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The building wore the name MALFOY & BLACK LLP in gold so polished it caught the morning sun. People of all ages and backgrounds slowed when they passed it. Not enough to stare openly or crudely; no one in the part of London ever stared openly here. But they looked in, staring at the reflections in the glass and the shine of cars parked right at the front.
The Malfoys had cultivated a particular kind of reputation over the years: Expensive and untouchable. They were the sort of men and women people spoke about quietly and resentfully over twelve pound coffees.
At precisely eight-thirteen, a black car slid to the curb.
The driver emerged first, hands quickly opening the back door. Then Lucius Malfoy.
Everything about him seemed cut from something cold and ancient. Silver-thread tie. Black wool coat. Gloves folded neatly in one hand. He stepped onto the pavement with the effortless confidence of a man who had never once in his life doubted that rooms belonged to him the moment he entered them.
The security guard at the front door straightened instantly. “Good morning, Mr Malfoy.”
Lucius inclined his head once, already walking. And behind him came Draco, echoing his father in every way.
The resemblance always struck people hardest in motion. In photographs Draco still carried traces of youth around the mouth, around the eyes, something unfinished and dangerous and alive, but in movement he became devastatingly, horribly familiar. Same measured stride. Same lifted chin. Same expression sharpened into polite indifference.
Father and son crossed the marble lobby together and conversations thinned around them.
Associates glanced up from coffees. Paralegals lowered voices. Someone near reception muttered, “Christ,” beneath their breath as Draco passed.
Because there was something unsettling about seeing them side by side. Lucius looked like the original sketch; Draco looked like the artist had gone over the lines harder the second time.
“Your meeting with Selwyn has been moved to eleven,” Lucius said without looking at him.
Draco removed his gloves finger by finger. “I already moved it.”
A beat passed. Only then did vLucius glance sideways, his brief gaze appraising. “And?”
“He complained.”
“Did it matter?”
“No.”
“Good.”
That was the entirety of the praise Draco would receive for the next twelve hours, and both of them knew it.
The elevators opened immediately upon seeing Lucius approach. Perks of owning half the damn building, people whispered. Inside, the mirrored walls reflected them infinitely. Black coats. Pale hair. Matching expressions.
Draco adjusted the cuff of his sleeve and caught himself in the reflection at the exact same moment Lucius did. For one strange second it looked less like a father and son and more like Draco standing beside his own future.
Thirty years older.
Thirty years colder.
The elevator chimed. Floor thirty-two. The executive level unfolded around them in muted wealth. Dark wood. Glass walls. Quiet shoes on expensive carpet. Assistants already waiting with tablets in hand and nerves stretched tight as piano wire.
“Mr Malfoy.”
“Good morning.”
“Your nine o’clock arrived early.”
Lucius handed his gloves to his assistant without breaking stride. “Then they can learn patience.”
Draco’s mouth twitched faintly. Never quite a smile, but there was always something amusing about his father’s cold distance with their clients.
They passed the bullpen where junior associates worked in frightened silence beneath the glow of desk lamps and impossible billable requirements. Heads dipped as Lucius walked by. More dipped when Draco followed.
Not respect, exactly. Not fear entirely either. Recognition, perhaps. The understanding that cruelty could be inherited as cleanly as bone structure or eye color.
“Draco.”
He stopped immediately.
Lucius finally turned fully toward him, gaze cool and cutting and impossibly precise. Even now, after years of this, Draco still felt that look settle into him like the edge of a knife finding its familiar place.
“The Potter case,” Lucius said. “I expect this to be handled delicately.”
Draco loosened one cufflink. “You say that as though subtlety isn’t one of my virtues.”
“It is not.” A pause. Then, quieter: “Do not underestimate him simply because people like him.”
There it was.
Interest.
Not in Harry Potter himself perhaps, but in what Harry represented. A rising name. A dangerous attorney. The sort of man juries trusted instinctively and old partners distrusted for the exact same reason. Draco had seen the file. He had memorized it.
Harry Potter: senior associate, top litigation record, pro bono obsession, impossible retention numbers, annoyingly beloved by literally everyone, including court staff.
Draco already disliked him immensely.
“Understood,” he said.
Lucius studied him one moment longer, as though checking for cracks in the marble. Finding none, apparently, he turned and disappeared into his office.
And just like that the floor breathed again.
Phones resumed ringing. Keyboards resumed clacking. Somewhere a junior associate laughed nervously, too loud and too sudden. Draco stood alone in the corridor for half a second longer, staring at the frosted glass doors bearing the family name.
MALFOY.
People always said he looked exactly like his father. They said it admiringly. They said it cautiously. They said it like it was inevitable. Like he was going to end up exactly like the man who raised him.
