Competition, Conversation, Confrontation, Confession

Draco and Scorpius Malfoy came up the drive, immaculately dressed. Scorpius looked vaguely ill, and Harry guessed that he had just experienced Side-Along Apparition. Harry met them at the door and invited them cordially in. Al appeared at the back door as planned.

"Want to play Quidditch?" he said to Scorpius. "That'll even out the teams." Draco waved Scorpius away, and the blonde and black heads disappeared together.

"Your children all play Quidditch?" said Draco to Harry.

"Their parents were pretty good at school," said Harry, smiling slightly. "Only bound to happen, I suppose. Scorpius' father wasn't half bad, either, as I recall." Malfoy smiled without malice.

"His mother preferred the bleachers, though." His smile faded, as did Harry's.

"I'm sorry—" Harry started, but Malfoy cut him off.

"As I'm sure you know, Potter, there's hardly a subject that will not remind me of my late wife, as nothing will take your mind off yours. That was the reason you brought me here, was it not? To commiserate?"

"Mostly for our children's sake," said Harry. "Mine are tired of being around people who can't understand what they're going through. But yes."

"Then let's not do ourselves the disservice of trying to scoot around the subject," said Malfoy. Harry nodded.

"If I come home late, I find my kids trying to decipher cookbooks," he said.

"Our house-elves do our cooking," said Malfoy. "But I leave work early every day because my son is alone in the house."

"I still ignore James when he starts teasing Al or Lily because I expect her to stop it."

"I half expect to see her reading in bed when I go to sleep."

"Every time I see Lily toss her hair or give her brothers a mean look, I see her."

"Just seeing my son reminds me of what I had."

"When I watch James and Lily play Quidditch, they're so high up I sometimes think I'm seeing myself and Ginny on the Gryffindor team in our sixth year."

"When Scorpius talks about Slytherin girls kissing up to him, I remember how Pansy did the same to me."

"Is that why you married her?" said Harry without thinking. Draco gave him a look, and Harry began to apologize again.

"While I'm glad you've acknowledged the rudeness of that comment and the fact that there's really no need to act like schoolboys given it's been over twenty years since we left, in all honesty," said Draco, "I'm not sure why I married her. Tired of dating, I suppose. This is between us, yes?"

"Of course," agreed Harry automatically. "It was just…I always had to wonder, given…"

"Given?" prompted Malfoy, but Harry shook his head, flushing.

"It doesn't matter." He was saved from further inquiry by shouts from outside. Malfoy looked as though he didn't know whether to be alarmed or not. "Someone's won," Harry explained.

"How exactly does one play Quidditch with only two players? Or do you have guests I don't know about?" Harry shook his head incredulously.

"You've never done it?"

"I was an only child, you might recall. And my summers weren't spent with children my age. I flew with my father when I was a boy, and after that, I got my Quidditch practice at school."

"Well," said Harry, "it depends on who's playing, both on number and positions. Like if you've got just one person on each team and they're both Seekers, then you just play with the Snitch. What they're probably playing now is one person as Chaser and Keeper and the other as Seeker. The only problem is having an even number of players. If Rose comes over, Hugo wants to play, too. That was a lot of trouble when they were younger, till they got the idea of having the fifth person referee and rotate through. You should try it."

"But you're just too polite to offer," said Malfoy mildly. This threw Harry.

"I didn't mean—" He stopped and collected himself. "If you want to borrow my clothes, because what you've got on won't work, and play Quidditch with me, in my backyard, with my Snitch, you're welcome."

"I see your point," said Malfoy, smirking slightly. "I'd prefer the playing field to be a little more even." He was quiet, and Harry thought the discussion was over, until Malfoy added, "But I could manage." Harry raised his eyebrows, then grinned.

"I'll get you a pair of jeans." Reading Malfoy's expression, he added, "Muggle pants. Don't start; they're the best thing next to Quidditch robes and you're not having those." He climbed the stairs and returned in a minute, wearing jeans and a T-shirt himself and tossing similar attire to Malfoy with a hasty, "Bathroom's that way," before heading out doors.

Once dressed, Malfoy followed. There was a small woodland track in back of the house, leading to a small field perfect for a Quidditch pitch. On the way, he spotted his son, walking with a tall boy with black hair, a redheaded girl, and the boy at the door, who was a carbon copy of Harry at sixteen. Malfoy smirked to himself as he remembered his own sixth year. Something Harry had said clicked, and he smirked harder. Scorpius caught sight of him and flushed, possibly because he, too, was now in Muggle wear, then looked confused, Draco supposed at the sight of his father looking anything less than aristocratic. He waved to his son and continued.

Harry was waiting astride a Firebolt.

"How come I'm riding yours?" asked Malfoy as he took the Firebolt 300 Harry was holding out to him.

