Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
"I don't drive around London much. Any journey around Islington involves hundreds of speed bumps that seem to tear the bottom of your car off." -Alan Davies
"In love, somehow, a man's heart is always either exceeding the speed limit, or getting parked in the wrong place." -Helen Rowland
Even with the war over, and with it, the mortifying hosting duties Malfoy Manor held for the Dark Lord done as well, Draco can't help but feel as if the dark times have yet to come.
As unnerving as having the most dangerous and hot-tempered dark wizard in history setting up headquarters in his living room was, Draco can't deny that joining Voldemort's forces had seemed to be the safest option when the war came to its ultimate peak and the Ministry had been successfully infiltrated and Muggles were victimized to random wizarding attacks. Unlike the peril the Muggleborns and half-bloods found themselves in during Voldemort's rise to power, Draco's family's affiliation with the dark arts, despite their cowardice, kept them somewhat secured in reputation and influence alike.
The morning after the Battle of Hogwarts was over, however, and Draco sat in the corner of the Great Hall bedaubed in soot and bruises while Narcissa and Lucius rushed toward him and celebrated their miraculous survival, he knew that it was only a matter of time before the Malfoy name would be cruelly dragged through the mud and the blood his father's hands spilled—not to mention his own—would be publicized and punished.
What he had never foreseen, however, was that the dip in his pocketbook would plummet just as swiftly as the drop in his reputation had plunged to the ground until he stumbled upon his mother stacking his grandfather's ancient silver china into a box to be shipped to Borgin & Burkes and pawned off for a considerable sum that his mother apparently deemed worth giving up a Malfoy family heirloom for.
"Times are rough, Draco," Narcissa had told him in a tone that he easily recognized as poorly veiled nostalgia as she packed yet more priceless artifacts into boxes and Draco could do little but watch helplessly on. "It's time for us to make sacrifices."
He wanted to tell her that he had made enough sacrifices when he was forced to poise his wand at Albus Dumbledore on top of the Astronomy Tower and drum up his inner murderous spirit in order to secure his own survival, or that the daily fear he lived when Voldemort lived in his house and he was ordered to incarcerate prisoners in the basement should have been a large enough surrender, but then he catches her warning eye right before he opens his mouth and lets the diatribe loose and decides to keep his griping at bay. Mentally, however, he wistfully thinks that these are no longer the times in which his father could afford enough Nimbus 2001s for the entire Slytherin Quidditch team and he was able to tease Weasley for the state of his hand-me-down robes while he strutted past him in shining shoes.
He supposes that this is the price to pay for standing on the wrong side of the war for more than seven years, and with that depressing contemplation swimming on endless loop in his mind, he does the unthinkable as a Malfoy, and decides to put in the effort necessary to save himself from ultimate financial ruin by becoming employed.
His mother is utterly shocked at her son's proactive attitude, but not nearly as shocked as half of the employers who catch him wandering through the doors of their establishments and have the nerve to ask him what he's doing not sobbing in Azkaban.
The first place he chooses is what he would have deemed the most dignified place to obtain an occupation, so naturally, it is also the one least interested in hiring the likes of an ex-Death Eater like himself. The secretary looked most astonish that he even dare show his face in the distinguished halls of the Ministry of Magic after he and his family nearly caused the Ministry's destruction by helping Voldemort appoint his puppet Thicknesse as Minister during his reign, and when Draco grits his teeth and insists that his intentions with the Ministry are pure, the wizard who interviews him for the positions he's interested in is more amused by the fact that Draco still believes the Wizarding World has enough faith in a family with a name such as the Malfoys to permit him to help run the very operation that keeps the Wizarding World afloat than he is concerned with orchestrating a professional interview.
"You're having me on, boy," the wizard wheezes, mopping his eyes with the edge of a handkerchief as he continues to giggle, "A Malfoy, working at the Ministry? As if we're daft enough to make the same mistake twice!"
The Ministry, however, dreadfully enough, is one of the more considerate places when it comes to humoring Draco's attempts to employ himself, as he is soon to see when he wanders into St. Mungo's and is dealt with by a rather irate wizard who grills him with no-nonsense questions that have little to do with his abilities as a Healer and more of how genuine his remorse is for those who were injured or killed in the Death Eaters' rise to power.
"I lost a sister last year," he says gravely, ignoring Draco as he waves his credentials and Healing skills helplessly under his nose, "Do you know why?"
"Why, sir?"
"The Death Eaters smoked her just because she was there. Just sitting there in Diagon Alley having a smoke and looking to buy a new cauldron and then bang, she's dead."
"I had nothing to do with that, sir," Draco assures him rather dryly, as he can already smell the failure of the interview wafting up his nose and settling there unpleasantly, "As I told you, I spent most of last year in my home—"
"Doing You-Know-Who's bidding, I know. Tell me," he seethes, "Is your Dark Mark even cold yet?"
Draco endures another twenty minutes of questions completely irrelevant to how strong his Pepper-Up potion is, how quickly he can brew up a Wolfsbane potion, or how precise his wand movements are when he heals broken bones, all questions that the pamphlet floating by the front desk had assured him would be covered during the hiring interview process, before he is finally free to go with a few foreboding threats and a warning to never reappear in the hospital again unless he's being carried in by a body cast, and on that light note, he scurries out the front door and borrows the tolerant nature and reserve he needs that only a Hufflepuff could contain in order to not jinx his interviewer.
His next stop, although after his previous attempts to successfully persuade someone to hire him is leaving him wary of whatever awaits him next, he has hope in not because he's not expecting whispers and possibly even hexes to be aimed at him when he walks inside, but because he was assured in the past that this is the place one goes when they need help and where one receives charity whenever they bother to ask for it.
Now he's sitting Headmistress McGonagall's office feeling supremely uncomfortable and wishing he could gently back out of the school whilst erasing the memories of those who saw him daring to enter the school he bullied Harry Potter in, nearly killed Albus Dumbledore in, and then almost set aflame with Crabbe in a fire that he also all but burnt to a crisp in.
"Mr. Malfoy, you have absolutely no teaching qualifications," McGonagall tells him grimly as he informs her of his quest to actually earn his own money instead of pilfering from his father's soon to be nonexistent stash of gold, "The only thing I could hire you as would be as an assistant to Mr. Filch, since he does not waste a day in which he complains to me about how the enormity of the castle and the mess the students make in it is unjustly disproportionate to a man of his size expected to clean it."
Draco imagines soap suds, grimy sponges, and cleaning vomit out of the broom closets while Filch rasps and breathes down his neck. He wrinkles his nose, which McGonagall does not fail to notice.
"I see you have little interest in such a position," she dismisses, and for a moment, her expression softens and she perches her hands on her desk, "Draco, I understand that you are undoubtedly having trouble finding work with the repercussions of the war doing little to help you along the way. I do not mean to discourage you when I say that your status as a Death Eater will hurt your chances of being hired for many years."
"Bright outlook," he drawls, and she looks at him like he should be glad his wand isn't snapped yet with the bounty that many wizards and witches alike would be pleased to see floating over his head.
"You will find an occupation, Mr. Malfoy. Perhaps it is not as prestigious as you would like it to be, nor does it pay as generously. Just remember that you cannot afford to be choosy and an opportunity will eventually present itself if you follow that advice," she looks at him, one hard, calculating look as if she's waiting for him to whine, and then continues, "I have one such position you might find beneficial to look into."
He pictures a number of demeaning jobs that flit through his head like flashes of nightmares before McGonagall thrusting a piece of paper under his nose draws him away from the horror his mind is creating to torture himself with.
"Thanks," he finally mutters, although he's skeptical at best of whatever opportunity awaits him on the address printed neatly on the bit of parchment in his fingers.
"You're welcome," she says, "Don't fret too much, Mr. Malfoy. It may not be as esteemed as working as a Professor at Hogwarts, but is it a job nonetheless."
Draco nods, feeling very much like one more step down into the pits of poverty and he'll be sprouting red hair and freckles, and peels himself out of the chair, heading for the door.
He wants to say my father will hear about this, but he doesn't want to hear the laughter.
The address turns out to be the Leaky Cauldron, except Tom the barman informs Draco that he has no spots that need filling in his pub for employees when he asks about the job opening and has the decency to look apologetic for Draco when he shrugs and returns to scrubbing down the counter, and that's when a portly wizard with wispy strands of hair framing his face overhears their conversation and slips out his hand for Draco to shake.
"It's me you're looking for," he tells him, leading him over to a table in the middle of a pub where countless bowls of already devoured pea soup clutter the top and sitting him firmly down, "McGonagall let me know you were coming. Draco Malfoy, am I right? You sure got your wits about you if a man in your position is looking for jobs. Suppose even the worst of us have some Gryffindor bravery, eh, Mr. Malfoy?"
Draco is too busy taking in the man's appearance to bother replying as he tries to accurately deduce what his occupation is by the state of his robes and his hair. Before he can come up with a conclusion, however, the man is already barreling on once more.
"Anyways," he grunts, pulling a sheaf of papers out of his cloak and stuffing them under one of the empty bowls, "I work for the Ministry and deal with Magical Transportation. As a matter of fact, I inspect the Hogwarts Express every year to make sure it's working properly and all." He draws himself up, looking rather impressed with his accomplishments.
"You have a job at the Ministry for me?" Draco asks, incredulous that McGonagall managed such a feat, but then the wizard snorts and chortles, sufficiently dampening Draco's hopes that he would be able to walk through the Ministry with poise again.
"No, dear boy, absolutely not. Our screening process is much more stringent these days, there's no way they would let a known Death Eater through," he shakes his head and continues to chuckle, "What I have for you is a different job. Still ruddy important, so that's what counts, eh? The Knight Bus is currently without a conductor, as Mr. Stan Shunpike, the previous man for the job, is currently in no state to run a bus."
