#Draco is biracal

[rboooks]

Right but Draco?? Having a crush?? On Hadrian?? Because he's nice to him??? Is um perfect????? Can I please please please please see how that happened? I'll give you my firstborn as payment!

You’re first born sounds tempting but I’ll accept naming rights instead. Based on  C’est La Vie by the ever-talented @cywscross. So this is set before Orion found Dimmionsion Hoppers.  Also I took liberties with the Malfoy’s family background because I have problems with HC and impulse control.

Draco Malfoy is biracial.

His family is French on his father’s side and British on his mother’s. 

He hates it, not that he’s a mixed-race as his parents married for love as much as they married for political convenience and he’s proud to be mixed race, but he often feels like he’s pretending.

Pretending to be British.

Pretending to be French.

He speaks his father’s language but he doesn’t celebrate all of his father’s traditions.Some summers they go over to visit his father’s sister and her children. These trips are equal parts of joy and anxiety in the young Malfoy heir. 

When he goes over to visit his cousins, they turn their noses up at his accent, his word choice and his aunt always makes one or two comments about him “thinking he’s too good to be a proper Frenchmen” if he so much as fumbles with his words. 

It’s not that he means to stumble or forget a few words here or there. It’s just that sometimes his mind goes blank when trying to think of what something is called and she takes it as him not being proud of speaking french. 

He doesn’t. He loves that part of himself, but it’s hard to use it when he lives in England and raised in England and has an English mother.

 He celebrates his mother’s traditions, speaks her tongue and feels more comfortable as he is often surrounded by her side of the family, but he sometimes mentions something or says something that has his playmates (Politics start from a young age, allies must be formed) confuse until someone realizes “Oh that’s a French thing right?” and he’s left wondering if he would fit better in France instead.

He doesn’t show his uncertainty, he has a reputation to uphold after all, but it doesn’t stop the confusion and the worry that’s just pretending to be something he not. He’s ashamed that he fails both sides of his culture.

Yet he loves both sides as well. Draco some days loves one side a little more. Take, for example, his favorite sport.

He doesn’t support the English National Quidditch team, he supports the French one. He loves their plays, loves their team colors, loves the players and most of all loves that he can understand when they yell out instructions to each other as a sense of pride rushes his chest each and every time. 

There just something warming about knowing when one of the players screams “Pass! Pass! Watch your left!”. It means differently somehow. He’s tried to explain it once before to Theo and Blaise but it’s like trying to explain color to someone who can’t see the same shades as he can. 

The French National Quidditch Team is his favorite because it lets him celebrate a part of himself with the worry of failing, that’s all there is to it.

It’s downright impossible to find any of their merchandise unless he hopes over to that country himself, which is a shame. His father makes sure to always get him the newest merch but sometimes the family just doesn’t have time to go hunting for a new jersey on vacation. 

They have a schedule the noble families need to keep even when they should be relaxing. 

He’s a bloody hound dog when it comes anything he may not already have and his parents don’t mind getting it for him if he can find it. This is why the day Draco walks by a store he only needs to catch the pale blue out of the corner of his eyes before he’s nearly pressing his face against the store’s window.

He’s never actually seen this store before, but there is a section dedicated to Quidditch and more importantly, there is a snitch painted in the French flag hanging right in front of it!

Draco doesn’t stop to think as he rounds the window and is pushing the door open in one quick and fluid movement. Cheerful chimes echo through the building while he makes a beeline for the snitch, as he gets closer he realizes with a start that it’s not just the snitch. 

There is an entire shelf filled to the brim with his team’s merchandise. Sure he has most of it already, but this is Diagon Alley. It’s the first store he’s seen in this place with good taste!

If Draco was prone to such pathetic displays he would be bouncing up and down in joy. He settles for browsing with a please smile instead, making sure to not bend his neck too much least he embarrasses his upbringing. 

A box of rings catches his eyes, as they are shaped in the four balls of the game and the light blue and white Snitch ring is really calling out to his inner Seeker. Just as his fingers pull the metal out of it’s holding a throat is cleared behind his back.

“Excuse me, but we aren’t open for business quite yet.” 

