Lavender

“I think you should move out.” Harry carefully says, first thing in the morning when Draco enters the hall, toothbrush in mouth. 

“Because I didnt have sex with you?!” He asks incredulously, through a mouthful of toothpaste. 

“Because you haven't looked me in the eye in three days!”

“Are you fucking with me right now?”

“What do you even want?” Harry demands, “you fucking snog me and then fucking - i dont even know - fuck.” 

“Jesus fucking christ.” Draco takes three strides forward, drops his brush on the floor and takes Harry’s face in his hands, kisses him. Toothpaste. It was disgusting. His mind goes blank. He can’t think. It’s… Harry’s lips are soft and his hands are so soft, just hovering at his neck and cheek as he presses his kisses to his lips. He can barely breathe, and the shock and feeling of Harry so close makes him incompetent with movement. 

“What was that?” Harry asks, breaking apart almost immediately. 

“I don't know,” Draco admits.

“Are you sure?”

Draco didn’t answer, 

“Mal- Draco.” Harry says as though it was taking every ounce of him to voice this, “I need you to be sure.”

“I am.”

“Are you though? If you’re going to break down after a snog again-”

“I am sure.” He whispers impatiently, “I am.”

“Look I'm not forcing you or anything, you initiated it, both times, right?”

“I know, jesus, i fucking know mate, I want this .”

“Okay, I believe you,” he leans forward, placing a small kiss against the corner of Draco’s mouth, “go brush please.”

“Right,” he says, clearing his throat. He can barely feel how cold it is outside.

“Right,” Harry agrees.

He picks up his brush and goes to the bathroom, he can see Harry faintly touch his fingers to his lips out of his periphery.

Well. 

He locks the door behind him. Everything has come crashing down at once and he feels so completely and utterly lost. Everything is confusing. He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore. He sinks to the floor, head in hands, deep breaths, The first sob feels like it’s ripping up flesh in his chest, up his throat. He hasn’t cried in months, hasn’t let himself. The hot drops of tears flood down his cheeks now and he can’t breathe properly without hitching and gasping. He reaches up to the tap with one arm and opens it, hoping the running water drowns out his noise.

Fifteen minutes later he walks out. 

“Letter for you.” Harry says, as though he didn’t have his tongue in his mouth some time back. 

“Thanks.” Draco picks up the brown envelope from the coffee table, ‘To Draco Malfoy’ it says in pink ink, like fucking Elle Woods or something, he tears it open. 

Draco, 

I was pleasantly surprised to hear from you, how are you? Congratulations with the whole engagement thing. I don't no know how that would work to be honest but you were always a clever lad isn't it?

I would love to meet up for a spot of breakfast or something of the sort some time, if that’s okay? Sunday, 9:00? Leaky cauldron?

Let me know!

Astoria Greengrass. 

P.S - heard about your father, sorry for your loss. 

Draco grabs a piece of parchment and scrawls an affirmation to meet, smiling all the while. 

“Who is it?” Harry asks, emerging from behind. 

“Astoria Greengrass.” Draco says, pocketing the letter. “Year below us, slytherin.”

“You’re not sending it?”

“Don’t have an owl.”

“Borrow Hedwig.”

“I prefer the post office actually.”  

**

Harry and Draco don’t talk about it. 

Awkward skirting around each other. Blushing. Silent conversations. 

Queer. Queer. Queer.

And Draco was just an inch away from crawling into his head when Sunday arrived. Gray sweater, dark coat, blue muggle pants - having exchanged his dignity already, his clothing sense was the only thing Draco had going for him anyway. 

When he apparates just outside Leaky Cauldron he finds Astoria seated upon a corner table already, her dark hair spilled down her shoulders, she had paired a sage green jumper with loose fitting trousers, she smiles in recognition. 

Draco sits in front of her, nodding hello. 

“Hiya!” 

“Long time innit, how are you?”

“Okay, I suppose, I've got this nice gig going on for some sort of muggle NGO, not the best but good enough I guess.” SHe pauses, smiles, “what about you then? Heard you’re shagging Harry Potter?”

