Canary Creams and New Yellow Paint - (DRARRY)

Chapter One

"How did you get the Spectroculars?" Draco asks.

"Teddy. But you already know that."

Draco shakes his head. "I had no idea."

"You didn't think it was odd that Teddy was buying them? He's not an artist."

"Neither are you."

"I've been painting for more than twenty years," Potter says. "I've been a professional for ten."

"Since when can you even hold a quill correctly?"

Potter's nostrils flare. "Why would I lie?"

"I'll never attempt to grasp the workings of your brilliant mind, Potter. I'm just not smart enough."

Potter's eye narrows. "Luna would have told you."

"Luna doesn't tell me anything about your life."

"You'd have seen it in the Prophet."

"I avoid reading any papers that use my history to make their Galleons."

"Someone would have told you."

"Who?"

"Anyone."

Good Merlin, Potter is exhausting. "We don't exactly run in the same circles. I've been living in Ireland since my son started at Hogwarts. Now that I mention it" — Draco takes a step back — "that was ten years ago."

"Then why did the Spectroculars malfunction?"

That, Draco doesn't know.

"May I?" He holds out a hand.

Potter wavers, then gives him the spectrometry glasses.

The lenses are cracked and burnt a smoky brown. The screws have come loose at the hinges.

"You were using them to paint a moving portrait?" Draco asks.

"Yes. When I tried a Doubling Charm on the painting, they exploded. They're defective."

Draco raises the glasses to peer through them. The room looks like an old photograph: yellowed and fuzzy, sporting odd stains in inexplicable places.

"You should Vanish these," Draco says. "In case they're still dangerous."

"No." Potter shoots out a hand, startlingly warm, and plucks the Spectroculars from his fingers.

"What, keeping all your evidence to report me to the Aurors?"

"And what if I was? I'd have every right." Something dangerous glints in Potter's remaining eye, like a lion pacing in its cage.

"So you would. But I didn't do anything. I thought they were going to Teddy."

If Potter knew him, that would be enough.

Draco's decision to go into this business had been entirely for Teddy. When he'd reconciled with his Aunt Andromeda three years after the final battle, Draco had finally been introduced to his young cousin, and — at Astoria's urging — Draco had gotten involved in his life.

Three years later, when Teddy had just turned six, Andromeda said a sudden sense of wrongness pulled her from sleep.

She'd gone to check on her grandson at three in the morning, only to find his bed empty and the window smashed through, curtain blowing in the breeze. The light of the full moon had leaked onto the carpet, casting the room in a yellow-white haze.

She'd screamed.

Draco was the first person Andromeda called, followed by Potter and every last Weasley she could think of.