InsaneJournal

Fic: Seven Simple Rules for Living With Draco Malfoy
Title: Seven Simple Rules for Living With Draco Malfoy
Authors: ships_harry and nishizono
Characters: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: They aren't ours.

Summary: Sometimes, Harry thinks Draco should come with an owner's manual.

Author's Notes: There are chat logs to accompany this madness, which we'll probably post whenever I (Nishi) stop being lazy long enough to format them properly. All you need to know is that this came about during a conversation involving earmuffs, kiddie leashes, and accidental sodomy. Which sounds pretty bad when the subjects are all lumped together in one sentence like that.



1) Harry does not shop for groceries.

Harry believes that it is perfectly acceptable for tea to come in bags, and for it to be used to soften biscuits the consistency of limestone. Draco is no more convinced of this than he is the idea that cheese comes in individually wrapped slices.

One night, Harry offers him a packet of pork scratchings, and Draco doesn't speak to him for the rest of the evening.


2) Harry does not shop for linens.

"Thread count." Harry looks at the sheets, and then back at Draco. "You just made that up. Who has the time to count threads?"

Draco crosses his arms in front of his chest and fixes Harry with a pointed glare. "If you don't change the sheets, I'll just have to sleep on top of you."

"Sure thing, princess," Harry grumbles, but secretly thinks he wouldn't mind being slept on all that much.

Draco sniffs haughtily, but his lips twitch and he says, "I hope the bump in your bed is bigger than a pea, Potter."


3) Harry does none of the decorating.

"For god's sake, Potter. Only an utter plebian would refer to this colour as 'white' when it's clearly 'magnesium flare'."

Harry eyes the sofa dubiously for a moment before stating, very certainly, "It's white."

"And this is why you're not allowed to make any decisions about the decorating," Draco says, throwing his hands in the air. "I need some Orange Pekoe."

"Er," Harry offers hesitantly. "Are we still talking about the furniture?"


4) Harry does not choose the crockery. Nor the silverware, nor the cookware, and particularly not the glassware.

"Potter," Draco says as he places a glass emblazoned with the Guinness logo down on the open book Harry's been reading. "What is that?"

"Uh," Harry replies doubtfully. "It's a glass?"

"Are you telling me, or asking me?" Draco replies, crossing his arms. "Because if you're asking, then the answer is no."


5) Harry does not prepare meals.

"It's tomato sauce," Harry explains as the plastic bottle in question squirts out a bright red blob to a flatulent accompaniment.

"Is it supposed to be edible?" Draco asks, torn between horror and fascination. He jabs at the mound of lurid goo with his fork, warding it away as it oozes towards his crumbed haddock.

"It makes things taste good," Harry replies.

Draco smears the tiniest portion across a flake of fish-- previously soaked in vinegar, also at Harry's insistence-- and lifts it to his mouth. He chews, swallows, then stands.

"Potter," he says, with a tiny sigh. "We cannot have a relationship based on lies."


6) Harry does not choose the nightly entertainment.

"What," Draco demands, gesturing to the glowing box in the corner, "is that?"

"A telly," Harry says in the slow voice of a man not at all sure he's giving the right answer to a question.

"A telly," Draco repeats, suddenly looking very pointy. "Why is it here and what is it doing?"

Harry glances from the television, to Draco, and back to the television. "It's uhm, entertaining me?"

"Oh really," Draco replies, just a tad too calmly. He turns with a flick of his robes and stalks over to the set, hands on his hips.

Pierce Brosnan's face stares back at him, offering a quick smile and an introduction of, "Bond. James Bond."

"Frankly," Draco tells the television in a haughty voice, "I don't care who you are. I want to know where you think you get off, flirting with Potter right in front of me."

Harry tries, and fails, to conceal his snort of laughter. "Draco, he can't hear--"

"And you," Draco spits, whirling on Harry and pointing one finger accusingly. "Cheating on me with someone who shares a name with your own father? That is sick."

It takes Harry four hours to convince Draco that Pierce Brosnan, code name James Bond, was not actually flirting with him. The next morning, they stand on the front steps together and watch as the television is hauled away to the local rubbish tip.


7) Harry does not make the tea.

"Step away from the kettle." Draco pinches the bridge of his nose and flaps his other hand in an agitated manner.

"What?" Harry asks, confused. He's ready to pour boiling water into two mugs, each with a spoonful of loose-leaf tea scattered over the bottom, and had been so certain that he was finally doing something right. "Don't worry, it's not a teabag. I used that stuff you like, the foliage."

Draco merely points to the door.


