A Stranger Garden

Chapter 7.

2029

Dear Harry,

Thanks for sending over the supply of Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans. The imitation ones that you can buy here are really inadequate; they just don't manage to get the right tang to the lemon ones for some reason.

Vic sends you her love and asks if you wouldn't mind keeping a special eye on her dad. When he and Fleur were here a few months ago, Bill didn't look at all well. She worries about his sporadic health issues; even though he claims to be well it's obvious that something is not quite right. Vic thinks, well we both think, that he might respond better to an offer of help from you rather than anyone else in the family. Knowing Bill, he'll not want to give his mum any more worry. That whole family has the art of the stiff upper lip down perfectly and it's hard to get past it.

Anyway, it's so hard to do anything from so far away but I trust you to do what you think right.

I'm not sure if James has written to you since he's been here, but if not, he's doing well. The rookie team seems to be creating quite a stir here, where even after so long the Americans remember your name, so James has been feted around town like a celebrity. I hope his Quidditch talent can handle his ego. They won their first game by the skin of James' seeking ability. His catching the Snitch won them the game by a mere ten points.

If you can find a way of doing it tactfully, I'd be warning Lily about that Mattie Jamieson. I know she thinks he can do no wrong - love is blind so they say - but he's been spotted in several nightclubs with a particular blonde on his arm. It may all be completely innocent, but one of my clients mentioned that he'd seen the blonde - the daughter of a prominent politician - leaving the hotel where the team's staying at 3am looking decidedly mussed. He might be just having one last wild fling before going back to England and settling with the lovely Lily, but it doesn't hurt to be forewarned.

How's Al doing? You'll have to let me know how his research is progressing on the Wolfsbane - oh, well I guess I can follow that up with him, myself.

I still want to sell the Manor. We've given it almost a year to think about, as you requested, but our lives are here, now. For better or worse we've thrown our lot in with this lot and we're happy. We won't be coming back. I know that's hard for you to hear, but you'll always be my godfather and you'll always be able to visit us, stay with us, whatever you like. And we'll be visiting you, too, from time to time, but we'll never live in England again.

I'm not sure what the solution is about Draco's portraits, though. You could always keep them, you know. I'm sure he'd be over the moon to be hanging up on your walls. I say that with complete sincerity. And I am sure you can hear my sarcasm all the way across the ocean.

In all seriousness, I don't know what to do with him. Are you sure the museum can't take him? I don't like the idea of his portrait being destroyed, that's all, though I am pretty sure you want that one of you taken care of, right? That was definitely something I didn't need to see, though I imagine some of your fans might want to keep that for posterity.

All right, Vic is calling me for dinner.

Love to all

Teddy.

Harry sat back thoughtfully, fingers running absently over the parchment of Teddy's letter. The news of Teddy and Victoire's decision wasn't totally unexpected but it did highlight that he was still no closer to deciding what to do than he had been a year ago.

The logical thing would be to destroy the portrait of him and let the new owners of the Manor decide what to do with Malfoy's paintings.

For some reason, the thought of strangers in the Manor didn't sit right with him, though he'd stopped examining his motivations for attempting to stop Teddy selling it a long time ago. Mostly because he couldn't understand them and it made him feel uncomfortable. There were some things about pureblood traditions that were worthwhile, after all. An inherent connection with a person's history and the stories handed down through generations giving one a sense of their place in the world, for one. Harry wasn't sure that Teddy should give up his links to that side of his family so easily.

The Manor was lovely and Teddy's connection to Malfoy was through marriage only, but Teddy had loved the Manor as a child and had loved Malfoy, and to see him virtually forget that was rather sad, Harry thought.

He and Malfoy had reached a kind of... almost truce. Harry visited him perhaps once a week and Malfoy tried not to piss Harry off. Harry was not above threatening to never come back if Malfoy got him too angry, so he'd reigned in his worst vitriol, for which Harry was grateful.

Teddy's words came back to him about taking Malfoy's portraits and a small smirk played around Harry's lips when he thought of Malfoy hanging in the spare room of his flat. The room that the kids, who weren't kids any longer, used when they visited. The room that any number of passing through Weasleys used from time to time.

Malfoy would rather die, Harry thought snidely, but then was pulled up short because Malfoy was already dead and he was talking about a portrait.

Still, unless he wanted Malfoy to behave like old Walburga Black and screech every time someone entered the flat, he'd better think of another solution.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed at the rest of the news. When Al confided to Harry months ago that he'd seen Mattie out for dinner with different women after he'd told Lily he was working, Harry had wanted to punch the man's face. No one treated his daughter like that! His first instinct had been to confront Mattie, but he'd been at the other end of the country preparing for the National League Cup and Lily had been with him in any case.

His second instinct was to tell Lily what Al had seen. Much better to have her hurt for a little bit now than to wait until it was too late and Lily was in love with the dickhead when she'd be devastated even more. Heartbreak was something he'd really tried to spare his kids. He thought he'd done pretty well considering the divorce and the publicity about his dating habits since then.

