Chapter Text
It was too late to turn and run. He was only a few steps from the blue and yellow storefront, its infantile entrance mocking him before he even set foot inside.
Fuck.
Why had he decided to take Muggle Studies in his eighth year? Why had he opened his big mouth about things he knew nothing about? Why had he bet Harry Potter that there wasn’t a shop for bringing stuffed animals to life?
Merlin and Morgana. Maybe he could still make a run for it.
A wand pressed between his shoulder blades before he had even convinced his body to turn. “Draco, my friend!” A hand clapped him heartily on the shoulder – bringing Blaise close enough to hide the wand he had drawn on his friend. “Not going back on our promises, are we?”
Pansy shifted smugly to his side as well.
Filthy fucking traitors.
Draco didn’t have to turn around to know that Potter was only a handful of steps behind them, watching with cruel amusement. His friends hadn’t wasted time jumping ship as soon as they spied the potential for Draco’s social ruin; they’d found no difficulty putting aside years of bad blood with Potter over the chance to laugh at Draco together in public.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Draco replied through gritted teeth, as Blaise’s wand continued to jab him in the spine.
“Good,” Blaise affirmed with a smirk that Draco wanted to grind into the dirt. The man finally drew his wand back into his sleeve, though, which comforted Draco slightly.
Until Potter opened his mouth. “Hey Malfoy, still think you were right? Still think it doesn’t exist?”
Draco set his jaw and refused to turn around to look at his irritant. The man had grown even more charmless in the wake of his great triumph last year; now, he had lost his healthy fear of authority and stomped around the school with a sense of entitlement that had never existed before. It irked Draco to no end, which – in turn – led to him baiting Potter even more frequently than usual. Which led to lost bets.
Inspired by Draco’s silence, Potter began to put on a terribly uncouth impression of him. “‘There’s no way Muggles can bring stuffed animals to life! Why, it took my great aunt Matilda a hundred years to learn the art! What could those simpletons possibly know about reanimation magic—’”
“Her name was Maude, you absolute swine.” Draco swung around in time to see Potter’s face light up with glee. He immediately realized his mistake.
“‘My aunt Matilda,” Potter continued, “was the greatest sorceress in this quadrant of Europe in her day! Did you know she invented the compound for Fizzing Whizzbees? No Muggle could possibly—’”
“We get it!” Draco hissed, his face flaming as random passersby began taking note of their conversation. “You’re an arse. Now shut up before you break the Statute.”
Potter did fall silent at that, but the knowing smirk on his face precluded Draco from even feeling victorious about it. Then, all distractions were gone. His traitorous friends plus an entirely too-smug Potter propelled him towards the door.
They entered the “Build-a-Bear ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Workshop.”
Draco was immediately overwhelmed by the delighted shrieks of children as they dashed past him at bludger-speed.
“I want Baby Yoda!”
“No – get the floppy bunny!”
“I’m getting a giraffe with a rocker costume.”
There were racks of miniature clothes on all sides of him, and he was buffeted towards a wall of fluffy toys before he could fully take in his surroundings.
“So where do we start?” Pansy asked, far too excited by the prospect.
Potter gestured to the wall. “We look at all the stuffed animals, and then Malfoy decides which one he wants to join him in bed.”
“I don’t—” Draco began, but he was cut off by Blaise’s bark of laughter. Scowling, he shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of the “hoodie” he’d been given to wear, taking no comfort in the unfamiliar clothing. Everything here was alien to him.
“I think you should get this one,” Blaise said, holding up a pink and yellow narwhal.
“No, no, no,” said Pansy, clutching a glittery unicorn to the “graphic tee” she was wearing. It suited her in an odd way. “This one for sure.”
Potter – rather than competing – just crossed his “hoodie” clad arms and watched with rich amusement. Somehow, he managed to look perfectly at peace in this offensive store, surrounded by a rush of screaming children; something that made Draco hate him even more viscerally in the wake of his own discomfort. “So which one will it be, Malfoy?”
Shame scalded him. Draco couldn’t bear to hold that eye contact for long. “Don’t care. Just pick one and get it over with.”
“Okay.”
His eyes snapped up at the easy compliance; Potter smiled sweetly and plucked a fur-covered skin from one of the fluffy vats that Draco had not yet taken the time to examine. “Wait – what the fuck is that?!”
