[FIC] Jupiter, in the Sky :: Harry/Draco, others | gift for westwardlee
Title: Jupiter, in the Sky
Author:
Recipient: westwardlee
Pairing: Harry/Draco, mentions of Draco/Astoria and Harry/Ginny
Rating: R
Word Count: ~3,600
Warnings: Adultery, angst, epilogue-compliant.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Sometimes, all it takes for things to change is time.
Author's Notes: Thank you to E for all of her help and hand-holding. I would never have been able to finish this without her. ♥ Also, a big thanks to thescarletwoman for putting up with my craziness and having the patience of a saint. <3 westwardlee, I hope I hit enough of your request to make this enjoyable. :)



“Congratulations,” says Luna. She smiles brightly at Harry and reaches up to tuck a stray strand of hair back behind her ears. Then she tugs at his sleeve with one hand and, with the other, points up. “You can see Jupiter tonight.”

Harry peers up towards the night sky. “The bright one, there?”

Luna nods fervently. “Yes, a lovely little starry-eyed planet, don’t you think?”

Harry frowns. “I suppose.”

“Perfect evening for a wedding,” continues Luna. “You picked a good night to get married.” She glances around the garden, then lowers her voice to a soft whisper and says, “The Double-Eyed Ewals are afraid of Jupiter’s light, you know. You should both be safe.”

Harry nods again, his default response for time where he doesn’t know what Luna’s on about. She smiles at him again and presses a quick kiss against his cheek. “I’ll see you after,” she says before wandering off towards the house, leaving Harry standing alone in the garden.

He stares up at the sky for a long time. Am I doing the right thing? He reaches out towards the stars and his fingers curl into a loose fist, grasping at air. The doubt is nearly overwhelming, and Harry can’t remember having been this nervous in a long time. Without thinking, he closes his eyes and concentrates, letting the familiar squeeze of Apparition overwhelm him. He’ll be back in time, he assures himself. He just needs to get away, to think about what he’s doing.

He’ll come back, he tells himself. He’ll come back.

He has to, because this is what he wants to do. What he needs to do.

What he has to do.

+

Ginny is four months pregnant with their firstborn when the Minister calls Harry to his office. He’s nervous, because in the few years that he’s been an Auror, he has never once been called in for a formal meeting like this. He does his work, he listens to his superiors and he follows the rules and regulations (well, for the most part). He can’t for the life of him figure out what he’s done to warrant this vague, secretive summons.

Kingsley opens the door to his office before Harry can knock. “Have a seat, Harry,” he says, motioning for Harry to come inside. “We’re still waiting on someone else.”

Harry frowns slightly as he takes his seat. Kingsley sits down behind his desk and looks at some sort of old, official-looking piece of parchment. Harry stares at his hands and plays with the cuffs of his dress shirt.

After what seems like hours, there’s a knock at the door. Kingsley makes a waving motion towards it, unlocking it. “Come in,” he says, not looking up from his paper.

The door opens and Draco Malfoy peers inside the room. His perplexed expression shifts to one of unhappiness and irritation upon seeing Harry, but he stays silent as he steps inside and closes the door behind him. It is only once he’s sitting in the seat opposite Harry’s that he speaks. “You wanted to see me, Sir?”

“Yes,” Kingsley says without looking up. “The Rossetti case has reopened, and I think that the two of you may be able to crack it.”

Harry stares. “You want us to work together? He isn’t even an Auror, sir. He’s a clerk. How can he help me?”

Malfoy bristles at him, clearly offended by Harry’s dismissive tone. “I’m a researcher, Potter. I work in the Department of Records, thank you very much.”

Harry shrugs at him. “Fine, you read books all day, Malfoy. That still doesn’t help me.”

Malfoy twitches and looks as though he’s going to say something else, but Kingsley chooses that moment to cut in, most likely to keep their argument from escalating. “Potter, Malfoy has information on where Rossetti is hiding. Go downstairs and take a look at it.” Kingsley finally looks up from his desk and makes eye contact with the two of them. “I’m confident that you two will put aside your differences and find Rossetti before he kills anyone else.”

Harry easily read between the lines; work with Malfoy and find Rossetti, or Kingsley will murder him. “Yes, sir.”

Malfoy mumbles a similar sentiment and with that, Kingsley dismisses them. Malfoy storms out of the room and down the hall, his robes billowing behind him dramatically and reminding Harry vaguely of Professor Snape. Harry loiters outside of Kingsley’s office for a long time, thinking. He isn’t sure that this – the two of them working together – will end well.

After awhile, Harry pushes away from the wall and starts towards the Department of Records, hands in his pockets. He’s not sure, but he’s willing to give it a try.


