Chapter 10
Draco Malfoy has never been an animal person. His mom certainly tried to bring him to the dark side, escorting him to animal shelters and pet shops, and even, god forbid, zoos, but he could not stand their bestial company. He wants so badly to make her happy, to wish for a puppy or a kitten like the other kids so incessantly do, but how could he trust a furry creature that signals their desire with howls and wagging tails, or meows and long stretches?
For Draco, direct communication is essential.
How he hates being misunderstood!
So it surprised him, unpleasantly, but in actuality, pleasantly, to discover his love for bees.
“They won’t hurt you,” Draco promises a fidgeting Hermione while Barty zips up their bee suits.
They’re getting ready in the little shack just across from the three wooden hives—three 10-frame Langstroth beehives, to be specific. Draco presses his gloved hand on the smudged window, gazing longingly at the bees outside. “Humans have been minding bees for 4,500 years. We have a history, the bees and us.”
Though Hermione’s hooded hat veils her expression, Draco can make out a nervous smile.
“Draco’s right, as usual.” Barty winks.
Draco pretends as if he doesn’t care that the best counselor in Hogwarts complimented him. But oh my god! Yes! He is always right! Finally, someone notices!
“Bees are our friends,” Barty says proudly. “They get a bad rep with those stingers, and their wasp cousins certainly suck, but they’re fantastic little creatures.”
“Cousins generally suck,” Draco agrees. Really, he doesn’t see the merit in having a family at all. Besides his mom, Draco can’t think of one relative he likes. They’re all simply bullies.
They file out of the shack, Draco’s hands eager to get started. The routine is much slower when a newbie signs up for the Activity, he much prefers when it’s just him and Barty. And the bees.
“You’re not going to wear a suit!?” Hermione whisper-shouts at Barty.
Draco scoffs. “You can speak at a normal volume.”
While Barty has on gloves and a hooded hat, the rest of his body is unguarded. His shirt and shorts are light colors, so as to calm the bees, and yet he somehow preserves his rugged, edgy look.
When Draco grows up, he wants to be as gorgeous as Barty. And as good with the bees!
“Don’t worry, Hermione, I’ll be totally safe. I’m very comfortable with bees.” Barty’s smile is probably meant to be reassuring, but it comes out daring. “The suits are just a precautionary measure.”
“Does that mean I can take mine off?” Draco asks, not for the first time.
“No.”
“Liability issue?” he guesses. It’s what his dad used to say whenever he and his friends played on ‘company property’.
“How do you know…actually, I really shouldn’t ask.” Barty turns to face the hives and opens his arms. “Our friends await.”
Draco doesn’t need to be told twice and launches off for the hive on the far left. Barty and Hermione follow shortly, the former already explaining the basics: “So, Hermione, what do beekeepers do?”
“Apiarits, not beekeepers,” Draco can’t help but correct.
Hermione ignores Draco and straightens. “They care for bees, help them pollinate, and make honey.”
“Exactly.” Barty pulls his hive tool out of his pocket, and cracks open the first frame of the hive. At this point, Draco has seen it countless times, but the sight of all that yellow and black, the fluttering of wings, and honeycombs, the busy buzz—it makes him feel tremendous!
“Wow,” Hermione breathes.
“One of the most important parts of our jobs is spotting things early. If we see a pest—”
“Like varroa mites,” Draco adds helpfully.
“Right, or signs of a bacterial disease—”
“Like foulbrood which makes the larvae brown.”
“Yep.” Barty nods at Draco. “If we spot things like those we can start treating the bees early and keep them healthy.”
Barty cracks open another frame, and then another, and then another, and Draco’s vision goes spotty, not from the flying bees but because of his own insufferable vision. Because, right, he’s not breathing.
It’s only, he’s excited to see the Queen.
How could he even think about breathing before the Queen!
“Ah, there she is.”
Barty gingerly sets the frame on the rest and points to the beautiful, slightly longer, slightly larger Queen Bee.
“That’s another big part of our job,” Barty says. “We have to make sure that the queen is busy laying eggs to keep the colony surviving.”
Draco perks up, and provides the critical information Barty is not providing: “If the Queen dies, we have to replace her A.S.A.P.,” he punctuates every letter.
