Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except 'All My Aurors'.
Uh. So. This chapter is another one where I sat down to do a few minor edits, and then two hours later, I realize I've doubled the word count and tripled the number of pointless tangents. ENJOY.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: In Which Teddy Does Not Have Babies
"Let me get this straight," Harry said coldly. "You want to question my son, out of my sight, without telling me who will be doing the questioning, what methods you'll be using to get information, or why we're even being held when we've done nothing but overturn a few shelves and save a shopkeeper from his own rising blood pressure."
"That sums it up nicely," Snape agreed.
Harry sighed, not nearly as surprised as he should have been. Leave it to the Order to assume he'd trust them with one of his children, just because they were self-proclaimed war heroes.
Like the good guys never got out of hand in interrogation. Please. That delusion had faded like snowflakes in the pits of hell the first time he'd seen Aurors Su Li and Malcolm Baddock team up to fight crime. The only reason he hadn't fired them for cruel and excessive use of logic and sarcasm (a truly deadly combination to most wizards and witches) was because he had to keep an eye on the progress of their plot to overthrow Kingsley and instate a New World Order, wherein the clever reigned over the dim. Last he'd heard, they were planning on making Hermione their Supreme Leader.
Of course, Su Li and Baddock never actually get around to enacting their Glorious Revolution, what with their endless disagreements about logistics and methodologies and precedent (not to mention the distracting nature of their mutual and epic Unresolved Sexual Tension). But their partnership provided endless entertainment to the rest of Ministry: Kingsley used the conspiracy as a pretense to have their every move watched and then Pensieved, and all the Department Heads and long-term employees gathered in the Ministry banquet room every Monday night to review the best moments of the previous week. Ron called it their 'The Bold and the Brainy' night; Hermione referred to it as 'Days of Their Lives'. Harry, personally, thought 'All My Aurors' sounded a little classier.
Ginny thought they were hard workers who put in loads of overtime because they cared about the state of the government and the lives of regular wizards and witches, or, alternately, that they were out getting drunk and defacing statues of former Ministers (which, granted, Harry and Hermione were not entirely guiltless in the now-infamous incident involving one of Fudge's busts and a load of spell-resistant finger-paints). Growing up with six older brothers had given his wife some funny ideas about spying and privacy, so Harry wasn't about to let her in on the truth any time soon.
"Interrogation, eh? I'll do it," James said, and shot his little sister a fearful glance. "I mean, at least I'll be out of the room, right?"
That was enough to recall Harry forcibly to the present, though a little worry lingered in the back of his mind that Kingsley, vengeful bastard that he was, would erase any episodes—er, reconnaissance that he missed during this whole alternate dimension gig. Last Monday's installment had ended with Su Li discovering that her ex-fiancée had faked his own death to hide his affair with Malcolm's Squib cousin, and Harry had to know what happened next.
But first, he had to get his son out of this mess alive. "James…"
"Really, Dad. I honestly think I'll be safer out there."
Lily smiled, sharkishly. James flinched back from the sight—and so did Snape.
Interesting, Harry thought, forcing himself to not look at the door leading to the front room of the shop. One-way transparency spell, or just some first-class eavesdropping and a healthy imagination to boot? Harry was willing to bet on the former—Snape, at least, wasn't the sort to do things halfway. He considered getting angry about the invasion of privacy, but really, he'd lost the moral high ground on this one three years before, when he'd given in and gone with Hermione to the 'All My Aurors'/'Days of Their Lives'/'The Bold and the Brainy' Christmas Special.
"Dad," James said with a quiet sort of nobility, startling Harry guiltily from his ruminations, "if I don't come back from this, if I don't make it out again…whenever you get home, tell Mum I really wasn't the one who burned down a wing of Malfoy Manor last year, and that she should be ashamed of herself for thinking her darling self-sacrificing boy would do such a thing, and now she'll never have the chance to beg me on bended knee for forgiveness."
