Movement woke Draco to the predawn greyness outside. Harry had shifted out from his usual place beneath Draco to sit on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. The hint of light through the window outlined his form, as naked as they had fallen asleep the night before.

Draco stretched and shifted up to kneel behind Harry with arms wrapped around his stomach, tucking his chin over the other man's shoulder. He said nothing, merely waited for Harry to speak as they watched the day dawn.

"Happy Halloween," Harry said in an empty voice when the sun breached the horizon. Draco hummed. "Happy as it gets, anyway. Sometimes I wish I could just skip straight from October 30th to November 1st and skip Halloween entirely." He lost himself to his thoughts again.

Draco stayed silent. This was how they dealt with their pasts and their problems. No one pushed or prodded or questioned. They only offered silence and support, for as long as it was needed. Too many people had demanded instant answers. He and Harry, they couldn't work that way. Theirs was a quiet, accepting love.

The sun was fully up when Harry spoke again. When he did, it was clear that his thoughts had brought him to something he hadn't spoken to Draco about yet: his childhood.

"I didn't even know them. Everyone told me I was just like my father, the spitting image, but with my mother's eyes. Even Snape thought I was James Potter in miniature, and he hated me for it. I had no idea what my parents were like. I've still no idea, just a few stories and one bad memory from Snape. I wonder if he ever knew I couldn't be my father, not when I grew up so differently."

He rolled back onto the bed, dragging Draco with him. Draco ran a soothing hand across his stomach. Harry tangled the fingers of one hand in Draco's fine hair and spoke to the ceiling.

"I wish he'd had a more open mind. We grew up a lot alike, Snape and I. His father wasn't the nicest guy, from what I've seen. Tobias Snape was a Muggle who yelled at his wife and child a lot. Vernon Dursley was a Muggle who kept his unwanted nephew in a cupboard under the stairs."

Silence fell again, and Draco could feel Harry slowly relaxing the muscles that had tensed up automatically.

"I didn't even get to have normal childhood fears, like spiders or the dark. I had lots of both in my cupboard. I thought it was so funny that Ron was so deathly afraid of spiders in second year. It didn't make any sense to me.

"Before the Dementors, the thing I was most afraid of was starving to death. That was their favorite punishment, the Dursleys. I'd do some accidental magic, and they'd lock me in the cupboard for a few days without food. I ate like it was going to be taken away from me at Hogwarts. I guess I was always pretty scrawny in school. It didn't help that all my clothes were left-overs from my obese cousin, Dudley.

"I hated Dudley, too. I always had to make sure I wasn't as good as him. He used to threaten any kid that seemed friendly toward me. When those kids ran out, his little gang used to just chase me down and beat me up. They called it 'Harry Hunting,' like it was some great foxhunt. I didn't have a friend before I got on the Hogwarts Express."

-0-0-0-

Harry could feel the heat of Draco's blush on the bare skin of his chest when he brought up their first (second) meeting. This was part of the reason he both needed to and didn't want to tell Draco about his childhood.

"I don't pretend to know what it was like for you then, but I want you to know where I was at that moment. I grew up unwanted, told I was a burden that had to earn my keep. I was a freak because of my magic, which I didn't even believe in, thanks to Vernon. The only thing I knew, right up until I turned eleven, was that my parents were unemployed drunks who died in a car crash and carelessly left me in the care of my upstanding and hard-working Aunt and Uncle, who already had their hands full with their own son. I answered to 'Boy' more than my own name, and it seemed perfectly normal for me to live in a cupboard while my cousin had two bedrooms to himself.

"I turn eleven and I meet a giant, and then I'm thrust into this world I never knew about, and everyone there thought they knew more about me than I did myself. Suddenly there's a boy my age talking to me about Houses and surnames and weird sports, and I have no idea what to say, because all I want is to make a friend. Maybe Ron wasn't the ideal person, and maybe he did stay at first because of my name and the scar, but he had a big family and twin brothers who helped me even when they didn't know me, and I wanted that.

"You came in just because you'd heard I was there, and you insulted my first friend, even if we weren't really friends yet. All I could think of was Dudley, scaring and chasing off anyone who was ever nice to me. All my life, I had just wanted to stand up against Dudley, but he was so much bigger than me and I had had too many years of learning never to cross him. But you were my size, and I'd had so such brainwashing with you. I thought, maybe I can't beat Dudley, but I could take a stand against you, I could be strong for once in my life and do something for me."

Silence fell before Harry choked out a humourless laugh.

"Six years of fighting, all because you reminded me of Dudley that day. I don't know whether to be amazed or disgusted at myself."

Draco planted a hand across his mouth before he could say anything else. Harry let the stillness creep back into their shared space, wrapping around them gently.

"When…that day…" he began haltingly, speaking into Harry's shoulder the way Harry had spoken to the ceiling, "when I found you, was that your cupboard?"

Harry laced the fingers of his free hand with Draco's and squeezed, shutting out the memory of blood and tears and a single choked gasp and that day.

