Turning the Page

Levi’s birthday falls on the following Wednesday. 

Draco had thought of Levi’s gift weeks earlier, right after Hermione had mentioned it was coming up. Before things took a turn for the worse.

So, while he comes up with a backup present in case she objects, he gives Louis a call in the morning to make sure his original idea is still a go.

And then he waits for Hermione to come in.

“Hello,” she enters the muggle doorway at ten to one. 

“Good afternoon. Blessed delivery day,” he says, offering her a bouquet of white carnations.

“Oh, they’re beautiful. Thank you,” she takes them and smells them, her face soft and inviting.

Draco can’t help but admire the tan of her face against the clean white petals.

“It is so strange. Levi being three years old.”

Draco can only imagine.

“He was so excited this morning. Apparently birthday boys get to sit in a cushioned blue chair at his day school.”

He can imagine Levi sitting as a prince on a small blue chair.

“I actually wanted to talk with you about Levi’s birthday present,” Draco mentions, hoping he sounds casual.

“You didn’t have to get him anything,” she replies.

“Levi and I are friends. You always get a birthday present for your friends,” he shrugs. “Anyways, I had planned it out before he… drew the Dark Mark.”

She tenses only slightly.

So he continues, “I made an appointment with my tattooist, Louis. Levi likes to draw and I thought he might enjoy seeing how it all works. Maybe get a lesson.”

She looks like she is thinking it over.

“This Louis, he’s a regular muggle?”

“Perfectly regular,” Draco smiles.

“I think Levi will love it.”

He’s relieved.

“Pansy is picking him up from school in an hour.”

“I made the appointment for 5 o’clock.”

“Happy Birthday, lad,” Draco greets Levi.

He hasn’t gotten to see him as much as before his and Hermione’s fight.

Had thought that they were going to have more time together rather than less.

The Treasure Trail had been a real gift.

“Dragon, fly!” Levi throws himself into Draco’s arms.

Draco lifts the boy up and spins him through the air.

The boy's light laughter fills the air and makes Draco’s heart swell.

“This must be the birthday boy?” Louis asks, pushing open the door to the shop.

Draco carries Levi in and walks him around, pointing out different parts of the store and smiling at things Louis must have covered up.

At least three posters of pin up girls and an entire panel of potential tattoos that are not child friendly.

“I hear you are an artist,” Louis says to Levi when Draco sets him down on one of the tattoo stools.

“Yes, Sir.” Levi says, taking himself quite seriously.

“Would you like to draw something for me, Levi?” Draco asks, crouching down beside the boy.

“Really?”

He nods.

“Oh, Draco, you don’t have to-” Hermione finally speaks up, having finally stopped looking around in interest.

She’s more into it than Draco would have thought.

He thinks of her unblemished body. How much he had relished tracing every curve of her body.

“Mama, I want to,” Levi says.

“So do I,” Draco stands up.

Louis helps Levi by showing him all of the tools and then taking him over to a low desk where they start to draw.

“This is crazy, Draco. You can’t have a toddlers' art tattooed on your body.”

“Sure I can. It won’t be the worst mark I have. Not even the second worst.”

Her eyes scan his neck.

“You are an idiot, Draco Malfoy.”

“I really like your son, Hermione Granger.”

She rolls her eyes.

Levi finally settles on something and Draco is pleased to find that he has drawn a not terrible dragon.

“It’s you,” Levi presents it to Draco.

“Yes, it is,” he gives the small child a bright smile.

Draco takes his shirt off, leaving it around his forearms and he sits on the stool.

“I was thinking here,” he says, pointing to an open spot on his abdomen. The thin lined dragon doesn’t quite match his other pieces but he’s already certain he is going to love it.

Levi claps his hands and pokes at Draco’s pale skin.

“Darling, would you draw something for mummy too?” Hermione asks.

All three heads turn to look at her.

Levi squeals and runs off to the drawing table immediately.

“Have you ever been tattooed before, Miss?” Louis asks.

Draco hides his laughter behind his hand.

“No, I have not,” she admits, suddenly looking a bit less sure about her decision.

Luckily for her, Levi draws something small.

He picks a flower from one of the books Louis had put out for reference.

Draco decides not to point out how much time Levi spends painstakingly drawing the simple chrysanthemum for his mother. It is much longer than he’d spent on his wonky dragon.

Louis makes quick work of the dragon, completing it in thin black lines. He actually does an excellent job of making it look like a dragon.

Levi claps when he sees it and then settles onto a stool so that he can hold his Mum’s hand while she gets the flower tattooed.

Hermione picks her wrist, which is yet again another surprise.

Draco pokes fun at her as she gnaws on her lower lip, clearly rethinking her choice when the pain starts.

“Breathe, Granger. It’ll be over before you know it.”

“Draco here nearly passed out the first time he came in. Wasn’t even his first ink. Don’t worry about it, Miss,” Louis says, throwing Drasco under the trolley. 

He’s not sure he has that idiom right.

Levi gets a bit restless while Louis wraps Hermione’s tattoo so Draco takes him to keep drawing, describing the cake he is going to get for his Birthday as soon as they are done.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Hermione says, coming over and kissing Levi’s forehead.

“Cake?” Levi asks.

