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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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Silver Roses
            Harry stirred lazily and flung out a hand so it should land on Draco’s chest. He had got back late last night after the ritual with George, but he had found Draco waiting up for him.
            “It did what it needed to do?” That was the only question Draco asked, looking into Harry’s eyes, and Harry had nodded and said, “Yes.” He knew it was the only question that Draco would ever ask, the only one that Harry need answer. Draco didn’t approve of the ritual, but that was different from not understanding the need.
            But Harry’s hand landed on open sheets, and Harry rolled over and stared at the empty bed in confusion. Draco hadn’t talked about needing to get up early this morning, for business or a custom or any other reason.
            Maybe Scorpius had a bad night and he went and comforted him, Harry thought, a little dazed, and decided that he might as well get up himself. A shower would do him good. He hadn’t been tainted by the magic he’d used to conduct the necromantic ritual for George, or at least he didn’t believe so, but he did feel as if he had walked through thick smoke. The grease would cling to his hair and skin until he washed it off.
            He stood under the warm water, tilting his head back until he felt as if he had scrubbed even the corners of his eyes. Then he sighed and turned his head so the water could drum down on the tight muscles of his back. It was long minutes before he turned the water off and reached for a towel.
            The instant he stepped out of the bathtub, he leaped and yelped. Draco was down on one knee in the middle of the bathroom, utterly ignoring the rough mat beneath him, his eyes so steady and wide and trustful as they met Harry’s that the next emotion Harry felt after surprise was wonder.
            In one hand was a silver rose. Harry let his eyes travel slowly from the shimmering haze of its petals, which he knew were real, living, but didn’t look it, to Draco’s face.
            Draco looked utterly solemn, and Harry knew what that meant. There was some other pure-blood custom going on here, one he hadn’t heard of. He only hoped that he wouldn’t accidentally do something wrong and mess up the sense of ritual that Draco was hoping for.
            He nodded and waited. Draco had to know that Harry wouldn’t know the right words, so probably this custom didn’t involve words. As far as actions went, Harry would rather stand and drip for an hour than move too hastily.
            Draco, sure enough, stood up a second later. He’d probably just waited for Harry to acknowledge his presence and the rose. He paced up to Harry and spent a moment looking him over, his eyes examining every point, until Harry’s face was redder than it had been when they’d had actual sex. It felt as if Draco was evaluating and nodding his consent to Harry’s soul as well as his body.
            Then Draco reached out and began tracing the petals of the rose he held over the drops that were sliding down Harry’s chest.
            Harry watched the petals as though he was incapable of looking away. The odd thing was, the whole time, he knew he could look away. He could feel the tension thrumming in the muscles of his neck, how hard it was not to break this off and change the mood with a laugh, a joke, something that would ease the intensity from Draco’s eyes and let them act normally together.
            But he couldn’t bring himself to. He knew this was important; that it was important to Draco was enough to keep him still, no matter how his skin prickled from the gaze, no matter how embarrassed he was.
            Draco ran the rose in circling, swirling patterns until he reached the edge of the towel. Then he turned the rose to the side, and thorns Harry hadn’t known were there, because they hadn’t touched him, cut through the cloth. Harry blinked as the halves of the towel fell to the bathroom floor, and Draco once again knelt in front of him to complete the patterns of the rose traced towards his feet.
            By the time he finished, and Harry had felt the touch of the petals between his toes, Harry was hotter than he’d ever been in his life. He couldn’t hide how hard he was, either, but at least Draco didn’t seem inclined to stare at him and make his skin burst into flames—which was the only way that he could properly express any higher degree of embarrassment, Harry thought. Draco only stood up with a little nod and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder.
            Harry thought he might finally say something, but instead, he turned Harry gently around so he faced the bathtub, and then started trailing the petals of the rose in the other direction, down his back.
            Harry panted. He didn’t know when he had started that sound or how he could stop it, only that it was there now and it went on and on. When he shut his eyes, that actually enhanced the silky, fleeting touch of the rose, and he decided that he might as well open them again.
            The tracery of the rose on his back seemed to take longer, although Harry thought it should either take the same amount of time or a shorter one, because Draco didn’t have as many different features to mark this time. Frankly, Harry was surprised that he had that much room left in his own brain for rational thought. His head ached and pounded, and his throat was dry. He would need a drink soon, from the bloody panting.
            “There,” Draco breathed at last into his ear, and kissed his earlobe. Harry moaned; his skin was so sensitive that it stung. Draco paused, and then reached up and drew the earlobe between his fingers, provoking another gasp. “Is that an answer to my question?”
