At first, Draco isn’t sure what time it is.
Which wouldn’t be all that strange, really, because he’s woken up at all manner of times before, often stumbling blearily to the clock on his dresser to squint at its cheery little face.
He rises and rubs groggily at his face, clothes rumpled and sticking uncomfortably to his skin, the faint taste of scotch in his mouth.
Ah. He must’ve done it again.
Craving the bitter taste of caffeine, he walks blearily into the living room and pauses at the long, pale figure stretched out across his sofa.
Pansy Parkinson is still very much asleep, lipstick smeared across her chin and dark bangs hanging haphazardly over her face. She’s snoring softly, mouth slightly parted, and Draco pauses to shake his head in exasperated amusement.
Well, that would explain a few things. As far as alcohol went, mixing it with Pansy was never a good idea. They often ended a night of drunken reverie singing Celina Warbeck songs at the tops of their lungs until one of Draco’s neighbours inevitably complained.
“Hey.” He leans forward to poke her shoulder, and when that doesn’t work, he gently swats her arm. ”Hey.”
She awakens slowly, unfurling against the black leather with all the urgency of a spoiled house cat, and peers grouchily up at Draco out of one eye. “What?”
Draco shakes his head again. Pansy is at her most unpleasant in the mornings, which, truly, is saying something. “Tea?” he offers, striding past into the kitchen. “Figured I should offer you some before you leave.”
He glares pointedly at her over a shoulder, but Pansy merely smirks.
“Draco, darling, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to kick me out.” She smiles deviously up through thick lashes. “Which I know can’t be true, given your immeasurable affection for me.”
“Right.” Draco rolls his eyes as he boils the kettle, watching her from the corner of his peripheral. “Well, allow me to affectionately request your immediate departure.”
There is a sudden knock at the door, sharp and insistent, and he shoots Pansy another meaningful look as he goes to open it.
“Blaise,” he begins loudly, “your girlfriend is a menace, she’s raided all my-”
He cuts off abruptly, words dying in his throat, because there, standing on his doorstep and shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot, isn’t Blaise Zabini at all.
Instead, it’s Harry Potter, all worn jeans and messy hair and unfashionably round glasses.
Harry fucking Potter is on his doorstep.
Draco opens his mouth. Closes it again, teeth clacking stupidly against his jaw, breaking off a half-formed “Oh,” of surprise. Opens it again.
And then: “Potter.” A pause. A sharp cough. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey...Malfoy.” Potter rubs at his neck sheepishly and scuffs his trainers against the concrete. Draco takes fierce satisfaction in his obvious discomfort. “Mind if I come in?”
“Now why,” Draco begins, folding his arms against his chest and quirking a brow, “would you want to do that? Aren’t you worried I’m coveting a group of highly dangerous death eaters in my flat?”
He knows he’s not being very mature; it’s been almost six years since the last time he’s seen Potter, almost six years since the end of the war, but there’s something about him that unveils his desire to snicker and tease, to elicit a reaction, any reaction.
And Potter certainly doesn’t disappoint.
“If I’d have thought that,” he snaps, flushing a rather impressive angry red, “I wouldn’t have spoken for you at your trial.”
Draco stiffens, gritting his teeth in anger. Potter’s hit a nerve, and he knows it. And, as much as Draco loathes to admit it, he has a point, too.
If it weren’t for Potter, Draco would probably be rotting in a cell in Azkaban instead of standing on his doorstep having this very conversation.
“Draco,” Pansy calls out, voice tinkling merrily through the air as she steps into the hall, “where are your-Oh.”
She pauses suddenly, glossed lips parting in faint surprise, then abruptly straightens. “Well, this is unexpected.”
“Morning, Parkinson,” Potter replies, nodding politely. “Bit early for you, isn’t it?”
There’s a teasing lilt to his words, and Pansy actually winks back at him.
“Draco’s kicking me out,” she admonishes, lowering her voice in a mock whisper. “He’s terribly temperamental in the mornings, poor thing.” There’s a cup of coffee in her hand, and she sips it languidly, as though the three of them conversing is the most natural thing in the world.
Draco desperately wants to shake someone. Her. Potter. Himself, maybe.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts, unable to refrain any longer, “but would someone kindly tell me what the fuck is going on here?”
“Whatever do you mean?” Pansy asks, inspecting her cuticles with apparently no idea what Draco could possibly be referring to.
Conniving little-
“When did you and Potter become...” the word tastes bitter on his tongue, but, “Friends?”
Potter snorts, and Pansy looks up from her nails with a smirk.
“We’re hardly friends. Potter and I reacquainted ourselves at Ginny and Luna’s engagement party. The one you decidedly did not attend,” Pansy adds pointedly.
Draco shifts uncomfortably, and Potter’s gaze seems to follow him, too-green eyes tracking every movement.
Like he expects me to pull out my wand and hex him at a moment’s notice, Draco thinks bitterly, scowling at the thought.
“I didn’t think attending was...advisable,” he says finally, frowning into the distance.
In the what would appear pure coincidence but was likely a self-righteous fit of benevolence on her end, Luna had come to be friends with several disgraced Slytherin, including but not limited to Draco himself.
“So you’re really not going to the wedding, then?” Potter interjects, studying him through narrowed eyes. The scrutiny is unnerving, and Draco fights to maintain eye contact. “Luna said she thought you’d be there.”
Now Draco’s frown only deepens, and he blinks dubiously at Potter’s expectant gaze. “No. I sent back an owl weeks ago informing her of my inability to attend.”
“More like unwillingness,” Pansy snorts.
Draco shoots her a glare.
“Well, not that this hasn’t been a riot, but I better be off. Take care of yourself, darling.” Pansy presses the now empty mug into Draco’s hands, steps out onto the doorstep, and begins to clack away in six inch heels. “See you around, Potter.”
There’s an odd twinkle in her eye as she departs, whisking away at a speed no person should reasonably be able to maintain in heels, leaving Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter in each other’s exclusive company for the first time in almost six years.
The tension in the air is almost palpable. Draco is loathe to be the first to break it, this (admittedly childish) stand-off of theirs, but eventually it becomes too much, and he can’t help but ask: “Why are you here, Potter?”
Potter exhales, softly, as though relieved, and Draco wonders if he found the silence as oppressive as he did. “Luna sent me,” Potter admits, and Draco blinks, once, twice, three times, in surprise.
“What?”
Potter scuffs his feet. “Ginny and Luna’s wedding,” Potter continues, studiously avoiding Draco’s gaze, “is next week. And...And I didn’t know what to wear. Luna mentioned you were coming...” He trails off with a shrug, raven curls falling haphazardly across his face. “I guess I just figured-“
“That you’d ask me.” It’s not a question. Draco stares blankly, wondering, not for the first time this morning, what dimension he’s stumbled into. “You came here, to my flat, to ask for fashion advice?”
Potter scowls, anger flashing behind his glasses as he finally looks up. The expression is a remarkably familiar one, even after all these years. “Forget it.”
He turns to leave, and Draco should simply let him. He should laugh after him, flip him two fingers;‘poor little, Scarhead,’ he could jeer, ‘can’t even dress himself.’
It’s a perfect opportunity. It’s right there; all Draco need do is take it.
And yet-
“Wait.”
- - - -
Never before had Draco truly comprehended just how long it took for a kettle to boil.
But as he stands in his kitchen, foot tapping an anxious rhythm against the tile, it seems a near-millennia before the kettle finally turns off with a click.
“Sorry for the wait,” he mutters, fishing two mugs from the topmost cupboard. “Pansy-“
“Took all the hot water, yeah.” Potter, at least, looks just as uncomfortable, if not more so. He stands by the fridge, tucking the same wayward curl behind his ear, despite its futility. Draco has the absurd urge to slap Potter’s hand down and tuck the curl away himself. “You already said.”
The water had taken too long to boil, but the tea takes too little time to make.
After Draco hands Potter a mug, they just stand there, eyeing each other warily. In a fit of spite, Draco had given him his most ugly mug, depicting a truly hideous yellow and green kitten. He’d bought it at a flea market, after Pansy had likened it to Blaise, and there’s something stupidly amusing about the sight of it cupped in Potter’s large tanned hands.
“You’re Ginny’s best man, then?” Draco asks abruptly, unable to stand the tension. He hates himself for continuously giving in, continuously dragging up these banal topics so they don’t have to stand in silence. Potter showed up, unannounced, to his flat. He deserves silence.
“Yeah. She asked, and she’s one of my best mates, so…” Potter shrugs, then sips his tea and winces, nose crinkling in distaste. “There’s sugar in this.”
Draco blinks, dubious. In truth, he hadn’t been paying attention when making the tea. His friends always have sugar in their tea, among other things, and his mind had been…preoccupied. Unbidden, an embarrassed flush works it’s way up his neck, and oh Merlin, he’s always blushed so damn easily.
