Chapter Text
Harry woke up on Hermione’s couch a few hours later. Orange light leaked from the kitchen, and he could hear the low murmur of voices. He got up and went through, finding Ron and Hermione at the table.
“Harry,” Hermione said. “Tea?”
He nodded, and she poured him a full mug to match the two already steaming on the table.
“Any updates?” He asked Ron.
“Another victim in St Mungo’s. No one we know, but we have confirmed he had a muggle girlfriend. No sign of Lucious Malfoy - there’s a warrant out for him now. I doubt he knows anything, most likely he’s running because he’s afraid.”
“He’s already broken the terms of his freedom,” Harry said. “The terms were that he keeps his whereabouts known and reachable, and has no contact with any witches or wizards known to practice or sympathize with dark magic.”
Ron shrugged. “No one has been claiming he’s the brightest spark.” True enough. He suspected Draco’s intelligence came from his mother’s side, sour and unpleasant as Narcissa was. He relayed the information about Andromeda to Ron and Hermione. Hermione’s face was knitted with concern.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said at last. “How can I make these decisions for her?”
“I… I don’t know,” she said at last.
Ron looked equally at a loss. “I know you want to hold out for a cure,” he said slowly, “but… we have no clue when we are likely to even catch the culprit, let alone figure out if we can fix the damage.”
“Plus, they think the damage is too extensive to repair,” Hermione said. “I’ve been researching and the evidence suggests counter-curses in most cases are only fully effective in the earlier stages, or immediately.”
“Sometimes it’s like it’s still her,” he said. “But less and less. Some of the visits… she hasn’t recognized me. Doesn’t even know where she is, can’t remember anything from the last several years.”
“It’s almost like muggle dementia,” Hermione said thoughtfully. “But somehow more aggressive, and the delayed onset…”
“There’s no cure for muggle dementia though.”
“No.”
“I… I don’t want to interfere with her brain. I don’t want that kind of choice.”
Hermione sighed. “Maybe you should try and talk to her, next time she is lucid.”
“That might not happen,” he said at last. “I know… she wouldn’t have given me control over these decisions if she thought she had much longer in control.”
“We’ll catch this bastard, Harry,” Ron said fiercely. “It’s only a matter of time.” But they didn’t have time, not with Andromeda. Harry finished his tea, and stood. Hermione looked ready to protest and send him back to bed, but he held up his hand.
“I’m going to the safe house. To see Draco. I need to make sure he’s ok.”
“You need to sleep, Harry.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ve slept plenty. I’m fine. I’ll sleep more there - there’s a spare room. Tomorrow, I’m going back to the hospital. And then I’m going to find a way to sort this mess out. I need a plan, because it’s not fair to Teddy that I’m not there at the moment.” They still looked worried, but he left despite their protests. There would be time for rest when things were sorted. Even if he didn’t have to save the whole world, he had to look after the people in his little circle, and that couldn’t wait.
Draco opens the door with a smile, but worry pulls at the corners of his mouth, and he has shadows beneath his eyes. Harry notices his wand clutched in his hand, ready.
‘Harry,’ Draco says, and steps aside for him to enter. The safe house is warm inside, a blessed reprieve from the sharp winter air. Scorpius is asleep in a travel crib in the small sitting room, and Draco gestures to the battered old couch. ‘Tea?’
Harry nods gratefully, and collapses into the sofa, kicking off his shoes without thinking, then realizing perhaps he is making himself too comfortable. Draco returns with a two steaming mugs, hands him one, and then sits in the armchair opposite. Harry pushes away the small part of him that deflates when Draco doesn’t sit next to him. Not the time, he tells himself. Not even remotely the time.
‘Long day?’ Draco asks cautiously, and Harry knows he is trying not to ask for news of his family.
‘Long seems to be the default at the moment,’ he replies. ‘But nothing on your father yet. Your Mother is well, the house is being watched in case Lucius tries to return.’
Draco studies him for a second, and Harry feels like he is being read. Those damn eyes. He feels exposed under them.
‘There’s news,’ Draco says. ‘Not about the case, but something has happened. I can tell.’
Harry wants to ask how, wants to ask if Draco really pays such close attention, but he’s too worn down to flirt, and the question would just be vulnerability.
‘I have to make some decisions about Andromeda’s care. And I think I’m failing Teddy, and I’m also doing a miserable job of being an Auror.’
