The Half-Blood Princess

Second Chances

"Draco? What are you looking for?" Harry asked. It was the night before they were to send the kids back to Hogwarts for the rest of term, and Harry had brought Albus to sleep over with Scorpius while he had an entirely different kind of sleepover with Draco. Lily and James were at their mother's.

He hadn't expected Draco to be ransacking his library when he and Albus arrived at the manor.

"Harry!" Draco leapt from the ladder and gave him a hug. "Hey, Al. Scorpius is reading outside if you want to join him."

The boy left, and that allowed the adults to greet each other more properly. Decades of dancing around and denying their feelings had left them nearly panting with want every time they were together now.

Once they disentangled from each other's arms, Harry repeated his question.

"I did something really bad," Draco admitted. "But I did it for a good reason! I've been looking for a potion recipe, and I finally found it."

"Okay, but what was the bad thing you did?"

Draco looked up, a blush suffusing his pale face. "Even under the effects of Veritaserum, I told one really big lie. And if I can't find the ingredients to make this potion work, I left a very Dark object hanging around Hogwarts."

****

The night before school was back in session, Harley was at her office in the Potion Master, working on a recipe for a client, when there was a knock on the door. Patricia was long gone, and she'd been closed for three hours already.

Holding her wand behind her back, she went to answer the door only to sigh in relief. "Wood, what are you doing here at nearly ten at night? You've got to be freezing if you flew here." The tips of his ears were bright red. "Come on. Come in before the snow gets inside."

"I cast a warming charm, so I'm all right," he replied, walking into the darkened store. "This place is nice. I've never been in here."

"Never were a potion man, were you?" Harley asked, offering him a seat.

"Not unless I had a Quidditch injury," he agreed.

Not one to waste time, Harley again asked, "So, what brings you here?"

"Oh, well, I wanted to talk about Lavender and my now ex wife."

Biting her lip, she managed to say, "I do my best to treat your daughter well, though she makes it difficult at times. And I really don't care to speak of Spinnet."

He sighed, staring at his hands on the table. "I didn't know. I wasn't at Hogwarts when she poisoned you, and I never knew about it. Until this past summer. I was giving Lav a lesson in potions, knowing there was going to be a new professor this year. And we were talking about poison when Alicia brought up your sixth year. I'm so sorry that happened to you, Harley. You didn't do anything to deserve that."

"No shit I didn't," she muttered.

"She called it a prank, even laughed about it. Now, I know what taking the piss outta someone is, and that's not it," Oliver continued. "I feel guilty somehow."

Harley shook her head. "Wood...Oliver...I really appreciate your coming all this way to apologise on her behalf, but it is not your place, especially since you are divorcing her."

He nodded, head down. He still looked a lot younger than he was, a perk of being a wizard. She felt slightly amused that this is how he must have looked in McGonagall's office, when he had neglected homework in favour of Quidditch practice.