A Heart So Ravenous (Sequel to A Love So Belated)
folder
Harry Potter › Slash - Male/Male › Harry/Draco
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
44
Views:
36,850
Reviews:
326
Recommended:
1
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Harry Potter › Slash - Male/Male › Harry/Draco
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
44
Views:
36,850
Reviews:
326
Recommended:
1
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Chapter 7: "Real" Family
Chapter Number/Total: 7/44
Chapter Title: "Real" Family
Words: 2426 Words
Draco was getting better, yes. Harry could tell, but he wasn't sure if he was getting better. He wasn't comfortable being away from Draco. It made him twitchy and nervous, and most unpleasant thoughts swam through his mind, like what sort of danger Draco could get into while not in Harry's immediate vicinity – but he did feel ... okay ... leaving for only about fifteen minutes to pick up Teddy.
He couldn't not pick Teddy up, and he didn't want to not pick Teddy up, even though Andromeda had been nothing but reluctant to let the little boy go with Harry. She'd found out he and Draco were seeing each other from that wretched first article. And now, after the second Skeeter fiasco, she seemed even afraid.
Harry couldn't blame her exactly. He knew the grudge between her and Narcissa didn't help matters and he also knew that Teddy was the only person she had left. He knew she was bound to be highly protective of her only grandchild. She'd actually sat Harry down for a talk, asking all sorts of questions while Harry felt increasingly uncomfortable being away from Draco. He'd tried to answer as honestly as he could, even admitting to her that he was in love with Draco, and she'd finally let him go, still reluctant, with the small boy packed up to tag along.
Harry finally entered back into the house with Teddy, and immediately strode off to find Draco, needing the sight of him to calm his nerves. "Draco!" he called down the hall, away from Mrs. Black.
"Daco!" Teddy echoed, though it sounded more like 'taco' than Draco's actual name.
Draco laughed, having been waiting in the sitting room. Now he came to the hall and reached out for Teddy. "Well, hello to you too," he said to the boy, also smiling at his lover.
Harry grinned, handing the fuchsia-haired child over to Draco. Teddy very happily went, smiling and showing his teeth.
"Aren't you just a big boy now?" Draco said, hefting the child in his arms. "Getting heavier," he added. Then he leaned over and gave Harry a quick kiss.
Harry returned the kiss, smiling again. "Getting into a whole new world of trouble now as well," he said. "He can pull himself up and walk along the edges of things."
Teddy giggled as Harry waggled his eyebrows at him.
Draco led them back into the sitting room, where he had already moved anything dangerous or breakable out of reach, and cast a few Cushioning Charms. He pulled out the small box of toys they now kept for Teddy, and set it on the coffee table and then the boy beside it. "Show me what you got, Teddy," he told him.
Teddy looked up at Draco with little furrowed eyebrows for a moment, before getting rather shakily up on his knees and quickly grasping the edge of the table to pull himself to his feet and reach for the toys.
Harry let out a laugh, watching him.
Draco nodded, grinning. "Very good," he told the boy. "You will be ready for a broom in no time!"
"Boom," Teddy repeated, reaching for a beanbag-like toy of a Quidditch player mounted on a broomstick. Harry had bought it for him.
Harry laughed again. "And clever, too," he said.
Draco sat down on the sofa, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees as he looked at Teddy. "I missed you," he told the boy. He hadn't got to see him when he had been sick and realised how much the child had come to mean to him.
Harry looked up at Draco, and his gaze turned very soft. "He missed you, too," he said. "Andromeda told me that he's been talking about you." He didn't add that she had sounded a bit alarmed when she'd told him.
Draco cocked his head, hearing something in his tone. "That a problem?" he asked.
Harry's eyebrows came together. "I don't think so," he said, only a little emphasis on the 'I,' but he knew Draco would hear it.
"You going to tell me?" Draco asked, picking up one of the balls and rolling it to Teddy.
