Work Text:
“Harry? It’s Teddy. Um mm… I’m sorry to disturb you at work… But it’s Nanna Andi. She’s had a bit of a fall while I was at school. The thing is… Well, I need somebody here… To be responsible for my welfare while she’s in hospital. Aunty Cissa is travelling and… Well, there just isn’t anyone else.”
It was incredible, really, how your whole life could change in a single instant.
Harry Potter’s life had changed forever with an answerphone message, received on a rainy February morning. Harry listened to the panicked voice of Teddy Lupin, the Godson that he hadn’t seen in over a year and knew straight away that he had to look after him.
Truthfully, Harry had to admit that he’d been coasting thought life for the last few years. His existence since university had consisted of pints in The Unicorn with Ron and Dean, footy at the weekends and a dead-end job as a Science Tech in a large secondary school. Most of Harry’s days were spent on a long work commute and he lived in a tiny space off Hammersmith High Street with two other flatmates. Even then, Harry was always broke far before the end of the month.
Harry listened to Teddy’s message once more, watching the raindrops chase each other down the windowpane. Outside the day was grey and overcast, and inside his lab smelt of scorched wood and Bunsen-burners. Harry called straight back and Teddy picked up on the second ring; his nine year old voice loud and anxious.
“Andi fractured her hip,” Teddy announced, “and she’s in hospital. The nosy woman from the council says that if I don’t have somebody here to look after me, I have to go into foster care! I’ve told her I’ll be fine. I can cook and clean for myself!… But she said that I’m too young. So I need a responsible adult here. And I thought of you, ‘cause you’re my Godfather-”
He been sat on a train by the end of the day, a bag of hastily thrown together clothes and toiletries clutched in his hands. Andi and Teddy lived in Robin Hood’s Bay, a small village on the North Yorkshire Coast and Harry hadn’t visited them in a shamefully long time. His work supervisor hadn’t seemed all that bothered Harry had to take a leave of absence. His flatmates hadn’t even bothered to look up from the telly when he’d told them he was leaving.
Teddy had been waiting for Harry at a neighbour's house and as soon as the boy saw his Godfather he dissolved into snotty tears. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to come,” Teddy sniffed, knotting his fingers though Harry’s own. “Even after you said you were… I was so scared. I thought you’d get off the phone and change your mind.”
Harry squeezed Teddy’s hand, and looked into his skinny, freckled face. Nine years old and he’d already endured so much more than he deserved. Teddy had lost both his parents in a car accident when he was still a baby. Now he was terrified of losing the only grandmother he had.
“’Course I didn’t, Teds,” Harry replied, tousling the boy’s chestnut brown hair. “As long as you need me, I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere. Promise.”
And, true to his word, Harry hadn’t gone anywhere.
That had been four months before and Harry had found himself slotting into Robin Hood’s Bay life with laughable ease. Harry had resigned from his London job and handed in the notice at his flat-share with barely a murmur of difficulty.
He’d moved into the attic room of Andi and Teddy’s ancient town house where the only downsides were creaking floorboards and the icy-cold water in the shower. There’d even been a vacancy at Teddy’s school and Harry had begun working there after a few short weeks in the village. Even Ron and ‘Mione had promised to bring up their kids up in the summer.
~@~
“I’ll have to give up my allotment,” Andi groused, taking a long swallow of her tea. She was sat at the breakfast table, her toast still sat before her half-eaten. She put her mug down on the table and sighed. “It’s May. High time for seeding and prep work. But I won’t be able to do the work this year. Not with this damned hip. I’ll have to give it up.”
“The doctor said that exercise was important,” Harry replied thoughtfully. “Said that it’d help you with your fitness and mobility. No reason that you couldn’t garden eventually.” He took a bite of his sausage sandwich before he continued. “I wouldn’t mind helping you if you wanted… I always fancied myself as a bit of a gardener. Down in London there wasn’t the space to grow anything. We didn’t even have a window pot.”
Andi looked on sceptically while Teddy snorted with laughter above his porridge.
“Having an allotment isn’t like growing a few herbs in a box, Harry,” Andi said, wrinkling her eyebrows. “It’s a big time commitment and I’m nowhere near able to support you. I won’t be for months. It’s a such a pity. Working together on our allotments was the first project that Cissa and I had really planned to share.”
Harry wasn’t put off in the slightest by his families cynicism. It only made him more determined to succeed. “I’ve got plenty of time and not much to do with it. No reason I couldn’t maintain the allotment for you until you’re feeling more like yourself, Andi. Teddy here could help me for a couple of hours at the weekend… We’ll soon get it looking great.”
