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Starfall	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 32486 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Seventeen—Sparks
            “He’s still asleep?”
            Andromeda touched Harry’s hand, and made him look at her. “He’s going to be that way for a while, if the potion worked,” she said. “He’s going to have to overcome the Black madness, which poisons his blood like—well, like a disease. And the potion itself is hard to absorb. Swallowing that much wizard blood always is. The only thing that makes it easier is that the blood comes from the veins of people closely related to him.”
            “Thank you,” Harry said, automatically. He knew she was trying to reassure him, and that he should look more grateful. It was just hard to take his eyes from Teddy, to know that he was lying there, twitching and growling a little under his breath sometimes, but not actually suffering. “The longer he takes to wake up, the better?”
            “In a way. Recovery was always apparently quick for someone afflicted by the madness.” Andromeda’s voice dropped. “I remember the way my sister looked when she had it. It didn’t last long, the fever, and by the next morning she was smiling sweetly. But hardly a week later, I caught her torturing our Kneazle and laughing about it.”
            Harry nodded again, and looked at Teddy. His hair was a dull black now, the way it often got when he was in a bad mood. But of course, he wasn’t awake to change it to a different color the moment something took his fancy to make him do so. Harry had to remember that.
            “Go relax, Harry.” Andromeda shoved him gently away from the bed. “You need to sit down, eat something, and then go to bed.”
            “But what if I’m not here when he wakes up?” Harry leaned around her to look at Teddy again, and was just barely aware that Andromeda’s lips were tight with exasperation when she gave him another shove.
            “Someone will be. I’ll wake you when I’m ready to go to bed, if he’s not awake yet. But remember, it will be hours yet.”
            Harry hesitated. But he remembered the stupid mistakes he’d made in the past, both in his job and with Ginny. He had been at his worst when he was impulsive and riding the edge, and right now he was doing that, even if it was lack of sleep forcing him into it instead of adrenaline or tragedy.
            “All right,” he murmured at last, and Andromeda gave him a real smile before she shepherded him out of the room and shut the door.
            Malfoy was waiting at the top of the stairs, his arms folded but his gaze as mild as though he’d only been waiting for Harry a little while.
            Harry twitched with the impulse to say something, but managed to make his voice come out smooth and nearly uncaring. “What do you want now, Malfoy?”
            “Strange as it may seem,” Malfoy drawled, “I’m actually more interested in talking to the aunt and cousin I barely know than you.”
            “Teddy’s asleep,” Harry said, but waved a hand tiredly when Malfoy looked at him. “But Andromeda’s awake, yet. Go in. Just be careful that you don’t wake him.” Even though part of him would be thrilled to see Teddy awake, and this early, the rest of him knew that Andromeda’s words were wise.
            “I know how to act around patients,” Malfoy snapped, and then slipped into Teddy’s room and shut the door behind him before Harry could ask about where he’d learned that. It wasn’t as though Malfoy had trained as a Healer.
            But what did it matter? Harry didn’t think he was about to harm Teddy on purpose, not after giving his own blood to save him, and Andromeda was there to make sure that Malfoy did no accidental damage.
            So Harry tottered and wavered down the corridor, and ended up crashed into the embrace of the bed that was always his when he visited, and oblivion dragged him down into further oblivion so neatly that he barely got the chance to realize he hadn’t eaten.
*
            “I appreciate what you did for Teddy.”
            Draco, his eyes on that face that looked, in some ways, like an older version of Scorpius’s, nodded in silence. His aunt watched him from the side. She didn’t speak any more after that. Draco wondered if she was waiting for him to get bored and leave. Or maybe say something haughty about the size of the house, which was nothing compared with Malfoy Manor.
            Draco didn’t intend to do either. He couldn’t believe he had never thought about it before, that he had other family out there besides Scorpius and his parents, that these were people he could get to know. Yes, he had friends, but they had lives of their own, and it was a more ephemeral connection than with family anyway.
            Draco finally pulled himself from his contemplation of Teddy and turned to Andromeda. She was the one who owned the house, and the one who would have to give him the permission he was going to request. “Would it be all right if I visited again?”
            His aunt had been leaning tiredly against the bed, contemplating Teddy with an expression Draco didn’t think was different from his own. In seconds she was upright again, facing him with her hands folded in a way that left one dangerously near her wand. “You will be welcome if you leave your feelings about blood and werewolves at the door,” she said. “Not otherwise.”
            Draco stared at her and said the first thing that came to his mind. “I haven’t said anything about that since I’ve been here!”
