Authors Note: Sorry I've taken so long to update, finals have been killing me lately. Okay, so I'm going to start putting warnings at the start of chapters if they apply, out of respect to anyone who is triggered by certain material. So, if there are any triggers you want me to warn about ahead of time, please let me know. I'l probably go back and add them to the start of my other chapters too, since I know there is some stuff there that not everybody is comfortable with. Also, I'm thinking of adding a sex scene that would be a fairly explicit, and I wanted to know if you would prefer I made that a seperate chapter that way if anyone is uncomfortable with it they can skip that part? Please continue to read, enjoy, and review!

-Pondering

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Harry didn't answer any of Hermione's floo calls for four days, and he ignored her owl every time it tapped its beak against the window. It circled the house insistently, and eventually Albus intercepted it from the kitchen, and brought the letter upstairs, sliding it under the gap of the door when he wasn't given entrance. He walked away down the hallway without a word, and Harry sat in miserable silence, staring at the letter in the floor and trying to decide whether it was worth getting up for. His back hurt from sitting in his wooden office chair for so long, and when he finally forced himself to his feet it was to creaking protests from his knees. He had never felt older.

He had been sleeping in the office, and only left to sneak into the bathroom or to fetch a quick meal from the pantry. Mostly, he was surviving on stale crackers and warm water from the tap. James had stopped trying to talk him out of the room by the second day, and had flooed with Lily to Ginny's, while Albus stayed behind, worried he would miss out on getting news about Scorpius. Harry could hear him running a load of laundry in the basement, and if the situation was any different he would have had a bubble of pride for his son that he had taken it upon himself to take over the household chores. He couldn't stop replaying the day at the burrow, though; Scorpius's pale mouth open in a silent scream, Draco's face wet with tears and humiliation, Ron's back slamming into Molly's china cabinet, his children looking at him with a fear that he knew he deserved. It was all too much, and he didn't want to feel anything ever again.

He picked up the letter, blinking sleep out of his eyes, and the remnants of a session of tears he hadn't been bothered to stop, and he popped the wax seal off of the envelopes front. He belatedly realized it wasn't from Hermione after all, but from Ron, who had simply written that he would be at Harry's house at five that afternoon to go through the files that were still stacked in the corner of Harry's bedroom. Harry didn't bother replying, and grudgingly forced himself out of the office. Albus ducked into his room when he saw Harry emerge, not bothering to greet him, and Harry was glad for it. He was afraid of what may come out of his mouth, even if he was sure he wasn't under the influence of anything anymore. He decided a warm shower would do him good, and when he got a look at the grease shining in his hair he couldn't argue it in the slightest.

He stayed standing still beneath the hot water for longer than he meant to, letting the warm spray chase the sweat and dirt off of his back. It was much nicer than he anticipated, and it did wonders to clear his head. He washed his hair twice, not because he needed to, but because he didn't quite want to get out of the water, and needed to do something to occupy his mind if he planned to stay. When he got out the water wasn't warm anymore and his skin was plagued with goosebumps as he stood in his bedroom examining his dresser for proper clothing. His skin was still damp when he pulled on jeans and a tee shirt, both of which stuck to his skin uncomfortably. He moved the case files from his bedroom and into the kitchen, taking three trips to get everything down there. When he came down for the last time Albus had emerged from his bedroom, and was sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through Harrys notes about the case, where he had detailed the effects of the curse he had believed he was under.

"You shouldn't be reading that." Harry said, and surprised himself with how tired his voice sounded. It was like he hadn't used it in ages.

Albus startled, and dropped the paper that was in his hands, looking up to meet Harrys eyes guiltily. Harrys stomach roiled at the fear that flickered through his sons eyes, but it was gone in an instant. Albus said quietly, "I just wanted to know what was happening to you and Uncle Ron. I tried to send a letter to Aunt Hermione, but she won't tell me anything. Mister Malfoy says I should ask you, but you weren't talking either."

"You sent a letter to Malfoy?"

"I wanted to see if Scorp was okay. He said he was fine, but a little tired."

"Oh. Thats...thats good. I'm glad he is doing okay."

"Yeah." Albus said, and watched Harry go to the pantry to get food for lunch. He picked up the paper he had been reading, and began scanning it again.

"Is this new?" Harry asked, frowning at a loaf of bread that he was sure hadn't been there the last time he had come down for a handful of crackers.

"Mister Malfoy sent a house elf over with it. I told him you weren't leaving your office, so he's been sending stuff for lunch. Did you know that he has a flower tattoo on his ankle? The house elf told me."

"No, I didn't know that." Harry said, glad that his son was trying to make conversation, but ashamed that Malfoy had needed to send his children food. He hadn't known he was so needed. "Ron is coming over at five, to go through the case stuff."

"Oh." Albus said, and set the paper down again, much more carefully than he had before. "Dad, whats going on?"

"That's a good question." Harry said, almost smiling at the irony. He had been wondering the exact same thing lately. "I don't really know, son."

"You didn't really curse Scorp, did you?"

"No." Harry said determinedly, and hearing it out loud cemented it again. He had been debating about it, with the revelation that a curse wasn't effecting him, but now that he had said it the certainty was back; he hadn't cursed Scorpius-well, not on his own, he hadn't.

