Chapter 10
Slowly standing up from sitting on the floor, Harry grabbed his Invisibility Cloak and the Marauder's Map before exiting the Room of Requirement to make his way back into the Gryffindor Common Room where he was immediately stopped by his concerned friends, father, and godfathers.
"Harry, where have you been? What happened to your face? Did Malfoy do that to you?! Don't worry Harry we'll take care of that git." he heard Ron say immediately only to be coldly spoken to by not just his father but Sirius as well.
"You leave Draco alone Ron or else you'll have me to deal with." James spoke out, eyes going cold and meaningful.
"And not just James but me as well. You seem to have forgotten that he is my cousin Ron, and as family, we protect our own even if it's against our own." Sirius spoke out, smirking somewhat evilly and amused at Ron's shaking and pale figure.
Relieved that Ron was now backing down, James turned towards Harry to ask him where Draco had gone off too.
"Harry, where is Draco?"
Harry clenched his fists and glared, staring down at the floor, remaining silent. Still angered that his father could fall for someone like Malfoy of all people.
"Harry..." James tried again.
"I don't know." Harry answered.
"Harry, don't lie to James, I can tell that you know where he went. Not telling him is not fair to your father or to Draco." Sirius scolded lightly.
"I don't care! It's wrong! I mean...he's Malfoy! He's the bane of my existence and never seems to let me forget it. So why should I give him a break just because my own father wants to shag him?!"
Slap!
Harry's face instantly turned to the side, stinging and hot from the slap given to him by his own father, standing mere feet away from him breathing heavily as his eyes gleamed intensely with disappointment and anger at his own son.
"Harry, I am sorry that Draco hasn't made your life here at Hogwarts easy, but you have to understand something son from not just Draco's point of view but also from my own. To Draco, the last time he saw me, I was seventeen years old and made him a promise by giving him an old family heirloom ring set with three specific gems to commemorate our time together, that as soon as we saw each other again in the future I would find him and marry him. Now when he returned home, Draco obviously thought and full-heartedly believed that I could never fulfill my promise to him. For according to him and everyone else here, I was dead. But as you can see son, I am not. I waited twenty long years to see him again Harry. Yes, I moved on and married your mother and yes I loved her. Very much, but still, even after all this time Draco still owns a piece of my heart. And he always will Harry whether you accept that or not. I waited so long to see him again, and now that my patience has paid off, I can finally be happy once more. With him. But you, you would take away my only source of happiness with him all because he was a bully to you like I was to Severus? Harry, you know in your heart that that's not right. So please Harry, as your father, I am asking you to set aside your personal feelings for Draco and let me make my own mistakes. Let me see if he's still the man that I came to love and hold very dear to me. Let me make that choice of having him in my life with you. Don't make it for me."
Silence was his only answer from Harry for a few moments before Sirius broke it with his own question aimed at Harry also.
"Well, Harry, what do you say? Can you let your dad make his own choices or will you continue to make them for yourself based solely on how Draco treated you and not by accepting that there is a part of him that can love and feel as much as you or anyone else?" Sirius asked him.
Harry sighed heavily, glancing over at his friends and seeing how much hurt he has placed not just upon them but also his own father for his biased feelings and actions over his rivalry with Draco Malfoy, he then slowly handed over the Invisibility Cloak to his father before announcing at last where he saw Draco run off too from their confrontation in the Room of Requirement.
Praying that he wasn't making yet another mistake by accepting that his father did in fact love his arch rival and that he in turn loved him.
"He's in the Shrieking Shack."
Slipping on the Invisibility Cloak, James walked through the many hallway's of Hogwarts out towards Whomping Willow where upon poking at the knot on the tree instantly halted it's movement, before he slowly slipped down into it's secret passage underneath.
As he made his way through the passage, he couldn't help but think of the last time he and Draco had been in the Shrieking Shack, that the last time they were there together they had made love.
His body halted for but a moment, shivering with delight as he remembered how beautiful he looked being taken on that bed, crying out in pleasure, how his body glistened with sweat in the moonlight, clinging to him as if he was the last defense he had to tie himself down too so that he wouldn't lose his mind.
Pressing a hand ontop of his trousers at the front of his crotch to try and lessen his aroused state, James groaned low in his throat before taking his hand away and continuing on up until he reached the trap door entrance to the Shrieking Shack.
Opening it up, James climbed up and onto the floor of the old creaking house, before turning around and closing it. Keeping the Invisibility Cloak on, James slowly ascended up the stairs step by step senses alert and eyes open for any surprises that just might come out at him without any warning. Taking out his wand, James licked his dry lips before he slowly reached out a hand and pressed upon the final door in the house. The very same door that led to the last bedroom at the top, the bedroom where they made love and Harry found out the truth behind his parents murder, discovering that Sirius never gave them out to Voldemort but Peter did.
Halting abruptly, James lowered his wand and slipped off the Invisibility Cloak that he had bequithed to Harry before slowly making his way over towards the bed where lying upon it's old, rumpled sheets, was a sleeping Draco Malfoy.
Looking the same as he did when he left their world over twenty years ago.
Only, suddenly noticing as he walked over to the side of the bed, was that there were tear tracks coursed down his beautiful face.
Sighing softly to himself, mentally cursing Harry for causing Draco to become hurt enough to cry, reaching out and tenderly wiping them away at his cheeks. Sitting down on the side of the bed, James ran his hand through his hair wondering just how he's going to talk to Draco when he had been waiting over twenty years to see him again while in Draco's mind, he only left a day ago.
