Rivaling Affections

Authors Note: Many thanks to my friend and beta Robert for his work on this chapter

Chapter 13

Harry kissed Draco’s perfect mouth, letting his tongue dip inside and taste him. He tasted of cinnamon and apples, as if the blonde had quality checked the pie that he had baked just for him.

Draco responded but kept his hands planted firmly at his sides, clearly not wanting to push Harry away again by being too bold. When Harry finally broke the kiss Draco sighed contentedly. “What was that for?” he asked.

“For offering to help me. It was a very sweet and selfless gesture and I appreciate it,” Harry told him with a smile.

“Who said it was selfless? Maybe if I help you I’ll get a reward” Draco replied playfully.

“Oh? And what kind of reward would you be expecting for your services?” Harry asked, his tone reflecting more humor than his heart felt. Yet again Draco seemed to be proving that he thought Harry only had sex to offer.

“Well… I’d need to keep staying here I think, even after my house is done,” he mused. “Only to be able to monitor your progress closely, of course,” he added hastily. “I wouldn’t want you to think that I wanted to stay or anything.”

Harry rolled his eyes but smiled in spite of himself. The pain from reigning in his magic still tingled through his skin, but Draco’s words pleased him. Despite the Slytherin Professor’s protests, Harry knew that part of Draco was as infatuated with him as he was with Draco.

“Any other payment you would require?” he asked.

Draco shrugged elegantly, quite the feat for someone still covered in flour, and smiled cheekily at Harry. “I’m sure I could think of something else if you pressed me.”

Harry stood and offered his hand to Draco who took it at once. He was pleased to note the easy trust that settled over their friendship even from the start. Neither of them seemed to hold grudges about the past – they had been children, after all – and both seemed to see something in the other that made them perfect companions. Yet, Draco obviously still didn’t want to acknowledge that there was more there than just a solid friendship and sexual tension.

There was much more than that, and Harry wanted to explore it, but he couldn’t without Draco’s permission, and Draco would only ever let Harry have the key to his body, not his heart. That much was clear.

“What is it about me that makes you say no?” he blurted, suddenly wanting a direct answer from the man who constantly evaded his questions.

“No to what?” Draco asked, looking slightly perplexed and slightly like he was buying himself time to answer.

“To us, to a relationship,” Harry elaborated.

Draco sighed, dropped all eye contact and went back to cleaning the kitchen again. “I never said it was about you.”

“I don’t understand,” Harry stated, walking up behind Draco, turning the man around to face him, and cupping his perfect jaw to force their eyes to meet.

“I would be rubbish for you. I would mess everything up. I would make you regret ever having

fancied me,” Draco sighed. “It’s all me.”

Harry pulled him close, so that their noses were almost touching and their breath mingled together. Draco’s chest rose rapidly and Harry ran his hands through his smooth flour dusted hair. “What if I didn’t let you mess it up. Would you try?”

“I…” Draco began, the fear in his eyes making Harry want to kiss it all away.

“You can help me with my magic and I can help you with your relationship issues,” Harry offered.

“And if I still mess it all up?” Draco asked, looking forlorn.

“And if my magic still gets out of control?” Harry countered.

Draco sighed and nodded. “I get your point. I’ll think about it, okay? It’s not that I don’t think you’re worth it, Harry. I do. I’m just… I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt you, and that’s sort of my specialty.”

Harry nodded and nibbled lightly on Draco’s bottom lip, making the other man groan.

“I don’t understand why you’re putting so much energy into me when any wizard, or witch for that matter, would sell their soul for a single date with you.”

“I want you, Draco. I haven’t met a single wizard, or witch for that matter,” he added with an amused smile, “who captivates me the way you do,” Harry answered. “So, you’ll think about it? Seriously think about it?”

Draco smiled and shrugged once again. “I already think about it, I haven’t stopped since I moved in here,” he said and turned away quickly to finish cleaning up the mess he had made that morning.

With a flurry of activity and a few hours of time invested, the kitchen was finally restored to its original luster. Harry was practically floating after Draco’s admission that he already thought about caving into Harry’s request to try things as a couple. He didn’t know what it was about his old school rival that made him fight so hard, but he felt alive when Draco was near. He felt like everything in his life could be as delicious as the meals he cooked for everyone else.

