D/H, HarryxGinny, DracoxAstoria

Rated: M for following chapters

Warning: None

A/N: I don't own anything.

Summary: Post War. Harry is an Auror, married to Ginny, with two beautiful boys. He has the family hes always wanted, but has the distinct feeling that something is missing. When Harry runs into Draco after not seeing him for years, Harry finally realizes what—or rather who—it is that he's been missing. Draco is a Healer and married to Astoria with a young son who is practically a copy of himself. While visiting Astoria's parents Draco runs into Harry Potter at the market. Soon after Draco begins to dream of Potter—dreams which become more and more disturbing. Draco can't get any rest, for Potter is always there in his dreams, disturbing his sleep on what becomes a nightly basis. What lengths will Draco go to in order to get a goods night rest, or will he begin to prefer his dreams to reality?

Intro: Fetching the Leeks

.:H:.

The kitchen is alive with warmth, rich scents, and the bustle of numerous family members. Most of them are gingers with easy smiles. Hermione is heavily pregnant with Hugo, Rose is sitting on Ron's lap listening to George tell the children a story complete with exaggerated features and silly voices to make them giggle. James is hovering nearby, listening to the story as well, and occasionally he flaps a cardboard pirate sword at Victorie. Albus clings to Ginny who is talking animatedly to Molly as the matriarch checks the bubbling pots on the stove. Everyone says Al looks just like me.

After growing up without a proper family I've finally gotten one. I married Ginny because I needed to fill that void. But I still felt empty. I tried to tell myself I wasn't yet over the war, and all the losses, and that I'd feel better in time. When time had passed on and nothing had changed I began to suggest we try for children. Surely we needed children to complete our family. Then I would feel whole.

I love my children, but there is still something missing. Sometimes the guilt gnaws so hard I feel I will split in two. I've gotten everything I've ever wanted. There simply must be something wrong with me that it isn't enough. How is it that I can sit among my family, listen to their laughter, share their lives, and still go to sleep at night feeling hollow?

I look down into my cup of black tea. I feel my insides must be as dark and fathomless as the seemingly endless depths of my cuppa. Hermione nudges me, and asks me what's wrong, but I can't tell her. I don't even know what that answer is.

I'm Harry Potter, I've got everything I've ever dreamed of, but something is missing.

"Oh don't fret, Mum," I hear Ginny say, and I feel her drifting towards me. "Harry will get some, won't you?"

"Yes," I say automatically, then blink and shove my glasses up. "Wait, what?"

"Mum thought she had leeks, but she doesn't. She needs them for the soup."

"Right."

I'm glad to have a reason to leave. I'm so lost in my head these days I'm really no company at family gatherings.

In a blink I've apparated to Diagon Alley and I'm wandering through the market. What was it Molly needed again, beets? No, it wasn't beets. I stand there blinking over the produce as if I'm a lost soul. Perhaps I am.

It's then that something familiar catches my eye. It's a shock of silver-blonde and for a moment I think it's—but it is. Everyone knew that Malfoy had married one of the Greengrass girls a couple years after the war, and they'd disappeared to France. But there he was holding a bag of onions in one hand, and the small pale fingers of a child in the other. My eyes went from father, to son, and to father again. I knew I was gaping, but I couldn't stop.

Malfoy was wearing a gray crochet beret, and a long black pea coat. The silver buttons were fashioned into coiled snakes, the lines around his mouth were deeper, his hair longer in the back, and Merlin—he had the most ridiculous pencil mustache settled sparsely above his curled lip and beneath his pointed nose. Only Malfoy could be holding the had of a sweet looking child and still manage to invoke the appearance of a complete bastard. The facial hair certainly did him no favors, and I had the itch to hex it off, but I couldn't have. Behind his customary sneer there was something in his eyes which looked vulnerable. I didn't want to see it there.

When Malfoy didn't identify me in the Manor, I didn't have time to think about it. But I did think about it later, and I often wondered why after he'd always been such a git to me—but there wasn't any answer I really liked. The only logical one was that Malfoy wasn't just the evil bully I'd known him as for a number of years. Of course I'd also seen him crying. It was hard for me to think of such things, to wrap my mind around them, because that meant there was more to Malfoy beneath his snotty veneer. It meant he was human; as human as Ron, or Hermione, or Ginny, or myself. Somehow it bothered me to think of him as having feelings other than ones spawned from hate or meanness.

"Potter," he drawled.

Same snotty voice, but it went in through my ears and delved down to touch something much deeper. As if a stone falling down a well shaft I heard my name in Malfoy's voice reverberating, bouncing off the stones of me, clicking, clacking, echoing, and finally splashing into the darkest waters. I seemed to prickle from the inside out, and a familiar fire rose up inside of me. I could almost feel it reflected in the emerald of my irises, could feel it like hot coals in my fingertips, felt it buzzing up and down my spine and flying out along every nerve ending I possessed.

"Malfoy."

Our eyes locked, and I thought there was some metallic flicker there, as if something was moving in the depths of him as well. But there couldn't be. This was Malfoy.

I quickly looked away from him and reached for the nearest vegetable. I hoped it was a damned leek. I heard the click of his boots and the softer pat of the child's shoes as they walked away, and something inside of me sank. My heart was still pounding, my blood still rushing, that tingling sensation still high. But Malfoy was leaving. He was walking away. When had Malfoy ever walked away from me? It almost made me angry—and I realized I was smashing the produce in my hands which was not a leek, but a carrot. What the fuck do leeks look like, anyway?

I didn't care. There was something wrong with Malfoy just walking away from me. I couldn't let it happen. I couldn't let it go like that. He never.

I went after him. I stalked him up and down aisles, pretending to look at something else, or peaking around an end. It felt almost shameful, but at the same time it was invigorating, and I had to do it. There wasn't any choice in the matter.

Malfoy and his son paid the grocer, and Malfoy allowed his son to chose a lollipop and then they were out the door with the bell tinkling in their wake.

"Can I help you, Mr. Potter?"

"No! Sorry!" I called as I hurried past the balding grocer, and out into the street.

What was he doing? Where was he going? I had to know. I followed Malfoy discretely, watching his every move; his long strides, the flap of his unbuttoned coat when the wind gusted, the curl of his lips as he passed a row of beggars at the mouth of an alley. Finally Malfoy and his son reached an apparation point, and winked out of sight.

Gasping I hurried after, and approached the point. I placed my feet into the exact same spaces Malfoy's had been only moments ago. My trainers were nothing to his fancy Italian boots, but they filled the empty spaces just the same. Goosebumps rose at the back of my neck and along my arms. I felt like I was on the edge of the world. The cold wind and the moonlight penetrated every pore and I felt so alive—I realized. I had never been one for epiphanies, but this one came nonetheless: that empty space inside of me had been gone for moments, filled by Malfoy in a ridiculous gray beret.

Back at the Burrow, Ginny wants to know what took me so long. I don't even want to talk to her. I'm still lost in that "alive" feeling that I haven't had for years. I hardly feel her touch as she squeezes my shoulder.

"Didn't you get Mum's leeks?"

No, I did not get your Mum's bloody leeks.

"It's alright dear," says Molly when I don't answer. "I'll make French onion instead."