HP Fanfic: How Draco Malfoy Learnt to Live as Charmed a Life as Harry Potter, the Golden Boy (2/2)
Title: How Draco Malfoy Learnt to Live as Charmed a Life as Harry Potter, the Golden Boy
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG (maybe PG-13 for a few instances of the f-word)
Word Count ~13,500
Warning(s): (highlight to read)*fluff, a small bit of foul language*
Betas: hanelissar and mathnerd
Summary: Draco would swear he’s the world’s unluckiest person. Maybe the answer to his problem lies in Harry Potter, whose life is seemingly charmed. He resolves to stick as close to Potter as possible, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, some of that luck will rub off.
Disclaimer: This piece of fiction is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made, no copyright or trademark infringement, or offence is intended. All characters depicted in sexual situations are above the age of consent.
Author’s Notes: Written for tari_sue’s prompt over at Round One of hp_getlucky. Winner of round one.
Start with Part One!
A week later, Draco found himself sitting in a cafe in Italy, toasting Britain's World Cup win with Harry Potter. Though he had thought to order wine, or perhaps champagne, Potter insisted he only drank those things if he was on a date, and one that was going well to boot. So now Draco was on his third shot of Firewhisky; Potter was on his fifth. He was feeling quite warm, despite the cool summer night.
"Can't believe the way France just came out of nowhere after the second hour," Potter was saying, looking happily inebriated. "And then, when Eggleston fell off his broom, I thought it was over for certain."
"Yes, well, I had faith in Wickham. He's been nothing short of spectacular since he was drafted as Seeker. I told you they'd win within six hours, didn't I?"
Potter nodded unsteadily. "You did. Which means these drinks are on me."
"If you don't sober up a bit and get a handle on your liquor, they will quite literally be on you," Draco laughed. "I didn't know you drank."
"And I didn't know you knew how to have fun," Potter countered. "Seems we both surprised one another."
"I suppose we did." Their waiter approached their table, and Potter ordered something in mangled Italian. Draco wondered if the butchering of the language was due to the alcohol, or just Potter's tin ear. They received a weary look and a nod in return. Draco laughed as soon as the waiter turned away. "Your Italian's awful."
"It's not perfect, but it's not that bad. Though I think I might have just ordered us things that weren't strictly drinks."
"You ordered us something that wasn't even Italian," Draco managed, wiping tears from his eyes. "I think he understood what you wanted, though. You'd better tip well."
"I always do." Potter calmed himself down after a moment. "I wanted to tell you that this has actually been a lot of fun. I never thought I'd luck into World Cup tickets out of nowhere. I suppose I have you to thank."
“Well, that’s the kind of luck you have, isn’t it? The impossibly good kind?”
“I don’t know about that. We all have bits of good luck now and then, don’t we?”
Draco snorted. “No. Not at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I do believe I might be the unluckiest person on the face of this earth.”
“Oh, come off it,” Potter said, eyes still shining bright with cheer. “It can’t be that bad.”
“Don’t believe me?” Draco tried to fix Potter with a piercing stare, and was only somewhat successful.
“Not at all. Think you’re really that bad off?”
“I know I am. I’ve always been unlucky. Let me reiterate some of the incidents you’re familiar with.”
Potter snickered. “Go for it, Malfoy.”
“I was attacked by a Hippogriff.”
“Hey now, that was your own fault. Hagrid told you not to disrespect Buckbeak, and you didn’t listen. Besides, it was a scratch. And you played it up to get out of homework and a Quidditch match.”
“It was more than a scratch, Potter, though I admit I might have exaggerated a little. Okay, next item. I was transfigured into a ferret. And not only that, I was bounced around and shoved down Crabbe’s trousers. And before you go on about how that was just a bit of fun, I’ll have you know I had bruises from that incident that didn’t heal for almost a month. And I’ll never forget being that intimate with Vince.”
Potter’s smirk faded just a little. “I didn’t know about the bruises.”
“Wasn’t exactly public knowledge. Third. I got dragged into service for… Voldemort, because he thought it was the appropriate punishment for my father’s failure.” He still had a hard time saying that name. He didn’t think he’d ever say it as casually as Potter did.
The smirk was gone now. “Right.”
“Oh, but there’s more. I’ve had my inheritance taken away by the Ministry as payment for war reparations. I’ve not been allowed to pursue any of my true career ambitions, only being able to find jobs I hate. And then there was that arranged marriage of mine. There was the humiliation of having my wife tell the press that the marriage failed because I couldn’t get it up in the bedroom. Which, okay, may have happened, but that was only because I’m not interested in women, though my parents didn’t care about that at all-they only wanted to rebuild the family name. There’s a thousand tiny little bits of bad luck scattered throughout my life, but those are the ones you can’t argue away. And now I sit across from you, where I have to watch you and see how perfect your life is.” He took a deep breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that last bit like that. It’s just… It’s hard to see how wonderful things are for you, when they’re the opposite for me.” He forced a laugh. His buzz had diminished significantly, but his cheeks were still hot. “Do you take a daily dose of Felix Felicis or something? Because if so, I think you should share.”
That last comment finally put a little bit of a smile back on Potter’s face. “I haven’t taken any of that since Hogwarts. But if I had some, I might share it. You do seem like you could probably use it. But really, Malfoy, being lucky isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I catch breaks more than I should, perhaps.” He paused as Draco snorted again. “Oh, that’s so attractive,” he said with a little laugh. “But I’m serious. Besides, for me, it’s more like ‘lucky in life, unlucky in love’.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am, though. I don’t ever feel that I can trust relationships. I feel like I’m being used for something. Some of that might just be Auror paranoia, but it’s also from past experience. I’ve had some absolutely awful girlfriends in the past…and then some awful boyfriends.” He didn’t seem to catch Draco’s widened eyes at the last statement, though Draco lost Potter’s next sentence or two as he processed the fact that Potter was apparently gay, or at least bi. The little bit of attraction Draco had been successfully squelching raised its head interestedly before he ground it under his heel again. “…And it’s not like I had a childhood. I was just lucky enough to find some good friends.”
“Yeah, lucky,” Draco scoffed. He was trying not to notice how attractive Potter was when he was adamant. He was done with alcohol for the evening. Too much liquor always made him a little sex-crazed. His inhibitions were only a little too happy to be lowered. Ogling his supervisor, and Potter of all people, was a bad move. His string of luck already told him it meant nothing good could ever come from it.
“I mean it, Malfoy. There are things I’d like to do, like to be free to do, but I feel restricted.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing.” Potter took a long drink of the ice water that their waiter had brought them. “Forget I mentioned it. You want to go for a walk? I’m not sober enough to Apparate back home, and those Portkeys back to London have a long wait. We might as well head over that direction now.” He raised his eyebrows. “Oh come on. ‘Portkey’ isn’t a dirty word.”
“Might as well be.”
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” With a shake of his head, Potter left money to cover their bill and walked out into the night, smiling when Draco caught up to him. Draco didn’t respond. Ridiculous or not, he’d proved his point, and Potter knew it.
~0~
“Potter, if you’re going to pace like that, could you do it somewhere out of my line of sight? It’s distracting.” He’d been walking back and forth like that for nearly ten minutes now, and every time he passed by, Draco found his eyes following the shadow of Potter’s body. The office had been positively swamped with odd cases the last two days, and it was hard enough to concentrate. It had been two weeks since he’d learned Potter might actually be into other men, and that made his concentration falter at random moments. Draco had entirely too active an imagination.
“Sorry,” came the muttered response. “It’s just that I’m missing something, I know it. It shouldn’t be this difficult.”
Giving it up as a lost cause, Draco stood up and stretched. “What shouldn’t be this difficult?”
