A Wizard’s Guide to Co-Parenting with Your Ex-Arch Nemesis

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/52486315.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Parvati
Patil, Minerva McGonagall, Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini, Original
Child Character(s)
Additional Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Ridiculousness, Temporary Children, mild
themes of child loss, A baby that lives to spite Harry, Teenagers being
dramatic, Humor, Fluff, Getting Together, Draco Malfoy is Good with
Children, Co-Parenting with your ex-arch-nemesis, featuring that one
Home Ec unit that everybody hated, Everyone collectively losing their
minds over babies made from flour, Kidfic, H/D Kidfic Fest 2024
Language: English
Collections: H/D Kidfic Fest 2024
Stats: Published: 2024-01-31 Words: 38,232 Chapters: 1/1
 A Wizard’s Guide to Co-Parenting with Your Ex-Arch Nemesis
by thecouchsofa

Summary

Harry had expected a few things when returning for his Eighth Year. Rooming with Ron, a
cheeky Firewhisky down at the pub, leaving his assignments to the last minute – those were
all but certain to occur.

His list of certainties definitely hadn’t included McGonagall’s shake-up of the curriculum,
which tasked the Eighth Years with the responsibility of parenthood for three weeks. Caring
for a baby Transfigured from a sack of flour would have been alright if: 1) Malfoy wasn’t
Harry’s assigned partner, 2) Their baby’s one goal in life wasn’t to spite Harry, and 3) Malfoy
wasn’t infuriatingly good at fake parenthood.

Notes

Apri, your prompt was too delightful not to choose!

Massive thanks to H, V, and J for their superb beta work - this fic would be in a much sorrier
state if it wasn't for you.

I hope this silly story is as enjoyable to read as it was to write!

See the end of the work for more notes

Returning for Eighth Year, Harry had expected a few things.

Rooming with Ron was a given, slacking off while Hermione argued until she was blue in the
face that they should have already started their assignments was all but certain to occur.
Perhaps he’d even partake in a cheeky Firewhisky or two on a Hogsmeade weekend, or
something equally daring.

What he hadn’t expected was a shake-up of the curriculum.

Coming straight off the heels of the war, a year of complete and total upheaval, and a massive
shake-up of wizarding society, McGonagall had evidently thought it a prime opportunity to
completely redo the curriculum. The group of returning Eighth Years, she told them, were
going to be her guinea pigs.

This had led to an inevitable bout of confusion from some of the group who didn’t
understand the reference, which then led to Hermione and Susan Bones detailing Muggle
scientific practices and animal testing, which then led to Padma Patil running out of the room
crying as the leaking eyeballs of tested-upon rabbits were described to her.

It hadn’t been the most successful meeting, though it got marginally better once McGonagall
handed out a bowl of sweets and let everyone take a handful.

“This is precisely what I’m talking about,” McGonagall said. She took the bowl of sweets
from Dean and unwrapped a sherbet lemon for herself. “Many of you are woefully unaware
of anything outside of the boundaries of Diagon Alley. Many of you, despite your additional
year of life experience, still seem to be completely unprepared for the world that awaits you
outside these walls. As a result, I have decided – in conjunction with the Board of Governors,
Mr Macmillan, so I don’t want to hear any complaints from your father – to introduce some
lessons on life skills.”

McGonagall turned and waved her wand with a flourish. As they all watched, a large piece of
parchment as wide and as tall as the back wall of the classroom unfurled itself. It was filled
with large, blocky bits of text and tiny pictures of things exploding and darting about and
transforming. Harry watched as a miniature sketched wizard in a tall blue hat clapped his
hands together and made a cake appear out of thin air.

“Here are your schedules,” McGonagall said, waving her wand at a stack of papers on her
desk. “You’ll notice two extra class periods each week that do not align with your previously
nominated elective classes. One of these periods will cover all of our new sample courses that
fall under the umbrella of home economics, the other to general life maintenance.”

“This is an awful lot of time to take away from studying for our N.E.W.T.s,” Hermione
muttered, catching her assigned schedule out of the air with no small amount of difficulty.

Harry hadn’t particularly been looking forward to studying for his N.E.W.T.s, nor had he
been keen on dealing with a stressed-out Hermione while they prepared for said N.E.W.T.s,
so he couldn’t say that he minded too much that their time would be taken up by something
else.

He zoned out a little as McGonagall droned on and on about House unity and leadership and
setting a good example for those younger and apparently less wise than them (Harry couldn’t
say he agreed with that particular thought too much, considering he’d watched Ron and Dean
set their hair on fire not twelve hours before, in a bid to see what hair texture burned faster.
Hermione had not been amused). He wasn’t too fussed about setting his head down on the
desk and taking a bit of a nap; if he missed anything important, he’d just ask Hermione. She
was, quite literally, taking notes as McGonagall spoke. She’d underlined ‘House unity’ three
separate times; the parchment looked liable to tear under the nib of her quill when she started
on the next line.

“The aim of these so-called ‘taster courses’,” McGonagall said, bending her fingers in the air
to form quotation marks, “is not only to better prepare you for life after Hogwarts, but to
open your eyes to other possible career fields. You might be surprised at what path in life you
choose to take when you have the opportunity to see them all in front of you beforehand. I,
for one, may have chosen to become a ride operator at Thorpe Park, had I been able to visit it
as a young girl.”

“What?” Harry heard Parkinson mutter from a few rows ahead.

“It’s exciting, isn’t it?” Parvati asked, nudging Ron with an elbow as they all stood to leave.
“All these new courses?”

Ron shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

Parvati had hung around the three of them for the entire ride down to Hogwarts and hadn’t
left Hermione’s side since. She’d practically been sitting in Ron’s lap during the welcome
feast, and Harry had half thought she might ask to come up to his dorm with him when they
all headed off to bed. To hang out and chat, bizarrely.

Hermione hadn’t been the slightest bit pleased, but she’d visibly tried to school her face into
a mask of indifference.

“She’s just lonely, I’m sure,” Hermione said through visibly gritted teeth as she watched
Parvati scoot closer to Ron on the bench. “Lavender decided not to come back this year at the
very last moment, and those two were always attached at the hip. Maybe she’s scared, even,
of being here by herself. I might be too, if the two of you had decided not to come back.”

“You wouldn’t be scared,” Harry said, resting his head on Hermione’s shoulder. “You’d push
through.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being scared, I’m sure last year was spectacularly awful for
everyone here,” Hermione said, but she looked a little pleased. “As long as I don’t have to
spend every lesson with her, I’m sure I’ll manage.”

Harry hummed in assent. He let his eyes drift down the shiny new Eighth Year table, passing
over every face until he stopped on a frustratingly familiar one.
Malfoy was just as pale and pointy as ever and hadn’t managed to lose the look on his face
that made it seem as though he’d just smelt something exceptionally bad. He must’ve been
born with it; Harry was sure that if pressed he could count the exact number of times he’d
seen Malfoy wearing an expression that wasn’t that.

The recipient of the disgusted look on Malfoy’s face appeared to be the bowl of beef stew
that was sitting in front of him. He appeared to be trying to evaporate the liquid with the
force of his glare, though Harry couldn’t imagine why; the stew had been rather nice that day,
not like the watery version they’d had a few years back, when the kitchen elves had changed
up the menu on a whim.

Hermione’s face filled Harry’s vision.

“No,” she said.

“What?” Harry asked, more than a little affronted. “I’m not bloody doing anything.”

She pointed a finger at him, her eyebrows drawing inwards. “No.”

“No, what?” Harry cried. “Stop looking at me like that or I won’t come to the library with
you tomorrow.”

“Oh, were you planning on coming to the library tomorrow? Harry, that’s great news! It’s
never too early to get on top of your study habits for the year.” She leaned back into a normal
sitting position, no longer halfway draped across the table. The movement put Malfoy
squarely back in his field of view again.

“Huh? Oh, sure.”

“Harry,” Hermione hissed. She kicked him under the table far harder than was necessary.
“Stop it.”

Harry turned his head to glare at her. “Stop what?”

“Stop looking at Malfoy.”

“I can look at Malfoy if I want to look at Malfoy. It’s a public place. He’s right there.”

“Don’t do this again, god.” She looked more exasperated than angry.

“You’ve got mashed potato in your hair,” Harry said.

“Oh, bollocks. Ron, can you pass me a napkin?”

“I’ll get it, Hermione,” Parvati said brightly.

“Great,” Hermione muttered.

Malfoy looked up then, his eyes locking with Harry’s. He narrowed them slightly.
Harry narrowed his own in response.

“Oh no.” Ron chuckled, raising his eyebrows at Harry.

“School unity,” Hermione reminded him. “McGonagall will be so disappointed in you if you
pick a fight with Malfoy on the first day.”

“I’m not picking a fight,” Harry insisted. He didn’t break eye contact with Malfoy as he lifted
his glass of pumpkin juice to his mouth.

Malfoy, a good few metres down the table, mirrored the action, his eyes still narrowed.

“You’re definitely picking a fight,” Ron said. He sounded worryingly eager. “Might as well
challenge him to a proper duel, get some Auror practice in.”

“Ronald,” Hermione hissed. She must have kicked him under the table because he winced
dramatically.

“I’m just looking,” Harry said. He fumbled for his fork and speared a roasted potato without
breaking his gaze. It hit more of his cheek than his mouth when it tried to take a bite of it, but
that was alright; Malfoy’s spoonful of stew looked like it would end up in his lap any second.

“I thought the two of you had worked it out,” Hermione continued. “You told me that you
had.”

Harry shrugged. He stabbed for another potato, succeeding in hitting the plate with the tines
of his fork instead.

They had worked it out, at least somewhat.

Malfoy had sent a bunch of rather out of character letters to the three of them – presumably
along with those to other classmates, given how many he’d been a git to over the years –
recanting things he had said during their time at school and apologising for any pain caused.
It had all sounded fairly sincere, and Harry had written back a short message accepting his
apology. He hadn’t wanted to go into it much more than that; putting his emotional turmoil
on a page and sending it to Draco fucking Malfoy as some sort of horrifying bonding activity
wasn’t exactly high up on his To Do list for the year.

Seeing Malfoy now, it became apparent that he must have gotten a house elf to write the
letters for him, because he looked every inch the same snobby git he always had been.

Harry silently raised a brow in Malfoy’s direction. He watched as a pale blond eyebrow drew
down in response.

Without warning, Pansy Parkinson shrieked with laughter and jolted back against Malfoy,
sending his spoonful of stew pouring straight down onto his lap.

At the same time, Harry stabbed his fork down a little too firmly in search of his next potato
and somehow managed to flip the plate clean over, throwing roast chicken and mushy peas
straight onto his chest with proper force.
Parkinson laughed loudly again; the sound nearly shrill enough to shatter the bloody
windows.

“Oh dear,” Parvati said. “We’d best get you to the showers then, Harry.”

It rather seemed that, despite the whole ‘saving the wizarding world from evil’ thing, Harry
wasn’t going to be cut any slack from his professors, McGonagall in particular.

In fact, she appeared dead set on using him as a shining example of school unity.

It had been alright at first; their opening taster lesson for their home economics unit saw him
paired up with Blaise Zabini. The man had clearly never used a stove in his life, and quite
possibly hadn’t ever even seen one until that moment, but he’d been receptive to learning the
odds and ends of cooking. He’d let Harry take the lead with stirring the curry in the pot and
had been content to chop up the vegetables into tiny pieces, as though pretending with all his
might that they were still in Potions class.

Even the baking lessons they had done, in which Harry had been paired with Parkinson,
hadn’t been too bad. She spent just as much time fixing her hair and shrieking whenever her
fingers came into contact with the bread dough as she did actually baking anything, but she
was fine once you got past all that.

She’d even asked Harry if Hermione was in the market for someone to study with, since
she’d seen her heading up to the library by herself most days. Well, her and Parvati, who had
recently taken to sticking more to her side than Ron or Harry’s, thank Merlin.

Despite being seen as McGonagall’s personal school unity guinea pig, it could have been
worse; he could have been paired with Malfoy, but evidently not even McGonagall was that
cruel. No doubt she was trying to avoid partnering them up so as to keep the peace. It was the
smart thing to do, after all.

Harry’s wishful thinking came swiftly crashing down as they walked into the fifth-floor
classroom that had been designated for their extra classes, one chilly November afternoon.
Wind battered at the windowpanes and made them shake in their frames; the gusts were
strong enough to blow orange and yellow leaves all the way up to the windows of Gryffindor
Tower.

“Merlin save us all,” Ron muttered as they walked in.

There was a picture of a rather large baby on the sheet of Charmed parchment that covered
the back wall of the classroom. As Harry watched, the baby wriggled and kicked its feet,
gnawing on one chubby fist.

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Parvati said, sliding into the seat next to Harry. “Do you think they’ll
be having us babysit?”
“God, I hope not,” Harry said. He watched as the baby screwed up its face in a silent
imitation of a cry.

Parvati continued on, seeming oblivious to Harry’s abject horror at the situation that was
unfolding. “My cousin had a new baby a few months back. The baby’s a little bit older than
that one looks. She’s so lovely. A little sticky sometimes, but you get used to that quickly
enough.”

Harry shuddered. Babies terrified him a little. They were soft and squishy and acted like they
wanted to be dropped with the way that they wriggled about. He’d only spent a handful of
hours alone with Teddy that summer before having to head back to school, but each and
every time, he’d counted the minutes until Andromeda was due to return home. Teddy was
cute, but all he did was cry and sleep and crawl about. Harry was never quite sure what to do
with him and was absolutely terrified of dropping him.

Hermione had swung Teddy about and cooed in his face when Harry had called her round in
a panic one afternoon, desperate to figure out why Teddy wouldn’t stop turning bright red in
the face every few minutes. She had somewhat of a natural talent with babies, which was a
trait that Harry felt confident in saying that he did not possess.

“Oh, Draco, would you look at that,” Parkinson said as she walked past Harry’s table. “Have
your parents been influencing the curriculum again? I thought they were over all that
business now.”

“Shut it,” Malfoy hissed, glaring at Parkinson as he sat down heavily at the desk in front of
Harry.

“Pansy, don’t tease,” Zabini said, patting Malfoy on the shoulder as he sat down at the next
desk over, “you know he’s just being broody.”

“I’m not fucking broody,” Malfoy said through his teeth. He looked even more pissed off
when McGonagall docked House points from him for swearing, levelling him with a
particularly unimpressed look.

Harry felt his face morph into a sour expression to match as McGonagall began to explain
their next assignment. Parvati was apparently going to get her wish; their next task was to be
a glorified version of babysitting.

Ron turned to Harry with an expression of both horror and resignation as they listened to the
highly unwelcome set of instructions. According to McGonagall, they would be fully
responsible for a child for the next three weeks.

“Take care to note that these are not living infants,” McGonagall said, waving her wand at the
door that led to the connected teacher’s quarters that had sat vacant all year. “Although you
are no doubt more mature than you were last year, it would take rather a lot of convincing to
allow quite so many parents to give up their young children for such an extended period of
time. Not to mention the legal issues.” She gave them a wry smile.
The door to the teacher’s quarters creaked open and a line of bags marched themselves out
single file. They stopped at the side of the desk up on the dais, piling themselves in a
teetering stack one on top of the other.

“You will be responsible for every aspect of care necessary for your assigned infant to thrive.
This will include, but not be limited to, feeding, bathing, entertaining, and soothing. For those
of you who do not have experience with young children, I suggest you get used to waking up
every few hours.”

Harry was sure he wasn’t imagining the twinkle in McGonagall’s eye as she spoke.

Ron leaned over the aisle to raise an eyebrow at Harry. “She’s enjoying this, I reckon.”

“Never would have picked her for a sadist,” Harry muttered back, widening his eyes in
agreement.

Parvati raised her hand next to Harry in a perfect imitation of Hermione from their first year;
she was damn near standing up in order to be seen. “We don’t have to change them, do we?”
she asked when McGonagall nodded at her. “Their nappies, I mean?”

“No,” McGonagall replied, gesturing for her to put her hand down. She did it at least twice
before Parvati complied. “There was considerable thought given to that, but that particular
function was omitted for sanitary reasons. Mr Filch also expressed concerns about soiled
nappies ending up piled in the corridors.”

Ron shuddered violently. Harry had to hide his laugh in the crook of his arm upon seeing his
horrified expression.

“Let me be clear that, should your infant fail to thrive, you will not pass this aspect of the
course. Do this task wrong the first time and you will repeat it as many times as is necessary
for you to complete it successfully, even if that happens to be over the next summer.”

“She can’t do that, surely,” Hermione said to Ron, her eyebrows drawn inwards.

“I assure you, Miss Granger, that I can.” McGonagall raised an eyebrow at Hermione, who
sunk lower in her chair. “Now, to take some of the strain off of your sleep schedules, I have
elected to have you complete this assignment in pairs. And no, before you ask, you will not
be picking those yourselves. In the ongoing spirit of unity – which you, as Eighth Years, will
happily model for your younger schoolmates, I am sure – your partners will also not be from
your own House.”

Harry immediately crossed his fingers and silently pleaded for Susan Bones. She’d no doubt
monopolise the kid and Harry wouldn’t have to do anywhere near as much of the work. Plus,
she had the aura of someone who’d do alright with the whole childcare thing. It was the
perfect solution.

“Now,” McGonagall waved her wand, sending the little hessian bags each to a separate table.
Harry watched as the one that settled itself down in front of him and Parvati began to shift,
letters appearing on the material as though stamped there. “On each of the bags you will find
two names. Your bag will display your name, alongside that of your partner. Once you have
found your partner you may remove your infant from the bag.”

The bag in front of Harry now displayed the names Ron Weasley and Padma Patil.

“Oi, Ron, this one’s yours,” Harry said, reaching across the aisle to nudge Ron with an elbow.

“Best get on with it, wouldn’t you say?” Parvati asked brightly. She got up with a flourish,
gathering her books in her arms and setting off down the aisle.

“Shove over, mate,” Ron said, sliding his books onto the table in front of Harry.

Parkinson let out a raucous bout of laughter so loud it verged on being a scream.

“Fuck off,” Malfoy hissed, giving her a firm shove that sent her flying into the next desk over.

“Mr Malfoy,” McGonagall said, her tone sharp.

Malfoy held up his hands in silent apology, though it didn’t stop him shooting another glare
at Parkinson, who was doubled over with laughter.

Harry grabbed his books and got up from his chair to make way for Ron, who was smiling
politely at Padma. Most people had found their partners immediately, only a few still milling
about in the aisles like he was. Hermione had found her place next to Millicent Bulstrode,
who was gazing forlornly at the hessian bag in front of her. Hermione appeared to be
struggling to open it, although that could have just been a purposeful attempt to delay the
inevitable.

Harry glanced around to take stock of his options. Only the seats next to Parkinson, Malfoy,
and Terry Boot were still free. He headed for Terry, crossing his fingers and lifting his eyes to
the ceiling as though Merlin himself might be able to hear his pleas.

“Oops, this one’s me,” Parvati said, stepping in front of Harry to peer down at the bag in
front of Terry.

“Bugger,” Harry muttered, turning on his heel. Parkinson was looking right at him, a
horrifically wide grin on her face. Harry steeled himself and walked towards her, setting his
jaw. She blinked up at him when he put his books down on the desk next to her.

“Oh, no, no, Potter,” she said, her smile all teeth.

“What?” Harry asked. He glanced at the bag in front of her and groaned loudly. It clearly read
Wayne Hopkins, who was chatting to McGonagall at the front of the room, evidently in no
rush to find his assigned partner. That left only one other person yet to be paired up.

Of course it would be Malfoy; McGonagall was going above and beyond to prove her
boundless levels of sadism, apparently.

Harry dragged his feet as he walked across the room to the desk where Malfoy sat. He
glanced up and locked eyes with Ron, who winced in sympathy.
“Potter,” Malfoy said, nodding at him as he sat down. “Lovely day today, isn’t it?”

“Just get our baby out of the bag, Malfoy,” Harry sighed.

Malfoy clicked his tongue as he reached for the bag. “A little demanding. A ‘please’ might be
nice.”

“Please get our baby out of the sodding bag.”

“Better.” A smirk twisted across Malfoy’s face. Harry felt his pulse speed up as he watched,
annoyance curling in his chest.

“Oh god,” Harry said once the hessian sack fell away to reveal their assignment.

“What the fuck is that?” Harry heard Parkinson mutter from one of the other desks.

Malfoy yanked the blob out of the sack and held it aloft with two hands, turning it this way
and that to inspect it.

“If everyone would please place their infants on their desks,” McGonagall said.

Malfoy did as commanded, resting the blob on the rumpled hessian sack. Harry leaned in to
peer at it, trying to make sense of the shape. It rather resembled a lump of clay, like in that
Muggle film Ghost that Aunt Petunia used to swoon over; the lump sitting there ready to be
crafted, right as the male lead dug his hands into it and child-Harry had been shooed out of
the room. It also looked frighteningly liked one of Crookshanks’ most vile hairballs, fresh
from the gullet.

“Is that supposed to be an arm, do you reckon?” he asked Malfoy.

“It rather closely resembles a Flobberworm,” Malfoy said, eyes narrowing. “Though far less
dangerous looking. How are we meant to soothe that?”

“Please refrain from touching your infants while I deliver the next set of instructions,”
McGonagall said.

As she spoke, the blob in front of Harry began to slowly take shape, being Transfigured
before his eyes. The twisted edges of the blob became little bent arms and stubby legs, the
top moulding into a tiny round head, finally beginning to resemble an actual baby somewhat.

He barely listened to what McGonagall was saying, though he heard bits and pieces. Each
pair would be responsible for assigning division of childcare, though both partners were
expected to contribute equally. The blobs were Charmed to record every instance of
discontent, as well as any other emotions that a regular baby might feel. Each week they
would receive a report of their blob’s emotions in order to improve their parenting skills.

Harry felt the colour drain from his face. The prospect of parenting in itself was terrifying,
but coparenting with Malfoy? And doing it effectively? It was never going to happen, and he
didn’t much feel like staying back over the summer until they were able to get it right.
“What are they made of?” Parvati asked, giggling as the blobs began to sprout tiny fingers
and toes.

“Flour,” McGonagall said. “Among other things necessary for the spells to take root.” She
cracked her first proper smile of the lesson then, looking down at the blob taking shape in
front of Neville and Hannah. “In your bags you will find a set of instructions to alter the
appearance of your infant if you so choose. Please also remove and fill out the included form
with your infant’s personal details. You will have five minutes to do this until I cast the
animation spell. Following that, all details are final.”

There was an almighty pop and the appearance of the blobs abruptly changed from hessian
fabric to something that looked eerily like actual skin.

Harry shot up from his chair as soon as McGonagall finished speaking, rushing to the front of
the room as conversations picked up around him.

“Professor,” he said, keeping his voice somewhat hushed. “You realise that I can’t do this
with Malfoy, don’t you?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, looking decidedly unimpressed. “You can, Mr Potter, and you
will.”

“We’ll kill each other,” Harry pleaded. He glanced back at Malfoy to see him furiously
writing something on a piece of parchment, an evil-looking grin on his face.

“I was under the impression that the two of you had buried the hatchet, so to speak.”

“We, uh … he apologised, yeah,” Harry said. He fixed McGonagall with a pleading look.
“Please, Professor. I’ll take anyone else and I won’t complain at all. What about Susan? I
could swap with Nott and take her?”

“The assignments are final,” McGonagall said. “I understand that you and Mr Malfoy have a
torrid history to say the least, but this is the perfect opportunity for you both to move past all
that. You’ll need to do it eventually; who knows how closely you’ll end up working together
after you leave here.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Do you know something I don’t?”

That twinkle was back in McGonagall’s eye. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Harry.
Now go sit down before I’m forced to dock points from your House.”

Harry dragged his feet as he walked back to the desk. He grimaced at Neville, who was
watching Hannah with stars in his eyes as she held their blob baby aloft.

“Didn’t think you were coming back,” Malfoy said when Harry sunk down into the chair next
to him. “I was preparing to go it alone as a single parent.”

