Four years after the war, Harry is set adrift as a single parent caring for his godson, Teddy. A story of coming home, of second chances, and of finding yourself when it all falls apart.
So, this marks my first immersion into the world of Harry Potter long fics. I'll be totally honest, this story took a long while to come to fruition, mostly because 2017 was an insane year, but also because I had to force myself to take the time to recognize that this story wouldn't be as true as it could be to what I envisioned if I didn't take the time to sort through the difficult feelings of what I experienced. Draco and Harry's struggles are partly inspired by a major heartbreak I went through twice (with the same person) this year, by my own realization that I will be doing this wild thing we call parenting by myself and adjusting to a new career.
I'm rambling but I hope that the love I intended to put into the characters and plot is able to shine through. And I hope that this story will immerse you in a world that's a little like coming home and a little like escaping from our routine lives, which is what my characters will be doing. There's humor, there's laughter, there's a little melancholy, a little aching, but in the name of healing.
The first few chapters may move a little slowly, as a precaution. A side note is that I am a complete sap for reviews, and I would love to hear from all of you on how you are enjoying the story.
None of this sadly belongs to me, except a few original characters, and everything wonderful belongs to JKR.
Oh, one more note: Hiraeth (noun) a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.
The New Year begins with a storm.
The storm is not a minor fanfare of light and sound, but a great and mighty crash. Spears of lightening strike the darkness and thunder roars as if the sky itself might split in two.
Harry watches the rain tiredly, wonders if it's a metaphor somehow for the state of his life. The water is iron grey and icy, falling in wild lines from silver, swollen clouds that move over London like bloated and slow beasts. The whole affair spills hard over the bewitched windows of the Ministry of Magic
"Mr. Potter, are you quite sure you're alright?"
Harry registers the question but doesn't entirely hear it. Instead, he's far away, somewhere up high and divorced from the searching voice.
He closes his eyes. Leans his forehead against the cool windowpane and follows the shapes of witches and wizards sweeping along the sidewalk and into the Ministry's atrium far below.
"Mr. Potter, please. This is important."
Each life has a critical inflection point, Harry thinks. And while he had largely - falsely, he decides - assumed he had reached his fork in the road four years ago at the end of the war, it's a sharp and unforgiving angle that has brought him here, to the Ministry's Child Protection and Care Office.
Harry had been drawn out by an owl's post at dawn, trod through the snow and passing spirited couples swaying their way home, the champagne with the orange label he recognizes tilting this way and that in clutched hands.
It's a puncture to the stillness his life had taken on after defeating Voldemort and yes, okay, the monotony that Harry had naively assumed would make him happy really hadn't at all but-
Harry is wise enough, experienced enough, to know a moment like this will distinguish itself in hindsight with a clear Before and After when he inevitably reflects back.
Andromeda Tonks is dead.
The announcement flickers in and out of Harry's head, much like the voice of the woman across the office desk.
Harry drags his gaze away from the roiling storm to stare down hard at the sheaf of parchment in his lap.
It's filled with lengthy legalese that he doesn't quite understand.
What he does understand, however, is that when he signs it, the parchment will glow as bright as the sun, Mr. Potter and isn't that what we've really circled all around for? and seal the decision that a twenty-three-year-old Harry James Potter is now the guardian of a four-year-old Edward Remus Lupin.
"Mr. Potter?" Beatrix Plum, the woman who heads all magical adoptions, is soft-spoken with kind eyes the color of almonds. A little like Molly Weasley, Harry had thought idly when the moon still hung in the sky and the storm had yet to threaten the celebration of a new year.
Harry eyes the space on the creamy stock where his signature is supposed to be, the unbridled fear he had managed to choke down that morning coming quickly back up and sitting in this throat.
He coughs a little.
"Harry." It's a tentative hand on his knee that breaks him from his reverie, throws him right into Hermione's anxious, amber eyes. Her brow is drawn down in concern.
"Yes, I'm fine," he eventually croaks.
"Andromeda had this drawn up in the event that she was no longer able to care for Edward," Beatrix explains softly. "She and I spoke at length about who would make a suitable guardian when she became sick."
She pauses. Harry feels her gaze, hot, on his downcast face. He doesn't think about Andromeda's sickness and he doesn't think about the premeditation of this.
"As his godfather, we believe you could provide a loving and nurturing home for Edward to grow up in."
Harry nods at her words, but they seem to merely float around him, not really absorbing.
Hermione's hand on his knee tightens and he can see the fine bones beneath her skin flex protectively.
"Right. Loving and nurturing," he echoes. His voice sounds hollow, detached from the body it originates from, and he doesn't say more than he needs to.
Because Harry knows that if he continues speaking every frightened and doubting thought he has will hurtle out of his mouth and he'd rather keep his mouth shut, the turbulent thoughts locked inside his head.
Hermione clears her throat beside him and sits forward in her seat, as much as she can with her heavily pregnant state. "Mrs. Plum," she starts," is there, um, anything else Harry - Mr. Potter - needs to do outside of signing the adoption form?"
