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“Ron!” The shout was accompanied by their dorm door slamming against the wall.
Ron jerked so suddenly that the essay that he was supposed to be working on—but was actually blank—ended up with a giant hole in it as his quill stabbed the middle.
Harry rubbed the back of his neck a little sheepishly as the realization that he probably shouldn’t have shouted became clear.
“What’s wrong?” Ron demanded as he stood up, knocking over his chair and spilling his bag. “Is someone hurt?”
“No,” Harry shook his head quickly before sitting on top of Dean’s bed. “But I need your help.”
Ron narrowed his eyes suspiciously, there was something off about the way Harry was going about this. It wasn’t typical.
“Is it dangerous?”
Harry nodded sagely, gesturing with his hands in an affirmation.
“Is it top secret?”
“Definitely,” whispered Harry, eyes traveling over the empty room. “No one can know. Not even Hermione.”
That had Ron righting the chair before he collapsed in it dramatically.
“Am I going to regret this?”
“Absolutely.”
Ron didn’t even need to look up to know that his friend was grinning. “Alright, I’m in.” He probably would regret whatever it was, but as long as it got him out of his Transfiguration essay, then he was in.
“I take it back,” Ron declared as they crouched in the shadows of an alcove on the third-floor corridor. “I don’t want to help you.” Dozens of Transfiguration essays would be preferable.
Harry glared darkly. “You can’t take it back. Once you make an agreement, you are forced to see it out.”
“Who the bloody hell said that?”
Harry lifted his nose in the air before shoving Ron in the hip. “I did.” When Ron arched his brows, Harry’s shoulders slumped. “Please. I just don’t know what else to do.”
Ron pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes to avoid the pleading that he just knew would sway his mind. “Harry, we are stalking him. This isn’t normal.” Nothing about this day was normal. It wasn’t fair that one pleading look from Harry was enough to have them following Malfoy around.
The statement had Harry wincing as he bit his lip. “We aren’t stalking, it’s just a reconnaissance mission.” He knew that this was going overboard—he understood that—but once the idea had entered his mind, it just wouldn’t leave.
Ron wasn’t exactly proud of the floundering look of disbelief he just knew was on his face. “Reconnaissance mission? Harry, I think we have two different outlooks here. I understand that you have this startlingly weird obsession with Malfoy, and you are probably madly in love with him to boot—not that you would ever see that.” He grinned widely when Harry let out a squawk of either horror or denial. “But you haven’t even told me why we are following him and hiding in the shadows like a creepier of version of Snape. If I’m going to be brought up in front of the Wizengamot on stalking charges, then I think I should have all of the facts here.”
When Harry slumped to the floor, covering his face with his hands, Ron worried that something else was going on.
Harry couldn’t look at Ron, not while his face was burning, and his fingers were clenched so tightly it hurt. “I just want to see him happy, I want to see him smile.”
Ron wasn’t entirely sure where stalking the git came into play, but the miserable edge to Harry’s tone tugged at his heartstrings.
Regret was clearly going to be Ron’s friend. “Alright, let’s make the prat smile.”
It couldn’t be that hard, right?
It all started when Harry realized that despite the dark times and the horror of the war, that love, and happiness was stronger than ever.
The easy laughter that used to surround the halls and corridors was gone in the beginning of the year, but that was to be expected. It took a little while for Harry to realize that the happiness had shifted. It may not have been as loud and boisterous, but it was still there. The small smiles friends would share, the tighter circles of friendship and the comradery that linked all the houses together was proof of this.
Subtle happiness was still happiness. It was still enough to help ease the ache inside of Harry’s chest. He wasn’t sure what he would have done without Ron and Hermione to keep his happiness afloat. They were a constant in his life and they meant the world to him.
As the months passed, the castle tentatively became a healthier atmosphere, and Harry knew that they would all recover. Perhaps not in the same way the school had once been, but it would be enough.
Despite all of the progress inside of Hogwarts, Harry couldn’t help but notice that Malfoy was the exact opposite of merriment. Sure, the Slytherin had never really been the picture of smiles and joy, but this was different. Harry wasn’t sure if he had ever seen Malfoy smile before; smirks were usually the norm, but not anymore, not since the war.
