Draco Malfoy paced the halls of Malfoy House, hollow. He buried his wife that morning and sent his son back to Hogwarts that evening. It would be better for Scorpius, he told himself. The kid could be around his friends, who truly cared about him, rather than trapped alone in a too big house with his wreck of a father. Headmistress McGonagall had promised that she would help Scorpius get grief counseling, and she had sent a kind letter, expressing her condolences.

It would be better for him, Draco assured himself. He was going to do everything that was right for his son, even without Astoria there to help him be a better man. He wouldn't make his father's mistakes.

His footsteps echoed through the house, and he knew there wasn't a single soul there. He had let his house-elves take the day off. It was the new act that Granger had lobbied hard to pass. She had also lobbied against the use of Dementors at Azkaban. Of course, the ministry had to listen to her, hero of the Wizarding World that she was.

He shook the thought away and poured himself a stiff drink of Firewhiskey. He couldn't think about his school friends without shame rising in his heart. He had a chance then to be better. Her Dementor bill had saved his life for the three months he had spent locked up in there. It had made it possible for him to still visit his mother who was serving a life sentence.

Potter had asked for her sentence to be commuted, saying that she had saved his life and turned the tide of the war, but nobody had believed him. He appreciated the man for trying.

That had been the biggest thing that made him regret taking the mark. He hated Potter. He wanted Potter to hate him back, and for a while in their sixth year, he did. It was much easier to deal with Potter's abject hatred than his quiet disappointment.

Draco knocked his firewhiskey back and poured himself another. He wanted to be drunk. Drunk and silly and seeing double instead of heartbroken, alone, and filled with regret.

There was a lot to regret. Taking the mark. Fighting for the bigoted side of the war against desperate hate. Being too afraid to express his doubts to his father when he doubted. Loving a dying woman.

No. No. He didn't regret loving Astoria. She was the reason for all the good in his life. She was always up for an adventure. When she laughed, she smiled to her eyes. She stood in the sun and always took a moment to feel the warmth of its rays on her skin. She was a beautiful soul who had been taken too soon. He would never regret loving Astoria.

His poor son.

To be fifteen years old and to lose his mother… what could he say to him? How could he assure the child who scribbled out endless pictures of his family that everything would be alright?

What would he have done at fifteen without his mother?

He shuddered because he knew the answer. He would have taken the mark younger, done darker and darker tasks for Lord Voldemort. He would have been driven to fanaticism by his father, and he would have been utterly beyond saving.

He knocked back another firewhiskey, and poured himself a fourth? A fifth? He had lost track. His mind blurred and he smiled.

Good. He didn't want to think, or feel, or eat or breathe or live.

He startled when a letter fell into his lap. A big snowy owl swooped away overhead. The letters on the envelope blurred in and out of his sight but he thought it said "From: Harry Potter."

He was officially drunk. A letter from Potter. Could you imagine? It was time to get some sleep.

The next morning, his head was throbbing. He felt sick. If Astoria had been… alive…. She would have left a spaghetti pot next to him and covered him up with a blanket and loosened his tie. Instead, he woke up in his crumpled black suit with a crick in his neck and his feet freezing.

Perfect. That was what his life would be, he might as well get used to it.

He rubbed his neck and sat up. He needed a shower and a shave, but instead he went back to the drink cart and paused.

There was the letter again, on heavy, embossed parchment. The bright red wax seal with a lion stared at him and he stared back. He blinked.

"To: Mr. Draco Malfoy. From: Harry Potter."

"What the-"

He trailed off and slid his finger through the letter, giving himself a paper cut. He had a perfectly respectable silver letter opener in his study, but it had been a birthday gift from Astoria. He couldn't look at it without breaking down, and Malfoys didn't break down.

"Draco, I'm sorry about your wife. She seemed nice. Albus told me yesterday. If you want, you should come have dinner with me on Friday. Ginny is out of town, but we can talk or something. Sincerely, Harry."

