A Moment in Time
DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter (and associated characters, likenesses, concepts, etc.) belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic, Inc. AOL/Time Warner, Inc., among others. I make no claim, written or implied, upon Harry Potter. No money is being made and no infringement or disrespect to the creators / copyright holders is intended.
Warning: This story will contain slash (ie. male/male relationships) and mpreg, although neither will be graphic.
A/N: This story was inspired by the many wonderful stories that I have read and enjoyed here at fan fiction and any similarities to existing stories is not intended. This story is AU, meaning that the events that occurred in the OOTP have not been taken into account and I am in no means suggesting the material described in this story should be considered as a direct interpretation of cannon. Also, I am American so I apologize in advance for any Americanisms.
Chapter Twenty Seven: Seeing is Believing
After another week of complete bed rest, Harry was finally released from the hospital. News of his recovery hit the community by storm and Hogwarts was once more flooded with letters and gifts from well wishers from remaining pockets of resistance in Europe, as most people indulged themselves in celebrations. Embarrassed by this huge display of affection, Harry, along with Draco, Sirius and Nicole, sat up on several evenings opening the letters and gifts. Together, the group answered the many letters with appropriate responses and thank you notes. Draco had a few choice responses to the dozen or so people who had written to Harry with marriage proposals. Lucky for the unknowing souls, Nicole intercepted the letters before the post owl could take them. Sirius' favorite was a proposal offering Harry 100,000 galleons if he married the gentlemen's daughter and another 100,000 galleons when they produced their first son.
Draco shivered as he listened to the vicious howls that the wind produced as it beat harshly against the ancient castle. It was days like this that he wished he had never convinced Harry to leave sunny California, certain that they never had weather like this there.
Well, at least the miserable weather outside had not affected the warm cheery mood that permeated the castle on its inside. It seemed that everywhere you went people were happy and smiling. Granted as the days passed the holidays grew nearer, but Draco couldn't remember a feeling of such warmth and contentment in the air since the days when he had been a student here.
Even the holiday decorations this year seemed to be brighter and more festive. Christmas was less than two weeks away, but Draco was sure that this wasn't the only reason for the good cheer.
They were winning. Finally, after all those bloody battles and all night strategy sessions, they were really winning. Voldemort's attacks had significantly decreased, and when they did occur, the Death Eaters typically fled when the Order and in particular Harry showed up. In the month that Harry had been out of the hospital, he had gained a reputation as his powers continued to grow and strengthen. The Death Eaters knew that they were no match, either individually or combined, for the power that Harry wielded. Harry was a one-man machine and anyone who got in the way of his objective was dealt with, sometimes harshly.
Those ugly purple robes that Draco had complained about so vehemently actually turned out to be an advantage. In events where Harry decided that he wasn't going to go fight in the next battle, which he did rarely but there were still times when he sat one out, he would lend his or Draco's purple eyesore to one of the Order Members. On most occasions, all the Death Eaters needed to see was that splash of purple in the sea of red and blue robes and they usually turned tail and ran.
The grief that they shared as a result of the loss of their unborn child was still with them, fresh in both their minds. But in Harry's case, he turned the loss into a fierce rallying cry and in situations where he would have previously shown a Death Eater mercy, now there was none. Watching Harry in battle was a terrifying sight. Thank whatever deity that watched over them that Harry was so good and pure, because if he even showed the smallest inclination to force others to submit to his will, there would be very little that anyone could do about it. He would certainly be unstoppable. Even now, as the Death Eater casualties rose, the Dark Lord's followers' collective resolve faltered. No one wanted to face Harry's fury on a battlefield, no one. No sign of Voldemort had actually been seen since the fateful night of the ambush. Harry was convinced that he was just waiting, regrouping for a final last stand, but as of yet, there was no confirmation of this theory.