A middle-age woman scowled at him harshly while making a big deal out of covering her daughter’s ears. Potter, thankfully missing this, raised the foul, dead pelt in his hand with a shrug. “A ‘llamacorn’?”
“First off, why… a what?”
“Like a llama, but with a unicorn horn.”
“Second!” Draco continued, because he could not deal with that sentence, “That’s not what I’m asking – why is it just the skin?”
Potter glanced between the ‘llamacorn’ and Draco with a flicker of mischief. “Because you stuff it.”
“What?!” Draco shrieked to a chorus of rude cackles and innuendos from Blaise and Pansy. The same middle-aged woman huffed disdainfully at them, before grabbing her daughter’s hand and yanking her – protesting – out of the shop.
Draco turned to insist that they also leave, but Potter was already strolling off towards some enormous, humming machine, so Draco’s friends grabbed him on either side and buoyed him along like helpful waitstaff. Their path was sparkly and garish, and Draco saw enough miniature outfits to clothe a small village – literally. He still wanted to know what Potter meant by “stuffing”; the reanimation spell couldn’t possibly require…
A new worry struck him; they were in a shop to bring stuffed animals to life. What exactly happened to them once they were alive? Where were their societies? That he had never seen them out in the wild, he noted with a sinking stomach, probably didn’t bode well for whatever future awaited them. Maybe there was a vault in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts department where… He cut that thought off before he could finish it.
Filled to the brim with these gnawing anxieties, Draco arrived in front of The Machine. It was red and large, and some medieval turnstile was spinning inside it, visible through the glass, sending miniature white clouds raging through its innards.
Before he could even brace himself, Potter grabbed the attention of the peppy young woman with a brown ponytail and “Build-a-Bear ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ” emblazoned across her shirt. Because of the machine, Draco couldn’t make out what they were saying until she gestured in his direction and asked, “Him?”
“He’s the one,” Potter replied, grinning. Then, he tossed the pelt to Draco without warning, who caught it on Seeker’s instinct before immediately tensing and looking down at the thing with dawning horror. He was holding a lifeless skin.
His disgust must’ve been apparent on his face, because the bear-monger began her spiel with thinly-veiled amusement. “Come up and step on the pedal, hon.” She took the animal skin gently from his hands, and pointed to a black pedal on the floor. “Let’s get you nice and stuffed.”
“Excuse me?” His voice came out higher than he would’ve liked.
“Your llamacorn, silly.” She fitted the underside of the pelt along a metal tube connected to the machine. “Now step on the pedal.”
Unable to come up with a response beyond compliance, Draco stepped on the pedal. The Machine whirred even louder, and then, the little white clouds inside began to get sucked into the tube. The skin was beginning to fill – and quickly. Stuffing...ah.
“What’s your name, sugar?” The bear-monger asked, her eyes still on her work.
“Draco,” he mumbled, then was forced to repeat himself over the noise.
“Draco! That’s unusual. Is this your first time here?”
“Yes,” Draco said too loudly.
“Splendid! Any particular occasion?”
“N—”
“Yes!” Pansy interrupted, a malicious smile on her face. “His boyfriend is taking him out for his birthday.”
“Pansy!” Draco hissed, releasing the pedal in his shock. The background noise cut off quite suddenly, leaving his accusation hanging sharp and loud in the air. The bear-monger glanced up in surprise, eyes widening at the sudden change in mood. Several children and their parents were in line now as well, and they were all looking at him.
“That’s… that’s quite alright!” the bear-monger said after a moment’s pause. “I don’t judge! Which of you is the boyfriend?” she asked politely, looking between Potter and Blaise with expectation.
His friends – damned traitors that they were – wasted no time in pointing to Potter. “He is.”
Draco wanted the ground to swallow him whole.
He could not deal with the bets and the dead skins and the stuffing and the humiliation, and he certainly could not deal with the idea of this Muggle woman believing Potter to be his boyfriend. It was absurd. It was absolute rubbish. It was flat-out untrue, and—
And fuck. What if Potter thought Draco wanted him to be his boyfriend? The lie had come from Draco’s so-called “friends” after all. What if Potter assumed this was one of those childish matchmaker moments where someone slyly let slip who was interested in whom. Salazar’s bollocks! What was Potter thinking right now?
After the initial moment of shock passed, Draco looked at Potter; a sneaky grin was writing itself across Potter’s face as Draco stared. Draco felt his stomach flipping for reasons too tangled for him to unravel in full.
Oh no. What is he going to do?!
