Work Text:
They have only been in the house for sixteen seconds before there is a crash and Harry winces.
“James, be careful!” he calls up the stairs, knowing it won’t do a damn bit of good but he might as well make an attempt at appearing to be a decent parent.
Gin’s house sits just behind what passes for a main street in Holyhead, and is decorated for Christmas in the way that only a house with teenagers in it can be – effusively, eclectically, and with a ridiculous amount of glitter.
Harry should know – Grimmauld has been given the same treatment.
“Vain hope, that,” Ginny appears from the sitting room, her hair falling out of her bun and her Harpies sweats covered in ketchup. “You staying for a cuppa? I’ve just made a fresh pot of coffee.”
Harry shakes his head. “I’ve got a thousand and one things to do today, and I’m behind already. I’ll come over to the Burrow tomorrow morning.”
Ginny raises her hand and catches the Quaffle that comes flying down from the landing above, catching it just before it hits her shoulder. “See you tomorrow then. Are you bringing anyone for Christmas this year?”
The question feels heavy with expectation, and Harry sighs. He is pretty sure that it is not normal for one’s ex to be so interested in one’s dating life, but what about his life has ever been normal?
“Who do you expect me to bring? I’ve been on one date in the last month and he was a colossal twat who told me it was a good thing the kids were at Hogwarts for most of the year, because then at least I could pretend I’m not a dad.”
Ginny pauses, several expressions flickering across her face too fast to read. “And when was your last one before that?”
It has been too long. Far too long. Between work and friends, and the kids, and Sunday dinners at the Burrow, not to mention trying to get enough sleep each night that he is not an absolute terror in the morning, Harry barely has enough time to feed himself. But Ginny doesn’t need to know that. She already worries enough.
“Er, two weeks before that?” It’s a lie, and she knows it.
“Well,” she says, and her eyes are dark and shrewd. “Let Mum know if that changes, but you know she will have made enough food for a small army.”
“It’s not going to-“ he replies, but she is already gone, storming up the stairs to the sound of arguing. Loud music makes the walls shake, and Harry is glad when the door shuts behind him. Christmas will be a nightmare of noise and people – it always is – but Harry is glad to have the kids around again. He always is, even though they are exhausting and messy and loud. They will always be his babies, even though James is now taller than he is, and Al is in a phase of not talking, and Lily is in one of never not talking.
He pulls his coat tighter against the December chill and walks down the garden towards the edge of the wards. One day left. Then the Ministry Christmas Party tonight, and tomorrow they can all pretend to push paperwork for half a day while they nurse post-Christmas Party hangovers and bugger off for a few days off over Christmas.
What could possibly go wrong?
“Don’t just stand there!” Malfoy shouts. “Bloody do something!”
Harry casts every protection charm in the Auror repertoire, plus a few more that might be slightly less than legal, but who was going to report him?
The urn shakes threateningly, its ashy contents spewing out like a volcano as Malfoy casts and casts, his magic silvery and precise even as he dodges the bright red curse that manages to cut through Harry’s protective spells. Runes flash and shimmer in the air, too fast for Harry to read, but Malfoy seems to know exactly what to do.
As much as Harry doesn’t want to admit it, there is a reason the DMLE poached him from Gringotts. He is bloody good.
Harry casts yet another protection charm, throwing as much of his magic as he dare behind it. Who knows how Malfoy might react? Let alone the Urn of Death. Who would put so many curses into the vessel for their mortal remains?
“There,” Malfoy sounds scarily calm. His hair is perfect even though he has just been fighting an urn to the death for the last half hour.
The urn glows violent red, and what appears to be lava begins to pour from it.
Draco yelps as it rushes towards him, even as the manic light of the urn dims, and cracks appear on its surface. Harry throws stasis charms, holding charms, magic dampening spells, whatever he can at it, anything to keep the remnants of its vengeful fury contained. Several spells hit in quick succession and the urn sputters into sulky silence.
The fire catches hold of Malfoy’s perfectly tailored trousers and moves with an unnatural speed. Harry doesn’t notice the danger until Malfoy’s robe bursts into flames.
For a moment, he is back in that room, where the fire snapped and swirled in menacing spirals, threatening to drag Draco down with it.
Reality snaps back with his training, and Harry’s aguamenti is a little over zealous, drenching not only the flames, but Draco, the urn, and every item of furniture on that side of the room.
Water drips from Draco’s hair, now no longer perfect, but hanging lankly into his eyes, down onto collarbones cut from glass, so sharp and pale. Black clothes fall away into ash and charred scraps to reveal acres of pale skin that is pinked with the heat.
Harry refuses to let his eyes travel further than the divot of his navel, so rosy and furled, and instead turns away and hands Draco his cloak. “Cover up, Malfoy.”
“You couldn’t at least have had the decency to use warm water, could you?” Malfoy sounds sharper than usual, and Harry can hear the fabric rustle. “Where did you drag this thing up from? I’ve felt softer scrubbing brushes.”
“Auror standard issue, not that you’ve ever had a standard-issue anything in your life.”
“That sounds like a compliment.”
Harry turns to glare at him. Harry’s cloak is too big for him, and the shoulders sag off Malfoy’s narrower frame, even as inches of pale, bony ankle poke out from the hem. Something in Harry’s stomach flips and settles into a possessive, clinging feeling.
“If you damage my cloak then you can explain to Robards why I need a new one.”
Draco snorts derisively. “Oh yes, I’ll inform him that you were too distracted by insignificant urns to save your colleague from the cursed fire.”
“Insignificant urn?” Harry asked, incensed. “If I hadn’t contained it, who knows what it might have done next!”
“Good to know how little my life is worth to you.”
“It’s worth even less to me than you think it does.” It doesn’t make sense, but Harry is done with this conversation, and the way the neckline of his poor cloak keeps falling over one pale, bony shoulder.
Why did the Ministry even poach Malfoy anyway? He’s clearly not all that good.
Harry slides yet another report onto the pile to be sent down to Filing, Assorted Records, and Transactions, and yet he's sure the stack of unfilled reports has only grown since he sat down.
Voices outside and a knock at the door.
He puts his pen down and rubs his eyes. Anything is a welcome distraction.
“Come in.”
“You look knackered,” George says as he drops a massive wicker picnic basket right on top of Harry’s reports. “Kids that bad already?”
“James emptied a pot of your Super-Glitter down the stairs, and Lily did a dance through it. My entire house is covered in glittery footprints.”
George winces. “Ah. Sorry about that.”
“You should be, since I was going to ask you to come and clear it up.”
“I’m not that sorry.”
Harry twirls his wand around his finger. “Are you sure?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“Super-Glitter, George.”
“Well, I suppose I have a spare half hour now.”
“Good man.”
George paused at the door. “Hamper from Mum, by the way. And the ferret is here to see you.”
Any improvement in his day that the hamper might have caused is immediately ruined by one of the more persistent thorns in Harry’s side.
“You really shouldn’t be taking personal visitors during the work day,” Draco says, as he throws yet another stack of files onto Harry’s desk. “And what are all these doing here? Shouldn’t they have gone to FART last week?”
Harry grinds his teeth to stop himself from lashing out. No one can make him lose his cool like Draco does. Even after so long.
“Unfortunately, I had more pressing matters to attend to. What is this?”
“The analysis of the set of cursed teacups from the Walker-Wood case. Aren’t you going to open Mother Weasel’s basket of wonders?”
Harry snorts. “What, so you can make sarky comments about their quality?”
Draco shook his head. “No, because I have heard many great things of Mother Weasel’s cooking and I want to try and sneak something out while you’re not looking.”
The laughter sneaks up on Harry. This was the Draco that made that working with his prissy, snotty, ever more superior side worth it.
“If it means you take those reports down to FART, then you have yourself a deal.”
Draco inclines his head, but Harry can see the glint in his eye.
“But,” he adds. “You can’t have any of the treacle tart.”
“Oh Potty, as if I would dare get between you and your treacle tart. I’d rather spend Christmas with my son than in St Mungo’s.”
The buckle opens easily, the leather straps fall away, and the lid opens with a creak. Harry catches a glimpse of neat packages wrapped in red and green check cloths, before a flash of light turns the whole room to white shapes and fuzzy outlines.