"The Knight Bus?" Draco parrots, feeling the blood drain to his shoes and ooze into his socks at the thought of having to dress himself in an offensive shade of purple every morning and entertain underage wizards running away from their parents with help from the Knight Bus with nothing but a Sickle to their name. "Why can't Shunpike do it?"
"He's in St. Mungo's at the moment, being treated for mental trauma after being placed under the Imperius Curse," the wizard casts him an odd look, as if of all people, Draco should know of Stan's condition, and Draco bristles once more as the need to defend his honor bubbles up into his throat. "All we got running the damn thing is Ernie Prang, who Lord knows can't do it all by himself. The poor bloke will drive straight into Diagon Alley if he doesn't have a good conductor with him."
"And the purple robes? I'd have to wear those too?" Draco asks, nose wrinkled as the wizard nods, zeroing in on the horrendous wardrobe even though he's fully aware that there are worse aspects of this job he should be addressing with his concern.
"It's easy, really. Just don't be easily motion sick and you've got the gig, boy."
The wizard peers up at Draco, waiting for a response, and Draco weighs his options, which currently, are looking rather sparse. He can either hide in his room at home, wallowing in pity while he watches his mother start scattering his possessions in the grass for a lowlife yard sale and the reputable Malfoy monetary earnings dwindle, or he can swallow his pride and be rocked around on the Knight Bus serving old men too frail for Apparition hot chocolate. He's never been on the Knight Bus before, classier styles of transportation always at hand in the past, but he can picture it flawlessly in his mind—a grimy bus stacked with beds with moldy linens and crammed with hoary old witches murmuring in their sleep.
"Okay," the word comes out of Draco's mouth without permission, and the wizard on the other end of the table grins and shakes his hand once more before rattling down his hourly wage, where the bus will pick him up for work, and what safety precautions he needs to be aware of and how if he's thrown into a window and breaks a leg, he can't sue the Ministry for his injury.
Gleefully, Draco signs the papers.
His first day of work, despite his valiant attempts to slither out of the manor without being seen, Narcissa catches sight of Draco in his brilliantly purple robes and spends a good two minutes staring with her eyes as wide as cauldron lids before she settles for, in lieu of what would most definitely have been a humiliating spiel, a brief pat on Draco's shoulder as good luck. He supposes that what renders her mute is the same thing that keeps him wordless: the ridiculousness of the situation is too much to comment on, let alone address.
Still, he tries to drum up some of the Malfoy pride he was teeming with as a younger narcissist, and when he steps outside of the manor gate and sticks out his wand to hail the bus like the wizard from the Leaky Cauldron instructed him to do, he barely has a moment to remind himself that he doesn't know how to live life as a penniless beggar before a giant purple bus screeches to a loud halt on the sidewalk, nearly knocking Draco over with surprise alone, and its purple doors fold open.
Delicately, he picks his eloquence and poise off the floor and gathers his wits before he steps onto the bus, still vacant of any early morning passengers, and nods curtly at the driver, Ernie, who despite the wizard from yesterday's accurate description, still manages to startle Draco a bit as he turns to look at him through thick glasses and a mop of flyaway white hair.
"Morning," Draco says slowly, and Ernie nods again before he resumes busying himself with his sandwich and sending the bus off once more.
Draco is promptly thrown onto the ground, grazing the edge of a bed rolling along jerkily with the erratic movements of the bus, shoulder aching as it catches the brunt of his fall, and looks up helplessly at the chandelier flailing along to the bumpy ride overheard.
If this is how I die, mother, he thinks feebly from the floor, do avenge my death.
It only takes three and a half hours for Draco to officially hate his job and understand why house elves are always griping about menial labor when they think wizards aren't listening, another five to want to slap the driver silly, and until the end of the workday for Draco to start pondering just how tragic it would be if he would have to resort to homeless wandering when his family goes broke and he remains jobless.
He is no longer convinced that the beds in the Knight Bus are there to comfort sleepy overnight travelers, but rather exist as refuges for injured conductors who need a sanctuary to rest and lick their wounds. He's obtained at least five major bruises that are currently throbbing for attention even as Narcissa presses cool clothes to the purpling bumps and shushes her son, the most splendid of them all a hefty lump swelling on the back of his head that occurred when Draco was helping an elderly witch into her seat and Ernie unexpectedly began driving at full speed once more, sending Draco careening gracefully into the window headfirst.
He's extremely wary of the old driver by now, who at the start of the day had appeared to be an innocent old curmudgeon who would totter along at a reasonable pace on the roads and brake tenderly when the bus would stop to let off passengers and naturally, proved to be the exact opposite. At one point he had begun to suspect that perhaps more was amiss about old Ernie than just an ignorance of safe driving, such as a vision impairment or even complete blindness, but whenever he asked the man about his medical conditions, Ernie gave off the impression that he was also hopelessly deaf.
The passengers were as lovely as riding on a jerky bus all day long was for Draco—they were the exact crowd he had predicted them to be: rowdy teenagers who weren't old enough to Apparate or old wizards who were dreadfully frightened of Portkeys. The entire crowd today had been fussy enough to demand hot chocolate, an order that Draco began to dread as the first time he attempted to pour a witch a cup of the beverage, the bus had jerked left and Draco's trousers had suffered the splatter of burning hot chocolate before he had the chance to finish serving the woman. He cared little of the stains on his hideous purple pants that he cleaned with a whip of his wand, for he was hardly fond of them from the start, but more of the scalding, blistering knees he endured as a result of his clumsiness and Ernie's pitiful driving.
His mother heals his knees upon his return home and listens dutifully to all of his miserable complaints. As much as whining to his parents normally improves his sour moods, the fact that he'll have to return to the dreadful bus the next day nags at his mind too much for him to find any satisfaction in his bellyaching.
"What a handsome boy you are," an old witch croons the next day on the bus while Draco tries to placate the boy perched unsteadily on the edge of a bed while his cheeks turn a disturbing shade of green who seems to be one tremulous lurch of the bus away from splattering his sick all over Draco's shoes. "Do you have a wife?"
"No," Draco tells her, attempting to sturdy the boy swaying on the bed dangerously, hand flying up to cover his mouth as the bus jumps over a trash can.
"What a pity," she coos, "Probably for the best, though. A job like this will never make enough gold to satisfy a woman."
With that, the bus lurches to a sudden stop and the witch promptly picks up her frilly handbag and heads to the door with a cheerful look over her shoulder to Draco as goodbye. From the front of the bus, Ernie shuts the doors with a lever and takes another enormous bite out of his sandwich, and that's all the warning Draco gets before the bus zooms off and the boy vomits chunks of his breakfast gracefully onto the bed.
The fifth morning of Knight Bus torture, Draco watches while buttoning up his purple jacket as his mother rifles through old trunks in the dining room, murmuring in a deep hiss with Lucius as she grabs one of her husband's favorite rings and sets it atop the pile of Malfoy trinkets for sale. The pile includes more than Draco would ever like to see in the hands of careless wizards who don't appreciate their priceless value, and with that dark thought, he finishes buttoning his jacket and heads out the door to flag down the Knight Bus.
Draco's bad days at work get put into perspective two weeks after his first day, and suddenly, the idea of knocking his skull open on a bedpost, coming home bruised nightly like an abused housewife, or spilling hot chocolate down his pants while Ernie takes another unsuspected turn down an alley all seem like simple pleasures when Draco opens the bus door, ready to deliver his default conductor speech, and sees Harry Potter.
"Welcome to the Knight—oh, bugger. Potter?"
Draco drops his professionalism instantly at the sight of Potter standing at the bottom of the steps tucking his wand away and Ernie grunts as his Draco's greeting unravels and comes to a sudden stop. There he is, just as he was on the last day Draco saw him consoling victims the morning of the battle, minus the scrapes and the dirt, same unruly black hair and tattered glasses. It takes Draco a full minute of gaping and wondering as to why the almighty Chosen One is choosing transportation as pedestrian as the Knight Bus until he notices that a frail, trembling old woman is clutching onto Potter's elbow like he's the only anchor in the sea dragging her onto the beach.
Potter looks just as surprised to see Draco, and for the first time since Draco first put on this ridiculous purple suit, he feels the red hot heat of embarrassment burn up his neck as Potter examines him and suppresses what is surely roars of laughter at the sight of Draco Malfoy, head to toe in shiny purple, working as a common lowlife expected to drag Potter's luggage up the bus and pour him tea.
"Malfoy?" Potter asks, eyes wide as he takes in the sight of his former nemesis in such a demeaning position, regardless of the belittling attire, and Draco grits his teeth and counts silently to ten in his head while he waits for this humiliating moment in his life to pass and leave him in peace.
Vengeance is a bitch, Draco thinks miserably, suddenly regretting ever stepping on Potter's nose or teasing him about his lack of parental guidance, as all those moments seem to lead back to this where Potter finally gets to revel in the sight of his enemy wearing glorified servant's clothing and swallow back in relish.
"Do you work for the Knight Bus?" Potter asks, disbelief coating every one of his words.
"No, Potter," Draco drawls, unable to pluck up any decorum and remain civil in this conversation when Harry Potter is staring at his purple trousers like Christmas came early. "I find it flattering to wear a conductor's uniform and spend my time on this dump of a bus for fun."
Ernie grunts again. Draco shoots him a look, but the man is steadfastly focused on his old sandwich, and returns his attention back to Potter and his elderly friend. He's not laden with luggage, which saves Draco the trouble and ridicule of having to lug Potter's bags up the steps after him and be shamed even further by turning into Harry Potter's servant and personal assistant, nor does Potter require support climbing the steps and leading the elder woman up the stairs onto a musty bed.
At best, it's awkward. Draco slides out of the way while the two pass by and settle onto a bed. The chandelier swings above them, crystals clinging together.
