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Super Suds Laundromat was perhaps the last place that Draco wanted to be on a Thursday afternoon, but there he was, glaring down the smiling sudsy logo, a bag of half-washed laundry over his shoulder. He should have known it would be an unlucky afternoon.
He had started the morning with a mug of oversteeped tea and a cold shower, since the neighbors had once again used up the last of the hot water. He tripped over the cat and got himself a great purple bruise on his knee, and caught the sleeve of his nice dress shirt on the drawer pull, tearing a Sickle-sized hole.
The laundry machine in his flat had finally kicked the bucket after months of horrible squealing noises and leaking on the floor. The landlord had patently refused to repair it, claiming that it still worked “well enough.” Functional or not, Draco was left with a slightly-damp pile of clothes and a frankly sour mood.
He had been to a proper laundrette only twice before and swore to avoid the mildew-scented noise of too many dryers spinning at the same time, but so much for that. He pushed through the door, wincing at the obnoxious chime of cheery bells, and surveyed the scene. Draco claimed the first machine; he shoved his damp clothes inside and tried desperately not to turn his nose up at the soap scum.
It might have been better if he’d just called the day off and gone back to bed, but that would have been the lucky choice. Instead, he pulled his three best dress shirts out of the laundry and frowned at them. Instead of crisp white, the shirts were an awkward shade of pale pink, streaked at the shoulders and utterly embarrassing. Draco ripped the rest of the laundry out of the machine, appalled at the tinge that covered every one of his light-colored items.
That should have been his first clue, since Draco didn’t own anything red, but it wasn’t until he stuck one adventuring hand into the back reaches of the machine and pulled out a tight pair of red pants that it all clicked.
Naturally, that was also when that awful bell chimed again and the noise of an odd ensemble of new people buzzed into the small space.
Harry Potter, owner of said red pants, swanned into the laundrette with a small army of Hogwarts students, dressed in an odd approximation of Muggle clothes. Each had a small satchel overflowing with black robes and a bright tub of laundry soap in hand. The students all looked about fifteen, bright hair and a little too frenzied, and Draco felt a new headache setting in.
He turned back to his dryer, shoving his wet clothes inside with a bit more force than was perfectly necessary. Behind him, Harry instructed the students on the purpose and function of a laundry machine, and the merits compared to a magical cleaning. Draco tried very hard to focus on his ruined shirts instead of Harry's confident teaching.
He hadn't known Harry was doing Muggle Studies too, though he supposed there was still a great deal yet to learn about Harry.
"I know who you are," a girl with bright blue hair and even brighter red lipstick said, popping her ever-chew gum at him. Draco blinked at her, refusing to be intimidated by an eyebrow slit and lip piercing.
"Right," he rolled his eyes. "Draco Malfoy, ex-Death Eater, Muggle-hater, and supremely dark wizard." He shoved a shirt into the dryer with a little more force than necessary.
She popped her gum. "I mean, sure. That, I guess." She started walking her fingers over the top of the machine next to his. "But actually, I meant Dr. Draco Malfoy, the like, founder of Inter-Magical Relations. I'm dying to take your tutorial."
Draco stared at her, a damp pair of trousers in hand.
"Harry — he says it's okay for us to call him that— he says I could do a lot in IMR, thinks I ought to go to uni for it, maybe even get a whole Master's and everything. I mean, I know it's like a new field and everything, but I really think it's important and I might be able to make a difference, you know? Well, of course you know."
"But," Draco said, dumbfounded. "Purebloods don't do uni," he stuttered awkwardly.
"I'm not a pureblood," she snapped her gum. "Taking the tutorial so it'll show up on my transcript." She leaned in conspiratorially, "and 'cause Harry's an amazing teacher."
Draco stared at him across the room as he leaned over the machine, walking a pair of goggling teenagers through the many buttons. He was patient and kind with them, animated even in describing the minutiae of doing Muggle laundry. Harry chose that moment to look up and catch Draco's eye and Draco cringed, shoving the trousers into the machine and wishing he could dive in too.
"You know," the girl continued, entirely unphased by his conversational ineptitude. "He assigned your article on the first day of class."
"My article?"
"Yep. The one all about how, like, the Wizarding War wasn't a blood war, but about anti-Muggle sentiments, all that." She shrugged, tapping her bitten fingernails against the door to the laundry machine.
