lomonaaeren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lomonaaeren) wrote2019-11-07 07:30 pm
lomonaaeren) wrote2019-11-07 07:30 pm
Entry tags:
[From Samhain to the Solstice]: A Carnelian Christmas, Harry/Theo, PG-13
Title: A Carnelian Christmas
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Theodore Nott and Ron/Hermione
Content Notes: Established relationships, mild angst, fluff
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3200
Summary: Theo was unsure of everything, including the ring he’d bought, except for one thing: he loved Harry and wanted to marry him. Maybe, in the end, that was all he needed to be certain of. Sequel to “Harry Potter and His Saving Theo Thing.”
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics for this year. You should read the fic that comes before it first to understand how Harry and Theo ended up together.
A Carnelian Christmas
Theo stared at the ring he’d bought Harry, smoothing his fingers over the intricate silver band. He could have used one of the Nott heirlooms, and he had considered it, but none of them had felt right. Besides, Theo didn’t want to put something stained with the touch of Death Eaters and blood purists on Harry’s hand.
When he had seen this particular ring in the shop, he had immediately decided it was the one for them and he had to have it. But the longer he looked at it, the more he doubted.
The carnelian on the ring wasn’t as precious as a ruby, but it reminded Theo of the flame he always thought of as blazing in Harry, the leaping fire of his heart that had been big enough to try to change an ex-Slytherin’s life and fall in love with him along the way. And it had an intaglio of a lion rampant. It had been perfect, Theo thought. A sign.
Now, though...would Harry resent being stereotyped with the color red and the symbol of Gryffindor? Would a ruby have been better because it was more expensive and could show Harry what he meant to Theo? Or perhaps he should have got a golden ring, even if he retained the carnelian. Was silver precious enough?
“Theo?”
Theo spun around, barely folding his fingers around the ring in time to hide it. Harry raised his eyebrows. He was carrying a huge tree, so looming that the thick branches nearly caught against the sides of the doorway into the drawing room and he must have used a Lightening Charm to lift it.
“What are you doing with that?” Theo asked, blinking.
“I told you before,” Harry said calmly—in fact, with a patience that Theo didn’t think he needed to express as patiently as he did—adjusting the tree’s branches so that he could get it through the doorway. Theo stepped out of the way as the overwhelming thing settled into the corner. “Muggles celebrate Christmas with these large trees that they decorate and place gifts under—”
“Yes, I believe I saw the tradition at Hogwarts the one time I stayed there for the holidays,” Theo agreed. “But why should we celebrate the same way, Harry? We’re wizards.”
“We’re celebrating this way because my Muggles relatives were horrible and never let me participate in their traditions,” Harry said. He smiled as Theo came over to touch his shoulder, but didn’t break down the way Theo could imagine so many people doing. “If you have your own traditions, though, we can combine them with this one.”
In the end, Theo had to shake his head. His father had ensured that all traditions celebrated in the Nott household were ones of pain, meant to “harden” Theo and get him used to casting Dark Arts. Christmas had been a day that Theo didn’t want to remember. “None that make sense to adopt.”
Harry smiled at him and leaned heavily against his side for a second, in comfort that Theo hadn’t been able to ask for. Then he waved his wand and conjured a stream of delicate silver and glass ornaments. Theo blinked up at them. “Are these ones that you had in your Potter vaults?”
“No. I only have the trust vault, you know that. These are ones that I Transfigured from some of the dishes in the kitchen.”
“The house-elves are going to kill you, Potter.”
“They are not. They can crowd the same food on tiny little dishes, you know that. They won’t notice these are missing.”
Even as the first crystal star hung itself on an outstretched branch, though, and a silver pentagram floated to the top of the tree, a distinct wail came from the direction of the kitchens. Harry cringed. Theo raised his eyebrows at him. “You won’t mind one of your gifts being a set of new dishes for the house-elves, then.”
“Oh, of course not.” Harry had recovered enough already to shrug and grin as he began to string tinsel that glittered more than it needed to around the branches of the tree. “I have plenty of money.”
