Work Text:
Done. Or almost done? A few tweaks here and there? Tilting his head, Harry takes a step back and inspects his work. It looks like a flower arrangement in a Baroque painting with cascades of roses, anemones and those half overblown tulips that Andromeda loves, in red, pink and white with bold glimpses of yellow and black at the heart of the flowers. No, definitely done. Nothing to tweak. It's perfect.
He stretches his back, rolls his shoulders and moves to stand in the doorway between the back room and the shop, looking around. It's been a quiet morning. The rain is coming down in torrents from a leaden sky, rushing in rivulets down the street. Spring or not, it's dark and dreary and not a day for roaring trade in the flower business, but the shop is nice and warm, fragrant with freesias, roses and early lilies of the valley. Flowers of every size, shape and colour, kept fresh by cooling charms, glow like precious jewels under carefully placed lights that show them up to their best advantage.
If someone had asked Harry after the Battle of Hogwarts what he'd see himself do in seven years, it certainly wouldn't have been this, but here he is. The shop is his own, his creation, his haven.
A flurry of wings outside the front window makes him start and rush to open the door for the sopping wet owls carrying today's post. They drop their oiled-silk Post Office pouches in a pile on the floor and perch expectantly on top of the glass cabinets and along the edge of the counter. Grinning, Harry shakes his head. He knows what they want.
"Behave yourselves," he says as he fetches the owl-treats. "No fighting! There's plenty to go around."
While the owls are busy he picks up the post, takes it to the back room and puts Hermione's secretarial spell to work, watching as the letters sort themselves neatly into stacks of Business, Private, Undesirable, Suspicious and Unknown.
Hermione had created the spell to help with the administration of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, and it had worked so well that Ron had persuaded her to have it patented and let him sell it in the shop, in the shape of miniature wands pre-loaded with the spell. The Discerning Owl had proved such a roaring success that Hermione had followed it up with a commercial version of her well-tested Extension charm; The Bottomless Bag. Cheap copies had soon flooded the market, but a real Granger spell is still the thing to own.
From the Undesirable stack, mercifully small today, Harry picks up a letter from the Daily Prophet asking for an interview, and sighs. Well, perhaps it's time.
***
After the war, the press went to ridiculous lengths to find out Harry's whereabouts, forcing him to take equally ridiculous measures to avoid being found. After months of watching him play cat and mouse with the press, Hermione suggested that Harry should make a 180 degree turn and make himself available to them.
"People are curious, Harry," she said across the table at the Hog's Head, one of the few places where Harry would be left alone, "and by avoiding them you only feed their curiosity. Naturally, they want to know everything about you. They want the whole story, from when you were a baby handed over to your Muggle relatives until you defeated Voldemort, and they want to hear it from you. Maybe you should just do it and be done with it."
"Yeah, Hermione," said Ron, chewing chips with his mouth open. "Maybe he should let Rita Skeeter write a book about him. Brilliant idea. One of your best."
Hermione gave him a withering look. "Not a book, Ron, and not Rita Skeeter, for god's sake! You should pick someone you trust, Harry, and perhaps let them do a series of different-themed interviews. Any journalist worth their salt would die to get that! And once your story is out there, the worst of the curiosity will die down. To keep the hounds off afterwards, you could throw them a bone by doing the occasional interview perhaps, but always with someone of your own choice."
"Enough with the canine metaphors," Harry murmured, but he had to admit it was sound advice.
He picked Penelope Clearwater, who was a junior political reporter at the Daily Prophet, because he trusted her to stick to the facts and knew she'd never go near a Quick Quotes Quill. The story ran for ten consecutive Sundays and the Prophet sold out every last copy. In the end, the series earned Penelope an award and Harry some peace and quiet, yet another thing for which he'd always be grateful to Hermione.
***
The tinkle of the bell above the door shakes Harry out of his reveries and he hurries into the shop with a professional smile on his face, ready to meet his first customer of the day. When he sees who it is, his smile broadens.
"Neville! Luna! So good to see you!"
"Whoa, Harry!" Neville quickly steps aside, pressing his back to the door as he holds it open for the owls. "Are you turning the place into an Owlery?"
Harry laughs. "Still a flower shop, I'm afraid. It was the weather – when it rains, I let them stay and dry out."
"You look well, Harry," Neville says, closing the door. "Life being good to you?"
"Yeah, not bad. But you!" Harry says, hugging them both. "Look at the two of you! You're glowing."
It's true – they look positively radiant.
"Glowing! That's a nice word," Luna says and begins to walk around the shop, touching a flower here and admiring another there. "Oh, look, there's my charm! I'm so pleased you're using it, Harry. It works, too. Your shop is completely Nargle-free."
Harry makes a small, non-committal noise. When the shop opened, Luna had given him a curious, windchime-like thing, obviously hand-made out of what looks like bottle-caps and feathers. It hangs in the doorway to the back room and Harry is glad, now, that he decided to put it there.
"Well," says Neville, "about the glowing thing… that's sort of why we're here. We're getting married."
He blushes a little at his own words and looks ready to burst with pride and joy. As far as Harry is concerned, no one in the world deserves happiness more than Neville and Luna.
