Work Text:
“Oh, Draco!” Harry sing-songed as he slid into the other man’s office. “Do you know what today is?”
“The 23rd of August, if I’m not mistaken,” he drawled without looking up from the Ministry form.
Harry leaned on his desk, “And do you know why it’s important?”
“I don’t believe that I do,” Draco replied casually, checking his notes before going back to the form.
“It’s been-”
“99 days since May 14th,” he said. “99 days is not what was agreed upon.”
Harry groaned and plopped down in his chair, “Isn’t it close enough?”
“No.”
He grinned, “I thought you might say that.”
Something in the tone of his voice made Draco look up at him, narrowing his eyes.
“So I booked us a reservation for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“You’re awfully confident,” he said, setting his quill down and gazing calculatingly at Harry.
He laughed, “There’s less than a day left, I think I’ve got this.” He stood up and took Draco’s hand in his and pressed a light kiss to his knuckles, “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Harry was so excited that he hardly slept at all that night.
He spent the whole night tossing and turning, imagining different conversations and scenarios, debating what he should wear, deciding what he was going to eat for breakfast so that he would spill on himself, and a thousand other things.
By the time his alarm went off, he was more than ready to get out of bed. After getting ready and feeding his cat Leonard, he headed out to the cafe he’d made reservations at for breakfast for two.
He was pleased to arrive first and ordered a cup of coffee for himself and a latte with a dash of cinnamon for Draco. The waitress returned with their drinks as Draco was entering.
Harry waved at him and stood up from his chair as Draco came over. “Hey,” he breathed.
“Good morning,” Draco said, a little smile at the corner of his mouth as though his just couldn’t help himself.
“I ordered you a latte,” Harry said.
“I can see that,” Draco replied as he sat down.
Harry sat too, “I could order something else if you wo-”
“It’s fine,” Draco said quickly. “Good, actually. Exactly what I would have ordered for myself.”
He nodded once and gave him a little smile as the waitress returned with menus. Harry took a deep breath and tried to make himself relax.
Everything was going to be fine.
——–
Everything was not going fine. In fact, Harry felt rather certain that he’d never gone on a date that had gone this poorly and it made something in him ache.
As they left, Harry scrubbed his hand over the back of his head, “Look, Draco-”
“No,” he said, interrupting, “I’m sorry.”
“What?” Harry asked, drawing to a halt and looking over at him, “What for?”
He tucked a strand of fine blonde hair behind his ear, “I thought I could dissuade you from wanting to date me.”
“I know but I’m fairly stubborn.”
He huffed a laugh, “Yes, I hadn’t imagined that you’d be stubborn enough to stay single for 100 days just to prove you were serious about me.”
“Well I am,” Harry said, “Serious about you, that is.”
“Which is why I have to tell you something.”
He scuffed the toe of his trainer along the ground, “You’re like betrothed or something aren’t you?”
“What?”
“Or you’re not gay.”
“Harry-”
“Or you just don’t like me and you know that you never-”
“Harry!” Draco shouted. “Shut up.”
He clicked his jaw shut and stared in silence, waiting.
“There’s a curse on my bloodline,” he said.
“What?”
He sighed, “Can you come back to my flat? This isn’t really a conversation I want to have in public.”
“Yeah,” Harry said, just glad that the other man wasn’t telling him to sod off, “Yeah, of course.”
Draco took his elbow and apparated him into his living room, “Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Water? A cup of tea?”
“Just answers,” Harry said. “Tell be about the curse on your bloodline, what it has to do with our date, and how we can break it.”
Draco sat down in one of the squishy arm chairs and Harry followed suit. “You remember that I was engaged to Astoria Greengrass?” he asked.
Harry nodded, biting his tongue to keep from asking what that had to do with anything.
“She was the match that my parents made for me. The curse on my bloodline is one that my ancestors put in place to stop people from backing out of arranged marriages,” he said. “At the time it was important because marriages formed alliances and if a marriage fell through you might make yourself a new enemy.”
“So what’s the curse?”
“If you don’t marry the person chosen for you by your parents you’ll basically have what amounts to a thousand bad dates,” Draco said.
“Sorry?”
“That’s it,” he said. “It’s not going to actually hurt me, too many Malfoy’s only have one heir, but it is going to make life miserable if I’m not with the person that my parents deemed acceptable.”
Harry thought about this new information for a long moment, “Right, so how do we break it?”
“We can’t.”
“Okay,” Harry said, nodding once to himself. “Well, let’s get started then, if we have like three bad dates a day, we’ll be done in like a year.”
“You can’t be serious.”
He shrugged, “Of course I am. What’s the alternative?”
“I don’t know,” he mutter sarcastically, “Maybe not dating someone with a curse on their bloodline. Maybe let me go on a thousand bad dates with other people.”
“I don’t want to,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t want you to date other people.”
“But-”
Harry shook his head, “No buts. I want to go on all of those dates with you. Do you know why?”
“No.” Draco said, “I honestly have no idea.”
“Because as long as it’s with you, it doesn’t matter.” He cupped Draco’s cheek in his hand, “You are what matters.”
“Are you sure?” Draco asked, searching Harry’s face.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”