Chapter Text
— : { PROLOGUE } : —
It all feels smaller now than it used to and maybe that shouldn’t surprise me; it’s been almost two decades since I was last here, after all, a young boy eager to explore everything the world had to offer. Merlin, two decades. Where did the time go? And why haven’t I come back until now?
Not that I don’t know why, I do, but being here again makes all my past excuses seem so trivial.
I lean back on my rickety chair, stretching out my aching legs and crossing my ankles as I watch the people milling around on the sun-soaked piazza. They’re mainly tourists, of course — this time of year, it’s only to be expected — but at least they’re mixed with a healthy dose of locals here, compared to the more famous sights like Piazza della Signorina or Ponte Vecchio. I’ve always preferred places like this, the hidden gems away from the most fervent crowds, but I figure we’ll probably have to tackle those too, sooner or later. Although I’ve been in this town enough times not to have to bother with the obligatory tourist attractions, I’m with a new travel companion now, one who’s never been here before, and it would be blasphemy to leave this place without ever having seen Il Duomo or Michelangelo’s David.
After Mother passed away, I thought I’d never set foot in this town again. Just the idea of it hurt, coming here without her by my side. But I guess I should have known better, all things considered.
You see, my mother always used to say two things: “Whatever happens, we’ll always have Florence” — a phrase she often used to console me when it felt like the walls were closing in on me and life grew darker than I ever thought possible — and, “Life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan.”
Looking down at the wedding band on my finger, there’s nothing else for me to do but acknowledge that she was right all along.
— : { CHAPTER ONE } : —
Six months earlier
“Good night, Pansy. Yes, yes, I’ll be fine. You worry about getting yourself home.”
Draco let the door close behind him, the mellow harp music fading into nothingness as he stepped outside the wards. The chilly December air sent a shiver through his tired limbs, and his breath produced a billowing cloud before his eyes as he looked around at the quiet London street and heaved a sigh.
Another fundraising party down, and now the orphanage would hopefully have enough money to build the new playground before spring arrived. It was one of Pansy’s pet charities, and one she always suckered him into helping with. He’d never tell her it was one of his favourites too.
He set off down the street, his expensive shoes clicking on the pavement with each step and echoing off the buildings around him in the quiet night.
It wasn’t easy to feel alone in a city as large as London, but somehow, he managed it.
Evenings like these, with all their fineries, everyone enjoying themselves dancing, eating, drinking, laughing…these evenings always left Draco with a hollow feeling in his chest. Maybe because they reminded him of his childhood, of his parents — sparkling, laughing, joyful…and together. His mother would look up at his father and positively glow, and Draco would watch, sure that everyone in the room wished they were as happy as the Malfoys.
He wished he were as happy as the Malfoys.
But there were no Malfoys anymore. Just one Malfoy. Just him, alone in London at one in the morning on a Thursday night, impeccably dressed but with no one on his arm. Nobody to laugh with him, to share his joy.
Just him.
With a quiet pop, he Apparated home.
— : { o } : —
“Smaug!”
The pile of fox puke greeting him by the door as he entered his flat was disgusting, and now, it was stuck to the sole of his shoe. His Italian leather shoe.
Smaug looked up at him from his place on the entryway floor and tilted his head in interest. He may be a three-legged rescue animal, and he may have the imploring eyes of Antonio Banderas’ Puss in Boots, but sometimes, enough is just enough. Especially at late o’clock after a frantic fundraiser night.
“I thought we talked about this. I buy you special anti-hairball treats. You eat them and keep the piles of…of this”— Draco gestured to his foot —“in your bedroom.”
Smaug started pawing at his pointy ears, the red fur that feathered from the sides fluttering as he groomed.
“Right,” Draco muttered, casting a quick cleaning charm at the floor before cautiously stepping out of his shoes. He refused to use magic on the handcrafted footwear, afraid to weaken the natural oils in the material. Which meant he’d have to clean it by hand. He sighed.
He hung his overcoat in the closet and walked down the hallway, pausing by Smaug’s room to check the fox’s food and water bowls, both good, and turning off the small telly in the corner playing animal videos.
His furry flatmate slid by him into the room and raced up onto the top branch of the floor-to-ceiling cat tree Draco had adapted for him, peering down at Draco imperiously.
