AN: I hope this chapter makes sense to the grand scheme of this story. It's been a while since I wrote the last chapter and it was so hard to get back into it. Plus, I feel like my writing style has changed so it might feel jarring starting from this chapter onwards. Anyway, TW on depression/attempt just for this chapter. This is also a slow one with mainly harry and pansy talking and further bonding. If you're still here, thank you!, and I hope you like this well enough to continue reading until the end.

A scream tore Harry from his sleep, muscle memory had him quickly putting on his glasses and slipping his wand into his hand in less than a second. It took him another second to realize that Teddy was missing from his bed and then another second still to come running out into the hallway. He bumps into Pansy as ran out of Scorpius' door, the two of them startled for a moment at each other's presence. She had the infant already safely in her arms, her wand already drawn as his was. He gave her a once over to check that she wasn't hurt.

"Teddy?" she asks him and his steely, hardened eyes was the only reply she needed, a silent understanding passing between them. Harry led the way to the spiral staircase that would lead them to the first floor, Pansy following closely behind. In turns out they wouldn't need to look far for Harry's missing godson as they found him at the bottom of the stairs, in the foyer, crouched on the floor with his eyes closed. Harry slightly relaxed seeing him unhurt but his heart was still thundering in his ears.

"What's wrong?" he bent down and tried to pry Teddy's hands from his eyes. Instead of fear or pain that he was expecting, he was met with disgust instead. This thoroughly confused Harry.

"It's horrible, dad!" Teddy wailed as he launched himself up at Harry, clinging on to him as tightly as he could and burying his face against his neck. This made everything he said become completely incoherent. Harry nearly loses his balance as he tries to soothes the upset eleven year old.

"Teddy, I can't understand what you're saying," the wizards tried his best to get him to calm down.

Pansy clears her throat, "Potter"

Harry glances at Pansy who was now leaning against the banister with a smirk on her face, her wand arm already limping at her side as if the danger was over. He looks at her questioningly and she guides his eyes to the trail of discarded clothing on the black and white checked marble of the foyer. It started with a scarf tossed haphazardly on a manicured potted plant, a shiny black shoe nestled between a vase, a slender dainty heel wedged at the foot of the stairs. Harry wished that the trail had ended there but then it was followed by another shoe, another sandal, a sock, a blouse, a pair of trousers...

"They did not," Harry choked out in disbelief.

"Want to bet we'll find two naked Malfoys in the living room?" Pansy says gleefully. Teddy wailed in disgust upon hearing this and Harry scolded her with his eyes, "So Potter, any more bright ideas?"

Harry glared at her. He was just trying to do a nice thing for Hermione how would he have known that this was going to blow up spectacularly on his face, "We could dress them?"

"Sure if you're in the business of seeing Draco's d—"

"Stop," Harry cuts her off before further traumatizing his godson. Who knows what Teddy had managed to see before he had the good sense to shut his eyes, "Okay new, plan. Cut our losses and let the house elf deal with this"

Pansy shrugs, "I could live with that"

They decided to have lunch at the plaza for two reasons. One, because it became glaringly obvious to them that the Malfoy couple wasn't going to get up soon and two, because they didn't want to spend another meal in that castle knowing that there's a naked Hermione and Draco just lounging about in the open.

Lunch was at a tiny french cafe on the island, no doubt an attempt to bring some part of the Malfoy's french roots into this floating rock they called home. The four of them had made their way down the winding steps of castle, down to the lazy idyllic town that was sprawled near the shoreline port. Harry was barely dressed. Just a standard blue gray tee and a pair of trousers and he was out the door, messy, bed wrangled hair and all. Pansy was more put together, hair in place, outfit neatly pressed and curated, befitting a Slytherin princess vacationing by the sea. They looked like an odd couple for anyone watching, especially with the platinum locks of the Malfoy heir gleaming out of his carrier and an animated eleven year old whose hair would change every few minutes.