+

Albus is born on a Tuesday, and Harry can't help but be fascinated that it's so quiet. When James had been born, he'd come into the world screaming and crying, loud and demanding. Albus was quiet, content.

Harry spends the day with Ginny, laughing and smiling. A slew of people stop by to congratulate them, and it's around noon when Malfoy stops by. The two of them have been working together for a few years at this point, and he knows Malfoy well enough to know that his wife, Astoria, is eight months pregnant with their firstborn and somewhere in the hospital herself – probably on the same floor, but Harry hasn't exactly spent the last few days exploring.

"He's cute," Malfoy says, giving Ginny a curt nod. Then he turns to Harry and says, "Fancy a drink, Potter?"

Harry does, he really does. But he and Malfoy aren't friends - they're coworkers - and he's quite sure Ginny will murder him if he goes to a pub. Hesitating, he throws a look at Ginny and says, "I wouldn't mind some coffee."

Ginny waves him away. "I'm going to fall asleep soon, Harry. Go get some coffee, and then you can keep an eye on Albus while I sleep. Mum will be dropping James off later, so you'll probably need it."

Harry nods and stands up, following Malfoy out the door.

"He's wrinkled," Malfoy states the moment the two of them are in the hallway.

Harry bites back a laugh and says, "Yeah."

"He doesn't look anything like you," continues Malfoy. "Are you sure it's yours?"

Harry sputters, indignant. "Of course I'm sure he's mine! He has my eyes, Malfoy."

The other man sniffs slightly. "If you say so," he says. "What sort of coffee do you want?"


Later that night Harry drops a cranky James off to spend the night with Teddy and Andromeda. Then he Apparates to the now-abandoned Number Four, Privet Drive and crawls into his old, dusty cupboard. He’s far too big to try this, all long and lanky limbs, but somehow he manages to squeeze his way inside. It’s cramped and ridiculously uncomfortable, but that doesn’t stop him from closing the door and sitting alone in the dark.

He shivers as he recalls his own childhood, and wonders for the second time in his life that with an example like that, can he really be a good father?


+

Upon reflection, Harry realizes that by the time Scorpius’ fourth birthday rolls around, he and Malfoy had worked together on – and solved – exactly fifty-six cases. Their solve rate is higher than any other pairing within the Ministry, something that both are extremely proud of. Malfoy finds the information and pieces it together; Harry runs with it and catches the bad guys.

Harry once decided to refer to it as ‘The Potter-Malfoy System: 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.’ That had been on their fifth or so case, a murder in Wales that had occurred right about the time that James had been born. Malfoy had choked on his drink, nearly spilling it all over his precious research parchments, but he’d laughed. Harry had been shocked and now pinpointed that as the moment where their relationship had started to improve.

Five years later, he still isn’t really sure if he can call them friends, but he knows that they definitely aren’t enemies anymore. Hermione tells him that ‘acquaintances’ is a good term to use; Ron seems to favor ‘coworkers’. Whatever the case might be, though, Harry is not at all surprised to find an invitation for him and his family to attend Scorpius’ birthday party.

Teddy doesn’t seem too interested in going until Harry reveals that Malfoy is his cousin. At twelve, Teddy is interested in learning about his extended family, and the idea of talking to someone who isn’t Harry or Andromeda about it seems to excite him. At four and five, Albus and James just seem excited at the mention of the word ‘party’. Lily is too young to really understand what’s happening, but she seems to understand that whatever it is, it’s exciting.

Ginny doesn’t seem too pleased with things, but she doesn’t say anything to indicate that she’s not okay with Harry taking the children, and Harry doesn’t bother to ask.

Later that night Ginny tells him that she’s going to turn in early because she’s not feeling well. Harry gives her a quick kiss on the cheek and the moment that she’s gone he’s disappears with a pop, his destination an old, open field about half an hour from their home.

He needs to be alone.



+

Andromeda dies on a Thursday in September, just days after Teddy leaves to start his fifth year.

Harry and Draco (Harry doesn’t remember when ‘Malfoy’ became ‘Draco’) are on a case in Hogsmeade when they learn the news. Dean Thomas arrives personally to tell Harry that it was a heart attack, his robes bearing the St. Mungo’s crest. He tells them that there was nothing that they could have done, that Andromeda had been dead at least a day by the time her sister had found her slouched in her favorite chair, a teacup lying shattered on the floor beside her.

