Author's Note – Quidditch League Round 10 Entry

Team: Tutshill Tornados

Position: Chaser 2

Prompt: One half of your OTP doesn't support their partner's dreams and goals

Additional prompts: romance (word), "You told your mother?" (dialogue), reading (action)

Word count: 2,065

FYI: Muggle AU story, with a serve of troubled Drarry.

Extension used: No (4 of 5 previously used)

It wasn't words on a page/That pushed you away

Walking into the store, Draco breathed the pleasing aroma of his favourite tea house in, before exhaling and letting his breath carry the weight off his shoulders as it escaped his body. The expanding empire of the purveyor of bean water that was Starbucks hadn't toppled his love for tea, nor the tea shop that was tucked away in a quiet London side street, and for that Draco was thankful.

We're English, we should be above such things, Draco thought petulantly, unwinding his scarf from around his neck and tucking it into one of his shopping bags and making his way to the counter. Manning the register this morning was one of his two best friends Daphne, and Draco smiled when he saw her.

"Alright Daph?" he greeted her, receiving a smile in return. "I didn't expect to see you here during the day, I thought you'd be with the kids."

She just shrugged, putting the pen she was holding into the bun made by her hair. "I've only been here about a half hour. Blaise had an unexpected absentee today, one of the workers forgot to let him know she was sick. So, I came over to help out for a few hours and Mum agreed to watch the kids."

"You could've called me, I would've kept an eye on the boys," he said. "Abigail probably would've babysat the three of us, to be fair."

"I can't just dump three kids on you though," she replied. "As much as they would love to see their uncle and as much as my eight-year-old daughter does indeed have the maturity of a thirty-year-old."

"Plus, you keep telling them stories about us from school, they're starting to think you're cool or something," Daphne's husband Blaise said, placing a cup and plate in front of him.

"That's because I am," Draco said, inner amusement hiding behind a cocky smirk.

"Yeah, keep dreaming mate," Blaise responded with a laugh. "Alright, Early Grey, no sugar or milk, plus two vanilla shortbread biscuits. All on the house, of course, as per the terms of our agreement."

"You mean your football bet that you've had going since you were ten-years-old?" Daphne asked, snorting in an unladylike manner (which he told her, only to get the two-finger salute in return).

"Yes, our very formal, very adult agreement about football, which is absolutely not juvenile," Draco responded, turning his nose up and putting on his best posh toff voice, before breaking down into an uncharacteristically large grin as he joined his friends in laughter.

"You know, it's really good to see you smiling again mate," Blaise said as they all calmed down. "We didn't think we'd see it again-"

"-after how badly you lost last year's bet," Daphne rushed in to interrupt her husband, the laughter quickly dropping form everyone's face at what Blaise had been about to say. "Did you want us to carry these over to a table Draco?"

"No, no, I've got it," he said, a small smile struggling to stay put on his face. He knew his eyes weren't keeping up the ruse though, just like he knew his friends could see through it.

"Draco, mate, I didn't mean-" Blaise began, only for Draco to cut him off.

"Don't even worry about it, mate, I'm well past that," he said, picking up his tea and shortbread and walking away before they could say anything.

That was a lie and you all knew it, a dark part of Draco's psyche whispered back at him, bringing with it uncomfortable memories.

-Flashback-

"Come on Malfoy, up you get," Harry said, pulling the novel he was reading out of his hands.

"Give that back Potter, I'll lose my page!" Draco replied, jumping up to try and pry the book from his Quidditch player boyfriend's adept and clever fingers.

"Don't be like that love, we've got a dinner to get to. If we're late you know Hermione will have my head," Harry responded, kissing Draco briefly on the mouth before turning back to his claimed treasure. "Besides, what are you even reading anyway? You've had your head in this book all day."

"It's just a book Daphne gave me to read," Draco said, suddenly uncomfortable with his boyfriend's tone.

"Oh Merlin, you're reading a book called Lust Royale?" he asked, his laugh a little too much on the wrong side of mocking humour for Draco. Before he could say anything, Harry was folding the corner of the page (which he knew Draco hated) and pulling him towards the fireplace. "Alright, enough of your romance novels, let's go."

Not another word was spoken about the event, but it stuck out like a sore thumb as the beginning, the moment that Draco knew something wasn't quite right.

-Flashback-

Draco was brought out of his recollection by a small, polite cough, and his attention was suddenly pulled up to a young woman who was standing by the opposite chair with her own tea cup and saucer.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but would I be able to share the table with you? I've been waiting around for a few minutes but the rest of the chairs are taken and nobody seems to be leaving."

Draco stared blankly at her for a moment, before he cast his gaze around the tea shop and saw that in the time it had taken him to consumer half his drink and reminisce on the painful points of his recent past, the midday rush had well and truly kicked in. Draco's eyes came back to the woman standing in front of him hopefully, and with a cough to clear his throat he finally kicked his brain into gear. "Yes, of course you can, please take a sear."

