idk dude

Shdksjsjdjdjsje first of all this is how I flirt and it’s perfectly legitimate 😂😂😂 wc: 724

“Draco… that’s not flirting. You looked at everyone we went to school with.”

“No, I didn’t! Everyone else was just… in the way of my eyes! I looked at you.”

Harry bit the inside of his cheek to hold in his laughter. “Alright, let’s pretend that’s true.”

“It is,” Draco retorted, pouting. His ice cream cone was melting in his hand, forgotten in the heat of his rubbish argument. Harry watched a violet drop slide down the cone towards his pale fingers.

“Fine, you devilish Casanova,” Harry purred, smirking. “What was going through your head while you flirted with thirteen-year-old Harry Potter?”

“The vehement notion that I hated your fucking guts, and—”

“There it is,” Harry grumbled, rolling his eyes.

“—And the unfortunate truth that I couldn’t keep my eyes off you,” Draco finished.

Harry stared at him, dumbstruck. The drop of blackberry cream slid down the back of Draco’s hand; he didn’t seem to notice, too busy piercing Harry with those intense, fiery silver eyes.

Like he was serious.

“Pull the other one,” Harry said weakly. Draco’s brows drew down, his frown deepening.

“I don’t understand what about this is so hard to believe,” he muttered. Harry—ice cream long finished—threw his hands up in vexation.

“You hated me, Draco. You’re trying to tell me you were flirting with me the whole time, by looking at me while thinking about how much you hated me?” Harry huffed. He couldn’t tell if he was more amused or perplexed or defensive or annoyed. “What kind of fond, affectionate thoughts were going through your head, whenever you took your flirting to the next level and punched me in the face?”

“The stupid, frequently recurring ones where I thought I might die if I didn’t just touch you,” Draco growled, hackles raised. “The pathetic ones where I was desperate to see your face up close, after every summer, to find all the new freckles on your cheeks from long hours in the sun, and to learn how much taller you’d gotten while I wasn’t watching. The idiotic ones where any time you looked back, when your eyes looked for me in the Great Hall instead of your legions of admirers, I felt like my fucking soul was on fire.”

Harry’s jaw dropped. The ice cream cone was now crushed in Draco’s fist, spilling over his hand. He still didn’t notice.

He looked furious.

“You really are an idiot,” Draco said, his voice low and threatening. “There was not a single person at that bloody school I watched half as much as you, of course I was flirting with you—”

“Draco, that’s not flirting,” Harry argued again, finding his speech in the reliable space of antagonism. “Flirting is actions and words—”

“When it’s convenient, you arsehole,” Draco snarled, standing abruptly, the flimsy plastic chair scraping across the tile floor. He dropped the ruined cone onto the table, pointing a shaking, purple-cream-covered finger at Harry. “How nice for you, that you’re so familiar with open admiration, you can’t fathom ever needing to hide it. Bully for you, Potter, that you never had such trivial problems as a crush, especially not a crush that would turn your whole family against you, that would get you disowned faster than you could say your own name, that would get you and your loved ones killed if the live-in Master Legilimens caught the faintest whiff of it. How bloody delightful it must have been to know open, honest romantic interest, to not have had to resort to such petty and pitiful measures when your desire spilled out of you, when it was the only way I knew how to be around you and survive it.”

Harry sat, stunned, gaping at Draco’s flushed, angry, pretty face. To Harry’s horror, a tear fell down Draco’s cheek, and Draco blinked, surprised, then turned on his heel and stormed out of the shop. The bell jingled over the door as it swung shut, throwing the entire ice cream parlor into a tense, shocked silence.

“Shit,” Harry breathed.

“Fuck are you doing, mate?” Mr. Fortescue called, turning the attention of Harry and the nosy patrons. “Get after him!”

😘Part Two, as requested 😂thanks for the prompt, @drarrymybeloved !! wc: 945

Harry darted around groups of people, calling Draco’s name. Diagon Alley seemed unusually packed now that he was in a hurry. A small crowd was starting to amass behind him, wondering what could have gotten the Saviour in such a tizzy. The patrons of Fortescue’s were eagerly filling them in.

