"All thoughts, all passions, all delights, / Whatever stirs this mortal frame, / Are all but ministers of Love, / And feed his sacred flame." - Samuel Coleridge
Draco's first thought upon waking the next morning was that he had had extremely vivid dreams. Not bad ones, thank God, but vivid ones nonetheless. Dreams where Harry Potter pursued him to deserted stairwells in the dead of night and snogged him within an inch of his life, until Draco was reduced to a whimpering, boneless puddle of lust. Dreams where Harry was a master of persuasion the rival of any lower-tier Slytherin and coaxed ill-fated promises from Draco's vulnerable heart.
His second thought was along the lines of, "Oh my God. I called him Harry." Potter. Harry. Harry Potter. He tried it outloud: "Harry." It didn't feel as strange in his mouth as ought to. Perhaps because he'd said it in the dream – which was actually further confirmation that it had, in fact, just been a dream. He never would have called Harry Potter by anything other than his surname in real life. Right?
He took a deep breath to soothe his constricting chest.
Draco's third thought brought him to his lips, which were gently pulsing as if they held a small heartbeat trapped between them. He lifted his fingers to them; they felt a little swollen. That was unusual. In fact, the only other time they'd ever felt like this was after Pansy...
His fourth thought was loud and firm – a realization: It hadn't been a dream.
Draco sat straight up in bed, his fingertips still pressed to his mouth as the night's events came rushing back. Running from Harry in the Potions cupboard. Pacing his room. Not being able to sleep. Contemplating the assistance of Nocturna Mortem. Deciding to clear his head on the Astronomy Tower instead. Getting nowhere. Harry finding him. Harry chasing him.
Kissing Harry.
Succumbing.
Draco's eyes felt too swollen for his head, his heart too swollen for his chest.
They'd snogged until Draco's lips were almost numb, though he doubted he'd ever become numb to the sensation of Harry's lips caressing and abusing his. They'd snogged like they'd never get another chance, like it had been now or never. And in a way it had been, for what was it that he had said to Harry? He'd said: "Now is all I can promise."
What was 'now,' anyway? What had he thought to mean by that? It was so vague; it said nothing. Surely the only reason it had slipped past his lips was because he hadn't been thinking – Harry had seen to that.
How long did 'now' last? Where did one now end and another begin? Was now over? Was this now?
If it was, Draco was wasting it dithering in bed. He knew the only solution was to see Harry and speak to him, but even though he knew it, he resisted it. Harry didn't know or care what was good for him, and his enthusiastic carelessness in that regard made it all too easy for Draco to forget, too, when he was with him. And therein lied the danger: despite knowing it was entirely imprudent, Draco so wanted to forget again...
Draco forced himself to relax his fists, which had clenched into his comforter, and coaxed himself out of bed. If nothing else, he had appearances to keep up and classes to attend. He couldn't stay cooped up in his room all day avoiding the real Harry Potter while alternately ravishing and throttling the one who existed purely for the purpose of occupying his thoughts.
He got up. He showered. He dressed. He collected his homework. He left his room and headed for the Great Hall.
… & …
"Harry, I know it's not the best timing, but I think you really need to start thinking about what you're going to do after we graduate," Hermione lectured her friend over oatmeal. "McGonagall is being patient with you, but it just isn't practical to think you can postpone this decision indefinitely. You can't graduate without a plan. You just can't! Have you given any thought to shadowing an Auror for a day? McGonagall said we can be excused from lessons for interviews and things, and then at least you'd know what it'd be like..." Hermione peered at Harry expectantly.
To her dismay, she realized he hadn't been paying a whit of attention to her and was in fact staring bemusedly into the space over her left shoulder. A turn of her head told her there was nothing unusual there this morning – just Slytherin table, as always.
"Harry," she said sharply.
With what appeared to be some great effort, he refocused his eyes and turned them on Hermione, trying and failing to suppress a smile that spilled out between his lips like sunlight between clouds. That smile had nothing to do with her, that much was clear. The question was, what was Harry smiling about? Smiles from him were so rare lately.
"You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?" she asked.
"Wha'?" he asked absently, his thoughts evidently taking more time to focus than his eyes. "Oh, no."
Hermione sighed. "Not that it was that important," she said. "I was only attempting to discuss your future."
"Sorry," Harry apologized sheepishly.
Because Hermione knew he was sincere, and because he was her best friend, and most importantly because her curiosity far outweighed her annoyance, Hermione forgave him immediately.
