Reading Time: 107 Minutes
Title: Holding My Breath Between Heartbeats
Series: The Infinite Loop Of Love And Good Intentions
Series Order: 2
Author: Indygodusk
Fandom: Harry Potter
Genre: Angst, Drama, Family, Future Fic / Post-Canon, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, Time Travel
Relationship(s): Gen, Harry Potter/Hermione Granger (pre-relationship)
Content Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Major Character Death, Violence-Graphic, Violence-Domestic. Bullying, Addiction, Suicide, Child Abuse-implied, Murder, Adultery, Weasley Bashing
Author Note: Please read the first story before this one. Although inevitably imperfect and flawed, these stories are full of my good intentions. There’s a cross-over with The Mummy movie (1999). Mind the trigger warnings, which are many. Please note that the Major Character Death warning includes every member of the Golden Trio, though none of those deaths are permanent (you’ll see). Some of those deaths are graphic. The stories 1-3 are GEN and focus on family and friendship, though they can definitely be read as a very strong pre-relationship for Harry and Hermione since they are written as codependent despite being married to other (horrible) people. Conceivably you can squint either way. You do you. The adultery warning is NOT for Harry or Hermione, as cheating is yucky. Full disclosure, I am planning on making HHr romantic in a future, fourth story which has not been written yet. All that said, I hope you enjoy the journey!
Word Count: 70,068
Summary: Putting his hand in his pocket, Harry fingered the necklace. Maybe he’d use his spare time to figure the thing out, maybe start a fourth apocalypse or something to amuse himself and anger the Ministry, though only a very small one. He did have his kids on the outside to think about, after all.
Artist: Drake
Chapter 1:
∞⌛∞
∞2020, October 31—Azkaban∞
~Harry Potter (40)~
“Well, hello there!” The masculine voice was loud and overly friendly, with a slight quaver associated with age. So far, any prisoner excited to meet Harry Potter had turned out to be more trouble than they were worth. This guy probably wouldn’t prove to be any different. Azkaban was not a good place to make new friends, especially not on Halloween and the anniversary of his parents’ deaths. Bad things always happened to Harry on Halloween.
Giving up on his nap, Harry opened his eyes and sat up on his bunk with a grunt of irritation. They’d moved him to a new cell up front this morning. It was only temporary since his usual cell in the permanent resident section was being repaired after the ceiling caved in during the last big storm.
Looking through the wall of bars at his neighbor, Harry missed his glasses. Moving closer, he squinted and saw a deeply tanned and wrinkled old wizard with short, curling gray hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a big grin. Wearing old-fashioned mustard yellow robes over a hunter green houndstooth waistcoat sporting multiple pockets, along with a floppy pair of well-worn brown leather boots half unlaced, he looked at least a hundred years old, which was still spry in wizarding years as evidenced by the way the old man gave a jovial wave and bounced on his toes when he saw Harry looking. “Hello!”
He looked way too happy for someone in Azkaban, even in the short sentence cells up front. It made Harry suspicious. He responded with another grunt.
Undeterred, the man nodded firmly as if Harry had made some astute observation. “Well met! Happy Halloween, if you celebrate it.”
“I don’t,” Harry said curtly.
“What a coincidence, neither do I! Did you grow up outside of Britain as well? But I digress. It seems we are to be neighbors, my fine fellow. Based on the length and condition of your hair and beard, I think I can safely assume you’re a long-term resident and thus an expert guide for new visitors like myself. By the by, you look familiar, have we met? Perhaps in Egypt somewhere, maybe Cairo? No? Maybe the British Museum of Antiquities? Yes?”
“No,” Harry said, only to be interrupted by a raised hand.
“No no, don’t tell me. I have an excellent memory for names and faces. Just give me a few minutes and it will come to me. Until then, I’ll just call you Harry since you’re so hairy. You don’t mind, do you, Harry?”
Lips twitching at the irony, Harry swallowed to wet his mouth, not used to talking much. “Sure.” He inclined his head. It had been a long time since he’d been entertained like this. Maybe the guy wasn’t trouble after all. He should probably brush up on his manners.
“Excellent.” The older man sat back with a genial smile and started rifling through his pockets. Not finding what he wanted, he turned away and slid his fingers into the insides of his socks and boots. Without pulling anything out, he suddenly stopped, dusted off his hands, and sat back with a relieved sigh. “Oh good, now where was I? Figuring out the name of a fine fellow like yourself, though Harry does seem to suit you so perfectly.” He put a finger along the side of his nose and winked. “Perhaps we should leave it at Harry. That way if I’m called to testify against you later it will confuse the jury, eh?”
Harry gave a dry chuckle.
Looking quite pleased with himself, the other prisoner cleared his throat and earnestly declared, “Let me assure you that I believe you innocent of any and all crimes of which you may have been accused—as am I, I assure you.”
“Oh certainly,” Harry said, voice quiet and rusty.
“Thank you. I knew I liked you. You have a very trustworthy face under all that hair.” He stuck his hand through the bars into Harry’s cell. “The name’s Jonathan Carnahan. Pleased to meet you.” They shook hands. “Please, call me Jonathan, not Jon.” Jonathan smiled widely even as he surreptitiously wiped his now-grimy hand on his thigh.
Embarrassed, Harry pretended not to notice. Harry couldn’t help how dirty he was. It wasn’t like he was given the tools to keep himself clean in here or allowed to cast any personal spells. Even muggle prisoners were treated better than this, though at least the Dementors weren’t allowed in British prisons anymore. It could always be worse.
“Jonathan,” Harry said in agreement.
Based on his years as an Auror, Harry pegged Jonathan as a likely conman and self-styled gentleman thief, which was a nice step up from his usual violent, depraved, and Dark magic user cell-mates. He was probably harmless. The man rather reminded Harry of Fred Weasley that time in fourth year when he’d stepped past the age line, when Harry had still been enamored with the Weasley family. Unlike the rest of the Weasleys, Fred had passed on before he could disillusion Harry, so his memory carried no bitterness, just old grief and remembered laughter.
If Jonathan wasn’t as nice as he seemed, that would be up to a judge and jury to figure out later. Not Harry.
Unless the man had done something to harm a child.
If he had and Harry found out, he’d take matters into his own hands and just lie to the guards about it later. It wasn’t like earning a second life sentence was that big of a deal when he had no hope of escaping serving his first. The sitting Minister of Magic had made it clear that any appeal of the former boy hero’s sentence was a non-starter, since a new trial would bring up too many questions people would rather not think about anymore. Nevertheless, even locked up and without a wand, Harry wasn’t as harmless as they all wanted to think.
“You have a familiar aura about you,” the other man said. Unaware of the direction of Harry’s thoughts, Jonathan smiled crookedly, rocking back on his heels and tucking his hands into his pockets. “Are you sure you aren’t Egyptian? Not even a little? Perhaps an ex-pat? You remind me of several of my maternal Egyptian cousins several times removed. Maybe we’re distant cousins. Wouldn’t that be a treat? Though our relation could be through the British line as well. Some of those Carnahans really got around.” In the middle of his speech, his hands came out of his pockets and started waving around animatedly.
Harry shrugged. “I don’t think I have any Egyptian in me unless it’s back on my dad’s side, but I wouldn’t really know. I’m an orphan.”
“Me too,” Jonathan said, slapping his thighs. “This is fate! We were meant to be friends and brothers, eh? And friends look out for each other, especially in prison. Keep each other from being shanked in the back and such, amiright?”
Not waiting for Harry’s response, he sighed and shook his head solemnly. “My parents passed when I was younger too. My mum was a beautiful Egyptian adventurer while my father was a bold British scholar. I got my good looks from both sides.” He ran a hand over his curly gray hair and preened, then tilted his head and peered at Harry again.
“Are you sure you never visited? Egypt, I mean, not Britain. Obviously you’ve been to Britain considering your accent and being locked up in a maximum security British prison and all.” He chuckled, wandering over to the bars and began methodically shaking each one, perhaps testing for weaknesses.
“No,” Harry said. He’d never even been outside of Britain.
Harry had always meant to travel, dreaming of going on one of those exciting and exhausting family vacations he’d heard about but never experienced, but he’d never found the time or opportunity. The Ministry actively discouraged him from going anywhere outside of their control. Ginny had traveled widely over several continents, but always preferred to go solo or with her personal friends, leaving him behind to tend the children and put out the fires caused by his many Weasley in-laws. Hermione had tried to plan a few big extended family vacations to Europe with all of the in-laws and cousins, but it had always fizzled out when Ron either decided it sounded too foreign and inconvenient or Molly decided it was a waste of her children’s money and shut it down.
After his lifelong sentence to Azkaban…well. He’d never get the chance to travel anywhere now.
“I swear I’ve seen your face before.” The older man held up his hand in front of Harry’s mouth to cover the beard and squinted. “Your face without the beard at least, though don’t get me wrong. I like the wild hair. You totally make it work for you, very Moses about to throw down with the Pharaoh and threaten him with the ten Biblical plagues when he unwisely resists.” He nodded.
“Thanks,” Harry said dryly.
“Not a man of many words I see. That’s fine. There’s wisdom in brevity, as they say. You know, with your coloring we could plop you down in any bazaar in Egypt and you wouldn’t stand out, except for those intense green eyes.” Jonathan laughed uncomfortably as he looked around his cell, suddenly avoiding Harry’s face. “They’re certainly unique, almost startling with their eerie green brightness and bottomless shadows.” He paused and tilted his head, glancing at Harry from the corner of his eye as his voice went low and distant and his expression turned haunted. “Green almost like that one pictogram on the wall in the lost city of Hamunaptra, the one I saw replicated in the Book of the Dead a long, long time ago. There was a strange hieroglyph with it too, a triangle enclosing a line and circle, one I’ve never seen before or since except….”
Face draining of blood, Jonathan dropped into a crouch and placed one hand on the grimy floor. Harry thought he was about to faint until the other man reached into his boot and peeled back a hidden compartment. Dipping his fingers inside with a soft, “Ah ha,” he pulled out a long chain which turned out to be an elaborate gold necklace with three chains and multiple pendants. The old necklace looked like it belonged in a museum on a mummy in a sarcophagus. It almost seemed familiar, like something Harry had seen before, but when he tried to focus the memory was blurry and hidden behind a wall of fog.
With a bitten off curse, Jonathan flipped over the necklace and held it up to his wrinkled face, squinting at it in the faint, flickering torchlight. His lips moved soundlessly as he deciphered the faded etched symbols. “Wait a second, haven’t I seen this unique broad collar before somewhere? Years and years ago…” he trailed off into soft mutterings. He examined each of the three pendants before returning to the middle one for a more thorough appraisal. Finally he dropped the necklace to dangle at his side and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh Set in a handbasket, of all the luck! It is the same symbol and the same cursed necklace from Hamunaptra, the one I lost at dice in a seedy bar in Cairo. How was I supposed to recognize it? Professor Slughorn doesn’t look like the type to gamble in seedy bars and that was decades ago.” He groaned long and loud, scrubbing his free hand over his face. “Evie’s going to kill me.”
Something about the necklace tugged at Harry’s gut, a strange feeling of ownership that made his fingers itch to snatch it from the stranger’s hands and make it his. He vaguely remembered feeling that way about it when Hermione wore it, but he’d chalked that up to jealousy over his closest female friend so obviously cherishing a gift from another boy and his inappropriate fascination with her chest and lips as soon as he’d hit puberty.
“Who’s Evie?” Harry asked, trying to shake off his useless thoughts. The past was gone and those relationships lost forever.
“Hmm?” Jonathan dropped his hand and blinked over at Harry, almost as if he’d forgotten his presence. “Oh, Evie’s m’ younger sister. Darling girl, one of the preeminent Egyptian scholars of our day, if not the greatest, I do boast. She’s worked as the director of the British Museum’s ancient Egyptian collection off and on for ninety years! She’s bold, adventurous, and smart as a whip, bu-u-ut,” he drew out the word as he walked to the far corner in the back of his cell and gently placed the necklace down on the floor. Standing up, he backed away slowly a few steps before turning and strolling back towards Harry as if nothing was wrong, though he was shaking out his fingers behind his back, “with a sharp tongue and a slap that bites just as deeply, especially when she’s in a temper.” He shivered and rubbed at his cheek. “Boy does she love to nag and lecture.”
Returning to his position leaning against the bars across from Harry, he rubbed his hands up and down the bars. “Where was I? Ah yes, Evie the terror.” Jonathan gave a fond smile that deepened the wrinkles in the corner of his eyes. “She’s dead useful though, her and her husband both, especially in stopping an accidental apocalypse…or three.” He looked back at the necklace with a nervous chuckle. “Though really, who’s keeping track of the number after that first big one with the OG mummy and plagues, I ask you? Much less the return of the OG mummy and that kerfuffle with Anubis and the Scorpion King before the OG was dispatched again, and then that third time—but Evie pretends she wasn’t there for that one.” He stopped and chuckled, shaking his head. “Anyway, that’s what my grandnephew calls it—the OG mummy,” he smiled proudly. “Isn’t youngster slang fun? But I’m getting off track. Where was I?”
“Keeping track of an apocalypse…or three?” Harry said, trying to decide how seriously to take this guy. He wanted to write him off, but something in his gut wouldn’t let him. He’d heard mention of the sister Evelyn before in his work at the Auror office, though most of the files about her were way before his time and in archives. Nevertheless, it made him wary.
“Right. I certainly don’t bother and I’m sure Evie doesn’t either, especially since she was having too much fun with it all no matter what she later claims.” He nodded. “In fact, the enchantments on the necklace might not be as cursed bad as all that if I’m lucky—and I’m usually pretty lucky. I’m probably mistranslating the death of humanity and end of time stuff too. No no, I’m sure it’s fine. Certainly not my fault this time.”
He gave an awkward laugh. “Though I’ll have to watch out for O’Connell. He’s crazy and vicious where threats to Evie and the kids are concerned and remains a crack shot. Age hasn’t slowed him at all. That he hasn’t been driven to kill me yet despite all he knows about me is one of my proudest personal accomplishments. That or a protective spell from my dear departed mum.” He kissed his fingers and flicked them towards the sky superstitiously.
Harry blinked, trying to process the babbling. He shifted so he could see the cursed necklace in the corner, but it didn’t look like it was doing anything. Not yet at least. “So…should I be worried about that necklace being cursed and causing a…a fourth apocalypse?”
Instead of waving away Harry’s concerns as silly, Jonathan snapped his fingers, pointed at Harry, and nodded agreeably, though whether at the number four or the causal statement wasn’t clear. Either way, it was worrisome.
“So there’s going to be a fourth apocalypse?” Harry said to confirm. Just the thought made him feel exhausted. Was it still his job to worry about such things? It shouldn’t be, but he couldn’t help his saving-people complex from rearing its head at the most inconvenient of moments.
“Oh! No no, don’t worry,” Jonathan waved his age-spotted hands. Just as Harry started to relax he paused. “Well, probably not. No apocalypse on purpose at least, not one caused by me. Unintentional accidents aren’t my fault, is all I’m saying. I’m out of the ‘ending the world’ and ‘saving the world’ business. That’s for young people like you.” He squinted at Harry. “Or, well, not quite like you—more like for healthy and idealistic young people who know how to fight, lack instincts for self-preservation, and aren’t stuck in prison. Having a good gob and smarts also helps in figuring out clues and such. You’re excluded on all fronts I’m afraid, though you’re a swell chap otherwise, I’m sure.”
“So I should be worried,” Harry summed up grimly, rusty gears in his mind starting to turn with contingency plans just in case this guy wasn’t a complete nutter. “What kind of trouble could that necklace cause? Specifically. I don’t care much for my part, but I’ve got kids on the outside who call me Dad and Uncle. Most of the world can rot, but they deserve better.”
Jonathan’s face softened with sympathy. “As a family man myself, I completely understand, but to be honest I don’t think you need to worry too much about the necklace being cursed.” Jonathan reached through the bars to pat Harry on the shoulder twice and then seemed to think better of it on seeing Harry’s unamused expression and the residue left on his fingertips, sliding back out of reach on his side of the bars and wiping his hand off on his trousers.
