifying it through its bones, as though trying to guide Harry to its source.

Harry was moving before he could think. His feet found the stairs, his wand slipped into his palm, his heartbeat loud and insistent in his throat. The hallway stretched before him in a haze of shadows. He pushed open the bedroom door without knocking, his magic already flaring to life—and then stopped short.

The air was thick with the residue of frightened magic, trembling like static. Draco lay unmoving on the bed, his chest rising and falling in a shallow rhythm, unaware of the electricity around him. But Scorpius sat upright beside him, clutching at the sheets, his small face blotched and wet. Tears streamed down his cheeks, his breath short and jagged, words tumbling from his mouth that Harry couldn’t make out at first—just sounds, sharp and desperate.

“Hey,” Harry said softly, lowering his wand and crossing the room in three long strides. “Hey, easy now. You’re alright.” He crouched by the bed, reaching out but not touching, letting the boy see him first.

Scorpius hiccuped, his sobs catching on half-formed words. “I—I don’—” He swallowed hard, trembling. “I don’ wanna be ‘lone.”

The words pierced through the room, pure and devastating in their simplicity. Harry’s heart clenched, memories striking like ghosts—cold corridors, the sound of his own gasping breaths, the suffocating silence of a world where everyone who had ever reached for him was gone. He recognized the fear immediately; it was the kind that burrowed deep, the kind that lingered long after you stopped crying.

“You’re not alone,” Harry murmured. The words came out steady, quiet but sure. He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for Scorpius, lifting the boy gently until he settled against Harry’s chest. The child clung to him with both arms, face buried in his shirt, hiccuping still but quieter now. Harry rubbed circles into his back, murmuring soft nonsense, the kind of comforting noises that came instinctively. “It’s alright. You’re safe. I’m here, yeah? I’ve got you.”

The minutes stretched, long and heavy but no longer frantic. Slowly, Scorpius’s breathing began to even out, the trembling in his shoulders fading to small, tired shivers. He made a faint sound—half sigh, half whimper—and went limp against Harry’s chest, asleep again before Harry even realized.

Harry didn’t move right away. He just sat there, the boy’s small weight pressed close to him, the scent of soap and sleep and tears clinging faintly to his hair. Beside them, Draco slept on, utterly still, and Harry found himself staring at him, at the delicate outline of his profile in the dim light. There was something maddeningly peaceful about it, as though the man had folded himself into a world entirely separate from this one.

“Wake up, you pointy git,” Harry said quietly, the words catching somewhere between exasperation and prayer. “Your kid’s a wreck. And I’m not built for this.”

Draco, of course, didn’t stir.

From that night onward, the routine changed. After Scorpius performed his nightly ritual—soft, sleepy words of warmth and stars and love whispered against his father’s hand—he would turn to Harry, wide-eyed and uncertain, and ask, “Will you stay? So I’m not ‘lone?”

And Harry, no matter how exhausted he was or how much his rational mind argued against it, couldn’t bring himself to say no. He would slide onto the farthest edge of the bed, careful and awkward, promising silently that it was only until the boy fell asleep. But once Scorpius’s breathing steadied and the rhythm of the house quieted around them, Harry stayed. He stayed because leaving felt wrong, because something in him—some old, buried instinct—refused to break the fragile peace they’d found in that small, shared space.

Each night, he leaned back against the headboard, one hand resting lightly on the covers, eyes fixed on the faint outline of Draco’s sleeping form. And each night, long after Scorpius had drifted into dreams, Harry remained awake, his thoughts circling endlessly in the hush between breaths. 

Two weeks of the same walls, the same narrow stretch of daylight spilling across the floorboards, the same sound of breathing that had become the rhythm of the house. Two weeks of waiting, of doing small things—too small, too quiet—for someone who had spent most of his life running headlong into chaos.

Harry tried to tell himself to be patient. Kreacher had assured him—many times and with increasing impatience—that the “master’s magic” was mending itself slowly, that ancient blood took time to knit back together. But the truth was that Harry had never been made for stillness. Every hour that passed without motion pressed down on him like the weight of an unseen tide. He’d spent so much of his life moving—racing toward danger or away from it—that this calm confluence, this place where time seemed to hold its breath, unnerved him. It was too quiet. Too safe. His instincts itched for threat, for something to brace against.

He’d wake at night with his wand already in his hand, pulse thrumming, waiting for the crash, the shout, the curse—something. Nothing ever came. That was, somehow, worse.

He wrote letters to keep himself grounded. Hermione and Ron had sent three already—long, worried ones from Australia, where the Prophet, or more likely Molly's concern, had reached them. He could practically hear Hermione’s voice in the ink: measured concern layered over sharp assessment, her lines too neat to be anything but anxious. He responded briefly, with practiced reassurance, telling them he was fine, that he just needed time—a sabbatical, he called it, though the word felt foreign in his mind. He made sure to keep it light, casual, even tossed in a joke about learning how to cook without setting the kitchen aflame. He ended with: Don’t come rushing over. I promise, I’m fine.

It wasn’t entirely a lie. He was alive. Breathing. Functioning. But fine was something else entirely. He didn’t tell them that Draco Malfoy was sleeping in his bed, or that his son— all moonlight hair and star-kissed eyes—had tied himself around Harry’s heart in a way Harry hadn’t realized he could still be claimed. If Hermione ever found out, she’d be at his door within the hour with a clipboard and a diagnostic charm. Ron would bring a bottle of firewhisky and demand an explanation that would end with Harry admitting he had no explanation at all.

He sat at the edge of the bed now, the house asleep but his mind alert. His hands moved restlessly, turning over a small, familiar object that glinted faintly, gold catching in the lamplight.

From the corner of his eye, he could feel Scorpius watching him. The boy was sitting up, knees drawn beneath his chin, small face half-lit by the dim glow from the hallway. Neither of them had managed much sleep tonight. “What’s that?” Scorpius mumbled into his fist, his voice thick with drowsiness.

Harry glanced down and smiled faintly before holding it up for Scorpius to see. “This?” he said softly. “It’s a snitch.” Not just a snitch, but the snitch— the very first one he’d ever caught, the same that Dumbledore had passed to him, still faintly etched with the inscription I open at the close. He’d kept it all these years, another relic of the past he could not seem to let go of.

Scorpius repeated the unfamiliar word carefully, “S’nitch.” His eyes tracked its movement, wide and curious. “Wha’s it for?”

Harry turned the ball between his fingers, the motion automatic. “It’s for playing a game. A magical game, actually.”

“Magic?” Scorpius perked up a little at the word, though his expression wavered, as though he’d done something wrong by saying it aloud.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Didn’t your dad ever tell you about Quidditch?”

The boy’s head shook quickly, curls bouncing. “No talkin’ about magic,” he said solemnly, eyes flicking toward the doorway as if expecting reprimand. “If we do, we hafta go.”

Harry frowned. “Go? What do you mean?”

Scorpius’s voice dropped to a whisper as he twisted the blanket between his fingers, eyes darting toward the window as though the dark itself might be listening. “Daddy says the others, the ones where we sleep, they’re ‘fraid of magic. So we can’t talk ‘bout it. Not even whisper, ‘cause if we talk too loud or show them, they get scared.” He glanced up at Harry, searching his face for judgment, then added, softer, “I don’ mind, though. I’m good at keepin’ secrets.”

The words came in halting bursts, the way truths sometimes do when spoken by someone too young to understand their full weight. Each sentence landed heavier than the last, and though Scorpius said them simply, the image they built was anything but: a pair of travelers ghosting from shelter to shelter, living between worlds, burdened by a magic they weren’t allowed to use and a kindness they couldn’t ask for. He imagined Draco and his son blending in among those seeking warmth and food, trying to avoid notice, slipping away whenever Scorpius’s magic betrayed them. Each move erasing what little safety they’d found. It explained so much—the thrift-shop clothes, the silence, the boy’s fear of his own power.

“But sometimes—” Scorpius whispered like a confession, brow furrowing as he fumbled for words, “—sometimes on accident I… I forget. Like when I get scared, or mad, or sad. An’ then Daddy says we gotta leave. We go far, ‘cause we don’ wanna scare nobody but—” He hesitated, biting his lip, eyes flicking to the corner of the room as though the memory were hiding there. His voice trembled when it returned. “One time, we didn’t go fast enough.”

Harry stayed very still. 

Scorpius’s small hands clenched around the blanket, twisting it tighter. “We was sleepin’ in this big room, with lots of people. It was cold, an’ the lights buzzed all night, an’ I couldn’t sleep ‘cause the lady next to us was cryin’.” His words came in uneven bursts, broken by pauses that felt too long for someone his age. “Daddy told me it was 'kay, but I—I couldn’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout how sad she sounded. It was prolly the dark, so I wish the lights would come on, and I said pwease so they did. The glow and glow, but nobody like that. They scream and I got scared, too and then," his eyes went wide and far away. “They all went quiet, all at once. Like they was sleepin’, but not really. An’ Daddy tol' me to hide behind him, an’ then the man came.”

