#dragonseeker

Drarry advent calendar day 11 : old man yaoi

Harry: Okay guys, remember when I told you Malfoy was my enemy and we’d hate each other our entire lives, and we argued the whole night last night at the Ministry ball?

Ron: Yeah! And we told you that you were dead wrong, but you insisted you were right

Harry: Yeah so maybe I was wrong, probably

Hermione: Why? Did something happen?

Harry: Kinda

Hermione: Is it related to the lump underneath your blanket?

Harry: Sorta

Hermione: And are you both naked?

Harry: Maybe

Ron: Malfoy? Are you under the blanket?

for @drarrymicrofic prompt

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"I think Charlie is my favourite Weasley," Draco muses after the echoing crack of Apparition fades from their entryway. "How is he related to Ron? Charlie's so... cool."

Harry scoffs, removing his jacket and then Draco's as he counters, "Sure, but - I'm a dragon tamer too."

The jealousy sits noticeably in his voice. It had been building the longer Draco had spoken to Charlie at the Weasley's dinner, grey eyes all sparkling with interest. Ugh.

Draco arches an eyebrow. Walks further into their cottage, eyes on Harry.

"Potter, the last time you encountered a dragon," he drawls, "was fourth year and it nearly killed you. You're a dragon survivor. And barely."

"Mm-mm," Harry disagrees breezily. Walks past an incredulous Draco. "I've gotten quite good at it. I'm a dragon rider too." He glances over his shoulder and winks.

"Why are you ly -" Draco pauses, eyes going comically wide. His mouth falls open. "Potter. What do you mean by that?"

Harry waggles his eyebrows, walking backwards towards their bedroom. "Care for a riding session, my dragon?"

"You - where is my wand?"

Harry cackles and ducks into their room.

Harry : Me neither.

Draco : I thought I’d be married to a rich old man with gout.

Harry : …Excuse me??

Draco : But I settled for love and abs.

There are a lot of fics that put Draco in the same boat as Ginny during their school years and reveal, often after the fact in their adulthood, that Draco has loved, or at least wanted, Harry from the start and his nasty behavior was at least partially because he was upset that he could not have Harry.

Idk how convinced I am of that - it can be argued that it makes more sense for Draco to just be totally oblivious of his real feelings until much later, maybe around book 6 or 7, but not the whole time; he seems immature enough in the early books to not be fully aware of his own feelings.

But, if you do choose to look at it through the lens of “Draco and Ginny were both actively pining for Harry all those years at the same time,” then how they each deal with it is fascinating.

Obviously on the surface Ginny handles it better; she avoids Harry and then befriends him, and is always nice to him, while Draco of course is a petty and mean rival constantly getting on Harry’s nerves. So Ginny wins, right?

Well, on the other hand - it’s actually Ginny who changes herself as a result of her crush on Harry. There is ZERO mention of her interest in Quidditch until book 5, which just gives off the vibe that she got into it just to impress Harry because he likes Quidditch - no matter how frantically JKR tried to retcon her into “being into it the whole time.” Then book 6 just does the frankly horrifying reveal that even when she let him think she’d moved on and WAS DATING TWO OTHER GUYS, she was actually following a plan she made with Hermione and just using those other guys to try to make Harry jealous and get him to notice her. She becomes this Mary Sue in book 6, which she absolutely was not in the earlier books, just because she wants Harry.

But Draco? He doesn’t even try to change himself or let Harry think he’s someone he’s not. He’s his authentic, flawed self the whole time. Anything he does to get Harry’s attention is not made with any effort to deceive Harry about him - he doesn’t even bother to hide his family’s loyalties in book 4, when he reminds Harry of how he’d once told him not to associate with the “wrong sort.” None of which would ever make Harry like him more; he does this stuff to rile up Harry and upset him, not to make him suddenly reciprocate a hypothetical years-long crush. If he does like Harry at this point, and is aware of it, well, he isn’t behaving this way with any hope of convincing Harry to give him another chance. Whereas Ginny double checks everything she says and does with “he’ll like me back if I do this/say this.”

And what’s the result of this? Harry still has false illusions about Ginny to the end. He thinks she never cries and is always tough. But actually, as Ron reveals, she DOES cry - only when Harry is not around to see it. There is still deception, and thus there is still a disconnect and misunderstanding. Whereas Harry has no illusions about Draco whatsoever, at any point. He knows exactly who Draco is and what he is capable of, be it the skill to actually be a Death Eater, or the compassion to want to spare Dumbledore. At first that understanding backfires on him in book 2 when Draco turns out to not be the heir of Slytherin, but it totally pays off in book 6.