You've got Yourself a Deal Malfoy
“Spit it out, Potter,” Draco said without letting his eyes leave the paperwork he had been filling out. He could feel Potter’s gaze burning a hole through him across the small office that they shared.
Harry coughed awkwardly and shuffled around his own mountain of papers stacked on his desk, “Sorry just thinking,” he muttered before picking up his quill from where it lay forgotten on his desk.
“You do that very often?” Draco asked, sighing when he didn’t hear a snarky comment back. He finally looked up at Potter and arched an eyebrow at him, “Potter I can’t focus with you oogling me.”
“I am not oogling you,” Harry felt his cheeks start to heat and he hoped his tan skin hadn’t given him away. Based on Draco’s smirk, he wasn't so lucky, “Alright, alright, I need a favor.”
“If you’re going to ask me to investigate something with you without telling Robards again –” Draco starts in a skeptical tone.
“No, I need you to come with me to the Burrow for Christmas,” Harry interrupts.
Draco’s eyes widened at the request, “Excuse me?” Sure he and Potter were pleasant with each other nowadays, he would even go as far as to say they were friends. Being Auror partners for the past year, and training partners for a year before that, they had grown past the school boys they once were that were always at each other’s throats. But to accompany him to the Weasley family Christmas? Draco couldn’t fathom a reason why he would be invited to do so.
“Wait, just hear me out first,” Harry interjected, “every year I go to Christmas at the Burrow and I am literally the only single one out of all my friends. And for the last year, every single holiday they have all been trying to set me up with someone new and I know it will happen again this time and I genuinely just want to have a relaxing holiday.”
“So naturally you want me to come with you?,” Draco asks, leaning back in his chair still confused how he fits into all this.
“Yes, and we pretend to be boyfriends,” Harry states as if that’s the most obvious conclusion.
Draco almost tips backwards out of his chair, and he stares at Harry incredulously, “Why me?”
“Well,” Harry rubbed the back of his neck and didn’t meet Draco’s eyes to continue, “I just thought it would be nice to go with someone I actually like spending time with, and plus I remember you telling me that you would be spending Christmas alone last week, so I just thought it would be nice.”
Draco perked up at that, “I never told you that, eavesdropping are we Potter?” Watching Harry squirm was a special kind of delight and Draco decided he would much rather focus on that, instead of the part of the explanation where Potter said he likes spending time with him.
“Hey it isn’t my fault our office is the size of a closet, it's not like I can just not hear when you and Parkinson chat my ear off everyday.”
Draco’s lips quirked up at the thought of Harry eating his lunch everyday at his desk with Weasley while all the while listening to his and Pansy’s daily conversations. “Alright then what’s in it for me?” He honestly wanted to go, spending another Christmas alone in his flat wasn’t all that appealing and in all honesty he probably would’ve stayed in bed as long as possible before getting drunk and wishing he was a kid back in the manor with his mother again.
“I’ll do your paperwork for the first two weeks when we get back!” Harry said, sounding very much like an excited puppy.
“Make it three weeks, ” Draco stated, cooling his expression to perfectly neutral.
“Malfoy you’ve got yourself a deal,” Harry grinned as he turned to his stack, “Oh and you should pack when you get home tonight we leave in the morning.
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Draco rolled his eyes when he heard Harry hoot his car horn, it was only 9:02 and that man had never shown up on time to a single Auror meeting in the last year - of all days he decided today was the day he would start being punctual. Harry had owled him the night before to say he would meet Draco outside his flat at 9 am, and insisted they drive. As he levitated his bag to the front door, Draco still couldn’t believe he let himself be roped into traveling by one of those muggle contraptions. He wrapped his scarf around his neck and stalked out to Harry’s car in the biting cold.
Harry watched as Draco stalked up to his car, his face barely visible over the enormous scarf he had on, but Harry still caught the familiar scowl on his face. When Draco makes no movements to get into the car, it dawns on Harry that he’s probably never been in a car before. He chuckles and leans over the center console to open the door for him. Draco jumps in and slams the door shut in his haste to get into the warm car, “I still don’t understand why we couldn’t just floo down,” he mutters, rubbing his freezing hands together.
“Because we need to get our story straight and I thought this would be the perfect time to discuss,” Harry stated as he pulled out his wand to cast a warming charm on Draco who sighed contentedly and finally sat back against his seat. “And put your seatbelt on, we're already late.”