“What man?” Harry asked, keeping his voice as gentle as he could.

Scorpius swallowed hard. “The man in the red robe. He had a shiny stick like yours—” his gaze flicked briefly to Harry’s wand on the dresser, “—an’ was so angry. He yelled at Daddy. Said bad words. Said Daddy was 'posed to be in As—Asban—”

“Azkaban?” Harry whispered, throat tight.

Scorpius nodded, the syllables clumsy on his tongue. “Said it was 'cause daddy was bad. Said I was bad, too. ‘Cause I was wrong. ‘Cause Daddy didn’t tell no one ‘bout me. The man said—” He faltered, his breath hitching. “Said that I was… unreg… unreg’ster’d.” He looked to Harry for help with the word, eyes glistening.

“Unregistered,” Harry murmured.

Scorpius nodded again, his lower lip trembling. “Said that meant I wasn’t ‘posed to be ‘live. Said Daddy was hidin’ me, keepin' me a secret 'cause he was up to something. An’ the man said was gonna take me away. But Daddy said sorry, ‘cause that’s the right thing to do when someone’s mad. He said it lots and he promised he’d do anythin’.”

Scorpius rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, the motion small and tired. “They went 'way. Daddy told me to cover my ears and close my eyes, so I did. The man wasn’t shoutin’ anymore when they came back out. He was nicer then. Said it was alright. Said he woul' keep daddy's secret if he promise to be good."

Harry closed his eyes briefly, swallowing against the surge of anger and grief that rose sharply in his chest. He could picture it too easily: Draco Malfoy, stripped of everything, facing a power-hungry man in red Auror robes—one of his men, dammit—begging for mercy he shouldn’t have needed to ask for. His fingers are tightened around the snitch as disgust rippled through him at the thought of what Draco had promised, of what had happened in that room—

But his simmering anger was calmed as Scorpius, small and hunched inward, staring down at his father, said: “The man kept me secret all this time. He kept it because my daddy is good." He looks at Harry, eyes pleading, voice trembling with doubt as he asks, "Right?" 

Harry traces the inscription on the snitch, steadying himself as he searches for the right words to say. “You know,” he says at last, gently, “when I was little, the people who I lived with didn’t like magic either.”

The boy looked up, surprised. “They didn’?”

Harry smiled faintly. “Not even a little. I wasn’t supposed to talk about it or do it or even think it. But magic’s funny—it doesn’t always listen. When I got scared or angry, things just… happened. My aunt’s hair turned green once.”

Scorpius blinked, then giggled despite himself. “Green?”

“Bright green. Looked like she had a giant booger on her head,” Harry said, leaning in conspiratorially. “Then there was the time I got locked in a cupboard for the day, and when they opened it—poof— I'd vanished.”

The boy laughed, a small, bubbling sound that made something unclench inside Harry.

“But then,” Harry continued, his tone softening, “one day a giant came to find me. He told me I was a wizard. Took me away—right out of that awful house—and brought me to London, to this place called Diagon Alley. It was the first time I’d ever seen magic properly. Wands, owls, flying broomsticks—it was like walking into a dream I’d been having my whole life.” He smiled faintly, remembering. “And that was the day I realized magic wasn’t something to be scared of. It was something precious.”

Scorpius listened, rapt, his eyes shining in the half-light.

“I even met another magical boy that day,” Harry went on, his voice taking on a faraway tone. “He was my age, maybe a bit taller, and I took one look at him— his long robes, his perfect posture, his hair and skin so white it practically glowed — and I thought he was the epitome of magic.”

Scorpius tilted his head, smiling faintly. “Was he nice?”

Harry laughed softly. “Not particularly. He had a poncey accent and wouldn’t stop talking about all sorts of things I’d never heard of before. It was all gibberish to my ears at the time, but—” his voice softened, the amusement slipping into something quieter, more reflective—“that boy was the first person to teach me about this game. Quidditch.” He turned the snitch over in his palm, its fine gold filigree reflecting. His next words came low, reverent, as though speaking them into the air after so many years felt like the completion of a long-forgotten spell. “His name was Draco Malfoy.”

The reaction was immediate. Scorpius’s head snapped up, eyes wide and uncertain. “Tha’s my daddy's name,” he whispered, confusion and wonder laced together.

“Yep,” Harry said, smiling faintly. “It’s strange, but if I think back on it, Draco was there for so many moments that mattered. Always just—there. A shining, stubborn, infuriating presence that pushed me in directions I didn’t even know I needed to go. Yeah, he was a git,” he added, chuckling softly, “but if it wasn’t for him, I might never have learned half the things I did. I might never have become who I am.” He paused, letting the words settle. Scorpius’s gaze was still fixed on him, bright and searching, the kind of open, guileless attention only children could give. Harry felt the weight of it and exhaled slowly.

“One time,” he began again, his tone dipping low, quiet enough that it felt like confession, “a very mean man came after me, too. He wanted to hurt me, but your father was so brave.” He glanced down at the sleeping figure on the bed, at the silhouette half-buried beneath blankets. “He saved me, you know. Even after I’d hurt him. Even after I’d been cruel. Even after I refused to even shake his hand.” He looked back to Scorpius, leaning in slightly, the firelight glinting off his glasses. “Do you know why he did that?”

Scorpius shook his head, silent, eyes wide.

Harry reached for Scorpius’s small hand and turned it, palm-up, the way the boy always did for his father. He bent close, voice barely more than breath. “Because your daddy is good,” he said, steady, reverent. He cupped the boy’s fingers closed around the words, sealing them gently. He moved the small hand to the child’s chest, right over the quick, sure beat of his heart. “And don't you ever, ever forget it.”

Scorpius blinked sleepily, gaze shifting toward the still figure beside him. “Daddy needs to ’member it too,” he murmured, so soft it almost disappeared into the quiet.

Harry’s throat tightened. He hesitated only a moment before reaching for Draco’s hand. It was warm now—soft, callused, scarred, and thinner than it should have been. He turned it over carefully, the pale wrist fragile against his fingers. For a blink, he simply looked at it—the hand that had once cast curses, once held power. Then he lifted it, bringing it to his mouth, letting his breath warm its center.

“You are good, Draco Malfoy,” he whispered, lips grazing against life lines, voice breaking like confession. The words felt heavy, sacred, as though they belonged to more than just this room. He laid Draco’s hand back against his chest, his palm pressing against it for three, solid pulses of a steady heart.

The house exhaled softly, floorboards settling, fire sighing low in the grate. Between them, Scorpius’s breathing evened out again, his small hand still cupped over his heart. And Harry, for the first time in a long while, felt something inside him ease—a quiet promise that they would all, somehow, find a way to carry on.

Chapter Text

III. For the Night is Dark

The moment Harry mentioned his and Draco’s shared past, something inside the boy cracked open like a window after a long winter—stiff hinges giving way to light. Curiosity poured through, cold and bright and unstoppable.

It began with quiet questions, soft as snow. What was he like? Did he smile lots? But as the hours stretched, the questions multiplied, turning into an endless cascade—each one tumbling into the next, as though the boy could fill the silence his father left behind simply by collecting enough stories to build him whole again.

Harry indulged every one. He couldn’t help it.

He’d spent so many years answering questions with diplomacy, restraint, duty—always the Auror, the Chosen One, the polished instrument of the Ministry’s endless rhetoric. But this was different. Scorpius didn’t want the practiced legend; he wanted a person. And so, Harry let himself remember. He told the kind of stories that lived at the periphery of memory: the laughter that broke out during practice sessions, the late-night rivalries, the way Draco would tilt his head with that half-smirk that used to drive him mad.

At first, he had been cautious, afraid of saying too much, of tarnishing what little image Scorpius had left of his father. But the more the boy listened—rapt and luminous—the easier it became. His laughter was contagious, his eyes wide and gold-bright in the firelight. Every time Harry reached the end of a story, Scorpius’s hand would reach instinctively toward the air, as if catching the tale itself, and then press it against his small chest. “To keep it safe,” he whispered once when he caught Harry watching.

So Harry gave him more to keep.

He embellished shamelessly for the sake of delight. “Your dad once faced down a monster in the Forbidden Forest,” he said one night, lowering his voice to a hushed, dramatic whisper. “Had fangs like spears and eyes like lanterns. He was this close to getting his arm bitten clean off—”

Scorpius gasped, clutching his own arm protectively, mouth round in horror.

“—but he outran it,” Harry continued solemnly. “Fastest I’ve ever seen anyone move. Nearly tripped me in the process.”

