Sunday, 5 January 2003

Draco was just about to go downstairs when he felt the wards of the Manor warning him about an intruder. Who the fuck wasing here, unannounced, at this hour, on a Sunday? It couldn’t be Blaise or Pansy, the wards didn’t react to them.

Cursing under his breath, Draco hurried downstairs and opened the door. He was met with the sight of a startled Potter, holding several bags.

“What—What are you doing here?” Draco asked. He watched as Potter’s eyes quickly darted down his body and back up, his mouth falling open.

“You—You’re wearing a dressing gown.”

Draco knew he was blushing, and mentally swore. The embarrassment from last night hadn’t even worn off yet. Leave it to Potter to add a little extra, just in case.

“Yes, well, and whose fault is that?” he snapped. “Thanks to you, showing up herepletely unannounced, I didn’t have time to get dressed. Properly,” he added, hastily. Potter didn’t need to know he wasn’t wearing anything underneath. “Which brings us back to my question, Potter. What are you doing here?”

“Ah, I just—I wanted to make sure you got home okay last night.” He looked sheepish. “I brought breakfast,” he said, almost sounding apologetic.

“You brought breakfast,” Draco echoed.

“Yeah, um…Can Ie in?”

Too baffled to say anything, Draco just stared at him. This wasn’t a good idea. But… Potter hade all this way…and Draco was a bit hungry. How much harm could breakfast do…right? Fuck, his self-discipline really sucked these days.

Regarding Potter warily, he slowly stepped aside. His mind immediately screamed at him that he could not, under any circumstances, have breakfast with Potter, on a Sunday, in his home, practically naked! Well, too late for that, he thought as Potter stepped into the dining room, put down the bags and murmured a spell. A whole bunch of tableware came flying from the kitchen and placed itself neatly on the table.

“Please, make yourself at home,” Draco muttered sarcastically as the bags started to unpack themselves.

“I would, if you tell me where the coffee machine is,” Potter grinned, shrugging off his coat. “You do have a coffee machine, right?”

Draco rolled his eyes and wordlessly stomped off into the kitchen. Potter followed him, which was, in Draco’s opinion, highly unnecessary.

It was weird, having Potter in his kitchen. He seemed to share the sentiment. At least he started fidgeting with his jumper while peering at Draco from under his lashes. Correction, he was peering at Draco’s bare legs. Draco coughed quietly, trying not to feel too flustered.

“Huh, you haven’t changed anything,” Potter said, looking around.

“What?"

“Oh, I don’t know, I somehow expected you to—Nevermind.”

Draco flicked his wand to get the coffee machine going and narrowed his eyes at Potter.

“You’ve never been in my kitchen.”

“Actually, I have,” Potter said. “I was part of the Auror team that, err, made sure this place was, err, safe to live in. You know, after your trial.”

“I didn’t know that,” Draco said, taken aback. Huh. Maybe that would explain why Potter had waltzed in here without even batting an eyelash. Draco would have thought he would be more…traumatised by the Manor. Draco still was. Sometimes. “But you were barely training to be an Auror then.”

“Yeah, well…” Potter shrugged. “Robards thought it might be a good idea for me to tag along. I wasn’t dying to get back in here but it was almost therapeutic, getting rid of all the dark magic that was still lingering in the corners, so to speak.”

“I see,” Draco said flatly. Potter seemed to catch his irritation.

“I thought about telling you,” he said.

“Why didn’t you?” Draco asked, raising an eyebrow. “We bumped into each other often enough.”

“How was I supposed to bring that up?”

Draco had to admit, Potter had always been pants at making conversation. And if he was being honest, he probably wouldn’t have let Potter explain everything properly. It would have hurt his pride too much. It still did, a little bit.

“I was surprised you wanted to stay here,” Potter said. “I would have thought you’d get a new place. One without so many…memories.”

Draco inwardly groaned. “It’s one of the few things the Ministry let me keep,” he said, almost defensively. “Were you involved in those decisions, too?”

Potter slowly shook his head. “I wasn’t.”

“I see,” Draco repeated, because, honestly, he had no idea what else to say. This conversation was awkward and unpleasant and far from how he wanted to spend his Sunday morning. Casting a quick glance at the coffee machine, he turned around and marched back to the dining room, Potter at his heels. Draco watched him closely, and warily, as he sat down opposite of him. Neither of themmented on the fact that Draco hadn’t chosen to sit at the head of the table. He couldn’t. Aside from the fact that the Dark Lord had sat there while he had made Malfoy Manor his headquarters, it was his father’s seat. And as much as Draco had distanced himself from him by now, a part of him still couldn’t shake himpletely. Maybe he never would.

Not wanting to ponder on that, especially with Potter right in front of him, he quickly summoned two napkins. Of course Potter had otten about that. The heathen. His eyes scanned the food Potter had brought, irritation flaring up in him when he noticed the prat had actually managed to pick up a lot of his favourites. Huffing, he grabbed a croissant and a few raspberries and put them on his plate.

