Suki Has Gone Insane At Last

Title: Parity Transformations

Fandom: HP

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Rating: NC-17 overall

Summary: Eleven years since he ran from Hogwarts and seven years since the end of the war, Draco has moved on. Now in his late twenties, Draco lives a reclusive life in a tiny village in Hampshire. Never in a million years does he expect to cross paths with Harry Potter again. But he does, and there are two, rather small and rather excitable, complications.

Beta'd by amejisuto. Thank you, darling!

A/N: Compliant with all canon up to HBP so there may be spoilers for any of the first six books. As this fic was already planned out in full before the release, it will not be compliant with book 7 and will therefore contain NO SPOILERS.


Previous Chapters: HERE




Monday morning. Draco’s eyes popped open, his heart thumping crazily and his entire body sweating. His mind immediately focused on the source of his bad dreams. He wasn’t sure what was upsetting him the most, the fact that Harry Potter had the hots for him, Kasen’s first day of school, or the promise he’d made to tell Harry the truth about Kasen’s mother.

‘Daddy!’ Kasen said angrily from the doorway. His put his hands on his pyjama-clad hips and scowled. ‘Why aren’t you up yet? It’s school day.’

‘I’m up, I’m up, I’m definitely up,’ Draco said, swinging his feet the floor and standing up so quickly the floor tilted. ‘How about a shower this morning?’

Kasen sighed and shook his head at his father. ‘I don’t have time for a bath, do I? Oh, Daddy.’

Draco hung his head in shame and trudged to the bathroom. He helped his son to shower, dressed him, and made them both a big bowl of porridge each.

At least he didn’t have to worry about Kasen. For the sounds of it – the sounds mostly being happy singing and a poor attempt at whistling – Kasen was perfectly happy to go to school.

Harry beeped his horn at eight twenty and Draco and Kasen joined him and James for the school run.

‘James seems happy,’ Draco said.

Harry did, too, and when he turned his head and smiled, Draco returned it.

‘He’s really looking forward to it,’ Harry said. ‘I think the fact that he has Kasen makes a huge difference.’

Draco agreed. Kasen was a bold child, but school was a scary place. It was new and unknown there were bigger kids there. Draco remembered his first day at school. He’d breathed in the scent of old magic, ancient bloodlines, crossed ancestry, and knew he was home. But despite the sensory comfort, he was out of sorts with the other children. Some of them didn’t even know who he was, and some of them had never even used magic and that was unsettling, like he was surrounded by fireworks that didn’t know they had fuses.

Harry parked the car and together they walked their children into the school.

Kasen squeezed Draco’s hand more tightly than usual, but that was the only sign of any trepidation, and maybe it wasn’t even that; it was a windy day and maybe Kasen thought the breeze would carry him away. Kasen’s hair whipped into his eyes and Draco regretted not getting his hair cut.

‘They’ll be fine,’ Harry said once he and Draco were back in the car. ‘Don’t worry.’

Draco wasn’t aware that he looked worried, even though he was, and not just about Kasen.

‘So, what do you want to do?’ Harry asked, starting up the car.

What was he asking? Do what? Was this a date? Did Harry just want to know about Kasen’s mother? Was it a set up?

Was he just being paranoid?

‘Can we go back to my place?’ Draco asked. It seemed the most sensible thing to do, the easiest place to tell a dark secret.

They drove in silence, and Draco hoped to Merlin this wasn’t a date because it wasn’t going very well.

Draco’s brain was full of indecision, and even though he’d promised he’d tell Harry about Kasen’s mother, he wasn’t entirely sure he was going to keep that promise.

The risks were so great.

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Harry said suddenly. He flicked the indicator and turned left. ‘Seriously, I don’t want to make you miserable, and I’ve got no right to pry.’

‘What happens when you’re bored of all this?’ Draco asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘All this.’ Draco gestured randomly to the windscreen, passenger window and everything beyond. ‘This Muggle life. What happens when it starts to bore you and you go back to your wizarding ways. You’ll take my secrets with you.’

‘Even if I did—’

Draco glared.