It is Harry that makes the journey to Hogwarts to tell Teddy, Draco at his side. He had owled Ginny the day prior and asked her to floo over, but her reply had been dismissive. You can deal with it, she had written in a messy scrawl. I’m busy and I can’t break my plans. Harry had been infuriated when he’d read it, and he couldn’t remember having ever been so angry with his wife before.

Today he isn’t quite as furious. He’s still angry, yes, but he’s also relieved that Draco had offered to come in her place. He and Teddy had become close in the years since that birthday party, and Harry is glad to know that if something happens to him, Draco will be there for Teddy and, hopefully, his other children as well.

Nowadays, he works with Draco on a daily basis, and he no longer hesitates when he refers to them as friends. In fact, if pressed, he’d probably say that Draco is his closest friend. Despite being related through marriage, Harry knows that he’s grown apart from Ron and Hermione over the years. The stress of having their own families and careers makes it difficult to get together as often as they used to. With Draco, they’re together every day and it’s easy to keep one another update on the newest happenings in their lives.

They make their way up to the seventh floor and stop just outside the gargoyle that guards the door to the Headmaster’s office, where they know that Neville and Teddy are waiting inside. Harry feels frozen, unsure. He wants to turn on his heels and make a run for it, wants to hide in his cupboard, and wants to Apparate away from his nervousness and his doubt. He wants to let Draco deal with this, because Teddy is enough like Harry that he already knows what the reaction will be.

Draco stands tall beside Harry and doesn’t let him run. He reaches out with one hand and grasps Harry’s arm, fingers tightening around the curve of his wrist. “Come on,” he says, pulling Harry towards the Gargoyle. “It’s time.”

Teddy reacts to the news of his Grandmother’s death much in the same way that Harry had expected. He knew what to expect because once, many years ago, he’d reacted the very same way in this very same office to Sirius’ death.

By the time Teddy is finished, Neville’s office is half-destroyed. Harry manages to still Teddy by grabbing the blue and bronze tie wrapped around his neck. He wrestles the wand from his grasps and tosses it to Neville before wrapping his arms around Teddy, holding tight. Neville gives him a nod and turns to leave his office, but Draco stays in the doorway, watching.

Harry sinks to the floor with Teddy crying and clinging to him, and he thinks that he’s glad he didn’t run.


+

Draco divorces Astoria the year that James begins school.

Harry is the first person to find out, and the only one outside the family to know the entire story. It was, contrary to what the newspapers are content to print, a mutual decision. There was no abuse, no scandals and it had nothing to do money. Quite simply, Astoria and Draco had fallen out of love and had decided that Scorpius was finally old enough to handle the news.

“When did it happen?” Harry asks, peering at Draco over the top of the parchment clutched tightly in his hands. It’s a letter from Albus, detailing all the things that he’s missed in the past two weeks. He and Draco have been in Barcelona since the beginning of the month, and Harry can honestly say that while he misses his children and his godson something fierce, he can’t help but be relieved to be away from Ginny and her nagging.

Draco does not look up. “When did what happen?”

“When did you and Astoria fall out of love?” Harry clarifies, looking at him closely.

Something that Harry thinks might be a smile twists at Draco’s lips. “A few years ago,” he says, finally looking up. “We were…content. We’re still good friends, no hard feelings or anything. Why?”

Harry chews at his bottom lip for a moment. “Just curious,” he says. “Just seems like a long time to stay with someone when you aren’t really happy.”

Harry doesn’t understand the piercing look that Draco shoots him, and he isn’t sure that he wants to.


+

By the time that Albus leaves for school a year later, Harry and Ginny have moved into separate rooms.

Harry pinpoints the letter that Ginny had sent him after Andromeda died as the moment when things had turned sour between them. Ginny, on the other hand, maintains that it all began when he started working with Malfoy. Harry doesn’t understand her logic, because he doesn’t understand what she’s implying.

Harry spends a lot of time away that year, desperate to get away from Ginny, to get away from the stress and the panic that threatens to suffocate him. He risks International Apparition one day and goes to visit Luna while she’s in Africa. He spends long afternoons laying in the field near their home, staring at the sky and thinking back to that day so many years when he stared at the sky from the garden outside their home and wondered if he was doing the right thing.

+

The first time that Harry kisses Draco, Ginny is sitting in the next room, talking with Albus and James. Harry and Draco had just returned from Berlin, where they'd been chasing a serial murderer that had started his work in London.

Harry stands on the front porch and stares at the door, not wanting to go inside just yet. He can hear his family inside, Ginny laughing at something that James had said. He thinks that all that's missing is Lily, who's visiting Rome with Hermione and Ron this week, and Teddy, who doesn't seem to be too fond of coming around the house when Ginny's there. He, like Harry, had been less than impressed with her reaction to his grandmother's death.