Draco had never quite decided whether it felt more like inheritance or a threat.
Shaking the thought from his head, he moved to the person he figured would know Harry Potter best; Longbottom.
Neville Longbottom’s desk looked like a botanical incident.
There were plants everywhere.
Not tasteful office plants either. Not the sleek minimalist kind people bought to prove they possessed emotional stability and disposable income. These were sprawling, leafy things that climbed toward the fluorescent lights with alarming determination. One of them had overtaken an entire shelf. Another appeared to be eating paperclips.
Draco stopped beside the desk and stared at the newest addition. A tiny pot containing something green and spiked and deeply unfortunate.
Longbottom looked up from a stack of witness statements. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make whatever expression you’re making.”
Draco glanced around theatrically. “Expression? I’m simply trying to understand whether this is a workspace or the early stages of ecological collapse.”
“It’s a cactus.”
“Yes,” Draco said softly, “I gathered we hadn’t yet progressed to marine life.”
Neville rolled his eyes and went back to highlighting documents.
Draco lingered anyway, because irritating Longbottom had become one of the few reliable joys in corporate litigation.
“Tell me,” he said, picking up the tiny cactus between two fingers, “does this one also have a tragic backstory?”
“It was five pounds.”
“How Dickensian.”
Neville snatched it back.
Across the bullpen, assistants moved carefully around the conversation with the instinctive caution of people witnessing a familiar natural disaster. Nobody interrupted Draco Malfoy when he looked entertained. The consequences tended to become educational.
Neville leaned back in his chair. The man had become quite confident since his intern days. Either he knew he was one of the few top employees, or his beard had made him confident. Probably the latter. “Shouldn’t you be billing someone for breathing wrong?”
“Already done.”
“Of course.”
Draco’s gaze flicked toward the stack of files on Neville’s desk. Potter’s name sat visible across the top folder in thick black lettering. Intereting.
“Potter still pretending he can save the world one pro bono case at a time?”
Neville’s expression sharpened immediately. Protective. How quaint.
“He’s helping people,” Neville said.
Draco hummed. “Dangerous habit for a lawyer.”
“Not everyone measures success by how many lives they ruin before lunch.”
Draco pressed a hand lightly against his chest. “Longbottom, if you continue like this I’ll begin to suspect you dislike me.”
“I think the entire floor dislikes you.”
“The entire floor,” Draco corrected smoothly, “is obsessed with me. There’s a difference.”
That, infuriatingly, made Neville laugh once.
Quick and unwilling.
Draco noticed. Draco noticed everything.
He leaned casually against the edge of the desk, immaculate in black and silver while Neville sat surrounded by legal pads and crooked plant pots and coffee stains. They looked absurd beside each other. Like a cathedral had decided to mock a greenhouse.
“So,” Draco said. “How is Potter?”
Neville narrowed his eyes immediately. “Why?”
“No reason.”
“That sounded exactly like a reason.”
Draco plucked a dying leaf from one of the plants. “I merely enjoy monitoring the emotional state of opposing counsel. Very healthy workplace habit.”
“You’ve spoken to him twice.”
“And already I find him exhausting.”
That was true. And yet…also unfortunately untrue.
Harry Potter had arrived at the firm six months ago and somehow managed to become the sort of person everyone spoke about with irritating affection.
Potter helped interns. Potter remembered assistants’ birthdays. Potter brought coffee for reception staff during late nights. Potter won cases.
Worst of all, Potter did it all without appearing remotely strategic about it. Lucius distrusted him on instinct. Draco, naturally, had decided to provoke him recreationally.
Neville watched him carefully now, as though trying to identify hidden explosives.
“You know,” he said slowly, “Harry thinks you’re not actually as terrible as you pretend to be.”
Silence. Draco blinked once. Then:
“What a deeply embarrassing thing for him to believe.”
Neville grinned suddenly. “Thought so.”
Draco straightened his cuffs with sharp, precise movements.
“Tell Potter,” he said coolly, “that if he leaves annotated case law all over Conference Room B again, I’ll sue him personally.”
“He annotated one paragraph.”
“In blue ink, Longbottom. Blue. What is he, a preschool teacher?”
Neville was openly laughing now. Traitorous. Draco gave him a look of profound disappointment just as movement caught his attention across the bullpen.
Harry Potter had just stepped out of the elevator. Sleeves rolled to his elbows.
Tie loosened. Carrying two coffees and three folders balanced precariously against his chest. The entire atmosphere of the floor shifted around him in tiny almost invisible ways. People looked up. Smiled. Relaxed. Infuriating. Potter spotted Neville first, then Draco. He looks confused for a moment, but then he smiled, mouth wide.
