Harry had a habit of ignoring things that made him upset until they piled up so high inside of him that they had no choice but to burst and destroy everything within a 5 foot radius. Valeria Cross was pretty sure that was just an expression until the air around her was sizzling and the glass sconces were vibrating.
"Uh...Hare? Anything on your mind?" she asked and he looked over towards her in that way he did sometimes where his eyes were blank and he was staring right at her, but it was like he wasn't seeing her at all. He had done it before. Of course he had. He was a single father and was traumatized by his past when she had first met him. She had given him passes back then, but his trances had never been more blank or more unguarded with a look of somebody who just wanted to be needed than after Draco had come and gone.
When she didn't say anything else for a while, Harry turned his unfocused gaze elsewhere again and began fiddling with the button clasp on the left wrist of his jacket sleeve. When they had first gotten together she thought it was just a nervous tick, that though Harry could do some things ambidextrously he was mostly left handed.
She had been wrong.
Harry favored his right hand, which means, looking back, Draco had probably always favored the darker man's left. It was more of a lonely tick than a nervous one, she corrected mentally. She didn't want to think about the fact that he wasn't alone since she was sitting right there and the kids were upstairs, because she knew she wasn't who he wanted there.
It wasn't too complicated to ease back into the routine they had taken up when she was dating him, but it's clear there was a gaping Draco Malfoy sized hole in the center of this family. From there it wasn't hard to see all the places that he had fit into, all the nooks and crannies that he had filled in her boys' lives. All the places that were too big for her now.
Val would walk James and Teddy to school, since Harry was too out of it to do anything but go to work and come home and apologize and try to clean the house, mostly because he only knows how to help everyone else. After school she watched the boys walk to Draco's house down the block from their school, because the one day he had come to get them he saw her there and never came back. He sends them home by floo, which, she finds out while reading curled up on the couch, is the fireplace. When June hits and the summer comes, the boys floo to Draco's place for days at a time. Ron and Hermione pick them up from there for weekends at the Weasleys'.
The boys seem happier for it, but the floo- and the rest of Draco's home -is "unplottable", whatever that means which sends Harry into even more of a tizzy because Draco won't even face him like a man. She is pretty sure that's what hurts Harry the most, though. That he is being tortured but he doesn't even know why, as if having a reason will justify it.
She doesn't understand why the actual-bloody-fuck Harry loves this guy so much when he continues to leave him whenever he feels like it, with no even thought about how Harry might feel. She tells all her friends that like DL Black that he's a coward and a fraud and they look at her like she's lost it.
The next time Valeria Cross sees Draco Malfoy in person, they are both in the grocery picking up James' favorite cereal. It's been three years since her accident and her one year anniversary with Harry is coming up soon. DL Black has been on tour three times and released another album. The boys have been spending weeks with Draco over the summer and when he notices who it is looking at him she can almost physically see him age 30 years. He looks so weary to see her that she can't seem to keep her festering anger alive.
"Hey, Draco, how're you?"
"Fine," he says before grabbing two boxes of cereal, dropping them into the basket in his hand and turning away to head towards the cashier. "Goodbye."
She looked in his direction in shock before storming after him.
Draco Malfoy had been having a perfectly okay, afternoon, thank-you-very-much. He had turned down a promotion at his muggle job and took a raise instead, he had the boys for the rest of the week, and his Aunt Andromeda was coming over for tea. He steered his body towards the cashier when he heard that woman coming after him. He placed the basket on the counter and left. He'd just be back later.
He didn't want to see her. It hurt to see her. To know that Harry had her and was happy with her. That the messy haired ravenette had preferred her.
"You didn't even buy anything!" she yelled after him once he had made it empty-handed to the automated door. He pretended he couldn't hear her and rushed as far away from the grocer as he could. Before he could apparate there was a hand and nails digging into his arm. "You are a coward, Draco Malfoy. Nothing but a cow-"
"So you've caught on then have you?" He said angrily to her, finally breaking. "I dont like you, so I know I can't face him. He'll want us to be friends and be happy, but I wake up some mornings and I hate you. I hate you for taking him from me. I wake up with a hex on my lips and the urge to murder you in your sleep...but I couldn't do that to him."
"Y-You hate me?" she looked at him aghast. "How do you think I feel about you!? He's been a fucking shell of a man after you left him. Again. All you ever do is leave him. Whenever things get too hard for you, you leave, huh?"
"Seemed like the best option to get out of the way when it was clear he wanted someone else," he said turning and snatching his arm from her grip. He continued to walk a bit further and yet she still followed behind him.
"What the hell do you mean he wanted someone else? He's barely talked since you-"
"I saw you!" he finally snapped. "Okay? I saw you two kissing! The boys and I came to the hospital. They wanted to see you. Potter had just run off, I was trying to make sure you weren't dead. Look, he made his decision, so I made mine. I'm here for the boys, not either of you. Goodbye." This time he disapparated without a second thought. She wouldn't be catching up with him this time.
Draco reappeared just on his lawn and he hurriedly made his way up the porch steps and into his house before getting an excited floo call from the boys. Teddy, who was already a student at Hogwarts and James Lucius, who was heading there once the summer ended, were bubbling over with energy to tell the blonde musician that Potter and Aunt Val were taking them on a camping trip before school started.
Draco smiled at his boys because it would hurt them if he didn't, but inside he felt his heart break a little more. He called up Serafina. If the boys didn't need him he should probably finish recording his next album. He wasn't needed here.
It's with a start, he realizes he never had been.
-&-
[grammar edits: dec 27, 2018]
hey futher muckers
ooooooh shit. time skip
and sad dads
only one more chappie
how are you guys?
what did you think?
how'd you like it?
love it? hate it? lemme know!
but i hope you enjoyed
love y'all
-- angel janeé xoxo 💋
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Favoring The Bold {Drarry}
Fanfiction{A Family of Favors book 1} Harry always felt like families were just a fickle idea, so when Malfoy wanted to become a famous musician Harry was fine with raising their son alone. A son that 8 years later Draco still didn't know existed. What happen...
