— ABOVE is the improved colour chart. refer if you will.
+
"Can you tell a story about me mum?" Teddy asked him, hands settled on a tight grip on his Hungarian Horntail plushy.
They were at Teddy's playroom, with a motley of toys and plushies alike strewn across the carpeted floor. The tot had yanked Draco upstairs right after lunch without further delay, and Draco had looked at Harry apprehensively as to scour for help. But Harry merely nodded and offered him a crooked smile.
Teddy openly gawked his way, bright eyed, and pining him down. Draco wrung his hands in anxiety, what if he had said the wrong thing about Dora? It wasn't like his father had the most admirable affinity with his mother's side of family.
Mouth parched, he started, "To be honest, I didn't know much about her."
Teddy's mouth quirked down in a frown, hands loosening on his plushy, as he mumbled out a small, "Oh."
"But what I did know is that she had the same ability as ours, and that she was brilliant at it," Draco hastily added with a reassuring smile.
Teddy perked up, hair turning a dim shade of pink, "I know that! Gramma did say she was brill at it!"
He cogitated over on what to say, he didn't want to say the wrong thing, and give the child a seemingly bad impression of his own mother. Draco didn't know much about his cousin, but he was sure he knew enough to suffice, what from the information he had gathered from little talks with his own mother, or when Harry brought her into conversations.
"She was an Auror, I believe, and she used her special powers to do her job."
"Hawwy wants to be Auror, too!"
Was he really surprised that Harry wanted to be an Auror? The occupation's practically vouchsafed his way like another prophecy following Voldemort's. It was a thing after the other, the Wizarding World continuously expects Harry to be their hero. Wasn't he tired with saving people without end?
Again, was he really surprised? This was Potter they were about, the very same selflessly reckless Gryffindor with the unending hero-complex wired throughout his brain.
"Oh really? He'll do an excellent job, then."
"Dahco don't want to be Auror?" Teddy questioned. "Dahco would be like Mum!"
Draco found himself hesitating; he had never actually considered Auror as a career option. He was ambitious, to say the least, but after the war, he couldn't help but feel that harrying sense of dejection that he had no optimism left for the future. It was absurd to even dream about him getting a decent job at all, his name tainted and all after war. So he stopped himself from dreaming, out of fear that he might be drowning in delusion and that he would just be wasting his time wishing for things that may not knock on his doorstep, he had to face what reality would give him. With no one trusting him these days, he doubted anyone would every considered him the slightest competent for any job.
Draco before wanted to be many things and had many aspirations for the future, he still clung onto those ambitions tightly to heart, but he just didn't know how to live up to his desires to be someone.
How could he? He was barely anyone now.
He started to resign to the fact that he had not much value to his name and self anymore after his wretched decision of obtaining the Dark Mark, he felt defected after the event. It was as if a part of his soul had been sold into the hands of Voldemort, and even with Dark Lord gone now, he still felt that harrowing sense of vacancy within him.
His ability as a Metamorphmagi was just another elephant in the room besides the pressing facts that no one trusted him and the Malfoy name disreputable in the society these days, people would feel like they couldn't help but be skeptical towards this ability of his. People talk, they would probably think that he would use this shape-shifting powers of his to commit wrongdoings, as to deceive people by shifting into different bodies. They would probably think that he would use this ability of his to perform his so-called "corrupt morals" that he had been rumoured for, and taking advantage of this privilege to be unjust and to scheme.
Draco usually never cared and didn't paid much thoughts about what people thought about him, but somehow now, the hushed whispers behind his back felt like it was amplified intentionally for him to hear.
Was he thinking into this too cynically? Nymphadora Tonks was a prominent figure representing Metamorphmagis, and she had succeeded into bringing light into this ability. Did he have to flip the side of the coin? There are many hopeful things that could come out by being a Metamorphmagus.