“Shut up,” Harry muttered. He narrowed his eyes at the blob, which was looking decidedly
different from when he’d left the desk. Namely, it possessed hair, eyes, and a brown piece of
cloth fashioned into a onesie. “Why does it have hair now?”
“Because I made him have hair,” Malfoy said. He smoothed down the wispy blond bits on the
top of the blob baby’s head.

“Oh, it’s a boy, is it?” Harry asked sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I selected that option.”

“What option?” Harry asked.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Were you not listening? How typical. He’s blond and a boy because
I’ve selected those as the preferred characteristics for my child. We’re good to go.”

Harry moved closer to the blob baby to take in its full appearance. “Why does it look like
that?”

“I told you, I selected the ideal appearance –”

“You’re such a bloody tosser,” Harry said. “I mean, why’d you make it look like you?”

“Better me than you,” Malfoy said with a smirk. “I’m giving him the best start in life, after
all.”

The blob baby did indeed look frighteningly like Malfoy. It had wispy blond hair atop its
head and tiny pale eyebrows that were so light they were almost invisible. They mimicked
Malfoy’s in shape perfectly, as did the shade of the blob baby’s skin. Aside from the ruddy
red cheeks, that was. Despite that, it still looked vaguely wrong in a way that made Harry’s
skin crawl a little, like he was looking at a mirrored reflection rather than an actual person.

“Please pick up your infants, I’ll now cast the animation spell,” McGonagall said.

Malfoy grabbed the blob baby before Harry’s fingers could even twitch, tucking it in the
crook of his arm. He ran a finger over the baby’s rather bulbous head, his eyes wide as he
looked down at it.

Harry fought the urge to clap his hands over his ears when McGonagall cast the spell. It went
from a quiet classroom with a few isolated whispers to a roaring wave of noise, the babies
each screaming at the tops of their lungs seemingly for no reason at all.

Malfoy winced but didn’t drop the blob baby as Harry might have. Instead, he bounced it
slightly, succeeding in getting its cries to decrease in volume.

“Why hello there, Achernar,” he said, smiling softly.

“Uh, what?” Harry asked.

Malfoy looked up at him, his expression going from gentle to mildly irritated. “That’s his
name.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Actually, I think you’ll find that it is.” Malfoy looked properly smug as he jerked his chin
towards the slip of parchment on the desk in front of him, the one that he’d been scribbling
on when Harry had gone up to complain to McGonagall.

There, at the top of the parchment next to the spot that read ‘Infant Full Name’, Malfoy had
written Achernar Solaris Malfoy in his looping script. Even better, he’d listed himself as
‘Parent One’, had written their child’s primary address as Slytherin Dormitory, and their
child’s secondary address as Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire. Its hair colour was listed as blond, its
eyes as grey, and in the ‘Identifying Information’ section he’d put constellation birthmark on
right foot.

“What the fuck is this?” Harry asked, jabbing at the parchment with his finger.

“That, Potter, is our child’s birth certificate.” Malfoy looked down at the baby in his arms and
clicked his tongue. “He’s heavier than he looks, actually. Perhaps I wrote the wrong weight.”

“You’ve gone and filled in everything. Erase it and let me do some.”

“No,” Malfoy sniffed, throwing Harry a withering look.

“Malfoy,” Harry hissed. “I’ll hex you, you prick.”

Malfoy looked awfully fucking smug when McGonagall chastised Harry for his language, his
attitude, and his lack of care at filling in his child’s birth certificate. She stated that Harry
needed to learn to coparent better, a set of words that made Harry roll his eyes so hard they
hurt. She did make Malfoy change the baby’s surname to Malfoy-Potter at least, insisting that
fairness dictated that both parents have a share in the family name.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Harry muttered, glaring down at the parchment as McGonagall
walked away. “When did you even have time to fill the entire fucking certificate out?”

“It’s not my fault that you were so wrapped up in whinging that you weren’t paying attention.
All I did was take it upon myself to ensure that our child was legally registered.”

“’Our child’ doesn’t legally exist. There’s nothing to register.”

“Tell that to the birth certificate,” Malfoy said, waving the offending bit of parchment in
Harry’s face. “And don’t worry, I’ll do most of the work. Doubt you could be trusted with
Achernar’s care anyway.”

“I’m not calling him that,” Harry said.

“That’s his name.”

“It’s a stupid name.”

“Well, he’s got a stupid father, so I suppose it fits.”

“Yeah, he does, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, Harry, they’re adorable,” Hermione said, leaning over Harry’s shoulder to smile at the
baby. She had her own tucked in the crook of her arm in a mirror image of Malfoy’s pose.
“Quite light hair, they have, considering.”

“Yeah, funny that,” Harry muttered. He turned to glare at Malfoy, flicking him on the
shoulder when he didn’t immediately look over at Harry. “You’re not keeping him full time.”

“I expect that I will be,” Malfoy said, raising an eyebrow at Harry. “I’ll be better at it.”

Harry ground his teeth together. “Fuck off – you won’t be.”

Malfoy slid one hand around the baby’s head to cover his ear. “Don’t swear in front of our
son.”

“Our son can’t understand English.”

“Babies are smarter than you give them credit for. You might not have been, granted, but
most are.”

“Malfoy, I swear to fucking god –”

“Alright,” McGonagall said, clapping her hands together. “As pairs, you’ll need to make two
decisions before leaving this room. Firstly, about who will be taking your infant overnight
tonight and, secondly, when your custodial handover of them will be. Make sure to read your
infant care handbooks; there are two for each pair in your bags.”

“I’m taking him tonight,” Malfoy said.

“Fine,” Harry hissed. “I’ll take him at breakfast tomorrow.”

“Lunch.”

“Fine,” Harry said again, gritting his teeth.

The baby made a soft huffing sound. Harry watched as it blinked its eyes open, slashes of
stormy grey in a rosy pink face.

“Oh,” Malfoy said softly.

“Huh,” Harry said. He was snapped out of his trance by the sound of someone pushing their
chair in, wooden feet scraping against the stone floor.

He felt a tug in his chest as he watched Malfoy walk out the door with the baby in his arms,
down the corridor and out of view.

*
“Blimey,” Ron muttered, shaking his head. He was looking down at the baby in his arms with
wide eyes. “Mum won’t be pleased about this. She’s always on about marriage first and all
that shite.”

“It’s not actually your child, Ron,” Hermione huffed. She brushed her hair off her shoulder
and glared down at the parchment in front of her.

“Don’t say that,” Ron said, covering the baby’s ears with his hand. “She might hear you.”

Hermione’s jaw clenched slightly, and her fingers tightened around her quill. “Three weeks,”
she muttered under her breath.

Harry tried to cover his laugh with a cough. He wasn’t successful, judging by the glare
Hermione shot him. She’d been acting funny all night, after handing her assigned baby off to
Millicent Bulstrode. Every time Ron – who was on duty for the first night with his and
Padma’s assigned baby – mentioned said baby, her face would acquire a pinched look like
she’d just sucked on a lemon. She was patently jealous, though Ron didn’t appear to have
noticed at all.

Harry thought the whole thing was rather mental – the babies weren’t really theirs. If they
were, Malfoy certainly wouldn’t be in possession of Harry’s.

Speaking of Malfoy, he’d not made it down to breakfast that morning. Harry had craned his
neck every time someone had walked into the Great Hall, trying to catch a glimpse of him.
He’d damn near pulled a muscle in his neck after the twentieth time.

He half expected Malfoy to rush into the Hall and tell Harry that he’d left the baby
somewhere and couldn’t find it, or it had gotten chucked in the lake, or Peeves had made off
with it somewhere deep in the dungeons. There was little other explanation for why he’d not
been at breakfast and why it was halfway through lunch and his irritatingly blond head still
hadn’t made an appearance.

Harry shifted in his seat and chanced another look over his shoulder.

Hermione reached out to swat him with her hand. “Stop it.”

“I’m looking for McGonagall,” Harry said, waving her off.

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “She’s at the head table. Like always.”

“Ah,” Harry said, turning back around. “Might be best not to bother her then.”

“Oh, how sweet,” she said a few moments later, smiling at something over Harry’s shoulder.

Harry resisted the urge to turn around. It was probably one of the First Years with a bloody
scabbed knee or something.

“Potter.”
Harry jumped at the sound of Malfoy’s voice right behind him, dropping his fork with a
clatter.

“Merlin alive,” Malfoy muttered.

“You didn’t need to sneak up on me,” Harry grumbled. Of course, Hermione had been
looking at Malfoy with doe eyes and muttering about his sweetness; the whole bloody school
had gone mad, what was one more thing flipped on its head? He turned around and was
greeted with the sight of two chubby legs kicking out at him. One foot collided with his chin
and sent him reeling backwards into Ron.

“Oh, good, you’ve already forgotten he exists. How typical of you.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Harry insisted, rubbing his chin. “I just didn’t know he was there.”

“Naturally,” Malfoy said sarcastically. He dropped something onto the bench next to Harry.
For a moment he thought that Malfoy had dumped the baby there, but it turned out to be a
bag of some kind.

“You’re not sitting here,” Harry said.

Malfoy shot him a withering look. “You couldn’t pay me to. Achernar’s things are in there.”

“His … things?”

“Yes.” Malfoy sniffed primly and gave Harry another look that expressed just how stupid he
thought Harry was. “Some clothes that I took the liberty of getting sent over this morning.
Merlin knows he can’t just go around in that grotty sack he was in yesterday.”

Harry had thought the little brown onesie from the day before had looked rather sweet. A
little scratchy, maybe, but cute. Mind, the stretchy grey trousers and the little blue shirt that
the baby currently had on did also look fairly sweet. There was a little red Puffskein on the
front that hopped up and down as Harry watched.

“A few toys, some notes from this morning, his nightlight.”

“His nightlight?” Harry asked.

“Yes. Do keep up, honestly. I certainly hope he’s not got your brains.”

“He’s not got any brains,” Harry cried.

“Harry,” Hermione chided. “What an awful thing to say.”

“Bang out of order, mate,” Ron said.

Harry looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. When he looked back at Malfoy, he
wasn’t shocked to see that he looked supremely pissed off, but he was surprised that Malfoy
looked a little like he might cry. Like he’d actually been hurt by Harry saying that their fake
baby wasn’t a real person. Bloody hell.
Harry steeled himself in preparation for what he was about to do and met Malfoy’s eyes. “I’m
sorry for saying that, Malfoy.”

“And Achernar,” Malfoy said.

“What?”

“Apologise to him.”

“Oh, for fuck sake,” Harry muttered. He raised his eyebrows at Malfoy.

Malfoy raised his own back.

“Sorry … Achernar,” Harry said. He shuddered when he said the name.

The baby kicked out at him again, not succeeding in getting him in the chin that time.

“You know, you don’t have to take him,” Malfoy said. He adjusted his hold on the baby,
pulling him closer to his chest. “I can keep him another day. I don’t mind, really.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. Malfoy sounded sincere, but there was no doubt an ulterior motive
at play. Why would Malfoy want to do more work? It didn’t make any sense.

“No,” Harry said. “I’ll take him tonight and give him back to you tomorrow at lunch.”

“At lunch,” Malfoy repeated. “Alright.”

Harry held his hands out for the baby. Malfoy paused for a moment, looking down at the
wriggling thing in his arms.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispered, so quietly that Harry almost didn’t hear him. He
handed off the baby to Harry rather quickly, like he was trying to get rid of him as fast as
possible. It didn’t match up with his reluctance from before, making Harry even more
suspicious.

Malfoy’s shoulders were tight when he turned away from Harry to walk over to the Slytherin
table. He looked decidedly uncomfortable. He paused a few feet away and turned around to
glance back at the baby.

“Pumpkin,” he said. It was directed at Harry, but he wasn’t looking at him. “And peas. He
likes those. Don’t give him any potato, he’ll just throw it.”

“Right,” Harry said, raising his eyebrows.

Malfoy did finally leave then, walking towards the Slytherin table with long strides.

“He really is lovely, Harry,” Hermione said. She smiled at the baby from across the table.
“Malfoy did a great job with the customisation.”

Harry snorted, irritated at the reminder. “Yeah, sure.”

The baby – Achernar – made a sniffling sound. Harry looked down at him properly for the
first time since Malfoy had turned up. He was quite cute, Hermione was right. He had ruddy
red cheeks and bright grey eyes and soft pale skin. He wasn’t crying, more … looking around
taking everything in. He could cry – McGonagall had made them well aware of that. He must
have been fairly quiet overnight because Malfoy hadn’t looked all that tired. Not that Harry
had been paying much attention to Malfoy’s appearance. That would be weird. He’d just
noticed in passing, that was all.

“What’s on his bracelet?” Hermione asked, nodding at Achernar.

A glint of silver caught Harry’s eye. The baby was indeed wearing a bracelet, a shiny thing
with little silver links. It was snug on his wrist, not tight enough to dig in but not loose
enough to slip off. There was a thicker bit between two of the links, a plate with writing on it.
Harry rotated it with his finger so that he could read it.

“It’s just his name,” he said to Hermione. “And there’s a picture of a star.”

“Oh, how nice,” she said, smiling to herself. She picked up her quill and went back to
writing.

Achernar shifted in Harry’s arms, attempting to crane his neck upwards to look at the table.

“Oh, sorry,” Harry said. He adjusted his hold, sitting Achernar up. He was old enough to hold
up his head by himself, thankfully. Would have been an awful lot more work otherwise. “Are
you hungry? Did you want lunch?”

Achernar didn’t respond, just bounced against Harry’s leg.

“Pumpkin, was it?” Harry asked. He tried to remember what else Malfoy had said.
Something about no potatoes, which was stupid. “You like potatoes, don’t you? Everybody
likes potatoes.”

Harry reached for an empty plate and filled it with a large scoop of mashed potatoes and a
few slices of roasted pumpkin that looked soft enough for someone with no teeth to eat.

“He won’t eat all that,” Hermione said, looking up from her parchment.

Harry shrugged. “He might. You never know.”

“I do know.”

“Well, I don’t.”

She shook her head and looked back down. “And Malfoy said no potatoes.”

“Well Malfoy’s also a git who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

She didn’t respond to that, which was quite rude, in Harry’s opinion.
Achernar did indeed seem to love the pumpkin. He kept trying to grab for the fork while
Harry fed him, batting at it with clenched fists and only sometimes making contact. He
bounced happily on Harry’s leg with every mouthful, making a little humming sound in his
chest.

The next forkful that Harry gave him was a bit of mashed potato. The change was immediate.

Achernar stopped bouncing and stilled on Harry’s lap. With lightning-fast reflexes, he
reached up and grabbed the handle of the fork, ripping it from Harry’s grasp and lobbing it at
the table. The handle of the fork smacked against the pile of mashed potatoes, sending
chunks of it flying into the air. One chunk landed on the head of Ron’s baby, right in the
middle of her forehead. The rest of it went all over Achernar himself, a fact which he didn’t
seem to like, given the almighty wail he let out.

“Harry, you plonker,” Ron muttered, wiping the mashed potato off his baby’s head. “If she
starts crying because of that, I swear.”

“Um,” Harry said. He bounced Achernar up and down a few times, trying to get him to quiet
down. If anything, it only increased the volume of his cries.

Another baby further down the table started up, their matching wails echoing off the stone
walls of the Great Hall.

“Oh fuck,” Harry muttered, feeling hundreds of heads turning towards him. “Please stop
crying.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Malfoy stand up, his posture signalling that he was two
seconds away from sprinting across the Hall towards them. There was no way Harry was
going to let him win with this. No bloody way.

“Maybe try the pumpkin again?” Hermione suggested. She had her hands clasped firmly over
her ears.

Harry grabbed the handle of the fork – still covered in mashed potato – and speared a bit of
roast pumpkin onto the end. Achernar grabbed at it when Harry moved it closer to his face,
but thankfully he didn’t throw it. He stopped crying and shoved the pumpkin at his mouth,
succeeding in smearing it across his cheek. At least some of it made it past his lips, which
Harry considered a win. Even more so now that he was making little hiccupping sounds
rather than ear piercing screams.

Malfoy sat back down, though Harry could see the apprehension on his face even from there.

“You’re alright,” Harry said, offering him another bit of pumpkin. “You don’t need Malfoy,
do you?”

Achernar grumbled and grabbed at the bit of pumpkin, squeezing it firmly in his fist. He
dropped it onto Harry’s lap and pressed his fingers into his mouth, eating the remaining
pumpkin right off of them.
“Oh, brilliant,” Harry muttered, staring down at the top of Achernar’s vibrantly blond head.

It wasn’t so bad taking care of a baby, Harry thought. In fact, it was rather easy.

After lunch, Achernar – Harry was adamant he’d find something else to call him soon – was
content enough to gum on his fist and slap wetly at the table. He stayed quiet when Harry
lifted him up and carried him up the stairs to Charms.

Flitwick had set up a pen at the back of the room to keep the babies in, a fenced in space with
lots of fluffy blankets on the floor. Ron’s baby – Ruby, he kept insisting – began to make a
fuss around halfway through, which set off a chain reaction of crying from the other babies.
Harry put his head down on his crossed forearms and pleaded with Merlin himself that they
wouldn’t be like that come bedtime. He’d not gotten much sleep the previous few nights,
tossing and turning as his thoughts raced.

Achernar gave Harry a suspicious look when he went to pick him up at the end of the lesson,
a sort of narrow eyed thing that was oddly reminiscent of Malfoy. It sent a shiver down
Harry’s spine, seeing that familiar look on such a small face.

“Reckon you’ve pissed him off,” Ron said, nodding at Achernar. He grimaced as Ruby let out
another shrill cry right in his ear. “Bloody hell. Hermione, what else can I try here?”

Hermione fixed him with a look. “That’s the assignment, Ron. I’m obviously not going to
help you.”

“You helped Harry earlier,” Ron cried. He bounced Ruby up and down in a way that looked
more akin to a thrill ride at a theme park rather than a soothing gesture.

“That’s because Malfoy looked ready to bite clean through his fingernails watching the whole
thing.”

“Since when do you care about Malfoy? You’re not dating him.”

Hermione huffed as she shoved her Charms textbook into her bag. “I don’t care about him, I
just don’t see any reason to make him suffer, which he clearly was. He did apologise, after
all.”

“Right,” Ron said, rolling his eyes. “Get a load of this,” he directed at Harry.

“Hmm,” Harry said. Achernar seemed intent on holding a staring contest, glaring up at him
from his position in Harry’s arms, bafflingly angry. “Did mine somehow get Malfoy’s attitude
as well? I don’t remember seeing that in the customisation options.”

“They’re influenced by our moods, Harry,” Hermione said, hiking her bag up higher on her
shoulder. “If you’re angry it would be logical that he would be too.”

“But I’m not angry,” Harry said. “In fact, I was having an alright time until Malfoy Jr started
glaring at me.”
Achernar’s scowl somehow deepened even further, his tiny white eyebrows meeting in the
middle.

“Well, I don’t know then, you’ll have to check with Professor McGonagall next lesson.
Anyway, I’m off to meet Millicent.” Hermione fixed Ron with a look that Harry was unable
to decipher, but it made Ron start to shift on the spot.

Ruby started to screech as soon as Harry and Ron left the room. Somehow even that didn’t
make Achernar break his gaze – he valiantly continued his attempt to burn a hole in Harry’s
forehead with his glare.

“Mate, what’s your problem?” Harry asked, giving Achernar a soft poke in the stomach.

The baby raised a hand in the air. For a moment, Harry thought he was about to do his best to
flip him two fingers, but instead he whacked Harry on the chin with a sticky fist.

“Right then,” Harry said. “Glad we got that sorted.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” Ron cooed, holding Ruby aloft in the air and spinning around. “Stop crying
and give me a smile.”

“I don’t think she likes that,” Harry said, taking a few steps away from Ron.

“She’s a future Quidditch player, of course she does.”

Harry didn’t have time to remind Ron that, no, his flour child did not have a bright future in
sports ahead of her, but he didn’t get the chance. She threw up all the porridge Ron had fed
her at lunch, sending grey slop all down the front of Ron’s robes.

“Oh no, Ron,” Parvati cried, seemingly materialising next to Harry. “Do you need help
getting cleaned up?”

“Fuck,” Ron said, going green in the face.

Harry glanced down at Achernar. “If you’re planning on doing that, save it for Malfoy, yeah?
I wouldn’t mind seeing that sight.”

He received another wet smack on the chin in return.

“Potter, what have you done to my child?”

Harry choked on the bit of bread he was eating, quickly reaching for his glass of pumpkin
juice with his free hand.

“Give him to me.”

“Fuck off,” Harry muttered, the words coming out garbled as he attempted to regain his
breath. “I’ll give him back to you tomorrow.”
“I’ve never seen a baby look that pissed off. What the hell have you done to him?”

“Uh,” Harry said, looking down at Achernar. He’d been refusing to eat, apparently content to
sustain himself on glares alone. “I don’t know? He’s just like that, I reckon.”

“He most certainly is not,” Malfoy cried. He reached over and attempted to tug the baby
away from Harry. Harry tightened his grip around Achernar’s middle in response.

“Bugger off, Malfoy.”

Achernar whacked a damp hand against Harry’s chest.

Harry turned his frown on Malfoy. “Did you make him like that? Sabotaging my grade is a
bit of a piss take, don’t you think?”

“I haven’t made him do anything,” Malfoy said. He frowned down at Achernar, but he looked
more concerned than pissed off. “He was happy enough with his toys earlier.”

“What toys?”

Malfoy gave him a deadpan look. “I take it you didn’t look in the bag I gave you?”

“I had things to do.”

“Our baby is your main ‘thing to do’,” Malfoy huffed, raising his fingers to form air quotes.
“For Merlin’s sake, let me take him before he somehow turns mobile and kills you.”

“No,” Harry said. He knew he was being stubborn, but he didn’t give a single shit. Malfoy
wasn’t winning.

“Fine,” Malfoy huffed, and slid onto the bench next to Harry.

“No,” Harry said.

“Yes,” Malfoy replied. He dragged the bag he’d given Harry earlier onto his lap and
rummaged around in it until he found whatever he was looking for. He handed Achernar
something purple and green with shiny bits on the back.

Achernar let out a loud squeal – the happy kind, thankfully. The angry expression was wiped
from his face as he grabbed at whatever Malfoy handed him, bouncing up and down on
Harry’s leg.

“He bloody loves that thing,” Malfoy said, smiling fondly at the baby. “I tried a few different
shapes but that was the one he liked the best.”

Achernar stuck the thing into his mouth, chewing ferociously on the head.

“Is it a peacock?” Harry asked, noting the shiny tail that was pinned to the back of the toy.

Malfoy nodded, his face taking on a slightly pink tinge.

Harry snorted, shaking his head. “You would, you absolute tosser.” He got a face full of wet
fabric then, Achernar lobbing the damp peacock right at his head. “Bloody hell, why, mate?”

Malfoy’s expression twisted then, transforming into a combination of annoyance and

apprehension. “You’ve been saying rather rude things about me, I take it?”

“Uh,” Harry said, feeling his cheeks heat slightly. “No?”

“Well I suggest that you stop,” Malfoy said firmly. “It clearly upsets him.”

Harry felt rather like he was being scolded by a professor, which was idiotic to say the least;
it was Malfoy. The bloke didn’t have a single leg to stand on with regards to the two of them
being nice to each other.

“Remember when you broke my nose? That wasn’t very nice, was it, you git.”

Achernar let out an almighty screech then, throwing his peacock at Harry’s head and
whacking him on the arm with his tiny fist at the same time.

“It’s alright,” Malfoy said to the baby. It was mildly disturbing to hear his voice take on such
a soothing tone. “Your daddy’s only joking, he’s not serious. Watch, he’ll say something
lovely next to prove it.” Malfoy sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, looking at
Harry. Achernar somehow managed to mimic his expression exactly, staring at Harry
expectantly.

“Sorry, what?” Harry asked. He whirled around, but both Ron and Hermione were too busy
with their own babies to pay him and Malfoy any attention. “I’m sure as shit not going to do
that. Ow, don’t hit.”

Achernar shrieked again, looking mightily annoyed when Harry grabbed his damp fist before
it could make contact with Harry’s smarting chin.

“Yes,” Malfoy drawled, looking exceptionally pleased with himself, “you will. It’ll make him
happy again.”

