Author: tigersilver

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: H/D

Warnings: Twisting POV? Sorry! They both keep yapping at me, and then some: Did go back to attempt fixage and they wouldn't cooperate, either. Will do better next time, promise. Also, heavily implied desk/bed smexing and much tea.

Word Count: Um...longish? Afraid to look, really.

A/N: This is a gift fic for these lovely people, for the holidays and the awesomesauce they really, really are: monster_o_love , groolover , hidders (for all you do for so very many, I thank you!), a_execution , lonewhiterose , ineffably_roma , ryokoblue (Happy Birthday!), kitty_fic (as you're awesome), mayfly_78 (you know why, yes? Yes!), the wonderful khasael and the most darling dysonrules.

HD 'Harry Potter, Holiday Rent Boy' Part 1/2

"It appears I am yours, Malfoy, officially."

Harry Potter smirked festively, adjusted his all-concealing dark velvet robes and proceeded to lounge all over the neat corner of his fellow Hogwarts prof's desk blotter with a fine air of holiday bonhomie, effectively possessing himself of half the available surface area.

Malfoy cringed, fearing for his ruffled papers, endangered by the Golden One's arse.

"For the taking, as it were," Harry went on merrily, unperturbed by Draco's aborted attempt at shoving him off the shiny surface. "Use of, seasonally. Or rather, to be more exact, I'm to be officially in charge of making your daily life joyful and merry this lovely holiday season, so get yourself accustomed as of now, my fine old prat. McGonagall hath spoken: I'm your holiday rent boy, Malfoy—your personal Christmas elf—on call, day or night."

Draco Malfoy—thirty, divorced father of one, currently unattached and the Charms Professor at Hogwarts and a damned fine one, too, thanks so much—instantly clutched his throbbing sinuses with the fingers of one long, elegant hand, massaging them frantically.

"Merlin, no! Tell me she didn't, Potter! Tell me you lie?" he pleaded pathetically.

"She did, actually," Harry replied equably, still all sunny, smarmy smiles. "Problem?" he added chirpily, and crossed his legs at the ankles, swinging them jauntily. Little bells rang their tiny, tinny hearts out with it. Malfoy flinched.

Harry to the opportinuty to glance down at the desk's contents with some small curiosity, eyes bright. They were many and assorted, and fiddly withal, and who knew Wizarding ink came in that peculiar colour of pure octarine?

"Malfoy?"

Evidently Malfoy did, and used it, too, judging by the coruscating notes scribbled across the cover page of his much-vaunted Conference of Charmers [COC, for short, an acronym that always gave Harry and the other staff a giggle] presentation. The Staff Room had heard all about this Conference, ad nauseum.

"Malfoy, are you with me, here?"

"Shut it, Potter," Malfoy snapped. "I'm trying to remember if I did...if I did?"

"Did what, Malfoy?"

Harry grinned, a small private one, just to himself. Leave it to the git to use nearly impossible ink to mark up his nearly History of Hogwarts-length presentation.

"Oooh! I did!" Malfoy inhaled sharply, the vaguely troubled expression on his wan and weary features transforming into sheer foul temper. He stared off into the middle distance, a fixed expression on his handsome, pointy face, one that spoke of great rage, barely suppressed. "Yes, I did; I remember it clearly now. I most specifically advised Headmistress I was not participating in this—this idiocy this year, that's all! How she could!" Malfoy ranted quietly. "She knows how it is right now, damn her. I've no effing time left to me, Potter! It's in bloody ten days, BIGCOC! Ten!"

Harry shrugged amiably, waving both hands in the air in a vague gesture of 'Fancy that!' and smiling kindly. He visibly radiated peace and goodwill-towards-all-Wizards, at least to Malfoy's jaundiced view, but not the slightest smidgeon of good sense or common courtesy.

"No idea, Malfoy," he allowed genially. "But she has and I'm, er, it. So to speak."

"Right," Draco said softly. "What a fucking nightmare."

The fingers pressing into the skin between his pale, sardonically arched brows dug in briefly, turning white from the pressure. Then they moved slowly over to one temple, where a vein visibly pulsed blue under thin layer of flesh. He caressed that area much more gently and Harry's gaze automatically followedthe movement. Malfoy, of course, didn't notice; sod him.

"Why, thanks."

Or so Harry concluded, his merry smile hardening ever so slightly and turning briefly sour.

"Look here," Malfoy spoke up, having sucked in a huff of irked air abruptly, and was ever so acidly polite again his very speech was brittle with it. "Potter. I've no time for this cheery 'happy holidays' shite, Potter—and you, of all the people here at Hogwarts, know that for damned fact! Everyone knows it—or should. The Biennial International Galapagos Conference of Charmers coming up right on schedule, first week of January, and I'm buggered blue if I don't have this paper completely prepared and ready to properly present—and I've all the annotations yet, and the completed biblio and that's not even counting the speech I've yet to write!"