Though he faltered, never mind that: Draco wasn't even the master of his own powers; he hardly understood how to tame it, it owned him, not vice versa as it should be. He was just another liability with a great baggage of liabilities. This he added to his long list of incompetency.
Even Teddy performed better on being a Metamorphmagi, he was defeated from controlling his own powers solely because he was too emotional, and this power of his was just sometimes a whirlwind of things that happens at sporadic times. He couldn't even transform based on his will, it was true, he was regressed of his own emotional growth when it comes into mastering this ability. He hadn't even yet mastered shape-shifting, all he could do was transform his hair unwillingly.
So then he resorted into being a defeatist, believing that not much luck would be bestowed upon his days in the future. He had already begun this pathetic process of self-wallowing by drowning into his pool of throes. He submitted into becoming a masochist to his own misery, genuflecting to the hardships he believed he deserved.
But then Harry came, he offered to lend his hand to someone he had considered a foe for a ridiculously extended period of time. Harry was willing to start a fresh page of things between them and begin again, so why couldn't Draco do the same? Why must he feel like he deserves the struggles and to feel as if he was a hopeless martyr that wouldn't be given much chance on anything at all? Why should he feel like he should kowtow to his hardships? Why must he have such a pessimistic outlook on everything?
Why must he believe that he's undeserving of a new beginning as well?
It's no use going back to yesterday, because he was a different person then.
He returned from his train of thoughts to Teddy's pending question, his hair vivaciously pink. "I will think about it."
The smile the boy offered was bright, and Draco felt a small surge of reassurance that even if he decided to start a new beginning, he would have support.
+
After many (some of them unsuccessful) attempts on trying to tuck a riotous Teddy into bed for nap time with the help of Harry, he was at last sleeping under the warm comfort of his blanket and a thumb suckled into his mouth.
Once they were sure Teddy was settled in, Draco stepped out of the room and Harry quietly closed the door after them. They placidly lingered in the corridor, not knowing what to say, before Harry said, "I heard what you said about Tonks, thank you for that, Draco."
"It was nothing," He said softly. "Teddy needed it, I suppose he needed to find a way to know about his own mother, even if he didn't have the opportunity to find out directly."
Harry had a forlorn look on his face as they climbed downstairs, "I often couldn't find the words to tell Teddy stories about Tonks, I know how it feels to hear stories about late parents. I barely know much about my own parents, and sometimes, I like to imagine that they are on a holiday, far, far away, and these memories and stories that people like Sirius or anyone that was close to them had delivered to me are like postcards that my own parents sent from their far, far away holiday, you understand? Postcards that came in words told by another, and that the many people that told me these stories about my parents are the postmen of some kind, they deliver the messages that contains the many memories and stories my parents went through in their holiday, far, far away.
"I know that it's an unhealthy analogy to confront the deaths of your own parents, but sometimes I just couldn't help but feel that way. They came in my dreams sometimes, paying me a visit, although sometimes it doesn't last for long and even if it isn't tangible, I just wanted to held onto something to keep me going. The postcards they sent.
"I simply cannot make Teddy think that his parents are going on a far, far away holiday. Because they aren't, they're dead, and I couldn't share that same analogy with a child, because you really don't get anything out of it other than desire, and I've been telling myself this lie that my own parents are going on a holiday on some godforsaken place, but dear Merlin, I cannot make Teddy think about his parents the way I do. I don't want to be giving him false hope that his parents are somewhere. With this postcard metaphor, you're only deluding yourself in this tragic, beguiling fantasy that someone you lost still exists in another part of the world. I'm really trying to cure myself out of this complex, and that's why I find it hard to tell Teddy anything much about his parents. I don't want to be giving him false hope."
Silence became pregnant around them, and Harry spoke once more, "Teddy didn't deserve to lose them so early."
Draco grabbed Harry's hand in his, their palms contrasting, "You did not deserve to lose your parents so early either, Harry. No one deserves it, but you have people that truly care about you along the way of your life even if you spent half of it trying to fend off a megalomaniac dark wizard," Harry laughed quietly at this. "You don't deserve any of this, either."