"Where are you off to?" Draco finally asks when he remembers that he's a conductor and that the bus is used for transportation, the stomach used to constant motion settling in his body reminding him of the lack of movement that his organs have become fairly used to after traveling via the bus for several days.
"The Ministry," Potter tells him quickly, his concentration focused on the quivering old lady in her woolly cardigan while he soothes her with a few pats to the back, and Draco's curiosity overrides his requirement to inform Potter of the Knight Bus' offers, including toothbrushes and hot chocolate.
"That your girlfriend, Potter?" Draco asks before he can help himself.
"Found her during an Auror investigation. She had been found locked up in her basement, I just have to bring her to the Ministry for her statement and I didn't want to risk Apparating when she was so shaken."
Auror investigation, Draco notes, the words emphasizing themselves in his brain. He's hardly surprised. Kingsley Shacklebolt had announced a few days after the Battle of Hogwarts that all who had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts were granted Auror status without the prerequisite of extensive training and N.E.W.T.s, and undoubtedly Potter had seized the opportunity. Draco looks down at his purple robes and tries his hardest not to give into the superstitions that karma delivered him this ultimate failure.
"So you're an Auror, Potter?" Draco asks, even though Potter's Ministry robes and their conversation has already adequately answered his suspicions.
Before Potter has a chance to reply, however, Ernie processes Potter's instructions to drive to the Ministry and starts the bus with a jerk that by now, Draco has worked up a conspiracy theorizing that the old man is timing his jerky starts and turns at the most inconvenient time if only to hear Draco's masculine squeals of terror as he falls flat on his delicate nose in sundry different painful positions. He has no time to adjust to the sudden jolt of the bus as it picks up speed, and in front of Potter, of all people, Draco cries out and is knocked elegantly onto the nearest bed, inhaling a mouthful of dusty pillow in the process. He spits out the linen fibers and sweeps the wayward strands of his hair dislodged by Ernie's driving back into place with all the dignity he can muster. Beside him, Potter snickers.
"Shut up, Potter," Draco snaps, picking himself up from the bed and smoothing out its wrinkled sheets as he draws his wand and flicks it toward the creases.
"Sorry," Potter offers as an apology, even though the grin on his face betrays the candor behind his condolences. "I think you're more graceful airborne. You know, on a broom. This whole being on land thing doesn't look very good on you."
Draco grumbles. The old witch leaning into Potter's side seems to take no notice of their conversation, nor does she find the humor in Draco's graceless tumbling throughout the bus. Draco is quietly glad of her lack of giggles to join Potter's, for he doesn't think he could handle Potter plus an accomplice amusing themselves on his own behalf without jinxing Potter's hair a revolting shade of purple similar to his own robes.
"I'm not trying to insult you," Potter finally says earnestly, and Draco does little but send him a skeptical glance in response. "And your question—yeah, I'm an Auror now."
"Living the life, I suppose?"
Potter shrugs. Draco's eyes zero in on Potter's bare hands resting on his knees, fingers lacking any sign of wedding rings. Draco can't help but be surprised, for the moment the war ended he had fully expected Potter to whisk off the Weaselette and make the front page of the Daily Prophet with his nuptials. He tucks his wand back into his robes after he's finished smoothing away the wrinkles. Potter's eyes follow the journey Draco's wands make back into his pocket.
"You've got a new wand," Potter notices, and Draco withdraws his wand once more, examining it before he nods at the other man. It's not his original hawthorn wand that he carried for nearly seventeen years until Harry forcibly wrenched it from his grip while they escaped Malfoy Manor, and he supposes that the tone in Potter's voice is surprise that the boy actually replaced his wand even though Potter never considered to return the wand he had pilfered from Draco.
"'Course I did," Draco mutters. "Did you think I'd just keep pining after the old one?"
"No, I just," Potter seems amply flustered for mentioning his own thievery. "I was going to give it back. I swear."
Draco admits that a confession to return the wand of a former Slytherin adversary was not what he expected to come out of Potter's mouth as he returns his new wand into his robes and steadies himself by grabbing the nearest bedpost as Ernie takes another lurch. This one seems to knock Potter off his guard as well as he makes a reflexive grab for his own bedpost while the old woman sits firmly and undisturbed on her spot on the bed beside him.
"Not one even the Knight Bus can shake this one," Harry says, mildly amused, cocking his head toward the woman and mirroring Draco's thoughts. "Maybe I could have actually Apparated with her and she wouldn't have even been fazed."
"Unlike you," Draco drawls. "You're looking a bit sick, Potter. I've already had to clean up vomit twice this week and don't think I'll scrub yours away too just because you're Harry Potter."
The jab—whether it was meant to harm or amuse, Draco isn't even sure himself—doesn't offend Potter as a slow smile tugs up on his lips instead. Draco mildly wonders what happened to the easily affronted boy in Hogwarts who always needed his Gryffindor gingers to step up for him when he or another Slytherin would aim verbal abuse in his direction, or if Potter had always been hard to offend and Draco had merely been just that obnoxious and irksome enough to rile an otherwise even-tempered boy to boiling point.
"I'll try not to throw up, Malfoy, even though the sight of you cleaning it might make my life complete."
"Of course it would, Scarhead. Can't say I don't wish the same for you."
"Your wishes are devoted to hoping one day I get to sit in your digested food and clean it up?"
"Whilst I watch, yes," Draco says, the thought already painting satisfying images in his mind as a filthy Potter kneels on hardwood floor drenched in sick and scrubs endlessly at the mess is born in his brain. A sharp bone knocks in his side as Potter gets to his feet and elbows him in the ribs.
"Stop grinning like that, you dolt," Potter admonishes, and the bus staggers to its final stop that nearly pitches Potter straight into Draco's unsuspecting lap before Potter's hand darts out to wind around the bedpost once more to catch his fall.
"Nice Auror reflexes, Potter," Draco says when Potter grazes his knee and nearly plummets flat onto his thighs before his hand catches himself. "Maybe it wasn't your Firebolt doing all the work during Quidditch matches."
"Only took you seven years to realize it," Potter says as he holds out his hand to the elderly witch and gathers her up from her seat on the bed, and when he sneaks a look over his shoulder, Draco notices that he's not sneering or shooting him a look of distaste, but rather smirking at Draco as if they've just shared a private joke together. Draco doesn't know what to make of their almost civil conversation, free of duels and nasty spats about someone's mother, and for a second, he feels the desperate yearning to shake the encounter off, but before Draco can process the fact that he's suddenly gained the ability to behave amicably around Harry Potter when he couldn't find it in himself to do so for a good seven years of schooling, Potter's waving a handful of silver Sickles in front of his face.
"Oh," Draco remembers the fact that he forgot to demand payment from Potter when he first boarded the bus and accepts the silver coins from his outstretched fingers.
"Thanks for the ride, Malfoy," Potter says, arm wound around the old witch as he guides the pair of them out of the bus and onto the sidewalk, where through the dim light of the evening, Draco makes out the entrance to the Ministry of Magic.
That night when Draco makes it home and rids himself of the abominable purple outfit and his mother asks him how work treated him for the day, Draco doesn't think of the adolescent brat that Draco suspected was running from the law or the snoring homeless man with the shabby socks who was unable to be woken even after the bus arrived at his destination, but thinks instead of Harry Potter's mop of black hair and quick hands.
"Fifteen Sickles for hot choc'late? Don't you thin' that's a bit overpriced, mate?"
"If you wanted cheap, learn how to Apparate," Draco grits out, temper thin after—despite having learned to grow accustomed and prepared for the various jerks of the steering wheel Ernie would deliver randomly to keep Draco on his feet while he weaved between rickety beds—Draco had suffered a particularly nasty bruise on his temple by crashing into a wooden panel on the side of the bus while selling a witch in the corner a toothbrush. He waves the kettle of boiling hot chocolate under the wizard's nose in what he hopes is tempting enough to encourage the man to cough up the few extra Sickles.
"Can't very well do that when I can't even stomach usin' a Portkey once ev'ry year, now can I?"
"You dim tosser, do you honestly think that the Knight Bus is softer on your tummy?" Draco snarls, but the man has lost interest in their conversation, staring over Draco's shoulder with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.
"It's him, it's 'Arry Potter! Right here in this very bus! Goodness me!"
Draco looks over his shoulder to where the man is ogling and sure enough, Harry Potter is climbing the steps, sending a curt nod to Ernie and standing, definitely alone and lacking any old women hanging off his arms, and scanning the bus to sit down on the nearest bed. Draco turns back to the fussy man in front of him, firmly pushes him into his seat before the bus begins throwing the man around the walls like he's in a pinball machine, and before he can properly think through his actions, his feet are leading him directly to where Potter is sitting perched on a bedspread.
"Do you really love getting tossed around this bus that much that you just had to come back, Potter?"
"Aren't you supposed to offer me amenities instead of standing there snarking?" Potter asks with a distinct lack of heat to his voice, and Draco feels the same prickle that tickled his stomach the last time he and Potter managed a well-mannered discussion as he feels the underlying amusement in Potter's words instead of the expected aversion.
"No rescued old ladies today?" Draco drawls, choosing not to answer Potter's question.
"You better sit down," Potter says, also foregoing the decorum of properly replying to another's inquiry, instead cocking his head to where Ernie is pulling the lever that closes the bus doors and alerts Draco to the spontaneous jerking of the bus that is to come. He hastily grabs the nearest bedpost and grips it tightly. He mentally sends Potter an internal thank you as the bus starts up, the finicky traveler at the back of the bus letting out a startled yelp and nearly rolling off his bed at the rapid gathering of speed.
"This bus is ruddy crazy!" the man roars from the floor as he picks himself up shakily. Draco smirks.
"Having fun watching other people tumble around all day?" Potter observes a moment later, obviously catching sight of Draco's smug expression as the man gripes and curses in the corner. "This must be the perfect job for you."
