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Wedding rings were always unique to the pair that were to be married. For the Malfoy family, this meant that the pair were one of a kind jeweled masterpieces created once and never copied. But engagement rings were passed down through the heirs of the family. Anyone who had ever married a Malfoy would have worn one of these rings during the engagement time period. His mother had worn one of them.

But Harry wouldn’t be like her. He wouldn’t use something like engagement for his own means, of that Draco was positive. It wasn’t something a Gryffindor would do…it wasn’t something Harry would do. Harry had to be doing another self-sacrificing thing, he just had to be. Somehow, he’d gotten it into his head that the only way for Draco to retain his inheritance was to become legal by wizarding standards. But what in Merlin’s name was his motive? He had to have a motive, even if it wasn’t one of self gain. But this kind of thing was not something you’d do for a…well…a friend. Even if engagements could be broken and had been many times before, it was still not something done frivolously. If that was the case, whenever teenagers wanted to be perceived as adults for any small reason, they’d just become engaged to someone and break it when they wanted to! And no one did that; it was a mockery to the marriage rite to do that. Harry would know that, so why was he suggesting it? Draco doubted that such a thing would be done even by people who had crushes on each other…but that took out any motive Harry might have had. Unless…well, unless Harry’s feelings ran deeper than that, but they couldn’t. But if they did…

No, he just wouldn’t even start going down that direction of thought. His own feelings for Harry were confusing as they were, he wasn’t going to add that into the mess. Sighing, he closed the small box’s lid and let it drop into his pocket, Harry’s words coming back into his mind.

“If I were to say any vows, they would be real.”

Real? Real, true engagement vows would hold until the marriage vows when the bonds of matrimony were made. Draco had seen such vows, even those as sacred as the marriage vows, broken, even if they had been real when made. His own parents had done that. Reasons being good or bad, the marriage vows had been broken. But with Harry…Draco couldn’t do that with Harry. Harry was his Veriae bonded. Were he to propose engagement to Harry, it would be more than real, it would be binding. Completely and utterly binding, never to be broken.

It scared him, those kinds of bonds. It wasn’t the loss of freedom. He’d already “lost” that by becoming Veriae bound to Harry. No, what scared Draco was how easy it would be to make such a proposal, how little restraint he had, and how quickly that little restraint was crumbling.

Harry woke late that night to an empty bed. Slowly, he stretched and headed out of Draco’s wing. He knew where he would have gone if he were Draco.

The door to what had been Lucius’s study was closed, but light crept under the doorway as Harry neared it.

Draco didn’t look up as Harry entered the room and quietly padded over to where he stood, looking at the fireplace.

“I was thinking about removing it,” Draco whispered. “So that I never have to see it again. But I don’t think I will.” He turned molten silver eyes to Harry’s own. “I think it would be better to see it in real life than in nightmares.”

Harry nodded. Now that he was here, he wasn’t really sure what to do. He watched as Draco crossed to his father’s desk, sitting in what had been his father’s chair. It reminded Harry of a throne, but Draco didn’t look much like a king sitting in it. More like a lost prince who has been forced to come home and take control of a kingdom plagued by war.

“Are you going to make this your study?” Harry asked.

“I don’t know. It’s rather far to walk to from my room.”

Harry smiled. Draco would make this his own study, no matter if he had to cross the entire manor to get to it, he was positive of it.

“Well then why don’t you check it out?” Harry asked. “Look and see what’s here before you decide.” He crossed to Draco and leaned over the blond to open a drawer in the desk. “For instance, what’s in this drawer?”

“That would be the quills, ink, and paper drawer.” Draco drawled, pushing the center drawer back. “I know that much, Harry.”

“How about the others?” Harry asked, sitting on the arm of the chair. “There certainly are a lot of them.”

Draco smirked and pointed to the left side of the desk. “Official documents and records are on that side.”

“How do you know that?” Harry asked, pulling the three drawers open and then shutting them. Draco was right, they were all full of documents.