"Hmm," Harry hummed, still unruffled. "Really."

Silence fell for a long moment while Malfoy closed his fine grey eyes in pent-up frustration and Harry cocked his head, bird-like, to regard him.

"Huh."

Then he waved a free hand at Malfoy's tidy piles of close-written parchment, thick, dust-laden texts and his vast assortment of 'special' quills, coloured impossible inks and desktop miscellany and they all disappeared into the thin air of Malfoy's neat study.

"That's rough, Malfoy," he consoled his fellow prof blithely, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "I feel for you, I do. Been there, done that, just very recently. But, hey! Here we go—a cheery holiday tea awaits us! Man up, old chap—first things first. You must feed the creative fires, clearly."

"Potter!" Malfoy roared, opening his eyes wide at the whisper of paper Vanishing and then blinking balefully at the sudden blankness that had but a moment before contained a year's worth of difficult work. His desk was all at once but a barren wasteland of polished mahogany, with nary a scrap of stray parchment nor scribbled-on Wizardex card in sight. Which was bad enough, Draco fumed, but worst of all…

"What in the bleeding fuck, Potter?" he blustered, shoving his desk chair back and half rising dramatically. He stuck a finger out to jab at his most unwelcome visitor and Harry thoughtfully scooted back a few inches more on the bared, blotterless wood, well out of range.

"Er, yes?"

"That was the solid platinum inkwell m'mother gave me you just sent off to nowhere in particular—bloody well bring it back! It's monogrammed, damn your eyes! Which means it's got my initials carved all over it, if you don't happen to know what that means!"

"I do, actually." Harry nodded agreeably at that. "As it happens."

"Oh, shut it! It means it's mine, arsewipe, and consequently precious to me. Oi, Potter! Put my stuff back where you found it, damn you—before I have to take steps to hex you bollockless!"

"Oh, shush, Malfoy. Don't burst a blood vessel. All's well."

Harry grinned at his irate co-worker and turned to glance again at the cleared-off surface, flapping that same seemingly innocuous hand once more, oh, so casually,

"It's fine, just Vanished momentarily," he chuckled, in an excess of inexplicable holiday-induced good humour. "Vanished, Malfoy, not destroyed." Draco's eyes narrowed suspiciously as he observed the careless gesture, his lips so tightly pressed together they seemed a seamless line of anger. "It'll all be restored soon enough, not to worry. But, tea—first and foremost. You need sustenance, grumpyboots."

"Hah!" Draco snorted, anger finally venting just as steam did from an overheated kettle. "Fuck this tea idea with a sharp, pointy stick! You'd be a grumpyboots too, Potter, if you were in my shoes!"

"My shoes, Draco, are quite pointy at the moment," Harry replied, in a way that made no sense at all to his impatient audience of one. "And belled in silver, for easy reference. See?" He lifed his feet merrily, jingling them. "You'll always know where I am; isn't that lovely?"

"No! It's not! Oh, for the love of all that's holy, Potter, can't you please just take yourself off? Consider me cheered, do, and go. Away!"

"Negatory," Harry grinned. "No can do, sorry. Here we go! Just coming. Sorry for the delay."

The next second, the polished wood was clad tastefully in a snowy cloth and set with a practical sort of low tea; biscuits, scones, pots of butter, cream, preserves and so on, a smattering of smoked fish and mustards, a few wedges of cheese, plus a tiny carafe of Ogden's Finest, accompanied by two miniature crystal goblets. The whole array sparkled and twinkled evilly, garnished with shiny green tinsel and a centerpiece comprised of gathered silver bells and cinnamon-scented pine cones.

"What in Merlin—?" Malfoy exclaimed, flinching back. "I don't want that! Take it away, Potter."

"No. And would you be willing to get the hell over yourself and your snit for, say, ten minutes or so?" Harry inquired of him cheerily, entirely unfazed by the unrelenting and likely patented Malfoy glower. He shifted his position, sliding over to make room for the small feast. "And perhaps move on from these small things that annoy and irk you so much? In my opinion, you see, my dear Malfoy, you allow common, everyday stressors far too much control over your every littlest action. You'll lose all your pretty hair at this sorry rate and that'll be a blooming pity, mate, it will. One of your finer features, your hair. Leastways, I always thought so."

"Potter!" Malfoy's hands clenched into business-like fists, as they always did when Harry brought up the subject of his hair. Which was currently short up the back, long in the front and magically gelled to rise in graceful widow's peaks 'round his sculpted cheekbones and long, sharp face. "Shut up about my hair, Potter! Look to yours, you! You walking, talking crow's nest!"

Quite becoming, his hair. Draco had determined this upon reflection (literal, in a mirror) when he chose to return to the style of his late boyhood. Left him looking a full ten years younger and fanciable enough to pull most anyone he chose—not that Hogwarts had anyone decent to pull, but then he wasn't quite doddery yet, was he? And Town was only a hop, skip and Apparation away.

