Threatening To Love You.

Title: Feel-Better Tea.
Author: Pekeleke
Pairing(s): Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter.
Rating: M
Challenge: Written for the adventdrabbles 2021. Prompt #9: Inappropriate snow people.
Word Count: 996
Warnings: Explicit Language. Dramatic Draco. Humor.
Disclaimer: The characters, setting, and the HP franchise are owned by JKR and not me. I make no profit from writing this piece of fanfiction.
A/N: Unbeated. Ch 9 of my Christmas Series: Threatening To Love You.
Summary: To his credit, Scarhead doesn’t even flinch at Draco’s acid tone. Anyone else would have called him a bastard already and walked away in a huff. Over the years, Draco has lost about a hundred friends and a fair number of would-be-lovers due to his tendency to lash out when he’s angry.”

Feel-Better Tea.

Draco stares at the frozen statues that have just been delivered to his department in horrified bewilderment. They’re meant to be scattered artfully around the edges of the Ministry’s ballroom during the upcoming New Year's ball. Like many of the ornaments that will adorn that specific event, the statues are hand-carved and take ages to complete.

Today there are fifty renditions of exquisitely sculpted snow people in various elegant poses before him and about twenty others, just as exquisitely rendered, that are so thoroughly inappropriate for the venue they’re meant for that it boggles the mind. They’re unsuitable for any venue, really, since Draco very much doubts that seedy Knockturn Alley brothels -which are the only businesses that could possibly showcase them- can afford the price tag associated with these particular statues.

Half of his subordinates have stopped working on their assignments altogether. They now stand in a loose semicircle around the ice sculptures, tittering nervously. Draco bites the inside of his bottom lip to avoid a similarly unprofessional reaction and turns just enough to glare daggers at the magical expert who delivered the pieces. The man is red like a tomato, bulging eyes also fixed on the undeniably explicit set, while his hands clutch the clipboard in his hands so tightly that his knuckles have turned white.

“I assume this is the result of a mailing mishap rather than an outright act of sabotage,” Draco snaps. The delivery bloke breaks out of his embarrassed contemplation of the fornicating ice sculptures and apologizes profusely. He promises that the inappropriate pieces will be removed forthwith and replaced with the set Draco originally ordered in time for the ministry ball, and Draco leaves him to it. The poor man is merely a delivery person; there’s no point in unleashing the verbal reaming currently brewing inside his chest on the wrong head. Draco will return to his office and proceed to place a very displeased Floo call to the owner of the business he’d trusted with his event’s décor. He’ll inform the irresponsible bugger that his lack of professionalism has just cost him the British Ministry Of Magic’s Department Of Ministry Fetes, Bashes, And Balls’s account. It’s a fairly sizable one, too. Draco is reasonably certain his order alone amounted to more than half the company’s annual earnings.

Draco is in the process of storming toward his office, a ferocious frown darkening his features, when Pot— no, Harry, steps in his path.

“Hey. What’s up? You look pissed off.”

“Do I?” Draco drawls, glaring at him reflexively, “Has it crossed your tiny mind that maybe I look pissed off because I am pissed off, Potter?”

To his credit, Scarhead doesn’t even flinch at Draco’s acid tone. Anyone else would have called him a bastard already and walked away in a huff. Over the years, Draco has lost about a hundred friends and a fair number of would-be-lovers due to his tendency to lash out when he’s angry.

“Whoa! What kind of mess does it take to put you in such a foul mood at nine-thirty on a Thursday morning?” Potter wonders aloud, extending a bold hand to rub Draco’s arm up and down in a soothing fashion, “Is there anything I can do?”

Draco’s anger cools slightly, and he blinks at Harry in astonishment. Most people avoid him when he’s frothing at the mouth. Only his mother has ever attempted to help when he is like this, and she’s family, so Draco doesn’t know how to express the gratitude currently blooming, like a rare orchid, deep inside his gut, “I— er- No. There’s nothing you can do, but thank you for the offer.”

Harry rubs Draco’s arm some more and stares at him with concern, “You wanna grab some tea? I’ve got ten minutes to spare.”

The indignant knot tightening Draco’s insides eases a little more, and he exhales, trying to let go of his frustrated energy, “I’d be terrible company, Harry. You’ve no idea of the mess they made with one of my deliveries.”

Harry edges even closer, “You’re too beautiful to be terrible company, grumpy-pants. Just sit there, masterfully impersonating a thunderous cloud, and I'll admire you from the other side of the table. It'll be grand,” He whispers in a smarmy tone, putting the tiniest smile on Draco’s lips.

“You’re such a git,” Draco huffs, relaxing further when the prat lets go of his arm and performs a clumsy little vow right in the middle of the corridor.

“Don’t disparage my git-ness. It made you smile, didn’t it?”

Draco’s grin widens slightly, turning softer and flustered and fond, “Yes, it did.”

“Come on then, your highness. Let your git of a colleague buy you feel-better tea. Hermione swears by it,” Harry says softly, grabbing Draco’s arm once again to stir him in the direction of the lifts.

“You mean my git of a future boyfriend,” Draco corrects teasingly, allowing himself the comfort of succumbing to Harry’s disarming fussing.

Harry trips on thin air, “So I didn’t dream last night,” He says faintly, “I really took you out to dinner at the deli, and you fell off your chair because you were laughing at that ginger bloke who couldn’t get his sister to understand that his weird facial contortions meant he was trying to mime kissing. He’d gotten the mistletoe card on the charade game.”

Draco bursts out laughing, the memory of the bloke’s face too hilarious to be contained by the stress of his lousy morning, “I had fun last night, Harry. Even though the deli’s paninis left a lot to be desired.”

Harry’s digits abandon Draco’s bicep and curl around his hand instead, squeezing it reassuringly, “Shut up, Draco,” Harry says, pressing the call button for the lift, “The bloody paninis were perfect, and you know it,” Draco smirks. Feeling happier and more relaxed. A spot of feel-better tea with his future boyfriend might be exactly what he needs.