"I've a few scrolls for Mr. Potter from Andromeda. And Mr. Potter, I'm going to need your signature here," Beatrix points a finger at one line on the parchment in his lap," and then finally here."
Harry's hand shakes as he takes the quill. Stop it, he scolds the hand, and grips it more firmly.
He's doing this. The smiling faces of Tonks and Remus flash for a moment, followed closely by Sirius, bright as can be and painful, and he pushes them aside.
I'll come back, he promises them.
The quill shakes again.
I, Harry James Potter, hereby agree to act as the legal Guardian to Edward Remus Lupin, on this day, Friday, the first of January, two thousand and two.
He scrawls this as neatly as he can manage and once he finishes his signature floats off the sheet, burns blue, and then settles back, etched as permanently as if in stone.
Life After, he thinks.
"Mr. Potter, it's been a pleasure." Beatrix neatly folds the parchment and stows it in a smart envelope. She stands from her desk and takes a thick stack of envelopes fastened together with forest green velvet ribbon. "Andromeda wanted me to give you these. For both you and Edward." she says kindly.
Harry takes the envelopes, standing and helping his best friend out of her chair. Hermione's fragile hand is at his elbow, touch reassuring.
"Thank you," he whispers, heart heavy.
Harry and Hermione are about to turn when Hermione clears her throat. "Mrs. Plum."
"Yes, Mrs. Weasley?"
Harry watches the side of Hermione's face and registers the hesitation in her features, the tightening around her lips and hand briefly resting on her growing bump before her eyebrows straighten out and her expression turns firm as though she's telling herself to forward on.
"I was wondering if any...any other stakeholders in Teddy's well being have been notified of...Andromeda's passing?"
Harry's stomach turns sour. He knows what Hermione is delicately referring to and he does not miss the way Beatrix's face tenses.
"I assume you are referring to the Malfoy family."
"Yes."
Beatrix wavers. "The office sent an owl to Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy this morning. As you probably know, Draco's whereabouts are still unknown."
Harry does know. Out of the corner of his eye, he notes Hermione's mouth flickering at one side.
No one in the Wizarding world has seen Draco Malfoy since the end of the war following his family's trials and not many a soul had searched long or hard for him. Not that Harry has any particular problem with the disappearance of his once school rival but a gentle part of him yanks a little bit at the thought that Narcissa Malfoy is now alone in the world as the last remaining Black family member.
"Right. Well." Hermione takes Harry's elbow again and squeezes tightly. Harry hangs on as long as he can before shaking Beatrix's hand and they depart the office for Teddy.
"Oh, and Mr. Potter?" Harry turns to face the motherly looking woman from the doorway. She gives him a comforting smile and nods faintly. "What you're doing is wonderful. For what it's worth, I think you will make an excellent parent."
The Ministry halls are empty spare for the infrequent memo flitting along a corridor when Hermione and Harry step out of Beatrix's office to walk slowly toward the cheery waiting room and linger until Teddy's paperwork is approved and Harry can collect him.
The rainstorm has not relented and thunder threatens the stained glass windows as they both move in silence toward the twinkling Christmas lights over the doorway.
Harry clutches Andromeda's envelopes to his chest and his eyes catch each doorway, unable to concentrate on anything solid.
"Do you want to open the letters?" Hermione's whisper is loud against the turquoise tiles lining the corridor.
"Not really."
Hermione's hand is at his wrist when they pass the entrance to the Auror Department, fluttering as though she thinks Harry might dart through the double doors he hasn't walked through in months and vanish.
"Do you miss it?"
Harry doesn't have an answer for Hermione until they have settled on a comfortable bench overlooking Westminster Square down below. They are the only two people in the waiting room, which is not surprising. Hermione huffs out a breath with effort when they sit and Harry almost wants to laugh.
"I'm afraid you're going to pop every time you sit down, 'Mione," he jokes as much as he can, fidgeting with the corner of the top envelope in the stack on his lap.
"You and everyone else," Hermione gently and instinctively pries the envelopes out of Harry's grasp and straightens the corner of the curled parchment before tucking them in her oversized purse.
He lets her because he knows she has been mothering him and all of their friends for the past six months and she will feel a little more settled, a little more in control of the situation if she's taking care of her friend.
"I'm waiting for Ron to start following me around with a bucket, quite honestly, every time I walk around." Hermione rolls her eyes and a giggle escapes. "I overheard him asking Fleur on Christmas if it was possible the baby could just fall out one day."
Harry laughs and it feels foreign in his mouth, like he hasn't laughed in years. Trust his two best friends to lighten up a certainly depressing and monumental day.
They lapse back into silence again and Hermione's smile fades before Harry speaks again.
"I don't miss it," Harry eventually says. "I thought I might but..." he trails off.
"It wasn't for you." Hermione finishes quietly.
"No." Harry says firmly. It's the truth.
Since November of last year, Harry has been hesitant to unravel the reasons he left the department, glossing over superficial reasons for his best friends who had looked at him with concern and furrowed brows and handled him like a fragile ornament ever since.
He sighs audibly. "I know I never really gave you or Ron an answer, 'Mione."