“Surely queens aren’t replaceable?” Hermione says, sounding altogether like an old lady. Like Draco’s grandmother, actually.
“Everyone is replaceable,” Draco says sagely.
Barty gives Draco one of those looks, a look not unlike the one his mom gives him from time to time when he sounds like father. “What? What’d I do wrong?”
“No one is replaceable,” Barty’s voice is stern. “Let’s make that totally clear. And as for the bees? Every queen brings her own ruling style to the colony, I’m sure. Think about it like a line of monarchs, how every generation rules a little differently.”
Hermione dips her veiled hat in agreement. “Like Catherine of Aragon to Bloody Mary.”
“You’re forgetting that Edward VI and Lady Jane Grey were monarchs in between, and Catherine was hardly powerful, what with her husband Henry VIII—”
“Catherine was a remarkable queen!” Hermione interrupts Draco with a squeaky voice. “And my point is that there was a succession, not an immediate succession.”
“Okayyy,” Barty hums. “You both lost me there, but if you’ll turn your attention back to our bee friends…”
The hour passes much the same, Barty walking them through standard beekeeping practices while Hermione and Draco discuss history. They cover the uncapping of honey while debating the Big Bang, how to extract honey while contemplating the existence of Jesus, honey filtering while investigating humanity’s worst plague, and the merits of honey pasteurization while reasoning the true start of the industrial revolution in the West.
Draco enjoys the chronology of their exchange, and that Hermione actually knows what she’s speaking about, though the majority of her arguments fall short. So he’s happy when they return to the shack and unzip their suits; happy to not only have spent another sixty minutes with the bees, but happy to have such a knowledgeable acquaintance.
Only Hermione doesn’t look happy when she pulls off her hat. No, her dark brown skin is flushed Gryffindor red, and her nose is angled down like Draco’s mom after an argument with father.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Barty whips around to look at them.
“You can’t honestly believe that the radio wasn’t revolutionary!” Hermione blurts.
“In terms of technology, it’s not that extraordinary.”
“Now, yes, but think of all the ways radio broadcasting changed society! It was a new form of mass communication. The fireside chats with Roosevelt? Narrating novels? Reporting on the war? And don’t get me started on Satellite radio.”
Draco takes a moment to consider, then extends his hand forward. “I see your point.”
Hermione’s eyes widen for a moment, in shock? Disgust?! Draco isn’t sure. But he’s learned from father never to appear weak, so he keeps his hand and gaze steady, until finally, she shakes it.
“That was a lively debate, I look forward to the next one.”
“Oh.” Hermione glances at Barty and then looks back to Draco. “You were just…debating with me?”
“Do you debate my use of the word debate?”
Barty’s bark of a laugh makes both Hermione and Draco jerk. “I think Regulus has rubbed off on you, Draco.”
“My counselor and I are similar, yes. But I’ve always been this way.”
Barty shakes his head with a smile and pats Draco on the shoulder. It’s surprisingly light, soft even. Makes him miss his mom terribly.
“You’re a legend, Draco Malfoy.” He turns to Hermione. “You too, Granger.”
The two campers look at each other for a minute, both trying and failing to hide a smile.
******
Much to Draco’s surprise, Hermione does not leave his side when they return to the main camp for lunch. Even worse, she begins to ask him personal questions, like where he lives, or what he wants to be when he grows up.
The nerve!
Draco skillfully shifts the conversation back to more appropriate topics, and when Harry finds them, they’re deep in a discussion about the Basque language, and if it’s truly the oldest language in Europe.
“Hi!” Harry’s green eyes are as bright as ever, though Draco spots a touch of confusion in his squint.
“Hey, Harry.” Hermione smiles. “What Activity did you take?”
“Oh! Swimming. Marlene says I NAILED freestyle today. That’s the stroke with the windmill arms.”
Only because Draco knows how hard Harry has been working on his swimming, does he not turn his nose at the crude description of the most dignified swimming style. Honestly, ‘windmill arms’?
“Oh my god, that’s awesome!” Hermione pulls Harry into a hug.
Draco rolls his eyes. Gryffindors are all so touchy!
“So uhm...” Harry trails off as he leans away from Hermione, and scoots, or more accurately, shuffles closer to Draco. “Why are you two uhm talking?”
“Hermione’s the second smartest camper here,” Draco states the truth.
