“I know the world is ending, but trust me, I can handle it,” Harry said calmly.
Draco, on the other hand, was not calm. He was pacing back and forth, usually perfectly gelled hair mussed from having run his hands through it. “How can you possibly HANDLE it?”
Harry caught Draco on his return path, stopping him and bringing him into his arms. “Take a breath, love. This ain’t my first rodeo with a homicidal pureblood extremist who wants to murder me, you know?” he chuckled.
“This isn’t just a homicidal pureblood extremist who wants to murder you,” Draco groaned, making himself comfortable in his lover’s embrace. “It’s my father the homicidal pureblood extremist who wants to murder you. This is a completely different thing. You never truly faced him, you don’t know how scary he can be....”
Harry pressed a kiss into Draco’s hair before saying, “Love, you’re not hearing me. I don’t care how scary he is, I will still face him if it’s what I’ve got to do. You’re worth it, whatever the danger. And, really, what’s the worst that will happen? He says no? We already have a contingency plan for that. We. Will. Be. Fine.”
Each of those last four words were emphasized with a kiss, first one on each cheek, then one on Draco’s nose, and finally landing on his lips. Harry pulled back and just gazed into Draco’s eyes for a few moments, trying to bleed his confidence into his lover without words, before bringing their mouths back together in another kiss.
The popping sound of Nifty the house elf arriving interrupted the tender moment but not the hug, the two men turning to look at her.
“Master Lucius is being ready to be seeings you, Master Draco and Master Savior of Magic-Kind Potter,” Nifty squeaked before turning to lead the men out of the parlor where they had been waiting for this summons.
“We’ve got this, love,” Harry whispered, giving Draco one last kiss before releasing him to follow the house elf into the halls of Malfoy Manor.
The mansion was no longer the dark place of the war it had been during Harry’s last visit but not yet back to it’s previous glory, as Draco remembered it being in his childhood. There were large portraits lining the wall that had once held Malfoy and Black ancestors back through the ages but now were empty, their inhabitants having fled the horrors more thoroughly than even a muggleborn had and never returning. The curtains were now swept away from the windows to allow in the natural light but it never fully chased away the shadows of what the Death Eaters had done and never could. Some horrors are engrained in the architecture, like scars, and will never heal.
Harry and Draco were healing, though. They had started their relationship during their eighth year back to Hogwarts, after the war. What started with being the only two in the common room past curfew most nights, each sequestered to their own couch and staring into the fire, had turned into shouting matches that woke the rest of their dorm, had turned into passionate kisses (and more) that still woke half the dorm if Hermione hadn’t cast a silencing charm, had turned to soft apologies and first dates and second dates and one year anniversaries and brought them here, to this. Harry had proposed on their 8th anniversary, a few weeks before, as a way to honor the fact that they had been dating for as long as they had previously “hated” each other. Hermione would correct them to make sure they knew they never had hated each other and that they could have been dating for longer if either of them had just listened to her, a fact Pansy agreed with, when the news of their engagement was shared with friends.
The reason they are here, at Malfoy Manor, with Draco about to shoot out of his skin from nerves yet Harry as chill as Draco had ever seen him in all sixteen years of knowing him, was to fulfill the old pureblood rules that forbade a Malfoy Heir from getting married without parental consent. Of course, Draco is an adult and established as a potioneer (youngest potions master since Severus Snape) and able to make his decisions for himself. And that is the contingency plan, there is an elopement option that Draco actually would prefer. Following tradition was Harry’s idea, one the Draco loved and resented him for in equal measures. Draco loves his father, that is not in doubt. But Lucius is a man who fought on the other side of a war from Harry and had not been kind. There would be no judgement from Draco should Harry have said he wanted little to no contact with the former inhabitant of Azkaban so he had been surprised Harry had insisted on following the tradition in this case. Surprised but thoroughly pleased and even more in love with the man than he had been two seconds before.
Arriving in front of his father’s study, with more stress and fear than Lucius had any right to invoke in his son, Nifty announced their arrival and elt them into the room. Tea was waiting on a floating tray in front of the fireplace where there were two empty chairs waiting across from where Lucius sat. The elder Malfoy took in the sight of his son and Harry, eyes narrowing on where their hands were joined but neither of the younger men were inclined to let him intimidate them like that and held tighter.
“Draco, it is good to see you again, son. Your mother misses you terribly, you should move back in with us, for her sake, until I finish finding you someone to wed,” Lucius said with a warm tone, gesturing for Draco and Harry to take their seats after kissing his ring.
“Mr Potter,” this was said with frigid air, no hint of the welcome that Draco had received. “It is an honor to have your presence in our esteemed home under more light circumstances.”
Ignoring the ice in Lucius’s voice, Harry greeted him warmly as he took his seat. “Mr Malfoy, it is a true pleasure to see you this fine day. I am not one to beat around the bush so I am going to jump straight in to my request.”
Draco squawked indignantly as Harry ignored all their previously planned conversation starting points and rushed in like his typical, Gryffindorish self. Also ignoring his partner’s attempts to quiet him with offers of tea and cookies, Harry forged on, not wanting to allow Lucius the chance to interrupt before he got his question out.
“As you know,” Harry continued, despite the knowledge of Lucius’s continuous refusal to accept the truth of their relationship, “Draco and I have been dating for eight years now. I love your son, and he loves me. He is it for me, there will be no one else who will hold my heart as tenderly as he does now.and I do not want it back. He is the love of my life and, Merlin willing, I am his. And I will be for however long he wishes to keep me, and i hope that is forever. We wish to make it official and, in order to make that happen, we know we need your approval in the eyes of magic to make that happen. So we are here today to ask for this, to ask for your blessing on the union of the Potter and Malfoy families. To ask for your blessing on this love.”
As Harry’s speech continued, his calm exterior began to crack away, leaving him clinging to Draco’s hand and shaking as he begged for Lucius to allow him to marry his son. As Harry spoke, two pairs of eyes, one silver and one grey, filled with tears upon hearing this loving declaration. The grey pair, belonging to his lover, were fixed on Harry’s green eyes, trying to telepathically and wordlessly convey the same love and emotion back. The silver eyes traced the path back and forth between his son and his lover, almost seeing the love between them laid bare before them all.
Blinking away the moisture in his eyes, Lucius stood and turned his back to the younger men. He had worried that this day would come, that one day soon, he would be faced with Draco asking for his blessing on his union to Harry Potter. And the day was here but not at all as he had assumed. The asker was wrong. And that? That is what made it right. Made him able to say
“Yes”