"Silly wanker," Harry was chuckling at him, going on despite the sound of audible grinding emanating from the hidden hinges of Draco's angular jawbone. The man worked it like a stallion on a lunge line, all rolling whites of eyes and high-stepping fury,much to the admiration of all who knew him. No other Prof at Hogwarts could grind quite the same way he could. It was an inspiring thing...as well as terrifying for the Fourth Years. Harry noted the noise and quickly stopped his chuckles. "Erm, just kidding with you. Teasing, like. Really."

"Merlin! I should hope so, Potter." Malfoy didn't cease an instant with the heavy-duty glare fest, but he did ease back into his seat uneasily. Potter, he noticed, seemed to take that move for encouragement to go on with this nonsense. "And don't take that for invitation to stay, either, becuase it isn't. Go away. Please. I'm busy."

"Nope. I've watched you, you see," Harry admitted, his body bending in a matey, confidential manner, "recently, running hither and yon, to-and-fro, all this last month or so—all mental, all the time, Draco, when all you really need do is calm the Hades down for half a tick and sort the one thing at the one time. Just the one. Like tea, for example," he added, snickering gently, eyes darting to the tidy little spread beside him. "It's time for it, so have your tea with me, git, as it's already here before you—and do not dare be at all tetchy with me for doing my appropriate duty by you, Draco. It's half four already. You must be famished. No—you are famished. I can tell—you're being far more of an uppity arse than usual."

"I don't want tea, Potter," Draco stated baldly, through teeth that were—oh, yes, they were—clamped tight enough together to actually shatter. With visible effort he sent a thin-lipped attempt at a polite grimace Harry's way, nodding sharply to emphasis this unequivicable statement.

Harry only waited patiently and watched him, expression utterly calm and open, though a wry smile lurked on the corner of his mouth. Draco, ever verbose under pressure, did not disappoint.

"I don't want anything, really," he enunciated, apparently under the impression Harry would willingly listen to him if he just repeated himself sufficient times in a very brief period, "except perhaps the blessed opportunity to complete my work in relative peace, with no unnecessary interruptions. Tea would be one of those, Potter: unnecessary, completely. Really. Thank you, old arse, for your appalling thoughtfulness, but no thank you, all the same. I must at least polish off a substantial part of my speech by the end of this afternoon and I've absolutely no time available for anything superfluous, not at this rate. If I did, I'd be up in the Staff Room with the rest of you lot, Potter, aimlessly milling about and stuffing my face with Mrs. Weasley's brandied fruitcake like the veriest starveling—believe me. Her fruitcake is superb-better than elf-made. But, as you see, I am not. Can not. Now, please—take yourself off like a good fellow. Leave me alone, if you would be so kind, so I can attempt to function."

"Draco," Harry commented serenely, finally pouring out. The lurking smile grew yet larger under Malfoy's beetle-browed stare. "Hate to say it, but you're not being very cooperative; not right now, at least. I'm only attempting to complete my assignedwork—as your personal holiday rent boy. That includes catering to your basic needs if you don't do it for yourself, wanker. You require food; you need rest. You need, in a word, to relax."

"Again," Draco bit out, every syllable severely clipped, "there is very limited time in my schedule, Potter, and I must make use of each moment of it. This last term was more than usually hectic and the upcoming presentation will make or break me, professionally. You do know how it is, don't you? Publish or perish, Potter? Surely you remember that phrase from last year? I think the Board of Governors must have repeated it ten times over when they first took me on, along with 'Death Eater' and 'that demanding old bitch, McGonagall'. Well! It's engraved in my brain now, that credo, Potter, and I must follow through or risk being summarily terminated. As I'm not employed here for shites-and-giggles, you must excuse me if I attempt to reatin my job."

"Yes, of course, Malfoy, and I was just in that same situation, last year," Harry replied instantly, frowning momentarily,and likely at his own wretched memories of achieving full tenure, till that eerily calm smile he'd been wearing came creeping back on cat's paws and took up residence on his quirked lips.

"You were not, Potter!" Draco protested, sitting up straight as a board. "They'd never fire the fucking Saviour and you know it, prick! You're a damn sure thing, Potter; nothing to worry yourself over, sod you!"

"Terrible, it is," Harry continued on meditatively, apparently turning selectively deaf in process. "Very nasty of them, requiring that—most tiring, too. I remember being always exhausted. But… you'll get through it, Draco, just as I did. I've every faith in your phenomenal persistence, git. Ah, here you are!" he exclaimed with great false cheer, the lingering, weird smile now fully plastered across his blandly schooled features and spreading like some sort of icky lichen. "Two sugars and a squeeze of lemon, right?"

Despite himself, Malfoy absentmindedly took the teacup as it was thrust upon him, frowning still with every facial muscle available to the task.

