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Current mood:

good

Why did it take me so long to write this? Great big thanks to velja for the encouragement!
I promise to read your latest chapter later today.

Title: Heroes
Author: chris
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: G
Pairing: none in this (chars are Harry, Scorpius and Albus Severus)
Length: ~2400
Disclaimer: No, not mine.
Summary: Harry Potter tells a story



“Dad?”
Albus Serverus Potter stuck his head through the halfway opened door to his father’s study and waited patiently for his father to acknowledge his presence.
Harry Potter was sitting in a comfortable chair next to the fireplace with papers spread out all over his legs and the arms of the chair, scribbling onto a scroll. He looked quite busy and Albus almost regretted having spoken but then his father looked up at the door and a smile spread over his face.

“Albus, you’re back. How was your afternoon with Teddy?”

“Oh, Teddy was very busy with Victoire, but Aunt Andromeda let us help in the kitchen and made cookies with us. Did you know that she is a relative of Scorpi?”

Harry smiled gently at the blond boy standing behind his son, who was blushing furiously and looking at his feet.
“Yes, I know that Andromeda is your great aunt, isn’t that right? Your Grandmother Narcissa was her sister.”

The boy nodded but didn’t look up. He had been staying at the Potters for three days and was still acting very shy around the adults. Harry sometimes took the time to watch his son and his best friend from afar without them noticing and the lively boy he had seen interacting with his children was completely different from the quiet one that was here with Albus now.

Maybe it wasn’t so surprising that Scorpius felt uncomfortable around Ginny and him, seeing how they didn’t know how to act around the son of Draco Malfoy themselves. Ginny, for the most part tried to ignore the presence of Scorpius, she wasn’t exactly unfriendly but didn’t go out of her way to talk to him either.

“You promised to tell us how Scorpi’s father saved your life. Can we hear the story now, please?” Albus was already sitting on the sofa across the fireplace and gesturing to Scorpius to follow him.

“We can come another time if you have to work, Mr. Potter.” It was possibly the first time Scorpius had adressed him directly and Harry smiled again and began shuffling the papers from his lap onto the desk.

“Oh no, don’t worry. It’s nothing that can’t wait and I promised Albus to tell the story when you are here. Come sit down with us.” Harry took the seat next to his son and patted the space next to him inviting Scorpius to sit on his other side.

“Did your Father ever tell you about the war?” he asked as the boy had scrambled into place beside him. He didn’t exactly know how to start telling the story of their capture by the Snatchers and it would be even more difficult if Scorpius had not been told anything about the history of the second war at all.

“He doesn’t much like to talk about it, but when I was little I had “The Adventures of Harry Potter” and he would read it to me every night. Only when I was older my father told me that it’s not only a children’s book but a real story and that most of it was true.”
“The Adventures of Harry Potter” was one of the few published books about the war that Harry Potter himself approved of. It was surprisingly accurate, didn’t embellish things too much and in Harry’s point of view painted a picture of the war against Voldemort that was neither a fairytale nor hero worship like most others. Luna Lovegood had been the author, another surprise because Luna was not exactly what one might call objective or even clear headed, but her book was perhaps the only one that told the real story even if it was intended for children.
Dean Thomas had done the art for the book, almost every page had a small animated picture in it and Harry’s own children had learned about the war and their father’s role in it through this very book.

“Yes, it’s true. The story is real but not everything that happened during the war is in the book. One part that was never written in any book is how your father saved my life and that of my best friends. Do you remember when in the book Harry, Hermione and Ron are almost captured by the Snatchers but manage to escape before they can be brought to Voldemort?” Harry asked the two children.

“You were hidden under your Invisibility Cloak and the Snatchers couldn’t look through it. That’s what’s in the book!” Albus answered, knowing the story by heart.

“Yes, that is what the book says, but the real events were different. We were captured by the Snatchers and it was all my fault. “
Even now, almost twenty years later, Harry still felt a small amount of shame remembering how his own careless behaviour had almost brought them before Voldemort.
Both boys were looking at him with wide eyes waiting for the the story to come.

"Oh, but you can't have a story without chocolate." Harry called Kreacher, the house elf who had been living with him ever since the final battle and ordered some hot chocolate for the boys and a cup of tea for himself.

Harry continued: “We were travelling all across the country, living in a small tent and trying to find and destroy some artefacts that protected Voldemorts life.
No place in England was really safe then because the Snatchers were all around, always looking for people to capture and Death Eaters were trying to find those that tried to resist Voldemort and of course everyone on Voldemorts side was looking for me, because I was his most hated enemy.
There had been the prophecy, another part of the story that’s true and Voldemort believed that I was the only one that was a real danger to him, he thought if I were dead no one would dare stand in his way and so he had everyone looking.
He had even done something more to protect himself and make finding his enemies easier. He put a Taboo on his name, I had never even heard of something like that before but Ron had found out that every time someone used the name Voldemort all protective spells near that person would fail and like a Point Me charm it would lead people to those saying the name.
You have to know that even before the Taboo no one dared speak the name. A lot of people nowadays still say You Know Who, and then only very few people that were fighting against him used this name because they thought it silly to be afraid of a name. Albus Dumbledore himself had taught me nor to be afraid using the name Voldemort.

Well, with this Taboo charm in place it was a very stupid thing to say Voldemort out loud as we all learned when one day I lost my temper and was yelling something to Ron about Voldemort and before we even could react our tent was surrounded by a group of snatchers and we three were in plain sight right outside the tent."

