A/N: Hello there. The second chapter has arrived. I really hope you like this baby and enjoy the story. The third chapter is on it's way, but in the mean time please tell me how you are liking the fic.
It was Friday already and Harry started to feel a huge pressure sitting on his chest and it wasn't exactly nervousness for the match, as Ron suggested after watching him bit compulsively his thumb in magic history class. He was terrified of what might happen and he couldn´t back off now because he had made the huge mistake of telling Hermione about his plan. Well, he hadn't had much of a choice really. Apparently, two days prior, his staring at Malfoy's butt in the great hall had been a little over excessive and his friend wasn't having in it anymore. "You know, if I have to listen you sigh one more time, I´m going to tell him how bad you want to snog his Slytherin face" she said in an angry whisper. "I´m telling him after the game" he answered alarmed, looking around the table to see if someone had been listening their conversation. She shot Harry a glance that said you better, and he was certain she wasn't joking about telling Malfoy. Nevertheless, her face went from threatening to excited in an instant. "Oh! I can´t wait to see the two of you together, you'll be so cute" "How do you know he isn't just going to laugh in my face?" "Please, Harry. Are you really that oblivious? I bet he is waiting for you to say something. I´ve seen the way he looks at you when you pass near him in the halls. The other day he was stripping you in his mind on potions when you were chopping those garlics. I was doubting he liked you too, but those eyes he made when you smiled at him in the great hall on Monday made it more clear for me"
So yeah, Hermione had lifted his spirits a little, but he was still skeptical about Malfoy's disposition towards him. Anyways, he didn't have much of a choice now with brightest witch of his generation watching his every move; he had to give into his desires and possibly make the move that would keep him curled under his bed for the next month.
On Saturday morning Harry woke up felling rather sick. He had passed the last night with few hours of sleep. The memories of his stupidity kept haunting him and all what he could do was think about how dumb he should have seem to Malfoy when, in herbology class, he had stared at him for a little too long for it to be normal, admiring the agility of the other boy's long fingers as he divided and selected leaves from a plant who's name Harry hadn't bothered to memorize. He stood there, hypnotized by the sinuous way those blond eyebrows curled in concentration, for so long that the implied ended up realizing he was being watched. He didn't act on the defensive side, as he would have years prior; on the contrary he smiled and asked Harry whether he needed some leaves and offered to give him some because he had to spare. Harry without knowing what else to do, nodded like the idiot he was and extended his hand to receive the handful Malfoy was offering him from the opposite side of the table. He grabbed them being careful not to touch the blonde's skin because he would have bet all he had stored in Gringotts, that if he did, he'd melt into a flushed lovesick puddle.
After watching him stare at the leaves for about three minutes without knowing what the hell to with them, Hermione couldn't take it anymore. "You have to remove the veins, Harry" said in an urgent whisper without looking at him while she did the task herself. Apparently, Harry took too much time processing the information because he heard "Hurry up! Get it done already" as if it was his subconscious trying to save him from dying from embarrassment; but no luck, it was Hermione again.
Waking up from his frozen state, he got to work. While he removed the vein of one of the leaves in a sloppy way that ruined most of it, he could feel Malfoy's burning gaze on him. And of course, when he was finished, he's eyes rose to meet those piercing grey ones. Harry's cheeks turned pink as Malfoy shot him a look that said Are you kidding me? and Harry added that moment to his list "Things not to do in front of your crush". Malfoy encircled the table slowly, and Harry´s heartbeat speed increased inversely proportional to the distance between him and Malfoy. When he was by Harry's side, he reached for a leaf and as he did so, his hand gently brushed the skin of Harry´s forearm. Feeling the soft and warm skin against his own made his chest bump and the back of his neck burn.
"You should cut first like this, then you have to pull aside the leftover and now you can remove the vein. Come on, now you try. But remember to be careful, we don't want to spoil any more leaves. This are a rare variety that can only be found in Africa"
Harry, being aware of how strange it would be to just stare at Malfoy some more, being delighted with his smooth words and the way his gray eyes looked with the warm lighting of the greenhouse, he did as told and followed Malfoy's instructions step by step without daring to look at the blond. He extracted successfully the needed part of the rare African leaf and his stomach dropped to his feet when he looked up and found a gaze so warm and caring that he went speechless. All he could manage to do was raise the vein and show it to Malfoy like a little kid would with his favorite teacher. "You did perfect" said Malfoy cheerfully like he was indeed a proud teacher and went back to his place.
