I Am The Son

Disclaimer: I will forever not own Harry Potter or anything officially related.

A/N - Hello, hello! So it seems I won't be sticking to the original plan and waiting until Stages is complete to post more on this story. Why, you ask? Because Stages is taking forever to finish and I don't want to wait any longer. I'm posting this chapter because I recently got reminded that I can, lol. ;) Hope you enjoy!

"Ah, fuck," James breathed, craning his neck to stare at the crumpled body, the splash of dishevelled blond hair against the faded, threadbare carpet. Well that was just great. Now what the hell was he going to do?

Chapter Two

"Oi, you! Wake up!"

Swimming in a sea of muffled buzzing, Draco's brow creased as something hard nudged him in the side. A voice that made no sense seemed to be shouting at him, fading in and out, like his grandfather's old wireless used to do until you shook it. But as a heavy weight also seemed to be dragging him downwards, keeping his eyes closed and his body sprawled on the floor, he ignored whoever it was trying to get his attention. It was too much work to acknowledge and answer. He was too tired.

Far too damn tired.

He was fucking exhausted.

"Oh no you don't, sunshine. I saw that forehead twitch. Open your bloody eyes. You've got some explaining to do."

The hard whatever that had connected with his side the first time connected even harder, and Draco's eyes sprang open on a gasp, all the fog in his brain evaporating, the air in his lungs following a split second behind. For a long, confusing moment, he gaped blindly up at the unknown person scowling down at him, trying to suck back in the oxygen he'd lost. Slowly, the confusion cleared, allowing him to think and comprehend that there was someone he didn't know, a stranger standing over him, and that he really shouldn't still be lying there, completely at this person's mercy.

His instincts abruptly screaming at him to move, Draco jerked to the side… and found himself in exactly the same spot. Panic began to coat the confusion, and his eyes grew wide when he tried again and his body just didn't move like he was rather frantically telling it to. The signals were getting from his brain to his muscles but his muscles weren't understanding, and he lay there, helpless, a dead weight on the floor.

Muggles had a thing called cement, right? Millicent had told him about that. He thought maybe there was cement in his veins now, and his mind was squawking, scrambling to figure out why and making it hard to pinpoint a single course of action. He swallowed hard, his arms and legs beginning to hurt from the effort of trying to follow his brain's instructions. Above him, the expression on the stranger's face grew impatient.

"Can you talk?" he demanded. Draco blinked and considered, the question helping him focus. Could he talk?

"Yes," he gasped, choking on the word and coughing so hard, his throat hurt. Why was he so heavy? What was holding him down? "Who are you?"

"I'll ask the questions, mate," the man said, crouching next to Draco with a frown and fingering the wand in his hand. Draco's panic rocketed when he realised that it was his. "It's who you are that's the important thing. And what the fuck's going on here. We were… and now we're not…" the stranger trailed off and pinned Draco with a sharp, piercing look. "What did you do and how the fuck did you do it?!"

"I'm afraid that I don't have a clue what you are talking about," Draco answered, trying desperately for his usual bored drawl and falling far wide of the mark. His voice caught and he coughed again, head whirling. He was stuck to the fucking floor and it felt like he could possibly pass out again at any given moment.

Today is not a good day.

"Like hell you don't," the man scowled, hazel eyes flicking over Draco behind ancient looking glasses. Brain swelling with fractured, random thoughts, Draco pondered the fact that he'd been sure the only person who still wore those stupid, tiny round frames was bloody Potter, The-Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Fuck-Off, which was obviously wrong because-

The sound of everything clicking into place and illuminating his mind was a sharp, crystal-clear snap. The man was still scowling, and when Draco didn't reply to his accusation, he growled under his breath and speared a hand through his hair.

The resemblance was fucking uncanny.

"Potter," Draco croaked, the events of the evening swamping his brain. Getting prepared; ignoring his anxieties; telling himself that he was justified in doing the spell; actually casting the spell; feeling his magic being drained from him as a vampire would drain a body of blood; feeling the lost magic hook onto something and pull, and then watching two people he didn't know and hadn't been expecting flicker into being and hit the floor, the ritual completing with enough force to shake the house and take the old, musty library to pieces. He gawked up at the man, not even blinking when the person he'd brought back to life shoved his own wand in his face.

