Harry did indeed feel very guilty that he had not visited Luna's restaurant. He had absolutely no excuses. It was unequivocally charming, if not a little eccentric in decor. It was also fully booked and filled with lively chatter.
Luna was delighted they had come, hugging them both before leading them away to a quiet table in the corner. Harry was relieved that the attention was minimal. It was still there, there was still a whisper of 'it's Harry Potter', and whispering and staring, and a couple of people still wanted to shake his hand.
When they eventually sat down, Draco was looking at him with wide eyes.
'It's why I don't go out so much in the wizarding world. Even after all this time, it's hard to cope with. You do realise our photo will probably be in the press tomorrow?'
'I should have thought,' Draco muttered. 'Next time we'll go out in muggle London.'
'Next time?'
Harry could tell Draco was blushing even under the dim lighting of the restaurant. They were looking at each other rather too intently and Harry found that his stomach was in that Permanent Knotted-State again. He ran his hand nervously through his hair and Draco 'Tsked!'
'You'll mess it up, leave your hair.' And he reached across the table to straighten the stray lock which was probably sticking up in Merlin-knows-what direction.
Harry felt rather like a Niffler caught stealing and froze.
Luna slid onto the bench seat beside Harry. 'So,' she said cheerfully, oblivious to the moment she was interrupting. 'Today's specials are on the board. I would really recommend the duck breast with the beetroot and red wine sauce and dauphinoise pots and a side of greens, and with that, a claret. Maybe stuffed courgette flowers to start with or the baked stuffed mushrooms. How have you been, Harry? It's been too long?'
She was looking at them both intently, he almost expected her to get out her Spectrespecs and start talking about Wrackspurts. 'Hum!' she said dreamily, her large silvery eyes reminding him of Draco's. 'I think that is a conversation for another day. Shall I leave you to decided?'
Harry shook his head in amusement. He knew she wasn't half as distracted or dotty as she appeared and the bustle of the fully-booked restaurant was testimony to that. 'No, I'll have what you recommend and I'll try the flowers,' he said, feeling brave.
Draco agreed, but went for the mushrooms.
'I shall bring you over a bottle of champagne to start,' she held up her hand to stop any objections and leant forward conspiratorially, 'on the house.'
'Pansy will kill you,' Draco said in a hushed tone.
'Oh, don't worry about that. I'll charge it to the Daily Prophet for sending in one of their reporters under a Glamour. Don't fear, I've already thrown him out long before you arrived but it's our little game and every time I catch them, it costs them a bottle of champagne.' She brushed her dirty blond hair back from her with a little flick of her head. 'They don't realise the power of Sneakoscopes. Totally useless for detecting one's enemies but very clever for detecting journalists.'
'Pansy?' Harry whispered when Luna had left.
'Yes, joint owner, believe it or not. I think they may be lovers too but they're keeping it quiet if they are. The Parkinsons wouldn't much like their heiress to be having openly illicit affairs outside of marriage, and it's a double scandal to be with another woman and that she's Luna Lovegood.'
Harry's eyebrows must have been in his hairline, 'I thought Pansy was the epitome of Blanche Ingram.'
'And now it's you who's pulled us back to Jane Eyre. Well, she is, to a degree. She's the accomplished woman "educated" to ensnare a rich husband and not much more. But Pansy is cleverer than that, she always understood that she was supposed to prostitute herself for a wealthy, pureblood marriage. That's the way of the old pure-blood families, think of Tori's family, willing to sell her off to my father when she was only ten, married at fifteen, and subject her to child-bearing slavery for the sake of their name.' Draco looked sad and Harry felt his pain. They caught eyes and Draco sighed before continuing. 'Pansy's always wanted more. She only agreed to marry Lord Clifford Rosier because he's inordinately wealthy, rather stupid, and she gets the moniker "Lady". As a result, she has both a huge amount of money and a lot of freedom, so long as she's discreet. She's produced the heir, refuses to live in their castle in Ireland with Clifford, and runs the business here with Luna "for a little bit of fun". Apart from she's a very astute business woman while Luna is the creative brains behind all this. And as Clifford is some thirty-two years her senior...'
