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Starfall	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 32486 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
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Chapter Sixteen—Reworking
            “Tell me what needs to be done to add my blood to the potion.”
            Malfoy was really remarkably calm, Harry thought, watching him out of the corner of his eye. He sat on the same couch as Harry without apparent disdain and watched Andromeda cutting her palm to add blood to the shallow dish on the table in her lab. Teddy was under a Sleeping Charm upstairs.
            Andromeda seemed startled that Malfoy had come so quickly and agreed to help, but after a long, keen glance at Harry, she apparently attributed it to one of the debts that Malfoy owed Harry. Harry was happy to let her keep thinking that way. His mind mostly focused on Teddy and how they were going to survive the constant crisis, but every now and then, it leaped into the future and the moment when he would have to tell Malfoy the truth.
            He could almost hear the laughter now.
            “You need to cut your hand, like I did,” said Andromeda, and Malfoy reached for his wand. Harry shifted a little away in spite of himself, and caught his breath.
            Malfoy heard it. His eyes came up, dark with some emotion that Harry didn’t know if he was competent to name, and held Harry’s for a long second. His smile was deeply twisted.
            Harry looked away with a flushed face. He was doing what he could, he silently argued against the laughter in the back of his head that had nothing to do with Starfall or what Malfoy or Andromeda would say.
            “No, not now,” Andromeda was murmuring when Harry turned back to reality. “When I have the potion ready. My blood serves as the base. Your blood is the catalyst. And Teddy’s blood binds the potion to him.”
            “If I’d known that I had relatives who understood Potions theory, I would have visited earlier,” Malfoy drawled, putting his wand back in his pocket.
            Harry clamped his lip between his teeth. Then he did the same with his tongue. From the glance sideways that Malfoy gave at him, he had noticed.
            “You can disbelieve me all you like,” he said. “It’s still true.”
            Harry stared at his hands and said nothing. What he wanted to say was that it didn’t matter if it was true; the whole point was that Malfoy should have visited his family regardless of whether they knew Potions theory. And he had known about them in general. He had never visited.
            What right do you have to tell other people how they should behave?
            Harry winced, and kept staring determinedly at his clasped hands. Yes, that was true, and it was also true that he would never get anywhere if he kept scolding himself for his past mistakes. Teddy was the important one here. Not him, and not Malfoy, and not all the ghosts of the past that he felt crowding around him.
            ”There,” said Andromeda at last, stepping back from the potion and rapping her stirring rod hard against the rim. “That’s all we can do.” She turned to Malfoy.
            He rose to his feet and walked over to the cauldron, drawing his wand again as he did so. Harry watched him, blinking a little. He had expected to see some shadow of violence around him, or be reminded of the way that Malfoy had tried to curse him in the alley.
            Even people who act mental some of the time can be normal the rest.
            Harry half-nodded. He would just hope that this burst of normality could last until the brewing was done and they had all they needed from Malfoy for Teddy’s potion. Maybe he wouldn’t try to strangle Harry until they were in private.
*
            The cut across his palm hurt, of course, and so did squeezing the skin so that the right amount of blood oozed out and into the potion, but Draco experienced the pain with what felt like something other than his skin. The intense focus of Potter’s gaze on him hurt more.
            What does he think? That I’d lash out and tip the cauldron over and deny my little cousin the healing he needs?
            Maybe he did, at that. He might not expect much from a man who had tried to paralyze him, and he had considered using the life-debts to force Draco’s hand.
            Draco finally finished the squeeze, and his aunt took over, nodding rapidly and saying, “That’s perfect, yes.” She added a pinch of powdered willow leaves from a vial, a great settler, and began to stir the potion again.
            Draco took a step back, glancing over his shoulder at Potter. Potter promptly yanked his eyes away guiltily and stuffed his hands into his pockets, as though he suspected himself of a secret desire to touch Draco.
            It would make as much sense as anything else he’d done, like making up a false name and writing to me after he found out who I was.
            That was the part Draco found hardest to understand. Potter had always been the person in their weird letter-writing bond with the superior knowledge, at least until the very end. Why had he decided that Draco was worth responding to, once he knew? If it had started out as a joke, it had become something more, because the man Draco had confronted in the alley had been far from humor.
            There was a puff from the potion at the same moment as there was a piercing cry from the room above them, where Draco had believed they’d left the little Lupin lying under a Sleeping Charm to prevent him from hurting himself.
            Potter was on his feet with the same speed Draco had seen in his battle with Moonstar, flying towards the door. Andromeda remained with the potion, although her shoulders tightened enough to make her face look cramped. Draco understood why. The potion had its procedures and couldn’t be abandoned no matter how imperative it seemed to someone else right now.
