HD 'Second'

"So, Potter." Draco propped an elegant elbow on the lift button bank, casually wafting his tea mug. Potter would've likely pressed one of the buttons by accident, calling it. Or he'd have spilt his morning cuppa, had he been clutching one. He didn't.

Fundamental difference, right there.

"Free for lunch?"

"Um!"

Potter lit up at Draco's query: eyes, lips, nipples—berry-dark smudges just popping up like that.

(Draco could just see them pushing outwards against the fine lawn fabric of his shirt. Incidentally, who'd the dressing of Potter these days? They were doing a bang-up job of it. He approved.)

"Yes, actually." Potter nodded, shifting from foot to foot. He seemed chuffed. "Thanks."

"Then…Thai?" Draco, being the observant type, had noticed Potter ordered that most often. He savoured the spicy, then. All to the good. "You like Thai, Potter."

"Okay," Potter chirped brightly. He grinned at Draco. "Thai's good. I like Thai."

"Yes," Draco remarked, blinking carefully at Potter over the rim of his cup. "I know."

Potter seemed startled by that. "Ah, you do? Really?' He smoothed his hair back from his brow, a nervous gesture. Glanced at the two Witches who'd appeared abruptly starboard, also engaged waiting for the lifts. Draco ignored them—it was Patterson and DiJons—and kept his eyes fixed on the flex of Potter's fingers through his unruly hair. They were…quite well kept. He'd rather like to hold them. Or have them in his own hair, perhaps.

"Really, really," Draco managed to reply, though he'd rather lost the page.

A bell dinged ever so loudly nearby. Both men roundly ignored it, preferring to blink and smile at each other for a while more.

"Level 9, Department of Mysteries," intoned the female voice of the lift operator (Draco had heard it was the ghost of a deceased Archivist, bored to tears and willing to be pressed into service.) "Level 9, please. Anyone?"

The Witches hesitated for the barest moment, sending the Wizards puzzled looks.

"Er, DOM, chaps?" one of them asked politely. "We're for DOM. Malfoy, er. D'you want to—ah?"

"What?" Draco started, staring. "Oh—er, no. Not just yet. Thanks, though." His gaze never wavered from Potter's. "Busy, now."

Potter simply flushed, hastily examining the tips of his loafers. The lift—and the Witches who'd crowded on it—departed.

"…When, er, exactly?" he mumbled quietly, after a full fifteen seconds of eying a small scuff on the left one and only nipping the question in just before Draco was about to prompt him for a meeting time. "I'm free at eleven." He raised his chin abruptly, to stare Draco straight in the eyes fearlessly. "Is that—I mean, that's prob'ly too early, isn't it? Eleven. You won't want—"

"I'll be at your office," Draco replied promptly. "Sharp."

The bells dinged again, shrilly. The impersonal voice offered various other departments, located on various other sublevels.

"Magical Games," it intoned finally, deadpan. "Level 7, please. Level 7."

Potter bounced one hop sideways, towards the direction a door clanged open.

"That's me!" he exclaimed, as if this data were a breaking news flash. "I, er—I'll see you later then, yeah? I should…I should go. Now. Now—is good. Late, otherwise."

"Yes, Potter. Later."

Draco tugged at his collar unobtrusively with one hand; with the other he set his mug to floating, just at waist height. His hands were insufficiently occupied with it; he was beginning to feel as thought he might have to physically restrain himself from breaking down and petting the idiot bloke—talk about socially inept!

Erm. Talk about…incredibly cute. "Errr…eleven it is, then."

"Level 7, Mister Potter!" The voice was not nearly so impersonal, now; it was chiding. The bell sounded again, twice, rapidly. "Quidditch HQ. Do come!"

"Um," Potter hesitated. "D'you know where to...ah?"

Draco firmly laced his grabby fingers together behind his back, shifting his taller person sideways and over to allow the slighter man to move past him and on down to the impatiently waiting carriage.

"…And yes, I know that, as it happens," he remarked inconsequentially, mainly more to keep Potter chatting than for any other reason. He was in no great hurry, nossir. He'd all day long to stroll down to DOM if he wished it. "Where to find you. No great secret where you work, Potter."