Draco stared at the thing, bewildered. It couldn't have been a trap because only Potter would write a letter like that. Had nobody taught him how to properly draft a letter? But Potter? Perhaps he was making an effort because their sons were friends. He had mentioned Albus.

He turned from his drink cart and towards the kitchen to pour himself a coffee. He was simply too hungover to analyze Potter's intentions.

"Dad!" He heard his son from the fireplace.

"Scorp?" Draco went over to the hearth in his living room and sat on the floor. He was too nauseous to crouch for that long.

"Dad you look like hell." Scorpius said, surprised.

"I just woke up." He said. He wasn't about to explain that he had drank half a bottle and passed out in his study to his fifteen year old.

"Did you get Al's dad's letter?" The kid pushed on.

"Yeah, I got it. I'm going to politely decline him, don't worry. I won't embarrass you." Draco assured. He would make a fool of himself at the Potter Manor, and he knew it.

"No! No, dad, you… I think you should go," Scorpius said.

"Scorp, do you really think that me going to your boyfriend's dad's house is a good idea?"

"Yes. I do!" Scorpius said, getting defensive. "And he is not my boyfriend. Besides, you were in the same year at Hogwarts, right?"

"Yeah. We were," Draco said. "We didn't get along." Then he saved my life, lobbied to get my sentence commuted, and testified in defense of my mother.

"Listen, dad, Al's dad is nice. Al didn't tell him to invite you, but Mr. Potter heard, and he wanted to reach out. Al's a little embarrassed of his old man already, but I can tell he's being nice."

"Nice," Draco scoffed. "Listen kid, we… we were on opposite sides of the war. I'm not proud of it, but we were. There's no reason for him to forgive me for that. They were different times."

"Dad, I can't sugar coat this." Scorpius sounded almost… stern? How many times had he used that same tone to tell the kid not to eat crayons? "You need friends. I don't like the thought of you hole up alone at home. Mom's gone and that sucks so hard, but dad… Please. Just… take care of yourself. For me."

Draco felt guilt rise in him again. How could he let himself go like he so desperately wanted to when he had a kid counting on him? Guilt and shame were the only emotions he could really feel these days.

"Kid… you don't have to worry about me. I'll be okay. Focus on school."

"Just go hang out with Al's dad, okay? Take some sweets. Make friends." Scorpius said, and Draco caved.

"Fine." He sighed. "I will go eat dinner with Potter."

"Thanks dad. Love you."

'I love you's came so easily to his son, thanks to Astoria, but he still felt strange saying them. The only love that had come from his father was the end of the old man's cane.

He had never told Astoria that. He had gone to parenting classes in secret when she told him she was pregnant, in preparation for the day they all knew was coming. At some point, he had always known he would have to be a father on his own.

"I love you too, kid."

Draco felt ridiculous. He put on a clean suit, showered, and shaved and picked up a box of sweets. He felt like a stupid teenager going on a date. With Potter. A man he so badly wanted to despise.

With a crack, he apparated to Potter Manor but something blew him backwards.

"Shit! Malfoy!" He saw Potter in jeans and a T-shirt sprinting down the path.

"What the hell Potter?" Malfoy picked himself up and tried to straighten out his clothes.

"Sorry! It's the wards. I thought I could take them down but I haven't had any luck." Potter looked like a mess. Was that really what he looked like as an adult? Wearing dad jeans and a t-shirt as if that's how self-respecting adults dressed? He hadn't owned a pair of jeans since he started Hogwarts.

"Sorry," Potter panted, extending a hand.

"I've been working at it all day, but they're foolproof."

"Have you asked Weasley? I've heard nothing is foolproof against a dumb enough fool." Malfoy spat back.

Something about his undignified entrance and seeing Potter's face again made him irrationally angry.

"Come in, Malfoy," Potter said, extending his hand. A handshake. He supposed he could shake his hand and bury the hatched.

Draco reached out to him and grasped his hand, bowing politely. Potter yanked him towards himself and he very unceremoniously was pulled through the wards.

"What the hell?" Draco demanded.

"I was pulling you through the wards." Potter explained. "What did you think?"

