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According to Ron, Harry needs to make a move on Draco in the next month or he's going to receive a howler he won't want Draco to overhear. That Draco will overhear is fairly inevitable given they're cooped up in the same DMLE office all day, or off investigating together, and they go home to the same flat at night.
It was Harry's own fault for confiding in Ron about a mystery person who was so unsubtly Malfoyish that Ron had guessed after the first '...and he has really nice hair'.
"Mate," Ron had said. "You see about five other people on a regular basis whose names you actually remember. Two of those are Hermione and me; one is Robards, who I'm pretty bloody sure isn't your type; one is Kingsley, who doesn't have any hair; and one is Katie, who has great hair but likes her feminine pronouns and is also in a very committed relationship with Ange, which I know you know. Ergo: it's Malfoy. Also, Hermione's been saying it since sixth year and even I can't deny the way you two shag each other with your eyes anymore."
Even without the threat of a tell-all howler looming, Harry knows he has to do something about Draco. He's distracted at work, he's distracted at home, he's distracted on pub nights... there's next to nowhere he goes these days that Draco doesn't. He's constantly aware of Draco's proximity, his attention, his mood. Constantly regulating how his own feelings come across so as not to be too obvious. Harry always thought being in love with someone was supposed to be an enjoyable thing—to put a spring in his step, or whatever—but the truth is it's fucking exhausting.
The problem with 'just make a move' is that one of Draco's favourite topics for rambling upon is proper pureblood wooing custom; with each one of his friends who becomes engaged he embarks on a new discussion of all the ways partners-to-be ought to communicate their feelings for one another. Harry's heard about the need to make with one's hands something useful, something symbolic, something valuable but with none of its components sourced from any seller. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing purebloods would usually do, but Harry supposes that's part of why it's such an extraordinary statement for them. It's... actually a nice idea. (At least, the way it is now is a nice idea; Draco's grumbled all about how the gifts used to be a form of payment to brides' fathers.)
It being a nice idea does not prevent Harry from tripping on its every element, however. Draco already has everything useful that he needs, as far as Harry can see, except for the fancy waffle-maker he's always finding in catalogues, circling, and leaving suggestively on the kitchen bench for Harry to find. Harry can't hand-make one of those, and he's not sure exactly what it would symbolise. 'I love the way you waffle on about things'? Harry is also not sure that a waffle-maker is valuable or useful to the extent that pureblood wooing customs would demand (or useful at all given he's pretty sure Draco would try it once before growing tired of the effort involved).
And so Harry turns to research. Draco's library takes up a whole wall in their living room, so it's not difficult to find materials, but he has to use one of George's new and improved puking pastilles to get a day to himself with them.
"I'm fine, it's just been a long night and I'm tired," says Harry, when Draco comes into his room to check why he's not up and ready for work.
"If you're putting on a brave face you needn't," Draco replies, looking at the no-doubt pitiable ball of human and blanket that Harry makes. "I have the highest degree in potions; it's no trouble to whip up something for nausea and fatigue."
Harry smiles up at him. The way Draco cares for his friends was one of the first things Harry started to love about him. Sure, those friends are select, and he's still a bit of a pompous git to everybody else, but since they got past their initial animosity and Harry found himself on this side of the wall, he has (a little selfishly) enjoyed being one of the few upon whom Draco chooses to bestow his affection. This often manifests as scolding, feeding, and general concern over wellbeing. Apparently Draco's rejection of his father after the war had emphasised the ways in which he took after his mother.
Harry couldn’t and still can't help but find it adorable.
"I'm fine, Draco. All I need is a nap, okay?"
"Okay," Draco nods. "But be sure to owl me if anything changes."
"Yes Doctor Malfoy," Harry rolls his eyes.
"You do know that I actually am a doctor," Draco points out, a small, smug smile on his face.
"Not that kind of doctor."
"Don't speak, it might irritate your throat," Draco huffs. "And for Merlin's sake stay in bed. I'll leave you some soup and tea under a stasis charm so you won't even have to go down to the kitchen."
"Thanks," says Harry as Draco heads back out the door with purpose.
He thanks Draco again when he returns with the promised food and tea, wishes him a good day at work, and climbs out of bed the second he hears the floo flare.
Harry pulls out several of Draco's books and sets himself up in the armchair by the window to read, the sun warming the back of his neck and brightening the yellowed old pages as he reads them. The first thing he seeks to confirm is that these customs indicate serious intentions rather than an explicit proposal of marriage. For traditional purebloods the two come inseparably intertwined, but for himself and Draco it would be a bridge too far. It's one thing to be close, to depend on each other, to have Katie constantly referring to them as an old married couple—but the reality is that no matter how well they get along in their current capacity they haven't ever been romantically or sexually involved. Harry knows Draco likes men, and he has evidence that Draco thinks of Harry as somewhat attractive—but none of that assures his interest in actually pursuing a relationship.
All Harry can do is ask, and he only gets to introduce the idea once, so he'd better ask as well as possible.
There are stories in the books he finds of wizards who panned their own gold to plate hand-forged wand-handles or cauldrons; who hunted and tanned their own dragonhide, cut and sewed it into boots; who sheared sheep and spun the wool until it could be turned into warming blankets or coats; who carved stone into garden seats. It seems to Harry that every pureblood must learn some kind of handicraft from birth in training for this one moment in which it is acceptable for them to perform manual labour.
The long and short of it is he's probably never going to impress Draco. He sighs and shuts his eyes, the red glow of his eyelids flickering as the sun shifts in and out from behind clouds.
