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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
- 32
- 33
- 34
A/N: Sorry for the lateness of this chapter!
Jan: Thanks!
Hestia: Believe me, the direction of the last chapter surprised me as well. But I think it kind of fits with the rest of the story. And I won't say that I won't continue the story after the end of this one, but I also can't guarantee it, either! :)

The crack of Draco's Apparition sent a strange combination of emotions through Harry. Relief that he hadn’t had to properly raise his wand to him was foremost in his mind, but it was closely followed by a mix of worry and confusion. He was fairly certain that he had never once seen Draco lose his temper that badly with anyone other than himself and for the person he lost it with to be Scorpius… He shook his head as he straightened up and holstered his wand. Turning, he was about to check on Albus when he caught a glimpse of disbelief and anger on Astoria’s face.
“Tori?”
“What the hell was that?”
Alarm bells went off in the back of Harry’s mind as Astoria stood from her kneeling position in front of the windows. She wasn’t as good at hiding her emotions as Draco was, not that Harry thought she was even trying. Her eyes flashed briefly as her top lip curled, but she turned to face Al instead of continuing with the thought that had obviously caused the reaction.
“Al, could you please go out to your Aunt and Uncle for me? I have to have a word with your Dad.”
Despite all the evidence before him pointing towards Astoria being mightily pissed off with him, Harry couldn’t help finding it fascinating that she was still able to speak to Al in a normal tone of voice. Al glanced between the two of them for a few seconds, the nerves he was obviously feeling showing through in his slightly jerky movements.
“I, um…” Finally settling on Harry, Al shot him a worried look. “Dad?”
Sitting on the floor of Regulus’ old room, covered head-to-toe in black residue, and his eyes wide, Al looked so young. Unwilling to resist the urge, Harry knelt before him and scrubbed a hand through Al’s hair, dislodging a whole bunch of white flakes left over from one of the protective charms.
“It’s alright, Al; off you go. Not too far, though, because you and brother are still in trouble for this.”
Waving his wand towards the door, Harry dismissed the shield charm he had cast so Al could leave the room. The door closed the second Al was out of sight and Harry could feel a strong privacy charm being placed around the entire room. Standing, he took a deep breath before facing Astoria.
“Are they really in trouble, Harry? Because you seem much angrier with Draco than you do with your own sons, who played just as much a part in this little fiasco as Scorpius has. Even more so, in fact, because it must have been them who let the other children through the wards placed on the floo to Grimmauld.”
Watching as Astoria’s hands clenched by her sides, Harry frowned. “I’m not angry with Draco–”
“Really?” Astoria scoffed. “You could have fooled me, standing there with your wand out and facing him down like he was a common criminal you were about to arrest.”
“We were watching the same thing, right?” Harry ran a hand through his hair as confusion at the direction the conversation had taken ran through him. “You did see him grab Scorpius and get right into his face, right? You did hear the tone of voice he was using? Who talks to a child that way?”
“The child’s Father speaks to him that way when the child is disrespectful!”
It was clear from the building frustration in her voice that she thought that he wasn’t understanding something important, but Harry couldn’t for the life of him work out what it was. Scrubbing a hand through his hair, he took a step away from her and opened his mouth to respond, but she beat him to it.
“Merlin, Harry, would you have gotten away with speaking to your guardian like that when you were twelve years old?”
Without even thinking about it, Harry’s hands dropped to his sides and he levelled Astoria with a glare. “Considering I spent most of my time as a child either locked in a cupboard with no food, or cleaning up after my Aunt, Uncle and Cousin Dudley, I didn’t really get a chance to test out what would happen if I was rude to one of them any worse than what a child usually is.” He could clearly see a slight horror dawning in Astoria’s eyes as she realised what she had said, but he didn’t let up. “I would say that speaking to my Uncle like that at that age would have earned me the rest of the summer in my room with only the minimum of food to keep me alive. And, in fact, that is exactly how I spent the summer between my first and second years at Hogwarts: locked in my room with very little to eat because a completely mad house-elf had cast a hovering charm in order to prevent me from going back. Ron and the twins came to rescue me in Arthur’s flying car when they hadn’t heard from me all summer. So, no, I would say that they wouldn’t have allowed me to ‘get away’ with speaking to any of them like that, to be honest.”
Astoria’s hand had come up to cover her mouth by the time Harry was finished. Her eyes – which had been narrowed in anger – were wide over the top of her hand as she began to shake her head slowly.
