Canary Creams and New Yellow Paint - (DRARRY)

Chapter Five

Draco's only pretending to pay attention to the auctioneer as she speaks. He's got his eyes locked on the entrance, waiting for Potter to walk through. Any minute now.

He feels a presence beside him and turns, letting out a startled breath.

"How the hell did you get in without me seeing you?"

Potter shrugs as he leans over the gilded balcony to look at the crowd. "Magic."

It's odd to see his real face in public. Draco doesn't know why, but he'd been half-expecting Heffley, even though Potter had agreed to attend on the grounds that his presence would help Scorpius.

Potter's intense expression eases when Draco rests his forearms on the railing beside him, his posture relaxing minutely.

"This is quite the turnout," Potter says.

"Oh, yes, everyone's quite eager to see what the Malfoys will offer up."

"You're auctioning your own things?" There's a strange tightness to his voice as he asks.

"A few odds and ends. Mostly antiques we haven't thought about in years."

"Ah."

The auctioneer shouts, "Sold!" and the wooden hammer hits the stand. Potter flinches, pulling back from the balcony, and turning around slowly. He begins a listless stroll down the attached hallway.

Though Draco knows it defies a thousand social graces — ones that his mother would be furious to hear he's ignoring — Draco follows after him. He's more concerned with what Potter's thinking than keeping up appearances as the host ... much as it pains him to admit it.

The lavish hall is lined with moving portraits on either side, and the end showcases a grand arching window through which he can see the sinking sun.

It strikes him as odd, at first, that Potter stops to talk to the portraits, until he remembers that he's some sort of artist. A magical one, presumably. It's a very strange thought, putting together the words, 'Harry Potter,' and, 'art.'

The idea of magical portraits has always unsettled him. Draco told his mother as much when he was little, and she had shushed him. Don't let them hear you, she'd said. They're family.

He knows the portraits aren't really alive, but they look it. Not to mention that being stuck in two dimensions would feel torturous, and — were it to have anything in common with him — his portrait would think so too. Doomed to a life of immortal misery.

Potter doesn't have the same reservations.

When Draco catches up with him, he's chuckling at something a painted knight has said, and Draco allows himself a moment to imagine what it might be like to have that easy, relaxed laugh aimed at him.

"You didn't tell me there were so many portraits here," Potter says when he turns.

"When, exactly, would I have slipped that in?"

Potter tilts his head in thought. "It's how 'Mione gets me to go places."

Of course it is.

Draco shifts the subject so he doesn't accidentally say what he's thinking, which is that Potter's ridiculous, and clearly his friends know it.

"I never imagined you as an artist at school. You paint, then?"

Potter nods. "Almost exclusively. But I sketch the subjects out beforehand."

"Dare I ask how that started?"

He's expecting at least a whisper of hostility, but Potter smiles.

"Luna dragged me to some art therapy sessions Dean Thomas was leading a few years after the war. I hated it. I was ready to quit by the third class, but then I struck up a conversation with one of the portraits on the wall."