Chapter Text
“Harry. Harry, mate. If you’re sleeping, wake up.”
Harry turns over and pulls two blankets over his head, blocking out the silvery-white light of Ron’s Patronus.
He is sleeping.
He was sleeping.
He had sort of been sleeping for a few minutes there, and it took forever.
When Harry got into bed, he had firm plans to wallow. He’d been building up to it all afternoon in the eerie semi-quiet that Grimmauld Place always takes on when Draco isn’t there.
Really, he’s been building up to it since the war. A good, long sulk is what Harry wants most in life.
Ugh. Honestly, the quiet is less eerie than Harry wants to admit. Grimmauld Place likes Draco. Even Kreacher—who Harry pays an outrageous amount to hate him—likes Draco. The house started brightening up the minute Draco moved in.
When Draco pretended to have nowhere else to live two years and seven months ago.
“Harry, mate, I need you to come to St Mungo’s.”
Harry presses the blankets over his non-pillow ear.
“Draco’s refusing to be discharged unless he has someone to supervise—”
“Accompany,” Draco says in the background.
“—someone to accompany him.”
“He’s bloody fine,” Harry growls into his pillow.
“Draco’s fine,” Ron’s Patronus continues. “But I’ve got to tell you, Harry—I’d feel a lot better if he wasn’t wandering the streets alone, know what I mean?”
“Oh, because I was a Death Eater?” Draco says in the background.
“Because he came to the St Mungo’s A&E,” says Ron, pretty firmly. “And you know we’d never turn him away, since we swear an oath—”
“It’s harming me to be in these dreadful lighting spells,” Draco says in the background.
“—and because it’s illegal to turn people away, even if they haven’t presented with a genuine—”
“It was an emergency!” Draco says, louder, in the background. “I was being drowned!”
“Draco,” Ron says, very gently. “Your hair was wet. That’s all it was.”
“Drowned!”
“He was trying to wash his hair and had a panic attack,” says Ron in a slightly lower voice. “I adjusted his medicinal gillyweed dose, but it could take a few days for him to get used to it. Right—see you shortly.”
Harry throws the blankets off just as Ron’s Jack Russell Terrier bounds happily through the wall, leaving Harry in darkness.
“What the fuck,” he seethes at the wall, then at the mass of blanket’s he’d piled on top of himself. “I mean. What the fuck! God. Why? Why? It’s the middle of the bloody night!”
Harry pushes his pyjama trousers down to his ankles.
“No! I’m not putting on fancy dress for this!”
He yanks the pyjama trousers back up and circles his bedroom. Harry draws the bloody line at fancy dress for fetching Draco from St Mungo’s again, but it’s bitter out.
Like, completely bloody bitter, with snowdrifts everywhere.
Harry pulls on the red jumper he got from Molly two Christmases ago, then the purple jumper he got from Molly last Christmas, then spells his glasses on.
Stomping about is less satisfying in sock feet, but Harry gives it his best.
Downstairs, he stomps himself into his boots. The only hat he can find is the red hat Molly knitted to go with the jumper. It also has a white H on it. Harry doesn’t mind the H, which usually looks like a U when he folds the cuff or whatever.
He does mind the fact that it’s a stocking cap and has a long tail with a white fuzzy ball on the end.
“Kreacher,” he calls. “I’m going to get Draco from St Mungo’s.”
Kreacher appears in the narrow front hall with a pop. “Harry Potter—”
Harry remembers his coat, Summons it, and puts it on over his jumpers. Then he digs out a pair of red mittens from one of his coat pockets.
Kreacher snorts at him, then snorts again, then doubles over, cackling.
“Wow.” Harry crosses his arms over his chest, sort of. He’s got so many layers on that his arms barely overlap at his wrists. “Super bloody noble of you, Kreacher.”
Kreacher Disapparates, still cackling.
Harry stomps out of Grimmauld Place. He tries to slam the door behind him, but it’s too old and charmed, so it just closes with a slow, stately creak.
Jesus, it’s freezing.
But the snow does add something to the street.
Tiny flakes waft down from the cloudy, light-polluted sky and blow sparkling under the streetlamps. The wind’s got, like, a character that it normally doesn’t have. All the city-noise is muffled. For so much movement, it reminds Harry of stillness a bit. Of the beginning of something. In the distance, bells ring—sounds like more than one. Maybe one of those bell-teams.
It’s honestly sort of magical.
For maybe a second, Harry thinks about the house in Godric’s Hollow Draco dragged him to during the first winter Draco refused to leave Harry in peace. It was on the other side of the village from Potter Cottage, which Harry liked, actually. There’s probably even more snow there, stretching off into fields or something. There would definitely be more sky. Stars, even.
Harry takes a deep breath of the clear, frigid air.
The snowflakes are icy pinpricks in his lungs. He coughs and coughs and coughs, trying to get them out, then remembers he’s a wizard and casts a Warming Charm all around the collar of his coat and over his hat.
“Magical,” Harry wheezes, still trying to catch his breath. “Yeah. Really bloody magical.”
Then he goes down the steps and crunches off down the street. His ridiculous prat of a housemate is waiting.
Notes:
Day One—Snow-covered House with Overgrown Gardens
Chapter Text
Harry doesn’t even make it to the Apparition point closest to his house before he’s got to cast double Warming Charms on his boots.
Really, where does Draco get off?
Not, like—not literally. Harry assumes that Draco literally gets off in his bedroom at Grimmauld Place, which shares a wall with Harry’s bedroom. Because it’s not like Draco can harass him from another floor of the house or anything.
Harry’s breath turns to ice ahead of him. What he means is, where does Draco get off washing his hair? He left sometime after breakfast but before lunch.
Not that Harry has a set time for breakfast or a set time for lunch.
Not that it should matter! He doesn’t even care where Draco spent the day.
He crunches through a snowdrift to the Apparition point, then concentrates on the St Mungo’s A&E.
He lands directly in front of two mediwix pushing a cart stacked high with a teetering tower of potions.
“Santa!” one of them shrieks.
“What the hell are you talking about?” the other one bellows.
“Jesus Christ,” Harry says, and steps out of the way at the last second. “Ron! Ron? Where are you?” He tries to clap his hands for more of an effect, but his mittens are too thick and dampen the noise.
Someone gasps. “It’s Harry Potter!”
“Yes, it’s Harry Potter,” another person hisses. “Where’s Healer Weasley? Don’t stare at him, he’s obviously having some sort of—”
“It’s cold out,” Harry shouts. “It’s cold, okay? I bundled up. It’s not a big deal! Ron!”
“Down here,” Ron calls.
“Where?”
“Here!”
Harry spins in a full circle. He’s starting to overheat in his two jumpers and his coat and his hat and his mittens. His boots squeak on the floor tiles. “Where?”
“Turn a bit more.”
Harry turns a bit more.
There’s Ron, down at the end of one of the hallways that branch off the main area with the Healers’ station.
Harry squeaks towards him, ignoring the sensation of people staring.
Something lightly taps his back.
Oh, perfect. It’s his hat. His ridiculous bloody hat.
Ron steps out of sight, so Harry follows his voice to the very last room before the emergency exit.
“Oh, for Merlin’s bollocks’ sake,” Harry says, and squeaks through the door. “Are you joking?”
The room at the end of the hall has definitely been altered. There’s not a single hospital-grade Lumos in sight. The wall opposite the bed has been charmed to look like an aquarium, with silhouettes of fish gliding through it.
Draco is on the bed wearing the silk dressing gown he usually wears around Grimmauld Place when he’s doing what he calls elegant thinking. He’s got a sleep mask on over his eyes and is somehow propped up on a load of pillows and sort of draped over them like he’s having his photo taken for the Prophet. Of course he’s got to be all rosy-pale like that. Drives Harry mad.
“Hey, mate!” Ron finishes writing something on a length of parchment and crosses the room to give Harry a tight hug. His freckly-pale skin doesn’t look half bad in the aquarium light. “You okay?”
“Yes? I’d be better if I wasn’t dying of heat stroke. You charmed him an aquarium?”
“It was therapeutic,” says Ron, keeping his arms around Harry. “Hang on—do you really think you’ve got heat stroke?”
Ron pulls back and looks Harry up and down, his eyes getting a bit wider. “Is it that cold out?”
“Yes! I nearly froze my arse off walking to the Apparition point! Draco, get up.”
“Does this look like a joke to you, Potter?” Draco says, maintaining his pose on the bed.
“I said that, like, five minutes ago. Get up.”
“First,” Draco recites. “Do no harm.”
“I’m not a Healer,” Harry recites back. “I’m just here to fetch you, since you couldn’t make it home on your own.”
Draco waves his hand lazily in the air and turns his face away.
“Let’s give him a minute or two to wake up.” Ron steers Harry into the hall, and then into a little staffroom, where he pulls off Harry’s hat and his mittens and his coat.
“I’ve got it!” Harry swats Ron’s hands away and takes off his outer jumper by himself, at least. “Are we really letting him have a nap? You said it was urgent!”
“Did I?” Ron takes Harry by the shoulders and plops him down in an armchair next to a round table. Then he heads to a charmed cupboard next to a sort of kitchen setup and starts rifling through it. “How’s things at home? How’s Kreacher?”
“An arsehole.” Harry crosses his arms. This is bollocks.
“Isn’t he?” Ron says, and sounds a bit too fond for Harry’s taste. “Here’s what I was looking for.”
He dangles a wicker basket from his fingertips and waggles his eyebrows at Harry.
“I’m not hungry,” Harry says.
Ron ignores him and sets about taking plates down. Forks and knives. He’s even got bottles of Butterbeer. Harry forgets to sulk once Ron’s got Warming Charms on the food, which is obviously Molly’s roast beef and some green beans in this sauce Harry really likes.
Harry even forgets to refuse to eat when Ron sets a plate in front of Harry and puts a fork in Harry’s hand.
Then Ron sits down across from Harry with his own plate, and something in Harry relaxes. He’s not sure what was tense in the first place. He didn’t feel tense in his bed until he got summoned to St Mungo’s again.
“I’ve got high hopes for next year,” Ron says, and pauses to sip his Butterbeer. “Really high hopes. The Cannons are bringing on a new Seeker, and we might end up—” His eyes get sort of shiny and bright. “—really, Harry, we might end up in the top half of the league!”
“Er…yeah?”
Ron nods solemnly. “If the Cannons can get to the top half of the league, they can get anywhere. They could even—” He gives Harry a nod that means play in the World Cup.
“Oh, yeah. That could happen.” Harry tries to feel enthusiastic about the Cannons, and it sort of works. He feels less irritated, at least.
Ron chats to Harry a bit more while they eat.
“My mum wants to know if you and Draco want to come to the bake-off,” Ron mentions. “Sorry, wait—change of topics!”
Harry chokes on a green bean and has to wash it down with Butterbeer. “Jesus, Ron. We were just—it was statistics!”
“I know, I know. Okay. New topic. Mum wants to know if you and Draco want to come to the bake-off. Not this weekend. Next.”
“I don’t—”
“We’d love to,” says Draco, scaring the life out of Harry. He floats the rest of the way into the staff room, his sleep mask pushed up onto his hair. And his hair looks nothing like he had a panic attack about it. It’s all starlight and smooth and his bun is perfect. Draco’s holding his dressing gown shut tight like he’s not fully dressed underneath. Which he is. “Give Molly my regards, Ronald, and tell her we’ll be there absolutely covered in bells from top to bollocks.”
Harry slumps down in his chair.
Draco shivers delicately. “I’ve just heard arses are falling off every which way in the cold. Harry, did you bring my coat?”
Notes:
Day Two—Sun in a Cloudy Sky. Ron is the sun in a cloudy sky, if you will.
Chapter Text
The city is even quieter and more magical once Harry and Draco are back out in the deathly cold.
Harry’s having a hard time hating it.
This is what he gets for sitting down to eat with Ron. He can’t even hate the fact that Draco is a complete tosser who disappeared for the entire afternoon and then panicked himself to the A&E and then stole Harry’s coat, so Harry has to walk to the Apparition point in two jumpers.
At the Apparition point, Harry sticks out his elbow less angrily than he planned to. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“How gracious of you, but I must decline.” Draco keeps walking through the snow. His boots aren’t making nearly as much noise as Harry’s. He almost looks like he planned to wear a coat over a dressing gown over trousers and a shirt and fucking waistcoat.
Harry drops his arm. “Seriously?”
“Deathly, I’m afraid,” Draco calls over his shoulder. “That was a bit of Death Eater humour, Potter.”
Harry closes his eyes to the count of three, then trudges after Draco.
“Why can’t we Apparate,” he demands through clenched teeth when he arrives at Draco’s side. The snowdrifts part for Draco’s feet, and all the snow collects in front of Harry’s.
“I’m medicinally high,” Draco answers, apologetic.
“I didn’t ask you to Apparate.”
“I wouldn’t even if you had.”
“God.” Harry kicks through more snow. “Where were you all afternoon, anyway?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“…that’s why I asked.”
Draco blinks at Harry. His silver-grey eyes catch the light from a nearby streetlamp and shine like a Christmas bauble. “Are you really so interested in my afternoon whereabouts?”