“I can deal with him being pissed off. He’ll survive.”

Malfoy leaned forward with a glint in his eye. “Ah, but remember what Professor
McGonagall said about the emotional reports? I’ve been recording when we each have him
on the custody sheet, so it’ll be very, very easy to tell who’s been helping him to thrive and
who hasn’t. I’d hate to see your grade for this after those reports are all finalised and logged.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “So you’re – what, fishing for a compliment so that I’ll improve my
grade?”

“You wouldn’t need to if you hadn’t been being a –“ Malfoy paused, glancing down at
Achernar. “A T-O-S-S-E-R in the first place.”

Achernar gave a huff, as though he could understand what Malfoy had spelt.
“If you’d just been nice,” Malfoy continued, “you wouldn’t be in this position.”

“What position?”

“The position of me winning fair and square and you tanking your N.E.W.T.s.”

Harry grit his teeth and stared at Malfoy’s smug face. He glanced down at Achernar who was
still looking up at him expectantly. “Fuck,” he sighed. “You’re such a wanker, you know
that?” He managed to catch the tiny fist that went sailing towards his face without even
looking. “Well, Malfoy, you’ve … uh … you’ve not hexed me this year, so that’s alright, I
suppose.”

Achernar didn’t look at all impressed with Harry, his eyes still narrowed and his pale
eyebrows practically merging in the middle.

Harry sighed. “Fine. I’m sorry I said you were a tosser. And a wanker. And a git.” He paused,
shooting Malfoy a smirk. “You’ve done well so far with all this baby stuff.”

“And?” Malfoy said, raising his eyebrows.

“And what?”

“What else? It’s clearly not enough.”

“It bloody well is.”

“He says it’s not.”

Achernar was still glaring, though the severity of it had lessened a minute amount.

Harry’s next sigh was far more resigned. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you about the potatoes
earlier. You’re … oddly alright at this. You’re, uh, you’re a good partner.”

Malfoy’s face did something funny then, his mouth twisting. “Bloody hell, you look like
you’re about to burst a vein,” he said, shaking his head. “Shall we put him out of his misery,
darling?” He – thankfully – directed the last bit towards Achernar, who was smiling up at
him. “Yes, I think we shall.”

“Oh, god,” Harry muttered, snorting.

“What?” Malfoy asked, shooting Harry a glare.

“Nothing,” Harry replied, shaking his head.

It was really bloody odd to hear Malfoy talking in a baby voice. Really bloody odd.

“I suppose I’ll go.” Malfoy sounded somewhat reluctant, which, once again, Harry couldn’t
imagine why. “You’re certain you don’t want me to take him?”

“I’ll take him for tonight,” Harry said. “We’ll have fun, won’t we, mate?”
Achernar shoved the head of the peacock toy into his mouth in response.

Ron and Hermione both went to bed early that night, taking their sleeping babies upstairs
with them. It was hilarious watching Ron try and navigate the common room and the
staircase without waking Ruby; he was tiptoeing about and casting a Muffliato at everyone he
walked past with barely an apologetic look. Everyone had gone mental except for Harry,
apparently.

He was lying on his stomach on the rug in front of the fireplace, a protective fence around it
that Hermione had Transfigured from one of the wrought iron pokers. Achernar was on his
back in front of Harry, grabbing at his feet in the air. He’d succeeded at pulling off one of his
socks, hurling it in the direction of the fireplace. It had been saved from a fiery death only by
Harry’s quick reflexes. The socks had tiny little snakes on the undersides, little wriggling
green things with wide smiles that kept winking at Harry rather lecherously. Achernar had
laughed when Harry had snatched the sock projectile out of the air, twisting his entire upper
body and grinning widely.

He'd been perfectly happy since dinner, after Malfoy had left. Achernar still didn’t look quite
as pleased with Harry as he did with Malfoy; he kept trying to climb out of Harry’s arms
whenever Malfoy was nearby, holding his hands out and making little grabby fists in the git’s
direction. It would have been rather sweet if it was to someone like Ron or Hermione or even
Ginny, but the fact that the affection was directed at Malfoy soured the whole thing a bit.

There had evidently been some element of truth to what Malfoy had said about Harry’s
language choices; despite his annoyance at the whole thing, Harry had made a silent vow to
stop ribbing Malfoy quite so much. Achernar had warmed to him more already and he’d
barely done anything yet.

Harry still hadn’t forgiven Malfoy for his own language choices – namely the name he’d
chosen for their child.

“You don’t like your name, do you?” Harry asked Achernar. “No, you don’t,” he said,
shaking his head from side to side. After a moment, the baby mimicked him, twisting his
head dramatically from one side to the other. “What a coincidence,” Harry said brightly.
“Let’s come up with a new one then.”

He couldn’t call Achernar anything that was drastically different, or he wouldn’t respond to
it. The birth certificate that Malfoy had filled out had some sort of weird binding charm on it.
If Harry decided to start calling him Donald, he wouldn’t respond in any way and Harry
would get marked down for not verbally interacting with him.

Harry hummed and ran a finger down Achernar’s chubby foot. The constellation birthmark
that Malfoy had noted on the birth certificate was indeed there; it had been willed into
existence by Malfoy’s quill. It was an interesting shape, long and windy like a river.

“Nar? Do you like that as a nickname?”

Achernar huffed and let his legs drop back down to the floor.

“I guess not. What about Arch?”

Achernar turned his head towards Harry and blew a raspberry.

“I’ll take that as a no. Uh, what about Archie?” Harry gave the baby what he hoped was an
encouraging smile. “That’s an actual, not mental name at least.”

Achernar regarded him for a moment, then grinned widely.

“Wait, do you like that? Can we do that instead?” Harry found himself feeling oddly excited
when Archie smiled again and kicked his feet. It was nice, having some sort of say. Almost
like Archie was actually his. “Hi, Archie,” Harry said, wiggling his fingers on Archie’s
stomach. Archie laughed, a loud sort of shriek, but he looked happy enough. “Hi,” Harry said
again, unable to contain his smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Harry pressed his pillow firmly down over his ears and shuddered, trying to will his brain to
filter out the absolute racket that Ruby was making. She’d been at it for a good half an hour,
screeching at the top of her lungs as Ron attempted to quiet her down. Dean had snapped five
minutes in and told him to just shoot a Muffliato at her, which Ron did not appreciate, as
evidenced by the hex he sent Dean’s way.

Harry would have stuck his bed curtains shut and cast a silencing spell, but he knew he
wouldn’t be able to hear Archie if he did that. The thought of the baby lying there crying out
for him as he ignored him made Harry feel a little sick.

“Thank you,” Dean yelled when Ron opened the door of their room, Ruby in hand. He
snapped something back that Harry couldn’t hear over her cries, likely something about Dean
getting it back twice as bad when he had his assigned baby back from Anthony the next
night.

Harry let out a sigh of relief as the screams faded. He was allowed reprieve for only a
moment before Archie started to fuss. His fussing was far less intrusive than Ruby’s; he
tended to sniff loudly and make little hiccupping noises in his chest as he wiggled about. It
wasn’t too bad, but it did seem a little pitiful at times; Harry felt awful if he didn’t
immediately let him know that he was there.

Archie wriggled again, a series of gasps puffing from his mouth. Harry rolled over and
glanced at the crib, a small thing made of white painted wood that rocked side to side when
pushed. Archie was craning his neck in a way that looked painful, swivelling his head this
way and that as though looking for something.

“You alright, mate?” Harry whispered. He snaked a hand through the slats on the side of the
crib and tapped the back of Archie’s hand with his finger. Archie didn’t seem to notice. Harry
sat up and shuffled closer to the crib, keeping a finger on Archie’s hand. “It’s okay, you’re
alright,” he said again, keeping his voice low and soothing. Archie hiccupped a few times, so
quietly Harry might not have heard him if he hadn’t been paying attention.

Archie finally noticed him when Harry was close enough to the crib that his eyes began to
adjust to the gloom. He snapped his head around to look at Harry, so fast that his features
were a blur. The lighting was dim, only moonlight reaching through the window by Harry’s
bed. Despite the lack of light, Archie was visible enough for Harry to read the emotion on his
face. His little eyes were wide and looked awfully wet, filled with unshed tears. His bottom
lip was shaking, and his tiny hands were clenched into fists. He looked scared rather than just
upset, which made Harry’s chest clench painfully.

The sudden realisation made Harry stop short, his stomach swooping like the pit of it was
about to fall out. He’d assumed that Archie’s little noises and movements were him
comforting himself, trying to self-soothe, like Hermione had said the babies might. Upon
seeing Archie’s tiny body become wracked with another shudder as he hiccupped, his fists
clenching and his bottom lip shaking, Harry realised that he’d likely been lying there terrified
for hours, not knowing what was going on.

It was a new environment and, despite looking a good handful of months old, Archie was
really only days old. Everything was probably big and scary and new, and Harry hadn’t even
thought about how it might all seem to him. He felt like the most terrible person in the world
right then for not noticing it.

“Oh my god,” Harry whispered, reaching out and tugging Archie out of the crib more
violently than he perhaps should have. “It’s okay,” he said, over and over, “you’re okay.” He
pressed his face to the top of Archie’s head, the wisps of blond hair tickling his nose. His
throat felt thick, emotion welling up in his chest. “I didn’t realise, I’m sorry.”

Archie made a sniffing sound again and burrowed his face into Harry’s chest, though he
didn’t close his eyes.

“Why didn’t you cry properly?” Harry whispered, taking a deep breath. The smell of vanilla
and flour and a small hint of pumpkin filled his nose.

Archie whimpered again, his hands curling into fists against Harry’s chest, pulling the
material taut.

“You can stay in here tonight,” Harry said, nodding to himself. He reached for his wand and
cast a series of protection spells on Archie so that he wouldn’t get accidentally squashed
during the night and the blanket would stay away from his face. “Just for tonight, and we’ll
figure something else out for next time.”

He laid Archie down on the bed next to him, pushing the blankets and pillows out of his
space. He grabbed the stuffed peacock from the crib and placed it next to Archie, close
enough for him to hopefully see it in the dark. He spelled the bed curtains closed and Archie
let out a shriek, his tiny fists reaching out to grab at Harry’s arm. His eyes were wide and
watery when Harry cast a Lumos.
“Oh, fuck,” Harry muttered, staring down at Archie. “You’re scared of the dark, aren’t you?
Malfoy said that you needed a nightlight when you slept in the Slytherin dorms.”

Archie whimpered again, his bottom lip shaking.

Harry peered at his face, his stomach twisting. “Are you sure you’re not real? That’s an
awfully specific need. Why would McGonagall even think of that?”

Archie didn’t look liable to answer him, so Harry parted the bed curtains and crept over to the
bag that was resting at the end of his bed. He dug around in it for a moment, his knuckles
grazing over rolls of parchment and soft clothes and wooden blocks, messing up the neat
stacks that Malfoy had arranged everything into. Eventually his fingers brushed a curved
piece of glass, heavier than the rest of the items and cool to the touch.

The nightlight was a dome shape, clear glass with a tiny silver rabbit in the centre. He tried a
few different spells before it finally began to glow, the rabbit lifting its head and raising its
ears. The nightlight emitted a soft, silvery glow that was fairly unobtrusive; Harry was
decently confident that he'd be able to sleep with it inside the bed curtains without too much
hassle.

Archie was exactly where Harry had left him, lying on his back in the centre of the bed. He
reached for Harry when Harry closed the bed curtains behind him, letting out a tiny whimper
as he opened and closed his fists in Harry’s direction.

“I’m just going to put this here,” Harry said, using a Sticking Charm to fasten the nightlight
to the bedhead. “You’ll be alright now.”

Archie calmed down when Harry pulled him against his chest and handed him the stuffed
peacock, curling it under Archie’s tiny arm. He blinked at the nightlight a few times, the
silver bunny darting around inside the glass dome, stopping every few moments to sniff the
air. His eyes looked far less wet when he let his head fall to rest against Harry’s chest, one
small hand clutching at the stuffed peacock.

Harry ran a hand over the top of Archie’s head, letting his fingertips trail over his soft
forehead, dainty, pale eyebrows, and wispy blond hair. Archie’s eyelids fluttered closed,
though he appeared to be trying with all his might to keep them open.

“You’re safe, it’s alright,” Harry whispered, running one finger down the slope of Archie’s
tiny nose. “You can sleep now, I’m right here.”

Archie did, whimpers and wet gasps turning into little puffs of breath against Harry’s chest.
The peacock slipped from his grip to rest against the crook of Harry’s arm. Harry was so
relieved that Archie was fine now, that he’d managed to figure out what was wrong with him
and solve it, that he barely noticed the off-putting dampness of the fabric against his skin.

He watched Archie with wide eyes as he slept on his chest, taking in each of his delicate
features. His own chest twisted painfully as he stared at the tiny person in front of him. He
thought that, just maybe, he was finally starting to get what Ron and Hermione and Malfoy
had been on about with regards to the babies. Logically, Harry knew Archie wasn’t real, that
he wasn’t actually his in any meaningful way, but he really did feel as though he was in that
moment.

Harry fell asleep with the smell of flour in his nose and a comforting weight on his chest,
Archie’s rhythmic breaths puffing in and out.

“Potter. Truly, this is getting ridiculous.”

“Hmm?” Harry groaned, lifting his head and blinking against the bright light emanating from
the ceiling of the Great Hall. They really ought to dim it in the mornings.

“Achernar? He’s falling asleep at the table.” Malfoy raised both eyebrows and looked
pointedly at the baby in Harry’s lap. Archie had one arm wrapped tightly around the neck of
his peacock toy, his free hand coated in the pumpkin that Harry had attempted to feed him
before giving up and leaving him be. His head was indeed resting on the table, forehead
against the wood. Harry had half a mind to join him. In fact, he’d been about ten seconds
from it before Malfoy had interrupted him.

“So? He’s tired.” Harry grabbed one of the warm bread rolls from the platter in the middle of
the table, biting down on the end and willing the movement to keep him awake.

“He shouldn’t be that tired.” Malfoy leaned over Harry’s shoulder to peer at Archie. “How
late did you keep him up?”

Harry felt his hackles rising as Malfoy’s eyebrows drew inwards, judgement clear on his face.
“Don’t act like you’re a bloody expert at this, Malfoy. Bugger off back to your table.”

Malfoy’s face shuttered. “It doesn’t take an expert to see that he’s not right at the moment.
Don’t be an idiot, Potter. I know that’s a default state for you but do try to overcome it at least
somewhat.”

“Fuck off,” Harry said, glaring at Malfoy. “You’re the one who –”

He stopped short when Archie turned his head around to look at him, blinking blearily. His
eyes were wide and wet again, like they’d been last night before Harry had pulled him into
the bed. He looked so bloody sad.

“Oh, no, no, it’s alright,” Harry said, wiggling his fingers on Archie’s stomach. He didn’t
laugh as he had the evening before, just jutted his bottom lip out and turned to face Malfoy.
At least he gave him the same look he’d given Harry, rather than a sunny smile as he had the
previous day.

“Bugger,” Malfoy said under his breath. “Uh, Potter, you’re doing a lovely job and definitely
haven’t fucked up our child’s sleep schedule at all. Not one bit.” He threw Harry a wide
smile, though it was clearly forced. Sarcasm bled through his tone so obviously that it made
Harry roll his eyes.

“Stop being a tosser. We’re fine here, he’s just tired.”

“Potter,” Malfoy said, his tone a warning.

Archie’s bottom lip started to shake and he made that little hiccupping sound deep in his
chest.

Harry’s eyes went wide. He glanced at Malfoy, expecting him to look incredibly smug.
Instead, Malfoy looked mildly heartbroken, like someone had just snapped his favourite
broom in half right in front of him. It was wildly odd seeing that expression on Malfoy’s face,
all traces of teasing gone, no pinched look or sneer to be found.

“We’re not fighting,” Harry said to Archie, wiggling his fingers on his soft little stomach
again. “We’re just talking. Believe it or not, this is nicer than we usually talk to each other.” It
didn’t seem to appease Archie, so Harry glanced at Malfoy and spoke to him instead, hoping
that Archie wasn’t sentient enough to hear how hard he was gritting his teeth. “Thanks for
your … input, Malfoy. I’ll take it into account.”

“While we’re on the topic of my input that you’re definitely taking on board –”

“Yes,” Harry cut in, “definitely, absolutely taking it on board.”

Malfoy pursed his lips. “Is there a reason that you didn’t put him to bed properly? Some
disaster in the Gryffindor dorms? An escaped convict, yet again? The ceiling falling in? A
bloody flock of owls roosting in the rafters?”

Harry bit back the comment that he wanted to respond with, conscious of Archie’s attention
still being fixed on him. The thing was, he most certainly didn’t want to tell Malfoy about the
nightlight debacle. He’d be keeping that very much under wraps, half because he was quite
frankly a little embarrassed about the whole thing and more than a little frustrated that
Malfoy had been right about something yet again. The other half was directly related to the
acidic feeling in his gut, guilt curling there and squeezing tighter than a vice; it had been his
job to look after Archie, to make sure he was safe and happy and healthy, and he’d failed.
He’d been lying there scared for so long and Harry hadn’t realised, hadn’t even thought to
check on him when he’d stayed quiet. He didn’t want anyone to know about that.

Malfoy leaned closer, his eyes narrowing not in anger but in contemplation, by the looks of
things. Harry didn’t much like that look being fixated on him; it sent a shiver down his spine,
tingles running down his arms.

“Are you alright, Potter? Not that I care, I just would rather have the person responsible for
my child be of sound mind, that’s all.”

Harry opened his mouth to respond by telling Malfoy to leave off in the most sarcastically
kind manner possible, but Ron answered for him.

“Fuck off, would you, Malfoy?” Ron grumbled, throwing his fork down on the table. “Stop
being a git and leave off. Some of us have had a hard night and seeing your face is, quite
bloody frankly, worse than Ruby screaming all night.”
Malfoy pursed his lips again but surprisingly didn’t snap back. He glanced back down at
Archie, his eyes lingering there. Harry felt Archie sag slightly, his head resting back against
Harry’s chest as he began to fall asleep again. Harry had half a mind to think it was
contagious; his own eyes started to slip shut.

A snapping sound made Harry shoot up straight on the bench, his arm tightening around
Archie’s middle.

Malfoy dropped his hand from its position in front of Harry’s nose, the snap he’d made with
his fingers enough to keep Harry awake for the moment.

“If you drop him…” Malfoy trailed off, irritation bleeding into his tone.

“Go on,” Harry goaded, raising his eyebrows. “List your threats. Just make sure to do it loud
enough for the Professors to hear, yeah?”

The sound of Malfoy grinding his teeth was audible. “I reserve the right to take him if you
appear to be behaving improperly.”

Harry scoffed. “Sure thing, Malfoy.”

He stopped short when Malfoy dropped to a crouch next to him. His knees bumped into the
bench, jostling it slightly and earning him another glare from Ron. Malfoy reached a finger
out to trail across Archie’s cheek, just as Harry had done the night before. His eyes were
slightly glassy, wide and a little awestruck. His fingers twitched when he dropped his hand
back down to his side and pushed himself into a standing position. He gave Harry a curt nod
and a muttered, “See you in class”, before turning on his heel and disappearing out into the
Entrance Hall.

“Fucking git,” Ron muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Oi, Hermione, do you reckon we could share
custody of our kids too? Like, you take both the next night we have them, and I’ll have them
the one after?”

“No, Ron,” Hermione replied, bouncing her and Millicent’s shared baby on her knee.

“Why not?” Ron asked, desperation clear in his tone. “Mine’s basically your stepchild
anyway.”

The sound of Hermione grinding her teeth was somehow even more audible than Malfoy’s
had been.

“Ba,” Archie said and threw his peacock straight into the open top of one of the milk jugs.

“Good aim, mate,” Harry said, spelling the table clean and pulling out the wet toy with a
grimace. “Ron, pass me the eggs before Hermione kills you, yeah?”

“What?” Ron blinked, glancing between Harry and Hermione. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” Harry said, shrugging at Ron. “Yes,” he nodded enthusiastically when Hermione glared
at him. “Definitely wrong.”
 *

Harry had expected that the whole baby thing would take up all the lessons that had been
allocated for the taster classes. Maybe they’d go in there and put all the babies in a pile, leave
someone on watch, and have a group nap in one of the adjoining classrooms. It was only fair,
what with the sudden lack of sleep they’d all been forced to endure.

He’d been frustratingly far off base.

“What do you mean more work?” Ron cried. He gestured wildly at the blackboard at the front
of the room, which listed, in great detail, ‘The Seven Steps to Marketing Success’. “I’m
bloody falling asleep at the table here.”

“That is for you to manage, Mr Weasley,” McGonagall said, lifting an eyebrow at Ron. “Your
career certainly won’t pause for you if you choose to have a child. As such, your lessons will
not either.”

Ron let out a whimper not unlike the ones that Archie made. It would have been comical if
Harry wasn’t also gaping at the shiny new stack of textbooks sitting on the desk at the front
of the room.

“This is quite interesting, isn’t it?” Hermione whispered, turning in her seat to face Harry.
“We never get the opportunity to do this sort of thing.”

“I want to go home,” Ron groaned, dropping his head down on the table. “I don’t need
N.E.W.T.s, I’ll just work with George in the shop. Why the bloody hell am I here?”

“Stop being a baby, Ronald,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes. Her baby blinked interestedly
at Ron; she’d been fascinated by his hair all morning. Harry had wondered for a brief
moment if that was a trait that had somehow carried over from Hermione, if she – or god
forbid, Millicent – had a kink for red hair. He’d dwelled on that for only a moment before
shuddering and purposefully redirecting his thoughts elsewhere. That was the last thing he
wanted to be thinking about.

“Is this new topic a Muggle thing then?” Millicent asked, pulling a face at the baby, who
giggled loudly.

“Not entirely,” Hermione said. She placed the baby – Jane, Millicent kept correcting him
with renewed insistency; apparently, she was rather proud that Hermione had let her pick the
name – on the table in front of them and waved her wand. In the air above the desk appeared
some kind of mobile with miniature horses and princesses in shiny pink and green dresses.
“Wizards also do marketing, it’s just not quite as organised, from what I can tell. It’s quite the
opportunity; I hope they’ll offer it as an elective course in later years. It could really benefit
some people.”

Millicent nodded, looking rather serious. “And it’s not dangerous, is it?”

“Uh,” Hermione said, blinking once, “no.”

“Good,” Millicent said, turning to face the front of the room.

“Hello,” Malfoy said, suddenly appearing next to Harry’s elbow. It made him jump, which
startled Archie out of his nap. He blinked a few times and let out a single, rather pitiful wail
into the fabric of Harry’s shirt.

“Why?” Harry muttered, rubbing a hand down his face and nearly sending his glasses
crashing to the floor.

“Weasley, you’re in my seat.”

“No?” Ron said, looking up at Malfoy like he’d gone mad. “I’m sure as fuck not in your
seat.”

Malfoy fixed him with an exasperated look. He tapped his foot against the stone floor. “Of
course the two of you weren’t listening. Why should I have expected anything else.”

“Ron,” Padma called, waving her hand in the air. Ruby, sat upright on her lap, looked happy
for the first time in days.

“Bugger,” Ron muttered, grabbing his books and standing up. “Good luck, mate.”

Malfoy slid into his vacated seat with a wide smile directed at Archie. “Hello, darling. Are
you more awake now?”

Archie bounced on Harry’s knee, reaching towards Malfoy with tiny fists that kept opening
and closing. Both he and Malfoy frowned when Harry didn’t release his hold.

“Potter, he clearly wants me,” Malfoy said, tugging at Archie gently.

“I have him until lunch,” Harry said.

“Don’t be a prick,” Malfoy hissed.

Archie took no visible offence to the language, fully preoccupied with his attempt to pitch
himself off of Harry’s lap. The double standard was beginning to feel rather unfair.

“We’re mates now, aren’t we?” Harry said, tickling Archie’s belly. “You like me now.”

Archie whined and made a lunge for Malfoy again.

Something poked Harry in the armpit and he shrieked, jumping in his seat and reflexively
loosening his hold on Archie. Malfoy snatched him the moment that it happened, pulling
Archie onto his lap and pressing a quick kiss to the top of his head. He shot Harry a smirk as
Archie buried his face in Malfoy’s shoulder and let out a little cooing sound.