            “Shall I go?” Draco murmured to her, this woman who looked nothing like his mother but had the same expression on her face that his mother had had many times with other things.
            “Yes, please do,” Andromeda said, and sighed in what could have been relief as he ran out the door. For that alone, Draco was glad he had come.
*
            Harry’s first thought was that Teddy had awoken, still had aches and pains from the fever, and been distressed to find himself alone.
            Now, it seemed, he should have wished for that, because it would have been preferable to what was actually going on.
            Teddy thrashed and squirmed and shouted in the middle of the bed, his arms flying in all directions, his face so distorted with fear and hate that Harry didn’t recognize him. Or, yes, he did. He looked a little like the portrait of Mrs. Black.
            “Get away from me!” he shouted, the minute his eyes fell on Harry.
            At least that banishes any thought that he might not have the Black madness and the potion could be useless, Harry decided, and the next second, he deliberately flicked his brain into the same calm, clear coldness that he used when he was approaching innocent victims of a criminal’s abuse who might try to attack him to protect their “leader.” There were ways to harmlessly restrain people like that, and he used one of them now.
            “Vinculum mollis,” he cast, and the chain that unfolded shimmering in the middle of the room looked more like a rope, a rope made of soft and glowing light. It settled around Teddy’s arms and pulled them away from his face, and then more tendrils of it snaked towards his feet and pulled them gently towards the edges of the bed. It didn’t actually bind him, but it did hold him in a comfortable position where he would have trouble moving. Even the thrashing was reduced to little more than a few jerks and twitches.
            “That’s an interesting spell.”
            Malfoy coming in behind Harry shouldn’t have scared him so badly, but at least he thought he managed to limit his leap to a few inches. He came down and saw Malfoy smirking at him. It was the first natural expression, or at least the only expression Harry had seen that he expected to see on the bastard’s face, in a long time.
            “It’s an Auror spell,” Harry responded shortly, and circled around to the side, watching Teddy intently. The first fit had passed, he thought. Teddy was lying there with his head tossing from side to the side on the pillow and his teeth bared against an imaginary opponent, but at least he wasn’t lashing out anymore.
            “I see.”
            Harry didn’t look at Malfoy’s face. It would only confuse him, at this point. “Andromeda’s almost finished with the potion?” he asked.
            “You didn’t read the instructions? You don’t know?”
            Despite telling himself over and over that it either didn’t matter what Malfoy thought or he should understand why Malfoy might be feeling a bit defensive, a sharp prickling sensation still rang through Harry’s body, and he glared at him. “I trusted that Andromeda knew what she was doing. I’ll leave Potions brewing to the experts.”
            Malfoy leaned against the wall. “It’s almost done.”
            Why he couldn’t have told me that in the first place… But they weren’t destined to get along. Harry turned back to checking on Teddy’s bonds, and when Teddy snapped at air like the wolf they had feared for so long that he would turn out to be, he began murmuring soft, soothing words to him. “It’s okay. I know that you think the burning is never going to stop right now, but it’s really okay. Your grandmother is coming with something to ease the burning. Your cousin Draco is here. He came to see you. Do you remember your grandmother talking about the Blacks and how you’re descended from them? That blood’s causing the problems now. But it’ll go away, we have the cure.”
            Teddy did seem to calm down a little when Harry was talking to him like that. Harry let one hand rest on Teddy’s shoulder and went on talking.
*
            Seeing the fiercely protective, almost enraptured expression on Potter’s face as he stared at the boy, Draco had to wonder whether Potter had got divorced because his affection for his wife couldn’t compete with his affection for his godson.
            But it didn’t matter. What mattered was the door opening and Andromeda coming in, bearing a steaming goblet of the potion between careful hands. Draco nodded when he saw it. The goblet was of gold with rubies gleaming in the sides, and although the old legend that drinking healing potions out of golden cups probably wasn’t true, she would want to do everything she could to make sure in this situation.
            “Harry,” said Andromeda, and the way she said it made prickles travel up and down Draco’s spine. It seemed odd that his aunt should be using a tone like that for anyone who wasn’t a relative. “The potion is here. You’ll have to move aside so I can give it to Teddy.”
            For a long second, Draco didn’t think he would. Potter’s hand stayed on Teddy’s forehead, and he tensed as if Andromeda would have to fight him. But then he gave a curt nod and stepped away. He still had one hand curled as though a forehead for him to stroke would materialize under it.
            Andromeda bent over Teddy and held the goblet to his lips. He turned his head aside and spat at her. Potter started forwards.
            “No, since you’ve bound him, I’m competent to manage this part,” said Andromeda, without appearing to pay attention to Potter at all.