“Second?” Hermione scoffs. “That’s a subjective statement.”
“What does subjective mean? When did you two start talking? And why without me?” Harry shifts his weight on his feet while he rambles. “And if Hermione’s the second smartest, then who’s the first smartest?!”
Draco chooses to answer only the last question: “Me, obviously.”
Harry’s lips scrunch together, nose twitching. Then he grins. “Yeah, you’re really smart. So, uhm, what about the third smartest?”
Draco doesn’t hesitate: “Pansy.”
“I heard my name.”
“Oh, bother,” Hermione mumbles.
Pansy places an arm on Draco’s shoulder, barely glancing at the other two as she cocks her hip to the side. “Dray, you really shouldn’t talk so much about me. It makes you look desperate.”
Draco rolls his eyes twice, for both the nickname and the implication. “I was complimenting you, don’t get all pissy.”
Pansy’s face lights up, though she keeps her mouth in a firm line. Then she turns to Hermione and her expression shutters.
“Why don’t we join our cabin, Dray? Over there.”
It’s not a question, Pansy is already hauling Draco by the arm, crossing to Slytherin Cabin 3’s picnic table on the righthand side.
Unlike the rest of the tables, the wood is fairly smooth and doesn’t slope awkwardly to the side. For an unkept summer camp, it’s the most noble option possible. And yet, Draco still stifles a groan as he settles himself on the hard bench. Barbaric!
Pansy sits beside him, and he turns to her. “That was rude.”
“And?”
“Just stating the obvious. And inviting you to explain yourself.”
“Well, I’m not interested.”
“Is it because Granger was talking to me? Cause that would be—”
“My issues with Granger are not about a stupid boy.”
“I may be a boy, but I’m definitely not stupid.”
Pansy lifts her chin. Somehow, she manages to make denim shorts and a t-shirt look expensive, despite the paint splatters on her fingers and neck. It’s entirely admirable, and Draco feels a smidgen of envy.
Instead of resenting her for it, he says: “You look nice.”
She smirks. “I know.”
He and Pansy have been family friends since kindergarten, but only real friends since a couple of years ago. Partially in rebellion to their fathers’ wishes, and partially because their personalities are so considerable, they deeply disliked each other for much of their young lives.
They’ve matured now, of course. As is expected at the ripe age of twelve!
“How are the bees?” Pansy asks him, genuinely interested in an update. While she lacks his appetite for apiculture, she appreciates the power of knowledge.
“Well, the second hive was—”
Theo and Blaise come running up and jump over the bench on the other side, both panting and wheezing like dogs.
“I made it first!”
“No, my hand touched the table before you.”
“It was Theo.” Millicent walks up to the table with a calm expression.
“Whatever,” Blaise scowls while Theo's grin turns victorious.
Millicent ignores Blaise entirely, twisting up her hair into a bun, and sticking a pencil through it.
Of all his friends, Draco adores Millie most of all. She’s a fellow fan of common sense, keeping Theo and Blaise in check and holding Pansy back when her temper becomes turbulent. And, unlike the rest of them, her family isn’t dripping with stolen wealth.
Soon enough, Draco and his mom won’t be either.
Draco scoots to the side, making room on his left for Millicent, quietly tapping their matching friendship bracelets together. “Hi, Mills.”
The cabin gets to talking about Theo’s recently discovered genius for crochet, Millie’s first time on the ropes course, and, of course, Draco’s bees.
He is rudely interrupted by the arrival of their counselor.
“I figured out where we’re going this weekend,” Regulus says by way of greeting.
While Draco grits his teeth, Millicent and Pansy both straighten—they have a bet going for this weekend’s mystery trip. Draco can’t be bothered to try and guess at Lily and Mary’s idea of a ‘field trip’, but he knows, he laments, that it probably involves more nature.
Draco isn’t a fan of nature. Besides his bees.
Regulus takes his time sitting down, meeting all his campers’ eyes in silent suspense. At the beginning of the summer, he was stiff and proper with them, ‘walking on eggshells’ as a plebian might say. Then, likely when he realized they were intelligent prepubescents with dignity, not imbecilic apes, Regulus softened.
A foolish decision!
“Apparently this was Dumbledore’s idea,” Regulus begins, his lips twitching down.