"Pot-ter," he said quietly, the boiling pressure building up in those two simple syllables. "Pot-ter."

"Biscuit with that, Draco?" Harry asked, undaunted. "Very fresh, they are. Just baked."

"It's not the same, Potter." Malfoy, clearly distracted and following some internal express train of thought of his very own, unrelated to tea, swallowed a dainty gulp of his Darjeeling and fixed Harry with a searching X-ray gaze. "Not in any way. You have an advantage in DADA that I do not, in Charms. You have practical experience in Defense, Potter—droves of it. You have the even greater advantage of being the one who sodding saved us all from unspeakable misery. I, however, do not have any of these positives at my disposal. And Flitwick, by the by, for all that he's a silly old coot and likely demented, is and was an absofuckinglutely amazing Charmer. Did you know he published regularly while he was teaching here and the Board just adored the pants off him, all through the damned war?"
"No, really?" Harry shook his head in wonder. "Fancy!"
"Now, me?" Draco asked of him, rhetorically. "I've had the very devil of a time, Potter, perfecting modifications to that stupid, simple-as-Simon 'Notice Me Not' the Aurors commissioned in September. It took ages longer than it should've, for no good reason other than I was constantly interrupted by schoolwork! And then, as a crowning indignity, the bleeding Board requires I produce a new Charm or a suitably creative variation on an old one every six months, like bloody clockwork, per my contract. The next of which is due, you realise, on the thirtieth of this month. I am, in a word, fucked."

"Uh-huh," Harry nodded. "Go on, Malfoy. I'm listening, I am. Really."

Draco huffed.

"You see, Potter, it's all a bit much at the moment, what with the BIGCOC coming up—which is my personal launch into the fields of International Charming, fuck it, and crucially important in the long run, both for Hogwart's scholarly rep and my own academic future. So, yes, really, Potter—I'm bleeding swamped here. I am, no kidding. And thus I ask of you, very kindly, to go away, please, like the very good berk you are purported to be by both the Press and the sodding masses. I've not a spare second to playact house elf games with you, git—not now, not tomorrow, not for the next ten days. This is not some stupid Muggle film, you know. There is no reprieve—no last-minute stay of execution. No magical out."

"Er, another biscuit?" Harry asked sweetly, offering the plate of them by waving it under Malfoy's nose, fragrant with buttery steam and still tangibly warm from the elves' ovens. "Or a scone, perhaps? They're currant, with slivered almonds. Do take one—you'll be needing some carbs, methinks, for energy. Hermione always swears by them, really. Buck you right up, carbs will."

"Thank you," Draco replied politely, taking one up carelessly, but he was still very much on the same rutted track, as he then proceeded to repeat what he'd just said, albeit in slightly different verbiage.

"You're very welcome, Malfoy."
Harry, being the noticing type, couldn't help but hear the faint note of rising hysteria as Malfoy launched without delay into Diatribe Number Two—or was it Three? He shrugged, not really worried over it, and returned to his chosen task of being cheery, smiling widely at Malfoy's expressive face and flying hands, and sipping his own tea with equanimity.

"Much obliged, to be sure," Malfoy was saying, doggedly. "But. I am telling you, Potter, straight out, that in less than ten short days I must polish off this buggering Conference presentation, plus the bloody speech and all the addendums that accompany it, and be ready to present it at some touristy hotel on some turtle-infested island in the middle of effing Nowheresville and there's still what I owe the Governors for last quarter and now you say Headmistress McGonagall's pulling this 'Happy Holidays!" crap on all of us, and especially me, and you, Potter, on top of all the other like a bleeding dungbomb exploding—I swear she's out to murder me, Potter, I do so swear— and I just don't have a spare moment to frolic about with the likes of you making merry right now—not this year, at least. Not to oblige you, Potty—not to fulfill some pointless requirement of the Headmistress, bless her old maidish heart, and not to be in any offensive or non-participatory—but! Maybe next—"

"No, really, Malfoy," Harry took the opportuntiy to interrupt his fellow professor mid-flow, still practically wreathed in patient, kind, good-natured grins, his green eyes glowing like the little faerie lights Malfoy had grudgingly Charmed on the twenty-five foot decorated evergreen in the Staff Room, "you don't have to lift a single pinkie finger to reciprocate, believe me—and I promise faithfully not to get in your way, either, when you're slaving away over your evil presentation, the Charm that's due and the rest of it. Well…not too, too much, at least. There's the Yule Dinner Dance tomorrow, naturally, which must be attended, but we can likely duck out of that early—don't much care for dancing myself, actual—"

"You're mad, Potter!" Draco snorted, newly flushed with rising temper. "Starkers! Raving! As if I have time for that nonsense when I don't even have time to take tea like a civilized person? What are you thinking, man? Are you thinking?"

Incensed, he gulped down the remaining half of his cup of Darjeeling and polished off his scone dry, chewing furiously.

