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“You’ll have a hard time believing this because it never happens, but I made a mistake,” Heir Lucius Malfoy states, frustration bright in his gray eyes.
Master Harry Potter, who knows that to be a complete and utter lie—Lucius is far from perfect, regardless of what all the people who pant after him like Crups in heat believe—rolls his eyes. “No, I can believe it.”
Affront paints itself across Lucius’s face, which does nothing at all to make him look any less attractive than he is. Which, is to say, so ridiculously handsome that he’s been voted Most Eligible Bachelor in Avalon for the past twenty-seven years (excluding, of course, that heretical year when brainless idiots voted for Mister Gilderoy Lockhart before he was exposed for his shameless and dastardly use of the Obliviation Charm).
“Master Potter, I—”
Harry turns away from the broom display in Quality Quidditch Supplies. It’s not like he actually needs a racing broom. He plays Quidditch. His Firebolt is the best product on the market for that. He’s just bored and out-of-sorts.
“You what?” Harry asks when Lucius doesn’t continue.
He’s not exactly sure why Lucius is speaking with him. They’ve been introduced, of course, and spoken on several occasions, but it rarely went beyond the shallow surface of most polite conversation in society.
Lucius grimaces—oh, Lucius would surely call it a sneer, but Harry knows a grimace when he sees one—and says, “My mother misunderstood a comment I made and now believes I’m courting you.”
Harry, whose father and godfather are infamous pranksters, doesn’t buy it. He crosses his arms over his chest, leans against the display of Shooting Star brooms, and says, “This is officially the most pathetic prank attempt that I’ve ever witnessed. It’s so bad that I’m feeling secondhand embarrassment on your behalf, Heir Malfoy. How much did Sirius pay you to do this? Or did you lose a bet to him?”
It would be just like his stupid, beloved godfather to interfere in Harry’s inexistent love life. Just because Harry is attracted to Lucius, just because he finds Lucius fascinating both intellectually and magically, doesn’t mean he’s going to change his mind.
“Heir Black has nothing to do with this.”
“Pull the other one,” Harry snorts.
Harry has plenty of self-esteem. He knows exactly what he’s worth, thank you very much. But if Lucius Malfoy hasn’t found anyone in over twenty years who meets his impossible standards—surely, they must be impossible; why else would he still be single with his title and wealth and all of his everything?—then the chance that he wouldn’t reject Harry’s offer of courtship as soon as it’s issued is just … too small for Harry to suffer the ensuing disappointment.
He would much rather spare himself the humiliation—it’s almost a bloody rite of passage for most magicals at this point—of joining the literal hundreds of people that Lucius has turned down since he came of age.
A furrow appears on Lucius’s brow, his expression looking decidedly pinched, which only sharpens his features.
Harry blinks once, twice, tilts his head, and then says, “Wait, are you serious?”
“Yes,” Lucius grits out, a muscle ticking in his cheek. “Mother said that she observed us speaking at the last gala and commented on how our conversation lasted significantly longer than my conversations with anyone but my closest friends.”
Harry grins as he recalls that “significantly longer” conversation at the most recent Ministry Gala. It consisted almost entirely of cutting remarks about the current Minister for Magic’s incompetence and weekly blunders. Both Lucius and Harry agree that someone must have been Confounding people at the polls for Mister Cornelius Fudge to get elected. If he gets elected again after his term is up, then they’ve agreed to shift their speculation from the Confundus Curse to the Imperius Curse.
“I informed her that you’re ‘tolerable company’ and she took it as a declaration that I’ve been courting you in secret.”
“I hate when that happens,” Harry groans, entirely sympathetic, all too used to his parents searching for hidden meanings in his words, or somehow hearing something completely and utterly different from what Harry actually said. It’s annoying at best and aggravating at worst.
Lucius’s jaw drops open slightly. “Do people often tell you that their parents believe you’re secretly courting?”
Harry snorts and waves a hand dismissively. “No, the part where parents hear what they want to hear and try to push their happiness on their children.” He huffs. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my parents. But if I have to hear either of them express their ‘concern’ that I didn’t find anyone to court while I was at Hogwarts, I’m going to spend an afternoon locked in the gallery reserved for heirloom vases, Blasting them to bits only to repeat the process once they’ve repaired themselves.”
Amusement curls across Lucius’s lips and brightens his silver eyes, making the prat even more attractive than he already was. It’s truly ridiculous. “I prefer destroying the marble busts of my more annoying ancestors. Listening to them scream about the disrespect and lack of propriety from their portraits as they watch is … very satisfying.”
Laughter spills from Harry’s throat; it’s loud and so intense that it hurts his stomach.
The best part is that no one would ever believe Harry if he told someone what Lucius just confessed. Not when Lucius behaves so properly in public, not with the frigid and supercilious mask that he’s so well known for.
“I’ll make you a deal, Heir Malfoy,” Harry says around the chuckles that continue to spill from his lips. “I’ll play along if anyone asks if we’re courting if you agree to do the same for me.”
Lucius scowls, something that resembles genuine frustration in his eyes, before he states, “It was my intention to ask you to lunch. Since that’s unwanted, I accept your ter—”
“Wait, wait, wait!” Harry says, lurching forward a step, his heart pounding furiously in his chest. “You actually want to court me?” He gestures at himself with absolute disbelief. “Me? Of all people?”
Piercing gray eyes drag slowly down Harry’s body, starting at the top of his head—Harry winces remembering how truly awful his untameable hair looked today when he left Potter Manor—and stopping (a socially unacceptable length of time later) on the toes of his dragonhide boots.
His answer, when it comes, in that slow, smug drawl of Lucius’s, sends Harry’s heart right into his throat. “You’ll do.”