"Oh, dramatize," Lily muttered, clearly unimpressed. One day, Harry thought darkly, she was going to roll her eyes so hard they'd stay lodged that way. Knowing her, she'd find a way to turn it to her own monetary advantage within minutes, and spend the rest of her life profiting shamelessly off her unfortunate ocular disability.
The thought probably shouldn't make him feel quite so much the fond and proud father, but if he was going to have Slytherins for kids, then he wanted them to be the best damned Slytherins the world had seen since Salazar himself skulked the halls of Hogwarts, making secret tunnels in the girls' bathroom and plotting to take over the world. Hell, if the Order had wanted to question Al or Lils, Harry wouldn't have been concerned at all. Lils could talk circles around even the most hardened Aurors, and Al would just be quiet and reasonable and look at everyone with sad eyes until they crumbled and gave him whatever he wanted.
James, though…
"You know, James, I think everyone has moved on from the Burning Manor Incident. Even Draco, as much as he ever moves on from anything," Harry said, mind racing. He didn't honestly think the Order would do anything to harm his son, and knowing them, they'd probably balk at using Veritaserum on a minor, but still—he didn't like the idea of being separated from one of his children, not now, not in this situation.
"Don't insult Father, he can't help it," Scorpius said dutifully.
"Besides, Aunt Ginny wasn't exactly upset about the incident," Teddy said, grinning. "If I'm remembering right, she went out and bought a cake. A giant chocolate cake. With 'Good Work, Son' spelled out in sprinkles on top."
"That thing was amazing," James reminisced with a happy sigh. "Not as good as your cakes, Dad, but there was something special about it anyway. I think because it tasted of Mister Malfoy's pain. His sugary, delicious pain."
"It was good," Scorpius allowed. Harry could practically hear Snape's eye twitch.
"Enough about Mister Malfoy," Harry said, torn between pride in his son's blithe composure and profound irritation at the same. "And no one's about to die, James. You know that you don't have to go if you're afraid. I can--"
"Pfft," James pffted, flapping a hand dismissively. "Please, it's not like they'll kill me or anything. See you later, losers!"
He bounded cheerfully over to Snape, who took a hasty step away, probably terrified that freckles and Potter were catching. "I begin to think the girl's attack was not unprovoked," Snape muttered, giving them all that Look again, the 'I know you're up to something horrible that will end in bloodshed and death but I almost don't care to find out what your Evil Plan is, you're all just that irritating, and I'm good enough that either way I'll come out on top' Look.
Harry had forgotten how expressive the bastard could be. Well, he could be expressive, too. He just had to be a little more blunt about it.
"I'm holding you personally responsible for my son's safety," Harry told his Not-Quite-Former-Professor, forcefully. "If he comes back with so much as a single scratch--"
Snape glanced pointedly at James' shin, then up to the boy's wrist—the denim over the former and the skin of the latter were both indented with distinct toothmarks. Harry winced. "Right, fine, if he comes back with so much as a scratch not from my daughter, then I will hurt you, Snape."
"I have been threatened by more experienced and powerful wizards than you," Snape said, unimpressed, but Harry wasn't close to done.
"Maybe you have," he said mildly. "But I—well, I am fully prepared to visit upon you torments to wither the soul and break the mind. I will hold you down and shampoo your hair."
Snape blanched. "How dare--"
"And then," Harry interrupted, enjoying himself perhaps a bit too much (naming his son after the man didn't mean he couldn't torment him, after all), "I will brush your teeth, and oh, there will be flossing, Snape, there will be flossing. And then--"
"I understand; you needn't go on," his Almost-Former-Professor ground out, sallow face tinged a pale, queasy green.
"And then," Harry went on ruthlessly, because he knew quite well that the other man wouldn't be so easily broken as all that, "I will set my daughter loose on you."
"I'm armed and ready," Lily piped up helpfully, with a wide, shining, horrible smile. "Always ready." Impossibly, her teeth seemed to gleam despite the dim lighting and the shadows that so ominously and theatrically shrouded half her face.
