Hermione sensed Harry back in the country and quickly whipped herself round to his place so she could be there waiting for him. Something was just not right with her friend, she knew, and instinctively she grabbed her coat and magicked on some proper clothes to wait for Harry on his front porch. Apparating was always such a tiring task when you had been up all night, and many nights before that, either reading for leisure or researching a new topic, still Hermione fought against the movement sickness as she spun through thin air and towards Harry's house.

The cold was biting her skin like the jagged teeth of a wolf, yet shivering she stayed still, her arms wrapped around her body to fight off the whipping cold. When a light appeared from inside the house she knocked impatiently. Still Harry ignored all signs of company and made his way, crying like the loose fucked up failure he was, upstairs.

It was painful as he moved, the sore skin from cuts and bruises making themselves known in the most irritating was, and Harry was moving too fast for any rest of the skin. He was throwing every item that ever meant anything to him into a brown suitcase, of the finest leather, and stashing pills and products into a wash bag. Every movement was violent in his wake, nothing would be saved from his tortures within the mind and body, and had it not been for a tiny squeak from the other side of his room, Harry would have cut himself on a glass object he held to tight. Turning around half frightened to death, and wondering whether Hermione had broken the wards on his house, he went to aim he wand at whatever intruder it may be.

"Jamie?" He asked half wondering, semi broken by his thoughts confirmed in the most complicated of ways.

The small boy backed away when Harry moved forward, all rage forgotten at his son's scared eyes. "Jamie listen," He tried, his hands trying to touch the boy and stop his tears, but an invisible shield was erected around the boy, "Come here…"

When the boy did not move, but shook his head no, Harry launched himself from his room ferociously and made it to the stairs. He ran down them, missing a step and falling the rest of the way, his body jutting up and down as he fell and his stomach flip-flopping in protest against his stupidity. Undeterred he launched himself to the front door and opened it only to see Hermione walking off into the night. Her movements told Harry she was ruffled for being ignored so he shouted after her.

"Hermione!"

:break:

"I don't know what to do, Harry…"

Harry glared at her, all three of them –which included Jamie- now at her house in the warmth of somewhere not so disgraced. Jamie was sleeping, to tired from his pre-taught apparation to register the ability to gain information, on Hermione's living room couch. His head had flopped back almost an hour ago, during Hermione's frantic explanation of how she knew who Jamie belonged too. Of course the explanation was needed as Harry had gone on a tirade, believing that the apparation Jamie had induced was due to ill treatment towards the young boy; a result of many years of his own mistreatment.

"You don't know what to fucking do?" He seethed through gritted teeth back at her, watching her flinch at his anger, "What am I supposed to do now? Draco's only going to hate me more, thinking I had something to do with this!"

"Yes, but I'm witness to the fact you didn't!"

"Yes, but your also one of his game players are you not, Hermione? Were you not in this all along, going against what your best friend might think and want?"

Hermione tried again fire calling the Malfoy Manor, and once again fell short as there was no response. A house elf did appear this time though but cowered in fear at Hermione's seething face and ran away before he could answer the girl.

"Narcissa and I were trying to get you two back together, and re-introduce you to Jamie, but everything went belly up once you and Draco fell out yet again when you went to see him at the Manor!" She bit back once her head was out of the fire, not backing down to the fury written in Harry's eyes.

"You and Narcissa?" He asked, disturbed at the matchmaking scheme going on between the two women, when suddenly there came about a sense of recognition of the night he and Draco had fallen out once again.

He was mad at the blonde for making him feel all those un needed things again, and he had left without a glance back. A glance that was needed in honesty, because he had left something very important behind, and now he had to live with Draco knowing. "Oh shit, oh shit!" Harry breathed out, pacing the room, his right hand cupping his face in disbelief. This was ominous and it left no room for any good to come of it.

"Oh shit… oh fuck… oh…" Harry paced up and down the smallish room, his breathing becoming hyperventilation and leaving no room for his mind to work properly.

"Harry? What's wrong?" Hermione asked worriedly, her hand coming to rest on the small of Harry's back to stop him from moving. Harry had the sudden urge to run away but with one look to Jamie he found that he couldn't. There it was, the answer to so many problems, but he couldn't help but think there was little that could be fixed by Jamie who was so young and so innocent; an innocence only a child could have and an innocence that could break the wards on his house. Only someone so pure could do that which was quite remarkable really.

Harry promptly fainted for the breathing had become to much. As he lay there unconscious, Hermione reasoned that he needed the break to rationalise things alone in his head.

;break;

When Hermione had finally gotten hold of a frantic Narcissa she was nearly in tears herself, but the calming voice of her older friend comforted her well enough for her to divulge that she knew where little Jamie was. Draco, Hermione could hear, was in the background going almost crazy at having found no sign of Jamie when he had checked on him a few hours prior. It seemed that Narcissa had been informed by her house elf that Hermione had been trying to contact her, and she had called the brunette to consider why Hermione might be in such dire need of contact.