Draco ignores the last two statements, and asks about Andromeda. Harry explains the choices - let the curse run it’s course, or interfere with her mind in the hopes of damage control.
‘I know I should say it’s your choice,’ he begins. ‘But I’m long past following proper etiquette. Help her, in whatever way is available. That is my view, it is what I’d want for myself, and what I’d choose for anyone I loved.’
Harry looks up, at Draco’s clear gaze, and his steady hands clasped around his mug. He’s never noticed the stillness of the man in front of him - the contrast to his own frenetic energy, the chewed pencils and messy hair and bitten nails and constantly bouncing knee. Had he always been like this? Measured, collected, calm?
‘Potter,’ Draco said, a touch of his old sneer in his tone, softened by something like affection, ‘you’re staring.’
‘Sorry,’ Harry blurted, and looked away, briefly. Then back. Damn it, damn it all to hell. He looked back, made eye contact, deliberate. ‘I’m not sorry.’ His voice came out soft, low, like a threat. It was meant to be gentle. But maybe there was no gentle between them, not now. Maybe it all still burned the way it did when they were 17 and the world was ending, and there was only fire and flames and those fucking hands, goddamn, who had any right to own hands like that? Smooth, pale, the barest hint of calluses. Harry could see the web of pale blue blood veins beneath the porcelain and for a minute he forgot everything, looked at Draco, who’s eyes were hungry and wild as his own heart felt, and he just wanted.
‘Ask me,’ Draco murmured, voice raw. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. His knuckles whitened against the mug.
‘Kiss me,’ Harry whispered. And Draco was there, distance closed, straddling him and pushing him back into the musty sofa of the safe house. His mouth was on his, lips warm, those hands tangled in his hair. Harry pulled back, grabbed Draco’s hand in his. Met his gaze, and kissed the knuckles, not breaking eye contact. He saw it in Draco’s eyes - saw the second the line was crossed irrevocably. So be it. Ron had told him to stop playing the hero. He didn’t feel like a hero in Draco Malfoy’s arms. He felt like himself.
*Draco's perspective*
Harry had his hand clasped between both of his own, and he was kissing each knuckle. His eyes, spring green and glowing , never left his. Draco felt the eye contact in his soul. He couldn’t look away, even as his brain quietly screamed that every second that passed pushed him more firmly into the category of ‘irrevocably in love with the chosen one’. His track record with Harry and emotionally charged interactions wasn’t great, but he told his logic to kindly shut the fuck up and focus on kissing, and he’d deal with the fallout later.
Because kissing Harry was electric. Draco could feel goosebumps up his arm, and his hand burned beneath Harry’s finger tips. He was barely breathing, paused, that moment of inertia before the fall. And then they were moving; mouths crushing together, shirts pushed up, hands in hair and across backs and Draco found his thumb caressing Harry’s hipbone, sharper than even his own, and he shushed the part of him that wondered if he was eating enough, and pressed closer. Harry was wearing jeans - blue, faded, slightly too big, the same clothes he’d worn as long as Draco had known him. Money couldn’t buy style, he thought ruefully. Too much, too much distance. He could feel Harry, the suggestion of him, against his hips, where they pressed together, but it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. He needed more. He needed everything. Oh, he was screwed.
‘Potter,’ he managed to gasp out, against Harry’s bruised lips.
‘Harry,’ he whispered back. ‘Please… call me Harry.’
He could feel the name in his mouth, intimate, soft, open. It was one thing in casual conversation. It was another like this, as he came undone, with Harry’s hardness pressed against him and his hands running up his back.
Draco swallowed. Another line to cross.
‘Harry,’ he whispered. A question, a prayer, a vow. He put his whole heart into the word, and felt Harry still beneath him. He opened his eyes, met the green gaze staring back at him.
‘Draco?’
‘Come to bed with me?’ Draco asked, and he hoped his voice held what he meant. Come to bed now, and tomorrow, and the day after. Not a quick fuck, not something rushed and desperate and regrettable. Come to bed with him with his eyes and mind and heart open. Draco knew, suddenly, as he sat, painfully aroused in Harry’s lap, that if Harry didn’t - or couldn’t - mean it like that, mean it like he did, he would walk away. It might fucking kill him, but he would walk away.
