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Draco was being followed.
He was certain of it now. It wasn’t the sort of situation he ever expected to find himself in. He’d heard Pansy and Lavender complain about creeps on the tube in the past—about men who’d trail them through the station, or sit uncomfortably close, pressing in during rush hour. But that was—that was different, he told himself. Pansy was loud and brash, and always decked out in jewel tones, unmistakably attractive. Draco was in a knitted cardigan and seven-year-old trenchcoat, for fuck's sake, and he looked a right mess after his week of meetings. There was no reason— no reason —for the man to have picked him.
He had. Draco peeked over his shoulder at where the stranger was still examining a stack of lemons further down the produce aisle. He looked back down at the tomatoes in front of him.
When he first noticed the man on the bus, he’d thought nothing of it. They made eye contact once. Draco took a reasonable moment to admire his strong jawline and piercing green eyes (he liked people watching and he was single, sue him) before he glanced away. When he looked back, the man was still watching him.
When they got off at the same stop Draco didn’t question it.
When he saw a shadow matching his own in the thin layer of snow on the sidewalk, he convinced himself it was another passerby.
When the man followed him down three turns and into Waitrose, he started to lose his shit.
There was a faint tinkling sound that followed his every footstep. It was cheerful, but only served to heighten Draco’s anxiety.
His phone was at a frightening two percent by now, the winter cold eating the battery faster than he could look up the bus schedule. He was saving the charge so he could pay with contactless at the till. He wasn’t going to call anyone.
He wasn’t going to need to call anyone.
Five minutes later and Draco was two seconds away from walking right back into Waitrose and begging someone to get a hold of Pansy fucking Parkinson before he was kidnapped and turned into a handsome stranger’s coat.
Draco tucked his hands into his sleeves and leaned against the clear wall of the bus stop, trying not to hyperventilate as the man walked out of Waitrose and crossed the road towards him. His boots crunched pleasantly through the snow, and he’d wrapped his scarf around the bottom half of his face, but his eyes were no less striking under his dark brows. He paused for a moment to look at the list of night buses and the streetlight glinted off his glasses. Draco tightened his grip on his shopping bag.
He only had a few more stops to go before home, and the night buses were fairly regular in this part of London. He’d be fine. The streetlights were lit and he could still see the Waitrose employees at the registers through the foggy glass windows across the street. He was fine, he’d continue to be fine, and when he finally made it home and had a breakdown in his tub he’d be more than fine.
The man crunched his way over and leaned back against the wall beside him. Draco’s breath stalled. He could see movement out of the corner of his eye before a merry jingling and a distinct click echoed through the night air.
A lighter, with a small set of silver bells hanging on the keyring it was attached to. He was only lighting a cigarette. That was fine.
The keyring swung into the light, and Draco caught the red flash of a Swiss Army knife. That was not fine. Very not fine. Fuck, he was going to die here, with nothing but three tubs of ice cream to garnish his frozen corpse. He was going to get a Santa-themed murder, and everyone would call his case something dreadful, like the Holiday Homicide. Worse, he was going to die in the ugliest fucking outfit he’d ever worn and every crime scene photo taken would have his godawful cardigan and hat in it.
Unless he walked to the next bus stop. Or went back into Waitrose and called Pansy, like he’d originally been thinking. He just had to walk away. That was fine. He could do that.
Draco pulled his own scarf up and made a little bit of a show of casually adjusting his gloves, before stepping away from the wall. This was great. He’d go inside, get his phone charged, have Pansy pick him up, and questions of whether or not this man was a stalker would become entirely irrelevant.
Suck it, universe. Draco was going to make untimely demise his bitch.
His foot hit a patch of black ice and his plan went tits-up. Literally tits-up, because his legs were certainly not under him, and his stomach swooped as he fell, plastic shopping bag leaving his hand as he flailed.
Strong arms caught him just before he hit the ground. One gloved hand slid under his shoulders while the second grabbed him ‘round the waist, and Draco found himself looking up into the most beautiful pair of green eyes he’d ever seen.