"It can wait," she allowed.
Harry's lips quirked in gratitude as his eyes started to drift over her shoulder again.
"So," she said, reigning him back in again, "to what do we owe your relaxed spirits this morning?"
"What do you mean?"
"Judging by the insipid smile you can't try hard enough to keep off your face, I'd say you're much more content than I've seen you in a long while."
"Oh, well, I just had a really good night, I guess."
Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Did Ron pilfer Winky's butterbeer store again?"
"No, nothing like that."
"What, then? Did you just sleep well or something?" That in itself would be a miracle; Hermione doubted whether Harry had had a single peaceful night's sleep since the war.
"Well, I didn't sleep very much... but yeah, I slept well."
"No nightmares?" She asked in amazement, relieved for her friend if it were true.
"Nope. My dreams were far more... well, they weren't nightmarish in the least," he reported, his lips twitching playfully and his eyes sliding over her shoulder.
"That's good," she said, turning in her seat to follow Harry's gaze. But all she could see was Draco Malfoy, looking tired and slightly skittish as he drank his coffee.
What was Harry seeing that she wasn't?
… & …
Draco had managed to avoid looking at Harry all throughout breakfast. It had been an effort of constant resistance – Harry's presence tugged at him like a magnet – but his fear of what he would see and how he would feel gave him the determination to manage it.
The truth was that he didn't feel remotely ready to face Harry. To face Harry he needed to be composed and level-headed and sure of himself. As it was, he was still a mess of desires conflicting with reason and conscience. To face Harry he needed the strength born of objectivity, not this vulnerability that bared itself raw to be influenced by Harry's ill-conceived and impractical – albeit seductive – arguments.
Draco rounded a corner and almost tripped when he was abruptly yanked by the arm into an empty classroom. He was opening his mouth to protest – he'd been half-expecting an ambush all term, from people unhappy to see him free to pursue higher education, and was actually surprised it hadn't happened before – when he realized who his captor was.
"Harry," he said in a voice both wary and exquisitely pleased.
Harry appraised him with an inscrutable expression. Then he grasped the back of Draco's neck and leaned up to kiss Draco full on the mouth. Draco's lips parted in surprise, but just as his body was subduing his mind and preparing to take advantage of the situation and kiss Harry back, Harry pulled away.
Still not speaking, Harry smiled softly.
"What was that?" Draco whispered.
"That was good morning."
"Good morning?" Draco repeated.
"Good morning," Harry agreed. His arm still rested loosely around Draco's shoulders and his eyes peered up at Draco far more brightly and lucidly than they usually did this time of day.
Harry rose on his toes again to repeat his greeting and Draco's body shouted for him to comply, but his mind had regained control and wasn't about to let him snog its power away again. It wanted a say, to give approval before any sensual pursuits recommenced.
"Harry," he said.
Harry paused a few inches from Draco's mouth so that Draco felt the word, "Yes?" blow across his lips when Harry spoke it, making it very hard for Draco to maintain the determination to speak rather than close the tiny gap between their mouths and...
"Where exactly..." Draco cleared his throat. "Where do we stand?"
Harry fell back onto his heels. "Here," he said obtusely.
Draco rolled his eyes. "Not literally," he drawled.
"How then?"
"I mean... this," Draco said, gesturing, too scared to articulate what he meant. Somehow the words, "You and me snogging each other senseless like we've been dying for this for years," would not take form on his tongue.
"I know," said Harry. "Here. We stand here."
Draco simply looked at him.
"You said you only wanted 'now,' right?" Harry said, throwing Draco's – for all practical purposes – meaningless words back at him. "Well, this is now."
"So it is," said Draco. Forget that he'd been the first one to suggest it; was that what Harry really wanted – just now, nothing more?
Harry peered up at him expectantly.
"And what exactly does 'now' entail?" Draco asked, with a certain reluctance.
"Do we have to have a definition?" Harry countered. "Can't it just be about seizing the moment?"
Draco tried to ignore the curve of Harry's upper lip that made not kissing him an effort of constant resistance and instead tried to rationalize the implications of 'seizing the moment.' In theory, he was in favor of the moment. 'The moment' promised heated breaths and grasping and plenty of lips and hips and hands. However, a moment sounded awfully short. And although when he was alone with his relentlessly practical mind he knew a relationship with Harry was entirely out of the question, standing here with Harry he found himself aching at the idea of their connection being restricted to a series of moments, however delirious.
