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Chapter Text

It was April and people would think that the weather would become more human and a touch less rude by now. Skies were grey but that day was a rainless day. Something very soothing was dancing through the crushed flower petals on the still damp sidewalk and Harry forced his legs to hurry along the empty, peaceful streets waiting to wake.

That side of the city was slightly unfamiliar to him, since he had only decided to move away from the busy, magic-full streets near the Diagon Alley fairly recently. Maybe the decision was not so recent after all - in a world where such things as the rise of some dark lords and pompous wizards are not a threat one can call real anymore, time truly felt relative and maybe even illusory.

Sometimes hours were barely moving as if the time wasn't time after all but rather a large sloth of bears. Some other times it appeared more like a stream after some heavy rain that was so unlike the usual British rains. During those other times, time itself became rapid and unstoppable, wild and unpredictive, curious and most definitely arrogant because there is no such thing as knowing when you were going to lose some pocketed time and when some leftover time might be dropped into your pocket.

That day was certainly one of those days, Harry thought to himself as he rushed passed the delivery trucks stuck in the middle of the street because of the traffic that was slowly but restlessly developing all over London. He tried to make his breathing more even since he'd let it fall sloppy sometime during those last half a mile and managed to make it just a tiny bit better. His heartbeat was following the easy, splashy rhythm of his worn-out trainers, that were carefully avoiding all the stubborn puddles, and the jingle of spare change in the back pocket of his paint-stained jeans was slightly better than the blasting music that he used to listen to while running.

His mind quickly jumped to Hermione when he passed Genesis. It was a disco club / overly enthusiastic bar he had visited exactly once on a terribly difficult day, details of which were not worth mentioning. It was completely accidental of him to come across such a club but it had only been a couple of months since the war and he hadn't been handling himself properly, so Hermione decided a walk through some of their unusual walking routes could be helpful. That's how their adventure through muggle London began. As mentioned, it ended with quite a spectacular party they managed to find, held exactly at this place.

Of course, that was all before little Rose was born and Hermione lost all her free time. She had used to spend it by taking long walks with Harry while Ron took night shifts down with the Aurors, but now there was no free time in her pockets at all. And wasn't that very unfortunate for our dear Harry? Sure, he was almost as ecstatic as Ron himself when he became an uncle but losing long walks and Quidditch nights and helping-Ron-with-stupid-Auror-cases nights made space for a realisation to pop up in his head. Harry had to admit that realising that he had no idea what to do with his life was never a fun thing.

Just as most things in that year or two after the war, this realisation was massively overthought, overanalysed and blown up out of every proportion before he could find a nice, easy solution to the problem. It took him a week or two to decide that going into the Auror training was just as bad of an idea as it was when he had to decide if he wanted to join or not six months before that. It took him ten more days to decide that he would have to refuse McGonagall's offer of a teaching position once again as well because having to teach a bunch of noisy teenagers some crappy magic will solve none of his problems. And then, it took him less than five days to sell his old place in Hermione's and Ron's current building and find a cosy little flat with large windows facing the back garden and a spacious kitchen for all his cooking needs.

"It's really not a recent decision, you twat," Harry told himself while waiting for some suspiciously looking middle-aged witch, with a hooked nose and blonde hair, to exit the headquarters of the infamous Daily Prophet. "You've been living in that underpriced flat for over two years now."

He finally entered the building that was sparkling with life and managed to squeeze himself into one of the open elevators. The air was hot and dusty inside it, smelling foul and heavy because of the sweaty, perfumed bodies around him, and it was constantly being stabbed by curious looks from everyone brave enough to stare into Harry's scar. Yeah, he was Harry Potter, we get it... "For fuck's sake, get a life..."

The doors of the elevator opened and almost everyone wondered out, disappearing in the mess of papers and fliers and people and coffee. Harry stayed inside, along with one tiny wizard who believed he was very rebellious with his blue hair and a nose piercing - that almost made Harry snort but he managed to contain the laughter in. There were two more floors between Harry and his destination when the young journalist, or perhaps, more likely a secretary, exited with a scowl professionally placed on his face just for his Saviour.

After the doors closed once more, Harry laughed lightly at the slightest idea of today's youth. He shook his head a few times and wondered if Teddy would turn out that way. Speaking of Teddy, he should go visit him and Andromeda sometime soon, maybe on Friday? He hasn't seen them in a while...

The little bell next to Harry's left ear, chimed one more time and he walked out, talking two turns to the left, ruffling his hair and curling his lips into his best smile. Parvati raised an eyebrow when she saw him and he grinned sheepishly, waving a little. "Hi, Patil!"

"Do I even want to know why you're here, Potter?", she asked, lazily, fiddling with the leaves of her new potted plant - probably a gift from a happy admirer she managed to help.

"I need to see Daniel." He scratched the back of his neck, almost feeling the blush that probably spread all over his cheeks when Parvati smirked with a soft: "Oh?"

"Oh, shut up! It's nothing like that and you know it," Harry laughed although it was the least funny thing of all. The fact that everyone on this and three floors below knew Mr Daniel Gallagher shagged the Chosen One was enough - no one needed to know any details and everyone could simply mind their own business. "It's not like we only meet to.. to.. to do that!"

"Sure, Potter," Parvati chuckled, eyeing him. "You just tell yourself those pretty little lies."

"They are not lies," Harry started to argue but gave up after a sentence. "It's urgent."

Parvati watched him for a second, maybe two and then shook her head. "Go on then, if you must. He's alone and I'll make sure no one bothers you two..."

Harry rolled his eyes and thanked her, proceeding to walk past her desk and towards the shiny door only half a hallway away. He barely managed to make a few steps when Parvati stopped him again.

"Harry, honey, how many times do we have to tell you not to run in jeans."

Harry sighed and let her dry the back of his shirt and clean the muddy traces on his trainers and the bottom of his jeans. He ruffled his hair once again, not caring to notice how hard his heart was beating for some reason. Maybe it was because of running, maybe it was because he was seconds away from seeing Daniel face to face again and fucking him against his stupid mahogany table would be so easy, or maybe it was because he was changing his future with this little step he was about to make. The tingle of freshening charms relaxed him and he thanked Parvati for the effort.

The doors of Daniel's office opened as easy as ever and Harry smiled when his eyes caught the sunny, brown ones of the other man. Truth be told, they had sex twice and the first time it wasn't even the real thing - a bit of thrusting, sloppy handjobs, halfhearted orgasms in the males bathroom back at Stephan's. Nevertheless, Daniel was always the one who could effortlessly take Harry's breath away by simply existing.

"When you said you'll be here nice and early, I half-expected you to come before six," Daniel laughed as Harry took a seat in one of the big armchairs Daniel had set up along the side walls of his new office. He claimed they made the whole room look more inviting and of course, he was right. Daniel was one of those people who were right 99% of the time. It was exactly that that had helped him get the position of Deputy News Director at such a beautiful young age of twenty-eight.

"Had to get here on foot," Harry explained and shrugged. "You know how I hate apparating."

Daniel leaned back in his chair, stretching and crossing his legs, putting his hands into the pockets of his suit trousers and flashed Harry an easy grin. "Of course, love." That was a thing about journalists, Harry thought with little appeal, they all called you their sweethearts and darlings and loves and then they crushed you like you're some teeny tiny, obnoxious cockroach.

Still, most journalists were charming and Daniel's position suited him well since he was, at least in Harry's opinion, one of the most charming people he had ever met. With those brown eyes and blonde hair and fake teeth and voice soft like honey. This one time, Hermione said that Daniel was almost as handsome as Harry's other crushes... He looked like some overly-successful porn star or some American actor everyone would mistake for someone else.

He was handsome, but somehow, too handsome. Daniel Gallagher was everyone's wet dream but when you stared at him for too long he became this plastic-looking, too good to be true, Ken-doll.

Harry realised he'd been staring but it didn't matter all that much - Daniel was admiring the view as well. He then sighed and ruffled his hair again, now suddenly nervous. His shaking fingers took out a piece of paper from one of his front pockets and he handed it to Daniel with a small laugh. "I'm not here for a shag, love."

"I know you're not, Harry," Daniel grinned back. "I think you'd prefer to wear a tie if you were. For aesthetic, but also some other purposes." He took the paper after a wink and Harry rolled his eyes. It was pure luck he managed to avoid getting serious with Gallagher - Merling only knows what that would look like.

Daniel scanned the paper quickly and then raised his eyebrows at Harry. "You're looking for a roommate? Can I apply?"

"Yeah, sure," Harry said, matter-of-factly. "Just put all your info into this little thing called an e-mail and keep your fingers crossed that there is enough booze on this earth to make me actually accept your offer."

"Okay, princess, calm down," Daniel laughed slightly and straightened his sitting position. He put the paper on the side and then looked back at Harry who was now getting up from his chair, checking his watch with his brows furrowed. "What has gotten into you? You okay?"

There was a hint of concern in Daniel's voice that Harry did not like at all - it might have meant that the man was getting rather fond of him and that was the last thing he wanted. I mean, sure they fucked 1.7 times but Circe... Haven't people heard of one night stands?

Harry rolled his eyes, murmuring that he's just fine, thank you very much and hesitated. He turned and took a quick breath before speaking: "You're aware that we're not that kind of people who get to be in that all lovey-dovey serious relationship, right? 'Cause I'm sorry Daniel but I don't want to push you into something you don't like and give you false hopes and I don't know what you expect but-"

"You're rambling, Harry." Daniel's lips were curved into an amused smile. He got up from his chair, walked around that stupid desk of his and stopped right in front of Harry's nervous body. "You're adorable when you ramble." He shook his head and sighs.

"You know, not for a single second have I thought about starting something serious with you - why ruin something so casually wonderful? But if you are afraid that either of us might even come close to developing some kind of serious feelings for one another, I'll simply publish your... advert, is it? And walk away like we've never met." Daniel cocked his head and Harry smiled, mouthing 'thank you' just as the ridiculously obnoxious ringtone, which Ginny had set for him last night, filled the room.

"It's Harry," Harry said, answering his phone while walking out the office with one last smile and a wave of a hand. He nodded to Parvati when passing her desk and then bought all of his attention to the speaker on the other side of the line.

"Hey, Luna. Thanks for calling me back." The building was as busy as ever as he reached the main hallway. He decided to take the emergency stairs to avoid the crowd.

"Always. You mentioned something about trying to find a roommate, yes?", Luna's voice practically radiated with that easy happiness her life has fallen into during the last couple of months. Harry smiled at the thought, nostalgic of the times when dating Ginny Weasley made him feel like the happiest person in the world.

"Yeah, well, life can get boring when you don't have a baby or three cats to take care of," he laughed along with Luna and then added: "I'm just headed down to your place to help Gin with the wall - we're almost done with it! We could talk then if you want?"

"Unfortunately, I'm in the office, editing some of the latest articles so... What do you need?"

"A roommate," the word shot quickly from Harry's mouth. "Well, an advert for one... Do you think you can mention that I'm trying to find a roommate in your next number?"

"Sure, thing. Should I mention you are lonely or make it the front page?", Luna joked but Harry felt alarmed nevertheless.

"No, that would not be necessary. Thank you, I owe you one."

"You owe me three already, Harry Potter," she laughed and he started scratching the back of his neck. "And the favours just keep pilling up..."

"I'll buy you dinner some time, deal?", Harry offered and she agreed before hanging up. He quickly texted Elenore about the same issue and made a mental note to call Blaise and ask him if he knew someone who might be interested because Blaise Zabini simply knew a lot of people.

By the time he put his phone back into his pocket, he was only a street away for a classy row of buildings with spacious back gardens and black balcony railings. In one of those buildings was a flat which now belongs to Ginny and Luna.

Harry was still fascinated by their decision to move in together after dating for only seven months - well, more fascinated that they decided to buy a new flat which they would share rather than simply moving into one of their old places. But they needed something theirs, Ginny had told him maybe a week before they found that little piece of paradise. "Both our flats are so tiny and cramped and I don't know...," she stopped to sip a bit of her tea. "They feel extremely temporary; like bridges to something greater, you know?"

And Harry did. That's exactly how his old place had felt - like a rushed idea, temporary solution, simply something holding him back from achieving his full purpose. And by buying a new flat, filling it with Luna's paintings, photographs Hermione had collected over the years, plants him and Neville went to buy one Sunday somewhere outside the city, clothes he had bought because he like it not because he needed it and food he enjoyed mixing to make little masterpieces, he made it his own patch of heaven.

He enjoyed his (relatively) new flat because it was a space entirely his own, a space he shared with his cacti and his friends over dinner every couple of weeks, a space he will soon, hopefully, share, with some new friend while learning their story and the tiny little things that made them themselves. He supposed he would have to compromise on the interior design when this new person arrived but he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

Reaching his friends' building, he fished out a string of keys and quickly found the one with yellow and blue stripes painted on. It was kind of their thing to have all each other's keys because they were family of sorts. Harry, Luna, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Dean, and Seamus. All of them with colourful strings of door keys.

He pushed the yellow-blue key and opened the heavy doors of the building. Every second stair was skipped as he whistles softly. There was muffled music playing from behind Ginny's door when he finally reached it. Some old, unfamiliar records stuff... Probably from her dad, bought at some peculiar yard sale, passed on as a legacy or simply stoled from some old box back at the Weasley's attic, Harry guessed.

He opened the door with a cheerful: "It's Harry! Have you got more paint?" The music slowed down until it finally stopped and Ginny came waddling through the corridor on Harry's left, avoiding potted houseplants which had been, quite carelessly but with a touch of love, left to stand all over the place until the girls found a permanent place for them.

Ginny was wiping her palms off on her the worn out and very over-sized T-shirt she was wearing to get rid of bits of paint that dappled her hands. That shirt, Harry was the most certain, was a hand-me-down from Charlie since there was a burn on the left shoulder an Harry had seen him wear it around the house back during those summers he used to stay at Weasleys'.

"Hi, Harry," she smiled a sunny smile and hugged him. It was a warm embrace and Harry couldn't help but melt into her touch because she was that friendly beam of light you found comforting during long winter nights when the streets were soft and silent, full of snow. "How've you been?"

"We saw each other yesterday, Gin," Harry laughed, shaking his head slightly when they pulled back. She let her hair fall out from the hair tie that used to make a messy ponytail on the top of her head and shrugged.

"A lot of things can happen in a day."

"True. I've been good. Just got that avert for a roommate posted, well, made deals to post it so... hoping for the best?" His smile was crooked as he scratched the back of his neck. Ginny shrugged, with a smile, turning away from him to walk through a maze of plants once more. Harry followed her, careful not to step on any roots.

"I'm sure you'll find the right person, though. Both Luna and I have a good feeling about this - I'm telling you, Harry, this will change your life for good."

"Easy for you to say," Harry murmured and watched as she rolled her eyes at him. She walked to the window in this room, covered in plastic sheets so the tangerine-coloured paint would not get anywhere unpredicted. The soft breeze rushed into the room and Harry sighed. "You've found your fucking soulmate, Gin. There is not one thing you need to worry about..."

"Well, I don't know... Placing all those cacti on the stairs is some pretty serious stuff." They both laughed and Harry finally noticed a new piece of nature that stood in the corner opposite the feature wall him and Ginny were painting for the past three days.

"And who is this?", he asked approaching a big bunch of leaves, almost higher than himself.

"Oh that's Tom," Ginny waved her hand, dismissively. "Luna got him from Neville yesterday since Jerry shouldn't be lonely, you know..."

Harry nodded and watched her tie her hair up again. She handed him a paint rolled and he smiled at her, approaching the wall. They were almost two-thirds done but Luna mentioned something about doing the second layer as well so it might take them longer than expected. Not that Harry minded, not at all.

Painting walls in colours of tangerines was quite relaxing actually.

"Are you going to play that music you'd been listening to before I came?", Harry asked and set to work. He rolled the paint roller over the lid of the paint can and let it drip for a second before gliding the roller over the portion of the white wall.

He glanced at her, with her over-sized T-shirt and her leggings with a tiny hole above the left knee, and her fire-like hair and her freckles that became darker as the summer came closer. She was truly beautiful, with a soft, sunny glow on her skin. The window was shining bright and it seemed it really wouldn't rain.

"Oh no, I like talking to you." Ginny glanced quickly at him before continuing to drag her roller up and down. "Our voices make music of their own, Harry. We're orchestrations of carbon and our lives are melodies..."

"You were just talking to yourself, weren't you?", Harry snorted after a moment of wondering silence.

"Oh, shut up!", She laughed and flicked the rolled towards him so little droplets of paint hit his shirt. It didn't really matter - he had gotten his jacket off already and the shirt was as old as he was. "Luna said it's good for the brain and Hermione agrees! And it's helping me think..."

"Oh, heavens!" Harry looked opened his arms up towards the ceiling and closed his eyes as if he was praying. "Ginevra Weasley is thinking!"

Ginny pursed her lips and glared at him before announcing that he was a moron. Still, there was a glint of a smile in the corners of her lips and Harry laughed. "You know you love me."

"Merlin, help me!" Ginny took a deep breath and then dipped the roller into paint once more. Harry followed her example and they managed to finish the first coat and half of the other by the time the sun went down and Luna got home with some take out for her and Ginny.

"Es tut mir so Leid, Harry," Luna apologised, grinning at Ginny. She'd been learning German for three months now and was not afraid to attempt to use it in every situation possible. "If I had known you're still here, I'd get you a nice shrimp chow mein, you know I would."

"It's okay, Luna, really," Harry assured, placing his palms on her shoulders and kissing her cheek as a goodbye. "I was just leaving anyways. We've got little work to do left so I might drop by tomorrow as well."

"I'm looking forward to it," Luna nodded. "And I got that advert of your's settled as well."

"Thank you once more," Harry smiled and waved at Ginny, who smiled back with a playful wink.

He walked home. The sky was bright and the pavement glinted in soft moonlight that spilt over London. Patches of stars gossiped as he made his way toward his flat on the third floor which soon won't be as empty as he will find it now.

His key was black with thin green stripes and he unlocked the door, turning on the light. There were a few moments of pure silence as his eyes wander and danced over the furniture and the walls of the rooms and he smiled before making his way into the kitchen to quickly cook himself some dinner.

"Maybe I should get a feature wall done, too," he thought to himself while mixing the vegetable risotto he quickly put together. "I'll talk about it with my roommate when I get one... Wouldn't want to scare them off with a lizard green wall right next to the sofa."

He brought the pot with him to the couch and put on that episode of Doctor Who on which he had stopped on. He waited for the VHS tape to load and then let himself fall into the soft cushions of his couch.

It was a cosy evening and his thoughts were at easy and he even believed he would be able to fall asleep if he wanted to which was progress. Some of his nightmares have returned since he stopped seeing his Mind Healer back in January. He could deal with them, though. They are just dreams after all.

And they came slowly, as the night became brighter with sunrise, as the screen of time travel turned to static, Harry's eyelids dropped, his glasses lose on the bridge of his nose. He fell asleep. Safe and sound. In a life which he had finally made his own.

.o0o.

Harry had always loved crowds - ever since he was little they've been this intricate labyrinth or people and stories and rushed thoughts and idea. He loved the way people walked, roughly in one direction, weaving a little as they spoke on their phones, chatting with their company while making their way to their desired destinations.

He loved watching crowds, wide-eyed and in wonder. Some heads would be down and lost in thought; Harry would wonder what they were thinking of, what their private worlds were like. He knew that just like him, each of them was viewing this same place, almost frozen in this one moment, for a unique perspective.

Some of them notice the sun rays, making the pavement glisten, others the cloudy remains of yesterday's rainstorm. Either way, their footfalls soothe him better than a careless stream in the middle of nowhere. Because when walking through this rush of people, he was just another person in the crowd and sometimes, that was exactly what he needed.

He wasn't alone that day. Right beside him, in denim shorts and an obnoxiously blue T-shirt, Blaise was basically jumping out of excitement.

"I'm telling you, my friend," He patted Harry on the back and slowed down his steps. Harry pulled him to the side so Blaise's dramatics wouldn't disturb the flow of the crowd on that fine morning. "Your search has finally come to an end!"

Harry smiled and took a sip of his peppermint tea. There was less than half a cup left and it was lukewarm but satisfied nevertheless. "So you've found someone?"

"Someone?! Not just someone, Harry! He is perfect - just wait until you meet him!" There was a hint of mischief hiding in those olive green eyes of his friend, but before Harry could be certain Blaise started walking again. He pulled Harry's sleeve, hurrying him along. "He's very smart, a wizard, just came back from France - studied potions... who the fuck studies potions?! I heard he's a cat person and also a great Oclumens but you know... rumours, rumours..."

Harry followed along, not saying anything because with every word it seemed more and more likely that Blaise though this man was something more than just roommate material.

"He speaks French, German and English of course and I'm not sure but he has that, 'yeah I'm learning Russian' vibe when you speak to him. He also lays the piano and violin."

"Interesting man...", Harry murmured just loud enough so Blaise would hear him. To be honest, however interesting, this candidate sounded very annoying and over the top to him.

"I know right? He also reads a lot, more muggle than wizarding...", Blaise stopped there, as if he had lost the train of thought he was trying to follow and then hurried along before glancing back at Potter with a soft smirk. "Oh yeah, he's also blonde."

That was when Harry James Potter groaned in desperation - he was certain Patrick had some non-platonic plans for him and this new guy whose name, he just realised, still didn't know. He decided to get his head back into the game and get the thing in his hands. Why would he just let Blaise smirk so self-satisfyingly? He sat down and on the first park bench they'd reached and Blaise was simply forced to follow - he was in the middle of presenting a new boyfriend material to Harry - there was no way he could leave now.

"Blaise, my dear friend, why do I have a feeling you're trying to set me up with this guy rather than find me a roommate?", Harry asked casually, putting a hand onto Blaise's left shoulder.

"Two questions instead of an answer: One, don't you trust me? And two, isn't 'a roommate' technically a code for a boyfriend? 'Cause if it's not, that's your problem, not mine." Blaise threw his hands in the air defensively. A look Harry gave him was the evenest thing ever.

"Zabini, what did I tell you about trying to set me up with people?"

"Not to do it, but that's crap and you know it, Potter." He cocked his head, raising an eyebrow at Harry, daring him to disagree.

"They never work, Blaise and you damn well know it," Harry sighed and took off his glasses to clean them. He glanced around, at the humid, chilly world that he was a part of. Everything was softer, blurred and subjective now - Harry could say he liked it better this way. It felt like he wasn't a part of it all anymore like nothing really mattered now that the world was blurry.

"They don't work because you don't want them to! You go out and become this blank of a human being, constantly checking his watch, keeping small talk going because you're trying to be polite and then you don't call even though you say you will," Blaise stopped for a moment, to catch his breath, before continuing. Harry's face seemed uninterested only because he heard this a million times and he knew it was true.

"Don't think Patrick or Nate or Daisy haven't told me about you... Do you have any idea how much apologising I had to do after that stupid date you went on with them? They really hoped they had a chance and you just turn out to be some sort of 'oh I saved the world, I don't date' type of a dick." There was a tight silence present and Harry wished it suddenly started raining just so he could get out of this situation. People passed them without a glance, everyone minding their own business and Blaise was watching them go. His eyes, subtly unfocused, followed the crows that seemingly floated down the street. He sighed.

"Draco Malfoy is a brilliant man who came back to England after 15 years of living in France. He barely knows anyone and the ones he does know are so much different than people they used to be when he knew them. He's staying at this stupid little hotel because it's near the library and he works there because it's fulfilling he says. I used to know him when we were little and honestly Harry, he is a beautiful human being." Blaise looked at Harry and Harry felt uncomfortable under his gaze.

"I'm letting you meet him because I trust you to ruin him, in a good way. You two would be crazy together and really, if I ever met a person who has the potential to become what Luna is to Ginny and what Hermione is to Ron, what Pansy is to me, to you, Draco is that person. Trust me with this one... Please?"

And how could Harry not after seeing the raw emotion in Blaise's eyes? It was weird, seeing him so passionate and one might find that weird because wasn't Blaise always the overly enthusiastic one? Wasn't he the one who always lifted their spirits? The one who always got too attached? But still, out of all the people Blaise had introduced to him, Harry could see that Draco was just as special as Blaise was trying to convince him he was.

"Fine," he said. "You have his number, right?"

"Well... that's the thing, buddy," Blaise chuckled and scratched the back of his neck shrugging. "He doesn't... um... trust phones, if I can say it that way?"

Harry's eyebrows rose in a perfect 'you've got to be kidding me' expression.

"You'll have to owl him," Blaise nodded now all serious and determined to make this work. Merlin, kill him if he doesn't get those two idiots to make babies by the end of the summer. "Here, I'll write you the address..."

Harry watched as his friend pulled a piece of paper and a pen out of a pocket on his shorts and scribble down a few words. "Here you go, mate."

Harry took it with a sigh. He was really doing this - it's been two weeks since his advert was put into the Daily Prophet, the Quibbler, Metro and London Student. Two weeks of his e-mail inbox being crammed up by fan-mail and crazy cat-ladies applying for the position of Harry potter's roommate. One of those cat-ladies was, of course, Daniel who did apply and to whom Harry had said to fuck off. Daniel being Daniel told him to get him manners checked - "That's not how our precious Saviour should speak, darling. He just got on Harry's nerves.

With his e-mail, his desk was crammed as well; many people thought that sending an electronic letter is definitely not enough so they had to send an owl too. About three days after the advert went out Harry decided to leave the window in his study permanently open.

Two weeks had passed and now finally, Harry practically had a roommate.

He turned to Blaise and thanked him for the effort, folding the piece of paper with Draco's address and putting it into his pocket.

"Just don't fuck it up and we're good," Balise laughed and patted him on the back before standing up. He checked his watch and then smiled once more at Harry. "You can do this, I know you can. But I have to go now. I'll keep my fingers crossed for everything to go great, yeah?"

Harry nodded with a small: "Thanks". He stayed seated on that crooked park bench for a few more minutes, not knowing what to think of all of this. He was happy that he finally had a solid option for a roommate; he was starting to get desperate, to be honest.

There had been a few serious applications that he was considering: this girl named Nia who admitted having some financial trouble and that having a roommate, especially someone like Harry Potter, would be grand, a guy named Kris whose brother moved back to Germany recently so living alone was strange for him and he would love to find someone to live with, this other guy Patrick who traveled a lot o paying a full rent for a flat is somewhat inconvenient.

They were all fine choices but he didn't really know these people. Not that he knew, Draco Malfoy... But Blaise knew him. And although Harry didn't dare admit it, the name gave him some familiar chills - like he'd heard it before, like he'd met Draco already. Maybe it was some weird Deja vu moment but Harry shooshed it out of his head since he didn't want to head into this adventure of getting to know Draco Malfoy with some premature ideas of the man.

He eventually decided to give Nia and Kris each other's addresses so they could have a chance of finding something with each other and stood up. His walk home was strange in a way it was the same as any other; he had walked down this path dozens of times already but the knowledge of Draco Malfoy somehow, in some special, Draco Malfoy-ish way, changed the way he saw the streets and the crowds and his building when he finally reached it.

He entered his flat, opened his windows and let the breeze dance with his thin, yellow curtains, magically swirling them into ballerinas who dance to the soft chatter of friends in outdoor cafes and laughter of costumers on colourful markets in some hidden away town full of magic. The air was filled with a flowery scent of lilies which Neville was so kind to give him for a little decoration when he last stopped by. He felt like he could float and the music would simply emerge from within the walls and float with him.

It all seemed like a beginning of some indie french film and Harry knew it was all Malfoy's fault.

As he wandered off to the kitchen, trying to decide if he wanted more tea or not, his mind quickly jumped back to Draco. "I wonder what kind of tea he drinks? Wait, what if he doesn't drink tea? Do Frenchmen drink tea? Isn't he like, English, though?"

He opened the drawer right next to his sink and his eyes flew over all the colourful tea boxes. He usually went for peppermint or chamomile, Hermione was leaning more towards coffee that tea and Ron were into Earl Grey but what would Draco Malfoy drink?

"Probably green...", Harry murmured, taking one tea bag and waving his hand for the kettle to fill with water. He turned on the stove and found a cup. He must admit he was proud of his wandless spells lately and he was fairly certain he could heat up the water with little effort but he liked waiting for it to heat up the muggle way. It gave him time to settle and get everything ready before he had to handle boiling water.

He went to get some parchment, ink and a quill - he rarely used those anymore but if he's writing a letter to be sent by an owl he may as well go full on wizard mode. He was just about to start writing when he realised he didn't exactly have an owl with which he could deliver the letter.

He fished out his phone and hoped that Ron would pick up. He did.

"Ron, mate, hey!", Harry said, thankfully. "You think our dear, old Pigwidgeon is up for a delivery?"

"Don't tell me you're sending back someone's lingerie again," Ron groaned on the other side and Harry couldn't help but snicker.

"That's was one time!"

"It was three times, Harry! And who knows how many times it would repeat if I hadn't taken away your Pigwidgeon privileges." There was nothing but seriousness in Ron's voice so Harry didn't even dare defend his honour. After all, Ron knew of his activities better than Harry himself did.

"It's nothing like that," Harry said. Even to himself, he sounded suspicious - he knew Ron would be doubtful so he added: "I promise. I need to send a letter to this guy, well, a roommate."

"A roommate?", Ron asked. From the slight twitch of his voice, Harry knew the man was smirking. Damned be Blaise, he probably dragged everyone into this 'setting-Harry-up-with-a-kinda-Frenchman' stunt.

"A roommate c-candidate," Harry tried to assure but swore under his breath when his voice cracked. It was all because of the damned tea and the idea of Draco Malfoy drinking it with him. He didn't even like green tea - so bittersweet and weird... And he didn't even know Draco Malfoy - somehow that was worse than drinking this stupid drink.

"Ah-hm... I see," Ron chuckled and Harry groaned. Why was he doing this to him? Why couldn't he just support this like a normal person or something? To be honest, Harry didn't know what he wanted Ron to say or how he wanted him to act.

"You don't see anything. We're talking on the phone. No cameras. No seeing," Harry sighed and stood up from his chair, vanishing the rest of the tea with a swish of his wand. "Unless..."

"Unless what, mate?", Ron's voice was suddenly switching from teasing to concerned and then Harry went running to his bedroom, opening doors of his closet and then the kitchen cabinets and moving his telly. "Harry? What the bloody hell are you doing?"

"Did you and Blaise instal cameras into my apartment and that's how you can see me?" Harry could barely breathe, panic rising in him and also, he just ran all around his flat in search of betrayal so...

"Of course!", Ron relaxed again. "How else would keep up with the progress of your's and blondie's relationship? What's his name again? Drake, is it?"

"WHat relationship? Have you lost your damned mind? Have Neville mixed some new herbs and forgot to mention you're getting high today?" Harry slumped down onto his couch and lifted his hand for his writing utensils to follow him. Everything arrived and set itself neatly onto the coffee table with the exception of the ink bottle which fell sideways. A bit of black dripped between the cracks of a loosely closed lid before Harry could pick up the bottle. He cursed.

"Sorry, no gillyweed for you, my friend. Or me. I'm completely sane."

"That's debatable, Ron," Harry chuckled, messing the ink stain even more by trying to wipe it with his thumb. He tried scratching it off and then finally just let the bloody stable be, giving up.

"Well, mostly sane. But the point is: this Drake thing-"

"It'sdr'co", Harry murmured, hugging his knees, close to his chest.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that." Ron was smirking, that bastard. "Could you repeat that, please?"

"His name is Draco, for fuck's sake. Not Drake. Draco. Dra-co," Harry snapped and then groaned because why the fuck was he so bothered by this? Why did it matter? He didn't even know the guy!

"Well, then... This Draco thing is worth a try. There's nothing you could lose," Ron told him matter-of-factly. "Except for perhaps a roommate... But this guy is hot, mate! And that's coming for a totally straight, definitely married, a father of soon to be two! Blaise showed me some of his pictures because you know how he is... Everyone Harry meets has to be approved by Ron and all that bullsh-"

"Wait, what? I didn't know that, Ron! You had your fingers in all those 'Blaise-gets-Harry-laid' escapades?!"

"No, what makes you think that?", Ron asked calmly as if he was Harry's personal psychiatrist.

"You're a twat, okay?"

"No? But I don't care, right now. Basically, Harry, dear, darling, love of mine, mate, friend, Potter for Merlin's sake, a shag or two can't hurt. It might be very interesting you know... I heard he knew French."

"Yes, French, and English and German and supposedly Russian," Harry's mind helpfully added. And yes, the image of some blond (that handsomely resembled a certain underwear model from a certain type of magazines Harry used to be into) whispering sweet French nothing's into his ears while they panted and moaned together, was enough to make him shiver and half-hard. He squirmed a little to the side, trying to get all of that out of his head. But he was not shagging Draco Malfoy.

"I'm not shagging Draco Malfoy," Harry stated firmly to his friend on the phone.

"You just keep tell yourself that. I guarantee you, you'll think differently when you see him." Ron sounded too damn sure for Harry's comfort.

"Just fuck off and give me your owl."

"Sir, yes, sir!", Ron laughed, laud and free and happy. It was nice to hear him laugh, Harry noticed. "I'll send him right over, mate."

"Thanks, Ron," Harry said and went to hang up when Ron called for him one last time.

"You're a bigger twat than I am, you know that Harry right?"

"Bye, Ron."

"And a wuss, too, mate."

"I said, goodbye, Ron." His face cracked into a grin. He loved his friends - so loud and obnoxious so he wouldn't have to be.

"Biggest wuss of them all!"

This time Harry hung up without a warning and took his quill and ink to finally begin writing the stupid letter. It was harder than he thought because of course writing a letter to Draco bloody Malfoy would be hard. First of all, he didn't know how to start: Mr Malfoy was too formal, Dear Draco was too close to being romantic (not at all but Harry's brain was spoiled with all the French), Draco Malfoy seemed to fucking boring. He found himself staring at the blank piece of parchment and huffing angrily when Pigwidgeon arrived.

