Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

There's a Pure-Blood Custom For That	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 41050 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 13
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Offers and Acceptances
            Harry hesitated in front of the jewelry shop for a long second. Then he snorted and stepped inside. Stand staring in the street any longer and someone would start spreading rumors that he was afraid of necklaces.
            “Yes? Can I help you?”
            The witch who came bustling towards him was the owner of the shop, Harry was sure. The same elegant one he had seen every day when he walked past it on the way to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, with blond hair piled on her head in a way that reminded him of Astoria Greengrass. Or maybe Narcissa Malfoy. She stopped short when she saw his scar.
            Harry ignored that, and smiled at her. “I need a piece of jewelry that would be appropriate to give a friend.”
            “Just a friend?” Her voice dipped on the last word. Harry could imagine her trying to sneak off to the back of the shop and contact the Prophet through a fireplace once she had him settled with some jewelry.
            Harry sighed. “Yes. A friend. Someone who’s having a hard time in his life right now and could use a reminder that someone cares about him.”
            The witch blinked. “Oh.” Some of the eagerness went out of her posture, probably because everyone knew about the troubles that Ron and George were having. She glanced over her shoulder. “I have some bracelets in the back…”
            “That would be perfect.” Harry smiled. He was still a little wary of giving Draco a ring, both because of all the unknown pure-blood customs that might surround it and because he wanted to avoid just copying the gifts Draco had given him. And a necklace might be a strange gift for a man.
            On the other hand, maybe Draco would have no problem with it. There was still so much that Harry didn’t know about those customs Draco seemed to live a large part of his life by. He was thinking of making another trip to Hogwarts and asking Neville for a second look at the books.
            The shopkeeper returned with a large tray of jewelry. Harry bent over the bracelets, automatically discarding some that had large jewels as too flashy. Then he realized that he was turning away from all the golden ones, too, and paused, a little confused. Had he remembered, subconsciously, something he’d read in the books?
            Then he laughed to himself. Right. Avoid the gold just like I’d avoid the rubies, because they were Gryffindor colors.
            “Sir?”
            Harry looked up. The hovering witch held out her hand. “I could bring out another tray for you to look at it, if these are less than satisfactory.”
            Harry shook his head and resisted the temptation to swat at her. “These are fine. Just let me have a minute to look, will you?”

            The woman’s mouth tumbled open a little, as though she hadn’t expected less than perfect courtesy from the Harry Potter. That was another reason Harry had tried to train the shopkeepers of Diagon Alley to see him as one of the ordinary people, honestly. It let him get away with more than he could if he’d had to maintain a heroic standard of bravery and politeness all the time.
            “Of course,” said the woman stiffly, and then turned and walked towards the back of the shop.
            Harry snorted and studied the bracelets again. He concentrated more on the silver ones and the ones with emeralds at first, but he didn’t find what he was looking for among them. Frowning, he widened his search. Maybe he would have to ask the woman to bring out the other trays after all, although he was reluctant to do it.
            “Harry?”
            Catching a glimpse of blond from the corner of his eye, Harry looked up, sharp words on his tongue about how someone he didn’t know at all shouldn’t be using his name. But this time, he was the one who gaped. “Daphne?” he asked at last.
            “Yes.” Daphne gave him a regal little nod, and didn’t smile. Harry was the one who did. When they had dated, he had been the one who did the smiling, and Daphne the one who did the nodding and glaring when people got too close. Harry hadn’t minded that. She did the vast majority of the talking in private, and it had been refreshing to find someone who thought he needed to know all about her, but the reporters who interviewed him didn’t.
            “What are you doing here?” Harry asked.
            “Looking for a gift, of course.” Daphne picked up one of the emerald-and-silver bracelets that Harry had already dismissed as too gaudy and slanted him a small glance. “My sister’s birthday is coming up.”
            “Of course,” said Harry, and rolled his eyes back at her. Daphne thought that he should remember the smallest details of her life and her family’s lives, years after they had broken up.
            “Who are you looking for?” Daphne studied him without jealousy—Harry had never thought she was jealous, either when they were dating or after, even when he spoke with Ginny. It was one of the reasons that he had decided to date her, the way she could hold herself aloof where so many people wouldn’t be able to.
            “I seem to have stumbled into a friendship with Draco. He wanted to give me gifts according to these pure-blood customs.” He held up the ring and watched Daphne watch it. “I’m looking for a bracelet that might cheer him up.”
            Daphne only nodded and returned to the bracelets herself. Soon she’d chosen a delicate silver affair, and taken it up to the shopkeeper. Harry returned to the browsing, sighing now and then. He saw nothing that looked like it would be good for Draco, but he had to remind himself that the only evidence he had of Draco’s taste was the ring on his finger.
            “Harry.”
            Slowly, Harry stirred to life and turned around to regard Daphne. “Yes?”
            “You might try that.” Daphne nodded to a bracelet near the far side of the tray that Harry had ignored as too small. “Draco loves platinum.”
            “He does?” Harry picked up the bracelet and turned it around. There was a delicate, wavering pattern of vines and leaves traced all over it, and he had to admit it was similar to the pattern on his ring. “But it looks too small for his wrist.”
