Chapter Text
On their second date, Draco gives Harry a bottle of Felix Felicis, thrusting it across the table with far less ceremony or poise than Harry would have ever expected from a Malfoy, muttering something about it not being traditional to give gifts on a second date, but it was finished brewing, so…
"Draco! This is amazing! Did you brew it yourself?" Harry asks, clearly not put-off by this breach of second-date-protocol, if perhaps a little overwhelmed.
"Yes, well, you mentioned that you had used the bottle you won from Slughorn for doing Dumbledore's bidding and ensuring your friends weren't killed by my idiocy, so I thought that perhaps you should also have a bottle for your own enjoyment."
Draco's voice is far too prim, in the way it only gets when he's spectacularly nervous, and Harry's heart squeezes with something far too much like love for this early in the relationship.
"I mentioned that ages ago."
"Felix Felicis takes six months to brew, I couldn't have gotten it to you a moment sooner. Hence the poor timing, I suppose."
Harry can't believe how endeared he is to that snotty little sneer.
"I'm not the one who's stuck up on traditional courting etiquette, Malfoy. I don't care that you've brought me a gift on our second date, I just wish I could have gotten you something too."
Draco starts to brush that last comment off, but Harry interrupts him.
"Wait, this isn't some sort of apology, is it? We've already cleared the air and then some, and you know I wouldn't be here with you tonight if there was still anything from the past standing between us. You don't need to atone for anything with me."
Draco scowls.
"No, it's not an apology."
At Harry's suspicious frown, he presses on, "Alright, it may have been one in the beginning, when I first started brewing it. But I still couldn't believe we were friends then, that you could be so nice to me and forgive me - yes, Potter, I know I "put the work in" as you so often say, but even still - and I just felt so sad for who you were when you were sixteen. You had so few good things, and it seemed like all of them were taken from you, or twisted for the War, and I wanted to go back in time and fix that. But, of course, I couldn't, so, I made you Felix Felicis instead, to sort of replace what Dumbledore and I had both taken from you. I just,"
He looks up from his hands, where he has been fidgeting with the tablecloth the whole time he's been speaking, and Harry isn't sure he can hold any more love in his heart; this is it, his future is fixed on this man and he can't do anything about it, even if he wanted to, "I wanted you to have something nice. Something just for you."
Harry can't help it then. He leans over the table, takes Draco's face between his hands, and kisses him.