~@~
In retrospect, perhaps looking great was slightly too big a commitment, Harry thought as he looked over Andi’s allotment plot. He wouldn’t have said that his heart had sank, exactly.
Perhaps his heart had just trembled a little.
Harry had left home brimful of self-assurance, excited at the prospect of getting his hands dirty in the light May drizzle. He had cycled over with Andi’s brass key heavy in his pocket and felt an absurd elation as the gates of Scarborough Road Allotments had popped open easily beneath his hands.
Armed only with sandwiches, gardening gloves and a bottle of coke in his backpack, Harry had felt poised of the brink of being the finest allotment keeper that Robin Hood’s Bay had ever seen.
Every allotment plot that Harry had passed on his way had been unique.
Some were been enthusiastically neat, with immaculate lines of tidily labelled crops all lined up ready to grow and flourish. Some were filled with delicious looking broad beans and fat strawberries.
Other allotments had been far more tumble-down and ramshackle, with random plants and flowers scatted all over their patches of ground. Harry had spied scarecrows, flags and even horrible ceramic gnomes as he’d walked over to Andi’s little section. Each allotment was a fascinating window onto the psyche of its manager, divided only from its neighbours by a neat grass pathway. Andi’s allotment was bigger than Harry had expected but also far more unkempt. At th very least the site was clear of weeds but there weren't any crops to maintain or even flowerbeds to tend.
It would appear that Andi had been a rather less experienced allotment keeper than Harry had imagined. Never mind, Harry decided. It was time to put on his brave face. He’d never been afraid of a challenge. On Harry's neighbouring plot he spied a man of around his own age, digging the dirt on his own allotment.
Harry gazed over at the rectangular plot, admiring its neatness and elegance. Perhaps the gardener been able to feel Harry staring, for he looked up and found Harry’s eyes with his own. They were an arresting slate-grey under a dishevelled mess of the whitest blond hair that Harry had ever seen. In only seconds, the gardener had abandoned his spade in the soft black mud and was striding over, wiping his hand across his trousers and before holding it out for Harry to shake.
“You must be Harry,” the man announced, his fingers slim and strong within Harry’s own hand. The handshake was firm and the blond’s face was open and pleasant. “I’m Draco. Draco Malfoy. Narcissa’s son? I think we’re neighbours here at the allotments. It’s a real pleasure to meet you.”
A shock of recognition ricocheted through Harry. He’d seen photos of Draco all over Cissa’s house but he’d never have imagined that upper-crust young man in all of those pictures digging the soil on an allotment. Harry had taken notice of Draco’s pictures: well, he hadn’t been able to help himself really. He had a terrible weak spot for tall, aristocratic boys in well-fitted suits but wasn’t Draco supposed to be finishing a PhD at some posh university? Why was Draco here, at Scarborough Road, with a gorgeous smear of dirt across the bridge of his nose
“Guilty as charged,” Harry replied, somewhat reluctantly dropping Draco’s hand. “I’m Harry Potter. So we’re neighbours? And is this allotment all your work?” Harry motioned with a hand over at the well-tended plot. “I though you were down at uni?”
Draco laughed, a blue-blooded throaty giggle that surprised Harry with its genuineness. “Goodness, no. My mother has the green fingers in my family. This allotment is her baby, not mine… I just do what she tells me. I’m just maintaining it for her while she travels with work. I'm back from Uni for the summer now. Look, I know I need to thank you, Harry. Coming up when you did… Looking after Teddy. I really do owe you one.”
“Maybe I’ll take you up on your offer,” Harry agreed, quirking an eyebrow in the direction of his wild plot of land. “I’ve got my work cut out for me here. Looks like I’ve taken on a bit of a challenge.”
Draco smiled and nodded, before following Harry onto the allotment.
Harry decided that the inside of Andi’s tiny shed felt slightly more positive. There was a spade, trowel, secateurs, a garden fork and other equipment that he didn’t recognise but was sure was going to come in handy. Draco spoke intermittently, explaining what each of the tools did.
“That’s a hori-hori,” Draco grinned, wielding a serrated steel blade. “Good for cutting nettles back. And that’s a mattock: good for prying stubborn weeds out of the ground.”
Harry realised that he must have looked a little anxious because Draco squeezed his shoulder lightly. “Don’t look so worried, Harry. You’ll pick it all up soon enough, I promise… Look, I’ve got to go now. I’m meeting some friends… But maybe we could meet up next Saturday? I’ll be here anyway so we might as well combine our expertise?”