The boy’s shriek of laughter was pure and unrestrained. He giggled so hard he tipped over sideways, clutching his stomach, his laughter rippling through the dim room like a healing charm.

It had been a long time since Grimmauld Place had heard laughter like that. Harry would have sworn the old walls leaned closer to listen.

He didn’t stop there. Each night, the stories grew longer, gentler, brighter. He told Scorpius about Quidditch rivalries and House competitions, about study sessions gone wrong and potions that exploded spectacularly. He left out the war, the darkness, the fear. Instead, he painted Draco in the small moments—the flicker of pride when he mastered a spell, the dry wit, the flashes of brilliance that had nothing to do with cruelty.

When the fire burned low and the shadows softened into the kind of night that begged for sleep, Scorpius curled closer beside him, still whispering questions. His lids drooped, but his voice wouldn’t stop. “What'd he look like?”

Harry smiled faintly. “Like trouble,” he said. “Tall. Blond hair, sharp cheekbones—he had this habit of looking like he’d just smelled something disagreeable, even when he hadn’t.”

Scorpius giggled sleepily.  “I wish I could’ve seen him,” Scorpius murmured, voice small, wistful.

Something about the softness of it hit Harry square in the chest. Then, as though a thought had burst fully formed into his mind, he straightened abruptly, eyes wide. “Wait—you can!”

Before the boy could even blink, Harry was already on his feet, scooping Scorpius into his arms in one fluid motion. The child yelped in surprise, then laughed, high and bright, as Harry barreled them across the room, collapsing on the floor in front the bookshelf, muttering to himself as he searched through the spines. “Where is it, where is it—aha!”

He pulled down a thick, worn album, its leather cover cracked from years of neglect. Dust billowed into the air as he dropped to the floor, crossing his legs like a schoolboy. Scorpius plopped down beside him, eyes round with anticipation.

Harry flipped the first few pages carefully. “I had this friend back in school,” he said softly, turning the pages. “He took pictures of everything back then—couldn’t go anywhere without that bloody camera. His dad gave this to me a while back. I'm certain Draco slithered in here somewhere.”

He turned another page—and there they were.

Two boys, captured in perpetual motion: red and green, a Gryffindor and a Slytherin nose-to-nose on the Quidditch pitch, their brooms hovering just above the ground. Harry remembered the moment well—adrenaline, anger, the taste of wind and pride. But the photo, forever looping, told a different story.

Draco’s mouth curved upward in something almost playful. His eyes gleamed, alive with challenge. The sneer Harry had always read as malice looked, here in this softened light, more like a smirk shared between rivals who both knew they were exactly where they belonged.

“Look!” Scorpius gasped. “He’s smiling!”

Harry blinked, startled by the innocence of the observation. He leaned closer, studying the moving photograph again, and for the first time saw it—the curve of humor in Draco’s expression, the spark of joy beneath the arrogance.

“Yeah,” Harry murmured, almost to himself. “He is, isn’t he?”

He flipped the page again. This time, the two of them were in the air, spiraling upward, robes snapping in the wind. Draco’s hair glowed pale in the sunlight, his hand reaching, determined, elegant. The snitch glimmered between them, a shared star.

Scorpius’s excitement spilled over in an uncontainable squeal. “He’s flying! Daddy’s flying!”

Harry’s laughter broke loose before he could stop it—free and startled, as though his body had remembered joy on its own. “That’s right. He was bloody brilliant at it, too.”

The boy twisted toward him, eyes gleaming. “I wanna fly like Daddy!”

Harry raised a brow, pretending to consider. “You do, do you?”

Scorpius nodded fiercely, curls bouncing.

“Well,” Harry said, a grin tugging at his lips, “as your temporary flight instructor, I suppose that can be arranged.”

Before Scorpius could react, Harry lifted him by the waist, spinning him high into the air and plopping him on his shoulders. The boy shrieked in delight, kicking his legs as Harry whooshed and dipped around the room, humming Quidditch chants under his breath.

“Look out! The snitch!” Harry called, clicking his tongue so that the little golden ball leaped from the mattress, whirring around their heads in a dizzy blur.

Scorpius squealed louder, arms outstretched, chasing the snitch with determined glee as Harry zoomed him through the air. The ball darted and shimmered, always just out of reach, the boy’s laughter bubbling into wild giggles as they spiraled through the lamplight.

“Nearly got it—!” Harry teased, dipping lower, sweeping Scorpius through the air until the child’s laughter turned shrill and bright with delight. The snitch darted around the room, a flicker of gold in the afternoon light, always just out of reach, always dancing at the edge of triumph.

Something in Harry stirred as he watched it—an old ache, an old joy. His heart beat faster, his vision narrowing to the gleam of gold and motion. For a fleeting moment, he was not on the cusp of thirty and exhausted, wasn’t the man who’d thrown away the life the world had built for him. He was fifteen again, wind in his hair, adrenaline flooding his veins, chasing glory and a blur of silver-blond on the periphery of his sight.

He could almost hear the rush of the pitch again, the roar of the crowd, Malfoy’s right behind you, Potter! He’d always been right behind him—impossibly, infuriatingly close. And Harry had never admitted, not even to himself, how much he’d loved it: the chase, the push, the knowledge that someone was there who could match him stride for stride.

The snitch swooped low. Instinct overrode thought. Harry surged forward on sheer muscle memory, arm extended, the old rhythm singing through his body. But before he could reach it, a small hand darted out, quick as light.

“I got it!” Scorpius squealed, voice high with triumph. “I got it!”

Harry blinked, disoriented for a beat. The boy’s face was radiant, eyes glowing like two captured moons, hair wild and cheeks flushed pink. He held the snitch aloft like a trophy, the little wings fluttering weakly between his fingers.

Scorpius looked towards the bed, still panting, and waved it toward the bed where his father lay unmoving. “Daddy, look!” he shouted, laughter bubbling up from deep in his chest. “I gotsta snitch!”

Silence answered him.

The child’s smile faltered, still expectant, as if waiting for the inevitable applause—the cheer, the familiar voice that should have followed. But there was nothing. Only the soft rasp of Draco’s breathing and the quiet hum of the house.

Harry’s chest tightened. The air suddenly felt too heavy. Something in him—some long-restrained, ridiculous impulse—snapped. “Absolutely not,” he huffed, and before his rational mind could intervene, he tossed a laughing Scorpius gently onto the bed.

Harry was already climbing after him, grinning like a madman, the mattress dipping under his knees. “We can’t let him sleep through this, can we? A Malfoy just caught a snitch for the first time in recorded history, and he’s bloody missing it!”

Scorpius sank and rolled as Harry's weight shifted the mattress, giggles feeding Harry's mania. “Wake up, Malfoy!” Harry shouted, jumping on the bed and giving it a good, rude jostling. The springs squeaked their protest. Draco didn’t stir.

Harry’s grin turned feral. “You were always so bloody stubborn, weren't you?” he said, determination gleaming in his eyes. He dropped to his knees and began shaking Draco’s shoulders with exaggerated vigor. “Wake up, you lazy git! Your son just made family history and you’re sleeping through it!” The bed rocked beneath their combined movement—Harry’s laughter mixing with Scorpius’s shrieks as they bounced in chaotic rhythm. “Wake up, wake up, wake up—!”

He felt as if he were trapped in a darkness so thick it was almost physical—a vast, black sea pressing in from every side. Draco drifted in it, weightless and heavy all at once, as though gravity had been forgotten but the ache of it still remained. There was no up, no down, only a cold that clung to him like memory. It was not the sharp cold of winter air or marble floors; it was the deep, ancient cold that belonged to nothingness itself.

He had been here before—he thought. Or perhaps he had simply lived a life that always led back to this place. The dark. The stillness. The quiet consequence of every wrong turn.

He tried to move, but even thought was sluggish here. His limbs—if he still had them—felt distant, numb. The darkness wrapped around him like the echo of water, filling his ears, his lungs, his heart. A strange calmness pulsed in rhythm with the void. He was so tired. So tired.

And yet, somewhere beneath the exhaustion, a part of him resisted.

That small, pathetic part that had always reached toward the light no matter how many times it burned him. It stirred faintly now, whispering of warmth and sound and something like a heartbeat. He wanted to ignore it. He wanted to sink. The dark was easier. Here, he didn’t have to want.

But then—

A flicker.

It came from nowhere and everywhere at once: a faint, tremulous glimmer beneath his ribs. It pulsed once, twice, small and steady, like a candle guttering in the wind. He felt it before he saw it, a warmth threading through the marrow of him, foreign and fragile.

The darkness recoiled, and he gasped—if such a thing could be called breath—  as it revealed that brilliant light. He reached for it, the motion slow and desperate. The air, or water, or whatever substance this nothingness was made of, thickened around him, dragging him back. His fingers brushed only emptiness. Please, he thought, or maybe he said it aloud. Please, I don’t— I don’t want to—

The warmth flared suddenly, sharp and brilliant. It burned through his chest, a rush of heat that seared and softened all at once. The pressure around him cracked. The dark fractured, shattered into veins of light that spread like cracks in glass.

