New Beginnings

It was the first Saturday of November, the same week as Harry and Draco’s initial conversation, that Draco and Narcissa Malfoy moved in with Harry and his godfathers.

Harry lived with Sirius Black and his husband, Remus John Lupin, at Sirius’s London townhouse named Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. It was a four storied, darkly painted building, and the inside was far cozier than the outside. Harry loved it despite its initial coldness.

At that particular moment, Harry sat patiently on the stoop of Grimmauld Place, with his godfathers standing on the small porch behind him, waiting for their new houseguests to arrive. He was trying very hard to not feel nervous, since he had no real reason to feel nervous in the first place, but it was proving to be difficult. It didn’t help that Remus was nervous, too, which was a feeling that he often vocalized, this time being no exception.

“Remember, please, that this is a very big change for them,” Remus was saying. “Try to be kind, at least.”

Harry couldn’t tell who his godfather was talking to, so he muttered, “Yes,” just to be safe.

“Please, Moony, you’d think I was raised by wild animals, with the way you speak to me,” Sirius joked. He’d been calling his husband Moony ever since their first kiss, which had been on a night of the full moon when they were sixteen. “So long as Narcissa doesn’t show up with a shotgun, I’ll be as pleasant as ever.”

Remus murmured something that sounded suspiciously like, God help us, under his breath, but neither his husband nor Harry commented on it. Harry was too busy forcing his leg to stop bouncing up and down, and Sirius just didn’t seem interested in calling Remus out.

Remus John Lupin was an attractive man, outside and in. He had fair skin and thick, light brown hair that went along quite well with his pale blue eyes. His features were symmetrical and his body lithe. But his looks were no match for his brain—aside from Hermione, Harry had never met someone more interested in learning.

Sirius Orion Black, on the other hand, was wild to the core. He was incredibly handsome; leanly built and symmetrical, with alabaster skin and thick, black hair and dark eyes. But he was reckless, loud and clever beyond the likes of which Harry had ever seen. According to his godfathers, Harry’s father had been the same way, but Harry didn’t really remember James Potter all too well, so he would just have to take their word for it.

Some people had a hard time seeing the attraction between Harry’s godfathers—Harry thought that those people were very stupid, indeed. How couldn’t Remus love Sirius, as exciting and beautiful as he was? Remus was so tolerant yet firm, he was perfect for the job of letting Sirius loose and then reining him back in. And how couldn’t Sirius love Remus, as pretty and capable as he was? Sirius needed stability—needed it desperately—and Remus was the perfect person to give it to him.

It was a perfect match, really. Sometimes, Harry wondered if he would ever find his perfect match.

Thankfully, before Harry could think too hard about his less than perfect love life, a shiny black car pulled up next to Grimmauld Place, and Draco and Narcissa Malfoy stepped out of it soon after.

Narcissa Black Malfoy was beautiful beyond words when she was her son’s age—Harry knew because Sirius still kept his old family photos with her around the house—and she was still beautiful beyond words at the age of thirty five. In all likelihood, she would remain beautiful beyond words until she died, folding gracefully into the arms of death with the same cadence of a river running down from a mountain top and out to sea.

Like her son, Narcissa was tall, thin and luminously pale. She, too, had thick, straight, white blonde hair—though hers was long—and she also had sharp, angular, symmetrical features. The only real differences between her and Draco were in their mouths and eyes: Narcissa’s lips were fuller and her eyes were catlike in shape and sapphire blue as opposed to wide and sterling gray. She and her son were so similar, down to the shade of pink of their flushed cheeks from the cold, that it was a little uncanny. She was the female print, he the male.

With the two of them standing next to each other, Harry had a hard time remembering that Lucius was Draco’s father at all. It seemed almost as though Narcissa had had Draco entirely on her own, perhaps to prove a point.

Remus stepped forward to welcome the Malfoy duo, but before he could say anything, there was a very high pitched squeal.

“OH MY STARS, IT’S HARRY POTTER!” A shrill male voice shouted.

