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The ground floor of St Mungo’s Hospital was a sea of people, loud and stuffy and buzzing with energy. People were shouting orders, wailing loudly, coughing, and otherwise filling the air with sound. An antiseptic smell assaulted Harry’s senses as he sidestepped a man holding a handful of gauze to another man’s head. Harry pushed through the sick and injured as politely as he could until he made it up to the admissions desk, tagging it with a hand as he breathed a guarded sigh of relief.
“Appointment?”
“No, I’m wondering if you can point me in the direction of Healer Malfoy?”
“Do you have an appointment with him?” The bored-looking med student manning the desk hadn’t even looked up from his book, still studying the detailed heart diagram under his nose.
“Wiggin,” someone hissed, “that’s Healer Malfoy’s husband.”
Wiggin finally looked up to see who he was talking to, and Harry watched the recognition light in his eyes as embarrassment coloured his cheeks.
“Oh, Auror Potter! Let me just check what floor Healer Malfoy was on.”
Harry looked around to thank the voice that had spoken up for him. It was as busy behind the desk as it was in the lobby, and the expressions were just as stressed. There was a gaggle of healers gathered around a spread of reports, puzzling and positing together, expertly ignoring the small crowd of patients vying for attention from admissions staff. Nurses dotted the space, assisting patients into elevators and directing wheelchairs. Hospital staff and emergency responders dashed in and out of the Emergency Department doors beyond them.
A small wave of a hand caught his attention, and he followed the movement to see Cho Chang standing with the group of healers. She was hidden halfway behind the gold-blonde curls of a serious-looking healer who was looking down at her notes, and she gave Harry a tiny salute before returning her attention to the test results.
“He doesn’t have to be admitted yet, I’m telling you,” the blonde healer was saying to her colleagues with a slight Madrid accent. “Send his sister home with a few detection spells, and we can avoid having him spend his last days in the hospital unnecessarily.”
“You don’t know that these are his last days, Wood. Have some faith in the potions, will you?”
“It’s his fifth new infection since Christmas. He’s not getting better.”
“So we put him in palliative care!”
“He wants to be at home, Astrid!”
“Healers, please, keep your voices down!” Cho said gently.
“Auror Potter?” Harry returned his attention to Wiggin. “The Dai Ward, just upstairs. Shall I get someone to escort you?”
“No need, really. Thank you,” Harry said with a smile, ducking back into the crowd and heading for the stairwell.
~*~
When Harry resigned from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement last year, he had only thought of what he was leaving behind. He hated the bureaucracy, Draco hated the safety risk, and they had Jamie to think of now. Afterwards, he had found himself lost in a void of boredom and unfulfillment, which his loved ones tried their hardest to fill. George offered him a place at the shop. Hermione thought he might enjoy helping people as a healer. It was Ron’s suggestion to become a private investigator, where he could set his own pace and choose his own cases, that he had ultimately found his worth in again.
While the choice to continue fighting bad guys had felt natural when he’d made it, Hermione’s suggestion of going into the medical field had been intriguing. He’d looked into it and at what he’d have to do to become a healer. He’d talked to Hannah Abbott at length about her studies at St Mungo’s College of Healers. Ultimately, though it would be a great way to feel like he’s contributing to wizarding society, he didn’t think he’d enjoy it. And while there was bound to be less office politics than at the Ministry, it wasn’t going to shield him from the stress of a high-paced career with life-and-death decisions. It did give him a new appreciation for those who chose to practice, like Hannah and Draco. And, apparently, Cho Chang.
Harry rounded the corner of the corridor, enjoying the relative quiet of the hospital ward. Monitoring spells sounded every few seconds at odd intervals, healers spoke in hushed tones to each other, and a nurse could be heard greeting patients brightly in their rooms. Amidst the bustle of the nurses' station, two white-blond heads were bent together, deep in serious conversation.
Draco was leaning against the nurses’ desk, arms crossed over his violet jumper. His black trousers were crisp and straight, and one black patent shoe was tipped onto its toe as he stood casually. He was listening to a pale woman in a green Mungo’s uniform, and her milky hair haloed her head in a messy bob cut.
“The next moon isn’t for a few weeks yet, so we have time, but I think we should get on it soon…”
She trailed off as Draco looked up and saw Harry. The smile that lit his eyes was enough to make it very apparent he wasn’t listening to her anymore, and she gave up with an amused roll of her eyes.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Draco flirted.