“Are you sleeping in here, or are you coming to my room?” Draco asked the animal. “I’ve had a long night and don’t have the energy to argue.”
The fox yipped, then puffed up his tail and followed the branch that extended across the room to the window perch where he often liked to sleep.
“Fine, be that way,” Draco said, annoyed at the whine in his voice. He didn’t need the silly little fox to sleep next to him anyway, even if the soft breathing did help to calm his anxiety. He could sleep perfectly fine alone.
That thought kept running through his mind as he brushed his teeth, applied his moisturisers, and changed into his pyjamas. He didn’t mind being alone. It suited him just fine.
He lay in the centre of his large bed, the soft mattress cradling his body as he stared at the ceiling, listening to the silence.
Just fine, indeed.
— : { o } : —
Draco used his wand to move the eight-foot spruce from one corner to the next. It really would look best near the fireplace, but then he wouldn’t be able to see it from the kitchen. He spent a good deal of his spare time there, trying new recipes, playing with new flavours. And dammit, he wanted to see the tree from where he spent his time chopping, mixing, and experimenting. The glow of the fairy lights was one of the best things about Christmas, after all.
A knock at the door eventually spurred him into a decision: the corner near the kitchen it was. It was his flat, for Salazar’s sake; his decision. And it wasn’t like anyone else would come over to see it or question its position anyway.
Satisfied, he turned to answer as the visitor knocked again, and Smaug scattered off into his room.
“Draco!” Slyvia, his upstairs neighbour, called as soon as he opened the door. She swooped into the flat, swaying her hips dramatically with each step, shamelessly trying to draw his attention. Her vintage, hounds-tooth printed cocktail dress, complete with crinoline to poof out the skirt was a perfect compliment to her dark-blonde, Marilyn Monroe-style curls that bounced with each step she took. Draco stifled a groan.
Slyvia was… She was well-meaning, if overly boisterous for Draco’s taste, and her ridiculously over-the-top demeanour and style of dress, especially when preparing for one of her shows, tended to embarrass him — which, in turn, only seemed to encourage her flirting. Like now.
It wasn’t that Draco had anything against drag queens per se, even those nearly twenty years older than him like Slyvia. It was just, well, he preferred a different type. The type that worked with their hands, and maybe had a bit of a shadowed jaw, and without question, the type who wore less makeup than Draco did.
“Darling, I’m having a dinner party tomorrow night with a group of friends, and you simply must attend. I’ve told them all about you, and they’re ever so eager to make your acquaintance.”
“Slyvia,” Draco started, trying not to upset her but also wanting to be anywhere but at a party of Slyvia’s. As far as he knew, not a single one of them had gone by without the Muggle police being called to the building for some reason or other. “I’m really sorry, but I have plans.”
Slyvia reached out and put a hand onto Draco’s shoulder, giving him a knowing smile. “With a man?”
He shook his head and smiled. “Not this time, unfortunately. Just work.”
“You work too much,” she said with a pout. “I thought you ran a charity. Surely, it shouldn’t have to take up so much of your time? There isn’t any way you could rearrange it, just this once? For me?”
She fluttered her eyelashes and Draco wanted to grimace, but his manners won out. If only she realised that he was already hung up on someone else and that a cute fluttering of fake eyelashes wasn’t ever going to attract his interest.
“Sorry.” He expertly guided her back to the door and walked with her into the hallway. “But thank you so much for the invitation. I’m very flattered you thought of me.”
Slyvia’s voice dropped, lower now, and Draco heard her natural timbre come out. “I always think of you, Draco. Let me know if you change your mind.” She ran a finger along his arm as she walked away, and Draco swallowed.
It’d been a long time since he’d been intimate with somebody, but he wasn’t about to break his streak with Slyvia, no matter how lonely he was. But the invitation, the heart-warming knowledge that someone out there actually did want him, remained with him throughout the evening. That night, as he closed his eyes, he imagined a pair of crystal blue eyes in a weathered, freckled face and fell to sleep with a smile upon his face.
— : { o } : —
Sitting at his desk, Draco let out a sigh of frustration as he rifled through piles of parchment. He had to find last month’s invoice from St Mungo’s. All he could find was the paperwork for the dragon-keepers’ physicals and there was no sign of the emergency healing that had been required on 18th November.
