Koichi Lee

It's late, and I'm throwing this up and likely heading to bed. Have some tissues ready. #Malfoid --------- "The Importance of Naming Girls." By: @EthosHeretica --------- The biscuits had gone soft around the edges, though Harry didn’t mind. Lying on his side with his head propped on one hand, he was watching Draconia pick the chocolate off a digestive with the careful precision of someone who had been raised never to make a mess even when no one was watching. The window was cracked an inch; somewhere out in the Burrow’s orchard an owl was hunting, and the sound of its wings carried on the warm night air. Neither of them had managed more than an hour’s sleep since they came upstairs. “They used to measure my cupboard,” Harry said, more to the ceiling than to her. “With a tape. Once a year, on my birthday. Dudley’d stand there with his arms folded while Aunt Petunia wrote the numbers down in a little book. Said it was so they’d know when I needed a bigger one, though I never did get a bigger one.” Draconia made a soft, unimpressed sound and flicked a crumb off the sheet. “How old were you when they started that?” “Six. Maybe seven. I thought it was normal until I got to Hogwarts and Ron told me most people didn’t keep their children in cupboards at all, let alone measure them.” Harry scrubbed a hand through the hair on the back of his head. “Took a bit of getting used to, the idea that beds were supposed to have space on all four sides.” She kept her own council for half a moment, turning the half-eaten biscuit over in her fingers as if she were inspecting it for flaws. The candle on the nightstand had burned low; the light caught the sharp line of her cheekbone and the faint, pale scar that ran along her collarbone. “My family kept records too,” she took a bite of the biscuit, chewing for a moment before she spoke around the crumbs. “Not cupboards, of course, but bloodlines, names and the sort. Father had the whole thing planned before I was even born. A big, strong, strapping son with an equally noble name. Something that would look right on the family tree.” She glanced sideways at him, one pale brow lifting. “He wanted to call me Draco.” Harry blinked, though he wasn’t sure why he should be surprised considering the Black naming conventions. “Draco. As in—” “As in me, yes.” Her mouth twitched. “According to Mother, he spent nearly a fortnight after I was born refusing to call me naught but that. Just Draco. She’d correct him every time and he’d look at her as though she’d suggested naming me after the gardener.” “He actually said it out loud?” Harry’s voice cracked on a laugh he didn’t quite manage to swallow. “To the midwife? To *you*?” “I was a week old, and despite my crying, hadn’t a say in matters yet. Mostly I had a rather unfortunate nose and a habit of screaming whenever anyone tried to put me in pink.” Draconia’s tone was dry, but something softer moved behind it. “Father was adamant with traditional naming conventions. He put forward that The Blacks had managed Bellatrix and Andromeda; the Malfoys could manage a Draco regardless of the plumbing.” Harry shifted against the pillows, still watching her. “And your mum just… let that go on for two weeks?” “She let it go on until he said it in front of the midwife as soon as I was out,” Draconia clarified as if the distinction was integral. “That was his mistake. Mother informed him, in the voice she usually reserved for house-elves who’d misplaced the good silver, that she was not raising a daughter under a boy’s name simply because Lucius Malfoy had decided tradition mattered more than basic sense.” She broke the remaining biscuit clean in half and held the larger piece out without looking. Harry took it. “She told him if he was so determined, he could name the next one Draco. Assuming there *was* a next one.” Outside, another owl call as the candle guttered. Harry settled back, the half-biscuit forgotten in his hand, and waited for the rest. Harry turned the half-biscuit over in his fingers, studying the pattern of crumbs on the sheet as if they might rearrange themselves into something sensible. “So what *did* they call you, then? While they were still arguing?” “Nothing proper.” Draconia’s voice was low, almost thoughtful. She had settled onto her back, one arm flung above her head, the Cannons shirt riding high enough that Harry could see the soft line of her stomach rise and fall with each breath. “Mother refused to use Draco, and Father refused to use anything else. The midwife called me ‘the little one’ and the house-elves called me ‘Miss,’ which was at least accurate. It went on for weeks. Father would come into the nursery with some new proposal and Mother would look at him over the top of whatever she was reading and say, ‘No,’ with her eminent finality.” Harry made a small, incredulous sound. “He kept suggesting things?” “Endlessly. Most of them were variations on the original. Draca, which