Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

This Body is My Prison	By : JBankai89 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Voldemort Views: 25130 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, I gain nothing from this but a way to pass the time.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
A/N: Okay, I lied. One more chapter after this one. XD
Note: Any misspellings in Teddy's dialogue bits are deliberate to signify little-kid mispronunciations.
Part XI: Life Goes On

Cassie sat in front her vanity, her elbows propped on the tabletop and head cradled in her hands as she studied her face.

In many ways, Cassie looked the same as she had for the past six years—a muddled confusion of her original face overlaid with the changes that Voldemort had made to it. Bright green eyes framed by long dark lashes, pouty lips, an angular bone structure of her original face, softened and feminized, and a fair, unblemished complexion, though a little more tanned than it used to be, now that she was no longer imprisoned inside a fortress-like manor.

Her hair was brushed away from her face, the thick, dark curls lazily styled but still attractively so, and she trapped her bottom lip between her teeth as she looked on.

A pair of arms encircled her from behind, and Cassie watched in the mirror as Draco propped his head on her shoulder.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked gently, while she eased back into the embrace.

“Us, our little family, the future...lots of things,” she replied with a vague shrug, “I never thought I'd live this long, or have this much...”

“...much what?” he asked, and offered her shoulders a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

“Just...so much. A child, a husband, a—a family. It's more than I had ever dreamed of,” Cassie explained, “I guess I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, I mean, the war is over, the memorials and award ceremonies are finished with, and now...”

“...and now we just live our lives,” Draco finished for her, letting her go to sit alongside her on the vanity's bench, and she turned to him and took his hands. Cassie's gaze dropped to their intertwined fingers, and smiled faintly at the glinting silver and gold that she saw there.

“Is it weird that I find that sort of terrifying?” Cassie asked at last as she lifted her gaze to his, and Draco's mouth twitched into a small, amused smirk.

“I'd be more worried if you felt completely normal,” Draco replied in a matter-of-fact tone, “to say you've been through a lot would be putting it mildly.”

“You're not wrong,” Cassie said as she dropped her gaze again. She hated how overwhelmed she felt by everything, how, despite all outward appearances, she still felt like a mess. “What if—what if I can't do it?”

“Do what, exactly?”

“It,” Cassie emphasized, her voice just shy of true panic, “live my life, raise my child, be everything you need, be everything that Davin needs, see my friends, find a job, all of that. What if I can't—”

Draco cut off her string of worries with a kiss.

He cupped her face in his hands, and her eyes slid shut as everything seemed to go still—except her heart, which seemed to beat faster at her husband's close proximity—and definitely not from fear.

“You're panicking, Cassie,” Draco murmured against her mouth, “it's okay—it's normal. Everyone gets overwhelmed by life sometimes, even those who haven't gone through what you have.”

“How am I supposed to do anything at all if I get freaked out so easily?” she asked miserably, “how can I live my life if I'm this...messed up?”

“We'll do what everyone else does,” Draco replied, his voice still very soft, “we will take one crisis at a time, and deal with it together, without the aid of mystical prophecies or meddling headmasters or mad dark lords. Just us, and our lives, and whatever comes of that, yeah?”

“Yeah...yeah, I like that,” Cassie replied, and shifted forward to embrace him tightly, Draco, apparently startled by her actions, froze for a half-beat before he wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her close.

“Do you want me to cancel today's visit with Teddy and Remus?” Draco asked softly, “if you're having something of an existential crisis, do you really want to do this?”

“No, don't cancel,” Cassie replied at once, sniffling a little as she got a handle on her raging emotions, “According to Remus, Teddy's been chattering nonstop about visiting us, and I wouldn't want to disappoint him. I'm okay.”

Draco raised his eyebrows as though he didn't believe her.

“Really,” she said to emphasize the point, “I'm fine.”

Draco's expression of disbelief did not change, but he offered up no more protest as he shrugged his shoulders lightly, and leant in to kiss her one last time before he got up and left her to her musings in peace.

Cassie turned back to the mirror, and instead of brooding, she drew her makeup kit forward, and began to ready herself for the day ahead.

