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Above Rubies	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3404 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Above Rubies
- 2-Chapter Two
- 1
- 2
Title: Above Rubies
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Content Notes: Fake dating, angst, violence
Wordcount: This part 6500
Rating: R
Summary: There’s a Dark wizard brewing a powerful love potion that makes couples out of its victims, who he then collects. Few Auror pairs can pretend to be a couple and go undercover to stop him, since most of them are married to someone else. Which is the main reason that Harry is proposing to Draco on one knee with an enormous diamond ring in the middle of the Auror Department.
Author’s Notes: One of my Advent fics, in response to a request by feathered_ink: I’d love it if Harry and Draco could pretend to be in a romantic relationship (or even married), whether it's for a case (as Auror partners) or for any other reason, and of course they end up together in the end. I like buckets of UST and funny misunderstandings (although it'd be nice if the boys weren't too thick-headed about it). The setting is up to you. The title comes from Proverbs 31:10. This is a two-shot, with the second part to be posted tomorrow.
Above Rubies
“Draco, will you marry me?”
Draco’s eyes glinted down at him. Harry bit his lip to keep from snorting. It would ruin everything if they laughed now.
Which didn’t keep him from wanting to do it.
And he had to refocus his thoughts, or they would get nowhere. He knelt at Draco’s feet, on one knee, and gave him the most melting glance he could. The diamond on the ring was so huge that it was starting to hurt Harry’s hand, and so bright that it flashed back leaping light and Harry had to keep blinking.
Aurors turned and gaped. Harry ignored them, and their murmurs, and the sound of rapidly clinking Galleons changing hands. If they were going to prepare a cover capable of withstanding the Dark Lover’s gaze, they couldn’t let their colleagues in on the secret of their sudden romance, either.
“I am a covetous man,” said Draco softly, which immediately made most of the other noises fall into a hush.
Harry hid a groan. This wasn’t the script they’d prepared! What was Draco doing?
But two could play at this game, and were going to have to, from the warning gaze Draco was giving him. Harry tilted his head a little. “So am I. That’s why I’m proposing to you with a diamond the way you always said you wanted.”
Don’t be difficult, Malfoy!
Draco gave him a faint smile that broadened into a more gracious one as he examined the diamond. Probably because it was real and huge and flawless, Harry grumbled in his head. He’d had to buy the diamond on his own, but he knew the Auror Department would compensate him. Kingsley had said so. And he’d chosen a diamond like this so everyone else would assume Draco could really agree to marry him. He wouldn’t win Draco with a pathetic little ring and a one-carat diamond.
Draco had said that.
Harry kept his gaze fixed on Draco, and tried to make it pleading. Draco finally sighed as if he was granting an enormous favor and held out his hand, fingers extended.
Harry refrained from rolling his eyes as he slid the ring onto Draco’s finger. But really, he was the one making this harder than it had to be. The potion the Dark Lover brewed was supposed to make couples frantic for each other. If Draco held back and hesitated enough, then he might start suspecting they weren’t under his spell.
Perhaps Draco saw something of that in Harry’s eyes. Or perhaps he simply appreciated the diamond, because he reached down, grasped Harry’s wrists, and tugged him to his feet, then kissed him with crushing desperation.
Harry gasped into the kiss. His hands slipped down Draco’s shoulders on instinct, aiming for his arse. It was what he would have done with someone who was really his lover—
Someone who didn’t have to be shy about it, someone who wasn’t just pretending—
But Draco’s not going to let me down, Harry thought, as he lifted his mouth carefully from the kiss, and managed to stop his hands on the small of Draco’s back. We’re not going to be awkward about this, because that’s just not him.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “Is that yes?”
From somewhere that Harry had certainly never known about, Draco fetched a blush, and ducked his head until his eyelashes looked as if they were touching his cheeks. “If you think you can handle me,” he whispered.
