Chapter Forty-Four of "Starfall'- Long Live Joy
Chapter Forty-Three.
Title: Starfall (44/50 or 52)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Harry/Ginny, past Draco/Astoria, Ron/Hermione
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, manipulation
Summary: When the truth about a seemingly minor Dark hex Harry has suffered leads to the dissolution of his marriage with Ginny, Harry spins into a downward spiral. His private consolation is creating a fantasy life for himself in his journal as Ethan Starfall, a normal wizard with a big family. When he receives a random owl Draco Malfoy has cast into the void as a plea for help with his son Scorpius, Harry replies-as Ethan. There’s no reason, he thinks, for an epistolary friendship with Draco to go further. But Draco might have different ideas about that.
Author’s Note: This is likely to be a long story, updated fairly regularly. It is, however, very angsty.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Forty-Four-Long Live Joy
“I think,” said Scorpius, with so much solemnity that Harry turned towards him at once, thinking this would be something different from anything they had discussed so far, “that I’d like you to stay here for always.”
Harry cocked his head. Scorpius was on the floor with several toys around him, some his own, but some that Teddy had brought over from Andromeda’s house. The toys were mostly animals, mostly moved on their own, and roared or bleated or whinnied or barked depending on what they were. Harry had thought Teddy was too old to enjoy things like that, but his toys did act differently around Scorpius’s, so maybe that was new enough for him.
“I can’t,” said Teddy absently, reaching out to turn one of his lions towards one of Scorpius’s. The lion promptly dropped into a crouch and started inching towards Scorpius’s lion, his paws scraping softly at the floor. Teddy grinned. “I have to go back and stay with Grandmother, too.”
“No,” said Scorpius, with the same solemn tone, and turned towards where Harry was sitting on the couch. “I meant Uncle Harry.”
There was a pause, and Teddy’s hair changed from blond, the color it usually was when he visited the Malfoys, to a flat black. He glanced at Harry, then away, and his voice was elaborately casual as he replied, “But Uncle Harry has to come and visit me sometimes. He can’t stay here for always.”
“You could come over and see him here,” said Scorpius. Then he talked directly to Harry, the first time he’d really done that today. “And you wouldn’t have to go to work anymore. My daddy has enough money for all of us.”
Teddy stood up and put his hands on his hips. “Uncle Harry can’t stay here for always. I just told you that. You need to stop being a baby and trying to keep him all for yourself!”
For the first time, Harry saw Scorpius’s Malfoy training really stand him in good stead. He ignored Teddy with the patience of someone ignoring a fly buzzing in his ear, and kept his gaze on Harry, and nodded a little. “You’ll do it?” he asked. “You’ll come here and live with us. I mean, you’re always here in the morning. You should.”
Harry had to smile a little at Scorpius trying to adopt something he’d probably heard his father or grandfather stay. The minute he smiled, though, Teddy turned around and kicked the toys, scattering them all over the floor.
“Stop it,” said Harry, with a quiet authority that made Teddy turn and gape at him. “I wouldn’t always stay here and never visit you, Teddy, even if I did decide to live with your cousins.” He turned and looked at Scorpius. “And there’s something more important than just living here that I need to discuss with you. I think we should have your father with us when we talk about it, though.”
“What is it?” Teddy demanded.
Harry looked at him thoughtfully. He didn’t think Draco would mind having Teddy there when he spoke about being a second father to Scorpius, but Scorpius might, and there was no telling how Teddy would take the conversation. Best to do some damage control first.
“I’m your godfather,” he told Teddy, and bent down so he was more on Teddy’s level and Teddy could see he was serious. “You knew that was true from the time you were three, right?” That was the first time Teddy had asked Harry what being a godfather really meant, and how it was different from a “real dad.”
“Yeah,” said Teddy. “Younger.” He cast a look at Scorpius that told Harry exactly where this jealousy and attempts to claim superiority were coming from.
Harry held back his smile, and Teddy’s gaze focused on him again. “Well,” said Harry, “nothing is ever going to change that. It’s a unique and special relationship. You’re always going to be my godson, and no one can ever take that away.” He reached out and put his hand gently on Teddy’s black hair, rubbing through it.
Teddy grumbled, even as his hair changed texture to match Harry’s. “You don’t need to talk to me like I’m a baby. I can understand.”
“Good,” said Harry, and turned towards Scorpius. “So part of the reason I want to stay here is to be with your dad, but part of the reason is also to be with you.”
Teddy tensed, but folded his arms and contented himself with only looking away and making a sniffing sound. Scorpius ignored him. He was looking at Harry with wide eyes, one hand reaching out as if he would touch Harry’s arm. Harry let him do it, and Scorpius swallowed and stared at him.