‘Even if I did,’ Harry repeated, ‘I wouldn’t betray you. I don’t do things like that. I wouldn’t do that to you.’

‘Why not?’

‘You know why not! Christ, what do you want, a formal confession in the form of a love poem?’

‘Love?’

Harry turned pink and braked too hard at the T junction. ‘I meant … I mean … I didn’t. I’m just saying …’ He turned to look pleadingly at Draco.

Draco grinned.

‘You bastard,’ Harry said.

‘That was to be my middle name, you know.’

‘Oh I believe you.’

Draco relaxed in his seat and put his head back against the headrest. ‘Bastard if I was boy and bitch if I was a girl. Pull over.’

‘What?’

‘Pull over. There, that little car park.’ Draco pointed to a small lay-by. There was only one other car there, a black Range Rover with three huge German Shepherds in the back. Harry roughly parked the Peugeot next to it and they waited in silence until a short man in a wax jacket open the back of his vehicle and shooed his dogs out and into the woodland.

‘Is everything okay?’ Harry asked.

Draco frowned into the wing mirror and watched the man and his dogs disappear behind them. ‘You know when sometimes you make a decision and then you have to follow it through there and then? You simply can’t wait another moment.’

‘Uh huh. Like when you have to have prawn crackers and you can’t get to the Chinese quick enough?’

‘Exactly like that. Kasen’s mother was a prostitute.’ Draco stopped there and gazed out of the windscreen. He lowered his window and let in the fresh scent of chestnut.

‘Okay. All right. Do you want to elaborate?’

Draco rolled his head in Harry’s direction and smiled sadly. ‘I suppose I’d better.’

Harry unclipped his seatbelt and turned in his seat. ‘Go for it. I’m listening. I’m here.’

‘It’s not a sob story, Harry. I wasn’t duped. I knew who she was and what I was doing. She was an escort and I paid her to have sex with me. I was on a self-destruct kick and unfortunately the booze gave me terrible headaches and the drugs just made me giggle. I only had the sex left.

‘I had no friends, no family, just a huge manor house to rattle about in by myself. Even the portraits wouldn’t talk to me. Everyone either hated me or was ashamed of me. One side thought I was nothing but a dirty Death Eater and the other slammed me for betraying the Dark Lord. I couldn’t win. So I found this lovely girl, a pureblood who had a taste for the kinkier side of life. I paid her well for her exclusivity.’

‘And you got her pregnant,’ Harry said.

‘No. It wasn’t as simple as that. Shush and let me tell my story. I was incredibly lonely—’

‘Aren’t you gay?’ Harry interrupted. ‘Since always. Ish.’

Draco frowned, annoyed at being interrupted again. ‘Yes. Of course. But the point was to do something dirty. Do keep up, Potter.’

‘Right, sorry.’

‘You will be. Where was I? Oh yes, lonely, desperate, blah, blah, blah. So I had this brilliant idea. I would have a child, someone who would always love me and adore me no matter what, someone who would always be my friend, my companion, the love of my life. So I paid her.’

‘To have your baby?’

‘Yes. She was unwilling at first, but I managed to change her mind with a vast sum of cash and a substantial property in Brussels. But things got complicated. She got … attached. And that’s when the trouble started.’

Draco watched Harry carefully, watched him suck in a lungful of air in preparation for whatever horror was to come.

‘Tell me,’ Harry said.

‘She wanted to keep the baby for herself, even offered me all my money back, minus what she’d already spent on shoes – she had an obsession, you see. Anyway, I wasn’t prepared to accept this so I took action.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I took her entire family out of action. I paid some shady types to do it for me. I burned their properties to the ground and ruined their businesses. It’s surprising how quickly one person can destroy another when the mind is motivated.’

‘Jesus, Draco … Did anyone get hurt?’

Draco hesitated and tried to gage Harry’s expression. He didn’t look completely disgusted, but the worst was still to come.

‘Her father? He had a nasty Screwt-related accident. Her bother met with the wrong end of a broom and her cousin went to Azkaban for a whole string of things he didn’t do. And so on and so on.’ He glanced at Harry again. There was no expression.