Harry’s face goes hot, which should be impossible in this cold, honestly. “Not anymore.”
In Harry’s periphery, he registers a flicker at the corner of Draco’s mouth. He’s pleased with himself. And he shouldn’t be! Harry doesn’t even have a boner or anything.
“I thought of you while I was gone,” Draco teases. “Every minute. Did you think of me?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“I really didn’t.”
“I really don’t believe you.”
“I’m really going to freeze to death,” Harry says. “Beg forgiveness, or whatever.”
“What? I’m sure I don’t—”
Harry lunges at Draco—fast, so he doesn’t have time to sprint away—and Apparates them back to Grimmauld.
Harry’s under the blankets again—trying his best to get into the mood of the Big Sulk—when his bedroom door bangs open.
“Jesus!” Harry clutches all the blankets to him. “Why do you have to do that? Just come in! Or, like, stay in your own room!”
Draco picks his way through Harry’s discarded jumpers. He’s got something in his hands. “I’m propositioning you.”
Harry rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. “You are not. Stop saying that.”
“Unless what, Potter? Unless I mean it?”
“Yes,” Harry shoots back, because he is at his wits’ end. Draco just has to be weird. And kick in Harry’s bedroom door. And sit on the edge of Harry’s bed like it’s his own bed.
Draco pushes at Harry’s feet under his blankets until he’s got the room he wants to sit, then perches on the side of Harry’s bed with—Harry can see it now—an enormous mug in his hands. It’s white, with green trees and red writing that says HAPPY CHRISTMAS.
“Is that more gillyweed?”
“It’s medicinal gillyweed,” Draco says, and sips from the mug. “I’ve added it to hot chocolate, of course.”
“Did you bring me any?”
“Did I bring you any medicinal gillyweed?”
“Did you bring me any hot chocolate?”
“No. You’re in bed.”
Harry pulls a pillow over his face and thinks about screaming into it.
“I really do have a proposition,” Draco continues, like Harry’s not underneath a pillow. “You must promise not to disagree straightaway when I tell you.”
“I’m not promising that.”
“But you must.” Draco slides up towards Harry’s head. His arse sort of presses into Harry’s side. Harry is not going to react to that. Draco spells the pillow off Harry’s face. “You must, Potter.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else…” Draco narrows his eyes, and heat flashes madly through Harry.
He can’t have that. He cannot have that. He cannot have an erection, either.
“I promise not to disagree straightaway,” he says, before Draco can proposition him.
“Ha!” Draco straightens up with glee, sloshing a bit of hot chocolate spiked with medicinal gillyweed onto Harry’s blankets. “Now, listen, Potter. I think we should go into business together.”
“No.”
Draco actually pouts. His shoulders droop in a sad, elegant line. This also does something to Harry. Something in his…chest, maybe. In his heart. He doesn’t want to know what that feeling is.
“You haven’t even heard what business we should go into,” Draco says softly. “Also, you promised.”
“Draco.” Harry sits up a bit, because it seems wrong to have this conversation lying flat on his back. “It’s a terrible idea for us to go into business together. We don’t even want to live together.”
“Of course we want to live together.” Draco waves off Harry’s completely accurate statement, spilling more hot chocolate onto Harry’s blankets in the process. “You’re in love with me.”
“I—!” Harry’s not! He might be cracking up a bit, because it feels too mean to say I’m not in love with you! to Draco, even though it’s true. “What!”
“We should be curse-breakers. Independent curse-breakers. Frankly, Potter, I don’t think Ministry employment is for you.”
“Independent curse-breakers? What the fuck, Draco?”
“There won’t be any fucking. I was only joking about propositioning you.”
“Get out of my room.” Harry throws himself onto his pillows and turns his back on Draco.
“If you insist.” Draco stands, and then his breath is right in Harry’s ear. His voice, also. “But you should know, Potter—I’ve already bought us a building.”
And then, before Harry can even get a word out, Draco kisses his cheek.
“Ah!” Harry squeaks.
“I wish you the best for your dreams,” Draco says from what sounds like the middle of Harry's rooms. “And do try not to stomp about in the morning. You’ve kept me up rather late.”
Notes:
Day Three—Gingerbread Cookies and Mug of Drink
Chapter Text
The sound that jolts Harry out of a dead sleep is incredibly loud.
It’s so loud there’s no chance he imagined it.
Harry huddles into his blankets and pulls as many pillows as he can reach over his head.
Not only do the pillows not muffle the noise, they also start to suffocate him a bit.
He explodes out of his pillows and thrashes around in the blankets until he has the strength to get out of bed. Once Harry’s feet are on the floor, he’s got a better idea of what that sound is.
It’s someone banging pots and pans.
It’s Draco banging pots and pans.
Kreacher’s not above banging pots and pans, but when Kreacher bangs pots and pans, it’s slower and more pointed and usually not at dawn.
And oh, is it ever dawn.
Orangey-pink light glows through Harry’s window. That’ll be the nicest colour the sky is all day. Soon the sun will rise right into the sheet of white-grey clouds, and that’s where it’ll stay until it gets dark.
“Your ancestors must be so proud,” Harry says under his breath while he kicks yesterday’s discarded clothes into the hamper that Draco forcibly installed in his room. He chooses an outfit from the stacks on a shelf that Draco also forcibly installed in Harry’s room. It’s Disillusioned unless Harry’s looking at it with the intent to choose an outfit, and then he can see all his clothes at once, which he loves.
And also hates.
Because he didn’t think of the shelf thing on his own.
Which is not fair, because Harry’s not even high on medicinal gillyweed most of the time like Draco is, so Harry should be able to think better than Draco, just, like, baseline.
“Very noble,” he shouts into the running stream of the shower. “Very ancient. Toujours annoying.”
Draco’s still banging pots and pans when Harry gets out of the shower and dries off and gets dressed.
He’s still banging pots and pans when Harry stomps as loudly as possible down every flight of stairs between his bedroom and wherever Draco is.
He’s still banging pots and pans when Harry almost falls down the narrow kitchen stairs and just barely catches himself on the railing.
“Jesus bloody Christ, okay! I’m up! Are you happy?”
A pot and a pan whiz by Harry’s head, banging away against each other.
“Oh my God. Fuck-you-Finite,” Harry says, and slaps them out of the air. They tumble to the floor with an even louder clang-crash.
“Potter!” Draco sweeps into the kitchen from the garden doors. He’s wearing trousers and a waistcoat the colour of his eyes over a crisp, white shirt and Harry’s green knitted beanie. As in, the beanie he wanted during Draco’s non-emergency and couldn’t find. Because Draco stole it. Draco also stole Harry’s green mittens. He puts both green mittens to his cheeks, looking shocked and sort of angelic from the pink in his face from the chill. “What in Merlin’s name is that unholy racket?”
Harry kicks the fallen pan into the nearest wall.
“Oh, no.” Draco sweeps across the floor—he’s also stolen Harry’s boots—and flutters his mittened hands to Harry’s face. He gives Harry’s cheeks a gentle squeeze. “What’s happened?”
“Are you fucking joking?”
Draco purses his lips. “Does this look like a joke to—”
“Yes! You stole my hat! You stole my mittens!”
“I stole your boots,” Draco adds conspiratorially.
“And my bloody boots! But worst of all, you made a huge bloody deal about not waking you up this morning, and here you are, banging pots and pans!”
“I’m certain I wasn’t.” Draco gives Harry’s cheeks another gentle squeeze.
Harry ducks out of Draco’s hands and trips over the abandoned pot. Draco rushes forwards and catches Harry with both arms around his waist.
“You look positively mad,” says Draco in a wondering tone. “Some fresh air would do you good, I dare say. Shall we walk?”
How is Harry supposed to think like this? How is he supposed to live? Draco has both arms around his waist and his perfect prattish face inches from Harry’s and his panic-attack hair is perfect and he looks like he slept for weeks and bloomed like a bloody rose or something.
“You stole my hat,” Harry says, in as deadly a tone as he can manage. “I’m not walking anywhere.”
A slow, joyful smile spreads across Draco’s face.
He’s got a dimple.
Harry is not in love with him.
“Accio Harry’s hat,” whispers Draco.
“No—”
Draco covers Harry’s mouth with one of his mittened hands.
“Shh, shh, shh,” he says, and keeps on saying it until he’s got the red stocking cap in his free hand and then he somehow wrestles it onto Harry’s head without uncovering Harry’s mouth. “There! Now, wherever did your coat get to? You really must learn to keep better track of your things, Potter.”
Unsurprisingly, Draco finds Harry’s coat in his own room, where he left it last night after he wore it home from St Mungo’s. He gives Harry his boots back, then shoves a biscuit into Harry’s mouth. It tastes freshly baked. Like—did Draco convince Kreacher to wake up in the middle of the night to bake or something?
Kreacher would get up in the middle of the night for Draco.
It’s not much later than dawn when Draco sweeps Harry out of Grimmauld in his ridiculous hat and mittens.
Draco glides away ahead of him, somehow charming the snow to land right in Harry’s way.
He kicks at all the new snowdrifts as they crunch along the pavement.
All the kicking makes him feel a bit better.
“Where are we going, anyway?”
“To the Apparition point,” Draco says, like it should be obvious.
“To go where?”
“To go somewhere best reached by Apparating. This might be a bit premature, Potter, but I strongly believe we should hire Pansy away from the DMLE.”
“Pansy Parkinson?”
“Yes. You like her. You’d get on famously in a work environment. And I—”
“We would not get on famously. And this work environment is never going to exist. You’re afraid of curses!”
Draco places a mittened hand to his chest and flutters his eyelashes. “I most certainly am not.”
“Then you’re just really bad at casting them. How do you think you’ll be better at breaking them?”
“There are such things as classes, Potter.”
“Oh, yeah? And did you take one? Did you take a curse-breaking class?”
Draco turns his big silver-grey eyes on Harry. “Of course I did. I’ve got a Ministry certification.”
Harry rolls his eyes, hoping they’ll land on something as ridiculous as Draco getting some secret curse-breaking certification.
They land on a lamppost instead. It’s got a wreath on it with a bright red bow, and that ridiculous tosser bow gets Harry right in some embarrassing tender spot that makes him wish for a village like Godric’s Hollow with fluffy snowflakes and holly everywhere.
“Godric’s Hollow,” says Draco, and wraps his arms around Harry.
“What the bollocks is happening?” Harry says into the side of Draco’s neck.
“Apparate us.”
“To where?”
“Godric's Hollow, you silly man,” Draco says, and squeezes Harry tight.
Notes:
Day Four—Street Lamp Decorated with Evergreen Wreath
THIS IS NOT A DRILL! WE HAVE ART BY PHANTA!!! 😭😭😭 See it here on Tumblr!!!
Chapter 5
Notes:
Note: Draco does a Crucio on a bad guy in this chapter. It’s just a little one!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
There’s never any point in arguing with Draco when he’s already latched on.
Harry thrashes in Draco’s grip—principle of the thing—then shuts his eyes and concentrates on Godric’s Hollow.
They land at the Apparition point behind the little café—Lunch When You Want It—Harry won’t admit to liking.
Draco nuzzles his head into Harry’s shoulder.
Harry’s strongest instinct is to shove Draco away from him, but Ron said once that Harry hates affection because he was raised in a cupboard. He didn’t say it in those exact words. Something more professional and Healer-ish.
Anyway, Draco’s actually a good person to practise with, because Harry’s not in love with him and doesn’t even really like him, so, like, there are no stakes.
So Harry doesn’t shove Draco away.
He stands there in the bitter-arse cold on the cobblestones behind the café and tenses up every single one of his muscles as hard as he can—like, until he’s trembling—and then he relaxes them one by one, starting at his eyes and working his way down.
God, Harry hates relaxing.
Fuck relaxing.
The worst part is that Draco smells like laundry charms and his magic, which is sweet, and he’s even sweeter compared to the cold, snowy air.
Harry’s in sort of a foul mood when he wiggles his toes inside his boots, relaxing those too.
He thinks longingly of his bed, with its six to eight blankets and pile of pillows. Harry could sulk so much in his bed if Draco would let him.
But for right now, he should focus on, like, participating in whatever this is.
He peels his newly relaxed hands away from his sides, then has to consciously stop wincing, then bends his elbows and makes a circle shape with his arms.
It just feels awkward hovering his mittens behind Draco’s back, so Harry silently counts to three and pats Draco a couple times as a warm-up before he lets his hands settle and his arms, like, actually touch Draco’s waist.
Harry holds his breath.
He knows Draco’s not going to push him off. Draco’s never met an inch of personal space that didn’t belong to him. He wouldn’t care if Draco did push him off! It’s not like Harry is enjoying this.
Can’t hold his breath forever, though.
He exhales a white cloud that’s practically frozen, finally giving in a bit.
Draco pops up from Harry’s shoulder, his eyes all sparkly and his face all pink, beaming so hard he’s got his dimple. “Well done, you!”
Harry snaps his arms back to his sides. “Shut up.”
“I shan’t.” Draco takes Harry’s face in his mittens for the second time this morning. “I simply shan’t.”
“Jesus. You’re the weirdest person I’ve ever met.”
