That One Time

I do not own the characters of Harry Potter used in this story nor the movie and book series of Harry Potter. They belong to J.K Rowling and Warner Bros. I am only using them for entertainment purposes and make no profit from this story.

Author's Note: Getting very close to new chapters!!! One more old chapter to post before the newer ones start popping out! Thank you for all the reviews so far!


Chapter 4 - Diagon Alley


When Harry woke up he noticed that Ginny was not in bed with him. Sitting up, he looked around, trying to figure out where she could be, when he heard a noise from downstairs. She still must be upset, he thought. Whenever Ginny was mad, she would begin to cook breakfast before anyone awoke. Shaking his head, Harry went to freshen up himself, then put on some clothing. When he entered the kitchen he found his wife messing around with the dishes.

Harry walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Ginny...” She ignored him and continued to wash the dishes. Sighing, Harry let go of his wife and moved to sit down at the table. Soon the table was filled up with the rest of the house's occupants. When Harry noticed Leo sitting down, he couldn't help but laugh at the mop of blond hair sitting on top of the boy. It reminded him of his days at Hogwarts, before the war really took place.

As everyone started eating their breakfast, Ginny announced that tomorrow she planned for everyone to go to Diagon Alley to buy James' Hogwarts supplies. Lily and James got excited while Albus and Harry agreed to go as well. Leo just continued eating.

The day went on, Albus and Leo decided to play one more round of Quidditch out in the field, and Lily went with them this time to watch with her teddy bear. James, Harry noticed, went to his room bitterly, and throughout the day the sounds of explosions could be heard coming from his door. The explosions didn’t faze him, since James would help out his Uncle George in creating some inventions for the shop. Ginny had chosen to ignore Harry for the rest of the day, so Harry was alone in his office since it was the weekend and he didn't have an excuse to go to his job to get away from the tension in his home.

He had taken out Draco's letter and began to reread it once more, just to make sure he had read it right the first time. Harry still couldn't believe that he had another son and with Malfoy no less. He couldn't wrap his head around the possibility of this ever happening to him with another man. Oh yes, he could understand if he’d had a one-night stand with a woman who didn't perform the proper spells to nullify the chances of reproduction, but he had never heard of any such thing with a man.

Harry doubted that Draco knew that he could reproduce; if he had, then he would have surely told him, wouldn't he? Or had Draco still kept some things to himself while they’d been together that once? Harry would just have to wait until Draco was well enough to make that visit of his that he promised. Until then, he sat back in his chair and watched his sons play another game of Quidditch outside of his window.

***


“Wake up, Harry.”

Harry opened his eyes to stare into the brown of his wife's. Ginny smiled at him and made her way to the bathroom.

“We need to leave early if we want any chance of buying good quality supplies. Now, wake up the children and Malfoy.”

Harry nodded and stood from the bed; putting on his slippers, he began his trek to his children's bedrooms. Opening the door to James' room, he smirked at the strange position his son was in and stepped over the gadgets that were strewn over the floor. He lightly tapped James on the head and shook his son's shoulder once to wake him up.

“Come on, James.”

“I don’t wanna,” James mumbled into his pillow.

“You're more stubborn than your uncle when it comes to waking up,” Harry said, shaking James' shoulder once more before moving on to Lily's room. His daughter was already awake and trying to find her clothes to wear. When she heard Harry enter the room, she smiled brightly at her dad and began to explain to him how excited she was.

“Lily, we're still going to the same Diagon Alley that we always go to.”

“Yes, but this time we're going to buy things for Hogwarts like the bigger kids do, Daddy!”

Harry chuckled and told Lily to hurry up if she wanted to go. She giggled and ran past him to the bathroom. When Harry reached Albus' room, the boy was just getting the sleep from his eyes as he sat on the edge of his bed. He ruffled Albus' untidy black hair, then patted it once. Albus smiled at his father and got up, stretching out all the kinks from his body.

“I'm going.”

“Yes, well your sister is already in the shower and your brother is still fighting sleep. I suggest you get to the bathroom before he wakes up. You know how long he takes in the shower.”

“I know.” Albus grinned.

Leo was already awake and dressed when Harry reached the guest room. He raised one eyebrow, to which the Malfoy heir replied in the same manner.

“You're just like your father.” Harry smiled at the puzzled look that was given to his statement. “He would always be ready to leave by the time I just woke up.”

“How do you know this?”

