So two chapters up in two days! Can you believe it? But a few more reviews would be lovely on this chapter if you don't mind :)
- Chapter 6 -
Eventually he was done for the day so he headed home to find the house seemingly empty. "Hello? Kids? Draco?" he shouted.
He literally almost jumped out of his skin when his pale faced ex-potions master stepped out of the door that lead to his Potions Lab. The man gave him a curt smile and then said, "Long time no see, eh, Harry Potter, father of four?"
"S-Snape, what are you doing here?" asked Harry surprised.
"I came to visit Draco and heard he was here so I have ended up spending the entire day intruding upon your house; I do hope you don't mind. Now I have been teaching the children how to make a basic healing potions, perfectly safely of course. Do you wish to come and see them?" asked Severus making Harry feel rather like he had entered Severus' house.
They walked down to the Laboratory together where Harry found Draco sitting with the children as they washed out another cauldron together. When Harry entered the room Lily toddled right on over and Harry lifted her onto his hip with a smile. "Thank you both so much for looking after my little misfits all day long," Harry said.
"It has been only a minor inconvenience," Severus said, "But now I must leave. I'll see you soon, Draco, and probably you too Harry."
He was gone with the same sweep of his robes that he used to have as he walked along the corridors of Hogwarts. That left them with five children who were now half asleep, either in their parents arms (in Lily's case), in their parent's laps (in Scorpius' case), on the floor with their face rested on a sponge (in Teddy's case) or inside the cauldron (in Albus and James' case).
"How do they manage to go from completely off their rockets hyper to half-asleep in the space of a few minutes?" asked Draco wondrously, "You'd think that they had been tired for ages but seconds before you came down they were still running about screaming."
"Staying at mine tonight?" asked Harry.
"D'you mind?" asked Draco quickly, "I just don't know if I can be bothered to go home again tonight."
So, yet again, Draco and Harry found themselves tucking their children up in the kids' room before heading off downstairs to have supper together. Draco made it this time – Pasta with a Tomato Sauce – and then they settled in the sitting room with wine.
It was only an hour later when they were completely and utterly drunk out of their minds. Draco and Harry sat together on the sofa, with Draco's arm somehow thrown around Harry's shoulders and a grin on his handsome face. As Harry laughed again at another stupid joke Draco suddenly grabbed the man and began to trail kisses up and down the man's neck. Harry gasped for a second, looking as if he was about to push away, and then suddenly he started kissing Draco – firmly on the lips this time.
They kissed more and more passionately as time ticked on until eventually Draco started pulling Harry up off the sofa. They both wrapped one hand in each others hair deciding that their hair was nice and soft. Harry slipped an arm round Draco's waist feeling each muscle defined clearly. The most pleasant thing about kissing Draco however had to be the warmth of his body against Harry's. Then Harry's lips were on Draco's neck again. They somehow staggered from the sofa all the way through to Harry's bedroom.
Draco moaned with pure pleasure as Harry sucked, licked and kissed it; he briefly wondered in his drunken state how Harry had learned to give such good kisses when at school he certainly hadn't been much of a dater then. Draco rubbed his hands up and down as Harry sucked until he moaned a little too loudly into Harry's mouth with a smirk gracing his cherry red lips. Harry kissed the boy with a slightly smug smile until he was completely done and then they both just lay back on the bed next to each other. Draco was not as drunk as Harry – he at once felt the way the guilt spread through his body – but Harry had already fallen fast asleep. With a small moan he closed his eyes too to try and sleep it off, but not before cursing quietly.
The following morning both Harry and Draco were awoken by the sunlight streaming in through the windows and the feeling of five children snuggling into their bed. "Daddy," Albus said as he poked his father, "Why did you fall asleep in your clothes? And why are you sharing a bed with Drakey?"
Harry shook his head, ignoring the pounding headache he had, and then remembered what had happened last night. Looking at Draco he noticed the man wouldn't actually look him in the eye. "We just fell asleep before we could get changed."
"But why-?"
"That's enough questions for now, we'll meet you downstairs in a few minutes when we have both got dressed," Draco said quickly as the children hurried from the room.
When they were gone the awkwardness hung in the air. Eventually Harry said, "I'm sorry but I have no idea what we did last night... we didn't, like, sleep together did we?" asked Harry.
"You and me... kissed," Draco muttered quietly.
"Ah, right," Harry said, feeling relieved they hadn't slept together properly, but horrified that he had kissed Draco's lips.
"This really does make me wonder where on earth you learnt to give such good kisses?" asked Draco with a laugh, hoping to diffuse some of the situations tension.
