Harry nearly fell over when he got off his broom. An hour's run followed by a bout of competitive flying against Draco meant he could barely stand after his fairly sedentary lifestyle for the past seven years. For Draco, it seemed worse, he'd called time-out after barely half an hour.
'What happened to you, Potter? You were such a Quidditch-jock at school,' Draco sneered light-heartedly although he looked shattered himself.
'Potter? Have we resorted to last names again, Malfoy?'
'Why do you call each other by your surnames, Dar?' The boys had wandered over to watch. And then Narcissa had come out to tell them lunch was ready but Harry and Draco had carried on anyway, cheered on by their little band of spectators and the old competitiveness rearing its head.
Harry leant on the now white-blond haired Teddy's shoulders, hobbling slightly, as they meandered slowly back towards the manor.
'Aw, Dar, you're too heavy!'
'I'm tired, it was a stupid idea to go running this morning. I'm just not as fit as I was.'
'It doesn't show, Potter' Draco said.
Harry felt his stomach flip a little. 'It's a good prompt to get training again,' he admitted quietly.
'Aw, Dar, get off!' Teddy shrugged Harry off.
'Papa, why do you call Harry by his surname?' Scorpius was leading the way but walking backwards, watching his father closely.
'It's a school thing, Scorp, Harry and I used to be deadly enemies.'
'Deadly?'
'Yep, mortal! One look and war would break out across the Great Hall,' Draco joked light-heartedly. 'At least one of us would drop down dead every month.'
Harry thought it was rather too close to the truth for comfort.
'Really, Dar?' Teddy was looking at Harry with slightly wide eyes.
'Sure, Ted. Can't you tell?'
Teddy shrugged, a little uncertainly, and took to walking backwards like Scorpius.
'And what about you, Teddy, why do you call Harry 'Dar'?' Narcissa asked.
'When I was very little, I'd get confused about Harry being my dad, well, he is my dad but not my real dad. Sometimes I'd mix up saying "Harry" and "Dad" and it came out as "Dar" and now I always call him that.'
Scorpius was looking quizzically at his new friend. 'I don't understand.'
'Harry's my Godfather, but he adopted me before Gran died. My real mum and dad were Nymphadora and Remus Lupin, only mum was always called Tonks because she hated her name. Anyway, they were killed in the war and Dar says they were heroes. So, Gran didn't really want me calling Dar "dad", she said she didn't want me forgetting. But Dar doesn't want me forgetting either, that's why my surname is Lupin-Potter and not just Potter, and we always talk about my real mum and dad, and we always look at photos of them. Gran thought "Dar" was a good name so it kinda stuck.'
Scorpius was looking at Teddy with an awestruck expression.
Harry was watching Narcissa carefully. He had written to her with news of Andromeda's illness and then passing but the Malfoys were still under house arrest so there was no way Narcissa could say her last goodbye to her older sister.
It had been a terrible time for all of them.
When Andy became ill, she seemed to decline very suddenly. A tall thin woman anyway, she dropped to being inexplicably gaunt and weak.
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.
*****