Harry was quiet, and his gaze turned away. Draco could feel his heart thumping in his chest. He knew that whatever he was going to say, that he felt it too. Maybe he wasn’t ready for it, maybe he couldn’t act on it or admit it, but Draco knew that Harry felt it too.
‘You mean more than that,’ Harry says softly. ‘That’s not your real question, is it?’
‘No,’ Draco admits. He thought he’d blush, but he isn’t embarrassed. He isn’t a boy, ruled by his emotions and dominated by pride. He’s past that. He knows who he is and he knows his heart, and he knows that it belongs firmly and fully to the man in front of him. And he also knows that if that can’t be returned, openly and honestly, that he will pull himself away.
‘I -‘ Harry begins.
Draco stands up. The space feels like a chasm between them.
‘Draco, please -‘
Draco sits, and picks up his tea. He smiles, pretends like his face isn’t flushed and his hair isn’t ruined, pretends like he cant see the bruise blooming on Harry’s neck. ‘It’s ok, Harry,’ he says, and he uses his name to soften the words. ‘I… I know it’s not the time. And I wish I could do casual, fuck, you have no idea how much I wish I could just take you to bed and be damned with the consequences. But I can’t. I swore to myself, after everything, that I’d be honest with myself if no one else, and that I wouldn’t play games with my own heart. I owe it to myself, and to Scorpius.’
He pauses for a moment. Harry looks like he wants to speak, but the words won’t come.
‘I just…. I want you to know that I want you. I want Teddy. I want all of it, with you. I know it’s complicated, and the past is… well, intense. But it’s the truth. I don’t know when I realised it fully. But if we are going to do this, I have to know that it’s for real. And if that means you need more time, that’s ok.’
Harry breaths out. ‘Time. Time would be good.’
The words pierce his heart a little, to know Harry isn’t sure like he is. But how could he be? Draco is falling for the Phoenix, the chosen one, the hero of the story. Harry is easy to love, once you stop fighting him. Harry is… well. He’s falling in love with the snake. The serpent in the garden, the consequences, the scars, the reminder of all he has lost. Draco knows he is a better man now, knows he was never really evil, just lost and ignorant and hungry, but that’s not exactly a glowing recommendation.
‘Where’d you go?’ Harry murmurs.
Draco laughs, self depreciating. ‘I am just reflecting on the disparity of our situations. I expect committing to domestic bless with an untested reformed antagonist is a lot harder than falling in love with, well, Harry Potter.’ The words are out too soon. Falling in love with. Oh, Christ, he takes it all back. He’s not grown at all. He’s 12 again, hand out to a dark haired boy with bright eyes.
‘I… falling in love?’ Harry says, the ghost of a cocky grin on his face.
‘Shut up, Potter.’ He replies. ‘Figure of speech. Mostly.’
‘It’s not you,’ Harry says. ‘I’m not doubting you. Or us, really, though that’s terrifying. It’s everything around us. Andromeda. Teddy. Ron and Hermione. The case. The fucking media.’ He sighs, and falls silent. ‘I’m sorry. I was using you as a distraction. It was real, and I want you, but I can’t commit to being with you - really with you - in the middle of all of this chaos.’
Draco nods, and they fall silent for a moment. His heart is leaping at the words - not exactly a declaration of love, but it wasn’t never, it wasn’t no, it wasn’t revulsion.
‘Even if I can’t come to bed with you… if I can’t commit to everything right now… does that mean cuddling is off limits?’ Harry sounds almost shy.
Draco moves back to the couch, sits beside him.
‘I think that could be arranged,’ he murmurs, pulling Harry into his side, and wrapping his arm around his bony shoulders. Harry’s hair tickles his chin, and he can smell the shampoo he uses - cheap two in one, he’d put money on it. It’s absolutely delightful.
*Harry's perspective*
They remain on the couch for a long time, quiet in the flickering light of the wall lamps. The house is old, neglected - no electricity. Electricity and magic take maintenance to work together, and the safe house is safe, but not necessarily comfortable.
Harry feels his heart slow, his breathing still, as he leans into Draco. The crackling fire he so often feels around the other man settles down into something slower, and he feels safe, almost. Still, almost. The desire is still there in his chest, hungry as ever. You can’t just switch off almost a lifetime of passion - passionate hate, or lust, or maybe even love. The word feels alien in his mind.
