sitting ❀ drarry

𝑙𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑛𝑒

𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 4𝚔
𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚙𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚍: 𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚞𝚜𝚝 8𝚝𝚑, 2020
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The next Tuesday brought a lot of stress for Harry.

He had woken up with a churning stomach and a small headache. He lied in bed for a lot longer than he should have.

He slogged off to work a bit late, unable to focus on what sort to tasks were at hand. All he had to do was fill out a few stacks of paperwork and go to a short meeting with Robards to prep him for the longer meeting that he had later with Robards and the Minister. The day was packed with nothing that he enjoyed, and lunch with Malfoy didn't help him at all.

After a few hours of tumbling over paperwork, his partner, Smith, left to visit his grandmother. He had been able to take an early lunch for that, and Harry envied him more than anything else; he would have taken Zacharias Smith's grandmother over Malfoy any day, and she smelled like cotton balls and dead flowers.

After sitting in his office alone for much longer than he would have like, Harry retreated to his meeting, and after that, to the break room to grab a small cup of coffee. He had resorted to drinking the beverage more and more now that his anxiety had started spiking again; though he hated the taste, the caffeine helped to soothe his nerves more than anything else that he had tried so far.

He drank the coffee with a scrunched up expression at the godawful taste, but put on a pleasant smile for everyone that he walked past. Rhonda was very talkative, and she spoke to him for a very long time about what color her son should dye his hair, and Terence gave him a small smile of sympathy once he saw who Harry was stuck chatting with.

He could only shrug and try to listen to what Rhonda was spewing out of her mouth. She spoke at a thousand words a minute ceaselessly, and he couldn't understand even a word of what she was saying.

After nearly half an hour, he realized that the only way he was going to be able to get out of this was to use time as an excuse. He searched the walls for a clock, and saw that it had been taken down in the renovations of the break room. He internally sighed, and adjusted his posture so that he was more comfortable when listening to Rhonda and her speech about her husband's new promotion.

He was nearly dozing off when Rhonda said something that he could actually understand.

"And my husband gotten me a new watch," she boasted, shoving it in Harry's face. She looked proud of it. "Do you like it?"

Harry glanced at it, about to say something complimentary until he saw the time. His eyes widened comically, when he realized that he was already twenty minutes late for his lunch with Malfoy.

"I have to go!" he told her, scrambling to get away from her. "I'm late for lunch!"

He started to run, leaving her in his dust. Rhonda shrugged and made herself a cup of tea.

Harry made it to his office quickly and threw on his cloak. There was a small line to get out of the Apparation point. Harry tapped his foot against the tile flooring, not sure whether or not he was nervous about being late, or rather about meeting Malfoy.

When it was finally his turn to Apparate, he had to take a moment to remember where he was going. Once he remembered, he left with a familiar 'crack' of Disapparation and landed a little ways from the bistro that he and Malfoy were going to.

It was called Witchy Bistro, but Harry recalled that Malfoy had specifically told him that the real name - though not displayed - was Bitchy Bistro. Pansy Parkinson was the owner, along with her new partner, Blake, who had convinced her to make the bistro family-friendly.