Draco was handsome; there was no denying that. Even as a boy Harry thought so, but there was more to him than looks, otherwise Draco was right and he could just pick up any wizard to fill the gap in his life. But no, Draco was clever, which didn’t mean he was merely smart, but he was also witty and scheming and naturally quite brilliant. He was also dry and sarcastic, which Harry couldn’t deny he loved about him. Best of all he was argumentative, which would probably be a frustrating thing to anyone else, but Harry felt his heart warm to Draco every time the Slytherin Professor challenged him.

It was a rare trait to find in a world where he was the hero and celebrity. Most people just listened to his every word and clung to it as if it were gospel, so much so that he had gone through a phase where he was constantly making things up, telling people obviously made up stories that were complete rubbish just to see if someone would call him a liar.

But few did. He could always count on Hermione and Ron of course. They would always be there to ground him if his head became too large, and then there was Severus, and of course Minerva and Andromeda, but outside of that tight knit circle Harry had no one. Clearly he couldn’t date a portrait, and he shivered at the thought of a sexual relationship with his boss or Mrs. Tonks.

In all his many ventures into the world of dating, he had never found any man willing to treat him as a normal person. He briefly thought about dating a muggle, but his lifestyle really wouldn’t mesh well with a a man who had no magical abilities. How could he ask someone to uproot their lives in such a way, twist around everything they thought to be true, and he had little time to spare these days anyhow.

Then came Draco Malfoy, who practically fell into his lap at just the right moment. Harry’s last breakup had left him unwilling to date again and he had resolved himself to being only Teddy’s godfather and a Hogwarts Professor for the rest of his days. But Draco inserted himself into his life – much to his initial dismay – and Harry was immediately smitten.

It seemed that finally fate was trying to make up for the tragic mess it had made of his life, and as he looked across the kitchen at Draco’s flour coated robes and his slightly disheveled hair, he knew he was in love with the man and would do anything to get Draco to love him back.

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Icy cold water trailed down Draco’s pale white flesh as he scrubbed the flour from his body and hair and tried to scrub the impure thoughts from his mind.

He didn’t know what had come over him to pull a stunt like faking unconsciousness and offering to help Harry with his magical dilemma. Truth be told he was afraid. Not afraid of Harry’s magic, because he had proven earlier that same day that he could control it with the proper motivation, but it scared him that Harry’s motivation had been him and he didn’t want to bind himself more completely to the Gryffindor hero.

He had spent his entire school career doing his best to get Harry’s attention with cruelness. Then when school ended and he thought he might never see Harry again he panicked at the idea of it. He then tried to get into Auror training so that he could spend a few more years at the Gryffindor’s side, but he wasn’t accepted into the program because of his sordid past.

Draco had been thrilled to read in the Prophet that Harry’s engagement to the Weasley girl had gone belly up and, as he plotted his next move to try and ensnare the man’s attention, he was startled by a new revelation.

It was the same year Harry had finished Auror training and taken the job at Hogwarts. It was a move that Draco recalled being surprised by at first, but the more he thought of it the more fitting a career choice it seemed for the former leader of Dumbledore’s Army. Draco had gone into Hogsmeade, attempting to ‘accidentally’ run into his old rival when he did just that.

He walked into the Three Broomsticks and saw Harry in the corner, but the man he had been tailing for years was not alone, but instead he was snuggling up to another man.

It was no one that Draco recognized, but his world spun out of control all the same that day. He left completely disgusted with Harry, thinking that the man he had deemed his only worthy opponent was far less worthy than he had originally assumed. He couldn’t fathom how someone like Harry, handsome and intelligent and a celebrity to boot could possibly be gay.

It took Draco precisely four days and a picture of Harry on the cover of W.Q magazine before he realized that his obsession with the boy he had grown up fighting against wasn’t based on hatred at all.

He was in love with Harry bloody Potter.

The idea of being with Harry came unbidden to his mind that day, and he realized that the connection he had been searching for all those years was embodied in his old rival, but he also realized he would never attain it.

