Sorry for the wait, my darlings and dears! Summer classes have claimed my brain.
Harry awoke the next morning with an odd ball of heat pressing into his back. He glanced down when it moved, lifting the blankets. He was momentarily surprised to see the tuft of blonde hair before remembering just what it was attached to. Scorpius.
Yawning, Harry dropped the blanket and stayed where he was, letting the boy sleep and letting himself doze. It had been a very long evening for both of them. Scorpius hadn't wanted to go back to sleep, afraid of more nightmares, and Harry wasn't exactly an expert on keeping nightmares away... They just... went away. For him, at least. They resurfaced every now and again, but every morning he awoke without pain in his scar was another assurance that his dreams weren't anything but dreams. How exactly was he supposed to explain that to a scared five year old?
In the end, he'd carried Scorpius into his room and had sat in the center of his bed with the child in his lap. He'd grabbed a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard and had read the stories within until the child had simply fallen asleep. Scorpius knew the stories well, something Harry quickly learned. He'd sleepily requested his favorites and had smiled through them, his little body snuggled in Harry's lap.
"You read different from daddy," he'd commented, covering a big yawn with his hand.
Harry's "Everyone reads differently" had been enough to satisfy... for a few minutes.
"How come you don't do the voices silly like daddy does?" had been another comment.
Harry's teasing, "Well, why don't you read them to me?" had been answered with sleepy giggles and eyes drooping closed.
He'd finished off "Babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump" even though Scorpius had finally, finally, drifted off in the middle of the story, but he'd been half-afraid that cutting the story short would've woken him up. Laying back had proven to be a bit difficult as well, but he'd managed to keep Scorpius from waking up, sans a single whined "Harryyyy" that had evolved into a yawn halfway through and he'd been asleep again.
He'd had the weirdest dream himself, Harry thought now, content in the world between wakeful and asleep. Draco telling the same stories to his son, acting it all out with motions and silly voices. Draco hadn't needed the book, of course. He'd been told these tales his entire life, like any pureblooded child was. They were as familiar to Draco and Muggle fairy tales were to Harry. And Harry had been there, Scorpius in his lap, laughing along with the child as Draco wove the tale.
Harry yawned, running his fingers through Scorpius's soft hair. He snuggled closer, a little arm slinging itself over Harry's chest. A very weird dream, but nice in an odd way. It was certainly the first dream he'd ever had about Draco that put him in such a positive light (not that he had cause to dream about Draco Malfoy very often). But it was better that he keep Draco in mind more as Scorpius's father than as the git he'd known in school.
Still, though, he shouldn't be having dreams about the bloke. Really, the only reason he even knew what Draco looked like nowadays was because of Ron bringing him the file on the Malfoy homicide. Draco's picture had just happened to be in there. Ah, well. It had been a harmless dream. Harry didn't have any reason to dwell on it.
He finally opened his eyes again and reached out for his glasses. Slipping them onto his nose, he eased out of bed, wary of waking Scorpius, and padded out of the room and to the kitchen. Scorpius had professed a deep and abiding love of apple pancakes (he vaguely remembered Draco having a voracious sweet tooth and wondered how that gene had skipped Scorpius). But Harry liked fruit pancakes well enough that he actually knew how to make them. Switching from blueberries to apples shouldn't be that complicated.
A yawning Scorpius, a fist rubbing the sleep from one eye, wandered in as he was mixing the batter. "Whatcha makin'?" he asked tiredly. "I'm hungry."
Harry had also realized that Scorpius was pretty much always hungry. He smiled. "Pancakes."
Scorpius pursed his lips. "Apple pancakes?" At Harry's nod, Scorpius let out a cheer that became a yawn and walked over, wrapped his skinny arms around Harry's leg. "I love apple pancakes."
"I know you do, Scorpius."
"Daddy says one day I'm gonna turn into an apple." Scorpius tilted his head back to be able to look at Harry. "How come you haven't found him yet?"
