‘You’re awake!’ He jumped as the door swung open and Hermione stepped in, looking an oddbination of surprised and ecstatic. Draco huffed a strangled laugh and was hit with a wave of pain which radiated out from his sternum through to his little toes. At least he knew he had toes again. ‘Yeah, you’ll be feeling like that for a while.’ She said when he groaned in pain.

‘How long have I been here?’ His voice sounded marginally better than it had before but it was still gravelly, a touch hoarse, and all too much like a grandfather who’d been smoking forty a day for the past three decades.

‘Three weeks. You’re lucky Harry has the temper he does. When he realised I’d told you about Gringotts he was determined to go after you and explain. If he hadn’t, well…’ She trailed off. She placed her outer robes on the back of the spare chair in the corner of the room and stood where the healer had been when she’d checked on him before.

‘You say that like it isn’t a long time.’ Draco didn’t want to think about what it meant that Harry had crossed the channel to explain himself to Draco. Instead he focused on the practical details.

‘It isn’t when you’ve had your magical corepletely detached from your body.’

‘I—what?’ She rolled her eyes.

‘Honestly, Draco. What did you think happened? Only you could move 500 miles away from home and take your work with you.’

‘This is to do with the case? Why wasn’t I kept up to date? I thought Harry would’ve—’

‘Harry isn’t Head Auror anymore.’ She cut in. If Draco’s head hadn’t been spinning before, it certainly was now.

‘What happened? Please don’t tell me it was because of me.’ Hermione pushed some hair away from Draco’s forehead and he was surprised by the gentleness of the gesture. He and Hermione had been good friends for a long time, but physical contact beyond the asional hug was never much of a thing.

‘Draco, Harry hasn’t been Head Auror since October.’ Draco’s brows furrowed.

‘Since October? But I moved in October.’ He protested. Surely Harry would’ve told him if he’d been planning on leaving the force.

‘I see it hasn’t taken you two long to talk about me behind my back.’ Harry’s voice almost matched Draco’s in its grogginess as he appeared from behind Hermione, but it still made Draco’s heart swoop inside his chest. Or maybe that was the potions.

‘Harry, we’re always talking behind your back.’ Draco realised he sounded like a drunk teenager after an all-night bender, but Harry smiled at him all the same.

‘Well, as nice as that might be. There are more important things to talk about. How are you feeling? Are you in pain? Does the healer know you’re awake yet?’

It was Draco’s turn to roll his eyes.

‘I’ve been awake ages, Harry. You’re the one who’s late to the party. I feel like I’ve been trampled on by a heard of Hippogriffs and fed to the Giant Squid, but I think I’ll survive.’ It was lame humour, but Draco didn’t want to admit how terrible he really felt.

‘You didn’t half scare me to death Draco.’ Harry said as he sat down in the same chair he’d been sitting in when Draco had woken the first time.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said a little sheepishly. He couldn’t understand what had happened. Hermione had just left and he’d been drinking his tea, how had he—?

‘I saw my father.’ He blurted out. He wasn’t sure why he said it, he just had a sudden flash of remembrance of what had happened before he blacked out and it sort of just came out. Harry looked surprised, Hermione looked alarmed. Hermione opened her mouth as if to barrage his with questions, but Harry held up a silencing hand.

‘Another time, Hermione.’ He said calmly, and she snapped her mouth shut.

‘I’ll leave you two to catch up.’ She said, shooting Harry a pointed look. She left without picking her robes back up from the back of the chair, so Draco assumed that it wasn’t the last he’d be seeing of her.

‘You’re not Head Auror anymore.’ Draco said as soon as she closed the door behind her, and Harry had the decency to look embarrassed.

‘No, I’m not.’ He admitted.

‘And you didn’t tell me, because?’ Draco asked him. Harry sighed and looked down at his hands, one of which was clasped in Draco’s. He played with Draco’s fingers and he would’ve been irritated at the obviously distracting tactic, but still couldn’t really feel it.

‘Would it have changed anything if I had?’ He asked, glancing up at Draco. Draco had to admit he had a point, but Harry didn’t give him a chance to answer. ‘I’d planned on leaving a long time before you were brought in on that case, I just didn’t see the point in saying anything.’

‘Of course. Well, I suppose you wanted to spend time with your new girlfriend, since I hear from Teddy she’s started inviting herself 'round to the house.’ Draco said stiffly. Harry sighed.

‘Draco, you’ve just woken up from a near-death experience, which, by the way, no one is quite sure how you survived, and you want to talk about my girlfriend? Draco, I don’t have a girlfriend, I’ve never had a girlfriend. I haven’t had a girlfriend since Ginny.’

That was laughable, but now wasn’t the time for laughing.

‘I see.’ He said simply. Harry’s eyes widened in frustration.

‘Draco, I wouldn’t lie to you now. Not after everything.’

‘Oh, really? And I suppose you don’t count going to Gringotts and messing with my finances as lying then?’ He didn’t want to get angry again, he really didn’t, but Harry could be so full of shit sometimes.

