Fic: The Virtues of the Common Cold (and Other Wizarding Primers)
Fic: The Virtues of the Common Cold (and Other Wizarding Primers)
Author: sheafrotherdon
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: JKR owns the boys, I merely play with them
Summary: A little comedy, a little fluff, a little snark-tastic Malfoy to get the New Year off to a good start
A/N: Written for avoteforla when she was sick, around the prompts she provided: oranges, corduroy, Rilke, and rain. Thanks to yeats for the beta! :) Post-war crack.



Of the hundred worst cases of bad timing in wizarding history, Harry Potter's decision to wipe his nose on his sleeve at the precise moment Draco Malfoy opened the front door of his London townhouse was a strong contender for position number eighty-seven on the list.

“Happy Birthday,” said Harry with a lopsided smile. He dropped his arm rather guiltily, sniffed, and felt a fresh trickle of rainwater insinuate itself beneath his collar. It was pouring with rain – a regular London monsoon.

“Potter.” Malfoy eyed him sceptically. “You walked here?”

“Yeah.” Harry tried very hard not to sniff again. “It wasn’t raining when I left my flat.”

“This is why the ability to Apparate shouldn’t be nurtured in plebeians,” muttered Draco, darkly. “What’s the point of magic if you choose to do idiot things like walk?”

Harry shifted from foot to foot. “Could I come in?” he asked, uncomfortably aware of the rainwater in his shoes.

Draco leaned forward, grabbed a fistful of Harry’s jacket and hauled him inside. He slammed the door closed, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and thrust it into Harry’s hands. “I’m going to assume a man who was wiping his nose on his sleeve needs one of these.”

“How terribly nineteenth-century of you,” mumbled Harry before blowing his nose.

Draco narrowed his eyes. “The principle is surely not beyond you, Potter. Even you have toilet paper. I’ve seen it. A man with a cold,” – he spoke the word as if Harry had contracted a new form of bubonic plague – “could surely think to stuff tissues into the pocket of his trousers.” His gaze flickered down to the aforementioned article of clothing. “Even if those trousers are hideously unflattering.”

Harry grinned and slumped against the wall. “Happy Birthday,” he said again.

Draco half-smiled, and grabbed him by the sleeve (decidedly not the one that had been used in lieu of toilet paper and handkerchief) and dragged him down the hall. “Please don’t leave wet spots on my plasterwork,” he asked, pushing Harry into the bedroom. “Find something to wear. Pyjamas are in the third drawer down. I’m making tea.”

“Pyjamas?” asked Harry fuzzily.

Draco sighed. “You have a cold, Potter. Should you attempt to Apparate now you’ll only splinch yourself, so you clearly can’t go home. You’re freezing and soaked to the skin and I refuse to have my somewhat-significant-other die because he was insane enough to actually walk. In public. Among the working classes.” He gestured with an elegant hand. “Find clothes. Never wear corduroy to my house again. And shut up.”

“Snob,” muttered Harry, without any real rancour.

Draco’s bedroom was Harry’s favourite room in the townhouse (and not simply because of the things they’d recently begun to do to one another in the elegant king-sized bed). Everything in the room spoke of understated luxury, the kind that never ceased to make Harry’s mouth go dry. The walls were painted a crisp, clean white, the dark wood of the furniture was polished to an impressive sheen, and there was something terribly comforting about the soft sage curtains and thyme-coloured bedspread. Harry trailed a hand over Draco’s expensive duvet and smiled. The boundaries of Draco’s world were still marked by green, but like many things in Malfoy’s life, the palette had changed and softened over time.

Harry pulled open the dresser and rummaged for pyjamas, settling on grey, flannel bottoms that were impossibly soft to the touch. He put down his handkerchief, pulled a very small box from his jacket pocket, and set his wand on the dresser before peeling out of his sodden clothes. He found a t-shirt in another drawer and pulled it on, and was about to look for socks when Draco returned.

“Ineo Cophinus,” said Draco, waving his wand, and Harry’s clothes sailed into the laundry hamper. “Did you come here determined to ruin the finish on all the surfaces in my house?” he asked.

Harry just blinked. He was suddenly struck by the fact that Draco – in a half-buttoned shirt and loose black trousers, feet bare – looked incredibly, wonderfully good. Despite the pleasant mish-mash of snogging, groping, sucking and licking that had transpired between them of late, it was still somewhat astonishing to realize that Draco was not, in fact, two genomes short of a Best in Show award from the stoat and ferret breeders of Europe. Knocked sideways by the realization that Draco was actually bloody attractive, Harry stared dumbly.

“Here,” said Draco, pushing a steaming mug toward him. “Drink this.”

Harry obediently took the cup and shuffled to the overstuffed armchair by the window. “What is it?” he asked, feeling awkward and a little turned on.

”Tea,” said Draco. “And something to help with your cold. Nothing you’d remember from potions, being the most inept cutter of roots in a thousand years of Hogwarts history.”