“What the- that wanker!” Harry begins to check all the packages, making sure that George’s little prank didn’t hurt his beloved treacle tarts.
There is a faint strangled noise behind him, but he ignores it – Draco has always been a dramatic prick.
“Potter…”
Even the holly that Molly always puts in as a little festive decoration seems to be unharmed, as are the mince pies, the fudge, and sausage rolls, and the legendary treacle tart. Then what was the point of the flash? And the surge of magic that Harry felt? It wouldn’t be unheard of for George to pretend to prank someone, but not just to see them squirm…
“Harry…”
“What- oh!”
He turns, expecting to see Draco’s usual cool stare, but instead Draco won’t meet his eyes. His perfectly tailored trousers and robe have vanished and in their place in a little black dress, barely long enough to cover the place where Harry’s eyes are immediately drawn. A lacy apron covers the front of the dress, and a little white hat stands proudly on perfect white blonde hair (although Harry is sure he has seen some silver strands in there).
“What happened?” Harry has to try very hard to keep his eyes on Draco’s face. The neckline of the dress scoops low, and Harry catches a glimpse of a rosy nipple and a smattering of chest hair so fine it seems no more than a shimmer in the warm light of his office.
“My clothes just-“ Draco gestures vaguely to his body. “Was that a Weasley thing?”
“It won’t be if I have any say in it,” Harry grumbles. “Was it transfiguration? Or have your clothes been Vanished?”
“How should I know?” Draco’s voice increases in height, and Harry is using every ounce of self-restraint not to stare. Because it’s rude.
“Do you want me to-“
“Yes!” Draco flails wildly. “It’s not like I’m going to go out there dressed like this, is it?”
Reversing Transfiguration without knowing for sure if it is Transfigured in the first place is advanced magic, and Harry has never been the best at it, so Draco must be desperate. The threads of magic that make up the uniform pull and stretch but never give.
“It is magic,” Harry tells him. “But it’s not been Transfigured.”
“My clothes have to be somewhere, and you will find them or I will ensure you die a painful and drawn out death.”
The hem of Draco’s skirt rises as he sits, folding his arms, glaring at Harry, and Harry can’t pull his eyes away from the pale thigh, lightly furred with hair that is so fair he can barely see it. Draco crosses his legs protectively.
“Get on with it, Potter.”
George will pay for this.
“Bye, Dad!” Al vanishes into the throng of children that are racing around after a Snitch, charmed to hover low to the ground.
Harry is left there like a moron holding a present wrapped in purple and green wrapping paper (“It’s mine and Scorp’s favourite colours!”), surrounded by peonies and whispering parents.
“Potter, thank you for coming.” Malfoy is even more formal than usual, and his shoulders are tight with stress. Clearly no one has told him that this is a children’s birthday party and not a Ministry gala. “Scorpius will be delighted with your gift. May I offer you a drink?”
“Er, thank you?”
It feels unnatural for Malfoy to be so polite. To Harry, at least.
The table is immaculate, set with individual place settings for each child, their names written on cards in perfect calligraphy, the flowers matched perfectly to the colours of the napkins and table runner.
“It all looks great, Astoria must have worked very hard.”
Malfoy turns to glare at him. “As a matter of fact, I did all the preparation. My ex-wife is not so artistically inclined, so she took charge of the social aspect.”
“Ah.” Harry doesn’t know what to say to that. “It’s good that you are still able to work as a team.”
The glare turns even colder. “A compliment from anyone else but the poster boy of amicable divorces. One might say that us divorced fathers should stick together, but I would say they have yet to meet you.”
Harry can’t help but grin at the ridiculousness of it all: they are both divorced, and their kids are best friends, and somehow the most offensive thing Harry has done recently is remain friends with Gin. Who knew effective co-parenting was enough to rile Draco Malfoy?
“Sorry if my continued friendship with my ex is so upsetting to you. Do you think of this as yet another way in which I have beaten you? Because for the sake of the kids, maybe we should have a Seekers' game to give you something else to hate me for?”
Malfoy splutters with indignation, and a delicious blush blooms on his high cheekbones, dripping down his neck like glaze over porcelain as he seizes a glass.
“What can I get you to drink? Cyanide, perhaps?”
Head Auror Potter,
Your assistance is required by the Festive Extravaganza Committee in the Ministry Ballroom on Level Eight.
Vermilla Warburton-Smythe
Harry blinks at the memo – which has arrived on the red paper usually designated for urgent communications but decorated with a holly and ivy border and a small winkling silver star – and sighs. He had hoped that he would get away without being called for party duty, as it was not-so-affectionately called by the majority of the Ministry workforce.
After the War, the Ministry was broke, and could not in good conscience hire a whole party-planning team twice a year for the midwinter and midsummer parties, so they had created what the Muggle-borns called The Draft. Anyone could be summoned at any time, and Merlin help you if you didn’t have a good excuse to avoid it.
It had been three blissful years since Harry had been summoned for decorating, ward adjusting, drink pouring, or band-wrangling.
He looks at the massive stack of papers, wondering if Imminent Death By Crushing Under Late Reports might be an acceptable excuse, but he doubts it.
The halls are a swarm of people desperately trying to finish their daily tasks early enough to start drinking in advance of the evening’s festivities, but the crowd parts for Harry. He still hasn’t quite worked out if it is remaining hero worship from the days of The Boy Who Lived, or the Head Auror badge on his chest. He has a sinking feeling that it is a combination of the two.
The closer to the ballroom he gets, the more hectic yet festive the vibe becomes – people rush here and there with arms full of all manner of party paraphernalia to a soundtrack of wizarding and Muggle Christmas tunes. He dodges three pieces of charmed mistletoe, a pair of elves carrying a huge Christmas tree, and a very worried looking witch that he is sure works in the Portkey Office carrying a clipboard, a smoking box, and a chessboard.
“Ah, there you are,” Vermillia Warburton-Smythe says as he stops in the great doorway of the Ministry Ballroom. “You took your time.”
Harry bites his tongue. She is queen of the Ministry today and frankly, he is too tired and it is too close to Christmas to argue.
“What can I do for you?”
Vermillia points to a distant door beside the huge stage, where a couple of figures appear to be in a deep discussion over a pile of holly. “The tables and chairs for this evening are in there. You will get them out and then set them. The linens, centrepieces, cutlery, and glassware will arrive shortly, and your help is already in there, since he knows how to arrive on time.”
Harry nods. Her energy is exhausting.
The room beyond the door is tiny and musty and so full of stacked tables and chairs that there is barely room for a person inside it. As wizards, Harry thinks, there should be a better way of stacking tables.
The limited space inside the room is already taken by a familiar figure, thankfully dressed in robes and not a maid outfit.
“Oh no, it’s you again.”
“Not the usual response to being blessed with my presence, but given that the feeling is mutual I shall let it go.” Draco stands up, brushing dust that is for once very visible off his robes. The dust is very stubborn.
“Get out of the way,” Harry says. “And I’ll get the tables out.”
“No, you won’t, there are magic-proof straps on them to stop idiots summoning one table and sending the whole lot crashing down. You can levitate them out a few at a time as I release them.”
“Be careful, or I might drop them on your head.”
Draco glances past Harry at the ballroom beyond. “No you won’t, or you’ll have to deal with the Vermillion Lady all by yourself.”
He’s right, but Harry is never going to admit it. Even if his robes are perfectly tailored and his hair is somehow in perfect order after the Maid Incident.
“Unhook the bloody straps then. She couldn’t have found literally anyone else to do this?”
“Don’t you get it,” Draco says. “This week, no one can say no to her, so why not get the Head Auror fighting tables just because she can?”
“Sadistic cow,” Harry mutters. “How many in that pile?”
“Six, but the strap is a little tight.” Draco’s voice is strained.
“Do you need a hand?” Harry tries to keep the note of smugness out of his voice, but isn’t quite sure he succeeded.
“No, thank you, I am perfectly capable.”
Another few seconds go by. While Draco might have many things going for him, his slender form and penchant for perfect tailoring are working against him here. Harry sticks his head back into the room, watching as Draco battles with the perfectly Muggle looking strap, the catch refusing to give. His shoulders strain at the seams of his robes, and Harry can see where the ornate clasp at his waist is pulling at the fabric as he braces.
