If Harry really wanted something, he had to take the initiative himself. If he was going to get Draco back, he first needed to show that he was accepting of Draco's friends and beliefs, be more attentive with Draco's health, and stop the divorce. And he couldn't wait until Draco gave him the opportunity to do these things; he had to create the opportunity.
Stopping the divorce was both the easiest and the hardest thing on the list. The easiest, because it required little effort from Harry, besides hiring a second divorce lawyer and directing his lawyers to do whatever it took. The hardest, because the divorce process was already started and Draco's lawyer was equally tenacious in driving it through. Draco's lawyer shot down Harry's lawyer's delay tactics, tearing down road blocks almost as fast as they could be put up. The wizard was efficient, but not unbeatable.
Harry's attorneys were currently winning, having managed to grind the process to a halt in the name of recalculating their finances to include the new baby. Shafiq had told Harry that they planned on waiting until the very last day to file before submitting error-filled paperwork. The judge would then be forced to give them yet another extension or calculate the numbers himself. It wouldn't hold up the divorce forever, but it was a good start.
Sticking by Draco's side was more work for Harry, because he still had to work, he no longer lived with Draco, and Draco slept all the time. He began to spend most of his weekends at Malfoy Manor, but even then he had other things to do, like tracking down each one of Draco's friends and trying to find some redeeming quality in them. Add in eating dinner at the Manor before taking Eiona home with him on weekdays and that was about the best he could do. Draco went straight to bed after supper and spent most of his waking hours while Harry was at work. If only Harry hadn't told him to change his schedule in order to spend time with their daughter during the day without him…
Arranging for meetings with Draco's friends was easy. Surviving the meetings without being rude to them was much harder.
Zacharias and Sally Smith, Draco's closest cousins, both thought Harry was a right prick for how he treated Draco and told him so. Sally was a fourth year now and could only be described as a stuck up spoiled rotten rich teenager with a biting tongue. Zacharias was worse. Together they disparaged Harry and speculated on why their cousin would ever marry such a loser in the first place. Their conclusion was for the child's sake, because it was frowned upon in pureblood society to not be married to the father of your children. If it wasn't because of Eiona, then Draco must've been deaf, dumb, and blind to choose Harry.
During his meeting with Pansy Zabini, she slapped Harry for leaving Draco while pregnant. She too was pregnant and obviously emotional and in her state, Harry couldn't possibly slap her back. Instead he gritted his teeth and apologized to her for not making her feel like a welcomed guest in his house all those times she'd visited Draco. She didn't forgive him, instead spouting insults at him and saying Draco was better off without him. Needless to say, it could've gone better.
Harry thought Theo Nott was probably the best overall person, but Theo was more annoying and stuck up than Hermione. He talked not stop about the Fawley campaign, which he worked on. Nott was apparently on the commission to form primary schools for magical children. The goal was to set up four primary schools initially, throughout the country. Children would then floo into the closest school where they would receive a free education in primarily maths, reading, and writing, with a touch of a number of other subjects as well. There would be wizard health class, muggle science class, an introduction to the magical world class, and both wizarding and muggle history classes. It would be free for all magical children, both magical and muggle born and would place the children of the two groups on an equal playing field from a very young age. If friendships were formed early on, then those children would most likely be prevented from ever taking up arms against each other.
Nott was soo boring that Harry actually fell asleep while the wizard blathered on. Yes, wizarding primary school was a good idea. No, Harry didn't really care about the details. He'd probably care a great deal once Eiona was of school age, but his daughter was still not quite two, so he didn't care. He tried to pretend he did and did his best to be civil with Draco's most pro-muggle friend. But after falling asleep on the wizard, he could only hope Nott didn't report it back to Draco.
Greg Goyle and his fiancé Milli were stupid. She was quiet, he was loud, and they had the combined IQ of a doxy, if that. Greg had just found religion, after being spared from Azkaban for his "crimes" during the war. Truth be told, Greg was too stupid to have managed an actual crime and he mostly just stood by and acted as muscle for the people committing the crimes. It was pretty much an open and shut case, so of course he was going to be let go with community service. He didn't need to start praying to the Mother and the Four Elements and reading tea leaves with his Druid every night. And Harry certainly didn't want to hear about it. Harry's only hope for a good report from Greg and Milli was that they were too stupid to realize how awful the meeting had gone.
