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“So, Harry,” Ron says casually, “I heard you finally broke up with Charlie.”
Harry looks away from where Luna and her new husband, Rolf Scamander, are posing for the photographer while slicing their wedding cake. They look happy and carefree, vastly different from what Harry is feeling now that Ron is finally ready to discuss what he, Harry, considers the big Erumpent in the room.
“Yes, it’s a recent development,” Harry says in a neutral tone as if he were just discussing the weather. Maybe if Harry keeps his voice low and bored, Ron will lose interest and talk about something more exciting, like Quidditch. It doesn’t seem likely, however, because the breakup is the biggest thing to happen to Harry all year.
Ron snorts. “Mate, you broke up with him this morning.”
Harry opens his mouth to respond, but then immediately closes it. He can’t think of anything to say that won’t make him seem heartless, and besides, all Ron did is state the truth.
“The thing is, everyone is curious to know why, but they won’t outright ask you because we’re at Luna’s wedding and they don’t want to be rude. However, I figured since I’m your best friend, you could tell me anything,” Ron says, grabbing a floating plate containing a slice of wedding cake. He doesn’t wait for Harry to answer as he digs into the slice, spearing the fruit onto his fork. It really is a masterpiece, fruits and nuts cut up in the shape of magical creatures and judging from the groans and soft sighs coming from Ron, it tastes just as delicious as it looks.
Harry has a feeling that if he takes a bite right now, it would probably feel like a rock in his stomach. He doesn’t look forward to being questioned about his relationship with Charlie Weasley by his best friend. On the other hand, it’s easier to talk to Ron right now, rather than the entire Weasley family at the next Sunday brunch.
Harry takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Look, I know it’s shit timing, but this is the first time I’ve seen Charlie in months. He didn’t come home for Christmas, remember?”
Ron nods. “I haven’t forgotten. I still remember Mum composing the Howler when she found out he was staying in Romania. ‘Charlie, what do you mean you can’t come home for Christmas? If the thought of not seeing your mum this Christmas can’t bring you home, then what about poor Harry? He’s missed you so much!’”
Harry can’t help it. He laughs and whatever tension he has coiled up inside lessens as he manages to say, “The Howler did not say that!”
Ron, despite his rather impressive imitation of his mother, nervously looks around as soon as he finishes speaking. Despite being a decorated war hero, he’s never lost the fear of angering his mother. He breathes a sigh of relief and asks Harry, “Did Charlie ever tell you if he received the Howler?”
Harry shakes his head. “He’s never mentioned it. I don’t even know if Howlers can travel long distances without losing their magic. Can they, Hermione?” Harry asks her as she joins their table.
Hermione doesn’t immediately answer, too busy trying to hold her infant daughter without waking her. Rose Weasley is only ten months old and had spent most of Luna’s wedding being passed around to their family and friends. By the end of the evening, just as couples were starting to dance, she had fallen fast asleep.
“Of course they can. The Howlers are attached to owls which are known to deliver the post internationally. Although they do need a few days to recover after each visit.” Hermione sits down in her chair and Ron gently takes Rose and cradles her in his arms, making sure to support her head. Hermione murmurs ‘thanks’ before she casts a Cooling Charm over their group.
Harry feels a pang in his chest watching his best friends. While he might not have many regrets with any of his previous relationships, the major one he had was not having any children. Harry thinks he would have been a decent dad. Teddy Lupin more than fulfills that role in his life, but his godson spends the majority of his time with Andromeda and soon he would be starting his first year at Hogwarts.
Harry’s so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice Hermione asking him a question until she taps him on the shoulder. Harry looks up, hoping that he doesn’t look as confused as he feels. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Ron says you broke up with Charlie,” Hermione says. “I just wanted to know if everything turned out well.”
Harry sighs, taking his glasses off and cleaning them. The world blurs for Harry, illuminated only by the twinkling fairy lights that decorate the trees where the wedding reception is being held.