"Oh, well done! Congratulations!" He puts a hand on Neville's shoulder and reaches for Luna with the other, hauling her in for a kiss on the cheek.
"Isn't it great?" she beams. "And it's brilliant that you have your shop, Harry, so we can come to you for the flowers."
"Anything I can do. And I mean anything, not just flowers."
"We thought we'd hand out Puffapod seeds to our guests," Luna says. "That'll be nice, don't you think?"
"I can get you plenty of those if you need them, no problem. What about your bridal bouquet, Luna?"
He looks at her shining eyes and the masses of fair hair cascading down her back. He'd love to make her something truly beautiful.
"Roses," Neville says. "Wild, rambling roses." The look he gives her says he'd give her anything she wants, anything in the world.
"Oh, yes! Wild roses," says Luna dreamily, stopping to look up at a hanging Flitterbloom plant, touching its trailing tentacles. "And lotus! I love lotus."
"Roses and… lotus?" Harry asks weakly, scratching his head.
"And willow-herb," Luna adds from the other side of the shop, leaning down to smell a bunch of lilies of the valley.
Harry bites his lip but can't stop the smile. Lotus, roses and willow-herb? While it's one of the more eccentric requests he's had, it's also strangely right. Three things that seem crazily random but could be made to work beautifully - that's the perfect bouquet for Luna.
As she drifts over to the far corner to play with some baby tentacula plants, Neville whispers: "Make it truly pretty, Harry! As pretty as you can. Never mind the expense; she deserves the best."
Harry looks at him – brave, loyal Neville who sliced the head off Nagini with the Gryffindor sword; Neville who took Harry under his wing years later.
"Of course she'll have the best," he says warmly, "and don't think for a minute that I'd let you pay."
Neville looks startled. "You're running a business here, mate! We couldn't let you – "
Harry holds up a hand. "I won't hear of it, Nev. What you two did for me in the war, and after…" For as long as he lives, he'll never forget Neville's bruised face in the Hog's Head or Luna's huge eyes in the Malfoy Manor dungeons. "Consider it a wedding present if you prefer, but you're not paying and that's that."
For a moment, Neville looks as if he's going to protest. Then he grins. "All right, Harry. Thanks. Well, we should be going, I guess. See you over a pint soon?"
Harry promises.
***
The next few days are busy but whenever Harry has a minute, his thoughts return to Luna's bouquet. He can't wait to get started on it.
When Sunday comes and the shop is closed, Harry can finally sit down and make some sketches. It's cosy with rain pattering on the window panes and a fire dancing in the grate, and Kreacher has just brought him a cup of tea.
The bouquet is beginning to come together in Harry's mind. Even if the request is on the weird side, flowers with similar hues but different shapes can be beautiful together. The warm, soft pink of the lotus, the intense, dark pink of the rugosa rose and the whimsical, delicate willow-herb – yes, it could work; it could even be sophisticated. He can throw in some Queen Anne's lace, perhaps – it's romantic and right for the season, and will make the bouquet less compact.
Just as the tip of his quill meets the sheet of parchment, a thought makes Harry frown. There's something important he forgot to factor in.
A tawny owl that just brought him a note from Hermione is still sitting on the window-ledge, so he ties a hastily scribbled note to its leg and sends it off to Luna: What colour will your wedding dress be?
The answer comes by returning owl: Sky-blue!
Ten minutes later, Harry opens the window to a second owl. The piece of parchment says: Or maybe pink.
In another five minutes, there's a third owl: Yellow is nice, too.
Harry laughs and leans back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. The image of Luna in a bright yellow dress with a pink bouquet in her hand makes his head ache. He'll have to think again.
A few minutes later, he has the obvious answer. There are white varieties of all these flowers – the lotus, the rose and the willow-herb – and white will go with any colour Luna decides to wear.
Smiling to himself, Harry picks up the quill and begins to sketch.
***
Even if the wedding is still two months away, Harry starts to look around for a lotus supplier. The roses won't be a problem, and willow-herb and Queen Anne's lace will be in bloom in time for the wedding, but lotus proves to be harder to find. Harry talks to his regular suppliers one after the other, and one after the other, they reply in the negative.
"I'm very sorry, Mr Potter," says Mr Fern, Harry's last hope, as Harry stands in his office. "There's no real demand for lotus, I'm afraid. Doesn't pay to grow it." He offers Harry an apologetic shrug. "Maybe a botanic garden would be able to help you out? But wait a minute!" His face brightens and he starts shuffling sheets of parchment around frantically on his messy desk. "There's this place I visited about a year ago… I know I jotted it down somewhere… ah, here it is. It's in Wiltshire, and it…" He stops himself and gives Harry a cautious glance. "Well, it has a bit of a shady history, I suppose; the war and all… But there's a beautiful specimen of a 19th century tropical house with the most beautiful water lilies I've ever seen, all kinds, and I'm sure there was Indian lotus. Now that I think about it, Mr Potter, you were probably at school with the current owner. You must be about the same age."
Impatient with all the stalling, Harry shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "There are plenty of places with a weird history. It's impossible to avoid them all. Well? Who's the owner?"
"Name's Malfoy," says Mr Fern. "Draco Malfoy."