Draco felt, very distinctly, like someone had just thrown a lit match into a room full of expensive gasoline.
He crossed the office like he belonged there. Not in the way Lucius did, with ownership and intimidation. Nor in the way Draco did, with his polished, perfected edges. Harry belonged like warm light belonged, all sunny and natural without even trying.
A paralegal, who Draco briefly remembered as Susan, intercepted him halfway to Neville’s desk.
“Harry, did you get my email?”
“Not yet,” Harry said, balancing the coffees against his hip. “But if it’s about the Brenner exhibits, tell them I’m emotionally devastated and I’ll look at them after lunch.”
She laughed. Actually laughed. Draco found this deeply suspicious behavior for a law office.
“Morning,” Harry said as he finally reached them. Neville immediately stole one of the coffees from his hands with the entitlement of a man who had done this many times before.
“You’re late.”
“I was trapped in a lift with Goyle from tax law.”
Neville grimaced. “My condolences.”
Harry’s eyes flicked toward Draco then, bright behind his glasses.
“And look,” he said lightly, “Malfoy’s terrorizing plant life before nine a.m. We really are keeping to tradition.”
Draco looked down at the cactus still sitting beside Neville’s files.
“It looked pathetic,”
“It’s a cactus.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
Harry huffed a laugh into the rim of his coffee cup before taking a sip.
And there it was again, that strange disruption Draco kept noticing around him. Tiny things. Tiny, minuscule, atomically sized things. The atmosphere shifted when Potter arrived somewhere. People relaxed. Conversations bent toward him instinctively. Even the bullpen noise seemed less grating.
It was irritating beyond reason. Draco could never quite place why.
Harry leaned against Neville’s desk. Sleeves rolled messily, his tie crooked, his hair already in disarray despite the early hour. He looked nothing like the attorneys plastered across the firm’s glossy recruitment brochures. Draco hated how effective it was.
“You know,” Harry said conversationally, “McLaggen’s still complaining about your deposition yesterday.”
Draco accepted this information with complete serenity. “Excellent.”
“You made him restart his answer six times.”
“He kept lying incorrectly.”
Neville snorted into his coffee.
Harry shook his head, smiling despite himself. “One day someone’s going to hit you with a chair in a conference room.”
“One can only hope it improves the conversation.”
Harry looked at him for a second too long after that. It should have been unbearable. Instead, it made something restless shift beneath Draco’s ribs.
Harry took another sip of coffee. “You free at lunch?”
“Devastatingly, no.”
“I need your notes from the Ellison hearing.”
“My notes,” Draco repeated, offended on principle, “are a privilege, Potter, not a public service.”
“You billed the client forty-three hours for that hearing.”
“And every second was artfully earned.”
Neville muttered, “You’re both exhausting.”
Neither of them acknowledged him.
Harry smiled suddenly then, crooked and bright and dangerous in a completely different way than Draco was used to.
“Draco,” he said, and Draco disliked immediately how his name sounded in Potter’s mouth, softened around the edges like something handled often, “you know I always appreciate our talks, and our time together.”
Neville made a choking noise into his coffee. Draco went very still. Because Potter sounded sincere. Casual, yes, but very, very sincere.
“No you don’t,” Draco said instantly, voice far quieter than he meant it to be. The phones continued to ring around them, keyboards clacked and someone cursed at the printers nearby. But the space between them felt very quiet and still.
Neville looked back and forth between them like a man realizing too late he had wandered into an active minefield.
Harry frowned faintly. “What?”
“You enjoy irritating me,” Draco said, holding his gaze. “You enjoy winning arguments. You enjoy watching me develop stress-induced migraines before noon. But appreciating our conversations would require you to actually listen during them.”
Though he meant it to be scathing, there was no bite in his words. They were…honest. And Harry seemed to realize that too. Something in his expression shifted.
“You’re right,” Harry said, and suddenly he laughed. “I don’t.”
The words landed harder than they should have. Draco couldn’t tear his eyes away from how bright Harry looked. And Neville, poor unfortunate Neville, looked like he wanted to fling himself directly through the nearest window.
And so, with a scowl, Draco stomped off to his office. He had a meeting soon, after all.
If soon was in two hours.
-
The meeting had been going badly for forty-three minutes and seventeen seconds. Draco knew this because he had been counting.
Not consciously at first. At first he had simply sat at the head of the conference table with one leg crossed over the other and his expression arranged into its usual polished disinterest while six men in expensive suits slowly dismantled his patience molecule by molecule.
Now, however, he was aware of every second with violent clarity.
“…completely inappropriate conduct for opposing counsel,” Selwyn was saying, voice oily with self-importance. “The client found your tone aggressive.”
