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A Dubious Affection	By : Tommy-Lane Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 8449 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any charactors from the books and I am not making any money off of this

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Title: A Dubious Affection

Summary: Draco was rather fond of his job. That is until Potter starts popping up at his door with a new problem to fix every free chance he gets.

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Warnings: Ignores epilogue, language, oral, anal, M/M

Author’s Note: This will be 6 chapters long, I have it all already written and will updated every week until it’s all up.

A Dubious Affection

Draco Malfoy was rather fond of his job.

Scratch that, he loved his job. He loved the feel of it, the smell of it, the sound of it. He loved the barely audible tick, tick, tick, the minute gears that had to be fitted just right and charmed just so. He even loved the thick metal goggles that made his gray eyes bug out in a very unfashionable manner and the grease stains that frequented his shirt and fingers - even his cheeks and hair at times, a point which seemed to highly annoy his mirror, shrieking things akin to 'if only your mother could see you now,' and wailing's of 'haven't I been a good mirror? Showered you with compliments? Oh why do you treat me so!'

To which he would scowl, turn away sharply, and collapse onto his sofa with a glass of wine and a good book - the smudges still gracing his pale complexion. Small victory's, he liked those too, even if he was only winning against his own vanity mirror.

He also loved his cluttered workshop that was positively spewing spare parts and broken clockwork that liked to randomly come to life at the most inconvenient of times.

And he loved how lonely it was.

Lonely was such a lovely word that people simply just did not understand in Draco's humble opinion. It was beautiful to him, holding in its two syllable cadence all that he prized and deemed worthy. In his lonely little workshop he didn't have to listen to the inane chatter that simply would not stop and that positively grated on his nerves, rubbing them raw and making him grit his teeth.

No, no being lonely was much better, not only did it keep him away from the masses of dimwitted twits and their slacked mouthed jowls - but it also kept him from having to run across the ever growing Potter fan club that had only seemed to increase and intensify since his defeat of the Dark Lord ten years ago.

Yes ten years ago. He really figured it would have been old news by now but no, the fates weren't that kind. Instead he was continually graced with Potter's grinning mug, twinkling out at him from every single paper and magazine he passed. He didn't even read them anymore but that didn't stop him from seeing them, the horrid photographs must have had some sort of charm that made them jump out at Draco.

Why else would he notice them everywhere?

Honestly it was becoming so bothersome that he was seriously considering hiring someone to purchase his groceries that way he wouldn't ever have to leave the comforts of his flat.

Of course he hadn't always been so tormented by the groupies that liked to faint at even the suggestion that Potter was somewhere near, there was a time where he could look at the pale face and unruly black hair with barely a twitch of recognition. But that was before the wizard who was famous for not dying - a point which both annoyed and aggravatingly enthralled him - had come knocking on his door some weeks back.

Draco glanced up from his work and stretched the taut muscles of his back, the ache in his shoulders signaling a needed break from being hunched over his workbench. He shoved his goggles atop his head and stood on stiff legs, tossing the needle fine instrument down next to the broken clockwork.

He could vividly remember the first time Potter had acquired his assistance, the man had stood in his doorway, looking ratty and yet polished. A very odd contrast in robes that fit but were singed around the wrists and sagging around the neck, like he couldn't possibly stop tugging on it. He had shifted uncomfortably on his feet as Draco just watched him, a hand on his door, ready to shut it in the hero's face at any moment.

"It's broken." Potter had said in a rush, holding out a very old wristwatch with a tasteless cotton strap, numerous dents and scratches marring the plain surface. The thing was honestly a disgrace to watches everywhere and thus a disgrace to Draco himself.

"And?" Draco had lifted an eyebrow, Potter's gaze snapping to it with a cock of his head and a nearly unnoticeable shake - which at the time had seemed a little strange but then, of course, later that night his lovely mirror had informed Draco of the smudge above said mentioned brow, so well...mystery solved.