And then—pain.

It hit him like the first breath after drowning. The world slammed back into place—color, sound, weight—all at once and too much. He arched, lungs convulsing as air tore through them in a violent, ragged gasp. His chest seized, his pulse thundered, and the light was blinding.

He was here.

He could feel.

His body was on fire. His veins burned as though the dark had been replaced with molten sunlight. The rush of sensation was unbearable—the coarse drag of fabric under his palms, the heat of another body near his own, the sting of breath clawing at his throat.

And then, through the chaos, came a sound.

“Wake up—”

The voice was muffled, warped by distance and confusion, but it pierced through the noise. He flinched, the syllables crashing through him like waves. There was movement around him—pressure on his shoulders, the creak of wood beneath him. The voice rose, cracked, fractured by something wild and terrified.

“Wake up, wake up, you bloody stubborn—”

The sound shook him. It sounded angry, but underneath it—underneath the shaking breath and the sharp consonants—was something else. Something that ached.

The weight on his shoulders grew firmer. The shaking more desperate. The noise of it all reached a pitch so unbearable he thought he might scream, if he could remember how.

Then—another sound. High and bright. Laughter. It echoed strangely through the fog in his skull. A child’s laughter, breaking through the panic like sunlight on cold stone.

Something small pressed against his arm. Hands, grabbing, shaking in earnest.

Draco’s lashes fluttered. The light above him blurred and fractured, too bright after so long in the dark. His lungs fought to remember what to do, dragging in air in uneven bursts. The world was still tilted, the edges of sound and color bleeding into each other.

“Malfoy—come on—come back—” The voice again, hoarse now, cracking open on the plea.

He turned toward it—or tried to. His limbs felt strange, uncooperative, as if they belonged to someone else. The weight on his chest made it hard to move, hard to breathe. He opened his mouth, but the first sound that came out was a broken, startled gasp, like the surface of a frozen lake giving way.

For a moment—longer than a moment, perhaps, though time had become a strange and untrustworthy thing—Draco couldn’t move. The world around him pulsed and warped, light bending in and out of focus like the surface of water. And there, above him, was Harry Potter.

Draco blinked, once, twice, trying to drag his mind into coherence. The image didn’t change. Potter was still there, knees braced on either side of his ribs, hands planted against his chest, breathing hard like he’d run for miles. His hair was a wild, tangled mess, sticking to his forehead in damp curls. His glasses were askew, fogged by breath. His eyes—Merlin, his eyes—were burning green, wild and bright, their intensity so sharp it felt like a blade pressed between Draco’s ribs.

Draco stared, dazed. He felt the world slow, his pulse thunderous in his ears.

Was this real?

He’d dreamed of Harry before. In fevered half-sleeps, in the quiet between nights, in moments when the dark felt too heavy to bear—Harry always appeared. Sometimes angry, sometimes kind, sometimes just there, a reminder of everything Draco could never quite reach. But this—this was different. Too vivid. Too warm. Too close.

He swallowed hard, trying to make sense of it. His brain refused to obey. Everything felt fractured, dreamlike.

Harry’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears, hoarse and shaking. “Draco?”

Draco’s throat worked around a word that barely came out. “Potter,” he rasped, the name tearing through him like a half-remembered spell.

It didn’t make sense. Nothing did. The air was thick with heat and noise and something alive that pressed in around him. Harry was still leaning over him, staring down like he couldn’t quite believe it either, like Draco’s breath was the proof he’d been holding out for. The green in his eyes shimmered with something Draco didn’t dare name—something between relief and devastation, joy and grief.

If this was death, Draco thought hazily, then it was a cruel kind of heaven. Because surely, surely, this was what paradise must look like for a man who’d done nothing but want all his life: Harry bloody Potter, breathless and flushed, staring down at him as though he’d just witnessed a miracle.

It was too much. He wanted to turn away, to laugh, to cry. But he couldn’t move. He could only think, deliriously: I’m dead. This is what I get. My punishment is eternity spent looking at him like this, so close, and never having—

The thought broke off in a rush of movement.

Suddenly, Harry was gone—shoved back with surprising force. Draco sucked in a startled breath, the air scraping raw through his throat. Before he could orient himself, a small weight collided with his chest.

The warmth that hit him was familiar, alive. Small arms wrapped around his neck, squeezing tight enough to hurt, and a choked, wet sob filled the air.

“Daddy!”

The word struck through him like lightning. His body reacted before his mind did—his arms, trembling and unsteady, coming up instinctively, one hand finding the small curve of a back, the other curling protectively at the base of his son’s skull. He smelled of soap and dust and salt tears. His small body trembled with relief, his sobs muffled against Draco’s neck, his hot tears soaking into Draco’s skin. The sound—the weight—the impossible reality of him—hit Draco like a tidal wave.

For a long second, Draco just held on, his vision swimming. The world tilted and steadied, tilted again. His heart pounded unevenly in his chest, every beat echoing through the hollow places where the dark had been.

A thousand questions flooded his mind all at once, each more frantic than the last. Where were they? How long had he been gone? Who had found them? Why was Harry Potter looking at him like that—like he was something worth saving?

But none of it mattered. Not really.

Because Scorpius was here—warm and shaking and alive in his arms, his sobs muffled against Draco’s neck, his little fingers clutching at his shirt as though to anchor him in place. Draco cast the rest of the world aside, instead closing his eyes and pressing his face into the crown of his son’s curls, inhaling the sweet scent of his purity.

He exhaled shakily, his hands finding the boy’s back and holding tight, tighter, as though the world might try to take him. The questions would come later. For now, there was only this: the weight of his son against him, the lovely hammering of his heart, kissing where their chests met.

And though the night is dark, Draco fears nothing; for he holds the stars in his arms, and, oh, how brightly they shine.

Chapter Text

IV. I Am Far From Home

Harry lingers in the doorway where shadow meets the muted glow of the fire’s edge, watching the embrace that comforts patiently until shaking sobs quiet into soft hiccups. A hand, thin and pale, rubs soothingly between the bones of small, clipped wings, with each cyclical movement steadying Scorpius in a way magic never could. The room glows faintly as the flames in the hearth watch on, warm and still, as if the world had slowed its endless rotation to better settle this moment in the marrow of time. 

He could almost hear Hermione in his head, her voice crisp with sense and care. Give them space, Harry. And she would be right— she always is— but some stubborn, childish part of Harry refuses to move. Every time he attempted to step back, another thought would root him to the spot. He told himself he remained there out of caution, to ensure he would be close enough in case anything went wrong. And that was reason enough, wasn’t it? Logic wrapped in duty, a shape that still fit. But the lie sat strangely in his chest, half-formed, too light to ground him. The truth was quieter, harder, almost shameful in its simplicity.

Harry stayed because he wanted to. He wanted to hear the soft tenor of Draco's voice as he murmured into the soft halo of Scorpius' hair, wanted to witness as the way Draco cradled him close in a manner that was possessive and protective, yet simultaneously gentle, denoting something too precious for mortal hands.

It was the kind of closeness Harry had seen before, but always from the shadows. Seated upon the thin cot in the Great Hall, watching as Molly Weasley embraces her children after the war, pressing kisses into their hair as if she could anchor them there forever. From the window of the train, looking out at a mother clutching her child at King’s Cross, enraptured by the way her knuckles whiten against a wool sleeve. Through the slats of the cupboard, watching as Aunt Petunia tugged a quilt over Dudley's shoulders on Christmas morning, her eyes so soft and her hand so tender as it settled on his cheek.

Harry had seen these things his whole life—brief flashes of love that the world seemed to gift to everyone but him. He had learned early how to stand apart, how to watch through the spaces between, how to be both witness and absence all at once.

He knew he was intruding now, that this was a sacred moment meant only for the two of them. But he couldn’t stop himself. He watched the way Draco’s lips brushed against his son’s curls, the way his hands trembled with relief, the way the boy melted into him as though he had finally come home. Harry’s breath hitched at the sight. It was beautiful in its simplicity—a tableau of love that existed beyond language, beyond even recognition. There was no doubt that he was a trespasser, peering into something holy.

Still, he looked, for this is what the starved do when they see a feast of their greatest desires. He looked as if looking alone could satiate the emptiness within him; this terrible wanting, the sort that felt a lot like envy, though he hated the word for it. Envy was sharp, ugly; this was something softer, stranger. It was the ache of someone who had seen light all his life but never learned how to stand in it, the kind that didn’t ask to possess but only to witness, to stay near enough so he could have a taste of what it felt like to be warm.