~*~

At exactly four in the afternoon, after Cassie and Draco had spent the better part of the morning trying to make the dilapidated little safe house presentable, though there was little that could be done about the sagging furniture and scent of rotted wood that never completely went away.

Between the pair of them, they had managed to put together a nice little spread of roast beef sandwiches and tea (and pumpkin juice for Teddy) and the flurry of activity had helped to distract Cassie from her nerves quite effectively.

That was, until there was a knock on the door.

“How do I look?” Cassie asked nervously as she smoothed her hands over her outfit—a simple black-on-black ensemble of a tank top and matching jeans.

Draco smiled at her, and reached forward to adjust the way the top sat on her chest, concealing the edge of her bra, and she felt herself flush.

“One would think after nearly six years, you would have grown accustomed to keeping your clothing over your bra,” he teased, and her pink cheeks deepened to red.

She had no idea what she could say to that, and instead she hurried over to the door, where she took one last breath to steel herself for whatever was to come, and opened the door.

The first thing that greeted her was not Remus, but a pair of child's legs and a pile of toys.

“I brought stuff!” Teddy chirped from behind the stack of stuffed animals, plastic action figures, and other toys, an even mixture of muggle and wizarding items all jumbled together. “I'm gonna teach Davin how to play right!”

“I can see that,” Cassie replied with a laugh, “I'm sure he'll be thrilled. He's sleeping right now, but he'll be up soon. You can go put the toys down in the sitting room if you like.”

“Okay!” Teddy replied, and without another word, he darted off.

“If you must know, his pile of things to bring was twice that size before we left,” Remus said as he crossed the threshold into the little house, “I'm afraid that between myself, Molly, and Andromeda, we've all overcompensated a little where toys for Teddy are concerned.”

“I doubt that that's really a bad thing,” Cassie replied as she shut the door behind him, “he's a good boy, when he's not climbing on tables anyway. I doubt you need to worry about him growing up into a spoiled brat like my husband.”

“I heard that!”

Both Cassie and Remus laughed at Draco's irritated bark as he strode out to the main area of the house, with Davin, refreshed from his nap, perched in his arms. “Some thanks I get for waking up your son. He's always a right terror right after his nap.”

“I love how when he's fussing he's my son,” she teased as she accepted the toddler from Draco, and as one she, her husband, and Remus headed for the sitting room.

Despite her nerves, Cassie found that their visit with Remus was much less stressful than the first visit with Hermione and Ron had been. This was thanks to the fact that Remus did not seem compelled to glance at her chest every thirty seconds like Ron had, and instead kept his eyes respectfully focused on her face at all times. The other half of the comfortable atmosphere of the visit was thanks to Teddy, who seemed quite keen to show Davin every single toy he had brought.

“This is a bad guy,” Teddy explained as he held out the plastic skeleton figure, shrouded in a cloak, to Davin. Wide-eyed, he closed his pudgy little hand over the figurine, and promptly stuck its head in his mouth.

“No, no, no!” Teddy said quickly before Cassie could intervene, and reached out to tug it gently from Davin's mouth. “You make him fight the good guy...this one.” he held out another plastic figure, this one a blond, burly man in some sort of iron underwear by the look of it, and brandishing a plastic broadsword. Davin took the other in his opposite hand, and banged them together a few times, which caused Teddy to cheer excitedly.

“He seems to prefer the muggle toys over the wizarding ones,” Draco observed over his teacup, and Remus smiled sadly.

“He grew up without me,” Remus said, his voice laced with guilt, “and he was raised by muggles. It's only natural that he'd gravitate more towards what he's accustomed to.”

“Does he still see his adoptive parents?” Cassie asked, and Remus nodded his head while a neutral mask slid into place upon his face.

“Dorothea and Richard Cunningham. Good people. He grew up loved and cared for. We have an...arrangement, of sorts. Teddy spends a few days with me, and a few days with them. I would have liked to take him back straightaway, but I didn't want to take him away from the people who raised him, and everything that he had known. The shock would have been too much for him, and it wouldn't have been fair to Teddy or his adoptive parents.”

