Ten Steps

Author’s Note: Thanks to Kasey and Shannon for looking this chapter over for me and thanks to all of you who have been reviewing so far! This story looks like it’s going to be about 25 chapters, give or take chapter.

Chapter 13 Beautiful Liar

Harry swallowed thickly and looked down into the inquisitive face of his boyfriend, while his own face remained precariously close to Draco’s. When he looked back up at Draco, the blond shot him a smile riddled with unfulfilled longing.

“No, I can’t see anything in your eye, Potter. Just keep blinking and whatever it is should work its way out,” he said, adopting a bland tone. Harry could see Oliver relax slightly, but only slightly. Harry still had plenty of explaining to do. Thankfully, the smooth blond seemed prepared to take care of it. “Wood,” he greeted, offering his hand to Oliver, who shook it roughly and then strode to Harry’s side. “How have you been? How’s that boy, Logan, was it? The Seeker?”

“He’s doing well,” Oliver replied. “He’s back on the pitch and practicing hard to make up for lost time.”

“Excellent,” he replied. “We ran into one another out at the theatre.” Draco gestured to Harry standing there all clammed up and rolled his eyes. “He thought he’d had too much to drink to Apparate home.”

“I didn’t know you were going to the theatre,” Oliver said, directing the comment to Harry, who winced and shrugged slightly.

Again, Draco swooped in without blinking. “It was a last minute decision. Clive invited him when one of our other friends backed out.”

“Harry?” Oliver asked, suspicion clear in his tone.

“That’s what happened. Clive Owled me a half-hour before the show,” Harry confirmed, hating himself for the lie. Why did he have to lie anyway? Why couldn’t he be sharing an innocent evening with his friend Draco? Oh right, because it wasn’t innocent at all. Harry had been about to kiss the blond when fate intervened and put a stop to that madness. If he told Oliver what had really happened, Harry would be looking for a new boyfriend for certain.

“You should have told me, I love the theatre. What did you see?” Oliver asked, with less trepidation and more disappointment than before. Harry didn’t like this development any better, but he supposed having Oliver moody over not being invited was better than having Oliver break up with him for cheating – not that he had, but he was on the verge. Even if his body hadn’t strayed, his mind had.

“La Boheme. It was brilliant,” he replied, trying to mask his guilt and swirling emotions. It took everything inside of him not to glance at Draco and see what the other man was thinking, but he managed.

“Oh, well, no loss I suppose. I’ve seen that one already,” Oliver sighed and looked hesitantly from Draco to Harry, as if he didn’t understand why the blond was still there at all.

“Do you want to come in?” Harry offered to the air, uncertain who he wanted to answer, which made him feel even worse.

“I was just making sure Potter got home safely, I’ll leave you two alone,” Draco interrupted and strolled down the sidewalk without a second glance in Harry’s direction. The brunet flicked his eyes in the other man’s direction and felt like rubbish for running him off in such a manner. It hardly seemed fair after the night they’d spent together and the way the blond had just bailed him out with Oliver, but deep down he knew it was for the best.

There was something between them, undeniable sparks, and that scared Harry as much as it thrilled him. His mind was muddled with confusion. He wanted Oliver, wanted a nice, happy life together, but something drew him to Draco as well, and there was no ignoring the fact that it wasn’t just friendship that made him return to the man over and over, and as much as he wanted to deny it, it wasn’t the program either.

“Harry?” Oliver whispered softly against the shell of the brunet’s ear, startling him out of his troubled thoughts. “Are we going inside?”

“Yeah,” Harry replied, a little too loudly. “Of course.” He dug into his robes and produced a set of keys, but his shaking fingers dropped them three times before he managed to get the door unlocked. Oliver followed him in without a word and Harry moved to the kitchen to make them a pot of tea.

