The Liars Department || Drarry

Chapter 11

They landed in a small gap left between two buildings. You could take a bicycle through it, maybe a moped, if you were careful and knew what you were doing. Harry didn't and smacked back into the bricks behind him, hitting his head. Draco must have known where Asbestos would drop them, but he still barely caught himself.

"A little warning would be nice," Draco said irritably.

"Nope," Asbestos said, then gave a sarcastic little salute and apparated away.

"Hard to imagine her as a parent. She acts more like a- a disgruntled teenager," Harry said, rubbing the back of his head.

"They waited until they were freed to have Dobby, so I would imagine she hadn't planned to be a parent originally," Draco said.

Harry frowned, "That's sad."

Draco nodded.

"I, uh, I never asked if Dobby was a boy or a girl. I was kind of hard to tell," Harry said.

"It's practically impossible with house-elves, and besides, I don't think Dobby has picked one yet," Draco said.

Harry blinked, "Picked one?"

"A gender." Draco said, leading the way out of the ally onto a quiet street. He raised an eyebrow at Harry's confusion, "They pick and change them the same as their names. They really don't understand our obsession with sex and gender. As far as they're concerned, they are entirely different things. Sex is how you have children, and a good time. Gender is how you dress and act, and is cultural or experimental or whatever they want it to be."

"Oh," Harry said, "So... so this is how you learned about NonBinary, Enby stuff then?"

"Some of it, after talking with Asbestos for a while, well, nagging really, she's not the chatty type," Draco said. He headed down the street in no particular direction that Harry could discern. "But like I said before, they don't care what we think. I found out, just recently, that an elf we had always called Rose had never actually picked that as a name, had changed his name four times, and generally preferred a masculine presentation. He just knew to respond to when we called for 'Rose' so he did."

"That's, um..." Harry said.

"I think my parents still call him Rose, he goes by Robert," Draco said.

"Wait..." Harry said slowly, "Then was Dobby's name actually Dobby? Like the Dobby I knew, old Dobby."

"You were friends weren't you? I'm sure he would have told you if he changed it. Some elves never change their names. Some even keep their baby names, the name their parents picked out for them," Draco said, "Everyone is different. That's what makes them interesting, don't you think?"

Harry nodded, looking over at Draco as they passed under a street light, "Yeah, really interesting."

"This way," Draco led them across the street and up a few more. The darkened shops began to give way to more restaurants and bars, with people loitering outside, laughing drunk loud and leaving a mix of cigarette smoke and perfume on the air where they passed.

Harry felt his nerves jump up into his throat as he looked at the people they passed, presumably dressed to impress and possibly get laid. They seemed so utterly confident, walking and standing about like they weren't at real risk of utterly embarrassing themselves because they couldn't dance and tended to get nervous in bars and were even clumsier than normal when they were drunk. Except that was just him, really.

Harry looked down the street where bright marquees flashed above open doors with bodyguards and queues and thumping music spilling out. Harry had to content himself with the knowledge that if Draco laughed at him, it wasn't anything new.