“Not much doesn’t mean no.”
“Now now, no need to work yourself into a strop. The way you’re looking at me reminds me of how Moses must have looked at the pursuing Egyptian soldiers on their chariots just before the walls holding back the Red Sea collapsed on them and crushed them to red jelly. I don’t like it. Gives me the shivers.” Jonathan rubbed his arms and shivered for emphasis.
“What does the curse do?” Harry demanded impatiently, wishing he had his wand to cast some diagnostic spells on the necklace or interrogation spells on Jonathan. “Does the curse need to be activated or is it passively malignant? You seemed to handle the necklace without any immediate effects.”
Looking at him blankly, Jonathan blinked and yawned. “How should I know? It’s not my necklace. I just found it. Twice. About a century apart. Strange coincidence, huh?” He gave a careless shrug that made Harry want to strangle him.
Harry had dealt with a lot of cursed necklaces over the years through his work, but nothing that looked or felt quite like the Egyptian one in the corner. Maybe they could call Bill Weasley in to look at it before getting the Ministry involved. Harry still had some respect for Bill Weasley. On the chance that it turned out to be nothing, he didn’t want to get the fast-talking Jonathan in extra trouble, especially since the current Ministry was still just as bad at admitting mistakes as the one from his youth. Though maybe Jonathan deserved to be in trouble.
Taking a slow breath to restrain his temper, Harry pinched his nose. “I need you to tell me what you do know about the necklace and the curse.” If there really was danger, he couldn’t risk losing his temper and somehow making the situation even worse, perhaps by accidentally activating the curse himself. He’d promised himself to never lose his temper again (not unless it was really worth it).
“Alright, I’m thinking. Give me a moment,” Jonathan paced back and forth in his cell. “I haven’t had the chance to really examine the thing, so take this with a grain of salt, but I’d theorize that the symbology of the necklace—though it’s closer to a series of magical amulets than a simple necklace—is focused on reconciling the heart with death and time. The pattern of three repeats as well, which is magically significant.”
“What’s so dangerous about that?”
“We-ell, maybe nothing, but death isn’t represented here by your usual Anubis, Osiris, or even Nephthys—no disrespect intended to Lady Nephthys.” He genuflected to the empty air. “This amulet calls upon the unspoken one—the Great God nobody talks about, the one that doesn’t show up in the record with the others until three thousand years ago and even then only rarely, or at least that’s what experts say. If he’s the one holding the symbol I saw in Hamunaptra, he’s much much older than reported or much more cryptic. Evie would be fascinated by that. Maybe I’m saved after all.” He cheered and bounced on his toes.
“What god? Who?” Harry was getting lost. It had been a long time since he’d studied the Egyptian pantheon, much less its cities and geography.
Jonathan looked left and right before leaning forward to whisper, “Death, The Great God. You know—Him. The really scary one.”
“I must’ve missed that day in class,” Harry said dryly. “Break it down for me.” When Jonathan just hemmed and hawed, Harry added a touch of menace to his glare and added, “Before I feel like collapsing the Red Sea on your head.”
“Oh, very well.” Jonathan sighed and plodded over to the corner to pick up the necklace, moving the brightest area of his cell to squint down at it. “To start, the inscription on the necklace is quite unusual. Instead of the normal platitudes about embracing a change of heart and accepting death, loss, and blah blah blah, the amulet speaks of the opposite.”
Harry scratched his chin. “Being heartless? Or unforgiving? Greedy?”
“No no, more like,” Jonathan swirled his hands in the air before snapping his fingers, “like taking time into your own hands to keep a love so it endures forever, a love without end even as other things end, a love outside of and yet repeating through both death and time. I think?”
He flipped the necklace over, lips moving silently as he read something. “This part basically says, ‘Love is timeless when death is only the beginning.’” He looked up at the ceiling. “‘Death is only the beginning,’ where have I heard that before?” Jonathan shrugged. “Eh, who knows? I’ve lived too long. Anyways,” he lifted the necklace again and pointed. “There’s also this strange symbol that appears like a smoky outline when you overlap three of the smaller pendants—a triangle around a circle bisected by a line.”
“Can I see?” Harry asked, trying to sound casual and not betray the pounding of his heart at the description. Jonathan moved closer and tipped the necklace towards Harry.
Seeing the symbol of the Deathly Hallows felt like being hit by lightning. Everything tingling from his toes to his hair follicles, Harry nodded slowly but otherwise didn’t let himself react. Why was the Deathly Hallows symbol hidden in an ancient cursed Egyptian necklace? He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to shout, cry, or cheer at the personal connection.
Despite never doing anything about it, Harry was still technically the Master of Death after uniting the Hallows during the war. Maybe this necklace was a message that it was time for him to change that and lean into those powers. Maybe it was a chance.
Brow furrowing, Jonathan bit his lip and looked over his shoulder. “I’m not an expert like Evie, but I think the symbols on this area speak of spirits in parallel yet invisible worlds, not like the capricious and possessing spirits in the cult of Zar popularized in the last few centuries,” he scoffed, “but more as it was understood millenia ago, spirit echoes of ourselves or perhaps we would say nowadays alternate realities? It implies that the wearer can use them or perhaps become them to change time and death to keep love from ever being lost. Or destroy them all in search of love…or out of love? Eh.”
Lifting the necklace higher, he rotated it. “Then there’s this small, almost smooth tablet at the very bottom.” He pointed. “It only has the one symbol and it isn’t Egyptian—I’d stake my reputation on that—yet everything else on the necklace is connected and feeding into it.”
“And so?” Harry prompted.
The corner of Jonathan’s mouth quirked. “So maybe it’s about starting a fourth apocalypse…or perhaps just a poetic way of talking about mummifying your spouse or best friend. Who knows? Not me.” Clapping his hands, he brushed them off on his thighs. “As I said, it’s not exactly clear and I’m not an expert.”
Before Harry could decide what to ask next, a crotchety female voice echoed from down the hall, “Jonathan, what cell are you in, you wretch!”
“Oh no!” Eyes darting around, Jonathan leapt forward and shoved the necklace through the bars into Harry’s hands. “Hide it! My sister will kill me if she—” cutting himself off, he dived into the back of his cell and threw himself on his bunk, adopting an indolent pose with his hand draped over his forehead.
Pooling the necklace in one hand, Harry craned his head to see out his bars and down the corridor to catch a glimpse of the infamous Evie. Seconds later a woman strode around the far corner. The corridor was only intermittently lit by flickering lanterns, so he had to wait for her to move into the next pocket of light to see who had his cellmate so scared. Harry was imagining an intimidating combination of Jonathan’s face merged with Minerva McGonagall.
Instead, he saw a blurry impossibility. Harry sucked in his breath hard, desperately missing his glasses. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut, refusing to blink as time seemed to slow.
He knew he had to be hallucinating the impossibility marching in his direction. The distant figure at the end of the corridor couldn’t be Hermione—it was impossible—and yet…torchlight gleamed off familiar curls, the raised chin, stubbornly squared shoulders, and perfectly proportioned curves that he’d spent a lifetime pretending not to notice or appreciate. When she placed her hands on her hips in preparation for a bossy rant, his vision went watery and blurred even worse as tears filled his eyes. They trickled down his cheeks, cutting lines through the grime as he fought to keep from blinking, afraid the vision would disappear if he did as she strode closer through pockets of shadow and flickering light from the wide-spaced lanterns.
Words burst from her lips the second she caught sight of Jonathan from down the hall. “I can’t believe you! Still thieving at your age!”
It felt like taking a dagger to the chest. The voice was wrong. Harry blinked and his tears cleared long enough for him to see that so was the shape of her face and body. The woman’s curls were gray, not brown, and her animated face was the wrong shape and lined with age and wrinkles. She was also taller with narrower hips.
Closing his eyes with a wet gasp, Harry tightened his hand around the contraband necklace, metal digging into his skin from the broken links where the necklace must’ve once been attached to something else. The longer he held it, the colder the metal felt, as if siphoning off the heat from his hand but not being warmed by it. He could feel blood coating his palm and seeping between his fingers, shockingly warm and tacky against his increasingly cold skin. The hurt felt strangely sweet. Familiar like an old friend.
Opening his eyes, Harry grounded himself on the pain and forced himself to stay in the moment instead of retreating to comforting but false illusions. He rubbed his thumb against one of the engravings. It was his favorite of the Hallows—the triangle representing the invisibility cloak. Something inside his chest started to tingle. When he glanced down the necklace had disappeared, though he could still feel it in his hand.
Jonathan tugged his clothing straight and looked up with a big smile to greet the woman who had come to a stop with her arms crossed and toe tapping in front of his cell. “Evie, old mum! My saintly sister!”
“Don’t even start,” she fumed.
Jonathan turned to greet the solid-looking elderly man Harry hadn’t noticed following Evie down the hall. When he moved, Harry saw that it was solid muscle, not fat. “And O’Connell! A pleasure to see you, as always. Kind of you to come by and visit. Hope this doesn’t bring back any bad memories of your own incarcerations, though you and my sister met in a place like this, didn’t you? So maybe a bit of happy nostalgia, eh? First kiss and all that romantic drivel,” he said earnestly, placing a hand on his chest.
“I should leave you here on this cursed island to rot,” his sister—not Hermione—said. “No sun or sand, just ice cold seawater for miles in every direction, sucking the warmth from your joints and making your hips lock up.” She glared.
“O-o-r we can pretend this prison is in hot and sunny Cairo!” Jonathan winked and opened his hand as if bestowing a great favor. “I can look away if you lovebirds want to recreate the moment you met and pretend your husband’s hairy and behind bars.”
If Harry pretended she was Hermione and she pretended her husband was Harry…the idea stabbed into him, making him bleed wistfulness, longing, and guilt for thinking of his friend that way. He was ridiculous. This stupid and confusing conversation had him so emotionally on edge that he had to bite his tongue to keep a mournful cry from escaping his throat. He wanted to look away. He didn’t know why.
(That was a lie. He knew exactly why he was feeling this way, he was just hiding from the truth and pretending he didn’t care and that he was fine, just like he always had until it was too late.)
All these feelings were going to be the death of him.
“Oh, I could slap you!” Evie said. Spinning on her heel, she stomped away six steps and scowled at the wall with folded arms.
The tough-looking husband—O’Connell?—cast a quick glance at Evie before smirking at Jonathan, leaning forward to quietly say, “I won’t ask if you had a good time.” Jonathan wagged his eyebrows and the two men shared a grin. “I just want to make sure you didn’t do anything that will drag Evie and me into trouble.” He lowered his voice. “Some stiff named Slughorn was crying to everyone about a stolen necklace?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jonathan said, sounding wounded as he casually turned away from Harry, gesturing frantically behind his back as he moved to the opposite side of his cell. “I only deal in legit antiquities these days. You know you can trust me.”
Even though it was invisible, Harry slowly and casually slid the necklace into his pocket, feeling compelled to keep it safe.
“Trust you to be a reckless fool with sticky fingers and pockets full of purloined junk,” Evie said over her shoulder with a scowl. “Can you believe this, Rick?”
“I don’t take junk!” Jonathan sounded stung. “Credit me with some discernment and taste, won’t you darling?”
“It’s because we know your taste that we’re asking.” O’Connell leaned against the bars and crossed his arms. “So you didn’t take Slughorn’s enchanted necklace? Trinity designs focusing on the Egyptian Scale of Justice with carved inscriptions waxing on about time and death? Looks like a gaudy piece of junk?”
“Junk?! Oh come now, Rick. It’s reportedly a priceless Egyptian artifact,” said Evie, turning to face them fully as she exclaimed breathily, “It’s history! I’m sure it’s perfectly lovely.”
“Isn’t it from the same era as our old friend Imhotep?” O’Connell asked leadingly, arching a steel gray eyebrow.
Putting a hand to his chest, Jonathan’s head drew back. “Bite your tongue.”
Evie leaned up against her husband’s side, tucking herself under the arm he immediately lifted to wrap around her in an obviously well-practiced gesture, her expression warm and animated. “Slughorn claimed he asked an expert, though I have mixed feelings about the boy mentioned, and was told that the necklace is inscribed with sutras on rewriting death and time and features the Egyptian Gods Thoth, Ma’at, and the very rarely depicted Death—The Great God.” She looked up at Rick. “The most recent verified reference to Death The Great God is in a 3000 year old papyrus that was written by an enemy of High Priest Imhotep, but the necklace is potentially even older than that if Slughorn’s expert is to be believed. Not that I do believe that schoolboy who got hired through nepotism, but if true that makes it very valuable. Slughorn claims it’s enchanted or perhaps cursed as well, but he couldn’t unlock its secrets, implying that some very bad people have tried to steal it over the years.” She turned back to Jonathan. “Are you sure you didn’t try and steal it?”
“Trust me, I didn’t try anything,” Jonathan said, looking hurt and earnest.
Harry barely kept himself from snorting. The old conman didn’t try to steal it because he did steal it. If it was Horace Slughorn, Harry’s old Potions teacher who told Tom Riddle about Horcruxes, he probably deserved the knock to his massive ego.
“Really? You sure?” O’Connell said skeptically.
“Oh here, I’ll turn out my pockets for you. See? Nothing there,” Jonathan pulled out the lining of his pant pockets and flapped them like wings. “Now be a good chap and bail me out, won’t you?”
Tilting his head, O’Connell looked to Evie for permission. “Oh, very well,” she said crossly, “I’ll pretend to believe you since we’re being watched right now,” she gestured to a guard lingering down the hall, making Jonathan jump in surprise though Harry had been keeping an eye on the man as soon as he’d appeared after the couple, “but they’re going to search you again before letting us take you out of here, so make sure there’s nothing to cast doubt on your tale of innocence, got it?”
Jonathan saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”
She looked up at her husband. “Rick?”
“On it,” he said, padding back down the hall to the guard and slipping him a folded over bill. “He’s my brother-in-law, all right. We’ll take him off your hands and make sure he does the proper apologies and makes a generous donation to your department, perhaps even a grateful bequest in his final will and testament, as he is getting on in years.”
“Very good, Sir,” the young guard said with a bob of his head as he pocketed the money and pulled out a keyring, unlocking Jonathan’s cell and pulling open the door with a squeal of metal that had everyone wincing. “If you’ll all follow me for processing.”
As they disappeared around the corner, Jonathan waved over his shoulder. “Bye, Hairy. Sorry I never caught your name! Maybe next time.”
“Jonathan!” Evie cried as she slapped at his arm, voice fading as they disappeared around the corner, “There better not be a next time!”
Putting his hand in his pocket, Harry fingered the necklace. Maybe he’d use his spare time to figure the thing out, maybe start a fourth apocalypse or something to amuse himself and anger the Ministry, though only a very small one. He did have his kids on the outside to think about, after all.
Thoughts of his children drained the amusement from his thoughts. It would kill him if anything worse happened to them. He couldn’t risk them for a selfish bit of fun. Maybe he should turn over the necklace to one of the guards or bury it behind a crumbling bit of brick and forget about it.
Harry wondered how the children were doing without their parents around. As much as he fretted over his own three, he worried about Rose and Hugo just as much, especially his nephew. Hugo had always been the most sensitive of the bunch, prone to crumbling in upon himself when he made mistakes or disappointed others. Harry prayed that Ginny and Molly had stepped up to support all the children the way they needed. He wished he could be there for them and with them. He missed them so much, yet they were as far out of his reach as the deceased Hermione.
(He tried not to think about the temptation of the Resurrection stone or if it would appear in his cell if he called to it.)
Curling up on his cot, Harry closed his eyes and pretended he was merely waiting for someone who loved him like Evie loved Jonathan. She was going to come soon and get him out of here to take him home. It was a good dream.
∞⌛∞
Chapter 2:
∞⌛∞
∞2020, December 25—Azkaban∞
~Harry Potter (40)~
“THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, HARRY POTTER! I WISH I COULD SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS, BUT YOU DON’T DESERVE IT! YOU RUINED MY FAMILY!”