***
Malfoy, Harry thinks for the hundredth time, leaning back and closing his eyes as he waits for Kreacher to serve dinner. It's been six years since he saw Malfoy last, at the Ministry of Magic during the war trials, and he's made a point of not thinking about him since. Now, Mr Fern's mentioning the name brings it all back. How they loathed each other at school. How they ended up saving each other's lives.
The click of a plate on the table makes Harry open his eyes.
"Thank you, Kreacher."
When war was over and Harry had returned to the House of Black, he had made Kreacher a free elf. But Kreacher had opted to stay for a salary, proud, he said, to be in the service of Harry Potter, defender of house elves.
Dinner is unusually good tonight, as if Kreacher has sensed Harry's irritable mood and wants to cheer him up, but absurdly, it makes Harry melancholy. A dinner this good should be shared. A house this good should be shared.
The House of Black is unrecognisable from what it was before the war, refurbished as it is with light colours, gleaming floors and bright rugs – and best of all, a greenhouse on the roof. All the dark, creepy stuff has been discarded, put in storage or given away.
"Enough with the gloomy thoughts," Harry mutters to himself, reaching for the wine bottle and refilling his glass.
It's all Malfoy's fault – or Mr Fern's, for mentioning Malfoy.
But there's no escaping the memories now. Once they've been brought to life they refuse to leave, and sleep won't come that night. After hours of tossing and turning Harry gives up and lies with his arms under his head, staring up at the ceiling. Remembering.
***
The months following the Battle of Hogwarts were chaotic. Everyone wanted a piece of Harry; wanted to touch him, talk to him, thank him, interview him, photograph him or just stare at him. When all the funerals were over and grief was taken private rather than public, work began. Everything had to be rebuilt, reconstructed, organized anew – buildings, Ministry departments, lives.
McGonagall, appointed new headmaster of Hogwarts, asked Harry to come back, help rebuild the school and sit his final year, but Hogwarts was the last place he wanted to be just then.
The Auror force asked him to help hunt down Death Eaters for the trials, but Harry was exhausted. He felt he'd done enough hunting.
Instead, he set about refurbishing the house at Grimmauld Place, but when that was done, he didn't want to stay in it. He didn't know if he wanted to stay in the wizarding world at all.
For the next three years he lived in Muggle London, in a small flat not too far from King's Cross. Being near King's Cross felt oddly safe, like a way out. As if he could just go there and board a train that would take him – on.
Being in the Muggle world was a relief in itself. No one knew who he was. He was left alone.
Electronics devices delighted him – he loved having a tv, a computer, a mobile phone. This would be heaven for Mr Weasley, he thought, when he thought about the wizarding world at all. But the main allure of Muggle London was its clubs. In the near-darkness of a basement club he could get drunk, get stoned, get high, and forget everything except the music pounding his sternum and thrumming under his feet. When he stumbled out on the street in the small hours, it was usually in the company of someone who'd let him continue to forget. Nothing was better than burying himself in a stranger's body or letting them bury themselves in his.
Ginny, fiercely beautiful Ginny with her flaming hair and sparkling magic, was a closed chapter. He had known that since the Battle of Hogwarts. Perhaps he loved her in his own way but she was not for him, and all that felt so distant now. This was a new life, a life he desperately needed, without duty, restrictions or responsibilities towards anyone. Pounding music, sex with blokes whose names he never knew, blissful oblivion – these were the things he craved.
Eventually, he lost all sense of time. And all his sense of self.
It was Hermione who finally came to his flat and forced him to meet her eyes.
"Look at you, Harry," she said. "When was the last time you had a proper meal or went to sleep sober? Do you even know who you are any more?"
But that was exactly the thing – he didn't want to know who he was. He hadn't wanted to be a hero or a celebrity, he hadn't wanted to be Harry Potter, and now he was no one at all. Right now he was someone with blurry edges, someone with a pickled brain, someone who had few fuck buddies and no friends, adrift like a hot air balloon that had lost its moorings. It hadn't occurred to him that he sometimes really missed those moorings.
Hermione hugged him then, not caring that he had hangover breath and reeked of stale sex. "Come back to us, Harry," she said. "Is the wizarding world really so bad that this is better?"
And that was when Harry realised that this particular episode of his life was at an end. He was done with it.
Returning to the wizarding world, sober, forced him to face the things he had tried to escape. The first time he met little Teddy Lupin, whose hair turned bright red with delight the moment he set eyes on his godfather, made Harry reel with the loss of Remus and Tonks. Every owl he saw made him sad for Hedwig. He talked to Ron but couldn't face Mr and Mrs Weasley, the weight of Fred's death still too heavy in his heart. The guilt of it all.
Sometimes, often, he wished he'd just boarded that bloody train at King's Cross and travelled on into nothingness.
It was Neville who saved him. He must have recognised Harry's depression but never mentioned it, never said a word about therapy, recovery or healing but simply offered Harry to come and stay with him in Devon. It seemed as good a thing to do as any, so Harry went, listlessly.
