Lavender

You've done me wrong for a long, long time

But after all you've done

I never changed my mind

Honey please, try to love me

Honey please, honey try

My love will never die

Flowers, flowers grow where I'm laid to rest

Honey, pick a blossom

And hold it, hold it to your breast

And you'll know that's my love

Bursting loud from inside

They apparate home almost immediately, Draco cringes upon himself - he’d clearly not thought this through, he was wilted and ashamed and did the first thing he could think of. Harry lets go of his arm as soon as the drawing room swims into consciousness and does not say a word, instead he breathes in and out - once, twice, thrice - “Do you want some tea?”

“What?” Draco takes a step back, Harry definitely splinched his brain or something. 

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

“So we’re not going to talk about -?”

“Do you want a cup of tea?” Harry asks a third time, somehow it’s not even a question, Draco shrivels up under the way he’s looking at him and nods, chagrined. 

Harry smiles in the coldest fucking way possible and walks into the kitchen. Draco has half a mind to sit down but he doesn’t. 

He’s standing there in the middle of the room like the perfect little gentleman he is, ignoring the extremely loud bangs from the kitchen when a loud crack sounds through the place and a flushed Hermione Granger is grinning wide enough for her face to split into two.

“Congratulations!” she gushed, 

“Cheers!.” Draco winces as she tries to hug him, she probably notices that, stepping back and giving him a clap on the shoulder instead. 

“Oh darling, we just heard,” she says happily, “ Ron’s at the shop, he said he’ll kip in later.”

“Can’t wait!” Draco says, forcing on a smile, “Harry’s in the kitchen by the way.”

She spares him a smile and follows the noise. The crashes and bangs stop, Draco can hear silhouettes of conversation, and then they both come out, grinning wide and happy, three mugs of tea levitating in front of them. 

“Yours has ginger, love.” Harry says with a sickeningly sweet voice. 

“Yay.” Draco voices weakly. 

Hermione takes a sip from her mug and places it delicately on the coffee table, “I’m so happy for you both, really I am, but,” she hesitates, “how are you going about this? It’s not exactly a thing, right? Gay marriage? Can gay people even get married?”

Draco frowns, he’d never really thought of that, he just assumed it would be ok. As most people usually are, he was blind to his own privilege. 

“Not legally, no.” Harry says grimly. 

Oh , Draco thinks. 

“Oh,” Draco says. 

“Well you could still have a ceremony, right?” Hermione says optimistically. 

Harry nods, smiling bitterly. 

Just then an owl pecks obnoxiously at the window. Harry flicks his wand and the glass swings open. He holds his hand out as though for the letter but the owl, looking very deliberate, drops it on the floor next to his feet and flies away.

Well. 

Harry bends over and picks it up. Draco does not stare. Not even a little bit.

The letter is ripped open and Harry reads it out, “Well Ginny says - “Motherfucker you could have done so much better, happy 4 you i guess, gonna pop over later with brother dearest and probably Dean and Seamus. i think they’re shagging again.” Harry rolls up the letter and says, “she actually wrote the number four instead of f-o-u-r”

“Blasphemy.” Hermione mutters, she had put on some weight since school and her amber kind of eyes stood out stark against her dark skin. Draco had never really thought about how beautiful Hermione was, or maybe he just had  a thing for bright eyes. 

She glances at the clock hung above the mantle, “I really must be going.” She says, draining her cup of tea hastily and walking towards the fireplace. She takes a handful of floo powder from the jar kept there and steps into the fire. 

“That went well.” Harry sighs, sitting on the spot Hermione just abandoned. 

“Mhm.” Draco flops back on the sofa like a dead fish, head falling just shy of the other boy’s lap,  “real well.”

Harry leans forward very suddenly,”you do not get to be mad about this.” he says, a little higher than a whisper, “not one bit,” his face was an inch away. 

Draco gulped, “understood.”

