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The Optimal Balance	By : TheMightyFlynn Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 17124 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe and characters belong to JK Rowling and associates. This was written for fun. I make no money from it.

Chapter List
- 1-The Optimal Balance
- 2-Ch. 2
- 3-Ch. 3
- 4-Ch. 4
- 5-Ch. 5
- 6-Ch. 6
- 7-Ch. 7
- 8-Ch. 8
- 9-Ch. 9
- 10-Ch. 10
- 11-Ch. 11
- 12-Ch. 12
- 13-Ch. 13
- 14-Ch. 14
- 15-Ch. 15
- 16-Ch. 16
- 17-Ch. 17
- 18-Ch. 18
- 19-Ch. 19
- 20-Ch. 20
- 21-Ch. 21
- 22-Ch. 22
- 23-Ch. 23
- 24-Ch. 24
- 25-Ch. 25
- 26-Ch. 26
- 27-Ch. 27
- 28-Ch. 28
- 29-Ch. 29
- 30-Ch. 30
- 31-Ch. 31
- 32-Ch. 32
- 33-Ch. 33
- 34-Ch. 34
- 35-Ch. 35
- 36-Ch. 36
- 37-Ch. 37
- 38-Ch. 38
- 39-Ch. 39
- 40-Ch. 40: Epilogue
- 31
- 32
- 33
A/N: Sorry for the lateness of this chapter! My internet died!
Hestia: sorry, I was going off what I got in my email! But you are right about the story coming to an end soon. I have a few more chapters planned, then hat will be it! :)

“Grimmauld.” With a tiny pop, Harry disappeared.
Draco's stomach dropped into his shoes. Now not only were the children in danger, but Harry had just left to barge straight into the middle of the mess, placing himself in the same danger. His fingers scrabbling at the holster on the side of his trousers, he swore sharply when he couldn’t quite manage to get his wand out so he could follow Harry. His heart was racing so fast that he was certain that it was possible for both Astoria and Hermione to hear it at the opposite end of the church where they still stood, Astoria now barking orders, from what it sounded like through the pounding of his pulse in his ears. But he knew he couldn’t focus on that at that moment: he had to get to Grimmauld, stop the boys from hurting themselves and protect Harry from whatever mess he had just Apparated into. A shout from the opposite end of the church nearly distracted him once he managed to draw his wand out of its holster, but he ignored it in favour of preparing to Apparate away.
“Draco Lucius Malfoy!”
A mere second before he twisted, Draco's attention was drawn back to Astoria, who was storming up the aisle towards him. He stumbled a little as he prevented himself from stepping. Astoria’s wand was clenched tightly in her hand, a detail that Draco focussed on instead of the panic rising rapidly in his chest, needing to distract himself.
“What?”
“Harry would murder me if I let you Apparate in that condition and you managed to splinch yourself. Come here.”
Confusion flooded through Draco's mind as he watched Astoria opening her arms to him. Why the hell she would be more focussed on him than on what their son was doing was beyond him, as he knew that she would be able to feel the tug of the tracking charm that Harry had placed on the boys as well. Shaking his head sharply, he ignored her and clenched his fingers around his wand once again.
“Draco!”
Astoria stepped up to him and took his hands in her own. It was then that Draco felt the tremble that rippled through him. Glancing down, he watched as his wand shivered in his hand, a hand that shook so badly that he knew Astoria was right to have stopped him.
“Tori…”
“We’re leaving. Right now.”
Another small pop reached Draco's ears just before he felt the tug of Apparition. Tori landed them in the living room of Grimmauld a second later and Draco took off running. He could hear footsteps pounding up the stairs in front of him as he raced, as well as people calling to various children, but he saved his voice, knowing that if he yelled, it would just tire him out even faster. When he reached the second floor, however, he had to pause to shout to Ronald and Blaise – that, at least, explained the pop he had heard just before their own Apparition – that they were on the wrong floor.
“Fourth floor. Tracking charm,” he explained as he shoved past them and took the next set of stairs two at a time.
