Despite having just stated the opposite, the moment Harry closed the office door behind him, he showed no signs of being either in a hurry nor particularly worried about wasting Malfoy’s time.
Harry had been in this office before, back when it had been Malfoy’s predecessor’s, and he allowed himself a moment to take in the small changes, and how the office compared to Malfoy’s bareboned flat.
“We’ve had more potions come in,” Harry said without urgency, his gaze finally resettling on Malfoy at his desk; first to his face, then briefly towards the desktop, as though looking through it.
It became abundantly clear that Harry only ever really was alone in a room with Malfoy in very specific situations, immediately hooking its claws into the pit of Harry’s stomach.
Having no illusions that Malfoy either didn’t know or couldn’t tell, Harry’s smile widened slightly when his eyes resettled on Malfoy’s face. “I’d like to borrow one of your staff to help out for the week, Head Potioneer.”

It was abundantly clear to Draco that Potter really was just here to waste his time, absolutely not needing Draco’s direct permission to borrow one of his staff for work like that. After all, Draco knew very well that he already had an employee attached to the case and that was thought into the planning.
“I assume that you will want Smythe as she is already attached to case,” he stated, gingerly placing his quill back into the inkwell and took a moment to take Potter in.
“Her direct supervisor is already aware of the agreement and will know that she will occasionally indispensable,” he added, finding that talking to Potter with such professionalism helped keep his head clear.
“And I don’t think I got to say the other night, but congratulations,” Draco added, nodding towards Harry’s hand which was curiously lacking a ring.

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Harry’s smile changed slightly, boyish and caught in something Malfoy alone had borne witness to that evening, but above all not opposed to the subtle shift away from shop talk. Not one ounce of Harry cared about Malfoy’s opinion regarding his intent to marry Kate, but it had occupied his mind whether or not Malfoy cared, sorry to possibly lose out on his company over it.
Harry watched him with great attention, trying to get a gauge of what Malfoy made of it.
“We’re getting old, Malfoy,” Harry said, but the words weren’t his own, just a faux-reverent repetition of something people had been telling him for ages. Relaxing his posture slightly, he put his hands in the pockets of his trousers, out of sight. “About time we settled down.”

“Are we?” Draco found himself asking, finding that the more he heard of Potter’s new engagement the less believed in the sincerity of it, not that he actually knew anything of Potter’s fiancée and their relationship.
He did know a lot about his and Potter’s though, and he could see right through those reused phrases that Potter was currently slinging his way.
“I forgot what a romantic you are Potter,” he stated in a dry tone, as he got up from his seat, trying to figure out exactly what Potter was actually telling him. When he had rounded his table and stood face to face with Potter, he had already decided and grabbed his collar to pull him up to kiss him.

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While Malfoy had left plenty of things for Harry to comment on, none of it felt genuine enough to warrant a response. Instead, Harry’s attention was glued to Malfoy as he got up from his chair. Anticipation immediately surged within him, though he made a point of keeping steady, refusing to give Malfoy the opportunity of seeing him disappointed if he decided to be an arse about it.
Mercifully, that wasn’t the case. As soon as Malfoy’s hands were on him, Harry’s grin widened, pleased.
Harry met the kiss with his hands still in his pockets, and for a moment it was a balance act of restraint and greed; he kissed Malfoy like he hadn’t truly worried that he couldn’t have this, too. Untangling his hands, he grabbed Malfoy's hips, pushing him back towards his desk.

______
While Draco really didn’t want to to admit to it, he couldn’t deny that he found a certain freedom in having hooked up with Potter again, even after going public with his engagement. It wasn’t that Draco thought they shared something special, or hoped that he would be able to replace the fiancée, but he couldn’t deny that there was some kind of sweet irony in being part of Potter’s midlife crisis.
Draco had just arrived at yet another tedious gala event, making an immediate beeline for the bar, trying to get rid of thoughts of illicit potions before deciding with whom to smalltalk.

