Chapter Text
Draco Malfoy had been visited exactly twice by Harry Potter’s hawk owl since the fresh-off-saving-the-world Chosen One spoke at Draco’s trial.
The first time, it had borne a long, narrow cardboard box containing Draco’s hawthorn-and-unicorn wand, with a scrawled note tucked under the twine that read only, Thanks for this. Saved my life. --HP
The second time, it had been a surprisingly formal invitation for Draco to buy a table at a fundraiser for some justice-for-creatures nonprofit Granger had established. Draco bought two, filled them with sycophants, and did not attend.
That had been three years ago, and there’d been no correspondence between them since except for the occasional polite exchange when they ran across one another in the halls of the Ministry—Potter surrounded by his DMLE colleagues in their scarlet Auror robes—or at a pub, each in their own group, their separate celebrations orbiting one another.
So there was really no reason for Harry Potter’s owl to be standing on a flower box outside his study window, glaring at him from beneath its widow’s peak of plumage. With a frown, Draco slid the window open and gestured toward the perch beside his desk. She stepped coldly in, dropped the letter on his blotter, and flapped to the perch, watching him with wide, yellow eyes.
“I suppose you’ve been told to wait for a response,” Draco said, taking the lid off his silver jar of owl treats and offering her one absently as his attention focused on the folded bit of paper in his hand.
The outside was addressed Malfoy, and the page had been torn out of something hastily. He unfolded it and read:
I need your help and your discretion. Preferably today, but if not, before next Saturday. Let me know when you can come and then Floo in—my address is on the back. --HP
Draco frowned at this spare bit of cramped writing, trying to come up with any reason Harry “Golden Boy” Potter could need his help. Draco didn’t do anything that might elicit a same-day request. He managed his estate, he advised his Wizengamot seats on how he wanted them to vote, he dined, dictated, and donated to maintain goodwill with the most important people at the Ministry and elsewhere, and he occasionally experimented with inventing potions.
Potter didn’t need him.
Pulling a fresh bit of paper from his stack, Draco lifted his quill and penned a note back.
Potter,
I suppose it would overtax your limited literacy to make your request plain in writing, so I will join you at the given address this evening at 9pm. I make no guarantees about my providing whatever it is you’re in such hasty need of, but I will graciously hear out the entreaty, at least.
Coolest regards,
Draco Malfoy
When he folded, sealed, and addressed it, Potter’s owl offered its leg and then paused, beak slightly open in request. “You’re a glutton,” Draco muttered, offering another treat, which she took with a reproachful bite to his fingers and flew off.
Draco sat, flummoxed, in his study for a few minutes before gathering himself to dress for this bizarre outing, trying not to be even a little bit excited that Harry Potter needed him for something. It was bound to be awful. That’s why he hadn’t committed it to writing. It was probably something…well, here Draco’s imagination let him down, as he couldn’t picture anything Harry Potter would want with him. At two minutes to nine, he descended to his hearth, threw a pinch of Floo powder in, and read out the address from the scrap of paper.
He was deposited in a bizarrely blank living room. While it had all the appropriate items inside, it was decorated like someone had gone down a checklist and acquired the most inoffensive item to meet each requirement.
One long, grey sofa—check. Two low, blue armchairs—check. One rectangular glass coffee table—check. One grey-and-blue area rug, reasonably sized for the room—check. Three black photo frames hung in a row—check. One black-and-white wall clock, silent—check.
“Potter?” Draco called, suddenly wondering if he’d been dropped into some sort of DMLE safehouse instead of a private residence.
“Back here!” called the unmistakable voice of The Boy Who Lived, and Draco followed it, baffled.
The checklist in the back of Draco’s mind kept ticking off items as he peeked into the rooms he passed. One white-and-grey kitchen with modern Muggle appliances—check. One hall closet containing two black cloaks and a plain brown coat—check.
Down the hall, Draco heard the rustle of life in one of the rooms and let himself into what seemed, to his surprise, to be Harry Potter’s bedroom. His curiosity rose swiftly, and was just as swiftly disappointed. This room was as plainly adorned as the rest of the house, though it was a shambles, as Potter seemed to have pulled everything out of his meagre wardrobe and laid it out across his bed.
