Summer Loving
The following days at Hogwarts were perhaps the longest period of peace Draco had since befriending the Golden Trio. There was no sneaking into the night, no babysitting the giant brothers of their teachers, no battling Death Eaters or Dark Lords. Peace.
Done with exams, they all rambled about the castle driving McGonagall and Snape irate with their shenanigans. Pansy had somehow befriended the Weasley twins and she spent days on end pranking the First Years with the help of their inventions. Draco was pulled into more plotting than he normally would’ve, but in the face of death, getting scolded by the teachers seemed the lesser evil.
Harry however, seemed on the verge of something. As the days progressed, he stuck to Draco like glue, leaving his side only at the very end of the day when they spilt off to their respective Houses to sleep. He wanted to say something if the way his mouth flapped open and shut throughout the day was any indication but he never seemed able to quite muster up that ridiculous Gryffindor courage he possessed. Despite himself, Draco began to hope.
It was a fragile thing that hope but it seemed intent in driving him insane. He knew that Harry was still possibly with or harbouring feelings for Ginevra Weasley but his hope was tenacious. It clung to him insisting that there was something there. Just maybe.
This hope followed Draco until he was aboard the train and in their compartment surrounded by their friends. Harry was beside him, incorrigibly close, despite the fact that there was more than enough space on the seat they shared.
“I’m not going back to Private Drive,” Harry’s quiet voice drew Draco away from where he’d been half-heartedly listening to Ronald and Ginevra bicker.
They really were the most interesting when they were yelling at each other at the tops of their lungs.
“What do you mean you aren’t going back ? Does Dumbledore know ?”
Harry shrugged. After the atrocious way their Headmaster had treated him the past year, the brunette was quite rightfully not very concerned about what the old man thought. Neither was Draco, but Harry’s safety came above their animosity with the Headmaster.
“I wrote to Remus,” he swallowed a yawn and pushed his glasses up his nose, “he said he’d tell Dumbledore and that’s that. I’m not going to be able to function properly if I’m not at Grimmauld.”
“Sirius will be fine, but I’m glad you’ll be there for the summer. It’s terribly boring having Kreacher as constant company and as much as I love Mother, she’s well— She is still adjusting to life out of the Manor.”
“I’m glad too,” this time Harry couldn’t swallow his yawn. He looked practically dead on his feet and Draco wondered when was the last time he’d slept properly. “We can play Quidditch and whatever—”
“Study preferably,” Draco supplied. “We have N.E.W.T.S to worry about soon enough and frankly I think we should start preparing already.”
A smile and another yawn, “Whatever you say, Hermione.”
“I shall choose to not take offence to that,” Hermione chirped out from across them and Draco almost jumped.
He’d almost forgotten that they weren’t alone. Harry had the rare ability to become the only thing that existed in the room when he doled out his sole attention onto Draco. It was embarrassing, but at the same time completely welcome.
“You know, I love you ‘Mione,” Harry told her with a grin, “I’d barely pass anything without you.”
The bushy haired girl humped and turned back to her book but her lips were pulled into a smile.
Harry yawned again and Draco couldn’t help himself anymore and burst out quite indignantly, “When was the last time you deigned to sleep, Potter ?”
“I have been sleeping,” another blasé shrug, “just not very well. I keep having nightmares about the Department and the prophecy.”
“Me too.”
They shared a look, a smile and it was that easy to understand and be understood. Sometimes Draco marvelled at how well he’d integrated into Harry’s life and his friends.
It was not to say that there weren’t instances where they all got on each other’s nerves but it wasn’t anything like the fights of the past. More over, it was Draco’s own friends pairing up with the insufferable Gryffindors to torment him. Pansy and Ronald was a friendship pairing he’d never expected in his life but it made sense in the worst of ways.
Draco’s gaze was pulled from Harry as Ronald and Hermione abruptly announced that they were going in search of the food cart. Utter nonsense, of course. The two of them went, hissing at each other in low whispers.
“They’re off to snog,” Ginevra murmured gleefully as she began to enthusiastically tear into her Every Flavour Beans, that her brother and Hermione both had no affiliation for suddenly. “I can’t wait to tease him about this in front of the twins.”
“About time,” Harry murmured as his head dropped down onto Draco’s shoulder.