“Yes, I broke up with him right after breakfast this morning just as he arrived via Portkey. I feel like shit about it because he had just finished kissing me and the first words out of my mouth were ‘we should break up.’” Just saying the words brings a heat of embarrassment to Harry’s cheeks, which is precisely why he didn’t want to talk about it in the first place.
When Harry puts his glasses back on, he sees that Hermione looks slightly horrified and she opens and closes her mouth several times. Harry doesn’t quite believe he’s ever seen her speechless. There’s a first time for everything.
“I know that I had to do it as soon as possible or I would continue to put it off just like I have the previous times. I wasn’t thinking, Hermione. I’ll admit it though, it’s not my proudest moment.”
Ron laughs. “I would put this above the time you and Cho kissed, which made her cry.”
Hermione gives Ron a dirty look. “She was grieving, Ron. You can’t fault her for that. However, I do agree that perhaps you should have been a little more tactful, Harry. Have you apologised to Charlie?”
Harry chokes on his bite of cake, coughing loudly as he tries to clear his oesophagus. After a few frightening seconds, Harry feels Hermione’s magic wash over him as his airway clears and he can finally breathe properly again. Taking several deep breaths, Harry repeats her question. “Apologise for what?”
Hermione’s eyes are wide as she exclaims, “Harry, you were together for more than a year and you don’t honestly believe that’s the way you want to end your relationship with Charlie? A quick ‘we should break up’ with no explanation and then ignore him at the wedding where he’s supposed to be your date. At least with Ginny you ended things amicably, but how did Charlie react?”
“Hermione, there was no chance to explain,” Ron says. “As soon as Charlie arrived, he saw Harry, kissed him, and the next thing we knew, they were broken up.” He shrugs his shoulders when Harry shoots him a glare. “I didn’t know why Malfoy was there, though.”
“Luna appointed him as the wedding planner and he was corralling his family’s albino peacocks into a pen. Since I was Malfoy’s assistant, I was helping him out.”
“I keep forgetting that you had to help Malfoy with this wedding,” Ron says, shuddering. “It must have been horrible.”
Harry shrugs his shoulders. “It wasn’t so bad. Malfoy’s not as big of a prick nowadays. He’s the reason why this wedding was a success. If it were just me, today would have been a disaster.”
“Yes, Harry, the wedding has been lovely so far, but if I know you, you wouldn’t want to cause any distractions. Seeing as you already have, you should probably apologise to Charlie and Luna as soon as you can.”
Harry winces at the suggestion. He knows she’s correct, but he’s not looking forward to it.
“To be honest,” Ron says, “I’m surprised Mum hasn’t come over here to start questioning you. The last thing she knew, you and Charlie were in relationship bliss!”
Harry clenches his hands into fists to keep his magic from accidentally unleashing. “That’s what everyone thought. But we grew apart, just like Ginny and I did. Our relationship is not like yours and Hermione’s; I can see you two dying of old age together, but to be honest, I realised Charlie and I weren’t meant to last forever. I don’t know if I will ever find that.”
Harry doesn’t realise that his voice has become so loud until there’s silence and that everyone within five feet of their table is staring at them. Rose also whimpers in her sleep, but thankfully remains sleeping in Ron’s arms.
Shit, Harry thinks. He had forgotten to cast a Muffliato. Well at least there were no reporters this time to write a scandalous story for the Prophet.
To make matters worse, Draco Malfoy chooses that moment to walk over to Harry’s table. Malfoy stands in front of the three friends with an eyebrow arched. He’s dressed in a Muggle three-piece suit with his hair not slicked back for once. The sight of him makes Harry’s heart beat faster.
“What do you want, Malfoy?” Ron, ever the loyal friend, asks with a scowl on his face.
“As fascinating as this conversation is, it seems that Potter’s presence is now required for the bouquet toss.”
“What?” Harry wishes he could hide. The last thing he wants to do is stand up in front of the crowd after the conversation he’s just had with his friends.
Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Oh, don’t flatter yourself, Potter, even though you are newly single. It seems that all the single guests in attendance are invited to somehow catch the bouquet of sunflowers to see who the next one to marry is. Personally, my money is on Blaise. That is, if he ever decides to settle down.”