“Are you sure?”
Draco stands up and glares at Harry. His face is pink and his hair is finally out of place, ruffled and sticking up where he has been bent over.
“Well, my spellwork is more delicate than yours anyway, and you certainly have the brutality to defeat these medieval clasps.”
Harry grins, partly because he knows it will infuriate Draco, and partly because his mouth seems to want to do it anyway. “Aww, thanks for the compliment.”
Draco’s glare is icy. “If you saw that as a compliment, then I suggest you get your head checked.”
The clasp gives easily, and Harry pretends to ignore the shocked gasp from behind him. He would like to maintain some form of working relationship, after all. They have gotten so far in these last few years, it would be a shame to go back to the days of Potter and Malfoy and duels in the hallways.
Between Harry’s ability to… open Muggle clasps and Draco’s accurate spellwork the tables are soon not only in the ballroom, but also unfolded and Harry, still picking his battles, lets Draco direct him to where each table should go. He can feel Vermillia’s eyes on them, and while Harry couldn’t care less whether the tables were placed in offset or in line rows, she probably does. The sooner they get this done, the sooner he can go back to his office and get on with all the things that he doesn’t want to do tomorrow with a hangover.
Draco’s face is impassive as he directs Harry, but there are lines of concentration around his eyes, worn with age. In most lights he looks too young to have a son at Hogwarts, but the moment the light strikes him just so, revealing the way his hair is thinning slightly at the temples, the way his eyes crease in that well-worn way – in those moments he looks transcendental.
Harry can only hope he is aging that gracefully.
He doubts it, and jealousy gnaws on his insides. Starting again after a marriage and kids is difficult, especially when he is rapidly approaching forty.
True to Vermillia’s word, all the gubbins of formal dining arrive before they have finished setting up the chairs. Harry is shocked by the sheer volume. Sure, there are going to be a lot of people in attendance, but that has to be at least three times the number of glasses that will be needed? And the forks? Who needs three different kinds? Harry has got to grips with many of the eccentricities of the wizarding world in the last three decades, but their general obsession with old-fashioned things is not one of them.
They have magic, for God’s sake, why do they need to dress like it’s the medieval era? Or dine like they’re at Versailles?
Draco smacks Harry’s hand away from the glasses.
“Don’t touch the crystal, for Salazar’s sake, you’ll break it.”
“I won’t. I’m the Head Auror, I am actually more intelligent than your average troll.”
Draco snorted. “It’s not your intelligence I wonder about, just your ability to not break things.”
“Is that another compliment? You’re getting soft in your old age.”
Draco’s Stinging Hex glances off Harry’s shield and bursts into sparks on the walls just above the glasses.
Vermillia appears in the doorway, clipboard in hand, eyes narrowed. Harry feels Draco freeze next to him, but Harry just nods to Vermillia and turns back to the glasses.
“So, Draco,” he says loudly, “which cutlery goes where?”
Vermillia sighs and vanishes again.
“Merlin, I thought she was going to curse us,” Draco admits. “She’s bloody terrifying at this time of year. Reminds me of my mother preparing for parties.”
“Did you have many?”
Draco picks up a glass, holding it up to the light. “All the time when I was younger, I used to sit at the top of the stairs and watch, after Mother sent the elves to put me to bed.”
The silence is broken only by the soft rise and fall of the music and a lone voice singing about someone being home for Christmas. Draco is still looking at the glass with a faraway look in his eyes, lost somewhere a hundred miles away and several decades ago. He wants to reach out and break the spell the past has on him, but he can’t quite bring himself to.
“You take the centrepieces, all you have to do is make sure they go in the exact centre of the tables. Even you can’t fuck that up.”
Harry grabs the first centrepiece – an improbable creation of poinsettia, mistletoe, and pinecones, adorned with small gold and silver creatures that climb over the flowers and leaves as though they were rocks. “Oh yeah, want to bet?”
Draco smiles and Harry’s heart squeezes. “I’m not taking that one.”
Centrepieces floating obediently behind him, Harry makes his way to the far end of the ballroom. Draco is holding his wand like a conductor’s baton, crystal glasses, and glittering cutlery follow the ghostly billow of tablecloths. One nearly lands on Harry’s head, and Draco’s laughter – mocking yet soft – drowns out the music.
“Ouch!”
“Well, if you stopped moving then it wouldn’t hurt so much. What kind of Auror are you anyway that you can’t handle a little pain?”
Harry grits his teeth so that he doesn’t yank his arm back or pull his wand on Malfoy.
“I can, I’m just used to people who can do their job.”
“You’re a fine one to talk.” Malfoy rips the bandage with his bare teeth and tucks the end in. Harry is about to scold him, but somehow forgets to when his stomach flips. It’s probably just the pain. “You’re supposed to notice traps, not walk into them. Some Auror you are.”
“I was distracted by your… general incompetence.” Harry struggles to find the word. He wasn’t quite sure what he had been doing before the flare of spells blinded him, but he had definitely been looking at Malfoy.
Malfoy’s grey eyes narrow, as if he doesn’t believe Harry. “What a wonderful excuse. Will Ginevra accept it when you don’t return home for a few days? It seems we will be stuck in…” he pauses and looks around. “The least pleasant safehouse I have ever had the misfortune of setting foot in.”
Anger flares in Harry. Ginny’s name in Malfoy’s mouth feels like an insult, especially when… well, Harry hates to admit it, but their marriage is less of a marriage by the day. He loves her still, but he is starting to realise that it is not in the way he thought he did, and he wonders if that is going to be enough. He is starting to come to the conclusion that it won’t be.
It’s like there is something missing in him, or at least, missing when it comes to Ginny. He can feel the gap where it should be, but he isn’t sure what it is. He can feel the beginning of something there sometimes – when Charlie beats him to the Snitch and laughs at him, when Neville comes to visit, bringing yet another plant, soil falling out of his pockets onto the carpet, and, strangely, when Malfoy is working, his wand gliding through the air, runes flickering in and out of existence, magic forming waves and vines that curl and tangle around him, his pale hair lifting in an invisible breeze.
Malfoy squeezes Harry’s hand. “You’re not going to die before you get to Mungo’s. You sleep down here and I’ll take the bedroom. You can transfigure the sofa, and that way I won’t be tempted to hex your face before we manage to get out of here.”
Harry nods. He can still feel the warmth of Malfoy’s hand on his wrist as he turns on his heels and heads up the creaking stairs.
Harry throws his arms up in frustration as his final quill snaps. After so much of his day has been taken up with stupid, unnecessary things, he really needs to get these reports done and he only has three more to go.
That’s doable. Totally doable. Except he now has no quills left.
He can hear his secretary – Amanda, a godsend of a woman who singlehandedly keeps the entire department running with her immaculate red nails and perfectly styled white curls – talking to someone outside. He could ask her to find him some, but right now, he wants nothing more than to be outside of these four walls for just a moment. Just to clear his head of old coffee fumes, Mainwaring’s atrocious handwriting, and Draco Malfoy’s cheekbones.
“I’m going to find some more quills,” he tells Amanda. “If anyone comes looking for me, tell them to come back in January.”
Amanda looks up, her eyes sharp behind the glasses that are always perched on the end of her nose. Harry is sure she must be using a sticking charm or they would come off every time she so much as breathed. “Glad to hear you are actually taking some time off, it’s a wonder your children remember who you are.” She shuffles through a stack of parchments. There is something different about her today, but Harry can’t quite put his finger on it, but his instincts are never wrong. She is meeting his eyes too much, her perfectly red nails tapping on her wand as she taps a memo paper, the small plane folding into existence and diving out of the door.
“Hold on, there are a few things I could use from the stationery cupboard if you are going, bear with me.”
Harry leans against the wall and waits. She seems to take an awful long time to do very little, which is unlike her. With the exception of Hermione, she is the most effective person Harry has ever met.
“Here,” she says after what felt like an age, handing Harry a small slip of paper.