He only realises he's been dozing lightly when he opens his eyes again and realises it feels a bit odd to be fully conscious again. The afternoon sun is gone—not because of the time but because of the gathering clouds. Harry summons a piece of lined paper and a biro and scribbles a note to Hermione, who he knows will be home. She's doing her thesis and caring for baby Rose at the same time, so it isn't like she's ever got the day off, but it's been a while since they last talked properly and she's usually the one insisting that he should call more often. He lets Draco's eagle owl (whose name is Arswind, which Draco insists is a respectable old Germanic name meaning 'eagle', but which will forever and always bring fart jokes to the forefront of Harry's mind) out of his cage, offers him a couple of treats and then attaches the rolled up page to his leg.
Hermione gets back to him as efficiently as ever. Her note says:
You can floo over now. Bring the books.
Harry slips the books he guesses are the most helpful into his backpack and steps into the floo.
"You're in your pyjamas," Hermione informs him as he steps out the other end, a little whiter in the face than before. "Why are you not at work? If you're ill you shouldn't be around Rose; she only just got over that stomach thing."
"I'm not sick," Harry assures her. "And you're in your pyjamas too."
"I am not," Hermione looks down at her red joggers and well-worn Weasley jumper. "These are my lounging clothes."
"Sounds like twelve of one and a dozen of the other to me."
"Well I'm not the one who's come visiting someone. This is my home."
"And you and Ron are always encouraging me to make myself at home here; checkmate."
Hermione heaves a long-suffering sigh and Harry changes the subject very effectively by unzipping his bag and handing her the contents.
"Pureblood wooing customs?" Hermione gives him a look, but doesn't ask. Harry doesn't know whether he should find her lack of interrogation encouraging or disturbing. In light of this, he's unsure of how best to answer, so he elects to move a couple of Quidditch magazines from the sofa and take a seat, letting Hermione leaf through the volumes and ingest the information uninterrupted.
"What are you going to make?" is all she asks, when she resurfaces.
"I have no idea. I don't know how to hand-craft furniture or where to find precious metals or how to come up with symbolism like that guy who made his beloved a set of golden scales because she was 'worth her weight in gold'." Harry runs restless hands through his hair.
"You do realise," Hermione begins her answer cautiously, "that the examples in these books are well-known for a reason? Not everyone makes things as difficult as that. Look—there's a photograph here of a painting by a Sirius Turbulus Black from several generations ago done with charcoal and—oh, his own blood, isn’t that nice—on a flat piece of stone. It depicts all the stars in the sky, to be used as a map. It was symbolic because he first spoke to his wife when she was lost in the Hogwarts corridors and he showed her the way to her class."
"That's still... Draco and I don't have any nice stories like that from when we met."
"I can't give you the answers to this, I'm afraid. This is about how you feel about him. What you share. How you understand each other, and what you want with him."
Harry knows he'd be disappointed with an idea he hadn't come up with himself. It's just that he hasn't come up with anything yet, and right now even a borrowed idea seems better than none.
"How we understand each other. What we share," he muses aloud.
Coming to understand Draco Malfoy after the war had not been a process without its setbacks. They'd been partnered up and almost ruined an important investigation by each trying to solve the case first instead of cooperating. Competition was the only thing they really knew, and looking for that vital clue had been their new version of seeking the golden snitch. (Sometimes the golden clue was a snitch, though not the same kind.) Even now they're always trying to one-up one another; the impulse just comes in third now, after their mutual respect and their desire to keep their jobs.
It had so happened that Blaise’s relationship with Theo Nott had grown serious enough for him to move out of the place he shared with Draco and in with Theo instead right around the time Ron was put in charge of the Hogsmeade Wheezes shop and he and Hermione moved out to a little cottage in Scotland. So it just seemed the obvious thing to do, sharing a place with Draco.
It’d been a bit uncomfortable at first, so soon after they’d started getting along, but they were both determined. For once, their respective stubbornnesses had worked together. They pushed each other to do better in both work and home life, the way they had once done on the Quidditch pitch—
—and maybe, Harry thought, that was a concept which warranted exploration.
“It’s okay to pay someone to teach you a particular craft, isn’t it?” Harry asks. “That doesn’t count as buying a component?”
“No, it shouldn’t,” says Hermione. “It says here that it’s okay, as long as you make your gift without the oversight of such an educator. Paying someone for labour which relates directly to the final object is what’s forbidden.”
Harry’s not sure the line Hermione’s drawing is as solid as she seems to think, but he’s happy enough with the guidance it gives him.
On Sunday morning, Harry leaves Draco a note saying he’s gone to get some fresh air. Draco always prefers to sleep late on weekends, so Harry’s fairly confident that by the time Draco notices his absence he’ll be no more than an hour.
He wraps himself in a jacket and strides off down Grimmauld Place’s uneven footpath until he knows he’s out of sight, then apparates to Diagon Alley. A yellowed CLOSED sign hangs on the door of Quality Quidditch Supplies, visible through the smudgy pane of glass set into it. Harry raps on the wooden part of the door despite it.
He hears someone moving about inside before he sees the shape of Mr Quincey Chase coming towards him.
“Mr Potter!” the tall, bearded man exclaims, holding the door back to admit Harry.
“Just Harry, please.”
“Why then, young man, you ought to call me Quin.”
Harry smiles. Quin’s manner is what he thinks a Hagrid-Arthur Weasley hybrid might be like—a terrifying thought when he lets his imagination run. Luckily this man’s overzealous passion is about to save Harry’s arse when it comes to winning Draco’s.
“We’ll be moving through to my workshop in the back,” Quincey explains, leading Harry between the shelves of brand new racing brooms, trunks of Quidditch balls, precarious stacks of scented broom polish, Keeper’s pads, Beater’s bats.