“What the fuck,” Harry muttered, glaring at Malfoy. He could scarcely believe that Malfoy
had resorted to tickling him to get Archie back. That was surely a new low. “You’re such a
bellend.”
Malfoy smirked at Harry, his hand rubbing up and down Archie’s back. Archie turned his
head to frown at Harry, his eyes drifting closed as Malfoy petted at him.

“You don’t even know what that word means,” Harry muttered in Archie’s direction, shaking
his head in exasperation.

“No, but McGonagall does,” Malfoy said, rolling his eyes. “She would have included it on
her ‘bad words’ list when she Charmed the babies.”

“McGonagall has never said the word ‘bellend’ in her life; I’d put money on it.”

Harry was snapped back to attention by McGonagall’s voice as she explained their next task,
some kind of promotional campaign that Harry was only half listening to the instructions for.
His eyes kept drifting to rest on Archie, who appeared fully content to sleep on Malfoy’s
chest, despite being mostly upright. Malfoy’s hand was rubbing his back in a way that looked
so soothing that Harry briefly entertained the thought of having someone do that to him. Not
Malfoy, obviously, but maybe Hermione would, if he asked rather nicely. With some effort he
could probably convince Neville to do it, but it might be a bit weird.

“What was your shop again?” Malfoy asked, poking Harry’s arm with his quill. It left a little
black dot on the skin there.

“My what?”

“Your shop? From a few weeks back? Come on, Potter, pay attention.”

Harry groaned and pulled off his glasses to rub his eyes. “Bloody hell, I don’t know.
Quidditch shit, I reckon.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “How descriptive.”

Harry couldn’t realistically be expected to remember an assignment from weeks back. He’d
done it, he’d passed it, and it had been erased from his brain as soon as he’d received the
parchment back from McGonagall telling him so.

Each of the Eighth Years had been tasked with creating a shop that specialised in something
that interested them. They’d had to sort out a space based on vacancy ads in the Prophet and
come up with a list of products and prospective suppliers. Both of the Prophet editions that
McGonagall had selected for them to use as references had pictures of Harry on the front
page, stumbling out of bars along Diagon and looking rather dishevelled. He had half a mind
to think she’d done it deliberately to show her disapproval of his behaviour, but who knew
what went on inside her head.

The assignment hadn’t been too bad, as far as school assignments went; it had been
interesting thinking about Quidditch in a way that didn’t relate to winning games or creating
plays. He remembered spending a good few days mulling over broom types and debating
with Ron the best brand of polish to use. It had been alright, actually. Far better than soothing
a crying baby all day and night.
Harry sighed and rested his head on his forearms. “What was yours?”

“Potions ingredients,” Malfoy said. His voice had dropped in volume, almost like he thought
Harry was about to go to sleep and didn’t want to startle him. “A rather interesting field,
brewing.”

Images of Malfoy stirring a cauldron entered Harry’s mind. In them, Malfoy had hair in the
same style as Snape, hanging lank and greasy around his face. He turned to sneer at Harry as
he dropped something into the cauldron that made the mixture turn bright purple.

Malfoy flicked him on the arm. “You’ve missed the instructions.”

“I’ll get them later,” Harry groaned, letting his eyes drift shut. The room was so warm, he
didn’t know how he hadn’t realised it before. The air pressed against his body, warm like a
hug.

Malfoy sighed and muttered something that Harry didn’t catch. Parchment pressed against
Harry’s elbow then, Malfoy shoving the pages against him repeatedly.

“Stop assaulting me with your parchment,” Harry said, batting at Malfoy’s hand. “I’ll tell on
you.”

Malfoy snorted loudly. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll dob.”

“What are you, five?”

Harry didn’t answer, just pressed his face into the crook of his elbow more firmly.

“Besides, I’m not assaulting you. I’m being nicer to you than your behaviour warrants, quite
frankly.”

Harry lifted his head to glance at the parchment. It was filled with Malfoy’s looping script,
his letters each taking up double the space that one of Harry’s did. “Are these your notes?”

“A copy of them, yes.” Malfoy’s cheeks pinkened slightly, and his lip lifted into a sneer.
“Don’t expect me to do it again. I’d just rather you focus on keeping Achernar alive than
running about bribing people for notes.”

“Huh,” Harry said, sitting up and righting his glasses. He tapped a finger against one of
Archie’s socked feet, the one that had the constellation birthmark. “Look at that; you’re good
for something, mate.”

“I hope you’re joking,” Malfoy hissed, pursing his lips. “He’s good for a lot of things.”

Harry shrugged. Archie was cute, yeah, but so was a Pygmy Puff. He didn’t really do a whole
lot. If he got Harry out of taking notes, though, that was a plus.
Archie let out a quiet little sigh against Malfoy’s neck, his petal pink lips parting slightly.
Malfoy’s expression morphed from a sneer to a soft smile. He turned his face towards Archie
and whispered something against the tiny shell of his ear.

Harry turned his head away, focusing instead on the bushiness of Hermione’s hair. The
moment felt private somehow, like he shouldn’t be watching it, despite it happening in the
middle of a full classroom.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Archie sleepily curl his fingers around Malfoy’s thumb
and tug it towards his chest. Malfoy kissed the top of his head again, Archie’s wispy blond
hair brushing against his nose.

Harry swallowed and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to ignore the squeezing in his
chest at the sight.

Night was a bit of a weird time of day, wasn’t it?

Your senses were heightened, and you got a bit antsy because of predators, or whatever. The
caveman part of your brain was telling you to get inside or something might come by and eat
you. Harry was fairly certain he’d heard that on a nature documentary at some point. His aunt
had used to put them on for Dudley when they were kids, but Dudley hadn’t been interested
unless there were lions onscreen. Despite that, he’d seemed a bit afraid of them, running to
hide behind the couch whenever they opened their mouths to roar. Perhaps Harry had picked
up some of that fear by osmosis. Or maybe his brain had gotten tired of seeing lions on the
Gryffindor crest every day and had decided they were a threat, but that fear only showed
itself when it was dark.

It was logical, Harry insisted to himself. He was antsy because of lions and the thick
blackness of night outside the castle. That was it. They could be lurking in the bloody
Forbidden Forest for all he knew. He’d not ever seen them out there, but he’d not seen
Voldemort on the back of his professor’s head until he had, so they could be hiding out there
in the dark. His anxiety was connected to Voldemort and lions, that was all.

It certainly had nothing at all to do with the fact that he kept patting the bench next to him for
a horrifically damp stuffed peacock. His heart skipping a beat when he realised there was no
familiar weight sitting on his lap or resting against his chest was completely logical; he just
didn’t want Archie to be eaten by lions, that was all.

Harry fiddled with the handle of his fork and turned around again, his eyes running up the
length of the Slytherin table until they rested on twin blond heads bent low over a plate.
Archie appeared to be painting it with something – likely pumpkin, based on Harry’s
experience. Rather than grimacing or attempting to spell his hands clean, Malfoy appeared to
be encouraging him, smiling and laughing as Parkinson attempted to shuffle her own baby as
far away from them as possible without actively getting up and leaving. Her child had pigtails
in her dark hair that stuck out a good foot either side of her head, as though she’d stuck her
finger in a power outlet.
He wondered what Malfoy was saying to Archie. Was Archie babbling back with those high-
pitched sounds that cut right into Harry’s ear drum like the whistle of a train? What if he
exceeded the capacity of McGonagall’s Charm and somehow said an actual word, and
Malfoy got to hear it but not Harry? Was he going to be scared that night? What if Malfoy
forgot to put the nightlight on?

“Harry,” Hermione said gently, giving him a small smile, “you’re staring again.”

It took more effort than it should have, turning back around. He focused on the roast potatoes
in front of him; he’d not had them since that first meal with Archie, and he’d missed them
dreadfully. It was good that Archie wasn’t there; he was a worthy trade off if it meant Harry
got to eat potatoes again.

The odd feeling in Harry’s chest and stomach didn’t abate as Malfoy left the room with
Archie, bouncing him up and down on his hip as they walked, making him laugh. It stuck
around as Harry crawled into bed and pulled the bed curtains shut, warding them to keep out
the inevitable racket of Dean’s baby. It was still there when he went down to the Great Hall
for breakfast, blinking blearily and far less rested than he ought to have been, considering he
wasn’t sharing his space with a small but loud creature.

He didn’t know why he kept searching for Archie, craning his neck to look down the
corridors as he walked. It wasn’t as though he wanted to have him all the time; a baby was
rather a lot of work, much of it thankless. Despite that, his eyes followed every blond head
that he saw, every flash of a green and silver tie drawing his gaze across courtyards and
classrooms. He nearly crashed into the hoops when he went out to play a round of Quidditch
with some of the other Eighth Years one afternoon, thinking that Millicent’s robes down in
the stands were Malfoy’s, and that Archie was nearby. He didn’t tell anyone that, partly
because it was rather embarrassing to crash your broom because you were distracted by
Malfoy of all people, and partly because Millicent was liable to deck him if he let it slip that
he’d gotten the two of them confused.

He also found himself staring at every baby he saw before his brain processed that they
weren’t Archie. He just felt jittery and a bit out of sorts about the whole thing. Likely he was
coming down with something, but he didn’t want to go to the Hospital Wing just to tell
Madam Pomfrey, ‘I feel a bit weird’. Merlin knew what she’d give him if he said that.

The feeling of weirdness dropped away immediately upon getting Archie back from Malfoy
the next time.

Archie’s cheeks were rather red, and there was drool smeared across his chin; he looked
mildly pitiful, sitting there in his little brown dungarees with a little bear stitched on the front.

“Merlin above,” Malfoy muttered, all but dropping Archie in Harry’s lap. “Good luck, Potter;
he’s teething.”

“He’s what?” Harry asked. He held Archie at arm’s length, trying to formulate a plan for how
not to get his shoulder covered in baby drool.
“I don’t have the brainpower to explain this to you right now. I’m going back to bed.” Malfoy
used a napkin to dab at Archie’s chin and neck, before handing him a large blue ring that he
immediately stuck in his mouth.

“You’re in for it, mate,” Ron chuckled.

By eleven that evening, Harry had to concur that Ron had been right.

Archie hadn’t stopped fussing all day. He’d drooled copiously in a way that made Harry’s
stomach turn, and he kept letting out these little whimpers of pain. He also kept shoving his
fingers into his mouth and biting them by accident, leading to yet more whimpers and
pleading looks. Harry didn’t know what Archie expected him to do. Spell his fingers out of
existence? That wasn’t a viable solution, and it would end with Harry getting his balls hexed
off by Malfoy, no doubt. Probably Ron as well, given the insane pro-baby crusade he’d been
on.

The ring that Malfoy had given Archie seemed to help somewhat; it was cool to the touch, as
though it had been submerged in a bucket of ice water right before being handed off. It made
Harry’s fingers tingle after he touched it, as though the pads of his fingers had been slightly
numbed. Archie kept trying to shove the entire thing into his mouth, his cheeks bulging.
Harry knew that he couldn’t choke given the fact that he didn’t actually have airways, but it
was still a mildly concerning image.

What was equally concerning was the fact that he was reaching the point where he might
actually pitch Archie out of a window.

“Please, mate, come on,” Harry whispered, patting Archie on the back as the baby shrieked.
He had his tiny face pressed against Harry’s shoulder, smearing drool bloody everywhere.
Harry was slightly concerned he might be getting dehydrated with all the water he was
clearly losing.

Archie had been screaming his head off for the previous three hours straight. Nothing had
stopped it – not his peacock, not his blue ring, not his nightlight. Harry had even filled up one
of the bathroom sinks and plopped him in it, thinking a nice warm bath might relax him as it
did Hermione. It did not. He’d just slapped his hands on the surface of the water and yelled in
Harry’s face, which was quite rude of him, in Harry’s opinion. He’d had to wake Hermione
up to get one of her lavender scented bath bombs to make the atmosphere all nice and
everything.

He and Archie had been barred from the dorm after the end of the first hour, Archie’s shrieks
somehow managing to slice through Harry’s Muffliato. Dean had yelled about him sounding
like an air raid siren. Even Neville told Harry to bugger off, in a far kinder manner than one
might expect from those words.

Harry was at his wits’ end. He was tired, grumpy, and frankly quite distressed that Archie
seemed to be in genuine pain, yet he wasn’t able to do anything about it.

A very unwanted thought surfaced from somewhere deep in his brain, an idea that might
work to solve his issue, but might also end up with him strung up by his intestines from the
ceiling of the Great Hall the next morning.

He looked down at the top of Archie’s head, his face wet from both tears and drool, his
cheeks a bright, flaming red, and nodded to himself.

“We’re going on a mission, mate. A rescue mission. To recover my sanity.”

Archie didn’t stop crying, but he did kick Harry in the stomach, so Harry figured he must
have been heard.

“You’re right,” Harry said to both Archie and himself as they slipped out the portrait door.
For once, the Fat Lady didn’t chastise him for sneaking out; she actually urged him to walk
faster, clapping her hands down over her ears. “This is probably more of an example of me
losing my mind than getting it back, but whatever.”

Archie’s wails echoed off the stone walls as they walked. He was his own personal Caterwaul
Charm. They’d need to take some of the back staircases, lest Filch, Peeves, and anyone
lurking within a five-mile radius descend on them.

“You sound a bit like Moaning Myrtle, you know. Maybe we should pop into the second-
floor girls’ bathroom on our way past, let the two of you have a whinge together?”

Archie kicked him in the stomach again.

“Uncalled for,” Harry groaned, rubbing the smarting spot. “You can’t even understand me,
there’s no need for that.” He let out an oof when Archie kicked him again. “Bugger
Quidditch, you’ve got a future in football, I reckon. What team shall we say? I’ll let you
pick.”

Archie just wailed and clenched his fists tighter in the damp material of Harry’s shirt.

“Are you cold?” Harry asked, wrapping his arms a little tighter around Archie. “The school
should really invest in some better heating charms, honestly. It’s bloody freezing all the time,
even in summer. It’s probably not safe when you’ve got people as small as you running
about. I’ll complain about it in the morning, if I remember.”

Archie didn’t seem to be listening to him, but that was alright. Being alone in the dark, empty
corridors sent a shiver down Harry’s spine. The hairs on the back of his neck kept standing
up, as though if he turned around, he would see someone lurking behind him, standing
motionless in the dark recesses of one of the alcoves. It wasn’t all that far-fetched a thought,
really, given that the castle had all manner of ghosts trolling the rooms and a forest bloody
teeming with dangerous creatures right on the doorstep. Talking aloud helped to fend off
those thoughts somewhat.

Harry didn’t like to think about all the new ghosts that now called Hogwarts their home. He’d
heard of a few that had been discovered, casualties in the battle from both sides, innocent
children that had been caught in the crossfire, but he hadn’t seen any himself, nor did he want
to.
The light was dimmer down in the dungeons, the atmosphere somehow even more
oppressive. The air hung heavy down there, damp and cool. Harry thanked himself, certainly
not for the first time and unlikely to be the last, that his eleven-year-old self had insisted that
he not be sorted into Slytherin.

The entrance to the Slytherin common room looked as nondescript as ever, the wall
completely blank and unassuming. The only reason that Harry could tell that he was in the
correct spot was because there was a bit of scuffing on the stone below, evidence of the
thousands of feet that had stopped there, kicking lightly at the ground as they tried to
remember the password. A password that, come to think of it, Harry didn’t know.

“Bugger,” Harry muttered, patting at Archie’s back. “Don’t suppose you know the password,
do you?”

Archie’s wail sounded a bit more like a shout that time. A doorway didn’t appear in response
to the sound, so Harry had to conclude that Archie did not in fact know the password.

Harry steeled himself and knocked on the wall. “Hello?”

There was no response, so he knocked again. And then once more for good measure.

He thought he might actually be going a bit mental when the stone melted away to reveal an
open door. Might have, if the door wasn’t completely filled with a very pissed off looking
Blaise Zabini.

“You’re fucking joking,” Zabini muttered, staring down his nose at Harry.

“Is, uh, is Malfoy around?” Harry asked, adjusting his grip on Archie. He was quite heavy for
such a small thing.

“Words fail me,” Zabini muttered, turning his eyes skyward. “Why the fuck are you here,
Potter?”

“Looking for Malfoy. Couldn’t you hear me over this?” He gestured at Archie’s general
loudness.

“You’re not bringing him in here; I’ve finally gotten mine to settle.”

Harry shifted from foot to foot. He didn’t particularly want to bring Archie in there, had little
desire to enter the common room himself. He hadn’t really had a plan at all, come to think of
it, he’d just wanted to get Archie to stop crying. The chap was always absurdly happy to see
Malfoy, so bringing him by was a logical solution.

“Reckon you could go and get Malfoy? Before Archie gets any louder?”

Zabini stared at him for a moment before turning and letting the door close in Harry’s face.
He had half a mind to start knocking again, but he figured he’d give it a minute and see what
happened.
When the door materialised again, it was a tired and pissed off looking Malfoy standing
there, rather than Zabini.

“What in the ever-loving fuck is the meaning of this?” Malfoy hissed, looking downright
murderous.

Harry stared at him for a moment, trying to process what was in front of him. Malfoy’s hair
was mussed from sleep, all messy on top in a way that Harry had never seen it, not even after
flying about on the pitch during a game. His cheeks were pink, and he had a line across one
of them from the seam of his pillowcase. His pyjamas were a deep green and looked to be
made of silk or something equally posh and expensive. He had on slippers, and that really
stopped Harry short.

“Potter,” Malfoy said, his tone low and audibly angry. “You absolute fucking imbecile.”

Harry expected the telling off to continue in the vein of, ‘why have you come down here and
woken me up’, but Malfoy was apparently incensed about something else.

“He’s not got any fucking socks on, you utter melon. He’s going to catch a cold. Are you
bloody daft? Actually, yes, you are, but we all already knew that. It was probably printed on
your sodding birth certificate.”

Malfoy reached for Archie then, rubbing his small feet in between his palms. Archie made a
huffing sound and his tiny little toes curled, but he didn’t make a move to pull away.

“No socks, no jacket, no hat – honestly, what were you thinking?”

“Uh …” Harry trailed off, his eyes locked on the top of Malfoy’s head. Some of the strands
there were tangled around each other, like he’d been tossing and turning during the night.

“You weren’t thinking, of course you weren’t. You never do. Truly, do you possess a brain?”

Harry blinked when Malfoy scowled at him. Thoughts were evading him for some unknown
reason, like trying to catch smoke with his fingers.

“Oh, darling, it’s awful, isn’t it?” Malfoy cooed at Archie. He ran a palm over the curve of
his head, fingers gliding through his wispy blond hair.

Harry felt the urge to respond in the affirmative, though Malfoy was certainly not talking to
him.

Malfoy tutted, peering at Archie’s wet face. “He’s having a rough go of it, the poor thing.
Have you been giving him the teething ring, or have you somehow forgotten about that too?”

“I have,” Harry insisted, wincing when Archie clenched his fist again, his nails digging into
Harry’s skin. “It’s not as cool as it was earlier though.”

“The charms are probably wearing off.” Malfoy sighed and thumbed at the sole of Archie’s
foot, right over the constellation mark. “Don’t suppose you’ve given him anything for the
pain?”
“Wait, what? Is he actually hurt? I thought he was just, you know, complaining a bit.”

Malfoy’s eye twitched. “I told you he was teething.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“You …” Malfoy turned back to Archie, leaning in to talk at him in a bright, soothing voice.
“You’ll not cry if I murder your daddy, will you? You won’t mind one bit, no you won’t. Shut
your eyes for just a moment, and I’ll have at it.”

“Oi,” Harry hissed, taking a step back. “Don’t say that; it might upset him.”

“He’s clearly been screaming for hours, you bellend, he’s already upset. It might make him
happier, in fact. Why else would you come down here, waking me up in the middle of the
night, if not to entice me to murder you?”

Harry shrugged.

Malfoy muttered a string of swears under his breath, his eye twitching all the while.

“So…” Harry said, wincing when Archie’s cries increased in volume. “Any ideas about
getting him to shut up, or…?”

Malfoy looked to be chewing on the inside of his cheek. He regarded Harry with an
expression that Harry couldn’t decipher. “Have you actually come down here to ask for my
help? Legitimately?”

Harry shifted from foot to foot, eyes darting about the corridor. He had indeed, his
subconsciousness leading the way, but he was loath to admit it.

Malfoy’s expression shifted into a smirk. He seemed to come back to himself, setting his
shoulders and looking Harry up and down with a lingering gaze. “Come on, then.”

“Into the common room?” Harry asked, though Malfoy was already turning away from it.

Malfoy scoffed. Harry couldn’t see his face, but he assumed Malfoy was rolling his eyes.
“Not likely. No, down the hall and to the right.”

“You know, if you pitch me into the lake, it’ll just make him angrier.”

“I’m not doing that; we’ve got our weekly reports out tomorrow. I’m far more interested in
seeing the comparison in happiness between my custody time and yours. I’ll not jeopardise
that for a momentary bit of pleasure, no matter how great.”

A shiver ran down Harry’s spine, though it was no doubt a response to the frigid temperatures
of the dungeons rather than a reaction to Malfoy’s slow drawl.

They stopped in front of a nondescript wooden door, one that looked exactly the same as
those that stood at the entrance to each of their classrooms. It was tucked down one of the
corridors leading away from the staircase, in a spot where there weren’t as many wall sconces
to light the way. Malfoy stopped in front of it and whispered something that Harry couldn’t
hear, despite straining his ears and leaning in.

Malfoy shot him a glare as the door opened, revealing a small room filled with shelves of jars
and a few workbenches. He walked swiftly over to a book that was open on one of the
benches, flicking through it until he found whatever page he was looking for. The door shut
behind Harry when he stepped inside the room, a few more sconces flaring to life to add
additional light to the space.

Archie’s wails were louder in the smaller room. He’d been crying for so long now that his
voice was starting to go a little hoarse. Harry hugged him tighter and dipped his chin, rubbing
his cheek on Archie’s head. He knew that it wasn’t likely to do anything, but at least Archie
would know he was there.

“Just a moment, darling, it’s alright.” Malfoy’s voice was low and soothing as he spoke to
Archie. Harry wondered if he’d ever spoken to anyone else like that, maybe his friends or his
family owl? At least he didn’t talk like that to Harry. That would just be weird.

The glass jars bumped against each other as Malfoy pilfered through them, shoving things to
the side. He let out a noise of achievement as he pulled one of them off the shelf.

“What’s that?” Harry asked.

There was a popping sound when Malfoy took off the lid, likely a Stasis Charm exhausting
itself.

“Ginger and chamomile paste. It’s used in some anti-inflammatory potions. Turn him around,
would you?”

Harry did as he was told with no small amount of difficulty; Archie was apparently loathe to
let go of his shirt, though it couldn’t have been very nice to have his face pressed against
material that damp.

Malfoy grabbed a chair and sat down in front of Harry, an image that absolutely did not
impact Harry’s brainpower in any way, thanks ever so. He rubbed at Archie’s foot as Harry
worked to pry the insistent fist from his shirt. Archie let out a huff as he was rotated to face
Malfoy, scrunching up his small face as he let out another wail.

“Just a moment, darling,” Malfoy said. He swiped a bit of paste from the jar using his finger
and brought it up to Archie’s mouth. Harry smirked when Malfoy winced, knowing that
Archie was likely attempting to gnaw his finger off like he’d been doing to himself.

The cries died down almost immediately, whimpers replacing them. Malfoy sat back in the
chair and sighed, pushing his hair out of his eyes with his clean hand.

“You alright now, mate?” Harry asked, rotating Archie again and lifting him until they were
eye level with each other.
“He’ll probably be like this for a few days at least. Longer, maybe.” Malfoy shivered,
rubbing his hands up and down his arms. His eyes locked on Archie’s bare feet again, his
brows furrowing. “I still can’t believe you brought him down here without any socks on.”

“I had other things on my mind, alright?” Harry tucked Archie into the crook of his elbow
and began to pat him on the back. With any luck he’d go right to sleep, and both he and Harry
could get a few hours in before breakfast. “Where are we, anyway? I’ve never seen this
storeroom.”