Teddy plopped down on his bottom and crawled swiftly after the ball like a little multi-coloured puppy. Harry sighed. "Well," he said, "she's still none too pleased with Teddy ... being around you too much, I guess."
"She worried I am going to make him into a baby Death Eater?" Draco asked sarcastically.
"To be honest," Harry said, "I'm not sure exactly what she's worried about specifically. Perhaps being a bad influence?" He sighed again and shrugged. What he really thought had her more nervous than ever was that Draco had been linked to the Lestranges, who were of course linked to Bellatrix, who had killed Tonks.
Draco sighed unhappily. "Are you going to have to stop having me with you when you have him?" he asked, expression serious as he looked at his lover.
Harry's heart felt like it actually cracked when he took in Draco's expression. "She let me have him," he said as Teddy attempted to throw the ball at Draco. "And she didn't say anything about banning him from you."
The ball went a bit wild but Draco caught it. He smirked, pleased that his Seeker reflexes still seemed to work. He rolled the ball for the baby again and then turned back to Harry. "Good," he said.
Harry nodded. "I ... think it would be awful if Teddy couldn't see you," he said quietly, thinking back to the last time Draco had seen the baby and how Teddy had cried when he'd had to leave.
Draco had to go and get the ball this time when Teddy threw it in the wrong direction. He bent down and picked it up. Only a quick smile gave it away before he threw it at Harry.
Harry reached out and caught it automatically, and smirked.
"Ball!" Teddy yelled happily, bouncing on his knees.
"Play with us, Harry," Draco said, laughing.
"You mean I should join in?" Harry said to Teddy, before he lightly threw the little ball. It bounced off Teddy's chest and rolled under the table. Teddy dove to get it and pulled it out with a gesture of ultimate triumph.
Draco laughed again and waited for Teddy to decide who to throw the ball to next. "Do you think it would help her if ... if she talked to me?" he asked Harry.
Teddy chucked the ball at Draco, but hit the sofa.
"Well," Harry said, "maybe. She would see that you're not ... what she thinks you are. It's not like you two talked much at Christmas, and all she mostly did was ask about your mum."
Draco found the ball and rolled it back to Teddy. He wasn't sure what he could say to his aunt to convince her, but for Harry and Teddy's sake, he would be willing to try.
Harry and Draco played with Teddy for quite a while with the ball, but eventually, the boy was tired of that game. He dumped the box of toys out and seemed particularly amused with the train that made noise and moved with the press of a magical button.
Harry listened to him laugh and smiled with contentment. "Don't you just feel ..." he said to Draco after a few minutes. "I don't know. Not better, but ... something when he's here? I don't know what it is. Warm, maybe." He chuckled oddly at himself.
Draco sat down next to his lover and put his hand over Harry's, lacing their fingers together. "Feels like ..." He trailed off, not sure he should say what he was thinking.
Harry turned his head to look at Draco quizzically.
Draco flushed and looked down at their hands.
Well, that was strange. "What?" Harry said quietly, nudging Draco gently with his shoulder.
"It's odd really, but it almost feels like he is ours, sometimes," the blond answered, looking over at the baby.
Harry looked over at Teddy too, and felt it click. It did sometimes feel like Teddy belonged to them, like they didn't have to actually give him back to his grandmother, that they would put him in his cot and wake up with him in the morning. "Yeah," he said quietly.
"Like this is what it would feel like to be a real family," Draco said softly, still watching the baby. "You know, married with kids and all that."
Harry let out a quiet breath of a laugh. "Yeah," he said again. "It would be ... nice, I think."
Draco felt a twinge of loss and guilt at what they had both given up to be together. "I wish I could really marry you," he said.
Harry let out a heavy sigh. "Why can't you?" he asked, but he knew the law too.
Draco glanced at Harry, fingers tightening in his. "Two men don't have the right to marry."