Harry's eyes and mouth and Draco's heart and pulse and nerves allied themselves to win out over Draco's mind. "Okay," he said at last.
"Okay?"
"Okay."
Before Draco could react, Harry pressed a quick kiss to his lips, said, "See you in class," and then slipped out the door.
… & …
Georgia was not paying attention to her Potions partner, who was alternating between lecturing her on participation and academic entrepreneurship and begging her fortheloveofGod to do something to help. Unfortunately for her, Georgia was busy. Busy watching Harry Potter.
Georgia laughed to herself as she watched the pretty Slytherin boy tease Harry flirtatiously – he was so delusional. As if Harry, of all Gryffindors, would ever consent to date a Slytherin! Besides, Harry didn't lean that way. She had made sure of that; he had said so. That being so, it was so noble of him to smile back at his partner like that. He was surely trying to protect the Slytherin's feelings. Never mind that no Slytherin, especially not that Slytherin, deserved protection – that was the sort of person Harry was. It was why Georgia loved him.
However, that no longer mattered. Theirs was a love doomed to be cut off at the stem before it reached full bloom. Georgia took a moment to sigh. That was why she was able to find the Slytherin's advances merely amusing rather than intolerable (after all, she had told him in no uncertain terms to back off!).
"Georgia!" cried her partner.
"What?" she whined.
Slughorn shot them a look, and Harry glanced their way. Georgia smiled at him and waved coquettishly.
"Please," begged her partner on the cusp between exasperation and desperation. She was a dramatic one, Georgia thought. Always carrying on so. Potions wasn't exactly life and death, was it? Now Divinations, on the other hand... "Please, can you just pull the petals off this flower?"
Not bothering to ask what specimen exactly she was deflowering,"Fine," Georgia agreed. She was an expert at de-petaling flowers, after all. She practically wrote the apothegm, "He loves me, he loves me not." Or she got more use out of it than the original writer, anyway. Of that much she was sure.
Her partner heaved a sigh of relief and wiped a couple errant droplets of sweat off her brow when the class finished without anything boiling over or blowing up.
Georgia saw Harry leaving the classroom on the heels of his partner and lunged for her bag.
"Great lesson!" she exclaimed hastily to her partner. "I'm really sorry, but I've got to run now – something important to tell... someone – so do you think you could tidy up pretty please? You understand, right?"
Her partner opened her mouth.
"Oh, great!" gushed Georgia. "You are too, too fab!" Then she rushed out of the classroom after Harry.
Most of the class was still putting their things away back in the classroom, so the corridor was virtually empty. Georgia spotted Harry and the Slytherin – Malfoy was his name, she remembered – at the other end of the corridor. They were standing about two feet apart and not facing each other directly, but there didn't otherwise seem to be any tension between them. Georgia reflected that it was a good thing that Malfoy had gotten his lust for Harry back under control, as his raging passions were certainly to blame for his attack on Harry in the corridor a couple weeks ago.
They fell silent as Georgia approached them.
"Harry!" she greeted brightly. Oh, was he fit...
"Georgia?" was Harry's response.
"McDonnell." The Slytherin's voice was not unpleasant, but much like his unarguably good looks, it had a sophistication which seemed to dangle tauntingly downward from somewhere just beyond Georgia's reach, and she couldn't forgive him for it.
"Malfoy," she acknowledged with a curt nod.
The three of them stood looking at one another.
"I need to speak to you for a moment," she told Harry. "Alone."
He and Malfoy exchanged a look. For some reason, Malfoy appeared reluctant to cede Harry's company to Georgia. Even odder was that Harry seemed equally reluctant.
"It's rather urgent," she added.
Harry seemed to sigh inwardly. "Alright," he granted.
Georgia blushed as Malfoy glanced coolly between them, the unsettling beauty of his gaze lingering on Harry, then slipped away.
"You know," Georgia mused, "I reckon he's not quite over you just yet."
"You think?" Harry asked, sounding markedly less anxious about the idea than he had the first time she'd mentioned it. In fact, he almost sounded amused, though Georgia couldn't fathom why.
"Yeah. Anyway," she said, pulling him into a nearby alcove. "Much better. Now we can have some privacy."
"For what, exactly?"
"Don't look so worried! I just need to tell you – warn you – about something."
"You're planning to warn me about something urgent and you want me to not worry?" Harry asked, but he no longer looked so concerned.
Georgia waved a hand at him dismissively and went on. "Here's the thing. Remember that Divination exam I told you about, with the crystal ball reading?"