“You mean it?” he whispered.
Harry nodded. “Of course I do. But your dad can explain it better than I can. So I think we ought to summon him, don’t you?” Purely because he wanted to impress the children-well, and because it was pretty easy at the moment, with happiness beaming in the back of his mind-he drew his wand and called his Patronus.
Scorpius stared at the silver stag. Teddy looked on with a bored expression, but his eyes were wide and glinting. Harry grinned as the stag pranced up and down, showing off the way it tended to do in front of an audience when Harry didn’t need it to attack right away, and then turned towards Harry and bowed its antlers.
“Go find Draco,” said Harry. “Draco, I think we need to talk about Scorpius having two dads.” He watched as the stag sprang through the wall, and smiled down at Scorpius. “So I can stay with you a lot of the time, but I still have to visit Teddy and go to work.”
“And visit Rose and Hugo,” said Teddy, who didn’t look as upset as Harry had thought he might, but whose eyes were still warily traveling back and forth between Scorpius and Harry, as if he thought it possible that Harry might yield and consent to stay a prisoner in Malfoy Manor. “And visit Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione. And go to the shops.”
Harry laughed and leaned out to ruffle Teddy’s hair. He wondered where he had got to the point of having children compete over him. Of course, Teddy had never really seemed jealous about Rose and Hugo or the other Weasley children, maybe because Harry didn’t see them as often since his divorce. “I know. I have to do lots of things. But I can still live here.”
“Of course you can. What do you think you’ve been doing?”
Harry started and looked up. Draco had arrived, stepping lightly into the drawing room and flicking his fingers to get rid of ink. He’d probably been writing letters, Harry thought, and hoped they hadn’t interrupted him at something important.
Then he dismissed the thought. Draco was smiling in that private way he had, where his eyes were doing the majority of it and his mouth was only turning up a little. But that meant he was pleased, and more than willing to be interrupted if they wanted. He held out one hand to Harry and one to Scorpius.
“So,” he said quietly. “You’re happy to have him live here as your other father, Scorpius?”
“Yes,” said Scorpius, and gave Harry a soft look. “But I think he’ll still be Uncle Harry.”
“Yes,” said Harry in return, and reached out to scoop Scorpius up and draw Teddy in for a hug at the same time. It made him happy and warm to be holding them both like that, to know that he could have them both in his life, and that he wasn’t going to be abandoned without a child after all.
It had been foolish to fear that either his divorce or losing Ethan was going to be the end of his life, after all. But he honestly hadn’t known that at the time.
“And you’ll be here with me.”
Harry started and looked up. Draco was holding out a hand to him, and Harry took it and gently put the children down, letting Draco draw him off the couch. Draco kissed him and turned him around in his arms so that Harry was facing the kids again, running one hand lightly up and down Harry’s back.
“Are you going to get married?” Teddy asked. His hair was flickering from color to color, orange and green and red and black and pink and blond and every shade in between. He reminded Harry so strongly of Tonks that he had to swallow. But he also knew that Teddy only changed his hair like that when he was feeling uncertain about something.
“Probably not yet,” was all Draco said, casually, but his arms tightened around Harry’s waist. Harry knew Teddy wasn’t the only person in the room who was feeling uncertain. They were both coming out of marriages that had ended-well, maybe Draco’s hadn’t ended badly, but Harry didn’t think it had given him a huge longing to jump right into another marriage, either. He leaned back safely in Draco’s arms and smiled up into his eyes, shaking his head slightly. Draco relaxed.
“That would be strange if you did,” said Teddy. “I mean, it would be strange for someone to have two dads.”
“No, it would be great,” Scorpius said, so strongly that Harry didn’t even have time to worry about whether Teddy’s statement would hurt Scorpius’s feelings. “Because one of them is my dad, and one is Uncle Harry.”
Draco let Harry stand back up straight. Harry nodded to Teddy. “I don’t know when we’ll get married,” he said. Or if we will, but that was something he would have to discuss more with Draco to know the answer to. “But I do know that we’ll wait a while, and it won’t be strange if we do.”
Teddy scratched his head and looked skeptical, but luckily, he didn’t make a big deal of it. He turned back to the toys instead and said, “My lion can eat your lion, Scorpius.”
“No, he can’t,” said Scorpius, and they went back to their game as if nothing had ever happened. Maybe for Scorpius, it hadn’t.
Harry saw the darting little glances Teddy kept giving him, though, and decided that he would speak with him privately later. It made sense that Teddy would be a little rattled by this and maybe jealous of Scorpius, and Harry didn’t want him to suffer through it. At the same time, he wasn’t going to not move in with Draco and help raise Scorpius because Teddy didn’t like it.
