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.

Draco had a fire going in the library, and Harry watched the flames dance as Draco made them both a drink. They must have a bar in every room in the house, because there had yet to be one where Draco couldn't have a glass of alcohol ready for Harry in less than a minute. He hadn't even sat down before Draco offered it. Draco didn't seem like an alcoholic—he was never drunk that Harry saw—and it made Harry wonder if he had always drank every evening, if it had only began after Scorpius went missing, or if he drank because Harry was there and he thought Harry was the one who needed.

Not that Harry didn't need it.

Harry very rarely drank enough to get drunk, but also ended everyday with a glass of something or another, most often whiskey, to help himself relax and sleep. He had for years. Harry shook his head at himself. He only recognised his own problems when he saw them as possible negatives in someone else's habits.

'So,' Draco said, 'How was your day?'

He took a drink and slouched back into the Malfoy's green leather chair. 'The same as everyday.' Harry almost laughed at the absurdity of his average day. 'Well, the Chief of the Hit Wizards is breathing down my neck, because since Scorpius's disappearance my Aurors have been too busy to deal with the lesser dangerous job. Therefore they are overrun with the work we're sending them as well as their own, trying to keep the people who think we're looking the other way—which isn't as far from the truth as it should be—from over running the streets.

'In the scheme of things, kids making match sticks dance to impress their Muggle friends, and charmed objects being sold or stolen isn't a top priority compared to someone's life. The Hit Wizards should be able to handle things like that, but they aren't used to having to do much because we've always taken care of most of it.

'The Minister visited today to see how we're doing on the case because the Daily Prophet is as usual being unhelpful and causing panic by suggesting that if this isn't the work of another Dark Wizard on the rise it could very well be the return of Voldemort himself. They are reprinting every failure of my career up to date and demanding my retirement, again.

'And,' Harry continued leaving the worst part for last. 'I'm sure everyone will be reading about this in the Prophet tomorrow, because I have a leak in my department that I can't find: the memory of the owlery's attendant was garbled to get anything useful from. The memory is there, but we can't get it clear enough to see a face or even get a gender. Not that it matters,' Harry drop his voice saying the last part to himself. 'They probably used Polyjuice anyway.'

It was easy to get, easy to use, and the best way to hide who you were. It wouldn't matter who they turned into as long as it wasn't themselves. Though most criminals used a different person every time to be safe. Most often Muggles. They thought nothing of what happened to the hair that fell off their heads, and they didn't have charms to hold it in place either way.

Harry took a large gulp and then rested his head against the back of his hand that held his glass.

'You're doing the best you can,' Draco said. 'That's all anyone can ask.'

Everyone asked so much more than that. 'I'm sorry.'

'For what?'

Harry looked up at Draco and let his expression say: you know what.

'If I thought it was so easy to find my son, don't you think I'd have done it myself by now?'

The whiskey began to work and Harry nodded and then looked back at the fire. It was calming watching it. Both the fire and the whiskey warmed him.

'How's Albus?'

'He hasn't written to me in—' The days had blurred together since the morning that Scorpius went missing. Harry didn't know the last time Albus had written him. The last time he saw him was the weekend they went out shopping in London. He wasn't well then, but Harry had dropped the disappointing news on him about how difficult it was to track his friend down. '—in a long time.'

'I've thought of writing him.' Draco sipped his own drink which was still nearly full. 'I'm not sure I know what to say, but just to let him know he is—will always be—welcome here anytime he wants. I couldn't imagine losing my first love to something like this. Even during the war, I was so caught up in saving my family the thought what if they got Pansy never occurred to me.'

Harry was only half listening, nodding along and was about to agree with him—Harry had worried about them coming after Ginny, but never during a peaceful moment at Hogwarts with her right next to him—when his mind caught on to what Draco was suggesting.

'First love?' Harry asked, looking away from the fire to see Draco's mouth open slightly in surprise.

'Did you not know?' he asked.

Harry shook his head slowly. He never even suspected. He scanned his memories for signs and once he picked up on one—the way they elbowed and played around with each other while cooking dinner—he was flooded with more. They were always in each other's personal space. Harry had thought little of this. He wasn't the wrestling around type, not even with Ron, but he knew things like that were normal. Harry had never been very comfortable with physical affection, or physical contact all.

It was so obvious now that he knew. It was the way they looked at each other. They were always looking at each other. Watching the each other when they thought no one was looking. It was familiar to him. He saw it with Ron and Hermione for years. Not just at Hogwarts, but even then as adults. It was what loved looked like.

How could he have missed that?

'They didn't tell me either,' Draco explained quickly. 'I just thought everyone had figured it out themselves and we all just . . . never talked about it.' He paused. 'Perhaps, I'm the only one who caught on. I was just waiting for them to tell us themselves. I don't know about Albus, but I understood why Scorpius would be hesitant. My parents couldn't care less about my sexuality nor did Astoria iin the beginning/i.'

Harry nearly choked. Albus and Scorpius wasn't much of a surprise, but Draco—

Draco was married. He had a son, and just called Pansy his first love less than a minute before.

'She knew before we were married. But as time went on she grew to resent it and that was why we ended up getting a divorce. I think she had pictured our marriage to be like a fairy tale where in the end we'd fall in love. My parents marriage was arranged and they are quite obviously in love.' Draco paused again and studied Harry's face, which must have looked horror stricken by Draco's next comment. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I—well I thought you knew. I thought everyone knew.'

Swallowing, Harry shook his head. 'No, I didn't, and you're not making me uncomfortable.' It was just a lot to take in at once. Their eyes met and Harry began to feel woozy. The alcohol must have been getting to him. He asked for another drink, anyway.