Al had warned Lily about her boyfriend Mattie several times but Lily had refused to listen and had in fact berated Al and not spoken to him for a month. With this new evidence of Mattie straying, it appeared that cheating on Lily was not going to be a one-time thing. As a result he was in two minds as to what to do. Apart from be there to pick up the pieces when, if, the worst happened.

Light hands on his shoulders gave him about a second of warning to tilt his head, exposing his neck, before Jeremy swooped in to nuzzle at his throat. God, the man did wickedly delicious things with his tongue. Harry almost always felt like he would be quite happy to just submit to being continuously licked like an ice cream until he melted completely away. Some days he did just that. Today was not one of those days, however, he had too much on his mind.

"You all right, love?" asked Jeremy while he nibbled on Harry's ear, soft golden hair brushing Harry's shoulder.

"Hmm, why do you ask?"

"You've been sitting over here scowling and frowning and sighing like you received bad news, for an hour now."

"Just a letter from Teddy, that's all. He's decided to sell Malfoy Manor after all."

"Good." Harry felt the tip of a tongue trace the curl of his ear and he shivered, despite the grumble of irritation that swept through him. Jeremy had no love for the Malfoy family. Not that Draco had done anything to Jeremy or his family. Jeremy had been a baby when Draco died. Harry thought Jeremy might have been jealous that Harry cared about Malfoy's portrait and his Manor. Either that or he was jealous of the close bond he and Teddy had and saw that selling the Manor cemented Teddy staying away in America.

Harry had no idea where the jealousy could have come from. He'd never thought of Teddy as anything but his godson; was mildly nauseated when he tried to. Besides, Teddy was over thirty and Harry liked his male partners a bit younger than that. It might seem shallow to some, but he found that male partners his own age couldn't keep up with him. Generally. His justification to himself was that he'd discovered men fairly late in his sexual life and he was making up for the lost years. In reality, they just happened to be the ones he was attracted to.

With a tongue like Jeremy's he'd put up with the jealousy, though. Christ, all the hair on his arms was standing to attention and sending waves of heat to his groin with just a few moments of attention. Jeremy's hand slipped around to cup the bulge in Harry's trousers and Harry groaned. Oh, fuck what was on his mind, it could wait until he remembered what it was again. His legs spread and he leant back on the chair and rolled his hips into Jeremy's capable hand, hardening even as his mind blanked and concentrated on that evil tongue and that frustrating hand that was nowhere near where he wanted it.

"You had better be prepared for me, or I'll be really angry," he growled. Jeremy knew him well enough to know that Harry was teasing but he also knew that Jeremy knew better than to initiate something like this without previously having prepared himself.

"You know me better than that, Master." The voice soft and purring in his ear held a teasing tone as the use of the term 'Master' always made Harry's blood boil and the sex rough and hard as Harry tried to fuck the insubordination out of him.

Harry snaked a hand up behind Jeremy's neck and grabbed a handful of the long golden locks. He yanked hard, pulling Jeremy around and onto his lap, where he was most pleased to see his pretty golden boy naked and very hard.

"Cheeky fucking slut," he hissed, flipping Jeremy off his knee and onto the floor, where he landed awkwardly with a squawk before righting himself onto all fours and wiggling his arse at Harry, taunting him.

Harry whacked his cheeky arse several times, smiling as his handprints stood out deeply red against the tawny golden skin of his lover.

"Come on, Harry, you're not too old for this are you?"

And there was that taunting tone again, the one that made Harry's blood sing because he knew that Jeremy would take it however rough it came. They had their tender times, too, but when Jeremy pushed Harry's buttons like this, it tended to become almost violent.

Harry growled the spell to vanish his clothes, then groaning deeply as the tightness closed around him in a vice like grip. He was most pleased. Jeremy had prepared himself but not much, and so the tightness almost hurt.

Jeremy continued to taunt Harry, who responded with vigour until both were flushed and spent, breathing heavily, Harry having collapsed against Jeremy's back.

"You're going to make me old before my time with sessions like this. Not that I'm complaining, mind." He rolled off Jeremy's back. "Stay where you are," he said, propping himself up on one elbow and running his hand over the still reddened globes of Jeremy's bottom.

"Spread your legs."

Jeremy scrunched up his nose but did as he was told. Harry grabbed a cushion from the couch and pushed it under Jeremy's hips.

"Utterly fucking gorgeous," Harry breathed.

Jeremy sighed happily, smiling at Harry through amber eyes filled with post orgasm languor. "Not so bad yourself, Harry."

He'd thought he'd be bored with Jeremy after a few weeks. The young man had hung around Harry's work, pestering him, asking him out for drinks, until Harry had finally given in just to, hopefully, send him on his way after one date.

That had been six months ago and somehow the young lad had woven his way into Harry's life and stayed there. Harry was quite content to have him there and once the kids had seen that he was happy enough, they grew to accept Jeremy, too.

If it weren't for the fact that Jeremy had this unreasonable jealousy thing going on, Harry would have been happy to keep him.

As it was, he thought he might be seeing the end of a wonderful relationship because, as he watched Jeremy squirm around while he continued to play, Harry made the decision to buy Malfoy Manor.