            “Resizing charms.”
            Harry looked down at the ring on his finger. Right, Draco had said something about that, too, when Harry asked him how he had been able to be sure that the ring would fit Harry. “Thanks, Daphne. You’re a life-saver.”
            “Or relationship-saver, perhaps.” Daphne said that with a straight face, and left the shop. Harry shook his head at her back. There were times he had found her reserve restful, but now he thought he’d like someone with a bit more spark. In public and in private.
            “I’ll take this one,” he said to the shopkeeper, who looked up from what she was doing with books and ledgers, and focused on the bracelet with a sniff.
            “It isn’t very expensive or valuable,” she warned him, as she placed the bracelet in a scale.
            “All the better for me, then.”
            She shot him another quick glance. “But what about the person you’re gifting it to?”
            Harry opened his mouth to say that Draco wouldn’t care about how expensive the gift was, as long as it came from him, and then shut it again. That wasn’t true, was it? It would have been if he was talking about Ron or Hermione or any of his other, long-term friends, but Draco was used to pretty things and the best of the best. He probably would like an expensive gift.
            “Do you want another one, with bigger gems?” The shopkeeper brushed her hair out of her eyes and picked up something from the table in front of her that was so gaudy with rubies even Harry flinched away from it on instinct. “Or perhaps an inscription on this bracelet? That would increase the personal value.” This time, her smile looked almost polite. “And the cost, of course.”
            Harry then stood there trying to think of a suitable inscription. The problem was that he would have known what to give Ginny, or Daphne, or Ron, or Hermione, or George, or Molly, or Teddy, or Andromeda. But Draco didn’t seem to fit into any of those categories.
            He looked at the pattern of vines and leaves on the bracelets again, so similar to the one on his ring, and made up his mind.
            “To Draco. May what bonds us grow,” he said.
            The shokeeper’s glance this time was wondering, but she shook her head and took out the wand and the small, delicate diamond chisel that would make the inscription. Harry settled back to watch her. If necessary, he intended to make sure she knew how unwise attempting to gossip about this to anyone else would be.
            But she probably already did. Harry had done his best to make himself appear ordinary in Diagon Alley and not someone other people needed to give homage to, but that didn’t mean making himself into someone who would passively take insults and rumors being spread about him.
*
            “I was getting impatient with not seeing you, so I decided to come and give you this. I was thinking of you when I bought it.”
            Draco had opened the door of Malfoy Manor himself, with a welcoming smile on his face, but now the smile had dropped off, and he stood there, staring at the bracelet Harry held as if he had never seen anything less lovely in his life. He leaned over and picked it up, but only so he could see the pattern of leaves and vines on it, and then turn it over and read the inscription. Still he didn’t say anything.
            “Did I do something?” Harry had to ask. The gravel was getting uncomfortable under his feet, and he had been looking forward to an actual welcome, not something he would regret. “Was I not supposed to return the gift you gave me? Or return it with a ring?” That would be the most plausible answer as to why Draco was standing there with his mouth open, he thought. Some pure-blood custom he had tripped into without understanding what he was doing. Well, Harry didn’t intend to make Draco abide by anything he didn’t want to abide by, either.
            “Just because I gave it to you doesn’t mean you have to keep it.” Harry extended his hand for the bracelet again.
            “If you understood how I wanted it,” Draco breathed, and looked up at him.
            There were tears standing in his eyes. Harry stared back, unnerved, but certain something was very, very wrong.
            Then he shook himself. Seeing Draco weep was unexpected, but Harry had means of dealing with things like this. He nodded. “Do you need to sit down?” he asked, stepping into the Manor and pressing past Draco without waiting for an invitation. At a time like this, he knew there were more important things. “What about water? Do you want me to get one of the house-elves? Or do you want Scorpius? Do you want me to read to you?”
            In an instant, Draco snapped his spine up and whirled around to face him. “I’m not one of your many weak-willed friends,” he breathed. “And this,” and he shook the bracelet, “is wonderful. What you did with it is wonderful.”
            “They’re not weak-willed,” Harry snapped back before he thought about it.
            Draco rolled his eyes. “Out of everything I said, you choose to focus on that. I suppose I can see where your priorities lie.” He slipped the bracelet around his wrist, and it sized itself to fit immediately.
            “They’re not,” said Harry. “And you wouldn’t be, either, if you wanted to demonstrate some sort of weakness in front of me.”
            Draco eyed him sideways. “Do you want to know why I accepted the bracelet? And what you were saying by giving it to me?”
            “The first part first,” said Harry grumpily, and leaned back against the wall, eyeing Draco closely. Yes, fine, it was probably strange of him to react as though Draco was about to faint when he started to express a strong emotion, but he’d had so much experience with his friends when they were like that…
            And his friends were different from most people, and wasn’t that one reason he had wanted the friendship with Draco in the first place?
            Harry smiled thinly. Yes, all right, he could laugh at himself when he needed to, and he could still make mistakes.
            “I accepted the bracelet because I love the look of it,” Draco said. “And because it’s a gift from you, someone I would always want to accept gifts from.”