"Only when I'm not the one tumbling around," Draco scoffs, gingerly pressing his thumb into the throbbing bruise on his temple.
"What happened to your head?"
"I work on the Knight Bus, Potter, figure it out," Draco snaps, and once again, Potter doesn't look as if he's been slapped or insulted or even satisfactorily chagrined for asking a daft question, and Draco is once more left to ponder if the war's armistice did wonders for calming the boy's temper.
A second later, however, Potter draws his wand from his cloak, pointing it straight at Draco, and Draco is about to rethink his assumption that the boy is no longer annoyed by Draco's Slytherin behavior as he expects a myriad of nasty jinxes to be sent his way—Lord only knows what defensive magic he's learned through Auror training—when instead Potter gently murmurs a few unintelligible words and Draco's forehead promptly stops aching. He blinks, straightening up from the recoil he had drawn himself into at the sight of Potter's drawn wand, and brushes his fingers over his temple, no longer feeling a swelling bump on his head but rather a soothing coolness.
"Hermione taught me that," Potter says, looking rather proud of himself as he examines Draco's successfully healed bruise, skin no longer dotted with hues of green and purple. "I'm normally rubbish at Healing spells."
"You could've broken my face, Potter," Draco cries, not sure if he should be alarmed at Potter attempting to nurse him without his permission or grateful that the dull pain of his bruise is extinguished.
"Maybe it would've looked a right sight better, then," Potter grins, and Draco feels the need to focus his attention on the bedpost behind him if only to hide the smirk that he would never let Potter have the satisfaction of seeing. "Anyway, I did have a reason for coming here. I didn't exactly know how to find you and when we talked last, I just…"
Draco watches as Potter struggles with his words before he finally pulls from his pocket a far from foreign wand, ten inches and reasonably springy as he remembers Ollivander describing it to his eleven-year-old self as if it were merely yesterday when the wispy old man handed him his wand and had given him the sage advice to use it well.
'You kept it?" Draco asks, staring at his wand as he's being reunited with an old friend believed to be dead, and for a moment, the moving bus feels unspeakably still as Potter holds it out to him.
"I owe it a lot," Potter says after a moment's thought. "And it wasn't mine to throw away either."
Draco finally takes the wand from Potter's fingers and takes a moment to run his palm down the wood and notice how comfortably it slots into his grip even after the long separation. Then Draco detects a smattering of smudged fingerprints along the length of his wand and sends Potter a stern glare at the sight of such mishandling of one of his dearest possessions.
"You've marked it all up with your sweaty hands, Potter," Draco mentions, and Potter has the decency to look mildly abashed at his poor sanitation habits.
"Well, I could always take it back if you'd like," He teases, and Draco feels himself clutch it possessively as if unconsciously worried it'll be taken from him once again. Potter notices, eyes flicking down to where Draco's fingers are wrapped tightly around the hilt of his wand, damn Auror observation skills spotting his moment's worth of worry. "I was joking."
"I know," Draco assures him a moment later, sliding the wand into his back pocket and vowing to polish it when he returns home. "Besides, I wouldn't be stupid enough to let you steal my wand twice from me, Potter."
Potter looks down at his laps, cheekbones crinkled as if stretched with a smile he isn't letting Draco see, and once more, Draco feels the scary prickle of getting along with Harry Potter ghost over his body waiting to be desperately showered away.
That night, Draco pulls his old wand out of his pocket and rolls it back and forth in his hands until the familiar sensation of holding it in his hand returns to his body. He stares at the smeared fingerprints, fingerprints that Draco would never let besmirch and soil his wand even if they were his own, and wonders when each was imprinted onto his wand, if the one by the bottom was a slip of the fingers when Potter was disarming Voldemort, if the smudge by the middle was when he was wrenching it from Draco's grip, or if the myriad of marks of four fingers in a row occurred during the battle when Potter was saving lives, as always.
He doesn't know how any of the prints came about, if they were all Potter's, or even why he doesn't polish them away later that night.
Draco spends his days passing out mugs of hot chocolate to underage wizards steadying themselves on Knight Bus beds, allowing his mother to properly teach him Healing charms so he can rid himself of the bruises the bus inflicts on him when he's not quick on his feet during a swerve left, and levitating old women's luggage up into the footwell at the front of the bus while their old knobby fingers try to sort their Sickles from the Knuts and drop coins in Draco's hand to pay for their rides.
Now and again, he chances a look out the window to see if a flash of green eyes and messy black hair are awaiting the screeching stop of the bus on the side of a road.
Whenever he catches himself doing so, he promptly turns around and tries to engage Ernie in a bit of light chatter so he doesn't have to attend to the green-cheeked, queasy women swaying ominously at the back of the bus as if bobbing along to waves of the sea. When Ernie never responds, Draco is forced to return his attention back outside the windows to the flashes of color darting by and continue keeping an eye out for Harry Potter's bespectacled face on the other side.
The Ministry, as it seems, is keeping Potter and his gang of Aurors occupied outside of basements where fragile old women in need of gentle transport are residing as prisoners nor does Potter have more of Draco's lost possessions he feels guilty keeping, as it takes a good two weeks before Draco sees the man again.
It's nearly midnight, Draco half asleep against one of the mothball-infested beds as the bus' jerks hither and thither only seem to lull Draco into a groggy state of alluring slumber, when the sound of the bus screeching loudly against the road fast enough for the tires to sizzle yanks Draco torturously from his nap and alerts him to a rather alarming sight sitting in the dark outside of the windows.
Draco pushes himself from the dusty sheets and heads down the steps from the bus to the streets swiftly, any vestiges of sleep stolen from him abruptly at the sight of Potter's crumpled figure collapsed on the sidewalk in the dark of night with his wand aloft to summon the Knight Bus.
The gloom of the crisp night does little to illuminate the dim scene in front of him, and Draco promptly reaches for his wand to light the tip and send its beam raking over Potter's supine body. His shirt, torn in a nasty cut that seemed to slash into Potter's skin as well, is dotted with a healthy puddle of blood also staining the shaking hand that's pressing into the gash on his torso to subdue the bleeding, and it takes Draco a moment to take in the situation before he's kneeling on the sidewalk and pulling Potter's hand away from the laceration.
"Fuck, Potter! What the hell have you gotten yourself into?"
The boy looks at him, slightly breathless and very windswept from the look of things. Draco spreads the light of his wand over the wound he uncovered and takes a moment to wince, not only because the sight and smell of coppery blood still doesn't bode well with his eyes, but because the cut is larger than he had anticipated, obviously outdoing any amateur Healing skills Potter had attempted to fix it with.
"Wasn't even supposed to be dangerous, just ran into some unexpected trouble," he rasps out, and then, as if slowly remembering bits of the incident, his eyes widen and his feet scramble to find purchase on the sidewalk. "Ron—Ron was there, I need to—"
"The Weasley will be fine if he's not as dumb as he looks, Scarhead, calm down and stop moving," Draco says with more composure than he is actually harboring at the sight of such a nasty injury, heaving Potter up to his feet by winding his arm around his shoulders and leading him up the steps. Ernie seems to have abandoned his nighttime snack in favor of watching behind his thick lenses as Draco lugs Potter up the steps and sets him down on the nearest bed, and Draco doesn't know whether to be alarmed or not at the fact that this incident actually caught the driver's interest when Ernie normally resolutely keeps his gaze firm on the road and the steering wheel no matter the commotion occurring elsewhere.
"Don't even know how we got separated," Potter mumbles miserably, the pain in his expression replaced with the worry of the Weasley, a concern that he seems to deem more important than his own agony, a trait so very Gryffindor-like Draco once more remembers why the two of them are polar opposites. He pushes Potter's heavy cloak out of the way to further examine the wound.
"So you thought finding the Knight Bus would be your best bet?" Draco asks, and a small thought Draco doesn't allow to be born pops up in his brain suggesting that perhaps Potter summoned the bus because his first thought of where to find aid would be Draco's assistance. He promptly rids himself of that thought.
"Didn't mean to," Harry admits. "I took my wand out and before I knew it I fell over and the bus was here. Forgot that you summon it by hailing it when you take out your wand."
"You daft hero, Potter," Draco mutters, mentally filing through all of the Healing spells he's ever learned that would be strong enough to cinch together such a deep gash and hoping that St. Mungo's isn't too far of a drive away should he find his knowledge to be unhelpful in mending the damage.
"Can you fix it?" Potter asks, attempting to sneak glances at his wound in the light of the Knight Bus when Draco pushes him down onto the bed.
"Shut up, Potter, just shut up for a moment," Draco retrieves his wand, knowing perfectly well both Potter and Ernie are watching him expectantly. He points his wand at the blood and mutters a variety of spells that are in the forefront of his mind in curing wounds and pain, and miraculously enough, Potter's cut slowly stitches itself back into repaired skin, nothing but the crust of dried blood in its wake. He wonders for a moment if the pressure to save the Boy-Who-Lived while he was in the hands of his notorious school nemesis—a story that, had Draco's spells somehow gone fatally wrong, Rita Skeeter and her swanky quills would be contorting into an article that would send him straight to Azkaban—had been the reason he had inexplicably been able to heal the oozing scar in front of him.
Clearly as bewildered as Draco, Potter runs his fingers over the clean flesh on the side of his torso and looks up at Draco, "Impressive," he mumbles, eyes wide in what Draco can only assume is awe and another emotion he has yet to indentify and isn't sure if he wants to. "Thank you, Malfoy."
The gratitude is unexpected at the very least, and a heat and a prickle Draco isn't entirely comfortable with dances up his neck and settles at the nape where the hem of his hair begins bristling softly. He stares at the bedpost, suddenly aware that since retrieving Potter off the street, the bus has been at a standstill.