“This case. There are all these things that look accidental, but I’m positive they’re not. There are too many similarities. They all end up in St. Mungo’s with memory problems, but they haven’t been Obliviated. There are odd purple spots on the victims’ necks and torsos.” Potter went on to detail other peculiarities about the cases, but Draco was stuck thinking about the purple spots. It tickled something at the back of his brain. Something in conversation he’d had with Severus once.
“Do the victims have breath that smells like violet?” he blurted as the connection solidified in his mind.
“What?”
“The victims in St. Mungo’s. When they arrive, is there anything about their breath smelling like violets?”
Potter’s eyes widened. “There was something about a sweet floral scent on their breath, I think. Why?”
“Have you had them tested for a poison involving indigo root and essence of silverflower?”
“No, of course not. Didn’t silverflower go extinct three hundred years ago?”
“Not exactly. It’s rare, but you can find it, if you know who to ask, and have a fortune to spend on it.”
Potter grabbed Draco’s shoulders. “I think you might be onto something with this. You really would have been good working with Potions.” The light in Potter’s eyes was fevered, his irises incredibly bright. “I’ve got to call St. Mungo’s.” He shook Draco’s shoulders, and watched as Draco’s wand fell out of his robes and hit the floor. “Sorry. I’ll get that.”
Draco shook his head a little as Potter bent down. He never thought he’d see the day when he actually contributed to an Auror investigation. He dared to smile just a little. And then he heard a shout from across the room, and his world exploded in a flash of agonising white light, a crunching sound drowning out all other noise, and suddenly, mercifully, there was darkness.
~0~
The first thing Draco saw when he opened his eyes was soothing green walls. He shifted just a little, wondering why he felt so restricted, and immediately regretted the movement.
“Oh, thank Merlin, Draco, you’re awake.”
Draco sank back down into the pillows under his head. That seemed to be where most of his pain was. “Why’d you call me Draco?” he asked with a tongue that felt clumsy. He thought he might be slurring his words.
“Because that’s your name,” Potter said, looking worried as he leaned over. “Did you hit your head that hard?”
“I know my own name, you wanker. I mean why’d you call me Draco? You never call me Draco.”
“Oh. I don’t know. Would you rather I not?”
“Call me whatever you want. Just tell me why I appear to be in a hospital.”
“You got hit in the head with a tampered Bludger. Wescott and Lulban confiscated a set charmed to attack players who weren’t looking. Someone’s trying to sabotage the Cannons. One of the Bludgers got loose.”
“And I was the lucky one to get struck.” Why wasn’t he surprised? With a wince, he adjusted his bed so he wasn’t flat on his back. Once he was there, he doubted the wisdom of that act.
“Yeah. I feel really bad about it. It should have hit me, you know, but I’d bent down to retrieve your wand, and it sailed right over me.” Potter was quiet a moment. “You’ll be fine, though. Your skull should be healed in the next few hours, and they don’t anticipate any long-term damage. I was worried for a while-it didn’t look good.”
“What, afraid you’d have to go back to writing your own reports again?” He tried to crack a smile, but his head was swimming. It was hard to focus, and he felt more than a little queasy.
Instead of the laugh Draco had hoped for, Potter just shook his head solemnly. “No. I actually thought for a moment that you might actually be right about your luck, and that maybe I was right about mine as well.”
“Of course you were right about your luck. You didn’t get hit; I did.”
“Not that bit,” Potter said quietly, twisting his hands together in his lap.
Draco wished someone would turn the light off in the room. The brightness was only making his head pound, which was causing his stomach to lurch. He tried to figure out what Potter meant by that comment. If he didn’t mean his good luck, then that left his bit of bad luck. What Draco getting hit had to do with Potter’s romantic life, he had no idea. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, fuck it,” Potter muttered. Before Draco could ask what he meant by that Potter had leaned over and placed his mouth on the corner of Draco’s, leaving a light kiss before pulling away just enough to get a look at Draco’s face.
Draco just stared at him for a moment before the sickening thudding in his head got the better of him and he was sick all over the front of Potter’s robes. Draco didn’t even have a chance to warn him. Potter bolted from the room, looking horrified. Draco vanished the mess as best he could with the wand Potter had left at his bedside table and clasped his hands lightly over the bandages covering his head.
Why couldn’t that Bludger just have killed him and have done with it? As if the head injury wasn’t enough, he had just vomited on Potter. That was humiliating enough, but he’d managed to do it after some insane urge had overcome the other man, leading him to kiss Draco, something Draco had been quietly trying not to fantasise about for the last two weeks. The universe had spared him just that little bit of luck-the kiss-only to have his string of bad luck override it in quick fashion. He hadn’t even had time to enjoy the kiss. And now he’d have to face Potter in the office. He lay in bed, fretfully twisting the sheets between his fingers. This couldn’t really be happening to him, could it?
~0~
Several hours later, after he’d finally been given permission to fall asleep, footsteps approached the door to Draco’s room. He sighed. The Healer’s apprentice, a petite witch named Sandy, had left less than ten minutes ago. Apparently, she’d been kidding about him getting rest. As Draco waited for the door to open, he heard yelling and shouting coming from a few rooms away. It didn’t look like he’d be getting sleep anyway. Or maybe Sandy was coming back with a sleeping potion. He could hope, couldn’t he?
When the door silently opened, spilling a crack of light into the dim room, Draco furrowed his brow. That wasn't Healers’ robes covering the arm on the doorknob. When Potter stepped through gracefully, closing the door with no noise behind him, Draco squeezed his eyes shut. It had to be a hallucination.
"Hey." Potter's voice was quiet, and Draco forced himself to open his eyes. Surely his imagination wouldn't have put such an awkward-looking expression on Potter's face. "May I come in?"
Finding his voice, Draco tried to sound as casual as possible, as if he wasn't talking to the person who'd been covered in his sick. "I believe you're already in. What are you doing here, Potter? Visiting hours have long since ended."
"I know."
When there was no answer to Draco's first question, he tried another. "How did you even get in? Auror skills come in handy once more?"
Potter blushed, just barely visible in the darkened room. "Something like that. You don't become a successful Auror without learning how to enter a room unnoticed. Whatever distraction is going on at the end of the corridor helped. Someone's not having a good night."
Draco opened his mouth to say that he wasn't exactly having a good night himself, but thought better of it. "What are you doing here?" he tried again.
"I wanted to let you know you were right."
"I'm often right. Which instance do you mean?"
One side of Potter's mouth twitched upward. "You were right about the poison. The primary ingredients were silverflower, indigo root, and feverblossom. It explains the spots, the memory loss, and the convulsions. The Healers are working on antidotes, and the Ministry is trying to track down possible sources of the silverflower."
“You sneaked in here to tell me I was right about the case you couldn’t figure out?”
“Well, no, but I thought you might like to know.”
“Then why are you here?” Draco didn’t like games. If Potter was going to ask him to find a new assignment, he should just come out with it. He couldn’t stand being embarrassed like this, and he couldn’t escape. He was, once again, at Potter’s mercy.
“I wanted to apologise for earlier. I’d seen the way you looked at me one day, and I thought that maybe it was time for my luck in that one department to turn, but obviously I was wrong, and I made the wrong assumption. There’s nothing to tell you your romantic advances aren’t wanted like someone getting ill because you kissed them. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for my actions, and say that I hope we can still work together.” Potter looked more uncomfortable than Draco had ever seen him, and for just a moment, he enjoyed the feeling of having the upper hand.
“You’re wrong.”