"We're two people, aren't we?" Harry said, and rolled his eyes, feeling resentment creep upon him.
"Marriage is about making families, isn't it?" Draco said, looking at him sadly. "We can't have children, so why marriage?"
"Well, some married people don't ever have kids," countered Harry. "And we couldn't ... make a baby of our own, but, well, there's Teddy. There's adoption. Two men can have a family."
Draco cocked his head, really looking at Harry. "You want children? To raise?"
"I guess I always just thought I would have them," Harry answered. "And they would be nice – like I've said before." He smiled sadly as he said it. "I do want one, but ... I can live without one."
Draco frowned. He never wanted Harry to have to go without anything he wanted. And it was true for him, as well. He had grown up knowing how important it was for him to carry on the Malfoy family. He had always imagined his adult life would mean marriage and family. It had been comforting. "I would do anything to give you what you want," he whispered.
Harry's eyebrows came together again. "You're everything I want," he said. "More than anything I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
"Then take all of me," Draco grinned, and kissed him.
***
Draco leaned back into the corner of the sofa, book in one hand and his lover's head in his lap. He turned the page of Magic and the Body, before glancing down at Harry again, his free hand reaching to push a lock of dark hair off his face.
Harry looked up at Draco and gave him a smile, content with his own book. He couldn't express with words how good it felt to simply lie on the couch like this with Draco. It felt beyond good to be comfortable with him.
When Harry looked up, Draco closed the book and set it aside, fingers trailing down his lover's cheek to his chin. In the weeks since Rodolphus' death and their reactions to it, he had become much more comfortable with himself and his lover again. It wasn't completely normal. He still woke up from horrible dreams and had moments when his body seemed to be reliving the experience. But most of the time, he felt like himself again. And he felt good with Harry. "I have been thinking," he said quietly.
Harry quirked an eyebrow and closed his book as well. "Have you?" he said.
Draco smirked at the gesture so like his own. "I think I should go visit my mother," he said.
Harry's eyebrow rose further. "Today?"
"Well, soon at least," Draco said, shrugging like it wasn't a big deal.
Harry frowned. "Why?" he asked, shifting a little.
"I haven't left the house in a nearly three months," Draco replied. "And I would like to talk with her about something."
Harry's heart sped up a little and he wasn't even completely sure why, but he did know that it had something to do with the fact that it didn't sound like he would be able to go with Draco – not if Draco wanted to go and simply visit with his mum, to talk with her. "I thought you didn't want to go anywhere," he said.
Draco felt a tremor of fear himself, just at the question, but took a deep breath. "I can't see myself going to ... Diagon Alley or the like, anytime soon," he agreed. "But I think I would feel safe enough at the Manor."
Harry found himself trying to think of a reason Draco should stay home, but was coming up empty. "You want to go alone?"
Draco had been thinking about this for a couple days. "I feel better when I am with you," he said, stroking Harry's hair. "But I need to talk with Mother alone and ... and I probably need to learn how to go out again."
Harry opened his mouth to protest, but couldn't think of anything to say against that. He could think of a few ways to get Draco to possibly stay, but it involved scaring him, and Harry didn't want to do that. He didn't want to say, "What if you get taken again," though that was what he was afraid of.
Draco leaned down, bending for a kiss, Harry's face cradled in one of his hands.
Harry let Draco kiss him, his mind still racing with thoughts of Draco being away from him. He could hardly even stand to think it.
Draco felt his lover's tension and drew back just enough to look into his eyes. "You could Apparate with me there and then come back later, if that would help," he whispered.
Harry flushed as he looked at Draco, embarrassed for feeling the way he did. "I – I think it would," he said quietly.
"Good," Draco smiled, liking that option better anyway. "I will send Mother an owl. When should she expect us?"
"Whenever you like," Harry answered, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
"Have something better to do this afternoon?" Draco asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Harry couldn't help but smile at that and he felt at least some of the fear leave him. "You mean other than you?" he replied.