He watched with the furtive hunger of a child trying not to get caught doing something forbidden, with his head bowed in feigned indifference, while his greedy gaze tilted upward through his lashes, taking in every detail. His breath remained soft and quiet as he stole pieces of this foreign intimacy, warping it as though it could ever be his own. When Draco pressed his lips against Scorpius' forehead, Harry found his own mouth mirroring the word he could not hear, but had learned through the litany of Scorpius' own thorough teaching. One for sweet dreams, he can all but hear Draco whisper. Two for smiles, he reads the words on Draco's mouth, watches as he kisses away the last of the tears drying on the apples of Scorpius' cheeks. 

Harry does look away then, forcing his stubborn gaze to the floor. He can hear the murmur of Draco's voice, followed by a quick succession of theatrical pecks that leave Scorpius giggling sweetly, the last of his crying banished with the purity of his own laughter. Harry counts the seconds that follow, a weak attempt to steal this lull for himself or, perhaps, to cement his way into this moment permanently. If he is quiet enough, perhaps time will move on without him, and he can remain here, clinging to the edges of this time capsule of love in its purist form.

Like the wishes he’d once whispered to the spiders, summer after grueling summer, this one too goes unanswered. He knows it by the way the shadows dance on the dark-stained floors, their rhythm shifting steadily with the ticking of the bedside clock. He hears it in the rustle of blankets, settling and covering in a gentle manner that aches deep within him, and in the shift of the mattress, quiet and delicate, so as not to disturb.

Most of all, he senses it in the gaze that finds him. It is so heavy it feels tangible, dragging him back to the depths of reality. He feels frozen like a child caught in the midst of their wrongdoings, frozen and incapable of retreating. Harry counts the grains in the wood pattern, inhaling gently through his nose as he prepares himself for what is to come: the cruel disdain that always hardened Petunia's features, the pity that peeks through Molly's kind eyes, the confusion that always flashes in the masses as they catch a glimpse of weakness in their Savior.

Because he is brave— no, because bravery is expected of him— Harry steels himself and looks up, squaring his folded shoulders and preparing for his judgment.

Every part of Draco cuts where Scorpius had once softened: the cruel twist of his mouth, the sharp glint in his eyes, the humorless huff that escapes his chest, too edged to be called laughter, as his voice— robbed of that gentleness he gifted to his son just moments before— slices through the air with the same coldness Petunia once directed Harry's way.

But it softens just moments before impact, as if Draco had dispelled all of his energy tending to the boy currently curled contentedly in Harry's bed. With a sigh, Draco let his head fall heavily against the pillow, sinking where the feathers had been pushed aside from years of Harry's own burrowing. "I suppose," he begins, voice loud enough to reach Harry, but not so grating as to disturb Scorpius, "that this is the part where I begin bombarding you with questions; but I haven't the strength." He looks towards Harry, face partially obscured by the mound of the pillow. "You go first, Potter."

Harry shuffles on his feet, uncertain and strangely nervous under Draco's tired gaze. A thousand questions rattle in his head, some pertinent (What happened to Narcissa, to Scorpius' mother? Why have the two of you been staying in Muggle shelters? Who the fuck is the Auror that been hurting you?), others seemed less demanding in the grand scheme of things, yet sat at the forefront of Harry's mind the heaviest (How have you created such a precious thing in a world that is anything but? Does your heart feel heavy from all the love he has gifted it? If so, can I keep some of it— just for a bit, until morning, so I know what it's like?)

Harry settles on something safe, something easy. "Can I get you anything?"

Another huffed breath, still too sour to be named laughter, coated with enough saccharine disbelief to have Harry wondering if he had asked the wrong question after all. After a moment of consideration, Draco finally broke the silence.

“A hot bath would be divine,” he murmured, eyes closing again, as if even the idea of warmth was too distant to reach for.

The world swam at the edges of his vision, the soft blur between waking and sleep a tender, fragile thing that Draco clung to out of habit. His body felt heavy, as if the years he had spent running, hiding, surviving had finally caught up all at once, laying claim to every bone, every ache. His limbs were leaden with an exhaustion that was not just physical but bone-deep, old, the kind that came from carrying too much for too long.

He lay still, eyes closed, trying to orient himself by sound alone—the faint crackle of a hearth somewhere to his left, the rhythmic pulse of his son's gentle breathing, the heavy shuffle of movement beyond that.

Potter. Even without opening his eyes, he could feel him: that strange, steady presence like a current running just beneath the air. For the first time since opening his eyes to that ridiculous scene—Harry straddling him, shouting his name like a fanatic— Draco allowed himself to think about it properly. He had been ready for anger then. For accusation. For some sanctimonious speech about redemption and second chances. But what he’d found instead had disarmed him completely: Harry bloody Potter, standing in the doorway, looking like a man lost.

Draco had always remembered him with that impossible gleam: the sure-chinned savior who carried light like a weapon, who spoke as though the world owed him nothing for his heroism, yet existing freely with the security that it would hand him everything anyway. But the man he'd seen in the threshold of the door was not that boy. The years had carved hollows beneath his eyes, dulled the brilliance into something quieter, slower, infinitely more human. Harry had looked small. Fragile in a way that felt almost unbearable to look at. Not diminished, exactly, but dimmed—as though the fire that once fueled him had burned too long, and now he lived among the ashes.

Draco drew a slow breath, let it out again. His magic, dormant for so long, hummed faintly beneath his skin, startled awake by proximity and safety both. It was the first time in years he could feel it moving freely, like blood returning to a limb gone numb. It hurt, that sudden aliveness.

The room around him breathed too. The air was thick with the scent of something familiar—oak, old wood polish, a whisper of ash in the walls. The surroundings felt wrong and right at once, as though the world had rearranged itself around a memory. He could not name the place, but it pulsed with history he recognized, the kind that left ghosts in its corners.

A faint sound reached him through the haze of his half-dreaming—water rushing through pipes, a door creaking softly open. Then the scent of oils filled the air, curling like mist through the room: sandalwood and eucalyptus, undercut by something floral, something clean. 

The sudden weight of a hand on his shoulder startled him from the quiet of his own thoughts. The contact was warm, firm, radiating power that could have easily turned cruel, but didn’t. Draco blinked his eyes open, the room swimming into focus: the glow of the lamplight, the shape of Harry beside the bed, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, hair still wild as ever.

“Come on,” Harry murmured, voice low, coaxing.

Draco’s eyes followed the direction of Harry's intent: the open ensuite where a mist of fragrance billowed out enticingly. He shakes his head. "It was a joke, Potter. I don't need—"

"Please stop calling me that," Harry interjects, voice small and hurt. "I've been spoon-feeding you soup and giving you sponge baths for the past two weeks. Surely we've moved passed the childish habit of calling each other by our surnames, haven't we?"

Draco tries not to dwell on the passage of time, nor on his teenage wet-dream that has allegedly occurred during said two weeks. Ignoring the heat blooming on his cheeks, he turns instead to the other side of the bed where Scorpius is a small, pale bundle against the pillow, his tiny hand clutching at the blanket where Draco had been.

“I don't care what you've done for me," he says, every word a lie. "I'm not leaving my son alone for something as trivial as a bath." His gaze flicked from his son to Harry, uncertain.

“It’s alright,” Harry said quickly, soft but steady, as if reading the thought before it formed. He glanced over his shoulder and said, “Kreacher.”

There was a silent pop just outside the door before an old, hunched elf waddled into the room, glaring up at Harry with undisguised irritation. “What would Miss Granger say if she were to hear that Kreacher, the free elf, is being called upon like a servant once more?”

Harry rolls his eyes. "I need you to watch Scorpius for a bit. Draco doesn't want him to be alone."

The elf’s ears twitched, his wrinkled face softening immediately as he finally looked away from Harry and towards Draco. "Of course, Kreacher will watch the young master. It is an honor to serve the blood of the Ancient and Noble House of Black."

The elf plopped himself beside Scorpius with a sort of eagerness that did not match his obvious age. But when his gnarled fingers reached out, they combed through the child’s curls with unexpected gentleness. He gives that same gentleness to Draco when he looks up. "It is good to see you awake, Master Draco." His mouth twists into what Draco thinks must be a smile, before dropping back into a scowl as he looks back at Harry and hisses, “No magic."

Draco blinked, disoriented. No magic? He wanted to ask, but the question tangled with too many others. He pushes it aside, shaking off the hand on still resting gently on his shoulder as he shuffles to the bed's edge. “I can manage," he insists, ignoring Harry's hovering hands.

The moment his feet touch the floor, his legs give a warning tremor, like saplings in the wind. The room tilted; a sharp rush of vertigo caught him off guard. Before he could curse, Harry's arm was there, strong around his waist, catching him before the floor could.

“Easy,” Harry murmured. The tone was maddeningly gentle, almost reverent. “Just lean on me.”

