It's clear to just about everybody that Harry Potter has a strange, completely incomprehensible hero complex. To be honest, it's a wonder the Sorting Hat ever considered putting him in Slytherin on that basis alone. Draco Malfoy knows this better than anybody else – Merlin; he wasted half his teenage life trying to best Potter at his own game.

'I want to help you, Malfoy,' the Gryffindor mutters.

And Draco, full of Slytherin pride and self-preservation, simply smirks (his trademark smirk) and turns to face his would-be-nemesis.

'Sod off Potter; I'm capable of saving myself.'

~.~

K is for Keeping Safe

It was late September 2008 when someone found about Harry Potter's proclivity for tobacco. Funnily enough, it was Draco Malfoy that did.

Even stranger was the notion that Draco Malfoy would want to approach Harry Potter and ask him about it. As it turned out, he was very much in the mood for provoking Potter, which after all, was one of his all-time favourite sports. If he'd cared to notice (which Draco Malfoy rarely ever did), it was the one pastime that had not matured at all, over time.

The raven haired mess called Potter had still retained something of his sanity after the war, as well. He still mustered the effort to do normal, day-to-day tasks like making coffee and throwing sarcastic remarks at Draco Malfoy, in between being the boy-that-lived and suffering through the countless 'thank-you-for-saving-the-world' speeches complete strangers liked to afford him. It was this kind of insanity which drove him to buy a small packet of half-strength cigarettes every now and then, and smoke them all in one hit.

Ginny would most likely have killed him had she found out about his habit.

Draco Malfoy sort of liked the smell of tobacco. It was soothing almost, and blessedly familiar. It reminded him of Astoria and her inclination for the stuff, and their white balcony, smudged with the ashes of five years' worth of cigarettes. He wasn't mundane enough to smoke them himself, though. He thought addictions like Astoria's to nicotine were pointless, and he didn't want to tie himself down to anything more than he had to.

Potter smoked tobacco to escape normality. Malfoy didn't smoke to avoid creating a sense of that very, same thing.

And strangely, their differences on just about everything, didn't stop their meeting that day.

'Another death wish, Potter?'

'You say it like it surprises you,' the man in question replied derisively. 'What do you want, Malfoy?'

'To vindicate myself,' the blonde replied nonchalantly, 'by seeing the wizarding worlds' saviour sink to the lung-degrading lows of muggle cigarettes.'

'I'd watch your tongue, Malfoy,' Harry Potter growled, already over his daily stress limit, 'your old fashioned views on muggles aren't tolerated as well as they used to be.'

'So they say,' he agreed flippantly. Draco Malfoy was not too stupid to argue with Harry Potter on a bad day, the insults they threw at each other tended to become far less witty than usual. Generally, it was a waste of his time.

'Why are you here?' Potter began again, not bothering to mask his irritation.

'Buying potion ingredients, Potter. It's what most people do at an apothecary,' he replied, cocking a blonde eyebrow.

'As opposed to what, exactly?' Potter responded, looking down at the cigarette in his hand, and flicking the ash over the cobblestones.

'Well, hiding out the back of one to smoke cigarettes, I suppose,' the slytherin responded derisively. 'Didn't know you had so much free time, Potter.'

'I'm not the one with an office job, Malfoy. What exactly is it you do again?'

'Make life difficult for you, simply by existing,' the blonde replied with a sneer. 'I'm fairly sure that's written into my job description, anyway.'

'Well, you're bloody good at it,' Potter snapped. 'I'll let Kingsley know, maybe then you can get a promotion to another department.'

'I'm ever so grateful for your recommendation.'

'Sod off, Malfoy.'

Draco Malfoy bit his lip, hard. Their last argument had been a whole two days ago. Surely Potter's pride and wit had recovered since then? After all, this was their second month having adjoining offices, and even if Potter was predominantly on field work, he should've grown accustomed to the mouthing off.

'Touchy today aren't we Potter? Did someone ask for your hand in marriage again?'

'Jealous, Malfoy?'

'I prefer being the villain, actually. It comes with a lot less responsibility.'

'I hear it also comes with fucking fantastic reputation.'

'That and a distinct lack of human interaction, yes.'

'Well you're bloody lucky for that,' Potter concluded. He stuck the slightly wet end of the cigarette through his lips again and sucked in a large quantity of smoke.