            Potter halted. Draco caught a glimpse of his face, lost, haunted, confused, before Potter turned away and walked over to another corner of the room.
            Draco himself, most interested in the results of the potion he had helped brew at the moment, watched as Andromeda murmured to Teddy and massaged his throat to help him swallow. Teddy blinked at her resentfully, but already he seemed to be calming down. Draco hoped that was due to the potion’s effects and not the “recovery” period Andromeda had told him about, which meant more madness later.
            “There.” Andromeda put down the goblet as if that had been the burden she was carrying and turned back to Potter. “You can release him now.”
            Potter watched her, mistrustful as a wild thing, before he nodded and waved his wand. The bonds on Teddy dissolved. The boy immediately curled up and huddled into one corner of his bed, watching them like a trapped animal.
            Potter was wise enough not to go back right away. He stood there and started talking again, though, looking at the wall as if it and not Teddy was his target. “I think you can probably feel your mind calming down, can’t you? You can feel the poison shrinking and getting smaller and smaller. You can feel it draining out of your blood. You can think about it draining away, if you want, if you think that works better…”
            And Teddy’s eyes shut, and his head turned to the side. Draco thought for a second he would say something, or try to bite again. Instead, he began to breathe the measured breaths of natural sleep.
            Andromeda nodded, holding her hand to her mouth. There were tears in her eyes, and she looked so like his mother after the war, when she had first seen Draco walking towards her out of the wreckage of Hogwarts, that Draco had to turn away sharply. He paused when he felt her hand on his arm.
            “I couldn’t have brewed the potion without you,” she said. “Thank you. Thank you for coming and donating your blood. It’s more powerful when it comes from such a close relative, after all.”
            Draco knew he probably wouldn’t be able to face whatever expression she was wearing now. So he muttered something noncommittal, turned to Potter, and made a beckoning gesture at him.
            He knew Potter saw him, but Potter stood there and gazed at Teddy for long moments before he finally gave a sad half-smile, turned around, and walked after Draco. “All right,” he said. “I’m ready.”
            Draco tried to forget the funny feeling that gave him in his stomach, too, as they walked towards what was probably a private sitting room, where Potter could tell him all about Ethan Starfall.
            Draco’s determination to know was by now mingled with curiosity. Potter didn’t lack for people he loved, and it didn’t seem as though Teddy was prone, most of the time, to dangerous illnesses that would lead him to make up children who could never be hurt. Why would he have to make up a family?
*
            Harry collapsed on the couch in the first room he came to, the drawing room. He felt as though someone had poured scalding water all through his insides. He had dreaded the revelation to Malfoy when it first came up.
            Now, after Teddy? That was the least of his worries. Malfoy was free to laugh if he wanted to. Harry still didn’t think he would spread it around because doing so would implicate him, and Harry would know he was the source of any rumor about Ethan Starfall. And Harry doubted that Malfoy was stupid enough to attack him physically again.
            Malfoy closed the door to the drawing room between them and stood there, leaning against it. Harry jerked his head at a chair in front of him, but Malfoy shook his head and remained standing.
            Harry sighed. He had hoped for a little more friendliness between them, after Malfoy had hoped Teddy, but he should have remembered. Malfoy was only here because he wanted the payment Harry had promised, not because Teddy mattered to him. And that would probably go on being true no matter how many times Harry wished otherwise.
            He kept his voice low, careful. “What do you know about my divorce?”
            “It happened,” Malfoy replied, and stood waiting again.
            Yes, well, he doesn’t exactly have to give me any help, does he? Harry grimaced wryly to himself and nodded. “It did. It happened because I’m unable to have children.”
            For the first time, Malfoy showed something of a reaction, his eyes fluttering open and his hand rising as though he was going to touch his throat. Harry waited in turn. He didn’t know what Malfoy was thinking or feeling right now. He might as well go on reminding himself of that, and try to understand better later.
            Malfoy finally croaked out, “But I thought—surely someone would have reported that, if it was true.”
            Harry shrugged. “There are some rewards for fame, as well as perils. It was a combination of Dark hexes that made me infertile. St. Mungo’s kept quiet, and I don’t think most of the Healers knew anyway.” It was easier to talk about this than he would have thought. Maybe the three years had done enough to heal him, or Teddy and how important his survival was had, to burn some of Harry’s reluctance away. “But Ginny couldn’t accept it. She wanted children of her own, and if I couldn’t sire them, there was no other acceptable method.”
            That was as far as he was going to get into truth, too. Ginny’s secrets were her own. If Malfoy was so concerned about them, he could go and ask her.
            The vision that created in Harry’s mind made him smile, and he nearly missed Malfoy’s next insistent question. “What made you make up Ethan Starfall?”