Teddy forgetting all about the traumatic events of his morning had decided, mid-meal, that they were droll and boring company and would much rather be spend his time running up and down the town square. Harry let him explore as long he kept himself within his eyesight.

"Can I take Scorpius with me?" the pre-teen asked slyly

"Absolutely not," Harry had replied and Teddy groaned with a petulant 'fiiiine' and dragged himself away before father could list anymore things that he wasn't allowed to do.

It was then three handsome owls had found them, circling above with their ebony feather like a dark omen before swooping down low to drop an ivory envelope each with a flourished Z on the wax seal, and ultimately perching on the backrest of their seats. Their legs held out, waiting for payment. Harry and Pansy watched the third owl race past them, flying higher and higher towards the castle until it disappeared through one of the windows. They shared a grin knowing that the two hungover, naked Malfoys were in for a rude awakening.

"Jesus Christ," Harry swore under his breath when he finally looked down at his afternoon mail, the two owls now taking flight towards the local owlery after having been satisfyingly paid. He turned the envelope in his hand, his frown etching deeper in his face as he saw the writing on the envelope. Mr. H. Potter, Malfoy Castle, Grey Rock. His eyes drifted to the top left corner of the heavy ivory stationery, the green-black ink looked harsh in contrast: Madame Zabini, Zabini Manor, London.

His eyes flickered to Pansy to see her reaction but she wasn't looking at Madame Zabini's birthday invite, which was discarded unopened between her plate and her cutleries. No, she was holding a piece of yellowing parchment, punctured and torn in places where passion seemed to overwhelm its writer. Harry guessed, that whoever it was, was either very excited or very angry. He watched her eyes dart furiously across it, her frown deep and the knots above her eyebrow even deeper. She did not seem to be enjoying whatever the letter was currently saying to her.

"Bad news?" He offered.

Pansy eyes meets his for a fraction of a second before frowning one last time at the letter and folding it back in to itself and tucking it into her pocket. She straightened a little in her seat and her frown was quickly masked by her studied expression of indifference. She didn't look like she wanted to share, and Harry knew better than to push her. "Nothing as bad as the news you just got, I'm sure"

Harry grimaced and shifted in his seat as he glanced back down on the envelope, "It's just a bit ridiculous that they would invite me,"

"Who wouldn't want to invite the hero of the Wizarding world?" Pansy said mockingly, a smirk at the corner of her lips told Harry that no insult was intended.

"And you honestly believe that that's the reason they're requesting my presence?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

"No," She hid her smirk behind a cup of coffee, delicately sipping the liquid gold, "That is absolutely not the reason why you've been invited. But I think the more important question is, will you be attending?"

He shoots her a look, "If you were in my position, would you go?"

Pansy only let it mull in her head for a whole two seconds before she answered with a simple yes. The chosen one's green eyes bore on her as if to study her lie that wasn't quite a lie, "Then you're a stronger person that I am, Parkinson," He finally said as he dropped the envelope to the space next to his untouched salad. The corner of the correspondence soaking with spilled vinaigrette.

Pansy tutted and leaned forward, her elbows propped up, her chin lightly resting on her intertwined hands, "Oh it's not strength Potter, it's foolish, foolish pride"

"Pride gets you killed," Harry's gaze falls back down on the ivory envelope now stained an ugly hue of balsamic black. His eyes traced the strokes of the embellished Z on it, a frown forming on this lips as a million thoughts flooded his mind. He looked back up at Pansy. She was still watching him with that twinkle in her eyes—the very telling sign of curiosity that always seemed to burn within her.

"I just can't quite figure it out," Pansy muses, her eyes still hot on his skin.

"What?" Harry swallows, finding himself self-conscious all of a sudden, as if Pansy was seeing through his inner most thoughts.