Most of the Aurors standing and staring around them sighed, which only proved they couldn’t hear the real words and thought it was probably some romantic declaration. Harry licked his lips and reminded himself of the kiss.
“I can.”
“Then yes.” Draco’s eyes glittered as he raised his lashes again and let Harry look full-on into their sparking grey. “I do.”
That did make cheers break out, although Harry heard more than one person asking in confusion what Draco could possibly have said a few minutes ago. He lifted Draco’s hand in return and kissed his finger, then the ring. That made Draco’s eyes widen a satisfying amount.
“I love you as much as you love me,” Harry said. “Darling.”
They’d agreed on endearments, much as they had on the way Harry had to propose and the size of the diamond. There was no reason for Draco to look startled, then offended, and stand stiffly next to Harry for a few minutes of talking before he stalked back to his desk. Harry shrugged in the face of the gapes.
“He knows that we have to be devoted to our work in the next few days, if we want any time off to celebrate our engagement,” he said.
He’d got much better at lying since Hogwarts. Although a few people still gave them considering glances, most of the Aurors accepted that explanation and drifted back to their own work. And Harry went to tidy up his files and sign the reports he needed to sign, working steadily. They were going to disappear for a few days, after all.
Just not for the reason other people thought they were.
*
Draco ran his thumb over the smooth diamond, wishing, again, that all his staring earlier had been because of it. It was easy to imagine coveting a diamond like this, beautiful and rare. Harry had outdone all his expectations.
Unfortunately, what Draco coveted most, and knew he would never get, was the sight of Harry kneeling before him, his head a little bowed, his hand reaching up to offer Draco the ring while his voice spoke words of love and devotion.
That’s what you can’t have. That’s what you decided against having when you first learned Harry liked both men and women.
Draco had decided, quickly, that he wanted it too much, more than Harry did. That was unacceptable. He wouldn’t become the person who chased Harry’s love the way he had once chased his friendship. And he hadn’t suffered during the last few years. They’d worked together well as Auror partners. Draco didn’t wank to Harry’s image every night and pine after him hopelessly during the day, the way pathetic unrequited lovers did.
But hearing Harry call him “darling” earlier had touched on fantasies Draco hadn’t known he cradled against his chest. He couldn’t stand someone making fun of them. Not Harry, not the other Aurors who had patted their shoulders and joked with them.
He glanced under his eyelids over at Harry, who was sitting at his desk as he talked with Weasley. Weasley was one of the few who knew they were doing this to attract the Dark Lover’s attention, and so he didn’t stare at Draco with a gaping mouth the way most people in the Department had since this afternoon. Instead, he was leaning over and talking to Harry intently, his hands pale-knuckled on the side of Harry’s desk.
Harry only looked at him with a taunting little smile.
Draco breathed in and out, and did his best to ignore the way his stomach writhed. That was his smile, the way Harry usually looked at him right before they did something brilliant and rule-breaking and worthy of capturing large numbers of criminals.
Maybe I was wrong to think of it as just mine alone, though. He probably smiles like that at his friends all the time—
Draco glanced off to the side and busied himself with rearranging paperwork. He knew Harry could have friends, of course. It would be stupid to think he couldn’t. It was just that Draco hated being wrong.
“Draco, do you want to come with us? Ron and I are going out.” Harry’s voice lowered as he stepped up to the desk. “Or we can go out later alone, if you want.”
Draco tightened his shoulders. He could guess what his father would say, if he was still alive to see this. Do not encourage any delusions you should not have by saying yes.
On the other hand, they had to spend some time together if this deception was going to work. Draco let himself smile as he stroked the diamond on the ring with his thumb again. “You’re going to the Leaky Cauldron, right?”
“Right.” Behind Harry, Weasley looked nervous.
“Not my style of place, dear,” said Draco, and lowered his voice, too. At least that made Harry shift. Very good. “Be home by six. I’ll tell you where I want to go then.” He turned away with a grand dismissive wave and went back to filing paperwork.