In the beginning, a few people had tried to bait Malfoy into arguments or even duels, but it was as if Malfoy was just a body with no cognitive thought. Grey eyes would regard people in an unseeing way that was unnerving. Harry didn’t like it, not at all.
The concept of depression wasn’t foreign, Harry and several others were counseled in the beginning of the year and put on a potion regiment that wouldn’t get rid of the depression, but it would help. Malfoy had been a part of the meetings and prescribed the potions, but it didn’t seem to be doing a whole lot for the man—at least to Harry. He supposed there could be an internal progress that wasn’t widely shown on the surface.
It started out as just observation, Harry wanted to see if anything could change Malfoy’s temperament. Perhaps time or his friends would change his aura. Parkinson and Zabini were their usual selves, but that didn’t seem to help Malfoy any. Even surrounded by his friends, the Slytherin was just as vacant as he had been for months. As the year progressed, it was clear that Malfoy just wasn’t going to be happy. It wasn’t as if this was Harry’s business, if Malfoy didn’t want to smile or be happy, then that was his prerogative. But everyone deserved happiness—even broody gorgeous prats that used to drive him mad.
The solution to his growing problem of why he cared about Malfoy’s lack of happiness came in the form of a lecture from Hermione.
“You just have to take hold and seize it, you know?” Hermione informed Harry and Ron as she finished her History of Magic essay. “Look at Merlin, he was told that he wouldn’t amount to much because of his lack of affinity for using a wand. But he changed the world in wandless magic, found new conduits like staffs or croziers, and became one of the strongest wizards ever known.”
“What does Merlin have to do with helping me in Potions?” Ron complained, half asleep. “Unless he is going to come back from the grave and tell me the different properties to nightshade, then I don’t need him.”
Hermione rolled her eyes as she threw a balled-up piece of parchment at his head. “You want to be an Auror, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for a reply before continuing. “You’ll need potions to do this. Don’t sit around and wait for failure to happen before you regret what you can already change. Be like Merlin and take it. Be the best Auror you possibly can.” She paused when Ron sat up firmly, determination flaring in his eyes. “Tackle potions like you would any other problem. Seize it, Ron.”
Harry furrowed his brows as he realized that Hermione was right. If they wanted something, they would have to take it and rise to the challenge.
Observing Malfoy wouldn’t do anything. If Harry wanted to make Malfoy happy, then he would have to rise to the challenge and make it happen.
He just hoped it wouldn’t be that big of a challenge.
“Have you tried talking to him?” Ron wondered as they crouched behind a headless statue—well he crouched, Harry’s height had him level with the stupid thing.
“Ron, would I be here if that worked?” Harry asked in exasperation.
Ron ignored the ire and wished they could figure out a better way to watch Malfoy than this—his knees couldn’t take much more. “I mean a real conversation, Harry. Not asking about the weather or saying hello.”
Briefly, Harry thought back to the few attempts he tried at talking to Malfoy, it hadn’t exactly gone well. He had been a flustered mess and Malfoy only needed to lift his brows in response for Harry to get the gist of unvoiced messages. It was strange that Harry was becoming accustomed to the one-sided talks, well if they could truly be one-sided when Malfoy’s brows responded just as well as a sneer could. “Kind of?”
Ron rolled his eyes before shoving Harry in front of the bust, ignoring the betrayed look his friend sent him. “Try again. Go on, this will add to our data.” He absolutely hated that a sentence like that even left his mouth.
Harry wanted nothing more than to turn around and give Ron a piece of his mind, but Malfoy looked up from the bench he was reading on. Oh Merlin.
“Hello,” Harry began, trying to act as if he hadn’t just been shoved. “I see you are reading.” He wanted to smack himself at the stupid observation.
“Well spotted,” Malfoy drawled, eyes not moving off the pages of a book with no title. “What do you want, Potter?”
Harry glanced back when Malfoy still didn’t bother looking at him, he couldn’t see Ron from behind the statue, but a freckled hand slid out and gestured him to continue.
“How are you doing?”
Ron nearly groaned at how painful it was. Was this how Harry had been around Cho and Ginny too? Because this wasn’t going to cut it.