“My what?” Draco asks.
Harry points to a buckle to Draco’s left, he grabs it, and then looks over at Harry confused about what to do next. “Here, lemme just,” Harry starts, as he leans over to grab the buckle from Draco’s hand. He pulls it the rest of the way over Draco’s body and then nudges his hip, “Move over a bit,” he says, prompting Draco to slide out of the way so he can latch it into place.
Draco coughs and looks out his window as Harry pulls out onto the road, he listens to the muggle music Harry’s softly humming along to for a few minutes before sneaking a glance over at him. He seems relaxed, and if Draco didn’t know better he would guess that he truly was a muggle. He had never seen this side of Harry before, he had grown used to Auror Potter but having a glimpse into Harry still felt a bit invasive.
Draco leaned forward as he unwound his scarf, now feeling a bit too warm in his layers, “Potter I will reiterate, there isn’t any need for us to have an elaborate backstory, I know you wouldn’t be able to keep it straight for the life of you, anyway,” he chastised.
“I don’t think that’s the part of me that isn’t straight Malfoy,” Harry retorted, laughing when Draco’s scarf smacked his arm. It was no secret that Potter was bi. Over the last year Draco had seen how random blokes will try to pick him up at the bar just because he’s the “chosen one”, and how all the ladies from the administrative office will come up to hand deliver his paperwork. “But alright, I'll take all the blame so you can save face about your terrible memory if that helps you sleep at night.”
Draco rolled his eyes, “Alright then Potter, why don’t we say that we got together because you had been pining for me since year 4 and I finally pitied you and gave you a chance?”
“Like my friends would believe that,” Harry scoffed, hoping he sounded confident enough to hide the fact that all his friends would actually very much have believed that story.
“Oh what about if we told them when I got injured during that drug ring case, you realized how you couldn’t live without me so you confessed your undying love for me as soon as I woke up at St.Mungo’s?”
Harry just shook his head, “Look why can’t we just be a normal couple, how about we tell them you asked me out for dinner a few months ago?”
“Oh no, you are not making me the sap,” Malfoy countered, “Not when I’m the one doing you a favor here.”
“Right,” Harry says, and Draco notices his genuine smile turns tight, “You were right, we don’t need a story, let’s just say we shagged after getting drinks post work a few months ago. Nothing special.”
Draco had agreed, trying his hardest not to let that image conjure in his mind, “Wait, how did your friends take it that you told them you were bringing a date the night before?” he asked, trying to change the subject.
“Oh –” Potter coughed awkwardly, “I er – might have actually told them I was bringing you last week.”
Draco couldn’t believe him, but he was somehow less angry and more surprised that Harry was sure he could convince him. “You’re such a wanker Potter, you know that?”
“Yea yea, oh but on that note, we should talk about PDA, what you’re comfortable with and what we should call each other,” Harry said.
“Why do we have to change all that, can’t we just be how we normally are?” Draco asked.
“Well at the moment I call you Malfoy and you call me Potter and at most we give each other a slap on the shoulder, that seems much more like just Auror partners rather than boyfriends does it not?”
Draco could see Harry’s point, “Well you’ve had all week to think about this, I’m sure you’ve come up with ideas, let’s hear it then.”
Harry cleared his throat, “Er– well, I thought it would be convincing enough as long as we held hands and just sat really close together on the couch, just making it obvious we want to spend some time alone throughout the weekend, and maybe - as long as you don’t mind, I mean - maybe a kiss on the cheek here and there…”
Draco grinned, he was starting to enjoy this already, seeing Potter get so flustered was something he did not foresee being a part of this holiday, but now it was definitely what he was looking forward to most. “It’s alright Potter, I’m okay with all of that, and you’re right we definitely will have to be convincing if we don’t want your friends to catch on,” Draco smirked before sliding his hand over to Harry’s hand that’s on the gear causing Harry to jump out of his skin. “Now that won’t do, we can’t have you jumping everytime I touch you. Can we love?”
Harry thinks his brain has actually short circuited, and he pulls his hand out from under Draco’s to turn down the heater, the car suddenly felt too hot for late December. He cleared his throat again, but his voice still came out too high, “You know what I think that might be overkill, how about we just go with Harry and Draco?”
“Whatever you want babe,” Draco sank into his seat, very satisfied, this week was going to be much more fun than he expected.