AN: This chapter got absurdly dark so I split it and you get the fluffy half first. So it's a short chapter but the next chapter I'll add more events so it's not just brutal introspection. Though there will of course be more cute Harry to come ;D

Chapter 6 - Mini-Me

Harry had of course seen Dudley play with toys and he had broken toys he played with under the stares but that was a far sight different the magical train set Draco had gotten him that the adults had insisted he set up in the living room.

He supposed since the flat was magical it was far bigger than it looked on the outside, though magical London was fantastical on it's own, however, it was still one floor. There was the entry, the living room, the hall to the bedrooms, bath and laundry room, the kitchen and adjacent to the living room was the potions lab which Harry was not allowed to enter.

Aunt Andromeda seemed to doubt him even as she magically enlarged the doors into double doors that opened the rooms to one another.

Frankly, the rules, "don't go here" and "don't leave the flat," made the most sense to him.

When Harry insisted on helping his new aunt cook or bake, he was amazed at only being allowed to stir in dry ingredients or press dough.

Still, Harry didn't know how to play with the train set. Some of the pieces moved and the tracks… There were a lot of tracks and they wouldn't all fit without going over and under the coffee table.

Aunt Petunia didn't even let Dudley put his things on the coffee table.

Though that was probably because he had once shattered a glass table and hurt himself.

Draco–Dad– had told him to take a break from drawing.

He hadn't really understood why the adults were worried that he was drawing too much.

Especially considering they had gotten him a series of 'How to Draw…'

Dad had said, "Drawing is not a job, you're six years old, it's just supposed to be fun."

But it was fun, even if his hand began to cramp and his eyes got tired.

Dad was helping Aunt Andromeda when he noticed Harry hadn't started to build the train set.

Draco made to step away, wiping his hands which were long and elegant, unlike Uncle Vernon who had meaty hands or Aunt Petunia's bony hands, on a special magic nullifying hand towel.

Harry loved that so much around him was magical. And that he was allowed to ask questions.

And that they answered questions without yelling at him.

He loved a lot less not knowing what to do when Draco knelt beside him on the thick carpet.

"What's wrong, Harry?"

Harry twisted his hands together before saying, "It's too much."

Draco frowned, "What's too much? The moving pieces?"

The train choo-chooed in answer.

"There are too many pieces," Harry tried to explain, deliberately not looking at the table.

But Draco was smarter than his aunt and uncle, he looked right where Harry wasn't looking.

"Oh," Draco said. "Here, we'll make an island for drinks and you don't have to worry about using all the tracks. It's meant to be changeable, there's no right answer."

Aunt Andromeda turned on the record player and light music filled the room. Slowly, Harry's shoulders began to relax.

Soon enough, Harry was able to work on the train tracks all by himself and he forgot all about the coffee table.

oOo

"How did you guess it was the coffee table?" Aunt Andromeda asked as she stirred her cauldron.

"Have you seen my mother's house? I might have been spoiled, that doesn't mean I got to play on the furniture."

She laughed, "You have no idea how many times Bella and I got in trouble on her behalf for spilling things on the sofa or tracking mud into the house."

"You're joking," Draco said, he seemed almost offended.

"She was always the perfect lady in public, but the moment we got home, well let's just say she was often out of sight but rarely out of mind," she said fondly.

"That's hard to imagine."

oOo

It didn't happen all at once but day by day, Draco couldn't help noticing that Harry's hair was growing lighter and lighter as his emerald eyes turned to a pale blue.

Even his face structure even began to change.

"What am I going to do?" Draco asked his aunt after putting Harry to bed. "How's this even possible?"

"He's a metamorphmagus," she said, amused at his distress.

"No he isn't. He never was before."

"It's a strange power, and not all are like my daughter. He'll like never be able to mimic anyone else exactly. He more or less imprinted on you."

"But what about his own face?" Draco asked, thinking of the horror and anger Potter would have felt if he understood that Draco Malfoy had stolen his identity to the point of being unrecognizable as himself.

She shrugged. "He is who he wants to be."

"But Potter doesn't look like me! He wouldn't have wanted this!"

"Tell me, Draco, how do you know he didn't mimic his parents? I met James Potter, it's impossible not to see how much he looked like a clone of his father with his mother's eyes."

Draco dropped his face into his hands, "I didn't want to erase them. He might not have remembered them but his parents were always important to him. They died for him."

Andromeda hummed, "There are other ways to honour and remember loved ones. Besides, his eyes were never an exact match for Lily Evans. Did his eyes always look as dark as emeralds or do they sometimes seem to brighten to another green."

Draco didn't know what she was getting at. Until he did.

"No," he murmured.

