There, printed on his forearm, was the Dark Mark.

Years of working with the Aurors had trained Harry to reach for his wand at the sight of the skull. Only the skinny wrist that held the tattoo made Harry abort the motion and scratch an imaginary mosquito bite on his thigh instead, which just happened to be at the tip of his wand.

Beside him, Draco had stopped breathing. His eyes looked more white than grey as he stared unblinkingly at Teddy's arm. Oblivious to the adults' shocked stares, Teddy beamed, chattering about how hard he'd practiced and how he wanted to be just like his Uncle Draco when he grew up.

At those words, Draco snapped out of his stupor. "Get rid of it! Get rid of it now!"

The five-year-old stopped mid-sentence, surprised at his uncle's outburst. His smile vanished when Draco leapt forward and grabbed his arm. "Get. It. Off!"

In his shock, Teddy probably couldn't have maintained the illusion even if he'd tried. The tattoo vanished. So did his blond hair. All that remained was a little boy drowning in a set of Draco's robes.

"Why would you do that?" Draco shouted. "Don't you know what it is?"

There was more desperation in his tone than fury, but Teddy wouldn't read it like that. For all the boy knew, this was just a normal transformation, and his gentle-mannered uncle was yelling at him for no reason. Harry stepped forward. "Draco…"

"No! Did you hear what he said?" He shook Teddy's arm. "He wants to be like me when he grows up!"

"No, I don't!" Teddy cried, yanking his arm out of Draco's grip. "Let me go!" Draco finally noticed the tears streaming down the boy's eyes and froze.

"Teddy…" he tried.

The boy broke into sobs and ran from the room, his feet slipping out of Draco's loafers. Draco remained frozen on his knees, staring at the place where Teddy had left with a haunted glaze over his eyes. "Shit," he whispered. "Shit, Harry, what have I done?"

"I'm going to go find out," Harry replied, already at his feet. "You stay here." He was a little disappointed when Draco didn't follow.

He heard sniffles coming from the tapestry room. As he entered, he caught Teddy wiping his boogers on the carpet. The five-year-old quickly pulled his hand behind his back, where he thought Harry couldn't see him scraping the remaining goop onto the stitched face of a particularly unfortunate twelfth century duke.

Normally, Harry might have had a talk with Teddy about defacing the heirloom. As it was, he crossed the room with a smile on his face. A pair of red-rimmed eyes peeked out at Harry from between a set of knobby knees. "Are you going to yell at me too?"

"No," Harry promised, sitting beside the boy, who sniffled again. "And Draco didn't mean to yell at you either. He won't yell anymore."

Teddy started crying again. Trying not to looked panicked, Harry put his arm around his godson. Most people assumed he was a natural with children, but the truth was, he didn't understand the first thing about talking to children. As a child, he'd never had other children to play with or an adult to wipe the tears off his cheek. Most of the Wizarding World had treated him like a grown-up. He'd even gotten angry when Dumbledore hadn't.

"I made him go away, didn't I?" Teddy sniffled. "He decided that he didn't love me, and now he's going to go away again!"

What? Harry's face twisted into a frown. Unfortunately, this was a feeling he could relate to very well. "No, no, no, Teddy, Draco loves you very much. In fact, it's because he loves you that he yelled at you."

Teddy wiped his eyes. "Really?"

Harry nodded. "Really. Draco and I love each other, and we yell at each other all the time."

"Really?" Teddy repeated.

"Yesterday, we had a thirty minute argument about bath soap."

That didn't seem to answer Teddy's question. Harry thought back and realized what the boy was really asking. "You mean do we love each other?"

Embarrassed, Teddy nodded.

As promised, Harry kept it simple. "Yep."

"Like Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione?"

Draco probably wouldn't appreciate the comparison, which made Harry nod enthusiastically. "Yes. We do."

Teddy thought about this. "Why isn't Uncle Draco an aunt?"