“I only come here for the view,” Harry flirted back fondly. He kept his hands to himself as he approached, stuffed into his trouser pockets, knowing Draco’s rules about professionalism and public displays of affection.
“Wow, you’re both intolerable,” the woman teased.
“Harry, please meet Miss Chiara Lobosca, lycanthropist extraordinaire,” Draco introduced, holding out a demonstrative hand. “We were consulting on a case we have just down the hall here.”
“Mr Potter,” Lobosca said, offering her hand to shake. “You’re the one with custody of the Lupin boy, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Harry said shortly, suddenly feeling much less friendly and much more suspicious. Draco touched his elbow, still smiling lightly.
“I was in the dorms with Dora Tonks back in the day,” she said, smiling at the memory. “We were in a punk band together for far too many semesters, too. We had to, you know, with our hair….”
“On the Weasley Scale, she was in the same year as Charlie,” Draco told him, as though this were a normal metric. “She studied in Bali, where lycanthrophobia isn’t part of the curriculum.”
“That Charlie could fly, I tell you,” Lobosca told them, apparently still thinking of her Hogwarts days. “Good seeker, but a bloody fantastic captain. Between him and those Wellnelly boys, Gryffindor was unbeatable for two years straight!”
“Go lions,” Draco quipped. Harry’s heart fluttered.
“What brings you to my lowly department, then, Mr Potter? Got a snake bite?”
Draco and Lobosca laughed as Harry felt himself blush.
“I’m here to remind my dear husband of the dinner reservations he had me make at Martingale Wharf. Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
“Changed my mind about a date with Harry Potter? Never.”
“Right then, are you ready?”
“She won’t keep,” Lobosca said quietly and Draco straightened, and he looked back at her seriously.
“I know,” Draco agreed. “I’ll leave her to rest today, and I’ll be here for rounds in the morning. I’ll see if she’ll speak to me, and maybe I can get her to schedule an appointment. It’s the best I can do.”
“It’s more than enough,” Lobosca agreed eagerly. “Be patient with her, she’s going through a lot right now.”
“What teenager isn’t?” he said wryly, circling the desk and coming to stand near Harry. “Good night, Healer Lobosca.”
“Good night, Healer Malfoy,” Lobosca smiled as she waved at their retreating selves as they walked back down the corridor.
“May I ask you a personal question?” Draco asked as soon as they had some privacy, hooking his arm through Harry’s elbow as they stood waiting for the elevator.
“I’m not sure there’s much you don’t already know,” Harry laughed lightly.
“I meant about Professor Lupin,” Draco explained, lowering his voice as the elevator door opened to a box full of people.
Harry took the silence of the crowded elevator ride to think. He wouldn’t have shared anything about Lupin if he were still around, he knows that. Lupin had been a private person, after all, and Harry had valued their relationship greatly. And there were some things that no one would ever get out of him. Ron and Hermione had both been sworn to secrecy about the time Lupin had tried to abandon his pregnant wife to join them on the horcrux hunt, so that Teddy would never find out. He’d be dead in the ground before anyone else heard that bit of information, and not even then if he could help it. The ding! of the elevator interrupted his thoughts.
“I suppose it depends on the question,” Harry answered honestly as the doors opened onto the busy admissions desk.
Harry felt the heat of Draco’s body as he stood close, and he lowered his voice as they walked together through the crowds toward the waiting area.
“Did Lupin ever self-harm?” Draco asked hesitantly. “I mean, any time, I suppose, but specifically during full moons?”
“Oh,” Harry said, caught off guard by the nature of the question, and he scratched his head as he thought. “Er, yeah, I think so. During the transitions, and when he was locked in the shrieking shack, the wolf would turn the frustration in on itself. Or that’s how he phrased it.”
“Even on the Wolfsbane Potion?”
“Maybe? He had new injuries each month during third year, didn’t he? And he was on the potion then.”
“Was he?” Draco said, looking off towards the doors as he became lost in thought.
“Harry!”
Harry slowed to a stop as he heard footsteps running up behind them, pulling Draco’s arm to stand with him. Cho rushed up, a hint of relief in her greeting smile.
“I hoped I’d catch you!” she enthused as she met them at the edge of the corridor, ducking out of the way of an empty gurney being trundled quickly past. She was wearing a fashionable dark blue dress, pearl earrings, and a green jade cabochon on a silver chain. She looked very professional in her formal work clothes, despite being without a St Mungo’s uniform.