“What am I doing in your upsettingly unimaginative flat, Potter?” Draco asked.
Potter blinked up in surprise, taking in Draco’s appearance as though Draco had arrived unannounced and uninvited, not at precisely the prearranged time and at Potter’s request. “You came. I wasn’t sure you would.”
Oh, Merlin. Potter hadn’t gotten one iota less annoying or one iota less good-looking, which, when Draco thought about it, was really just another facet of his being annoying. Auror life had built up some muscle on his previously thin frame, and it suited him so unfairly well.
Determinedly looking at the sleeve he was plucking imaginary lint from instead of Potter’s green—almost rudely green, really—eyes, Draco drawled, “Did you not receive a reply to that effect via your treat-greedy owl?”
Potter grinned uneasily for a moment, scratching his hand back through that travesty of a hairstyle. Let me sort that. Let me put my hands in that. “I did. Still.”
Draco leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “Since I wasn’t greeted at the Floo like a guest, I assume no polite offer of tea or refreshments is forthcoming. So let’s get to the point, shall we? Why am I here?”
“I need your help,” Potter said, hands rubbing together in an uncharacteristic show of nerves.
“Yes,” Draco said acidly, “we established that bit by owl. With what, Potter.”
The Auror took a deep breath, tapped his fingers against his thighs, and then let it out in a noisy whoosh of an exhale. He looked so unbelievably nervous. “You’re…gay.”
“What.” Fuck, he’s a Legilimens. Wait, no, he’s not reading my thoughts, he just knows that. Everybody knows that. Get your head on straight, you walnut.
Potter rushed on. “And I assume you go out sometimes. Like, dancing or…I thought I saw something about you at a club in Witch Weekly.”
Eyes narrowed in growing horror at the dazingly unexpected direction this conversation had taken, Draco pushed himself firmly to both feet again, no longer leaning. “Where the fuck is this going? Also, why were you reading about me in Witch Weekly?”
“I wasn’t reading it for you, I was—they did an article about Hermione’s—that’s not the point,” Potter said, shaking his head and flapping his hands as if to wave the words out of the air. “The point is, I…I was hoping you could…oh, fuck, this is mortifying. Forget I said anything. Go home.”
Coughing out a humourless laugh, Draco said, “Absolutely not. If you’re going to interrupt my evening, you’re at least going to pay me in the entertainment value of whatever this request was going to be.” Tell me why you care that I’m gay before I combust.
With a pained grimace, Potter nodded before grating out, “Well, see…I…I recently…erm.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and drew some sort of professional calm down over his face like a curtain, then continued less haltingly. “I recently figured out that I’m interested in men. And I—”
Draco’s incredulous eyes darted to the large grey-draped bed that dominated the room to which Potter had called him, and Potter followed his gaze, then flamed brilliantly pink in the cheeks. “No!” Potter said sharply. “I’m not—this isn’t—fuck.” He pointed toward the hall, already walking Draco’s way. “Let’s go to the living room or something. I wasn’t…ugh.”
Well, that was insulting.
Feeling less inclined to help by the moment, Draco returned to the living room where he’d arrived. Though he rather thought he might want to be standing for whatever came out of Potter’s mouth next, he took a graceful seat on the edge of one of the armchairs.
Potter flopped onto the couch and blurted, “I’m trying to figure out the whole men thing. I’m very late to the party. And when I went out last weekend, it didn’t go well.”
You must be joking. Not a soul in the world would turn you down.
Smirking, Draco said, “Harry Potter struck out? I can see why you’re surprised, given that your name seems to wangle you whatever you want, whenever you want it. But I hardly think a single unsexed weekend is worth writing to your childhood nemesis for urgent aid.”
To his surprise, Potter laughed, brows quirking up as if something Draco had said surprised him. “That’s funny,” he muttered, “that you say ‘nemesis’ too. Everyone tells me I sound like a prat, calling a regular bloke my age a nemesis when Voldemort is right there.”