Their footsteps pounded behind him, the both of them calling out to their children as well as the others. Being ahead of them, Draco knew that he was the first to hear the first of the responses. His strides lengthened the second he managed to make it to the top floor, just beneath the attic, following the calls of the children. Rounding the corner, Draco fell to his knees and slid as he spotted both James and Lily racing towards them. He had no idea whether it was through relief or exhaustion, but it felt as though his legs had simply given way. Both children ran straight into his arms, James repeating something over and over that Draco couldn’t quite make out over the sound of the reunions of parents and children around him as well as the continued pounding of his own heartbeat in his ears. Running his hands over as much of the children as he could reach without pulling back too far, he cast general Healing charms, just in case.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. He said it would be a present. I’m sorry…”
Draco pulled back a little once he was finally able to make out what James was repeating. Tears streaked his face, making tracks through a substance that Draco had to assume was either smoke residue or dust. The sight didn’t help to ease the fear that was still flooding through his veins
“Who said it would be a present, Jamie? Who have you been speaking to?”
“Regulus Black.” James paused to swipe a hand across his face, smearing more of the residue over his cheeks. “There’s a tiny portrait of him in the Slytherin dorms that Scorp found. He said that there’s a secret chamber in his room at Grimmauld that has stuff in it that the person who owns Grimmauld now would like to have, but that the only way to open the chamber is by his own voice. We knew that we couldn’t take the portrait with us when we came home, so Scorp, he…”
Draco shook his head as everything began to fall into place. “He stole some of my potions to try to alter them to Regulus’ voice so the three of you could open the chamber yourselves. It looks as though he missed, though.” It was rapidly becoming obvious to him that the residue on James’ face had come from whatever protection had been placed on this chamber. James nodded, his eyes wide with what Draco could only assume was fear. Unfortunately, it was a fear that he couldn’t assuage at that moment, not with his own son still in danger and nowhere to be seen. “Where is he now? Is he safe?”
James took a few steps back and nodded back towards a room that Harry had explained during their cleaning spree had been Regulus’. The trembling in his hands started anew the second Draco stood. He took a step forward, but was prevented from going any further by a small hand grasping his own.
“Draco, I am sorry. We didn’t know, we just wanted to surprise you both…”
A few more tears streaked their way down James’ cheeks and he swiped at them with the hem of his shirt. Moving back towards him, Draco again fell to his knees in front of him. Placing his hands on both of James’ shoulders, he looked him in the eye and attempted to give him a reassuring smile.
“You’re safe, Jamie; that’s all that matters at the moment.” Draco ran a hand through James’ hair, dislodging a few white flakes of something he couldn’t quite recognise and was unsure he wanted to at that point in time. “Your Aunt and Uncle are just over there. Off you go; they’ll keep you safe.”
The fear that was causing Draco's hands to shake hadn’t been diluted by the knowledge that at least two of their kids were safe. His stomach flipped and nausea rose in his throat as he stepped into Regulus’ bedroom. The sight that greeted him didn’t help that feeling: a great, gaping hole in the middle of the floor was the first thing that caught his attention, but it was the people behind the hole in the floor that he focussed on. Albus and Scorpius were sitting on the floor just beneath the windows, with Harry and Astoria kneeling down in front of them. They were both covered head-to-toe in the same black muck that James was coated in and were both shaking hard enough that Draco could see it from his position standing in the doorway. He could hear someone murmuring something, but they were too far away for Draco to be able to make out exactly what was being said. Not that it mattered, as the second Scorpius saw him, he stood and raced across the room, crashing into Draco with a force that caused him to stagger back into the doorjamb.
“I’m sorry, Dad, he said… We thought… It was a present; a wedding present. I botched the potion, I know it. It must have been me… I’m sorry…”
Scorpius’ voice was low, rough and cracking every few words. It was clear that whatever the black mess was, it had had an effect on Scorpius’ voice, possibly from breathing in whatever it was. Draco had to forcibly unwrap Scorpius’ arms from around his waist so he was able to kneel down in front of him and meet his eyes.
“Scorp?”
Tears streaked pale tracks down Scorpius’ face, just the same as they had on James’ a minute before. Whether they were real tears or just a reaction to the black substance he was coated with, though, Draco had no idea. Draco automatically cast a cleansing charm, but it didn’t appear to have much effect, as the black mess stayed stubbornly fixed to Scorpius’ skin. He followed it up with a series of Healing and diagnostic charms, making absolutely certain that whatever Scorpius had inhaled hadn’t had any adverse effects on him. When he was totally satisfied that Scorpius wasn’t going to just drop dead in front of him, Draco reached up and manually began to clean the mess from his face using the cuff of his jacket.