Turning around Draco comes face to face with a small boy that could be around his age if he ignored how tiny he is. He’s wearing some horrid muggle clothes but his poster is perfect, with a dignified aura around him.  Besides his memorizing green eyes, however, the stranger is rather plain in the face. 

“I beg your pardon?” Draco all but sneers, raising a brow. He seems weak, like those first-year Hufflepuffs and the Malfoy plans on making him regret speaking to him. 

The green-eyed boy doesn’t even bat an eye. He even offers a polite smile, without an ounce of judgment or falsehood.

“I said we aren’t open for business yet. Our opening day isn’t until next month I’m afraid.”  He waves his hand, gesturing to the rest of the room. It’s at this moment that Draco realizes with a jolt that the store is half empty. The entire left side of the place doesn’t even have shelves yet. “We just had the front of the store visible so the magical inspectors could give us the Ministry permit to sell magical items in this building. After they finish their walkthrough, the store is going back to being Unnoticed until opening day.”

Draco’s cheeks burn with embarrassment. Of course, he’s never seen this store before, he should have been aware that he missed it’s grand opening. He just marched right in like a child from a lower class. 

He lets the ring go, attempting to retreat gracefully.  “I apologize for my trespassing.”

Green eyes smile widens turning less polite and more friendly. It’s quite startling. “No harm is done. Do you like the French Team?”

“Yes. They are the only team with any sort of talent.” He’s not going to lie now. It’s obvious with the way his hand is still curled around the ring. He expects the boy to get huffy but instead, he merely tilts his head.

“They are quite good. Their Chasers are one of the world’s best. Blitzen Ballet is one of my favorite moves.” 

Draco’s eyes light up. “It’s a brilliant move! The amount of control and teamwork required is why they are the best. ”

“It is. I’m Evans. Hadrian Evans” Then much to Draco’s shock the boy holds out his hand, making sure to have it lower slowly after extending his arm so that his fingertips match up to his stomach. 

This means he knows that Draco is of higher standing but respects him none the less. Hadrian knows proper Pureblood customs? 

Eyeing the hand for only a moment Draco takes it.  “I’m Malfoy. Draco Malfoy.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Hadrian says shaking his hand twice before turning over his palm so Draco’s ends up on top. Another Pureblood custom, one that the only nobility uses. How odd.

“Indeed.”  He responds. After letting go, Draco attempts to get away least he embarrassed his family name even more. Moving around Evans he starts to mumble under his breath in French. “How utterly troll of me to not notice the store isn’t ready yet.”

“It happens to the best of us. Don’t worry about it.” Hadrian says following him. Draco actually stumbles forward, and a hand closes around his elbow to keep him steady so he doesn’t topple over.”

“You speak French!?” 

“Yes.”  Evans seems far too amuse causing Draco to scowl. “Here you forgot your ring.”

“What?” Evans gently takes his right hand and slips on the snitch ring he had been eyeing. Draco practically turns to stone until the other steps back smiling at him with that same magically damn smile. “Consider yourself our first sale.”

“I don’t need your...your...”  Draco's minds draw a blank, he can’t remember the word in french and shame quickly leaks into every inch of his body. Lamely he finished in English. “Charity. I don’t need it.”

“It’s not. It’s our first sale. That’ll be one sickle.” Evans says not batting an eye at his broken french. Draco likes him a little for it. 

“I thought you weren’t open for business yet. Surely you won’t twist your own words minutes after uttering them. Why what would the owners say?” 

“We aren’t but my brother won’t mind. Don’t worry I won’t get in trouble.” Evans says lightly and suddenly he smiling in odd fondness with a touch of bewilderment. 

The Malfoy doesn’t know what to say. This was the first time someone had been able to break apart his words to find their meaning and seeing his real emotions beneath them. Draco almost felt naked at that moment, vulnerable in a way he wasn’t used to and he wasn’t sure he enjoyed it.

Suddenly he wants to leave, to put as much space as he could between himself and this odd wizard.  Fishing out a sickle he all but thrust it into the other hand. 

“Your french is lovely by the way,”  Evans says pocketing the money. “I’m glad I meet someone who speaks it right away. I need to practice the language a little more.”

Draco can only blink at him.  “It’s not perfect.”

