Chapter Nine of 'There's a Pure-Blood Custom For That'- Gifts Like Sunlight
Chapter Eight.
Title: There’s a Pure-Blood Custom For That (9/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: R
Warnings: Partial AU after DH (Draco has Scorpius but is not married to Astoria, Harry is not married to Ginny), some angst, off-screen violence
Pairings: Harry/Draco, past Draco/Astoria, Ron/Hermione
Summary: The day that Harry stops Draco Malfoy and his son from being bothered in the middle of Diagon Alley starts a strange series of interactions between him and Malfoy. Who knew there was a pure-blood custom for every situation?
Author’s Notes: A series of loosely chronological, short “chapters” based on silly pure-blood customs, and a developing relationship between Harry and Draco. This is more humor and fluff than anything else, despite the angst warning.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Gifts Like Sunlight
“I suppose you’re wondering why it took me so long to come up with a suitable gift for you.”
Harry thought his smile surprised Malfoy as he opened his door. This time, Malfoy hadn’t told Harry that he was coming to his house. Then again, he must know Harry didn’t hang around the shop all the time, and it was pretty early on a Sunday afternoon.
“You’re lucky I was awake and making a late breakfast,” Harry said, motioning him inside. “If I was asleep, then you could pound all you liked and nothing would wake me up.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” Malfoy pinned him with a glance that made it seem like he was practicing to be a hawk. “You were asleep the last time Scorpius and I came here, and we woke you up with our knocking, didn’t we?”
“Fine, ruin all my jokes,” Harry grumbled, and led him to the dining room table, nodding for him to put the small box he held down on the table. And yes, Harry was curious about the gift, but not enough to let it take over the conversation. “Why isn’t Scorpius with you? Didn’t you think you’d need his knocking help?”
“I only ruin your jokes because they aren’t very good.” Malfoy folded his hands primly on the table, beside the box. “Scorpius is at home, visiting with his mother. She comes and sees him now and then. Not nearly as often as I think she should, but I will admit that’s it sometimes easier to leave him with her.”
“Probably protecting him from bad influences.” Harry went back to tending his mixture of different kinds of fruit and bread. It was a kind of salad, but only if you thought of a salad as “pouring a bunch of different foods in a bowl and seeing what happened.”
“You think I’m a bad influence on my son?”
It surprised Harry how quickly that made him turn around, how swiftly he instinctively reached a hand out. Malfoy was huddled against the back of his chair, and watching Harry with almost wild eyes.
“No,” Harry whispered. His voice came out more breathy than he liked. He took a deep breath and continued. “Never. I could never think that you’re a bad influence on your son. There are things that we disagree about, like whether you should have let Scorpius know about Teddy and Andromeda years ago, but you’re not a bad influence.”
“Then what,” said Malfoy, and didn’t finish the sentence, because this time, his head came up and his nostrils flared as though he was scenting something. “You. Astoria is worried about the time that you’ve been spending with Scorpius.”
“Got it in one,” said Harry wryly, and turned back to chopping up the slices of strawberries very fine. He didn’t think he could look directly at Malfoy’s face right now. And the panicked flutter in the middle of his stomach when it came to the thought of Malfoy considering himself a bad father…
It’s because he’s suffered enough. And I just said something casual and didn’t mean to worry him the way I did. I didn’t even realize I could worry him the way I did.
All those things were true, but they didn’t explain the depth of Harry’s own reaction, however much they might explain Malfoy’s. He shook his head and kept his hand and his knife moving in smooth motions, chopping up those pieces of fruit. He would have to figure it out later, because Malfoy was there right now, and demanding his attention.
“You realize that it’s not your fault if she’s paranoid?” Malfoy asked insistently, walking around so he could see Harry’s face in more than profile. Harry tried to retain his calmness, but he had the feeling that he wasn’t really fooling Malfoy. “She visits Scorpius, but not often. She gave up the chance to raise him on her own or even with more input than she gets. It’s not your fault.”
“Oh, I know that,” said Harry, and smiled at him. “And I told her that trying to forbid Scorpius from talking about me or seeing me was the exact wrong thing to do, because all children like things better when they’re forbidden.”
“Yes, they do,” said Malfoy, and he was looking into the distance in a bleak way that made Harry wonder about the way Lucius had raised him.
It wasn’t his place to ask, though, and wouldn’t be unless they became much better friends than they currently were. Harry laid his knife aside finally, and asked, “Do you want something to eat?”
Malfoy gave a distracted look at the bowl of fruit and salad. “I didn’t mean to drop in on you at lunch. I don’t want you to feel like you have to feed me.”
Harry rolled his eyes and put the bowl of fruit and salad down in the middle of the table. “Yes, that’s exactly what I feel like. It’s such a chore. Such a chore.” He laid his hand in the middle of his forehead and struck a dramatic pose.
“Are you making fun of me?”
“What do you fucking think?” Harry turned towards him and spread his hands. “Seriously, Malfoy, I’m not sure how much more open I can make it. You’re invited to lunch-breakfast. You showed up not knowing I was making it. I know that’s true. I can deal with one more extra mouth.”