“But you said you have only one trust vault.”
“Yes, and that’s still more than enough money,” Harry said. “Oh, I forgot to mention. I also have possession of the Black fortune. So, you know, I might as well do that. And since you keep paying for my food and new clothes and all that rot, what else do I have to spend that money on but gifts for my friends?”
“Just your friends?” Theo asked, the sensation of a breath that wouldn’t breathe itself caught in the back of his throat.
Harry turned and smiled at him, brilliantly enough that Theo breathed out slowly at last. “And my lover, of course. Theo, I won’t ever leave you out.” He reached his hand out, and Theo extended his left hand, which didn’t hold the ring, to touch it.
“Which means I won’t leave you out of decorating the tree, either,” Harry added a second later. “Come on, then.” And he made Theo hang up crystal and silver until he was half-blinded by tinsel and charming some of the decorations green just to have some other color to look at.
But he never released his hold on the ring, and the evening ended with him still not having presented it to Harry. His mind was buzzing with love and apprehension. How can I live up to someone who is this loving and generous? How can he want to marry me?
*
“I admit I was skeptical of you at first. I didn’t think Harry should be marrying anyone he’d only known a little while.”
“We knew each other for years in Hogwarts,” Theo pointed out, just to see Granger’s eyes spark and her draw herself back a little as if she was going to hurl something at him.
“You know that’s not what I meant, Nott.”
“I do know.” Theo settled back in his chair in the corner of the Weasley drawing room and watched Harry chatting with George, the remaining twin brother, his eyes so bright and his cheeks so flushed that Theo would have been jealous if he hadn’t been so certain of Harry’s affection. “But it was mutual on both our parts.”
“I know that. And it sounds like you had the kind of hard childhood that makes you understand Harry.”
“I want you to know that Harry’s told me only a little about his. Please don’t tell me anymore. I don’t want to go behind Harry’s back. He deserves to tell me what he wants me to know.”
“You’re not upset that he doesn’t trust you more?” Granger crossed her legs and sipped a little from the crystal goblet she was using. Theo had admired it, and hadn’t blinked when Granger had told him it had been a gift from her Muggle parents. His father would have said that Muggles couldn’t have taste that exquisite, but then again, his father had been wrong about pretty much everything.
“You said it yourself. We moved fast.” Theo hooked his chin on his shoulder and watched Harry playing with his young godson. He’d only warily told Theo that he was the son of Remus Lupin, werewolf, but Theo didn’t care. Professor Lupin had been good to him. “We’re finding out way through other things slowly. If he wants to go at that pace and figure out how much he can trust me, that’s his right.”
“I wouldn’t have expected…”
“What? For us to have that much common sense when we moved so quickly?”
Granger was frowning when Theo turned back fully to her. “No. I mean—I wouldn’t have expected you to be that sensible or gentle.”
Theo raised his eyebrows and shifted his tone towards haughty. If Harry wanted to be upset about that later on, he could, but there was a limit to what Theo would share with Hermione Granger, of all people. “My father tried to raise me to be the exact opposite of that, it’s true. But I see no reason why I should honor his memory.”
Granger blinked and shook her head. “Right. Of course not. Then I suppose you should ignore me, Nott.”
“I plan on doing so,” Theo said, and got up and went over to be with Harry and the infant. Harry smiled up at him from the floor.
“Doesn’t Teddy make you want one?” he asked, gesturing at the baby. Theo blinked for a moment when he saw the little boy’s hair was orange, then remembered what Harry had said about him being a Metamorphmagus.
“Yes, but not for a while.”
Harry leaned up and quickly kissed him, ignoring the stares they got from several corners of the room. “Don’t worry. I’m as eager as you are to enjoy the honeymoon period before we get involved in caring for a kid.”
Honeymoon. Theo’s stomach tightened. And he hadn’t even proposed yet. Still Harry spoke those words so casually, as if he never once doubted that Theo was going to ask him.
And of course Theo was. He only wished that he could be sure the ring, and the plan in his mind about how to ask, were at all worthy of what Harry deserved.