“You’ve been to all the potions storerooms in the castle, have you? I seem to remember you
being ghastly at the subject for most of our years of it.”

Harry shrugged. “I’ve been in enough of them. And I’d say I have a pretty good knowledge
of the castle layout, yeah.”

“Ah yes, all that sneaking around.” Malfoy quirked an eyebrow but ploughed on. “It’s a room
that Snape set up years ago for Slytherin students to practice potion making. The shelves are
devoid of any particularly dangerous ingredients, in case one of the second years somehow
gets in.”

Harry rolled his eyes at the reminder of Snape’s favouritism. It wasn’t exactly unexpected
after all.

Archie made a small huffing sound against Harry’s arm. Harry craned his neck but couldn’t
see Archie’s face.

“Is he alright now?”

“He’s dead to the world. Must have been hard work, all that crying.” Malfoy’s face went soft
as he watched Archie, his eyes wide and a small smile on his face. It made something
unknown and warm twist inside Harry’s chest.

Harry rubbed Archie’s back softly, feeling the bone-deep exhaustion creeping in. He’d not
slept properly in days – months, really.

“It’s probably best if I take him now,” Malfoy said, rising to stand. He placed the lid back on
the jar but didn’t make a move to return it to the shelf. “He’s liable to wake up if you jostle
him on the stairs. Not to mention my room’s closer.”

Harry paused for a moment, looking down at Archie. Malfoy was right, of course. They were
already down in the dungeons, there was no real reason for Harry to drag Archie all the way
back upstairs and risk waking him. Not to mention it would be Malfoy that would have to
deal with him if he woke up screaming again, while Harry would get to sleep in.

Despite that, Harry didn’t particularly want to. He wanted Archie close enough to know that
he was safe, to check on him and try and make things better if he was scared or hurting. He
didn’t want him all the way down in the dungeons, hidden and inaccessible.
“Potter,” Malfoy said in a quiet voice. It was devoid of irritation in a way that it typically was
not when he spoke to Harry. “I’ll take him from you. You’ve been up with him long enough.
Go get some sleep.”

Harry swallowed and nodded but made no move to hand the baby off yet.

Malfoy closed the door behind them, securing it with a password that Harry didn’t attempt to
eavesdrop on this time. He hugged Archie against his body and focused on the rise and fall of
his chest, his warm breaths puffing against Harry’s skin. They walked to the entrance to the
Slytherin common room in silence. Malfoy began to shiver, his hands rubbing up and down
his bare arms. Harry felt the insane urge to wrap an arm around him and pull him close as he
had done to Archie, to share his warmth. Unlike Archie, Malfoy was all but guaranteed to
hex him if he tried.

His reluctance to hand Archie off hadn’t waned when the door to the Slytherin common room
materialised, but he knew that he should. It wasn’t sensible for him to be lugging Archie
about the castle after hours when it was as cold as it was.

“Come on, Potter,” Malfoy said, but he didn’t sound angry.

Harry nodded and pressed a kiss to the top of Archie’s head. He placed Archie in Malfoy’s
arms, setting his small head on Malfoy’s shoulder like he liked to do when he was awake.

“Oh,” Harry gasped. “His nightlight is still upstairs. He can’t sleep without it. I’ll go get it.”

“It’s quite alright,” Malfoy said, his voice almost a whisper. “I’ll sleep with him in the
common room, by the fire. Blaise’ll have my head if he gets woken up again.”

Harry chewed on his lip. “But what about his peacock? He needs that too.”

Malfoy looked at Harry for a second, his face softer than Harry had ever seen it. It lasted only
a moment before he turned away. “I’ve something he can borrow. He’ll be fine.”

Harry shuffled, looking down at his feet.

Malfoy stopped in the doorway and turned, regarding Harry with a neutral expression. “Go to
bed, Potter. He’ll be fine; I’ve got him.”

That shouldn’t have relaxed Harry as it did; it should have made him more concerned,
irritated, fixated. Instead, he could only nod and watch as the door closed on Archie’s
sleeping face, somehow comforted in the knowledge that with Malfoy was the best place for
his baby to be.

Harry slept right through breakfast the next morning. He would have gone right through the
next lesson as well if Ron hadn’t noticed and chucked Ruby on top of him to wake him up.

He was only a little late to class, running in with his tie loose and his shoelaces undone.
Malfoy looked at him disapprovingly but without the usual undertone of irritation that he
typically had. He gave Harry a curt nod when he slid into the vacant seat at Malfoy’s desk.
Harry wiggled his fingers at Archie who smiled around the ring in his mouth – yellow this
time.

“How’s he doing?” Harry asked, giving Archie a light poke in the stomach. He got a giggle
and a damp hand slapping at his wrist in return.

“Better. He ate something this morning with only a small whinge.” Malfoy handed Harry a
piece of parchment.

“What’s this?”

“Weekly report. Take a nice long glance at that bit.” Malfoy poked a finger at one column
about halfway down. It contained Archie’s ‘emotional stability’ report.

“This is rigged,” Harry muttered, frowning at the numbers there. “Fifty incidents with Parent
2? Fuck off.”

He watched as the number ticked up to fifty-one. Malfoy let out a snort and clapped Harry on
the arm.

“My, my, Potter. You’d better watch your language.”

Harry held his tongue, but only just. “Oi, it’s not like you’re perfect, you have five as well.”

“Last I checked, five is plenty different to fifty.”

“Sod off,” Harry said, somewhat childishly.

Malfoy looked even smugger than usual, if that were possible. “I suggest you take my advice
in the coming week.”

“What advice was that? That I should walk into a wall to improve my looks?”

Malfoy narrowed his eyes. “I said that three years ago, Potter. Surely it’s not stuck with
you?”

Harry mimicked him in a rather unflattering but oddly accurate way. The number on the
parchment changed to fifty-two.

“I was referring to your inability to say something nice about me. I suggest that you start.”

Harry crossed his arms over his chest and fixed Malfoy with a look. “Not to your face, I
won’t.”

Malfoy shrugged, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. “Fine by me; I’ll still know that
you’re singing my praises to someone. People ought to be doing that more, don’t you think?”
He tickled Archie as he said the last bit, getting a wet, sunny grin in return. “Oh, you’re just
lovely, aren’t you, darling?”
“Did he sleep much last night?” Harry asked. It had taken him a while to quiet his brain once
he got back up to Gryffindor, his thoughts racing with images of Archie scared as he lay in
the dark.

“As deep as anything. Not a peep, even when a few of the first years ran shrieking through
the common room on their way to breakfast. Grabbed hold of his stuffed toy and was quiet as
anything.”

“What did you give him instead of his peacock?”

Malfoy’s cheeks went a little pink then. He looked down at Archie and tugged half-heartedly
at the ring in his mouth, not truly trying to pull it free from his gummy grip. “I still have a
few of my own things from when I was younger. I gave him one of those.”

Harry tried to picture a younger version of Malfoy sleeping with a stuffed toy, curled up
inside emerald green bed curtains, but the image was too far-fetched. He could clearly picture
a younger Malfoy bullying another child incessantly for doing that very thing, however.

“What was it? Your toy?”

The smile that Malfoy flashed at Archie was a bit shaky. “A dragon. I slept with it all through
first and second year. Feel free to laugh.”

For some reason, Harry didn’t feel the need to, though he wasn’t sure why.

Ron had been sufficiently chastised by both his baby’s report and Padma, walking down to
lunch with his metaphorical tail between his legs.

“How was I supposed to know that it could tell what I was feeding her? Besides, she likes
cake. It keeps her happy. Everyone likes cake.”

“She needs a balanced diet, Ron,” Hermione said. Her voice was irritated but she was visibly
fighting a smile.

“Like you’re any better, trying to feed yours adult food when she can’t even chew.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and fed baby Jane another piece of chicken. “I’m teaching her not
to be a picky eater. Yours will only want cake if you keep that up.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that – cake is brilliant.”

“Ron.”

Harry tuned them out and let his eyes drift over to the Slytherin table. Archie’s food report
had been glowing with praise, though there were apparently some food groups that he wasn’t
getting quite enough of. Malfoy had read through that bit very seriously and immediately
began noting down a plan to introduce some differing veggies into Archie’s diet, muttering to
himself about getting a custom omelette or quiche ordered in via owl.
Over at the Slytherin table, Archie appeared to be doing fine. Malfoy was feeding him off his
own fork, alternating bites between the baby and himself. The sight of it made Harry’s
stomach clench firmly, a twisting sort of thing that was foreign to him. It wasn’t bad, he
didn’t think – just unknown.

Archie kept slapping his hands on the table and grabbing for things, opening and closing his
fist as he bounced. Malfoy expertly redirected him with spells that shot out bursts of colour,
transforming into miniature animals that zipped around in the air; Puffskeins and Erumpents
and unicorns and a rather buff-looking centaur.

They’d caught the attention of a group of girls that Harry thought might be sixth years,
perhaps fifth. They kept giggling and looking down the table at Malfoy, visibly swooning
whenever he did something that made Archie giggle.

Harry ground his teeth as he watched. That was his baby. His, not anyone else’s. Well, aside
from Malfoy, but he seemed to be doing an alright job with him.

Archie squealed and clapped his hands together as a unicorn tossed its head in the air above
him. Malfoy took the opportunity to shove something green in his open mouth, which he
chewed absentmindedly. The sigh from the group of girls was audible from across the room.

Harry shoved a potato in his mouth and chewed rather angrily.

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione said, patting him on the arm.

“What?” Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing,” Hermione said, resting her head on his shoulder.

Harry turned to keep watching Archie and Malfoy, steadfastly ignoring the group of tittering
girls with all his might.

Harry thought that his feelings couldn’t get any more odd, that twisting in his stomach when
he looked at Archie and Malfoy together, that squeezing in his chest that took his breath
away. Evidently, he’d been wrong.

Malfoy had insisted on keeping Archie for one of Harry’s afternoons, promising to trade him
one of his own sometime that week. Harry had shrugged and gone down to the Quidditch
pitch with Ron, keen to get a bit of flying in while they had the chance. Hermione had tried to
convince them to come with her to the library and make a proper go of their next taster
assignment instead – the marketing thing that Malfoy had spoken to him about a few days
prior. She’d nearly finished hers, apparently. To no one’s surprise, neither Harry nor Ron had
made a proper start on it.

Thoughts of Archie and Malfoy were pushed from Harry’s mind as he soared high above the
pitch, head blissfully clear. He and Ron gave each other playful shoves as they made their
way back up to Gryffindor later on, fingers gone numb from the cold.
There was somewhat of a commotion in the Entrance Hall, people milling about next to one
of the main staircases. Harry glanced over, expecting to see a group playing an exciting game
of Gobstones or someone setting off a new Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes invention. Instead, he
saw Malfoy’s luminescent blond head and promptly walked into a wall, nose colliding
painfully with the stone.

“Is that Archie?” Ron asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

“Oh my god,” Harry said, completely dumbfounded at the sight in front of him.

Malfoy was standing in front of the crowd of younger year levels, seemingly holding court
like he used to back when they were younger. The major difference was that he had Archie
strapped to his chest in a rainbow striped baby carrier.

Archie, to be fair, looked as though he was having the bloody time of his life. He had a grin
so big that the toy he was attempting to shove into his mouth kept falling out. It was attached
to him with a string so that he could grab for it himself when he realised, stopping it from
falling to the floor. He had on a shirt with some kind of logo on it, the brand name completely
surrounded by all manner of plants embroidered into the material. Harry could recognise
knotgrass from where he stood, as well as honeysuckle.

The cherry on top of the Archie-shaped cake was the hat. Malfoy had somehow managed to
convince him to wear a large black hat in the shape of an upside-down cauldron, the handles
looping underneath his ears to hold it on. Harry had barely been able to get him to wear a
bloody pair of socks the day before.

Malfoy only faltered slightly in his presentation when he caught sight of Harry, though Harry
couldn’t hear anything he was saying through the din of coos the younger students were
directing at Archie whenever he so much as lifted a finger. The little cretin was absolutely
loving it, kicking his feet and blowing raspberries as he giggled. Attention hog through and
through – yet another thing he’d inherited from Malfoy.

“I can’t,” Harry said, swaying on the spot slightly. “Ron, take me upstairs. I need to go lie
down.”

“Not sure you’d fit in one of those things that Malfoy’s got on, but I could probably chuck
you over my shoulder if you need?”

“Don’t remind me of the baby carrier, I can’t take it.” Harry closed his eyes and counted to
five. The squeezing in his chest was almost unbearable, the churning in his stomach so strong
it made him feel a bit nauseous.

“Mate, are you alright?” Ron asked. Harry felt him put a hand on his forehead.

Harry could only let out a grunt in response.

“Potter, if you’re insistent on standing there like a lump you might as well come over and
help,” Malfoy shouted.
“Bugger off, Malfoy, he’s sick,” Ron replied.

Malfoy lifted one pale eyebrow. “He’s not sick, he’s just an idiot. Potter, come over here.”

Harry’s feet moved without his consent, dragging him over to Malfoy with shuffling steps.
He knocked into someone, sending them stumbling back a few feet with a huff. He opened
his eyes to see Archie beaming at him, the brightest smile he’d received yet. He bounced in
his carrier – forget about the carrier, fuck, forget about the carrier – and reached towards
Harry with grabby hands.

“Here, put these on,” Malfoy said, shoving a bundle of soft fabric at Harry.

Harry, in a complete daze, did as he was told, pulling a white shirt on over his Quidditch kit.
Ron was still standing where Harry had left him, looking completely baffled. His jaw was so
low it was nearly touching the scuffed stone floor of the Entrance Hall.

“And the hat too,” Malfoy said.

That snapped Harry out of whatever insane daze he’d fallen into upon seeing Malfoy wearing
his child in a carrier. “Fuck off, no.”

Archie dropped his grabby hands and frowned at Harry, looking rather put out.

“Look, he wants you to match him.” Malfoy shoved a piece of black fabric at Harry and gave
him a wolfish grin. “You wouldn’t want to disappoint him, would you?”

Harry stared at Archie, who stared right back. His chest constricted again when Malfoy
adjusted the cauldron hat on his small head, pushing it back where the edge had slipped down
over one of his eyes. He had on socks with Puffskeins printed on them, fluffy and pink.

“Merlin above,” Harry muttered, sliding the cauldron hat onto his own head. Archie beamed
at him and squealed, bouncing in his carrier again. “What the fuck did I do to deserve this?”
Harry muttered under his breath.

“Don’t you just look dashing,” Malfoy said. Harry was surprised he could even form words,
given how wide his smirk was. “Now, back to the presentation – everyone listen in. If you
contract with Malfoy’s Malady Medicaments, you’ll–”

Malfoy’s voice turned to a buzz in Harry’s ears as he stood there, cauldron hat on his head,
Malfoy’s branded shirt covering his torso, and locked eyes with Ron. He’d been joined by
Dean and Neville, who both looked like the whole thing was Christmas come early.

“Is he under Imperius, do you reckon?” Neville asked, looking rather concerned.

“Something like that,” Dean snorted, elbowing Ron. “Dick Imperius, maybe.”

“Hmm,” Neville said. “Well, we’ve all been there.”

Harry had half a mind to think that he was indeed under some kind of curse because why the
fuck else would he be letting Malfoy of all people parade him around like a trophy. He stood
there, eyes glazed over, as Malfoy delivered the speech of the century, waxing poetic about
potions ingredients and shipping costs and supply lines, touting Archie about all the while.
He ended his speech by getting Archie to high five various members of the crowd – and
really, when had he taught him to do that? – while fourteen and fifteen-year-old girls
practically fell over themselves as they cooed.

“Take him for a moment, would you, Potter?”

Malfoy abruptly deposited Archie into Harry’s arms, all squirming limbs and cauldron hat
askew. Harry tugged Archie’s shirt down from where it had rucked up, exposing his rounded
baby belly. Malfoy took the opportunity to tickle Archie while he was at it, drawing yet more
attention when Archie squealed and nearly pitched himself onto the floor in his haste to
wriggle.

“You don’t like being used as a marketing tool, do you, mate?” Harry asked, adjusting
Archie’s hat.

Archie responded by grabbing a fistful of Harry’s hat and pulling it into his mouth.

“Merlin, don’t let him eat that, I Transfigured them from an old pair of socks.” Malfoy gently
tugged the hat free from Archie’s fist and replaced it with one of his yellow rings.

“Do you seriously mean to tell me that I’m wearing one of your dirty socks on my head right
now?”

Malfoy quirked an eyebrow, his mouth curving into a smirk. “This is the luckiest day of your
life, Potter.”

“Ba,” Archie said, stuffing his own fist into his mouth alongside the ring.

“So, what was the point of all this?” Harry gestured to Archie’s branded shirt. Looking at it
made him remember that he too was also wearing a branded shirt with Malfoy’s name on it in
bright, blocky letters.

Malfoy shrugged. He waved his wand, directing all the posters he’d stuck to the surrounding
walls to come together in a neat pile in his hands. “To win.”

“We’re not competing against each other. You can’t ‘win’ at getting an O.”

“Maybe you can’t, but I certainly can.”

Harry rolled his eyes so hard it hurt a little bit. “I’m taking him to get lunch. He’s probably
starving after being paraded around all day. Don’t you know what usually happens to child
actors? They go off the rails.”

Malfoy blinked at him for a moment. “What’s a child actor?”

“Right,” Harry said. “I’m taking him now.”

It wasn’t until Harry had gotten all the way through lunch – Archie had been more open to
trying some banana than usual – and had sat down in Charms class next to Ron that he
realised the bevy of raised eyebrows from his peers were indeed directed at him.

“Mate,” Ron said. His tone was steady, like he was trying not to spook Harry. “I don’t want to
assume anything. Or judge, because you know I love you, but why the bloody hell do you
still have Malfoy’s name across your chest?”

Harry groaned and let his head thunk onto the tabletop.

“Ba,” Archie shouted, burying his face in Harry’s hair and blowing a wet raspberry.

“Papa.”

“Mmm.”

“No, Papa.”

“Ba.”

“Close, darling, try again. Papa.”

A squeal carried across the courtyard, drawing Harry’s attention. It was the first nice day in
ages, the rain finally clearing for long enough that the grass and the pavers had a chance to
dry. Hermione had pulled both Harry and Ron outside to join her and Parvati as they put the
finishing touches on their marketing assignments.

Harry had thrown his together the evening before, scribbling out some drivel about utilising
ad space in the Prophet and putting logos on the back of professional Quidditch uniforms. He
stopped short of writing that he could probably just put his name to the Quidditch supply
company – or any company, really – and it would get customers easily; Ron had suggested he
do that since it was truthful, but it still felt a little wrong. Ron himself had utilised that as a
strategy, devoting an entire two feet of his report to how he would use Harry and Ginny as his
prime marketing tools.

“Well it’s alright for you to say, isn’t it? You won’t be the massive wanker talking themselves
up.”

Ron shrugged. “What can I say, it’s a good, proven strategy.”

“Won’t Professor McGonagall mark you down for using an existing business?” Parvati asked,
looking genuinely concerned.

“Ah, but it’s not an existing business,” Ron said, nodding seriously. “Wazlib’s Wizarding
Watchamacallits is a brand new concept.”

“You’ve reused every one of Fred and George’s inventions,” Hermione protested. “And their
suppliers.”
“She won’t know that. Who’s going to tell her, you?”

“I’ve half a mind to,” Hermione huffed.

It was at that moment that Harry caught sight of the small human that had been making the
racket.

Archie and Malfoy were down the hill a bit, half hidden behind the next crest of grass.
Malfoy had Archie propped up on his knees, his small feet kicking out behind him. He
looked a little like he was flying.

“Catch you guys later,” Harry said, standing up and slinging his bag over his shoulder.

“Harry, you haven’t finished yet,” Hermione said. “Don’t you want Parvati to – oh.”

Harry didn’t stick around to listen to whatever she had to say next.

Malfoy wasn’t watching him approach, attention completely focused on Archie. He was
trying to get him to talk, by the looks of things.

Not wanting to be seen just yet, Harry walked around from the back. Crept wouldn’t be quite
the right word to use, since it wasn’t as though he was tiptoeing or anything, just …
watching. Hermione would definitely have called it snooping. Hell, she’d probably be right.

Malfoy held up a blue cube in front of Archie’s face. “Block,” he said. He pointed a finger at
it. “Blue.”

“Ba,” said Archie.

“Good work, darling,” Malfoy said. He pressed a kiss to one of Archie’s curled fists, smiling
softly. “Now that is a tree. The grey lump next to it is a rock.”

Archie looked mildly disinterested with the conversation, preferring to gnaw on the corner of
the blue block instead.

Malfoy pointed at himself, wiggling his fingers in the air to get Archie to look at him.
“Papa.” He repeated the word a few more times, nodding at Archie encouragingly.

Harry muffled a snort in the sleeve of his robe and decided to make himself known. “They’re
not Charmed to be able to talk, you know. You could try for hours and he still won’t be able
to.”

“Says you,” Malfoy replied. “It’s good for his development to be spoken to. Besides, he
enjoys being involved in conversations.”

Harry snorted again. “Yeah, he sure looks it.”

Archie threw his block to the ground and wriggled against Malfoy’s bent knees.
Malfoy narrowed his eyes when Harry dropped his bag on the grass next to them. “I didn’t
offer to let you stay.”

“It’s a public courtyard; you didn’t need to.” Harry went to sit down on the blanket next to
Malfoy before he realised that it wasn’t a blanket at all, but Malfoy’s school robes that he’d
spread out to keep the chill away. Lying down in the grass on top of Malfoy’s robes was
maybe a little too far.

“Fine. The Saviour does what he likes, as always.”

Archie’s brow furrowed, as though he could tell that Malfoy was leaning towards teasing.

Malfoy pointed at himself again. “Papa.”

“You’re wasting your breath. He might scream at you if you toss him around a bit though.”

“You don’t know that he won’t.”

“I do,” Harry said, pulling a face at Archie to make him smile. He stopped when Malfoy let
out a choked noise. “Hermione said so. She did heaps of research into the spells McGonagall
and Flitwick used.”

“Nevertheless,” Malfoy said. He blew a raspberry to redirect Archie’s attention back to him.
“What kind of Papa–”, he pointed at himself and nodded encouragingly, “would I be if I
didn’t try and teach you, hmm?”

“You’re wasting your time, idiot.” He tried to ignore how the insult sounded more fond than
annoyed.

Archie, for once, didn’t seem able to register the meaning of tone in language. Or maybe he
did, and he was just content to spite Harry, as per usual. He turned his head sharply, looked
Harry dead in the eyes, and said, “Papa,” in the poshest voice possible. He then blew a spit
bubble at a shocked looking Malfoy.

“Oh, darling, you’re so, so clever,” Malfoy said in a tone that rivalled the shrillest of Archie’s
screeches. He dragged Archie atop his chest and pressed kisses all over his head and face
while Archie giggled. “You’re so good and so smart, aren’t you?”

Harry stared at the baby, dumfounded. “He did that just to spite me, didn’t he?”

“No, he did it because he’s the cleverest boy in the world.”

“Shut up,” Harry joked, rolling his eyes. “It was spite, and you know it. Jesus Christ, just
how much of yourself did you put in him?”

“Only the most intelligent bits. Can you say it again, darling?”

Harry was surprised to find that he didn’t much mind sitting there on the grass with Malfoy
as he chattered away to Archie – or, rather, at Archie, since the baby was far more
preoccupied with tearing chunks of the hillside out with his fists than holding an intelligent
conversation. There was a casualness in it, an element of ease that never had been there in his
interactions with Malfoy before. Though Archie couldn’t talk – no matter what Malfoy said
or any dubious evidence to the contrary – he still acted as a very effective buffer. He kept the
snippets of conversation on track; whenever Harry felt like making a light jab at Malfoy, he
would look over to see Archie already watching him.

“I was thinking about bringing him out here tonight since it likely won’t be too cold.” Malfoy
was lying back on his spread-out robes, his eyes closed and his face tilted up towards the
scant bit of sunlight available. He had an arm curled around Archie to make sure he didn’t
somehow sprint off down the hillside. It gave Harry the opportunity to look – really, properly
look.