Harry hesitated, but he could hardly make a scene about this now after the one he had made earlier. He just said, “Right,” with the slightest shade of uncertainty in his voice, and then turned and left the Auror Department.
Draco sighed and began counting down the minutes until he received an owl from Pansy. He hadn’t entrusted her with this secret because of the difficulty she had keeping it secret. But he could anticipate a Howler for not telling her about his engagement the minute it happened.
Ah, there it is now. Draco raised a spell around his desk that would at least confine the words and the explosion to himself, and waited.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing,” said Pansy’s voice, so calm that Draco could have deceived himself into thinking she wasn’t angry. Except that he knew her, he had known her for years, and Pansy always got angry over things like this. “I would blame Potter, but I know you lost your common sense a long time ago.”
Draco rolled his eyes. They had always disagreed over his becoming an Auror. Nice to know she hadn’t forgotten and would jab him with that argument whenever she could.
“But I think you’re playing with fire that’s going to eat the skin off your bones, Draco, not just burn you. And I don’t know how long I’ll feel like sitting at home with a bottle of Firewhisky waiting to hear your woes. If you come back to yourself and want to talk to me within two hours’ time, fine. Otherwise…”
And the Howler ripped itself to pieces on that ominous note.
Draco closed his eyes and let himself just breathe for a few seconds, reassuring himself that Pansy hadn’t let anyone else know what was going on. That wasn’t her way. She could be as angry at Draco as she liked, but she was the one who got to be angry, not random people who still blamed Draco for being a Death Eater.
That shows how fragile I’ve become more than anyone else, my conviction that she would gossip about it.
Wearily, Draco stood and started gathering his reports. If Harry could go out to the Leaky Cauldron, Draco could nip off for lunch with Pansy, and for the sake of keeping a whole skin and an untroubled sleep.
*
“I can’t believe you agreed to do this.”
Draco shrugged and sipped at his wine. Perfectly flavored, as always, with the hint of strawberries that only Pansy’s elves knew how to add. Draco had asked them how they did it, but they bowed and scraped and dithered, and he knew Pansy had forbidden them to tell him.
“The Aurors need a pair who can pretend to be affected by this potion the Dark Lover brews, who aren’t married, who don’t have commitments elsewhere. Harry and I are almost the only ones in the whole Department who fit that, and the only senior pair.”
“Harry.”
Draco looked away.
Pansy sighed and put a hand over his. “I don’t want to see you get hurt,” she said. The streaks of artificial, glowing silver that she’d added to her hair sparkled in the sunlight through the window. Draco watched them instead of her face. “That’s the only reason I’m objecting to this. Not because I think you can’t handle it or you’ll get hurt physically.”
“I never thought you were objecting to it for that reason.”
“But you won’t give it up?”
Draco held up the diamond engagement ring in a silent answer.
Pansy gave a sigh as heavy as a drowning victim’s and waved her hand. Another bottle of wine immediately appeared on the end of the table, the house-elf who brought it popping in and out so fast Draco missed them entirely. “Fine. Then let me drink to the success of your mission and come up with the words I’ll hit Potter with if he breaks your heart.”
“Thank you for saying words and not curses.”
“Some words hurt worse than mere curses.”
Draco opened his eyes, saw the dangerous gleam in Pansy’s, and prudently held his tongue.
*
“I can’t believe that you and Malfoy have to do this.”
Harry looked at the ceiling as he helped Ron through the Floo into the house he shared with Hermione. It was better than looking at Ron’s red, earnest face. At least he know Ron would only object like this, and speak the truth about the mission, when he was drunk, and they’d headed out of the Leaky Cauldron before Ron got too loud.
Even with Harry’s help, they half-fell onto the rug in front of the fireplace. Hermione clucked as she came over to help them stand.
Ron rolled onto his back and gazed up at her with adoration that made Harry’s heart ache. It was the kind he would have liked to give—someone. “Hermione, Harry and Malfoy shouldn’t be doing this,” Ron explained gravely.