Neville ran a plant nursery, growing various herbs and plants for medicinal use as well as vegetables, fruit and ornamental perennials. Harry had no interest in plants but Neville didn't care about that, just put him to work. Some was done with magic, some without, but there were always things to do. Harry found himself busy during the day and pleasantly tired at night.
There was a steady coming and going of buyers, suppliers and friends, and Luna, who worked for The Quibbler, came down every weekend.
The press were yapping at Harry's heels again, but he was good at avoiding them. Neville had his place surrounded by protective charms and wards, and with Hermione's help, Harry put a complex Confundus Charm on the house at Grimmauld Place to make people think they'd come to a dead end – which, as far as Harry was concerned, they had.
Without studying, without even noticing, Harry learned a lot about plants. He saw when they needed nourishment or water, when the tiny plants needed thinning, and when things were ready for harvest; he learned how to till soil, get rid of pests, and properly store fruit and vegetables. One of the things he loved most was cutting fresh flowers and making floral arrangements, and before long, Neville had handed over that part of the business to him.
"You're much better at it than I am anyway," he said. "Besides, people love having their flower arrangements created by Harry Potter."
One September Sunday they were seated around Neville's generous kitchen table eating lentil soup and home-made rye bread, sharing a few bottles of red. It seemed that everyone had decided to visit that evening. Luna was there, and Ron and Hermione; Dean and his Muggle girlfriend Emily, and Seamus, who had just told them about his latest disasters in the world of dating. As Harry wiped tears of laughter from his eyes, he realised something unexpected: he was happy.
He was present in the moment, he was surrounded by friends he trusted, he had just laughed himself silly, and he worked with something he loved. When had the world righted itself? How? It didn't matter. The important thing was that it had.
Not long after that Sunday evening, Harry decided to go into business on his own. It was time to move on.
He brainstormed the name of his new flower shop with Ron and Hermione at Grimmauld Place over a bottle of wine.
"What do you think of Harry's Herbaceous Borders?" he asked.
"Oh, Harry, no," said Hermione earnestly. "No alliterations. It's just too cheesy." When Ron looked a little miffed, she hastily added: "I mean, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes is quite different. It's a joke shop, it's supposed to have a fun name."
Mollified, Ron sniggered and suggested 'Arry's Arboretum, making Harry snort and Hermione roll her eyes.
"Go on, Hermione!" Ron said and shoved at her shoulder. "Rise to the bait! 'He's not going to sell trees, Ron!' "
"Oh, for goodness' sake," Hermione muttered before adding, to Harry: "Have you found a good place yet?"
He had debated where to open his shop – Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, or even Godric's Hollow – but settled for Diagon Alley in the end. Finding a place hadn't been difficult. Landlords had fallen over themselves to rent out space to Harry Potter, and for once, Harry had made shameless use of his fame.
"Yes, I found a really nice place close to Potage's. There's a nice front space for the shop, a back room where I can work on flower arrangements, and a storage room."
"Oh, that's brilliant!" Hermione exclaimed, and Ron agreed: "Good location."
Despite Hermione's horror of alliterations, the shop was named Harry's Herbaceous Borders and did well from the very first day. Many came in to see whether it was true that Harry Potter ran a flower shop, and to have their picture taken with him, but gradually things settled down. He honestly loved his job, loved having the means to make people happy in his own, small way. Everything in life didn't have to be huge and dramatic.
***
So much for that, Harry thinks now as he lies staring up at the ceiling, because tomorrow he must go and talk to Draco Malfoy, Malfoy who was always a master at creating drama. But if he's lucky, he won't have to deal with Malfoy directly – after all, he only wants to talk to the gardener.
As if that is the solution to all his problems, he turns on his side and promptly falls asleep.
In his dream he flies through fire with Malfoy's arms tightly around his waist, and when he turns his head, he catches a glimpse of Malfoy laughing.
***
The weather has turned bright and sunny at last after weeks of chilly rain, and when Harry Apparates in front of the gates at Malfoy Manor, the air is fragrant with spring flowers and the sun is hot on the back of his neck.
Last time he had faced these gates, his face had hurt with Hermione's Stinging Jinx and he'd been half blind without his glasses, all his senses screaming red alert. Now everything is still and and quiet, and there's no one to be seen. At his gentle push the gate swings open on well-oiled hinges, and Harry takes a deep breath before entering the Manor grounds, acutely aware that he is on Malfoy's turf now.
There's a strange feeling that anything can happen.
The first surprise is waiting right inside the gates, and it's a pleasant one. Harry stops on the gravel and stares, mesmerised. The way he remembers the driveway, it's broad and bare, flanked and shadowed by dark yew hedges. Now the hedges have been cut down to half their former height and the driveway narrowed to make space for flower beds on either side, filled to the last inch with tulips. There must be thousands of them, of all colours, shapes and heights. The gravel crunches under Harry's boots as he walks slowly along the beds, admiring the flowers, intent not to miss a single one.
There is everything from tiny, yellow tarda tulips to stately, purplish-black Queens of the Night; every hue from fiery red, fringe-edged Phoenix tulips to pale pink, delicate Powderpuffs. They have been expertly, exquisitely arranged, using mass effect as well as contrast and match to show them all to their best advantage. Impressed, Harry stops and touches the silky petals. Whatever Malfoy is or does these days, at least he has a very good gardener.