Harry gets up, “gon’ sleep for a bit,” he rubs his forehead with his index and thumb and goes into his room. 

The door is left open just a crack. 

Draco gets about to everything he’s been putting off since he got here. He writes to Astoria Greengrass and his mother, he mails a subscription to the daily prophet and he does some reading too. 

‘Lady Susan’ by Jane Austen was his latest prey, Janus - faced and villainous, it was definitely a highly under-rated piece of feminist literature, spare the abrupt ending. It took Draco some time to grasp a lot of modern day muggle books, but most classics he could easily follow. Saki’s satirical portraits of Edwardian society had a hold on him too. It was enough to say he was content right now. 

It was already dark outside by the time he was done with the book, he could hear bits of noises from the drawing room but he assumes it's just the TV, Harry hasn’t said anything at all, he seemed to be ignoring him. All too well, that - Draco apparently liked it when Indian boys with pretty eyes were mean to him. 

Draco wanted to tell someone, he wanted to blow off some steam and just be honest, completely honest with someone. 

He was sick of his own head, he didn’t know if he was queer, not for sure at least, and he didn’t know if it would be wrong to call himself that, he wasn’t sure if he was gay because he had enjoyed snogging a lot of those birds in school, he didn’t know if it was ok to feel this way and he didn’t know if he was ok with anything right now. 

Stewing himself in this blizzard of self doubt, Draco lulls into an uncomfortable sleep. 

He dreams of sharp bones and messy hair. 

The next day Draco wakes up early, by nine he had showered and had a bowl of some sugar covered flakes thing, he leaves a note on the fridge, ‘will b out 4 some time.’ The abbreviation was deliberate, it had quite annoyed Harry yesterday. 

He walks to the post office, it wasn’t very far, just about a thirty minute - ish walk to Brent. It was kind of an ideal place for a wizarding place full of owls going about all the time. It was very cold, kind of a joy fucker but he had ‘borrowed’ Harry’s coat from the rack. 

He doesn’t really have to go to the post office for getting shit posted of course, but his owl honestly was more of a family (or whatever was left of it) owl, and he really didn’t want to be a pain, besides there was this great falafel stand ten minutes from there and the muggle who owned it talked a lot about his little girls. 

The wizard at the gate lets him in with an expression of distaste, he selects a large black owl flecked with gray for his letters and gives her a little bit of the Marathon bar he had found in Harry’s pocket and she nips at it approvingly before flying off. 

The muggle’s older daughter just won a poetry contest apparently.

If Harry was pining miserably for Draco he was doing a rather lousy job of hiding it, to be honest, with all of his platonic hand brushings and platonic two course dinners and platonic sex eyes. 

This morning wasn’t going any better, he thought to himself regretfully, pouring milk upon his cornflakes.

Harry drops his entire bowl of cereal when Draco walks out of his room, his usually immaculate hair all ruffled up and lips bitten, he looked like he had just been fucked into his bed. 

“Are you ok?” Draco asks, peering over the coffee table at all the milk on the floor. 

“Perfectly.” Harry forces out through gritted teeth, flicking his wand so that the mess on the floor floats in the bowl and then soars across the room and empties itself into the sink. “Perfectly fucking alright.”

And see it would have been a completely different story if Draco hadn’t been the subject of a majority of his - ah , erotic fantasies since he was fourteen and heard him talking french to one of the Beauxbaton birds, but it wasn’t and Harry for the love of god couldn’t figure out where he went wrong.

“Do you know french?”  He asks instead, fixing himself some toast in place of the martyred corn flakes.

“ tes yeux sont très jolis .” His I-just-woke-up voice gave it some sort of a husky edge.

Please don’t let me come in my pants , Harry prayed desperately to whatever higher powers might exist , I’ll go to Sunday church every sunday and everything, I’ll stay chaste till marriage and -

He realized he’d been quiet for almost thirty seconds, “what does that mean?”

“You’re a piece of shit.”

“Debatable.”