Draco wanted to argue, to insist on dignity, but his body betrayed him again, softening into the hold. The heat of Harry's body pressed steadily against his side, grounding him, guiding him. The faint scent of soap and smoke lingered in his clothes, something achingly domestic.

Together, they crossed the room. The soft light from the hearth followed them, flickering across the walls. The sound of running water grew louder—constant, calm, like the promise of something clean. The doorway loomed, warm mist spilling through it like breath.

Draco let himself be led, too tired to protest further, the world narrowing to the rhythm of their steps, the pressure of a hand steady at his ribs, and the hum of magic—his and Harry’s both—stirring the air between them like the tide pulling in.

Steam curled thick and slow through the doorway, veiling the room in a soft haze that caught the faint light and turned it to something sacred. The sound of the running water filled the space like a heartbeat, steady and patient. Draco lingered at the threshold, one arm braced against the frame, breath uneven as the mist kissed his face. His legs still trembled, his balance uncertain, and for a moment he hated himself for it—for the indignity of frailty, for the way his body had forgotten the grace it once possessed.

Harry’s hand was still at his waist, anchoring him. The weight of it was maddeningly steady—neither possessive nor impersonal. Simply there, as though this act, this moment, were a duty older than words.

“Let's sit,” Harry said quietly, nodding toward the wooden stool beside the tub. The command was gentle, but not up for debate.

Draco obeyed because defiance took more strength than he had left. The stool creaked faintly under him, the sound impossibly loud against the hush of water. He could feel the damp heat rising from the bath, ghosting against his bare arms.

Harry knelt before him. The motion startled Draco enough that his throat went dry. Harry Potter, down at his knees, head bowed, reaching toward him. The image was wrong, all wrong, and yet impossibly tender.

“I can—” Draco began, but the rest of the protest withered on his tongue as Harry reached for the buttons of his shirt. His fingers were careful, deliberate. Each one is undone with care, as though the fabric itself might bruise. Harry’s eyes didn’t meet his; they stayed fixed on the task, on the small, neat motions of his hands, on the rise and fall of Draco’s chest. Draco wanted to look away, but couldn’t. It was a strange, impossible thing—to be cared for so quietly. To be unmade not with want or anger, but with patience.

When the last button slipped free, Harry hesitated, the shirt half open, his knuckles brushing against Draco’s sternum. The contact sent a strange pulse through Draco—something fragile and humiliatingly human. He swallowed. Harry cleared his throat softly, his gaze darting to the wall, then to the water.

“Lean forward,” he said. His voice was steady, but there was something behind it—something rough-edged, fraying at the seams.

Draco obeyed, too tired to do otherwise. The fabric dragged over his shoulders, caught on his elbows. His breath hitched as the cool air touched his fever-warm skin. The scars across his chest caught the light—a pale network of old wounds, faded but still visible. Harry’s gaze flicked toward them, then away, jaw tightening.

Draco wanted to laugh. Go on then, he thought bitterly. Take in the proof of what’s left of me. But Harry said nothing. He just folded the shirt neatly, set it aside, and reached for the next layer with the same methodical care.

By the time Draco was stripped bare, he felt strangely hollow, untethered. It was not shame so much as surrender. His body, thin and uncooperative, trembled, and yetHarry’s hands never faltered. There was no judgment in them, no revulsion. Only a quiet resolve, the kind that steadies you through pain.

Draco closed his eyes when Harry’s hand brushed the back of his neck, guiding him forward toward the bath. His knees hit the porcelain edge. For one unbearable moment, he thought he might collapse under his own weight.

Then Harry was there again—one arm firm around his back, the other steady beneath his elbow. Together, they lowered him into the steaming water.

The heat struck him all at once. His body seized in protest, lungs gasping as the warmth licked at his skin. Then came the sound—small, involuntary, escaping his throat before he could stop it. A low, broken exhale that was almost a sigh, almost a sob. The water embraced him, heavy and forgiving, wrapping around the edges of his bones, softening the ache in his joints. It felt alien. Indulgent. Divine.

He sank deeper, the steam clouding his vision, the sound of the water filling his ears. When was the last time? he wondered dimly. When had he last felt warmth that didn’t hurt?

The bath rose around him, lapping at his chest, his throat, whispering against the old scars that traced down his torso. The heat pulled at them gently, loosening the tightness that had once seemed permanent. 

He realized, distantly, that Harry was still there—kneeling beside the tub, sleeves rolled, his forearms damp from steam. His hand hovered briefly over the water’s surface, as though he meant to test it again, to make sure it was right. Then he reached for a cloth, dipped it, and wrung it out. The sound was slow, rhythmic, almost hypnotic.

Draco watched him through half-lidded eyes, the motion distant, dreamlike. Harry’s expression was unreadable—focused, almost priestly in its restraint. He moved with the kind of care that spoke not of attraction, but of devotion. The ritual of tending. Of healing.

When the first trickle of water touched his face, Draco's breath caught in his throat. The cloth was warm, the motion gentle as Harry wiped away the grime and sweat that clung to him. His hands were steady even when Draco flinched, even when the air thickened with unspoken things.

Draco had spent years bathing in cold streams, in dim basins, scrubbing away dirt but never the residue of his sins. But this—this was different. Each motion seemed to erase something heavier. A memory, a sin, a night too long. The act felt like forgiveness after an infinite purgatory.

Harry shifted beside the tub, his sleeve brushing against the porcelain, and the faint clink of a bottle echoed softly as he reached for something unseen. Draco barely opened his eyes when he felt the brush of fingers at the back of his neck—hesitant, careful, almost reverent.

“Is this alright?” Harry asked, his voice low, fragile as if the very air might shatter it. His fingers hovered near the base of Draco’s skull, trembling slightly with restraint.

The question—so simple, so unassuming—struck deeper than any demand could have. It was the kind of gentleness that felt foreign, almost dangerous. No one had asked him such a thing in years. Not during sixth year when he was falling apart, not after the trials, not in the long stretch of survival that followed.

He didn’t answer with words. He couldn’t. Instead, Draco leaned forward, curling in on himself, drawing his knees to his chest as though to make himself smaller, easier to hold, easier to forgive. He rested his cheek against the top of his knees, eyes closing as the first touch of Harry’s fingers slipped through his hair.

The braid—matted, knotted, more neglect than anything else—unraveled slowly beneath Harry’s hands. Each tug was patient, unhurried, each pass of fingers through the pale strands deliberate and soft. The oils Harry had poured into the water perfumed the air—something like lavender and smoke—and with every careful motion, Draco could almost imagine his mother’s hands there instead: cool, perfumed, deft.

Harry’s fingers were just as kind. They combed through the length of Draco's hair with quiet diligence, catching on tangles, smoothing, soothing. It was unbearably intimate—not the intimacy of desire, but of being handled as though he was something worth tending to.

Draco’s throat burned. He kept his face hidden against his knees, because if he looked up, if he saw Harry’s expression, he thought he might break entirely. His mind kept circling back to the same thought, relentless and raw: I don’t deserve this.

He thought of all the times he’d chosen silence when words might have mattered. Of the fear that had rooted itself so deep in his bones that even now, safe and half-broken, he couldn’t shake it. He had spent so long repenting in solitude—repenting for surviving, for failing, for the stain of his name—that kindness felt like theft.

He wanted to reject it. To stand, to sneer, to reclaim the old armor of distance that had always kept him safe. But he couldn’t even lift his head. The heat, the scent, the rhythmic touch of fingers in his hair—it stripped him bare in a way no curse ever could.

He felt something small and traitorous inside him unfurl, slow and hesitant, like the first bud after a cruel winter.

Harry rinsed his hair carefully, cupping warm water in his hands and letting it pour through the strands. The sensation was exquisite in its simplicity—the sound of it, the faint splash, the touch that hovered between care and reverence. Draco wanted to speak—wanted to thank Harry, or apologize, or tell him to stop before the gentleness undid him completely—but the words wouldn’t come. His mouth opened once, twice, then closed again. There was no language for this, not really. No spell that could express what it meant to be seen, washed clean of something heavier than dirt.

So instead, he let his eyes close again, surrendering to the sound of water, the careful rhythm of Harry’s movements, the feel of the cloth tracing slow circles between his shoulder blades.

If he pretended, just for a moment, that this was absolution—that he could be remade in the quiet hands of another man—well, no one had to know.

For a long while, neither of them spoke. The room hummed quietly, filled with the sound of water dripping from fingers, the faint hiss of cooling steam, the rhythmic cadence of two mismatched breaths trying to find a pattern between them. The air was thick with something fragile—something that might have been peace if Draco believed in such things anymore.