The Howler glowed an angry red as it spat and screamed its recorded message, the enchanted letter zipping around Harry’s prison cell and diving at his head when he least expected it, its spittle leaving wet marks on the dirty floor. Winter left the air freezing cold, making the letter steam with magical heat and filling his cell with an eerie white fog.
Teeth grinding, Harry moved to the corner of the cell where the wall provided some protection from sparks and papercuts and waited for the Howler to burn itself out. If he turned his head and squinted, the flames and animated flapping paper from the Howler resembled a devil from hell with horns, tail, and a little pitchfork—a fitting description for his dear mother-in-law.
“I’M SO DISAPPOINTED IN YOU! WE TOOK YOU INTO OUR FAMILY AND YOU BETRAYED US! YOU FAILED POOR RON WHEN HE NEEDED YOU MOST! EVIL BOY! YOU TURNED OUT JUST AS BAD AS THE DARK LORD!”
Wincing as the high-pitched shriek made his headache even worse, Harry wiped at the line of blood trickling from his left ear. An over-powered Howler at point-blank range in an enclosed space counted as both physical and mental torture. Unfortunately, none of the prison guards cared enough to enforce the rules. They always just dropped the smoking scarlet envelope in front of Harry’s cell with a smirk or shrug and hurried out of range.
At that point, Harry had to choose whether to open the Howler right away or wait for the envelope to explode, spraying sparks and inflicting papercuts before it started screaming at him. On the plus side, the shouting was slightly less loud (though never quiet) after it exploded and sometimes if he got lucky, it would run out of power and cut off the last few sentences of a tirade. On the other hand, exploding meant risking burns, cuts, and damage to his inner ear with the initial bang, as had happened this time. Luckily the mild vertigo and faint ringing weren’t too bad. His innate magic should start repairing it soon, even if slowly.
The experience of growing up with his Aunt Petunia’s family, being hunted and tortured by Voldemort, and then becoming an overworked Ministry employee for over twenty years really put pain into perspective.
“I REGRET RON EVER MEETING YOU! MY SWEET BOY! AND POOR GINNY! YOU DESTROYED THEIR LIVES AND YOU DON’T EVEN CARE! YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE HAPPY OR LOVED! YOUR HEART IS STONE! YOUR PARENTS MUST BE SO ASHAMED, BECAUSE I KNOW I AM! YOU BETRAYED US! YOU’RE CRUEL AND DARK! I HOPE YOU’RE MISERABLE AND LONELY FOREV—!” The words finally cut off as the Howler sputtered, choked on ashes, and burst into flame with a puff of smoke, falling to the floor in a pile of ashes.
“Merry Christmas to you too.” Harry scraped the pile of ashes out of his cell with the side of his foot and then tapped his shoe against the bars to knock off the clinging ashes. “Stupid Howlers.” Scowling, Harry rubbed at the spot in front of his left ear, trying to alleviate the ache inside.
Excitement over, Harry blew out his breath, rolled his head on his neck to try and loosen the knotted muscles, and sat down on his bunk, trying to fall into a fugue state where time passed quickly. He spent too much time brooding, but it wasn’t like there was anything else to do in here but brood.
Harry shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up that Christmas would be better or different than any other day in prison.
Prison was too quiet. Except for the occasional Howler of course, not that Harry looked forward to those. To be honest, there wasn’t anything to look forward to anymore. His wedding anniversary, birthday, and several holidays had come and gone, all unremarked. He’d only been imprisoned for five months but it felt like five years. Harry had no hope left. Like Howlers, the only sounds that broke the monotony were bad ones—desolate weeping, crazy shrieking, unhinged laughter, cruel taunts, and the measured footsteps of the guard patrols. The guards were either apathetic to the suffering or adding to it. For those serving life sentences like Harry, all they had to look forward to was the disintegration of self until they were lucky enough to grow too mad to care or they died.
However, Harry Potter was too old, stubborn, and ornery to go mad or die easily. He refused to give people the satisfaction, especially when he was still angry about his incarceration and the actual criminals running the Ministry and court of public opinion. He couldn’t even buy his way to a softer sentence like dear old Lucius Malfoy repeatedly had because Harry’s ever-so-helpful wife had cleared out his accounts the moment his grip slipped, probably to go on one of her week-long spa retreats or to some international festival, making him too poor to even afford a personal lawyer, much less bribes. He’d have sent the goblins a letter locking Ginny out of the accounts if he’d have known it was going to turn out this way, with everyone pivoting away from the real villain to focus on Harry’s mistakes instead. His trial had been a witch hunt, with enemies and anyone with an axe to grind coming out of the woodwork like rats from a sinking ship to testify against his character and call for the harshest possible sentencing. The so-new-he-squeaked public defender they’d assigned him had been overwhelmed and worse than useless.
Not to say he didn’t deserve to suffer a little. In retrospect he’d been overly emotional, impulsive, and stupid—so stupid. Harry didn’t really regret what he’d done per se, but he did regret doing it in front of so many witnesses, particularly the kids. He also regretted not finishing the job considering they were punishing him for it anyway. The situation had just made him snap, turning him mad—a bit like a rabid dog. Since that day it felt like he was holding onto his sanity by his fingernails while spinning on a nauseating merry-go-round made up of denial, anger, grief, and regret.
Nevertheless, while the situation had been horrific, he was supposedly a mature adult. He should’ve held it together better for the kids. If he hadn’t lost his mind and temper, he would still be free and able to look out for and protect the kids—both his and Hermione’s. They needed his support now more than ever, but he was useless—powerless and stuck in here to rot while the real criminal got a reduced sentence due to the permanent spell damage. At the trial it felt like the majority of the crowd looked upon Ron with actual sympathy. It was disgusting and made his jaw hurt from the enraged grinding of his teeth.
Any family Harry had thought he’d built over the years had proved to be as insubstantial as smoke, sending him sprawling when he tried to lean on them for support. They’d all abandoned him at Molly’s strident insistence and the jeering of the crowd, flushing guiltily and avoiding eye contact during his farce of a trial when he’d searched for a friendly face. As if what he’d done had been worse than what he’d been reacting to.
As if—
Harry cut off that line of thought. It was pointless.
He wished he knew what the kids were thinking. He hadn’t been allowed to see or speak with them since the day he’d been arrested. Did they still believe in him? Or had he just made everything worse for them—Rose and Hugo in particular? Were they disgusted and scarred by what he’d done in front of them like their Grandmother kept insisting? Merlin, he hoped not. Those poor kids.
Molly’s curse probably would come true. Harry would be miserable and lonely forever. Prison was certainly designed to make you feel that way.
Once upon a time in those hopeful days right after the War, Hermione had lobbied the Ministry to reform the prison system, claiming it was broken and cruel. She’d still been young, energetic, and optimistic, partnering with the ICW to permanently ban the use of Dementors. However, all her other efforts had failed. No one else seemed to care about prisoners and cruel conditions, especially once the Death Eaters were locked up in those cruel prisons. Her good intentions had gone nowhere.
Harry really regretted that now that he was a prisoner himself.
From the first day they’d met on the train when Hermione pushed into his compartment looking for Neville’s lost toad, she was always trying to help others, even if she sometimes came off as obnoxious in the process. At least her heart was always in the right place. That kindness and empathy had saved him more than once.
Ron had never liked Hermione’s soft and stubborn heart, always rolling his eyes and complaining about her passionate crusading for prisoners, creatures, minorities, and orphans. Decades after her S.P.E.W. initiative at school, Ron still brought it up with strangers as an example of how his muggleborn wife had always been a bit mental, inviting the listener to laugh with him over it. Even Molly and Percy had taken to scolding her over family dinners, taking her to task over something or other untraditional or outrageous she’d supposedly said that had made its way into the papers or Ministry gossip mill and embarrassed the Weasley family name.
However, failure and a lack of support had never stopped Hermione from caring, especially when she thought she was right. The cost to herself didn’t matter. She’d rather go it alone than give up, even if her extensive planning had to be abandoned and she was left with only good intentions and grit. She’d go quiet and secretive, but not quit. Giving up wasn’t in her extensive vocabulary.
Too bad.
Harry really wished Hermione had learned how to give up and walk away. Maybe then things wouldn’t have turned out this way. Maybe she’d still be alive.
Now it was too late.
After years of Weasley disapproval, especially after her children were born, Hermione had seemingly bowed to the pressure of her in-laws and left her job at the Ministry. Her passionate lectures on injustice disappeared. She didn’t stop caring or helping, she just stopped talking about it, shifting to work quietly behind the scenes and not sharing her passion unless people asked.
Harry was ashamed to admit that he’d rarely asked.
In retrospect, that had happened a lot to Hermione—seeing a wrong and trying to fix it, only to be ignored or even mocked for caring because others found it too difficult or exhausting, until she was forced to hide her heart. Over the years, Hermione had become an expert at loving fiercely but secretly. It must have hurt.
Did she ever get used to being broken-hearted? Harry didn’t think so. He certainly hadn’t and he’d been hiding from his feelings for as long as he could remember.
They both liked to pretend the pain didn’t matter. They pretended everything was fine and they pretended to believe each other when they said they were okay. Harry shouldn’t have pretended to believe her. The lies built into a wall that felt insurmountable, until they were trapped and it was too late for anything but regrets.
Harry should’ve listened better and asked more questions. He should’ve helped more instead of waiting to be asked or told what to do. He’d been too passive. Life had broken his heart and hopes too, but that was no excuse. Hermione deserved better than what life had given her. Harry should’ve been the one to give her more when he’d had the chance. As her best friend, he should’ve paid better attention.
They’d both deserved better than this.
Their poor children deserved better too. He’d had such hopes and dreams for them. He loved them so much. Growing up, he’d never had a reliable adult to depend on, someone who cared enough to listen, protect him, and put him first, someone who loved him unconditionally. Harry had wanted to be that person for the children in his life. He’d tried so hard.
He’d failed them all.
Though Hermione had failed them all too. Instead of fighting, she’d left. Just disappeared in an instant. Maybe she had learned how to give up, just not in the way he’d hoped for.
Inertia and cowardice had blinded Harry. He’d become a passive observer in his own life, spending decades tying himself in unhappy knots to try and preserve the status quo, afraid or unwilling to dream of anything better. Unwilling to fight for more in case he lost what little he’d gained. He hadn’t let himself want more at home or work. He’d told himself he didn’t need more.
Those lies weren’t exposed until it was too late and everything came crashing down around his ears. He’d trusted in the wrong people and things. He’d played it safe and chosen badly. Understanding what he wanted and needed most—and finally seeing what and who he should really be fighting for—only came when it became impossible to achieve. The epiphany was devastating. Crippling.
It made Harry angry.
Although it was pointless with her gone, Harry could privately admit that he was mad at Hermione. She’d given up and abandoned not just her children, but him too. How could she just leave him like that? More than anyone he’d ever known, he’d believed in Hermione. She’d promised to always return for him and to be there by his side. He’d allowed himself to trust that. He’d counted on that—on her. That pillar of certainty had crumbled and taken his house of cards with it, leaving him a broken ruin. He was a bookmark without a book.
He tried not to think about it.
About her.
It hurt too much.
So of course he obsessed.
It was easier to focus on his anger at Ron, though the word anger didn’t really do his feelings justice. Ron had once been his trusted and beloved best friend and brother. Once. Now thinking of Ron filled Harry’s chest with an oceanic rage bigger and more destructive than a thousand once-in-a-lifetime storms, with crashing waves the size of castles that blotted out the sun and a deafening roar louder than a thousand bellowing dragons.
Actions had consequences. No matter what Ron’s mother claimed, none of this would’ve happened if it hadn’t been for Ron’s bad choices and actions. That stupid selfish arse had a lifelong habit of betraying people. He’d rarely apologized and always blamed the other person for what had happened, expecting his faults to be ignored or easy forgiveness with minimal consequences. Even worse, people had given him that grace, teaching him to expect it. Harry had been just as stupid, forgiving Ron too many times to count. Harry had been too desperate and needy for a friend and Ron had taken advantage of that weakness.
Sometime after almost getting killed for the umpteenth time, Harry had unconsciously enshrined his friendship with Ron and Hermione as something vital to his survival. He needed it. Like air or food. Sometimes their friendship felt like the only thing keeping him sane. Losing them would kill him, or so he’d felt down deep in his chest. Losing them hadn’t killed him, but his sanity was certainly in question right now, so maybe he’d been right.
Over the years he’d stubbornly refused to let those friendships go or even change from the purity of their inception. Arguments with his friends came and went, and sometimes they stopped talking for a few months, but the distance never lasted. Harry always gave in. He was too desperate for some stability in his life and all he had was their friendship. With every year that passed, he’d become less flexible and more terrified to lose it.
At age seventeen, while living in a tent hiding from Voldemort and his Death Eaters, Harry and Hermione had been abandoned by Ron after an argument and been forced to continue their desperate hunt for Horcruxes without him. It had been miserable. Once night Harry had broken down and, not wanting Hermione to see him crying, had tried to escape outside the tent to hide. Despite his efforts, Hermione noticed him trying to sneak out. Instead of letting him go, she’d caught him by the arm, led him to the couch, and sat him down with her arm around his back, drying his tears and coaxing him into talking.
Although he’d probably sounded crazy, she’d listened with earnest compassion. After unloading a dumpster worth of toxic feelings into her outstretched hands, he’d looked over into her warm brown eyes and felt his heart seize in panic. He’d babbled his thoughts out loud—that he needed her friendship to stay sane, needed it desperately. Being with Hermione was the only time he felt even remotely safe. Ron’s abandoning them felt like an open wound that was taking so long to heal that Harry feared it never would.
While Hermione got up to make him a soothing cup of tea, Harry had choked out to her back that he was terrified that Hermione might leave him too, taking her bookmark with her, and scared of what would happen to him if their relationship ever changed to less than best friends (or to more, his heart traitorously whispered, but he’d stuffed that thought back down just like he always did, not willing to risk it). He couldn’t survive a change. He’d be lost.
Facing away from him as she crouched down to put away a box of herbal tea in the bottom cabinet, Hermione had gone still for a tension-filled moment before taking a long, silent breath that he tracked through the rise and fall of her body. She’d quietly slid closed the drawer and taken another deep breath before rising and turning to face him. Eyes glistening, Hermione had squared her shoulders, met his eyes, and nodded firmly, promising to be his safe place forever, to always return for her bookmark, and that their friendship would never change.
Hermione had kept that promise for decades, so long that he’d taken it for granted and made it a pillar of his reality. Then his reality had crumbled, exposing the lies and threatening his sanity. He’d been so stupid. Sometimes, Harry really hated himself.
Not allowing things to change hadn’t kept him safe. Ignoring the problems and lies hadn’t made them disappear. He should’ve remembered that from his addiction recovery program. If he’d just been honest with himself and braver, things might’ve been better. He had too many regrets about Hermione that he didn’t even know where to start. As for Ron, maybe he should’ve been tougher on Ron and showed some spine, walking away when the friendship became toxic, or at least criticized more over the years when he noticed Ron being rude and stupid or making selfish mistakes, maybe then things wouldn’t have gone so wrong. Maybe then Harry wouldn’t be alone in this cell with nothing but regrets for company, blaming himself.
Most of his time in prison was spent either hating Ron, hating his mother-in-law, or hating himself. When his tortured mind needed a change of pace, it paced the well-worn path of anger. However, underlying it all was always the smothering feeling of regret. The what ifs, if onlys, and maybes would drive him crazy or kill him if he let them.
Harry refused to let them.
Anger was easier. Comfortable. His temper was his oldest and most reliable companion. Over the years he’d struggled to repress and control it, although at least he could claim he’d never aimed it at Ginny or the children. Working as an Auror had been a good outlet.
However, all that discipline took a toll. Some things you couldn’t prepare for. Some things were so awful you refused to even think of them.
When he needed control the most, he’d lost it, making a horrific situation even worse. Harry didn’t exactly regret what he’d done (in fact he regretted not doing more, though he’d been smart enough not to tell the judge that), but he did regret the consequences. Locked up in here, he had no way to help the people he loved or fix anything.
