Harry and Draco had both gotten a lot of letters after Rita's article was published. And they couldn't redirect it to The Prophet this time, because it had been written about them instead of by one of them.
It was nearly a week later, and they were still getting belated responses. Questions about what Draco had done to Harry to get him to agree to working together; questions about what had happened to Draco to get him to work with Harry; questions about the gala; questions about the "other" article...
Harry thought it was ridiculous that people thought more about a meeting over ice cream than they did over the event in the Forbidden Forest. Or even any of Draco's other articles (besides the one where he had revealed his identity). It was absurd... But, it was the power of Rita Skeeter.
They hadn't gone into the public much after that, at least not together. Draco had plenty of panic attacks, and Harry was just about done with wizards in general. If all they cared about was his past and who he "allied" himself with, then maybe he didn't care what they had to think about him. Maybe he would just drop the gay bomb on them then and there, and then never show himself again.
He was being dramatic, of course, as Draco and Hermione constantly reminded him. He still had to wait until things had calmed down. And things were certainly not calm after Skeeter's article.
It was funny, really, the way she portrayed them. Harry as the emotional, hopeful, kind hero who was receptive and fervent in his answers. Draco as the closed off, bitter, snappy antagonist. It was no wonder people were shocked at their divide, when they had been painted as opposites.
But in actuality, Draco had been much more cheerful and respectful towards Skeeter than Harry had been. Draco had more tact and less reason to resent the woman; she'd never considered him worth her time to write about. But she had written a lot on Harry. Far too much, as far as he was concerned. He had been very closed off with her, and Draco had been very gracious.
That wasn't what she had wanted to see, though, and it wasn't what she had let others come to believe. She had had shown them what she wanted to think, and they thought it, so in swarmed the letters.
It was on the sixth day when the letters tapered out, and there was one that he had not expected to receive.
He was alone at Grimmauld place (which he had come to resent more than Draco's obscene living room) when the owl came, old and brown and frazzled like any other Post Office owl. But, the letter from this one was different, and it was in a handwriting he had never seen much of, but that he had come to recognize after a few months of legal documents and letters that started off kind but soon turned to arguments.
He wasn't going to read it now. He couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he stuffed it into his pocket apparated to Draco's shop. It was luckily empty, and he turned the sign to read closed as soon as he entered. Before Draco could even speak, he took his arm and apparated again to the orphanage.
Startled, Draco staggered towards the steps of the big house, surrounded by wintry golden fields overlooking the ever churning sea. "Is everything alright, Harry?" He asked him, turning to face him.
Harry shook his head. "Let's just forget everything for right now, yeah?" He asked, lifting the knocker on the door. "Let's forget about the articles, the gala invitations, the letters, the press. Let's just spend today with the kids here."
Draco nodded, and even though Harry knew that it was not Draco's preferred method of "forgetting," he would do it. The door swung open, and they were welcomed by Madam Humpop as usual. She was dressed in one of the dresses that had been designed by the children. It was sky blue and dotted with sheep clouds, just as one of Harry's suits had been.
"Hello!" She greeted them. "The kids are all at breakfast now, but feel free to join them." She opened the door fully, and Harry took Draco's hand unashamedly, even though he was shaking. His head spun a little, and he tried to block out what could possibly be in that letter. He tried his best to walk confidently through the door, but for once, it was worry that was causing him so much grief.
He felt Madam Humpop's gaze burning into his back, and he felt Draco's concerned glance towards him and his soft breathing near his neck, and all at once it was just too much.
He handled a few breaths, and they were in the kitchen. The children were fine, and he was the only one who was on the verge of crying, not any of them. He smiled as widely as he could as he asked them, "Who wants to go flying?"
Draco sighed as he watched Harry loop around on his broom in the cold February air. Some poor little polliwog was holding on for dear life, screaming in delight as Harry flew them around on his broom. He kept his broom at the orphanage, Madam Humpop had told him. Out here, he could fly it, and he kept him coming back to the kids.
Draco knew he would always come back for the kids, broom or no.
