Summary: Father's Day isn't fun if you haven't got a father. But when a Draco Malfoy joins Harry's class, Harry's father does something for him at last.

Warnings: AU, no magic. Ron can't rhyme, but Draco can.

Rating: PG

Obligatory disclaimer: I own nothing, nothing, nothing, and only write for fun.

A/N: This was supposed to be a small drabble for the HD100 community on LJ based on the word father… but then my fingers were possessed by the typing demon, so that didn't work out too well.

Harry remembered once, during his first year of primary school and two years after The Accident, his teacher had helped him make a Father's Day card for Uncle Vernon. Harry'd spent hours, cutting and gluing and coloring… He'd never made a card so perfect.

Harry remembered Uncle Vernon's fist cuffing the side of his jaw, and not being able to see because it hurt so much, when Harry gave it to him.

"I'm not your ruddy father!"

Harry remembered ripping the card into tiny little shreds and stuffing it into the dinner he'd helped make that night.

He'd sworn he'd never make another. Never.

"I'm not doing it!"

His teacher, McGonagall (Harry only called her by her last name because her first name was weird and she didn't like him, anyways), looked mildly irritated.

"Not doing what, Mr. Potter?"

Harry gave her his fiercest glare and straightened the glasses on his nose, which had slipped when he'd stood up so abruptly. "Not making a stupid Father's Day card!"

"He only doesn't want to because he hasn't got a real father," someone whispered knowledgeably from behind him. It sounded like Hermione Granger, the smartest girl in class, and her words made Harry burn. She liked to make everybody else — or maybe just Harry — look dumb.

Harry whirled around to face her. "You don't know everything, so shut up!"

"You shut up!" said Ronald Weasley, from the back of the classroom. "Just 'cause you're an orphan doesn't mean the rest of us don't wanna make cards!"

Ron crossed his arms and smirked as the rest of the class chimed in agreement. He'd hated Harry ever since Dudley'd teased his younger sister, and that'd been before Harry had even lived with the Dursleys.

Harry'd thought, on the first day of school, that he and Ron could be friends. But Ron didn't need friends like Harry, not when he had such a big, protective family —

Harry turned back around sharply, his throat tight. He could take Ron, he knew he could, but Uncle Vernon had told him that he'd better not get in any more fights or else.

Harry didn't exactly know what or else meant, but he reckoned the look on Uncle Vernon's face when he'd said it was telling enough.

McGonagall rubbed her forehead and sighed. "Mr. Potter, I'm sure—"

"You can't make me," said Harry, clenching his fists.

Harry wouldn't make another card for Uncle Vernon ever again. Not even if Vernon were dying. Harry wouldn't even care; he might even celebrate!

"Oh, very well, Mr. Potter," McGonagall snapped. She only called him by his last name when she thought he was being impertinent, which seemed to be all the time. (One time she'd had him write out the definition of impertinent two hundred times during recess.) Harry knew she hated him. He mostly blamed it on Dudley acting like a demon terror when she'd had him in her class last year. "Go to the back corner and finish your homework instead."

The class giggled. The back corner was reserved for Bad Kids, like Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe, who never did their classwork and beat up smaller kids after Harry wasn't a Bad Kid. He always did his homework, and he tried to stop Goyle and Crabbe from picking on other kids.

It just wasn't fair.

"Oo-ooh," sing-songed Pansy Parkinson. "Harry's in trou-ble ag-ain!"

"Quiet, Pansy," said McGonagall, as Harry picked up his things and skulked to the back corner. Miserably, Harry pulled out one of the beaten-up chairs and plopped into it. He spread his homework over the table, which someone had scribbled all over. The corner of the table said you suck McGngll.

"Does everyone have construction paper?"

The class chorused affirmatively, and soon the classroom was full of the sound of scissors cutting out hearts, and the smell of markers and crayons and glue. Dean, the resident classroom artist, was painstakingly drawing the words Happy Father's Day composed entirely out of little stick figures holding hands. Harry eyed him with contempt.

