HD INSPIRATION FOR SESHETA_66
Author: tracy_loo_who & sexts
Recipient: sesheta_66
Title: It's the Wrong Time (And I Got No Excuse) (Part 1 of 2)
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco, mentions of Harry/Ginny and Draco/Astoria
Warnings: Infidelity
Rating: Hard R/NC-17
Summary: Harry and Draco have unhappy marriages. Harry and Draco are forced to work together in relative isolation for a month. Epilogue-ambiguous.
Total word count: ~15k
Disclaimer: This story/artwork 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 and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: The title is from the song 9 Crimes by Damien Rice. :)
It's the Wrong Time (And I Got No Excuse) Part 1 of 2
“Daddy, look, you tear your shorts!” Lily squealed at the discovery and promptly stuck her little arm through the hole.
Harry glanced up from folding a shirt and rescued his boxers from the toddler. “Those aren’t torn, honey, they’re supposed to have a hole in them.”
“But why?” Bright, inquisitive eyes turned to the other boxers in Harry’s suitcase and he had to sweep her up into his arms before she could undo any more of his packing.
“C’mere, miss. How would you like some ice cream?” he asked, mostly because he didn’t want to explain to his two-year-old daughter the finer details of his underwear.
Lily squealed again and waved a tiny fist. “Ice cream!” Harry chuckled and took her out to the kitchen.
“Dad?” James asked, sounding frustrated. “Can you help me with my letters?”
Harry glanced over at his oldest as he opened the fridge, noting the pout his son was sporting. He actually didn’t have a lot of time to spare for homework help before he left, but he didn’t want to leave an unhappy James with Ginny. “Sure, buddy. Just let me get some ice cream for you sister. You want some?”
James’s face lit up. “Yeah!”
Harry smiled at him just as Ginny walked into the kitchen, wearing a headset and talking rapidly to someone on the other line. “Corina, how difficult is it to line up a single model? Just one. That’s all I asked for. I asked you to organise this shoot weeks ahead of-” Ginny cut herself off abruptly as she noticed the ice cream Harry had started scooping into bowls. “Harry, I really wish you wouldn’t feed them so much junk food, especially before bed. They’ll be up all night, and I have work to do.”
Harry’s smile tightened as he looked up at his wife, trying to keep Lily from falling as she wriggled her way off his hip and down his leg. “They’ll be fine, Gin. I just want to keep them happy for you so they don’t give you a hard time when I leave.”
Ginny pursed her lips at him. “Corina,” she snapped, “I will call you back. And when I do, I expect to hear that Paolo Borcelli would be only too happy to do this job for free.” With that, she carefully pulled the headset from her coiffed hair and grabbed Harry’s arm, leading him into the living room.
“Do you really have to go this very week, Harry?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his waist and looking up at him. “I thought maybe we could spend a little time together; I feel like I never see you these days. I never would have taken this week off if I’d known you wouldn’t even be here, but things are going to be even busier for the next few months and this was the only week I could take off.”
Harry sighed and tried to bite back his irritation. He didn’t put his arms around her. “Ginny, I told you I was taking this assignment long before you decided you needed a vacation. I never take the expeditions they offer me. I just wanted to do this one thing, all right? So I’m sorry I can’t be around when it’s most convenient for you, but I have a job to do, too.”
“You can do yours from home, Harry! They don’t even need you up there. If they did, you wouldn’t have been able to turn down all the other assignments.” Harry opened his mouth, an angry retort ready on his lips, but she cut him off with a heavy sigh. “It’s okay, Harry, never mind. I’m just a little disappointed that when I finally do have some free time, all of it will be spent looking after the kids by myself instead of relaxing with my husband. But I’ll get over it. And I just know Corina’s going to botch up this shoot without me constantly looking over her shoulder, and Milan is in two weeks. Maybe I should just go back to work after all-”
“Will you just stop?” Harry snapped. God, he hated when she got all passive aggressive, and he especially hated that her fucking clothing line was more important to her than her own children. “If you don’t have time for a family maybe you shouldn’t have started one!”
Ginny pulled away like she’d been slapped. “That’s not - that’s not what I meant and you know it, Harry.”
“No, I don’t,” Harry muttered under his breath as he left to go back to the kitchen and finish scooping ice cream. Ginny followed him but said nothing, and that suited him just fine.
“Here you go, sweetie.” He put Lily in her high chair and set a bowl of ice cream in front of her, then took the other bowl over to where James sat staring at his book. His eyes weren’t even moving over the pages, though, and Harry had the sneaking suspicion he was trying to pretend he hadn’t just heard their fight.
He sighed. “Here’s your ice cream, buddy. How’s your project coming along? You should go show it to mum so she can help you with it when I’m gone.”
“But I don’t want mum to help me with it! I want you!”
Harry heard Ginny snort behind him, but he ignored her. “Hey, big guy, it’ll be alright. I’m sure you’ll get to see Nanny a lot. You love going over to the Burrow, don’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ginny finally snapped. “You think I can’t take care of them by myself so I’m just going to send them over to mum’s all the time?”
Harry rubbed tiredly at his temples. “No, Ginny. But you did mention that you had a lot of work to do, and I am going to be gone for a month. Somehow I doubt you’re going to take three young children with you to Milan.” He winked down at James. “Milan’s pretty boring for kids.”
James’s smile was small and wobbly, but there nonetheless.
Ginny didn’t seem to know what to say to that, but he could feel her glare on the back of his head as he sat down at the kitchen table next to his son and pulled his notebook closer. “So what’ve you got here, Jamie?”
“Harry, I believe I was trying to discuss something with you,” Ginny bit out.
“Gin, Jamie needs my help right now. After that, I have to finish packing. I know you don’t want me to go, but it’s a little late to be getting upset about it now, isn’t it?”
“Maybe if you’d asked me in the first place, I would’ve-”
“Are you fighting?”
Harry blinked down at the bright green eyes looking up at him from behind round glasses. He grinned at Albus Severus; the awkward tilt of the large glasses on such a tiny face never failed to amuse him. “Hey, little guy. Your brother and sister are having ice cream. You want some?”
“Are you fighting with Mummy, Daddy?”
Harry narrowed his eyes at Ginny over Al’s head. “No, honey, we’re not fighting. Mummy and Daddy were just talking about how you might spend some time with Nanny while I’m away.”
“Harry.” Ginny’s face was tight and she had one hand perched on her hip.
“Yes?”
For a moment Harry waited for something nasty, but all she said was, “Let me know when you’re ready to go. I’m going to call Corina back.”
Harry said nothing as she pivoted on one polished black heel and stepped into the hallway. A moment later, he could hear her frustrated voice chewing out the poor girl who had been her assistant for the last two years.
Turning back to his children, Harry forced a strained smile onto his face. “Jamie, I’m going to get Al a bowl of ice cream. Why don’t you read me the questions while I do?”
Once Harry had managed to help James with his homework, clean chocolate ice cream off of Lily’s face, pack his bags, and say goodbye to his family, he was very nearly late for his Portkey. Gus Moore was not the sort of boss a bloke wanted to piss off, even if that bloke was Harry Potter, and tardiness was one of the worst offences in his book. So when Harry came skidding to a stop in the Ministry of Magic’s designated Portkey station, Gus looked ready to explode with a tirade that would make Harry another hour late.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” Harry panted, sweating in his parka, snow pants, boots, hat, and gloves. “My children-”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses, Potter. You have two minutes exactly before you are booked to leave!”
“Uh. Right. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Harry mumbled, reaching out to hold the scroll Moore was brandishing at him.
----
“Ah, Harry, there you are!” The first thing Harry saw when he landed was the round, jolly face of Archibald MacDougal. He had too much shaggy hair and a healthy beer-belly that bespoke of too much socializing and not enough working for a project leader in the Department of Mysteries, but Harry had always liked him.
Archibald MacDougal wasn’t the man on Harry’s mind, though, and he caught himself glancing around the spacious tent for a glimpse of blond hair. He needn’t have been nervous all of a sudden - Draco wasn’t there, only a small handful of people milling about talking or messing with expensive-looking equipment. Harry turned back to Archie and gave him a smile. “Hey Archie, it’s good to see you again.”
“It’s good to see you. Such a rare honor these days,” Archie replied with a wink.
Harry was a little embarrassed. Ever since he’d left the team six years ago to work independently from home, his visits had been few and far between and he’d always had some excuse for avoiding department activities. “Sorry about that, I didn’t mean-”
Archie waved it off. “Just teasing, Harry. I appreciate you coming back to help us out. We all do. Elise! Show Harry to his tent, won’t you? By the way, you’ll be sharing a tent with Draco, is that alright?”
Harry’s heart skipped a beat. “D-Draco?” His wave of nervousness returned, and it was twice as strong now. He told himself he was just being stupid.
“Blond bloke, real pointy.” Archie peered at him. “Everything alright, Harry? He offered to board you so I assumed you-”
“He offered?” Harry was completely thrown off. The last time he’d seen Draco, he’d been told he was a miserable, useless fool who only ever got in his way and fucked everything up, and if Draco had it his way he would never have to look at Harry’s revolting face again. And to think Harry had been under the impression they’d been developing a fairly comfortable friendship. Useless fool, indeed. That was six years ago, but now Draco had volunteered to share his tent with him? Harry was at a loss.