“Sorry,” he mutters, reaching for Potter’s cup.
Potter yanks it hurriedly out of reach. “It’s fine,” he says quickly, then takes another sip and promptly pulls a face that is rather anything but fine.
“Really,” Draco insists, trying to keep a note of hysteria out of his voice, “just let me pour another one. There’s water left.” He makes a desperate grab for Potter’s mug, and Potter dodges, tea slopping over the side.
“I said it’s fine, Malfoy,” Potter pleads, pleads, and Circe, they’re so stupid, dodging around each other, arguing over a mug of sodding tea. They’re incorrigible, Draco thinks, making another wild swipe. They can’t even have tea together without it turning into a disaster.
“Let go, Malfoy,” Potter yelps as Draco latches onto the handle, both tugging back and forth. “I don’t mind the sugar, I don’t mind-”
“But you clearly do,” Draco growls between clenched teeth, “and if you just give me that hideous mug, I can make you a fresh one-”
“I don’t need a fresh one-”
“Yes, you do-”
“No, I don’t-”
CRASH!
Both freeze in place, hands still outstretched, as the mug slips and promptly fractures into a dozen ugly little pieces across the kitchen tile.
For a moment, silence reigns; Draco is certain his heartbeat is pounding so loudly in his ears Potter can hear it.
Then Potter winces and drops to his knees, gathering the scattered fragments into his left palm. “Christ,” he mutters, vaguely frantic, “I’m so sorry, Malfoy. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Forget it,” Draco says at once, staring dumbly at the scene before him. Potter is kneeling on his kitchen floor trying to collect pieces of broken mug by hand.
The true absurdity of it makes him want to cry. Or maybe laugh.
Then he snaps out of it and abruptly squats down next to Potter, brushing him away. “Don’t pick it up,” he protests. “You’ll cut yourself. Honestly, do you ever use that oversized head of yours to think?”
He stretches out a hand and summons his wand from his bedroom, then waves it primly over the shattered remnants of his mug, aware of Potter’s eyes following his every move. “Repairo.”
At once the pieces springs back together, sweeping through the air to slot neatly alongside their peers. The resulting mug is just as hideous but flawlessly whole, without so much as a fracture or chip. It sits innocuously on the tile floor, oblivious to the (likely irreparable) damage it’s just done to Draco’s blood pressure.
Potter gingerly lifts the cup and sets it cautiously on the counter, ruffling a hand through that perpetually scruffy birds’ nest of a hairstyle.
Draco is definitely not staring. He isn’t.
“I’m really sorry again, Malfoy,” Potter says again, and Draco waves him off quickly. Potter apologising to him is just-unnatural. Like a pink moon or a green sky. “I just…didn’t want to be a bother. You know. With the sugar.”
Draco just nods, even though he’s half certain he’s dreaming and kind of wants to hex himself in the face to make sure he’s not.
Instead he settles against the counter, sipping from his own mug and vaguely hoping the ground swallows one of them up.
Preferably Potter.
“I, er…I wasn’t sure if your wand would work anymore.”
Draco snaps his gaze to Potter and merely stares.
“It’s only, I had it on me for quite a while,” Potter continues, scratching at the back of his neck. “And I wasn’t sure if…if it’d still work for you.”
Draco knows Potter’s not trying to insult him-probably-but he can’t bite back the surge of defensiveness that rises like bile in his throat.
“Well,” he says cooly, twirling the hawthorn wand through his fingers, “it does.”
“Yes, I see.” Potter nods dubiously, perhaps a few too many times to be casual, and goes back to studying his shoes.
“I wasn’t sure it would work for me, either,” Draco admits, after a moment. His voice is hushed and tentative, even to his own ears. “After the war, I thought, maybe…but no.”
He shrugs, and though the gesture is so comically ineffectual in displaying what he actually feels, Potter is nodding like it makes all the sense in the world.
And then they’re sharing this strange understanding, Draco and Potter, this mutual comprehension neither needs to explain but both just seem to get, and it feels as though something substantial has shifted in the world, though from the outside it could not look any more mundane.
“I do not have an oversized head,” Potter says suddenly.
And just like that, the moment is broken, and Draco is one again reminded what a complete and utter pillock Potter is.
And despite knowing this, he still can’t keep a touch of amusement from his voice when he replies, “Oh, I don’t know about that. Seems rather oversized to me.”
Potter clicks his tongue in disapproval, but a corner of his mouth ticks up. “Well-versed in the sizing of heads, now are we?”
“But of course,” Draco says, affecting a breezy air. He shrugs one shoulder and tosses the hair from his eyes in a gesture of self-assurance. “I’m well-versed in practically everything.”
Potter guffaws, actually guffaws. “You must be pretty familiar with big heads-you know, since you see one every time you look in the mirror.”
Draco’s almost offended, but then the other corner of Potter’s mouth lifts and his lips split open to accomodate a big, toothy grin, and for a moment, just a moment, Draco forgets how to breathe.
He’s seen that smile a few times, of course: during breakfast at the Gryffindor table, with Granger and the Weasel, after a Gryffindor quidditch victory. But never has he been a recipient.
It’s sort of everything he’s ever wanted and a painful slap in the face simultaneously.
“Come on,” Draco says abruptly, before his thoughts can get too morose, “why don’t we go out and see about getting you some proper dress robes.”
“I have proper dress robes,” Potter insists, indignant. “I thought maybe you could just…give me some tips.”
He flushes slightly, and Draco bites back a smirk.
“Mm hmm,” he agrees, without a hint of conviction. “I’m sure you do. But never mind that.”
Now he does let himself smirk, and it’s gratifying to see Potter gulp, slightly, in what seems to be genuine fear. “We’re going out.”
- - - -
Draco takes them to a small shopping quarter with neat, pebbled sidewalks and a fountain in the central garden. It’s part wizarding, part muggle, and positively bustling with an array of avid weekend shoppers.
As they apparate into an alleyway and step out onto the street, Draco is promptly trodden on.
“Ouch,” he hisses, glaring down at his scuffed shoe, it’s once-glossy surface besmirched in streaks of grainy dirt.
“Oh no,” Potter teases, peering down at the ruined shoe in mock commiseration, “will it survive?”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Draco sniffs, still glaring at his feet. “Given the state of those sneakers, you wouldn’t know a good pair of footwear if it approached you on the street and shook your hand.”
“I think I’d be too busy checking myself into St. Mungo’s to pay much attention to the quality of the shoes,” Potter agrees, solemnly, though a smirk flickers at the edge of his lips.
Draco scowls and flips him two fingers, eliciting a scandalised gasp from a passing elderly woman.
Potter’s laughter echoes in his ears as he stomps away up the street.
“Where’d you find this place?” Potter inquires after a few paces, easily falling into step beside him. He tracks the activity around them through the lenses of his rounded frames, looking, Draco thinks triumphantly, rather impressed.
“Pansy,” Draco supplies, pausing to side-step a harried couple and their multiple prams. “She goes on these…adventurous shopping expeditions. Finds all sorts of places, sometimes drags me along. Some of them are downright frightful.”
He effects a slightly exaggerated shiver, and Potter snickers.
“Here we are,” Draco says after a few more blocks, pausing before a glass two-storey shop-front. The windows are polished and gleaming to a high shine, the wood lacquered oak. Curling gold script across the awning reads, ‘Glorious Garments.’
Potter appraises it with raised brows. “This looks…interesting.”
Draco waves a dismissive hand. “It’s rather pretentious, I know, but we’re here to find you some proper dress robes.”
Potter quirks a brow. “Draco Malfoy? Accusing someone of being pretentious? My, my, how the tables have turned.”
Draco frowns, uncertain. “What tables? Why would they turn? Where are they turning?”
Potter bites back a grin, but it’s obvious by the twitching of his bottom lip. “Don’t worry about it. Muggle expression.”
He starts toward the shop when Draco says, “Ah, almost forgot,” and withdraws his wand.
Potter watches in consternation as Draco casts a few small transformation charms on himself, changing his hair to a mousy brown and his eyes to a solid blue. When he finishes, he pockets his wand and turns back to the shop.
“Malfoy,” Potter says as he grasps the handle.
Draco grits his teeth. “No,” he warns, voice low and soft. “Don’t.”
“But,” Potter begins to protest, and Draco hates him just a little.
“Look, don’t worry about it, okay?” He spits, clenching his hands so tight his knuckles turn white. “I got off lightly, for what I did. I should’ve gone to Azkaban, just like…”
He trails off, but they both know the words that would’ve fit there.
My father.
Draco shakes his head furiously, as though to clear it. “Whatever. I deserve it.”
He goes to approach the shop, but Potter’s hand on his shoulder halts his progress, and when he turns Potter is wearing that stupidly earnest expression that means he’s about to do something stupid and heroic.