Eyes widening, Draco prodded at him, “Get off, Potter. You might be having problems with sleeping but that does not make me your personal chaise.”
Harry did the exact opposite. Murmuring something about ‘warmth’ he nestled himself further into Draco’s neck and wrapped an arm around him pulling him impossibly close. Draco’s heart was pounding so loudly, he felt as it would beat right out of his chest.
He glanced towards Ginny who was nibbling experimentally at a crimson coloured jelly bean, “Don’t you mind that he’s—he’s ?”
She looked up and gave him a long, searching look than her face blossomed into a smile, “No, actually. Harry and I called off our not-quite relationship weeks ago.”
“You did ?”
Another thing Harry had forgotten to mention. It seemed he was intent on rushing off into danger and breaking up relationships without a single word of warning.
“We aren’t compatible,” she told him and popped the sweet into her mouth, deciding it’s flavour edible, “we’re better off as friends. I knew he didn’t exactly have feelings for me, but for someone else.”
“Oh.”
“Do you mind that he’s—” Ginny asked as she waved a hand at Harry.
“No, of course not.”
Draco glanced down at Harry, who’d already fallen asleep, face still buried into his neck. Looking at Harry’s sleeping face, Draco felt impossibly happy that he was there, that he was alive and that he was given the privilege of holding him.
The door rattled open again, bringing back a flushing Hermione and Ron, whose clothes were in a complete disarray. Conveniently or rather inconveniently neither of them came barring any food whatsoever.
The ginger glanced towards them, face paling as he spotted Harry curled around Draco but then as quickly his face cleared and shrugging he dropped into the seat beside his sister stealing a handful of her sweets.
“Ron, you fat lug!”
“Sharing is caring,” he said already stuffing his face.
Hermione waggled her eyebrows at him as she too dropped down into her seat. Draco made a her face at her but feeling rather content with their reactions, he closed his eyes and let his head drop down onto Harry’s.
His eyes stayed closed, even later, when Blaise, Pansy and Luna barged into the cabin. It seemed somehow impossibly possible that his hoping had not been for nought. Harry might return his affections if Ginny’s unspoken words were anything to go by.
That would be confronted later though. For now, Draco was happy to be in the arms of Harry Potter and let the swirling conversations of their friends lull him into sleep as the train took them back home.
~~~~~
Tonks barged into Sirius’s room panting, cheek marred by a cut that was still bleeding and paused as she found Harry sitting at his bedside, reading a Quidditch magazine.
They’d been at Grimmauld roughly a week now and Harry woke up early each morning to spend time with Sirius before the tolls of the day called for attention. After his mandatory few hours at his godfather’s bedside, he and Draco often Flooed over to the Burrow to hang out with the Weasleys and play Quidditch.
Hermione was off on holiday with her family and Ron more often than not needed cheering up to distract him from how much he missed his girlfriend. The two of them had finally stopped playing at reluctance and made it quite official even though they’d been ribbed horribly by Fred and George. Harry was happy for them, his best friends deserved more happiness than anyone he knew and he was glad they’d found it in each other.
Hurriedly setting his magazine down, Harry assessed the woman worriedly, “Are you alright ? What happened ?”
“Nothing,” she seemed calmer but not altogether stable enough as she stepped into the room, shutting the door behind her with a soft click. “Just got back from a mission and well—”
Harry nodded. He understood her unspoken sentiment well enough. Sirius looked terrible, twice as bad as when he’d first escaped from Azkaban. His cheeks were sunken in, his hair fading away to grey and his body almost stoic barely moving as he breathed. Everyday waking up was like just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Would Sirius be there ? Would he not ?
“I’ll be fine now,” Tonks continued as she dropped into the seat across from him, hand reaching out to her cousin’s. “It’s just hard seeing him like this. You know, I spent most of my life without knowing my mother’s family and then Sirius dropped into my life again. It was, well you know how it is, finding people you can call family. Then I met Narcissa and Draco and it was everything, a young me had hoped for. I never had much of a true wizarding family, don’t get me wrong, I love my father’s side of the family but there was never anyone who truly got me. I’m terrified of losing all of it again.”
“You won’t,” Harry said confidently, “Sirius will be fine and even, even—you will still have the rest of us. We’re not going anywhere.”
Tonks smiled at him tiredly, “You’ll have me too, Harry. It’s just I wish I’d just told him I loved him, you know. So that he’d know how much he meant.”