Archie’s brows furrowed a little. “If you’d rather not be with Draco, we can certainly make other arrangements.”
“No! Um, I mean, no, it’s not a problem.” It wasn’t until then that Harry noticed the pretty brunette that had joined them. He cleared his throat and gave her a smile. “You must be Elise, then?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Potter!” She gave him a shy smile in return. “Shall I show you to your tent, then?”
“Yeah, thanks. Call me Harry,” he replied warmly, and gave a nod to Archie. He took a deep breath as they left.
----
For all that glancing around for Draco was the first thing Harry had done upon his arrival here, now he was dragging his feet a bit in the snow. It was cold - bitterly so, but what did Harry expect? This was the North Pole, after all. He didn’t mind the cold; barely registered it, in fact, because all of his thoughts were focused on Draco.
He’d played out this scene a million times in his imagination: an angry Draco, an apologetic Draco, a cool, distant Draco who wouldn’t so much as look at him... in all of these scenarios Harry had imagined himself to be coldly polite. He would act like he cared nothing for Draco and had never been the least bit hurt by Draco’s words. He certainly wouldn’t let on that they still bothered him so many years later. Or that he still thought about Draco so damned much.
But not in any of these scenarios had Draco offered to share a tent with him, so now Harry hadn’t a bloody clue how he should act. And he was stalling.
“Coming?” Elise called. They were there. She was already knocking on the door. Harry came up beside her, bit his lip, and then schooled his features into a neutral expression. Couldn’t go wrong with one of those, right?
When Draco opened the door, Harry almost thought he looked stunned. But that was silly, because he was the one who’d arranged to have Harry room with him, after all. So if Draco wasn’t stunned, then what was he? Harry didn’t get a chance to figure it out, though, because a moment later the expression was gone and Draco practically beamed at him. “Harry! Thanks, Elise, I’ve got it from here.” He took Harry’s arm and pulled him into the warmth of the tent. Harry barely had time to thank Elise before Draco was closing the door on her and leading him over to the fire in the center of the tent.
“You must be freezing,” Draco was saying. “You couldn’t possibly have thought that ridiculous parka would keep you warm out here, could you? Then again, considering it’s you, I guess I can see how that might happen.”
“Malfoy,” Harry cut in, tone even. He saw an uneasy look morph and disappear on Draco’s face. “Is there a reason you offered to let me sleep with you?”
“Sleep with me?” Draco echoed. He looked equal parts pained and amused. Harry struggled not to blush.
“Oh, shut up. You know that’s not what I meant. Why’d you offer to share your tent with me? I thought you hated me and never wanted to see my revolting face again.” Harry couldn’t help his frown.
“What? You’re still - Oh, Harry. I was just having a bad day, you can’t possibly have thought I meant that,” Draco said, a little too glibly.
Harry persisted, as Harry always did. “But you wouldn’t even look at me for weeks afterwards, and you were so happy when I quit, and you didn’t come to my going-away party.” Or bother to so much as owl in the six years since then.
Draco waved his hand. “Bad month, then. Anyway, what does it matter? That was ages ago. I’m more concerned about the present; are you hungry?”
“No, I ate at home.” Harry was about to protest the change of subject, but Draco cut him off.
“Alright. You should get some rest, then. I hear Archie’s got your day all planned out tomorrow. The sun doesn’t rise here, so I’ll let you know when it’s morning.” Draco nodded to the empty bed across the fire from his own, and Harry distantly registered that while the couple of cots he’d seen in Archie’s tent looked like they’d been shoddily thrown together, the beds in Draco’s tent, while small, looked soft and warm and luxurious. He almost snorted.
“Um. Right. Okay.” Harry decided, albeit reluctantly, that he could question Draco about his six-year-long mood swings later. He really was pretty tired, so he took his luggage out from his pocket, restored them to their normal size, and set about getting ready for bed. He was peripherally aware of Draco watching him quietly from his own bed, but neither of them said anything. It wasn’t a comfortable silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, either. When Harry lay down, the flames obscured Draco from view and he closed his eyes. Tomorrow would be an interesting day.
----
Tomorrow wasn’t really an interesting day at all.
Draco woke him up and gave him a tuna sandwich in the morning, and then he was off touring the grounds with Archie all day. All the fancy tools and equipment were fascinating, Harry was sure, but he’d always been more interested in the theory side of things. Good thing, too, because otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to work from home all these years. Then again, if he hadn’t left the office and field work, it probably wouldn’t have taken him six years to realize Draco didn’t hate him after all...
Harry shook his head. Why did all of his thoughts keep coming back to Draco Fucking Malfoy? Honestly, they weren’t sixteen anymore and Harry no longer suspected him of being evil. There was absolutely no reason for this near-obsession. None.
“Harry?” Oh, shit. He had no idea what Archie had been talking about. “You still with me?”
“Uhm, yeah, sorry.” Harry pushed his glasses up his nose and gave Archie an embarrassed look. “Sorry.”
“S’okay,” Archie replied, though he gave Harry a strange look. “As I was saying, this is where you come in. None of us can take the cochlieve up to the top of the iceberg without resorting to magic, and it’s imperative we don’t use any for obvious reasons. It’s much too heavy for a man, but a polar bear should have no problem.”
Harry nodded. He’d already suspected that this was what they needed him for - his Animagus form was perfect for arctic expeditions. “Sure, I can do that.”
“That’s my man,” Archie grinned and clapped him on the back. “We’ll work out the details later. Just about time for dinner now, come on.”
Before they took off down the slope, Harry glanced back to the iceberg, taking in its height and the distance to it. He gave a sigh of resignation.
----
Draco wasn’t at dinner. Harry wasn’t at all surprised at his own disappointment, and gave himself a disparaging eye-roll.
Elise immediately stopped talking to him, flushed an embarrassed shade of red, and started poking the vegetables around on her plate. Harry only belatedly realized she must have thought his eye-roll was in response to whatever she’d been saying.
“Sorry!” he said hastily. “I didn’t mean to roll my eyes at you, it’s just I suddenly thought of, uhm, something I forgot to do.”
“Oh.” Elise smiled at him, almost coyly. “Does that mean you’ll be too busy to join us for a game of poker after dinner, then? We’re short a player, you know.”
Harry caught himself before asking if Draco would be there. “Sorry, can’t tonight.” And, because he’d already had enough to eat (he ate quickly, what could he say?) and this seemed the perfect opportunity to make excuses to leave, he did. “I still have some things I have to do. Should probably get going, actually, good luck finding a player for your game.”
Elise looked disappointed. “Okay. Bye, then, Mr. Potter.” Harry had already asked her twice today to call him Harry; he didn’t bother again.
----
“You are being such an idiot,” a familiar voice snapped. Harry paused outside the entrance to Draco’s tent, trying to put a finger on who he was talking to inside.
“Pansy, it’s been six years. Don’t you think I’d be over it by now?” Pansy, then. Draco hadn’t stopped being her friend all these years, apparently. He’d just stopped being Harry’s friend. Harry scowled a little.
“No.”
Judging from the silence that followed, Pansy was probably right. Harry leaned in closer. He hated feeling like he was eavesdropping, but he couldn’t help his curiosity. What didn’t she think Draco had gotten over? Did it have anything to do with why he’d pushed Harry away? The six years thing couldn’t be a coincidence, surely?
When Draco didn’t say anything, Pansy went on, so softly Harry almost didn’t catch it. “Just try not to do anything stupid, okay? Shit will hit the fan if you’re not careful.”
“I know.” Now Draco just sounded exasperated. And something else.
“Well, if you ever need to talk or hide a dead body or anything, you know where to find me.” Harry could only hope she was kidding.
“Yeah. Thanks, Pans. Night,” Draco replied, and it was quiet after that.
Harry waited for two seconds before going in.
“Harry!” Draco looked surprised. He was sitting in front of the fire and gave it a quick glance, but Pansy was gone. “You’re back from dinner early.”
Harry shrugged. “I eat fast. Was that Pansy you were talking to?” He indicated the fire.
“You heard?” Draco’s eyes narrowed just a bit.
“I heard her say something about a dead body,” Harry said wryly.
Draco seemed to relax a bit and smiled. “Every man needs a friend who’ll help him hide dead bodies, right?”
“Have you killed anyone?” Harry deadpanned.
A shrug. “Not recently, no.”
“Then what do you need help with?”
Draco opened his mouth to answer, but paused as if he wasn’t sure of exactly what to say. Finally, he plastered on a small smile. “Nothing. Just making sure I wasn’t dying of starvation up here. How was dinner, anyway? Bland? I usually find it bland.”
“Uh,” Harry cocked an eyebrow. “It was fine, I guess. Mess hall food, you know?”
Draco’s lips quirked in a half-hearted smirk. “Yeah.”
Harry nodded awkwardly, and finally moved to toe off his boots and pull off his gloves. “So, I hope you don’t think I was trying to intrude, but I heard her say something about six years and you getting over something, and--”
“Oh, don’t worry, it wasn’t anything. Just Pans being overprotective. Hey, I was making cocoa, you want some?”