Then yes, Malfoy must have thought that his brain was the size of a peanut. Nevertheless, far from being kept up only by the embarrassment, the memory of his soft skin against his own was making Harry shift around in the covers and he would shiver just by remembering how the icy gaze didn't seem to abandon him for the rest of the class. More than ever Harry desired to touch him, kiss him, bit him and rub himself all over that precious pale skin. Yet, in order to do all that, he had to make the first move and furthermore, Malfoy had to accept at least to go on a date with him. Even though Hermione was sure he would (she was now a hundred percent after that herbology class), Harry wasn't so much. There still wasn't any proof of Malfoy being into guys and Harry didn't thought highly enough of himself to be Draco Malfoy's boyfriend material. Whatever was the case Harry would talk because otherwise he was going to implode.
With a knotted stomach and the resolution in mind, he headed towards the quidditch filed. Trying not to acknowledge the roaring multitude that was there to watch the game, he led his team from the lockeroom to the center of the field. When Mrs. Hooch made all the players shake hands, the determined and defiant look that Malfoy gave him, triggered a reaction in his nerves, which twitched all over his body until they reached his crotch, that gave a throbbing and hardened a little. What was going on inside of him must have shown in his face, for Malfoy gave a sly smile. "Good luck Potter" and Harry's only response was a small but noticeable shudder. Malfoy chuckled a little "It seems you're really going to need it." And Harry agreed, Gryffindor's team was in big trouble.
The match was a disaster. Harry was trying hard to clear his mind and look for the golden ball, but his eyes always landed on Malfoy who furrowed the air with his waving hair and rosy cheeks. Harry was off his game and was performing so horribly that Ginny smacked him a couple of times in the head as she told him to "be bloody useful". After a good whole hour of making a fool of himself, Harry herd cheering from the bleachers. He started looking in all directions and spotted a golden flash with his peripherical vision just a little behind of him at his left. He immediately turned his broom in that direction and managed to get a glimpse of his opponent rushing from bellow to where the action was occurring.
The snitch was now half a meter away from his incredibly stretched arm. The race towards it was almost a nosedive because the snitch was flying down while getting away. Malfoy was a little behind but the high of the golden ball was starting to favor him. Harry pushed his broom to its maximum speed and could almost feel the flutter of the little wings against his palm. As his hand closed around the snitch, he felt that something pushed him off the broom from bellow. With his free hand Harry tried not to fall grabbing the wooden part but was slipping by the second. Suddenly something pulled Harry up by his cloak and helped him take a better hold of the broom and even set one leg across it.
When Harry wasn't unstable anymore, was able to see the person who had helped him; and yes, as he had expected he found the icy grey eyes planted on him. Harry was panting and tried to thank Malfoy but before Harry could say anything he just sighed and returned to the ground. As if a silencing spell had just been broken, Harry was abruptly able to hear the roaring multitude of gryffindors that were cheering in the ground. He made his way down with mixed feelings fighting their way through him. From one side was the euphory of the victory that the snitch in his hand reminded him of, but from the other side was the sinking feeling in his stomach when he remembered the look Malfoy gave him.
Already in the lockeroom, he endured all of what the team had to say to him. It involved mostly yelling and some fairly earned threats which included three weeks of glued legs from Ginny and a request to McGonagall to switch team captain if he didn't perform better on the next matches. He sat there feeling tiny as everyone let out their anger against him for his poor performance when he had pushed them to the limits on each training session they ever had.
After what felt like hours, the whole team headed to the common room to the celebrate the triumph. Harry didn't really feel like partying, he just wanted to shower and go to bed. Talking to Malfoy in that moment felt like a terrible idea and he wasn't in the mood for a love confession and supposed the implicated wasn't either; he'd deal with Hermione's anger and then convince her to give him a couple more days; she wasn't that cold hearted anyways.
He sighed and as he turned to walk towards the showers, was surprised to meet his biggest source of distraction. Draco Malfoy was staring at him, back against a pillar and arms crossed. Harry screamed internally but, in the outside, just opened his eyes widely. For how long had he been there? Not much, Harry concluded. Only about five minutes had passed since his teammates left, and the hell they would have said something about the intruder. An even more important and puzzling question was, why was he there? If Slytherin had won the match it would be understandable for Malfoy to go and try to rub it in Harry's face, but they hadn't and not even the Hufflepuffs congratulated them after being beaten.
