Work Text:
🎂🎂🎂
First Birthday — 31st July 1981
Little Harry James Potter didn’t understand a thing that was happening, but he laughed anyway. He laughed because his mummy was tickling his tummy, because his daddy was lifting him up towards the ceiling and catching him just before he touched it, and because there was a cake with a single golden candle that shimmered differently from normal candles.
“Blow, Harry, blow,” Lily said, holding him on her lap while James pushed the cake closer.
But Harry didn’t blow — no, he shoved his entire hand into the cake, making Sirius burst out laughing so loudly that the cat bolted out of the kitchen.
“That’s my godson!” he shouted, earning himself a smack on the arm from Lily.
“Don’t encourage him, Sirius.”
“Too late, Lily-flower. He’s already got the instinct.”
Remus smiled from the armchair, a cup of tea cradled in his hands and that expression of pure fondness he always wore when it came to his friends. Peter was in a corner, taking pictures with a magical camera James had lent him. The photos came out blurry because Peter wasn’t very good with framing, but nobody minded.
The house in Godric’s Hollow was full of balloons that floated by themselves along the ceiling, bunting that changed colour, and a toy broom Sirius had secretly gifted him — which Lily had immediately confiscated, saying, “When he’s older, when he’s older.” There was a wolf plushie Remus had bought in a Muggle shop off the alley, and a rattle shaped like a golden Snitch that James shook in front of his son’s green eyes.
“Look, Harry, look here.”
But Harry was far more focused on the plushie his Uncle Moony had brought him, shoving it into his mouth and slobbering all over it.
That day, his first birthday, Harry fell asleep in his father’s arms, his little face smeared with cake and a thread of drool hanging from his chin. James carried him up to his cot while Lily extinguished the floating candles, Sirius and Remus gathered the plates, and Peter put the camera away.
“Happy birthday, Harry,” James whispered, tucking the blanket around him. “The first of many. They’ll all be like this.”
They weren’t.
Three months later, James and Lily were dead, Sirius was in Azkaban, Peter was supposedly dead, Remus was alone, and Harry lay asleep on the doorstep of number four, Privet Drive, wrapped in a threadbare blanket, with a letter nobody bothered to read to him.
He remembered nothing of that day.
He never would.
Eighth Birthday — 31st July 1988
Harry woke at six in the morning because he had to make breakfast. It wasn’t a special chore for his birthday — it was what he did every single day, ever since he’d been tall enough to reach the hob without standing on a little stool.
He put the pan on, sliced the bread, and took the butter out of the fridge. Outside it was hot, but in the Dursleys’ kitchen it was always cold for some strange reason.
“Boy!” Uncle Vernon’s voice boomed from the dining room. “The coffee’s getting cold!”
There wasn’t even any coffee yet, because Harry hadn’t made it; but he ran anyway.
At eight o’clock, Dudley came downstairs wrapped in the new bathrobe he’d been given for his birthday a month ago. Forty-three presents — Harry had counted. Forty-three. Dudley had broken almost all of them within the first week. The bathrobe was one of the few things that survived.
“Mum, Harry’s looking at me.”
“Boy, stop looking at Dudley.”
He immediately turned his gaze to the sink; today he had to wash the breakfast dishes.
Nobody wished him a happy birthday. It wasn’t as if he really expected it. He’d stopped doing that years ago. But there was a very small, very foolish part of him that still waited. A part that shrank a little more every 31st of July, disappointed once again.
Petunia ordered him to clean the windows. Vernon told him to mow the lawn. Dudley threw a stone at him through the window and then ran off to say Harry had threatened him with a stick.
“Go to your cupboard!” Aunt Petunia shrieked. “And don’t come out until tomorrow!”
The cupboard under the stairs. His room. His cell.
He sat down on the thin mattress, knees drawn to his chest, and switched on the torch he’d found in the skip on the corner. He shone it on the cobweb-covered walls and thought about the drawings he’d made when he was five — the ones Petunia had forced him to scrub off with bleach.
He didn’t even cry, because he’d already learnt that crying did no good.
In a corner of the cupboard, hidden beneath a loose floorboard, were his things. His only things. A headless soldier, a plastic dinosaur missing a leg, a blue marble he’d found in the school playground, and the new present.
The new present was a rubber figure Dudley had thrown in the bin a week after his birthday. It was a green dragon with broken wings that Harry thought was beautiful.
He lined the four toys up on his thin pillow.
“Happy birthday, Harry,” he whispered, as quietly as he could, imitating the way a mummy or daddy might sound. He didn’t know. He didn’t have any to use as an example.
He blew out a candle that didn’t exist and made a wish.
The same one as always.
Eleventh Birthday — 31st July 1991
The sea was furious.
Harry had been awake for hours, counting the seconds. Uncle Vernon had rented that miserable hut perched on a rock, surrounded by water on all sides, hoping to escape the letters. The letters that kept coming and that Harry had never been allowed to open.
Dudley was snoring on a makeshift bed Aunt Petunia had made for him on the sofa. She and Uncle Vernon slept in the only proper bed, near the door, while Harry lay on the floor, barely covered by a thin blanket that did nothing to keep out the cold. His stomach rumbled ceaselessly, and with his heart racing, he kept his eyes fixed on the luminous watch on Dudley’s fat wrist.
Eleven fifty-five.
A strange noise came from outside. A long creak, as if something enormous had leant against the wood. Harry swallowed, hoping the hut wasn’t about to collapse in the storm.
Eleven fifty-eight.
The sound came again. Was the sea really that loud, or was something out there?
Eleven fifty-nine. One minute until he turned eleven.
Under his breath, so nobody would hear, he began to count
“Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”
Midnight.
“Happy birthday, Harry,” he whispered to himself, just as he did every year.
Then —
BOOM!
The whole hut shuddered as sharp, heavy blows shook the door again and again, so hard that whoever was on the other side clearly wasn’t afraid of the storm battering the sea.
Uncle Vernon woke with a start and grabbed a shotgun Harry hadn’t even known existed. He’d barely got hold of it when the door burst off its hinges and crashed to the floor with a bang that rattled the entire room.
Through the rain, lit only by the dim light spilling from the hut, appeared the largest man Harry had ever seen in his life. He had an enormous mane of black hair, a thick beard that almost entirely covered his face, and a gigantic coat that smelt of sea, and smoke, and forest. In one hand he held a pink umbrella, and in the other a very squashed box.
“Ah, Harry!” thundered the giant’s voice, striding in as though the hut belonged to him. “The last time I saw yeh, yeh was only a baby. Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mum’s eyes.”
Harry had no idea who this man was. He didn’t understand why a giant had just knocked down the door, or why he spoke of his parents as if he’d known them; yet, for some reason, he felt a strange warmth in his chest.
“Anyway, Harry. Happy birthday. Got summat here. Might’ve sat on it at some point, but it’ll taste all right.”