            “And Teddy hasn’t been awake to hear you, either.” Andromeda’s lip lifted in a way that showed her teeth. Draco doubted that was a coincidence. “You must think I’m stupid. I saw the way that you looked at Harry. You haven’t left all your old hatreds behind. I won’t have you inflicting them on my grandson.”
            Draco shook his head in wordless wonder. How was he going to explain to her that his problems with Potter were of a much more recent date than the end of the war?
            He wasn’t. That would remain private until such time as something or someone else forced it into the open, Draco decided. It wasn’t worth the tangle and the fuss. He said, “My rivalry with Potter is something different. He isn’t family. Teddy is. And you. I want to get to know both of you.”
            Andromeda looked at him as though she had Legilimency. Come to that, Draco wasn’t sure she didn’t. He’d had another aunt who could practice it, after all. He tried to stand tall and confident and look non-threatening at the same time. He wasn’t sure he succeeded. It was a long time since he had thought that last one was a desirable trait.
            “Very well,” said Andromeda. “But you should know that Harry is Teddy’s godfather, and involved in his life frequently. If you don’t think you can get along with him, then your time with Teddy is going to be limited.”
            Draco slowly nodded. He supposed that seeing Potter around wouldn’t be the worst fate ever. Perhaps seeing him more often would actually be something that would settle Draco’s agitated mind, and let him find out more about the strange confession Potter had poured out to him.
            “Do you want to rest?” he added. “I had a full night’s sleep last night, and you probably didn’t. I can watch over Teddy.”
            For a moment, he thought Andromeda was going to say something, but she closed her lips into a small line and nodded. “I want you to wake me or Harry in a minute if he gets up, mind,” she added, and turned towards the door.
            “I will,” Draco said, and pulled over a chair and settled down, chin in hand, hearing the door softly shut behind him, and wondering what Scorpius would say to know that he had an older cousin.
            Scorpius.
            Draco took a deep breath. When this was done, when Teddy was awake and he knew for certain that the potion had worked and he wasn’t about to lose a member of his family, then yes, he would go home. And speak to his son.
            It would be more of an adventure than coming here or trying to find Ethan Starfall or going to stay with Theodore had been.
*
            Harry woke hard, with his heartbeat jolting through him. For a second, he couldn’t remember what was closest in time, Teddy’s potion or the conversation with Malfoy or the blood magic he had performed to find the Dark Snake.
            None of those. The closest thing in time was Teddy resting comfortably against his pillow, lips a little red from the bloody potion.
            Harry did cast a Tempus Charm, and glared at what he saw when the numbers flickered into being above the bed. Someone had let him sleep far too long. He stood up and began dressing efficiently, his hands working without pause. He would go and check on Teddy. He would feed him, if he was awake, and stay and talk to him. And then he would go back to work, because he thought he needed them both now, his job and Teddy, to keep himself going. He didn’t want to fall back into the numb shock that had overtaken him after the loss of Ethan.
            He stepped out into the corridor and nearly ran straight into Andromeda. She jumped, then smiled at him. “Apologies, Harry. I thought you might like to see Teddy now. Draco told me he’s awake.”
            “Malfoy is still here?” Harry asked in disbelief, but started walking without waiting for her to stand still and answer him. The corridors of Andromeda’s house, decorated with plain brown and grey colors, had never seemed so long.
            “He wants to get to know Teddy. Say what I will about my sister, she would have taught her son to value the importance of blood connections.” Andromeda gave a little smile. “And I trust him enough to leave Teddy with him while I sleep again. I’m sorry, I’ve greeted Teddy and I’d like to spend more time with him, but brewing the potion took too much of my magic.” She drifted down the corridor.
            Harry flinched despite himself. He knew Andromeda didn’t mean it that way, but it was just…
            Malfoy had a blood connection to Teddy, and Harry didn’t. He had a son, and he had a cousin, too. He had an aunt. He had parents. He might even have other wizarding relatives that Harry didn’t know about. He had been more closely related to Sirius than Harry was.
            For a second, Harry felt as though he was taking another devastating fall down from a cliff.
            And then he snapped himself out of it. That really bloody didn’t matter, the way that it didn’t matter he couldn’t have children of his own. He had a family that would always welcome him, whether or not they were blood. And Malfoy had ignored Teddy and Andromeda for years. Harry could respect that he wanted to repair that gap, but he was going to have a time doing it.
            Or so Harry thought, until he opened the door of Teddy’s room.
            Teddy was laughing and reaching out to touch one of a number of multi-colored bubbles floating in front of him. Harry stared. Inside the bubble was a miniature castle. Hogwarts. Around it floated what looked like wizards on winged horses, but that was the most Harry could make out from this distance.