*
Theo took a step back and surveyed the table and the crystal goblets sparkling next to the good china that his father had never brought out after his mother’s disappearance. There were small golden pieces of bread in the center of each plate—the closest the house-elves could come to duplicating the recipe that was used in Potter proposals, which was apparently never written down. Theo had been forced to go off old diaries written by his ancestors who had been invited to the functions where Potters proposed to their spouses.
And there was the ring, sitting in his left pocket. Theo hesitated. Or the golden ring with the ruby in his right pocket. He only had to take out one of them, but he still didn’t know what Harry would like more, the one that had reminded Theo instinctively of him or the more expensive one.
“Theo, what’s going on? The house-elves said…”
Harry’s voice trailed off, but not because Theo had interrupted. Theo turned expectantly towards the dining room door, and caught his breath at the widening of Harry’s eyes. Although Harry looked at the golden pieces of bread on the plates without recognition, that was all right. Theo could explain it to him later. And he hoped Harry would be honored by Theo wanting to follow the traditions of the Potter family.
“Harry,” Theo whispered. “You know how much you mean to me.”
Harry’s eyes returned to him, as bright as emeralds themselves. “I think I do.”
Theo nodded. Then he knelt in front of Harry and reached into his pocket for the ruby ring. It was the right choice, he was certain, or almost certain, as his finger curled around the gold band. “Then would you do me the honor of—”
“Out of the way!”
Theo glared over his shoulder, furious, but he had no chance to stand back up or say anything before Draco strode into the dining room. He was breathing hard, and clutching his wand. He shook his head at Theo and Summoned the golden ring away from him.
“I’m here to prevent you from making a mistake,” he announced. His cheeks were flushed in the way that Theo remembered from the numerous times that Harry had beaten him at Quidditch and Draco was vowing to win next time.
“What the hell are you doing here, Draco?” Theo’s voice was lower and more threatening than he remembered it being since his father had died. But at the moment, all he could think of was that he had been about to propose to Harry, it had been close to a perfect instant, and Draco had ruined it all.
“I told you. I’m preventing you from making a mistake.” Draco swaggered like one of his own peacocks as he approached Theo. “You don’t want to marry Potter. I’m sure that if your taste swings to blokes, I can introduce a better one for you. Besides, Blaise is single, and you know he always admired you.”
“I want to marry Theo, though.”
“Yes, yes, that’s because you’re a social climber, Potter.” Draco waved a hand at Harry without glancing in his direction, so focused was he on Theo. “You want to ally yourself with the Nott name and fortune.”
“He’s richer than any of us, or have you forgotten that?” Theo asked roughly. “If anything, I’m the one who owes him, after the crimes my father committed.”
Draco paused, as if he had indeed forgotten that, which wouldn’t surprise Theo, knowing some other things about Draco as he did. But then Draco shook it off and smiled arrogantly in Theo’s direction. “I mean the kind of pure-blood social power he can’t have without marrying one of us. It’s not as though his mother was our kind.”
Theo punched Draco in the jaw. It felt really good, but better than anything was the betrayed look on Draco’s face as he staggered back, one hand rising to the new blossoming bruise.
“If you don’t shut up about Harry’s mother, then I’ll,” Theo began.
But a hand caught his arm, and Harry looked him steadily in the eye. Theo shut up and stood back. For whatever reason, Harry wanted to handle this himself, and Theo was more than happy to let him.
Which didn’t mean his heart didn’t steam when his eyes locked on the golden ruby ring, now lying on the floor where Draco had dropped it when Theo had hit him. The ruined moment would never come back.
“You don’t learn, Malfoy,” Harry told Draco. “I want to marry Theo because I love him, and it doesn’t matter to me who his parents were—any more than it matters to him who mine were.”
Draco gasped and looked more stunned than he had with Theo had hit him. ”Is that true, Theo?” he demanded, voice rough. “You don’t give a damn about Potter being the son of a blood traitor and a—”
“Careful about saying that word, Malfoy.”
