Unfinished Business: Shattered Pieces
DISCLAIMER: Look at first chapter.
WARNING: Look at first chapter.
Game Changer
"Are you ready to go," McLaggen said as James stepped out of the Great Hall with his cousins and Frank behind him. "I have a lot planned for this day and I don't want to waste a minute of it," the blonde said as he held out his hand for James.
"Lead the way," James smiled coyly as he placed his hand within McLaggen's grasp and watched as the Ravenclaw place a gentle kiss on it.
Weeks had passed since James' little talk with Zabini. Things were still a little tense within the halls of Hogwarts. Though James had warned him to stay away, the Prefect continued to make his feelings known, though not always intentionally.
Blaise couldn't help it with thoughts of James agreeing to go out with McLaggen spinning around in his head. Even with his friends cautioning him about showing weakness, the thought of the eldest Potter going anywhere with that obnoxious Ravenclaw set his blood boiling.
There were others who also found the paring of the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw less then appealing, though their feelings were more finely concealed. Except for her initial objection to her cousin, Molly had said nothing on the matter. Though she had a bad feeling about the whole affair, she knew that warning her cousin was a waste of energy. Now Molly's only option was to wait it out until McLaggen showed his true colours.
"You worry too much," Vicky said to her cousin as they, Dominique and Frank watched James walk off with the Ravenclaw. "James can take care of himself."
"I just can't shake the feeling that he's getting in way over his head," Molly shook her head as the pair disappeared out of the school.
"Then how about some recognisance," Frank said as he draped his arm over her shoulder. "If we follow them, we can jump in if McLaggen tries anything. Four extra pairs of eyes never hurt."
"You'll have to count me out," Dominique said, trying not to giggle at the sight of her redheaded cousin's face turning crimson. "Teddy couldn't get the day off so I'm making Vicky take me shopping as an apology for forgetting to get me a present for my birthday."
"I didn't forget," Vicky defended. "I just postponed it," she ended unconvincingly as she started walking away.
"You can't postpone my birthday," Dominique said as she followed her sister.
"Of course not your birthday, just when I give you your present."
"Just admit that you forgot my birthday so we can all move on with our lives."
"I admit nothing," Vicky said stubbornly.
"All right," Frank laughed as he turned to Molly. "I guess it's just the two of us then," he smiled.
"Ah Harry Potter. How is it so difficult to get in touch with the Head Auror? What if I were in mortal danger?" McLaggen said as he jumped into the lift with the irritated Auror.
"I would find whoever was after you and give them tips on how to dispose of your body," Harry said as he moved away from the man who had sauntered over to him.
At the words, McLaggen placed the palm of his hand over his heart with his jaw slacked open in mock offence.
"I'm wounded."
"Only if you don't move your hand from my arse."
"Well what do you know," the taller man said, feigning ignorance when he looked down and saw where his hand was currently situated. Moving his hand away, McLaggen gave Harry a dazzling smile. "Old habits."
"And you wonder why I avoid you," Harry said as the doors opened at his level.
"Be that as it may," McLaggen said as he followed Harry off the lift. "I have a case for you that I think you'll want to handle personally."
"Harry?" Dean asked when he saw who was following the Head Auror.
"It's alright, Dean," Harry reassured his friend. Then he opened his office door, letting McLaggen and himself inside, before closing the door behind him. "So what is this case that I have to handle personally?" Harry asked as he set his coat on the hanger before proceeding to leaning on his desk.
"I didn't say that you had to do it, just that you'd want to. Let me give you a little bit of background information first. To set the mood," he said as he wiggled his brows alluringly.
Harry was not impressed.
"You see, in my department, we have many mysterious and powerful objects in our possession. Some of which you yourself have discovered during your adventures while still at Hogwarts, and others that were … acquired … after that time. One object you might be familiar with is the tank that housed the brains. I believe your dear redheaded friend still has the scars from his encounter with them."
"What of it?" Harry asked as he crossed his arms. His patience running short with him as of late.
"Well, what you might not know is that those brains have immense healing properties where your mind is concerned.
"So Neville was right," Harry said with interest, his arms unfolding as he rested them on his desk.
"Yes. He would know about its properties seeing as how he kidnapped one of them to heal his parents. But I'm not here to talk about your friend. Not many people know this, but at the beginning of each month, all of the Heads of my department gather around the brain tank and use their tentacles to freshen our minds. It helps to cleanse and repair our thoughts so we can start the month with a fresh outlook. At the beginning of this month, however, we found that it had repaired a small alteration someone had placed on us."