"I will do all that, Snape. And when you are a shaking, sobbing mess, I will tie you to a chair and let Scorpius lecture you on the wonders of fashion and hygeine for hours, Snape. Hours."
Someone—not Snape, most likely Teddy—gave a low, sympathetic moan of horror. "Hey," Scorpius said, faintly indignant.
"Your son will return in better shape than he leaves," Snape rasped. "Upon my honor."
"Wow," James said, staring at Harry incredulously. "You really are crazy overprotective. I mean, I always knew you were, but…just, wow."
"Ask me some day about the Hog's Head fiasco in my fifth year," Teddy said, rolling his eyes until all anyone could see of them were the whites. Metamorphmagi eyerolls meant business. "Crazy overprotective."
"I thought he was pulling a wand on you," Harry said, perhaps just a tiny bit on the defensive. He wasn't overprotective, he really wasn't, but someone had to make sure the brats weren't getting themselves killed because they were all too busy rolling their eyes to watch where they were going. Seriously, he was starting to think eye-rolling was some kind of horrible contagious plague. Or possibly a new extreme sport.
"Yeah, right, because wands look so much like tulips," Teddy scoffed.
"Someone gave you tulips?" Victoire asked sharply. Teddy froze. "A male someone? Explain."
Harry watched with a worried frown as, to a background of nervous babbles about 'before I asked you out—can't help if other people find me overwhelmingly attractive—just a bit of fooling around—he was really hot', Snape led his son away.
"He'll be all right," Al said confidently as the door closed behind James. "Severus Snape wouldn't hurt him. Not Severus Snape."
"Yeah, well," Harry said, dubiously. "He wouldn't hurt a normal child, that's true enough. I mean, other than by inflicting life-long emotional trauma on them, of course." He wasn't about to tell his son about that time Snape had thrown jars at him, or the systematic, gleeful way Snape had gone about destroying his will to live throughout his six years at Hogwarts.
Perhaps he shouldn't have romanticized the man so much. It was just so hard to resist a few embellishments, though, when he pictured Snape's spirit hanging around somewhere, watching and listening, horrified and heart-sick at being called 'the bravest man I ever knew' and a 'good soul' and 'the sort of person who was willing to do anything for love'. Yeah, it was funny at the time, the sort of petty revenge that appealed to Harry and Ginny both, except he'd never planned on the brats meeting Snape in a bizarre dimensional mix-up. Now his kids seemed to think the man was, well, sort of a dour unsanitary puppy or something.
Which…well. Might not have been an entirely accurate impression to convey to them.
"You see?" Al said, oblivious to Harry's inner turmoil. "Nothing to worry about."
"Except he doesn't know he's got a James Potter on his hands," Harry said with a sigh. That had the potential to change everything. Snape was not known for his sense of perspective, and if he found out James was, well, James Sirius Potter…
But then, Snape also didn't know that Harry also had a certain expensive and tasteful wristwatch, one with his kids' faces for the hands, and (in place of the regular hour marks) little symbols for 'home', 'flying', 'eating', 'eating again, dear god, how are you not completely rotund by now', 'mortal peril', 'jail/detention, you miscreant', 'writhing in agony', 'tormenting foes', 'rolling eyes', and the like. Nor did Snape know of the many, many charms he had cast on his children to inform him if they were in danger or pain. Harry'd know in an instant if James was hurt. And that was just being sensible, not overprotective.
Fortunately, he couldn't brood for long, not with the mini-drama playing out in the background between his godson and niece. They were doing their damnedest to match Su Li and Baddock, but until Teddy had a long-lost evil twin show up with a magical demon baby bent on world-domination, the two of them were doomed to failure.
"Open-mindedness is sexy," Victoire pronounced as Teddy's bumbling, confused explanations finally ground to a halt. Teddy brightened tentatively. "And this means you had the sense to recognize that I'm not only better than all the other girls you know, but every single person you know."
"Uh. Yeah," Teddy said, sounding confused and hesitantly relieved. "That's it exactly."