Potter looked absolutely crestfallen at Draco’s words. It wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for, and he didn’t enjoy it. Funny, since he used to love seeing Potter look upset. Merlin knew he’d spent enough energy thinking up insults to try to make him look that way. ‘Scarhead’ had certainly been one of his most uninspired attempts. “I understand. I’ll speak to Kingsley, see if there isn’t somewh-”
“You misunderstood me,” Draco said, attempting to get control of the loopy feeling in his stomach. Potter wasn’t upset that his robes had been defiled. Well, he was, but not for the reason Draco had expected. “For an Auror, you jump to an awful lot of conclusions. You’re wrong about me not wanting to work with you. You’re also wrong in that your advances were unwanted. What happened after you kissed me was pure coincidence and timing. Just further proof of my bad luck.”
The smile that slowly cracked Potter’s face was radiant. “You… It wasn’t… You didn’t mind?”
“I more than ‘didn’t mind’, Potter. If I hadn’t been feeling so poorly, I think I might have enjoyed it.”
“Then if it’s okay with you, I’d like to try again.”
When Draco didn’t object, being unable to form words through his shock, Potter leaned forward and gingerly ran his fingers through Draco’s dishevelled hair, exposed now that the bandages had been removed. Draco’s breath hitched as Potter’s tongue darted into his mouth and he surrendered to the first real bit of pleasure he’d had in far too long. He wondered how Potter would take it if Draco twisted his fists into the deep black Auror robes and pulled him onto the hospital bed.
His eyes snapped open and he pulled away from Potter as he heard a voice approach the door, growing louder by the second. “Fuck,” he whispered, trying to slow his heart rate and look as if he hadn’t been busy snogging his supervisor…who really shouldn’t be here at this late hour, come to think of it.
Potter froze as well, looking nearly as panicked as Draco felt when the doorknob twitched as someone rested their hand on it from the other side. Draco was torn between hyperventilating and holding his breath, and then something at the end of the hallway exploded, and there was more yelling, and whomever had been outside the room stepped quickly away.
“Well, if that wasn’t lucky, I don’t know what is,” Draco whispered, realising that he actually did have Potter’s robes clutched in his fist. With effort, he unclenched his fingers, smoothing the creases he’d squeezed into the robes.
“Luck is what you make of it,” Potter whispered in return. “Let go of your determination to be miserable, and your luck could change.” He cut off Draco’s objection with another lingering kiss. “Be open to the idea, won’t you?” With that, he ducked out the door, slipping away unnoticed once more.
~0~
Three months after the Bludger incident, Draco grudgingly admitted to himself that perhaps Harry had been right about all the bad luck. Afraid that admitting to their relationship would get him sacked, Draco had pulled Potter aside and asked that whatever this was between them, it be kept casual and private. Potter had agreed with a quiet nod, that impenetrable face in place one more. Draco had sighed with relief. He did fear for his job, and an end to his chances at the Ministry, but even more than that, he worried that openly acknowledging this development between them would only anger the gods of luck and fortune, and he’d find Potter and the bit of happiness he brought with him ripped cruelly away. He just couldn’t tell that to Potter, because…well, because that would be acknowledging it, and that was tempting Fate more than Draco cared to do.
Over time, all of the little things that seemed to go wrong had tapered off. He no longer found that when he went to the shop in search of a particular item, the witch in front of him had snagged the last one. Strangers stopped spilling their drinks on him with regularity. When caught in a sudden downpour, a kind-looking older wizard offered him the use of an umbrella until they both reached the Ministry. He didn’t tell Potter about any of these things, because Potter would gloat, and things had the potential to return to the way they had been at any moment.
He stumbled into the office five minutes late one fall morning, missing the way that Weasley, Benson, and Mattlin stared at him as he put on the kettle and refilled the coffee pot.
“What happened to you?” Potter asked sharply as Draco sat at his desk.
“Hm?” Draco was dazed enough that it took him a moment to look up from the file he’d just grabbed. It was a spectacularly unusual morning, and he was still processing everything that had happened on his way to work.
“You’re bleeding. And you never come into work with your hair mussed.”
Draco couldn’t tell if Potter sounded more suspicious or worried, and after a moment, he lost his argument with himself and found he was telling Potter everything. “I sort of foiled a criminal on the way in.”
“You what?”
The look on Potter’s face was priceless, as if he was trying to picture Draco as an Auror and failing miserably. “It was an accident. I was leaving my flat, thinking that it was a nice enough morning and I could just walk instead of Apparating, and I tripped.”
“More of your bad luck?” Potter still teased him about it, but more gently than he used to. He hadn’t really had any heart in the taunting since the night of the World Cup.
“I don’t know. I thought so, but as I fell, I slammed into someone and sent them sprawling. I guess that’s when I cut my hand,” he said, noticing the wound for the first time. “It turns out the person I knocked over was running away from the Muggle police force. He’d stolen some woman’s purse. But when he fell, it got up without it. They got him less than a hundred metres later.”
“You foiled a purse-snatcher?” Potter looked amused. “When you tripped.”
“I did. And after I answered the necessary questions, the woman called me a hero.” It still hadn’t sunk in. It was the nicest thing anyone had really said to him after the war, and he didn’t really deserve it, but she’d sounded so sincere that Draco couldn’t help but feel warm and soft inside.
Potter favoured him with a friendly smile, his green eyes bright and sincere. “And to her, you are. You know, Malfoy, that sounds like some awfully good luck.” He reached for Draco’s hand and murmured an Episkey, squeezing lightly as he let go, casual enough that no one else would notice the gesture.
“Perhaps. But not quite as lucky as catching a murderer because you have a need for coffee.”
“Touché.”
Draco smirked and sat back down. He’d taken to watching Potter more and more during the work day, sneaking in little glances here and there. He’d yet to be caught at it, which might-but might not-have been an indication that his bad luck had slunk away with its tail between its knees. Not even Potter seemed to notice. Draco wondered if there was a way in which the casual arrangement they had could ever be…less casual. He let himself fantasise about it briefly while Potter was at lunch, but smothered the idea an hour later. It was probably best to leave things as they were. This was safer.
~0~
Draco was on his way back from lunch later that week, daydreaming happily. It was an activity he’d only recently allowed himself. In the past, daydreams had led to more bad luck being heaped upon him, but now he seemed to be able to go unpunished. He couldn’t complain. In his daydream, he and Potter were out to dinner, smiling at each other over candlelight and holding hands on the tabletop. It was nothing like their occasional lunches, caught in pubs or cafés or chip shops, where they still called each other ‘Malfoy’ and ‘Potter’. In this daydream, they were simply ‘Draco’ and ‘Harry’. Potter slipped now and then at the Ministry, using Draco’s given name, but Draco had never made a similar mistake. Their first names were only to be used in the privacy of their own homes, during the few stolen hours they were able to find. It was a shame, but for the best.
He was jolted out of this admittedly sappy daydream when he heard a plaintive ‘meow’ at his feet. He looked down and saw a pathetic-looking kitten twining its way around his ankles. He tried to shoo it away, but the cat was having none of it. And he was getting fur on Draco’s trousers. “Go back to your owner,” he muttered, flailing his hands in a last attempt. Every time he tried to walk away, the kitten would wind itself tighter in figure eights around Draco’s ankles. This was getting him nowhere.
Feeling like a fool, Draco knelt down. “I’m headed to work. Please go home.” He wondered briefly if this was someone in Animagus form, playing with his head. Did he know anyone who looked like a Siamese kitten? No one came to mind. The kitten meowed again, sticking his head under Draco’s limp hand, petting himself enthusiastically. Draco sighed and shook his head. A bit of bright yellow paper caught his eye. LOST KITTEN was the first line, and he rolled his eyes when he saw that the thing scratching himself was the same kitten in the photograph. “Of course,” he murmured. He took a closer look at the poster. Missing for three days, to an owner only two streets away.
