Chapter 3

Harry hadn't finished unpacking by any stretch of the imagination, but he'd at least begun to alter the plain living quarters into something resembling his own personal tastes. He'd decided that the next time he moved, he'd remember to label the packing boxes before shrinking them. Right now, the pile of cubes he'd tipped out on the sofa was a bit of a treasure hunt of enlarging the box, rummaging about, and then sending the items to where he thought they'd go best. All things considered, it likely meant he'd have to rearrange a half dozen times before he was truly settled in.

At least he'd found one of the important boxes – the box of family photos. The mantle above the fireplace was now graced with various photos from the first one he'd had of his parents to the last candid shot he'd had made with Jessie and Jamie before their deaths. He could look at that one finally without thinking he needed to remember how to breathe – without his chest constricting painfully enough to make it feel impossible – and was eternally grateful he'd used a wizarding camera.

Richard watched solemnly from his high chair, a half-eaten biscuit in one hand. Harry knew it was bad form to feed a baby sweets of any sort before dinner, but it was a well-deserved treat for the baby's patience during his father's haphazard unpacking. He'd had to transfigure one of the existing chairs into the baby's chair... he'd not yet found the box where he'd packed Richard's furniture. He'd have to find that by bedtime or transfigure something for a cot, he supposed.

He was halfway through sorting out one of the electronics boxes, glad that with Hermione's spell designs they'd function in Hogwarts once he'd set up his power panel out one of the windows. Another reason to be glad his quarters were in the lower levels of a tower with true windows and not charmed ones. As he pondered the advisability of unpacking this box when he hadn't yet found the furniture it belonged on, he heard a knock at the door and wondered who'd discovered not only that he'd arrived early, but where his quarters were. Only one way to figure that one out...

He opened the door to see a once-familiar blond standing outside, wearing clothes rather similar to Harry's own mixed Muggle and wizarding attire, although his robe was a deep blue rather than green. "Hello, Draco. How'd you manage to track me down already?" He motioned the other man inside.

"Severus met me on the way to his quarters and suggested I stop by to see if you needed any help."

"And you willingly agreed to help me unpack?" Harry asked, smiling. "Doesn't seem like the Draco I grew up with."

The blond shrugged. "The prat you grew up with went around blathering about blood purity and being stupid enough to want to be the Heir of Slytherin. You'll forgive me if I'd rather not be that Draco anymore."

"Thankfully growing up meant getting a bit smarter, yeah?" They'd at least settled their differences, that week before Harry had decided to leave Britain at the end of the war. In the years since, they'd not had a lot of contact, but Severus remained a constant source of news between them. Harry motioned to the pile of shrunken boxes on the sofa. "I should probably let the house-elves finish it, but it wouldn't seem much like my own place if I let them sort it out."

Draco laughed. "Not to mention what they'd do when they encountered your Muggle stuff. The last Cultural Studies professor had to ban the elves from doing anything other than dusting the classroom due to their bouts of confusion in what the stuff was."

A thump on the high chair's tray drew both their attention to the baby, who gave his best two-tooth grin now that he had both men's attention.

"Someone wants an introduction, I see." Harry crossed to his son to caress his baby-soft blond hair. "Draco, this is my son, Richard Severus."

Harry was mildly surprised when Draco came over to the baby and produced a hippogriff plushie from a pocket of his robes. He presented it to Richard, who instantly dropped the remains of the biscuit to take the offered toy.

"My daughter asked me to bring the toy. She's rather excited to hear there's a baby in our tower now." The soft smile Draco gave the baby reminded Harry that the Slytherin had had upheavals of his own in his personal life. He wasn't the cold and remote Malfoy Heir any more than Harry was the impetuous youth who'd feuded with him through six years at Hogwarts.

"How old is she now?"

"Just turned nine about two weeks ago."

"Seems a bit odd, trying to picture so many of my classmates with kids almost old enough for Hogwarts," Harry remarked.

The friendliness in the blond's expression cooled considerably and Harry wondered what he'd managed to say wrong, but before he could remark on it, Draco nodded.

"Not just almost. Severus has been rather horrified to realize he's got three Weasleys starting this year."

Feeling awkward but not wanting to offend further, Harry smiled hesitantly. "Three Weasley girls, no less, all starting with his own son. He's probably having nightmares."

Whatever had been wrong, that seemed to dispel the strange coolness from Draco's features. "He claims he is, but Andromeda only laughs and reminds him at least none of them were sired by either of the twins."