“Harry, I am so sorry! I didn’t think, it just slipped out!” Shifting her weight from leg to leg, she stared at him with sympathy in her eyes for a long moment, obviously waiting to see whether he would respond. When he didn’t, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, visibly steeling herself for what she was about to say. “I didn’t mean to insult you or drag up painful memories or anything like that, but… Look, there is obviously a vast difference between the way you parent your children and the way Draco and I parent Scorpius.”
“Parenting differences? You think this comes down to how differently we raised our children?” Running a hand through his hair again, Harry cast around, searching for some kind of sense in that statement. When he could come up with nothing, he sighed. “Tori, I saw the fear in your eyes when you were staring at Draco after Scorpius had left–”
“You think I was staring at Draco?” The sympathy that had been on her face left it rapidly, to be replaced with a kind of disbelief that had annoyance rippling over Harry’s skin again. “I have never had a reason to be afraid of Draco of all people! For God’s sake, he’d probably be horrified if he thought he’d scared me!”
“What, then? Because I don’t see anything else in the room that could have made you look like that when he started snarling at Scorp!”
In the few seconds before Astoria responded, Harry was able to make out a number of emotions crossing her face. Confusion and surprise made brief appearances before she finally settled back on disbelief again.
“You don’t see how watching as the ex-Head Auror stood up in front of me and basically threatened someone I love could scare me? If I was showing fear, Harry, it was for Draco, not of him. Draco has never given me reason to fear him before and I think it highly unlikely that he ever will.”
For what felt like hours, all Harry could do in response to that was stand and blink at her. His mind had gone completely blank the second she had stated that the fear Harry had clearly seen in her eyes wasn’t of Draco. Him; Astoria was telling him that she had been afraid of him. It was a sobering realisation when he really thought about it. He had reacted on instinct, moving to protect her and Al from what he had seen as a dangerous situation when Draco had been threatening… No, he corrected himself, not threatening. If Astoria’s words to him were to be taken at face value, then Draco hadn’t been threatening Scorpius at all. He had, in fact, just been reacting the way any apparently ‘normal’ person would react when faced with their son having done something so dangerous. If she was correct, then it was actually Harry who had overreacted in this situation, apparently due to his lack of proper upbringing. There was so much about this situation that, for Harry, simply beggared belief: Draco's reaction to Scorpius, Scorpius’ words – which Harry was now beginning to see had been incredibly disrespectful – to Draco, and now Astoria’s angry response to him following his instincts and moving to protect her and Al from what he had seen to be a threat. Had he overreacted by stopping Draco from following Scorpius when he had fled the room? He really didn’t think so, but–
“Harry?”
Shaking his head, he blinked Astoria back into focus. “Yes?”
“How would you have reacted if James or Al had spoken to you like that?”
Letting out a sigh, Harry shrugged. “Honestly? I have no idea. I’ve never been one for corporal punishment when it comes to my kids. We always talked to them when they had done something wrong; we never hit them, or anything like that.”
“Neither did we.”
“No, I wasn’t… I wasn’t implying that either of you had ever hit Scorpius, I was…” Pressing his lips together, Harry huffed a breath out of his nose. “Look, I haven’t ever seen Draco that angry with anyone other than me before, alright? He is usually so in control of himself – especially around people other than family – that him reacting that way to Scorpius came as a complete shock.”
There was a moment of silence between the two of them in which Harry simply tried to imagine either one of his boys speaking to him like that and what his reaction would likely have been. Anger, for sure, but would he have had the same kind of reaction Draco had had? No, he really didn’t think so. James had caused him no end of trouble in the past, especially over the past year, but Harry had never once lost his temper with him like this. Pressing his lips together again, he lowered his head so Astoria couldn’t see his eyes.
“I can’t say how I would have reacted, because it hasn’t ever happened. And, quite frankly, I hope it never does.”
A shuffled footstep was the only warning Harry got before Astoria’s hands landed on his shoulders. “The two of you truly are polar opposites in so many ways, aren’t you?” She waited until he looked up, shock rushing through him at her words, before continuing. “Look, I can’t say what is going to happen between the two of you, but what I can tell you is that Draco most likely isn’t going to be pleased with you for drawing your wand on him.”
Harry heard her huff out an amused sound as his eyes slid shut. He had known over the years that his tendency to react immediately without giving his situation much thought was a bad thing, but this was probably one of the very few times that he could remember that his instinctual reactions were going to cause him real problems. The look on Draco's face as he had turned towards Harry flashed through his mind, the anger clouding his eyes causing Harry’s stomach to clench with worry.
“I’ve actually fucked up this time, haven’t I?”
“I wouldn’t call you a fuckup. I’d be much more tempted to call it…” She paused, causing Harry to reopen his eyes. “Not thoughtless exactly, either, although I’d probably tell you to maybe start to think before reacting in the future. Especially when it comes to the way Draco disciplines Scorpius. The two of you obviously have very different ways of dealing with the children, so that’s probably something to work on.”