He thought he’d been in love before. He had. Ginny. He’d loved her. Fiercely, passionately, fully. But not like this. He’d been a boy with her, and they hadn’t grown together. Every single step with Draco felt like an exercise in growth. He was a challenge - to understand, to unpack - there was no complacency. He wanted to tell him how he felt, but he couldn’t. Not yet, not with so much still to figure out, so many worries. So he leans into him, rests his hand against Draco’s, fingers just brushing, and hopes that that somehow conveys some of his heart.
Scorpius begins to fuss, and Draco sighs, shifts.
‘I’ll get him,’ Harry says, standing before Draco can move.
‘You don’t have to -‘
‘I want to.’ Harry says firmly. He picks up the baby, holds him to his chest, feeling the warmth of his little body. Scorpius burbles, fussing replaced with smiles as he grabs at Harry’s hair with one chubby little fist. Harry returns to the couch, bounces the baby on his knee.
He blushes when he sees how Draco is looking at him.
‘I wish Teddy were here,’ he blurted, needing to fill the silence, needing not to think about how that look made him feel.
‘Me too,’ Draco said quietly.
Harry wonders if he’s thinking the same thing. That it would feel complete if Teddy were there. That it would feel like home. That there is something tentative in his heart that thinks that perhaps there’s a chance here, four mismatched souls making something like family.
‘I don’t know how to make the right choices for him,’ Harry whispers, thinking how much easier it would be with a baby.
‘But you care enough to try,’ Draco said. ‘I think that’s half of it. Being willing to ask if you’re doing the right thing.’
‘I want… this,’ Harry says helplessly, waving an arm vaguely.
‘A musty old house that looks like my great great aunt decorated it? She was blind, too,’ he added, as an afterthought.
Harry gives him a glare, but his mouth is twitching.
‘I want… us. I want it to be right. It feels right, even though that’s bloody madness. I just… I can’t pretend like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. I can’t ignore Andromeda’s wishes. She wanted me to make an unbreakable vow.’
Draco is silent for a moment.
‘Can I… can you take me to see her? I will swear a vow. For Teddy and you. To protect you both, to never intentionally harm you or bring you danger.’
Harry is stunned into silence. He knows that Draco understands the consequences of a vow like this. He had one sworn on his behalf, long ago.
‘You… you mean that?’
‘I do,’ Draco says solemnly. ‘I’d swear it anyway. But if it means… if it gives her peace, if it means we can… we can try and be something … gladly, I’ll gladly swear it.’
‘I need to go back to the hospital,’ Harry says. ‘I need to make a choice, on the curse. What to do. I don’t even know if she’ll be well enough. For the vow. If she’d even agree to see you.’ Was he agreeing to this?
‘If she will, then I want to. Harry… I don’t think I realised until the possibility was taken away… how much I want…’ he trails off. Harry squeezes his hand.
‘I think I know,’ he says softly. ‘I should go. I need to speak to people. Check on your mum. See if there’s leads.’
‘Andromeda first,’ Draco says. ‘I’d say family first, but with my history, that’s not exactly reflective of what I mean.’
Harry meets his eyes. ‘Family isn’t about blood,’ he says. He doesn’t need to add anything else. He hands Scorpius to Draco, and pulls on his cloak. Promises to send word of any news, and to speak to Andromeda about Draco if he can.
And with that, he leaves the quiet pocket of calm, and heads back out into the night. The world still feels impossibly heavy, and worry settles on him like winter snow, but he holds Draco’s face, and his words, and he spins to apparate with the barest beginnings of a smile on his face.
….
It’s late, and so after checking in at the office in case of new developments, he heads home for a paltry hour and a half of sleep, and a cursory shower. He spells his robes clean, and shamefully, his underwear too. No time for laundry when you’re saving the world, or at least, trying to save your adoptive son’s grandmother from the fate of an unknown curse. He’s at the hospital at 6am - horribly early, but he hopes he can be forgiven.
It’s chaos when he arrives in the critical care of curses department. Healers running everywhere, and he can hear an alarm going off somewhere. He manages to track down Dr McGonagall- who looks as exhausted as he feels, and about as tidy.
‘Harry. Are you here from the Aurors?’
‘No,’ he says, worry flaring up. ‘I’m here for Andromeda. Has something happened?’