“Oh this is rich. You’re single, Malfoy? Of course you are. Who would ever want you?” Ron says, almost laughing until Hermione hisses, “Ron!” and not so subtly pushes his shoulder.
Harry looks at Malfoy, wondering what would happen next. In the past, Malfoy would have hexed all three of them without hesitation. Now, his cheeks have turned pink, but he still holds his head up high when he says, “Not that it’s any of your business, Weasley, but you’d be surprised at the offers.”
With those words, Malfoy turns around and heads back to the front of the crowd, stopping next to Blaise Zabini. Zabini asks Malfoy a question, but Malfoy only shakes his head once.
Too late, Harry tries to defend Malfoy to his friends, but they aren’t paying him any attention as Hermione begins to scold Ron. As Harry gets up to join the crowd of single guests, he hears Ron tell Hermione, “He’s lying, Hermione. He’s just as single as Harry is now. Or else he would have brought a date to the wedding just to show off.”
It’s on the tip of Harry’s tongue to say that Malfoy is definitely single. With Malfoy in charge of the wedding planning and having Harry as his assistant, they had found out they actually enjoyed each other’s company. Harry liked working with Malfoy; his sharp wit and constant commentary had been refreshing to Harry’s ears. With Luna and Rolf, Malfoy was attentive, always listened to their suggestions, and even found ways to incorporate their simplest requests in the wedding, such as having the white peacocks as their ring bearers.
Spending all that time together had changed Harry’s perspective of Malfoy and he found that he wanted to know this new Malfoy away from a professional setting. In fact, a week ago right after the rehearsal dinner, Harry had wanted to ask if Malfoy would go to Luna’s wedding as Harry’s date.
Instead of asking him, however, Harry had leaned in and kissed him. For the briefest of seconds, Harry had completely forgotten about Charlie and had instead thought of how soft Malfoy’s lips were. He had immediately been pushed back and the only words Malfoy had said were, “I don’t date taken men, Harry. Not even you.”
In the week since that kiss, Malfoy had been cordial, as if Harry’s lapse of judgement had never happened. Harry, however, had not forgotten.
Harry kept in mind that Malfoy hadn’t said he wouldn’t date Harry, only that he doesn’t ‘date taken men.’ That had been one of the motivations for Harry to break up with Charlie, who, after this morning, is now avoiding him and is standing as far away as possible for the bouquet toss.
“I heard you broke my brother’s heart,” Harry hears a voice say behind him. Before he can turn around to see who it is, there’s a wand jabbed between his shoulder blades. “If you give me one good reason why, then maybe I won’t cast a Bat Bogey Hex on you.”
“Ginny!” Harry exclaims, and he turns around once he feels the wand leave his back. “I’m sure that by now, just about everyone has heard about it and has wondered what’s wrong with me for always breaking up with the people I date.”
Ginny smiles at him before giving him a hug. As one of Luna’s bridesmaids, her dress is sky blue and she looks absolutely wonderful. Still, her face softens when she replies, “You were never the problem for why we didn’t work out, Harry. It was the circumstances. We just weren’t ready. We rushed into it because we thought it was how it was supposed to be. And then we broke up to find ourselves. That’s a good thing, too, or else you’d probably be an Auror instead of a wand maker and I would write for the Prophet and have been co-workers with Rita Skeeter. Rolf didn’t invite any of his co-workers to the wedding and I heard she almost threw a fit. She would probably have an aneurysm if she saw Luna’s wedding dress.”
In front of the small group, Luna’s rainbow wedding dress shimmers every time she moves. She has sunflowers braided into her hair and a glimmering tiara made of silver unicorn horns sits on her head. In her hands she holds a white dove with a bouquet of sunflowers in its beak.
“Don’t be scared, Harry,” Ginny says.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, a dove is just a white pigeon and we all know you are terrified of them. At least that’s what Rita Skeeter’s trusted sources are saying.”