“I want to go under a transformation spell, too.”
Draco blinks. He certainly hadn’t been expecting that.
“Why?” He demands, with a hint of incredulity. “You’re Harry bloody Potter. You’ll probably receive a standing ovation upon entry.”
He wishes, after all these years, that there wasn’t at least a hint of resentment in his voice.
Potter merely shrugs. “I don’t feel like being recognised today.” He hesitates, studying Draco’s face from beneath creased brows. “Do you mind?”
Draco sighs and puffs out a breath. “Do what you like,” is all he says, suddenly wary, and watches as Potter begins performing small transformation spells on his own face.
“Don’t change too much,” Draco advises as Potter thickens his facial hair. “We want to make sure we find something that suits your usual appearance.”
When Potter tucks his wand away, they finally enter the shop, and a tiny bell rings above them as they step up to the counter.
Behind it, a tall, slight man with an oily moustache and a striped hat appears smiles impassively in greeting.
“Good morning,” he chirps, running an appraising eye over each of his guests. “Francois, at your service. And to who do I owe this pleasure?”
“I’m James Evans,” Potter says at once, extending a hand. His hair is still black but longer, tied down his back in unruly waves. His glasses have become squares. “And this here is my dear friend, Peacock Williams the third.”
Draco nearly chokes on his own spit as Francois shoots him a confused glance.
“Family name,” Potter confides, leaning across the desk. “Bit unfortunate, really, but what can you do. Isn’t that right, Peacock?”
He looks back and shoots Draco a winning smile.
After assuaging the impulse to throttle Potter, Draco plasters on a pleasant expression. “Come now, James,” he purrs, voice silken and indulgent, “you know I prefer my nickname.”
“And what is that?” Francois inquires, looking vaguely terrified.
Draco flashes him his own winning grin, tousling a hand through his newly brown locks.
“Pea.”
- - - -
“Are you five years old, Potter?”
Draco reclines against a dark leather chaise, drumming his fingers against his trouser-clad thigh. A few feet away, Potter’s behind a curtained change room, wriggling into the various suits Francois insisted they try.
“Sorry?”
Potter’s voice is muffled through the heavy green curtain.
“I said,” Draco repeats, raising his voice, “are you fives years old?”
“I suppose I might’ve been, once,” Potter calls back, airily.
Draco stifles a snort. “Peacock? Honestly, what a terrible name. You truly don’t have any creativity beyond the mental capacities of a child, do you, Potter? I’m starting to think-”
He breaks off with a loud swallow, the retort frozen on his tongue. His heart is beating so loudly he fears everyone in the store can hear it.
“Well?” Potter prods, a tad self-consciously, when Draco proceeds to simply stare. “How does it look?”
He straightens and spreads his arms to either side, displaying the charcoal three-piece suited dress robes with silver buttons and a dark blue tie.
And even though he’s transfigured his face, the lines of his body are still the same, which means that, yes, Potter just looks that irresistibly fit in a suit.
It kind of makes Draco want to cry.
“Good,” he rasps, giving a series of short, uncoordinated nods. “Very, er…smart. You’ll be a big hit.”
Potter furrows his brow. “Are you taking the piss?”
“No,” Draco replies, trying to sound casual. Merlin, the universe is punishing him, he just knows it.
After a moment’s hesitation, Potter nods. “I’ll just try on a few more,” he says, disappearing back behind the curtain.
Draco sinks into the chaise with a groan. “Fuck me,” he mutters into his palm, scowling into the distance.
He thought he’d gotten over this. Thought he’d put years of hopeless pining behind him. Interactions with Potter at Hogwarts had been a confusing blur of attraction and hate, desire and malice, and then there’d been war, and by the time Draco had realised what he really wanted, it’d been too late.
Which is fine. He’s accepted this, hasn’t thought about it in years, really, except to occasionally shake his head at how moronic he’d been.
Why, then, must he suffer this? He doesn’t want this, this resurrection of his boyhood crush, rising into existence with all the horror of a mangled corpse forcing its way from an earthen grave.
And now he has to sit here and coach Potter through several more ensembles until he makes his decision.
The universe must truly despise him.
Thankfully, he’s able to keep his composure as Potter trots out in a variation of differing colours and materials, nodding in the right places, making the appropriate comments, and just genuinely attempting to keep his head.
At one point Francois joins them, and Draco slips out under the guise of fetching refreshments. He walks to a nearby cafe and uses the time to clear his head, silently scolding himself as he does so.
This is Harry sodding Potter. Stop mooning around and get your shit together.
He returns with a cup of coffee and a caramel frappe, which Potter eyes curiously as Draco spoons mounds of syrup into his mouth with a straw.
“What?” He demands, lifting a brow.
Potter shrugs. “Nothing. Just…didn’t peg you for a frappe guy.” He’s changed back into his casual clothes and is leafing through his choices on a nearby rack. “You were drinking tea this morning.”
“Well, I’d just woken up, hadn’t I?” Draco defends, lifting his chin. “That was a necessity. This,” he affects a meaningful tone and points to his frappe, “is a reward.”
Potter snorts. “A reward? For what?”
“For making it through two hours of robe shopping with the worst-dressed wizard this side of Britain.”
Harry laughs, a brilliant, bell-bright laugh that almost startles Draco into dropping his frappe.
Damn you, Potter. You’re ruining me and you’re not even trying.
“So, what’s your choice?”
“Huh?” Potter’s question startles him out of his thoughts and brings a panicked flush to his cheeks. “W-What?”
“Out of these?” Potter prompts, slightly bemused, gesturing to the rack of formal robes. “I assume you have a favourite?”
Privately, Draco thinks Potter looks stunning in all of them, even that hideous orange and plum ensemble Francois suggested. Which, frankly, simply isn’t fair.
Still, he goes for the first pair of robes, the charcoal grey with the blue tie, and from the amused flicker in Potter’s gaze, he seems to have been expecting it.
“That one, then?” He inquires, cautiously tugging it down.
Draco gives a single, affirmative nod. “In this one, I dare say, you might be almost…presentable.”
Potter tilts back his head, revealing a long, tan line of neck, and gives that glorious laugh again.
Draco’s already addicted.
They take the robes (and a pair of cuff links Draco insists upon) to the counter for check out, and Draco can’t stop his foot from tapping anxiously against the carpeted floor.
Any minute now, his time with Potter will end, and then they’ll return to their very separate.
That very morning, Draco would’ve relished the idea.
Funny how quickly things can change.
“Ready to go?” Potter asks, accepting a large emerald bag branded in looping gold script. He balances it carelessly against his hip, mindless of its obscenely lavish contents.
“Good day to you, sirs,” Francois calls as they exit the shop, sounding faintly relieved.
The little bell heralds their departure, and then they are stepping back into the street, now significantly less crowded.
They remove their glamours as they leave the shop behind them. By silent mutual agreement they walk to the end of the street together, Draco rehearsing a million different departing phrases in his frazzled mind.
Goodbye, Potter.
See you around.
Have a good one.
Good luck at the wedding.
Tell the Weasel hello for me.
Perhaps not that last one, he muses. It’s been a rather pleasant day; he probably shouldn’t ruin it by insulting Potter’s friends, instinctual as it is.
When they reach the corner, both stop and turn to each other, as though following some silent direction unbeknown to everyone around them.
Potter is staring at him, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and Draco takes a moment just to drink him to, to memorise his ratty trainers and worn jeans, his faded sweatshirt and rounded glasses. His nails are bitten down to the quick, Draco’s noticed, and his hair is as untameable as ever, and he’s wearing a single leather bracelet on his left wrist; Draco can see it when his sleeve rides up-
“Draco.”
His name on Potter’s tongue feels like damnation. It feels like salvation.
“Draco,” Potter says again, “what are you thinking about?”
“What?” Draco blinks at the absurdity of the question, unable to contain his incredulity.
“You’ve got lines,” Potter explains, indicating the space between his own brows, “here.”
Draco scowls, heat flaring into his face. “Thank you ever so.”
“I meant when you’re thinking,” Potter amends, and despite his apologetic tone, his lips tilt up at the corners. “Right here, it gets all tense.”
And then, incredibly, Potter leans forward and brushes his finger tips, feather-light, across Draco’s brow.
They both freeze.
Potter stares at him, mouth opening to form a perfect ‘o’ of surprise.
Draco blinks and blinks again and wills his heart not to give out.
Then Potter withdraws rather suddenly, seemingly ashamed, and Draco thinks, of course. Of course he’s ashamed.
“Draco,” Potter says, for the third time in as many minutes, “come to the wedding.”
“What?” Draco splutters again, because apparently today isn’t to be his most articulate. But really, what else can he say to such a ridiculous request.
“You heard me,” Potter urges, inching a step forward. “Come to the wedding.”
“I-” Draco opens his mouth, frowns, then shakes his head. “No.”