Harry blinked. “Sure. You know, Draco, we should probably talk about that whole thing. I mean, I get the feeling it was about…us. Right?”
Draco had his back turned to Harry, head bent over a kettle of water as he placed it on the woodstove. “Not a big deal. She just wanted to make sure I wasn’t still suffering through that mood swing and feeling homicidal.” He turned and smiled. “Which I’m not, so stop worrying about it. What’s done is done. We’re working together now, and I’m perfectly happy with that, so can we just forget it?”
Harry flopped down into one of the surprisingly comfortable armchairs in front of the fireplace and stared up at the other man. Draco’s body language, which he had finally learned to read after working with the man for three years, was screaming that he was uncomfortable. It wasn’t exactly obvious, and anyone who didn’t know the man well would think that the way he had his hands shoved into the front pockets of his trousers was casual, and that his smile was natural. Harry knew better.
“It’s obviously not done, though. You’re all tense around me and have been acting weird since I-”
“Weird? I haven’t-”
“You have been mother-henning me, which you only do when you want to draw attention away from the fact that you are uncomfortable and don’t want to talk about your feelings,” Harry said in a rush, cutting in before Draco had the chance to interrupt him again. “You’ve been downright fussy. And you avoid the subject every time I bring up the fact that you were a royal bitch to me six years ago when I thought we were friends. And you bloody well asked Archie to bunk me with you. All of which is weird. So. Here’s the thing: I would like an explanation that is more substantive than ‘I was having a bad month’.”
Draco gave him a long, level look. Finally, he said simply, “No.”
Harry blinked. “No?”
“No,” Draco repeated. He crossed his arms. “What are you going to do about it?”
Harry considered this. It was unfair as hell, but he knew better than to make an appeal to Draco about fairness. He supposed he could just refuse to speak to Draco until he got his explanation, but that idea sounded childishly petty even in his head. There was nothing left for it. Harry scowled and mumbled, “Nothing.”
Draco gave him a bright, brilliant smile and placed a steaming mug of cocoa in front of him.
----
Over the next week, Harry made a valiant effort to ignore the fact that Draco had still not revealed the reason for their falling out and didn’t seem to have any intention of doing so anytime soon.
Instead, he tried to put aside any leftover feelings of hurt and resentment and approach Draco as a co-worker who he had once had a friendly relationship with. So far, it seemed to be working well enough.
“You look like an idiot.” They were trudging through the snow to the briefing tent and Harry was trying to shield his face from the wind with his gloves.
“Yeah, well at least I don’t look like Rudolph.”
“Who?”
“The red-nosed reindeer of Santa Claus lore?”
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t you wish?”
Draco stuck his tongue out at him in a childish grab for the last word as they arrived at the briefing tent and Harry held the flap open for them to enter. The warmth inside felt like running into a wall at first, something Harry still hadn’t gotten used to, and Harry started to sweat in his fur-lined parka immediately.
Archie sat at the large rectangular conference table, feet propped up and crossed on the table, and a pipe clenched between his teeth. “Ah, boys!” he cried out jovially, hands flung out to his sides. “Good morning, innit?”
Draco mumbled something that sounded vaguely like ‘fucking spectacular’ as he shuffled over to the coffeemaker in the corner. Harry smiled at Archie and nodded. “Still a little weird to call it morning when there’s no sun up.”
Archie chuckled. “You’ll get used to it. Anyway, boys, I just need you to go up and check the cochlieve’s readings. We’ve been getting some weird fluctuations in the data, and we were wondering if it’s actually the amount of errant magic that’s changing, or if there’s some other factor. It’s new machinery, obviously, and it’s not been tested at this temperature or around this amount of magical energy before. Then again, it could be interference from all those Muggle gadgets they’ve got flying about in the air.”
Harry groaned internally, but forced a smile on the outside. “In other words, we’re camping out in the snowdrifts all day?”
“Exactly!” Archie grinned at him.
Harry glanced over at Draco, who was pouting at him from behind his steaming cup of caffeine. Between the pout, the red nose, and the furry hood surrounding his pale face, he looked pretty ridiculous. It was kind of adorable, actually. Harry laughed. “C’mon, you. The sooner we get out there, the less time you have to spend in the cold.”
Draco grumbled, but followed after him, hissing as they stepped out into the frigid air once again. “You know, I’m starting to think you had the right idea, playing house-daddy. Hanging out with kids all day has got to be better than hanging out in snowdrifts.”
Harry smiled a little sadly, recalling the firecall he’d made home the night before. “It’s funny, but I don’t mind. After a while, you just need a break. I miss them, though. D’you miss-” he wracked his brain for the name of Draco’s only child, born after they’d fallen out, “Scorpio?”
“Scorpius,” Draco corrected, sounding amused. “I feel sorry for the little bugger, having a name like that. But Astoria insisted. Maybe if she hadn’t been crushing my fingers and cursing my birth at the time, I would’ve protested a little louder.”
Harry grinned widely. “That’s why Ginny and I settled on the names before the contractions had a chance to muddle her brain.”
Draco elbowed him, which turned out to be rather ineffective considering the amount of padding they were both wearing, but got his point across. “Shut up, you. Don’t talk about my kid like that.”
They walked - or rather, trudged along - in silence for a bit, Harry searching the entire time for something to talk about. They’d mostly slipped back into the routine relationship they’d had while they’d worked together years ago, but reminders of how much had happened since they’d last seen each other tended to put a damper on their camaraderie.
Harry finally cleared his throat and glanced over at Draco. “How is Astoria, anyway? Last time I talked to you, you’d gone on two dates and were making noise about dumping her for being too high maintenance. Which was pretty ironic, by the way.”
Another elbow to the side. “I am not high maintenance.”
Harry snorted.
“Anyway. I decided to allow her to stick around. I got along better with her than with most of the witches I’ve tried to date, and my mother was nagging at me to have an heir. Abracadabra, poof! Married with children.” Draco’s smirk was wry and seemed mostly directed at himself. “She’s now enjoying the noble life and expensive things, hence me being stuck in the Arctic Circle with you.”
“Yeah, I know how much you missed me.”
Harry’s tone was teasing, but the look Draco sent him wasn’t amused. He looked…almost wistful. “I suppose you aren’t so bad,” he offered quietly. Then he cleared his throat. “What about Ginny? Gotta admit, I was shocked she let you off your leash long enough to come up here.”
They’d just started ascending the slope leading up to the iceberg, and Harry reached out to catch and tug at Draco’s ankle, sending him sprawling into the snow. “HEY!”
“You deserved it. That was catty,” Harry replied, digging the spikes on his boots into the ice as he climbed. “Ginny doesn’t dictate my life. And she’s taking care of the kids while I’m gone.”
A derisive snort came from just behind him and Harry glanced back to see Draco shaking his head, a sardonic grin on his face. “What?”
“Oh, nothing. Just sounds a little like the arrangements I made with Astoria. She was a little annoyed to find out that she would have to take Scorpius along to your wife’s show in Milan.”
Harry knew exactly what Draco was hinting at, and while he might have opened up and shared his relationship woes with his friend six years ago, he wasn’t about to let Draco in that far again yet. “Al was really excited to hear that Scorpius would be there, actually. Apparently they’re in the same class at day school. Which surprised me, actually.” Harry looked over at Draco, curiosity written plainly across his face. “I would’ve thought you would have gotten him a Governess.”
Draco’s facial expression gave absolutely nothing away. “I find that…having a Governess is restrictive. And lonely. It doesn’t teach children the social skills required later in life.”
Harry had a sudden flashback to the Draco Malfoy he had met on the Hogwarts Express twenty-seven years ago, small hand held out before him imperiously, the weight of the Malfoy dynasty backing him in his first venture to make friends of his own. Regret settled in his stomach once again, as it had done so many times since leaving Hogwarts and interacting with Draco as more than a boyhood rival.
They’d reached the top of the slope and stood next to the cochlieve, staring out at the lethally cold water that broke against the base of the iceberg they were perched atop. What Muggles knew as the Northern Lights, and what they knew as magical energy, undulated in waves of colour across the horizon.
“Well,” Harry started, “If it’s any consolation, I think you turned out alright. Considering.”
Draco simply stared at him.
Harry smiled. “All right. Let’s get this thing figured out. I don’t plan on staying up here until my fingers fall off.”
----
They were at an important meeting, at which important things were being discussed. Draco leaned in and whispered in Harry’s ear, “Do you think Archie’s going bald?”
“What?” Harry whispered back, shooting him an incredulous look.
“Look! He’s losing hair.”
Against his better judgment, Harry looked. “He’s not losing hair.”
“His hairline is receding.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “I still don’t think so, but so what?”
“So what if it’s from being out here?” Draco’s eyes were wide. “With the cochlieve and crazy magic fluctuations?”
“What’s your point?”
Harry never did get to find out what Draco’s point was, though, because Archie chose that moment to look over at them and say, “Gentlemen, was there something you wanted to add?”
Harry glared at Draco and sunk a little in his seat. “No.”
----
“Let’s build an igloo!” Draco suggested brightly.