Father's Day was the worst holiday ever.

What was the use in celebrating it if you didn't — if you didn't even have a father? Or a mother, or friends, or even anyone to sit with at recess?

It was all — everything — it was all his father's fault, for being stupid and causing The Accident and dying and leaving Harry all alone. Harry's eyes burned. He scowled at the floor.

The last time he'd cried, Dudley'd split his lip open, and told Harry to stop or Dudley would really give him something to cry about. Harry believed him. And he knew, he just knew, that if he cried now, somehow, Dudley would find out…

It wasn't worth crying about, anyways.

Harry slumped against the table on his elbows and eyed the clock above the door. There were forty-two minutes until lunchtime. Then Harry could leave and sit by himself at one of the lunch tables and pretend he was somewhere else. Pretend he was someone else.

Someone with friends, and a family. He bit his lip hard and eyed Ron and Hermione. It was definitely his father's fault that he didn't have friends — because if Harry hadn't been stuck with the Dursleys, he was sure he could've made friends with his classmates.

But Hermione was best friends with Parvati — Harry knew because they wore matching necklaces — who was friends with Lavender, who was friends with Hannah, who was friends with Seamus, and…

They were all friends with Ron, who hated Harry because of the Dursleys.

And besides that, no-one really wanted to be friends with an orphan, because it was weird and uncomfortable.

The classroom door slammed open, and Harry very nearly jumped out of his seat. Dumbledore, the principal, stuck his head into the classroom, eyes sparkling jovially. He always had a suspicious smile on his face, and Harry wasn't surprised when the small boy he'd dragged in — almost as small as Harry — batted his hands away immediately with an offended look.

"No," the boy hissed, taking two steps away from Dumbledore, "I do not want a lemon drop, thank you very much. My mother says sugar ruins your teeth."

"Quite right, Mr. Malfoy," said Dumbledore cheerfully. "New student for you, Minerva!"

The entire classroom shifted their attention to the boy. He was scowling fiercely, as though he'd rather be anywhere than in school. Harry felt instantly that he was something of a kindred spirit.

"This is Draco Malfoy. He's just moved here from the city. Minerva, if you would, I have a parent-teacher conference coming up for the Weasley twins that I mustn't miss…"

He rather looked like he was from the city, Harry decided. A very rich city. His shoes were shiny and his uniform was brand new. Harry suddenly wished he weren't stuck in Dud's old cast-offs. He pulled his hair over his scar in nervous habit as McGonagall and Dumbledore talked in hushed tones, leaving Draco Malfoy standing alone in the front of the room. He was surveying the classroom with a look of faint disdain. Harry ducked his head.

After what seemed like a long time, McGonagall turned back around, and Dumbledore swished out the door.

"Welcome, Draco," she said, with a sort of half-smile that made her face seem even more pinched than normal. "We're making Father's Day cards today—"

"And why," said Draco Malfoy, curling his lip into a sneer. "Would I want to do that? Making cards is for babies."

The rest of the students, who had just broken into excited whispers (and giggles from some of the girls, Harry noted crossly), fell into astonished silence.

"I knew I'd hate it here," added Draco, looking sulky.

"Ah," McGonagall sighed. Not another one, her tone seemed to indicate. "Well, you're in luck, Mr. Malfoy. Potter, raise your hand. Malfoy, go join Potter in the back, and read until lunchtime."

Someone — Harry had a bad feeling it was Ron — snickered as Harry raised his hand, but Harry couldn't tell if it was directed at him, or because the new kid already had to sit in the back corner.

"Do you have a problem?" Draco asked Ron frostily, purposefully knocking against his chair as he walked by, "Or are you just naturally rude?"

Harry decided that Draco Malfoy was possibly his favorite person in the whole wide world.

