I Am Draco Malfoy-Potter
Chapter Eleven: Limited Time
"I can't believe I have to wear this."
Harry laughed at Ron as the red head looked himself over in the mirror. He looked on the edge of panic and he was standing uncomfortable in his ridiculous dress robes.
Ron whirls around to look at Harry and hisses. "What are those?"
Harry was dressed in a more conventional suit. Nice, refined, neat, and put poor Ron's dress robes to shame. "That's just not fair! I get to look like a bloody poof and Harry gets to look like a handsome Prince! No lace, no dodgy little collar."
Harry made himself stop laughing. "Well I expect yours are more traditional."
Ron stared baffled at him. "Traditional? They're ancient! I look like my great aunt Tessie." He catches the scent of his clothes. "I smell like my great aunt Tessie." He turned pleading eyes to Harry and got down on his knees. "Murder me Harry, please don't let Hermione see me like this."
Harry chuckled madly as he denied and started to call for Hermione.
"Harry no! Don't do this to me! I thought we were best mates!"
"'Mione! Get over here!"
Ron glared and got up, dusting himself off. "Some freaking friend you are."
Hermione stayed at the door as she called into the room. "What are you guys doing in there? I don't want to come in because I don't want Ron to see my dress."
Harry chuckled. "Yeah, Ron doesn't want you to see him in his dress either."
"Fuck you.." Ron hissed and Harry ran to the door to escape Ron's fist.
He bypassed Hermione and ran down the stairs, yelling back to her. "You take care of him. I have a date waiting for me!"
He leaves them behind and makes his way to the Great Hall where the Ball was being held. Soft music was already playing and there must have been people in there already, but as Harry came down the stairs, he saw a head of elegantly blond hair standing with his back to the stairs right at the foot of it.
Trying to remain quiet, Harry attempted to sneak behind Draco, he was caught though.
"Hello love."
Adoring eyes that looked at him like he was the last drop of water in a desert turned to him and he gasped. Draco looked amazing. He was dressed in an amazing dark blue dress robe that despite the 'robe' part clung effortlessly to his body.
He stood there proud holding out his hand for Harry to take and Harry was almost afraid to touch the perfect picture that the man made. Man...not boy. Harry thought silently to himself.
The blond was obviously getting nervous waiting down there for Harry to take his hand, so Harry snapped himself out of his daze and went down the last few stairs to reach the Slytherin he loved. Love...yeah, that's what this is.
"Are you ready?" Draco whispered as he kissed Harry's lips soundly, lasting only a few lonely seconds before it was pulled away.
"Ready?" Harry asked in confusion.
"To dance my love. It's traditional that the champions are the first to dance. Surely Mcgonagall told you."
Harry's eyes showed his panic. "No." He answered.
Draco smiled. "Oh well now you know."
Harry frowned. "Dragon, I can't dance. Mcgonagall even gave us lessons, I'm no good." He insisted, but Draco just squeezed him.
"Would you like me to lead then my love? The second we are in there, everyone will know exactly what we are to each other, so who will lead won't be too big a deal."
The brunet stilled and seemingly stopped breathing. "Oh yeah, that's right. Going to this Ball together would out us as a couple..."
Draco's grin confused Harry. "So we are a couple?" Draco asked eagerly.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Did you listen to the other words in that sentence?"
"No, because I don't care. Whether or not they support us or shun us, I'm by your side and that's the only place I ever want to be. They can't take you away from me." Draco replied simply as they came upon the door of the Great Hall and Mcgonagall spotted them.
"Here you are Potter. Are you and..." She stopped as she looked at Draco who was standing beside Harry holding onto his hand. Something in her face softened and that confused the young Malfoy. "Mr Malfoy ready?"
"Yes Ma'am." Draco answered for them.
"Good. Stand behind Mr Diggory, we shall send you in, in mere moments." Mcgonagall went on to Diggory and Cho, and Fleur and her Durmstang date, and Viktor and his date from Beauxbatons. Just as Mcgonagall said, it took only moments for them to be ushered through the doors of the Great Hall.
Being gawked at had never felt so uncomfortable.
Harry could take people judging him because of his scar, they were all things on his person, things that he couldn't help. But now, he was standing with Draco. He wasn't much afraid of what people would say about him, but how would this affect the Slytherin Prince.
"Come on Harry, put your hand on my shoulder. As long as you know the basics, I can lead you." Draco smiled calmly and Harry decide it didn't really matter. If Draco fell, he would pick him up.
Effortlessly for the first time, Harry danced. Being swept like away by the blond's strong, yet rather skinny arms. He was lifted, twirled, dipped he was getting so caught up in Draco's eyes so deeply that he barely even noticed that other people had taken the dance floor as well.
"Harry! You looked amazing!" Hermione was beaming at them as she dragged Ron to the dance floor. He was smiling but it was strained as he stood in his awkward robes.
"You look amazing to 'Mione." Draco answered and kissed her cheek. The girl blushed and smiled.
"You know, no matter how much things have changed, I'm really glad you came to the past for us."