Harry finished walking completely into the room and fixed Leo's collar before sitting on the bed in the center of the room.

“I was with your father for two weeks before we broke off.” Harry stared off as the memories came back to him. “I learned a lot about him in those two weeks. Every little detail.”

“Why did you guys break up?” Leo sat down next to Harry and looked at him, waiting for the answer.

“I know this sounds horrible, but I was still with Ginny when I began with him.” Harry turned his gaze to face his son. “We got together when Ginny and I were fighting and I decided to move out for a while to give her room. During those weeks I met your father and we sort of hooked up. After a while, however, Ginny wasn't mad at me anymore and she wanted me to come back home.

“Your father understood and we both said our goodbyes and walked away.” Harry wasn't surprised when he noticed the confused look in Leo's eyes. Even he didn't understand it, and he was the one who went through it.

“Did you love him?”

Harry wasn't expecting the question and his eyes opened in shock. “What?!”

“Did you love him?” Leo said, this time he said it as if he was losing his patience.

Harry squeezed his hands together as he thought about the question posed to him. All that time he'd spent with Draco, did he ever begin to grow feelings for him? Maybe... He wasn't sure. There were times when he thought he could fall in love with Draco, but there were others when he couldn't stand the git.

“I don't know...maybe.” Harry looked at Leo and noticed the boy nodding his head in thought. Then Leo stood from the bed and patted Harry's leg.

“Come on, before your wife gets mad that we're late.” Harry nodded and they both walked out of the guest room.

***


Diagon Alley was full of witches and wizards, all heading into the shops to buy their children their supplies for Hogwarts. The place was full to bursting, and Harry wondered how the charm covering the area could handle all the people in it. He could never remember so many people when he was buying his supplies for Hogwarts when he was young. Then again, there was a baby boom after the war ended, with everyone finding it safe enough to start having children again now with the Dark Lord gone. Although, it wasn't the fact that there were so many people at Diagon Alley that was bothering Harry, no, it was the fact that the majority of them wouldn't leave him and his family alone to go shopping.

Everyone still liked to congratulate and thank Harry for getting rid of the evil that had plagued the Wizarding world. This time, however, the people who came up to say hello or thank you, were shocked when they saw Draco Malfoy's son standing next to the Potter family. Muted whispers began to follow them everywhere the family went. Ginny's ear tips were turning red and Harry tried not to say much, so that she wouldn't cause a scene because of him.

Harry wasn't sure if he was grateful or ungrateful to see his friends, Ron and Hermione Weasley. For the better part, he hadn't seen them for quite while, but for the worst, he wasn't ready for the confrontation that was soon to happen once Ron noticed that a Malfoy was present with them.

It started out with Ron and Hermione--along with their children, Hugo and Rose-- greeting them with open arms. Then Rose noticed their extra companion and everything went downhill from there. Ron's face turned pink and Hermione covered her mouth in surprise.

“What's his brat doing here?” Ron said scathingly. Hermione kept quiet, but by her expression you could tell that she had the same question in mind. Rose and Hugo didn't know what was going on, all they did was look up at their father questioningly.

“Ron, please. Just calm down--”

“Calm down?” Ron said loudly, making a lot of passersby stop and stare. “How do you expect me to calm down? You haven't explained to me why Malfoy's brat is here!”

“It's a long story,” Harry said softly not looking into anyone's eyes.

“You best start explaining, Harry, or so help me Merlin I'll--”

“You'll what?” Everyone turned their attention to Leo's outburst. The boy had had the same look when Ginny was arguing with Harry, the day before. Harry could feel Leo's magic slowly start seeping out of him and he immediately was on the alert. “What's a weasel like yourself going to do to me?”

“Why, you little git!”

“Ron! Leo!” Harry placed himself between his best friend and son when Ron made a move towards the blond. “Leo, I forbid you from speaking like that to Ron. Ron, control yourself!”

“The weasel st--” Leo stopped himself from finishing that sentence. He noticed Harry's raised eyebrow and lowered his head. Harry could still feel Leo’s magic course around them, but he was glad that it was starting to lose some of its intensity.

“Please. Let's all go somewhere private where we can talk this out.” Harry made a gesture towards The Leaky Cauldron. It took some convincing on Ron’s part, but soon both families were at the pub heading towards a private parlor that Harry asked Tom to set up for them. Before sitting down, Harry squeezed Leo's shoulder, silently asking for his cooperation. A single nod was his only reply.

