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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.

Chapter List
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Chapter Nineteen—Bend or Break
            “I want to go see Teddy,” said Scorpius quietly, looking into his bowl of porridge.
            Draco looked up at him from across the table. Scorpius shrank a little. Draco wondered if he was that intimidating, or if he just scowled at his son without realizing what he was doing. He made an attempt to look completely normal, and glanced down at his own plate and his spoonful of porridge again. “When do you want to do it? Today?”
            There was utter silence from the other end of the table. Draco looked up again, wondering if Scorpius had just been teasing or testing him to see what he would say, and didn’t really want to go.
            But Scorpius’s eyes were shining, instead. “You’d let me?” he whispered, barely parting his lips. “You’d let me?”
            “Yes, I would,” said Draco. He thinks me a troll. No surprise. He put down his spoon and sat up straighter when Scorpius went on looking at him in both delight and disbelief. “I mean it, Scorpius. You can tell me what time you’d like to go, and I’ll at least ask your great-aunt.” So strange to think that he has one of those now. “She might say that we have to wait until tomorrow, but I’ll ask.”
            Scorpius looked perfectly content with that, maybe because he had to ask permission and was sometimes refused it, too. “Ask, Daddy. Please,” he added suddenly, and ducked his head back towards his bowl, still watching Draco out of the corner of his eye.
            “Yes, I will,” Draco agreed. “Just as soon as breakfast is done with.” Scorpius had woken up late this morning, and Draco had waited so they could share the meal. Andromeda was probably awake, and Draco was sure that Teddy would be.
            Perhaps Potter will be there as well.
            Draco shook his head a little. That was a kind of comfort and treat for himself, if Potter was. He wouldn't let it prevent him from going to see his aunt and cousin even if Potter wasn't there.
            I have a cousin. He thought that through, and realized it was something he liked for its own sake, even though he had mostly been thinking about it as something that would benefit Scorpius. Granted, Teddy was much closer to Scorpius in age than to Draco, but he was still a family member Draco could speak to, joke with, visit when he was lonely.
            And that gave him another vantage to understand the yawning bitterness in the way Potter spoke to him. Maybe he knew that Teddy would like that connection, too. And he was jealous of Draco for having it. For encouraging it?
            Potter is jealous, yes.
            Draco took a deep breath. He was still going to keep his word to Scorpius. He would come first from now on. Draco wouldn't pit his obsession with Potter against his love for his son. And he wouldn't place it first, either. He was going to do his level best not to indulge it at all.
            But it still eased something old and deep and tight-wound inside him, to know that Potter was jealous of him for something.
*
            “Auror Bailey tells me that your interrogation of the Dark Snake went in some unexpected directions.”
            Harry sighed and leaned back. Once again, he was in the chair across from Kingsley’s desk. He absently wondered what the other Aurors thought of him being in here all the time. Ron knew the truth, but the others must be starting to gossip about Auror Potter and his propensity for getting in trouble.
            “Yes, it did, sir,” he said, and met Kingsley’s gaze squarely. “He had acquired protected information about me that he used against me.”
            Kingsley spent a moment looking unseeing at the pile of documents in front of him. Harry had no idea what he was thinking. He resigned himself to at least another month of desk duty. On the other hand, maybe Kingsley would see that he was becoming a disaster here and send him back to field work.
            When Kingsley looked up, Harry held his breath, but Kingsley said the most unexpected thing. “I am wondering if you should tell the public about the—problem of the Dark curses afflicting you, so that no one can use this information against you in the future.”
            “No.”
            Kingsley slid a hand under his desk. Harry knew he was reaching for his wand, and he didn’t understand why until he realized he was on his feet and leaning across the desk. Kingsley would know what a trained Auror could do under circumstances like that.
