Chapter 22

~*~ June 2021 ~*~

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and took a few deep breaths, doing his best to stave off the headache that was settling behind his eyes. It had been 14 years since he'd been cursed and it largely lay dormant within him but any kind of negative emotion would result in pain of some kind. These days that usually only meant a slight headache or an ache in his lower back and legs but it had been a hard road to get to where Harry felt he was the one in control.

It had taken him a while to accept that he would have to co-exist alongside pain, that he would never truly be free of it, but he had learnt how to deal with it. It had taken several years with a mind healer and some hard, painful looks at himself, but he was healthier and happier than he'd ever been and he intended to stay that way.

He still saw his mind healer once a week and he kept a journal, which helped him to organise his thoughts and feelings. He would set out the things he needed to say and how best to say them, along with cataloguing things he had encountered and how he had reacted to them. He still found communicating difficult and there were times when the words wouldn't come, when he simply couldn't make himself vulnerable to say what he really wanted but he was trying and that, as far as he was concerned, was the main thing.

He felt gentle fingers card through his hair and he looked up to see Draco sitting beside him on the stone bench, a familiar gentle smile on his face. "Bad meeting?" he asked, continuing to stroke Harry's hair softly.

"They're morons," Harry said with a snort. "I've been trying to push this legislation through for months but they're fighting me at every turn. It's infuriating."

"They'll listen eventually, love," Draco said, his fingers soothing away Harry's tension. "You're a world-renowned expert in dark magic, they have to listen."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? Yet here we are, six months later, and I'm considering committing murder."

He leant into Draco's touch and closed his eyes, letting the man's gentle actions slowly chase his headache away. They were closer than most friends and Harry guarded that closeness jealously. He had confided in Draco years ago that the years he had spent so touch-starved, both as a child and an adult, had had a profound impact on him and he had asked, not that he'd needed to, if Draco would help him acclimatise to touch that was nothing more than platonic.

Draco had risen to the challenge, naturally tactile as he was, and had taught Harry gentle lessons in what it meant to be intimate with someone when there was nothing romantic or sexual involved. His touches had helped to chase away the pain on days where Harry couldn't control his negative feelings and had helped Harry feel grounded in a world that sometimes confused and upset him.

"Are you feeling ok?" Draco asked and Harry opened his eyes to give the man a wry smile.

"I'm fine," he assured him. "A morning locked away wrangling with those bastards always gives me a headache, curse or no bloody curse."

"Good, we should get going then or we're in danger of being late."

Harry glanced at his watch as Draco removed his hand and said, "Damn, I didn't realise the time. Good thing you were here."

"Isn't it always?"

"Was your meeting more successful than mine?" Harry asked as they made their way through the Ministry garden and back into the atrium.

"It certainly was," Draco replied with a cat-like smile. "Nev and I are now the official Ministry suppliers for all Herbology needs."

"That's brilliant news, Drake. I'm so pleased for you. You both deserve it, you're the best in the business."

"We are," Draco agreed, and Harry gave him a cuff around the head as they made their way over to the floos.

They disappeared into the huge fireplaces and reappeared in George and Hermione's living room, dusting the soot from their clothes and checking each other to make sure they looked presentable.

"Sounds like everyone's in the garden," Draco said, and Harry nodded as they made their way outside.

The garden was full of people and Hermione, no doubt with Ginny's help, had decorated it beautifully. There were a number of fabric gazebos dotted around the place with enchanted lanterns hanging in the air, taking the shape of dragonflies and butterflies. Blankets were spread over the grass along with tables laden with food and the whole garden rang out with laughter and conversation.

"I'll go and let Hermione know we've arrived," Draco said, pressing his hand to the small of Harry's back before he made his way over to the drinks table where Hermione was making a bowl of punch.

Harry smiled as he looked around the garden, finally spying the lady of the hour under one of the gazebos, surrounded by a group of friends, her fiery curls shining in the summer sunshine. Elodie was now 18 and Hermione and George were hosting her graduation party. Harry could hardly believe that his goddaughter was old enough to have graduated Hogwarts and he watched her with a smile as she chatted and giggled with everyone around her.

To Severus' absolute delight, Elodie was pursuing a career in potions and was due to start at The Potions Institute in Zurich in September. It was hard to say who was prouder, Hermione or Severus, and it was only through George and Harry's interference that the poor girl wasn't mithered to within an inch of her life.

"Dad! Dad, Pa says I'm not allowed anymore chocolate but I haven't had that much!"

Harry turned his head to the direction the voice was coming from and smiled as his son barrelled towards him, wrapping his arms around Harry's waist and pouting up at him. Harry brushed the dark hair from his son's forehead and said, "What makes you think I'll let you have chocolate when your father won't?"

"Because you're a soft touch," Will said with a devilish grin.

Harry narrowed his eyes and said, "If you don't end up in Slytherin, I'll eat my hat."

"Of course I'll be in Slytherin," Will said with a tilt of his chin. "Astrid and I are both going to be Slytherins. It'll be great."

