Monday, September 4, 2017
Teddy, deciding that he'd stalled as long as he dared, took a fortifying breath and walked back into the kitchen. He breathed out in relief when it proved to be as neat as he'd left it, with Harry and Draco companionably serving up a truly delicious-smelling breakfast, and not the grisly aftermath of a food fight or duel that he'd feared.
As he watched, Harry carried the first plate to the table; Draco followed with the other two. Harry turned back for the mugs, but Draco waved his wand and floated all three gracefully through the air toward them. Harry frowned, furrowing his brow, and suddenly a baffling array of condiments and sides were pelting toward the table in an angry swarm. Teddy ducked and threw up a hasty shield charm. Draco merely raised a condescending eyebrow, as Harry fumbled his wand and then halted the barrage just before it impacted Teddy's shield.
Draco lifted one pale, thin finger and poked the salt cellar where it hovered in midair a scant inch from his nose. "Interesting," he said conversationally. "That's twice you've saved me from the salt this morning, Potter. Though I'm not sure the second should really count, since it was your fault the salt was winging toward my head in the first place." Harry grimaced. "Still," Draco continued, "it does make one wonder. Perhaps I should check myself into the hospital wing and get Madam Pomfrey to test my sodium levels."
Teddy snorted around a mouthful of bacon, having decided it was safe to sit down. "It wouldn't be Madam Pomfrey, for such a simple thing as that. Susan's mostly taken the hospital wing over. Madam Pomfrey supervises her, and helps out on the really complicated cases."
Draco paused. "Susan? The name sounds familiar, but..."
"Susan Bones," Harry supplied. "She was in our year. A Hufflepuff, lost most of her family to Death Eaters, was in the DA..."
"Oh." Draco grimaced. "The slug incident. Right."
"She probably doesn't remember..." Harry trailed off.
Draco snorted. "Oh, I'm sure she remembers. Rather unforgettable, that. From the suddenly-turned-slug side, anyway."
Harry tried valiantly not to smile, but couldn't hold it in. "Well. I suppose it was rather unforgettable from the other side too." He slapped Draco on the back, forgetting momentarily who he was talking to. "Cheer up, Malfoy. She probably can't do any worse. And, really, all she'll have to do is threaten you with slugs and you'll turn into a model patient."
"I appreciate the effort, Potter, but you really are pretty lousy in the reassurance department."
"Yeah, well. You're not the first to say that."
"Bones..." Draco mused. "Hmm. I can't decide whether it's appropriate or alarming."
"I'm leaning toward alarmingly appropriate, myself," Harry said. "Muggle doctors were once nicknamed "Sawbones," did you know? Around a hundred years ago, army doctors would saw the patient's arm or leg off, after a bad wound, because they didn't know how to stop the spread of infection."
Draco shuddered. "How positively barbaric! And you wonder why I've never been fond of muggles."
"I'm pretty sure they don't do it anymore," Harry offered.
"Hmm."
For a moment, the only sound was the clinking of silverware, and contented chewing. Then Draco broke the silence. "So, Potter. What do you have planned for your students today?"
Harry paused, fork hovering in midair. "Sorry, what?"
Draco cocked his head to one side. "You do remember that you'll be teaching classes after this?"
"Well, yeah." Harry rolled his eyes. "But, really, do you remember doing anything in your first DADA class of the year?"
Draco stared at him. "I don't know if you recall, Potter, but none of the DADA professors we were saddled with were really worth emulating."
Harry paused, considering. "Point. But those were...extenuating circumstances. And, anyway, now that there's not a war on..." He shrugged. "I figure I'll chat a bit, outline some history of the war, answer a handful of questions, and maybe demonstrate a few spells, get a feel for what the older students know already and need help with."
"I suppose that makes sense," Draco conceded. "I'm afraid I'll be lecturing and starting them on their first potions. The Potions curriculum is dense enough as it is, and I was hoping to introduce some of the latest theories and experimental potions at the end of the year, time permitting."
Harry looked slightly impressed. "Suddenly I feel much less prepared," he said with a smile. Then he turned to Teddy, who'd been watching them silently, gathering ammunition. "What about you? Going to dive into the first transfiguration, or cut the students some slack?"