Harry groaned a little. He’d wanted to spend their day off doing something relaxing. Like relaxing. “An igloo?”
“Come on, don’t be so lazy.” Draco pulled his blankets back and Harry decided he was being far too cheerful at this time of morning. Not that he knew what time of morning it was. All he knew was that it was cold without his blankets.
“You don’t know the first thing about building igloos,” Harry said, hoping it was true.
Draco scoffed. “Of course I do, don’t be absurd.”
“Oh yeah? Then tell me how.”
“It’s just like building a snow man,” Draco assured him. “Except, you know, dome-shaped and hollow. A dome-shaped, hollow snow man.”
Harry gave him a skeptical look, but there was no stopping Draco when he got it in his head to do something. “Right. Well, how about you start on it and I’ll come help you in a bit?”
Draco pouted at him but left the tent. When he was gone, Harry pulled his blankets back up. He only wanted five more minutes, really...
He awoke very suddenly and very, very unpleasantly some time later. There was snow everywhere - on top of him, around him, in his mouth, in his hair... he was practically buried in it. Harry spluttered, sitting up and waving his arms wildly as he tried to get the snow off. “What the hell-?”
Laugher broke out all around him. The whole team was there, and in the center was Draco, looking at his feet very sheepishly indeed.
“Draco...” Harry growled.
“Hey, you can’t blame me,” Draco said imploringly. “You’re the one who wouldn’t help me build the igloo.”
Harry looked around. His whole bed had been levitated outside, presumably into Draco’s silly igloo. “So you decided to put me in it?”
“Well. Igloos are supposed to be warm.” Draco scuffed a foot in the snow.
Harry looked heavenward, and Elise brought him a towel.
----
“A cow.”
“What? Where the hell do you see a cow?”
“There! See that little cluster to the left? Next to the thing that sort of looks like a dick?”
Harry’s mouth dropped open. “Draco. I’m almost certain that that’s Ursa Major.”
“I am aware of that,” Draco drawled. “I think it looks like a dick.”
“I think you think about sex too much.”
Draco made a noise that sounded something like ‘pfft’.
“You do.”
“Do not. I just happen to know phallic imagery when I see it,” Draco responded haughtily.
They fell silent for a few minutes, simply staring at the stars above them.
“I’m bloody cold.”
“Yeah, I’m feeling that.”
“How come we got stuck out here doing the dirty work? It’s not like we even know how to run this stupid machine.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Draco rolled his head to the side and stared at Harry. Harry sighed. “Yeah, all right. Doesn’t mean I want to sit in the cold and look at it all day.”
“That’s what I thought. Archie sucks.”
“Archie does suck.”
“Missing the kids yet?”
“I started missing them the day I got here. At this point, I’m starting to miss fashion shows.”
Draco let out a bark of shocked laughter. “That far gone, huh?”
“That far gone.”
“Yeah. Me too. Are we pathetic?”
“It’ll be our little secret.”
Draco snorted. Harry elbowed him in the ribs. They grinned at each other.
“I spy with my little eye, something that begins with…‘s’.”
“Snow. That was the saddest clue I’ve ever heard.”
“Shut up. The cold has frozen my brain.”
----
Usually when Harry was out on his own, he preferred to be a polar bear. It was much warmer that way, and it shaved a lot of time off of traveling anywhere.
His animagus form wasn’t common knowledge, though, even among the team. After all, being in the Department of Mysteries meant that most information was given out on a need to know basis. Harry watched Draco shuffle around their makeshift campsite from a distance and decided he could make an exception.
He came closer until Draco glanced up from roasting his fish over the fire and gave him an alarmed look. Draco couldn’t use magic here without invalidating all of the data they’d collected, he knew, so he wouldn’t go for his wand unless absolutely necessary.
Well, Harry just wouldn’t make any sudden movements, then. He would, however, amble up to Draco and steal his fish.
For his part, Draco was all too keen to give Harry the fish. “My mother will be so upset if you try to eat me,” he told Harry as he pulled his fish off the stick. “Here, eat this instead. Over there.” He tried to toss the fish as far away from himself as he could, but Harry caught it in midair and ate the entire thing in seconds.
Draco blinked. “Nice catch. Look, I’ve got more. If you take your time maybe Potter will be back before you’re done and then you can eat him instead of me.” As he talked, Draco unwrapped a few more of the fish they’d brought up with them and tossed one to Harry. It was raw, though, and Harry turned his nose at it.
Draco gave him a wary look but kept talking. “He’s a Gryffindor. Those are pretty tasty, I hear.” Harry snorted.
“What, don’t like Gryffindors? Neither do I, really, but Harry’s all right. For a person, I mean, not for a meal. His hair is pretty unfortunate, though, for a person and for a meal. I imagine it would tickle, going down, seeing as it stands up in so many different directions and all. You probably shouldn’t eat Harry after all. I know who you can eat! There’s this girl called Elise down at our base camp, she’s got a crush on Harry...” Draco seemed to relax more and more as he talked, and even let Harry get close enough to nuzzle his hand.
Draco looked surprised for a moment before reaching out tentatively to pat him on the head. “You’re not so scary after all, are you?” Harry growled, and he snatched his hand away. “Oh no, you’re not gonna be like that crazy hippogriff, are you? All I meant is that you’re actually kind of cute, and really soft, and-”
Harry knocked him over onto his back with a huge paw, being careful to use as little force as possible. Then, as Draco sputtered and sat up, Harry changed back into a person and laughed. Draco’s expression was priceless. “Gotcha!” He smirked once and took off in the face of Draco’s indignant outrage.
“Come back here, you giant git!” Draco chased him for twenty meters at least, until Harry misplaced a step and sunk knee-deep into the snow. Draco crashed into him and they both collapsed willy-nilly in a huge flurry of white, laughing and panting and grabbing at each other.
“Take that!” Draco yelled, mashing snow into Harry’s hair. Harry squealed and squirmed and hit Draco square in the face with a fistful of snow.
They struggled back and forth like that for all of about two minutes before they were both exhausted and shivering and came to a wordless truce. Draco was still on top of him, breathing heavily and red in the nose again. They were awfully close, Harry suddenly realized, and Draco was awfully... something. Harry couldn’t place a finger on it, but it made him reach up to brush the snow out of Draco’s fine blond hair.
For a moment, Draco stopped breathing and his eyes widened, and all Harry could do was stare at the tiny blue and black flecks in Draco’s grey irises. He’d never noticed those before, but then again, they’d never been this close before...
Harry came back to his senses and looked away awkwardly. “Uhm...” he began, but Draco saved him from his embarrassment by getting off of him and helping him to his feet.
“Thanks,” Harry mumbled, and though he was aware of Draco’s eyes on him, he didn’t look back. He just hoped Draco would assume the pink tinge to his cheeks was from the cold. “C’mon, we should get back before we both freeze to death.”
They retraced their steps back to the campsite wordlessly, but Draco walked so close to him that their shoulders almost touched.
----
Sometimes, Harry just liked to look at Draco. If asked why, he wouldn't have been able to come up with an answer; there was just something about Draco that always caught his attention.
It wasn't an obsession like in sixth year, and it wasn't lust (because that was just absurd). It was more like... admiring a fine work of art. Of course, Harry had never been particularly keen when it came to aesthetics, but he could appreciate the fluidity of Draco's movements and the rich, baritone waves of his voice and the way he tilted his head back sometimes, at just the right angle that his hair fell back from his face and the light from the fire lit up his features.
Harry particularly liked to look at Draco's profile. It was sharp in a way that made him seem imperious, even if all he was doing was doodling in Harry's research journal.
"Hey!" Harry said, because he'd just realized Draco was doodling in his research journal.
Draco glanced up. "Yes?"
"Don't doodle in that! I've got to show it to Archie, you know." Harry came over to snatch it away from him.
"You've been staring at me for the past five minutes -- don't think I didn't notice -- you couldn't have said something before I finished drawing you dolphins?" Draco's drawl was more amused than it had any right to be.
"Um. I was just, you know, thinking about stuff. Dolphins?" Harry looked down at his journal. Two dolphins were jumping out of the squiggly lines of water. It was actually pretty good for a doodle.
"I like dolphins." Shrug.
"Yeah, they don't have to get married and they can go wherever they want and do whatever they want."
Draco gave him a strange look. "Right."
----
"Aw, c'mon, Draco! You know I'm shite at poker. You just want all my money."
Draco's grin was shark-like as he flopped into the chair across from Harry and started dealing. "Nah. We'll just make it a friendly game of strip poker."
Harry's eyes widened in shock. "St-strip poker?" he stammered. "Why strip poker?!" He felt a little like a damsel defending her virtue, and as embarrassing as that was, couldn't help but cross his arms over his chest.
Draco laughed nastily. "The rules are that if you lose and don't want to take off a piece of clothing, you've got to take a shot." With that, he thumped a full bottle of tequila on the table between them and conjured a plate of sliced limes and a salt shaker. "You get to choose which is the lesser of two evils, Potter."
Harry eyed the bottle warily as he picked up his cards. One glance at them and he winced. Draco laughed. Harry sighed.
It was going to be a long night.