Harry doesn’t need any of it—doesn’t use the gear he already has enough to justify buying more—but that doesn’t stop him wanting when he lays eyes on a gorgeous rose gold Snitch, a broom he can tell will be vastly more comfortable than the one he’s got while matching it for speed, or a heavily-autographed Cannons-orange souvenir Quaffle Ron would go absolutely mental for. He might even stop in for that last one when Quin’s sister Quirinda has the till open; Harry’s learned that with the unpredictable work schedule of an Auror, it’s never too early to start Christmas shopping. Hermione will approve of the gift too, compared to the rest of Ron’s probable wishlist, because it won’t zoom around the house of its own accord, make lots of noise or spontaneously combust.
Harry had only communicated with Quin by owl before today. He’s met Quiri loads of times, since she’s the one who actually runs the shop after their father’s passing, and he knows a couple of her employees well enough too. Quin’s a reclusive man by all accounts, preferring to stay in his workshop. Everyone permits this, because QQS’s own-brand and custom-order broomsticks have never been more impressive.
Harry’s under no illusions about the special privileges his name’s got him when it comes to this private workshop: Quin’s apparently a fan, and his more business-savvy sister has extracted from Harry a promise to sign a few of the cases for their new exclusive line of invisible jingle-bell snitches. She’s given him one to use himself, too, so Harry’s not unhappy with the bargain. At least it feels like his name’s important because of something he’s good at, that he decided to do, that he enjoyed. Harry doesn’t mind being a little bit famous when it’s because he was the youngest Hogwarts seeker in a century instead of because of who he and his family were and were not murdered by.
“So, lad,” Quin says, ushering Harry down a narrow set of stairs and down a basement corridor. “Your letter said you’d be working with pine. An unusual choice.”
“I’m curious to find out how it flies,” Harry answers, because he is. Never mind that that isn’t the main reason he’s chosen the wood.
“As am I,” Quin agrees heartily. “Now, if you’ll just turn to the left—”
The room in which Harry finds himself is so large, high-ceilinged and brilliantly lit that he has to look back at the dingy corridor behind him to check that one has really led to the other. There are large windows in all the workshop’s walls—enchanted, but still effective when it comes to making him feel at ease, able to spread out and breathe. The hanging lanterns glow with balls of charmed light trapped in what look like jam jars, giving off such shining warmth that Harry could swear it had been borrowed from a perfect summer’s day.
“This place is amazing.”
“Aye,” Quin smiles, beaming around the room. “You can forgive me for spending so much time down here, then? Quiri doesn’t understand it, I’m afraid. Only my grandfather could—it was his before me, after all.”
Harry eyes the branches and wooden plants stacked up against the far wall; the tables sprayed with sawdust that line the room’s longest edge; the huge vats of varnish and whatever other potions Harry can smell in the air down here. As well as raw timber and polish, the perfume reminds him of sun-dried grass, wild honey, mossy forest, and the Hogwarts Quidditch shed. It’s honestly not so far from the scent of his Amortentia.
“I get it. I might be tempted never to leave as well,” he chuckles, on the exhale of a deep, appreciative breath.
Quin starts summoning things from around the room, and it takes all of Harry’s observational skills as both seeker and Auror to avoid being hit with a log or tool or a bucket of something.
“I’ve always respected a lad who’s willing to work with his hands. To do things the long way and immerse himself in the process. It’s like taking the scenic route.”
“Definitely,” Harry nods, a bit awkwardly. He gets that too, but he’s yet to be convinced that it applies to making a broom.
“Means you have to begin with the highest quality ingredients, though. If you’re not weaving spells into your broom every step of the way, it’s got to have magic of its own. Great flying wood’ll cost you far more than stuff that can be enchanted to fly well. I make a lot of brooms the latter way, but between you and me, there’s no comparison. It isn’t as dear as wand wood, of course, but then you need a good deal more of it, unless you’re making a broom for an elf. Which’d be redundant given they’re natural-born apparaters… ‘less they enjoyed it, I suppose…”
Harry lets Quin ramble along the trail of his thoughts, seeing Mr Weasley and Hagrid in him once again. There’s a bit of the mad genius in the mix as well, evident as Quin hurtles along with his inspiration process. Something of the Weasley twins, chasing wild ideas. Something of Ollivander, functioning on a plane inaccessible to all others.
Harry touches the narrow pine trunk on the table nearest him, fingers running lightly over the still-rough bark on it. He can feel the tingle of magic around it, the aura of lightness that shouldn’t emit from something so heavy—and then he stumbles as the entire long column of it launches itself at his hand. He pushes it back down to the surface of the workbench with some difficulty, willing it to lie down again. After a moment of defiance, it settles.
“Careful there,” says Quin, focused once more on the task at hand. “You’ve got a strong connection to flight magic, I can see. A natural—though you knew that already. Best be careful around the woods we’ll be using today.”
“Where do trees like this come from?” Harry asks. His hand skates across the rough bark again, seemingly unable to resist the pull of its magic. It makes him strangely giddy, like he’d felt when he first flew as an eleven-year-old. There’s something so exciting, in its own disorienting way, about feeling that same magic in something that isn’t actually a broom yet.
“These pines are from Wiltshire. But in general trees that grow in magical places soak up that natural magic from the soil, from the air, from the creatures living around them. If that big old forest at Hogwarts wasn’t off-limits those trees would change broomcraft forever.” Quin looks a bit too wistful at the thought of felling the Forbidden Forest for Harry’s liking, but when he tries to imagine the Forest allowing itself to be harvested for timber he can’t picture it. He’s pretty sure it would fend off any attempts like—
“What would happen if you tried to make a broom out of a Whomping Willow?” Harry muses.
