A Present By Any Other Name
Hermione's parents hadn't arrived yet, and seeing that the girl was biting her lip raw with worry, the Reeds decided to stay with her until her parents came to pick her up. The group made their way past the mob of reuniting families and found a corner near the platform entrance to wait.
Harry's father cast a sound muffling charm into the air around them and his mother transfigured an oblong pebble into a long, padded bench. The four of them made themselves comfortable, his mother conjuring little throw pillows, each more colorful and needlessly elaborate than the next, and his father passed around a thermos of hot tea from his mother's bottomless handbag.
Hermione peppered his parents with questions about each piece of magic his parents had just performed, her mouth going a mile a minute. His parents looked at each other in bemusement through the rapid flurry of questions, comments, and tangential asides and Harry had to hide a laugh.
His mother stopped the girl with a smile. "Hermione, it's wonderful to see you so curious and enthusiastic about learning more magic but... you don't have to try so hard." Her eyebrows were furrowed in concern. "These things will come naturally with time."
"That's the thing, I don't feel like I have any time," Hermione said, her fingers worrying at the tassels of a bright turquoise throw pillow. "The other students are so far ahead… they've known about magic their entire lives, they must know so much about how it can be used and what you can do with it - so much valuable information that you can't learn from school or from books, but that you have to live."
"I think you're sorely overestimating the attention span and willpower of the average child," his mother laughed.
Harry waved an errant hand. "Yeah Hermione, don't even worry about it."
"But I do worry!" Hermione cried. "I want to be the best witch I can possibly be, I don't want to lose out just because I'm a muggleborn."
"Recognizing the areas in which you are lacking and wanting to better yourself is admirable," his father said, "but you should also recognize your own strengths." He addressed Harry with a turn of his head. "What do you always say about your friend Hermione?"
Harry brightened. "That she's the best in our year!"
His father raised an eyebrow at Hermione. "Your classmates may have been born into this society, but opportunities given and ill-used are opportunities wasted." He regarded her seriously for a moment. "Take in as much knowledge as you can, but don't let an inferiority complex be the thing that drives you."
The girl glanced down at her shoes, her bushy hair hiding her face.
Harry blinked. An inferiority complex… Hermione? The brightest, most talented witch in their class? How was that possible?
And what sort of friend was he to miss something so important when his dad could deduce it in a matter of minutes?
His mother wrapped an arm around Hermione's shoulders and the girl looked up slowly, gaze drawn to the woman's encouraging smile. "My husband isn't reprimanding you, Hermione, he just wants you to be more confident."
Hermione looked up at his father in surprise.
The warmth in the man's eyes reassured her. "Take pride in your talent and ability," he said, and the light caught his flash of a smile, "and soon no one will question your worth."
Hermione seemed to take his words to heart, eyes bright and determined, her shoulders lifting from their dejected slump.
Hermione's parents soon arrived and they thanked the Reeds profusely for looking after their daughter before leaving in a flurry of bustling activity. Harry watched them go quietly, thinking over his past interactions with Hermione with new understanding.
Hermione was incredibly smart, not just because of the hours of extra work she put in, but because she was a genius. But the girl never seemed to rest. She always pushed herself to the limit frantically, as if life was a never-ending test she had to study for – one she was in danger of failing. He had thought Hermione was a perfectionist like his father, someone who liked to plan for every scenario and control for every variable, but the words "inferiority complex" cast her behavior in a new, distressing light.
If you always measured yourself against some imagined, impossible standard and found yourself wanting, how could you appreciate your own accomplishments? Thinking back, Hermione never seemed to savor her achievements. She was always constantly picking at her work, finding nonexistent flaws and tearing herself apart until she was a bundle of anxiety. Harry, Ron, and the others had shrugged in exasperation at Hermione's behavior because studying and homework was never so important to them, but to Hermione these things were so much more than a chore or another assignment. She saw her progress at Hogwarts as one of the only ways she could improve her situation and not only survive, but thrive in the wizarding world – a world she was thrust into entirely unprepared, a world that did not make many allowances for those like her.
Sitting in the car on the ride back home, Harry resolved to become more observant in the future. If his friend was pushing herself too hard and struggling, he would be there to help. He didn't know what he would do at that point and he didn't know if it was even in his power to help, but he had to try.
Hermione was one of his friends. And he would never take any of his friends for granted.
Back at home, Harry and his father were quickly roped into a storm of holiday preparations.
His mother was always the one who got most excited about the holiday season. Their family celebrated both Christmas and Yule, despite being more pagan than anything else, and when he'd once asked her why she had told him:
"Christmas is like that extra sprinkle of spirit and cheer on top of your ice cream. Sure, it's superfluous when you compare it to the real toppings – the fruits, the nuts, the syrups. Sure, it's commercialized and overrated and an excuse to spend more on frivolous things. Sure, it's not needed, but it makes you happy, so why not?"
'It makes you happy, so why not?' was his mother's attitude towards most things, he thought, smiling to himself.
The outside of the house was decked out in true Muggle fashion, with a wreath at the door, twinkling lights, and a little family of animatronic deer with a stag, a doe, and a fawn, frolicking in the front yard.
