Chapter Sixteen of 'There's a Pure-Blood Custom'- Hermione Has Her Say
Chapter Fifteen.
Title: There’s a Pure-Blood Custom For That (16/?)
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.
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Hermione Has Her Say
Harry leaned back and lifted the letter towards the light. Then he cast several charms on it that would dispel various glamours and other hiding spells and let him know if someone other than Hermione had written it, as seemed likely, and was just trying to disguise their handwriting.
But no, it was still the same after he had done all that, which likely meant that Hermione had thought through the advantages and disadvantages of confronting him this way, and seen enough advantages to go ahead and do it after all.
With a little sigh, Harry turned the letter back so that he could read it. Maybe it wouldn’t sound so bad the second time around.
Harry,
I really think you need to reconsider this relationship that you’re getting into with Malfoy. That shopkeeper who was all over the Prophet this morning about you buying a bracelet didn’t know who it was for, but I can guess. And I read about pure-blood customs, and I know what a bracelet like that means when you give it to someone in return for a ring.
I know that you saw Daphne in that shop, too. It was in that article. Maybe she wouldn’t deliberately give you bad advice, but you know I never completely trusted her.
Can you come over and talk today in the evening, after dinner? Ron has agreed to take Rose so that we can have some privacy.
No, Harry decided after he had finished reading it, it wasn’t as bad as the first time around. It was worse.
He sat back and thought of all the ways that Hermione had showed her concern in that short letter, ways that someone who wasn’t familiar with her would never understand:
First, she had written to him at all, instead of trusting him to manage his own relationship. He knew that Ron and Hermione had thought breaking up with Ginny was a bad idea, and they also hadn’t much liked it when he was dating Daphne, but they had given him the courtesy of making up his mind about that on his own, and kept quiet.
Second, she had turned to the Prophet for information when she usually considered the paper and most people who wrote for it lying pieces of shite.
Third, she had more than implied that Ron wouldn’t be involved in this conversation; she had outright stated it. That meant Ron disagreed with her about interfering in Harry’s relationship with Draco, maybe because he had already spoken to Harry and got reassurance, so he didn’t see the harm in it.
It was all so complicated and tangled and confused and such a mess that Harry had to laugh.
He looked down at the ring on his finger and shook his head. He was sure that Draco had never considered what kind of a center of a storm that ring would become when he had given it to Harry.
“Well, we do what we have to,” he said aloud, and then wrote back to Hermione before he could change his mind or more time would pass by.
*
“Thanks for coming, Harry.”
Hermione looked quieter than usual, which meant less shadows under her eyes and a voice that didn’t sound hoarse and tired. Harry looked at her keenly as he sat down in the worn blue chair in the drawing room that was usually his, when he was here and had time to sit down. Faint happy shrieks came from Rose’s bedroom, behind a firmly closed door.
“You didn’t have as many nightmares last night?” he asked.
Hermione paused and shot him a smooth, exasperated look. “No, I didn’t. And I won’t even ask you how you knew that.”
Harry shrugged a little. It was obvious to anyone who knew Hermione, the same way the serious tone and content of her letter, and her objections, had been. If he had worn his trauma closer to the surface of his skin, his friends would have been able to read him the same way.
“Well.” Hermione settled in front of him, and settled her robes around her at the same time. The way she peered at Harry’s face was so earnest that Harry bit his lip to stifle a chuckle. “I dare say you know that I don’t like this alliance with Malfoy.”
“It’s more a friendship than an alliance right now.” Harry thought he owed her the truth. “And it has a bit of courting behavior mixed in, too.”
Hermione looked a little green. “So I was right about what the gifts of the bracelet and the ring meant?”
Harry snorted. “You were. Although I didn’t know. Draco is making me buy books on pure-blood customs that I can study so I won’t make the same mistake, or similar ones, again.”
Hermione shook her head. “If he’s making you do things, that speaks to the coercive nature of the relationship. I should have thought you would rather avoid things like that.”
Harry stared at her without blinking for a second, then replied, “He’s making me do it the way that you make me child-proof the house when you bring Rose over.”
Hermione flushed faintly and looked off to the side. But her voice still sounded as strong and determined as ever when she spoke. “Then you won’t consider doing something else? Maybe finding a nice girl to date?”
“I had nice girls,” Harry said. “Ginny was a nice one. Daphne was a nice one once you got past her outer exterior.” Hermione shook her head a little, which Harry had expected, but they’d stopped arguing about Daphne a long time ago. “And Draco is nice in some ways. He adores his son. He’s devoted to his pure-blood customs.”
Hermione did face him again that time, although Harry thought that was more the effect of startled curiosity than anything else. “I would have thought that last thing would be objectionable to you.”
