Chapter Text
Number Twelve Grimmauld Place is swathed in winter sunshine, and Harry shivers under his duvet. He hates this season. He groans as soon as his copper alarm clock sounds, and the uninviting chill of the rickety house always calls for an extra half an hour. Warming charms never stay in Harry’s room, which was once Sirius’. Maybe it’s a curse.
On a normal monday morning, in a normal life, in a normal house, Harry would laze in. Maybe he’ll plump up his pillows and play a record on the 70s turntable he found in the attic. Maybe drift around the house with a book, finding new reading nooks.
But, as it happens, Harry has never had a normal life.
He wakes to a sniffing, whiny sound, which he first mistakes for the kettle slowly boiling. It’s odd, because the coffee has already been made; and is already getting cold on his bedside table. And then he realises that it’s in fact not the kettle, but Teddy.
Teddy, who’s crying in the room opposite his. Teddy, who is now living with him. Who is still grieving the loss of Andromeda.
Harry sighs deeply and casts a longing glance at his cup of coffee, which he knows he could save with a little spell. He shakes his head, rubs his eyes until he’s seeing stars and puts his glasses on. He’s in his bright orange Chudley Cannons pyjamas that Ron gave him for Christmas a couple weeks ago, and that he doesn’t have the heart to keep folded away in his drawers forever, or to throw away. He supposes he did need a new pair. It’s not like he buys anything for himself these days.
Harry panics, and manages to find a heather-grey t-shirt on the end of his bed. It’s not like Teddy will care, but Harry is trying, maybe a little too hard, to seem like he has everything together; which he really, really does not.
Pyjama crisis averted, Harry slips out of his room and clicks open the door softly to Teddy’s room.
“Ted?” Harry says into the empty room. The dog-decorated bedsheets are ruffled and half on the floor, which suggests some sign of life, but does not reveal where Teddy is. Harry walks in, cursing the creaking oak floorboards and listens for the whimpers again. They sound, and Harry traces it to the old wardrobe that was there when he moved in, and hasn’t been bothered to get rid of.
“Teddy” Harry says into the fine grain of the wardrobes wood. “You can’t stay in there forever. Rem will eat your breakfast!” He pleads.
Rem, the toy in question- a stuffed wolf named after Remus- is sat on the small bed. Teddy is never seen without Rem by his side.
“Don’t care,” Teddy sniffles, his voice quiet and muffled.
Harry leans his head against the door and sighs heavily. He wishes there’s something he could do, but he hardly knows the child, much less how to look after him.
It’s not that he can’t. He knows what to do, because he just has to do the opposite of whatever the Dursleys did when he was growing up, but the child has been through so much, and Harry doesn’t want to make things worse.
He hoped things would get better, but it’s been three months since Andromeda’s passing, and Teddy still has sunken eyes, still asking when his grandma will be back. It hurts, and Harry wishes above anything else that he can make it all better.
He tries the door again, but the lock just rattles in place. Who puts a bloody lock on a wardrobe? And why from the inside? He resolutes to have it gone by the end of the day. Maybe then Teddy will come to him when he’s upset, and not hide away.
“Ted, c’mon,” He says as softly as possible. He was never cut out for parenting.
The door slowly opens, and reveals Teddy, curled up in the corner behind Harry’s old quidditch gear. His eyes are red and puffy, and his hair has turned a deep grey, almost black.
“I miss Andy,” He mumbles, wiping a hand over his nose. It’s a pitiful sight.
“I know you do,” Harry says quietly, opening his arms to try and invite Teddy into a hug, getting him out of the dark cupboard. Teddy inches forward, and after a couple of minutes, Harry finds himself wrapping his arms tightly around the boy, letting him cry into his t-shirt.
“Why does my family have to go?” Teddy sobs into him, fisting Harry’s top. Harry’s heart aches.
It’s all so much for a five year old. Even Harry hadn’t faced that much loss at that age. Granted, he wasn’t really aware of it.
“I know, Ted. It’s very unfair,” Harry brushes Teddy’s hair away from his face, painfully seeing Remus behind his eyes. “I do understand. I told you about my mum and dad, didn’t I?” He says reassuringly.
“Yes,” He says so quietly it’s almost a squeak. “But I miss Granny.” The thought of his grandma sets him off again, and this time he bursts into tears so badly that his breathing starts to hitch.
Harry rubs his back and rocks him gently back and forth, wishing there was something he could do.