            With an effort as great as though he was manhandling himself, Harry sank back into his chair. “No, sir,” he repeated quietly. “It wouldn’t remove the weapon from the hands of my enemies. It would only make it greater. They would try to embarrass the Ministry, by insinuating that it doesn’t protect its Aurors enough.” That had happened the first few times he was injured. “Or they would send me Howlers for my divorce, for not adopting, for not being a real man. Anything they could think of. I don’t want that out.”
            Only the revelation of Ethan Starfall’s “existence” and the tangle he’d fallen into with Malfoy would be worse, in Harry’s opinion. And that only because they would probably start calling him mad instead of simply pathetic.
            “Perhaps you’re right,” Kingsley said, and his voice was so slow that Harry knew there was something else behind this.
            “Sir?” Harry asked. He met Kingsley’s eyes. He had done enough for the Auror Department to deserve the truth.
            Kingsley stood and wandered slowly over to the far wall, where he stood a moment, gazing down on the enchanted view the windows showed him. From where he sat in the chair, Harry couldn’t see what it was. He didn’t much care what it was, either. He waited tensely for some kind of acknowledgement, and Kingsley finally turned around and gave him the bad news.
            “The truth is that I’ve received questions since your last injury about how effective you are as an Auror,” he said. “I’m sorry, Harry.” He raised a hand, and Harry realized that his mouth had opened without his permission. “Let me continue.”
            Harry nodded and sat back. His heart was beating hard, fast. Not as fast as it had over Teddy’s illness, but there wasn’t much difference.
            “Your frequent injuries are one factor,” said Kingsley, and he sat down behind the desk and played restlessly with a pile of paper again. “Another is how many people recognize you. This makes it hard to use you in undercover work, and makes some criminals more prone to attack you, precisely because they want the glory of bringing you down.”
            “With all due respect, sir,” Harry said, and his voice was full of ice that Kingsley flinched from, “that’s been true from the first day that I entered field work as an Auror. If not true the minute I joined the training program. Why is it a problem now?”
            Kingsley leaned forwards. Maybe Harry’s bluntness had given him the permission to be blunt back. “Because your head’s fucked up, Harry. It has been for the last three years. The injuries—pardon me, the absolute parade of injuries that you’ve accumulated—started then. And this reaction to Gaylord is another symptom. I’m not sure why it’s been worse lately.” He gave Harry a long, demanding stare.
            Harry remained silent. Kingsley probably did have a good idea of what had occurred with Malfoy and the warlocks, if not why, but Harry didn’t want to force him to acknowledge it officially. That was to make Kingsley’s life easier as much as it was his.
            Kingsley finally leaned back with a long, rattling sigh and stared at the ceiling. “It’s a weapon against the Ministry and the Auror Corps in your enemies’ hands, yes. But it’s also a weapon against you. I’m afraid that you’ll get yourself killed, Harry.” He brought his gaze down slowly to Harry’s face. “And I’m not entirely sure it’ll be accidental.”
            “I don’t have a bloody death wish,” Harry snarled back, his temper catching on fire. It was something the papers had sometimes accused him of, although not in years, and Ron hinted at it more subtly when he told Harry that he wasn’t taking care of himself. “I promise you I don’t! I wouldn’t go out into the field and put other people in danger if I did! I’d just lock myself up in my house and off myself!”
            Kingsley lost what little color he had, and leaned forwards this time to lock eyes with Harry. “And I’m not supposed to be concerned about you, Harry, when I’ve just heard you announce that?” he whispered.
            Harry clenched his hands and looked away. “It’s not that I’m thinking about it on a daily basis,” he said, muffled because of how hard he was biting his tongue. “Just that that’s what I would do, if I was going to. Which I’m not.”
            “It’s still a concern,” said Kingsley. “If nothing else, I think we need to give you a chance to cool down for a few days. Whatever’s riding you—Teddy’s illness or the Dark Snake and what he’s done, I don’t know—go home and rest. Think about other things. I will send you home when I find out that you’re in the Ministry.”
            “When?” Harry had to ask, wondering if that was some kind of challenge for him to try and sneak into the Ministry when Kingsley’s back was turned.