“But the Minister asked them to, and they agreed,” Hermione pointed out, as if that was the end of it. It probably would be for her, knowing her and authority figures, Harry agreed silently. "They can do it. You don’t have to worry about them.”
“Wouldn’t worry about Harry if it wasn’t for Malfoy.” Ron struggled to his feet. Hermione turned him and got him seated on the couch. “Harry could lose his head around him.”
“Draco would never betray—”
“Didn’t mean—didn’t mean that. Didn’t mean that. Only meant that you stare at him too much and spend too much time with him and dream about him too much. You could lose your head around him.”
Hermione gave Harry a concerned look. “I’m sure Harry knows where the lines of professional conduct are.”
I do. That was the problem, really. Harry knew he could dream and look and stare, but he also knew, because Hermione had sat him down and explained it to him, that a lot of that longing came from spending so much time with Draco in situations filled with adrenaline. If he and Draco weren’t Auror partners, Harry might be on friendly terms with him, but he wouldn’t want him that way.
They were partners, though. They couldn’t afford to have an affair go sour and ruin their working relationship. Ultimately, although Harry might want Draco and dream of more, that was more precious to him, having Draco watch his back in battle and leap right in beside him as the curses flew.
“But this case might blur the lines,” Ron said, with more wisdom than Harry would have expected from him this late. “Might make him think about other things. He might have to do other things." He gave Harry a look of bleary sympathy. “Might make him wonder…”
Hermione sighed. “I know, Ron.” Her hand moved to stroke Ron’s hair back in a gesture so habitual that it made Harry’s heart ache more than their mad snogging when they were newlyweds had. “I know that it might happen.” She gave Harry a look that said it shouldn’t.
Harry nodded. Hermione would have a much easier time controlling her hormones if she was in a situation like this, he knew that. But he could be rational.
If I haven’t grabbed Draco after a battle so far and introduced his throat to my tongue, I can be rational now.
After he Flooed home, Harry looked at the paperwork for buying the diamond, which he would have to turn in to the appropriate department for compensation after the case was over. The price could sober him, he thought. The price could remind him of another thing he would have to give up even if he was dating Draco, which was financial security.
I could never spoil him the way he would want to be spoiled.
It was a shame his dreams didn’t agree.
*
Harry was at the Manor at six-thirty, looking calm and dapper in a set of those robes that weren’t exactly dress robes but certainly weren’t an Auror uniform. Somewhere between dark green and black, they flattered his body in ways that made it hard for Draco to look at him. Draco swallowed and jerked his eyes back to Harry’s face, holding out his arm.
Harry evidently mistook the gesture for something else. “These are for you,” he said, and let an enormous bunch of snowy flowers settle into Draco’s hand.
Draco stared at them. They were lilies, he knew that, but they had been enchanted to have streaks of yellow down their mouths, and their petals were shaped into—Draco stared closer. Yes, miniature dragons, stylized ones with curved bodies and wings and open mouths.
“How did you…”
“The charms to change color were simple enough.” Harry shrugged, keeping his eyes on the ground. “I get Madeline in Magical Games and Sports to help me with the dragon shapes.” He raised his eyes back. “Do you like them?”
“How did you know lilies were my favorite flower?”
“I didn’t. I got them for you because they’re my favorite flower.”
Their gazes clung for a long moment, and then Draco cleared his throat and looked away. “Thank you. They’re lovely.” With shaking hands, he placed the lilies in a clear green vase, made of old jade, that he’d found too lovely to get rid of but also not useful. Then he handed the flowers to a house-elf with instructions to put them in water.
“Lovely,” Harry echoed. Draco wasn’t sure what he meant. This time, Harry was the one who put out his arm. “Shall we go?”
Draco let Harry escort him down the gravel path and to the gates, where he murmured into Harry’s ear, “I think I want to go to Pan’s.”
For a moment, Harry’s fingers jumped in surprise. Then he said, “Even though you got assaulted the last time we were there?”
