I Am The Son
Disclaimer: I do not own the world of Harry Potter.
Watching James Potter collapse in on himself sliced that jagged cut straight through his body, the pain bright, and of so familiar, and brutally, horrifically new.
Chapter Seven
"You know I can hear you, don't you?"
Draco stopped mid-step and grimaced into the empty hallway before an irritated sigh escaped him. He was halfway to the front door, and he'd been positive his steps were as silent as he could make them – he'd even very deliberately not put his boots on, his stocking feet now freezing as a result. Eyes focused on the door, just a few steps away, he debated fiercely whether to ignore the disembodied voice, both loud and unusually soft at the same time, and continue making his escape.
The voice let out a sigh of its own.
"I'll just follow. And I can apparate. Which, going by the way you're trying to run, I'm guessing that's something you can't manage at this present point in time, with or without your wand."
Teeth bared, Draco glared at the door and cursed himself six ways from Sunday for forgetting he didn't have his wand, and then with a huffy growl, he spun on the spot and stomped his way towards the basement kitchen's entrance and down the stairs. The flickering light from a burning lamp drew him into the kitchen, and his eyes automatically flew to the embracing couple sitting at the head of the table. Other-Potter was practically folded in two as his wife hugged him, her hand slowly moving along his back and her face buried in his bent neck. His stomach twisting at how intimate the couple looked, Draco dragged his gaze away, eyes falling on Lupin sitting at the opposite end of the table.
The werewolf sent him a small, relatively easy smile and pulled his wand away from his throat. "Fancy a cuppa, Draco?"
Eyes flicking to the two other occupants of the room against his will, Draco sneered and approached the table, taking a seat without a word and placing his boots on the floor next to him. He glared when he saw Lupin's lips twitch, but the other man followed his example and didn't say anything. Soon, a steaming mug of tea was placed in front of him, the hawthorn wand making gentle contact with the table at the same time. Draco quickly snatched his wand up, then peered down into the cup. His lip curled.
"You expect me to drink this swill?" he asked incredulously, looking up at the other wizard. Lupin raised a single eyebrow and again didn't say anything; Draco held his gaze for as long as he could before he grit his teeth and lifted the cup to his lips.
It was even sodding worse than he'd expected it to be. He only just resisted sticking his tongue in disgust.
Lupin chuckled. "It's all that's available at the moment. Besides, considering you were only down a couple of hours, I don't think you'll be on your feet for long. How are you feeling?"
With a very small sniff, Draco set the cup down. "I'm perfectly fine, thank you very much," he said loftily, trying to keep his face smooth and calm as Lupin pursed his lips and shook his head, eyes crinkling with signs of laughter. The statement couldn't be further from the truth if he'd tried. It felt like there was a boulder sitting on his chest, making it extremely hard to draw breath, and if it wasn't for the fact that he needed to get out of this house, he wouldn't be up and about at all.
Panic trickled through his stomach. Draco sat up straighter and took another sip of very terrible tea, his annoyingly heavy-lidded eyes once again moving to the couple at the other end of the table. Seeing where he was looking, Lupin followed his gaze and sighed.
"I just told them about Sirius," he said quietly, in a voice that tried desperately for even but fell just short of the mark. Draco darted him a look at the tremble, then looked down at his cup.
"It's none of my business."
"Oh, I disagree, it's very much your business," Lupin said. Draco's mouth twisted and he kept his gaze on the tea as the werewolf continued. "Everything about this situation is your business. You're the one that brought it about."
Long, thin fingers tightening around the porcelain. "Where is Teddy today?"
Lupin laughed. The unexpected sound echoed through the large, mostly deserted, very cold kitchen – or was it just that he was freezing? – finally drawing the attention of other-Potter and his wife. Draco sipped his rapidly turning tepid tea and ignored them as best he could, which ended up being a fruitless venture, because a few moments later the chair next to his was being drawn back.
Other-Potter looked at him with red, swollen eyes.
"You can bring Sirius back."
His voice cracked, split straight through the centre like a muggle record snapped in half, and Draco was out of his chair and at the stairs before other-Potter had completed the sentence. Lupin rose to his feet as well, eyes on Draco's back – the Slytherin felt them digging into his bones, the urgency choking. His chin was high when he threw a laser-sharp sneer over his shoulder.
"I can do no such thing. Goodbye, Lupin."
