Lavender

One month. 

Draco was supposed to move in for one month. 

It was so stupid, he didn’t even take a second to verify facts, he hadn’t picked up a newspaper since the war, he liked to tell himself it was because he didn’t care, but more of self - preservation, really. 

Because in what fucking world does the dude who saved everyone’s ass just like fucking tell the world he is in love with some death eater mate of his, especially when the death eater was not really a mate of his. And Harry didn’t like to talk about things apparently, because why would you clear something up when you can work yourself to death upon miscommunications. 

And Draco didn’t really have any great friends right now, but he was pretty sure best mates weren’t supposed to just accept that someones dating the bloke who almost killed four people. He didn’t quite get the way Hermione and Ginny and Ron and the whole lot just accepted it, didn’t ask no questions or anything. 

The whole thing just didn’t sit right with him, the ‘engagement’ especially, it had been three weeks, Harry didn’t ask Draco to move out, so Draco didn’t. He just slept most of the day, actually. Read sometimes too, but mostly he was just spaced out. Skipping meals was normal, not that he did it deliberately, but he seemed to not eat dinner most days until he’s dragged out by the skin of his ear. 

April had just started, it was getting deliciously warm, the ephemeral grace of early summer was one that Draco enjoyed, he loved flowers actually, no one knew this with the whole bad boy gig he had going on, but he did. 

And he needed to get a job. He had been pigging off Harry for two months, no rent, the food, the everything, and he knew Harry was too nice to say anything, and it was sweet, maybe, but a job was important. 

Draco sends his unremarkable resume to the muggle employment agencies, he did not want a wizarding job, not one bit, he was too filled with shame still for the double looks and the side - eyes

One day maybe. 

He’s taken home to the sofa as he usually seemed to do, except the windows are wide open and the flat is bathed in warm sunlight, half past four, and season five of friends was airing, it was kind of nice, he could almost imagine it forever, the loud noises of Harry fucking something up in the kitchen and the white noise of the tv enveloping the scene as though it ere right out of a movie, Draco could see Harry dropping things, then picking them up, keeping them on the edge of the counter and knocking them down again. 

“I applied for a job!” He says, enthusiastically.

Harry looks up from whatever he just burnt, “oh?” he turns off the stove and removes his apron, “what is it, then? Head of the Committee of fathers hearing about things?”

“Har har, you’re so funny, please have my children.” he says in a monotone.

Harry grinned, “what is it then?”

“So like, get this - muggles have bookstores.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Sherlock Holmes.”

“Oh come on.” Draco scowls, disheartened, “I didn’t know that.”

“Don’t you like, read Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Hoe?”

“They’re muggles?” He pushes his hair away from his face, “Edgar Allan Poe.” he corrects after a second. 

“I fucking know Malfoy!” Harry says impatiently leaning upon the kitchen counter, his shirt hanging off his shoulder bones. 

“I’m just saying!” Draco swallows heavily, “just saying.” he repeats faintly.

“Okay then.” Harry grits his jaw. “Fine.”

Draco gets up very suddenly, “one conversation without an argument, thats all i’m fucking asking.”

“Takes two to tangle.”

“Literally shut the fuck up.” Draco walks towards the kitchen, loud steps. 

Harry meets him halfway. 

“What?” They are standing chest to chest, barely an inch in between. 

“Scared, Potter?” Barest hint of a smirk.

“You wi-”

“Can I kiss you?”

And it’s Harry who does it, really. Draco knows he wouldn’t have on his own. It was not a kiss of sweetened honey or whatever the poets have you believe, Harry tasted like every bad thought Draco had ever had. Harry’s hands reach up to hold Draco’s face, he holds him with both hands and takes him apart slowly. Draco does not close his eyes and melt into the kiss as he should be, he had been wanting it for ages, he did not know what was wrong, he did not want this, he could not get enough of this, but he wanted to stop. 

He pulled apart, one of Harry’s hands had made its way to his waist, “wait.” Draco breathes out, Harry stills immediately. 

“Are you okay?”

“I dont think so.”

“Oh.” Harry isn’t touching him anymore, no one is holding him, Draco thinks he might break like a little piece of that one puzzle that your aunt gifted you when you were five, of course Draco’s aunt only gave him hereditary trauma. 

Harry runs his fingers through his hair, pushes his glasses up his nose, “I thought you wanted this.”

“I did.” Draco closed his eyes, his legs seemed to want to give out, so he let himself fall on the floor, back to the wall. “I thought I did too.”

Harry sits down beside him, he keeps his hand over Draco’s, “it’s okay, honest, we don’t really have to-”

“I want to.” Draco’s voice breaks, his eyes burn, he looks up trying to avoid the tears, “I wanted to.” He corrects himself. 

“I’m not going to hold this against you, honest.”

The sun was going down, the room was darkening, the lights were off and only the barest ray of sunlight draped across the wall, a single street light was on. 

“I don’t know.” Draco says, defeatedly.

“Look, I thought you wanted this, I wasn’t trying to force anything on you.” Harry is fidgeting with his fingers, “I can’t deal with all the mixed signals Draco, I get you’re all shaky from your dismount of heterosexuality or whatever, but like I have feelings too.”

Draco stares at him for a moment, “this isn’t about you.”

“Well, seeing my tongue was just down your throat.”

“Pot- Harry, this is not about you.” Draco holds both of his hands in his own, “I've just never snogged a bloke before y’know?” He sighs, “look I just want some time, I think.”

Harry looks at him blankly, “I’ll make some tea.”

They don’t talk, the TV is on, Pride and Prejudice (1994), ‘you must allow me to tell you how ardently i admire and love you’

“He said it wrong, didn't he?” Harry asks. 

“I love you most ardently.” Draco quotes.

“What?” 

“That’s the actual thing.”

“Oh.”

That’s how most of their conversations go, really. 

Except Draco was a sad man, he went out of his way to do everything for Harry, he was ashamed really, about how he put out and then withdrew, so he washed the dishes and cleaned the countertops and wiped down the oven and moped the floors, the whole thing. If Harry noticed, he didn’t say anything. 

He got a letter in the mail from a place called ‘Foyles’ that morning, for some kind of an editing job, he wasn’t too fussed over the details, four hundred pounds a month ought to be good enough, that was just about eighty galleons. 

“How far is Charing Cross Road?” he asks Harry over breakfast. 

“Literally an hour away, this place is called Hillingdon.” He looks up, “why?”

“I got the job!” 

“Honey that’s great,”

“Honey?”

“Shut up.”

“Gladly.”