"You fix watches." Potter replied slowly like he thought Draco had spent too many months cooped up, huffing toxic fumes, and going slowly mad.

Which was really only partly true. Draco liked to think of it as becoming more...enlightened, then mad.

He nodded at Potter's obvious statement. Of course Draco fixed watches - clocks of any sort to be exact - that was why he was living in the little flat that was mostly made up of his workshop but also housed a small kitchen, a little bathroom, and a moderate but tastefully decorated bedroom. Really the question wasn't so much what Draco did for a living but what in the world had possessed Potter to be standing on his stoop. The black haired Ministry poster boy never spoke to Draco, never sought his assistance or his company, they generally ignored each other. It was a good system, nodding to each other if they ran across the other on the street and then progressing onward without any sort of interaction.

Draco liked it like that. It was predictable. It was clean and straightforward. He didn't like messy...well present clutter excluded.

So really it wasn't so shocking to find that Potter's sudden presence and the sound of his rough voice made Draco uneasy. It was against the unspoken rule of looking straight at the other and speaking. Draco couldn't remember the last time he had heard Potter's voice. Actually he could, it had been raining, there had been a pub and lots of drinks and then Potter...slurring his words in a tone that was so much huskier then when they had been at school, gripping Draco's robes as he tried to keep himself from falling and...Draco didn't like to think about that night. It tended to have negative effects on his sleep. Not to mention that had been years ago.

But here Potter was. Standing close, meeting Draco's eye, and speaking, and yet all he could do was find himself growing increasingly annoyed by a stray lock of black hair curling around Potter's glasses. Did the man not own a brush? It was just bad taste to walk around looking so...windblown. Of course his mirror would point out that he walked around with black grease stains but that was beside the point. "And?"

Potter glared and huffed, thrusting it towards Draco like he could trick him into taking it with sheer force. "And it needs fixing!" He exclaimed, glancing hopelessly at the incredibly old, dingy watch with distress. "I heard you’re the best around so..."

"So?" Draco repeated, finding he rather enjoyed the red tint that all of Potter's huffing and glaring was painting on his face. One would think that if the sainted hero hated him so much that he couldn't even stand to properly ask for assistance in Draco's field of expertise then he would have gone elsewhere. But there Potter was, glaring and swinging his damaged watch and glancing repeatedly at Draco's smeared brow like he was trying to vanish the mark just by looking at it.

"Come on Malfoy." He grumbled, carding a hand through his hair, the stray curl bouncing away from his glasses for only a moment before it sprung back into place. "Please?"

"Believe it or not, you haven't actually asked for anything yet." Draco pointed out and Potter frowned, most likely flipping back through their short conversation in his dim little head. The man seemed insanely distracted, looking at his watch with an expectation like it would magically start working again and set his life back in order.

Potter did seem like he needed a watch.

"Oh." He murmured. "Right. Will you fix it then? I can pay upfront."

"Give it here." Draco sighed, snatching the watch from Potter who looked like he wanted to protest before he remembered that he was the one who had asked for Draco to take it in the first place. Draco had held it in his hands next to his ear, listening for the faint hum or tick, of which there had been barely any. "It will be more hassle then it's possibly worth Potter. Just buy a new one." He moved to hand the watch back while closing the door between them at the same time.

"No!" Potter shouted, his foot catching in the door and preventing Draco from shutting it firmly. "It was a gift, I need...please try?" He looked positively like a kicked puppy about to get sent off into a snow storm. It was annoying that Potter could look like that while at the same time commanding the space of his door frame like he could burn the place down with a twitch of his cheek.

He'd heard the stories as well as anyone else had. Not that he believed them, honestly who could? Potter wasn't fucking Merlin or God. He couldn't be all powerful but that didn't stop the outlandish stories from circulating and making his little fan club’s hearts flutter maddeningly.