"Draco, please sit down; we need to talk about all this!"
"No, let him go, Remus. Give him some time to recover a bit, yeah? I reckon this is just as traumatising for him as it is for us, and you said it yourself; it's not like he's going to go blabbing, is he?"
Mrs Potter's tired voice followed Draco up the stairs. He didn't so much as glance back, the need to escape, to put some distance between himself and two very big problems, riding him hard. He wasn't even aware he was still only in his socks until the front door slammed behind him, his silk-clad feet soaked in an instant when he stepped right into the puddle on the stoop.
Draco growled under his breath and kept going. He withdrew his wand and closed his eyes the moment he reached the sidewalk – then opened them again, letting loose another, louder growl when he spun on the spot but stayed stubbornly right where he was.
Stupid fucking Lupin, being right at the fucking time.
Temper brewing, he stormed out into the street, determined to get home. He was a block away from the house – pissed off, with cold, wet feet, and already beginning to lag – when he sensed him.
Draco stopped dead.
"Potter," he snarled, voice low and venomous as his head whipped to the side. Hidden in the shadow of a lit lamppost, a swarm of darkness moved, and then a body stepped into view, swathed in a long woolen trench coat to defend against the cold. In his shirt, trousers, and unshod feet, just seeing the thick, dark coat made Draco shiver.
Just seeing Potter made Draco angier.
"What do you want?!" he snapped, eyes locked on the bane of his existence. Harry Potter was, quite simply, a giant pain in his arse. Having not lost the infuriating habit he'd picked up in sixth year, Potter was always on his case. Always trailing him, always tailing him, always thinking he was 'up to something', and it didn't matter that most of the time Draco wasn't up to a bloody thing more than shopping at the market. Draco was sure that the Auror had a file the size of The Monster Book of Monsters with his name stamped right on the cover, just as he was sure that there wouldn't be a damn thing in it that could land him in Azkaban.
Until recently, that is.
Why Potter still stubbornly chose to treat him like a criminal, especially after he'd testified to keep both his father and him free of jail time at the end of the war, Draco didn't know. Frankly, he didn't much care either.
Potter's eyes narrowed. "What exactly are you doing in this neck of the woods, Malfoy?" he asked, his eyes sliding in the direction of Grimmauld before quickly returning to pin Draco with a suspicious look. His hand were buried in his pockets, his legs spread in a casual stance. He could have been practically lounging against the lamppost if it wasn't for the fact that Draco could clearly see the leashed tension within the lines of his body.
Harry Potter was an Auror from top to toe. It was one of the things Draco very much disliked about him.
"Taking an evening stroll, what do you think?" he sneered, folding his arms across his chest. An easterly wind suddenly swept through the street, making Draco shiver involuntarily. Potter frowned as his gaze dropped down over him.
"It's far too bloody cold to be out in just a shirt... why aren't you wearing any shoes?"
The wind swept through again, and with it seemed to bring Draco an outrageous amount of frustration and embarrassment and rage. Nothing had gone the way it was supposed to. He'd studied and researched and planned things minutely, until he'd been performing the fucking ritual in his dreams for Merlin's sake, and then everything had gone arse over tit. He'd flipped unwanted and unneeded shit on its head, and now he was hungry and exhausted and cold, and he just wanted to go home, sleep and forget about his colossal fucking mistake, if only for a little while. Not to mention he really needed to put things away so that they were safe.
But Potter-the-prick was making that impossible, wasn't he?
Draco saw red.
His wand was in his hand, words on his lips, and the magic just beginning to poke around inside him again rose in a wave, crashed through his chest, and then fizzled into absolutely nothing. Draco's head spun sickly, his pulse slamming in his ears. The ground rushed up to meet him.
Pressure pressed like fingers into his ribcage.
"Fucking hell, Malfoy. What's wrong with you?"
More muttering, but it was distant. With ragdoll limbs, Draco struggled to push away; push back, but it was worse than in Grimmauld's library. His vision shrunk to a pinpoint and the muttering voice let out a variety of colourful curses.
All of a sudden he was being sucked inside out. He didn't recognize the strangled moan as his own when it poured from his throat, and he didn't recognize the sharply worried feminine voice when his insides settled back where they should've been. Sweat slid down his back, shocking cold against his forehead made him flinch, and then for the second time that day, Draco did something incredibly embarrassing and promptly passed out.