With a sigh, he picked up the kitten. Apparently being petted was one thing, but being carried was quite another. The farther he walked, the more the kitten fought him. When he approached the front door of the flat listed on the poster, it opened just in time for a young witch of ten or so to hear Draco yowl as the kitten sunk its back claws into his stomach, and its teeth into his hand. She ignored his cry of pain, eyes fixated on the ragged ball of fur in his arms instead. “Fluffy!”
Draco thought about mentioning how unoriginal the name was, but decided against it. “I take it this is yours?”
“You found him!” the blonde child exclaimed, blue eyes shining up at him. “I thought he was gone forever! Thank you! He was my birthday present!” She was looking at him much the same way the Muggle woman who’d called him a hero had.
Trying not to blush over something so ridiculous, he cleared his throat. It was harder than it usually was. “You’re welcome,” he said, a wheeze creeping into his words. “I’m glad to help. Now please excuse me; I’m on my way to work.”
“Wait!” The girl put the kitten down and ducked inside the flat, and Draco eyed it suspiciously, afraid it would make a break for it, and he’d be stuck chasing it down. When she returned to the door, she was holding a smallish box. “I can’t offer a real reward, because I’ve spent my birthday money, but I want you to have this.”
“That’s very nice of you, but I can’t-” he began.
“Yes, you can,” she said very firmly, and Draco was briefly reminded of himself at that age, the strong sense of ‘I don’t care how young I am, you will listen to me’ unmistakable in her voice. But then she added a ‘please’, something he never would have done, and thrust the box into his hand.
“Uh, thank you,” he said after a moment. “Take care of your kitten.” He wandered back onto the street as she shut the door, kitten definitely inside the home. Once back in the sunlight, he took a look at what she’d handed him. It was a small golden Honeydukes box filled with chocolate coins. There were raspberry-filled dark chocolate Galleons, strawberry and milk chocolate Knuts, and his personal favourite, white chocolate and lemon Sickles. He gazed at the sweets in wonder. They were new, fresh. But Honeydukes had discontinued them when he was eight years old. He’d thrown an epic tantrum when his mother had told him. He turned the box over, afraid it would disappear in his hands. In tiny black printing he saw the words ‘back by popular demand’. He clutched the box to his chest with hands that were red and swollen, hurrying to work.
“Now what’s happened to you?” Potter asked when he sat down at the desk across from him. “You look like you’ve lost a fight with some animal.”
Draco laughed a little. “That’s pretty much what happened. I returned a lost cat.”
“You don’t happen to be allergic to cats, do you?” Potter asked, his eyebrows raised.
“Some cats. Why?”
“Because your face is swollen and so are the gashes on your hands. And are you the one making that squeaking noise?” Potter rolled his eyes. “Go see Miriam. She always has a bottle of quick-acting allergy antidote in her desk. She’s allergic to Kneazles and Crups. But ask nicely.”
“As if I’d be anything but polite,” Draco huffed. Well, it was an attempt at a huff. It was surprisingly hard to do while wheezing. His lungs felt like they were filled with cat hair.
He came back a few moments later, breathing clearly. The swollen scratches on his hands and forearms were slowly flattening out, losing some of the violent red colour. He recounted the tale to Potter as he filled out forms. It was a testament to how good he was feeling that he not only let Potter have one of the candy Sickles, but he even let Weasley snag one of the Galleons without much protest.
It seemed nothing could foul his mood. When another of Hermione’s interdepartmental memos struck him at the nape of the neck, Draco shrugged it off and handed it to Potter. As an afterthought, he added a postscript, asking that she take care to improve her aim in what he hoped was a joking manner. He pondered this new mood the rest of the day. His life wasn’t so bad anymore. He had someone to spend time with when his former Housemates were out of town, or too busy leading their own lives. He almost enjoyed his job, in no small part because he got to see Potter, who sometimes slipped up and gave him a rather affectionate smile that no one else seemed to think went beyond casual friendship. There no longer seemed to be a black rain cloud following him around wherever he went.
The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if it was because of what he and Potter had, or because he had decided to take Potter’s advice about luck being what you make of it. Hadn’t he, at one time, decided that if he spent enough time around Potter, some of that luck would rub off? Perhaps he hadn’t been wrong in thinking that way. He looked up from his desk. “Potter?”
“Yes, Malfoy?” Potter’s eyes didn’t stray from the file he was thumbing through, and Draco saw all of the notes jotted randomly and sighed internally. Yet something else for him to do in the morning.
“I was wondering if you’d like to get a bite to eat later.”
“I’ve already eaten lunch today. But thanks.”
Draco took a deep breath. “Not lunch. Dinner. After work.”
Potter’s dextrous fingers stopped moving through the papers, and he looked up sharply. “Dinner? Tonight? Are you sure?”
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Draco wondered how quickly he could back-pedal. “I mean, you don’t have to, of course. I know we never do dinner, and you probably have other plans.”
“No, I don’t. Yes, Malfoy. I’ll meet you for dinner. Just name a time and place.”
He hadn’t thought this far ahead. None of their regular lunchtime haunts seemed right for what he was thinking. “Do you like Italian?” he managed after a moment. “We could do Antonio’s, at seven.” That gave him time to shower and change into something without cat hair on it. And maybe get a grip on the way his insides were fluttering about. They felt strangely similar to the way they had the second time Potter had kissed him.
“Antonio’s is fine. I’ll see you then.”
“Good.” Draco walked stiffly away to the other side of the office, busying himself with mundane tasks that no one else seemed willing to do. He was afraid to be near Potter just now, worried that if he thought about it too hard, he’d change his mind. It was still possible.
~0~
Potter strolled into the restaurant at seven o’clock sharp. Draco had been sitting nervously at their table for nearly thirty minutes, trying to steady himself with slow sips of ice water. It wasn’t working. He needed something stronger.
“Malfoy,” Potter said with a small smile as he sat. He frowned at the two goblets in front of him, as if they were a test he was ill-prepared for.
Draco watched Potter’s reaction, waiting to see which goblet he’d pick up. They were a test, of sorts. One held simply ice water, the other a mellow Merlot. He hadn’t forgotten what Potter had said the night of the World Cup, about the wine and champagne. “You don’t have to test them,” Draco said softly. “No poisons, no Veritaserum. I promise.”
Potter laughed. “If you’re certain.” He still didn’t pick up a glass, and Draco tried not to pout. “It’s odd being out to dinner with you. It’s not the same routine, you know?”
With a nervous smile, Draco nodded. “I know. But I wanted to talk about something a little out of the ordinary.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Remember what we talked about that night in the café in Italy?”
“About your string of bad luck?”
“Yes. That.” Potter gestured for him to go on, still frowning at his drink options. “Well, it seems my luck has changed recently.”
A smile crossed Potter’s face, the friendly but not overly-familiar once he used when they were in the Auror office together. “I’m glad to hear you think so.”
“I wonder…” Draco took a deep breath, unsure how to continue. “Do you feel any differently about your own?
He received a shrug in response. “It is what it is. Why?”
Better to just do it quickly, like ripping a plaster off all at once. “Well, as I’ve realised how much I actually enjoy my life lately, I’ve realised I’ve fallen for you. What we’ve been doing has been nice, but I want more. If that comes at the price of my job, then so be it. I want more than this casual arrangement.” The vision he’d had this morning of the two of them having a romantic, candlelit dinner rose to the front of his mind, and he shut his eyes tight against it. “Harry, what I want is you.”
There was no immediate reply, and Draco wondered if his bad luck had stuck around to watch him make a fool of himself. After a moment, Potter cleared his throat, and Draco dared to open his eyes.
