Work Text:
Harry must have grasped the paper in his hands a little too tightly. The ink that laid in the center of the creased parchment was smudged with the humidity that radiated from Harry’s surroundings and, as much as he’d like to deny it, the humidity from the confines of his own right hand. ‘Rightmount Books; three shops down from the Thai place that Neville always brings us to. The Age of Homespun. Ulrich. If not there, Firecall me immediately,’ Hermione’s loopy penmanship read. “Immediately” was underlined three times.
Harry did not have time for this, and Hermione knew it. She also knew that he could never say no to her when she had so many papers around her, especially when she allowed her and Ron’s flat to get so messy. Harry was taking all of his extraordinarily short lunch break to get this book for Hermione’s thesis. This had better be the book that finished her paper, like Hermione had promised, because Harry was absolutely certain that he was going to die of hunger if Hermione made him go on a “quick errand” for her again.
Harry counted bitterly: the bookshop that Hermione was making him go to was actually four shops away from the Thai place. Harry would not hold this against Hermione in the near future because the year-round Christmas place was in the bottom half of the thrift shop, but still. It made him feel better about the whole ordeal that Hermione was at least a tiny bit wrong in her addled, post-baby and pre-diploma mind. It was beginning to rain, so Harry hurried his steps.
There was a venus symbol crudely painted onto the window on the door. Harry nearly hit himself with the door on the way in, causing him to slam the door too-hard and too-fast. The bells on the top of the peeling door chimed softly, almost inaudible, because someone had attempted to paint them in rainbow colors, inside and out.
The shop was filled to the brim with books, most haphazardly laying in stacks on the floor. Harry stepped forward, trying to find a fellow human in the wreckage of all the books. There was not a soul in sight. Harry checked the watched that Molly had given him. It always took him a beat too long to read. He would never get used to the way that wizards laid out their clocks. Reading the watch just proved once again that Harry did not have time for this.
“Hello?” Harry called out to the seemingly empty shop. He took a few more steps, finding a passageway between a bookshelf and masses on masses of cookbooks. Surely this had to be a safety hazard. He made his way through the tight aisle.
“Back here!” a woman’s voice rang out toward where Harry was headed.
Harry supposed that there must have been twelve bookshelves that he had to journey passed until he found the source of the voice. If he was in a little worse of shape, Harry knew that he would be out of breath by the end of the pathway.
There were two heads, man and woman, at the counter. They sat side-by-side reading.
“It really is a pain to get through to back here,” Harry told the two, running the hand that held Hermione’s directions through his hair.
The blond man put one of the many knitted bookmarks that the store was selling (for £2) into his book. He began to speak, “The store was just left the way that-”
The blond man had looked up at his customer, and Harry was stunned to see the equally stunned face of Draco Malfoy for the first time in three or four years. Harry did not stay as dumbstruck as Draco did, since Harry found himself laughing long before Draco’s face became pinched and miffed.
Draco began to stand. His mouth became more pinched and weary as Harry giggled further. “Well, Potter, I was going to make a comment about whether or not you’re certified and fit to be in a bookstore at all, but it seems that you have beaten me to hurting one another’s feelings.” He turned to the woman, who was middle-aged and stout. She was wearing a bewildered and concerned open mouth. “Octavia, I think that I will take my break now.”
Harry willed himself to stop the stream of chuckles that was uncontrollably coming out. “Wait, Draco. You don’t have to do that.”
Draco raised his eyebrows in question, but sat his book back onto the counter. The woman, Octavia, also looked at him in inquiry.
“It has nothing to do with you… I mean, well, it has, but I was just thinking that a feminist bookstore would be the last place that I’d think to look for Draco Malfoy,” Harry told the two of them. Octavia looked satisfied with the answer, glancing back down at her book. Now, Draco mainly just looked annoyed that Harry was in his general presence.
Draco gave him a strained smile, one of a person working in retail with an especially difficult patron. “That was mainly the purpose of me taking this job.”
It took Harry a few moments of scanning the area around Draco to realize the time, as there was an old school clock behind Draco and Octavia’s heads. “Oh, shit! I have to get back to work.” Harry motioned Draco closer to shove the parchment into his fisted hands. “Is there anyway that you can find this book in, oh”-Harry looked back up at the clock-“two minutes.”
“No promises, Potter.” Draco unfolded the paper and attempted to flatten it on the front of his book. “I see that you’re still running around for Granger after all these years.”
