look up for blue sky through the spout
Some days, like this one, were good.
If there was one thing that could surely pull Harry from his sleepy, slow life, it was Teddy.
Teddy, who bounced off of any surface he came across. Who’s hair slipped from auburn to a haunting blue to emerald green and Gryffindor gold. Who, when he slept, had hair the colour of his fathers and eyes the colour of his mothers.
Sometimes, Harry looked at him and didn’t know what to do with all of his grief.
Others, he laughed.
“Teddy!” he shouted with glee. He was in the process of trying to get him off of the ceiling but he ran like a star sprinter. Harry cast a quick cushioning charm over the entire floor and bounced around a little as he chased after him, grabbing onto a tuft of hair here or a shoulder there.
It was warm in Andromeda’s study. The hearth was never extinguished. He chased and chased and chased and then, just as he thought he had him, Teddy fell.
Fear momentarily shocked its way through him until he realised that Teddy was not falling, but floating.
“You did it!” Teddy shouted, his little hands grabbing the air as he shook with glee.
Harry blinked at him. “I didn’t do anything.”
Behind him, someone cleared their throat.
Dressed in fine, emerald robes Malfoy lowered his wand before crouching down and holding his arms wide. Harry, stupidly, took a step forward as if to return it but Teddy beat him to it, throwing himself into Malfoy’s arms and allowing himself to be closed around. Malfoy’s arms held him so firmly, so solidly, that there was no threat of falling at all.
“You just did magic,” Harry said stupidly.
“Observant as always, Potter.” Malfoy lowered Teddy gently back to the ground. He looked a little frazzled, but otherwise just as he had that day in the Ministry. “They changed the rules. I’m allowed to cast three spells a day.”
“And you used one on that?” Harry asked incredulously. “I’d already casted a cushioning charm.”
Malfoy flicked his eyes over the ground as if he was able to inspect the quality of the spell. “Better safe than sorry.”
He thought of the rage he’d felt fetching coffee for him the other day. “Is that what you were doing last Friday? Convincing Kingsley to change the rules for you?”
“No,” Draco tutted. “We were discussing a business deal, if you must know.”
That time, Harry laughed. “A business deal. What kind of business?”
“Nothing that concerns you, Potter.”
It almost felt like being back at school again.