Draco handed him his new drink—their hands brushing during the exchange—with another, 'I'm sorry,' though this one seemed more amused than actually sorry. He stood in front of Harry looking down at him. 'Are you sure you're alright?'

Harry held his gaze as if to prove a point. 'I'm fine.'

'You shouldn't drink too much.' A smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. 'It leads to rash decisions and I can only imagine how much worse that would be for someone like you who is prone taking action without thought while sober.'

'I'm fine,' Harry repeated. 'It's the slow decisions I tend to regret not the spontaneous ones. It's your type, those who need to weigh all the options to make sure they don't make a bad decision, who should watch how much they drink.'

'I'm used to making all the wrong choices; I don't think anything I do would surprise anybody at this point.' Draco's expression turned cold and he backed away from Harry to return to his chair. 'Why are you here? Isn't your wife worried about you? Or is she so used to you working so late that a nightly drink with me doesn't make that much of difference in the time you return home at night?'

Harry pulled at his hair. 'We've been . . . avoiding each other lately.'

They'd been avoiding each other for years.

'A couple years ago, she mentioned the possibility of divorcing.' Harry hadn't talked to anyone about this. It had been hinted around by his kids, but refused to talk to them about it. He knew Ron and Hermione noticed they were having problems, or maybe Ginny told Hermione they were, but Harry couldn't talk to Ron about his relationship with his little sister. He never could. Not when it was going well, certainly not when it wasn't. 'I worked a lot when the kids were young and after years of it she said she couldn't take anymore.'

Draco nodded that he understood, and for Harry to continue.

'I talked her into giving me another chance. I'd work normal business hours and be home every night and on the weekends. No more watching a suspect for weeks without coming home, or missing holidays or kid's birthdays for something someone else could take care of. It worked for a while. I gave orders to never disturb me at home unless it was an emergency and slowly my Aurors took more responsibility on themselves. They've done well these last couple of years. I don't think even the Prophet had anything negative to say.'

The silence lingered for a moment until Draco said, 'I'm sensing there is a "but" right about here?'

'But,' Harry said with a snort. 'There hadn't been any truly life threatening cases in the last couple of years. People already dead, of course. But people needing to be rescued, not so much.'

'Then Scorpius went missing,' Draco supplied for him.

'You know, nothing much changed with me home. I was there and she was there, but the kids were at school. We did our own things in separate rooms.' Harry laughed thinking about their typical evenings. 'We both started bringing work with us home. We'd sit at the dining room table with her writing and me reading through case notes. That even caused a fight one night, because she looked up and noticed the files have charms on them so you can only read them looking at them head on. She thought I didn't trust her. It's standard for all Ministry files.

'The summers were different. With the kids there we had things to do, and I saw more what she meant by what I'd been missing out on while I was at work. James is back home now having left school, but he's an adult; he doesn't want to sit around the house with us giving us reasons to have conversations with each other.

'But yes, then Scorpius went missing, and I stopped caring whether she wants me at home. She is angry, but not enough to really fight with me about it. We avoid each other instead.' Harry shrugged. 'It won't last forever.'

Draco watched Harry. 'This case which is causing you to avoid each other or your marriage?'

'The case—I'll find Scorpius.' Harry tried to sound convincing, but had to stop himself from saying: both. Ginny was right about a lot of things, and one of them was that they couldn't go on the way they were.

It's all Harry thought about for the rest of the night as he sat drinking with Draco. He was drunk by the time he left and Draco had to help him to the Floo. He refused to allow Harry to Apparate or borrow a broom. Harry was afraid the Floo might wake up Ginny.

'If you get Splitched, she'll kill you,' Draco pointed out as he helped Harry steady himself.

Harry laughed, a sign as to how drunk he was, and said, 'If I get Splitched, I'll already be dead.'

'Then she'll kill me,' Draco said. 'I certainly can't allow that to happen.'

'That would be awful,' Harry said in as serious of a voice he could muster at that moment.

Draco snorted, trying not to laugh. 'Go get some sleep.' He threw the Floo Powder into the fireplace and called out Harry's Floo address.

A moment later Harry was falling onto his living room floor. He lay still and quiet listening for Ginny upstairs. When it seemed she wasn't disturbed, Harry slowly picked himself up and stumbled to his office and then to his desk. Before Harry fully planned what he was doing, he had a quill out and a long sheet of blank parchment.

He knew nothing about divorce papers, and even less about how they were done by Wizards, but he wrote down everything he wanted. He wanted to share the kids with Ginny and see them just as much as her. He didn't care about money. He'd give her half if she wanted it. He wrote how he thought official court documents would sound. I, Harry James Potter and I, Ginevra Molly Weasley request a divorce on the grounds of hating each other since the kids left for Hogwarts.

They started fighting long before that, but he thought the court wouldn't appreciate hating each other since the kids were born; drifting apart once the kids left, didn't sound severe enough, even if it was closer to the truth.

He'd give her the house, he decided, and then suddenly it was difficult to breath.

There were so many memories, good with the bad, in that house. He bought it before they were married, but they moved in after the honeymoon. The Weasleys moved all their things in while they were gone, so they'd come home to home.

It was why he'd held on for so long. She'd given him what he'd wanted his whole life: a home.

Yes, he would definitely give her the house, and not just because he already owned another one. Their house held too many ghosts of memories that would haunt him everywhere he looked. The only place that didn't was his office, and as Ginny had pointed out many times before, he spent far too much time in it. He needed to lock it up and go outside more often.

And he would, right after he found Scorpius.

Harry signed the bottom of the parchment and sealed it in an envelope. His owl was in her cage eating. He always left her cage door opened. He called to her and she flew over to him. As he attached the parchment to her leg he told her to take it to his solicitor.

Not long after she flew out the window, Harry fell asleep across his desk.