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“Just one more time Potter, I swear.”
Draco paces the obscene length of Harry’s office, practically wearing a hole in his gold-flecked chosen-one carpet. He mumbles to himself, trying to get the words just right, but still he comes up with a twisted tongue and shrinking patience.
He can feel Harry’s eyes follow him as he walks to one wall, back the other direction, sharp and steady and way too bloody amused for Draco’s liking.
“Well don’t lie Malfoy.” Harry smiles at him from across a ridiculously cluttered desk, leaning back in his dragonhide chair with hands behind his head, a sour sort of smugness to his posture.
“Fuck off.” Draco groaned, pulling on his hair. Scarhead was a sadist, Draco had decided only moments before, almost an hour into their impromptu meeting. A sick little shit who got off on Draco’s misery. “Im nervous alright? That what you want to hear, Potter? Because what am I meant to do if she says no? What if someone already asked her, or what if she —“
“Get on with it, Mr. O ne More Time Potter, I Swear .” Harry cuts him off with a taunting hand, waving at Draco as if to say he’s got better things to do than listen to him panic, but they both know that isn’t true. He’d been scrolling through quidditch stats when Draco burst in his office, and on company time too.
“Alright. Yes, okay.” Draco stops himself behind a wingback chair just opposite of Harry, considers sitting in it, does for a moment, only to stand up again a moment later. He’s just pressed his robes and he can’t afford wrinkles, not at a time like this.
He squares his shoulders under Potter’s expectant stare.
“Hermione, I — well you know there’s the Ministry gala this weekend for the New Year and, well usually I prefer to just skip these sorts of things but I thought I might go this year, to network you know, only everyone has a date already — really, even Theo is taking Potter — so I thought maybe…”
Draco stops and sucks in a breath, realizing that, based on the way Harry’s brows are slowly rising, this is his worst attempt yet. He continues all the same.
“I thought maybe I could take you or, rather, you could come with me. To the gala, that is. And not just because there’s no one else to ask. Not that you were thinking that, I just — fuck — I’d like to go and I’d like to bring a date and I wondered if you’d…”
Draco sighs out the last words in a defeated breath. “…be mine.”
Harry stares at him in silence for a moment, a stupid smile fighting it’s way across his mouth before he finally lets out a laugh, loud and obnoxious and echoing through the nearly empty offices around them.
“Fucking hell…” Draco rubs at his temples. “You’re no help at all. Useless git.”
“No, no. It was good mate, really.” Harry makes a poor attempt at controlling his laughter, only for it to bubble up again. “What kind of witch could say no to an invitation like that?”
“I’m so fucked.” Draco groans, dropping into the chair and slumping his head into his hands. “Not a single friend who’s worth a damn… I’d be better off asking my mother’s portrait for Merlin’s sake.”
“Maybe you should, I dunno, just ask Hermione?” Harry offers, teasing tone still lingering though his face suggests he’s entirely serious.
“Ask her what?” Draco digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “‘ Hey Hermione, let’s say some sorry prick wants to ask you out, right? Theoretically of course. How would you suggest he does that?’ ”
“Draco ––” Harry interrupts him, undoubtedly planning to launch into one of his jaded motivational speeches about blank slates and taking chances and leaving the past in the past.
“No? Don’t like that one?” Draco continues, certain now more than ever that this had been a terrible idea. “How about some grand gesture then, huh? Flowers in her office? A banner in the atrium? Jewelry?”
“I don’t think ––” Harry cuts in again, in vain.
“Oh, I’ve got it!” Draco pulls at the roots of his hair, still slumped over, feeling as pathetic as he’s sure he looks. “Honesty right? Should just grab her in the hall next time I see her and say, ‘ Hey Granger. I know I acted like I hated you the entire time we were in school but guess what? I was actually bloody obsessed with you! Think I fell in love with you actually, when you punched me in third year, so maybe just put me out of my misery and go with me to the damn gala, yeah? Or avada me right here, either one’s fine.”
The office is silent, and he can practically feel the remnants of his pathetic little speech lingering in the air. “What? No opinion, Potter?”
“I’d go with the third option, I think.” A voice sounds from behind him, and he wishes it were possible to Evanesco himself into oblivion. He whips his head up, glaring at Potter who looks simultaneously embarrassed for Draco and amused at his expense.
“Sorry mate,” Harry shrugs sheepishly. “I tried to tell you.”
Bloody sadist . Draco debates disapparating right then and there, but stops when she speaks again from the doorway behind him.
“I’ll be leaving my office in about an hour, Draco. Taking the east hall on the fourth floor to the lifts so… that’d be a good time to grab me for your uh –– confession? Theoretically, of course.”
He can hear the smile in her voice, and he’s just enough of a masochist himself to turn and look at it. Her cheeks are flushed pink, proving that he’d managed to fluster her even just a bit despite her otherwise unbothered demeanor.
She’s fucking beautiful and she’s smirking and for the first time in his miserable life he thinks he might actually have a chance with her, that if he repeats his sorry little speech to her face again she might just say yes.
And when he meets her outside her office an hour later, he doesn’t admit he’s been waiting there for the last 58 minutes and 17 seconds. Doesn’t admit that he’s been watching the time count down on his goblin-made pocketwatch the entire time.
He asks her to the gala, smooth and confident and somehow better for all of the failed practice with Potter.
She makes him wait for one long, painful minute, pretending to weigh her options while his confidence melts. And she’s so pleased with herself in the face of his misery that he figures she’s just as bad as Potter. Because she’s a sadist too, and maybe that’s the whole reason he fell in love with her in the first place.