Draco watched, a little transfixed, as the spirals of confetti-like ash fluttered innocently to the ground. The smoke that Potter exhaled rushed into the cold air like the steam from a steam-train, funnelling upwards in a blast of hot air.

Potter slumped back against the brick wall, resting his head against it and closing his eyes. If Draco Malfoy had really considered how Potter was feeling, he would have said it was like crap, or something more eloquent than that. Luckily, Draco Malfoy didn't give a damn what Potter was feeling at that moment, and kept barrelling on with his insults blindly, which was unusual for a man who quite usually gave a lot of thought to how his words would be taken.

'Hand me one, Potter. Let me save your lungs a little,' he continued, sliding down the opposite wall of the lane that Potter sat on. It was a very distasteful thought for Draco Malfoy to sit on the ground of a public walkway (albeit a very rarely used one), but he did it anyway, because his family name had already gone to shit now, hadn't it?

'You don't even smoke, Malfoy. Why would I want to waste my packet on you?'

'Who says I don't,' Malfoy challenged, holding his hand out for the little, white cylinder.

'Go buy your own, you bloody beggar,' Potter sneered, ashing all over his white socks again.

'From what I hear, you've got a vault big enough to buy me a lifetime supply,' he blonde replied, not dropping his hand.

'Fuck off,' Potter scoffed, 'you could buy half of Wizarding England with the Malfoy riches.'

'No need to put me on my pedestal,' he replied, smirking at the other man's glare. 'If we're talking about Wizarding England, however, you're the gift that just keeps on giving, Potter. So you may as well give to me.'

'Will you leave me in peace if I do?' Potter snapped, sounding a little more resigned.

'Perhaps,' the blonde smirked as the other man tossed him a cigarette, 'perhaps not.'

'Never trust a Malfoy,' Potter retorted, as Draco lit the end of the flimsy paper with his wand.

'A truer word was never spoken,' he replied, as he inhaled.

The truth was, although passive smoking had been Draco Malfoy's life for the past few years, he had never really smoked one himself. He found, just then, that smoking was unbelievably harsh and a bit unbearable. The heat of the smoke shot through his insides as he inhaled the poison, tickling his throat and singing all the way down his trachea to his lungs. He desperately tried not to cough. Miraculously, he didn't.

Tentatively, he looked down at the rolled up tobacco in his hand. Next time, he would be far less hasty.

Thankfully, Potter was off in his own world, and didn't seem to notice. In fact, if Draco Malfoy had been paying attention, he would have noticed that Potter was rarely ever this quiet, and that something was most definitely afoot.

Fortunately, Draco didn't notice that much at all. He was still preoccupied with his cigarette to notice anything at that moment, really. So Harry Potter moodily shoved the end of his cigarette on the ground and watched it die on the cobblestones. He incendio-d the butt quickly and watched it burn into nothingness on the path, all the while thinking that Draco Malfoy was the annoying, thoughtless prat he had always been.

Draco Malfoy may have been a little older, and a little more aware, but he still was a thoughtless prat. He was particularly thoughtless when it came to Harry Potter, because for Draco, Harry Potter was absolutely unbreakable. In a funny sort of way, Harry Potter was the one unchanging thing in Draco Malfoy's life. Because no matter what happened, Harry Potter would wake up tomorrow his arch-nemesis. Secretly, Draco Malfoy loved that continuity.

Potter stood and tossed the remaining packet at Malfoy hastily, after burning the remnants of his cigarette.

'You have them then,' he frowned, 'you've managed to ruin them for me.'

'You're welcome, Potter,' Draco snorted, his lips curling into the familiar smirk they had always worn.

Potter scowled, and with one more withering look, he turned and sauntered down the alleyway beside the apothecary.

Draco quickly put out the cigarette as soon as Potter had turned the corner. He really hated the taste of it, anyway.

~.~

A.N: Lola and I are struggling through a mountain of ideas and nowhere to begin for Two More Months, so here is my intrem story. A Draco/Harry, something I've never attempted, and am not too sure I'm good at. A challenge, if you will. Just to be clear, the first section of each chapter is in the present, the rest of the chapter after the heading is the past.

I imagine this story to be around four chapters long. Let me know what you make of this.