"Hey, buddy," Harry whispered, softly scratching owl's feathers. "Wanna help out?"

Pigwidgeon did not, in fact, help. He didn't help at all. But Harry managed to write the letter before the sun fell down. He struggled a bit (or a lot) but he did end it and felt quite proud of himself when he did. He reread the beginning - " Hey, Malfoy, it's Harry (Potter) - Blaise's friend who's trying to find a roommate", and the ending - "So, I'm hoping to hear from you soon. Optimistically, Harry", but didn't dare scan the middle because trying to retouch it would give him a headache. He was sure of that.

He rolled up the parchment that he didn't need anymore, screwed the bottle shut and cleaned his quill. He then patted Pigwidgeon, gave him a couple of owl treats and offered him more water, before handing him the letter and opening the window.

"Good luck," Harry said into the air, as the owl flew out. He doubted Pigwidgeon had heard him but the words were mostly for himself anyways. He felt his fingers cross without even realising he was doing it and then went back to the kitchen to make some dinner. He hoped Draco would agree to live with him.

He didn't exactly know why he was so driven towards this mysterious, blonde man; he couldn't explain the excitement rising deep within him when he thought about the possibility of someone - well, a certain someone - sharing his living space. It was strange and slightly uncomfortable but most of all thrilling, refreshing and magical.

Blaise was right, Harry decided a couple of minutes before a completely unfamiliar owl knocked onto his window. There was this gravitational pull between him and Malfoy even now before they had even properly stepped into each other's lives. It was as if a force such as destiny has tangled around their fingers, tight over their wrists, along their forearms, over their elbows, passing their shoulders and twisting deep into their ribcages, nestled over their hearts. "Such strings of faith must not stand ignored," Harry thought, a yawn escaping his mouth.

It was not five minutes later that he was forced to open his window and introduce himself to a beautiful barn owl which he later found out was called Adelaide. Even thought owl's name was Adelaide, Draco's letter also mentioned that he could simply call her Addy as she particularly enjoys that name too.

"Addy it is," Harry chuckled and let the owl nuzzled his palm as he read on. In that hour the owl was with him he found out she was exceptionally cuddly, always by his side as he was reading its master's letter as well as writing his reply. He'll get along with Adelaide just fine. Finally, when the streetlamps have been on for some time already, Harry reread his later and gave it to the owl. "See you soon, Ads!", he waved as the soft flop of wings disappeared into the crisp, early evening sky.

.o0o.

"For the last bloody time, Ron," Harry sighed, slightly annoyed. "Washing your windows is never a good idea - especially not in your case!"

"But it's easier and it get's the work done!", Ron argued back over the phone. There was a noise coming from the hallway of Harry's building and then a doorbell could be heard.

"It's open!", Harry yelled across the flat and then came back to Ron. "It most definitely does not! It leaves streaks and the glass becomes blurry after half a week!"

The doorbell chimed once more and Harry told the visitor to come in already before rolling his eyes as Ron protested. "That's not true! You just don't know how to use it!"

"Ask Molly then, ask your mum, Ron," Harry told his friend as he got up from his chair to open the door - the person at the door pressed the doorbell button twice more. "She'll agree with me."

"That's because she agrees with you on everything!" Ron wailed and Harry sighed, cursing in his mind as a string of doorbell chimes echoes through his living room. Couldn't they just enter already? It's not like it's locked and even if it were, all his friends have the key... It was probably Ron, trying to get on his nerves.

"That's 'cause I'm right. And you can stop bloody knocking," Harry said but Ron informed him that he was not right and that the knocking wasn't Ron's.

"Then who the fuck's at my door on a Saturday at fucking 8 o'clo-", Harry huffed, just as he grabbed the doorknob, swinging his doors open. His eyes locked with a pair of grey and his words got stuck in his throat at the sight of a fucking angel at his doorstep.

"Um, sorry I'm late - my mum was being annoying -", the man of molten gold hair, porcelain skin and lean, tall figure said with a soft smile. Harry was quite aware he was gawping.

"Ron, I have to go, mate. Don't clean your windows," Harry's words stumbled over each other as he spoke quickly, his heart beating as hard as ever, his breath non-existent. "Can I help you?"

"Well, yes," the stranger giggled and pulled his suitcase in front of himself. "I was looking for a flat number 17 B? Mr Harry Potter told me we could be roommates?"

"Oh, Malfoy, shit, sorry I-"

"You forgot I was coming," Draco Malfoy filled in for him.

"No, just...", Harry tried to calm down - he just simply couldn't believe this creature of such beauty is going to be his roommate from now on. And Merlin was he beautiful, Harry couldn't get his eyes to stop staring. He really did look like an angel and slightly familiar but in a malfunctioning state his brain was in he couldn't connect the dots and figure out where he'd seen him before. "My friend Ron, he's a moron and he got on my nerves so the reason why I was awake so early just slipped my mind."

Draco did nothing but grin at Harry as if Harry was some kind of an adorable kitten doing party tricks. But Harry couldn't figure out how he could be anywhere near adorable when his hair was a mess of curls, he was wearing an old, well-worn T-shirt with the Weird Sisters logo on it and a pair of joggers he'd slept in. He was a mess. Perhaps he should've made a bit more effort - well, a lot more judging by the way Draco looked.

"I'm sorry," Harry added and watched the way Draco's body moved as he shrugged in that gorgeously tight blue sweater and black jeans and how his hair moved very slightly in that perfect, styled way.

"No need to apologise, really," Draco waved his hand and then smiled again. "It's quite early and really, I thought I would need to wake you up."

"Sleeping in today would be very rude of me," Harry chuckled and dragged a hand through his hair as he always did when nervous.

"Well, you didn't sleep in."

"No, I did not," Harry repeated and then closed his eyes. He was fiddling with his fingers, nervously, hoping his blush wasn't as apparent as he thought it was. Draco, on the other hand, looked completely calm in his weird amusement, his head slightly cocked to the left as he watched Harry and his lips tugged into a soft smile.

They stood there for a couple of moments, silence dragging on and on, their eyes locked and none of their mind in an order quite stable enough to say anything. It was Draco that eventually said a thing and it only made Harry feel more uncomfortable and more like an awful host.

"So...," Draco started, taking the handle of his suitcase. "Are you going to invite me in?"

"What? Oh! Yes, sorry, I just...," Harry started to turn, almost letting the thought slip away but then deciding against it. His was fidgeting on his feet and his eyes were nervous behind his dirty glasses but he looked up. "Have we met already? Because you seem very... familiar."

Harry's heart was hammering in his throat and he felt like right next second he will have to puke. It was that awful feeling before your body hits the surface of the water while you're jumping into a swimming pool or into the open water of a sea. Maybe awful was far too simple of an description; it was that mixture of being strangely excited while being completely and utterly terrified.

Perhaps that was the whole truth there was - Harry Potter was terrified of Draco Malfoy. But no, that didn't really feel right. It was more like gliding across the freshly waxed floors in your socks; it was the good terrified. Well, mostly good. Usually, and by that, it's meant right now, that fright was quite determined to make Harry embarrass himself in from of Malfoy. Somehow, finally being in Malfoy's presence made him a complete fool, an idiot. And he was no fool!

"I believe we have, Harry," Draco chuckled, now shaking his head. But even with all that smugness (which Harry was currently very jealous of), Draco Malfoy was blushing. And it was very much the most adorable thing Harry had ever seen.

"How the fuck haven't I realised this until now?", Harry said, unfortunately, out loud.

"Yeah, I'm asking myself the same damn thing, Potter." This time, Draco laughed, loud and clear and sort of ethereal. "But can we take this conversation inside? This whole thing is getting a tad bit ridiculous. I'm not some door to door marketer so you can keep me at your doorstep for half an hour, you know."

"Of course not...," Harry shook his head, frowning. "Sorry."

"You apologise too much, Potter," Draco huffed and looked him up and down, shaking his head lightly.

"Um... sorry," Harry chuckled and Draco rolled his eyes with a grin. "Need help with the luggage?"

"Well, you practically owe it to since you forced me to stand in the hallway for so long," Draco raised his eyebrows, daring Harry does disagree but he only put his hands in the air in defeat and took one of Draco's suitcases as well as his handbag. And now when he thought about it, Harry realised that if he saw Draco on the street, he would guess he was that kind of a person who had at least six big suitcases and at least a handful of handbags. But really, the opposite was true. Draco had two medium-sized suitcases and a handbag.

Harry told the blond to follow him and Draco gladly obeyed, a slight tinge of anticipation rising over his skin. It was quickly accompanied by a touch of arousal as his eyes fixed on Potter's arse so clearly on display in his too small joggers that reached only half of his calves and cupped his buttocks like magic. "Damn, Potter," Draco muttered under his breath. "Pourquoi t'es aussi mignon?"

Harry's body stiffened and he stood straighter. Finally, finally, did he have proof that Draco was in the same "fuck-my-roommate-is-hot" situation! He relaxed, let an easy smirk fall across his lips and turned on his heel to face Draco 'oh I'm so smooth' Malfoy. He was currently looking around the wide and open living room connected to the kitchen bathed in the early morning sunlight that hit every wall.

"It's a nice place. I give you that," Draco nodded as his eyes glazed the Floo, periwinkle armchairs and a sofa set right in front of a flat screen telly.

"Eh, it's not much but t'es pas si mal non plus," Harry shrugged with a grin and watched as the blonde blushed some more. He set the suitcases next to the sofa and led Draco to the kitchen table. "Tea?"

"Oui, merci," Draco murmured as he sat down on one of the dark wooden chairs. They were strangely comfortable and now that he came to think of it, the whole flat looked nice and cosy - it was made to feel like home. With the house plants in colourful pots and hand-knitted pillows and a bowl of freshly baked biscuits right in front of him in the middle of the desk.

"Green?", Harry asked from his cooking station as he filled the kettle with tea and placed it on the stove.

"Um... Do you perhaps have passion flower?", Draco asked, raising slightly from his seat to peer into the drawer from which Harry was taking out tea bags.

"No, sorry... I'll buy it in the afternoon," Harry promised and glanced back at Draco who then decided on chamomile and took a biscuit from the bowl. It was very delicious. Harry grew impatient very quickly and swished his hand over the kettle making it wheeze. He poured the boiling water into two similarly misshapen mugs and sat down, handing Draco his tea before taking a nice, long sip of his peppermint.

"I didn't know you've learned French," Draco noticed as he took an experimental sip from his mug. That was some nice tea - probably home-made. But that seemed to be most of Harry's life - home-made and DIY-ed; it made him sort of soft on the edges, gave him this deep roughness on his soul... Even with all the fame and glory, all the legendary stories which even Draco knew by heart, it made him so casually human that Draco admired him for it.

"Not a lot of people do...", Harry shrugged and pulled one of his legs up on the chair, resting his chin on his knee. He yawned.

"It's sort of surprising, a bit annoying but kind of brilliant, Potter," Malfoy smiled behind the rim of his cup and watched the other man smirk lazily - it was so obvious that if it weren't for Draco, Harry would be asleep until well past noon.

"Well, I'm glad you think that, mon chéri," Harry murmured and then took a biscuit of his own. "Take more, they are gonna go to waste if we don't eat them -I always end up making too much."

"You bake as well?", Draco asked, genuinely surprised. I mean, he spoke four languages and played two instruments but Harry Potter saved the world and spoke French and knew how to bake and had a great arse. That was some good shit right there!

"I'm doing mostly everything and nothing, Draco - I have no life and no permanent job so I try different things and I disappear for a few days 'cause some guy in eastern Scotland needed help with his goats," Harry chuckled and shrugged again. Draco decided not to curse Blaise for making him do this because really, getting to know Harry Potter is definitely going to be great fun. Having to keep himself from pushing him against the wall and shagging his brains out might not be so fun but summer was nearing and who really knew what's going to happen?

"Umm... I'm going to get your stuff into your room - it's the one on the left. Mine's the one on the right and there's a bathroom connecting them." Harry stood up and placed his mug in the sink. "I don't think that will be a problem, will it? I mean, you wake up hours before me, I'm sure of it..."

Draco shook his head and nodded in the right places and then subtly watched the way Harry's arse move as he walked - almost no fat to it, pure muscle and undoubtedly gorgeous. While Harry was settling Draco stuff in, there was knocking on the window. Draco's face lit up at the sight of his dear Adelaide finally reaching their new home - he stopped at the thought. It sounded weird even in his mind - their new home - but that's what they will try to make of it. Home.

He left his half-drunk tea on the table and went to open the window only to find himself struggling with moving it even for half an inch. Fortunately, everybody's big Saviour came to the rescue and chuckled when realising Draco's trouble.

"How do you open your goddamned ancient windows, Potter?" There was clear annoyance in Malfoys voice, as he huffed and puffed, pulling the knob of the window.

"Push it down, then pull to the left," Harry instructed calmly. Really, when he took a deep breath and did just as his new roommate told him, Draco managed to open the damned thing. His owl came bustling in and nuzzled herself into Draco's neck, taking a stand on his forearm.

"Bonjour, mon cher, Adelaide," Draco whispered as he stroke the light feathers. "I'm glad you've managed to join us. You've met Addy, right?"

"Of course I have," Harry nodded. "She's quite a magnificent owl."

"That she is," Draco agreed as Addy hooked softly. "I'd liked to go get settled into my room and everything if you don't mind. We can settle all the little details later?"

Harry caught his eyes and there was a moment of silence between them that either of them could quite interpret in this way or another. Harry then nodded. "Of course. Make yourself at home."

"Thanks, Harry," Draco smiled and went towards his new room, Addy still on his arm.

"I'll be here if you need anything!", Harry called after them and Malfoy nodded, giving him a thumbs up before returning to stroking his owl and disappearing behind the door.

Harry sat down at his kitchen table again and took himself another biscuit - they were getting too soft and too crumbly as the days passed - he should bake a new round, maybe add some dried fruits this time. As he was thinking about biscuits, and eating them all the same, his eyes stayed glued to the doors behind which the blond had disappeared.

It really was destiny, wasn't it? Finding Draco Malfoy again and again, always when he'd least expected it... Although this time, Harry finally realised, chances of losing him again were close to zero.

Chapter Text

There used to sparrows lined on the branches of trees that grew near Harry's windows. Their chirping would make Harry company while he slowly woke up every morning along with heavily oversized cups of peppermint tea. But ever since Draco and Adelaide have moved in, the nest of birds seemed to relocate to a location further away from predators such as barn owls. 

There used to be no one sitting at Harry's table in the kitchen. So it was only silence that was pouring over Harry while he made his buttered toast and cooked eggs every morning. But ever since Draco and Adelaide have moved in, the silence was more awkward than comforting. Although there would be an occasionally amused hum coming from Draco at the other side of the table as he found a particularly interesting passage in the book he was currently reading, most of the times, both Harry and Draco didn't know how to start something similar to a conversation.

They rarely talked for more than a minute or two, but it was enough to agree that Draco would clean, Harry would cook, do the dishes and buy the groceries and each of them would do their own laundry. There were some instances when they would find some spare thoughts to share such as complimenting Seamus' new jam type and discussing the new ingredients that could be added to make the taste even better, or Draco spoiling Harry the episode of Doctor Who he caught him watching along with comments about how childish it is of him to watch it.

 "Even Teddy wouldn't find all of that amusing anymore," Draco said, smirking but Harry didn't want to mention that Draco himself must be very childish if he can still remember entire episodes of the show with such detail. Harry usually let Draco have his way because they didn't know each other - not really - and he wanted to explore Malfoy as painlessly as possible. 

So if that meant that they don't ever become anything more than acquaintances, then it won't be only his fault since Draco doesn't try very hard to connect with his roommate either. On some days, mostly Sundays, when Harry would come home for lunch with the Weasleys to find Draco reading a new book on the couch with a bunch of take-out around him and that adorable grin plastered on his face, he wished it were easier. Talking to Draco, that is. He thought about borrowing same books as Malfoy and then discussing them but Malfoy changed his books more often than he changed his socks so there was no way Harry could ever catch up with him.

There were so different, him and Malfoy, or so it seemed but still, he couldn't find a door that he could open to reach him. Harry wanted to know Malfoy and clearly, Malfoy wanted to know Harry as well but somehow they were stuck somewhere in the middle ground. Maybe if Malfoy did end up going to Hogwarts, maybe then they would be able to build their friendship more easily. 

Harry often thought of that first encounter he had with Malfoy, back at Madam Malkins when he spoke to a boy, at the first glance a polar opposite of himself: blonde hair instead of black, skin pale instead of olive, eyes such a light blue shade to contrast Harry's wild, mossy green. But still, when Draco turned to him on one of those wobbly stools they'd both been standing on, there was hope in Harry's heart that he will not come to Hogwarts completely friendless. 

"Hullo. Hogwarts, eh?", Draco asked him, almost sounding apologetic as some witch started pinning Harry's robes. 

"Yeah... Unfortunately," Harry chuckled and lowered his gaze to his feet. He'd spent the last year and a half trying to find out as much as he could on wizarding culture. Ever since he's been nine and 99% certain he had magical powers - ever since he sent a swing (which was, at the time of the 'accident', a place Dudley had been sitting on) flying a full circle over and around the crossbar onto which it was attached.

There was no way Dudley would ever manage to do that trick himself and it definitely hadn't been his fault (although, he later claimed it was in hopes to seem cool) since he was screaming all the way through the swing-flying. Ever since then, Harry was certain magic was real and nothing Uncle Vernon ever said could make him doubt that ever again. He started practising his magic, trying to control the way it flows through his fingers and his hands, but most of all he wanted to find more 'freaks like himself' as his Aunt politely told him when he asked about it.

And that was the thing really, his Aunt Petunia knew something about this whole magic thing, and she knew more then she will ever say - to him at least. He was certain though that if he pressed her to tell him that something, he would end up on the street. 

So Harry kept quiet and experimented on his own. From time to time, he would try to do a little trick in front of certain, suspiciously magical looking people like his English professor Mr Hartman, the new librarian Ms Tucker or his occasional 'babysitter' Mrs Figg. 

Another floating accident gave him access to the knowledge of the wizarding society because the moment dear old Arabella Figg saw three of her cats flying down the hallway, she spilt everything she knew, almost crying with happiness and mumbling something about Albus Dumbledore and how she told him that Harry was a particularly smart boy.

"I've had the luck to be admitted into Beauxbattons," Draco shrugged and turned so the witch that was working on his robes could get the light blue, left sleeve right. "My father wanted me to got to Hogwarts - continue his precious line of Slytherin descendants."

"Sounds sinister when you say it like that," Harry murmured. 

"Father is boring on the best days," Draco murmured and continued. "Mother, fortunately, managed to convince him to send me abroad - Durmstrang was obviously his choice, Ilvermorny was mine but Mother always has the last word. Did you consider Beauxbatons? Maybe you could join me if they still have place..."

"I'm afraid I don't speak French, or Russian? Is Durmstrang in Russia?", Harry asked, looking up at the blond. 

"Norway, I think. Perhaps Sweden?" Draco looked at him up and down. Suddenly, Harry was embarrassed by his crooked glasses and messy hair and nervous voice. "Know what house you'll be in yet? At Hogwarts, I mean... Beauxbatons doesn't have houses, of course."

"I'm not sure.  Am I supposed to know?", Harry watched the boy shrug and he supposed he was supposed to know - Draco obviously did. "Well," Harry decided, "I may as well give him an answer he wanted to hear." "Slytherin, I guess? Or Ravenclaw?" He swore since he did not look very evil or very smart either.

"Well, at least you're not striving for Hufflepuff," Draco chuckled and Harry frowned. 

"What's wrong with Hufflepuffs? I mean, they are the best house, aren't they?"

Draco suddenly blushed bright crimson and looked away stuttering. "Well, well yeah... B-but you're, you're very interesting, you see?",  he caught Harry's eyes once more, his confidence coming back. "And yellow wouldn't look good on you. Not that you look good... I mean you don't look ugly just I don't think you're very... um handsome... handsome, yeah... um, no."

Harry bit his lip, trying not to laugh. His hair was messy and his glasses were crooked and a simple question about Hufflepuffs managed to fluster this blushing boy in front of him. If he didn't know better, he would think that the boy liked him. "What's your name again?"

"Oh, merde, sorry," Draco muttered and then stuck out his hand for Harry to shake. "I'm Malfoy, well, Draco Malfoy, nice to meet you."

"Hi, Draco," Harry shook his hand, a bright smile on his face. "I'm Harry, Harry Potter."

"Fuck," Draco cursed and then looked at Harry awkwardly, trying to smile. His eyes then widened, he jumped off of his seat despite his tailor's protests and pointed at the front window. "Look! A half-a-giant!"

Harry's eyes followed the way Draco was pointing and there, just outside the shop, Hagrid was standing with two large ice creams and a huge grin on his face. "That's just Hagrid," said Harry, pleased to know something Draco didn't since it seemed Draco knew pretty much everything. Maybe it was because he spoke French and French always sounded very complicated to Harry. "He's the gamekeeper at Hogwarts."

"I've heard of him. He is a half-giant, isn't he?," Draco asked, cautiously, glancing back at Harry. 

"I have no idea - I've just met him," Harry shrugged and watched as Draco went back to his stool only to be informed that his robes are done. Harry later asked Hagrid if he was a half-giant and wished he could tell Draco that he was right but he didn't want Draco's ego to grow and he also didn't know if Draco wanted to talk to him at all.

"Well, I think he is. My father told me he is and my father's mostly right about that sort of things."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, you know... stuff," Draco shrugged, almost uncomfortable, standing there in a black robe which draped over his trousers and a black turtleneck. "Speaking of father... I have to go. Mum says we should quickly visit France to get my books today as well."

Harry glanced behind Draco who was now walking towards the exit, a bag with his clothes huge in his hand. A man, almost an exact replica of Draco, although several decades older, waited for his son to come out already.

"It was nice talking to you, Harry!", Draco waved at last. "Have fun in Hogwarts!"

"You too in France, Draco," Harry waved slightly before the tailor pulled his sleeve down to shorten it. So with Draco going to Beauxbatons, Harry was starting to fear that he will really have no friends in this new school Malfoy was trying to avoid at all costs. Until he met Ron and Hermione and Neville and Dean and Seamus. He loved his friends, he really did, but he couldn't keep but wonder if Draco and he would have a smooth chance to become something slightly more if Draco's robes were black as Harry's instead of blue that day.

Harry had tried, he had found chances, doors which were slightly opened and maybe if he dared, if he found a touch bit courage he would manage to see Draco in the light he wished to see him. He wanted to see Draco covered in blushing sunrise of honesty, in blinking, starry glow of laughter, muted, technicolour of what could only be described as love.

But just as Harry, Draco was a complicated creature - fragile, cunning, careful and devilishly complicated.

Once, Harry had come home earlier than usual - wandering around the city, trying to find that something he was searching for simply wasn't for him that day. The shower was running and the soft echoes of water were bouncing against the wall of their flat. There were dishes in the sink, the TV was mute on some music channel. It was water from the shower, soft laughter from the streets, occasional hooting from Addy and... singing. Soft and cheerful, muffled by the sounds of the shower but still there, still clear, still beautiful.

Harry knew that unless some golden-voiced intruder had managed to step into their home, that singing belonged to Draco Malfoy himself. It took Harry a moment to comprehend that information but when he came to his senses after the initial shock he had to admit that it wasn't all that surprising that Malfoy knew how to sing. The surprising part was that he was singing ABBA mixed with some French tunes and it was the best thing he ever heard. He couldn't say that he thought of Malfoy as a guy who listened to ABBA but still... Harry listened to ABBA! And Queen, and David Bowie, and Elvis but that was beside the point.

Draco seemed stuck on the bridge of Waterloo and Harry heard a string of swears after a loud crash echoed the bathroom - Draco managed to knock down all of his shampoos. After order was restored, Draco's voice softly began again from the beginning, rising as it progressed through the song and over again. 

Harry imagined him shampooing his hair while singing, the soup bubbled sliding down his chest and back and lower - "Stop! You're not thinking about Draco Malfoy naked in the shower!", Harry told himself and rushed to his room with an idea in his head - this was his opportunity. He quickly pulled out an old guitar he'd found in the attic of Grimmauld place, checked the strings and sat his ass down against the wall outside of the bathroom.

He quickly set his fingers in place and stringy, crooked music started to accompany Draco's voice, Harry singing harmonies and it was nice. For the first ten seconds until Draco realised what was happening and stopped singing.

That was when Harry proceeded to sing the main vocals and the sounds of water became louder as if they could muffle down Harry's singing. Now, he wasn't the best singer in the world, certainly not as good as Draco was, but in his head, Harry's wailing might encourage Malfoy to start singing again just make Harry shut up. 

"When did you come home?", Draco called from the bathroom and Harry laughed, his fingers catching on the strings. 

"Couple of minutes ago? Doesn't matter! Finish the song, prima donna!"

That was when the water was completely stopped. There was some shuffling, some swearing and then the doors opened, waves of steam blurring up Harry's glasses. Draco was fully clothed when he emerged from the bathroom. Harry stood up to face him.

"Malfoy, your voice is ama-"

"If you tell one living person about this I will strangle you and bury your corpse under Mrs Cambell's vegetable garden. Understand, Potter?", Draco's voice was as calm as Mrs Cambell's cucumbers, under which Harry's corpse was threatened to be buried, but his eyes showed pure and concentrated fury. "This wasn't funny, it never will be funny and it's the most moronic idea you've ever had."

"Even more moronic than going to Hogwarts?", Harry chuckled, scratching the back of his neck, his classes crooked and a stupid, toothy grin on his face.

"More moronic than deciding to live with me. More moronic than not cutting your stupid hair," Draco spat out word after word, anger boiling somewhere a bit lower than his throat. He then said, softer, almost, almost caring. "More moronic than actually participating in that fucking Triwizard Tournament. It's called Tri-wizard for a reason, you moron."

He turned on his heels, dramatically leaving Harry to stand in a steam-filled hallway as if it made a difference if they were two or three steps further away. Harry called back for him, stepping forward, wanting to catch Draco by his wrist but when Draco's eyebrow rose high as he turned, he stopped, deciding against doing anything.

"Why would you care if I died in that fucking Triwizard Tournament? You don't even know me!"

"Why do you live with me then?", Malfoy countered and Harry didn't even want to start with that whole thing.

"Why are you avoiding my questions?", Harry then asked and Draco sighed, rubbing his eyes before looking up at Potter. He looked tired and weak and somehow... attacked. He looked like every single note Harry played or sang stabbed a hole in his skin, pushing him down on the ground and then Harry understood why the whole guitar thing was such a stupid idea. He took one thing that was Malfoy's away from him. Goddamnit, he was a moron!

"I'm avoiding your question, Potter because I can. Because I don't owe you anything. I'm paying for my half of this flat, you're paying for yours - we can draw the lines with paint if you want, but at the end of the day we don't know each other and we don't own each other any kind of answers." Draco straightened his posture and pushed a curl of hair behind his ear. 

"And also because you think everything is about you - that you're the only one affected by the world. But let me tell you something, oh my dear Harry, some people's lives depended on your survival. Have you thought about that? Did you know that? Did you know that I was hiding back in France because good old Voldemort would be hanging over my head if it didn't?"

It was Harry who looked away first but they were staring into each other for what seemed like decades. Harry couldn't imagine what took for Draco to say those words, to remember what it must have felt like having to run away. Draco's words did hurt Harry bit he could see in icy blue eyes of his roommate that they hurt Draco as well. He lowered his head, his mouth twitching like he was about to say something but nothing he could say would be able to make that situation better.

"I thought so," Malfoy murmured and went to his room. He didn't slam the door when he closed it but Harry wished he did. It would feel better if he did. Now it just seemed out of tune, uncomfortable and tight. 

Harry stopped coming home early after that day, always returning after six to make dinner, thinking it would make things better, that he could return Draco the one thing that seemed to make him happy. It was a couple of days into this routine when Draco approached him saying that he can come home when he wants.

"I shower in the mornings anyway," he shrugged. "While you're still asleep."

.o0o.

"Where are my black trousers?", Harry yelled from his room. Draco was sitting on the sofa in the living room, at complete ease, reading one of his crime novels.

"How the fuck would I know? I'm not your wife to sort out your clothes."

"Well, you're the one who's always rearranging stuff around the flat," said Harry, digging through his closet.

"No, I'm not! Don't go around telling those lies!", Draco said, almost offended. He didn't look when Harry came into the living room only to glare at him, wearing an unbuttoned grey shirt and his boxers. No, Draco didn't look at all. 

"Cut the crap, Malfoy. Do you know where they are or not?"

Draco looked up and down Harry's body before catching his eyes, watched as the blush spread across Potter's face and then sighed. "They're in the wash - I spilt jam over them cos you left them on the chair in the kitchen. I'm sorry."

"You spill - Why did you spill jam on pants?!"

"I didn't do it on purpose! My mum's sick so I was making her some baked goods", Draco shrugged and went back to his book.

"What am I supposed to wear now?"

"Wear the white washed ones - they look better on you," Draco replied and Then marked the page on which he stopped reading. "What are you getting so fancy for anyways? Did our Golden boy get a date?"

"Told you not to call me Golden boy," said Harry absently, cuffing his sleeves. "And I have a date only if you get ready in half an hour."

Draco laughed his loud, cheery laugh and Harry couldn't help but smirk to himself. "Smooth, Potter. But I'm not leaving this couch tonight. And I'm most definitely not leaving in favour of a date with you."

"Oh, come on, darling," Harry did his puppy eyes. "It will be so much fun! I'll even ask Ron and Hermione to calm stalk us so you feel like we are being chased by journalists!"

"You're crazy," Draco laughed again. "Completely nuts!"

"No bus seriously, a couple of friends and I are going to this club that has just opened here in London - the original is in Edinburgh and we've been there like three times? If the London one is half as good, and it'll probably be twice as good, it's going to be epic. Hermione asked if you could come... Come on, Malfoy - you almost never leave the house. Come have a little fun with us."

Draco watched him with his eyebrows raised high. There was a small, pleading look on Harry's face and Draco hated himself for smiling at him. He sighed, not believing he is actually going to agree to this.

"One time, Potter!," Draco said, standing up and already planning his outfit in his head. "Just this once, okay?"

"Whatever you say," Harry nodded with a grin. "You'll see that you'll love it. Now hurry, we're probably already late - the line is going to be huge!"

"You know you're Harry Potter right? They'll let you in," Draco assured and pulled out his violet sweater to match with his black jeans which Noe always praised to look amazing on Draco. Truth be told, the jeans belonged to Robert - his old Beauxbatons roommate - and they were borrowed to Draco only because Draco managed to forget his own black jeans back at home and had finally found a date. But jeans looked way better on Draco than Robert so after a few hours of Noe's begging, Robert agreed to give them away for the rest of eternity.

So Draco was certainly done in less than half an hour but refused to think of this event as a date. He did not want to go on a date with Harry and Potter probably asked him to go just because he's polite and all of that. Date or not, Draco feared it will turn out to be awful. He believed the club will be amazing because he did, in fact, know of which club Harry'd been talking about earlier. Still, he barely knew anyone here and even though he knew most of the people Harry hung out with, he couldn't even dare to think that he was on the level of going to fancy clubs with them. So with that in mind, he couldn't help but fear that he will be left alone to find his fun without the squad of Gryffindors.

Nevertheless, he styled his hair with a bit of gel and left his room to find Harry already waiting for him.

"Ready?", Harry smiled and Draco smiled back realising that he had indeed put his whitewashed jeans on as Draco had told him. Just like Draco's black ones, these were Harry's best pair - or at least Draco thought so - his arse looked absolutely amazing in them. Along with that grey shirt, his all too Gryffindorish red Converse, his hair tied up into a loose bun on the back of his head and a slight stubble he refused to shave, Harry looked like an absolute moron.

Well, a handsome, totally not showing off, oblivious to his own handsomeness, kind of moron. But still a moron. To be honest, the only moronic part was that they were late. Because of Potter. Because he forgot his wand at home and they had to go back. "Moron", said Draco once Harry had informed him of that fact. 

When they finally got to the club, the queue really was enormous, stretching over the street and a half, Harry's friends standing somewhere in the closes third to the actual club. Draco wondered for how long have they been waiting but by the look of it, it seemed that no matter how long they waited, they would be waiting for some time more. 

Harry and Draco approached them and Hermione immediately hooked her hand to Harry's elbow and pulled Ron and Ginny to come along with them. Ginny pulled Luna, Luna called Dean, Seamus and Dean were inseparable but Blaise was tagging along with them and of course, Pansy who was participating in a heated argument held between her and Neville. Draco tried to hear what the topic of debate was but all the scientific, biological terms gave him a headache so he gave up.

Together they walked up to the main entrance, ignoring all the murmurs and whispers as the people started realising who exactly was walking right past them. It was annoying, Harry thought to himself, even after what? Five years? He was still followed by whisperings and gossips and gasps. Bloody morons, all of them.

"Hi," Harry smiled and waved a little when they reached one of the security guys. "I'm Harry Potter and my friends here and I, of course, have been invited for a party tonight?"

"Mr Potter, it's a pleasure to meet you. Come on in, we've been expecting you to come by already," said the rough, tattooed guy who was in charge of keeping the entrance safe and in check.

Hermione squeezed Harry's arm a bit tighter in excitement and just like that, they were in.

The club was huge, loud, colourful and spectacular in a way you can't imagine unless you see it. It was transformed from an old, dying muggle building surrounded by nothing but cheap apartments and small shops to become an incredible mix of all kinds of music, all kinds of entertainment, all kinds of people. It spread all over the building's twelve storeys, each one of them designed in some similar but so entirely different way.