Draco has to look away from the frown. From the familiarity of it all. And thus finds himself frowning at the homesickness deep, deep in his belly.
“Oh come on, Reg.” Pansy whines. “Tell us!”
“Alright, alright…We’re going to a castle.”
And there, that flash in Regulus’s gray eyes, the slight crinkle in the lower edges, is the undeniable, irrefutable proof…
That Regulus is Narcissa’s cousin.
Draco figured it out within seconds of meeting Regulus because honestly, he’s not an idiot! And then when he met Sirius, he nearly barfed from hatred. Because Draco hates them, he hates them, for somehow getting out of that family and not taking his mom too.
And, maybe most of all, he hates Sirius and Regulus for lying to his face about it. Every! Day!
Regulus meets Draco’s gaze then, searching for something—approval? love? respect? Whatever it is, Draco doesn’t care.
Millie nudges Draco’s shoulder. She doesn’t ask the question out loud, but her narrowed brown eyes do the work for her.
“I’m fine,” he mouths.
“Dude, this is going to be awesome,” Theo babbles to Blaise.
“Much better than a trip to that disgusting river.” Pansy shudders.
And then, because Regulus is still watching, Draco feigns niceties as he does with the rest of his so-called family: “A castle does sound like a proper excursion.”
Regulus chuckles. “I’m glad we’re not hiking through the mountains either.”
Draco laughs back, pretending, always pretending.
For he knows that patience! is required! for revenge! It is, after all, best served cold.
******
The castle isn’t really a castle, much to most of the campers’ surprise. Draco was prepared for this reality, however, because he’s aware that they’re not camping in Europe.
Which is a shame!
Instead, the tourist-infested field trip is a mere mansion built by some wealthy man with too much time on his hands. Draco more than knows the type.
Mary and Lily, who both appear quite resigned to the excursion, split the campers into four groups. In a lousy attempt at cross-house friendship, they mix the Slytherins and the Gryffindors, taking Millicent and Blaise away from Draco.
He sulks next to Theo on the bus and pretends to sleep on Pansy’s shoulder as they walk on the tour, uninterested in the guide’s monotone monologues about what the golden tigers signify, and why there are five indoor pools.
Draco’s mom took him to Versailles! Why would he care about an American oligarch’s taste in architecture?
If Millie were here, Draco might just admit the real reason he’s in such a fit. The mansion—a long, one-storied house with thousands of square feet of pointless artifacts and empty bedrooms, built with the wealth from the gold rush of all things—feels a lot like father’s home.
His childhood home.
But Draco’s not a child anymore!
Unfortunately, fortunately, he cannot sulk in peace. Not when Harry Dursley is so determined to make him smile.
“Draco dramatic pause Malfoy!” Harry tugs his sleeve for the umpteenth time. “You have to see this statue.”
With a short sigh to Pansy, Draco lets Harry drag him to the side, where sure enough, another naked marble figure rests.
“Wow, this is definitely a must-see,” he deadpans.
“How do you think they do it?” Harry tilts his head, squinting at the woman’s carved brows and lips. “It looks so real I feel like she might just start talking to us!”
“She won’t.”
“But she might!”
The rest of the tour goes a lot like that, and by the time it hits hour three, yes three, Draco is so distracted, exasperated, and amused by Harry’s antics, that he’s completely forgotten the Malfoy Manor and all the horrible people within it.
With all Harry’s stops, they’ve fallen to the far back of the group, and Pansy and Theo have long since given up on stealing Draco from Harry. Not that Draco wants to be stolen back.
It’s totally stupid! But Draco Malfoy kinda sorta likes Harry Dursley.
It all started when Harry saw Draco cry about missing his stupid mom on the first night of camp. Or, well, his mom’s not stupid at all. She’s very smart and his favorite person in the world, but regardless, Harry saw how much Draco cares.
And god that’s embarrassing!
No one, not his friends that he’s known since birth, not his extensive list of cousins something removed, not even father has seen Draco cry before. Just his mom.
So Draco either had to 1) threaten him to stay quiet or 2) trust him with his life.
He did, or rather, does both.
Harry doesn’t mind the threats, and he’s awfully easy to trust. And just…nice to be around. Hence the reason why Draco is following Harry around as he makes crude, and sometimes, though rarely, insightful comments on interior design.