Harry tried to cover up his laughter. It came out as a snort. "Sometimes, I wonder the same thing." More seriously, he added, "Two uncles can love each other. Two aunts can love each other. It may not be as common, but it's perfectly normal."

Teddy seemed to accept this. "Why did Uncle Draco yell at me?"

How to phrase this in a way that wouldn't give Teddy nightmares? "You know how there are certain bad words your grandmother would ground you for saying?"

"Like…" Teddy giggled, then imitated Ron's voice, "bloody hell."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," Harry said. "Well, that tattoo is like a very bad word."

Teddy's mouth dropped open in awe. "Uncle Draco got a bad word tattooed on his arm? Did his uncle yell at him too?"

Harry thought of the Lestranges and suppressed a sigh, knowing Teddy would interpret it the wrong way. "No, Teddy. Most of his family had the same tattoo."

"But…" Teddy frowned, trying to make sense of everything. "Grandmother doesn't have a tattoo." His eyes suddenly lit up. "Unless she has one on her bum!"

Imagining Andromeda with a tramp stamp, Harry laughed along with Teddy and felt like a horrible godfather afterwards. He wouldn't be able to look at Andromeda the same way for weeks, and she was bound to notice. "No, your grandmother does not have a tattoo. Neither did your parents or grandfather. They didn't like what it said."

Teddy nodded, making a face. "It's not very pretty. It would look better in pink."

"One of the many reasons Draco doesn't like it." Come to think of it, Voldemort would have been much easier to defeat had he gone with Teddy's suggestion. Walking around with a pink tattoo would have probably gone against someone like Lucius Malfoy's morals more than siding with halfbloods and Muggleborns.

"But why did he get it, if he didn't like it?"

"The same reason you did," Harry replied. "Because someone he loved had the same tattoo, and he wanted to impress them." Of course, the actual reason was more complicated than that, but Harry didn't think he'd done too badly for five-year-old terms.

"But like you, he didn't know what it fully meant," Harry continued. "He upset a lot of people. He doesn't want the same thing to happen to you."

Teddy wiped his nose with his sleeve. "He could have just told me that. I would have understood. I'm five and three quarters!"

Harry chuckled at the last part, but it was also a grim reminder that Teddy was getting to be the age where he wouldn't be satisfied with vague answers. Every bedtime story got closer and closer to the truth. Soon enough, they'd have to tell him about Voldemort and his Death Eaters, about the Order of the Phoenix and the Boy Who Lived. But not today.

"Look behind you, Teddy. You see that tree? That's the Black family tree, and you're on it." Quickly, he showed the boy the names of everyone he knew and left him to admire the pictures while he went to fetch Draco.

"Uncle Harry?" Harry paused at the doorframe. "What does the tattoo mean?"

"It means you're going to have to wait until you're six and three quarters to know that," Harry replied to Teddy's great disappointment.

As he left, he heard several metallic clunks, followed by two soothing voices saying how Draco was a meanie, how chocolate was the cure for every good cry, and did Teddy have a lake in his bedroom?

Harry found Draco in the bedroom, tossing all of his clothes into his suitcase.

"Teddy's okay," he announced, causing the blond to jump.

Draco closed his eyes and breathed deeply. "What did you tell him?"

"That you loved him very much and weren't going to leave him," Harry replied, eyeing the suitcase warily. "Should I go tell him I was wrong?"

Draco looked down at the shirt in his hand, before tossing it on the floor. "No."

"Good," Harry replied, dumping the contents of the suitcase back into the closet. "Because you'd be in a bodybind curse before you could say hippogriff. I don't care what you've got tattooed where, you can't just run away like that."

"I wasn't running away," Draco protested. "I pack up all my belongings when I'm nervous." Harry raised his eyebrow. "It's a bad habit."

"I tend to wash our pink tablecloth with someone's white dress shirts when I'm pissed off." Harry leaned against the wall and folded his arms. "It's a bad habit."