"Just be lucky I was there, Potter," Draco manages, mostly because he doesn't think his mouth would let a you're welcome touch his tongue.
"What happened to you trying to kick my arse instead of saving it?"
"You're still an arse," Draco says, for he's not sure of the proper answer himself. Now that Potter mentions it, he can't deny that a thirteen-year-old version of himself would be too busy mocking the golden Chosen One to even consider nursing him back to health on the Knight Bus. He wonders, idly, if this is what growing up feels like, and he still doesn't know if he should feel nostalgic that he's not the same arrogant little boy or eternally thankful that he's matured. He looks down at Potter, lying on the bed at Draco's complete mercy should he decide to whip out his wand and double the damage his previous wound had inflicted on him, almost trusting of Draco, an ex-Death Eater, of all people, and wonders exactly when the mutual loathing stopped.
"Likewise, Malfoy," Potter says, faintly smiling, and he grabs a bedpost to upright himself on the bed.
"So where are we taking you, Potter? This is a bus, not a hotel."
Potter glances at him oddly, like he's working out all of Draco's secrets or reading his diary, and Draco feels compelled to look away. He supposes it's because Potter's in perfectly fine condition to Apparate or even run and sprint back to where he may have left Weasley in mortal peril, with no more need of the Knight Bus and its beds for the feeble travelers, but Draco still offers it as an option as if he simply wants his presence to remain. Draco feels the same heat that's still pooling at his neck travel down and lace itself around his spine at the realization.
But Potter mentions little of the coincidence, and Draco would rather charm his hair purple to match his uniform than voice his preference of Potter staying on board out loud, and yet, through some divine power, Potter stays on the bus until they reach his destination, foregoing the swiftness of Apparition or other easier, less nausea-inducing methods of travel.
They sit on adjoining cots while the Knight Bus jerks them back and forth through its hairpin turns and sharp curves in complete—yet dare he say it, comfortable—silence, which, to Draco, definitely trumps seven years of all but spitting in each other's faces.
"So it's true?"
Draco whips around at the sound of a familiarly sleek, yet highly amused voice wafting across the bus as Draco seats an old wizard onto a bed and shoves a mug of steaming cocoa into his fidgeting hands, a very well-tailored and crisply suited Blaise standing by Ernie in utter delight as he scans the bus and lands on Draco's form.
"Blaise? What in Merlin's name are you doing riding the Knight Bus?" Draco turns around and approaches the boy. He feels like he should be angry after months of virtually no contact from Blaise, nor from most of the other Slytherins he formed alliances with during school with the exception of a few brief notes from Pansy, especially angry when Blaise is standing in front of him as the epitome of a gentlemanly wizard with exceptionally higher cheekbones than usual and shiny shoes, but the indignation doesn't come forth.
"Your mother told me you were working here and honestly, I just had to see for it myself," Blaise tells him, sounding rather pleased at the statement turning out to be true. "So the real question is what in Merlin's name are you doing conducting the Knight Bus?"
"Obviously, because purple's my color," Draco promptly snaps, a line he's been waiting to throw at anyone who dare recognize his blond hair and pointy nose and pin him as a Malfoy and then proceed to patronize his belittling position. Blaise is hardly affronted, merely tilting his head at the random outburst, and Draco is once more reminded why it is hard to stay mad at Blaise Zabini when he is so seldom infuriated and always fails to return the heat necessary to keep a quarrel afloat.
"You know, Draco, if you needed money, you could have come to me," Blaise tells him, a sentimental offer that Draco was hardly expecting to come from his friend's mouth.
"Money? You actually would've given me gold?"
"One day, you'd pay it off. Or I'd just make you my house elf until your debt would be paid," Blaise shrugs. Draco imagines folding Blaise's laundry or preparing his mother cereal and is suddenly grateful for the Knight Bus and its employee vacancy.
"Well, I've got a job now, so it seems you're too late."
"Seems so," Blaise agrees, and he looks impressed enough to cause Draco's battered ego to swell gratefully. "I'm proud of you, Draco. Getting a job, not just waiting until your father turns broke or gets sent to prison. Draco from school never would've actually done labor for gold."
"This isn't labor," Draco corrects, readjusting his purple blazer and brushing a stray piece of lint off of one of the golden buttons. "So don't expect me to start sucking cock for galleons in a few weeks just because I've learned the art of capitalism."
"At least you've still got your snark," Blaise says fondly. Draco's answering sneer only makes Blaise grin harder.
The bus' doors jolt closed and Draco finds purchase on the bed behind him before Ernie begins driving. The bus shoots down the street like a rocket shooting into the stratosphere with little warning of its acceleration and Blaise goes gracelessly tumbling to the floor, landing on his hindquarters and expression quite perplexed at his own clumsiness. The wayward position of his tie startled out of place by the speed and Blaise's horrified wide eyes as he picks himself shakily off the floor like it was an invisible jinx that sent him plummeting to the ground is enough to entertain Draco for weeks, Blaise's indignant "that driver is a barbarian, surely he's not licensed!" only fueling his amusement.
Three days after Blaise's unceremonious visit, Harry Potter shows his face aboard the bus once more, this time not doubled over and grasping wounds, but tidied up once more and decked in his Ministry robes.
He looks extremely uncomfortable and even out of place on the shabby bus as his eyes drift from bed to bed, and then Draco realizes that's because for once, the man doesn't have a plausible excuse as to why he should be riding the Knight Bus over other easily accessible forms of transportation.
When Draco pockets his riding money and asks him where he's off to and why he graced the Knight Bus with his presence today, Potter turns bright pink at the question he was clearly hoping wouldn't be inquired and quickly mutters, "Think I dropped my wristwatch when I was here last time."
Draco nods, but the lie is so poorly constructed and told so unconvincingly that Draco has no trouble seeing through Potter's smokescreen. He wonders, watching as Potter gets awkwardly to his knees and begins scouring for a nonexistent watch under the beds, if Potter made up this absurd lie for his own sake if only to check up on Draco or have a witty conversation with him to help wake him up before work. The thought is oddly comforting, like despite all of his mistakes, he's still managed to secure Harry Potter's concern and a hint of his friendship.
"So did Weasley survive on that last mission?" Draco asks, taking seat on the bed Potter is crawling under, another one of the bus' bumps causing him to knock his skull against the bottom of the bed and let out a stifled curse.
"Er. Yeah. He was fine," Potter mumbles from under the bed, crawling back out and shuffling to the next. "Worried about me, mostly, when I came back with blood all over."
"Did you tell him that Draco Malfoy was the one who healed you?" Draco asks, the thought of Weasley's face as he's being informed of Draco Malfoy's heroic actions providing him endlessly entertainment.
"I did, actually," Potter worms himself out from underneath the bed and smirks at Draco. "He thought I'd been Confunded."
"I'm not surprised."
"Still, once he finally believed me, he said it was pretty impressive magic you did. Considering how much blood was on my shirt he thought I was bleeding half to death when you found me," Potter says.
"He's not far off," Draco mutters, about to shoot a disapproving glower in Potter's direction before quickly stopping himself when he remembers that he's not Potter's fussy mother.
"Ah," Potter's voice exclaims once he ducks under the bed again. "Found the watch."
Draco watches as Potter twists out from underneath the rickety cot and stuffs a fist in his robe that Draco is inclined to believe is holding nothing at all, seeing no flashes of shimmering jewelry over the blush tinting Potter's cheekbones.
He's about to get up and brush the lint off from his robes when Ernie takes a distracting bite out of his sandwich and has to swerve to avoid the old lady delicately crossing the street, Potter's cry of unbalance failing to properly warn Draco as he suddenly gets a lapful of Harry Potter's wriggling limbs on top of his own.
The bus twists and nearly seems to tip over, Potter's hand gripping Draco's shoulder with startling strength as both of them almost go rolling off the side of the bed as one tangled entity, and not until the bus seems to steady itself does Potter slowly peel himself up, nose smashed onto Draco's chest. It's then when Draco realizes that there's a firm chest and sturdy thighs pressed into his own, and that this is not the same scraggly slender malnourished boy from First Year, this Potter slotted against him is hard and solid and definitely all man, full of muscles like the a defined one on his arm where Draco is gripping him and trying desperately not to feel and squeeze where the Auror training has seemed to pay off the most.
Draco swallows back on a dry mouth and tries desperately to quell the intensely flapping Snitch trapped inside his body and fluttering wildly against his ribcage, body squirming under the warm solid heat of Potter's body.
There's a muffled, "sorry, Malfoy," murmured on his shirt before Potter sits up, scooting hastily off of Draco's legs when he realizes he's straddling his hips, and watches him with wide eyes as Draco smoothes the crinkles away from his jacket and also sits up.
"Bloody bus," Draco dismisses gruffly, the other man nodding, and then Potter makes a beeline for the door with rumpled hair conveying that he just had a morning shag in a broom cupboard and jumps from the bus when Ernie presses on the brakes and folds open the purple doors even though he's two stops away from where he needs to be.
There are a lot of inquiries regarding the illustrious Stan Shunpike, previous conductor of the Knight Bus, even weeks after Draco's first day on the job.
From what Draco gathers, the man was a pimply, lanky, and thickly-accented gossipmonger who always kept a Daily Prophet on hand to strike up conversations with bored travelers and spilled hot chocolate on people's pants just as much as Draco's hands are currently prone to doing. He devoted just as many hours to enduring the Knight Bus' many jerks and shakes for multiple years until, tragically, he was recruited and Imperiused by a gang of Death Eaters for many reasons unknown, as the man was of little help even under magical control and convinced no one that he was a willing volunteer for the Voldemort movement.
"He was a sweet boy, if not a little speckled with dreadful acne," a regular old witch who loves to rant and ramble during her brief trips on the Knight Bus and steadfastly refuses to ride on the lower level says. "I kept telling him—boy, there's magical cream for that. Madam Primpernelle's Beautifying Potions—she's right down the corner at Diagon Alley—sells wonders that could go away with a boil the size of my fist."