“Cho, how are you?”
“I was just here for a client appointment, and decided to see if I could help consult with anyone’s cases,” she explained excitedly. It seemed she was determined to help, whether her colleagues needed it or not, and even though they apparently never asked. She looked hopefully at Draco, but a glance showed him still lost in thought. Harry knew he was very protective of his patients in any regard, and was unlikely to share his cases with just anyone.
“I think he actually figured his out just moments ago,” Harry said proudly, and Cho laughed. He watched her eyes skirt down his arm to the hand that was joined with his husband’s, looking vaguely regretful before snapping out of it.
“That’s good. I love that feeling,” Cho said, redirecting her envious look to one of jealousy over Draco’s moment of resolution. She looked back at Harry. “I was sorry to have missed your Christmas party last month. Tan was especially upset not to meet your Jamie.”
“That’s right, they’re the same age, aren’t they?”
“To the month! Four years old! August, right?”
“Ah. June.”
“Oh, you win then,” she said, smiling. She let out a girlish giggle, and Draco popped back into focus rather sharply. “She has yet to forgive me for falling ill that week.”
“I’m sure she will one day,” Harry jested, and Draco narrowed his eyes at him.
~*~
“No big deal?! She’s only your ex!”
“Hardly an ex. We went on one date.”
“You had a crush on her for a year.”
“How do you know that?” Harry said with a grin, using their trusty checkmate whenever one of them brought up knowing details about the other from their Hogwarts days.
“I saw you two at that tearoom,” he accused.
They were walking down the street towards the nearest city apparition point in Wapping. Harry dodged a group of Italian tourists following a woman with a yellow flag held above the crowds, gawking over the Tower of London and the River Thames nearby.
“So you witnessed the disaster it was.”
“Lovers’ spat.”
“Hang on, what were you doing there?” He reached for Draco’s hand. Draco took it, signalling that he wasn’t actually too angry. “That was definitely a date spot.”
“Pansy and I got our best intel at Madame Puddifoot’s. Gossip is currency, Potter.”
“Fine, but we only kissed once.”
“You kissed her?!”
“Hey, now, we kissed each other.”
“Harry!”
“Once!”
“After that disaster?!”
“No, before. She was actually my first kiss.”
“And you still agreed to meet her for the Chinese New Year in London? You still see her!”
“Sometimes, around. You see Parkinson all the time. Besides, you’re invited.”
“Parkinson and I were friends when we kissed. We didn’t even date, it was just to get it over with. Pansy and I are not exes.”
“Neither are Cho and I, not really. I mean, you witnessed the last romantic moments we ever shared.”
“Not if she had her way,” Draco said ungraciously. He looked at Harry in irritation. “What did you do to make it blow up on you? I know it was your fault.”
“I just mentioned I had plans to see ‘Mione later.”
“And here I was all these years, thinking your first kiss was Granger!” Draco laughed.
“Ew, no! I love her, but no, she’s like my sister!”
“Well, I would have thought that about Ginevra, too, once upon a time!”
“So I made a mistake! Two months! Almost no time at all!”
Draco burst into laughter. Seeing Harry’s confused look, he stopped them on the street, put his arms around his neck and hugged him tight. It bothered Harry slightly, but he would rather have Draco happy and hanging from his neck than grumpy and shrinking any day.
~*~
The chime of the bell above the shop door was barely audible in the busy apothecary. The dark wood floors creaked under the footsteps of people walking around and taking in every corner of the little space. Shelves and drawers lined the walls, labelled with tiny peeling papers of Chinese characters. Jugs of white and blue porcelain sat above their heads, filled with fragrant herbs and teas. The chaos of the street was oddly hushed in the apothecary as wonderment took over, despite the workers rushing busily back and forth through the people.
“Guolai! Guolai!”
Shouts came from the front of the queue, and Harry saw a small group of women in red blouses bustling around the shop drawers and behind the till. Their shiny black hair was pulled up into intricate knots and twirls, each held up with hairpins of pearls and jade.
“Nîn xū yào shenme?” one of them asked when Harry was close enough to the counter.
“Er, we’re looking for Cho?”
“Ah!” the greying witch said, smiling kindly, before taking a breath and shouting out into the shop. “Cho! Yīngjùn de péngyôu lái bàifâng nî le!”
Cho came up through the crowd, wearing the same red blouse as the other workers.