It was like the final piece jotted itself into Harry’s brain. His hesitance fading away into something so sure, so right it stole his breath.
He stood up abruptly, magazine falling into a crumpled pile on the floor, “I’m really sorry Tonks, I have to find Malfoy. I’ll talk to you, later, alright ?”
Then he was out the door before she could even reply. Harry found Draco easily enough, he was in one of the dining rooms, his mother seemed to favour. Narcissa was in a chair talking quietly in French while her son sat at her feet, eyes closed as she ran her fingers through his hair.
His eyes snapped open as Harry reached the door, the grey so bright even from a distance. “What’s wrong ? Is Sirius alright ?”
“Fine, fine,” Harry reassured them quickly, realising just how odd it was to be racing through the halls, panting to find Draco. “Tonks is with him, now. I just, can I talk to you, Draco ?”
Draco gave him an odd look and glanced up at his mother.
“I’ll tell you the rest of the story later, darling,” she said with a soft smile as she stood up. “I should be checking in with Tonks anyways.” She passed Harry at the door, giving him a nod and a smile that seemed too knowing for his liking.
Harry waited until she was down the hallway before he entered the room and shut the door behind him. Draco was on his feet now, smoothing away the hair his mother had been playing with.
“If this is about the dung bomb,” he started, crossing his arms, “I haven’t the faintest clue what you’re on about Potter. You should ask the twins because it was all their—”
“It’s not!”
“Oh ? Do tell, I’m all ears, golden boy.”
Harry almost started laughing there and then, trust Malfoy to make it utterly difficult.
“Do you remember when I pulled you out of the lake in Fourth Year ?”
“Quite hard to forget, though I’ve tried.”
“Yes well, at the time I was, well not surprised exactly because I think I even knew it then. See, I simply just shoved the feelings aside and thought if I ignored them and then, well, that didn’t work. What I’m trying to say is, uh, that is to say that, I uh—”
“I like you, Potter,” Draco interrupted his rambling quite effectively and Harry’s mouth slammed shut. “I have since Third Task, Merlin, maybe before that even. So, there’s that.”
Harry felt a riot of emotions ricochet through him, indignation, delight, shock and underneath that all was joy. More joy than he was accustomed to feeling.
“You dick,” he shoved Draco hard, “you stole my confession moment!”
Draco’s face went from cautious to arrogant in a second, “You are not nearly eloquent enough for a confession, Potter.”
“Shut up!”
“Make me,” Draco said with an arched brow and beneath the taunt it was a request, one that Harry was more than happy to oblige.
His hand slipped out to Draco’s cheek, the blonde’s eyelashes fluttering adorably at the motion. For all his bravado, Draco was just as nervous as him. Then before he could second guess himself, Harry leaned forward and pressed his lips against the other boy’s. They fit together as they seemed to in just about everything, like places had carved into each other’s lives specifically for them and no one else.
Draco’s mouth opened into his and he kissed him just as eagerly, just as reverently and Harry slipped closer, a hand digging into the blonde’s hair. It was even better than he’d imagined, it was as if for the first time in his life, Harry had something that was his own. This boy, this kiss, this feeling he’d chosen to feel for him. It was better than anything he’d ever felt before. It was like the world and all the problems within it faded away until it was just Draco and him.
They pulled away breathing harshly. Still not wanting to put any distance between them, Harry pressed his forehead to Draco’s.
“I like you, too, if it isn’t shockingly obvious,” he said softly, just for the two of them. “Since I saw you in that lake.”
Draco’s cheeks flushed, “It wasn’t actually, Potter. I mean, you’re like an enigma. Merlin, since the lake!”
“Was befriending you not enough ?” Harry pressed a kiss to Draco’s cheek. “Was following you and demanding to know why you wouldn’t kiss me not enough ?” Another kiss to his jaw.
“We were playing a game!”
“Was scaring off your stupid Valentine’s Date not enough ?” A kiss at the base of his ear.
Draco’s eyes narrowed but his voice came out shaky as Harry continued his assault of kisses, “You sneaky bastard.”
Harry grinned and pulled away, “But you like that about me, don’t you ?”
The urgent kiss that he got in answer was proof enough and Harry stopped thinking after that, because for once, everything was startlingly and completely right.