She shakes a gnarled fist in Draco's face and continues.
"Of course, he didn't listen. Probably was too busy spending all of his gold on impressing witches," the old woman rolls her eyes under her wrinkly eyelids. "Did you know that Stan once met Harry Potter on this bus once? I've seen quite a few things with these old eyes and never have I actually met Harry Potter in the flesh, yet I suspect he's less handsome in person than the newspapers make him out to be."
"Oh, he's hideous," Potter's voice suddenly interjects into the conversation, and when Draco turns around Potter is ducking underneath the swaying chandelier and grabbing a bedpost in preparation for when the bus starts off once more. The old witch spares him a glance, nods gruffly with a slightly disappointed shrug at his confirmation, and seemingly fails to properly identify him as she returns to rummaging in her handbag a moment later.
"You know, Potter, if you ride this bus any more I'll think you're stalking me," Draco says as he wanders over to where the boy's clinging onto his bedpost, wrapping his fingers around the same anchor a few inches beneath Potter's.
"I'm getting over the flu," Potter says quickly, very quickly, almost as if he's rehearsed an explanation, and Draco doesn't fail to notice that the man looks far from ill or clammy in the face. "Apparating makes me want to heave."
Draco considers calling him out for his blatant fib, for not only is Potter missing the signature nasally tone of voice, blubbery nostrils, and pocket stuffed to the brim with crumpled tissues always signaling the symptoms of one in the horrible depths of a nasty sickness, but he's not entirely sure he wishes to hear the real explanation nor does he want to disrupt the peace that they have ineffably created between them by starting an altercation over Potter's candor.
"Didn't your mum ever teach you to avoid germs and always ask for Pepper-Up when your nose starts itching?" Draco asks, waiting for the inevitable resentment to film over Potter's eyes at the blasé mention of his mother, but he merely shrugs and idly rubs a hand under his nostrils where there should be, for all intents and purposes, a sluggish waterfall of yellow snot.
"I was out flying in the cold for a bit too long," Potter explains. "Do you still fly?"
Draco thinks of his pristine broomstick, possibly already pawned away by his mother without his knowledge, and shrugs. "Don't really have the time these days."
"Shame," Potter says. "You were pretty good. You'll get rusty if you don't practice."
"Please, Potter," Draco says hotly, "Only the amateurs need practice. I'm intrinsically skilled with flying talents."
Potter snorts. Oddly enough, the derision doesn't cause Draco to instantly defend his honor and his impeccable Quidditch abilities. Years ago, if Potter had insinuated he doubted his natural gift for flying, he would have punted the handle of his broomstick into Potter's nose and listened to the crunch of wood colliding with bone with a certain amount of satisfaction that only a true Malfoy could have enjoyed from another's physical agony.
"Maybe the Weaselette can make you some soup for your," Draco looks at him, once more trying to find a blemish of poor health on Potter's body. "…flu."
Potter shakes his head, "She's a bit busy with her boyfriend these days."
Draco snaps his head over to look at Potter, flabbergasted. He had been certain that after the war was over and Potter had secured a spot on the winning side he would waste little time in seizing the redheaded Weasley bird and carrying her off to the altar to start afresh with his life and begin producing enough freckled children to populate an entire village. The subtle implication that this is not the case, however, and that Ginny Weasley is enamored with another wizard of which Harry has no influence in is not lost on Draco, nor is the fact that Potter made the implication in the first place.
He glances at Potter, as if waiting for him to correct himself, but his mouth is shut and his eyes are enlarged in something akin to anticipation. Draco looks down at Potter's lips again and watches as a tongue darts out and wets them, slipping away before Draco has the chance to feel a churn in his stomach.
Oh God, he wants to kiss me, Draco thinks, and he doesn't know what to think after that as sure enough, Potter's face comes closer and Draco himself only feels it prudent to lean in as well even when can't fathom why he would want to.
They're five seconds and one foot apart, six inches and three seconds, and then the Knight Bus lurches left and Potter nearly goes barreling onto the floor, away from Draco and back to a normal propinquity away from Draco. There's about five feet of space between them, but to Draco, it might as well have been the entire country.
He tells himself he's not disappointed.
"So I think Harry Potter tried to kiss me the other day."
Draco finally musters up the audacity to mention the incident to Blaise over tea, uncomfortably at best, after twenty minutes of small talk over Blaise's new job and reacquainting themselves with one another, and Blaise spits a fine spray of tea over the tablecloth.
"Kissing Potter?"
"Ergh, Blaise, manners," Draco says through a grimace as he wipes his cup clean. It feels extremely cumbersome to discuss his burgeoning liaison with Potter when he's not inside the Knight Bus, a place where it can be hidden and remain safe from judgmental ears and Draco's qualms, as if not mentioning the incidents refrains Draco from having to succumb to a series of life-changing evaluations concerning himself.
"Where did this happen? How did this happen?" Blaise looks truly dumbfounded by such unpredictable developments. Draco sets down his cup of tea and decides to face the situation by finally addressing that there is, in fact, a situation in existence.
"On the Knight Bus," he admits, picking up his cup only to busy his hands. "He kept coming by and now he's just making stupid excuses. Honestly, who wants to ride that wretched thing if they can Apparate? I didn't know what to make of it until he told me that the Weaselette was seeing some other bloke and started leaning in."
"Toward you?" Blaise asks.
"Toward me," Draco confirms. His suspicions that vocalizing the incidents and ruminating over Potter's intentions would soothe his conflicted feelings and emotional turmoil is quickly negated as Draco starts to hear the horrifying words aloud as they come out of his mouth, as if he's processing them for the first time. Blaise looks both concerned and overwhelmed with disbelief. Unfortunately, Draco can understand both expressions, for if Theo suddenly sent him an owl depicting the details of a budding relationship with Harry Potter, Draco would write off the letter as a hoax and promptly use it as fireplace kindling.
"Do you think he's having you on?" Blaise suggests, and Draco does not miss the blow to his ego that arises when he notices that Blaise first rifles through the possibilities of Potter's actions being led by the intent of retribution over anything more pleasant which might imply that Draco could somehow manage to charm the very boy he stomped on and bullied only a few years ago. "Maybe he's looking for revenge."
"Thanks for that, Blaise," Draco says dryly as the thought of Potter scheming an elaborate plot against him to settle the scores after years of taunting forms in his mind.
"The war's over, though. He's probably not keen on picking any more battles," Blaise furrows his eyebrows. "Are you trying to tell me that you've actually been fairly pleasant with him?"
"I suppose so," Draco mumbles into his teacup, shrugging. "We're not exactly friends, if that's what you're getting at. But we're being surprisingly civil."
"Has Draco Malfoy changed that much?" Blaise says after a moment's thought, and he looks like a proud Hufflepuff at the accusation, leaning back smugly in his chair. Draco throws a crust of bread from the bowl on the table at his chest.
"Give me some sodding advice, you great prat," Draco says, realizing a moment later that's he's pitifully whining. "What part of Potter tried to kiss me isn't registering in your skull?"
"Well, what happened after he tried to snog you?"
"What?"
"What happened? Did you hex him?"
"Why would I hex him?" Draco asks. The idea of sending Potter off the bus with blisters on his nose would surely be an incident that the Ministry would quickly receive wind of and trace directly back to Malfoy Manor with or without evidence.
"Because Harry Potter tried to kiss you," Blaise says as if it's obvious, and then Draco realizes that it is.
"Oh god," Draco moans, burying his face in the tablecloth to cool down his burning cheeks as the revelation hits his brain and Blaise is reduced to peals of laughter. "I want to kiss Harry Potter."
Draco's epiphany does little for his sanity. After Blaise joyously charms Draco's shirt into shades of Gryffindor colors and sends him on his merry way home—where Draco grumbles and hides behind one of his mother's bushes in the garden until he reverses the jinx—his realization that after seven years of reciprocated abhorrence, he's somehow managed to become addicted to Harry Potter and his green-eyed face on the Knight Bus, haunts him for quite a few hours.
His mother notices instantly upon laying eyes on her son's mortified and simultaneously sulking face as he closes the front door behind him and faintly tells her that tea with Blaise was uneventful, but he refuses to answer any of her questions on his well-being and goes straight to his room, where his smudgy old wand sitting atop his dresser continues to drill into his mind and force him to reevaluate his opinions on Harry Potter and, hence, his life.
He wonders if years of teasing and taunting were simply poorly veiled excuses to garner Potter's attention and obsess over the boy without appearing awestruck and infatuated like many of the witches that fawned over the famous Harry Potter upon his arrival at Hogwarts as a gangly, confused wizard. He wonders if saving Potter's life from Bellatrix when even under the mask of severe swelling, he could easily make out a tautly stretched scar and unmistakable weathered glasses and failed to identify him for the Dark Lord even if doing so would rid his family of the burden that his father's failure Voldemort punished them for was a hint. He thinks about the Knight Bus, and how without the distractions of Crabbe and Goyle shooting menacing looks over his shoulder while Weasley and Granger flank Potter with matching looks of revulsion aimed at his own face, the two of them can actually manage enjoyable conversations.
Those thoughts, however, do not soothe his brain, instead giving birth to a monster of a headache that has Draco calling in sick for five miserable days of moping, avoiding the epiphanies his own brain is supplying him with, and letting his mother spoil him with tea when she's not occupied cleaning out the broom cupboard of Draco's childhood mementos.
No matter how disconcerting it is to watch his mother confiscate his toy broomstick and discuss with Lucius in hushed tones over how Draco's trying hard to earn gold, we could all make a few sacrifices, he deems it a cheerier option than going to work and watching Harry Potter climb on board and try to kiss him once more, only to be swerved away and denied by the bus' twists and turns while Draco retches on the floor like a seasick old man with a weak stomach.
