Alt ending
By the fifth time, it was getting old.
They were at the pub with their friends on a Friday night, celebrating the engagement of one Ginny Weasley to Blaise Zabini (“an unholy match” Draco was fond of telling Harry) when it happened.
And from a most unexpected source.
“Oi!” Came Ron’s drunken shout and then the man himself was thumping Harry and Draco on the shoulders.
“Weasley,” Draco said dryly, removing his arm from his shoulder. “Always a pleasure.”
“Oh shut it, Malfoy,” came Ron’s grinning reply.
“I was just comin’ over ‘ere to aks—ask” he pronounced carefully, “when it would be your turn!”
“My turn to what, get completely pissed? I’m good, thanks.”
Ron laughed and put his arm back around Draco and Harry’s shoulders where they sat side by side at the bar, Harry watching the exchange in amusement.
Draco scowled.
“No!” Ron said. “Tell ‘im Harry! Your turn, ya know…” he said cryptically, wiggling the fingers of his left hand.
“Sorry mate. I’m with Draco on this one, what are you talking about?”
Thankfully Hermione chose that moment to intervene.
“Oh, leave them alone Ronald! I told you it’s still very new!” She whispered furiously. At this, Harry shared a wary look with Draco. “Granger,” Draco said carefully, once again pushing Ron bodily off of himself. “What exactly is very new?”
Hermione bit her lip and turned to Harry. “Oh, I’m sorry! Was I not supposed to tell anyone?”
“Tell anyone…” Harry prompted, giving his friend a concerned look.
“You know,” she continued. “That you’re…”
“I think everyone knows, Hermione, we’ve been partners for years,” Harry said quizzically.
“Years!” Ron chimed in, now slumped across Hermione’s back.
“See! So get married already!”
“Excuse me?!” Draco hissed, shooting a glare at Harry.
“What have you been telling people, Potter?”
“What! Me? Nothing, I- Hermione, what the bloody hell is Ron on about?”
Harry saw the wheels turning in Hermione’s head. “Partners,” she repeated. “Like, Auror partners?”
“Obviously.” Draco was looking more irate by the second.
She looked at Harry curiously. “But you-” Harry shook his head quickly, hoping to prevent another misunderstanding before Draco lost it completely. “Hermione, we aren’t da-”
“Stop it, Potter. Let me clear this up once and for all, shall I?”
Too late, then.
Draco stood up, tapping a knife from a nearby table against his wine glass. “Ahem. If I could have your attention for a moment everyone.” The plea got lost in the noise of the pub. “OI LISTEN UP” Ron pitched in. Everyone turned their attention to the small group.
“Thank you, Weasley. Alright,” Draco began, taking a breath.
“I’m only going to say this once. Harry Potter and I are not in a relationship. We are not dating, nor have we ever been. Personally, I don’t even consider him a friend…ow!” He scowled and rubbed his arm where Harry hit him.
“Ugh fine. We’re colleagues and friends” he said with a sneer. “But nothing else! Understand?”
Everyone still paying attention nodded warily before getting back to their drinks.
“If you’re not together, one of you owes us a second gift!!” Blaise suddenly called from the back. “Hear, hear!” Ginny laughed.
“Ah yes, and um congratulations to the happy couple,” Draco said quickly before sitting down.
“Wow,” Harry breathed out. “That uh, was really something.”
“Yes. Well. Now they know.”
“Why do you think everyone…?”
“I don’t know, Potter.”
“Weird.”
“Quite.”
They sat in silence together for a while before Draco announced he was heading home.
“Draco?” Harry called after him outside the pub.
“Hm?”
Harry stopped for a beat. He always forgot how beautiful Draco looked in the moonlight — ethereal almost. And on a December night like this with the snow coming down softly and landing gently on his hair, the effect was even more pronounced.
“Did you want something, Potter?” Draco asked, his breath coming out in cold puffs of air.
It was now or never, Harry thought.
Reaching inside himself for that famous Gryffindor courage, he asked the question he’d been wanting to know the answer to for years.
“Would it really be so bad?” Harry’s heart pounded rapidly in his chest in the seconds it took Draco to grasp his meaning.
“You mean…”
“If we were together, yeah,” he shrugged.
“I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it,” Draco said quietly, reaching in his coat pocket for a pack of cigarettes that wasn’t there. Harry had helped him quit last year and recognized the nervous tic for what it was.
Taking a calculated risk, Harry stepped closer and tucked an unruly curl behind Draco’s ear.
Draco shivered.
“Haven’t you?” Harry whispered, looking into Draco’s eyes beseechingly.
Those icy gray irises gave nothing away.
“No,” came the response and Harry’s heart dropped.
A cold hand encircled his wrist and he took the touch for the rejection it was.
He looked down and began pulling away but the hold on his wrist tightened and Draco’s voice stopped him in his tracks.
“No, it wouldn’t be bad at all.”
**
And one
When Ginny stepped outside five minutes later for a breath of fresh air, it was to the sight of Harry snogging Draco Malfoy like his life depended on it.
Finally, she thought with a roll of her eyes.
She walked back into the pub to share the bad news with her fiancé.
“Looks like we’re not getting a second gift after all, love.”
Blaise snorted. “Thank Merlin.”