            “What question?” Harry was sorry the instant he said it, because now he was sure that he’d ruined the ritual. Draco had probably wanted him to just go along with things and say yes or no.
            But Harry wasn’t capable of doing that when he didn’t know what the question was. He loved Draco, he even appreciated some of these pure-blood customs, but he still wouldn’t use them to sign his life away without knowing what he was doing.
            “Whether you’ll marry me soon,” Draco said, and kissed his shoulder. Harry jumped and shivered all over, because a kiss like that on skin that had been touched by the rose was a shock right now. “I don’t want to wait.”
            Harry turned around and considered Draco carefully for a moment. Draco nodded, as though he was hearing the thoughts in Harry’s head and agreeing with them, but he didn’t say anything.
            He’s waiting for me, Harry realized. He’s waiting for me to make the decision.
            Surely it shouldn’t be a hard decision. Harry had made the decision to return the commitment that Draco had already given him, or the one that he had given Draco in an illusory manner before this, not realizing what he was doing. Getting married now wasn’t any different from doing it a year down the road.
            But it did feel as though he was stepping over a cliff without a broom, Harry thought. Who knew how things would change? What kinds of things he would have to do as a Malfoy spouse that he’d never had to do before?
            Then he looked into Draco’s patient, waiting eyes, and he relaxed. Draco knew the man he wanted to bond with. He wouldn’t expect Harry to act like a perfect, proper, pompous, pure-blood spouse all the time. He knew full well that if Harry didn’t understand the good reasons behind a custom, he would simply refuse to honor it, and that meant that Draco wouldn’t try to enforce silly beliefs on Harry.
            Harry could trust Draco with his heart and his body. And he could also trust Draco to know him, to honor his own wishes the way that Harry was trying to honor the pure-blood customs Draco liked when he thought he could do so.
            He nodded and said, “As long as it’s not today, then yes.”
            Draco’s eyes burned with a clear, surging flame. He took Harry’s hand and touched it with the silver rose again, tracing it and turning it in circles that made it hard to think before he whispered, “Why not today?’
            “You’re doing that on purpose,” Harry said, when he got his breath back.
            Draco gave him a cat-like smile Harry had never seen before, and ran the rose up Harry’s finger again, the petals curling around the knuckles and testing Harry’s resolve. Harry shored it up, though. He would not throw Draco against the bathroom wall and have his way with him right then. For one thing, that would probably crush the rose, and that would ruin the mood entirely.
            “Yes,” said Draco. “But I want to know the answer, too.”
            “Because I am not getting married naked,” said Harry. “And without my friends there, and without whatever ridiculous little pure-blood things you want to have as part of the bonding—why are you smiling?”
            “Because you can call them that, and yet mean such affection,” Draco whispered, and replaced the petals of the rose with his mouth.
            Another reason they weren’t getting married that day, Harry reflected later, was that they wouldn’t have had time after the near-hour that they spent on the bathroom floor making each other pant.
*
            “Golden is going to fly in front of you with the rose in his beak.”
            “Not a rose,” said Draco, who was holding up a robe and running his hands over it as if the white cloth would tell him itself why it apparently wasn’t fit to be Harry’s bonding robe. Harry had assumed that Draco would take care of the selection of the robes by himself, because he was the one who would know the appropriate materials and colors for the pure-blood customs, and anyway, Harry didn’t much care what he wore.
            But no, they were all in a wing of the Manor that looked as if it hadn’t been used in even longer than the warded rooms where the Portkey ring had brought Harry, and Draco had boxes and trunks and huge things Harry had thought were books until he opened them piled around him, holding up bolts of cloth and shimmering translucent fabrics and things that Harry had thought were spools of light.
            Harry had mostly made it clear that he wasn’t wearing one of the spools, or that he was only wearing it in conjunction with something else. Draco had agreed to that so easily that Harry had wondered why he wanted to examine the trunks that had the spools in the first place.
            Now, watching the way that Draco held up the apparently unacceptable robe and turned it back and forth, Harry thought he knew, and turned away so he wouldn’t snort up uncontrollable laughter. Draco had forgotten what trunks held which fabrics.
            “Why not a rose, Daddy?” Scorpius touched the small perch he was carrying, which he had said Golden needed. He had managed to arrange the little bird’s feet so they gripped the wood, and Harry honestly wasn’t sure if he had managed to manipulate them in a way that George had infused the bird with and Harry hadn’t discovered before this, or if it was due to accidental magic. Harry had carved the perch for him with a spell, though. “Why not a rose? It would be perfect.”
            Draco put down the white robe and glanced at Harry. His eyes were serious, thoughtful, but so warm that Harry had to smile. He reached out and tugged on a lock of Draco’s hair. “Does it have something to do with the silver rose you used to announce your intentions?” he asked softly.