Narcissa confirmed that she would be over momentarily and before she closed the fire call, Hermione heard the distinct sound of a Draco rushing from the room with his mother berating such childish behaviour.

As soon as Draco and Narcissa arrived at Hermione's house, Draco moved into the living room to find Harry passed out on the floor, and Jamie sleeping solitary on the couch. Harry was really rather pale, in stark contrast to his deeply dark hair, and suddenly a pang of guilt traced through him. Conciously he levitated Harry up the stairs to a spare room, neither asking Hermione whether that was okay or caring if she would say no. With a backwards glance to the bed, he left the room to attend to Jamie, holding the small boy close as he travelled by apparation back to the Manor.

Draco was extremely frightened after overhearing Hermione telling his mother that Harry knew who Jamie had been adopted by, and he was soon awaiting the verbal abuse from Harry who would surely knock two weeks worth of food from him, once he was fully awake and able to do so.

Draco was sitting on the edge of the bed Harry slept in when the brunette awoke, his face contorted into an apologetic set up, hoping the look would instil some sense into Harry. Yet he was sorely surprised when Harry hopped out of bed, without words or acknowledgement, and walked through the door. Draco followed after him, watching Harry from behind, the mornings soft light coming through all windows without curtains.

"Harry?" He asked softly, not wanting to wake Hermione or Ron.

At the front door Harry stopped, looking back over his shoulder with his eyes downcast, not wanting to register that Draco was there. "You know, don't you?"

Draco made to move closer, but Harry went to unlock the front door in warning to not get too close. Knowingly Draco stayed back then, never wishing to be on the end of Harry's wrath again. Sensing the build up of emotion within Harry, Draco kept all distance between them, even though it was hurting badly to do so. "Yeah, I know." He replied.

Harry nodded just once and pulled the door open so he could leave. "Wait!" Called Draco, forgetting how he shouldn't loud just now. Harry stopped and whirled around slowly, even though the contradiction of movement made his still sore body ache, and for the first time in a while he made eye contact with Draco.

Moving forward with every word, Harry began to spite all heaven left inside of him, watching as the angelic looking person in front of him cowered at every single movement. "You know. You know every fucking thing I never wanted anybody to know. I cant look at you without thinking that you know, and you shouldn't know… Lord only knows why I left that memory there, but whatever Merlin be damned reason isn't bloody good enough for you, in all your hierarchy glory, to go looking through my secrets!"

Harry was in a rage beyond words, his tears only formed by that fact. Draco wanted to respond with a sorry, but his pride wouldn't let him do so at this moment. There were no apologies in a fight where a snake and lion where concerned. "Bloody hell Harry, it's not like it was the end of the world, and it certainly isn't now that I know! Ever thought that I could help you through this? That this might be a good thing that I know?"

Harry moved into the living room, Draco following, and shut the door before casting a silencing charm around the room. He too did not want to disturb Hermione or Ron now, especially after their kind hospitality.

"You knowing is not a good thing!"

"Yes it is!"

"And why did you not to think to inform me about Jamie, huh? It might have occurred to you that I should know my ex lover had custody of my child?"

"I was… but we fought cause your so goddamn ignorant. I was stretching my hand out to you when I invited you to dinner that night, and yes I shouldn't have asked such stupid questions but you quite openly invited me to watch the memories, to see the abuse you went through!"

Harry did not answer, "And it comes apparent to me now that you are a fucking child, which makes me wonder why Jamie would ever come straight to you. Lord knows why he did it, maybe because he had enough of me teaching him the world, but why to you? You through him out, because your too weak to get over some stupid things that happened to you when you were a kid!"

Harry went livid: "Stupid!" He yelled louder than when he had cast the Avada on Voldemort, "Stupid! The fucker raped me every fucking day almost! You call that stupid? Your implying that the action was a result of what I did… And even if it was what right do you have to point that out to me huh?

"Every scar on my body and every thought in my head cannot counteract the pain I went through, just to live during those summers and to be given food to sustain my energy. You think I'm a child Draco, you think that life was so easy for me not to grow up? I had to grow up and I had to be something more than I was, because every ounce of innocence was taken from me. It wasn't like I asked my uncle to fuck me, do you think I enjoyed it!

"And… to add insult to every fucking injury I have… you go mouthing off that I don't deserve Jamie, and you take him away from me for your own fucking benefit! What did you think would become of this huh? Why do you want to get back at me? What did your father ever do to you that was so goddamn drastic, that would make you think that hurting me was the answer? Cause from where I'm standing it looks like it just hurt me a whole lot more!

"And, if that wasn't enough Mr. Malfoy, then you wanting me to feel so much pain is just another reason for me to go home, finish packing up my belongings so I can go kill myself somewhere I wont be found. You want to know how much pain I go through, then you should know that every time we fucked and every time things were cool between us, I hurt afterwards knowing that my uncle had been there before you!"

Ahh, another chapter through oceans of time. Here it is, hope you like it, and do for my sanity review!

Ashes