He held out the squashed box. Harry took it with trembling hands, and after a moment’s hesitation, opened it very carefully. Inside was a chocolate cake with green icing that read: HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY, written in slightly crooked letters. It was a bit squashed, a little melted, and had clearly survived a rather complicated journey, but even so, it was the most beautiful cake Harry had ever seen in his life.
Nobody had ever given him a cake before. Nobody had ever made one thinking of him. Nobody, until that moment, had truly remembered it was his birthday.
“You’re a wizard, Harry,” the man told him a little later.
Those four words that would change his life forever.
That night he ate cake beside a bearded giant who told him about James, a brave and talented wizard, and Lily, the kindest woman he’d ever known. He told him about a castle, about flying brooms, impossible creatures, spells, and an entire world that had been waiting for him for years.
That night, Harry stopped feeling like a boy who was in the way everywhere. That night he understood that, after eleven years of wishing his life would change, he wouldn’t have to make another wish ever again.
Or so he thought.
Thirteenth Birthday — 31st July 1993
Harry wasn’t expecting anything.
He was back at the Dursleys’ again, serving that sentence that repeated itself every summer and counting the days until he could return to Hogwarts. Luckily, he’d managed to smuggle a few schoolbooks and materials so he could keep studying during the holidays. He had to do it in secret, because if his aunt and uncle discovered he was doing anything connected to magic, a severe punishment awaited him.
It was already one in the morning and he was still awake, bent over the desk in his room, finishing an essay on witches. The silence of Privet Drive was broken only by the scratch of his quill on parchment.
He expected absolutely nothing for his birthday. After all… who cared?
He was wrong.
A gust of wind blew the window wide open, and before he could react, three owls burst into the room, wings beating hard. One nearly knocked over the inkpot, another landed on his bed, and the third dropped a parcel straight into his lap. Cards and presents of all sizes lay scattered across the room.
His heart hammering, he first picked up the letter Errol, Ron’s ancient owl, had brought. Inside was a birthday card.
He opened it carefully.
“Happy birthday, Harry.”
Just three words, written in slightly smudged ink and the crooked handwriting he’d recognise anywhere, but they were enough to leave him completely still.
It was the first birthday card he’d ever received in his life.
Alongside it was a letter from his friend and a carefully wrapped parcel. When he opened it, he found a Sneakoscope. He held it in his hands for a few seconds, unable to wipe the smile that had appeared on his face.
Then he opened Hermione’s package. There was also a birthday card, a letter full of recommendations for the next term, and a rather large bundle that at first he thought was a book. He smiled when he realised he was completely wrong. Hermione had given him a full broomstick servicing kit. She had definitely outdone herself this time.
The third parcel was from Hagrid.
This one was a book… though not just any book. It was enormous, heavy, and bound in thick leather covers. The pages smelt of mud and wild creatures, and the book wouldn’t stop writhing in his hands, trying to bite everything in its path. It took him several minutes to get it to lie still.
Finally, he opened the letter from Hogwarts. It informed him that the new school year would begin very soon and included the list of supplies he would need for third year.
When he’d finished opening everything, he set the monstrous book on the bed, next to the Sneakoscope and the broomstick servicing kit. Then he looked at the cards again.
He was thirteen years old.
He had three presents.
And for the first time in his life, he had people who had remembered his birthday without him having to say a single word.
He ran his fingers carefully over the cards, as if they were too precious to damage. Maybe to anyone else they were just bits of cardboard with a few words written on them, but to Harry they meant so much more.
They were proof that someone had thought of him, and he was absolutely certain he would keep them forever.
Sixteenth Birthday — 31st July 1996
There was no birthday cake, no balloons, no bunting, no songs, no candles. Not even a miserable single candle he could make a wish on, though Harry was fairly sure he wouldn’t know what to wish for anymore.
Everything he wanted was broken, lost, or dead.
They were at the Burrow, and if he was honest, the last few weeks had been good. He spent the afternoons playing Quidditch in the garden with Ron and Ginny, and at night he went back for thirds of whatever Mrs Weasley had made with so much love. It was a place where, at last, he could feel at home.
But even the Burrow had stopped feeling completely safe.
Every morning, the Prophet brought news of new disappearances, strange accidents, and more names of people who would never come back. The war hadn’t fully broken out yet, but everyone knew it was coming.
That afternoon, Mrs Weasley prepared a tea with all the love in the world. There were sandwiches, treacle tart, and some biscuits Ron swore looked like house-elf ears. Anyone watching from the outside would have thought it was an ordinary family gathering, but the atmosphere was too heavy to pretend everything was fine.
The illusion vanished completely when Remus arrived. He brought news. There had been new Dementor attacks, Igor Karkaroff had been found dead, and Mr Florean Fortescue and Ollivander had disappeared.
The conversations slowly died away, and silence took the place of laughter; still, Harry received a few well-wishes during the day.
“Happy birthday, Harry.”
They were small smiles, brief hugs, and good wishes that sounded sincere but also tired. Truthfully, nobody’s heart was in it to celebrate. They were all too worried about the approaching war.
And Harry couldn’t find a reason to smile either.
There was one single name that kept repeating in his head.
Sirius.
Thinking about him still felt like twisting a knife in a wound that never fully closed. Barely two months had passed since that night in the Department of Mysteries.
Two months.
Sixty-two days.
He’d counted every one.
Sirius would have been there today. He’d have arrived with a carefree grin, ruffled his hair, and given him one of those fierce hugs that seemed capable of holding the whole world in place. He’d have told him everything would be all right, even if neither of them knew whether it was true.
But Sirius was no longer there.
No letter written by him was going to arrive. He wasn’t going to appear through the fireplace with that mischievous dog grin. He wasn’t going to give him a present.
He wasn’t coming back.
That night, when everyone had gone to bed, Harry went out into the Burrow’s garden and sat on the old wooden bench by the pond. The sky was completely clear, and thousands of stars glittered above his head.
His eyes sought out just one.
“Canis Major…” he murmured.
The Dog Star was shining brightly in the darkness.
Harry didn’t know if wizards had somewhere to go after death. He didn’t know if Sirius could see him or hear him from some corner of the universe. Even so, he tilted his head up a little and spoke quietly.
“Happy birthday to me.”
No one answered; only the distant song of crickets and the wind rustling the leaves in the trees accompanied his words.
He stayed there for hours, his gaze fixed on that star, until exhaustion finally overcame the grief and he fell asleep beneath the summer sky.
Seventeenth Birthday — 31st July 1997
The garden at the Burrow was unrecognisable. They’d hung golden lanterns from the trees, laid white tablecloths over the tables, and there were flowers Molly had magically grown that very morning.
It was all too festive. It didn’t look like the world about to end.