He’d failed Hermione and he’d failed the kids—both his and hers. Sometimes the most important things were never said, or not said until it was too late. If he could do it all over again and go back in time, he’d do so many things differently. He’d be better. He’d do better.
He’d change it all.
But magic could only do so much when it came to time travel, or at least the magic that he’d been taught. There had to be a way to change things, even if the cost was astronomically high. Harry would gladly pay it. He just had to figure out how to get her back. Until then, he had to keep his mind from cracking.
Now that Harry had been sentenced to life in prison, the world seemed to have quickly forgotten about him (by design he was sure). It was ironic. He’d always hated his fame and people seeking him out, but now that no one wanted to see him, he was desperately lonely. He wasn’t actively being tortured, at least not according to the ICW guidelines for humane treatment of prisoners, but he was isolated and rarely allowed out of his cell. It probably didn’t help his situation that the current warden of Azkaban was someone Harry had gotten fired from the Auror Corps for corruption. The only letters he’d received after his sentencing were the painful Howlers from Molly Weasley that no one seemed to care about blocking. Being so restricted and powerless seemed designed to drive him crazy, despite his stubborn efforts to the contrary. They didn’t even give him menial labor to do. He’d even welcome the occasional bout of torture if only to break up the monotony. His respect and understanding for his godfather Sirius had grown by leaps and bounds. If only Harry hadn’t folded to Ron’s laziness and let himself be convinced to stop trying to become an animagus. Becoming a giant black dog or even a beetle would be quite convenient right about now.
Although the maximum security prisoners were rarely allowed to interact with each other, it did happen occasionally. Unfortunately, everyone had a strong opinion about Harry Potter. They were either too hostile or too eager and needy. Dealing with them only made Harry feel worse.
According to the rules, prisoners were only allowed one outside visit a month and visitors had to register by the fifth to visit on the twenty-fifth. Unfortunately, that slot was always reserved by his mother-in-law Molly Weasley, although after the first few months of screaming and throwing slaps she only came by sporadically. However, that didn’t stop her from claiming the time slot every month so no one else could use it. When she couldn’t bother to come in person, she sent an extra Howler instead, like today.
Love and comfort were nowhere to be found in prison. Nor was forgiveness. Harry hadn’t understood before, not until he was on the inside instead of the outside. Prison was hell. He was locked up, visitors restricted, and kept ignorant of people and events outside his cell. He was powerless. It hadn’t even been six months. He didn’t know how he was going to survive decades like this. He should’ve escaped when he had the chance, but he hadn’t thought it would come to this.
Morosely he scratched at his neck. The dried blood trailing down from his ear was flaking off. It itched.
“That looks painful.”
Harry’s head shot up in shock, almost pulling a muscle in his neck from the whiplash. The voice sounded young and achingly familiar. It didn’t belong in a sad and dingy prison, especially not on Christmas Day.
∞⌛∞
Chapter 3:
∞⌛∞
∞2020, December 25—Azkaban∞
~Harry Potter (40)~
“Hugo!”
Closing his gaping mouth, Harry scrambled to his feet and rushed forward. “Hey buddy, what are you doing here? Not that I’m not happy to see you, but this isn’t a nice place,” Harry said in a gravelly voice, not used to speaking to anyone but himself. He looked around for an accompanying adult, but the boy was alone. As Hugo moved closer to one of the lanterns in the corridor, Harry had to fight off a frown at the boy’s appearance.
At thirteen—no, it was fourteen now since that day had been Hugo’s birthday, poor kid—Hugo Weasley was a mix of Hermione and Ron with hazel eyes framed by long lashes, heavy eyebrows, and wavy reddish-brown hair prone to curling when it got wet, though right now his nephew’s hair looked shaggy and lank and not red at all. Hugo had colored his hair a dark mint green, though several inches of his natural colored roots were already showing through. Harry wondered how he’d gotten away with that at school, as it looked too old for a holiday rebellion. He obviously hadn’t cut it in months or washed it as often as he should have. Dirt streaked his wrinkled robes, as if he’d gotten his hands dirty and wiped them off on his clothes, with a few smudges even making their way to his neck and cheeks. He looked thinner than Harry remembered too, with dark rings beneath swollen and red-tinged eyes—had he been crying?
Frowning despite his best efforts, Harry pressed against the bars to examine the teen more closely. Hugo had always been more sensitive than his older and bolder sister Rose. Of the two children, Hugo was the dreamer. Right now he looked like a boy caught in a nightmare who was starting to doubt that he’d ever wake up. Hugo looked miserable and dangerously fragile and seeing it made Harry feel even worse—which he didn’t think was possible.
“Hugo?” he prompted when the boy kept staring off into the space where Harry had been standing a moment ago instead of responding. “Hey, Hugo, buddy, are you alright?”
Startling, Hugo blinked several times before focusing on Harry. “Oh. Hi, Uncle Harry. Grandma dragged me here to see Dad for Christmas. She thought it might help since I’m not doing…well.” He looked down and crossed his arms, hugging himself. “Since Mom, you know, left.” He hunched his shoulders. “Along with you and Dad.”
Harry swallowed, the words landing like a punch. “I’m so sorry I’m not there,” he choked out, fighting the way his throat wanted to close up. Chest tight, he reached out through the bars to put his hand on Hugo’s shoulder and squeeze. Harry hadn’t wanted to leave anyone, but they hadn’t given him a choice.
“Yeah,” Hugo sighed, leaning into the touch and accepting the apology. “Or maybe this visit wasn’t for me so much as for Dad and Grandma. I didn’t really want to come visit, but secretly I sort of hoped that Dad would be happy to see me and maybe…,” he swallowed and looked up at Harry with a wry, bitter smile, “well anyway. You know what Dad’s like and how he and Grandma are together.”
The bitter words springing to his lips wouldn’t be helpful, so Harry bit his tongue and just nodded.
“So I thought I’d come and see you instead. Merry Christmas and all that jazz.”
“I’m glad,” Harry said quietly, giving him an encouraging smile. “I’m always happy to see you.”
Looking away, Hugo rubbed his nose and pulled away from Harry’s hand. “You’d be the only one to feel that way,” he said with a hollow laugh.
“Hugo—”
Holding up one hand, Hugo started pacing. “It’s fine. You know, when we first got here, Dad was having a good day. His brain was mostly working right, he could use all his limbs, and he wasn’t yelling nonsense or swearing at the guards, so Grandma got permission to take him for a walk in the courtyard, even though it’s snowing off and on and colder than a hag’s hands out there. I don’t know what I was hoping for,” his voice went small and brittle, “but he and Grandma pretty much just ignored me and talked to each other about the good old days before I was born. When I tried to ask something, I got scolded for being pushy,” grimacing, Hugo made finger quotes as he finished, “‘like my mum.’”
“What?” Harry only kept his voice even through a supreme act of will.
“Yeah.” Eyes hidden by the green fall of his hair, Hugo took a wet-sounding breath and rubbed a trembling hand over his chest. “Then Grandma said that I needed to correct my bad behavior before it was too late and Dad gave this bitter laugh and said it was already too late because I’d ignored his wishes about not visiting his work flat and my mother didn’t teach me any manners since I hadn’t even knocked that day, so what happened after was really more our fault than his and-and Grandma just sighed and agreed with him, so I guess it’s true.” Hugo’s voice cracked.
Harry felt his mouth drop open, so angry he could barely breathe, much less speak. The edges of his vision went red as his hands strangled the bars. Not noticing, Hugo swallowed and continued in a small voice. “After all, if I hadn’t been so pushy about my birthday, insisting on going to see Dad like that, things wouldn’t’ve gone so wrong. I apologized to them, of course, but I don’t think it did much good.” Voice so thick it was almost unintelligible, Hugo scrubbed a hand across his face, failing to hide the shine of tears on his cheeks as he turned away. “It’s all my fault.”
“Oh Hugo, no.” Sucking in a hard breath, Harry fought to keep his voice gentle, strangling down his rage at Molly and Ron for saying something so selfish, thoughtless, mean, and untrue. “They shouldn’t have said that. It’s cruel and not true.”
“But it is.” The boy shrugged one shoulder, voice wavering but growing stronger. “I am sorry, you know. You probably hate me too for getting you locked up in here, but it’s fine. The truth should hurt. It’s fine.”
“No.” Harry wished he could grab Hugo and pull him close, but the boy was too far away from Harry’s prison bars to reach. “Hugo, please listen to me. Listen! You have to believe me, nothing that happened was your fault. Nothing. I love you, kid. They shouldn’t have said that. It isn’t true. I’m sorry that your dad’s an idiot and your grandmother too, she coddles him to an insane and unhealthy degree, especially after she lost so much during the war, but that’s no excuse.” Harry desperately wanted to hug Hugo. He hoped there was somebody out there hugging this hurting child. “I don’t blame you and neither would your mom.”
Arms crossed and shoulders high, Hugo scoffed. “Yeah, right. Mum’s gone now so who knows what she’d say anymore. Anyway,” he said loudly, speaking over Harry as he tried to keep arguing, “Grandma and Dad ignored me again after that, so I decided to sneak off and come visit you. You’re welcome,” he finished belligerently, glaring at his uncle.
Harry clenched and unclenched his hands around the bars, tight enough to make his finger joints scream in protest. Closing his eyes, he took a tight breath and changed tact. “I am glad to see you, Hugo.” Harry looked up and met Hugo’s eyes. “I missed you. I think about all of you kids everyday, wondering and hoping you’re okay. How are you doing?” He swallowed and forced a cheery note. “Have you guys done anything fun for the holidays at the Burrow?”
Hugo’s defensive expression softened. “We all miss you too, Uncle Harry. James, Albus, and Lily are okay, and Rose too.” His lips twisted wryly. “We’ve always been more like siblings than cousins anyways, so we’re sticking together. As the oldest, James has taken charge and he won’t let anything bad happen to the rest of us, so you don’t need to worry.”
“Good,” Harry said, feeling proud.
Hugo bit his lip and said hesitantly. “We all understand why you reacted that way, even if Grandma and the rest don’t. We don’t blame you.”
Blinking hard as his vision blurred, Harry had to look away to keep tears from escaping. Hearing those words meant more to him than he’d expected.
“As for my holidays, it’s a little complicated,” Hugo said as Harry schooled his expression. “I guess you, like, haven’t heard much about what’s going on while in here?” Hugo waited for Harry’s nod and grimace of agreement before continuing. “Those first weeks we cousins bunked together at the Burrow at Grandma’s insistence, but then some stuff happened at the end of July, so-o-o,” he held out the word for a long, worrying moment before saying in a rush, “we moved to the Malfoy’s. We lived there until school started and returned again for winter break since our houses and parents are gone and the rest don’t want to live at the Burrow under Grandma’s thumb.”
Maybe prison had driven Harry crazy after all. “I’m sorry, I think my hearing’s damaged. Did you just say you’re living with Malfoy? Draco Malfoy? My kids too? Even James?” James had absorbed Harry’s and Ginny’s dislike of the Malfoys after hearing a few too many stories as a child, or at least Harry thought he had.
Hugo chuckled at Harry’s response. “More like living with Scorpius, Albus’s best friend, but yeah, pretty much. Scorpius became a total mother duck after what happened to us and he’s in love with Rose for some unfathomable reason,” Hugo wrinkled his nose, “so he snuck us into his house and tricked his dad into keeping all five of us. They’re rich and his house is huge so there’s more than enough room. It’s not a big deal.”
Harry opened and closed his mouth, trying to decide what to ask first. “He’s—Malfoy—he’s treating you well? And Ginny’s okay with it? With our kids living with him?”
Hugo winced, which was a bad sign. Temper flaring, Harry clenched his fists, nails biting into already abraded palms as he pressed his face against the bars and growled. “Did he hurt any of you? Because if so, I’ll—”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Hugo shook his head and waved his hands in the air. “Mister Malfoy’s been totally great to us. As long as Scorpius is happy, he’s happy. His kid’s got him, like, totally whipped.” Hugo rolled his eyes. “Besides, Mister Malfoy really enjoys insulting people and having us there gives him plenty of opportunities.”
Hugo’s eyes went wide at the look on Harry’s face. “Not us, we know not to take him seriously and he, like, tries to be nice to us in his own special sarcastic and biting way, but he’s still super mean to other people. I think school shopping in August was like an early Christmas present for him. He personally took us out more than once, saying it was because we needed the best supplies and had to go to different specialty shops to get them, but really I think it was just to maximize the number of people he got to argue with on the street. Like, after he got to yell at some offensive old coot one day at the robe shop? He ordered ice cream and fried chips for dinner and started giving us all an allowance, that’s how happy he was. Mister Malfoy even went toe-to-toe with Grandma once and—get this—Grandpa overruled her for us and sided with him!” He shook his head in awe and admiration, his dyed green locks swaying around his freckled cheeks, finally looking like a mischievous teen and not a drained husk of a boy tormented by Dementors. “It was epic!”
“I bet,” Harry said faintly.
All of this was shocking. Not just Draco Malfoy, but Arthur Weasley too. Molly had always worn the pants in that family. Harry could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen his father-in-law overrule his wife and he’d still have several fingers left over. The fact that Arthur had done it for his grandkids and a Malfoy was even more astonishing. Arthur had hated Draco’s father Lucius with a passion he usually reserved for discussions about the muggle devices in his shed.
Most of the time Arthur was happy to live in his own little blissful world, refusing to see any of the problems in his family. He always quietly went along with whatever his wife said to keep his life peaceful and stress-free. If pushed too far by outsiders, he’d stand up for his wife and kids, but he never stood up to his wife for his kids. The furthest he’d go was a vague statement to Molly about things perhaps not being that serious and distracting her for a moment so the kids could run away out the back door.
Harry had sometimes wondered if Ginny might’ve turned out better and happier if she’d had someone to stand up for her against her neurotic and over-controlling mother’s demands and manipulations, not to mention her six pushy older brothers. Being manipulated and possessed by Tom’s diary her first year had just made her insecurities and problems worse. Ginny hadn’t been a pushover, but she hadn’t been emotionally stable either, no matter how much they all pretended otherwise. Harry had always wanted to save Ginny from her personal demons, but he’d only been able to do so much. She’d only let him do so much.
Breaking Harry from his musings, Hugo said, “Scorpius says his dad had been really sad and moping over missing his mom and the doctors not finding a cure for her blood curse until after she’d already died, and then losing his favorite opponents to argue with.” He tipped his head at Harry. “His mood supposedly got really bad until we moved in and livened things up, so don’t worry. He puts up a good front, but secretly Mr. Malfoy likes us loads,” Hugo boasted.
Harry’s head hurt.
“Mister Malfoy’s been sheltering us from the public fallout of what happened, putting gag orders out on the press, going with us to the bank to protect our assets, and even sheltering us from the family craziness as the adults all take sides or run for the hills.” Hugo looked away, put a hand over his mouth, and coughed a few muffled words. It sounded like he’d said, “Aunt Ginny.” Harry hoped he’d heard wrong.
Harry didn’t have the luxury of hope anymore. Stomach tight, Harry took a breath. “What about Ginny? Why isn’t she with my kids? At our house? Where is she in all of this?”
Scratching the back of his head, Hugo looked away down the hallway. “Anyway, I felt bad for abandoning Grandma during the holidays, so I snuck back to visit her this morning. That’s when she insisted on dragging me along to visit Dad.” He’d avoided the question completely, making Harry’s heart sink even more.
Abruptly pointing at Harry’s face, Hugo asked, “So what happened to your ear? It’s, like, bleeding and stuff. Did you get attacked by the guards or something?”
“Oh, just a Howler at point-blank range. I’m used to it, don’t worry.” Trying to ignore the increasingly heavy feeling of doom pressing down on him, Harry waved Hugo’s concern off and tried to return to the topic he desperately needed answers to. “So, Ginny? My wife? Your Aunt? Where is she?” He tried to stare Hugo down. “And why are my kids living with the Malfoys instead of with their mom? Stop avoiding the question and tell me, Hugo.”