“But I was drunk and making horrible accusations then,” Draco said. “I want to make a memory to replace this. Please? The food’s delicious, and I promise I won’t get drunk.” He traced his fingers slowly along the bone of Harry’s arm, telling himself that he could, that it was behavior considered decent for any engaged couple.
“I—fine,” Harry said. “Ron got really drunk at the Leaky Cauldron, anyway, despite it being lunch. I don’t even plan to order wine at Pan’s.” He clasped his hand steadily on Draco’s and stared into his eyes a moment.
Knowing he shouldn’t, Draco still looked back without much of a mask. Harry turned his head to the side before they Apparated.
*
Pan’s was a nice restaurant, Harry had to admit. Walking through the oaken front door was like walking into the middle of a deep, green-lit forest. The walls that loomed around them were carved to look like trees, and the illumination that filtered through the arching branch-rafters was the sort of sunlight that you would get in the middle of that forest.
And there was music playing, low pipes that wound through every other sound—the conversation, the noises of breezes and creaking of wood, the flapping of leaves—without overwhelming them. Now and then a goat that might be real or pure illusion would trot into view, and stare at them, and bolt out of sight.
But it was still unnerving to remember that the last time he and Draco had been here, they had been arguing about a case, and Draco’s voice had risen too high as he accused Harry of carelessness and suicidal behavior, and someone had recognized him, and decided to “punish the Death Eater.” Even worse, Harry had to talk them out of the situation, and he knew it was only because of his name that Draco hadn’t been banned from the restaurant permanently.
It hadn’t been Draco’s fault. That would never matter to some people.
Harry escorted Draco on his arm to the largest nearby table, which was carved to look like a stump rising out of the moss at its feet. The chairs were stone, but provided with a Cushioning Charm. Draco settled across from him, looking strangely content. Harry cocked his head at him.
“A Sickle for your thoughts.”
“You think they’re worth that much?” Draco leaned down to read the menu carved into the top of the table.
“Yes.”
Harry waited patiently while Draco dithered through the food. He already knew what he was going to order. He couldn’t get roast mutton done anywhere else the way Pan’s did it, and ever since he had discovered that, he’d become a lot more accustomed to eating mutton.
“Fine,” Draco said, and looked up, and waved his hand with a flourish. A deer bounded into view, a tall stag with velvet-sheathed antlers and liquid brown eyes that always made Harry ache a little. “I want the duck baked with the stew of mushrooms, and the Elvendraught wine.” He glanced at Harry, and the stag turned its head at the same time.
“The roast mutton,” Harry said, “with water.” The deer bowed his head to both of them, and bounded off through the “trees.”
“I think,” Draco said, turning back to Harry, “that I should never have allowed anyone to drive me away from this restaurant in the first place.”
“Well, that wasn’t your fault,” Harry said. “I don’t blame you for being afraid after what that bastard said about you.”
Draco shook his head. His face was set in calm, stubborn lines, and Harry waited, because that was the only way to get Draco to talk when he was in this mood. Draco’s fingers strayed over the wood of the table and the stone of his seat and the cloth of his own robes before he finally spoke.
“I wasn’t afraid. I was humiliated. I thought everyone else in Pan’s thought the same thing but was too polite to say it.
“And I wanted to run away from my past.” Draco looked up abruptly, his eyes harder to meet than the illusion stag’s had been. “I never told you, did I, that that was one reason I became an Auror?”
“You never told me it was a reason.”
“A Death Eater can’t be an Auror. A Death Eater can’t be Harry Potter’s partner.” Draco clenched his hands in front of him. “And I thought, well, if I could make myself into those things, then no one could taunt me with my past. But it didn’t work. It never will for some people. All they’ll ever see is my left arm.”
“Wait,” Harry interrupted, reeling a little, and needing to know. “Are you saying that you only wanted to be my Auror partner because you wanted people to stop referring to you as a Death Eater?”
