Authors Note: Sorry to update so late! Had a surprise surgery that took me out for a couple weeks. Reviews are appreciated, I'll try to update soon! (Also, this chapter was fueled by pain meds so I probably won't even remember writing it later)

The next morning it rained, dark clouds swelling up over the street ominously. Harry had a pounding headache from the weather, and was hyperaware of the fact that he had kissed Malfoy the day before. It felt like ages since it had happened, and he couldn't help wondering if he had offended the blond by leaving so quickly. He wondered if it was raining over Malfoy Manor, and whether Draco was keeping himself warm in the frigidness of his home.

Hermione and Ron flooed into his house during breakfast, and if Harry had been any less miserable he would have hexed them on the spot for the intrusion. As it was, he felt unusually groggy and his reflexes were far from their peak form. Albus didn't even look up from his cereal, as if he had expected them to tumble through the fireplace. He always seemed to know more than Harry these days.

"I talked to Draco." Ron said, after ten minutes of them standing in silence in Harrys doorway. Harry immediately looked up at them, and noticed that both their eyes were framed in red, as if they had spent the morning crying. "He, uhm, he told us about Scorpius."

They didn't need to say more. Harry swallowed his mouthful of toast, which began to feel dry at the reminder of the boy, and he asked as casually as he could manage, "How did he seem?"

"He's a mess, Harry." Hermione said, and finally stepped into the room to drop herself heavily into the chair beside him. Ron continued to stand, looking as if he felt incredibly out of place. "Why didn't you mention anything to us? We went to pick up those calming potions the healers recommended for Ron, and we saw Malfoy in the cafeteria by himself. We went to join him, and he told us why he was there."

"Oh." Harry said, struggling to imagine how that conversation had gone.

"Mate, he's not doing well." Ron said with difficulty, "They won't let him see Scorp for another five days and I don't think its wise for him to be by himself."

"What do you mean by that?" Harry asked with a frown.

"I'm not saying that he can't be alone, I just think we should check up on him more often. His magic is acting up from the stress and he needs somebody around that can help him get through it."

"Dad is seeing him tonight." Albus supplied helpfully, startling Harry. He had forgotten his son was still in the room with them.

"Are you?" Hermione asked, frowning. "He's talking to you now, then?"

It was as if she knew he felt guilty for kissing Malfoy. Harry settled for nodding, avoiding the sharpness in her gaze. He figured he wouldn't need to mention the part where they had nearly fucked, but the idea was gone when Albus spoke up again.

"Course they are. It's a little difficult to snog somebody if you don't even want to talk to them, isn't it?"

Harry pretended he didn't feel the heat rising in his cheeks, and he said quickly, before anybody could say anything to scold him, "Al, why don't you go upstairs to your room for a bit so I can talk to Ron and Hermione privately?"

"I'm not finished with breakfast yet." Albus frowned.

"You can take it to your room and eat it." Ron said, before Harry could respond. It wasn't what Harry would have suggested at all, but he was grateful to see Albus disappearing up the stairs without a fight for once. Hermione was glaring daggers at him once his son was gone. Ron looked impressed, and took the seat Albus had vacated with a smirk.

"Kissed him, did you?" He asked, grinning from ear to ear. "Rose owes me five galleons when we get home."

"That's not funny, Ron." Hermione admonished, and turned sharply back to Harry, saying furiously, "Do you have any idea how unfair that is? His son is dying, He is an emotional mess, and he can't make decisions properly right now."

"Well, he didn't seem to hate it too much." Harry frowned at her. He had known that sex would be wrong with the state they were in, but a bit of kissing had seemed almost harmless, if only to distract them from Scorpius's condition.

"Harry, it's not the right time for you two to do this. He wants a distraction; he wants something to numb the pain, and right now that's you."

"But-"

"Listen to me, will you? It's not smart. He's in pain and you're in pain, and its not fair for either of you to use that as a catalyst for this relationship to work. He needs to grieve his son, and you need to be there for him...but not in the way you want to be. You haven't worked out any of your issues, and if you two can't learn to cope your relationship will be doomed to fail."

"You think that he only wants me because he's upset." Harry accused, although he knew she had a point, "You think I'm manipulating him."