Harry had stayed a little while longer, sketching out the plot and deciding which crops that he wanted to plant. There was a small warm feeling in the pit of Harry’s stomach despite the cool of the morning and Draco’s smile kept replaying on a loop in his mind.
Even though Harry had been keen on allotment keeping before, he had to admit that the whole enterprise had suddenly become a lot more interesting.
~@~
The following Saturday, Harry and Draco got straight down to work.
Their first task was clearing all the weeds, digging out the bed and sieving the stones. It seemed to Harry that suddenly their square of land seemed far bigger than it had previously. Very soon both Draco and he were caked in a layer of sweat and grime. Even though the day was dull, it was hot, exhausting work and by the time eleven rolled around both men were very ready for a break.
They dived into the compact closeness of Andi’s shed, sharing a picnic of crisps, cake and coke, and eating in companionable silence. Harry sat on a tiny stool while Draco folded empty sack to rest upon.
“You should feel pleased,” Draco said eventually, his voice contemplative. “We’ve only been at this two hours but Andi’s allotment already looks far more respectable. We’ll make a gardener out of you yet.”
Harry looked into Draco’s warm grey eyes, basking in the man’s praise. “I don’t want to sound rude,” he asked shyly, “but allotment keeping?… It just doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of you, Draco.” Harry paused, before adding hurriedly, “There’s nothing wrong with the rest of you but… Well, you look more like the sort of bloke I’d expect to see at a posh wine-bar. Not slumming it here with the likes of me.”
Draco stretched out his long, shapely legs, waiting a beat before he spoke. Harry’s cheeks pinked a little at the sight and he averted his eyes, trying not to make Draco feel even more uncomfortable than his silly speech already had.
“I don’t think that what we’re doing is slumming, Harry. I love this place… Always have. It was the saviour of Mum really, after my parents got divorced. I was seventeen when it happened… Dad was a posh sort, an Investment Banker, but he got caught with his hand in the till. Seems he’d gotten wrapped up with a gang of criminals and their dodgy dealings.”
Draco paused, rolling his coke bottle between his fingers. “Got himself ten years inside. Mum and Dad divorced and suddenly the only family she had left was Andi and young Teddy. I think this allotment was the only place in her life where Mum felt really free. She’d bring me up here when I was a teenager, get me planting a few seeds. I think I did most of my healing here.”
~@~
The weeks passed and the cold of May quickly faded away into the longer, warmer summer months.
Harry came to see that cultivating a garden was a lot like cultivating a relationship; that every small effort he put into his allotment yielded a positive result. They’d sown their vegetable seeds carefully, burying them under a thin layer of dirt. It was triumph of optimism, Harry decided. The sure knowledge that within a few months their hard work would come to fruition.
Draco and he had decided on their crops carefully, choosing vegetables that wouldn’t take up too much room and soon their allotment looked much less like a muddy square and much more like a garden.
Mangetout peas, courgettes and shallots took up a bed at the front of the patch while radishes, runner beans and celeriac filled the middle. Unable to resist, Harry had even filled a small square at the back with an uncontrollable disorder of English wild-flowers. Cornflowers, foxgloves and honeysuckles completed for their attention and Harry proudly harvested their blooms as a gift for Andi.
Draco had laughingly shook his head when Harry had planted their seeds, and called them a daft indulgence. Even so, he’d watered and weeded them as just carefully as any other part of their allotment.
~@~
“You’re spending a lot of time with Draco,” Teddy grumbled over breakfast the following day, annoyed that Harry had planned to go back to the allotment that afternoon. “It’s not fair. Draco used to always play with me whenever he came back from university. Now all he cares about is you.”
“That’s really unfair, Teddy, Harry admonished, pointing at Teds with his fork. “Draco’s an expert. He’s been helping me with the allotment, that’s all there is to it. Helping me with the planning and the planting. I couldn’t have done it without him.”
“He’s certainly seems a changed character,” Andi commented, standing to take the breakfast pots and pans over to their sink. Harry was pleased to see that she was moving far more easily now, her hip not nearly as painful as it had been. “I wasn’t at all close to Cissa whilst she was still married to Lucius.” Andi wrinkled her nose in distaste, obviously disliking even the repetition the of man’s name. “But one does hear things. Draco went an expensive boarding school up in Scotland and he had the reputation for being quite the bully. When Lucius was arrested they lost everything: the school, their home… Everything. Draco had to grow up quickly.”