"Um, no," Harry allowed. "Er, I mean, yes."

"Salazar!" Malfoy added, the curse muffled by his next strangled swallow. "You're impossible! Always, always impossible, Potter! I've not time for this! Nor that!"

"Of course you don't, Malfoy," Harry said peaceably, hastily pouring out more tea and offering it up. "There's no time left for you, Draco—and, if it helps you, just continue to tell yourself this is all just a very bad dream you're having, alright? Carry on with the noshing, though, won't you, at least till you believe you've woken up? Do you good."

"Dickweed!" Malfoy growled through a second scone he'd just slathered with lemon curd and half a pot of Devonshire cream. "You're a pain in my bum, Potty! Don't you dare patronize me!"

"Of course I am," Harry agreed, nodding happily and taking a shortbread square for himself. "Haven't I always been, Draco?"

"Mmm," his companion allowed, lips twitching mightily in an effort not to return Harry's cheeky smile. "Yes—indubitably, Potter. And still are, wanker—likely always be, though no one but me seems to realize it. Things don't change much, not with you."

"No…they don't, do they?" Harry twinkled, and helpfully pushed the apricot preserves in Malfoy's direction.

"No. Oh! Ta, Potter."

This sweeping statement was far truer than Draco would actually ever admit, but Potter clearly had no inkling of what his co-worker and ancient acquaintance really meant by it, so all was safe and well on the surface. Draco concentrated on gulping his tea down instead, licking his lips nervously, increasingly eager to remove Potter from the room, posthaste. That damned speech—that stupid Charm—and then McGonagall! The bloody nerve of the old biddy, when she knew she was both the frontline instrument of measure for the Governor's requirements and the sounding board for Draco's continued professional success at that bloody Conference! Tossing Potter into the bleeding tangle was just not on—and certainly not ten days before C-Day, when Draco was but a hair's breadth from hurdling triumphantly over yet another obstacle. He didn't need the confusion Potter caused in his nervous system…the temptation that bluedeviled him, either. Harry Potter had bloody sparkled brilliantly lately, bobbing about the Staff room and Great Hall like an excited little kid over the planned Hogwarts festivities, and Draco knew for a fact the juevenile git adored Christmas and all its trappings with every ounce of his poor orphaned little soul.

He'd rather wished he'd had the time to join in, or even devise some sort of appropriate treat for the barmy-brained one, but no…he'd no time left for that, not now. Likely Potter would just be confused by any small gesture on his part, in any road.

Of course, none of the mental quandary engendered by on-again, off-again potential gift-giving had helped Draco concentrate in any way, shape or form on the tasks he simply had to accomplish. In fact, his silly fancies had distracted him so thoroughly from his strict agenda earlier in the month he'd lost valuable time and now had to shut himself solidly away from the whole irritating lot of it.

Bah and humbug! Sod Potter! was Draco's learned opinion, had anyone asked it of him, right then.

"Still, Draco…"

Harry wasn't asking, though. Nor would he ever even care, but his quiet tenor was made all of soothing, mellow notes, so much so it practically stroked Draco's hair back off his beetled brow of its own ruddy volition, like a warm, welcome hand extended in need. Draco nearly closed his eyes under the calming cloud of it, sighing happily—the hurricane force of Harry Potter's infamous 'care' was a formidible power—but he managed to keep them pried open out of an equally quite strong sense of self-preservation. He'd not cracked yet; not once in a decade, no matter how tempted.

Harry remained perched on his desk yet, like a bloody bump on an antique, heirloom, highly polished log, and was at the moment watching Draco's throat move through every swallow with all the narrow-eyed notice of a hawk tracking an unwary rodent, and swaying ever so slightly nearer Draco by meticulously tiny degrees. Draco noticed randomly that Potter was indeed wearing pointy elf shoes, in Slytherin green. They had tiny silver bells on their tips, which the git must've silenced to sneak up on him, all unawares, bearing insidious tea trays.

The silly shoes were swinging jauntily, back and forth, as Potter sipped and nibbled. This carefree image was, for whatever reason, utterly infuriating to Draco.

"You know…" Harry said.

Draco blinked in some confusion, peering, as Harry was also—and he could quite possibly be going round the twist from sheer stress-and-strain— bedecked in a red shirt under his prof's robes. A red satin shirt that was fitted quite snugly across his chest and teeming with the representations of green-and-silver mistletoe balls, bouncing merrily through the field of vermillion.

"You mustn't fuss to this extent over what's due and when," Potter counseled him kindly, and reached out a crumb-laden set of fingers to pat Draco's shoulder in a matey sort of manner. "Draco, listen—you really shouldn't. I won't be in your way, I swear, upon my honour. And remember, too, it's strictly my call, how I go about inducing your state of holiday merriment," he went on, deftly topping off his fellow professor's cup yet again and waving the biscuit plate like a bloody holiday banner. Petits fours popped up upon it chased silver surface like little mushrooms. Draco grabbed four in desperation.