“Debate then.”

Harry bit his lip, withholding the barest smile, “It’s only the intellectually lost who ever argue.”

Draco threw over a sofa cushion right at Harry, hitting him square in the back of his head, laughing all the while. Harry manages to duck at the last moment, thank you seeker skills, and the pillow lands on his plate of buttered toast. 

“That’s my second breakfast you’ve ruined today, Malfoy.”

“The first was hardly my fault,” whines Draco, letting his head hit the back of the sofa, the column of his throat exposed. 

Harry swallows, “hardly,” he echoes. Too early in the morning for unrelinquished sexual energy. “Gonna’ have a wee.”

“Bring back a souvenir.” Draco calls as he practically runs down the hallway.

He almost slams the door behind him, and has an embarrassingly quick wank. 

‘ Be ready 4 a drink at nine, ly xxx ’ Ginny’s letter says when Harry opens it at half past eight, which leaves him exactly thirty minutes to get ready in something very slutty because that’s what Ginny’s plans usually seemed to entail. 

He borders his eyes with some eyeliner and pulls on some suffocatingly tight black jeans with a loose bright yellow shirt tucked in, satisfied with his honey bee whore look he walks out to the hallway to look at himself in the full - length mirror.

Draco is sprawled across the sofa, he glances up to acknowledge Harry and freezes for a couple of seconds, swallows heavily, looks him up and down once, and then returns to his book breathing abnormally heavily. 

Harry gives him a funny little look and tries to soothe down his hair into the mirror but whatever creature decided to top itself off on his head refused to settle down. He sighs, giving up and turns, only to find Draco staring at him. Disarmed by the detection of his perverted ways, he startles and stares back at his book, eyes glued to the page, clearly not taking in a word. 

Harry looks at Draco. 

He looks like a fucking ferret. 

“You look like a fucking ferret.”

Draco doesn’t say anything. Harry smiles to himself, taking liberty to seat himself next to the boy, platonically drapes an arm across his back. Draco coughs loudly, and straightens himself, picks up one of the forgotten jam sandwiches from the coffee table, taking a large bite resulting into jam smearing at the corner of his mouth. Harry fights the urge to tongue it off. 

“You’ve got a bit of …” he gestures to his face, “...right there.”

Draco rubs his thumb across his face attempting to get it off, “did i -?”

“No it’s like…” Harry leans forward, mirroring his grin, “just let me, dear lord.” He reaches out his wrist and very stupidly now has jam smeared across it. 

And then he licks it off. 

Draco looks at him, eyes wide, eyebrows raised, daring him to do something.

And it shifts, everything just shifts a tiny little bit. Like when you get home and the lights are left on and you know you had left it on in the morning but can’t shake off the feeling of something being horribly wrong. 

His face is half an inch away from Draco Malfoy’s and he wants it to stop, every single nerve in his body demands him to stop. 

He doesn’t. 

Help arrives just then in the form of Ginerva Weasley stepping off the fire place. She is dressed in a faded pink dress inching two inches down her collar-bone and combat boots. Her hair had been pushed away from her face with what Harry suspected was a lot of gel and a large amount of spells. She grins, her eyes flick between the two of them, she notices Harry shaking his head in the slightest and does not question it. 

“Hiya Malfoy!” she smiles brightly,

 Draco waves.

“Harry ya’ slag, how did you even get into those pants?”

“Ask no questions and I'll tell no lies.” He makes a vague half-heart shape with his index and middle finger.

“It’s a muggle bar, where we’re going.” And Harry for the millionth time in his life thanks the absolute grace that Ginny is. 

It was perfect, see. No one there would know either of them, it was bloody brilliant. 

“I know.” Ginny mutters when Harry stands next to her, she grabs his hand and the whole unpleasant being-squeezed-through-a-tube feeling takes over as they apparate. 

They are in front of a club kind of place with loud music faintly echoing from inside when Ginny lets go of his hand. 