Draco knew that Harry hadn't even remotely dealt with the loss yet. If the raven-haired man kept up his current pace, he was surely headed for a break-down, but in all honestly there wasn't anything that Draco could do about it. On the few occasions where he tried to discuss the miscarriage, Harry's typical response would be, "Dray, not now, I'm not ready to talk about it yet." They had mutually agreed not to mention it to the twins as they felt that the twins were not old enough to understand. Maybe when they were a lot older they would tell them, but for right now it was better not to.
Fawkes had become an unexpected source of comfort to the raven haired man. On more than one occasion, Draco found much to his amusement Fawkes and Harry carrying on seemingly intense conversations in the common room. Not that any conversation with an immortal being such as a phoenix could be anything but intense. However, when Draco would question Harry about these meetings, Harry would only smile and say that they were really not all that important. Somehow, Draco doubted that they were as trivial as Harry made them out to be but was willing to overlook his lover downplaying them as he was always in a better mood after these conversations with the old bird.
Fawkes, too, seemed to be much happier now that Harry was back where he belonged. If the phoenix wasn't outside of the castle on Order business, he was usually found in Harry's presence. People had even remarked that it appeared that the Dumbledore's familiar had forsaken the old Headmaster, not that Albus seemed to mind. He appeared to be as happy as anyone with Fawkes' new arrangement.
Draco thought that with the number of people who had witnessed Harry's trauma that more people would have realized the truth behind the boys' parentage. But so far it appeared that only a select few of the medical staff, Minerva, Dumbledore, Remus and, much to everyone's dismay, the Weasel and his wife now knew the truth.
No one had mentioned anything to him directly but on several occasions he would feel someone watching him and would look up only to find that he was the object of one of the Weasleys' studying gazes. Draco wasn't stupid, not by a long shot. He knew that the Weasleys wanted to reconcile with Harry in the worst way, and Harry's position towards that particular group of red heads had softened considerably after his surprising conversation with his parents.
If it hadn't been for the miscarriage, Harry would probably have worked harder on keeping his promise to his parents. But for right now, outside of his immediate family, his primary focus was revenge. There wasn't the slightest slimmer of doubt that Harry wasn't going to stop until Voldemort was utterly and completely destroyed. There would be no escaping this time, no matter how close that sick fuck was to obtaining immortality. It truly was only a matter of time now until Voldemort's dark chapter of history would be permanently closed.
Just thinking about the twins brought a smile to Draco's face. He was currently on his way to the day care to surprise them by picking them up early. Harry was going to be late tonight at yet another strategy meeting. The Order was actually planning an offensive attack, which in and of itself was rare. The Order thought that such a move would be unanticipated and would catch the Dark Lord and his followers off guard. Besides, everyone was getting tired of this war and knew that with Harry on their side, they had a damn good chance of being successful.
After the major decisions had been agreed upon, Draco had decided to sneak out and leave the ironing out of the tedious details to the others. He would much rather spend his time with his sons than in a stuffy room listening to people argue until Harry had enough of the bickering and would then just tell people what was going to happen. Draco shook his head. He just didn't understand how Harry could put up with listening to the constant disagreements before stepping in and deciding the matter. It really was funny how after Harry spoke no one dared to disagree with him, not even that old fool Dumbledore.
Draco paused in the entrance to the day care. He usually liked to take a moment or two to observe Matthew and Evan before they saw him. Matthew was currently in the corner building some structure out of play blocks and Evan was sitting at a child-sized table making a picture with wizarding crayons. The kids had gotten the biggest kick out of the wizarding equivalent to crayons. Crayola had nothing over on the wizarding world. These colorful sticks worked just like the muggle ones, but after you were done drawing all you had to do was say 'move' and the images just drawn would do just that. They would move, animating whatever images were just drawn. The concept was similar to the differences between wizarding photos and muggles ones.