Harry paused, deciding how to phrase it, and then shrugged. “He’s oddly sweet when he’s so obsessed with them. And he hasn’t brought up any of them that are about blood purity or any other nonsense like that yet.”
“If he did, would you leave him?” Hermione almost hovered on the edge of her seat.
“As fast as I would leave you or Ron if you started talking about how I hadn’t done enough to help you and I should use my fame to make you wealthy.”
That startled Hermione enough to make her collapse backwards. She opened her mouth once, then closed it again, and finally said, “We’re not talking about us.”
“Yes, we are,” Harry said. “Isn’t this all about the objections that you’re making to Draco? Because if it isn’t, I’m really confused about what I’m here for.”
Hermione moaned softly and let her head fall into her hands. “This is about our concern for you as our friend,” she said. “Or maybe I should say my concern, since Ron isn’t here and taking part in this conversation.”
“Yeah, I explained it to Ron already.” Harry reached out to pat her hand. “I know, Hermione. And I respect what you’ve had to go through. I don’t expect you ever to see or talk to him.”
“Even if you start dating him?”
“Even then,” said Harry softly, and held her stare when she looked up. “I never brought Daphne here, did I? You saw her sometimes, but only over at my house, and only when you came over without firecalling first. You couldn’t abide her because she was a Slytherin. I know what you and Ron can tolerate. I won’t ask you to tolerate more.”
“That’s-that’s sad, though,” Hermione said, drifting on to another tangent. “That you can’t bring the person you’re dating over to see your family, ever.”
“Draco and I aren’t dating, exactly,” Harry said. “But I can think of a lot of sadder things. Like not surviving the war.”
“It isn’t the same thing.”
“I know,” Harry said. “But I never brought Daphne over to see Molly, either. I think I’m just used to it.” Not to mention the nightmare that it would have been even trying to introduce Ginny to the Dursleys, never mind anyone else. But that was the kind of thing he would keep to himself. He didn’t like to talk about the Dursleys.
“I wish you could have a more normal life.” Hermione looked at him mistily. “Without the constant readjustments and problems that you have when you’re trying to take care of us and live your life at the same time.”
“This is the life I chose,” Harry said. “Honestly, Hermione. Do you think I would put up with something I didn’t like? When I made the decisions to leave Auror training and stop dating Ginny and do all sorts of other things that could have brought down public pressure on my head?” Well, to be fair, those had brought public pressure, but less than Harry had thought they would, and nothing he couldn’t handle.
“Yes, but.” Hermione was frowning, searching for the words she wanted. Harry let the conversation drift into silence as he waited for her to do it. Hermione was staring hard at her nails, and since she never painted them like some women did, that was a sign of intense concentration.
“I would feel easier if I knew you were happy,” Hermione said, looking up. “If you were making decisions that I thought were likely to lead to you being happier still. Instead, I just think they’re leading to heartbreak.”
“There’s a sign that you are a good friend,” Harry said, and got up to kiss her on the forehead. “Because, in between all the other things you have to worry about, your daughter and your nightmares and your job and Ron, you remember to worry about me, too.”
Her hand caught his, strong as marble. “Are you happy?”
“Yes,” said Harry, and turned his hand to clasp hers. “Not always, not all the time, but a lot happier than you would think if you were reading about my life as one of your case reports.”
Hermione gave a dry snort. “Happier than house-elves.”
“Definitely.”
Hermione held his hand for one more moment, lingering, then let him go reluctantly. “If there’s ever anything you need help with, if things get too overwhelming, if you need a place to run away from Malfoy and bitch about pure-blood customs without him overhearing-”
“Oh, I reckoned that you’d offer your house for that anyway,” said Harry. “See how selfish I am? Just assuming that my best friends have the time and space to spare for me?”
He won a genuine smile from Hermione, and that was a rare enough sight to make it worth any sacrifice.
*
“So the shape of the room you offer the gift in matters, too?” Harry muttered, and laid the book down, shaking his head. “For fuck’s sake.”
He would still do his best to learn the pure-blood customs, because he had promised Draco, but he was starting to think it was the sort of thing that was best learned young, like maths or reading. You had to keep the gift itself and the occasion and the material the gift was made of and the blood status of the person you were offering it to and now, apparently, the shape of the bloody room, all in mind at the same time, interacting, spiraling out into more and more complexity as they built. Draco and anyone else trained to it when they were young could probably do it with ease. Harry didn’t want to haul along a thick book and consult it every six seconds when he was speaking to Draco, but that was probably what was going to happen.
He’d spent the entire morning in the library with his new pure-blood customs books, a small room near the back of his home that Hermione kept pestering him to add more light than a fireplace to and which Harry kept promising he would without getting around to it. Now, he blinked, dazed, as he stepped out of the dim room into the bright kitchen, and that was the only excuse for not noticing what happened next.
