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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.

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A New Way
            “I’m fully recovered,” said Harry, and when Draco looked at him doubtfully, Harry waved the piece of paper he had asked the Healers to give him. It had a full statement of what had been healed and said he was all right now, and three Healers had signed it, including the two who had tended Harry most of the time when he was suffering from his worst wounds. “I said you wouldn’t believe me, and they signed this for me.”
            For a moment, Draco’s eyes widened, and then his lip quivered, and he reached out and accepted the piece of paper and looked at it gravely. They were standing in the middle of the largest sitting room, furnished in dusky red and gold—Harry thought one of the Malfoy ancestors must have been a Gryffindor—and Harry had just come through the Floo. He could hear Scorpius laughing somewhere down a corridor.
            “All right,” Draco said, and he looked up with a faint smile. “If you bring me a testimony like this, I suppose I have to accept it.”
            “Damn right,” said Harry, and leaned forwards to kiss him.
            Draco accepted the kiss, but the next moment, he put his hands on Harry’s shoulders and looked at him searchingly. “You understand why I wanted you to take care of yourself?”
            “Yes,” said Harry, and sighed when Draco continued to look at him. “And I do want to find a different way. Seeing you worried isn’t—fun for me. And I don’t think anything else could have made George change his mind.”
            Draco narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like a reason for you to want it to happen.”
            Harry shook his head. “The only thing I could think of was that I might have died in that battle, and never lived to hear George apologize.”
            Draco relaxed. “I feel bad using the instincts that you have against you,” he murmured. “But it seems like it’s the only way to make you listen.”
            “You weren’t using them against me.” Harry pressed the palm of his hand flat on Draco’s shoulder for a moment, and then stepped back and shook his head. “I was refusing to listen to common sense, which I could have listened to a long time since if I was serious. Now. Can I see Scorpius?”
            Draco’s face was nothing but his brilliant smile now, warmth in his eyes helping to add to the light. “Yes. He’s been asking after you.” He opened the door, and Scorpius, Golden tucked in one hand and a book under the other arm, came trotting in. He headed for Harry as though he’d been an arrow fired by a master archer, and held out the book.
            “This talks about birds,” he said. “But there’s no bird in there like Golden. Not even a magical bird. What bird did you make him to be like?”
            Harry smiled and crouched down in front of Scorpius, delighted that such a simple movement didn’t cause him pain now, the way it had a few days ago. “We didn’t have a specific bird in mind, much,” he said, turning the pages. “We let the magic find the way and tell us what it wanted to be like. But I think the one we most wanted him to be like is here.”
            He’d found the page with a canary on it. Scorpius leaned across and studied the yellow feathers and the way that the canary in the picture tilted its head back to sing and then snapped its back closed and looked around itself again.
            “He doesn’t look much like Golden,” Scorpius said doubtfully.
            “He’s not much like him,” Harry agreed, and pulled a little on Scorpius’s hair when he eyed Harry doubtfully. “But like I said, the magic was the thing picking the bird’s form. We didn’t compel it. We just asked it to choose a certain form, and it chose it.”
            “I never heard of such a method of making toys,” said Draco neutrally from behind him.
            Harry sniffed at him. “That’s because you’ve never worked with crafts and pranks the way George has. He’s the genius behind the whole project. That’s why I couldn’t fix Golden when he broke like that,” he explained, turning back to smile at Scorpius. “I didn’t know enough about the magic. George was the one who did.”
            “I hope Golden doesn’t break again,” said Scorpius, and clutched the bird close. “That man doesn’t like me.”
            “He’ll be better now,” Harry said vaguely. He knew that George wouldn’t want to see Scorpius, but at least he shouldn’t object to teaching Harry the spells now. “But I know that you don’t want to see him. You don’t have to.”
            Scorpius considered that, then nodded seriously. “Can I make a canary like that someday?” he asked, pointing to the picture.
            “You have to wait until you get a wand,” Draco intervened. Perhaps he thought Harry had gone far enough promising his son feats of magic that might never be his.
            “I know,” said Scorpius, and gave his father the sort of infinitely patient look that made Harry have to bite his hand. “But after that? Can I do that?”
            “Maybe you can,” said Harry. “It’s complicated and takes a long time to learn, but maybe. Or you can ask your father if you can have a canary so you can take care of it, too, and learn about birds from it.”
            Draco raised an eyebrow. Scorpius smiled and said, “That’s a good idea, Harry,” then turned and looked at his father instinctively. Apparently he saw no need to ask when Harry had done the asking for him.
            Draco shook his head and sighed, but he didn’t look displeased, as such. “Maybe you can have one, Scorpius,” he said. “But it’s not a decision to be taken lightly. A pet isn’t like Golden. You can’t carry it around all the time and clutch it to your side. Canaries are delicate, and they need time and space to fly.”