He saw a flash of white blond hair disappearing into Madam Malkin’s—of course—and sprinted down the street, slipping into the robe shop and locking the door behind him.

Draco looked up from his hushed conversation with Madam Malkin and groaned, turning away and wiping his face with his sleeve. She stepped in front of him, glaring at Harry.

“Now, Auror Potter, I’ll need to see a warrant if you’re going to barge in here—”

“I’m not an Auror,” Harry mumbled, at the same time as Draco’s “He’s not an Auror.” Draco put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but she continued her protective efforts, despite the blush on her cheeks.

until she was fifteen she dressed herself in shame before she put any clothes on at all. wore everything a few sizes too big, a few inches too long. draped herself in thick fabrics to hide the body beneath them. never learned that hot eyes on her were the fault of their owners, not her. took the uncomfortable stares and the endless flirtation as a fact of life. was fourteen the first time she dared to say “stop looking!” and met only laughter.

it’s not until she’s nearly sixteen and her sister is turning ten that she sees eyes begin to slide over her and to gabrielle. a friend of their father’s, not even that deep into a bottle of wine, caresses a child-round cheek and murmurs a line from lolita, eyes too bright and lips too dry. gabrielle flickers a panicked glance around the room. that look is so familiar. the same hour fleur switches her baggy sweatshirt for a crop top and rolls her skirt over two inches. 

they will look at her. never at her sister.

at school, the same. at home, the same. slowly, she learns to be less ashamed of the looking. to play to the object they expect her to be. she comes to scotland and she’s the centre of attention. they hear her name pulled out of  the goblet of fire and all anyone wants to talk about is her legs in that skirt. she defeats a dragon and boys whisper all the dirty things they want to do to her just moments after they finish comparing cedric’s charmwork to krum’s reflexes to harry’s flying. they watch her pass in the hallways and their eyes glaze over like she’s a thing put there for their pleasure. 

fleur lifts her head high and lets the stares keep coming.

then she meets bill weasley, and not long after he asks her how she’s doing. asks it like he really means it, like it matters to him that she still gets nervous going around blind corners, that vines make her skin crawl and that the green flash of a hex makes her mind go too blank with fear to defend herself. he brings her a bottle of his favourite whiskey and sinks deep into it, tells her about his life and his job and asks about that night in the maze she doesn’t think about. he doesn’t look at her legs even once.

the next time she brings him her favourite wine and they share it. she’s giggling and silly by the end of the evening and he laughs with her, laughs at her like an equal and not like a thing he wants to fuck. he takes her to her door and leaves her in the care of her friends and he doesn’t do it because he thinks it’ll make scoring easier next time. doesn’t decide his actions based on which will result in sex the fastest.

he doesn’t ask her out until he’s laid himself bare for her, doesn’t even touch her until she reaches down and presses her fingers into his. the first night she feels brave enough to go home with him he keeps her up at the kitchen table until three am telling her all the things he likes about her. her physical appearance doesn’t even make the top one hundred. he says, how much you love your sister. how fierce you look when i take the last croissant. that funny french way you roll your ‘r’s. how you try to tell me jokes but laugh too much to finish them. how you know exactly how many children you want, and the precise shade of blue you’ll use to decorate your nursery. the bravery of you. the way your mind moves so fast sometimes i can’t keep up with it. the fact that i think you could do my job ten times as effectively as i can. they fall asleep on top of his covers, fully clothed, and the next morning fleur has to say yes i want this i am sure that i want this ten times before he starts to undress her.

his family call her all the things she’s heard a million times before. fleur lifts her head high and lets the insults keep coming. his brothers still sometimes look at her like they’ve forgotten to see a person, his mother mutters under her breath about fleur’s lack of suitability, his sister takes every opportunity to express her dislike. they see her beauty and they think they know her. they watch her move and they think she’s nothing more than her body and face. 

“Hello?”

“Uhm,, is this…is this the Potter residence?”

There’s a beat of silence as Harry adjusts the receiver against his ear, not quite sure he’s heard who he thinks he has. “…Dudley?”

“Yea…uhm, Harry?”

“Dudley.” Harry repeats numbly, turning to look at Ginny who is looking at him expectantly, eyebrows raised. “Uh…Christ, Dudley, hi how did…how did you find this number?”

