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It was a… a snow globe?
Draco frowned at the orb of glass atop a golden platform, his reflection casting the same scowl back at him. Inside the orb was a miniature remake of a tranquil Hogsmeade, the streets barren and the shop windows dark. It was the perfect scene of a cold Christmas morning, with the whole town safely tucked inside their beds.
“Turn it over and then back again!”
Draco jumped, forgetting that Harry Potter, one of the ministries beloved Aurors, was still standing across his table, beaming and expectant after placing his latest discovery on Draco’s desk.
“Shut up, Potter.” Draco snapped, earning a roll of the eyes from Harry. The man’s dislike of being told to shut up was still strong.
It had become a habit of the Golden Boy for the past month to bring souvenirs, although Malfoy never really knew why he did. He never asked, thinking it was some sort of madness from the other man’s part. He remembered how the first time Harry brought a dragon scale from Romania into Draco’s office, with a half-excited, half-worried smile, as if Draco would throw the thing out. He was tempted to, admittedly, but the sheer peculiarity of the whole encounter, and the lovely shades of purple and blue in medley on the scale made him think otherwise.
By the second time, Draco asked him to sit down for tea, and he listened to Harry ramble about his latest mission. By the second time, Draco was wholly perplexed and irritated.
Was Harry shoving it up Draco’s face that he got the longer end of the stick? That he was out there, going on adventures and saving people’s lives (like he has always done, of course), while Draco was not permitted to even apply as an Auror, stuck behind this desk doing infinite paperwork?
Surely, Harry Potter was not as childish as he once were. Yet the souvenirs kept coming, and the expression on his face evolved from what it once was to what he is displaying right now, full-blown enthusiasm. And this being the fifth gift, Draco felt his irritation slowly starting to wane. He never touched the things before until Potter was gone, but now, under duress from Saint Potter’s unfailing gaze, he obliged.
He warily picked up the orb, turning over the globe once and then settling it back on his table. Snow began to fall on mini-Hogsmeade, little specks of white flickering quietly around it as the shops’ lights started turning on, and miniature people exited the shops and started filling up the roads—couples, gaggles of girls, boys in groups sneaking a look into the pubs. It was a sight to see, and Draco felt himself gaping at it far too long than he intended.
Shaking his head, he disciplined his features into a look of strict formality, shrugging a shoulder back at Harry, “Impressive, thank you. Tea?”
“It’s nothing,” Harry said, and then his grin faded into a small smile, “And no, no tea today. Better get back to Shacklebolt for his debriefing.”
Draco raised a delicate eyebrow at that, “You haven’t debriefed yet?”
“I asked them to postpone and let me recharge a bit. The mission was exhausting—stake out.” Harry explained simply, without giving much detail. His past ramblings had the same course, different context. It all meant that Draco wasn’t meant to hear any of it, and Harry was not in liberty to expound on it.
“And obviously you took down the wizard culprit?”
After a brief, stunned silence, Harry scratched the back of his head with his right hand, embarrassed, “Not really, no. Anyway, I better go.”
Malfoy saw the white bandage around Harry’s hand and wrist. The bandage on his palm was stained with dried blood. He let Harry go without asking questions, yet his mind was racing, curiosity getting the better of him. However, without asking Harry, he did not have any other means of knowing what had transpired in that stake out at Hogsmeade. Draco doubted it would come up on the Prophet or the Quibbler, seeing as it was a bust.
All he could do now, he decided, was to wait.
The week passed without much disturbance. Friday rolled around, and Draco pushed away the cloud of disappointment forming around him. He surmised that receiving gifts of all kinds was what he was looking forward to really, rather than seeing the git’s face, all thrilled and eager.
He closed the door of the break room after downing a cup of tea, his work getting the best of him as he lagged behind a particularly challenging report. When he turned around though, he stood stock still at the sight of Harry leaning on the wall opposite. His hair was dishevelled as per usual, glasses crookedly set atop his nose—a broken nose at that—and he held his red Auror robes in his left hand. His right was on his side, clutching a mysterious box.
“Potter,” Malfoy greeted with a nod, clutching his robes close to his abdomen, squashing the little flits of… whatever is inside right now, “What brings you here?”
