OUR FATHERS ENNEMIES
The two men were facing each other and did not seem to realize they were being observed by about thirty puzzled and vaguely worried Gryffindor students.
- "You're not supposed to be here, Malfoy", said Harry in a low voice. "It's been a long time since Hogwarts was a toy to the rich pure-blood families."
- "Then what are you doing here, Potter?" smirked the man in a black redingote. "Teaching? The perfect candidate to Minister of Magic? You were always a young mister-know-it-all, so it doesn't surprise me, but to think old McGonagall was recruiting her staff on such ridiculous criteria..."
He shrugged, scrunching up his nose in disdain.
- "In any case, I won't wait for another scandal to remove my son from this school. Scorpius has better things to do than being taught by an ex-Auror in need of sensations."
Harry sneered.
- "What do you fear, Draco? That I'd turn him into a weasel, for example?"
The elegant man's fair complexion flushed purple.
- "I forbid you!"
- "Oh, but I'd never do such a deed", said the new professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, slipping his hands in his pockets like if he was holding a normal conversation. "I'm not Mad-Eye and I paid my debt to your mother a long time ago. Minerva wouldn't have accepted me in her team if I was unable to teach, she's not yet senile."
A shudder ran over the students upon hearing the two men speaking in such informal terms of the all-powerful director.
Harry paused and his voice softened.
- "I won't treat your son differently, Draco. I have kids too, you know."
Scorpius's father sniggered.
- "And you cast Unforgivable Curses at them! A famous parent, I see."
For a moment it seemed as he was going to keep it to this verbal sparring then a vein swelled on his pale forehead and his lips tightened.
- "Have you lost your mind after killing so many people, Potter?" he hissed. "Blood, blood, blood! Now you can't even make a difference between reality and your nightmares, isn't it? I never understood how a murderer like you was allowed to enter politics! You were already putting others at risk when you were in school, it must have been so satisfying for you to have the right to hurt people when you became an Auror! And don't get me started on the victims you made when you were on the run!"
- "Shut it, Malfoy!" roared Harry who had stiffened – and the involuntary onlookers had the strange feeling they were watching an argument between teenagers. "What do you want, in the end? To confirm my political career is ruined? It is – happy? A duel in due forms? Why now? It's been more than twenty years!"
His voice was hoarse with bitterness.
- "Do you think if I still had a score to settle with you, I'd have waited all this time? I don't give a damn about your regrets, Malfoy! I kept my word, you're alive, nobody made you pay for your-"
He froze suddenly, as if someone had emptied a bucket of ice water on his head: his eyes had fallen on Scorpius and Albus who were staring at him.
The two boys were ashen.
- "Let's continue this conversation in private", he panted. "They…"
- "No", the blond man cut in sharply.
His aristocratic features were twisted by his anger and Terrence, who had stepped forward as if to shield his two friends, also could read unspeakable suffering in the gray eyes burning with rage.
- "You may think you're a saint, Potter, but you can't be more wrong. You believed yourself full of compassion with your forgiveness, but you made our lives miserable."
The words were dripping with venom, and Harry received them in the face like spurts of Stinksap.
- "Acquitted? Yes, sure! Dishonored, rejected, disowned. I had to rebuild from scratch, with this constant infamy clinging to my heels and my mother..."
A grimace distorted his mouth and his pointed face puckered, like if each sentence was churning in his guts. He took in a deep breath and continued icily.
- "You were everywhere, of course. In the newspapers, the conversations, in politics and in the most sordid pubs, they were singing your praises. Azkaban filled by you with people who never had the choice to make another decision and finally your kids in Hogwarts with my son!"
- "You just had to move..." Harry began, feeling his irritation rise again despite the two motionless figures in the corner of his eye and the growing guilt wrenching his diaphragm.
Draco Malfoy let go of another piercing laughter and this time the students took a step back, terrified. Wendy dared not breathe, much less look at Albus.
- "Run away! Absurd. Malfoys do not run away, Potter. My mother was a Black."
His nostrils were quivering, and his knuckles had turned white on his cane.
- "We could have lived ignoring each other, Potter", he went on with a strangely disembodied voice. "But then the filthy little rat that is your eldest took my son for target of his dirty pranks..."
Harry bit his lip to keep in control and a drop of blood pearled where his skin had been burst.
He remembered being in King's Cross Station, gratitude filling him as he passed without confrontation by the blond man with a child who looked some much like his younger self.
And to think he had imagined for a moment that one day, perhaps, they would be able to...
Draco's acerbic voice brought him back to reality.