‘I’m sorry. It was bad, I get it. I just know how much it means to you that you feel like you earn your living but the thing is, you don’t have to do it all on your own, it’s ok to let other people do things for you once in a while.’

Draco still didn’t think Harry had done the right thing, but he could understand that he meant well.

‘Fine,’ he sighed, letting the topic drop. ‘You still have to explain who your not- girlfriend is though.’

Harry blushed to his roots and Draco thought it was one of the most adorable things he’d ever seen.

‘Helen is a social worker.’ Harry said as though that settled the matter.

A what? Was he having a laugh?

‘And you’re spending time with an attractive “social worker” because? Is this because of Teddy? What the hell have you done Harry?!’ This was like pulling teeth.

‘Calm down Draco, it’s nothing like that. I bought an old manor house I’d like to turn into an orphanage.’ He said. Draco’s eyebrows shot up towards his hairline and it made his head ache, but it was worth it because Harry manage to elaborate. ‘I decided quite a while ago that I didn’t want to be an auror anymore,’ he began. ‘Then the Head Auror opportunity came up and I took it on as a favour to Kingsley. He didn’t have anyone else who was capable of taking on the role and I couldn’t leave him in the shit like that.’

Draco was wounded. This began long before their divorce and Draco hadn’t known a thing.

‘As soon as I took it I started looking for other opportunities. It turns out whilst there are a lot of places are dying to have Harry Potter work for them, I wasn’t willing to be used like that.’

Draco understood that. Harry spent his life not knowing whether people were interest in him for him, or for his celebrity.

‘Anyway, after you left I started to feel like I wasn’t actually doing any good out there. I’de home from work feeling like something was missing.pleting cases didn’t have the same satisfaction anymore. Hermione suggested writing in a journal, but I couldn’t keep it up. One day when I was out for beers with the guys, Dean was talking about an old manor house that was going up for sale in a muggle auction. He wasplaining about how whoever bought it would probably tear it down and it was such a waste of the architecture or something. I don’t know, all that stuff is more your thing.’

Draco didn’t know what to say, so he tried to keep his mouth shut.

‘And this means you spending time with a social worker, because?’ He prompted after a pause.

‘Well, I bought the manor myself at the auction on a total whim. I’m not sure why but it felt like it was important. I stressed for ages about it and then I thought maybe I could turn it into an orphanage for magical children. I went to Kingsley and talked through the possibility of having a mix of muggle and magical staffing so that there wouldn’t be any more Tom Riddles in the world. That’s how I met Helen, she’s helping with all the muggle side of things. Paperwork, government approvals and CRB checks and all that kind of thing.’

‘Wait, Leggy-Blonde is a muggle? How did she not notice when Teddy’s hair randomly changes colour?’ Draco couldn’t help but interject. They were totally off topic, but he needed to know.

‘Leggy-Blonde? How jealous were you, Draco?’ Harry smirked. Draco flushed but he refused to be intimidated.

‘Localised disillusionment charm. She never suspected a thing.’

‘And she was at the house on a Saturday when I came to pick up Teddy—’

‘Because she’d just received the planning permission for the refurb, which we could only get if we got approval for the whole project to go ahead. She was desperate to tell me the good news.’

Of course. Harry had answers for it all. Draco felt like a prized idiot for ever thinking Harry would date someone without telling Draco, or anyone else they knew for that matter.

‘Of course she was.’

‘She doesn’t even know my real name. I’m heading the project under an alias so that it doesn’t attract too much attention. I don’t want people to think I’m just doing it for the publicity. It’s all under the alias Albus Severus on both the muggle and the wizarding side of things.’

Draco physically winced, despite the apanying pain.

‘Jesus Christ, Harry. Remind me to never, ever, let you name our kids.’ That was the worst alias name he’d ever heard in his life.

‘Our kids?’ Harry’s smile faded and suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed. Draco was not happy that he was confined to a hospital bed and couldn’t run away from the wave of emotion that came across him when Harry looked at him that way; intensely and unblinkingly, with that trademark sparkle in his green irises.

Draco opened his mouth to pathetically blabber his way back out of his stumble when another healer opened the door. It wasn’t the same one that Draco had seen before, but Draco was secretly grateful. This one looked about fifty and had apletely grey beard and generally appeared like he actually knew what he was doing.

‘Ah, Mr. Potter. I see we’re awake again. No doubt you feel like shit and would rather not see me right now.’

Draco liked his guy immediately.

‘I see you’ve been trampled by hippogriffs before.’ Draco shot back, and the healer smiled widely.

‘Well, your mental faculties appear to be intact, that’s one to check off my list.’ He said pleasantly, and Draco was glad he got a healer that dealt with trauma the same way Draco did—horrendously sarcastic humour.

‘It’s going to take a long time for you to be up and about Mr. Potter, your body is readjusting to its reattachment with your magic. It’s a very experimental proced

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