“No. But it’s still lovely.”  He’s not lying. Draco can’t find a single trace of a lie on Evans's face. There isn’t even an effort to get on his good side with empty flattery. This is....the first time someone has been so nice to him without having a secret agenda 

“Thank you, Evans.”  He manages after a while. 

“Call me Hadrian and you’re welcome.”

Wrinkling his nose Draco huffs “I think not. We are not acquainted enough for me to call you by your first name Evans.”

“If it makes you uncomfortable-”

“Malfoys don’t get uncomfortable.” 

Evans chuckles amusement edge into all of his body language. “Alright. How about we hang out sometime so we can be acquainted enough for first names?”

Draco considers the idea, tempted to say now but so far, he can admit that he’s interested. Besides...it would be nice to have someone he’s age speak his second language without any judgment.  “Do you have an owl?”

“Yes.”

“Then we can owl each other the next time we are free and determine the place of our outing.” Draco half expects him to pull a face like many others do. But he’s quickly finding out Evans isn’t like many others.

Instead, Evans actually looks at him with such fondness mixed with a longing that it makes a healthy blush bloom across Malfoy’s face.  “Strategizing our plan of attack then?”

“But of course. Only a fool rushes in without a plan. My family always has a schedule.” 

Evans smiles at him. “Then I believe you will be better at planning it out. I’m free this whole next week since my brother has to do all the bureaucracy stuff that I’m not a part of.”

Trading some contact information, Draco is quickly leaving the store, making sure his strides are long and confident. He doesn’t glance back once even if he has the impulse to do so. He can feel Evan’s eyes on his back and he straightens up just a bit. 

He twirls the snitch ring on his hand a little watching it spin while thinking of this very odd outing he somehow got roped into planning and the even odder wizard he may have just befriended. 

I’m going mad. He thinks after finding his father and showing off his new ring. I actually want to see him again.

For the rest of the month, he meets up with Evans five more times and each time the other wizard insists on being called Hadrian. Draco refuses to do it on principle alone. It’s humorous.  

The pleasantly surprising thing about Evans is that he doesn’t seem to mind any of the prejudice pre-concessions people have. 

He doesn’t care Draco’s a Malfoy (He wasn’t after anything the Malfoy name could offer be it riches or political power), or that his dad was an accused Death eater (According to Evans, a  father’s action weren’t a reflection or burden of a son’s) or that Draco was Slytherin (Which may have something to do with Evans missing out the first year).

According to Evans, Draco Malfoy was just Draco Malfoy. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Exactly one week before the store Dimmionsion Hoppers (A name Older Evans and Younger Evans agreed upon thought why they thought it ironic he wasn’t sure)  was to open officially, Draco’s father had announced they would be going over to France for the remainder of the summer.

For the first time, Draco was torn between being excited to go and throwing a tantrum on wanting to stay. He was really enjoying Evan’s company it seemed. A little too much if his mother’s teasing smirk was anything to go by. 

She was the one taking him so much to Diagon Alley, of course, she would notice why. 

 “We can still owl each other and we’ll be seeing each other at Hogwarts anyway,” Evans said pleasantly over his ice-cream cone. Draco hated how attractive this plain wizard is suddenly turning and he has to look away in order to breath properly. 

“Finally convinced your brother that a proper education could only be found at the best school hm?”

“Yeah, he thought homeschooling was the way to go but I finally broke him.” 

Draco twirls his ring while bitting back a goofy smile. Malfoys don’t smile like love-struck fools. At least not before marriage.  “I suppose I could agree to owling for the remainder of the summer if you want to so badly.”

Hadrian laughed.  “It’s a deal then. We’ll keep each other updated on what’s going on yeah?”

The ring that is still on his hand- he’s only taken it off to sleep and shower- feels warm all the way to France with him.

The first letter that arrived had Draco fuming however and his mother had to cover her mouth in an effort to shift a laugh while his father just fondly rolled his eyes.

The Malfoy Heir didn’t notice his parents' reaction as he paced his aunt’s guest sitting room in a huff.  “Who the heck is he working with to make Evans sound this happy?! He should be honored he knows me! Not some low-income commoner!”