“It’s complicated. Remember I said that stuff happened last summer to drive us to the Malfoys? There was a big family meeting that got ugly. It was on your birthday, actually. Are you sure you want me to say? Some of it wasn’t very nice. It might ruin your Christmas Day.” Staring at the tips of his shoes, green hair hiding his expression, Hugo shuffled his feet, leaving drag marks on the dirty floor. The fragile waif had surfaced again. “I don’t like talking about it.”
Harry released a slow breath through his teeth, trying to wrestle down his impatience and temper. He’d deserve a medal in self-control after this. “I need to know about Ginny, but you don’t have to tell me all the details if it makes you uncomfortable.” Harry tried to keep his voice gentle instead of desperate. He really needed to know what was going on since Molly wasn’t telling him anything, but at the same time Hugo looked rough and so emotionally fragile that Harry was afraid of pushing too hard. “You can just give me the highlights,” he suggested hopefully.
“Alright, I guess you have a right to know,” Hugo said softly, uncomfortably rubbing his hands up and down his thighs. “So everything came to a head on July 31st when the extended family came over for dinner at the Burrow and started bad-mouthing our parents, not realizing that us kids were listening in. Aunt Ginny lost it when Uncle Percy said that you finally snapping was at least half her fault for being a such a shi—” flushing as he cut himself off mid-word, he darted a look at Harry and corrected himself “—bad wife and mum. Uncle George agreed and piled on some more insults. More than half the room agreed with them, so she threw a bunch of Bat Bogey hexes, screamed that she was done with this family and never coming back, and stormed out. Lily ran after her, trying to catch up to her mum, but Aunt Ginny either didn’t notice or didn’t care, apparating away with a bang loud enough to startle the garden gnomes out of the ground and abandoning her kids without a backward glance, just like always.” He huffed and rolled his eyes, not noticing Harry’s angry and frustrated reaction.
“After reversing the hexes, talk turned to Dad and several people let slip,” Hugo paused for a moment to release a hard breath, “that some of them have known for years that Dad was up to shady stuff and started pointing fingers about who should’ve said what when and to whom. Uncle Bill swore at a bunch of people and said this is why he didn’t live closer. Grandma confiscated wands so people couldn’t start hexing each other and had to rely on words to be mean. They tried to pin the blame on Uncle George since he worked with Dad and saw him most, but Uncle George said that if Mum was half the witch she claimed to be, she should’ve been smart enough to figure it out herself and left him ages ago. He said he didn’t really care and it wasn’t his problem as long as it didn’t negatively impact the shop, but now that it was affecting the shop and sales had plummeted he was mad at both of them and Uncle Harry too—you, I mean.” Hugo blushed.
Harry felt furious and betrayed all over again by the Weasley family. He fisted his hands behind his back, working hard to keep his expression even so Hugo didn’t stop talking or think he was mad at him. He was both grateful and concerned that Hugo could repeat so much of the ugly conversation.
“And then?” Harry prompted. There had to be more. He needed to know.
Sure enough, Hugo continued. “Then Uncle Charlie said that he was glad he’d never been stupid enough to get married. Uncle Bill said it was because no one wanted to marry him, and then Uncle Charlie said he just had bad luck and so did my dad, and that it was obvious that-that,” Hugo’s voice stumbled and turned hesitant, inflecting up in tone, “Mum didn’t love Dad and only agreed to marry him because it was the only way she could stay close to the man she actually wanted but couldn’t have?” Hugo looked confused, which was a small mercy. Harry’s fingers itched for his wand as curses built up behind his clenched teeth.
Brow furrowed, Hugo continued, “Uncle Bill told him to shut up and said that Mum was a good woman who’d always done her best to be a loyal wife and good mother, but Dad wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than feeling like a King in his own home and Mum was too much woman to give him that when he treated her like shi—crap,” he edited himself again. “Then Uncle Percy—or maybe it was Uncle Charlie again—said that if Mum didn’t like it, she should’ve gotten out before she got trapped by having kids with him and Uncle George said that Grandma never would’ve allowed that because Dad obviously needed someone to clean up his messes besides her and they’d probably potioned Mum early and often so she couldn’t escape.”
Chin trembling, Hugo wrung his hands and stared at the floor. “Is that true, Uncle Harry? Was their marriage a lie? Did Mum resent us? Did we trap her?”
“No,” Harry bit out. He wanted to strangle most of the Weasleys at this point, not that it would make any difference. A Weasley never admitted or apologized when they were wrong, they just moved on blithely, without a care in the world for the scars and wreckage left in their wake. It was a truth he hadn’t seen until he’d already married in and it was far too late.
It had taken Hermione even longer to accept the limitations of becoming a Weasley. He’d watched her heart slowly break as she bent over backwards for years to be good to Ron and his family, and that they didn’t appreciate that or her after so many years made his chest hurt, particularly because it echoed the lack of respect and understanding he’d found directed at himself. Adulthood had been a rude awakening in more ways than one as his illusions and choices were stripped away, leaving him with nothing worth fighting and living for except for his children and his friendship with Hermione.
Everyone had been damaged by the war. Nothing had been as good as promised. However, no matter how things had turned out with his marriage, he’d never regret his children. He knew Hermione felt the same way.
“First, none of that shit about your mom is true,” Harry said firmly, meeting Hugo’s eyes, “okay?” Hugo’s bruised-looking eyes were glassy as he looked up and nodded hesitantly to show he was listening, even if his face said he wasn’t sure he agreed. “Second, your mother could never resent you. She loved you so so much. Her heart’s bigger than anyone I’ve ever known and she said, more than once, that having you two was the greatest blessing and reward she’d ever been given, which means a lot considering how many rewards Hermione won over the years for being such an outstanding witch, am I right?” He gave Hugo a wink and received a weak smile in return, which was better than nothing.
“You are loved and wanted, Hugo, by your family and by me. You’ve always been loved. I promise.”
Eyes shifting sideways and lips twisting with down, Hugo silently looked away. Harry was concerned about Hugo’s headspace. His nephew was struggling badly and no one seemed to be noticing or caring. Harry could only do so much in one conversation. The Weasleys were a huge family, where were his Grandparents, Aunts, and Uncles? Why was he living with Draco Malfoy of all people? Where were the adults who were supposed to be taking care of him?
It felt uncomfortably similar to Harry’s childhood, something he’d never wanted for the children under his care. Unfortunately, he was limited here in prison. It was hard when all Harry wanted to do was rage at stupid people and the cruelty of fate, wanted to hurt some people, wanted to be hurt, maybe get in a fistfight so he could feel the bruising punches and kicks he deserved for losing his temper and ruining his kids’ lives by not being there to help them, but his nephew needed him now and he wasn’t going to repeat the mistakes of Sirius Black any more than he already had. If he ever broke out of here, he needed to be sane enough to be helpful.
At the very least, he could listen to Hugo speak and offer some kind words. “Look Hugo, I won’t lie to you. When your parents got married, their relationship already had some problems, but they started from a place of love and hope. Your mother was sincere and tried her best. She loved and wanted you kids. Unfortunately, people change and not always for the better. Ron—your father—made mistakes. Big ones.” Harry pressed his lips together and forced himself to move on. Expounding on that topic wasn’t helpful, especially since Hugo still wanted his father’s attention and approval despite everything that had happened. Harry had lost his faith in Ron long ago, and what had happened this summer had completely extinguished the last flickering embers, turning into hatred.
“None of that was your problem. Pretending things were fine was your mother’s way of keeping the peace. I’ve done that too. We do it out of love.” And exhaustion, especially when the person you’re with refuses to change and runs away or acts even worse to punish you and the kids when you try to talk or do anything to fix your relationship, but Hugo didn’t need to hear that. He was too young for that discussion and it wouldn’t help right now anyway. Was anything Harry saying even helping?
“Do you understand?” Harry asked when Hugo didn’t respond.
“I guess,” Hugo finally said quietly, shrugging one shoulder without looking at Harry, obviously disagreeing but being polite about it.
Harry felt helpless and inept. He wanted to save Hugo so badly, but he wasn’t sure how.
∞⌛∞
Chapter 4:
∞⌛∞
∞2020, December 25—Azkaban∞
~Harry Potter (40)~
Avoiding Harry’s eyes, Hugo leaned a shoulder against the wall and kicked a random beat with his heel. “I should finish the story about the family meeting last summer. You need to know the rest.” Hugo looked sad and guilty. “Uncle Charlie and Uncle Bill argued some more until Uncle Charlie tried to drag you into it by saying half of Dad’s problem was how Mum wouldn’t listen to him at all while simultaneously being willing to do anything and everything you asked of her, and that he’d always suspected you were more than just friends and in-laws.” Looking anxious, he darted a look at Harry when he growled.
“We weren’t,” Harry said through gritted teeth, seeing red as his hands wrung the bars again, imagining certain people’s necks. He’d done that so many times during this conversation that the skin was starting to peel off his fingers. “Your mother will always be my dearest friend, but we’ve never been anything more than that. I never even kissed her.” And if that truth and the what-ifs now burned like acid in his veins, Harry would take it to the grave. “She kept her wedding vows and so did I,” he said curtly. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
Shoulders going down, Hugo released a sigh and rubbed at his chest. “I didn’t think so, but no one was there to defend you guys except us.” He looked at Harry hesitantly through his lashes. “I would’ve bet good money that James would lose his temper first, but of all people sweet little Lily snapped first, storming into the room from where we’d all been listening through the open door and screaming at everyone to shut up and stop lying about her dad and Aunt Hermione. She picked up a mug of firewhisky from the table and threw it at the Weasley family clock, breaking off several pieces and lighting it on fire until someone threw a tureen of soup at the clock to douse the flames. Grandma lost her temper at that point, hexing Lily, and yelling that she was grounded until she apologized for screaming and throwing things and that she was going to turn into an irredeemable Dark wizard just like her father if she wasn’t careful.”
“Oh, Lily.” Harry’s head dropped as his hands went white-knuckled and popped where they clenched on the prison bars. His poor baby.
“Then the rest of us kids ran in,” Hugo continued. “James cancelled the hex on Lily and blocked Grandma from casting more while Albus shoved his way to the front and shouted that,” his voice wavered, “my dad was the irredeemable one who liked to throw things and that if anyone’s actually Dark, it’s him, not you. Rose joined in and said that everyone in the family who knew what Dad was doing and not only didn’t try and stop him, but was willing to let him get away with anything up to and including murder as long as it didn’t inconvenience them was Dark as a Dementor too, and should be ashamed of themselves. Everyone started screaming after that. In the chaos, Albus grabbed Rose and Lily and dragged them outside, jumping on brooms from the shed and disappearing into the night, leaving me and James alone at the Burrow to deal with the fallout when they couldn’t be found.” He scowled into the distance and kicked at the wall again.
“Were they okay? Where did they go?” Harry asked, heart in his throat.
“Two days later they came back to the Burrow with Scorpius Malfoy and his dad, saying they’d been staying at the Malfoy’s house. Luckily only Grandpa Weasley and us boys were at home then, so the scolding was pretty mild all things considered. Grandpa and Mr. Malfoy went into Grandpa’s shed for a private talk and when they came out we were all packing up and going to stay with the Malfoys for the rest of the summer until school started, though we were expected to come back every Sunday for family dinner.”
Hugo shrugged. “It’s been strange, but nice. Like I said earlier, Mr. Malfoy pretends to dislike it, but he’s been really good to us, buying fancy ribbons for the girls and even assigning our wing two house elves to share, not even getting mad when Rose insisted he provide proof of their legal employment before she’d let us accept them. He even came to personally rescue us from Grandma Weasley when she tried to stop us from leaving the Burrow one night and tried to confiscate our wands. They got into a huge row and he won.” He shook his head in admiration and sighed.
Expression slipping, he rubbed the back of his neck and added quietly, “Last week he even took Rose and me to visit mum’s favorite bookshop to buy a book and eat one of her favorite biscuits.” He looked down and scuffed his toe. “I don’t think he liked Mum all that much—too much bad history—but boy you can tell by the way he talks about her that he respected her a lot, and you too. It’s nice.”
Harry had to swallow to wet his throat and clear away what felt like glass shards slicing up his insides. It took him several moments to figure out what to say that wouldn’t just make things worse. Finally, he settled on something positive but neutral. “I’m glad he’s good to you.”
Licking his lips, Harry rubbed his fingertips up and down the grimy metal bars, feeling out the familiar rust spots and gouges as he gathered his courage and patience to circle back again. “Hugo, please answer me. Where is my wife now? Why isn’t your Aunt Ginny there helping out?” Harry had his suspicions but was praying that he was wrong. Please let Ginny be mature and responsible for once. Let her be the brave and bold girl he’d fallen in love with as a youth and not the flighty, broken, and self-centered woman he’d learned to put up with while married. Please.
Hugo wrapped his arms around his waist and bit his lip. “I guess no one told you.”
He wanted to shake the boy hard, but made sure not to give into the urge for fear of scaring him away. “Told me what,” Harry coaxed, leaning forward and willing Hugo to finally explain. “Please, Hugo, I don’t know anything. Talk to me.”
Blowing out a sigh, Hugo nodded and spoke fast, like he was ripping off a bandaid. “Okay, it’s like this—Aunt Ginny took off after the party and never came back. I’m sorry. It’s probably my fault too, just like what happened to you and my parents. The stress was too much for her. Some judge who doesn’t like you awarded her a no-contest divorce that didn’t require your consent since you’re a convicted felon or something and she took your money and ran away overseas to be free and stuff.”
“Oh,” Harry said on a puff of air. He’d feared Ginny running off on him for years, but it felt surreal having it confirmed. Harry’s fingers tingled and started going numb from how tightly he was gripping the bars. He wasn’t breathing, but it felt like a minor problem in comparison. The vertigo he’d been ignoring came back with a vengeance, making the room spin sickeningly. He felt hurt, angry, disappointed, betrayed, bitter… but not surprised. For the kids’ sake and because he always kept his promises, he’d stayed loyal to Ginny despite wanting to give up on her so many times, but she’d always had one foot out the door, always taking off when the kids needed her most, when he needed her most. This was more of the same.
Trauma didn’t excuse bad behavior, it just explained it.
Harry forced himself to suck in one breath. He held it for a moment and then blew it out. Breathed in again. Tried to count his five things to stay sane and present.
He wanted to rage, but he wasn’t going to lose his temper right now, not in front of Hugo, not like he’d done before. Hugo probably still had nightmares about it. Ginny wasn’t worth it and he’d promised himself never again. Not after the last time landed him a life sentence. It wasn’t Hugo’s fault that he was the bearer of bad news. Harry was the one in control of his actions, though unfortunately not his negative emotions. Nevertheless, he was going to stay in control. Focusing on his breathing, he tried to keep calm.
There came a point in every adult’s life when they had to stop blaming all of their problems on others and start taking responsibility for themselves. You had to grow up and put in the emotional work to stop being toxic to yourself and others. Past trauma gave context, but it wasn’t an excuse for irresponsible and harmful behavior. Hurting other people because you’d been hurt by others wasn’t okay.
He’d been on a bad path right after their oldest child James was born, acting in ways that made him flush with shame to think back on. Ginny hadn’t hidden from anyone that she wasn’t happy in their marriage and felt cheated that Harry wasn’t the prince charming she’d been promised since childhood, making it clear that she’d never really seen the real him at all. Molly had said that having a baby would fix their problems and Ginny gave into the pressure to try, but she’d hated being pregnant.
Once James was born, Ginny became even more depressed and detached from Harry and their growing family. She was vocal in her dislike of the new baby and said she felt trapped and smothered at home, disappearing for hours or even days with little to no warning, leaving Harry confused, scared, and scrambling to cope with a demanding job with an irregular schedule and childcare for a newborn. He’d been overwhelmed by the responsibility of fatherhood and traumatized by intrusive thoughts of his past. He’d started picking fights with people wherever he went, taking potions and drinking until he passed out whenever James was off safe with relatives, and acting out in ways that were hurting himself and others. He’d been suspended at work and lost friends during that time he’d never gotten back.
