Title: Bum Bum
Rating/warnings: PG-13, a couple of swears
Pairing: Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy
Written: 23/12/10 for a fic exchange at hogwartsishome (livejournal)
Disclaimer: I thank Jo for her magical universe. All that you recognise is hers; the rest is mine.
"Potter."
"Malfoy."
The two men stared into each other's eyes, hands clenching their wands so tightly their knuckles turned white. Well, for Draco Malfoy, his knuckles turned a little gray, since his skin was nearly white to begin with.
"That's my desk, isn't it?" Draco said, trying very hard to maintain a neutral tone, inching towards the left side of the double cubicle.
Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He nodded tightly, wrenching at his godawful blue tie for the umpteenth time, and sat down on his side of the cubicle.
"That's it boys. Play nice," Brooks, the Auror paperwork woman person, and a right busybody according to Ron, waggled her finger and zipped off to the Head Auror's office, apparently satisfied that the two men hadn't tried to murder each other on plain sight.
"Your tie is crooked."
"Excuse me?" Harry looked up from an attempted drawing of his son in huge annoyance, glaring through his spectacles, and noticing (in a completely abstract fashion) that there was a slight brown smudge near the left rim.
Draco suppressed a sneer when the Boy-Who-Lived-And-Died-To-Live-Again turned around to face him. "Your tie is bloody crooked, Potter. Fix it. And while you're doing that, fix your bloody hair. And your shirt."
"What are you, my keeper?" Harry snarled right back. He was tired; it was almost five o'clock and he had been poring over the whereabouts of suspected rogue giants for hours, and he had a whole long list of To-Dos and he did not have time to deal with a sudden plonking of one Draco bloody Malfoy into the Auror Office and into his cubicle.
To his immense irritation, Draco gave an enigmatic smirk and went back to his desk, ten inches away from Harry's own.
As the sounds of Malfoy settling into his side of the cubicle (Harry noticed that he had brought a silver-framed picture of Narcissa and Lucius) continued to break the stifling stretch of silence that had grown between said ten inches, Harry James Potter wrenched at his tie again, thought about what his fellow Auror had said, grunted quite angrily and then decided to just Vanish his tie altogether.
"How was your day?" Ginny asked, holding his dear son up for him to examine.
"Exhausting," Harry muttered, giving a high-five to the boy and then smiling a weary Dumbledore-ish smile back as the kid gurgled in happiness. "I had to deal with a certain ferret being brought in."
"Oh, stop that, Harry, you're not twelve anymore. And he isn't either. Ron told me," she said, answering Harry's eyebrow, and handed James over to his father, "and he was chuckling like a madman over the Floo."
"Well, next time I see him, I'll tell him to stuff his chuckle up his-" Ginny shot him a glare. "Bum bum."
"Bum bum!" James crowed, clapping his hands and knocking Harry's glasses askew in the process.
"Who's a bum bum, Jamie?" Ginny cooed, clapping her hands and was utterly oblivious to the resulting effect this had on the boy in question, who turned around swiftly in Harry's arms and proceeded to push the pair of glasses to the floor.
"Pshaw!"
"Dada's a bum bum!" Jamie squealed, giggling as he looked back at his dad, who looked substantially different and hilarious without his round mirrors.
Ginny, who had Accioed the bifocals and repaired them, gave a snort and tossed them to Harry. "Ravenclaw for you, my darling!"
"God, you're pedantic," snapped Harry, as Draco yet again engorged the map to find the exact location.
"Learned that from Granger this morning, did you?" His colleague commented rather dryly and hitting the nail on the head, of course.
Hermione's voice had rung out fierce and true this morning, and since the Auror Office wasn't too far away from Wizarding Sports, everyone had heard her yelling at a distressed Ron. "I AM NOT PEDANTIC NOR PETTY, YOU SWINEHEAD!"
"WHAT? OKAY, YOU'RE NOT… PUH-WHATEVER. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?"
"There." Harry sighed with relief as Draco finally put the peg on the parchment. "I'm not pedantic either, just so you know. I'm just thorough."
"Whatever. So the giants seem to be hiding out south of Cornwall…"
A pause. "Over half of the pegs are in fact pointing south of Cornwall, so I think yes the giants are seemingly hiding out south of Cornwall, unless they're trying to somehow bluff us and they're actually hiding out in the north of Cornwall."
Harry closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. "Fine."
"I'll write up the report this time," said Draco, nudging his green tie (which looked incredibly neat and tight around his neck; Harry winced as he noticed) an inch to make it perfectly straight. "Your handwriting's awful."
Harry spluttered, then stifled a mild gasp as Draco bent to retrieve a fallen photograph under Harry's table. Malfoy's tie wasn't the only thing that looked tight.
A harrumphing cough from the dark-haired man disguised some colour in his cheeks as Draco stood up, looking at the note curiously.
"Your son?"
"What? Er, yes." Harry hastily grabbed for the picture of James waving, but Draco turned just in time, and Harry's fingers slid an inch across his white shirt.
"He's… quite adorable."
Green eyes met pale ones for a fraction of second as Draco turned back to hand the photograph to James' father, and Harry suppressed a gulp when he caught sight of a gentle smile on Draco's face. It disappeared a minute later, when Brooks came by to give them a roguish wink, and both men hastened to get back to work.
It was December, and it was sweltering hot. Harry was sure that there was something wrong with the weather in the Ministry because he had come in from a near blizzard wrapped in layers of Warmed clothing and now he was perspiring gallons.
"Fuck it!"
Harry blinked. He stood at the entrance of the cubicle as a pale mass swore vehemently. He noticed, with detached shock, that Draco was not impeccable in his attire as per usual.
