"So Harry, got a hot date with Draaaaaco?" Seamus purred. He plopped himself down on Harry's bed and watched him rummage frantically through his wardrobe.
"What?" Harry asked distractedly, as he discarded shirt after shirt, fabric flying every which way.
Dean joined them. "You usually just grab the first one that comes to hand," he pointed out calmly.
"That's what I'm doing," Harry defended.
Seamus burst out laughing. "Then why am I surrounded by a sea of shirts?"
Harry glowered. "Those shirts… don't fit."
He got two sets of raised brows for an answer.
"You know how Malfoy is," he muttered. "It's already going to be such a pain shopping with him, to say nothing of his bitchy attitude about my lack of fashion sense.
"Sounds like you've got yourself a real, live boyfriend, mate." Seamus and Dean chuckled, and Harry glared at them darkly.
"Don't even start," he growled.
The duo looked at each other and then back at Harry.
"You do it, love," Seamus prodded his boyfriend.
Nodding, Dean pushed Harry aside and began sorting through the remnants of the raven-haired wizard's destroyed wardrobe. Turning to stare appraisingly at Harry, who was presently wearing nothing but his boxers and socks, he finally shook his head in defeat.
"You're right," he said with a sigh. "You've nothing in here that actually fits you." He paused thoughtfully and went to his own wardrobe, pulling out a pair of dark blue Muggle jeans. "Put these on," he instructed, tossing them to Harry. Then he procured a black, long-sleeved t-shirt.
Once Harry was dressed, they watched him attempt to flatten his hair.
"Don't do it, mate!" Seamus groaned. "You've got that perfect, sexy, just-been-shagged hair, it just needs a bit of help."
Dean came at him with a bottle of hair gel.
Harry backed away, hissing.
"Sit," Dean ordered, and waited for Harry to drop reluctantly to his shirt-strewn bed. Then, he carefully used the gel to bring a bit of order to the chaos. "There," he pronounced fifteen minutes later. "Now it looks like you've done it this way on purpose."
Harry blinked. "I have done it this way on purpose."
"Exactly."
Confused, Harry decided to let it drop. After pausing to add trainers, he stood decisively. "Right then, I'm off."
"Oh, Dean," Seamus cooed. "Our little Harry's all grown up and going out on dates!"
Dean smiled benignly. "Now, Sea, we knew this would happen one day."
Seamus thumped Harry on the back supportively. "Just remember: wrap it up, play it safe."
"Seamus!"
Harry ran for the door and the sanity of the world beyond. Then, remembering that he was meeting Draco Malfoy to go robe shopping for their date to the Valentine's Ball, he realized sadly that you just couldn't find a good bit of sanity anywhere these days.
Thirty minutes later, Harry came to a skidding halt in front of the Great Hall. The staircases had chosen Harry as today's victim, and after several hair-raising, Hogwarts-style near-death experiences, he had a monstrous case of vertigo. His hopes for stopping off in the hospital wing for a headache potion were cut short by Malfoy's seething glare.
"You're six minutes late," he accused.
Harry sighed, rubbing at his throbbing head. "Don't suppose we've time to see Madame Pomfrey?"
With a scowl, Draco replied, "Fashion waits for no man, Potter."
"What about a wizard then?" Harry begged. "A wizard that's likely to yak on fashion's shiny shoes."
Draco scrutinized him carefully. "Staircases?" he questioned.
"Staircases," Harry confirmed. "They're a bloody menace."
Nodding regally, the Slytherin declared, "Well if fashion will wait for anyone, it'd certainly be a Malfoy."
"Is that a yes?" Harry groaned, struggling to contain his nausea.
"Yes, but if you vomit on my Hinckaby Rothbergs, I'll make you lick it off," Draco warned.
Harry clapped a hand over his mouth. "Errrrrrrgh…"
As they made their way rapidly through the halls to the hospital wing, students stopped and stared. A group of third year Hufflepuffs swooned at the sight of the yearbook's Cutest Couple. One of them stepped bravely forward with the infamous photo.
"Could… would you sign this?" she murmured shakily.
Draco bared his teeth in response. "Potter, feel free to direct your spew in their general direction." It wasn't clear whether it was the sight of Draco's shiny white teeth or Harry's shiny green face that sent the Hufflepuffs huffing and puffing down the hallway post haste.
Draco ushered Harry into the hospital wing, and Madame Pomfrey came bustling out of her office, tittering.
"Mr. Potter, what've you gotten yourself into this time?" she demanded long-sufferingly.
Harry looked terrified at the prospect of opening his mouth and blowing chunks all over the nice Medi-witch, so Draco spoke for him.
"Staircases," he explained, and Pomfrey nodded briskly.
"Right then. Sit, I've just the thing." She directed him to the bed and disappeared.
Draco moved away from the bed, turning his face to the door. "Don't expect me to hold your hair back when you retch vile fluids all over the floor," he warned.
Harry groaned, and probably would've lost his breakfast, but Madame Pomfrey returned at that moment with a vial of steaming liquid. She held it under Harry's nose and instructed him to inhale. When he eyed her warily, she snapped,
"You can't possibly be expected to swallow anything right now, can you? Breath in."
He complied, and the greenish tint to his face faded just a touch.
"Better?" she asked, placing a hand against his forehead. He nodded. "Drink it down, then."