Malfoy gave an uncertain nod and sat down at the other side of the table. Harry watched him thoughtfully. Malfoy hadn’t seemed a tenth this nervous when he’d invited Harry to the Manor for lunch, even given the traumatic memories that Harry had a right to associate with the house and what had happened the last time Malfoy had seen Harry there. Maybe just being without Scorpius was a little strange for him.
They ate in silence, and then Malfoy leaned forwards and pushed the small box insistently towards Harry. “Open it, before I lose my nerve,” he muttered.
“That doesn’t sound good, if it’s so terrifying,” said Harry, and smiled at Malfoy again. Malfoy didn’t smile back this time. Harry rolled his eyes, but only to himself, and examined the box that Malfoy had given him in more detail.
It was small, and Harry had thought it was wrapped in red paper at first, which seemed a rather Gryffindor choice for Malfoy. Then he scolded himself for having such silly ideas. People weren’t defined solely by their House in Hogwarts, especially this long after they left school. And the red turned out to be the velvet that covered the box, or that the box was made of, rather than paper.
Harry frowned. Something about the box was familiar, but surely…
He let the thought trail off as he opened the box, which was simply a matter of flipping back a hinged lid. Then the thought came back as he stared at the simple but highly-polished silver ring that sat in a slot in the box’s velvet. The ring had no stone, only a complicated tangle of silver vines and flowers on the top.
Harry looked up at Malfoy. Malfoy had burning eyes, but not the kind of burning that Harry would associate with the marriage proposal that this ring looked like. So, instead of snapping, “No,” the way he would have to any pure-blood marriage proposal, he turned the box around and studied the ring.
There was a glow of subtle enchantment around it, he realized a second later. It was the sort he had learned to associate with a Portkey-which he had probably learned in the first place because he was so paranoid about accidentally grabbing one since the war.
He finally looked back at Malfoy, and without the temptation to snap that he had felt at first. “This is a Portkey to-where? The Manor?”
Malfoy sighed and sat back. “Yes. It’s enchanted like one I wear.” He gestured to a silver ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. Harry hadn’t paid much attention to it, because he had assumed that of course Malfoy would wear some jewelry, but when he concentrated on it, he could isolate the right kind of aura. “It lets you appear in a small room deep inside the west wing, and sounds an alarm to let me know that someone has come. Of course, most of the time I would come prepared to welcome whoever wore one, not fight them, but it’s best to be cautious.”
Harry cocked his head. “I’m probably going to regret asking this, because it’ll lead me into another wilderness of pure-blood customs and things I would rather not know,” he muttered. Malfoy’s face never changed. “All right. Why a ring?”
“Because it’s one of the only ways to wear a Portkey unobtrusively,” said Malfoy. “My father used to use buttons, but I watched him forget to transfer them from robe to robe too often. A watch would work if we had more in the Muggle style.” Harry opened his mouth to ask when Malfoy had seen watches in the Muggle style, but Malfoy was faster. “A ring is best.”
“Yeah,” said Harry, after weighing those words for a second and thinking of all the many, many lists of different gifts and nuances they had in those pure-blood books. “Right.”
Malfoy blinked. “Have you found a better way to wear a Portkey? I would be interested to hear it.”
Harry pointed one finger at him, careful not to touch the ring. He would probably be swearing undying loyalty to the Malfoy family or promising to be Scorpius’s godfather if he did that. “I mean that when all these gifts have so many meanings, you wouldn’t have given me a ring just because it’s a convenient shape. It has anther significance, too, doesn’t it?”
In the silence, Malfoy turned pink on every inch of visible skin.
“Look,” said Harry, getting up from the table and reaching for their bowls and forks. Malfoy shrank back a little as if he expected to be slapped, but Harry only floated their dishes to the sink and started watching them. “I told you once before. I want to be your friend, but I don’t want surprises sprung on me like you did with that mirror and lying about the material it was made of. Am I going to marry you or something if I accept this ring?”
More silence, while Malfoy seemed to struggle with putting pure-blood customs into words. Or maybe just Malfoy indirectness into directness, Harry thought, watching him while he cast the right charms to make the dishes wash themselves. He did seem to have a hard time with speaking the truth straight out.
“The ring doesn’t imply marriage,” Malfoy whispered finally. “Not by itself, not that particular shape. It has to do with the material it’s made of, and what’s on it, and the circumstances it’s presented in, and the way it’s accepted.” He shook his head a little and met Harry’s eyes. “And a marriage ring always has a stone.”
Harry smiled at him. “Thank you.”
“What for?” Malfoy looked at him out of the corner of one eye. “For not attempting to marry you against your will? As if I would do that.”
“I hope that you wouldn’t,” Harry said, and walked back to the table to pick up the box with the ring. Malfoy watched him as though he didn’t know whether to hope or sick up, so Harry made the decision for him, and slid the ring onto his finger. “For my sake, and for yours. You should marry someone who loves you, and someone who would be good for Scorpius. And, of course, I don’t want to get married against my will.”
