A/N:
Super fast update! I reckon this must be some kind of update. I totally put it down to actually publishing my progress bit by bit on LJ.
Warnings:
Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.
Disclaimer:
I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and toothache gel.
Asha swung around Richard in the alleyway behind the theatre, pulling at the sleeves of his overcoat and kicking up stones with her electric-blue kitten heels. Richard's grin was wide as he congratulated her and threw his arm around her shoulders, almost bowling her over in the process. They laughed, stumbled, wheezed, and by the time Asha managed to answer her ringing mobile phone, tears streamed down her face. She fought to get her vocal cords to cooperate but in the end wasn't given the chance.
"Have you heard from Draco?"
"Since when did you start calling him that?" Asha asked as she slapped Richard affectionately to get him to shush.
"It's not important," Cal told her, "Have you spoken to him?"
"No, not in a while - Behave," she chastised Richard, who had started to waltz her imaginary replacement in circles around her, "He was asleep when we left the flat. Opening night was a resounding success by the way, thanks for asking."
"I'm sure you were great. Listen-"
"Actually, I think you'll find I kicked ass."
"Sis will you just shut up for a second!" The brief pause her brother allowed gave her time to catch on to his serious tone. "Draco phoned me about an hour ago, he was asking all these questions about Hong Kong and then he went all quiet and he wouldn't tell me what was wrong. I asked if he wanted me to come over, he said he needed to be alone. I let him be, but the more I think about it the more worried I get."
"Why would he be asking about Hong Kong?" Asha asked, before deciding there wasn't time. "Never mind. We'll head home and check on him. I'll call you once I've spoken to him, okay?"
"Thanks Ash."
With that, she grabbed Richard's arm and pulled him further down the lane, behind a rubbish skip.
At Richard's bewildered look she explained, "Something's up with Draco," before apparating them both home.
The scene that awaited them was bomb-stuck. Broken glass littered everything in tiny shards and great spears, cutting out into the chemical stench of lingering alcohol.
"What the fuck!"
"Draco!"
Richard and Asha picked their way through the flat calling out for any answer that would come, but none did. Two empty bottles of vodka were keeled over at the foot of Draco's bed; Asha saw them and took hold of Richard's arm again.
A heartbeat later, ice smashed against their skin, robbed the air from their lungs, and heavy fabric slipped through Asha's clumsy fingers.
"Fuck! Asha? Draco?" Richard spluttered as his lungs were invaded, and the sight of his head disappearing under the water fast did nothing to abate Asha's panic.
She reached for him but he was drifting beneath her reach, pulled down by the weight of his thick wool coat. She blinked and grit her teeth, moving her arms back and forth in the water to keep herself afloat, feeling them burn with blood as she did. She reached out with her feet and found something too heavy and sodden to be anything other than human, she hooked her leg around it to pull it closer.
White blond hair told her it was Draco as she held his slumped form to her chest. His head lolled forward, lips brushing the foul sea. Richard's arms flailed as he resurfaced - sans overcoat. He reached out for a lifeline, Asha grabbed his hand and they landed in a heap on the shingle beach.
Richard extracted himself from underneath Draco as Asha plastered his hair away from his forehead and opened his eyelids with her thumbs.
"Draco! Draco? Richard, call an ambulance!"
Richard was holding his body off the ground with both arms, coughing and retching. "To where? I don't know where the fuck we are!"
"That's the North Atlantic, or the Norwegian Sea, I'm not sure," Asha gestured, wincing.
"Yeah, that's bloody useful."
Asha didn't hear him, she was pushing down on Draco's chest and breathing into his mouth at intervals. Richard heaved himself to Draco's side and pleaded with him, railed at him, but it was hopeless.
"Get off a second," Asha said and placed a single hand on Draco's chest. With a crack, his whole body jerked and water spouted from his mouth like an unclogged drain.
"I'm not sure I should have done that," she chewed her lip as she held his face to the side and felt for a pulse, relieved to find one at least. "I can get us back to your car, here are your keys," she tossed them at him just as soon as they appeared in her hand, "You'll need to drive to the hospital."
"You can't just zap us straight there?" Richard asked as she breathed a few more lungfuls of air into Draco's mouth.
"We can't just appear out of thin air in the middle of A&E!"
Richard shook some sense into himself, "Okay, okay, let's go then."
Draco's head lay back on a crisp white hospital-issue pillow, eyes shut, but breathing steadily and on his own. Richard took up sentry position in the chair beside his still form. Asha had been perched at Draco's feet until a stern looking nurse had ordered her off the bed.