"You were all Obliviated?" Harry said, paying more attention to McLaggen.
"No. Our memories weren't missing per say. They were just altered. Someone very powerful, or who had a very powerful spell, modified our memories. When we cleansed our thoughts at the beginning of the month, those memories were restored to their original form. But the memories we had before then remained, though now they feel more like vague dreams instead of memories."
"Have you noticed anything missing from your department? They could have altered your memory to steal something without you realising it was even supposed to be there."
"No. Nothing was taken. In fact, no memories about our department had been altered."
"Then can you think of any reason why someone would do something like this to everyone in your department."
"Well that's why I'm here. The only memories of ours, that had been altered, revolved around you."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, that whoever accomplished this great feat," he laughed with admiration, "not only changed our memories, they changed the reality of everyone within the wizarding world. And they did it all to separate you and Draco Malfoy."
"So how's your date going so far?" Molly asked as she slid into the seat beside James at the Three Broomsticks.
"Better than expected," James said cockily as his redheaded cousin turned to look where McLaggen and Frank were ordering drinks. "How's yours?"
"Wh-what?" Molly stammered as her face reddened to the shade of her hair.
"Give me a break," James rolled his eyes. "Vicky is somewhere with Mini and I'm with McLaggen. That just leaves you and Frank alone together. Don't tell me you haven't dreamt about this moment."
"Hardly," Molly scoffed unconvincingly.
"Well … maybe not this exact moment," James said as he thought about it. "I bet you didn't think your first date would be a recognisance mission. Maybe you should stop focusing on what I'm doing and start enjoying yourself."
"I can't," Molly said in desperation. "Every time I think about the fact that we're alone together, I become this pathetic ball of nerves. It's depressing. Besides, we have nothing in common. I don't know what to say to him if it's not about you or school."
"Talk about plants," James offered up with a shrug. "He's just as fanatical about them as his dad."
"I don't know…"
"Surely with all the books you read, you've come across something plant related," James rolled his eyes.
"I have but … would that actually work?"
"Couldn't hurt to try," he pointed out as Frank and McLaggen headed for their table. "Hey Frank. Molly said she'd help us with our next prank."
"Really?" Frank smiled brightly as he sat the drinks in his hands down on the table before sliding in beside Molly.
"Yeah," Molly smiled back nervously.
"You know this one is going to be a little tricky to pull off though," he said to the redhead.
"I didn't bore her with all of the details. I thought I'd leave that one up to you, seeing as how it was your idea."
"Well, it's simple really. We want to transform the entire Great Hall into a maze, similar to the one James' dad went through during the Triwizard Tournament."
"That sounds complicated and dangerous," Molly said in astonishment. "Not to mention against the rules."
"I'm pretty sure there are no rules about turning your Great Hall into a maze," James scoffed.
"But creating this maze would no doubt require breaking a few rules."
"I thought you said that you wanted to help," Frank said, looking a little disappointed.
"I didn't say I wasn't going to help, but pulling it off is going to be tricky. I mean, we'd have to do it at night, passed curfew. Not to mention that we are currently in the presence of the Head Boy."
"I thought of that already," James smirked. "If we need to do this after curfew, he's agreed to be our lookout."
"No one would question me if I were out passed curfew. I'd just say that I was on patrol."
"Then how exactly are you planning on getting this thing inside the Great Hall? Do you even know what plant you need, what it requires in order to grow as big as we want it to, or how fast it grows?"
"Frank is looking into that part."
"The plant itself grows very quickly, needing only a few hours to reach its full height."
"But we don't need it that big and are having trouble stopping it from growing too much," James said.
"It's not like I can just ask my dad. He'd catch on to me in a second."
"That's why you and Molly would make a great team. With your love of everything plant based and her love of anything that needs researching, you guys will figure this mystery out in no time," James said smiling broadly at the murderous look his cousin gave him.
"Are you telling me that I'm married to Draco Malfoy?" Harry asked as he paced around his office.
"That's exactly what I'm telling you. You and he are married and have four children together."
"You'd think I would remember something like that," the Auror said sarcastically.
"No you wouldn't. Not with whatever's been done to everyone. And we've checked. The marriage of Harry Potter was big news. Everyone wanted to know who captured the saviour of the wizarding world for themselves. And with all the other questions we've asked different people, your marriage was the only thing that was different."