“Well, what do you know?” Potter said with a slow smile, picking up the goblet of wine. “Looks like my luck’s turned around, too.”
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG (maybe PG-13 for a few instances of the f-word)
Word Count ~13,500
Warning(s): (highlight to read)*fluff, a small bit of foul language*
Betas: hanelissar and mathnerd
Summary: Draco would swear he’s the world’s unluckiest person. Maybe the answer to his problem lies in Harry Potter, whose life is seemingly charmed. He resolves to stick as close to Potter as possible, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, some of that luck will rub off.
Disclaimer: This piece of fiction is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made, no copyright or trademark infringement, or offence is intended. All characters depicted in sexual situations are above the age of consent.
Author’s Notes: Written for tari_sue’s prompt over at Round One of hp_getlucky. Winner of round one.
Start with Part One!
A week later, Draco found himself sitting in a cafe in Italy, toasting Britain's World Cup win with Harry Potter. Though he had thought to order wine, or perhaps champagne, Potter insisted he only drank those things if he was on a date, and one that was going well to boot. So now Draco was on his third shot of Firewhisky; Potter was on his fifth. He was feeling quite warm, despite the cool summer night.
"Can't believe the way France just came out of nowhere after the second hour," Potter was saying, looking happily inebriated. "And then, when Eggleston fell off his broom, I thought it was over for certain."
"Yes, well, I had faith in Wickham. He's been nothing short of spectacular since he was drafted as Seeker. I told you they'd win within six hours, didn't I?"
Potter nodded unsteadily. "You did. Which means these drinks are on me."
"If you don't sober up a bit and get a handle on your liquor, they will quite literally be on you," Draco laughed. "I didn't know you drank."
"And I didn't know you knew how to have fun," Potter countered. "Seems we both surprised one another."
"I suppose we did." Their waiter approached their table, and Potter ordered something in mangled Italian. Draco wondered if the butchering of the language was due to the alcohol, or just Potter's tin ear. They received a weary look and a nod in return. Draco laughed as soon as the waiter turned away. "Your Italian's awful."
"It's not perfect, but it's not that bad. Though I think I might have just ordered us things that weren't strictly drinks."
"You ordered us something that wasn't even Italian," Draco managed, wiping tears from his eyes. "I think he understood what you wanted, though. You'd better tip well."
"I always do." Potter calmed himself down after a moment. "I wanted to tell you that this has actually been a lot of fun. I never thought I'd luck into World Cup tickets out of nowhere. I suppose I have you to thank."
“Well, that’s the kind of luck you have, isn’t it? The impossibly good kind?”
“I don’t know about that. We all have bits of good luck now and then, don’t we?”
Draco snorted. “No. Not at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“I do believe I might be the unluckiest person on the face of this earth.”
“Oh, come off it,” Potter said, eyes still shining bright with cheer. “It can’t be that bad.”
“Don’t believe me?” Draco tried to fix Potter with a piercing stare, and was only somewhat successful.
“Not at all. Think you’re really that bad off?”
“I know I am. I’ve always been unlucky. Let me reiterate some of the incidents you’re familiar with.”
Potter snickered. “Go for it, Malfoy.”
“I was attacked by a Hippogriff.”
“Hey now, that was your own fault. Hagrid told you not to disrespect Buckbeak, and you didn’t listen. Besides, it was a scratch. And you played it up to get out of homework and a Quidditch match.”
“It was more than a scratch, Potter, though I admit I might have exaggerated a little. Okay, next item. I was transfigured into a ferret. And not only that, I was bounced around and shoved down Crabbe’s trousers. And before you go on about how that was just a bit of fun, I’ll have you know I had bruises from that incident that didn’t heal for almost a month. And I’ll never forget being that intimate with Vince.”
Potter’s smirk faded just a little. “I didn’t know about the bruises.”
“Wasn’t exactly public knowledge. Third. I got dragged into service for… Voldemort, because he thought it was the appropriate punishment for my father’s failure.” He still had a hard time saying that name. He didn’t think he’d ever say it as casually as Potter did.
The smirk was gone now. “Right.”
“Oh, but there’s more. I’ve had my inheritance taken away by the Ministry as payment for war reparations. I’ve not been allowed to pursue any of my true career ambitions, only being able to find jobs I hate. And then there was that arranged marriage of mine. There was the humiliation of having my wife tell the press that the marriage failed because I couldn’t get it up in the bedroom. Which, okay, may have happened, but that was only because I’m not interested in women, though my parents didn’t care about that at all-they only wanted to rebuild the family name. There’s a thousand tiny little bits of bad luck scattered throughout my life, but those are the ones you can’t argue away. And now I sit across from you, where I have to watch you and see how perfect your life is.” He took a deep breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that last bit like that. It’s just… It’s hard to see how wonderful things are for you, when they’re the opposite for me.” He forced a laugh. His buzz had diminished significantly, but his cheeks were still hot. “Do you take a daily dose of Felix Felicis or something? Because if so, I think you should share.”
That last comment finally put a little bit of a smile back on Potter’s face. “I haven’t taken any of that since Hogwarts. But if I had some, I might share it. You do seem like you could probably use it. But really, Malfoy, being lucky isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I catch breaks more than I should, perhaps.” He paused as Draco snorted again. “Oh, that’s so attractive,” he said with a little laugh. “But I’m serious. Besides, for me, it’s more like ‘lucky in life, unlucky in love’.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am, though. I don’t ever feel that I can trust relationships. I feel like I’m being used for something. Some of that might just be Auror paranoia, but it’s also from past experience. I’ve had some absolutely awful girlfriends in the past…and then some awful boyfriends.” He didn’t seem to catch Draco’s widened eyes at the last statement, though Draco lost Potter’s next sentence or two as he processed the fact that Potter was apparently gay, or at least bi. The little bit of attraction Draco had been successfully squelching raised its head interestedly before he ground it under his heel again. “…And it’s not like I had a childhood. I was just lucky enough to find some good friends.”
“Yeah, lucky,” Draco scoffed. He was trying not to notice how attractive Potter was when he was adamant. He was done with alcohol for the evening. Too much liquor always made him a little sex-crazed. His inhibitions were only a little too happy to be lowered. Ogling his supervisor, and Potter of all people, was a bad move. His string of luck already told him it meant nothing good could ever come from it.
“I mean it, Malfoy. There are things I’d like to do, like to be free to do, but I feel restricted.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing.” Potter took a long drink of the ice water that their waiter had brought them. “Forget I mentioned it. You want to go for a walk? I’m not sober enough to Apparate back home, and those Portkeys back to London have a long wait. We might as well head over that direction now.” He raised his eyebrows. “Oh come on. ‘Portkey’ isn’t a dirty word.”
“Might as well be.”
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” With a shake of his head, Potter left money to cover their bill and walked out into the night, smiling when Draco caught up to him. Draco didn’t respond. Ridiculous or not, he’d proved his point, and Potter knew it.
~0~
“Potter, if you’re going to pace like that, could you do it somewhere out of my line of sight? It’s distracting.” He’d been walking back and forth like that for nearly ten minutes now, and every time he passed by, Draco found his eyes following the shadow of Potter’s body. The office had been positively swamped with odd cases the last two days, and it was hard enough to concentrate. It had been two weeks since he’d learned Potter might actually be into other men, and that made his concentration falter at random moments. Draco had entirely too active an imagination.
“Sorry,” came the muttered response. “It’s just that I’m missing something, I know it. It shouldn’t be this difficult.”
Giving it up as a lost cause, Draco stood up and stretched. “What shouldn’t be this difficult?”
