Written for: harrybang
Beta(s)/Alpha(s): Nixied, Capitu
Artist(s): digthewriter
Word Count: ~50k
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Harry/Ginny, Albus/Scorpius, Harry/Draco Other key characters: Ron, Rose, Hugo, Hermione, James, Lily
Era: Canon compliant
Genre: Tragedy
Content/Warnings: *MAJOR SPOILERS* Major Character Death(s), body dismemberment, suicide, emotional breakdown, divorce, grieving, no sex scene, kidnapping and emotional infidelity.
Summary: Harry and Ginny's marriage has been in trouble since the beginning, but they had the kids to raise and careers to keep them busy. Now the kids are all at school, except James who's starting his own career, Harry is at a desk as the Head Auror and so is Ginny while working for The Daily Prophet. They're working on problems they've been brushing aside for years. When Scorpius Malfoy, their son Albus' best mate, goes missing from Hogwarts. Harry is torn between finding Scorpius before it's too late, and keeping his falling-apart family together.

During Hogwarts' breaks the Potter house was always full: of people, noise, and a lot of excess everything. The kids brought home all their things to sort through and clean out; everything they'd brought with them and everything they'd collected over the past three months. It seemed that they always came back with twice as many things as they'd left with. They also brought their mates.

The house wasn't the same without them. Everyone said Harry would be glad of the day they were all off at school, but he missed them. Not occasionally but always. Which was why, even if his kids felt it was odd of him, he went from room to room to watch them unpack when they came home for winter break.

He leaned in the doorway of his daughter's bedroom shaking his head at her. 'How do you collect so much stuff in under four months?'

James laughed from behind Harry as he passed by on his way to his room from the toilet. He had left Hogwarts the year before, so he didn't have any unpacking to do; though his room could have used some cleaning. Albus shouted from his room, 'It's a girl thing.' Lily rolled her eyes. James had been just as bad during his Hogwarts school days, so Harry agreed with Lily's assessment.

Albus was his only organised child, and Harry had no clue where he got that from. Even at two, Albus had hated to get dirty. At six, he cleaned out all the toys he no longer found interesting and gave them to either Lily or his cousin Hugo. He hated his room cluttered with things even then. Lily had a hard time letting go of anything, and at thirteen her room was still full of stuffed animals she ignored but couldn't bare to part with. James wasn't as sentimental, but his interests tended to take up more space: from sports equipment to musical instruments.

The biggest problem in both their rooms though were the clothes. They both had their closets stuffed full of them, as well as dirty ones littered about their floors, desks, and beds. Harry had never cared much about clothes himself, so he never did quite understand why they needed so many. Albus was like him in that regard. He had just enough to get by for any occasion, but they had a lot of breathing room whether they were in the wardrobe or a trunk.

Even having guests didn't encourage James or Lily to clean up their rooms. James's girlfriend of two years, Sonja, was around so often Ginny was worried that she was dangerously close to moving in, which Harry didn't mind at all. Harry worried more when he didn't come home for days, even if he knew James was simply at Sonja's instead of the other way around.

Lily and Albus both brought their friends from school with them. Lily's friend, Alice, lived just down the road from them, so she'd already dropped her things off at home before coming over. They'd been inseparable since they were seven, when Alice's family moved in. Though they looked nothing alike, Harry called them the twins. Lily rolled her eyes at him every time he said it, but it always made Alice smile.

Rose would probably be over with Hugo later, if not the next day, with Ron and Hermione, but right then:

Albus was in his room, probably already reading, with Scorpius Malfoy.

None of them were Harry kids, but he spent almost as much time with them as he did his own kids. Ginny felt this was a break down in their family unit. When the kids were home they were never alone, and the rest of the time they weren't home at all. Harry saw it as growing up. Growing up did mean growing apart from your family, but not completely away from it. Even Hermione spent most of her time with the Weasleys as she got older, so it wasn't just that Harry hated his family which kept him away from them.

They were growing more independent was all.

Albus was by far the quietest child in the Weasley family. Prior to meeting Scorpius, Harry would have thought it was impossible for a child to have been more invisible than Albus. Lily often joked that if she were the only known child of influential Death Eaters at school, she'd have wanted to be invisible too.

This was the difference between the two. Scorpius, once comfortable in his surroundings, could become animated. It had taken three years of Scorpius coming over to their house, before Harry saw anything of his personality. He'd caught small glimpses of it before when Scorpius thought no one was around, but it had taken a long time for him to warm up to Harry. Scorpius made himself invisible on purpose. Until he trusted someone enough to let them in, he hardly spoke around them at all. Where Albus wished he wasn't invisible. His personality was simply quiet; it's who he was. It left him overlooked by almost everyone, and he'd never enjoyed that part that much.