“An honour and a privilege,” Draco says in a high, wispy voice. “Shall we resume our walk? Only if you’re quite finished adoring me, of course.”
“I’ve already seen the house,” Harry says, and kicks a snowdrift into a spray of glitter. “You made me come here already.”
“Whyever would I show you that lovely little cottage? You’ve already seen it, Potter.”
“That’s what I’ve just said.”
“Of course you did.” Draco reaches over and pats Harry’s cheek with the back of his mitten, then drops his hand to Harry’s and spins him to a stop in the middle of the pavement. “Behold!”
Harry finds his balance.
“Draco. This is the same bloody house.”
“I know.” Draco laughs. “I was only joking.” He spins Harry again. “Behold!”
Harry beholds…
A shop.
It’s got a cheery blue door, and more blue panels around a big front window, which has got a display of a sitting room—two chairs in front of a fireplace, a row of miniature Christmas trees on a floating mantel, three stockings charmed to hang beneath.
“Is that real fire?” Harry asks.
“Why wouldn’t it be real fire?”
“Because, like…is anyone in there?” Shop looks empty, and it can’t be a good idea to leave a fire burning in the middle of nowhere. “What is this?”
There’s historical-looking lettering over the window.
“Draco, what the fuck is Park and Sons?”
“Our independent curse-breaking agency and antique shop.”
Harry sticks his mittens underneath his glasses and rubs vigorously at his eyes. He needs patience or something. He needs, like, willpower.
He needs to sulk for an entire year.
“Draco,” Harry says, mostly into his red bollocksing mittens. Draco gave back Harry’s coat and his boots but insisted the red hat and mittens are better on Harry. “I mean, first off, the name makes no sense.”
“It makes a veritable abundance of sense!”
“I don’t even know what—no! It doesn’t make any sense. This career doesn’t make any sense.”
Draco puts a hand over his heart. “I assure you, Potter, it is indeed an appropriate—dare I say fitting—career choice for both of us.”
“Really? Explain last year, then.”
Last year, Harry had to fetch Draco from St Mungo’s twice because he dreamed that there were curses in his bedroom.
Draco blinks at Harry. “That was before I got the certification.”
“You got a curse-breaking certification in less than a year?”
“I got the certification itself in all of five minutes, Potter, you silly thing. Haven’t you ever been presented with anything? Yes, of course you have! How long did it take you to get an Order of Merlin?”
“That’s not the same thing!”
“No, not literally, but you had to fight a war, didn’t you? I had to complete the coursework.”
Harry’s starting to overheat. There’s no way Draco got a curse-breaking certification. He’s been high at Grimmauld Place for almost three years.
“I just—” Harry starts.
“Shh,” says Draco, and steps closer.
“Oh my bollocks God, Draco.”
“Shh,” Draco says again, even quieter, and slides his right hand across the back of Harry’s neck. A tiny shiver runs down his body. It only feels good because of—because of Draco’s mitten, probably. “Calm yourself. That’s it. Lovely work.”
“I hate—”
“Don’t turn around.”
“What?”
Draco pins Harry’s head to his shoulder with an iron grip that’s bizarrely gentle.
“Crucio,” he murmurs into Harry’s ear.
Harry tries to suck in a deep breath to shout what the bloody fuck, Draco? but he’s interrupted by the surge of magic that goes through him.
Draco’s magic.
Draco’s cool, sweet, silver magic, but way sweeter than usual.
It’s got to be the curse. The Curse. The Unforgivable Fucking Curse!
Oh, Jesus—Harry’s got an erection.
All the thoughts in his head disappear. All the sight from his eyes disappears, too. Harry doesn’t even breathe. He just tries not to move, because erection. Oh, fuck, erection.
Boner.
It’s getting worse.
Huge boner.
Over a curse!
God, he is such a freak.
Draco’s standing up really straight.
Harry notices that first. Then he notices that—thank fucking Merlin’s Jesus and Mary’s Joseph—that their hips aren’t touching because of their coats.
Someone grunts behind him. Sounds sort of like Amycus Carrow after Harry did a Crucio on him.
Harry lifts his head. Draco absently pats Harry’s neck and lets him up.
“Er…” Harry looks over his shoulder. There’s a bloke on the ground, curled up in a little ball. Harry feels a bit shaken, but mostly because of his boner. “What—” He clears his throat. “What the fuck?”
He looks back at Draco.
Who looks sharp.
Everything about him. His narrowed eyes. The set of his jaw. His lips. Draco’s still got his wand poised, like he might do another Unforgivable.
“I didn’t even know you could cast Crucio without, like, Tommy making you do it,” Harry blurts. He’s definitely not in control of his mouth.
Draco meets his eyes, and for another second, he’s sharp.
Then his whole face softens.
“I can’t cast the Cruciatus properly on you, Potter.” Draco’s light, almost teasing, and Harry’s erection jumps inside his pants.
“Why—why can’t you?”
Draco quirks an eyebrow. “You’ve got to mean the Unforgivables, you silly man.”
For some amount of time, they look into each other’s eyes.
The bloke on the pavement groans again.
They both turn towards him.
Draco purses his lips disapprovingly.
“Er…” Harry puts both mittens casually over the zip of his jeans. “Who’s that?”
“Tiberius Rowle,” Draco answers instantly. “The poor thing’s got mixed up in that awful Death Eater revival movement. They ought to devote more time to their Disillusionments, don’t you agree?”
Harry’s speechless for a minute. The wind wafts more snowflakes about the street. Bells jingle in the breeze. People laugh in the square. Tiberius Rowle groans right in the bollocks from his spot on the pavement.
Draco did a Crucio on Rowle.
Just, like, on the street.
And he did it for Harry.
“Yeah,” says Harry. “Yeah, sure. Let’s be independent curse-breakers.”
Notes:
Day Five—Festive Sitting Room
Lunch When You Want It first showed up in Bike Dream!
Harry punches Tiberius Rowle in Creevey's Creature Comforts, LOL.
Chapter Text
“Firstly, Potter, you must understand that you can’t touch the cursed objects.”
“Yeah. Obviously.”
Draco turns from the warded table in the back room of the shop—the workroom, Draco calls it—and looks at Harry, wide-eyed and serious. It would be easier to take him seriously if he wasn’t wearing Harry’s green hat and mittens. It would also be easier to take him seriously if he wasn’t, like, himself, but Harry at least gives it a try. They’ve been coming to the shop every day since last week—when Draco did that Crucio for Harry—and Draco’s finally decided to tell Harry anything about curse-breaking.
“You can’t touch any of the objects,” Draco says, slower, like Harry might not have understood the first time. “Even if you want to.”
“Why would I want to touch a cursed object?” There’s, like, probably one cursed object in here—a little iron box in the centre of the table.
“Some curses have an element of seduction to them, of course.”
“I’m not going to get seduced by curses.”
“No, I should think they wouldn’t need to seduce you at all. You are rather needy that way.”
Harry points at his chest. “I’m needy?”
“Merlin’s yuletide bells, yes. You must promise not to touch any of the cursed objects that may come into our possession.”
“I won’t.”
Draco steps closer. “You must promise, Potter.”
Harry takes a tiny step back. Draco’s clearly about to take Harry’s face in his hands, and Harry does not need that sort of—whatever it is when he’s meant to be learning about curse-breaking.
“I prom—”
Draco darts his hands out and grabs Harry’s face.
“Jesus!” Harry whips his hands up to break Draco’s grip, but Draco just pins them between his forearms. “I’m listening!”
“You must promise.” Draco stares into Harry’s eyes and squeezes his face extremely gently.
“God, you are so—”
“Promise,” Draco says through slightly pursed lips.
“You’re so weird and annoying,” Harry huffs. He’s trying really hard not to notice that Draco’s cheeks are still a bit pink from the walk to the shop, and a lock of his hair escaped from his bun and peeks out from under Harry’s green hat, and he’s, like, weirdly beautiful when he’s being weird and annoying like this, and also Harry’s got a boner. “I promise I won’t touch any cursed objects.”
Draco peers at Harry’s lips for a few more beats. Harry stands perfectly still. He wants to thrash, but Draco will hold on tighter if Harry does that, so he tries to relax.
“Good,” Draco says finally, which gives Harry a shiver of some feeling that must be, like, academic curiosity or something. It’s probably a bit late in life for Harry to have his first shiver of academic curiosity, but weirder things have happened. Finally, Draco pats Harry’s cheeks and releases him. Harry does not feel any disappointment about Draco turning back towards the table whatsoever. “Secondly, there is a protocol to follow when breaking curses.”
Harry waits to hear what the protocol is, but Draco doesn’t say anything. He just keeps looking at the little iron box on the table.
“Er,” Harry says. “What’s the protocol?”
“I can’t tell you. Accio Harry’s coat.”
“What? Why not?” Harry’s coat flies in from the front room. Draco catches it and swings it onto Harry’s shoulders. “What are you—we’ve just got here! You told me, like, one thing!”
“Shh,” says Draco. “Accio Harry’s hat and mittens.”
Harry’s ridiculous red hat and red mittens zoom in from the front. Harry makes a break for it, but Draco leaps onto his back after three steps and nearly knocks him over. He tugs the hat onto Harry’s head while Harry tries and fails to throw him off. Then he darts in front of Harry, grinning.
“Why are you like this? I hate you.”
“You love me,” Draco insists, and flaps Harry’s mittens at him.
Harry fights back his irritation, which is just, like, so much.
Draco’s not going to tell him anything else about curse-breaking, clearly. Maybe he’s too high to remember what the protocol is. Maybe he’ll want to go back to Grimmauld, and then Harry can sulk in bed for the afternoon.
He’d almost rather learn about curse-breaking from Draco Medicinal-Gillyweed Malfoy.
But he wouldn’t mind sulking.
Harry sticks his hands out in front of him.
“Well done, you!” Draco cries.
Harry rolls his eyes massively and lets Draco put his mittens on. “Are we going back to Grimmauld, then?”
Draco whirls around and leads the way to the door of the shop. It’s got a bell charmed to it that jingles merrily when Draco pulls it open, letting in a gust of wintry air along with a small snowdrift.
“No,” he says conspiratorially, and goes out.
Harry follows him automatically. When he gets to the pavement, Draco’s got his head tipped back so he can catch snowflakes on his tongue. He looks so, like, peaceful, even happy, that Harry thinks maybe he should start getting high on medicinal gillyweed all the time, too.
“You’re not wearing your coat,” says Harry.
“Come along, Potter. We’re not going far.”
“Where are we going?”
Draco starts walking backwards down the pavement, sending all the snow into Harry’s path. Harry kicks it without thinking.
“The café,” says Draco.
Harry had forgot he even asked. “Why are we going to the café?”
“Because you’re hungry, you silly man.”
Harry stops kicking through the snow. “How do you know?”
Draco laughs. It’s nothing like how he would laugh at Harry in school. It’s such a lovely, delighted sound that Harry starts following again without waiting for an answer.
The protocol for breaking curses goes reveal, reduce, repair. It’s not a bad phrase or whatever, even if Harry suspects that Draco made it up. When he explains what repair means, Harry says shouldn’t that be called wreck or something? and Draco giggles for five minutes, then pats Harry’s head and says well done, you.
Draco also forces Harry to repeat everything he says back to him, usually with his hands on Harry’s face. The little iron box stays on the table the whole time.
“Why do you keep wearing the mittens inside?” Harry asks one afternoon post-lunch, when Draco’s staring at him from about three inches away, waiting for Harry to repeat take note of the physical shape of the curse framework if there is no imminent danger of being cursed or otherwise injured, which is a pretty long sentence to remember at once.
Harry usually doesn’t have trouble remembering long sentences when Draco says them three inches from his face. That’s probably a coincidence. It’s probably because—against Harry’s will—Draco’s very familiar to Harry. Also, he’s got nice lips. Harry’s not in love with his lips.
“You are in love with my lips,” says Draco. He does a little private smile with his nice lips that does not give Harry a boner at all.
“What?”
“You’ve just said I’m not in love with Draco’s lips, and I’m standing right here, mon trésor. I heard you!”
“I did not say that,” Harry says. “And you never hear anything I say!”
Draco leans in. His lips are, like, two inches from Harry’s lips. “What did I say about curse frameworks?”
“Look at them.” For a totally unknown reason, Harry’s cock twitches madly in his pants. “Er—look. At them. Look at the shape of the, er, framework. It’s got a shape. But only if you’re not dead. Or, like, dying.”
Draco studies Harry’s eyes intently.
“I think you’ve got the meaning,” he says. “Well done.”
Harry’s not sure how an actual curse-breaking programme would go, but after, like, a week of really intense days close to Draco’s face, Draco presses his mittened palms together in front of his mouth.
He looks Harry up and down, silver-grey eyes moving slowly down his body and equally slowly up to Harry’s face while he moves in an ominous half-circle that’s only about half as ominous as it could be due to the green hat and mittens.
Harry goes hot under his clothes. Draco stares at him weirdly all the time, so he should be used to it.
Something must be different.
Draco’s eyes, maybe.
They’ve got a bit of that sharpness to them like they had when Draco did that Crucio.
Harry does not get distracted by that memory.
On the third half-circle, Harry loses patience.