‘We called. Another victim. And it seems like… somehow, they’ve triggered something.’ His face is grim, concerned. No calm doctor mask. Harry switches into Auror mode immediately, personal problems forgotten.
‘Triggered?’
‘All of the victims… the newest, they kept repeating something. A set of words. Not magical - nonsense, by all accounts. But now… none of them are lucid anymore. In fact they’re all… well… comatose.’
Harry feels his heart drop through his stomach. ‘Andromeda?’
‘The same. The good news is, they don’t seem to be changing. We’ve assessed them all, and their brain activity isn’t altered. They’re just unconscious. If anything, I suppose it’s kind of the pause we needed. But I can’t say that for certain.’
Harry asks if he can take a look around, see the newest victim. He was brought in without ID, and with only a skeleton staff at the early hour, as soon as he showed symptoms congruent with the other curse victims he was brought straight up.
They proceed on to the ward, to the bed at the far end. The figure is lying still, and two healers are close by. Harry doesn’t recognise the face.
And then it changes.
They all freeze, and watch as the familiar transformation happens - the features liquefy, rearrange, move in a way that makes his brain hurt. Polyjuice potion.
And then, Lucius Malfoy is lying asleep in front of him.
Well, at least they can call off that particular manhunt.
…
‘How,’ Dr McGonagall says, in a dangerously quiet voice, ‘did someone make it from the emergency room to my department without someone checking for the presence of polyjuice potion?’
No one has any answer for this, and Harry feels slightly sorry for whichever junior healer has to bear the brunt of this blame later.
‘Later,’ he says to the doctor. ‘I need security, and we need to move him to a single room that we can lock and ward.’
McGonagall barks orders at healers, and Harry steps out to send a patronus to Ron and Robards. Within fifteen minutes, the three of them are looking at Lucius Malfoy, now on a bed in a private room, still utterly unconscious.
‘Theories?’ Robbards asks, looking at Harry.
‘I can only think of two explanations. Either Lucius cast the curses, which is unlikely as his wand is tracked and I doubt he has the skill to cast such a spell with a stolen or borrowed wand, or he knows something, and has been cursed to try and cover the real culprits tracks.’
‘Or,’ Ron offers, ‘he’s in the same boat as the other victims, and has a muggle scandal of his own to hide.’
‘Narcissa told us of the rumors, that he had heard them. It seems unlikely, unless he ran to try and cover his own back, if he thought he was a target.’
They are quiet, watching. Healers come and go, and eventually it’s deemed that whatever is going on, Lucius isn’t going to be able to answer any questions about it at present.
Harry excuses himself, and goes to visit Andromeda. She is still, sleeping. She looks peaceful.
‘Hey, Andromeda. Teddy misses you. I came today to… well, I came to ask them to intervene. To put up walls in your mind, to try and block the curse from doing more damage. I don’t know if that’s the right choice or not. But you are still… you’re still you, and you remember Teddy, and … he needs you. Whatever amount of you is available. And I don’t want you to suffer. They’re worried it will get worse, that you’ll be in pain.
I’m sorry, I’m just talking here. I should shut up, but… I’m trying my best, I want you to know that. I don’t know if you can hear me, but I need you to know. I’m trying to fix things for Teddy. So I can be there for him. Be what he needs.
And I know you hate him, but I think I’m falling in love with Draco Malfoy. I want you to meet him, properly. He’s your nephew, I keep forgetting that. You love Teddy so fiercely, I forget that you’re estranged from the rest of your family. He’s different. I think he’s always been different, a bit, but now… he’s not like… he’s on our side.
And he loves Teddy. They’re cousins, after all. Or second cousins. I get confused. He’s so good with him, or he was. He said he’d swear a vow to you, if you’d let him. An unbreakable one. So you know he’d never hurt him or endanger him.
I’m going to figure this out, ok? I’ll figure it out, and you’ll be ok, and we can make things right. For Teddy.’
He finally stops talking, feeling foolish in the quiet room. Andromeda doesn’t stir. Of course she doesn’t. Fucking magic, he thinks, not for the first time in his life. It can fix so much, but half the time it seems to create more problems than it solves. Curse induced comas and enemies to lovers character arcs included. With a weary sigh, he heads out for vending machine coffee, and wishes that magic could at least be relied upon for quality caffination, but alas.