Harry stood watching for a while, leaning against the kitchen door. Hermione and Ron were in a corner, talking in whispers, probably about the same thing they’d been discussing for weeks: the hunt, the Horcruxes, the plan. Ginny was helping her mother with the food, but every now and then she glanced at Harry. She looked at him sadly, her eyes saying, “I’m going to miss you”. It was a look Harry couldn’t return without something inside him shattering.
Because tomorrow they were leaving.
Tomorrow the hunt began.
And thinking about that was strange, because he’d barely been there a few days. Barely a few days since the disaster of the seven Potters, since a plan that had nearly gone wrong, since losing Alastor Moody and nearly losing George too. He could still see Hedwig falling and know, instantly, that something terrible had happened to her. He hadn’t even had time to say goodbye.
But anyway, tonight wasn’t for being sad; tonight was the truce. Today was his seventeenth birthday. Wizarding coming of age. An adult wizard, legally, even though Harry felt anything but grown up.
Mr Weasley came over with a glass of something that looked like champagne but smelt of raspberry.
“Happy birthday, Harry. Welcome to adulthood.”
He took the glass and smiled. A smile that cost him, but he managed it.
Dinner was noisy, like all Weasley dinners. Fleur’s laughter, Fred and George’s jokes (a little more muted than usual, because George still had his bandaged ear and was making cracks about “hearing things by halves” that only made Fred laugh), Ron’s complaints about French food, Hermione’s comments about Dumbledore’s will.
Ah, the will.
Harry still hadn’t opened the golden Snitch. He still didn’t know what “I open at the close” meant. They still didn’t know where the sword of Godric Gryffindor was, nor did he know what to do with Ron’s Deluminator, nor did he understand why Dumbledore had left Hermione a book of children’s stories.
Dumbledore’s will was in his pocket, folded into quarters, and every time he touched it he felt as though something was slipping away from him; but tonight wasn’t for worrying about that. No, not tonight.
Tonight he blew out the candles. Seventeen candles on a three-tier cake Molly had decorated with a golden Snitch made of sugar. He made a wish, his first in many years.
Let everyone survive.
Let everyone survive.
Let everyone survive.
Then Ginny led him to a corner of the garden, away from prying eyes, and gave him a kiss that tasted of goodbye, of “I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again”, of “don’t you die, Harry Potter”. Harry kissed her back with everything he had, with everything he couldn’t say, with all the fear and love and rage and hope his chest could hold.
“Come back,” Ginny said.
“I’ll try,” said Harry.
Eighteenth Birthday — 31st July 1998
Harry didn’t celebrate. He didn’t even remember until Hermione told him, mid-morning, as they sat drinking reheated tea in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place.
“Happy birthday, Harry.”
Harry looked up from his cup. He was eighteen. Technically, he’d been an adult for a year, but he felt older. Much older. As if he’d lived three lifetimes rolled into one.
“Thanks,” he said, and went back to his tea.
Outside, the world was trying to rebuild itself. Hogwarts lay in ruins, though the repairs had already begun. The common rooms, the dormitories, the Great Hall. The Astronomy Tower still stood, but half its wall was gone. Dumbledore’s tomb was intact, white and gleaming under the summer sun.
But not everything could be rebuilt.
Two months had passed since the final battle. Two months since Harry had walked into the Forbidden Forest barefoot and broken-hearted, convinced he was going to die. Two months since he’d returned in Hagrid’s arms and seen his friends weep for him. Two months since the war ended.
Two months was nothing.
Fred was dead. Remus was dead. Tonks was dead. Colin Creevey was dead. Lavender Brown was dead. Fifty names on a list Harry knew by heart.
The funerals kept happening — sometimes two in a single day. Harry went to all of them. All of them. Even the ones for people he didn’t know. Because he felt he owed it to them, because he felt each of those names was his fault.
“We should do something,” said Ron, appearing in the kitchen doorway with rumpled hair and the face of someone who’d slept badly. Ron wasn’t okay either. Nobody was okay. The war had ended, but it was still going on inside them. “I dunno, a dinner. Something.”
“I’m not hungry,” Harry said.
“It’s not about being hungry, Harry,” Hermione said gently, taking his hand in hers. “It’s about celebrating that you’re alive.”
Yes, he was alive; but sometimes he didn’t know if it was a gift or a punishment.
In the afternoon, they stopped by the Ministry. Harry had to testify in yet another trial: the Malfoys’. He was going to speak in favour of Narcissa, who’d saved his life in the forest. He was going to speak in favour of Draco, who hadn’t given him away at Malfoy Manor when they’d come face to face. It was the fair thing. It was the right thing. But it wasn’t easy.
When he left the Ministry, the sun was already starting to set, and London seemed too quiet for a city that, barely a few months ago, had been the stage for one of the worst battles in living memory.
Harry went back to Grimmauld Place. The house was still dark, dusty, full of portraits of Black ancestors who shrieked insults whenever anyone turned on a light; but it was also his home. The only one he had left.
In the kitchen, Ron and Hermione had prepared an improvised dinner. Nothing fancy: pasta, tomato sauce, and three candles they’d found in a drawer.
“It’s not much,” Ron said.
“It’s perfect,” Harry said.
They ate in silence. Or at least, in a silence of words, because Harry knew that, in each of their minds, the voices of the friends and family who were no longer there were echoing.
After dinner, he went out into the little back garden of the house. The stars were there, as always, and Canis Major shone on the horizon. From where he sat, he tried to look for other stars, other constellations. Ursa Major. Orion. The Pleiades cluster. He didn’t know anything about astronomy, but he liked to imagine that every star was someone who’d gone.
“Happy birthday, Harry,” he said to himself.
He didn’t make a wish.
He was alive. His friends were alive. The world kept turning, broken but turning, and perhaps, just perhaps, one day it would stop hurting so much. That was all he needed, right then.
Twentieth Birthday — 31st July 2000
Harry didn’t want to be there.
The pub was full of people who recognised him, who glanced at him sideways, who whispered “it’s him, it’s Harry Potter” as if he couldn’t hear them. Ron had been insisting for weeks. Hermione too. Even Ginny, who was no longer his girlfriend but was still his friend, had said, “get out a bit, Harry, or you’re going to turn into a real ghost.”
So there he was, in a magical pub in central London, surrounded by people who pretended not to stare but stared all the same, with a warm beer in his hands and a feeling of discomfort crawling up his spine.
“Relax, you’re tenser than Filch on exam day,” Ron said, nudging him.
“I don’t know how to be in pubs,” Harry muttered.
“I know. It shows.”
Ron went off to get another round, and Harry was left alone at the bar, counting the minutes until he could go home. He’d turned twenty exactly an hour ago and didn’t feel any different. He was still Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the saviour of the wizarding world. He still had nightmares. He still missed Sirius.
The pub door opened and a group of people came in, laughing and talking too loudly. Harry paid them no mind until one of those people broke away from the group and approached the bar, ordering a Firewhisky with a voice Harry would have recognised anywhere.
Draco Malfoy.
He went so still that his arm went numb against the bar.