            “I want one,” said Scorpius, and gave Draco a smile that Harry thought would have melted him long since. Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t have any children of his own. “Please, Daddy.”
            “I still need to think about it,” Draco said. “And so do you. You can set Golden on the tables beside you, and on any shelf, and sleep with him under your pillow. You can’t do that with a canary. Their wings would break and they would die.”
            Scorpius’s eyes widened in distress. “I don’t want that to happen, Daddy!”
            “I know you don’t.” Draco’s voice was gentle and calm again. “Which is why you need to think about it. Go away and think about it, and then come back to me when you have.”
            Scorpius trotted out of the room with his head hanging. Harry shook his head and clucked his tongue. “My, my. You’re being strict with everyone this week.”
            He’d meant it as teasing, but Draco turned towards him with stern lines on his face. “I’m only doing what I need to do to get people to think about their actions.” He reached out and put his hand over Harry’s heart, and waited there, as if he wanted to hear the pounding to make sure it beat before he continued. “And I hope that you won’t undermine me with Scorpius. He needs to understand the ramifications of his actions.”
            “Of course,” Harry murmured. He made no effort to move away from the touch on his chest, sure Draco had something else he wanted to say.
            Draco stepped closer, without moving his hand, only bending his arm. “This is a question I would have asked before,” he said. “But I didn’t want you to think that I was asking it only to keep you.”
            Harry blinked. “Well, all right. Ask the question.”
            “I’m asking you if you’ll accept—a gift like the one you accidentally gave me,” Draco said, and Harry had the impression that he’d sheered away before speaking the words that were actually in his head. “Only this one won’t be accidental.”
            Harry sucked in his breath. Draco’s hand on his chest trembled, but Draco didn’t look away. He was brave enough to face the rejection, if it was going to be rejection, head-on, Harry thought, a little awed.
            He raised his hand and curled his fingers around Draco’s wrist. Draco’s head promptly drooped.
            “I want you to explain all the ramifications of accepting the gift to me before I do,” Harry said firmly. “It’s not that I’m unwilling, but I am going to learn what they are.”
            Draco still stood there for a moment as though he didn’t believe what Harry was saying. Then he lifted his head and murmured, “It’s an announcement of intent to marry. More serious than the courting and betrothal gifts we’ve got each other so far. More serious than something like the ring or the bracelet.” He gained more confidence as he went on, and Harry had to smile. He loved to see the flash of what was like white fire in Draco’s eyes, his love for these customs and how much they meant to him.
            “It means that you’re committed to me, wholly and deeply.” Draco caught Harry’s eye, and Harry felt his smile fade in response. This was too serious, indeed, to be treated like a joke, he understood now. “That you won’t ever think of leaving me.”
            “And what about you?” Harry’s voice was as sharp as an unsheathed blade, and he couldn’t help that. “I won’t agree to a commitment that’s not total and mutual.”
            Draco stared at him with his mouth a little open. Harry would have stepped away if this was back at the beginning of their friendship. As it was, he narrowed his eyes and then said, “I know that you’re not stupid enough to think I’d agree to a one-sided commitment. So explain why you’re gaping at me like this.”
            “I didn’t think you were stupid enough,” Draco snapped, his voice gaining force as it rose, “to think that I would ever want to look anywhere else.”
            Harry relaxed slowly. “I’m sorry. I just don’t enough about these customs to know whether some like that exist.”
            Draco shook his head. “Some exist, because the customs are supposed to cover all possible situations that two people might find themselves in. That includes marriages where one person isn’t interested in taking lovers and the other one is.”
            “Fine,” said Harry. “See? My instinct for whether one could exist was right. Just not the suspicion that you might want to use one.” He caught Draco’s eye and smiled at him.
            Draco relaxed in turn. “No. This would be commitment. But it is incredibly binding. You could only break free of it if your heart was no longer mine. If you fell out of love with me. Anything short of that, like just being displeased with me and wanting to move out of the Manor for a while—that wouldn’t be allowed.”
            “So the Manor is my home?” Harry asked. “Even if all the Risen Cobras have been caught now and I could go back home?”
            “Yes,” said Draco. “The gift—part of the gift is my house.”
            Harry blinked. “Your house.”
            “Normally, it would include attunement to the wards, but you don’t seem to need help there.” Draco’s voice was dry. “But it does include keys to the all the doors and drawers in the house, the names of all the portraits and the doors that are locked with words instead of wards, the location of the secret passages, permission to enter my room or Scorpius’s at any time of the day or night—”
            “All right,” Harry interrupted. “As long as it’s a symbol. I was picturing myself trying to carry the Manor, and I don’t have shoulders that broad, no matter what my friends think.”
            “I’ve never thought you do.”
