Chapter 42
“Can’t catch me!” Teddy squealed. He bolted away from Draco, running as fast as a three year old could across the lawn. Two smaller children squealed and did their best to run, too.
Draco raised his hands up above his head and stomped after the lot of them. “Grr, I’m a wolf and I’m going to gobble you piggies up!” he play-growled to the children’s delight. He swooped down and tried to grab Teddy, but the little boy dodged out of the way with a shriek and ran off in the other direction. Draco adopted his play-wolf persona and stomped around more until he captured the smallest of the bunch. He lifted little Hugo up and blue raspberries on his neck while the toddler shriek laughed.
“Do it to me! Do it to me!” Teddy returned to demand. Draco tickled Hugo one last time before picking up his cousin to do the same.
They wouldn’t get many beautiful days left in the year and Draco wasn’t one to squander one.
He chased the children until Teddy grew bored of the game and decided he was the wolf now. He told the two small children they were his wolf pack and the three of them charged after Draco. Draco held back his laughter as the children followed him around a bench before he let them catch up. The three little ones grabbed his legs, and Draco didn’t have to try hard at all to fall over onto the ground so the lot of them could climb up on him. Teddy knew how to blow raspberries, but Rose hadn’t learned yet and was just rubbing her face against Draco’s shoulder as if that would accomplish anything. Draco laughed as the kids crawled over him and studiously attempted tickling.
“Ukle ‘Arry!” said Rose in her toddler voice Draco couldn’t quite decipher. The other kids could clearly parse it, because they both looked up and yelled excitedly before crawling off Draco and running back towards the house. Draco rolled over and pushed himself up to seated so he could find out what was going on.
Clearly she had said Uncle Harry, Draco realized as he watched the king crouch down to the three children and accept all their hugs. King Harry lifted his godson up and spun him around, eliciting more giggles and joyful wollaps. Of course, it also caused the younger child equivalent of “do it to me!” demands and the king had to cycle through each of the children, until it looped back around to Teddy who insisted he had never received a turn. King Harry looked more at ease then, as he gave in to Teddy’s pressure for another spin, than Draco had ever seen before. After the king put his godson down he pulled out something from his jacket pocket, which must have been a treat of some sort. The children accepted jubilantly, and were sent off to gnaw on their snack and transform into sticky messes.
Then King Harry was walking towards Draco. Draco’s eyes widened as he watched the king approach, all roguish with his stubble and his jacket billowing behind him. It made Draco think dirty thoughts. He tried to suppress them, but it had only been a few days since the ball and the king’s naked body was still too top of mind. The king paused a couple steps away, staring inquisitively down at Draco who was still down on the ground. Draco had a sudden thought that the king might do something awful like offer to help him to his feet, and then Draco would have to stay calm while holding his hand. Draco quickly scrambled up before the king could decide. He made a point of pulling his coat up and around him so his neck and chin was tucked in under the collar and the king would only be able to look at the part’s of his face that had been covered by his mask.
“Hello, your majesty,” Draco greeted with the perfect accompanying bow. He adopted Percy-esc levels of formality as a defense mechanism.
The king did that forced smile thing that was his version of a polite response. “I should have known you’d be out with the children,” King Harry said.
Draco wrinkled his brow, not sure if that was well intended. So Draco only said, “I hate to see them cooped up inside.”
The king nodded. “It was kind of you to take the time,” he said. Draco eyed him warily, since it was unlike the king to say nice things about Draco, little less acknowledge his efforts. The king saw it and huffed, but didn’t comment. He just got straight to business. “I wanted to talk with you. Teddy will be coming to the castle again in October. Would you accompany him again?”
Draco’s eyes widened. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Not that he’d been expecting anything, really. In the king’s mind, they hadn’t spoken in ages and had left things rather tense. Draco tried to imagine back to four days ago before… everything. He couldn’t put himself in that space. It was completely lost to him.
Draco cleared his dry throat and asked, “What’s the occasion?”
“Nothing, really,” King Harry said. “I just want to get him more familiar with the place, show him it’s alright. That sort of thing. Andromeda reckons he should stay a week or so and we should avoid any fanfare. We might have some close friends visit so he associates it with people he actually likes.”
Draco nodded, but inside he was petrified and his voice sounded cold. “Seems wise.” It came out icy.
“You think it a bad idea?” The king questioned.
Draco swallowed down his feelings. “Not at all.”
The king’s eyes narrowed, but again he let the things Draco didn’t say go. “So you’ll come, then?”
Draco turned to Teddy, who was back to running around with his friends with nursemaid supervision while the adults did boring conversation. It seemed like the king would soon be taking him away for good and he wanted Draco’s help in the process. Draco felt cold again and bundled himself up further into his jacket, hunching in on himself in the process.
King Harry took it as rejection. He said bluntly, “If you don’t want to just say so. We’ll get by without you.”
It was a far cry from the king’s gentle coaxing and promises to give Draco whatever he wanted. Draco squeezed his arms in tighter. His mind was buzzing, drowning out any words he might want to say.
The king shifted gears. “What’s up with you? You never miss a chance to speak your mind.”
Draco squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and forced out a strained laugh. He couldn’t handle this any more than he could handle his mother’s expectations. The pressure was too much and Draco didn’t want to fight. “I’ll do whatever is most helpful, your majesty. Just say the word.”
The king stared at Draco like the younger man had gone mad. He pulled his hands to his hips and narrowed his eyes. “Are you mocking me? Is that what this is?”
Draco took in the king’s pinched face and grouchy eyes. He couldn’t help but laugh at it. “I’m really not. What was it you said? I’m being normal and listening to your direction. I’m doing what you wanted.”
The king clearly didn’t believe it one bit. “You’re up to something,” he accused.