Teddy’s breathing slows, and after a while he’s fallen asleep in Harry’s arms. He sighs deeply and rubs a hand across his face, trying to wipe away the exhaustion that he feels. He’s still not used to Teddy’s sleep schedule, and with each passing day he feels more tired. It doesn’t help that Teddy usually comes into his room in the early hours, asking for him to tuck in Rem again because the poor wolf can’t get back to bed. Harry does, just to make Teddy fall back to sleep if only for a couple more hours.
But he couldn’t have it any other way. If he hadn’t taken Teddy in, he might’ve ended up in the Ministry’s adoption program. Ron and Hermione were far too busy to take in a child, their success in their respective careers growing. It’s not as if taking Teddy in has put his life on hold. Harry did nothing before, just showed up to a couple ministry galas and war memorial openings, and maybe, if he felt like it, showing his face at Hogwarts. Teddy was like a glimmer of hope in his very, very dull life.
Teddy had direct family, but after the war repercussions, the worker at the Family Affairs Section in the ministry was sceptical. Remus’ side would have been considered, half-bloods with no criminal records, but Tonks’…
Harry goes to place Teddy back in his bed, but he wakes, looking up at Harry and crying again.
“Shhh….” Harry says, sitting on the edge of the bed with Teddy, hugging him tight. It takes half an hour for him to settle back down again, and Harry tucks a soft blanket around Teddy, with Rem nestled next to his face.
As he watches the sleeping boy, his eyes closed but still red, Harry thinks about Teddy’s family.
He needs to see his family, even if it’s just once. There’s only so much Harry can provide as his godfather.
Harry thinks he can fix this, thinks he can make Teddy feel better. He doesn’t want to raise him like he was raised himself.
If anything else, he knows this is a way to help himself not be a sad excuse for a man.
*
It’s two days later and Harry is sat on the plush couch in Ron and Hermione’s house in Ottery St Catchpole, watching Teddy as he plays on the rug that looks like it has been passed down through many generations of Weasleys. Ron’s away on an Auror business, as usual, and Hermione has only just got back from the ministry, doing overtime in her bid to make things a little fairer in life.
He’s cradling a cup of tea that he made himself, watching as the steam rises and curls, relishing the warmth it provides.
“He needs to see his family, Hermione,” Harry says in the silence.
“You are his family, Harry!” She explodes, waving her hands around. She’s heard this all before, and Harry knows she’ll hear it again. How she puts up with him, he doesn’t know.
“Hardly…” He mutters, tucking his too-long hair behind his ear.
“What do you suggest we do then? Go find an alive member of the Black family and shove them in Teddy’s face?” She questions, her eyes wide and challenging.
“Well, no, but-“
“You’re forcing him to have a family, Harry. You are enough,” Her brown eyes are stern and imperative.
“No I’m not, Hermione! He needs to be around family, or he’ll just get more angry and upset and I don’t know how to look after him!”
“You grew up without a family, didn’t you?” Hermione asks boldly, posture rigid and eyes narrowed.
Harry inhales deeply at that, almost choking on air as the memories he’s tried so hard to repress come back at full force.
“Yes, I did. And they were the worst years of my life. I think it’s a good idea if Teddy grows up around his actual family, I’m just his godfather,” He exclaims, hating the way his voice becomes hoarse and dry.
Hermione sighs, slumping onto the back of the sofa. “Who do you suggest, then? If you really think you’re so bad at looking after Teddy, just because you’re not blood related, tell me who he should be around. There’s not many people from the Black, Tonks or Lupin family that I can name who are still alive today.”
“Narcissa?” He says hesitantly, and Hermione’s eyebrows shoot up. “She saved my life, I guess…”
“Have you even spoken to her since the war ended? Have you made any effort to reach out to her, at all?” Her dark eyebrow lifts and Harry reclines into the sofa.
He closes his eyes, headache building up. “No, but there’s no one else I can think of that I could trust being around Ted.”
“What about…” Hermione sighs. “What about Malfoy.”
“Lucius?”
“No, Harry, Lucius Malfoy is dead.”
Oh.
“So you mean,” Absolutely not. “Draco Malfoy.”
Hermione shrugs her shoulders, apparently indicating a yes. “If you’re so desperate for Teddy to meet someone from his family, I think Malfoy is your best bet.”
“But Hermione, he’s a death eater! He’s never treated us with anything but cruelty.”
“And you can say the same about yourself?” She asks, and Harry’s mouth involuntarily opens. Hermione cuts him off, “Look, he’s a healer now! He’s well respected, and even Ron admits that he’s good at what he does.”
“You’re telling me you actually feel sympathy for him. That he’s actually grown into a better man?” He almost wants to laugh.
“He’s done a lot more with his life than you have, Harry.”