There were other Death Eaters who'd had children, of course, but most of the Death Eaters were from Harry's parents' generation. As long as someone wasn't marked, they were easily ignored by the papers. Many of the younger Death Eaters simply got away, which was what Lily had meant by known. Only a handful of people were known to have been marked from Harry's generation, and only Malfoy had sent his son to Hogwarts.

So, though there were plenty of grandchildren, great nieces, and great nephews of Death Eaters, Scorpius Malfoy was the only son of one. And unlike Harry, Draco Malfoy made sure to prepare his son for the attitudes he'd have to deal with once he went off to Hogwarts.

Harry had sheltered his children from his fame for as long as he could. He agreed with Dumbledore: it was too much to put on young children, they simply needed to be children. Malfoy took his son out in public, and when they were glared or spat at Malfoy told him the truth as to why. He explained that it might never go away, but he worked his best to change their image. He taught Scorpius how to go unnoticed in a crowd despite his noticeable hair.

Scorpius learned to be invisible for his own protection from those people.

'Having friends was something I thought would never happen,' Scorpius had told Harry the prior summer when he'd asked what made him notice Albus, while no one else did. 'Most people are nice,' Scorpius had said, 'but there is a big difference between being polite and being willing to be friends with someone, when you know that you'll be attacked along with them for it. For a long time, I didn't want anyone who was nice enough to want to be my friend to have to go through that.'

Albus had talked about a someone in his first year that wasn't a friend per say. Later they had put together he'd been talking about Scorpius, but Harry never got out of him why they weren't open about being friends. It seemed that Scorpius wouldn't let them be; not in public.

'I don't know that it is so much that I noticed Al.'

Though it was; when Harry had asked Albus how they became friends his answer had been: 'He noticed me.'

Harry knew how much that meant to him.

'We were in the same house; sorted back to back. So, of course, we walked to the table close together and ended up sitting next to each other. All we talked about was the food. It's a bit hard to not notice someone you are living with. The others might not have talked to us much, but I'm sure they knew we were there.'

Albus had told Harry all about it—the sorting, his first meal, the events of his first night in the dorm room—in his letters home. He had been sorted right after Scorpius, but the Great Hall was so noisy at the mention of Scorpius's name and him being sorted into Ravenclaw that no one heard Albus's name called. By the time it had quieted down enough for even him to hear, the second 'Ravenclaw' was shouted by the hat.

Apparently, Albus never told Scorpius that the others didn't even know his name, which was something he'd complained about in his letters every time it was brought to his attention again. The few times they addressed him, they had to figure out ways around stating his name. They'd elbow him or just say, 'Hey,' until he looked up. It didn't encourage Albus to want to talk to them.

'He's really the one who noticed me,' Scorpius explained. 'He stood up for me, before we'd even really spoken to each other.'

The part Scorpius left out was that their first night in Ravenclaw Tower the other boys had a loud, snarky conversation about having to share a room with him.

Albus, the only one there who knew nothing about the war, wrote to his father asking what they meant by various comments. All he had figured out on his own was that they were making fun of Scorpius, but he only realised that because when he hexed them they all rounded on Scorpius for it.

They never suspected Albus of the curse, so he accidentally gave Scorpius a reputation for already knowing advanced hexes. James was the one who had taught Albus the stinging hex, which wasn't all that advance in reality. They turned in Scorpius the next day, but Albus stepped up and turned himself in. Their head of house listened to Albus, though she ignored Scorpius when he said he hadn't done it; he didn't even know how. He didn't have older siblings to teach him spells he shouldn't have known yet, and his parents were sticklers for the rules.

It was Albus's first taste of what his fame would give him, before he even knew his dad was famous and therefore by extension he was as well. Scorpius's detention was dropped, but Albus wasn't even assigned one.

James had learned quickly at school who his father really was and what it meant. His first letter home was excited variations of 'Why didn't you tell me? This is brilliant!' which Harry shook his head at. All he had to do with James was explain his reasons and tell him not to let this get to his head. James understood and after a while agreed that it was better they hadn't known their whole lives, so he didn't tell his siblings, either.

Albus asked a lot of questions in the first few days about it, and Harry had to answer everything about the war. James hadn't cared that much about the details, but with Scorpius as his roommate, and the drama it caused, it made Albus naturally more curious.