“This case. There are all these things that look accidental, but I’m positive they’re not. There are too many similarities. They all end up in St. Mungo’s with memory problems, but they haven’t been Obliviated. There are odd purple spots on the victims’ necks and torsos.” Potter went on to detail other peculiarities about the cases, but Draco was stuck thinking about the purple spots. It tickled something at the back of his brain. Something in conversation he’d had with Severus once.
“Do the victims have breath that smells like violet?” he blurted as the connection solidified in his mind.
“What?”
“The victims in St. Mungo’s. When they arrive, is there anything about their breath smelling like violets?”
Potter’s eyes widened. “There was something about a sweet floral scent on their breath, I think. Why?”
“Have you had them tested for a poison involving indigo root and essence of silverflower?”
“No, of course not. Didn’t silverflower go extinct three hundred years ago?”
“Not exactly. It’s rare, but you can find it, if you know who to ask, and have a fortune to spend on it.”
Potter grabbed Draco’s shoulders. “I think you might be onto something with this. You really would have been good working with Potions.” The light in Potter’s eyes was fevered, his irises incredibly bright. “I’ve got to call St. Mungo’s.” He shook Draco’s shoulders, and watched as Draco’s wand fell out of his robes and hit the floor. “Sorry. I’ll get that.”
Draco shook his head a little as Potter bent down. He never thought he’d see the day when he actually contributed to an Auror investigation. He dared to smile just a little. And then he heard a shout from across the room, and his world exploded in a flash of agonising white light, a crunching sound drowning out all other noise, and suddenly, mercifully, there was darkness.
~0~
The first thing Draco saw when he opened his eyes was soothing green walls. He shifted just a little, wondering why he felt so restricted, and immediately regretted the movement.
“Oh, thank Merlin, Draco, you’re awake.”
Draco sank back down into the pillows under his head. That seemed to be where most of his pain was. “Why’d you call me Draco?” he asked with a tongue that felt clumsy. He thought he might be slurring his words.
“Because that’s your name,” Potter said, looking worried as he leaned over. “Did you hit your head that hard?”
“I know my own name, you wanker. I mean why’d you call me Draco? You never call me Draco.”
“Oh. I don’t know. Would you rather I not?”
“Call me whatever you want. Just tell me why I appear to be in a hospital.”
“You got hit in the head with a tampered Bludger. Wescott and Lulban confiscated a set charmed to attack players who weren’t looking. Someone’s trying to sabotage the Cannons. One of the Bludgers got loose.”
“And I was the lucky one to get struck.” Why wasn’t he surprised? With a wince, he adjusted his bed so he wasn’t flat on his back. Once he was there, he doubted the wisdom of that act.
“Yeah. I feel really bad about it. It should have hit me, you know, but I’d bent down to retrieve your wand, and it sailed right over me.” Potter was quiet a moment. “You’ll be fine, though. Your skull should be healed in the next few hours, and they don’t anticipate any long-term damage. I was worried for a while-it didn’t look good.”
“What, afraid you’d have to go back to writing your own reports again?” He tried to crack a smile, but his head was swimming. It was hard to focus, and he felt more than a little queasy.
Instead of the laugh Draco had hoped for, Potter just shook his head solemnly. “No. I actually thought for a moment that you might actually be right about your luck, and that maybe I was right about mine as well.”
“Of course you were right about your luck. You didn’t get hit; I did.”
“Not that bit,” Potter said quietly, twisting his hands together in his lap.
Draco wished someone would turn the light off in the room. The brightness was only making his head pound, which was causing his stomach to lurch. He tried to figure out what Potter meant by that comment. If he didn’t mean his good luck, then that left his bit of bad luck. What Draco getting hit had to do with Potter’s romantic life, he had no idea. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, fuck it,” Potter muttered. Before Draco could ask what he meant by that Potter had leaned over and placed his mouth on the corner of Draco’s, leaving a light kiss before pulling away just enough to get a look at Draco’s face.
Draco just stared at him for a moment before the sickening thudding in his head got the better of him and he was sick all over the front of Potter’s robes. Draco didn’t even have a chance to warn him. Potter bolted from the room, looking horrified. Draco vanished the mess as best he could with the wand Potter had left at his bedside table and clasped his hands lightly over the bandages covering his head.
Why couldn’t that Bludger just have killed him and have done with it? As if the head injury wasn’t enough, he had just vomited on Potter. That was humiliating enough, but he’d managed to do it after some insane urge had overcome the other man, leading him to kiss Draco, something Draco had been quietly trying not to fantasise about for the last two weeks. The universe had spared him just that little bit of luck-the kiss-only to have his string of bad luck override it in quick fashion. He hadn’t even had time to enjoy the kiss. And now he’d have to face Potter in the office. He lay in bed, fretfully twisting the sheets between his fingers. This couldn’t really be happening to him, could it?
~0~
Several hours later, after he’d finally been given permission to fall asleep, footsteps approached the door to Draco’s room. He sighed. The Healer’s apprentice, a petite witch named Sandy, had left less than ten minutes ago. Apparently, she’d been kidding about him getting rest. As Draco waited for the door to open, he heard yelling and shouting coming from a few rooms away. It didn’t look like he’d be getting sleep anyway. Or maybe Sandy was coming back with a sleeping potion. He could hope, couldn’t he?
When the door silently opened, spilling a crack of light into the dim room, Draco furrowed his brow. That wasn't Healers’ robes covering the arm on the doorknob. When Potter stepped through gracefully, closing the door with no noise behind him, Draco squeezed his eyes shut. It had to be a hallucination.
"Hey." Potter's voice was quiet, and Draco forced himself to open his eyes. Surely his imagination wouldn't have put such an awkward-looking expression on Potter's face. "May I come in?"
Finding his voice, Draco tried to sound as casual as possible, as if he wasn't talking to the person who'd been covered in his sick. "I believe you're already in. What are you doing here, Potter? Visiting hours have long since ended."
"I know."
When there was no answer to Draco's first question, he tried another. "How did you even get in? Auror skills come in handy once more?"
Potter blushed, just barely visible in the darkened room. "Something like that. You don't become a successful Auror without learning how to enter a room unnoticed. Whatever distraction is going on at the end of the corridor helped. Someone's not having a good night."
Draco opened his mouth to say that he wasn't exactly having a good night himself, but thought better of it. "What are you doing here?" he tried again.
"I wanted to let you know you were right."
"I'm often right. Which instance do you mean?"
One side of Potter's mouth twitched upward. "You were right about the poison. The primary ingredients were silverflower, indigo root, and feverblossom. It explains the spots, the memory loss, and the convulsions. The Healers are working on antidotes, and the Ministry is trying to track down possible sources of the silverflower."
“You sneaked in here to tell me I was right about the case you couldn’t figure out?”
“Well, no, but I thought you might like to know.”
“Then why are you here?” Draco didn’t like games. If Potter was going to ask him to find a new assignment, he should just come out with it. He couldn’t stand being embarrassed like this, and he couldn’t escape. He was, once again, at Potter’s mercy.
“I wanted to apologise for earlier. I’d seen the way you looked at me one day, and I thought that maybe it was time for my luck in that one department to turn, but obviously I was wrong, and I made the wrong assumption. There’s nothing to tell you your romantic advances aren’t wanted like someone getting ill because you kissed them. I just wanted to say I’m sorry for my actions, and say that I hope we can still work together.” Potter looked more uncomfortable than Draco had ever seen him, and for just a moment, he enjoyed the feeling of having the upper hand.
“You’re wrong.”