"Relax—it'll be painless, trust me," Harry reassured him earnestly. "You won't feel a thing…probably. Er—knowing you, git. Merlin knows I've tried before."

Harry's cheery mask slipped for a blink, revealing a somewhat disappointed grimace, and was then firmly pinned back in place. He smiled steadily and nodded at Draco in an encouraging fashion.

"'Inducing my merriment'," Draco sneered—but halfheartedly, as the accumulated tea at last did its usual hearty magic, soothing built-up tension and strengthening shattered nerves. As did the usual banter between them, which felt comfortably familiar—and safe.

Safe, Draco had decided long ago, was not such a bad thing, all 'round.

"Huh," he snorted aloud. "I'll believe that when I see it, Potter, as it's not going to happen. Besides, I've always been under the distinct impression you induced something else from me, all these many years—something very far from merriment!"

"Really, now?" Harry raised his brows in gentle inquiry. "Hmmm. I do hope you're over that now, Draco. Ancient history, right? Oh, ah? All done there? Care for a wee nip to settle your stomach, perhaps?"

"Urrgh! Pot-ter!"

Draco shook his hair back from his frowning forehead, increasing the visibility of his damned near perpetual scowl. Funny, that. He was never normally this ill-tempered these days…well, not unless that git Potter was scampering about in his immediate vicinity. Harry brought out the worst in him and Draco realized that.

Then again, he couldn't help himself. Scowling at Potter's antics was vastly preferable to any other impulsive action on his part, by far.

"Do you never give up, arsehole?" he demanded rhetorically, still willing to give it the old Slytherin one-two, knife-in-the-back try for victory. Potter grinned unrepentantly at him and waved the carafe.

"Fine!" Draco snarled. "Don't mind if I do, Potter," he went on, angrily chomping down the last of his fourth biscuit and chasing it with the dregs of the third or fourth cup of tea. "Rather—I suppose I must, right? Or you won't budge your bum off my desk and leave me in peace, ever."

"Too right, Draco. That's the ticket," Harry chuckled. "Got it in one. M'not going anywhere till I'm fully satisfied you're all taken care of—fed, watered and victualled. Always did say you were sharp as a tack, despite the improbable hair colour."

He handed over the tiny goblet brimming with Ogden's and raised his own in a flourish and another vacuous helping of smarmy smiles. Draco, mellowed, merely contented himself with increasing the intensity of his habitual glare and snorting softly.

"So…" Harry raised his itty-bitty elf-sized glass on high. "Here's to prying the bloody Board off your back and having your presentation all sorted, Draco—in ten days or less. Happy Christmas, mate! Cheers!" Harry offered happily, toasting.

"Too right," Draco sighed discontentedly, giving in to the inevitable and tossing back his shot. He allowed a hand to come to rest on his lean belly, rubbed its recent fullness without thinking, and Harry scooted his arse forward, observing keenly.

"What?" Harry wanted to know. "Draco? Something wrong?"

"I wish," Malfoy added forlornly, averting his eyes when the black hair bobbed too close to his nose and examining his waistcoat buttons with ferociously anxious scowl. "It was over with, this Conference. Though it seems very unlikely, right now. And bloody Headmistress, Potter! The nerve! What have I done to her lately?"

"No clue. Um…does it hurt, Draco—your stomach?" Harry asked, swooping even closer like a small peregrine falcon, a look of deep concern overtaking the remnants of the barmy holiday cheer. "Is it the stress affecting your digestion? I've a Potion for that from Madame—or there's the digestives, right here."

"No, no…" Malfoy heaved a sigh and settled back into his swivelly chair with a defeated slump. The Ogden's was helping along the tea's good beginnings, finally. Things were grey and dreary, yes, but perhaps marginally less dreary than they had been. Come to think of it…

"Not that, Potter. Or not so much, not right now. It's just can't remember when I last ate anything solid, that's all. Er—thanks for this, Potter." Draco nodded reluctantly at the now demolished tea tray, and Harry bobbed his dark head in placid acknowledgement, all too quickly returned to that irritating plastic grin of his.

"Pleasure, prat," Harry replied, clearly relieved. "I am your personal rent boy for the holiday, remember? It's all part of the service, feeding your lonesome gut…amongst my other duties. They are legion, you know—or perhaps you don't, but no worries. I'll help you."

Draco allowed a tiny grin to twist his lips and raised his weary, sleep-deprived gaze to meet Harry's twinkling emerald one. He seemed to miss any subtext entirely, though—an indication of his extreme fatigue, perhaps, his companion concluded—or perhaps it was his solid brick wall of non-belief erected against holiday miracles.

