Confessions of an Ex-Death-Eater

Saturday 3rd November 2007

It was cancer.

It wasn't fair, she was too young and after everything she and Teddy'd been through. So, there was no way Harry was going to leave her and Teddy to fight this battle alone. Andy made sure he adopted Teddy before she passed away and she left him Walpole Street until Teddy came of age to inherit it at twenty-one.

'Com'on, Teddy. I'll race you back to the house.'

They watched as the two boys sprinted off across the lawn.

'I'm so sorry, Narcissa, about Andromeda.'

Narcissa linked her arm through Harry's. 'I am too. I glad we started writing to one another again after the war and that we made amends. It seems that she was the only Black sister that actually got things right. I'm just sorry I wasn't able to see her before she died.'

'She wanted to see you. She wrote to Kingsley but he couldn't overturn the Wizengamot ruling. We tried hard.'

'I'm glad you were there for her. I know it was another large burden for your young shoulders but I'm glad she wasn't alone.' She paused and pulled Harry around so they faced each other as Draco looked on. He looked into her blue eyes; her face softer than he'd remembered it from during his school days. He knew enough now to understand why she had been who she was back then, enough to realise her hardships through Draco's telling of his story and he regretted being so rude to her that time in Diagon Alley.

'Thank you, Harry, you've had such a tremendous positive impact on us Malfoys and Blacks. Not just the trials, or clearing Sirius and Regulus' names, and for being there for Andromeda and Teddy, but you freed us from a terrible fate too.' She touched his cheek softly with a gloved hand. 'I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.'

'You saved me too,' he muttered.

'Tsk,' she dismissed. 'We both know that I was only looking out for my son.'

'But in the process, you saved me.'

'I imagine, Harry Potter, that you would have survived whatever that creature threw at you, you were always greater than him.'

Harry didn't know what to do or say. Luckily, he was saved by Scorpius charging back around the corner of the house.

'Papa, Nana, we're hungry.'

They smiled and headed back in for lunch.

It felt as if the air had been cleared between them. The weight of all those years of animosity had been swept away by Narcissa's words and lunch was an easy enough affair. Conversation was mostly dominated by the boys asking questions about Hogwarts and the enmity between Draco and Harry, which they made light of and, really, after all this time, all that tension seemed quite ridiculous, especially when the stories crept into quietly admitted stories of secret admiration, such as Harry's jealousy of Draco's potions skills and the fact that Professor Snape always favoured him, or Draco's esteem of Harry's Quidditch playing and all the adventures he got himself into each year.

They never mentioned that Draco viciously broke Harry's nose on the train in a rather underhand fashion, or the fight in the girl's bathroom during sixth year when Harry nearly killed Draco, there were somethings that were too complex for young ears.

Afterwards, when Harry and Draco were stood under a large oak tree side-by-side watching Teddy and Scorpius on their training brooms flit backwards and forwards across the front lawn. Harry took a deep breath and said, 'how much does Scorpius really know. I mean, will you let him read Confessions?'

'He knows enough for the moment, I haven't hidden anything, I just haven't told him everything either, not the hard stuff, the stuff about his grandfather, or what it was like living here under Voldemort. He'll have to read it before he goes to Hogwarts, imagine if someone gave him the book and he didn't know from me first.'

Harry nodded, 'yes, I had to tell Teddy his father was a werewolf from a very early age, there were too many people who knew and could have said something. It's tough for them too, the war is still leaving scars.'

'Perhaps,' Draco said with a hint of hopefulness in his voice. 'Perhaps us being friends will help them see how we can all move forward.'

'I think so,' Harry replied and he noticed that his stomach did that little flip again and he really, really wanted to ask Draco if he still meant what he'd written in the book but he didn't quite have the guts despite all his Gryffindor traits.

They were both very definitely Not Looking at each other.

Instead, Harry said, 'you know, I'm qualified to teach Apparation, if you want. Though it would have to be at the university because it has to be in a designated training area.'

Draco looked at him with a quirked eyebrow.

Harry shrugged, 'just offering. I teach all the students who come through without having got their licence at school. And Aurors need to learn silent Apparation so, you know...' his voice faded.

Draco nudged him with his elbow, 'something else you're astounding at, Potter.'

Harry Apparated to Draco's other side without a whiff of dramatically swirling black smoke or so much as a 'pop!'. 'Not so bad,' he said with a smirk.

'Oh fuck off!' Draco scowled.

'Level 5 Apparator.'

'They have levels?'

'Sure, they just don't make it public knowledge,' Harry said. 'School's just about getting from one place to another without splinching.'

'And how many levels are there?'

'Five.' Harry's lips quirked slightly.

'And of course you'd be the top level.'

'Level five is mostly about training but it's also an Auror thing. You need to move silently and invisibly and be able to side-along others safely without splinching them. And then there's the stuff about Apparating to unfamiliar places or arriving without landing on top of people by accident and being able to cast Disillusionment Charms before you land amongst muggles.'

'And getting through Wards?'

Harry gave Draco an enquiring look with a raised eye-brow.

'The other night,' Draco said. 'You got through the Manor's Wards without so much as an alarm sounding.'

'Mm-hmm,' Harry was decidedly non-committal and when Draco looked at him questioningly again, he mumbled, 'can't really talk about it.'

'I'll take it that means that's also an Auror thing that you probably shouldn't really be doing now you're not an Auror.'

'Well, it's hard to unlearn some things. So, anyway, if it's a yes to Apparation lessons. I'm free Mondays at 10am and Thursdays at 2pm. Let me know.'

'No, wait...'

'Let's not talk about it, Draco.'

'You don't know what I was going to ask.'

'But it's invariably different variations of the same question and I'm not ready to talk to you about it yet.'

'But...'

'Come on, the boys have made the most of us being distracted and have flown beyond the ha-ha and are chasing the deer.' Then Harry laughed. 'Fucking typical, where else would I get to say that than at your house!'

'It's not all high teas, balls, and frolicking in the park, you know.'

'And there I was thinking I'd stepped into one of your nineteenth-century novels.'

'I doubt you even know what a nineteenth-century novel looks like, let alone read one.'

'Then you'll have to educate me thoroughly,' and Harry suddenly felt himself blush at the underlying implication that he'd like to educated in more than just English literature by Draco Malfoy.

*****