He physically reclines at that statement, somewhat hurt. He doesn’t respond to that, partly because he believes it’s true. Draco Malfoy is a healer, he’s made good of himself, and what has Harry done? Sit around and promise his friends he’ll get a job.
He supposes that he’s lived up to everything that was expected of him.
He spent so long living in the state of rash decisions and uncertain promises, not affording himself a chance to wonder about the future, so now that he’s actually living in it, he doesn’t know where to go next.
“No. I’m not letting Teddy meet Malfoy. I don’t trust him,” He says sternly, almost too loudly, and Harry looks away when Teddy looks up at him.
“I’m just trying to help, Harry,” She shrugs, and Harry lays down on the sofa, propping one of the fluffy crochet cushions underneath his head. “You’re limiting your options.”
He sighs. “It’s just- hard.”
He knows he sounds pathetic, knows he is pathetic, but to completely trust another person, especially if that person is Draco Malfoy, letting them meet the child that is under Harry’s care. Harry shivers at the thought that things would go horribly wrong.
“I know it is, Harry. I know that you weren’t expecting to take in a child at twenty-four, but this is your life now. You made that decision. I’m sorry if what I say isn’t right, or good, but it’s what I think you need to hear. Okay?” She leans over and takes one of Harry’s hands into her own, squeezing tightly.
Harry sighs, long and slow.
“Yeah, okay. I know, and I’m sorry too,” He says softly, feeling so incredibly exhausted and lost.
“You are doing a good job. There is no right way to go about these things.”
Hermione smiles at him and he smiles back, thankful for his friend.
“Harry, are you okay?” Teddy asks, getting up from his pretend dragon-battle and coming over to the sofa.
“I’m fine, Ted,” He says, picking up the boy and resting him on the sofa.
“How about a game of exploding snap?” Hermione suggests, and Teddy cheers.
It’s a good day when he sees Teddy smile.
*
At dinner the next day, with Teddy’s favourite meal, chicken nuggets and chips, Harry’s questions will turn out to be answered for him.
It begins as normal, with Harry shouting Teddy down from the living room, spelling the plates and cutlery to lay itself down, splashing milk into his forgotten, half-made tea.
Harry picks at his dinner, Ted drowns the lot of it in ketchup, and they have chats about Quidditch, or Harry’s friends, or Hogwarts, and sometimes even small and vulnerable moments where Teddy talks about his Grandmother.
It’s on this day, as Harry begins to tidy their mess away, that he notices something odd in the air.
Teddy has gone oddly still and silent, his hands gripping at the table and his hair turning a murky-green sort of colour.
“Ted?” Harry says, turning from the sink and stepping towards the boy.
The plates stacked up in the cupboard start to rattle, and Teddy’s breathing won’t slow down.
“Ted?” He asks again in a panic, trying to calm the little boy by gently pulling him towards himself.
The doors of the cupboards starts to rattle now, and Harry can feel the tension of accidental magic around them, almost like static. It permeates the air thickly and Harry can feel it on his fingertips, his own magic starting to prick up in his skin.
“Ted, you need to calm down okay?” He says quietly, flattening the hair on his head. “Look, hold on to Rem.” He shoves the stuffed wolf into Teddy’s hand but it’s not helping, he only shuts his eyes and puts his head into his hands.
Wind begins to pick up in the house, blowing at the kitchen curtains and the newspapers piled onto the end of the table, and Harry grabs his wand to try and spell it away, which does nothing.
Suddenly there’s peace, the tap at the kitchen sink turns off abruptly, but Harry didn’t even realise it was on. He breathes out a sigh of relief, until he can’t anymore.
The last thing he does before he’s encased in shattered glass and splintered wood is to throw a protection spell in front of Teddy.
He’s not sure if it worked, as everything quickly fades to black.
*
“Patient breathing steadily, deep wounds on right cheek and left leg, healed while patient was under a sleep-stasis charm. Broken arm, to be healed once patient is conscious…”
Harry hears a faint mumble coming from his right, but his eyes won’t open and he feels as if he can’t move. The low drawl is familiar, and it seems to lull Harry fully out of sleep.
“Oh- Patient is awake,” The voice says and Harry feels the tingle of a diagnosis charm wash over him. After a second, his body relaxes and his eyes become loose.
He blinks against the blinding lights, once, twice…
“Ah, Potter,” Draco Malfoy says. Harry freezes again, eyes widening. What the fuck was Malfoy doing here? “I’ll be your healer for today.”
Of course.
Harry adjusts himself to the harsh light and pulls himself up the bed, and only then remembering what had happened.
“Where’s my godson,” He asks forcefully, looking around the sterile white room incase Teddy has hidden away somewhere. The movement hurts his neck, and shoots a stinging pain down his spine.