Without a word, Harry extended his right hand and offered the box. His mouth was set in a grim line, unlike the other times he brought such gifts to Draco. He was not looking into his eyes, Draco noted, and chose to glare at the floor between them instead. Draco took the box gingerly with his free hand, nodding again. He felt the texture—felt cover, midnight blue in colour.
“I see.” After a beat, he asked, “So you caught up with the wizard?”
“Yes.” Harry finally spoke, although it seemed as if it took all of his strength to do so, “We did, yes. Wand fight all around. He was formidable.”
Draco smiled at that for a moment, his voice cracking mildly, “Of course.” With a shaky breath, he tried again, “Of course, my father did have some fight in him left after the war.”
The small admission granted him back Harry’s shocked gaze, his green eyes searching Draco’s stormy ones for answers.
“Since when have you known…?” Harry ran a hand through his face, tilting his glasses upward as he did so and drew a trembling breath, “I’m so sorry, Mal—Draco. It was all a blur—he was throwing hexes and curses, someone disarmed him—he hurled himself off a cliff. We found his body on the forest floor and—I’m so sorry I couldn’t give you another chance—”
“Episkey.”
The sudden spell and the pain of mending bones that followed it cut Harry off, and his hands flew to his face, hissing a stream of curses. The pain was mild—incomparable to what he has suffered through before, yet it was unexpected. Draco swiftly grabbed Harry’s right wrist, tipping his palm toward his face. Certainly, there was the scar of a strong hex on it, marring the pale, soft skin of Potter’s palm.
“He did this, right?” Draco inquired softly, shifting his gaze toward the one in question, “He threw a nasty curse there, Potter. It’s taking a long time to heal.”
When Harry nodded, Draco sighed, not releasing his hold, “Then now we’re even with Episkey. That is how much pain you have caused me with the news you brought.” As an afterthought, he whispered, “As a thanks for the gift…”
Cautious lips lingered on Harry’s palm, all the while Draco held his gaze. Harry’s eyes widened a fraction, mouth opening slightly, and lips trembling in anticipation. Draco leaned in, planting a kiss right on the centre of the ugly scar, and then dropping Harry’s hand right after. Draco turned on his heel, heading for the elevators and leaving a thoroughly shaken Auror in his wake.
When Draco arrived in his office, he immediately headed for his desk, throwing it open with such force that it almost broke away from its place. It hanged limply, favouring one side, and Draco placed the mystery box inside, along with the four others that Harry Potter had given him.
He knew that Harry was working on the case of his father—staking out, retrieving him to send to Azkaban, or, if worse comes to worst, ultimately terminating his life. He knew that it had to conclude on one way or another, and, as he stared at the little trinkets, he couldn’t help but think of how coincidentally related they were.
The dragon scale, Romania—where they may have found Lucius’ hideout.
A necklace with a shrunken head, Knockturn Alley mission, as Harry recounted, trailing a wizard—was Lucius repeatedly going around that place?
A miniature broom that flies when you murmur a specific spell—Diagon Alley.
Chocolate Frog. The Hogwarts Express? The card that came along with it showed Dumbledore’s smiling countenance, a twinkle in his eye. The search in a train, as Harry have reported.
The snow globe, Hogsmeade—the stake out, where Harry got the scar on his palm; was Lucius staying there after Romania?
Now the box. Where Lucius died.
I’m so sorry I couldn’t give you another chance.
He stared at the black, felt box. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Harry wasn’t giving these souvenirs with any special intention. But as he opened the box and revealed the pieces inside, he felt as if he was suddenly struck in the chest with the Sectusumpra again back in 6th year.
He poked at the unicorn hair and the steel head of a centaur arrow with a tentative finger. Due to his special attentiveness to Care of Magical Creatures, he easily recognized the carvings, along with the luminescent white hairs held in a bundle by a black, silk ribbon.
His mind jumped back to the first unicorn he saw when he and Harry were still bumbling idiots who had nothing to do but fight and bicker—except Harry was on his way to become the boy of legend, and Malfoy… he was on the darker path, whether he liked it or not.
But… why?
The question came to him with a force that had left him breathless, and he almost slapped himself silly for not thinking of it sooner.