“If I had a mansion I’d decorate each room in one color, and then call it the Rainbow Palace,” Harry muses as they pass a mural of an ocean. Or maybe that’s a fishbowl? It’s entirely possible that it’s Spongebob.
“A Rainbow Palace sounds…vibrant.”
“Exactly. My real house is all pastels cause my mom likes cream and light pink and lavender and all that. It suckssssss.”
“My house was the opposite, covered in dark greys and blacks.”
“Was?” Harry turns to Draco.
“We moved a couple of months ago, me and my mom.”
“Oh cool! Not with your dad?”
Draco chooses to look at the row of stained windows across from them, rather than Harry’s green eyes. “No.”
“You never talk about him,” Harry begins but then stops.
The rare silence forces Draco to turn and look, finding Harry’s smile sheepish.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be nosy. You probably don’t talk about your dad for a reason. I definitely don’t like talking about my dad, I mean he’s awful.”
Draco blinks, trying to process all of Harry’s words. “My father’s awful too.”
“But now you don’t live with him, yeah?” Harry says, trying, always trying, to look on the bright side.
“Yeah.” Draco smiles, but only a little.
“One day I’m going to live somewhere far away where my dad can’t find me, and I can’t hear all his shouting and bad music.” Somewhat absently, Harry rubs the angled scar on his forehead.
“Is that why you ran away to this camp?”
Harry shrugs. “Sorta. I always really wanted to go to summer camp!”
That is something Draco cannot fathom, so he brushes it aside in his mind and focuses on the important bits. From his astute observations, he has already concluded that 1) Harry’s father drinks too much. 2) That scar on his forehead wasn’t an accident. 3) Harry Dursley deserves better.
But Draco knows how hard it is to talk about disappointing fathers. How hard it is to do anything about said fathers. How hard it is to be brave.
He decides, however, that he has to try.
“You and your mom should leave him.” Draco swallows, hands a little shaky. “You don’t need a dad if you’ve got a mom.”
“Sometimes I think my mom wants to…But my brother would definitely get all mad if we left him.”
Before Draco can offer the sensible solution, leave the brother behind, they pass through a curved archway painted in shimmering gold, and enter what appears to be a ballroom, though the floor is an enlarged…chess board?
Draco sighs. This place is terrible!
Their tour group is up ahead, probably too far ahead given that they’re already exiting the ballroom on the other side. Two counselors are lagging in the back, however, and Draco freezes.
“Come here.” He grabs Harry’s arm and tucks them both behind the gilded doorway.
“What? What!”
“They haven’t noticed we’re not with the group,” Draco whispers. “If we wait a little, we can take our own private tour.”
Harry’s grin is half shy, half mischief. “Won’t we get in trouble?”
“Not if we get caught.”
Draco edges out from the doorway, expecting the last of the group to be filed out, but the counselors are still there.
James.
And Regulus.
Draco scowls. Have they already realized that he and Harry are gone?
Harry, as impatient as ever, crouches down and peaks out from underneath Draco, the two boys just hair and eyes sprouting from the doorway.
“What are they doing?” Draco gasps when James extends a hand to Regulus.
For once, it’s Harry with the answer: “They’re dancing.”
Draco, of course, is well-versed in most ballroom dances, so he can recognize the rhythm of the waltz, the soft spins that pick up speed as James gets bolder, and Regulus starts to trust his lead. They’re well matched, Draco begrudgingly admits to himself—James’s height and build is a perfect contrast to Regulus’s smaller, lanky skeleton.
Gangliness must run in the family.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
Draco rolls his eyes at Harry, even though he can’t see him, then stiffens. James is pulling Regulus in, or is it the other way around? Either way, the two counselors’ chests push forward, pressing far too close, and their heads lean in…
Then James spins Regulus as if the moment were mere imagination.
With a sharp inhale, Draco tugs Harry out of view.
“Were Prongs and Regulus about to…” Harry chews on his lip. “Kiss?”
Draco doesn’t answer, his mind whirring from surprise.
For three weeks he’s been biding his time, waiting to discover Regulus and Sirius’s weaknesses. Of course, the obvious answer is their love for each other, but Draco knows better than to try and mess with the unbreakable power of a sibling bond. He’s seen it when his mom cries on Andromeda’s birthday or all those holidays when she endured Bellatrix’s awful quips. Nothing can break it.