He didn’t even know what he wanted Potter to do. Would it be better for the man to play along and save face for them both? The idea of their “dating” was already out there. Surely the only thing worse than being mistakenly paired with Potter was being hypothetically rejected by him.
Or would Potter use it as an excuse to debase Draco even further? Perhaps it would be better for him to set the record straight here and now.
Draco could feel his head overheating. In the end, Potter made the decision for him, stepping forward and slinging an arm around Draco’s shoulders.
“It’s true,” Potter said. “He’s been begging me to take him for ages.”
The words sent an odd thrill down Draco’s spine, as did the sudden proximity of Potter himself. Draco could feel the warmth of him through the soft layers of both of their hoodies; the man was a veritable furnace. He hadn’t known (couldn’t remember from the few times he’d touched him, subsumed as they were in hazy memories of violence), and the discovery was disconcerting.
The touch was overstimulating. Draco was used to memorizing him from afar; whenever Potter entered a room, Draco’s entire being tensed and became attuned to monitoring his movements and whims. It came from being rivals for so many years – he knew what to look for, knew what that body was capable of. But now Draco was betrayed by this sensitivity. He could smell him, and that thought was driving him crazy. Hell. Potter smelled good, even – like some herbal, spiced deodorant and the unmistakable scent of man. He wanted to lean into it; at the same time, he felt like an animal entrapped in a snare.
His heart galloped in his chest. This was the worst possible place to be having a revelation.
“Is that so?” the bear-monger continued congenially. “Well, loves, if one of you could step onto the pedal again, we’re nearly done stuffing.”
Draco – useless at the moment – could not, so Potter ended up doing it.
“That’s good, hon,” she said, pulling the llamacorn off the pole. Having taken shape, Draco noticed it was even ghastlier and pinker than before.
“So that’s it? It’s done?” Draco asked hopefully. This whole excursion was madness, and Potter’s hand – still lingering on his shoulder – was fueling that queer string of thoughts in his head. He needed to get away and clear his head and… and think.
But the bear-monger and Potter shared a mischievous grin, and Draco’s relief plummeted into dread. One of the kids in line began to complain impatiently, which only increased Draco’s flight instinct.
“Now, for the heart ceremony!” she cheered. “Here, take this heart and give it some taps,” she said, placing a small, fabric heart in the middle of Draco’s palm. It was smooth to the touch, and not remotely anatomically correct, and he found himself at a loss. He stared at it for a long second.
“Come on, give it some taps to warm it up!”
Hesitantly, he pressed on it several times with his other hand, feeling rather like he was being tricked. In the background, he could hear a parent mutter, “Are you kidding? There are actual children waiting.”
He could feel his hackles raise. The peppy bear-monger continued. “Now, jump up and down to jump-start it and give it lots of heartbeats!”
Potter released his shoulder to make room for the movement, but that only left Draco feeling suddenly cold and even more exposed. How was he supposed to do this with all these people watching?
“Just jump, Draco,” Pansy urged at the same time Blaise sarcastically enthused, “I believe in you.”
Face flaming, Draco blocked out everything but the revenge he would inflict upon his companions once this excursion came to an end. He took a deep breath, then hopped several times, tapping the heart all the while.
“Now spin around like a princess!”
“What? Why?!”
“Come on, babe, have some fun,” Potter said with a smirk. It sounded so natural falling from his lips that it startled Draco into momentarily losing his balance. He decided then and there on the answer to his earlier question: it was absolutely worse to have Potter go along with this. It was tricking him into feeling like Potter was on his side – a heady feeling he’d never even considered until now. One that stung, because it was so far from the truth.
Potter wasn’t his friend; he was only mocking him.
He resolved to perform the rest of the heart séance quickly, so as to end it as soon as possible. He twirled, landing in a fighting stance. “Fine, what next?”
Hyped by his sudden enthusiasm – the opposite of what he wanted – the bear-monger stood up taller and projected louder. “Rub it between your hands again to make sure it’s nice and warm. Now, rub it on your head to make sure your friend is as smart as you are. Then, on your ears to make sure they’re a good listener.”
He did each in turn, not letting his eyes stray to the judgmental parents.
“Now, rub it on your hips to make sure they’re hip and cool!”
He did that, ignoring the muffled snorts behind him. This really was unorthodox, as far as spells went.
“And on your toes, to make sure they’re toe-tally awesome!”