“So, what was Malfoy really doing on your doorstep tonight?” Oliver asked, leaning casually against the frame of the kitchen doorway as he watched Harry work. It was all Harry could do not to drop the kettle and send scalding water all over the floor, but he knew better than to turn and meet Oliver’s probing gaze.

“What do you mean?” he asked, steadying his hand to pour the water.

“I mean, it’s rather obvious the bloke fancies you, so what was he doing here?” Oliver rephrased.

“Malfoy doesn’t fancy me,” Harry laughed, though it was forced even to his own ears.

“Get off it, Harry. He’d be an idiot not to fancy you. What I’m asking is if the feeling is mutual?”

“It’s not,” Harry replied calmly, turning to meet Oliver’s eyes at last. He didn’t have to lie to say that, because the feeling wasn’t mutual. Harry was confused, but he was certain that the blond didn’t think of him in any kind of long-term way. Harry had seen a side of Draco he hadn’t expected to in the previous weeks, but there was still nothing to indicate that he wanted anything permanent out of Harry. Besides, Oliver was his perfect match, Draco had told him as much.

Oliver’s smile warmed and he shook his head, laughing at himself. “I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t mean to be so persistent. It’s just, after the thing with Logan…I was wondering if you were trying to get me back.”

Harry rolled his eyes and dropped the mesh tea balls into both their cups and handed one over to his boyfriend. “I didn’t mean to be a prat about Logan. I’m sure he’s a very nice guy, I just…I didn’t like the way he was looking at my boyfriend,” Harry told him with a wry smile.

Setting his tea down on the counter nearby, Oliver closed the gap between he and Harry, wrapping his arms around the other man’s waist. “I like the sound of that,” he whispered.

“The sound of what?” Harry rasped, lost in the warm embrace of the Scot holding him tightly.

“Boyfriend.” Oliver’s dark eyes were blazing with fire, answering the lust that stirred immediately within Harry as he stared into that piercing gaze, and those sweet looking lips. Harry wanted to kiss him, in fact, he wanted to snog the hell out of him, but Draco hadn’t told him where in the program that would fall. Was it even one of the steps? Would Harry be messing things up and skipping ahead if he kissed Oliver now? Or had Draco been assuming that they had already taken that step? The man had sounded relieved when Harry told him that he hadn’t kissed Oliver on their second date, so Harry could only assume that meant he had advice for that as well, so he took a reluctant step back and hoped Oliver wouldn’t freak out and leave.

“Did you get my package?” Harry asked breathily, hoping the change of subject might distract Oliver from his mouth.

“I did,” his boyfriend replied, seeming to catch Harry’s queue and took a step back as well, picking up his tea to use as a buffer between them. It injured Harry to see the regret in the other man’s eyes, but he had to admit, his heart swelled to see that Oliver wasn’t going to make a big scene and demand they move too quickly. He’d taken Harry’s earlier confession of fear very seriously, it seemed. “It was magnificent, Harry. Too much, really.”

“It wasn’t too much,” Harry insisted. “It was just right. I knew it was perfect for you the moment I saw it.”

“Is that because it had my name on it?” Oliver teased, the tension melting from his dark eyes as they grew comfortable around each other again.

“Well, that might have had a little to do with it,” Harry admitted sarcastically. “I knew that out of everyone I know, you would get the most use out of it.”

Oliver winced and nodded. “Well, I’m not permitted to use a non-regulation broom in play or practice, but I’m sure I’ll still get to fly with it plenty.”

“Right,” Harry sighed, trying to mask his disappointment. Oliver probably didn’t do much flying at all outside of Quidditch, so the broom would probably begin gathering dust in the man’s closet, but that was Harry’s own fault for not thinking it through. He should have known the rules of the sport before he went about buying extravagant Quidditch gear. “I should have thought of that.”

“No, Harry,” he insisted, pulling him into a hug. “I love it, I truly do. I think you’re the sweetest boyfriend in the world.”

Harry smiled despite himself and pressed a kiss into Oliver’s neck. “You’re right. The title does sound nice.”