Teddy grimaced. "I wish. McGonagall is mentoring me, so she'll be there to assist."
Harry and Draco pulled nearly identical faces. "Diving in, then," they said together. Teddy couldn't help but laugh. After a few minutes of general merriment, he coughed. "As amusing as this is, I believe you two have some questions for me, and we don't have long until we have to be in our respective classes." He grinned. "At least, I assume you didn't come here just to make me a fabulous breakfast." He gestured emphatically with his fork. "Though, I wouldn't complain if you did. This is the best meal I've head in ages."
Draco cast a quick tempus, alarm writ large on his face. "Potter! We don't have time for Good Auror, Bad Auror!"
"Some other time, Malfoy," Harry smirked. "I'm sure we'll have another excuse for it."
"Ooh, yes. Maybe we should make this a regular thing. Breakfast and Interrogation, with your hosts, Malfoy and Potter." Draco pulled a series of 'excited' faces, each more exaggerated than the last, intoning the words in a parody of Lee Jordan's announcer voice.
Teddy couldn't decide whether to be amused or worried. He settled on amused. "Breakfast, I'll take anytime. This really is fabulous. As for interrogation... Why don't we just have periodic chats or progress reports or something?"
Draco pouted. "Oh, fine. You're no fun."
Teddy checked Draco's tempus again and pushed aside his plate. "Anyway, I assume you're both here about your sons, and about what you saw last night."
Harry glanced at Draco, who shrugged. They both nodded.
Teddy smiled. The two had great chemistry, which he'd always suspected. Especially after everything he'd learned from their sons. To see them together though, after all those years of tiptoeing around their pointed avoidance of each other... He shook his head. He could ponder all this later – right now, he had to figure out what to tell them. Since he didn't have time to fabricate a convincing lie – not that he wanted to, really – he settled on the truth.
"It was an accident; the first time they met. I'd already been watching Al for a while, then, to give you a break, Harry, and to give him somewhere else to go when you visited the Weasleys."
Harry nodded. "Al never really fit in with his siblings and cousins. He was so much happier spending that time in the library with you."
Teddy smiled. "Yes. And I was also watching Scorp on occasion, by then, Draco."
Draco nodded. "Though, you never mentioned Al would be there too."
"He wasn't," Teddy said quickly. "At least, not at first. I knew that you wanted nothing to do with one another, so I split my time between your families." He made a wry face. "Of course, I should have realized that I'd never be able to keep things so neatly separated forever."
"One summer day, a couple years ago, I had Al at the library as usual. He was reading way above his age level by then, and had just gotten really interested in muggle science – biology, astronomy, genetics – "
"I remember," Harry interrupted. "That was the summer after that planetarium field trip, when he begged me to help him recreate the stars on his ceiling. That's when we started working on that spell – though it took us a couple of years to get it right."
Teddy grinned. "Yeah. I learned a lot about the stars that summer. More than I wanted to know, believe me." He wrinkled his nose at the memory.
Draco frowned. "I remember that summer, too," he said slowly. "Scorpius started going on and on about astronomy. Dug up my grandfather Abraxas' old telescope and star charts and everything. I just assumed it was something Astoria had encouraged him in."
Harry's forehead wrinkled as he puzzled over Draco's words. "You didn't know what she was teaching him? And you never bothered to ask?"
Draco scoffed. "Oh, please, Potter. Don't tell me you knew everything Ginny taught the kids."
"Gin was away a lot, with the Harpies. She left the schooling up to me. And, of course, the primary school we sent them to."
"Right. A muggle school. She really left it all up to you, then?" Draco's voice was curiously intent.
Harry shrugged. "We talked about it, sometimes, but she was content to leave most of it to me, yeah. She preferred to use her time with them for other things. Quidditch, visiting her family, that kind of thing."
"Huh. Well, anyway, Astoria and I split the subjects we felt Scorpius needed to know. She took the ones she was good at and/or interested in; I took the ones I was. Between the two of us, we had most everything covered. We met up, on occasion, for brunch and progress reports."
Harry stared at him. "You met up occasionally for brunch? You didn't see her otherwise?"