- "But the worst of it all is your other kid."
All students, except for Scorpius who looked about to be sick, turned to Albus. His emerald eyes were on the man who was spitting his bile.
- "After the shame of knowing our only son had been sorted into Gryffindor, I didn't think I would also have to constantly hear about Albus Severus Potter."
The first name had shaken him with nausea, the second had flayed his mouth and the third had sounded like a disgusting joke.
The blond man's gray eyes were weighting Albus with contempt mixed with an incomprehensible hatred, and Terrence forgot that he was fourteen, that the gesture could create a lot of misunderstanding and that it was not 'manly'. Without thinking, he grabbed his best friend's hand and squeezed it.
Wendy saw the movement and her throat felt a bit less constricted.
How could Albus and Scorpius bear with the horrific bursts of sentences?
It felt like thousands of small cuts were opening on her face with every word.
What had the war been like for such animosity to remain burning after so many years?
Did growing up made you cruel and heartless?
Why could none of the two men see that their sons were right there?
Like if they had forgotten everything and were back in the past, Draco and Harry were glaring at each other.
- "It must have pleased you, eh, St.-Potter, to learn that my son was not brilliant, that he was so unlike our family that he could not even succeed in being sorted in Slytherin !"
- "The sorting ceremony is not something you fail!" snapped Harry, his green eyes blazing behind his round glasses. There was sweat beading at the roots of his tangled black hair. "And I never thought anything special about..."
- "What a liar", Malfoy sneered with a haughty gesture that rumpled his dark frock. "You knew the children were in the same bedroom, that they helped each other with homework – were friends."
The last word hardly passed his lips, like if he was choking on it.
- "Our children proved to be less narrow-minded than us, Draco, that's all", Harry said curtly. "Things might have been different if you and I had not been enemies from Day One..."
He paused for a moment, then a half-smile brushed his split lips.
- "You didn't tell your son either... maybe you also believed it was possible, deep inside."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Then Malfoy straightened to his full height (he was taller than Harry and so slim the hero seemed almost thick and stumpy next to him) and slicked back his blond hair. He tapped his cane on the ground and sparks crackled on the tiles.
- "As long as I'm alive, Scorpius will never be in class with you", he rasped. "I can do with incessantly hearing about a runt who is six months behind the others, flies on his broomstick like an exhibitionist and attracts all that is feathered or fur, because for some reason my wife seems to think it's a good thing, but I will never let you become my son's teacher, Potter."
Wendy's heart was pounding so hard against her ribs she thought people could hear it echoing in the hallway.
- "I guess the Ministry of Magic might find means to rehabilitate you if you go take a few blows in the Hebrides. Pack your bags quickly, I don't want Scorpius to be delayed in his studies."
Harry had – almost – stopped breathing. His fists were clenched and his jade orbs were throwing daggers at the blond man.
- "What if I don't want to leave?" he asked, in such a low voice it was barely audible.
- "Then…"
- "NO."
All blood was gone from Scorpius's face, but his voice did not quaver. His gray eyes had turned a purplish black. He was standing very stiff.
- "I will not go with you. I'll stay here and Professor Potter will give his class. Parents don't have a say in the choice of teachers. Even if a werewolf was appointed to teach us, you would have nothing to say."
For a millisecond, Draco and Harry shared the same ironic expression, then the blond man's dark eyebrows narrowed dangerously.
- "Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy. Don't you think for a minute you can challenge me", he hissed.
His voice and eyes were ice-cold, but the teenager did not look away.
- "Thank you for coming, Father", he said very politely. "I have to get going now, but I will spend some time with you if you're still here when my lesson's over. Give my best regards to Mother."
Next to Wendy, Violet Morgensten suddenly put her hands over her mouth with a hiccup.
Terrence let go of Albus' hand and stepped forward.
- "You heard him, sir, we have a class to attend. Excuse me, but we can't get inside if you stay standing there."
Other students started to move as well and murmurs rose. Craig Finnigan pulled a book from his bag and walked to Harry.
- "Professor, I have a question about chapter 11. We only did theory so far and I was wondering if..."
- "ENOUGH!" Malfoy barked, immediately freezing all those who had dared to move.
He sliced through the teenagers and marched to his son with his hand raised, as if he was going to slap him or to drag him away.
Albus stepped in front of Scorpius and the silence in the hallway became thick as lead.
The blond man looked furiously at the boy who stood between him and his son.
- "What-do-you-want?" he hissed. "Get out of my way."
Albus shook his head, not moving an inch. He was very pale and his dark eyelashes made his green orbs look even bigger.