A frown crossed over Harry's expressionface, quick as lightning. Draco, catching it out of the corner of his eye, heaved another great sigh, knowing Harry's visit was likely at a close. He hadn't solicited it, of course-would never-but it had been...pleasant to have company, all the same. But Draco was not, and had never been, one who ws driven to begged for the attention of Potter-or so he'd maintain, even under Veritaserum, these days. He simply didn;t require that Hogwart's crowning jewel, it's plebian Prince, pat him any attention at all.
He could do without and prosper just beautifully, thanks so much. Had, for a long decade. Would, for the foreseeable future.

No, he mused, anything that he'd achieved recently had been through sheer, concentrated effort, nothing else—with his nose strictly glued to business. Potter had been his deus ex machina, once, but he knew well enough to never expect that to happen again.

"How I would have gagged to hear you admit such a thing years ago, Potter," he said at last, a wry little chuckle escaping him involuntarily. "But still—this is enough, really." Draco waved the hand that been rubbing his achy abdomen at the cluttered desktop, Harry's elf shoes and the distracting red satin shirt. "More than. You've done all you can for me, truly. I am frantic and decidedly not in the holiday spirit, I admit, but I do appreciate your efforts, such as they are. You may trot off now and inform Headmistress you've attempted your noble Gryffindor best to redeem my unseasonably dire arse."

But Harry shook his head, ever so slowly, in the negative.

"Oh, no, no, no. I don't think so…Draco."

With a quick motion, he threw the last of his dram of Ogden's down his gullet and hopped off the edge of the desk withalacrity. A third meaningful wiggled of his fingers and a wandless incantation restored all the parchment piles and desk paraphernalia to their proper places, or nearly so.

"Not at all," Harry continued, his green eyes glittering feverishly. "Draco, my dear old twat, this doesn't stop with just tea. You'll need a great deal more cheery good wishes and holiday spirit lavished upon you before I'm through to my satisfaction, at least. Count on it-bloody take it to Gringott's. I'm here to stay for the bloody duration, I am. All twelve days of it—and the nights, naturally. I'm talking endurance, Malfoy. Don't try and stop me, either."

"Potter, really," Draco shook his head dolefully. "Completely unnecessary, I assure you. Do give this notion up, at once. Go now. Your good work is done, here—and I must keep on. I've expected to."

Harry cocked his chin and quite seriously regarded the conundrum that was Malfoy, Draco.

The man only stared at him, clearly expecting him to go, waving an elegant paw, family pinkie ring gleaming, casually shooing Harry away. But he did this with a great deal less tension exhibited than when he'd first witnessed his old rival's annoying intrusion into his private sanctum.

Draco's shoulders, Harry noticed, though yet heavy with the intangible burden of great responsibilities, were somehow set straighter and squared properly again. His poetically handsome brow, though still pale with exhaustion, no longer sported the fine lines anxiety had laid on. And his grey eyes were clear once more, though still bloodshot and heavy in the lids—a result his smirking companion was quite proud of having had something positive to do with, though he breathed not a word about that to his victim—er, client.

Harry allowed his lips to quirk into a charming, soppy sort of smile, the sort he saved for his children and the Weasleys. Draco Malfoy, marshmallow wrapped in tensile steel, jerked into an terribly attentive pose and smiled helplessly in return, instantly fascinated. He gestured at the desk which had held the tea things and the sparkling goblet he still clutched.

"It's really not necessary," he babbled, for want of something to say,, even though he was under the strong impression they'd both felt his last few words were rather depressingly final and the interlude all but ended, "all this effort on your part, Potter, and you should tell McGonagall exactly that, from me."
He grimaced, an odd mix of self-deprecation and fond ire.
"She knows full well what I have before me this Christmas break…and that it's not reasonable at all to ask you to waste your precious time on me, Potter. There's your pal, Hagrid, for one, if you've been given a quota of happy customers to meet or some such. I'm sure he'd love for you to be appointed his personal Holiday elf this season—"

"Um. Rent boy, Draco," Harry interjected, the soppy sliding into evil leering in a blink of an eye. "Holiday-themed version, that is. And pardon me, but I'd rather not be Hagrid's, least not in that particular capacity. Nor anyone else's. Er…when did you last sleep properly, by the by? Draco? You seem a bit…well. Off."

"Whatever, Potter," Draco shrugged, apparently no longer so concerned about the niceties of terminology or whatever other distracting subjects Potter was going on about. He'd managed to successfully move past the red satin mistletoe shirt and the curly-tipped shoes, after all. What was the term 'rent boy', anyway, but a further distraction in his already discombobulated state?

And Potter never would've meant it that way—Draco was positive of that.

"In any case, there's the oaf you can flutter about, doling out candy canes and peppermint, and then there's Sinistra—dry old stick she is—and that madwoman Trelawney, yet. In fact, there's a whole slew of people right here in Hogwarts who'd absolutely adore having the resident Golden Boy at their beck-and-call, I'm certain, including your doting ex-Head of House, the bloody Headmistress. Just not me, not now. I've enough on my plate without you up my nose, Potty, wearing those barmy elf shoes and that mistletoe-covered red abomination you call garb, and I really can't take the time to celebrate the Yule or Christmas properly this year—as I've said now, what? Three times? The four?"