Draco snorted and gestured like someone throwing salt over his shoulder. “Of course not. I didn’t do anything that would make them assign you as my partner except be good. But once I had the chance, I was bloody well going to take it.”
“Oh.”
“You must know there are more reasons for me being your partner than that, Potter.”
Draco hadn’t called him by his last name in years, except when they were undercover. Harry winced and didn’t look up from the stump. “I know.”
Draco sighed and caught his wrist. Harry looked up because it was hard not to, with his wrist being tugged on so hard like that.
“I’m always double,” Draco murmured. “In my motivation, I mean. The good motives that you probably expect most people to have, and then the motivations that I can’t help seeing. I can’t stop being selfish because you’d like me to.”
Before Harry could reply, his grip crushed down on Harry’s fingers, and he lifted them and brought the knuckles to his lips. “But I swear to you,” Draco murmured, his breath tickling across Harry’s skin, “that part of my selfishness is wanting you to survive and be happy. I would never do anything to hurt you if I could help it.”
Harry breathed out. He did know that, and he did actually appreciate the reminder. He flexed his fingers a little in Draco’s hold, and it loosened, but didn’t let go. Draco leaned forwards with his eyes glittering wildly.
“Harry? You know that?”
“I know.”
Draco let him go and ran his thumb over the diamond in his engagement ring, smiling a little. “And I do appreciate fine things, and that you were willing to buy something this big and expensive for me.”
Harry cleared his throat. The conversation had shifted, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he was following it down all its paths. “That—wasn’t something I only bought from a desire to please you, either.”
“I know.”
Draco’s smile was as heavy as an arm across his shoulders, and Harry frowned at him. He had meant that his buying the diamond was a step in their undercover game. But Draco’s words seemed to turn it into something else.
But the stag bounded back then, two covered dishes floating behind it and steaming with wonderful smells, and Harry didn’t have to contend with Draco in a game of words. He ate his mutton, and Draco ate his duck and drank his wine, and the conversation flowed into safer channels.
The conversation, anyway. Harry wasn’t sure that Draco’s smile and eyes ever went back to being exactly normal.
*
Draco swayed a little as he got up from his seat, and felt Harry immediately grab his arm, and then his shoulder and waist. “Lightweight,” Harry muttered. Draco snorted, but he couldn’t disagree. Perhaps he shouldn’t have had the wine.
He couldn’t blame his honesty on it, though. That had happened before the stag brought their food and before he took a single drink.
He let his gaze linger on Harry as he dropped the Galleons on the table to pay for their meal; they took turns paying, and it was Harry’s. Draco had said that he always had a double motivation, and if Harry had been a little surprised by him admitting it, at least he hadn’t complained about it.
And right now, his motivation was that playing things up would look good for the gossip they needed to spread about supposedly being under the Dark Lover’s potion, and it would give him something he’d wanted for years.
He held out his hand, and Harry automatically took it, guiding him towards the door of Pan’s. Draco let his head loll to the side, and heard the way Harry clucked his tongue as he turned to stare down at Draco, shaking his head.
“Are you drunk?” Harry asked out of the side of his mouth.
No, I’m desperate. But Draco didn’t think that would earn him any points, with either himself or Harry or Pansy or anyone who mattered and might be observing them, so he only smiled back and said, “No. But I would like a kiss.”
Harry didn’t stop walking, but it was a near thing. Draco thought only training kept him moving. “Here?”
“Would it make any difference if we were in private?”
“I don’t think you would be asking for it if we were in private.”
“You might be surprised,” Draco murmured back, raising his head further. Harry’s lips were only a millimeter or so above his as they whispered to each other. And Draco’s body was aching. He wanted to shift back and press against Harry, force him to acknowledge what was happening here, and that he wanted it as badly as Draco did. “Come on, Harry. You wouldn’t hold back and taunt me, would you? It would be cruel.”
Harry hesitated only once more before he brought his mouth down.