“Goodbye Potter,” Malfoy drawled, standing up and walking away with his eyes still trained on his book.
Harry slumped to the floor, not bothering to sit on the bench. “How did I do?”
“Not good!” Ron yelled from behind the statue. “But it did help for research purposes.”
Well, at least there was that.
“So, talking is out of the question.”
Harry frowned at Ron. “I could always try again.”
“Please don’t,” begged Ron as he dramatically threw himself down on his bed. “I can’t go through that again.”
Harry wanted to point out that Ron hadn’t done anything but listen, but he was too distracted by ideas that were fruitless. “What held you back from asking Hermione out sooner?” There was a pause before he cleared his throat and amended his statement. “Not that I want to ask Malfoy out.” Because he didn’t, the mission was only for a smile, a simple smile or a lingering happiness.
Ron clenched his fingers tightly to stop from throttling his best friend. If Harry thought for a single moment that he was fooling anyone, then Ron was going to give up on humanity in general. “Years worth of self-denial, crippling doubts and a giant empty void where my courage was supposed to be.”
The brutally honest answer had Harry sitting up tentatively. He wanted to ask if Ron was feeling okay, but his friend was smiling. “That’s not exactly encouraging, you know?”
Ron arched his brows. “What do you need encouragement for? I thought you didn’t want to ask him out.” Teasing Harry was honestly his only enjoyment in the stupid mission.
Harry ducked his head, hiding behind the curtains of his own bed. “I hate you, you know that?”
“I love you too, Harry.”
Harry sighed softly, thankful that Ron was his best friend.
“Have you thought about giving him a gift?”
Harry scrunched up his nose in thought. “Like what? What do you get someone who has an entire fortune in their grasp?”
“Who said a gift has to cost money?” Ron countered as they made their way towards the kitchen for a late-night snack.
The question held merit. Harry smiled at the house elves when they already had a treacle tart waiting for him. “I could make him something, I suppose.” The thought had him wincing, crafts weren’t something he could do well.
“Is—is Mister Harry Potter in love?” Bitty, one of Harry’s favorite house elf asked in interest as she piled way more treacle tarts then he could possibly eat on a tray.
When Harry promptly choked on his bite, Ron laughed so hard he slipped off the stool he had claimed for himself.
“No, Bitty I’m not—Ron! Stop laughing!” He sighed heavily when Bitty approached Ron hesitantly, clearly worried for his health.
Ron gripped the edge of the table as he stood up, needing the support. “Yes, he’s desperately in love, but can’t see it for himself.”
Before Harry could correct the completely insane statement, Bitty nodded her head so rapidly her ears flopped forward. “Small gifts of insight can be used for courting.”
Courting? Harry shook his head quickly, wishing his throat hadn’t closed. “That’s not—I’m not—this is different.” It was clear by the way Bitty hummed and scratched her head that she had no clue what he was trying to say. Not that Harry exactly knew what he had been aiming to get at either. “I just want to make him happy, that’s all.”
Bitty smiled widely before clapping her hands together. Her excitement shot a pang of longing as it reminded him of Dobby. “That is admirable. A selfless gift can also lead to courting.”
Ron snorted loudly, ignoring the heated glare Harry sent him.
“No courting!” Harry blurted out far louder than intended. Several house-elves stopped what they were doing to send him wary looks.
“Mister Harry Potter wants to… mate… before courting?”
Harry covered his face, wishing he could block out the embarrassed heat coming from his face as easily as he could tune out Ron’s roar of laughter.
“No mating, no courting, no nothing.”
There was a silence that settled around the room, but Harry didn’t want to break it, not when he was still trying to get his embarrassment under control. This was becoming more trouble than it was worth. It shouldn’t be this hard.
When Harry looked up he narrowed his eyes in suspicion at the way Ron and Bitty were whispering to each other. Bitty had crawled on top of a neighboring stool and was kicking her feet slowly as she talked with Ron. “What are you two talking about?”
“Nothing,”
“Courting gifts.”
Harry watched them look to each other before they both let out sheepish smiles. “I dislike the both of you.” He made his way towards the exit, not bothering to say goodbye. As the portrait swung shut, he could hear Ron say, “So, tell me more about house elf courting?”
