It was a Tuesday evening a month later when Harry came home to a filthy house, a crying baby, and a hysterical Draco. The house being filthy was a typical occurrence these days. Walburga had declared that it was time to cut off their elf's head, because he was too old to keep the house tidy. Harry didn't think it was all Kreacher's fault, because Draco was a bloody slob and Eiona was a messy toddler; it wasn't fair to ask the aging Kreacher to keep up. Kreacher was trying and that was what was important. You don't just get rid of a family member because he was old and Kreacher was part of the family.

Harry traipsed his way up the stairs, past summer coats, shoes, and hats that Draco had left strewn on the stairs and up to the drawing room. There were toys scattered over the floor along with the remains of a ravaged looking first aid kid. The small tea table was still set for an afternoon tea that was long since over. There were crumb filled plates with half-eaten scones and tea cups with the dregs still in them left along with a tea kettle that had long since gone cold. Harry should've expected as much, given that Eiona and Draco had had a playdate today with Victoire and Fleur. Somehow, though, he still managed to be disappointed by the mess.

Draco was sitting on the floor, caging Eiona in with his legs and one arm, while trying to apply a plaster with his free hand and holding his wand in his teeth. Eiona was screaming in a wild tantrum that was more typical of the two year old Teddy than their little princess. Draco's face was red with tear streaks running down it.

"What happened?" Harry yelled the question, so as to be heard above the din.

"That awful veela and her rabid veela spawn!" Draco yelled back, a sob of desperation on his breath.

That didn't answer the question, so Harry asked again. "What did they do?"

"Bit my precious Ipheion! Can you believe? Like a rabid pixie, just put Eiona's finger in her mouth and chomped down!"

"Here, let me see it," Harry requested, stepping closer. Draco held out the digit he'd been trying to cover with the plaster for Harry to see. Harry took it, while Draco flung the ruined plaster to the floor to join the mounting pile of discarded plasters. "There's nothing there." The finger was a bit red, but that could just be from Draco's attack with the plasters. There was no break in the skin or bite mark.

"Well there was! I could see teeth marks and everything! But that was hours ago now."

"And Eiona's been crying all this time?"

"No, she just started back up. She was playing, but the plaster came off and she didn't want to sit still long enough for me to apply another."

"I don't blame her. Here, give her here," Harry said, taking his daughter from Draco's clutches. She would've been fine if not for Draco's pathological desire to put a plaster on an injury that didn't need one in the first place and had long since disappeared.

Harry stood up with his daughter, bouncing her up and down and murmuring, "Shush, it's alright, Daddy's got you," over and over again in a never ending loop.

Eiona stopped screaming, but kept fussing and reaching for the floor, like she wanted to be put down. Eventually Harry got the hint and let his daughter go. Eiona stopped crying the instant she was free and allowed to toddle over to her favorite doll, which lay abandoned on the floor.

"You can't just let her go Harry!" Draco proclaimed. "It's a mess in here. Your elf didn't clean, again."

Harry rolled his eyes at that. They'd argued half a hundred times over Kreacher. Draco wanted to bring over Dobson, a younger elf from the Manor. Harry refused, kept Kreacher passed his useful years, and told Draco to start picking up after himself. But Draco was a slob and what was more, he was a picky slob who complained about the mess he'd made. It was often left to Harry to pick up the place when he came home from a long day of work. That was what he did now, even though he'd worked all day and wanted nothing more than to sit down and relax.

"And what about her finger? It needs a plaster or it will get infected!" Draco cried.

Harry paused in his picking up medical supplies to stare at Draco incredulously. "No it doesn't; there's nothing there."

"Of course there's something there! I saw it myself! There's a bite from a rabid one-year-old veela! Vicky is a bloody nightmare; I told that Fleur I don't want her and her bloody daughter coming over here again."

"Language! Not in front of Eiona." Harry was back to picking up, plaster wrappers this time so that their daughter didn't choke. Draco, as usual, didn't lift a finger to clean. "Vicky's just a baby; I'm sure she didn't mean to bite."