Draco kicked his suitcase across the room. It came dangerously close to knocking Harry's shin. "I have lots of bad habits you don't know about. That— thing is just one of them. Seeing it on Teddy…" Draco shook his head. "He's not safe around me."

"That's ridiculous! It was a fake tattoo."

"And I have a real one."

"Yes, you do." Draco's mouth twitched. Perhaps he'd expected Harry to be more forgiving than he had been to himself. "You're a former Death Eater. You're also Teddy's uncle. You choose which one is more important."

"Why do you think I'm doing this? Because he's not important to me?"

"I think you're doing this because you're afraid," Harry snapped. Draco muttered something about Gryffindor under his breath, which Harry ignored. "You're afraid of how he'll react when he finds out what you did, so you're trying to make the choice for him."

"That's not it," Draco protested. "You don't understand."

Harry thought it was a weak excuse, but then, insulting Harry's intelligence had always been a favorite pastime of Draco's. "Maybe not. But if I don't understand, imagine how Teddy feels. Just—" Harry sighed and brushed his hand through his hair as he was apt to do when he was frustrated. "Just go down there, tell him you love him, and give him a hug, okay? That's all he needs." Right now, he wanted to say but swallowed the words. He didn't want to think about that future time when Teddy would maybe want to punch Draco more than hug him.

Draco frowned and said something inaudible.

"What was that?"

"But does he?" Draco blurted, more assertive. "You saw me, I'm not exactly the world's best role model. We've met, what, five times? He wouldn't miss me."

"Are you kidding me?" If Teddy weren't in dire need of two semi-responsible guardians, Harry would have punched the blond. Or else wrapped him in a bear hug and refused to let go. "That's not how family works, Draco."

Draco opened his mouth, then froze. If he was having an epiphany, it didn't look like a good one. Unexpectedly, the Slytherin started laughing and flopped onto the bed. "You know what I was thinking just then? You would know. You, with the adoring hoards, and me, family-less, sitting on a bed, thinking, You would know. That's the person you're sleeping with, Harry. I just thought you should know."

Harry would be lying if he said that didn't hurt at all. But he could handle the immature schoolboy with the lame insults. It was the other person that scared him. "Well, the person I'm sleeping with isn't in the habit of thinking out loud. He would save us all a lot of trouble if he did, but he doesn't, so I think we're okay. And I'm the one who's sleeping with him, so…" He met Draco's eyes. "I would know."

Draco looked down. Determined to drive the point into the blond's thick skull, Harry joined Draco on the bed. "Talk to Teddy. Tell him why he acted how you did. Children will listen if you're willing to tell them."

"But what can I tell him?" Draco asked helplessly. "That I'm a murderer who worked for the most evil monster of the century? Don't you see? If I stay silent, he'll hate me. If I tell him, he'll hate me even more."

Harry shook his head. "He doesn't know how to hate yet." Draco opened his mouth to argue, but Harry cut him off. "He doesn't. That's something you don't learn until it's been drilled into your head by someone you love or until you don't have anyone you love left. You pointed it out earlier." Harry lifted the hem of his shirt to reveal a thin scar on his back. Unlike his infamous scar, it wasn't on display for the whole world to see, and it sure didn't look like a lightning bolt. Just an ambiguous line that could have come from anywhere or anyone. "I would know."

Gently, Draco reached forward and stroked the scar. "Harry…"

"I'm not a child anymore," Harry said, pushing him away. "I've cast the Cruciartus curse. I've lived in Voldemort's head. I love, and I hate. That ship sailed a long time ago, and you missed your chance to do anything about it. Now you have another, and you want to throw it away?"

His voice had inadvertently risen to a shout by the end. Draco was wincing. "Of course I don't want that! I just… I'm a horrible person."

Harry smacked his palm against his forehead. No wonder he was so good at talking to five-year-olds. He'd been living with one for the past few months. "That's not the lesson you're supposed to be taking away from this."