            “Harry!” Teddy said, and looked at Harry with bright grey eyes and hair turning a happy turquoise. “Cousin Draco said that he would show me all the places that I’m going to go visit when I get out of bed!”
            Cousin Draco.
            Harry bit his tongue and managed a smile. It was easier when he looked at Teddy instead of Malfoy. “That’s great, Teddy. Do you want something to eat?” There was no tray on Teddy’s bed, at least, or on the table beside it.
            “Yes!” Teddy squirmed as if he was going to get off the bed, but Malfoy coughed gently, and Teddy settled back with a sigh. “Will you get me something other than porridge? Grandmother said that I could only have porridge, but I can have other things, right?”
            “Yes, you can have things other than porridge,” Harry said, and had to smile. The way Teddy was bouncing up and down in the bed, the sunshine color his hair was turning, made up for anything. Harry could keep Malfoy cut out of his vision if he just turned his head a little to the side. “Do you have any preference?”
            “Potter, if Andromeda said that he could have only—”
            Teddy interrupted before Malfoy could build up a good head of lecture-steam. “She only said that because she thought I would have trouble digesting it,” he said. “I know I don’t. That means that I can have other things! I want bangers!”
            “Potter,” Malfoy said in an undertone.
            “I know what I’m doing,” Harry said, and hoped that his voice was neutral, though from the way Malfoy paused and looked at him, he doubted it. “I won’t make them too greasy.” He turned and gestured with his wand, and pots started rattling and clattering down in the kitchen.
            “But I like them best when they’re greasy.” Teddy only made the protest in the tone of someone who was okay with not getting what he wanted, though, and flung himself on his stomach on the bed, turning back to Malfoy. “Cousin Draco is showing me neat magic. Why didn’t you ever show me neat magic, Uncle Harry?”
            Because all I know are horrible Auror spells and some of the Dark Arts we’re allowed to use, and it’s not right to exhibit those in front of children.
            But Harry knew that wasn’t a good answer and anyway, he had shown Teddy some interesting spells. It only made sense that Teddy, enthralled right now with the magic that Malfoy was showing him, would forget that.
            “I must have forgotten,” Harry said lightly, and turned and cast the spells that would make the bangers start preparing themselves.
            “Impressive that you can cast that sort of magic from a distance.”
            Harry’s shoulders tensed at the sound of Malfoy’s voice, but Teddy didn’t notice, and immediately started boasting, his previous disappointment in Harry forgotten. “Oh, yeah, Uncle Harry’s great like that! He can Summon things from behind locked doors, and he can create these little paper animals that chase each other, and he can bounce glasses up and down without breaking them—”
            Harry, his face thoroughly on fire by now, interrupted. Malfoy was going to think he was the most conceited thing on the face of the planet if Teddy kept on. “Now, Teddy, it isn’t nice to brag.”
            “But I’m bragging about you, I’m not bragging about myself,” Teddy said, as though that settled it, and went back to talking. “And I know that he does all these heroic things in the Aurors even if he never tells me about them because he thinks they’re too bloody for my ears or something.”
            Harry rubbed his forehead. Teddy was a prank-player and a little manipulator, and apparently better at eavesdropping than any of them had realized. He and Andromeda—and probably Ron and Hermione—would have to put up stronger wards in the future.
            “I look forward to hearing about them,” Malfoy said.
            It took Harry a full minute to realize what he meant, and then he turned around and stared sharply at him. He knew Malfoy understood the glare, but he only looked back blandly, and then faced Teddy again and said, “Well, after you eat, then I’ll leave. I think that you’re ready for that, right? You’re healing enough.”
            “But I want you to stay,” said Teddy, pushing his lip out in what Harry knew from experience to be a deadly pout. “I didn’t want you to go.”
            Malfoy hesitated, and Harry interrupted as smoothly as he could. “I know that Mr. Malfoy has lots of things to do, Teddy. He came all the way from—a long way away when he heard you were sick. He probably wants to go back and finish up whatever his business was there, right?” He caught Malfoy’s eye.
            Malfoy gave him a look that was properly vicious, but his voice was soft and sweet. “Oh, I should go and see my son, certainly. I haven’t seen him in a while. But I wanted to sit up my next visit with Teddy as soon as possible. I think I’m done with traveling out of Britain for a while.”
            “You have a son? I have another cousin?” Teddy looked absolutely delighted. “What’s his name? Does he have blond hair like you? Does he like jokes? Does he like having jokes played on him?”
            “Teddy,” Harry began warningly. Not that he knew anything about Scorpius except for what Malfoy’s letters had told him, but he did know that Scorpius was younger than Teddy, and they had enough trouble with getting Teddy to leave Hugo and Rose alone sometimes.