After that she disappeared with Ron and Harry was once again caught up in Draco. It was the best night Harry had ever had. He was pretty sure that was what had happened to many other people too. Seamus took Ginny and they were laughing at a table with Neville and Luna, and Dean was having fun showing everybody what he could do on the dance floor. Not many Slytherins were present, only ones who had dates from other houses. A lot of them greeted Draco with a smile and Draco just grinned back.
It took hours for everyone to go back to their rooms. Harry and Draco included.
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When morning hit, it hit Harry right in the eye.
The young Griffindor moaned in despair as the sunlight blinded him. He turned around and buried his face into Draco's chest as he escaped the light.
They had come to the Room of Requirements that night, not wanting to walk in on anything that would be going on in either dorm rooms. So laying here on a big bed with a high window warming them up to a comfortable temperature felt pretty damn good.
The arms around Harry seemed to hold him like a vice whenever he moved. It was starting to hurt actually, so the brunet tried to awaken his blond.
"Draco?"
No answer, which was odd. During the summer the blond had been a light sleeper whenever they had slept on the same bed, he had woken up every time Harry had moved but now he remained unconscious as Harry tried to get those pale arms to loosen.
"Draco?" He tried a little louder, but nothing seemed to be getting through.
Instead he was met with a tighter grip. "Draco..." Harry had to gasp for breath now as he hung onto Draco's arms, trying to pry them off.
"Don't leave..." The low murmur of Draco's voice made Harry stop. "Don't, please don't leave me alone..."
Harry's face fell. He had some idea of what this was, and if he was right, he would be better off waiting for the boy to wake up. It didn't seem so bad to wait, but the hold Draco had was bruising his torso. It was caving in his ribs and it just kept getting tighter. How strong was Draco?
"Don't my Raven..I need you...Harry."
He was right. Draco was dreaming about the future Harry's death. His death. Harry suddenly had a thought about how to reassure Draco.
"It's okay my love, everything's okay. I'm right here. Draco. I'm right here." He put his own arms around Draco and held him close, sighing in relief when Draco began to calm.
"Can't...can't. Don't...leave me.."
"I'm right here." Harry repeated softly and kissed Draco's face, anywhere his lips could reach. Soon Draco had stopped moving completely, his arms loosening their hold until they merely laid on Harry limply.
Harry smiled as he finally got Draco to calm down. He laid there for a moment, looking at the blond in wonder.
How far had they come since their first year at Hogwarts? How far had Draco, this Draco come? 34 Years old...Harry couldn't even honestly wrap his mind around it, but laying here with the blond, he could clearly see the differences. The mind and soul inside of Draco right now, the memories he carried, even his personality were so much older than his body. But Draco would grow to his mind.
He sat up and rested his back on the headboard, smiling when Draco wrapped an arm around him and pulled himself to lay on Harry's lap. The brunet started picturing an older Draco laying next to him. The 34 year old he had seen in some of the pictures in the album his future self had made. The strong jaw, thin and beautiful butterfly lips, the sharp eyes with laugh lines at the edges, the tall frame with strong arms that no doubt supported future Harry like no one else could have.
He wanted to describe what he felt. The wonder at the change his life had taken. The amazement and shock whenever he thought about this new Draco. The confusion and awe he experience thinking about his future and the lives he'd bring into the world.
Those four children in all those pictures that smiled at him. Even though it was just a simple picture he felt so strongly connected to those children.
"Harry?"
The brunet was startled out of his thoughts, looking to Draco who was now wide awake. "Harry is something wrong?" Draco looked worried and for a second Harry was confused until he felt something warm and wet drop onto his hand.
His hand came up to touch his cheeks and realized something.
He was crying.
Shaking his head, Harry started to laugh at himself, but when he started laughing the tears came faster and harder, and soon his laughs were sobs.
He hadn't noticed when exactly, but Draco was now sitting up by his side, arms wrapped tight around him, whispering things Harry didn't really understand into his ear. Apparently this seemed to happen a lot if Draco's calm voice was anything to go by. Draco often panicked when things he hadn't experienced before happen, so this wasn't unusual for Harry, that thought sent a bit of comfort through his system and the tears slowed.
"Was it a vision?" Draco asked when things had slowed down. Harry smiled at that. So Draco knew about his nightmares, probably more knew even than Harry from this time.
"No. I was just..." Harry paused wondering if the truth was okay to tell. "I was thinking."
"About what my Raven?" Draco raked his fingers over Harry's hair as he talked softly.
Harry didn't answer for a while before he actually opened his mouth. "Scorpius." He answered. "Leonis, Lilian, James."
"What about them?" Draco asked nervously.
"What they'd be like. Would they be like you or me? Are they going to grow up loving Potions or Defense Against the Dark Arts? Just...stuff like that."
Draco smiled a bit at that. So Harry was just wondering the aspects of their children. What they would be like, how much he'd love them. Suddenly Draco wanted to see their children again as well.
"Scop, he's very much like you. He's kind and understanding, especially to his siblings. But he has a tendency to expect too much out of himself. He loves Potions, just a bit more than me. Leonis is more like me, his got a habit of hiding things from the both of us. Fears, wounds, he never wants anything he does to make us sad or angry. He's really good with Transfiguration." He paused as he thought about it. They have probably grown quite a bit over the last year and a half.
