"No."
"Please?" Harry begged, puppy-eyes fully activated. The fat cat looked up and Draco imagined punching its stupid flat face.
"No."
Harry frowned. "Okay then," he said quietly and Draco swore at the ceiling because goddamn, how does one deal with the puppy-eyes of Harry Potter? Answer: You can't. It's impossible. Literally. Draco has tried many times and it has never worked.
"Fine, fine, let the stupid cat stay," Draco grumbled, turning away. Harry lit up like the world's hottest glasses-wearing light bulb.
"Really?" he asked, eyes bright, before hugging Draco from behind. "Thank you."
"I swear to God, if I find it shedding in my bed, I'm going to skin it alive," Draco warned, relaxing into the embrace and breathing in the beautifully annoying scent that belonged to the equally beautiful and a-hell-lot-more-annoying Harry.
"I promise. I won't let him in your room," Harry promised, still clinging onto Draco. "You're the best, Dray!"
"Harry!" Draco bellowed.
Harry sprinted up the stairs and appeared at the doorway of their bedroom with a bat. Draco eyed it suspiciously.
"You sounded like you'd just seen a serial killer," Harry explained defensively.
"I'll tell you who's a serial killer," Draco growled. "That cat!"
Harry paused.
"Booboo's a serial killer?"
"Booboo?"
"Well, it was either Booboo or Pancakes and I thought Booboo sounded a little more sophisticated," Harry said happily. "So Booboo's a serial killer?"
"He peed in my bed," Draco snarled. "Let me repeat that. He PEED in my BED."
Harry glanced at the bed cautiously. "Um."
"Yeah. 'Um' is right," Draco said calmly, eyes glinting dangerously.
"I'll clean it up," Harry said apologetically, looking absolutely and completely pathetic.
"It's okay, I'll sort it out," Draco mumbled, looking away before he melted inside. "Where's the monster now?"
"He's gone out to wander for a bit," Harry said cheerfully.
"Thank the lords," Draco muttered under his breath before looking at his bed in disdain. He should start changing the sheets.
"No."
"He's lonely!"
"No. No more cats," Draco said firmly, and turning the chair so his back was to Harry. The puppy eyes couldn't affect him if he couldn't see it...
"I won't bring any more cats, I swear he's the last! His owner's coming back in a couple of days, and after that, you'll never see him again!" Harry begged. He was sitting on the kitchen floor crosslegged, clutching Draco's arm and a milkshake in his other hand. Draco wanted that milkshake.
"Booboo-" Draco felt sick just saying that name. "-Is enough. More than enough. Do you know how expensive cat food is? Do you know how messy cat litter is?"
"Couple of days," Harry repeated.
Draco let his head drop to hit the table. And lifted it to hit the table again and again and again.
"Fine, you know what," Draco huffed, sitting up. "Fine! Bring the stupid cat in. Turn this place into an animal shelter, for all I care!"
And he stormed out of the kitchen, Harry watching him intently.
There was a pause, and Draco stormed back in, threw himself on the floor next to Harry, muttered 'ow' in sympathy to his probably permanently damaged butt bones and began to slurp the milkshake that was still in Harry's hand.
Harry smiled.
"You know I love you, right?" he said gently.
"Yep," Draco nodded. Harry smiled.
"You've got some milkshake there," he pointed out, wiping it with a thumb before leaning in to kiss him. Draco leaned in and the milkshake was placed on the floor, forgotten.
"MEOW!"
Draco pulled away, unimpressed, to glare at Booboo who had now settled and made himself comfortable in between the two men.
"No more cats," Draco sighed. "No more."
A fat white cat trotted calmly.
"His name's Fluffy," Harry said happily, petting the white fur.
Draco yelled something uncoherant and most likely vulgar and stormed out of the kitchen once more.
Draco turned over, rubbing his nose furiously in an attempt to make the itching go away. His hand met fur and, refusing to open his eyes, Draco pushed away Booboo as he buried his face in the pillow.
But the cat he pushed away was a lot smaller and fluffier than Booboo. And a lot smaller than Fluffy as well. Draco frowned, eyes still closed.
He finally opened his eyes to a tiny white kitten with large blue eyes that he'd never seen before.
"Harry," Draco whispered dangerously.
"I'm sorry! Fluffy gave birth last night! I couldn't force the babies back in!"
"Babies?" Draco repeated. "Babies? There are more?"
Harry looked around guiltily.
A horde of kittens, stumbling and falling came charging towards him, one by one tripping and skidding on the floor.
Draco sighed resignedly.
"So..." Harry said casually, eyes eager.
"I hate you," Draco muttered quietly.
"Hmm? Pardon?"
"I SAID I HATE YOU."
Harry looked up, offended but mostly just sad, which seemed to be his default state around Draco. "But Dray, just until we find a proper owner for them! Just a couple of days!"
"You said 'just a couple of days' for Fluffy as well and he's been here for two weeks," Draco hissed. "No. More. Cats. I swear to God I will murder you if you bring another creature under this roof. I am sick of these stupid fucking felines and there will be no more under the Potter-Malfoy roof! I swear it on, on, on custard creams! The next cat that is brought in, I will throw out of the fucking window, never mind if it can land on it's feet. No more cats. Or kittens."
Harry's face dropped and he tried slowly and painfully processed the words that had been verbally vomited at him.
"So is that a yes?" he asked happily when he gave up trying to distinguish the fast speech.
"No."
"Yeah, I didn't think so."
Two weeks later, Booboo, Fluffy and the litter of kittens were still there.
"This is Billy, and that's Pancakes, and that's Anastastia, and this one's called Jimmy..." Harry rambled, rattling off names as he stroked the individual cats, all fighting for his attention. "Or we could name them after all our friends! So Billy could be Ron, Pancakes can be Hermione, and Anastasia can be Blaise, because they kind of look alike!"
Draco considered jumping out of the window. Hopefully there would be no cats in hell (because anyone who thought that Draco would get even a glimpse of heaven was clearly delusional).
"Nah, I liked the other names better..." Harry mused to himself. "Okay, Billy, Pancakes, Anastasia, Jimmy, Tomtom, Flower, Big Man, Oliver, Twisty, Frankenstein, Husky-"
"Isn't a husky a type of dog?" Draco muttered. Harry nodded happily.
"Urgh," he groaned. "What did I sign up to?"
Draco glared at Pancakes, who just blinked at him innocently. Said kitten was currently sprawled across Draco's lap and wasn't getting the hint to get the fuck off.
Looking around to make sure Harry wasn't around (because what he was about to do was seriously embarrassing) he ran his fingers through Pancakes soft white fur.
"You're actually kind of cute," he admitted reluctantly. Pancakes meowe.
"Aw, you guys are bonding so well," Harry sighed happily.
Draco threw Pancakes off his lap, and, ignoring the indignant howl, glared at Harry.
"You. Saw. Nothing."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN FLUFFY AND BOOBOO CAME FROM AN ANIMAL CENTRE?"
Half the street turned around to look at the two men. Harry at least had the decency to look sheepish.
"Um, well, I kinda thought you might've figured it out by now..."
Draco took a deep breath and tried to calm himself.
"So you lied about their owners?"
"Uh... yes?"
Draco deflated. "Urgh, I don't even know what to do with you anymore."
"Shall we get ice-cream?"
"Don't change the subject. And I want mint chocolate."