"You're not," said Harry. "This one," he indicated the broom he was on, "is my broom."

"Then…" Draco remembered with a flash that Ginny Potter had played nationally, and dropped the subject. "Still don't know why they let you play on that against Chang's Cleansweep," he said, mounting and kicking off.

"What are you talking about, your whole team had Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones the day you joined!" said Harry. "And this is a replacement, I lost my other broom. There's a Snitch flying around here somewhere, I've no idea where except it's within the boundaries of this clearing. Count to three and then go?"

"If you like," said Malfoy. "One, two, three, go!" They sped off in opposite directions. Malfoy tested the feel of Ginny's broom while keeping an eye out for the Snitch. It was an odd feeling, not having to weave in and out of other people and balls to find the little Snitch. All he had to do was get close enough. And sure enough, in a few minutes of circling—there! But Harry was closer. Malfoy snuck up on his tail and zoomed ahead, but Harry cottoned on in time and was ahead of him, both of their brooms pushing to the max. Perfect.

"You're one to talk," yelled Malfoy over the wind in his ears.

"About what?" hollered Harry.

"Me and Pansy. You wondered about that, given…that I kissed you in sixth year, is that what you were going to say?" It worked. Harry pulled back sharply and Malfoy zoomed ahead to close his fingers around the Golden Snitch. He raised it above his head victoriously and coasted to the ground. Harry followed.

"Now, that wasn't fair," he complained.

"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you haven't distracted the other Seeker on purpose before. In fact, I seem to remember hearing that you did it to Harper when he went on instead of me."

"Yeah, I asked him how much you paid him to do it. Not the same thing. I suppose you were off working on the Vanishing Cabinet." They frowned at one another.

"I suppose the only reason you remember those exact events from, let's see, twenty-two years ago, is that you've never forgiven me," said Malfoy quietly.

"How?" asked Harry emptily. "You cursed one of my teammates and poisoned my best friend. You helped Voldemort."

"Have you any idea—"

"Of course I do! You were scared. He would have killed you if you failed. But you were happy to do it for him. You didn't get help from Dumbledore. You didn't take him up on his offer to hide you. Yes, I was there!" he added in response to Malfoy's shocked look. "I was Petrified and invisible or I would have stopped you."

"I thought someone was up there…" mused Malfoy. He looked at Harry. "But I didn't kill him. He was right. I couldn't do it. And my whole family suffered." Harry looked disbelieving.

"I lost my family. Ron lost family. We lost teachers, classmates, Order members—but your family went through a bit of inconvenient humiliation and you call that suffering?"

"I did my best to save your life when you were captured!" said Malfoy heatedly. "Don't you remember? I didn't identify you. My mother asked. My aunt Bella asked. There was a werewolf in the room to rip my throat out, the Dark Lord a touch away to either reward my family and me beyond our dreams if I said you were Harry Potter or kill me in an instant if I seemed disloyal. And I didn't turn you in."

"You couldn't be sure," challenged Harry. "I didn't recognize myself. If you'd called him and been wrong—" Malfoy laughed harshly.

"You honestly think I didn't know? Honestly, Potter, who else has black hair, green eyes, round black glasses that look as though they've been broken a lot, and a scar on their forehead, who travel with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger? Oh, yes," he added in response to Harry's look, "You forgot about that, didn't you? They asked me if I knew your friends. Of course I did. I saw them most every day for six years. I recognized Weasley the day I met him, you don't think I could have been positive beyond a doubt that it was them? 'I don't know,' I said. 'I don't know, maybe.'"

"And then, 'Yeah,'" said Harry.

"With the greatest reluctance, and after you'd already been identified!" said Malfoy. "I couldn't keep denying it after that, could I? And what would have been the point? You used my wand after yours was broken, you took it out of my hand, and that won you the battle in the end, don't you remember?"

"Don't make it sound like you planned for me to get the Elder Wand. That was luck."

"You didn't plan it either. A lot comes down to luck in your life, Potter. Your mother was close enough to give her life for you. That was one thing. Then you kept not getting in trouble when you should've. Didn't get caught. I laid a trap for you in the trophy room once, remember?"

"Yeah," said Harry. "I escaped you and ran into the three-headed dog guarding the Sorcerer's Stone."

"And didn't get eaten? More luck. And you survived when the Dark Lord came hunting the Stone."

"I didn't have to go down there—Voldemort couldn't have broken through Dumbledore's protection," said Harry. "Me getting the Stone only freed it from that protection."

"But he still didn't get it. Luck, luck, luck, Potter, with some nerve and cleverness and powerful friends to help."

"I know that!" said Harry, taking Malfoy by surprise. "I've been saying that for years, and no one believes me! I'm either some powerful enemy that needs killing or a hero. But a kid that can't turn down a challenge and is best friends with some clever people, not to mention parents to avenge—no, no one ever comes up with that. Hell, I even used a lucky potion once."