"Awww," Harry grinned, "you noticed, then, Draco. Very good—very good," he purred. "There's still hope for you yet. But, not to worry, my gittish friend," he went on, softly, hands busily restoring Draco's desktop to rights.

He smiled down at the contested platinum inkwell with which Narcissa Malfoy had gifted her only and much-beloved son, stroking a careful finger down the Art Deco curvature of slim wing and curled tail. All carved into a rampant dragon, the tiny thing was, and sporting tiny emerald eyes that blinked up sleepily at Harry, ever so sweetly.

"I don't mind it," Harry murmured, after a very small and likely meaningful pause, full of a great many implied things Draco missed altogether, though he did note he had to listen intently to hear Harry at all. "In fact, I asked specifically for you, this year, Draco. Which you should realize, if you'd been listening to a single word I've said, all these months now. But you're clearly not."

"You—you did?" Draco was very taken aback, judging by his eyebrows. "Me? Why me, specifically?"

Then he noticed Harry rearranging the things on his pristine desk in some sort of 'Potter-order' which, by very definition, was likely to prove incredibly infuriating later, when he attempted to lay hands on his references and working quills.

"I mean, what would you…? I don't—oh, here, enough! Do stop that, Potter! You'll leave marks on the patina."

"Oops!" Harry snatched his hand off the expensive inkwell quickly, and sent a tiny Charm at it to clear up the faint smudges of oil left by his fingertips. Which then promptly rebounded, stinging his wrist. He shook it out, grimacing. "Erm, sorry! Making things worse for you, aren't I? Didn't mean to," he apologized, returning all at once to his barmy uber-cheerful grinning. "Just trying to help you out, there—like the elves do, you know. All discreet like…Er."

"No matter." Draco grimaced at the sorry sight of Potter trying far too hard to fix things up and attempted another wildly unsuccessful polite grimace to deflect him. "Thanks, I'm sure, but don't bother yourself on my account, Potter. It's just buggerall to keep untarnished, that particular bibelot—all the intricate carving on it and then the settings for the gemstones," he babbled. Harry's eyes widened appreciably at this fount of information and he froze in place, wrist still raised and reddened.

"Very specific spell needed to tidy it up," Draco continued, rushing through his words heedlessly, "what with the platinum complicating the power of the emeralds. Don't know what Mum was thinking when she gave it to me—suppose the name, mayhap, or something like—"

"That it was a most beautiful piece of craftsmanship, likely, and brilliantly complicated, just like you, Draco." Harry chuckled, a rich, deep sound that sent his co-worker into instant—silent—bemusement. "Complex and rare. That would be why I'd gift it to you, naturally, had I the good sense to do so…I'm just saying."

Harry's cheery smile had returned in full brilliance and was so wide now, Draco felt quite blinded by the balmily happy git. The words themselves were but a buzz in his ringing ears.

"I'm only...putting it out there for consideration…Draco."

Harry added the last with some hesitation, taking a deep, calming breath and swinging round to face Draco. And then he only stood there for a breathless moment, scant inches away, a vision in black velvet robes and that clingy red shiny shirt, with his curly, belled shoes jingling faintly, for the very first time.

Draco gulped, hard and dry. It was seldom he was afforded a chance to stare at Potter for this long, this blatently. The words 'rent boy, holiday-themed' abruptly came back to haunt him.

Taunt him, rather.

"Well!" Harry exclaimed, having apparently arrived at some great, unexplained conclusion. "Not to dwell overmuch on the holiday spirit aspect, of course. I haven't even chosen your Christmas gift yet, Draco, so I really shouldn't even have brought that up—"

Likely Potter would be on his merry way now, Draco determined sulkily, having taken due pity on poor old pathetic Malfoy, left all to his lonesome arse this particular Christmas.

Draco winced miserably at the very idea of being pitied by Potter and resisted the overwhelming urge to shield his eyes. It didn't help to have Potter always distracting him from a little distance—which was his usual method of Draco-torture, as they both shared a similar class schedule and were thrown together at all hours, minding children—but up close and personal, in his own work area? That was simply too much! Potter needed to take himself off and leave Draco to his practical solitude.

Draco needed a chance to breathe comfortably once more and take stock. He was under the Muggle gun, as Potter liked to say, incomprehensibly.

"Oh! Yes, well." Draco flushed uncomfortably and shifted in his seat, not realizing he was once again slowly rubbing a soothing palm across his churning midriff. "Er-no matter, Potter. And no need, either." He blinked, the fumes of the Ogden's finally clearing from his cobwebby brain…that must be what was so confusing about this whole sequence, right? The unreality of it all?

"Er—ah. But, Potter."