Red ink
12 inch parchment – 3 rolls
Spiral bound notebook
Spellotape
4 auto filing binders
Harry salutes her, and turns on his heel. It would be a waste of time to argue with her, even if this was really her job. Besides, if she left the entire department would fall apart in a matter of hours, and there is no way Harry is going to risk that.
The corridors are full and everyone is in a better-than-usual mood, with the promise of work-funded drinking in the near future, as well as a long week off. Harry is pretty sure that the chaps from Magical Games and Sports have already started the party, but then again they have very little to do now the Quidditch season is over and the Gobstones National Goblet Finals were the previous weekend. Apparently. Who even watches gobstones?
The stationery cupboard smells comfortingly like parchment and ink, like Hermione and the Hogwarts library. The Lumos lights flicker as he enters, revealing shelves of drawers and boxes piled five deep on the floor. He used to come here, back in the days of lawyers and shame, when his entire life was turning upside down, before it shook itself off and became something worryingly similar to the way it had always been, just a bit lighter.
He starts grabbing the things off Amanda’s list, digging through endless boxes of ink to find the specific brand of red that she likes.
A shadow dims the lights for a second, and the door creaks open.
“I have certainly had worse years in my life and yet this year seems to be the one when I get the metaphorical coal in my metaphorical stocking.”
Harry doesn’t even look up, his breath stuck somewhere between a sigh of exasperation and something that might even be approaching fondness for the prat.
“I’m not sure how I feel about being called coal, and I’ve never been in your stockings.”
“Wanker.”
Draco reaches over Harry’s head for a box of the special raven quills that he harassed the Department Resource Officer for for weeks. He is taller than Harry. Harry must have known this before now, but it feels like new information, and for a moment he is trapped between Draco and the shelves, a roll of Spellotape digging into his back and the lemon-bourbon scent of Draco in his nose. He feels a bit lightheaded.
The light from the flickering candles spills down Draco’s face, throwing it into harsh shadow and golden glow. There is a sharpness to his face – how could anyone live the life he had without it? – and a softness around the edges, corners worn away with fatherhood and stability. Harry can see the crows feet starting to develop at the corners of his eyes.
And then Draco steps back.
“Any chance we can get through the rest of the day without seeing each other?” he asks.
Harry’s throat clicks as he swallows. “I doubt it. I’m sure I shall see you making a fool of yourself at the party later.”
“I think that of the two of us, it is far more likely that you will be the fool.”
“The punchbowl incident of last year begs to differ.”
“The exception that proves the rule.” Draco pauses with his hand on the doorhandle. “I look forward to your fool-making.”
And the handle doesn’t turn.
He tries again. It jiggles, but does not turn.
“It seems that we might already be the fools.”
Harry can’t help the laughter that rises up in him, and after a pause, Draco joins in.
“Fucking typical,” Harry gasps out eventually. “Today has just been one fuck up after another and all of them involving you.”
“At least you didn’t end up having to head home for a change of clothes,” Draco replied, leaning back against the offending door. “Astoria looked at me as though I was completely insane, and Scorp’s eyes nearly fell out of his head.”
“I’m sure he’s seen worse,” Harry perches on a stack of boxes, gingerly, in case they don’t take his weight. “I’ve seen him talking to Teddy.”
“That boy is a nightmare,” Draco ignores Harry’s faux-glare. “Clearly takes after the wrong side of the Blacks.”
“The non-mad, non-blood purist side?”
“No, the desperate-to-cause-as-much-trouble-as-possible side.”
Harry nods. “Yeah, he is that. I’m not sure whether I worry more or less about him since he’s an adult.”
Draco pulls something out of his pocket – a small flask, silver, monogrammed, and, as soon as the lid comes off, smelling like Christmas.
“Drinking on the job?”
Draco shrugs. “I don’t need to be sober for paperwork. In fact, it is much more enjoyable with this to keep me going.”
“What is it?”
Draco gives him that secret grin that narrows his eyes and tugs at the corners. “Family secret.”
Harry holds out a hand, and Draco looks unimpressed.
“I’m not just going to give it to you.”
“Why not?”
“Family secret. You aren’t family.”
“Do you really think I’m going to guess the exact recipe from one taste?”
Draco’s eyebrow rises. “One taste?”
“Ok, maybe two or three.”
“What will you give me in exchange?”
Harry pauses. “I’ll send a Patronus to your office as well as mine to come get us out?”
“And that is something I would want because?”
“Because you can’t cast a Patronus and you can lord it over me when your team comes to rescue you before me?”
In the silence, Harry can hear the rumble of passing feet in the corridor outside. There is no use yelling, all rooms have built in Silencing Charms, which was why this cupboard was so good for a menty b.
“Fine, but only because it is Christmas.”
Harry’s stag fills the tiny room, its head dipping down to Harry as he instructs it. Draco is, unfortunately, right behind it. Right behind it.
“I’m not sure I want to share this with you anymore,” Draco informs him. “Now that I have been so up close and personal with your beast.”
Harry holds out his hand. “Don’t be a dick and go back on your word.”
Draco hesitates for a minute before giving in and handing Harry the flask.
The contents are sweet with honey and apples, with a hint of Christmas spice – cinnamon and clove, allspice and nutmeg – that dances on the edges of Harry’s tongue. The alcohol kick, when it hits, is fierce with the familiar fruity vanilla notes of brandy.
“Hmmm that’s good,” Harry takes another sip. “Monsieur du Pommier brandy spiked with the Christmas spice syrup from that potions shop on the corner of Diagon and Botanic?”
Draco’s brow furrows. “You colossal wanker. But no.”
“You’re right,” Harry takes another sip just before Draco swipes the bottle from his hand. “There is something I’m missing.” He lets the taste sit on his tongue, the flavours developing in that gradual way that expensive alcohol does. “Ah, that appleblossom cordial your mum makes.”
Draco’s face turns red, and for a moment, Harry thinks he might go for his wand. “I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I can’t believe Mother sent you a bottle.”
“You will hate to read the letters she sends sometimes.”
“If you ever wanted to get back at me fatally without actually killing me then sleeping with my mother would be the way to do it.”
Harry shudders. “No. Absolutely not. No.”
The lights above flicker and dim for a moment, and Draco’s face dips in and out of shadow.
It’s been a long time since they spent this much time together. Properly together, not just working in the same space. The first time had been in that safehouse, years ago, when they had had to sign a pact on the back of an old receipt that neither of them would attempt to harm the other. They had been almost civil by the end.
Harry wonders whether there is any chance their relationship, such as it is, will improve. He would like it to. Draco might be a massive twat, but he’s funny and smart. And he’s objectively nice to look at.
What? Harry is gay and he has eyes, it’s not a crime.
“Where are they?” Draco muses aloud. “It’s been ages.”
“Probably too drunk to notice a bloody great Patronus.”
Draco tries the doorhandle again, and it still doesn’t shift. He sits back down with a frustrated huff, his foot pressing gently into Harry’s calf. Harry thinks he can feel the heat of Draco’s body through the leather.
The silence that falls is somehow both heavy and easy. There is a strange, nervous tightness in Harry’s chest, but he doesn’t feel the need to speak up, to break the silence. There are few people in the world who Harry is comfortable to sit in silence with, and he is strangely unsurprised to find out Draco is one of them.
Outside, the Christmas music is still playing. Harry notices that Draco has a pocket square printed with tiny gingerbread men. It should not be hot, but it also kind of is?
Christ, Harry needs to get laid.
“Merlin and Morgana, stop humming!”
Harry jumps, becoming suddenly aware that he has picked up the tune from outside. “Oh, I didn’t realise.”
“Clearly.”
Draco’s fingers are long as he twirls his wand between them, nails trimmed and knuckles faintly scarred from catching curses.
“That’s it,” Draco stands, abruptly. “I don’t know what is going on with the world, but I have bumped into you more times today than the rest of the month and you. Keep. Fucking. Humming. I am done with this!”
He turns his wand on the door and Harry scrambles to his feet, already seeing the tumbling shelves in his mind.
The room is a little too small, a little too narrow for two grown men to have their wands out. Harry nearly cracks his head on a shelf and stumbles into Draco, who half catches himself on the opposite wall.
Draco foot catches the back of Harry’s knee and the floor seems very dark and very close and-
The door bursts open.
