Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

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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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Eight—Perils of Business
            “Hello? Excuse me? Are you the one who’s trying to set up a business to help people like me?”
            Harry turned towards the door of his new little office, which was squeezed into a corner of Diagon Alley between Madam Malkin’s and a shuttered bookshop that hadn’t been able to compete with Flourish and Blotts, and smiled at the witch who stood in the doorway. “Yes. I’m Harry Potter. What’s your name?”
            The thin blond woman came into the room twisting her hands around each other. “I’m Mathilda Patience. I’ve been taking care of my nephew for months now. His name’s Ivor, you know. Ivor Patience.”
            Harry nodded understanding and gestured towards the chairs crowded in front of his desk. He had at least made sure the desk was nice, brought from Grimmauld Place, and the paperwork the Ministry had insisted he go through when starting up the business was now neatly tucked into drawers and out of sight. “Why don’t you sit down, and tell me what sort of problems you’ve been having with Ivor?”
            Mathilda sat. She had stopped wringing her hands, but she still looked haggard—almost the way Andromeda had looked when she was afraid for Teddy’s sanity, Harry thought. Harry sat down across from her and tried to look like a cross between professional and cheerful.
            “Ivor’s four,” Mathilda whispered, looking at the floor. “He can’t sleep through the night. Death Eaters—they took away his parents in front of him. They didn’t find Ivor only because he was lying under the blankets and too terrified to make a noise. He didn’t see them die, but he’s scarred.”
            Harry swallowed. Sometimes he was grateful that he hadn’t been old enough to remember more than he did of his mother’s death. What he did have was horrific enough. “That makes sense,” he said, and pulled out a parchment to take notes. “Does he sleep in the same room with you?”
            Mathilda nodded and leaned her forehead on her hand. “And he screams and screams and screams, and I know I should take him to a Mind-Healer, but I can’t afford one. I have to work all the time to support myself, and now Ivor. I’ve taken a second job at the Ministry—transcribing these criminal trials in front of the Wizengamot.” Her voice came out in jerks and starts. “I can’t work well if I don’t get to sleep, and he screams every night. He won’t eat, sometimes. He’s too young to be on Dreamless Sleep Potion. I don’t know what to do.”
            Harry thought about it, and knew that Mathilda was watching him despairingly through her fringe. He knew he wouldn’t do everything perfectly the first time, but he wanted to get this one right, and not just for the sake of what Mathilda might say about him if he didn’t. He wanted to help Ivor.
            “The way I see it, there are two possible solutions,” he said, and looked at Mathilda. “You need to tell me which one would work better.”
            “Anything,” Mathilda interrupted, her voice fervent. “I haven’t had options in months. I’ll try anything. Ivor’s with a co-worker of mine right now, asleep, but soon he’ll wake up and start screaming.”
            “I can give you the money to take Ivor to a Mind-Healer, and get him all the treatment he’ll need,” said Harry. “Or I can try to help him. I’m not an expert yet. You’re my first client. There’s the chance I could hurt him—”
            “I think you would do a perfect job,” said Mathilda, dry and sharp. “But—I don’t understand. I thought I would pay you to take care of Ivor, or whatever it is that you do. But you’re going to give me money to go to a Mind-Healer? Is this a charity?” She lifted her head and looked around the room as though she expected shame to sprout from the walls.
            “Not a charity,” Harry said calmly. “I’ll accept payment in kind. You may have read I got divorced a few years ago?” Mathilda blinked at him and nodded. “It’s hard for me to date and find someone who really sees the real me, who wants to have children with me—who I would trust to be a good mother. But I would like to spend time with children. So you can either ‘pay’ me by letting me spend time with Ivor, or you can tell other people about my business.” He cocked his head as another solution occurred to him. “I can’t do it yet, because the business is so new, but perhaps I could hire you as secretary when I’m busier. That way, you could have a single well-paid job. You could have flexible hours if that would let you take care of Ivor better. Would that help?”
            Mathilda pressed one first into her eyes, which Harry saw were welling with tears. “You’re too good,” she whispered. “How am I ever going to repay you?”
            “You can let me spend time with Ivor, for a beginning,” Harry suggested, and tried not to sound too greedy.
            Mathilda looked up and nodded. “Yes. Please. Let’s try that before I take him to a Mind-Healer. He tends to scream when he goes new places. But you wouldn’t mind coming and talking to him in my house?”
            “Of course not,” said Harry, and Mathilda reached across the desk and gripped his hand.
            “Thank you.”
            Harry pressed her hand back, a little embarrassed by the gratitude on her face. Of course, he had known he would have to expect it, and at least this time, he was doing something he meant to do and that would have good consequences, unlike the way that he’d stumbled around while battling Voldemort. “Do you want to leave now?” he asked, and stood up. “I’ll get my cloak.”