Harry’s voice seemed to fill the room with darkness. It didn’t sound exactly like Parseltongue, but pretty close. Draco turned pale. Then again, he had had to live with the Dark Lord in Malfoy Manor. He must have heard Parseltongue more often than Theo, who had only encountered it in bed with Harry.
“I—I wasn’t going to say the word,” Draco stumbled out with. It was the least convincing lie that Theo had ever heard him speak, and from the way he snorted, Harry thought the same.
“You can have as many opinions as you like.” Harry looked utterly unflinching, and Theo felt his head spin and his heart speed up as he fell in love all over again. “You can hate me. But I’m marrying Theo, not you. If he wants to see you in social settings and tolerate your stupidity, that’s up to him—"
“I’m not tolerating it when it’s directed at my husband,” Theo said, and smiled at the look of near-panic on Draco’s face. It was no wonder he had thought Harry was a social climber, when his mirror would show nothing so clearly as himself. He would be panicking now over the notion that Theo would stop associating with him. Theo was one of the rare people who was willing to do so after the war without a sneer.
“I—I just had to come because I was concerned about you, Theo.”
The exasperating thing, Theo thought, is that’s it probably true. Draco had no proper notion of how friendship worked, not when he’d grown up with Vince and Greg following him everywhere and Lucius Malfoy for a father, but he thought he did, and confronting Theo like this was undoubtedly the kind of thing he believed friends would do.
“You don’t need to be. I love Harry and I want to marry him,” Theo began again.
“And I love Theo and want to marry him,” Harry added firmly.
Theo felt as though someone had lit the sun in his chest. He smiled at Harry, and the ruined moment came not to matter. Harry might like the ring once Theo picked it up or he might not, but that was all right. He loved Theo in ways that a ring exchange or an imperfect ring wouldn’t damage.
“Oh,” Draco said.
Theo raised a curious eyebrow at him, since he thought neither of them had spoken words complicated enough to convince Draco when Draco hadn’t been convinced so far, and Draco swallowed. “The look in your eyes,” he whispered. “You really meant that, and you were happy to hear it from him, too.”
“Yes,” Theo said, as gently as he could. He knew Draco was going to marry soon, but he doubted Draco would feel that way about his bride. Another thing that he didn’t understand thanks to a Malfoy upbringing. “That’s the way it works.”
Draco nodded slowly, and then turned and walked out of the room. Harry shook his head. “He’s never learned the art of apologizing, either, has he?”
“Very little of what Draco does comes from any kind of art,” Theo stated dryly, and watched Harry smile. That smile touched the sunlight inside him again, and made him reach into his pocket for the carnelian ring. “Will you take the ring before someone comes along and Summons it away again?”
Harry laughed as he took it. “Yes, I will. Any particular reason it’s this ring now and not the other one?”
“I drove myself mad wondering which one you would like better, if the ruby ring would look like I was trying to buy you or the carnelian one would look too simple,” Theo admitted, and he scooped the ruby ring off the floor to stick in his pocket. “But now I’ve decided that I like the carnelian one, and if you don’t, we can exchange it for something else.”
“Jewels are so beyond me, I doubt I would know the difference,” Harry said with a roll of his eyes, and then touched the lion intaglio. “But I like the look of this one, too. And better, it was your gift to me. Thank you, Theo,” he murmured, standing on his toes to kiss Theo on the bottom of the jaw.
Theo smiled down at him.
“If you take the ruby ring back and get the money for it back…” Harry went on in a thoughtful voice as they sat down to their interrupted dinner.
“Yes?”
“Can we donate the money to Hermione’s S.P.E.W. effort?”
Theo let Harry see the way he rolled his eyes. Harry’s grin only grew wider. “Good.”
“Good?” Theo repeated.
“I wanted to make sure that you were still your own person, with your own opinions, and wouldn’t just go along with anything I suggest because you love me.”
“There are all sorts of things I’m willing to do because I love you. But supporting an organization with that name is beyond me.”