“Why not?” Potter asks, brow creasing.
Draco shrugs and stares morosely at his shoes. His hideously scuffed shoes. “I won’t be welcome.”
“Of course you will,” Potter insists, with a hint of incredulity. “You were invited.”
“By Luna,” Draco shoots back, scowling.
“So?” Potter challenges.
“So,” Draco snaps, “I love the silly bint, but she’s not exactly always in her right mind, is she? After all, she invited a Malfoy to her wedding.”
“Who cares what other people think?” Potter replies hotly, which is easy for him to say. “Luna wants you at her wedding, and so do I.”
Potter really needs to stop saying things like that. Draco’s heart won’t survive.
“Look,” Draco sighs, suddenly weary, sweeping a lock of hair over his forehead, “it’s a nice thought. It is. But I can’t go.”
Potter stares at him. His eyes are so stupidly green, as vibrant as the dappled shade of a summer forest, and now he’s got Draco thinking in metaphors like a pathetic, sappy git.
“Come to the wedding,” Potter says softly, and though his voice shouldn’t be discernible over the swell of the crowd, they echo through Draco’s mind like a bell toll.
Perhaps there’s a spell in his voice, some verbal charm known only to the miraculous Boy-Who-Lived.
There must be, Draco thinks, almost desperately. There must be some kind of enchantment or coercion at play.
Because he can think of no other reason why he parts his lips, closes his eyes, and says, in his own rasped whisper, “Okay.”
- - - -
The wedding is scheduled for next weekend, which gives Draco an entire week to fret and breakdown and stress-dream about it.
He tries to maintain his calm, really he does; he works long hours in his potions’ lab, goes for walks around the park near his flat, has coffee with Pansy and lunch with his mother and various sporadic desserts with Blaise. But between complicated recipes and idle gossip, his mind continues to supply, rather erratically, a very long list of things that could go disastrously wrong.
And that’s to say nothing about his fashion crisis. Suddenly everything he owns is too big or too small, nothing the right colour, the right cut, the right fit.
On Thursday night, Pansy steps into his bedroom to find him crouched over a pile of discarded robes, muttering to himself with his hands buried in his hair.
At first Pansy just stands in the doorway, and when Draco finally notices her and looks up to meet her gaze, they stare at each other for several long minutes, a lifetime of understanding and grief and terror passing between them.
Then Pansy drops to her knees by his crumpled figure and crushes him to her chest, rubbing soothing circles up and down his back.
“I’m not going,” he whispers, suddenly so exhausted, so drained. “They hate me, Pansy. They don’t want me there. I’m not going.”
“Yes you are, darling,” Pansy says, her voice a gentle murmur. “We’re both going, and we’re going to look fucking fabulous.”
By the time Saturday afternoon finally rolls around, Draco has devoted so many hours of worrying to Luna’s and Ginny’s wedding that he just wants it all over and done with.
At this point, Granger can smack him in the mouth the moment he steps through the floo for all he cares. He’d deserve it, after all, and then he can go home and drown his sorrows in a rather choice bottle of Firewhisky he’s been saving.
It’s only Pansy’s arrival that prevents him from locking himself away and refusing to leave his room for the next 48 hours. Just as he’s seriously contemplating it, she steps from his floo wearing a sumptuous pair of blood-red dress robes, sleek bob swaying elegantly against her chin as she stalks across the living room.
“Darling,” she crows, and her heels are so tall she doesn’t even need to reach up to hug him. The scent of her perfume, something floral and distinctively expensive, engulfs his senses in its comforting familiarity.
“You look incredible,” he murmurs against her shoulder, and it’s the unequivocal truth; the robes hug her figure and lay across her hips, revealing generous curves and long pale legs. Her lips are painted a bold crimson, and she’s drawn her eyeliner in sharp, crisp lines that are as striking as they are fierce.
When she smiles, he sees confidence. Bravery. The mark of a true fighter.
It bolsters him, buoys his own flagging certainty, so that he’s almost stopped trembling when she draws away.
“You look…presentable,” Pansy exclaims, sweeping him with an approvingly surprised once-over. “I was half-worried I’d arrive and you’d be sitting in your pyjamas eating ice-cream straight from the cartoon.”
“Your confidence in me is inspiring,” Draco drawls, even though he’d been sorely tempted do just that. “Evidently, you needn’t have worried.”
Pansy flashes a grin that is all teeth. “Clearly.”
They both turn to regard his fireplace, lurking in the foreground like some malevolent creature of impenetrable darkness. Its gaping maw almost seems to be a hungry smile, something unfriendly and patently predatory.
Draco swallows.
“Right,” Pansy says suddenly, with the air of someone about to conduct important business. This is immediately belied by the bottle of vodka she pulls from the tiny strap bag slung across one shoulder. She holds it up, the last rays of afternoon sun playing elegant against its glass surface. “One for the road?”
“I can’t imagine that extension charm to be very legal,” Draco muses, quirking a brow as she tugs two shot glasses from the same purse and sets them on his coffee table. “Perhaps I should mention it to Potter at the wedding?”
“Oh, don’t go all clean-nosed on me,” Pansy scoffs, bending to pour the vodka into each glass. “You’d be so terribly boring. Besides, I doubt you can get through five minutes with Potter without dashing off to wank over him in the men’s.”
Draco flushes, and she cackles jeeringly and hands him a glass.
“Nasty cow,” Draco snipes, without any heat. He tilts his head and throws back the shot, grateful for the warmth that immediately glides down his throat and settles to burn in the pit of his stomach.
Pansy finishes her own with a flourish and places the shot glass back down with an exaggerated sigh.
“I needed that,” she admonishes, fixing the fireplace a pointed glance. “Do you suppose we have time for another?”
It’s purely performative, and Draco knows this; she’s dithering, waiting for him to take the lead, to lay his own doubts aside and play the part of the responsible friend.
And it’s only because he’s played this part so many times that he’s able to do so now, slipping seamlessly into exasperated incredulity.
“You’d never make it through the floo, Pansy-dear,” he chides, snagging the bottle from his coffee table. Pansy makes a half-hearted attempt to retrieve it, then pouts as he enters the kitchen and stashes the bottle in a nearby cupboard.
When he returns, she sticks her tongue out and offers him her arm, which he hooks through his own. “You’re no fun. Some of us can hold our liquor.”
“That was one time,” Draco argues, unable to keep a hint of indignance from his voice. “It was a common vase. Easily replaceable.”
Pansy snorts, but despite their sniping, it distracts Draco enough that he’s only teetering on the edge of despair as they approach his fireplace.
“Ready?” Pansy asks, her voice a whispered rasp.
He can only nod; words have abandoned him completely.
But that’s okay, because Pansy squeezes his hand, and that’s more grounding than anything either of them could’ve said.
- - - -
The venue is suitably romantic, with just enough absurdity to be endearing, rather than discomforting.
Luna and Ginny have chosen a quaint garden for the ceremony, with an elegant marble fountain situated in the middle, bubbling merrily in glittering spirals. Strange plants are strewn among the typical roses and chrysanthemums; odd little bulbs in violent orange; twisting vines with an assortment of spikes; cacti with little creatures buzzing about their peculiarly shaped centres.
There’s soft music lilting through the air, all crooning violin and twinkling harp, but the occasional twang interrupts the rhythm, and when Draco glances toward the stage, he finds Xenophilius Lovegood wearing an obscenely yellow suit and strumming the most absurd instrument he’s ever seen.
There is a little mini bar tucked away in the corner of the courtyard, twinkling lights strewn above on delicate wires. He points it out to Pansy as they make their way across the lawn.
“Excellent,” she declares, in what appears to be genuine relief.
Draco notices the tight set to her shoulders, the stiffness to her movements. She’s more nervous than she lets on, Draco realises, and that brings a surge of protectiveness; Luna’s friends can ignore him, reject him, cast him out, but he’ll be damned if they try to divest Pansy of her carefully won self-confidence.
For all the rumours of her supposed cold-heartedness, the reality is inevitably fallible.
“We could always turn back,” Draco says, lightly, when Granger and Weasley sweep into view. They’re holding hands and talking in hushed tones, heads bent together in animated conversation. “I doubt anyone would notice.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Pansy snipes, and Draco bites back a grin as she quickens her pace and all but drags them the last few steps.
“Good evening, Granger, Weasley,” she greets, inclining her head in the slightest estimation of a curtesy. Though her grip on Draco’s arm is bordering on painful, her voice is steady and clear. “Faring well, I trust?”
Granger and Weasley, for their part, are momentarily ruffled, and exchange uncertain glances over the rim of their champagne flutes. Draco gets the impression they’re thrown off by Pansy’s formality; he imagines they’re far used to that characteristic Gryffindor bluntness, in which one is simply told when they’re disliked.