‘That was basically all it took. When the time came, she gave up the baby, kept her mouth shut and I left, for good. End of story. So, still want to come back to my place for tea?’

Harry exhaled and Draco stupidly wondered if he’d been holding his breath the whole time.

‘Well?’ Draco prompted.

‘I’m not sure what I was expecting,’ Harry said.

Draco shrugged. ‘Coffee perhaps? I think I’ve got some Cranberry—’

‘No, you know that’s not what I mean. Wow. No wonder you didn’t want to tell me anything.’

Draco looked away. ‘Are you going to turn me in?’

‘To who? What would be the point?’

‘You don’t think I deserve to be punished?’

‘I think you did a terrible thing.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’ Harry asked, irritation clear in his voice. ‘If you’re looking for absolution, I’m not the right person to give it.’

Draco rolled his eyes. This was so typical of Potter. What an utterly righteous and ridiculous thing to say. ‘I know that, idiot. What I want to know is how much you’ve gone off me.’

Harry turned back to look out of the windscreen. ‘I haven’t gone off you. You … you were a different person then,’ he said, nodding to himself once. ‘You wouldn’t do that now.’

‘Wouldn’t I?’

Harry looked sharply at him.

‘The best thing in my life came from the worst thing I ever did. I don’t regret it, not one little bit. I love my son too much for that.’

‘And what will you tell him when he asks about his mother?’

Draco opened the car door and got out. ‘I’ll lie. You’d know all about that.’

*****



‘Well?’

Draco looked away, looked at the window, at the wall, at the spider scuttling across his bed, anywhere but at Potter. ‘Fine. I’m in. But this prophecy better be bloody right.’

‘It is.’

‘I’m not sure what I can actually do. I’m not exactly the tough warrior type.’

‘Two things,’ Potter said, and Draco watched him pace from one wall to the one opposite. ‘Stand with me and the others, we need all the bodies we can get.’

‘What an adorable turn of phrase. Are you sure you’re supposed to win?’

‘Shut up, you know what I mean,’ Potter said.

‘And the second thing?’

Potter stopped pacing. His expression was grim, his eyes hard, set, and aimed right at Draco. ‘Teach me. Nobody else will. Show me all the Dark Magic you know.’

Draco met his gaze, stood, and smiled. ‘Now that, I can do.’


*****

It wasn’t a long walk home, but it was a windy one. Draco’s hair flapped about wildly and he wished he’d tied it back or at least worn some sort of hat. Not the deerstalker, though. Kasen found it far too embarrassing.

He smiled when he thought about his son and realised that he meant what he’d said to Harry. He would do it all again, exactly the same, because there was no way he could be without Kasen. His son had changed his life, for the better.

Draco glanced up at the half-grey, half sunny sky and felt light spits of rain on his nose. Summer was definitely on its way out, which was great news for his skin and an even greater relief for his garden which was crying out for a little more moisture and much less flambé. When Draco looked back down, he saw Harry’s car parked in the driveway and Harry leaning against the boot, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets.

‘Hey, I would have taken you home, you know.’

‘And then what?’ Draco said, stopping a good ten feet away.

‘I don’t know, come in for tea probably, if the offer was still open. Is it?’

Draco regarded him carefully, investigating for signs of hate or potential betrayal. Eventually, he nodded. ‘I apologise. For my unreasonable, highly strung and infuriating behaviour. I can’t help it.’

Harry nodded and pushed away from his car. ‘I’m not here to judge you. You’re a good father and I know you know that. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to answer for. You did what you did and that’s that. It’s in the past. It should stay there.’

Draco tried to swallow and wondered who had stolen all his saliva. ‘And what do I tell my son?’ he whispered. ‘What do I tell him when he asks where his mum is?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe I can help you work that out.’

Draco looked back up at the sky as it opened wide and turned the sprinkling raindrops into a shining waterfall. There would probably be a rainbow. ‘We’ll have tea in the conservatory, shall we?’


TBC…






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