----
Part 2
Recipient: sesheta_66
Title: It's the Wrong Time (And I Got No Excuse) (Part 1 of 2)
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco, mentions of Harry/Ginny and Draco/Astoria
Warnings: Infidelity
Rating: Hard R/NC-17
Summary: Harry and Draco have unhappy marriages. Harry and Draco are forced to work together in relative isolation for a month. Epilogue-ambiguous.
Total word count: ~15k
Disclaimer: This story/artwork 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 and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: The title is from the song 9 Crimes by Damien Rice. :)
It's the Wrong Time (And I Got No Excuse) Part 1 of 2
“Daddy, look, you tear your shorts!” Lily squealed at the discovery and promptly stuck her little arm through the hole.
Harry glanced up from folding a shirt and rescued his boxers from the toddler. “Those aren’t torn, honey, they’re supposed to have a hole in them.”
“But why?” Bright, inquisitive eyes turned to the other boxers in Harry’s suitcase and he had to sweep her up into his arms before she could undo any more of his packing.
“C’mere, miss. How would you like some ice cream?” he asked, mostly because he didn’t want to explain to his two-year-old daughter the finer details of his underwear.
Lily squealed again and waved a tiny fist. “Ice cream!” Harry chuckled and took her out to the kitchen.
“Dad?” James asked, sounding frustrated. “Can you help me with my letters?”
Harry glanced over at his oldest as he opened the fridge, noting the pout his son was sporting. He actually didn’t have a lot of time to spare for homework help before he left, but he didn’t want to leave an unhappy James with Ginny. “Sure, buddy. Just let me get some ice cream for you sister. You want some?”
James’s face lit up. “Yeah!”
Harry smiled at him just as Ginny walked into the kitchen, wearing a headset and talking rapidly to someone on the other line. “Corina, how difficult is it to line up a single model? Just one. That’s all I asked for. I asked you to organise this shoot weeks ahead of-” Ginny cut herself off abruptly as she noticed the ice cream Harry had started scooping into bowls. “Harry, I really wish you wouldn’t feed them so much junk food, especially before bed. They’ll be up all night, and I have work to do.”
Harry’s smile tightened as he looked up at his wife, trying to keep Lily from falling as she wriggled her way off his hip and down his leg. “They’ll be fine, Gin. I just want to keep them happy for you so they don’t give you a hard time when I leave.”
Ginny pursed her lips at him. “Corina,” she snapped, “I will call you back. And when I do, I expect to hear that Paolo Borcelli would be only too happy to do this job for free.” With that, she carefully pulled the headset from her coiffed hair and grabbed Harry’s arm, leading him into the living room.
“Do you really have to go this very week, Harry?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his waist and looking up at him. “I thought maybe we could spend a little time together; I feel like I never see you these days. I never would have taken this week off if I’d known you wouldn’t even be here, but things are going to be even busier for the next few months and this was the only week I could take off.”
Harry sighed and tried to bite back his irritation. He didn’t put his arms around her. “Ginny, I told you I was taking this assignment long before you decided you needed a vacation. I never take the expeditions they offer me. I just wanted to do this one thing, all right? So I’m sorry I can’t be around when it’s most convenient for you, but I have a job to do, too.”
“You can do yours from home, Harry! They don’t even need you up there. If they did, you wouldn’t have been able to turn down all the other assignments.” Harry opened his mouth, an angry retort ready on his lips, but she cut him off with a heavy sigh. “It’s okay, Harry, never mind. I’m just a little disappointed that when I finally do have some free time, all of it will be spent looking after the kids by myself instead of relaxing with my husband. But I’ll get over it. And I just know Corina’s going to botch up this shoot without me constantly looking over her shoulder, and Milan is in two weeks. Maybe I should just go back to work after all-”
“Will you just stop?” Harry snapped. God, he hated when she got all passive aggressive, and he especially hated that her fucking clothing line was more important to her than her own children. “If you don’t have time for a family maybe you shouldn’t have started one!”
Ginny pulled away like she’d been slapped. “That’s not - that’s not what I meant and you know it, Harry.”
“No, I don’t,” Harry muttered under his breath as he left to go back to the kitchen and finish scooping ice cream. Ginny followed him but said nothing, and that suited him just fine.
“Here you go, sweetie.” He put Lily in her high chair and set a bowl of ice cream in front of her, then took the other bowl over to where James sat staring at his book. His eyes weren’t even moving over the pages, though, and Harry had the sneaking suspicion he was trying to pretend he hadn’t just heard their fight.
He sighed. “Here’s your ice cream, buddy. How’s your project coming along? You should go show it to mum so she can help you with it when I’m gone.”
“But I don’t want mum to help me with it! I want you!”
Harry heard Ginny snort behind him, but he ignored her. “Hey, big guy, it’ll be alright. I’m sure you’ll get to see Nanny a lot. You love going over to the Burrow, don’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ginny finally snapped. “You think I can’t take care of them by myself so I’m just going to send them over to mum’s all the time?”
Harry rubbed tiredly at his temples. “No, Ginny. But you did mention that you had a lot of work to do, and I am going to be gone for a month. Somehow I doubt you’re going to take three young children with you to Milan.” He winked down at James. “Milan’s pretty boring for kids.”
James’s smile was small and wobbly, but there nonetheless.
Ginny didn’t seem to know what to say to that, but he could feel her glare on the back of his head as he sat down at the kitchen table next to his son and pulled his notebook closer. “So what’ve you got here, Jamie?”
“Harry, I believe I was trying to discuss something with you,” Ginny bit out.
“Gin, Jamie needs my help right now. After that, I have to finish packing. I know you don’t want me to go, but it’s a little late to be getting upset about it now, isn’t it?”
“Maybe if you’d asked me in the first place, I would’ve-”
“Are you fighting?”
Harry blinked down at the bright green eyes looking up at him from behind round glasses. He grinned at Albus Severus; the awkward tilt of the large glasses on such a tiny face never failed to amuse him. “Hey, little guy. Your brother and sister are having ice cream. You want some?”
“Are you fighting with Mummy, Daddy?”
Harry narrowed his eyes at Ginny over Al’s head. “No, honey, we’re not fighting. Mummy and Daddy were just talking about how you might spend some time with Nanny while I’m away.”
“Harry.” Ginny’s face was tight and she had one hand perched on her hip.
“Yes?”
For a moment Harry waited for something nasty, but all she said was, “Let me know when you’re ready to go. I’m going to call Corina back.”
Harry said nothing as she pivoted on one polished black heel and stepped into the hallway. A moment later, he could hear her frustrated voice chewing out the poor girl who had been her assistant for the last two years.
Turning back to his children, Harry forced a strained smile onto his face. “Jamie, I’m going to get Al a bowl of ice cream. Why don’t you read me the questions while I do?”
Once Harry had managed to help James with his homework, clean chocolate ice cream off of Lily’s face, pack his bags, and say goodbye to his family, he was very nearly late for his Portkey. Gus Moore was not the sort of boss a bloke wanted to piss off, even if that bloke was Harry Potter, and tardiness was one of the worst offences in his book. So when Harry came skidding to a stop in the Ministry of Magic’s designated Portkey station, Gus looked ready to explode with a tirade that would make Harry another hour late.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” Harry panted, sweating in his parka, snow pants, boots, hat, and gloves. “My children-”
“I don’t want to hear your excuses, Potter. You have two minutes exactly before you are booked to leave!”
“Uh. Right. Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Harry mumbled, reaching out to hold the scroll Moore was brandishing at him.
----
“Ah, Harry, there you are!” The first thing Harry saw when he landed was the round, jolly face of Archibald MacDougal. He had too much shaggy hair and a healthy beer-belly that bespoke of too much socializing and not enough working for a project leader in the Department of Mysteries, but Harry had always liked him.
Archibald MacDougal wasn’t the man on Harry’s mind, though, and he caught himself glancing around the spacious tent for a glimpse of blond hair. He needn’t have been nervous all of a sudden - Draco wasn’t there, only a small handful of people milling about talking or messing with expensive-looking equipment. Harry turned back to Archie and gave him a smile. “Hey Archie, it’s good to see you again.”
“It’s good to see you. Such a rare honor these days,” Archie replied with a wink.
Harry was a little embarrassed. Ever since he’d left the team six years ago to work independently from home, his visits had been few and far between and he’d always had some excuse for avoiding department activities. “Sorry about that, I didn’t mean-”
Archie waved it off. “Just teasing, Harry. I appreciate you coming back to help us out. We all do. Elise! Show Harry to his tent, won’t you? By the way, you’ll be sharing a tent with Draco, is that alright?”
Harry’s heart skipped a beat. “D-Draco?” His wave of nervousness returned, and it was twice as strong now. He told himself he was just being stupid.
“Blond bloke, real pointy.” Archie peered at him. “Everything alright, Harry? He offered to board you so I assumed you-”
“He offered?” Harry was completely thrown off. The last time he’d seen Draco, he’d been told he was a miserable, useless fool who only ever got in his way and fucked everything up, and if Draco had it his way he would never have to look at Harry’s revolting face again. And to think Harry had been under the impression they’d been developing a fairly comfortable friendship. Useless fool, indeed. That was six years ago, but now Draco had volunteered to share his tent with him? Harry was at a loss.