It took a few moments, that may as well have been hours for all that Draco cared, until the group adjusted to the slight feeling of being conjoined within this one huge place like it was a galaxy of it's own, a universe full of colourful smoke and random lightbulbs, broken clocks and neverending chatter, the world of alcohol and drugs and all the substances that make you overwhelmed but somehow combined with the seeming infinity of feelings and space in the club - all the opiums ostensibly gave you complete, pure, concentrated clarity.

The world around him might be clearer, but Harry's life seemed as blurry and as distant as ever at the moment. He was sitting on a surprisingly comfortable, green, leather sofa and the ceiling above him was so low he could touch it with his fingers if he only lifted his hand. Right next to him, Draco was watching his reflection in the cap of his beer bottle and trying to wipe away golden glitter that was stuck on his lips ever since Ron handed him that flaming blue cocktail. Harry let his eyes drift over the people who were laughing, softly, lazily in a circle there in the centre of the room and then he glanced back at Draco. They were on the twelfth floor, their perceptions blurred by scented smoke and they were totally, incredibly, awfully drunk.

"This is bullshit!", Draco exclaimed, suddenly, throwing the bottle cap somewhere in front of him. The bottlecap hit some girl in the face. "Sorry!"

"It's okay, dude, want to calm down?", she stretched out her arm, offering him a blunt but he shook his head. 

"Not right now. Thank you." Draco's voice was light and troubled. The girl shrugged and took a smoke before passing it to the guy next to her.

Harry sat there quietly, listening to Draco huff and drinking his beer. Then he leaned back into the couch, relaxing and turning his head towards Malfoy whose elbows were on his knees, one of his hands supporting his head and the other holding the beer bottle and scratching his chin.

"What's bullshit?", asked Harry, all of a sudden. Draco laughed and shook his head again, taking a sip of his beer.

"Nothing, Potter," he said, sighing. "Absolutely nothing."

"Oh, come on," Harry groaned and put a hand onto Draco's back to encourage him to speak, all while rolling his eyes. "Tell me. Please?"

Draco rubbed his eyes and then glanced back at Harry. He then leaned back, his back pressing the leather of the sofa with a soft squeaking sound. Harry removed his hand. "Well, Potter-"

"We live together, Draco. Call me Harry."

"Well, Harry," Draco started again, "I have gold glitter on my face, I'm drunk off my ass, I'm smoking fucking something, and I'm sitting here with someone I've lived with for a month but whom I don't even know. So yeah, all of this is bullshit and I have no idea how we've ended up, up here and if we're here I don't even want to know where others are."

"Well, Draco," Harry chuckled after taking a sip, "The glitter looks cute on you, being drunk is basically required here, you haven't smoked anything yet, and if you think you don't know me enough, why do you live with me?"

"Because the rent it cheap, you're not my parents and you buy me tea." Draco nodded once as if he was rather satisfied with his answer, then raised his eyebrows, shrugged and proceeded to drink his beer. 

"You're very materialistic, aren't you?", Harry cocked his head a bit. "And if you wanted to know, I live with you 'cause I have no life, no hobbies and you have an owl and your hair looks soft."

"That's very nice of you, Potter." Harry hit his shoulder and Draco snickered, raising an eyebrow at him. "You're full of compliments tonight."

"I just get overly emotional when I drink," Harry murmured, shrugged and refilled his beer.

"I get violently aggressive," Draco admitted and Harry nodded. "I kill people when I drink. I kill them violently."

Harry nodded again. Draco watched him and then noticed:  "You don't look surprised."

"I'm not. You look like a serial killer."

"Why?!"

"Your hair is too bright to be not insane. Uninsane. Ininsane?", Harry leaned forward. "What's opposite of insane?"

"It's sane," said a guy that was a part of the circle but still very close to them. He glanced at Draco before handing Harry the blunt and Harry took it. He pulled and then watched bright orange smoke exit his mouth. Draco did the same, coughing a bit before stating that every single person in this room is crazy. The group of friends laughed and then the girl from before asked him why he thought that way.

"Which normal person goes and smokes fucking daisies and gillyweed?"

"Ah, true," the girl laughed, shrugging, obviously not giving a flying fuck about what some random serial-killer-looking dude thought of her and her friends.

"Harry?", Draco asked after a moment of silence. "Would you come back to France with me if I asked you at Yule Ball back in Fourth year?"

"What?", Harry replied, confused. He sat up straighter.

"If I asked you to sneak into the Beauxbatons carriage and go back to France with me, would you go?", Draco repeated, completely serious, his fingers holding the bottle tight.

"No? I mean, I would think about it but I wouldn't just leave my friends and everyone and Hogwarts was my home and I didn't even know you..."

"Yeah, I thought so..." There was a soft sigh coming from Draco's lips and Harry glanced at them, his eyes glued to Draco's pale, almost glowing face, he was as glued as gold glitter.

"Were you really thinking about asking me?", Harry asked once Draco caught his eyes.

"No, not really. I mean, I did but I never really thought it would happen." Draco sighed and drank the remaining beer from his bottle. He then leaned over the armrest of the couch and placed the bottle onto the floor. "But I thought that if I asked you and if you said yes, we would be able to do it because I sneaked into the carriage and I would help you sneak on, too. But you've always looked like you have some kind of hero complex so I knew you wouldn't go."

"I do have a hero complex, though."

"I know you do," Draco laughed and dragged his fingers through his hair, the gel he had put into it hours ago was now barely existent. "Why didn't we dance that night? At the ball? We stood there next to the punch like a couple of morons who wanted to poison it."

"We didn't dance because you said that my partner will murder us if we do," Harry chuckled and rubbed his eyes, almost knocking his glasses off.

"Oh, yeah," Draco laughed as well. "'Cause you two danced together like once the whole night!"

"Can I tell you something?", Harry then said, all serious and everything.

"Yes, I believe you can. But I need to admit something to you too. But you go first."

"I didn't dance with her because I was hoping you would dance with me. I was kinda... um... staring at you the whole time."

Harry was blushing and Draco couldn't help but smile because did Harry really think he didn't notice he was staring? Really, when you stare at someone the whole night you notice that they are staring. And Draco clearly remembered staring at Harry as well and he remembers Cécile telling him that it must be because of the robes - Draco was wearing greyish blue robes that evening - because the robes made him look stunning and Harry wasn't the only one that was staring. Just the same as Draco wasn't the only one staring at Harry - but it wasn't because of the robes in his case.

"Yeah, Potter," Draco grinned. "I've noticed."

"Well... yeah. Um... what were you going to say?" Harry was now all awkward and nervous all of a sudden. He got rid of the beer and pulled one of his legs up to rest his head onto his knee.

"That when I came to Hogwarts I had a plan to befriend you but then my dear friend Pier told me that I may as well fall for you," Draco locked their eyes and Harry's breath hitched for some reason, his lips slightly parted. "But I said that it was not possible. Do you know why, Harry Potter, was it not possible for me to fall for you?"

"Why? Because I was the Boy-Who-Lived?", Harry asked, rolling his eyes.

"No, not at all because of that. It was because your moronic ass managed to put himself into Gryffindor."

Harry closed his eyes, took a deep breath and then pressed his lips together. "I am so fucking sorry for that -I know how disappointed you were, I saw it on your face when you first realised."

"Disappointed? Oh, dear Harry, disappointed doesn't even begin to cover it." At this point, both of them were laughing and Draco managed to catch his breath just to ask: "How in the everliving fuck did you manage to get into Gryffindor?"

"I asked the Hat! I asked the stupid Hat 'cause I thought people would think I'm all evil and on Voldemort's side if I was in Slytherin!", Harry was laughing as bright as the sun and then they laughed together for some time until they got all quiet.

They were tired, both of them, not necessarily just because of the alcohol or the party or the day but of this feeling that something is slightly out of place in their lives. Because constantly they felt like they should be grateful for the beautiful calmness that they have in their everyday lives but each of them sought for something more - something colourful that would brighten up that monotone routine they've built for themselves.

They don't talk too much after that laughing session and, much to Harry's dismay, it is Blaise that finds them on the sofa, both of them half asleep. They apparated home, all eleven of them, Dean making sure everyone got home safely because that's Dean, and Dean can hold his liquor the best among them.

Draco and Harry say their murmured good night's that evening, each of them softly closing the doors of their rooms. Harry leaves his window open, the crisp, rain-scented breeze dancing through his room, sliding down his skin as he hurries to bury himself under his cosy covers. He closes his eyes, listening to the peaceful silence of the night, enjoying the light wind that's coming through the window. He hopes that the wind will finally, in the quiet of the night, bring him change.

.o0o.

The sun looked dusty as it was spilling over rows of damaged books, a couple of dirty coffee cups and one terribly inconvenienced and rather annoyed blond. Draco's hands were crossed over his chest and he was huffing disapprovingly at Marion who was unsuccessfully trying to convince him to take her shift right now.

"Come on, Draco," she pleated, smiling. There was no doubt he will eventually go and find out whatever that new customer wanted. "You and I both know you want to go outside and serve this lovely guy. You know you have a thing for brunettes and he has glasses too!"

"It's your turn," Draco shook his head, but his arms were already relaxing down his sides - just a word or two more and he'll be right out there. "And I just made my coffee so you can fuck off, Marion."

"Don't be rude! Don't be rude... just go out there and flirt your way into his bed - I believe in you." She was smirking and it was her turn to cross her hands over her busty chest. Draco rolled his eyes and walked passed her muttering something about owning him a coffee after this as if it wasn't her doing him a favour.

"How may I help you?", he asked with a forced smile barely recognizing the man for who he was. Never in a thousand years would he dare to believe Harry Potter knew what a library is, and Merlin forbid he actually walks into one. And yet, here he was, standing right in front of Malfoy, slightly nervous and definitely sticking out like a muggle at a Quidditch game.

"I was trying to find this book-"

"Since when do you read, Potter?", Draco snorted and Harry rolled his eyes.

"Since Hermione suggested that I should read 'cause it may as well blow my mind."

"Oh, you have a mind?", Draco raised his eyebrow, not really certain why Potter's presence in his library annoyed him so much. Perhaps, it was that fact that he thought he could just come to a library and start reading all of a sudden. And if that was the case, Draco was sure that he would make a big deal out of it all because look at Harry Potter! He is reading a book! Harry Potter! A book! That whole ordeal would end up entirely obnoxious and nervewracking because being a bibliophile and a book lover was something you build throughout your whole life and it would not be fair if Potter got praise for reading books after simply jumping into it overnight. Also, Draco knew that Hermione and himself would inevitably have to kill Potter because he would get all this praise for reading books as if reading books was as special as saving the world; Draco knew that Hermione and himself would not be able to stand it but that didn't mean Potter's death would be very sad.

"Oh, I do have a mind, Malfoy," Harry nodded, a picture of overly dramatic, pained concern clear on his face. "Didn't you know? I even shared it with the Dark Lord when I was fifteen... It's was bad."

"You shared your mind, I shared my home. From the fifth to the seventh year - It was awful."

Harry was quiet for a moment, only now realising how truly little does he know about this wonderfully sarcastic boy in front of him. "Well," he then said, his head bowed down, his eyes watching his fiddling fingers, "If you'd lived through something so awful, a coffee with me wouldn't be so bad, would it?"

His eyes searched Malfoy's and the blond appeared momentarily stunned. It only happened for a second or two that something flashing deep behind Draco's eyes and then a soft blush started rising at his ears and his cheeks. He coughed, trying to calm down but Harry still wore a small smile on his lips which didn't help at all. "So you suddenly don't need a book anymore?"

"Er... I can always come back and get lost between the bookshelves while searching for it," Harry shrugged, grinning. "It's quite nice - getting lost with all of those words. Not that I would ever have the strength for reading them but promised Hermione I would read that and I don't know... Reading's not really for me, y'know? But getting lost with silence and soft sunlight and all those stories around you... It makes you ramble," he laughed then, shrugging again -  he really was rambling. "But it's nice."

Draco's eyes were watching him with gentle amusement, his head slightly cocked. Harry decided he liked the way Draco's face was almost glowing when he smiled; it was almost magical in a way, Veela-like, but still so natural and so Draco-ish... so special, so beautiful. When he spoke, Malfoy's voice was barely above whisper, a sense of wonder in it, a strange note of calm. "I know it's nice."

Harry nodded and took a step back. He scratched his neck, his eyebrows raising in question. Draco rolled his eyes and sighed, still, a smile on his lips suddenly one of pure happiness. It was happiness that bloomed from his chest when he said, "Let me take my coat," leaving Harry to stand there with the quiet of the library and melodies of stories, wondering if he'd definitely managed to see the opportunity arise.

Draco came from the back, a pinch of laughter patient in corners of his lips. Harry was certain then - it was truly what they had to find; the final edge they had to reach only to jump over the fence and get the complete freedom to steal the apples from gardens of friendship, berries from forests of something more, flowers from fields of pure, shining glory.

"Shall we?", Draco asked, pushing a newsboy cap onto the mess of his blond locks. He playfully shoved Harry with his elbow but Potter was quicker, interlocking their arms, hooking his elbow to Malfoy's and pushing his hand into the pocket of his jacket. They were close, closer than they had ever been. It was easy to say that neither of them complained; both of them excited to seek adventure on this newly discovered horizon.

Harry glanced up at Draco, his smile slightly hesitant but his arm still tightly holding onto Draco's. Their eyes locked and Draco smiled sweetly at the Boy Who Lived Twice with nothing but joy, nothing but happiness - there was nothing to worship in Harry, it was only Harry there with him. Maybe it was the crooked smile, or the glow in Draco's eyes, the soft blush on Draco's cheeks or perhaps the gentle shove against Harry's shoulder when they found themselves staring for too long - but Harry saw nothing more but himself in Draco's glance. Nothing more than simple, beautifully unique Harry. That was enough.

He smiled back and Draco was now the one to raise his eyebrow for confirmation. Harry chuckled and shook his head, his feet starting to confidently march forward with a pair of Draco's own. Harry glanced at him one last time before looking straight ahead, into the completely changed set of circumstances that they'd laid for themselves.

"Oh, we shall, we shall."

Chapter Text

It was Wednesday and that Wednesday was, just as any other insignificant day of the week, not particularly sunny. Rather the opposite really - it was raining cats and dogs making it a perfect afternoon for a good, old, obsessive binge-watch. The curtains in the living room where closed shut, all the popcorn in the flat were poped, two bottles of 2-litre coke were set and ready on the floor next to the couch and all Harry had to do was press play, relax and enjoy the show. He did hope Draco would just leave and not spoil him anything but also a small part of him wanted Draco to join him on the couch.

Both of his wishes were granted in one way or another when Draco walked out of his room around three, Harry's eyes following him carefully and. Draco skipped lunch and there was a small pinch of concern settled in Harry's gut but the blond was on his way to the fridge so perhaps he did know how to take proper care of himself without Harry's help, after all. Although, it did sound a bit hypocritical - Harry scolding Malfoy for not eating anything since his early breakfast - since he was about to binge Doctor Who for about ten hours.

"Are there any tomatoes left?", Draco called, his head stuck inside the blue-glowing refrigerator.

"There should be some at the top shelf, yeah." Harry opened the first bottle of coke, enjoying the soft sizzling sound the bubbles made and paid little attention to whatever Draco was attempting to do. It turned out blond was going to ruin his small comfortable heaven by sitting right next to him. Draco Malfoy never struck Harry as a type of a person who would put his feet on the coffee table and yet, he did just that. Harry snickered when noticing his mismatched socks - one was green and the other orange, both awfully neon and ridiculous. 

"Oh, shut up," Draco muttered with his mouth half-full of the chicken sandwich he managed to prepare for himself. "I haven't slept for 34 hours and I don't plan to leave the flat anytime soon. Fuck matching socks."

Harry shrugged and took a sip of coke. "Agreed. What were you doing last night if not sleeping?"

"I had this girl sneak in through the window and we had quite some fun," Draco answered, his tone completely serious. Harry blinked at him, his eyebrows slightly raised. "I'm joking, you idiot. I was reading."

"Oh," Harry nodded, at a loss of words.

"Did you really believe that for a second? I'm a librarian, Harry! Who in their right mind would fuck a librarian?!" Draco laughed and almost choked on his sandwich before putting it down on the table. He held out his hand and Harry was stunned when he actually took the coke bottle Harry handed to him. After a gulp or two, Malfoy returned the soda and moved his shoulders a bit to the left finding a comfortable spot on the couch.

Harry watched in shock and confusion, his mind not quite comprehending the possibility of Malfoy looking so... comfortable? Casual? Domestic? I mean, his socks weren't matching, his hair was a complete mess of small curls, his feet were on the table, he was wearing sweatpants with a hole in them and his t-shirt was anything but professional and expensive-looking. Malfoy looked completely at ease and Harry didn't know how to feel about it.

Perhaps, he should enjoy the moment and be happy about the fact that Draco trusts him enough to be comfortable like that, but then again, Harry had no idea how Draco treated his other friends and people he knew; did he wear mismatched socks in front of Blaise or Robert as well? Harry supposed he did - Draco did live in the same room as Robert for seven years after all... maybe things like these casual acts of comfortability came as a bonus for living with someone? Maybe...

Harry decided not to dwell on it too much because he knew he would end up analysing every relationship he's ever had - platonic and otherwise - in hopes to understand if this sudden change in Draco's behaviour meant he liked him more than before. He put the bowl of popcorn in between then and shifted his attention back to the screen, pretending not to notice Draco's huffs of annoyance and snorts and soft sounds of excitement as the plot unravelled.

"Can I tell you something that might cause you to never speak to me again?", asked Harry casually, after an episode and a half as well as third of a bottle of coke.

"No."

"Oh, come on! It's not that bad... And it's not like we're some inseparable friends - there no real friendship to ruin here!"

"Potter, I must inform you that I quite enjoy talking to you, even during crucial points of an episode of Doctor Who. So, as I said, don't tell me anything that might ruin this fragile thing that could be called companionship," Draco looked him straight in the eye and stole his popcorn bowl, starting to munch on the snack and turning back to the tv.

"I haven't showered in four days."

"Why did you just tell me that?!" Draco's annoyance was crystal clear in his voice and he paused the show before turning the angry gaze onto Potter. "That was such an unnecessary piece of information, Potter!"

"Well, I just thought you would appreciate to know it since we're basically a bunch of tangled spaghetti made out of... um... human flesh... and bodies... so...yeah," Harry raised his eyebrows, shrugged and took back the popcorn bowl, immediately shoving a handful into his mouth as if it will help him out of this situation. 

Draco then opened his mouth, trying to say something, but only to close it a second after, close his eyes as well and rub them with the heel of his hands. After this eye massage, he sighed and looked up at Harry once more - this time in despair, like he had lost all hopes in humanity. He made no motion to untangle his legs from Harry's or to sit somewhere where his arse wasn't halfway in Harry's lap. That fact satisfied Harry in a way that made him grin faintly. 

"Why haven't you showered in four days?", asked Draco finally, wondering why was he asking at all.

"Because there was a heating problem in the building or something of that sorts so when you showered in the morning you pretty much used all the hot water for the day until like the evening and my body is particularly lazy in the evening so... I just never got around to it?"

"You just never got around to it?", Draco repeated and Harry nodded with an apologising smile. "And why didn't you tell me about this heating problem?"

"Well, it wasn't such big of a problem, really," Harry scratched the back of his neck, a few pieces of hair falling loose onto his forehead as his leaning his head slightly forward. "Mr Higgins said he'll fix it in a day or two..."

"That doesn't change the fact that you haven't showered in four days! I mean, look at your hair for Circe's sake, Potter!" Draco's face showed nothing but pure disbelief and Harry couldn't really blame him - his hair was indeed extraordinarily messy; even by his standards. "You could've at least braided it up or something!"

"Well, Malfoy, I don't know how to braid hair," Harry stated, his hands folded over his chest, a grimace that almost looked like he was pouting plastered on his face.

"What do you mean you don't know how to braid? Everyone knows how to brain, for fuck's sake, Harry Potter!"

"Evidently, they don't," Harry glared at Draco. "And I'm sorry that I was too busy saving my own life to learn how to do something as useless and as stupid and fucking braiding hair!"

"It's not stupid or useless! Maybe if you knew how to take care of your hair it wouldn't look like a semi-functional bird nest all the time, you pillock," Draco huffed and rolled his eyes, filling his mouth with popcorn, frustration burning in his cheeks.

"You do it if you're so smart! Braid my hair, Malfoy if you think you're so much better than me!" Harry rose to his knees, making himself higher than the blond, trying desperately to seem bigger, stronger, better. The bowl of popcorn that was rested against the back of the couch next to him, spilt over and Draco looked at him, frowning a bit and waved his wand to clean the mess before reaching to yank Harry's head closer to himself. Harry stumbled back down onto the couch, a handful of his hair now firmly in Draco's grip and an unsatisfied growl escaping his pouty, mouth.

Draco worked as fast as he could - dividing the hair into sections, twirling it between his fingers to make smoother strands and then finally braiding it, making sure to pull the hair as hard as he could, making Harry's head follow his hand movements to the back, right, left, full circles. A string of curses finally broke out between Harry's lips as he jerked his head in the direction opposite of Draco's braiding. He, unknowingly, messed up the whole thing and Draco would undoubtedly have to redo everything he had managed to do until that point but Harry, being Harry, didn't know and didn't care.

"Can you stop pulling out my hair, you asshole?"

"It's not my fault you don't know how to braid your own or any other hair," Draco shrugged and let go of Harry's hair. "Speaking of braiding you just ruined this ten minutes work I've done. I'll have to start over."

"Start over and what?", Harry looked at him, angrily. "Leave me bold for life with all your pulling and snatching and 'braiding'?"

"Well, I need a comfortable position if you want me to stop hurting your poor, little scalp. This is not a comfortable position since none of us can reach the popcorn and watching TV like this is not pure torture but completely impossible."

"So you want us to simply change positions?" The look on Harry's face was unsure as if he wasn't completely certain Malfoy wasn't simply joking. "Why didn't you say so before I lost half of my hair?"

"Your hair was too thick anyways," Draco rolled his eyes with a grin and moved so he was sitting in the middle of the couch, directly in from of the TV. He then found his wand and swished it around a few times, murmuring spells, moving the coffee table and the couch and the popcorn bowl before extending the couch forwards. Satisfied with his work, he rose an eyebrow at Harry.

"You can't expect me to sit in your lap, Malfoy," Harry said, suddenly a bit dizzy and definitely blushing.

"Why not? It's not as if we're naked and all your friends are watching... And besides, I'm the one who has to suffer through touching that stupid mess you call hair."

Harry watched him, reluctantly, waiting for a moment when Draco will show him anything that might indicate that he was joking. When it didn't come, he sighed and started pushing himself up to position himself between Draco's legs. Draco waited until the Gryffindor was comfortably seated, with the popcorn bowl in Harry's lap and began to unravel the mess that was left of his previous hair creations.

It hasn't been five minutes when Harry spoke, placing the empty bowl on the table. "How come you know how to braid? I'm pretty sure barely anyone I know does... Is it one of those things pureblood people just have to know? Like playing instruments and speaking half a dozen languages?"

"No, it's not a pureblood thing," Draco snorted, imagining Blaise or Vincent attempting to make a simple french braid. "I learned how to braid because if I hadn't Pansy would dig my eyes out."

For a moment it seemed like he would say only that and leave Harry to wonder what kind of dictatorship Draco was living under while being friends with Pansy Parkinson, but the blond reached for his wand and shot a bunch of colourful sparks into Harry's hair.

"It's dry conditioner," Draco explained as he set the wand down. "And the thing about braiding is... you really need to force someone to sit down and be your lab-rat while you learn how to do it, you know? Either that or in my case... It wasn't Pansy who was forced to sit down and torture her hair through my learning process. It was my time and all of my fingers who had to suffer because Pansy had to have the longest and the most beautiful hair in the country, always skillfully braided by her dear friend, the heir to the Malfoy fortune."

"It's kinda funny when you think about it," Draco snorted again, sighing. "We used to spend so much time together as kids - Pansy, Greg, and Blaise, Vince, Millie and I - us six, untouchable and wealthy as fuck, ready to bring the world down and walk all over it. We planned to marry off to each other so all of our fortunes would combine and we would marry friends instead of some jerks whom we've never met."

"And then you went to Beauxbatons." Harry tried to look back at Draco, but received a small slap to his left cheek and turned his head back towards the TV. 

"And then I went to Beauxbatons," Draco repeated and Accioed a think hair tie from his room to tie the first of many braids to come. "But we were so young back then and I don't know... If I had transferred in our fourth year, or the fifth year, maybe it would make a difference on who Pansy and Blaise and Millie are, on who I am, but..."

"But what?"

"But they just moved on being this awesome 'we'll-rule-the-world' team together and I was in France." Draco's fingers slowed down a bit, dragging through the thick curls on Harry's head while he collected his thoughts. "Don't get me wrong, France was great and leaving it sometimes feels like a shitty move but... It hurts that they just forgot all about me while they had fun in Hogwarts."

Harry was quiet. There was nothing he could say that seemed appropriate enough. He simply let the sounds of the Tardis fill up the space that was created between them, wishing that he did know what to say. He quickly realised that he could know what to say if he knew who Draco was. But he didn't... that was now clear, more than ever. Never was his urge to know Malfoy stronger than now.

"You know," he started tentatively, testing the waters, carefully switching to another subject. Draco's fingers were still slower than before but he seemed to ease back into a normal pace as a new episode rolled in. "I never really let people touch my hair."

"How come?"

"Well, cutting it doesn't really work for me, styling is even harder," Harry shrugged then, a trace of a smile appearing slowly on his lips. "So I don't want to bother people with it. And if there's a chance that they can get my hair in order and I can't... well, we can't really have that, can we?"

"You like being in control, don't you?," Draco's eyebrow rose, amused. "You don't seem the type, to be honest... with all your Gryffindorish recklessness and hero-complexes."

Harry ignored the comment and went on - his hair seemed to be a comfort zone in which Draco could relax. Even though this experience of someone actually knew what they were doing to his hair was new to Harry, he decided he rather enjoyed it. "If I could, I would cut it all off. But it would grow right back, maybe even longer and thicker than before... so I just let it be most of the time. It's pretty long now, and I don't know... I've gotten kinda fond of it."

Draco grinned although Potter couldn't see him. There was something about the black strands that indeed seemed magical; they seemed unusually strong and they were quite silky to touch, although they looked a bit greasy and untamed at the first glance. Malfoy was almost certain it had something to do with Harry, his power in particular, and that gave him an unfamiliar sense of wonder about the young men, comfortably sitting in his lap, their thighs pressed together, Harry's back a support for his hands as he worked on the hair.

Draco wondered if when he was finished, Harry would just relax back against him, letting him bring his arms, hesitantly around his waist, maybe even intertwine his fingers with Harry's? It seemed strange and unbelievable, impossible really - a fun fantasy that will never be fulfilled. But still, with Harry finally, so close, every inch of air around them seemingly vibrated with pure, simple intimacy. The right kind of intimacy, the kind intimacy; not the one you get behind a crowded bar or in a cheap hotel room, not the kind he shared in his old dorms with people he called his friends, not the kind he hoped to get when he first saw Potter face to face.

Draco wondered if it was all that power that the world kept buzzing about that was responsible for the raw, vulnerable feeling that crept under his skin. He wondered if Harry's magic was so strong it sensed Draco's weakness, his desire so it poked and dragged along his being until he exposed all of his secrets to Potter. He hoped it wasn't like that - he believed it wasn't like that. Everything about Harry seemed adventurous, unexplored, new and somehow familiar, safe and there underneath it all, Draco could sense a soft shudder of longing that sometimes escaped through Harry's sighs, his laughs, his unfocused glances.

Draco wondered if he could be the one who cupped Harry's face, looked into his beautiful, green eyes, smiled joyfully and ended that painful, endless longing Harry seemed to be stuck in. He wondered if he could get to know Harry just as much as he wanted to. 'Of course not!', his mind answered immediately. How could he be? How when he was just this simple, boring passerby? How when he was just a filler in this flat? How when he was just a dull roommate? How when he was just -

"Draco?", Harry now turned his head, despite Malfoy's earlier protest. "Have you fallen asleep while braiding my mess of a hair?"

"No! I just got a bit lost in thoughts that's all," Draco replied and then proceeded to scold him for turning his head (the braid was supposedly ruined but both Draco and Harry knew he just needed to get a stronger hold on the last notch and it would be just fine).

"What were you thinking of?" Curiosity laced Harry's words, and he bit his lower lip slightly.

"It doesn't matter - nothing of importance," Draco shook his head dismissively, but it didn't stop Harry from pressuring the subject.

"Oh, come on, Malfoy! Anything that had you dozing off during Doctor Who must be important!"

"Fuck off and mind your own business!"

"But Malfoy," Harry whined, tilting his body a bit to the left so his hair shifted. "I'll tickle you if you don't tell me! I swear I'll tickle you! I swear to-"

"Whydidyouletmetouchyourhair?", Draco murmured quickly before Harry really did start to tickle him. He hated being tickled. He hated it only because he wasn't tickled often as a child so his response to being tickled was either passing out from laughing too hard or knocking the tickler out with a single punch.

"What?"

"Why did you let me touch your hair if you hate it so much?", Draco asked, more slowly this time, his fingers holding the braid tightly, so he didn't need to see them shaking. Harry, much similar to Draco's sudden nervousness, was blushing - unfortunately, Draco couldn't see it. Perhaps if he could, he would dare to just kiss Harry already - no hard feelings, just a simple kiss - to see what it was like. ' Harry looks like a good kisser, ' Draco thought once. Or twice. Or five times. (In one day.)

"Um, because I... Because I was thinking that maybe you wouldn't spoil me Doctor Who if I let you braid my hair because you would be occupied with other things, my hair I mean. You would be occupied with my hair," Harry said in one breath.

"I still have a working mouth!", Draco nudged his shoulder with his elbow. "I can still spoil you all the little secrets that are gonna ruin three seasons for you!"

"Why do I live with you? You are literally the devil himself...", Harry grinned and leaned back against Draco's elbows.

"You live with me 'cause rent is cheap and my hair is something you deeply admire."

"Oh, no no no," Harry then laughed and Draco bit back a laugh of his own. "You're the one who has hair fetishes not me; you're the one swooning over braiding my hair for the last half an own!"

Draco gasped, fake-offended. "You should be honoured, honoured, Potter than I'm braiding your hair! I'm the best hair braider in the galaxy and you're getting me back like this?! Shame on you!"

Harry was now laughing brightly, out loud, his whole body shaking against Draco's. "If you're the best hair braider in the galaxy, I have a soulmate - and remember, half of my soul was Voldemort once!"

"You're just insane, Potter," Draco laughed and pinched his side.

"Oh, shut up, blondie! As if you're any better!"

Draco ducked as a failed popcorn, also known as a popcorn kernel, flew in his direction. It missed him and only made his laughter louder, as Harry started tickling his sides in revenge.

.o0o.

It was late when Harry rushed through the doors of their flat, his hair wet and a soaking jacket hung over his arm. A few curls slipped from his braided head and were sticking out in every direction, but were mostly curling around his ears and the nape of his neck. Draco was doing a crossword in some french magazine he managed to find yesterday morning, and he lazily glanced up from the puzzle while Potter tried to calm down his breathing.

"Did you run back home?"Draco voice was a lazy mix of confusion and surprise, but his face showed nothing but passiveness. 

"It's good for your health you know," Harry grinned, still panting, and then twisted and squeezed his jacket so the water would fall onto the floor. He quickly took out his wand and got rid of the puddle before drying himself up with a wave of a wand and hanging the jacket up on the coat hanger near the door. "I tried to charm myself an umbrella but they are useless in this weather - the wind is absolutely crazy!"

"You know that the building next door has a floo? You could've just flooed there from the bar."

"I didn't want to bother the bartender or the housekeeper next door... And running is good for your health, you know," Harry tried to smile again but when the attempt failed he turned back and busied himself with his sneakers.

"Not when you're soaking wet...," Draco stood up and came closer to Potter. He leaned his back against the sofa and crossed his arms over his chest. "Harry..."

"Hm?" Harry's head shot up and a forced smile was pulling his lips. He was fiddling with his fingers and shifting from one foot to another, avoiding Draco's eyes, constantly looking to the left before finally going into the kitchen and pulling a bottle of half-drunk wine from the back drawer in their fridge. "What is it?"

"You need to start apparating again."

"I don't have my license, Draco, I told you that already," Harry rolled his eyes, now with a glass of cooled wine in his left hand. 

"You should get it then," Draco sighed and walked back to the table. He picked up his magazine with the crossword just to have something in his hands. "It's really easy and you already know how to do it... I don't see the problem."

"I do. It's not happening," Harry downed his wine and then smiled widely at Draco. The subject was closed and there was no arguing about it no more. Until Harry comes home half wet again, that is. "Now that that stupid stuff is out of the way, I have two questions for you."

Draco sighed, rolling his eyes and walking towards the bottle that Harry had left open on the counter. He poured himself half a glass, dropping the magazine back on the table and looked Harry straight in the eye when Potter tried to say something about being careful with so much alcohol.

"You had a question. Ask it," Draco said coolly, still not over the fact that Potter regularly risks getting a cold because he's too stubborn to get an Apparition license. From the subtext, Draco could tell that it had something to do with some emotional traumas he'd experienced during the war and his childhood (just as his dislike of people touching his hair), but he supposed he didn't know Harry well enough to know why exactly was Harry afraid of normal transportation and hairdresser's scissors. He didn't want to push that subject a lot - they were both complicated enough without shared war stories.

"I have two actually, " Harry cleared his throat. "First: have you ever seen a live lobster? And second: are you allergic to cats."

"Live lobsters are creepier than catching you drinking milk from the carton at four in the morning," Draco scoffed, a pale look of disgust visible on his face, flashbacks, of sleepless nights thinking of Potter's arse in those boxers he wore while drinking milk at four in the morning, coming back to him in waves. "And no? I'm not allergic to cats. Why? Did you find a litter of cats in the street and had to save their pathetic little lives because you can't save your own?"