Daphne Greengrass, soon to be Nott, was too interested in her own good looks to hold a conversation about anything else. How the bimbo was able to maintain a relationship with the politically minded and seemingly intelligent Theo Nott, Harry couldn't fathom. He could just imagine the conversations between the two of them.
"Oh Theo! Do you like my new thousand galleon dress made out of pixy eyes? Don't you love how the eyes shine in the candle light?" Daphne would ask breathily.
"Oh no! Not the precious pixies! They're sentient creatures with rights too! I'm forming an office to ensure they are treated fairly with medical treatment and schooling for all!" Theo would reply passionately.
Then the two mismatched lovers would kiss and make up. The whole idea made Harry sick. He ended that meeting prematurely, telling Daphne that she and her very expensive dress had to go, because something imaginary had suddenly come up.
But at least the romance between Theo and Daphne was real, if incomprehensible. The one between Tracey Davis and Vincent Crabbe was completely imaginary. Tracey was downright the most unbearable of Draco's friends, owing to the fact that she was obsessed with her late boyfriend. Harry didn't understand why the witch had gone out with the troll in the first place, much less why she continued to pine over Vince years after his death.
Tracey's obsession did seem at least in part Draco's fault, because he'd encouraged her by fabricating a proclamation of undying love in the Room of Requirement, moments before Vince's death; a proclamation Greg was too stupid to know if he'd heard or not. That was all she wanted to talk to Harry about, insisting that he must've heard it, despite the roar of the Fiendfyre and that he was on the other side of the room. When Harry said that he hadn't, she broke down in tears and took forever to recover.
Harry had tried to shove Tracey out the door then, but she wanted to stay and ask him more questions, under the impression that Vince must've said some other sound bite about her before dying. She was so insistent that Harry almost made up one about wanting her to move on with her life or one about wanting her to jump off a bridge and follow after. It was only the fact that he couldn't decide between the two that stopped him and made him remember his initial incredulousness that Draco had already placated her.
Blaise Zabini was the most like Ron out of Draco's friends, although he was more prejudiced. Ideologically, Harry preferred Theo, but in practice Blaise was a ton of fun. They had a lot in common, because they were both married and expecting children. While Blaise hadn't made the mistake of asking Pansy for a divorce, he had still made the mistake of marrying Pansy in the first place. She was making him about as miserable with her insane pregnancy requests and rollercoaster hormones as Draco was making Harry with insisting on continuing the divorce. Together they spent many hours griping over their pregnant spouses.
Quidditch was another thing Harry and Blaise had in common and on their second meeting, they played a one on one game, in which they both played chaser and goalie at once. Afterwards they lounged around complaining about their spouses' mounting political obsessions, with both Pansy and Draco ever more focused on the election around the corner. It was only days before they would all have to vote, but the two of them were united in not having decided which candidate to vote for. It's not that they didn't want to make the world a better place, but that they had no affinity for the game and all of the confusing mumbo jumbo that seemed to mean little or less.
The first and second meetings with Blaise went well, so they started hanging out together more. The two of them spent voting day together, telling their friends and family they were going to the polls, when in reality they drank butterbeers at Grimmauld Place in toast to no more bloody political talk. They sat out voting day together, each the other's alibi claiming to have seen each other at the polls, and let the more politically minded make the decisions.
Harry started referring to Blaise as his friend, especially in Draco's presence. Once he actually asked, "Can my friend Blaise join as for Sunday dinner?" He knew it would mean having Pansy over too, but it was worth it to prove how hard he was trying.
Blaise was Harry's favorite, but probably the most innately likeable of the bunch was Draco's cousin Adrian Pucey. Adrian was the last on Harry's list to meet, having agreed upon getting together the weekend after the election. Harry remembered him from playing Quidditch at Hogwarts, particularly how he was one of the few Slytherins who didn't cheat. He was two years older than Harry and a decent bloke; the only bloke his age in his family who hadn't joined the Death Eaters. During the war, he'd been leaning towards joining the Peace Movement with Theo Nott, but hadn't actually made up his mind before the final battle. Now he supported Fawley, but wasn't big on politics and didn't talk about that much.