With grunt, he smacked the drawer close, and then threw his robes on the desk. He swivelled around and headed for the door, creating a list in his mind of the things he wanted to say to the Golden Boy.
He looked for Harry everywhere: the breakroom, his office, Weasley’s office, Granger’s office, the library, the loo. Merlin, he even asked Shacklebolt’s secretary if Harry waltzed in just a minute ago! Her confused yet resolute ‘no’ drove Draco mad!
By the time he got back to his floor, he was fuming. As he held the doorknob of his office door, it took everything in him not to just blast it away with his magic.
He opened it slowly, nevertheless, and it revealed a fiddling Potter standing smack dab in the middle of his office. Harry’s eyebrows shot up, an uncertain smile on his lips as he caught Draco’s gaze, but all the latter could do was gawk at the former.
“Y-you didn’t answer, w-when I knocked… I thought you were out, but the door was slightly open, and I peeked inside and noticed you weren’t there. And I swear I wasn’t trying to do any funny business! I just wanted to talk. Talk to you—”
“Potter!” Draco spat, regaining a bit of his rage as he glared at the other man, “Shut up!”
Harry followed suite, his mouth drawing into a hard line across his face. Maybe he hated being told to shut up, but Malfoy was too mad to care by then. He smashed the door close, causing his desk to tremble with the shock of it. Harry could feel the waves of magic emanating from Draco, wrapping around him like live wires, sending prickles of electricity onto his skin.
“You gave me these… these souvenirs for what?!” He yelled, waving his hands around like crazy, “Parade around in front of me that you were trying to track down my father? That you, out of all the Aurors in this bloody building, were assigned to either kill him or get him to Azkaban? Which is, as far as I know, is the same as bloody dying! And what for? Because you pitied me? Because you thought that it would help me? Great fucking news, Potter, I’m too late to get help. Ten fucking years of it too late!”
Malfoy stopped pacing a few meters away from Harry, only noticing that he had been pacing. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to induce some sense of calm with it, before he let it fall to his side. He refused to look at Potter then, and instead looked toward the window, outside at the bustling streets of London.
I’m so sorry I couldn’t give you another chance.
“What chance were you supposed to give me, huh?” Draco asked with a voice so dangerously low, “To get him out of harm’s way? To tell him that we—and I say we because I am a bleeding part of this whole fucking organization—we were going for him and he will die in the process? To help him?”
Harry let a moment pass between them, staring at Draco and may be gauging how livid the blonde was before answering. Then again, whatever he may say now will still anger the other man, knowing him. Harry sighed and shook his head, eyes still trained on Draco.
When he spoke, it was soft, just above a whisper, yet firm and decisive at the same time, as if he knew that his choices were bound to hurt someone, but he was not going to care. He could not. Because he knew what he had to do.
“To tell him that you cared for him. That you forgive him.” Draco scoffed at that, eyes red-rimmed, “That you and your mother miss him. I was giving you another chance to reconcile.”
“Reconcile.” Draco drawled, his hands hooking into his pockets, “Even with the inevitable end?” Draco queried, gaze shifting toward Harry sharply.
Harry exhaled a long, shaky breath, “Because of the inevitable.” And then he added with a smaller voice, “Your father deserved it.”
Draco stood silently for another minute, and Harry welcomed the silence that ensued in place of the destructive force that seemed to scratch and linger on his skin.
“It had been ten, long years of repairing the damage the War had brought.” Potter started, when it was clear that Malfoy was not going to utter anything else, “Houses, streets, lives, hearts, souls—everything lay broken and in pieces at the end of it. I just wanted to forget everything, Malfoy.”
“Trying to be Saint Potter all over again? Am I a little side project now, Potter? Is my family? Repairing things that truly do not need any fixing?”
“Maybe,” Potter chuckled, a small smile painted on his lips, “Maybe it was futile to try and fix myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I meant trying to forgive your family, Malfoy.” He raised his hands, gesturing toward the desk, “All that? It was for me to move on. I did not pity you or your family. I did not intend for you to be indebted to me, but I wanted to see you happy without me being selfish and thinking that you did not deserve happiness in any way. We were all devastated by that War.”