"Yes. Before you came, I hadn't slept in a proper bed since the Battle. I suppose it was some way of reverting to something that felt safe when I was very young, but I couldn't handle all that open space. I put the cupboard in after a couple sleepless nights, made it the same in every way. I never bothered to move the bed from the room, and I only used it when I my magic gets out of control and I need bitten." He paused. "I suppose it's odd, thinking of my cupboard as my safe place, but it was. They locked me in it sometimes, but it never hurt me. They did, but they didn't come near the cupboard if they could help it. They left me alone when I was in there."

Harry suddenly felt that he could say nothing more, so he kissed Draco's hair instead. Draco squeezed his hand, showing his understanding. Then they got out of bed to prepare for the new day.

-0-0-0-

"Father?" Draco turned at the voice to find Teddy tugging on his robes. "What's wrong with Daddy?"

How do you explain to a child everything that had happened in the War? If Draco knew Harry, and he knew him rather well, he was having one of those days were he got lost in what had been, and where he still felt it was mostly his fault. How do you tell that to an innocent child?

"Harry is…" Draco struggled, crouched to meet Teddy's silver gaze with his own, "remembering some very bad things today. You remember he lost his parents, just like you lost yours?" Teddy nodded solemnly. "Well, Harry lost his on Halloween, and, when he was younger, a lot of bad things happened to him because of it. He's remembering them now, and that's what's making him sad."

"I don't understand," Teddy said, expression somewhere between a frown and a pout. Draco ran a hand through his wild black hair, Harry's hair.

"Oh, Wolfling," he whispered, "neither do I, really, and I hope we never have to."

Teddy's frown deepened, but he said nothing.

"Now!" Draco smiled and straightened up, changing the subject. "Why don't you put a jacket on and get Romulus, and we'll go play in the garden while the sun's still up, alright?"

Teddy smiled brightly and rushed off, leaving Draco shaking his head at the boy's energy.

-0-0-0-

"Reggie, what's wrong?"

Harry looked up from his potatoes at Draco's concerned voice, noting that Reggie hadn't eaten anything yet.

"I don't feel good," he said, looking uncomfortable. Harry recognised the way he was shifting in his chair, rubbing his hands along his arms.

"Do you feel sick?" he asked. Please, please just be a stomach flu.

"No," the boy shook his head. "I feel kinda…itchy."

Oh, Merlin, no. Harry didn't need this right now, not on top of his own problem.

"Itchy?" Draco repeated, reaching for him. Harry held out a hand to stop him, carefully avoiding contact with either one's skin. "Harry?"

"Don't touch him, Draco," he warned, pained at the hurt that flashed in Draco's eyes. "Please, just…trust me." After a moment, Draco nodded. "Teddy, I need you to go up to your room now and shut the door." Teddy looked confused, but he knew better than to argue against the commanding tone of Harry's voice. "Winky!" The small elf stepped forward. "Raise the wards on Teddy's room." She curtsied and was gone again.

"Harry?" He ignored Draco for the moment, studying Reggie intently. The boy's eyes were beginning to glow, emerald green with that circle of ice blue that was Regulus or Tom or both. But it didn't matter where the color of his eyes came from. The only thing that mattered was where this came from, and whether Harry could touch him safely.

Harry's came as part of the aftermath of Voldemort's defeat, a side effect of being a Horcrux actively linked to Voldemort's soul and possibly of dying and coming back to life. If Reggie got this from Harry's blood and magic, then Harry could touch him.

But if it came straight from Tom…well, that was more complicated. If it did, then they both got it from Tom and, theoretically, Harry could still touch him. However, something like this was fairly unpredictable, and touching Reggie could be very dangerous.

"Harry! What's going on?" Draco sounded very frustrated and more than a little bit scared, though Harry still did not turn from his study of Reggie.

"It's a magic overflow. Reggie's got magic from three sources, not two like other children. His magic has been building up since he was born, and it's become too much for him to contain anymore. It's wild now, and he doesn't have the strength or experience to control it. Just touching him could make it all lash out."

If he hadn't been watching so intently, so carefully, he might not have notice when the glow of his eyes flickered. Reggie's hands started to twitch.

Not good, very not good.

"It's because it's unbalanced," he said quickly, trying to tell Draco what he needed to know in the least amount of time possible. "Powerful Light and Dark, trying to coexist. Once in a while, the tension breaks in an overflow. Mine's the same way, but I channel it when it breaks."

He was just going to have to go for it.

"I'm going to drain it off him. Back up."

Harry gritted his teeth and cupped Reggie's face in his hands. There was the burning of foreign magic defending against him, then the fizzy warmth of his own and the just as familiar oily feeling of Voldemort's Darkness. Harry's own hands began to shake and he pulled the magic away from his son, into his own veins. The foreign magics burned, Regulus Black's like ice and whatever part that was purely Reggie's like fire and acid. The other magics went freely, the fizziness joining his own, the oily bit combining with Harry's pool of Voldemort's magic, laying on top of his like a film.

The good news was that it worked. The glow in Reggie's eyes died and the tension left his face before he slumped in his chair, unconscious.

