Beta(s)/Alpha(s): Nixied, Capitu
Artist(s): digthewriter
Word Count: ~50k
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Harry/Ginny, Albus/Scorpius, Harry/Draco
Other key characters: Ron, Rose, Hugo, Hermione, James, Lily
Era: Canon compliant
Content: Major character death(s) and emotional infidelity.
Summary: Harry and Ginny's marriage has been in trouble since the beginning, but they had the kids to raise and careers to keep them busy. Now the kids are all at school, except James who's starting his own career, Harry is at a desk as the Head Auror and so is Ginny while working for The Daily Prophet. They're working on problems they've been brushing aside for years. When Scorpius Malfoy, their son Albus' best mate, goes missing from Hogwarts. Harry is torn between finding Scorpius before it's too late, and keeping his falling-apart family together.

The package was white with a blue ribbon; perfectly wrapped as though it was a present. It sat by itself on a table in the middle of the Malfoy's sitting room. The letter lay opened next to it and said nothing more than: I have your son.

No demands, requests, or reasons. It was not a good sign.

'You didn't touch anything other than the note?' Harry asked as he took in the scene in front of him.

'No,' Draco said. 'I owled your office as soon as I read it.'

'Good, that was the right thing to do.'

Even though Harry was a professional and had been in similar situations before, he found it difficult to keep calm. Making his way over to the table was a battle; his body didn't want to follow his commands.

'We'll need to start monitoring all of your mail,' Harry said, stalling.

'That's fine. Anything that will help you find—' Draco swallowed and turned away from Harry, but nodded. 'Anything that will help.'

It was new to Harry: Draco being so cooperative. Of course, Harry wouldn't expect anything less under the circumstances.

Narcissa, Astoria, and Draco shifted nervously about the room, while Harry inspected the package further. Narcissa looked out the window as if Scorpius would walk up the path if she stared hard enough and ignored everything that was happening around her. Draco paced by the fireplace. Astoria sat and fidgeted with her lace gloves on the sofa.

There were no detectable spells, so Harry slowly unwrapped it with magic. He folded up the paper and ribbon and sealed them in a bag with a spell for his Aurors. They'd try to find where it was made, who sold it, and if there were any other clues as to who had handled it before him.

He took a breath to steady himself before he opened the box.

Whatever Harry had been expecting, it hadn't been toes. Five of them.

It was a good thing he hadn't picked up the box or he would have dropped it. His back was to the Malfoys, so no one could see his face but his silence was probably worrying enough. Draco came to stand beside him and look himself. Harry couldn't look away from Scorpius's toes to see his reaction; he was just as quiet as Harry.

'What is it?' Astoria asked, her voice trembling slightly. 'What do they want?'

'They want to drive us insane,' Draco said matter of factly.

Harry had to agree. They wanted to drive the family insane with grief and worry. Draco went to sit next to his ex-wife on the couch, and picked up her hands and kissed them. She looked at him in surprise, but didn't pull away.

Her eyes became wide and frantic. 'What is it?'

'He's not dead,' was all Draco said. It was meant to calm her down, but did just the opposite. There was a big difference between isimply not dead/i and ialive and well/i.

They could grow back, Harry thought, but didn't say. Scorpius could survive this. If they wanted to drag out the torture, then it would give Harry more time to track them down. It was the closest thing to a silver-lining there was, but Harry wasn't positive this meant they hadn't already killed him. It was meant to give hope.

It was meant to give hope only to take it away in the end.

Astoria stood and went to look for herself as no one would answer her. She gasped at seeing them. 'Are they? Have you checked to make sure?' She looked to Harry as she asked the last question.

Harry hadn't—there was no reason for them to send someone else's toes—but he checked right away to confirm it. He gave her a slight nod once the spell dissipated.

'His toes?' She reached out as if to touch them, stopping just before she made contact. Draco came up behind her, taking her arm again and leading her back to the sofa. Once seated she closed her eyes, trying to keep her tears from falling.

Narcissa finally looked up, but she didn't move any closer to see the package.

Harry closed the box and sent it away as well. Then he didn't know what to do with himself. There was nothing he could say or do, and everyone sat in silence as he excused himself. Draco followed him to the front door to let him out.

Upon opening the door, Draco said, 'Thank you.'

Harry hesitated, unsure of what Draco was thanking him for. 'It's my job.' Nothing he'd done that day was any different than what he did for every case. Perhaps Draco was simply thankful for Harry dealing with the package, so that he didn't have to.

Draco nodded. 'Still.'

'Anything I can do to help,' Harry said. 'I was—I am very fond of him too, you know.' Harry couldn't look at Draco after his slip. He was usually very careful when talking with the family. Draco either hadn't noticed or pretended not to.