Draco shrugged. "We didn't really have all that much in common. Or, we did, I suppose," he raised his glass wryly to Harry, "but it was more a common desire to do our own thing and ignore one another. We were – are – friends." He looked up, smiling, at Harry's flabbergasted expression. "Oh, don't look so surprised. Surely you knew that's how Pureblood marriages work?"
"I thought... your parents... they always seemed so close." Harry flushed, looking down at his plate.
Draco shrugged. "They were. Sometimes you get lucky; sometimes you get the socially acceptable marriage and love. My parents did."
"But you didn't."
Draco didn't answer. "Teddy," he said, carefully not looking at Harry, "you were explaining how you ended up introducing our sons."
Teddy glanced back and forth between them, expression inscrutable. "Yes. As I was saying, Al and I frequented the library that summer, and were delving into the muggle sciences. One day he had gone off to search the stacks for some book that had been eluding us while I went to get a drink of water. I was going back to meet Al when Astoria came dashing in, Scorp in tow, looking flustered. 'Oh, Teddy, thank goodness you're here!' she said. 'I'm supposed to have Scorp for the afternoon, but something's come up – my assistant called from the shoot saying it was an absolute emergency, and this shoot is crucial for my contract – and Draco is off at some meeting or other about the estate, and you weren't home, and Andromeda has her book club, and I just didn't know what to do! So I came here, hoping we'd run into you, and here you are.'
"She was gasping for breath at this point, so I guided her to a chair and sent Scorp to fetch her a glass of water. And then she looked up at me, with those big blue eyes, and said 'Oh, please, Teddy – can you take him for the afternoon? I'll make it up to you, I promise, and I'll owe you a huge favor and – ' So of course I agreed, just because I was afraid she would hyperventilate." Teddy snorted.
"So she runs off to tend to her emergency, and Scorp and I just stare at one another for a moment, recovering from all the hysteria, and then it hits me. I've just agreed to watch Scorp. And I already have Al. So now I have two boys, instead of one, and, on top of that, neither of them is supposed to ever meet the other, because their fathers insist on perpetuating some schoolboy feud."
Teddy looked up to find Harry and Draco fixing him with identical scowls. "Oops. Sorry. Anyway, so Scorp and I go and hunt down Al, and I introduce them, praying that they don't start a fight in the library, because the last thing we need is to get kicked out. At first they just stare at each other, sizing one another up. And then... Al sticks out his hand, introduces himself. Scorp shakes it, introduces himself. He notices Al's book, and both sets of eyes light up, with that frightening gleam that I've only ever seen in Hermione when she's got an idea. And they both start talking a mile a minute, and diving into the stacks of books Al's already weighted our usual table with, and they've never really stopped."
Teddy grinned. "And when I saw that gleam in their eyes, I just thought 'Oh, Merlin, what have I done?' But they were so happy, together. Happier than I'd ever seen them. So we talked, the three of us, and decided that it would be best if we just kept it a secret between us. Because we all knew that if either of you found out, you'd forbid them from seeing each other. And then, of course, Astoria and Ginny found them one day this past summer, but it was OK because they'd gone in with the idea to introduce them and hope they hit it off. Since they were already friends, they just planned out the rest of the summer to get them together as much as possible." He shrugged. "And the rest you know."
Harry cleared his throat. "Well."
Draco checked his tempus and grimaced. "Indeed. Now, we'd best hurry, or we'll all be late to class. And won't that look good – three of Hogwarts' newest – and most famous – professors, all late."
Harry and Draco cleared away the remains of breakfast, working together with an unconscious ease, whilst Teddy rummaged about for a few mysterious objects he'd collected for the students to transfigure. In a few minutes, they were out the door, and walking companionably down the hall.
They reached the transfigurations classroom first. "Well, this is my stop," Teddy joked, turning toward the door.
"Teddy," Harry said suddenly.
"Yes?" He stopped, turned back to face them.
"How did you do it?"
"Pardon?"
Harry gestured between himself and Draco. "We just spent a morning together, and for the first time in my life, I found it relaxing, instead of stressful. It was almost... fun. So how the hell did you do it?"
Teddy smirked at them. "There's a reason I was sorted into Hufflepuff, you know." He turned and slipped into his classroom before either of them could reply.