Harry wrung out the cloth, folding it neatly on the edge of the basin as if ritual demanded order at the end of all tenderness. The silence that followed pressed in close, a quiet heavy enough to make Draco aware of every beat of his heart, every shallow pull of breath. When Harry finally rose—murmuring a quiet I’ll give you a moment before stepping through the doorway—Draco was left with the echo of his absence and the faint swirl of warmth still clinging to his skin.

He stayed in the water until it went tepid, until the warmth that Harry’s hands had left behind began to slip away. The chill crept back in, crawling over his skin like memory, like penance. He leaned against the rim of the tub, eyes half-lidded, watching the surface ripple around him. His reflection wavered and bent, the lines of his face warping with each subtle tremor of the water. Thin, drawn lips. Hollowed eyes. A stranger. A version of himself he hardly recognized—one softened against his will.

And that was the danger of Harry Potter.

Draco knew how to navigate cruelty. It was the language he had been born into, the family trade. He could wound with a word as easily as with a wand. He could survive on venom and self-preservation, turn spite into armor. It had always been enough. Cruelty was clean—it had borders. Predictable. It demanded no vulnerability, no return. He could pay it forward endlessly and remain untouched. Even his body, when desperate times demanded it, was something transactional, something that could be given and forgotten without bleeding too deep.

But kindness… kindness had teeth.

Harry’s especially. It wasn’t pity, or the kind of righteousness the world wore like perfume. It wasn’t charity masked as mercy. It was quieter than that—an act without expectation, a presence that made no demands, only offered. It was the kind of goodness that slipped beneath defenses before one had time to notice, the kind that didn’t need to be earned.

And Draco had never learned what to do with that.

He had learned what kindness cost. How it soured over time, turned into resentment or obligation. How every kind word came with a tally, every mercy with a hidden debt. He had bartered everything he had left for scraps of safety before—for shelter, for warmth, for the illusion of care—and each time, he had come away diminished. Gratitude had become a currency too costly to spend.

But cruelty, cruelty he could afford. Sarcasm, distance, the sharp edges of his tongue, the sacrifice of his body—these things were easy. Familiar. They kept the scales balanced. They kept him alive.

Tenderness, though—that was something else. That was a debt he could never repay.

He thought of Scorpius asleep in that bed upstairs, small and safe, and something inside him twisted painfully. Harry had given him that safety. That warmth. That impossible kindness that Draco had no means of returning. He had nothing to offer the man in exchange—no gold, no favor, no magic worth trading.

Just himself.

And that, he thought bitterly, had never been worth much.

His throat tightened as he dragged a hand through his damp hair, slicking it back until it clung to his skull like wet silk. He could feel his magic humming beneath his skin— awake and confused by the tenderness that lingered in the air.

He couldn’t stay here. Not in this house heavy with mercy. Not under the gaze of the man who had saved him twice over—once in the courts, once in the cold. Every breath here was borrowed, every kindness another tally mark against a debt he could never clear.

Better to leave while the warmth still felt like a gift, before it became unbearable. Before it hollowed him out entirely. Before he made the mistake of believing that he could belong in it.

By the time the water stilled again, Draco had made up his mind.

He’d seen it in Draco’s eyes the moment he’d led him back from the bath: that subtle closing of the self, the careful construction of walls rebuilt brick by brick. The man who had looked almost weightless in the steam and dim light—tired, yes, but open, quiet—was gone. In his place stood someone sharper, distant, the faintest ghost of the Malfoy he remembered from another lifetime. He refused the fresh clothes Harry offered, choosing instead to pull the threadbare shirt back over his still-damp skin. His voice, when he spoke, was measured, cool, and unyielding.

“Thank you, Potter,” Draco had said, each syllable deliberate, as if weighed for weakness. “But I’d prefer to be left alone with my son.”

No please. No warmth. Just exhaustion reshaped into pride.

And Harry—because he was trying to be kind, because he had always been too bloody understanding for his own good—nodded. He had turned to leave before Kreacher could utter his indignant protest. “Come on,” Harry murmured, steering him gently away before the elf could be too heartbroken over the cold dismissal. “He needs the quiet.”

The words had felt like stones in his mouth, but they were true.

Now, in the dim wash of the parlor, Harry lay sprawled across the couch, one arm slung over his eyes as if to shield himself from thoughts that refused to dim. The fire had burned low, throwing fractured shadows that reached like hands across the floorboards. The ticking of the mantle clock filled the quiet with its steady heartbeat.

He couldn’t sleep. He told himself it was habit—that the years had made him restless, attuned to the smallest shifts in the dark—but the truth was simpler, quieter, harder to say aloud. The bed upstairs had been too full of warmth to give up easily.

It had been years since he’d shared space with another body at rest. He hadn’t realized how starved he’d been for it—the soft sound of breathing near his own, the fragile proof of life in the stillness. These past nights, with Scorpius’ small body tucked between them, Draco’s rhythmic breaths syncing in the quiet, had been the first time Harry’s sleep had felt like something other than surrender.

Harry could feel how the house had shifted since their arrival, every inch of its making humming differently. It wasn’t silent—no, Grimmauld hadn’t been silent in years. Its magic was old and temperamental, used to his moods, to the slow rot of loneliness that had settled here since Sirius’s laughter had faded from its walls. But recently, it felt… awake.

Alive after years on the brink.

He could feel it in the way the embers refused to die, in the faint warmth that clung to the air, in the subtle shift of portraits whose inhabitants hadn’t moved in decades. The corridors breathed easier, as though recognizing the return of something ancient it had long been deprived of: belonging.

He smiled faintly at the thought. It was ridiculous, really. One man, one child, and suddenly the whole house remembered how to be alive again. He'd be offended at the notion if he did not feel equally as chanced by their presence.

Harry shifted, tucking his arm beneath his head, letting his eyes adjust to the dim glow. Somewhere above him, he could almost sense them—Draco and Scorpius. The boy curled small and dreaming, the father awake long after, keeping vigil because that’s what love looked like when it came with scars.

Harry tried not to think of how right it had felt, all of them together in that narrow bed. Tried not to think of the quiet peace that had settled in him like sediment, heavy and grounding.

He had been alone for so long that he’d forgotten what fullness felt like.

But now—Merlin, now—he felt it in every heartbeat. The hum of life, the pulse of something steady beneath his ribs that wasn’t duty or guilt or exhaustion. Just the simple, impossible contentment of knowing that, for once, he wasn’t entirely alone in this house.

Harry exhaled slowly, the sound low and quiet against the ticking of the clock. The warmth of the hearth curled against his skin; the air smelled faintly of smoke and chamomile, of soap and something gentler—something that wasn’t his. He let his mind drift with the rhythm of it. This—this was what home should have been. Not the echo of empty halls, not the quiet groan of loneliness in the pipes, but the pulse of another’s breathing, the soft, shared warmth of living. For the first time in years, he could imagine Grimmauld Place as something other than a mausoleum of memories. The ghosts here seemed softer now, lulled to sleep by the sound of a child’s laughter still caught somewhere in the rafters.

His eyes fluttered shut. Maybe it doesn’t have to end, he thought. Maybe they can stay. Just for a while.

Then the air shifted.

It wasn’t loud—barely more than a murmur—but the house felt it first. A hush fell over the walls, the kind that comes before something breaks. The flame in the hearth guttered, the old magic of the place tugging at him like a child with shaking hands. He opened his eyes, pulse quickening, every instinct thrumming to life beneath his skin.

Something was wrong.

He sat up sharply, the movement soundless out of habit, eyes scanning the parlor. The house breathed around him—uneasy, whispering—but it was the faintest sound that drew him upright: the creak of a step, slow and deliberate. Then another.

He knew that rhythm. Careful, hesitant, burdened.

Harry’s feet hit the floor before he was fully aware of it, his wand in hand though he didn’t remember reaching for it. His senses sharpened—the slight change in air pressure near the entry hall, the muffled shift of fabric. Then he heard it: the soft scrape of metal, the almost inaudible click of the front lock being turned.

His stomach dropped.

“No—”

He was moving before thought could catch him, a blur down the corridor. The door came into view, half-open, moonlight spilling cold over the threshold. And there—standing at its edge—was Draco.

He was ghostly in the dim light, dressed in the same threadbare clothes Harry had found him in. His hair clung damply to his temples, his face drawn but resolved. And in his arms, wrapped in blankets and devotion, was Scorpius. The boy’s head rested against his chest, a small fist curled tight around the fabric of Draco’s shirt.

For a heartbeat, Harry couldn’t breathe. The image struck him like a curse—Draco’s trembling hands, his white knuckles, the quiet terror in his eyes masked by a thin veneer of calm. And something deep in Harry snapped.

He closed the distance in an instant. The slam of the door reverberated through the house, rattling the ancient frames, echoing like thunder through the bones of Grimmauld Place. Draco flinched, his entire body going rigid as Scorpius whimpered sleepily in his arms and burrowed deeper.