"It's...," She trails of as if trying to piece together the best possible combination of words to get her intention across, "It's just that it's been nine years, Potter"

"Nine...,"

"And," She says carefully, "...Well, that must have been one hell of break-up,"

Harry stiffens at this. Here's the thing about Pansy Parkinson that Harry Potter had recently come to admire: it was her ability to see through all the bullshit. She was shrewd, callous and unforgivingly observant. Unlike Hermione whose perfectionism has clouded her vision into only seeing what she wanted to see, Pansy saw clearly the world as it really was, beauty and ugly mixing into one giant murky maelstrom. Pansy understood that there were always two sides, she's been on both after all, and that nothing was ever black and white. That world never fits itself in good and bad boxes.

"Can I tell you something, Parkinson?" Harry says as he snaps out of his thoughts.

"Oh?" Pansy's eyebrow quirks up ever so slightly.

"A story," Harry swallows hard.

"A story," Pansy says slowly, now squaring her shoulders and leaning even closer in her seat as if to tell him that he had her her undivided attention. To say she was intrigued was an understatement, "And whose story would you be telling me about?"

"Mine," Harry's eyes bore into hers, "The real one,"

Pansy's smile was unsettling, borderline sincere. A smile that looked unnatural on Pansy's face because Harry had never seen it before. She waiting for him, quietly, patiently, encouragingly. He didn't know what had made him decide to tell her all of this, today of all days, but he knew if there was one person who would finally listen to him it would probably be Pansy Parkinson. Not because she was a particularly good person, Harry snorted in his head, but because he knew Pansy would understand.

He tells the truth this time as he shared his story. Speaking to Pansy had always felt like he was confessing sin to a fellow sinner. He knows she offers camaraderie rather than judgement. So he starts at the beginning, and the words fall out all at once.

11 years ago, right after the war—

"Oh so, we're going way back on this?" Pansy interrupts almost immediately.

"Do you want to hear it or not,"

Pansy hold her hands up in defeat and motions for him to continue. Harry shakes her at her and he proceeds, "Eleven years ago"

He had plunged himself straight into the claws of the ministry's aurorship. Everyone was against him skipping his seventh year even though they had offered his year a chance to come back and finish it. At that time he had told them that he didn't need to anymore because he's learned everything he needed to know about defeating dark wizards from defeating the Dark Lord. Some agreed, but most others called him foolish and arrogant and impulsive. He didn't care. He couldn't care. All he cared about was never stepping into Hogwarts again and had avoided it like the plague. It smelled like death and loss, haunted by the ghost of all his failures to save the people that he loved.

He buried himself in his work, trained harder than anyone in his team. Worse than the criticism (arrogant, show-off, self-centered) came the praises (savior, prodigy, hero). The praises, he found, were more torturous than the criticisms. The praises became the lie that his life wrapped itself around to take form. He wasn't a hero, he was a murderer. He was wasn't a savior, he was a coward who let his friends die. He wasn't well-loved, he was lonely and alone. His soul stretched itself out so thin and so brittle that it was only a matter of time until it finally burst and shattered.

At this point, he allowed himself to look at Pansy in the eye, half-afraid to be met again with those same pitying eyes that waned from uncaring to irritated. But instead he was only met with a passive stare that seemed to study him, a tiny flicker in her purple irises that seemed to say, 'Go on, I'm listening'. So he continued.

Ginny came a year later, after she had finished her seventh year and the two reconnected once again. Harry loved her. That was the only thing he was sure of anymore. She felt like home, like christmas mornings, like the hot bright fire burning in the Gyrffindor common room that always held him in a warm embrace. It was the only truth that soothed his brittle soul, that soldered the gaps back in together. He was foolish to think that this love was enough to save him. Was it not also his mother's love that saved him all those years ago? However the thing about love that he later learned, was that in order for its magic to work, they had to love you back too.