“Parkinson…Malfoy,” Weasley says finally, with a brief nod. He’s wearing a slightly rumpled black suit, a significant step-up from the monstrosity of his Yule ensemble in fourth year, though his tie is a hideous burgundy and clashes terribly with his shirt. “How are…um…things?”
Pansy cocks a brow, and her grip relaxes in the face of Weasley’s inarticulateness.
“Honestly, Ronald,” Granger tuts, though her voice is hopelessly fond. She puts on a tight smile and even shakes Pansy’s hand, a brief, formal clasping of fingers. “Its nice to see you again, Parkinson.”
Granger is wearing a sapphire gown inlaid with silver beading. Her hair springs out around her in long coils, as fiercely voluminous as ever but undeniably beautiful, an emphasis of her strength and presence. She is, admittedly, quite lovely.
When her eyes find his, Granger’s smile drops, but still she reaches out one hand in offering. “Malfoy.”
“We needn’t bother with niceties, Granger,” Draco murmurs, trying for a gentle tone. “I wouldn’t expect it from you, and I certainly don’t deserve it. You needn’t feel obligated.”
It’s a piss poor display of remorse, and he knows it, but there’s plenty of time after the ceremony for uncomfortable conversations.
Granger retracts her hand with a frown, but it’s more confused than anything else. She exchanges another glance with Weasley, hesitates, then nods. “Okay. Sure, Malfoy.”
“Let’s not speak again until we’ve gotten roaringly drunk,” Draco suggests, and that actually gets a smile from Granger.
“Sure, Malfoy,” she says again, this time with a hint of amusement.
She and Weasley link arms and drift away across the lawn, and it’s only then that Draco relaxes his pin-straight posture. His shoulders already ache from how stiff he’d been holding himself.
“Well,” Pansy remarks, brushing a manicured finger through her sleek bob, “that went…better than expected.”
“I’ve retained my bollocks,” Draco agrees, with mock cheer. “Perhaps there shan’t be any hexing after all.”
“Didn’t I promise?” teases an airy voice behind them.
Draco and Pansy turn, and there stands Luna in a ravishing sky-blue gown, it’s gossamer skirts fluttering about in the evening breeze. Several bluebells have been woven into her hair, and a myriad of golden stars hang in assorted patterns from her ears. She’s moonlight incarnated, something soft and elegant and unreal, and she moves toward them, barefoot and careless, and enfolds each of them in a fierce hug.
“Luna,” Draco exclaims, breathless with surprise, “what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”
Luna fixes him with a dreamy smile. “My family prefer to mingle before our wedding ceremonies, to spread goodwill among friends.”
“It’s your wedding day,” Pansy objects, rather stuffily. “If anyone should receive goodwill, it’s you.”
Luna merely continues smiling, as serene as the surface of a still lake. “I’m ever so glad you could come,” she says, addressing them both. “The pixies tell me they think you both look wonderfully enlightening.”
Draco and Pansy are silent for a moment, rather at a lost for words.
Eventually, Draco draws himself up and lifts his chin. “Of course they do. We have excellent taste.”
Luna’s smile, if impossible, seems to brighten. “Would you like some champagne? There should be some trays coming around.”
Draco is about to reply that, yes, he could rather use a glass of champagne or two, when a different voice sounds behind them, carrying through the air with a crisp, easy tenure.
“I’ve got that covered.”
And there he is: Potter, in all his dishevelled glory, wearing those glorious three-piece dress robes and a tentative smile.
In his grasp he holds two champagne flutes, one half-empty, the other still streaky with condensation.
“Oh, that was nice of you, Harry,” Luna says, in a manner that is less congratulatory than it is curious.
Harry’s smile morphs into something more bashful, and when he hands Draco the untouched flute, his eyes flick to Pansy and his cheeks redden in embarrassment.
“I’m sorry, Parkinson, I didn’t-I mean, I just-”
“Forgot about me,” Pansy clips in, but a hint of amusement tugs at the corner of her blood-red mouth. “Thank Merlin you’re not hosting, Potter-Think of the scores of unquenched people.”
Draco wants to snort, but Potter’s looking so genuinely ashamed that he finds himself knocking his shoulder lightly into Pansy’s instead.
“She’s just teasing,” he confers, which is a ridiculous thing to say, really-what Slytherin ever explains their witticisms?-and he wants the words back as soon as he says them, because Pansy’s now smiling a wickedly sharp smile.
“Yes,” she drawls, lifting her nails to inspect them. “Nevermind, I suppose I’ll go fetch my own refreshments. I know when I’m not wanted.”
Luna trails serenely after her as she saunters across the lawn, making a beeline straight for the mini bar.
Potter stares after them, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Draco doesn’t look at his mouth. He doesn’t. “Do you think I’ve offended her?” He asks anxiously.
This time, Draco does snort. “Hardly, Potter. I think she can survive the chosen one’s apparent disregard for her hydration.”
Potter winces and ducks his head, but a smile creeps along the edge of his mouth as he runs a hand sheepishly through his hair. “I’ll send her a bouquet in apology. A really expensive bouquet.”
“Money can’t buy everything, Potter,” Draco tuts, in a voice even more impossibly posh than his usual.
“Harry,” Potter says suddenly.
Draco frowns. “What?”
“Harry,” Potter says again, more determinedly. “Call me Harry.”
Draco stares at him. And stares some more. He stares so long he thinks maybe he’s turned to stone in his shock.
Potter is evidently thinking along the same lines, because he frowns and waves a hand slowly across Draco’s face. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yes,” Draco says suddenly, snapping back to himself, because there’s no way Potter-Harry?-can be allowed to know how much this means to him, how stupidly happy he feels right now; they’re addressing each other by first name, not, like, marrying, or whatever.
Speaking of marriage, Draco is suddenly reminded he is about to witness one, because flocks of people start gathering at the seats situated by the far end of the garden, set up in neat rows before a beautifully ornate floral alter.
Potter encapsulates this in an enriching observation, remarking, “They must be about to start,” as the last vestiges of the crowd start moving to take their seats.
“We should probably go, too,” Draco suggests, for lack of anything better to say.
Potter nods. “See you at the reception?”
“Sure, Potter,” Draco replies, with an attempt at breezy nonchalance.
“Harry,” Potter corrects, and damn it all, Draco can’t quite fight off the smile that tries to edge across his face.
“Sure,” he agrees, and moves away before he can make even more of a tit of himself.
- - - -
Draco doesn’t see Potter again until after the ceremony, when everyone is settled inside a large marquee threaded with twinkling lights and clumps of flowers. There’s a sweet scent lingering through the air, something floral and faintly sugared, and trays bearing more flutes of champagne float through from table to table seemingly on their own.
Draco snags two as he and Pansy find their designated seats and immediately downs one.
“Careful, darling,” Pansy tuts. “You’ve yet to eat anything.”
Draco is saved from responding by the arrival of Gregory Goyle and Millicent Bulstrode, who slip into their seats with ducked heads and grim expressions, attempting to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Both are darting wary looks about the room, as though expecting to be hexed at any moment.
Draco can’t blame them. He’d accidentally made eye-contact with Molly Weasley, whose beaming, wrinkled face had downturned into something distinctly sour and displeased.
“Alright?” Greg asks, a bit stiffly.
Draco feels that familiar ache in his chest, the one he always gets when Greg’s around. He’d tried to visit them, once, but things have always been a bit strained since…since Crabbe’s death. It always feels like something’s missing, a near-tangible space between them where Crabbe should’ve been.
Thankfully, Pansy proves herself, once again, to be Draco’s own personal saviour. She grins at them both with too many teeth, at once directing their full attention to her devious smile. “Greg, Millie. Don’t you two look perfectly miserable.”
Millicent scowls into her champagne flute. “So everyone here is a dear friend of yours, Parkinson?” she asks pointedly, laying a hand over Greg’s broadly splayed fingers. They’ve been married for nearly two years, and Millicent’s proven a tad overprotective of Greg; one would never know it from his perpetually blank stare, but Draco suspects Greg is still very much hurting.
“But of course,” Pansy replies smoothly, clicking her manicured nails against the clothed tabletop. It’s a neutral cream colour, inlaid with tiny stitched flowers. The napkin resting beside Draco’s empty plate is matching. “Why, the Weaslette and I are practically bosom buddies.”
“Oh, really?” A voice sneers beside them.
It’s George Weasley, dressed in a garish purple suit and bearing a plate laden with differing cuts of meat. Evidently he’d been passing by on his return from the buffet. Now he pauses to shoot Pansy a scathing glare. “Oi, Gin, hear this? Parkinson reckons you’re her best friend.”
Draco freezes, ice flooding his veins, but it’s too late: Ginny is already making her way over, one hand hitching up the hem of her gown, ivory with pockets of elegantly embroidered lace.
She makes a picture-perfect bride, all flushing cheeks and gracious smiles; she would’ve made a perfect bride for Potter, Draco reflects bitterly.