Archie’s brows furrowed a little. “If you’d rather not be with Draco, we can certainly make other arrangements.”
“No! Um, I mean, no, it’s not a problem.” It wasn’t until then that Harry noticed the pretty brunette that had joined them. He cleared his throat and gave her a smile. “You must be Elise, then?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Potter!” She gave him a shy smile in return. “Shall I show you to your tent, then?”
“Yeah, thanks. Call me Harry,” he replied warmly, and gave a nod to Archie. He took a deep breath as they left.
----
For all that glancing around for Draco was the first thing Harry had done upon his arrival here, now he was dragging his feet a bit in the snow. It was cold - bitterly so, but what did Harry expect? This was the North Pole, after all. He didn’t mind the cold; barely registered it, in fact, because all of his thoughts were focused on Draco.
He’d played out this scene a million times in his imagination: an angry Draco, an apologetic Draco, a cool, distant Draco who wouldn’t so much as look at him... in all of these scenarios Harry had imagined himself to be coldly polite. He would act like he cared nothing for Draco and had never been the least bit hurt by Draco’s words. He certainly wouldn’t let on that they still bothered him so many years later. Or that he still thought about Draco so damned much.
But not in any of these scenarios had Draco offered to share a tent with him, so now Harry hadn’t a bloody clue how he should act. And he was stalling.
“Coming?” Elise called. They were there. She was already knocking on the door. Harry came up beside her, bit his lip, and then schooled his features into a neutral expression. Couldn’t go wrong with one of those, right?
When Draco opened the door, Harry almost thought he looked stunned. But that was silly, because he was the one who’d arranged to have Harry room with him, after all. So if Draco wasn’t stunned, then what was he? Harry didn’t get a chance to figure it out, though, because a moment later the expression was gone and Draco practically beamed at him. “Harry! Thanks, Elise, I’ve got it from here.” He took Harry’s arm and pulled him into the warmth of the tent. Harry barely had time to thank Elise before Draco was closing the door on her and leading him over to the fire in the center of the tent.
“You must be freezing,” Draco was saying. “You couldn’t possibly have thought that ridiculous parka would keep you warm out here, could you? Then again, considering it’s you, I guess I can see how that might happen.”
“Malfoy,” Harry cut in, tone even. He saw an uneasy look morph and disappear on Draco’s face. “Is there a reason you offered to let me sleep with you?”
“Sleep with me?” Draco echoed. He looked equal parts pained and amused. Harry struggled not to blush.
“Oh, shut up. You know that’s not what I meant. Why’d you offer to share your tent with me? I thought you hated me and never wanted to see my revolting face again.” Harry couldn’t help his frown.
“What? You’re still - Oh, Harry. I was just having a bad day, you can’t possibly have thought I meant that,” Draco said, a little too glibly.
Harry persisted, as Harry always did. “But you wouldn’t even look at me for weeks afterwards, and you were so happy when I quit, and you didn’t come to my going-away party.” Or bother to so much as owl in the six years since then.
Draco waved his hand. “Bad month, then. Anyway, what does it matter? That was ages ago. I’m more concerned about the present; are you hungry?”
“No, I ate at home.” Harry was about to protest the change of subject, but Draco cut him off.
“Alright. You should get some rest, then. I hear Archie’s got your day all planned out tomorrow. The sun doesn’t rise here, so I’ll let you know when it’s morning.” Draco nodded to the empty bed across the fire from his own, and Harry distantly registered that while the couple of cots he’d seen in Archie’s tent looked like they’d been shoddily thrown together, the beds in Draco’s tent, while small, looked soft and warm and luxurious. He almost snorted.
“Um. Right. Okay.” Harry decided, albeit reluctantly, that he could question Draco about his six-year-long mood swings later. He really was pretty tired, so he took his luggage out from his pocket, restored them to their normal size, and set about getting ready for bed. He was peripherally aware of Draco watching him quietly from his own bed, but neither of them said anything. It wasn’t a comfortable silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, either. When Harry lay down, the flames obscured Draco from view and he closed his eyes. Tomorrow would be an interesting day.
----
Tomorrow wasn’t really an interesting day at all.
Draco woke him up and gave him a tuna sandwich in the morning, and then he was off touring the grounds with Archie all day. All the fancy tools and equipment were fascinating, Harry was sure, but he’d always been more interested in the theory side of things. Good thing, too, because otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to work from home all these years. Then again, if he hadn’t left the office and field work, it probably wouldn’t have taken him six years to realize Draco didn’t hate him after all...
Harry shook his head. Why did all of his thoughts keep coming back to Draco Fucking Malfoy? Honestly, they weren’t sixteen anymore and Harry no longer suspected him of being evil. There was absolutely no reason for this near-obsession. None.
“Harry?” Oh, shit. He had no idea what Archie had been talking about. “You still with me?”
“Uhm, yeah, sorry.” Harry pushed his glasses up his nose and gave Archie an embarrassed look. “Sorry.”
“S’okay,” Archie replied, though he gave Harry a strange look. “As I was saying, this is where you come in. None of us can take the cochlieve up to the top of the iceberg without resorting to magic, and it’s imperative we don’t use any for obvious reasons. It’s much too heavy for a man, but a polar bear should have no problem.”
Harry nodded. He’d already suspected that this was what they needed him for - his Animagus form was perfect for arctic expeditions. “Sure, I can do that.”
“That’s my man,” Archie grinned and clapped him on the back. “We’ll work out the details later. Just about time for dinner now, come on.”
Before they took off down the slope, Harry glanced back to the iceberg, taking in its height and the distance to it. He gave a sigh of resignation.
----
Draco wasn’t at dinner. Harry wasn’t at all surprised at his own disappointment, and gave himself a disparaging eye-roll.
Elise immediately stopped talking to him, flushed an embarrassed shade of red, and started poking the vegetables around on her plate. Harry only belatedly realized she must have thought his eye-roll was in response to whatever she’d been saying.
“Sorry!” he said hastily. “I didn’t mean to roll my eyes at you, it’s just I suddenly thought of, uhm, something I forgot to do.”
“Oh.” Elise smiled at him, almost coyly. “Does that mean you’ll be too busy to join us for a game of poker after dinner, then? We’re short a player, you know.”
Harry caught himself before asking if Draco would be there. “Sorry, can’t tonight.” And, because he’d already had enough to eat (he ate quickly, what could he say?) and this seemed the perfect opportunity to make excuses to leave, he did. “I still have some things I have to do. Should probably get going, actually, good luck finding a player for your game.”
Elise looked disappointed. “Okay. Bye, then, Mr. Potter.” Harry had already asked her twice today to call him Harry; he didn’t bother again.
----
“You are being such an idiot,” a familiar voice snapped. Harry paused outside the entrance to Draco’s tent, trying to put a finger on who he was talking to inside.
“Pansy, it’s been six years. Don’t you think I’d be over it by now?” Pansy, then. Draco hadn’t stopped being her friend all these years, apparently. He’d just stopped being Harry’s friend. Harry scowled a little.
“No.”
Judging from the silence that followed, Pansy was probably right. Harry leaned in closer. He hated feeling like he was eavesdropping, but he couldn’t help his curiosity. What didn’t she think Draco had gotten over? Did it have anything to do with why he’d pushed Harry away? The six years thing couldn’t be a coincidence, surely?
When Draco didn’t say anything, Pansy went on, so softly Harry almost didn’t catch it. “Just try not to do anything stupid, okay? Shit will hit the fan if you’re not careful.”
“I know.” Now Draco just sounded exasperated. And something else.
“Well, if you ever need to talk or hide a dead body or anything, you know where to find me.” Harry could only hope she was kidding.
“Yeah. Thanks, Pans. Night,” Draco replied, and it was quiet after that.
Harry waited for two seconds before going in.
“Harry!” Draco looked surprised. He was sitting in front of the fire and gave it a quick glance, but Pansy was gone. “You’re back from dinner early.”
Harry shrugged. “I eat fast. Was that Pansy you were talking to?” He indicated the fire.
“You heard?” Draco’s eyes narrowed just a bit.
“I heard her say something about a dead body,” Harry said wryly.
Draco seemed to relax a bit and smiled. “Every man needs a friend who’ll help him hide dead bodies, right?”
“Have you killed anyone?” Harry deadpanned.
A shrug. “Not recently, no.”
“Then what do you need help with?”
Draco opened his mouth to answer, but paused as if he wasn’t sure of exactly what to say. Finally, he plastered on a small smile. “Nothing. Just making sure I wasn’t dying of starvation up here. How was dinner, anyway? Bland? I usually find it bland.”
“Uh,” Harry cocked an eyebrow. “It was fine, I guess. Mess hall food, you know?”
Draco’s lips quirked in a half-hearted smirk. “Yeah.”
Harry nodded awkwardly, and finally moved to toe off his boots and pull off his gloves. “So, I hope you don’t think I was trying to intrude, but I heard her say something about six years and you getting over something, and--”
“Oh, don’t worry, it wasn’t anything. Just Pans being overprotective. Hey, I was making cocoa, you want some?”