“Two fucking days before I’m supposed to marry him and I’m only just discovering this now.”
Harry shook his head and took a step backwards, breaking Astoria’s hold on him. Running a hand through his hair again, he glanced around the room. His eyes landed on the open hole in the floor the boys had managed to open.
“All this trouble and whatever’s in there isn’t even what we’re all focussed on.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be able to find out what they went to all this trouble for today.”
Harry shook his head. “No. I have other things I have to deal with before I can come back here to sort through this part of the mess.”
The smile Tori offered him as they dismissed the charm surrounding the room and exited together was at least partly sympathetic, which Harry found himself quite grateful for. Taking a deep breath as he entered the hallway that led down to the rest of the house, he prepared himself for facing off with his boys. At least he could be certain of how he was going to deal with them. Draco, on the other hand, was another question completely.
*~*
Thanks to the tracking charm Harry had placed on all three of their boys, Draco knew the second that Scorpius returned to the Manor through the floo. Having Apparated straight back to his workrooms in the basement, he had been exorcising his anger at the way the day had unfolded on some potions. He knew that the smoking remnants in the corner were a complete waste of money, but throwing potions against the wall was a much better way of burning off some of his energy than taking it out on Harry the next time he saw him.
Shaking his head as his nerves jumped at the thought of Harry, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He was not going to allow himself to think of what had transpired in Grimmauld. At least, he wasn’t going to think about it if he wanted to be able to actually burn off some of his anger rather than increase it. Staying down in the basement until he thought himself about as under control of his emotions as he was going to get considering the circumstances, Draco prepared himself to go up and face Scorpius. It had been a long time since the two of them had clashed this badly, but Draco figured that, considering how similar the two of them were, it was probably a small miracle that they had lasted as long as they had. Taking a deep breath, he made his way up through the house, heading for Scorpius’ rooms in Astoria’s wing of the Manor.
Draco was able to hear Scorpius long before his rooms even came into view. Music blasted through the partially open door, accompanied by various crashes and bangs. Draco's eyes closed briefly before he tapped at the door and pushed it open a little further.
“Scorp?”
“Get. Out.”
Considering the fact that Draco was able to hear the words above the music, he had to figure that they had been screamed. Bracing himself for what he was about to walk into, Draco pushed on the door again, this time revealing Scorpius standing in the middle of the outer room of his suite, wand in hand and a wild look in his eyes. It was obvious that he had managed to work out how to remove the black mess he had been covered in, which Draco was thankful for, at least. Draco glanced quickly around the room, trying to figure out exactly what the banging had been, but when he saw nothing, he met Scorpius’ eyes again.
“Turn the music down.”
Draco expected to be ignored. He wasn’t disappointed. Scorpius grinned at him before mouthing something at him that looked terribly like make me. With a soft sigh and a roll of his eyes, Draco removed his wand and flicked it at the stereo, turning the volume off completely.
“Satisfied?”
“No.”
With a look to Draco that clearly told him that he was being tested, Scorpius marched over and turned the volume up again, this time even louder. Standing in front of the stereo with his arms crossed across his chest, Scorpius smirked at him and cocked an eyebrow, the challenge clear. Annoyance rippled across Draco's shoulders before he flicked his wand again, this time cutting the power entirely so Scorpius couldn’t turn it back on again. He was almost ashamed of the small sense of satisfaction that washed through him when Scorpius realised what he had done and let out a small noise that sounded very much like a frustrated growl to Draco. Scorpius sighed.
“What do you want?”
“A little respect would be nice, for a start.” He didn’t miss the small huff of breath Scorpius gave in response. “Take a seat, Scorp.” Moving into the room, Draco seated himself on one of the comfortable lounge chairs that sat beneath the windows. When Scorpius didn’t move, he sighed. “Fine. Stay standing. We are going to have this discussion, however, so you may as well be comfortable.”
“‘Discussion’? I wasn’t aware that they had changed the definition of discussion to ‘you talking and me having to put up with everything and not getting a say’.”
“You want a say? Then you may want to consider acting a little less like we had raised you in a barn and a little more like the intelligent young man I know is in there somewhere.”
“You want to give me a say? Alright, how’s this then? I tried to do something good, something that would make you proud of me and all that happened was that you got mad. This is something that was supposed to be special, but I messed it all up and now you’re mad at me because of it!”