“What was that, George?” She inquires, a plate of her own balanced in one hand.
“Parkinson,” George says again, gesturing to Pansy, who has gone stock-still and bright-eyed, “just claimed you two are very good friends.”
Ginny turns a cool glance onto Pansy, and it’s the irritation in her gaze that makes Draco want to crawl beneath the table and never remerge; she’s regarding their entire table like simply acknowledging them is a burden, like their very presence is a nuisance. It makes Draco want to empty the contents of his stomach onto the grass.
This was such a bad idea.
“It was a joke, Weasley,” Pansy says, clenching her teeth. Greg and Millicent are shrinking in their seats and staring fixedly at the table. “Thought you’d be familiar with them, given your…line of work.”
She wrinkles her nose in obvious distaste, and George clenches the fist not gripped around his plate. “You know, Fred was always the one with the better sense of humour. Perhaps I should ask him if he found it funny? Oh yeah, that’s right-”
“George,” Ginny cuts in, sounding faintly scandalised, but Pansy is already up and out her seat, and a second later, Draco follows.
“Don’t bother,” Pansy snipes, and though her tone is as bored as ever, tears shine in her eyes. “I’ve another engagement to attend. Congratulations on your marriage.”
Ginny opens her mouth, maybe to wave her off, maybe to call her back, but Pansy is already pushing through the tent into the night beyond, and Draco scrambles to keep up.
He fears, when he first clears the tent, that she may have apparated without him. But a cursory glance reveals her silhouette curled against the outside of the marque, scowling tearfully into the distance.
Draco approaches carefully, letting his footsteps crunch loudly through the air. He settles beside her with about a foot of space between them, pressing his back into the canvas behind him.
For a moment, they don’t speak. Pansy is still gripping her champagne glass, and her fingers tremble from where they’re clenched around the stem. Draco is drawn to them with a terrible wrench of his stomach.
She looks so…small. In all his time as her friend, Draco has never seen her look so small.
“I should probably give it back,” Pansy says suddenly, and the rasp of her voice startles Draco’s eyes back up to her face. A mirthful smirk is curling one corner of her mouth, but her eyes are hard and unsmiling. “They’ll likely throw me into Azkaban for theft.”
Draco can’t help it; he scowls. “Don’t say that. They wouldn’t do that.”
Pansy half laughs, half sobs into her palm. Tears cling to her long dark lashes. “Wouldn’t they? I’m sure they’d take any excuse to lock me away.” Her fingers tighten so fiercely around her glass that Draco half fears her breaking it. “That’s what they want, Draco. To lock us away so they don’t have to look at us. Don’t have see us walking the streets, or darkening their parties. They want to forget about us. We don’t fit into their perfect little happy ending. It’s more convenient if we just disappear.”
The last word is said with a little cackle, and when she breaks off, Pansy throws back her head and grins up at the sky, a horrible, heartbroken grin that twists the skin about her mouth into unnatural shapes. “I can’t honestly say I blame them.”
Draco can’t stand it any longer, and though he may have had every last thought himself, he can’t bear to hear his friend express such sentiments. Stepping forward, he crushes her to his chest and winds one hand around her shoulder, rubbing soothing circles across her bare skin.
“You don’t deserve to disappear, Pans,” he murmurs against her hair. “You made a mistake. You were young and frightened and you made a mistake. But you deserve to live, Pans. You deserve a life.”
She sobs into his shoulder, and he knows they’ll never discuss this again, that she’ll hate him if he tries to, but for now he’s happy just to hold her and bare the weight of her despair, bare it like she’s done for him so many times before.
When the crying subsides and she draws away, mascara stains her face in long, ebony streaks, scarlet lipstick smeared across her chin like a grotesque wound. And yet when she smiles, Draco doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything fiercer.
“Okay?” He asks, though he knows it unnecessary. She’s already smoothing down her dress and combing her hair back into place.
“Let’s go back to yours,” she says in lieu of reply, “and get gloriously pissed.”
Draco huffs a laugh, and he’s about to respond, about to put an end to this horrendous night, when Potter’s voice drifts out from the tent entrance.
“Draco? Parkinson? You out here?”
Pansy quirks a brow. “Draco?”
“Hush, you,” Draco grits out. “Not a word.”
Pansy’s other brow rises, and now she’s just openly staring at him in dubious amusement, but then Potter steps into view and effectively ends all opportunities for questioning. Draco would be grateful if Potter wasn’t staring between like he can’t quite figure out what they’re doing outside.
“Luna’s looking for you,” Potter says, in that stupidly confused tone. “What are you guys-”
“We’re leaving,” Draco cuts in coolly. “Give our regrets to Lovegood, will you?”
Potter’s mouth drops open, and he gapes between them as Pansy slips her arm through Draco’s. “W-Wait. You’re leaving?”
Draco fixes Potter with an irritated frown. “Afraid so. Sorry we couldn’t stay for the toasts.”
He turns to apparate, Pansy on his arm, but of course Potter doesn’t make it easy; he actually reaches out and wraps a tentative hand on Draco’s bicep, tugging slightly. “Wait. Please. Don’t go.”
There’s something in Potter’s voice that makes him pause and turn around. Something earnest. It’s reflected in Potter’s eyes, in the tanned lines of his face and the gentle set of his mouth. Draco wants him to leave. He wants to pull him closer. Wants to kiss him until they’re numb and raw and unable to think beyond each other.
It’s a fantasy, and a pretty one, but it shatters the moment Potter speaks.
“You can’t go.”
“Oh?” Draco drawls, lifting his chin. Pansy is watching warily, still mascara-streaked and blotchy-eyed. “And why ever not?”
Potter opens and closes his mouth like a particularly stupid fish. “B-Because. Because…”
Draco sighs, loudly. Wearily. “Potter-”
“You haven’t had cake yet!” Potter bursts out. “It’s a beautiful cake, really; it’s three-tiered, and Luna’s already checked it for nargles-”
“Potter-” Draco tries again.
“It’s Harry.”
Draco is shocked into silence at Potter’s vehemence, at the intensity of his stare-but when he speaks, it’s almost a plea.
“Please. Just call me Harry.”
And in that moment, Draco recognises it for what it’s really a plea for: to put the past behind them, to move forward. To put aside Potter and Malfoy and just be Harry and Draco.
Merlin, he wishes everything was different so incredibly it almost hurts.
“Look,” Draco says, “I’m sorry. I am. But we have to go.”
“But-”
“This was a mistake.”
Hurt flashes across Harry’s face, but Draco pushes on before he can second guess himself. “Pansy and I shouldn’t have come. This is…it’s Ginny and Luna’s day. We shouldn’t have come.”
Harry just keeps gaping, keeps making attempts to argue and then stops mid-syllable to splutter and huff and try again.
Draco nods, sagely, as though Harry has just made a rather brilliant point. “You see? You can’t even defend our being here.”
“What? No, I-”
“It’s okay.” Draco smiles, and he knows it’s a sad smile, but he can feel the tug of apparition beginning to yank at his midsection, and any minute now he can leave this awful night behind and return to the safety of his flat. “Go have fun, okay? Enjoy yourself.”
The last thing he sees as the darkness crowds in is Harry’s dismayed face, all rumpled and uncertain like he’s still not entirely sure just what is happening.
- - - -
The problem with Harry Potter, Draco muses, is that he can’t ever walk away from an encounter with him unscathed.
There’re no casual run-in’s at the Leaky, no brief hello’s as they pass each other on the street, because those interactions are never casual or brief, not for Draco. Instead, they tie him up in knots, leave him avoiding his thoughts during the day and wrestling with them at night.
In the days following Luna’s wedding, Draco finds himself wishing, fervently, that he could banish any last vestige of Potter from the last two weeks and return to when he hadn’t even thought of the Chosen One, not once.
Well, not often.
The point stood, anyway, that he’d been perfectly content with his life-until, in typical Gryffindor fashion, Harry had burst in and disrupted everything.
But at least the wedding had been good for one thing.
- - - -
Draco had only visited the Goyles’ once, when they’d first married; he’d stopped by with a bottle of wine as a house-warming gift and endured an hour of stilted small-talk before making his escape, eager to be rid of the bad memories clinging to the edge of his every word like malevolent ghosts.
It’s unsurprising, then, that Millicent regards Draco with blatant suspicion when she pokes her head out the front door and finds him standing on the stoop.
“Draco,” she says, more a statement than a question, and props herself up against the doorframe.
Greg and Millicent’s door is a rather peculiar shade of green, something deep and richly emerald, but it somehow suits the quiet elegance of their quaint little cottage. There’s a brass knocker fashioned like a tiny dragon in its centre, and it’d made a satisfying thump when had Draco curled his fingers around it and knocked once, twice.
He stares at it now to avoid Millicent’s hard, steely eyes.