"I'm still trying to figure out how you won that," said Malfoy. "Don't tell me you were so frightened of Snape that all your natural Potions brilliance just spilled out when Slughorn started teaching." He looked surprised when Harry started to laugh. "What?"

"I never realized before just how much Snape really taught me. I didn't think about it that way, I was a bit distracted by the fact he'd just killed Dumbledore. I had Snape's old copy of the Potions book. He'd made revisions to almost everything. You'd have done a lot better if he had been teaching—he would have already known how much fixing the book's instructions needed and assigned something else. Come to think of it, maybe that's why he always put the ingredients on the board instead of making us read it from the textbook." Malfoy looked outraged.

"You mean if I hadn't bothered to buy a copy of my own and had to borrow a school one, it could just as easily have been me who got all those brilliant marks in Potions?"

"Yep," said Harry, grinning infuriatingly. "But look at it this way—I ended up using the potion to get a crucial bit of information for killing Voldemort. If you'd gotten it, if you'd done it before we went to that awful cave, Dumbledore wouldn't have been weakened, and he might have been alive…though the curse was killing him anyway, so never mind. Did I lose you?" he added, seeing the look on Malfoy's face. "Fine, we'll allow that you did the best you could at Malfoy Manor. What about in the Room of Requirement?"

Harry glared at Malfoy, who looked down.

"Well?" Harry demanded.

"I have no excuse," said Malfoy finally. "I was angry, Potter. I hadn't completed my mission. I was weak."

Harry started to interrupt, but Malfoy snapped, "That's how the Dark Lord saw it! It was only the fact that Snape had done it before I could let my wand fall that kept me alive. I was taunted, mocked. I didn't want to do it anymore. Neither did my parents—but I guess you know that."

Harry nodded.

"And then you took my wand. Yours broke, do you know how it feels to know you can do effortless magic, except the thing in your hand won't obey you?"

"You didn't win yours from your mother," said Harry, "did you? She lent it to you." Malfoy looked confused. "I won your wand," said Harry, "by disarming you. It changed its allegiance. Else I'd offer to give it back."

"I've got a new one since then," said Malfoy drily, "but the offer is appreciated."

"Your mother's wand wasn't won, so it didn't work well for you. But yes. I know what that's like."

"So there I was. I still didn't believe you could win, and here was something I could do to regain my standing in the Dark Lord's reign. I didn't have to kill a defenceless old man who'd never hurt me, instead, I could hand over Harry Potter, the boy who'd caused me so much grief over the years, the one who landed my father in jail, the one who'd rejected me, cursed me, the one who left me alone to deal with the fact I'd just snogged a boy on purpose—" He stopped and smiled without humour at Harry. "You thought I understood all that, did you? That I wasn't just as confused as you were? Well, I've always been better at hiding my emotions. Anyway, finally, you were the one who'd taken my wand, left me just better than helpless, then you sneak into the castle using it! It wouldn't have been murder."

"Accessory to murder," muttered Harry, and shook his head at Draco's incomprehension.

"And my friends, Potter, my friends were quite happy in the service of the Dark Lord. You saw what Crabbe did. Given all that, is it a surprise that I acted the way I did?" Without agreeing on anything, they began to walk down to the house.

"I suppose not," said Harry reluctantly.

"Two last things, Potter, and then I'd better take my son home and stop infringing on your hospitality. One, I did pay Harper, so it was exactly the same thing, except you didn't know it. Two, do you know how it felt to see you with Ginny Weasley in public? After all, you snogged me first." And with that parting shot, Malfoy turned into the house and called for Scorpius.

Harry and his children sat around the table. They more often picked at their food than really ate it, but they woofed down tonight's supper. Harry wondered whether Scorpius had had a good effect on them or the Quidditch had merely burned all their energy. He was just as hungry, so there was very little conversation until everyone was done. Resting and allowing their full bellies to digest, the four Potters smiled at one another. Harry decided to broach the topic.

"Have fun today?" he inquired, and was met with vigorous nods.

"Scorpius is pretty cool," said Al.

"Good," said Harry. "I got to catch up with his father."

"I thought you were enemies in school?" asked James.

"We were," Harry agreed, "but shouldn't people be able to move past that twenty years later?"

"It was more than that, though," said James, dropping his voice, although there was no one else in the room. "Wasn't Mr Malfoy a Death Eater?" Harry started to reply, then blinked.

"You say Mr Malfoy, I think of Lucius, Draco's father. Draco was, yes, but not to the core. He was sort of press-ganged into it."

"So, can he come over again? Or we could go over there," suggested Al.

"I'll talk to Draco," promised Harry, "and see what he says."