Quin laughs. “Death is what’d happen—even to you, Boy Who Lived. Whomping Willows aren’t completely natural; wizards bred aggression into them so they could be used as guards. Their inherent magic is a warped, chaotic, unstable version of what trees like the one in front of you now have in them. If you tried to fly a Whomping Willow broom it’d just keep doing what it was made to do and buck you off. Club you over the head, probably. Same reason nobody would ever make a wand out of such a wood, no matter how powerful its magic is.”
Harry’s more interested in the theory of broomcraft than he ever expected to be, if he’s honest. He hasn’t learned something new in ages—not that didn’t pertain directly to Auror work, or that he sort of wished he could un-discover. This would fascinate Draco, too, and it’s a shame he can’t call home, wake him up and drag him down here to listen. He looks forward to telling him all about it once the gift is finished.
Draco’s evidently confused by Harry’s newfound penchant for taking lengthy walks, but he doesn’t question it until Harry’s gone out several times on weekends or evenings after work.
“Are you quite alright?” he asks, handing Harry a glass of the same pinot noir he’s drinking. “It’s just strolls have never seemed quite your speed. Is there something on your mind?”
Harry doesn’t like the creases that the concern he’s causing Draco leave in his forehead. Not because he finds them unattractive—Draco wears his late twenties well, just as Harry expects he will wear his late nineties—but because he knows the marks of aging frustrate Draco. He’s seen him glaring at the mirror, trying to conceal his recession patches and his pores with salves and cosmetic glamours. Harry loves Draco however he comes—loves the human details of him—but he prefers whatever makes Draco comfortable.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Harry tries to reassure him. “I’m sure it’s just a phase. I’ll run out of philosophical thoughts to think as I wander about the city pretty soon.”
“You really are a strange man, Harry Potter,” mutters Draco, seemingly placated. But Harry sees the way he gulps down his next mouthfuls of wine—not a cheap bottle, he knows from the label. He’s going to have to be more careful.
Before long, Harry’s ‘walks’ actual are spent walking. It’s taking some research (and help from Hermione) to map out the locations where he has the best chance of finding a suitable crop of trees and being able to fell one to carve Draco’s broom out of. Thanks to Quin, he knows the basic characteristics he’s looking for; what will aid the woodworking process and what will make it more difficult (a lot of things, Quin’s tuition taught him, will make it more difficult).
Knowing already that Wiltshire contains pines steeped in flight magic, Harry’s focused most of his investigations there. Which is how, on a darkening Saturday afternoon, he finds himself skirting the edges of the grounds on which Malfoy Manor stands. Luckily he doesn’t have to venture far onto private land to reach a good-looking copse. The dying light casts strange shadows around him as he slips between the trunks, running his hands over them to feel their energy. The axe he’ll need when he finds the right one is weighing down his backpack, since he doesn’t want to risk ruining the ritual by magically shrinking and resizing it. He hadn’t gone as far as relying on Muggle transport to get him here and back, though; the cab would have cost a fortune and no cabbie was going to pick up a bloke with an axe or a whole tree slung over his shoulder.
The closer Harry gets to the manor-facing side of the wood, the stronger the thrumming power of the trees grows beneath his touch. Thickly needled branches rustle above his head, even though there’s barely a breeze. It feels something like being in the Forbidden Forest, although less ominous, and without the overwhelming sense of disorientation. It’s enough to make him feel enveloped by a power older than spells, more vital than potions.
Where the trees thin out again, Harry is confronted by a figure draped in crisp black robes.
Narcissa Malfoy stands with her arms crossed, looking for all the world like she has been waiting for him. Harry supposes she must have been.
“Mr Potter,” she says, tilting her head in question.
“Mrs Malfoy. It’s nice to see you,” Harry tries.
“Likewise; although it must be said that my seeing you is more of a surprise. What exactly are you doing on my grounds?”
She looks more amused and exasperated than angry, to Harry’s relief. He really should have expected that there’d be wards even at the very outskirts of the property, and that the Malfoys would be anxious enough to investigate any wizard-sized disturbance of them.
“I’m looking for a magical tree,” Harry says truthfully. “I need to borrow it. For Draco.”
“Are you planning on bringing this tree back after doing whatever you and my son have in mind for it?”
“Er, no, I suppose not—”
“Then I believe what you meant to do here was steal a tree?”
“When you put it like that—”
“It would perhaps be wise of me not to ask you what you plan to do with a stolen magical tree… and yet I find myself too curious not to do so.”
Harry stares dumbly at her for a second, before realising that this is her way of asking the question. He should have caught it sooner, really; there’s so much in Narcissa’s manner than has been passed on to Draco.
Harry swallows, feeling the tick of his pulse in his throat. If he tells her, she might tell Draco before the gift is ready—or worse, she might try forbidding him from making it, from being with Draco at all. But not telling her could do even more damage. Harry knows too well that nothing stands between Narcissa Malfoy and knowing that her son is safe.
The words rush out, almost on top of one another: “I’m making him a broom. Please don’t tell him.”
Her gaze sharpens, and Harry knows she’s seeing more than he’s intentionally showing her; how much, he’s not yet sure.
“I had no idea you were taking up broomcraft,” she says lightly. Far too lightly; Harry knows Slytherins by now, knows a false sense of security when he’s being lulled into it.
“It’s a recent thing.”
“And you have chosen to adopt the more traditional method of sourcing your brooms’ magic from the tree, rather than weaving in your own enchantments,” she says, almost as though she’s thinking out loud. “A handmade gift is always dearer, don’t you think, Mr Potter?”
Harry is painfully aware that Narcissa Malfoy knows exactly what he’s doing as he swings his axe into a sturdy, low-lying branch in a tree he’d felt particularly buoyant energy from. At least she had given him permission to take the timber—and, by extension, to woo her son. Or at least to try; his mother’s approval won’t convince Draco if it isn’t what he wants. Harry’s glad the bastard’s stubborn like that; if Draco had been swayed by his parents’ relationship hopes for him he’d have been married off by now and Harry wouldn’t have any chance.