"Say that you're right."
"I'm right," McLaggen boasted with a cheeky grin.
"Why would someone do this? Who would do this?"
"That's why I came to you. Besides the fact that you're an Auror, you are personally linked with this mystery. But if you ask me, I think you should start with the only people who are benefiting from this alteration. Your wives."
"Ginny's not capable of doing something like this."
"Maybe not the Ginny you know. But what if your perception of her had been changed. If it isn't her, there's still the current Mrs. Malfoy."
"Astoria."
"In this reality, she married Malfoy a few years after she left Hogwarts. But in the true reality, she never married Malfoy. She had, however, gone after him several times. The last thing she had done was kidnap your son, Scorpius and threaten to disappear with him unless Malfoy left you and married her."
"This is ridiculous," Harry scoffed. "If Malfoy and I married, how do you explain Lily?"
"Takes after your mother, not Ginny. You gave birth to her, along with your three other boys. Some people say it was through potions, but some, myself included, think it's because you're a Carrier."
Now that was shocking to hear. The thought that he was a Carrier was not one of the things he thought McLaggen would say. Carriers were very rare, passed down through only the oldest of wizarding families.
It had started out when wizarding families had played with the fate of their children before they were even born. The more pure blooded wizards wanted to secure their family lines by insuring that their first born was a boy. They had played with their magic and had come up with a spell that would force their child's gender even before conception.
When they had succeeded, the spell had been destroyed. The wizards who had participated didn't want their secret to be widely known. But when it came time for their children to continue the line, they found themselves with few female candidates. When they had tried to produce daughters to rectify the situation, they found their wives no longer able to conceive.
They had set their children up to fail.
With an abundance of male wizards and limited female wizards to marry them off to, wars started breaking out between families. It wasn't until many years had passed and many deaths were mourned, that a compromise finally came in the form of one couple.
A few years after two wizards had left their families, being fed up with the feuding and wanting to be with each other, they had returned home. However, one of them was with child. It was a shock to everyone involved. The parents of the pregnant wizard had shunned their son, declaring the child an abomination. But the parents to the 'father' of the child had welcomed them into their family, seeing this as a way to finally continue their wizarding line.
When the news spread, those that had participated in the manipulation of their child's future tested to see if their own child had a similar defect. Sure enough, more than half of the wizards subjected to the spell could conceive children. Nature had found a way.
Suddenly Harry laughed.
"I don't know what kind of medication you're on, but I think you should stop taking it," Harry said as he folded his arms again, "or start taking a new one. You almost had me though. But all Aurors are put through tests throughout their training. After which, all Aurors have to get a physical each quarterly to make sure they're fit for active duty. I'm pretty sure that if I were a Carrier, I would know about it."
Now what Harry was saying wasn't entirely false, though it wasn't entirely truthful either. Getting a physical was mandatory for all Auror's, even the Head Auror if you planned on going out into the field. But the test doesn't actually tell you if you're a Carrier or not. It just tells you if you're physically fit for active duty. However, Harry was already aware that he's a Carrier, even before the mandatory tests were implemented. After digging into the Potter family history, Harry discovered that his family carried the gene.
But even if what McLaggen was saying were true, he didn't want anyone knowing that he was a Carrier. He was abnormal enough as it is without the entire wizarding world knowing about it.
A knock at the door brought Harry out of that train of thought.
"Come in," Harry sighed and a second later his secretary nervously popped her head in.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," she said as she walked inside.
"No need to apologize," Harry smiled as he pushed off his desk. "McLaggen and I just finished."
"We'll talk again soon," McLaggen said before departing, not surprised that the Auror was skeptical.
"Have you gotten a chance to look over and sign your assessment?" she asked shyly after McLaggen departed. "The Minister's office says they need it before the day is out."
"Right. Of course," Harry said as he walked around his desk and retrieved the letter sent to him by St. Mongo's.
Truthfully, Harry had forgotten all about the examination he had taken at the beginning of the month. After Ginny's announcement only a few days prior, Harry had walked around in a sort of daze. He remembered going to St. Mongo's, the healer performing spells on him, asking him questions, and then sending him on his way. Most of the examinations, however, was a bit of a blur to him.
After opening the letter and reading the contents, Harry looked up at his secretary. "This isn't mine," he said, dismissing its contents as he handed it out to her.