Harry laughed, and then acted as if he was trying to hide his grin behind the winecup. Theo wondered why he bothered. It was large enough to light up the room, and sparkle off the tinsel on the gigantic tree, and make Theo’s heart shine brighter than any carnelian ring.
The End.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Theodore Nott and Ron/Hermione
Content Notes: Established relationships, mild angst, fluff
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3200
Summary: Theo was unsure of everything, including the ring he’d bought, except for one thing: he loved Harry and wanted to marry him. Maybe, in the end, that was all he needed to be certain of. Sequel to “Harry Potter and His Saving Theo Thing.”
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics for this year. You should read the fic that comes before it first to understand how Harry and Theo ended up together.
A Carnelian Christmas
Theo stared at the ring he’d bought Harry, smoothing his fingers over the intricate silver band. He could have used one of the Nott heirlooms, and he had considered it, but none of them had felt right. Besides, Theo didn’t want to put something stained with the touch of Death Eaters and blood purists on Harry’s hand.
When he had seen this particular ring in the shop, he had immediately decided it was the one for them and he had to have it. But the longer he looked at it, the more he doubted.
The carnelian on the ring wasn’t as precious as a ruby, but it reminded Theo of the flame he always thought of as blazing in Harry, the leaping fire of his heart that had been big enough to try to change an ex-Slytherin’s life and fall in love with him along the way. And it had an intaglio of a lion rampant. It had been perfect, Theo thought. A sign.
Now, though...would Harry resent being stereotyped with the color red and the symbol of Gryffindor? Would a ruby have been better because it was more expensive and could show Harry what he meant to Theo? Or perhaps he should have got a golden ring, even if he retained the carnelian. Was silver precious enough?
“Theo?”
Theo spun around, barely folding his fingers around the ring in time to hide it. Harry raised his eyebrows. He was carrying a huge tree, so looming that the thick branches nearly caught against the sides of the doorway into the drawing room and he must have used a Lightening Charm to lift it.
“What are you doing with that?” Theo asked, blinking.
“I told you before,” Harry said calmly—in fact, with a patience that Theo didn’t think he needed to express as patiently as he did—adjusting the tree’s branches so that he could get it through the doorway. Theo stepped out of the way as the overwhelming thing settled into the corner. “Muggles celebrate Christmas with these large trees that they decorate and place gifts under—”
“Yes, I believe I saw the tradition at Hogwarts the one time I stayed there for the holidays,” Theo agreed. “But why should we celebrate the same way, Harry? We’re wizards.”
“We’re celebrating this way because my Muggles relatives were horrible and never let me participate in their traditions,” Harry said. He smiled as Theo came over to touch his shoulder, but didn’t break down the way Theo could imagine so many people doing. “If you have your own traditions, though, we can combine them with this one.”
In the end, Theo had to shake his head. His father had ensured that all traditions celebrated in the Nott household were ones of pain, meant to “harden” Theo and get him used to casting Dark Arts. Christmas had been a day that Theo didn’t want to remember. “None that make sense to adopt.”
Harry smiled at him and leaned heavily against his side for a second, in comfort that Theo hadn’t been able to ask for. Then he waved his wand and conjured a stream of delicate silver and glass ornaments. Theo blinked up at them. “Are these ones that you had in your Potter vaults?”
“No. I only have the trust vault, you know that. These are ones that I Transfigured from some of the dishes in the kitchen.”
“The house-elves are going to kill you, Potter.”
“They are not. They can crowd the same food on tiny little dishes, you know that. They won’t notice these are missing.”
Even as the first crystal star hung itself on an outstretched branch, though, and a silver pentagram floated to the top of the tree, a distinct wail came from the direction of the kitchens. Harry cringed. Theo raised his eyebrows at him. “You won’t mind one of your gifts being a set of new dishes for the house-elves, then.”
“Oh, of course not.” Harry had recovered enough already to shrug and grin as he began to string tinsel that glittered more than it needed to around the branches of the tree. “I have plenty of money.”
“But you said you have only one trust vault.”