“Xiexie, Nainai!” Cho said as she approached. “Hi, Harry! I thought I saw the pale gleam of that husband of yours by the door!”
“You did, he’s there with the boys now,” he looked around at the shop full of people. “Are you too busy? We could come by later.”
“No, it’s not as busy as it looks. Lots of curious tourists, not many people buying,” she explained with a half-grin of distaste. “Here, come meet my grandparents, and my teacher.”
Harry raised a beckoning hand to Draco, who was waiting on the edge of the crowd, holding a four-year-old boy protectively from the moving crowd of people. Teddy, at his full nine years of height, was the one to spot Harry waving to them, and he tugged on Draco’s sleeve before beelining through the people and right to Harry’s side. Draco picked his way through more slowly.
“This is my gran, Hua Luo,” Cho says, introducing a smiling older woman with glittering eyes and laugh lines everywhere. “She’ll have you call her Hua.”
“It’s good to meet you,” Harry said as Draco came up beside him, also offering his hand to shake.
“Ni chífànle ma?”
“Er…”
“They’ve only just arrived, Nainai!” Cho told her with a smile. “And this is my teacher of all things Traditional Chinese Medicine, Zhen Lin. This is her shop. She goes by Jen.”
“Cuì lǜsè de yǎnjīng! Tā de gānzàng hěn jiànkāng! Tā yǒu zhù yú huǎnjiě yālì.”
“Speak English, laoshi!” Cho reprimanded happily.
“They do not wear red!” Jen said, her shaking head endangering the delicate rolls of grey hair around her face. “They need red, for good luck!”
“I can do that!” Teddy said excitedly, and his hair went from the contrasting teal that helped Harry spot him from a mile away to a vibrant sunset red.
“Ah! Yīgè kě'ài de xiǎo nánhái!” Hua said, looking at Teddy as though he were an absolute wonder.
“Tā shì hóngsè de! Zuò dé hǎo!” Jen said, looking very impressed. Teddy shone with pride as the ladies fussed over him. Harry instantly liked both women much more.
“Tan will be back soon, she can show us around,” Cho said, looking at Teddy and Jamie. To Harry, she said, “She was getting restless, so Zhou took her for a walk.”
Jamie was sitting on Draco’s hip, content and still in a way they very rarely saw him be. He was looking around the shop in awe, eyes bright with curiosity and little hands reaching for the red tassels of the lanterns above. As he swung an elbow into his father’s face for the fourth time, Draco set Jamie on the floorboards between himself and Harry.
“You are a healer?” Jen asked Draco, whose head snapped up abruptly.
“Me? Yes,” he said, shaken out of his thoughts. “Psychiatry. Mind healing.”
“Ah. Therapy. Taichi and qigong in the park.”
“Something like that,” Draco said with a smile. “Lots of talking, that’s for sure.”
“Yes, the person is as important as the disease.”
“I agree.”
“She’s a very good healer,” Cho said. “She’s taught me as much as St Mungo’s College ever did. She helped me get into the healing school in Xi’an.”
“That’s amazing. Is that why you focused on holistic healing?” Draco asked.
“Internal and holistic. I have a few regular patients, but I sort of come into the hospital just for the people in the Asian communities who don’t trust Western hospitals fully, and for the people who are trying every last option.”
“Sounds like a lot of patient work.”
“You definitely need a good bedside manner for this! Even when the herbs and meditation work don’t convince them, it’s a hell of a placebo effect regardless.”
“If the patient lets the medicine work, it can heal almost anything,” Jen put in.
“Of course, laoshi,” Cho said obediently. “Oh, good, Zhou’s back!”
The bell on the door rang again, and into the shop came a Chinese man in a smart charcoal suit, a red button-down shirt, and dark glasses. A little girl with a giant grin sat on his shoulders, her face festively painted in reds and golds.
“Xinnian kuaile! Happy New Year!” the girl shouted to the shop as a whole as Joe put her back on her feet. A cheer rang out as most of the people shouted it back. “Look, Mama! I’m a rat!”
“Lucky!”
“‘Xin nian’,” Hua was saying slowly, letting Teddy repeat it, “‘kuai le’! Duile! Happy New Year!”
“Duile!” Tan parroted, coming up to Teddy and Jamie, singing to her guests for Hua. “Qǐng jìn! Qǐng zuò! Qǐng hē bēi chá!”