She grinned at him, putting down her tea and doing just that. "I'm Hermione, by the way, it's nice to meet you. I've just moved here from Australia for school, and it's taken me ages to find a decent tea shop that serves Melbourne Breakfast tea."

Draco blinked, not expecting her to divulge such a hefty amount of information so soon into their brief acquaintance. He shook himself mentally, prodding himself to respond in kind. "I'm Draco, it's nice to meet you Hermione. Welcome to London."

No one spoke further as she smiled before bending down to rifle through her bag. Draco took a sip of his, now lukewarm, tea as he wondered about the girl with the sunny smile and bravery to approach a spaced-out stranger. Her face appeared above the table again, her hands coming with it to deposit a novel on the table in front of her. He blinked quickly as he saw the title of the book she was reading, unsure if he had seen it correctly or not. By now she'd flipped to her place, kept gently by a cloth marker, Draco noted belatedly. As she pulled a pen out to add to the notes that he could already see on the page, Draco leant forward to see if his suspicions were correct.

"Excuse me," he said. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but what book are you reading?"

"Oh, it's the new Drake Black book, Cloaked Lust," she said, putting her hand on the page as she flipped back to show him the cover.

And there, in the smallest writing he could convince his publisher to use, was his pen name.

What were the odds?

A memory came to the forefront of his mind, stunning him for a moment.

-Flashback-

"How was your day love?" Harry asked him from where he had documents and papers spread out across the dining table. Draco had just come home for the day and was on his way to start dinner when he encountered his boyfriend thus.

"Good, it was good," Draco said, leaning over to kiss Harry lightly before resting his forearms on a chair. "That meeting with the potential editor went really well, and Mother thinks-"

"Wait, editor? What editor?" Harry asked, putting down his quill and looking fully up at Draco. "What meeting did you go to today?"

Draco simply stared, his brow furrowing as he tried to see if Harry was being serious. "The meeting Mother set up with the book editor she knew. We went over the basics of getting published, and what I could do to increase my chances of getting my work in print."

"You want to publish your book? I thought that was just something you were doing while you took some time off after the internship at Gringotts, while you figured out what you wanted to do as a real career."

"Writing is a real career," Draco grumbled back, now standing ramrod straight and fighting the urge to go immediately on the defensive.

"And you're saying you told your mother?" Harry continued, moving past what Draco had just said as if he hadn't heard. "What does she think about this? I can't imagine she'd be on board with it either."

"Mother is very supportive, I'll have you know," Draco responded, all thoughts of calming down vanishing from his head as soon as Harry mentioned his mother in that manner. "And I told you! It isn't my fault that you don't take me seriously. It isn't my fault that my mother takes me more seriously than my boyfriend, the supposed love of my life who's meant to support me. And it certainly isn't my fault that you don't believe in me."

"I believe in you plenty," Harry said, standing suddenly and placing his palms on the table.

"Except you don't, Harry, not with this and not with a lot of the things I tell you about," he retorted, crossing his arms and finally finding the hill he would die on. This discussion had been a long time coming, it seemed. "Do you remember what you said when I first told you I wanted to start writing a novel?"

"That wasn't that long ago!" Harry cried, avoiding the question that Draco realised he couldn't answer.

"It was almost nine months ago Potter! And when I did manage to get your attention for longer than five minutes, you told me that writing romance novels wasn't something I should be wasting my time on. I'm being generous, of course, because the words you actually used started with 'trashy' and got progressively worse. Just because I'm doing something you disagree with, something you don't see as a stable career move, it doesn't mean you get to speak to me in that way ever."

-Flashback-

The words had gotten worse, laced with an increasing amount of vitriol, and eventually Draco had stormed out, telling Harry that both he and his things should be gone by the time he returned. But Hermione's soft voice, attempting to pull his focus once more, reminded him that that had been three months ago and that this was happening now.

"Draco? Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine. A brief inattentive moment, I do apologise."

Hermione simply laughed, the musical tone light and pleasing to Draco's ears. "That's perfectly fine, I thought the book had turned you away. Not many men appreciate romantic novels.

"I am of the rare minority I am afraid," Draco said quietly, a genuine smile breaking out at the corners of his mouth, one that was returned by his table partner.

"I know it only just came out, but I bought it yesterday and I've already devoured half the book! It's just such a wonderful example of romance and vulnerability," Hermione said, smiling her bright grin once more as she praised the book of the very author sitting opposite her - the irony of which was not lost to Draco.

"I've got to say, I've not seen anyone gush about a book in this way for quite some time," Draco admitted.

"I mean, I'm a bookworm, so I could wax poetic about many of my favourite books," Hermione admitted. "But I especially adore this one because I feel as if I am going through each moment with the author themselves. That's how vivid the detail in this book is – I feel as if I know them already!"

You're closer than you think, Draco thought, smiling genuinely as he leant forward, eager to continue his discussion with his new friend and confident in his passion for the first time ever. He could finally be completely himself.