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“Uncle Harry, mum told me a brilliant story! Have you heard it? It’s about a witch named Harriet. She thrashed a terrible Dark wizard!” Six-year-old Rose Granger-Weasley breathlessly accosted Harry the minute he came through the floo for brunch on Sunday morning.
Once he had a chance to process her words, Harry did a bit of a double-take.
“Did you say ‘Harry...et’?”
“Yeah! Her name kinda sounds like yours.” Rose seemed to think about the chances of that for a minute and then pronounced, “Cool, innit?”
“Yeah, I suppose it is,” Harry laughed, “I think I might have heard this one,” Harry slanted a gaze over to Hermione, who had just entered the drawing room and was looking rather guilty.
Rose grabbed Harry’s hand and led him toward the sofa so they could sit while she told him the story. Words were spilling out of her mouth almost faster than Harry could register them. “Not all stories are about girls, but this one was! She had a great big sword and a magic map and went to Hogwarts and made lots of friends. Rob and Jane especially. They went camping together.” Harry mouthed Rob and Jane? at Hermione who at that moment seemed to find something fascinating about the chair she was sitting on. There would be no help from that quarter, it seemed.
Rose went on merrily telling Harry the story of Harriet and her adventures, eventually ending with a flourish: “And then all her friends got married and lived happily ever after!”
Rose had been telling the story with gusto up until that moment, but then started to look a little sad. “Except Harriet.”
Harry didn’t really know what to say to that. His life wasn’t exactly a fairy tale, but this seemed a bit rich. “Do you think Harriet didn’t live happily ever after?”
“Well,” Rose thought about it, “she got to travel all over the world—like you do!” Harry nodded reassuringly. But he knew that wasn’t necessarily an indicator of happiness. Probably the opposite if he was being honest. Mostly he was restless. Trying to ‘find’ himself, to Hermione’s constant frustration.
“Travelling’s pretty fun, I guess,” Rose admitted, and then offered somewhat reluctantly, “Mum said not everybody has to get married.”
“And she’s right,” agreed Harry. “There are many ways to be happy, you know.” Harry was certainly happy he hadn’t married Ginny. He loved her unreservedly, no question. But as a sister. They never could have worked as a couple.
“I know, Uncle Harry,” said Rose, petulantly. “But why couldn’t Harriet marry Deacon?”
Harry’s musings on happiness came to an abrupt halt. “Deacon?”
“The sneaky boy! Harriet was always following him, remember? ’Cause he was up to something. But he saved her and Rob and Jane in the big dark house! He lied to his mum and dad!” Rose couldn’t think of anything more shocking than that. It had to prove that Deacon wasn’t all bad. And she said as much to Harry.
“Well—he was pretty mean to me—I mean Harriet—at Hogwarts.” Harry sputtered. Where was this even coming from?
“Uncle George says when boys are mean, it means they like me,” Rose said sagely.
Harry thought that was a pretty idiotic and immature way to show someone you liked them and was about to say as much when Rose added helpfully, “mum thinks boys are stupid.”
Hermione was fighting a grin. “I said sometimes, Rose.”
But Rose’s focus was completely on Uncle Harry. She wanted to know what he thought about this important insight. “Do you think Deacon secretly liked Harriet and that’s why he was so mean?”
Hermione looked just as interested in Harry’s response as Rose did. Harry was pretty sure he was being tested—that there was a right answer here somewhere and that he was unlikely to find it.
“Er—I think that he maybe had a lot of stress in his life, especially in sixth year that I—that Harriet didn’t always notice?”
The truth was, Harry still felt terribly about using Sectumsempra on Draco that year. He knew he should have seen how sick Draco was over his impossible task. The guilt still ate at him. But before that? In years one through five? Draco had been a right little shit. Idiotic and immature, certainly.
But shit or not, Draco had paid an awful lot of attention to Harry over the years. Almost as much as Harry had paid him in return. And Harry could admit now that at least some of the attention had been based on unacknowledged attraction, at least on his side.
He had realized it just the other day, surprisingly enough. Malfoy had shown up to join Harry and his friends at the pub on Friday, which had been unexpected—
Hermione.
This was a test.
She must have invited Malfoy to the pub. No wonder she looked so guilty! Was she trying to set them up? Because of a bedtime story?
He glared at her again, mouthing the pub? She had the grace to look a little sheepish, raising her eyebrows a bit and shrugging as if to say can you really blame me?
Bollocks.
Rose wasn’t finished with her story though. “And Harriet went back and saved Deacon from the fire too! Don’t you think she must have liked him?”
“You don’t need to like someone to save them from dying, Rose,” Harry protested, but he knew she wasn’t totally wrong. Some part of him had been interested in Malfoy even back in school. And maybe more of him was interested in Malfoy now.
He had been shocked at first to see Malfoy at the pub, and even more shocked to realize that Malfoy was looking quite fit. Not at all as pointy as he remembered him. It was the first time he’d seen him in a long while. He had been very reserved and polite; hadn’t said much at all, but had bought a round of drinks and sat quietly in the corner of the booth watching the rest of them—maybe watching Harry a bit more than the rest?—and Harry couldn’t help himself from watching right back, trying not to look too obvious about it. Malfoy had always commanded his full attention. Had Malfoy been watching Harry just as avidly?
Now that he was forced to think about it, he couldn’t dismiss the idea completely.
And Rose was still banging on about it too. “She rescued him! It was so romantic! Like in all the fairy tales!”
Harry couldn’t agree on that point. It had been terrifying and desperate and he had been exhausted and hungry and hadn’t had a proper bath in ages. Not at all romantic.
Who was he kidding anyway? This was just a child’s idea of how fairy tales should go. It wasn’t how things worked in the real world.
But...
Maybe he’ll be at pub night again next Friday.
This was getting ridiculous. Harry knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it now.
“There should have been a kissing scene! Don’t you think so, Uncle Harry?”
He was blessedly saved from having to answer that one by the fortunate appearance of one Ron—Rob? was that the best you could do Hermione?—Weasley, who poked his head in the drawing room and exclaimed, “Harry’s here? Why didn’t you tell me! Come on already—let’s eat!”
Malfoy was indeed at pub night again the following Friday, looking particularly fetching in dark blue robes. Harry took the opportunity to finally apologise for slicing him open on the bathroom floor, and offered to buy him a drink. Malfoy looked quite flustered by the apology—opened his mouth several times as if to speak, finally starting and stopping multiple times: “Er, that’s more than—I mean I stomped on your nose—I hardly think—thank you? What am I—that is, what could you—it was horrible, yeah, but I was horrible to you—and you still saved me—” He looked a bit like he wished he hadn’t said that last part, looking to the heavens for escape, “Salazar, Potter. Please let’s just get a drink and never speak of this again.”
Harry thought that was more than fair. He nodded. “Yeah, let’s do that. We should just start over.”
Malfoy was staring and nodding at him like he wasn’t quite sure where to go with this now, but he looked hesitantly pleased.
Deciding he might as well take the risk, Harry looked him in the eye a bit longer than strictly necessary and smiled cheekily, “I’m Harry. Do you come here often?”
Malfoy pinked up and widened his eyes but after a few moments of silence seemed to come to the same conclusion Harry had. He took a breath, closed his eyes for a beat, and when he opened them again it was with a distinctly flirty look.
“Harry, hmm? I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Draco.” And then, as if to drive the point home, he winked.
Oh boy, there was definitely some mutual attraction here.
Rose was a smart little girl. There should have been a kissing scene. He was going to spend the evening working to make that happen. And then maybe they’d get their happy ending after all.