He was done giving things up because other people might be scared or confused if he didn’t.
“Well done,” Draco said into the back of his neck, and kissed him. Harry sighed and turned his head to return the kiss with interest, and they would have gone further if the boys weren’t in the room.
Draco’s smile was warm with promise of doing exactly that later, and Harry had just started to smile back when he saw an owl flying into the room. He shivered. He ought to know that owl, a distinctive tawny color with bands of silver on its wings. It was the owl he had got Ginny for a wedding present.
Draco turned, saw the bird, and held out his hand commandingly. For a moment, the owl swerved as if it would fly around Draco to Harry, but either Draco was the real target after all or he overwhelmed it, because it ended up on settling on his arm. Draco took the letter away and tucked it calmly into his pocket.
The owl pecked him as if it wanted a reply. Draco lifted his head and stared, and after an uncertain moment, the owl took off, flying into a corner and perching there with a resigned patience.
“I think that we need to wait,” said Draco with a soft smile and a tilt of his head towards the kids.
Harry hesitated, then nodded. He certainly didn’t want Draco swearing at the letter, which he suspected would happen if Ginny had written it. Not that Michael was helpless, and he might as well be using Ginny’s bird as Ginny herself, but, well. Harry didn’t have the best feeling about having her owl show up.
“We do,” he said, and then got down on the floor and joined in the game of the lions. Scorpius kindly handed him a tiger that pranced around roaring so he wouldn’t have to feel left out, and Draco slipped out of the room quietly. The owl took wing and followed him. Harry snorted a little.
But he did relax. That meant whoever it was, Ginny or Michael, had written to Draco and not to him.
Harry was just about ready to step back and let Draco fight some of his battles for him, as long as Draco agreed to do it.
*
Draco kept his hands off the letter only with difficulty, during the long afternoon of writing letters for his father and to his own Ministry and business contacts, and during dinner, and Teddy’s farewell and trip back to his grandmother’s house, and putting Scorpius to bed. Then at last he was sitting in front of the fire with Harry, and he took the letter out and spread it flat on his knee.
Harry leaned over to read it without being asked. Draco nodded and smiled at him, and then they focused on the letter that Draco suspected would be a stream of obscenities or a rant.
It was neither. It was also not by Ex-Weasley. It was from Michael Corner, and it was polite, and it was very cold.
Malfoy,
I can’t pretend that I really approve of what my wife is doing. I don’t like hearing about her former marriage, for obvious reasons. I wish she could focus on what we have now, and what we’re going to have in a few months.
But it’s not like I can tell her to stay home and sit down and shut up. Why should I? She would resent me for that, and rightly. I can encourage her to stop focusing on Potter and give it a rest, but she won’t listen to me. I have talked to her about it, a lot, and she wants to speak to the papers and explain how she feels betrayed.
So yes, I know about this. It doesn’t make me happy. I also know that she’ll get upset about me asking her to stop, and I have no right to interfere with some of the things she does anyway. No human being has the right to do that to another. If Potter has the right to tell his side of the story, then she has the right to tell hers. I can only hope that it’ll stop at the one interview.
Corner’s name was signed at the bottom, and that was it. Draco turned over the sheet of parchment just to make sure, but there wasn’t any more.
“So,” said Harry, and sat back, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t be so disappointed that that didn’t work, but I am.”
“So am I,” Draco breathed. He had thought Corner was oblivious, or hiding at least from the actual consequences of his wife’s behavior. He could have avoided the newspaper article since it was in a more obscure paper. He could have been unaware of her exact words and the way that she was dwelling on Harry telling the truth as some kind of “betrayal” of her secrets.
But no, he knew, and he had talked to her, and he had decided that he didn’t care enough to do anything.
Draco leaned back and watched Harry. Harry had taken the letter in hand and was looking down at it bleakly. Then he looked up and caught Draco’s eye and shrugged a little.
“I suppose we were overly optimistic,” he said. “I mean, why should he be her keeper? There’s no reason for it. He isn’t responsible for her, and she-I mean, she isn’t doing something that would seem outrageous to someone who’s married to her. He probably does wish she would stop talking about it, but it isn’t on the same level as threats or the shit that used to get published about me in the Prophet all the time.”
Draco said nothing, but only sat looking. He wanted to see what would happen before he made a move, before he had to do something that might be drastic. He wanted to see if Harry would recognize the need for action.
Harry put the letter down and looked blankly ahead for a moment. Then he turned to Draco and said, “I don’t want you to publish anything about her that would harm her in the way that the Prophet tried to harm me.”