His fingers were stiff, chilled to the bone from the unforgiving climate of the season. Although the temperature rarely crept below zero out here, the proximity to the ocean brought a rawness to the air that no known warming charm was ever able to stave off for long. No, the Hebridean winter was certainly not a pleasant experience by any means, but the dragons favoured the humidity — or at least their scales did — and that was really all that mattered.
The sound of the Floo in the next room caught Draco’s attention, and he glanced up hopefully.
There he was, returning from his long weekend away, off the Reserve. He stepped out of the hearth, brushing the soot from his sleeves with a confident flair before raking strong, calloused fingers through his long hair. For a brief moment, Draco let himself imagine what it would feel like, running his own hand through those locks, the colour of dark copper, that cascaded over his shoulders in gentle waves. Draco knew the man would pull it back into a knot on the top of his head as soon as he got outside, keeping it out of the way of any stray dragon fire. It was a dangerous liability to leave it down when around the beasts.
Merlin, if anyone had told Draco ten years ago that he’d be smitten by a Weasley, he’d have questioned their sanity. But he was a different person now, and it was a different world. All of that old nonsense seemed so long ago, so ridiculous and unimportant.
And it held no relevance next to Charlie’s quick grin and crystal blue eyes. He stopped to talk to the intern manning the desk in the next room, smiling, dropping his hand momentarily onto the young woman’s arm before winking and slamming out the door, most likely heading back to his cottage.
Draco stifled a sigh, but it didn’t escape the notice of his colleague.
“Malfoy, everything okay? Did you find the invoice?” Ernie Macmillan’s nasal tones came from the other side of Draco’s desk. Well, their shared desk, really. Draco didn’t work here full time, after all, he just volunteered his time.
The Hebridean Dragon Sanctuary had run for generations under the direction of the MacFusty clan, but the clan had slowly diminished and, after the last war, they were hardly able to keep it running. They’d approached the Park Foundation for help, and with Pansy looking for ways to diversify her family’s charitable reach, she’d taken over its management. And, as Draco worked for Pansy’s foundation, it often left him to deal with the paperwork and other administrative tasks.
Ernie was the actual manager, though, and more than half of this mess was his fault, so Draco shot him a glare, hoping to hide his rising embarrassment over his momentary lapse of attention. “How do you expect me to find anything in this heap of parchment? Honestly, Ernie, I’m only here twice a week. I can’t be expected to reorganise your office every time.”
Ernie grinned and shrugged, his hunched shoulders and rounded face making him look like the guileless Hufflepuff he was. “Sorry, mate, but there’s a lot to do just keeping this place running. By the time I get back here most days, I don’t have enough energy to do more than just throw everything down and hope for the best.” Something seemed to catch the man’s eye, and he leant forwards across the desk to withdraw a wrinkled piece of parchment from the dustbin next to it. “Is this it?”
Draco took the parchment, a smear of something that he sincerely hoped was mud and nothing more sinister swiped across it. He glanced at the heading and closed his eyes, doing everything he could to rein in his temper. They couldn’t afford to lose Ernie. There was no one else willing to work his crazy hours to keep this place functional. “In the bin? The invoice was in the bin?” He took a deep breath. Ernie meant well. “Right. Well. I’ll just clean this up and get it paid, then.”
“Thanks, Draco. Don’t know what I’d do without you.” He went back to the schedule he’d been working on. “Was that Weasley coming through the Floo?”
Nodding, Draco began documenting the hospital invoice in his ledger.
Ernie chuckled. “Nice. Lucky man. What I wouldn’t give for a weekend away for debauchery.”
Draco cocked an eyebrow but did his best not to imagine Charlie Weasley off debauching himself, or anyone else for that matter. “How do you know that’s what he was up to? He may have been spending the weekend with his saint of a mother.”
“Right,” Ernie said, amusement dripping from the drawn-out word. “Last time, he came back with his cock pierced and was showing it off to the lads down in the hatchery.” Ernie grinned. “Got a glimpse myself, actually. Very nice. And the piercing wasn’t bad, either.”
He waggled his eyebrows, and Draco groaned. “Oh, Merlin.” He wondered if Charlie had freckles on his cock.
“He said it wasn’t that painful,” Ernie continued, seemingly misconstruing Draco’s reaction. Thank goodness. “Can’t say I’d like to have a bar through my knob, but evidently, blokes and birds both love it, so I guess he thinks it’s worth it.” Ernie used his wand to send a copy of next week’s dragon-keeper schedule to the wall where it stuck in place. “According to Charlie, anyway. It’s been quite the crowd-pleaser, to hear him tell it.”