Draco hadn’t seen him yet. He had his back turned, waiting for his drink, wearing a black coat that suited him well and with his hair a little longer than Harry remembered. He didn’t look like the same Draco Malfoy from school. Or he did, but different. Less sharp, less cruel.
“Potter.”
Now he had seen him. Draco turned with his glass in hand, fixing his grey eyes on Harry. There was no hatred in that look, but there wasn’t friendship either. It was something in between. It was strange.
“Malfoy.”
They stood looking at each other while the pub carried on its noisy routine around them. Two former enemies in a bar, without wands or insults. With nothing to say to each other but no desire to leave.
“Happy birthday, I suppose,” Draco said at last, with that irony of his that was practically a signature.
“How do you know it’s my birthday?”
“Everyone knows when your birthday is, Potter. You’re famous, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Harry let out something that was supposed to be a laugh but didn’t quite get there.
“Thanks, Malfoy.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s an observation, not a gift.”
“Do you want to sit down?” The invitation slipped out before he could think better of it.
Ron was going to kill him. Hermione was going to analyse it for hours; but Harry didn’t care. There was something about Draco Malfoy, that night, that felt strangely familiar. Something in the way he looked at him, in his silence, in the way he seemed to be carrying something far too heavy. Harry didn’t know what it was, but there was something about him that drew him in, something that made him want to understand.
Draco looked at him, assessing; then he glanced towards the group he’d arrived with. The group was still at the other end of the pub, oblivious to everything.
“One drink,” Draco said. “Just one.”
He sat on the stool beside him.
They didn’t talk about the war. They didn’t talk about the trial where Harry had testified in his favour. They didn’t talk about Narcissa, or Lucius, or Malfoy Manor, or the Yule Ball, or the shouted insults in the corridors, or that time Harry had hit him with a curse that nearly killed him. They didn’t talk about all the things they should have talked about.
Instead, they talked about Quidditch. Draco was still a Tutshill Tornados supporter, and Harry was still a Holyhead Harpies fan.
“You have terrible taste, Potter.”
“Right back at you, Malfoy.”
They talked about their jobs. Harry was an Auror-in-training, and Draco worked in a potions apothecary in Diagon Alley. The pay was lousy and they treated him poorly, but he liked making potions. He’d always liked it.
“You? An Auror?” Draco arched an eyebrow. “How ironic.”
“You? Working at all?” Harry shot back.
He didn’t say anything, but Harry noticed that Malfoy almost laughed. Almost. The corner of his lips twitched for just a moment.
Ron came back with the beers after a long while and nearly dropped them when he saw Draco sitting next to Harry. He stood frozen, bottles in hand, staring at the scene with his jaw hanging open and his eyes wide.
He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Repeatedly.
“Harry.”
“Ron.”
“There’s a Malfoy next to you.”
“I’m aware.”
“A Malfoy? Sitting? Next to you?”
“Yes, Ron, I know. I’m sitting here too.”
Draco raised his glass of whisky, greeting Ron with an irony that the redhead did not find amusing at all.
“Weasley. Always a pleasure to see you, though the pleasure is entirely mine.”
Ron went red, and Harry took the beer from his hands before he could throw it.
It was a strange night. Ron sat down on Harry’s other side, glaring daggers at Draco, and Draco pretended not to notice as he kept talking to Harry about absurd things. About the latest Ministry reform, about the new broom the Nimbus company had released, about a café that had opened in Hogsmeade and supposedly made the best pumpkin pasty in the wizarding world.
“We should go sometime,” Draco said, as if it didn’t matter.
Harry blinked.
“Are you inviting me for coffee, Malfoy?”
“I’m saying the pumpkin pasty is good, Potter. Don’t go looking for three feet on a cat.”
Ron snorted, but Harry smiled, hiding it behind his beer.
At four in the morning, Draco stood up and left with his group, without saying goodbye. Harry watched him go, his black coat floating behind him, his blond hair shining under the pub lights.
That was the first time Draco Malfoy wished Harry Potter a happy birthday, and it wouldn’t be the last.
Twenty-First Birthday — 31st July 2001
The following year, Ron and Hermione organised a birthday dinner at Harry’s new house. It was a small place on the outskirts of London, bought with the inheritance his parents and Sirius had left him.
The dinner was lovely.
The Weasleys came, along with Neville, Luna, and Hagrid. There was laughter, cake, and presents. Molly had knitted him another one of her unmistakable jumpers, this time in a deep navy blue, while Hermione gave him a magical clock whose hands always pointed to the whereabouts of the people most important to its owner — a replica of the one that had always presided over the Weasleys’ home.
Harry held it in his hands with a smile and realised that all the hands pointed to “home.” All except one.
“Sirius is missing…” he murmured, without realising he’d said it aloud.
Hermione squeezed his hand under the table.
“I know, but look how many you have now.”
Harry looked at the clock again. It was true. There were many more hands than he’d ever imagined he’d have.
When the clock struck midnight and the last of the guests began to say their goodbyes, he went out into the garden for some air. The night was peaceful, barely lit by the moon.
Then he saw her.
A small tawny owl was waiting patiently on the branch of the tree at the far end. She wasn’t especially pretty and had a rather surly look about her, but Harry recognised her instantly.
It was Draco’s owl.
Since that night, exactly a year ago, when they’d run into each other by chance in that pub, things between them had changed in a way neither of them would ever have imagined.
They weren’t friends. At least, not the kind who shared secrets or visited each other every weekend. They simply… were fine.
Sometimes they’d cross paths in Diagon Alley and greet each other with a slight nod. Other times they’d coincide in a shop or a pub and end up sharing a drink while talking about anything: work, the Ministry, insufferable customers, or some absurd article in the Prophet.
Over time, those conversations turned into letters.
They weren’t frequent. Neither of them seemed particularly interested in writing too much, but at least once a week, a small tawny owl would appear on his windowsill.
And though Harry would never admit it… he always ended up waiting for her.
Ron still didn’t find the idea remotely amusing. Hermione, on the other hand, had long since stopped being surprised. Little by little, almost without anyone noticing, Draco had begun to find a small space in their lives.
It was a tiny step forward, at a tortoise’s pace, but it was still a step.
The owl extended a leg and Harry untied the letter. The moment he saw that elegant, perfectly ordered handwriting, he smiled without realising it.
“Potter,
I hear it’s your birthday. Not that I care, but seeing as last year I put up with an entire beer for you, this year I’m leaving you this.
It’s a sleeping potion.
Don’t look at me like that, I’m not calling you weak. I’m just saying, if the nightmares ever come back, this helps. Besides, it doesn’t taste bad.
Draco Malfoy.
P.S.: Don’t thank me”.
Harry opened the small parcel and found inside a little blue glass bottle. Inside it, a silvery liquid shimmered softly under the moonlight.
A handmade sleeping potion.
