Diamonds - Part Four

Prompt: I would definitely like to see Harry approach Draco!
for Jeraly

Draco looked over his large desk at Harry Potter, leant back in one of his office chairs without an apparent care in the world, and tried to control the urge to flip the furniture over and pummel the idiot into oblivion.

It had been the same ever since the very first day of Hogwarts; one refused handshake had laid the first foundations of what was now a deep-seated hatred. Draco had been willing to put it all aside, for the sake of the witch he had fallen in love with. He would have gritted his teeth as they got through wedding preparations and even tolerated Potter giving her away. Anything to make her happy. That burst of charitable feeling had withered and died as soon as he had collected Hermione after her experience at the Burrow.

Hermione had insisted going on her own 'it's happy news' she had said, 'they'll be pleased for me, for us'. Draco had been able to feel her shake as she had sagged against him next to a dilapidated fence and poorly maintained trees. It had worked him up to a level of impotent rage he hadn't felt since he'd seen his mother threatened during the war.

Three weeks it had taken Potter to reach out to him, three weeks of unanswered owls and missed floo calls before the-boy-who-lived but hadn't grown up, finally decided to face up to what he had done.

Draco thought he had suffered through the worst of Potter during school. There was nothing quite like the frustrated anguish of your schoolyard enemy becoming the saviour of your world. He'd expected to put the whole mess behind him once he had been exonerated. The most Draco had expected to see of Potter was a distant sighting at some function they were both attending. Then he had run into Hermione one day, and her reserved civility had goaded him into asking her to dinner. Honestly, he had wanted to see if that would be the thing that would make her shrink away from him. But she had raised her chin with defiance he should have known to look for, and accepted. He'd not been able to stop himself falling in love with her.

Draco had wanted to burn the short note when Potter had sent it; the term too little too late had been invented for the brief message the bespectacled nuisance had thought sufficient to gain entry into Draco's diary. But then he had thought about Hermione's pale sadness as the realisation that her best friends couldn't be happy for her had settled in.

Draco had been waiting for her to pack her bags ever since lunch at the Weasley's had gone so awry. Honestly, he'd been half expecting her to wake up one day and leave since they had first moved in together, but this time Weasel and Scarhead had given her a reason. Yet, she hadn't. Hermione had stayed, waving off any suggestion he made about her possible regrets with a weighty point to her now adorned finger. Draco hated to admit it, but the least he could do was to offer to make amends. But there was no way he was budging without an assurance Potter would set it right with Hermione.

Potter twisted uncomfortably in his seat and Draco glared at him. He'd called the meeting, so it was his prerogative to speak first, and all he had done was refuse a drink - that Draco definitely hadn't thought about poisoning - and fidgeted in his seat since arriving.

Potter eventually settled and then glanced around the study till his eyes fell to a spot behind Draco's head and he blanched. Draco didn't need to turn around to know what he was looking at. He knew all too well. It was a framed picture of himself and Hermione, sitting on an empty section of his bookcase, taken on their first holiday together. Draco could picture it without having to glance; he had studied it often. The sun had brought out freckles over the bridge of Hermione's nose, and she'd had to braid her monstrous hair back so she could see. He'd never seen anyone more beautiful. Draco had burnt the tops of his ears on the first day, and he'd forgotten to pack the hair gel he preferred, so his hair fell permanently over his eyes.

They looked so young in that photo it was like the previous years of fear and hardship hadn't happened. He knew she was the reason he looked so carefree; he hoped the same could have been said in reverse. Draco had it framed as soon as they got back and displayed it in whatever room he was currently using most. It moved from the kitchen to the living room, to his bedroom with him during the week, and it made the rounds for a whole year. Until the flesh and blood woman had moved in, and he hadn't needed a constant reminder of her place in his life, not when she was curled up in an armchair or sat at the kitchen island. So he had moved the beloved photo to his study. A place his father had kept all of his more candid pictures of his mother, a practise he hoped to replicate. One of the only from the lessons his father had taught him.

Draco had picked the location for their meeting very deliberately. Potter seemed to think he could sweep up this mess as nothing more than a little disagreement and pretend as if nothing had happened. Not on Draco's watch. As far as he was concerned, Potter needed to face the realities of Hermione's life. She had lived with him for a year, and neither of her supposed 'closest friends' had visited.