So, trying not to be rude Harry made the only obvious question. "Malfoy, what are you doing here?" The blond raised both eyebrows as if being surprised for not being the first one to speak and responded, "Oh you know, making sure your pals hadn't kick your ass and left you here crying alone" Harry gave him the weirdest of looks and said "Emm… thanks, but the guys would never do that to me". "No worries. I figured if I had saved the mighty Harry Potter one time today it wouldn't hurt doing it twice, but I'm guessing what I thought would be more accurate if we went to Durmstrang"
Harry felt his face heating, although he was pretty sure each of Malfoy's words had being said with taunt. "Nice to know how you think about me" Malfoy looked offended and said gesturing with his hands "That's what the Magic community thinks about you. I just think you were the opposite of a hero today. You screwed up really bad on the game, but some how you found a way to catch that snitch before I did. In the shower I came up with the theory that maybe is life repaying you for always being the good guy. I named it The Saint's Good Luck"
Harry was speechless. The image of the Slytherin in the shower thinking about him was stuck on his head and was making a mess out of him. He had trouble following the conversation and was only able to respond to what made less sense to him. "I'm no hero and I'm not always nice. Last year everyone thought I was pretty annoying" "Oh please. Like you didn't save every person that you encounter and was in any sort of danger. You'd run and risk your own life for any dumbass who crossed your path. But you just can't help it. It runs in your veins being selfless, and brave, and sweet and… and" and he shut his mouth. His cold façade was suddenly broken and he turned red from his neck till the roots of his platinum hair. Harry smiled as he felt a sudden lightness all over him and a little bit of hope began crawling from the dark pit Harry had burry it in.
He looked at Malfoy who didn't know what to do with himself; he looked awkward and nothing like he usually did, he didn't know how to arrange his arms and just scratched his head awkwardly. Harry walked in his direction and stopped about one meter away from where his interlocutor was. "The only thing I've ever been proud of are my quidditch skills. I might not be the best, but the hell I'm good. There's a reason I was off tonight. It´s just been wanting to ask you som…" Malfoy back to being himself cut Harry off raising one hand. "I think I know what it is that you want to tell me and that distracted you so much that the snitch tingled your nose and you didn't even notice" he took a deep breath and looked at Harry's now pale face. "After that day we met in here it was impossible for me not to notice you around the castle. And I'm telling you, even Weasley should have noticed the huge crush you have on me"
Harry in the embarrassed state he was in, managed to laugh awkwardly and said shyly "Ron kinda knew something was up"
"See? You were that bloody obvious. I wonder how it didn't end up in the Daily prophet. Anyway" he continued as Harry was about to argue about how no one cared about his love life. "some time went by and suddenly I couldn't get you out of my head. I started noticing things I hadn't when I was too busy hating you" "What things?" asked Harry with a curiosity that was able to overcome the excitement and awkwardness of the moment. Malfoy, taken by surprise by Harry's boldness, blushed and looked as he immediately wanted to take those words back. "Em you know… like how attractive you look with that messy hair that looks as you just woke up or the way you smile and laugh, so warm and bright. I don't know stuff like that. The point here is that I kinda started falling you. I was sure you'd notice all the flirting and the looks I couldn't control, but it appears only Granger did. And then I realized this couldn't be happening to me. Me, Draco Malfoy falling into the biggest of clichés? Crushing on the hero, the great Chosen one. No. That's for silly girls. Come on, I have some pride"
Harry just raised an eyebrow and walked a little bit closer to the blond. He wasn't enterally sure how to handle the situation. It wasn't every day that someone tells you they have a crush on you and then tell you off because a bunch of girls like you as well. As clumsy as Harry was, he tried his best to put on a seductive look and moved even closer to Malfoy. "You know that none of those girls, that are less than what you think, occupy one millimeter of space in my head. It has one and only resident that just keeps popping up every second of the day and night. And today I found out that he thinks I'm a hero, when the truth is that he is actual hero. You see, he saved my life today and I didn't even had the chance to thank him for it."
Their faces were now a few centimeters from one another. Harry could feel Malfoy's heavy breathing on his nose. Apparently, the proximity and Harry's heat where making Malfoy's head all fuzzy because what Harry said seemed to start making sense. "You are right, I am a hero. How rude of not to show how grateful you are. Maybe you are not that much of a good guy after all, those girls are following a fake lead. Though a thank you would very much appreciated" Harry listened to all that babble with a wide smile in his face and when Malfoy was finished talking, he just closed the distance and placed his lips gently over his.