“The client,” Draco said evenly, “committed securities fraud in three countries.”
A nervous silence followed. Someone shifted papers unnecessarily.
Selwyn smiled the way men smiled when they thought power insulated them from consequence. “Be that as it may, we do expect a certain level of professionalism at this firm.”
Draco felt something hot and dangerous move beneath his ribs.
A cross the table, Parkinson closed her eyes briefly.
A warning.
Too late.
“Professionalism,” Draco repeated softly, “from the man currently billing eighty hours a week to misplace commas in merger agreements.”
Selwyn’s face flushed instantly. “Excuse me?”
“No, truly,” Draco continued, voice calm enough to frighten anyone who knew him well, “it’s inspiring. Most people require talent to survive here. You’ve somehow managed to make mediocrity a long-term strategy.”
“Draco,” Pansy said quietly.
But Selwyn had already pushed back his chair.
“You arrogant little prick.”
There it was.
The room changed immediately after that. The air tightening. Associates suddenly very interested in their notes. Nobody looking directly at Draco anymore. Because this was the part people hated witnessing. Not Draco being annoyed, or pissed off. A Malfoy being furious.
“You know,” he said as he stood, “people often accuse me of behaving like my father, and I’ve always found that deeply unfair because unlike him I still occasionally experience human restraint.”
“Sit down, boy.” Selwyn snapped. Draco laughed, a cold eyebrow raising in disbelief.
Then he reached across the table and swept the stack of case files onto the floor. The sound cracked through the room. Paper exploded everywhere. Someone near the door inhaled sharply.
Pansy muttered, “Oh for fuck’s sake.”
Selwyn surged to his feet. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No,” Draco said, and now there was something genuinely frightening in his voice, something honed and exhausted and razor-thin, “but give me another five minutes and we can revisit the question.”
The room had gone dead silent. Draco could feel it happening again. That awful familiar split inside himself. The one where anger stopped feeling hot and started feeling clean. The same one he had over heard his father explain to his mother, when Draco had been slapped silly as an idiot teenager. He took a step forward.
Then the conference room door opened. Potter walked in mid-chaos carrying a legal pad and immediately froze. Papers were everywhere. Selwyn red-faced with outrage. Pansy visibly reconsidering her career choices. And Draco standing very still at the head of the table.
Harry blinked once. “…Should I come back?” Nobody answered. Harry’s gaze moved to Draco fully then, and something in his expression sharpened instantly. Recognition. Not of the situation. Of Draco. Of the edge and sharp anger written all over his angular face.
“Malfoy,” Harry said carefully.
Draco didn’t look at him.
“Not now, Potter.”
Selwyn pointed furiously. “Your colleague has completely lost control of himself.”
“My colleague,” Harry said mildly, still watching Draco, “looks like he’s one sarcastic comment away from committing aggravated assault.”
“That is not helpful,” Pansy muttered.
Harry ignored her. Draco’s jaw tightened hard enough to ache. He hated this. Hated Potter seeing him like this. Messy and uncontrolled, and too different from his father.
“Leave,” Draco said quietly. Harry didn’t move. A very infuriating pattern.
Instead, he stepped further into the room and set the legal pad down carefully on the table like someone approaching a wounded animal liable to bite.
“Okay,” Harry said. “You’re angry.”
“How observant.”
“You threw documents.”
“I was experimenting with interior design.”
Selwyn sputtered something incoherent.
Harry still didn’t look away from Draco. “And if I let this continue?”
Draco smiled then. “Then this meeting becomes substantially more memorable.”
Harry studied him for one long second. Then, softly, “Come outside with me.”
Draco laughed outright at that. “I would genuinely rather die.”
“That can probably be arranged later.”
A few startled laughs escaped around the room before dying immediately under Draco’s expression. Harry stepped closer. Too close. Close enough now that Draco could see the coffee stain near his cuff and the faint shadows beneath his eyes. Close enough to smell coffee and rain and something frustratingly warm. And still Harry looked at him without fear.
That was the unbearable part. Everyone else feared Draco when he lost his temper. Potter just looked concerned.
“Come outside,” Harry repeated quietly.
Draco stared at him.
“Why?” Draco asked suddenly. “So you can fix me?”
Harry frowned. “What?”
“You have this exhausting habit of collecting damaged things and trying to save them.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“No?” Draco’s voice sharpened. “Because from where I’m standing it certainly feels like you’ve mistaken me for a charity project.”
The room had become so silent it felt airless. Harry’s expression changed instantly. Not angry. Potter didn’t really get angry. But he did look hurt. Draco realized too late he had aimed accurately.
“Draco,” Harry said carefully, “I was trying to help.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t want to be your friend, Potter.”
