Disclaimer: Not mine.

Summary: Broken after the war, Harry left. Now, two years later, he's finally found the strength to return, only to discover that old sins have long shadows…

A/N: This is going to be a short one, and I'm awfully sorry about that, but I'm so unbelievably busy that you wouldn't believe it. The next chapter will be much longer, and I hope I'll be able to finish and post it soon. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this, where everything comes out into the open, in a manner of speaking, in the seclusion of a cupboard!

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Old Sins

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Chapter Ten: The Cupboard

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After several shouts, threats and finally pleas, all of which proved futile, Harry and Hermione stopped yelling at Dobby. Harry's voice was hoarse and raw, his heart pounding hard. Yelling at Dobby had been a distraction—that house-elf, he thought savagely, had turned almost human in his freedom!—but now, he and Hermione found themselves in a singularly awkward and difficult situation. Harry, already so furious, had no trouble venting his spleen on Hermione, now.

"How could you not tell me?" he growled. "What, you didn't think I had a right to know that I've got a bloody son?"

Hermione gasped. "You… you know. How?"

"Who cares?" he roared. "Does it matter? I want to know why you didn't tell me!"

"What good would it have done?" she snapped.

"Good? Hermione, for heaven's sake! David has a right to have a father, you know. Oh, I daresay Ron and the others have tried filling that rule—they're all perfect, aren't they?—but he needs me. That kid loves me, and God help me, I love him, and you had no right to keep that from both of us. Oh," he sucked in a sharp breath. "David always knew, didn't he? That's why he… he knew…"

"He saw what you didn't," said Hermione, and as Harry's eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw her dash a hand across her eyes. "Stop feeling like you were dealt a bad deal here, Harry."

"Does that mean you're glad you didn't tell me?"

"No," she said angrily. "I'm not. I wished every moment for the courage to tell you what you did have a right to know—and I'm sorry I didn't say anything, Harry. But I will not apologize for keeping my mouth shut after the first few weeks. You spent so much time with us, with David, that it's your fault you didn't know sooner. How could you not see it? Everyone else saw it at once! Even Snape knew he was your son the instant he looked at him! Even Narcissa—"

Harry slumped back against the cupboard and sank to the floor, his head spinning. His anger had left him instantly and felt a creeping sense of guilt.

Flashes passed before his eyes: Professor McGonagall telling him David was powerful—of course he was; his parents were two of the most powerful people in the wizarding world!—the odd look on Snape's face when Harry brought the subject of Hermione and David up—the way the Weasleys and Luna and Neville had looked at him that very first time he'd seen David—Mr. Granger's sudden dislike of him—the odd, sad look on Hermione's face sometimes, when she looked at him playing with her son—the way David had never called him "Uncle Hawwy"…

"How could I have seen it?" he groaned softly. "Hermione, I was thick, I know that, but I never had a reason to question it. When I asked you, you told me his father was dead, that I didn't know him… I didn't have any reason to think you were lying to me." His voice hardened.

"I know," she said softly. "But I was so angry and so relieved every time you missed the hints. I wanted you to work it out, a part of me did, but another part was dreading this moment…"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Harry asked quietly. "Before, why didn't you send those letters to me and let me know?"

Suddenly, she was angry. "What for?" And in the dim light, her eyes flashed. "I know you well enough, Harry, and if I'd told you about David, you would have come home. You would have been unhappy. I wanted you to come back on your own, I wanted you to do what you wanted to with your life. I didn't want you to come to me because of David, I didn't want you back that way.

"And – " she added in a whisper, "I – I think I hated you a little bit, too. I think I thought, in some part of my mind, that since you left me anyway, you didn't deserve to know about anything else."

There was a long silence after this brief, broken speech. Harry leaned his head tiredly against the cupboard wall and breathed in ragged, musty breaths. He had never felt so alone, or so lost. He felt as though he had managed to save the Muggle and wizarding worlds, but had also single-handedly shot to dust every good thing in his life. He closed his eyes. Yes, he'd had a difficult life, he'd been dealt a bad set of cards. Maybe he couldn't have made things better.

But there was always that 'what if'… what if he'd stayed behind? What if he'd overcome his fears in time, and stayed with Hermione, loved her then as fiercely as he did now?

What if there was no fear, no Voldemort, no Narcissa?

What if, what if, what if…

Very slowly, Harry reached across and touched Hermione's hand. He slowly entwined his fingers with her as they sat there silently, side by side in the cupboard, side by side as they'd always been, since he'd first met her.

"I am sorry, Harry," she said softly.

He found that he didn't need to hear that. It hurt, it made him angry, that she hadn't told him—that no one, none of his friends, had told him—but he could live with that. Five years ago, he might have walked away and refused to speak to them for a few weeks. Today, he understood. He understood how much Hermione must have hurt, he remembered that he, too, had kept things from her that she'd had a right to know, and he realized that he was capable of forgiving her anything. And as for his friends, he could forgive them too, because they'd watched over her and his son while he hadn't.

"I really ripped your life apart, didn't I?" said Harry with a bitter smile.

She sighed. "You have no idea what it did to me when you left, Harry. You were supposed to love me more than that. I could understand your leaving the others, I could understand why you went in the first place… but I couldn't understand how you'd left me. That was the cruelest cut of all, and David had nothing to do with it then. Finding out about it was just the icing on the cake in the end. But it was my heart you tore to bits, Harry, not my life. You were supposed to love me more than that, and it was difficult to admit I could have been wrong to hope."

