Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’d been snowing when Harry woke up, but now, as he made his way up the steep mountainside, the rosy blush of dawn peeped from behind a dark blanket of clouds. 

Harry smiled at the horizon and pulled at his woollen coat to hide his neck from a gust of icy wind. Charlie had warned him about the relentlessness of Romanian winters, he hadn’t forgotten—he’d simply not found a moment to visit the small town in the valley to buy a scarf yet. 

It was okay, though, he thought as he breathed around his cold fingers. He wouldn’t be cold for much longer.

He could feel the sanctuary before he saw it. Its warmth was permeating through the air, as though pulsating, and, as Harry approached the fissure in the rock wall that led to his favourite place in the world, he could feel its magic seeping through his freezing skin and making his very bones sigh with relief. As soon as he stepped through the fissure and into the mountain womb, Harry all but forgot about the cold. He picked up his pace, climbing the humid steps lit only by faint torches on either side of the wall two at a time, eager. Impatient. 

No matter how many times he walked in, the sight would never fail to take his breath away. 

In a hidden face of the mountain, inaccessible from the outside but by air, lay one of the biggest Dragon sanctuaries in the world, nestled in a vast aperture in the rock. From the moment he’d seen it, it’d reminded Harry of a giant bite on the side of the mountain, perhaps by an even bigger beast. Only partly roofed by the mountainside itself, the expanse was contained within a bubble of magic that kept the inclement weather out but allowed some of their dragons to fly in and out when they so chose, tracking their activity. 

The sanctuary itself was way bigger than was visible from the Tamer’s entrance. On the rock wall, wide openings led to hidden nooks where their most solitary specimens could rest, feed and breed at peace, as well as receive the care they needed. 

The parcel Harry was headed to, though, was located in the main area of the sanctuary, directly under the sky that turned lighter as the sun rose behind the mountain range.

Draco was already there, as Harry knew he’d be. He’d probably fallen asleep in his office, the idiot. Harry made a mental note to make sure the git went back to the Tamer’s Resort with him tonight before he forgot he was not, despite what his name might suggest, one of the dragons. 

“You’re doing so well, Suzie,” came Draco’s voice, soft and gentle. “You’ll get to meet them very soon.”

He was crouched, with his back to Harry, by the head of one of their biggest and most magnificent Chinese Fireballs—and one of the very first dragons Harry’d ever had under his care. Halting on the threshold, Harry allowed himself to smile at the sight of Draco touching Suzie reverently between her ears. 

He’d been so protective of her, at first. So reluctant to let Malfoy, of all people, come close to the dragon with whom he’d formed one of his deepest bonds, despite knowing she needed more care than he could provide for her. She needed a Dragon Healer, not just a Tamer, he’d known—but the fact it was Malfoy who was going to treat her had seemed so ludicrous at the time. 

Now, Harry couldn’t get enough of the sight of both of them together. Couldn’t help but marvel at how much she clearly trusted him, even around her eggs.

“Will they hatch today?” Harry asked, approaching the two of them.

“Within the next few hours,” Draco said, glancing at him sideways when Harry stooped by his side and rested a hand on Suzie’s snout. A small smile tugged at Harry’s lips, and even though Draco looked away, Harry caught a glimpse of a smirk.

“She’s weaker today than she was yesterday,” Draco added a moment later. “More fatigued.” 

“Keeping the eggs warm has taken a toll on her.” Harry traced the two lines of golden scales that trailed up her scarlet snout, and she nuzzled him weakly, blowing warm air into his palm through her nostrils. 

Fierce though they looked and lethal though they could be, Chinese Fireballs were peculiar in that their breath smelled like a humid, crackling wood fire. Harry breathed in the smell, allowing it to soothe his tensed muscles. 

“D’you reckon she’ll be able to lift her neck again after she’s done taking care of the little ones?” he asked.

“With the help of my healing skills, I’m sure she will,” Draco said. “She’ll need consistent training, but she’s in good hands in that regard as well.”

Harry eyed him, half-ready to tease Malfoy for complimenting him. The faint blush and nervous smile he found on Draco’s face, however, made the words die in his throat. Instead, feeling his stomach flutter, Harry stood and said, “I’ll get started with her wing stretching exercises, then. Let me know if the eggs begin to crack.”

The first hatchling arrived at noon. They watched it happen from a distance, having made sure Suzie would be able to handle it on her own. The second one came an hour later, while they were eating Harry’s tuna and egg sandwiches sat on a rock bench not far away from Suzie’s enclosure. 

When it was safe for them to approach the hatchlings and examine them, Harry said, casually, “Usually, the Tamer that assists during hatching is the one who names the little ones.” 

Draco hummed. He was carefully picking up the bigger eggshell pieces from the nest so the hatchlings wouldn’t trip over them. 

“Who named Suzie?” he asked, voice low.

“Charlie did. She wasn’t born here, as you know, but she arrived in the middle of the night when he and I were on duty, bleeding and weak, and I was too worried about her dying on us to come up with a name for her. I’d only been working here for a couple of weeks at that point.”

Harry still shivered whenever he remembered that day. It’d been pouring down, and even in the almost complete darkness, it hadn’t been hard to tell her back injury would forever affect her mobility, regardless of how well she healed. The wound, the cause of which was to this day unknown, had reached her spine right at the base of her wings.

If she hadn’t been close enough to the Sanctuary to feel its magical pull, she wouldn’t have survived that night. 

Draco hummed again, that small, deep sound that always made Harry’s insides tremble.

Draco lifted the oldest hatchling gently from the nest and tried to turn it around to check its sex, but it wiggled restlessly, uncoordinated wings trying to bat and smacking Draco’s forearms repeatedly. Then it sneezed so violently a dark, mushroom-shaped cloud filled the air between them for a few moments.