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Tonight was the second time since the announcement of their engagement that Harry had brought Kate along with him to an event at the Ministry. It reaffirmed what he had already noticed the last time around, and the subconscious avoidance in bringing her in the first place; it made everything drag considerably.
Harry hadn’t properly been aware of how restlessly he approached these events, having enjoyed getting to abandon conversations at a whim and with little warning. When doing so now, he had felt obligated to shepherd Kate along with him, offering no proper break from the chatter.
Harry quickly found that a tolerable compromise was to linger at the bar. While Kate happily made use of the opportunity of chatting with a Wizengamont judge, usually far out of her circle of conversation, Harry had asked for a triple from the bartender.
His attention had been far away from the conversation happening for some time now, his eyes only refocusing as the group on his right left the bar, offering a view of Malfoy some yards down the bar. It made him slightly shift his stance, barely excusing himself from Kate as he brushed a hand across the small of her back, before letting go of her entirely, instead turning towards Malfoy and closing some of the distance between them.
“Hey,” he greeted, leaning slightly against the bartop in order to properly look at Malfoy. A smile inevitably pulled at Harry’s lips, letting his eyes dip across Malfoy’s features to his mouth, then chest, and back to his face. “Can I have a smoke?”

Draco had only just ordered a glass of wine when Potter appeared next to him, the thread that bound them together going taut whenever they were in the same room. It was intoxicating to Draco, even if he tried not to think too much of it.
“That bad, huh?” Draco asked, a slight smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth, having not actually been sure that Potter was going to be there, and finding himself unable to not be pleased at seeing him there.
“Or are you just that eager to get me alone?” He added in a lower tone, feeling certain that no one would overhear them.

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Neither things had necessarily been on the forefront of Harry’s mind, mostly itching for a break, but that stupid grin on Malfoy’s lips dug a claw into the pit of Harry’s stomach and tugged. He could almost feel it pulling him out of a daze, his unfocused attention closing in on such a narrow point that it almost gave him vertigo; it made Harry’s eyes dip to his lips again, a brief flicker of a thought not centered around smoking.
“I just prefer how you roll them,” he dismissed casually, a boyish grin pulling at his lips, self-aware as he once again met Malfoy’s gaze.
Though he didn’t say it, his expression betrayed the fact that the answer to both questions was an easy yes, no matter how much Harry wanted to pretend that it wasn’t.

Draco couldn’t help but roll his eyes at that, feeling quite certain that that wasn’t the case, however if that was the excuse that Potter decided to use this time around, then who was he to question it.
“Alright,” he stated, as he accepted the glass of wine that was handed to him by the bartender.
It kept surprising him just how easy he found it to be around Potter, knowing full well that he had not always felt this way and wondering if it really were just the years catching up to them that had removed that last wall between them.
“Let’s go then.”

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Harry’s smile quirked involuntarily at the straight-forwardness of the conversation, feeling a thrill run down his spine at the prospects of it being this easy. It made something greedy and juvenile flare within Harry, an impulse to keep asking for things just to see if Malfoy would give it to him.
Only sparing the appropriateness of the escapade for as long as it took him to glance to the side and confirm Kate was still chatting along, Harry stepped away from the bar.
Though it would have been just as easy to lead Malfoy out to the hallways, certain nobody around them had paid enough mind to their conversation to question it, Harry showed a rare sense of restraint and nodded Malfoy along towards the courtyard.

It almost felt strange for them to go towards the courtyard rather than one of the bathrooms, but the glass of wine in Draco’s hand reassured him that they had plenty of time. These events always seemed to drag out forever anyway, so while it was necessarily out of them norm for Potter to reach for him immediately, it also wasn’t really their usual.
The courtyard wasn’t too crowded, the evening still young and most people wanting to make a good example by mingling, so it was easy for him and Potter to find a more secluded corner in which to share a smoke; something that didn’t send a shiver down Draco’s spine thank you very much.
“One of these days you are going to have to start bringing your own,” Draco stated as he fished his tin out of his pocket and handed it over to Potter.