Draco blinked. How often is Potter talking about me, that this would come up around ‘everyone’? He almost wanted to be pleased about it, except that it seemed highly unlikely to have been complimentary gossip.
Sobering again, Potter said, “The thing is, ‘Harry Potter’ didn’t strike out. I don’t go out socially with my own face at all anymore unless I’ll be with Ron and Hermione, when everyone will assume the person under the glamour is me anyway.”
“Stupid,” Draco said. “Apparate to Diagon Alley right now, hold up a sign that says, ‘Any men want to fuck the Chosen One?’, and a line will appear. Why waste time?”
“I don’t want the kind of people who will show up because the ‘Chosen One’ is available,” Potter said miserably. “Hence the glamour and the…rigamarole.”
“Ten-galleon word for you,” Draco muttered, falling back into ridicule because his mind was racing too noisily for any real thoughts.
Glaring him to silence, Potter continued, “I did all the right things, I thought. I got dressed up, I went to a gay bar, I talked—”
“Which one?”
Potter frowned. “Er, Haven, I think it was called?”
Sitting back more comfortably in the chair, Draco shook his head. “I’ve never heard of that one, and I’ve been to them all. What arse-end of nowhere did you travel to?”
“Well.” Potter’s face was pinkening, and it was—fuck, it was adorable. “It’s in London, but it’s Muggle.”
Draco laughed unkindly. “You’re so afraid of fame-chasers that you glamoured and went to a Muggle bar? Merlin, I had no idea the life of Britain’s best-loved wizard was such a trial.”
“I got my absolute fill of fame-chasers after Gin and I broke up,” Potter said, a scowl darkening his features. “Couldn’t walk two steps without a girl shoving her hand down my pants to leave her number stuck to my cock.”
There was enough bitterness in the statement that Draco thought that might’ve actually happened at least once. Draco focused every ounce of his Occlumency on ignoring the word cock like it had never been added to the English language. “So it was a particularly nasty shock to find people don’t like you when you’re not the Boy Who Lived.”
Potter started to snap back, but the irritation abruptly drained out of his face, leaving him looking exhausted. “Yeah. I guess my conversation skills are a little rusty.”
With another unpleasant laugh, Draco said, “You don’t need conversation skills in a gay bar. You need a good arse and good enough eyesight to see when the bloke across from you is trying to direct you to the nearest toilet for a quick fuck.” You’ve got one of the two.
This further deflated Potter, who sank back against the couch, defeated. “I don’t really want—” He cut off, shoving his glasses up to rub at his eyes. “Yeah, okay. Thank you for the advice.”
Anyone with eyes and a passing knowledge of Potter could see he was not the hasty-blowjob-in-a-back-alley-and-never-speak-again kind of man. It was ludicrous that he was trying. “What exactly are you trying to achieve, Potter?”
Shrugging inelegantly, Potter spread his hands before him as if he were offering Draco the extent of his understanding of his goals: nothing. When Draco raised a prompting eyebrow and remained silent, demanding more, Potter sighed. “I don’t know. Talking to Gin, it seemed—it seemed really clear that I was bi. But I don’t know. You know? I want to try. Actually try, not just…” His lip curled in faint disgust. “Get fucked in a sticky-floor, piss-smelling bar toilet.”
Get fucked? What interesting phrasing, Draco thought before trying terribly hard not to think about that any further.
“You are attracted to men, yes?” Draco said, since it seemed Potter might need to start at the basics.
Potter exhaled a short laugh. His eyes flicked up to Draco’s eyes, mouth, chest in rapid succession, then settled back on the coffee table again. “Yes.”
Interesting. So interesting, Draco absolutely refused to think. “And you want to pull in a bar.”
“I guess?” Potter shrugged again. “Is there an alternative?”
“Well, yes,” Draco said, but his laughter was less vicious this time because he was a little breathless from not saying I’m right the fuck here and humiliating himself. “This may surprise you to learn, but blokes who like blokes are people you can meet literally anywhere. Be their friend. Gradually develop a relationship, et cetera, et cetera.”
