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“Your name,” he finally utters, disturbing the quiet they shared, out on the balcony looking down on both Magical and Muggle London, just a warded glass door away from the crowd celebrating ten years of post Voldemort.
The guest of honor, however, was leaning on the marble railing on her forearms, right beside him, having snuck out earlier.
He had seen her disappear from the crowd, felt her blazing brand of magic —a fiendfyre amongst flickering candles— get snuffed out with a simple masking spell aurors of their calibre had long since mastered. But of course, he knew her magic almost intimately by now. He’d known it since they were eleven, have felt it shot at him more often than not with spells exchanged in the corridors, felt it wound him with a curse meant to kill slowly and painfully if aimed right.
Perhaps, it was because he was falling asleep on his feet while one of his father’s many business associates talk about the most innocuous of things, that he found himself making excuses just to follow after her, as per usual, as what he was opt to do for the last three years.
Perhaps he just preferred her company than anything else in the world.
Then again, in the first place, he was not feeling inclined to mingle with the people his father called “future business partners”— HIS future business partners, Lord Lucius Malfoy always says, as soon as he curbs his curiosity and removes himself from his position as an auror.
Draco personally calls them his would-be-arse-kissers.
His father had told him in many words, in many conversations, that it was time for him to stand where his father, his grandfather, and his great grandfather before him, had stood. That it was time to find himself a wife to bear a son, who will stand where he should have been standing, when the time comes. It was on his shoulders to rebuild their reputation.
He would have believed this, would have been the perfect obedient heir, had what was supposed to be his parent’s war not pull him in and slowly turned his life and his beliefs upside down. He would have believed that shite had he not been stripped off of freedom and then be forced to be branded like cattle, forced to obey or receive punishment.
His life during those dark times changed something in him, somehow. It started with nothing but a need to survive, to live another day, but then he began to think for his future, for himself, his own happiness, for freedom.
After the war, after a mess that was the few miserable months in Azkaban, and the trial that lessened their sentences for betraying a madman-found out by going under liberal dosages of veritaserum and by a testimony from someone made in secret, his family moved to the Malfoy ancestral homes in France. He finished his studies there. He worked in wizard law for the first three years until he saw a familiar face as he walked by the Magical Law Enforcement Department, just three floors down from the department he worked in.
When emerald green met grey as he passed, it ignited something in him. Several weeks of seeing those haunting green in his dreams and straying thoughts built up his resolve, and for the first time in his life, he defied his father to the man’s face. He left wizarding law, went back to England, and signed up for the auror program— all on a whim. Of course, his mother thought it was a phase and had pleaded to his father to let him do as he pleases for the moment. She was not surprised, nor pleased by his decision, however.
He never looked back after that.
What followed was not the easiest two years of his life, only because of the mark on his arm and his family’s notoriety. After all, his father had been seen, and proven to be Voldemort’s avid supporter once.
Miraculously, out of thirty eight that enlisted, he was one of the fifteen to make it through the strict training. He had been stuck doing menial things deep in the DMLE archives for a while, having no partner partially due to the odd number of passers, and no one willing to be partnered with a former death eater. That was until he was summoned to the head auror’s office, told that he would be meeting his partner on the field and to get geared up for a raid. Something’s gone awry.
He was given a self adjusting set of armored auror uniform and holster, a small slip of paper with a passcode, a portkey ready to take him directly to his partner’s side, and a warning to get ready to shield.
By the time he realized who his partner was, the mess of a battle was over. He had expected a yelling match, even hexes and curses flung at him, followed by a request to change partners. He hadn’t expected her to blink at him in surprise before she threw her head back and started laughing. His breath got caught in his throat as he stared at her in wonder and utter confusion.
He hadn’t expected getting along with her so well after that despite bickering a lot. He hadn’t expected to suddenly feel like he had found a piece of himself that he had been searching for a long time. He certainly didn’t expect to come to admire her wit, bogled by her unorthodox thinking, get frustrated and unnerved by the things he believes were impossibilities that were nothing but probabilities for her, and find her unexpectedly dark humor and sarcasm funny.
He supposed it was inevitable, really. He had a crush on her before she unknowingly —he knows that now— snubbed him, but he fell for her hard once he really got to know her. Then again, he had been a bit of a spoilt arse as a boy. Lot of good did his upbringing did! He literally had no idea how to accept being rejected for once in his life. Luckily, he’d grown out of that phase.
But despite all the fuck-uppery that was the last few years of his schooling years to his early adulthood, for the first time after the war, something went right for him. For once, after everything, he was finally happy where he belongs, although he had not pointed out this fact to his father. He’d rather not, actually. His father will not hear about this. Let him wring his hands waiting for his heir to be “enlightened” and go back to Wizarding Law.
Unfortunately for his father, Draco may be Malfoy in color, but Black runs strongly in his blood. With it comes a rebellious streak a mile high.
He learned, as a child, that his great aunt Cassiopea once set fire to Sirius Black II’s office before blasting her own name from the tapestry and then running away from home, unable to be found for years. She was just reinstated when Arcturus Black took on the Lordship. Hell, his aunt Andromeda ran away with a Muggleborn the night she graduated. There’s his uncle, Sirius Black III who got sorted into Gryffindor against orders, and then there was Regulus Black, Draco found out from his partner, who died flipping a proverbial bird to the Dark Lord after stealing one of his artifacts.
There was also his mother who once kicked his father in the…family jewels when they were younger. So it wasn’t really that surprising that someone named from a constellation, such as himself, to finally had it in him to carve his own path.
He liked working as an auror. He liked the challenge. And then there was the tiny yet frighteningly powerful woman as his partner that he cares for immensely. He wouldn’t mind, at all, to spend a lifetime with her. He would live for her.