At the front steps Harry stops and takes a deep breath before pulling the bell string, hearing the bell sound somewhere in the depths of the house. In no time at all, the door is opened by a tiny house elf who looks up at him and claps a hand over her mouth. To his astonishment, she isn't dressed in the expected tea towel or old pillowcase but wears a neat, black dress and white apron. Harry frowns. Is it possible that Malfoy…?
"Harry Potter!" she squeaks. "Oh, Harry Potter must come in! Nelly will fetch the Master at once!"
"Thank you," says Harry faintly.
Stepping over the threshold and into the hall, he stands in the gloom as the door closes behind him, glancing up at rows of portraits where generations of haughty Malfoys sneer back at him. At the other end of the hall, half obscured by shadows, Draco appears. Where he stands, Harry can't see his face but only the shimmer of his pale hair.
"Potter." Draco sounds guarded, apprehensive, as if Harry's visit can't possibly mean anything good.
"Malfoy. Yes, I…" Harry clears his throat. His head feels empty and he has no idea how to finish the sentence.
Slowly, Draco leaves the shadows and walks along the hall, stopping a few feet away. Something is different about him. It's not only that he is older, or even that he is dressed in Muggle clothes – plaid shirt, jeans, heavy workboots. It's the look in his eyes, the set of his mouth… He looks softer than Harry remembers, but also more calmly determined. What happened in the wizarding world seven years ago hasn't left Draco Malfoy unchanged, either.
Last time Harry saw him, he and his mother were on trial and Harry was a witness for the defense. That had surprised a lot of people, but the defendants themselves had seemed most surprised of all. There had been no saving Lucius Malfoy from Azkaban and Harry hadn't wanted to, but he had done all he could for Draco and Narcissa. They had been sentenced to six months house arrest, and not once during the trial had they met Harry's eyes.
Now, Draco's eyes are fixed on him as if he doesn't dare let Harry out of his sight.
"I'm here to talk to your gardener," Harry finally collects himself enough to say.
Draco blinks. "My… my gardener?"
"I don't know if you've heard, but I run a flower shop in Diagon Alley."
"Yes." Draco's tone is odd. "I've heard."
"I've been told you have a tropical house with lotuses. I'd like to buy some if you'll let me."
The apprehension on Draco's face is breaking up into confusion, and it takes a full minute before he responds.
Then he says simply: "Well, let's go down and take a look."
Neither of them speaks as they walk around to the back of the house and continue down through the gardens. The absurdity of walking peacefully side by side with Draco Malfoy makes Harry want to laugh, but he bites the inside of his cheeks and stays silent. Now and then he glances at Draco, who still looks different in that indefinable way. Perhaps it's only that the animosity is gone, that he's never seen Draco's face so calm.
The grounds are beautiful, with well-kept lawns and groups of perennials just starting to bloom; the red, white and blue of anemones startlingly bright on this glorious spring day. Halfway down to the lake they reach the tropical house, a whimsical, Victorian glass structure that sparkles like a diamond in the sun. Draco opens the door to Harry and they step into a tiny, glass-covered hall.
"I hope you don't mind if I use a disinfectant spell on your shoes before we go inside proper," Draco says. "I don't want anything tracked in that doesn't belong here."
It's a perfectly reasonable request, and even if Harry's fingers do close around his wand, he stands still while Draco performs the spell. Nothing happens that isn't supposed to, and Harry breathes again as they enter the dome-shaped greenhouse. In the middle of the floor is a large, round, water-filled basin, its dark, quivering surface dotted with lily pads. Not many are in bloom yet, but the buds give hints and promises of the burst of colour to come. It's hot, humid and still, with only the sound of slowly dripping water and the murmur of bees finding their way in through an open pane in the ceiling. The effect is dream-like.
"It's beautiful," says Harry spontaneously, looking around. "What a gorgeous place. It's like... like stepping outside of reality."
When their eyes meet, Draco turns a bit pink and looks away. "Well," he murmurs. "My great-grandfather built it. I try to take good care of it."
"Is your gardener around?"
Draco looks startled again. "I – I don't have one," he says. "I take care of the gardens myself."
It's Harry's turn to blink. "You're the gardener? I thought… I'm not sure what I thought," he finishes lamely.
A hint of a smile touches the corners of Draco's mouth, but he only says: "As you can see, they're not quite ready yet. When did you want them for? And what kind are you looking for?"
"Indian lotus, and I don't need them yet."
"Over here," Draco says and walks around the basin. "They need a few more weeks."
Harry follows him. "Will you have some ready by mid-May, do you think?"
"There'll be plenty by then." Draco stops, hesitates, as if there's something he wants to say and doesn't know how. "If you like, you could come back in a couple of weeks and have a look…? The tropical house is quite a sight when everything's in bloom."
Harry isn't sure what surprises him most – the fact that Draco is his own gardener, that he wears Muggle clothes, that he's civil or that he invites Harry to come back.
Or the fact that the invitation makes Harry genuinely pleased.
"Thank you," he says. "I'd like to."