He just hoped that right now, Harry wasn't worrying about whatever had prompted him to drag him out of his shop so early in the morning. He had barely just flipped the sign on when Harry came in and shut the whole place down.
Draco was certainly distracted. Tanner and Kara were sprawled on the grass at his feet, poring over the short stories he had given them to read (he had briefly apparated back to his flat to collect them). He had written them over the course of the past few years, starting at his visit to Berlin. He hadn't touched them since he had written them, and he feared they were no good, but he had wanted to teach the two children about developing a writing style, that he hadn't been Pennom since he started.
In return, he was reading their stories. Riddled with grammatical errors and erratic plot lines, they also contained the imagination and emotion that only children could muster. He read about dragons and fairies and dreams of futures of adventures and families and belonging.
He choked on one line on a page that Kara had written.
And then she sat under the stars with her new family and she was safe. They were her family and only her family and she was safe and they would never leave her.
He knew, of course, that this dream might never happen for her. She was ten years old, and she was in an orphanage. Soon, she would be in Hogwarts, and there would be teachers and students but no family to come home to.
Is this how Harry felt? Is this what he dreamed for? A family to hold him sound, to make him safe?
He often forgot Harry was an orphan. He was the hero of the wizarding world, he was Harry Potter. But Lily and James Potter were dead, and Harry had never met them, and now he spent his free hours flying with children and eating their horrible concoctions and letting them drool all over him.
Harry still felt that way. He still dreamed of that family, that feeling of belonging. These kids provided it for them, and he ached for nothing more than to give it to every single one of them.
Draco could understand the feeling. His own father had never felt like family, never felt like home. But he had always had the warm and calming embrace of his mother, her soothing words and emotional comfort. And he had given that up in recent times. Since the war, he hardly saw her unless it was important, and he chased her off whenever she came to visit him. Hell, he never opened his floo because he didn't want her dropping by.
And now, he realized he was surrounded by orphans who would have done anything for what he had taken advantage of.
"How are you two doing?" He asked the two ten year olds. They barely heard him, just barely looking up from his handwritten parchments to grunt at him. He couldn't help but stare.
Now, when he looked at them, all he could see was the stories that Madam Humpop had told him. That Kara's parents had died in the war when she was the same age as Seth or Ebele, that she had seen them die, and she still had dreams about the black screams that came from their voices. That ever since they had died, she was frightened of abandonment. That she didn't like sharing, and that was why she and Tanner mostly kept to themselves.
Tanner had been the son of two men: one a wizard, the other a muggle. When Voldemort had come in and killed the wizard, the muggle swore himself against magic and sent the young child (old enough even then to understand that he was unwanted) to the orphanage. A parent had to be broken to do something like that, he thought.
But, here they were, sitting on the grass and enveloped in stories written by his more naive and selfish younger self. Looking at them, seeing them from here, or even from Harry's point of view, they were fine. They were apparently normal, and they had overcome their traumatic childhoods, with little more than a desire to belong.
Of course, that wasn't true. They must have been marred, deeply affected by that kind of rejection. But they coped, they survived, and they would be fine. He hoped, that is.
He watched as Harry landed, about to scoop up the next child. He stood up, catching Harry's eye as he strode over to him. Kara and Tanner didn't even notice his absence.
"What's up?" Harry asked him, his eyes bright from flying and apparently devoid of his earlier worries. His cheeks were flushed from the cold, and a smile as wide as the sky above him lit his entire face.
Draco couldn't help but smile. He wouldn't let his own solemnity taint Harry's obvious joy in the moment, but he did want to talk.
"Can you leave these little beasts for an hour or so? I'd like to talk." Draco told him, hoping that the happiness would not be drained from Harry's face. It wasn't, though some mild concern became apparent in his eyes.
"Sure. We can go sit by the cliffs." Harry replied, telling the oldest of the children there (Phillip, he thought) to herd the rest of them back to Madam Humpop. Reluctantly, the tiny humans wandered away, and Harry took Draco's hand again and led him towards the roiling Atlantic. It never ceased to amaze him how the orphanage stayed such a happy place while incased in such eternally dismal weather.