"I thought…" Draco trailed off. "Nevermind." I thought we were going to shake hands and become friends? It sounded childish.

"Come on. Drink this." Potter sounded urgent.

"What is that?" Draco asked. "Why would I drink something you would give me?"

"I'm not trying to kill you, Malfoy. This is a potion for-"

Draco winced. There was a desperate, horrible burning in his arm.

"A potion for that." Potter explained, and Draco downed it in a single gulp.

"What is that? This mark hasn't burned in more than…

"Twenty-four years?" Potter supplied. Draco was surprised, but he tapped his forehead. "I have some experience in the area."

"The famous scar," Draco sneered and Potter…laughed?

"You sound just like you did when we were kids. Come on. Burgers are getting cold."

"Burgers?" Draco looked down his nose, confused and a little bit disappointed. He thought he would be in for a fancy dinner, as he expected a prominent family like the Potters to be used to.

"Muggle food. Ginny is covering the Harpies on the road so I'm indulging myself." Potter said, and the men made their way into the house. "Gin says I should watch my cholesterol but it's just so good."

The building they walked into was a traditional, wealthy, pureblood home that Draco had grown up surrounded by. There were tall marble columns and beautiful artwork on the walls. "Harry who's your friend?" An old dark-haired woman in diamonds asked from her portrait.

"Grandma! Geez!" Harry turned away and next to it was a beautiful portrait of James and Lily Potter. It was a muggle painting, and Draco was surprised.

Potter caught his eye line.

"Mum and Dad," Potter paused next to him, and looked at his family. All dead.

It was a momentary fleeting feeling, but he almost felt bad for him. He had grown up as alone as Draco felt in the weeks after Astoria passed. It was a moment of connection, but he almost understood the man.

Potter took a shaky breath, and Draco half expected him to fall apart.

"Come on, I'm starving."

They grabbed their burgers and sat at the table, digging in. Draco was a fan of the burgers, but he would never admit it. When he had been younger, his father had caught him looking at the muggles around London eating them, and had demanded one for himself.

His father had agreed, but only if Draco was willing to accept that his blood status would be tarnished by the food. He had accepted that being a superior being meant he was too good to try the food. But here was Potter, a perfectly respectable Pureblood from a more than respectable family, married to another pureblood, enjoying muggle food.

"How do you know all this muggle stuff?" Draco asked. "The portrait and the burger and everything."

"My mum was muggleborn," Potter said, through a stuffed mouth. "Her muggle sister raised me. Kind of."

He scoffed, and Draco could tell that his Aunt was a bit of a sore subject.

"So you're a half-blood," Draco mused and Potter made a face.

"So was Voldemort," Potter grumbled. "You still licked his boots."

Draco blanched. "What?" He demanded.

"I'm serious. He was." Potter informed him, quite matter-of-factly, still eating his burger, as if his world hadn't been shaken.

"I doubt he told anyone else, it's fine." Potter was still chewing. Did he ever stop eating?

"How do you know?" Draco demanded. There was a feeling in his heart that he couldn't place. Suprprise? Anger? Denial? An instinct to push away the bad words about his Lord that had been tortured into him since he was fourteen?

"I watched his memories. And his parent's memories. I studied him before the war. With Dumbledore." He added the last part a bit tentatively. It was a touchy spot. Harry had been Dumbledore's star pupil. He had very obviously been plotting against the man's life.

"Well shit. We didn't know," Draco said, fighting for his composure.

"It's fine. I did a couple semesters in muggle college about cult psychology. I know that it probably wasn't your choice. All the shit from school and the war and stuff."

"It wasn't a cult," Draco snapped. Wasn't it? A voice in his head asked. Potter shrugged.

"Whatever. I don't want to talk about the war. Or blood status, or anything like that, for that matter." It was the first time that night Potter had sounded testy.

"Sorry. What do you want to talk about?" Draco asked.

The men shifted awkwardly, fumbling for ideas to for conversations that didn't mention their fraught pasts.

"How's your son?" Potter began.