Quin lets him into QQS when he apparates onto the doorstep, log in hand, axe still strapped to his back. He’s agreed to let Harry work on his project downstairs where Quin himself works; apparently he’d considered Harry decent company while showing him the ropes.
The broommaker’s hands roam over the hefty pine branch Harry’s brought as though trying to memorise every inch of it. Harry has a curious urge to shift it away, out of his reach.
“A curious specimen,” Quin mutters. “Its innate magic is strong, but peculiar. Wherever did you find it?”
“Er,” Harry says, “I got it from his family’s garden. The person I’m making the broom for.”
Quin nods. “A very good choice, Harry. Very good. You are welcome to start shaping it immediately, of course.”
Harry shakes his head. He’s been spending too much time away from home without giving Draco decent explanations already; he can’t afford to stay out all night. Draco will get worried—perhaps he’ll call the Manor and Narcissa will hint at what Harry’s up to in an effort to calm his nerves. Harry hopes that won’t happen; Draco’s too smart and too bloody-minded to let even one small clue go. He’s worked more than enough cases with the man to know that.
Draco is watching the telly with a bottle of white wine when Harry tumbles in through the floo. The house is lit with a low, yellow glow and smells like rich vanilla, signalling that Draco has switched out the normal, cost-effective candles for his preferred luxury ones. The flash of the TV screen is blue and harsh by comparison. Inside the box, someone wins a hundred dollars on a game show.
“I hope you didn’t want dinner,” Draco drawls, not turning to look at Harry. “I only made enough for one, since you’ve been preferring to take yours elsewhere.”
Harry grimaces to himself. He recognises all the variations of pissed off in Draco’s emotional vocabulary, but this is one he really dislikes. It’s overt and spiteful and he knows it means that underneath it Draco’s hurt, and it’s Harry’s fault.
“I’ll make some toast, then,” he says, taking care not to sound accusatory, but also making sure he doesn’t overcompensate and seem to cheerful while Draco’s upset. It’s a delicate balance, and he knows by now that by treading cautiously he can avoid adding fuel to the fire, but can’t put it out.
Draco doesn’t reply, and Harry heads off into the kitchen. There was fresh bread this morning, he knows, but all he can find now is the remains of an old stale loaf. He wonders whether Draco vanished it or whether he’ll find it if he goes through their bins. The triggers for Draco’s pettiness may have evolved somewhat, but the pettiness itself has hardly disappeared.
Harry sighs. Toast is toast, and he’s certainly eaten worse. At least there’s still plenty of the nice jam in the pantry. He slips the last proper piece and the two crusty ends into the toaster and stares into the element as it turns from grey to brilliant vermillion.
He makes a pot of tea while he waits, and lays two teacups on the chipped old tea tray they use for everyday occasions. There’s one ginger nut left in the jar, and he tucks it onto the saucer Draco usually favours. The toast springs up with a metallic wheeze, and Harry scrapes a slight burnt edge off an end bit which has proven itself too thin.
“I don’t suppose you’ll explain where you’ve been going,” says Draco when Harry slides down onto the lounge beside him. He still doesn’t look at Harry, and he doesn’t touch the teacup even though Harry fills it for him.
“I will,” Harry promises. He doesn’t want to lie. “But I can’t do it just yet.”
Unsurprisingly, Draco is less than satisfied with this answer. “Are you seeing someone?” he asks.
Harry chews and swallows hurriedly. “No! Absolutely not!” he replies—perhaps a bit too eager to get this point across. It must sound like too much protest to be believable, because Draco switches the telly off, picks up his tea and biscuit and stalks off without another word.
Harry would have thought that Draco being jealous over an imaginary relationship he’d decided Harry was having would be a good thing: a thing that meant Draco did want him the way Harry hoped, and all that had to happen was a mutual confession and then they’d be on their way.
The reality of the situation is that things are frosty between them; Draco’s called in sick three days in a row so Harry’s been missing his partner at the office, and if he sits down to eat with Draco at the kitchen table, Draco pushes his chair out loudly then takes his meal to his room. Their communication has been almost exclusively about mundane things—the administrative matters of a household, like the stocking of the refrigerator, the passing along of messages received by floo, and requests to turn the sound down on the TV or wireless.
Harry spends more time in the workshop, partly because there’s no use being around the house when Draco’s angry with him like this, and partly because the sooner he finishes the damn broom the sooner he can explain everything and they can go back to normal.
Despite the pressure of timing, Harry enjoys working the wood. It’s so much more responsive than he imagined, and there’s something about its magic that seems to guide his hands as they carve and sand, as if the pine has a vision of its own for what it will become. It reminds him of how he used to feel riding his Firebolt: like the broom knew him, knew what to do, had enough personality to be loyal. He instructed it as he flew, but its capabilities shaped him too—his approach to quidditch and to flying generally. He finds himself mumbling as he works, commenting on the process. It’s mad, but even before he’s varnished the handle or bound the twigs or fashioned any form of stirrups he thinks the long, rounded stick understands enough that it could fly him somewhere if his magic commanded it.
Harry stops by a corner shop on his way home, picking up the milk and crisps Draco had requested, and a grabbing a packet of lemon shortbread biscuits too when they catch his eye. It’s been a week and a half since their confrontation, and Harry’s nearly spilt the truth to Draco several times already—but he’s committed to doing this the proper way, and the literature makes it clear that, upon presentation to his intended, the gift must have fully realised all its objectives. The long and short of it is that until the thing is good enough to fly, it has to be kept secret.