            “I know that you’ll want to come back.” Kingsley slammed a hand in the middle of the desk hard enough to make Harry jump. “You can’t do this, Harry. I won’t let you throw away everything that you’ve achieved up until this point because an interrogation went badly. Go home. Do you understand?”
            “When can I return?” Harry rose slowly to his feet, trying to hide how badly his hands were shaking.
            Kingsley paused and studied him, and his voice was a little kinder when he spoke again. “A week at the least. I’ll firecall you then and we’ll see what kind of mood you’re in. Understood?”
            “Understood,” Harry finally whispered, and he left the office. His hands were still shaking. He Summoned what he needed from his office and waited until he was sure that he could step into an unoccupied lift.
            He had counted on his job and Teddy and Rose and Hugo to get him through the stunning loss of Ethan. There went one pillar. And perhaps more, if Malfoy was going to be visiting Teddy all the time and Harry had to owl to make sure that it was okay for him to come over.
            A second later, Harry snapped his spine straight and shook his head. No. He wasn’t going to wait around for permission the way he had to do with his job. He was going over there, and if Malfoy was present, he would make every attempt to get along with him civilly, for Teddy’s sake. But he wasn’t going to be chased out of his godson’s house because Malfoy had to ruin everything.
            He cost me Ethan. He can’t cost me Teddy. He can’t.
*
            “Is your name really Scorpius?”
            Draco frowned at Teddy. He hadn’t left the issue of Scorpius’s name for more than a few minutes since they were introduced. Scorpius had been excited to meet his cousin, but he was becoming quieter and quieter, spending a lot of time staring at his hands. Draco knew the signs of his son being shy.
            He rolled a single eye at Andromeda, who intervened. “How would you feel if someone made fun of your name, Teddy?”
            Teddy shot her a startled look. “I’m not making fun!” he objected, and reached for a biscuit on the tray that was on the table and crunched through it. “I just think it’s a strange name.”
            Scorpius threw Draco an anguished look, and Draco intervened before he thought about it. It was a long, long time since his son had appealed to him for help. “It’s the name of a constellation. So is Andromeda. So is Draco. So are many other Black names. Like Sirius Black, your godfather’s godfather. Mr. Potter told you about him, right?”
            “Oh.” Teddy nodded, and then focused on Andromeda. “Why didn’t you name me after a constellation?”
            “Because you’re not primarily of Black blood,” said Andromeda, sounding prim, but Draco could see how relieved she was to leave the idea of Scorpius being made fun of behind. “And your mother wanted to name you after your grandfather.”
            Teddy shrugged, as though to say that he would never understand why some people got the cool names and others didn’t, and looked at Scorpius. “What’s it like living in a big house? Malfoy Manor is big, right?”
            “It’s big,” Scorpius said, but then stopped as if he couldn’t drive the words out of his throat any longer. Draco caught his eye and smiled encouragingly.
            Scorpius took a deep breath and started again. “It’s so big that sometimes the house-elves miss a spot when they dust.”
            Teddy leaned in. “And what are the house-elves like? Does Aunt Hermione come around and complain about them to you, too?”
            Scorpius looked startled, and Draco grimaced. He didn’t really want to discuss Granger at this point. Introducing Potter into the conversation would be enough of a hurdle to get over.
            “I don’t have an Aunt Hermione,” said Scorpius.
            Teddy paused a second, and Draco held his breath. But then he waved his hand and said, “Oh, right, because she’s from Uncle Harry’s side of the family. Well. You must like to play with things. What are they?”
            “I like playing with Muggle toys,” Scorpius declared, after staring at Draco as if he thought that Draco would forbid him to speak. Draco just bit his lip and looked firmly at the wall. He didn’t even know how many Muggle toys Scorpius had seen or touched, or how different they were from wizard toys. “And I like my Kneazle. His name’s Spark. And I like my toy broom.”
            “I have a real broom,” said Teddy, sitting up straight. “Wanna see it?”