- "I'm sorry", he whispered. "I'm really sorry to be... just that."
Harry closed his eyes.
"It's not true, Albus. You're a lot more than just that."
Terrence clenched his fists. Wendy dared take a step forward, her hands clutched on her books. Scorpius' eyes, which had stayed dry until then, welled up with tears.
The black-haired teenager lifted his chin, his gaze looking deep in the blond man's eyes.
- "Please, let him stay", he said quietly.
Malfoy blinked.
A moment before, he was boiling with indignation, and now his anger was crumbling down with no reason.
- "You don't understand", he growled.
Albus smiled - the same smile that had tamed the rabid guard dog from Honeydukes.
- "Yes, I don't", he whispered. "But you do."
Draco cleared his throat, destabilized.
Something warm and soft was bubbling up slowly inside him.
He turned to Harry who was watching his son and did not seem to decipher what was happening either.
Someone tugged at his sleeve. He looked down.
- "Father", pleaded Scorpius who was now standing next to Albus, lifting his thin face like when he was a child.
The man swallowed hard, trying to hold on to the snatches of exasperation that slipping out of his mind like a handful of sand.
He was cradling a tiny baby in his arms and swearing to himself he would never be like his father.
He was crouching and a child with pale hair was toddling up to his outstretched arms and falling on his heart with a happy twittering.
He was sitting on the sofa, reading the letter from Hogwarts and, leaning against him, a boy dressed like a little prince tried to hold in his excitement, his eyes sparkling with joy.
He was standing on the station platform and watched his son get on the red train of his childhood. The world was at peace, and no one would ever again try to rob the innocence of a young student.
Stunned, he was showing Scorpius' letter to his wife, the line where it was written in proud yet prudent words that his son had been sorted into Gryffindor.
It was the 1st of September and that damned Harry was again on the station platform with his three excited brats. The Weasley girl had put on some weight since she had stopped playing for the "Holyhead Harpies". Good. Served her right. Granger was prettier than he remembered, but she still looked like a stuck-up bookworm. Her children looked like their simpleton father.
His teeth were gritted as he pictured his son's humiliation when the oldest Potter had made him tripped in the dining hall. Scorpius was getting up, treacle tart splattered all over his blond hair and his father wanted to pound on the morons who were bullying him.
Then things had changed, unexpectedly, inexplicably.
On the station platform, the third year, Scorpius had said goodbye hurriedly and run to a green-eyed boy who was waiting for him at the carriage's door. Albus Severus Potter. The name was filling the letters, much more than student life silly stories or questions about his mother's health. How could have Harry given his child names so heavy with memories? What kind of sick joke was that?
He begged, scolded, threatened, but Scorpius continued to lower his head stubbornly. Al, Al, Al. There was no way to make him give up the doomed friendship. His lonely son had made other friends too - a Muggle-born boy who was probably going to blow up Hogwarts someday, a skinny girl with no manners and a stupid grin – and he was talking of strolls by the lake, Quidditch, science experiments that looked far more dangerous than flirting with dark magic. He had cried over the death of a ferret named Spoon and spent half his allowance at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.
His mother was on his side and Draco, despite himself, was forced to admit that his so serious and so uptight son looked more his age, more alive – definitely happy. And nothing else mattered, in the end.
A house elf was handing him the Daily Prophet and suddenly the old resentment had burnt his eyes as he read the newspaper: Harry Potter was suspected of attempted murder on his own flesh.
And not just anyone. It was the boy Scorpius was so infatuated with.
This was terribly suspicious. An endless line of reasons was jostling in his mind, he had a headache, he was pacing like a caged animal in the living room.
Then it was announced the minister's secretary was going to be a teacher at Hogwarts, and Draco had sudden flashes of Snape's continual humiliations: the cauldrons emptied, the unjustified detentions, the condescending glances and veiled taunts took a whole other meaning.
Harry hated him, just like Severus Snape had hated James Potter. He was going to take his revenge. Scorpius' life would become hell.
A minute later, he was negotiating his visit to the school and inside his chest something was blistering like a stinging hex - something bitterly painful, violent.
Someone tugged at his sleeve. He opened his eyes.
- "Father, I'm sorry I defied you..." Scorpius muttered.
His gray dove eyes were the only pure thing in the world and Draco felt his last barricades crumble down.
- "Please. I want to stay here. I'm not afraid."
The blond man snorted to maintain his mask.
"Afraid of what, my son? Of me?"
He had sworn he would never become like his own father.
He would make the right choices.
He would never be a coward.