"Erm... yes?"
"Well, I did it last night and..."
"And?"
"You're not going to like this."
"But you're going to tell me anyway."
"Well, yeah. You should know."
"Okay then. Let's have it."
"It's about you."
"I figured as much."
"And your love life."
"My love life?" The anxiety crept back into Harry's expression. "What do you know about my love life?"
Not as much as I'd like, Georgia thought to herself. "Nothing!" she swore. "Well, nothing specific. Just that... that the next person you fall in love with bears the stain and shadow of the Grim!"
"You're not serious."
Georgia bristled. "I'm completely serious! You really ought to be careful, Harry. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your love will come at great cost to the lucky – or rather, unlucky – recipient. Sinister things will befall them!"
"Sinister things?" he echoed.
"Yes! Their fate is shrouded in darkness!" she exclaimed. Then she went on in a more serious tone, "Which is why, I'm afraid, things aren't going to work out between us." Harry's mouth fell open. "Oh please don't be upset, Harry! I hope you understand. I just can't risk things becoming too heavy and..."
"Suffering the sinister things of the Grim?" he supplied.
"Yes," she said gravely.
"I understand completely," he assured her.
"Oh! Do you?" she exclaimed with relief. "I'm so glad! I could never stand to think I'd hurt you!"
"Don't worry about me," he said. "Only think of what's best for yourself. You're right – honestly, it's safer for you to stay away from me."
Georgia nearly swooned. Harry was so selfless!
"Oh," she sighed. "Oh, I am so relieved you understand. You can't know how worried I've been... But Harry," she added, "promise me you'll be careful? If it's not me, it'll be someone else." Damn them whoever they are, she added to herself. But I've made my choice. Even Harry isn't worth throwing my life away for. Death is only romantic in novels.
"I'll be alright. I've, ah, dealt with the Grim before," Harry reassured her. "Thank you for the warning, Georgia. I should go now, though. I have to..." He gestured vaguely toward the open corridor. "See you 'round."
"But—" she began as he walked away, finishing to herself: "It's not you been threatened."
… & …
"Ginny," said Hermione to Ginny after dinner a couple of days later. They were sitting together by the fire in the common room, Hermione with a book across her lap and Ginny curled up in the armchair beside her. "Is it just me, or does Harry seem happier than usual lately? Almost... blissful?"
Ginny turned to look at Harry, who was sitting off to one side of them, gazing into the fireplace, the firelight accentuating the absently upturned corners of his lips in a flickering partnership of light and shadow.
"It's not just you," she said. "He does." She smiled to herself as she looked at him.
"I haven't seen him this content since... well, in ages," said Hermione. "Do you know what it is?"
Ginny turned back to Hermione. "Me? Oh, no. I haven't talked to him properly in ages. Almost three days ago, I think."
"Three days ago."
"Yes, three days."
"What could have happened in three days?"
"Loads," Ginny assured her, lips curled in her signature impish grin. "More than you might imagine."
"Ginny, what exactly do you know?" Hermione pressed, leaning forward.
Ginny opened her mouth to reply, but just then they were interrupted by an owl tapping at the window.
To their right, Harry started. Upon whipping his head around to see the owl hovering on the other side of the windowpane, he shot up ungracefully from his seat and dashed to let it in. He took the small folded parchment the bird carried and hastily opened it. It must have been a short missive, because not a moment had passed before he was folding it back up and biting his lip to keep from beaming. Then he glanced over at them.
"Harry? What is it? Who's it from?" Hermione pried.
"Oh – nobody. It's nothing. I – I think I'll just go up to bed now," he replied, then abruptly disappeared up to the boys dormitory.
"Hmph," Hermione grunted to herself. 'Nobody' – she didn't buy that for a second.
Hermione gave Ginny a look, but Ginny merely shrugged her shoulders in the universal gesture of "Don't ask me!"
Well, then. If all anyone was going to do was tease her with fragmented hints at real answers, so be it. Hermione was sure the truth would become clear enough to her sooner or later; it always did. Yes, it galled her that the library would be of no use in solving this particular dilemma, but really, it was only a matter of time.
… & …
Harry shut the dormitory door behind him and pulled the note out of his robe's pocket to read it over once more before he burned it:
Prefects bathroom, third floor. You know the password.
It was not signed, but Harry had no doubt who it was from. He whispered, "Incendio," and watched the parchment curl and crumble into black dust between his fingers. There was an unspoken agreement between him and Draco to keep their... for lack of a better word, affair absolutely secret, which with roommates like Harry's necessitated melodramatic measures like note burning.