Luckily Hermione had sat him down, not giving him a choice in the matter with a sticking charm, and given him a loving but sharp wakeup call that left his ears ringing and cleared the cobwebs from his brain, forcing him to get professional help. There was nothing quite like being the subject of a Hermione lecture to make a person feel completely known. It was comforting, strengthening, and terrifying. He’d never known a better friend or person than Hermione. Maybe if he’d trusted in her more and his fears a little less, his life would have turned out better. After tearing him down to bare bones, she’d filled his head and heart with positivity and hope, emptied the house of alcohol and drugs, helped him find a way to bond with his son, and supported him every step of the way during his recovery.
Harry had invited Ginny to be part of his journey, hoping she’d travel the path too and they’d learn and heal together, hoping it might bring them closer as a couple. Ginny had refused, claiming that the only one needing to change was him and that it wasn’t her responsibility to fix a screw-up. She wouldn’t even agree to keep her liquor out of the house when he was trying to go sober. The rebuff had hurt, but Harry hadn’t let that stop him from wanting to be better. She was right that the only person responsible for and capable of fixing him was himself.
(Just like he couldn’t fix his wife’s unhappiness, no matter how much he tried, though that was a lesson he’d never quite mastered.)
It had taken time and a lot of mistakes, but he’d learned to recognize his toxic patterns of thought and how to avoid indulging in them. He’d apologized to his family and friends, successfully stopped drinking, and vowed to become a better person. He’d never be a saint, but he was proud of the changes he’d made. Some people had seen that and forgiven him. Others hadn’t, as was their right.
Trauma didn’t excuse bad behavior.
That lesson seemed to have passed by most of the Weasley family. It was like a bad break they refused to let heal, making them limp crookedly through life hunched over on too-short crutches, knocking everyone around them down for the offense of daring to stand tall and walk straight where their shadows might cast shade on themselves. As adults, Ron and Ginny acted like their past traumas excused everything. They hadn’t always been like that, or at least he didn’t remember it that way. As they grew and life didn’t go their way, especially after those last days of the war, something inside them had soured and turned to rot. Their mother was even worse, spoiling her adult children to an unhealthy degree and expecting everyone to do the same, insisting everyone dance to her tune and lashing out at those who didn’t, never apologizing because she’d been hurt before and always knew best, and trying to force everyone to be happy but instead making them all twisted and miserable.
“Mister Malfoy and Uncle Percy both say the divorce is barely legal,” Hugo said sympathetically, breaking Harry from his spiraling thoughts, “but since you had to show up to court in person to contest it within sixty days and that was months ago, it’s probably too late now and the divorce is final. You were supposed to be told, but Grandma must’ve forgotten to mention it.”
Forgotten, Harry thought blackly. Ha! At some point he’d stopped breathing again in an attempt to control his temper. He fought not to pass out or start shouting as a vein throbbed at his temple.
“We heard that Aunt Ginny snuck back into the Burrow while everyone was out looking for Albus, Rose, and Lily, broke her clock hand off the repaired family clock so she couldn’t be tracked, and left a single letter for everyone where she said goodbye with basically a ‘V’ sign. They hid it from us kids until they confirmed the contents and that Aunt Ginny was gone for good this time and not just faffing off to the Mediterranean for a bit without telling anyone again.”
“Oh,” Harry gasped out again, each sentence out of Hugo’s mouth feeling like he was being repeatedly sucker punched by a troll. He couldn’t catch his breath. He might puke.
Ginny cutting and running from their marriage didn’t come as much of a surprise, except in all of the horrible and crushing ways that it did. He should be mad, and he was, but also it made him so sad. Things hadn’t been great, but he’d been trying. He’d tried so hard for so long. Hadn’t they agreed to keep on trying? For the kids’ sake and her financial freedom if nothing else? She hadn’t even talked to him about the divorce, not even to send him a letter in prison, treating their twenty years together like a piece of lint to be plucked out of her pocket and tossed away without a second glance. Things hadn’t been great, but she was his wife. He was her husband and he needed her, now more than ever. He needed her and his kids needed her and she’d abandoned all of them, thinking only of herself.
Everything had gone so wrong. He’d hoped and prayed for better. Once again, he’d been too naive and trusting with his heart. He should’ve guarded himself better.
Hugo cleared his throat awkwardly. “Yeah, it’s pretty rotten. We still haven’t seen the letter, but the adults all gossiped about it so much that we got the basic gist. Since Aunt Ginny’s kids were dumped with Grandma at the Burrow, she cleared out your accounts, cashed out your pension, and sold your house to some history buff, getting them to pay her half up front in cash to further fund her escape. She told the bank to give the rest of the house payment to James once it was processed, appointing him head of house for his siblings until they’re legally adults, which made Grandma even more mad since Aunt Ginny specifically told the bank not to give Grandma access to the vault key.”
“We overheard Grandma saying someone on the Floo that Aunt Ginny wrote in the letter that Grandma could have her kids but not her money, and that she’d only had kids because Grandma had forced the issue, and that she loved her kids but that she also needed and deserved a break from them, and since Grandma wanted them so badly she could be their mum from now on until Aunt Ginny felt like coming back.” Hugging his arms around his chest, Hugo focused on his feet. “As you can guess, your kids didn’t take that well.”
The words went off like a bomb in Harry’s head, making him stagger and his vision go white. His body trembled as he tried to keep from collapsing. It wasn’t sadness that made him tremble now, it was pure rage. How dare she?! If he had a little more control over his muscles, he’d be throwing himself at the door of his cell, howling Ginny’s name and foaming at the mouth like a rabid wolf. If he had a little less control, he’d be shaking the building and shattering hallway lanterns with an outburst of accidental magic.
Harry forced himself to focus on Hugo’s bowed head and ignore the temptation to let go and rage. He couldn’t lose his temper like that, not again and not with his beloved nephew in the line of fire. Not when it might make things worse.
As he’d just discovered, it could always get worse.
It was one thing for Ginny to abandon him—they were both adults and she’d long ago made it clear that he was a disappointment as a husband even if she could admit that he was attentive as a lover and an adequate provider—but this time, she’d abandoned their children as well. She’d faffed off with little to no warning before, but always when Harry, their father, was around to take care of them and love them, and she’d always returned once she ran out of money.
This time was different.
Right now their family was in crisis. Even if you ignored Harry being in prison, their children were in crisis! They needed their mom to help them process their fear and grief over all of the bad things that were happening. They needed to feel safe and loved, with a stable home and family. Instead, Ginny had decided to focus on herself to the exclusion of all else, inflicting fresh hurts on already wounded hearts, stealing his children’s home from them with a short sale and saying she didn’t want her kids anymore, just the money. It must’ve broken their hearts. It broke Harry’s.
Any lingering warmth and sympathy Harry had harbored for Ginny turned to ash at that moment and blew away. He felt so devastated for his children that he wanted to scream and punch the wall until he either felt better about his now ex-wife or his hand turned to pulp and fell off at the wrist. He didn’t want to believe that she could be so cruel, but he could see that Hugo wasn’t lying. The mother of his children had abandoned them. Willingly. She’d barely waited a full month after Harry and her brother were locked up. He wanted to shake and slap Ginny silly. How could she do that to his babies? How could she hurt them like that?
(Hurt him like that?)
How dare she?!
Shaking, Harry closed his eyes, trying to trap the bitter, burning tears inside. He was so mad and hurt he could barely stand it, but Ginny didn’t deserve his tears and Hugo didn’t deserve his breakdown. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, fighting the feelings back. However, the dark inside of his eyelids wasn’t a safe place either as a lifetime of trauma played across his mind’s eye like a movie screen in a darkened theater, from his mother’s death, to Voldemort, to the moment he’d realized his wife had never really known or loved the real him, to that devastating day in summer when Rose’s frantic call had him rushing over only to find Hermione—
Jerking his head to the side in negation, Harry bit his tongue to stifle a scream, flooding his mouth with blood as he forced his eyes open, desperately focusing on Hugo’s dirty hands, with their fingernails bitten to the quick. He was in his cell, not Ron’s work flat. The taste of blood in his mouth was his and no one else’s. The scent of damp stone, musty straw, rusty bars, and misery was his cell in Azkaban. The memory of that day was one horror too much for him right now. He’d break completely if he dwelled on it. He needed to keep it together, for Hugo’s sake if nothing else. And for his children.
“We’ve pieced together from all the gossip that in Aunt Ginny’s letter,” Hugo snuck glances at Harry’s expression, seemingly trying to gauge his reaction as he spoke quickly and nervously, ticking points off on his fingers, “she supposedly wrote that, one, she was taking the money to fund her tour of the Americas, two, that she needed at least a few years to recover from the mental trauma of recent events and learn how to forgive her ex-husband, mother, and brother for ruining her life, three, that she’d contact people only when she was good and ready and, four, not to go looking for her or else she’d make them regret it.”
He looked up from his fingers. “Uncle George implied that there was a lot more swearing and insults in the original, but none of us were allowed to see it, not even James, who tried to insist as the new head of his household. Grandma ignored James, of course, and insisted he turn the money and vault key over to her to manage, as he was supposedly too young and immature for such responsibility. She also insisted on him bringing us all back to the Burrow for her to mother and raise. James refused, things got heated, and we were sent from the room so she could basically beat some sense into James.”
“What?” Harry half-gasped, half-growled. He was going to stroke out at this rate. The hits just kept coming. “Is James…? How badly did she…?”
“Oh no, don’t worry,” Hugo soothed, waving his hands. “She forgot that James is half-Potter and his mother’s son. He couldn’t be more stubborn and headstrong when pushed into a corner if he tried. After about ten minutes, the door crashed open and he gave Grandma a ‘V’ fingered salute in farewell, storming out of the room with her still shrieking. You and Mum would’ve been proud…,” he looked up and shrugged, “or horrified. James cast a shield spell to block the charm she cast at his back, just like you and Mum drilled us in that one summer, and then he cast another spell to slam the door between them and lock it to give him enough time to collect the rest of us kids and escape through the Floo. After dragging us back to the Malfoys, he made us promise to be good and stay put while he went to the bank. Mister Malfoy went with him to Gringotts and helped James move the house money to a new vault that neither his mom nor Grandma would have access to and got him a Goblin account manager to protect his assets, so there’s nothing to worry about there anymore.”
“Ah.” Harry swallowed, trying to get his brain to say something coherent and useful. “What about—”
“Hugo!” Molly Weasley stormed down the corridor like an angry bowling ball. “There you are! What are you doing down here? With him? I’ve been looking everywhere for you, thoughtless child!”
“Sorry.” Hugo tensed up and went small and still.
“It’s not safe to wander off, especially with so many crazy and disreputable people locked up in here.” Lips pursing, shot Harry a glare and put her arm around Hugo, yanking the small boy against her side and dragging him away from Harry’s cell. “That was selfish of you to just disappear like that and make me worry,” her hand bit into Hugo’s shoulder and gave him a good shake, “especially without telling me where you were going.”
“I’m sorry,” Hugo said tremulously, head down and arms wrapped around his waist. Looking closer to four than to fourteen.
“He was perfectly safe,” Harry snapped, not liking the way Hugo was collapsing into himself.
Molly’s lips twisted. “I highly doubt that. None of my family stays safe around you.”
“I could say the same to you,” Harry said softly with a hint of a growl. “I heard about Ginny and my kids. I heard about the Malfoys.”
Lips pursing as her expression soured, Molly turned to Hugo and ordered, “Stay away from him and be more considerate. After all, you don’t want to get a reputation for wandering off like your Aunt Ginny, now do you? She could be anywhere from Chile to China right now after her husband broke her heart and drove her away.” She sent a pointed look in Harry’s direction. “We got so worried when we noticed you missing that your poor father had a fit and had to be carried back to his cell. You’re starting to make a bad habit of going where you shouldn’t and hurting other people. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Hey!” Harry shouted. “That was uncalled for and not true. Ginny and Ron are responsible for their own bad behavior. If anyone else is to blame, it’s you for raising them that way, not the kids. Not Hugo.” Not me.
Face going red, Molly sputtered in outrage.
“But since I know you can’t accept that,” Harry spat, “keep blaming me if you have to, but not the kids and not him. You hear me? Not him. Leave the children alone.” Tilting his head to expose the scar on his forehead, knowing the effect it had on witches of her generation, Harry caught her eyes and glared. Molly went white and stumbled back a step, dragging Hugo with her.
“I’m sorry,” Hugo said in a tortured groan. Greenish-red hair covering his lowered eyes, the pale-faced Hugo swayed limply in Molly’s tight grip. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered repeatedly. “I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Shaking his head hard and blowing out a breath through his nose like a horse, Harry pushed off his temper and stopped glaring at Molly to focus on his nephew. “You’re fine, Hugo. It’s alright. It’s not your fault.”
Not even looking at the boy in her grip, Molly opened her mouth to say something to Harry—probably rude and caustic based on her expression.
Harry cut her off first. “He’s fine,” Harry said fiercely, trapping Molly in his gaze until she looked down and away, her lips twisting into a grimace.
He turned back to Hugo. “Hey, Hugo. Buddy. It’s going to be okay. You don’t need to apologize. You’re fine,” Harry told the mumbling boy, willing him to listen and believe. Hugo didn’t look up from his grandmother’s tight hold, just kept apologizing.
“Hey, Hugo. Hugo. Hey.” The boy finally stopped apologizing, but he didn’t look up, his hands falling from his waist to hang limply at his sides.
Swallowing, Harry tried to force his voice to be strong and soothing. “You’re going to be okay. Tell my kids and Rose I love them, alright Hugo? And remember that I love you, too. So much. Take care of yourself, kiddo. Please?” Harry couldn’t stop the way his voice hitched and broke as he watched tears start to drip down Hugo’s freckled cheeks and off his quivering chin. Harry was going to cry too. “I love you,” Harry said again helplessly, eyes stinging and threatening to overflow, but he didn’t want to cry in front of Molly Weasley.
Looking down, Molly’s expression finally softened as she noticed Hugo’s distress. “Let’s go home, dearie,” she said, patting his shoulder. Glancing up, her eyes caught on Harry and the soft expression turned to something complicated and fractured. Lips downturned and wrinkles pronounced, looking old and frail, she turned away. Before Harry could say more, Molly dragged Hugo off down the hall.
“Goodbye, Hugo!” Harry called thickly as the tears finally escaped, running down his cheeks and salting his cracked lips.
“Bye, Uncle Harry.” Hugo’s voice was so faint it melted into the shadows. No matter how Harry strained his still-ringing ears, he couldn’t catch anything more. Even their footsteps were swallowed by the cold stale air as the two figures blurred with his tears and distance, becoming smaller and more ephemeral before disappearing around the corner.
∞⌛∞
~Narrator~
Harry would’ve said more and tried harder if he’d known then that he’d never see Hugo again in this life. It was a regret that stayed with him until the day he died.
∞⌛∞
Chapter 5:
∞⌛∞
∞2021, July 25—Azkaban∞
~Draco Malfoy (41)~
Sea spray hit Draco Malfoy in the face like a slap as he stepped out of the protective spells on the boat and onto the creaky wharf. It wasn’t quite as hard as the hit delivered by Hermione then-Granger in his third year, but it was still quite unpleasant. He blamed the stinging of his eyes on the wind, even though it was a lie. Before he could wipe his cheeks, the unforgiving north wind brutally ripped open his one-of-a-kind Parisian cloak. Ice cold water pebbled his skin and left an itchy layer that overwhelmed his exclusive Italian cologne with the smell of brine, rotting kelp, distressed wood, and something haunting and horribly unpleasant that he could only label as abject misery.
Draco didn’t want to be here. Not for this reason. Not for any reason.
Visiting twice in one year was two times too many. Draco didn’t want to be here and he didn’t want to have to look at this place one second more than he had to. Using the excuse of watching his footing, he kept his head down and pressed his forearm against his nose to try and block the smell as he made his way down the wharf to the stone archway leading into the looming fortress.