Harry hated him. Simple and pure, and that was how Draco had wanted it: that was the effect Draco fought to instill in the Gryffindor’s mind and he knew it was far too late to change Harry’s mind now. Instead, he buried himself.

He buried himself in work, developing cutting edge potions for the Ministry for Magic. He buried himself in the Manor, secluding himself from all but his mother and the occasional house elf. But worst of all he buried himself in men. One after another, Draco became the master of one night stands, never staying with someone for more than a week. It was mostly muggles, because he didn’t need such a reputation following him around the wizarding world, but he never felt anything for any of them.

Then, nearly a decade later, Minerva contacted his mother and he was offered a job. A Professorship at Hogwarts, working at Harry’s side every day, something he would have jumped at the chance of just a few years before. He refused it outright though, wanting to move on from his obsession with the Gryffindor celebrity and put it all behind him, but then Harry himself showed up to extend the position to him.

He thought, upon seeing his trim build and wind tousled hair in person for the first time in years, that perhaps he could eliminate the burden of being in love with Potter if only he could sleep with him. It had worked with every other man he had met, why not the petulant Gryffindor as well.

It hadn’t worked though.

Draco became more and more infatuated with Harry the more he got to know of him. He was strong and sensitive, intelligent and proud, funny and thoughtful. He was a great father to Teddy, an excellent cook, and Draco couldn’t seem to get enough of him. He went from thinking his original plan to sleep with Harry and get his love-sickness cured was a brilliant idea to thinking it was rubbish and that sleeping with Harry would only pull him deeper down the rabbit hole.

What he had known – and what he still knew now – was that a relationship with Harry would be impossible. At some point all that anger and distrust would crop up and ruin things between them; Draco would wither and die if he messed things with Harry once he had finally attained his most desired prize.

He didn’t want his heart broken, and he didn’t think it was better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. He strongly believed it was better to have kept your distance than to have love cripple your existence.

When Draco stepped out of the shower, fresh and clean and still full of impure thoughts, he dressed and left his room. The hall was dark, practically pitch with blackness and he was forced to cast a lumos charm in order to see at all.

As he rounded the corner and peered into the kitchen, he saw a faint glow through the French doors coming from the garden beyond. As soon as he opened the door the notes of Claire De Lune floated to his ears and he frowned as he saw the source of the light.

Golden candelabras hovered over a small table set for two and Draco went pale. Harry must have set it up while he was in the shower. As the sun set over the horizon and cast a rich red hue over the garden, Draco couldn’t think of anything so romantic… which was a problem.

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Harry gaped as he walked onto the back patio and saw Draco standing awkwardly beside a romantically set table. His heart fluttered as he thought of Draco going to the extra effort to show Harry that he wanted a relationship. At last he was getting exactly what he wanted.

He walked up to Draco and kissed him deeply until he noticed that Draco was not returning the gesture as he usually did, or at least not without a heavy sense of tension in his body.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, pushing a stray lock of Draco’s hair behind his ear.

Draco shook his head lightly and forced a smile. “Nothing,” he responded, not fooling him for a moment, but Harry assumed he was just nervous about his big step toward coupledom.

“Just relax,” he whispered and Draco nodded, taking his seat as Harry did.

Draco fidgeted nervously and looked everywhere but at Harry, and Harry tried to calm him by pouring them both a glass of the chardonnay that was resting in the center of the table.

Harry tried to keep the grimace from his lips as he sipped on the wine. It was a sweet gesture for Draco to go to all this trouble and he wanted to show his appreciation, not turn his nose up at the wine selection.

“I usually like reds,” Draco commented lightly, frowning at his own glass.

“I’m a fan of Pinot Noir’s myself,” Harry admitted, feeling it was okay not to like the wine since Draco didn’t.

A confused look passed through Draco’s eyes but he just shrugged and set his glass down. Harry didn’t have time to ask him about it because he nearly dropped his glass when a house elf popped unbidden to his side laden with a large silver tray.

Dishes filled with salad components hovered to set in front of each of them and bottles of oil and vinegar coated the tops of the salads before the house elf disappeared with another crack.

Draco took a bite of the crisp green leaves and Harry frowned across the table at him. “I really don’t like the use of house elves at my home,” he told Draco, who only nodded.