Draco kissed him quickly. "I'll send the owl and then meet you upstairs," he said.
Harry lifted his head out of Draco's lap, sitting up. "Okay," he said with another small smile at him.
Chapter Title: "Real" Family
Words: 2426 Words
Draco was getting better, yes. Harry could tell, but he wasn't sure if he was getting better. He wasn't comfortable being away from Draco. It made him twitchy and nervous, and most unpleasant thoughts swam through his mind, like what sort of danger Draco could get into while not in Harry's immediate vicinity – but he did feel ... okay ... leaving for only about fifteen minutes to pick up Teddy.
He couldn't not pick Teddy up, and he didn't want to not pick Teddy up, even though Andromeda had been nothing but reluctant to let the little boy go with Harry. She'd found out he and Draco were seeing each other from that wretched first article. And now, after the second Skeeter fiasco, she seemed even afraid.
Harry couldn't blame her exactly. He knew the grudge between her and Narcissa didn't help matters and he also knew that Teddy was the only person she had left. He knew she was bound to be highly protective of her only grandchild. She'd actually sat Harry down for a talk, asking all sorts of questions while Harry felt increasingly uncomfortable being away from Draco. He'd tried to answer as honestly as he could, even admitting to her that he was in love with Draco, and she'd finally let him go, still reluctant, with the small boy packed up to tag along.
Harry finally entered back into the house with Teddy, and immediately strode off to find Draco, needing the sight of him to calm his nerves. "Draco!" he called down the hall, away from Mrs. Black.
"Daco!" Teddy echoed, though it sounded more like 'taco' than Draco's actual name.
Draco laughed, having been waiting in the sitting room. Now he came to the hall and reached out for Teddy. "Well, hello to you too," he said to the boy, also smiling at his lover.
Harry grinned, handing the fuchsia-haired child over to Draco. Teddy very happily went, smiling and showing his teeth.
"Aren't you just a big boy now?" Draco said, hefting the child in his arms. "Getting heavier," he added. Then he leaned over and gave Harry a quick kiss.
Harry returned the kiss, smiling again. "Getting into a whole new world of trouble now as well," he said. "He can pull himself up and walk along the edges of things."
Teddy giggled as Harry waggled his eyebrows at him.
Draco led them back into the sitting room, where he had already moved anything dangerous or breakable out of reach, and cast a few Cushioning Charms. He pulled out the small box of toys they now kept for Teddy, and set it on the coffee table and then the boy beside it. "Show me what you got, Teddy," he told him.
Teddy looked up at Draco with little furrowed eyebrows for a moment, before getting rather shakily up on his knees and quickly grasping the edge of the table to pull himself to his feet and reach for the toys.
Harry let out a laugh, watching him.
Draco nodded, grinning. "Very good," he told the boy. "You will be ready for a broom in no time!"
"Boom," Teddy repeated, reaching for a beanbag-like toy of a Quidditch player mounted on a broomstick. Harry had bought it for him.
Harry laughed again. "And clever, too," he said.
Draco sat down on the sofa, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees as he looked at Teddy. "I missed you," he told the boy. He hadn't got to see him when he had been sick and realised how much the child had come to mean to him.
Harry looked up at Draco, and his gaze turned very soft. "He missed you, too," he said. "Andromeda told me that he's been talking about you." He didn't add that she had sounded a bit alarmed when she'd told him.
Draco cocked his head, hearing something in his tone. "That a problem?" he asked.
Harry's eyebrows came together. "I don't think so," he said, only a little emphasis on the 'I,' but he knew Draco would hear it.
"You going to tell me?" Draco asked, picking up one of the balls and rolling it to Teddy.
Teddy plopped down on his bottom and crawled swiftly after the ball like a little multi-coloured puppy. Harry sighed. "Well," he said, "she's still none too pleased with Teddy ... being around you too much, I guess."