Rolling his eyes, Potter said, “Well, sure, but—”
“Or you could pay for it.” When Potter looked horrified, Draco continued, “Merlin’s beard, what is that face? You’d think I said you should kill a sex worker, not hire one. If all you want is to try things out and you’re persnickety about discretion—”
“No,” Potter said firmly. “No. That’s not what I want.”
Draco lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “Then a bar. Or club—how’s your dancing?” Potter gave him a miserable grimace. “Yes, I suspected that.” Potter looked so thoroughly, wretchedly uncomfortable having this conversation that Draco grew secondhand discomfited. “Why on earth did you owl me for this?”
“You’re the only gay bloke I know.”
“No, I’m not!” Draco snapped, more irritated than the comment deserved because really? Really, Potter? I’m here because I’m the only gay guy you know, and that’s it? “Your Gryffindor roommates have been fucking each other since we were fifteen!”
Potter scowled. “Yeah, but that’s just it—Dean and Seamus have been together since they were fifteen. They never did queer-and-single, they lucked out that the bloke in the bed next to them wanted a shag. They sure as fuck never had to figure out how to be an absolute novice at twenty-six. They have no advice to give me.”
“So you resorted to me.” Draco turned to glare at the perfectly generic landscape print, a pale blue and cream beach, framed on the wall to his right.
“I suppose I was making the fairly large assumption that you pull and could therefore give advice on how to do the same,” Potter said dryly.
Draco’s laugh was a mockery of mirth. He painted on some cockiness and said, “Look at me. It was the safest bet you’ve ever made.” Then, with a sigh, he added, “I will help because this is truly, deeply pathetic and when this inevitably comes out in the papers, I don’t want Harry Potter bringing down the brand of gay wizards the length and breadth of the Commonwealth.”
“This cannot hit the papers, Malfoy. Ever.” Potter’s voice had dropped into what Draco assumed was his “Auror register,” deep and threatening and missing all the uncertainty and discomfort he’d had since Draco arrived.
Draco flicked his eyes over and assessed the threat, determining quickly that this was all bark, no bite. I want to bite— “Well, I certainly wasn’t going to owl Skeeter about it, was I? As I just said, you’re an embarrassment to gaykind. Go put on what you wore out for your spectacular fail. And the glamour. I want to see what was so disappointing to the Muggles.”
With a sigh like Draco was the one requesting help and it was a massive imposition, Potter stood and tromped out of the room. Draco used the minutes alone to contemplate just what, exactly, was going on here.
Harry Potter is bi. He wants to fuck—or, rather, get fucked by—a bloke. He has already tried and failed. So he wants my help. The revelations, stacked up together, were incomprehensible. In fact, it was so surreal he found himself checking and rechecking for signs of the derealisation he’d had to see a Mind Healer about after the war. All right, let’s do a little grounding while we wait, he thought in a giddy, absurd fog.
Five things I can see: Harry Potter’s uncomfortable-looking couch. Harry Potter’s incredibly boring coffee table. Harry Potter’s mostly book-free bookshelf. Harry Potter’s three pieces of unsentimental, decorative clutter. The warm little divot in the couch cushion where Harry Potter’s arse was recently nestled.
Four things I can touch: The unremarkable-but-ever-so-slightly-scratchy upholstery of Harry Potter’s awful armchair. The cool glass of Harry Potter’s coffee table. The much nicer fabric of my second-favorite trousers because I need to adjust myself slightly so Harry Potter doesn’t notice anything amiss. Maybe, if I offered nicely and wasn’t a Marked Death Eater, Harry Potter’s arse.
—stop that, that is not helping—
Three things I can hear: Harry Potter undressing in the next room. Harry Potter cursing quietly as he stumbles around, undressing in the next room. Harry Potter is probably naked in the next—
—for fuck’s sake, man, get it together—
Two things I can smell: Harry Potter’s shampoo, I think. Or soap. Not cologne; too light to be cologne. And also, Harry Potter’s—well, everything. The whole flat smells like him.
One thing I can taste: If I found a genie to beat into submission for a wish, maybe, someday, Harry Potter.