"Ipheion never bit anyone," Draco retorted petulantly.

"Well Eiona's perfect. You can't expect perfection from other kids."

"Especially not from a part veela part Weasley one, that's for sure."

Harry was quickly losing his patience with this conversation. Draco was not helping, there was nothing wrong with Eiona, and the mess was only going away as fast as his one wand could make it. His stomach grumbled and gave him an important change of subject. "Is Kreacher in the kitchen then, making supper?"

"Supper? Who can think about supper at a time like this? Eiona is probably going to be scarred for the rest of her life!"

"Draco, you're over-reacting?"

"I'm over-reacting!? I am? I think you have failed to understand the gravity of the situation!"

"Then explain it to me, Draco."

"Our precious little Ipheion was bitten! We're lucky her finger didn't come clean off!"

Harry rolled his eyes at that. "Just go check on Kreacher while I finish cleaning," Harry requested as calmly as he could manage.

"We wouldn't have to check on Kreacher if you just let me bring Dobson over. He's my elf and you said that this was my house too now. Why can't my elf live with me in my house?"

"Because Draco! Kreacher is a sentient being, not some robot you can discard when it gets old!"

"A robot?"

"A machine," Harry clarified. "Just go check on dinner."

Hot, stinging tears started falling from Draco's eyes again. He covered them with his hand and turned so that Harry wouldn't see, before turning around. He went to check on dinner, but only as an excuse to hide his tears from Harry. He'd often been emotional lately, but was doing his best not to fall apart in front of his husband. His so called husband hadn't hugged him in his time of distress or offered so much as one comforting word; he could feel the breakdown coming and he wasn't going to do it where Harry could see.

Kreacher was in fact sound asleep, standing up in the kitchen, with an oven-mit on one hand and his chin resting on the counter. Dinner was smoking away, ruined, in the oven. He was too old to cook and was a danger in the kitchen, both to himself and to others.

Draco spelled out the fire under the stove and vanished the burnt meal. The air was thick and bitter with acrid black smoke, which Draco vanished. The smell of burned and blackened roast vanished, but lingered in Draco's nose and mouth, bringing more tears to his eyes and he broke down in uncontrollable sobs. Logically he knew it was just dinner, but he was emotional, hungry, and just knew Harry was going to blame him for this. How was it his fault that Harry refused to let him bring over a new elf? Add in the stress from having an ill father, even one who was finally on the mend, and it was too much. Before he collapsed in sobs right there on the kitchen floor, he decided to go outside.

Draco had been working on the small garden in the back of number twelve, Grimmauld Place, since that spring. He'd gotten the overgrown weeds out of there and added in soft grass for Eiona to play on. The blue star-flowers Neville had given them were in bloom, the sole scrub in a sea of grasses, and Draco went to sit under them now. He sat and cried. He didn't hear when Harry called for him, nor did he notice the setting of the sun, or the chill coming in from the night air. His tears dried on his face and he fell asleep like that.

Harry did not know that there had ever been a roast for dinner or that Draco had saved them by turning off the stove before the roast caught fire. Nor did he know that Draco had cleaned something for once. He knew only that Kreacher was asleep on his feet when he came down the stairs with Eiona and that his husband was nowhere in sight. He called for Draco, but when there was no answer, he figured that Draco had gone off to Cissy's. He was hungry and with no dinner in sight, he decided to go to the one place where dinner would always be on the table: the Burrow.

Eiona didn't like to travel by floo and always cried whenever they took her anywhere, but she liked side-along apparition even less, so it was the floo for them. Harry came out the other end in Molly and Arthur's living room, jiggling a crying baby and trying to placate her with soft murmurs.

"Oh dear! Is it that bad?" Molly asked, bustling into the room. "Fleur stopped by and told me all about it, but she said it was nothing and that Draco waz over-reacteen, as she put it."

"Oh, he was. It's not that, it's just the floo Molly," Harry explained.