"Scorpius..." Harry had seen that one coming, set the bowl aside and knelt down so that he was eye-level with the boy. "It's only been a day."
"Well what about 'Mione and Ron?" His top lip, just a little fuller than the bottom, commanded the pout. "They were helping..."
"I know. They've actually helped a lot and they still are. Right now, we're gathering clues because we don't know who took your daddy. We have to figure out who took him and why before we can find him."
"How d'you do that?" His silvery eyes were starting to swim with tears, so Harry dragged the boy into a tight hug. This had been what the nightmares had been about the night before - them never finding Draco. "I saw the bad guys," Scorpius whispered, sniffling into the collar of Harry's shirt. "I saw 'em."
"I know you did."
"I dunno who they are..."
"How about we look at some pictures Ron brought me yesterday?" Harry asked quietly. "And you tell me if any of them are familiar at all."
Scorpius nodded against Harry, who rose carefully, and went to the other room to grab the folder. He retrieved the pictures both Ron and Hermione had dug up for him - anyone connected to Draco's past and what they knew of his present, all Death Eaters and their children, and a few odds and ends photos of people who'd never even met Draco. The last set was the test, to make sure that Scorpius wouldn't just pick out pictures just to pick them out. Harry had dealt with enough witnesses who did that to risk it.
He'd only scanned the photographs the night before, but none of them had seemed too out of place or potentially damaging to Scorpius's psyche. So he adjusted a chair at the dining room table to accommodate Scorpius's small stature and settled him down with the stack of photos.
"Now I want you to make three piles. People you've never ever seen before, people you know, and people you think you know. Okay?" All the photographs had named written in invisible ink on the back, so there wasn't an issue with letting Scorpius mix everything together.
Scorpius nodded, reaching into the envelope for a picture. "'Kay. What're you gonna do?"
"I'm going to finish breakfast."
Scorpius nodded happily, taking the picture and setting it aside. "Apple pancakes."
"Right."
He looked up at Harry then, still-damp eyes bright and earnest. "Am I helping find daddy?"
"Scorpius, you're being the biggest helper in the whole world," Harry assured him, giving the boy his best I-mean-it face.
The boy smiled again, the hope he'd had shaken the night before reappearing. "Okay. I'm hungry."
"So am I." Harry ruffled Scorpius's hair fondly before returning to the pancake batter.
While Scorpius gorged himself on the pancakes, Harry went through the stacks of photos Scorpius had made his way through. Not a single one from the fake set had made it into any pile but the I-don't-know-this-person pile. Harry was quietly proud of the boy and the beginnings of a smile was stretching across his face when he ran across a particular photograph in the I-know-this-person pile that had his blood freezing.
He turned the photo towards Scorpius when the revealed name on the back had him sucking in a sharp breath. "How do you know this woman?"
"She's the lady who was at the grocery store."
Harry lowered the photograph slowly. "You don't know her any other way?" He shook his head, mouth full of pancakes. Harry rose, pinning a smile to his face. "Okay. You stay here and finish eating. I'll be right back."
He nodded and Harry walked out. He went straight to the the Floo and tossed in some powder, hoping his friends hadn't both left home for the day. "Hermione," he called, kneeling in front of the fire because Ron had probably been at work for hours.
Her face appeared in the flames a few seconds later and he blew out a sigh of relief. "Harry? I was just about to leave. Is something the matter?"
"Maybe not. Is Ron at the Ministry?"
"Either that or in the field. Why?"
"When you get there, track him down and tell him to make Astoria Greengrass his priority." He answered her next question before it could be asked. "She saw Scorpius and me at a Muggle grocery yesterday. She didn't even try to get him, even though she talked to me."
"Why wouldn't she try and take him?"
"I have no idea, Hermione. I'd like to ask her why myself if Ron can track her down."
Hermione nodded, face flickering out of the flames a bit while she did. "Alright. I'll tell him. Do you want to bring him here?"
"No. I've got him. You know how strong my wards are."
Because she did know, she nodded. "Alright. What do you want me to do?"