The words landed between them like shattered glass. Harry went still. Completely, utterly still. And suddenly Draco wanted, with horrifying intensity, to take it back. But pride was a vicious thing once fed.
Harry looked at him for a long moment. And then he gave one short professional nod. It was too controlled to feel like one of Harry’s movements.
“Right,” The man said. No sarcasm or dashing smile. He picked up the legal pad, and nodded at Selwyn before looking back at Draco. “Your client’s waiting downstairs, Mr Malfoy.”
The door clicked shut behind him.
Pansy looked at Draco with open disbelief. “Congratulations,” she said flatly. “That may genuinely be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”
Draco stared at the closed door. Something ugly and hollow had opened beneath his ribs.
Across the table, Selwyn muttered, “Well. That was dramatic.”
Draco turned slowly toward him. Selwyn paled. The meeting, somehow, became worse.
And the end of his day was much worse than that, because of course the whole floor, and the four below, knew he had mistreated the law firm's sweetheart.
Half past four, Draco walked past reception.
“Goodnight, Mr Malfoy,” Daphne Greengrass said pleasantly without looking up from her monitor.
Too pleasantly.
Draco narrowed his eyes slightly. “You sound as though you’re speaking to me through clenched teeth.”
“I would never.”
“Mhm.”
He continued toward his office. Two junior associates standing near the printers abruptly stopped talking when he approached. One of them physically turned around and pretended to study a wall.
Interesting. Draco kept walking.
The office felt wrong. Quieter than usual despite the late-hour chaos of litigation deadlines and exhausted caffeine consumption. People still worked, still typed, still shuffled papers beneath dimmed office lights, but conversations kept lowering when he passed. But it wasn’t with fear. Oh no, it was judgement.
How thrilling.
Draco tossed his briefcase onto his office sofa and began stripping through the remnants of the day with mechanical precision. Emails. Billing entries. Deposition notes. A draft motion sitting untouched on his desk like an accusation.
He lasted eleven minutes before irritation finally outweighed self-control.
The first sign came when Blaise Zabini knocked once against the open office door and lingered there instead of entering.
“Zabini,” Draco said without looking up. “If you hover any harder I’m charging you rent.”
Blaise folded his arms. “I just came to see if Potter had strangled you yet.”
Draco’s pen paused. Then resumed.
“How disappointing for both of us that he remains committed to basic professionalism.”
Blaise watched him carefully for a moment.
“Right,” he said slowly. “Well. Good luck with… all this.”
“All what?”
But Blaise had already vanished down the corridor like a man escaping a bomb threat. Draco stared after him.
A minute later, Pansy entered without knocking, dropped a folder onto his desk, and said: “You’re an idiot.” She was gone before he could ask for context. Draco pinched the bridge of his nose.
At six fifteen he emerged from his office in search of coffee and found Theodore Nott sitting on Neville Longbottom’s desk eating crisps directly over several confidential documents.
Neville looked exhausted.
Theo looked delighted.
“Malfoy,” Theo said around a mouthful of salt and vinegar. “How’s the public execution going?”
Neville suddenly became deeply interested in reorganizing paperclips.
Theo continued cheerfully, “You know, usually when someone emotionally devastates Potter they at least have the decency to buy him dinner first.”
There it was.
Finally.
Draco looked between them slowly. Neville would not meet his eyes. Theo was outright grinning. A horrible suspicion began unfolding inside Draco’s chest.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Silence.
Neville made a small noise that sounded distressingly like pity. Draco immediately hated it. Theo tossed another crisp into his mouth. “Nothing.”
“Nott.”
“Oh, don’t sound so threatening. You already ruined one workplace relationship today.”
Draco’s stomach tightened unpleasantly.
Neville sighed heavily and set down his pen. “Harry’s upset.”
“Yes,” Draco said coolly. “I gathered that from the fact he looked at me as though I’d kicked a puppy into traffic.”
Theo snorted violently. Neville still wouldn’t look directly at him. Which was when Draco realized this was worse than he thought.
Much worse.
Slowly, carefully, he asked: “How long has Potter been talking about me?”
Neville blinked. “Talking about you?”
“The floor clearly thinks I’ve just murdered him in the lobby. That level of collective emotional investment does not materialize spontaneously.”
Theo leaned sideways against the desk. “Well. To be fair.”
“No sentence in history has ever improved after those four words.”
Theo ignored him. “Harry’s been defending you for weeks.”
Draco went still.
Neville finally looked up then, expression caught somewhere between annoyance and reluctant sympathy.
“People complain about you constantly,” he admitted. “Mostly fairly.”
“Charming.”
“And every single time Harry says you’re stressed because of the Avery case.”