“I know,” he said and took another bite as if he were confused by Harry’s sudden distaste.

Harry stared dumbfounded at Draco, who casually admitted to knowing of his dislike of using house elves and didn’t seem to care that it was upsetting to him. “So you knew it would upset me?”

Draco shrugged and swallowed his mouthful of food. “I suspected it might.”

Gaping, Harry could only shake his head in dismay. “Then why would you do it?”

“Do what?” Draco asked, completely perplexed.

“Use the house elf,” Harry replied exasperatedly.

Draco looked around as if trying to see if there was someone else Harry’s anger was really directed toward. “I didn’t.”

“So you didn’t summon him here with that salad your inhaling?” Harry asked, folding his arms across his chest.

“I didn’t eat anything today!” he shouted defensively. “We cleaned well through lunch and then I felt filthy and showered and when I came out here I see this,” he said, gesturing to the table and the floating candles.

A lump formed in Harry’s throat as he realized he was the world’s biggest idiot. “So you didn’t do all this,” Harry whispered.

“No,” Draco protested at once. “Why would you think-” he began, but stopped as he saw the dejected look on Harry’s face. “Harry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that I wouldn’t or shouldn’t or,” but Harry didn’t hear the rest as he got up from the table and made a hasty exit.

Clearly he expected too much from the man he coveted, but after the breakfast, it didn’t seem like such an obtuse conclusion to come to that Draco had arranged their dinner. He just wanted Draco to be as in love with him and he was with Draco, and he apparently couldn’t expect that to happen any time soon, or maybe ever.

At the moment though, he just wanted to lock himself in his room and hide from Draco’s pitying eyes. Did Draco see the yearning inside of him? Was he just trying to appease Harry with his flirtations and promising to think on a relationship? Perhaps he only offered to help him with his magic in order to repay some debt he felt he owed to Harry for letting him stay in his home.

He ignored the knocks and the telltale signs of unlocking charms being cast and failing. “Harry, please, would you just talk to me?” Draco called through the door.

“I’m letting you off the hook, Draco. I’m sorry. I never should have pushed you, and now I’ve made an arse of myself,” Harry called back. “Just forget everything. We’ll just stay friends, and pretend tonight didn’t happen.”

Draco was silent on the other side of the door and Harry assumed he had gone back to his own room when he heard Draco’s voice, soft yet firm, coming through the door. “I don’t want to be friends with you, Harry.”

Harry sank to his floor, clutching at the fibrous strands of his rug and gritted his teeth. He had apparently pushed Draco too far, so far that the beautiful man no longer wanted him as even a friend.

“I want more than that. I need more than that,” Draco called, making Harry look up as if he could see Draco’s face through the door.

Harry got up slowly and unlocked the door, letting it open enough to show Draco’s lovely and hungry face. “What?” he asked, prompting Draco to continue.

“We work together, we’re friends, we live together for Merlin’s sake, Harry. Stop hiding in here and come get dinner with me,” he offered.

Harry forced a smile and shook his head. “You go. I think I’ve had enough excitement for one evening.”

“Harry,” he groaned. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just… it wasn’t me. If it makes you feel any better, I thought it was you who set it all up,” Draco added with a playful smile, obviously trying to cheer him.

It didn’t.

“Which was why you were so uncomfortable,” Harry deduced wisely, wanting to smack himself for ever letting his delusions run away with his reason. “Draco, please go get yourself some dinner, or help yourself to anything in the kitchen… only less mess this time, okay?” he added, trying his best to smile at Draco in a way that would not let the man in on his inner turmoil.

Draco only sighed, clearly not fooled and after hesitating for a moment, walked away, back down the hall toward the kitchen. When the next series of knocks came, Harry ignored them until they died away. When he stepped out into the hall he nearly tripped over a platter there. It was a plate with a single slice of burnt apple pie.

Smiling sadly to himself, Harry took it into his room and ate it, each bite making him wish that Draco was his but knowing that it wouldn’t happen. Each bite resolving him to let his attentions wane and to shove away his feelings for the man so that he could repurpose himself back on work and Teddy.

That was all he needed.

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Authors Note: Who needs a slice of sad apple pie? It's flavored with tears and pity.