"Ah, right," Harry said again with a bright red face this time, "I may have experimented a couple of times around fifth year when I kind of had this thing going with Blaise Zabini. I think he was a friend of yours...?"
"Blaise?" Draco said surprised, "Fuck, didn't see that coming. Well, I hope this doesn't make things awkward between us-"
"No, no," Harry insisted, "Everything is fine."
But the awkwardness hung in the air until they were both finally dressed and downstairs. Then, whilst Harry served up all the children some muggle cereal, he asked, "Draco how have you not had to go into work yet since we first started meeting up?"
"I... I am actually the owner of multiple muggle businesses, mainly hardware businesses, but because I put a lot of work in earlier on in my life I can basically get away with going in very little of the time. It suits me perfectly considering that I had Scorpius to look after all by myself."
As the children ran from the room Harry said, "D'you ever miss living with someone? Ever miss coming home and not finding your house completely empty?"
"Yeah," Draco sighed, "I hate living in my house when it's so... empty. We were going to have loads of kids together, Astoria and I, but then she got ill so now I am left with a large house."
"This might be way out there but I was wondering if you wanted to stay with me for a bit... because I'm falling apart," Harry said.
Draco's eyes snapped up to meet Harry's and he said, "You need someone right now who can take care of you so you can take care of your kids. I think we should stay together, I don't mind at which house, though it would probably be easiest if we moved in here. Would that be alright?"
"Yeah that would be great," breathed Harry with a huge smile, "When do you want to move in?"
"Today's your day off, isn't it?" asked Draco smiling at his new house-mate, "So I vote that we spend the day as a sort of huge dysfunctional family and get some of my stuff from my house. Sound alright?"
It was a weird morning for all of them. The kids were sent off to Scorpius' room to help him pack some clothes and toys. Half an hour later and after an inspection of the clothes and toys Draco repacked Scorpius things so that he actually had underwear and toys he couldn't sleep without. Then whilst they all jumped on the bed Draco and Harry took Lily into the kitchen where she was placed in one of the high-chairs that had been bought for Draco's baby but never used or moved when the baby died.
"I just have to get together a few sets of clothing for myself, toothbrush and all that, then I am ready to go. Feel free to do whatever you like whilst I pack," he said.
Harry took the opportunity to wander through the house looking at the place Draco had built up for himself. He didn't doubt that Draco was completely loaded – he bet the businesses he owned were making him a lot – but considering that his house was done out rather modestly. He had a nice downstairs but the room that caught Harry's interest the most was the study. The room was the least tidy he had seen except the desk. The desk was littered with piles of paperwork that seemed to all have some sort of unknown order. Harry walked over to look at the picture – of a beautiful blonde woman he assumed was Astoria – when he noticed something on the top of the pile.
"What are you looking at?" Draco asked pleasantly as he walked into the room.
"Sorry, I wasn't looking at any of the papers I just wonder; what connection do you have to Grunnings Drills Makers?" asked Harry sounding slightly curious.
"I began owning them a few months ago. Actually I have a benefit tonight with them; some launch of a new drill. To be honest Blaise takes care of the business side a lot more than I do. Do you want to come with me tonight to this thing? Wait – why are you interested?"
"My Uncle works for them," Harry said. "But if you don't mind me coming it would be nice to go out tonight..."
"Well, it doesn't start until eight so if we grabbed some dinner before? Severus said he would look after the children for us," Draco replied.
When Harry had left Hogwarts after his repeated seventh year – with a heavily pregnant Ginny – he had never imagined he would be seeing so much of his Potions Teacher once he was gone. But when they were both getting dressed that night, with Draco in the room next door to Harry, he could hear Severus lecturing his young children on the merits of always keeping your cauldron spotless. As Harry tried to tie his tie for the fifth time there was a knock on the door and he called, "Come in!"
"Hey," Draco said, "Having trouble?"
Harry remembered being unable to tie a tie for his entire life but today it seemed he was being particularly stupid. Draco walked over and held out his hand which Harry placed the tie into with a sheepish grin. Draco wrapped it round Harry's neck and tied it and then said, "I made reservations at a really nice muggle place. You almost ready to go?"
"Yeah, just need to say bye to the kids."
Severus had them all in a line, down in the basement, watching him whilst he explained how to chop up roots. For a second Harry worried slightly about leaving his kids alone but then he noticed Severus was juggling a sleepy Lily on his hip. "Bye kids!" Harry said and they all disbanded briefly to hug him. He noticed half way through the bear hug that Scorpius was hugging his legs too, not that he minded.
