And in the middle of it, one knee on the tiles, Harry is helping Scorpius button his jacket.
Draco’s breath catches. Scorpius is letting Harry help him with his clothes. Besides Draco and Ernestina — and Balzac, of course — Scorpius never lets anyone approach him or help him, let alone touch him. Not even Greg was able to do that. And here Harry is, buttoning his son’s overcoat and chatting away with him as if nothing of significance is happening.
“So school is going okay?” he hears Harry say. Despite the fact that he and Scorpius are alone in the foyer, he keeps his voice lower than usual, as if he’s sharing a secret. Draco realises Harry often talks to Scorpius like that — not quite whispering, but not quite in the same tone that he uses with everyone else — and wonders if that particular habit is what gets Scorpius’ attention. Draco pricks up his ears and listens. “The mean kids are leaving you alone?”
and then skipping ahead just a few paragraphs:
“I should learn how to run,” Scorpius muses practically, and Harry laughs. It’s such a pure, unbridled sound, echoing in the marble foyer, up the grand wrought-iron staircase. That’s when Draco realises — Harry is every shade of perfect, everything he’s always wished for the person who’d share his life to be, and Draco’s supremely fucked because… he knows Harry’s not perfect. At all. He still doesn’t know the precise truth about Harry, why he’s really here, the damage he’s no doubt bound to make. Despite her best efforts, Ernestina hasn’t been able to intercept any potential owls coming for Harry, nor copy the memos they delivered — almost as if Harry never received any post. As if he was doing his level best for his correspondence never to be caught. Ever.
omg. thank you @arminaa8 for the DVD commentary ask! I love that you picked this passage of Burn The Witch for it!
I remember struggling with the structure of Chapter 7 (where this passage is from). That chapter was an important turning point: I needed to show Harry and Draco's feelings grow from friendship to love while Harry still protected his true identity and Draco still guarded his heart.
But how to show that happening in a way that made sense with regards to their characterizations?
Then I realized that Scorpius was the key. He'd forced both Harry and Draco to break down their walls and face their feelings for each other from the get go (demanding they call each other by their first names, for example). Harry made a genuine effort to connect with Scorpius from the start - not to please Draco, but because he cared and respected Scoprius as a person - and Draco, for whom Scorpius is the most important person in the world, couldn't not fall in love wit Harry when witnessing that.
So this scene is, essentially, the moment Draco realizes he's in love with Harry. It's particularly meaningful as Draco is demisexual, and he has so little experience with being in love/attracted to someone, and being in love with Harry will make everything so much more complicated. I love that the revelation of Draco's feelings doesn't ease the tension between them - quite the opposite, as it will make their situation all the more fraught.
This passage encompasses everything I loved in BTW: moments of quiet, easy domesticity with an undercurrent of loaded meaning; an autistic child (Scorpius) getting the understanding and respect he deserves; descriptions of Draco's house (which is almost a full-fledged character in the fic); Draco's cold, guarded exterior vs. his soft, vulnerable interior; and, of course, how inevitable it was that he'd fall in forever love with Harry.
Thank you for allowing me to revisit this passage!! <3