“What are you looking at?”
“You,” Draco answers immediately. “I’m looking at you, Potter.”
“Yeah, but why?”
Draco doesn’t answer.
He turns on his heel and goes into the storage closet on the side of the workroom and shuts the door behind him.
“Draco?” Harry calls. “What the fuck?”
Draco answers, but his voice is muffled by the door and wall. Sounds a bit like nothing the fuck, Potter.
Harry crosses his arms over his chest and waits. If Draco comes out and surprise-attacks Harry with his coat, then he’s quitting. He’s not a full curse-breaker yet, so maybe it’s only half-quitting, but either way, he’s out.
Before Harry can quit, the closet door opens and Draco strides back into the workroom carrying a bigger iron box. He’s also wearing an enormous pair of flying goggles with the green hat and a leather jacket over his shirt and waistcoat.
“Merlin’s Christ,” Harry says, his voice breaking midway through. “What the bloody hell is all that?”
Draco drops the bigger box on the worktable. “This is a container for a cursed object.”
“You’ve got flying goggles on!”
“I’ve got curse-breaking goggles on.”
“I thought the little box was cursed!”
Draco abandons the table and crosses to Harry. At the last second, he pulls out Harry’s ridiculous red hat from somewhere and puts it on Harry's head, then puts his mittens on Harry’s face. Harry’s so bewildered by the goggles and the jacket—Jesus, the jacket—that he forgets to resist.
“It wasn’t cursed,” Draco coos, all of three inches from Harry’s face. “I was testing you to see if you’d try to touch it.”
Harry gets an immediate boner.
“I didn’t,” he chokes.
“Quite right,” Draco agrees, then tugs at Harry’s face until they’re both back at the worktable. Then Draco drags his hands all ‘round Harry’s face—over his mouth, even—until he’s standing behind Harry. “Wand out, Potter.”
Harry fumbles for his wand. Draco moves his hands during Harry’s fumbling, and by the time he’s got it actually aimed at the iron box, Draco’s got a hand over Harry’s.
“I don’t need you to help me cast,” Harry says, but his wand-arm is shaking a bit.
“Of course you don’t,” Draco murmurs. “Firstly, we’ve got to get the object out of the box.”
Harry takes a deep breath, ignores his boner, and follows the steps Draco made him repeat earlier in the week. The top of the box opens. He feels about for whatever’s inside with his magic, then Levitates it.
It’s, like…an ornament. A pair of ceramic elves or something. One wears green and one wears red. The ornament doesn’t look super cursed.
Harry wants to touch it.
For the first time in, like, three years, Harry’s glad Draco is so weird and so opposed to personal space.
“Okay,” Harry says shakily.
“This one’s simple,” Draco breathes into his ear. “It’s first-order, Domination school, so it’s a straightforward counter.”
“Right, yeah.”
“Shall I count to three?”
“No,” Harry snaps, then—it’s so embarrassing—hesitates. “Maybe.”
“Three—”
“I thought you were starting at one!”
“All right. One—”
“Do I cast on three or go? Jesus Mary, Draco!”
“On go,” says Draco. “No—on three.”
“Which!”
“Shh.” Draco wraps his wand arm around Harry and presses his wand to Harry’s chest. He lets out a long breath, feeling instantly better, then mentally swears to take that secret to his grave. “On three. One, two—”
Harry freaks out and casts on two.
The curse breaks. So does the ornament. The pieces fall into the iron box, tinkling like a little bell.
“Oh!” Harry shouts. “What the fuck! I did it!”
“Well done, you!” Draco says behind him.
It’s such a rush that Harry’s got no idea what to do with his body. He’s got to do something. He’s got to, like, jump up and down or leap off something high and land in the snow or turn around in Draco’s arms and grab Draco’s face and kiss him.
For a second it’s just furious snogging. Like, the sort of furious snogging that Harry never did with Cho Chang because it started out wet and didn’t really get better because she was crying and never did with Ginny because his mind had totally separated from his body when they kissed and the first thing Harry thought afterwards was that he really hoped he didn’t die with that as his last-ever kiss.
Then Harry realises that they’ve actually got to the other side of the room from the worktable and that he’s grabbing Draco’s leather curse-breaking jacket in both fists and that Draco’s grabbing him back.
And that he’s just fully snogging Draco Malfoy. His glasses knock against Draco’s goggles.
He breaks the kiss and takes in the situation. They’re, like, a few inches apart. Draco’s breathing fast, his face all pink. Harry pushes Draco’s goggles up so he can see his eyes. They’re doing that Christmas-bauble thing. Harry’s breathing quite hard, too, and he’s got a massive erection.
Draco’s lips still look really nice.
Harry doesn’t think he hated that kiss.
He’s sort of disgruntled about that.
Harry tries on a scowl, but his face doesn’t want to cooperate.
“Ugh,” he says, for lack of the English language.
Draco laughs and kisses him again.
Notes:
Day Six—Pair of Elf Ornaments
Harry and Draco are curse-breakers in Filled with the Spirit and God of All Comfort, both of which feature lots of spanking and stuff. They're also curse-breakers in Work Husband, which is hilarious, and Ask for the Ancient Paths, which is very emosh. And The Vault of Heaven. And Tangerine. And Twice Children, which is a Dronarry fic, though they don't do much curse-breaking in that one.
And in A Little Bit of Everything Harry and Draco are both curse-breakers but Draco works in curse analysis and Pansy and Harry are partners.
Okay, that was more than I thought, but whatever!
Chapter Text
Does Harry…like this?
Thoughts have started to enter his mind mid-snog, and those thoughts seem to be, like, escalating.
Harry already determined he doesn’t hate snogging Draco. That determination is fading faster than Harry ever imagined it would.
What’s Draco doing?
Oh, Jesus—he’s turning them so Harry’s pressed against a sideboard or something.
No, Harry doesn’t hate this at all. The only thing he hates about it is…
Is…
Harry opens for Draco a bit more for, like, research. A shiver of something like academic curiosity but sexual rocks Harry’s entire body in Draco’s hold.
Yeah. All the evidence is pointing directly towards Harry more than likes this.
Does that mean he likes Draco?
Does that mean he more than likes Draco?
If they kiss long enough, will Harry get, like, a sign? Some sort of confirmation or something? Will a Patronus come through the wall and point its snout at Draco like Snape’s Patronus pointed its snout at the Sword of Gryffindor?
Fuck—Harry really hopes Snape’s Patronus isn’t the sign. That would be so weird and awkward, and also Snape would’ve had to cast the Patronus before Tommy murdered him, and the Patronus would’ve had to be held in stasis somehow and released at the right moment.
Which is totally impossible! Snape is never going to be part of this and neither is his doe Patronus.
Unless there was some sort of curse that, like—
No. No more Snape. Not when snogging. Harry throws as much of his body as he can into the kiss.
It gets better.
Harry’s got the most massive boner of his life, which has got to be The Proof. How’s he supposed to argue with an erection? He literally can’t. There’s not a single argument in a single cell of Harry’s erection.
It’s winning. It’s won. His boner has won.
Wait.
Is Harry high?
Did he accidentally get high on the curse? Or somehow on Draco’s medicinal gillyweed?
Is he high on Draco?
Is that what this is?
Harry accidentally moans into Draco’s mouth.
Draco makes some other sort of sound that Harry feels more than he hears—all his blood is rushing to get to Harry’s cock, and it’s, like, audible—and this is it, isn’t it?
This is when Harry falls into bed with his weird, annoying housemate who he didn’t even invite to live with him.
Or when he’ll fall into floor, or whatever.
Harry’s cock punches urgently at his clothes. He’s going to have to do something about his incredible boner, or else he’s going to come in his pants.
He might not be able to help it. This kiss is just so much. Harry doesn’t even mind the sound of it like he normally would.
“Draco,” he says.
“Mmm?” says Draco. Not much of an answers, since Draco hasn’t stopped snogging Harry furiously. Harry’s not sure Draco understood that Harry was saying his name. He’s not sure he even managed to say Draco’s entire name.
He’s not sure what he was even planning to say.
“Draco,” Harry tries again.
The shop’s bell rings.
Harry ignores the cheery jingle for a beat or two. It’s probably just an echo from breaking the curse on that ornament. Harry’s boner gets even harder at the memory and all the different parts of the memory, like Draco’s hand over his and Draco’s wand as his chest and Draco’s body at his back.
Then the shop door closes with a sturdy thud.
“Draco, darling, where are you?” a voice calls.
It’s Pansy Parkinson’s voice.
Harry shoves at Draco’s chest—Jesus’s Joseph, they need space between them, Pansy can’t walk in on them like this—but Harry’s hands aren’t interested in making any space between them, so Harry ends up pulling Draco closer and panic-shrieking into Draco’s mouth.
They have a bit of a tussle that feels more like they’re fighting to keep snogging and finally Harry’s muscles remember the movement he’s done the most since Draco latched onto Harry the second the Wizengamot acquitted him.
Harry thrashes, flinging his limbs about until he’s free.
He hates not touching Draco anymore.
“Merlin’s nipples,” Pansy says from the door of the workroom. “Did the two of you have yourselves a duel?”
Harry flees to the storage closet.
It’s not really a conscious decision. One second he’s staring at Pansy Parkinson, who looks ridiculously pleased, and the next second he’s in the supply closet, bent double with his hands on his knees and trying not to pass out.
“What the fuck,” he wheezes. “Oh, God, what the fuck? What’s happening? What am I doing? Jesus, this is the closet.”
Harry pulls himself upright and paces about the closet, which is much bigger than it seemed like it would be. There are shelves in here, and some wooden crates, and Harry with his boner.
“We just snogged,” he hisses at one of the shelves. “Like, so hard! What are we supposed to do now? How are we supposed to live together? Am I high? Jesus, did I get high?”
The stuff on the shelves doesn’t answer him.
Harry pulls his jumper over his head. His shirt comes with it. He paces about the closet a few more times with the jumper and shirt wrapped around his hands like one of those Victorian muffs or whatever they’re called.
Something taps his back.
It’s the hat.
He’s still got the hat on.
The hat, with its long tail and its furry ball at the tip.
Draco must’ve lightly charmed it so it won’t come off for just anything, like Harry going mad and snogging Draco.
But they both snogged each other, didn’t they? It wasn’t all Harry. Draco was at least half of it.
Someone raps on the closet door.
It’s not Draco. He would burst in without knocking, probably with a huge mug of hot chocolate.
“Potter,” Pansy calls through the door. “Are you quite well?”
“Yeah,” he answers, voice catching.
“What are you doing in the closet?”
“Er—studying.”
“Studying what?”
“Curse-breaking.”
“Really? In the closet?”
“Yeah.” Harry’s voice fully breaks.
The closet door opens. Pansy barges in and shuts the door behind her. She tosses a Lumos into a corner. Now fully exposed, Harry lifts his Victorian-vest-jumper-muff to his chest.
“My days,” Pansy says, laying her hand delicately at her neck. “Do you always study in the nude, Potter?”
“I’m not in the nude.”
“A minor exaggeration. You do have jeans on. And that hat!”
“Shut up about my hat!”
“It’s lovely. It suits you!”
“Why are you here?”
“To interview for the position, naturally.” Pansy’s skin—a sort of fawn shade—pinkens in the light of her Lumos. Her eyes—hazel, maybe—sparkle with amusement or whatever it is a person feels when they walk into a curse-breaking agency and antique shop with no warning and interrupt the best snog of Harry’s life. “I suppose I’ll start with a brief overview of my CV. I think you’ll find that my experience makes me the ideal candidate for—”
“We just snogged,” Harry’s mouth says. Doesn’t feel connected to his brain. “We just actually bloody snogged. Like. So much.”
Pansy’s eyes go wide for a split second. She lets out a tiny squeak, then clears her throat. “How was it?”
“Bloody brilliant,” Harry admits, feeling insane. “I think I might’ve gone mad. I might secretly be high.”
Pansy cocks her head on an angle, sweeping her eyes over Harry. “I don’t think so, Potter. I think you’ve only got a bit…overwarm.”
Harry stares at Pansy.
She stares back at him.
“Draco did a Crucio on Tiberius Rowle to protect me,” says Harry.
Pansy glances at her nails. “I wouldn’t rule it out.”
“If a Dark Lord showed up—”
Pansy gives Harry a flat look. “That wasn’t a personal attack, Potter. It was only a slip of the tongue.”
“Someone grab him!” Harry says, matching her accent as best he can.
“Someone should have!” Pansy argues. “As if you weren’t going to nobly sacrifice yourself for the good of the world, Gryffindor that you are.”
“But if it happened again—”
“I would do a Crucio, all right? I might throw in a hex or two as a garnish.”
Pansy looks like she means it.
She also hasn’t really taken the piss about Harry’s hat or his shirtlessness, and she could have.
“Fine, whatever.” Harry says. “You can work here.”
“Draco already made a formal offer, but I do so appreciate the endorsement. Shall I let you get changed? Yes, I think so.”
Pansy slips back out of the closet before Harry can fire her.
When Harry’s got his shirt and jumper back on, he counts to ten and stomps out of the closet.
He’s not actually annoyed—Harry’s pretty sure he’s not annoyed—but he’s got to stomp to get through it.