So he had fixed it. Not because of the stories or the powerful presence but because of the puppy look and the please. Potter had never said please to him before. It had taken the better part of a week with Draco hunched over his workbench, goggles magnifying his eyes like a crazed beetle, but he had done it. He had fixed the most unimpressive, rather dull wristwatch in all clockwork history and Potter positively beamed.

And then the strangest thing had happened.

Potter had stood just inside his door, holding the newly repaired watch, and staring at Draco. Honestly it was most unnerving, to the point that Draco found himself wiping at his cheek, worried that there might have been some grease smudged there. But there hadn't, nor was there any in his hair, or on his chin, or even his shirt for that matter but still Potter stared.

His eyes were much too green for such an intense look. Draco did not like it at all. "You can go now." He had grumbled after Potter refused to budge and just kept staring.

Potter lifted a hand, the other wrapped snugly around his precious watch, and pointed at Draco's face. "Goggles." He murmured.

Draco blinked and shoved the offending eye-wear onto his forehead, his vision adjusting to the newly diminished surroundings. "Magnification and protection, both highly needed for my line of work." He snapped, fighting a wave of unwelcome embarrassment at having forgotten to take the damn things off before Potter had shown up.

No wonder the git had stared. Draco knew he looked like a giant insect in them. But they were needed - he used to have an elegant pair of thin wired glasses but he had learned rather quickly that when working with sensitive charms on delicate gears sometimes things got a little heated and well...exploded. And Draco was rather fond of his vision. He rather liked to keep it, hence the horrid and yet amazingly useful goggles.

"Right." Potter breathed and then shook his head like he was trying to clear it of a disturbing thought, thanking Draco profusely and backing out the door while staring at the goggles digging into Draco's forehead like he was worried they were going to jump off and attack him.

The whole thing had soured Draco's mood, he even had yelled at his vanity mirror and then promptly scrubbed his face clean to make up for it. Which was just silly, since it was just a mirror, but still, he felt wretched. Leave it to Potter to reenter his life and make him feel...something. Whatever it was he didn't like it and he didn't think his goggles deserved such staring.

Potter was an Auror for Merlin's sake, he should have bloody understood about protective gear and if he didn't well...maybe that was why Mad-Eye looked the way he did. Maybe the department was just severely lacking.

Then of course the prat had to invade his dreams again, dreams that had been blissfully Potter free for quite some time. In it Potter had been devastatingly drunk, just like he had many many moons ago, wearing Draco's goggles and ruining all of Draco's fine-tuned and handmade equipment. Then he had run off to face some evil, nameless, dark wizard - wearing Draco's goggles and nothing else, coming back with an array of pearly white scars and muddy knees but spectacular vision.

It was odd to say the least. Odd and unnerving, just like everything Potter related.

Either way Draco was happy to settle back into his routine, fixing clocks and generally ignoring the rest of the human race. Of course it was just his luck that brought Potter back to his door a week later, holding a small mantel clock with splintered wood on the edges.

"Slipped off the mantel." Potter had explained, holding it out to Draco with something akin to a smile.

With a scowl Draco had took it, listened to its finely working tick, tock and handed it back. "It's fine, just ugly." He had proclaimed and slammed his door on Potter who looked positively shell shocked, clutching his clock tightly to his chest.

Draco decided he liked that look on Potter and was thus punished by having to dream about it, the dazed, shocked look plastered on Potter's flushed face as he withered against Draco's bedding. Why he was withering was anyone's guess but after that he decided that he was mistaken and definitely did not like the expression.

The next time Potter was back within two days, holding the same mantel clock which looked like it had been stomped into the ground. Repeatedly. "It slipped...again." Potter bit his lip and smiled, a real full lip stretching one this time. It was a smile Draco had only ever seen in the distance previously and always directed at other people, never at him.

Draco didn't know what to do with it. What exactly was one supposed to do with a smiling, lip-biting Potter?