Malfoy was a fairly decent looking bloke. Harry had never really considered it before, when
the reality of Malfoy being an enormous fucking git was always staring him right in the face.
When that was stripped away, the sneer wiped from his mouth, the eye-roll absent, the lifted
eyebrow held down, he actually looked fairly approachable. He had a soft smile on his face
most of the time now, particularly when he was around Archie. It drew Harry to him in a way
that he didn’t quite understand.

“Uh, why out here?” Harry asked, dragging his gaze away from Malfoy’s face when the man
himself opened his eyes.

“I cast a weather prediction charm earlier on, and it looks as though the clouds will clear a bit
before midnight. I thought I might show him the stars.” Malfoy smoothed a hand over the
back of Archie’s head, smiling at him softly. “Not that we’ll be able to see Eridanus,
obviously, but I thought it might be educational.”

“Eri what?”

“Would you like that, darling? To fall asleep under the stars?”

Archie chewed voraciously on the yellow ring in his mouth. He was more determined to
consume it than Harry had ever seen someone be, and he’d watched Ron and George have an
eating competition last summer.

“What won’t you be able to see?” Harry shuffled closer, his knees bumping Malfoy’s leg.
Malfoy’s gaze flicked to him in response to the contact, his brows furrowing slightly as he
looked up. Harry jokingly tugged on the ring in Archie’s mouth to see if he could free it, to
no avail.

“Eridanus.” Malfoy’s voice was a little quieter. Harry had to strain to hear him.

“Yeah, but what is that?”

Malfoy let out an incredulous bark of laughter, his eyebrows rising. “Are you joking?”

“Uh, no?” Harry gave the ring in Archie’s mouth one last tug, getting a wet slap on the hand
in return. He sat back on his bent knees, kneeling next to Malfoy.
“It’s his name? Honestly, how do you function day to day? It baffles me at times.”

“His name isn’t Eridanus, it’s Archie. Well, no, it’s whatever shite name you gave him, but
it’s not that.”

“Achernar is in the constellation of Eridanus.” Malfoy was looking at him like he was an
idiot, which he likely was. “It’s the brightest star in that constellation.”

“Why won’t you be able to see it?”

“Because it’s in the Southern Hemisphere, and last I checked McGonagall had forbidden us
from taking the children off school grounds.”

Harry tugged a chunk of grass from Archie’s fist that he was valiantly attempting to stuff into
his mouth alongside the ring.

“The constellation is quite literally printed on his foot, Potter. How could you possibly have
not known? What did you think his name meant?”

Harry shrugged. “Just thought it was a crap name, to be honest. And I guess I thought the
constellation was something else. Draco, maybe.”

“I’ll admit to being a little vain at times, but I’m not that egotistical,” Malfoy said, shaking
his head.

“So why that name then?”

Malfoy adjusted his position, moving one of his arms behind his head to act as a pillow. It
drew Harry’s eyes to the elongated expanse of his torso. It lingered there, on the buttons of
Malfoy’s school shirt. One of them was half undone, a sliver of pale skin peeking through.

“I’ve always liked celestial names,” Malfoy said. “They’re a family tradition on my mother’s
side. The Blacks, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“Sure,” Harry said, moving closer until the caps of his knees were firmly pressed against
Malfoy’s side. He could reach Archie better from there, was all. “But why now?”

“Why not now?”

“Maybe because he’s going to not be around in, what, a week from today?”

It looked like Malfoy was chewing on the inside of his cheek. One of his hands was rubbing
up and down Archie’s back as he played with his blocks, like the movement was so innate, so
natural, he didn’t even realise he was doing it.

“I know it probably sounds daft as anything, but the timeframe of him existing doesn’t matter
to me. It – bloody hell, I swear if you go around blabbing this to your friends …”

Harry held his hands up, palms out, in a placating gesture. “I won’t.”
Malfoy pursed his lips slightly but seemed to read something in Harry’s expression. He let his
eyes slip closed again as he spoke. “Family is the most important thing to me, Potter. It’s
what drives me. Him not being on the family tapestry doesn’t make him any less important to
me, nor does it make him any less of a Malfoy. Him being family … that means something to
me. Something that I probably couldn’t explain to you, nor do I particularly wish to.
Regardless of the length of his life, he’s family. I’ve given him my name, and that settles it. I
can still take pride in him even though he’s not –” He opened his eyes to look at Archie for a
moment, covering one of his ears with his hand, “A real child, per se.”

Harry nudged Malfoy with his elbow until he dropped his hand from Archie’s ear. “He knows
he’s not real.”

“He most certainly does not, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Sure,” Harry said, winking at Archie. He received a gummy smile in return, so he figured
that Archie was probably agreeing with him.

“It’s just …” Malfoy huffed and let his eyes fall closed again, a furrow appearing between his
brows. “My father placed so many conditions and expectations on me and I know it sounds
so bloody stupid, but I don’t want to do that here, even if it wouldn’t mean anything if I did.
He’s mine, and I’m proud of him and … fucking hell, what were we even talking about?”

Harry didn’t know either anymore. “It’s nice, hearing you be less of a git. You should try it
again sometime.”

It was obvious that Malfoy was rolling his eyes under his half-closed lids. “Like you’re any
better.”

“Other people seem to think so.”

“Other people are twats. And not everyone does; my friends certainly don’t.”

“Hmm,” Harry said. He let his gaze drift away from Malfoy to the rolling hills that bordered
that side of Hogwarts. Somewhere down there was the Forbidden Forest, elsewhere the Black
Lake. The wind moved through the air in light gusts, shifting Harry’s hair across his
forehead. “You used to be one of those too, you know.”

“What, a twat?”

“Yeah.”

“I – wait, used to be?”

Harry felt his back stiffen, his eyes refocusing. “Still are, obviously. That’s not, uh, up for
debate.”

Malfoy made a humming sound deep in his chest. Harry didn’t need to look at him to know
that he was smirking. “Oh, no, I’m holding on to that one, thanks ever so.”

“Don’t,” Harry replied, weakly.

Malfoy’s answering chuckle was low and quiet. “Who would have guessed,” he whispered.
His voice was so quiet Harry almost didn’t hear him over the breeze.

“You’re, uh, you’re good with him,” Harry said, eager to draw Malfoy’s attention elsewhere;
literally anything would do. “I wouldn’t have expected it, but you are. Do you have babies in
your family?”

“Yes, my family has indeed had babies along the line. Quite a few, in fact. Sort of a necessity,
you see.”

“Bugger off,” Harry said, shaking his head. He was fairly certain that Malfoy wouldn’t be
able to see his smile from his reclined position.

“But no, I haven’t met any babies in person. Unless you count Pansy’s cousin at a Yule
gathering a few years back, but she was a ghastly thing.”

“Well,” Harry said, shaking his hair from his eyes and smiling over at Archie. He looked as
though he was ready for a nap; his eyes kept slipping closed and his head was lulling to the
side a bit more than Harry was comfortable with. He guided Archie with a gentle hand to lay
his head down on Malfoy’s stomach, tucking one of his small hands against his chest so he
could grip the material in the way he liked. “As I said, it’s … impressive. Good, that you’re
like that with him.”

Malfoy didn’t respond for a while, long enough until Harry had mostly forgotten the
conversation. He’d been running his fingers up and down Archie’s back in a rhythm that
Harry was sure would have lulled him to sleep too just as easily as it had Archie, if those
fingers were traced down the bare skin of Harry’s own back.

Malfoy’s words were caught in the wind when he finally spoke, Harry lost in thought as he
watched blades of grass move with the breeze.

“I want to start the rest of my life off right. This seems as good a time to do that as any.”

“You have,” Harry said, just as quietly. “And I’ll remember it, even if he won’t be around to.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw Malfoy turn away, almost folding himself in half so
he could bury his face in Archie’s neck. His shoulders twitched, like he was inhaling quickly.

Harry didn’t say anything else for a while, not until the light started to dim and he began to
worry about Archie catching a cold if they stayed outside. Malfoy didn’t look him in the eyes
as they walked back to the castle, but he didn’t have to; Harry could see the red ring around
them regardless.

Though the weather had cleared somewhat, no freezing rain or heavy fog to be seen, it was
still frightfully cold. The chill pierced through the heating charms in Gryffindor Tower,
sending everyone scurrying into their beds and drawing the curtains shut.
Harry pulled the blanket up to his chin and rested the Marauders Map on his bent knees. A
Lumos lit the space easily, throwing out just enough light for him to read the names on the
parchment. It reminded him of sixth year in a way that he wasn’t sure he liked, though he
wasn’t doing anything nefarious, and neither was Malfoy. There would be no hexing in
bathrooms that evening, no spells that gave Harry nightmares for months afterwards, that still
caused his stomach to roll whenever he dwelled on them for too long.

Malfoy wasn’t difficult to find on the map, being one of the only students out of bed. There
were a few more, two names that Harry somewhat recognised secreted away in one of the
upstairs alcoves, another two that he didn’t know in one of the spare classrooms in the
dungeons.

Archie didn’t show up on the map; none of the babies did. Harry didn’t much like to think
about why that was, pushed down the reminder that Archie didn’t really exist. He’d been
comfortable with it since they’d begun the assignment, but now … the conversation with
Malfoy had made him think about the whole thing in a way that he hadn’t considered before.
He didn’t know what to make of it now, and he didn’t much like not knowing how he thought
about things. There was so much that he didn’t know, so much that had been kept from him
over the years, important information withheld; knowing himself had always been a given
before. It left him feeling adrift.

Malfoy’s dot had made it out of the dungeons and was ascending one of the back staircases.
Both Peeves and Filch were well away from that area, chasing each other down one of the
third-floor corridors. With any luck they’d happen upon the couple hidden away in the alcove
and get distracted there.

Harry had considered going with Malfoy, arranging a meeting, maybe, to go out to the grass
and show Archie the stars together. More than likely that would result in him getting told to
bugger off, so he’d also considered using the map to intercept Malfoy on his way outside,
leaving him no choice but to tolerate Harry’s presence.

He hadn’t chosen either of those options in the end.

His mind kept going back to Malfoy’s face as he’d spoken about Archie being part of his
family, of giving him his name and accepting him as his own, no matter how temporary his
existence might be. Harry thought about how Malfoy’s shoulders had shaken as he leaned
over Archie’s sleeping form, his rosy cheek pressed against the fabric of Malfoy’s shirt, his
small face lax with sleep. He thought about Malfoy’s red-rimmed eyes as they’d walked back
up to the castle, of how he’d hidden his face from Harry.

No, Harry didn’t want to barge in on the private moment. He’d give Malfoy that, despite their
long and turbulent history together.

Malfoy’s dot had made it through the Entrance Hall and was approaching one of the
Greenhouses. It stopped next to one for a few minutes. Harry could picture Malfoy pointing
at each of the plants and telling Archie their names and what they were used for. He was
probably trying to coax him to speak more, to add more words to his vocabulary.
The Lumos began to dim as Harry felt his eyes grow heavy. He adjusted his pillows so that he
was lying on his side, the map spread out on the bed next to him. Malfoy’s dot was out on the
hillside, out of sight of the main areas of the castle. Harry wouldn’t be able to see him from
Gryffindor Tower, not unless he leaned all the way out of the window. He might have been
able to see the pair of them from the Astronomy Tower; you could see most of the grounds
from the viewing platform. But no, Harry hadn’t been up there since the Battle, and he had no
desire to change that anytime soon.

“That big, bright one up there? That’s Draco,” Harry imagined Malfoy saying. “That one
next to it is Hercules, the defeater of Ladon the dragon.”

Malfoy would be holding one of Archie’s tiny hands in his, encouraging his finger to draw
the constellation in the air, the connecting lines of it invisible. He would direct Archie to tilt
his head upwards somehow, maybe by casting one of the charms that sent up little firework
sparks; Archie loved those. He clapped every time Malfoy cast them, his hands slapping
together inexpertly. Malfoy would be lying on his back in the grass, maybe with his robes
spread out to ward off the chill emanating from the ground. Perhaps he’d even dragged his
dark green quilt up from the Slytherin dorms. Archie would be sitting in his lap or lying on
his chest or resting against his bent knees. Malfoy would be rubbing his back softly, his
fingers tracing up and down to calm, soothe, show Archie that he was safe, that Malfoy was
there, that he wasn’t alone in the dark.

Absentmindedly, Harry ran his own hand down his forearm. He could feel the ghost of
Malfoy’s fingers there, though he’d never touched Harry like that. Despite that, in that
moment, it felt real, secreted away behind Harry’s bed curtains.

Harry’s eyes drifted shut again, the feeling of a phantom caress threatening to lull him to
sleep. He sat up and blinked a few times, shaking his head to clear it. He couldn’t go to sleep
yet, not until Malfoy and Archie were inside the castle again.

Logically, he knew that nothing would happen to them; they were on Hogwarts grounds,
inside the wards that had been strengthened after the battle. There was nobody coming to hurt
them, but Harry still couldn’t shake off the anxiety of it all.

It was beginning to get light when Malfoy’s dot finally made its way back up to the castle,
the inky black sky turning a navy blue. He narrowly avoided Filch as he went downstairs to
the dungeons, his dot slipping through the entrance to the Slytherin dormitories, safe behind a
locked door.

Only then did Harry allow himself to sleep.

Malfoy’s tactic of using both Archie and Harry in his marketing campaign had garnered him
the most votes of the student body by far. There’d apparently been a survey distributed that
Harry was completely unaware of, in which students in other year levels could vote on their
favourite campaign. Harry had left his until the final afternoon and had ended up running
around the corridors with Ron, handing out badly duplicated pamphlets.
“Everyone loves babies,” Malfoy had said, throwing a smirk at Zabini.

“Everyone loves Potter’s face, you mean,” Zabini had replied, eyebrow arched. “Quite the
drawcard you had there. How did you manage that, Draco, dear?”

Harry would have been a little more miffed about being used as a tool for Malfoy to win
votes, but the thought of Archie in that little cauldron hat calmed him every time.

What didn’t calm him was the photo that Dennis Creevey had snapped of the incident. He’d
come up and handed it to Harry at breakfast that morning, all cheery like he was doing Harry
a favour.

Ron had nearly swallowed his spoon whole when Dennis remarked – completely and totally
genuinely – what a sweet family the three of them made.

Neville had to reach over and whack Ron on the back a few times until he regained his
breath.

Harry, for his part, was struck completely dumbfounded at the photo in front of him. Archie
had grabbed onto it with sticky fists coasted in mashed pear, turned to Harry with a grin and
proudly proclaimed, “Papa,” in a squeaky voice, pointing a stubby finger at Malfoy’s smug
expression.

Dennis had cooed again and repeated that godforsaken ‘sweet family’ bit, and Harry felt his
cheeks heat so abruptly he was half convinced he’d had a burst of accidental magic and set
the table on fire without realising.

Their next task, running for one of the final two lessons they had left with the flour babies,
was something involving disputes. Harry was actually fairly keen to work with Malfoy on
that one; if there was any one person in his year that he could stand to learn conflict
resolution skills before dealing with, it was Malfoy.

Unfortunately, McGonagall had finally seen fit to separate them.

“I’ll be taking him,” Malfoy said, dragging Archie onto his lap by the underarms before
Harry could say anything about it. “I have a feeling I’ll be needing him.”

Parkinson slid into Malfoy’s vacated seat with a bored expression, looking every bit like she
was about to start checking her cuticles and yawning. Her baby was nowhere to be found, but
she wasn’t often seen with it, so it wasn’t all that out of the ordinary. Zabini also seemed to
have convinced Ernie to take nearly full custody of his, too; Malfoy appeared to be the only
Slytherin with any parental instincts, Millicent aside.

“Let’s not make this any harder than it needs to be,” Parkinson said, flipping open the manilla
folder that they’d been handed. “Agreed?”

Harry nodded, resigning himself to an afternoon of being bullied into submission.

Their scenario was something to do with Celestina Warbeck being played at full volume into
the early hours and a bit of retaliatory snooping in windows. All a bit farfetched, in Harry’s
opinion; after all, who under the age of thirty listened to Celestina Warbeck? It wasn’t
particularly realistic.

He mentioned that thought to Parkinson to break the ice, wondering why they didn’t have the
Weird Sisters in their scenario instead. Parkinson had questioned whether McGonagall even
knew who the Weird Sisters were, which called up images in Harry’s mind of his professor
slicking back dyed black hair and jumping around in a pair of leather pants. He’d had to look
over at Archie a few times to wipe the unwelcome thought from his brain.

Parkinson seemed content to waste their report-writing time by doodling pictures of cats all
over the parchment; Harry didn’t know if she thought that McGonagall would give them
extra marks for her choice of animal or if she just really didn’t give a shit. He was leaning
towards the latter.

Ron and Malfoy, on the other hand, appeared to be getting on alright, much to Harry’s
surprise. He’d half expected them to both get thrown out on their arses in the first five
minutes after one managed to tick the other off. Instead, they were doing their best to talk
through Archie and Ruby, holding them aloft like live puppets. Harry tried not to stare, but it
was fairly difficult – it wasn’t every day you saw that sort of thing.

The presentation portion of the lesson was equally shite. Parkinson had, for some
godforsaken reason, apparently expected that they could both simply wing it and be
completely in sync with each other in their thoughts.

She’d taken the lead, which Harry had appreciated until she opened her mouth. She took
visible amounts of joy in casting Harry as the snooper in their assigned scenario, and herself
as the helpless victim who had hearing issues and thus couldn’t tell that her music was too
loud. She took great pains to detail exactly what the imaginary version of Harry had been
snooping on and what he’d seen while committing the crime. It left Harry’s cheeks bright red
as McGonagall watched on disapprovingly; the rest of the class, Malfoy in particular, seemed
to be having the time of their lives listening to Parkinson blabber on.

McGonagall decided to take pity on Harry after a few minutes of Parkinson monologuing and
directed her to sit down and close her mouth, leaving Harry to finish the presentation by
himself with no great amount of gusto. He didn’t really know how they could have resolved
their imaginary issue, aside from not-Parkinson suddenly regaining the full use of her ears
and not-Harry deciding to turn away from the illustrious life of a peeping tom, but he did his
best.

Ron and Malfoy’s presentation went quite a bit better.

They used the babies as props, which Harry immediately wished he’d had the forethought to
do. Not that he wanted Archie anywhere in the vicinity of Parkinson while she was blabbing
straight filth, but needs must.

Ron introduced their scenario as something to do with unfair trades at the local farmer’s
market, with an added sprinkle of a tree hanging over a boundary line.
Harry thought the whole thing was a right laugh, but Hermione and Parvati had each filled up
an entire scroll of parchment with notes as the presentations had been going on, so perhaps he
was missing something.

Archie and Ruby were both wearing hats in the shape of apples – red for Ruby, green for
Archie – that they kept tugging on. Ruby succeeded in throwing hers on the floor in under a
minute flat, unbeknownst to Ron.

Malfoy kept getting Archie to nod to back up his points, the baby’s head lolling back and
forth at the end of every sentence. Harry seriously doubted that anyone was actually listening
to what the two of them were saying, given the very absurdly cute and very wriggly
distractions, but perhaps that had been the point.

Ron and Malfoy’s solution to the whole thing was to have their children play together along
the property line and perhaps even build a treehouse on it for the children to play in.

“My dad could be the one to build it,” Ron interjected, nodding seriously. “He’s been
meaning to have a go at doing something with Muggle tools. Me and Malfoy would help, I
reckon.”

Harry stared at him for a moment, wondering if Ron understood that they weren’t actually
about to go down to Devon to build a treehouse, given the sheer amount of sincerity he was
speaking with.

Malfoy started nattering on about property law at that point, and Harry immediately tuned
him out, focusing on Archie instead. He was gumming on the side of his hat, succeeding in
pulling it half off his head. He hadn’t tried real apples yet. The hat seemed like the perfect
excuse to introduce that at lunch later on. He’d need to get Malfoy to help him with it; he was
still fairly crap at the charms that turned the foods into unrecognisable piles of mush, having
put off using them for so long. He much preferred just giving Archie soft foods, versus
completely deconstructing otherwise attractive-looking meals at the cellular level. His
stomach churned whenever the charm was cast, doubly so since he’d watched Hermione
shoot it at an entire chicken leg to feed to Jane. That was a sight that he was in no rush to see
again.

“Sit with us at lunch?” Harry asked, crowding into Malfoy’s space as they transferred hold of
Archie. Everyone else appeared to be in no rush to leave the room, preferring to move
leisurely about the rows of desks, chatting to one another.

Malfoy looked more than a little surprised, raising a questioning eyebrow at Harry. “Why?”

Harry shrugged. “Why not? It won’t hurt you.”

“It might.” Malfoy looked him up and down for a moment, eyes softening when they settled
on Archie. “No. Come to Slytherin instead.”

Harry shuffled his feet and snuck a glance at Parkinson and Zabini, who looked ready to
begin snogging on the desk at any moment. He didn’t know how Malfoy could stand to be
around them; Ron and Hermione barely did anything in front of him, and it still made his skin
crawl.

“She won’t call you a peeping tom again, I promise,” Malfoy said, his eyes twinkling.

“Shut up, I knew you were enjoying that,” Harry hissed, flicking Malfoy on the arm.

“Perhaps. Pansy won’t even be there for the first half of lunch. Neither will Blaise.”

“Remind me again why you won’t stop whinging and come over to Gryffindor?”

Malfoy raised an eyebrow. The arch of it made something clench in Harry’s stomach, though
certainly not unpleasantly. “I’m the one whinging? Really? It must be fascinating to live
inside your head, truly.” He slid the last of his parchment inside his bag and slung it over his
shoulder. “And I’m not coming to Gryffindor because I have to mind Pete and Pearl. I don’t
fancy having my intestines strung up about the Slytherin common room like some demented
version of tinsel when Pansy and Blaise return to find their children wearing red scarves.”

“Ron’ll help mind them?” Harry suggested weakly.

Malfoy snorted. “I don’t doubt that, Merlin knows why. Granger best stock up on
contraceptive potions, that’s for certain.”

Harry blinked at him, trying to convince his brain not to think about that at all.

Malfoy regarded him with an expression that Harry couldn’t for the life of him decipher.
Perhaps he looked exactly as nauseated as he felt at the prospect of his two best mates
needing contraceptive potions to begin with. “If you’re so desperate for my company, you
can come by the Slytherin table.”

“I’m not desperate,” Harry countered, but Malfoy cut him off.

“I’ll be down in a few. I just want to reintroduce myself to the children first. I think it would
be an awful fright to just be hefted up onto someone’s hip without so much as a say so,
wouldn’t you?”

Harry knew he was probably gaping incredibly unattractively, but Malfoy appeared not to be
paying him any attention anymore. After a quick kiss to Archie’s forehead, he turned on his
heel and made his way over to the pen where most of the babies had been corralled. Well, the
ones whose parents could bear to part with them for more than ten minutes had, anyway.
Ruby and Jane had been notably absent from the pile.

Harry shuffled his feet by the door for a few minutes, trying not to make it look like he was
watching Malfoy. It was quite a sight, seeing him sitting cross-legged inside the brightly-
coloured pen, toys and blankets scattered around him, as he offered a hand to the two dark-
haired babies in front of him. The one with the squished face belonged to Parkinson, Harry
assumed, leaving the other to logically be Zabini’s. Despite the poise the two of them carried
themselves with, neither of their babies had learned how to shake a hand yet, as Malfoy was
discovering.
“You’re blocking the doorway,” Millicent said, bluntly but not unkindly. “If you’re adamant
about staring at Draco, maybe move a bit closer. With your eyesight, you know.”

Hermione was silently laughing, muffling any escaping sounds with the sleeve of her jumper.
The shake of her shoulders only increased in intensity when Harry shot her a pleading look.

“I know that Pansy didn’t find it flattering, the staring thing, but Draco might? I could ask
him, if you like?”

“No,” Harry cried, his voice somewhat strangled. “Not that there’s anything to tell. I was, uh,
just leaving.”

Hermione avoided looking at him as they walked down to the Great Hall together, the corners
of her mouth twitching whenever she registered Harry glaring at her. She lost all abilities of
restraint with regards to her smile when Harry shuffled his feet by the Gryffindor table and
blurted out that, actually, he and Archie wouldn’t be eating with them.