Before Harry knew what had happened, a small, thin man was standing in front of him, huge, fishy green eyes wide with wonder. His skin was so pale that it was almost translucent, and his hair was too pale a blonde—colorless, almost. Still, he wasn’t terrible to look at. There was something… sweet, about him.

“The boy who lived,” the small man murmured, which made Harry flinch.

“Dobby,” Narcissa said—not unkindly, but definitely in warning.

“Right!” Dobby squeaked, immediately lurching a step back from Harry. “Sorry—I’m just so excited!”

Draco, from his place by his mother’s side, looked beyond mortified, but Narcissa seemed unsurprised.

“This is my personal assistant, Dobby Elfman. He’ll be staying with us, like I said,” she told Sirius and Remus coolly.

“Of course,” Remus said, stepping forward again to embrace his cousin in law and kiss her on both cheeks. “We said we were alright with it.”

“Hmm,” Narcissa hummed, looking up at Grimmauld Place speculatively. “I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised. Cousin Sirius used to go on and on about how this place would be hidden in ivy once he got ahold of it. I’m glad to see he’s grown out of that nonsense.”

“Hardly,” Sirius replied to his cousin playfully. “Remus just won’t let me live my dreams, is all.”

“How very smart of him,” Narcissa said drily.

Draco was oddly silent, and refusing to make eye contact with Harry.

“Shall we?” Narcissa asked, though Harry got the feeling that it wasn’t really a question. “We only have a few bags each—movers will be dropping the rest off next week.”

“Of course,” Remus replied instantly, and thus began the process of moving Draco and Narcissa Malfoy into Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

Harry, as was planned, helped Draco move into his new room. At first, he’d tried to start a conversation with the blonde, but when Draco snapped particularly harshly back at one of Harry’s inane questions, Harry had decided that perhaps it would be best if the two of them worked in silence.

Which they did. In fact, Harry didn’t hear a single sound out of Draco after his failed attempts at conversation until he was about to leave.

“You were upset, earlier,” Draco said, and it wasn’t a question.

“Yeah?” Harry said, hesitating, one foot already out of Draco’s new door.

“When Dobby called you by that ridiculous monicker,” Draco clarified, turning around to face Harry. His expression was stormy. “Why?”

“Because I don’t like that name,” Harry said simply—surely, Draco was familiar with the concept of not liking one’s nickname?

Draco pursed his lips. “Why?”

“Well, it’s sort of ridiculous, when you think about it,” Harry said slowly. “I mean, a terrorist attacked a bunch of people, sure. My family was the last group he killed that day, okay. And right as he was about to kill me, he got a stroke and keeled over. It’s because of sheer luck that I am the sole survivor of Tom Riddle’s exploits, but everyone pretends that it was some sort of divine intervention. I’m not a miracle—I’m an orphan who just so happened to have been saved for last by a madman who was approaching death a great deal faster than he thought he was. It’s stupid to see it any other way.”

Draco frowned now, confused. “You… don’t like the attention?”

Harry scoffed. “Who would?”

This, apparently, was the wrong thing to say. Draco scowled, then turned slightly so that he was no longer standing openly towards Harry.

“I mean, I could see someone wanting attention for what they’re good at,” Harry quickly backtracked. Especially if the people who are supposed to be giving them attention won’t, like their prick of a father, he thought but didn’t say, not wanting to needle Draco’s pride any further. “Like you with football.”

“And you,” Draco said, now a slight undercurrent of fondness in his voice, which meant that Harry’s flattery had worked. “I hate to say it, but you might be as good as I am, even.”

Harry laughed. “Bugger off—I’m better and you know it.”

Draco scoffed, but it was a playful sound.

Making a split second decision, Harry stepped back inside Draco’s room, closing the door behind him and leaning on it for support. “But we could always settle that fair and square on the field, you know.”

Draco was grinning now, and he looked unfairly like a Tolkien elf doing so. “You’re on, Potter—anytime, anyplace.”

Harry smiled. “It’s Harry. If we’re going to live under the same roof, we might as well be on a first name basis.”

Smiling earnestly now, Draco gave Harry a slight nod. “I suppose you’re right. I’m sorry about Dobby, by the way. He was an enormous fan of your parents, so he sort of… holds you to a higher standard, so to say. We warned him not to come on too strongly, but he never listens.”