Harry made a grumbling noise of protest. “It’s been seven years since we left school. I’ve improved in several things since then.”

“Not at making potions you haven’t,” said Draco, twitching the duvet straight again. “I tested your anti-nausea brew, remember?”

Harry flushed. “Well, even if it didn’t stop you from puking, the puke tasted better for it.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “The taste of oranges really didn’t make up for the fact that you induced me to projectile vomit,” he said dryly. “Malfoys do not vomit, Potter, much less vomit over a distance of several metres. It’s gauche.”

Harry made a face and sipped at his tea. “Cinnamon,” he said, surprised.

“I know you like the taste. And the wormwood really does make it unbearable if you don’t mask it with something else.” Draco crossed the room and pressed a hand to Harry’s forehead. “You have a fever,” he said, with a tight, unreadable expression. “What on earth possessed you to walk here when you’re so obviously sick?”

“S’your birthday,” said Harry, frowning. “And I thought maybe the walk would clear my head.”

“London air quality being what it is, I can see how you’d think that,” said Draco, and Harry was almost sure he was using sarcasm to mask his concern. He paused. “It was nice of you to think about my birthday.” He tugged on his shirt tails. “Although I don’t do birthdays.”

Harry sipped at the tea-and-potion brew, wiggling his bare toes as he felt the magic begin to do its work inside him. “Too bad,” he said, sliding lower in the chair. “I do do birthdays. Even with a cold.” The potion was really bloody good. His nose had already stopped dripping. “Pass my wand and that box.” He gestured with his half-full mug toward the top of the dresser.

Draco made a face and picked up both items with the very tips of his fingers. “I should be wearing gloves,” he muttered. “I don’t want your common ebola.”

“Drama queen,” muttered Harry, putting down his mug to accept the offending items. He set the box on the floor and tapped it with his wand, whispering something complicated under his breath. The box expanded and flipped open to reveal an enormous chocolate cake with ready-lit candles. “Happy Birthday,” Harry said cheerfully, sinking back into the chair, looking pleased.

Draco blinked. “A birthday cake,” he said, as if there might be some confusion as to what now sat on his bedroom floor. “I’ve . . . I’ve never had a birthday cake.”

Harry frowned. “Never?”

“Never.” Draco sat cross-legged on the floor and watched the candles flicker. “How extraordinary.” He glanced at Harry. “Terribly Muggle thing, a birthday cake.”

Harry quirked an eyebrow and sneezed. “Muggles have good ideas once in a while, you know.” He picked up his mug and drank from it, watching Draco prod the cake with a curious finger. “Fish and chips, for example.”

Draco licked chocolate icing from his finger. “I concede that Muggles know a thing or two about food,” he said, smacking his lips. “But candles?”

“You have to make a wish,” Harry said.

“A what?”

“A wish.”

“A wish?”

“And then blow out the candles. If you wish hard enough and blow out the candles all at once it’ll come true.” He sneezed again. “Old magic. Raw stuff. A bit imprecise.”

Draco wrinkled his nose. “Can I wish for your cold to disappear and never darken my doors again?”

“Not now you’ve told me that was your wish.” Harry gestured feebly. “Secrecy’s the thing.”

Draco sighed, screwed up his face (in an unwitting replica of the expression employed by every five-year-old who ever presided over a birthday cake) then bent to blow out the candles. Once every one was extinguished, Draco looked up with a self-satisfied smile. “I claim victory over cake,” he said.

“Want to eat a piece?” asked Harry. “Solidify that sense of accomplishment?”

Draco stood, and shifted the box to one side with his foot. “No. I want you to finish that potion and get into bed.”

Harry peered into his mug. “It’s that kind of potion?”

“Really, Potter,” Draco sighed. “I hardly need to drug you or take advantage of you while you’re unwell to satisfy my carnal urges.” He arched an eyebrow. “You’re not especially attractive right now. Sleeping with someone whose most pressing concern is wiping mucus from their nose has never figured in my fantasies.”

Harry finished his potion and stood, a little unsteadily. “I can sleep on your couch, ‘sokay.”

“Good grief,” Draco drawled, dismissively. “And here I thought you were done with that irritating martyr complex.” Draco guided Harry to the bed with a firm hand on his elbow, and threw back the covers.

“And I thought you were done being obnoxious,” muttered Harry, sighing as he curled up on his side, sinking into the pillows.

Draco smoothed the duvet over him and pulled off his glasses. “Not much chance of that now, is there?” he said softly, brushing Harry’s hair away from his face. “Go to sleep. The potion should help.”

It did. Harry barely had chance to relish the enveloping softness of the bed before he was asleep, dreaming of birthday cakes the size of a tennis court, topped by Draco sitting in a deckchair, ordering martinis from a waiter who looked suspiciously like a cello. Harry was about to order a bacon sandwich when a duck waddled up, tilted its head, and began to recite poetry.