“Scorp, what happened?”
“It was all my fault! That portrait at school said that he had stuff hidden in this room that the owner of Grimmauld would want. When I asked Al about it, he said that the house used to belong to the Black family and that he knew what room it was, so maybe we could get the stuff and use it for a wedding present… I–” Scorpius cut himself off with a frustrated grunt, stepping back away from Draco and stomping his foot hard enough that some of the white flakes that Draco had found in James’ hair floated down to settle in the mess already on the floor. “If I hadn’t messed the potion up, then everything would have been fine! None of the protection spells would have gone off and the smoke wouldn’t have been released and…” Casting Draco a despairing look, Scorpius sighed. “You weren’t supposed to know. Neither was Harry, or Mum. This was supposed to be our present; something special that no one else could find.”
Kneeling in the dust and the remnants of the thirty-year-old protection spells that had been set off, all Draco could do was shake his head. The kids had stolen potions, lied to their parents, ran away from the church on their own, and had run the risk of getting themselves seriously injured, but apparently that all paled in the light of being discovered before they could present him and Harry with their wedding present in Scorpius’ mind. It was truly astonishing to Draco's mind that Scorp could think firstly that they wouldn’t have noticed that something was happening, and secondly that the most important thing was that they be able to find whatever was in the chamber. In fact, now that he knew for certain that all of the children were safe and relatively unharmed, Draco found that the worry and fear that had been clouding his mind for the past few minutes – had it only been minutes since they were in Tuscany? – was changing rapidly to a bubbling anger. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, he rose to his feet and crossed his arms across his chest.
“Scorpius, I–”
“Wait, are you angry with me? For what?”
The indignation in Scorpius’ voice only served to ignite the spark of anger in Draco's chest. “For what? How about for stealing from me? How about for lying to me? How about for involving Lily and Rose and Hugo and Carmel in this foolishness? Did you ever stop to think even once that what you were doing was wrong? That you could end up seriously injured – or worse – by following the directions of a dead man speaking to you from a portrait?” Draco knew that his voice was rising; knew that he was beginning to lose control over himself, but the anger building in him was overtaking any of his more sensible reactions. He stepped forward, his hands clenching by his sides. “This is not the way we raised you. You are much more sensible than this usually–”
“Oh, right,” Scorpius interrupted, sarcasm laced heavily through his voice. “Because I’m supposed to be the Malfoy family’s saviour, right? The one who isn’t supposed to have fucked anything up, right? Who is just supposed to float along doing nothing harmful and nothing exciting ever, right? Well you know what? I don’t want to be the family’s personal saviour. Maybe I want to have bad grades and smoke in Myrtle’s bathroom and get a tattoo and dye my hair purple! Maybe I want to be the one who people can look at and think that I’m not to be messed with, did you ever think of that? No, of course you didn’t, because all you ever think about is you.”
Fury lit through Draco's chest at being spoken to in such a way by his own son. Stepping forward without even thinking about what he was doing, he grabbed the top of Scorpius’ arm and dragged him forward.
“How dare you speak to me that way,” he snarled, his face close enough to Scorpius’ that he could easily see fear flash through his grey eyes. “I am your Father, young man and–”
“You’re nothing but a washed up Death Eater trying to push what you wanted out of your life onto me!”
With that, Scorpius twisted, breaking Draco's grip on him. He raced from the room in the next second, crashing through the house and obviously knocking things over as he ran. Still running on pure instinct, Draco turned to the door to follow him, but was prevented by a shield being placed over the door that was strong enough that he bounced back a few steps when he hit it.
“Let him go, Dray.”
“Don’t you fucking well tell me how to discipline my own son, Potter!”
Draco spun, pulling his wand out of its holster again. He was met by the sight of Harry standing guard in front of Astoria and Albus, his own wand in his hand. Images of a defence lesson Harry had given him what seemed like years ago, but had only been months flashed through Draco's mind. He recognised the stance Harry was holding: it was generally used when the person didn’t know whether they were going to be attacked or not. His blood pounding in his ears, Draco's eyes flicked over behind Harry to find Astoria watching him, her eyes wide with what appeared to be fear.
“Stand down, Draco. Drop your wand.”
There was such command to Harry’s voice that Draco almost followed through on the demand. Almost. Shaking his head, he tightened his grip on his wand and twisted, removing himself from the situation.
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The Optimal Balance