"Well," Harry started, his hand almost immediately rising to ruffle his hair because he did indeed forget that all his hair was in a neat pile of braids. "Not exactly, no. It's more like... Do you think this flat is a bit empty? Spacious? Like there's something missing?"

Draco's eyebrow rose higher and higher as Harry continued to speak, a half-full glass of red wine hanging idly from his fingers. "We could get a houseplant? I heard Neville was re-potting some of his so we could buy one or two of them - Circe knows he has too many plants already...", he rolled his eyes when Potter didn't answer. Potter just looked at him, pleading, attempting to make puppy eyes. "Isn't that what people with no responsibility whatsoever do? But houseplants?"

"I mean, I guess..." In his inability to drag his fingers through his hair, Harry moved his glasses higher up his nose and then scratched his neck. "But people like... Get pets and I don't know... Kids?"

"Houseplants are pets, Potter. And If you think either of us has a healthy enough life to have a kid which we would have to take care of, then you are out of your damaged mind," Draco nodded and grabbed the wine bottle once more, offering it to Harry as well, who gratefully pushed his glass closer to him. "And besides," Draco then said, when they both had their wine. "Having kids means settling down, settling down means not having sex for five to seven years while those kids are grown enough not to come jumping into their parents' bed every night, and not having sex for five to seven years means stress, growing old and midlife crisis. So, no thanks."

Harry watched him drink his wine for a moment, a soft smile of amusement now on his lips. His own wine was still untouched in his hand and he placed it on the counter, crossing his arms over his chest again. "What?", Draco asked then, glanced sideways at Harry's suddenly completely relaxed posture. 

"We're not even having sex. We don't even sleep in the same bed."

"We could be," Draco shrugged and took another sip of his wine - his glass was rapidly approaching a new refilling. "I mean, I'm good looking, you're... not bad? And we live together in a flat so it wouldn't be such a big deal, you know... And the bed thing? If we had a kid together, they would need a room and since there are only two bedrooms in this flat we would need to share one in order for the kid to have their own."

"Are you actually thinking of having a kid with me?", Harry snorted then and glanced at the wine bottle. "How much wine did you drink?"

"Not enough apparently, but maybe too much? It's causing me to find your avoidance of the subject of us fucking quite adorable... you should be proud of yourself, Potter! The only thing I usually find adorable is Addy and sometimes that pink succulent you so horribly named Steve." There was another disgusted flinch going through Draco's body at the thought of the name but he soon let go of it with a little help from the rest of his wine.

"You think I'm, I'm adorable?",  Harry's voice broke in the middle of a question, his breath hitching a bit. This man, this beautiful, French-speaking, hair-braiding man thought he was cute? It seemed like that wine affected Draco's affections more than he believed.

"I think we need to buy more wine and stop you from bringing live creatures into our apartment," Draco concluded and held the bottle above his glass so even the last drip could be drunk. 

"Why are you so obsessed with wine all of a sudden?"

"I'm always obsessed with wine but I don't usually drink it during the daytime because I don't want you to think I'm some raging alcoholic. I imagine you do the same thing - not just with wine - since all the alcohol we have is regularly drunk. By both of us. At night. When the other one can't judge us." Draco shrugged again and downed the last glass. 

"So are we getting a cat or not?", Harry asked finally.

"Not. You can't take care of yourself or anything else you own - no one should trust you with something that's alive."

"I take care of my cacti!", protested Harry, his hand flying up to point at a row of cacti in colourful pottery that lined the kitchen window. 

"No, I take care of your cacti. They were on the brink of death when I moved in and they are only recovering because I'm the one who never forgets o water them," Draco informed him with a tinge of satisfaction because of course, he is right. Of course. But it wasn't Harry's fault watering his plants always slips his mind somehow. "And honestly, Harry, if you can't take care of cacti which need to be watered once every decade, then I don't know how you're still alive."

"I have a bunch of friends who look after me since I'm famous and stuff. So... cat?", Harry asked again, grinning.

"For fuck's sake, Potter! We already have an owl!"

"You have an owl! I have PTSD and eleven dying cacti!"

"Ouch," Draco said looking at him, his eyebrows furrowed. Harry was smiling though, one of his fingers fiddling with some wayward strands of hair on the nape of his neck. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm and then looked up at Draco once more.

"Ron and Hermione want a cat but since then have Rosie and they are expecting a baby boy now, they think it would be too much responsibility. Ever since their old cat, Crookshanks died Hermione wanted a new cat in her life and if we had a cat they could visit it often and things like that," Harry explained, slowly. "And Teddy has been talking about wanting a pet for a long time, too... And like, he wants a dragon but a cat is also fun and so much more realistic."

"I'll buy Teddy a dragon if it stops you from getting a cat," Draco said, matter-o-factily, and sat down, pulling that magazine back towards him.

"You're not getting my godson a dragon, Draco."

"He's my cousin, too. I can get him whatever I want," Draco smirked and picked up one of those pens Harry keeps leaving around. It was a strange muggle invention which he had seen a couple of his ex-classmates use but never really got introduced to until recently. 

"And if he want's his dear godfather to have a cat, and it would break his heart if his dear godfather doesn't have a cat, would you get his dear godfather a cat?"

"No. I would get myself a cat because I would end up being the one who takes care of it anyways." He scribbled something into one of the few empty rows of the crossword and then looked up, catching Harry's eyes. "We're not getting a cat. This is final."

Harry held his gaze for a moment, two, three and then he gave him a toothy grin. "Sure it is."

"It is!"

"Fine, but you're going to help me with the lobsters, right?"

"What fucking lobsters?"There was more disbelief in Draco voice than when he realised they are actually going to force a fourteen-year-old to participate in a deadly Tournament.

"The alive ones! The ones I asked you about!", Harry stared at Malfoy like the blond was crazy when in fact, Harry himself looked like a crazy one. His glasses slowly slid down the bridge of his nose and he pushed them back up, rolling his eyes. "My ex's ex is opening a restaurant downtown and he wants this lobster aquarium so lobsters would always be fresh when they made them."

"And what am I supposed to do with that information?"

"Nothing much, just agree with me that you're a perfect choice to help me instal the aquarium."

"Why is the Boy Who Lived Twice instaling aquariums?", Draco tilted his head to the left, watching Harry in clear confusion. 

"Well, I don't really have a permanent job because everything's boring so I'm taking all sorts of side jobs for some extra cash."

"You're kidding, right? We're not actually going to go and instal aquariums for your ex's ex, are we?" There was a tiny drop of hope in Draco's eyes that it was all, really a joke. Instaling lobster aquariums was the last thing he wanted to do on a Wednesday afternoon.

"Not kidding, sorry," Harry shrugged with an apologetic smile, although he didn't look very sorry when you really looked at him. He looked rather delighted that he managed to persuade Malfoy to come with him. "But he promised me a free dinner if we do it, so we can eat some lobster salad or something..."

"Lobster salad is disgusting."

"No, it's not!", Harry answered right back, and then, "Okay, yes it is. But the lobster is good so we can eat lobster how they prepare it. However you want."

"So you are actually taking me to a fancy dinner in disguise of instaling lobster aquariums?"

"You can think of it that way, yes, but it's more the other way around," Harry shrugged again and then leaned over Draco shoulder to help him solve the last empty field. "You need to get ready, put some old clothes on and we'll get going. I promised Theo we'll be there in half an hour."

"Theo?", Draco's head turned so fast his neck hurt. 

"Yeah, Theo Nott," Harry nodded. "Why? You know him?"

"We used to date not so long ago... Who is the lucky person who managed to date both of you?"

"Cho Chang. You know... That Quidditch player?"

"Oh, yeah... She's hot," Draco said and closed the magazine, standing up.

"Aren't you gay?"

"Yes, but do I lose all sense of aesthetic for other human beings the moment I realise that?"Draco looked at Harry expectantly and he shook his head. "Yeah, thought so... I don't think I'm going to change - let's go instal some lobster prisons."

"Let's go," Harry said, laughing a bit. 

They went.

.o0o.

The water in the bucket was splashing slightly against its sides because the bucket was swinging forward and backwards as Harry walked. The night was chilly and the clouds were in the way of moonlight that would otherwise spill over the empty streets, but from time to time, if they looked up, they could see blotches of a starry sky. The air was filled with an expectant heavy smell of upcoming rain, leftovers of oily smells radiating from, now closed, fast food stands and a faint tinge of fake saltwater that sometimes reached their nostrils all the way from the bucket in Harry's hand.

"Look," Draco started, a snicker escaping his lips as if he'd just remembered a really funny joke or some ridiculous memory. "The food at Theo's was great and lobster is one of the best things I've ever eaten - "

"But?", Harry asked, almost grinning.

"But neither of us knows how to cook and this creature in that stinking bucket is gonna die a horrible death the moment it reaches our apartment."

"I know how to cook!" Harry shoved him lightly, a bit of water nearly spilling over the edge of the bucket. "It's like the only thing I know how to do!"

"I beg to differ," Draco shook his head.

"On what part?"

"All of them? Your food is barely mediocre and you are quite good at avoiding responsibilities and instaling lobster aquariums as well as wearing the same jeans for three days in a row. And on that note, you really need to wash all your jeans, man."

"You're not supposed to wash your jeans unless there is some visible stain on them, you dumbass french horn! It's like the rule of the universe! It's right up there in the constitution of the galaxy right under the five seconds rule! Everyone knows this!" Draco looked at Harry with a look of pure pitty while Harry was staring at him with nothing but disappointment. Neither of them could understand how they could think the other was a reasonable human being to be roommates with.

"Five seconds rule is bullshit and so is your stupid jeans rule. And you also don't know how to cook."

"Then why do you eat my food?" Harry sped up his step to reach the blond who for some reason or the other decided to make his stupid steps even larger than usual. 

"Because I don't want to starve, you moron and I much prefer to bake - last time I checked you can't live off of vanilla sponge and chocolate eclairs."

"You're a right prat, you know," Harry then said, shaking his head but still smiling. They continued walking in silence, passing several closed down shops, some with faint lights flickering in the back. 

"Yeah, you're right. I'm a right prat." Draco sighed and pushed his hands into his pockets. Harry just looked at him, frowning, thoughtful. He opened his mouth as if he's going to say something but then there was sudden movement somewhere behind him. Before he knew what was happening a little, lost-looking kitten circled his left foot and then ran in front of them, going into a side alley on the right. 

Harry stopped, stunned by the animal, although it should be a usual thing, shouldn't it? Stray cats and dogs are very common, not only in the big cities but everywhere really. "You gonna move or?", Draco asked, placing a palm on his upper arm, pulling him just a tiny bit forward.

"Hm? Oh! Yeah, yeah... Just... was that a cat?"

"Yes, that was a cat. Great job, Potter. You'll get a gold star when we get home," Draco snorted and started walking again, with Harry following him still slightly dazed for some reason. Soon there appeared to be someone, or better-said something following them. It wasn't really something, though, because, by the can noise and occasional twirl of a tail between their feet, they were fairly certain it was a cat.

They had about ten more minutes to reach their building when Draco stopped, moved his leg to the right and let the cat pass them. The cat walked a couple of steps before turning back, looking at them confused with her fuzzy, too long fur and bright, oh so bright blue eyes that Harry almost found them more beautiful than Draco's. (Not that he would ever say such thing aloud - Draco would kill him if he admitted a cat had better-looking eyes than him.)

"Go on," Draco sighed, motioning to Harry who just stared at him, a smile beginning to form on his lips.

"What?"

"Give me the bloody lobster bucket and take that cat and let's hurry home already. It's well past midnight and I haven't had coffee in six hours," Draco rolled his eyes, saying this and forcefully pulled the bucket out of Harry's hands. The lobster raised its claw towards him and Draco, like a literal five-year-old, stuck his tongue out at it.

"Look at him!", Harry whispered when he returned to his position next to Draco, now with a quite large Siamese cat in his arms. The cat looked in complete bliss as Harry continuously scratched it behind its ear. "He's gorgeous, isn't he?"

"Yeah, sure," Draco rolled his eyes once more and began to walk again, causing Harry to try run awkwardly after him, with a cat in his arms and eyes full of joy. To be honest, it wasn't the cat that was gorgeous, it was obviously, Potter. Or that's what Draco concluded as he stole glances at his stretched out, genuine smile and his eyes, sparkling brighter than the stars every time he looked back at Draco. And his voice was somewhat sweeter, soft and honeyed, gentle and completely happy. 'Happiness looks nice on Potter,' Draco thought to himself, deciding finally that if having a cat is what it takes for Harry to be happy every day, he'll deal with it any day.

"Are you sure about this?", Harry asked, seriously, while they climbed the stairs up to their flat.

"Yes. I mean, we're already home and he'd follow us here anyway," Draco shrugged and opened the door, tossing the keys to the kitchen table and putting the lobster bucket next to the fridge. "And besides, it's not like we can just leave him on the street now; he'd wail all night and day until we let him in... Also, have you decided on a name yet?"

"Bowie," Harry grinned at him proudly. "Short for Bowtie but also like David Bowie."

"That's ridiculous, Potter. You can't name our baby Bowtie."

"I can do what I want, you're not my mother or anything!"

"Maybe I'm not your mother," Draco smirked, a pinch of laughter already escaping his throat. He wiggled his eyebrows a bit and Harry took a deep breath, tilting his head to a side, already knowing what's coming. "But I can be your Daddy."

"You're insufferable, Malfoy," Harry laughed and put Bowie down, letting it explore its new home.

"Why?"

"You know why...", Harry sighed and then took himself a glass of water and disposing of that empty bottle of that cheap wine they drank before into the bin. He looked around their flat and grinned with amusement as Bowie carefully walked across the couch. There was soft splashing of water filling the kitchen and occasional hooting coming from Draco's room. 

"Is this how you keep me from bringing more live animals into our lives?", Harry snorted and glanced at Draco who was now leaning against the counter next to him.

"Well, you should learn how to be a responsible young boy," Draco laughed and looked at him, holding his gaze. "And who better to teach you some responsibility than your dear roommate who you don't really know, but you do know but you live with him anyways."

"Yeah, there's really no one better at all," Harry shook his head as if joking but really, the whole idea of having half a zoo at home and taking care of live things with Draco made him warm somehow, peaceful, safe even. "and there's nothing really negative about this situation -"

"Just wait 'till you'll have to actually start caring for such a petty creature as cats," Draco snorted and raised his eyebrows, nodding.

"Bowie isn't petty - I'm sure of it," Harry waved his hand dismissively and then continued. "And I wasn't talking about that... It's more like, climbing up the stairs of the responsibility: first, we got cacti, then an owl, a lobster, now we have a cat and we could get a dog and then when we're thirty-seven and lonely we could get a kid to take care of... Ask Teddy to live with us or whatnot."

"Yeah, stairs of responsibility," Draco sighed, brushing away the strands of his hair that fell into his eyes. "The only problem is that you're shit in responsibility and I'm actually the one taking care of us all."

"You're a prat, Malfoy," Harry shoved him playfully again and put down the glass. He pushed himself off the counter and walked towards his room, smiling and looking back at Draco who was only half a step behind. 

"For you, Potter," Draco started, grinning, "Always."

Chapter Text

Beautiful, homegrown tomatoes, which Harry managed to find hidden on a stand so small he barely missed it, rolled dangerously over one another as he leaned to his right to fish out keys of the flat. He quickly rearranged the vegetables so none would fall out and pushed the key into the keyhole. He walked in and placed the bags full of fruit, vegetables, and various other products such as cheese, milk and meat onto the small dresser that stood near the door and was used for storing their shoes, scarfs and such. He took off his trainers and walked into the kitchen to store the food and maybe even start making some small lunch, leaning down to pet Bowie who snuck up on him and tangled in his legs.

Draco was standing next to the table, trying to put on his watch, unsuccessful. He cursed a couple of times and Harry walked to him, holding his palm up for Draco to give him the watch. Draco's hands shook while he handed over the accessory and Harry didn't say anything - not until the band was secured in placed and he managed to pull the sleeve of Draco's navy shirt down from where he rolled it up to his forearm.

Harry's gentle fingers buttoned the two small white buttons on Draco's wrist cuff and when he was done, his touch lingered on the other man's palm, just a second longer. He then let Draco's hand fall, too quickly for his tastes and looked up to see Draco's lips slightly parted, his breath shallow.

"Want some scotch?", Harry asked suddenly, hoping he wasn't blushing. It would be incredibly embarrassing if he were because for Merlin's sake he was only helping Draco button his wrist cuffs; it's not that big of a deal! And yet, somehow, it was... Just as seeing Malfoy with mismatched sock and sharing a bottle of Cola with him, just like letting him braid his hair, just like getting a cat together, just like being roommates. It just seemed... more? More than it actually was.

"Hm?", Draco's eyes then focused on Harry. Harry smiled, shyly, turning to reach the scotch on the top shelf. "No, thanks. I had it already. Um, ten minutes ago."

Harry nodded and turned around, crossing his arms over his chest, taking a deep breath and then looking up at Draco from the other side of the kitchen. The only thing separating them was a table. "Why are you so fancied up?", Harry tilted his head looking at Draco's clothes which were such a contrast to his usual attire that Harry now got used to.

"Blaise invited me for brunch," Draco said quickly, pushing an imaginative piece of stray hair behind his ear before going back to fiddling with his watch. "Pans is going, too... I guess I just haven't seen her in a while?"

Harry considered that for a moment, his brows furrowing slightly. He started biting his lips after a while. "Is that why you're... um, nervous? Because you haven't seen Pansy in awhile?"

"It's not that I haven't seen here," Draco scratched the back of his neck. "We went to that party with her remember, her and Weasley and Granger and everyone but this... It's just Blaise and Pansy and I and I don't know if she'll like me anymore since..."

"Since you went to France," Harry filled in, now understanding the cause of Draco's anxiety.

"Well, yeah... I just," Draco sighed and walked to the hallway to replace his purple slippers with fancy trainers that looked more like fancy shoes than something you could run in. Harry was fairly certain he saw some model wearing them in one of those Vogue photos or whatnot. "When I don't see people for a long time I fear that I've changed too much and they won't like me anymore. I'm more afraid that they have changed too much and I won't like them anymore. And I overthink things before they happen. So it makes my hands shake, and makes me drink. Alcohol."

"That's - ", Harry started slowly.

'Please don't say ridiculous! Please don't say ridiculous! Please don't say ridiculous!', Draco screamed in his head, biting his lip so hard that it might as well have started bleeding. It didn't, but he wouldn't notice even if he did. All of him was praying to all the gods of this world and beyond that Harry fucking Potter wouldn't tell him that he was a stupid little wuss.

" - familiar."

"Familiar?", Draco repeated, not really believing his ears. Is he sure it wasn't funny or false or frightening or failing or fucked up or any other negative word that starts with an F?

"Well, yeah," Harry dropped his gaze to his socked feet. "I feel like that, too. More often than not, really... Every time I go to see Ron or Hermione or Ginny or any of them. Any time when I see a reporter snapping pictures of me. Always when I let my brain think about something remotely close to what happened with Voldemort. Before I leave the house for a job. When I need to pay cash in a wizarding shop. When I remember that I don't really have a job and I should have a job since I'm 21 and have not attended any type of schooling for five years... It's most of the time, to be honest. You kinda get used to it, but not really and it sucks."

"I... I don't know what to say to that," Draco admitted, honestly. In a way it made him feel better that he wasn't some freak (another negative word that starts with an F) but on the other hand... he didn't want Harry to feel like this all the time. Harry didn't deserve to be feeling like this all the time! Harry deserved to have his Doctor Who spoiled and he deserved to take home a cat with stupidly blue eyes...

"You don't... You don't have to say anything really...," Harry laughed a bit - it was more of a sigh than a laugh - a huff of sorts, a huff tinged in sort of inpatient melancholy. "The Last thing I want from you is to start pitying me, but you won't. I know you won't because if you were then I would pity you and that's not... really... not really who we are, I guess."

Malfoy didn't say anything except a weak, dazed, "Yeah." He looked at his watch then and fiddle with his wrist cuffs as if he was trying to fix them although they were perfect already. Of course they were, Harry knew they were. They had to be! Draco Malfoy was just that sort of a person: seemingly a model of special, crafted beauty, intellectual of sorts to whom only the chosen ones were allowed to speak (and not the kind of chosen ones Harry fit into). Draco was kind of a person who made you feel like you were among royalty and although these days that term of royalties and celebrities was thrown all the way to the left and all back to the right, all the way around, Draco was that special kind of royalty - someone who seemed more royal than the actual royalty.

'Draco L. Malfoy,' Harry sighed in his head, realising he still didn't know what that mysterious 'L' stood for. Blaise didn't mention anything about Malfoy middle name, did he? Harry was fairly certain that he did not. Nevertheless, Harry saw that 'L' on every piece of luggage Draco owned but still, it never occurred to him to ask about it. Middle names were that sort of things that you either get to know the second you meet someone or you never get to know because the person burying it deep down below the skeleton of their great-great-great uncle's friend's ex-fiancé. Blaise once said that once you know someone's biggest kink, you can confidently say you know a person. Harry didn't necessarily think that was not true but maybe middle names were better for that statement.

"What's your middle name?", he blurted out into space in front of him, for a second not realising Draco was checking his hair in the hallway mirror on his way out. The blonde head turned, surprised back towards the kitchen.

"Lucius. Why?", Draco asked, confused, took a step forward. There was a pinch of concern in his deep, grey eyes and for a moment Harry thought that he will close that distance between them, hug him and ask him if he has a fever.

"I was just thinking about middle names and it dawned on me that I don't know yours," Harry shrugged, explaining and looked up to meet those eyes. "Mine's James, by the way."

Draco' mouth twitched in amusement. "Yeah, I know."

"You do?", Harry frowned. "How do you know?"

"You're famous, Harry," Draco chuckled. "Everyone knows the name of our saviour - Harry James Potter!" Draco took a shaky breath but Harry, fortunately, didn't notice. The real reason why Draco Lucius Malfoy knew that Harry Potter's middle name was James wasn't that every headline about The Chosen One chose to put his middle name in capital letters but rather because Blaise was taunting him about Harry ever since the fourth year. Although, maybe Blaise wasn't the one taunting Draco but actually the other way around where Draco clung to every single word Zabini told him about Potter. All about his misadventures and Seeker abilities and friends and family and swears and the way he ate his jam and the way he took his too - everything down to that delicious little detail of his middle name.

It was safe to say Draco was a very annoying creature towards his friends even though they didn't go to school together.

"Well, that's no fun," Harry then said, grimacing in a way that was supposed to be an over-pronounced frown. "It's kinda stupid knowing someone's middle name before meeting them. Getting to know someone's middle name is like..." he paused, thinking for a moment and then snorted. "It's like getting to know someone's kink."

"Well, Mr Harry James Potter, if I couldn't have the delight of discovering your middle name by asking you, would you be so kind to tell me what makes you horny?" Draco said it in an elegant sort of voice - a voice of a clever, victorian butler or someone like that, perhaps a tour guide speaking French? There definitely was a bit of a French accent somewhere in there...

"Well, Mr Draco Lucius Malfoy, wouldn't you like to know so very much?", Harry smirked and then glanced at their kitchen clock. "And besides, aren't you late for you 1 pm brunch?"

"You're not getting out of this so easily, Potter," Draco pointed a finger at him as if threatening. "We're not done here. And I like being fashionably late, anyways so...Au revoir!"

With a dramatic turn on his heel, which made Harry worry that Draco is going to slip, fall and crack his head open, Malfoy left the apartment to suffer through Harry's chuckle when thinking of Draco and his cheery whistling while he debated what to make for dinner.

„No, not yet," Blaise shook his head and Pansy shifted in her seat, putting her left leg over her right.

"We seem to always wait for you," she snickered in a tone that could easily be misinterpreted as funny, joking but Draco knew better. He wasn't surprised, he wasn't surprised at all. Somewhere not even so deep down he had expected it before coming, his body and mind have been bathing in that sick anticipation ever since Blaise first mentioned this kind of a meeting.

"It seems," Pansy started again, her tongue flicking a bit at the end, voice now filling with hostility and venom that used to be reserved for the other half of humanity. Draco has always wondered what it was like - being on the other side of Pansy Parkinson. Now that he was beginning to experience it, he wished he'd never come back from France. "It seems as if we've been waiting for you ever since they kicked you out of Britain and you hid your arse in France."

"They didn't kick him out," Blaise sighed, lifting his glass of white one he'd ordered before Draco had joined them. It was clear that Zabini had no intentions of watching his two friends fight. Draco glared at him as soon as the words left his lips, obviously not wanting anyone else fighting his fights. Blaise closed his mouth after taking some more wine, although it did look like he was attempting to say something more.

"I guess they didn't," Pansy then shrugged, with a grin that could be nothing but bitter. "I guess he simply... left us."

"Pansy...", Blaise started again but another death glare from Malfoy forced him to shut the fuck up and drink his wine.

"Pansy what?" Parkinson's eyebrow rose a bit in a challenge; she was completely aware that Blaise was not the one who is going to come forward and make a scene to shut her up even though the bistro was empty. Draco, on the other hand, might do just that if she pushed him far enough...

"Dear Blaise, he did leave us." Her eyes stayed on Zabini for a moment before she turned the maleficent glare onto the blond sitting right in front of her. Her manicured fingers were tapping against her glass in slow, threatening rhythm. "You really did, Draco. Such a pity... We had all those plans - do you remember? Marrying each other and whatnot... All those ambitions, distractions, mapped out futures that would bring us fortunes of our own, legacy for our infamous families and freedom from all the suffering regular, low-class people have to go through while building their lives."

Draco was one to snicker now, accepting his own glass of some expensive red and a neatly printed menu they had all received. "You couldn't really believe that all those ideas would come to life... Did you really believe in some pretentious bullcrap we came up with when we were eight? We were just kids, Pans!"

"When you fucked me, we weren't." Pansy's tone was cold as ice, her face impassive, her eyes showing nothing but the deep-rooted satisfaction of a black widow who caught her greatest enemy in her webs.

"Wait, what?", Blaise now shifted, sitting straighter, every inch of his body moving in a state of complete alarm in a matter of moments.

"Oh, you didn't know?" Pansy laughed then, pouring the remains of her wine down her throat. "I mean, of course, you don't - our proud, little queer wouldn't want his image stained - he can't just go around telling everyone that he fucked his pureblood friend."

"It wasn't even fucking, Pansy -I fingered you!"

"I'm pretty sure that giving someone any kind of pleasure is considered sex," Pansy shrugged and Blaise frowned, questioning why he ever thought this was a good idea. Draco was quiet for a moment, drinking his wine and watching Pansy smirk and twisting a lock of her jet black hair around her finger.

"Pans," Draco then said. "I'm gay. And I'm not marrying you."

"Dray," Pansy snorted. "I'm straight. And I'm not marrying you. But that doesn't mean you didn't crush my hopes for our future when you ran off to France." Her head was cocked to a side, she was smirking slightly and in a particularly tense moment, her eyes flickered to the girl in the corner who was definitely listening. Pansy debated pulling out her wand and killing her on the spot but it would be rather irrational, and quite unprofessional.

"Pansy we never could rule the world or build our future to become some puppeteers who would have some great influence over people," Draco voice was tired as he spoke. In some other situation, his heart would probably be beating heard, his mind would scream loudly, he would be sweating and he would try everything to gain control of the action. But this was Pansy and he had Blaise to help him if anything really got out of control. He was also sitting on the outer side of the table so he could head out to the door easier than she could and he doubted the anti-apparition wards were a thing that guarded this place anyways.

"We would never be able to rule the world," he repeated. "Not with people like Harry Potter or Hermione Granger in the world. Even if all of us, you, me, Blaise, Millie, Theo, Greg, even if all of our friends combined our strengths we would easily be overpowered. It's a different world, Pans and we were never strong enough."

"You're wrong," she spat into his face, disgusting sneer now dominating her cat-like features. "I've been practising all these years and there is nothing that could stop me from killing you or Blaise or that stupid little girl who keeps eavesdropping our conversation."

"This is not a conversation, Pansy," Draco argued. "This is your own madness! This me trying to find sense in your messed up thoughts without you even knowing! This is me trying to tell you that everything you ever thought was sacredly true is false!"

"Are you reading my thoughts?"

'I'm proving you that you're not as powerful as you think you are. I'm proving you that the world doesn't need a ruler - that the world is never going to be controlled the way you or Grindelwald or Hitler or Voldemort want it to be controlled', Draco said calmly in her mind and she squealed. Draco felt a weak push of her Oclumens but she could never overpower him - she didn't have it in her blood the way Malfoy did. It has always been him with too much dark inside of him and it was the biggest reason for Pansy's sycophancy, her jealousy.

"Since when do you call him Voldemort?" Her voice was slightly shaking now and her head was banging. All of her thoughts were spilling around into pools of confusion and she couldn't think. It seemed like Draco was the one who kept her thoughts in order but now when he left the chambers of her mind, all of the voices were intertwining and giving her a headache which was not useful in any way during her current situation.

"Since I've been living with Harry who has some weird fascination with calling him that," Draco cuffed and Pansy laughed once more.

"And how is that, hm? Living under the wing of our precious Saviour, knowing that if you didn't betray all your friends you would be rotting in Azkaban with your scum of a father?"

"And how is harassing your friend who finally found a fucking stable life situation the moment you see him while being clearly delusional about your power and your own mind? You're crazy, Parkinson. I don't know what happened to you, but you're not okay."

There was a moment of silence in which Pansy opened her mouth and furrowed her brows in fury, the toxic words already on the tip of her tongue and then she straightened, sat normally, folded her legs and placed a calm, polite smile on her face. Draco turned his head in the direction of Pansy's eyes and then smiled at the waitress himself.

"Would you guys like to order?", said a tall middle-aged woman, with a knowing glint in her eyes. Draco cursed because of course he wanted to order but he didn't even look at the menu because apparently, he had a mental hospital runaway with him at the table. Blaise cleared his throat and caught the waitress' gaze. She was standing there expectantly and Blaise smiled, saying a perfected string of orders as the other two remained silent, sulking.

"Don't do that!", Harry protested, slapping Draco's fingers away. Both of them laughed and then Draco looked at him.

"What? Compliment you? Okay, won't, sorry."

"You know that's not what I meant!"

"Or do it?!", murmured Draco in a fake, mysterious voice and they both burst out laughing. Once the laughter died down, Harry was looking at Draco with unfocused eyes, all sorts of things running around in his mind.

"What, Potter?"

"Nothing," Harry quickly squealed and turned his head back to the TV.

"What it is? C'mon! Spill!"

Harry hesitated for a moment and then placed his empty plate onto the coffee table in front of them. "When did you realise you were gay?"

"We're not having this conversation," Draco said firmly and put a piece of ravioli into his mouth.

"Okay, sorry," Harry nodded, a tinge of disappointment clear in his voice.

Sometime later, when Draco ate the rest of his food and the changed their sitting positions several times, Harry lifted his head from the pillow he's been laying on. "Would you, maybe, want to braid my hair again?"

Draco looked at him and then glanced at the mess Harry called his hair. "I could,if you want. But it's not that I enjoy braiding people's hair as much as some people enjoy having their hair braided by me." He gave Harry a pointed look but Harry simply blushed and fixed  his eyes on the TV. Ever since that day when Harry realised how relaxing it was yo have someone fiddle with your hair (and especially if that someone was one and only, Draco Malfoy),he'd become obsessed with it. It was on rare occasion that he didn't have at least one braid in his hair, nowadays. One such rare occasion was now because he'd, with deep sorrow, unbraidedall of his hair to wash it.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Harry said quickly, in a low voice. Draco smiled in amusement.

"You just washed your hair, didn't you? It'll stay clean longer if I don't braid it every day."

"Oh, yeah, I guess you're right," Harry shrugged and his shoulders slumped down. He was sitting with his legs criss-crossed and his head supported by one of his hands. Some could say that he looked downright miserable.

Draco glanced at him and then back at the TV. He took one of the pillows and then yawned. "Can you stand up please so u can stretch out my legs? They're kinda sore..."

"Where am I supposed to sit then?", Harry asked, awkwardly staking at the foot of the couch while Draco stretched his body comfortably as if it was a bed he was laying on and not a couch. He grabbed another pillow, put it behind his back for more supports and then pushed himself up in a sort of half-laying, half -sitting position.

"There's a bit of space at the end right here," Draco pointed at the end of the couch and then continued talking with a mischievous, little smirk on his face that made Harry slightly uncomfortable. " Or just come here and lean against me... I won't mind, I promise."

"I'm supposed to lean against you?", Harry said with his eyebrows raised, his heart beating in alarm.

"You're supposed to do exactly that. Come on, just do it and we can go back to watching the show. You've sat in my lap a dozen of times when I braided your hair," Draco suggested and grinned at Harry, watching the man before him blush shyly. It was very amusing, to be honest.

"But you said you won't braid my hair."

"You can always pretend that I am,"Draco snorted and then watched as Harry reluctantly made his way toward him. He carefully placed his butt in between Draco's legs and slowly let his back fall against Draco's chest. Harry wondered if Draco could feel his rapid heartbeat against him and realising that it's very likely that he could made his heart accelerate even more in embarrassment but also in some kind of strange excitement.

It took Harry about half an hour to completly relax against Draco's body. He finally let his hands fall against Draco's thighs and he moved his head to lay more comfortably against Draco's chest (which was surprisingly firm for a librarian). They were just starting another episode when Draco stretched and then softly put his hands into Harry's curls. Harry stiffened.

"Are you gonna braid it after all?", Harry glanced at him nervously, already feeling his breath quickening. He forced himself to relax again when Draco's fingers started to slowly comb through his hair, brushing against his scalp from time to time.

"Noup," Draco almost laughed when he popped the 'p'. He then really laughed because he never thought that he would be that person that pops the 'p's. Even if it happened only this one time, it was the most obnoxious thing he'd ever done in his short life - and that was saying something.