But a crush? Romance? Now that Draco can ruin.
“Ohmygod they’re in love!” Harry’s head is sticking out of the doorway again.
Draco pulls him back in. “Don’t be a stalker.”
Harry bounces on his heels, chin tilting up so he can stare at the ceiling to find his words. He does it quite often, and Draco secretly finds it adorable that Harry turns to the sky for answers. He would never say such a sappy thing out loud, of course.
Harry, on the other hand, is nothing but a sap.
“One day, I’m going to be in love like that.”
Draco’s heart inexplicably tightens with dread at the hope on Harry’s face. Love doesn’t last. He is certain that it can’t. Because once, a long, long time ago, father looked at his mom like that. In their wedding photos. In their first family portrait. On Draco’s 6 month birthday!
The last photo of the Malfoy family, however, shows nothing but ice between Narcissa and Lucius.
“I hope I never fall in love.”
Harry’s expression falls like an avalanche.
“What?” Draco rushes to say. “What did I do wrong?”
“You really believe that?” Harry asks slowly. “You never want to be in love?”
Draco speaks the only way he knows how, blunt and factual: “Love is like fire—it’s destined to flicker out.”
He almost, almost, regrets his words at the sight of Harry’s pitiful frown.
Almost!
******
In the end, it’s Dorcas who finds Harry and Draco roaming around the mansion, sans tour group. She raises her brows at them, demonstrating a proper Slytherin glower, but doesn’t bother reprimanding them out loud.
Harry nearly explodes from shame, or in other words, pulls his hair nervously and says “I’msosorry” at least a hundred times.
Draco, for his part, meets Dorcas’s disappointed expression head-on. “We got lost, it’s not our fault the counselors were so distracted that they forgot about us.”
Dorcas crosses their arms. “I’m sure James and Regulus are very worried about you right now.”
That makes Harry nearly cry, which in turn, makes Draco furious.
“It’s alright, Harry,” Dorcas says quickly, squeezing his shoulder. “Just be more careful next time, yeah?”
She tells them to follow her outside, where the rest of the campers are having lunch in the gardens. Once she turns around to lead them out, Harry wipes his face with his hands and turns to Draco.
He’s smirking.
Smirking!
“Oh my god,” Draco whispers. “You were faking?”
It makes sense now that Draco thinks about it—living in a house with a demanding brother, a disappointing father, and an overbearing mother probably trained Harry well in the art of naiveté.
Draco never could manage the innocent child act. Father always saw right through it.
After a lazy shrug, and another glance to make sure Dorcas isn’t looking, Harry pulls a walkie-talkie from the side pocket of his backpack.
Draco’s mouth falls open. Where did he get one of those? And how could Draco get one himself?
“Prongs?” Harry clicks a button on the side.
After a moment, there’s a crackle. “Harry? Where are you!”
“Draco and I are with Dorcas, we’re sorry, we got a little lost.”
“That’s alright, bud, I’m glad you’re ok. I saved you a turkey sandwich, the Slytherins nearly snatched all of them.”
“Will you grab Draco a vegetarian one?”
James chuckles. “Reggie is already on it.”
Harry slides the walkie-talkie back into his bag. Without another word, he jogs up to Dorcas to talk about the swimming stroke he plans to learn next, which he so vulgarly named ‘the toad slide.’
Draco has to take a minute to reel back his shock.
It seems that he sorely underestimated Harry Dursley.
******
The gardens are, rightfully, massive. This gives Draco a much-needed reprieve from his obnoxiously loud and immature peers, as, according to Mary, the campers are allowed to spread out amidst the flora, as long as, according to Lily, they stay within the gardens.
Draco ditches the crowd without hesitation, searching for a place to scheme alone. There’s quite a lot of planning to do now that he’s discovered Regulus’s Achilles heel, a man named James Potter.
Of course a man would be his greatest weakness!
Eventually, Draco finds an alcove filled with flowers in terracotta pots and settles on a marble bench half hidden from view. He picks at his camp-provided lunch: a brown bag with a cucumber sandwich, an apple, banana chips, and water.
“I miss you, Mom.” Draco sniffs.