Something stills between them, or just inside Harry, and time slows to a halt. As he watches light play over Draco's hair he is moved by something unholy, a hot tremor travelling down his body to settle low in his belly, spreading down his thighs. It's a familiar sensation, but one he hasn't felt since the bad old days at the Muggle clubs. For a moment, he wants to lean forward and let his tongue meet the bare skin on Malfoy's neck, press it to the point where he can see the pulse beating…
He hastily moves his gaze back up to Draco's face. The grey eyes look so different without malice in them, without a trace of panic or loathing or disgust, and Harry finds himself wondering what they look like when Draco is happy, or laughing, or in love.
That thought jolts him, breaking the spell, and he takes a step back.
"Good," Draco replies to something Harry said a hundred years ago, and Harry can't read the look on his face. "I'll see you in a few weeks, then."
***
It's impossible to let it go.
It haunts him, that moment in the greenhouse when he wanted to feel Draco's skin under his lips, feel the beat of Draco's pulse under his tongue. He can't stop thinking about it.
It's been years since Harry was interested in anyone in that way, not since before he returned to the wizarding world. Sometimes he's wondered whether he'll never be again; whether he'll live the rest of his life like a monk. And then Draco Malfoy, of all the people in the world, is the one to shake him awake. It's weird, illogical and downright insane, and the fact that he can't shake it off drives him up the wall.
Because he truly can't shake it off. The Draco in his head refuses to budge, and soon Harry is thinking about Draco all the time, every minute of the day; even when he's busy with other things. It's like having the wireless on in another room, always in the background, always there. Harry remembers being obsessed with Draco in their sixth year at Hogwarts, but it was nothing like this and for a very different reason. This? This is pure madness.
Ten days after Harry's visit to Malfoy Manor, an owl hoots outside his bathroom window just as he's brushing his teeth before going to bed. Dribbling toothpaste, he opens the window and removes the small roll of parchment from the owl's leg. The owl doesn't take off but stays where it is, watching Harry steadily.
"Waiting for a reply?" Harry asks. The owl blinks.
The Nymphaea caerulea is in bloom, the message says. You should come and look.
With his heart in his throat, Harry stares at the piece of parchment. So Draco has been thinking about him, too.
He quickly rinses his mouth and scribbles a note.
"There. Fly safely," he says.
As he watches the owl disappear like a ghost in the dark, he realises he's smiling.
***
The Nymphaea caerulea, or blue lotus, lives up to its name. There are at least twenty flowers in the basin in the Malfoy tropical house, in shades from dusky, mauve-ish blue to nearly white. It's a cloudy day and the grey light seems to make the colours even more intense.
"They're so beautiful they don't look real," Harry says, aware of Draco's shoulder almost touching his own. "Like something in a dream."
"Yes." Draco reaches out and touches a blue petal, strokes it with a fingertip. Harry swallows. "They're a favourite of mine. But I think I love the Stellata even more, that creamy, buttery yellow variety. It's exquisite."
"What about Rubra?" Harry asks. He's been reading up on water lilies lately.
"Pretty, but too showy. I like the simpler varieties. Like the Finnish pygmy water lily. I've tried to grow it here, but no success. Perhaps it needs cooler water."
"What made you interested in gardening?" Harry asks as they leave the tropical house and walk up through the gardens.
Draco stops. Even if he must spend a lot of time outdoors his skin is as white as ever, and Harry can't take his eyes off him where he stands against a backdrop of green lawn and the lavish, pale pink of a New Dawn rose climbing the stone wall. This is unhealthy, Harry thinks. It has to stop. I can't go on feeding my obsession.
But he doesn't leave.
Draco shrugs. "Have a seat," he says, pointing to a cast-iron table and chairs by the wall with the rambling roses. "I'll ask Nelly to get us some tea."
Suddenly, Harry laughs. "Ask Nelly! What's happened to you, Malfoy? Since when do you ask a house elf? You used to order everyone about."
He regrets his words as soon as they're out. Draco frowns, then turns his face away.
"Since six years ago," he says stiffly. "Since you got us out of Azkaban, Mother and me. Six months locked in here – there wasn't much else to do than trying to maintain things. Or change them." He seems to square his shoulders, turning back to face Harry again, and Harry gets the feeling that a confession is coming.
He isn't sure he wants to hear it.
Draco draws a breath and exhales again with something like a laugh. "God, Potter. There are so many things I'd like to say to you, but first things first. I think I should probably start with thank you. I never said that after the trials."
"No, you didn't talk to me at all," Harry says, surprised at his own hurt tone and the fact that the memory still stings. "You didn't even look at me. Not once."
Draco's face turns the colour of the climbing rose behind him. "I was embarrassed," he says. It's so simple and honest that Harry draws a breath. This Draco Malfoy is unlike anything Harry would ever have imagined. "I was ashamed. I know you'd never think that about me, because you probably don't believe I have a conscience at all, and maybe I didn't use to have. But I've grown one since." He smiles a little. "I'm surprised you noticed, though. And that you remember."
It's Harry's turn to feel his cheeks heat. He hasn't thought much about the trials, but his memories are crystal clear.
"Why did you, though?" Draco adds. "Why did you help us?"