Eventually, Harry closed his eyes and yawned, not even realising how relaxed he became ever since Draco started playing with his hair. Draco hummed in amusement as Harry shifted in his lap and closed his eyes to fall asleep. Draco smiled and continued to twist the strands of hair between his fingers, massaging Harry's head and dragging his hands through Harry's thick curls.

The sounds of the show became distant after a while and Draco lowered himself, laying his head in the pillows he had gathered before. He yawned, wrapped his arms around Harry's sleeping form that somehow looked so fragile in the warm darkness of their living room, and turned off the TV.

Draco closed his eyes and with the gentle beating of Harry's heart and his slow breathing, he fell asleep.

Chapter Text

The sound seemed to have come from the living room - the sound of breaking glass, perhaps a vase or a glass or a bowl? The type of a dish that has been broken wasn't really of significance but what was, was the fact that Harry was wide awake, with his right hand tightly clutched around his wand and his ear pressed against his door, waiting for any kind of sound that might indicate that his flat was not a location of a random poltergeist visit.

A string of curses, careful tapping of footsteps and, what appeared to be, that same glass scraping along the floor made him release a breath he didn't realise he was holding. He slowly cracked his door open, just an inch or so, peaking through to see a rather annoyed blond pushing pieces of glass towards the trash bin. Harry smirked and made his way towards Draco.

He waved his wand and all of the glass pieced obediently flew into the bin. With one more swish, a wet stain on the floor disappeared and Harry finally looked up at Draco. Malfoy was frowning slightly but when their eyes met, there was more nervousness than annoyance or anger.

"I'm sorry I woke you up," Draco said and crossed his arms over his chest, his shoulders slumped in a tired position. 

"It's okay," Harry cracked a smiled and waved dismissively. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Draco nodded quickly, avoiding Harry's eyes. "I just couldn't sleep... Thought that lemonade could help but-" He shrugged and tried to smile but it was obviously too forced to look sincere. He frowned again.

"But it can't help if it's spilt."

"There's more in the fridge - I just dropped one glass," he stopped like he wanted to say something more but wasn't quite certain it was a good idea. Draco started biting his lips, his eyes moving over all the notes, postcards and magnets on the fridge. Photos of Harry's friends at sunny places, laughing, happy... Photos of places he had never been to... notes saying that they need to buy more eggs, maybe some fruit? Magnets in all colours you could imagine, some with glitter on them, some without... Harry didn't say anything at first but just as he opened his mouth, Draco looked back at him and with hesitancy lacing his voice, asked, "Would you, um... like to join me?"

"In what? Breaking glasses of lemonade?", Harry giggled and Draco watched him with some confusion before shaking his head.

"No, I was, I couldn't sleep and you know how there next to the balcony we have like a ladder to the roof? You know like a fire exit or something? Well, the roof's quite nice at this time of the day - or night," Draco smiled shyly. "You can see half the city and there are some plants so it's not that particularly lonely... And you can lay back, and just let your eyes wander towards the skies and you just..." There was nothing but pure emotion I his eyes and somewhere in the middle of it all Draco's gripped Harry's forearm and suddenly, surprisingly they were so close that Harry could feel Draco's quick breath on his lips.

"You just what?", Harry whispered, his eyes not leaving Draco's. Draco shivered at the proximity, the whisper, everything! The need he had for kissing Harry was utterly overwhelming and he knew that it was too late to kiss him now! It was too dark outside and Harry was too close and he was so, so terribly tired - he would ruin anything. Draco almost jumped back, startling Harry. He leaned against the sink and took a shaky breath.

"You just... watch the stars," Draco looked up and the fear of Harry laughing at him was pilling up in his gut. But... Harry didn't say anything. He didn't do anything. He didn't laugh or nod or talk, nothing but... Draco pressed his lips together when Harry turned and started walking back to his room. 

It wasn't even a sound, a plea that escaped Draco then and he was stepping forward, his heart beating hard. He couldn't let Harry leave - he didn't know why but it was crucial for him to be here with Draco at that very moment. "Please, Harry!", he cried, not caring if it made him look like an unstable dumbass. "Don't leave... please."

They were nearly five steps apart and Harry looked back, a small smile on his face as he promised, "I'm not leaving you. I'm just leaving my wand in my room. You don't have yours, do you?"

Draco shook his head and then turned around and went to the fridge. His hands were shaking as he poured the lemonade into two glasses. The glass was cold against his skin; it helped with the nervous heat spreading all over his body. Harry's footsteps seemed softer when he returned and it took nothing more than a glance at his feet for Darco to see the reason behind it. Harry was wearing thick woollen socks without slippers of shoes of any kind. There was still sleep in Harry's eyes; Draco could see the tiredness all over his face. 

Draco clenched the glasses harder, speaking up, his eyes apologetic and a hint of an awkward smile on his lips. "You don't, don't really have to come. I'm sorry I woke you up, I didn't mean to." He went quiet again and he could feel Harry's burning gaze upon his head.

"I want to come up with you, though," Harry admitted and tilted his head. He took a step closer and soon, his hand was wrapped around one of the glasses, his fingers unusually warm against Draco's. "Wanna go and watch the stars with me?" he asked and bit his lip, taking one of the glasses and then a step back. He then added, after a moment, "Please?"

Draco sighed and finally looked up. Without saying anything he walked towards the balcony door which was still open considering he'd come through them only mere minutes ago. He turned his back towards the railing from which still hung some plastic pots with dry flowers and plants in them. "Alright," he nodded and jumped to a red ladder attached to the wall.

He climbed as fast as he could in order to avoid the embarrassment of looking down at Harry who was only a few steps behind him. When he finally had his feet steady on the gravelled rooftop, he sighed and grabbed his lemonade glass which was helpfully levitating right next to him. It was one of the few charms he could actually perform wandlessly and he had to admit that it served it's purpose rather well.

Harry came to stand next to him and the first thing he did was drink half of his juice. After that, he took a few steps forward looking around at the trees below him and the empty rooftops of other houses around them and the blurry lights of the main streets glowing slightly in the distance. Since their building was on a slight hill on the outskirts of London, they had a nice view of the rest of the city's branches that were growing all around them like weeds. 

It was nice up there, with the cool air brushing through their hair and the lights in the distance and crunchy sounds of gravel every time either of them moved. Harry started to regret his choice of wearing only socks since every step was followed by an uncomfortable feeling of numb pain because of walking on the rough texture of the roof, but his worries came to the end when Draco noticed the grimaces on his face. 

"Cast yourself some cushioning charms," Draco suggested and Harry glanced at him before twisting his fingers towards his feet. 

"Thanks," Harry smiled a bit before dropping his gaze on a pile of pots and biggers rocks as well as some dirt and a teared up piece of what seemed to used to be an apron. In three of the bigger pots, there was something more than dirt. Three beautifully green tomato plants were growing in all directions forming what looked like almost bushes of leaves and flowers, sometimes even small green balls of what would hopefully become a tomato one day.

"Tomatoes weren't there when I've last been here," Harry commented and turned back to Draco who shrugged and blushed softly. 

"I found them at the market some time ago and decided to give it a try. And since I come here pretty often, there's always time to take care of them."

"You come up here often?", Harry furrowed his eyebrows a small tinge of bitter concern churning in his stomach. He didn't know why his mind didn't believe Draco would come up here during the day. But he did know that if Draco came up here at night regularly enough to take care of such demanding vegetables like tomatoes, he didn't sleep all that much as Harry used to think he did.

Draco shrugged again and sipped a bit of lemonade. "Every other night... At first, I thought it was just my body adjusting to the new environment but after so long... I think I just have a mild case of insomnia." He tried to laugh but when Harry didn't smile back he turned towards the southeast where the moon was shining at him against the clear sky. It really was clear, it's been like that for a couple of days now and it was almost faith - like the clouds knew the two of them were going to end up looking at the stars one day or the other.

Draco felt like there was more to it, it was simply difficult to explain why this rooftop felt so different with Harry walking across it. It was just Harry and just Draco limited by the edges of the gravel and the infinity of the sky. Just them and the soft hum of anticipation, just like the one you feel crackling in the sky before a thunderstorm or in your car while driving to the beach. Draco almost felt worried that it was only him that was all wrapped up in an itchy uncertainty of the future, and then he caught Harry's eyes and recognised that really, confusion and some shape of longing were buried deep in his eyes as well.

"That's Mars," Draco announced suddenly, pointing his finger at the unblinking yellowish dot right below the moon and slightly to the right. "It hasn't been close in many, many years."

"Is that so?"

"It is," Draco smiled, and Harry watched him for a second, two, three...

"Do you think it would be easier to run away to Mars now? Because it's closer?", Harry asked, curious but his sigh making it seem melancholic. 

"You can't run away to Mars! Not now or ever! That's not possible - haven't you been listening to your Astronomy lesson?"

"Maybe you can't," Harry shrugged and pushed his hands into the pockets of his joggers. "But I could if I wanted. All I would need is a rocket and a friend so I wouldn't be lonely..."

"You're crazy."

"Why?"

"Rockets are dangerous; Mars is dangerous-"

"Living is dangerous!", Harry laughed and turned his body towards Draco. He put his hands on Draco's forearm holding him close, his eyes glistening in desperation too close to what seemed like insanity.

"Imagine if we were on Mars." Harry's eyes flickered towards the shining dot in the sky. "Just the two of us. The whole planet would be ours."

"This whole rooftop could be just ours," Draco said, hesitantly and tried to take a step back from Harry but Potter followed him, closely, his grip on the blond tightening. "It could be our Mars."

Harry hummed and nodded, letting go of Draco who suddenly didn't feel the need to step back. Harry was calm and that made Malfoy feel safe and comfortable in such close proximity to him. They were looking at each other, Potter a bit restless. "I would just need my guitar," he whispered, so soft that Draco could barely hear it. His voice seemed to echo in hums around them. 

"Why?" Draco dropped his gaze to Harry's hands that were bumping into Draco's every time Harry bounced on the heels of his feet. Harry followed his eyes and then back up, his body now completely still. 

"So you can sing with me," Harry explained with an almost childish giggle making Draco's question ridiculous, unnecessary. The answer was truly an obvious one.

"Why?", Draco asked again, his words weak, pleading, begging not to come out. He wanted to sing but it was Harry and he'd never sung for anyone but his mother before. And it was his brain, after all, mixing every thought that he'd ever had about Potter and it was all his overthinking. Somehow, somewhere in his brain, a thought occurred. 'If I sing for Harry, it won't be the same. It couldn't be because... Because singing was something special. And Harry was special. And my feeling for Harry would become too complicated.'

"Why? Why? Because! Because, Malfoy! If we were on Mars -" Harry opened his arms in exasperation and then hugged Draco's quickly before pulling away. He took a hold of Draco's shoulders and then turned him towards the moon, towards Mars. "- You would really be the biggest star. Bigger than the Sun itself! So big, so, so big, so shiny with your voice and your hair and your mind..."

He stopped to take a big breath and took a step back to take a good look at Draco's face. He lifted his hand slightly like he wanted to touch Draco again but then he let it fall with a sigh. "Can't you see how bright you shine? The brightest light in my life."

"That's not true." Draco shook his head quickly. "That's not true, Harry."

"Oh, but it is, dear friend," Harry cried. "It is completely true. True. True. True. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine."

"P-potter," Draco gasped and closed his eyes. "Are you drunk; have you been drinking?"

"Perhaps," Harry giggled. "Haven't you?"

"No."

"Me neither."

"Then why are you acting like this?"

"It's because of the stars, and because of the moon. Especially because of Mars," Harry sighed and dropped to the floor. He groaned at the impact of the gravel on his thighs and cast a cushioning charm on the entire floor. "Because of the rooftop." He caught Draco's eyes, all the way up there, bright like the stars behind him. Draco was frowning and tapping his foot nervously before deciding to sit down as well. Harry held Draco's eyes with his for a moment before letting his body relax completely against the gravel. His eyes were staring at the sky and the moon and Mars were somewhere in his peripheral vision. He crossed his arms over his chest and his legs over each other. All the ecstatic energy that was pumping relentlessly through Harry's veins was now gone. There was only silence, only calm... only them.

"It makes me feel all limitless and free. Don't you feel that way, too? Like you're on the top of the world as long as this gravel is beneath your feet?" Draco shrugged and Harry continued, even lower, like he was talking to the breeze above them and not to an actual person. "I haven't felt this free in so long, Draco. It's almost like you've made me see my freedom."

"Well," Draco started, bitterly. "I'm glad my insomnia is helping you."

"Oh, Draco -"

"Don't you Draco me." Draco sat up and rubbed his eyes with his palms. They were itchy and dropping and tired. He just wanted to sleep. Nothing about watching the stars with Harry was supposed to lead him into questioning everything he once thought was stable. But then again, maybe that was the point after all. That thought scared Draco and he sat there quiet, with his eyes closed, uncertain of how to proceed. "We don't know each other."

"And when are we going to know each other?" 

There was pain in Harry's voice - the pain of disbelief and Draco couldn't bring himself to look at him. Harry was right, of course, it was so clear in his question. 'Why don't we know each other when we do?' But it was just one of those things Draco didn't dare to do. He didn't dare to know Harry Potter and yet everything he did was to achieve the opposite of his "goal" of not knowing Harry. He was scared that Harry will just dump him on the pile of his friends and pretend like he loves him just like other when really, Harry had too much love; Harry didn't know how to love everyone the way they deserved. 

"It seems like you always have that same, lame excuse and yet -" Harry sat up and placed his warm palm on Draco's shoulder. It felt too hot, burning, but Draco didn't move away. It felt like the heat was one of the ways Harry loved. "- and yet, I do know you."

Harry knew him. And he knew Harry. He did know him. Because how could he not? After meeting him on one of the stools at Madam Malkin's, after talking to him over punch the Yule ball and before that, after watching Harry in the corridors, by the lake, at the Tournament Tasks? After moving in with him, drinking so much tea and even more wine together, after eating his food after sharing living space, after hearing him play the guitar, after spoiling Doctor Who to him, after watching Doctor Who with him. After braiding his hair, after walking with him in the late hours of the night, after getting a cat together, after laughing with him, after sleeping next to him.

How could he not know Harry, after laying his eyes upon him?

"I know you Draco," Harry said again, staring back at him. "I know the way you take your tea, and how much salt you like in your average soup, what you like about Doctor Who, and what books you absolutely hate, what hair products do you use when you shower and, what clothes you wear when you are completely comfortable. I know how you smile and I love the way you laugh, I know how you cry because I hear you sometimes at night just as you hear me from time to time. I know how you sing." With a pop, Harry is suddenly gone and Draco is left to sit alone on the rooftop beneath the stars. 

A moment and a pop late, Harry is standing, wobbly on his feet a guitar hanging on his shoulder and he's sitting down again, closer than before. He leans towards Draco, so close that the loose curls of his hair are tickling Draco's jaw. "And you, you sing beautifully."

Harry's lips almost kiss Draco's neck before he sits upright and glances at Draco, adjusting his instrument against his thigh. "Sing with me."

"No," Draco replies, firmly.

"Why not?"

"Because there's no use," Draco mumbles and lays back down. Harry smiles slightly and drags his fingers across the strings, experimentally.

"But there is," he says calmly. "We are here, on this rooftop. As you watch the stars, the whole universe is your audience; You are the brightest star of them all. So sing. Sing for me. Only for me with the whole sky watching. Just for me."

Draco's heart beats hard as he pulls himself up. He closes his eyes and imagines the stars gliding across the sky in unexplainable speed. He can feel the heat of Harry right next to him and their knees are touch in the slightest of ways. He opens his eyes and glances at Potter one last time before parting his lips and letting the tune fill the air. 

"Stars shining bright above you..." The stars were blinking over their head as Harry started to follow his singing. His voice was somewhat hoarse as he sung with the moonlight tangled in his pale hair. 

"Night breezes seem to whisper 'I love you'..." The wind was barely existent but it still made their shirts move in the soft dances, fluttering around their torsos. Draco tried not to think about anything but the melody, the lullaby he was singing. He tried not to think about the fondness he came to feel about Harry over the last couple of months. He tried to ignore the breeze which made his thoughts swirls around him and Harry.

"Birds singing in the sycamore tree..." Draco took a breath and finally dared to look at Harry's shining eyes. Harry was almost gaping at the blond because how hadn't he realised the angelic way in which Draco's voice carried across the rooftops? It was pure magic, listening to Draco sing without water and nervousness and clutter of shampoo bottles that muffled the singing. 

Harry's fingers slowed on the guitar as Draco's voice stopped between them. They watched each other, scared o move their eyes onto anything else. The wood under Harry's arms was uncomfortable and he didn't even notice his fingers moving to play another cord. Draco blinked and turned his gaze to the gravel. "Dream a little dream of me..."

"Say nighty-night and kiss me..." Draco closed his eyes and thought about Harry's arms wrapped up around his body again, his mind slipping over Harry's sleeping face, over Harry smile, over Harry's lips at which Draco stared ever so often.

"Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me..." Draco wondered if Harry would have to tell him he'd missed him. He was certain, nothing in this world would manage to help Draco if Harry left him. If Draco was forced to live without him, he wouldn't believe in life anymore.

"While I'm alone and blue as can be..." The soft notes of the guitar intertwined with Draco's vibrato as he found Harry's eyes again, more confident than before. "Dream a little dream of me."

"Stars fading, but I linger on dear, still craving your -"

"Kiss," Harry finished, with a grin, holding Draco's gaze before Draco looked away and continued the song. "I'm longing to linger 'till dawn, dear, just saying... this."

"You really do sing beautifully," Harry said, taking off his guitar and Draco shook his head in amusement, his cheeks in a pale blush.

"But it doesn't matter."

"What doesn't?"

"Any of this! The singing! The guitar playing! The stars watching... It's all meaningless," Draco sighed and laid down, his forearm covering his eyes.

"What would give it meaning?" Harry laid down next to him and when Draco put his hand down to look at him, Harry gently tangled their pinkies together. Draco tried to move his hand but when Harry's only tightened his hold, he sighed and give up.

"It would get meaning if you understood."

"Understood what?"

"Me."

"The way you understand me?", Harry turned his head towards Draco who laughed.

"I don't understand you, Potter. It will be quite a while before I start understanding you and even longer before I can say I truly understand every aspect of you."

Harry didn't say anything at first, just sighed and rolled over so his head was laid right over Draco's heart. Malfoy froze, not knowing if he should just push Harry away or let him lay on him. The last time they were laying like this was the night they fell asleep on the couch And although Draco actually enjoyed having Harry all wrapped around him and sleeping without a worry in the world, he wouldn't like to repeat the week of awkwardness that followed when they woke up and realised they ended up completely tangled into each other, Harry's face nuzzled into Draco's neck and Draco's arms holding tightly around Harry's waist.

"I hope you will stay with me until you do really understand me," Harry muttered against Draco's shirt. "It would be nice having someone like that."

"It would," Draco agreed, his words carried above the rooftops of the still asleep city, they tangled into the branches of early apples. He glanced at Harry. Potter's eyes were close behind his crooked glasses, his face pressing into Draco's chest unlike Malfoy's who was watching the stars. They were beautiful - the stars. And Harry - Harry was also beautiful, his olive skin shining in the soft moonlight, gentle touches of pink on his cheeks. 

Harry's guitar was left on the floor a foot or so away from them, Draco's back was aching from laying on the floor for so long despite the cushioning charm Harry had placed on earlier, their glasses were empty, nothing but pale blotches of lemon left on the walls of glass.

The air was quiet but Draco could hear Harry humming, almost too quietly to really make a noise, to really be heard. It would be nice if he could stay up here, limitless and free and so bright, longing for dawn to never come and for Harry's arms to always be wrapped up around him. 

He looked to his left and caught the sight of the moon it was casting a light glow over the roofs. It was weird how with soft melodies still hanging low around them, the stars blinking shyly above them and the moonlight filling them with calm, he could see his love clearly and perfectly and purely for the first time in a long time. It was almost like Harry helped him saw his love just like he helped Harry see his freedom.

He smiled and wrapped his arms around Harry's waist, pulling him closer. He could see Harry's blush deepening as he tried not to smile. He really was very fond of Harry. He fancied him more than he used to think he did. He didn't dare to say it out loud but in the safety of his mind, with the wind stroking his hair, he might even admit to himself that he could grow to truly love Harry one day. 'One day,' he thought. 'One day I'll understand you completely. And one day, I'll know that I love you."

There on the rooftop, in the darkest of nights, right before dawn began to break, their thoughts were one and the same.

.o0o.

The train was late. Draco was left shivering on the platform with ten minutes of numbing quiet. The continues tapping of his foot only makes his more restless, more nervous and annoyed by the delay. If any of it took any longer, the whole plan he'd made for the day will need some extreme edits which will most likely take more thought that he was willing to give. 

He drags his fingers through his hair, pulling a couple of stray strands away from his face and huffs in annoyance, once again pushing his sleeve up to check on the watch on his wrist. The whole point of this ridiculous train ride was for him to have some piece to write or read which would end up in him being completely calm and collected when meeting his mother later that day. The ride itself would take just over three hours and with a good train like the early one Draco had picked it should be just what he needed in life. A bit of alone time which couldn't be interrupted by anything in particular.

A rogue page of yesterday's newspaper was chased by the wind like a pigeon with wings fluttering with feathers of rhetoric and melodrama. Draco huffed at the filthiness of the entire station. He could wait to get to Malfoy's estate on the shores of Devon where everything would finally be in order after so many years. After his father's death, his mother closed off the big portion of the Manor, leaving open only the entrance hall as well as the ground floor library which were used as a museum of sorts for pre-organised groups of Hogwarts students who had shown bigger interest in the Second Wizarding War after learning about it in History of Magic. Narcissa Malfoy currently lived in their summer residence which was surprisingly small considering the owners. 

The raucous, metallic shriek heralds the arrival of the decrepit carriage, standing in defiance of its condition - all corroded iron and tacky upholstery. The doors reluctantly ease open with the force of a stocky station guard, as if gripped by age, the handles stiff with arthritis. Draco groans at the state of the vehicle but still manages to settle into a generous elbow room and a guaranteed window seat all to himself. The train takes a plunge, inching forward at an excruciating pace. It rocks back and forth, its relentless whining and groaning comparable to a resident of any nursing home.  

Once he is sure that the train will not randomly combust and leave him alone in the middle of nowhere, with no one but the train operator who was most likely some grumpy old man with low salary, Draco takes off his jacket, hangs it over one of the racks above the seat opposite of him and takes out his book. 

He was currently barely a chapter into Giovanni's room which was his aunt Andy's gift to him when he'd showed up from lunch with his first official boyfriend. And wasn't that a whole ordeal... To be honest, Draco was more surprised by his aunt's lack of surprise, than his aunt was surprised by him being gay. "Oh, dear boy, all of us had their acts of rebellion. Everyone has to have an act of rebellion. And sometimes, some rebellions are more permanent than others," she told him while the two of them were getting a strawberry sponge from the kitchen. 

He remembered not answering but for a good reason. Even now, he didn't know if he agreed. Was his homosexuality simply a way of rebelling against his father? Would he, if he found a proper woman, be able to truly love a girl the way every girl deserved to be loved? Are his unnatural desires only an act he's been putting on for years so he could be seen as something more than simply Lucius' son?

Just as he was getting up to open the window in his desperate attempts to push those thoughts away there came soft knocking on the door of his cabin. It must've been someone from the station they'd just passed because Draco could swear that the train was empty beforehand. He pushed the window down and enjoyed the swirls of cold air twist around his body, before turning to face the person at the door. 

He groaned, wanting nothing more than to pitch himself through the same window he had just opened. The doors slid opened and Harry Potter came strutting in with a cheeky grin. He plopped down next to Draco's hanging jacket and crossed his legs, dropping the bag he was carrying over his shoulder onto the floor next to his feet.

"Why are you here, Potter?", Draco glared at him with clear annoyance. It was supposed to be a peaceful ride.

"Everywhere else was full?", Harry shrugged and took out his phone to play with the buttons.

"No, it wasn't! And I meant, why are you here now?"

"Because I missed my train in London so I had to apparate to the station the train was passing by soon so I only managed to get on now."

"Why are you on this train? Why are you going to Devon? And since when are you apparating again?" Draco threw his arms in the air and his arse on the seat. He put one of his legs over the other and frowned at Potter who looked at complete ease considering the fact that he never usually woke up before ten in the morning and now the sun has barely risen.

"I'm on this train because I'm going to Devon," Harry rolled his eyes and turned so his back was leaned against the window. He was quite warm and the chilly glass was just what he needed. "I'm going to Devon because George called and asked for my help with some new products he was working on despite everyone telling him to actually rest since he has a cold and is supposed to be resting and such. And I'm not apparating - if I were, I wouldn't be on this train. I just hop from one near place to the other when there's no such rush."

"First of all, you're a moron. Second of all, find another cabin. Third of all, no - you can't have an eclair or two!" Draco snatched the basket Harry was already bringing into his lap and glared at him once more. 

"Don't you want to understand me? Didn't you say something like that, that night at the roof?", Harry looked up at him with a sort of a poor imitation of the puppy eyes. "And eclair or two would help! And also not kicking me out of your cabin. Everywhere else is boring..."

"That's because there's no one to bother everywhere else. Now out, you're bothering me. I'm supposed to be reading." Draco continued to glare at Potter until he sighed and put his head in his hands, rubbing his eyes.

"I won't bother you, I promise," He mumbled into the heels of his palms. Draco was still glaring at him, his lips pressed together in the annoyed gesture.

"Fine," he said, flatly and opened the book in front of his face. Harry's eyes gleamed with satisfaction. A few minutes passed in silence and Draco nearly began to believe Harry is actually going to fulfil his promise of not bothering him.

"What are you reading?", Harry chimed, standing up. Draco glanced up at him and tapped the front cover twice. Harry leaned down and mouthed the title. "Oh! What's it ab-"

Draco tapped the back cover with his finger and flipped the page while Harry was reading the summery. 

"Is it any good?" Harry sat back down and leaned forward, resting his head on his arms against his knees. Draco put the book down with an annoyed huff and then glared at Harry before speaking. "I wouldn't know because you keep interrupting my reading."

"I'm sorry," Harry lowered his eyes and sat back like a wet puppy. "I just... I wouldn't have guessed you read those sort of books since you usually read all those Starlos Blight and Sherlock Holmes stuff."

"This was a gift and it's been sitting on my shelf for too long," Draco responded flatly.

"It's nice you decided to read it then... Who is it from?", Harry asked, curiously. It was around that time that Draco pushed the book back into his pocket after reducing its size and took out what seemed to be a miniaturized notebook of sorts. he placed the notebook next to him and he crossed his arms over his chest looking up at Harry.

"It was a coming out gift from my aunt Andromeda whom I suppose you've met."

"Yeah, I've met her but she didn't give me a book when I came out to her." Harry laughed and Draco grinned following him. 

"What did she give you?", Draco asked and pulled out an apple from one of his jacket pockets. 

"The Talk," Harry cringed and went to fish out his ticket when the ticket collector opened their door. Draco laughed shortly and offered his already prepared, ticket to the man. After the man was gone, and Harry and Draco were left alone again, Draco pulled the notebook and brought it back into its normal size before storing his ticket between the pages.

"Is that your diary?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Potter," Draco scoffed. "I don't have a diary. This is a... well, a journal of sorts."

"May I see?", Potter appeared on the seat next to Draco and Draco jumped to his left, his arm extended as far as he could so Harry wouldn't be able to reach the notebook. He was ready to run across the train if it was necessary. "Please!"

"No! It's personal!"

"We live together - nothing is personal."

"Some things are. There always have to be a personal thing because if there isn't then the relationship - platonic or otherwise - will simply be toxic," Draco corrected and got to his feet when Harry reached over him to grab the notebook. 

"Oh, come on! I'm sure it's not that bad! Unless you have some serial killer plans in there, it's not that bad," Harry shrugged and then ran up to Draco who was stupidly caught between Harry and the wall of the cabin. "May I see?"

"It's a violation of privacy!"

"I'll tickle you." Harry's hands suddenly appeared on Draco's waist; he shivered at the proximity and stood on his tiptoes to get the book even higher. 

"Don't tickle me! I swear, Potter. If you move those fingers -"

"You'll what? Throw me off the train?" Harry laughed and quickly dragged his hands up and down Draco's sides. 

"I'll read you my disgusting poetry and hex you so you are forced to listen to it!" Draco screamed and tried to wiggle his way out of Harr's arms. Then there was silence and Harry stared at him, his hands completely motionless on top of Draco's thighs.

"You're a poet." It wasn't a question but the statement was filled with pure surprise, an awe of sorts. Harry stepped back and found himself sitting back looking intently at the blond who rolled his eyes and opened the notebook a bookmarked page. His voice carried as he read: 

"Our days just fade and swirl 

like blurry, shineless clouds;

life for eternity prolonged

filled with empty, black affairs. -

Our days like black gorges

into black abysses are crashed.

Our days - our chains, bonds of our soul. -

Our days morbidly screaming,

like some frail strings.

Our days, our battlefield,

days of us - our bright rebellions."

"Did you really write that?", Harry asked, amazed, his eyes shining in pure admiration. 

"I didn't know you like poetry, Potter," Draco smirked and Harry rolled his eyes, asking if he could maybe, read him some more. Draco sat down and turned a couple of pages before he found a shorter poem called 'Solitude'.

"feasts are gone, mad games, tones, stunning dreams and bright triumphs

all the lights die. we are left alone, in our smoke, in raw darkness

we reach out. where are we? ennui spills murk. Oh, the stinging eyes

how our bodies are beaten by swamp reed, wet shrubbery, thorns.

and who knows, where those paths lead us: into the abyss or to clouds of freedom?"

"The next one is fairly new so it was not edited as much," Draco cleared his throat. "I wrote it the day before yesterday. It's named 'Fog' because I couldn't see the moon that night on the rooftop."

"I wake at night, troubled, choking. Like a dead star falling through the night.

snake dreams beat me and rise, whips of reality close

the window view: the dark sea is threatening, darkness mocks me, lights avenges.

the dream is my butcher, reality deserted havoc. Bloody mouth. Thick blood fog."

"You're a poet," Harry said again in disbelief, at a loss of words. He was sitting with his mouth gaping open, begging for any wors to come out but Harry could only stare at Malfoy who was hiding his eyes by staring at the tattered edge of the notebook he was holding.

"I'm an artist," Draco murmured and reduced the notebook to a size of his nail before shoving it into his jacket pocket and zipping it up. "That's what my mother used to say when I was a kid."

"You wrote more often when you were little?"

"Not wrote exactly... I loved to paint and draw - there wasn't a better gift than authentic paints from Provence. I sang a lot - the whole Manor would echo in Christmas songs even though it was the middle of July; I only knew Christmas songs because that's the only party I was allowed to attend. I was thought how to play the piano but was more fond of smashing the keyboards randomly to get an original composition than following what was written on the parchment. I liked all kinds of art and saying that I'm simply a painter or a poet wouldn't give me justice," Draco explained and moved closer to the window so he could see the flowery fields bathing in the early morning sun as the train went on.

"I think that's great," Harry nodded and then shrugged. "That you could express yourself in any way you wanted. I didn't really have that as a kid since, um, my aunt and uncle were kinda strict."

"They were muggles, right?" Draco glanced at him. Harry fiddled in his seat, avoiding Draco's eyes.

"Yeah, um, not the best muggles out there... But I guess it was supposed to be like that," Harry shrugged and started to pick at the loose pieces of wool that were sticking from the bottom of his jumper. 

"Like what?", Draco's eyebrows furrowed and he turned to Harry slowly, worry filling up his ribcage.

"Well they, they were... um, kinda abusive? It's really not something I like to talk about and It was a long time ago and I don't really bother people with it since, you know... I'm still alive and well, I guess..." Harry scratched the back of his neck and then hesitantly looked up at Draco. "They basically treated me like a slave, starved me, beat me and I had to live in a cupboard until I was eleven and I got proof that I knew my magic so I could threaten them with it. They put bars on my windows and most of the times I lived on cake and sugar cookies I managed to hide into my room and which I got for my birthday. I hated the summer holidays because the environment in which I spent it was inhumane. The only thing I had was my owl and my old neighbour that was a squib - they were the only thing that actually kept me sane during those three months."

Draco was quiet but Harry could almost hear his thoughts rushing and his heart pounding against his chest. His face was passive in a very forced, wax-like way and he didn't look at Harry.

"Why did you stay there? Why not run away? Why weren't you given up for adoption to literally any wizarding family?", Draco finally spat out, his gaze still fixed onto the stained glass of the window. 

"There was this magic in that house - it kept Voldemort from finding me," Harry replied and took a shaky breath. "It was for the greater good."

"Of course, it was," Draco scoffed. "I wish you hadn't told me that because..."

"Because now you won't be able to look at me the same way," Harry nodded. "It's okay... That's why I don't -"

"Because it's not fair, because you don't deserve the way you were treated your whole life. Look at me in the eyes and tell me that you weren't affected by any of it," Draco moved so he was sitting directly across from Harry, their eyes opposite of each other. "I don't even know you, and I wish you hadn't told me. Because now I have to live with the fact that I can't simply march up to those bastards doors and kill them to torture them in cold blood."

"You could theoretically do that," Harry tried to smile but failed and instead continued to stare into his hands. 

"I could. But I've spent all these years trying not to be my father. And although killing someone because of they hurt someone I care about would be far more empathic than anything Lucis had ever done but it would still be murder and I don't want to die in Azkaban like my incompetent father."

"Your father died in prison?"

"Yes, got a problem with that?", Draco snapped a bit harsher than necessary.

"No, I just..." Harry chuckled. "I just don't believe you write poems."

"You just saw proof, Harry," Draco chuckled as well and then rubbed his eyes. "And like, everyone who reads - writes. Everyone."