'I'm not sure how close you are with Scorpius. I know how close he is to Albus, but . . . Albus made it sound like you weren't around—'

'I didn't use to be,' Harry admitted. He had never thought too much about his son's relationship with Draco before. Even after having a heart to heart with Scorpius, Harry never wondered if Al had had the same type of conversations with Scorpius's dad. Apparently, they had. 'It's different now that I run the department instead of chasing down criminals all day. I'm home more often.'

'Good,' Draco said. 'That's good.'

'If anything else turns up, don't hesitate to owl or Floo me.' Harry paused. 'Not just at the office; any time, even at home.'

center#/center

Harry was no stranger to nightmares. Not just from the war, but from the many cases he'd worked on over the years. The ones with kids were always the worst. It was common for them to take place in a forest. Though many of his nightmares ended with Scorpius in the forest, the unique thing about his nightmares about Scorpius was that they never started there.

They always started in his home, with Scorpius safe with Albus in the other room.

Scorpius's voice would carry down the hall from Albus's room and Harry followed it, pushing open the door to see Albus lying on his bed reading like he often was. He looked around the room, trying to find the source of the voice but saw nothing.

'Where's Scorpius?' Harry asked Albus who had yet to notice him standing in the doorway. 'I thought I heard him.'

Furrowing his eyebrows, but not taking his eyes off his book Albus asked, 'Who?'

'Scorpius,' Harry repeated his voice growing tense. 'Your best mate since first year.'

'What are you talking about?' Albus looked up from his book. 'I don't know anyone named Scorpius. Are you alright, dad? You seem kind of pale.'

Harry backed out of the doorway as Albus stood and walked toward him. He heard Scorpius call to him from down the hall and he moved toward the voice. The hall seemed to go forever and he began to run, and then he'd finally enter the forest.

Over the years, Harry had searched through many forests for clues. Somehow, even in his dreams, he never mixed up the forests. In them, time got away from him. He'd track the ground only to have centaurs trample through his evidence and threaten to take him and Hermione deeper into the forest. Every time Harry saw Scorpius—sometimes alive but body broken, and sometimes a ghost—he woke up.

He looked around and everything seemed the same. In his dreams everything was darker except the point he was focused on. He knew he wasn't dreaming anymore because the darkness was even, and only changing in places where light spilled in from the windows. When he looked at Ginny, she wasn't surrounded in light and colour with the rest of the room filled with darkness.

She lay peacefully asleep, unaware that he was having nightmares beside her. He reached out to touch her and then changed his mind; he didn't want to disturb her sleep. He checked the time, saw it was past three in the morning. She had to be up in a couple hours to be in at the iProphet/i. He lay back down, but was too on edge to fall asleep, so he got up and slipped into the hall to check.

Lily's room was the closest, with Albus's across the hall. Both their doors were opened.

Their rooms were quiet and empty.

'They're at school,' James said, making Harry jump. He hadn't heard him come out of his room. 'Nightmares?'

Harry thought about lying, he didn't like putting his problems on his children. James was hardly a child anymore though, so he gave in and nodded.

'They're safe,' James tried to reassure him. 'You could always go see them in the morning.'

Sighing Harry leaned against the doorway to Albus' room. 'Yeah, I might.' He should, but he didn't want to show up with nothing. That was all he had with the development of Scorpius's case: nothing. Just a list of people they'd checked out and cleared, and another list of people they'd been looking for for years and weren't going to find any time soon.

'How are you doing?' Harry asked. 'With . . .' He gestured vaguely with his hand.

James shrugged. 'I mean it's kind of hard not to be freaked out by it, but he wasn't imy/i best mate. I'm fine—Sometimes I think I see him, but then . . . well, obviously, it turns out to not be him or just . . . no one was there to begin with.'

Harry nodded. That happened to him a lot after the war. So many people—most often Sirius—would turn up often in crowded places only to disappear as he got within reach of them.

'I don't know what to hope for: that he is still alive so that we can find him and bring him home, or that he is already dead so that maybe it was quick and painless.'

Even James didn't see the option of him being still alive and inot/i in pain. Harry thought about the box with Scorpius's toes. He had the answer to James's question, but he couldn't bring himself to tell him. Harry swallowed around the lump in his throat and sent James back to bed.

center#/center

Harry found Lily first. She met him in the hallway just outside the Gryffindor common room's portrait. Her eyes weren't filled with tears like the last time he'd seen her, and she didn't run to him either. She walked steadily but wearily to him and hugged him. It made her seem so much older than her thirteen years.

'Hi, dad,' she said in a tired voice as though she had just woken up.

'Hello, Lily.' He squeezed her tight once more before letting her go. 'Have you been getting enough sleep?'

She smiled. It was half a smile as though a reflex that she didn't have the energy to fully commit to. 'I'm fine,' she said, shaking her hair off of her face. 'I guess you're here because of the story in the iProphet/i.'