At this point, Harry felt his own temper flaring, emotions he kept so under control was now boiling at the surface.
“Ten years. Ten years, Malfoy! Don’t you think we deserve a break? Are we still going to ignore each other even when we’re within reach? Are we still going to give sideways glances to see if our group of friends don’t collide with the other? Godric, we’re not in Hogwarts anymore! This isn’t some game where we score the most points by trying to outdo one another! We work in the same building! And me?” Harry gasped, choking the next words out of his mouth, “I really want to become your friend and move past that nightmare.”
“So you wanted what? Closure? To feel good about yourself?” Malfoy scoffed, shaking his head, “Typical. Get out, Potter. This conversation is over.”
Harry shook his head as well, closing his eyes, before nodding and opening them again. There was really no more need to prolong this farce. With a flurry of his Auror robes, Harry walked out of Draco’s office and shut the door firmly behind him. The quiet was expected yet unwelcomed, and it was then that Draco found himself sitting on his bum and curling in himself as the reality of it all pierced through.
His father was dead.
His mother will be heartbroken.
He just lost, possibly, the last chance to befriend Harry Potter ever.
Two weeks passed, and Draco pushed aside his misery by busying himself with arranging his father’s funeral, stressing over his mother (who, thankfully, decided to live with his Aunt Andromeda in the meantime), and covering his quota of paper works. He never saw Harry again, nor did the man visit with any more trinkets or baubles from his latest escapade. It was unnerving at first, as he worried what he would say if Harry suddenly walked through the door with his hesitant yet thrilled smile.
But another week went by. The absence irked him. Somewhere deep inside of him, something ached.
It twisted into uneasy knots, settling like dead weight in the pits of his stomach.
Salazar, he missed him.
He missed seeing the flush in his cheeks when he bolt through the door, as if he ran there just to show him his next achievement. He thought back to the first day of Hogwarts, the memory still fresh in his mind, and remembered how it stung that Potter never took his hand.
Has he still not matured? Is he still the same boy with the grudge dragging him down throughout his days in school? Now that Harry’s extending his own hypothetical hand in hopes of friendship, shouldn’t Malfoy be thrilled? Shouldn’t he happy?
The knots started piling up, growing in number and in weight, sinking him further and further into one grim realization: he doesn’t want just friendship now. He wanted… more.
Yet how can he achieve a thing so grand if he already casted the very beginning of it away?
With a frustrated groan and a quick swipe into his hair, Draco laid back on his seat, the cogs in his mind whirring away to think of a solution to remedy his dire situation. Jumping out of his chair, he grabbed his robes and strode out of his office, heading for a specific place in mind.
Thirty minutes and an Apparition later, he rapped on the wooden door with the label H. J. Potter ingrained on it in gold, wispy cursives.
“Come in,” Called Harry from the inside, making Draco’s heart lurch into his throat. It was now or never.
Draco pushed the door open, stepping inside quickly before Harry could even look at him. When the man did, his neck had almost gotten stiff at the immediate double take. Mouth agape, with eyes wide that reminded Draco of a Mooncalf, Harry sat behind his desk, papers scattered all over the top.
“Better clean that up,” He instructed, and then held the paper bag in his hand for Harry to see, “Got something for you.”
Potter shut his mouth, hands twitchy as he began filing his papers into an awkward bundle against his chest. All the while, he watched Malfoy moving around his table, grabbing the nearest seat and sat on the other side of his desk. Malfoy settled the bag on top of it, opening to reveal two bowls with a lid on them. He produced a few more boxes, and then two sets of chopsticks, still unbroken.
“What’s this?” Harry asked numbly, staring at the set up on his desk.
“Chinese.”
“I can smell that,” Harry barked, but bit his lip as if taking it back. Malfoy’s belly did a back flip at that.
Draco ducked his head, hiding the start of the pinkish tinge colouring his cheeks, and started opening the boxes and the bowls, “It’s called dinner. And an apology.”
“Is it called an extension of friendship too?”
“And maybe more than that.”
“More than…? What?”
Draco smirked, “Shut up and eat, Potter.”
Harry grinned at that, and he never looked so happy to be told to shut up.