This time Draco could only gape. “What could I possibly be up to?” he demanded to know. “One second I’m playing big bad wolf with toddlers, and the next you’re here telling me your plan to take Teddy away. I’ve already agreed to do my part, now tell me what you’d have of me and let me be.”
Suspicion melted off King Harry’s face as he listened, to be replaced with sympathy. “I’m not taking Teddy away, Draco.” Draco snorted and refused to look at him. “It’s for one week. Then he’ll be back.”
“One week, this time,” Draco snarked. He didn’t want to fight, but Draco eased into the familiarity of bickering with King Harry and the pressure of the king’s presence eased.
The king also released his tension, as if he’d been waiting for the same familiar routine. “Only you would turn one week into a banishment. It’s one week. And before you get all paranoid that I’m lying, you should know Ron and Hermione just agreed to move to Andromeda’s cabin down the way when they’re not in court, so Hermione and the kids can be closer when Ron’s guarding Teddy.”
Everything aside, this was quite the news. The cabin was named such because it was a smaller house at the far side of the property which once housed gamesmen. By smaller, Draco meant smaller than the giant manor house, not small like an actual cabin. It was a large holding for the sixth son of a minor lord, especially since he’d married a tradesmen’s daughter.
“Teddy will be staying here?” Draco asked, not quite believing it.
The king pulled back his exasperation in his best attempt to take Draco’s concern seriously. “Yes, Draco. For a while, at least. The boy is only three. Let’s let him get to at least ten before we throw him to the vultures.”
Relief washed over Draco. Ten was ages away. There would never be enough time, but he did not need to panic right this moment. He was a bit self conscious over how strongly he’d reacted to a misunderstanding. Draco did his best to straighten himself out and project aloofness when he said, “You won’t expect me to be joining as a babysitter will you.”
The king didn’t hold back his eye roll, this time. “You never let a thing go.”
Draco scoffed. “I offered to do it your way and you got all huffy and suspicious and wouldn’t accept it. I suppose my way is the only option.”
“And what is your way?”
Draco’s stomach lurched at the question. He suspected his way might be carrying on where he and the king had left off in the King’s bed chambers, only this time without lies or masks. It was a fantasy. Draco cleared his throat, and forced out instead, “You don’t treat me like a babysitter, for starters. I won’t be a servant for you to dispose of once you realize I’m not a magician and can’t actually stop Teddy from having tantrums.”
“Of course I don’t expect that-”
Draco cut the king off. “And I’m not going to help you put him in cruel situations again! That was awful and he deserves better.”
“We talked about that-”
“And you don’t get to invite me under false pretenses of being a family friend and then turn around and tell me I’m to shut up, be normal, and do as you say. You can’t treat me worse than everyone else just because you hate me.”
“I don’t-”
“And I can leave if I hate it! I’m not stuck there just because I said yes once.”
Draco was breathing heavily as he waited for King Harry to talk again. The king held his tongue, trying to cover his smirk behind his hand.
“Well?” Draco demanded now that the king was silent.
King Harry’s smirk grew. “Your demands are immensely reasonable.”
“Good!” Draco couldn’t restrain the vehemence. The king’s agreement didn’t make him feel better, and he wanted to push against it in case that helped. In his mind, Draco kept hearing King Harry say “I’ll do anything you want” and he felt the need to prove the king hadn’t meant it. Draco prodded, “I’m not sure I want to go, in any case. It sounds boring.”
That turned the king’s smirk into a scowl. “How can it be more boring than Grimmauld Place?”
Draco feigned indifference with a shrug. “My friends visit all the time here.”
“You’ll have friends,” the king grumbled, disgruntled that he’d stumbled into a position of defending himself to Draco.
Draco raised a brow skeptically. “Luna?”
“Well, I wasn’t planning on her…”
“Percy then.”
“Percy? Why would I invite Percy?” He sounded incredulous.
Draco’s lips thinned. He continued on, but didn’t hide his disdain. “I suppose George would be acceptable.”
The king actually threw up his hands. “I have friends you actually like. You get on with Ron, he’ll be there the whole time.”
Draco’s stare was cold enough to chill. “Thank you ever so for the invitation, sadly I have to pass.”
King Harry took an actual step back and ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Come on, you’re being ridiculous.”
Draco sniffed, managing to look down on the king while staying huddled in his coat. His voice was the same ice cold as before when he said, “I suppose we’ll just have to invite my mother.”
The king actually took a second step away. The frustration was gone and replaced with astonishment. “You can’t be serious,” he said, deadly serious.
“There’s nothing wrong with her that’s not also wrong with me,” Draco stated flatly.
“Teddy doesn’t like her,” said the king.
Draco blinked long and slow. That was that then. “I thought I wasn’t going as Teddy’s keeper. I was to be a guest, just like everyone else. I suppose it was not so reasonable a demand, afterall.”
“C’mon, Draco,” Harry started, but Draco was already leaving.
Proving the king hadn’t meant his kindness to Draco hadn’t solved anything. Draco just felt horrible, and, on top of that, foolish. Plus, it was embarrassing to be storming out on the same man over and over. All of the pressure and overwhelming feelings fell back on top of Draco’s shoulders and he couldn’t handle it. He needed to do more than storm away, he needed to go somewhere else. Somewhere he and his mother wouldn’t face rejection.
Draco found his mother in the drawing room. Ten minutes later he had her ready to walk out the front door.
“Where are you going?” said the King, who’d come up behind them.
Draco ignored his mother’s deep courtesy and appropriate greeting. He hunkered down into his coat again to hide whatever parts of him that could be recognized, if the king wasn’t so oblivious.
“We’re going out,” Draco said. “It will surprise you to learn, but some people enjoy our company just for ourselves.”
Draco cut off his mother’s protest at his harsh language while shepherding her out the door.