Drarry || One Shots

To Want Is Not To Need

Yoo, I was feeling angsty and decided to do something about it. This is the result, hope y'all feel it as much as I did.

Also, I know it's been a hella long time, but I've got a much longer chapter half written just waiting for me to pick it up again, even though I've hit quite a writer's block.

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Draco had never been one to seek affection. He could hardly say he ever needed it, craved it. He had gotten plenty from his parents as a child and people always sought to be on his good side. But he didn't think much of it, ever. He worked well enough by himself, he had proved that during sixth year. Granted, not his proudest time, and most certainly filled with all of the regrets he had in life, but he was doing well for himself.

His friends from school were good to have around when he felt like idle chat. Otherwise, when alone by the lake, or late at night in the common room, he always found he didn't feel the need to have anyone by his side.

And truly, apart from his occasional carnal cravings, which he was more than content to take care of himself, he had never longed for someone to come home to, to comfort him and help him up when he was down. He had, for the biggest part of his life, been convinced he would go unmarried.

But then Harry Potter had stumbled into his life once more, not many years after the war, much like he had done the first time around. Big, green, curious eyes sized him up from behind round spectacles, forever smudged with fingerprints and what Draco believed to be a physical inaptitude, probably hereditary, to walk two steps without tripping over his own two feet.

This time, though, they weren't in a robe shop, young and hopeful and naïve, Harry wasn't the scrawny, almost sickly looking kid from back then, and Draco himself had changed quite a bit as well. They were sitting at different ends of the quiet bar, both sipping their drinks, both alone, none in need of company. But company they got. And they enjoyed it.

Draco had never thought he would ever like to be next to someone this much, nor did he ever think his heart could do jumping jacks in his ribcage, much like in those cheesy novels he liked to read, but a few weeks later, after long nights on rooftops, late mornings in cafés and expensive lunches neither ever liked, he didn't try to suppress the feelings he knew he was nurturing already. And neither was Harry, if his warm body pressed against his and eager, sweet lips were anything to go by. He didn't try to stop himself like he thought he would, thinking this just wasn't him, because it was him. It was him around Harry. And he loved that version of himself, soft and pliant and completely in love.

And when Harry dropped down on one knee, barely two years later, and with hope and adoration in his eyes asked him to spend the rest of his life with him because I didn't even think it was possible to love someone this much and I honestly can't imagine my life without you in it, Draco, Draco didn't think once before he said yes and then let Harry drag him to the bedroom and fuck him well into the night, and then again the next day. He had never imagined himself getting married and he had never needed someone, but he wanted Harry. So Draco Malfoy got married.

And when, a little over ten years later, he had stood, all clad in black next to a freshly covered grave, weeping silently long after the Auror team and the Minister of magic had paid their respects and given speeches to the bravest man we knew, the most selfless, loving and hard working person, who died for nothing more, nothing less than his country, Draco knew he would not get married again. Not because he wouldn't ever recover, because he would, with great difficulty, after long nights of crying as he clutched onto Harry's clothes, his scent slowly seeping away from them, in their bed that hadn't been warm in weeks, but he would recover. He would recover, yet he knew he would never forget. Because Draco Malfoy never needed someone, he had just wanted someone. He had wanted Harry.

And then, a few years later, on a warm day of June, the last day of term, the day of Teddy Lupin's graduation from Hogwarts, when the blue haired boy Draco had raised as his own, alongside Harry and then alone, had entered his office, Professor Malfoy's office, sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the desk, and asked, with worry in his voice, wether Draco was ever going to find someone else, wether he would remain alone for the rest of his life, Draco only smiled. And the young man in front of him knew to read the words hidden in that slight tug of lonley lips.