“So, howe you’re having breakfast with me? Was everyone else unavailable? Are you that desperate forpany, Potter?” Draco inwardly cringed. He had meant to insult Potter, not flaunt his self-loathing.

Potter shrugged. “I told you, I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“Yeah, except, I don’t buy it,” Draco said, biting into the croissant. “Why are you really here?”

Potter started fidgeting with his jumper again, making him look very suspicious. “We, err, we didn’t really get to talk last night. I mean, we did, but…not really. Not enough.”

Draco’s eyes widened. Not enough. What was Potter on about?

“You want to talk,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “About what?”

“Nothing,” Potter shrugged. “And everything.”

Draco’s brow rose even higher at that. “You have enough friends, Potter. You don’t need any more.”

“You can never have enough friends. True friends.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He gave him a speculative glance. “Trouble in Gryffindor-paradise?”

“No, no,” Potter laughed with a dismissive gesture. “My friends are great, it’s just…” He bit his lip again. “Most of them are a package deal, these days. They’re…They all have partners.”

“I see,” Draco said, annoyance ringing loudly in his voice.

“Oh, I’m not here because I’m lonely or anything,” Potter said, hastily. “Nor do I think you are.”

Somehow, Draco didn’t believe him. But he said nothing while Potter continued.

“It just sucks sometimes, you know, being stuck between being around couples all the time and people losing their shit over me. There’s not very much in between.”

“So…” Draco deliberately left the rest of the sentence hanging in the air. Potter seemed to pick up on that.

“So, you’ve always treated me…well, I’d like to say like a normal person, but that’s not exactly true, is it? But you never treated me like something I couldn’t live up to and you never walked on eggshells around me, either. I like that.”

Draco stared at him. While Potter had talked, two coffee cups had floated in from the kitchen and placed themselves in front of him and Potter. Draco quickly put two tablespoons of sugar in his, thinking hard while he picked it up and started stirring.

“Are you saying you liked that I was treating you like shit?” He narrowed his eyes. “Is that some kind of weird kink?”

Potter made a sound that was something between choking and laughing. “I don’t have a weird kink,” he said, and then added under his breath, “At least, that’s not one of them.”

Draco felt a prickle on the back of his neck which he tried very hard to ignore. Slowly, he took a deep breath, hoping Potter wouldn’t notice. “What exactly are you saying, then?”

“I guess I’m saying…I feel like I don’t have to pretend with you. You know, I…can just…be me.”

Draco almost dropped his cup. It seemed he had just lost control over his bodily functions. His eyes started watering as he stared at Potter without blinking, because he couldn’t move a single muscle. He noticed how the now slightly blurry, black haired figure in front of him started fidgeting again. Draco would have savoured it, if he wasn’t feeling so utterly ruffled.

What Potter had just said…It was the biggestpliment he had ever been given. Sort of. No, actually, it was. Still, Draco wasn’t entirely sure how Potter had meant it. Surely, Draco was reading far too much into it. This inexplicable…infatuation with Potter was making it unnecessarily hard to distinguish between actual spoken words and what he secretly wanted to hear.

He suddenly realised he was probably expected to give some sort of answer orment. But he had no idea what to say.

‘Great. Meanwhile, I feel like I’m going to hurl whenever you’re anywhere near me and my heart wants to jump out of my chest and into yours, but don’t mind me. You keep being yourself.’

He desperately tried to keep a straight face, slowly lifting the cup to his lips. Whatever he was going to say now, he had to divert Potter, but also himself if he was being honest, from the thunderstorm that was raging inside of him.

“So you didn’t play dumb, is what you’re telling me,” he drawled. “You’re being your true, imbecile self.”

Potter blinked at him like a barn owl. “What?”

Draco forced himself to smirk. “Exactly. But it’s alright, we’ll just add passion for the dense’ to my growing list of outstanding traits.”

Potter blinked some more, before he rolled his eyes and his lips stretched into a lopsided smile. “Clearly, you haven’t lost your charming modesty,” he snorted.

Sweet Salazar, Draco had made him smile. This was not helping. He put down the cup, his hands slightly shaking, and popped two raspberries into his mouth. He peeked over at Potter’s plate and frowned. Why had he bothered to bring breakfast if he wasn’t going to eat anything?

“Why aren’t you eating?” he asked. “Surely, you haven’t brought all this just for me?”

“Oh.” Potter bit his lip and suddenly looked…weird. Almost insecure.

“Go on,” Draco said, leaning forward and nudging his plate closer to him. Potter’s eyes immediately darted…where? Oh. Draco cleared his throat and rearranged his dressing gown, covering his exposed collarbone. “You’re making me nervous, sitting there without eating anything.” Well, at least half of that sentence was true.

Potter slowly nodded and reached across the table for the scrambled eggs. Draco noticed how unenthusiastic he looked, apparently lost in thought. He noticed too late that Potter was peeking right back at him and quickly turned his attention to his own plate.

“You just admitted I make you nervous,” Potter said, and Drac

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