"I promised I'd be better than my father," Draco continued. "It was going to be easy, because I was never going to be a father. Not after— and then you and Teddy… You have to understand, running away isn't always the cowardly thing to do. I never had the courage for it during the war." He stared down at his forearm sadly. "And I haven't the courage for it now either. But seeing that tattoo on him… It wasn't just the memories. It was like looking into a crystal ball. I can't let that happen to Teddy."

"Voldemort's dead. It can't happen."

"I know," Draco said, wiping his eyes. "But lots of things that can't happen do, just so my nightmares can come true." He plastered a smile on his face. "We should find Teddy. There's a lot I need to say to him."

"Draco." Harry caught Draco's arm as he stood up, his fingers wrapped around the Dark Mark. What was it Draco had just said? That nightmares became true? Not that memories became nightmares? Harry had ignored the subject for the longest time. Now wasn't ideal, but it was better than never. "We need to talk about your nightmares."

"I'm on display, naked in the Hufflepuff Common Room," Draco said. "It's quite traumatizing."

"I'm serious. I can tell when they're bothering you."

Draco paused for a moment. "They don't bother me so much when you're around."

The fact that Draco willingly admitted such made Harry certain that he was hiding something.

~D~H~

They weren't even halfway up the stairs when they heard laughter coming from the tapestry room. Draco gave Harry a wary glance. "Maybe I should yell at him more often."

Harry jabbed the blond with his elbow. "He's probably amusing himself by wiping boogers on your face."

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Draco reach up and rub his cheek, as if assessing valuable real estate. If Harry hadn't felt so fondly about said face, he would have found the mental image hilarious.

"…the pig tails, I tell you," insisted a voice that Harry recognized as Scorpius. "That is the way to a girl's heart. I tried it with Albus once. Turns out, it has nothing to do with the actual tail of a pig."

"Or you could offer her chewing gum," Albus said. "Then, when she says yes, take the piece you're chewing out of your mouth. That's, like, indirect kissing."

"What if she's an uncle instead of an aunt?" Teddy asked.

The doorknobs stopped dancing around on the floor and gave each other a glance. Perhaps Harry should have clarified that just because two men dated did not mean that they were both uncles. "Then you have bigger problems than getting her attention," Albus said.

"I could set you up with a toaster oven, if you're into that," Scorpius offered helpfully.

"And I could set you into a toaster oven," Harry said, interrupting the conversation before it could get any weirder. "Don't you two have some, er, lock picking to do or something?"

Scorpius looked horrified. "Ew! I don't pick my lock in public." He jerked his head towards Albus. "Albus does."

"There was a beetle nesting in there," Albus complained.

"Uncle Draco!" Teddy leapt to his feet. "I'm very sorry for copying your tattoo. Grandma always told me that no one likes a copycat."

Even after everything, Draco couldn't stop the traces of a smile from coming to his lips. "You can copy my hair anytime you want, Teddy. But your grandmother's right, you shouldn't copy everything you see." He ushered Teddy into a chair, then sat beside him. "I'm sorry for yelling at you earlier. Did Uncle Harry tell you what the tattoo means?"

"He said it was a very bad word. Like poopy."

Draco struggled to contain his laughter. "Well, yes, but that's not the whole story. And I'm a much better storyteller than Harry, so I'm going to tell you the whole story."

Crap. Maybe telling Draco to be honest with Teddy wasn't the best idea. "Draco, are you sure this is appropriate?"

"When you were four, you believed your parents died in a car crash," was all the blond said.

"What's a car crash?" Teddy asked.

"I'm not entirely sure myself, but it sounds like some sort of infection," Draco replied. Taking a deep breath, he rolled up his sleeve and showed Teddy his Dark Mark. "You see this tattoo?"

Teddy's eyes grew out of their sockets into a binocular-like shape. "Yes. Do you have a tattoo on your bum?"