Matthew must have felt Draco gaze on him as just then he looked up at his father and smiled before going back to playing with his blocks. The blocks in Matthew's castle or whatever he was building just started to glow bright red. Draco winced, as he knew from experience that this wasn't a good thing. Sure enough, not five seconds later the structure started to shake and then imploded. Hoping that his son wouldn't be too upset at the destruction of his building, Draco chuckled when he heard Matthew's bright laugher and saw the small child clap his hands as if that was the best show on earth. Draco smiled and gave his green-eyed son a small wave before going back to studying Evan. His little Evan looked tired. He was still getting up occasionally during the night with nightmares; although, this was happening not nearly as frequently as it had once been.
Just last night, Draco awoke to find Harry's side of the bed empty. Knowing instinctively where his mate would be, Draco threw on his heavy silk dressing gown and went downstairs to his son's bedroom. Sure enough, that was exactly where Harry was.
Peeking in the door, Draco felt his heart swell as he watched his gorgeous lover rock their beautiful son back to sleep while singing to him. After a while Draco closed his own eyes and just concentrated on Harry's soft soothing voice, recognizing the song as one from one of the boy's Disney videos, 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight.' Draco tried to recall the movie, but could only remember that it had something to do with a lion cub whose father died. Draco rolled his eyes; it was probably not the best choice for a lullaby to get rid of nightmares.
It really was too bad that Harry had decided to give up singing; he had a wonderful voice. Listening to him right then, a person couldn't help but feel warm, safe and cherished.
By the time Draco opened his eyes again, he saw that Evan was sleeping soundly in Harry's arms. Draco crossed the room and after kissing Harry on the forehead as he continued his song, he bent down and pressed a soft kiss to Evan's forehead as well. Carefully taking the sleeping child from his partner, Draco tucked his son back in for the rest of the night.
"Mister Malfoy, may I help you?" The daycare worker quickly hid her smile as the blonde man's eyes came to rest on her. Mister Malfoy wasn't nearly as hard to figure out as many of the people in the castle thought. Just seeing him together with the Potter boys, one couldn't help but realize that the Malfoy heir would do anything in his power to protect those two young children. He loved them to pieces and that love was returned ten fold.
Draco blushed, not used to being caught unaware. "Yes, I'd like to take Matthew and Evan with me a little early."
"Certainly Mister Malfoy. Why don't you go and collect Evan while I help Matthew clean up his play area?"
Draco nodded as he started to walk in the direction where Evan was still sitting at the table. As he got closer, he saw that Evan's little brow was wrinkled up in concentration as he quickly tried to finish his picture. Not wanting to startle his son, Draco made sure that he made a lot of noise as he approached him.
As he got closer and Evan knew he was going to be interrupted, he was a little taken aback when his youngest son looked up at him and scowled. 'Oh no, no one was going to try to out scowl him.' Draco shot one of his darkest scowls at Evan for only a second or two before smiling down at the boy. He was pleased to see that Evan wasn't the least bit frightened of his scowl and actually thought the whole thing was kind of funny.
Dropping down to his knees, Draco knelt beside the small table where Evan was hurrying to finish his drawling. "What do you have there, Sweetheart?"
Evan eyes his father warily before moving his little body so that he was blocking Draco's view of his drawing, "Nottin."
Curious about what Evan was drawing that made him feel the need to try to hide it from him, Draco decided that bribery was probably his best approach. Draco reached into his pocket and removed one of the treats he had brought with him that he was planning on giving the twins later that afternoon. "Tell you what, how about if we trade. I'll give you this yummy chocolate frog and you give me your beautiful picture."
Evan studied the frog for what in a three-year olds mind was a long time before slowly shaking his head no. Draco was astounded. Never before had bribery not been successful when he really wanted the boys to corporate. Not that he ever told Harry about his favorite method of child rearing. Harry still had entirely too much Gryffindor blood to appreciate this fine art of manipulation.
Staring at his son, Draco reached into his pocket again and pulled out yet another chocolate goodie. "Okay, well if you won't give me the picture for one frog, how about two?"
Draco could see that Evan was torn; for as much as he didn't want anyone to see his drawing, the temptation of the chocolate frogs was proving to be just too much. With a slight nod, the toddler moved away from the table where his picture lay and grabbed the frogs.