His 'affair' with Draco had carbonated Harry's world. He constantly felt as if he'd had one too many butterbeers. He could hardly keep a straight face and couldn't hold still for more than ten consecutive seconds.
Harry threw on his cloak and headed back downstairs toward the Portrait Hole, sneaking past Ginny and Hermione (Ron was there too, but was asleep with his head on Hermione's lap and therefore irrelevant).
Hermione's brow was furrowed in thought. Harry knew she'd seen through his flimsy explanation of the note and was in all probability doing her best to riddle it out even as he snuck out to consummate its contents. And knowing her, it wouldn't take her all that long. He'd probably have to confront her, at least, about Draco sooner than he'd like. Ginny, too, since she already knew some of it. But Ron... Harry's gut twisted when he thought about Ron. So he didn't. He turned his thoughts to Draco instead, and was thus preoccupied all the way to the third floor.
When he reached the Prefects bathroom he slipped in quietly. Inside, he let the cloak fall from his shoulders and slide to the floor in a silvery puddle.
"Draco?" he called softly into the dark bathroom, taking a few steps in.
He heard a muffled, "Alohomora," and the click of the lock sealing behind him, followed by the rustle of robes moving through darkness.
And then he was pinned to the wall.
Draco's hands grasped Harry's waist and pushed him against the stone wall, pinning Harry there with the persistent pressure of his own firm body against Harry's. Harry's exclamation of surprise and exhilaration was cut short by Draco's lips meeting his, taking the sound from his tongue.
If the ache of Harry's desire building throughout the day were a balloon stretched tight against too much helium, then Draco's kisses were the needle that punctured the skin of that balloon and sent the lust gushing out in a wild, desperate rush of lips and tongues and hands and panting and hot skin and moans.
"We have to stop meeting like this," joked Harry archly, panting, when they came up for air.
Draco's eyes, when he looked into Harry's, were the crisp gray of pencil lead smudged with lust. Pieces of white-blonde hair fell wantonly across his forehead like renegade beams of moonlight. "Not on your life," he swore in a throaty voice that set the second heart in Harry's pants to pulsing and tingling.
Harry wound his hands into Draco's beautiful hair, soft and inviting, to pull those pink kiss-pouted lips back to his, and that was the last talking they did for some time.
Harry's hands were all over Draco – in his hair, sliding along his arms, down his back, up his thighs, on his arse – grappling anywhere and everywhere they could reach for leverage to tug him closer, closer to Draco. They slid along the wall, spinning so Draco's back was pressed against it, then Harry's, and back to Draco, until they came to a stretch of sinks. Then Draco took dominance again and hoisted Harry up onto the counter behind him so that he was standing between Harry's legs and their faces were the same height. Harry wrapped his legs around Draco's torso and trapped him snugly against the pulsing centers of his body – the beating origins of his two hearts.
Never once did their eager lips part. A frenzied, desperate need was coiling in Harry's bones, and Draco was matching him grasp for grasp and pant for pant,passion for passion and Oh, bloody hell... Romeo was right – this was madness. But it was the most delicious kind of madness Harry had ever felt.
Harry pulled away with a final heady, slow kiss on Draco's mouth and several more lingering kisses across his face. "It's getting late," he said. "We should go to detention."
"Sod detention," said Draco, kissing Harry's mouth softly.
"Mmm..." hummed Harry. "But..." Draco kissed him again, tracing Harry's lips with his tongue before using it to tease Harry's, making Harry tingle all over and lose his train of thought entirely.
Then Draco's lips slid away. "You're right," he said. "We should go."
Harry groaned, so quietly it was more of a vibration in the depths of his throat than an actual sound. "Okay," he reluctantly agreed.
"We oughtn't both go at once."
"No," Harry nodded. "Better not, just in case."
Their lips met again for a few seconds, drawn together unthinkingly, like two magnets.
"I'll go first," Draco said when they separated again.
"Okay, you go," offered Harry bemusedly.
Instead of going, Draco kissed Harry again. He cradled the back of Harry's neck and kissed him deeply and tenderly, with Harry's arms and legs wrapped tightly around him. Afterwards, Harry pressed his hot cheek against Draco's and felt their hearts beating fervently in their chests.
