Harry Potter - Series Fan Fiction ❯ The Christmas Loan ❯ Cufflinks ( Chapter 9 )

The Christmas I Loaned My Sons

By: Ellipsis the Great

DISCLAIMER: The idea is from `Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul.' Harry Potter and all things affiliated with him belong to the amazing J.K. Rowling. I own the Potter twins, and all of the plot outside what I garnered from CSFTCS.

Summary: After losing his wife and son to a magical disease, Draco Malfoy puts an ad in an editorial to borrow a son for Christmas. Harry Potter answers.

Rated: T just in case. May change later on.

Spoilers: Five years post-Hogwarts. Compliant with all books, sans the epilogue in DH.

Warnings: CONTAINS SLASH! There WILL be shounen-ai in this story! Maybe actual yaoi later on, but definitely shounen-ai!

 

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CHAPTER NINE: Cufflinks

 

I supposed it was the Gryffindor showing in him as Potter told us the history behind his gift to Valerie. It wasn't the present, though; it was the expressions that flitted across his face.

Then again, I might have been the only person to notice the way his expression went from discomfort, to embarrassment (I made a mental note to make him blush more often; that light tinge on his cheeks and the way his eyes flickered down was…endearing), to awkwardness, to a kind of painful nostalgia that made my chest hurt. And then, at last, he had grinned widely, almost as if telling us a secret about himself. Which, admittedly, it might very well have been. I didn't suppose it was every day that you told people that your favorite book was some old muggle tale you'd had to dig out of the trash.

That wasn't to say that I hadn't known Potter was mistreated as a child. Pretty much everyone did by then, since Granger published her book on child abuse (after graduation she had become the first child psychologist in the Wizarding World) a few years before. She had used Potter and You-Know-Who as her biggest examples of how abuse affects a person, though she had stressed the fact that there was just as much abuse going on in the Wizarding World as there was in the Muggle one. To back up this statement she had brought into the light the childhood of Remus Lupin, as well as several other fairly well-known wizards.

In any case, I had already known about Potter's eleven-year exile to a broom cupboard, as well as several other neglectful and hurtful things his relatives had put him through (Yes, I read the book. Shut up.).

Even so, his vague reference to it had shocked me. It was one thing to read about something like that, but entirely different to hear about it—especially seeing as I'd had as normal and loving an upbringing as any other person. And the expression on his face when he'd said it made me want to grab his hand…no, grab all of him and hug the hurt away. The feeling was so strong that I had to clench my hands and teeth to stop myself from giving into it.

By the time I broke out of my thoughts, Luna had already opened her present from Potter: a set of baby silverware that was apparently a joke between them if her glare and his grin was anything to go by.

“Your turn, Draco.” Mother said.

Potter jolted.

“You're younger than me?” He asked.

“I was born on the thirty-first of August.” I said with a nod.

His eyes widened. “Seriously?”

“Is it really so hard to believe?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“Well…I just…always thought of you as older.” He said.

“Why?” Greg asked, confused (not that that was unusual).

He opened his mouth to answer, then stopped and thought for a moment. “I…don't really know.” He admitted finally. “I guess it was the whole `Prince of Slytherin' thing, maybe…”

“Daddy's silly!” Phoenix giggled.

Byrne tittered, too, even as he went to the presents, grabbed one of the ones Potter had brought, and toddled over to where I was sitting, holding it up to me.

“Open, Draco?” He asked, his eyes as wide and green as Potter's had ever been.

I blinked. “You got me something?” I asked. After what I'd read in Potter's letter, I hadn't expected to get anything from them.

But Byrne nodded vigorously, giving me the shy little smile that made me think of the first time I'd met Potter in Madam Malkin's shop, back when there had still been a chance of us being friends if I'd only been able to overcome my prejudices sooner.

“Thank you.” I said, and meant it. I took the present from him gingerly, still a bit awestruck at the thought of Potter getting me a gift (even if it was really his sons giving it to me).

“Daddy helped me pick it out.” Byrne informed me, shifting nervously as I opened it.

“He insisted.” Potter added, not quite meeting my gaze when I looked at him. That cute blush was tinting his cheeks again.

I rolled my eyes, hoping the movement would hide my own blush as well as the teeny smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. I turned my eyes back on the gift, finally finished unwrapping the little box hidden in the brightly colored paper. I glanced at Byrne, who was watching me anxiously, then at Phoenix, who was beaming at me, and finally at Potter, who still refused to look directly at me.

“Open it!” Valerie said impatiently.

I nodded and opened the box, my eyes widening. Nestled in the velvet lining of the box was a pair of silver cufflinks. Now, that might not seem like much, but that wasn't all—the cufflinks had been masterfully crafted to look like pansies with a small snake curling around the middle. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was an adder, and that the letters `DM' had been inscribed above it.

“Daddy told us you lost your Pansy and Adder.” Byrne said, pointing at the cufflinks. “So we found them in the book and Daddy ordered them.”

“Oh.” I said, though my voice came out as an ungainly squeak. I took a deep breath, my eyes never leaving the gift. “…Oh.”

“Lemme see!” Valerie said, climbing onto the couch beside me and peering over my shoulder at the box. “Oooh, pretty!”

Byrne put his minute hands over mine, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

“Draco?” His voice was so quiet I almost didn't hear him. “You like them, don't you?”

I breathed in shakily, realizing with a start that the reason he sounded so unsure was that I must have looked like I was about to cry. I certainly sounded and felt like it.

“Draco?”

I threw my arms around him and buried my head in his shoulder, sobbing bodily as he started babbling anxiously about how I had promised there would be no crying and how he was sorry and would get me something else if that would make it better. His innocent statements just made me cry harder, and finally he began bawling as well, Valerie and Phoenix trying to calm us down as everyone else just stared incredulously.

With my tear-fogged mind, it took me a while to figure out why I was crying over something so little. And then I was struck with something about the deaths of my wife and son that I had never thought about before:

I had never cried.

 

ENDCHAPTERNINE