"Why would he do this?"
"Cal said he phoned him asking questions about Hong Kong, does that mean anything to you?"
"No," Richard said as he stroked Draco's face with the backs of his fingers, "I knew all this magic was a bad idea."
"I didn't hear you complaining when it saved his life," Asha hissed.
Richard hung his head, "I didn't mean it like that and you know it."
Asha looked off down the corridor, thinking of the payphone she'd seen in the main atrium. Her mobile was waterlogged and didn't look set to make a meaningful recovery, "I should call Cal back, let him know what happened."
Richard nodded without taking his eyes off Draco, "He's going to need his things when he wakes up. Clean clothes..."
"Yeah."
"You should go get some sleep too." He said it softly enough, but Asha caught an insistence in his voice.
"You need it as much as I do," she pushed back.
"One of us should stay here. It's probably better that it's me," he said, the guilty flicker in his eyes confirmed what Asha had suspected – he didn't want her there when Draco woke up. He wanted to get a measure of their friend's frame of mind first, alone.
"I'll be back in a few hours then."
Back in the flat Asha did her best to ignore the multicoloured carnage. She took a deep breath as she stepped into Draco's room, intent on pulling together his things into his overnight bag before the resolve left her.
On closer inspection, she found that the room had been disturbed in more ways than the rest of the flat. Behind the bed, a floorboard had been prised up and beside it sat a small, beautifully carved, wooden casket. The lid was open and inside she found a broken chain – she thought it looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers to it the break was so clean. With the chain was a silver ring, which have must have been engraved with magic because the dragon etched there danced around the band as if to its own music. Finally there was a plastic wristband, from the date she could tell it was from Draco's first stint in hospital after his ordeal in the old woods not so many miles away. She shuddered.
On the bed was a newspaper, edges curled and ink faded. She saw that name, 'Harry'. Oh that name. And then another name caught her eye, 'Family friend, Ronald Weasley, told this reporter...'
Her eyes sparked with white rage.
She smacked the newspaper down on the lacquered hardwood surface in front of Ron and paid no mind to her new, more elaborate surroundings.
"What have you done!" she growled into his ear.
Ron jumped in shock, "Asha? What are you doing here?"
She pointed at the offending article on the table, "What did you do!" she repeated.
"I-" Ron caught sight of the newspaper just as Asha caught sight of Harry, sitting across from him.
"You," she snarled.
Harry put up his hands in protest, looking from her to the paper alarmed.
"Asha, I didn't do this. I wouldn't do this," Ron insisted, holding up the paper for good measure.
"You then," she accused Harry instead, "He told you-"
"He didn't tell me anything, I figured it out for myself," Harry stood up and snatched the paper out of Ron's hand, "And I wouldn't be this fucking stupid," he added, storming out of the room.
Ron and Asha followed him to another room where a little girl with long blond hair sat in the lap of an older man with similar features. Both carried a striking resemblance to Draco, if in slightly different ways.
"Harry," Lucius smiled and gestured to the book in his hand, "We were just-"
Harry cut him off, "Astrid honey, can you give Daddy a minute alone with your Grandpa?"
She looked at him with big, bright, green eyes, "But Daddy-"
"Astrid," Harry said firmly.
"Yes Daddy," she said and hopped down from her Grandpa's lap. Out of habit, Ron reached out to pat her head as she passed him to leave and she gave him a small smile.
Lucius must have sensed something in the air because he stood up as Harry closed the door and cast what Asha assumed to be a silencing charm with a flick of his wrist. He dropped the paper at Lucius' feet and stood in front of him waiting, "Why?"
Lucius' face hardened in defiance, "Because he needed to know."
"Like this?" Harry demanded of him, pointing at the floor.
Asha looked from them to Ron, seeking out his eyes. "You didn't?"
"Of course I didn't, I gave him my word," Ron's whole face was creased in hurt.
"You!" Lucius snarled, stabbing an outreached finger in his direction," I welcomed you into my home, I defended you, and all along-"
"Not all along!" Ron protested.
"How could you do this to Harry!"
Ron's face was red and his clenched knuckles were white, he opened his mouth to shout back but Harry got there first.
"Because he made your son a promise."
Lucius turned back to Harry, "You were in on this?"
"I figured it out a few days ago."