'Thirty-two years!' Harry exclaimed.
Draco grimaced as he nodded, 'yes, and in ill-health, she's hoping he'll croak it soon and then she's free to be as scandalous as she likes.'
'Wow!'
'Indeed.'
'I hope you're not gossiping about me, Draco-darling.' Pansy stood over them, still the epitome of sleekness in a figure-hugging black dress which fitted every curve of her slender body and with her smooth black bob glistening in the candlelight.
'Pansy!' Draco stood up and kissed her on both cheeks. 'I wouldn't dare. You'd have strychnine put in the claret.'
'Now, that would be a waste of good wine. I believe you were offered a bottle of this by my worthy partner.' She held out the bottle of champagne. 'You can call this a service tip!' she added when Luna came over with four glasses. She popped the cork and poured them each a glass.
'Glad to see you two are finally doing something about this ridiculously complicated relationship of yours. Cheers!'
Harry felt slightly overwhelmed by her but hid it behind a smirk because Draco still looked rather uncomfortable for being called-out for gossiping.
'You've missed the latest tit-bit of news, darling,' she drawled nonchalantly. 'The old bastard has got himself a gold-digging mistress. She's twenty-one, but then he has always liked a younger model. He's had the audacity to move her into the east wing, calls her "his care assistant". Anyway, the pre-nup is watertight, so if she thinks she's going to get a sickle of my money, she's sorely mistaken. I'll drown her in the moat before she walks away with a single nickel coin. Of course, if she manages to send him to an early grave I might just gift her a large donation. I understand she's rather into PVC and whips and is a fan of the castle dungeons, I can't imagine his weak heart will manage that for long.'
Harry nearly choked on his bubbly.
'Anyway, I'll leave you two lovebirds to it. Floo me, Draco, we need to have a proper catch up.' She paused and looked between them before proclaiming rather too loudly, 'and I expect an invite to the wedding.'
The restaurant noise level suddenly dropped to a hushed whispering tone as people swivelled around in their chairs to stare. Harry did choke on his champagne and Draco flushed deep red. The only gratification to the horror of the announcement was seeing those adorable pink tips to his ears.
'Shit!' Draco exhaled. 'Sorry, we shouldn't have come here.'
But Harry waved it off, almost amused. 'So, I want you to tell me about your studies, Draco. You've obviously been educating me in Jane Eyre but what are you doing?'
'Are you avoiding the Big Conversation?'
'Just easing myself into it. And you haven't told me about it yet.'
They chatted gently about both their work at the university, Harry getting to understand Draco's studies and Draco asking about what Harry taught his students as well as the department as a whole.
'And where did you get Anthony from?' Draco asked as their main course arrived and glasses of claret were poured from them both. Harry's heart thumped, he knew that this would only leave to one place. To the Big Conversation as Draco had called it. He really didn't want to have an argument or let things get awkward as it would ruin a perfect evening.
'Anthony came from Ron, though I suspect that Arthur Weasley probably confiscated him from somewhere along the line.'
'You have something of a unique relationship with him.'
'We've spent five years sharing an office, it's surprising what a talking porcelain head designed for analysis can find to talk about it. But Anthony gets rather excited when someone new comes along. I suppose he must get rather bored with me and my rather staid life.' Harry paused and looked Draco thoughtfully. Then took a deep breath, 'I reacted rather badly the other night, you hit a nerve about my conventional expressionless life, unfortunately its rather true. I know I have given everything to Teddy but he's lost so much.'
'You realise that I don't want to take any of that away. But you deserve something in all of this. What happens when Teddy goes to Hogwarts?'
'I suppose I thought that I would start to find myself again then, plus it's given everyone a bit of time to get over all the Saviour shit.'
'Judging from the reaction here, I don't think you can assume that will ever happen.'