Five days into his supposed sick leave, the wispy wizard who first granted Draco the Knight Bus position sends over an enormous owl politely requesting his return to work as Ernie has nearly run over three small children and succeeded in snapping a light post resting by the Leaky Cauldron in half by crashing headfirst into its base and clearly requires the assistance of another on board to avoid possible future decapitation and formal inquiries from the Ministry.
The request encourages his mother to offer Draco similar motivations to peel himself off his bed and return to work before he turns lazier still and is eventually fired from the one and only job Draco has ever had. Unfortunately, it's his mother's urges that Draco can't disobey, and with a spot of Gryffindor courage in his morning coffee and crumpet, he pulls on his purple uniform and goes to work.
Several regulars seem surprisingly relieved to see Draco leading them onto the bus and are swift to relay tales of terror and danger to him regarding the days he spent at home brooding over his fixation with Potter that the Knight Bus went through at the lone hands of Ernie, who, despite being a reserved soul, apparently requires the presence of another in order to function properly as a driver and is even bold enough to offer Draco a silent wave when he boards the bus in the morning.
It takes Draco two hours of holding onto the bedposts with both arms for him to accustom himself once more to the unnaturally quick curves and serpentine swaying of the bus after nearly a week of standing on solid, pleasantly still ground. He crashes into the back window during Ernie's first stop at Diagon Alley and instantly feels the ache of an oncoming bruise forming on his knee, furling up his pants to watch the blue and green hues bubble up to the surface of his skin. He wonders, idly, as he looks down at the sensitive bump on his leg, if Potter would have Healed it for him had he been on board, and with a sweep of his eyes across the rolling beds coming up empty of their target of black hair and glasses, he sighs and does it himself with a wave of his wand.
After two weeks of no Boy-Who-Lived sightings, Draco wonders if Potter was on the bus during his brief absence and took Draco's lack of attendance as a sign that he had been too forward or too pushy and had therefore decided to no longer bother the blond at work when his advances had been wordlessly rejected. He wonders what would happen if Potter would ride on the bus and try to lean in for a kiss once more and if Draco would pull back, run away, or grab him by the lapels and push their lips together without any hesitation of his certainty.
One thing that Draco can concede is bloody brilliant about conducting the Knight Bus compared to any desk job or teaching position he could have been granted with is the amount of time he can spend slumbering away on a coat in the back once his body adjusts to the interruptions of rapid jerks and acceleration without a single disgruntled superior tapping him on the shoulder and fixing him with a stern glare and strict words to return to work.
He's snoozing peacefully on a musty bed, ignorant of Ernie's spontaneous halts and twists and of the snoring of the witch two beds away, head burrowed into the flat pillow and fingers curled in the sheets tucked neatly onto the mattress underneath him. The moonlight is filtering through the flimsy curtains hung over the bus windows, alerting Draco that sometime in between then and now, night hit and his shift is nearly over, and with that comforting thought, he rolls onto his stomach and allows himself to take a nap until the bus drops him off at home.
When he wakes up, Blaise is driving the Knight Bus and skirting past gutters and Harry Potter is nestled into his arms, hair tickling his shoulder and leg thrown over his waist so his midsection tingles pleasantly and pools with sleepy heat. He tries to yell at Blaise to pull over so he won't be caught for stealing a public vehicle of transportation without disturbing the snoozing boy comfortably melded against his side, but before he can make such a demand, the Knight Bus becomes airborne and soars next to the clouds, no longer jerking this way and that but smoothly slipping past the moon and stars like a silky broomstick ride, and then Harry pokes him in the ribs and goes "sleeping on the job, are you?" and Draco promptly is jerked back to reality and wakes up.
A thick film of sleep blurs Draco's vision before he can rub his eyelids free of his dreams and realize that Harry Potter is looming over him and his cot and poking him in the chest repeatedly. Draco slaps the offending hand away and attempts to deliver his most threatening glower when his drowsiness is impeding his ability to provoke any fear in another with his countenance alone.
"Wake up, Draco," Potter tells him, sitting on the edge of the bed, and Draco instantly sits up.
"What are you doing here?"
"Going home. Late night at the Ministry."
Draco checks his watch and notes that two a.m. definitely constitutes as a late night of work, especially when he was due with a date with his bed's comforter and fluffy pillows over an hour ago. He sighs and rubs a knot formed during his slumber on a Knight Bus bargain mattress out of his neck with his thumbs.
"And I suppose you didn't feel like Apparating?" Draco asks, waiting for Potter to confirm the suspicions that are making his stomach flutter like he's drunken too much firewhiskey or he's channeling a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl that Potter's true reason for traveling so frequently with the Knight Bus is not for the thrilling driving but rather the man on board.
"Not really," Potter says. He looks at Draco for one moment, two moments, too many moments, and then leans in to place a soft, almost chaste kiss on his bottom lip that miraculously, Ernie's driving doesn't interrupt.
When they pull apart, Draco realizes that somehow, he's jus t been kissed by Harry Potter and the world ceased to implode, which is reassuring at the very least. Potter's staring at him with wide, very green eyes, waiting patiently for a contributory emotion or a reaction, and before Draco can form and find the words he deems are articulate enough to properly verbalize exactly what is running through his brain at speeds the Knight Bus could only dream of, the bus jerks suddenly left and both of them are nearly knocked off the bed. It breaks the silence, Potter being the first to chuckle.
"Well, this certainly isn't mental," Draco feels the need to point out. "I didn't know you were a flaming pouf, Potter."
"Are you complaining?"
Draco shakes his head, only mildly surprised that the cowardly, Slytherin part of himself isn't roaring in ridicule and spewing homophobic diatribes as the very thing he was fretting over for days throws itself into his face. Instead he grabs Potter's cloak and decides to pull him closer until he can smell the faint scent of aftershave and pushes their lips together more firmly than before.
The fact that his works, unexplainably works, is a mystery meant for geniuses to attempt to decipher. Years ago, the mere thought of snogging with Harry Potter on transportation as rudimentary as the Knight Bus, in purple pants, no less, would have terrified Draco to the very core, and yet here he is, the face of maturity and startling composure as he zeroes in on the soft feel of Potter's evening stubble and gentle lips parting beneath his and refuses to let his mind focus on anything less important such as thinking.
Who needs thoughts, Draco dismisses, his free hand gripping Potter's thigh as the man lets loose a soft-throated moan that falls straight into Draco's mouth.
He's incredibly glad—more so than he ever was before—that the train is empty of travelers. The snoring witch left during his fleeting nap and any young ruffians have been dropped off from the train many stops ago, leaving nothing but Ernie, Draco, Potter, and Potter's sinful hands. Suddenly, the thought of slowing down and making sense of this and halting the roaming of his hands down Potter's chest seems ludicrous, so instead of even entertaining the idea of breaking away from their kiss, Draco gets to his knees and pushes Potter insistently down on the squeaky mattress.
"Whoa," Potter says breathlessly as his head hits the pillow and Draco sucks on his bottom lip before descending down to lick a journey down his neck, a neck that has never before looked so delectable. "You think this is a bit fast?"
"Despite being on the Knight Bus, we've been moving at a glacial speed, Potter," Draco assures him, and Potter seems inclined to agree when his arms wind around his shoulder and he nudges Draco's cheek with his nose to encourage him to tilt up his chin and press their mouths back together in an open-mouthed kiss. Their tongues slide together.
"Glacially," Potter repeats dazedly when the kiss breaks. Draco nods firmly and pushes away Potter's robes and jacket and other offending garments until he can slide his hands up the pale expanse of Potter's exposed chest and play with a pebbled nipple without the obstruction of fabric getting in his hand's way.
The bus gives a great lurch and the beds rolls and wheel left in protest, Potter's hands gripping onto Draco's elbows only to keep from toppling off the side of the bed. When the beds still once more into a default shake, Potter only squeezes harder until Draco meets his eyes.
"What?"
"Careful," Potter warns him. "You'll knee me in the crotch when the bus swerves again if you're not careful."
Draco waves away his concerns and proceeds to silence them by kissing him squarely on the mouth once more, Potter's answering groan of rapture enough to ensure that his nerves regarding the bus' safety are forgotten. Instead, there is a scrambling of hands to reach wherever they can find purchase, Potter's fingers alternating from rubbing circles on Draco's hips to tweaking a nipple under his purple blazer that soon joins Potter's traveling cloak on the floor to slide around aimlessly with the bus' turns.
"This is okay, right?" Draco takes a moment to ask, hands poised over Potter's pants ready to unzip and shimmy them down his ankles the moment he receives the green light. Potter gives a shaky nod, eyes alight with a fire Draco's never been addressed with before that tell him that Potter's just as eager and invested in this fumbling around together on the Knight Bus as he is if the relentless pounding of his heart against his ribcage and the blood rushing down southward is any indication.
He unbuttons Potter's pants in mere nanoseconds, shucking them off his thighs and tossing them aside as he focuses on his real goal, the tented bulge protruding from his boxers that Draco promptly feels his pulse race and mouth salivate at. He reaches out to tuck Potter's erection out of its confines, taking a moment to let his eyes rove over the length in his hand, hot and heavy just as he hoped it would be, his hungry inspection only cut to a halt when Potter's thighs squirm and he clears his throat with a cough that returns Draco to the task at hand. He wraps his fingers firmly around the shaft, thumb brushing over the slit at the sticky head, already dotted with beads of precome that Draco can't resist to lean in and taste when Potter suddenly seizes his wrist to stop him.
"Don't bite me either," Potter pleads as the bus jolts.