“All right,” Potter’s voice called Draco out of his spiraling randy thoughts, and he blinked up at—
“What the fuck are you supposed to be?” Draco asked flatly. “Why are you dressed like you went straight from your office work translating ancient runes to your Great-Aunt Ethel’s ninetieth birthday party? Why does your glamour look like an unimaginably huge dweeb?”
The stranger into which Potter had transformed tugged at the collar of his ill-fitting, checkered button-up. It was tucked into laughably oversized tan trousers, belted in black. His shoes were brown. It was nonsense. Pure nonsense.
Draco got to his feet so he could examine this travesty in more detail, but he was too caught on the strangeness of Potter’s expression on the completely unfamiliar face to pay much more attention to the clothes. “Why in Merlin’s name would you erase every good feature you have, you moron? Look at the state of this glamour!”
He grabbed not-quite-Potter by the chin, turning his head from one side to the other in exasperation. “Nose is too big, eyebrows are atrocious, brown eyes, no lips to speak of—you’ve given yourself cauliflower ears!”
“I didn’t want it to look like me,” Potter said, words slightly muffled by Draco’s grip.
“That goal achieved,” Draco said acidly. He flicked open the first few buttons of the shirt, ignoring Potter’s surprised grumbles, and said, “At least the body’s all right. Good even, maybe, though it’s hard to tell under the garden-party tent you’ve chosen to wear. Turn around, let me see the back.”
Looking slightly as though he’d been struck hard in the head, Potter dazedly turned around.
“Now, see,” Draco said, “you’ve gone and buried a perfectly good arse under two tonnes of extra beige fabric. Why go to the trouble of glamouring yourself if you’re going to wear the outfit of a man twice your size? Just pop on one of Hagrid’s turtlenecks and pull it up over your nose when reporters are nearby.”
Potter’s shoulders were shaking, and for a horrible moment, Draco thought the daft wizard was crying, but no—when he turned back around, Potter was covering his mouth to suppress his laughter.
“I only glamoured from the neck up,” he said, words warped by mirth.
Draco refused to be embarrassed about admiring a perfectly admirable body. “Well, there you go. We’ll strip you down, decapitate you, then send you out—unhindered by being attached to your thick skull, your body might actually pull.”
Still laughing, Potter said. “All right, if this glamour’s so horrible, what should I do?”
“If you’re going to a Muggle bar? Do fuck-all. Use your own face,” Draco said. “If not, I can put together a glamour that won’t make you look like you wank to the latest edition of Arithmancy Monthly. But first—these clothes. We must burn them. Take them off.”
“Right here?”
Potter’s brow rose in such an obvious challenge that Draco was sorely tempted to say Yes, right here. Get naked and I’ll show you the ride of your fucking life. But the strange face was enough of a turn-off for him to gather his wits and snap, “In your room, for Merlin’s sake. Where the other, hopefully better clothes live.”
Potter’s squinting expression suggested he didn’t think it any likelier than Draco did that the other clothes were better, but he dutifully returned to his bedroom and filled the flat with the faint rustling sounds of disrobing.
Several long minutes later, Potter called, “Do you want to come, er, see some potential I’m not seeing?”
Draco held his breath as he opened Potter’s bedroom door, but the man was dressed again, now back in the plain black t-shirt and familiar face he’d been wearing when Draco arrived. He was frowning at a dismal collection of thick fabrics in assorted neutrals, and when Draco took up a position next to him, his frown matched.
“This is dreadful. You walk around like this all the time?”
“Well, usually I’m in my Auror robes,” Potter said. “So it doesn’t matter.”
Draco sighed. “How time-sensitive is this request?”
“Well.” Potter scratched at the back of his flushed neck. “I was sort of hoping to go out tonight.”
“Right. No time to shop, then. Come on.” He strode out of Potter’s bedroom, summoning Potter to follow with a quick gesture over his shoulder. At the hearth, he pinched some Floo powder, then waited for Potter to bewilderedly trail after him before he tossed it into the fire and said, “Malfoy Manor.”