Draco stared at him.
Neville continued carefully, “He says you’re under pressure. That you work too much. That most of the things you say are… performative.”
Theo coughed theatrically. “Which is a very diplomatic way of saying everyone thought he was secretly obsessed with you, Malfoy.”
Neville kicked him in the shin. Theo looked delighted by this development. But Draco barely heard either of them. Something strange and heavy had settled low in his chest. Harry had been defending him. Repeatedly. To people Draco knew disliked him. As though Draco deserved understanding. As though Draco was understandable at all.
And Draco, in return, had humiliated him in front of half the litigation department.
Theo tilted his head. “You look unwell.”
“I’m considering homicide.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Neville rubbed tiredly at his face. “You really hurt him, you know.”
“Well, I don’t think I can go back now,” Draco muttered. The two didn’t answer. Instead, they returned to whispering over a document, Neville brushing off the crumbs Theo dropped.
Most people had gone home now. The remaining few worked beneath pools of amber desk light while rain streaked softly against the windows overlooking the city.
At the far end of the floor, Harry’s office remained dark.
-
Three weeks later, the Avery case had become sentient. Draco was almost certain of it. There was no other explanation for the way it kept finding new and inventive methods to ruin his life.
“What do you mean they hung up on you?” Lucius asked.
Draco stood in his father’s office with one hand braced against the edge of the desk and the other still gripping his phone hard enough to ache.
“They hung up,” he repeated flatly. “In the traditional sense. The call disconnected. Human communication ended.”
Lucius regarded him with visible disappointment, which was impressive considering disappointment had long since become his default facial expression.
“The Averys requested this firm specifically.”
“Yes.”
“And now they refuse to speak with you.”
“Yes.”
A pause. “How unfortunate.”
Draco hated when his father sounded amused. It always meant something catastrophic for everyone nearby.
“The daughter,” Draco said through his teeth, “has apparently decided I’m ‘emotionally hostile.’”
“You are emotionally hostile.”
“Thank you, Father. Your warmth continues to sustain me.”
Lucius ignored that. “And Potter? Do they still want him on the case?”
Draco went still. Which, unfortunately, was answer enough.
Lucius leaned back slowly in his chair. “Still not speaking to you properly?”
“He speaks to me perfectly adequately.”
“Professionally.”
“Yes.”
“How chilling.”
Draco’s jaw tightened. The problem was that Harry had become worse after the argument. It wasn’t that he was cruel, oh no! Cruel would have been manageable. Harry was polite now. Every interaction arrived stripped clean of warmth.
“Good morning, Malfoy.”
“Your revisions are attached.”
“The client approved the motion.”
No teasing, no easy smiles, no lingering conversations in doorways. Nothing. Draco discovered, to his growing horror, that he missed being irritated by him.
Lucius tapped a finger once against the desk. “If the Avery family trusts Potter, use Potter.”
Draco stared. “You cannot be serious.”
“I am many things,” Lucius said coolly. “Sentimental has never been one of them.”
Draco left the office ten minutes later feeling like someone had replaced his bloodstream with acid.
The office was quieter than usual beneath the grey wash of rain against the windows. Most associates looked half-dead already, despite it only being noon.
Harry sat near the far end of the floor surrounded by open files and fluorescent sticky notes, glasses slipping slightly down his nose as he read through deposition transcripts. There were three empty coffee cups beside him.
And one violently orange energy drink.
Draco stopped beside the desk. Harry looked up immediately, infuriatingly composed.
“Malfoy.”
“Potter.”
Neither spoke for a moment.
Around them, several nearby associates developed the sudden intense focus of people trying not to eavesdrop while absolutely eavesdropping. Draco’s gaze dropped to the drink can.
Bright orange. Practically radioactive.
“Orange, Potter?”
Harry glanced at it. “It’s mango.”
“It’s a health code violation.”
“You drink espresso by itself.”
“That is because I possess standards.”
Something flickered briefly at the corner of Harry’s mouth. Not quite a smile, but something. Draco felt the microscopic shift of a life-threatening event.
Harry set down his pen. “Was there something you needed?”
Draco resisted the urge to walk directly into traffic. Instead, he said, “The Avery family likes you.”
Harry blinked once. “That’s… oddly ominous phrasing.”
“They refuse to speak to me.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
Draco ignored that. “The daughter wants you present at tomorrow’s meeting.”
Harry leaned back slightly in his chair now, studying him carefully.
“You want me to sit in.”
“I’m not above cashing in their interest in you.”
There it was again, that almost-smile.
“You’re admitting you need help?” Harry asked.
“Don’t make this humiliating for both of us.”
“Too late for that.”