His father had drawn the line when his mother had made eyes at a maniacally waving Santa, however.
"No one's going to see it," he'd said, crossing his arms and eyeing the waving animatronic with distaste. Living on a wooded hill discouraged most neighbors and neighborly competition was, to his mind, the whole point of exterior home decor.
"They will if we get the giant, lit-up version!" she'd exclaimed.
They had the same argument every year and it always ended the same way: his father calmly leading them out of the store with hands at both their backs and his mother regretfully calling back to the larger, absurdly festive decorations with a promise of "Next year!"
They were now trimming their tree, which was the perfect height and width for their spacious, but still, cozy living room, if Harry did say so himself. (He would know, since he was the one to painstakingly pick it out.)
His father had already cast the tree topper charm and the ball of soft, golden light at the top of the tree shone like a miniature star.
His mother was spinning a smaller ball of candy-apple red glass at the end of her wand. Once the ball was perfectly round, she detached it from the tip and made an ornate hoop at the top with a twist of her wrist.
"You should give it a try," she said, once she saw him watching. "It's easy and you can get pretty fancy once you've gotten the hang of it."
His mother held his hand and guided him through the wand movements. The end result was a little lopsided, more egg shaped than truly spherical, but he beamed with pride nonetheless.
His father came up behind them and he watched with bated breath as his father held the red glass up to the light. "Now this is a keeper," the man said finally, and Harry flushed with pleasure as his father cast a preservation charm.
His mother winked at him. Most of the ornaments disappeared on their own when Christmas ended, but it looked like he had just made a new addition to their permanent collection of Christmas decorations.
His father handed the bauble back and Harry hung it on the tree happily.
In the days that followed, Harry occupied himself with getting gifts for his new friends.
He had his father help him make a snowglobe with little Quidditch players inside modeled after Ron's favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons. When shaken, the Quidditch players would whirr around furiously, but when left undisturbed they would just fly around, manning their positions.
For Neville's gift, he had asked his mother for some of the more unique seeds from her greenhouse and owl ordered a plain wooden box with seven compartments. Labeling each compartment with the name of each seed, he included a little card with a picture of the mature plant and its properties.
Hermione would be getting a copy of some of his father's earlier publications along with his father's accompanying notes. His mother had teasingly suggested he bind the notes into a pretty journal to make up for the lack of creativeness, but he took the suggestion to heart and did just that. Picking out a patterned fabric from his mother's crafting supplies, he had his mother teach him how to stitch the pages together and how to use the fabric and a piece of board to create the cover. The final product looked quite nice, considering it was his first time bookbinding.
Draco's present was a bit harder, not least because he had to first explain his friendship with the Malfoy heir to his unwitting parents.
"We are talking about the same boy, right?" his mother asked, frowning in disbelief. "The one that was so rude and snooty in the robe shop?"
"He's really nice when you get to know him, Mum," Harry said firmly. "And he can't help being a bit of a snob. His parents drill that into him before he can even dream about expressing an opinion of his own."
"I still don't like it."
His father gave her a quelling look. "Now, now, we should give the boy a chance." He clasped Harry's shoulder supportively. "I'm sure our son is the better judge of his friend's character."
"You're just glad he has a friend from your old House," she accused.
"That too," his father smirked.
"Well, I hope you get used to the idea soon, Mum..." Harry toed the floor nervously. "Because Draco's parents have invited us to their Yule Ball."
They both turned away from each other to stare at him, eyes wide with surprise.
The formal invitations to the Malfoy Yule Ball had arrived a week into the break, but Harry had hidden them until he could broach the topic of the Malfoys with his parents first. He received a lecture for not informing them of something so important sooner, but his mother was suddenly much more accepting of his friendship with Draco. She'd spent the last couple of days getting things ready, everything from their outfits to their guest gifts. Harry didn't think they had to give the older Malfoys anything, since the invitation was so short notice and they weren't even properly acquainted, but his mother reminded him that guest gifts were an important pureblood tradition – one that the Reeds would be wise to follow.
When invited to a social gathering by a pureblood family, it is appropriate to bring a gift, one of commensurate value to the relationship you share with that family. Since the only connection between the Reeds and the Malfoys was the friendship between their two sons, his mother had to choose carefully, for the Malfoys would judge whether Harry was a suitable playmate for their son based on the quality and thoughtfulness of their gift. Harry was unaware of the weight this gift would carry, but that was fine. It was enough that his mother knew, and that is why she had decided to gift the Malfoys a bush of her glass roses.
Glass roses were a magical type of rose made of a living glass. The bushes, stems, leaves, and seeds of the plant were organic, but the flowers themselves were pure glass. The colors vary depending on the breed but the most coveted glass roses were those with a high clarity to showcase the transparency of the glass. The roses drop off the plant eventually and breeders leave cushioned tarps underneath the plant to catch the crystal flowers before they shattered. The flowers are unique to the touch, and you could never mistake a rose of carved glass for a glass rose, for the petals of a glass rose are as thin and delicate as actual rose petals.