Mother dismissed at once—said it sounded like something that would try to drink one’s blood. He tried Draco again, of course, as if she might have forgotten the first seventeen times. Then he offered something that was meant to be a compromise.” Draconia’s mouth curved, sharp and private. “Draecina. Spelled the same way Mother’s flower is spelled in the old herbals. She’d mentioned once, years ago, that she liked the sound of it. Father remembered.” “And she liked that one?” “She did. For nearly three days.” Draconia turned her head on the pillow so she could watch him. The candlelight caught the pale fringe of her lashes. “She said it had a certain elegance, That it connected her to me without being obvious about it. Father agreed, at first, but Father has a habit of… dwelling on things. He spent an entire afternoon in the library looking up every other flower name that had ever been used in the family and came back looking as though someone had set fire to the tapestries.” Harry’s eyebrows rose, he shifted, moving a bit more into an upright position, “Why?” “Because he decided he didn’t want another flower name in the house.” Her tone went dry. “Mother pointed out that *her* name was already a flower name and had been for thirty years, and that the house had somehow survived. Father walked that back very carefully, Said Narcissa was *his* flower, singular, and that he wouldn’t want two names competing for the same aesthetic space. That it would be… inelegant.” Harry stared at her. “He said ‘aesthetic space’ about a baby’s name?” “He said it with a straight face to my Mother. She threw a slipper at him. She claimed the miss was deliberate, but I have my doubts.” Draconia’s fingers found the edge of the sheet and worried at a loose thread. “They tried Draecina with a different emphasis for a day—Drakayna, as if changing the way one said it would somehow comport better while meaning the same thing. Father still hated it whilst Mother still liked it. Neither of them would yield. There were other suggestions. Most of them didn’t last an afternoon. Of course, Father kept circling back to Draco as if Mother might forget the dozen other times he’d suggested it. Mother kept threatening to name me after her favourite aunt and be done with it, which naturally would have been worse according to him because the aunt in question had once eloped with a Muggle and was therefore a cautionary tale rather than a namesake.” Outside, the owl called again, closer this time. Harry shifted, propping himself a little higher so he could see her face properly. “How long did that go on?” “Until Christmas.” Draconia’s offered him a wan smile, expressing the weariness her parents must have felt. “Aunt Cassie arrived on the twenty-third with a trunk full of presents and the sort of expression that meant she had already heard every version of the story from at least three different people. She took one look at the pair of them still arguing over the cradle, set her gloves on the sideboard, and said, ‘Right. We’re sorting this before Boxing Day or I’m writing to my sister.’” She paused, letting the words settle. Harry’s mouth opened, then closed again. “And that,” Draconia allowed a bemused smile to break through the casual retelling, “was when things got properly interesting.” Harry’s picked at the leavings, slipping a few bits into his mouth as his brow furrowed in question over the frames of his glasses. “Interesting how?” Draconia huffed a quiet laugh, the sound more breath than voice. She rolled onto her side so she was facing him properly, one arm tucked beneath her head. The Cannons shirt had twisted; a pale stretch of collarbone showed above the neckline, and the scar there caught the candlelight in a thin silver line. “Cassie was the sort who settled things proper,” she said. “Whatever she decided to get involved with. Drinking, mostly—she could outlast Mother and still be upright for breakfast. Also, Rows… or the colour of clothes on particular Sundays, when her sisters and cousins were inclined to be argumentative about who was wearing what and whether it counted as mourning or merely poor taste. She had a talent for cutting through nonsense without ever raising her voice. People listened because the alternative was usually worse.” Harry studied her face. “Worse meaning… she actually meant Bellatrix?” Draconia gave him a look that managed to be both fond and deeply unimpressed. “Of course she meant Bell. Who else keeps a sister in Azkaban and still uses her as a bargaining chip at Christmas? Both of them were terrified of her. Father more than Mother, though Mother would never have admitted it. Bellatrix had a way of turning up uninvited and rearranging the furniture… or the people.” “Right,” Harry said faintly. It was passing strange to hear Draconia incorporate the terrifying woman into a family story, recalling how his few times encountering her had ended sent an uncomfortable