Ron made a protesting sound, but all McGonagall said was, "Eyes forward, Mr. Weasley." She then gave Harry a look, and her eyes said: Be nice, or else. Harry shivered. He ducked his head back down and peeked up from under his bangs as Draco (rather strange name, Harry thought) pulled out a chair.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," he announced, sticking his hand straight out in front of Harry's face.

Harry stared at it somewhat frantically. What did he want? Fist bump? High five? Pinky promise? Kiss on the knuckles, like in Aunt Petuna's movies? God, that would be embarrassing, Harry wasn't going to do that…

"Oh, honestly," Draco muttered, and he reached out, grabbed Harry's hand, and shook it firmly. "That wasn't so hard, was it? Don't they teach you strange country folk any manners?"

Harry snatched his hand back. "You're the strange one," he retorted. McGonagall's warning glance was quickly forgotten. "Your hair looks awfully funny slicked back like that, didja know?"

Draco gasped. He raised a hand to touch his hair, looking somewhat defensive. "It does not! You take that back, or I'll tell—"

He paused.

"You'll what?" asked Harry meanly.

"Never mind," said Draco quietly. Then he sniffed. "Didja is not a word, you know."

There was another snicker. This time it was from Hermione Granger, who loved to correct Harry anytime she could. Harry's ears burned.

"Whatever," he mumbled. He focused back on his homework and pretended it was fascinating so that he wouldn't have to make any more eye contact. Draco eyed his papers curiously before turning to the bookshelves along the back of the room.

"What are you working on?" he asked Harry a few minutes later.

He'd apparently not realized his change in status from kindred spirit to pointy-faced git. Harry glared at him.

"You don't have any good books," Draco added, somewhat defensively. "Shouldn't have expected any, from this place…"

"Maths," said Harry grudgingly, but only because Draco was right — the only books McGonagall kept in the classroom were dead boring.

"Oh!" Draco squeaked. His nose was kind of pointy, and Harry began to unfavorably compare him to a mouse in his mind. "I'm brilliant at maths! What are you working on?"

Figures, Harry thought.

"Fractions."

Draco scooted towards him eagerly. "I love fractions," he confided in a whisper, as though it were a secret, and glanced down at Harry's paper. Harry frowned and covered it with his hands, but it was too late.

"You're doing it wrong," said Draco. There were immediately more sniggers from the rest of the class. Harry's face flamed hot, but Draco didn't seem to notice. "Do you need me to help you?"

"No," Harry hissed, slamming his book shut. Draco stared at him.

"No need to throw a tantrum," he muttered. He turned back to stare at the bookshelves, arms crossed.

Harry felt a bit guilty. It wasn't Draco's fault about the rest of their classmates being stupid and laughing. They'd laugh at him no matter what, anyways.

"I hate maths, is all," he said, after a moment. "History is my favorite."

Draco peeked at him out of the corner of his eye, but said nothing.

Well, Harry thought crossly, he wasn't going to force the new kid to talk to him. If Draco still wanted to be friendly (and Harry was kind of hoping he did), he could bloody well start the next conversation.

But what if Draco didn't start it…?

Once, Harry decided. He would try once more. He gathered his courage.

"Why don't you want to make a Father's Day card?"

"My parents got divorced last week," said Draco flatly. "I'm not in the mood to give either of them anything."

"…Oh," said Harry.

Draco slanted him a cautious look. "What about you?"

"My father never did anything for me," said Harry. "So I don't see why I should anything for him."

Draco frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Harry doesn't have a dad," Ron whispered loudly, before Harry could reply. He turned in his seat and gave Harry a malicious smile. "His parents are dead."

Harry bristled. "Shut up, Weasley!"

Ron sniggered and returned to his card, but when Harry looked at Draco, he knew the damage had been done. Draco gaped at him, then clamped his mouth shut, blushing.

"Never mind," Harry muttered into the uncomfortable silence that followed, his heart sinking.

Another maybe-friend gone because of his stupid father.