"That's false! Hermione is, like, the most well-read person I've ever met and she doesn't write," Harry argue and threw his arms in the air for dramatic effect.

"Are you kidding me? She's been working on your biography for a year and a half!" Draco laughed at Harry's shocked face.

"Without telling me?" Harry mumbled.

"Well, I don't think she was really into keeping it a secret? I think she thinks you know? But her and Lovegood have been co-writing it since like January of 2002. And they are adding a lot of bullshit and fantastical elements into it from what I've managed to read; not like too much but the right amount so the readers won't know what's true and what isn't.," Draco grinned when Harry just continued to stare at him blankly. "My favourite part of it so far is an entire chapter of you have an existential crisis in the owlery during your first year - it's absolutely hilarious."

"All of three of you are crazy," Harry stated, nodding his head frantically and furiously typing a message for Hermione to confirm Draco's statements. 

"Eh, I don't know about that, mate," Draco grinned and ruffled his blonde hair. "You should see what Ron's doing with his chocolate frog cards."

Chapter Text

When Draco first stepped through the back door of his mother's pantry and entered the field behind the house which Narcissa has taken under her wing and decided to simply plant some roses, his first thought was that it looked strikingly similar to the old garden back at the Manor that was now neglected, forgotten, and filled with shadows.

It could be described as a formal garden with its style an almost exact copy of his mother's inspiration. The bonsai trees were lining the perfect lawn in their wooden boxed. Between the boxes, bushes of red roses were filling the blanks. In the centre, there was a pond as large as a small lake with flowering lily pads and a wooden bridge that crossed the middle so you could look down and the flowers and the calm waters with floating flower petals carried by the wind. The flower beds were a riot of July colour and even on close inspection, they were weed-free.

Draco felt a tinge of disappointment in the middle of his chest, the dreams of a relaxed, spontaneous garden with imperfect pathways and irregular layout of flower bushes, with small trees spreading their branches to the south and west and north and east, making petite shadows with the sun glowing through their pale, young leaves. He stepped on the soft grass that shone in such a green it almost looked painted and walked along the stone pathway, his eyes following blooming rosebuds, trying to find a comfortable place to sit and write, let his mind drift away.

He was about to give up, but then he cursed himself for doubting his mother. It was Narcissa after all and maybe the garden looked formal and on the highest standard on the first glance, just like she looked cold and collected, but when you got to know her, truly know her, when you walked deeper into the garden, all the way to the back where the hazelnut and wild apple trees formed a thicket, you could see a gate of rough wood as big as a cow. There was ivy cascading over the simple, black metal fence, growing tendrils in every direction.

Draco grinned to himself and pushed through the branches following the path that was now punctuated with weeds after every stone. The perfect, magically enhanced grass was now replaced by dishevelled, un-manicured lawn that was more moss that grass and the aesthetically pleasing trees with soft, pale blossoms disappeared due to the dank, squishy ground that formed a stream falling into a natural pool of water under a higher ground formed from strong, intertwined roots of a weeping willow. The willows flowing hair was over-shadowing the pond and danced with the soft sunny breeze and when Draco came nearer to the tree he noticed that under the treetop there was a cluster of soft grass and gentle daisies and smatterings of dwarf cinquefoils that branched out through the grass.

He pulled a handkerchief out the back pocket of his jeans and transformed it into a shabby looking, checkered blanket which flew to the high position under the willow with nothing more than a swish of a wand. He walked over and crossed his legs, sitting down. There was a pencil behind his ear, keeping some golden locks from wandering into his eyes and he pulled it out and put it next to his thigh, simultaneously founding an inch by inch block of paper which he enlarged to its proper size of his poetry notebook.

Leaning to the edge of the blanket he picked one of the yellows flowers and stuck it to the page of his journal with a touch of magic. He found his pencil between the blanket folds that appeared as soon as he sat down and began sketching the petals and the pistil, his thoughts drifting off to sweet memories of his childhood, years before anyone even thought of a new war.

He remembered the sweet moments of first buds on the wild cherries in his mothers old garden, of golden daffodil heads and crocuses in their violet gentleness. He could almost feel the heavy joy of nostalgia when feelings of his five-year-old-self emerged from the back of his consciousness. He remembered how after long winters of bare gardens and then the heavy rains and biting sun, gentle spring breezes would come and fluffy clouds that filled the periwinkle skies and against the backdrop of soft, pastel greens of young, fragile leaves and grass, there were budding flowers of fuschia and hot red and burning orange and blushing pink and warm, shining yellow.

He could almost feel the crisp fresh air of early mornings when he would poke his head through the wide windows in his mother's sitting room, his eyes shining in excitement as he finally, finally saw those piercing white petals of wild daisies and snowdrops.

"What is it, darling?", Narcissa would ask him with a knowing little smile, already pushing a bookmark between the pages of a book she had previously been reading.

"It's the flowers, mum! They have buds!", Draco would beam, mesmerised as though he didn't spend all the spring and summer days with his head between the flowers, doodling bees and butterflies, listening to his mother's reading. "I can see some pink through the green! And the snowdrops; I'm sure they are blooming. Do you think father will make them chime again?"

His mother would nod as she did every year. In a day or two, Lucius would accompany them to the gardens and make all the snowdrops chime when they were swung. That brought Draco great joy and he would spend the next hour or so, laying in the tickling sun and gently touching the snowdrops around him, releasing soft, whispering chimes.

It was quite obvious back then when Draco snuck out of the Manor to help the gardeners plant a new tree or a fresh patch of tulips, that flowers were something he will never cease to be astonished by. He could never see too many flowers, he could never tire of the sweet fragrance that would touch the tip of his nose when he would lean down to kiss the petals like some melancholic poet in a garden of roses which reminded him of her lips.

He could never see flowers too many times because each one is a delicate bloom, no matter if it is a formal garden or a wasteland or a little patch of personal heaven like the one he was occupying now. Their petals are delicate works of art and their hues made his soul light like cotton candy. And he knew he couldn't be the only one to feel that way; people bring flowers into hospitals and graveyards to make the souls lighters, they send them to express their love to make the minds brighter, they plant them in their gardens though they bear no edible fruits. It's a purely aesthetic pleasure.

There was something about their beauty that he needed for his whole being, to be fully human and he wondered if everyone was a bit like that. It was the little tiny treasures that could cause joy in all the people's minds and he didn't know anyone who felt hatred towards roses or peonies or sunflowers. It was in everyone's soul that that tinge of colour between the grass strands created a feeling of love towards life and the world around them.

Even if the flowers were so small and insignificant like the cinquefoils he was doodling they were still special and made the whole place so much more magical. He decided this was a pretty graceful place his mother has created, relaxing and gentle in hues, with a soft gurgle of the stream accompanying the birdsong and tender swirls of willow's branches which's movement could almost lull you to sleep.

There was a disturbance of the branches, the waves of peace that overwhelmed Draco's little "hiding place" were scattered through the droplets of gurgling water and whispering leaves which were pushed aside to let another human enter the heart of the tree.

Narcissa's hair was braided and the two long, greying braids were intertwined at the back of her head. There were pieces and strands of hair sticking out at certain places, some parts of the braiding inconsistently tight and other too loose; there were signs of ageing in the pure form of her braids if nothing else. Draco notices the wrinkles by her eyes, her mouth, the slight crinkling of her forehead - it was nothing drastic or, gasp-worthy - things he knew he wouldn't have noticed if not for his absence. It was the way Narcissa moved slower, how her eyes looked more tired, her hands a bit rougher, wrinkly around the fingers. Despite the changes, she still looked like a beautiful woman Draco remembered her to be.

"Enjoying yourself, Draco?", She asked, smiling and sat next to him, her legs folded under the robes she used to wear when they went riding - they were now faded and crumbled, indicating that she wore them far more often than what she used to.

"Immensely," Draco nodded and closed the notebook he was sketching into. "It's a beautiful place you've created here... The formal garden is wonderful but this..."

"Nothing could compare to the tranquillity of this," she chuckled and nodded, agreeing. She usually spends all of her afternoons here, reading or simply enjoying the sounds of frogs and birds and the breeze that would twist her locks through its fingers.

"So," Draco started, his neatly trimmed neals tapping lightly on the thick surface of the notebook. "How have you been, mother?"

"As good as yourself I hope," She smiled and leaned against the trunk of the tree, closing her eyes and sighing. "It's very relaxing here. Nothing much to do except to drink tea with the neighbours or converse with Janette from the clinic or perhaps trim the apple branches."

"You've found company then? It's not particularly lonely?"

"I've found friends, yes. And don't you worry about my loneliness. You know I wouldn't hesitate to snatch you from our favourite celebrity if I felt even a tinge of boredom," she laughed, tapping his shoulder a bit with a gleam in her eyes.

"Harry's not like that -"

"Is he not?" There was a small smirk playing on her lips and Draco decided he liked it better when her periwinkle eyes were shut closed in a gentle serenity like moments before.

"No. I can leave whenever I wish. He's not holding me hostage or anything," Draco scoffed earning a warning glare from his mother.

"Is there no contracts? No ties or knots? Bonds? What if you tell his secrets to the world? Is he allowed to sue you?"

"Why would I tell his secrets to the world? He's my friend; what kind of a person would that make me?" Draco's fingers sped up against the notebook before he sighed and closed his eyes, stopping the tapping altogether.

"You're friends?", she hummed in a way her son didn't find particularly pleasant. She used to hum at him when he made the house elves serve only him and the friends that he had over, or when Pansy snuck out through the back door with hickeys along her collarbone because they had to practise for the future, when Blaise's lips were particularly swollen after their intellectual debated when they were sixteen or that one time when he came home from Beauxbatons with half of his shirts missing because apparently they were too small and he'd donated them to charity. In reality, there wasn't a charity that would accept shirts with tears down the middle from the stubborn buttons that would break in the heat of the moment, so Draco simply threw those into the dumpster behind some restaurant in the back alley.

"We're friends. Because Harry is a human being - not some plastic toy used for manipulating the public or whatnot," Draco murmured into his chin and he felt his mother's gentle fingers drag slowly down his back, assuring him she didn't mean anything disrespectful. "He hates it, you know... being called the Saviour or the Golden Boy, being treated like someone special. I don't like thinking of him that way either because, because it puts this distance between us which..."

"Yes?" Narcissa's voice was honey-sweet, melodic and gentle like pecks on your cheeks after they were stained in sorrow tears. Draco looked up at his mother like a child who got injured while doing something mischevious. She knew him more than he could ever imagine, or dare, to know himself. She could see right through his guarded eyes and his closed, still lips, through his whitening knuckles, holding the notebook tight so his fingers wouldn't shake.

He sighed, cracking a defeated smile. "He's just Harry, mum. I'm not friends with him because he has a fortune buried under Gringotts or because of the excitement of running away from the press, not because he saved the world and should get such a praise nor because he is so damn powerful he could bring the whole, wide world onto its knees - ", he stopped taking a breath and turning his notebook sideways to draw some lines along the closed pages. "- even though he doesn't realise it. Could you imagine if he realised it? And then just got sick of all of us? And he would just have to snap his fingers and half the population would just... vanish... Become nothing but ash and dust in the wind..."

"I don't think Mr Potter would do such a thing, Draco," she was grinning but in that graceful, polite way which he was jealous of. When Draco grinned he flushed all over his cheeks and the back of his neck and his ears went red too, his eyes would be too squeezed to be considered a cute gesture and bits of his teeth would often show through. He didn't like his grin at all... IT was too... imperfect.

"Don' call him that. It sounds like he's fifty."

"And what's wrong with being fifty," she gave him a stern look which he didn't even think of not taking seriously.

"Nothing! It's just that it's weird because we live together and we're, um, friends," Draco felt the heat rising in his cheeks and quickly looked down. "You don't call my other friends like that. It's Blaise, not Mr Zabini, Robert and not Mr Delaunay and Greg instead of Mr Goyle, it's Pansy, not Ms Parkinson." He cringed at the last name and his mother rolled her eyes.

"That's simply because I haven't yet met Harry. It's simply from the respect that I call him the way I do."

"He's staying at his friends' house nearby," Draco mentioned, then. "I could ask him to have tea with us if you wish to meet him."

"So he followed you here?", Narcissa rose an eyebrow and he almost groaned at the implication. He knew she was his mother and all, but he really hated her sometimes.

"No, mother, he definitely did not. His friend wanted his help with a new line of products he was developing. Perhaps you've heard of it - Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?" Draco's tone was sharp and clear as he spoke but he wanted nothing more than to just stop this line of conversation. He didn't come here to speak of his love life. Not with anyone and especially not his mother who had an arranged marriage and had no idea how hard it was to find a stable relationship nowadays when everyone simply wanted to dive head first into the concrete below them.

"I'm sorry if I've offended you, dear," she tilted her head and blinked at him slowly. "I was just wondering, you must understand. The two of you have been living together for so many months; things tend to happen in circumstances of that sort."

"We're not like that."

"Like what?", she asked with a playful smile.

"Mother," Draco then said, warningly. She was really beginning to annoy him. "We both know what you are implying."

"And what would that be, exactly?"

"That's we're exclusive." Draco looked at her straight in the eyes, trying to be as passive as possible. "Which we are not."

None of them said anything for a moment that stretched on too long to be comfortable to any human being and particularly to close relatives like mother and a son. Draco was busying himself with perfecting the shadows between the flower petals he had previously drawn while Narcissa watched him drag his pencil across the paper in finest of lines. Draco was eternally grateful, though, that he had decided to start the sketch on an entirely new left side so the first drafts of his new poem were safely hidden under his drawing. The last thing he wanted was for his mother to see his Shakespearean odes to no one in particular about nights he definitely didn't spend with someone else and laughter and sweet conversations that were completely imaginary. She might get all kinds of ideas...

"But you wish that weren't true..." The words were malleable, still warm and slipping through Narcissa's lips like Draco's emotions slipped through his eyes; slowly, through cracks in confidence, restlessly, along the bumps of longing, painfully, over bridges of hope.

"I don't," Draco shook his head, quickly, his brows furrowed and his hands clasped tightly around the notebook, now again, shut closed. "We're friends, mum. And I like how he relaxes around me, grins as if we've always been close, how he always talks with ease, about everything and nothing in the same time and when we discuss something of importance, how his voice gets really low and hoarse. I love how in the early morning when the dusk is still grey at the clouds burn gold over our heads, the last shimmer of stars glitter across his smooth skin, and the way those eyes flick up to mine like I'm the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen although there is sun being born right before us.

"I like the comfortable hum of his favourite songs that fill the flat when he cooks and how his voice still breaks on the high notes even though he sang them hundreds of times. I love how soft his curls feel under my fingers when he's half asleep on the couch and I'm doing the last of his braids and how quiet his laugh is when Granger comes over to discuss muggle literature with me and he pretends to read the Prophet even though I can see him glancing over Granger's shoulder every few seconds. I love how when he forgets to water his plants and I have to do it for him he will buy a basket of exotic fruit instead of saying thank you because he knows that chocolate's bad for my skin.

"I love how he turns into a literal possessive child when I cuddle Bowie, our little kitten, how he narrows his eyes in an almost chemical grimace and pulls out a patch of old colourful fabric and makes it float around Bowies get until the cat stumbles into his arms rather then mine, victory flashing in his eyes. I love how he always blows into bottles when we drink beer and how he never ads enough salt into his curry and how all his T-shirts are red or blue and what an unhealthy obsession he has cheese.

"I love the way he looks in the morning, grumpy and tired and drinking his second cup of tea while frowning at a crossword, and the way he looks in the afternoon after going for a run on Weasley's treadmill because he tries to avoid people he doesn't know, and the way he looks in the evening in his sweatpants and with burnt popcorn flying across the room because I randomly spoiled his Doctor who again. I just love the fact that he is so simply, purely human. Just human. Just Harry."

His mother waited for him to take a shaky breath, he glanced at her and wondered if she ever felt the same for his father. He thought she did, once, a long time ago. "I don't want to blind myself with false hopes, with dreams of what might never be. I do not wish for Harry to see as anything more than a friend because he would soon realise that even with his endless kindness, his infinite love, the affection towards me is in no way different than which he holds for Finnigan, Zabini or Longbottom."

His mother's hands came to wrap around his sounders and he hugged her back, awkwardly. It wasn't a usual thing for a twenty-two-year-old to get tender hugs from his mother. She pulled away and kissed his forehead, whispering, "I'm always here if you need me. There is always a place for you here."

He nodded and closed his eyes, a faint brush of a breeze running across his cheek where his tears used to roll when he was just a kid, a whisper of his own breath on his lips which haven't been kissed in too long, there was grass between his fingers that wished to tangle in black curls. "I need...", He said then, his words tripping over each syllable, his throat dry as if he had a cold for the past two nights. "I need tea. Do you need anything from the store?"

"There's tea in the kitchen. I bought some when you said you were going to come for a visit," Narcissa told him and watched as he shrunk the notebook and stuck it back in the pocket of his jeans, getting up.

"I want peppermint."

"Since when do you drink peppermint?"

"I do," Draco nodded, avoiding the question. He then repeated, "Do you need anything from the store?"

"It would be kind of you if you picked my Calming Draught from the clinic - it's just down the street and it has one of those flashy, muggle signs in the front so you can't miss it."

Draco nodded and walked away from her. He only managed to make a few steps, leaving the willow when she called him back. "Draco, dear? Does Harry drink peppermint tea?"

"No," he said, smiling wistfully. "He drinks passion flower."

.o0o.

The automatic doors opened before him and Draco stepped into the white, sterile room of the clinic his mother had sent him to. The white, neon lighting was itchy on his pale skin and when he approached the reception, his hair looked almost translucent in the reflecting wall behind the receptionist. He pushed a few strands away from his face and then put on a nice, little smile catching her eyes.

"Hi, I'm Draco Malfoy and my mother sent me for her Calming Drought - she said she has her monthly order or something of that manner. For Narcissa Malfoy?" His words carried quickly as the girl in front of him typed the information into the computer in front of here. He looked around, with a strange sense that was almost awe; it was quite refreshing to see the precise mix of muggle and magical. On the one hand, there were electric doors and neon light bulbs and computers for data, on the other floating potion bottles, pops of the apparition and the masterfully crafted and not a one pinch subtle, enlarging charm on the entire space.

"Here you go," the girl, whose hair was pulled into a loose ponytail with multiple pieces sticking out and annoying the hell out f Draco, chimed. His eyes shot back to her and left a hanging painting of an incredibly big purple castle without a proper admirer.

"Thanks," he said, a bit dazed and took the bottle into his hands. It was slightly warm in his hand and the pale turquoise liquid was topped with, albeit small still visible, ring of yellowish foam. "Um... when was this made exactly, if I may know, please?"

The girl looked at him strangely and then checked her screen. "It's the newest shipment so it must be on Monday."

"That's barely three days," Draco frowned, speaking more to himself than his company. "It shouldn't have foam on the top unless it's... Do you keep each of you potions in respective environments?"

"Sir?"

"Every potion there is required a different temperature, percentage of sunlight, humidity, etc. If you keep all of your shipments in the same room with the same conditions there will undoubtedly be situations like these where your products are on the verge of spoiling," Draco said quickly, keeping his calm. Has mother been drinking half-spoiled potions for the last four months? 

"I know what you mean but I can assure you that every potion, salve and pills which are sold in this establishment are completely fresh and safe for consumption," there was a waver of uncertainty at the curl of the receptionist's lips and Draco put the Calming Draught back onto her desk.

"It's not safe if it's not kept under right conditions and since you told me the medicine was shipped to you on Monday, it had to be made at least on Sunday if not earlier since it's probably a bigger supply than a couple of bottles," Draco speculated. "Every respective medical establishment makes their potions from scratch once they are needed. Of course, hospitals like St. Mungo's or St. Germain's might use universal bases but the ingredients are added as the demand for certain potion appears."

"I must admit, sir," the girl said carefully. "I believe you are exaggerating this whole entire problem."

"Exaggerating? Do you wish for me to sue you for attempting to poison my mother?"

"Sir, please calm down. Thank you very much for pointing at the problem, we will make sure to call someone in to fix it." There were now multiple people stealing glances at the interaction between the two but Draco didn't give a flying fuck. He wasn't going to let his mother die from such a stupid thing as spoiled potions - especially not when he spent the last five years studying every single thing about the damn things.

"Can I please speak to someone of higher position? A director or your Head Healer?"

"As I said, we appreciate your concern and we will certainly call in an expert to sort this problem."

"I am an expert," Draco pointed out as if it was obvious when in reality, the employee had no way of knowing his educational history. "I spent the last five years studying potions you couldn't even dream of and I am quite certain this Calming Draught right here is not, in fact, safe for consumption. So if you wish to avoid a lawsuit you will definitely lose, please direct me to your director's office, please."

The girl quickly nodded and called her assistant, because of course, a job as terribly hard as a receptionist, requires an assistant, to assist Mr Malfoy to Mr Heidrich's office, please and thank you. There was a small smirk dancing on Draco's lips, so small that only the experts could see, but he was pleased with himself and fairly positive that it radiated from him. 

The assistant turned out to be scruffy seventeen-year-old who's training for a nurse. He was quiet during the whole entire journey across three floors. Draco wondered if they purposely avoided lifts but by the nervous glances the boy threat him every once in a while, he supposed the intern simply forgot such a thing existed. Once in front of the director's office, Draco thanked the boy for bringing him and smiles as the boy nodded quickly before disappearing. 

He fixed his hair and straightened his posture, kept his head high and with the beat of Draco's excited, little heart, the doors opened.

.o0o.

Draco wasn't surprised when a week later he came home to an unlocked door. There was no denying that Harry was a brilliant wizard but sometimes he had too much faith in his abilities. Draco asked him once, if he thought he was such a powerful wizard that he could take care of himself 24/7 and could easily take down a bunch of murderers that might walk into their flat one day since Harry always left the doors unlocked, why hadn't he pursued a career in law enforcement, Certain, British Auror Department would do everything in their power to have Harry Potter as a part of their best theme and there was no doubt Unspeakables would be quite interested in the man as well.

Harry told him how he is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, and Draco or any of his friends when they are with him, but he's been taking care of the public for far too long to have any desire to keep doing it for the rest of his life and risk ever finding a happy, family life because of missions. And Draco could absolutely understand that. But, and of course, there was a but, he couldn't help but worry that something might actually happen to his roommate while he was gone.

So, the doors were unlocked and by the cheerful laughter and muffled murmuring he recognised that nothing had happened to Harry this time. He opened the door and took off his shoes, sounds of the door closing now echoing in a dead silence. Draco frowned at that and carefully walked into the living room, his wand in hand, curses ready on his lips.

He walked into the room to find a mess unlike anything he'd ever seen; there was undoubtedly his mattress on the floor along with what was probably Harry's mattress too, there was a pile of all the blankets in the house with covers and pillows all over the floor. The couch was moved slightly to the left so he formed a diagonal wall with dining room chairs opposite of him. 

Draco wondered how long did it all take to assemble, since, even in all this mess, it all made sense in a way. It all looked warm and cosy, playful and inviting, a perfect hiding place which his much younger self would be completely jealous of. His present self-was just in deep admiration because by all laws of the universe all the blankets should be falling loosely over the chairs and top of the couch but instead they were spread like circus tent tops making the blanket fort ultimately bigger. There was still no clear sound of any living being as he admired the construction although he could hear some minor shuffling coming from beneath the blankets.

First, there was a cat, tangling between his feet and jumping to his thighs in a deep desire to be petted, then purring was accompanied by giggles that weren't manageable and then shush sounds and more sustained chuckling. He heard a faint voice, counting down and he smiled. 

"Boo!", Teddy jumped out, knocking over a blanket or two which only made Harry laugh as he fixed it with a swish of a wand. "Did I scare you, Draco? Did I?" Draco laughed nodding and putting his wand onto the closest cabinet so he could hug his cousin. 

"Of course you did, Teddy-bear. You're bloody terrifying!" That earned Draco a giggle and a glimmer in his eyes as the tips of his hair became platinum-blonde and his nose grew a bit pointier at the tip.

"Watch your language, Malfoy," Harry warned with a smile and stood up to greet his friend.

"Yes, Malfoy!" Teddy repeated with an angry glare which resulting in nothing more than laughter from his godfather and his nose returning to a normal size.

"Hey, you," Harry then said, gentler than before with a small smile and shy eyes. He placed a hand on Draco's biceps and looked up at him. "How was Devon for you?"

Draco's breath was momentarily trapped in his throat but when he looked away from those shining green eyes, he managed to speak. "Better than you for or flat, that is certain."

Teddy then found Bowie close to the edge of the couch so he snatched the cat and crawled back into the blanket fort with him. Harry sniggered and Draco continued with a grin. "Tell me, was is a Reducto that hit our living room or did you decide to perform a failed attempt in a very late, spring cleaning?"

"Neither of those, to no one's surprise," Harry said and leaned back on the couch as Draco went to his room to change into some more comfortable clothes. His bed really was without a mattress or pillows or a cover, but the rest of his room was in complete order. Addy was hooting softly in her cage as she slept through the evening. He glanced at the suitcase in the corner of the room and bit the bottom of his lip, deciding that it would be better if he talked to Harry in the morning rather than now. 

He returned to the living room, now filled with the scent of buttered popcorn. "Teddy is staying the night?", Draco asked, cautiously, cursing himself for hoping the opposite was true.

"Nah... Andy is coming to get him in about half an hour or so," Harry glanced at him and his eyebrows immediately furrowed a bit. There was nothing wrong with the way Draco looked - Harry'd seen him in his old T-shirts and shorts countless times... No, nothing was wrong with the way he looked, not quite anyway. But still, something was wrong but Harry couldn't recognise what was bothering him - it was like an itch he couldn't scratch.

Dismissing it for nothing more than some awkwardness because they haven't seen each other in a while, Harry brought the popcorn to the for where Teddy and Draco were already comfortably settled. "Will you watch Doctor Who with us while we wait?" 

Harry's question seemed almost bizarre - it's been months since Harry watched the show alone. Draco watching it with him was almost a rule by now.  "Of course, Harry."

Harry just smiled at him when Draco frowned. It seemed it wasn't only Draco who had something to discuss. Harry's fingers were fiddling with each other, he was constantly ruffling his hair, he was bitting his lips and glancing at his godson, avoiding Draco's eyes. Draco dropped the worry, deciding to ask him about it later, or preferably, in the morning, and instead focused on the story of the episode.

There was knocking on the door and all three of them jumped at the interruption. Harry flicked his wrist and they could hear the doors opening and closing. Andromeda's smile was as cheerful as ever when her three boys crawled out of their den and she pulled all three of them into a tight hug. 

"It's so good to see you, Draco," she said, honestly. "You've grown since I've last seen you."

"It hasn't been that long," Draco tried to disagree but she shook her head cutting him off.

"You know it's been more than half a year. When you came home from France you just stopped for a quick tea and have been avoiding me since." She said it all quickly and strictly. In that calm but stern voice that made you feel ten times worse than a right out attack would.

"That's very rude of you, Draco," Harry snorted and ruffled Teddy's hair which in reward turner into a mess of short curls not unlike ones Harry used to wear around Hogwarts. 

"Now, Harry," Andromeda looked at him, warningly. "It's not like you have been much better. Ever since you two decided o move in together, none of us has seen much of your two stubborn heads."

"I'll drop by for dinner," Harry said before really thinking about it, only then remembering the whole ordeal he'd planned with George and realizing that dinners with friends might not be the best idea for some time. "Soon," he added like he always did but this time he knew it wasn't true. He wouldn't drop by for dinner any time soon and it was the worst thing in the world.

"You always say that Harry," Teddy murmurs and Harry closes his eyes for a moment, cursing inside his head. He loved Teddy and he loved spending time with him but now he had work to do and he probably won't be in the best state of mind until they manage to get it right, him and George.

"I know I do, kiddo," Harry crouches and ruffles his hair again and again until it's as messy as he was before Draco started braiding it. Teddy ruffled Harry's own hair now because it was hanging loosely around his shoulders since Draco's been gone for a week and hadn't yet had time to braid it back up. Harry wondered what it'll be like with his hair always in a messy bun again. He's got so used to the braids that not having them for the past few days was particularly weird. But he had to get used to that feeling. "I know I do and I want to but, I'm just very busy and for the next month I will be even busier. But that might be a good thing - I won't have time to cook so I could drop by and dine with you. How about that?"

Teddy nodded at him although his lips quivered with a frown of uncertainty. There was a heavy silence pouring over all four of them but Draco felt it the hardest. He knew it was pressing on his lungs because he couldn't stand looking at Harry knowing what he knew and keeping all the things he had to say inside of him. It was just the fact that he wanted to shag him - Draco always wanted to shag Harry Potter - it was the fact that he now wanted to shag him with feelings. And then, there was that other thing they had to discuss... The burning plan behind his eyes that made him want to puke because he didn't want to watch Harry's easy smile slowly drop when he tells him. But it was the right thing for him and Malfoys always did what was best for themselves, didn't they?

"Well," Andromeda said then, pulling both men out of their thoughts. To be honest, they felt more like schoolboys they had once been than men at that moment. "We should go already. All this hallway talk is ridiculous."

"Have a safe journey," Harry nodded and smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. 

"We will. Have a good night!"

And with that Draco and Harry were left alone in the hallway that suddenly felt much smaller than it had really been. They looked at each other and Harry opened his mouth to speak but Draco shook his head just as quickly. "In the morning. we can talk in the morning,"  Draco pleaded,

"Draco, we need to talk; it's very, um, important." Harry caught his wrist when Draco tried to turn away from him. "Please."

"We need to talk. I know that. I can see your question, your revelation, whatever you want to call it, scratch at your brain because you can't wait anymore, but if you want me to beg I will." Draco's voice was barely a sound as he spoke and yet, it seemed to echo through the shadows in the living room. The only light was coming from the hallway, one lightbulb over them. Draco glanced up, pulled his wrist out of Harry's grasp and then took his hand. Harry's fingers were cold against his and he closed his eyes, taking a shaky breath. They were closer than he wanted them to be - it was too close not to hear Harry's thoughts.

"Please," he said, leaning closer so Harry would actually hear his whisper. Draco didn't trust his voice to speak any louder. "Can we please talk in morning. Tonight... Let's just sleep tonight, okay? Just simply let it be."

"Like those nights on the rooftop," Harry murmured searching Draco's eyes and Draco looks at him. He's never been so vulnerable and he's never been so angry. He could feel the anger boiling in his ears: how does Potter dare make him feel so vulnerable with a simple look? He wanted to slap him and to kiss him and to move away and pack his bags already but he did nothing but nod and squeezed Harrys's hand tighter.

"Can we just go to sleep?", Draco asked slowly and now Harry was the one to nod. He started to walk and then stopped after two or three steps. 

"In the blanket fort?" Harry looked at him, his heart beating in his ears, uncertain.

"Where else?" Draco managed to crack a smile.

"I don't know," Harry admitted and looked away. "I thought you might want to sleep in your bed or something. I'm glad you don't, though... It would us hours to put all the beddings back together.

"It wouldn't take us more than a minute and flick of a wand." Draco rolled his eyes and pulling him to follow to the blanket fort. Harry flicked his wand to reinforce the structure and then once more to enlarge it. he smiled at Draco who was grateful for the extra space Harry just created but still laid down close to the man who's been his roommates for the past four months. 

Draco lifted his hand and slowly twisted his fingers into a twist, slowly before turning on his side and grinning at Harry's astonished face. Instead of the dark that used to surround them only mere moments ago, the top of the blanket fort was now splattered with stars and constellations and there was a shine against Harry's skin that looked like something familiar. If Harry didn't know they were laying in the middle of their living room, he would be certain they are back on the roof and that was moonlight that made Draco's skin glow like pearls. 

"Draco, I...", he started and took his glasses of too clean them, thinking that maybe he was only seeing specks of dust on the glass, but Draco's took the glasses from his fingers and sent them flying to the coffee table. "It's wonderful!"

"I was scared of the dark when I was a kid," Draco started to explain even before Harry managed to form words of his question. "This was the very first spell I've learned and it's the easiest one to perform with just my fingers because I didn't have a wand when I learned it."

"It's really, really beautiful," Harry looked back at him, a smile beaming on his face, his hands reaching forward and for a fraction of a second Draco though he will kiss him. It wasn't a kiss, of course, it wasn't because it couldn't be. The hug was tight and honest and warm and Draco wrapped his arms around Potter, clinging onto him like his life depended on it. Maybe, Draco dared to think, maybe it did.

"It looks like we're on the rooftop, but it's cosier and with fewer mosquitoes, and you're closer," Harry murmured and to Draco's delight didn't untangle himself from his body. He just simply shifted so he was laying on Draco's chest, his ear just slightly higher then Draco's heart, his fingers drawing circles on Draco's side, where his arm was hugging him.

"Yeah, that's why I cast it," Draco nodded and then relaxed against Harry, already feeling his mind getting into the hazy fields of sleep. "I wanted this to be like the rooftop. Only better."

Neither of them said anything for a while and by Harry's light breathing he concluded that Potter was already asleep. So it startled him when in the middle of drifting off, a voice called him back, a voice smooth and low, hoarse and so, so soft. 

"I wish I could stay here forever," Harry confessed, muttering. Draco bit his lip, pulling him closer to himself. 

"I wish I could stay here forever, too," Draco nodded and then when Harry looked up at him, Draco could swear is heartbeat was going to beat his rib cage. His eyes blurred out and he closed them, putting his head against the mess of Harry's hair and breathed in deeply before pretending to fall asleep. Harry did the same, nuzzling Draco's neck (and even, but Draco couldn't be sure because his thoughts were too messy to know what was real and what not, pecking his warm skin), and hugging Draco's side, his fingers finding their way under Draco's T-shirt and curling around his waist.