Harry pressed the door shut with both hands, chest heaving. “What are you doing?” he demanded, his voice too loud, too raw. It wasn’t anger—it was panic, unfiltered and feral, scraping at the edges of reason.

Draco’s eyes flashed wide, feral and cornered, his hold on Scorpius tightening. “We’ve taken enough of your generosity,” he said, his tone low but shaking. “It’s time we go.”

Harry’s breath hitched, something in him splintering. “Go? You can’t—” His voice cracked, his hand still flat against the wood as if he could hold back the world itself. “You can’t leave.”

“Potter,” Draco hissed, trying to step sideways, but Harry moved with him, blocking his way. The movement made the blankets shift—Scorpius whimpered softly, and both men froze, instinctively lowering their voices to a whisper.

“Please,” Harry murmured, the word trembling out of him, unbidden and desperate. “You can’t take him out there. It’s freezing. There’s nowhere for you to go.”

Draco’s jaw clenched, his breath uneven. “We’ve managed before.”

“Barely,” Harry shot back. “You’re not strong enough. He’s a child—your child—and you’re going to kill yourself trying to run.” He swallowed hard, his voice fraying around the edges. “You can’t—please, Draco—just stay.”

Draco’s face twisted, something bitter and wounded flashing in his eyes. “Don’t do this,” he whispered, his voice cracking like brittle glass. “Don’t make this harder.”

Harry stepped forward again, and Draco backed up until his shoulders hit the door. For a moment, they just stood there—Harry close enough to feel the tremor of Draco’s breath, the frantic pulse beneath his skin. Scorpius stirred faintly between them, the faint whimper cutting through the tension like a knife.

Draco’s voice came first, low and trembling, but edged with the brittle resolve of someone holding himself together by splinters. “You don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head as though trying to wake himself from some cruel dream. “I can’t stay. I can’t owe you this.” His grip on Scorpius tightened. “I have nothing left to pay with, Potter. Not gold, not magic. And I won’t—” He swallowed hard, eyes glinting in the half-light. “I won’t let my son live indebted to a man who could take him away on a whim.”

Harry blinked, startled. “Take him—what? Draco, I would never—”

“You’re an Auror,” Draco cut in sharply, though his voice shook. “You have power. Authority. If they find out—if anyone finds out—” He broke off, his breath faltering, the sentence collapsing beneath the weight of his fear. “I've lost everything, Potter. I can’t lose him, too.”

For a moment, the words hung between them, fragile and terrible.

Harry understood. Merlin, he understood. The panic of loss, the way it hollowed a person from the inside out. He could see it in Draco’s face—the same fear that had once lived in his own bones, carved there by every grave he’d ever stood over. And yet, beneath that understanding, another truth bloomed, ugly and selfish and bright: he didn’t want them to go.

The night air rushed in sharp and punishing as Draco opened the door, slicing through the warmth of the house. It hit Harry like a spell, the shock of it forcing him back a step. The world tilted, narrowed, until all he could see was that narrow frame of light from the open door and the figure stepping toward it. Something cold and primal settled in Harry’s gut, a terror that crawled up his throat before he could stop it.

“Don’t,” he choked out. His voice sounded wrong, too small, too human. “You can’t leave.”

Draco turned, startled by the tone, but Harry wasn’t seeing him anymore—not really. His vision tunneled, his pulse roaring in his ears. His thoughts fractured into white noise, a thousand flashes of loss behind his eyes—Sirius falling, Dobby’s stillness, Severus' eyes growing distant.

“You can’t—” His breath stuttered, his chest heaving as if the air itself had turned to stone. “It’s too cold. The shelters—” His voice broke off, gasping. “They’ll be full. You’ll freeze before morning.”

Draco took half a step forward, his own face pale with uncertainty, but Harry pressed on, words tumbling out now, desperate, illogical, wild. “This house—it’s yours, isn’t it? The Black blood, the wards—they answer to you. So it’s not charity, not debt. You can’t owe me something that already belongs to you—” His breath hitched, his thoughts unraveling faster than he could catch them. The cold of the open door crawled beneath his skin, numbing his fingers, his lips. “It’s yours,” he said again, softer now, almost pleading. “All of it. Everything. So please. Stay. You must.”

But Draco seemed unmoved. His arms tightened around Scorpius, his eyes avoided Harry's, and he stepped towards the streets of Muggle London.

And something inside Harry—something that had been cracked for years but never truly broken—finally gave way.

“Everyone leaves,” he whispered, and the words escaped before he could stop them. His chest convulsed as his knees buckled, the floor rushing up to meet him. “Everyone leaves me.” The air turned thin, the room spinning as though it too were retreating. His breath came too fast, too shallow, clawing at his throat. He pressed a hand to his chest as if he could hold it all in—the panic, the grief, the unbearable emptiness. “Why does everyone—” He gasped, the rest dissolving into a broken sound. His vision darkened at the edges. “Why does everyone leave me? What’s wrong with me?”

“Potter,” Draco’s voice, strained and distant as he struggled with something. "Wait—"

Harry couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t see anything beyond the blur of shapes and the sound of his own ragged breathing. His heart hammered unevenly, the noise deafening in his ears.

Then—warmth. Small and sudden.

Two little hands pressed against his cheeks, mittened and trembling. The touch grounded him, pulled him back from the edge of that endless dark.

He blinked, vision swimming until the shape before him sharpened. Scorpius stood there, bundled in layers that dwarfed him, his little brow furrowed with worry. Behind him, Draco hovered—one hand gripping the blanket the boy had clearly wriggled free from, his face cracked with alarm.

Scorpius’ voice came soft, a whisper Harry barely caught. “O couwage, my sou’—and wet us cawwy on,” he hummed, smiling faintly as if reciting something sacred. “Fo’ the night is dawk…” His little brows furrowed, the tiny crease between them deepening, and something in Harry’s chest twisted—an ache so sharp it nearly stole his breath. His fingers, still trembling from the remnants of panic, itched with the desperate urge to smooth that worry away, to promise him that all was well.

“I don’ ’member the west, Daddy,” Scorpius murmured, turning toward the shadow where Draco stood. His voice wavered, small and uncertain, like a candle’s flame in the wind.

For a moment, Draco didn’t move. His face was drawn—pale beneath the flicker of the hallway lamp, the silver of his eyes dimmed with exhaustion and something unreadable. But then, with a quiet exhale, he crouched down, joints creaking softly as if the very act cost him. The door behind him creaked. At his back, the old house seemed to breathe—a slow, deliberate exhalation—as the latch clicked shut on its own, sealing them in from the cold.

Draco lowered himself fully to the floor, the motion graceful even in weariness. “And I am far from home,” he sang softly, his voice roughened at the edges, yet threaded with a fragile melody that filled the narrow corridor like smoke. The sound curled between them—thin and haunting—and something in the air shifted, warm and weightless.

“Thanks be to the stars,” Draco murmured, his voice quiet but sure, as Scorpius shifted closer—his small head fitting perfectly into the crook of Harry’s neck. The boy hummed softly, the tune tremulous and thin, yet it reverberated through Harry’s chest like a heartbeat. It filled the narrow corridor, that fragile sound, settling into the cracks of the walls and the hollows of his ribs—gentle, imperfect, utterly alive.

“The morning light appears,” Draco continued, his tone a low, steady thread that wove through the dimness. Harry dared to breathe in the sound, to let it curl around him like a benediction. There was something in Draco’s voice—something unguarded—that brushed dangerously close to tenderness. For a fleeting, impossible second, he let himself pretend that gentleness might be meant for him.

But Harry was not daft. He knew better than to mistake proximity for belonging. He knew the song was for Scorpius, that the soft gravity of Draco’s words was pulled entirely toward his son, the only thing in the world still pure enough to deserve such care. Still, he could not help the yearning that rose, raw and insistent, from somewhere deep in his chest.

It was that same old, stubborn bravery—the one that had carried him through battlefields and nightmares alike—that urged him now to risk the smallest, most dangerous thing of all: hope. He lifted his head, just slightly, bracing himself for the distance, the cool indifference, the turning away that always came when he reached too far.

But Draco didn’t look away.

His eyes, pale and tired and human, found Harry’s in the low light. For a heartbeat, the world stilled. Then, without breaking that gaze, Draco shifted the blanket again, deliberately this time, pulling it firmly across Harry’s shoulders, shielding him from the cold.

“The storm is passing over,” Draco whispered, the final words of the song falling between them like a promise.

And for once, Harry didn’t feel like he was standing in a doorway—watching, wanting, waiting. He wasn’t the boy peering through the cupboard slats, nor the man standing at thresholds he could never cross.

He was here, at last, in the corridor, with Draco looking at him with a softness he'd never been gifted, his pale hand caressing Harry's cheek, his thumb wiping away the panicked tears with practiced ease.

And it was warmer than Harry ever imagined.