Drarry Oneshots (𝑪𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆𝒕𝒆)

a thousand lies

Top! forgot hehe

Bottom! also forgot hehe

Author: cpressmn ( on ao3 )

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There were two truths universally acknowledged and inseparably intertwined. One could not exist without the other, and Harry was made aware of both in nearly the same breath.

The white-blond hair and grey eyes and pointed features stood out in Madam Malkin's, and by the time "Hogwarts, too?" left the other boy's lips, Harry knew the first truth:

Draco Malfoy was pretty.

Harry was too young to want to do anything about it; it was simply a fact he knew instinctively, same as he knew the sky was blue, the grass was green, and the sun would come up in the morning. He had eyes, after all, even if they needed prescriptive lenses.

But the boy kept talking, drawling on about getting his way even if it took bullying his father and our kind and calling Hagrid a savage, and soon Harry knew the second truth, too:

Draco Malfoy was a prick.

These two statements of fact could not be untangled, and Harry was constantly aware of their validity.

It was something everyone knew but no one talked about. Harry and his friends hated Malfoy, but they also couldn't deny he was hot, which made him all the more infuriating.

Malfoy had pink lips that looked insufferably soft, but they were stretched into a sneer and "Mudblood" fell from them. He had long, slender fingers with protruding, kissable knuckles and trimmed nails that Harry could picture carding through his unruly curls, but instead they gripped Malfoy's wand as he directed a Crucio at Harry. Malfoy glided through the Yule Ball dance floor with Pansy, his body lithe and graceful, and he mocked Cedric Diggory's death.

Malfoy was pretty, and he was a prick, and Harry had always been able to tell himself the former didn't matter because the latter was irrefutable, unchangeable. He had roughly a decades' worth of evidence.

Then, in a truly prick move, Malfoy had to go and stop being a prick, and in the process, turn Harry's entire life upside down.

Malfoy had disappeared for a few years after the War, and re-emerged as a Potions Master. During that time, while he had fucked off to France or Italy or wherever to get his degree (it was France, Harry knew very well it was France and tried very hard to not think about what Malfoy would sound like speaking French), he threw the Malfoy money at any and every charity, and continued to do so when he returned to London.

It didn't really change Malfoy's prick status, according to Harry and his friends, and they were all wary when he took a position at the Ministry.

Despite their misgivings, the Aurors — including Harry and Ron — often found themselves working with him, and eventually, unfortunately, reliant upon him.

At first, Malfoy was cold and distant, and what Harry had assumed was self-importance and condescension soon revealed itself to be apprehension and remorse when Malfoy stammered through an apology during one of Harry's visits to his lab. Harry had been so horrified at this turn of events that he rushed to assure Malfoy they were fine, if only to shut him up, then promptly fled.

And it would've been fine if Malfoy had left it at that, but he was apparently determined to ruin Harry's life.

He was less cold after that encounter, undeterred by Harry quite literally running away. He inquired after Harry's health, and that of Ron, Hermione, and the rest of the Weasleys. His face and posture were unguarded, relaxed, even welcoming instead of pinched and defensive. He spared genuinely warm smiles for Harry, who tried his best to ignore the fluttering that erupted in his chest at the sight.