Finally Draco stirred, pressing lips wet from kissing to Harry's temple then disentangling himself and stepping away. The shadows emphasized the post-snog flushed vitality of his countenance and Harry ached at the beauty of it, and the pride and awe in knowing he had put that flush there.
Draco didn't say a word as he left, but the expression in his eyes was all the goodbye Harry needed.
When he was gone, Harry leaned back against the mirror behind him, taking deep breaths to slow his lascivious heartbeat.
It had been like this for the past two days – the tension of suppressed longing building between them all day, together and apart, then erupting in brief clandestine meetings scheduled by note or covert whisper in class. Since that first morning they hadn't verbally acknowledged what was happening between them, nor had they spoken of what would happen if and when this effervescent bubble of private, insatiable sexual appetite was broken by the reality of unsexy scheduling conflicts, homework loads, or even discovery.
They had certainly not spoken of the monster lurking in the shadowy corners of their arrangement, growling: attachment.
The initial rush of victory Harry had felt at Draco's concession in the Astronomy Tower that they could have 'now' had faded. Instead, a regret for encouraging the no strings policy that he'd thought was the only way Draco would consent to consummating (without ever quenching) their desire was increasingly gnawing at the back of his mind.
He regretted it in his rational moments, when he acknowledged that they wouldn't be able to sustain this affair as they had been – secretively, albeit passionately, without discussion.
He regretted it when the morning light caught Draco's hair in Potions and made it glow like some kind of ironic, earth-bound halo.
He regretted it when something he said sparked that unexpected, stunning smile that was one of Draco's best kept secrets.
He regretted it when Draco ducked his head and played with his fingers while admitting something personal to Harry, when the realization of how vulnerable he was making himself to Harry on those occasions plucked at the strings of Harry's heart.
He regretted it when Draco's whispers tickled his ears as he whispered to Harry; when his posture stiffened in response to a jab at his family or his past and Harry was gripped with a fierce instinct to protect him; when he raised his hand in class and gave, with cool confidence and elegant enunciation, the correct answers.
In fact, it was starting to be such that the only time he didn't regret it was when he was with Draco, and therefore too distracted to think about it.
Harry sighed. He'd been trying ardently to ignore this regret and live in the moment, but that was becoming more and more difficult. The affair was transcending simple lust for him.
He was falling for Draco Malfoy, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
… & …
"Harry!" Ginny called out as she emerged from the Portrait hole, spotting him walking quickly away down the corridor. "Wait up!"
Harry turned and paused.
"Hey," he said as she approached. "Um, I'm actually on my way to –"
"Not again?" She interrupted him. "I've hardly spoken three words to you in days! You're constantly going somewhere!"
"I'm just busy, I guess," he offered.
"With what? You've never been too busy for me before," she pouted.
"I'm sorry, Gin. I've just got a lot of... stuff to do."
"Uh huh."
"Honestly! I'm behind on loads of homework, and there's Quidditch practices... I hardly have time to sleep."
"Well, you never do much sleeping anyway," she argued, "but you do need to eat. So come have lunch with us." She took hold of his arm and began dragging him toward the staircase.
He extracted himself. "Gin, I can't," he said. "I have to go meet – someone."
Ginny narrowed her eyes. "Someone?"
"Yeah, someone. I... I have a new Potions tutor."
"Harry James Potter," Ginny said sternly, "You are a terrible liar. I will let you go now, but you will tell me what's going on."
Chastened, Harry's shoulders slumped a little. "I know," he sighed. "I will. I promise."
"Soon," she demanded.
"Soon," he agreed.
"Okay," said Ginny, thus placated. "Off you go then."
"Thanks Gin." Harry tugged affectionately on the ends of her long red hair, then turned and hasted away down the corridor.
Ginny shook her head to herself. She had a good idea what was going on, but she wanted to hear it from him.
A few minutes later found her at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, eating lunch with Ron and Hermione. Hermione was clearly agitated, her thoughts elsewhere as she pushed her food around her plate and responded to Ron's enthusiastic monologue with noncommittal 'Mhmm's.'
"Where's Harry?" she asked, interrupting Ron mid-sentence in a description of an incident in Transfiguration involving an unfortunate student volunteer, an inept seventh year, and an appearance shaping charm.
"He's, ah, studying," supplied Ginny.
"Studying?" Hermione repeated. "At lunch?"
"Yeah, odd, I know. But I guess he's really behind or something."
"Hmm," said Hermione.
"Can't blame him," said Ron. "I have three essays due this week just in History of Magic."