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.

Harry blinked. Bloody talented duck, that he thought idly, and rubbed at one eye.

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed

Harry yawned and blinked at Draco, who was no longer sitting atop a giant cake.

“Did I wake you?” Draco asked.

“Am I ‘wake?” Harry slurred.

Draco leaned over and pinched him hard on the arm.

“OW.” Harry frowned pitifully and rubbed his poor, abused flesh. “The hell?”

“At least you know you’re not dreaming,” said Draco, turning back to his book. He was sitting in bed right beside Harry, terribly close for someone who had feared contracting ebola from a wand earlier in the evening. “I’m sorry if I woke you, but I can’t abide to read poetry quietly – it was made to be spoken aloud.”

Harry turned over onto his left side to peer blearily at the man beside him. “You read poetry?”

“Sometimes,” Draco gestured with the volume in his hand. “Rilke. His mother was a witch, you know. How’s your head?”

“What time is it?”

“How’s your head?”

Harry squinted and lied. “Bit better.”

Draco pressed his palm to Harry’s face. “You still have a fever. You’re not going anywhere until that’s gone.”

“I’ll be fine.” Harry was warm and content and didn’t relish the idea of going home to his own, poky little flat, but it was night now, and Draco surely needed to sleep. “You need your bed back.”

“As I believe I said earlier, I need you not to die because you have some Gryffindor notion of nobility and self-sacrifice rotting your frontal lobe,” said Draco. “You’ll stay right here.”

“But . . .”

“No buts.”

“But . . .”

“Which clearly is far too complicated a directive for your tiny mind.”

“Draco . . .” Harry couldn’t keep the whine out of his voice. His head hurt and he was tired and he knew Draco didn’t deal well with bodily fluids in the bedroom that had nothing to do with sex. “I don’t want to stay here for one night at the expense of many.”

Draco lowered his book. “Yes, Potter – because I lived on the lam for a year, betrayed my family, turned spy, and decided you were a tolerable specimen of humanity just so that I could lure your sick and ailing body into my bed and kick you permanently to the kerb the moment you were well. Your insight into my psyche is positively terrifying in its accuracy.”

“You’d do it,” muttered Harry, miserably. “And then you’d burn your 600 thread-count pillowcases in case I got snot on them.”

Draco eyed him incredulously. “You’re even more ridiculous than I thought,” he said, scooting down in bed to meet Harry’s gaze, eye to eye. “You seriously think sheets mean more to me than you do.”

“They don’t?” Harry asked feebly.

Draco smacked him up the head. “Idiot. No.”

“I just . . . “

Draco shifted – one of those graceful tilts of his body and rearranging of limbs that Harry never really understood, but which usually ended up with them in startlingly close proximity to one another. “I’m terse because I’m worried,” he conceded with difficulty. “And if you ever use that knowledge against me I will hex you three years into the future without so much as a pair of underpants.”

“Crikey,” said Harry sleepily, burrowing into Draco’s embrace. “S’mean.”

“I’m so very good at mean,” said Draco, drifting for a second. “But good god, Harry – I didn’t risk eternal shame and damnation to kiss you at that godawful excuse for a Weasley birthday party, just to foster a misplaced, Hufflepuffian sense of obligation.” He huffed a small sound of irritation. “I don’t do obligation.”

Harry sighed, soothed by the drift of Draco’s hand up and down his spine. “I don’t understand you,” he confessed.

“Makes life exciting, to be involved with an enigma,” said Draco briskly. “Go to sleep. Indulge me in the weakness of wanting you well again.”

Harry smiled. “Y’could read that Rilke again. I wouldn’t mind. S’kinda nice.” His eyelids were heavy.

“An interest in culture? Well now I know you’re deathly ill,” said Draco dryly. “I probably shouldn’t deny a dying man his last request. I’m sure there are karmic consequences.” He cleared his throat, fumbling to find his book as Harry laughed softly.

“Is it easier for lovers?,” Draco recited.

(He really did have a lovely voice when he wasn’t trying to eviscerate a person, Harry mused).

Don't you know yet ? Fling out of your arms the
emptiness into the spaces we breathe -perhaps the birds
will feel the expanded air in their more ferven flight.”

Harry was almost sure he caught a glimpse of Draco smiling as he shifted against him. But his hold upon Draco’s shirt was slackening, his breathing settling into beguiling little whiffles of contentment, and he really couldn’t muster up the energy to point out Draco Malfoy was a big sodding faker.

“Yes, the springtime were in need of you. Often a star
waited for you to espy it and sense its light.
A wave rolled toward you out of the distant past,
or as you walked below an open window,
a violin gave itself to your hearing.”

Harry yawned, feeling sleep tug relentlessly at the sleeve of his borrowed t-shirt.

“All this was trust,” Draco murmured. And Harry slept.