He looked at her, then, finally, at the clear passion in her eyes even as she slumped over the door, the eagerness in her voice under her affect of disinterest.
"Totally revolutionized my thinking," she added, quieter. She glanced up at him, wide brown eyes too quick to make proper eye contact and Draco hesitated.
He cleared his throat, tossed the remaining bits of clothing, including those cursed red pants, into the dryer and shut the door.
"You should come by my tutorial sometime," he said, finally. "We always could always use some new ideas."
"Really?" She looked up from her perusal of the buttons. "You— I mean, I could really visit?"
"Well," Draco started, feeling all together awkward. "It's not much, to be honest, the course is quite small. But, yes, I suppose, if Professor Potter might be willing to help organize transportation."
As if summoned, Harry sauntered over, loose Muggle jeans comfortably at his hips, his pale grey pullover handsome against the light flush in his cheeks. Draco looked away from the too-long curl of his hair, staring at the rhythmic whorl of his drying clothes instead.
"You'll help me Floo to Dr. Malfoy's tutorial, won't you, Harry?" Her eager voice interrupted his brooding and he looked a bit sheepish in Harry's direction.
"Is Elena talking your ear off?" Harry smiled, leaning against one of the machines in a flattering pose that left no sense of his long legs to the imagination. "I swear, she's going to be the next you for the whole field of Inter-Magical Relations," Harry murmured, and really, his voice was unfairly seductive.
"We were discussing your choice to assign my article on day one of your class," Draco said, inclining his head towards Harry with a challenge. "Four months ago," he added, but didn't say: before you and I started this thing.
"It's a good article," Harry nodded, though he went pink at the crests of his cheekbones. Draco's mouth felt suddenly dry.
"I know it is."
"I think it's important for my students to read it," Harry added. Behind Draco, the dryer began to thud insistently as it turned to the end of the cycle. Elena popped her gum once more and finally decided to abandon them. Draco half-registered her bemused expression as she went off to instruct her classmates on the ways of detergent.
"She's a firecracker," Draco murmured, staring at Harry's lips.
"She's going to change the world," Harry agreed. He stepped towards Draco, till he was leaning against the machine right beside him and there was not much space left between them.
"You're working, Professor Potter." The dryer gave a rather emphatic thunk as though to underscore his point.
"Right," Harry said, his tongue darting out between his lips.
"Your students are all around us," Draco insisted, glancing behind Harry at a triad of giggling teenagers who most certainly were not doing laundry.
"Maybe I ought to come over later, then."
"Maybe you should." The dryer made an odd noise and Draco broke his intense eye contact to glare at it. Cock-blocking thing.
Harry was distracted now too, his eyes on a confused student pressing the same button again and again.
Draco cleared his throat. "I'll need three new shirts," he said. "From Twilfitt's, he'll have my measurements. In white. You can bring them tonight."
"Right," Harry nodded, as if that was entirely reasonable.
"It's entirely your fault that your awful Gryffindor pants got into my wash."
"Right, 'course." Harry smiled at him, that rare and flattering smile that reaches to his eyes and brightens him up head to toe. "Though you didn't seem to mind the colour the other night."
"I was distracted," Draco insisted. Beside him, the dryer clicked off, and he swung the door open with a little more force than necessary, folding and shoving his pink-tinged clothes into his bag. "As I was this morning too, clearly."
"Good to know I'm on your mind," Harry teased, leaning over the dryer door and into Draco's space. "I'll bring dinner too, if you like."
Draco put the last of his shirts into the bag and pulled the final article from the back of the dryer. He shoved Harry's awful red pants into Harry's chest, resolving not to blush any worse than he already was. "I do like," he said, finally, as Harry shoved the pants deep into his pocket, casting a furtive glance at his students. Draco put one hand on his shoulder, softening just a little. "I'll see you tonight, Harry."
Behind Harry, the triad of students seemed to swoon with glee. Elena was sitting on top of the row of washing machines, one of which was overflowing dangerously with bright white suds. In the back corner, a pair of students still had not yet sorted out their coins, and a third was frantically hitting buttons.
Draco darted a speedy kiss to Harry's cheek and was out the door and past the awful bell in the blink of an eye. Maybe it wasn't such an awful afternoon after all.