This distracted Hermione from Harry's absence momentarily. "Ron!" she exclaimed. "You don't mean to say you haven't even started? You know we have that partner project coming up in Transfiguration that's going to take up all our time. You should have worked ahead!"
"I know, 'Mione. I just..."
"You'd just rather show off your prowess at Wizard's Chess by challenging all the first years," she snapped. "You ought to be in the library with Harry right now."
Ron's ears went pink. Ginny suppressed a giggle. It was so fun to watch Hermione nag Ron like a disgruntled housewife that it almost made up for the disgusting ordeal that was witnessing them snogging.
"Aw, come on, Hermione," he complained. "It's lunch. I'm on break."
"You can go on break when your work's done," she reprimanded.
"Do you reckon Harry's in the library?" Ron asked Ginny, attempting to change the subject. "I have some Quidditch strategies I want to talk to him about, but I haven't seen him around in ages..."
"Oh," said Ginny, caught in her cover for Harry. "Well, I mean, he's studying, so I s'pose."
"Brilliant. I'll just go talk to him now," said Ron, getting up from the table. "And then study," he added hastily when Hermione glared at him.
"No!" Ginny exclaimed. If he went now, he would see that Harry wasn't there. And even Ron would start to wonder if Harry's one feeble cover for his absences was blown.
Ron gave her a strange look.
"I mean, I don't think you should disturb him right now. He seemed really stressed when I saw him," she improvised.
Thank goodness Ron was such a noble friend. Her appeal to Harry's mental health had him sitting right back down.
"Good thinking," he said. "It can wait. I can talk to him in the common room tonight."
Hermione, however, was not as ready to accept this excuse. Not for the first time, Ginny felt Hermione's keen, sagacious gaze peering at her, trying to extract the truth. Ginny was a good liar, but she knew her limits. She wouldn't be able to hold up much longer under Hermione's scrutiny, even knowing so little as she did. And she didn't want to betray Harry.
"So," she said, standing. "I should go. Class soon."
"But you've hardly eaten anything," protested Ron, as ever incapable of fathoming how anyone could leave the table without first polishing off half of everything within arm's reach.
"I'm not that hungry," Ginny claimed. Then, realizing abruptness and speed were her only chance at unimpeded escape, said, "Well, see you later, cheers!" and quickly stepped away from the table and toward the door.
"Phew," she said under her breath. Unless this secret of Harry's was spilled soon, she would have to start avoiding Hermione and Ron too. And with Harry so preoccupied, that would leave her quite lonely indeed. She hoped for her sake that Harry fessed up sooner rather than later.
… & …
"Come on," whispered Harry from beneath the invisibility cloak, tugging on Draco's sleeve, "Madame Pince has gone out. Nobody's around."
Draco looked up from the textbook open on the table in front of him and gave the room a quick scan with his shrewd grey eyes. They crinkled at the edges when he confirmed Harry's statement. He grinned wickedly at the seat where Harry was invisibly keeping him company and stood up, hooking his hand around the crook of Harry's elbow and pulling Harry up with him. They stood close, knees, hips, and torsos touching through the material of the cloak. Ascertaining that they were still alone, Harry opened the cloak and pulled Draco inside.
Draco's fingers snaked in between Harry's, chilly at first but rapidly warming. They hustled over to a secluded alcove and Harry pushed Draco firmly up against one of the shelves. Draco pressed himself up against Harry, the contours of their bodies curving tenderly together, and lowered his face down to Harry's so that their foreheads were touching. Harry's pulse was racing and his skin buzzed in anticipation. The cloak trapped their heat, swirling it around them in an intimate cocoon.
Draco's breath wafted across Harry's face in a warm wash of air. The blonde boy's expression was soft and serious, his eyes curling up in Harry's. The public distance between them had melted in a matter of seconds, disintegrating into no more than a million particles of air that were swept away like nothing. Now there was nothing but breathing and skin and Harry and Draco and proximity... oh, perilous and heady proximity...
… & …
Ron heard a swish of fabric, loud in the silent library, and looked up. He was so easily and eagerly distracted from studying that a noise as quiet as that was ample enough to snatch his attention, which was why Hermione was forcing him to study in these damned secluded corners of the library in the first place. The was nothing to look at here, he'd protested. But of course that was her point. Unlike her, he failed to be distracted by rows and rows of books. There was nothing else for him to do but the work he'd been neglecting. He cursed his thoughtlessness in admitting to being so behind. Under Hermione's direction, he now actually had to catch up.