He didn’t need to ask. He knew Draco well enough to know he hadn’t bought it in just any apothecary. Most likely, Draco had brewed it himself, in the back room where he spent twelve hours a day working among ingredients, cauldrons, and shelves packed with bottles.
He stood gazing at the liquid for a long time.
Months ago, while they shared a drink in a pub, Harry had mentioned almost in passing that he still had trouble sleeping. Draco had responded with one of his sarcastic remarks, Harry had laughed, and the conversation had moved on.
He’d thought that topic had been forgotten. He hadn’t imagined Draco would remember it.
Sometimes it was strange to realise that someone paid attention to things you didn’t even consider important yourself.
With the bottle still in his hands, he went back inside. The house was silent. He went up to his room, opened the bottle, and took a spoonful of the potion.
That night he slept right through. No nightmares, no jolts awake.
The next morning, before he’d even had breakfast, he grabbed a piece of parchment and wrote a reply.
“Malfoy,
It works. Thanks.
Harry.
P.S.: I thanked you anyway”.
Twenty-Second Birthday — 31st July 2002
That year, Draco was invited to his birthday party. And no, it wasn’t Harry who had invited him. He hadn’t even known they were throwing him a celebration.
It had been Ron.
If someone had told him that a couple of years ago, Harry would have laughed in their face.
For months now, Draco had become a constant presence in his life. They wrote to each other often, met up for a drink after work, and slowly, the time had come when he began sharing space with the rest of his friends.
At first, it was a disaster.
Ron barely spoke to him, and every comment sounded like an attempt to start a fight. Hermione, who bore the brunt of keeping the peace, smiled with so much tension that Harry was convinced her jaw was going to unhinge at any moment.
Everything changed one night when the four of them ended up far too drunk.
Draco, turned into a surprisingly emotional drunk, ended up crying as he begged their forgiveness for everything he’d done during Hogwarts. Ron, who also turned out to be a rather weepy drunk, ended up crying with him. Amidst tears, cheap whisky, and clumsy hugs, they both began apologising for things they didn’t even remember clearly.
The next morning they swore that had never happened; but from that day on they were inseparable. They spent hours talking about Quidditch, wizard’s chess, absurd strategies, and who the best Seeker in history had been.
Harry and Hermione weren’t entirely sure if this was good news.
Hermione was beginning to suspect Ron enjoyed his arguments with Draco more than his dates with her.
And Harry…
Well, Harry was beginning to feel that Ron was stealing his…
Friend.
Yes, friend.
Although, deep down, he couldn’t help but feel a tender warmth seeing them together. They’d never admit it out loud, they’d keep taking jabs at each other whenever they could, but it was lovely to see that, after so many years, all the hatred had been left behind.
The party was held in a packed pub in Diagon Alley. There was music, glasses clinking constantly, and far too many people laughing at the same time.
Draco appeared in a long black coat, his hair considerably longer than usual, and that expression of superiority that never seemed to leave his face. The difference was that it was no longer accompanied by cutting remarks.
Harry raised his glass.
“Haven’t you got something to say to me… Draco?”
The man in question raised an eyebrow. There were still times he looked surprised when Harry called him by his first name. Though it wasn’t very often now.
“What would I have to say to you, Potter?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a phrase. Three words. The reason we’re all here.”
Draco pretended to think for a few seconds.
“You’re so annoying.”
“Immensely.”
The blond let out a long sigh, as if it were the greatest sacrifice of his life.
“Happy birthday, Potter.”
Harry smiled.
“Was that so hard?”
“You have no idea.”
By the time everyone else was completely drunk and Neville was dancing on a table while Luna cheered him on from below, they decided to move to a table apart and pretend they hadn’t come with them.
Draco ordered another Firewhisky and Harry another beer. From there they watched the spectacle.
“Granger’s going to kill him tomorrow,” Draco remarked, watching Ron try to teach Hagrid a Quidditch move using the pub chairs.
Harry let out a laugh.
“No, first she’ll make him sleep on the sofa for a week. Then she’ll kill him.”
“That sounds worse.”
They clinked glasses.
For a while they talked about work, the Ministry, a customer who’d nearly blown up the apothecary where Draco worked, and how George was still convinced he could sell anything if he put a flashy label on it.
The conversation flowed with that ease neither of them would have imagined years ago. Until Harry, without thinking too much, said:
“Everything’s got so strange.”
Draco looked up.
“Strange?”
“Two years ago I’d have bet my broom we’d never speak to each other again.”
A discreet smile appeared on Draco’s face.
“You’d have lost the broom.”
Harry let out a chuckle.
“Yeah…”
They stayed silent for a long moment, unable to find the words. Draco was still holding his glass, though it had been empty for a while. He kept spinning it on the table, keeping his fingers busy in an attempt to contain his nerves.
Harry watched him for a moment.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what?” Draco asked, looking up with an innocent expression.
“You’ve been looking at me weirdly for five minutes.”
“I’m not looking at you weirdly.”
“You’re looking at me.”
“That’s not a crime.”
Harry smiled sideways.
“Depends how.”
Letting out a low laugh, Draco started shaking his head, clearly amused.
“Potter…”
“What?”
“You’re still insufferable.”
“But you’re still here.”
Those four words, spoken almost as a joke, were enough to make Draco’s smile fade a little. Because Harry was right. He could have left hours ago, but he hadn’t. He’d put up with the Weasleys singing, Neville dancing on a table, and George trying to convince the bartender to sell him fireworks to set off inside the pub. Despite all that, he was still there, sitting across from Harry as if there was nowhere else he’d rather be.
The dark-haired man set his beer on the table and watched him for a few seconds before speaking again.
“You know what intrigues me?”
“What?”
“I never understood why you agreed to help me with the insomnia.”
The glass stopped spinning, and Draco swallowed before turning his gaze to the candle lighting the corner of the table.
“Because you looked awful with those dark circles and I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
Harry arched an eyebrow, amused.
“Liar.”
Draco looked back at him.
“Excuse me?”
“That wasn’t the reason.”
“Of course it was.”
Harry shook his head slowly, not losing his smile.
“No. It wasn’t.”
The bustle of the pub was still there, but for a moment it seemed to recede far away from them. Draco took a deep breath, holding Harry’s gaze for barely an instant before letting it slip away again.
“Then why?” Harry asked, more softly.
Draco opened his mouth.
“Because…”
But the words didn’t come out. They stayed stuck somewhere between his chest and his throat, too dangerous to let loose. After a few seconds, he ended up shaking his head.
“Forget it.”
“No.”
“It’s not worth it.”
“Draco.”
His name sounded different this time, with a cadence that made him look up almost on instinct. And the moment he did, he realised it had been a mistake.
Harry had leant across the table without noticing, and now barely a few centimetres separated them. The candle lighting the corner cast shadows across his face and made his green eyes look darker than usual.
