Chapter 35
Harry wakes up first, with a dull pain in his back. He lifts Draco up and places him gently into their bed with a smile before starting on the eclairs. He doesn’t owl the cafe, he does his best with the recipe and gets to work making them and conjuring any ingredients he doesn’t have on hand.
By the time they’re finished, Harry has semi-passible eclairs.
***
Draco wakes up to a delicious smell and is immediately pissed off.
“I told you not to make those.” He glares at the pastries in question.
Harry smiles covered in flour and drops of rum.
“I’m not eating them,” Draco says sternly.
Harry pouted, “But I worked so hard.”
“I told you not to, you did that to yourself.” Draco waves him off.
~~~
Walking into the Great Hall immediately puts Draco on edge. He should not have let Harry keep the hickeys, his collar could slip down any moment and everyone would know.
On the contrary, it was a wonderful idea to let Harry keep them because his collar could slip at any moment and everyone would know he was taken. No more students loudly announcing how attractive his boyfriend was.
Sitting down, Harry promptly stole food off his plate as if he didn’t have the exact thing on his own. When Draco gave him a questioning look he merely slipped an eclair onto his plate with a devious grin. Draco sighed and vanished the eclair.
“I am not eating those,” Draco hisses in his ear.
“You can’t do that to a man and not accept his baked goods, Draco, c’mon,” Harry argues.
Draco slaps his shoulder, “I can and will.”
~~~
When he arrives in his classroom, a plastic baggy stuffed full of eclairs is sitting on his desk, when did Harry even have time to do this? Next to it is a little note that reads, ‘Criticisms? How can I improve love?’
Draco is going to kill that man. Leaving something so brazen right on his desk, where anyone could see it. That alone could’ve turned him off of it, never mind the fact that they’re Harry’s way of saying, ‘Ohoho, splendid blowjob lad.’
No, he’ll leave them on his desk, tuck the note away, somewhere private.
Still, he scribbles a note and places a privacy charm on it before telling the first student who comes in to deliver it to the professor in question. Because he’s a weak man, not because he found this whole thing even slightly endearing. ‘Criticism: no baked goods.’
He’ll teach like normal, at least that's what he does for his first five periods, a few questioning looks were the most the bag on his desk was addressed. For the most part, students left him alone with it.
But his sixth period, his sixth period could never leave well enough alone.
Upon walking in Francene Hudds does not hesitate even slightly before speaking loudly, “What’s that Professor Malfoy?”
Draco sighed knowing that this was the end of his peaceful day, “Eclairs Ms. Hudds,”
“Why have you got them?” She asks curiously.
Draco inhales deeply, “Professor Potter, falsely, believes he owes me a favor.”
“For what?”
“Now that's a rather private matter.”
“Why haven’t you eaten them,” She lifts her head to peer more closely at them, “They look delicious,”
“Because he doesn’t owe me anything, it was my pleasure to assist him.” Draco should not be speaking so closely to the truth around this literal child, “It’s my duty as a fellow professor.”
“I’ll eat them,” Francene offers, “If you don’t want them, that is,”
“You will not,” Draco snaps, “You will turn to page 394.”
This shuts them up rather quickly and they actually get started on their work. These children will be the death of him.
If he tried the eclairs before his seventh period that was nobody's business but his own. If they were even better than the little cafe he usually got them at. Well, that was nobody's business either.
***
“Professor Potter,” Francene Hudds calls in a sing-song tone as she enters his class slightly late.
“You’re late Ms. Hudds,” Harry raises an eyebrow, “I should be taking points for that…”
“Oh, but Professor Potter I have information.” She does not drop the sing-song voice, “I saw your eclairs on Professor Malfoys desk.”
“He hasn’t eaten them yet?” He asks more to himself than her, “Why did you feel the need to bother him over eclairs Ms. Hudds?”
“He said,” She shifts into a posher accent and a more regal stance, ignoring Harry's prior comment, “‘Professor Potter, falsely, believes he owes me a favor’”
The extra emphasis of the word falsely sounds exactly like Draco, not like Harry could or would admit that to Francene, “Why does this concern you?”
“And then I asked why and he said,” She continues to ignore him, still with her rather good impression of Draco, “‘Because he doesn’t owe me anything, it was my pleasure to assist him.’”
Harry keeps his face neutral, “Is that so?”
“Then I offered to eat them for him and he snapped at me.”
“Ms Hudds do not antagonize your professors,” Harry sighs, taking his glasses off and rubbing them on the bottom of his shirt, “Five points from Gryffindor for tardiness.”
A couple of Gryffindors groan, “Professor Potter,”
“Thank you Ms Hudds for distracting from valuable classtime, its almost as if you knew today was a book lesson, books out, we’re reading about werewolves today, can anyone tell me about them, anything at all besides ‘dog people?’”
***
When Draco's final class is over he sinks into his chair, waving his wand to clean up the messes left around the room. He’s still doing that when the floo chimes.
“Hello Harry,” Draco greets, because no one else is coming to his classroom via floo at this time.
“You didn’t eat my eclairs,” Harry pouts, curse Merlin for letting him be charming.
“I did,” Draco says curtly.
Harry immediately brightens, “Were they any good, that's a new recipe?”
“They were… tolerable,” Draco lies through his teeth.
Harry spins Draco's chair around grabbing Draco himself by the waist to stop the spinning, “Just tolerable?”
“One could nearly say they were pleasant.” Draco allows he looks at Harry who seems to know he’s full of shit and is thrilled by the fact.
Harry laughs loudly and beautifully before lifting Draco from his chair and spinning him around, draco makes a shrill noise of surprise, “You’re really quite adorable.”
“I am going to chop your bollocks off and feed them to a hippogriff.” Draco promises.
Harry sets him down on his desk, “See adorable.”