“Yes, and that’s still more than enough money,” Harry said. “Oh, I forgot to mention. I also have possession of the Black fortune. So, you know, I might as well do that. And since you keep paying for my food and new clothes and all that rot, what else do I have to spend that money on but gifts for my friends?”
“Just your friends?” Theo asked, the sensation of a breath that wouldn’t breathe itself caught in the back of his throat.
Harry turned and smiled at him, brilliantly enough that Theo breathed out slowly at last. “And my lover, of course. Theo, I won’t ever leave you out.” He reached his hand out, and Theo extended his left hand, which didn’t hold the ring, to touch it.
“Which means I won’t leave you out of decorating the tree, either,” Harry added a second later. “Come on, then.” And he made Theo hang up crystal and silver until he was half-blinded by tinsel and charming some of the decorations green just to have some other color to look at.
But he never released his hold on the ring, and the evening ended with him still not having presented it to Harry. His mind was buzzing with love and apprehension. How can I live up to someone who is this loving and generous? How can he want to marry me?
*
“I admit I was skeptical of you at first. I didn’t think Harry should be marrying anyone he’d only known a little while.”
“We knew each other for years in Hogwarts,” Theo pointed out, just to see Granger’s eyes spark and her draw herself back a little as if she was going to hurl something at him.
“You know that’s not what I meant, Nott.”
“I do know.” Theo settled back in his chair in the corner of the Weasley drawing room and watched Harry chatting with George, the remaining twin brother, his eyes so bright and his cheeks so flushed that Theo would have been jealous if he hadn’t been so certain of Harry’s affection. “But it was mutual on both our parts.”
“I know that. And it sounds like you had the kind of hard childhood that makes you understand Harry.”
“I want you to know that Harry’s told me only a little about his. Please don’t tell me anymore. I don’t want to go behind Harry’s back. He deserves to tell me what he wants me to know.”
“You’re not upset that he doesn’t trust you more?” Granger crossed her legs and sipped a little from the crystal goblet she was using. Theo had admired it, and hadn’t blinked when Granger had told him it had been a gift from her Muggle parents. His father would have said that Muggles couldn’t have taste that exquisite, but then again, his father had been wrong about pretty much everything.
“You said it yourself. We moved fast.” Theo hooked his chin on his shoulder and watched Harry playing with his young godson. He’d only warily told Theo that he was the son of Remus Lupin, werewolf, but Theo didn’t care. Professor Lupin had been good to him. “We’re finding out way through other things slowly. If he wants to go at that pace and figure out how much he can trust me, that’s his right.”
“I wouldn’t have expected…”
“What? For us to have that much common sense when we moved so quickly?”
Granger was frowning when Theo turned back fully to her. “No. I mean—I wouldn’t have expected you to be that sensible or gentle.”
Theo raised his eyebrows and shifted his tone towards haughty. If Harry wanted to be upset about that later on, he could, but there was a limit to what Theo would share with Hermione Granger, of all people. “My father tried to raise me to be the exact opposite of that, it’s true. But I see no reason why I should honor his memory.”
Granger blinked and shook her head. “Right. Of course not. Then I suppose you should ignore me, Nott.”
“I plan on doing so,” Theo said, and got up and went over to be with Harry and the infant. Harry smiled up at him from the floor.
“Doesn’t Teddy make you want one?” he asked, gesturing at the baby. Theo blinked for a moment when he saw the little boy’s hair was orange, then remembered what Harry had said about him being a Metamorphmagus.
“Yes, but not for a while.”
Harry leaned up and quickly kissed him, ignoring the stares they got from several corners of the room. “Don’t worry. I’m as eager as you are to enjoy the honeymoon period before we get involved in caring for a kid.”
Honeymoon. Theo’s stomach tightened. And he hadn’t even proposed yet. Still Harry spoke those words so casually, as if he never once doubted that Theo was going to ask him.
And of course Theo was. He only wished that he could be sure the ring, and the plan in his mind about how to ask, were at all worthy of what Harry deserved.