"What's on your mind?" Harry asked him, obviously hoping he wouldn't be asked the same question. Draco smiled wryly at the tactic, knowing he would give in. He pulled Harry forward a bit, his own coat sleeve riding up to reveal the scar of the Dark Mark. He didn't focus on it though, instead staring at the drab, dark green canvas of Harry's own coat, lined on the inside with soft, warm red flannel (he knew because he had borrowed it from Harry the one day he had agreed to visit Grimmauld place).
He realized he must have been very far away in his thoughts, because Harry cleared his throat. "You alright?" He asked.
Draco nodded. "Just in a bit of a dreamland. Can we wait till we're by the cliffs to talk? I'm enjoying the moment."
Harry squeezed his hand in silent agreement, and Draco stared out at the water-bound horizon. He saw misty swirls of gray that could have been rain or wind or magic or spirits, but the sky above him was only a thin gray barrier between him and blue sky. But the ocean was churning, aching with energy and rage and magic. The sky above it was wild and dark and possessed.
Around him, a gentle breeze rustled the golden grass around him, and every several hundred meters, a strong, tall, and bare tree would have risen up from the ground, reaching for the sky in protest.
And next to him was Harry Potter, all green eyes and compassion and forgiveness and hope and anger and despair and wishing... And grief for all that he had lost but felt he had no right to mourn. In that moment, under the midday overcast sky, above the golden winter earth, he felt as though he truly understood Harry, and he felt all at once what he had considered all along: he loved Harry.
But of course he wouldn't say it. He wasn't that much of a sap or a fool or a Hufflepuff. Even if none of those things were bad.
They were not far from the cliffs, then, their footsteps beating down a path in the dry grass. Draco stopped and turned to face the man next to him, and he embraced him as tightly as he could.
"You know I'm yours, don't you? That you can belong with me." He whispered, not meaning to have said it at all. He was thinking of the line that Kara had written, and he didn't want Harry to ever have to feel that way. Or for anyone to feel that way. But right now, the only person he could help was Harry. "You can be safe with me," he promised him.
Harry made a small noise, and wrapped his arms around Draco's neck. "I didn't," he replied. "But thank you for telling me."
Draco pulled away slightly. "I know you're not thinking about you right now, though." Draco told him. "And you're an absolute idiot sometimes for that, but you care about those tadpoles back there, and it's endearing."
Harry laughed at the use of his own word, but not for long, because Draco was holding him in a terrifyingly intense gaze. Or Draco hoped that that was the reason. He still liked to think some part of him was intimidating, even when he was mush like this.
Draco didn't care for a split second, though, and he took advantage of that insouciance and kissed Harry. It had been too long (well, fine, two weeks) since they had shared that touch of lips, that insurgence of affection and sensation and peace. The wind ruffled their hair and chilled the nape of his neck, but then Harry's hands were holding it, keeping it warm and pulling him closer.
Then, in a gust of cold wind and a pang of concern, Draco broke away. "But I wanted to talk."
"Yeah." Harry nodded solemnly, and the two of them continued towards the cliff, until they were at the very edge. He felt the spark of wards beneath them, and he thought it must have protected the children from wandering over the edge. He didn't want to hear the story behind that.
They sat down by the edge, and Draco held Harry in his arms and let him lean against his chest.
"You make me so schmaltzy." Draco sighed, running a hand through Harry's hair.
"Oh, is that Pennom's vocabulary?" Harry teased, but his voice was far away, and his eyes were cast out to the sea.
"Shut up. I'm trying to talk," Draco snapped, not ceasing to play with Harry's hair. He didn't complain, either.
"Then talk."
Draco pressed a kiss to the top of Harry's head. "What do you plan to do with the children?" He asked slowly. "You can't adopt them all."
Harry sighed. "No. I can't. I have to find them all homes. Families. They need more than just me." He placed a hand on Draco's knee and kept it there, the gesture comforting.
"But you can't do that. More will keep coming. You can't just wait." Draco murmured.
"What do you mean, wait? Wait for what?" Harry asked him quietly, suddenly stiffening.
"You want to adopt one. You want a child. I know you do," he told him, pulling him closer and forcing him to loosen up.