He spared a glance left and right to see two boys almost with their mouths hanging open, listening to his story with rapt attention.
On a small table left to the sofa stood three steaming cups that Kreacher must have put there before the elf himself had squatted down on the floor next to the table apparently as much captured by the story as Albus and his friend.
Harry gestured towards the drinks and while the children took a cup of chocolate each he poured himself a cup of tea and blew on the surface a few times taking the time to decide how much and what exactly to tell of the capture.

"Were you scared?" The question came like a whisper from the blond boy on his right.
Harry looked down at the son of Draco Malfoy whose head was turned down again as if ashamed of his question and this time he gave in to the impulse to stroke the boy's soft hair like he did to his own son all the time.
"Yes, I was scared, very much so. Not only then when we were surrounded by the Snatchers but almost all the time. I think everyone was."

"What happened then, Dad? With the Snatchers. How did you escape?" Albus interrupted impatiently, waiting to hear the full story.

"Your aunt Hermione at the last moment before the Snatchers actually could see us, hit me with a Stinging Jinx." He smiled down at the two boys thinking back to the evening in September when he had been called to Hogwarts.
"I remember that you both know that jinx very well, right?" Albus grinned mischiviously while Scorpius was looking a bit shamefaced.

"Well, she hit my face with it, so I was looking right like a swollen balloon and we were lucky that the Snatchers didn't recognize me right away. It all happened so fast, I was unable to think of anything to do and well, Hermione always was very clever and quick. Really, if she hadn't thought of that I don't know what would have happened.
Anyway the Snatchers had seen pictures of Ron and Hermione and so decided that we would be valuable prisoners. They took us to Voldemort's headquarters."

"But they didn't know it was you, did they?" Albus asked. Harry shook his head as an answer.

Scorpius frowned and looked up at Harry. "That sounds a bit stupid, if you ask me. Everyone knows that it was the three of you together who set out to defeat Voldemort. They should have known you even with a swollen face."

"You're right, Scorpius." Harry agreed. "But I am glad that they didn't. They were not exactly the brightest guys but still they had us captured and if we were brought before Voldemort he sure would recognize me. It was a bad situation."

The next part of the story was the crucial part, Harry thought. On the one hand he wanted Scorpius and Albus to hear that Draco had indeed saved their lives that night but he would not be able to tell the part without exposing the involvement of the Malfoys with the Death Eaters. Could he put it in a way that the small blond boy would understand?
Well, best to just go ahead with it, then.

"The place where Voldemort was staying for the most part of that last year of the war was Malfoy Manor and that's where the Snatchers brought us."

"Malfoy Manor? My .. my home?" Scorpius looked paler now than normally and Harry almost regretted having started the tale. He put a reassuring hand on the boys own trembling hands.
"Yes, Scorpius, it was Malfoy Manor. But, and I know that this is true, it was not voluntarily that your grandparents allowed him to stay there, they had no choice in that. I know that your father told you a little bit about your grandfather, that he was a follower of Voldemort when he was quite young and he didn't know how to get out of it. At that time, the only thing that mattered to Lucius was to keep his family alive and he did everything he could so they stayed safe.
Adults can make mistakes, you know. And Lucius knew that he had made a mistake but it was too late to change sides, Voldemort was very powerful then and lots of people were too scared to do anything at all.
And don't forget - we all got out out of it alive and well and that was thanks to your father!"

At this last sentence Scorpius looked up again and even smiled a bit. "How did he do that? How did he help you?"

Relieved that he had managed to steer the story back to its original intent, Harry continued talking.

"Lucky for us, Voldemort was not there when we arrived at Malfoy Manor. He was not even in England then and had left instructions that he was not to be contacted without real reason."
"But having Harry Potter captured must have been a reason?" Albus asked.
"They were not sure they really had Harry Potter remember? With my face all swollen it was not that easy to see and all the Death Eaters that were there were scared to make a mistake. If they called Voldemort back from his mission only to discover that their prisoner was not Harry Potter, he would have been really angry and make them all pay for that. They did not dare to call him back just for that.
So what they did was to ask the one person there that could possibly identify Ron, Hermione and me to take a look and tell them if it were me and that person was your father.
He knew it was me - but he didn't tell them."

"He didn't?" Scorpius repeated.

"No, he didn't. Although he knew that it was us, he didn't tell them and by that he gave us a chance to escape. Had they called for Voldemort, he would have known immediately that it was me, he always could tell when I was near him but because they all were so scared of him and Draco did not identify us they only put us in a dungeon with some other prisoners that were held there."

For a moment Harry was back in that dungeon and could hear Hermione screaming under the Cruciatus but that was nothing the boys needed to hear. Instead he told them about the shard of mirror and Dobby the house elf coming to rescue them.
It might not have been the entire true story but the part he had wanted to tell them was true. There was no need to talk about Pettigrew strangling himself with his silver hand or Bellatrix torturing Hermione, this story had been about Draco's small but crucial part in helping them.

"It's not always about grand heroic things, sometimes small things count just as much. There was not much that Draco could do at that moment, not without putting himself and his parents into extreme danger but he did what he could. He did help us and we escaped from there."

Both young boys were looking thoughtful but at the same time a little disappointed. Probably they had expected to hear something more adventurous or daring, but then Albus looked up and said decidedly:
"Well, good for us then that Scorpi's dad helped you there and that you're friends now, just like us."

With that he grabbed the blond boy's hand and dragged him from the room, already talking animatedly about going flying again.

'Friends now', the words echoed in Harry's thoughts, yes it really was good that they finally were friends.