Draco hated Azkaban. Getting rid of the Dementors barely improved the place and only served to highlight the cruelties of men. There was too much suffering and bad history seeping from the crumbling rocks and rust stains here in the middle of the North Sea. Echoes of his father, Aunt Bella, and other Dark individuals he’d had the misfortune of meeting lingered in the halls, resurrecting old terrors and anxieties he’d thought conquered decades ago. He’d worked hard to rise above the mistakes and traumas of his youth, but he’d only been a handbreadth away from becoming a lifelong resident here himself and knew it. If the fact of his mother hiding Potter’s survival from the Dark Lord hadn’t been featured at Draco’s trial, along with a copious amount of bribes and blackmail, the scales likely would’ve tipped towards incarceration instead of the reduced sentence of community service. Draco really loved and appreciated his wealthy, morally gray mother. He’d never have become half the man he was today without her good influence.
Draco loved being a father, as much as he’d always expected to feel the opposite. He’d never wanted to be a parent and didn’t always understand his son, but he loved him more than he ever thought possible for a miserable old sinner like himself. Becoming a father had finally forced him to start understanding and forgiving his father for the traumas and shortcomings of his youth, though his demands and expectations for his son were leagues more reasonable. Unfortunately, perhaps, being a better father meant that Scorpius didn’t worship and fear Draco the way Draco had his father. That meant more disobedience and shocking acts of rebellion.
His attachment to Albus Potter was a prime example. Sometimes Draco wondered if it would’ve been worth the shame of Scorpius overturning family tradition by sorting into Ravenclaw instead of Slytherin (though Hufflepuff and Gryffindor were still too awful to contemplate) if it meant they could have avoided that friendship, which probably only came about because they were roommates. At least it mystified and horrified the Potters as much as it did Draco. The fish-belly pale look on Harry Potter’s face at the train station after their first year when the boys had come skipping out together arm in arm had been utterly amusing.
Then again, a Ravenclaw sorting wouldn’t have avoided Scorpius’s crush on Gryffindor Rose—a Weasley/Granger hybrid of all people—which had only grown stronger with every year that passed. Draco had been polite to the girl but tried introducing his son to other pretty witches from good families (he hadn’t appreciated her appeal back then). Nevertheless, Scorpius had mulishly refused to switch his affections. The boy was fixed on Rose Weasley no matter what anyone else had to say about her or the reputation of the girl’s family. The worse their reputation got, the more he clung. For a Slytherin, Scorpius had a worrying tendency towards unflinching loyalty to his friends and a stubborn bravery. Thank goodness he also had intelligence, ambition, and cunning or Draco would fear for his future.
Draco had taken comfort in those Slytherin traits until Scorpius had turned them against his father. The brat was turning into a dangerous menace. If he was just a few years younger, Draco would be turning him over his knee. Because of his son’s scheming, Draco had ended up with a house full of children and was visiting Azkaban voluntarily for the second time in one year.
Last spring, Draco had been a tad bit unhappy (read extremely depressed). The six-month anniversary of his beloved wife’s death had coincided with the news of a cure for her fatal blood curse. It had been published too late to do her any good and had sent him on a self-destructive bender across Europe that had only been stopped by the intervention of Bleeding Potter. Before Draco could recover from that blow, summer had arrived, his and his son’s first without Astoria, and then the wizarding world had gone crazy over the lurid tale of the tarnished Golden Trio. He’d deny it if asked, but the depressing fate of his childhood enemies might’ve possibly made his mood even worse. If such awful things could even happen to lifelong goody two-shoes, what chance did a man like him have? It had sent him into a dark place.
Without a shred of remorse, Scorpius had preyed on his father’s vulnerable state, moving the Potter and Weasley kids into the house while he’d been too distracted to notice. And Scorpius hadn’t just taken in his buddy Albus either, oh no, he’d taken in all five of the brats, both Potter siblings and Weasley cousins. It had started with just three of them—which was three too many, and then snowballed from there.
When Draco had stumbled into the breakfast room one morning after another night spent tossing and turning in a bed too cold and empty for comfort, dressed in an unwashed and fraying dressing robe two seasons out of date, he’d looked up from picking at a mysterious stain on his lapel to see his son trying to hide three bedraggled children behind him. Frozen in shock, embarrassment, and confusion, Draco had only taken seconds to identify the children as Albus Potter, his younger sister Lily, and their cousin and Scorpius’s crush Rose Weasley. Before he could recover, Scorpius had pounced on his father with a guilt-trip and word-maze so masterful that Draco had said yes to the unexpected visit without quite knowing how. After rushing away to comb and gel his hair, not to mention change into something more fashionable, flattering, and suitable for being seen by guests, he’d realized what he’d done. Blinking at himself in the mirror, Draco had been forced to explain it away by telling himself it was because he hated saying no to Scorpius and had the petty desire to thumb his nose at the kids’ parents and the rest of the Weasley family, who all hated and looked down upon the Malfoy family. Scorpius promised to not bother him at all, keeping the stay short and the visitors out of Draco’s way.
Instead, Malfoy Manor had gone mad. There was nowhere peaceful to be found. It was noisy at all hours. Not just with shouts, but with the sound of laughter and high-pitched voices. Giggles and the patter of feet filled his home. He’d glance out his window and instead of empty fields to zone out on he’d see children zipping around on brooms or running around the grounds playing games or climbing in the trees, legs dangling as they talked. Of course he could cast a muffling charm or black out the windows to pretend the disturbance wasn’t there, but Draco couldn’t quite bring himself to do it, the loving voice of his wife whispering in his thoughts before he could finish the incantation, encouraging him not to hide.
For the first time in his life, he was also living with little girls and there were two of them. The House Elves were in raptures. His nanny elf—who’d supposedly died of old age before he left for Hogwarts, but really had just been banished by his father as it turned out—had showed up within an hour of his agreeing to the visit cum invasion, smacked a kiss on his head after climbing up on top of an armchair she pulled over with magic to reach his face, and then marched off to find the wee little lassies, insisting on moving back in to do the girls’ hair for every meal while they were visiting. She’d made him put in an emergency owl order for a box of combs, hair bows, and fancy ribbons larger than the box his last broom had come in. Within hours they’d had to put in a second international order to Paris for fashionable dresses and sturdy but attractive play outfits. Not wanting Albus to feel left out, Draco had ordered him clothes too. Really, it was a gift to himself, as the Molly Weasley specials the three were currently wearing hurt his eyes with how ugly and cheap they all looked. He was pretty sure Albus’s collar was polyester.
Those two days of chaos had ruined him. His funk had gone missing. He couldn’t even work up a good brood without someone interrupting him with a question or request for help. It was appalling and offensive. The Brooding Lord of the Manor was a classic trope for a reason. He’d been all set to commission artwork of himself before he’d been invaded.
When it came time for the children to leave, he’d intended to curtly wave them off from behind the desk in his formal study. But then his nanny elf had given him a look that had him scrambling to his feet without conscious thought. In the room with the public Floo he’d crossed his arms behind his back and meant to nod them on their way, but then the girls had given him hugs and seemed to have some trouble letting go. His nanny elf had given him another look, and Draco had felt a strange squishy sensation inside the region of his breastbone, perhaps indigestion, and somehow ended up personally escorting the children back to the Weasley Burrow.
Then, then! Instead of dropping them off and shaking the dust of sanctimonious poverty from his feet with a “good riddance,” he’d made the mistake of looking around at the awful Weasley living conditions—the house was crooked, with a ghoul cavorting in front of the attic window while grubby little gnomes ran rampant in the gardens—and then he’d seen all their pitiful and sad little faces staring at him forlornly—with his son’s big blue pleading eyes manipulating him even better than an Imperious Charm—and found himself negotiating with Arthur Weasley in a shed full of muggle artifacts for two extra children to join the original three staying at his home. Not only that, but he’d even offered to keep them all until the school year started. Draco was pretty sure he’d officially gone crazy. Arthur Weasley must’ve gone crazy too, because the broken-looking man had barely quibbled before agreeing to the arrangement and letting Draco abscond with all five of his grandchildren.
It was simultaneously exhausting and stimulating. Draco didn’t even recognize who he was anymore. It was maddening.
He’d wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare only to find a child or two already in the kitchen drinking herbal tea and offering to brew him a cuppa. He had to completely rearrange the layout of the house and how he used his time, going in late to work because of impromptu Quidditch games after breakfast or having to coax a crying child out of a closet. He was calling in favors he’d been hoarding for years, meeting with Goblins for hours to negotiate new vaults and accounts, manipulating the media to print favorable articles about his childhood enemies, fighting with people in public for daring to voice an unfavorable opinion about his charges, breaking up teenage arguments, debating over history and politics, defending his lifestyle and opinions, and teaching the children all of the important things they’d been missing out on. Not only was Scorpius coming out of his shell with all of the new stimulation, but Draco was too.
He even found himself being hugged regularly by the little weasels. Sometimes multiple times a day. Who taught them that hugging was a normal activity? It was absurd. His friends were all laughing themselves silly over it.
If anyone asked, Draco said he hated it.
What he wouldn’t admit out loud was that he didn’t actually mind living with the children of his childhood enemies. He even felt protective over them. Before he knew it, Draco had been tricked into becoming the de facto unofficial father to five extra children—traumatized Weasley and Potter children at that. He’d already had his hands full with the one child he had. He’d be more ashamed of himself if he wasn’t having such a marvelous time, though he still hadn’t told his mother about it over in her vacation flat in New York in America.
Even worse, when the children returned to school in September, his house felt too empty and cold, like he was missing something. He didn’t like it. Despite telling himself he was never letting the dirty little urchins back to mess with his peace again, he found himself regularly sending each and every child letters and packages full of sweets, little toys, and specialty school supplies.
The day after fourth-years Hugo and Lily got into a fight with some dunderheaded Hufflepuffs over what happened to their parents, Draco offered a special donation to the school of several rare books from the Malfoy Library that Hogwarts had been trying to get their grubby hands on since before Madam Pince was hired. It was pure coincidence that he had to deliver the books personally and struck up a conversation with the current Headmaster before handing over the books, where he oh-so-casually expressed his opinions on the kerfuffle. Considering the sweet and sensitive personalities of his two youngest charges, the Hufflepuffs had obviously started the fight and deserved every Hex they’d received in return. It was a teaching moment about consequences and he’d told the Headmaster that in no uncertain terms. In light of their parental circumstances, and after some hemming and hawing, the headmaster had reduced the children’s punishment to a single week of detention and no suspension from clubs or sports. Draco had rewarded her wisdom by handing over the books and a box of the Headmaster’s favorite violet mint morpho chocolates.
Although nothing was ever officially said, at the train station that December six children climbed into his coach and returned to Malfoy Manor for the Winter Holidays. For the next two weeks he barely had a moment of peace except when their five guests disappeared on Sundays to the Burrow for dinner with their grandparents. If he’d been secretly happy about the imposition instead of put out by it, and resenting their absences on Sundays, that was between him and his anemic conscience. Never in his wildest dreams had he seen himself as a single father with six children following him around town shopping for Christmas presents en mass like little ducklings or—more accurate considering their less than innocent and sedate natures—an entire Quidditch team full of attitude with him as team captain, half of which had red hair and freckles.
When he caught the twenty-year-old shopboy behind the counter at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour blushing and flirting with just-turned fifteen-year-old Lily, he almost gave the boy permanent buckteeth and crossed-eyes for the temerity. The only reason he didn’t was because her older brother James hexed the kid first. He did, however, report the boy to the manager for improper hygiene practices and bad customer service, which may or may not have gotten him fired.
Considering Draco’s history with their frankly awful and insufferable parents, his emotional reactions concerning these children were utterly inexplicable. Even more hideously embarrassing was the realization that he secretly adored having them around. By the end of the first week of Christmas holidays, he secretly and shamefully confessed to his bathroom mirror that red hair didn’t even bother him anymore—though the mirror’s outrageous suggestion of dyeing his silvery blond perfection had led to its unfortunate destruction. He should probably see a therapist (over liking his enemies’ offspring, not the justified destruction of the mirror). Somehow he’d come to adore each and every one of those children, even moody little goth gremlin Hugo, who’d dyed his hair an appalling shade of green.
When the children all returned to Hogwarts after the holidays and the house finally became peaceful again, Draco found he missed the chaos. After a few days he found a red and gold Gryffindor hair ribbon used in place of a bookmark in the library and gave a long and wistful sigh, feeling impatient for the summer holidays when they all returned to fill the house again. When he caught his expression reflected in the window, he realized he looked utterly idiotic and was petting the Gryffindor colors. It was obscene.
What kind of a soft weakling were they turning him into? It was enough to give a stoic British man the vapors. His ancestors must be turning in their graves in shame. At this point Draco had thrown himself onto the nearest chaise, put a hand over his forehead in a classic style just begging for a roving painter, and suffered through a panic attack (self-diagnosed but still valid).
His only solution had been to throw the issue at the feet of Harry Potter, father of the majority of his problems (three children being more than two). Since Potter had always made things as unpleasant and difficult as possible for Draco, yelling at him meant Draco was unfairly forced to visit Azkaban. It was so inconsiderate, but that was classic Harry Potter for you.
During that visit in February, Draco had been forced to bribe a guard to erase Molly Weasley’s reservation from Potter’s schedule to make room for his own, since prisoners were only allowed one visitor a month. He’d hoped it made them both unhappy. That would be some consolation at least. He’d erased her monthly reservation from Ron Weasley’s schedule too, just for the symmetry.
It had tasted like sour grapes when he learned that Potter had appreciated the break from Mrs. Weasley’s yelling. Stupid Potter, always ruining his plans. At least it probably still pissed Mrs. Weasley off. Making her lose her temper in public to expose her hypocrisy had become one of his new hobbies.
Seeing Potter behind bars with scraggly hair, dirty fingernails, a full beard touched with gray, and dull green eyes had been a lot less satisfying than he’d hoped. It almost made him feel bad for his nemesis. The pity ignited Draco’s irritation all over again.
Stalking up to Potter’s cell, Draco hadn’t even bothered to greet him, just insulted Potter’s looks and launched into a rant about all of the things Potter was to blame for in Draco’s life—which were legion.
“And your spawn have invaded my home and taken up residence!” he spat, hoping to catch a look of horror on Potter’s face, maybe even make him faint in shock and crack his greasy head on the floor.
Instead, Potter just nodded his head agreeably. “I know. Hugo told me at Christmas.”
Sputtering with dissatisfaction, Draco had gritted his teeth at his fun being spoiled and continued ranting. He included updates on all of the children’s recent goings-on, no need to be stingy or cruel when the man had already been kicked as low as it was possible to go, but made sure to couch it in a way that made it clear how much Draco had been inconvenienced in the process. Pretty soon Draco got into a rhythm. Insulting his lifelong enemy again after so many months of no contact felt positively therapeutic.
Finally needing to take a breath or else risk passing out, Draco paused in his rant after offering to break Potter out of prison so it would all become his problem again. Eyes no longer dull, Potter had the gall to smirk at him and agree, asking about his brilliant plan. When Draco got stuck on the mechanics of the prison break, he’d laughed in Draco’s face.
Prison hadn’t made Potter any less of a pillock.
Strangely that made Draco feel better. Of all the evil people in the world who deserved a lifelong prison sentence, Potter wasn’t one of them. Yes, he’d technically broken the law, but for a very good reason. Also, some laws were made to be broken. Draco would’ve done the same, he just wouldn’t have allowed himself to get caught. Though even if he had it would’ve probably been fine since he was a Malfoy. Potter’s lawyer had been a hack. A Malfoy never would’ve been convicted under the same circumstances.
The two men exchanged more insults for a few minutes and Draco was starting to feel almost like his old self again—though he refused to go so far as to admit he’d missed the tosser—when Potter had broken off mid-sentence with a rattling coughing fit and been forced to stop to try and catch his breath. The cold and damp of Azkaban was murder on the lungs. Draco remembered his father having that same cough the first time he’d visited him here so many years ago. It wasn’t a happy memory.
Once Potter had regained his breath, even if not his color, he’d awkwardly thanked Draco for being the father Potter could no longer be. Expression wistful and pained, Potter had looked to the side and quietly apologized.
To Draco.
It was appalling. Draco made sure to tell him so too. He also pointed out that Potter looked and smelled more rank than a Blast-Ended Skrewt. Thankfully it had irritated Potter enough to end the awkward moment.