Bitty’s delighted exclamation rang in his ears, but that didn’t stop Harry from smiling softly.
Malfoy’s confused face had Ron looking back at Harry in exasperation. “What on earth did you get him? I thought we discussed the proper cour—” He ducked when a spoonful of mashed potatoes was aimed at his head.
“If you say courting, I will hurt you,” Harry threatened, lifting his arsenal of hot dinner once again.
Ron rolled his eyes as he looked back towards Malfoy. “Is that…” He trailed off when it was clear that he had no idea what Harry had gotten Malfoy.
“Hermione showed me some knitting spells.”
Even with the context, Ron wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be. Was it a scarf? An oddly shaped pillow?
“It’s a shirt. Not nearly as good as the ones he already wears, but it should keep him warm.”
Ron squinted, hoping that would make the shirt appear more as it was supposed to. The longer he stared, the more Ron wondered if his eyes were failing him—because that was supposed to be a shirt? It was tiny—the shirt would barely fit Bitty let alone Malfoy.
“Think it will fit him?” Harry asked, not looking up from his dinner.
“No,” Ron pulled out his bag and grabbed his parchment that held their data. “No, I don’t think so.”
“I was afraid of that,” Harry sighed regretfully, wishing he had applied the stretchable charms that would help if Malfoy decided to elongate it. “It’s the thought that counts, right?”
Ron pretended not to hear the question as he scratched ‘gifts’ off their list.
“I thought we decided that gifts weren’t going to work,” Ron pointed out, watching a school owl drop a three Belvederes on the table before Malfoy.
“Flowers aren’t just a gift, they can be sent for a variety of things.” Harry paused when Malfoy blinked rapidly at the flowers, as if he wasn’t sure what was happening. “Surprisingly enough, flowers appear in numerous courting gifts. I had to dig deep to find some that weren’t mentioned anywhere.”
Ron bit his lip to stop from laughing out loud. “Harry,” He gasped when the laughter became too much. “There’s a reason Belvederes aren’t in courting gifts. Flowers have a meaning, which is why you will find them intermingled into gifts to begin with.”
Worry was beginning to make Harry’s throat close. “What does a Belvedere mean?”
Ron snorted, unable to stop himself. “It means that you just told Malfoy you want to declare war on him.”
“What?” Harry wasn’t proud of the squawk that left his mouth. “Why is there even a flower meaning for that?” Startling images of Voldemort sending him Belvederes entered his mind and it had Harry shaking his head quickly to dispel anything of the sort.
Harry covered his face with his hands when Malfoy picked up the flowers and stormed out of the room.
“I am so bad at this.”
Ron would have agreed, but he was too busy adding this to their parchment. At this rate, they would never get the prat to smile.
Three attempts later and Ron was pretty sure they were going to drive Malfoy into hiding. Harry had overheard Parkinson mention that she wished the house elves would make scones for dessert, since they were Malfoy’s favorite.
Bitty had been too enthusiastic and the only dessert that night had been scones. Every flavor imaginable and then some. Ron wasn’t too sure why anyone would want scone flavored condiments.
“Scones, Ron! Not even a twitch of lips. Sure, he seemed surprised and even ate five chocolate scones, but there wasn’t even a hint of a smile.”
Ron sighed heavily as they made their way back to the common room. “I’m not even going to ask why you counted how many scones he ate. I really don’t need the headache.” Harry was taking this too far.
“Just stick to the data,” Harry ordered, hands thrown up in the air in frustration. “We are getting close, I can just feel it.”
They weren’t close at all, and Ron decided that he had made a grave mistake by ever sitting down in Harry’s compartment when they were eleven years old. Clearly, this was his fault for seeing kind green eyes and thinking being friends was a good idea. Past him was an idiot.
“What if—” Harry was cut off by Ron as they laid side by side on Harry’s bed, watching the top of the canopy that had been charmed to show the night sky.
“Bad idea.”
Harry frowned, taking his eyes off the constellations and peering at Ron. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“I don’t need to hear you say it to know that it will end badly.”