crawling sensation up his neck. “So Cassie threatened them with the mad one.” “She didn’t have to threaten very hard.” Draconia’s fingers found the loose thread in the sheet again and worried at it. “She sat them both down in the drawing room—Father in his usual chair, Mother on the sofa with me in her arms, Cassie in the middle like a referee at a particularly well-dressed Quidditch match. Then she made them go through every objection they’d already made. All of them. Draco was traditional but unsuitable. Draecina was elegant but too much like a flower, and Father still wouldn’t have two flowers competing for the same aesthetic space. Draca sounded like a vampire. Everything else either belonged to someone dead or someone disreputable.” She paused. Harry waited, the half-biscuit long forgotten between his fingers. “Cassie let them talk themselves in circles for nearly an hour,” Draconia went on. “Same arguments, same counters, same silences. Then she suggested a compromise. A constellation name— A consolation for tradition and Father, something that would sit correctly on the family tree— but given a classic English feminization so no one could claim it was a boy’s name in disguise. Draconia.” Her mouth curved, small and private. “She said if they couldn’t agree by the time the pudding was served, she’d write to Bellatrix that evening and let her weigh in. Father went the colour of old parchment. Mother looked as though she might actually cry from relief. And that was that.” Outside, the owl called once more and fell silent. The candle had burned low enough that the shadows on the wall had grown long and soft. Harry reached across the narrow space between them and brushed a strand of pale hair back from Draconia’s cheek, his thumb lingering for a moment against her skin. “Draconia,” he said, testing the shape of it. “Suits you.” She turned her face into his palm, just slightly. “Mother still calls me Dracy when she thinks no one’s listening. Father pretends he thought of it himself. And Cassie sends a card every year on the day they finally decided, just to remind them she was right.” Her eyes were half-closed, the sharp edges of the story smoothed by the late hour and the warmth of the bed. Harry’s nose wrinkled, the corner of his mouth twitching as if he were weighing something unwise. He turned his head on the pillow just enough to catch her eye, voice low and deliberately light. “So… if I called you Draco—” The first hit landed hard against his upper arm, sharp enough to jolt him sideways. The second came a heartbeat later in the form of the spare pillow, which she swung with both hands and far more enthusiasm than accuracy. Feathers burst from a split seam and drifted down between them like lazy snow. “And what if I called you Harold, hmm?” she shot back, already reaching for the pillow again. Her glare could have curdled milk. “Or Jimmy? You call me Draco and I’ll hex your trousers. You won’t be able to sit for a week, Potter.” Harry’s grin widened anyway, the sort that usually preceded something stupid. She didn’t give him the chance. The punch caught him square in the chest—solid, not playful—and the air left him in a short, startled *oof*. He winced, one hand flying up to rub the spot, but the grin didn’t quite die. “All right, all right,” he managed, still breathless. “Draconia. Point taken.” She lowered the pillow but kept it across her lap like a shield, watching him with narrowed eyes. For a moment the only sound was the soft rustle of feathers settling. Then Harry’s expression shifted, the teasing draining out of it. He stared up at the canopy, thumb still absently rubbing his sternum. “I don’t actually know how any of that usually works,” he said quietly. “Names. Arguments. Whether my parents fought about what to call me or just… decided. I never got the chance to ask Sirius about any of it. Or much else, really.” Draconia went still. The sharp edges of her posture softened; the pillow slid off her knees and onto the mattress between them. When she spoke, her voice had lost its bite. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For what happened to him. I know it doesn’t change anything, but—” “It wasn’t your fault.” Harry’s answer came quickly, automatic, though his eyes stayed fixed on the dark folds of the canopy. “You weren’t even there.” She was quiet for a long moment, fingers worrying at the edge of the sheet. “I knew he mattered to you,” she said at last. “Back then. After the ball, when we kept ending up in those empty classrooms because neither of us wanted to go back to the common rooms. You talked about him. Not a lot. Just… enough. That he was the only real family you had left. I didn’t understand how much that meant until later. Until it was already too late to—” She stopped, shook her head once. “Anyway.” Harry’s throat worked. He blinked hard, once, and the candlelight caught the faint sheen in his eyes before he pushed past it. “I