            “There might be times when you can’t accept gifts from me?” Harry guessed. “Is it because of what the gifts are, or because of me being the one to bring them?”
            “Both,” said Draco. “In this case, it’s the combination of the inscription on the bracelet and the fact that it looks like your ring that caused my reaction.” He caressed the outside of the bracelet in a way that told Harry he had no intention of giving it up, no matter what the pure-blood customs might say. Harry relaxed a little. He hadn’t realized how intently he wanted Draco to keep his bracelet, but he did.
            “How?”
            It was a simple enough question, and Draco had already promised him the answer anyway, but still Draco hesitated. Harry controlled his impatience with an effort. He had asked the question. He trusted Draco to have good reasons to wait to tell him.
            Draco finally sighed and said, “Because the inscription speaks of bonding, and the similarity between two gifts implies a tight circle.”
            “A circle of what?” Harry said. “I thought you said the ring promised an exclusive friendship, and if the bracelet looks like it, it should promise the same thing.”
            “If it was another ring, it would have.” Draco’s voice was low and charged with something that Harry wondered if either of them could name. He moved a step forwards, then seemed to decide it made more sense to stay where he was, and moved away again. Harry was getting a bit tired of the hesitations, no matter how much sense they might make.
            “Then what does it mean?” Harry asked. “What’s the circle, if not friendship?”
            Draco looked at him.
            “Tell me that I didn’t propose marriage to you,” Harry said. Honestly. After all that research into pure-blood customs, and worrying that the ring Draco had given him was a proposal, he had only gone and proposed to Draco without realizing what he was doing!
            “It doesn’t connote marriage right away,” said Draco, and one hand settled on the bracelet as though Harry would have to break his arm to get it off. Harry wouldn’t consider that, but he was considering a Summoning Charm. “It does mean a courtship, and a certain—exclusivity. If we don’t date, we’re still expected not to date anyone else, and to remain chaste.”
            Harry frowned. “If I had decided to court or date you, then remaining chaste wouldn’t exactly be the first thing on my mind.”
            And Draco blushed like someone had painted his face red. He lowered his head, but not before Harry had seen that. He smiled a little. “No wonder you were hesitant to take the bracelet,” he said.
            Draco nodded, still focused on the floor. “It’s beautiful, and I did want a gift from you. But I knew that you probably didn’t know what you were doing.”
            Harry coughed, and waited until Draco looked up at him. “This is me, remember? Muggle-raised half-blood? How did you get so far as thinking even probably?”
            Draco raised an eyebrow, managing to look haughty despite his blush. “I thought you might have decided to study some of the marriage customs in order to propose courtship in a way I would recognize.”
            “I don’t—I don’t want to marry anybody,” said Harry. “Not right now, and maybe not ever. I wouldn’t say that to hurt you, but it’s just the truth.” He was feeling his way slowly through the words, trying to find a good way to tell that truth. “I hope that you’re not too hurt.”
            Draco drew in a deep breath and tried to smile. “I knew that being courted by Harry Potter was good fortune beyond what I could deserve.”
            “You would completely deserve any good fortune that came your way,” said Harry, and Draco blinked and touched one hand to his forehead as though he didn’t understand Harry’s ferocity. He’s my friend, and he still doesn’t know I defend my friends? But Harry had something more important to say. “But why would you consider being courted by me good fortune anyway? I don’t understand.”
            “You can’t see yourself from the outside,” said Draco, with utter simplicity. “Otherwise, you would understand.”
            “I have enemies threatening my life all the time. I have friends you can’t stand, or you think are weak, anyway.” As far as Harry knew, Draco hadn’t actually met any of his friends except George since the war. “I have newspapers who pounce on every rumor concerning me. And it’s not like I grew up with the traditions you value, either. What in the world—”
            “You’re kind to me,” Draco interrupted, with a still, small voice that nevertheless shut Harry up at once. “You’re good to Scorpius. You genuinely like him. I think you’re coming to like me. You shine with strength and power and impatience and the ability to get your own way. You survived the war in a way I never imagined anyone could survive it.” He looked straight at Harry, motionless except for his other hand toying with the bracelet. “Yes, I’d consider being courted by you good fortune.” He swallowed, as though the air to speak the next words would scorch his lungs. “And an honor.”
            Harry had no idea what to say. He didn’t want to be dishonest. He didn’t know if he should be honest, and say that he had never really considered the idea of courting anyone, and certainly not by the pure-blood customs that Draco valued so highly.
            He finally came forwards and laid his hand on the bracelet. Draco tightened his hold on it and narrowed his eyes a little, telling Harry the battle he would face if he intended to reclaim it.
            Harry only smiled and held Draco’s eyes for a moment. “I don’t know if I can say that it’s courtship yet,” he said. “But can we take it slowly and see if it happens?”
            Draco’s smile shone like an uncovered treasure, and he placed his hand over Harry’s. “I never thought it would happen otherwise.”
*
delia cerrano: Well, you got your wish!
Jester: Well, Harry might be prepared to accept that kind of compliment!
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There's a Pure-Blood Custom For That