'I wish I could stay here forever', Draco's mind replayed and replayed countless times before he drifted to sleep. He could feel Harry's breath on his neck and he knew that he was too troubled by his thoughts to sleep but he didn't say anything. Because he wanted to stay here forever and he knew by the shine on Harry's eyes that here didn't mean just the blanket fort anymore. It didn't mean just in Draco's arms anymore. Draco could feel by the way Harry's heart was beating against his chest that Harry wanted, more than anything to stay here, in their little flat, here in this summer heat, here in this moment of his life where Draco was right next to him.  Draco wanted the same exact thing and although the night seemed endless and the time seemed to stop the moment Harry hugged him he knew that morning was getting nearer and nearer and they wouldn't be able to stay here, not anymore.

They wouldn't be able to stay because of Harry - or so Harry thought. 

They wouldn't be able to stay because of Draco - or so Draco thought.

And maybe both of them should've realised right there and then, hours before any of them said a word, hours before their suitcases were opened again, that they wouldn't be able to stay because both of them were running away from feeling. Sure they wanted to shag each other, perhaps they should've instead of simply laying in a blanket fort, but it would be a proper fuck because they brought feelings into the whole thing - feelings that passed all the limits of platonic.

Draco slowed his breathing and thought of France and how hard he worked to get that Diploma and Harry thought of war and how hard it was to glue all the pieces back together, and they convinced themselves that it was the best thing, best decision, best for them both. 

With a last glance at their artificial sky, with the last echo of their artificial excuses, they let the sleep consume them, knowing that they couldn't stay here forever. There was a simple truth that there was no forever for them because they were about to ruin it.

Chapter Text

The sunrise was burning against the hardwood floors of their living room, there was faint buzzing of bees from the outside, pouring in through the open windows of their kitchen and blending in with Bowie's sleepy purring and a muffled rustle of Addy's feathers. The blanket fort was motionless except for Draco's blinking and the slow rise of Harry's chest as he breathed, his mind being pulled into the consciousness more and more every second, by every inch of morning sun that rose over the bedding.

Draco was staring into nothing in particular: a cactus on the windowsill, the third one from the right that was small and round with yellow pricks spread out in groups of eight, the faint shift of the heavy, orange curtains that they usually drew together when they watched movies in the living room so their Nox would be more efficient, a blurry figure of far-away treetops that slept in their green displays. He sighed and didn't move when there was a sudden shifting on the mattress next to him, he didn't look up when Harry pulled up his knees to his chest and sat up next to him nor did he say anything when Harry's green eyes squinted at him with a touch of worry.

Harry slowly waved his fingers and caught the glasses that flew to him. He pushed them onto his face, awkwardly and then traced the outline of Draco's forearm, gently with the tip of his fingers when the blond scoffed murmuring, "Fucking showoff," like he hadn't seen Harry perform wandless magic a bunch of times before.

"Draco?", Harry whispered leaning closer to him, his eyes still searching the heavy backdrop of a storm in Draco's. "What's wrong?"

"The air," Draco mumbled, frowning, not particularly satisfied with the tenderness with which Harry had been handling him since they laid together the night before. "Don't you smell it? The dusty, foul odour - like we're in one of those old, long-forgotten houses in which life has ceased to exist a decade ago."

"It smells exactly the same as it always has," Harry snorts. "You're imagining things, chéri; being all dramatic again."

"You don't have to talk to me if you find my dramatics so annoying, honey", Draco snapped back but leaned closer into Harry's touch, not being able to take the thought of not feeling Harry's warm fingers on his thigh or the brush of his breath on his shoulder when Harry huffed.

"Draco, you know I love your dramatics - they are very amusing. They are probably one of the top reasons why I like you as a person, as a friend -" Harry stopped speaking suddenly and then finally, Draco looked at him, startled by the small proximity between them. 

"You-" Draco swallowed that lump of nervousness that formed in his throat, blinked to see Harry a bit clearer. "-you were so eager to talk last night. Speak then."

"I... Draco, are you okay?" Harry asked, softly when Draco closed his eyes waiting for Potter to finally say it so they could be done with the whole thing.

"No. I'm very angry with myself and I'm," he whimpered, taking a breath and Harry wrapped his arms around his waist, hugging him. Draco avoided his eyes, carefully. "I'm incredibly nervous."

"Because of me?" Harry pulled his hands off of Draco's body and watched him, apologetically. "I'm sorry, I-"

"Not because of you, you fucking moron." Draco wanted to laugh but the air was so thick around him and the reality, his vulnerability at the cracking situation was too heavy on his shoulders. He groaned, slightly, rubbing his eyes with his palms and then looked at Harry again. "Never because of you. I'm nervous about the future. Of the future which I now finally built for myself but I'm not sure I want because..."

He sighed and started moving his hand towards Potter's, slowly, staring at the doors of his room. He blushed when Harry's fingers intertwined with his, not sure if they'd ever held hands before. Draco started speaking before any thoughts could drift from his head. "I don't want to have this conversation with you - the one we're about to have. Not because I would rather just, leave it to hang unsaid; it has to happen, we have to talk. I just wish we didn't have to talk. And it's weird because it's not like I had no decision in my future - hell, it was one hundred percent my decision, the best thing for my future, the best outcome of the last eight years of my life... I just wish that we could've stayed forever in that moment last night without any consequences but that's simply impossible..." 

"Draco, I don't understand," Harry murmured, then, shaking his head slightly. "What are you trying to say?"

"I..." I love you. It was on the tip of his tongue, ready to be spilt into the air like fireworks on New Year's Eve. But unlike firework which came perfectly timed, these words, these feelings Draco desperately wanted to share with Harry came far too late. Maybe if he had kissed him now it would stop the longing for a couple of minutes but he was certain that if he ever got to kiss Harry Potter he would never get enough. But it was truly too late now. Too late since he could've kissed him that first night on the rooftop or in the train on their way to Devon or last night even or any time in between. But not now, not now, not now. 

He did wonder, though, if he would manage to say it if he wanted to. It would be easy, right? With the clear perception of his feeling and just three simple words, how could it be hard? He could bet they would just slide over his lips like the sweetest melodies he used to sing for Harry on the rooftop. Just three words. "I'm moving out."

"I'm moving out," Harry nodded and repeated Draco's words. 

"Yes, that's what I said," Draco looked at him strangely hurt, expecting Harry's disappointment but it almost felt like Potter was mocking him. 

"Yes, I know but I am too," Harry explained quickly and squeezed Draco's fingers for a moment. He looked down at his feet and continued talking. "I'm moving out. George had this idea which he wanted to propose because he thinks I'd be a perfect person to do such a thing. I'm going to be moving into the Burrow since they have a lot of space and I'd be close to him so I wouldn't have to worry about staying at his too late or anything. With Charlie, Percy, Bill, Ron, Ginny gone the house is frighteningly empty and I think my presence would help in a way... But also we need to develop this idea, these products as soon as possible so we'll have to spend a lot of time together anyway.

"I don't really have a job and I've been trying to find the right thing for years now. George thinks this will work and I believe it will as, well because after the war... Both of us had fallen in a really bad hole and we don't want other people's holes to be as deep and as difficult to escape from. We plan to make medication that helps you breathe, think clearer, focus etcetera... It's complicated to explain but I think it will work - with George's intelligence and my power, it really should work. So, I'm moving out."

Draco stared at him with little surprise because somewhere in the back of his mind he knew ever since he first spoke to Harry yesterday evening. Just like he was acting completely different than his comfortable self who had no hurries to go to sleep and would rather clean the mess of blankets and bedding that sleep on the floor, Harry was acting different as well. He was lost in his thoughts whole evening, his eyes never really focusing on the episode they were watching with Teddy although it was a season finale. Draco nodded then, slowly.

"That's great, Harry. I really, really hope it will work out and you will succeed in making anything you imagine." There was nothing but sincerity lacing his voice, his eyes blinking away tears that formed in the corner of his eyes and which he couldn't really understand. He looked away before Harry could see them before they could fall down his cheeks. He wasn't sad, he didn't want to cry. He was happy that Harry had finally found something he wishes to do and will do because he wants to. He always had that shining streak of kindness which other people gladly exploited at any possible occasion. He was glad that Harry's kindness led him to find his true calling no matter how unusual and unexpected it may be. 

Harry shuffled closer to the blond and put his head on his shoulder when Draco's arm wrapped around his waist. "Why are you leaving this lovely place?", Harry murmured, deciding to chuckled slightly but it only made the breathing harder and thinking more confusing.

"Not unlike yourself," Draco whispered into Harry's hair, his eyes closed, his cheek resting on top of Harry's head. "I've found a job."

"Don't you already have a job?", Harry mumbled and started drawing circles on Draco's palms as he always did across his skin whenever they were close. Draco sighed and started playing with the curls on Harry's head.

"I quit it."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't spend the last twelve years of my life studying like crazy to waste my life here." Every word was said in whisperings, Draco's fingers were gently brushing through the locks of black, the skin under Harry's fingers was soft and smooth, almost porcelain-like. 

"Oh," Harry said. "Okay." And then, "What is it? The job?"

Draco paused for a while before speaking, his breathing tangling in Harry's hair in even puffs. "I'm the Potion's Manager in this private clinic in Devon. My mother gets her medication from there and I've come to find out that their potions and slaves are not as fresh or as usable as they should be. I'll have my own team of potion-makers and we'll be making fresh products when there is a need for them. When there's not, we are allowed to, or better said - I am given freedom, to leave the hospital until I'm needed again but I think I'll use the lab to experiment with some modifications I've been meaning to try to incorporate into some potions since I graduated. The pay is ridiculously high for a job like that but I've managed to convince them that they are desperate enough to pay me that way."

Draco smiled a little at the memory of his negotiations and he could see Harry's lips twitch at the corner. They sat there for minutes that ticked away too fast. Harry then moved to stand up and Draco let him, his fingers slipping away from Harry's with his heart thumping harder but this time in a weird sort of disappointment.

It wasn't unexpected as his desire to hold Harry close only grew higher with the moment he learned they weren't going to wake up every morning with the sounds of the other making coffee or snuggly with their cat. And then Draco realised that he's not only parting from Harry but also Bowie to whom he'd gotten strangely accustomed to. Along with Addy, Harry and that black cat became his favourite creatures in his life.

"I'm sorry," Harry then said lightly, looking down and opened a bag of stale crackers they bought with the intention of eating them with some fancy cheese Draco found in the convenience store but never managed to finish because the package was so big that even with Harry's enormous appetite there still were some leftovers.

"What for?" Draco glanced at him confused. He swished his wad so one of the chairs from the kitchen transformed into a small-ish armchair and found its place next to him and then curled up, pulling his legs up and began to scratch Bowies' soft fur since Harry wasn't in his lep any longer.

"Wasting your time," Harry responded simply. He found some cream cheese in the fridge and started scooping it out with the crackers, walking towards his room to start packing. 

"What are you talking about?" Draco laughed, his brows furrowed and his mind pulling him to follow Potter into his room until he explained every single thought that drove him to apologise to him with such a nervous, genuine voice even though his face was impassive and seemingly careless. Draco was taken aback by the calm facade of Harry's body at the moment because he was getting so used to Harry being the one who always wore his heart on his sleeve but not, even though it was perfectly understandable that Harry was upset by the fact they won't be living together anymore, he was walking across the living room, casually eating crackers and cheese, all of his attention on the snack in his hands, without a bother on his forehead as if they'd just talked about the weather or Indian politics. 

It took him by surprise because just moments ago, they were sitting together, hugging in the blanket fort, ready to cry if it was needed just to show that the change they decided to bring upon their lives was almost as necessary and inevitable as them meeting after all those years in this dumpy apartment and deciding to get to know each nook and croony of each other's spirit. Draco looked down at his empty hands as Bowie jumped from his lap to follow Harry back into his room. "Nothing we did is wasted time."

"Hm?" Harry leaned through the door while folding a pair of his jeans. 

"You didn't waste my time, Harry Potter," Draco repeated clearly, softly.

"Well, that's good to hear," Harry shrugged with a tinge of bitterness lacing his words. "But the fact is that by living here you've been kept from finding out about the clinic and I've been holding you down from doing what you've been destined to do or rather what you studied for doing."

Draco sighed and rolled his eyes and then stood up, going to his roommate. He leaned on the doorway even though he wanted nothing more than to hug him from behind and tell him that he was now the dramatic one and that he was overthinking everything and finally, that they are going to be just fine without each other's snoring although neither of them snored.

"Potter, you didn't hold me hostage here," Draco assured and folded his arms over his chest to stop himself from reaching forward.

"Maybe not," Harry shrugged then and swished his wand so the rest of his trousers folded themselves into a messy pile on the bottom of his suitcase. "But I couldn't imagine how living with me would not be tempting. And will all the persuading Blaise has done on my part, I'm certain he had to work at least twice as hard to make you agree to this."

"Me moving in with you was a one hundred percent conscientious decision. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't want it completely."

Harry simply sighed, sat down onto his bed and flicked his wrist so the trousers would shrink and make more space more his other stuff. He knew they were going to turn up crumpled once he returned them to their normal size but Molly liked to give all of his clothes a thorough ironing spell whenever he came with any kind of luggage. He mumbled something about his and Draco's past and when Draco dryly remarked that mumbling is not going to get him anywhere he stopped his pacing and looked up at the man who came to become his friend over the past couple of months.

"I'm beginning to think it would have been better if you didn't move in with me," Harry stated, seemingly calm but he was avoiding Draco's eyes at all costs. 

Draco was taken aback, previously convinced that moving in with Harry was one of the best things either of them did in their whole entire lives. "W-where is that coming from?", he stuttered, pushing away from the doorway and taking a step closer, hoping that Harry would look up.

"I don't know," Harry shrugged and dragged his fingers through his hair and then busied himself with examining the split ends between his fingers. "But this was supposed a happy moment - both of us getting the jobs we want, finally finding out purpose in life, moving on... And instead, we are sulking like a pair of wet puppies. Don't you think that's wrong?"

Harry eyes looked up and found Draco's clear confusion. Why would he need to act happy if he wasn't? "Harry, I thought you were happy about living with me and being my friend and all that... I know I was, and it's no surprise that not living with you anymore doesn't really ends in me jumping from happiness." Harry just shrugged and Draco only furrowed his brows further.

"What is your point here?" There were more questions than answers and Draco utterly wanted to understand why has Harry's mood changes now, at the very end when they were supposed to be laughing together and using their flat together before moving out.

"My point is that I never wanted this to end in us crying so it would have been better if we didn't live together at all." 

"You can't just avoid things that you enjoy because they might end in a bad way," Draco huffed, already slightly annoyed. "And this isn't even a bad ending! It's not an ending at all! We can stay friends after we move out, you know."

"Can we?" Harry snickered, mockingly. "I'm sure we could, but can you really imagine us having a relationship like this one once you start spending all of your time in your lab and once I take three all-nighters in a row because even though I'm doing my job so I can help other people it just makes me feel worse and paranoid about nightmares that I haven't had in years? I'm sure we will stay such good friends. Great friends that barely see each other for coffee once a month and then drift away until it's time for holidays and they come to say each other's well-wishes only to open the doors to a complete stranger."

"You're overreacting." Half of him wanted to sit next to Harry and hug him and tell him that he's completely ridiculous but Draco felt like the freedom that allowed them to talk in hushed voices and hold each other as close as possible until their heartbeats became one and the same, was suddenly gone ever since Harrystarteddoubting the decision of them being friends. 

"I'm not overreacting. I just wish we were happy right now. Which I am not. And I would be if I didn't need to part from you. So I wish I didn't know you at all." 

It made no sense at all to think like this. Draco felt like all logic has abandoned him and he didn't know what to say to make Harry feel better. He couldn't believe that Harry wished never to have met him because them not living together shouldn't be a big deal at all. Sure, it would take a bit of adjusting to not seeing each other for the most of the day every day but they could still be friends despite Harry irrational reasons against it.

"Harry," he mumbled, almost at a loss of words. "You don't mean that."

"Yes, I think I do," Harry nodded firmly and glanced up at Draco's hurt eyes. His lungs filled with foam and his throat was full of cardboard. He didn't know what he was thinking but all he felt was that he didn't want to feel this way anymore. He didn't want to feel that deep stabbing pain every time Draco left the room or the tingly feeling around his chest when he returned, the heat waves in his brain when he touched him and the suffocating which he felt every time Draco stopped.  So if he pushed the man away, hopefully, those feelings will go away. "Can you please leave me alone now? I need to pack and I'm sure you need, too. I just... I need to be alone now after all those months."

"If that's how you feel," Draco mutters, uncertain and Harry nodded, closing the doors behind him.

.o0o.

Draco cursed as the sound of crashing glass echoed through the underground room filled with neon lighting, herbal scents and slightly poisonous people. There were currently three of them in the laboratory along with an owl that seemed to have no bothers about the broken petri dish she has broken by sweeping through the air and landing on the work table. 

Draco sighed and regained his professional, calm mask he had established as his personality from day one working at the clinic. He looked around the room to see Alana hurriedly clean the waste and Ian who was quickly preparing another sample of the base potion as well chopping up the ingredients to shove them into the pale white liquid.

"Stop," Draco said and both of his interns' heads turned nervously toward him. He tried not to smirk but the way every person under forty was low-key intimidated by him even though he was one of the youngest of staff, always gave him a well-deserved shot of satisfactory joy. "Alana please get the owl out of her and bring me the letter. When you're done go to Sofia and tell her to stop trying to get herself fired by letting birds into my lab. Ian, calm down, take a deep breath and prepare the solution slowly and carefully like we did before. There's no rush here, we have as much time as needed to do this."

Both of them nodded not even daring to protest that they were supposed to have a break at least half an hour ago and went to do their respective tasks. Draco went to the cupboard and snatched some occamy eggshell powder along with dried rosehip. Alana tossed him the letter with a quick "Sir!" and he swished his fingers so it would levitate in front of him as he prepared the ingredients and samples for the experiment they were attempting to perform before that stupid owl ruined an hour of their work.

Dear Draco, 

I would be highly pleased if you'd meet me at Black Sugars at two. We have some things to discuss which I've been meaning to bring up since you moved. I would advise you to ask ---- to lend you a portion of his alcohol stash since Blaise insisted on coming as well. 

I hope you realise this is not a request and that I can always send you birds to break your dishes if you decide not to come. (Both of us know you need a break even though you're trying to seem unbreakable in front of those interns of yours.)

See you at two,

H. Granger

Draco rolled his eyes, knowing that no amount of negotiations would save him from this meeting even though the last thing he wanted was to go and sit in the dusty, vanilla scented air with two people who will either pretend like the conversation was about something as bland as the weather or will go complete psychic on him and blame Harry's emotional state on him. Of course, Hermione didn't mention Harry but when it came to Blaise and Granger teaming up against him, it couldn't be about anything else than about Harry. And maybe ruling the world and re-establishing the British Empire. But since it was only July and no one would really prefer to discuss anything closely related to politics in this humidity, he was 99% it was about Harry.

He flicked his want to burn the letter and then took off his lab coat. "Put stasis charm on the work and then you're free to leave for about two to three hours. I expect you back by five at the latest. If I don't see you working at full speed by then, I'll make sure the best job you can find is working as a supermarket janitor. Am I clear?", Draco said in a clear, even voice, his eyes never leaving the wide, frightened ones of the boy in front of him. Ian nodded and quickly went to clean the workbench and preserve all of today's work.

Draco walked out of the lab, not bothered about the possibility of Ian messing up anything they've done since he was certain those kids wanted to keep their heads on their shoulders. Now that he was walking through the back hallways which was used only by him and his interns he allowed himself to grin at the thought of those poor kids being terrified of him. Of him! Of him who wrote poetry and doodled bees in his journal, who loved daisies and lilies and had the biggest sweet tooth of all the people he knew. Him who used to enjoy braiding Harry Potter's hair, and talk to his friend on Mars.

A small part of him wondered what his child self would say if he saw how threatening he could be, but he realised that even though small Draco would be delighted to be so emotionless and intimidating he would also be outraged by the fact that he was gay. Or the fact he owned a journal. Or the fact he wasn't the Minister of Magic yet. But oh well... Draco liked it better this way.

He stopped at the small shop at the corner of the street and bought himself one of those mini-sized liquors which were cheap and weak as fuck but it was the best he could get at the moment so after quickly eating a Snickers bar he downed the gin knockoff and hurried to meet the two people who will undoubtedly give him a headache.

He was two minutes late and there was already an iced coffee waiting for him when he sat down. Blaise and Hermione finished giggling like two pre-school girls and then looked at him still smiling. "Hey you," Blaise chimed. "Long time no see."

"Well, considering how our last meeting went, you can't be surprised that I've avoided any interaction with you since there was a possibility of another disaster," Draco replied calmly and Blaise rolled his eyes, while Hermione took a sip of her tea and watched them curiously. 

"Draco, you can't blame me for what happened. I am not to be held responsible for Pansy being a bitch."

"You know her better than I do. But it's fine," Draco sighed, tapping the glass with his fingers and watching little droplets of water slide down it. "It's not like I didn't expect it."

"Draco, I'm sorry that happened. She's a bitch and I shouldn't have let her go so far," Blaise apologised honestly and Draco nodded, smiling faintly at him and then took the wrapped up straw he was given and took a sip of his coffee. It wasn't sweet enough so he added a package and a half of sugar until the sweetness reached his satisfaction. He set his glass down and looked at Granger, innocently starting an unnecessary small talk.

"How's Rose?", he asked sweetly and Granger smiled, glancing at Blaise before answering that her daughter was very good and that she was currently obsessed with racing cars toys.

"That a nice thing to be obsessed with," Draco chuckled, politely, pretending not to notice Blaise impatient foot-tapping. "If she ever switches her interest from cars to horses let me know. My friend owns a horse farm so we could teach her how to ride any time she wishes to learn."

"You know how to ride horses?", Blaise leaned onto his elbows before Hermione had a chance to reply. 

"Don't you?"

"Of course. I was just surprised you had the time to learn with all those studying," Blaise explained, still confused but Draco leaned back in his chair and smiled.

"I had plenty of time for many things such as riding," Draco tilted his head with a pointed look before looking down at his coffee and continuing to speak casually. "It's more surprising you had time to learn since you spend so many hours a day you spend minding other people's business and trying to improve your friends' love lives even though your own is non-existent. People would think that with so much charity work you don't do anything for yourself."

"Well, you said it," Blaise chuckled and took a sip of his coffee. "Anyway, how about your love life then?"

"What about it?", Draco quirked an eyebrow, seemingly bored. 

"Has it vanished into thin air since your mother started breathing down your neck every time you're in a ten-mile radius or is Ian a bit more than an intern?"

"Ian is twenty-one, Zabini," Hermione nudged him but Blaise frowned at her before glancing at Draco who sighed, annoyed that he is actually required to explain. 

"Just because you like to shag people who are almost virgins doesn't mean other people don't prefer... well, more experienced partners."

"Does that mean Potter was experienced enough for you?", Blaise was now the one o lif an expectant eyebrow.

"What does Potter has to do with any of this?" Draco asked as if he didn't already know. But still, he hasn's seen or heard for Harry in well over a month so he didn't want to seem like someone who constantly has Potter on his mind. (Even though he mostly did.)

"Nothing, in particular, Blaise started but Granger seemed to find some courage to play as well.

"Just all those months living together, " she shrugged, simply.

"With cold nights and crappy heating charms," Blaise added and ignored Draco's comment about them literally having to cast cooling charms because it's been so humid lately. "Something must have happened."

"Nothing happened," Draco shook his head as he replied, stirring his drink, idly.

"Are you sure?" Granger then asked, biting her lip, her face showing clear signs of worry although Draco could not clearly decipher why.

"Yes, Granger. I'm pretty sure I would notice if The Chosen One was fucking me." 

Blaise snickered but Draco just kept watching the uncertainty curl between her eyebrows, her fingers fiddle with the handle of her coffee cup and her eyes debating whether or not they should look up. She hesitated for a second before locking Draco's eyes and finally speaking.

"I didn't only mean like that. Have you two... um, kissed? Cuddled? Made any kind of moves towards forming an emotional bond?" Hermione's words were clear and well picked although it did sound like she was talking to one of her patients about their disease rather than to her friend about the possibility of him being in love with her best friend.

"Emotional bond?", Draco snorted, looking at her like she said she was from Mars. Which would be a terrible disappointment, by the way, since Draco always had such a high opinion of people from Mars. "We don't even know each other!"

"But you lived together for five months," Blaise pointed out while staring at the blond. 

"Yes, so? We were just roommates... It's not like we were planning to adopt five children and get married on Christmas Eve," Draco huffed and then Blaise leaned even closer so he pushed him into his seat.

"Did you?", Blaise still asked.

"No!"

"You did get a cat, though," Hermione murmured and Blaise patted her on the back, proudly. 

"It was a stray and you know how Harry feels about saving creatures and also how stubborn he can be," Draco countered, a smirk already forming on the tip of his lips when Hermione smiled and rose her eyebrows. It was a sinister, little smile and it caused goosebumps to cover Draco's forearms. He realised he's made a mistake.

"I do know. But how do you know since you claim not to know Harry? I thought you don't have an emotional bond. I thought you weren't friends!" She said it all with a triumphant smile on her face that only made Draco feel like a better moron. Which was not a good thing because only Harry was allowed to be a moron.

"We are not friends," Draco said again, plainly, in a flat voice. "Maybe we once were, maybe we used to be."

But just as Harry predicted, "We're not anymore. I haven't heard from him since we moved out."

"Did you guys have a fight because you had feelings for him and he's too much of a coward to make a move? So, you agreed to move out because you don't know how to deal with your affections the proper way?" Draco stared at Blaise when he finished and then rolled his eyes when Zabini put his hands in the air as if he was surrendering. There was also a cheeky grin on his face which Malfoy did not appreciate one bit.

"I don't have feelings for Harry Potter," Draco stated firmly, crossing his arms over his chest and pretended not to notice how clearly both of his friends could see through him. He was a liar, they knew it and it wasn't that big of a deal anyway. He could deny ever having felt anything romantic or even platonic for Potter but at the end of the day his personal denial in front of them won't change the ache he felt for the man nor will it erase the past and all the fond things he did with him.

"Sure you don't," Blaise finally replied, snorting.

"I don't!" Draco started arguing but Hermione glared at Blaise who opened his mouth to respond. The argument was over before it even began.

"That's not fo importance here," she insisted and downed the last of her expresso.

"And what is of importance?", Draco questioned, tilting his head and raising his brow, begging the aliens to speed this conversation so they could finally come to the point of this useless meeting which is nothing but a pure waste of his time. If the two of them had simply said what they wanted of him, he would've been back in his lab in ten minutes max. Not to mention that the laboratory would most likely be empty since he told Alana and Ian to get lost so he could have some peace and maybe even play some work as he started on one of his more complicated projects without two pairs of curious eyes always burning the back of his neck.

On the one hand, he liked having someone to clean after him and give him ingredients and equipment which would take too much of his precious time if he were alone. Not to mention that with having them there, he didn't need to bother with all the basic, easy potions like Pepperup which gave him more time to experiment with his own idea since more complicated stuff which he didn't trust his interns with yet was rarely ordered.

On the other hand though, oftentimes it seemed like the lab was filled with far too many people even though there were only three. Having got used to having his own workspace back in University, working alongside someone else was quite distracting. Especially because Alana and Ian were two of the most curious people Draco had ever met and even though they feared him too much to ask for advice or tutoring out loud, their eyes followed his every move as if they could absorb his skills just by watching him. 

But they were not sponges, as Draco once assured them, and could only improve their work by working and practising and experimenting. Draco remembered the nervous chuckled that echoed through the lab when he told them that during one of the first days of working with the pair. He wished he had the same effect on the two of his friends in front of him because if he did, he wouldn't be stuck in this pointless conversation for so long. 

"What am I here, Granger?", he asked her, sighing and wishing he just declined her invitation for this stupid coffee. It would be worth it, even if the two of them showed up at his clinic. The security exists for something, doesn't it? "What am I doing here?"

"Drinking coffee," Blaise chimed quickly and got two death glares in return. He murmured something about not having a sense of humour and then busied himself with a dry biscuit he'd got with the coffee. 

"What you're doing here is listening to us attempting to make small talk because we don't want you to make a scene when we tell you what we want," Hermione then told him and he raised an eyebrows waiting to see if she will actually tell him what it is that they want. When she didn't he shrugged and pretended that what they wanted was the most ridiculous thing he could think of.

"I'm not going to make a scene but I'm not going to pole-dance in drag for your daughter's birthday either. One of my stilettoes broke last time I agreed to one such offer and I'm really not in the mood for shoe shopping right now."

"That's not-"

"You can always do it without the stilettoes or if that doesn't match your outfit-", Blaise suddenly jumped into the conversation. "-I'm sure Potter wouldn't mind you going nude... He might even ask you for a private dance"

"Zabini!", Hermione exclamined and hit his shoulder to with he just snorted and gave Draco a pointed look. Draco didn't reply but rather glanced at both of them. Balise looked quite smug about the fact that be managed to say his own opinion on the matter but Hermione was avoiding his eyes. Really, there was nothing perverse about pole-dancing, even if it was nude; it was simply a form of art. But Draco could only imagine what sort of imagines have popped up in Granger's mind when Blaise mentioned Potter stealing his nude body. Surely, thinking about your best friend's sex life wasn't a very appropriate thing to do, or a very pleasant thing in fact, which was obvious by the blush that was coating Granger's cheeks. But Draco couldn't help but feel quite pleased that she felt the embarrassment tingling on her skin.

If she was going to mess with her friend's love lives then she should be prepared for all aspects of it.

"You know what Harry's working on, don't you?", Hermione asked him, staring at the bouquet of dried flowers that stood in the middle of their desk. "With George Weasley?"

Draco just nodded, giving her space to sort her thoughts and talk about the issues the way she thought was appropriate and sensible.

"Well, he's not doing well," she said slowly. "He barely sleeps, skips meals, doesn't leave his room... He and George are the same; they want to make this line of products as perfect as possible and they don't want to stop until they achieve it. It's their top priority."

"What's does that have to do with me?" Draco voice was small and soft against the backdrop of chuckling and chatter in the cafe.

"We thought that maybe one reason Harry is burying himself in work is that you and he had a fight or maybe didn't get to do something you wanted to do. Because when we saw him after you two... moved out, he wasn't in the best of moods. He looked really angry with himself and disappointed at the world and just hurried to start working already like he didn't want to think about something he couldn't stop thinking about."

Hermione looked like she wanted to draw some kind of conclusion to summarise what she needed Draco to do, but it was clear that since she didn't know him as well as she could perhaps like, she couldn't predict his reaction. So Blaise jumped in with a sigh.

"We think it's quite possible that Harry's in love with you and he regrets not doing anything about it so he's slowly killing himself with sleep deprivation and semi-starvation with the excuse of working to help others. Weasly is not complaining since he is still in grief from losing his brother so they are a combined force that is too self-destructive to just be let alone.  Conclusion: can you please kiss Potter already so all his friends don't get a stroke when he dies for real this time?"

Draco was quiet for some time thinking this through. He understood what kind of position they were in and heck, he even understood the position Harry was in. He could only agree that getting Potter laid would solve the problem to some degree and furthermore, getting him laid with his supposed crush would get rid of the majority of the problem if not make it vanish entirely.

Without a thought, he could nod and say that yes he would very much like to kiss Harry Potter but that would make him rather thirsty and the last thing he wanted to do is to show his friends that he had no control over his emotions. Thinking it through only made his need for Harry higher because more he thought of Harry, more memories of their times together floated on the surface of his mind.

He soon realised that, not unlike Harry himself, he was too burying himself in his potions and work and experiments so the thought of Harry's skin against his and the closeness of his breath and his laughter, his soft curls, his bright eyes, his fierce personality would simply fade in the background of his mind and give space for the job he was paid to do and which was a perfect distraction but a perfect reward for his studying as well. So maybe, well, certainly, but he could only admit that maybe getting back in touch with Harry and trying to bring their relationship a step further would be beneficial for both of them after all. 

And like this, he made his decision, his mind already coming up with perfect phrasing he will later put in his letter. But, because Blaise and Hermione too so much time to tell him of the problem, he decided to take a little bit of time to tell them his decision.

"So, you want me to just go to George Weasley's house, break into the room where they are making this medicine of theirs and kiss Harry Potter because it's quite possible that he's in love with me?"

"Yes," encouraged Blaise with a grin. Hermione groaned, rolling his eyes. "No."

"We want you to maybe ask him for a drink so he would get out of the house... Maybe try to encourage him to sleep-"

"-by dragging him into your bedroom and cuddling," Blaise finished and Draco rolled his eyes with a small grin. 

"Just," Hermione sighed, realising that Blaise will never stop being a childish wingman. "Just talk to him, okay? That's all I ask. Anything that happens as a result of that is up to you. Is that such a hard thing to do?"

Draco wanted to throw an ice cube at her head for talking to him like he was a six-year-old girl, but unfortunately, all of his ice cubes were melted into his coffee. "Fine, I'll owl him."

"You will?"

"Yes," Draco nodded with a sincere smile. "Is there anything else you'd like to discuss?"

When Hermione shook her head and thanked him for his time he said goodbye to them both, left his share of the money on the table and walked out of the cafe into the heavy summer heat. I guess it was time to make the first move...

Chapter Text

The bed under him suddenly felt too soft for his liking as the monotone clicking of his pen filled the air. His window was open and the cool, evening breeze was causing disturbance of the curtains and the sketches which were glued to the wall with pieced of spellotape. The floor was littered with a crumpled up page of his notebook which was getting thinner and thinner as the time passed and his ears were full of background noise. The ink seemed to think to come out and the words were lumpy, clumsy and mismatched. Draco groaned, frustrated, not understanding how come he couldn't write a goddamn letter but when it came to poetry it was easier than breathing.

He stood up from the tangle of sheets he was sitting on and Sighing, walked into the kitchen. He hoped that perhaps some water would help clear his mind so he took a glass. Narcissa was sitting at the table with her tea and her book but there were no comments from her side of the room. Draco's glanced at her and she rose her brow then. 