“He’s with Granger outside,” Malfoy replies curtly.
“And how is he?” He demands, cursing Malfoy’s vagueness.
“Completely fine, it seems you threw a very powerful protection spell over him. I see that you didn’t stop to consider you yourself would need one, too,” His blonde eyebrow raises, and it takes Harry back to all of those years ago.
“There wasn’t enough time,” Harry says begrudgingly, eyeing Malfoy’s lime green healer robes.
“Alright,” He nods, and then pulls a floating file from across the room. “You have a broken arm, which will need to be healed imminently. You had some rather nasty cuts on your cheek but it’s been healed already, same with your leg. I’ll get you to sign this form-“
“Why are you here?” Harry interrupts, hating how formal Malfoy’s being. He knows this is only phony. He has the feeling that if he makes one wrong move, or says one small jibe, Malfoy will be shoving his wand right into Harry’s neck.
“I’m a healer, Potter,” Malfoy’s arms cross, unimpressed.
“No, I mean, why are you healing me?” He quickly checks under the covers to see if Malfoy has meddled with him, making sure that his right and left feet are pointing the way they are supposed to, or that his belly button hasn’t disappeared. You never know, he says to himself.
“It’s my job. I don’t choose who I heal, I see each and every patient that comes in. Now I could leave you to your own devices and let you fix that arm yourself, but that wouldn’t be a very good healer of me, would it?” The sarcasm that lines Malfoy’s words make Harry’s blood boil, and he knows that he made the right decision not to contact Malfoy about Teddy. He knows that he would definitely be laughed at, now, with his pointy teeth and sharp nose right in his face.
Harry scowls and throws his head on the pillow. He snatches the quill from Malfoy’s hand and signs the parchment, albeit wonky in the wrong writing hand. “Just fix my bloody arm and then let me see my Godson.”
Malfoy looks as if he wants to roll his eyes but doesn’t. He flicks his wand once and the parchment disappears. He flicks it again, nods, and starts to gather the papers left on the side-table. He goes towards the door before Harry abruptly stops him.
“Aren’t you going to fix my arm?”
Malfoy laughs, a smug smile drawn across his face. “I already did, Potter.”
Harry lifts his arm and- it’s perfectly fine. His eyes shoot up to Malfoy’s, and he finds a sharp stare back.
“I’ll bring in your Godson. You’re welcome to leave whenever, but remember to sign out at the reception desk.”
It’s so weird to see him so formal, there’s nothing alluding to the fractured past between them, just pure professionalism.
“Uh…thanks,” Harry says, hesitant.
“Pleasure,” Malfoy smiles with no actual pleasure behind it, just sweeps out of the room in obnoxious green robes.
Harry doesn’t even have time to process that whole conversation, as Teddy comes bounding in, climbing onto the hospital bed and settling on Harry’s legs.
“Careful, Teddy,” Hermione says, stepping into the room. “Harry’s injured, we don’t want to cause him any more pain.”
“I’m fine, actually,” Harry says, distracted as he watches Malfoy walk past, with bottles of potions floating after him.
Hermione turns to look, and smiles at him when she turns back around, but Harry can note the sympathy that she feels for him. What a sorry sight he must be. “I told you he was alright.”
“I’m not really sure what to think. That Malfoy isn’t the Malfoy I know,” Harry says, taking a sip from the water and beginning to spell his things into the pocket of his jacket, which is laid across one of the chairs.
“People change, Harry. Did you thank him?”
Harry frowns at her but mumbles an affirmative.
“You’ll have to thank Ted here, too. He managed to connect the floo call to me pretty quickly. I thought he might’ve been joking when he said that you’d been covered in 'kitchen bits’.”
Harry laughs and pulls Teddy in for a hug.
“I’m sorry, Harry,” Ted begins, thumbing the bedsheets. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Don’t worry, I know you didn’t. And it’s all okay now, I’m better!” Harry says cheerfully, twisting his arm around to show Teddy. “I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt.”
“I didn’t, but Rem did,” Ted says, holding up his little toy towards Harry. The wolf toy seems to have been sliced from the glass, and Teddy tries to stuff back in the material from inside.
“Well it’s lucky we’re in the hospital, isn’t it?” Harry says, taking the plush and running his wand along the side of it, watching as it sews itself back together.
He’s never been good at those sorts of charms, but he’s proud of himself when the wolf comes back looking like it always has.
“There we go, all better,” Harry smiles, handing the toy back and ruffling Teddy’s hair. He smiles at Hermione, who is already smiling at him.