            Draco winced a little despite himself at the corrupted word, but from the way Scorpius’s eyes were shining, he found nothing ridiculous about any of it. He glanced at Draco for permission again, and of course Draco had to nod. At least he and Andromeda were right nearby, and would hear any screams of pain or despair if their respective descendants fell off their brooms.
            Then Teddy led Scorpius outside in a sprint, and Draco was free to turn to Andromeda and say, “You let a nine-year-old have a broom?”
            “He’s almost ten,” Andromeda said with a primness that reminded Draco of his mother and the way she had looked at him over her cup when he went to collect Scorpius from his grandparents. Then she abruptly began to giggle. “You look appalled, nephew. I wish you could see your own opinion of an indulgence that I’m sure you had at an even younger age.”
            Draco shifted. He wanted to say that he had been extremely responsible and had deserved to have a broom even when he was Scorpius’s age, but he knew the real difference were the elves assigned to watch over him in case he fell.
            “All right,” he said. “It startled me, that’s all.”
            “Yes, we are almost strangers to each other, aren’t we?” Andromeda turned to face him, arranging her skirts around her in a way that allowed Draco to separate her from his mother. Narcissa would have swirled the skirts around her at the same time she was settling them, to make a point. “And you have no idea what kind of person I am, really, or if I’m an appropriate associate for your son.”
            Draco hoped that his pulse wasn’t as visible at his throat as it felt like. “I made the choice to bring Scorpius here. I would never have done that if I thought there was a real chance that you would hurt him.”
            “I didn’t mean hurt him physically,” said Andromeda, with an arch of her eyebrow that Draco thought delicately condemned the place his mind had gone. “I mean that I’m a Muggle-lover, and probably what you would call a blood traitor. And my son-in-law was a werewolf, and my daughter a Hufflepuff.”
            The last part was unexpected enough that Draco choked, and something that Andromeda could call laughter if she wanted came out a second later. “You think that I’m going to be upset about that.”
            “For some people, it would be the last straw. But I’m rather more concerned about the other things.”
            Draco met her eyes. “I’ve changed,” he said, as calmly and confidently as he could. “And I have Potter to thank for that. He was the one who—who let me know about Teddy, and made me realize that I had family. I was obsessing over Scorpius and disagreeing with my parents, and I didn’t feel a profound connection to anyone else in the world. I’d even shoved some of my friends away, and they’re pretty patient people. It was hard to do. You—you’ve taught me there’s another part of the world I was ignoring.”
            He found himself wanting to tell her about Potter’s deception as Ethan Starfall and their exchanges. He thought she was the sort of person who would understand. On the other hand, as she had already declared, they didn’t know each other that well, and that instinct of Draco’s could be mistaken.
            “That may be,” said Andromeda in a polite little voice. “But you must have some insecurities about me, some questions to ask.”
            She turned her head before Draco could say anything, and frowned. “Someone just Apparated in—oh. Harry.”
            Draco’s heartbeat quickened in response. He wondered what Potter would say, if he appeared. When he appeared. Staying outside with the boys was unlikely, at least for the duration of his visit.
            He turned back from his thoughts and found that Andromeda had stood up and was slipping out the door. “Where are you going?” he asked, a little sharply. While he wanted to see Potter, too, he thought it would be a bit much if his own aunt preferred the company of an adopted family member to his own.
            “I’ll ask him not to disturb us,” said Andromeda, and smiled over her shoulder at Draco. “I think we’re at a delicate point in our conversation, and we need privacy. And he would disturb you if he came in here. I’m not ignorant of the past you had with each other.”
            She left, and Draco swirled the liquid left in his teacup and considered his own disappointment in not seeing Potter. He would get over it, of course. But it was greater than he had anticipated it would be. Perhaps Potter would insist on striding in, and then he and Draco could have it out.
            But Andromeda came in a few minutes later, without Potter. Draco accepted his fate—there would be other chances—and turned to getting to know his aunt better.