“Shut up. You know I had the Prophet print a retraction when that came out. Skeeter is a quack!”
While Ginny and Harry were talking, the dove took flight and circled the group of single guests several times. The next thing Harry knows, the dove drops the bouquet. Out of habit from years of playing Quidditch, Harry reaches out and snatches the bouquet out of the air. He hadn’t expected to actually catch the flowers since he’s not the tallest person in the group.
Ginny laughs and laughs until there are tears streaming down her face. “Merlin, Harry, you have the strangest luck. Only you would go from breaking up with your boyfriend in the morning to being practically engaged by the end of the night. Who’s the lucky person?”
Without meaning to, Harry’s eyes find Malfoy’s in the crowd. Malfoy’s grey eyes widen for just a second before he turns around and walks away, ignoring the cheers that have started chanting Harry’s name. It seems that no one has noticed whom Harry had been staring at.
Harry’s shoulders sag and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding in. “No one, Ginny,” he says at last and tries to give her the bouquet, but Ginny refuses.
“Wrong person,” she says.
Cameras are flashing all over and for a minute Harry stands there, stunned. He hears a few guests whisper about him, wondering whom he’s dating. A small streak of panic starts to form in Harry’s chest and he feels as if the crowd is inching closer and closer. Even though he is with friends, Harry doesn’t want to be the center of attention and wishes he had his Invisibility Cloak with him.
“Harry,” a voice calls out in front of him. For a second he thinks it’s Malfoy because of the blond hair, but then he smells the perfume that Luna favours and he relaxes a bit.
Luna grasps both of his hands and guides them away from the crowd and into her home. They head towards the kitchen where Luna helps him sit in a chair and hands him a glass of water before locking the door.
The cold water feels heavenly and Harry focuses on Luna’s dress as he tries to collect his thoughts. “Luna, I’m sorry,” Harry says as soon as his heart rate slows down. “You should be outside enjoying your special day, not stuck inside here with me.”
“Of course I would be here with you, Harry. You’re my friend.”
“Thank you,” Harry says. “It got a bit overwhelming.” He tries to give the sunflower bouquet to her. “Here. I think the dove was a little misguided and made a mistake,” he begins but Luna shakes her head.
“I don’t think it works like that, Harry. Doves are highly intelligent creatures and even Muggles use them in their weddings. It knew what it was doing and chose to give you the bouquet. Which reminds me, I never got to thank you properly for this wedding. You and Draco did a lovely job even if you only had a few weeks to help me plan it.”
“You don’t need to thank us, Luna. We’re happy to help you celebrate your special day. Malfoy did most of it, really. He said he couldn’t trust me to handle something as important as your wedding.”
“It’s so silly, you know, to still call Draco by his last name, don’t you think?” Her grey eyes peer down at him and Harry can’t reply with anything but the truth.
“Old habits die hard, I think,” he admits. “But if I call him that, it would certainly surprise him. He surprised me every week when we helped you with the wedding planning. He’s no longer the bully he was at Hogwarts.”
“I’m so glad you think so. In the beginning, Draco told me that he didn’t know if you would work well together. But then as the days passed, he would speak less of how vexing it was working with you and more of—”
“If by working together, he means that he would argue why things had to be done his way, then yes, ‘we worked well together,’” Harry interrupts. “But even when we would argue, he said that helping you with the wedding was the least he could do after all he put you through during the war. He especially wanted your wedding dress to be perfect.”
Luna smiles and twirls once, causing her dress to billow out. “I absolutely love it! I’m so glad that you and Draco were able to leave things in the past and start anew as friends. I wouldn’t be surprised if it became something more. I see the way you look at him, Harry.”
Harry turns to look at her with his mouth open in shock. If Harry had to guess who the first person to figure out that he had a bit of a crush on Malfoy would be, he would have chosen Hermione.
Harry clears his throat and hopes his voice doesn’t tremble when he finally says, “He’s very fit and not hard on the eyes, but there’s nothing official yet. I haven’t even asked him out on a date.”