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Harry had brought them to the courtyard as though it would help set an unspoken boundary between them, but being there soon proved that logic to be faulty. The space was just as heavy, a shot to the pit of Harry’s stomach as he came face to face with how utterly shameless being involved with Malfoy had made him.
Accepting the tin regardless, Harry offered the first cigarette he picked out back to Malfoy.
“What excuse would I have to come talk to you, then?” Harry asked with a smile, unintentionally rhetorical.

Draco accepted his own cigarette with a roll of his eyes, knowing for a fact that Potter would definitely find a reason to come bother him whether he smoked his cigarettes or not. Still, there was something endearing in Potter pretending that he would need a reason, something that Draco tried not to linger on as he placed the cigarette between his lips and ignited it with a flick of his wrist.
“I am sure you would find a way.”

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Harry picked out another cigarette for himself, but his eyes dippped mindlessly to Malfoy's mouth as he brought the cigarette to his lips, moth to a flame.
As his attention refocussed to Malfoy's eyes, a sheepish grin pulled at his lips, aware, obscuring it as he, too, brought the cigarette to his mouth to light it.
Harry quirked his brow on the inhale, as if saying we'll see, but it was a transparent lie, visible in the way the corner of his mouth continued to upturn.
He doubted Malfoy hadn't noticed it, too, the inevitability of it all, the almost gravitational pull between them. Not for the first time Harry wondered to what extent that feeling was Malfoy's use if potions, and not for the first time, Harry concluded it had to be so much more.
Harry exhaled the smoke in the space between them, clicking shut Malfoy's tin with one hand and running the pad of his thumb over the engraved design.
"How have you been?"

Draco let out an involuntary snort at the question, not because it was a weird question in any normal kind of relation, but specifically in his relation with Potter it seemed so utterly absurd.
There really was no reason for them to pretend that they wanted to know more things about each other’s lives; they were simply hooking up on occasion and using each other to have these events be less boring. It really was that simple.
“Really?” He asked with a smirk and a raised eyebrow as he blew out a huff of smoke, taking his time to take Potter in and trying to figure out if maybe he had some kind of angle to this. “That’s what you are going to go with?”

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Malfoy’s laugh rattled down Harry’s spine; even though it was one of mockery, the sound far less infuriating than it had been back in their teens. It made Harry’s smile widened again, with some delay recognising just how foreign those words were to whatever this was supposed to be.
“Are you not used to people chatting you up?” he asked, a little too genuine for it to properly be a joke.
His attention was unwaveringly on Malfoy, his smile slightly obscured by his lifted hand, almost taking another drag. “I want to know.”

“Do you?” Draco asked with an arched eyebrow before taking a sip from his drink, fascinated by what possibly could be going through Potter’s head right in this moment.
“Is chatting me up really what you are trying to do?” He added, unsure how he felt about the addition of this much talking to their relation, though deep down he knew exactly how he felt about it.

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Harry shrugged, finally taking that drag.
“Chatting to you,” he mused coyly through the exhale, as if the two things were interchangeable and it didn’t matter to get too hung up on the details. He was dully aware of the fact that he probably should watch his words going forward, but with Malfoy it seemed pointless, already caught in something far more incriminating.
“Are you not gonna tell me?” Harry pressed with a grin, increasingly interested in Malfoy’s irrational refusal of what should have been an easy answer.

Much to his chagrin, Draco found that he was liking this version of Potter as well.
It was as if their hooking up had sanded away their inherent needs to put up some kind of facade in front of each other, and more and more of who they didn’t get to be was poking through. Draco wasn’t entirely sure how to handle this privilege that it really was, but he figured that he really didn’t have to think too much of it, he could just see where the wave would take them.
“I didn’t think you’d actually be interested,” he stated with a shrug and a drag of the cigarette, taking the moment to take Potter in and trying to place this conversation in the words chronology of their relationship. “I have been fine. Busy. How have you been?”

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