It started so small, so simple, so easy to ignore. The flicker of annoyance behind her eyes, the tiny sighs of irritation behind his back when she thought he couldn't hear her anymore. He surrounded himself with lies again, his soul bulged, ballooned and grew into an excruciating stretch. He buried himself in work, working harder than he was asked for, stayed longer hours at the ministry. The praise doubled (all lies, all lies), his soul kept dragging him further down, like dead weight that crushed and suffocated him. Ginny would disappear too, days at a time as she travelled for Hollyhead Harpies games. She'd breeze through the front door of their home carefree and happy and come back with a tinge of dread and resentment after. Harry ignored this too because what was one lie more to add.

The days grew gray and lifeless around him. Work hours stretched long and endless, the nightmares settled in and made a home inside him, multiplying and magnifying itself. Memories of death and loss plagued him every night. He was losing sleep, losing will, and the only thing that anchored him was that tiny sputtering warmth inside him. He loved Ginny, but she didn't love him back.

It was after one particular game, one match from Italy—

"That long ago?" Pansy was actually scandalized. Blaise and Weasley wasn't a whirlwind romance, it was long calculated one that spanned over years. Well hidden from prying eyes that enabled them to control the narrative so seamlessly.

"Yes," Harry nodded, "That long ago."

Ginny had come back through the doors of their townhouse but instead of her usual dread and disdain, Harry could've sworn it was guilt that marred the planes of her face that day. He buried it of course, thought nothing of it, he asked her what was wrong and she only shook her head at him. It wasn't before long that Ginny had asked him if the offer to get married was still on the table. He had asked her to marry her one year into their relationship and she had requested more time. More time to think, more time to enjoy her youth (they were still both so young, Ginny had argued) and Harry obliged. He always obliged.

They set the date, the venue, the flowers—white lilies in honor of his mother. The guests came pouring in the white tents where rows and rows of chairs had been set by magic. Harry stood at the end of the aisle with the tiny warmth, still sputtering hopefully, furiously inside him. Like a tiny lit match burning on the remaining sliver of wood, fighting for its life against the deafening darkness. He sees Mrs. Weasley first, eyes rim red with tears, shaking her head at the Weasley patriarch. He didn't need her to come to him and cross the aisle to tell him, to apologize to him.

He knew, he's always known that she wasn't going to show up but still he hoped—he lied to himself that somewhere behind her eyes of guilt, her sighs of despair that she has something that resembled love for him. It was that final lie that he had stacked up at the very top of his growing tower that finally toppled the rest into of it into the waiting sea of blackened waters. A pool so deep and sick of despair and loss and loneliness. The tidal wave it caused all came rushing, cold air chilling every bone in his body, until finally snuffing out the tiny little match inside him. Then he was lost—

"Excuse, I'm sorry, I just couldn't help myself, but he is just so adorable," A sweet old witch was crooning at the gurgling Scorpius who blinked back at her, "Is he yours?" She looked at the two raven haired individuals who looked back at her. Harry looked like he was coming out of a daze, blinking at her as if trying to shake out a spell, Pansy looked a little less confused and a little more hostile.

"Holy shit, lady," Pansy's voice raised by a step and she pointed to the obvious stark impossibility of the color of their hair , "Obviously not shit for brains," The old witch's expression fell into something less sweet and a little more rotten.

"I am so sorry about her," came Harry's apologetic voice

"Now fuck off," Pansy shooed the witch with a flick of her hand and Harry grimaced as the old lady threw them a scathing look and trotted off with her nose in the air in indignation.

Harry gave her a pointed look that might have said, 'what the hell is wrong with you', the kind of look a father would give his errant child. Pansy in turn gave him a half-hearted shrug that might have said, 'I'm a bitch, but you already know that', the kind of shrug someone would give if they didn't give a care at all. The two regarded each other with careful eyes, Harry could feel Pansy's eyes studying him, her purple irises slipping across the skin on his face as if answers to the questions in her head were written on him.