Another bout of laughter drifts outside, and Harry curls his hands into fist, holding them down by his side. He looks at Draco, who is standing next to him. "I really hate her," he says finally. He doesn't say Ginny's name, but he knows that Draco will understand.

"Why don't you leave her?" Draco says after a long moment. "You're not happy."

"I can't leave her," Harry says, "I couldn't do that to the kids."

Draco tilts his head slightly, looking at Harry out of the corner of his eye. "So you'll let yourself be miserable until Lily leaves Hogwarts? She's only going to start her second year this September – you'll have a long wait."

Harry grinds his teeth. "I know, but it's the right thing to do."

"You're an idiot," says Draco.

"Shut up."

"No, really," says Draco. "You're a total idiot."

"I said shut up," Harry says, pushing at the other man.

Draco loses his balance and stumbles back a bit. Straightening up, he frowns and shoves back. Harry isn't really sure when shoving turns into pulling, but suddenly he finds himself pressing Draco against the side of the house, pulling and tugging him closer as they kiss. Draco tastes of coffee, a bitter taste that Harry can't get enough of as he kisses him harder.

Harry can feel Draco's hands resting on his hips, long fingers digging hard into the curve of his hip. Harry knows that tomorrow, there will be bruises. He thinks that the thought should upset him, because it's like he's being marked, but it doesn't upset him in the least.

The kiss goes on for what seems like forever when Draco finally shoves Harry away. "You're married," he says blandly, straightening his tie.

Harry purses his lips. "Yeah," he says. "You're right. We shouldn't do this."

They won't, he tells himself. They won't.

+

They spend their nights abroad together, their bodies twisting and tumbling together across the sheets. A part of Harry feels guilty, because he's cheating on his wife, but then Draco presses against him, lips curling into a smirk against Harry's, fingers tangling in his hair, and the guilt disappears almost immediately. Here with Draco, for the first time in a long time, Harry is happy.

"Stop thinking," says Draco, pressing a path of biting kisses into the curve of Harry's neck. He stops for a moment to press a fast, sloppy kiss against Harry's lips. "It's not a good look for you, Potter."

"Ha," replies Harry. He reaches forward with one hand and wraps his fingers tightly around Draco's wrist, pulling him forward. His other hand snakes down and wraps around the other man's cock, stroking slowly. "You're so funny."

"It's a gift," Draco mumbles. He makes a strangled sound when Harry tightens his grip and says, "Fuck me already, Potter."

"Harry," he corrects lightly, pressing Draco down into the bed.

"Harry," breathes Draco as he pulls him down for another long kiss. His fingers curl into the curve of Harry's hips, and he knows that it will bruise. He presses his fingers into Draco's shoulders and grips him tightly as he slides in, a litany of cursing falling from his lips. It's tight and hot and amazing, and Harry thinks he might die here and be happy.

He knows that this is how being with someone is supposed to feel. He also knows that he's married, and that he has a wife he can barely speak to anymore back at home. He's got children. He's got a job.

He's got a life that he's spent years trying to build.

And in that moment, he knows that it will come tumbling down around him, but he can't bring himself to care. He'll fix it all later, he thinks.

Later.

+

Harry and Ginny divorce on a sunny Wednesday in late July.

Harry spends that night laying outside, staring at the sky. Am I doing the right thing? he thinks, lazily stretching his hands up towards the sky. If he squints, he swears he can see Jupiter, just as he had so many years before with Luna.

He's so lost in his thoughts that he doesn't hear Draco approach, and it's only when the other man sits down beside him that Harry opens his eyes and looks over to him. "Hey," Harry says.

"Heard you and your wife split," Draco says, studying the ground. "Bit late in the game, isn't it?"

"It was time," Harry says after a moment. "We...it was time."

Draco leaned back in the grass and followed Harry's gaze up to the sky. "I hope you know that you're not going to immediately move in with me, Potter."

"I would never be so presumptuous," says Harry dryly.

"Good," Draco says, leaning back. "I mean, we've been shagging for nearly two years now, but you still have yet to take me on a proper date."

He raises an eyebrow. "We got out every week. We were in Dublin a week ago, Draco."

"That's for work," Draco says, studying the stars. "It's not the same thing."

Harry doesn't reply, and they sit in silence for a moment. "I'm not really sure what to do now."

Draco doesn't reply for a long time, and then after what seems like hours he tilts his head back and says, softly, "You can see Jupiter tonight."

Harry smiles despite himself. He's not sure what he's doing. He's not sure if this is the right thing to do.

But at least he knows that he isn't alone.