“Congratulations for not killing each other,” Amanda says, memos flying around her head in a deranged cloud. “Now, I do need that red ink.”
Draco barely even looks at Harry before storming off, and Harry’s stomach twists.
“Thank you for coming to rescue us,” he says to Amanda. “The door jammed.”
Harry doesn’t miss the flicker of something that approaches disappointment across Amanda’s face. “I shall lodge a complaint with Magical Maintenance today.”
There is a strange tension in the air, and Harry doesn’t like not knowing what it is.
“Did any memos come for me while I was trapped?”
The Stunner glances off Harry’s shield and bursts on the wall in a shower of sparks. Malfoy’s defence doesn’t drop.
Fucking Darren. He had been fine about Harry having kids and being friends with his ex-wife, until he actually saw them together. Then all of a sudden they were moving too fast, then Harry was a fake gay and clearly still in love with his ex-wife, and then Harry was a cheater.
The Prophet, of course, is having a field day, and Harry is ready to make something explode, and if that something ends up being Draco Malfoy’s head, then so be it.
The fucker should have known better than to challenge Harry to a duel today, of all days.
“Come on, Potter, what are you waiting for?”
The volley of spells Harry sends in Malfoy’s direction mostly bounce harmlessly off his shield, but the last one blasts straight though it, and Malfoy has to duck to avoid getting hit.
Pulling his magic around him, Harry makes his move, weaving between the piles of broken furniture and foam mats that make up the obstacle course in the Auror Training Centre. Malfoy is somewhere ahead – Harry can hear his footsteps, even and calculated.
He bursts around the corner, his magic at his fingertips, red hot and straining, like a dog on a leash, and for a moment, Harry is terrified of going too far.
And then he sees Malfoy, standing there, and he catches the wave of Harry’s magic like a surfer, riding the power of it with an ease that Harry despises with every atom of his being. Pale hair lifts under the gust and push of it, and his robes billow, but his face, angular and pale, is impassive, calm. There is something in the way he moves his fingers – it seems both completely random and perfectly intentional – and Harry cannot keep his eyes off them until his wand is pulled from his hand.
Before Harry can say anything cutting, Malfoy chucks his wand at his head. “You’re letting your anger cloud your judgement. Again.”
Harry tugs at his collar. His forest-green dress robes are objectively nice, but he can’t help but feel like a little kid playing dress up.
“Stop fussing,” Amanda says from his office doorway. “You look very handsome.”
Harry would almost expect her to pinch his cheek if that wasn’t entirely out of character with the woman who had won the Ministry’s Most Effective Secretary for the last five years in a row.
“Thank you,” he replies. “Are you going to be joining the party?”
She gives a distasteful sort of sniff. “I don’t think so.”
“Can we not tempt you with a free meal and an open bar?”
“Not when there are drunken colleagues in inadvisable outfits. Not you, of course.”
Harry grins. “I hope you have a lovely Christmas, Amanda.”
“Season's greetings to you, Head Auror. It is now 6 p.m. and your calendar says you should be downstairs to ensure all security protocols are being followed.”
Harry nods and grabs his wand, sliding it into the holster that sits tight on his thigh.
If he had hoped that the party starting would clear some of the traffic in the corridors, he is very much mistaken, and now he no longer has his distinctive red Auror robes with the gold stripes on his arm to clear the way for him.
He dodges three strands of mistletoe, a clap on the shoulder from an ex-Ballycastle Bats beater that might have sent him to St Mungo’s if it connected, and seven groups of women who giggled when they saw him and batted their eyelashes.
What was the point of being famous and gay – and famously gay – if not to avoid the attentions of tipsy women?
The queue for the lifts looks like someone had sprayed a rugby scrum with glitter and festive cheer, and Harry makes a beeline for the stairs.
The closer he gets to the Atrium, the louder the noise gets. That characteristic buzz of festive music, drunken laughter, and the attempt at polite conversation that will probably barely last until the food is served, and will certainly be long dead by the time the tables shrink to create the dancefloor.
He stops and sighs. Tonight should be fun, but he really isn’t in the mood. Something about the number of times he has seen Draco today has him unsettled. Not just seen, but been stuck in close proximity with.
It’s frustrating. He can tell there is a pattern, but he can’t quite figure out what it is. The irritation settles under his skin with the itchy, prickly, restless feeling that he always has around Draco. Something is wrong, and knowing himself, he will probably figure it out the second he falls into bed.
Something else is wrong too. The noise from the Atrium has stopped, replaced by a silence that would make even the most stupid Auror trainee pause.
And Harry is not a stupid Auror trainee.
Anymore.
He takes the stairs three at a time, and it crosses his mind for a second that if he breaks his ankle it will be really embarrassing.
The door to the Atrium opens before he even gets there, and a swarm of people nearly knock him down with strangled gasps and whispers to get down. They realise who he is the second before the Crowd Clearing spell falls from his lips, and part by themselves.
In the entryway, Draco stands alone. Curses swarm him like bees, poisonous yellows and greens, blood red, and ominous black. Harry can’t see what – or who – they are coming from, but Draco looks calm behind the screen of shield spells held up by the more quick thinking bystanders.
The rest of the hall is all but silent, just the rustle of footsteps as people try to leave and the ding of the elevators, as if the whole room is holding its breath.
Draco is a sight to behold. He might not have the pure magical power that Harry has, but he has precision and dexterity that Harry could never learn. Watching Draco cast is like watching a surgeon at work, or a ballet dancer, where every tiny twitch of muscle is planned, accounted for, and executed.
Harry steps forward, feeling slightly dazed, about to push his way through the shield charms, but Draco looks up.
His eyes, silver in the curse-light, fix Harry to the spot more effectively than any spell. Harry’s stomach tries to escape through the floor. He didn’t need to hear Draco to know exactly what he was saying.
Don’t come barging in and mess it up.
Vermillia Warburton-Smythe grips her clipboard with a death grip, her face ashen, as she watches her perfect party begin to give way to chaos.
But it is over so suddenly that Harry almost misses it. The sharp flash of light and the expert twist of Draco’s wand, and something falls to the floor at his feet in a puff of smoke.
He dusts his hands off as the shields fall.
“Good work,” he says to the shaking Junior Auror and shellshocked Unspeakable, then turns to Vermillia. “Whoever was in charge of the mistletoe and holly over there should never be allowed near a complex charm again, as they seem to have made the holly sentient and the mistletoe into a kind of bomb.”
Vermillia goes the same colour as her name and nods.
Draco looks at Harry with the kind of cool, collected calm that he always seems to have. Even after dealing with some possessed festive flora, apparently. “Enjoying the party, Potter?”
He doesn’t wait for Harry’s response before walking away.
Harry’s knees shake so violently that he is sure that if it were not for his robes he would be the laughing stock of the Ministry.
Why is Draco so hot?
“Truth or dare!” Seamus demands, pointing at Harry.
Harry looks up from his bottle. He was trying – without much success – to see how much beer was left in it. “Truth?”
Ron chucks him the vial of Veritaserum that Harry hand nicked from the department that afternoon. He isn’t sure how many drops fall under his tongue, but he is sure it’s more than the one required for him to tell the truth for the next few minutes.
Why didn’t they invite Hermione? She wouldn’t have let them do this. Because drunk people should not be administering potions.
“We’re all dying to know,” Seamus says, and Harry remembers what was going on. “Why did you and Ginny really split up?”
Harry can feel the pull of the potion towards something that he has been squashing down for the better part of twenty years, but he’s not quite drunk enough to fall victim to it yet.
“Because I like cock and she likes fanny, we’ve been over this.”
“You mean to tell me,” Dean sits forward in his seat, “that there was no one else that caught your fancy? Because you must have known for a long time before you actually did anything.”
Harry looks around. Ron is looking a little green, but whether that is due to the half empty bottle of tequila at his feet or the mention of his sister liking fanny, Harry is unsure. Dean and Seamus are looking at him with a glee that Harry finds rather unsettling, and Neville is asleep in the corner.
“No one in particular. At least not for me, and not as far as I know for her.”