He felt his throat go dry. He’d never had him this close. Not without rage in the middle, or a wand between them. Like this, he could make out the small scar near his jaw, the unruly sweep of his lashes, and the slight movement of his lips every time he breathed.
“What?” Harry murmured, after realising he was being scrutinised rather deeply.
But Draco couldn’t find an answer in words. His body reacted before his mind, and it was his hand that moved without thinking. Harry stayed completely still, feeling Draco’s fingers brush his cheek to remove a tiny bit of fluff that had got caught near his jaw.
It was an absurd, insignificant gesture, but when the fluff was gone, neither of them seemed to remember that Draco’s hand was still there.
For an instant, the world kept spinning without them. Neville burst out laughing again, someone broke a glass, and a new song started up from the other end of the pub; yet at that table, all that existed was the warmth of that involuntary caress and the silence that had fallen between them.
Harry swallowed. His eyes dropped unbidden to Draco’s lips, and when he looked back up, he discovered Draco had just done exactly the same. Neither needed to say a word. Both understood, at the same time, that crossing that tiny distance would mean nothing would ever be the same again.
It was Draco who broke the contact. He pulled his hand back sharply, as if he’d suddenly realised what he was doing, and lowered his gaze. He tried to pull away, to reclaim the distance that had seemed so necessary just seconds ago, but his body didn’t react as quickly as his mind.
Harry opened his mouth, searching for something to say, though he didn’t even know what words could fix that moment.
“Draco…”
Hearing his name spoken that way completely undid him. When he turned back towards him, he realised Harry was watching him too, trying to understand what had just happened between them.
And that was precisely what Draco couldn’t bear.
Because for far too long he’d learned to hold himself back. He’d learned to swallow his words, to feign indifference, to act as if nothing mattered too much; but Harry was there, looking at him with an expression that seemed to be asking for an answer Draco had spent years refusing to give.
So he stopped thinking.
He leant forward and kissed him.
It was a brief, uncertain kiss, completely different from anything Draco had ever imagined. It wasn’t perfect at all; it was clumsy, desperate, as if he were discovering in that moment how to get close to someone without a battle between them. It was barely a brush of lips that lasted a couple of seconds before the fear caught up with him again.
When he pulled back, Draco’s eyes were wide and his breathing uneven.
“I… I didn’t…”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Harry was still motionless, too stunned to react. He slowly lifted a hand to his own lips, needing to check that it had really happened. He could still feel the warmth of the kiss, the taste of whisky, and the sensation of Draco’s lips against his.
“Draco.”
But he was already shaking his head.
“I have to go.”
He stood up too fast and knocked the glass beside him. The glass tipped over and the remaining whisky spilled across the table; but Draco didn’t even stop to clean it up.
“Happy birthday, Potter.”
And before Harry could find a reply, or say anything that might make him stay, Draco left.
The pub door closed behind him, and Harry remained seated, staring at the spot where he’d been just seconds before. Little by little, the noise of the celebration crept back into the empty space. The laughter returned, the music carried on, and someone started another song near the bar, but everything felt distant.
Because Harry could only think about one thing: Draco Malfoy had kissed him.
That night, he couldn’t sleep.
He took the potion Draco carefully brewed for him every month, the same one he kept on his bedside table because he’d grown used to having something that came from him nearby. He waited for it to take effect, hoping exhaustion would finally overcome his thoughts.
It didn’t work.
Every time he closed his eyes, he was back at that moment in the pub. Back to Draco’s hand on his cheek, to the way he’d looked away as if he were frightened of what he was feeling, to the exact instant when his lips had brushed his.
And above all, back to those grey eyes.
Twenty-Third Birthday — 31st July 2003
It was the first birthday they truly spent together.
Because after that kiss in the pub, Draco vanished for three weeks. Three weeks during which Harry searched for him at the apothecary in Diagon Alley, at his bachelor flat in London, in every corner where a repentant Malfoy might hide.
He found him one night in August, drunk, on a park bench, his tie crooked and his eyes red.
“Potter,” Draco said when he saw him. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you. I’ve been looking for you for three weeks.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“Yeah, well, I did anyway. Are you going to explain what happened?”
Draco looked at him, but he seemed broken. More broken than ever.
“I kissed you. I kissed you and I shouldn’t have kissed you because I don’t deserve it, Potter. I don’t deserve anything. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, I don’t deserve you talking to me, I don’t deserve you looking at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”
“And how am I looking at you?”
“Like… like I were someone good.”
Harry sat down beside him on the cold park bench, under the light of a flickering streetlamp.
“You are good, Draco.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“It’s your name.”
“But I don’t deserve it.”
“Yes, you do. You’ve earned it now.”
Draco couldn’t help it and let out a bitter laugh, which drew a smile from Harry and, by extension, from Draco too. Though his was much smaller: just a slight lift of the left corner of his lips.
“You’re mad, Potter.”
“Yeah, probably.”
They sat in silence for a long while; then Harry stretched out his hand on the bench, palm up. An invitation. Draco looked at it, hesitated, and finally placed his hand on top.
“I’m not going to be easy,” Draco warned.
“Nothing worth having is easy.”
“I’m going to argue with you every single day.”
“We’ve been arguing since we were eleven. Nothing new.”
“People are going to talk. They’re going to say horrible things.”
“Let them say whatever they want.”
“My father is going to disinherit me.”
“He would never do that, and if he did, I can keep you — wouldn’t you like that?” Draco nodded, trying to hide a laugh that wanted to escape his lips. “There you go then.”
With his grey eyes glistening under the streetlamp, Draco bit his lower lip.
“Do you really want this, Potter?”
“Harry.”
“What?”
“Call me Harry. If we’re going to try this, at least call me Harry.”
Draco swallowed. It wasn’t the first time he’d called him by his name; he’d done it before, but still… it was strange.
“Harry,” he said, testing the word.
“Draco,” Harry replied.
And that’s how it all began.
Almost a year later, for his twenty-third birthday, Draco made him dinner at his flat.
A disaster of a dinner, truth be told. The pasta was overcooked, the sauce was lumpy, and the birthday cake was lopsided because Draco didn’t know how to use the oven and had had to ask his mother for help via owl.
But Harry ate the overcooked pasta, the lumpy sauce, and the lopsided cake, and said it was the best dinner of his life.
“You’re a terrible liar, Potter.”
“Harry.”
“Harry,” Draco corrected. “You’re a terrible liar, Harry.”
“I’m not lying. It’s the best dinner of my life because you made it.”
Draco went red. Properly red. Harry had never seen him blush before. It was adorable, though he’d never say it aloud because Draco was a Malfoy and Malfoys were not adorable.
That night, Draco stayed on the sofa, his head resting on Harry’s shoulder, watching the stars through the window of the bachelor flat that was no longer just a bachelor flat. It was no longer just anything — now it belonged to both of them. Though Harry still had his house on the outskirts, and though they’d never talked about moving in together.