Harry laughed and waved an arm carelessly. “Don’t worry about it—happens all the time.”

“I’m sure it does,” Draco muttered.

But before Harry could ask what that meant, there was a knock on the door.

Turning around and opening the room to the hallway, Harry came face to face with the Black family's live-in servant, Kreacher Houser. He was about as thin as Dobby, and equally small, but his eyes and hair were shockingly dark as opposed to almost colorless.

“Sorry, Mister Harry,” he said, sounding as agitated as ever and not the least bit sorry. “But Remus asked me to call you and Mister Malfoy down for lunch.”

“It’s Draco,” Draco said quietly, having joined Harry a mere second before. “I don’t like being called mister.”

“If you insist,” Kreacher said dully—always a stickler for formality.

Lunch was an odd affair, though Harry hadn’t really expected anything less. It was tense at first, because Sirius was bold enough to bring up Lucius, but Draco handled it surprisingly well, all things considered.

“I don’t doubt that my father loves me,” he told Sirius steadily after Harry’s godfather made the mistake of insinuating that he didn’t. “I just don’t think that he loves me enough to do the right thing. It’s a shame, but at least I know it.”

Remus had tried very desperately to lighten the atmosphere after that, and with a little help from Narcissa, he was successful.

It was surreal, watching Draco interact with people when in a private setting. Hard to reconcile with what Harry knew of the blonde in public. He was just so… so sociable, so likable, that it was hard to imagine him as the same person who hated Hermione for getting better grades than him and who looked down on Ron for being less affluent than himself. He seemed so kind now that Harry almost felt that they were two different people, though he knew that they weren’t.

It was a little surprising that Draco followed Harry out of the kitchen without so much as a word to anyone else when Kreacher came in to inform Harry that he had a call from Ron on the house phone, but Harry decided not to say anything about it. Besides, it wasn’t like Draco was hurting anyone—he was just standing by the doorway to the living room, watching with an unreadable expression as Harry and Ron chattered away.

Things were going smoothly until Ron asked if he could come over.

“Er, no, sorry mate,” Harry said awkwardly.

“Why?” Ron asked, confused.

“Well, we’re… we’re doing something today—my godfathers and me. A family thing.”

“Oh,” Ron said. “Well, can I come over tomorrow?”

“Sorry, no. We’ll still be… doing stuff,” Harry replied, ignoring the judgmental way Draco was scowling at his inability to lie well.

“Harry,” Ron said, now sounding very cross. “You know that you’re a terrible liar, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. So tell me what’s really going on.”

Harry exhaled in frustration. “I can’t, Ron, I’m sorry. Just—I’ll see you Monday, alright?”

“Harry—”

Harry hung up before Ron could weasel anything out of him, cursing under his breath all the while.

When Harry turned back around, Draco seemed less judgmental and more confused.

“You didn’t tell him,” the blonde said, sounding uncertain.

“You told me not to,” Harry replied, a little more crossly than necessary.

Draco blinked. “You didn’t have to listen.”

Harry sighed at that. “It was the right thing to do, Draco. So I did it.”

In an instant, Draco went from looking uncertain to looking downright defeated.

“Take me back to my room, please,” he murmured. “I don’t think I remember the way, but I need to lie down.”

Frowning, Harry nodded and led Draco back up the stairs and down the halls to Draco’s room—silently on both ends the entire time.

“Listen, Harry,” Draco said once they’d reached his door. “You… You can tell Weasley—Granger, too. It’s only fair, since Pansy and Blaise both know.” He frowned, his lower lip wobbling slightly. “But make sure they don’t tell anyone else.”

Harry nodded immediately. “Of course.” He caught Draco’s elbow as the blonde turned to go into his room. “And come get me if you need anything, yeah? I’m on the same floor as you, in the room to the left, right by the stairs.”

“Sure,” Draco replied, though there wasn’t any truthfulness to the way he said it. He shook Harry off, offered him a tired smile, then closed the bedroom door behind him.