The end

Harry had been keeping something from him for weeks, but Draco couldn't guess what it was. Even Teddy had noticed.

"Uncle Dray, what's wrong with Dad?"

Despite the other boys calling Harry 'mum', Teddy had given his hero a more manly title.

Draco pushed the food around his plate and gave a noncommittal shrug, staring at the empty place where Harry should have been.

"Eat your dinner," he said instead, because he was pissed and wouldn't take it out on the kids.

Draco woke up to a cold bed and walked to the boys' room to see Harry standing over James. He smoothed the hair that refused to lie flat and tears shone from his eyes.

Draco stood at the door, unmoving, and Harry turned to meet his gaze. He opened his mouth several times but words seemed to fail him. Finally he found something.

"I love you."

Draco's breath caught in his throat, because after seven years of being married he had never heard Harry say the words.

"I love them. I love this life you've given me, because I never expected to live this long. I'm sorry."

Draco made to step forward but Harry pulled his wand and the blonde man felt the silence charm settle in the air.

"They've been sending me letters. I don't know how, but they know about James. They are going to tell the world unless I go to them tonight. They want him to be their messiah, their Boy Who Lived. I can't let that happen. I can't let them…I have to go."

Draco was shaking his head, tears streaming down his cheeks, and he wanted to scream, because this wasn't how their story was supposed to end. Harry kissed him, briefly, and Draco latched onto a thought.

"You know, even though I…"

"I always knew. It doesn't work on me; too close to the Imperious."

Draco could kick himself, or kick Harry, famous Harry fucking Potter with a scar on his face and an immunity to mind control.

"Take me with you. We can do this together."

"The kids need you."

"I need you."

Harry smiled again and kissed him, long and hard and full of teeth and longing and regret. Draco felt the wand point at his back but Harry was speaking before he had the chance to move.

"Stupefy."

Draco woke to a silent house and a nasty taste in his mouth.

The boys weren't in their beds.

He pulled himself up unsteadily and ran to the kitchen where three children huddled around a large newspaper.

The cover showed something that reminded Draco of a battlefield.

He snatched it from their collective hands, ignoring Teddy's shout of indignation and the sniffle from Scorpius.

The ministry of magic had been obliterated.

Hundreds of bodies had been found, all with connections to Voldemort or other dark arts supporters.

Harry Potter had been found dead in the midst, his hand still clutching his wand.

They made him out to be a hero, protecting the world from another rise of dark power, which Draco found hilarious, because time and time again Harry had saved them and received nothing but scorn and the one time he saves his own arse, protects his family from the very people he swore to help, the wizarding world sees his destruction as salvation.

The entire paper was dedicated to Harry's sacrifice; it said nothing of James' parentage. Draco looked up, feeling his neck prickle, and met the emerald eyes of Harry's firstborn. They were dry, unlike Scorpius's, and steady, unlike the disbelieving gaze of Teddy.

"They aren't lying, are they?" It was more of a statement than a question. Draco looked at the other papers on the table, Harry's will siting on the top with fresh ink naming Teddy the heir to House Black, James to House Potter and Scorpius to House Malfoy, with Draco as their guardian until they came of age.

Harry never thought ahead.

If he had taken the time to make out a will, then he wasn't coming back.

Draco shook his head, and Teddy began to weep.

James never did.

The platform was busy, people crowding where they had no right to and getting entirely in the way. Draco heaved his way through, the three trunks he pushed making it in no way easier, and breathed a sigh of relief as he caught sight of the train. Scorpius ran ahead, waving frantically at Albus Weasly in a way unbefitting of a Malfoy. Teddy strutted behind them, prefects badge glittering on his Gryffindor robes, while James stayed close, a hand stretched out to steady the cart, his own badge shining from the green and silver of Slytherin. Draco loaded the trunks into the train, running him hand over the cloth and wood of the carriage, remembering when a small scrap of a boy refused his hand on that very train. Draco got out quickly, not wanting to get lost in his memories.

He found Teddy and yanked him close by his collar, giving him the usual lecture about school work and girls and what was more important. Teddy fidgeted like a puppy held by the scruff and the older man gave up, letting him scamper off towards his delinquent friends and praying, not for the first time, for Harry to watch over his cocky prat of a godson.

Draco turned, hoping to see a hint of black hair in the crowd of black robes, and saw James on his knees, face serious and eyes steady as he stared into the grey eyes of Scorpius.

"But what if I get put into Hufflepuff or something? I don't want to be alone. I want to be in Gryffindor, like Mum," the small boy was saying. Draco wrinkled his nose at the thought of his son in Hufflepuff even as his heart softened. Scorpius had the Malfoy eyes and wore no glasses, but he had Harry's kindness and good heart. He was desperate to find any resemblance between himself and the parent he could barely remember.

"Mum was in Gryffindor, yeah, but Father was in Slytherin, and Aunt Luna was in Ravenclaw. It doesn't matter what house you're in; we will love you no matter what. Besides, Mum told me once that he was almost put in Slytherin. The sorting hat lets you pick."

Scorpius' eyes became large and his older brother nodded solemnly before pulling him into a hug and rustling his hair.

"Give Father a hug goodbye and grab us a compartment; I'll be there in a sec."

The small boy flung himself at Draco who held him tightly, the perfect mix of himself and Harry with the purest soul one could imagine, and watched as he ran into the Hogwarts Express to fulfil his brother's orders.

James stood slowly and brushed soot off his robes before he turned his emerald gaze on Draco. He could have been Harry's clone, really; same peach skin, same hair, same eyes, same goofy glasses. Draco sometimes found himself looking for the scar, for the indication that this boy was different from the man he had lost.

"I know, you know. Who my real father was." Draco opened his mouth to protest, but stopped when the boy pointedly fingered the snake on his school crest.

"How?"

"Mum left me a diary amongst his old school things. He knew eventually I'd look there."

"Harry would have never done that."

Harry wouldn't have risked exposure of James' parentage for the sake of closure.

James smiled as if understanding; a lopsided smile, more left than right, exactly like Harry.

"It was in Parseltongue; he figured there was a high chance I could speak it, what with my parents being who they were."

Draco looked back at the train, seeing the grey eyes of his son watching them with impatience. James smiled again.

"He is so going to be in Hufflepuff."

Draco ignored that.

"What you said to him; it was just what I imagine Harry would have said had he been here."

James's smile turned bittersweet, like Harry's when someone told him he had his mother's eyes.

"I take after my mum I guess." The words were heavy with meaning and James's eyes, Harry's eyes, never left the man's face.

Draco said nothing as Harry's son, his son, entered the train, and watched as he ruffled the hair of his younger brother once more, watched as the train began to spew steam and until it was out of sight.

He could forgive James for being the son of Voldemort.

But he couldn't forgive him for Harry's death.

Draco raised his wand to his temple and spoke in a rough whisper.

"Obliviate."