The attack caught him high on the shoulder, a blast of force and fury that hurled him into the wall. Harry groaned as his body hit hard enough to make something rebound inside his shoulder. It was his right arm, and that was going to give him a hell of a time drawing his wand.
Those thoughts poured through his head like clear water while he fell smoothly to his knees and made his way in a furious crawl towards the kitchen table. Best to get to shelter, and with the dazzle he hadn’t yet seen his enemy-
Another spell hit him, and his hands went numb. Shit. Harry didn’t know that one. He jackknifed onto his back and lashed out blindly with one foot, or not so blindly, as one of the dark blurs in front of him lurched forwards.
There’s more than one of them. Shit.
That particular blur stumbled as Harry kicked him, and sounded winded when he went down. But there were another two pressing forwards, and his hands were still numb, and he was cornered, and he had nowhere to go, and his blood was pounding with fear in a way that it hadn’t in years.
Nowhere to go, except the place Draco had given him, and which Harry was reluctant to use. His hands tingled as he reached down and yanked at the ring. It sprang to life warmly under his fingers. Maybe some of the numbness was going away, if he could feel that.
If I can feel that, maybe I ought to stay and fight-
Another spell landed, and Harry let out a yowl as his knee made a cracking sound. He didn’t know if something was actually broken or just bruised or sprained, and he wasn’t about to stay to find out. The pain was too great, and he was at too much of a disadvantage. He seized and turned the ring.
He heard the howls of his enemies, one wordless and one promising him destruction for having hurt “Jackie,” and then the Portkey took him away. And he landed hard enough on the floor beyond, in the room Draco had told him of, that he gave a single cry as his knee jounced, and then fainted from the pain.
*
Fuck-broken wards-I hope they don’t burn the new books-I have to figure out how they got in-
“Hush, Harry. It’s all right now.”
Harry rolled to the side and opened his eyes. Then he hissed as that jounced his knee, and he reached down to explore the cool poultice draped over it. The pain leached as he lay there, and he sighed again and dropped his head back on the pillow.
“Draco?” he explained, even as he snorted in exasperation at himself. The pale face bending over him could hardly be anything else.
“Yes.” Draco curled his fingers into the bedsheet, but his other hand, as he reached out and caressed Harry’s forehead, was calm. “Do you know who hurt you?”
“Three people, one named Jackie,” Harry answered, and forced his mind to travel back into the blur of violence and pain. “I think they might have had the Risen Cobra symbol on their robes. They surprised me in my kitchen, though. I’m not sure.”
“They got through your wards.” Draco said it in an appalled way, not as a question, and Harry thought he might rip the sheet he was clutching. That would probably upset him. Harry touched his hand, once.
“Yes,” he said. “I don’t know how. That’s definitely the first thing I’m going to find out as soon as I’m back on my feet.”
“I’ll send an elf to your house,” said Draco, and gestured with one hand. When an elf appeared, he said, “What do you want Rizzi to fetch, Harry?”
“It’s easier if I go with him and show him-”
Draco leaned over the bed until Harry couldn’t see the elf at all, which Harry thought was a bit of an overreaction. It wasn’t as though Rizzi was the one who had hurt him. “No,” Draco whispered. “You’re going to stay here, flat on your back, until we can get some clue to what’s happened.”
Harry considered that. His knee did still hurt, and his shoulder. And perhaps it would be stupid to upset Draco further.
“All right,” he said. “Then one set of clothes out of the cupboard beside my bed, Rizzi, and the books on pure-blood customs in the library.”
Rizzi bowed and vanished. Harry glanced at Draco, about to say something, but Draco was looking at the doorway.
“Mr. Potter, are you hurt?” Scorpius was standing there, and he stepped inside, hesitating. Harry supposed he might have visited before and Draco had sent him away while Harry was still sleeping.
“A little,” said Harry, smiling at him. “It’ll pass.”
“You being hurt is bad,” said Scorpius. “Who hurt you?”
“We don’t know yet,” said Harry. “We’re working on finding out.”
“Well, catch them,” said Scorpius, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “I’m going to get Golden. He can keep you company.” He went out of the room with as determined a stride as a child his age was probably capable of.
Harry laughed and looked up at Draco. “He makes it sound so simple.”
“Well, some things are,” said Draco. “Such as you staying off your feet and in my care until we figure out what happened.”
His hand was caressing Harry’s in a steady, soft motion that he didn’t seem to realize he was still using. Harry took his hand in return, and shook his head a little. In a way, Draco didn’t need to be that concerned. It could have been a lot worse, and he was the one who had given Harry the means of escape.
In another way, that he was so concerned filled both Harry’s head and belly with a warm, pleasant haze.
Chapter Seventeen.
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