The workroom’s empty.
Harry finds Pansy in the main room, setting out a decorative chunk of wood next to the register. She takes three pine cones out of her pocket, arranges them on the block, then adds a little glass jar with a Lumos in it.
“Er,” says Harry. “What are you doing?”
“Adding a touch of yuletide festivity.”
Pansy pulls a sprig of holly berries out of her pocket next and adds them to her weird decorative slab of wood.”
“Er,” says Harry. “Where’s Draco?”
“Oh, he took himself off to St Mungo’s.” Pansy nudges the jar a bit to one side. “There.”
Harry bolts for the door so fast he smashes into it a bit, then whirls around to face Pansy.
She’s arranging another sprig of berries on her wood slab.
“Are you coming?” Harry can’t believe Pansy’s still standing there! Yeah, Draco takes himself to St Mungo’s all the bloody time, but he usually does it sort of sneakily. Harry doesn’t have the time to work out how one snog changed his feelings this drastically. Maybe it was the curse-breaking after all. “Merlin’s Christ, Pansy, are you coming?”
Pansy drops one final sprig of berries onto her arrangement. “Yes, yes, I’m coming, Potter. Keep your knickers on.”
Draco’s sat on a bed, dangling his legs off the side and smiling peacefully when Harry gets to his room at St Mungo’s. Harry’s first because he jogged a bit.
“What the fuck, Draco?” he pants. “You could’ve said!”
“Does this look like a joke to you, Potter?” Draco asks dreamily.
“Was it that bad?”
“Was what bad?” Draco hasn’t even opened his eyes.
“The snogging! Is that why you came here? It was so bad you freaked out? Because I’m freaking out! I stripped!”
Draco perks up without opening his eyes. “When?”
“In the closet! What’s even happening? Was that the curse? Were we cursed? Did I curse us? Was it those elves?”
“Hey, mate.” Ron comes into the room, looking steady and grown-up and normal. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. I’ve got my clothes on, don’t I?”
“‘Course you do.” Ron pats Harry’s shoulder. “If you wanted to—”
“It was a cracking kiss,” says Draco. “Jolly good, you might say.”
“Who would say that?”
“I would, of course.”
God, that’s a relief.
But is Harry only relieved because—
“Ron,” Harry says urgently. “Am I secretly high?”
“He’s not.” Pansy enters with a flourish of robes and heads straight for Ron, her hand out. “So pleased to see you again, Healer Weasley.”
Ron takes Pansy’s hand automatically, and then he kisses her knuckles. When he straightens up again, he’s so red that Harry wonders if they should call a Healer. Like, a different Healer.
“Pansy,” Ron says, pulling himself together. “Nice to see you, too. Right, mate—where are you?”
“Literally here,” Harry says from his spot next to Ron.
“Right! Let’s see if you’re high. If you’re okay. Won’t take a minute.”
Notes:
Day Seven—Pine Cones on a Wooden Platter
Chapter Text
Harry is not high.
Not even a little.
“What?” he says to Ron, who’s looking less like a tomato now that he’s focused on Harry and not Pansy. “What do you mean? I feel high.”
“You’re not, mate.” Ron studies his Diagnostic Charms again, moving his eyes really slowly so Harry can see he’s actually checking them out. Harry keeps telling Ron he doesn’t have to do that, but he keeps doing it anyway. “Did something happen that would make you think—”
“Did he tell you?”
Harry dragged Ron into a different room for all this, so he feels pretty comfortable getting straight to the point. Straight-ish. He could’ve asked five minutes ago, but Harry couldn’t get the words to come out.
“Did who tell me what?” Ron asks.
“Did Draco tell you what happened?”
“He told me…” Ron gazes into the air above his Diagnostic. “How’d he say it? He said the two of you shared an intense moment of celebration because you broke your first curse.”
“That wasn’t—”
Ron holds up a hand. “Your first curse that wasn’t a Horcrux or left lying about by a Snatcher or one of the Death Eaters.”
“Yeah,” Harry says, probably too forcefully. “I mean—yeah. I did. And then we fucking kissed, Ron. We snogged all over the workroom. I don’t even know what would’ve happened if Pansy hadn’t walked in!”
Ron considers Harry. “Probably a nice shag, mate. Maybe a blowjob?”
Harry staggers over to the bed at the side of the room and folds halfway over it, breathing hard. “What the fuck, Ron? Why would you say that?”
“Because usually—know what? Never mind. Are you lightheaded? I can help you onto the bed if you are.”
“I’m not lightheaded,” Harry says, just as the bed tilts underneath him. Or maybe it’s the room tilting around him. “I’m just dizzy. All the blood went out of my brain.”
Oh, Jesus, he’s got another boner.
If this keeps happening, what’s Harry supposed to do? Come to St Mungo’s like Draco? Tell Ron about his boners?
“No, no, no,” he moans pathetically into the sheets.
“Merlin’s great magic,” says Draco from what Harry thinks is the doorway. “Potter, whatever are you doing? Don’t tell me it’s come to wanking in front of Weasley.”
Harry’s startle is so strong that it turns into a thrash. His knees have gone all wonky from his erection, so instead of thrashing further onto the bed, Harry slides off the side and lands in a heap on the floor.
“Harry!” Ron’s at Harry’s side in seconds. “Maybe I should admit you. This is—”
“Don’t.” Harry rolls feebly away from Ron, angling the bulge in his jeans as far under the bed as he can. “Don’t, Ron. It’s too late for me.”
Back at Grimmauld, Harry flees to the shower.
He’s got no sense of time passing. Harry gets flashes of the black-and-white shower tiles, then immediately submerges himself in—
They’re not daydreams. They’re more like rehearsals.
He vividly rehearses striding into the kitchen—not nearly falling down the stairs—knocking whatever pots and pans are Levitating down to the floor and saying listen, Draco, we’ve got to discuss this like adults.
That seems like it would end in Harry laughing until he passes out. Draco might, too.
He vividly rehearses kicking Draco’s bedroom door in and saying listen, Draco, we’ve got to Obliviate ourselves.
That seems like it would end in them actually attempting to Obliviate each other, and medicinally high people shouldn’t Obliviate other people.
They shouldn’t, shouldn’t they?
No. Definitely not.
He vividly rehearses tipping Draco’s chin up from—where would Draco be?—he’d probably be sat in a chair or something in the sitting room, drinking hot chocolate he made for himself and not for Harry, and when Harry stares deeply into his eyes, he’ll—
He’ll probably spill hot chocolate all over himself.
The scenarios get more vivid and more ridiculous until—out of nowhere—Harry vividly rehearses the two of them running through a burning-down Grimmauld Place. Harry would push Draco out the door ahead of him, and Draco would turn around and say Potter, no! and the door would slam shut, trapping Harry inside.
“What the fuck,” he says to the shower tiles, and realises he’s covered in soap suds. When did he even lather himself? Harry can’t remember.
He rinses off, gets out of the shower, and gets dressed without a single boner.
It’s just gone three in the afternoon. Harry sort of expected it to be the middle of the night. He wouldn’t be too surprised to find out that days passed while he was in the shower.
No days have passed.
It’s still the same day that he and Draco snogged in the workroom.
Harry had vividly rehearsed loads of striding, but his legs get all weak as soon as he hits the stairs. He wobbles his way down, his heart beating madly. It’s beating higher than usual, too. Somewhere in his throat area.
It’s not silent downstairs, but Harry’s pulse is too loud for him to identify exactly where Draco is.
“Draco,” he calls, and his voice completely gives out midway through.
Was that normal? Was that how he called for Draco before they snogged?
Maybe he did it, like, annoyed.
“Draco,” he calls again, trying to snap a bit in a normal way. It doesn’t work. No snap goes into Draco’s name. Harry just sounds like he’s anxious to find Draco and snog him again.
Which he’s not.
Which he…is?
“In here,” Draco calls back. He doesn’t sound annoyed with Harry at all, but that’s normal, because Draco’s always high.
“Where?” Harry calls.
“The sitting room,” Draco sings back.
Harry’s wobbly legs miss the next step. He only manages to catch himself at the landing.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he says. “You defeated Tommy!”
“Are you talking to yourself again, Potter, or is Pansy out there with you?”
Harry gets as much oxygen into his lungs as he possibly can. This is a bit like walking into the Forest, only Harry’s pretty sure he’s not going to die this time. All he’s got to do is get to the bottom of the situation. Figure out where they snog.
Where they stand. With each other. Now that they’ve snogged.
“Draco,” he practices under his breath. Feels like miles to the sitting room. “We’ve got to discuss this like adults. Give me some gillyweed, and then we’ll both be—no. We’ve got to discuss this like adults.” Harry keeps repeating we’ve got to discuss this like adults to build up his confidence. “I have confidence,” he says in the last few steps before the door. “I have confidence. I am confident. I am an adult. I am Harry Potter.”
Harry plants himself in the doorway to the sitting room. It’s his last-second plan not to look at Draco, since looking at Draco usually ends with Draco taking Harry’s face in his hands and staring deeply into Harry’s eyes, and Harry will never get this out if he’s got to do it while Draco’s staring deeply and highly into Harry’s eyes.
Unfortunately, Draco’s dead centre in the sitting room, directly in front of Harry’s eyes. He’s also in motion, sweeping about the outer edge of a rug shaped like a rose, his dressing-gown flowing and billowing and all sorts of fabric things. He’s got a weirdly shaped glass in one hand with some sort of red drink inside—probably a weird pureblood Yule cocktail and medicinal gillyweed—and keeps it perfectly balanced as he sweep-paces.
Harry can’t help it.
He looks at Draco.
Harry’s hours of rehearsal turn into wisps and waft out of his mind like snowflakes. All he can remember is looking down at his cock in the shower and wondering how it would feel if Draco, like, stroked him.
“Listen,” Harry says with what feels like his entire chest. Draco whirls to a stop on the other side of the rug, somehow putting down the glass mid-whirl. When he stops, his hands go to his cheeks, and his eyes go wide and sparkly. He is still wearing Harry’s fucking mittens, although the hat’s gone. Draco’s dressing gown whirls for an extra half-second before it settles around him. Right now, it’s the colour of the afternoon sky, with white clouds soaring across the front, and when the sun sets, it’ll look like a sunset, and when it’s night, it’s covered in stars, and when the sun rises, it’s a bloody sunrise. Harry has seen this dressing gown on Draco at pretty much all phases of the day and night. The pattern accelerates before his eyes. Sunset. Night. Sunrise. Dawn. Noon. Afternoon. But that might be Harry’s brain. “I think we should shag.”
Nothing moves except the pattern on Draco’s dressing gown, which moves very slowly to match the sky outside, so it barely seems like it’s moving at all.
What did Harry just say?
Did he say I think we should shag?
That isn’t what he meant to say! That isn’t what he practiced!
He turns to flee, but there’s nowhere he can go in Grimmauld Place that will keep Draco out.
Harry turns back around. Draco is still staring at him. His cheeks have got pink above his mittens.
“I’m Harry Potter,” Harry wheezes.
“Of course you are.” Draco drags his hands slowly down his cheeks, then drops his arms to his sides. “Potter, simply for my own understanding—have you just propositioned me?”
No.
“Yeah,” Harry croaks. “I did. Because. Of research. Careers.”
Draco flutters his eyelashes confusedly at Harry. “You’ve decided to make a career of sex work?”
“No. No. I meant—because of the shop. Because of kissing each other. I think we should do…a curse-breaking experiment.”
“You want to have sex while you’re cursed?”
“No! No! You said it was a cracking kiss! I thought it was c-cracking, too! I almost came in my pants! That doesn’t normally happen with kisses! But you’re supposed to, like, repeat the experiment! To see if it works again!”
Draco goes back into elegant-thinking mode and sweeps across the rug and across the hardwood floor, his hands raised to the height of Harry’s face.
Harry’s body jerks like it always does when Draco’s coming at him like this, only—
It jerks towards Draco instead of away.
Harry might be feeling some academic desperation. That’s probably it. He’s academically desperate for Draco to touch his face, because in Harry’s ridiculous life, that’s what counts as normal.
He wonders for a second if he’ll come to his senses when Draco actually touches him.
Then Draco’s mittened hands are on Harry’s face, and a tension in Harry’s shoulders that he’d never noticed before rinses off him.
“Merlin’s Jesus,” says Harry.
This is a thing that’s happening.
Draco looks deeply into Harry’s eyes from, like, three inches away.
“Potter,” Draco says, his voice low and solemn. Harry’s cock twitches. Once again, he’s fully hard. “Rest assured that it will work a second time. Perhaps a hundred times.”
“Right.”
“However, I admire and encourage your commitment to academic—dare I say scientific—enquiry.”
“Er…thanks?”
“We should proceed with the utmost rigor,” Draco says.
“Dunno what that means.”
Draco leans in, and Harry forgets all about his commitment to academic enquiry.
Notes:
Day Eight—Festive Drinks in Coupe Glasses
Chapter Text
It works a second time.
The snogging, Harry means.