            “Yes,” said Draco. “There will be roses at the bonding, but they have to be silver ones, and they have to be on us, not on birds.” He turned and smiled at Scorpius, and Harry watched with delight the transformation his face usually went through when he looked at his son. He thought now that had been his first sign that Draco had really changed, the way he loved Scorpius. “It’s tradition.”
            “Why is it tradition, though?” Scorpius put down Golden’s perch, something he hadn’t done often since Harry had made it for him, and glared a little into his father’s face. “You have to tell me!”
            “Not if you’re not polite,” Draco said calmly, and turned back to the next robe in the next trunk, which was shadow-grey. Harry eyed it skeptically. He thought Draco would look wonderful in it, but he wouldn’t.
            Harry had asked about Draco’s bonding robes, and had been told they were traditional, too, and long since picked out. Harry had to be content with that.
            “Fine,” said Scorpius, when his appealing looks from his father to Harry had produced no result on either end. Harry didn’t want to undermine Draco’s authority, but even more than that, he didn’t know the significance of the silver roses at all. “Please. Tell me why it’s tradition.” ‘
            Draco nodded, calmly and seriously, and said, “Because roses represent the perfect flower. They have thorns to defend themselves, but they’re soft to the touch at the same time. Wizards can breed them in all sorts of ways, in all sorts of colors. They vary, but they remain the same flower at the core, recognizable. They’re the flowers that are the most like humans because of all the different ways they can change.”
            His eyes found Harry’s, and Harry knew who this little lecture was really for. Draco hadn’t tried to soften the words for Scorpius’s understanding, but he often didn’t, expecting his son to figure things out. Harry was the one who stared straight back into Draco’s eyes and asked, “But why silver, then? That doesn’t explain that.”
            “No, it doesn’t,” said Draco, calmly enough, and reached out one hand to Harry and one to Scorpius. “What makes silver so special is that it’s a symbol of—”
            “Purity!” said Scorpius, so unexpectedly that Harry jumped in spite of himself. “I remember you telling me that from some of the stories that I learned when I was a kid!” He beamed at Harry and Draco in turn, and Harry bit his lip and valiantly refrained from laughing. It was a good restraint, because Scorpius was babbling on. “And silver’s special, because it’s connected to the moon, and it rings when you drop it in a way that no other metal does, and—” He stopped abruptly and shook his head. “I don’t remember the rest, Daddy. I’m sorry.”
            “It’s all right,” Draco said, and let go of Scorpius’s hand to ruffle his hair. “The rose is silver because it’s a pure color, yes, and a symbol of the moon that has enormous magical power, and because no natural rose is silver. It’s a rose that humans bred.” He turned and held Harry’s eyes alone this time. “It’s a sign of great change, both in the moon and in the world. And it’s the sort of symbol that the pure-blood customs settled on long ago, and that I want to match with your bonding robe, Harry.”
            Harry blinked, hard. “No wonder you’re searching so hard for it,” he said at last. “But I don’t know if I should actually wear silver. I don’t know if it would look good on me.”
            “You always look good, Harry,” said Scorpius loyally.
            “Not silver itself,” said Draco, and kissed Harry gently on the cheek. “Silver is simply a symbol of the things that I want in our bonding, and it doesn’t need to be on the robe. The robe only needs to show forth the inner purity and grace that you have, and be a symbol of the great change you’re making in your life.”
            “Wow, only?” Harry asked mildly, and ducked when Draco swatted him on the shoulder.
            But it took just a few more minutes of searching through the trunks while Harry entertained Scorpius for Draco to find what he wanted. He turned and stood up, shaking out the robe. “What do you think, Harry?”
            Harry wanted to retort that what he thought didn’t matter, because of course Draco would choose what he wanted and Harry had no say, but then his breath caught in his throat.
            The robe was pale green, the color of new leaves, and it did have silver on it after all—silver cuffs and hems. Harry had thought such a thing would look gaudy when he tried to imagine it, but this only looked fresh and clean. And even if it was Slytherin colors…
            “I like it,” he said.
            “Yes, I rather thought you might,” said Draco, and laid the robe carefully over the top of the nearest trunk, after he’d cast a spell that freed the trunk from dust. “So we’ll start sending invitations out tomorrow.”
*
BAFan: Thank you!
staar: Fred would like to hear you say that. ;)
Jester: No. The Cobras are well and truly contained and defeated.
ChaosLady: So is Harry.
SP777: The story will have one more chapter after this one. I thought this one would be the last chapter, but it was going to be too short to contain everything.
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There's a Pure-Blood Custom For That