Harry pretended to shudder. The twins had managed to reproduce several impish near-replicas of themselves, at least as far as their love of pranks. Some of the stories Harry'd heard over the years had been enough to make him just a bit glad there'd been a large ocean between him and the newest generation of Weasley pranks. "Those will arrive soon enough. They've got six between them, after all."

"Don't remind me. I think Severus is glad he's retired from teaching, and I'm just glad I teach an elective. If I'm lucky they'll think Runes far too boring to darken my classroom door."

"Lucky you, teaching an elective." Harry laughed, and then remembered Draco had arrived to help him unpack. "If you want to start unshrinking boxes and levitating them to the correct room, that would be a big help."

Draco nodded and unshrunk a box with a wave of his wand. "Harry, you do realize that most people label their boxes when they pack, right?"

"I kept losing the markers."

The blond paused in unsealing the box to give him a mock glare. "Just how many of them are you going to unpack from various boxes?"

Harry laughed. "All of them, probably, considering Richard isn't old enough to pocket them."

That got him a shake of the head from Draco, who turned back to inspect the box's contents. "Baby things." He flicked his wand to direct the box toward the hallway. "I'll assume you want the baby in the unfurnished bedroom."

"Yeah. Good plan, so long as I find his actual furniture for bedtime." Harry peered into his own box, deciding he had various bathroom items and sent it to the bathroom wandlessly.

"Showoff." Draco had returned just in time to see Harry flick his hand at the box and it disappear.

"Like you couldn't manage the same now that you've seen the layout of the rooms."

"With my wand, yeah. Waving my hand, not unless you want to risk your stuff ending up in the Great Hall or similarly lost."

Absorbed in opening the next box, Harry shrugged. "Most of it's replaceable, at least."

Draco paused to look at the photos on the mantle. "Looks like you found one of the most important ones already."

Harry glanced over his shoulder and smiled. "Second box I unpacked. How's that for luck? Makes it feel like home with just those out."

"Family photos do have that effect." He reached out and picked up the photo of Harry, Jessie, and Jamie, studying the trio. They were all in Muggle attire, jeans and t-shirts, with Harry's jet-black hair a strong contrast to the honey-blonde of the brother and sister who flanked him. "Do you think Richard's hair will darken up to this shade?" he asked, almost absently.

After a moment, Harry answered, voice soft with emotion. "Merlin, I hope so."

Apologetic after his inadvertent reminder of Harry's loss, Draco replaced the photo and returned to the task of helping unpack. "Sorry. Sometimes my mouth engages before my brain. Not very Slytherin of me, I know."

"It's easier now, at least." Harry sent another box to its room and glanced at the blond. "Coming back to the wizarding world helps. I don't expect either of them to appear around the corner in this castle after all."

The other wizard nodded in understanding, then cast a Tempus charm. "It's nearly time for dinner. I can come back to help after, if you don't mind company later."

"If your daughter doesn't mind, I'd appreciate it."

"She'll think Christmas and her birthday both came at once if she gets to play with the baby while we finish up."

Sending the current box he was working on to the bedroom, Harry went to retrieve Richard from the high chair, where he had been content to gnaw on his new plushie. Casting a quick cleaning charm to clear the remains of the biscuit from chair, baby, and hippogriff, he gathered the baby up and settled him on his hip.

"Grab his bag, will you?" he asked Draco.

Passing the baby's bag to Harry, Draco gently touched one of the bright bits of green plastic nestled behind the baby's ears. "How well do these work?" he asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

"Not as well as I'd like. But at least he has some hearing with them."

Grey eyes met green. "And none without?"

"As far as we can tell, no. Muggle and wizard tests both show profound, irreversible hearing loss. None of the spells or potions tried worked. There's a Muggle thing, a type of electronic implanted in his ears, but it's not well-accepted in the Muggle deaf community and it'll destroy what little hearing he has."

"Does it matter what the Muggle deaf folk think?"

"Yeah. If he's not a wizard, I don't want to alienate him unnecessarily. Plus, I keep hoping some spell or potion advancement will help, and part of me worries that if I opt for the implants, there won't be enough left for his hearing to be restored."

"Understandable." The blond dropped his hand from the baby's ear and turned toward the door. "If there's a way to turn those off, you might want to before we reach the Great Hall. I suspect there will be a lot of feminine shrieking in delight when they lay eyes on him."

Harry couldn't help the laughter that drew his son's gaze upward to him, Richard's expression curious over the stuffed toy. "You just might be right about that."

Draco's rich laugh joined Harry's, and he led the way to the door. Harry was a bit shocked to realize how comfortable he'd found the other man's company. It would be nice to do more than bury past enmity and perhaps manage a true friendship with his old rival.