'Maybe, tonight has rather proven a point. It's been nine years and still they stare and now someone will have already run off to the Prophet to tell them I'm engaged to be married to you. And after Confessions, it's going to be huge.' He sighed. 'Bloody Pansy!'
'I'm sure she didn't realise...' Draco looked a bit ashamed.
'I'm sure she did. The endorsement for her business will be extraordinary. But even if she didn't do it on purpose, well, either way, people rarely realise the impact of jokes made at my expense, even just bland comments can be problematic.'
'I'm sorry, Harry.'
'What for?' he looked into those pale grey eyes.
'I never thought about the impact of my book,' he sighed. 'I just wanted people to understand. I wanted you to understand.'
Harry reached across the table and took hold of Draco's hand, 'and it helped to do just that.' Their fingers slowly intertwined. 'If you hadn't written it, I probably wouldn't be sitting here with you now eating exquisite food, drinking fine wine, and enjoying a quiet conversation with the most handsome man in the restaurant.' He quirked a smile when that blush hit Draco's ears again. They held each other's gaze and Harry felt that Funny Little Stomach Flip-Thing and was fairly certain that if there wasn't a table between them, it would have been another Moment, perhaps successful this time.
'So, boys?' Pansy interrupted.
Draco rolled his eyes.
Harry pulled his hand away rather quickly.
'Do you want dessert?'
'What do you recommend?' Draco drawled, still staring at the space on the table where their hands had been interlinked.
'I'll bring you a selection of bites sizes that you can share. But no feeding each other, I don't want you to put the other diners off their food.' She smirked before sashaying away.
'I'm sorry,' Draco said after a board with a selection of puddings was placed between them.
Harry raised an eyebrow as Draco took a small scoop of the chocolate torte. 'What for this time?' He was watching the spoon in Draco's hand greedily.
'For comparing you to him...' Draco ate the smooth rich chocolate ganache with far too much to care.
'You realise your argument was flawed,' Harry replied, pursing his lips, watching Draco as the tip of his tongue cleaned the spoon.
Harry squirmed slightly in his chair as he said, 'you said Bertha's uncontrolled passion was akin to Voldemort's unrestrained use of dark magic, and we agreed on that. But then you suggested that St John passionless love can be paralleled to Voldemort's own suppression of love. Can Voldemort really be represented by two such binaries?'
Draco tried a scoop of the crème brûlée, sucking the white cream from his spoon.
'Draco, stop!' Harry swallowed, 'I can't hold this conversation while you're doing that.'
'Precisely.'
Harry raised a questioning eyebrow.
'Neither of us are getting wound up by the conversation while we're distracted.'
'But you're purposely teasing me, you're breaking that boundary I'm ready for yet.'
'I just don't want us to get worked up over the conversation. And perhaps following Anthony's suggestion that we should follow our impulses to propagate.'
'Draco.'
He put his spoon down.
'Sorry, consider me reprimanded. And as to your question, both Bertha and St John represent the different sides of Jane and are therefore one and the same. Neither represent a potential side of her which is satisfactory when they're isolated. The point is that she can't encompass the extremes of the spectrum and be happy. She must find a healthy balance between the two to become true to herself. If you don't do the same, then who do you become? Each end of the spectrum encompasses the worst elements trying to vie against each other for domination.' Draco shrugged. 'I want you to find that right balance which is true to you and which will make you happy.'
Harry nodded. He did want that, he did want more than he had now. He was beginning to feel like he'd been living with his eyes shut since the war.
'Now,' Draco smirked and picked up his spoon, 'I want you to try the chocolate torte and to hell with Lady Pansy bloody Rosier.' He scooped a bit of the rich chocolate pudding on to the spoon and, leaning forward on his elbows, held it out across the table for Harry to try.
As Harry's lips closed around the sumptuous silky texture, he closed his eyes and heard Draco moan softly and quietly murmur 'shit!'.
He opened his eyes and looked at the blond man.
And he winked.
*****