"No, I think you're both in a very dark place right now, and I don't think either of you are ready for this relationship."

"She's right, mate." Ron said after a long moment looking between the two of them. "Malfoy needs to be able to focus on his son, and we need to focus on finding out what happened to us. If whatever it was hits us again, Malfoy and his son could get hurt again."

Harry winced, assaulted by the image of Scorpius Malfoy lying on the floor of the burrow, pain in his eyes as his body spasmed from Harry's spell. Hermione was right. He couldn't afford to try and date Draco when he didn't know how safe it was for him to be around.

"Exactly." Hermione said with a hard nod. "We need to talk about work, too. I took a week of vacation time to help you both to figure this out. Kingsley doesn't know what happened."

"And we're not going to tell him." Harry nodded, and pushed down the image of Scorpius forcefully. "Nobody else knows that the old woman they arrested is innocent. If that information gets out, the real suspect will know we are still searching for them. Right now, we've got the upper hand. We know it has to be somebody in the ministry who caused all this, and even letting Kingsley know could risk tipping off the suspect."

"For all we know, Kingsley could be under the spell too." Ron added, paling at the thought. "He could have been under it the whole time."

"I've been thinking about that too." Hermione said, and swept her hair back into a ponytail, immediately signaling that they were in for a day full of hard work. She always put her hair up when she got serious.

XXXXX

They did work hard, for almost three hours, before Harrys mind began to wander away from their task and toward Draco. What was he doing all alone at the manor? Was he angry at Harry for not staying the night? Was he regretting their kiss? Harry hoped he wasn't. It hadn't been a very nice kiss-it was one of Harry's worse attempts, if he was being honest with himself-but it had felt right somehow, as if it was still good beneath the clacking teeth and hard angles and awkward positioning.

"If you're just going to sit there thinking about Malfoy the whole time, we may as well just pack up and bring everything to the manor." Hermione finally snapped, the third time Harry's eyes went hazy and out of focus. He didn't need to look at her to know she was glaring at him.

"Well, he could probably help us out in finding whatever little details we're missing." Ron said thoughtfully, "He was always good at stuff like that, wasn't he?"

Harry tried not to grin as Hermione frustratedly shoved their notes back into the case files. They were searching criminal records, looking for anyone with a history involving dark magic, and had come up with six suspects for the case. They were unlikely suspects, of course, but being able to put some names down onto paper had made it feel as if they were making progress, so Harry didn't complain.

Malfoy left his floo open, Harry was glad to discover. He had privately been worried when they had first stepped into the fireplace, thinking that perhaps Malfoy had been so upset over the night before that he had barred Harry entrance into his house. That would have really set Hermione off on him.

"Draco!" She called as they stumbled out onto a grey rug in Malfoy's office. He wasn't in there, and Harry wasn't sure if he was glad for it or not. They waited in silence for several seconds, but got no response.

"Malfoy, we brought your boyfriend to see you!" Ron shouted, his voice lifting at the end teasingly. Harry could feel hiss entire body heating up, and he elbowed Ron as hard as he could in the ribs, making him cough and double over in surprise. "Ow! I was only joking! Merlins balls, you've got pointy elbows, Harry."

Hermione rolled her eyes, and shouted over them as she led them into the hall, "Malfoy! It's Hermione, we brought some case files for you to look over! We think you could help us out!"

The only sound was the loud ticking of a grandfather clock at the other end of the hall, and Harry struggling to balance the three boxes of files that Hermione had handed off to him without a warning.

"Malfoy?" She called nervously, her eyebrows drawing together in worry. There was still nothing. "It's odd, isn't it? He said he was coming straight home when we saw him at the hospital."

"That was three hours ago." Ron reminded her gently, and Harry set the boxes down with a grunt, nearly losing his balance on his untied shoelace.

"Maybe we should split up and look for him; see if he's asleep." Harry suggested. "Or else he isn't here and we should just set up our stuff in his dining room and wait for him to get back."

"Yeah, because the thing he needs now is a heart attack, isn't it?" Ron snorted, "You can't just sit around in his house and hope for the best, he'll piss himself if he comes home to us just sitting there."

"And bursting through his floo unannounced was a better idea, how?" Harry asked, raising a single eyebrow in the way he had seen Malfoy do it a hundred times. He felt both go up after a moment. Well, Malfoy probably practiced at it, it wasn't Harry's fault he couldn't do it.