He’s got Draco’s fancy dressing gown in his fists and Draco—he’s pretty sure it was Draco, because Harry’s not conscious of Banishing anything—has got Harry’s glasses on some table or other and their hips are definitely pressed together by the time it occurs to Harry that he just blurted out I almost came in my pants and then made it seem like coming in his pants would be proof the kiss was working.
Harry feels like that might happen.
He might actually come in his pants.
His cock is extremely hard, but that’s, like, the least of it.
Harry’s a bit shocked to find out—again, so it must be real—that the kiss is a full-body experience. His skin everywhere is tingling, not only on and around his cock. He’s getting enough oxygen to actually, like breathe, which Harry didn’t think was even a problem before. He’s wildly invested in this kiss—like, Harry burns with curiosity. He needs to know how Draco’s going to kiss him next.
Academically, that’s loads better than Harry’s other kiss experiences. The times with Cho and Ginny made Harry too aware of his mouth and the weird kissing sounds that were happening.
Harry doesn’t care about any weird kissing sounds right now.
He only cares about keeping Draco close to him.
Keeping Draco close to him feels really good.
It doesn’t make any sense, and it makes loads of sense, and sense doesn’t really matter when there’s this much heat between them.
Harry stops thinking about how weird and annoying Draco is. He might’ve stopped thinking completely, actually, and he’s not sure when that was, but for a glorious minute or two, it doesn’t matter.
Harry’s all nerve endings and no thoughts. He’s all body and no brain.
Draco presses Harry just a bit harder into the doorframe, readjusting somehow so their cocks rub together through their clothes.
Harry comes in his pants.
It’s so intense that Harry basically stops breathing. He knows he’s making noise—mostly into Draco’s mouth, because the kiss is still happening—and has no way to stop it or make it quieter.
Also, it’s been a long time since Harry came in his pants.
He’s sort of shocked at the sticky wet heat and how his hips are still trying to rut against Draco, and that’s like—
That’s not fair.
That’s not equal.
That’s not a good experiment or enquiry or whatever.
Harry drops to his knees, fumbling at Draco’s trousers.
“Oh, God,” he wheeze-breathes at the buttons and zip, which do not want to open for him. “Jesus Merlin’s tits.”
Harry can’t start thinking again right now. He can’t. He has come in his pants. He came without even touching his dick with his hand. Draco didn’t even touch Harry’s dick.
This is what has become of Harry Potter. He’s the Boy Who Came in His Pants Because of Draco Malfoy, and he’s really starting to freak out.
Draco slides his hands—still in Harry’s mittens, oh God—down to Harry’s face from above.
“Oh, no.” Harry leans his forehead on Draco’s hip and grasps the sides of his trousers to keep himself upright. “Oh, God, I’m Harry Potter.”
“You are indeed,” Draco coos, and Harry lets his head rest more heavily against Draco’s leg. He doesn’t like cooing. He doesn’t like that he’s starting to find it, like, soothing in any way. He doesn’t like that his cock stirs even though he literally just came in his pants. “It’s all right, mon éclair.”
“I came in my pants.”
“And you did it beautifully.”
Harry heaves in an open-mouthed breath through Draco’s trousers. His new erection gets harder. This is just Draco being weird and annoying. He wasn’t even looking at Harry when Harry came in his pants—they were snogging. And there’s the medicinal gillyweed of it all!
But Harry’s innards don’t care about weird and annoying.
All Harry’s innards care about is how beautifully he came in his pants.
And how gently Draco’s touching his cheek.
He nuzzles his face into Draco’s trousers, not knowing what he’s searching for until he skims his nose over the hard outline of Draco’s cock.
“Oh,” Harry exhales over the ridge that’s just there, through, like—what? Trousers and pants, maximum. “You meant it.”
“Of course I meant it, you silly man. Have yourself a lovely deep breath, wouldn’t you? Perhaps two, if you feel—ah! Isn’t that better? Yes, I think it is. Now—let me help you.”
Draco glides one of his mittens under Harry’s chin a bit, and then he’s undoing his buttons and zip with his other mittened hand. A tiny part of Harry screeches why would you do that with mittens on? Then it screeches how did you do that with mittens on? Then it shuts up or passes out, because Draco takes his cock out.
Harry has seen dicks before, obviously. He’s seen loads of dicks as, like, a matter of course. He attended boarding school.
This is different.
He pushes away the nagging thought that he’s somehow secretly high and Ron didn’t notice and just…
Lets himself look.
Harry doesn’t know how he’s supposed to do anything else.
Draco’s got the prettiest cock Harry’s ever seen.
It’s long and a bit narrower than Harry’s, and Draco’s skin there is pale like the rest of him. It’s got a rosy flush—pretty—and Draco’s tip is all pink and starting to peek out of his foreskin.
Harry feels possessed. Like, actually possessed, because he wants to see Draco wrap his hand around his cock and stroke it.
While he is wearing Harry’s green mittens.
And that’s mental. That’s mad. Harry shouldn’t want to see his green mittens on any cock, but especially not Draco’s.
Except he does want it.
Before Harry can slump to the floor and fully lose his mind, a stronger urge elbows the weird mitten thing out of the way.
Harry wants to see his own hand on Draco’s cock.
He’s already breathing on it from, like, two inches away, but touching seems like a bigger step.
“Can I,” Harry starts, his mouth watering.
“Yes, of course,” says Draco, and strokes Harry’s face.
Harry’s hand shakes as he reaches for Draco’s cock.
Then he wraps his fingers around it and discovers it’s not just his hand, it’s all of Harry.
He grips Draco’s thigh for support, takes a few breaths, and works Draco’s foreskin back to expose more of his tip.
“Jesus, you’re all pink.” Harry’s choked up. He didn’t think he was going to cry over a beautiful cock, but there are worse things to cry about, probably.
“Rather shiny, too,” Draco comments, sounding pleased.
“Yeah,” Harry says, even more choked.
A pearly bead of precum appears at Draco’s tip, and Harry just can’t. He can’t. He can’t not kiss it.
He bows his head, feeling sort of like he’s in church, and laps up the precum.
It’s a kiss of salt on his tongue. The sound Draco makes is a totally different flavour. Harry feels it in his sternum and in his pelvis and just about everywhere.
He gives Draco’s tip a lingering lick-kiss just to hear that sound again.
It works.
It really works, and once Harry’s heard it a second time, it’s pretty much over for him.
He does not care about anything in the world other than getting that sound out of Draco.
Harry’s never done an academic enquiry like the one he does on Draco’s cock.
He wants to try everything at once, but that’s not a good hypothesis or whatever. Harry’s got to try one thing at a time, but that’s sort of the academic, like, conundrum, isn’t it? His hand and his mouth are already involved. That’s two things Harry’s doing at once.
Merlin’s Jesus.
It’s impossible.
Harry abandons the spirit of the scientific method. This enquiry is about sucking Draco off.
It doesn’t take long to find a rhythm for Harry’s hand and his mouth that gets him what he wants—that sound, holy bollocks. Thinking about bollocks reminds Harry that he has two hands.
He bravely lets go of Draco’s thigh and pulls Draco’s trousers and pants down to get access to Draco’s bollocks.
That gets Harry an even greater range of sounds. Harry can hardly describe them because he mostly feels them through his mouth and soul, but bits of the actual noise break through his flow state every so often and imprint themselves on Harry’s brain.
For a little while, Harry forgets his long-term goal of sulking for an entire calendar year. He forgets why he wanted to sulk in the first place. He forgets his body, except where it’s pulses of pleasure.
Harry concentrates so hard on his blowjob technique that he sinks even deeper into the all-body-no-brain-pure-sensation existence he briefly visited before.
It’s amazing.
He wants to stay here forever.
Can Harry stay here forever?
That would be better than sulking. He can’t sulk here, anyway. Sulking is for people who have loads of thoughts about the world and about their beds, and Harry is not that sort of person at the moment.
He pays extremely close attention to how Draco’s hand—inside the green mitten—tightens and relaxes on Harry’s cheek and a bit of his chin. That tells Harry all the information he needs to know.
“Yuletide bells,” Draco says from what feels like a great distance over Harry’s head. “Oh—yes. Accio Harry’s hat.”
Accio Harry’s hat doesn’t register until Draco lets go of Harry’s face for a second or two, and then—
He’s putting Harry’s ridiculous hat on him.
The person Harry used to be would scream and stop doing the blowjob, but the person Harry is now frowns a bit—mostly in his brow, to keep from disrupting the blowjob—and lets it happen.
If Draco wants this hat on him, who is Harry to scream about it?
And…
Why would he scream when it feels nice?
The person Harry used to be would fall to the floor in complete horror if Draco put a hat on Harry while Harry was actively giving Draco a blowjob, but the person Harry is now—
Draco leans in closer. Harry stops thinking about the hat. His head is pleasantly warm. More precum lands on Harry’s tongue.
He is at one with his blowjob flow state, so much a part of it that the decision to deep-throat Draco seems like a sacred commandment that’s come down to Harry from heaven or something.
Harry has never deep-throated any cock in his entire life, but he approaches with total confidence and serenity.
It…
Almost works.
Harry’s not expecting Draco’s cock to feel quite so long and hard in his literal throat. He gags a bit, his eyes watering.
“I’m Harry Potter,” he says around Draco’s cock, and tries again.
Harry manages what feels like a decent amount of deep-throating.
Then Draco pulls out a bit and comes directly on Harry’s tongue.
It’s the hottest thing that’s ever happened to Harry, and it ends with Draco pulling Harry up from the floor and kissing him for a long time.
Takes a bit for Harry to understand that Draco’s kissing Harry down from something. Or up from something. He floats or rises—Harry can’t really tell—back into his body.
When Harry’s finally there, Draco’s, like, three inches from his face, watching him with an expression that’s too serious for a person who’s medicinally high all the time.
“Er,” Harry says, then becomes double-aware of his body and his pounding heart and his trembling hands. “I’m freaking out.”
“Shh,” Draco says, looking deeply into Harry’s eyes. “You’re not in any danger. Think of the evergreen tree.”
Notes:
Day Nine—Single Evergreen Tree
Chapter 10
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“What?” Harry can’t think about an evergreen tree right now. He doesn’t even know why Draco dragged him to see the evergreen tree he’s talking about, which is—like the shop he bought and the house he also dragged Harry to—near Godric’s Hollow. Harry’s short of breath. How is thinking of one random evergreen tree supposed to help? “I’m freaking out and its just a bloody tree! I barely remember it!”
“But you must.” Draco leans closer, his eyes huge pools of silver-grey. “You must, Potter.”
“Why?” Harry whinges.
“Think of it,” Draco whispers, and closes his eyes. He looks sort of saintlike and ecstatic, which on the one hand is good, because Harry just gave him a blowjob and deep-throated him, and on the other hand is extremely weird, because Harry doesn’t think even medicinal gillyweed could make him feel saintlike and ecstatic with his trousers undone and his prick hanging out. “A mature, majestic evergreen tree in a white stretch of snow.”
Harry stares at Draco’s face and lips. He’s got a different feeling in his chest from the general annoyance he’s lived with for nearly three years. It’s also different from his newfound academic curiosity. It’s warmer than academic curiosity, but a bit scratchy, like Harry’s annoyance used to be. There’s a bit of a tugging sensation as well.
“Freshly fallen snow rests gently on the boughs,” Draco continues, his eyes still closed. “Yet more white mist fills the air behind the tree, making it seem as if the snowy field goes on forever.”
Harry shivers. “This sounds sort of creepy.”
“Creepy!” Draco’s eyes fly open wide. He’s giving Harry his best shocked, angelic expression, and Harry doesn’t want to kick anything. He wants to keep observing Draco’s expression. Maybe his academic curiosity is, like, intensifying. “No, Potter. The tree isn’t creepy, and neither is the field. It’s…”
“White?” Harry suggests. “Because it’s misty and snowy and nothing else?”
“Virginal,” whispers Draco.
“Oh my bollocks God, Draco.” Harry’s got no explanation for the scorching heat covering his cheeks except for Draco’s—Harry’s—green mittens. He scoffs a couple times, then can’t keep looking at Draco’s angelic face. “Virginal,” Harry huffs in the direction of Draco’s trousers and pants. “You are so weird.”
“Unsullied,” Draco whispers.
“Stop it.”
“The snow, Potter! The snow! Not a single footprint mars its surface. This wide expanse has never been touched by—”
“A dick?”
“A pair of boots,” Draco says, his lips slightly pursed. The feeling in Harry’s chest gets warmer and scratchier. Harry’s beginning to think he might like this specific weird thing Draco does where he says stuff with his lips like that. Nobody else has ever talked to Harry that way. “No dragonhide or Muggle rubber has crushed the delicate flakes, each one a miniscule—”
Harry starts putting Draco back in order. He casts a couple wandless Cleansing Charms—ah! Draco says softly—then pulls his pants up and tucks his cock back in.
“It’s not goodbye forever.” Draco gives Harry’s face a gentle squeeze, and Harry looks up from his current project to discover that Draco’s pouting at him with big eyes.
And that’s because Harry is pouting at Draco with big eyes.
He didn’t know he could make that face about a penis.
Draco smiles at him, and it’s sort of fond and intimate and some of the person Harry used to be comes stumbling back in.