Potter looked absolutely crestfallen at Draco’s words. It wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for, and he didn’t enjoy it. Funny, since he used to love seeing Potter look upset. Merlin knew he’d spent enough energy thinking up insults to try to make him look that way. ‘Scarhead’ had certainly been one of his most uninspired attempts. “I understand. I’ll speak to Kingsley, see if there isn’t somewh-”
“You misunderstood me,” Draco said, attempting to get control of the loopy feeling in his stomach. Potter wasn’t upset that his robes had been defiled. Well, he was, but not for the reason Draco had expected. “For an Auror, you jump to an awful lot of conclusions. You’re wrong about me not wanting to work with you. You’re also wrong in that your advances were unwanted. What happened after you kissed me was pure coincidence and timing. Just further proof of my bad luck.”
The smile that slowly cracked Potter’s face was radiant. “You… It wasn’t… You didn’t mind?”
“I more than ‘didn’t mind’, Potter. If I hadn’t been feeling so poorly, I think I might have enjoyed it.”
“Then if it’s okay with you, I’d like to try again.”
When Draco didn’t object, being unable to form words through his shock, Potter leaned forward and gingerly ran his fingers through Draco’s dishevelled hair, exposed now that the bandages had been removed. Draco’s breath hitched as Potter’s tongue darted into his mouth and he surrendered to the first real bit of pleasure he’d had in far too long. He wondered how Potter would take it if Draco twisted his fists into the deep black Auror robes and pulled him onto the hospital bed.
His eyes snapped open and he pulled away from Potter as he heard a voice approach the door, growing louder by the second. “Fuck,” he whispered, trying to slow his heart rate and look as if he hadn’t been busy snogging his supervisor…who really shouldn’t be here at this late hour, come to think of it.
Potter froze as well, looking nearly as panicked as Draco felt when the doorknob twitched as someone rested their hand on it from the other side. Draco was torn between hyperventilating and holding his breath, and then something at the end of the hallway exploded, and there was more yelling, and whomever had been outside the room stepped quickly away.
“Well, if that wasn’t lucky, I don’t know what is,” Draco whispered, realising that he actually did have Potter’s robes clutched in his fist. With effort, he unclenched his fingers, smoothing the creases he’d squeezed into the robes.
“Luck is what you make of it,” Potter whispered in return. “Let go of your determination to be miserable, and your luck could change.” He cut off Draco’s objection with another lingering kiss. “Be open to the idea, won’t you?” With that, he ducked out the door, slipping away unnoticed once more.
~0~
Three months after the Bludger incident, Draco grudgingly admitted to himself that perhaps Harry had been right about all the bad luck. Afraid that admitting to their relationship would get him sacked, Draco had pulled Potter aside and asked that whatever this was between them, it be kept casual and private. Potter had agreed with a quiet nod, that impenetrable face in place one more. Draco had sighed with relief. He did fear for his job, and an end to his chances at the Ministry, but even more than that, he worried that openly acknowledging this development between them would only anger the gods of luck and fortune, and he’d find Potter and the bit of happiness he brought with him ripped cruelly away. He just couldn’t tell that to Potter, because…well, because that would be acknowledging it, and that was tempting Fate more than Draco cared to do.
Over time, all of the little things that seemed to go wrong had tapered off. He no longer found that when he went to the shop in search of a particular item, the witch in front of him had snagged the last one. Strangers stopped spilling their drinks on him with regularity. When caught in a sudden downpour, a kind-looking older wizard offered him the use of an umbrella until they both reached the Ministry. He didn’t tell Potter about any of these things, because Potter would gloat, and things had the potential to return to the way they had been at any moment.
He stumbled into the office five minutes late one fall morning, missing the way that Weasley, Benson, and Mattlin stared at him as he put on the kettle and refilled the coffee pot.
“What happened to you?” Potter asked sharply as Draco sat at his desk.
“Hm?” Draco was dazed enough that it took him a moment to look up from the file he’d just grabbed. It was a spectacularly unusual morning, and he was still processing everything that had happened on his way to work.
“You’re bleeding. And you never come into work with your hair mussed.”
Draco couldn’t tell if Potter sounded more suspicious or worried, and after a moment, he lost his argument with himself and found he was telling Potter everything. “I sort of foiled a criminal on the way in.”
“You what?”
The look on Potter’s face was priceless, as if he was trying to picture Draco as an Auror and failing miserably. “It was an accident. I was leaving my flat, thinking that it was a nice enough morning and I could just walk instead of Apparating, and I tripped.”
“More of your bad luck?” Potter still teased him about it, but more gently than he used to. He hadn’t really had any heart in the taunting since the night of the World Cup.
“I don’t know. I thought so, but as I fell, I slammed into someone and sent them sprawling. I guess that’s when I cut my hand,” he said, noticing the wound for the first time. “It turns out the person I knocked over was running away from the Muggle police force. He’d stolen some woman’s purse. But when he fell, it got up without it. They got him less than a hundred metres later.”
“You foiled a purse-snatcher?” Potter looked amused. “When you tripped.”
“I did. And after I answered the necessary questions, the woman called me a hero.” It still hadn’t sunk in. It was the nicest thing anyone had really said to him after the war, and he didn’t really deserve it, but she’d sounded so sincere that Draco couldn’t help but feel warm and soft inside.
Potter favoured him with a friendly smile, his green eyes bright and sincere. “And to her, you are. You know, Malfoy, that sounds like some awfully good luck.” He reached for Draco’s hand and murmured an Episkey, squeezing lightly as he let go, casual enough that no one else would notice the gesture.
“Perhaps. But not quite as lucky as catching a murderer because you have a need for coffee.”
“Touché.”
Draco smirked and sat back down. He’d taken to watching Potter more and more during the work day, sneaking in little glances here and there. He’d yet to be caught at it, which might-but might not-have been an indication that his bad luck had slunk away with its tail between its knees. Not even Potter seemed to notice. Draco wondered if there was a way in which the casual arrangement they had could ever be…less casual. He let himself fantasise about it briefly while Potter was at lunch, but smothered the idea an hour later. It was probably best to leave things as they were. This was safer.
~0~
Draco was on his way back from lunch later that week, daydreaming happily. It was an activity he’d only recently allowed himself. In the past, daydreams had led to more bad luck being heaped upon him, but now he seemed to be able to go unpunished. He couldn’t complain. In his daydream, he and Potter were out to dinner, smiling at each other over candlelight and holding hands on the tabletop. It was nothing like their occasional lunches, caught in pubs or cafés or chip shops, where they still called each other ‘Malfoy’ and ‘Potter’. In this daydream, they were simply ‘Draco’ and ‘Harry’. Potter slipped now and then at the Ministry, using Draco’s given name, but Draco had never made a similar mistake. Their first names were only to be used in the privacy of their own homes, during the few stolen hours they were able to find. It was a shame, but for the best.
He was jolted out of this admittedly sappy daydream when he heard a plaintive ‘meow’ at his feet. He looked down and saw a pathetic-looking kitten twining its way around his ankles. He tried to shoo it away, but the cat was having none of it. And he was getting fur on Draco’s trousers. “Go back to your owner,” he muttered, flailing his hands in a last attempt. Every time he tried to walk away, the kitten would wind itself tighter in figure eights around Draco’s ankles. This was getting him nowhere.
Feeling like a fool, Draco knelt down. “I’m headed to work. Please go home.” He wondered briefly if this was someone in Animagus form, playing with his head. Did he know anyone who looked like a Siamese kitten? No one came to mind. The kitten meowed again, sticking his head under Draco’s limp hand, petting himself enthusiastically. Draco sighed and shook his head. A bit of bright yellow paper caught his eye. LOST KITTEN was the first line, and he rolled his eyes when he saw that the thing scratching himself was the same kitten in the photograph. “Of course,” he murmured. He took a closer look at the poster. Missing for three days, to an owner only two streets away.