"Please, as if I—" Draco is promptly cut off as the bus takes a sharp turn and sends both of them careening to the floor and gripping each other's limbs as they tumble, Draco letting out several high-pitched yelps as the unexpected swerve has him landing hard on his backside and Potter flat on his chest. The beds roll and bump into them, knocking into Draco's shoulders and sure to leave bruises, but Potter's breathless snicker and warm breath on his neck has all thoughts of bruises and backaches flying from his brain as if summoned away.
"Knew it would happen," Potter chuckles, reaching for the bedpost to pull himself back up, but Draco's hand darts out to grab his shoulder before he can get to his feet and return to the cot.
"No," he shakes his head, sitting up to quickly shrug off any remaining garments and unbutton his pants, an action which Potter follows with his eyes as if he's a parched man watching the rush and trickle of a stream. He smirks and pulls Potter back into his lap. "We'll just fall again."
Potter shrugs, and with that concession, he's flipping them over once more, hands fumbling to push down Draco's trousers and slide into his underwear, unyielding fingers gripping Draco's cock and proceeding to stroke him to a slow rhythm until Draco's breath hitches audibly in his throat.
"As you were," he says, rather cheekily, and Draco is surprisingly eager to oblige as he slides down Potter's body, legs already shining with the slight sheen of sweat as he plants a few affectionate nips to his hipbone before returning to his earlier task of licking over the head of Potter's erection, tongue digging into the slit to taste the drops of precome while Potter lets loose a loud moan that Draco can only hope Ernie's ears aren't picking up at the front of the bus.
Draco tries not to think too hard about Harry Potter's dick is in my mouth, for he knows that the second he lets his brain feast on that thought the ludicrousness of the situation might cause him to pull back and laugh into Potter's thigh. The thirteen-year-old boy in his head that still thinks it's cool to slick back his hair and gossip to Crabbe and Goyle about Potter's inept attempts to succeed at Potions is shrieking in horror, as is the pallid face of his father, and perhaps even Blaise in the sense that should Draco ever be found naked romping about with Harry Potter by Blaise's eyes, he knows he'll be cursed with boils for weeks. He focuses instead on his tongue and the delicious whimpers it seems to elicit from Potter's lips, so delicious that he feels eternally sorry for anyone who never has the pleasure of hearing them for their own ears. Draco lets his hands hold down Potter's twitching hips when he can feel the pleasure mounting and coiling in Potter's bones, the sight of his heaving chest and sweat-dappled arms while Draco bobs his head and tickles his tongue over the underside of Potter's length arousing enough to convince Draco that even if the bus jerks and crashes, he won't cease his ministrations.
A hand worms its way into his blond hair, twisting the locks in its fingers while Draco continues his alternation of sucking and licking stripes up Potter's erection, the taste engulfing his tongue failing to dampen his own erection but rather spurring it on, a fact that Draco will never admit vocally even under the harshest brews of Veritaserum. He wraps his lips around the head, suckling and letting the flat of his tongue swirl around the flesh. It's unlike anything he's ever tasted or put on his tongue before, and he's incredibly astonished at how erotic he finds it when he's not even on the receiving end of a warm, velvety heat engulfing his dick.
The hand in Draco's hair begins tugging, and Potter manages to rasp out a breathless, "C'mere," that Draco obliges with one last teasing suck and kiss to the side of Potter's shaft before he's bodily lugged up Potter's torso just in time for another one of the bus' hefty turns down a corner that nearly sends Draco rolling under all of the beds and colliding with the back of Ernie's chair all the way in the front before Potter grabs hold of his wrist and reels him back in.
He's about to peek out over the rows of beds and holler for Ernie to ease up on the steering wheel in the vain hopes that the man should take heed of his words when Potter busies himself with licking and biting on the sensitive skin behind Draco's ear—a spot he had yet to discover was so sensitive to tongues—and pushing their mouths together. Their kiss doesn't end until the bus skirts narrowly by a line of Muggle cars and their teeth clack together.
"Owfuck," Draco hisses, Potter silencing him with another, softer kiss.
"Hips up," Potter instructs him, and when Draco does so, he pushes his boxers down and away, leaving both of them frighteningly bare of clothes, and that's when he first realizes that Harry Potter is staring at him while he's naked.
It would be better, Draco thinks, if an entire horde of senior witches and wizards leaving their Saturday evening Exploding Snap game would board the bus and stare unashamedly at Draco's nude form rather than have Potter, the very boy that was plotted to be killed in his very own house, staring at his quivering legs and throbbing dick and pale chest. His nerves are eased, however, when Potter murmurs directly on Draco's lips a muffled compliment sounding something like so hot and lets his hand wind around his dick once more to resume the stroking it had begun earlier.
"No," Draco says, batting Potter's hand away. "Together."
Potter nods after a moment, looping one arm around his neck and the other around both of their dicks, slender fingers pumping their lengths together. The feel of Potter's erection, still slick, grinding against his own and creating friction heavenly enough to cause Draco to grab Potter's face and demand he promise to stay in his bed for years to come if it means he'll be gifted with brilliant handjobs from the Chosen One whenever he pleases, is enough to tempt Draco to cry out and inadvertently alert Ernie to whatever malarkey is occurring in the back of his bus.
"Join me, Draco. C'mon, touch me," Potter pleads, eyes naked and earnest and free of any masks, the sight of such a startling green causing Draco to instantly reach between their legs and wrap his own dominant hand around their slick neighboring dicks rubbing together, fingers catching on the rhythm of Potter's strokes swiftly.
Draco kisses him again, and god, he hopes that this thing that he and Harry have somehow created between them like fizz and magic and volcano eruptions all at once isn't something that only thrives in the Knight Bus. The idea of the two of them squabbling over who gets to kick off the Quidditch game and necking on the couch like teenagers minus the duels and insults is overwhelming in a delightful way, a feeling so warm and fond Draco didn't know Malfoys could even feel such a sensation.
He pulls up on Potter's next down stroke, the feeling so hot and spicy in his throat that both of them cry out and Draco repeats himself, hands fumbling to counteract Potter's equally feverish strokes. The bus jerks again and again, but this time its curves only seem to catch their fingers off guard, Draco's thumb flitting over the base of Potter's cock and Potter's hand tightening into a firm squeeze on Draco's erection when the bus slides left and right, the feeling of tumbling around with Harry on the floor of this grimy bus pushing him straight to the brink of unbridled pleasure.
Harry moans, kissing Draco once more with his tongue brushing surely against Draco's as he cries out, twice in a row, and then his entire body shudders under Draco's and his hand momentarily jerks to a stop before he opens his eyes, brighter than before, and picks up his pace until Draco is a babbling mess on top of him, rutting into his and Potter's hands, their combined efforts causing him to come three seconds later before he lands on Potter's relaxed chest and pushes his nose under his ear, smelling the scent of sweat and sex, two odors he desperately hopes can be removed from the bus before the day ends. He feels Potter's smile break out on top of his head, lazy and amused, thinking the exact same thing Draco is and wondering how the hell both of them thought doing this in a bus was a good idea.
This, Draco thinks blissfully, eyes slipping closed at the sound of Harry's sated exhale as come cools in between their stomachs, this is what magic is.
"Accio clothes," Potter whispers as quietly as he can as if he wasn't letting out guttural moans thankfully quieted by the sound of screeching tire and burning rubber and honking cars a minute ago. A wad of boxers and shirts go flying into his hand, several garments skidding over the floor. Draco deftly catches his own pants, the alarming hue of purple catching his eyes, before they go soaring into Potter's grip.
"Ernie won't hear you," Draco drawls, fitting his legs into his pant legs after slipping his boxers back on.
"Do you really want to test that?"
Draco shrugs, petting the strands of his hair fisted into disarray back into position and shrugging his shirt on. Potter struggles to fit his own arms in the sleeves of his jacket and the sight is so endearing that instead of scoffing and pointing, as Draco does feel compelled to do, he leans in for another kiss that misses his lips and goes three inches up on his eyebrow as the bus turns once more. Draco grumbles.
"Going for my mouth?" Potter asks, chuckling, fingers brushing over where Draco's lips landed above his eyelid.
"Shut up, Scarhead."
"So as much as I like the Knight Bus," Potter says, failing to indulge in Draco's command. "How about we take this elsewhere? Maybe somewhere that isn't moving?"
Potter's fingers push closer to Draco's on the floor, their hands side-by-side on the ground and little fingers pressed together in a gentle facsimile of hand holding that both of them won't feel the need to mock or pull away from, an action that could easily be written off as an accidental invasion of personal space. Draco knocks his hand against Potter's, bumping shoulders, and realizes that Potter's negating his very fears, that this whole thing is Knight-Bus-exclusive and won't see the light of day for reasons that Draco can understand all too well—Weasley and Granger would have a panic attack, Draco's father would have a heart attack, the Daily Prophet would be killing wizards to get the full scoop on their forbidden Shakespearean romance.
"Your friends will disown you," Draco tells him bluntly.
"They'll think I'm going around the twist," Potter retorts, taking it all in stride, and Draco is about to nod and tease him further with some good-natured Slytherin snark when the Knight Bus screeches to another unsuspected stop and both of them barrel into the bed.
Draco watches as Potter lets out a litany of curses and rubs at a blooming, sensitive bruise on the back of his head, messy mop of hair doing little to cushion the blow, and Draco laughs at the sight of graceful Harry Potter attempting to mend a bruise on the back of his head with his wand.
Who is he bloody kidding? He loves his job.
A/N: For my upcoming birthday, my lovely comrade Sarah got me an overwhelming amount of wonderful gifts, such as a bunch of Lego Harry Potter toys that we spent an entire evening building together to feel like small children once more. Among these toys was the illustrious Knight Bus and, never one to pass up such a beautiful opportunity, we put Draco's Lego head on Stan Shunpike's brilliantly purple body and made a photoshoot for this fanfiction. Anyone who wants to see this Lego Draco/Harry photography is welcome to feast their eyes on it at my Livejournal under the name veterization.