Draco shook his head, unable to take anymore. “Right, well, that’s my cue to go.”
Ernie looked up as Draco stood. “Are you stopping by the Foundation? I have the monthly staffing papers for Pansy.”
Glancing at his watch, Draco held out his hand. “Give them to me. I should have time.”
Ernie smiled gratefully. “Thanks, mate. If I don’t see you again beforehand, Happy Christmas.”
Draco returned the smile, forcing himself to feel the cheer that seemed so elusive these days. “Yes, Merry Christmas, Ernie.”
He stepped into the next room, the main reception area used by anyone coming or going as the Reserve was warded against Apparition to prevent disturbances for the dragons. The intern, currently serving as receptionist, nodded as Draco waved and stepped into the Floo.
“Pansy’s Pantry,” he said clearly, then stepped through the green flames and into Pansy’s clean, crisp outer-office at the Park Foundation headquarters.
“Mr Malfoy,” her assistant greeted. “She’s not expecting you.”
“No, she’s not. Is she busy?”
“She’s always busy, sir, but she’s not in a meeting. You can go in.”
“Thanks.” He nodded at the young man and breezed into Pansy’s office. She was sitting at her desk and on the phone, her back to him as she spoke, looking out the window. He grinned as she held up a finger to him over her head. There wasn’t much his best friend wasn’t aware of.
“Yes, yes, but we need to raise at least an additional thirty-thousand Galleons if we’re going to have the scholarship fully-funded long enough to begin operating off the interest.” She listened to the other speaker, and Draco wandered the room, studying the painting she’d purchased at the silent auction of one of the autumn’s many fundraisers.
“Mm-hmm. Right. Yes, that’s exactly what we intend; a wand for every student.” She looked at the clock on the wall then turned her chair so Draco could see her. Her short, shiny black hair was tucked behind her ear, accentuating the large hoop earrings and her perfect cheekbones. She smiled at Draco and nodded as she finished her call. “Wonderful. I’ll put you down for four seats at the Wands for Wixen Ball on the eleventh. Thank you, Minister.”
Draco’s eyes widened, and he couldn’t quite contain his smile. “You got Shacklebolt to come? Seriously?”
“All in a day’s work,” she said, her voice teasing.
“Well, five years is the same as a day, right? Congratulations, Pans. Well done.”
She nodded. “Thank you. I deserve it. His presence alone will draw the attention of an entirely new set of donors.”
“I know.” He sat down in the seat across from her, incredibly proud. It was a big moment for her and the Foundation.
“You helped, you know. You work nearly as hard at this as I do, and I don’t even pay you.”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “Well, I need to maintain my image, don’t I?” He pulled Ernie’s paperwork from the folder on his lap and handed it to her. “I promised Macmillan I’d bring this over. He said it was urgent?”
She flipped through the papers and paused, then closed her eyes, remaining very still.
“Pans? Is something wrong?”
She nodded then opened her brown eyes, meeting his gaze and cocking her head to the side. She seemed to be considering him.
“What?” His voice was defensive.
She stared at him, then sighed. “Ernie has requested Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off. His little sister just got engaged and his family is making a big deal about it. And Jillian has a ski vacation already scheduled.”
Draco’s heart sank. He knew what she was asking. And it wasn’t like he had anything special planned, just watching old holiday movies on the telly all day.
“Draco, please?” The plea in her voice was genuine, and he hated her for it, just a little bit. “I’d do it myself, but my mother would murder me. I just need someone to be there. There’ll be three keepers on duty and I only need someone there in case there’s an emergency. Ernie will be back by late afternoon, then I’ll join you for drinks and movies after. Promise.”
“Pans, I’ve covered the last four holidays. I promised Smaug—”
“You promised—? Draco, he’s a fox. He won’t hold it against you.”
“You have so clearly never had a pet.”
She rolled her eyes, but her voice was soft. “You’re the only one without any other obligations.”
“You mean, the only one without a family.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“So you’ll do it?”
Draco sighed and cursed the day he met Pansy Parkinson. “I’ll do it, but I am not working on New Year’s.”
She grinned. “Deal.”
— : { o } : —