found other people,” he said, voice rough but steady. “Ron. Hermione. Even Neville, somehow. They stuck.” Draconia watched him, head tilted, waiting. The silence stretched just long enough to be deliberate. Harry turned his face toward her at last, expression carefully blank. “That’s it, I think. Can’t think of anyone else.” The slug caught him in the same spot on his chest. He laughed anyway—short, surprised, genuine—and caught her wrist before she could pull it back. His fingers slid down until they threaded through hers, palm to palm, warm and a little unsteady. “Of course you too,” he said, quieter now. His thumb brushed once across her knuckles. “Obviously.” Outside, the orchard had gone still. The candle guttered, throwing their joined hands into soft shadow, and neither of them moved to let go. Draconia’s mouth didn’t curve, but the tight line of it eased. She squeezed his hand once, firm, then let her thumb rest against the side of his wrist. “Better,” she said. For a moment she simply looked at their joined hands. Then her gaze drifted past him, toward the half-drawn curtains and the dark orchard beyond. “You know… that stupid mirror I caught you looking at in third year.” “Erised?” Harry said. “The one you looked into and saw me and you?” Her eyebrows drew together at once, the familiar irritated crease appearing between them. “You’re very bad at interrupting,” she muttered. “No. Not—that first time. I went back after curfew.” She was quiet for a beat, fingers tightening fractionally around his. “I saw you. And Granger. And Weasley. And… me, Standing there with the lot of you as if I belonged. I think I was angry it showed me that.” Harry was silent. The candle had burned low enough that most of the room had fallen into soft shadow; only the edge of her face and the pale fall of her hair were still properly lit. He turned his head on the pillow so he could see her properly, their hands still loosely linked between them. “Angry,” he repeated, not quite a question. “Furious,” she said. “I told myself it was a trick. That the mirror was showing me something ridiculous to mock me. Pure-bloods don’t… stand about with Gryffindors looking pleased with themselves. It felt like a joke at my expense. So I left, and I didn’t go back.” Her thumb moved once, absently, across his knuckles. “I spent the rest of the year pretending I hadn’t seen it. Pretending I hadn’t wanted to see it again.” Harry exhaled slowly. He could still remember the cold of that room, the way the mirror had filled with his parents and, later, with the people he loved most. He had never imagined anyone else standing in front of it and seeing *him*. “It wasn’t mocking you,” he said at last, voice low. “That’s not how it works. It shows what you want. Deep down. Even if you don’t want to admit it.” He shifted a little closer, the mattress dipping. “I used to go back too. After everyone else had stopped. Just to look. It hurt, every time, but I still went. Because for a few minutes it felt like I had them.” Draconia’s eyes flicked to his, sharp and searching. “And you think I wanted… that.” “I think part of you did,” Harry said. He didn’t look away. “Even then, even if the rest of you hated the idea. The mirror doesn’t lie about the wanting, it just doesn’t care whether you like what it shows you.” She was quiet again. Outside, something small moved through the leaves. Draconia’s grip on his hand had gone careful, almost tentative, as if she were still deciding whether to keep hold of it. “I hated that it knew,” she said finally. “Before I did.” Harry’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Yeah,” he said. “It has a habit of doing that.” Harry’s thumb stilled against her knuckles. For a moment he seemed to be listening to something far away—the faint creak of the Burrow settling, the low rush of wind through the orchard—before he spoke again, quieter than before. “I went back,” he said. “After… the bathroom.” He didn’t name the spell. He didn’t need to. Draconia’s free hand moved without thought, fingertips settling lightly over the pale, raised lines that crossed her stomach beneath the borrowed shirt. The touch was careful, almost absent. Even now the memory of it sat knotted and hot beneath her ribs: the sudden cold, the shock of blood, the way the world had narrowed to the sound of her own breathing. She didn’t pull away from him, but she left her hand where it was, feeling the faint ridges under the fabric. Harry’s eyes stayed on the canopy. “Snape found me afterward. I’ve never seen him that angry. He said I was a bloodthirsty swine, same as my father. That I’d nearly killed another student and the only reason I wasn’t being expelled was because of who I was and because Albus would object.” His mouth tightened. “He gave me detention for the rest of the year. I kept thinking it should have been worse.” Draconia’s jaw set. The words she wanted to say crowded up behind her teeth—*I deserved