"The Killing Curse is unforgettable green for those who have seen it."

Draco was horrified, "Harry has mentioned it. When he wakes from nightmares that's the colour of his eyes. Not emeralds but…"

Draco held onto the counter as he a mental breakdown about how truly fucked Potter's life was and how Draco was so very unqualified to deal with it.

"Draco, look at me."

He pulled himself upright at her tone, under he severity of her dark gaze.

"That boy loves you more than anyone or anything in this world. "

"I don't deserve–"

"Tough luck. You adopted a child. You broke every law you needed to because you promised him that you would keep him safe. Do not fail now, do not punish him for adoring you."

Draco thought of his own father and how badly that had turned out.

"I can't do that to him. He shouldn't follow anyone blindly. Least of me."

"But that's what it means to be a parent. And if you raise them right they learn to rebel and find their own way. But only if they feel safe enough to do so."

Draco frowned, "What do you mean?"

"You loved Lucius. I imagine you thought the world of him as you look so broken hearted when he's mentioned. But did you ever feel safe enough to disobey him?"

Draco looked away again. He had never purposely disobeyed his father, and he had been punished for his father's crimes regardless.

"You will not do that to Harry," Andromeda said.

"No, I won't. Not ever."

Andromeda patted his shoulder, "Nor will I let you do so. Now, just embrace how much easier it will be to take him out in public."

He laughed.

He didn't get much sleep that night but he took her words to heart and would do his damnest for Harry's sake.

He doubted his own father had been so afraid to hold hopes and dreams of a boy who looked like him and looked up to him as if he could do no wrong.

Reality was always more cruel, but Draco would be a better man than his father had been.

He had to be.

oOo

Draco was a country boy.

Not in the horse shit-slinging way, but in the sense he was a noble who lived on a private estate and visited other private estates.

He only was taken on a few trips to Diagon Alley a year before going to Hogwarts.

In retrospect, it was probably because his mother feared someone wanting revenge on Lucius by attacking his son.

Draco had learned after the second war the reality of such fears.

Just because you were on the Light side did not guarantee you were a safe person to be around.

Luckily for Draco, his Auror Mentor gave absolutely no lenience to anyone who abused others, especially children.

The Wizard World more or less learned that Auror Potter wasn't an Auror for his fame, but because the man believed strongly that bad things happened when good people did nothing.

Potter had cursed one moron to slap himself in the face for five days when said moron slapped Theodore Nott's daughter in a bookstore.

That wizard had gotten off easy, as Theo had been ready to rip the man's spine out, but public humiliation by way of a bruised face and a punctured eye was not the end of the punishment.

Oh no, Potter escalated the case, not only to the bastard who would raise a hand against a child go to jail for three years but Potter ruined him socially so that all his friends believed he was skum and economically so that his restaurant chain in both magical London, muggle London and the two in Paris.

Auror Potter was perhaps the worst enemy to have.

Draco felt that sort of protective over little Harry now.

Had he expected time travel would lead him to become a father, no, but seeing Harry smile was all worth it.

The owl emporium was filled with loud screeching birds and though Draco knew Harry didn't need an owl, he remembered that Potter had loved his, so much so he had kept a drawing of her in his office.

So it was with an extra bit of money Andromeda had given him that Draco decided it was never too soon to find your familiar.

He thought the chances were low they would find the same bird, after all, the snowy owl had been beautiful.

But as fate would have it, said snowy owl was a demon with feathers and when Harry reached for the bird the store keeper screamed, only to come to a halt when the bird began to gently preen Harry's hair.

The boy giggled, stroking her chest feathers as if they were already bonded.

Draco turned to the storekeeper who was still rather pale.

"Ya can have her for free, so long as you sign a paper that says if that boy loses a finger it's not on me," she told him.

If Draco didn't already know that the owl Harry immediately named Hedwig from the story Ted had read him last night, then he would have been concerned. As it was, Draco signed the paper after reading it and bought some owl food as well as a large fancy cage and an additional perch.

Harry talked to Hedwig the whole way back to the apartment, relying on Draco to navigate the crowds around them, the majority of which stopped to take note of how adorable Harry was with his beautiful bird.

Again, keeping a low profile failed miserably, and from that day forward, all of Diagon Alley knew them as the single father with an adorable son and his beautiful owl.

oOo

Narcissa heart seemed to reform and then break all over again as she saw a man who looked like a more elegant version of her husband holding the hand of a boy who looked so much like her Draco. Only he wore glasses and his hair was far too curly.

She ducked into an alley to apperate away. She couldn't handle seeing everything she lost.

Not when she could barely handle remembering.

oOo

AN: Thoughts, hairy woodpecker, or feedback, pretty please?