Draco exhaled slowly through his nose. Somewhere behind them Theo whispered a dramatic “Finally” before Pansy apparently kicked him hard enough to silence him.
Harry noticed too. His expression softened for just a second. Then professionalism slid back into place.
“What exactly happened with the Averys?”
Draco considered lying. But, Potter was better off aware.
“I told Mr Avery his understanding of financial disclosure laws resembled a head injury.”
Harry closed his eyes briefly.
“In my defense,” Draco said, “he was wrong.”
“You called a client concussed.”
“I implied concussive themes.”
Harry actually laughed then. Draco felt something inside himself loosen so suddenly it was almost painful. Harry shook his head once, still smiling faintly as he reached for the Avery file.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll help.”
Draco watched him for one dangerous second too long.
Because this was the problem with Harry freaking nice guy Potter.
He kept doing kind things after Draco had already given him every reason not to.
“Read up on it.” Draco said instead of voicing his feelings. “Quickly!”
-
The Avery daughter was twenty-four years old, recently engaged, catastrophically wealthy, and entirely obsessed with Harry Potter. Draco realized this approximately four minutes into the meeting.
Unfortunately.
The conference room overlooked the river, all grey skies and silver water beyond the glass, while inside the Averys occupied one entire side of the table like a family portrait commissioned by capitalism itself.
Mr Avery looked perpetually irritated. Mrs Avery looked perpetually medicated. And their daughter, Arabella Avery, looked at Harry as though he’d personally invented sincerity.
“Honestly,” Arabella was saying now, smiling brightly across the table, “you explain things so much better than everyone else here.”
Draco nearly snapped his pen in half.
Harry blinked. “Thank you?”
“It’s true,” she continued. “Every other lawyer talks like they’re trying to cast a spell on me.”
Draco folded his hands neatly. “A tragic side effect of attending law school.”
Arabella barely glanced at him.
This, Draco discovered, was somehow more offensive than open dislike.
Harry, infuriatingly, smiled at her gently. “The contracts are complicated. You’re not stupid for asking questions.” Draco stared. Because that tone. That awful warm patient tone.
Potter used it constantly with witnesses and assistants and nervous interns and apparently heiresses now too. People melted beneath it every single time.
“Oh my god,” she said suddenly, leaning toward Harry conspiratorially, “Dad said you did pro bono work during Christmas.”
Harry looked vaguely embarrassed. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“You spent Christmas Eve helping tenants avoid eviction,” she insisted.
Draco slowly turned his head toward Harry. Harry noticed immediately.
“What?”
“You did not mention this.”
“You didn’t ask.”
Arabella laughed softly. “See? This is what I mean. You’re authentic.”
Draco experienced the startling unfamiliar sensation of wanting to throw himself directly into the Thames. Authentic. What a horrifyingly intimate compliment.
Across the table, Mr Avery finally interrupted. “Can we focus on the settlement terms?”
“Yes,” Draco said sharply, before Harry could answer anything else in that unbearably earnest voice.
The rest of the meeting became progressively worse for Draco’s emotional stability.
Every time Harry spoke, Arabella lit up like someone had adjusted the room’s brightness settings. Every time Draco spoke, she looked positively bored. And Harry, oblivious catastrophe that he was, kept smiling at her. Not flirtatiously. That would almost have been easier. No, Harry smiled at her kindly. Which was infinitely more dangerous.
By the end of the meeting Draco felt strange and brittle beneath his skin.
The Averys finally stood to leave. Arabella lingered, because of course she did.
“It was really lovely meeting you properly,” she told Harry, tucking a strand of hair behind one ear.
Harry smiled. “You too.”
“And maybe after this is all over, you could recommend some charities? The housing ones you mentioned.”
“Yeah,” Harry said easily. “Of course.”
Draco’s stomach twisted unpleasantly.
Arabella finally turned toward him. “Goodbye, Mr Malfoy.”
“Thrilling as always,” Draco murmured.
The conference room doors shut.
Harry began gathering files into neat stacks. “Well,” he said, “that went better than expected.”
Draco watched him. Watched his arms tense under his rolled sleeves, watched his loosened tie swing slightly, watched the softness sitting carelessly around his expression. Something ugly moved in Draco’s heart, and his mouth opened against his will.
“She likes you,” he said flatly.
Harry glanced up. “Arabella?”
“No, Potter, the Prime Minister.”
Harry frowned faintly. “I mean. She’s nice.”
Draco laughed once under his breath. There it was again. That impossible sincerity.
“She thinks you’re authentic,” he said.
Harry shrugged lightly. “I try to be.”
The words hit harder than they should have. Because Draco had spent his entire life learning the exact opposite.