Draco and she chuckle and they each take one of Levi’s hands and file out of the parlour, content.

Hermione invited Draco over to her flat for cake after the pub the other day, informing him that Potter, Weasley, and a bunch of the other goody two shoes would be in attendance.

Pansy’s promise to attend was the only reason why Draco hadn’t come up with an excuse not to go.

Walking in with Levi’s hand in his makes it a little easier too.

Happy Birthdays erupt through the flat and Draco searches for Pansy. Whatever wall she is standing against will have to have enough room for the both of them.

“Hawwy!” Levi shrieks, pulling away from both Hermione and Draco to charge towards Potter.

Draco stares for a moment, surprised at the broad chested man in aurors robes who seems to have eaten Harry Potter.

Last Draco had seen him, Potter resembled a corpse. Not this tall dashing… prick.

Bloody saviour.

Draco sidles down the wall towards a head of dark hair that he recognizes.

“How’d it go?” Pansy asks.

Draco lifts his shirt to show his bandaged torso.

“She stabbed you when you asked?” 

Har har.

Draco glares. “She got one too.”

He’s pleased at the shock that flashes on Pansy’s face.

“Our Hermione? Got a tattoo? Without copious planning and research?”

“Levi drew it for her. I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it,” Draco smirks.

He is actually rather impressed with Hermione and her willingness to take the plunge into something so permanent.

“Draco Malfoy,” a deep voice says from behind him.

He turns, prepared for whatever may come. A punch to the face, a curse.

“Weasley,” he tilts his head.

“‘Mione told us you were working at the bookshop.”

Draco has no idea how to respond to that statement of fact.

But then Ronald fucking Weasley sticks his hand out.

Draco shakes it, confused and waiting for the other shoe.

It never comes. Weasley walks away without another word.

“I’d bet Granger forced him to do that,” Pansy snickers into her drink.

He shrugs, feeling off balance.

The party is fine. Not too many people and not too much magic to remind Draco of his own situation. 

There are a couple other kids running about with Levi. One has red hair but doesn’t seem to belong to Ronald.

Another’s hair keeps changing and he is the eldest so Draco assumes he is his cousin, Teddy Lupin.

Strange, Draco hadn’t really wrapped his head around his existence.

“Look out, The Boy Who Died and then Lived and then I don’t know-” Pansy rambles, not quite getting her insult out before Potter is standing in front of them, much like Weasley had been.

He’s got two glasses in his hands.

“Beer?” Harry Potter asks Draco Malfoy.

Fucking strange, this is.

Draco accepts it.

“Levi loved your gift,” Potter says.

So fucking weird.

“Tell me, Potter, are you still seeing that chaser from the Cannons?” Pansy asks.

Draco is grateful for the moment to remember how to speak.

“Not for months. The Prophet’s sources must be slipping,” Potter replies, grinning.

“We’d make one hell of a gossip column,” Pansy flirts.

Flirts? With the Boy Who… did a lot of things that made him a hero and practical legend.

“I’d be willing,” Potter says. “Would you give me a minute with Malfoy though?”

Pansy makes herself scarce.

“Hermione seems better.”

Draco still has nothing to say.

“I don’t know if it's just time. Or you. I just know she seems better. I hadn’t heard from her for months.”

“Sorry,” Draco blurts, because what else is there?

“I’m just saying. I don’t know how big a part you are playing in it, but she seems better.”

And then he holds his hand out.

And Draco shakes it.

And Potter walks away.

A twisted laugh finds its way out of Draco's throat when he thinks about another attempt at a handshake with the Boy-Who-Lived over a decade ago.

Draco sticks to the wall, drinking his beer and then watching Hermione speak to everyone in attendance, saying thank yous on behalf of her son.

She winds her way around in a way that doesn’t make any sense until it results in him being the last person she needs to talk to.

“You alright?” She asks, bringing him a plate with a slice of chocolate cake on it.

“Yeah I'm alright,” he nods. “Thank you.”

“I came to say the same thing to you. It might not have been a part of my plan for the day but I’m actually really excited about my new tattoo. And Levi loved it. He loves you.”

She fiddles with the bandage on her wrist.

Draco takes her hand in his and with deft fingers tucks the plastic that had come loose under the rest of the wrap.

“He’s an amazing kid, Granger.”

Levi is currently covered in cake, licking his fingers and reaching for another piece with his other hand.

“I’m really glad you are here,” Hermione says.

Me too. He isn't sure why he can't say it. Seems the cat has stolen his tongue.

“Your hearing is tomorrow, right?” She asks, always needing to fill the silence.

“Yes. Full Wizengamot hearing in chambers at 9 o’clock. I don’t really think they are going to grant my request. I just… want to say my piece.”

She turns and ponders him, like he is some great philosophical question.

“And you’ll be okay with it? If they don’t?”

Draco has thought about how he’ll feel a lot.

A few months ago, muggle mundanity felt like a fate worse than death. 

But there is nothing in his life that he needs magic for.

He had told himself right after his release that he just wanted to live a life of quiet reflection away from the magical world.

It had been a lie back then.

And now, it is half true. He wants to live a quiet life. A life that is small. With just the things he can’t live without.

“I’ll live,” he shrugs.