He would look at the world in the eyes and show everyone the honor of a true Malfoy.
He tried to smile and his face grimaced scarily. But Scorpius read further than the purplish vein throbbing on his father's forehead, deeper than his furrowed brow and the cold steel of his eyes.
He tilted his chin to show he had understood and withdrew his hand.
Draco took a deep breath. His eyes fell again on the kid who had enrolled in Hogwarts at eleven and a half, the same year as his son.
The boy who looked so much like his worst enemy.
Albus Severus Potter.
Two big emerald orbs were looking at him. They were pleading like those of a child, but there was an immense compassion deep behind and it felt like something very ancient, eternal.
The ball of bitterness and regret in his heart melted under this pair of green suns and Draco allowed himself a shrug.
"Ah. That's why.
Father and son smitten by Saint Potter's son. The end of the world is probably close..."
Suddenly this was not so difficult to accept.
He spun on his heels and turned to Harry.
- "All right, then", he tsk-ed. "But if I hear only once..."
Harry quickly shook his head.
- "I know. No transfiguration examples or Unforgivable Curses. I'll stick to Cornish pixies."
The shadow of a smile passed on Malfoy's face, then he put a hand on his son's head, looked at him one last time then went down the hallway, his back very straight in his black redingote, his sharp features unreadable. Lost in thought, Harry watched the arrogant tall figure disappear at the corner.
- "Uh... Professor?"
He started, came back to the present moment and found the students gathered around him, silent and somewhat pale, still shaken by what had happened.
- "Yes, my boy?"
- "Craig Finnigan, sir. My father's name's Seamus. He was in school with you."
Harry laughed and the hallway warmed up at once.
- "Yeah, he was indeed. He had the gift of setting fire to everything he touched."
- "It is true you could perform a Patronus charm when you were our age?" whispered a girl.
- "Will you levitate us?" asked Paul Sommerset, who seemed to want to volunteer himself for the example.
Fabius shyly raised his hand.
- "Me too, my father was in school with you, sir. Ernie Macmillan. He said it was you who taught him everything in Defense Against the Dark Arts..."
Violet Morgenstern and Miranda Brown's eyelashes were fluttering rapidly, like if they had just woken up. Terrence was casually clinging on Scorpius' back. Wendy looked like a mouse struck by lightning as she silently checked on her friends.
Harry heaved out the sigh that had been blocking his lungs for a while and he felt better. He quietly put his arm on the shoulders of his son who unconsciously snuggled against him.
He grinned.
- "Well, I didn't teach him all he knows. But both your fathers and a bunch of other students, when they were in fifth grade, formed a secret class to learn to fight. We called it D.A., short for Dumbledore's Army ... and the first spell we worked on was the one we will study today. Expelliarmus."
- "It's a disarming charm", said Samuel Flinch-Fletchley in a very respectful tone. "The Daily Prophet said it's with it you defeated the Dark Lord..."
Harry opened the classroom's gates and the students went in, pressed around him, attentive and fascinated.
- "It is a very useful spell in a duel. I learned it from a teacher named Severus Snape."
Against him, Albus' body stopped shaking and the boy straightened up.
- "Is it true?" he asked, his eyes suddenly shining.
- "I heard of him before. He was the Potions master when you were in school", Finnigan chirped excitedly. "My father told me all about him! He was even more feared than Persnickety Pal!"
Samuel nudged him and he narrowed his eyes, waiting for the points that would be withdrawn because of this insolence, but Harry burst into a loud laugh.
- "Polycarpus Flaubert is someone you'd gain to know better! If one of you dares to ask him about Polyjuice Potion, I'll tell you a good story. Something not to do that we did with my mates when I was in Second Year. Now, take out your wands and on with the class!"
He clapped his hands as they sat in front of the old stairs leading to the DADA teacher's office and the gates closed on the joyous hubbub buzzing in the large hall filled with foe-glasses.
The shadows were far away in the mirrors, almost invisible, and the classroom was nicely warm.
The war was over.
TBC
I hope you like it! Please let me know what you hope for, what part you enjoyed most or really didn't like, who made you cringe and which character is your favorite!
Nothing helps me better than hearing from you when I'm about to wrestle with my own text's translation and I'm so very grateful to all of you who took the time to write a review. Takes sometimes 7 to 13 hours to turn the French version into an acceptable English chapter, so that's why I'm so slow to update. By the way, I'm doing my best and I hope there aren't too many mistakes... (argh) I'll keep working hard!
Now, off I go to work on next chapter : SARDINES.
It's going to be VERY fluffy. Just sayin' ^^