"Shut up, the both of you. I'm sure Malfoy's here, we'll just separate and go to find him. I'll go out to the garden and look around for him, Ron can check the kitchen and the front rooms, and Harry, you can take the back of the house and his bedroom."

"I'm not sure I'm allowed in there yet." Harry frowned, wondering what Malfoy would say if he knew Harry had been in his private space while he wasn't around. Worse, what if he was there? What would he do if Harry burst in unannounced and uninvited?

"Yet?" Ron smirked, "Sounds to me like you plan on being allowed there very soon."

"Oh, Ronald, please." Hermione groaned, "Will you just go down the hall already? You're acting like a teenager, and there is a man missing."

"Alright, alright." Ron said, raising his hands in surrender as he set off down the hallway, calling Malfoy's name every few steps. Hermione gave Harry a strange look before she followed his lead and Harry was left standing awkwardly, not quite sure where to go first.

He decided to check the bedroom last-or, he would have, if he had known where Malfoy's bedroom was to begin with. It ended up being the second room he went into, knocking loudly before slipping in through the door. He could immediately tell Malfoy wasn't in there, and he was sure he should have left, but a photo on Draco's bedside table caught his eye, and he ended up shutting the door behind him and approaching the picture with a fond smile and an odd flutter in his chest.

It was a picture of Draco and Scorpius, back when the latter was barely old enough to walk. Draco looked much younger then, he had thicker hair and brighter eyes and a much wider smile than Harry ever remembered seeing on him. There was a photo of his wedding day on the back corner of the nightstand, and Harry nearly laughed aloud. Draco was in a tuxedo that was ripped and covered in grass stains, and Astoria was beside him in a dress that had probably started out white and beautiful, but was instead stained with mud and grass. They were both on broomsticks, laughing at one another, clearly the best of friends. Harry felt his heart constrict. How was it fair that Draco had lost his best friend, and was going to have his son taken from him as well? How was it right that his bedside table would be full of pictures of dead people? His parents, his wife, Crabbe, and soon his son? Harry swallowed a lump in his throat, and was silently thankful that he had his kids, and Ginny. The divorce had started messy, but he supposed he turned out lucky in the end, all of his friends and family still intact. And what was more, he could still call Ginny a friend. Why couldn't Malfoy have that? Hadn't the war taken enough from everybody? Why was Draco still paying for it?

He turned away from the table with a sharp breath. He hadn't expected to feel so wronged by an innocent set of photos. He felt worse when he turned. He hadn't realized it when he first came in, but Malfoy had kept his room decorated as if Astoria was still alive. Her side of the bed was made, her bedside table still had her jewelry and half-empty bottles of perfume. A rack of her shoes was still against the far wall, next to her dresser, topped with moving pictures of her and her friends, back when days were brighter and people were happier.

There was a door tucked into the back of the room that light shone from under, and Harry focussed on it to avoid thinking about the sentimental part of Malfoy; the part that had left his wife's things untouched, as if he expected her to return any day, like she hadn't died years ago. Maybe Hermione was right; he was moving too fast, and their relationship-or whatever it was he and Draco had-was nothing but a bid to feel okay for once.

He pushed the thought away. He was sure in his feeling for Draco, he knew he was. Then he realized he was still looking at the light shining beneath the door and it didn't make sense for a light to be shining if Draco wasn't in there. He held his breath and walked to the door, knocking as softly as he could, praying that the blond had just been forgetful and left the lights on by mistake. He wasn't sure he could explain why he was searching Draco's room in a way that wouldn't sound creepy. Luckily, there was no answer. Unluckily, Harry tried the door anyways and opened it to find Draco Malfoy sitting in his bathtub, submerged up to his neck in bubbles, his mouth open and his face slack with sleep.

"You fucker." Harry cursed at himself, his face and groin rapidly heating. It was just his luck to find Draco naked and asleep the day after he had denied him sex and given him a mediocre kiss. He wanted to leave; he really wanted to find Hermione and tell her they had come at a bad time-but another (more sadistic) part of him wanted to wake Draco up just to see how he would react to seeing Harry there. Would he be glad to see him? Would he be horrified? Would he find it terribly arousing and demand Harry take him to bed immediately?