It wasn't supposed to be him. He was the wrong person. They were the wrong person. He'd performed the ritual correctly, hadn't he? Yes, he was positive he had.

So why was he here, standing over him? Come to think of it, how was it possible that the ritual had brought two people through?

Why hadn't it worked?

"How do you know my name?" James Potter – because it absolutely fucking had to be James Potter didn't it, Harry-Scar-Head-Potter was already amongst the bloody living – spat, hand wrapped tight around the base of Draco's replacement wand. Absurdly, he was in a Gryffindor Quidditch uniform and looked barely out of his teens. Mind blank, Draco lay there and stared.

He sucked in a hurried breath when his wand was suddenly drilled into the side of his nose.

"Answer me!"

"You look like your son," Draco told him without thinking, then snapped his mouth shut when astonishment, fear and then finally a fierce protectiveness passed through James's eyes. He growled again, louder this time, and Draco was sure the tip of his wand was going to cut through his skin.

"How the hell do you know my-" he started to say, cutting himself off when a low groan echoed through the library. His head jerked around and the indecision on his face as his head swivelled from the other side of the room to Draco and back again would've been funny if Draco could've found any part of the situation funny at all. His wand hand didn't waver, and when the other person groaned again, Draco sighed.

"Go see to her. I'm not going anywhere, am I?" he said tiredly, voice just this side of sardonic as he tried to move his hand, not even getting a twitch from the appendage. Potter chewed his bottom lip for a moment and then nodded and slowly took a step back, wand still firmly aimed at Draco. Another step and he was out of Draco's line of sight, and shortly thereafter Draco was straining his ears to hear what he was saying to his just-becoming-conscious wife.

His wife.

James Potter's wife.

Lily Potter.

Sweet Salazar and holy fucking Merlin, what in the bloody buggering, twice-damned hell had he done?!

"Lily? Lily-flower? Open your eyes, my love. Please? Lils, please open your eyes. Come on now. That's it. All the way, Lily-flower. There you are. Good girl."

A third groan and then, in a slurred voice that Draco still heard plain as day: "Potter, how many times have I told you not to call me Lily-flower?"

The relief in James's laughter tugged at Draco's gut in a way that was entirely unpleasant. "You beautiful creature," he continued, voice now slightly muffled. "You fucking perfect creature. Always one more time, Evans, you know that. Can you sit up? Lean on me, love. How are you feeling? Anything sore?"

"My head…" Lily moaned, and then came the sound of shushing and material rustling, followed by soft murmuring and a long sigh. Draco swallowed, entire conversations he shouldn't have been privy to echoing through the silence they fell into after speaking. He stared silently up at the ceiling for a three-count and then closed his eyes.

"There's a pain potion in the desk drawer," he said very quietly, grimacing internally when he realised that yes, it had been him who had spoken and not some miraculously appeared foolishly sympathetic sap. He didn't open his eyes and the silence took on another quality.

"Who's that?" Lily Potter whispered faintly. Draco could feel the should-still-be-dead witch peering at him from her place on the floor, confusion rife. "James, what's going on? Where are we?"

"I don't know, love, but I'm going to find out. I'll get you that pain potion, yeah?"

"That's if it is a pain potion and not some type of poison… James, where's Harry?"

Draco's eyes shot open.

"Harry?" Potter replied, now sounding confused himself. "I'm not sure, sweetheart, but I'm sure we'll find-"

"You're not sure?" Lily barked, interrupting him, her voice suddenly much stronger. The bullet of words would've made Draco jump if he could move. "James Potter, how can you not be sure where our baby is?! We have to find him! Dear God, what if Voldemort's got him?! This isn't Godric's Hollow. Why aren't we at Godric's Hollow?! You know it isn't safe to leave yet! Jamie, what the fuck is going on?!"

Her voice died into a silence that continued to ring with her hysteria. Draco's heart thumped hard, and when James Potter whispered "baby?" in an utterly bewildered tone, he knew something else besides the fact that they were alive was very, very wrong.