There’s another beat of silence and the crackle of static that might have been a sigh or simply just the line breaking up. “Hi, sorry I know you probably…sorry this was stupid. I uh, I put your name in the computer and this was the only thing that came up.”

“Oh.” Harry breathes, still trying to recover his equilibrium. Ten minutes ago he’d been using his wand to clear away dinner, he’d been getting ready to sit down and read through some reports before putting the kids to bed, and now somehow, he’s talking to his muggle cousin who he hasn’t seen since… “How, how are you?”

“Good, yea” Dudley replies, seeming to rally, “You?”

“Yea, uh, doing well…”

The conversation lasts maybe a half hour, faltering and awkward. But they’re going for a coffee at the end of the week and Harry supposes…that’s…that’s a thing that is happening.

*

“Harry…”

Harry turns and looks up, and looks up some more at the looming figure blocking out the light. 

“Dudley,” he says, standing up and hoping the pang of something awful doesn’t show on his face. For a moment he thought he’d been looking at Vernon. “It’s good to see you.”

Dudley gives him a look that says he clearly knows Harry is lying, but is thankful for being humored. “You too, you’re looking good…”

They pass the  first few minutes with awkward pleasantries and even more awkward silences. But it’s…nice would be too strong a word, but it’s not bad either. He even manages to get a smile out of him when he calls him Big D, the other man shaking his head with a self depreciating eye roll.

“Dad died,” Dudley says after a while, and Harry feels an icy hot flash go down his spine, curdling in his gut.

“Oh,” he says, not quite sure how he’s supposed to feel about that, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Dudley snorts into his coffee. “Somehow I doubt it.” and it’s not accusing, but Harry still can’t help but feel like he should defend himself. The words they locked me in a cupboard are on the cusp of his tongue but Dudley gets there before him. “There’s a lot of things…looking back…lot of things…” and it’s not an apology, not really. “Took me a long time to realize certain things weren’t right…too long.” 

Harry nods at that, because yes, it had also taken him a long time too to understand the full of extent of what had gone on in 4 Privet Drive. He still doesn’t like tight spaces.

“You realize things though, when you have kids,” Dudley carries on, shaking his head, “Like they’re just kids, how can you do that to a kid? They need you for everything.”

And Harry can relate to that too. Lily is three and Ginny is pregnant again and James already has an alarming alacrity for finding trouble and with or without magic Harry doesn’t have enough hands to deal with it all. But he loves it, and he loves them, and the thought of anyone ever treating his children the way he remembers his first eleven years of life is enough to make the electric lights over their head flicker. 

“You’ve got kids?”

“Two,” Harry says, “third one on the way. You?”

“Nice. Just the one, so far.” He hands over his phone, the image of a bright young girl with dark skin and tight ringlet curls staring back at him from the grasp of Dudley’s arms. “Effie.” He smiles ruefully at Harry’s obvious surprise. “Dad wasn’t too happy about that either.”

“She’s gorgeous.” Harry says, handing the phone back and pulling out his own wallet to reveal the moving pictures inside. 

Dudley flinches a bit at that, but he guffaws broadly when he spies James. “Cor, he don’t half look like you. No glasses though.”

“No,” Harry says, pushing his own glasses back up his nose. “He’s got his mother’s eyes, thankfully.”

“Actually, Harry, there was something I was hoping we could…talk about.”

And ah, there it is. “What about?”

“It’s…it’s about Effie…”

And when he’s done talking Harry just wants to lean back and laugh and laugh and laugh, because of course Vernon Dursley’s granddaughter is a witch, of course she is. But he doesn’t, because Dudley is doing the one thing he can think of to try and help his child, and Harry can’t fault him for that.

*

They keep in touch after that. Christmas cards, postcards—gifts for the kids on birthdays. The year Effie turns eleven—the same as James—Harry drops a casually long thought out text into the familial void.

“Diagon A this weekend, if you’re up for it?”

The text comes back quickly, a little too quickly for the way Dudders pecks at his phone whenever Harry has seen him typing. “Snds gd, 1st pint on u ;-) - Big D 🍺🍺🍺👌👍”