He glared and snatched the clock, intending to proclaim its soundness and sending the man away again. But of course it wasn't okay, the poor damaged clock was barely clinging to life. He had frowned and fitted his goggles over his eyes to take a closer look, ignoring Potter's little intake of air as he focused his attention on the slowly dying enchantment stringing the mangled gears together.

"Come back at the end of the week." He instructed without looking up, his fingers already tinkering with the minute gears as he cradled the clock and headed into the depth of his workshop. Time had been of the essence.

And now it was Friday, Potter's clock was fixed, and there was a persistent knock on his door. Draco sighed, already tried from working through the night, hungry because he hadn't yet had time for breakfast, and annoyed because he couldn't seem to stop thinking about Potter's wretchedly annoying smile. Honestly he had only seen it twice (directed at him anyway, he saw it all the time on those bloody magazines) but it would not leave his mind alone, it liked to taunt him, much like the man himself liked to torment him. And now said man was here, just when he was about to take a break and finally eat something.

With a grumble, he quickly removed his goggles, smoothed his horribly wrinkled shirt, and picked his way across his cluttered workshop, reluctantly pulling the door open.

Potter stood on the other side with two steaming cups of tea in his hands and yet another bloody smile on his wide pink lips. He had obviously tried to comb his hair but still it stuck out at odd angles and hung all over his face, a pair of clean, form fitting acid washed jeans resting on his hips and a crisp red button down hugging his upper body - on the whole making Draco feel even more wrinkled, disheveled, and dirty then he had moments ago.

He frowned. Bloody Potter.

"Hi!" Potter greeted cheerfully, side stepping Draco and walking into his workshop as if he had been invited.

His workshop! No one ever came into his flat, it was his own personal space and he loathed people touching his things, poking about where they didn't belong. Just like Potter was doing, setting the cups down and snatching Draco's goggles from his workbench.

"What do you think you're doing?" Draco snapped as Potter toyed with the little dials on the edges of the hard metal. "Stop that." He grumbled, plucking them from Potter's grasp and slipping them back on, the thick black strap bunching his hair up around it as they came to rest atop his head. "You'll mess them up."

"Did you design them?" Potter asked, staring at the top of Draco's head and sipping at his tea, grimacing and smacking his lips as the steaming liquid entered his mouth. "It's hot." He, rather unnecessarily, pointed out, his mouth hanging open as he sucked in air.

"Yes." Draco said, moving around Potter to fetch the man’s newly fixed clock. "Now if you'd please..." Draco let his voice trail off as he placed the mantel clock in Potter's lap and glanced pointedly at the still open door.

"Wow, looks...great." Potter scrunched up his nose and laughed a little, the sound positively grating on Draco's last nerve.

Honestly as if coming into his place of work and touching his things wasn't bad enough but then Potter had the nerve to laugh at Draco's abilities?

"The clockwork is flawless, I assure you." Draco bristled. "I was not hired as a bloody woodworker, if you want it looking pretty again, you'll have to go elsewhere."

Potter set the clock down as he hopped atop the high bench and Draco frowned more deeply - that was not the actions of one preparing to leave. "Of course, I didn't mean to...sorry. You want your tea?" He asked, holding the second, untouched cup out to Draco - who eyed it suspiciously. "It's black with milk and a bit of honey, I didn't know what you like so I just...it’s good?"

Draco wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a question or a statement but he decided that it really didn't matter since he absolutely was not going to drink it. At least not while Potter was there. Perhaps after the infuriating, trespassing man left. Letting tea go to waste was a senseless thing in his opinion. Especially so early in the morning when tea was most wholeheartedly welcomed and enjoyed.

And he did like it with milk and honey. Only a little though, just enough to counter the bitter with a hint of sweet and he was sure Potter had gotten it all wrong - it was probably more the consistency of syrup then tea.

"Take it straight then?"

Draco glanced up from the proffered cup in Potter's hand to said man's face, glowering at the bloody persistent smile that was still there. "If you don't mind Potter, I have work to do."