Draco barely had time to help Evan get the wrapper open before the boy had the first frog in his mouth, head first. As much as Harry and the boys loved that particular treat it still made Draco kinda queasy to watch the frog's legs continue to kick while it was hanging partially out of someone's mouth as it was being devoured. There just seemed to be something intrinsically wrong with that image.
Before looking at Evan's drawing, Draco took a quick peek at Matthew to make sure that his other son was still occupied elsewhere. With any luck, Evan will finish off both frogs before Matthew comes over, as he had just given his silver eyed son both of the frogs that he currently had on him and, as such, didn't have any left for Matty.
Picking up the almost complete drawing from the table, Draco held it up so that he could study it. At first, it was hard to tell what the picture was, there were huge blotches of red and black but no particular discernable shapes. Draco frowned as he studied the picture closer. Turning the paper so that the large green blob was on the bottom, Draco felt his blood rush to his toes as he strongly suspected what he was holding.
Sitting down quickly before he had a chance to fall down, Draco indicated to the daycare worker that he needed some assistance.
"What's wrong? Do you not like?" Evan's chocolate smeared face looked up at him fearful that his father didn't like his artwork.
"No, your drawing is fine, Sweetheart, I just want you to tell me a little bit about it, that's all." After reassuring his son, Draco turned his cool hard eyes on the daycare worker. "Have you seen this?" Draco gestured to the picture he was still clutching.
The young women felt very intimated under the icy stare. "No, I didn't see today's drawing, but all of Evan's other art work is kept in that large folder over there by the window with his name on it."
"You mean there is more?" Draco's hoarse whisper in no way disguised how close he was to losing control.
"Evan likes to draw and he does so fairly often, although now that I think about it, he hasn't been coloring as much lately."
Draco just shook his head. "Get them, please."
The nervous daycare worker slowly got up and retrieved the large brown folder with Evan's name on it. After walking back over to the small table where Draco was still sitting, she handed it to him, still not able to understand what had upset the blonde man so.
Draco grabbed the folder and after releasing the closure, dumped the contents onto the table in front of him. A morass of brightly colored paper flooded the table. Draco's critical eyes quickly went from one drawing to another. "Are the pictures dated?"
"Of course," the daycare worker replied, "we put the artists name and the date on the back of each picture before we file it in their folder."
Draco just nodded as he continued to study the disturbing images in front of him. Occasionally he would come across what he'd like to consider a normal drawing for a wizard Evan's age, like broomsticks and flying, but the vast majority of Evan's artwork was not what could be considered appropriate.
Draco couldn't restrain himself much longer. "Did you never look at these?" Picking up a handful of the drawings, Draco waved them in the daycare worker's face. The blonde man was angry and he was scared and needed an outlet.
The young woman looked frightened at the rage she heard in Draco's tone. "Certainly we did."
Draco looked away and counted slowly to ten. "And did you never notice anything in particular about his artwork?"
The daycare worker started to get over her fear and took a defensive posture. "Well, we thought that they were a little dark and unusual, but this is a time of war…."
"A time of war…" Draco almost choked he was so angry. "My three year old son has never witnessed war as you like to call it, so how do you explain these images?" With that, Draco threw down the multitude of papers that he had been holding.
The fact that Draco had just referred to the Potter boy as his son was lost completely on the daycare worker as she looked at the bloody and violent images that were so innocently drawn with crayon. How on earth had she missed something like that?
They were going to attack Voldemort in five days. Five days, and the Order and Aurors in a joint offensive strategy were going to infiltrate and destroy the dark forces main headquarters. Per information provided by Blaise, Voldemort has specifically requested that his Death Eaters met there that particular night to discuss plans for their next target.
Harry chuckled to himself as he remembered how Blaise reported the Dark Lord's escalating frustration over his foiled attacks. Voldemort was getting desperate, which is why in Harry's mind that this attack against his forces was so critical. It was so much better to strike now before the Dark Lord's desperation caused him to act even more irrationally than normal. A cornered animal was always the most deadly of any animal, as they had nothing left to lose.