*
            Ivor Patience was the most huddling child Harry had ever seen.
            He was pale, like Mathilda, but other than that, Harry wouldn’t have thought they were nephew and aunt. Ivor’s hair was dark brown, his eyes black, and his fringe was wild and untamed. Mathilda shook her head when she saw where Harry was looking. “He won’t let me cut it. He goes wild when I try to cast a Cutting Charm.”
            Harry nodded. Ivor was currently huddled into a corner behind the leg of Mathilda’s bed. Harry sat down on the floor and drew his wand. Ivor promptly curled up harder.
            And screamed.
            The sound was as piercing as Mathilda had said it was, and as hard to listen to. Mathilda was standing with her hands fluttering around her ears and the expression of utter hopelessness she had worn when she walked into Harry’s office coming back. Harry raised an eyebrow and said, “I’m not going to hurt you, Ivor.” Then he aimed his wand at the wall and whispered, “Umbrae tutelae.”
            A shadow rose up against the wall, a shadow with nothing to cast it. Ivor turned to stare at it, his shrill scream still rising. Harry ignored it for the moment. He had heard worse things when he was an Auror, although they had usually inspired him to charge to the rescue.
            This time, he was going to do the rescuing by sitting as still as he could, and creating the best spell he could.
            He formed the shadow into the image of a unicorn. It was the single most unthreatening creature he could think of, and he doubted that Ivor could possibly associate it with Death Eaters. Sure enough, Ivor went silent when Harry managed to sculpt the silhouette of the horse-like head and the single horn on top of it, blinking.
            “Do you know what these are?” Harry asked Ivor. He could still feel Mathilda hovering behind him, but she didn’t interfere. That was the only good thing about the hopelessness she was suffering under, Harry thought, grim. It wouldn’t let her interfere and spoil something Harry might be able to do.
            Ivor gave him a wondering glance, and shook his head.
            “They’re guardian shadows,” Harry said. It was the literal translation of the spell incantation, and he didn’t think they needed a different name. He waved his wand, and a second unicorn shadow joined the first one. They began to gallop slowly and steadily around the room, flashing from wall to wall, crossing behind Ivor, who jumped and turned to look at them. “If anyone tries to come into your room and hurt you, they’ll beat them up.” He thought concepts like “stabbing” might be a bad idea to talk about. “They’ll always protect you, if you want them.”
            Ivor sat there so long and looked so steadily at the unicorns that Harry began to wonder if he had done something wrong after all. Maybe the Death Eaters had given Ivor a hatred for violence. Maybe the shadows had reminded him about something else—his parents?—that Harry couldn’t even begin to understand.
            But then Ivor turned back towards Harry, and his face was small and fierce. “They’ll keep me safe?” he demanded.
            Harry half-relaxed. A child who still had that level of engagement with the outside world was in a less desperate situation than the one he’d first pictured when Mathilda was talking about Ivor. “Yes,” he said. “They’ll always stay.” He added a few more spells as he spoke, to make sure that the unicorns would be permanent shadows.
            Ivor subjected the unicorns to another stare, then shook his head. “They can’t keep me safe from everything.”
            “I know,” said Harry softly. “Nightmares creep up and attack you while you’re asleep.” Ivor whirled to face him as if he was surprised that Harry knew that. “But they can keep anyone from coming into your room.”
            Ivor shut his eyes and gave a violent shiver. Then he looked at the unicorns again. “I can’t hear them galloping.”
            It took Harry a minute to work out the right combination of sounds to add to the auditory glamour spell he knew—Aurors were trained to create lots of sounds that might distract or dismay their foes, but not usually hoofbeats—but in the end, he thought the noise of footsteps pounding on the floor were close enough. “Like this?” he asked, and cast the spell on the unicorns.
            Ivor stared as the unicorn shadows galloped around and around him, leaping when they got to the bed and briefly merging with the shadows of other things. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Maybe I can sleep. They’re neat.”
            Harry relaxed with a ragged little sigh, and glanced at Mathilda, who had come up behind him. “Can you sleep with that noise of the glamour?” he whispered.
            “If I can go back to sleep after some of the nightmare visions that Ivor’s told me he’s had, I can sleep through anything.” Mathilda shut her eyes for a second. “And you still want to come and play with Ivor?”
            “If he wants me to,” Harry said, and turned back to Ivor. “Would you want me to play with you sometimes, Ivor? Come here and visit? I could show you some of the other spells I know. Besides the unicorns,” he added, and nodded again at the galloping shadows. Ivor fiddled with his sleeve for a second, eyes on Harry.
            “Spells that would keep me safe?” he abruptly demanded.
            “If you like.” Harry wasn’t surprised he had focused on that. If he had known about someone with magic like this when he was a child, he would have been most interested in the spells that could keep him safe first. Although what he would have wanted were spells that could keep him safe from Dudley.