He did that, too, not having time to question the sharp inhale from his left as he bent over to comply. He just wanted to end this.
“And on your nose, so they ‘nose’ that you love them!”
Jaw hardening, he dabbed the heart on his nose, fast as a flicker.
“Alright Draco, now think of a special wish… and when you’re ready, seal it with a kiss.”
For a brief moment of panic, he wondered, ‘who do I have to kiss?!’ before realizing, of course, she meant the heart. He kissed it, filled to the brim with his wish to end this encounter as quickly as humanly possible.
“Okay, put the heart inside.” She held out the animal, and Draco slipped it in. “Now your llamacorn is alive!”
Despite himself, Draco stared at it intently, his curiosity winning out over embarrassment, now that the end was nigh. “Is it breathing?”
The bear-monger let out a laugh of delight. “Aww, aren’t you the cutest thing! Now, would you like to purchase a heartbeat or voice clip or any special scent for your llamacorn today? Or should I tie them up?”
“N—”
“We’d like the whole package,” Potter responded with a winsome smile, thereby cutting off Draco’s escape route.
“Splendid! Which scent would you like?” She held out an array of discs that each smelled overwhelmingly sweet in different ways.
Draco sniffed them all, panicking and darting glances at the line, before turning to Potter and demanding, “You choose.”
This seemed to amuse Potter instead of hurrying him along, and he took his time smelling them each again, eyelashes fluttering closed as he leaned in – seriously, why did he have such long eyelashes? – and eventually chose…
“Coconut caramel cookie scent, please! The Girl Scouts one.”
Of course Potter would go for that one – the caramel was the closest to treacle tart of the lot of them; not that he knew what a “girl scout” was. When Draco realized a brief smile had snuck onto his face despite the situation, he wiped it away self-consciously.
“Wonderful,” the bear-monger was saying. “Now, we’ve grabbed your llamacorn a heartbeat,” she took it from Pansy, who’d apparently wanted in on the action, “and now you just have to decide whether you’d like any other sounds in the hooves. We’ve added the scent already, so you can add up to three more sounds.”
“That’s oka—” Draco started, making yet another attempt to end the torment, but...
“What are all our options?” Blaise asked, dropping a wink in Draco’s direction.
No! His wish, his bloody wish—!
“Let me show you!” She directed them to an enormous machine with about a hundred buttons on it, each advertising a unique sound. “I’ll give you some time to think it over – just come and get me when you’re ready.” A sly expression crossed her face as she was turning away. “Also, might I recommend a custom recording of your boyfriend to memorialize the occasion?”
“Oh, definitely,” Pansy replied, leaving Draco gaping like a fish. “Now, let’s choose the other sounds.”
Forty minutes later, they exited “Build-a-Bear ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Workshop” with an overstuffed bag of purchases that Potter carried – in line with his gallant “boyfriend” role. They apparated back as soon as they found a deserted alley, and once they set foot on Hogwarts grounds, Draco snatched up the bag and raced away to the Dungeons without a word.
For some reason, he didn’t want to watch the moment Potter gave up the charade.
Back in the dorms, he was alone for the moment, so he pulled the cursed stuffed animal out of the bag and stared at it before pressing each hoof in turn. The first was the scent – which Draco admitted smelled divine; not that he understood why an animal should want to smell so delicious it tempted one to eat it. (Though, he had found out earlier – to even further humiliation – that the “bringing the animal to life” bit had been merely metaphorical. In his opinion, metaphorical reanimation was a flagrant violation of their original bet, and he’d forced Potter to pay for the lot as the first step toward reparations.)
He clicked the next hoof, scowling as it played a hideous siren noise. The next one, a loud, pop version of “happy birthday” was, admittedly, not much better. His friends had debated over that one for ages before eventually selecting it.
With trepidation, Draco clicked the last hoof – unsure what this one would bring. He’d seen Potter plotting with the bear-monger but knew nothing of the sound clip beyond that. Had Potter gone for coded mockery? Had it simply been overt?
Would he tease Draco for wanting it to be more than an afternoon’s charade?
A whoosh of muffled noise leapt from the speaker – unsurprising, given how crowded it had been today. He could hear laughter and crying and the shush of air blowing out of the “air bath” in the background. Then, Potter’s voice cut through the noise. “Hey, Draco. We should make bets more often. Happy early birthday.”
Draco sunk back onto his pillows and covered his face with his hands. Merlin and Morgana.
He should’ve run when he had the chance.