Greenery

Greenery

When you were seven, you were walking through the extensive grounds of the manor when you heard whispers. You followed them and saw the gardener's son kissing a local boy, and you rushed to tell your father.

You entered his study, breathless from running, and told him what you had seen. He sat you down and fetched your mother, and you hadn't seen him that angry since that stupid house-elf Dobby had broken into the potions cupboard.

Your parents joined you and seriously explained that what you saw was not appropriate behaviour for anyone or anything: even trolls frowned upon it, and they were among the most vulgar of all creatures.

'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination,' your mother recited, and you later discovered that it was a quote from a Muggle religious text and wondered why your proud pureblood parents would bother with something like that.

Years have passed, and before long you're nearly ready to start at Hogwarts, but you can still see the look on the two boys' faces on that summer day.

In the robe shop you meet the most exquisite child, the spitting image of the young gardener's boy; and you try not to stare as you wonder whether he's really going to Hogwarts, too, and you decide that it can't really be wrong to appreciate such beauty when you see it.

On the train you realise who he is, and your hopes are dashed when he turns down your friendship. It's then you start to see that his skin's too pale, he's obviously malnourished, and his hair sticks up, and you're glad he's not all that beautiful because it makes it easier for you to sneer at him in the corridors.

At the end of fifth year you tell your dad mockingly about the fiasco with Potter and the Ravenclaw girl, and he gives you a lecture when you mutter that Potter should be grateful that he didn't receive his first kiss from Pansy Parkinson. He tells you that you're obsessing over 'that Potter boy', and if you don't watch it you'll end up like the gardener's son. You haven't seen the boy since the incident, so you try to keep your mouth shut, but you can't help blurting out that Blaise Zabini likes both boys and girls, to which your mother says, 'It runs in the family. His third cousin's half-grandfather married a halfblood; it's only natural for there to be damage.'

You nod and turn away, deciding to take a good, long look at the family tree later on. Maybe there's a bastard uncle or someone else somewhere you can blame.

It's not until your seventeenth birthday that you have a proper talk with that not-so-beautiful boy, and he urges you to leave your family and join his side. You laugh and walk away at first, but the look on his face brings back memories of summer hedges and crucifixes and family tapestries, ending on the face of that small child in Madam Malkin's, repeated a hundred times over.

'Harry!' you call, and his name sounds strange in your mouth so you resolve to say it until it's as familiar as 'Wingardium Leviosa'.

'Draco?' he replies tentatively, and without another word you hold out your hand.

He takes it and on impulse you lean in to hug him, as you've been wanting to do since forever, and as your arms slip round his waist you realise that he smells like freshly cut grass.

~fin~