Draco hadn’t even minded when Potter’s next words were threats about not hurting the Potter/Weasley children. Even knowing that the threats had to be empty words considering Potter was locked up in here for life, the way he said them and the look in his eye still sent a shiver down Draco’s spine—not that he was afraid. Of course he wasn’t.
Stupid Potter.
Draco had been all set to start fighting again when the idiot had gone soft again and personally thanked Draco for sheltering the children when they’d needed it most and given them an adult to rely on. As if he’d done it for Potter instead of being tricked into it by his spoiled son. Draco didn’t need or want Potter’s gratitude. That wasn’t why he’d visited.
Still looking weepy, Potter had asked him for another favor. The git still hadn’t gotten the point that nothing Draco had done had been a personal favor for him. Potter had then asked Draco to put a bookmark on Hermione’s grave for him, one with a periwinkle blue ribbon. When asked why, he’d given a small, broken smile and said that a bookmark was a promise to return and a declaration of unfinished business, that you bookmark something you want to return to. Unwilling to mock something so sentimental about the deceased, Draco had kindly agreed.
But then Potter had the gall to offer Draco the paltry money hidden in his single Gringotts investment account (the only money his ex-wife hadn’t known about and stolen) to help pay for the children’s expenses and inconvenience. As if Draco needed Potter’s help to stay financially solvent or that the paltry sum Draco spent on the children made more than a small dent in the vast Malfoy fortune. Potter was a pauper compared to the Malfoys and Draco told him so in no uncertain terms.
Instead of getting mad again, Potter had taken a deep breath and with a twinkle in his eye called him sweet—practically cooing that Draco had such a kind and generous heart.
The nerve of him! It had made Draco positively speechless with outrage. The more irritated Draco got, the more teeth Potter showed when he smiled. The pièce de résistance came when Potter “complimented” Draco on his, “excellent maternal—excuse me—paternal instincts.”
It was offensive from start to finish, but that was Potter all over. Turning on his heel with a growl, pausing only to mutter over his shoulder that he’d give the children Potter’s regards, Draco had stormed out in a strop.
And if he felt reinvigorated for weeks afterwards, that was his own affair and nobody else’s business. However, even a boost in mood wasn’t enough to make him want to make it a regular event. Magnanimously he decided to visit Potter again on the tenth anniversary of his incarceration, just to rub it in his face that Draco was still the better man.
Who would have guessed that his second visit to Azkaban would come not even six months after the first? There was nothing worth gloating about today. Glamour charms hid his swollen and bloodshot eyes, but even the pain potions couldn’t get rid of the persistent headache and chest pain he’d been battling since the news broke.
No one had visited Potter since Draco’s last visit. He’d checked. No letters had come for Potter in the last few weeks either, not even the regular Howlers from Mrs. Weasley that one shamefaced guard had mentioned. Potter was probably still ignorant. Draco had suspected as much. It was the reason he was here, after all. That didn’t mean he had to like it. Draco dreaded the upcoming conversation.
Nothing less than duty and honor would’ve gotten him to visit this god-forsaken place again. Someone should care about Potter, someone needed to tell him, but since the Weasleys seemed to have failed at that just like they’d failed at everything else, paupers in decency as well as money, it seemed that duty fell to him. How such wonderful children could have come from such narrow-minded, selfish, poor, and self-righteous bigots boggled his mind and he’d told them as much at the wake he’d only attended with the children for moral support. He’d been spoiling for a fight, but the Weasleys hadn’t given it to him. He and the children had held a separate, private ceremony a few days later and dedicated a small garden on the estate in memoriam.
Everyone was heartbroken. Draco felt brittle and frail, like he’d aged a hundred years in the last month. Coming to Azkaban just made that feeling even worse.
Was it a kindness or a cruelty to tell Potter the bad news? No matter how awful the truth, Draco would rather know. In that, Potter was the same. Draco knew his favorite enemy too well to think otherwise.
He’d never have opened his heart and home to the children if he’d known how much it would hurt to lose one of them so soon.
(Lies. Probably. Or maybe not. Draco was a blind, despicable, and selfish creature after all. If he’d been less self-centered and paid better attention, he could’ve done something to save the boy before it was too late. Even away at school, he should have noticed something was wrong.)
The whole affair had put him off his pudding for weeks.
(A massive understatement, but Draco had no intention of getting more in touch with his feelings. He hated having feelings. He hated feeling so useless and broken.)
Head down and dragging his feet to postpone the upcoming conversation, Draco found himself standing before Potter’s cell long before he was ready. He’d never be ready. The right words eluded him. Maybe they didn’t exist.
“Malfoy? Is that you?” Potter croaked from the shadows in the back of his cell.
“Potter,” Draco drawled, trying to sound normal, “I didn’t think you could get any uglier or more rank, but you’ve once again proved me wrong. Congratulations.”
Standing up at the back of his cell, Potter quickly buttoned the top of his shirt, hiding an exotic-looking golden necklace from view. Draco didn’t care enough to ask. The necklace seemed inconsequential in light of his news.
Potter ambled forward, leaned a shoulder against the bars, and casually crossed his arms as he cleared his throat. “You can smell me better from up close,” he said. He was a lot thinner than he used to be. Draco would worry if he had room in his heart to worry about one more person right now.
He didn’t have room.
(A lie he wished was the truth. Maybe he’d get his house elves to sneak in Potter a fruit basket or a side of beef. Or maybe Draco’s news would give him a heart attack and it would become a moot point. Potter would probably welcome the escape.)
“I’m close enough,” Draco said, putting it off for a few more seconds. “Nice beard. Did you steal it from Hagrid?”
“You wish you could grow a beard like this,” Potter said with an attempt at a smirk as he stroked his thick beard and looked Draco up and down.
It was almost enough to get Draco to react. Draco had always resented the fact that his facial hair grew in patchy and wispy. His attempt at growing a goatee in his early twenties was a banned topic where all the photos had been burned. He tried to muster up the energy to banter more, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate. He’d used up all of his energy trying to act normal. Draco swallowed to wet his throat and rubbed his hands on his thighs.
Potter’s brow furrowed. He tried again. “Is that what all the pretty boys in Paris are wearing to visit prisons this season? To what do I owe the pleasure of a personal fashion show? Did you miss me that much?” He paused after each question, waiting for Draco to react, but Draco didn’t.
Couldn’t.
There was only one thing on his mind right now and it wasn’t his vanity. He had to say it. Draco opened his lips, only to find himself choking on the words. He pressed a fist to his mouth, but a sob escaped despite his best efforts. Scalding tears overflowed his eyes and sliced down his cheeks like scalpels.
Potter jerked up from the bars like they’d turned red hot, flushing red and then white. “What is it? What’s happened? The children?”
“Hu-Hugo,” Draco gasped out. Swallowing, he forced himself to get it out. “Hugo’s killed himself.”
“What?” Potter croaked, staggering and almost falling. “No. No, that can’t be right.” He shook his head as if punch drunk. “I just saw him at Christmas. You’re lying. No.” Tears overflowed his eyes and ran down his cheeks, gathering up the grime to drip off his jaw in grayish brown blotches that stained his already dirty shirt.
Draco bit his lip bloody, vision swimming with tears and voice stuttering despite his best efforts. “I’m s-sorry, so sorry. Hugo’s dead. He killed himself. On his birthday, the anniversary of Hermione’s death. I-I wasn’t sure if anyone had told you and-and I thought you should know. I would want to know. I know you lo-loved him.” Draco fought to stay coherent, the words like jagged shards of glass leaving his throat. His head hurt, but not as much as his heart. “I loved him too…and now he’s-he’s dead. Hugo’s d-dead. He’s-he’s—” Hyperventilating, Draco couldn’t force anymore words out of his throat. Grief had rendered him mute.
“Oh Hugo, dear God no, my sweet little Hugo, please no, please,” Potter gasped, wrapping his arms around himself in a parody of comfort, rocking back and forth as he shook and sobbed. Closing his overflowing eyes, he banged his head hard against the bars and screamed in anguish and denial, the sound echoing off the stone walls and down the dark halls. Falling to his knees, he cried inconsolably like a child.
Vision blurred with tears, Draco pressed a hand over his swollen eyes and joined Potter in breaking down and collapsing onto the floor. He wasn’t sure who reached for who, but at some point he found himself clutching the other man’s hand through the bars like a lifeline to keep from drowning. No more words were said. They just sat and grieved together.
An indeterminable time later, the uneasy guards came and ordered Draco to stop upsetting the prisoner and leave. Squeezing Harry’s grimy and sweaty hand a final time, Draco released him and sat back on his heels. His empty hand felt wrong, making him flex his fingers to try and make it feel normal again. Standing up, he wiped his wet cheeks with his thumbs and straightened his cloak, pausing as his eyes caught on Potter still kneeling on the floor of his cell. The two fathers and former enemies looked at each other wordlessly, eyes puffy and red-rimmed. The guard cleared his throat.
Nostrils flaring, Potter’s eyes turned to flint and his lips thinned. He rose to his feet as if he’d just made some sort of monumental decision. “Goodbye, Malfoy. Take care of my family for me.”
“Of course, they’re my family now. A Malfoy will do anything for family,” Draco said. “My mother taught me that and I am my mother’s son.” He held Harry’s gaze as he said it, knowing such a reference would mean something to Potter.
The guard cleared his throat again. “Mr. Malfoy? Visiting hours are over.”
“Goodbye, Potter.” Turning away, Draco followed the guard away down the long, dimly lit hallway, counting his footsteps to keep his thoughts from wandering. He never wanted to visit Azkaban again.
Just before Draco turned the corner, he cast one last look over his shoulder. Shrouded in shadow, Potter had unbuttoned his shirt and pulled out an elaborate gold necklace with multiple dangling pendants. Cupping the small, bottom pendant in his hands, his finger tugged on the metal as he mouthed something silently. For a split second Draco would’ve sworn that the shadows had eyes that blinked, rolled, and opened wide, all focused on Potter, whose eyes seemed to be turning an unearthly, eldritch green. Darkness gathered around his back and head like a hooded cloak and he seemed to take up more space than was physically possible. A shiver raced up Draco’s spine and the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end.
Grief must be making him imagine things. Potter was just a broken man in a prison cell, not an eldritch god.
The guard waiting down the hall cleared his throat. “Mr. Malfoy?”
Draco jumped, his heart pounding in his chest. “Yes, Yes, I’m coming,” he said irascibly. Turning away, Draco hurried after the guard, following him down the hall and out of the gate. Keeping his mind blank, he climbed onto the boat, pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders, and sailed back to shore, refusing to look up at the miserable black fortress as it receded into the mist.
Draco Malfoy never saw Harry Potter again.
∞⌛∞
When Draco got home, the first thing he did was toss off his cloak and go to look for his children. He needed to see them more than anything else right now. He found the five teens in the parlor smashed together on a single couch, legs and arms overlapping as they listened to the Wizarding Wireless. It took him a moment to recognize the melancholy song—Moonlight Sonata by the half-blood wizard Beethoven. Beautiful and fitting.
Touching Scorpius, Albus, Rose, Lily, and James one by one as he passed behind the couch to let them know he was there and that he wanted them there, he tapped the couch with his wand and cast an Expansion Charm to make it longer so they’d all fit better. He was about to move to the armchair when Rose and Lily exchanged a look and then moved apart to create a space between them, forcing everyone else to shuffle down to the ends of the couch. Draco sat down between the girls and put his arms around everyone he could reach. He’d never claimed to be a good man, but he was determined to be a good father to these children he’d claimed as his family. Everyone leaned towards the center, crowding close to Draco and each other as the hauntingly beautiful music played on.
Rose turned and pressed her face against his chest. He could feel the fabric grow damp over his heart as the music swelled and hear Scorpius sniffle at the end of the couch. Lily wiped her face on his sleeve and hiccuped as James gave a quivering little sigh. Fresh tears dripped down Draco’s cheeks, past his nose, and over his lips, tasting of salt and regret, but he had no hand free to wipe them. Draco swallowed them down defiantly, refusing to be defeated by this fresh grief. Although bitter, he was long used to living with the pain of loss. He knew how to survive and even thrive when life kicked him face first into the mud. He’d been doing it since the day he came home as a youth to find Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters had taken up residence in his home, treating him and his mother like unpaid servants and turning his refuge into a place of terror.
Closing his eyes, he imagined his wife’s phantom hands cupping his cheeks and gently kissing his forehead in benediction. He would see her and Hugo again. Someday, but not soon. Too many hearts were relying on him to stay and be strong.
They would get through this and no one else would be lost. He would make sure of it. Nothing would be allowed to hurt these children again. Not if it was within his power—and Draco had spent years amassing wealth and power.
“Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770,” Draco said softly. “His estate houses a giant living portrait with a full orchestra where he still conducts symphonies for the elite. For the right price, esteemed visitors can attend a performance. Germany is lovely in the summertime. What do you think about taking a family vacation there? Just the six of us. Let me take you away to experience something lovely.”
“Yes!” Scorpius said.
“That sounds nice, Uncle Draco. Let’s do it,” Albus seconded before turning hesitant. “Right, James?” He looked towards his older brother.
“A family vacation sounds great,” James said, giving Draco an approving and grateful look that made him want to preen. He had to privately admit that it was a bit of a power trip and childhood fantasy to be looked up to by someone with Harry Potter’s face.
“What about you girls?” Draco asked, looking down at the heads lying against his chest on either side.
“Okay,” Lily said softly.
Rose just nodded and silently snuggled closer. Draco didn’t push for more. She hadn’t talked much since she’d wandered off and gone missing after Hugo’s funeral, only to return with her arms and face all scratched up and her neck and back blistered by sunburns. Draco hadn’t pressed, healing her up and making sure she felt comfortable and safe for whenever she was ready to talk. She was trying at her own pace and that was good enough for him.
“Excellent. We’ll leave in the morning,” Draco said.
“That quick?” James asked. “Don’t we need to pack? Or get travel visas and make reservations?”
Draco scoffed. “Don’t be silly. You’re all Malfoys now. We have more than enough money for bribes and incidentals, and if we need more, there’s a Gringotts branch in a suburb of Bonn. We can buy anything we want. What more do we need besides each other?”
“Good point, Dad,” Scorpius said, turning to look at the wizarding wireless with a small smile as the mood of the music shifted and turned hopeful. “This part of the music is different, but the sound of it is just as beautiful.”
Draco sent his son an approving look and rubbed the shoulders of the children he could reach. “I think so too. In life and music, there’s always something beautiful to be found as long as you’re patient.”
∞⌛∞
I like the age in () after the POV character name. It’s helpful.
Future time traveling Harry has totally been to Egypt, so Jonathan is correct. We finally get someone who can read the necklace. Maybe we’ll figure out where it came from and its purpose soon, too. I’m guessing ancient Egyptian Death god Harry and to save Hermione somehow. Death!Harry did mention starting cults. I wonder why? We haven’t had one of those world ending apocalypse yet either.
Harry is a twit. He should have asked H out ages ago. I guess the Mummy people aren’t alt versions of them? Did Ron kill Hermione and Harry curse the fuck out of Ron for it? Why didn’t he kill him? No time? H & H failed each other really. Yeah, Harry is a little psycho here and I’m not too fond of him, especially blaming Hermione for leaving him by dying. Like what the fuck, dude? She loved him and he fucked that shit up. What a stupid twat. I thought Hugo was dead or is this before that? Harry should be more honest with the kid. Hugo is going to kill himself soon, and Harry might have been able to stop that with more truth and advice to believe the opposite of anything Weasley. Yeah, the Weasleys are all f-ed up, and I really, really need to see them get theirs. Oh, was I wrong and did Harry just flip over Ron’s cheating and attack him for that? Blaming him for Hermione’s death? Okay, I can see how Harry deserves some jail time for that. But not what he got. Jeez their lives suck.
Draco viewpoint? Sweet! Go Draco being a boss. Draco’s POV is hilarious. Its lovely how he is with the kids and for them. It’s sad that he is the only one but I’m glad he’s there.
Hopefully, H & H will be fixing things soonish. Though, there still hasn’t been any apocalypsi yet.