“Sorry, xiǎo xīnzàng, it’s the wrong time for a tea party. There’s a festival outside!” Cho told her daughter. “Harry, Draco, you remember my husband, Joe.”
“Dāngrán,” Zhou said, offering his hand to Harry first, before also remembering to shake Dracos’ hand. “The famous Harry Potter, how can I forget?”
Harry hid his distaste with a polite smile as Cho smiled apologetically behind his back.
“The very same,” Harry said, feeling Draco tense up beside him.
“It’s an honour to see you again, truly,” Zhou said. “I know my grandfather-in-law is anxious to meet you. I’ll warn you, he wants to talk shop!”
“I hope he remembers that I’ve retired,” Harry mentioned, trying to hint at his hope to avoid the topic altogether. No such luck.
“I don’t know if he remembers his own retirement half the time!”
~*~
The atmosphere on the street was electric. Sounds, lights, colours, and smells were everywhere. People dressed in gold silk marched past, puppeteering long dragons of every colour. Women in beautiful pink dresses threw out their long sleeves in spinning dances, while others tossed folding fans from hand to hand. People in traditional Asian clothing walked by on stilts, throwing red and gold confetti over the crowds. Harry startled again as another firecracker went off near him, and he reminded himself again of the nuances of difference in the sound.
“Trust you to bring me to a secret Gryffindor celebration,” Draco teased, nudging him with an elbow.
“Oh, relax,” Harry told him fondly as the parade slowly ended and people filled the street again. He kept a hand around Jamie’s ankle to keep him balanced on his shoulders as he put hos other arm around his husband’s waist. “We’ll go to Trafalgar Square next month for St Patrick’s Day, how’s that?”
“Fair,” Draco smiled, pulling Teddy back in by the shoulder as he went to absently follow the crowd.
“I wish there were a holiday for Ravenclaw colours, but I can’t think of one for blue and bronze,” Cho put in over the noise. “I suppose there’s Hanukkah, but no one throws confetti for that.”
Draco’s happy smile had melted away again as she spoke. “Granger is Jewish,” he said defensively, taking them both off guard with his defensiveness.
“Perhaps I’ll floo her some Ravenclaw confetti next year for the holidays,” Cho said awkwardly, aiming to patch the tension with a joke. “I didn’t mean - ”
“Cho!” An older Chinese man, spry and fit but completely grey, came up from behind them and handed her a phone. “Nǐ de fùmǔ!”
“Xiexie!” Cho took the phone in hand and ducked out of the crowd, rushing back into the relative peace of the apothecary. “Wei?”
“My son, Gao, and his wife live in Ningxia. They make sure to call on holidays, to talk to their daughter and granddaughter.”
“Oh,” Harry hummed, letting Jamie down. “She told me she was from Sterling.”
“We are!” Wan laughed. “My son is a farmer in China. They sent Cho to live with us in Scotland so that she could benefit from a Hogwarts education, you know. And what use she made of it, becoming a healer!”
“It is impressive,” Harry agreed. “I certainly couldn’t have passed the healers’ curriculum. I’ll leave that to the smart people.”
“Yes, you and I will just continue to get the ne’er-do-wells off the streets, eh?”
“We can certainly try.”
“Of course, I couldn’t just let you young blokes have all the fun, retired or not! I jumped at the opportunity when they asked me to help ‘fully scourge the Dark Mark from our Ministry,’ as they said!”
“It was certainly a busy few years, even when I came on as a trainee.”
“My days on beat were spent chasing juveniles and gang members around London,” Wan sighed wistfully. “Between that and the muggle riots, I became very good at fighting organised crime. Enough to be indispensible, even in my old age!”
“That’s the way to do it,” Harry laughed politely.
“I’ll tell you, though, I watched some of those kids grow up from abused urchins into the Death Eaters and criminals they eventually became. I hope I saved a few of them, set some hooligans on the right track, but who can know?”
“I’m sure they remember very well,” Harry assured.
“Here’s to optimism,” Wan said cheerily. “You must have dealt with a lot of those violent crimes during that gun craze a few years back, didn’t you? Scary muggle things, don’t you think? Even those muggle coppers don’t carry them, or the honest ones don’t.”
“It does feel like cheating, doesn’t it?” Harry said, repeating what he’d heard Ron say endlessly. “I mostly worked domestic cases or juvenile offences. Children apparently like me.”
“Ah, I don’t miss the domestics,” Wan shook his head. “It was a culture of silence back when I was on the force. We only found out later how much we missed.”