Oliver’s arms tightened around him and Harry could feel the man’s breath ruffling his hair. This was the way it was supposed to be, with Harry feeling warm and content and loved. Bringing their tea, Harry pulled Oliver into the living room where they snuggled up on the sofa listening to hauntingly beautiful piano music over the wireless. It wasn’t long before Harry’s eyelids grew heavy and he was falling asleep, held tightly in his boyfriend’s arms.

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Draco, however, spent the evening alone, poring over his books and papers. He was contemplating the magic involved in his work and in the Unforgivable Vow he’d made with Harry. The magicks used were both very similar to one another and very different all at once.

Both spells created a contract of sorts, a binding agreement between the spell and the person assigned to it. In the case of the Amavi Compositus spell, Draco had formed a contract between Harry and Oliver with Harry’s permission alone. Now, no one, including himself, could interfere with the relationship unless either Oliver or Harry broke the spells agreement in a way that satisfied the magicks, and there were only a few ways to achieve that.

The most obvious would be for Harry and Oliver to mutually part, thus ending their commitment to the end result of marriage. The spell would recognize the shift and a new contract could then be made, meaning, one with Draco. The blond shook his head at the thought, flicking his quill with irritation as he scribbled notes in the margin of his book. He smirked to himself as he thought of Hermione catching him defiling the pages in such a manner. She would surely lose her mind with fury and indignation.

Harry showed plenty of signs of fondness for Draco, but he hadn’t displayed anything negative towards Oliver, so he thought it was unlikely that Harry would break things off with his Keeper boyfriend. He hadn’t seen much of Oliver and Harry together, but he suspected the same was true on that side as well. They were Golden Matches after all. Now that they were together, they would strive to remain that way. Draco had seen it a hundred times before; once a Golden Match finds one another, they are nearly inseparable.

Still, the fact that he was Harry’s soul mate should count for something. But that was hindered by the fact that not only had the magicks created the contract between Harry and Oliver first, and anyone – including Draco – that tried to interfere would be punished severely, but he’d compounded the problem by swearing an Unbreakable Vow that he would do what was in his power to make the match a success.

If he had kissed Harry that night, he didn’t know what would have happened, but he knew it would have been bad. It was probably good that Oliver had interrupted them when he had, but he couldn’t help cursing the man’s very existence nonetheless. Still, it was his own fault that Oliver was in the picture at all. Had Draco not been so eager to fetch a celebrity client, he wouldn’t have bothered with Potter and Wood, or if he’d been clever enough to sense the root of his feelings for Harry that night he kissed him in the cellar, he would have matched himself against Harry long before Wood had a chance to grab hold of Harry’s heart.

If he’d succeeded in capturing Harry’s attention that first night, all Draco had been expecting was simply a night of great sex, or maybe even a fun fling. Instead, the man turned out to be his love of all loves. He had bad instincts, and poor timing and Draco growled through gritted teeth at his rotten luck.

Finding no answers or good solutions, he fell asleep at his desk that night to turbulent dreams of a very unattainable man with thick, ebony locks and haunting green eyes.

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A straining ache ran up the length of Harry’s neck when he woke up, and the room was far too bright. He blinked his eyes, rubbing them with the heel of his palm, and then looked around him, noting that he was definitely not in his bedroom. A thick, yellow afghan was pulled up to his ribs, and his feet were dangling off the edge of his sofa and he realized with a start that he’d fallen asleep there with Oliver the night before.

He quickly checked his face for drying drool and tried to orient his hair in a sexy manner, rather than the tragic bed-head he usually woke up with, before casting his gaze about the room to see where Oliver was. What he found instead was a cup of hot tea under a stasis spell and a note. With a sigh, Harry slumped back into the folds of the sofa and stared at the steaming liquid. It was still early and already Oliver was gone for the day. Harry had to work, but he would have liked waking up in his boyfriend’s arms. He supposed there was still plenty of time for that though, and reached for the note.