"He's…" Scorp was not good. He hadn't said anything, but his letters didn't sound normal. They were too forcibly upbeat. "Hanging in there. How are your kids?"

"James and Teddy are on a boys trip across Europe. Al… Al's fine, and Lily just started Hogwarts. They're growing up fast." Harry mused. He wiped his mouth on a napkin.

"They are." Draco paused. He wanted to ask a question, but hesitated. It was insanely personal, and he didn't know Potter like that.

"Drinks?" Potter offered and Draco politely accepted.

Potter poured him a firewhiskey and they went to his living room. Potter paused to vanish his garbage and wrappers.

Draco drank quickly, and looked at Potter.

"Potter, can I ask you something?" He had never sounded shy like that before and he hated it. It was a sign of weakness. Malfoys did not show signs of weakness.

"Shoot." Potter had conspicuously made his drink alcohol-free and was drinking slowly.

"You grew up without a mum," Draco began, and a quick hurt flashed across Potter's face.

"I did. Never miss a chance to remind me, do you, Malfoy?"

He supposed Potter's reaction was kinder than it could have been. Potter's dead parents had featured heavily in many of his childhood taunts. It was probably more painful than Malfoy had ever imagined. He prayed that his own son would be spared the harsh words.

"No I mean… I'm sorry. I mean… Will my son be okay?"

Potter winced.

"I…" He spoke softly. "Malfoy, I don't remember my mum. Scorpius got the chance to know her, and she was sick, and my mum was murdered. It's not the same situation. I don't know if Scorpius will be okay. But I think it would have helped me to have dad around."

"That doesn't help," Draco insisted. Something about the way Harry nursed what was essentially apple juice with his legs crossed on the couch, the way he stared at a point just beyond Draco's face, the way he tried to be gentle with bad news with a lowered guard made Draco let down his guard a bit.

"I know. Nothing really does." Harry murmured.

"Is that what you invited me here to say? That's a shit condolence." Draco snapped.

"You didn't have to accept!" Harry snapped back. They were back at it again, matching each other blow for blow like they were school children. "If you want to know the goddamn secret to getting through this pain, I don't have it. The pain after the war nearly ended me."

"The pain after the war?" Draco snapped. "My whole family was arrested. I was arrested. I spent my eighteenth birthday in Azkaban. Not this new, dementor free, humane Azkaban. I was trapped in my own head with my own worst memories for three months. You had Weasley and Granger and Cousin Andromeda and Ted and the world worshipping at your feet. You were a hero. I was a war criminal."

Harry exhaled softly and nodded. "You love to feel bad for yourself, don't you? I didn't force you to take the mark. And I tried. I testified in your and your mother's defense. I bugged the ministry about the dementors for her sake."

He no longer screamed his rage to the world. Age had perhaps mellowed him out. Perhaps he was simply too tired to fight.

"Why?"

"Because I owe her. She saved me. Turned the tide of the war. After Voldemort killed me."

"How could Voldemort have killed you when you're right here?" Draco demanded.

"It's complicated magic. I was a horcrux. I really can't explain it. I just… I had to sacrifice myself so that Voldemort could die. When I came back to life, she lied for me so she could get to the castle and find you." Harry said.

"That doesn't make sense." Draco snapped.

"We had a moment, she saved me. That's what counts any way."

"So is that why you wrote to me?" Draco asked.

"Partly. I figure our sons are close friends. We shouldn't make them feel weird about it by continuing a schoolyard rivalry." Harry said. "If I'm being honest, I don't understand Albus. But I'm trying, man. I really am."

Draco nodded. "Scorpius… He is just like his mother."

"Al's just like me. Lord, if that boy would just listen, he wouldn't make the same mistakes I've made." Harry shook his head and sipped his drink.

"Would you listen to someone who says that?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "I would sooner hex them."

"Then there's your problem Potter. Honestly, a little common sense would take you a long way." Draco sniped.

"I'm not good at the whole family thing. It's bad for Al the most." He said a little sadly.

"Honestly Potter would you just stop bitching about this? Families suck, but you didn't have to grow up with my father."

