"I know," Harry said. "And I appreciate that you wanted to make me unique." The words felt stiff on his lips, but who knew? Maybe the Malfoys would respect them better than they would less formal words. "But…it's just too much. And even my best friend finds it laughable."
"Weasley can—" Draco interrupted in a hostile tone.
"No, even Hermione does, and she's pretty open-minded. Please?"
The Malfoys exchanged glances. Then Mr. Malfoy leaned forwards and said, "I have been thinking along the same lines. Not that the name was too much, but that it was too much for you. You have grown up very differently. We do not want to pay tribute to your kidnappers or the Muggles who raised you, but neither do we want to cause you pain. And you are so different from our Draco. We want to pay tribute to who you are." Mr. Malfoy took a deep breath, as if saying all that had been painful for him. Harry thought it probably had been.
"A compromise is possible," said Mrs. Malfoy. There was a wistful tone in her voice, but Harry forced himself to ignore it. He would probably start worrying about whether he was making everyone happy, and this wasn't the time for that. "What about Henry? That has Harry as a nickname, but we wouldn't have to call you by it all the time. And you could keep Aldebaran as a middle name."
Harry thought about it. He knew that they would never agree to keeping James as his middle name, and he could see why. Harry had his own memories of James Potter, or thoughts about him, but of course the Malfoys would never share them.
"Does it matter that I'd be Henry Malfoy?" Harry asked. Mrs. Malfoy had told him that she had chosen her twins' names for the way they sounded with Malfoy, and he almost thought this might be too simple, or too lower-class, or something.
But Mrs. Malfoy gave him a soft smile. "There was an ancestor of yours, a long time ago, who carried that name, during the Norman invasion," she said. "Well, he was Henri Malfoy, but it amounts to the same thing. Yes, Henry. We love you no matter what you're called, and—and perhaps it's time to let go of the fantasy that things can be exactly the way they were if we just call you Aldebaran. Things are never going to be exactly the way they were. What I want is here, now, with you."
Harry beamed at her. Mrs. Malfoy caught her breath, and Harry realized it was probably the first time he had smiled at her with any meaning behind it since she had found out who he really was.
Who he really was. Harry thought about it as he went back to the pile of presents, at Draco's loud insistence. Maybe who he really was was some kind of combination, the person he used to be and the person he was when he was born and the person he would be going forwards.
And if that was the case, then it really was the best decision for all of them for him to be Henry Malfoy. The compromise, not the perfect thing, but the combination.
He glanced up in time to see Mr. Malfoy nodding in response to something Mrs. Malfoy had said. Maybe, with more time, he could think of them as his parents.
"I removed it from the school," Mr. Malfoy was saying now. "Everything has changed. The—obligations that we thought we had are no longer there. Our family has to come first."
Mrs. Malfoy closed her eyes. Harry had the impression she was enormously relieved, although of course he didn't really know why.
But he would learn why. And it sounded like it was good, whatever "it" was that Mr. Malfoy had taken away from the school.
"I got a bigger book than you!"
Harry turned back to Draco, who was smiling at him with a sharp edge, and opened the package that looked like a half-size broom. It turned out to be exactly that, but it was a Nimbus 2001 that sprang back to full size once the paper was removed.
"I already have one of those," Draco sniffed.
"Yes, but who's going to defeat you as Seeker on one of these?" Harry countered, and laughed when he saw Draco scowl.
Mrs. Malfoy took another picture.
Mr. Malfoy leaned back in his chair and looked content with the world.
Maybe, someday, Harry thought, I will be, too.