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Advice	By : Chocho Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3387 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the characters, places or names. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Advice

One-Shot

Written by: chochowilliams

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the characters, places or names. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Summary: The Daily Prophet has announced that Harry Potter has become engaged to Ginny Weasley. Draco has some advice for the Savior.

Warning: post-Hogwarts, pre-epilogue, implied M/F, pre-slash, language, bashing, possible OOC

Pairings: implied Harry/Ginny, implied future Harry/Draco

Inserts: --

A/N: I don’t use a Beta so any mistakes are mine and mine alone. If you see any, feel free to drop me a line. Thank you and enjoy!

{oOo}

Mid-Afternoon - Bannum Alley - London, England

Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter had never been friends. They couldn’t even be considered acquaintances. That would imply the pair was on friendly terms. The adjective “friendly” had never been used to describe the relationship between the two. In fact, the only type of “relationship” Draco Malfoy--Pure-blood heir--and Harry Potter--Savior of the Wizarding World and Vanquisher of the Dark Lord--had was one of ire. Curses--magical and not--had been the foundation of said “relationship” and it continued to support it through their schooling.

It was safe to assume the two despised one another.

Or they used to…

Since that first meeting in Madame Malkin’s Robes for all Occasions, the rivals have made that inevitable transition into adulthood. They’d grown up and moved on with their lives. With the passing of childhood, their childish grudges were cast aside. Such bitterness was inconsequential in comparison to events each would face in the real world.

…Ron still sneered and referred to Draco as a git and a ferret--he still had some maturing to do--during those rare times their paths crossed. Hermione pretended Draco didn’t exist. Harry, on the other hand, offered his ex-rival a nod in greeting and then proceeded to ignore Ron’s exclamations that predictably followed the cordial greeting.

Draco returned sneer for sneer and curse for curse with the Weasel. He ignored the filthy little Mudblood’s existence just as smoothly as she did his--for which he was eternally grateful. As for Potter, he returned the nod with one of his own. There was no harm in being civil to someone who was civil to him.

That was why when the Daily Prophet announced in a special evening edition that Harry Potter had become engaged to his longtime girlfriend the Weaselette-

Draco very nearly regurgitated the lovely meal his future in-laws--I.e. their house-elves--had worked so hard to cook for him when he heard the news.

-Draco decided in that instant that he just had to seek out the “Savior” and personally share with his ex-rival some very important concerns that every wizard in their position should know before getting married and as ignorant as Potter seemed to be of the Wizarding World, it was a safe bet that Potter had no idea what he was getting himself into.

A quick Point Me spell soon had Draco standing outside a small café in Bannum Alley called Bean Sidhe (1).

The centuries old establishment was not easy to find--not even for a wizard. You had to go down an alley off the main thoroughfare in Bannum Alley between a tea shop that sold tea--loose and bagged--from all around the world and an empty storefront that at one time used to be an antique book shore. From there, you had to pick your way through several more alleyways that had a tendency to twist, turn, and dead-end suddenly until you found a bridal shop. Bean Sidhe was located off the alley between the bridal shop and the florist next door.

Bannum Alley, like its brethren, could be accessed through an empty storefront off an alley in the high-end section of Muggle London. Like its Muggle counterpart, Bannum Alley was frequented by Wizarding Britain’s well to do and affluent.

It was easy to spot Harry within the café. His ex-rival was sitting out on the terrace flipping through a catalogue of some sort while he slowly sipped tea out of a white porcelain teacup. A plate empty save for crumbs was whisked away by a grinning waitress. Harry barely spared the poor infatuated girl a glance.

Interesting.

Draco quickly brushed the incident aside as inconsequential. The man, after all, was engaged to be married. Like the good little Gryffindor that he was, someone like Potter would be faithful to the core to little Miss Weasley.

How very noble.

Draco strode into the café, ignored the stares and whispers that followed, and lowered himself into the empty seat opposite Harry with a dramatic flourish.

“Hello Malfoy,” Harry greeted without glancing up from what turned out to be the Lovegood’s magazine.

“Potter,” Draco returned and said no more. He signaled to the waitress and waited to be acknowledged by Harry who was doing a terrific job of pretending Draco wasn’t sitting there in front of him.

“What can I get for you sir?” the waitress asked in a breathy whisper moments later. She batted her eyelashes at Draco as if he would find her more attractive that way, which she was--in an anorexic model sort of way.

“Tea. Earl Grey with honey,” Draco said without once taking his eyes from Harry.

“Alright,” the waitress acknowledged the order with a nod and a bright smile.

“Thank you,” Draco said dismissively upon seeing her still standing there.

Disappointment leaking from the girl, the waitress turned and fled as if her ass was on fire.

“Typical Malfoy,” Harry said from behind the safety of the magazine.

“What? Because I choose not to acknowledge her interest in me? How is that any different than what you did?” he inquired in curiosity, turning back to Harry.

Lowering the top of the magazine, Harry peered at Draco. Those emerald beauties were clouded in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

It’s not modesty at all is it? He really doesn’t have a clue. Interesting. Very interesting. Draco tucked the information away for later. For the present, he waved his hand in dismissal.