On the weekends, the two of them make falafel and hummus from scratch. They went vegetarian a couple of years ago, much to father’s avid chagrin. That was half the reason, honestly. And the fact that Draco couldn’t stand animals, much less eat them.
The shrieks of a few campers running outside the alcove make Draco flinch, and he rubs his temples, desperate for a nap, or perhaps a light afternoon tea.
Though Draco lives in Hogsmeade, and attends the fancy private school half the campers go to, he’s never been to Hogwarts before. It was forbidden by father, and most of his family agreed.
But then he and Mom left.
Everything changed after that. New apartment, new traditions, new rules, even a new closet!
The only change Draco resented? Summer camp.
His mom signed him up to give him a ‘fun challenge’, to ‘broaden his social circle’, to inspire him ‘to be a kid again’. Her reasons are many, but they all lack any real sense.
Draco would much rather be with his mom all summer. Right now she’s surely sad, reading alone in their half-decorated apartment, trying to hide the fact that she’s getting a divorce from all their friends and family.
But the thought of disappointing his mom makes Draco sick. So, like usual, he’s pretending.
Pretending that he’s having the time of his life at Hogwarts. Excelling in every challenge! Winning the favor of every counselor! Signing up for all kinds of Activities! He reports on all the great fun he’s having in his long letters home. He hopes it brings his mom some joy.
And maybe, just maybe he’s enjoying himself. A little. He has his bees, after all. And his cabin. And…Harry.
But above all, he has his chance at revenge.
Nevertheless, it feels ridiculous when he knows that hundreds of miles away, his mom is sitting at the kitchen table alone, waiting for him to return.
And here he is, having lunch alone too.
“There you are!” Harry ducks under the ivy framing the alcove, that was once quiet.
“Miss me that much?”
“Yep!” Harry sets his lunch on the bench across from Draco. “These flowers are so pretty!”
Draco follows Harry’s gaze to the potted flowers in a row alongside the green boxwood.
“That’s my mom’s flower, Petunia!” Harry bends to pet one of the pink petals gently, then moves on to the next. “And these are…”
“Daffodils,” Draco supplies. He tries not to get irrational at the sight of the white and yellow flowers, but tears sting his eyes regardless. “Also called Narcissus.”
He wonders if the daffodils he and his mom planted on the windowsill will still be alive when he returns. Probably not! His mom isn’t too skilled with gardening.
“Well, daffodils and petunias are lovely,” Harry says absentmindedly. “But I think my favorite flower is a lily.”
Draco, still mooning at the daffodils, clears his throat, busying himself with his food. “So you didn’t want to eat with your cabin?”
Harry sits on the bench and spills his brown bag half onto the floor. “Nope! I see them all the time, and besides, we have to plan Operation Jegulus.”
“What?” Draco nearly spits out his sandwich.
Harry continues, oblivious, “It’s James and Regulus’s names mashed up together! Luna calls it a SHIP name, like a boat. I’ve never seen anyone dance like they do, and the way they look at each other…” He buzzes his lips. “They’re like a fairytale!”
Draco swallows the bite of his sandwich, but only manages to repeat: “What?”
“Ohhh yes, it’s just like Sleeping Beauty!” Harry grins. “James is Prince Charming sweeping Regulus off his feet in a meadow.”
Draco blinks. “You’re saying Regulus is…Aurora in this analogy?”
“Exactly! So I was thinking—” Harry unzips his backpack, revealing an uncommonly messy interior, with crumpled paper, friendship bracelet string, flashlights, and is that a candy bar? He shoves things around until he pulls out a bright pink notebook.
“We should write Regulus a love letter from his Prince Charming to help get them together so they can make love.”
“WHAT?!” This time Draco chokes on his food.
After he manages to guzzle some water and swallow his food, Draco rasps: “Do you know what that means? Make love?”
“It’s just a saying.”
“Oh, Harry.”
Harry’s brows furrow, but he moves on quickly, “The point is I need your help writing a love letter. Something that is superrrr romantic.”
Draco’s first instinct, of course, it to say no. But after a moment of silent deliberation, he realizes how Harry’s foolish plan might just help his own.
“Fine.”