“God,” he says under his breath, and moves on to Draco’s trousers. “Why do you wear, like, fancy dress under your dressing gown?”
“Potter. Are you having a laugh? This is not fancy dress. This outfit would not be considered formal under any circumstances.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got a dressing gown on.”
“But of course I do.” A bit of concern is entering Draco’s tone. “I was—”
“Doing elegant thinking, I know.” Harry’s not having much luck with Draco’s trousers. Frustration shoots through him, too hot and too fast. Harry grits his teeth so hard it hurts, but he’s just recently come in his pants, so he’s got the clarity of mind to relax his jaw and, like, take a breath.
“Well done, you,” Draco says, quietly proud.
Harry wants to scoff but doesn’t want to be an arsehole. “Thanks.”
He tries one more time and gets Draco’s buttons and zip done, then checks Draco over.
Something’s missing.
“Accio Harry’s hat,” Harry says.
The tail of Harry’s hat pulls lightly on the cap part like it’s reminding him that he has the hat on already.
A slow, joyful smile spreads across Draco’s face until his dimple is fully showing.
The feeling in Harry’s chest does a sort of flapping, flying thing.
Harry lets out a deep sigh. “Accio Draco’s hat.”
The green hat that used to be Harry’s soars towards them down the hall. Somehow, even with Grimmauld Place all around them, with bedrooms and sofas and loads of other furniture, he and Draco ended up in the sitting room doorway. Harry gave Draco an entire blowjob in the doorway for no reason.
Harry catches the green hat. Draco bends his knees just a little so Harry can put it on him, smiling hugely the whole time.
Then he drags his mittened hands down to Harry’s neck, then down to his shoulders, then down to his waist.
Harry watches this happen—and feels it happen—without wanting to thrash at all.
Draco’s pretty good at touching Harry, actually. He’s weird about it, but he never tickles Harry, which would send him into an angry fit of thrashing. He might even kick a pan or something.
Draco brushes his mittens over Harry’s jeans, which is the moment Harry realises he’s doing wandless magic.
It’s gentler than how Draco squeezes Harry’s face. Harry leans into it automatically.
And Draco—still smiling like this is the best day of his life—turns his hands over and gives Harry’s cock an affectionate pat through his clothes.
“What now, mon trésor?” Draco asks conspiratorially. “Shall we go dancing?”
It’s the middle of the afternoon, so Harry’s got no idea where Draco thinks they’re going to find a club that’s not weird, but Harry’s got the strong feeling that he should go sulk in his bed under his blankets, and for the first time since the war, it doesn’t seem right.
It’s not the sort of thing that Harry wants to dwell on, though. If there’s something weird or not right about the sulking habit Draco won’t let him have, then he’d rather not have any revelations about it now.
“Yeah,” says Harry. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go dancing.”
Draco lets out a high, clear laugh, takes Harry’s face in his mittens again, and kisses both Harry’s cheeks. Harry doesn’t know if Draco’s planning to kiss him on the mouth, but he recommits to academic enquiry anyway and grabs Draco for another go.
Kissing someone while they’re laughing—kissing Draco while he’s laughing—is lovelier than Harry realised it would be. About ten seconds in, Harry wonders if he’s going to tumble into his blowjob flow state again, but Harry’s honestly too delighted by it to do anything but laugh.
Once Draco realises that Harry’s tickled—in a good way—he starts to make a game of it. He traps Harry in the doorway and keeps kissing him from different angles, occasionally bending his head to kiss Harry’s neck and his jaw and the curve of his shoulder.
“Jesus Merlin’s arsehole,” Harry gasps after a long time. His belly aches from laughing. “I thought we were dancing!”
Draco puts on his shocked-angel expression. “Are we not?”
“I guess we…sort of are?”
“Indeed,” Draco says in a weird, sensual tone. “Shall we go? Only if you’re quite finished adoring me, of course.”
They do get ready to go—Draco switches his dressing gown for a jumper, and Harry needs a jumper too, and they both need coats to survive outside. Also, Draco insists on Harry wearing his red mittens, so it’s another half-hour before they actually leave.
Harry thinks about adoring Draco for the full half-hour.
Does he?
Adore Draco?
Because that’s a thing Draco’s said to him ever since he barged in on Harry’s life, and Harry assumed Draco was taking the piss or just high on medicinal gillyweed.
Has he adored Draco all along?
“Merlin’s great magic, Potter,” Draco shouts from the front door. He’s got it wide open, and he’s letting snow drift into the entryway. “Shall I take you by the hand?”
“Shut up,” Harry says out of habit. He’s got himself all the way to the kitchen stairs and hasn’t the faintest why he came over here.
“I simply shan’t,” says Draco, and glides over to Harry before Harry can insist he doesn’t need literal hand-holding. Then Draco’s got Harry’s hand in a firm grip, and Harry’s boots are squeaking on the floor, and they’re both laughing again.
“God, you are so weird!” Harry says some forty minutes later while they’re standing in Departures at the Portkey Office. “I thought you meant dancing in London!”
Draco flutters his eyelashes at Harry. “Whyever would I have meant London?”
“Because we live in London.”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon in London!”
“I know! But I still thought—”
“Malfoy-Potter,” the Departures attendant calls.
“Here!” Draco calls back, waving ridiculously. “That’s the two of us here.”
“That’s not our name,” Harry says urgently as Draco drag-glides him past the attendant and into Departure Room Five. “We don’t have a hyphenated—I don’t know why he—”
“Travel safely,” the attendant says distractedly, and Draco hauls Harry the rest of the way into the room. He stands Harry on the flagstone circle in the centre of the floor and fetches their Portkey—a tiny keychain shaped like an old-fashioned lantern—from the shelf on the wall.
Harry crosses his arms over his chest. “Why did you do that?”
“To save time, you silly man.” Draco glides into the circle with Harry. He’s biting his lip, trying to hide that he’s giggling, and it’s one of the most adorable things Harry has ever seen.
“They could’ve just said two names. It doesn’t take that long to say Harry Potter. Or you could’ve just said Draco Malfoy.”
“Merlin’s bells,” Draco says. “I was mistaken. I thought we had a full minute before the Portkey activated!”
“How long do we—”
Draco jumps practically on top of Harry midway through his sentence, latching on tighter than he ever has, and they’re gone.
“See?” Draco points ahead of the sleigh they’re riding in. “Auroras!”
“I can’t believe you brought us to the North Pole.”
“Of course I did, Potter! They’ve got polar night!”
“We’re in a fucking sleigh!”
“Oh, Potter—are you afraid of the reindeer? Think of them as cows.”
“Why would I do that? I’m not afraid of reindeer! I’m—I’m—”
Harry doesn’t know what he is. That’s sort of the problem. His heart is beating hard and fast and he sort of wants to have a bit of a strop, but maybe he doesn’t.
Draco slides closer to him under the heap of blankets the sleigh attendant threw on them before he activated the charm that, like, guides the reindeer or something. “That’s the sensation of anticipation, Potter. You’re excited.”
No, I’m not, Harry’s going to say, but he doesn’t, because Draco’s right.
It turns out there’s a wizarding club at the North Pole called Claus-ify.
They Shrink all their winter things to fit in their pockets except their hats. Harry’s got no idea if they’re wearing them seriously or as a joke. He decides it doesn’t matter.
The ceiling is charmed to show the northern lights, and all the drinks are Christmas-themed. The first one Harry tries tastes like a bubbly, sugary evergreen tree. He shouts that into Draco’s ear.
Draco laughs for five minutes. He’s still laughing when they start dancing.
Harry loves it.
He’d not thought about being somewhere with music loud enough to drown out his brain with loads of people who have got no idea who he is and won’t say anything to the Prophet about his dancing.
At one point, a bloke dressed as Santa sprays Christmas crackers over the crowd. One of them drops into Harry’s hands. When he and Draco pull it, a necklace spews out. It’s meant to look like Muggle tree lights. Harry puts it on Draco, who figures out how to get the lights to do a pattern.
Sometimes, when the lights flash a certain way, Draco’s face looks different. Not much different. Just a bit. Harry’s trying to pin down what’s different when Draco takes his hand and spins him.
“Let’s stay here all night,” Harry shouts, because Draco’s really good at dancing and Harry wants to be here.
Draco dances very close to him. “Let’s.”
Notes:
Day Ten—Reindeer-drawn Sleighs
Claus-ify is a little Sous-ify joke from Creevey's Creature Comforts because I am Like That.
Chapter 11
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
They dance until a mad hour of the morning. It’s definitely past midnight when they leave Claus-ify, although it doesn’t look much different from when they went inside. Everything’s a soft blue colour and there are so many stars in the sky that it could almost be fake.
Harry feels like he’s invisible or Polyjuiced or something.
The world outside the club is dead silent and deafening at the same time. It’s got to be, like, the air. There’s loads of snow everywhere, and barely any buildings compared to London, so the wind sounds massive and uninterrupted. Harry’s skin tingles. He shivers and shivers from the sensation of the club music having got all over him and maybe even inside him.
It’s so weird and sort of perfect.
He’s a bit shell-shocked from how perfect it is. Or possibly from staying up so late. Or possibly from the green-blue-purple auroras waving gently above them, cutting a stream through millions of stars.
It’s not from being drunk or anything. Harry lost track of his evergreen tree drink halfway through and never bothered to get another one. The music was enough to make him feel good. Dancing, also.
Draco helps him step up into one of the sleighs waiting in a line outside the club. An attendant dressed all in green—like an elf—tosses a fresh heap of blankets over their laps.
“Warming Charms,” Harry says senselessly, and slouches down under the blankets.
Draco pats at Harry over the blanket and says something that sounds like mini clam.
That doesn’t seem like something Draco would say, even in his highest state.
“What?”
Draco says it again. Harry doesn’t understand it on the second go, either.
Then Draco leans down to talk to the attendant.
Is he speaking French?
Harry’s honestly not too firm on whether it’s French or just, like, English.
Or actually—
“Hey, Draco?”
“Yes?” Draco says as the sleigh starts to move.
Oh, good. Harry understands that at least.
“Where are we? Not in the ocean.”
Harry learnt once in primary school that the actual North Pole is in the middle of the ocean. But there had been a sign in the Portkey Office where they landed that said North Pole, so Harry took it as fact. Now that all his thoughts are coming slowly and separately, he realises it could’ve been a joke.
“No, not in the ocean, you silly man. That’s Longyearbyen.” Draco points to some twinkling lights in the distance. They’re heading into a valley, sort of. There are mountains about, or maybe just tall glaciers. Maybe both.
“That’s what?”
“Longyearbyen,” Draco repeats. “We’re in Norway.”
Harry nods sagely. They came to Norway because it wasn’t dark enough to dance in London. That’s really the sort of thing that magic should be about. Weird drinks that taste like trees and clubs in places where it’s, like, polar night. The sleigh makes a hushed sound on the snow behind the reindeer. Harry watches the Auroras.
“The sign in the Portkey Office is a cheeky joke for the holidays,” Draco adds, after a minute. “If you visit during other times of the year, the sign simply says Longyearbyen.”
“I can’t tell what you’re saying at all.”
“It’s the name of the town.”
“Well, as long as you know it.”
“I do,” Draco says, and tucks the blankets in a bit more over Harry.
The sleigh drops them at the weirdest hotel Harry has ever seen.
It’s sort of narrow and jutting. Looks tall, but when Harry tips his head back, there’s something not quite tall about it.
“Charmed,” Draco murmurs into his ear. Takes Harry a second or two for the word to mean anything. “But of course you know about forced perspective from your Muggle upbringing.”
“Like the Death Star.”
Draco laughs. “We should go dancing more often if it’s going to bring out such sweet attempts at Death Eater humour. Shall we go and see our room?”
“Jesus Merlin’s mother,” Harry whispers as he follows Draco down the hall on the third floor. “What is this place?”
Draco, who has been laughing since the wix at reception checked them in, stops and leans his head against the door at the end of the hall. It’s at the front of the hotel, weirdly, and the window looks out on the twilight-blue landscape.
“Oh, Potter,” Draco sighs fondly. “We’re seeds.”
“…what?”
“Seeds.” Draco taps his wand on the door, and it opens to let them into their room. He sweeps inside—Harry can’t figure out how he still sweeps when he’s got his coat on and all his winter things—and Harry goes after him.
The door shuts behind Harry. He’s trying his best to understand what in Merlin’s arse Draco’s talking about, but it’s, like, a hotel room.
With one bed.
A big bed, but only one.
And it’s, like, made out of plastic containers. At least, the bottom part that Harry can see is made out of plastic containers with bar codes on them.
“Seeds?” Harry might have got secretly high at the club. He can’t think of another explanation for the bed and whatever seeds Draco’s talking about. “Am I high?”
“No, of course not!” Draco flings his coat in the direction of a coat-hook, then the jumper he’s got on underneath. “Shall we see what we’ve got?”
“Er…”
Dimple-beaming, Draco lifts a shiny card off one of the pillows. “I’ve got noble yarrow.”
“Is that good?”
“It’s wonderful, Potter. Come here and tell me yours!”
Harry walks straight out of his boots. It’s so late, or so early, and he’s probably high. He drops his coat on the floor and goes to the other side of the bed. It’s the side he normally sleeps on in his own bed.