"Your notes said that an auror killed her whole family from the same thing happening to her. You're not like that, are you? You don't want to kill me?"

"Never, Al." Harry said, astonished by the question, even though he was sure he should have expected it. "I wouldn't-I would never hurt you. Whatever this is, I'm fighting it. I won't let it get to you, or to your brother and sister."

"What is it, though? What's happening? You still haven't told me."

Albus deserved to know, Harry decided, and suddenly he was telling his son everything he knew about the case. He kept talking even as he made them both sandwiches, and he was honest even when he and his son both had tears lining their eyes. He and Al kept talking up until the doorbell rang, and Ron walked in to find them both sitting close at the kitchen table, half-crying over the stories of some of the victims of the curse. It was like opening a fresh wound, talking about the kids that had been killed by their own parents from the curse. Harry couldn't help putting himself into their situation, and his own grief bled over into Albus, who would gulp down a sob and reach across the table to grab his fathers shaking hand.

"Where are your other two?" Ron asked when he walked into the kitchen. He had grey bags beneath his eyes, and his clothes were rumpled like he had been sleeping in them. There was a crease from a pillow on his face, and Harry realized that he probably had been.

"They're with Ginny." Harry told Ron softly, recognizing the awkwardness in the air at his arrival. Albus quickly stood up and kissed his fathers cheek before he retreated upstairs, leaving the men to talk.

They were silent for a long moment, and Ron finally sighed, "Just say it, would you? I shouldn't have spied on him and gone through his private files."

"I don't have to say it." Harry sighed with difficulty, "You already know. What you did is between you and Draco, not you and me."

"Made any headway in the case, then?" Ron asked, clearing his throat and gesturing to the boxes that were stacked on the table.

"Not even slightly." Harry sighed, and gestured for Ron to take a seat. "Hermione got any theories?"

"None. She and Malfoy have been lettering each other for the past few days to see if maybe there was a way the spell was made undetectable, but spells aren't Malfoys area of expertise, and 'Mione is out of practice, even if she is a genius about that sort of thing."

"Fuck." Harry said, just because he could. He couldn't think of any better word to express the feelings of the situation.

"Fuck." Ron agreed, nodding sagely.

They poured over the files until nine, and their work was mostly silent, but no new information was unearthed, and Ron had to get back home to tuck the kids into bed; something he had been doing religiously since the incident at the burrow. He was clearly afraid to see something happening to his children if he was gone too long. Harry had the opposite fear, and though the day had gone relatively smoothly since he left the office, he still went to bed feeling nervous and agitated.

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He woke up at noon the next day, to a frantic knocking on his front door. Fear struck deep in his heart and he launched out of bed with his wand gripped tightly in his hand, practically running out of his room and down the hall to the front door, his heart beating explosively in his chest. The knocking continued, growing louder by the second. Harry opened the door poised to curse whoever was behind it, but the hex died in his throat when he saw Draco standing there, looking for all the world as if the world had just opened beneath his feet and swallowed him whole. His face was crumpled with heartbreak, and his shoulders shook with sobs. His knuckles were cut and bloody from pounding so hard on Harry's door.

"It's Scorpius." Draco sobbed, before Harry could say a word.

"The curse-"

"St. Mungo's asked us to come in again this morning. They-they ran a test by mistake the last time we were in and they-they found something."

"You're not making sense. Draco-"

"He's got what Astoria had. He's dying, Harry, my only kid is dying." Draco sobbed into Harry's shoulder. Harry didn't remember hugging him, but his knees burned and he realized they had both collapsed on the concrete in front of the door, and were holding each other like lifelines. Harry couldn't breathe, his lungs had fallen out from under his ribs so fast. Draco just continued to cry into him, repeating in agony, "My son, my son, my son."

They sat for what must have been hours, huddled in the doorway, before Harry had gotten Draco to his feet and led him up the stairs to the kitchen. He fixed them hot chocolate as Draco tried to control his breathing, and when the blond let him he wet a washcloth and dabbed it gently against the cuts on Draco's hand. Then, when he had stopped bleeding and they both had steaming mugs in front of them, Draco told him everything.

St. Mungo's had sent him a letter the day before, apparently, asking him to bring Scorpius back to discuss some test results. An intern had run a test on accident, and had uncovered something that they hadn't been looking for. Scorpius Malfoy was suffering from a lung disease; the same one that had claimed Astoria's life so many years before. They had given Scorpius a year and a half to live, and had admitted him to the hospital for a week to run more tests on his condition. Draco had been told he couldn't see his son until the testing was completed, and he had immediately appareted to Harry's. Suddenly, the case seemed like the least terrifying thing in the room, now that he knew the man he loved was going to lose his only son.

Draco looked at him with wide, glassy eyes, and asked brokenly, his chin wobbling, "What am I going to do, Harry? He's my only son. Why couldn't it have been me? What do I-What do I do, Harry?"

For what felt like the hundredth time that week, Harry didn't have the answer. All he knew was that everything just got much more complicated. He loved Malfoy, he loved Scorpius just as much, he hadn't told either of them that, and now one of them was dying, and the other wanted to.