"Keep trying to find out what Draco does for a living. Let Ron take care of Astoria for now."
"If I can find out by lunch, I'll start digging into what all Astoria got from their divorce."
"Ron already-"
"More than just the numbers, Harry. The women in the records department are extremely chatty." Hermione beamed. "I think they'd enjoy a willing ear."
"Thanks, Hermione."
"You're welcome. Now get back to Scorpius. Has he hit upon any of the pictures yet?"
"No, not yet."
"Let me know if he does."
Harry nodded. "I will. Go tell Ron."
"I'm on my way." She stepped back and the floo call died.
Harry turned and blinked when he saw Scorpius, gazing at him with wide eyes. Oh no... "Astoria is my mother," he said quietly. "She wasn't one of the people who took daddy. It was two really big men."
"I know, Scorpius." How to explain hired thugs to a child? How to explain to a child that his mother had possibly gotten his father kidnapped? Harry sighed and was about to try when Scorpius interrupted.
"Was she really the lady in the grocery?"'
"Yes," Harry admitted, not wanting to lie to the boy.
"But..." Troubled, the child shook his head. "She said I was your son." He quivered. "She said that. She knows I'm not. She's my mother." Tears had welled up in his eyes by this point and were beginning to trickle down his cheeks. "Why doesn't she like me, Harry? Am I bad?"
"No, Scorpius, you're not bad." Harry crossed the room in three quick strides and knelt down, pressing the boy close.
Scorpius buried his damp face in Harry's shirt, sniffling. "I want daddy," he sobbed.
Harry sighed, stroking the boy's hair gently. "We're going to find him, Scorpius. We're doing everything we can."
"I want him now," he whined, fingers curling into the man's shirt. "Nobody in the pictures were the bad people who took daddy. None of the pictures. How are we 'posed to find daddy without the pictures? They were 'posed to help! I didn't help. I did bad."
"No, you did really good." Harry had been afraid the pictures wouldn't help and felt absolutely horrible to be hoping that the culprit really was Astoria. "Now we have that whole list of people who we know didn't do it. You helped so much, Scorpius. And you found me just like Draco wanted you to. All by yourself."
The sniffling boy nodded and Harry hugged him a little tighter. "You're an incredibly smart little boy, you know that? You have an excellent memory. You're well-behaved. You're not bad at all, Scorpius. Not at all."
The child nodded, clinging to Harry like a lifeline. "I still want daddy," he whimpered. "I want him. I miss him so bad."
"I know, kiddo. I know." He felt a presence come through his wards, but didn't rise. It was either Ron or Hermione and when the male voice busted out with all its excitement, Harry let himself feel a little hopeful.
"I got a composite sketch from the elves at Malfoy Manor!" Harry stood, cradling Scorpius in his arms and Ron's face fell. "What's wrong with him?"
"Guess, Ron."
"Oh... Right," he mumbled and pulled out two sheets of paper from a folder he carried and held them up. "These are the sketches. The elves were really clear on what they saw."
Harry looked at the two unfamiliar faces and frowned. "Scorpius, do you know who these people are?"
He turned his head slowly, rubbing his eyes. When he opened them, he immediately gasped. "They did it! They took daddy!" Scorpius shivered then, turning away and pressing his face into Harry's shirt again. "They took my daddy..."
Harry nodded, stroking Scorpius's hair. "Hermione tell you what else I needed you to do?"
Ron nodded. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
"Right, then. I'll get these to the Prophet and see if Luna won't chuck them into the Quibbler."
"The ex first, then Luna. She's the best lead we have right now and I don't want to lose track of her."
"Got it." Ron didn't waste anymore time, striding to the floo and announcing his destination.
Scorpius shivered, clinging to Harry's shirt. "He'll find daddy now, won't he?"
"We have to track down the bad men," Harry explained. "They should lead us straight to your daddy."
"Okay," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. "So... soon?"
"As soon as possible." Feeling guilty and not completely knowing why, Harry rocked the boy until his exhausting, tearful episode sent him to sleep.