Others had, of course, in fact, Draco felt as if there were an almost constant stream of people that came through his previously silent flat, but as they were mainly pleasant and certainly less messy than the women he had given a key to, he found he didn't mind overly.

"If you hurt her…" Potter began finally, and Draco just about resisted the urge to whack his head against the desk. Maybe this would go quicker if he was concussed?

"That wasn't why I let you come," he replied dryly. You're supposed to be apologising you self important twat.

Potter shrugged. "I think we need to get some things straight. If you are serious about marrying her."

Draco bit the inside of his cheek. "I'm sorry, Potter, I know you were dragged up by unfeeling Muggles, so you don't always understand social cues. Buying a ring, proposing, it tends to denote a serious desire to enter the marital state."

"Drop the sarcasm, ferret," Harry spat through gritted teeth. "I've not got the patience for your BS."

"You don't scare me," Draco replied blandly, Potter's posturing had become annoying to him a long time ago.

"I should," Harry assured.

Draco scoffed, "Once you've had the dark lord…"

Harry cut him off with a hard glint in his eyes. "You mean the one I killed?"

"Did no one ever teach you that it's crass to go on and on about your achievements?" Draco replied. "Anyway, from what I understand, you had help."

The mention of Hermione cut through the tension in the room, giving both of them a much-needed chance to breathe.

"How is she?" Harry asked, and Draco was pleased to see that he had eventually come to ask what should have been his first question.

"Upset but not surprised, and who can blame her."

Potter fidgeted again, but this time he was either failing to mask as well or no longer cared what Draco thought of him. "She's never gone this long without speaking to me."

"Though you have gone this long without speaking to her?"

Potter looked at his lap, and Draco had another of his lingering boyhood questions answered.

"Mal... Draco," Potter said, looking as if the word physically pained him. "What can I do?"

"You're asking me?" Draco said, sitting back in his seat with some surprise.

"Try not to enjoy this too much," Harry said bitterly, and Draco bit his tongue. That the idiot in front of him actually thought he could say anything that would make him enjoy his company was farcical. He thought of Hermione as she had left that day, her hair pulled up in a bun on the top of her head, tendril's escaping in front of her ears. She'd looked so hopeful when he'd said he was going to meet with Harry.

Draco sucked in a huge breath and thought of the simple, elegant, malleable pureblood girl he was supposed to have married. She wouldn't have come with undesirable friends. But then, she wouldn't have been Hermione either.

"Potter, like it or not, Hermione is going to be my wife."

"She could always change her mind," Harry replied smugly.

Logically Draco knew Harry had no idea he had prodded at his biggest insecurity, but it didn't temper his response. He had been pierced, and if he had picked up anything about duelling, it was that you always hit back with equal or greater force.

"What, like young Ginerva, did?"

There had been rumours of course, about the break up no one had seen coming. He imagined Potter wasn't particularly cut up about it, but Draco knew Ginny had been the one to sound the death knell and that Potter was prideful enough for that to bother him.

There was silence for a few moments before both of them reigned in their temper.

"I apologise," Draco said eventually, "that was probably too far." He half meant it.

"You think?"

Draco eyed Potter coldly. "You hurt my future wife, Potter. I would be well within my rights to see you on a duelling platform."

Harry smirked. "Where I would win."

"One again, you miss the point."

There was silence again, and Draco finally gave in to his internal desire to have a drink, there was only so much stupidy he could be expected to face in one day.

"She's not answering my letters," Potter said as his back was turned.

"I noticed."

Draco sat down slowly in his chair and pushed his hair out of his eyes. "Don't apologise until you mean it. She's very good at knowing if your lying and you better bloody mean it, Potter. You hurt her. If I were you, I would suggest finding a way of getting on board with his because I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm never going to like you."

"At last, something we can agree on."

"But I can probably… I don't know… tolerate you, for her."

Potter looked at him with all of his assumed morality shining in his eyes and Draco had never wanted to hurt someone so badly. "So selfless," he managed without spitting. "If that's all, I'd like you to get out."

"With pleasure."

Potter left, and Draco poured himself another drink, he just hoped the bastard managed an apology sufficient enough to cheer Hermione up and soon.

He turned around in his chair and toasted the happy image the pair of them presented. "Thank Merlin you're worth all this Granger."

A/N: I currently have one more outstanding prompt for this one. Hopefully will have it up soon.