Luna grins at him. “I think it’s incredibly wonderful and lucky to find love at a wedding.”
“Love,” Harry repeats, voice soft, “it’s not like that at all.”
“It could be, if you let it, Harry. You’re more alike than you realise. You’re both stubborn, refuse to back down from what you believe in, and are both loyal to friends and family. You are suited for each other and I would say he thinks the same about you.” Luna goes around to Harry’s side and kisses him on the cheek. “Thank you again, Harry.”
Harry sits at the table, stunned as he watches Luna leave the room. If Luna, one of the people who knows Malfoy better than he does, thinks that Malfoy is interested in him, then perhaps Harry still has a chance.
A loud knock on the door distracts Harry from his thoughts. Harry looks up to see Charlie Weasley step inside the kitchen and set a leather suitcase down on the table.
“Hello, Harry. Hermione and Ron would have come, but Rose needed to be fed so I came to see if you were all right after what happened out there.”
Harry nods and uses his wand to cast Aguamenti to refill his glass. He offers to do the same for Charlie, but the other man declines. Harry and Charlie stare at each other and Harry spots minor differences since the last time they saw each other. His hair is longer, there’s a new tattoo on his wrist, and there are more scars on his face. Most of the scars are faint, but there is a fresh one underneath his left earlobe.
“I don’t know if it’s the right time for this, Harry, but I wanted to speak to you about this morning.”
“I’m sorry,” Harry says simply. “For so many things.” He twists the stems of the sunflowers for lack of a better thing to do. “I know that I haven’t been the best boyfriend and I didn’t want to hurt you, but it seems it’s all I’ve done so far.”
“Harry, you haven’t hurt me,” Charlie says. When Harry makes a noise of protest, Charlie holds up his hand. “Or angered me, or even upset me, or anything that’s going around in your mind at the moment.”
“Don’t lie, Charlie. I saw your face after what I said this morning.”
Charlie exhales loudly. “I wish there was a Pensieve around so I could show you properly. I was surprised, that’s all. You took me by surprise. Or perhaps I wanted to not believe what I had been suspecting for a while.”
“Me, surprise you? What do you mean?”
“I know we wrote sporadically, and it didn’t help that I would not always respond to your letters, but in the letters that you did send, you seemed more and more distracted. At first I put it off that you were busy with your career, or perhaps the long distance was a factor—”
“No, it wasn’t that,” Harry interrupts. “Besides, anytime you were here, we seemed to get along just fine with no problems at all.”
“Harry, anytime I visited, we were too busy having sex to talk at all.”
Harry blushes, but lets Charlie continue talking.
“Then a few weeks ago, you started writing to me again. You and Malfoy were helping Luna plan her wedding.” Charlie turns away from Harry to look out the window and his voice gets quieter as he continues talking. “You know, Ron used to tease you about talking so much about Malfoy at Hogwarts. I never realised how true that was until I saw it with my own eyes. You broke up with me because of Malfoy, right?”
Even though Charlie can’t see him, Harry nods. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t plan it, but I did kiss him. The only thing that happened is that he pushed me away.”
Charlies finally turns away from the window to look at Harry. There’s no judgment in his expression, but it still causes Harry to have difficulty swallowing water past the lump that has formed in his throat.
“Harry, the blame is on both of us. We should have talked more instead of falling into bed whenever we had the chance to see each other. But a relationship is not going to be easy. You have to work at it. Perhaps you’ll have better luck with Malfoy.”
“No,” Harry says quickly. “At this point, I don’t even know if I have a chance. It seems that I’ve fucked up all the relationships I’ve ever had.”
“You’re a little misguided and naïve, and wear your heart on your sleeve, but you’re not hopeless, Harry.” Charlie comes up and gives Harry a hug, one that feels like a final goodbye.
“Sorry,” Harry says. “I don’t know how many times I’ll keep apologising and I still don’t think it will be enough.”
“Don’t worry about it, Harry. Just learn from your mistakes,” Charlie says, using his wand to cancel all the spells he cast before leaving.