"Does Granger know?" was what she chose to ask him as she pulled the two of them back to his story. Does Hermione know? Did she know that he had tried and failed to walk out on this mortal plane of existence? Did she know that he had been secretly sending her goodbyes and thank you's in the guise of him finally showing signs of healing? No, she didn't. He didn't give her the burden of knowing. Only one person had known what he had done, what he had attempted to do. Only one person, until now that is—

Pansy eyebrows shot up at this.

He was failing everything. His work became sloppy, mistake after mistake, and after a while the chief auror at that time couldn't keep up with the excuses he made for him. Harry was novelty. Harry was the war hero. But even the department had their limits. He was asked to take a leave to get his bearings again but instead Harry resigned for good. No one thought any of it, but to Harry that was the start. He would soon be tying one loose end after the other. Putting things in order in their perfect little boxes, as if he was moving out.

"Merlin, Potter," Pansy breathes out. Harry felt pinpricks up his neck, goosebumps from the ghosts of his past. He continues before he lost the nerve to finish his story.

Andromeda Tonks, he continued. It was Andromeda Tonks who burst into number 12 Grimmauld place and peeled him off of the rotten floorboards, half-alive, half already walking the land of the dead—

"How...?"

"Blood was blood," Harry explains, "Andromeda would always be a Black no matter how much her mother hated her. The house came screaming at her when..." His eyes became hard and glossy and Pansy nodded to tell her she understood what he didn't need to say. He picked up the story again.

Andromeda Tonks sequestered him into her home, a tiny english cottage with a sprawling garden of wild flowers and a cupboard full of teas. She didn't let him go back to number 12 and she fortified his soul with strong tea and wildflower honey. Six months later, he moved into his own cottage just a ways off from hers. He built a slow quiet life for himself. He picked up gardening.

"Excuse me, what?"

"It's when you take care of plants" Harry says dryly.

"I know what gardening means, asshole," Pansy rolled her eyes and Harry smirked. Pansy eyed him up and down as if trying to imagine him hunched over his backyard with an apron and shears just toiling away at the soil. Did he grow crop goods or was he a flowerbed kind of guy.

"Stop trying to picture it," the war hero deadpanned at her.

She scoffs but she doesn't deny it either way, instead she prompts him with another question, "Why didn't you tell your friends, Potter? I thought you three were glued to the hip"

"They had their own lives to live," He says simply.

Had their own monsters to deal with, he continued, their own loses to come to terms with. The thing about friendships is that people grow, and they change and their lives branch off in all different ways. He loved his friends truly but he knew they had their own lives to contend with. So he kept the contact but took care in unloading more burden on them.

"I'm guessing you feel the same with Malfoy," He regards he with his green eyes.

Pansy frowns because she knows he's right. Even if Draco was her closest dearest friend, she knew the guilt that came with trying to bring him into her mess sometimes. She knew he would do anything for her which is exactly why she keeps things from him as much as she could. He had already found his happening and she didn't want to wreak havoc on it like she always did. She understood that loving someone is exactly the reason why one stayed away sometimes.

"Do you know why I like kids, Parkinson?" He muses on without letting her answer his question, "They never see you as the string of accomplishments you attach your name. They don't count how much good or much bad you've done, how successful or unsuccessful you are. They only care that you're there. They only care that you exist in their world. How many people can you say loves you that much just for simply existing? How many people can you loves with you having to beg and bargain? They love you unconditionally just because you're there, and you're you."

Teddy had become his tether to this world. A thin, fragile beautiful thing to hold onto. Like the almost invisible string attached on to a kite that blooms into a magnificent dance of paper and wind above you. By the time he came to his senses, five years had passed leaving Teddy with an absent godfather. He wasted five years buried in work and despair that he didn't realize this life was growing without him. He vowed never to abandon him again.

The two stopped talking and let their gaze drift off to Teddy, who was all warmth and smiles as he entertained everyone in the plaza with his stories and his sharks and his rainbow colored hair. Pansy can fill in the blanks from then on, the story that was never told. Why he had disappeared, how he disappeared. The story that no one cared about because all people cared about were the pretty lies wrapped in gossip and tall tales. They wanted the thrill, the adventure, the glory, not the broken down bodies, the consequences of the soul that came with it.