*
            Harry staggered back into his own house. He sagged against the mantel a second later and gasped for breath. It seemed that huge iron bands were locked in place around his ribs and chest, so he was having trouble breathing. He leaned his head back against the stone of the fireplace and wheezed.
            Another pillar, gone.
            When he’d come up to Andromeda’s house, he’d seen Teddy flying with some other child on his broom, and that was unusual enough that he paused to look, wondering if one of the Weasleys was visiting. Then he saw blond hair whipping in the wind, and heard unfamiliar laughter, and looked around with his heart knocking in his mouth.
            Right. Of course Malfoy was here, and he had brought his son. Harry had waved, but Teddy didn’t pay him any attention, so Harry had gone past and into the house, bracing himself miserably to encounter Malfoy.
            Andromeda had met him, with a faint and determined smile that Harry had never seen before. It startled him so much that he paused with one foot in the air, and had to shake his head and bring it down before Andromeda could think he was ridiculous.
            “Harry,” she whispered to him, as though there was someone asleep in the room behind her. “I’m visiting with Draco now, getting to know him. I think—it’s a delicate situation. It would be better if you came back later.”
            Harry felt as though she’d taken a whip and struck him across the face. He folded his arms around himself, but that only earned him a chiding look from Andromeda, who probably thought that every one of his reactions was rooted in his childish feud with “Draco.” Harry did manage to say, “Well, I won’t cause any trouble with him.”
            Andromeda shook her head. “I think that anything could cause trouble with him right now. He’s jumpy, and Teddy said some things that upset Scorpius. I want him to see that his family can welcome him and he can find a sense of safety here.” She gave him another slightly scolding look. “Your presence unbalances him.”
            Harry stood there, not knowing what to say, and Andromeda reached out and patted his shoulder. “I’ll be happy to see you if you come back tomorrow, and I know Teddy will. But right now, this is a time for family.”
            It was the whip, this time, and coming from a completely unexpected direction. Family. What Harry had been comfortably counting on being with Andromeda and Teddy, and what she—
            Didn’t see him as.
            Somehow, Harry kept in the gasp or gulp of pain that he would have let out otherwise. He nodded and said, “Tomorrow, then,” and managed to turn around and walk out of the house under Andromeda’s understanding smile.
            He passed beneath Teddy and Scorpius, and risked a glance upwards. But Teddy was still fully engaged with Scorpius, and showed no sign of noticing when Harry walked out of the garden and shut the gate behind him.
            Harry Apparated home, and got the key in the door, and got inside, and that was when the weakness, the clutching feeling, the lack of air, overwhelmed him.
            He finally dropped to his knees and put his hands over his face. Thoughts tore through his head. Teddy had a cousin. Andromeda had a nephew. They’d been grateful for his help, and even the Weasleys’, when they didn’t have blood family. But now they did, and it was clear how much Andromeda valued it. Harry didn’t think this was just her gratitude at Malfoy’s rescue of Teddy talking.
            Blood mattered more than—other connections. The only kind of connections Harry would ever have.
            He knelt there long enough that he started feeling as though his breaths were sword thrusts through his chest, and then he stood up. He supposed he could go over to Ron and Hermione’s, but not right away. Ron was still at work, and Hermione would probably have Rose and Hugo in the office with her.
            They had jobs. They had lives. They had children.
            Harry wrote a note that he had to rip up because his handwriting was illegible, and then wrote another one, explaining that he was unexpectedly off work and was going to take a long-delayed holiday. Then he went and began to fling things in a trunk until he felt half-packed.
            And then he left his house and Apparated straight to Godric’s Hollow.
*
SP777: He means that Harry isn’t worth more than Scorpius is to him.
delia cerrano: They are prickly, they are both wounded, but I think a large part of it is also learning to let the focus on blood family go. Draco never saw Astoria as more than a means to an heir, and Harry…well.
clau: Exactly. And there are reasons for Kingsley to be concerned, but unfortunately, sending Harry on a break from his job really came at the wrong time.
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Starfall