Fatherhood | drarry teen adoptive parents au

forty five | the remnants of the war

No one was quite the same after the war. Voldemort was defeated, Lucius Malfoy and the surviving Death Eaters were serving hefty sentences in Azkaban, but at what cost?

Harry didn't care to count the dead, though he thought of them every day, even a year on: Fred, Luna, Dean, Padma, Parvati, Cho, Lavender - even Pansy Parkinson and Vincent Crabbe crossed his mind now and again.

And those who'd lived weren't exactly in wonderful condition. Draco had almost constant headaches. Fleur had lost the baby she'd been carrying. Hermione's hand was shot to bits. George was missing an ear. Seamus and Ginny would probably never walk again, and Arthur Weasley would never see.

The latter affected Harry the most when he thought about it all. The Ministry had been ruthless with Arthur; his injuries had signalled the end of his career, depriving the grieving Weasleys of a salary they couldn't even contemplate going without.

In all the mess, Harry and Draco (like so many of their classmates) had made the decision not to return to Hogwarts to complete their education. They may have still been children, but they were children with a baby, and more dead friends than alive ones.

Besides, exams seemed something futile after everything they'd seen, and the idea of returning to school with half the students in their year newly buried seemed weirdly inappropriate, like flaunting their vitality and health.

Instead, they moved into the Burrow to fill the empty spaces and the sorrow of the place with a little more light, and though she never said much in the way of evidence for this, Harry could tell that Molly was hugely grateful.

The extra company kept her little house full and loud and stopped her thinking of the empty space at the dinner table every single day, or of how occupied she was caring for the shattered remnants of her family. Plus the boys paid five times the rent she'd expected and Harry cooked a family dinner every single evening (sometimes with Draco's help when he could be persuaded), so that was one fewer worry to keep the Weasleys up at night.

And Molly loved Casper, had always loved small children. Amazingly, the toddler had yet to show signs of being particularly affected or aware of the life-changing tragedies he'd witnessed, and was overall growing into a very sunny-natured child, running around and babbling and getting into all kinds of mischief.

Curly hair, wide hazel eyes, dimpled cheeks, and a mysterious talent for knowing exactly who needed him most at any given moment made Casper a wonderful addition to the hurting family. He paid particular attention to Ginny and George, and could usually be found curled up on Ginny's lap by the fire, or hanging off George's back like a little monkey and laughing, "Again, Unca Dorge, again!".

Hermione had moved into the Burrow too, and at first it had taken everyone by surprise that she hadn't wanted to continue her education. "I'll go back when I'm ready," she'd replied with a smile to anyone who'd asked her. "Hogwarts will always have a place for us. But we need to recover for now."

As for Draco's mother, the boys didn't know much about what had become of her in the past year without her husband, though Aquila came with a letter from her now and again.

Narcissa returned Casper to his fathers' shaking arms the week after the war, and since then she and Draco had established this awkward almost-family relationship and stayed in loose contact, though they didn't often read what she'd written, or reply if they did.

As Draco put it, "Some things just aren't redeemable. No matter how many not-shit things you do afterwards."

If they had bothered to read her letters, perhaps they'd have known of Narcissa's campaign to have Lucius' sentence reduced or overturned using the family fortune.