“Happy birthday, Harry,” Draco murmured against his neck.
“The best one yet,” Harry replied.
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not. It’s the best because you’re here, with me.”
And Draco laughed. The most beautiful laugh Harry had ever heard from him.
Twenty-Fourth Birthday — 31st July 2004
They celebrated in Paris.
Because Draco had said, “I want to take you somewhere where nobody knows you, where you can walk without people staring,” and Harry had said, “Okay,” and Draco had bought two train tickets without telling him the destination until they were already on board.
Paris in summer was unbearably hot, full of tourists, full of noise; but it was also Paris. With its cobbled streets, its pavement cafés, its bridges over the Seine, its vast museums that Draco wandered through with shining eyes and Harry wandered through with his mouth hanging open.
“I’ve never been out of England,” Harry confessed, as he looked up at the Eiffel Tower from below.
“I know. That’s why I brought you.”
“How do you know I’ve never been out?”
“Because you’re Harry Potter. Because you spent half your life shut in a cupboard and the other half fighting Dark wizards. When were you supposed to travel?”
Harry shrugged. Draco had a point.
They strolled through Montmartre, saw the city from above, and bought crêpes from a street stall. Draco spoke French with the vendor and Harry stood staring at him, fascinated, because he hadn’t known Draco spoke French.
“I’m a Malfoy,” Draco said, when Harry asked him about it. “We have an education, you know. It’s not all about insulting Mudbloods.”
“Don’t say that word.”
“I didn’t say it. I said it’s not all about that.”
“Yeah, but don’t say it.”
His boyfriend looked at him for a moment and then nodded.
“I won’t. Sorry.”
Harry took his hand, and they walked together along the banks of the Seine, the sun sinking over the horizon and the sky turning orange.
“I like Paris,” Harry said.
“You like Paris because you’re with me.”
“Maybe.”
“Insufferably romantic, Potter.”
“Harry.”
“Harry, sorry. I always forget.”
“Then practise.”
Draco stopped in the middle of the bridge, Harry’s hand in his, the Eiffel Tower in the background and the Seine flowing below.
“Happy birthday, Harry.”
And he kissed him. In Paris, on a bridge, with the sunset as witness. Harry kissed him back with his eyes closed and his heart open.
It was the best birthday of his life up to that point, because there was always a better one waiting.
Twenty-Sixth Birthday — 31st July 2006
They had been living together for eight months, three weeks, and two days. Harry knew this because Draco kept an exact count on a calendar he’d hung in the kitchen.
The house was a disaster. Literally.
Not because they didn’t have money for a nice house. They did. Harry had the Potter inheritance and the Black inheritance, while Draco still had his own, despite his father not having been exactly thrilled when he found out about their relationship — and even less so after Draco and Harry had joined their lives and their surnames in holy matrimony.
On the wedding day, Lucius had said he wasn’t worried that Draco had married Harry Potter. What worried him was that now he had to pretend he enjoyed the Weasleys’ jokes at family dinners.
Anyway, back to the point: money wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that Draco was a disaster and Harry was also a disaster, and when you put two disasters together the result wasn’t order or stability, but chaos — clothes strewn across the floor, half-brewed potions in the kitchen, books piled on the stairs, and owls coming and going at all hours.
“Potter!”
“Malfoy!”
“You left your broom on the sofa again!”
“You left your cauldron in the bathroom!”
“Because I need it for a hair potion!”
“You don’t need a hair potion, your hair is already perfect!”
Draco fell silent and, on pure instinct, Harry did the same. They stared at each other from opposite ends of the hallway: Draco with the broom in one hand and Harry with the cauldron in the other.
“Did you just say my hair is perfect?” Draco asked, with a smile that tried to be haughty but came out stupidly happy.
“No. I said you don’t need a potion.”
“You said ‘your hair is already perfect’. I heard you.”
“Your ears must have failed you.”
“Harry.”
“Draco.”
“Admit you paid me a compliment.”
“Admit you’re a disaster.”
“I’m a marvellous disaster.”
Harry laughed, and Draco did too. They ended up dropping the broom and the cauldron on the floor, kissing in the hallway, tripping over a stack of books, and falling onto a pile of dirty laundry that Draco had sworn he was going to wash three days ago.
That day, they threw a birthday party at their house. A house that still didn’t have a name, though Draco insisted on calling it “Potter-Malfoy Manor” and Harry insisted it was a normal house, with no manor about it.
Ron, Hermione, Ginny, the Weasleys, Neville, Luna, Hagrid, and even Lucius and Narcissa came — the latter arriving with a three-tier cake and a look of resignation at the reigning chaos.
“Darling Draco,” Narcissa said, stepping on a sock that was on the floor. “Your house is a disaster.”
“I know, Mother.”
“Hire a house-elf.”
“No, Mother.”
“At least tidy up a little.”
“We’re trying, Mother.”
She sighed, resigned. Not because Draco was right (because he clearly wasn’t), but because she knew insisting was useless.
Besides, she had proof that the disaster wasn’t entirely her son’s fault.
From where she stood, she could hear the voices coming from the kitchen. When she turned, she found the true reason for the chaos: at some point, her son had escaped her side and was now in the middle of an argument with Ron about Quidditch, while Harry was desperately trying to stop them.
Meanwhile, Hermione was trying to save the glasses from the hands of those who shouldn’t be near fragile objects, and Ginny was laughing, enjoying the disaster everything had become.
“He’s happy,” Narcissa said to herself.
“Yes,” Harry replied, having heard her. “He is. But I’m happier because I have him by my side.”
She turned to look at her son-in-law and, though she said nothing, she squeezed his arm in a gesture of support and respect. It was more than Harry had ever received from Draco’s mother.
That night, when everyone had left, Harry and Draco stayed sprawled on the sofa, exhausted. The house was still a disaster. There were dirty dishes on the table, half-empty glasses, a wine stain on the carpet that Draco had tried to clean with magic and Harry had made worse with a mispronounced spell.
“Happy birthday, Harry,” Draco said, his head resting on Harry’s chest.
“Thanks.”
“Did you like it?”
“A lot.”
“The house is a disaster.”
“I know.”
“We’re going to have to tidy up someday.”
“Probably.”
“But not today.”
“No. Not today.”
Harry held him tighter, and Draco complained, said something about being suffocated, but he didn’t move. They stayed wrapped up together on the sofa, in their house, in their chaos, in their life.
Twenty-Seventh Birthday — 31st July 2007
As every year, Harry’s birthday fell in the summer, but that particular summer, Draco gave Harry something he didn’t expect.
“A key,” Harry said, looking at the small golden object Draco was placing in his hand.
“It’s not just any key.”
“What does it open?”
“The annexe. The room at the back. The one that was empty.”
Harry frowned, not quite understanding what his husband meant. The room at the back had been empty since they moved in. Draco always said it was “for something special” but never specified what.
“Come on,” he said, taking him by the hand.