Harry harrumphed and pointedly looked away. He knew that Ron was mostly right, but that didn’t mean it didn’t sting a little. It wasn’t his fault that Malfoy was a statue on the surface and completely incapable of smiling.
“Hey,” Harry’s eyes lit up, finger pointing to a specific constellation. “Isn’t that one—”
“If you say Draco, I am going to smother you with a pillow and deliver your body to Malfoy. We can see if that will finally make him smile.”
Well, fuck. Harry decided it would be best for the both of them if he kept quiet for the time being.
When Ron walked into their dorm and found the section where the poster of his favorite quidditch player used to be, covered with a giant mess of parchments and red lines that seemed to connect the papers, he was curious. It wasn’t until he got closer and noticed exactly what was plastered that he became agitated.
“Harry,” Ron ground out, turning to his friend who was scribbling on yet another spare bit of parchment. “Why is our data up here?”
“I needed the room, and that seemed like a good spot.”
Ron breathed through his mouth a few times, trying to calm himself. When it wasn’t much help, he decided to just go with it. “That’s it. Come with me.”
Harry yelped when Ron grabbed the back of his robes and pulled him out of the dorm and down the stairs. He made gestures towards his friends when they made it to the common room, but the traitors that they were just watched in confusion.
It wasn’t until they made it towards the third floor that Harry realized where they were going and tried to wrangle himself free. “Ron! What are you doing? We don’t have an observational scouting today.”
Ron rolled his eyes. “Stalking, Harry. Say it with me—stalking. That’s what we are doing. Sugarcoating it won’t change the meaning.”
Before Harry could argue against that, he noticed that they had bypassed their usual statue. It took a moment before it was clear just what Ron was doing.
“Here,” Ron told Malfoy, shoving Harry down on the bench next to him. “I can’t take any more of this and I will lose all sense of reality if I have to go through one more attempt. Keep him, kill him, I don’t care which—just talk it out first.”
Harry’s mouth had dropped open halfway through Ron’s statement. He watched in disbelief when his best friend of seven years walked away, leaving him in the hands of Malfoy. This was proof that he should have just asked Hermione to help him instead.
“Are you going to explain why you are stalking me?” Malfoy drawled, glancing up at Harry briefly with another book in his hands.
“You knew?” Harry blurted before he winced at his own words. “And I wasn’t stalking you!”
Malfoy arched a brow and Harry wondered if this was his amused brow lifting or his annoyed one. He had gotten better at silent cues, but there is only so many ways one can be judgmental with their brows.
“Subtlety is not a skill you embody. At first, I believed you were wondering if I was up to something,” Malfoy mumbled, eyes finding the pages of his book. “But then the odd conversations began, the weird gifts, the declaration of war—”
Harry held up his hands so fast that it startled Malfoy into looking up at him. “I did not declare a war!” Malfoy might think he was a lunatic with a stalking problem, but if he was going to go down, it would be without the belief of a declaration of war.
When Malfoy lifted both brows, Harry worried what that might mean in ‘silent brooding speak’, so he rushed to explain. “I just tried to find a flower that wasn’t in any courting gifts. I didn’t realize it held a special meaning.”
A calculating gleam entered grey eyes and Harry was positive if he breathed wrong that Malfoy might not believe him.
“What’s the point? What is your goal here, Potter?”
It was sad to Harry that Malfoy thought being nice to someone meant that there was an ulterior motive to it. “I just want to make you smile.” He looked down at his hands when both eyebrows lifted again. Damnit, he should not be missing the one arched brow. This was not normal.
“Do you mind repeating that with actual words that make sense?”
Harry winced before squaring his shoulders and looking Malfoy in the eyes. Belatedly, he realized that this was a mistake because up close, those eyes were enchanting. “I just wanted to make you happy. Even if it was just once. A passing moment and that was it. You always seem so down and a little bitter—not that that is a bad thing,” He hurried to explain when Malfoy narrowed his eyes at the implication.
“You’ve been acting a fool because you want me to smile?”
When it was put like that and in a tone filled with censure, Harry wondered if he should’ve ever even bothered. “Yes,” whispered Harry, eyes willing Malfoy to understand what he wasn’t even sure of himself.