Glass roses were incredibly rare since the process to breed them required enough understanding of advanced inorganic to organic transfiguration theory to coax a plant to produce glass flowers. After that, you'd have to performs hundreds of thousands of crosses over a number of years before a suitable grade 1 rose would appear. And even then you'd have to wait to see if that rose would propagate and make more grade 1 glass roses. The Murano and Vetreria Gardens in Italy were home to the largest glass rose breeding programs in the world, but not many have been able to replicate their success.
Harriet had gifted the Malfoys with her ice blue roses, ones she'd bred specifically since no other breeder had managed to achieve such a clear, intense shade of blue. The color would symbolize the calmness her family would bring to their meeting and the conservatism in which they would approach a relationship with the Malfoys. The transparency of the rose would also tell the Malfoys that the Reeds would meet them with honest intentions and that they had nothing to hide.
The rarity and expense of the roses was such that no one could deny it was a worthy gift, though some might argue it was a bit forward, even presumptuous, of the no-name Reeds to gift the Malfoys with something so personal, seeing as the bush was the product of many years of Harriet's dedication and skill. Harriet knew it was a risk that would pay off, however. The Malfoys' had always had a weakness for beautiful and rare things. And this would also prove that the Reeds were a magically powerful family that was well aware of their position in the wizarding world but not resigned to it.
If you were to meet a pureblood family on their playing field, you'd have to play by their rules. Tom may have taught Harriet most of these rules, but he had taught her with the expectation that she would use them to her advantage.
These social-political nuances all flew over Harry's head however, as he was more concerned with his preparations for Draco's gift.
In the end, he decided to give his friend a two part gift; a book of origami techniques and a paper dragon.
The dragon was the size of a large lizard, almost as long as Harry's arm, and was definitely his most difficult paper creation to date. He had chosen a thicker gold paper and had written all over it in tiny runes to help the dragon be more magically self-sufficient than his other paper creatures. He would fuel his creation with an initial burst of magic when he imbued it for the first time with its purpose and some of Draco's magic was obviously going to be absorbed once the boy keyed the dragon to his magical signature, but the dragon would also use ambient magical energy to supplement its stores. He did not know how long his creation would last, but by giving the dragon a recirculating and adaptable magical energy system he hoped his gift would endure for several more years.
His father had been most intrigued by the idea, and had asked Harry to try to measure how many MEUs the dragon would require to function. Harry had only groaned. He was struggling enough with making the darned thing, did he have to worry about recording, organizing, and analyzing data too?
After he'd answered the question of where and how the dragon would get its power, he focused on inscribing the paper with even more runes. These runes would strengthen the joints, preserve the paper against water and heat damage, and most importantly, enable the dragon to fly. His parents helped him with that last part, as he did not have nearly enough knowledge in the areas of physics and magical aerodynamics.
After getting all the rune work done, and using a multitude of paper crafting techniques to fold, mold, and cut the different parts of the dragon, he painstakingly put it together, piece by piece. When everything was over, Harry could only gaze at his final creation with weary eyes and a proud smile before keeling over on his work table and making a pillow of his ink-stained paper scraps.
"He really went all out." Harry brushed some hair away from Harrison's face and the boy wrinkled his nose before murmuring sleepily. Harry glanced at Tom with a sigh. "I just hope it's all worth it."
Tom picked up a sheaf of Harrison's notes and replied, "Just because you had an unfortunate experience with the Malfoy boy doesn't mean Harrison has to." He looked up from some messily scrawled figures and reminded Harry, "He's not you, after all."
And that was the rub wasn't it? If his son was not him – not the freak under the stairs, not the chosen one, not the boy who lived to die – no, Harrison would never be him, they'd made sure of it – then Harry had to accept his son was free to make his own choices. Even if he chose to befriend someone like Malfoy.
"It's strange," Harry said finally. "I'm fine with Ron and Hermione. I even faced Dumbledore and Sirius without a problem." He shook his head in disbelief. "But I just can't seem to shake this thing I have for Malfoy."
"Perhaps you're fine with the other figures of your past because you don't perceive them as threats."
Harry laughed darkly. "So you're saying I'm more afraid of Malfoy than I am of Dumbledore."
Tom put down the papers and moved to where Harry was standing over their son. "I'm saying that some part of you still trusts Dumbledore and your friends to never hurt you." He brought his arms underneath Harrison carefully, and lifted the boy up until his head lolled against Tom's shoulder.
They waited a moment but Harrison slept on, oblivious, nuzzling his cold nose into the warm hollow underneath his father's chin. Tom continued then, voice soft as to not disturb his precious new burden. "That same part of you obviously expects Malfoy to hurt your son."
Was that it? Gazing at Harrison's face, such a curious blend of his and Tom's features, he wondered at the power of a mother's love, to make him fear more than he had ever feared for his own life.
Harry stepped closer and leaned his head against Tom's free shoulder. Pressing his face into the wool material of Tom's robe, he muttered, "I think you're right."
They stood there and didn't move for a long time.
Author's Note: Had this chapter already uploaded on AO3 for a year but forgot to upload it on ffnet. I'm working on the next chapter, I promise.
On another note, for new readers, the AO3 version has art I've made for this story so check that out if you're interested. My name on AO3 is Felled_and_Fallen.