Lucius bristled, twitched in fury. "You're supposed to be his husband! You made a vow to bring him home and you just leave him out there in the wilderness! He's supposed to be with his family! Don't you care-"
"I am his husband," Harry ground out, seemingly unaware that the lights had begun to flicker in the room as he visibly struggled to keep his voice low and level. "When I asked him to marry me, it was because I knew I couldn't stand to spend another day apart from him. And when he accepted I thought it was forever, but almost every day since then has torn me to shreds."
"Then you should have done something about it!"
Harry's nostrils flared, inanimate things started to grumble around them. As a true testament to her fear, Asha absently sought out Ron's hand with her own and entwined their fingers.
"Ron's been my friend a lot longer than I've been your son-in-law Lucius. I trust him and I respect his judgement. Not only that, but I trust Draco's judgement, and both of them have made it clear that he wasn't ready for this!" Harry stepped forward and poked a finger at Lucius' chest, "But you just couldn't fucking listen could you? You always have to know what's best, and look where it got you last time?
"You think I don't want him home as much as you do? You think I love him any less now than I did when I crawled through the pits of hell to get back to him?" Harry had given up on controlling his voice and had settled for barking directly into Lucius' face.
"I've spent 7 years doing little else but scour the globe for him, you think that was easy?" The contents of the room were really starting to rattle now and Lucius took an instinctive step backward, Harry was screaming so loud it hurt his eyes, let alone his ears, "My daughters first words? Her first magic? The countless nights that I've not been the one to tuck her up in bed? You think missing those things has been a fucking picnic for me!
"I've broken my back to get him back here, so don't you dare stand there and tell me that I don't – fucking - care!"
The last word splintered off in every direction like a curse, the wards Harry had placed around the room exploded with a side-order of acrid black smoke. Half the contents of the room exploded with them and Ron had to duck to avoid a letter-opener to the head.
"Fuck," Harry said under his breath.
A small knock at the door caught all of their attention, "Daddy?"
"We'll just be a minute sweetheart," Harry called through the closed door before turning back to Lucius with narrowed eyes, "You," he pointed at him, "Are going to go with her," he pointed at Asha without looking at her, "And so help me you're going to fix this!"
"No."
Harry turned to Asha, all at once losing his hard edge as he took in the red rims of her eyes and her exhausted posture, "No?"
"The only people going anywhere near Draco for the foreseeable future are his family," Asha said carefully. Turning to Lucius she added, "That doesn't include you."
"Asha-" Ron started.
A gasp from the doorway interrupted them, Astrid stood with her hand clasped over her mouth, "Daddy, you broke everything."
Harry crouched down to her level, "Yeah, Daddy's silly huh? Listen honey, can you play outside for a bit? I need to sort a few things out here and then I'll come get you."
Astrid looked unsure. She took a step closer to her father, avoiding a broken picture frame with her bare foot. "Daddy, why are you mad at Grandpa?"
"Astrid," Harry placed clasped hands to his lips, "Help Daddy out, please."
"Okay Daddy," she said finally, coming one step closer to kiss her father's cheek and then departing again, closing the door behind her.
Ron was the first to speak, "Ash, you can't just-"
"It's not me you have to convince. Do you know what he did when he read this?" she picked the discarded newspaper up off the floor and rolled it up, "He got blind drunk, apparated to the Outer Hebrides, and walked out into the sub-zero Atlantic."
"What?"
Asha pointed the makeshift baton at Lucius, re-establishing her anger just by looking at him, "Now, I don't know how well you think you know your son after all these years, but Draco doesn't drink, he doesn't apparate, and he doesn't tend to view drowning himself as a viable pastime!"
Ron grabbed her arm and pulled her back, "Is he okay?"
"His heart stopped beating and his lungs were full of seawater, of course he's not okay, he fucking died!" she snapped and instantly regretted it. "I brought him back..." she added quietly, inwardly glad to see the pain on all of their faces diminish slightly.
"I'm angrier than I've ever been in my entire life right now, but Richard is six hundred miles past angry," she continued, turning back to Lucius, "And if you step foot in our home without his express permission he'll rip out your throat with his bare hands and fracture your jaw for good measure."
Lucius glared at her, "You think your little friend has the power to keep me away from my own son?"
"You'd be surprised what Richard is capable of when it comes to Draco. You have no idea what they've been through - what Richard's been though these past years to keep Draco safe and well? He'll do whatever he thinks is necessary to pull Draco through this, and anyone that gets in the way will be written off as... collateral damage."