“Why do you care?”
Harry closed his eyes, wishing that Malfoy would be as gullible as Ron. “I don’t know,” he honestly answered. “I’ve been trying to rationalize it myself. Everyone deserves to be happy, and I want that for you too.”
There was a silence that settled around them, it was stifling, and Harry almost loosened his tie just to give him something to do.
“You are aware that those were horrible attempts, aren’t you?” Malfoy drawled, tone neutral, not giving off any hint to what the Slytherin was thinking.
“Not all of them.” The urge to defend himself was pretty strong. Sure, a few of his attempts weren’t the best, but it was kind of endearing, right?
Harry didn’t even have to look up to know that both brows would be raised again, it was just a given.
“I don’t even know what to do with the wash rag you sent.”
Okay, that one hurt. Harry looked to Malfoy, trying not to show it. “It’s a shirt. Perhaps a bit on the small side, but it’s a shirt. You don’t have to be rude about it.” Which in hindsight was a silly thing to say. This was Malfoy, rude was a default setting.
“Potter,” Malfoy sighed heavily. “I’m not intending to be impolite. This is rather sudden, and I am trying to make sense of it.”
That Harry could understand, he was still having a hard time coming to grips with it all. “Not all of this is my fault.” Harry decided that Ron should take some of the blame as well. “Ron was in charge of some of the ideas too.” This time it was only one arched brow, but it was enough to make Harry nervous. His mind didn’t even filter the words as they tumbled out. “I did stop him when he suggested courting gifts, because that was not a part of the mission.” Oh Merlin. That hadn’t been what he wanted to say.
“You wanted to court me?”
Harry snapped his head up in horror. “No! That’s not what I was going for. Not that being courted to you would be bad—oh God, that’s not—I’m not trying to—er—this is a disaster. I’m going to kill Ron for leaving me here. I just—”
A low chuckle cut Harry off before it turned into a laugh that was so freeing it froze Harry instantly. A small—almost nonexistent smile lifted Malfoy’s lips and Harry gasped at the sight. That’s it. That’s what he wanted.
Malfoy tilted his head to the side, eyes wide with something shining in them. “You really did just want to see me smile.”
It wasn’t worded as a question, but Harry nodded anyways, eyes glued to pink lips.
“Was once enough to satisfy you?” Malfoy whispered, eyes traveling Harry’s face in a way that had him wishing he was fluent in Malfoy’s eyes the same way he now knew the man’s brow language. “That is what you said.”
“No,” Harry blurted before his mind fully caught up with what he was saying. “I want to see it a thousand times more.” If he wasn’t so far gone already, the statement might have embarrassed Harry.
Malfoy looked down briefly, cheeks pinking up slightly. The sight had Harry wondering how warm they would be and if the heat would be worth the burn that was already happening to his insides at the mere thought of touching Malfoy.
“I’m not opposed to that.” Malfoy looked back up, another quirk of his lips causing Harry’s mind to evaporate.
As Harry took in everything there was to Malfoy, he realized Ron was right.
He had fallen for Malfoy along the way and the thought had his own smile forming.
Ron swore that he had only stayed to make sure Malfoy didn’t actually harm Harry, but if he was being honest with himself, he just wanted to see how it would play out.
When Malfoy smiled—as small and tiny as it was—Ron wanted to point and jump in place. Weeks of hard effort had been spent on this mission. Weeks that he would never get back. Weeks of data, charts and behavior analysis and so much stalking that he had debated about turning himself into the Wizengamot.
The urge to stay silent only lasted long enough to see Malfoy kiss Harry on the cheek. The loud whoop left his mouth faster than he cared to admit.
“Ron! Go away,” Harry called out, hiding his face in Malfoy’s shoulder.
The way Malfoy looked down at Harry’s head, so soft and open had Ron’s own heart melting. Yeah, it was definitely time to leave.
“Alright, but I am telling everyone I come across about this. I didn’t spend so long on the bloody mission for my hard work to be fruitless.” They were too cute to not have some recognition.
Before Harry or Malfoy could say something, Ron made sure to turn around and leave quickly.
“Oi! Parvati! You are never going to believe this.”