“Maybe sit with Millicent while you wait for Malfoy?” Hermione suggested. “She’ll love
that.”

Harry wasn’t particularly keen to be accused of being a peeping tom for the third time in one
day, so he made a beeline for an empty spot towards the end of the Slytherin table, up by the
professors. Nobody but the first years ever wanted to sit there, within range of McGonagall’s
superhuman hearing.

Archie seemed excited to be sitting at the Slytherin table, though Harry didn’t know how he
could possibly perceive the tables as being different from each other; they were the same
colour wood, the same size, held the same foods. The mashed potato sat menacingly a few
feet away, seeming luminescent under the lights. Archie glared when he noticed it, his tiny
pale eyebrows drawing together.

“Don’t look at that,” Harry said, shoving the plate of mashed potatoes behind a towering
stack of bread rolls. “Look, pumpkin.”

Archie squealed and reached for the pumpkin that Harry was spooning onto the plate,
opening and closing his fists rapidly.

Harry cut off the end of one of the pieces and handed it to Archie, trying not to cringe when it
oozed through the gaps between his squeezing fingers. “Look, I know the pumpkin’s good,
but how about this?”

Archie looked thoroughly unimpressed at the sight of an apple being plonked down on the
plate in front of him. He turned his head to look back at Harry, orange smeared across his
chin, as if to say, ‘how am I supposed to eat that?’

“Malfoy’s going to mash it up for you,” Harry said, nodding encouragingly. He placed
Archie’s sticky hand on the side of the apple to get him used to it.

“Papa,” Archie corrected him, sounding ridiculously petulant for such a small person.
“How come you never call me that?” Harry asked, rotating Archie so that he was facing
Harry, small hands braced against his chest. “It’s a little insulting, you know.”

“Papa,” Archie said again, grinning widely.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Because you haven’t taken the time to teach him to call you that,” Malfoy said from over
Harry’s shoulder.

Harry turned to look at him and was immediately clobbered by a chubby fist – not Archie’s
for once. The offending fist had come from Parkinson’s child, who was somehow managing
to smirk as she watched Harry blink rapidly against the smarting in his left eye.

“Oh dear,” Malfoy said, sounding not the least bit concerned. Then, “The idea of mushing
food for our child, Potter, is so they don’t choke. How have you not realised this?”

“Huh?”

Malfoy reached over Harry’s shoulder, bringing their faces into quite close proximity. Harry
blinked at him as Malfoy frowned, eyes focused on something just a little lower down than
Harry’s face.

“Come on, darling, let go,” Malfoy said, his tone soothing but firm.

Harry glanced down to look at Archie, who was doing his best to shove the entire apple into
his mouth. He’d only succeeded in stabbing the shiny points of his new front teeth into the
green skin, but he was giving it a proper go.

“Good work, mate, you tried something new,” Harry said, lifting Archie’s hand to give
himself a high five as Malfoy extricated the apple from his teeth.

“Merlin alive, how has he managed to bite that so firmly,” Malfoy muttered, finally yanking
the apple free from Archie’s mouth. “No, Pearl, we don’t hit.”

“Fucking hell,” Harry hissed, clapping a hand over his eye as he reeled from another hit from
Parkinson’s child.

Archie made an affronted huff and bumped his forehead against Harry’s shoulder.

Harry pat at Archie’s head, narrowly stopping him from bumping his head again. “Come off
it, I wasn’t swearing at Malfoy. You’re a bit touchy. Get that from him, do you?”

“You’re insufferable,” Malfoy said, but he didn’t appear all that annoyed. He slid onto the
bench next to Harry, Zabini’s child on one of his knees, Parkinson’s on the other. Archie
started to fuss at the sight of it, like he was getting jealous. “Potter, be a dear and pass the
peas, would you?”

“Remind me again why you’ve got them.” Harry reached over Archie’s head to hand Malfoy
the bowl of mushy peas.
Malfoy shrugged, spooning a large pile onto his plate. “So Pansy and Blaise can go snog. Not
a minute goes by without them huffing about not being able to when they’ve got these ones
with them.” He smiled at Archie and offered him a bite of mushy peas from his spoon, before
then feeding Zabini’s baby from the same utensil.

“Is that sanitary?” Harry screwed up his nose, watching as Zabini’s child’s drool turned
green.

“It’s not as though they’ve got any illnesses that could be spread around. Imagine if
McGonagall spelled them to be able to get sick; we’d surely have some kind of potion-
resistant superbug incubating in the classrooms here.”

“Oh god,” Harry groaned, stomach churning as Malfoy ate off the spoon he’d just removed
from Parkinson’s child’s mouth. “Why?”

Malfoy fixed him with a withering look. “It makes them feel more involved and willing to try
new things. Try it with Archie.”

“Uh,” Harry said, looking down to meet Archie’s accusatory stare. He had green drool
smeared across his chin. “No thanks.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Whatever. What was it you were wanting me to cast a fourth year
level spell on again?”

Harry pointed at the apple. Archie’s teeth marks were clearly visible on the side of it.

“Lovely.” Malfoy placed the apple on his plate and cast at it, muttering a few charms under
his breath.

Harry turned his head so he wouldn’t have to watch the apple melt into a pile of mush, the
image not unlike a sped-up version of a melting candle. Hermione’s mushy chicken leg had
really done a number on him.

“Bon appetit,” Malfoy said, sprinkling a brown powder over the pile of white mush.
“Cinnamon,” he explained when Harry shot him a confused expression.

Harry snorted. “Of course.”

“Well would you like to eat a room temperature apple with the consistency of a wet piece of
parchment? I wouldn’t expect so. Hence the seasoning.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry said, waving him off. “Alright, mate, let’s give this a go.”

Archie watched the spoon warily as it approached his mouth. Harry made a humming sound
like a plane coming in to land; he’d seen people do it in television shows before, and it had
always looked like it made the meal a decent bit more exciting.

“Are you attempting to mimic the sound of a Flobberworm mating call?” Malfoy asked. He
lifted a brow in Harry’s direction as he spooned more mushy peas into Zabini’s child’s
mouth.
Harry’s insistence of the sound being representative of a plane called up discussion of what
exactly a plane was, which was a whole different ball game that Harry hadn’t expected to get
into.

“So Muggles sit inside a metal tube in the sky with no magic to keep them from hitting the
ground? And they pay through the nose for the opportunity to do so?” Malfoy looked
absolutely horrified, which brought a smile to Harry’s face. He was clutching at the babies on
his knees like someone was about to force him onto an airplane at wandpoint.

“Yes.”

“I will never understand Muggles. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

Harry shrugged, mimicking a plane again as he waved the spoonful of pureed apple in
Archie’s face. “Open up, the 13:40 is landing in Heathrow.”

Malfoy laughed quietly under his breath. His cheeks pinkened slightly when Harry shot him a
smile.

“Mmm,” Archie said, kicking his feet out and tipping his head back to grin up at Harry.

“Yeah, you’re an adventurer, aren’t you, mate? Where shall we go next? Barcelona, maybe?
Or Constantinople?”

Archie seemed to prefer the sound of the second city name, so Harry quickly boarded the
imaginary apple-men on the plane to Turkey, scheduled to leave at 15:12.

“You’re full of surprises, Potter,” Malfoy said quietly, almost under his breath. He looked
surprised when Harry wiggled his eyebrows at him, as though his comment hadn’t intended
to be heard. Harry wasn’t sure what to make of it, so he preoccupied himself with loading up
the next flight to Shanghai. He wasn’t sure who was enjoying themselves more, him or
Archie.

The collective mood of the Eighth Years grew more and more sombre in the days leading up
to the class in which the babies would return to their original forms, becoming motionless
non-sentient bags of flour once more. Even Parkinson and Zabini – two people who had
shown themselves to have not a single maternal or paternal bone in their bodies – were loath
to give up their allotted custody time to their assignment partners.

One of the unused classrooms on the third floor had become somewhat of an unofficial base,
functioning as a sort of play café, like Muggles sometimes went to. Harry remembered going
to one once when he was properly little, so small that he hadn’t been able to see over the
tables in the seating area. Aunt Petunia had taken him and Dudley there as part of a mother’s
group of some sort, though he couldn’t imagine why he’d been there; perhaps Mrs Figg had
been busy or had broken her leg or one of her cats had gotten sick or something, or perhaps
his aunt had been trying to garner sympathy due to his very existence. She did seemingly so
love to martyr herself, complaining at length about the expenses of Harry’s clothes and the
emotional toll of raising him and oh, how she did miss her awful sister so.

In any case, they hadn’t had to stay long; Dudley had stolen an entire tub of ice cream from
another table’s birthday celebrations and ambled the wrong way up the slide with it clutched
in his sticky arms. He’d gotten absolutely walloped by another child rocketing down the slide
the correct way and had shot out the end into the ball pit absolutely covered in Neapolitan.
Aunt Petunia had been so incensed about the whole thing – that the mother of the child
whose ice cream was stolen was insisting that she pay for it, as well as the workers of the
play café giving Dudley a proper scolding about sitting in the slide – that she’d forgotten to
take Harry home with her. He’d been dropped back by one of the other mothers from the
group some two hours later when they finally noticed him peeking over the edge of the table
as he eyed off Dudley’s abandoned plate of chips.

It had worked in his favour, really; he’d been bought McDonalds on the way home and had
even gotten to keep the toy from the meal, hiding it in the pocket of his oversized shorts
when Uncle Vernon waved him in through the front door.

The Hogwarts version of a play café was, of course, devoid of off-putting sticky plastic balls,
a warm slide that smelt of bare feet, and the lingering bleach smell that hung about long after
being wiped up. Instead, there were soft cushions and plush rugs, books with moving
pictures, and all manner of toys. Parvati, Ernie, and Padma had teamed up to make the play
café their business for their taster course, which Harry thought was a much more interesting
and useful idea than his own Quidditch supply store, though their marketing lacked the mass
appeal of Archie in a cauldron hat.

Harry went in there with Archie a few times and it was … alright. It was nice seeing
everyone happy, particularly after the last few years they’d all had. It was like their own
mothers’ group in a way; Dean and Hannah discussing mid-year Ministry job openings while
feeding their babies, Theo Nott and Terry Boot charming fireworks to explode in the air,
Neville making faces and putting on funny voices while he read books aloud to a group of
children, one of which might have been his own, but it was just as likely that his wasn’t even
there.

It was nice, but it didn’t compare to the quieter moments. He preferred to sit outside with
Archie on the grass, casting copious warming charms and magical shields to ward off the
rain, Malfoy’s outer robes spread out on the ground underneath them.

Because Malfoy was there with them more times than not. He was almost always around, but
Harry found that he didn’t mind so much. He almost preferred it at times; Malfoy was still so
oddly good with Archie, always seeming to know exactly what to say to keep him engaged,
what to do to entertain him, how to redirect him when he got frustrated that Harry wouldn’t
let him roll down the hill at lightning speed and pitch himself into the Black Lake. That was
an ever-present source of consternation, much to Malfoy’s amusement.

The only real drawback about Malfoy being out there that Harry could see was that he was
infuriatingly distracting. His voice carried above the sounds of wind and rain, of the shouts
and laughter of other students, of shrill birdcalls, and leaves brushing over cobblestones as
they danced in the frigid gusts that whipped across the landscape.
The sound of his voice inevitably drew Harry’s attention, attuned to it as he was after so
many years of waiting for a biting comment or a cutting joke. When he looked over, he was
inevitably met with one of two things: the first was Malfoy’s knowing expression, pale
eyebrow lifted and mouth drawn into a smirk, like he had expected Harry to look, like he
knew something that Harry didn’t, somehow. Like he knew that Harry’s stomach twisted with
a flash of heat every time their gazes locked.

The second was somehow worse. Infinitely worse. The second sight that Harry was often
presented with was Malfoy paying no attention to him at all, instead completely drawn in by
Archie. He had an intense focus, Malfoy did. Harry knew what it felt like to have that aimed
squarely at him. He couldn’t blame Archie for seeking it out, for vying for Malfoy’s approval
in whatever way he could. It was how Malfoy acted in those moments that truly made the
wheels in Harry’s brain stop turning, groaning to a halt with stuttered movements as though
unsure who had pulled the lever.

Malfoy’s face in those moments was so open, so plainly trusting in a way that Harry had no
idea he could be. He smiled readily, offering Archie exaggerated gasps in response to his
babbling that nobody could decipher. He always had a hand on Archie, be it an arm wrapped
around him, fingers carding through the short strands of his hair, kisses pressed to his face
until Archie smiled and shrieked, wriggling in Malfoy’s hold until he was released.

In those moments, Harry wondered again what it would be like to experience that himself, to
be shown that level of unconditional love and affection from another person, to have them be
so open with him on every level. It was an enticing thought, knowing that Malfoy was
capable of that. Harry didn’t know what to do with it, nor with the squeezing in his chest as
he watched Malfoy with Archie, a miniature version of himself in every conceivable way.

One such day saw Harry lying on his stomach, the edge of Malfoy’s green robes rucked up
under his parchment as he finished off his and Parkinson’s report from a few days prior. He
took great care to omit any mention of him specifically being a peeping tom; the joke had
taken on a life of its own in recent days, Ron and Dean taking great amusement in pretending
to cover themselves whenever Harry walked into their dorm.

Malfoy kept leaning over to check his spelling, muttering under his breath about Harry
needing to invest in a spell-checking quill if he insisted on not learning the proper way of
spelling ‘necessary’ and ‘essential’. Didn’t he know that crossing the word out and correcting
himself with little scribbles was liable to get marks docked?

When he wasn’t making jabs at Harry’s woeful spelling, he was reading to Archie from
various picture books. He’d borrowed them from the play café upstairs, rotating out the stack
so Archie wouldn’t get bored. Well, aside from the book about broom racing, which seemed
to be Archie’s favourite. He’d had Malfoy read it so many times now Harry was sure that
both he and Malfoy would be able to recite the words in their sleep.

“Look, darling, see how he zips around on there?” Malfoy used his hand to direct Archie’s
finger to press against one of the shiny, colourful pages. “See how much better brooms are
than planes.”
Harry snorted, not bothering to turn his face in Malfoy’s direction, knowing exactly the self-
satisfied expression he’d be wearing. The expression was different to the one that had crossed
Malfoy’s face when Parkinson and Zabini had returned to collect their children from Malfoy
a few days prior.

Parkinson had stopped in her tracks when she caught sight of Harry sitting at the Slytherin
table, a wide smirk drawing across her face. Malfoy had shifted in his seat when he’d noticed
her, his eyes flicking towards Harry as though to gauge his reaction. Harry had thought he’d
been antsy about Parkinson making yet another stalking comment, but the more that he
thought about it the more that idea didn’t seem to fit.

He considered how Zabini had kept walking, dragging Parkinson over to the table, of how
he’d bent down to whisper something in Malfoy’s ear that stained his pale cheeks scarlet.
He’d stuttered when Harry had asked him about it later, nudging him with an elbow as he
tickled Archie’s stomach. Malfoy had stammered and flushed crimson again, muttering a
badly strung together lie about Zabini giving him too many details about what he and
Parkinson had been getting up to while Malfoy was off babysitting. He hadn’t been able to
meet Harry’s eyes for a good few minutes afterwards, which was suspicious enough in itself.
Harry hadn’t been entirely sure what to make of it. At least Archie functioned as a good
distraction.

Malfoy’s new obsession – aside from convincing a child who could not fly, nor put together a
coherent thought, that broomsticks were a better vehicle than airplanes – was getting Archie
to walk.

The whole thing was a ridiculously daft idea for a number of reasons: the first of which being
that Archie was enough of a terror without the ability to sprint into the fireplace in the blink
of an eye, and the second of which was the fact that he simply couldn’t walk and never would
be able to. They’d been told the limits that McGonagall had imposed on the babies when
they’d first received them; they’d been Charmed to cry and fuss, to eat and sleep, but not
much else. They couldn’t crawl, so why would they walk? Some of the babies couldn’t even
manage to hold their heads up by themselves, though Archie had gained that ability
unnervingly fast. Malfoy put it down to something he called tummy time, but Harry was fairly
sure he was fucking with him.

Not to mention that Malfoy’s previous obsession of getting Archie to talk hadn’t exactly been
a roaring success; Archie could say a single word and babble a bit. That didn’t exactly put
him on the list of greatest orators of all time. Not that you’d know it, going off Malfoy’s
ridiculous bloody smirk that he directed squarely at Harry whenever Archie proudly called
him Papa, puffing out his little chest in a shockingly good imitation of an eleven-year-old
version of Malfoy.

McGonagall directly stating that the babies would not be able to walk sure as hell didn’t stop
Malfoy from trying though. He’d abandoned the picture book the moment Archie started
trying to mimic the plane noises that Harry was making under his breath, a hum just low
enough that Malfoy couldn’t react to what he was doing without looking mildly insane. He’d
transitioned to holding Archie’s feet flat against the floor of his outer robes, Archie’s socked
toes curling in the fabric. He was holding Archie’s arms above his head in an effort to keep
him standing, leaving him dangling by the wrists whenever he scrunched his legs up. Archie
kept trying to sit down but Malfoy refused to let him. The two of them stared at each other as
though locked in a battle of wills, identical grey eyes boring into each other.

Harry tried not to feel too miffed when Malfoy won their silent battles every time; it wasn’t
so much that Malfoy won something – though that did still irk Harry a bit – it was more so
the fact that Archie never deferred to him. He was always more than happy to sit there in
silence until Harry broke and gave him whatever he’d been angling for in the first place. Not
unlike Malfoy himself, now that Harry thought about it.

Archie shrieked and stomped one of his feet, though he didn’t sound quite as annoyed as he
had when Malfoy first stood him up.

“He won’t do it,” Harry said, quirking an eyebrow at Malfoy. “Remember what McGonagall
said? You’re not smarter than her.”

Malfoy mumbled something that sound like, “Daddy needs to bugger off, doesn’t he,
darling?”

Harry rolled his eyes and went back to his report. He was trying to find some way to link
their conflict resolution strategies in with inter-House unity to hopefully score some extra
points with McGonagall when he heard Malfoy gasp. He paid him no mind, scratching out
one of the words he’d just written and rewriting it with the correct spelling. He clicked his
tongue absentmindedly and started to hum his version of the plane sound, a little louder than
before to ensure that Malfoy heard it.

“British Airways flight 101 now landing in Heathrow, please take all carryon baggage with
you,” Harry said, making a whistle that was supposed to represent the plane landing. “All
travellers continuing on to Berlin on the 10:50, please – ooft.” Small fists were in his hair
suddenly, gripping on tightly. “Archie, don’t pull,” Harry laughed, putting his quill down and
reaching out to grab Archie, expecting his arm to meet Malfoy’s halfway, where he’d been
deliberately holding Archie within grabbing distance of Harry’s hair. Instead, it was only
Archie himself.

Harry turned his head as best he could with Archie gripping at him so tightly, only to see
Archie’s chubby legs bending and straightening as he used his hold on Harry’s hair to prop
himself up. Malfoy’s face was visible when Archie shifted to the side. His mouth was
hanging open in shock as he locked his widened eyes with Harry’s.

“Did he just…” Harry trailed off, wrapping a hand around Archie’s torso to hold him up. The
touch must have reminded Archie that he’d been standing on his own, something that hadn’t
been his idea in the first place. He let himself fall back onto his butt on the robes, kicking his
feet out towards Harry.

Malfoy flung himself at Archie then, pressing kisses to the top of his head and repeating a
mantra of how good he was, how smart, how lovely.

“Did he walk to me?” Harry asked, watching as Archie batted at Malfoy’s face, trying to
wriggle out of his grip.
“You and your bloody plane noises.” Malfoy sniffed and scrubbed at his face with his
forearm, turning it away from Harry.

Harry rolled onto his back and tugged Archie towards him, sitting him on his chest. He fixed
Archie with a serious look that caught and held his attention; likely he thought it was some
sort of novelty given the fact that Harry was basically never serious with him. “You need to
do that again, mate. I missed it, and I’ll never forgive myself if you get turned into bread in a
few days and I never got to see it.”

“Potter,” Malfoy cried, but it was drowned out by the sound of Archie giggling, as though
he’d understood Harry’s dark joke and thought it was rather funny.

“Come on,” Harry said, grabbing Archie and standing him up on shaky legs that kept trying
to bend. “Walk to Papa, go on.”

Archie blew a raspberry at Malfoy and tried to turn in Harry’s hold, clearly wanting to climb
back up onto Harry’s chest.

“Make the plane noises,” Harry said, smirking at Malfoy. “It’s his kryptonite, apparently.”

“His what?”

“Just do it.”

Malfoy pursed his lips and stared right at Harry, clearly considering his options. He gave in
after a few moments, parting his lips and whistling to catch Archie’s attention. “The, uh,
Hogwarts Express will be leaving Platform 9 ¾ in two minutes.” He made another whistling
sound that was shockingly similar to that of the actual train.

“Go on, mate, you don’t want to miss it.” Harry nudged Archie towards Malfoy, who held out
his arms encouragingly. “Better have your ticket ready.”

Malfoy started to hum, the noise an odd mix of plane and train, but it seemed to do the trick.
Archie lurched towards him, teetering on unsteady legs, as Harry released his hold on
Archie’s middle. It was only a few feet, no more than four or so steps for Archie to make it
into the safety of Malfoy’s arms, but you wouldn’t know it with how Malfoy blubbered on
about it when Archie made it.

Harry blinked through his own rapidly blurring vision, wordlessly scolding himself for letting
something so simple impact him so much. He almost regretted looking up, for pushing
Archie to walk again, because he knew he wouldn’t forget it now. Even after Archie had been
turned back into his original form, Harry would remember the sight of him walking shakily
towards Malfoy, a determined but delighted look on his face. He’d also remember the
expression on Malfoy’s face when he did it successfully, his lip quivering despite the wide
smile his mouth was stretched into, the way he clutched onto Archie when he reached him,
like he never wanted to let him go.

He'd not forget it; of that he was certain. It was printed on the insides of his eyelids when he
went to sleep that night, Malfoy’s smiling face and Archie’s delighted one, their cheeks
pressed together.

It was also the first thing he thought of when he woke up, alone in his dorm.

The babies were changed back into their original floury forms on a Thursday. The mood of
the Eighth Years was despondent, everyone walking around with their gazes fixed to the
floor, politely averting them from the watery eyes of their peers.

There’d been murmurings in the week leading up to that fateful lesson of making off with the
babies, of defying McGonagall and taking them to Hogsmeade over the weekend and just not
returning. They’d only need one person to forgo getting their N.E.W.T.s, they reasoned. And
everyone would help out as much as they could until term was over. Parvati and Ernie had
been leading the charge, though even they dutifully filed into the room and took their seats
when McGonagall waved them into the classroom.

All the babies were accounted for, none having gone missing since breakfast, much to
Harry’s surprise. He was sure at least one person would have made a break for it, but
everyone seemed to be handling the ordeal like adults. Well, adults who kept blubbering, that
was.

McGonagall appeared to recognise that everyone had gotten fairly attached to the babies and
allowed them a few minutes before she cancelled the charm that had turned them lifelike.

“Potter,” Malfoy said, brushing some of Archie’s fair hair back from his forehead, “rumour
has it that you’ve an invisibility cloak in your possession. Is that true?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Weasley, seemingly drunk out in the courtyard the other day. You were giving Archie a bath
at the time.”

“Ah,” Harry nodded. “Sounds about right. Why?”

“Would you lend it to me?”

“Not if it causes you to get thrown out of school, no.”

Malfoy’s lips quirked into a wry smile. “I would have thought that would be your greatest
wish. You could call it a personal accomplishment, even, since you would have partially
made it happen.”

Harry swallowed and rubbed his thumb over the back of Archie’s hand. Archie grabbed at it
and tried to tug it towards his mouth, tiny white teeth poking out of his gums. “You’d be
wrong.”

Malfoy didn’t say anything else, just dragged Archie towards himself and kissed all over his
head as Archie swung at them both, apparently finding the whole thing bloody hilarious.
Harry shifted his chair closer, wanting to hug Archie but not particularly wanting to drag him
away from Malfoy to do it. Malfoy turned to accommodate him, allowing Harry’s arm to slot
in beside his to wrap around Archie’s squirming body.