"You have no ambitions to be a Gryffindor at all?" Harry asked, knowing full-well what the answer was. His son had been determined to follow in Severus' footsteps since he'd been old enough to understand the concept of school houses.

"One Gryffindor in the family is enough, Dad."

"I knew we should have had more children," Harry said with a sigh, and Will smirked at him in an approximation of his father that really was far too eerie sometimes. "And just for that slur on the good name of Gryffindor, you can forget about having more chocolate."

"Fine, I'll just go and ask Gran," Will said with an unbothered shrug.

"You're a monster, you know that?" Harry asked, running his hand through his son's thick, black hair with a smile.

"I do, it's my best trait. We're having a quidditch match later, you have to be on my team."

"You're not going up on a broom on your own, not until you're 11. You know the rules."

Will rolled his eyes with a sigh, looking more like Severus than ever, and said, "Yes, Dad, I know. Auntie Gin's riding with me and Uncle Ron's taking Astrid. We're not stupid, you know."

"My apologies," Harry said with a wry smile. "Give me a shout when you're starting then and I'll come and make sure our team wins."

Will extracted himself from Harry with a grin and went tripping off up the garden, finding Molly as he'd threatened to do and no doubt getting her to agree to stuff him full of chocolate. Harry shook his head; his son had every adult in the family under his thumb and he was more than aware of it.

He made his way over to the buffet table and poured himself a drink before he joined Hermione, who was standing with Ron and George. "The garden looks beautiful," he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek and exchanging hugs with the other two.

"Ah, we wondered when you'd get here. Is my husband with you?" Ron asked, scanning the garden.

"He was here a moment ago. The kids have probably roped him into one of their daft games," Harry said with a grin. "Where's my husband?"

"Speaking with Nev about plants," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "I couldn't stand it, I had to leave."

"Oh when they start talking I always banish them from the house," Harry said with a nod of understanding. "Last time they talked for three hours. It's even worse when Draco joins them, it's like listening to fanatics talk about religion." He looked back across the garden to where Elodie had been joined by her horde of cousins and smiled, saying, "How many times have you cried today then, 'Mione?"

"Only once, surprisingly," Hermione replied. "George, however, has been crying since sunrise."

George grinned unapologetically and said, "My baby girl has just graduated. I'm allowed to be a little weepy. In a couple of months she'll be leaving home for the Potions Institute and it all feels very final. She's an adult, it makes me emotional."

"Oh I'm dreading it with the girls," Ron said with a sigh. "It was bad enough with Kit going off to Hogwarts last September, I'm not looking forward to Astrid joining her."

"Same with Will," Harry said in commiseration. "He keeps threatening to ban me and Sev from seeing him off on the train because he thinks we'll make a show of him. Sad thing is that I don't think he's wrong. I expect to be a weeping mess."

He looked over to where his son stood with Ron and Draco's two girls. Their oldest, Kit, was 11, while Will and Astrid were both 9. They'd grown up together and it made Harry smile to think of the security that surrounded his son, the family that supported and loved him. He and Severus had both had such wretched childhoods and Harry knew it meant a lot to them to be able to provide such a loving and stable upbringing for their son.

They were a close little unit, the three of them, and Harry guarded it jealously. He had been unsure at first about whether or not he wanted to be a father and he and Severus had taken a year to consider it before they made their decision. Harry had been aware that he needed to tread carefully where the curse was concerned and that parenthood was the toughest thing anyone could do, poor health or not. He and Severus had talked at length, Harry discussing it with his therapist too, until it finally came down to the fact that becoming a father simply felt right.

It hadn't been without its trials and parenthood had been a tough but ultimately fulfilling road to travel. He had relied on Severus to sometimes take more than his fair share at times when the curse made life difficult and Severus had shouldered the responsibility with a kind of grace that humbled Harry. He wouldn't have been able to cope without the man by his side and he wouldn't have wished for anyone else to be the father of his son.

Will was their pride and joy. He was fiercely intelligent and he had a devilish sense of humour with an impish sense of mischief. If there was a scheme brewing Will was always at the heart of it, causing chaos with an unapologetic grin and sure sense of his own abilities that Harry always envied. He could charm the birds from the trees and used that to his infinite advantage where the family was concerned, no one able to resist his big dark eyes and mischievous smiles.

"How did it go at the ministry this morning?" Ron asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Harry rolled his eyes and said with a sigh, "As well it ever does. They'll argue with me for another month and then finally concede, wasting time in the process just to have a pissing contest."

"That's an accurate description of every interaction I'm forced to have with them," Ron said with a wry smile. "Apparently being Chief Medical Officer doesn't mean a damn thing and some officious little quill-pusher is more qualified to consult on medical practice than I am."

"Not that you're bitter or anything, darling," Draco said with a smirk, appearing at Ron's elbow.

"Just because we can't all have your good fortune with those tossers doesn't make me bitter. I don't know how you manage it," Ron said with an envious shake of his head.