"Lilian reminds me a lot of Sirius. Always playful, open, cheerful. She loves Charms like Hermione does, and at the age of 5 she was coming up with quite a few of her own. She doesn't cry often, in fact, ever since she was born, the only time I've seen her cry was the night you died." Draco thought about that night. The way he had refused to look at his children and the guilt captured his stomach violently. He's children had been relying on him and he had let them down. Just like he had let Harry down.
"Jamie isn't the same." The blond continued, not liking the turn his thoughts had taken. "He's a bit of a crybaby and he hides behind his twin sister even when there isn't anything to be afraid of. He only ever truly opened up to you, even I couldn't get him to talk much. He's really smart though, you used to tell me all the time how much he loved cooking with you, and Scorpius introduced him to Potions when he was 7, he loved it. He and I finally got the chance to bond over it." He felt his own tears starting to come, and when he looked at Harry, the Griffindor was crying too.
Yet he was also smiling.
"You sound like you really love them." Harry said softly. Draco frowned.
"We love them Harry. Both of us."
Harry laughed a bit as he nodded his head. Yeah. He loved those children.
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"Do you ever get the feeling that someone's talking about you?" Lilian lounged around the potions lab where Scorp and Jamie had been working on the potions for about three days now.
Scorpius turned to her with an odd look on his face as he let Jamie pour in the dust of Fairy's wings.
It had been three weeks since they found that clue he was sure his Uncle Sev had left for him in the open doorway of the library. It took them a whole week to finish the plans in the potion's theory, and two weeks to gather supplies. Scorpius had gone out in glamors that changed his eyes, his hair, and his face so no one would recognize him as a Malfoy-Potter.
"No, Lily, I've never had that feeling." Scorpius answered sarcasticly. She grinned at him.
"Yes you have! It's that little shiver you get every once in a while, even when it's warm outside. You've had it before, I remember you talking to Daddy about it one day." Scorpius laughed.
"That's being watching, not talked about."
Jamie laughed too and Scorpius smiled at him. "It's sneezing that's supposed to tell you when someone's talking about you." The young boy answered. He was 10 now, and had come out of his shell quite a bit since they'd finished the potions theory. He almost looked like a different boy.
Lilian pouted from the sitting area that stayed quite a ways away from the brewing station.
"Don't mock me. I just got this feeling that someone was talking about me." Her eyes suddenly down cast, turning sad. "Do you think Daddy would tell Papa about us?"
Scorpius sighed and looked at Jamie. Lilian had finished the Charm needed for the dimension travel, so she often took to bugging the two potions brewers about how fun it would be too meet the teenage versions of her parents. More often than not, conversation always got to this point "What was Daddy doing over there without us? Did he miss us? Do you think he still remembers us?" While all four were worrying about those questions, the three males refused to let themselves ponder it long enough to suffer from the emotions they brought.
Lilian however, was after all, a girl.
"If he did, I think Papa would be happy. If Daddy managed to get close to Papa in that parallel world, I'm sure he'd tell Papa everything. If Papa knew, he could fight back. Uncle Sev always said 'Knowledge is power'." Jamie smiled at his sister. "Papa's going to be so happy when he sees us, he's going to hug us, tell us he loves us, and then we'll be a family again."
"Jamie..." Leonis walked into the room just in time to hear James speak, and something inside him caved. Sharing a look with Scorpius, he started to explain the reality of their situations. "Jamie, we..."
"We wouldn't be able to stay there." Every head turned to Lilian as she finished Leonis' sentence for him. They were looking at her in shock and she shook her head at them sadly. "I'm not stupid, I know the charms and the potions, Daddy, Papa, Aunt Hermione, Uncle Ron, Uncle Sev, they all taught me just as many things as they taught you. We won't be able to stay in that parallel world once our other selves are born. Isn't that right Big brother?" She was looking at Scorpius and the oldest Malfoy-Potter looked down, unable to meet her eyes.
"No. We wouldn't."
"Once we see our parents, we will only have a limited time with them. Once they find our sergeant mother, create the potion, and have all of us, we will have to return to this world, or risk killing both us and our parallel selves." Lilian sighed and a tear rolled down her cheek. "No matter what we do our time is limited."
Leonis couldn't believe the words that his 10 year old little sister was saying. She'd known? She'd realized this and still worked so hard to remodel the Charm that would send them into a limited paradise? When had his sister become so strong.
"Dad managed to go into that parallel world by killing the soul in his body. He didn't take it's place, he erased it. Two of the same entity can not exists together. That is true. But-"
Jamie stopped Scorpius. "There is no but." He looked about ready to cry but he held it in, sniffling as he continued to stir the potion. "We'll get to see Papa, and we'll get to talk to Daddy, and Aunt 'Mione, and even our Grandparents. Whatever happens after, it's worth it."
The children looked around at each other, each one judging those words.
"Yeah." Leonis also allowed a tear to slip from his eyes before wiping both tracks away. "It's worth it."