Noticing Draco slowly coming too, James closed his eyes praying for strength, before opening them again to see Draco opening his own. Staring right back at him, not doing or saying anything, just lying there. Watching, waiting, to see who would make the first move.
James sighed heavily into the room, figure slumping a little showing off the fatigue that he had been fighting, turned his head away from facing Draco so that he didn't have to see his expression before apologizing.
"I'm sorry."
Draco instantly took on a confused look. Sitting up, feeling the sheet fall to his waist, Draco wondered just who this man was. He looked very familiar, Draco noticed instantly the more he gazed up at him, almost like an older form of Potter.
Freezing, it suddenly hit Draco just who this man sitting beside him on the bed in the Shrieking Shack truly was, he was an older form of the man he had left behind in the past...James Potter.
'He's alive. He's actually alive. Potter and Sirius and Remus hadn't been lying to me after all. He really is alive.' Draco thought happily to himself as he felt his eyes weild up with tears of joy as he gazed over the older form of the man he had given his heart, body, and soul too.
Then, with narrowed eyes and a sinking feeling in his stomach, he remembered hearing James' apology. Why was he apologizing? What did he have to be sorry for? And so, Draco asked him that very question.
"Why are you sorry?"
His silver grey/navy blue stormy eyes never left James' figure as he stood up and walked over towards the window beside the broken piano.
"I'm not the same person you fell in love with and last saw those many hours ago. I'm older than what I once was Draco. I married Lily, had Harry, and even though I survived that night thanks to your necklace; I lost my memories. My memories of who I was, where I lived, everything. It was only just this past summer that I got them all back during my recooperating time at St. Mungo's. Harry and I were just now beginning to form a relationship as father and son when you returned from your trip into the past. When I received Harry's letter explaining to me that you disappeared and reappeared 20 minutes later from inside your Potions classroom, the world shifted and swirled all around them for a moment or two before it righted itself with your appearance; giving away to new memories and people that were thought to have been dead in the first and second wars being alive. Save for a few others."
"So...my coming back also brought back Severus, Remus, Sirius, and you into this life?"
"Yes, thru your warnings that you gave to us so long ago, we were able to stop many lives from mercilessly being taken away and permanently put a stop to Voldemort's end at the finale of Harry's final year here, like I recon he did so back in your world. Only, Sirius was alive and out fighting Death Eaters on the grounds, Remus survived but his wife Tonks did not leaving him widowed with their infant son Teddy, and Severus surviving that night by instead of being attacked by Nagini he was attacked by your aunt Bellatrix and had merely suffered severe bruisings and injuries that St. Mungo's was able to heal up in time for school. But he rejected the position of teaching and now lives his life peacefully in retirement at his home."
"But...what about Potter's mother? Is she alive too?"
"No, sadly she isn't. When I met Harry just this past summer, the war over and school being rebuilt, it was hard for me to hear of the losses that we had but even more to learn of how Harry had grown up thinking that I was dead along with his mother when Dumbledore had found me and placed me into the Muggle world for my own safety."
"He did what?! Why?! That's not fair! Not to you or to Harry! He deserved to have you there with him growing up!"
"I know Draco. But if he did, he would have found out about you much earlier and things would not have gone the way that they did. This world just might still be at war if he knew who you were and what we are...were together."
"...W-were?" Draco whispered, feeling a tear escape his eye and run down his face, his heart pounding away with hurt and hope that James wouldn't leave him. That he wouldn't just leave him here all alone still feeling how he did for the man, to return back to the castle and be with his son, to never be in Draco's life again. Promise or no promise.
Watching with dread as James continued to stare outside the glass window pane across the room before answering his question with a heavy sigh, that seemed to Draco like they were the longest waiting moments of his life, just to hear James' answer to his one stuttering question. "That decision is up to you Draco. It always has been. And...it always will be. If you still feel for me the way that I do for you and you want to make this work between us then let's do it. But if you don't.."
"NO! No, I do. I...I'm still in love with you. I still love you James. I know that you're older and that you are Potter's father, but I don't care! I still...I'm still...I can't get you out of my mind. You're always there, haunting me with your eyes, your laughter, your smell. I can still feel your touch from the first time we made love. I...I still want you James. I do. So please...please don't leave me. I want you in my life. However you wish to have me. I belong with you James. Only you."
James turned away from the window and walked back over towards the bed, sitting down on the side he had vacated moments ago, he then slowly raised his hand and lifted up Draco's face with his fingers underneath Draco's chin to stare into his eyes. Seeing the same emotions rolling around in them as his own, seeing him practically beg silently for what he desired to happen as much as James wished for it, he slowly leaned down towards Draco and finally took his lips into a passionate kiss that was just as good as what he remembered it had been so long ago.
Closing his eyes after watching Draco do the same, James slowly shuffled forward more onto the bed closer to Draco and angled his head up so that he had control of the kiss and how it was going to be given. Gently placing his hands on the sides of Draco's face, fingertips just barely grazing the back of his neck, his rough callouses barely grazing the shells of Draco's ears made James suddenly come to the realization of the position they were now in on top of the bed.
Moaning low in his throat, James broke their kiss, panting loudly to see Draco's eyes gleaming with pleasure, happiness, and need. The need for more. James gave it to him. Unable to deny himself or Draco any longer.