Which is how Harry and Malfoy found themselves in the same position a week later, only in Malfoy Manor. Harry tried not to think about the last time he'd been here. The children greeted each other enthusiastically, then ran off to play Gobstones with Scorpius' gold-plated set. They set up near enough Harry and Malfoy that they could be heard, but were ignorable.

"Come to defend yourself about your choice of wife? Or could you just not keep away?" asked Malfoy sarcastically.

"Our children seem to really like each other," said Harry, refusing to rise to the bait. "Al especially wanted to see Scorpius again." Scorpius, who was concentrating on a gobstone, did not look up, but Al, who was closest, turned at the sound of his name.

"Dad?"

"Nothing," said Harry quickly. "Play your game." But Malfoy did not agree.

"No, come here," he said. "I'd like to ask you something." Confused, Al stood.

"My son's told me you're the most tolerant of Slytherins of all the Gryffindors. I'd like to know why that is."

"Yeah," said James, "I was wondering that, too. You said something about your name." Al looked at his father for permission, and Harry gave it with a nod of the head.

"When I was eleven, I was getting on the Hogwarts express and I was worried about which House I'd be sorted into," explained Al. "And Dad said…well, he said it didn't matter, that he and Mum would be proud of me no matter what. And then he said, 'Albus Severus, you were named for two Headmasters of Hogwarts. One was a Slytherin and he was the bravest man I ever knew.' So when I got to school, and I was sorted into Gryffindor, I kept wondering every time people got into arguments just because they were in different Houses, why it mattered so much. All my classmates hate Slytherins, but I figure they can't all be bad. And they aren't. Scorpius is cool."

Scorpius beamed. His recital over, Al looked around for any clues as to whether he was allowed to go back to his game. Draco nodded thanks, and the children resumed their conversation. Draco turned to Harry.

"Albus Severus?" he said quietly. "You named your son after a Death Eater?"

"He wasn't," said Harry, "not by the end. I didn't believe it until after his death. This was the best way to honour him, I thought."

"What convinced you?" asked Malfoy, genuinely curious.

"His memories. I saw his memories in a Pensieve. He was in love with my mother, since they were children, and he turned back to Dumbledore once Voldemort started hunting her."

"I remember you telling the Dark Lord that Snape was never his," remarked Malfoy, "right before he died. I was distracted by you talking about disarming me being the key."

"Yeah, who knew how important you'd turn out to be, huh?" joked Harry. "And, 'right before he died'? Right before I killed him, you mean."

"He killed himself," answered Malfoy. "I was there. I don't know if I'm taking your glory or setting your mind at ease, and frankly, Potter, I don't care, but Expelliarmus is not a killing curse. His own curse rebounded on him."

Harry was pensive. Suddenly, he changed the subject.

"It's your turn today," he announced.

"My turn for what?"

"Grill me. Ask me anything you like. I got my answers last time, now you'll get yours."

"What makes you think I have any questions for you, Potter?" asked Malfoy sarcastically.

"Oh, you have questions," said Harry without smiling. "You have questions about Ginny."

Malfoy stared at Harry for a minute.

"Did you love her?" he asked hoarsely.

"Yes," said Harry without hesitation.

"Always? I wondered if that didn't come later. If you didn't just date her because…you had to be straight. I mean, if it got out that the Boy Who Lived was gay, that would shatter your fans' hopes and dreams." He was smirking again, but Harry could see the hurt underneath.

"Draco, I've considered myself bisexual since sixth year. I'll admit I was somewhat confused when I kissed you, and when you kissed me back, and I realized after that that you weren't the only boy I was attracted to. But Ginny was real. I was dreaming about you both, but I was falling in love with her."

Malfoy nodded, not looking at Harry, but Harry saw the unshed tears. He knew what Malfoy needed, and gave it. He looked away, watching a spot on the wall, not moving his eyes until Malfoy looked up, under control again. His eyes gave the thanks his words could not.

"Who else knows?" asked Malfoy quietly. "About you."

"No one," said Harry, then laughed a little.

"What?" said Malfoy.

"It's just kind of funny that you, who were once my enemy, know that I look at men as well as women, when my children don't know, my best friends don't know, my niece and nephew and godson don't know. But you do."

"Hard for me not to notice," said Malfoy, and they began to laugh, trying to smother it at first, and then giving up and just laughing out loud. Their children looked over, evidently decided that their fathers were crazy, and went back to their game. Harry grinned at Malfoy, who grinned back. Something about it felt odd, and it wasn't that it was Harry Potter he was smiling at. Then he realized that it had been years since he'd smiled like that, really smiled. He wasn't sure he'd ever done it at Hogwarts, and he'd certainly not done more than smirk since he lost Pansy. Harry went home wondering what might have been if he'd seen that beautiful smile when they were sixteen, and left Malfoy wondering why, after so many years, it mattered that Harry had called him Draco.