Harry couldn’t conceal his smile at the familiar disdain in Draco’s voice. “It is unfortunate, especially when I don’t get to have lunch because of it.”
Draco ventured out from behind the counter, bumping into Octavia and a ball of yarn in the process. “Lucky for you, I do know where the historical textbooks are.” He lead the way into the cramped path, more careful than Harry was before not to knock down any of the stacks of cookbooks lining the wall.
The historical textbooks were labeled as such and were five bookshelves away from the counter. They appeared to be shelved by colour, in rainbow order, instead of any other logical method of arrangement. Harry noted how rigid and lean Draco was as he looked for the title. Was he too skinny, or was Harry getting himself too worried? It was hard to say. The Age of Homespun was at the beginning of the section because the binding was white. Draco handed the book to Harry silently and started to make his way back up to the counter. The arm that had reached out to Harry was all skin and bone, the thumb was bent at an angle. It had been broken and never reset.
Draco bumped into Octavia again as he slid his way to the cash register. Harry laid the book out in front of him to ring up.
Draco pulled open the cover to see the penciled-in price. He went to punch the numbers into the machine.
The bags under Draco’s eyes really did distress Harry. Was Draco always that pale when they were in school together? It was absolutely possible, but Harry could not remember. Was Draco’s posture always so ramrod straight? That seemed like a high possibility, but, yet again, Harry could not fully remember. “That will be five pounds.”
Harry blinked up at Draco before he dove his hands into his back pocket. “Right, of course.”
Draco gazed at Harry oddly as he shoved the money into his hands. Harry grabbed the book up before Draco could hand him his change. “Keep it,” Harry said, grinning up at him. “Oh, and, um, Draco. I would just like to ask. If asking would be okay for me to-”
“Yes?” Draco cut Harry off, clearly not wanting this exchange to go on any longer than it had to.
Harry met Draco’s eyes and gave him another half-grin. Draco scowled back at him.
“Are you doing okay for yourself, Draco?” Harry asked, hoping that Draco would not be able to hear the hints of concern that she was sure were seeping into his words.
Draco looked startled but this query, but righted himself into a smirk soon enough. “Yes, Potter. I believe that I am.”
Harry was content that this answer sounded genuine to his own ears. He made the mistake of looking behind Draco again, at the clock. His eyes were sure to have blown nearly out of his face at the sight of the time. “Well, that is very good to hear, Draco. I’ll be sure to come back here sometime,” Harry spoke over his shoulder. He did not much care if he knocked down some of the cookbooks on his expedition back to the Ministry.
He could hear Draco’s voice as he opened the door to the front of the shop. “Please spare me that pleasure, Potter!”
Harry huffed out chuckle as he began to sprint back to the Ministry.
**
“You’ll never guess who sold me this book, Hermione.” Harry laid The Age of Homespun in front of a frizzy head that he could only guess was still Hermione Granger, if she hadn’t gone mad with research.
Hermione glanced up at Harry, only for him to notice that she held baby Rose to her breast. He made sure to keep eye contact with Hermione, to avoid a potential fight with an underslept Ron. She began to look exasperated with Harry’s lack of speech. “Well, who was it?”
“Draco Malfoy,” Harry told her, very seriously.
He expected at least some level of disgust from his friend’s face, but was a little surprised that Hermione began giggling just as Harry had at the discovery (albeit, she was a little more frantic in her laughter). “I would have thought that Octavia would have a little better taste than him, but I did only meet her once.”
Harry and Hermione grinned at each other, amused, for about twenty seconds in length, before Hermione grabbed the book in front of her and began highlighting the first page.
**
The next time that Harry went to Rightmount, he traveled in a trio with Ron and Hermione (plus Rose, although she was only a couple of months old). Harry tried to warn Ron before they set foot in the bookstore about Draco, admittedly without so many words.
“You may want to wait outside, Ron,” Harry declared once they were two stores away.
Ron looked genuinely offended for about ten seconds, until he spoke up, “You and Hermione might not think that I can read, but I honestly can, mate.” He walked in front of Harry and Hermione to pull open the creaking door to Rightmount.
“Suit yourself, Ron.” Harry shared an amused look with Hermione. She looked immediately back down at her cooing child.