Harry,

Sorry to have to skip away so early, but I have to get Logan caught up on the time he missed while in Hospital. I would have woken you but you looked so cute that I couldn’t possibly have disturbed you. I’ve left you a ticket to my private box for the first game here at the Puddlemere stadium this Thursday. I hope you can make it. I’ll probably be out of touch before then with our practice schedule the way it is, but I’ll do my best to Owl you whenever I can.

Yours,

Olli

P.S. I see the press has finally caught on to our new status. I’ll be curious to know how long it will take before they’re asking us for a wedding date.

Harry might have taken those final lines as an ominous tone, but he’d ended the letter with a smudgy heart that made Harry grin like a loon. He reached for the paper beside his tea and sure enough, there were pictures of he and Wood – separately for now, but that wouldn’t last long – on the cover along with a photo of the clerk from Quality Quidditch. As Harry had predicted, the salesman had wasted no time before recounting the tale of Harry’s purchase to the Daily Prophet along with his own theories as to the nature of the gift. Rita Skeeter needed no help in the wild theory department, however, and was already calling it an engagement present.

As irked as Harry was by the invasion into his personal life, he had to admit that Oliver’s reaction had been quite pleasurable. They’d talked about marriage and children before, and on both counts Oliver’s response had been favorable. The Quidditch star seemed to be on the same page as Harry so far as life plans, and it soothed Harry to learn this. He’d known that they were a good match, simply because of Draco’s instrumental assistance and advice. Still, it was nice to see with his own two eyes that Oliver was perfect for him instead of merely relying on Draco’s insistence.

Harry remembered the Vow each of them made at Harry’s first visit and a sick feeling washed over him. Draco had wanted to use Harry and Oliver as the new poster boys’ for his matchmaking services. Harry had agreed, but wondered what Draco was playing at now? Were the lingering touches and casual flirtations more than just the way Draco acted with everyone? Was it a test of some sort? Was it part of the ten-step program? It would certainly be a good one, if so. Let’s play ‘See if you can resist the stunning, blond lothario’! If it was a test, Harry was probably failing already.

He finished his tea and got ready for work, trying his best not to think about Draco Malfoy as he did. Part of him just wanted to confront the blond once and for all and demand answers. Did Draco honestly fancy him, or was this just a big game to him? Avoidance of the issue altogether seemed more appealing when he realized that either answer would only serve to bring about a new set of problems. If Draco really did like him, than that meant Harry was in a precarious place. Harry would have to end his meetings with the man and probably stop seeing him altogether. It would be the right thing to do since Harry was set on Oliver. Why would he give up his perfect match for a fling with Draco? As delicious as the idea sounded, it just didn’t make sense. Why Draco would pursue someone he wasn’t matched with was beyond Harry’s comprehension. Harry was tired of relationships that led nowhere. He knew exactly what he wanted and didn’t relish wasting his time on something that would never work out. All of his friends had been married for years and Harry just wanted a slice of comfortable companionship of his own.

If Draco was just playing games with Harry, he didn’t know what he would do. Harry’s affection for the blond was honest, so if he found out that Draco’s was not, he didn’t think he could help but feel rejected – even though he knew that he had no right to feel that way. It would make things between them uncomfortable, and would again, probably lead to him ending his sessions and tenuous friendship with Draco, all things Harry really didn’t want to do. Loath as he was to admit it, Harry thoroughly enjoyed Draco’s company and didn’t want their meetings to come to an end, which meant, he had to remain silent. It didn’t matter what the man’s answer was, Harry was meant to marry Oliver, but he hoped to hold onto Draco at the same time.

Ignoring whatever it was that hung between them seemed to be the only way to achieve that.

Author’s Note: So, we’ve moved from Oblivious Harry to Avoidance Harry. How many stages until we get Acceptance Harry do you think?