"She worried I am going to make him into a baby Death Eater?" Draco asked sarcastically.
"To be honest," Harry said, "I'm not sure exactly what she's worried about specifically. Perhaps being a bad influence?" He sighed again and shrugged. What he really thought had her more nervous than ever was that Draco had been linked to the Lestranges, who were of course linked to Bellatrix, who had killed Tonks.
Draco sighed unhappily. "Are you going to have to stop having me with you when you have him?" he asked, expression serious as he looked at his lover.
Harry's heart felt like it actually cracked when he took in Draco's expression. "She let me have him," he said as Teddy attempted to throw the ball at Draco. "And she didn't say anything about banning him from you."
The ball went a bit wild but Draco caught it. He smirked, pleased that his Seeker reflexes still seemed to work. He rolled the ball for the baby again and then turned back to Harry. "Good," he said.
Harry nodded. "I ... think it would be awful if Teddy couldn't see you," he said quietly, thinking back to the last time Draco had seen the baby and how Teddy had cried when he'd had to leave.
Draco had to go and get the ball this time when Teddy threw it in the wrong direction. He bent down and picked it up. Only a quick smile gave it away before he threw it at Harry.
Harry reached out and caught it automatically, and smirked.
"Ball!" Teddy yelled happily, bouncing on his knees.
"Play with us, Harry," Draco said, laughing.
"You mean I should join in?" Harry said to Teddy, before he lightly threw the little ball. It bounced off Teddy's chest and rolled under the table. Teddy dove to get it and pulled it out with a gesture of ultimate triumph.
Draco laughed again and waited for Teddy to decide who to throw the ball to next. "Do you think it would help her if ... if she talked to me?" he asked Harry.
Teddy chucked the ball at Draco, but hit the sofa.
"Well," Harry said, "maybe. She would see that you're not ... what she thinks you are. It's not like you two talked much at Christmas, and all she mostly did was ask about your mum."
Draco found the ball and rolled it back to Teddy. He wasn't sure what he could say to his aunt to convince her, but for Harry and Teddy's sake, he would be willing to try.
Harry and Draco played with Teddy for quite a while with the ball, but eventually, the boy was tired of that game. He dumped the box of toys out and seemed particularly amused with the train that made noise and moved with the press of a magical button.
Harry listened to him laugh and smiled with contentment. "Don't you just feel ..." he said to Draco after a few minutes. "I don't know. Not better, but ... something when he's here? I don't know what it is. Warm, maybe." He chuckled oddly at himself.
Draco sat down next to his lover and put his hand over Harry's, lacing their fingers together. "Feels like ..." He trailed off, not sure he should say what he was thinking.
Harry turned his head to look at Draco quizzically.
Draco flushed and looked down at their hands.
Well, that was strange. "What?" Harry said quietly, nudging Draco gently with his shoulder.
"It's odd really, but it almost feels like he is ours, sometimes," the blond answered, looking over at the baby.
Harry looked over at Teddy too, and felt it click. It did sometimes feel like Teddy belonged to them, like they didn't have to actually give him back to his grandmother, that they would put him in his cot and wake up with him in the morning. "Yeah," he said quietly.
"Like this is what it would feel like to be a real family," Draco said softly, still watching the baby. "You know, married with kids and all that."
Harry let out a quiet breath of a laugh. "Yeah," he said again. "It would be ... nice, I think."
Draco felt a twinge of loss and guilt at what they had both given up to be together. "I wish I could really marry you," he said.
Harry let out a heavy sigh. "Why can't you?" he asked, but he knew the law too.
Draco glanced at Harry, fingers tightening in his. "Two men don't have the right to marry."
"We're two people, aren't we?" Harry said, and rolled his eyes, feeling resentment creep upon him.
"Marriage is about making families, isn't it?" Draco said, looking at him sadly. "We can't have children, so why marriage?"