'You know I don't read the iProphet/i,' Harry said. 'I just came by to see you kids is all.'

Lily gave him a skeptical look. 'Not even now?'

'No, not even now.' Harry planned to never read that newspaper again, but it made him curious. 'What story in the iProphet/i?'

'About how the Malfoys received a box with Scorpius's—' she faltered.

'They wrote about that? How did they even find out?' he asked more to himself than to her. He couldn't imagine that any of the Malfoys would have told the paper, and his staff wasn't allowed to discuss any details of any case. Harry sighed. Just what he needed; a leak in his office. He didn't have time to weed them out.

She shook her head. 'I don't know.'

'Sorry,' Harry said, pulling her into a hug again. 'I'm sorry. You shouldn't be reading about that.'

'No,' Lily agreed, giving him a hard look. 'You should have told us.'

Harry tried to object, but no words came out. They were too young for him to tell. Too young to deal with any of this, but he couldn't say it. This was their friend and he knew that even at thirteen, he'd have wanted to know. No matter how much it would worry him, he'd have wanted to know. Though, he also wouldn't be sitting around Hogwarts with Ron or Hermione missing. Nothing would have stopped him from searching for them.

It didn't matter either way, though. 'I'm not allowed to discuss cases.'

'You don't trust us?' She stepped back to glare up at him.

'Of course, I trust you.'

Lily huffed and crossed her arms. 'I don't see why it matters when it is on the front page of the paper.'

'Which it shouldn't be. This is just what they want. It's why no one is supposed to discuss cases.' Then he remembered that if Lily knew then:

'Al—'

'He's probably in the Great Hall,' Lily said, looking away from him. 'He studies there a lot.'

'What do you think about me getting you and Albus a weekend pass?'

'Just a weekend?'

'Yes.'

She thought about it, then nodded. 'It could be nice. For a break.'

'What do you think Al will say?'

'I think . . . you need to talk to him first.'

That wasn't good. Of course he'd be upset with the news that morning, but Lily's tone worried Harry. He agreed it would be best for them to talk, and then he let her return to her common room. She was alive, safe, and seemed to be alright. He breathed a little easier.

Harry found Albus, just as Lily said, in the Great Hall staring at a book.

Albus looked as though he was made of stone. He stared at the book not turning pages and barely blinking, even when he did blink it was slow. As Harry made his way to his son, he looked around the Great Hall. There were a few small groups of students studying just like Albus, but no one sat near Albus at the Ravenclaw table. Harry walked up the opposite side from where he was sitting, and then sat in front of him and waited for his son to notice his presence.

'What are you doing here?' Albus asked.

Harry wasn't prepared for the anger in Albus's voice.

'I came by to see how you kids were doing,' Harry explained. 'I heard about the article in the iProphet/i from your sister.'

Albus closed his eyes to stop himself from crying, and Harry reached across the table to take his hand. Harry was glad that he let him, even if it was only for a moment.

Letting go of Harry's hand, Albus wiped and then opened his eyes. 'Shouldn't you be tracking down Scorpius?' His anger had returned and though he glared, he didn't look at Harry.

'I have my best—'

'iYou're/i the best,' Albus said, finally looking up at his father. 'Isn't that why iyou're/i the Head Auror, because you're the best? So shouldn't you be the one out there?'

Harry opened and then closed his mouth as Albus shook his head obviously growing angrier.

'You weren't there for any of my birthdays until last year, you've missed more Christmases than you've made, and I have never been bothered by that. I always knew that if you didn't come home it was because you were saving someone's life, and as much as I wanted you there someone's life was more important than that. It's what you do. And now that it's Scorpius, you're here? No, do what you do: save my friend's life.'

'I'm trying.'

'Then what are you doing here?' Albus paused for a moment to let Harry answer, then gathered his books and shoved them into his bag as it was obvious Harry didn't have one. 'Have you already given up? Even though we now know he's alive?' Albus stood up, but didn't walk away.

'Of course I haven't given up,' Harry said, standing as well. 'It just takes time. We have no—' Harry stopped himself. He wasn't allowed to discuss it, a leak in his department or not.

They had no clues. There were teams researching the package, but they hadn't gotten back to him yet. It was confirmed that pretty much anyone could fly over the walls that surrounded Hogwarts if they were on a broom. The spells on it only kept Muggles from climbing it. How a Muggle could get ito/i the wall in the first place Harry didn't have a clue.

But it still didn't give Harry anything. They could fly, but they didn't need to be particularly skilled at it. The more he learned about it the more it became obvious that Hogwarts wasn't as safe as everyone imagined it to be. Yes, there were spells for protection, but they had to be triggered. They were simple to get past otherwise.

'I haven't given up,' Harry repeated.

'Good.' Albus nodded. 'Because I don't want to see you again, until I can see Scorpius.'