"You said you never wanted to step back into Hogwarts," Pansy said softly as the two readjusted their attention back at each other. She was clearly pertaining to the fact that the former Auror was now a professor at the old haunting ground. Harry nodded at her words, and confirmed it. He did vow to never set foot in that castle again. It held too much painful memories of death, betrayal and loss. But it also held so much warmth, love, and friendship—the first real home he's ever known. Whatever terror he had felt before setting foot in there again vanished the moment he entered its hallowed halls. The stones of the castle seemed to welcome him, drawing closer around him, a warm embrace of a mother welcoming his wayward son home.

"I didn't know how long I stood there," Harry says, his voice full of warmth and affection at the memory. A smile playing at the corner of his lips, "I felt like I was there for days, just listening to the walls and life around me. The scurry of feet of the hundreds of students, their robes whipping against the wind, the laughter, the voices. McGonagal found me, we spoke for a long time that day and, that was it. I was the defense against the dark arts professor and I was home,"

A comfortable silence hung between them after he finished his story. Green meeting purple as they watched each other. It took Pansy a while to realize that he had stopped talking and that he had come to the end of his narrative. She blinked back her daze and settled into her seat, and tilting her face up to let the warmth of the afternoon sun dance on her skin. She closes her eyes against the glare, she could feel Harry's eyes watching her, waiting.

Potter's image was shifting again in her mind. She had noticed of course that he had mellowed out over the years, he was gentler, more patient, more level-headed than when they were still on Hogwarts School uniforms. Of course she had always attributed that to all of them getting older and the fact that Potter was basically a father at this point. She never could have imagined the cruel chisel that carved this Potter out of the stone.

"Thank you for telling me, Potter," she finally says and she sits back up properly and meets his gaze.

"I thought you said we weren't allowed to say thank you anymore," He laughs as Pansy flicks an olive at him. He catches it with ease and pops it into his mouth, he looked smug about being able to use her words against her, "Thank you for hearing me, Parkinson" he adds evenly.

"I almost feel guilty," she said thoughtfully

"For?"

"I feel like I discovered a secret that didn't deserve to belong to me," Everything about what Harry said felt too personal, too real, too close. The trust he displayed was dizzying. She couldn't remember a time when Adrian was this honest with her—or anyone in her life for that matter.

"It belongs to you now" Harry's gaze was unwavering and she tried her hardest not to flinch.

"Why?" came her short query which wasn't any easier to answer.

"I've spoken to you more than I have with any other person the past year in a half, since the day you showed up on Malfoy's doorstep drenched in rain" he states not really answering the question and Pansy quirks her eyebrow up. He wasn't going to get away with changing subject, and he wasn't trying to, "Why do you think that is?"

He looks at her inquiringly, his eyes seems to be searching for answers in hers. She doesn't reply because something in his eyes made her throat clamp shut, trapping the words she ought to be saying down at the pit of her stomach. He continues when she doesn't speak, "It's seems ridiculous really, that I spent the past ten minutes telling you not to bother your friends with your burdens but I—You're...easy to talk to. You...hear me more than most people. You understand more than most people. Do you know I mean?"

Yes, unfortunately, she did know what he meant. It now dawns on her, like grey clouds parting to finally reveal the still blue sky, why Harry had chosen her to bear witness to this black coiling secret that he hid well within himself. Clarity stilled the raging waters that surrounded the war hero that Pansy could finally see the smoothed out stones and rough jagged rocks the formed the intricate landscape beneath the current. It was never about Ginevra Weasley. It was about all the small things that piled on one on top of the other, neglected far too long until it got him. He didn't recoil from Weasley because of how their relationship had ended, he recoiled from her because she reminded him of the lowest point of his life. She reminded him of the suffocating darkness that drowned him all those years ago. All those days when he'd cry and panic about Weasley was just really him trying to expel the worst of his demons.