"Well, some married people don't ever have kids," countered Harry. "And we couldn't ... make a baby of our own, but, well, there's Teddy. There's adoption. Two men can have a family."
Draco cocked his head, really looking at Harry. "You want children? To raise?"
"I guess I always just thought I would have them," Harry answered. "And they would be nice – like I've said before." He smiled sadly as he said it. "I do want one, but ... I can live without one."
Draco frowned. He never wanted Harry to have to go without anything he wanted. And it was true for him, as well. He had grown up knowing how important it was for him to carry on the Malfoy family. He had always imagined his adult life would mean marriage and family. It had been comforting. "I would do anything to give you what you want," he whispered.
Harry's eyebrows came together again. "You're everything I want," he said. "More than anything I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
"Then take all of me," Draco grinned, and kissed him.
***
Draco leaned back into the corner of the sofa, book in one hand and his lover's head in his lap. He turned the page of Magic and the Body, before glancing down at Harry again, his free hand reaching to push a lock of dark hair off his face.
Harry looked up at Draco and gave him a smile, content with his own book. He couldn't express with words how good it felt to simply lie on the couch like this with Draco. It felt beyond good to be comfortable with him.
When Harry looked up, Draco closed the book and set it aside, fingers trailing down his lover's cheek to his chin. In the weeks since Rodolphus' death and their reactions to it, he had become much more comfortable with himself and his lover again. It wasn't completely normal. He still woke up from horrible dreams and had moments when his body seemed to be reliving the experience. But most of the time, he felt like himself again. And he felt good with Harry. "I have been thinking," he said quietly.
Harry quirked an eyebrow and closed his book as well. "Have you?" he said.
Draco smirked at the gesture so like his own. "I think I should go visit my mother," he said.
Harry's eyebrow rose further. "Today?"
"Well, soon at least," Draco said, shrugging like it wasn't a big deal.
Harry frowned. "Why?" he asked, shifting a little.
"I haven't left the house in a nearly three months," Draco replied. "And I would like to talk with her about something."
Harry's heart sped up a little and he wasn't even completely sure why, but he did know that it had something to do with the fact that it didn't sound like he would be able to go with Draco – not if Draco wanted to go and simply visit with his mum, to talk with her. "I thought you didn't want to go anywhere," he said.
Draco felt a tremor of fear himself, just at the question, but took a deep breath. "I can't see myself going to ... Diagon Alley or the like, anytime soon," he agreed. "But I think I would feel safe enough at the Manor."
Harry found himself trying to think of a reason Draco should stay home, but was coming up empty. "You want to go alone?"
Draco had been thinking about this for a couple days. "I feel better when I am with you," he said, stroking Harry's hair. "But I need to talk with Mother alone and ... and I probably need to learn how to go out again."
Harry opened his mouth to protest, but couldn't think of anything to say against that. He could think of a few ways to get Draco to possibly stay, but it involved scaring him, and Harry didn't want to do that. He didn't want to say, "What if you get taken again," though that was what he was afraid of.
Draco leaned down, bending for a kiss, Harry's face cradled in one of his hands.
Harry let Draco kiss him, his mind still racing with thoughts of Draco being away from him. He could hardly even stand to think it.
Draco felt his lover's tension and drew back just enough to look into his eyes. "You could Apparate with me there and then come back later, if that would help," he whispered.
Harry flushed as he looked at Draco, embarrassed for feeling the way he did. "I – I think it would," he said quietly.
"Good," Draco smiled, liking that option better anyway. "I will send Mother an owl. When should she expect us?"
"Whenever you like," Harry answered, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
"Have something better to do this afternoon?" Draco asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.
Harry couldn't help but smile at that and he felt at least some of the fear leave him. "You mean other than you?" he replied.
Draco kissed him quickly. "I'll send the owl and then meet you upstairs," he said.
Harry lifted his head out of Draco's lap, sitting up. "Okay," he said with another small smile at him.