Since Albus was easily overlooked, it took months before any of the fame really touched him. It happened slowly; a teacher lingering on his name and the class all turning to stare at him, or someone would ask his name and their eyes would go wide. But when James was there most of the focus stayed on him as the eldest Potter child, especially after he made the Gryffindor Quidditch team and started winning them games as a Seeker; just like his father. Lily was compared more to her mother, of course, and the children all knew she was famous for playing Quidditch.

'But Al is nothing if not persistent,' Scorpius said with a smile. 'He'd sit with me; wherever we were: in class, at meals, in the library. He'd ask me questions about class, and then eventually we just started talking about other things. He pointed out that we were really already friends, so what was the harm in it to call each other friends?'

By the summer, Scorpius was willing to come visit their house, but not so willing to let Albus come over to his. They had a huge fight about it the summer after their third year, which after a lot of tears on their part and mediating on his, Albus visited Malfoy Manor for the first time just before they returned to Hogwarts for their fourth year.

It had been a stressful weekend for Harry and Ginny, but nothing dangerous had happened.

When Harry left Lily's doorway to go peek in at them, Albus was on his back, an arm behind his head, and book floating in front of him. Scorpius was next to him on his stomach with his hands beneath his chin reading a different one.

Ravenclaws.

Harry smiled at them, but remained unnoticed. Albus's room was spotless, and looked as though he'd already emptied his trunk. His bookcase was full of books again, including his school ones, and his trunk was at the foot of his bed closed and locked.

Harry headed down to the kitchen to start dinner. James was snacking as his girlfriend laughed at him. Sonja was always telling James he was spoiled. Perhaps she was right, but he was happy and that's all that mattered to Harry. With a sigh, Harry entered the kitchen.

James smirked at him.

'What?' Harry asked.

'You're worried about them.' James nodded toward the stairs. 'They aren't little kids anymore.'

'About who?' Harry wasn't worried about any of his kids. They were all happy, healthy, and smart, even if a bit spoiled. 'You're the only one I worry about—'

Sonja laughed at the expression James's face.

'Me? Why me?'

Harry shared a look with Sonja and they both simply gestured to him: standing in the kitchen, snacking so close to suppertime with no structure or direction in his life. Then Albus and Scorpius came quietly down the stairs, startling Harry as they appeared behind him.

'What are you making for supper?' Albus asked.

Harry sighed, again, and began to look through the cabinets. 'Something simple.'

'Do you need some help?' Scorpius was an excellent cook, and though Harry would never ask, he'd also never turn down an offer.

'If you're willing.'

James rolled his eyes. Scorpius was always willing.

'Of course,' he answered.

Scorpius was simply a natural in the kitchen, and after a few minutes making a plan on seeing the available ingredients he began ordering Albus around. Harry probably would have made some type of pasta, because it was hard to mess up. Any jar of pre-made sauce on any pasta was edible. Scorpius made multi-course meals.

'I should have waited,' James said as he looked gloomily down at the last couple bites of his sandwich. Though Harry was sure James would join them anyway.

Sonja agreed with an, 'I told you.' She pushed up her sleeves and went looking through the cupboards herself. 'Did you have any ideas for dessert? I hate cooking, but baking . . .'

'There's no fruit,' Scorpius said, while both he and Albus gave Harry a reproachful look.

'It's the middle of winter—' Harry held up his hands in mock exasperation.

'We have magic!' They all said at once. A running joke with the whole family, poking fun at Harry's Muggle upbringing. Most of the time it had nothing to do with how Harry was raised, but they didn't know that. Muggles also have plenty of fruit, even in the middle of winter.

It was just that Harry wasn't much of a cook, and so he never really knew what to buy. If he had bought a lot of fresh ingredients, he'd let them spoil. It was better for him to wait for the kids to be home, so they could pick out the things they enjoyed, which seemed to be constantly changing.

Harry just laughed, glad to have them home. It was too quiet without them.

Lily came running down the stairs with Alice quick behind her to see what all the noise was about, and wrapped her arms around Harry. He hugged her back and then solicited her help in setting the table; he might as well contribute to the family dinner somehow. He was excited about the family being all together again, and once Ginny got home they'd all sit down together and talk about everything they'd missed in the other's lives.

Alice spent more time at their house than her own, Sonja wasn't officially part of the family yet, but Harry felt she would be soon enough, and Scorpius—

Scorpius wasn't Harry's son, but he was a part of their family all the same.