They crossed the book-littered hallway, skirted a pile of laundry Draco didn’t want to wash, and reached the door at the end. Harry put the key in and opened it.
It was a nursery, though it wasn’t completely finished.
The walls were painted a neutral colour, a soft green reminiscent of Harry’s eyes and of Lily’s. There was a little cot in one corner, a rocking chair by the window, and a rug with stars on the floor. And on the wall, a half-finished mural: a stag and a dragon, side by side.
Harry was speechless.
“Draco…”
“It’s not for now,” Draco said quickly, his cheeks red. “It’s for the future. For when we’re ready. For when we want to. If you want to. If I want to. I don’t know why I did this, honestly, it’s stupid, I should have asked you first…”
“Draco.”
“…but I saw the empty room and thought it would look nice, and then I went to the shop and bought the cot, and the rocking chair was my grandmother’s, I rescued it from the manor before my parents sold it and moved to…”
“Draco.”
“…and the mural’s still not finished because I don’t know how to paint stags, stags are difficult, all right? Dragons I can manage, but stags I can’t, so…”
Harry kissed him.
He kissed him to make him be quiet, to make him understand, to let him know without needing words.
When they pulled apart, Draco’s eyes were glistening.
“Do you like it?” he asked, his voice barely a thread.
“I love it,” Harry said. “I love it, Draco. I love everything. I love you.”
“It’s too soon, I know. But I wanted to give it to you. I wanted you to know that I… that we…”
“That we.”
“Yes. That.”
Harry hugged Draco in the doorway of the nursery, with the half-painted stag and the finished dragon and the little cot waiting empty.
“When we’re ready,” Harry said. “When we’re ready, we’ll fill it.”
“When we’re ready,” Draco repeated. “Happy birthday, Harry.”
That was the year Harry knew that Draco Malfoy was the man he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Not because he’d given him a nursery, but because he’d built it with his own hands, without knowing whether Harry would want it — just for the possibility that one day, they might want it together.
Thirtieth Birthday — 31st July 2010
The house was still a disaster, but now the disaster included a dog.
A dog Draco had adopted without consulting Harry the day before his birthday; a stray dog he’d found one rainy day in Diagon Alley, with three legs, one blind eye, and the most ridiculous name in the world: “Sirius”.
“He’s not called Sirius,” Harry said when Draco arrived home with the dog in his arms.
“He’s called Sirius.”
“You can’t call a three-legged dog Sirius.”
“Why not? Your godfather would have been flattered.”
“My godfather would have been deeply offended.”
“Well, Sirius is staying. Isn’t that right, Sirius?” The dog barked. Draco smiled triumphantly. “See? He agrees.”
Harry argued, and Draco argued more; but they ended up with the dog asleep on their bed and the two of them squashed onto one side, because Sirius took up the rest of the mattress with a shamelessness that would have done his namesake proud.
The next day, the thirtieth birthday party was bigger than the ones before. Everyone came. All the Weasleys, with Molly’s grandchildren running around the garden. Hermione and Ron, with their two young children. Neville and Hannah. Luna and Rolf. Hagrid, ever older and ever larger and ever fuller of stories.
Narcissa and Lucius were there too, who now had dinner with them twice a week and… it had to be admitted, Lucius adored Harry. And though he would never admit it, because… well, he was Lucius Malfoy, he’d grown rather fond of the Weasleys as well; very little, of course, but fond nonetheless.
“They do grow on you,” he’d said.
The garden was full of lanterns, bunting, and an enormous table Draco had decorated with a floral centrepiece. The dog Sirius raced between the guests’ legs, chasing Ron and Hermione’s children, while Harry watched him and smiled.
In a corner of the garden, Draco was arguing with Ron about the latest Quidditch season. Still arguing, after all these years; but it was affectionate, even if Ron refused to admit it.
“Your husband is insufferable,” Ron said to Harry, when Draco went to get more drinks.
“I know.”
“I don’t know how you put up with him.”
“Neither do I. But I do.”
Ron looked at him, but after a few seconds he smiled. He too loved that Draco had joined the family.
“You’re happy, aren’t you?”
“So much,” Harry said. “More than I ever thought I’d be.”
His friend clapped him on the shoulder.
“Then it’s worth it.”
His husband came back with a bottle of champagne and a glass for Harry. The dog Sirius followed him, wagging his tail. Behind them came Ron and Hermione’s children, asking for cake, and the rest of Molly’s grandchildren, shouting and laughing.
“Happy birthday, Harry,” Draco said, handing him the glass.
“Happy birthday, Potter,” Ron imitated.
“Happy birthday, Harry,” said Hermione and Ginny, coming closer.
“Happy birthday, darling,” said Narcissa, from her chair.
“Happy birthday, Harry!” bellowed Hagrid, nearly knocking the table over with his enthusiasm.
Harry looked at all of them. At his family. The family he’d built over the years, through loss, through scars, through love and forgiveness and second chances.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, all of you.”
That night, when everyone had left, Harry and Draco stayed in the garden, sitting on a bench. The dog Sirius slept at their feet and the stars shone overhead.
“Do you know what I thought the day we met?” Draco asked.
“On the train? In Madam Malkin’s?”
“In the pub. When I saw you at the bar. I thought, ‘not again, not Harry Potter.’ And then I thought, ‘why is my heart beating so fast?’”
Harry looked at him.
“I felt something too,” he said. “I didn’t know what it was. It took me a long time to figure it out.”
“You were late, Potter.”
“Harry.”
“Harry,” Draco smiled. “You were late, Harry.”
“But I got there.”
“Yes. You got there.”
And Draco rested his head on Harry’s shoulder, like so many other nights. And Harry wrapped his arm around him, like so many other nights. And the dog Sirius dreamed of something, twitching his paws and letting out little barks.
Upstairs, in the house, the room at the back wasn’t quite so empty anymore. Last year they had filled it. Not with a person, because the adoption was still in process and there were months to go, paperwork and interviews; but they had put pink sheets on the little cot, filled the wardrobe with clothes, and the floor was beginning to be covered in toys.
On the wall there was a framed letter: the first one that the little girl who would one day be their daughter had written to them (with help).
Dear Daddies, my name is Lyra and I am three years old. I like dragons and stags. I want to live with you.
Harry and Draco had read it a hundred times. A hundred times each. Two hundred in total.
“Next year,” Draco said. “Next year Lyra will be here.”
“Yes,” Harry said.
“It’s going to be another disaster.”
“Probably.”
“But a beautiful disaster.”
“The most beautiful.”
Draco kissed him on the cheek.
“Happy birthday, Harry.”
“Thank you, Draco.”
“For everything.”
“For everything.”
And Harry blew out an invisible candle, the way he used to as a child, in the cupboard under the stairs. But this time he didn’t make a wish, because he already had everything.
Absolutely everything.
🎂🎂🎂
—𝓉𝒶𝓉𝓉