With a sigh, he picked up the kitten. Apparently being petted was one thing, but being carried was quite another. The farther he walked, the more the kitten fought him. When he approached the front door of the flat listed on the poster, it opened just in time for a young witch of ten or so to hear Draco yowl as the kitten sunk its back claws into his stomach, and its teeth into his hand. She ignored his cry of pain, eyes fixated on the ragged ball of fur in his arms instead. “Fluffy!”
Draco thought about mentioning how unoriginal the name was, but decided against it. “I take it this is yours?”
“You found him!” the blonde child exclaimed, blue eyes shining up at him. “I thought he was gone forever! Thank you! He was my birthday present!” She was looking at him much the same way the Muggle woman who’d called him a hero had.
Trying not to blush over something so ridiculous, he cleared his throat. It was harder than it usually was. “You’re welcome,” he said, a wheeze creeping into his words. “I’m glad to help. Now please excuse me; I’m on my way to work.”
“Wait!” The girl put the kitten down and ducked inside the flat, and Draco eyed it suspiciously, afraid it would make a break for it, and he’d be stuck chasing it down. When she returned to the door, she was holding a smallish box. “I can’t offer a real reward, because I’ve spent my birthday money, but I want you to have this.”
“That’s very nice of you, but I can’t-” he began.
“Yes, you can,” she said very firmly, and Draco was briefly reminded of himself at that age, the strong sense of ‘I don’t care how young I am, you will listen to me’ unmistakable in her voice. But then she added a ‘please’, something he never would have done, and thrust the box into his hand.
“Uh, thank you,” he said after a moment. “Take care of your kitten.” He wandered back onto the street as she shut the door, kitten definitely inside the home. Once back in the sunlight, he took a look at what she’d handed him. It was a small golden Honeydukes box filled with chocolate coins. There were raspberry-filled dark chocolate Galleons, strawberry and milk chocolate Knuts, and his personal favourite, white chocolate and lemon Sickles. He gazed at the sweets in wonder. They were new, fresh. But Honeydukes had discontinued them when he was eight years old. He’d thrown an epic tantrum when his mother had told him. He turned the box over, afraid it would disappear in his hands. In tiny black printing he saw the words ‘back by popular demand’. He clutched the box to his chest with hands that were red and swollen, hurrying to work.
“Now what’s happened to you?” Potter asked when he sat down at the desk across from him. “You look like you’ve lost a fight with some animal.”
Draco laughed a little. “That’s pretty much what happened. I returned a lost cat.”
“You don’t happen to be allergic to cats, do you?” Potter asked, his eyebrows raised.
“Some cats. Why?”
“Because your face is swollen and so are the gashes on your hands. And are you the one making that squeaking noise?” Potter rolled his eyes. “Go see Miriam. She always has a bottle of quick-acting allergy antidote in her desk. She’s allergic to Kneazles and Crups. But ask nicely.”
“As if I’d be anything but polite,” Draco huffed. Well, it was an attempt at a huff. It was surprisingly hard to do while wheezing. His lungs felt like they were filled with cat hair.
He came back a few moments later, breathing clearly. The swollen scratches on his hands and forearms were slowly flattening out, losing some of the violent red colour. He recounted the tale to Potter as he filled out forms. It was a testament to how good he was feeling that he not only let Potter have one of the candy Sickles, but he even let Weasley snag one of the Galleons without much protest.
It seemed nothing could foul his mood. When another of Hermione’s interdepartmental memos struck him at the nape of the neck, Draco shrugged it off and handed it to Potter. As an afterthought, he added a postscript, asking that she take care to improve her aim in what he hoped was a joking manner. He pondered this new mood the rest of the day. His life wasn’t so bad anymore. He had someone to spend time with when his former Housemates were out of town, or too busy leading their own lives. He almost enjoyed his job, in no small part because he got to see Potter, who sometimes slipped up and gave him a rather affectionate smile that no one else seemed to think went beyond casual friendship. There no longer seemed to be a black rain cloud following him around wherever he went.
The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if it was because of what he and Potter had, or because he had decided to take Potter’s advice about luck being what you make of it. Hadn’t he, at one time, decided that if he spent enough time around Potter, some of that luck would rub off? Perhaps he hadn’t been wrong in thinking that way. He looked up from his desk. “Potter?”
“Yes, Malfoy?” Potter’s eyes didn’t stray from the file he was thumbing through, and Draco saw all of the notes jotted randomly and sighed internally. Yet something else for him to do in the morning.
“I was wondering if you’d like to get a bite to eat later.”
“I’ve already eaten lunch today. But thanks.”
Draco took a deep breath. “Not lunch. Dinner. After work.”
Potter’s dextrous fingers stopped moving through the papers, and he looked up sharply. “Dinner? Tonight? Are you sure?”
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, Draco wondered how quickly he could back-pedal. “I mean, you don’t have to, of course. I know we never do dinner, and you probably have other plans.”
“No, I don’t. Yes, Malfoy. I’ll meet you for dinner. Just name a time and place.”
He hadn’t thought this far ahead. None of their regular lunchtime haunts seemed right for what he was thinking. “Do you like Italian?” he managed after a moment. “We could do Antonio’s, at seven.” That gave him time to shower and change into something without cat hair on it. And maybe get a grip on the way his insides were fluttering about. They felt strangely similar to the way they had the second time Potter had kissed him.
“Antonio’s is fine. I’ll see you then.”
“Good.” Draco walked stiffly away to the other side of the office, busying himself with mundane tasks that no one else seemed willing to do. He was afraid to be near Potter just now, worried that if he thought about it too hard, he’d change his mind. It was still possible.
~0~
Potter strolled into the restaurant at seven o’clock sharp. Draco had been sitting nervously at their table for nearly thirty minutes, trying to steady himself with slow sips of ice water. It wasn’t working. He needed something stronger.
“Malfoy,” Potter said with a small smile as he sat. He frowned at the two goblets in front of him, as if they were a test he was ill-prepared for.
Draco watched Potter’s reaction, waiting to see which goblet he’d pick up. They were a test, of sorts. One held simply ice water, the other a mellow Merlot. He hadn’t forgotten what Potter had said the night of the World Cup, about the wine and champagne. “You don’t have to test them,” Draco said softly. “No poisons, no Veritaserum. I promise.”
Potter laughed. “If you’re certain.” He still didn’t pick up a glass, and Draco tried not to pout. “It’s odd being out to dinner with you. It’s not the same routine, you know?”
With a nervous smile, Draco nodded. “I know. But I wanted to talk about something a little out of the ordinary.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Remember what we talked about that night in the café in Italy?”
“About your string of bad luck?”
“Yes. That.” Potter gestured for him to go on, still frowning at his drink options. “Well, it seems my luck has changed recently.”
A smile crossed Potter’s face, the friendly but not overly-familiar once he used when they were in the Auror office together. “I’m glad to hear you think so.”
“I wonder…” Draco took a deep breath, unsure how to continue. “Do you feel any differently about your own?
He received a shrug in response. “It is what it is. Why?”
Better to just do it quickly, like ripping a plaster off all at once. “Well, as I’ve realised how much I actually enjoy my life lately, I’ve realised I’ve fallen for you. What we’ve been doing has been nice, but I want more. If that comes at the price of my job, then so be it. I want more than this casual arrangement.” The vision he’d had this morning of the two of them having a romantic, candlelit dinner rose to the front of his mind, and he shut his eyes tight against it. “Harry, what I want is you.”
There was no immediate reply, and Draco wondered if his bad luck had stuck around to watch him make a fool of himself. After a moment, Potter cleared his throat, and Draco dared to open his eyes.
“Well, what do you know?” Potter said with a slow smile, picking up the goblet of wine. “Looks like my luck’s turned around, too.”