            Harry blinked, and answered honestly. “I thought you’d grasp it on your own. I wanted children, and I wanted a life that was peaceful and quiet and had a happy marriage. So I started writing as Ethan in a journal, creating this whole other life. When you sent that letter, I just drew on that life and let Ethan speak through me to answer you.” He had never seen any expression like the one on Malfoy’s face before, so he added, “He’s gone now. I haven’t felt any urge to write as him since the whole confrontation we had in the alley.”
            Well, maybe that wasn’t the whole truth. He’d felt the urge; what he’d lost was the ability. But that was also the kind of thing that Malfoy didn’t need to hear. He had heard more than enough to make him pucker up, if the way he was blinking was any indication.
*
            I can’t imagine why he did that. Why he responded that way. And why Weasley was so set on having her own children that way. They could have adopted Teddy, or she could have enjoyed the benefits of being Potter’s sole focus of attention, without children to steal it.
            That was the way Astoria might have felt, though, Draco had to concede. Without the pressure for heirs, Draco and his wife might have stayed married. And she might have liked his attention enough not to pursue her inventing career so strongly.
            That left Draco with more questions to ask. “Did living an imaginary life really content you?”
            Potter snapped out of the staring contest he was having with the wall. “Eventually, it felt like living the life I wanted,” he said simply. “I had to live it on paper and out of sight of anyone else, but I was keeping the secret of not being able to have children of my own from most people, too. It was just one more secret.”
            Draco shook his head, at a loss. “But your friends didn’t know about Starfall?”
            “No,” said Potter, and turned his hand upwards when Draco went on staring at him. “Yes, they knew I couldn’t have children. But it would have seemed childish and pathetic to them, what I was doing. Just making up imaginary children wasn’t enough to compensate for my loss. They told me that I should get married again, to someone who wouldn’t care about having a blood family. But I had the family I wanted.”
            There was a distant look in his eyes as he turned away, and Draco was about to ask another question when he murmured, “But Teddy is more important than all that. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it before.”
            “You thought imaginary children qualified you to write to me.” Draco was trying to make his own indignation flare again, but it was much harder than he’d thought it would be. It was as if the spark inside him had gone out, making only a damp, bitter place he was trying to light on fire.
            “I thought that I could,” said Potter. “Or I thought Ethan could. I think I was making the decision as Ethan.”
            “Who’s imaginary.”
            Potter nodded, but he refused to fuel Draco’s anger by getting angry himself. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. Teddy showed me that. I was still mourning the loss of those children I couldn’t have and then those children I thought I did have. But Teddy is the one I have. Teddy’s the one who actually exists. I need to think about that.”
            Draco pushed stubbornly on. He was very glad that Potter had had this little awakening and all, he told himself sternly, but that didn’t have anything to do with why Potter had contacted him in the first place.
            Except that the rage he had felt before, fueled by his son not wanting to be a Malfoy and the warlocks and the mockery he’d sensed in the names of Starfall’s children, was so dusty and small and nonexistent right now. As fictional as Potter’s family.
            “And Scorpius is the one I have. The one I was asking you for help with. What if your advice had been harmful, and had hurt my son?”
            Potter abruptly stood and shook his head. “I’ve reached the limit of what I owed you. The explanation of what happened and why I wrote to you and why you couldn’t find any trace of Starfall’s existence and why I made him up. You know something now that very few people know. I don’t have to answer anything else.”
            “This is real,” Draco said, and leaned forwards, blocking the door when Potter tried to get past him. Yes, it was better like this, with Potter about to breathe fire and stirring the fire inside Draco in return. “Scorpius could have been hurt, the way Teddy could have been if I didn’t come.”
            Potter reached out and hit his hand hard, knocking it away from the door. Draco shook it, and wondered if they were about to have another fight.
            But instead, Potter said, “I would never have given you advice I thought was harmful, and I hope you have better sense than to follow harmful advice about your son. Or to go on following it if it proved harmful the first time.” His voice was a hiss.
            “This is about what could have happened—”
            “Which I just learned is less important than what did,” Potter said, and this time, it was his voice alone and not a web or spell that held Draco against the wall. “It’s enough. What we have is enough. You have the truth and your son, and I hope you have the ability to raise him better this time around. I have Teddy. Go away and be a better father to your son.” He paused, then added, “The way I’m going to try to be a better godfather.”
            He left. Draco didn’t think he would have had the strength to hold him in the room even if he had wanted to. His head was whirling too badly.
*
SP777: Harry wasn’t really thinking about loopholes, hence why he told Draco as much as he did. He did set limits, though.
And yes, some of those videos are amazing!
Delia cerrano: Draco knows he needs to get his head in order, at the very least, before dating someone.
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Starfall