Although, making her see that, is a different story altogether. Draco, for his part, was having trouble with that. Subtle hints he had been dropping since last year do not seem to work. Dear Merlin, she wouldn’t know if it hit her in the face!
His own fault, really. He should have been blunt when it came to her. He’d thrown away subtlety the moment he realized that, and had promptly confessed to her the next day, in front of her friends, uncaring how Weasley narrowed his eyes on him. Red had exploded across her cheeks that day and what followed was her running away from him at every chance, only forced to be around him when there was work to be done and no time to talk at all.
She surprised him one day, her Gryffindor courage on high, and kissed him on the cheek for his birthday, before running away, chucking a parcel at him. She’d given him a handmade knitted emerald green scarf (one he treasures despite the numerous dropped stitches). He instantly knew right then that his feelings were at least returned.
They haven’t got the chance to be alone together in one place for a while now, but he wasn’t a Slytherin for nothing. Not a well known fact, but they were willing to wait for the perfect time to strike, no matter how long it took. And it took months before she wasn’t always red in the face and stammering around him. Took a lot to get her to bicker with him again like how they used to. It took a lot more to get her to agree to dinners with him…and that usually entailed surviving the night with glares from the Weasley bunch, and a look from Granger that never failed to bring a chill to his spine. He’d do anything to get anyone to see his sincerity.
And now, somehow, Fate worked in his favor. He finally got her alone to himself.
“I always wondered if it was your father or your mother who named you. But then I saw something today— in the muggle world.” He confesses.
“Oh? A Malfoy venturing alone out into the muggle world?” she gasps theatrically beside him, an amused glint in her green, green eyes— his favorite color, like the scarf she gifted him, emerald green like half of his wardrobe when he was a child, like the tie he wore when they were at school. Emerald like the dress she’s wearing tonight, a dress made of the finest silk that wraps around her like a second skin over her shoulders, her arms, the swell of her breasts, her hips before it flares into a flowing shimmering skirt. Emerald like the stones fixed on her jewelry. She turns to him, a teasing smile on her lips. “Who are you and what have you done to that pureblood prat?”
He snorts at her jibe, not that it had any heat in them anyway, then grins at her. “I was curious… and it was actually rather nice.”
She grins back. “You’ll have to take me next time.”
He hummed in response. “Let’s go next weekend off.”
She smiles brightly, a faint dusting of pink on her face. His breath catches. Like it always does when she smiles.
“So?” She prompts. “What did you see?” She leaned closer to him. He moved with her, leaning in as well, as if to whisper, close enough that their arms brushed.
“A muggle ride, with part of your name on it. Like those bicycles in muggle studies class, but bigger, and noisier.” He scrunches up his nose. “Brooms are still better.” He huffs, straightening himself, yet not moving out of her reach.
She laughed. Tinkling laughter that always drew him in, whether it’s from across the hall, or across from him.
Beautiful , he thinks.
She had always been beautiful but she grew into the stunning woman he was standing beside with tonight.
She was tiny— still is, to him, who grew taller than his father. She was delicate looking, but ferocious. He knew, because he kept the scars from her dark cutting spell that night, in the height of his mistakes, and he held them precious now, ten years later. He knew, because he had spent the last few years covering for her while she unleashed her power over those who defied justice. He knew, because she had his back, and he had hers. Always.
He is mesmerized.
He wondered why his stupid, younger self always wanted to see her cry, when he obviously always wanted this for himself, wanted nothing more than—
Well, he wanted all of her in all the ways that mattered. Her smile, her laughter, her forgiving nature, her utterly adorable obliviousness to his feelings, her strange obsession with treacle tart, and even the way she attracts danger like a beacon, the way she somehow always pushes through out of sheer stubborness or spite. Then again, he always did admire that fire in those deathly green eyes, wanted them to burn for him and no one else, because since then, and to this day, pissing her off and bickering with her was a delight.
“The only reason why my name is Harley Rose Potter, and not Henrietta Rose Potter like my father wanted, is because my father lost a bet the same night they picked out Sirius’ motorcycle.” She shares, a wistful smile on her face as she turned away from him to look at the city below. “My godfather named me. I wouldn’t have found out if I didn’t find a memory of it in Siri’s vault.”
“Of course he names you after a motorcycle.” He deadpans, rolling his eyes, having heard his cousin’s fascination with muggle culture from his own mother.
“True, but I happen to like my name.” She sniffs.
“I don’t.” He replies without hesitation and smirks at her sudden affronted pout. Her lips drew his eyes in, full and just begging to be kissed. He steps forward then he stops. Not yet , he tells himself, Soon . “I think it would be better if it were a little different.”
He feels her power, surging underneath her skin, ready to lash out at him as her fuse shortened. He knew this. His breath hitches either way, finding her more beautiful in her ire. He watched the flames in her eyes again. They ignite with her fury. He shivered. He loved her for it.
“Different how?” She asks impatiently.
“Harley Rose Malfoy, is a lot better, I think.”
He watched her irritation bleed away from her face, watched as red blooms across her cheeks, the same time he watched her wide emerald eyes sparkle, mouth opening and shutting adorably in disbelief as she looks up at him.
“You— M-Malfoy? — A-are you serious?” She finally stutters.
“No,” he smirks as he leans down, their noses almost touching, his hands finding hers and threading their fingers together, slightly marvelling at how well they fit together. “That’s your godfather—“
She makes a choked sound but he pushes on. “He may have given you your first name, but I think it’s time—”
“For what?” She squeaks.
“To give you mine too.” He smiles as he touches his forehead to hers. “If you’ll have me.”
“Yes,” she breathes after a beat, and he wastes no time to finally, finally capture her lips in a kiss.