"I never can. I can't just choose one, when there's so many that need homes. It would be unfair."
"It wouldn't be choosing, and it's not like you'd be removing all of them from your life. You'd just be taking one or two, or gods forbid, three in." Draco reminded him gently. He felt as though this were a very tender subject for Harry. "You'd still come back to the orphanage, and the rest wouldn't be upset."
Harry didn't answer for a very long time.
"I got a letter today. From Andromeda. I haven't opened it," Harry confessed. His breathing quickened, and Draco placed a hand on his pulse. So this was the source of his worry earlier.
"Andromeda? Andromeda Black, my aunt? What could she want?" Draco asked, genuinely perplexed.
"She's Andromeda Tonks, actually. Teddy's guardian." Harry breathed. "My godson. Teddy Lupin."
Draco frowned. Harry had a godson? And he was... Professor Lupin's son? And he was being raised by Draco's aunt? It was very strange news.
Harry pulled out the letter. "Will you read it with me?" He asked.
"Of course."
He opened the envelope, breaking the plain wax seal covering it. The handwriting reminded Draco startlingly of hid mother's, though it was less controlled and precise.
Dear Harry,
It's been too long since we have last spoken, and I am very sorry for that. But you must understand why now, don't you? I couldn't let you be Teddy's guardian. You were too unstable after the war, and the fact that you actually fought me and took me to court over his guardianship is proof of that.
But I am not writing to put salt on old wounds. Teddy is turning five years old soon (in a month and a half, he reminds me), and if you are well enough, I think that you should see him. I am not, of course, yet willing to pass on his guardianship to you. He barely knows you, but if you get along, the prospect can be considered.
I also see that you are devoting lots of time to working with children. How is that going? Perhaps you know some children that are Teddy's age.
Say hello to my nephew, Draco. I've seen you two in the papers.
Regards,
Andromeda Tonks
Draco frowned. "What was that all about?" He asked.
Harry was pale, and he stuffed the letter into his pocket. Draco pulled him in close, lifting a hand to his neck to feel his pulse beating. It was not elevated or erratic. It was calm and smooth, but his skin was cold. Draco cast a warming charm, hoping it was just the sea winds.
"We had a custody battle over Teddy after the war. She accused me of not being able to take care of myself, let alone a child." His breath shuddered, and took Draco's hands. "She knew about Glen, too, and how he didn't treat me well. She didn't want her grandson to be put into a situation like that."
"And so he wasn't even allowed to see you?" Draco asked, incredulous.
Harry sighed. "It was partially my fault. I made a big deal out of it, and we fought, and she decided I was a threat to his well being. And now he doesn't know me, and I have no hope of ever adopting him."
Draco frowned, and he wondered if Harry would have ever worked at the orphanage if he'd of had Teddy. "Is that why you work with the kids here? Because you didn't get Teddy?" He asked.
"A little. I want to be able to give them the life I didn't get. A happy one."
"But you won't adopt any of them? Are you holding out for Teddy?" Draco asked, hoping Harry's logic wasn't so skewed.
"No!" He protested. "I meant what I said. I couldn't ever make myself choose. And I guess I am here because I couldn't have Teddy," he added quietly. "But, now I have a chance to be in Teddy's life, don't I?"
"You'd not give up these kids though."
"Of course not! I just want to see Teddy." Harry was shaking, and he began to cry. Draco didn't know if it was from fear, regret, or relief.
Draco paused, realizing the end of Andromeda's letter. "You think she trusts me? Or does she think I'm another Glen?"
"I don't know. But I have a feeling that she, if anyone, would see the truth." Harry muttered.
Draco kissed Harry's head again. "We'll be fine. We should go back to the kids, though. Madam Humpop might be getting suspicious," he teased.
"She already is suspicious," Harry scoffed. "Have you seen the way she stares at us? The woman knows."
Draco laughed. It didn't matter, he decided. Right now, his biggest concern was helping Harry deal with Andromeda. He also wanted to help with Kara and Tanner personally; he thought he might spend the gala trying to find possible parents to adopt them.
But, most importantly, he realized, he needed to write his mother.