A second shiny card is waiting on the closest pillow.
Harry picks it up.
At first, it seems like proof that he’s definitely high, because he can’t read what’s printed on the card.
Then he realises he’s trying to read the Latin scientific name or whatever and finds the English.
“I got neglected sunflower,” he says. “I can’t. I just—I can’t.”
Harry tosses the card onto the beside table and starts trying to wrestle himself out of his jumper. He gets a bit stuck in it, and then Draco’s cooing very nearby and helping him get out. Harry can’t stop whinging. He’s saying loads of weird stuff, but he can’t stop.
God—he’s got a boner as well.
There’s nothing Harry can do about it. He’s too tired and maybe secretly high, so he doesn’t thrash when Draco takes his glasses and does a charm for his teeth and tucks him in.
For a minute, Harry thinks he might freak out and come in his pants over the one bed thing, but then Draco climbs in next to him. Draco’s full human body feels enough like Harry’s six to eight blankets that he relaxes pretty much instantly and wriggles closer to Draco.
Draco touches Harry’s face.
He’s still wearing Harry’s mittens.
“You wear those in bed?” Harry slurs.
“Shh,” Draco says. “Shall I complain to management?”
“About your own mittens?”
“About your seed.”
“Oh my bollocks God, Draco.”
“Shh, shh,” says Draco, and mitten-strokes Harry’s cheek. “I wasn’t talking about your sperm, mon éclair.”
“Please don’t say sperm.”
“Do you really think it’s so awful?”
“Not, like—Jesus Joseph. Not, like, the actual—just the word.”
“I shan’t say it ever again.”
“I’ve got no idea what’s happening,” Harry whinges. “Why are there seed-cards on the pillows?”
“This hotel is themed to resemble the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. It’s not far from Longyearbyen.”
“How d’you spell that?”
Draco spells it.
“Did you do this on purpose?”
“Did I go to the Portkey Office and book a Portkey to Longyearbyen, Norway on purpose? You’re being quite silly, Potter. Of course I did those things on purpose.”
“Did you get this bed on purpose?”
“Yes.”
“You did?”
“Yes, of course.”
Harry gets the warmer-than-academic-curiosity feeling again. It’s scratchier this time, like breathing in really cold air.
“I’m not abandoned,” he whinges.
“It’s called that because it was discovered recently, as far as flowers are concerned,” Draco says in a sort of fairy-story tone. “The flower wasn’t neglected. It was finding places with sandy soil and full sun, waiting to be discovered.”
“Are you making that up?”
“Not in the slightest. I read it on your card.”
The next thing Harry’s aware of is the bed dipping in front of him.
“Potter,” Draco sings. “Wake up, mon trésor. It’s time to go home.”
“No. Dark.”
“It’s polar night,” says Draco, sounding genuinely sorry. “There’s only a bit of twilight until the end of January, I’m afraid.”
“Tired.”
“Shall I count to three?”
“No.”
“Shall I carry you?”
“No.”
Harry nearly falls asleep again during Draco’s pause.
“Are you quite sure?” Draco asks, directly into Harry’s ear. From the scent of him, he’s already had a bath and got dressed, which seems mad. They’ve barely slept for five seconds! Harry can feel himself getting heavier. He’s not even really trying. It’s just happening, because he does not want to get up. He can’t get up. He’s too tired. And unlike all the other times Draco has woken Harry up in the middle of the night or when he’s trying to sulk, it seems like there’s a reason.
“No,” Harry admits. “Not sure. Not getting up, probably. Unless you do it.”
“Well done, you!” Draco claps his hands. The sound is muffled, so he’s clearly got the mittens on already. Is that sort of thing adorable or just really bloody weird? Harry doesn’t care very much at the moment. “I shall count to three. Prepare yourself!”
Harry is in a fantastically foul mood when they get to the Portkey Office.
“I can’t do this,” he tells Draco, who seems completely unbothered by the bloke who cut in front of them in line and can’t find his transfer schedule. Harry wonders how he found his head when he got up this morning. This twilight. This polar-night-whatever. “I’m going to go mental. I’m leaving.”
“Soon,” Draco says, and dreamily blocks Harry’s way. “Quite soon, Potter.”
“I hate Portkeys. I hate Portkey Offices.”
“I know it.”
“I hate everything. I’m going to sulk for a year when we get back. You can’t stop me, either. I’m just going to do it. And, like, ward the door. Then you have to let me.”
Draco turns his angel-shock face on Harry, which almost distracts him from the bloke who’s even worse than Harry at behaving in society. Harry’s probably about to hit a new low. His hands are all tense and his chest is a mass of frustration that’s making it hard to breathe.
“A full year?”
“Yeah! A year! I’ve been waiting, like, three years already, because—because I don’t know why. You hate sleeping, I guess. Or you love driving me mad.”
“Oh! That’s hardly true. You love when I drive you mad.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. And you’d adore me even more fervently if I was more reasonable about it.”
“Do it, then. Be reasonable. Let me actually be in my bed. For a long time. I need to be in bed for a long time.”
Draco glides across the single step between them and takes Harry’s face in his hands. It’s horrible. Harry only realises how worked up he’s got himself when Draco puts his mittens on his cheeks.
“I’m only telling you this because you adore me,” Draco says.
“You’re not telling me anything.”
“Now I am. You don’t need to be in bed for a long time, Potter. Quite the opposite.”
Out of nowhere, Harry feels like he might cry. “You’re wrong. You’re massively wrong.”
“I’m not,” Draco says, his lips slightly pursed. “I’m the unfortunate victim of the reverse charm effect.”
“What?”
“You’re quite tired, and now we’re having to wait in this awful lighting.” Draco’s eyes don’t look awful in the lighting. They look silver-grey and a bit sparkly and a bit…something else. Harry doesn’t know what. “I dare say you’ll understand when you’ve slept.”
“Understand what? That I don’t need to go to bed?”
Draco leans in until he’s, like, an inch from Harry’s face. “That your true search is for more, not less.”
Then he squeezes Harry’s face extremely gently.
“Malfoy-Potter,” the Norwegian Portkey attendant calls. “Malfoy-Potter? If you’re present, please indicate—”
“We are!” Draco hooks his arm through Harry’s and waves ridiculously, even though the Portkey Office is tiny compared to the one at the Ministry. “Present and accounted for!”
At Grimmauld Place, Harry passes out in his bed.
“Potter,” Draco whispers three seconds later. “We must be off.”
Harry pushes himself violently upright and shrieks a bit. Draco pats his back in a super weird way while Harry rubs his eyes and tries not to totally freak out.
He actually feels…
Decent?
“We already came back,” he says, when he’s sure he won’t be sick or shriek anymore. “We mustn’t be off or whatever.”
“We must,” Draco insists. “We’re due at the Burrow.”
“For what?”
“For the bake-off.”
“What bake—hang on, hang on.” Ron invited them. Molly invited them through Ron. “That’s today?”
“It’s half-eleven.” Draco’s still rubbing Harry’s back. His mitten drags a bit on Harry’s vest. “We’ve got time for you to get changed, and then I thought we could Floo to the Nettle in Ottery St Catchpole and walk from there.”
Harry stares into space.
Why does walking sound good? It’s arse-falling-off cold out, as per.
Maybe it doesn’t matter why it sounds good.
“Yeah, okay.” Harry squints at Draco. He’s got his dressing gown on over his full outfit. “Were you elegant thinking this whole time? I thought you were going to sleep, too.”
“I am always elegant thinking, Potter. It’s a lifestyle choice. Accio Harry’s hat.”
Harry’s ridiculous red hat zooms into his bedroom at top speed. Draco whisks it out of the air and puts it on Harry fast.
Then he seems a bit surprised.
Then he seems a bit delighted.
Or maybe he just seems high, like he always bloody is.
“Thanks,” Harry says, even though he’s got to take the hat off in ten seconds to wash his hair.
“You’re welcome,” Draco whispers, and kisses his cheek.
The snow is lovelier in Ottery St Catchpole. Now that Harry thinks of it, the snow is lovelier in Godric’s Hollow, too. Draco walks backwards ahead of Harry once they’re out of the Nettle & Lark, sending piles of snow into Harry’s path.
Kicking the snow really does make him feel better. It wasn’t just a fluke that day Draco dragged him to see the shop.
“When are we going to do more curse-breaking stuff?”
“In the new year, I should imagine. Oh, no!” Draco stops in the middle of the pavement. He catches Harry by the face before he can fully run into him. “Don’t pout, Potter. It’s terribly sad on you. I take it back. We can continue with your lessons whenever your heart desires.”
Harry pouts harder for a minute. This whole curse-breaking thing snuck up on him, and now he, like, wants to go back to that shop with Draco. And maybe give him a blowjob by the worktable. And maybe do other stuff, too.
“Tomorrow?” he asks.
“Tomorrow,” Draco agrees, then kisses Harry for real. Harry’s arms spring away from his sides, and his elbows only get stuck in their awkward bent position for a few seconds before he can put them around Draco’s waist.
Draco makes a sound that’s revving up to a laugh, and if he gets going, they’re not making it to the bake-off.
Harry tries to be responsible and keep walking, but Draco keeps hemming him in, and finally Harry starts reaching past him just to see if it’ll work.
It doesn’t, because Draco pins Harry’s hand to his side and lets Harry wriggle until he can reach the other arm, then pins that arm, and it tickles Harry like the kissing thing in the doorway did. He’s been tickled for at least a minute before he realises, like, mentally that this is a game, just like the kissing thing in the doorway, and Draco’s playing with him.
In a good way.
To make Harry laugh?
Yeah. That must be why.
Draco doesn’t stop until Harry’s breathless.
“Merlin’s bells!” Draco takes Harry’s hand like Harry was the one who started all this. “Hurry, Potter, or you’ll make us late!”
Ron’s waiting for them in the front garden. He’s got a St Mungo’s-issued coat on, and a dark blue hat, and he’s holding something orange sort of like a baby.
“He came early,” Ron calls. The snow near the fence is deep and crunchy. “Sort of like Baby Muggle Jesus!”
“What?” yells Harry.
“He’s like Baby Muggle Jesus,” Ron bellows.
“Who is?”
“Come here, mate!”
Draco squeezes Harry’s hand. He doesn’t know why, and then he thinks he might know why, and then it’s too late to flee anywhere.
“Change of topic,” Ron announces as soon as they stop in front of him. “This isn’t a jumper from my mum, and the timing’s different, but Hermione’s going to keep him if we don’t do this now.”
“Er,” says Harry. He tries, but he can’t force himself to look at Ron’s face. “If we don’t do what?”
“This wee bloke is a happy-early-Christmas present for you.”
“…oh.”
Harry wants to sink into the closest snowbank and pull it over him like six to eight blankets. He stares at Ron’s chest, his face frozen. It’s Ron. It’s fine. It’s, like…an alive thing? An alive present? Harry doesn’t know what to do.
Draco glides in and takes the thing out of Ron’s arms, cooing at it in French.
Harry’s never been more relieved to have a weird, high roommate who he sometimes snogs and deep-throats. Never.
“Aren’t you precious!” Draco steps back to Harry’s side, but—thank fucking Merlin’s Jesus—doesn’t try to hand him the thing. “I’ve never seen a more precious, perfect crup. We shall name you Chutney Malfoy-Potter, and you will be the—”
“We don’t have a hyphenated last name.”
“Don’t we?” Draco asks through slightly pursed lips. “Chutney, Harry loves you. And so does Ronald. Did you choose him because he’s got your hair?”
“No.” Ron laughs like Harry’s not being an arsehole. “Blaise found him, and that was that for Hermione.”
Draco and Ron have a chat above Harry’s head. He stares at the smoke coming out of the chimney and the ice on the tree branches and the snowy fields around the Burrow. Every so often, Draco’s elbow brushes against Harry’s.
He waits until his face feels less like it’s on fire and his stomach feels less like he might be sick, then peeks at the thing—the crup—out of the corner of his eye.
It’s really cute.
It’s, like, a puppy, and it’s not quite the same colour as Ron’s hair. Closer to mango chutney. It’s also got black markings around its eyes like glasses.
He looks at Harry whenever Harry peeks at him.
He wants to pet Chutney, but he can’t move his arms.
Draco’s telling Ron a long story about dancing at almost the North Pole, and Ron’s asking questions about the seed vault hotel. Neither of them break it off when Harry turns his body towards Draco, which is all he can manage.
Draco transfers the little puppy to his other arm, takes Harry’s hand, and puts his mitten on the crup’s back.
He gives a tiny, cheery bark and pushes his back into Harry’s mitten.
“You’re so weird,” Harry tells Chutney. “You’re so cute.”
The front door of the Burrow bursts open to reveal Pansy, who’s wearing one of Molly’s frilliest aprons. “Did you give him my little darling? You did! Draco, get in here and let me hold him!”
Notes:
Day Eleven—Puppy among Wrapped Gifts
the Svalbard Global Seed Vault
Look, I don't know, this chapter got out of hand.
Also, the seed names on their pillows are actual seeds stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. You can look at them here, at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault’s Seed Portal. It is actually called the Seed Portal.