*
Theo took a step back and surveyed the table and the crystal goblets sparkling next to the good china that his father had never brought out after his mother’s disappearance. There were small golden pieces of bread in the center of each plate—the closest the house-elves could come to duplicating the recipe that was used in Potter proposals, which was apparently never written down. Theo had been forced to go off old diaries written by his ancestors who had been invited to the functions where Potters proposed to their spouses.
And there was the ring, sitting in his left pocket. Theo hesitated. Or the golden ring with the ruby in his right pocket. He only had to take out one of them, but he still didn’t know what Harry would like more, the one that had reminded Theo instinctively of him or the more expensive one.
“Theo, what’s going on? The house-elves said…”
Harry’s voice trailed off, but not because Theo had interrupted. Theo turned expectantly towards the dining room door, and caught his breath at the widening of Harry’s eyes. Although Harry looked at the golden pieces of bread on the plates without recognition, that was all right. Theo could explain it to him later. And he hoped Harry would be honored by Theo wanting to follow the traditions of the Potter family.
“Harry,” Theo whispered. “You know how much you mean to me.”
Harry’s eyes returned to him, as bright as emeralds themselves. “I think I do.”
Theo nodded. Then he knelt in front of Harry and reached into his pocket for the ruby ring. It was the right choice, he was certain, or almost certain, as his finger curled around the gold band. “Then would you do me the honor of—”
“Out of the way!”
Theo glared over his shoulder, furious, but he had no chance to stand back up or say anything before Draco strode into the dining room. He was breathing hard, and clutching his wand. He shook his head at Theo and Summoned the golden ring away from him.
“I’m here to prevent you from making a mistake,” he announced. His cheeks were flushed in the way that Theo remembered from the numerous times that Harry had beaten him at Quidditch and Draco was vowing to win next time.
“What the hell are you doing here, Draco?” Theo’s voice was lower and more threatening than he remembered it being since his father had died. But at the moment, all he could think of was that he had been about to propose to Harry, it had been close to a perfect instant, and Draco had ruined it all.
“I told you. I’m preventing you from making a mistake.” Draco swaggered like one of his own peacocks as he approached Theo. “You don’t want to marry Potter. I’m sure that if your taste swings to blokes, I can introduce a better one for you. Besides, Blaise is single, and you know he always admired you.”
“I want to marry Theo, though.”
“Yes, yes, that’s because you’re a social climber, Potter.” Draco waved a hand at Harry without glancing in his direction, so focused was he on Theo. “You want to ally yourself with the Nott name and fortune.”
“He’s richer than any of us, or have you forgotten that?” Theo asked roughly. “If anything, I’m the one who owes him, after the crimes my father committed.”
Draco paused, as if he had indeed forgotten that, which wouldn’t surprise Theo, knowing some other things about Draco as he did. But then Draco shook it off and smiled arrogantly in Theo’s direction. “I mean the kind of pure-blood social power he can’t have without marrying one of us. It’s not as though his mother was our kind.”
Theo punched Draco in the jaw. It felt really good, but better than anything was the betrayed look on Draco’s face as he staggered back, one hand rising to the new blossoming bruise.
“If you don’t shut up about Harry’s mother, then I’ll,” Theo began.
But a hand caught his arm, and Harry looked him steadily in the eye. Theo shut up and stood back. For whatever reason, Harry wanted to handle this himself, and Theo was more than happy to let him.
Which didn’t mean his heart didn’t steam when his eyes locked on the golden ruby ring, now lying on the floor where Draco had dropped it when Theo had hit him. The ruined moment would never come back.
“You don’t learn, Malfoy,” Harry told Draco. “I want to marry Theo because I love him, and it doesn’t matter to me who his parents were—any more than it matters to him who mine were.”
Draco gasped and looked more stunned than he had with Theo had hit him. ”Is that true, Theo?” he demanded, voice rough. “You don’t give a damn about Potter being the son of a blood traitor and a—”
“Careful about saying that word, Malfoy.”
Harry’s voice seemed to fill the room with darkness. It didn’t sound exactly like Parseltongue, but pretty close. Draco turned pale. Then again, he had had to live with the Dark Lord in Malfoy Manor. He must have heard Parseltongue more often than Theo, who had only encountered it in bed with Harry.