Harry felt his heartbeat quicken in his chest. Draco had been unfailingly kind to him, generous with his time and gracious in spirit. The idea that his friend had suffered so much appalled him. “Draco isn’t like that,” Harry said hotly. “At least, not any more. I just really like him. He’s good company and-”
“Ugh! You like him, like him” Teddy interrupted in a sing-song voice. “No wonder you spend all your weekends up at that allotment. Do you snog? Because snogging is so gross.”
Andromeda jumped on Teddy’s comment as quick as a flash, giving Harry a very knowing gaze. “He’s certainly a becoming young man, Harry… And the pair of you do get on extremely well. You already spend all of your free time together. There isn’t any reason for you not to date.”
Harry flushed a terribly deep shade of red, butterflies rioting deep in his belly. He averted his eyes from Andi and Teddy’s immediately, knowing that they could both see straight through him. He’d liked Draco in precisely that way since their very first meeting, but he doubted that Draco could ever return his feelings.
“Even if I did like him, like him then I’m not sure why ever he’d be interested in me!” Harry muttered, rising from the table with a frustrated huff. “Draco’s sophisticated, clever. Bloody funny. I’m just the prat who couldn’t get his garden to start growing without Draco’s help.”
Andromeda schooled her face, but Harry could see the sheen of mischievous delight that brightened her face. Teddy just looked baffled by the entire conversation.
“I’m never going to snog anybody,” Teddy announced with all the confidence of a nine year old. “It makes you act weird.”
~@~
By the time that summer arrived, Harry and Draco’s allotment was an unmitigated success.
Blooming with produce, Harry decided to bring Teddy and Andi to Scarborough Road to collect their harvest. Their runner beans had been a runaway success and hung thickly, nearly brushing the ground. Their celeriac was thick and lush, the white bulbs peeking out sweetly from the ground. When the three of them arrived, Draco and Narcissa were already gathering crops, the pair collecting shiny peas and fat courgettes into a bowl. An hour later found the five of them sitting outside of the shed, enjoying the bright sun of the morning and mugs of tea from a flask.
“I have to admit I was sceptical,” Andi said, casting her eyes over the Scarborough Road allotment, “but Draco and you have really achieved something special here over the last few months. Together it seems that you and he can achieve almost anything.”
“Really, it does seem rather a shame to leave your partnership to simple gardening,” Cissa added, delicately adding a sugar packet to her drink. Her voice was light and airy. “Draco talks of nothing else but you at home… How much work you put into the allotment. How much you’ve learnt. What a sparkly shade of green eyes you have. I do believe Draco’s quite smitten. Andi and I can see exactly why.”
“Mother!” Draco scolded, his pale cheeks colouring a deep red that had nothing to do with the sun. “I seem to recall telling you that in confidence!”
Harry felt his heart leap in his chest. Draco thought about him when they weren't together? He’d dreamt of the possibility of their being more than friends but never imagined that Draco felt the same.
Narcissa’s face was the picture of innocence and her voice deceptively innocent. “You said no such thing, Draco. All you said was that these weekends up at the allotment had made you feel happier than you had in many years. I’m your mother, Draco. You have to find happiness in this life whenever it presents itself! If you’re not going to be brave enough to ask this young man on a date then it seems I have to intervene.”
Andi decided to wade in then. “Harry is precisely the same. He’s always waxing lyrical about how sophisticated and clever Draco is. How funny-”
“They’re both acting weird because they want to snog,” Teddy cut in, his face appalled. “I’m never going to have a boyfriend. Are you boyfriends now?” He rolled his eyes, looking the picture of childlike disgust and fascination.
If the ground could have opened and swallowed him up, Harry thought he might have preferred that fate to the inquisitive looks of the three matchmakers staring at Draco and himself. All around them the allotment was green and lush. It was true that the pair of them had achieved so much in so short a time.
“We’re not boyfriends, yet,” Draco announced, giving his small cousin a stern look. “You can’t be boyfriends when you’ve never had a proper date, which Harry and I never have. Well, not yet anyway” Draco said. He turned to face Harry “Perhaps you’d like to come with me to the pub later? We could have a dinner too, if you’d like?”
All around them were whoops, cheers and clapping. Draco shook his head, giving Harry a shy grin and muttering about interfering bloody mothers. It would seem that this little coup d’etat had been planned in advance; Andi and Narcissa embraced, while Draco enveloped Teddy into a tight bear hug. Harry felt an illogical rush of happiness: this was the family that he’d chosen for himself.
It was incredible, really, how much your whole life could change. Love had built a garden for the five of them to bed into. These five people were Harry’s family now, and they had all been given a second chance to grow themselves a blissful, happy existence.
“I’d love that Draco,” Harry replied, unable to stop smiling. “I can’t wait.”