            Ivor looked at the walls again. His face was still, but his eyes burned furiously. Mathilda sat down on the bed and looked at her nephew with a tender frustration that Harry understood. He’d seen something like it in Malfoy’s eyes when he looked at Scorpius, and sometimes Andromeda’s with Teddy.
            “I want you to come back,” said Ivor. “Only not today.”
            He was studying the unicorns again, Harry realized. Maybe looking for weaknesses in them, maybe just getting used to them. Either way, Harry didn’t think there was much else he could do for Ivor and Mathilda right now. He nodded and stood up. “All right. I’ll see you then, Ivor.”
            Mathilda opened her mouth as if she was going to prod Ivor into saying goodbye to him, but Harry caught her eye and shook his head. Mathilda followed him out into the drawing room. “I think he might be better,” she said. “Not right away, but you’re the first stranger he’s spoken to in months. And most of the time, he won’t stop screaming until he falls down in exhaustion.”
            “I would still suggest taking him to a Mind-Healer,” Harry told her. “For him to have nightmares that persistent and that strong, he really needs one since he can’t have the potion yet.”
            Mathilda nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind giving me some Galleons for it…Merlin.” Abruptly, she covered her eyes and shuddered. “I was thinking I was such a horrible aunt,” she whispered through her fingers, “because sometimes all I wanted him to do was stop so that I could go to sleep.”
            “I think everyone who’s a parent has felt that,” Harry replied, thinking of Malfoy’s first desperate letters. He hadn’t wanted his son to stop existing, but he had wanted him to stop doing what he was doing, definitely. “I’ll leave the Galleons on the mantel.” He put them gently down next to a delicate little porcelain bowl with blue tints.
            “Thank you,” said Mathilda when he turned around again. She caught his hand and looked him deeply in the eye. “I know I can’t repay you yet, but I will. I swear it. If only by letting you spend time with Ivor. You’re welcome whenever you want to come.”
            “For now, we’ll leave that up to Ivor, I think,” Harry said, although his heart swelled and he couldn’t help smiling as he spoke, which he knew probably looked strange from the sideways glance Mathilda gave him. “I wouldn’t want to intrude when he still needs time to get used to me. But thank you for the invitation.”
            Mathilda nodded, and waved goodbye as he stepped into the Floo to go back to his office. His heart was still warm, filling his chest with unexpected tendrils of good feeling, and he did think that he would be welcome back there eventually, as Ivor started to heal.
            Only when he sat behind his desk did he start feeling a little heavy, a little empty. He thought he had done a good deed with Ivor, but he’d had to leave. Of course he had to, it was for the boy’s own good, but it wasn’t the same as staying with a child of his own would have been.
            Harry sighed fiercely and bent over the Ministry-issued paperwork again. Yes, all right, so this was never going to be the same as having a family of his own. But this was just his first case. He would get used to it, in time. He wouldn’t need to make up a fake family and a personality and life like he had with Ethan. And he was welcome to go over and hug Teddy whenever he wanted. Andromeda had written as much to him in a letter last night, pointedly leaving herself out of it.
            The problem was…
            Just as it had taken Harry years and years to accept that he could have the Weasleys as a family, even if he could never have parents, he thought it would take him years more to accept that he could enjoy these children, even if he could never have any of his own blood.
            Much as he hated to take too much of Malfoy’s advice, perhaps it was time to think about that Mind-Healer again.
*
            “That’s good, Scorpius,” said Draco, and it was no trouble to keep his voice gentle and proud. Scorpius was writing his name better than he had done it before Astoria left. He’d already copied the whole passage that Draco had assigned him out of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. That was after reading it with plenty of attention and seeming to understand everything he read.
            Scorpius glanced up at him and then went back to writing. The quill still got clutched in his fist as though it was trying to run away. But that was all right, Draco thought, lounging back in his chair and watching Scorpius with a quiet glow under his breastbone. Scorpius was learning skills that would stand him in good stead, and of course skills like that needed practice.
            “Can I have a reward if I finish this without mistakes?” Scorpius asked, a sentence or two later. He and Draco were sitting at the table in the library, and Draco had taken a book from the shelf behind him. It was a slim folio of simplified wizarding history, and he wanted to read it before he gave it to Scorpius, just to make sure it didn’t contain anything inappropriate for him.
            “Do you want an extra biscuit with lunch?” Draco asked, amused. “Or that cake you like so much? I can ask Izzy to make it.”
            “No,” said Scorpius. He said it slowly, so focused on the words in front of him that Draco thought he wouldn’t ask again until he finished the sentence. But he must have been closer to the end than Draco thought, because he pressed down a firm period and glanced up through his fringe, blinking innocently. “I want Uncle Harry to come over.”