It tasted absolutely appalling, but within minutes his nausea and vertigo had fully receded, as had his headache. "Thanks," he said gratefully.
"No matter." She shooed them to the door. "Have a care with those staircases!"
Harry moved to join Draco, and the Slytherin looked him up and down suspiciously. "No chance of retching then?"
"Nope, I'm good to go," the raven-haired wizard promised. Then, recalling precisely where they were headed, he reconsidered. Maybe he should've played this up to get out of shopping.
Draco raised a brow. "Not a chance, Potter. You're not weaseling your way out of this." A pause. "Get it? Weaseling?"
Harry pulled a face, heading for the door. "Yes, yes, I get it, you're a bloody genius."
"I'd suggest you not attempt sarcasm, Potter," Draco advised. "It's beyond you."
As they moved away down the hall, bickering, Madame Pomfrey shook her head. "Just like an old married couple, those two."
"Malfoy," Harry whined desperately. "We've been here for four hours."
"You don't fool me, Potter," Draco retorted. "Everyone knows how much you like being up on a pedestal."
Which was exactly where Harry had been standing for ages, in naught but his boxers. "How many different types of fabric can there be?" he asked wretchedly.
Draco responded to this bit of nonsense with a glare. "We can't turn up at the Ball looking anything less than perfect." He paused, staring thoughtfully at the navy swatch of fabric in his hands. "Of course, considering what I've got to work with," he waved a hand at Harry's reflection in the mirror, "one can't expect miracles."
"It'll be a miracle if I don't rip your balls off and shove them down your throat, Malfoy," Harry snapped, causing the seamstress to glare disapprovingly at him.
"I know," Draco commiserated with her. "He's such a heathen. However," he eyed Harry up and down, "there are certain… compensations."
Harry's face burned, and he had a sneaking suspicion that if Draco didn't stop leering at him with those dark gray eyes, he was going to get an erection, right here in front of God and Seamstress. Not to mention Malfoy. When the Slytherin stepped regally up onto the pedestal next to him, Harry frowned.
"Why do you need to get measured? You come here every day," he pointed out. Under his breath, he muttered, "Fashion whore."
"That's every week to you, Potter," Draco said haughtily. Then, casting a significant glance at their positions, given that his pedestal was higher than Harry's, he smirked. "I always knew I was meant to be above you."
Harry decided to fight fire with fire. "Above me, Malfoy?" he questioned in a low, intimate tone. "That's where you've wanted to be all this time? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given your recent behavior." He was supremely satisfied when Draco's cheeks pinked.
"Fuck off, Potter."
Harry suppressed a grin, widening his eyes dramatically. "Right here? In front of Camille?" He cast an eye at the seamstress, who looked ready to bolt from the room.
Draco glowered. "Your mouth is going to get you in trouble one of these days," he warned darkly.
Emerald eyes trapped stormy gray in their gaze. "Oh, I'm counting on it," Harry murmured.
Drawing on his inflated sense of Malfoy propriety, Draco ignored the heat flooding through his body at the utter hotness of a boxer-clad, defiant Harry Potter gazing so intensely at him. This involved quickly stepping down from the pedestal once Camille had finished checking his measurements, and thrusting a set of dress robes in Harry's direction.
"Put these on," he ordered. Swallowing, he added, "It'll give you an idea of what your outfit will look like, but the real one will be custom made, and in a different fabric." Camille handed Draco a close replica of his own outfit, and he fled to a curtained stall to change, vainly attempting to purge his thoughts of golden skin and long, slim limbs that begged to be touched.
The Boy Who Lived to Suppress His Gayness, meanwhile, had fled to another stall, yanking the curtain shut behind him. Seeing Draco stripped down to nearly nothing was wreaking havoc on his senses. It was one thing to feign being a couple, and taunting Draco with their rage-induced lusty interactions, but quite another to be so utterly turned on by the Slytherin's body on its own merits.
He'd been able to pass off his attraction thus far as the thrill of facing a worthy opponent. But now… It was as though stripping them down physically had stripped him down mentally as well. There was no mistaking his raw attraction to Draco's lithe and toned form. He looked like he'd been carved from ivory, but Harry knew from recent experience that the cool-looking flesh actually burned hot when provoked.
They both stepped tentatively from their stalls, eyeing each other warily before moving to stand in front of the magical 360-degree mirror.
"Why do we look like an ode to Slytherin?" Harry demanded, latching on desperately to the first opportunity to pick a fight that he could. Indeed, it was true. They both wore black robes with black trousers and vests. Harry was wearing a green shirt underneath while Draco's was silvery-gray.
"Because Slytherin colors are far superior," Draco said snottily, just as eager to cover his attraction with combativeness. "I wouldn't be caught dead in gold."
Harry glared. "Granted, the gray looks good on you. But you couldn't have picked something more neutral for me, like blue?"
Brought to the breaking point by a combination of unwanted lust and complete aggravation, Draco snapped. "I put you in green because it looks bloody amazing on you!" he snarled. "It's your best color." He grumbled, "Stupid emerald eyes."
The raven-haired wizard was speechless. "Oh," he managed finally, the fight taken out of him. "Right then."
Draco nodded regally to Camille. "I believe we're done here," he announced, and then fled back to his stall.
Hinckaby Rothbergs: A posh (and completely made up) line of men's Wizarding footwear.