It was slick and wet, sweet with the aftertaste of Pan’s sauces, dark as some of the corners of the illusory wood. Draco clutched at Harry’s shoulder, as much to hold himself on his feet as to paint a convincing picture. Harry kissed firmly, without any—
Without any hesitation. Even though Draco knew he must be feeling it. He must be thinking of—
Of things that Draco had no wish to think of, himself. He dug his fingernails into the back of Harry’s neck, and was pleased to hear Harry gasp a little from the sting. The kiss grew firmer. Draco chuckled into Harry’s lips without meaning to.
It seemed Harry liked a little pain with someone kissing him.
Harry abruptly lifted his head and drew Draco out of Pan’s. Draco didn’t mind. He’d got what he wanted, and his head was spinning more with that than with the wine. And even this running away would fit with their cover. Their audience would just think that Harry wanted to continue the affair somewhere with more privacy.
Harry force-marched Draco down Diagon Alley to the Apparition point, and took them back to his own flat. Draco couldn’t help looking around with a new sense of things when they landed, even though he’d been there dozens of times before and the dusty red furniture was the same as ever.
Now he could think of the corners that Harry might slam him into, the couches he might get laid out on, and he shivered with delight as he broke away and strode towards the kitchen.
“What was that all about?”
“Promoting our game.” Draco didn’t look over his shoulder as he took down a glass and filled it with conjured water. He pushed the glass against his cheek. He felt so flushed that he knew he needed that more than it.
“Then you weren’t drunk.”
“Drunk on you,” Draco said, and swallowed most of the water with an easy jerk of his head.
“Don’t.”
Draco jumped. Harry was closer than he’d thought, and his hand came past Draco’s head to take the glass away. He was glaring at the back of his neck, and Draco twisted a little under his regard, but still didn’t turn around.
“I don’t know—if you think this is funny or what, but—”
“You don’t kiss in a funny way,” said Draco, and his voice had gone lower than he’d ever let it get with Harry before. He pivoted around and locked his eyes on Harry, and he let them burn. Harry was the one who shut up and stared at him. “I wanted that.”
“Because you’re drunk.”
“No. Because I have a bloody engagement ring on my finger and I wanted to see what you kiss like.”
Harry closed his eyes. He didn’t even know what to feel, Draco surmised, watching the emotions chase themselves across Harry’s face like clouds racing through the sky. If he ought to feel guilty for supposedly taking advantage of Draco, or outraged that Draco was taking advantage of him, or appalled that their undercover work was going like this, or…
He settled on being tired.
Harry stopped caging Draco against the cabinets and wandered back outside into the drawing room, where they’d landed. Draco took a moment to reclaim the glass Harry had set on the counter, and followed him. He sat right across from him, and stared until Harry had no choice but to look back.
“Why do you want this?” Harry asked. Simple. Desperate.
Hard to answer.
But Draco had started this portion of the game, and he was the one who had to answer. “Because I’ve been thinking about you for a while. The way you move. The way you fight. That there’s no one I’d rather trust at my back.” And that was true. Even Pansy, though she had many fine qualities Draco valued in his friend, would probably be unable to resist striking at his back.
If only to teach me better than to trust someone like that.
“But I can’t give you what you want in the end.”
Draco frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t like having a high-profile life the way you want. I don’t have enough money to buy you things like that all the time.” Harry nodded to the diamond on Draco’s finger, and looked away when Draco tilted it so it flashed and sparkled. “You like going to Ministry galas. I don’t. You want a partner, fine, but I’m a good Auror partner. Nothing more than that.”
“You think that matters more than the fact that you know when I need to go somewhere and be cheered up? Next to the way you start petty little fights that don’t matter with me, and offer yourself as a target just so I can work off steam? The way you somehow managed to put Weasley’s good qualities on display until I admitted that he’s not such a bad bloke?”
Harry blinked slowly enough that Draco thought he would have had time to count each eyelash. “I know publicity and being pampered matter to you. You told me often enough.”