Just a bit of sanding left to go, he thinks to himself as he walks to a shadowy alley and prepares for apparition. It won’t be useful if riding it leaves splinters in Draco’s hands. As soon as that’s done, though, he can get the whole thing off his chest.
“Mate,” Ron tells him as they’re stumbling off in search of kebabs after a very tense group outing to the pub on Friday night. “What the hell have you done to him now, anyway?”
“Who?” Harry frowns, stumbling a bit on an uneven section of footpath. He glares down at the ground, only to find that it really isn’t that uneven. He can’t glare at the firewhisky he’s already imbibed, so he just pouts harder at his best friend.
“Malfoy!” Ron shouts, the sound echoing off the concrete and tarmac of the street. He lowers his voice abruptly, and adds in a stage whisper: “duh.”
“Oh.” Harry feels his cheeks go from pleasantly, warmly numb to cold and frustratingly hard to manipulate. He considers accusing Ron of killing his vibe, but it’s pretty clear that the whole problem with Draco is his fault and his alone. He should have known better than to try and plan a grand gesture instead of just communicating like a normal human being—which, when it comes to love, he finds difficult enough already. Harry may nearly have been sorted Slytherin, but possessing a few innate qualities associated with the pureblood-heavy house has nothing to do with all the pretentious minutiae of wizarding high society’s courting games.
“Well?” Ron prompts, waving a hand in front of Harry’s face and nearly slapping him in the nose.
It snaps Harry out of his maudlin spiral, at least. “Nothing,” he replies. “I did nothing—he’s just made all these… these assumptions based on the fact I’ve been out a lot lately. Y’know, out working on his gift.”
“What’s he think you’re doing?”
Harry shrugs. “He asked if I was seeing someone. I said no, but I don’t know if he believed it.”
“Bloody hell,” Ron swears, veering right to avoid a collision with a streetlamp.
“Yeah.”
“So what are you gonna do about it?”
“I’m going to finish making it, so I can give it to him,” answers Harry, refraining from affixing a duh of his own to the end of the statement.
“Better hurry up, yeah?”
Harry stumbles over a slight rise in the footpath. “Yeah,” he agrees, heart aching.
Things get worse.
“You know he’s started giving your cases to Katie’s team, right?” Angie says quietly when Harry finds himself waiting outside Robards’ office one morning. “That’s why you and Draco haven’t had much time in the field lately. He knows something’s up. I’ve a friend who does relationship counselling if you—”
“No, er, it isn’t like that,” Harry assures her, but she just keeps looking at him with sad eyes. “But—really, Robards has noticed?”
Angie reaches out across her desk and clasps his hand. “Everybody has,” she tells him gently.
“Potter!” Robards calls, and his door unlocks to admit Harry.
“Sir,” he says, taking the seat offered to him. “What’s this about?”
“I’m recommending that you and Auror Malfoy transfer away from one another,” Robards says shortly. “I can’t have personal issues getting in the way of what can be life-or-death work. I’d also like to let you know how disappointed I am that you failed to report your relationship. Ethical boundaries apply to all of us, Potter, no matter how many times we’ve saved the bloody world.”
“Sir, I—”
“Don’t interrupt me. You’ll be working with Katie from now on. Bianca’s going on maternity leave, so she’ll need a new partner. Malfoy will be transferring to the lab.”
Harry suddenly has nothing left to say.
The lab. Draco’s always wondered what it’d be like if he’d applied to work there instead. But no, he’s always concluded when he’s voiced these thoughts, it wouldn’t be worth sacrificing a perfectly good partnership just to find out now.
“The lab,” he repeats, dully. People don’t get transferred between offices like this just because someone thinks their partnership is falling apart.
Draco has, very obviously, asked for all this to happen.
“Yes sir,” Harry agrees, because it’s not like arguing with his boss about it matters anymore. Not when it’s what Draco wants.
Harry spends the day sulking into his paperwork and canteen coffee, looking up whenever he hears someone enter the office and constantly being disappointed to find it isn’t Draco. At least when he gets home Draco will be present, even if he’s angry. Harry hopes he is. He only knows how to fight with Draco when the hostilities are open, when they’re exploding against each other in equal measure.
He leaves work early, when Katie tells him to piss off and get some rest. He’s been a bit useless, he knows, but he can’t really help it. The day doesn’t feel real when Draco is nowhere to be found. The whole of it feels like a waiting room; an interlude; nothing that really matters to the story. Much as he and Katie get along well, Harry is not truly at work unless he’s working with Draco. Nor is he truly at home unless Draco’s there.
Which is why his lungs freeze inside his chest when he steps inside that evening and nearly collides with Draco, who’s dragging his largest travelling trunk behind him.
“Hey, what—” Harry starts, and then sees a second figure over Draco’s shoulder, daintily levitating several of the large cardboard boxes Harry and Draco used to move into the place. KITCHEN reads one, the side printed with Harry’s hasty scrawl in indelible ink. BEDROOM says another, in Draco’s much tidier letters.
“Mr Potter,” Narcissa greets him coolly. Staring incisively into him over her son’s shoulder, she conveys deep disappointment with the slight narrowing of her eyes, and burning urgency with a wider look. Hurry up and fix this, she says, without having to utter it.
“Draco, what are you doing?” Harry asks, frantically shifting to block Draco’s path through the door. Draco sets the trunk down, reaches forward and physically pushes Harry out of his way.
“What does it look like?” he sneers. “Move along, Potter; I can’t stand to be around you right now.”
“It looks like you’re moving out of our house!”
“Ten points to Gryffindor for basic observational skills.”
It’s like they’ve rewound fifteen years, all of a sudden, and are feuding Hogwarts students once again—only now each barbed remark hits home, because Harry really gives a shit what Draco thinks about him.