“And you've told him about Tonks and everything?” she continued, and again Remus nodded tightly.

“No secrets. I grew up with secrets and lies, and I don't want to do that to him,” Remus replied while he gazed past Cassie over to his son, who was now patiently showing Davin his wide collection of stuffed animals that he'd brought along.

“Even your...er...” Cassie trailed off and glanced towards Davin and Teddy, who was staring wide-eyed at the stuffed giraffe that the older boy held. Neither of them seemed to be even remotely interested in what the adults were saying. “Even your little furry problem?”

“That's a bit more of a complicated topic,” Remus replied with a small grimace, “he's still entering our world, and I don't want to scare him.

“That would be a bit of a contradiction to your no secrets policy, would it not?” Draco asked mildly, and Remus frowned at him.

“It's a complicated situation,” Remus repeated stiffly, and when Draco opened his mouth to pose another question, Cassie laid his hand over his in a silent plea for him to let it go. He appeared somewhat irritated by this, but nodded nonetheless.

“Erm, and what have you told him about...well, me?” Cassie asked nervously in an attempt to steer the conversation away from Remus's personal matters, and winced at how self-involved the question sounded.

“Nothing at all,” Remus replied with an apologetic frown, “I wasn't certain exactly how to address you, so I haven't brought it up yet. He knows all about his godfather, of course, but how do I explain that his godfather is also his godmother?”

“Kids are remarkably resilient, and do not carry many of the prejudices that we do,” Draco pointed out, and Remus nodded in agreement.

“This is true,” Remus agreed, “but...” he trailed off and regarded Cassie with concern. She could see the question residing in his eyes—the same ones that Hermione and Ron had asked her the first time they'd seen her following everything, and privately she wondered just how many times she'd have to go over this in the months and years to come.

“A lot of what happened to me, though awful, did help me to figure out who I am,” Cassie said nervously, her eyes flicking frequently to the two kids as she spoke. Teddy seemed positively transported by the toddler in front of him, and Cassie found herself quietly amazed at the boy's apparently endless patience in teaching her son 'how to play'. She turned back to Remus, who was watching her curiously. “After it was all over, I felt...well...lost. Confused. Scared. It was Draco who put me back together again and pointed out that I needn't choose between Harry and Cassiopeia, but I could be both, and still be me.”

At first, Remus did not verbally reply to Cassie's words, but seemed to mouth the names Harry and Cassiopeia under his breath, as though only just realizing that it was a mixture of the two names. It was a long, uncomfortable moment of silence before he actually spoke again.

“So Auntie Cassie would be appropriate, then?” he asked with a small smile, and relieved at the casual response, she nodded.

The afternoon pressed on, with Remus filling Cassie in on the various goings-on in his life and the lives of their friends, and the casual hints that told her that Remus clearly believed that she should come clean, as it were, to the others. It was clear that he would not push her towards telling them, nor would he tell them on her behalf, but it was obvious that he didn't think it fair to let everyone assume that she was dead.

“It's too risky,” she said for what felt like the tenth time as she cast her gaze over to her son. “Because of his parentage...what if someone thinks that he'll be the next...Dark Lord?” she shivered at the idea of anyone trying to take her son from her. “I won't let that happen—I won't let anyone hurt him. He means more to me than...than anything.”

“Surely you understand that,” Draco added with a small frown, “certainly there are those who would want Teddy taken from you because of...what you are. The situation is similar.”

“I'm sorry, Cassie,” Remus said quickly as he too glanced over to where their children were playing, in time to see Teddy throw his arms around Davin in something of a bear hug, which the toddler barely reacted to, far too busy staring at the toy car that he currently held aloft in his hands.

Cassie beamed at Teddy's enthusiasm, and then turned back to Remus who truly did look sorry for not seeing the danger of what might happen of Davin was 'outed'.

“I hadn't thought about it that way,” Remus continued, his gaze not leaving the boys, “yes, especially right now in the post-war mania, it's entirely possible that someone would jump to that conclusion.”

“Exactly,” Cassie replied, her shoulders sagging a little with relief. Remus smiled faintly, the expression bordering between apologetic and reassuring, and they moved on to other, less serious topics.