Draco ruffled all their hair and kissed Lily and Scorpius' foreheads before saying, "See you later Severus, though I assume you'll be staying over?"
"If Pot- Harry doesn't mind?"
"Of course I don't mind," Harry said, "In fact, to be honest, this house is now in all effects mine and Draco's so he can invite whoever he wishes to stay. But please, there is a spare room on the third floor, multiple, so choose whichever one you wish."
Then they left before they were too late for their reservations to even make it. They were led into a muggle restaurant with a smile from the pretty waitress which they returned. When the waitress came to take their order she said, "Would you and your partner like wine?"
The two men practically stumbled in their attempts to tell her that they were not partners. When all three were red in the face and the waitress had apologized multiple times they did indeed get wine. They ate their fill at the cosy restaurant before heading to the benefit. It seemed since Harry had left his relatives house when he was still sixteen, seven year before, a lot had changed. The business had clearly become something major and Harry had no doubt that was due to Draco.
There were masses of people at the benefit and it seemed that Draco knew the name of all of them. Eventually Draco had to talk real business with Blaise about the new drill whilst Harry went off to get them both drinks. He was just getting a drink when he heard someone say, "What the hell are you doing here, boy?"
Harry wheeled round to find himself looking at his fat older Uncle who had a nasty look on his face whilst he clutched the arm of his equally thin and older aunt. Vernon and Petunia had not aged well in six years and were now more unattractive and unpleasant that ever. Harry always wondered how Petunia could be so different from what he knew his mother to be like. His mother was always smiling and beautiful. For a brief second he entertained the idea that Petunia was beautiful but years of being married to Vernon had made her internally and externally ugly. He was quite sure that Vernon had never been attractive.
"Boy, what the hell are you doing here?" asked Vernon going redder and redder in the face.
"I was invited here," Harry said coolly.
"Who in the ruddy hell would ever want you to come here with them?" asked Vernon whilst Petunia stuck her nose even further up in the air. "You with that stupid ginger of yours?"
Harry felt the anger inside of him bubbling up and he felt really stupid when tears began to roll down his cheeks. Vernon laughed as the boy couldn't think of anything to say until suddenly he felt someone's hand on his back.
"And who may I ask are you?" said Draco with his infamous Malfoy drawl. "What business do you have making Harry upset?"
"Who are you? Some little gay boy that the boy has now moved onto after breaking up with the ginger slut?"
"Ginny Weasley-Potter passed away a couple of months ago and they were definitely very happily married. And I am not dating Harry or anything else – we are friends – but I expect you to take that statement now or else."
"Or else what?" Vernon said stepping forwards menacingly.
"Or else you will be fired. I am Draco Malfoy, Mr Dursley I presume, and I am the Head of this whole thing."
"M-Mr Malfoy?" stammered Vernon. His face went completely white from the second he heard that and then said, "I am so sorry, I will do anything for you to let me keep my job."
"I don't think so, you stupid-"
"Draco, just let it go," Harry said, "Just let him keep the job. I need to go to the bathroom now anyway."
Harry ran off to the bathroom as fast as he could and slammed the door to the cubicle shut. Suddenly as he closed his eyes and sat on the down seat he found himself remembering his life.
Dudley and Harry sat together on the swings and for a minute it felt like they could actually be friends. Harry and Dudley were in the small town near the centre of France that the Dursley's took them to every year on their holidays. For that one period of the year, every year, they would actually get along very well. They would play together for hours and it would feel like he was actually part of a family. But then Vernon would turn up and at once everything was ruined.
"Boy!" he would scream, "What the hell gives you the right to mingle with my precious son!"
Then the beatings would begin, horrible, painful, and they would always leave him curled up like a baby when he was done. But Dudley would always creep into the room later that night and curl up on the bed next to Harry and hold his hand. He was always gone by the morning.
Harry heard someone enter the bathroom and then they called out, "Harry are you in here? Harry?"
Draco would come looking for him, and Harry knew it, but it was embarrassing to hear him being called out for like that. Harry shifted his focus as he thought and then called back, "I'm in the end. One second."
He walked out and doused his eyes with water from the cold tap. Draco waited until he was done and then tried to catch Harry's red eyes. When Harry wouldn't meet them through to shame from the crying he placed a hand on either cheek and turned the face to look at him, gently of course. "Forget him," Draco said. Then he pressed a quick kiss to Harry's forehead and led him outside so they could apparate home without being seen by any unsuspecting muggles.