“But why?”
“Why does it matter to you? I’m only giving you the space to bring home your new beau—not that I’d have any idea who they are, since it’s clear you’re either ashamed to introduce me, or you’re a liar who’s only been pretending to trust me these past years!”
And oh, Harry realises with a horrible sinking feeling. This is much worse than jealousy.
“I do,” he protests, a bit desperately. “I do trust you! I trust you as much as I trust anyone.”
Draco scoffs. “As if Weasley and Granger don’t know all the details of your life you refuse to share with me. You three probably still sit around laughing about how I’m fooling myself, even after these years of apparent friendship.”
Harry throws his arms out in a last-ditch attempt to stop Draco storming out the door. Unfortunately, all this does is give Draco a prime opportunity to draw his wand and summarily Stupefy Harry.
He topples, the floor coming up fast and hitting him hard. Narcissa looks down on her way out, flashing those pale eyes at him again as if to say, Harry Potter, you could hardly have fucked this up any more profoundly if you were trying.
He takes time off work, because there’s nothing he wants to do except finish the gift and all the drama with it. He doesn’t even know whether Draco will consider being with him anymore, but he has to try. He has to explain, and producing the finished broom is the only way he knows how. Words won’t do enough, even if he can find a way to make Draco hear him.
The longer sessions leave his hands raw. There’s a blister on the inner edge of his thumb that makes every sandpaper stroke hell, and his knuckles are scabbed from slipping forwards as he rubbed, collecting splinters. His back is protesting far more than it ever has from desk duty, and now the varnish is getting up his nose, making his head feel light and achy. He’s nearly there, though—and the item is no longer just a courting gift. It’s an apology, and it feels right that he’s putting his blood, sweat and tears into it.
There’s a knock on his door one… Harry isn’t sure whether it’s morning or afternoon, but it’s definitely daytime, because Quin always comes to visit him for supper. “Come in,” he calls, assuming it’s going to be the old man.
Instead, Quirinda enters.
“Merlin, crack a window would you?” she says, sniffing the room in distaste and casting a charm to clear the air.
“Sorry,” Harry says absentmindedly, still sorting through twigs to form a shortlist of the best ones. To be honest, he’d sort of forgotten he could’ve used magic for that. His need to follow the custom accurately has pushed the use of magic out of his mind whenever he’s in the workshop space.
“Are you actually alright?” Quiri queries, venturing a bit closer before pausing, cocking her hip and leaning against a table, the surface of which is clothed in wood dust. Her heavy boots scuff more shavings and discarded twigs as she swings a restless foot in abortive arcs across the floor.
“Fine,” says Harry. “Why?”
“It’s just… you’re turning into a worse hermit than Quin, that’s all. I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“It’s only temporary.”
“That’s what they said about using the Leaky as the entrance to Diagon,” Quiri quips. Harry can hear her raised brows in her tone. “And that was, what, eighty years ago?”
“I’m not going to stay in here for eighty years,” Harry assures her.
“Damn right you’re not. Not without paying some rent, anyway.”
She pushes off the table and comes to inspect his work. It makes Harry feel self-conscious; Quiri’s a bit like a silver-fox version of Ginny, in his mind, and he’s interacted with her enough to know she’ll be brutally frank with him if she doesn’t like what she sees.
“That’s not bad work, Potter.”
“You think he’ll like it?” Harry says, sounding pathetically hopeful to his own ears.
Quiri rolls her eyes. “I’m sure he will. But really, how’s whoever-he-is liking your total absence from his life while you work on it?”
“I think he’s liking it pretty well just at the moment. We sort of had a falling-out.”
“Ah. And you think this,” she gestures roughly at the sanded wooden pole and piles of sorted twigs, “is going to undo it?”
Harry feels distinctly picked on, and he stays quiet—not least because he really was hoping that would be the case.
Quiri pulls over a nearby wooden chair, pushing off the bag of tools Harry’s placed there. Its legs drag against the floor, screeching awfully. Instead of sitting, Quiri stands on the seat. It gives her the height she needs to face him, and to look down as she says,
“You know a broom’s not going to make your boy forgive you, right? I feel obligated to tell you, because if you’re using your time down here as an escape or an easy way out, then you’re bloody well wasting it. If he can’t forgive you without the broom, then he won’t forgive you with it either.”
Harry doesn’t immediately take Quiri’s advice. It’s easier to keep riding the rhythm he’s fallen into: wake up, go to the shop, eat supper with Quin, work until he starts to yawn and then traipse home to sleep, pretending Draco’s just gone to bed already and not left him to an empty house.
That is, until he’s heading up the stairs on his way to the lavatory out the back of the shop and hears Quirinda talking to Draco sodding Malfoy in the front.
“She will require the utmost comfort, of course,” Draco says, and it ignites in Harry that old, volcanic need to know. Who needs comfort? Who would Draco buy a broom for? There’s not anything he hasn’t known in Draco’s life recently, Harry realises—and the same has been true of his life for Draco, up until he started this whole project. How could he really have thought that putting secrets and deception back in their relationship was a good idea, no matter the reason for it?
“We can add in the luxury cushioning package,” Quirinda replies. “For an extra fifty galleons.”
“Yes, fine,” says Draco, in his patented ‘money is no object’ voice—even though Harry knows the Malfoy coffers aren’t what they used to be. “What decorative options do you have available for the travelling broom models? She has impeccable taste and I would say a utilitarian piece would be beneath her.”
“Who?” Harry asks, before he can stop himself. He’s still only just stepping out of the corridor as he says it. “Who has impeccable taste?”
Quiri casts a look between the two of them, and then decides: “Clearly not you, Potter.”