Once all crammed into the tight space of Rightmount Books, Hermione passed Rose to Harry’s waiting arms. She began to look on the shelves for books that may help her ever-growing thesis.
“Blimey,” Ron’s said, taking in the area surrounding him. “This place is a right mess, innit?”
Harry noted that Hermione already had two books in her hands. “But it is marvelous, isn’t it?”
Rose began to swarm in Harry’s arms. Ron took note, and quickly crouched down to root around Hermione’s purse for her food and a plastic spoon. “Here you go, sweetheart.” Ron fed her, and Rose began to go pliant in Harry’s arms.
They went along this way. Harry and Ron staying occupied with baby Rose, and Hermione staying occupied with her rising stack of books. They moved from bookshelf to bookshelf. Harry having to pick up a few of the cookbooks off the floor that he grazed in the process.
“Okay, I think that I’m ready,” Hermione finally declared, when she eventually had to have help from Ron to hold the sheer amount of books she was about to purchase.
They made their way to the counter, and Harry noticed that Draco was the only one that was working that day. He gazed up from his book and pulled out one of the £ 2 bookmarks. He did not look surprised to see their faces. “I thought I heard the whiny voices of the golden trio, and the less whiny voice of the tiny Weasley. I was hoping that Octavia would come back, so I could go on break to avoid you lot.”
Ron looked shocked and ready to bolt with the reveal of Draco behind the register. He looked even more horrified when he glimpsed to see that Harry and Hermione did not share his feelings.
Draco smirked. “I’m guessing no one thought to tell Weasley that I work here.”
Harry beamed back. “No, we did not.”
Hermione dumped her books in front of Draco, and he began to ring them up. Hermione turned to Ron, still in shock, to nudge the rest of the books onto the countertop. “Go on.”
Draco worked fast to ring up the books. He squinted down at the total on the receipt. “That will be… forty-seven pounds.”
Harry handed him the money before either of his friends could reach for their wallets. “Thanks, Draco. You can keep the change, of course.”
Draco did not look touched by this act of generosity, but he did not look entirely put-out as he had the last time that Harry had seen him.
“Out we go,” Hermione said, practically shoving her husband, who looked like he was stirring up the courage to respond to Draco’s existence.
The dull toll of the bells announced the four of them leaving.
“Shit, Harry!” Ron exclaimed. “I know I’m not supposed to swear in front of the baby,” he said lowly to Hermione’s scowling face. His voice rose, “But you could’ve warned me that the blond devil was gonna be in there, or else I would’ve waited outside!”
**
The third time that Harry visited Rightmount, he was alone. Draco wasn’t working, so there wasn’t much that Harry remembered from that trip, except that Octavia somehow convinced him to buy three books on gay and lesbian studies that Harry knew that he would never read.
**
The fourth time that Harry went to Rightmount, Draco was the only person on shift. This was the first time that Harry had been in there while someone else looking for a book. The man looked ruffled, if not a bit lost.
Harry had immediately ventured up the counter to be greeted by Draco’s grimace.
“Are you not even going to pretend to look for a book?” Draco accosted.
“Would it make you feel more comfortable if I did?” Harry asked. He couldn’t help but smile down at Draco and his open book.
“What are you reading, Draco?”
This was not the first time that Draco had been startled by something Harry said, but this was the first time he hadn’t tried to hide it behind disgust. “No ‘why are you here?’ ‘Are you still practicing dark magic, Malfoy?’ ‘Are you trying to hurt the muggles?’” This was whispered so that the ruffled man behind Harry couldn’t hear.
“Nope.” Harry grinned at Draco as he ruffled his own hair. “So what’re you reading?”
Draco was obviously dumbfounded, but decided to carry on. “A compiled book of 13th century love poetry.”
Harry watched as Draco put a knitted bookmark into his book. “Is it any good?”
Harry thought that he almost saw Draco smile. “I could probably talk about it for hours.”
Harry drummed his fingers over the cover of the book. “So why don’t you?”
Draco seemed baffled by this question.
“I meant, why don’t we go to a pub or a coffeehouse after your shift?” Harry clarified.
Draco sized Harry up, as if to determine whether he was being serious or not. Again, Draco gave Harry one of his non-smiles. “Why not, Potter. I get off at five. You can come back then.”
Harry found that he couldn’t stop himself from grinning. “I think that I’d rather stay here until then.”
That time, Harry was pretty sure Draco did smile before he hid it behind his book.