Despite how nervous Cassie had been for the visit, she was amazed at how fast the time flew by, and how normal it all felt to sit with Remus and chat as though nothing had changed. Evening had fallen around them, and Draco insisted that Remus and Teddy stay for dinner before Cassie had even a chance to offer, and Teddy acted as though he'd been offered a trip to Italy.

“Can we sleep over, too?” Teddy asked excitedly, “I can be Davin's daddy while you two wrestle.”

Cassie choked on the biscuit she'd been biting into, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Draco inhale, rather than drink his tea.

“While we what?” she rasped, while Remus looked away from the scene, his lips pressed into a thin line and his jaw muscles twitching, as though he was trying very hard not to laugh.

“Wrestle,” Teddy said again, blinking bemusedly as though it were obvious. “Once I had a bad dream and went to Mum and Other Dad's room, and they were naked and wrestling. Mummy said it was nighttime wrestling for grownups.”

“I—I see,” Cassie replied between hacking coughs, and thankfully, Remus chose that moment to rescue them.

“Maybe some other time, Teddy,” he said gently, “this house is a bit small for five people to spend the night in.”

“Oh,” Teddy replied, frowning a little, “but we can still have dinner here, right?”

“Sure,” Cassie replied with a short laugh, and taking a stab in the dark, seeing how taken Teddy seemed to be with Davin, she added, “you can help me feed Davin, if you like.”

Teddy's face immediately brightened, and that was all the answer that Cassie needed.

~*~

Dinner was far from a formal affair, and over plates of beef casserole, Teddy sat on his father's knee, and fed his new best friend tiny spoonfuls of strained peas with the guidance of Remus and Cassie nearby.

Solid food was a new thing for Davin, and most dinnertimes were spent with more food on her son rather than ingested. But for whatever reason, Davin watched Teddy with wide-eyed fascination, and accepted spoonfuls of the peas from Teddy as he ate more politely than Cassie had ever seen.

“That kid's got the magic touch, I swear,” Cassie said later as they both carried the used dishes to the tiny kitchen, and dug out some biscuits for pudding. “I've never seen him eat so nicely before.”

“Am I to assume that means you'll be inviting those two over for dinner more often?” Draco teased, and Cassie smirked a little at him.

“If it means I can go a day without a facial of puréed vegetables, then I'd let Teddy come round all the time,” she replied with a short laugh.

“It sounds like we'll be needing a bigger house,” Draco teased as they brought out the after-dinner treats for themselves and Teddy, and Cassie laughed.

“Yeah, wouldn't that be something.”

As Remus was reluctantly allowing Teddy his fourth biscuit, but warned that it would be his last one (which Cassie doubted, given that he'd also said that about Teddy's third biscuit) she announced that she needed to put Davin to bed.

“Can I help?” Teddy asked brightly, and with a chorus of warm, good-natured laughs, she scooped her son up, while Teddy trailed behind her.

Cassie's little violet-haired shadow toddled along with her as she went to the bedroom she still shared with both Draco and her son, checked his diaper and changed him into his pyjamas, and used a tricky little charm that one of her baby books contained to gently clean his mouth out. Teddy watched it all with an expression of wonder upon his face, until she sat down on the edge of the bed and patted next to her.

Teddy climbed up without question, and even without her usual soothing lead-up to putting Davin to bed, already he was yawning, presumably worn out from the flurry of activity that day.

“Want to say goodnight to him, Teddy?” she asked in a soft voice while she rubbed her son's back, and Teddy hesitated a little before leaning in to kiss Davin's chubby baby cheek, and mimicked Cassie's hand motions on his back.

“Night night, Davin, have good sleeps,” he whispered, then before Cassie could blink, he jumped up and darted over to the ajar wardrobe, and closed it quietly. He turned back to Cassie with a proud smile as he went back over to them, and watched as Cassie carefully lowered him into his bassinet. “I closed the wahdrobe so no monsters will get you,” Teddy whispered to the toddler, and he stared up as them both with a bemused, but drowsy expression. “I'll protect you when your mummy's busy, Davin, don't worry.”

