☀︎︎You're just a stranger I know everything about☀︎︎

Traveling Troupe (놀이패) AU

So like, at what point of Zuko's reign did he legalize being gay?

This has so much fanfiction potential. Zukka shippers, you know what to do.

The most important thing in a relationship is mutual understanding 🤝

Draco had been raised to be proper. To wow a crowd, to navigate social situations with all the grace and politeness of a proper gentleman. To handle things smoothly.

Which is why, now, he was internally screaming at himself.

Because he’d never felt so bloody bamboozled.

Because...weren't old people supposed to be ugly?

Pinching his own leg as he missed his mouth with his fork for the ninth time, he cursed under his breath, earning a confused look from Harry, who was sitting next to him, immersed in conversation with James and Regulus.

Miserably, Draco just shook his head slightly. No. He could get himself together.

It was just…

He looked up again, trying to be subtle. 

He now understood why people talked about it all the time. Harry Potter looked so like his father. Gods, they were both unfairly handsome. Their smiles were bright, their eyes warm and welcoming. And James…

Well, age had been very kind to James Potter.

He was graying, sure. But the slight wrinkles and lighter hair only made him more handsome. More rugged. More…

Draco gulped. Certainly, he should not be thinking this way about his potential father-in-law, and he wasn’t, not really. He was very, very happy with what he had. But his very unhelpful brain reminded him: If Harry and James look so much alike…Harry will look like this when he gets older. Harry will look exactly like this when he gets older.

He squirmed in his seat. Fuck. 

“...going to grab the next course!” James Potter announced, throwing Draco a smile and sweeping into the kitchen.

“I’ll help,” Harry offered, standing and squeezing Draco’s knee. 

But as soon as both men disappeared into the other room, Regulus turned to him with a look like an x-ray. Draco’s stomach churned. Was he in trouble? Did Regulus know? Fuck, he’d heard things about Regulus Black from his mother and he didn’t want to get on his bad side. Shit, shit, sh–

“Just wait until you see Fleamont Potter,” Regulus murmured, his face breaking into a smirk.

It had been Harry’s idea.

Owls back and forth were too conspicuous; a charmed journal brought back far too many painful memories. But they’d both grudgingly admitted that talking to each other helped, it was a cathartic connection nobody else seemed to understand. 

Meeting up wasn’t always possible, though, so here they were: hiding notes in the hollow of a tree.

So Harry had gotten into a habit as his eighth year found a routine: after his last class of the day, he wrote a long letter, spending more time on it than he ever did on any homework assignment, to the one boy he’d always sworn he’d never even think of having anything in common with. Then he took a walk to the forest to hide it away. 

Today, as he stopped in front of the big, towering tree and stooped to tuck the rolled-up parchment in the hollow, he saw a hint of white amongst the dark brown dirt and the reds and oranges of the falling leaves. 

Curious, he fished it out: a piece of paper.

It must have been charmed to be preserved, it had been almost completely buried under years’ worth of layers of natural decay. Furrowing eyebrows displacing his glasses just a bit, he stared at the message:

R- Astronomy tower. Midnight. -J P.s. You look stunning today. Not that it’s a surprise.

Harry couldn’t help but smile a bit as he again stooped down and tucked his letter to Mal–Draco in the leaves.