Potter nodded gravely, glancing around for a moment before letting his gaze resettle on Draco and his goggle adorned head. "Yeah? It sounds interesting, never was good at the mechanics of things myself."

"Shocking." Draco grumbled, rubbing a tired hand over his tired face, belatedly noticing the grease on his fingers that was no doubt now smeared across his cheeks and nose. Bloody brilliant.

Potter stared at him intently, biting into his bottom lip harshly with his cup of tea hovering inches from the abused appendage. "Maybe." He stopped, cleared his throat, and tried again. "Maybe you could show me what you're working on?"

Draco narrowed his eyes and tore them from Potter's steadily reddening lip. "Why? Am I under investigation?" He was only half serious of course but then again...that would give some sort of logical explanation as to why Potter was being so chummy and chatty all of a sudden.

The Auror laughed. "Of course not...though should you be?" He turned his tone utterly serious but his eyes were dancing and Draco had to force himself to accept that Potter was...joking? Joking with him. Like they were friends.

God he needed to sleep. This had to be a delusion, maybe he had been huffing too many toxic fumes and ignoring clean air for too long.

He watched as Potter grinned and slipped from the workbench, stepping around its side and trailing his fingers along its contents. "Hiding something devious?" Potter cocked an eyebrow and moved to touch a delicate miniature wrench that not only tightened a certain type of welding but also plucked apart damaged spell work.

It had taken him months to make it and get it just right. And Potter was going to pick it up and Draco had seen how Potter handled delicate things. He crushed them. He smooshed them to smithereens.

"Don't. Touch. That." He hissed, his hand wrapped snugly around Potter's wrist, holding it centimeters away from his specialized tool.

Potter blinked at him, glanced up to his goggles, sucked in a breath, looked at his no doubt black smeared cheek, slid his gaze up his nose to his forehead once more, before finally resting on Draco's livid and slightly purple rimmed gray eyes.

Draco stared back, meeting the flaring emerald eyes head on and fearing that maybe this hadn't been the wisest of decisions. He hadn't been this close too Potter since the poor blighter had slipped in the street and clung to him for dear life. Potter's skin was unnaturally hot, his breath like little puffs of fire on his face, his pulse jumping beneath Draco's sensitive fingertips, his face flushing as Potter...held his breath?

Draco glanced down to see that Potter's chest was puffed and still, no air pumping in and out of it.

With a horrendous thought that he stunk to high heaven he released Potter with a quick jerk, stepping swiftly backward, trying desperately to remember the last time he had showered. It had been yesterday morning...right? That's it, he definitely needed to work less and sleep more.

"Possessive." Potter breathed and it was Draco's turn to blink in confusion.

"What?"

"Possessive. Of your things, that is." Potter let out a quick, nervous sounding laugh and straightened his impeccably wrinkle free shirt. "Do you always manhandle your clients?"

"My clients don't normally poke about my things. They take their clocks, leave their money, and run away."

A blush on Potter's cheeks was most confusing as he scratched his neck. "Er, right. Well I guess I should...go." He looked up, seemingly almost hopeful, his cheek twitching as Draco nodded in agreement.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Draco called out as Potter started towards the door with a little frown.

"Mhmm?" Potter looked up, hands shoved in his pockets as he stopped in the doorway.

"Your clock Potter." Draco sighed, picking up the dejected thing and handing it to the bewildered man.

"Oh, yeah, right. Thanks again Malfoy." And with one last long look that Draco couldn't possibly decode, he was gone, leaving Draco standing in his suddenly empty workshop.

Which was just absurd. It was far from empty and with an annoyed huff he snapped his door shut, crossed the room, picked up the cup of tea Potter had brought him and promptly took a sip - preparing to utterly hate it.

But of course it was perfect, just the right blend of ingredients, warming his stomach and lending light to his sluggish thoughts.

The bastard.
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A Dubious Affection