Adrian liked Quidditch, but hadn't played in ages, because these days he devoted all of his free time to helping rebuild damaged property after the war. He dragged Harry along with him to one of these rebuilds, explaining that there were still hundreds of wizarding and muggle buildings throughout the country in need of repair. Hogwarts and the Ministry had received attention first and were almost completely rebuilt, while other buildings, especially private houses, were left to the owners to fix on their own. Many simply didn't have the money, resources, or man-power to rebuild.
Adrian took Harry to help rebuild the house of some witch neither of them knew. He didn't tell Harry that her husband had died a Death Eater until halfway through, under orders from Draco to test Harry. Thus Harry had already become invested in the project and helping the single mother of four before he even realized that her family had been on the other side. By that time, he'd seen the raggedy orphans, the youngest of which was two, the oldest only seven, and felt sorry for them.
The mother had never worked before, but after losing everything including their home in a fire, she'd taken up a job as a secretary. How exactly the fire started was unknown, but what was known was that there had been a skirmish on the property after her husband and several of his fellow Death Eaters retreated there for safety, only to be followed by Order of the Phoenix members. Fighting ensued, the house had burned, and she'd barely gotten the children out alive.
After spending half the day seeing the plight of the Death Eater's family, Harry began to see just how bad things were. It didn't matter if a family was minus a husband and father because he was a Death Eater or because he was a hero; either way times were hard. Times were even harder for the Death Eater's family, because public opinion wasn't on their side and they weren't eligible for any of the charity offered to war victims.
Harry was so moved that he brought Hermione back to the build site the next day to show her. Adrian was there again and roped them into putting in another day's work. Harry couldn't stay long, because this was his time to spend with Eiona, but Hermione stayed and took up the plight of the widowed Death Eater's wife. Hermione said that as soon as things were settled with the election, which Fawley had just won earlier that week, she was going to suggest to Fawley himself that all war relief and charity monies be made available equally for all, regardless of which side they were on during the war.
Harry had made considerable efforts, but there was one area he was still lacking in: caring for the sick. His lack of care for Draco when Draco was sick was a fact that had been brought up by Draco and his family on multiple occasions. Even Hermione and Molly were appalled when they first found out. Thus he knew that he had to make an effort to become a more caring person when it came to health.
Harry was doing his best to show interest in Draco's health and do anything he could to help. But Draco's condition was under control now and he'd been feeling much better lately, so there wasn't any real opportunity for Harry to show he could do it. To compensate, Harry started reading. Draco was pregnant, so Harry found a book on pregnancy. Draco had hypoglycemia, so Harry looked up the glycemic index and how the body processes sugar. Now Harry could analyze a meal and determine if it was healthy for Draco, but it still wasn't enough, because Draco didn't seem the least bit impressed.
It was Hermione's idea to volunteer to be a nurse's assistant to get real life experience caring for truly sick patients. Harry knew just the place to volunteer. Draco's father had Motor Neurone disease and was currently being housed in the Ministry's Secure Treatment Facility for inmates with medical conditions. Lucius was on the mend, but recovery from his near-death episode was slow. It would take time, hard work, and lots of rehab to get the wizard back into the shape he was in when he was first diagnosed. Only people with the proper security clearance could work and volunteer there and as an Auror, Harry just happened to have the proper clearance. Thus that was where he started volunteering.
As a volunteer at the Ministry's Secure Treatment Facility, Harry helped care for many patients, including Lucius Malfoy. He actually found that he preferred caring for Lucius, because many of the other patients were a lot worse off than his father-in-law. He'd never shied away from blood or gore before, but some of the putrid, smelly, infected sores turned his face green and tested his Gryffindor courage. The absolute worse were the near-death patients, especially those with battle wounds, who reminded him of all the people who had died for him and all those who died in the war for freedom. But he carried on, despite his discomfort, in the hope that Draco would be impressed.
Author's Note: I went a bit fast, but I wanted to work through all of Harry's efforts in one chapter. Next we will get to see what Draco thinks of it all. Please Review!