"Everything alright, darling?", she wondered, cheerfully. He rolled his eyes and put the glass into the sink muttering that it never really is. His mother chuckled and watched him return to his bedroom with the soft clicking of porcelain following him as she drank her tea. 

Walking in he noticed that Addy was finally awake and he went to stroke her feathers, muttering lightly about his troubles and how difficult it is not to simply write Harry a love poem about how much he wanted to hold him again. "He can be so oblivious sometimes," Draco murmured as his fingers dragged over the back of the owl. "I'm afraid he wouldn't understand the metaphors, the flowery language... I thought of sending him roses, but it would be a waste of flowers don't you think? With his poor gardening abilities and especially since Granger says he's not taking care of himself..."

Why would he send him flowers if Harry's not even taking care of himself? He certainly won't take care of the flowers...

"I'm wasting so much paper over this...", he sighed and went to his desk, sitting down and grabbing the nearest piece of paper he could find. Addy flew over to nuzzle his hand which he held up for her and he looked at his bird. "Why does this have to be so hard, dear Addy?" The owl nudged his palm with her beak and he rolled his eyes and send his fingers to brush her feathers again. 

He looked down at the paper which was partly torn but had a sketch of Adelaide in one of its corners. He pulled a pencil from one of his drawers and then decided to let everything go to hell and stop overthinking it because if he continued it down this road, his head was going to explode.

Harry,

Has there ever been a better time for tea? Fancy meeting me at my mother's tomorrow around four? (even though it's pathetic and sudden?) It would bring me great joy if you did...

Optimistically, 

Draco

Of course, after he finished writing he took time to reflect on his existence and whether or not he was completely certain that he wanted to send off a letter of such formal nature. After much groaning and some unsatisfied hooting when he moved his body back onto the bed, he decided that, yes, sending this letter would be the most appropriate thing to do. Despite the fact that both of them quite possibly desired a relationship more intimate than the inked words which had long dried on the paper, after over a month of silence, Draco couldn't be sure if the comfortability they've grown for each other is still standing proud and intact.

Having that in mind, a short, sweet and semi-formal message would have to do. He called Addy but she refused to come, having fallen into slumber perhaps less than half an hour ago. Not unlike the owl, some sort of melted drowsiness spilt over Draco's being as well. He was sinking into the mattress and the sheets scented with lavender. The ceiling was white, its white surface is broken by nothing more than a few small cracks in the paint which were followed by the carefulness of Draco's eyes. 

His eyes followed the branching lines which lead his mind towards the memories of the blanket fort where he stared at the draped, fuzzy folds of orange blankets and lilac bedding which Harry had dragged from his room, while his fingers stroked Harry's curls and tiny circles were drawn all over his chest by Harry's fingers. His thoughts drifted to the rooftop where the stars were blinking back at him as he lay on the gravel, his fingers intertwined with Harry's, their laughter so increadibly loud and important yet so small against the backdrop of the galaxy when Draco explained all about his Martian friends and the adventures and the stars they went to visit together when he was smaller. 

He thought of treetops over them when they sat on a park bench in the middle of the night simply because they were hungry and everything seemed boring enough in their fridge so a quick visit to a shop could be just the thing they needed. He remembered the salty, slightly stale crackers they got a discount on because the packaging was somewhat faded, along with the creamy, heavy flavour of cheep cheese. The way they stole each other's bites and talked about their favourite movies as they were the biggest masterpieces ever to be created. But even though they were total crap, they were masterpieces in their eyes.

He remembered bundles of rain clouds that bloomed over London one morning when the two of them decided to have an impromptu tea party with the only guest being Bowie and Adelaide if she decided to show up after her hunt from the night before. Draco was very twitchy and nervous about his owl as the time tick-tocked away but with Harry's awful jokes and the lukewarm tea they'd made hours ago, he calmed down enough not to strangle Addy with the hug he gave her when she finally returned.

As if she was still careful of his owner's true intentions after that one time, Addy flew from the desk to land on Draco's knees so he couldn't immediately grope her without sitting up and therefore she had the time to escape if there were any alarming signs in Draco's behaviour. 

"Hey there," Draco chuckled and sat up, Addy looking at him cautiously. She has a piece of paper in her beak and Draco soon realised that it was his letter to Harry. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't really tell for how long he's been staring at his ceiling but his room was filled with long shadows and the grey light of a dying sunset. "I should send this off, shouldn't I?"

Adelaide hooted quickly and walked closer to his body until she was settled on his thighs. He took a hold of the letter and then rolled it up, tying it quickly to his owl's leg with a piece of string masterfully crafted from his magic and a swish of his wand. addy glanced at her next delivery and then came forward to boop Draco's nose with her beak. He smiled and dragged his fingers through her feathers gently one last time before his gaze followed her through the open window through which the night was spilling over his hardwood floors.

He sighed and crawled from his bed and followed the soft tunes o his mother's piano which led him into the small living room filled with light and plants and books and now, gentle, flowing music. His mother was sitting in one of the armchairs, the same book from before opened in her lap and she seemed to have made significant progress. There was a half empty cup of tea which, Draco was certain, couldn't be brewed more than ten minutes ago since there was the sweet scent of chamomile still mixed into the evening air. When he glanced at the piano, the tiles were being pressed by an invisible force that was undoubtedly Narcissa's magic and he smiled at her when she looked up from her reading. 

"Want to talk?" Her words intertwined with the playful notes of the piano and there was a small smile lingering on her lips, her eyes shining in that all-knowing glimmer and her fingers were already closing the book she was holding so her mind could be entirely focused on his son's troubles.

"About?" Draco rose his eyebrows, seemingly oblivious to the obviousness of his own distress early that evening when he'd downed that glass of water like it was whiskey. 

"Anything that might be bothering you," Narcissa shrugged and reached for her cup to drink those last bits of tea before it got too cold. Unlike Harry or even Draco who didn't mind working for hours with just that one brew of tea they'd done hours ago, Narcissa Malfoy couldn't imagine drinking anything older than half an hour.

"There are no bothers in my life besides those two childish brats people call my interns."

"Are you certain of that?" There was a moment of silence hanging low over them between the two sings the piano was playing and their eyes never left each others'. Of course Draco didn't want to talk about Potter with his mother and of course she knew he was hiding something troublesome and of course he would lie about it but of course, she would have a pretty good guess of what his problem truly is because Draco never got so restless when it came to work. In conclusion, the whole conversation was pointless since she will undoubtedly decide to give him some straightforward advice about a situation which, in Draco's opinion, she could never understand at all. 

"I assure you, mother," Draco said anyways with a polite smile and now an armchair of his own. "If I had any concern you would be the first to know."

"I truly do hope that is true, Draco," she then said, more serious with genuine concern beginning to crease her forehead. "I am your mum after all...I know some topics might be a touch uncomfortable to discuss but I like to believe I saw your at your best and at your worst so whatever it is that's worrying your mind at any time, you can speak to me about it, okay?"

"Okay," Draco nodded slowly, whispering, a tiny grin tugging his lips as his whole being felt as the one of his eight-year-old self again. "It's nothing of importance, though..."

"Would you like to tell me anyway?" Narcissa offered and he sighed glancing at her before keeping his focus on the plant beside his armchair with big, wide leaves. 

"Granger and Zabini are worried about Potter," he started. "They think he's burying himself in work because he doesn't want to deal with his emotions; he thinks that what he feels is not valid, not important... not mutual."

"Is it mutual?" She quirked an eyebrow but he simply glared at her for trying to force him to admit it out loud as if she didn't already know. 

"They think it would be a good idea for the two of us to... reconnect. They think that perhaps I could help him balance his life and not die of sleep-deprivation. So... I wrote him a letter."

"Saying how you felt about him?"

"Inviting him for tea tomorrow afternoon," Draco cleared his throat and suddenly glanced at the windows with the view of the back garden. Narcissa followed his gaze as he continued speaking. "I invited him to come here and was planning to maybe show him the gardens..."

"That sounds like a good thing to do," she agreed and Draco appreciated the calm in her voice. He knew that if it was any other person whom he knew, they would be freaking out by the time he got to this point in the conversation. But his mother always knew how to keep him grounded and collected, how to help him keep his thoughts in order. She never made a big deal of any of his problems because she knew that her steady voice would help him far more than another panicked person who's overthinking things just as Draco himself is.

"Perhaps I could take him to the willow and we could talk there."

"It's a very romantic place," Narcissa commented and he could feel touches of a blush spread across his cheeks.

"It makes me feel serene and maybe if he could feel it too, we could open up to each other again even though we haven't heard from each other in so long."

His mother nodded and then it was just the piano and seemingly audible buzzing of Draco's thoughts.  He was fiddling with his fingers and she was looking at the piano tiles move in a soft melody that Draco recognised as one of her own compositions. He glanced at her, the words patchy when they came out: "Do you think he'll like me?"

"I think he already likes you, Draco."

"Do you think everything will go well tomorrow?" Draco asked again.

"I don't see why it wouldn't," his mother answered with a tilt to her head.

"I hope he comes," he murmured into his chin, his teeth worrying his bottom lip.

"I'm certain he will, darling." 

Neither of them said anything for a long time then. After awhile Draco stood up from his armchair and sat on a small chair in front of the piano to distract himself from anxious, doubtful thoughts that lurked in the corners of his stupid brain. At first, the songs his fingers produced were sloppy and crooked since he hadn't played in over five years but it didn't take long for his fingertips to adjust to playing again. Soon, his mother could comfortably relax with her book again and he could close his eyes and let his mind wander as he played. 

It was a chilly evening and the darkness was building in the corners of the windows. Not so far from Narcissa's piano, Harry sat restlessly on the floor, ignoring George's requests for information. Draco's letter was squeezed in one of his palms, the other covering his eyes which burned. He was tired, so very tired that he hadn't even realised it until the moment his thoughts started whispering of Draco and their last memory together - sleeping in the blanket fort. 

He needed to go to sleep; he wanted to go to sleep. He wanted to sleep for days but he couldn't since there was no chance in hell he is going to miss that tea with Draco tomorrow - it seemed as a turning point of sorts which he only now recognised.

Back when they first moved out, him and Draco, month and a half ago, he felt like it was such a wrong thing to do since that flat never felt like a bridge to something better as his old living spaced did. But now when he looked back and his perception was a tad bit different he could see that that flat was ultimately a bridge which was supposed to lead them to each other. 

And they fucked it up.

So without further ado, he stood up and went to catch up on his much-needed sleep, without a single word of excuse for his business partner and a lonely thought of Draco Malfoy.

.o0o.

It seemed as if the bundles of moss were bigger and the stray pebbles appeared more often since Draco couldn't help but trip every other step as he hurried back to the house. He decided to do some reading to calm his nerves that morning, but with the calm exterior he settled in and the pathetically low amount of sleep he managed to catch the night before due to high temperatures and his own overthinking, he couldn't help but fall into a blissful slumber beneath the willow he'd come to consider his own.

What had woken him was his mother's steady, amused voice announcing that his guest had arrived and when he opened his eyes he was nose to nose with a shining, pale blue arctic fox that was Narcissa's Patronus. He cursed, jumped up, letting the book fall from his lap onto the soft grass near the place he'd been sleeping mere moments ago and started running towards the house, wondering where his mother and Harry might have gone to. Have they decided to sit in the library? The sitting room? Winter garden? Formal garden, even?

Deciding to visit the kitchen to catch his breath and take a glass of water first, he slowed his steps in case they really were in one of the gardens. No matter how good Potter knew him, or how good he thought he knew Potter, him running, panicked and desperate to meet him could never be anything but embarrassing.

He took a deep breath, brushed his hair out of his eyes, performed a quick straightening charm on his shirt which was incredibly crumpled and pushed the back door of the house. He walked towards the kitchen and when the muffled voiced and polite but pleasant laughter became clear, he couldn't but feel relieved that he will not have to go on a hunt to find his mother and Harry. Another part of him cursed in the foulest ways because he'd hoped he would have more time to get his shit together after falling asleep beneath a tree and then running across two of his mother's gardens. Truly, he wasn't ready to face Harry. He wasn't ready at all.

He surely wasn't ready to see Harry casually leaning against his kitchen counter in those whitewashed jeans and a V-neck T-shirt, his hair pulled into a neat bun and half of his face covered in an easy stubble Draco's never seen on him before. His fingers were wrapped loosely around a tea-mug and although his eyes looked tired he also seemed relaxed and comfortable and perhaps after a long time, without a worry on his mind.

Unlike Harry, Draco was still catching his breath and he was flushing and his heart was beating and he made sure to make a mental note to mention all the running to his mother when she tackles him about getting oh, so flustered when he caught the sight of his ex-roommate. All in all, despite Harry being the one who supposedly needed help to regain a normal state of mind, Draco was a mess.

"I'm glad you've finally joined us, Draco," Narcissa then said behind her teacup, Draco's eyes jumping to hers immediately. 

"Hi you," Harry said with a smile a tug more genuine than the one that graced his lips moments before and put his cup back on the delicately gorgeous saucer that along with the cup might look pretty in a display of some sorts, but gave no justice to the excellent tea Narcissa has served him. Harry moved forward then, instinctively as he would with any of his friends. 

Before Draco could realise what was happening or even consider the situation properly, Harry was hugging him lightly, his hands wrapped around his back, patting gently. His breathing must have stopped and his eyes stood wide in shock because he could swear that he could feel that skip of his heart all over his body. He glanced at his mother who was pointedly looking away as if they were doing something incredibly obscene. It barely took a moment for Draco to awkwardly wrap his arms around Potter but it seemed like those moments in which Harry's body was tense with uncertainty against him lasted for hours. 

However, as soon as Draco's initial shock vanished and he was able to hug the other man back, both of them visibly relaxed. The hug couldn't have lasted for more than a couple of seconds but there was this strange tingle in Draco's chest telling him that usual greeting hugs never lasted longer than a pat on the back and a smile.

There a pale touch of blush on Harry's cheeks when they pulled back and although it could easily have been from the warmth of the air in the room, Draco wasn't quite sure that he'd noticed it being there before they hugged.

"Hey," he then, pushing blonde streaks of hair through his fingers once more and attempting to smile. "How have you been?"

"Good," Harry nodded and then considered his answer before taking his tea back into his hands and speaking again. "Busy. The idea really developed as we continued to work and now instead of a couple of products we are doing a whole... well, a collection of sorts?"

"I'm glad to hear that your business is not a disappointment," Draco responded with genuine interest. He took out the mug which he most often used because of the combination of periwinkle blue in its colour and the amount of liquid it could hold. He filled it with water and with a simple swish of a wand, increased its temperature. He stuck a tea bag into the hot water and continued talking. "To be honest, I myself am looking forward to its release. Perhaps you have some... gentler solution to my insomnia than Dreamless?"

Harry smiled at that with the ideas popping in his head, thinking of banter and casual flirtations he and Draco used to share back when they started living together. "I can think of few ways to help you sleep," he admitted, a small smirk blooming at the corner of his mouth. He glanced at Draco and then looked down to his tea, taking a sip. "This product we are working on being only one out of several."

Draco didn't respond but rather dared himself to glance at his mother. Narcissa was leaning against the table, drinking her tea and her eyes seemingly occupying by the words on the cover of the yesterday's Prophet. She did have ears and Draco knew her for far too many years not to notice the amusement in her features even though it was shown in only slightest of lines.

"Mother," Draco called with his tone slightly accusing. She looked up at him with a polite, innocent, little smile. "Would you mind if I showed Harry the gardens?"

"You're done with your tea already?" She frowned slightly and put her cup down. 

"Not quite. We're done with this little tea-party gathering that's formed in our kitchen, though," Draco charmed his mug to float next to him and crossed his arms over his chest. His face fell slightly when the amused frown between Narcissa's eyebrows only deepened. "Harry'll simply get a new cup of tea - this time in a proper mug. We wouldn't want our guests to think we're unwilling to give them a proper drink."

"Harry is your guest Draco. It would be only expected that you serve him tea you invited him for," his mother told him lightly. "But since you couldn't even great him properly, I took it as my responsibility to make him feel welcome in our home."

"You're being overly judgemental of me," Draco rolled his eyes and set out to make Harry another tea, this time in a lilac mug with a bee design all over it. "Peppermint, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Harry muttered. "But chamomile is fine too if you don't have it..."

"I have it," Draco assured then, with a grin. "Don't worry, Potter. What kind of barbarian would I be if I didn't have peppermint tea?"

"The same kind of barbarian who drinks passion flower tea," his mother remarked, dryly. He glared at her and she turned and walked out of the kitchen.

"Have you two been fighting?", Harry asked suddenly as Draco started putting sugar into their respective mugs. 

"No?", He glanced at Harry with a raised eyebrow. "Why would you think that?"

"You seemed tense when you realised she was in the room," Harry shrugged. "That's all."

"Oh, it's nothing like that," Draco chuckled and waved his hand dismissively, stepping closer to Harry, giving him his tea and then politely, taking a few steps back and keeping his distance until Harry showed that personal space wasn't such a big deal anymore. "She's just trying to be acceptive of me and her way of support is to think of every guy I hang out with as a potential son-in-law. I mean, I'm almost twenty-five and you know how mothers are..."

"Yeah," Harry nodded awkwardly. "I guess I do."

Draco frowned at that, confused by the uncertainty at first and then it hit him. With Harry's situation he didn't know how mothers are and now with his stupid mouth, Draco turned this light-hearted conversation into an awkward silence with the death of Harry's parents hanging itchy over their skin.

"I'm sorry," Draco bit his lips and sought Harry's eyes. "I really didn't mean to rub it in, I didn't think and I-"

"Draco, It's alright," Harry stopped tapping the mug which was handed to him and looked back where Malfoy was watching him apologetically. Harry smiled a little, one of those shy, loop-sided grins of his that always made Draco's heart flutter because he looked so fragile when he looked at him like that. "It's really okay. I promise."

 "I'm still sorry," Draco muttered and walked closer to Harry. 

"It's fine," Harry shook his head.

"Accept my apology in tea. Try it - it's really good", Draco encouraged and motioned to Harry's hands where the tea was cooling ever so slowly. Harry grinned with a murmured. "Thanks." 

Draco just smiled at him and watched as Harry hesitantly tried the tea. He rolled his eyes when he faked a puking motion and they both chuckled in silence. Draco brought his mug to his lips, Harry's eyes watching him intently. 

They looked at each other, smallest of smiles mirroring one another and then Draco looked down into his cup with a sigh. "I'm still sorry, though." His words were quiet and low and dragged through their minds with those which couldn't be said out loud. 

"I'm still waiting for you to show me the gardens," Harry then chimed, grinning expectantly deciding to drop the moody atmosphere they'd managed to wander into.

Draco tilted his head, slightly amused. "That was just the excuse to get away from my mother," he mentioned casually. "But if you still wanna see them..." He shrugs and turns towards back doors through which he'd run into the kitchen. His eyebrow is raised in an invitation and Harry grins wider taking a step towards him. He grabbed Draco's hands enthusiastically into his own, his face flushed in a smile, and whispered: "I'd loved to."

Draco chuckled, squeezing Harry's hands back and stepped to the door. "Since when are you so excited about gardens?"

"It's not just gardens... It's getting a break I probably don't deserve because our progress is so slow," Harry muttered and then watched as Draco opened the door to reveal a paradise of its own, a beautiful land of greenery and flowers. "And you. I haven't seen you in a while. I would even dare to say that I missed you..."

Draco almost tripped over the step that separated the house and the garden when Harry murmured his last words. He continued to walk for a moment before muttering something about how outrageous it was that someone missed him. Harry elbowed him and Draco grinned at him then. "I missed you too, Potter." They were still holding hands but they both acted as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. Friends hold hands. 'Don't they?', Draco assured himself that they do and decided to occupy his mind by listing all the flowers in the garden to Harry who was more amazed by the way Draco pronounced each of the complex Latin names than the flowers themselves.

"It all comes together to form this beautiful formal garden which mother still refuses to apply for the local garden competition," Draco rambled on as Harry watched him with a soft fond going in the corner of his eyes. "I keep telling her that it would be an easy win but she wants to keep out of the newspaper since that's where Malfoys and Blacks have always been due to their fortunes. But muggle, gardening magazines are completely different! Don't you agree?"

"Well, it's really not the same thing, but maybe your mum wants to keep this to herself," Harry shrugged and brushed his fingers through the leaves of an apple tree, seeking ripe fruit. "Because this is her thing, you know. Like your thing is singing in the shower and mine is bringing Doctor Who with unsalted popcorn."

Draco sighed but didn't say anything for a minute or so. They'd progressed further into the garden, walking along the pebbled path, nearing the ragged fence that served as a portal to Draco's little safe space. "There's this part in the back," Draco spoke then, slowly. "It's almost like a little forest of sorts. Mother still hasn't transformed it into one of her manicured corners so it's wild but timid and it has a stream and this willow with moss and soft grass and flowers."

"Sounds lovely," Harry smiled and swung their hands in the air. Draco watched him smile only now becoming aware that he'd almost forgotten Harry was walking so close to him and that they were holding hands. He let go of Harry's palm and instead hooked their pinkies together. Harry frowned at him a bit but said nothing, asking a question instead. "Is that where we're going now?"

"Certainly," Draco nodded, glancing at Potter and then leaving the path to reach the shrubbery and bushed which hid the entrance. "I'm sure you'll love it. I often go there to read or write; it's just very calm."

"I wish I had a place with such calm near the burrow."

"I can only imagine how stressful a project like yours must be," Draco noticed and Harry shrugged.

"It's not that bad," He replied and then glanced up to Draco's eyes which were looking at him. "I'm sure your job is far more annoying... Especially with those interns of yours."

"Who told you about the interns?", Draco scoffed suddenly. Why did it matter if he had a lab full of annoying brats? Did Harry think he was incompetent if doing things on his own? He was very much competent and the interns were terrified of him!

"'Mione."

"That bitch!" It was all for dramatic effect really and Harry could see a crack of a laugh in the pauses between the syllables.

"Language!", Harry laughed and Draco smacked the back of his head. 

"You're telling me about language?" Draco now laughed mockingly. "You curse more than a drunken sailor!"

"Yeah, yeah," Harry chuckled again and turned so he was walking backwards, his eyes fixed on Draco's easy grin and his hand pulling the blond along. "You were telling me about your interns?"

"They're more like my minions, to be honest," Draco twirled his hand through the air as he started to explain furthermore. Harry snorted. 

"Minions?"

"Well, yes," Draco confirmed and nodded as serious as ever. "You see, Every villain has to start with something. Also, I'm fairly certain two minions is more that Voldemort had when he started his spooky career."

"You're not a villain, Draco," Harry then sighed, suddenly his smile becoming one of worry than that of amusement and ridiculousness. 

"Eh," Draco shrugged, seemingly unbothered by the fact that some people still think he's evil because of his lineage. He had to be involved with Voldemort somehow, didn't he? Why does it matter he spent all of the war years in France, keeping himself as far from his scum of a father as possible. "It kinda runs in the family..."

"But you're so much more than your family's stereotype," Harry told him, stopping and putting a hand onto Draco's biceps. The touch burned through the thin fabric of Draco's shirt and shivers shot down his back when Harry smiled at him and retreated his hand. 

"Am I now?", Draco murmured still looking at those green, green eyes, perfectly aware of the blush creeping against his cheeks. He just needed to breathe, relax, breathe, relax... And then the rapid pounding of his heart won't be filling his ears.

"Yeah." There was a little smile on Harry's lips now. A shy little smile. They were walking again, past the tilted fence, with a stream following their words in soft gurgles.

"How come?"

"Just look at the place you brought me to," Harry chuckled and Draco grinned at him when the willow's soft branches moved to greet them in the gentle wind. There the moss on the ground, speckled with grass as green as Harry's eyes, the stream travelling right next to them and small yellow flowers that burned bright beneath their feet.

"Oh, yeah," Draco glanced at Harry and then pulled his hand to follow him under the tree. The grass tickled their fingers when they sat down, so close that their thighs were touching, their shoulders brushing against each other as they both tried to lean their back against the thick trunk of the willow. "My little patch of heaven;" Draco then sighed.

"It's really beautiful. A great place to come alone," Harry murmured as his eyes wandered over the branches and sunlight that dripped in patches over the leaves.

"It really is... Just being here alone, just you, the only one with nature."

"And yet," Harry's eyes searched Draco's with a touch of something slightly regretful pooling in the corners of his eyes. "You brought me here to ruin your temple of solace, to interrupt your respect of solitude."

"Our souls today exist not for worshipping solitude in this day but rather the contrary. Why worship loneliness," Draco tilted his head with a small, calm smiled. His fingers traced patterns on the ack of Harry's palm as he spoke in a low voice that intertwined with the chirping of birds and whisperings of flowers. "when you can worship something of such greater beauty?"

Harry watched him for a moment before leaning his head onto his shoulder and sighing. His cup was nearly cold in his hand and hi tossed it into the grass next to him. It rolled a bit to the left and then was left to remain in the tickling grass on the warm earth beneath it. "Does tea always make your words so... complicated?"

"I believe it's you take to make my poetic strings quiver, not the tea," Draco grinned and squeezed Harry's hand when Harry chuckled.

"But really, isn't this place ruined by my presence? Doesn't my presence defeat the whole purpose of this heaven? Isn't this secret peace defeated by me knowing it exists?" The worry in harry words was such a kind little thing; Draco's heart swelled with fondness as the other man spoke in soft words.

"I believe that there is something special in you knowing about this place... My mother knows about it and it doesn't change its magic, but you... It almost feels like the air has shifted when you walked in here," Draco admitted slowly. "when you're here with me, it's like we're alone together. With you, it's always so quiet. With you, reality seems so warm, so welcoming, so malleable..."

"I'm afraid that it's too early for me to speak in metaphors," Harry snorted and Draco grinned at him. "And I'm not quite sure if I should take your words as compliments..."

"One could say that every word is a compliment," Draco shrugged. "What I'm trying to say isn't that you're boring or quiet, rather that you interest me, you understand me... you talk to me with great comfort and I can't help but relax in your presence. Really, the easiest way to say is that..." He took a deep breath and then said, in a very serious manner, "I enjoy your company."

And then Harry laughed, in one of those ridiculous, joyful laughs which made Draco believe that there was still so much happiness inside Harry's chest, which made hi fears of Harry's pain pale just a little bit at a time. "I enjoy your company too, Malfoy," Harry chuckled again, not really understanding why it seemed like enjoying each other was such a big deal. If he were honest, Draco didn't quite understand either.

"Draco," Draco said.

Harry frowned for a moment before realising and nodding. "Draco," he repeated and then lifted his head and tickled Draco's side quickly. "But you're still a nerd."

"Stop that!" Draco made a movement to get away from Potter's reach but quickly, Harry pulled him closer, took his hand again and rested his head back onto his shoulder. "That was rude of you."

"Was it really?" Harry snorted before continuing. "I don't care... We're really good friends so I can insult you all I want." Harry crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes ignoring Draco's huffs.

"Maybe I don't want to be your friend anymore," Draco glared at him in a little, offended voice. 

"Because of my insults?", Harry asked, laughing a little. "Come on, Ma-Draco... Both of us know you love them."

It was very much true and it only made Draco's dissatisfied frown deepen. He did love Harry's insults. Just as he lov-liked Harry.

"Still," Draco shrugged again. "I don't appreciate you mocking me."

"I'm not mocking you," Harry said simply, scooting closer to the other man and fidgeting so he could get more comfortable in his relaxed state. "I'm just teasing. And it's really adorable when you glare at me with the anger of all the human life that has ever existed because you want nothing more than to curse every ancestor of mine."

"My knowledge of your family history is incredibly small since I don't really spend my time stalking every single bit of your life, you know. So I would have to disappoint you with the fact that I don't actually know the majority of your ancestry."

"Oh, my Lord and Savour Justin Timberlake!" Harry moved away from Draco's shoulder to stare at him, astonished. "Is Draco Malfoy actually admitting to not knowing something?"

"It's more likely than you think," Draco chuckled and put an arm around Harry's shoulder when he leaned back into his embrace. 

"It really is unbelievable!" Harry still went on. "Who would know you possess such courage, such bravery..."

"Oh, trust me," Draco sighed in a way which seemed like this whole honesty thing was tiring him immensely. "I know... It's truly baffling."

They grinned at each other, their lips pressed together as if they didn't really think laughing was appropriate and then Harry allowed himself to snort and that tipped Draco over the edge. Soon, they were both bending with laughter, their stomachs hurting, their teeth showing and they learned to each other for support so they wouldn't fall over even though there was a perfectly fine tree right behind their back to lean onto. 

Harry was the first to speak, wiping away his laughter tears which always came as soon as he started laughing. "I missed this," he admitted again, puffs of laughter still mixed with his words every now and then. "I missed being friends with you."

"Yeah," Draco nodded, sighing. "Me too."

"And you see that even despite your horrible predictions of our doom," Draco added not letting the silence stretch too long. "We are still friends."

Harry hesitated before replying, "Are we though? Are we friends?"

"What do you mean? What else would we be?" Draco stared at Harry, his heart hammering in his ears as he decided to let him take the wheel of whatever conversation he wanted to have with Draco at that moment. He didn't dare hope but something about the shift of Harry's body against his and the way his fingers intertwined with his, gave him the feeling his hopes might not die after all.

Harry then sighed and extracted himself from the tangle of limbs they've become. If he was doing this, it required eye to eye contact. "Draco, you can't tell me you haven't noticed - even if only today's event are taken into account -"

"N-nothing happened today, Harry,"Draco stuttered, shaking his head. Harry tilted his head, frowning and then reaching out to take his hand but the blond moved it before their fingers could touch.

"You can't say it's nothing," Harry then sighed in frustration, in desperation. "What about hugging and hand-holding, the bickering, the stuttering, the blushing, the nervous glances - we practically cuddled in your favourite place in the world! And it's not like we don't find each other attractive - I'm sure that our desire to get into each other's pants was very clear ever since you first stepped into my flat but this..." He sighed again and closed his eyes to sort out his thoughts. He dragged his fingers through his hair and opened his eyes to Draco staring at him, wordlessly. "But this is different than that."

They watched each other, motionless for a moment, two, three and then Draco looked down and folded his arms over his chest, his shoulders slumping down as he sighed. "I thought you were supposed to be the oblivious one."

Harry smiled at that but the frown reappeared as soon as it vanished. "You'd be surprised what a month of practical solation from the majority of human society can do to a man."

Draco looked at him strangely before nodding slowly. "I suppose... I would..."

Then came another round of silence that was again, so much heavier than silences they used to share. This was like a ball of string stuck in their throat, not unlike that cotton balls that appear in the middle of your neck when you're about to cry. This time, Harry stayed quiet, giving Draco space to ponder over new exposed cards laying in such an innocent thing as grass. It seemed like a dangerous game to play, dangerous indeed since it could get out of hand with the easiest slip of a tongue. But it was summer and the air was rusty, the grass was usually itchy and the time was not a real thing. It was summer and mere standing in the sun was dangerous, so maybe a little danger wasn't so bad after all. Maybe some dangers weren't really dangerous at all...

"What do you propose?", Draco murmured after some long uncertainty. Harry thought about the question for a moment and then decided that nothing really mattered anymore. He sighed and looked at Draco who was nervously looking back, his forehead creased as he frowned slightly.

"I propose to really think - " Harry moved closer to the blond and this time, Draco didn't even think of moving away. "- about everything that happened to us during the past six months, and -" Harry's hands found themselves caressing Draco's blushing cheeks and Draco parted his lips at the touch, Harry's movements so careful, so tender. "- unlike our usual selves, we just -" Harry leaned closer, forgetting how to breathe. His heart was beating rapidly, faster than ever before. He could swear that Draco's quick breaths on his lips were going to drive him crazy. He tilted his head a bit, Draco mirroring his actions and then he whispered, with the last hints of self-control, "let go."

It's clumsy at first, the way their mouths bump and graze over each other, Harry's lips surprisingly soft but his stubble scratching Draco's delicate skin every now and then when they moved. It didn't take them long but somehow, in a moment, it happens and Potter's hand is hot against Draco's neck and his tongue slips gracefully in his mouth and who needs breathing after all?

They kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss with the drum of their heartbeat and moans neither of them remembers releasing twisting around them in the hot air. Their chests were flush against each other and Draco's fingers were buried in the soft tangle of Harry's curls. The earth is uneven underneath them and it's bumpy and uncomfortable as their thighs move, trying to get closer, closer, closer...

And then they have to breathe and it's Draco who's pulling away, a million lightning dots covering his vision, making him question the reality of it all. His breathing is shaky and quick and then Harry's arms around his waist and his forehead is leaning against his and they are breathing in equal messy seconds, with their eyes closed, hesitant to do anything but breathe and breathe and breathe and exist. 

Harry moves a bit and then he's kissing Draco again, slowly this time, slow and soft and gentle and loving. A peck after peck, so tenderly their lips barely brush against each other. He kisses him and lets their lips just be there together for a moment or two... Draco pulls away and hugs him, letting the overwhelming warmth slide across his skin and he kisses Harry's shoulder and then sighs.

Timeslips over them like the stream slips over moss covered rocks ad they stay there until their hearts are okay again and their minds are somewhat less fuzzy. 

"How's that for a proposal?", Harry whispers into Draco's ear, sometime after, his breath hot on Draco's skin sending shivers down his spine and Draco pulls back from the hug so he can watch Harry's eyes shine when he replies.

"Now all you have to do is buy a ring." Draco's head is tilted and he watches as Harry's grin wides so it shows his teeth. 

Before you said Quidditch, they were laughing together, now laying in the grass because it was easier than trying to stay sitting and their hands were clasped together and their minds were loud. Then and there, under the care of an old,  serine willow, they were happy, and after a long time, everything as alright.

.:the end:.