Draco half-smiled. It was interesting that Harry had assumed publication would be Draco’s route to revenge. “I wouldn’t say she was mad or anything of the sort. It’s not true, and it would only make us look more deluded and rebound on us in a bad way.” He took Harry’s hand. “But I also wasn’t thinking of going to the papers with a story.”
“What, then?” Harry asked quietly. “You can’t blackmail her the way that you did Quillona.”
“No. She didn’t connive at murder.”
Harry narrowed his eyes. “That isn’t the same as saying that you can’t blackmail her. But she hasn’t committed a crime.”
“Not in the normal sense,” Draco agreed calmly. “I was thinking about the social sense. I know something that would make her feel threatened if it was released.”
“What?”
Draco held his eyes. “The fact that she wanted to sleep with someone else while married to you, and have you accept and raise the resulting child.”
Harry tensed. “That embarrasses me as much as it does her, you know,” he said quietly.
“Why?” Draco shook his head. “For one thing, you’ve already talked about things that I don’t think are less embarrassing. You decided to reveal them. And if she wants to keep it quiet, the problem is solved, anyway.”
Harry stared at his hands. “We were both unreasonable. If she had wanted to consider Muggle methods, or if I had decided that I could accept her having someone else’s child, or if we had both agreed to adopt…”
Draco lunged at him, and Harry actually flung up his hands, but since Draco had only wanted to take hold of one of them and drag it down to hold across his lap anyway, that wasn’t a problem. Harry eyed him sideways.
“You were both unreasonable,” Draco said. “Fine. But she’s presenting you as the only one at fault. I don’t like that.” He said it, he thought, in a sweet, calm voice, but from the way Harry’s eyes widened, he might have heard something else in his tone. “I really don’t like it,” Draco added, for emphasis, and let his teeth show. “You can feel sorry for her and not just roll over and let her do whatever she wants. Unlike her husband,” Draco finished, with a glance at the letter. He would have set it on fire, but they might want it later as evidence.
Harry shut his eyes. “He can’t just imprison her or cast a Silencing spell on her or something. He doesn’t have the right to do that.”
“It seems to me,” said Draco delicately, “that Corner and her family are all putting her rights ahead of everyone else’s. You could use someone who acts on your side for once. Or are you going to forbid me to do that?”
Harry shook his head. “I thought contacting Michael was a good idea, but it didn’t work,” he muttered. “I promised.”
Draco gently lifted his chin. “I don’t want you to be miserable about it,” he said. “Can you learn to like it? What is making you so angry about this?”
Harry glanced off to the side, but he didn’t try to move away, and Draco simply waited, knowing he would look back at him eventually.
Harry didn’t do that, but he did start muttering what Draco though was the real answer in a flat voice. “I’m frightened of going too far and doing something unforgivable. We were both unreasonable. I don’t want to-to do something worse than that. I don’t want to act all self-righteous and like I have the right to scold her, either.”
“You can say that you don’t have the right,” Draco said, shrugging his shoulders. “But someone should, and I’m assuming the right since you don’t want it.”
Harry glanced at him then. “And you won’t let me come with you when you go to see her.”
Draco looked him directly in the eyes. “Do you think you could let me say what needs to be said? Or would you interrupt and splutter and jump up and down and try to convince me that she isn’t really that bad?”
Harry shut his eyes tightly. Then he sighed and leaned forwards to put his arms around Draco. Draco permitted it, though he was still interested in knowing an answer to his question.
“I want someone to fight for me,” Harry whispered. “I want-I’m afraid of you going too far, too. I’m afraid of how good it feels to know that you will, when Ron has to be restrained because she’s his sister and Michael can’t because she’s his wife and Hermione doesn’t want to stir up trouble and the rest of the family is uncomfortable doing anything. But I want this to stop.”
Draco nodded tenderly. It was only Harry’s conscience restraining him, as usual. He had thought as much.
“Then I’ll go and talk to her tomorrow,” he said, and kissed Harry’s forehead. “I’m sure she’ll see me. In the meantime…” He slid a hand gently beneath Harry’s shirt.
Harry looked up and laughed, and the letter was forgotten.
But Draco kept it in the back of his mind when he woke later that night. He Summoned it and studied it again, the words of a reasonable man who seemed so afraid of being unreasonable that he wouldn’t even ask his wife to stop going to the papers, which Draco thought was a perfectly obvious step.
Draco would be the one to ask. And he wouldn’t have any particular mercy because Ex-Weasley was pregnant, which seemed to be everyone else’s motivation.
If you think about it, he thought, as he drifted off to sleep, you could say that I’m the one who’s treating her the best, because everyone else is acting like she’s a child because of her pregnancy, and I’m the one who thinks she should act like a rational adult.
That realization carried him cheerfully through the night.
Chapter Forty-Five.
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