The minutes trickled by after that. Harry stared at the clock and counted them. Eleven minutes until lunch. Ten minutes until lunch. Nine minutes until lunch…

"I got something for my godfather, though," said Draco suddenly. Harry jerked his eyes away from the clock. blinking. "Do you want to know what it is?"

"Um, sure," said Harry cautiously. That was apparently the only encouragement Draco needed, because he met Harry's eyes with a smug smile. "It's a little dragon, so he can take it to his work and always remember me, because Draco means dragon!"

"Wow," said Harry. "Cool." And it actually was. Harry wished his name meant something like dragon. He wasn't sure exactly what Harry meant, but he figured it wasn't hard to guess. It definitely wasn't anything like dragon.

Draco looked immensely pleased at his response. "Do you have a godfather?" he asked.

"I don't… I don't know," said Harry. He wasn't really sure what a godfather was. Draco seemed to like his quite a bit, though.

Draco peered at him. "Well, you should find out, then. They're grand."

"I think — I will."

Draco beamed at him. Harry ducked his head, trying not to grin back.

Six minutes to lunch. Five minutes to lunch. Harry began to slowly put his homework away. If he timed it right, it could take a full five minutes…

"I'm making a poem for my Dad," Harry heard Ron whisper to Seamus. "But it needs an ending…"

"Read it to us, then," said Hermione.

"Hey, Dad, you're so cool. Hey, Dad…" said Ron. He paused sheepishly. "That's all I've got."

"Like the pool?" Seamus suggested.

"Good with tools?" said Parvati.

"No, no," Ron said. "It has to be good! Potter's cousin told me his parents killed themselves because they hated him so much. I don't want to be like him—"

Harry paled.

No fighting, or else.

No fighting, or else.

"Ron!" Hermione gasped, perhaps thinking he'd gone too far. But McGonagall was escorting Neville to the nurse (he was terribly clumsy and always cutting himself), and Harry knew he'd get away with, he always did…

No fighting or else, or else, or else—

"I have a few suggestions you might like," said Draco. "Hey, Dad, you're covered in drool? Hey, Dad, sorry I'm a fool? Hey, Dad, you're a tool? Hey, Dad—"

Seamus dropped his marker. Parvati gasped.

Harry's head snapped up in disbelief.

"You take that back, Malfoy!" Ron shouted.

Harrys' heart pounded wildly in his chest. Draco met his eyes, and raised one of his eyebrows. Then he stuck his pointy nose in the air and crossed his arms.

"I won't do it."

"Take it back!" said Ron, jumping to his feet. His ears were bright pink.

"Malfoys don't apologize. My mother said so."

Ron's face started to turn purple. "My father—"

"Will be hearing about this if you do not sit down immediately, Mr. Weasley," said McGonagall crisply as she swept into the room. "Mr. Malfoy, please try not to antagonize your classmates in my absence, or you will start your career here in detention. I said sit, Mr. Weasley!"

Ron slumped into his chair, looking furious. The room was immediately filled with loud, harsh whispers. Looks were shot between Harry and Draco, and then Draco and Ron.

Harry stared at Draco, unsure of what to say.

The bell rang a moment later. Draco lingered by the desk, giving Harry a pointed stare, then narrowed his eyes and strode out the door.

"I— wait!" Harry yelped, scrambling after him. "Do you want to, er, sit with me? At lunch?"

Draco didn't answer for what seemed like a long moment, and Harry's hands felt clammy. Then Draco beamed at him.

"Obviously, Potter. Do you think I'd want to sit with any of these neanderthals?"

"Oh," said Harry, flushing. "I mean, um, great. The cafeteria's down here, I'll show you…"

He dropped Draco's wrist, which he hadn't even realized he'd grabbed, a few moments later. Even then, Draco continued to follow him, like a lost puppy, or —

Like a first friend.

For once, Harry reckoned, his father had managed to do something right.

The End.

Happy belated Father's Day, all. :)