"It is, Sir," the secretary said without taking the letter back. "The administrator at St. Mongo's said that she double checked the information three times before sending it out. She was a bit confused though, but assured me that the information hadn't been altered."
"Still, this must be a mistake," Harry said as he looked down at the paper again. He paused to read and then reread the letter.
"Is it that bad, Sir?" the secretary asked, curious about what the contents read.
"No, no. Not at all," Harry said hurriedly as he got his pen and scribbled his signature on it. "I'll send this to the Minister's Office myself," he said as he folded it and placed it in his pocket
"Of course sir," she said instantly before being dismissed.
Draco Malfoy was not having the best of days. It was one of those days when everything you looked at pissed you off beyond comprehension. But it started before today, weeks before today. In fact, it started the moment Ginny Potter had announced with irritating elation that she was pregnant.
This revelation had been devastating to the blonde, who had left the ice cream parlor with a barely audible congratulations to a shell shocked Auror and a pouting little girl. That was the last time he had spoken to Harry. He had seen the other man many times after that. But the moment he saw the dishevelled Auror, Draco had walked the other way.
Ginny's pregnancy was a game changer for everyone. Draco needed to get his head together before he finally faced the other man. For some odd reason, the blonde felt betrayed by this new development. He knew that he shouldn't be. After all, Ginny was Harry's wife. But a part of him hated that a piece of Harry was growing inside of her. The very thought sickened him.
"Mr. Malfoy, you have a visitor," Draco's secretary's voice sounded through his door.
"Tell them to make an appointment," Draco said irritably as he placed his wand against his throat.
"It's Harry Potter, Sir," she said in a scandalized tone, as if denying Harry Potter anything was a crime.
Freezing at the name, Draco wasn't sure what to do. A part of him wanted to see the Auror again. Spending weeks apart had pushed him into a small bout of depression. But another part of him was too afraid to see the man he had grown to care for. What if the Auror had come to tell him to forget about what they had done together, to go about their lives as if nothing had happened between them? After all, there was a child in the picture now.
The door suddenly opened before he could decide on what to do and Harry entered his office. The moment their eyes met, they wanted to embrace each other. Weeks of being apart had done a number on them both. But seeing each other now…
It was like their world was finally being put back together.
"Hi," Harry said meekly as he leaned against the door.
"Very eloquent Potter," Draco said stoically, though the sight of the Auror set his heart pounding in his chest from fear.
"So now it's back to surnames, I see," Harry said as he walked further into the room.
"Things have changed. You have a baby on the way," Draco said with a forced smile on his lips.
"True," Harry said as he wrung his hands nervously. "Things are … complicated now. More so than you realize."
"Then why are you here. Surely you have better things to focus on than little old me."
"I came to tell you something."
"Unless you came to tell me that your wife is clinically insane and her confession about being pregnant was just the remnants of a sad woman trying to hold onto her marriage, I don't want to hear it."
Opening his mouth as if to speak, Harry hesitated, unsure he could actually say this. It wasn't like he had ever expected to say something like this … to anyone.
"Right," Draco said impatiently. "I already figured out that we can't continue. You're an honourable person and will stay by your wife's side through her desperate attempt to keep you with her," he said as he came up to the Auror. "You can go now."
The moment Draco grasped onto Harry's arm, uncertain emerald eyes met stormy gray. Before Draco could control himself, he captured Harry's lips in a fierce kiss. After weeks away from each other, the two wizards grasped onto each other as if it was their last day on earth. It was like a flood gate had opened up within them.
Draco plunged his tongue between Harry's lips, devouring the wizard before him, and savouring every moan he made. The blonde then trailed his kisses along Harry's neck, getting reacquainted with the taste of the Auror's flesh.
"I'm having a baby," Harry panted as the blonde's kisses sent delightful chills throughout his body.
"A little advice…," Draco sighed as he pulled away from the Auror. "When I'm kissing you, the last thing I want on my mind is a reminder of you and the Weaslette's copulation."
"Though it pleases me that you're implying there will be more kissing in the future," Harry smiled as he rested his hands against the blonde's chest, "I don't mean that since Ginny's having a baby, I'm having a baby. I mean that you and I are having a baby. As in I am pregnant," he said, placing Draco's hand on his stomach before looking the shocked blonde in the eye, "meaning you are having a baby."
End of Chapter: Game Changer