“Are you okay getting you and Ted back home?” Hermione asks. “I am terribly sorry, but I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine, of course. Thank you for bringing me here,” He replies, getting himself up and gathering his stuff, stretching his back before leaning down to hug Hermione, his face squished into her bushy hair.
“No worries,” She says, and then adds on quietly. “Maybe now that you’ve met the man, it might make your whole dilemma a little easier to work out.”
She smiles and pats him on the back, before hugging Teddy goodbye and leaving the room.
“Let’s go home, shall we? I’ve bought a new DVD that I think you’ll like, and then we can have a go at restoring my kitchen, hmm?”
Teddy nods, and Harry attempts a smile.
So although Harry’s mind has cleared from all the Malfoy related issues from before, he’s now stuck with even more provocations. First, Teddy’s uncontrollable accidental magic, and second, what he’s actually going to do now that he’s seen Malfoy again.
Harry’s head begins to hurt, and so he takes Ted’s hand as they walk together to the apparition point.
He doesn’t want to think about that right now, but as he goes to bed that night, exhausted and anxious, he begins to wonder.
What if?
*
When Harry wakes up the next day, his mind certainly isn’t made, but it certainly has changed.
It makes him think about what his life was like before Teddy was around. He doesn’t like remembering, but when he’s by himself, lying in his bed, it’s hard for it not to all come back.
Each day was a struggle, with Harry waking up from a nightmare, sweating profusely and tears running down the side of his face. He wouldn’t eat breakfast, would hardly each lunch, and would have whatever he could find in his fridge for dinner. He wouldn’t go inside, instead pottering around the dark corridors of Grimmauld Place, trying to ignore everything that happened here.
Hermione called it depression, and PTSD, and the lingering effects of anxiety, but Harry didn’t feel like naming it. He doesn’t think he ever could.
The war had changed everything. Even though they were five years on from all that had happened, nothing has returned to normal. The Weasley’s still have an empty chair from where Fred used to sit. Luna, when she rarely visits, sometimes has moments where she sits in complete silence, her eyes glazed over and glossy. Hermione still traces her fingers over her collarbones, Ron’s arms linger with the traces of scars.
Harry still lives in a constant tumultuous web of pain, hurt, and sadness. Sometimes he doesn’t recognise himself when he looks in the mirror.
Too skinny, too tired, too scarred.
Teddy helped. Definitely.
He sometimes visited him and Andromeda back when she was still alive. He would take him to parks, to zoo’s, to get ice cream and dawdle down Diagon Alley.
He even stayed with Teddy in Andromeda’s house, while Andromeda was in hospital, her sickness getting worse and worse.
He remembers those happy moments, even in the midst of sadness. Andromeda’s house, a cottage on the outskirts of Oxford, was the ultimate picture of warmth. Plush corduroy sofas, fluffy ruby red rugs, a fireplace that always seemed to be lit.
It made a stark contrast to Grimmauld Place.
He’s not even sure about why he lives there. It was the Black Family’s, and then Sirius’, and then his. Maybe he feels too guilty letting it go.
Teddy seems to like it, likes running up and down the landings, laughing at the portrait of Walburga.
Harry wishes he felt the same.
His mind then wanders back, as it always does, to what he’ll do about Ted’s situation.
Draco Malfoy did not seem like what he always had. Maybe Hermione was right, maybe he has changed. He looked healthy, looked…good, he supposes. A good job, a good life, atonement and reparations made after the war. He certainly has done a lot more with his life than Harry has. If he were to tell Malfoy what was going on, would he care? Would it mean anything?
He doesn’t want to burden the man with the information, doesn’t want to go up to him and tell him, the man he hated for so long, ‘Hey, I know we haven’t spoken in years, not properly, anyway, but my Godson is grieving the death of your aunt so badly that I think it would help him if you came into his life’.
The real question is, would Malfoy want to meet Teddy?
He knows that Malfoy never visited Andromeda or Teddy after the war, or at least Andromeda hadn’t said anything. Maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea for Malfoy to meet him.
Maybe it’ll be too much, maybe it’ll be awkward and uncomfortable, maybe Harry would much rather Teddy be unhappy than have a relative be thrusted in his face and force a relationship.
And in terms of Harry himself, he doesn’t think he wants to see Malfoy again.
He’s almost embarrassed with the way he looks. Why would he give Malfoy the satisfaction over the fact that Harry actually is just one miserable man, with no direction in life and a hole missing from his heart.
Harry shakes his head, getting up from bed at the sounds of cries coming from Teddy’s room across the hall.
No more thinking, he tells himself. These things happen for a reason, and Harry just has to figure things out by himself.
He’ll get there, one day.