ready for the fall
(inspired by the lovely drarrycontrary‘s wonderful headcanon about kisscams in quidditch!)
“What,” said Draco flatly, “in Merlin’s name is that?”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione all turned in the direction he pointed and their gaze landed on a brown ball hovering near their section in the stands. It was smaller than a quaffle but bigger than a snitch and had a thumb-sized lens attached to its body.
“Oh, that’s the kisscam,” Hermione explained. “It was originally a Muggle baseball thing but the Department of Magical Games and Sports recently started implementing it in Quidditch games.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question, Granger,” Draco deadpanned. As Hermione rolled her eyes and began to explain, he turned to Harry and winked.
Harry grinned back at him. When he reached out to Draco after the war he never expected their friendship to grow to the point where he would feel comfortable enough to invite the other wizard to Quidditch matches with his friends, let alone like him as much as he did now.
Maybe too much.
Harry gulped and looked away as his cheeks grew warm. Somewhere between shaking Draco’s hand all those months ago in the middle of Hogwarts’ ruins, going out for drinks at the Leaky, and occasionally flying together, his feelings for Draco evolved from the same kind of fondness he felt for all his friends into something similar to the feelings he once had for Cho and Ginny.
Only, this was much stronger than a crush because instead of just wanting to snog and fuck Draco into the mattress, Harry found himself having regular fantasies of waking up in the other man’s arms in the morning, holding his hand in public, and, perhaps most tellingly, bringing him to the Weasleys’ weekly Sunday dinners. He definitely wanted Draco, and not as a short-term fuck buddy to get out of his system.
“–And the camera won’t stop filming you until you and the other person kiss,” said Hermione, her voice jarring Harry out of his thoughts.
Draco stared at her like he wasn’t sure she had gone mad or not. “You’re having me on, that sounds like torture,” he said.
Ron grinned and shook his head. “Just wait till half time, Malfoy.”
Another thing Harry hadn’t expected after striking up a tentative friendship with Draco was how well he would end up getting along with his friends. It was still far from perfect but Ron and Draco seemed to have gotten over the worst of their animosity towards each other, which Harry frankly considered to be a miracle. To everyone’s shock, Hermione and Draco got along swimmingly once they both discovered their shared passion for academia.
“Oi, Potter, did you and Weasley ever get caught on this so-called kisscam?” asked Draco, laughing when Ron reached around Hermione to sock him in the arm.
Harry snorted and did the same from Draco’s other side. “What, jealous?”
Draco smirked, “Please, I can do so much better than either of you.”
And that was the problem, wasn’t it?
Although Harry knew Draco no longer held the outdated belief that pure-bloods were superior to everyone, he was also aware that Lucius Malfoy hadn’t completely turned his back on his old ways and was dead set on marrying Draco off to a pure-blood witch before his son turned twenty. While Harry usually didn’t give a shit about what Malfoy Senior wanted, Draco, worryingly, didn’t seem too bothered by it whenever the topic came up. He usually just gave a ‘what can you do?’ shrug in response, although Harry had noticed his shoulders tensing once or twice.
Still, it was the fact that Draco never explicitly stated he didn’t want to marry a pure-blood that told Harry he had a snowball’s chance in hell against Draco’s future wife. Then there was the fact that he didn’t know if Draco was even anything other than straight.
“Look, it’s starting!” said Hermione, pointing to the centre of the pitch, where the magical equivalent of a Jumbotron appeared.
The crowd cheered even louder for the kisscam than they had during the first half of the game. Even Draco wolf whistled when the kisscam found its first pair of victims: a teenage couple clearly on their first date. The two witches blushed, but, after some encouragement from their neighbours, leaned towards each other in a quick chaste kiss. The crowd burst into applause and Harry caught both of them smiling shyly at each other before the kisscam moved on to its next targets.
The pattern continued for the next few minutes; the kisscam was indiscriminate in choosing its victims, who ranged from couples to siblings and even complete strangers, much to the audience’s amusement. Eventually, the kisscam stopped in front of where the four of them were sitting. Harry was already turning to Ron and Hermione with a wide, gleeful grin when the screen flickered to life and Harry and Draco’s faces appeared instead.
Harry froze as the crowd roared ecstatically.
“Pucker up, you gits!” shouted Ron, sounding nothing at all like the bloke whose face had turned even redder than his hair when Harry came out as bi. Even Hermione, who Harry could usually count on to have his back, was grinning at him in delight.
Draco rolled his eyes but otherwise didn’t seem phased by the kisscam. He winked at it and the crowd cheered in delight. “Well, Potter?” said Draco, turning to him with a small crooked smile that never failed to make Harry’s heart beat just a little faster. “Shall we give them a show?”
Harry shook his head and turned away, hunching his shoulders in an attempt to hide his face from the kisscam and Draco. In his head, an ugly voice that sounded disturbingly like Uncle Vernon didn’t hesitate to remind him that Draco didn’t actually want to kiss him, that Draco would never see him as anything more than a friend.
“Harry?” Draco gently steered Harry around to face him. His cloud grey eyes shone with worry and there was no trace of his previous amusement. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing,” Harry said too quickly. “Don’t worry about it, let’s just get this over with.” He squared his shoulders and leaned in determinedly but Draco stopped him with a firm hand on his chest.
“It’s clearly not nothing,” said Draco. “If you were anyone else, I’d think you were homophobic but I know for a bloody fact that you’re not, so it has to be something else.”
Harry bit his bottom lip. He supposed he could lie, but Draco would see through it right away.
He sighed, defeated. “I don’t–the problem isn’t that I don’t want to kiss you, it’s that I want to. Badly.”
Draco blinked in surprise. “What–” He cut himself off as the clogs and gears in his mind whirled frantically. Harry could see the exact moment he figured it out when a soft rose blush peppered his pale cheeks and his eyes widened. “You–really?”
Harry nodded miserably. “Yeah, but it’s not a big deal. Come on, let’s just–” His words trailed off when Draco gently cupped his cheek with both hands and kissed him.
For a brief second, Harry completely forgot that they were being watched by hundreds of thousands of eyes. All he could focus on was Draco’s soft lips pressing insistently against his, his warm hands gently holding Harry in place, and his scent–lemongrass and apples–surrounding him and making him think, ‘home.’ It was nothing like his fantasies–it was a thousand times better.
The spell was broken almost as soon as it had been cast as Harry registered the deafening roar of the stadium. He instantly pulled back, his heart pounding hysterically against his rib cage, and Draco did the same, although he kept one hand on top of Harry’s. The way he was watching Harry reminded him of the way Ron and Hermione looked at each other: like the rest of the world didn’t matter because they were all the other needed.
Once the kisscam moved on, Draco leaned over and his beautiful soft lips brushed against Harry’s ear. “What if I told you I’ve been wanting to do that for ages?”
If it weren’t for the shock on Hermione and Ron’s faces, Harry would have been convinced that the last few minutes had been a hallucination conjured up by his undoubtedly desperate mind. But no, Draco really had kissed him and he was still holding Harry’s hand like he never wanted to let go.
Harry replied, “First, I’d ask why it took you so bloody long to do it. Next, I’d suggest trying it again. Like, right now.”
And they did.
You tell me you are writing a drabble. YOU DO NOT TELL ME YOU ARE WRITING A TOOTH ACHINGLY ADORABLE DRABBLE OHMYGOSHHHHHHHHH. LOOK AT HOW CUTE THIS FIC IS GUYS LOOK AT THIS KISS CAM QUAFFLE THING WHATEVER LOOK AT THESE CUTE DUMB NERDS