Seamus scoffs. “You mean to tell me there was no one you, I dunno, thought was hot? Had occasional daydreams about? Wanked over?”
“The fact I occasionally wank over Malfoy was not the reason our marriage ended, you numbskull.”
“Oh ho!” Seamus looks as though Christmas has come early, Dean’s jaw is somewhere on the floor and Ron looks, if possible, even greener. “Malfoy, is it?”
“No. No!” Harry feels that panic of being caught rise in his chest. “I’d never do anything with him, he’s just, I dunno, nice to look at.”
“You’ve got a point,” Dean says, looking thoughtful. “If you like lanky, pointy pricks, then he’s not bad looking.”
Seamus is nodding and Harry’s drunk brain takes this as permission to carry on, even though the small, sober part of his brain is yelling at him to shut the fuck up, for the love of Merlin!
“He’s just so fucking… posh. And graceful, like he never does anything by accident.” Harry slams his bottle down on the coffee table. “And he does the sneer thing when he looks at me as though I’m incompetent, and then when I prove him wrong his eyebrow does this little…” he bends and straightens one finger, as though that might demonstrate the movement of a silvery blond eyebrow against pale skin. “Wiggle. Like he wants to say I did well but he can’t quite bring himself to. And he’s so smart. Like Hermione-level smart. And funny, but I think sometimes he does it by accident, like he wants to be cold and scary but he keeps forgetting how.”
Dean was giggling behind his bottle, for some reason, and Ron was watching him in horror. Neville snores.
“And his bum in those Muggle suits is criminal, I want to arrest him for having a nice arse. The best arse. He would be very guilty of that. And his hair is shiny and it does this thing, this floaty thing when he’s doing curse-breaking, like it forgets what gravity is.” He takes the drink the Seamus offers him and takes a long drag. It’s not beer, but it is fruity and refreshing, and if he keeps drinking, then the alcohol doesn’t burn. “And I saw his dick in the changing rooms last year. It’s the prettiest dick I’ve ever seen – all pink and… pink. And fucking huge.”
Ron makes a sound somewhere between a cough, a groan, and a dying pigeon. “Enough! That’s enough! Dean, truth or dare?”
Harry sits back as Dean starts stripping off and running in the direction of the garden door.
Dean’s dick isn’t anywhere near as pretty as Draco’s.
“Today has been the most frustrating day in the history of days,” Harry tells Ron as soon as he finds him in the throng.
“Oh yeah? Can it beat some fifteen year old trying to impress his girlfriend and setting off a Glitter Galore, which then set off a chain reaction of every product on the shelf, until the shop was full of glitter that cannot be removed by magic, rubber ducks that scream every time someone says the word quiet, and smashed plates that keep reforming, and then being smashed by another plate falling on top of them?”
Harry has to hide his grin behind his drink. “Regretting leaving the Aurors?”
“Not for a second, mate, not for one fucking second. Although with you as boss it’s probably better than it was back then.”
“I’d like to think so. And no, I don’t think my day was worse than that, you win that one.”
“Thank you for being a decent loser. So what happened to you?”
Harry shrugs. “Just a ton of little things, you know? Kept bumping into Malfoy all day – got roped into setting the ballroom up with him and his opinions on crystal glasses, got shut in a cupboard with him, which was fucking ridiculous, honestly, who gets locked in cupboards these days?”
“Locked in a cupboard with your worst enemy, now that is a pretty close second to my day.”
“He’s not my worst enemy,” Harry catches himself looking around the crowded room for a glimpse of pale gold hair. “Not anymore. He’s actually ok now, but it’s… I dunno, awkward?”
“You need another drink if you are being reasonable about Malfoy,” Ron says, slapping Harry on the back. “I’ve missed your Malfoy rants. I’ll get a round and maybe you will start after a few more."
"What will Hermione say?"
"What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, and she is talking to the Undersecretary again – sometimes I wonder if she knows how to talk about anything other than work.” Ron gives a sigh that sounds equally exasperated and lovesick, before vanishing into the crowd.
Harry drains his drink, scanning the room. Hermione is, indeed, locked in deep discussion with the Undersecretary, who is holding his glass of champagne so tightly his knuckles are turning white. Lee Jordan is lurking in a corner, and Harry makes a note to check that corner later. Or at least get one of the Juniors too. Just in case.
Neville – invited by the Committee for Research and Experimentation in Potions and Elixirs – seems to be talking to one of the Christmas trees, while Luna sends little bundles of charmed mistletoe floating across the room. Harry watches Vermillia Warburton-Smythe making her way towards her, until she is caught under a charmed mistletoe and has to kiss a Junior Accountant, who looks caught between horror and interest.
But there is no hint of Draco.
Weird. He should be here. Harry wonders where he is, whether he is ok after the mistletoe and holly incident. Maybe he took a curse and he’s gone to St Mungo’s? Maybe he hasn’t gone to St Mungo’s and is lying in some corner?
Harry shakes his head. If he is in any corner, he’s probably hiding from people trying to talk to him. Or maybe he’s hiding with someone. To do. Things.
Something hot and tight knots in the pit of Harry’s stomach.
“Here you go, drink up.”
Ron hands Harry a drink, something that smells of apple and spices. It’s not as good as whatever was in Draco’s flask, but it’s nice. He downs it in two gulps.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“Just wondering where Draco is. I can’t see him.”
The words fall out of Harry’s mouth too quickly, too easily. He looks at Ron with suspicion, but Ron is watching Hermione with the kind of besotted smile on his face that always makes Harry’s heart hurt.
“I’m so jealous of you.”
Ron snorts. “If you’re about to say you want Hermione, then I’m going to be sick. And maybe punch you."
Harry pulls a face. “Gross, no. I just want to love someone like you love her. Like proper love. Forever love. I never had that with Gin. I thought I did, but it was just friendship mixed with compulsory heterosexuality.”
“You’ll find someone, mate,” Ron says. “Don’t stress. And you can have some fun before then.”
“I don’t want fun,” Harry told him, each word feeling more and more eager to leave his mouth. “I want a boyfriend. What did you put in my drink?”
“Nothing,” Ron says, but he won’t meet Harry’s eye. “I’m sure you learnt a lot from being with Gin, even though it didn’t work out. I never quite understood why, though.”
Harry is getting flashbacks to that night that he still refused to talk about. When truth or dare got out of hand and he might have spent ten minutes talking about Draco Malfoy’s sense of humour (which was weird of him), his hair (even more weird) and his cock (can he take a restraining order out against himself on someone else’s behalf?).
“You know damn well why, I told you before,” Harry slaps a hand over his mouth, but his mouth keeps moving. “Because I like cock, and she likes fanny, and the last time you asked me this I talked about how I’ve had my eye on Draco since about 1995 and the way he holds his wand gives me a stiffy, and you have definitely put something in my drink.”
Ron is smirking, and people are beginning to look over at them, and Harry shoves a napkin into his mouth to stifle the next set of words which come out garbled and might have included the word love.
There is no way this evening could get any worse.
“Drugging the Hear Auror in front of the entire Ministry, Weasel?” comes a familiar voice from behind Harry, and it turns out that the evening can get worse.
Much worse.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Ferret.” Ron sounds completely unapologetic.
Draco looks from Harry (red-faced, napkin in his mouth, robes probably askew) to Ron (failing to hide his excitement, drink slopping over onto his hand, robes definitely askew), and sighs.
“Do you have an antidote?”
Ron shakes his head.
“’uck, ‘our ar’” Harry says.
“Yes, yes,” Draco pats Harry’s arm as though he is no more than an impatient puppy. “You’re lucky, Weasel, that I need to speak to Harry here, so I don’t have time to report you to the Auror on duty tonight, although I can’t speak to what Harry will do in the morning. Come on, Potter.”
Draco’s hand is firm on the small of Harry’s back. He can feel its heat radiating through his robes. Ron gives him a little wave goodbye and a thumbs up as Draco directs Harry in the direction of the lifts, and Harry prays and prays that the Veritaserum will wear off soon, or this might be about to skip embarrassing and go straight to career-ending levels of catastrophe.
Does it really matter? Murdering Ron will end his career anyway.
Harry tries to spit the napkin out to ask where they are going, but it is unfortunately a papery Muggle one, and seems to have become a very unpleasant one with his mouth.