Harry tucked another document into the file. “You did well in there, by the way.”
Draco’s gaze snapped toward him. “What?”
“With Mr Avery,” Harry clarified. “You kept him from bulldozing the conversation.”
Draco stared at him in disbelief.
“You’re praising me immediately after watching that woman practically propose marriage to you over settlement paperwork.”
Harry looked genuinely confused. “What?”
And suddenly Draco was furious. Not because Harry flirted back. Because he hadn’t.
Because Harry moved through the world being effortlessly kind and open and good, entirely unaware of what it did to people around him.
Entirely unaware of what it was doing to Draco.
“How exhausting,” Draco muttered.
Harry straightened slowly. “Excuse me?”
“You collect admiration like loose change. Like lost puppies.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” Draco agreed quietly. “It’s not.”
Harry’s expression tightened. “What’s your problem?”
Draco stood abruptly and began gathering the remaining folders with sharp, controlled movements.
“You forgot something,” he said coldly.
Harry frowned. “What?”
Draco handed him a single loose page left near his chair. Their fingers brushed briefly. Heat flashed up Draco’s wrist like a threat. Harry looked at him carefully now.
“You’re angry.”
“How observant.”
“About Arabella?”
Draco gave a short incredulous laugh. “Please.”
Harry held his gaze for a long moment. “Are you sure about that?” The room went still.
Draco’s voice sharpened instantly. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Do not stand there pretending you understand me.”
Harry’s expression changed.
“You know,” Harry said quietly, “everyone here thinks you’re terrifying.”
“How disappointing for them that they’re correct.”
“But I don’t think you actually know who you are outside all this.”
Draco went motionless. Harry gestured vaguely toward the glass walls, the skyline, the endless polished machinery of the firm surrounding them.
“The image. The reputation. Your father.” Draco’s jaw tightened painfully at Harry’s words. “You’re building your life on a lie.”
Draco had gone still, and the room quiet. Quiet enough that Draco could hear the faint hum of the overhead lights and the rain against the windows and his own pulse beating far too hard beneath his skin.
Harry still stood across from him near the conference table, one hand resting lightly against the stack of Avery files, expression open in that awful unbearable way of his.
“You don’t mean that,” Draco said finally, though his voice sounded thinner now. Less certain.
Harry held his gaze. “I do.”
Draco laughed softly under his breath. A wrecked sound. Because that's what Potter did. He wrecked him.
“Of course you do.” He dragged a hand through his hair suddenly, frustration breaking through the careful elegance he usually wore like armor. “God, Potter, you look at people like you’re trying to save them from themselves.”
Harry frowned slightly. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to understand you.”
The words hit like a car crash.
Draco looked at him. Really looked at him. At the rolled sleeves and tired eyes and loosened tie. At the stubborn gentleness still sitting in his expression despite everything Draco had said to him over the past few weeks.
Harry should have hated him by now. Any reasonable person would have. Instead he kept standing there looking at Draco like he was something worth figuring out.
Something inside Draco finally snapped. He crossed the space between them too quickly.
Harry barely had time to inhale before Draco grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him.
Messy. Desperate. All the restraint Draco had been bleeding out for weeks collapsing at once.
Harry made a startled sound against his mouth, stumbling slightly back into the edge of the conference table. Papers shifted. A pen clattered to the floor somewhere distant and irrelevant.
And then Harry kissed him back like he’d been waiting for permission.
Draco felt it everywhere. The warm shock of Harry’s hands catching against his sides. The sharp inhale between kisses. The horrible terrifying tenderness of it. It lasted seconds. Maybe years.
Draco pulled back abruptly like he’d been burned. Both of them breathing hard now.
Harry’s glasses crooked. Draco’s grip still twisted in his shirt. And suddenly panic flooded in behind the adrenaline. Draco stared at him, horrified.
“Why?” he asked roughly. “Why would you let me do this?”
Harry blinked once. Still close enough that Draco could feel the warmth coming off him. Then Harry’s expression softened so completely it almost hurt to look at.
“Draco,” he said quietly.
“You’ve been really stressed about this case,” Harry murmured, voice gentle enough to undo people. “I can read it all over your face. I don’t think you’re sleeping enough.”
"Reading? I didn't know you could read." Draco let out a disbelieving laugh. Because that was Harry Potter in one sentence, wasn’t it? Harry laughed as well, hands still rubbing his hips.
Draco kissed him like a confession dragged bleeding from his chest, and Harry responded by worrying about whether he was sleeping enough.
Their foreheads nearly touched now. Rain blurred the city behind them into silver watercolor streaks. And for the first time in weeks Draco wasn’t angry.
Which, honestly, felt far more frightening than having kissed Harry Freaking Potter.