            “His name is Scorpius, and I think he might like jokes,” Malfoy said, sounding soft and a little sad. “I haven’t been as good a dad as I should. I haven’t spent as much time with him as I should, so I really don’t know him that well, you see.”
            Absolute bastard. Manipulative bastard. It didn’t soothe Harry’s temper to know that Teddy had come by his streak of manipulation honestly. He turned his back without speaking and caught the plate as it came barreling up the stairs.
            Luckily, Teddy tired almost immediately after he ate, and was happy enough to lean back on his pillow and say good-bye to his “Cousin Draco.” Harry nodded and led Malfoy out of the room in silence. He would put up with him if he had to, if he came back for repeat visits, but he hoped that he could time his own to avoid Malfoy.
            “I look forward to seeing you, as well.”
            Harry turned. Now they were out in the corridor, and snores were already coming from Teddy’s room, so he let some hint of his real mood out. Malfoy fell back a step with his arms folded across his chest when Harry leveled him with a glare. “Really? I might understand why you want to reconnect with Teddy and Andromeda, but what the fuck, Malfoy? I’ve told you the truth. There’s nothing else that you can require from me.”
*
            It’s so strange. He’s so strange. I want to understand it better. And maybe I can—
            Draco cut himself off. It was hard to admit even in the privacy of his own head, although he had when he was sitting beside the sleeping Teddy and had nothing else to do, that he might want Potter’s help with Scorpius in the future. No, the advice hadn’t been bad, even if he was still angry that Potter had written to him and lied about his experience with children.
            But Draco was the one who had to raise Scorpius now. And he had to go home, not stand here and answer Potter.
“I intend to come over and visit,” Draco said, with a serenity that he thought was praiseworthy when he had a fuming Potter in front of him. “I thought that sometimes I would probably see you.”
“I can time my visits so that we don’t run into each other.” Potter folded his arms and glared balefully at Draco. “Just tell me when you’re going to be here, and I’ll make sure that I’m elsewhere.”
            Draco took a step forwards before he thought about it. Then he smiled and made himself relax against the wall. “What would that do to Teddy?” he asked. “He probably wants his cousin and his uncle to get along.”
            “Look, I understand, all right?” Potter’s hand bounced off the wall, and Draco jumped. But Potter’s eyes didn’t hold the murderous gleam that they would have if he had thought that Draco seriously intended to hurt Teddy. There was nothing there but raw pain. “You have the blood connection to him that I don’t. I understand that. I just want to make sure that we don’t fight in front of Teddy.”
            Draco frowned blankly at him. “You hate me so much that you can’t stand to be in the same room as me and Scorpius?” he guessed wildly.
            “You have a blood connection,” Potter said, and for a second, his eyes flickered to Teddy’s door. “Andromeda was the one who mentioned it to me. I don’t.”
            “Potter, you idiot,” Draco said, ignoring the way those eyes of green death swung to him again. “I’m not trying to step in here and take Teddy away from you. I want to know my family.”
            “Fine,” said Potter, his body relaxing in a way too abrupt to be natural. Draco wondered if he had had practice stepping back from the edge in his job, or doing his private writing career as Ethan Starfall. There were simply too many things about Potter that he didn’t know. “I think Teddy should know you and Scorpius, too. But there’s no reason that you have to get to know me better at the same time.”
            Draco frowned. He hated the feeling of being stripped vulnerable that Potter’s words were giving him. He supposed that he had to go ahead and try to go along with it anyway, though. “I thought—I mean, I find you intriguing. I’d like to know more about you.”
            “Pull the other one, Malfoy.”
            Draco stepped back a little. He still thought that what Potter had confessed was strange, but he wouldn’t put himself out there for someone who was only intent on rejecting his overtures anyway. “Remember what I said. I don’t intend to drive you out of the house.” He paused, and dangled another piece of bait in front of Potter that he thought Potter would probably find hard to resist. “And I thought you might like to meet the boy I was asking you for advice about.”
            Potter paused. “Maybe I might at that. But not if we’re going to fight,” he added, before Draco could add anything triumphant, and then strode down the stairs.
            Draco sighed quietly and went upstairs to say farewell to Andromeda, if she was awake. He was trying to make the best of a bad situation. He was trying to soothe curiosity that still existed. He was trying to do something that he thought would bring happiness to his son and his little cousin, and maybe his aunt and himself, if he did that right.
            Trust Potter to kick against all the restraints.
*
delia cerrano: He doesn’t, but he isn’t sure how receptive Harry will be.
SP777: There’s befuddlement in the sense that Draco is still puzzled why in the world Harry did some of the things he did, but thank you!
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