Draco pushes him out of the hall and along a corridor.
“’Atch ou’!” Harry tries to complain as he nearly bumps into a Christmas tree that seems to have been decorated in some kind of wizard-appropriated Muggle fever dream, all tinsel and wonky ornaments that Harry is sure are based on primary school crafts.
A door opens and Draco shoves him inside. He nearly trips over the rug that runs right up to the door. A small desk and chair sit against the wall, and a bookcase filled with files leans precariously over it. The wallpaper is an unsightly yellow paisley.
Grabbing him by the jaw in a way that makes Harry’s stomach swoop, but that could have been the wall paper, Draco casts a Cleaning Charm on Harry’s mouth, and the soggy remnants of paper towel vanish.
“What the fuck was Ron thinking?” Harry says, the words spilling out fast, falling over each other in their eagerness to escape before he can stop them.
Draco takes the chair, long fingers rubbing at his eyes in resignation.
“What did he think that would achieve? Every time he gives me Veritaserum it only ever goes one way, and that’s me ranting about you for ages. He always complains about it so much – has done since school – so why is he encouraging it now? They all seem to have a weird obsession with why Gin and I broke up and they all seem to think you have something to do with it. Honestly, can’t two couples break up at the same time in this tiny, stupid, ridiculously over-connected society without everyone being sure that the two instances are related? I haven’t seen anyone asking Gin if she is in love with Astoria and-”
Oh. Maybe there is a reason that he kept talking about Draco. And that everyone else has this weird obsession. And that he feels weirdly easy to talk to, and why Harry can’t help but watch his hands every time they are in the same room.
“Are we really doing this now?” Draco asks. His lower lip is caught between his teeth, and he looks like a contradiction. Young and hopeful, but also tired.
“Doing- I- I think I-” Harry, for all his excellent instincts, and the ability found in adulthood to say the right thing at the right time, cannot find a single word for the feeling that has suddenly fallen over him.
“You are a fucking moron,” Draco tells him, as he stands and he’s so close, and the golden lumos light is shattering through the silver grey of his eyes, and there is a warm hand on the back of Harry’s neck and lips on his own and it’s all quiet.
His hands fall easily to Draco’s sides, curling against the rough-smooth velvet of his robes, and he’s pushing up on his toes to chase Draco’s tongue, and the noise he makes is delicious.
“Oh,” he says as Draco steps back, far enough that Harry can look at him, but still keep his hands – disobedient, wandering hands – on him. He thought they were at his sides, but somehow they are now on Draco’s chest, sweeping up to his collar, gliding down and around to the arse that he has been staring at for... well, now he thinks about it, as long as he can remember staring at arses.
“Oh indeed.”
There is laughter in Draco’s voice, and Merlin, Harry wants to taste it.
So he does.
And he can feel Draco’s lips curling under his, and so many things fall into place that it makes him dizzy, but he can’t think about them now. All he can think about is Draco’s tongue, and how his clever fingers are tugging on Harry’s hair, and how he can feel Draco’s cock against his thigh, his own swelling in greeting. He wants to taste it.
Draco’s neck is warm and his cologne smells stronger, something expensive and thick, like a library.
“Fuck, Harry...”
Harry wants to hear him say that forever.
He sinks to his knees, and Draco’s breath catches. Harry looks up at him, just to make sure, but he isn't sure he could stop now, even if he wanted to. Draco is one hell of a drug, and Harry is high as a kite, and he never wants to come down.
“Harry, you don’t have to-”
“But I want to.”
Draco's eyes are dark, all pupil, and there is a flush on his cheeks, like a porcelain doll. Precious.
“Well, I am certainly not going to stop you.”
Fingers twine through Harry’s hair, gentle but possessive, as he tugs at the closure of Draco’s trousers, the folds of his robes closing Harry into this wonderful space where everything is dark and warm and close with the scent of Draco, of man.
The closure opens surprisingly easily, given how complicated it looks – all buttons and tiny hooks and eyes and laces that seem to weave in a pattern that boggles Harry’s tired and Draco-high mind. Draco’s cock slides out of the opening, already hard and weeping slightly at the tip. No underwear in sight, and Harry shivers.
The first taste is always a bit of a shock – bitter salt and musk – but Harry doesn’t care. Not when he can hear Draco’s head thump against the wall, and feel his fingers flex in Harry’s hair as he licks around the tip, running his lips up and down the length of it, familiarising himself with every vein, every hair, every sensitive spot that elicits sighs and moans. It is perfect.
Draco’s balls are perfect too, warm and gently hairy and perfectly mouth-sized.
How Harry has missed this. He has been so busy the last few months that he has not been able to go out to the Muggle clubs like he has done every other weekend for the last three years.
And yet this is nothing like that. Because he can feel the magic underneath Draco’s skin, a heavy beat of power that is more intoxicating than any alcohol, and because this is Draco, the beloved thorn in Harry’s side, the man who wormed his way under Harry’s skin so completely that Harry didn’t even notice he was there until he was smacked in the face with feelings that had managed to stay hidden for longer than he dared to think.
It was as though everything that had been missing in every relationship or hook up he had ever had was suddenly here, in front of him, laid out like a feast in one body, in one person, and Harry was starving.
“You are far too good at this for someone who was married to a woman for so long,” Draco says between gasps as Harry buries his nose in the crook of Draco’s thigh, breathing in the scent of him, feeling the rasp of hair against his nose and closed eyelids. It is almost overwhelming how much he feels, and this feels like a safe place to hide for a brief moment to gather himself.
“Look at me,” Draco says, and Harry cannot do anything but obey. Draco’s eyes are softer than he has ever seen, like snowmelt and moonlight. “So perfect.” His hand is proprietary and reverent on Harry’s jaw, scruff catching on callouses. There are crows feet around Draco’s eyes, winking their gentle promises of laughter at him.
Harry ducks his head, sucking Draco deep, letting him feel the press of his own cock through Harry’s cheek. Draco’s eyes grow hard and hungry, and suddenly Harry doesn’t mind the idea of being devoured.
“Enough,” Draco pulls Harry off his cock by the hair, and Harry whines. He wants to suck Draco to completion, to swallow him down, to taste him in every breath for the next hour. “Get up here.”
Harry allows himself to be dragged to his feet, and Draco kisses like a starving man.
“There will be plenty of time for you to suck my cock, but right now I want to fuck the arse I have been dreaming about since before I knew what I could do to it.”
“That long?” Harry asks as he is pushed against the wall, Draco’s hands on his belt.
“I would never admit to something so incriminating.”
“It’s not incriminating if we are together.”
“Getting ahead of yourself much, Potter?”
“Says the one who kissed me first.”
“Well, someone had to save us both from your obliviousness. I thought you were supposed to have improved since school.”
Harry gasps as Draco’s hand closes around his cock. “I have, but it seems that I am a mystery unto myself still. Other people are much easier to read.”
“Apart from me, apparently. I always thought I was rather obvious.”
“You have always been the exception that proved the rule.”
Harry arches his hips towards Draco, chasing the firm touch of his hand and is rewarded with a slick finger between his cheeks.
“You never were a fan of rules.”
Harry opens his mouth to say something clever and sarky in return, but Draco’s finger breaches him and all the words fall out of his head. It has been a while and even just one finger burns.
“Fuck you’re tight.”
“Not much time for anything other than work and kids recently. I’ve been lucky to have the energy for a quick wank in the shower.”
“We can’t have that,” Draco smiles, and there is a desperate, feral edge to it. “No wonder you’ve been such a prick lately.”
“It’s not my prick that’s the problem, it’s everything else in my life.”
Draco glances down pointedly, and bites his lip. “I’ll say it’s not a problem.”
The slick slide of Draco’s finger heats Harry’s blood, the stretch fading into a satisfied fullness, until another finger slides home, crooking against that place that makes every nerve ending spark with magic and pleasure.
Harry’s back – not used to being arched like this – complains, and Harry winces.
“Too much?” Draco asks, his fingers sliding out, and Harry instantly misses them.
“No, but I need to stand some other way if I’m going to be able to get out of bed tomorrow without a pain potion.”