Harry blinked. “Sure. You know, Draco, we should probably talk about that whole thing. I mean, I get the feeling it was about…us. Right?”
Draco had his back turned to Harry, head bent over a kettle of water as he placed it on the woodstove. “Not a big deal. She just wanted to make sure I wasn’t still suffering through that mood swing and feeling homicidal.” He turned and smiled. “Which I’m not, so stop worrying about it. What’s done is done. We’re working together now, and I’m perfectly happy with that, so can we just forget it?”
Harry flopped down into one of the surprisingly comfortable armchairs in front of the fireplace and stared up at the other man. Draco’s body language, which he had finally learned to read after working with the man for three years, was screaming that he was uncomfortable. It wasn’t exactly obvious, and anyone who didn’t know the man well would think that the way he had his hands shoved into the front pockets of his trousers was casual, and that his smile was natural. Harry knew better.
“It’s obviously not done, though. You’re all tense around me and have been acting weird since I-”
“Weird? I haven’t-”
“You have been mother-henning me, which you only do when you want to draw attention away from the fact that you are uncomfortable and don’t want to talk about your feelings,” Harry said in a rush, cutting in before Draco had the chance to interrupt him again. “You’ve been downright fussy. And you avoid the subject every time I bring up the fact that you were a royal bitch to me six years ago when I thought we were friends. And you bloody well asked Archie to bunk me with you. All of which is weird. So. Here’s the thing: I would like an explanation that is more substantive than ‘I was having a bad month’.”
Draco gave him a long, level look. Finally, he said simply, “No.”
Harry blinked. “No?”
“No,” Draco repeated. He crossed his arms. “What are you going to do about it?”
Harry considered this. It was unfair as hell, but he knew better than to make an appeal to Draco about fairness. He supposed he could just refuse to speak to Draco until he got his explanation, but that idea sounded childishly petty even in his head. There was nothing left for it. Harry scowled and mumbled, “Nothing.”
Draco gave him a bright, brilliant smile and placed a steaming mug of cocoa in front of him.
----
Over the next week, Harry made a valiant effort to ignore the fact that Draco had still not revealed the reason for their falling out and didn’t seem to have any intention of doing so anytime soon.
Instead, he tried to put aside any leftover feelings of hurt and resentment and approach Draco as a co-worker who he had once had a friendly relationship with. So far, it seemed to be working well enough.
“You look like an idiot.” They were trudging through the snow to the briefing tent and Harry was trying to shield his face from the wind with his gloves.
“Yeah, well at least I don’t look like Rudolph.”
“Who?”
“The red-nosed reindeer of Santa Claus lore?”
“Fuck you.”
“Don’t you wish?”
Draco stuck his tongue out at him in a childish grab for the last word as they arrived at the briefing tent and Harry held the flap open for them to enter. The warmth inside felt like running into a wall at first, something Harry still hadn’t gotten used to, and Harry started to sweat in his fur-lined parka immediately.
Archie sat at the large rectangular conference table, feet propped up and crossed on the table, and a pipe clenched between his teeth. “Ah, boys!” he cried out jovially, hands flung out to his sides. “Good morning, innit?”
Draco mumbled something that sounded vaguely like ‘fucking spectacular’ as he shuffled over to the coffeemaker in the corner. Harry smiled at Archie and nodded. “Still a little weird to call it morning when there’s no sun up.”
Archie chuckled. “You’ll get used to it. Anyway, boys, I just need you to go up and check the cochlieve’s readings. We’ve been getting some weird fluctuations in the data, and we were wondering if it’s actually the amount of errant magic that’s changing, or if there’s some other factor. It’s new machinery, obviously, and it’s not been tested at this temperature or around this amount of magical energy before. Then again, it could be interference from all those Muggle gadgets they’ve got flying about in the air.”
Harry groaned internally, but forced a smile on the outside. “In other words, we’re camping out in the snowdrifts all day?”
“Exactly!” Archie grinned at him.
Harry glanced over at Draco, who was pouting at him from behind his steaming cup of caffeine. Between the pout, the red nose, and the furry hood surrounding his pale face, he looked pretty ridiculous. It was kind of adorable, actually. Harry laughed. “C’mon, you. The sooner we get out there, the less time you have to spend in the cold.”
Draco grumbled, but followed after him, hissing as they stepped out into the frigid air once again. “You know, I’m starting to think you had the right idea, playing house-daddy. Hanging out with kids all day has got to be better than hanging out in snowdrifts.”
Harry smiled a little sadly, recalling the firecall he’d made home the night before. “It’s funny, but I don’t mind. After a while, you just need a break. I miss them, though. D’you miss-” he wracked his brain for the name of Draco’s only child, born after they’d fallen out, “Scorpio?”
“Scorpius,” Draco corrected, sounding amused. “I feel sorry for the little bugger, having a name like that. But Astoria insisted. Maybe if she hadn’t been crushing my fingers and cursing my birth at the time, I would’ve protested a little louder.”
Harry grinned widely. “That’s why Ginny and I settled on the names before the contractions had a chance to muddle her brain.”
Draco elbowed him, which turned out to be rather ineffective considering the amount of padding they were both wearing, but got his point across. “Shut up, you. Don’t talk about my kid like that.”
They walked - or rather, trudged along - in silence for a bit, Harry searching the entire time for something to talk about. They’d mostly slipped back into the routine relationship they’d had while they’d worked together years ago, but reminders of how much had happened since they’d last seen each other tended to put a damper on their camaraderie.
Harry finally cleared his throat and glanced over at Draco. “How is Astoria, anyway? Last time I talked to you, you’d gone on two dates and were making noise about dumping her for being too high maintenance. Which was pretty ironic, by the way.”
Another elbow to the side. “I am not high maintenance.”
Harry snorted.
“Anyway. I decided to allow her to stick around. I got along better with her than with most of the witches I’ve tried to date, and my mother was nagging at me to have an heir. Abracadabra, poof! Married with children.” Draco’s smirk was wry and seemed mostly directed at himself. “She’s now enjoying the noble life and expensive things, hence me being stuck in the Arctic Circle with you.”
“Yeah, I know how much you missed me.”
Harry’s tone was teasing, but the look Draco sent him wasn’t amused. He looked…almost wistful. “I suppose you aren’t so bad,” he offered quietly. Then he cleared his throat. “What about Ginny? Gotta admit, I was shocked she let you off your leash long enough to come up here.”
They’d just started ascending the slope leading up to the iceberg, and Harry reached out to catch and tug at Draco’s ankle, sending him sprawling into the snow. “HEY!”
“You deserved it. That was catty,” Harry replied, digging the spikes on his boots into the ice as he climbed. “Ginny doesn’t dictate my life. And she’s taking care of the kids while I’m gone.”
A derisive snort came from just behind him and Harry glanced back to see Draco shaking his head, a sardonic grin on his face. “What?”
“Oh, nothing. Just sounds a little like the arrangements I made with Astoria. She was a little annoyed to find out that she would have to take Scorpius along to your wife’s show in Milan.”
Harry knew exactly what Draco was hinting at, and while he might have opened up and shared his relationship woes with his friend six years ago, he wasn’t about to let Draco in that far again yet. “Al was really excited to hear that Scorpius would be there, actually. Apparently they’re in the same class at day school. Which surprised me, actually.” Harry looked over at Draco, curiosity written plainly across his face. “I would’ve thought you would have gotten him a Governess.”
Draco’s facial expression gave absolutely nothing away. “I find that…having a Governess is restrictive. And lonely. It doesn’t teach children the social skills required later in life.”
Harry had a sudden flashback to the Draco Malfoy he had met on the Hogwarts Express twenty-seven years ago, small hand held out before him imperiously, the weight of the Malfoy dynasty backing him in his first venture to make friends of his own. Regret settled in his stomach once again, as it had done so many times since leaving Hogwarts and interacting with Draco as more than a boyhood rival.
They’d reached the top of the slope and stood next to the cochlieve, staring out at the lethally cold water that broke against the base of the iceberg they were perched atop. What Muggles knew as the Northern Lights, and what they knew as magical energy, undulated in waves of colour across the horizon.
“Well,” Harry started, “If it’s any consolation, I think you turned out alright. Considering.”
Draco simply stared at him.
Harry smiled. “All right. Let’s get this thing figured out. I don’t plan on staying up here until my fingers fall off.”
----
They were at an important meeting, at which important things were being discussed. Draco leaned in and whispered in Harry’s ear, “Do you think Archie’s going bald?”
“What?” Harry whispered back, shooting him an incredulous look.
“Look! He’s losing hair.”
Against his better judgment, Harry looked. “He’s not losing hair.”
“His hairline is receding.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “I still don’t think so, but so what?”
“So what if it’s from being out here?” Draco’s eyes were wide. “With the cochlieve and crazy magic fluctuations?”
“What’s your point?”
Harry never did get to find out what Draco’s point was, though, because Archie chose that moment to look over at them and say, “Gentlemen, was there something you wanted to add?”
Harry glared at Draco and sunk a little in his seat. “No.”
----
“Let’s build an igloo!” Draco suggested brightly.