"Draco?" They'd finally begun to call each other by their first names without awkwardness when Harry had absentmindedly groped Draco's crotch, thinking it was his cloak (Harry had, of course, promised an enraged and embarrassed Draco that they'd forget about that totally, but Harry himself hadn't been able to utterly wipe the memory from his brain).
"Have they fixed the weather yet?" snarled the mass.
"No." Harry looked rather worried (he'd never admit it, even in later years) and began to strip his heavy winter clothes off, leaving a crinkled shirt (and jeans) for decency. "Are you, uhm, okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine. I'm just enjoying the summer breeze." Draco closed his eyes and leaned back, using what was left of his shirt to wipe off his own perspiration.
Harry felt like he'd been Petrified, and couldn't stop staring at one particular bead of water that was travelling down Draco's shoulder and highlighting the curves of a slightly faded Dark Mark...
A blast of cool air came from above to wake him, and Harry was quite disappointed to watch Draco clinically drying himself off, then Warming his clothes to begin dressing.
"What are you doing for the holidays?"
Draco gave a cynical laugh. "Drink myself under the table, I expect. As usual."
Harry debated with himself back and forth for five minutes or so, and said a silent apology to his friends. Well, Ron, mostly. And Ginny, because she'd had to cook one extra. Well… and Hermione, because Ron would definitely flip out and she was with child…
Ah, screw it.
"Want to, uh, come over for dinner?" Harry asked his stack of giant-related notes.
Draco stopped straightening his coat hanger for a moment. "You sure about that? Weasley will go bonkers for sure. And your ginger girlfriend mightn't take too kindly to me, Granger as well."
"Uhm, we aren't twelve anymore, so I think we've all moved on from school. We were all pricks, weren't we anyway, so it'll be fine… And uh, Ginny isn't my girlfriend."
Draco raised an eyebrow. Not really, he arched it, which made Harry immediately both jealous and nervous. "You two have a kid."
"Yeah, well. Uhm. James is my boy, yeah, but we aren't together together anymore, you know. We're just taking care of James together… But we aren't together."
Merlin on a cracker.
"Well, okay. If your friends are all right with it." Harry looked up and gave a half-grin. Draco smirked, his face settling into a familiar pose, and hung his scarf around his neck.
Harry couldn't stop grinning his half-grin as he continued tidying his desk (by which he put all his notes one side and tried to arrange his post-its into some order). He heard Draco coming up to his desk, closing the ten inches.
"Thank you, for uhm, inviting me over for dinner." Draco said, smiling. He patted Harry on the shoulder, hesitated for a little while and left.
Harry stayed back for another half an hour reliving the pat in his mind while standing frozen with his Sneakoscope in his hands.
"That's nice of you," commented Ginny, as she waved her wand and sent chopped carrots into the bubbling stew. Harry, bouncing little James on his knee, decided that Ginny was rather like Molly Weasley. "When are you going to tell him?"
"Dada is a bum bum!"
"Yes, okay Jamie, Dada is a bum bum… Tell him what?" Harry held his tongue when Jamie decided to play with his spectacles.
"That someone has a crush on Draco Malfoy."
"Who has a crush on Malfoy?" Ron helped Hermione as they stepped into the kitchen, sniffing appreciatively at the stew.
Harry was crimson, and so Hermione looked right at him with knowing eyes. Blimey, between Ginny and Hermione, they could solve crimes like Sherlock Holmes.
"No one."
Ron looked suspiciously at Ginny and then Harry, but was distracted by his pregnant wife, who asked for a glass of water.
A pop from the living room made them all start. "Must be, uh, Draco."
"Do you have a crush on the bloke?" Ron's whisper, directed at his sister, was answered by a rap on the head meted out by a levitating spoon.
Draco entered the kitchen.
"Good evening… Ronald." Harry was quite sure that Ron's jaw had never been as long as it was at the current moment. "And… Ginevra. And Gr- Hermione."
To Draco's eternal surprise and Ron's eternal shock, Hermione got up determinedly and gave the man a hug. "Happy holidays, Draco."
Harry and Ginny just blinked. Jamie broke the sudden silence by grabbing at the levitating spoon and throwing it to hit on Draco's head.
"That Ginny is a good cook."
The woman in question had gone to bed after nudging Harry towards Draco in quite an obvious manner. Hermione elapsing into giggles didn't help. Ron, though, was blissfully unaware, and just thought that the entire house was in a great mood.
"Yeah, well, she takes after her mother," said Harry quietly, cradling James in his lap.
"This little bloke takes after you, though, doesn't he?" Draco's slender fingers hovered over James, then gently patted him on the head.
The two men sat there on the porch silently for a couple of moments. Then Harry spoke.
"I like blokes." And then, hurriedly, before Draco could say anything, "and I happen to have a, uh, little thing for you."
Draco looked straight ahead and tried to pretend to not know that Harry was pretending to stare into James' bellybutton.
"That would make a lot of sense."
"Hmm?"
"Well, put it this way, Potter…"
Harry winced. Fuck. (Or as Ginny would have him say… Duck.)
"The time you groped me and I didn't report sexual harassment?"
"Wha-"
"I quite, uh, enjoyed it. A little too rough though. I'm not really into that kind of kinky stuff."
Harry was rather sure that he was in a dream of some sorts, until Draco poked him and James simultaneously let out a fart.
"I'm not that kinky either," he managed after trying futilely, like Draco, to send the vile waft of smell into the darkness.
"Well," said Draco devilishly slowly, "then that's good for the two of us then."
"Dada's a bum…bum…" James yawned and rolled in his sleep, safe in his dad's arms.
Draco chuckled and gave the small boy another soft pat on his head. Then he leaned over (Harry tried his very hardest not to make the gulp audible.) and whispered, "Well, that means you're bottoming, yeah?"
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