“I—I wasn’t going to say the word,” Draco stumbled out with. It was the least convincing lie that Theo had ever heard him speak, and from the way he snorted, Harry thought the same.
“You can have as many opinions as you like.” Harry looked utterly unflinching, and Theo felt his head spin and his heart speed up as he fell in love all over again. “You can hate me. But I’m marrying Theo, not you. If he wants to see you in social settings and tolerate your stupidity, that’s up to him—"
“I’m not tolerating it when it’s directed at my husband,” Theo said, and smiled at the look of near-panic on Draco’s face. It was no wonder he had thought Harry was a social climber, when his mirror would show nothing so clearly as himself. He would be panicking now over the notion that Theo would stop associating with him. Theo was one of the rare people who was willing to do so after the war without a sneer.
“I—I just had to come because I was concerned about you, Theo.”
The exasperating thing, Theo thought, is that’s it probably true. Draco had no proper notion of how friendship worked, not when he’d grown up with Vince and Greg following him everywhere and Lucius Malfoy for a father, but he thought he did, and confronting Theo like this was undoubtedly the kind of thing he believed friends would do.
“You don’t need to be. I love Harry and I want to marry him,” Theo began again.
“And I love Theo and want to marry him,” Harry added firmly.
Theo felt as though someone had lit the sun in his chest. He smiled at Harry, and the ruined moment came not to matter. Harry might like the ring once Theo picked it up or he might not, but that was all right. He loved Theo in ways that a ring exchange or an imperfect ring wouldn’t damage.
“Oh,” Draco said.
Theo raised a curious eyebrow at him, since he thought neither of them had spoken words complicated enough to convince Draco when Draco hadn’t been convinced so far, and Draco swallowed. “The look in your eyes,” he whispered. “You really meant that, and you were happy to hear it from him, too.”
“Yes,” Theo said, as gently as he could. He knew Draco was going to marry soon, but he doubted Draco would feel that way about his bride. Another thing that he didn’t understand thanks to a Malfoy upbringing. “That’s the way it works.”
Draco nodded slowly, and then turned and walked out of the room. Harry shook his head. “He’s never learned the art of apologizing, either, has he?”
“Very little of what Draco does comes from any kind of art,” Theo stated dryly, and watched Harry smile. That smile touched the sunlight inside him again, and made him reach into his pocket for the carnelian ring. “Will you take the ring before someone comes along and Summons it away again?”
Harry laughed as he took it. “Yes, I will. Any particular reason it’s this ring now and not the other one?”
“I drove myself mad wondering which one you would like better, if the ruby ring would look like I was trying to buy you or the carnelian one would look too simple,” Theo admitted, and he scooped the ruby ring off the floor to stick in his pocket. “But now I’ve decided that I like the carnelian one, and if you don’t, we can exchange it for something else.”
“Jewels are so beyond me, I doubt I would know the difference,” Harry said with a roll of his eyes, and then touched the lion intaglio. “But I like the look of this one, too. And better, it was your gift to me. Thank you, Theo,” he murmured, standing on his toes to kiss Theo on the bottom of the jaw.
Theo smiled down at him.
“If you take the ruby ring back and get the money for it back…” Harry went on in a thoughtful voice as they sat down to their interrupted dinner.
“Yes?”
“Can we donate the money to Hermione’s S.P.E.W. effort?”
Theo let Harry see the way he rolled his eyes. Harry’s grin only grew wider. “Good.”
“Good?” Theo repeated.
“I wanted to make sure that you were still your own person, with your own opinions, and wouldn’t just go along with anything I suggest because you love me.”
“There are all sorts of things I’m willing to do because I love you. But supporting an organization with that name is beyond me.”
Harry laughed, and then acted as if he was trying to hide his grin behind the winecup. Theo wondered why he bothered. It was large enough to light up the room, and sparkle off the tinsel on the gigantic tree, and make Theo’s heart shine brighter than any carnelian ring.
The End.