"Speaking of confessions," Pansy sticks her touch against the back of her teeth as if contemplating if whether she should really divulge of her secrets. She decides to let it out, "A year ago, the night I showed up on Draco's doorstep. That was the first time in years someone had held me,"

The reaction in Harry's eyes were slow. A flicker of recognition, then of disbelief then finally settling for confusion, "I don't under—but you were married to Pucey for five years." Surely during that time there was some semblance of the reason why the two had even gotten married in the first place.

"He was never the affectionate type. He mainly just fucked me," Pansy said coolly as if she was telling him about the weather forecast for the day.

Harry chokes on nothing and his brain short circuits. He tried his hardest to come up with something appropriate to say but what does one say to something like that. He settled for a lame, "oh"

Pansy snorted clearly enjoying his discomfort and she decides to put him out of his misery, "What I'm trying to say is that yes, Potter. I get it. Weasley was the easy lie."

The lie you tell so that you didn't have to explain the bigger and more complicated lie. The lie that was most commonly took form in the words, 'I'm fine'. Pansy has told those kinds of lies herself. It was what got her into her situation with Adrian in the first place. People hated the complicated, and very rare and few of them ever bother to solve the puzzle. It was easier to just say, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.

Harry smiles for the first time since he started telling her his story, his shoulders finally relaxing against a strain that he didn't know he was holding, "Like I said, Thank you for hearing me, Parkinson,"

"What did I say about thanking me," There it was again, the sincerity in the faint smile that brushed her lips. Harry made sure to memorize it.

"Oh my god! Scorpius, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," A crazed bushy-haired witch scooped up the jolly infant in her arms. Her hair flying frenetically in the wind already plastered against her skin as if she had been running for her life. Behind her was her husband who trailed behind with a foul mood ready to explode as he plucked owl feathers out of his hair and picked at talon wound on his arms. (Bloody fucking owl, he mutters alongside Hermione's string of apologies to their son)

"Good morning," Pansy greeted them in the sweetest voice she could muster, "Fun night?"

"Don't fucking ('language!' Hermione hissed at him and he winced in pain) start with me Parkinson," Draco Malfoy groaned as he deflates into an empty chair at the table of four. He looks down and blinks at the half-eaten sandwich left behind by the excitable Teddy before shrugging and pushing it into his mouth. He closed his eyes in pleasure as he took a bite. When he opened them again he was met with three pairs of eyes: the purple ones looked amused, the green looked smug, and the brown ones...the brown one were all fury.

"Hermione love, please. Sit," Draco groaned out through the throbbing pain that swelled in his head.

The wild haired witch glared at him as she planted herself down the opposite seat, back rigid in silent defiance, "You could have at least been more concerned about our son,"

Draco let out an exasperated sigh, "I told you, Saint Potter would never let anything bad happen to Scorp"

Hermione bristled and Pansy coughed down a laugh and Harry only rolled his eyes, too used to the half-hearted insults that the blonde Slytherin tossed carelessly around him. The Gryffindor witch shot one last glare at her husband before donning a more apologetic expression as she turned to face Harry, "What he means to say is thank you Harry. Really, I—"

"Oh don't thank me," He smirks as his eyes motions to Pansy whose eyes in turn motions him to shut fuck up. This only made his smirk grow wider, "Parkinson took care of Scorpius. She's the one who got him dress and ready this morning," He takes an innocent sip of his already too cold coffee all too pleased about the chaos that would ensue.

It was as if the whole world has stopped spinning in disbelief of this impossibility. Draco's sandwich fell back on the plate with a clank, his hand frozen midair as if to take a bite. Hermione looked white as a ghost as she gaped at the witch who was now pointedly looking at the war hero as if silently putting a curse on him. Even the birds seemed to have stopped midair just so they could stare at disbelief at the raven haired witch who claimed to have been too terrified of babies to ever have them let alone touch them.