Well, at least in five days hopefully it will all be over and done with. Five more days….
Harry didn't even greet the Guardians as he made his way into his apartment anxious to see Draco, who had managed once more to sneak away, avoiding the more tedious discussions. Harry wished that he had it in him to leave as well, but knew that he would never be comfortable leaving before every last detail had been planned. There was just too much riding on these battles to leave anything to chance. Harry wasn't willing to risk his life or Draco's needlessly and the only way to make sure that didn't happen was to stay at these strategy sessions until the bitter end.
Harry's eyes widened slightly as he watched his mate pace back and forth in their common room area, so deep in his own personal thoughts that he hadn't even noticed Harry's presence. Draco was clearly agitated. Harry had never before seen the blonde act like this, as his aristocratic heritage frowned on such blatant expressions of your emotional state.
Harry cleared his throat drawing his partner's attention. "Something wrong?"
Startled, Draco turned sharply at the sound of Harry's voice, "Let's sit down. There's something that you need to see."
Even taking into consideration Draco's flair for dramatics, Harry could tell that something had really shaken the blonde man up. Concerned, Harry walked over and sat down on the couch near the soothing waterfall and motioned for Draco to join him. "Okay, I'm sitting down. Now, why don't you tell me what's going on?"
Draco sat down hard on the sofa and blew his bangs out of his eyes. "After I left the meeting this afternoon, I went up to the daycare to surprise the boys. I thought that I would take them outside seeing that it was snowing so that they could play in the snow for a bit."
Harry allowed himself to take a deep breath and relax a little when Draco paused for a breath, thinking that this was just another example of Draco overacting to something that one of the other children had done to one of the twins.
"When I got there, Matthew was playing with wizarding blocks and Evan was sitting by himself at a table, coloring." Draco looked over at Harry to verify that he was still listening.
"And?"
"And do you have any idea what our son has been drawing for at least the past three months?"
Harry frowned; Draco was getting overly excited again. Slowly the raven haired man shook his head back and forth.
"Well, let me show you." Draco got up from the couch and walked over to where a large brown envelope was sitting along the one wall. Picking up the envelope, he returned to the sofa and dumped the contents on Harry's lap.
Harry was about to protest the rough treatment of not only himself, but also Evan's artwork when his eyes fell on the drawing on the top. It was dark. Squinting, Harry could make out what looked like stick figures dressed in all black fighting other stick figures wearing red or blue, occasionally there would be a splash of purple.
Feeling slightly nauseous, Harry carefully paged through the pile of parchment. Most of the pictures were very similar to the first, the locations appeared to be different, but it was hard to tell as they were all created from the hand of a three year old. The thing that worried Harry the most was the expressions of pain on his figures faces and the abundance of red crayon that seemed to indicate the loss of blood.
"Oh bloody hell." Harry wasn't sure if he muttered the curse or if Draco had. How had his son seen or heard of these horrible events in sufficient detail to drawl them? Slowly going through the pictures again, Harry was able to recognize some of the locations where he had actually participated in recent confrontations with the Death Eaters.
Harry wasn't even aware that he was shaking when he picked up a particularly nasty drawling and held it out to Draco. "How…how?"
Seeing the same shock and disbelief in Harry's face that he felt Draco reached out and held Harry's hand in an effort to settle his lover down. "I'm not sure Leo, but that's not the worst of it, look at the dates on the back of the parchments."
In a daze, Harry turned the parchment over and saw a date at the top right hand corner of the parchment, 'October 3, 2003.' Still not quite understanding the implications of the dates, Harry turned the remaining pictures over and saw that they were similarly dated, with some dates going back as far as into August when the boys had first started coming to the daycare on a part time basis.