***


Harry is brooding in the least uncomfortable chair when Draco brings out the tea, and doesn't look up when the tray of Royal Doulton is set down with a precise clink. He can hear Draco stirring in Harry's sugar with what will no doubt be a perfectly polished silver spoon, and imagines the moue of distaste his lips are forming at the idea of ruining good tea with such middle-class dilutions.

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry sees Draco lean back in his chair and take a sip. The small sigh of pleasure that follows is identical to the noise he makes when Harry runs a finger along his arched spine before pressing it firmly inside him. Harry scrapes his nails over the uncomfortable texture of the upholstery; it was chosen to complement a thread in the carpet, and Harry has always hated it. It leaves an itchy, raised pattern on the back of his thighs when he sits in his boxers to read the morning paper. A man shouldn't have to be wary of the furniture in his own home. He scratches again, harder, and a thread loosens. A tiny rebellion; a small victory.

The sound draws Draco's attention away from his spiritual experience.

"You're not drinking your tea?" Draco asks. "I put sugar in it. Milk, too."

"Good of you," Harry replies, attempting to get his nail under the loose thread. Perhaps if he can pull it loose, Draco will insist on re-covering the furniture, and they can get something that doesn't scrape Harry's knees raw when he fucks Draco up against the arm.

"Harry," Draco coaxes, picking up a plate. "There are Gingerballs. And Weasley isn't here to be embarrassed, so you have to eat them."

"Gingernuts, Draco."

"Whichever. Have one," Draco says, holding out the plate with an encouraging smile. This is the closest he comes to apology; it means he realises he's been insufferable, and is prepared to make a gracious concession.

The biscuits are arranged in perfect, overlapping concentric circles on a plate that Harry has no doubt is meant specifically for serving biscuits, and was possibly bought from a specialist biscuit-plate section in the private Wizarding area of Harrods.

"Those aren't gingernuts." Harry knows he's just being stubborn, but he feels as though if he gives way on just one more thing, it will be the last time he can stand it. "Gingernuts come in a packet. It's orange, and blue, and says McVities."

"These came in a very garish packet," Draco begins, then pauses, eyeing the biscuits with some concern. "It didn't talk, though. Are Muggle biscuits supposed to talk?"

Harry just gives him the Look; the one he uses when Draco is being particularly ridiculous. He once kept track over a fortnight, and it averaged out at twenty six Looks per day. Just over five years together means he's sent Draco that non-verbal message about fifty thousand times, and not once has he managed to make Draco seem the least bit abashed.

"No, see, they must be the right kind, because, look," Draco prattles, snagging a biscuit from the plate and holding it partly submerged in Harry's drink. "See? It goes in the tea, doesn't it? Doesn't that make it a gingernut, the way you like it? And, oh, I'm sure it tastes lovely."

He lifts the biscuit for Harry to taste, but it's been in the tea for too long, and the wet half breaks off and falls onto the arm of the chair with a pathetic splat.

"Fuck," Draco says, and brushes at it, successfully working the crumbs deeper into the thick threads of the fabric. "Fuck," he says again, looking to Harry, who sighs and sends a lick of magic from his fingertips to remove all trace of the sodden biscuit.

"It's no good," Draco moans, slumping down next to the chair to eye previously stained area as closely as possible. "It'll never come out."

"It's already gone," Harry points out, patting Draco's hair in an attempt at comfort.

"I'll know it was stained. Stained with the bastard offspring of Sainsbury's biscuits and fine tea." Draco appears inconsolable for all of three seconds. "We'll have to re-cover it," he announces, smiling brightly up at Harry.

"Don't you think that's a bit extreme?" Harry barely dares hope that his opinion will count for anything in this instance. "It's only a little splash."

"Nonsense," Draco chirps, and then rubs his hand over the fabric, wrinkling his nose. "Besides, although this looks brilliant, it feels like sandpaper. I can't believe you find it comfortable enough to shag on. I'd have lost all the skin off my knees if I were in your position."

"What?" Harry splutters. "Comfortable?"

"It's no use arguing. I've made up my mind, and we're getting something put on this that makes it feel less like it came out of East Germany in the 1970s." Draco appears adamant, and goes on to eye the curtains, muttering something to himself about avocados and lettuce. Harry suspects he's not planning a salad for lunch. He reaches out for another biscuit, and dunks it in over his fingers, ignoring Draco's wince as he shoves the entire thing into his mouth.

"Gi's a kiss," he says to Draco, his mouth full of semi-dissolved biscuit.

"You're disgusting," Draco says, "and I don't know how I put up with you." He kisses Harry anyway, and it's enough.