He moved his suit to show Potter one of the scars from a beating that had gone sideways. A straight mark on his neck from when he had struggled, and his father's cane had caught the wrong part of his body. Potter was unfazed. That was new. When Astoria had noticed she had panicked and been afraid for him.

"You didn't have to grow up with my Uncle." Potter showed him a similar scar on his shoulder. A cut from a belt buckle he recognized from the shape and depth, Draco recognized.

"What did Ginny say?" Draco asked, curious.

"I lied. I said it was from the battle." Harry confessed. "I can't bring myself to tell her. Molly and Arthur… They're perfect. Ginny can't even imagine something like that."

"Neither could Astoria." He sighed. He lost himself in the memories of a simpler time.

"It's going to be okay." Potter was lying. They both knew it. Even if they didn't know the whole story of each other's lives, they had grown up together, watching each other, challenging each other. They knew each other's tells, and their flaws. Potter must have seen him stare off, pale eyes getting misty, and thought he ought to say something.

"It's not okay. She was young. Wasn't even forty yet."

Harry nodded sadly. "It's always terrible when they're young."

"Seriously. How…" Draco trailed off. "I must be truly desperate to be asking you." He muttered the last part to himself.

"I was seventeen when the war ended Draco. I was a kid. I didn't know what to do. Ron and Hermione went to Australia, and after Fred died, I couldn't face the Weasleys. I lived at Sirius's old place alone. I started drinking. A lot."

So that explained the kiddie drink. An alcoholic in recovery. That was something he didn't expect of Potter.

"I pulled away from the world that wanted a hero, not me. I was too messed up to face it."

"You are a hero, Potter." Draco said. "You never did a thing wrong." His whole life was spent in Potter's shadows. His father constantly compared the two boys, pointing out Potter's good marks, his popularity at school, the way he never fumbled a task that Dumbledore gave him.

"I got people killed, Malfoy. I got my godfather killed because of my mistakes." Potter snapped. He sighed. "Just… don't do what I did. Stay in touch, Malfoy. That's my point."

"What do you suggest? Group therapy?" Draco was mocking him again, intensely uncomfortable with Potter's vulnerability.

"Maybe. If it'll help, do it. I was in a support group for a while. Ron made me do it, and he was right to do it."

Draco finished his drink but refused another. He had been getting wasted for nearly every night that month, blowing his money on barrels of firewhiskey, and he didn't want to become like Potter, as he might have done as a kid. At forty-one years old, his liver nor his family could sustain that habit.

Potter sighed deeply. "Listen, what we did as kids… I'm sorry for whatever part I had in it."

"For splitting me open with that experimental spell?" He demanded.

"Yeah. My bad."

Draco laughed. "I'm sorry too, Potter. I had a big part in it. I'm sorry about… well a lot. Dumbledore, and Katie, and Ron… I'm sorry."

Potter smiled, but Draco noticed that it never reached his eyes anymore. Perhaps it never did.

"Apology accepted."

They shook hands and buried a thirty-year-old hatchet.

That night Draco walked home, a little lighter. The empty halls of his home still echoed his footsteps, and he still didn't look at his bedroom, Astoria's sick room, where he had stayed by her side, trying to keep her comfortable as the disease consumed her body and made her final moments in life painful. He settled on the couch in his study, putting a blanket over his own shoulders and settling down onto an old pillow he had found.

It would be months before he was able to even look at their bedroom, and longer still before he entered it. His son would be the one to wrap up his mother's things and put them away carefully in the attic. They had no need to sell her designer shoes and expensive furs. They didn't need the money, and Draco vowed he would be able to look at them again and remember the good times they had shared.

His dinner with Potter became a regular thing, much to his son's mortification, and the other Weasleys got used to his presence.

Some marks that the war caused would never fade, but the youngest of the Weasley spawn took to coloring his dark mark with colored pens. He scowled at them, and at first their parents would hurriedly pull them off him, apologizing profusely for their behavior. Eventually though, they got used to his scowling and griping and his arm was nearly always colorful.

They made the darkness a little less dark.