“Bold of you to assume I’ll let you out of bed.”
“Bold of you to assume we will end up in the same bed.”
Draco laughs as Harry turns around to lean on hand on the wall. “Please, Potter, you’ve never been able to resist me.”
“Don’t you think,” Harry says, and then is cut off with a groan as Draco slides his fingers back in, “that you might be able to call me by my name when your fingers are literally up my arse?”
Draco gives a put upon sigh, but Harry can see the way the fine lines around his eyes deepen with a smile waiting to come through. “If I must, Harry.”
“It’s not that hard,” Harry says, rolling his hips back as a third finger, slick and warm, joins the others. “You did it earlier.”
“Yes, but you were being a good boy and had your mouth full. Now you’ve opened your mouth and started annoying me.”
Glancing coyly over his shoulder, Harry reaches back to stroke Draco’s cock, still as hard as ever. “Yes, because you dislike that so much.”
“Wanker.” Is all the response Draco can manage as his fingers stutter and stop, before pulling out. They are replaced by the damp kiss of cock against Harry’s hole, and Harry presses into it.
He opens like falling asleep – slowly, then all at once – as Draco slides home as though he belongs there. The burn and stretch is just this side of too much, and all Harry wants is more.
“Harry…”
His name on Draco’s lips sounds like a prayer, and Harry has never been religious in his life until this moment, because he would worship at any altar where praise sounds like Draco Malfoy, breathless and reverent, with his cock inside Harry.
The wall is slick beneath Harry’s clawing, sweaty hands as Draco starts to move, and the hideous wallpaper seems to dance before his eyes. Draco’s hands on his hips, and his lips on Harry’s neck are the only things tethering him to reality.
He can tell in the stutter of Draco’s hips that he is nearly there, that this will all be over much sooner than Harry would like, but Draco’s hand migrates from hip to cock, and suddenly Harry doesn’t care. All that matters is the heat of orgasm barrelling towards him combining with the heat of Draco – his body, his cock – into an inferno that threatens to swallow Harry whole.
Draco comes with a noise that is buried in the curve of Harry’s shoulder before he can really catch the sound, and Harry presses back into him, his own release dancing on the edge.
“Make me come, you fucker,” he says as Draco sighs.
“So demanding.”
“I’ll show you demanding, you complete- oh yes, like that!”
Draco’s hand is tight, almost too tight, on Harry’s cock, dragging him into white noise and glorious static as he comes all over Draco’s hand.
Slowly, the noise of the party filters back through the walls into their little world. Harry doesn’t want to go back. In fact, the only place he wants to be is with Draco, somewhere where they will not be interrupted, and with a soft horizontal surface.
He could manage without the surface, but he would like to be able to walk at Christmas Eve dinner at the Burrow tomorrow.
“Come on,” he tells Draco. “We’re going home so we can do that again.”
Harry has never been more grateful for the fact the Wizengamot voted to allow Aurors to Apparate and Disapparate within the Atrium. It might only technically be allowed in emergencies, but getting Draco Malfoy into his bed is an emergency because Harry might die if he has to wait another minute longer.
Draco’s hand is warm and comfortable in his as darkness squeezes in, and they reappear behind a bush in the middle of Grimmauld Place, frightening a London fox that stares at them with worried eyes before vanishing into its natural habitat of the overflowing bins of numbers six and eight Grimmauld Place.
Before they can duck out of the bushes, Draco tugs at Harry’s hand, pulling him close to kiss the breath out of him.
“While I appreciate your blatant disregard for the rules, next time you Apparate me into a heap of refuse, I will cut your dick off and feed it to the peacocks.”
“We aren’t in the rubbish,” Harry manages to say, when his lungs deign to work correctly.
“Close enough that I can smell it, which is unacceptable.”
Harry nods, too distracted by the way the orange glow of the streetlight is turning Draco into a creature of gold and amber.
“Can we go inside? If you want me to use my dick at any point tonight, or ever again, then it would do well not to freeze it off.”
Spurred into action by Draco’s words and the icy water seeping through his dress shoes, Harry drags Draco across the square, Number Twelve growing out from between the other two houses.
“The old Black house,” Draco said, approvingly. “A good place, assuming you have updated the décor. Scorp always spoke well of it.”
“Of course he did, the house bloody loved him,” Harry pushed open the door, warm light spilling out, which is weird because Gin was supposed to have taken the kids to the Burrow. He probably just forgot to turn the lights off. “Black blood and all that.”
Draco’s hands were back on his waist as they kicked off their shoes, impatient and greedy, pulling Harry close. Harry dropped his wand somewhere along the way from the door to the sitting room because upstairs seemed like far too far away when there was a perfectly serviceable couch right there.
A couch that was currently being sat on by both their ex-wives.
“Oh.”
They stumble apart, and Harry has never been more thankful for robes. He likes Astoria, but he has no desire for her to know anything about his cock. Ginny already knows more than either of them would wish, if it were not for the existence of the kids.
“Fucking finally,” Ginny says, and Astoria hides the width of her smile behind her wine glass. “We thought you would never catch on.”
“Pardon?” Draco looks as though he has been hit in the back of the head by a Bludger. “Care to repeat that, Weasley?”
“Honestly, Draco,” Astoria sits up. “At least you knew you liked Harry, even if you buried it so deep you forgot about it on a regular basis.”
“I hate to say Houses matter, but you two really couldn’t be more stereotypical if you tried.” Ginny picks up the bottle of wine. “Took you so much longer than we thought it would, especially since we have been convinced you have been secretly together for months.”
Harry’s lungs revolt again, and this time it is not because of the delightful high of Draco’s kisses. “What?”
Astoria rolls her eyes. “The way you two talk about each other, we though you started fucking back in the spring. We had a lovely surprise joint family Christmas planned until someone,” she glares at Harry, “dropped a bombshell on our plans this morning.”
“That’s not how the saying goes,” Harry feels around for something to hold himself up, because he is sure that this is all a ridiculous dream.
“Anyway,” Ginny sends the empty glasses flying back to the kitchen. “We had to get you two together in the space of a day, and it seems our plan worked.”
“Your plan…” Draco’s face is growing pinker by the minute.
Harry thinks back to the memo Amanda hid before she set him to the supply cupboard, the summons to help with party preparations that even a Hogwarts student could manage, and Ron’s terrible fake-innocent face.
“How much of the Ministry did you enlist to torment us?” Draco’s voice is cold, but not icy. Not when his hand is next to Harry’s on the back of the armchair, their pinky fingers touching. Just a tiny pinprick of heat but it was enough to melt Draco’s famously icy exterior.
“Torment you!” Ginny scoffs. “You should be thanking us for arranging such a thoughtful Christmas present.”
“The kids are all asleep upstairs,” Astoria says as she makes her way to the door, looking far too graceful for someone wearing bright pink sweat pants with Juicy written across her arse. “So do remember to cast Silencing Charms.”
“And if you can’t make it upstairs,” Ginny adds. “Then remember to tidy up after yourselves. I don’t want to spend Christmas Eve morning explaining what various stains are to four teenage boys who absolutely know what they are, and a teenage girl who shouldn’t.”
“There’s champagne in the fridge, if you want to celebrate the traditional way, too,” Astoria’s voice echoes down the hall.
“And Teddy is arriving in time for lunch tomorrow, so be decent by then!” Ginny shuts the door behind her, and finally – finally – they are alone.
Harry slides his hand over Draco’s, and Draco melts against him. The Christmas Tree flickers and glows, and there are ornaments on it that Harry doesn’t recognise. They are silver and blue and far too elegant and delicate to have lasted any length of time in Harry’s house, but he doesn’t need to ask to know where they came from. Stockings are stacked in a neat pile by the fireplace too – five of them. Red for James, green for Al, Purple for Lily, yellow for Teddy, and a blue one that seems to shimmer with charms.
It all feels like a world that he had been seeing through a steamed-up window – vague shapes that he couldn’t quite place. Feelings that existed on the edge of his life, that were not relevant enough for him to notice until Ginny and Astoria wiped away the mist from the window, and now the brightness seemed like too much and not enough all at once.
“Ok?” Draco asks.
Harry nods. He’s ok.