Lucius had the look of a battered Rottweiler, he itched to lash out but his eyes showed he knew he couldn't suffer another beating. Ron almost pitied him, he wondered if he would reach this level of arrogant stupidity if Hermione kept his own kids away from him for long enough.
But Harry was deathly pale and looked ready to collapse, and that just made him want to thump Lucius in spite of his 'almost pity'.
"Draco won't-" Ron tried.
"Draco will let him," Asha said firmly.
Ron turned her to face her, "But you can to talk to him. You have to talk to him."
She shook her head and looked up at him, "You don't understand do you? Me and Cal - magic - we're part of the wider problem here," she wrapped her arms around herself and studied Harry with sad eyes, "I have to go," she whispered.
Carnage soon replaced carnage and she couldn't help but feel depressed as she gazed around this place that used to look like her home. In Draco's room, paper still in hand, she curled up on the floor, clearing a patch in the mess to do so.
With her free hand she found the ring and the chain and the hospital band, held them close to her heart and cried.
She cried because she couldn't bring herself to do anything else, for so long that she felt as though her guts had been hollowed out, and that was how Cal eventually found her.
"Hey, you didn't c- what the hell happened?" He looked down at her, "Where's Draco?"
"He's in hospital."
Cal looked around, eyes settling on the paper, "This is the guy I met in Hong Kong..."
He furrowed his brow for a moment before crouching down to pick his sister up off the floor. He gently removed the things she clutched in her hands and placed them on the desk.
"Get some sleep little sister. I'll put the flat right," he told her, and she allowed herself to be led to her own bed.
Asha's eyes fluttered open, and for the briefest of moments - until it all came crashing back to her - her bed was warm bliss.
Somehow, she found the courage to face the rest of the flat. Cal was at the kitchen table with two mugs of tea and she pulled up the chair opposite him.
"Thanks for sorting the flat out. What did you do with it all?"
"Banished it," Cal said without looking up.
She bit her lip, "I was thinking he might want it repaired..."
Her brother shook his head, "He broke it for a reason."
Asha nodded slightly at this, thinking that it probably made sense.
Cal turned his attention to the newspaper that had caused so much grief. He thumbed the corner of the front page. "I've been reading up on this guy. Did you know he's some kind of Wizarding golden boy?"
Asha wrapped her hands around her mug of tea and shrugged.
"Saved the world, returned from the dead, carried a child... I could never have competed with that."
Asha desperately wanted to refute that but couldn't find any words that wouldn't -somehow- sting. She closed her mouth quietly and said instead, "I don't understand how this could happen. How could Draco have a child and not know about it?"
Cal looked thoughtful, "He told me – this 'Harry'," he frowned, "That they'd been in love, and that he'd had to leave, and that it took him much longer than he'd intended to get back. He said that by the time he came home Draco was very sick, that he couldn't tell what was real anymore." Cal stalled, "He even used his name, isn't that a kicker? And the other day it didn't even register..."
"This isn't your fault Cal," Asha said as she reached out to touch his arm.
"No, but I could have..." Asha waited patiently as Cal pinched the bridge of his nose, "There could have been one less thing for him to feel guilty about."
Asha was sure there was more but her brother had fallen silent again, she searched his face for answers; "He told me he loved me," Cal said finally.
"Cal-" but he shook his head and tapped the paper again with an insistent finger.
"He said that he underestimated how sick Draco was, he thought he could fix it - that he had fixed it, but he was wrong, and one morning he woke up and Draco was just... gone. He said he'd been looking for him ever since... I think that's the watered down 'muggle' version of the story, we were in a muggle bar after all..."
"So when he said he went away, what he meant was... he died..."
They sat in silence sipping their tea until Cal pushed his chair back and stood.
"I'm not going to be around for a while. I think it's for the best right now. He's got it hard enough as it is without me being around to complicate things."
"You're abandoning him now? At a time like this?"
"I'm not abandoning him, or you. I'm giving him space to come to terms with all this. You both know how to reach me if you need to."
Asha stood to look him in the eye, "You won't stay away forever though, will you?"
Cal pulled her into a tight hug and stroked her hair, "I love you sis," he whispered and disappeared from her arms.
A/N:
Whatcha Think?
PS - TCU14 - I normally try to stick to that whole site rule thing about not posting individual review responses within chapters, but I always feel really bad for not being able to thank you via PM for reviewing. So - Thank you, I'm glad you like it.
I'm glad all of you are sticking with me for the journey, I love you all for that.
x X x
'Rora