He screamed.
Well—that might have been generous. He was certain he made some sort of noise. A squeak, perhaps, or a valiant whimper, but the effort was there.
This was it: the glorious end of Draco Malfoy, award-winning author, lover of tastelessly knitted clothes and German wine. Thus was his legacy, and so would it end. Draco squeezed his eyes shut.
“Er, are you alright?” The voice was lovely—deep and smooth, and far too close.
Still a trick question, no doubt meant to lull him into a false sense of security.
“Do it fast,” Draco muttered through clenched teeth.
“Do what?”
Draco cracked an eye open. The stranger was still holding him up, face concerned and now a bit confused. “The—you know, the—er, the murdering?” he tried helpfully. “Or, you know, if you’ve changed your mind, that’s fine too, great even, I mean really great for me—I, uh, I just have a cat, and I need to feed him tonight, so I’d rather not die please, but if you were really set on it please do it quickly because—”
“Bloody Hell, I wasn’t going to murder you.” Handsome stalker looked appalled. He stood back up straight and set Draco on his feet.
“That’s what they all say,” Draco lamented.
“No, seriously—my name’s Harry. I’m just getting the bus,” he said. “I live right around the corner. Did you actually think I was stalking you or something?”
“You followed me from the first bus?” Draco tried weakly.
“I went to the shop. It’s the only Waitrose in the area.”
It was. Draco reconsidered his entire anxiety-ridden evening as he watched Harry pick his hat up from where it had fallen in the snow.
“I’m sorry,” he finally came up with.
“I’m a little insulted that you took one look at me and thought ‘serial killer’,” Harry muttered. He looked so downtrodden that Draco instantly felt terrible. “Get to know a guy before you accuse him of atrocities.”
“You were staring on the bus!”
Harry stopped dusting his hat. “Ah. You noticed?” Draco snorted. “You just looked like one of my neighbors. Guess I was a bit obvious.”
Draco was about to reply when the squeal of tires in the snow had them both turning. The bus rolled to a stop, the number at the top glowing merrily. Oh well. At least he’d never have to revisit the humiliation of needlessly accusing a stranger of crime. He leaned down to retrieve his fallen bag from the snow.
And watched in horror as Harry pulled out his Oyster card.
“You’re—that’s my bus!” he said, a bit indignantly.
Harry froze where he had one foot in the door. He gave Draco a proper look, eyes freezing him in place.
“I live on Woodsworth Road,” he said.
Draco barely refrained from burying his face in his hands. You just looked like one of my neighbors . Dear God, he’d have to bloody move.
They ended up sitting together. There wasn’t much else to be done. Harry seemed to have gotten over Draco’s blunder, and he was cheerily humming Christmas songs to himself as the bus bumped along, but Draco’s cheeks were burning.
“So,” Draco started, because silence on a bus was one thing, but silence next to someone you (for all intents and purposes) knew was painfully awkward. “Woodsworth Road?”
“Number 72,” Harry said. “You know the new shop across the street from your building? The one with the hanging sign?”
Ah. He did. Six months ago, a plant store had indeed opened up across the street from his apartment. As Draco had neither the time nor sense of responsibility necessary to take care of a living thing (he only learned to keep to Biscuit’s feeding schedule because he yowled up a storm if left unhappy), he hadn’t once ventured past its doors. If he had, he might have learned a bit sooner that it was Harry’s plant store, and that Harry had seen him going to and from work on several occasions, and had therefore (understandably enough, Harry emphasized) noticed him on the bus.
“I’m very sorry,” Draco tried again.
“It’s fine.”
“Okay.”
Draco picked at his nails for several seconds.
“My name is Draco.” Harry tilted his head at him. “I never replied, back at the bus stop, and I thought it might be rude, considering I know yours.”
“I like it.”
“You—?”
“A strange and beautiful name for a peculiar and beautiful person.”