Harry tensed, his arm inadvertently tightening around Draco as he looked at Wan, who didn’t look back. Wan was watching a young family walk past, the young children dancing and spinning around their parents. It didn’t seem like he realised he’d said anything important.
Draco, who had been supervising Teddy and Jamie collect bits of confetti from the sidewalk, turned to check in on him. Harry had felt his distance, in spirit if not by proximity, for much of the day. Harry knew Draco had trouble keeping his jealousy in check at times, and had only been able to hope that he would handle it well today. Apparently, he was, because he was still sharp enough to pick up on Harry’s anxiety and change the subject.
“Mr Chang, perhaps you’d know,” Draco interrupted. “We were hoping to find a good place to eat dinner tonight, but we aren’t very familiar with this part of London. Would you know a restaurant we might try our luck at?”
“You might try the Jasmine Dragon, a few streets over. The tea menu there is second to none.”
“Good to know,” Draco smiled, stepping forward to take a bit of the spotlight from Harry.
“Hua knows the owner, actually, a friendly Japanese man,” Wan said distractedly, looking around for his wife. “Tàitài!”
Cho stepped out of the shop, handing the phone back to her grandfather. She shushes him with a giggle before smiling at Harry, her expression flickering for a moment as she saw the troubled expression likely lingering on his face.
“Ta zai chucang shi li!”
“Nǐ nǎinai xūyào gěi Iroh dǎ diànhuà,” Wan told her. “Nǐ de péngyǒumen xūyào yīgè chīfàn dì dìfāng.”
“Hao, hao,” Cho muttered as she went back inside.
“We don’t mean to be any trouble,” Harry said as they followed her into the apothecary. “It’s bound to be a madhouse today. We don’t mind going a bit farther out across the city.”
“Nonsense!” Jen said. “You have little treasures with you, they don’t need to be dragged across London!”
“Ah, xiexie ni! Goodbye!” Hua shuffled into the room as she hung up the phone. “He will be waiting for you at the Jasmine Dragon. Give them my name, and they will have a table for you. Make it in time, and you might even see the lion dance!”
“Thank you.”
“Wǒ huì bǎ zhège gěi nǐ.,” Jen said, handing the boys red envelopes. She then handed sticks of incense to Harry and Draco. “For your ancestors.”
“Sixty, eighty, five, six…. It’s eighty-eight quid in here!” Teddy squealed.
“It’s eighty-eight yuan, huájī nánhái!”
“Wow!” Teddy said, folding the money up in the envelope and tucking it carefully in his jeans pocket and helping Draco put Jamie’s in his own pocket. “Shey shey!”
“Bu keqi!”
Harry thought that perhaps it was time to go, as the old women were looking at Teddy a bit too much like they wanted to keep him. Cho seemed to have the same thought as she ushered them back out onto the street.
“Thank you for coming, both of you!” she said as she walked slowly down the street with them. “It’s been good to catch up! And we healers must stick together, you know?”
“It’s always interesting to meet old friends of Harry’s,” Draco said truthfully.
“I’ll bet it is,” Cho laughed.
~*~
The tea, as advertised, was fantastic. They each tried several cups of different brews each as they waited for their noodles to arrive. Teddy kept getting refills of a sweet purple berry tea, and Jamie predictably followed suit. Draco, usually partial to an Irish Breakfast assam, was recommended a pu-erh, and Harry surprised himself by favouring the lychee green tea. By the time their noodles came, they had three bags of loose tea ready to take home.
“I was proud of you today,” Draco said.
At hearing no answer forthcoming, Harry looked up, but it wasn’t the children that Draco was talking to.
“Oh?”
“Fireworks, throngs of people, wand hidden away,” Draco listed. “I know you were triggered more than once. You kept it together admirably.”
Harry smiled gratefully. “So did you. I know that it bothered you to see me with someone I have a history with. However slight.”
“I trust you. And I believe what you told me. That it was nothing.”
“There was nothing,” Harry promised with a chuckle. “I wouldn’t have even called her a first girlfriend.”
“Right,” Draco nodded. “Because that was Patil.”
“Parvati was a convenient date, and you know it. We were fourteen. Didn’t you go to the same dance with Pansy, your own not-girlfriend?”
“Yes, but I also kissed Eddie Carmichael that night in the gardens.”
Harry’s squawk of disbelief was enough to set his family laughing, which was good enough for him.