Chapter Text
The last person Draco wanted to see after being turned was Harry fucking Potter. Yet, there he was. He was always there. Distractingly sexy and devastatingly professional. Theo asked him to come, the traitor.
After a full year living with Fenrir Greyback, Draco emerged unbitten. He avoided infection when Greyback tore a bloody path through Hogwarts. He wasn’t even turned during the werewolf and his followers’ final grab for power the following year, when Potter was. No, Draco was attacked by a rogue werewolf in Bulgaria while he harvested a rare strain of mugwort during the full moon to brew a non-addictive Dreamless Sleep. Like a fucking moron.
The werewolf left him for dead. He survived through shoddy First Aid spells and a weak Patronus. Once he was stable, the Bulgarians transferred him to St. Mungo. They’d discharged him after his first transformation with a handful of pamphlets and three months’ worth of Wolfsbane. He’d tossed the pamphlets and was two weeks in to drinking himself through his dead parents’ wine cellar. Theo insisted this “wasn’t healthy coping” and took it upon himself to call the Savior, the werewolf representative of the Wizarding World, bane of Draco’s existence, Saint Harry Potter.
Potter smiled. He had a warm smile. Draco only caught glimpses of it as a child. His long, sharp teeth glinted in the late afternoon light. Draco glared upside down at Potter and Theo from the lush carpet where he sprawled with his third bottle of the day.
“Sober Up.” Theo offered him the potion and stole his wine.
“He’ll be alright in a bit without it,” Potter provided though no one had fucking asked. “Hard to get Weres drunk, harder to stay drunk. Fast metabolism.”
Thus, Theo unceremoniously bundled Draco into the shower, then shoved him onto the couch with a splitting headache in the renovated drawing room. Potter showed no hesitation entering the place he’d nearly died fifteen years ago. He had always been braver than he was smart. Theo handed Draco a Hangover Cure. He gulped it down gratefully.
“Nott tells me you’re struggling to come to terms with your lycanthropy,” Potter said, serious and a touch empathetic.
This conversation was unbearable already. Draco glowered at his – former – best friend.
“He hasn’t left the house,” Theo supplied enthusiastically. “Barely eating, drinking all day. He won’t go to the support groups or…”
“I’m fine,” Draco interrupted.
He was. Theo didn’t know shit.
“How’d your first moon go?” Potter asked, mouth twisted as though anticipating Draco’s answer. “First one is hardest. We haven’t made much progress with the Ministry on their policies.”
Nightmarish. Wolfsbane didn’t work for the first transformation. Somewhere in the bowels of the Ministry, locked in a sterile room, Draco had painfully contorted into a creature he didn’t recognize. Alone, scared, the moon calling to him far away, he’d howled and bit himself bloody. The Healers the next morning said they’d only seen one other werewolf in worse shape after their first full moon. Draco found that wine helped drown the memories of confinement and bitter loneliness, at least somewhat.
“It was fine,” Draco said.
If Potter looked skeptical, that was his business. Draco didn’t care. A curl dropped into his eye and Potter tossed his shoulder-length hair out of his face. Draco didn’t care about that either.
“Things have changed since we were in school, Malfoy,” Potter supplied, oh so helpfully. “It’s different for Weres now.”
Most of the information Potter volunteered, Draco knew, not that he’d been following the developments. There were more werewolves in Britain now than ever before, enough to form packs. Potter was Alpha of the largest, but there were two others, plus the “half-Weres” bitten when the werewolf wasn’t transformed. Even lone wolves ran together legally in Ministry-warded forests. Significant legislative changes meant werewolves couldn’t be discriminated against in housing or the workplace. Improvements to Wolfsbane meant it no longer poisoned the werewolf while still allowing them to keep their mind. Draco knew more about that than Potter did. He’d developed the improved potion during his Potions Mastery and published anonymously. No one would trust a Malfoy to improve the lives of creatures. The only thing he didn’t know about was…
“A barbeque?” Theo laughed.
“It started as a dinner,” Potter smiled back. That warm smile again. Draco hated him. “I got Arthur a Muggle grill for Christmas two years ago. Now it’s a barbeque.”
Cute. A fucking picnic the weekend before the full moon for werewolves and their friends and family. The Alphas from the three packs would be there and one or two lone wolves would show to give Draco their information if he preferred. Potter offered a flyer with the location. Draco ignored him. Theo took it with an embarrassed smile.
“I hope you’ll come, Malfoy,” Potter said sincerely, the asshole. “It’s harder if you resist. You’re a Were now. We do better in packs.”
The ‘we’ did something funny to Draco’s stomach. He grunted noncommittally. Maybe the earth would open and swallow him whole and this conversation would finally be over. Stranger things had happened around Potter.
“We’ll be there!” Theo chirped disloyally. “Thank you for coming, Potter. Terribly helpful.”
Nodding, Potter made to leave.
“Why do you leave your fangs down?” Draco burst out. It bothered him throughout this excruciating interaction.
Potter slid the tip of his tongue along one sharp canine. The movement sent an unexpected, unwanted bolt of arousal through Draco.
“Keeping them in takes energy, it aches,” Potter said, as though this obvious fact was an explanation.
“But people...” Draco gestured vaguely in the air, at the general concept of the discomfort of others with visible signs of lycanthropy.
“Malfoy, when have I ever cared about making Wixen more comfortable?” Potter smirked and strode out of the manor.
“Did you see his ass?” Theo asked after the door shut. “Could bounce a knut off those cheeks.”
“Kill me,” Draco muttered, loosening the cork from bottle number four.