it, I poisoned Weasley, I hexed that girl, I*—but she bit them back. He had told her, more than once, not to speak about herself that way. Not anymore. So she stayed silent, thumb still resting against the scars, and waited. Harry dragged the heel of his free hand across his eyes, rough and quick. When he went on, his voice had gone rough at the edges. “I went back to the mirror that night. After Snape finished with me. I don’t know why. Habit, maybe. Or because I wanted to see something that wasn’t—” He stopped. His fingers tightened fractionally around hers. “I saw you.” He hesitated. The candle flame dipped; shadows shifted across the sheets between them. Draconia gave him the space of three slow breaths, then pressed, low and steady, “Go on.” Harry exhaled. “You were older, not by much. And you were holding a child.” His throat worked. “A little girl. She had my eyes, Your hair. You were looking at her like… like she was the only thing in the room that mattered. I was there too, just standing beside you. Watching.” The words settled into the quiet. Outside, an owl called once and fell silent. Draconia’s hand remained over the scars, but her grip on his fingers had gone very still. She didn’t look at him yet. The candle burned lower, and neither of them moved to break the hush that had fallen between them. Draconia shifted against the pillows, the movement small and restless. Her teeth caught her lower lip for a moment before she let out a short, unsteady laugh—more defense than amusement. “What sort of story is that to tell a person?” she said, aiming for sharp and landing somewhere nearer brittle. “Sounds desperate, and more than a little pathetic, Potter.” Harry’s face softened. The smile that touched his mouth was quiet, unguarded, and it made the colour rise hot across her cheekbones before she could stop it. She pushed on anyway, words coming faster, tripping over one another. “You’re getting well ahead of yourself, Potter. Suggesting that you and I would— that we’d even—” She gestured vaguely between them with her free hand, then dropped it. “We haven’t properly dated since before the bathroom. You can’t just— a stupid mirror doesn’t get to decide what happens. You’re being presumptuous.” Harry didn’t answer the jibe. He leaned in instead, slow enough that she could have turned away, and pressed his mouth to the skin just above her left brow. The kiss was brief, warm, and careful. When he drew back, his voice was low. “She was very beautiful,” he said. “The little girl in your arms.” The words struck like a Bludger she hadn’t seen coming. Draconia’s breath left her in a rush; for a moment she felt exactly as she had the first time she’d been thrown from a broom—winded, flat on her back, the sky spinning above her. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. Nothing came out. Her eyes stung. She clamped her lips shut against it, hard, and stared past his shoulder at the dark folds of the curtain. The candle flame trembled. Their hands were still joined between them on the sheet, his thumb resting lightly against her wrist, and she did not pull away. She simply stayed very still, and very quiet, while the night settled around them both. The quiet stretched between them, long enough that guttering candle flame had steadied. Draconia’s swallowed a few times. When she finally spoke, the words came out small and uneven, as if she had to prise each one free. “It… wouldn’t be out of the question.” She swallowed, eyes still fixed on the curtain. “I—I mean… conceivably.” She turned her head at last. The mist in her eyes hadn’t quite cleared, but her gaze found his and held. Colour still sat high on her cheekbones. “But we’ll agree on a name first.” Harry’s mouth curved, faint and careful. He loosened his fingers from hers and lifted his hand instead, cupping her cheek. His palm was warm; his thumb rested just beneath the corner of her eye, brushing away the dampness that had gathered there without comment. For a moment he simply looked at her, the low light catching the familiar green of his eyes. “Maybe I’d ask too much,” he said, voice soft. “But I was thinking Lily. Lily Severa Potter.” Outside, the orchard was still. Draconia’s breath caught, just once, and she did not look away. Draconia turned the names over in her mind—Lily, and Severa—and the two people they had once belonged to. One had died so that Harry might live; the other had spent their life as a shadow so that the war might end. Without either, the fragile thing growing between them now would never have existed at all. She felt a complexity of sorrow and longing that coupled and flowed between Harry and herself. She closed the last of the distance between them, Her mouth found his, soft and unhurried. When she drew back, her forehead rested lightly against his. “Yes, Harry,” Her words were vulnerable and tender, and hardly much more than a whisper. “I think that would be the perfect name.”