A couple of minutes later, they’ve got the letter finished, the sonnet recited by Draco but scribed in Harry’s hand to mimic James’s sloppy scrawl.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
The end of the letter is signed with a sweet and simple: Yours—you know who I am.
“Draco…” Harry gasps, rereading the words. “You’re so talented!”
“It’s not my poem, obviously. It’s Shakespeare.”
“Who’s that?”
Draco nearly gasps. How dare Harry’s mother neglect Shakespeare in his homeschool education?
But Harry, unsurprisingly, has already moved on. “Okay! Now all we need is a distraction.”
The distraction, it turns out, comes in the form of the Weasley twins, who manage yet another prank despite the fact that they aren’t on campgrounds. After spending all morning convincing the eldest campers of both Slytherin and Gryffindor to be their backup singers, Fred and George perform a horrifying rendition of “Circle of Life”, where Fred is Rafiki and George is Simba.
George is dropped at least four times before Fred manages to lift him up and recreate the scene from the animated movie. On principle, Draco despises animation. Real actors are so much more authentic!
During the performance, Regulus is sufficiently distracted and Harry easily slides the letter into his backpack so that the white corner sticks noticeably from the front pocket.
Then, Draco gets to work on his part of the plan.
“Gilderoy?” He finds the Gryffindor counselor on the lawn, trying and failing to show some campers how to do a handstand. It would probably help if he knew how to do a handstand himself.
Draco clears his throat. “It’s come to my attention that some of the campers don’t know Shakespeare.”
Gilderoy grimaces. He’s a struggling actor, Draco has long since deduced, and takes his craft much, much too seriously.
“I’d like to ask the most talented performer at Hogwarts if you might present a short monologue or sonnet so that they can understand his genius,” Draco says with his best Pansy smile.
“Yes, yes! Draco, you’re right, we must remedy this immediately!” Gilderoy begins to pace on the grass, blonde hair flipping from side to side like an overused mop. “Of course, Hamlet would be the obvious choice, but there’s also the incomparable history plays, or perhaps, Bassiano—”
Draco cuts in swiftly, “Don’t you think this setting is fit for a sonnet? With all this beautiful…” He nods to the groomed hedges in the shapes of centaurs “...natural art? On a summer’s day, no less.”
Thankfully, Gilderoy gets the message. “Of course! Sonnet 18.”
Revenge, Draco is starting to learn, doesn’t take much work at all.
Gilderoy struts over to the center of the gardens, which features a fountain of giraffes spitting water out of their mouths. Draco finds a spot near the edge of the scattered campers and counselors, smirking as Gilderoy steps onto the stone edge of the fountain.
He begins his performance without preamble: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day…”
While Gilderoy’s hideous inflection of the iambic pentameter is hilarious, the counselors’ reactions are even more so.
Lily: shocked and annoyed. Mary: recording the spectacle. Dorcas and Sirius: squeezing each other’s hands with barely hidden smiles. Marlene: somewhat impressed? Barty: somehow glaring and laughing.
And then the man himself, Regulus. He stares at the letter in his hand, then back to Gilderoy, and then across to James who isn’t paying attention at all, but rather playing slide with Neville Longbottom.
With a sharp flinch, Regulus’s face falls, and he crumples the letter in his hand.
Bingo!
But Draco only has a moment to bask in his victory, before Harry is running up to him.
“It’s not just James and Regulus!” Harry wheezes.
“What are you talking about?” Draco says, still watching Regulus’s disappointed, though altogether subdued, realization that it’s not James who admires him, but rather an idiot who butchers Shakespeare’s good name.
Could there be anything more shameful!
“I just heard Sirius…” Harry sucks in a breath. “Sirius talking to Dorcas…” Another one. “And they called Remus his…Moon!”
Draco turns around slowly. “Moon?”
“Yes!”
The Marauders are notorious for bad nicknames, so Draco fails to understand Harry’s excitement.
Then Harry places his hands on Draco’s shoulders, grin widening. “Sirius said: I’ve been in love with my moon for this long, I can wait a little longer.”
Draco’s lips curve up.
“We have to get Sirius and Remus together too!” Harry squeals.
“Yes.” Draco laughs, and it sounds somewhat like Bellatrix’s, which is mildly offputting, but altogether appropriate for the moment. “I think so.”
Revenge, it seems, is best served twice!