Noticing that Harry was still looking overwhelmed and not making the connection with the dates, Draco reached out once more and turned Harry's face towards him and away from his son's drawing of death and destruction. "If I'm right Leo," Draco began softly, "the dates mean two things. Firstly, it looks like Evan only draws one of these terrible images on days following his nightmares."
Harry gasped in surprise. Draco was right. Taking another look at the dates, Harry could certainly see the horrifying connection; somehow Evan was dreaming about the battles. Hell, Harry had sat up with Evan on more nights than he could remember trying to ease his nightmares and to get his tired little boy to fall back to sleep. Evan never wanted to talk about his bad dreams but Harry knew that based on the way Evan would wake up screaming sometimes that whatever he was dreaming about wasn't the typical toddler stuff.
Harry had begun to justify Evan's dreams as anxiety from moving from the only home he had known in California and then with the abrupt lifestyle change with the introduction of a new parent, and not to mention magic and all that entailed. It certainly seemed reasonable to him that his three year old son's subconscious would be rebelling against such drastic changes. Believing that to be the case Harry had done everything in his power to make sure that both his sons felt loved and protected so that they would adjust to their new home and feel secure with who they were.
Suddenly, it occurred to Harry that if he was there comforting his son on the nights that he had the dreams that the dreams couldn't be coinciding with the nights that the actual battles took place. Examining once more the dates, Harry felt his world start to tilt as he finally made the connection to the second and most important meaning behind the dates on the drawings. From what he was able to ascertain from the couple of parchments that he could readily identify the specific battle, it appeared that the pictures were made before the battles took place.
Draco knew when he saw Harry's shoulders slump and he started to sway that he had finally realized the overall significance of the drawings. There was a very good chance that Evan was a seer.
"Growing up, I was always told stories about my Great Grandmother on my mother's side. Apparently she was a legitimate seer, although no one else in our family ever had the gift," Draco explained softly as he gently folded Harry in his embrace. "I'm sorry Leo; it just never occurred to me that he was suffering from bona fide visions."
Harry lifted his head from where it had been resting on Draco's chest at the sadness in his mate's tone. "Dray, this is not your fault. The important thing is that we've identified it now, so hopefully we'll be able to help him deal with it, or at least find someone who can help him. But, for Merlin sake, Dray, he's so young. He is far too young to even begin to understand something like this. When I think of what he must be seeing…" Harry's anguished voice trailed off to nothing.
"I know Leo, I know. But this war is going to end and when it does, than, hopefully his visions will decrease if not stop all together. Maybe he'll be able to see positive things. From what I can remember, I don't think that all of my Grandmother's visions were awful."
Draco softly caressed Harry's unruly locks as he felt some of his own despair give way. Somehow sharing the burden of his knowledge about their son's gift with Harry made him feel as though things would turn out okay. Unfortunately, there was still one more thing that he needed to tell Harry. After his own shock had worn off Draco had meticulously reviewed Evan's pictures and put them in chronological order. After doing this it was easier to spot what was really going on.
"Harry, there is one more drawing that you need to see."
The young Gryffindor Heir slowly picked up his head and stared warily at his mate. Resigned that whatever this last picture showed, it couldn't be more revealing that the last twenty or so that he had already looked at that night, he softly said, "Let me see it."
Draco reached behind him and pulled the parchment that Evan had been coloring today out from where he had hidden it behind the sofa cushions. "This was the drawing that Evan made today," Draco said carefully as he handed it to Harry.
Curious as to why Draco had felt the need to hide this most recent drawing Harry hesitantly took it from the blonde's outstretched hand. Harry moaned low in his throat as his eyes took in the sea of black and red depicted against an 'oh so familiar' backdrop. "Dear Merlin, please tell me this isn't what I think it is. Please tell me that's not ….."
Harry never finished his sentence as loud piercing screeching sounds filled the quiet night air. "What the bloody hell?"
Draco jumped to his feet immediately, instantly recognizing the early alert system that Dumbledore had installed several years ago. "Well, I think that answers that question. Come on Harry, we need to get Nicole and the boys up, we're under attack."
To be continued.