"Oh?" Potter sent him a squinty look, suspicious-like. "Yeah?" Then his face cleared up, miraculously. He grinned wide as houses, practically bowling Draco over. "No," he allowed, those green eyes smiling. "I guess not. Not like you, Unspeakable. Er, see you then…then. Eleven. Alright?"

"Mister Potter, the lift is waiting on you," the voice reminded reprovingly. "How much longer—?"

"Er, coming! Coming! Sorry!"

Potter's head whipped 'round to reply...but then he was gazing back at Draco in a trice. He seemed apologetic.

"I have to go now," he murmured softly, retreating away from where Draco stood, in a curious sort of walk that was both sideways and also in reverse. "Sorry. Eleven, though."

"Yes, indeed."

Amazingly enough, despite the strange method of going, he wasn't tripping over his flapping robe hems, Potter. Nor did he stumble and scuff his other shoe, either. Draco watched him closely all the way, mostly managing to stuff back the brilliantly silly-arse smile he rather wanted to let loose.

"Um…well," Potter hitched a shoulder toward the lift bank. "I—I s'pose I'll be—"

"There at eleven. On the dot." Draco nodded urbanely, doing his level Unspeakable best not to hop about like Potter just had—so humiliating for him; so cute to observe for others—and pump an errant fist into the empty air. "I'll be there."

"Um…super. That's...very, ah. Fantastic."

"Yes, fantastic!" Draco echoed brightly, also conveniently not noticing at all that their entire conversational level had pretty much descended to Courtroom Level. Lower than low, then, in terms of sheer banality. "We've a date, then. And I'll be looking forward to it, Potter. The Thai, I mean. I'm…I'm very fond of the Thai."

"Er…me, too." Potter blushed again. All the fuck over, from waist to hairline. Gods, that shirt! Very fine fabric there, yes! "I do like...Thai."

Draco hung on to the control of his jaw with effort.

"Brilliant, good, glad to hear it," he replied faintly. "That's—"

"Ah! Good morning, Mister Malfoy," the lift's voice purred suddenly and very loudly, right by Draco's ear, startling him. "It is you, isn't it? Lovely!" It wasn't impersonal at all; in fact, it could almost be termed 'flirty'. "Pardon me, but I didn't see you waiting there at first. If you'll be patient, I'll return for you in but a moment. Let me just ferry our laggard Mister Potter to his destination—as he's very tardy now. Aren't you, Mister Potter? Very. Tardy."

"Ah?" Potter gulped, flushing faintly. Again, dear Merlin. Gods, that shirt!

Draco swallowed, blinking, eyeing the empty air about the lift with a stink eye. He and Potter exchanged a wordless look, eyebrows wagging in confusion.

"Well, erm…thanks," he replied. "Yes, alright, Ma'am. I'll just—ah—do that."

"Ta, Mister Malfoy!" the lift voice squealed its excitement. "Don't run away now, hear? Back in a tickity-tick!"

"Well, see you, Mal—er. Draco." A blushing Potter waved a blushing hand. "L-Later."

"Ye—esss…" Draco fluttered his fingers in response, just like the ninny he was at the moment. "Oh."

The doors slammed shut on Potter's final tilted-chin gleam of a brilliant smile—and accompanying blinding spectacles lens flash—and the lift whooshed off and away, carrying him with it.

"You're gone, Potter."

"...Damn!"

"Ah…e'hmmm."

Steely grey eyes darted about the Atrium. It was nigh on deserted, it being ten minutes post regular start. Well, by all but the Reception people, but they didn't count for much. Besides, he knew them all and had dirt on most of them. They wouldn't mention anything out of the ordinary. Not if they knew what was good them, at least.

"Ah. H'hm."

He took a staid sip of his newly reclaimed tea, nodded to himself for a long, considering moment and then once again set his over-full, too-hot china mug afloat again, this time well out of the way. Draco knew he might be about to make an idiot of himself, but he certainly wasn't require to be even more of one, was he?

"Yes." He nodded firmly. This was the proper thing to do at a time like this.

And leapt up, straight upwards, as if striving whole-body for a personal Leviosa-best, the first and second fingers of both hands split wide apart in the universal sign of 'V' for victory.

"Yesss! Aces bloody high!"