At that moment, his tea arrived. It was a different waitress. Draco wondered what happened to the other one and then realized he could care less.

Once the waitress had left with assurances from both men that they were fine and needed nothing at present and Draco had taken a tentative sip of the tea, to which he deemed acceptable, he turned back to Harry. “So Potter.”

“Malfoy.”

Harry had gone back to that damnedable magazine. “What’s with The Quibbler?” He had to know what was so interesting about that piece of trash.

“I have stock in it,” was the unexpected answer.

Draco blinked. “You what?” Please let him have heard that wrong.

Harry closed the magazine that Luna was now running--her father having retired and was now trotting around the globe searching for nargles and other magical creatures that the Lovegoods insisted did exist--and laid it aside. “I. Have. Stock. In. It.”

“No need to be condescending Potter.”

Harry rolled his eyes. The temptation to point out the usage of such a big word--it had four syllables after all--was almost too great to ignore, but Harry managed to do just that. Besides, knowing Draco, he would probably twist it around to insult Harry.

“Why in bloody hell would you go and do something so asinine?”

Harry shrugged as he took a sip of his tea. “Why not? Luna and her father were the only ones who ever believed in me. It was the least I could do.”

Draco could see how that would be alluring, but how was that any excuse for voluntarily putting money in something that most people--sane ones that is--wouldn’t even use to line their bird cages?

“What exactly do you want Malfoy?” Harry asked. He set his cup down and leaned over the table towards his ex-school rival.

“To talk.”

Straightening, Harry cocked an eyebrow. “About?”

“A prenup.”

“A--what?”

There was the confusion again. “Pre--nup--tial,” Draco sounded out. At least he knew what to get Harry as a wedding present: wizarding encyclopedias. Maybe a Muggle set as well. This bloke was a complete and utter moron about anything that did not involve hexing who he perceived as an enemy into the next millennium. All brawn and no brain Potter was. “You know, a prenuptial agreement?”

Harry blinked.

Draco sighed. “You do know what that is, don’t you?”

Harry rolled his eyes and sat back. “I’m not an idiot.”

As that didn’t exactly answer the question, Draco said, “It’s an agreement made between a couple before marriage relating to the arrangement of financial matters and division of property in the event of their divorce.”

“It sounds as if you quoted that from a dictionary,” Harry was oh so kind to point out. It reminded him of Hermione--not that that was surprising. Draco had been the salutatorian right behind Hermione who’d been the valedictorian (2, 3).

A vein above Draco’s eye twitched.

“But what does that have to do with me?”

“Do you have one?”

“Why would I?”

“Because Potter,” Draco sighed. He seemed to do that a lot when it came to Harry Potter. “You have to be the single wealthiest bloke in all of Europe.”

“I highly doubt that,” Harry disagreed with a snort, “but I bet that hurt to admit.” He chuckled.

“You have no idea,” Draco muttered.

Harry laughed.

He has a nice laugh, Draco noted. “I’m being serious Harry,” Draco continued, not even noticing the slip.

Harry did and raised an eyebrow.

Draco leaned forward and tapped a finger against the slick surface of the table. He had a feeling that getting Harry to agree to get his fiancée to sign a prenup was going to be like pulling teeth without the Novocain and with only a pair of cheap tweezers. “As rich as you are, it would be foolish not to have a prenup made up before you get married.”

“And why would I do that?”

“In the off chance that you and the Weaselette divorce.”

With that, the air turned chilly. With an annoyed scowl on his face, Harry glared at Draco as he pushed the chair away from the table and stood up. “Not that it’s any of your business Malfoy, but I don’t plan on divorcing Ginny. I-”

“Plan to spend the rest of your life together,” Draco answered with another wave. “Yeah. Yeah. Blah. Blah. Whatever. That’s what everyone says, but just because you say that now doesn’t mean it’ll happen.”

Harry clenched his hands into fists.

“Look around you Potter,” Draco said sitting back and waving his hands at the witches and wizards strolling about. “Every single person you see here in Bannum Alley either has a prenup or regrets not making one.”

Harry slapped a hand down on the table, causing it to shake. Tea sloshed out of Draco’s cup and onto the table. “I don’t care what other people do. I am not them,” Harry hissed.

“Exactly!”

“Malfoy!”

Draco lifted himself out of the chair with just as much flourish as when he sat down. “Look Potter,” he began, “maybe you’ll be one of those rare couples that stay together, but what if, what if,” he stressed over Harry’s objections, “you don’t? Don’t you think it’s better to be safe than sorry?”

That at least seemed to get through the angry barrier that was surrounding Harry’s logic--his hands had unfurled and some of the annoyance had leaked away from his face--but Harry still didn’t look fully convinced.

Draco tried a different approach.

“Look, this is something we don’t discuss,” because it had been a blot and an embarrassment on the Malfoy name then and still was, “but my great aunt Cassiopeia from my father’s side was like you--like most of us.”

Draco returned to his seat and noticing that his tea had grown cold, reheated it with a wave of his wand.