Draco frowns, but he looks more confused than offended. “Why are you here?” he demands. “Are you following me?”
“No!” Harry splutters. “I was here first! I’m just on my way to the loo.”
Draco quirks a brow meanly. “So I see.”
“Well, I changed my mind when I heard you talking. Who are you getting a broom for? Your new pureblood fiancée?”
“What? It’s for my mother, you imbecile. She’s decided she wants to take up flying again. She was a brilliant flier in her youth, before it became uncouth to be seen riding a broom.”
Oh, thinks Harry. “Oh,” he says. And then it occurs to him: Narcissa Malfoy is as calculating as ever, and it’s no coincidence that they’re here, having this conversation.
“Well,” Harry says, bracing himself for rejection, because he knows there’ll be a few layers to get through before Draco is willing to open up to him again. “Since you’re here, maybe I can show you something. I’ve, er, been working on a project. That’s why I’ve been so absent. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it earlier.”
Draco looks at him, hard. Then he looks at Quirinda, as though she’s going to provide an answer for him.
Quiri shrugs long-sufferingly. “I’ll get together some design options. You go on and follow him to the workshop.”
“The workshop?”
“Yeah,” Harry says, starting towards the corridor that will take them back down. “It’s pretty brilliant, really. At least come and see how the brooms are made.”
Draco hesitates, but Harry knows he’s got him. One thing they’ve always shared is their passion for flying; for Quidditch; for having the best broom and pushing it as hard as they can. Draco’s not the sort to resist a behind-the-scenes tour. If only Harry had thought of this himself.
“Lead the way, then,” Draco says, and follows a few steps behind Harry.
“So…” Harry starts awkwardly, “I’ve been using the second workshop, since Quin works in the first most hours of the day. He’s brilliant, knows heaps about flying woods and how to work with them. There’s so much I never knew about how magic broomsticks are made.”
“Never thought to open a book, I suppose?”
Harry shrugs. “I’m more of a hands-on person.”
They’re quiet for a few moments more, and then Harry unlocks the workshop door and pulls Draco inside.
“What a mess,” Draco says, but Harry can hear the wonder in his voice. “Have you been keeping pigs in here, Potter?”
“Only myself,” laughs Harry charitably. “I’ve made something for you, actually. It’s not quite finished. I know you’re mad, and if you don’t want it then that’s… well, it’s up to you. But will you please have a look?”
“Is it a broom?” Draco says, standing still, eyes continuing to flit around the workshop, taking it in.
“Nearly. It’s taken quite a while, doing everything by hand.”
Draco whips around to look at Harry, then. “What do you mean?” he asks, voice sounding a bit brittle.
“Well, it’s slower when you have to measure and cut and sand everything stroke by stroke. Makes your arms tired—”
Draco rolls his eyes. It’s more like his normal, friendly sass than the scorn he’s shown lately, and Harry fights down a smile at it.
“I meant,” says Draco, slow and clear and loud, as if talking to a small child or someone hard of hearing, “why would you make a broom by hand? For- for me?”
Harry shrugs. “It was supposed to be a gift.” He goes over to the broom, hovers his hand over it and thinks UP. The well-sanded, freshly-lacquered broom (which is still without stirrups but scrapes into the category of usable nonetheless) climbs leisurely through the air to press against his downturned palm. “It’s not quite ready, but I… I think telling you the truth is more important than doing it all according to the rules.”
“Rules,” Draco breathes, and Harry can see the facts clicking together in his head. It speaks to how little he was expecting this from Harry that he didn’t realise immediately. “You’re not proposing to me are you, Potter?”
Harry shuffles his feet, grip tightening on the broom handle. “No,” he says. “Well, not proposing marriage. But I wanted to ask if we could have… more.”
“So you decided that, instead of actually asking, you’d disappear to work on a gift according to an archaic set of customs that are almost certainly not intended to apply to people who already live together and know one another extremely well.”
It’s not a question, Harry notices. Which is for the best, because the only honest answer is yes.
“In hindsight,” he comments instead, “I might have messed up a bit.”
“A bit.”
“But you have to admit,” he says, brightening a bit as the broom sways restlessly in Draco’s direction, like it knows who it’s meant to be with—which, probably, it does. Just like Harry does. “This broom’s pretty neat.” He lets it go, and it drifts over towards Draco, who catches it with a seeker’s reflexes.
He spends a moment examining it, running his fingers along the smooth wood. “What timber is this?” he asks.
“Pine,” answers Harry. “It’s from around the Manor, actually.”
“Ah. So my mother’s been a liar,” Draco scowls, but it’s mostly good-natured.
“I asked her not to tell you.”
“But the fact that she actually did as you asked is another thing altogether. She must like you.”
Harry hopes so, but it feels like too awkward a thought to voice. Narcissa still scares him a bit, and he wouldn’t want her hearing about it.
“It’s pine,” he says instead, “because of the symbolism. It’s all symbolic, really.”
There’s a long pause, during which Draco runs thoughtful hands and eyes over the wood. “Harry..." he begins, "Is this your figurative boner for me?”
“No! It's supposed to show that I want to help you rise up, and—"
"Do you now?" Draco’s smirk is fast gaining strength.
"—take you where you want to go. And it's made from pine because I've been, sort of, er, pining for a while."
"And you want me to sling my leg over and ride this hard piece of wood you've stroked to near-completion with your own hands. Is that correct?”
Harry throws his hands up. "I guess!" he cries. "Technically! But that isn't how I meant it."
Draco takes a step closer. He eyes Harry with such a perfectly Malfoyish combination of smugness, challenge and covetousness that Harry shivers involuntarily. Draco smiles, and says:
“My, but that’s unfortunate. If it was, I’d have been most inclined to say yes.”