Draco blinked. "No." He folded his arms deliberately. Harry could tell that it was an excuse to hide the tattoo from Teddy. "What exactly has Uncle Harry been telling you?"

Teddy's eyes receded to their normal shape, although they still seem wider than normal. "Does Uncle Harry get to see your bum?"

Harry buried his face in his hands as Draco started stammering. Andromeda was going to kill him.

"Er, no, not—let me tell you about the tattoo." Behind his hand, Harry smiled. Leave it to Teddy to make talking about Death Eaters seem comfortable in comparison. "You see, Teddy, there was a gang, led by a very bad man, and every member of the gang had the same tattoo—this one. My father was a member of the gang, and so was most of my family."

"Why?" The eternal question of five year olds.

"Because I was a copycat too," Draco answered. "That tattoo is a reminder of everything stupid I did when I was young. When I saw it on you, I got scared. That's why I yelled. I was scared."

Teddy frowned. "Grown-ups get scared?"

Draco met Harry's eyes. "Yeah. Sometimes, they do."

A brief silence settled over the room that Teddy broke quickly. "So you're not mad at me anymore?"

"No, I'm not mad," Draco said. "I was never mad." A brief glint flashed over his eyes, almost like a tell, but he shook it off. "But I had better never see that tattoo on your arm again. No tattoos, period, until you're thirty—at least!"

Scorpius hopped up on Teddy's shoulder. "If you want a piercing, though, Albus has a doornail that would match your eyes perfectly!"

Teddy's eyes quickly changed from brown to emerald green. Harry cleared his throat. "Now I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

As they left the room, Teddy spoke up. "Uncle Draco? That very bad man who led the gang—what happened to him?"

It was the first time Harry had seen Draco smile when Voldemort was mentioned. "Your uncle Harry rescued me from him." Subtly, he grabbed Harry's hand and squeezed. "He can't hurt us anymore."

~D~H~

Later that night, as they were putting Teddy to bed, the boy asked, "Uncle Draco? You said you're a much better storyteller than Uncle Harry, right?"

"I'm pretty much better at everything than Uncle Harry," Draco told the boy, earning him an eye roll from Harry.

Teddy bounced up and down. "Tell me a story!"

"If you insist," Draco replied, clearly savoring the moment. "Is there any one you had in mind?"

"I want to hear my favorite!"

"And what's that?"

"Draco the Amazing Bouncing Ferret."

When Harry reentered the room twenty minutes later, an incredibly baffled five year old sat on his bed, more wide-eyed than ever. "Uncle Harry, you've been telling the story all wrong!"

"Oh?"

"Yeah! It was the Weasel's fault all along!"

Harry sighed, shaking his head. In some ways, Draco had changed not a bit. "Time to get some sleep." Draco gave Teddy a goodnight kiss and left the room. Harry lingered in the doorway as he watched the boy settle in. "Teddy?"

The boy made a sleepy sound.

"The ferret turns into a princess when the scar-faced boy kisses it."

"And they live happily ever after?" came the sleepy reply.

Harry looked down the hallway to where Draco was getting ready to shower. "Yes. Yes, they do."

He ran into Kreacher as he left the room. "Master Harry!" the elf shouted. Harry tried to shush the elf, but Kreacher plowed ahead with passion he normally reserved for fussing over Regulus's belongings. "Kreacher is seeing someone approach with a letter! Filthy blood traitor!"

"Harry?" Draco called from the other room. "What's going on?"

"Nothing!" Harry called back, before apparating down to his doorstep.

A figure in a black cloak was crouched over the stoop, letter in hand. Dragon hide gloves, Harry noted. Figures. The figure nearly collided with Harry as he snapped his head up, startled by the sound. He tried to duck under Harry's grasp, but Harry caught hold of the figure's hood and yanked hard, ripping it off to reveal…

Harry's breath caught in his chest. "You."

Last chance to guess who it is! Thanks again for all the reviews!