That's an easy question to answer. "Because your mother helped me. Because you refused to identify me when the Snatchers brought me here. Because at Hogwarts, at the battle, I saw that you didn't want Voldemort to win."
Voldemort's name makes Draco flinch. "No, I didn't," he says slowly. "By then I hadn't for quite a while, but I didn’t know what to do. My parents… I had never seen them so frightened before. I don't think they had truly realised what it would be like, living under the Dark Lord's rule. In the end, they didn't want him to win, either."
Harry takes a deep breath and looks up at the sky, where the sun feebly tries to break through the clouds. "I'm sorry, Malfoy, but I don’t want to talk about this. It's over. I've had enough of it. I had enough long ago."
"Of course you did. The Chosen One," Draco says, but there's no malice and he's grinning. "I used to be so jealous of you, Potter! Until I began to understand."
"Understand what?"
"How hard it must have been for you." He holds up a hand. "I know, you don't want to talk about it. Just one last thing before we leave the subject."
"And what is that?"
"It sounds so small, and I suppose it doesn't matter now anyway, but… I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything I did." It's an obvious effort, holding Harry's gaze, but Draco does so with his back straight.
This is one of the most unexpected conversations Harry has ever had, and he's had a few.
"It's all right, Malfoy," he says, feeling unaccountably tired. "Let's not talk about it any more."
With perfect timing and a loud crack, Nelly appears at Harry's elbow with a tea tray. "Oh, Harry Potter, sir! Harry Potter must try the crumpets!"
***
That visit to Malfoy Manor removes an obstacle between them, a barrier, a wall, something that isn't needed and doesn't leave an empty space when it's gone but only freedom. Owls fly back and forth between Harry and Draco several times a day, and Harry finds himself grinning a lot. It's not that they have anything important to say, only that they want to keep talking, and Harry works in a kind of haze as he waits for Draco's next owl. More than once he has to undo a bouquet or table arrangement because he's used the wrong flowers.
He finds he loves the surprising things that Draco says and is. He loves it that the surprises keep coming.
One morning, a large barn owl appears at the shop. Want to go to the pub tonight? the message says.
Sure, Harry scribbles in a terrible scrawl. A customer is waiting at the counter. When and where? I don't mean to sound pompous but there aren't many places I can go and be left alone.
The barn owl returns with Draco's reply just as Harry's customer leaves with a bunch of long-stemmed, velvety roses.
A Muggle pub, then? What's your local?
***
"Well, this is something I never thought I'd see," Harry says across the table at The Oak and Acorn. "Draco Malfoy in a Muggle pub!"
Draco shrugs, lifting his pint to Harry. "Let's drink to that."
Harry clinks his glass against Draco's. The ale is good here.
"I meant to ask you," he says, "about Nelly. Have you really set her free? I mean, she wears proper clothes and all."
Draco shrugs again. "That happened during my house arrest, too. I was sick of everything. I wanted to turn my life upside down. Everything seemed so pointless, like keeping the house elves at the Manor against their will, making them do things they hated for people they hated even more. So I gave them clothes. Some left but a few of them stayed, like Nelly, to work for wages."
Draco's fingers are playing with a cardboard coaster and Harry wants to reach over and cover Draco's hand with his own, to keep it still or maybe just to touch it.
There's no point trying to deny it. With Draco, Harry has jumped in at the deep end. They have known each other for ages and still not at all, and Harry wants to change that. He likes talking to Draco. He likes looking at him across the table, likes looking into the strange, silvery eyes. Draco makes him feel alive. Happy, almost. It's the oddest thing.
"You asked how I became interested in gardening," Draco says without looking up from the coaster. "At first, I think I wanted to punish myself. The gardens at the Manor had been neglected all through the war. With the Dark Lord in the house, you can't exactly go and potter about - god, what an awful pun - in the greenhouses. But when it was all over, I had nothing but time. So I started digging." He lifts his eyes to Harry's. "My mother thought I'd gone mad. Digging! It's unworthy. Undignified. Work for Muggles and Squibs. Not even house elves do any digging – they have magic for that." He pauses and takes a deep breath as if bracing himself.
Harry wonders why the conversation turned so serious, but Draco seems to need to tell his story, so Harry waits while Draco's fingers shred the coaster.
"I heard what happened to our old house elf," Draco says at last. "Dobby. I heard that you dug his grave. No one despised you for that – on the contrary. And if it was good enough for you, it was good enough for me. Gardening was a kind of penance, I suppose."
Harry closes his eyes for a moment. Of all his awful memories, Dobby's death is one of the worst.
"That's kind of why I dug the grave, too," he says. "As penance. Not that I thought it was undignified or unworthy or whatever; I just didn't want anyone else to do it. It had to be me. It was my fault. If it hadn't been for me, Dobby would have been alive. He died for me, and burying him myself was the least I could do."
"I've been there," says Draco unexpectedly, making Harry open his eyes. "I saw the grave. Someone had put a jar of sea lavender on it."
"Fleur, I suppose." Harry's smile is weak. He still feels horribly, sickeningly guilty. "Or Luna; she goes there sometimes."
"And you?"
"No, I haven't been. Not since."
There's a long silence while the memories wash over them, and they let it happen until Harry says without having meant to: "I used to loathe you."