“Well, aren’t you an impish little tempest?” Draco said fondly, almost giggling, unfazed by the small cloud of ashes quickly settling all over his person. 

Harry chuckled at the sight, chest warm and heart heavy. A little breathless, he said, “Maybe you could name it that.” 

“What, Impish?” Draco frowned. 

“Tempest. You name one, I name the other,” Harry said. “If you want to, of course.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of his thin lips. “Okay,” he murmured, voice warm with mirth. “Hi there, Tempest. You’ll be a good girl and let me examine you, won’t you?”

Harry almost forgot about the other hatchling, mesmerised as he was by Draco’s loving tone. But then it started gnawing Harry’s calloused thumb, and, wincing, Harry focused on it—him—and on making sure he was healthy and fine. 

“What shall I name you?” he wondered aloud, letting the hatchling back down so he could crawl back to his sister’s side. 

Draco didn’t say anything, but sat back and eyed him curiously, smiling. Merlin, that smile made it hard to focus on his own thoughts. 

“Hmm. How about Oreo?”

Draco spluttered. 

“Excuse me?”

“What? It’s cute!” Harry laughed, loving the incredulous look on Draco’s face.

“It’s ridiculous! You can’t name a Dragon that, it’s simply disrespectful!” 

“It’s cute. He’s cute. It’s fitting,” Harry argued. 

Even as he raised his eyebrows at him, Draco giggled, a delightful little sound that made Harry beam uncontrollably, even as his gloved pinky was chewed on by a very playful Oreo. 

“You’re incorrigible,” Draco concluded. He stumbled with the words a bit and blushed immediately after, making Harry wonder if he’d been about to say you’re cute but changed his mind halfway through the sentence. 

“You too,” he said under his breath, settling back to work with Draco close by his side.

The sun was setting by the time they left the sanctuary, the hatchlings now dozing off curled under their mum’s scarlet wing. They walked side by side in silence, watching shadow slowly blanket the faraway valleys, which soon blinked back awake with a thousand amber streetlights and a few early colourful Christmas decorations.

Harry shivered slightly when a freezing breeze tickled his nape. Draco glanced at him.

“Don’t tell me you still haven’t bought a scarf,” he said, dismayed. “And no gloves, either? Potter, I swear to Merlin, if you survived the killing curse twice just to die of hypothermia, I’ll follow you all the way to the other world to smack that perpetual bedhead of yours.” 

Harry guffawed even as his teeth chattered slightly. Draco was so lovely when he showed—in his own pesky ways—he cared about him, and it filled Harry with so much mirth he laughed some more, sticking his tongue out at Draco when the git just eyed him incredulously.

He remembered Charlie’s words from a few months before, when they’d been having one too many drinks after a particularly busy Friday shift. “You two are going to kiss, and I bet it’s gonna happen before the year is over,” he’d claimed, raising his beer up high before taking a generous gulp. 

“In your dreams,” Harry had replied then, giggling madly into his own jar. Perplexed Charlie had conjured such a ridiculous idea, even in his drunken state. 

Now, Harry was calm with the knowledge it would happen eventually. Maybe before the year was over, maybe not—he wasn’t even sure he’d be the one to take the first step, although he always shivered with anticipation when he wondered how it might happen.

“Here you go, you incorrigible idiot,” Draco said, uncoiling half his huge scarf from his neck and offering it to Harry. “I don’t fancy carrying your frozen arse down the hill,” he added with a grumble when Harry beamed at him.

His pout soon dissolved into a flustered smile as Harry accepted the scarf though, and once Harry was done looping it around his neck, Draco took off a glove and handed it to Harry, too, biting his lip as he did so. 

“Oh. Thanks,” Harry murmured, and he could hear the warmth filling his chest spill right out of his mouth, his voice trembling ever-so-slightly as he accepted the woollen garment.

“Don’t mention it,” Draco said, and his voice, too, was a little choked up. Harry averted his gaze, watching the last red sliver of the sun hide behind the mountainside as he slid on Draco’s thick black glove, still warm from his hand.

They were walking so close now, Draco’s scarf not long enough to allow for much distance between them, and their ungloved hands brushed, their knuckles bumping awkwardly.

Draco didn’t move his hand away, though, and neither did Harry. And when they inevitably brushed hands again, Harry, heart pounding, reached out blindly and twined his pinky around Draco’s.

He could feel Draco glancing at him, but he kept his eyes trained on the horizon and focused solely on the cosiness of Draco’s familiar smell, which radiated from his wonderful scarf and filled Harry’s lungs with every breath. Slowly, clumsily, he took Draco’s hand in his and, after making sure Draco wasn’t about to pull away, tucked it into his coat pocket.

After a moment, Draco gave his hand a gentle squeeze and stroked the back of it with his thumb.

“Wanna have dinner with me tonight?” Harry asked, then. “I’m making ciorbă de perişoare. You know, that red meatball soup you loved so much the last time?”

Draco huffed a laugh.

“Okay,” he replied, voice soft, and when Harry turned to smile at him Draco was already smiling back. 

Harry imagined himself leaning forward—imagined himself pressing a soft kiss to those wonderful lips. He imagined the feel of Draco’s hot sigh into his mouth, the sight of Draco’s fine lashes fluttering closed, the pull of Draco’s hands at his sides to bring him closer. A thrilling anticipation expanded through his chest at the idea, leaving him breathless, and he had to look away and bite his lip to stop his smile from turning into a goofy grin.

Soon, he told himself, still feeling the stroke of Draco’s thumb against the back of his hand. 

Above them, the first stars of the night watched their blooming love with silent curiosity.