Who: Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter What: mistletoe When: week of Christmas Where: Limesville Rating: TBD Status: in progress
Harry had been sitting on the stairs for half an hour. He'd been minding his own business, worrying over Christmas dinner with Lily, James, and Remus — and Draco, of course — and what to do for dessert, if he should try to make something from scratch or just buy a cake or something, when he was stopped short in his tracks. His first instinct had been to pull his wand and look around for danger, then sigh when he realized that he could still move, was't actually frozen, and glance up to confirm what had gotten him. Sure enough, there it was. Harry had been glad to escape the plague of mistletoe the few times he'd left the house to run errands. In fact, it had felt uncommonly lucky to have done so.
Apparently his luck was up. He supposed he was glad he was at home and not in public, but on the other hand, only one other person lived with him, and that was…
He sighed again, muttered under his breath, and took a seat. If he hadn't been able to sit and overthink things he might have texted Draco sooner, but as it was, the other man was out, and Harry had time to sit and stare at his phone for a good ten minutes before finding the courage to send out a message asking for help.
>> hey, you almost done shopping? >> got trapped on the stairs by some mistletoe >> help? >> no rush, though!
He sighed a third time at no rush, though! because honestly. This would be awkward enough. It shouldn't be, maybe. If he hadn't been so ridiculously in love with Draco a kiss would have been something to laugh off in a moment like this, something Draco could tease him about over Christmas dinner. It could have been simple. Instead, at least on his part, it wasn't. He'd thought a lot about kissing Draco, about sappy, romantic moments for things like first kisses, and this particular scenario had never come up as a possibility.
If he hadn't been trapped on the stairs in the middle of the afternoon it might have been different. If it'd been on a quiet evening, or they'd been outside watching the snow, or any number of things other than a bloody Tuesday at two P.M. when Harry's hair was messier than usual from doing nothing to it after his earlier shower, with ink smudged on his fingers from a quill that needed to be replaced, when he didn't feel startled and put on the spot, he might have felt more confident about it. It might have felt like an opportunity to finally figure out whatever it was between them, something to laugh quietly over as they talked afterwards.
Instead, Harry was just nervous. The waiting was terrible, gave him plenty of time to dwell on what if he doesn't like me, what if he doesn't want this, what if it's just awkward and awful and ruins everything. He knew it wasn't giving Draco near enough credit — he'd stuck with him through so much worse than a quick, awkward kiss, and this was silly, and not the sort of friendship-ruining deal that Harry's brain was trying to tell him it might be. And he wanted it, too — he wanted to kiss Draco, because of course he did, and had for years, and he was fairly certain that Draco wanted to kiss him, too.
He groaned a little a half-laugh at the mix of nerves, good and bad, that settled in his stomach. This probably wasn't a disaster waiting to happen, and he was just so used to things going wrong before they ended up going right that he was just thinking himself into a panic over nothing at all. Well, it wasn't nothing. Kissing Draco wasn't nothing, it couldn't be, but still. Still. His sometimes shaky self-confidence didn't always play nice, and he had to wrangle it back into something manageable before he texted to tell Draco not to worry about, he'd figure something out. Maybe he could burn the mistletoe? Vanish it? He squinted up at it as it hovered, innocent-looking, above him.
Probably wouldn't work, anyway, and Draco would be cross if he set something on fire trying to get rid of it.
Harry finally stood when he heard the door opening — he could move the two steps down to ground level, he found, and gripped at the banister with one hand as he waited for Draco to get his coat off. He felt oddly calm at the same time his heart started to race, and managed a soft, sheepish smile for his friend. Friend, he firmly reminded himself, because if nothing else happened, there would always, always be that.
"If you don't want to, you don't have to," Harry said, quiet but determined. This felt like it was less about the stupid mistletoe hovering over the stairs and more about something they'd been circling around for so long that Harry had grown tired of it. And it wasn't just Draco's fault, he knew that. For someone who was supposed to be so brave, who had faced down a Dark Lord — who had died — he had never been able to take that last step and just ask about it, either. No am I reading this right? or I know how I feel — how I've felt — what about you? Maybe it was unfair to do so now, when Harry was literally stuck and couldn't just walk away if Draco didn't.
"If you do, I've wanted to since sometime in sixth year, I think," he said with a quiet, nervous huff of a laugh, pushing his glasses up into his hair as he rubbed nervously at his old scar. He looked as uncertain as he did hopeful — a look of someone who had been so unwanted for the first eleven years of his life that he still had moments where he was surprised that people did want him, that he had friends, a family. That he had Draco, who had stuck with him through all the ups and downs and fights and death, and had, years later, uprooted his entire life because Harry had been unhappy enough to accept a questionable invitation to an entirely different world.
"Draco —" He started, a soft question, then fell silent. There were flakes of snow in Draco's silvery hair, and he was beautiful and wonderful and everything to Harry, who was doing nothing to keep his feelings off of his face, but this was half Draco's choice, too. He could kiss him and then ever let it be mentioned again, or — well. They could sort this out between them. Harry knew what he wanted, one hand unconsciously rising, not quite reaching for Draco, but close enough.