“Now what would you like to know?” Harry asked after he settled the children at another table that Tom had arranged on his behalf. Harry ordered a small meal for the children to eat and Tom was already serving it to them. He noticed the way James sat with Hugo and Rose, on the opposite side of Lily, Albus and Leo.

“You start by explaining to us why Malfoy's son is here with us, that's for sure.” Ron crossed his arms and tilted his chin down for Harry to start.

Feeling a bit nervous, Harry cleared his throat and fixed the collar of his jumper. “Well, you see...two days ago, Leo knocked on our door with a note in his hands informing me that Malfoy wanted me to take care of his son for a while.”

“Why?” Hermione asked.

“Because it seems that his health hasn't been good lately and he had no one to take care of his son.”

“Why you?” Hermione's face became serious and Harry had to look down from her stare. Ginny was silent beside him. For a brief moment, Harry wished she would say something so that he wouldn’t have to answer, but he decided that now was probably the best time to explain to everyone what was really going on.

Harry took a deep breath then spoke softly. “Because it turns out that I'm Leo's father...”

There was a moment's pause after his statement, then all hell broke loose. Luckily there were Silencing Charms placed over the parlor; if not, Harry knew they would have disturbed all of the other patrons.

“You're WHAT?!”

“How?!”

“Explain!”

Harry turned red and refused to look Ginny in the eye. “I don't know how it happened. But I'm sure it must've happened after Ginny and I had that fight and I moved out for two weeks.”

“What do you mean, 'you're sure'?” Ginny asked with a deadly tone to her voice.

“After I moved out, I went to a club and Malfoy was there....We sort of hooked up after that...” Harry said softly, wishing that Voldemort had killed him if only to avoid this conversation.

“You cheated on me?!”

“How could that have happened?!” Ron yelled. “He was a downright git during school and you don't even like men!” After Ron finished that sentence, he started to turn green. “You don't, right?”

Harry's silence spoke volumes. Ron turned his face away; it seemed as if he was trying to hold back his vomit. Ginny, on the other hand, was turning a nice shade of purple.

“How could you have done this to me? After all we've been through; you go and cheat on me with a man! With Malfoy!”

“Technically, we were separated. I was free to do as I wished.” Harry regretted his words the moment he spoke them. Ginny didn't say a word, but Harry knew better. His wife was too angry to even speak. “Besides, I didn't even know that wizards could get pregnant.”

“It's rare, Harry, but possible,” Hermione said. She seemed to be the only one taking the news slightly better. “Normally, only wizards who have the genetics passed down to them can reproduce, but there have been cases where they take fertility potions.”

Ginny's eyes opened. “Malfoy probably did that! He took a potion so that you would get him pregnant and then throws the kid on your lap to make your life difficult!”

“After ten years of raising him?” Harry shook his head. “Malfoy wouldn't do that...”

“How would you know? Just 'cause you slept with him doesn't mean you know the ferret,” Ron chipped in.

“I beg to differ, Ron,” Harry said softly, but no one heard him.

“Harry, are you sure it’s your son?” Hermione asked tenderly. “Malfoy could just be pulling your leg.”

Harry shook his head. “Hermione, he has my hair and my eyes. Those aren’t Malfoy traits. Besides it ties in with the timeline. Malfoy says that Leo was conceived three months before Albus, and Ginny got pregnant with Albus three months after I returned. Malfoy couldn’t have any time to get pregnant by someone else.”

Harry watched everyone’s face as he relayed what he had figured out about Malfoy getting impregnated. Ron was pale and gripping the edge of the wooden table as if it was the only thing keeping him in reality. Hermione let out a sigh and nod, sitting back into her seat. Ginny, however, was red. Harry didn’t know if it was embarrassment or anger, but he didn’t want to find out.

Leo touched his shoulder and informed him that he and the others were done eating. Harry nodded and made to get up slowly. “I'm sure that's all the details... See you all soon.” Harry waved to Ron and Hermione; only Ron didn’t wave goodbye in return. Realizing that his friend was probably going through one of his phases, he understood and walked towards the Floo. He and his family each took their turn going into the flames of the Floo Network. Ginny went in first, silently, followed by their children. When it was Leo's turn, the blond was stopped by Harry.

“I want you to know that your father means a lot to me,” Harry said softly. Leo nodded but before yelling out the destination, he turned to his father.

“You mean a lot to him too.”

To be continued