“I don’t think you would consider yourself married, no matter what happened.” That was said with a trace of the old Malfoy sneer, but the effect was a little lessened because Malfoy couldn’t stop looking at the ring on Harry’s finger.
This really matters to him, doesn’t it? Harry couldn’t begin to guess all the reasons why. But Malfoy was a friend, and until and unless he did something actively harmful-like lying again-Harry would go on thinking of him as a friend. That meant he would do things for him the way he did for other friends.
“No,” Harry agreed. “I wouldn’t consider myself bound by hoary old customs for any reason.” He waited, and Malfoy finally stopped staring at the ring and looked him in the eye. “I don’t have to live by them, and it doesn’t matter what other people think. I’m going to do what I like. And I wouldn’t like someone who tried to entrap me.”
Malfoy finally gave the barest of nods.
“Now,” said Harry, “that we’ve established this ring doesn’t mean something we should both feel lucky to escape, why don’t you tell me what it does mean? Why did you want to give me a Portkey in the shape of a ring?”
Maybe because he had already gone through the hardest confession first, Malfoy answered a lot more readily this time. “It does represent something exclusive, something special. Something like the friendship I was asking for with the mirror.” He stared at Harry as if scrutinizing him for signs of magical or physical exhaustion again. Harry wanted to offer to go get his mirror, which was in the pocket of his cloak, but refrained. “I want to be friends with you in a way no one else is.”
Harry offered him a small smile. “Fine. I assume that there are no specific barriers or boundaries to that friendship? We don’t have to do certain things? We can still be friends in all sorts of ordinary ways as well as the special ones that this ring implies?”
Malfoy nodded. His gaze had once again dropped to Harry’s finger. He looked a bit dazed.
“Then I accept,” said Harry. He adjusted the ring for a second, fiddling with it, but it didn’t need adjusting; it fit perfectly on his finger. “How did you know that it would fit me? Did you make notes on my ring size or something?” It was rather creepy to imagine Malfoy staring at his hands for that long.
“There’s an enchantment on it to find the right size, as well.” Malfoy blinked at him. “You don’t have that spell on all your clothes?”
Harry shook his head. “Why would I? I still go to Madam Malkin’s and have her make my clothes, and she has my measurements. If they change, she has to measure them again like anybody else.” He admired the ring, holding it up to the light and watching the soft glow of that light through the aura around it that he could see, now he knew what he was looking for. “I didn’t know that spell existed. But it’s useful.”
“You still go to Madam Malkin’s,” Malfoy repeated, further dazed.
“Yes,” said Harry, and wondered in silent amusement what breach of pure-blood etiquette he had committed this time. Maybe everyone ordered their clothes by some secret owl-post where they read your measurements from your mind via distant Legilimency. “Is there something wrong with that?”
Malfoy snapped back to himself and shook his head. “No. No, of course not.” He still watched Harry a bit doubtfully, but nodded to the ring. “Does this mean that you accept the gift and the implied invitation to the Manor that it holds out?”
“The implied permanent invitation?” Harry asked, and saw Malfoy nod. “Thank you for confirming that. I suppose I do. The ring is beautiful, and now that I know I’m not going to be trapped into marriage, I can accept it without reservations.”
Malfoy’s face relaxed, and he smiled.
Harry froze, staring. He had been wondering, in the back of his mind, if a friendship that upset his other friends and was so tricky and difficult-because he might offend Malfoy by his ignorance of the finer points of etiquette, or he might get upset at something Malfoy did-was worth continuing.
It was, when he saw that smile. It was the way that Ron smiled when he was recounting a successful case. It was the way George smiled when he forgot Fred was gone.
And it was directed at Harry, as if he was the source and cause of Malfoy’s happiness. Harry’s hand unintentionally settled over the ring on his finger, squeezing it, and Malfoy nodded as though he could keep perfect time with the thoughts flying through Harry’s head.
“Thanks,” Harry said again, and held out his hand, not sure whether he would shake Malfoy’s or take his shoulder or what.
Malfoy made the decision for him, standing up and clasping his wrist. “I suppose I should be going,” he murmured, head tilted to the side and eyes fastened on Harry’s face. “Unless you have further questions about the ring that I can answer?”
“I think you explained it pretty well,” Harry said, and glanced at the ring sparkling above Malfoy’s wristbone again. “I think it’s pretty pretty.”
Malfoy gave a soundless laugh, exposing brilliant white teeth in a way that affected Harry even more than his smile earlier had. “Good,” he said, and bowed his head so it was halfway between farewell bow and gracious nod. “I’ll see you later.”
He left, and Harry stood there studying his ring in the sunlight through the windows for a few seconds. Did it promise more than it should? Was he being lured with the promise of the forbidden?
Do you have too much bloody time on your hands?
Harry decided the answer was yes, and went back to cleaning up the kitchen.
Chapter Ten.
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