“Afternoon, Millie,” he attempts, and when she remains silent, hastily tacks on, “I thought maybe we could have some tea? Mother insists on plying me with pastries, and I’ve simply too many to ever possibly finish.”
He knows he’s rambling, but Millicent is still staring at him like she can’t quite believe he’s there and doesn’t quite care for him to stay.
“You’ve some nerve,” she says finally, and Draco tenses at the reproach in her voice, but she only adds, “showing up here, unannounced. What if we’d been busy?” and steps aside so that he can enter the house.
Draco edges down the hallway, baffled. As he moves into the kitchen, he presses the basket of pastries to his chest like a shield, as though it will protect him from the sight of Greg sitting at the counter, crunching his way through a bowl of cereal in a pair of plaid pyjama pants and a worn sweater.
The sight is so familiar it makes his chest ache.
Greg had always been fond of breakfast foods, no matter the time of day, and could often be found in the kitchens trying to convince the elves to let him swap a piece of steak-and-kidney-pie for a bacon sandwich at dinner. He’d always been fond of plaid, too, no matter how vehemently Draco and his dorm mates had protested.
It seemed, no matter how much time passed, that some things never changed.
Greg squints up now from his cereal and frowns across the countertop. “Draco?” He grunts, mildly disbelieving. “That you?”
“I’m rather afraid it’s afternoon,” Draco says by way of reply, attempting to affect a teasing, airy tone. He shifts and props the basket up against his hip. “Should you be eating cereal?”
Greg only scrunches up his nose and scoops another spoonful of soggy cornflakes into his mouth. “Bugger ‘off. People eat cereal any time o’ day. Seen it on the telly.” His eyes flick to the basket in Draco’s arms. “What’s that you got there?”
Draco effects a slight smirk and places it atop the counter, leaning over to murmur conspiratorially, “They’re pastries.”
Greg’s eyes widen, and Draco watches in relief as he thrusts the cereal aside and eagerly snatches up a tart. He’d feared that perhaps Greg would reject his pastries, and it’s such a silly thing to be concerned over, really, but he feels the pressure in his chest lessen all the same.
“So tell me, then,” Greg says once he’s munched through two tarts and a sausage roll, “why’d you stop by?”
Draco’s stomach twists, and he drops his gaze guiltily to the counter. These people are supposed to be his friends, and yet they suspect his visits to have ulterior motives. How did he let things get this bad?
“Can’t I just…see you?” Draco asks, softly, tracing slow circles across the counter.
Greg squints up at him in suspicion. “…Sure,” he agrees, unconvincingly. “‘Course.”
It’s then that someone clears their throat behind them, and Draco turns to find Millicent lingering in the doorway, narrowed eyes fixed on him.
“Draco,” she says, beckoning him from the kitchen with a sharp gesture, “can I have a word?”
Draco nods reluctantly and pushes away from the counter, leaving Greg staring obliviously after them.
Millicent leads him into a sitting room, and the moment she closes the door behind them, she whirls on Draco and glowers furiously. “Just what,” she demands, prodding a finger into Draco’s chest, “do you think you’re-” prod, “doing,” prod, “with Greg?”
Draco stares at her in utter bemusement. “What?”
“Don’t you what me,” Millicent hisses, and suddenly she seems so impossibly tall, even though Draco’s about her height, perhaps a tad shorter. “You know very well what I’m taking about.”
She begins to pace about the room, tugging in agitated jerks on the ends of her hair. “Showing up here-out of the blue-bringing p-pastries and getting his hopes up and-”
“W-wait,” Draco intercepts, trying to ignore the sudden tightness in his chest, straining at his throat, “I’m not trying to-to deceive him-”
“Why have you shown up?” Millicent demands, talking right over him. “Is there a potions ingredient he has? Do you need to borrow a cup of bloody sugar, or something?-”
“This is truly what you think of me,” Draco realises, as a sudden nausea overtakes him. His legs begin to buckle, and he slumps into the closest seat, gazing dazedly into his lap. “This is…this is what you think of me.”
When he looks up, Millicent is standing over him with balled fists and shiny eyes. When she speaks, her voice is wobbly and uneven. “What else were we supposed to think?”
A sudden knock startles them both, and Draco turns to find Greg poking his head around the door.
“Sorry, Mil,” he calls softly, easing into the room, “can I borrow Draco for a bit?”
His tone is casual, but there’s a tension about his eyes, in the set of his jaw, that makes Draco realise Greg is perhaps not as oblivious as he thought.
Draco stands shakily from the chair and lingers by the door as Greg presses a kiss to Millicent’s forehead, sweeping her hair from her face. He murmurs softly to her, little assurances Draco can’t quite make out, and Draco turns away and stares unseeingly into the hall beyond.
When Greg joins him, his mouth has become a thin, grim line. He takes a coat hanging by the front door and leads Draco through the house to the back patio, where a layer of frost coats the backyard.
It’s a cool, overcast day, with a light sheen of misted rain falling drearily overhead. Greg slips on his coat and pulls a pack of cigarettes from its pocket, wandlessly lighting it. He braces his elbows against the railing and takes a long drag, exhaling blue plumes of smoke into the frost-bitten air. Draco refuses when he offers him the packet.
“Picked it up for a minute,” Draco says, just to fill the silent space between them, “when I was still an apprentice at that old apothecary. But I’ve since quit.” He looks down at his own fingers, pale and turning faintly blue from where they rest against the railing. “Nasty habit.”
Greg snorts and exhales another cloud. He smiles wryly down at the cigarette in his hand. “Yeah,” he agrees, and takes another drag. “It is.”
They stand in tense silence for a while, both gazing out into the bleak, misted fog obscuring the perimeter of the backyard.
Once Greg has finished his cigarette, he stubs it out and lights a second. His fingers are stained with clumps of ash.
“Draco,” he begins, gaze fixed on the dew-ridden grass, “I gotta admit.. I dunno why you’re here.” He exhales and tilts his head back, another little smile tugging at the lines around his mouth. He seems to have aged so much over the past few years. He looks older than he should be. “Millie ‘as her own thoughts, as I’m sure you heard.”
Draco swallows and picks at a splinter hanging off the railing. The blood in his veins feels as cool as the fog drifting over the lawn. “Do you believe her?”
Greg perches the cigarette between his lips and turns to face Draco completely. He tilts his head, creasing his thick brows into little furrowed knots. “‘M not sure,” he says finally.
“Greg,” Draco tries, a little desperately, a little breathlessly, “I’m really sorry.”
When Greg just continues to stare at him as though he’s a vaguely interesting new species, he rushes on.
“I should’ve been for you, I shouldn’t have pushed you away and ignored you when you were trying to…”
Draco exhales a cloud of misted breath, thinking again to that singular housewarming visit, and then to the invitations, slowly lessening as the years passed, until only the customary Christmas card was bothered to be sent.
He feels his stomach twist so sharply it becomes temporarily hard to breathe.
“When you were trying to reach out.”
Greg is silent for a while, simply staring out across his lawn, but Draco knows from the tilt of his chin that he’s thinking.
Eventually, Greg stubs out the second cigarette, too, and tosses it carelessly over the railing.
He turns to smile softly at Draco, dimpling in that gentle, endearing way Draco remembers from warm nights around the fireplace in the Slytherin common room and games of exploding snap on his bed in the dorms.
They’ve changed so much, but the shape of Greg’s smile hasn’t, and Draco wants to cherish the memory of it like an important potions recipe, file it away within the categorised binders of his mind.
“S’okay, Draco,” Greg says, with a sudden finality that seems to simply make it so. “‘S’not like I tried too hard to reach out. What, a couple o’ owls once a few months?” He shakes his head, smiling faintly down at where his hands still rest on the railing. “Both of us were hurtin’. Still are a bit, yeah?”
He offers Draco that smile again, and Draco smiles back, the movements stiff and awkward like maybe his face has forgotten how to do it.
But then they’re smiling at each other, and some of the tension has eased from Draco’s chest, and he thinks maybe, just maybe, they’ll be okay.
“It’s just,” Draco begins, trying in vain to find a suitable word, a suitable phrase, “it was kind of…it was just…”
“Hard?” Greg offers, eyes crinkling with warmth. His fingers tap out a gentle rhythm. The tip of his nose is red with cold.
“Yeah,” Draco agrees, exhaling, his shoulders slumping with sudden relief. “Hard.”
Greg snorts, and grins, and fishes for another cigarette.
“Yeah.”
- - - -
After the initial visit, Draco makes a point to show up on Friday with a blueberry pie, which Millicent accepts with markedly less hostility, and he sits down to a Quidditch game with the two of them. That same day, he comes home and dashes out a quick owl to Theodore Nott, who he hasn’t seen in several years and with who he hopes to make similar amends.
