Happy Birthday, Draco

Author: SOrion
Pairing: HP/DM
Word count: 1198

Author's note: On the occasion of our favourite Slytherin's birthday.
Not betaed... Since I wanted to post on his birthday... And there's only a little over an hour left. (If you find any mistakes, please tell me.)
I hope, I got all the years right...

June, 5th 1980
A little boy was born that day. He had pale blond hair and grey eyes, like his parents. He was the pride and joy of his mother and father; and many well-wishers sent presents. He was given the name Draco, fitting for the heir of the House of Malfoy.

1985
Draco Malfoy celebrated his fifth birthday. He did so with glowing eyes that would roam over the mountains of presents, sweets, candles, flying little snitches, other wizard's children and two loving parents that would smile at him.
When he said that this was the world's bestest birthday party, ever, his father would chuckle, pat his head and point out another present that was still wrapped, yet.
Draco Malfoy got his very first broom, when he was five years old. A brand new Firefly100, especially made for the young wizard. It had his name in gold letters on the handle
Draco forgot everything else, ignored his guests, his parents and his presents. He had a broom, now!
Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy smiled, as Draco flew his first rounds.

1991
Draco Malfoy celebrated his eleventh birthday. This was a very special birthday, Draco knew. He would be attending Hogwarts in only two months time.
He was told that Harry Potter would be in his year. Maybe even in Slytherin, like he, himself, would be sorted into, no doubt. That would be interesting. He wondered how a boy might look like who single-handedly defeated the Dark Lord all by himself when he was just a baby.
His father mentioned Potter every once in a while. Draco was never quite sure, what his father thought of his soon-to-be school mate. He would talk about how convenient it would be to be friends with a exceptional wizard like Harry Potter, while he would sneer at the boy's mudblood mother.
Draco was certain that he would be friends with Harry Potter. After all, who wouldn't want to be friends with Draco? Everyone knew the influence that was the name of Malfoy.

But his eleventh birthday wasn't only happy. He would have to leave home, would have to leave his parents. Draco didn't like to think about that.
But when he told his father how very sad he was, he had gotten one raised eyebrow and a lecture that a young man like Draco, shouldn't show weakness, much less cry.
Draco had swallowed, bitten his lips and went flying with his newest broom.
He had not cried that day.

1995
Draco Malfoy celebrated his fifteenth birthday. The party had been delayed until he had returned from school, but Draco had gotten used to that in his years at Hogwarts.
He was torn the day he had returned home for his celebration. It wasn't his presents, there were plenty, as there always were. It wasn't his friends in his company. It wasn't the feast the house elves had prepared.
It was his parents.
For years he had been told that the Dark Lord would return, and everything would be better, then. That the mudbloods and especially the thorn in his side, Harry Potter, would pay. That the wizarding world would finally become the place they had hoped for.
But none of that happened. On his fifteenth birthday, Draco Malfoy had to learn that he had lost the parents he loved. All he had left were two Death Eaters, too afraid of the Dark Lord and too engulfed in their hunger for power to love their son, anymore.
And Draco… Draco was to follow their example. Power, fear, no love. For he, too, feared the Dark Lord. He knew of his father's power, and he was smart enough to know that if his father feared Voldemort… so should he.
That day he did cry. In his room, alone.

1998
Draco Malfoy celebrated his eighteenth birthday. He would never again celebrate a birthday with his parents, as his mother had died by the hand of his own father for a blood sacrifice, and his father had died… through patricide.
The war was over. There was no more Dark Lord.
In the past three years he had gone from hating and blaming anyone and everyone for his estranged parents, to finally allowing another point of view. And allowing himself to believe in love, again, to believe that not everyone he loved would turn from him, sooner or later.
That day he cried, too. For his parents that he had lost years ago, long before they died. For his friends who were killed. For the lost future that he was led to believe he should have.
But that day he didn't cry alone. He was held in strong arms by a young man who understood loss all too well, who cried with him, for his heart hurt just as much.

2005
Draco Malfoy celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday. For the first time in fourteen years he was at Malfoy Manor for the occasion.
He had returned to live in his childhood home, a few months ago, with his husband by his side. While getting to know their new home, Harry had listened patiently to what Draco could tell him about his childhood. A childhood that was happy until… until their becoming fifteen. They had held each other, then, to offer comfort. Neither of them liked to think about that time.
They had decided to use a different wing of the manor for their living quarters than the old family wing.

But the day of his birthday, that 5th of June, Harry found Draco in the Malfoy family wing in his old room.
"Draco?" he called softly while entering the room of a child that was now grown.
Draco sat on the floor with his back to the door, holding something in his hands.
When Harry walked around the still form, he first noticed the glistening of tears on Draco's cheeks.
He kneeled beside the young man and pushed a stray pale strand off Draco's forehead.
Draco looked at a small broom in his hands. "This is how I want to remember them," he whispered.
Harry sat beside him and gently touched the wooden handle of Draco's broom. He traced the golden letters that spelled his husband's name. He kept quiet and let Draco tell him, what he wanted, in his own time.
"I got this for the first birthday I remember. I was five. They loved me, Harry." Tears flowed freely, again. "They loved me." He looked up, smiling sadly.
"He's gone, now. He can't destroy any more love." Harry pulled Draco into a crushing embrace. "Never again."
Draco let himself be held and kissed, drowning in love and never wanting to resurface.
After a long while Draco stood up, placed the little broom on his old bed and looked at a picture on the nightstand of himself when he had gotten his brand new Firefly100. He smiled at the beaming and waving boy in the picture and leaned into Harry's embrace as the other man's arms encircled him.
Harry kissed him on the cheek.
Draco sighed happily and whispered while waving back slightly at the little blonde boy: "Happy birthday, Draco."

End
June 5th 2005