Five years after the biggest celebration of Harry Potter's life, he was spending the day at home at Number 12, Grimmauld Place, in London. His house elf Kreacher brought a tray of tea cups and biscuits into the parlor and set it on the table. His wife Ginny sat on the floor on the other side of the table, with their son James Sirius in her lap.

James was a year old, and he started reaching for a biscuit right away. Harry took one of the smaller biscuits and passed it to Ginny. She broke it in half and handed one piece to her son. She took a bite from the other half.

Harry said, "James loves Kreacher's biscuits as much as you do."

Ginny tried to reply, settled for nodding, with a giggle around a mouthful of biscuit.

There was a knock at the door. Harry got up and pulled his wand from his sleeve pocket. Touching the tip to the peephole in the door, the whole door became transparent.

Draco Malfoy stood at his door.

There was a young woman standing at the curb behind him. She appeared ready to wait patiently.

Harry checked the indicators around the edges of his transparent door, there wasn't anyone else around. He opened the door.

"Draco."

"Hello, Harry. Thank you for opening the door, I could understand if you hadn't. Can we talk? I'd just like a few minutes."

Harry thought for a moment. In his life, Draco qualified to be among the top five people he hated the most. But this Draco seemed different than the boy who tormented and teased him during the entire time he spent at Hogwarts. He decided that he wanted to hear what this Draco had to say.

He opened the door and gave a small sweeping bow. "Please, come in."

Draco stepped inside.

Harry asked, "Is that your wife?"

Draco turned and smiled. "Yes, Astoria is prepared to wait. I don't expect to be long."

"She can come in, if it's alright with you."

Draco made a come-here gesture to his wife. She came up the steps and Harry repeated, "Please, come in."

Harry closed the door after she entered.

Draco said, "I don't know if you remember her. Harry Potter, meet Astoria Greengrass Malfoy. Astoria, Harry Potter."

Harry said, "It's a pleasure seeing you. You're Daphne's little sister? I remember seeing you at Hogwarts."

"I'm honored, Mister Potter." Astoria was lovely, but very pale. Harry briefly wondered if he had just invited a vampire into his house. Then he remembered the family who had owned the place previously, and thought she couldn't be the first vampire, if that's what she was.

"Please, have a seat in the parlor."

Ginny had heard the voices, and she was now sitting on the divan, holding James. Her wand was in her hand. James kept trying to play with it, but she pulled it away.

Ginny said, "Hello, Astoria."

"Hello, Ginny. It's good to see you. Who's this handsome man?"

Harry called, "Kreacher, we need two more cups of tea, please." Then he followed Draco and Astoria into the parlor and waved them to seats. Harry sat next to Ginny, which put him directly across from Draco.

Ginny introduced their son, "Draco, Astoria, this is James Sirius Potter."

Astoria and Ginny gushed over James until Kreacher had finished serving.

Draco cleared his throat and took a sip of tea. "Harry, if you don't mind, I'll come to the point." He took a deep breath. "I want to apologize to you, and to Ginny, for everything I did and said to you at Hogwarts, and wherever else we met. I was a shitty brat back then, and I was terrible to you."

Harry was flabbergasted. "Wow, that must have hurt. What brought that on?"

Draco smiled weakly, "Actually, it feels terrific to have said it. My son has changed my view of the world, and I didn't like the person I saw in the mirror. I'm trying to find a better me."

Harry asked, "You have a son, too? What's his name?"

Astoria answered, with a proud smile, "Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy. He's about the same size as James."

"That's great, congratulations!" Harry said.

"Thank you! We tried so hard, and when we found out that Astoria was actually going to have a baby, I had a night of revelation. I didn't want to be the father to my son that my father has been to me. So I decided to break my old habits, and make amends as well as I could to all the people I had hurt."

"That's huge, Draco. Um, we don't need any amends, the apology was fantastic."

"I can see. Your house looks very nice. Beautiful and comfortable at the same time. We're going for that concept as well, but transforming the old mansion is difficult. The standard Black family style of rich, lavish, austerity. So hard to get right, and so easy to look ugly."

Harry smiled grimly, "Oh, yes. I'm familiar. We've had a lot of help, from Ginny's mum Molly, then our elf Kreacher has just been amazing, once he got used to us living here."

Draco watched James. Ginny had lifted a toy from the floor for him, and he was pounding it against his leg.

"James Sirius. I thought a lot about Sirius Black before we came here. Your parents murdered when you were just a little older than this boy, then you were put with a non-magic family who hated you. Not just non-magic, but anti-magic, weren't they? And I was so happy, back then, because here was a boy whose life was even shittier than mine. It made me feel so much better about my life."

Draco looked at Harry. "I said I was a little shit, didn't I?

"And then you got a godfather, a man who could love you and be just like your dad would've been." Tears were streaming down Draco's face. "I was so jealous of that, I hated you so much, that when I heard that Sirius died I was happy about it."

He sobbed. "I don't want to hate anyone, anymore. I don't want to be jealous or envious, anymore." Astoria passed him a kerchief. "I'm working really hard on those things."

His tea was cooling, and he took a big gulp. "Now, I can say that I'm sorry Sirius was killed, and I'm sorry for the lost years when he could have been your dad. He might've been here today."

Harry teared up at that, and he reached for his own kerchief.

"And so, Harry Potter, I want you to understand that my apology is sincere and comes from the bottom of my heart. I don't expect you to forgive me. I honestly haven't forgiven myself. And I don't expect you to accept my apology. But I hope that, at least, we can stop being enemies. I don't dream that we could ever be friends, but I'd like if we can be friendly."

Harry wiped his eyes and stood up. He said, as Draco stood to face him, "I do accept your apology. A lot of my own attitude towards you was a reflection of your behavior, but I will think quite seriously about apologizing to you. I'm not ready for that yet, but I hope to be one day. I don't know if I can ever forgive you, but I'll think on that as well. And yes, I would be glad for us to stop being enemies."

He put out his open right hand. Draco smiled and shook it.

Astoria stood also. Ginny put James on the floor and followed them to the door. They all shook hands and then Harry opened the door so they could go.

After closing the door, Harry said, "That's something I never thought to experience."

Ginny said thoughtfully, "Do you know what convinced me the most that he was sincere? He never sneered."

"You're right, he didn't. Wow."

"Even when he said your name, and he always sneered when he said it. He was just a little spoiled shit."

Harry laughed.

The next morning there was a short article in the Daily Prophet that the Malfoy Family Trust was donating one hundred thousand galleons to a Muggle charity that helps homeless people.

Harry commented, "Wow! That's a lot of sincerity!"