That makes Draco laugh. "Well, I used to hate you, Potter." He drains his pint and adds: "At least that's what I told myself."
And it's there between them again, the stillness, the feeling that time hangs suspended, like it did by the lily pool on Harry's first visit to the greenhouse. His heart begins to pound.
There's something he wants to do, something that may be insane, disastrous... He'll do it anyway.
He sets his glass down slowly, deliberately, and leans forward. Whatever Draco sees in his face Harry doesn't know, but the grey eyes darken.
"I have a flat here in Muggle London," Harry says without letting go of Draco's gaze. "I go there sometimes when I want to escape, when I don't want anyone to know where I am. It's right around the corner."
In a way it's a test, to see how much Muggle stuff a Malfoy can take in one day, but Draco's expression doesn't change.
"Yeah?"
The next step is harder, and Harry's palms are damp as he presses them against his thighs. "I'm sorry if I've got this wrong, but… do you want to come back there with me?"
It's clear that Draco knows exactly what Harry is asking. A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.
"No," he says slowly, the word nearly making Harry's heart stop. "No, you haven't got it wrong at all. And yes, I want to."
"Good," Harry breathes, smiling in relief and anticipation.
***
How ridiculous, Harry thinks sleepily some time towards morning, when Draco's arm lies heavy and warm across his chest, that he ever thought he'd end up a monk. If he ever intended that as his career, they've put an effective and definitive stop to it tonight.
The room is warm and the bed a mess, and half in his sleep, Draco kisses Harry's bare shoulder. Harry smiles and combs his fingers gently through the blond, mussed-up hair, wishing he could keep this moment forever. But hopefully, he thinks just before falling asleep, there will be many more to come.
***
It becomes a mantra between them: That was then. This is now.
They're not pretending the past didn't happen. They've just chosen to move on.
Draco's jagged, silvery scar from the Sectumsempra spell is a silken ridge under Harry's tongue, symbolic proof that things do change. When Harry's mouth slides further down and Draco's fingers tighten in his hair, there's nothing and no one in the world except the two of them, focused completely on each other.
This is now.
***
The altar in the tiny church at Ottery St-Catchpole is laden with flowers, their heady fragrance almost palpable in the air, and the sunlight through the stained-glass windows makes bright patterns across the floor. Out of the corner of his eye Harry sees Neville tremble with nerves beside him, and smiles reassuringly while he checks for the millionth time that he has the ring securely in his pocket. When the doors open at the far end to admit Luna and her father, a wave of whispers and sighs moves through the crowd as they rise for the bride.
Luna looks beautiful with small, white stars of Ornithogalum in her hair, and her shining eyes leave no doubt about her happiness. All over the floor, Puffapod seeds are bursting into bloom. Xenophilius, every inch the proud father, is dressed in his favourite shade of sunflower yellow, and Harry silently blesses his own choice of white flowers for Luna's bouquet, because her gown isn't just one colour but every colour there is. The satiny fabric shifts from pink to blue, from yellow to purple, to white and lilac and lime-green and red and every shade in between.
Harry looks out over the crowd and startles little when he finds Draco's eyes fixed on him. Heat blooms in his belly and he can't stop his smile. Draco is the best secret he's ever had.
The answering smile is nothing less than beautiful, accompanied by a light blush, and it hits Harry then that they're actually in love. The thought makes his head spin. For a second the room around him dissolves in a haze, where the only clear thing is Draco and the things Harry can read in his eyes.
It's not a passing whim, what's happening between them. It's not only physical attraction, either, but something deep and true and real.
On the church steps after the ceremony, as the photographer fusses and fidgets with Luna's train, Harry feels Draco's hand at the small of his back. Tender, possessive and protective, the gesture steals Harry's breath away. He turns and looks at Draco, thinking with a sense of vertigo that he was right before. They really are in love. It's not his imagination, and it's not only him.
At that exact moment the click of the camera shutter makes them both start, and they share a quick, secret smile as they straighten up for the next photo. It's perfect, Harry thinks, that the moment they just shared has been recorded for the future.
When the photographer calls: "Aaand the last one!", Harry feels Draco's fingers slide down the back of his hand, sending sparks of heat along his veins. They both look straight ahead as Harry strokes Draco's palm with his thumb, feeling the answering little shiver. The party will be great, he knows, but he can't wait to Apparate Draco back to Grimmauld Place and snog him in the hall like an eager teenager. The bed will be soft and plump with freshly aired eiderdowns, but Harry isn't sure they'll make it as far as the bedroom.
Draco, apparently, has no intention of waiting even that long. "Bathrooms, Harry, as soon as we're done here," he mutters out of the corner of his mouth, and Harry bites his tongue not to laugh.
"Bossy," he murmurs. "I like it."
Draco turns to him then, smiling with the sun in his eyes, and the time for pretense is abruptly over. Harry doesn't mean to steal attention from the newly-weds, but a fraction of a second later, Neville and Luna aren't the only couple kissing on the church steps.
Only faintly aware of the whistles, applause and cat-calls that follow the moment of astonished silence, Harry thinks in triumph: There. That should give the Daily Prophet something to write about.
~ *** ~