"That's good to hear, although I'll admit that little Vicky is a bit violent. Ginny never hit or kicked me like that." Molly showed Harry a black and green bruise on her arm to back up her point. "Percy was a rough little baby and the boys all had their moments, but Ginny was always a perfect little angel. I guess it doesn't just come down to boys against girls. Oh listen to me blathering on, when it's our precious little princess with the owie. Did you disinfect it Harry?"

"No, there's nothing to disinfect and I'm sure Draco already did it anyway."

Molly insisted on seeing the bite just the same, but came to the same conclusion Harry and Fleur had: it was nothing and wasn't in need of medical treatment. Molly had supper on the table and extra for Harry and Eiona. They had a delicious meal that was far better than anything Draco or Kreacher could make.

Draco didn't cook much, but when he did, it was usually pudding. Draco had made a batch of bloody awful pudding last week. It was butterscotch with cranberries and peppermint. He was always adding things and thereby ruining, the pudding. What was so wrong with plain vanilla pudding? Why add marshmallows and honey to it? That wasn't even the worst; the worst was when Draco had added the fresh lemon juice to the lemon pudding, making the dessert curdle.

Harry figured Draco was probably at Malfoy Manor making another awful pudding. He tried not to think about Draco and enjoy the relaxing evening at the Burrow, but a summer thunder storm was coming on and he really had to be getting back home. Eiona needed to be bathed and put to bed and there was likely still messes back home to clean. Grudgingly, Harry said farewell to the Weasleys and returned to Grimmauld Place. Again he called out for Draco, but again received no response.

Eiona still needed that bath, so Harry went about the usual nighttime routine by himself. When Draco still wasn't home for story time, he began to wonder. He put Eiona to sleep, again by himself. Then he set Kreacher to watch the sleeping baby and apparated over to the Manor, to fetch Draco. Only Draco wasn't at the Manor and Cissy said she hadn't seen him. Harry carried on to St. Mungo's, where Lucius was still staying, positive that that was where he'd find Draco.

Cissy, on the other hand, apparated to Grimmauld Place, equally sure that that was where Draco was. She found him outside soaking wet on the grass, still sound asleep. She woke him up and brought him, dripping, into the kitchen. She had just gotten Draco onto the bench of the kitchen table when Harry returned.

Harry was frantic after being told by the Aurors on duty guarding Lucius that Draco hadn't been there all night. His plan was to return home, take the baby to Molly's, and then track down every one of Draco's friends. But then he heard Cissy's voice coming from the kitchen and followed the sound. Draco was there, steam visibly rising from his hot body as the rainwater evaporated.

"What happened?" Harry asked.

"He fell asleep outside and got caught in the rain," Cissy answered.

"Draco, what were you doing outside, when I asked you to check on dinner?" Harry asked Draco directly this time.

Draco didn't answer. Instead he stared off into the distance, not focusing on Harry, who was right in front of him. He blinked a few times and when Harry repeated the question, he shrugged.

"Harry, we need to get him cleaned up and put him to bed," Cissy said.

"Is something wrong with him? Why isn't he answering properly?"

"He's still half asleep, is all. He used to do this as a child; he'd fall asleep somewhere and when I'd wake him, he would respond, but be still half gone. Just put him to bed and he will be right as rain in the morning."

And that is just what they did. Cissy cast a drying charm, Harry spelled away the puddles of water on the floor, and they took Draco upstairs to dress for bed. Draco went through the motions when prompted, but didn't initiate any of it and was slow to do each step. Harry worried that Draco might have caught hypothermia outside in the rain, but it was a warm night and when he climbed into bed with his husband, he found Draco's body to be very hot. He worried that night that Draco would catch a cold, but his husband was fine, just as Cissy had predicted, in the morning.

Author's Note: And so the strange symptoms continue…personally I love the scene with Draco and the plasters :)

I have good news: I have worked out the arc for the fighting half of this story and written the outline for those chapters. This story is really coming along now.

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