His eyes closed and tears slid out from under them, shakily tracking their way down a face that sometimes didn't belong to a twenty-year-old boy.

"I s'pose asking to be forgiven would be too much," he said weakly.

"Oh, Harry, I've already forgiven you. I forgave you the moment I saw you again, because I looked into your green eyes and saw everything you had suffered for twenty long years. I looked into your eyes and I saw a sad little boy who watched his Cousin Dudley being loved and cuddled by his mother, while you were alone… I cried, sometimes, for you and how lonely you must have been all your life. Even when you had us, Voldemort haunted you, and you were alone…"

"I learnt to live with it," said Harry.

"I know, but you shouldn't have had to. That's why I tried to stay with you, always, so that sometimes, it didn't have to hurt either of us as much. I don't know whether I made any difference to your life—"

"You did," he said quietly. "You made all the difference."

Hermione took a deep breath. "I'm glad," she said simply, sincerely. "But that was what I saw in your eyes when you returned that night, Harry, and I suddenly found that I wasn't angry with you, or upset, or even hurt anymore. A little, yes, but not like I'd thought I would be. I found that – that if you l-love someone enough, you c-can forgive them anything."

Harry started slightly, because he'd had a similar thought just moment before.

He tightened his hold on Hermione's hand. The wounds, and the unhealed scars, hadn't gone away. No one would ever fully understand the depth of the damage his isolation and war had done to him.

Those wounds put a barrier between Hermione and him. A wall of tears. Maybe they could never really be together, the two of them. They were best friends, and always would be, but there was too much danger. But it didn't matter, not right now. For her, and for David—and for himself, too—he was going to be a good father, now. He was going to fix those mistakes. He just hoped that would be enough for her.

He just hoped that would be enough for himself.

"If it's all right," he said tentatively, "I – I'd like to meet my son."

Hermione squeezed my hand. "I'd like that," she said shyly. "I have a feeling it won't surprise him much, but I think David would like calling you 'Daddy' much more than he does 'Hawwy'."

"You know, he can say 'r' sounds," Harry said conversationally.

"Oh, yes," said Hermione bitterly, "I think he's just trying to be rebellious. I wonder who he reminds me of."

Harry grinned, and the ache in his chest eased again.

As if on cue, the cupboard door clicked and swung open. Harry blinked in the dazzling light of day, and crawled to his feet, holding out a hand to help Hermione up. The two of them stepped out of the cupboard, to find Dobby standing a few feet away, holding their wands out as if he expected to be cursed into oblivion.

Harry took his wand calmly. "Thanks, Dobby."

"Dobby, do you think you could put these things back into the cupboard?" Hermione asked equally calmly, sounding as though she hadn't spent the past half an hour trapped in said cupboard.

Dobby began to grin tentatively, apparently secure in that his beloved masters—as he would always think of them, in spite of Hermione's constant corrections—still loved him. "With pleasure, Hermione Granger," he said happily.

Harry and Hermione left him wearing a grin so broad, Harry was amazed he hadn't cracked his face in half.

"So do we thank Ron, or kill him?" he asked, when they were out of Dobby's earshot.

Hermione let out a reluctant giggle. "Kill him first, then thank him, I think," she said. "He really is so fond of us. Do you think he'll ever manage to move out? I have a feeling he and Luna are going to live here all their lives—unless you and I both move out, in which case they'll follow one or both of us."

"Well, I plan to stay here," said Harry, amazed that he could have grown so attached to a house he had once hated. "Sirius would have liked the way we've changed it, and when I'm here and I listen at night, I sometimes think I can hear his footsteps padding down the hallway."

"I know what you mean."

"What about you, though?" He avoided her eye. "Do you think you'll stay here as well?"

"Yes, I think so. I can't deny the advantages of not paying rent."

He smiled. "There is that."

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Dobby zipped past them on his way to open it, and a few seconds later, he reappeared, with Mrs. Weasley and David in tow. "Oh, Harry, Hermione, how nice to see you, dears," she said, obviously very busy, as she was laden with shopping bags, which floated behind her eerily. "I just came to drop David off, and also to remind you both about dinner at the Burrow tomorrow. Ron did tell you, didn't you?"

"No," said Hermione dryly, "But now we know."

Mrs. Weasley handed David to Hermione. "He's missed you both dreadfully today," she said indulgently, as David squeaked excitingly into his mother's ear.

"Well, his father missed him," said Hermione meaningfully.

It took Mrs. Weasley a few seconds to process that. Then she shrieked. "He knows? HE KNOWS!"

"He knows," said Harry gravely.

"Oh, Harry dear—this is wonderful—Arthur! Ron! Bill! Oh, why is no one ever here when I want them?"

"Because it's my house," Harry suggested.

Molly beamed at him. "David, look, it's your father!"

"Yes," agreed David with childish dignity, obviously unable to perceive the reason for these transports of delight. He paid Mrs. Weasley no further attention; instead, he crawled from Hermione's arms to Harry's, and began to pull at the seams of Harry's shirt.

Hermione tried half-heartedly to stop him, but Harry told her not to worry, he didn't mind having his son ruin his shirts.

"Wow," he breathed after, "I'm never going to get tired of saying 'my son'."

"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Weasley tearfully. "And now, are you two—?"

"No," Harry and Hermione both said very quickly.

Mrs. Weasley's face fell, and she looked absolutely crestfallen. "So, no happy ending just yet?" she said, evidently only half-joking, her handkerchief whipping itself out of her bag and mopping her eyes on its own.

"No," said Harry quietly, "Not while Narcissa's still out there."

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TBC.

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