            They were back to that again. Harry nodded slowly. “All right. I can’t promise that I’ll always manage to curb the impulse to leap in front of a spell when someone flings it at you, or Scorpius, or Ron, or Hermione, or Rose, or George, or—”
            “Things might be easier if you loved less people,” Draco interrupted, and his voice was jagged in a different way, which meant they at least weren’t talking about matters of life and death. Love and jealousy, maybe.
            “Things would never be easier because of that,” Harry contradicted him firmly. “Certainly not for me.”
            Draco regarded him with glimmering eyes for a moment, and then nodded slowly. “All right. But I want to know if you can make the same commitment to me, and accept the gift.”
            Harry took Draco’s hand, finally, off his chest. Draco closed his eyes, but opened them again when Harry kissed his fingers, one by one, until he came to the knuckle of the last, and inclined his head over them.
            “Yes,” Harry said, and kissed Draco on the lips. “I can.”
*
            Draco brought the gift to breakfast two days later, when Scorpius was telling Harry earnestly that he thought he wouldn’t get a real canary because Golden would be jealous. Harry, listening, agreed that was a good point, and one he hadn’t thought of before.
            “And Daddy is right that it’s a big responsibility,” Scorpius said, sounding out the word not as if he was unsure how to pronounce it but as if he wanted to make sure that he understood all the implications. “So I can have Golden. He’s a small one.” And he picked up the bird and hugged it to him with one hand.
            Harry watched him with a fond smile. Scorpius looked up at him and asked, “Are you going to stay with us, Harry?”
            Harry breathed out slowly. “I want to,” he said. “I promised your dad I would. But if you don’t want me here, I’ll go.” Scorpius might not be the most important factor in the decision as to whether Harry would accept Draco’s courting gift, but he was at least a highly important one.
            Scorpius gave him a shocked look. “If I don’t want people here, I start wailing. None of them can stand that.”
            “Wailing?” Harry repeated, a little stumped.
            Scorpius obligingly opened his mouth and produced a sound that reminded Harry of a banshee, although thank Merlin, he had never had to actually listen to one for long. He nodded and said hastily, “I understand!”
            Scorpius finished his wail first, and looked smug. “That makes them run away,” he told Harry, and picked up his fork again. “If I don’t want them here, I just do that. I want you here, so I didn’t do that.”
            Harry nodded, and finally became aware that Draco had left to go use the loo a strangely long time ago. Ron had been confident they’d captured the remaining Risen Cobras this time, but what if—
            Then Draco came through the door of the dining room carrying a large silk pillow balanced on his hands. There was a white rose in the middle of it.
            At least, Harry mistook it for a white rose at first glance. When he looked more closely, he found that it was made of white silk, folded around a stem that looked like real silver. He blinked. He supposed white and silver were symbolic colors, but what they could mean, other than purity, he didn’t know.
            Scorpius apparently wasn’t shocked, because he had turned around and was watching closely. Harry wondered if Draco had told him about this beforehand, although he thought Scorpius would have had trouble keeping it secret.
            Draco bowed his head and held the silk pillow out in front of Harry, so close that Harry could feel the soft fabric brushing against his nose. “I want you to take this rose from me,” he whispered. “Accept it, if you love me and can commit to me alone.”
            Only Harry’s knowledge of the fact that that didn’t mean giving up his friends and other precious people held his mouth shut for the moment of consideration he needed. Draco’s hands didn’t tremble. He seemed to have grasped this hesitation. Still he held the pillow out, offering it, and Harry nodded and reached to accept the rose with fingers that didn’t shake.
            “I accept what you offer me,” he whispered. “Everything.” Draco hadn’t told him the ritual words to say, but ones like that surely ought to be good enough.
            The rose burst into bloom, transfigured so suddenly that Harry staggered and almost dropped it. But Draco was holding his hand, pushing it into the rose’s stem. Harry gasped aloud as the white cloud of the bloom soared above his head, growing stronger and stronger, taller and taller, and stared up at it when it had almost reached the ceiling.
            Then it shrank down again to more minor proportions, but still a real flower, in Harry’s hand. He looked in dazed wonder at Draco, who was smiling at him with a special meaning that dragged a gentle laugh from Harry.
            “The size of the rose represented the size of your commitment,” Draco explained, sounding as though he was speaking with a grave, subdued delight. “And it wouldn’t have become real at all if you didn’t mean it.”
            He leaned across and kissed Harry, gently. Scorpius cheered.
            Harry felt something like the same delight rising in him as he kissed back.
*
delia cerrano: It’s a mixture of both. Stepping outside the circle of his friends did allow him to see them all, and himself, more objectively.
lady_chris: Thank you!
staar: Thanks! They did catch them all.
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There's a Pure-Blood Custom For That