Harry barely heard McGonagall when she directed them all to lay their babies on the table in
front of them and hold up their hands, lest their own magic interfere with the removal of the
charms. He barely heard her, but he definitely felt Malfoy’s hand on his arm, fingers gripping
tight enough to hurt.

Archie refused to lay down, fully content to sit upright and gum on one of the yellow rings
Malfoy had made for him. His stuffed peacock was nowhere to be seen; Harry strongly
suspected that Malfoy had hidden it somewhere so he wouldn’t have to give it back.

There was a sniffling sound in Harry’s ear when McGonagall raised her wand, Malfoy
turning away from Archie and towards Harry. Harry slipped an arm around his shoulders and
squeezed. He didn’t know whether Malfoy wanted comfort, least of all from him, but Malfoy
readily accepted it, resting his head on Harry’s shoulder and squeezing his eyes shut.

It was almost instantaneous when the babies snapped back into their original forms. Harry
blinked and Archie went from smiling at Harry and drooling all over his own hand, chubby
legs kicking at a stack of parchment on the tabletop, to a hessian sack, slightly lumpy with
rounded corners and frayed stitching.

“It’s done,” Harry whispered, patting at Malfoy’s arm. “You can look now.”

“I was looking,” Malfoy replied, petulantly. He sniffed and wiped at his face with his arm.
“Merlin, I need a tall glass of something much stronger than Butterbeer.”

Harry blinked a few times, feeling as though the room was getting brighter, like a weight was
quickly being lifted off his shoulders. Next to him, Malfoy frowned, evidently feeling
something similar.

“It’s the effects of the charm,” Malfoy said, huffing a quiet laugh.

“You should now be beginning to lose your parental attachment to your assignments,”
McGonagall said, still twirling her wand in the air. “You’ll begin to feel less despondent as of
now and should return to your normal thought patterns within the hour. Any issues, please
see myself or Madam Pomfrey.”

“Oh,” Ron said from the desk in front of them, “it’s a bit … ugly, isn’t it?”

Harry snorted into his arm, eyes darting towards the lumpy sack on the desk in front of him.

The corners of Malfoy’s mouth twitched upwards, though it wasn’t a full smile. His mouth
went slack and his eyes widened as he turned to face Harry. “Potter, please tell me I did not
eat off the same used spoon as three separate infants.”

“Uh,” Harry said, grinning widely. “I don’t know what to tell you there.”

Malfoy’s pallor immediately turned green and he looked liable to sick up all over the desk
and the lumpy hessian sack. “Nobody saw me do that, surely. I’ve a reputation to think of.”
Harry pat his shoulder comfortingly. “Everyone saw, Malfoy.”

Malfoy whimpered and let his head drop down onto the desk. “Merlin alive.”

It took a few minutes for Malfoy to shift out of his hold, collecting his stack of parchment
and shoving it into his bag. He reached for the sack on the table as though it was a reflex,
shifting his hip to the side in preparation for a small person to sit on it. His cheeks darkened
when he realised what he was doing. He turned towards Harry and nodded once before
slipping quickly out the door, Parkinson, Zabini, and half the class on his heels.

Harry took one last glance at the sack as he slipped the strap of his bag over his shoulder. He
ran his fingers down the front of the sack, the rough material catching on his skin. “I’ll miss
you, mate,” he whispered, giving it one last pat. There was no answering giggle this time, just
Hermione’s hand finding his and squeezing firmly, Ron standing tall on his other side.

It was a little odd, not constantly interacting with Malfoy in the days after Archie had been
made into bread, or whatever the kitchen elves had done with the sacks of flour once they
were no longer needed for the class.

Malfoy was still around, of course. Harry saw him in the library, darting between the stacks
as though not wanting to be found. He could be seen wandering the halls at night, his dot
moving all across the Marauders Map until he found his way outside. Harry considered
joining him out there under the frigid air. If he asked, maybe Malfoy would show him the
constellations in the sky, just as he had done for Archie. He considered it, but as before when
Malfoy had gone out there with Archie, he stayed put in his dorm. Malfoy probably wanted
to be alone, after all. Harry doubted his presence would be welcome.

He wasn’t wholly unaffected by Archie’s sudden disappearance either; he still found himself
hiding the mashed potatoes when he sat down to eat in the Great Hall, keeping them out of
view of narrowed grey eyes. Hermione looked at him with a soft expression every time he
did it. Ron wasn’t any better; he kept hugging Harry and woefully muttering about the ‘first
Weasley grandchild’, which rapidly changed Hermione’s expression from wistful to pissed
off, which brightened Harry’s mood considerably.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d have said that Malfoy was avoiding him. Subtly, of course,
but it was beginning to get a little old, the whole ‘running out of rooms when Harry walked
in’ thing. As a result, he had no choice but to corner Malfoy when he was coming out of
Arithmancy one day.

“Come sit outside with me,” Harry said, stepping in front of Malfoy and consequently
blocking the door for everyone else trying to exit the room.

Malfoy’s eyes widened as he looked at Harry, his fingers tightening on the strap of his bag.
“Why?”

Harry shrugged. “Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I miss hanging out with you.”

It took Harry a moment to realise that Malfoy hadn’t asked him ‘why’ a second time – it had
been Zabini standing behind Malfoy, mimicking him. Resigned to experiencing
embarrassment whenever he interacted with Malfoy in the vicinity of his friends, he pressed
on.

“Come on, it’ll be like before. We can sit on your robes, and you can point out all the words
I’m spelling wrong. I won’t even call you a git this time.”

He heard someone, probably Parkinson, mumble, “how romantic” under their breath, the
words absolutely dripping with sarcasm. No matter because he wasn’t particularly trying to
be romantic. He was just trying to get Malfoy to spend some time with him again, in
whatever form he could.

“Just because Archie’s not here anymore doesn’t mean we have to stop seeing each other,”
Harry said, dropping the volume of his voice somewhat.

Malfoy seemed to be warring with himself internally. He blinked at Harry a few times before
pursing his lips and nodding. “Now?”

Harry nodded back. “Now.”

He couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face when Malfoy followed him down the
stairs, his pale cheeks stained pink with the jeers that their now-freed classmates were
directing their way.

Malfoy slipped his outer robes off his shoulders without a word when they got out to the hill,
the grass turning browner by the day as snow threatened to spill from the sky. Harry arranged
himself on top of the robes next to Malfoy, stretching his legs out and squinting against the
glare of the grey clouds. He wasn’t really sure what to say now that they were down there. He
didn’t much want to talk about Archie; the feelings were confusing enough as it was, his
emotions all churned up in a mixture of sadness, relief, and bittersweet happiness. He’d
rather get them untangled before he prodded Malfoy about his own.

“So, uh, did you want to read over my essay?”

“Sure,” Malfoy said. He pressed his lips together and nodded, his eyes darting over
seemingly everything in the vicinity except for Harry’s face.

It took a few minutes to find the parchment that Harry had written his persuasive speech on,
buried in his bag as it was. Hermione was constantly telling him and Ron that they needed to
get some sort of system together, but they’d managed to go a good seven – or eight, he
supposed – years without one, so why bother starting in their final year of school?

Malfoy stayed quiet as he read through the speech, his mouth silently forming the words
Harry had written as his eyes slid down the parchment. Harry watched, hoping his own lips
weren’t parted as Malfoy’s were, that it wasn’t completely obvious how intently he was
staring. He was betting on Malfoy being too eager to catch him out in a mistake, something
related to his spelling or his phrasing, some argument that he’d completely misinterpreted, to
pay any attention to what Harry himself was doing.

“It’s alright,” Malfoy said, after a good ten minutes had gone by. Harry had started to shiver a
little, recasting the warming charms on both of them. Malfoy hadn’t appeared to notice,
apparently used to the feel of Harry’s magic after spending so much time in his and Archie’s
company. “Needs to be a little more forceful though, more of an active voice.” His mouth
twisted into a smirk then, his eyebrow lifting into a perfect arch. “Surely you know how to do
that, given who you are and what you’re like.”

Harry shrugged, willing his heart to stop beating so fast. It seemed liable to crack right
through his ribcage the way it was going. “I could use a few pointers.”

“I’m not going to write it for you.”

“Didn’t ask you to.” Harry rolled onto his back and tucked his arms behind his head. “So,
pointers? Tell me where I’m wrong, Malfoy, go on.”

Malfoy hummed, a quiet thing that Harry was sure probably sent a rumble through his chest.
If he pressed a hand there he’d probably be able to feel the vibrations in his fingertips. “Pick
something, and I’ll argue about it. For or against.”

Harry grinned up at the sky, not bothering to hide it. If there was one thing Malfoy was good
at, it was arguing. With him in particular. “Swimming in the Black Lake. For, obviously.”

Malfoy snorted. “Obviously.” He paused for only a moment before launching into what Harry
could only classify as a rant. He was sure there were probably structured arguments in there,
evidence for his point and against some imaginary opposing ones, but Harry hadn’t the
wherewithal to pick them out. He was far more interested in listening to Malfoy’s voice, the
rounded accent, the way his tongue moved in his mouth as he spoke each separate vowel.

He was staring again, he knew, but that was alright; Malfoy was too busy nattering on about
the lake to realise. He went on and on about the benefits of swimming as a cardio workout –
and avoiding the Giant Squid as a motivator – about needing to cool off in the water after a
long day, and the shower rooms in the dorms and the Quidditch change rooms always being
far too humid for that type of thing, of being able to see the castle at an angle you otherwise
wouldn’t. He even went on a crusade in favour of the Merpeople that lived in the lake,
hypothesising that they were lonely, and a rogue swimmer in the middle of the loch might be
just what they needed to turn from genuine hazards to the schoolchildren of the area to
possible Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers.

“I mean, just look at Firenze,” Malfoy said, holding his hands out to the sides as though
expecting to be applauded for his point by some imaginary crowd. “You never know what
you’ll find when you let people in and see them for who they truly are, rather than whatever
preconceived notion you’ve decided on in your head.”

Harry whistled, long and low.

Malfoy seemed to come back to himself, his cheeks staining pink as he looked at Harry, then
away again. “There, you’ve got your example now.”

“Nah,” Harry said, rolling over to face Malfoy. He propped his head up with his fist and
smiled encouragingly. “Let’s go again, I think I need more pointers. Do the opposite this
time.”

The corner of Malfoy’s mouth twitched. He rose to the challenge, expertly disassembling his
previous arguments, picking holes in them that Harry hadn’t seen. Not that he’d been paying
all that much attention then, just as he wasn’t now. In all fairness, the way the light glinted off
Malfoy’s blond hair was awfully distracting. The shadows cast by the clouds highlighted the
sharp slope of his nose, the cut of his jaw. It couldn’t be held against Harry, really, that image
combined with Malfoy’s voice, rising and falling in cadence as he gestured towards the lake
with long fingers.

He could argue the bark off a tree, Harry thought to himself, blinking slowly as he watched
Malfoy. He could do it, and I’d happily listen.

Malfoy’s points – from what Harry could make of them, given his reduced brain capacity –
revolved around the existence of the Giant Squid (a fair opening argument and one that Harry
would likely have made himself), the depth of the lake, and the strength of the currents,
which were sometimes strong enough to carry unsuspecting swimmers away from the
shoreline, or so the legend went. Harry was fairly sure that one was handed down from
Prefect to Prefect as something imagined purely to stop First Years from trying it on a dare,
but alas.

“And,” Malfoy said, raising his eyebrows in Harry’s direction, “I heard that someone pissed
in there once on a dare. Dropped their trousers right on the beach and did it, in the middle of
a Slytherin party. Would you want to swim in there after that? I don’t know how diluted a
body of water needs to be before it’s classed as not swimming in urine, but do you really
want to be the one to find out?”

Harry shook his head and grinned at Malfoy, yanking a bit of parchment towards himself and
pretending to take notes.

Malfoy’s cheeks went pink and he faltered slightly in his words. He spoke faster once he
came back to himself, eyes locked on a spot on Harry’s forehead, or maybe somewhere just
over his shoulder. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but there might also be sharks in there.
Logic would dictate that the loch is connected to the ocean somewhere up north. How long
would it take, do you expect, for a student to be taken into the depths by some great hulking
fish-beast if we open the lake up for swimming?”

Since Malfoy was apparently doing his best not to watch Harry – and failing at it miserably –
Harry decided that it was fine to openly watch him back.

The fading light moved across Malfoy’s face, turning his eyes a steely grey that matched the
clouds overhead. His lips were petal pink, standing out starkly against his skin where he kept
wetting them as he spoke, tongue darting out to move across them as he argued. His hands
kept flitting across his bent knees as he leaned towards Harry, then to his thighs as he shifted
back once he became aware of what he was doing. The side of his mouth quirked up in time
with one of his eyebrows and Harry couldn’t take it anymore, cutting Malfoy off without
hesitation.

“Argue something else for me.”

Malfoy blinked at him, his lips still parted, mouth rounded on an O of whatever word he’d
been saying.

Harry’s heart raced, threatening to beat cleanly through his chest. He ignored the sudden
clamminess of his palms, inclining his head towards Malfoy as he said, “Argue in favour of
us going out on a date.”

Malfoy’s eyes went wide and he began to stammer, mouth opening and closing as he stared at
Harry, finally meeting his gaze head on.

Harry tilted his head to the side, raising an eyebrow at Malfoy, trying his best to feign
nonchalance despite the churning in his stomach. “Don’t tell me you’re backing out now?”

Malfoy visibly swallowed and set his shoulders, his expression and posture melting back into
the Malfoy that Harry recognised from years gone by, the one where he knew he was right
and was going to make sure that you knew it too.

“Well, firstly, we’ve known each other for ages. There’s no point in going on a date with a
complete stranger, really, is there? You’ll have to go through the tired old conversations about
your House and your friends and what your favourite dessert is. We can skip all that naff
business and cut right through to the soul-searching. And the, uh, other things. Forget I said
‘uh’, filler words indicate a lack of planning or, uh, a poor ability to think on your feet.
Fuck.”

Harry smiled wider, looking up at Malfoy from his reclined position. “Reckon you don’t need
to ask me my favourite dessert, huh?”

Malfoy rolled his eyes and waved him off. “It’s bloody treacle tart, Potter, honestly. Get with
the program. As for the second reason as to why we should date – go out on a date, rather, a
singular date, not an extended set of dates because that’s not what you asked for – is that
we’re somewhat decent with each other now. I don’t know what your view is, but I don’t feel
the urgent requirement to spell your hair off whenever I walk by.” He paused to look at Harry
as though waiting for Harry’s confirmation. He pushed on when he received it, Harry
nodding at him and letting out a bark of laughter when he pressed on.

The rest of Malfoy’s argument revolved around the fact that they were – technically –
coparents. He insisted that, despite their child no longer existing, they still had some form of
responsibility towards each other. Harry couldn’t help but agree with him; Archie’s absence
wasn’t as keenly felt as it would have been without the parental attachment charm being
lifted, but he still noticed it. It was like wearing a piece of jewellery every day for a year and
then suddenly no longer having it. It didn’t hurt, per se, but it felt like a physical piece of him
was missing now.
“And, most importantly,” Malfoy leaned towards Harry, wiggling his eyebrows dramatically,
“we’re both wildly attractive and would look good together.” He trailed off a bit after that, his
words not coming quite as easily as they had before. His tongue kept darting out to wet his
lips, Harry’s eyes following the path of it. “I suppose that my closing argument would be that
maybe you would like it, and I would too. You most of all, obviously. Why wouldn’t you?
I’m a delight to be around, as Mother always tells me.” He frowned as Harry visibly tried to
contain his laughter. “And I know how to treat a romantic associate.”

Harry couldn’t hold back his laughter then, sitting up and wrapping an arm around his waist
in an effort to contain the shakes. He glanced up at Malfoy and was met with red cheeks and
a slight sneer, but the corner of his mouth kept twitching upwards. “Romantic associate?”

“Well,” Malfoy said, shifting closer to Harry as he brushed his hair back off his face, “there
are a myriad of things you could call someone who you’ve been on a date with. Are you
seeing them, are you dating, are you boyfriends, are you still acquaintances? I wouldn’t want
to assume.”

“No, of course not.”

The grassed area by the courtyard was relatively quiet, not many others making the decision
to brave the cold and trust that their warming charms held up for long enough to make sitting
out there worthwhile. The gusts of wind that fought through Harry’s shield charm kept
shifting Malfoy’s blond hair across his forehead, leaving him to swipe it back with long, pale
fingers.

“Since you like arguing so much,” Harry said, locking eyes with Malfoy, “I’ve got another
one for you.” He took a deep breath that he hoped wasn’t audible, and steeled himself for
what he was about to say. “I think you should argue in favour of me kissing you.”

It was silent for a moment until Malfoy gave a huff and rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, Potter,” he
muttered, and leaned in to press his lips against Harry’s.

Harry let his lips part against Malfoy’s, pressing closer against his body as the shield charm
fell, instant evidence of his lack of concentration. Malfoy shivered against him, though Harry
couldn’t be certain if it was from the sudden drop in temperature or the kiss. Malfoy’s hand
came up to rest on the side of Harry’s neck, sliding up until he was cupping Harry’s jaw and
tilting his head slightly. Harry complied, gasping into the kiss when Malfoy nipped at his lip
with the points of his teeth. The hot slide of his tongue soothed over the tiny marks he’d
made in Harry’s bottom lip. Harry groaned into Malfoy’s mouth and fell against him, letting
Malfoy take his full weight.

Malfoy pulled back slightly, flicking at Harry’s wrist. The fingers of that hand were buried in
Malfoy’s hair and holding tightly; Harry had no idea when he’d done it, had thought his
hands were still firmly pressed against Malfoy’s robes that were spread out on the ground.
His other hand had made it to Malfoy’s hip, though, again, he had no idea when it had
happened. He blinked at Malfoy as a smirk crossed Malfoy’s face, drawing Harry’s gaze back
to his lips, red and damp from Harry’s tongue. Heat curled in his stomach as he watched them
part, Malfoy’s breath warm against the cool skin of his cheeks.
Malfoy cleared his throat as he looked at Harry, eyes darkening as his gaze flicked over
Harry’s face, not resting in one spot. His thumb swiped slowly over the hinge of Harry’s jaw,
a soft caress. “My overdue argument for you kissing me is that we obviously both want to.”

Harry pressed closer, nudging the point of Malfoy’s nose with his own. “Anything else?”

“That’s the only reason we need.” Malfoy kissed him again then, tugging Harry closer with a
hand on his jaw and keeping him there.

Harry did end up taking Draco on a proper date, though Draco insisted it was him taking
Harry out, despite all evidence to the contrary. He hadn’t known where the entrance to the
Hogwarts kitchens were before Harry showed him, so it couldn’t possibly have been his idea.

“I told you,” Draco said, tossing his coat over the back of one of the spindly wooden chairs in
the kitchens and seemingly materialising two open Butterbeers out of thin air, “I know how to
treat a romantic associate.”

It was an unspoken decision to make bread. They’d both noticed the large sacks of flour in
the corner of the room at the same time, had shared a wry smile and a quirk of the mouth.

“Is it slightly evil if we…” Draco asked, gesturing towards the sacks.

“Maybe,” Harry shrugged. “But Archie was cheeky enough that he’d probably find it funny.
You know, if he’d been capable of humour.”

“I don’t know, I think he was plenty capable.” Draco lugged one of the sacks over to the
nearest counter and untied the top. “I thought it was rather hilarious that everything he did
seemed to have the goal of making you look like a right tosser.”

“Ah,” Harry cried, pointing at Draco. “So you admit it.”

Draco narrowed his eyes and slipped a hand into the flour sack. “I admit nothing.” He tossed
a handful of flour at Harry, absolutely coating the front of his jumper and no doubt turning
his hair white. Harry didn’t much mind it, considering he got Draco back almost immediately,
shoving a handful of flour down the back of his shirt as he shrieked about fancy colognes and
expensive tailoring spells.

“How much of it was real, do you reckon?” Harry asked much later, when they were sitting
around one of the tiny tables in the corner of the kitchen, a steaming loaf of bread in front of
them.

“It all happened, if that’s what you mean.” Draco’s fingers curled around the knife as he
spread butter over one of the thick slices of bread. “Just because the attachment charm was
involved didn’t make it not real.”

“It still feels real, sometimes.” Harry took the buttered slice from Draco and bit into it,
moaning at the taste of fresh bread.
“For me too. When I look at the stars, especially.”

“Or see pumpkin,” Harry said with a smile. “Or mushy peas.”

Draco face twisted into a grimace. “I can’t eat them anymore, not after that godawful shared
spoon incident. Turns my stomach.”

“You’re lucky I even want to kiss you, after that,” Harry teased. “Reckon you’ll lose your
mind like that when you have a proper one?”

“A proper kiss?” Draco asked, swiping the smeared butter from Harry’s lips with his tongue.
He rolled his eyes at Harry’s put-out expression when he leaned back. “I expect that I’ll likely
be that way with a proper child, yes. One could only assume that the attachment charm
exacerbated our existing parental instincts, rather than creating them out of thin air.”

“You’re destined for a life like the Weasleys, then. A whole house full.”

“Not of gingers,” Draco said, pretending to vomit, smirking when Harry flicked a bit of
butter at him. His gaze lingered on Harry’s hair for a moment, a tinge of pink colouring his
cheeks. “Just a few would be sufficient, I think.”

“Yeah,” Harry said, linking their fingers together on the tabletop. “Just a few.”

Draco pursed his lips for a moment before scoffing, though it sounded incredibly forced.
“Merlin alive, this is all a bit sappy. Come on, best get back before Filch tans our arses.”

“Couldn’t have that,” Harry agreed, giving Draco a light smack on the bottom. He got a slice
of bread chucked at him for his efforts, but he couldn’t help but think it was worth it.

They made their way up to the Entrance Hall quietly, stopping in one of the alcoves when the
sound of shuffling footsteps came closer. Harry leaned back against the cool stone wall as
they waited. There was a window there, one with an arched top and thin panes held together
with black strips of lead.

“Did Archie enjoy the stars when you showed him?” he asked, smiling softly at the thought.

Draco snorted quietly, tapping his shoe against the side of Harry’s. “Not really. Not enough
action up there, I think. Though it might have been different if he’d been able to see his
namesake in the sky. That always grabbed my attention as a child.”

“We should go see it,” Harry said, turning his head to smile at Draco. “After school’s
finished, when it’s summer.”

Draco swallowed, his throat illuminated by the thin strips of moonlight that made their way
into the shadowed alcove. “You remember Eridanus is in the Southern Hemisphere, yes?”

Harry nodded. “That doesn’t change my suggestion. Does it change your answer?”

Draco regarded him for a long moment, his face unreadable. He stepped closer to Harry when
he finally answered, linking their fingers together and squeezing. “No, it doesn’t change my
answer. It would always have been a yes.”

Harry made it up to Gryffindor Tower a fair bit later with flour still clinging to his clothes.
The familiar scent of it filled his nose as he slipped into bed, the space lit by the silver rabbit
darting around inside the glass dome of Archie’s nightlight. He smiled as he thought about
Draco mirroring his position down in the Slytherin dorms, his hand tracing up and down the
back of the peacock toy that he’d confessed to sleeping with in the weeks since Archie had
been changed back.

Harry wondered if Draco was too excited to sleep just as Harry was, if he was consumed by
thoughts of their future holiday, whether he was already crafting a list of places they could
go, where the best spots to see the Southern constellations would be. He wondered if Draco
would find it funny if he brought a bit of flour along with them to sprinkle on the ground
there. He probably would, just as Archie would have. Because Archie had been them, had
been him and Draco, down to their very essence. Had been and, Harry hoped, would be, for a
long time yet.

He fell asleep that night with the silver light of the rabbit shifting against his closed eyelids,
the familiar scent of flour in his nose, and the memory of Draco’s soft caresses against his
skin.

Far away, in the Southern Hemisphere, Eridanus continued to shine.

End Notes

This work is part of the ongoing H/D Kidfic Fest, an anonymous fest featuring kids in Harry
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