"Malfoy charm, darling. It's in the genes. You're wanted for a quidditch match, apparently. Kit says you're taking Astrid up."

"That's all I am these days, a glorified mode of transport. You coming, Harry?"

"Tell them I'll be along in a sec, I'll just catch up with Sev first."

Ron nodded and went off to join his daughters while Harry placed his drink to one side and did a quick scan of the garden, finally glimpsing Severus by the summerhouse. It seemed his conversation with Neville had ended and the man was now standing alone, watching with a smile as Will started commanding proceedings for their quidditch match.

"You're a hard man to track down," Harry said as he joined his husband, greeting him with a kiss.

"Ah, I was wondering if you were ever turning up. Do I want to ask how your meeting went?"

"Best not to," Harry said, sliding an arm around the man's waist and pulling his body close to him. "I want you to have complete deniability when I blow the place up. One of us has to be around to raise Will, after all."

"I'm almost certain that little devil could raise himself," Severus said with a wry smile in his son's direction.

"You adore him," Harry said, nestling into Severus' shoulder.

"I do, I'm afraid," Severus said with a put-upon sigh. "Goodness know why, he's a horror."

"He takes after you, darling."

"Impudent," Severus said, giving Harry's backside a swat for good measure. "Is he going back to Ron and Draco's with the girls tonight?"

Harry nodded and looked up at Severus with a wicked smile as he said, "We'll have the house to ourselves. Imagine the fun we could have."

"Well I have been meaning to organise my potions journals," Severus said with a smirk and Harry scowled at him.

"I'm still young, you know. I could re-marry, it isn't too late for me."

Severus smiled and pulled him close, pressing a kiss to his temple and saying softly, "After the fight I went through to get you, you'd best believe I'm keeping you."

Harry smiled and cuddled in with a contented sigh, feeling the headache that the ministry meeting had caused begin to ebb away. He could always rely on Severus to ground him and, even though their relationship wasn't perfect, these days it never caused the curse to flare up inside him. They had worked hard on their marriage and had learnt how to communicate and support one another over the years, and Harry was proud of the progress they had made and how far they'd come together.

It frightened him sometimes to think how close he had come to losing the man. It terrified him to think that he might have forfeited the life he had and their beautiful son might never have existed. As much as the curse affected him, as much as it had sometimes cast a shadow over his life, he had to admit that without it he might never have returned to England for any length of time and he might never have had the opportunity to resolve things with Severus.

It felt like a lifetime ago that he'd been living alone in a foreign country, a string of men coming through his bed in an attempt to block everything out. He'd been so unhappy, so broken, and so thoroughly unable to ask for help. Without the curse he might still be living that life and he thanked his lucky stars every day that he wasn't, that he'd found redemption in Severus' arms and that he'd finally learnt to heal.

"I'd better go and get this game started, I promised Will I'd be on his team," Harry said, giving Severus' waist a squeeze.

"You're still a teenager at heart, my love."

"My libido certainly is," Harry said with a lascivious wink, earning himself an eyeroll from his husband.

"Get away with you. You're embarrassing yourself."

"And yet I still have no shame."

He leant forward and pressed his lips to Severus', a sugar-sweet promise of something more, something that they would have to wait until later to collect. Harry's headache disappeared entirely and a wave of contentment rolled through him. He pulled back with a happy sigh then dropped a kiss on Severus' nose, asking with a smile, "Are you going to come and cheer me on?"

"I'm your husband, I refuse to be your cheerleader too," Severus replied dryly and Harry laughed with a shake of his head.

"Spoilsport," he said, poking his tongue out at the man. "See if I put out later."

"Empty threats don't scare me."

Harry rolled his eyes and gave Severus one last kiss before he headed off to join Will and the others, his infuriating meeting with the ministry long forgotten in the face of the happiness being with his family brought him.

He placed a hand over his chest, feeling the faint pulse of the curse that still resided within him and smiled. There were few, he imagined, who had learnt to think of a curse as an old friend but he had made peace with the one that had invaded his body and had never left. He had learnt how to deal with the challenges it presented and how to accept the limitations it had placed on him.

More than anything, he had learnt to be thankful for all the things the curse had brought him. He hadn't yet achieved complete balance in his life, and he wasn't sure he ever would, but he was trying and he knew how to keep moving forward. Life was sweeter than it had ever been and he wouldn't make the mistake of taking it for granted, knowing how precious a gift it truly was. When all was said and done, he was a lucky man indeed.

AN: Apologies I didn't get this out sooner. Life stuff, you know? Anyway I hope you enjoyed it, thanks for sticking this story out and for all your wonderful thoughts and comments.

I'm going to be taking a break from the HP world for a little while. I've run out of steam a bit in terms of ideas for fics and I've also been spending some time writing other things. I'm going to be dipping my toe in the Merlin fandom (BBC version) and I already have over 20,000 words of an Arthur/Merlin fic written. It'll be great to see you guys if you fancy coming and having a read but if not I'm sure I'll be back in the HP fandom at some point.

Much love to you all xx