"He's alright now, you can touch him," he muttered, clenching his jaw and the muscles in his neck. He stepped back as Draco rushed forward to check.

-0-0-0-

Draco could hardly believe what was happening. A three-year-old have a magic overflow? Never in his wildest dreams.

"Is he okay?" he asked, cradling the boy's face in his hands.

"He's alright now," Harry repeated. "He'll be fine. He might not even remember it." He could hear Harry call for Kreacher to put the boy to bed.

Reggie was so still, though. How could he be alright? How could any boy so young be alright when they had so much magic it scratched at their skin and had to be drained away? He turned to ask Harry for more explanation.

And stopped when he saw his face.

Harry was pale and sweating. His hands were shaking, and he looked weak around the knees. His eyes flickered around the room, seeing nothing. They were so bright, they seemed to glow from his pale face.

Then he realised they actually were glowing.

"Harry…" He reached out a hand, but Harry skittered back a step.

"Don't touch me," he spat, shaking. "Don't…I…I need to get away." He turned on his heel.

Acting on impulse, Draco lunged for him, catching him just in time to be caught in his Apparition. Nothingness pressed on him, squeezing him through space, and then he was with Harry on the deserted moor where they'd flown together. Harry pushed him away, backing up with wide eyes.

"What have you done?" he whispered, but Draco had no answer. "Oh, Merlin save you, what have you done?"

The glow was more pronounced in the dark on the moor, reminding Draco of the Killing Curse in color. The eerie green spread, running through his veins and arteries and emanating faintly from his skin as Draco watched. This was nothing like he had ever seen before.

Waves of power began to flow out, with Harry at the center. They flattened the heather and buffeted Draco with the warm oil feeling of combined Light and Dark magic. He staggered backwards, but remained standing.

That's not so dangerous, he thought.

Then Harry caught fire.

Flames licked over his skin and caught at his clothes, rippling eerie green and gold and black, casting preternatural shadows across the empty moor. They twisted and writhed like Fiendfyre, burning his clothes away, falling in fat drops like water to the ground, creating a circle of charred earth beneath Harry's feet.

"HARRY!" Draco screamed, rushing for him, but Harry stopped him with a raised hand.

"Stay there," he ordered. His echoed strangely, as though he had three voices instead of one. "Stay there," he repeated.

Then he planted his feet, stretched out his arms and roared, shooting a column of fire into the sky, as if he were his dragon form.

-0-0-0-

Magic tore through Harry and burned high into the night sky: his, Voldemort's, Regulus Black's, Reggie's, it all burned bright and hot. He screamed until his throat was raw, until the unnatural flames burned themselves out and left him naked in the dark, darkness that was darker for afterimages of fire around him.

Except…there. A slash of pale marring the blackness. Draco.

Draco, who had come along. Draco, who stayed at risk to himself.

Draco, who was probably hurt by the way he'd shoved him away.

Not yet, he thought. Later.

His strength left him then, burning out just as the fire had done, and he fell to his hands and knees. He pressed shaking fingers into the ground, digging into the ash. Coughs and great heaving breaths wracked his body, his skin turning to goose pimples in the cold night air.

"Draco," he rasped. Strong arms wrapped around him, trying to help him up, but he shook his head. "Hold on," he ordered. He reached for the only thing he had that had survived the fire, the heavily charmed and protected emergency portkey pendant hanging on a thin chain around his neck.

Save me, he hissed, and the familiar jerk behind his navel whisked them away.

They landed with a thump in his bedroom on the fifth floor. Kreacher was there in the next second, pouring potions down his throat and helping him lie on the bed. After he had taken all the healing and energy potions, he beckoned to Draco to lie down with him.

"I'm sorry I didn't warn you about that, with the Fiendfyre and all," he whispered when Draco was finally arranged across his chest, trembling slightly. "It happens once a year now, always about this time. I could feel it coming, but I didn't think it would come so soon. Taking in Reggie's magic triggered it."

Draco shook his head as well as he could, pressed against Harry, but he didn't say anything. Harry frowned.

"Are you alright?"

"I was so fucking scared," he whispered shakily, then burrowed his face into Harry's neck, holding him tightly.

"Hey, don't be," he soothed, running a hand along Draco's spine. "It's alright, I'm fine, it's just something I have to do. Nothing's going to take me away from you, not now that I've got you," he promised. He pressed a kiss to the top of Draco's head. "Nothing."

Slowly, slowly, Draco's shaking body stilled, and his hold on Harry loosened.

"You mean that?" he asked, voice soft and unsure.

"Of course I do," Harry answered, quiet and certain. "You and I are going to spend more years than we can count being happy, even in people stare at us and we've got secrets and I occasionally have to spontaneously combust. We've spent too many years being unhappy and afraid. You are the best thing I've had come out of a bad situation since Reggie was born, and I am never. Letting. You. Go. You and me, we're going to be happy for a very long time."

Harry promised and hoped and prayed that it would be true, that their calm life would last forever.

It would shatter in only a year.