She leads him inside and leads him to a corner booth, pushes him into a seat and walks away again, returning just past the five minute mark with a tray of shots. 

“Spill the tea then.” she says, keeping it on the table. 

And Harry, the miserable bastard, tells her every last detail. 

Rita losing all credibility after the war, Harry feeling bad for her and giving her a piece to write about, Harry coming out on newspaper, Harry announcing to the world he’s in love with a former death eater, Draco being a dickhead and proposing, how he thinks he could actually fall for Draco and not just his ridiculously fit body and how gay marriage isn’t a thing and how it was so fucking difficult being a queer man of color in London and how his job was so emotionally taxing and how bloody sick he was of all this. 

He’s done seven shots of pure vodka by the time he finishes his saga. 

Ginny shakes her head, keeping her hand on his, “poor love, I’m glad you told me.” She was very drunk too.

“I am too, thank you.” Harry is slurring his words together. 

“You know what would really help you?”

“Hm?”

“Getting laid.”

Harry stands up so fast his head spins, “that would really help me.”

The music washes over the two of them, the bright lights are everywhere. So many people. So many possibilities.

Ginny winks at him, “good luck man, go on then.” She goes in a completely different endeavour on her own. 

He is out of the safety of the booth now. Loud, so loud. People are dancing, he mixes into the crowd easily, stands out too, thanks to his shirt. 

A tall man with yellow hair comes up to him, “looking?” he asks.

Harry nods, moving closer to him, “Harry.” he breathes out against his ear. 

“Arthur.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Very pleased.” He leans down, attaching his mouth to Harry’s, exploring every bit of it, touching him, fingers, teeth, tongue . 

“Bathroom?” Arthur asks, it’s less of a question really, as he practically drags him to the loos. 

Harry is pushed roughly against the wall and it’s nice for a change, not taking control. So he lets himself be pushed and touched. Arthur sinks to his knees, Harry threads his fingers in his hair. He wasn’t Draco, which wasn’t very nice, but otherwise -

His belt is undone, somehow the jeans which seemed to be practically painted on him are pulled down and oh my god . 

Thirty five minutes later, numbers exchanged, Harry is dancing with Ginny again, she seemed to have tried her luck with someone, her dress was yanked lower and her perfectly done hair seemed a slight mess. 

And they just dance, and Harry lets himself shoved around with the crowd, he lets a bird grind against him for a bit, he lets people shoulder him around, he’s just a tad too drunk and a tad too happy to care. 

They leave though, almost an hour later, its a little past eleven - thirty, quite early really, but they were both wasted. 

It’s decided that neither of them have it in them to apparate, so they walk. 

“Leave sumfink for the imagination, eh sugar?” A man yells from a truck at Ginny five minutes down the road.

“Too fucking bad I don’t want you fucking imagining me naked you fucking fuck.” Ginny shouts back, ready to throw hands. 

“Shh.” Harry says, holding her closer to himself. They reach home, she crashes into bed with him. 

“Fuckin’ Weaslette again?” Draco asks rudely, first thing in the morning, when Harry leaves his room for water.

“She has a name,” Harry mutters. “Too bright, close. Windows. Close the windows.”

Draco flicks his wand. The windows slam shut.

“Paracetamol.” Harry grimaces as he sits down on the kitchen table.

“What’s that?”

“It’s on the counter under that fucking - fucking basket?”

Paracetamols are had, water is drunk, Draco is a fucking menance and Harry isn’t nearly sober to have a conversation. It was not a pretty day.

“So?” Draco asks again as Harry rests his head against the cool wood of the table. Ah, so nice and cold. 

“Whut?”

“Did you have sex?”

“What the fuck Malfoy, you can’t just ask people if they had sex.”

“Oh okay then.” Draco throws him a bitter look and slams the door to his room behind him. 

“So…fucking loud.” Harry groans, pressing his hands against his eyes. “Why are you so like that, Draco?”