"Pansy, I—," Hermione managed to stammer out finally. She looked like she was at a loss for words, confused by how she couldn't find what she needed to say.

"I believe the words that you're looking for is, 'Thank you Parkinson I now owe you a favor'," Pansy said finding some dirty pleasure at the fact the she was able to silence the brightest witch of her age.

"Yes, thank you Parkinson," the Gryffindor witch finally breathes out, then reluctantly adds,"I owe you,"

Pansy sent a smirk Harry's way and he rolled his eyes at her as he turned his attention behind him to check if his (god)son was still alive and being a menace to the people of Grey Rock.

"What the fuck are you up to," Draco eyes her suspiciously under the heavy haze of his hangover. The oddity of one Pansy Parkinson taking care of an infant, let alone his child sent a sobering splash of ice water down his back. When Pansy only smiles at him he adds, "Pans—"

"Don't worry your pretty little head Draco, I haven't come for your first born child," Pansy says dryly. Draco merely scowls at her and restarts his efforts devour the rest of Teddy's forgotten sandwich. It occurs to him that he really shouldn't be eating someone else's food that he had just found sitting on someone else's plate but the call of the greasy bacon trapped between the starchy bread was too much for him to ignore.

"Daaaaad!" Teddy came crashing into the table, breath quick and short. Excitement dance dangerously in his eyes as if he'd just discovered the secret to life itself. The two previously inebriated adults winced in pain from his shrill voice, both of them hunching over and cupping their heads. Scorpius squealed out an excited gurgle as if to say hello to the young wizard who rejoined their table, "Dad, dad, dad!"

"Teddy slow down," Harry laughed through his exasperation as he tried to steady the excitable Lupin (Potter now after he had officially adopted him)

"Dad," He finally settled himself down before launching into the story of Mr. Oswald down by the second hand bookstore who had a pet monkey who can do magic tricks and fly on paper airplanes and—

"I can't imagine where you're going with this, bud"

"Can we please please please get a pet monkey?"

"Absolutely not," Harry found himself saying tiredly for the second time that day and Teddy grumbled and melted onto the table, crossing his arms and resting his chin on it. A petulant pout was on his lips. He looked sideways at his cousin, the platinum blonde wizard who was now preparing to the take the last bite of Teddy's abandoned sandwich.

"I saw your butt," Teddy savagely states and Draco choked painfully at the sliver of bacon that slid painfully down his throat. Pansy and Harry burst out laughing as Hermione turned the color of beet red, trying to make herself disappear behind her wild bushy mane.

They left the island a little after sunset and filed in the private Malfoy boat, powered only by speed spells and floating charms. It cut smoothly across the water as it sped towards the mainland where their designated apparition points were waiting for them. Hermione wasn't so sure what had transpired the whole afternoon but she could sense that something in the air had changed. Harry for one looked like a man unburdened. There was a lightness to the way he held his shoulder, the way his green eyes would flicker. Then there was Parkinson whose smirks curved softer, her insults seemed duller. She couldn't help but notice the way the two would stand just stand a little bit closer, smile just a little bit brighter and speak just a little bit warmer to each other.

"Something weird is happening between the two of you and I don't like it," Draco deadpanned as he adamantly flicks his eyes between the Slytherin witch and his former arch nemesis. Hermione nearly slaps her forehead in frustration. Leave it to her husband to completely miss the mark on subtlety.

The two in question merely looked back the prying blonde. Harry with an eyebrow raised and Pansy with her usual cool and penetrative stare.

"Hey Draco," Pansy says innocently.

The blonde merely quirks his brow at this oldest friend.

"Fuck off?" Came her follow up. Draco scowls at her but ultimately turns his attention back on the horizon where the shores of the mainland loomed bigger and bigger. Pansy and Harry turned their attention back towards each other and Hermione turned hers back on the two. She smiled inwardly to herself because it seemed like it wasn't just Draco and her that had gotten a bit of time for themselves.