            “You just saw him the other day,” Draco said. It had been three days since they were at Grimmauld Place, but he was a little startled. Scorpius had always seemed to accept most of his adult visitors as they dropped in and out, except his grandparents, who he usually asked to visit. He never seemed upset if Blaise took a few weeks between visits, and of course he was used to his mother’s erratic schedule by now.
            Then Draco thought of the way Scorpius had reacted to the divorce, the problem he had asked Potter for help with in the first place, and winced. Maybe he cares more about it than I thought he did.
            “Yes, but I want to see him again,” said Scorpius, and his voice was oddly stilted. After a second, Draco realized he was imitating the tone that Draco used when he explained a rule to Scorpius. He was trying to sound absolutely calm and mature. “That’s why I said it would be a reward. I want it.”
            Draco studied him, then gave a small shrug. Potter had said something about starting his business soon when they were at Grimmauld Place. “He might be too busy with his new job. But I’ll Floo him and ask him.”
            “Good,” said Scorpius, and went back to writing the next sentence. “It doesn’t have to be today.” Draco bit his lip to avoid showing his amusement at that imperious little claim. “But I would like to see him soon.”
            He sounded so adult, so Malfoy. Draco kept his twitching hand at his side; Scorpius didn’t always like his hair ruffled. “All right. I’ll ask him.” He waited until Scorpius nodded again before getting up and crossing the room, where he Flooed Andromeda. He didn’t know the exact address of Potter’s house, since he’d never contacted him there, but she could tell him.
            Andromeda, though, gave a small shake of her head the instant Draco mentioned Potter. “Harry is in Diagon Alley today. It’s his first day at the office.” She gave Draco an intent stare that promised havoc if Draco did something to interrupt Potter.
            “Could I know the Floo address of that office?” Draco asked. “I could be a client.”
            Andromeda’s gaze grew heavier, sharper. “You know that you aren’t,” she said. “Not in the traditional way. I want you to leave him alone and let him be his own person.”
            Draco settled back. “Are you jealous?” he asked, picking up the faint thread of odd emotion in the back of his voice. “I’m not going to take him away from you any more than I’ll take you away from him. I just want to see him, because Scorpius asked if he could see him and show off his writing to him.” It was a good guess, he thought, as to why Scorpius wanted to see Potter now, although Scorpius hadn’t said it.
            Andromeda’s eyes narrowed as if sensing the small lie. “Go back to your son, Draco. At some point, you have to stand on your own, too.”
            She flicked away from the fireplace, leaving Draco staring with his mouth slightly open. Then he shook his head. He could understand, a little. Andromeda seemed to think that Draco wanted to fuck with Potter when it came to his business, although nothing was further from the truth. Maybe she thought their old rivalry was rearing its head again.
            Draco would have turned around to compose an owl, but the Floo flickered, showing someone else trying to contact him. Draco allowed it. It might be Blaise, and Blaise’s visit might go some way to making up for Scorpius’s disappointment.
            Instead, Potter’s face appeared in the flames. Draco blinked, hard, and kept from laughing because it would sound hysterical. But he managed to nod and ask, “Potter, did you need something?”
            “Uncle Harry!” Scorpius leaped up from the table and ran across the library. “Look at the writing I did!” He waved the parchment at the fire, and Draco moved a little, ready to keep it from flying into the flames if he had to. Luckily, Scorpius didn’t shake it that hard.
            Potter smiled. “That’s wonderfully written,” he said, and Scorpius glowed as though he was sucking up life and energy from Potter’s praise. But Potter turned back to Draco. “You know—you said something to me that made me think. When we were in Godric’s Hollow.”
            “Yes?” Draco asked encouragingly. He hardly thought Potter was going to mention their fight in front of Scorpius, but he couldn’t remember what else he’d said that would need exploration now. Still, he found that he wanted to know what Potter would say, whether or not it was immediately relevant.
            “Something about—needing help.” Potter sighed. “I think you’re right. I need a Mind-Healer. But I have less than no idea about which ones are discreet, and could be trusted with—this problem. Would you have suggestions?”
            Draco blinked, once, twice. There was a surge of delight in his heart that he imagined must make him look a lot like Scorpius, at least if it was showing on his face.
            But he managed to nod in a dignified way, and say, “Why don’t you come here, so we can talk about it?”
            “See in you a minute, then, Malfoy.” Potter pulled back and vanished from the fire.
            Scorpius looked up at him. “Uncle Harry is coming to visit?”
            “He is,” said Draco, and put his hand on Scorpius’s shoulder as his son whooped and danced in place. He felt like doing much the same thing.
            And which of us is happier, and which should be?
*
staar: He has started it, but at least right now, it isn’t yet fulfilling him the way he hoped it would.
delia cerrano: You mean, give Scorpius Potter traits? I don’t know if Draco would be agreeable to that.
Jester: Maybe eventually!
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Starfall