On Saturday, Blaise comes around for Firewhiskey, and though they both begin perched on the sofa, they end the night on the floor around Draco’s coffee table, talking in animated tones about topics so broad they leap from the benefits of charmed socks to Voldemort in less than ten minutes.
And if many of their conversations manage to circle back to Harry, well, nobody needs to know, do they?
On Sunday, Draco wakes up with a terrible taste in his mouth and a terrible ache in his back, and peels himself from the floor to set about making tea. Blaise, who apparently managed to migrate to the couch again before passing out, the asshole, stumbles into the kitchen shortly after demanding coffee on threat of mutiny. Draco passes him the keurig and backs away with hands raised, one wrapped around his favourite green and silver stripped mug.
It is at this time that the doorbell rings.
Draco freezes, though he can’t quite conceive as to why, and Blaise smirks, and Draco just about stops himself from dumping the cold remnants of the still-empty keurig over Blaise’s head.
The bell sounds again, followed by a knock, followed by a muffled, “Draco?” from the front door.
The smile curving Blaise’s mouth couldn’t be more smug. “Is that?-”
“It’s not Potter,” Draco snaps, scowling as he stands. He stomps down the hall and opens the door with considerable bad temper, so he can’t quite blame the person on the other side for their backward stumble-though he’s too shocked to be amused. “Potter?”
Behind him, Blaise cackles.
“H-Hey, Draco.” Harry hesitates, runs a hand through his hair, shuffles his feet. Then he takes a deep breath and speaks in an incoherent, jumbled rush. “Pleasedontclosethedoorjusthearmeoutokay?”
Draco stares, because apparently he’s incapable of doing anything else in the presence of this ridiculous man, and he’s still staring when Blaise appears at his shoulder.
“I’m leaving now, Draco,” he announces, sidling into the hall beyond.
He glances back over his shoulder as he disappears around the corner, and Draco mouths a ‘fuck you’ and itches to flip him the bird.
Harry observes this with an uncertain frown, but before he can comment, Draco opens his door wider and hastily shoos him in. He needs this over with it, he needs it done, and if that requires allowing Harry to have the last word, then so be it.
“Whatever this is about,” Draco begins, already traipsing into his kitchen to make more tea, “talk quickly. I’ve guests coming over and I haven’t had a chance to dust.”
It’s entirely false, of course, and he thinks maybe Harry can see through it, but he dutifully nods and mutters something about errands to run.
“I guess I just wanted to apologise,” he begins, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “For last time.”
He seems lost, like maybe he didn’t expect to get this far, and now that he’s in Draco’s kitchen all the fight has left him.
That suits Draco just fine. For once he doesn’t feel like fighting with Harry either.
“I’ll take it you don’t want sugar?” He asks, just for something to say, something to fill the emptiness between them.
Harry nods, and the very beginning of a wry smile tugs on one corner of his mouth. “No thanks.”
Draco hands him a steaming mug, this one crooked and poorly decorated in lop-sided whirls; another flea market purchase.
Harry gazes at it in abject bemusement as he brings it to his lips. “Just how many of these do you have, exactly?”
“How many of what?” Draco prods, just to be difficult.
Harry stares at him, dismayed, and flicks a panicked glance between Draco and the mug in his hand. “Uh-um-well-”
Draco watches in amusement as he dissolves into increasingly elaborate hand gestures, eventually settling on “interesting mugs.”
“Are you mocking my crockery, Harry?” Draco drawls, sipping benignly from his own mug. “Because I must warn you, they don’t take kindly to being insulted.”
He expects a witty response, perhaps a derisive snort, but he’s not prepared for the way Harry’s eyes widen, the way they light up behind his glasses.
“Harry.”
“What?”
“You called me Harry.”
“Is that not your name?”
“You get what I mean.”
“‘Fraid I don’t.”
Harry doesn’t respond, but the look he gives is so sickeningly knowing that Draco feels as though he’s been flayed alive, as though his skin has been pulled back from his bones so that his very heart is on display.
Suddenly he feels so incredibly weary.
“What are you doing?” He sighs, running a hand over his face. “Are you just trying to make fun of me?”
Harry’s expression contorts into something confused and uncertain as he finishes his mug and places it on the counter. “What?”
“Is it revenge?” Draco demands, drumming his fingers against his thigh in a restless rhythm. “Will you go scarpering back to your friends so that all the Gryffindors can laugh at my expense?”
Harry’s eyes grow wider and wider behind his glasses, but Draco can‘t stand the false hope any more, can’t keep trying to overlook the impossibility of the situation.
“I know you don’t really like me,” he says, in a rare display of honesty so sudden it startles himself. “I know you can’t possibly want me the way I want you, so why are you taking to me and inviting me places and begging me to stay? Why can’t you just-just-”
He breaks off with a sudden cry of frustration and tugs at his hair, chest aching so intensely every breath draws a spark of pain. “Just leave me alone, okay?! Stop…stop messing with me-”
Harry’s lips are so impossibly soft, his mouth impossible hot. He crashes them onto Draco’s so suddenly that he quite literally steals Draco’s breath away, so that’s he’s gasping into the kiss with all the breathlessness of a marathon runner.
A moment later, heat blooms in the pit of his stomach, turning his insides to mush; he urges forward and wraps a shaking hand around Harry’s waist to steady himself, clutching at the fabric of his sweatshirt.
Their mouths move against each other with a passion bordering on feverish, a kind of primal desperation that drives them closer, closer, until they’re so firmly pressed together that Draco can’t quite tell where he ends and Harry begins.
And then, just as suddenly as it begins, it ends, both jolting apart as though electrocuted.
“I’m sorry,” Harry whispers, obviously shaken. His chest moves up and down in short, sharp breaths. “I-I should’ve asked-I wasn’t thinking-”
Draco curls a hand into the front of his shirt and yanks Harry closer before he can say another word, gazing, in unabashed awe, into the brilliant green of Harry’s eyes.
“Harry,” Draco whispers back, breath stirring the dark curls hanging over Harry’s glasses, “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to-”
He breaks off and leans forward, resting his forehead against Harry’s. His heart beats an uneven pattern against his chest.
“I don’t understand,” he adds finally, when he catches his breath. “I don’t understand why you would…”
“And you call me thick,” Harry teases, pulling back slightly so he can cup Draco’s face in his hand. “I like you, you pillock.”
The world seems to still; Draco wonders, faintly, if he’s hallucinating. They might’ve just kissed, but he’s already chalked it up to a momentary loss of sanity on Harry’s part. He can’t believe what he’s just heard, can’t even begin to fit it among the other truths of his life.
The sky is blue and the grass is green and Harry Potter likes him.
Draco raises a hand and touches a finger to his kiss-swollen mouth, a wild, bemused kind of smile spreading across his face. A moment later he’s laughing uncontrollably, shoulders shuddering as he bends over and clutches his stomach.
Harry stumbles a step back and places his hands on Draco’s shoulders, concern evident in his voice. “Draco? Are you okay?“
Draco nods, the laughter dying as quickly as it had come. He straightens abruptly and wipes a corner of his eye, lips pursing into something smaller, softer. “I just…I like you, too.”
Harry grins and opens his mouth, but Draco hastens to add, “Even if you can’t dress to save yourself and your hair is perpetually reminiscent of a birds’ nest.”
Harry merely quirks a brow. “And they say romance is dead.” But there’s a glint of amusement in his eye, and he moves to tug Draco close again. “Do you think you can put up with me, despite all of those flaws?”
Harry means it as a joke, Draco knows that, but his smile drops away all the same.
“And me?” Draco asks-quietly, as though speaking too loudly could shatter this tenuous thing between them. “I have them too, you know. Flaws.”
He waits for a sign of disgust, for the inevitable rejection, but to Draco’s bemusement, Harry only smiles. It starts off small and eventually blooms into something bigger, broader, with significantly more teeth.
“You’re making fun of me,” Draco accuses for the second time.
“I’m not,” Harry promises, still grinning. “I’m just…really happy right now. Did I mention that I like you?”
“You might’ve,” Draco drawls, but some of the insecurity may have still show on his face, because Harry’s expression softens.
“Look, I’m not gonna lie to you. This is probably gonna be hard. And it may not work out. But…I wanna try. I think that’s all we can really do. Try.”
Harry’s face is so open, so honest and genuine, and Draco wants to bask in it forever. He feels a warmth begin in the pit of his stomach and spread outward, filing him like he’s being swathed in sunshine.
“You’re a sap,” Draco mumbles finally, because he’s a Slytherin and Slytherins don’t do emotions. “You’ve gone all sentimental.”
Harry laughs, the sound bell-bright and brilliant. He tilts his head back, exposing the long, tan column of his throat. “Oh? I’m the sentimental one?”
“Yes,” Draco sniffs, burying his face into Harry’s shoulder to prove it.
Harry laughs again. “Sure. Whatever you say, Malfoy.”