Draco shrugged. “Surely you’ve noticed I haven’t dated anyone in the past year or so.”
“You said no one could measure up to your standards.”
“That’s because I found a new standard.” Draco wished Harry had a glass in hand, but as it was, he settled for leaning forwards and clinking his water glass against the battered pocket watch Harry never took off. A present from Mrs. Weasley, Draco knew. It had belonged to one of her brothers, and she’d given it to Harry for his seventeenth birthday. I know so much about him. “You.”
Harry let out a ragged breath. “But what happens if we have a bad rupture and then we can’t trust each other to protect our backs in battle anymore?”
Draco shook his head. “I think we could both be mature enough to get past that.”
“When we have this between us?” Draco thought Harry would only wave a hand up and down, but instead, he reached out and pressed the back of his hand against Draco’s cheek.
Draco gasped and felt his body seize up. His eyes were rolling back in his head. He felt a spark sizzle through his blood that he was absolutely sure was real, their magic mingling and responding to each other’s, not a delusion. He reached out and snagged his fingers around Harry’s wrist, and the sensation grew in intensity. Then he pulled, and Harry was on the couch beside him.
“Draco…” Harry gasped in warning.
Right now, Draco was far more drunk than he could ever be on Elvendraught wine. He leaned over and kissed Harry again, and this time, he was in a position where he could thrust his tongue into Harry’s mouth. The warmth was thicker, wetter, and he eased down onto Harry’s body, holding him flat with a hand on his chest.
It was so good, it was wonderful, it was burning, and the only thing Draco could think of that would be more wonderful was bare skin. He eased his hand under Harry’s robes.
And then Harry caught his wrist, and shook his head, and moved it back, and sat up, and raked his fingers through his hair, trying to make it look less disheveled than it really was, all the while without looking at Draco.
Draco wanted to punch Harry. He closed his eyes and dug his fingers into his palms until they hurt. “Why?” he asked tightly.
“Because we’re on the case.”
Draco opened his eyes and sat back. That wasn’t the same as an eternal no. “And after the case?”
“Give me a fortnight.” Harry was staring at the diamond ring on Draco’s finger. Draco turned his hand and made the gem sparkle again. Harry looked sharply aside. “I need to be sure that these feelings are real, not part of the game.”
“I would never play with you like that!”
“But you might be doing it without realizing it. How much of this comes down to the freedom we have to act like lovers in public? And to pretending to be engaged? If there’s any chance that it could be real…”
“You want it to be.”
Harry nodded and met his eyes again. “I want it to be.”
Draco was silent, thinking about it. He had learned some lessons that urged him to seize this moment now, before it passed. Harry might be mistaken about his own feelings. He might feel differently in the morning. Or he might reach the end of his fortnight and decide against it for reasons of nobility and honor.
Fuck nobility and honor. And I’d get to fuck him.
But in the end, Draco did have to admit it would be better, longer-lasting, if the vision Harry held out was real. He sighed. “All right. I’ll give you a fortnight after the case. But that is all I’ll give you. A concrete answer or nothing.”
“Thank you,” Harry whispered. He stood up and extended a hand. Draco took it, wondering if he should shake it or kiss it or what. But Harry made up his mind for him by giving Draco’s wrist a single, firm wring.
“I know you could have lots of people. Thank you for choosing me.”
Before Draco could respond to either part of that utterly insane declaration, Harry turned and vanished into his bedroom, leaving Draco to find his own way out. Not at all the sort of thing a good host would do, Draco thought, amused, standing up to find the Floo powder. His mother would have turned up her nose at the notion of Harry becoming a Malfoy spouse for that reason alone.
But she didn’t know. Draco would never tell her. And as he did go home alone, he cherished the promise of more that Harry had given him, more than he had ever expected to win.
It was too bad he had only a moment to enjoy that feeling, cut short when the dark figure in his room Stupefied him without a word, and Draco likewise fell.
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Above Rubies