Harry groaned a little. He’d wanted to spend their day off doing something relaxing. Like relaxing. “An igloo?”
“Come on, don’t be so lazy.” Draco pulled his blankets back and Harry decided he was being far too cheerful at this time of morning. Not that he knew what time of morning it was. All he knew was that it was cold without his blankets.
“You don’t know the first thing about building igloos,” Harry said, hoping it was true.
Draco scoffed. “Of course I do, don’t be absurd.”
“Oh yeah? Then tell me how.”
“It’s just like building a snow man,” Draco assured him. “Except, you know, dome-shaped and hollow. A dome-shaped, hollow snow man.”
Harry gave him a skeptical look, but there was no stopping Draco when he got it in his head to do something. “Right. Well, how about you start on it and I’ll come help you in a bit?”
Draco pouted at him but left the tent. When he was gone, Harry pulled his blankets back up. He only wanted five more minutes, really...
He awoke very suddenly and very, very unpleasantly some time later. There was snow everywhere - on top of him, around him, in his mouth, in his hair... he was practically buried in it. Harry spluttered, sitting up and waving his arms wildly as he tried to get the snow off. “What the hell-?”
Laugher broke out all around him. The whole team was there, and in the center was Draco, looking at his feet very sheepishly indeed.
“Draco...” Harry growled.
“Hey, you can’t blame me,” Draco said imploringly. “You’re the one who wouldn’t help me build the igloo.”
Harry looked around. His whole bed had been levitated outside, presumably into Draco’s silly igloo. “So you decided to put me in it?”
“Well. Igloos are supposed to be warm.” Draco scuffed a foot in the snow.
Harry looked heavenward, and Elise brought him a towel.
----
“A cow.”
“What? Where the hell do you see a cow?”
“There! See that little cluster to the left? Next to the thing that sort of looks like a dick?”
Harry’s mouth dropped open. “Draco. I’m almost certain that that’s Ursa Major.”
“I am aware of that,” Draco drawled. “I think it looks like a dick.”
“I think you think about sex too much.”
Draco made a noise that sounded something like ‘pfft’.
“You do.”
“Do not. I just happen to know phallic imagery when I see it,” Draco responded haughtily.
They fell silent for a few minutes, simply staring at the stars above them.
“I’m bloody cold.”
“Yeah, I’m feeling that.”
“How come we got stuck out here doing the dirty work? It’s not like we even know how to run this stupid machine.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Draco rolled his head to the side and stared at Harry. Harry sighed. “Yeah, all right. Doesn’t mean I want to sit in the cold and look at it all day.”
“That’s what I thought. Archie sucks.”
“Archie does suck.”
“Missing the kids yet?”
“I started missing them the day I got here. At this point, I’m starting to miss fashion shows.”
Draco let out a bark of shocked laughter. “That far gone, huh?”
“That far gone.”
“Yeah. Me too. Are we pathetic?”
“It’ll be our little secret.”
Draco snorted. Harry elbowed him in the ribs. They grinned at each other.
“I spy with my little eye, something that begins with…‘s’.”
“Snow. That was the saddest clue I’ve ever heard.”
“Shut up. The cold has frozen my brain.”
----
Usually when Harry was out on his own, he preferred to be a polar bear. It was much warmer that way, and it shaved a lot of time off of traveling anywhere.
His animagus form wasn’t common knowledge, though, even among the team. After all, being in the Department of Mysteries meant that most information was given out on a need to know basis. Harry watched Draco shuffle around their makeshift campsite from a distance and decided he could make an exception.
He came closer until Draco glanced up from roasting his fish over the fire and gave him an alarmed look. Draco couldn’t use magic here without invalidating all of the data they’d collected, he knew, so he wouldn’t go for his wand unless absolutely necessary.
Well, Harry just wouldn’t make any sudden movements, then. He would, however, amble up to Draco and steal his fish.
For his part, Draco was all too keen to give Harry the fish. “My mother will be so upset if you try to eat me,” he told Harry as he pulled his fish off the stick. “Here, eat this instead. Over there.” He tried to toss the fish as far away from himself as he could, but Harry caught it in midair and ate the entire thing in seconds.
Draco blinked. “Nice catch. Look, I’ve got more. If you take your time maybe Potter will be back before you’re done and then you can eat him instead of me.” As he talked, Draco unwrapped a few more of the fish they’d brought up with them and tossed one to Harry. It was raw, though, and Harry turned his nose at it.
Draco gave him a wary look but kept talking. “He’s a Gryffindor. Those are pretty tasty, I hear.” Harry snorted.
“What, don’t like Gryffindors? Neither do I, really, but Harry’s all right. For a person, I mean, not for a meal. His hair is pretty unfortunate, though, for a person and for a meal. I imagine it would tickle, going down, seeing as it stands up in so many different directions and all. You probably shouldn’t eat Harry after all. I know who you can eat! There’s this girl called Elise down at our base camp, she’s got a crush on Harry...” Draco seemed to relax more and more as he talked, and even let Harry get close enough to nuzzle his hand.
Draco looked surprised for a moment before reaching out tentatively to pat him on the head. “You’re not so scary after all, are you?” Harry growled, and he snatched his hand away. “Oh no, you’re not gonna be like that crazy hippogriff, are you? All I meant is that you’re actually kind of cute, and really soft, and-”
Harry knocked him over onto his back with a huge paw, being careful to use as little force as possible. Then, as Draco sputtered and sat up, Harry changed back into a person and laughed. Draco’s expression was priceless. “Gotcha!” He smirked once and took off in the face of Draco’s indignant outrage.
“Come back here, you giant git!” Draco chased him for twenty meters at least, until Harry misplaced a step and sunk knee-deep into the snow. Draco crashed into him and they both collapsed willy-nilly in a huge flurry of white, laughing and panting and grabbing at each other.
“Take that!” Draco yelled, mashing snow into Harry’s hair. Harry squealed and squirmed and hit Draco square in the face with a fistful of snow.
They struggled back and forth like that for all of about two minutes before they were both exhausted and shivering and came to a wordless truce. Draco was still on top of him, breathing heavily and red in the nose again. They were awfully close, Harry suddenly realized, and Draco was awfully... something. Harry couldn’t place a finger on it, but it made him reach up to brush the snow out of Draco’s fine blond hair.
For a moment, Draco stopped breathing and his eyes widened, and all Harry could do was stare at the tiny blue and black flecks in Draco’s grey irises. He’d never noticed those before, but then again, they’d never been this close before...
Harry came back to his senses and looked away awkwardly. “Uhm...” he began, but Draco saved him from his embarrassment by getting off of him and helping him to his feet.
“Thanks,” Harry mumbled, and though he was aware of Draco’s eyes on him, he didn’t look back. He just hoped Draco would assume the pink tinge to his cheeks was from the cold. “C’mon, we should get back before we both freeze to death.”
They retraced their steps back to the campsite wordlessly, but Draco walked so close to him that their shoulders almost touched.
----
Sometimes, Harry just liked to look at Draco. If asked why, he wouldn't have been able to come up with an answer; there was just something about Draco that always caught his attention.
It wasn't an obsession like in sixth year, and it wasn't lust (because that was just absurd). It was more like... admiring a fine work of art. Of course, Harry had never been particularly keen when it came to aesthetics, but he could appreciate the fluidity of Draco's movements and the rich, baritone waves of his voice and the way he tilted his head back sometimes, at just the right angle that his hair fell back from his face and the light from the fire lit up his features.
Harry particularly liked to look at Draco's profile. It was sharp in a way that made him seem imperious, even if all he was doing was doodling in Harry's research journal.
"Hey!" Harry said, because he'd just realized Draco was doodling in his research journal.
Draco glanced up. "Yes?"
"Don't doodle in that! I've got to show it to Archie, you know." Harry came over to snatch it away from him.
"You've been staring at me for the past five minutes -- don't think I didn't notice -- you couldn't have said something before I finished drawing you dolphins?" Draco's drawl was more amused than it had any right to be.
"Um. I was just, you know, thinking about stuff. Dolphins?" Harry looked down at his journal. Two dolphins were jumping out of the squiggly lines of water. It was actually pretty good for a doodle.
"I like dolphins." Shrug.
"Yeah, they don't have to get married and they can go wherever they want and do whatever they want."
Draco gave him a strange look. "Right."
----
"Aw, c'mon, Draco! You know I'm shite at poker. You just want all my money."
Draco's grin was shark-like as he flopped into the chair across from Harry and started dealing. "Nah. We'll just make it a friendly game of strip poker."
Harry's eyes widened in shock. "St-strip poker?" he stammered. "Why strip poker?!" He felt a little like a damsel defending her virtue, and as embarrassing as that was, couldn't help but cross his arms over his chest.
Draco laughed nastily. "The rules are that if you lose and don't want to take off a piece of clothing, you've got to take a shot." With that, he thumped a full bottle of tequila on the table between them and conjured a plate of sliced limes and a salt shaker. "You get to choose which is the lesser of two evils, Potter."
Harry eyed the bottle warily as he picked up his cards. One glance at them and he winced. Draco laughed. Harry sighed.
It was going to be a long night.
----
Part 2