“Come on,” she murmured to Teddy, and rested a hand on his shoulder, “let's let him sleep, all right?”

Teddy nodded and followed her out, she casting the Baby-Monitoring Charm before closing the door behind them, and they headed back down the short hall to were the others were waiting.

“Missus Cassie?” Teddy said, and Cassie blinked at him.

“Missus?” she echoed, and Teddy looked up at her with equal confusion.

“My mum said it's only polite to call older people Missus or Mister,” he explained simply.

“Well...don't call me Missus Cassie, you make me sound like an old mare,” she said with a short laugh, and the minor unease she saw in Teddy's eyes vanished at the sound of her light tone. “Just call me Cassie, all right?”

“M'kay,” Teddy replied, “but, I have a question.”

“What's your question?”

“Well...last time I saw your baby his eyes was greem,” Teddy explained, “and now they're red. Is he like me? Can he change his face?”

“No, Teddy, he's not,” she replied in as even a tone as she could manage. Like Remus she did not want to lie to Teddy, but at nearly six years old, he wouldn't completely grasp it, either. “We changed his eye colour just for that day because...because, er, a bad man that made a lot of people very scared had the same eye colour as Davin does. We didn't want people getting scared and thinking Davin was like him. D'you understand?”

“Was that Volmedort?” Teddy asked, apparently unaware of his mispronunciation. “My daddy said that that was why he sended me away, to keep the bad man from getting me.”

“Yeah,” Cassie replied, relaxing a little, “that's him. He's gone now, but people are still very scared, and sometimes people who are scared do bad things, even if they don't mean to.”

“Mum yelled at me once 'cause I let go of her hand at the Market and got losted,” Teddy said thoughtfully, “she said she was worried, but she yelled at me. Is it like that?”

“Sort of,” Cassie answered, and reached down to squeeze his little shoulder. “C'mon, let's get back to the others, yeah?”

“Okay.”

~*~

A little over an hour later, Cassie and Draco stood in their front garden, hand in hand as they watched Teddy and Remus take a Portkey home. It was twilight, the sky a deep indigo, and the trees around them were like shadows against the sky. Cassie lifted her hand in a half-wave as the father and son disappeared, and when the dust settled, Cassie found herself shocked that she did not feel more worn out by the visit.

Draco let go of Cassie's hand, and moved to her back, where he wrapped his arms around her waist. She leant back into the embrace, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as they watched the sky darken above them.

“I've been thinking,” Draco began, and Cassie cut in before he got very far.

“—always a dangerous sign,” she quipped.

“Oi! Shut up and listen,” Draco shot back, though she could hear laughter in his tone. “I've been thinking, this house...it's not really built to be a house to bring up a child in. What do you say to leaving it behind and going somewhere else?”

“But...where would we go?” Cassie asked, and turned her gaze from the sky to the derelict little cabin that had become her home over the last few months.

“Anywhere,” Draco replied. “Of course we don't have to go if you don't want to, but Davin will need his own room soon, and space for him to play with his friends, and I just thought it might be time to leave the last dregs of the war behind and...I don't know, start anew.”

“A new life...” she mused, and her imagination ran wild with images of what the future might hold for her, Draco, and little Davin. Davin's first tooth, Davin learning to walk, learning to fly, going to Hogwarts...

When Cassie paired it with the safe house as a back drop, she could feel a strange sense of depression that weighed on the scenes in her head. The last remnants of the war overshadowing all the joyous moments that were sure to come, and the idea of it made her stomach turn.

Cassie shifted in Draco's arms to study his handsome face in the dying light. Draco Malfoy, who had picked up the pieces of the disaster her life had become, and put them back together all on his own, without help, and with no ulterior motive.

She kissed him, and Draco's arms tensed around her as he returned it.

Life would begin again for her, for Draco—for all of them. It was terrifying, but at the same time thrilling.

No more dark lords.

No more constant fear of death, or fear for the welfare of her child.

Life—and whatever that entailed.

And this time, Cassie found herself looking ahead with hope.
- 10
- 11
- 12
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

This Body is My Prison