Now, however, a distraction had emerged. Thus intrigued, he strained his ears, listening for further movement. There was nothing for a minute and so, disappointed, he started to turn back to his work. But then another sound emerged from the still depths of library, a subdued murmuring. And it sounded nearby. In fact, it sounded like it was coming from the other side of the wall of shelves in front of him.
Ron stood up carefully, trying not to make any noise that might alert the clandestine speakers to his presence and tiptoed over to the corner where his side of the shelves turned back on itself towards the other side. As he listened, the murmuring stopped, and for a panicked second Ron feared he'd been heard.
He froze.
Then he heard the unmistakeable – even to his undiscerning ears – soft slurping sounds of kissing. From what he could tell, as a blind listener, the couple was rather keen on one another. Keen, indeed. Ron couldn't stop himself from leaning further around the corner to get a look at who it was.
The alcove was empty.
It was also now quiet again. Confused, Ron blinked several times and shook his head, wondering if the hours of isolated studying had caused him to start imagining things. But then he heard a distinct, though quiet, sound of lips parting, and a sigh. There was someone there. Which could only mean...
It was Harry. It had to be. Who else could snog invisibly? Harry, sharing his invisibility cloak. That's who. A hot blush surged up from Ron's neck and turned his cheeks a smoldering shade of red that clashed with the orange-red of his bright hair. For a moment he was paralyzed with the sheer embarrassment of having walked in on his best friend mid-snog, even if he couldn't actually see anything. Then he came to and reeled backwards, dashing back toward his table and forgetting in his haste to be cautious about noise.
Had Harry seen him? He hoped not, praying he'd been right about the enthusiasm of the snog – that Harry had been too otherwise occupied to have noticed his best friend lurking behind bookshelves. And if he had been seen, well, Ron could apologize later. It was an honest mistake, really.
But who in bloody hell had Harry been snogging?
Pausing on the way back to his table, Ron noticed that there was only one other occupied table in the library. Presumably occupied, anyway. The occupant's things were present, but not the occupant themselves. As to the identity of the occupant... Ron felt sure it would be Harry's secret suitor. He tread quietly over to the table, seeing Hermione's disapproving glare in his mind all the while but unable to quell his curiosity.
Ron scowled upon finding the things on the table to be entirely unrevealing. There were a few textbooks and a parchment filled with a half-finished assignment, regrettably unsigned. Unless he was willing to scan every bloke's handwriting for a match, these artifacts would get him nowhere. Ron was just about to turn back to his table in defeat – he'd so wanted to be the one to solve a mystery, for once – when something else caught his eye.
The author of the essay had left their quill laying across the parchment – an insignificant thing in itself, but the type of quill it was made it noteworthy. Most Hogwarts students used standard issue grey-feathered quills harvested from the school's owls that they could buy from their heads of Houses and replace throughout the year. This quill, however, was longer, more elegant of plume, and black as a starless night.
Ron went back to his table in triumph. There could only be one quill as extraordinary as that in the school, he was sure. And he was going to find out who it belonged to.
… & ...
Draco Malfoy knew how to kiss.
His hand was entwined in Harry's hair, the other wrapped possessively around Harry's waist. Harry couldn't even think coherently about what their mouths were doing. All he could do was cling to Draco and let the sensations surge through him as Draco's lips pressed and prodded and sucked Harry's in a seductive dance between gentle and desperate with lust.
Draco pulled away and sighed against Harry's aroused mouth. The unconscious action tugged on Harry's heart. He was just leaning up to reward Draco with another kiss for being so unintentionally and heartbreakingly sweet when a sudden sound startled him. He whipped his head towards the direction of the noise and found himself staring into the shocked and blushing face of Ron Weasley. They both froze at exactly the same moment, staring straight at one another so directly that for a moment he forgot Ron couldn't actually see him.
Harry hardly dared breathe, and he could feel from the tense brace of Draco's body against his that Draco wasn't doing much breathing either. Then Ron turned and disappeared around the shelves.
Harry's eyebrows furrowed. Even if Ron had heard them, he couldn't possibly have figured out who he was seeing. Or rather, not seeing. Right?
"Shit," said Draco, so quietly Harry wasn't sure he hadn't actually just read Draco's lips rather than heard him.
"Invisibility cloak," whispered Harry against Draco's lips, "remember?"
Instead of responding, Draco sealed their mouths together once more.
A/N:this is literally the longest chapter ive ever made(^o^)(^o^)