Sitting and watching as Scorpius waved his hands through the air, continuing with his ‘explanation’, Draco struggled to keep his mouth shut until he was done. All Scorp was doing was repeating the things he had said in Grimmauld, only this time, they held a much… Well, Draco considered, younger tone is what he would have called it. They lacked the vitriol that they had held earlier in the day and were now making Scorpius sound much more like the twelve-year-old he really was. A petulant twelve-year-old at that. Still, Draco let him talk himself out, thinking that this was probably the better road to take rather than interrupting him and risking another screaming match like the one they had had in Grimmauld.
“…but the potions must have been altered wrong, because they set the protection charms off. Well, all but the last one. It opened the door in the floor of the room, but that was when we realised that you were all here and James chickened out. He ran back out to the others before the door had even opened and then Harry and Mum ran in after he’d left...” Scorpius trailed off with a shake of his head. “Then…” He waved his hand in Draco's direction with a despairing look in his eyes.
“I came in and ruined everything,” Draco ventured. He couldn’t help the huff of amusement he let out when Scorp nodded. “Come here, Scorp. Sit down.”
Draco found himself quite grateful that he had allowed Scorpius time to offer his own explanation of events, even if he had only just been repeating what he had said before. The extra bit of time had apparently been long enough so that he could let go of just enough of his earlier anger with his son so that he could interact with him on a normal level rather than from the place of anger he had been in earlier. He waited until Scorpius had settled himself down in the lounge chair beside him before speaking again.
“You do realise that what you did in order to open that chamber today was wrong, right?” Scorpius sighed, but gave a small nod. “You stole from me, Scorp. Not only that, but you broke through my wards to do it.”
“I know that, but I thought–”
“Did you?”
That seemed to bring Scorpius up short. His mouth opened and closed a few times before answering.
“Yes!” He scoffed when Draco merely raised an eyebrow at him. “We wanted to do something good, Dad, I swear! It wasn’t like I was trying to break into your private files, or steal money from you! It was just three potions!”
“Potions that I sell, Scorp. For money.”
“I…” Throwing himself back against the back of the chair, Scorpius sighed. “Fine. You want me to pay you back the what? Fifteen Galleons you would have made from those potions? I will. Are you happy now?”
Draco couldn’t help sighing. “No, Scorp, I don’t want your money.”
“What then?” Scorpius was sounding more and more frustrated by the second; something that Draco wasn’t actually aiming for. “If you don’t want me to pay you back, then why focus on the stupid potions?”
“What I want, Scorp, is for you to acknowledge that what you did was wrong. Even if the end result was supposed to be something good, the way you went about achieving the end goal was wrong. You were raised better than to steal and to lie and to speak to me in the way you did earlier today.”
Watching Scorpius as closely as he was, Draco couldn’t have missed the way he almost deflated at his words. Slumping back into the chair, Scorp let out what sounded like a long-suffering sigh.
“Fine. I’m sorry I stole the potions. I’m sorry I lied to you. And I’m sorry that I yelled.” Draco couldn’t tell whether the morose look Scorpius shot him was supposed to garner him sympathy or not, but if it was, then it wasn’t working. “Was there anything else?”
Unwilling to allow Scorp off the hook so easily, Draco nodded. “I will have to ground you. No stereo, no contact with your friends and no leaving your suite until tomorrow morning.” He almost felt the belated shot of sympathy when Scorpius’ eyes lit up at the seemingly short amount of time he was to be punished for, but held a hand up to prevent him from getting too excited. “In the morning, you will come downstairs with me and your Mother and I will discuss what your actual punishment is to be. Am I understood?”
Draco was grateful when Scorp nodded almost immediately. Standing from the lounge chair, he straightened his clothing before crossing the room to the door. He couldn’t resist turning to take one last look at Scorpius still sitting in the lounge chair beneath the windows. Slumped down as he was, Scorpius looked so tiny, the sight sending a wash of real sympathy through Draco's chest. Gripping the door a little tighter than was strictly necessary, Draco sighed.
“I’ll send one of the house-elves up to take your order for dinner tonight, alright?”
“Sure.”
Draco shook his head as he quietly shut Scorpius’ door. He had never really liked to punish Scorp, but this time he had truly deserved probably even more than what Draco had dealt out. He just hoped that whatever he and Tori could come up with as punishment the next morning would get the message through to their son: what he had done was not acceptable behaviour by any reasonable standard.
Trailing his hand along the balustrade as he walked, Draco let out a soft sigh when he felt two more tugs on the tracking charm, letting him know that both James and Al had entered the house through the floo. His steps lengthened when he heard Harry’s voice echoing up through the Manor, hoping to make it back to their suite of rooms before Harry did. He knew he was in for another showdown and he would much rather that it happened in private.
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The Optimal Balance