Harry turned to face Draco, scrutinizing the latter's countenances and still grasping tightly onto his hand, "I've observed you, Draco. I may not know all the things you feel but I think I've got the grasp of it, and you know? You don't deserve feeling like shit, either. You have the opportunity to become a new person, fuck all the shitty things that happened to you in the past. Don't you dare let that stop you into becoming a new person, what happened yesterday was history, and I ask you to start over, with me."
Draco blinked, then rapidly to repulse the tears that wanted escape the dam away. He cursed himself for being so emotional, and he felt himself being enveloped into Harry's arms once more. He found this situation similar to the one that occurred in the hallways after breakfast at the Great Hall; him and Harry, drawn into each other's arms, Draco letting out his tears, and Harry holding him and reassuring him that everything was fine. This was the second time he experienced this situation, and he found that he didn't hate it.
And with each passing time, he felt his trust grow towards Harry, as his hair turned green as well. A foreign sensation was blooming in his stomach, a feeling that he wanted to hold onto for a long time even though he couldn't really understand what it was.
Harry pressed his lips onto Draco's forehead, and there they stood, in the corridors of Grimmauld Place, embracing each other, and there was still that insistent blooming sensation that Draco still couldn't resolve.
Beneath his tears, Draco was also hoping to whatever force may exist above him that Kreacher won't pop up suddenly with that slimy expression on his face and ruin the current situation they're in.
Because, really, he wanted it to stay like this forever.
+
They were about to Apparate and return to Hogwarts when Andromeda halted him on his tracks, and did the unforeseen. She engulfed Draco in a warm hug, her lissom arms wrapped around his body and the tip of her fingers meeting at his back. Draco's hair fixed into yellow out of surprise. Strangely, he felt himself being transported to the past, pale memories of young him being wrapped in his mother's arms in front of the crackling inferno of the fireplace, and her mother's soft voice lilting the room, gently serenading him to sleep.
Andromeda's embrace parallels his mother's, and he couldn't help but feel his heart ache for his own mother, deserted alone in the large manor in occasion of years of house arrest, prohibited from seeing anyone else at all. Not even Draco could go home and visit in the meantime he was at Hogwarts, and he was forced to spend Christmas alone at Hogwarts.
"Dear boy," She murmured. "So alike Narcissa, so alike Dora. Be strong, you."
+
Thus, from there, the two still continued their appointed activity in the cracks of dawn. This continued for another few days until Draco couldn't help it anymore. All the time Harry showed up in the morning in front of the Room of Requirements with that goofy grin of his to welcome him, Draco felt bile rising up to his throat even more. He felt that this task that they pursue as the start of both of their days were merely a waste of time, an impending clock that ticks before Draco broke and be deprived of his own energy. This task of theirs achieves nothing but a temporary shield for Draco to accouter. He was feeling even more leaden and recalcitrant with each passing day because of their activity.
Draco sighed, his hair belaying black out of stress. They were once again laid on the floor, Harry tracing arbitrary patterns on Draco's forearm. They were about to cast the spell again, as Harry asked him quietly if he was ready to do so.
But on this particular morning, he began to see things differently; it was as if he had a sudden, epiphany that he wanted to be better, and that to cast a provisional shield to hide himself won't do him any good, only to cower him more and that he won't ever be able to get out of shell.
He itched to say, "Not today, Harry", and march proudly into the Great Hall that same morning, maybe with his hand held by Harry, and with his hair in a vortex of colours and his identity exposed to the whole of Hogwarts and soon the world.
But he was too scared. He wasn't so sure what he was scared about, if he thought about it, there is little to none stigma dropped to Metamorphmagis.
He was scared of change. He was scared that he would lose everything he already had. He doesn't have much to clung onto, and he was terrified that he would lose what was left.
Not yet.