One of Draco's hands was sticking out from the bubble mountain, and Harry noticed with a swell of affection that the pads of his long fingers had gone soft and prune-like. The water probably wasn't even warm anymore, and Harry was tempted to slip in beside Draco to see if his assumption was correct, but he immediately felt like a pervert for thinking that, and wondered what kind of weirdo he must be to be standing unwelcome in a bathroom fantasizing about a man who was unconscious in a bathtub and completely unaware of his presence.

Before he could guilt himself into leaving, a crack came from behind him, and a soft, high voice said happily, "Master Draco, Lizzy has fetched your strawberry custard from Florean's, sir. There be a long line, sir, but Lizzy waits for her master. Lizzy is-Oh!"

"No! Don't yell!" Harry hissed, horrified, as Malfoy stirred in the tub, water sloshing as he turned towards Harry blearily. It was too late, Lizzy let out a shriek that had Malfoy's grey eyes flying open, and he sat up straight in the bath, slipping briefly beneath the water and coming back up choking and spluttering.

"Master Draco is indecent Mister Harry Potter! Harry Potter is to wait in the foyer!"

"It's fine!" Malfoy shouted over her, blinking water out of his eyes and hugging the bubbles closer to himself (Not that Harry could see anything anyways) and blushing like mad. "It's fine, just give us a moment!"

"If master is sure..." Lizzy said slowly, narrowing her eyes at Harry and setting the tub of custard on the counter cautiously. It seemed like forever before she backed out of the room, sending Harry suspicious glances the entire way out.

Harry didn't know what to say, now that he was completely unaroused and horribly embarrassed to have been caught, so he settled for staring at the custard container and blurted uselessly, "Did you send your house elf for ice cream so you could eat it in the bathtub?"

"That's not any of your business." Malfoy answered, and his face flushed darker. There were already two empty containers on the floor by the tub that Harry hadn't noticed before.

"I can't believe you decided to go for a third. Aren't you going to make yourself sick?"

"No." Malfoy said quickly, just beginning to relax, though the color in his cheeks was still there and didn't look to be fading in the least. They were silent for a moment, just staring at one another, and Harry had the strange urge to laugh at their ridiculous situation, but had a feeling Draco wouldn't appreciate it if he did.

"I didn't mean to walk in on you. Hermione and Ron thought you could help us with our case, and when we couldn't find you we got worried."

"Well, uh, I'm just in here." Malfoy said, clearing his throat awkwardly and raising his chin to claim defiantly, "Taking a bubble bath and eating my feelings. Like a real man does."

"I'll just tell them I found you, then. You know; give you some time to get dressed and think of an excuse. I don't think you want them knowing the state you were in, exactly." Harry said, swallowing hard and feeling extremely glad that Malfoy had accepted his excuse without question.

"Yeah, because then you'd have to explain how you stood around watching me sleep in the bloody bath like a weirdo." Malfoy said with a smirk, and Harry smiled sheepishly back at him.

"I wasn't watching, I was trying to decide whether to wake you up or pretend you weren't home. Lucky Ron wasn't the one to find you."

"True," Draco agreed, frowning thoughtfully, "I can't imagine what he would do. Faint, do you think?"

"Yeah, that sounds reasonable from him. He'd probably be so terrified at what you'd do to him that he'd just keel over immediately." Harry said, then realized he'd been standing in the bathroom too long and said, stepping out, "I'll, uh, I'll make your excuses. We can say you took a nap with a silencing charm up and didn't hear us."

"Right." Draco nodded, and Harry closed the door quickly.

He was nearly out of Draco's bedroom completely when he heard a muffled shout of, "Wait! Potter!"

"Yeah?" Harry asked nervously, hoping Draco didn't ask him how long he had been standing in the bathroom while he slept.

"Give me twenty minutes to finish the custard before you tell them you found me!" Draco shouted back at him, and this time Harry did laugh, loudly.

"Are you serious, Malfoy?"

Draco replied, sniggering himself, "Fuck you, I waited half an hour for this custard and I'm bloody eating it!"

Maybe they weren't on such bad terms after all, then. Harry had a good feeling about the day. Maybe they would crack the case after all.