“Charlie, wait! You forgot your suitcase!” The suitcase begins to shake violently on the kitchen table. Harry dreads that it might be a Wheezes product, one meant to explode all over him now that he’s officially broken up with Charlie. It would be something that George would most certainly do.
“Harry, I think you will need it more than I do. I hear it’s attracted to bright, shiny things much like you are right now.” Charlie laughs before sprinting out the door.
“Wait! What do you mean? Charlie, come back!” The suitcase bursts open and Harry immediately withdraws his wand, trying to think of the perfect spell to use. A baby Niffler pokes its head out, staring at Harry with wide eyes.
Harry lets out a startled laugh, glad he didn’t immediately attack an innocent creature.
“Who brings a Niffler to a wedding?” Harry says, continuing to stare at the baby Niffler until it leaps from the suitcase. It lands on Harry’s jacket, tugging on the gold dusted sunflower in his front pocket. Both the flower and Niffler fall to the ground and it only takes a second before the Niffler is on its tiny feet running out the door.
“Shit,” Harry says, and fires Petrificus Totalus at the Niffler, who manages to dodge it at the last second and follow Charlie out the door.
Once Harry makes it outside, he has to hold back his laughter. The Niffler has run down the side of the house and into the peacock pen, causing them to squawk and fan out their feathers as they are chased by the Niffler. Feathers fly everywhere and Malfoy is doing his best to stun the Niffler, but with no success. His hair is ruffled and his shirt is pulled out from his trousers. He has taken off his jacket and his shirt sleeves are rolled up past his elbow.
In Harry’s opinion, Malfoy has never looked as gorgeous as he does now.
Malfoy’s face has turned bright red by the time he finally manages to Stupefy the Niffler and it falls to the ground with a thud.
“Be careful!” Harry exclaims, rushing towards Malfoy. “Why did you do that? The Niffler hasn’t done anything to you.”
“Do you want to be next, Potter?” Malfoy says, pointing his wand at him.
Harry steps back and feels the fence post dig into his back. “No, not particularly.”
“So leave,” Malfoy says. He lowers his wand and begins to open the gate so that he can step inside.
“I broke up with Charlie.”
Malfoy falters in his step for only a second before he spits out, “Good for you. Regretting it already, Potter?” He sounds bored, but after spending the past few weeks with Malfoy, Harry knows that he’s great at pretending he doesn’t care.
Harry feels his heart beat faster now that Malfoy is actually responding to his words instead of telling him to leave. “Yes. I regret the way I broke up with him, but not the reason why I did it.”
Malfoy sneers. “Why should I care?”
“Well, you see, there’s this bloke that I’ve known for over half of my life that I can’t stop thinking about. He was a prat at school, but he’s changed. And I want to get to know him better to see if anything could come of it.”
Malfoy rolls his eyes. “How eloquent. I don’t believe you, Potter.”
“It’s true,” Harry exclaims. When Malfoy doesn’t respond, Harry continues speaking in hopes of changing his mind. “We get along better now. He’s smart, charming, and would do anything for his friends, including bringing some murderous albino peacocks to a wedding.”
Malfoy laughs and the icy exterior he displays finally cracks. “Apparently, they are the ‘something borrowed’ Luna needed for her wedding, whatever that means. I don’t understand it, but they seemed to make her happy, so how could I say no?”
Harry grins because he can’t actually help himself. Malfoy is far from perfect, but it’s things like this that show Harry he’s changed.
Harry takes a chance and stands right next to Malfoy, bumping shoulders with him. “Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think the only reason you objected to me kissing you was because I was still with Charlie, right?”
After what seems like an eternity, Malfoy nods.
Harry grins and takes a hold of Malfoy’s hands, which are unexpectedly cold. He rubs them for a bit before entwining their fingers together.
“Well, now that I’m single, do you want to give us a try and go out with a date with me?”
Malfoy squeezes Harry’s hand before saying, “Be warned, Potter, don’t you dare break up with me like that.”
Harry looks down at the petrified Niffler. “I wouldn’t dare!”