“Young. Naïve. Foolishly believed she’d met The One--the love of her life.” There was a mocking lilt to his voice. “She believed that her marriage was going to last forever. To death do I part and all that.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand. “So, what was the point in a prenup? Nothing anybody told her would change her mind. She did not intend to leave her husband and that was final. Five months later, her husband, ‘the love of her life’, left to go to a board meeting and never returned. He filed for divorce the next day and ended up with three-fourths of my aunt’s inheritance.”

Harry swore, but as disconcerting as that story was, though, Harry was still not going to take Draco’s “kindly” advice and force Ginny into signing a prenuptial. He had no intention of ever leaving Ginny or doing anything that would make Ginny leave him. He shook his head

“I have one,” Draco offered.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “You? You’re engaged?”

Draco nodded. “To Astoria Greengrass. She went to Hogwarts with us.”

Harry frowned. The name didn’t sound familiar.

“She’s not as well-off as the Malfoys but she stands to inherit quite a bit, but that wouldn’t stop her from taking me for everything I have if we were to divorce.”

Shaking his head, Harry retook his seat. “Yeah, but Ginny wouldn’t-”

“How do you know she wouldn’t?” It hadn’t escaped Draco’s notice that Harry had stopped arguing that he and the She-Weasel would be together forever. He was grateful for that. Nobody could see the future. Nobody knew what the future held. Ten years, twenty, thirty. The years change people. You weren’t the same person at thirty you were at twenty.

“Because I know her,” Harry shot back.

Draco very highly doubted that. Nobody knew anybody that well. Otherwise, they would have realized that the “nice” man next door was actually the serial rapist, B2K. Nevertheless, he held up his hands in surrender. “Alright! Say you’re right-”

Harry was looking smug now.

“-then you wouldn’t have need for it, would you? It’ll stayed locked in your lawyer’s office collecting dust. Right?”

Reluctantly, Harry agreed.

“Like I said, Potter,” Draco said, standing back up, “it’s better to be safe than sorry. If you really do stay together, then you can write me an ‘I Told You So’ in your will.” He stepped around his chair and pushed it in. “Take it or leave it Potter. It’s just a little friendly advice.” He took some coins out of his pocket and tossed them on the table. “For the tea,” he explained. With a nod to Harry, Draco left the café.

Troubled, Harry watched Draco leave. It was then he noticed that Draco walked with a limp. It was barely noticeable but it was there nonetheless.

He shook his head.

This was ridiculous.

“Refill?”

Harry shook his head at the waitress. It was the replacement waitress again. “Just the check please.”

“Right away.”

Harry dragged his fingers through his hair.

Better to be safe than sorry.

He understood what Draco was trying to say. Really he did. It was just that he could not picture things between him and Ginny turning so sour that she would take him to the cleaners.

Scrubbing his hands over his face in agitation, Harry took the check from the waitress when she returned with it. As she cleared off the dishes, he took out enough coins to pay it and leave the girl a sizeable tip.

“Thank you. Have a nice day,” called the staff as he was leaving.

This was nice, Harry commented as he strolled through Bannum. This was why he had taken to coming here instead of Diagon. He had more privacy. He wasn’t bombarded and harassed. People smiled, nodded, and went on their way. Here, he was what he’d always wanted to be: Harry. Just Harry.

There was even a nice little park and that was where Harry went now. He had a lot of thinking to do.

{oOo}

A Week Later - Malfoy Manor

Draco was just sitting down to lunch of cucumber sandwiches when one of the house-elves arrived with a letter for him. He recognized the chicken scratch handwriting on the front and the seal stamped into the red wax on the back. It was from Harry. He broke open the seal and unfolded the parchment.

Malfoy-

Though I do not intend to leave Ginny or do anything that would cause her to leave me, I have taken your advice to heart and have come to realize that what you said does make some semblance of sense. Therefore, I have decided to have a prenuptial agreement drawn up. When I told Ginny, Hermione and the Weasleys of my intentions, they were understandably upset and confused-

Draco rolled his eyes. Of course not. There goes their cash cow.

-but I will not back down-

Draco smirked.

-especially after I spoke with others in Bannum and heard stories similar to your aunt’s.

If you could offer your services once more and help me with the prenup, I would be eternally grateful.

Harry

Draco sat back and chuckled. It appeared as if Harry Potter was finally beginning to understand how the Wizarding World worked.

He snapped his fingers.

A different house-elf appeared. “Floo Mr. Hedgerow and inform him that I may have found a new client for him.”

The house-elf bowed before vanishing with a pop.

His attorney, Mr. Edward Hedgerow was the best there was. He would make sure that if the Potters’ marriage did fail, God willing, Ginny would be tossed out onto the street with only the clothes on her back--if she were lucky.

Step one. Complete.

{o The End o}

(1) Bean Sidhe (ban shee) - alternative spelling for a banshee

(2) Salutatorian (sa·lu·ta·to·ri·an) - in the United States, a student in a graduating class who is second highest in academic ranking and is usually required to give a salutatory at the graduation ceremony

(3) Valedictorian (val·e·dic·to·ri·an) - a student in a graduating class who is highest in academic ranking and is usually required to give a valedictory address at the graduation ceremony

A/N: Well, that turned out differently than I planned. Hope you enjoyed it. I had fun writing it.
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