Draco blushed from the roots of his hair to the tip of his chin. Fucking hell, if Harry truly was a murderer, he’d not have a chance. “I’m still very—”
“Sorry,” Harry finished for him. He turned to look at Draco properly, but his tone was warm and his smile was—lots of very nice things. Draco looked back at his hands. “I know. But I was a bit creepy. It’s late and dark. It’s ok. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re looking out for yourself. Although if I were you, I’d be more careful around pavement than people. It seems like ice is more likely to take you out than any bus stop creep.”
Draco sputtered. He refused to think of Harry’s responding smirk as attractive.
The term he’d use was earth-shattering.
The rest of the ride passed in increasingly pleasant conversation. Harry, along with not being a murderer, was also sharp, funny, and just sweet enough to make Draco blush without boring him. He found his mortification draining away under Harry’s intense gaze. The way he looked at Draco when he spoke was so steady and attentive that Draco found himself focusing on anything other than Harry’s eyes, lest he give away how desperately attracted to this man he was. There was a brief moment when the bus stopped that their knees bumped, and Draco thanked the fashion industry for inventing trenchcoats when the touch sparked heat between his legs.
When they finally stepped off the bus at their street, the snow was whipping through the air in cold waves, and Draco was thoroughly charmed. The streetlamps shining off of it cast halos of gold on the sidewalk, and above the flower shop, a Christmas tree was glowing in the window.
“You left your tree on?” Draco said.
“Ah, that.” Harry ruffled his thick curls before shoving his hat back on. The snow was beginning to catch in his overgrown stubble. “I love Christmas. Put the tree up halfway through November.” He glanced at Draco. “You’re going to call me a psychopath again, aren’t you?”
“No,” Draco frowned. He scuffed the icy ground with the toe of one shoe, then thought, fuck it. “Christmas is my favorite season. I bought my tree this weekend, I just haven’t decorated it. I was thinking about doing it tonight.”
Harry smiled softly at that. Draco tried to quell the butterflies that smile sparked.
“Have fun tonight then,” Harry said. “I hope the terror of meeting me has worn off a bit and you still get to decorate your tree. I won’t apologize, though. Felt a bit like fate.”
Draco had the strangest feeling then, standing in the snow and watching Harry turn towards his apartment. Excited longing, one might call it. Anticipation and happiness and a bit of fear, a different thrill to the one he’d felt earlier in the evening. Fate, Harry called it.
“Goodnight, Harry,” he said, just loudly enough to be heard over the wind. Harry turned back to wave.
When Draco stepped off the curb and slipped for the second time that night, his yelp was much louder. He’d nearly hit the ground when Harry dove and caught him, arms wrapped around his shoulders and chest rumbling with laughter.
“Harry?” Draco said breathlessly.
“Yes?”
“I...might not be able to get all the ornaments up on my own,” Draco lied. “I think I’ve suffered psychological damage as a result of emotional distress.”
Harry’s cheeks dimpled when he smiled. “Your balance is clearly fucked. I think I should at least walk you to your door.”
“I’m not sure that counts as proper compensation for all my suffering.”
“Is that so?” Harry said teasingly.
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps I should bring wine over and help you decorate?” And his tone, his eyes at that moment—if Draco hadn’t already been sprawled half on the ground, he might have swooned.
“I think that would be appropriate, yes,” Draco breathed. They were very close, after all. He could have counted Harry’s eyelashes. Could feel the warmth of his skin against his cheeks.
Harry’s eyes flicked down to his lips. “Tell me if I’m reading this wrong,” he said. Fate.
“You’re not.”
Harry dipped his head and kissed him.
Draco’s body curved into Harry’s against his own volition as a gasp escaped him. He reached up to bury his fingers in Harry’s dark curls, and Harry slipped his tongue into his mouth. Draco was floating. He was dying. He’d never kissed like this, never been kissed like this, with this much attention and all-consuming, immediate heat.
A car rushed past and they broke apart.
“Wow,” Harry whispered.
Draco would have felt proud if there was room for anything in him apart from elation and a fair bit of arousal. He settled for pulling Harry down for another kiss. And another, and another.
The tree found itself awfully neglected that night. Draco found he could live with that.