"And everyone you ever will know," she added, her eyes narrowing suddenly to slits, her head tilted to an angle that should have been coy but instead chilled the blood and froze the marrow. "Am I correct?"
Harry was pleased to see Teddy had brains enough to agree quite emphatically. Perhaps he wouldn't be in the very dregs of Su Li and Baddock's new world order. Just, you know, nearly a dreg.
"Of course," Scorpius interjected slyly, because Malfoys thrived on trouble and hair gel the way flowers thrived on sunlight and water, "it would be perfectly acceptable if you did have a boyfriend, Teddy. After all, what really matters is continuing the family line, right? And as you are a metamorphmagus…"
He trailed off with a provocative waggle of his eyebrows, a waggle Harry was quite certain he'd copied directly from Ginny—after all, Draco would sooner die than do something so plebeian as wiggle or waggle a single eyebrow, and Astoria was more the wink-wink nudge-nudge sort. Though, Harry had to admit, they were very dainty, aristocratic nudges.
Then he realized exactly what Scorpius was getting at, and his mind shut down completely.
"You can't possibly mean," Teddy said, staring at his cousin in disbelief, while Victoire sighed long-sufferingly and Lily giggled helplessly into her hand. "You aren't seriously suggesting…that I, that I…"
"Have I ever told you how much I admire your facility of expression and the erudition of your thoughts?" Scorpius asked innocently.
"I am not giving myself a manwomb," Teddy howled. Lily broke down into loud, shameless guffaws.
"Because I admire both. Deeply," Scorpius said. Al's sudden hacking cough sounded suspiciously like laughter.
"And don't knock wombs 'til you've tried one on for size," Lily counseled wisely. Which, just, no, Harry thought, with the sort of eloquence that brought tears to Hermione's eyes. Just. No.
"I tried one on for nine months!" Teddy said, his voice as shrill as his eyes were wide. "We all did! And I like Little Ted where he is, thanks very much!"
"No reason you can't have the best of both worlds," Al told him, voice strained and his face a deep red.
"After all, you are part Malfoy," Scorpius coaxed.
"If you children don't shut up," Victoire interjected calmly, patting Teddy consolingly on the hand as he started wheezing alarmingly, "I shall damage you. In ways both painful and intimately related to our current topic of conversation, if you catch my meaning."
"Hard not to," Al grumbled.
"I'm pretty sure your meaning caught us," Scorpius agreed. "Bear traps and spears may have been involved."
"You can't castrate me," Lily said cheerfully.
"Your father is paying for my therapy," Harry told Scorpius. He wondered if commanding an Obliviator to erase the last five minutes of his life would constitute an abuse of his position and political power, and then he wondered if he really cared. "Just so you know."
The Malfoy heir gave this all of a second's consideration, then shrugged. "That should make for an amusing conversation. You will let me listen in, won't you? Of course, Father's rich enough to afford even your therapy bills, although I thought you were already paying for his, after the Burning Manor Incident."
"Nothing like reciprocal child-induced emotional trauma to build bonds between former enemies," Harry advised, with, he felt, a show of sagacity that belied his still-somewhat-tender(-and-delicious) years.
"Did you know that the magical world had never even heard of therapy until you and Aunt Ginny reproduced?" Victoire asked, in what Harry wished he could believe was a total non sequitur. "And now it's the fastest growing field in magical Britain."
"You should bring that up when you inevitably run for Minister, once Mister Baddock finally gets rid of Shacklebolt," Scorpius advised, a distant, visionary gleam in his eyes that boded ill for everyone in general and Harry in particular. "I can see it now, Harry: 'A vote for Potter is a vote for a healthy economy!' 'Harry Potter: providing the community with new jobs and neuroses since 2004!'"
"You are why we can't have nice things," Teddy told his cousin solemnly.
First time I wrote this, there was no manwomb, no Auror Soap Opera, and no talk of therapy. This is why I can't have nice things.
