Stop All the Clocks (This Is the Last Time I'm Leaving Without You)

chapter 26

“What’d you buy?” Harry called out when he heard the door open and shut. Mug-Harry winked at him as Harry scrubbed the sponge over his face, and Harry scowled and dropped him into the sink of sudsy water, and left him there as he dried his hands on a towel. If only mugs could drown.

“What do you think I bought, Scarhead?” Draco shouted back.

“Really, what did you buy?” Harry asked, emerging from the kitchen. He had no idea why Draco was being so stroppy about it, especially since he hadn’t exactly tried to keep it a secret, what with him loudly announcing ‘I’m going shopping now!’ just before he’d left the house that afternoon.

Draco threw him a sour look over his shoulder as he started up the stairs. “I honestly have no idea why I’m shocked that you don’t remember.”

Harry paused at the bottom, one hand over the newel post. There weren’t any holidays coming up, Draco birthday wasn’t for another few weeks, and their anniversary wasn’t until after that. “Can you give me a hint?” Harry asked, heading up the stairs. He found Draco in their bedroom, rummaging through his sock drawer, and he stopped short. “What on earth are you doing?”

Draco sighed and sent Harry an exasperated look. “Getting socks? Really, what does it look like?”

“But you just came home,” Harry said, looking down. Sure enough, Draco’s feet were bare. “What about the ones you just took off?”

“I’m not sure where they are,” Draco said and continued to dig through his sock drawer until he unearthed a balled-up pair that looked entirely identical to the rest of the pairs he’d shoved aside.

Harry considered pointing out that Draco had only just come home, so the socks were likely somewhere along the path between the front door and their bedroom. He considered asking why Draco would take off his socks if he was just going to want to put them back on again two minutes later. He considered asking whether Draco remembered that he was a wizard and thus capable of finding his lost socks with one quick Accio. But in the end, Harry said none of it, partly because he didn’t want to rehash this pointless argument again with Draco right now and partly because he wasn’t entirely convinced that this whole sock thing wasn’t some long-range ploy meant to drive him slowly mad. If Harry let himself be bothered by it, he’d only be playing right into Draco’s hands.

“So?” he said instead. “Can I please have a hint what it is I forgot this time?”

Draco balanced on one foot as he pulled on a sock. “On the bed,” he sighed. “Honestly, sometimes I can’t believe you’re really an Auror.”

Harry looked over to the bed and his stomach sank. He recognized the bag, and Draco only bought things from Cartier once a year. “Oh fuck, your mum’s birthday.”

“Here,” Draco said. He finished with his socks, which Harry would bet anything would be off his feet again in five minutes, and pulled a jewelry box out of the bag. He tossed it to Harry.

Harry opened it to find a pair of diamond earrings. “Any chance these could be from both of us?” he asked. This happened every bloody year. Really, Harry had no idea why Draco didn’t just remind him about it and save them both a lot of bother. “I mean, there’s two of them, yeah? One for you, one for me?”

Draco snorted and reached into the bag again. He pulled out a second jewelry box and tossed the empty bag aside. “You’re lucky I love you,” Draco said. “Those are from you, this is from me.” He opened the box to show Harry a matching diamond necklace. He shut the box again with a snap and dropped it onto the bed. “Now hurry up. We need to be there soon, and you need a shower.”

“Shower with me?” Harry asked hopefully. He hated these formal meals. Four years of them and he still didn’t even know half of the ridiculous rules of etiquette he was expected to follow. A quick fuck in the shower would make the whole thing easier to deal with.

“Absolutely not,” Draco said, though he did give Harry an appreciative once-over. “I know you and your utter inability to keep your hands to yourself. We’ll be late.” He paused and grinned at Harry. “However, perhaps later tonight I’ll allow you to properly thank me for saving your arse, as much fun as last year was.”

Harry had no desire to repeat last year’s mistakes. “Anything you want,” he promised. And even though he was disappointed by the lack of shower sex in his immediate future, he thought that perhaps having something to look forward to might work just as well.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Draco said as he disappeared into their closet.

Harry went into the bathroom and took a quick shower, and when he came out he found that Draco had changed into that set of dark blue robes that made his skin look especially nice. Predictably, his feet were bare and his socks were nowhere to be seen. Harry wasn’t optimistic enough to believe that they’d ended up in the laundry basket. Dropping his towel, Harry went for the set of burgundy robes laid out on the bed for him and sighed. These were the ones with all the little fiddly buttons and ties on them. He liked how they looked once they were on him, but actually getting them there was a different story. He’d tried to fasten them by himself once, and would describe the experience as being sort of like trying to do origami while both blindfolded and blind drunk.

“Just get them on you and I’ll take care of the rest,” Draco said as he stalked across the room to snatch Harry’s towel up from the floor and went into the bathroom to hang it up. It drove him mad when Harry left his wet towel on the floor; Harry considered it payback for all the socks.

It took a minute, but Harry managed to struggle into them, and then Draco came back into the room to help him, and Harry looked down to watch those long, clever fingers of his working the buttons into their holes, tucking the voluminous fabric of the robes into neat folds and fastening all the little ties and clasps. Impulsively, Harry leaned forward and caught Draco’s mouth in a kiss. Draco’s hands went still as he exhaled slowly through his nose, his lips parting readily, letting Harry coax him into a sweet, unhurried kiss.

“What was that for?” he asked as they parted.

Harry smiled and brushed a lock of hair from Draco’s temple. “For taking care of me.”