"That's okay, Harry," Hermione tries brightly but he doesn't miss the strain in her voice or the overly dismissive I don't mind not knowing my best friend anymore tone.
"No. It's not. I owed both of you a proper response. More than 'it wasn't right'." Harry insists. "I became an Auror because I didn't know what else there was for me to do and it was a safe and familiar decision. I was terrified. Terrified of something different because what if it turned out that all I was good at was fighting Dark magic?"
Lightening crackles above their heads and Harry absorbs himself in tracing the lines of the silvery thunderclouds outside.
"I thought leaving would make it better."
The truth is that since departing from his job and his family of Aurors, Harry has felt even more like a reluctant boat tugged out into a great sea, waves moving him along with no discernable destination and with complete disregard. He thought that by leaving, he would be taking back control of his life but in the stillness and lack of direction, his fears intensified and twisted.
His greatest fear now, Harry thinks while staring at the wild rain, is eventually becoming indifferent to the world around him.
He's near the point and he hates himself for feeling his way, for not feeling strong enough for Teddy and for his friends.
"And now what if - what if I'm really this totally useless sod who now has just agreed to-" His voice cracks and breath hitches and he stops abruptly.
"Oh, Harry," Hermione's face crumples for the first time since meeting Harry at the office in the darkness. She hugs him as fiercely as she can from beside him, arms tightly around his waist and he exhales heavily, sadness and relief and something else blossoming in his throat. He hugs her back, one arm around her slim shoulders and breathing in the familiar scent of parchment and cinnamon in her overwhelming curls.
"You're not useless." She sniffs into his shoulder. "You're brave and brilliant and I don't just mean as an Auror." She draws back and wipes at her wet eyes.
Hermione reaches up to take Harry's face in her small hands and he hasn't realized the wetness of his own cheeks until she drags her fingertips under his eyes. "You are a brave and brilliant man, Harry James Potter, at everything you do. You are going to be an amazing guardian for Teddy."
"What about-"
"You are not replacing Remus or Tonks or Andromeda."
"I'm terrified." Harry whispers to the window.
"Of course you are. It's terrifying becoming a parent. Look at Ron and his bucket!"
Harry lets out a sound that is half laugh, half sob.
"I mean it though. You are going to give Teddy everything he needs and could want for. Andromeda saw you as the best person to shoulder a massive responsibility because she knows you can and have before." Hermione pauses and pushes her curls off her face.
"And I know that if anyone can understand what Teddy is going through, you do."
Harry turns to take in his friend's earnest expression, amber eyes bright and he feels an overwhelming rush of love and affection for her friendship and for leaping out of bed six months pregnant when Harry had flooed both her and Ron in the middle of the night.
"What if I do something wrong or mess him up?"
"You will absolutely not. And you're not doing this alone, remember?" Hermione pinches Harry on the arm and smiles. "You've got me and Ron and all of the Weasleys. Molly, of course, who I'm certain is back at the Burrow already building Teddy a bedroom and shunting poor Arthur off to the garage."
Harry snorts. "I'll need to find a place eventually. Not that I haven't enjoyed living with them for so long. But I can't exactly-" Harry ponders his choice of his words, all of them tasting somehow wrong and right at the same time, "raise a child in someone else's home."
"It's your home too. And you know you can always stay with Ron and I for as long as you'd like."
"I know. But you're getting ready to start a family of your own and...and...good grief I don't even know what they like, children." he says suddenly, panicking at the thought of not being able to feed or care for Teddy in the slightest.
"You do, Harry." Hermione insists firmly, tucking her arm through his and leaning her head on his shoulder. "Teddy is your godson and you are already great with him."
"What about the Malfoys? They're technically Teddy's family too."
"Mr. Potter and Mrs. Weasley?" A female voice calls from the doorway behind Harry and Hermione and they both whip around.
A dark-haired, thin-lipped woman is standing in the archway leading back out into the main corridors. She looks as tired as Harry feels to his very bones.
Before he can register a response, Teddy is rushing between her legs and Harry is halfway up from the bench when the child flings himself into Harry's own legs. Snuffling breath bubbling up and choked out words and a running nose pressed firmly into the wizard's shoulder, Harry crouches and pulls Teddy into a tight, protective hug, attempting to pour every ounce of reassurance he has left into the little boy.
"I'm here, Teddy," he can hear the catch his own voice and the quaking little boy pulls closer. Behind him he can hear the exchanges between Hermione and the woman he assumes to be a social worker.
Hermione's hand is at his back.
"We can take him home, Harry."
"Are you ready to go home, Teddy?" Harry squeezes his godson and when Teddy unpeels himself from Harry's shoulder, the pair of eyes searching his roll into a vivid green as striking and familiar as Harry's own. Unprompted, they begin to brim with tears again and Harry folds the boy into the hollow of his collarbone, mouths a thank you to the woman and follows Hermione out of the Ministry, absorbing the hiccups and breathy puffs against his neck.
"It's alright." Harry murmurs with more confidence than he feels. "It's okay. I've got you. We've got this."
TBC. Review if you'd like! Helps me know someone somewhere is reading this!