“Ah, no.” Draco wants to tell her everything to be honest, she was always a quiet sort of person, keeping to herself and all that.

“Oh?”

“A little heavy on the details, that, I'll tell you in a bit.” Draco rubs his forearm absent - mindedly, “breakfast then?”

“Hmm, I could really go for some coffee to be honest, haven’t slept most of the night.”

Draco gestures to the person at counter over, a hunch - backed old man, and asks for two coffees. 

“A boyfriend then?” Draco asks after a small silence.

“Well there’s this guy…” Astoria pushes a strand of hair behind her ear, “I work with him, he’s a muggle so like I’m not really sure.”

“You should go for it.” Draco says sagely as though he hasn’t been avoiding feelings for some fucker he’s been living with for two months.

“In a perfect world.” She sighs, “You and Potter then?” She rivets back. 

“I dont even know,” Draco takes a sip of the coffee, grimaces, places his cup down carefully, “he’s bloody stupid, makes me want to curl into a ball and die.”

Astoria laughs, “sounds fun.”

“I’m not even sure i’m gay, y’know? I fancy birds too, sometimes”

“Bisexuality is a thing.”

“I know” Draco drags the o, “but like Merlin, I don't even understand, I've never wanted to… y’know… a bloke.”

“Do you love him?” She asks simply, as though it were the easiest thing in the world. 

“No, see, that's not allowed. But I like him an appropriate amount, that’s allowed.”

“It is,” Astoria tilts her head to the side, “he’s pretty.”

“He is.” Draco lets out a long - suffering sigh, “he’s so pretty it makes my bones ache.”

“With want?”

“That’s not allowed,” he says again, frustratedly, “but like the other day he smiles at me and my breath literally stopped. Like he fuckin’ broke me or sumin’”

“Maybe you should like him less.”

“That would be proper, wouldn’t it? But like -” he broke off, discouraged, “he makes me feel so many things, like I’m going to spontaneously combust.”

“Sounds an awful lot like love.”

“Platonic blokey love, yes.”

“Sure,” she laughs, “well, did I tell you about this…”

They fall into easy conversation.

When Draco apparates home around noon he’s a little surer of himself. 

**

“Honey I’m home!” Draco says, pushing open the front door. He dumps his coat on the sofa and looks into the kitchen for Harry. 

“What’s cookin’ good - lookin’?”

“Ugh, sleazy.” Harry groans, tasting something out of his ladle. 

Draco laughs, “what are you making anyway?”

“Soup.”

“Tomato?”

“Ew.”

“What? It’s nice!”

“No it’s not.”

“It’s an opinion.”

“It’s an wrong opinion.”

“A.”

“What?”

“A wrong opinion.”

Harry throws an oven mitt at him.

“I deserved that.” He smiles.

“You did.” Harry gets himself on his tip-toes and presses a kiss to Draco’s mouth, then steps back with raised eyebrows, as though asking if it's okay.

Draco wraps his arms around his neck in answer and kisses him harder. Harry pushes back, his hands are soft when they brush through the hair at Draco’s nape. 

Chests heaving, soft sounds. 

“Bedroom.” Harry gasps, pulling away. 

Draco walks backwards towards Harry’s room, Harry pushes him down just as his knees hit the side of the bed. 

“Draco…” 

His hands are tracing into Harry’s back, through his shirt, he’s planting wet kisses against his jaw, there’s a wet heat between them.

“Fuck me.”

“Bruh.”

Draco groans, “seriously?”

Harry leans his head back and laughs, adam's apple bobbing, Draco kind of wants to lick it, so he does.

Harry bites his lip, pressing down harder on Draco, his hand reaches between the two of them, touching the places that cared most for pressure. Harry bites at his jaw, then runs his tongue over it, neck, collarbones, and everything goes very hazy very fast after that. 

Harry’s tongue is skirting the edges of his waistband now, he climbs up again, eye - level, “I’m going to take off your pants now.”

“Yes please, good, carry on.”

So Harry does. 

“No, wait, one second.” 

Harry sits up straight, “yes?”

“That’s not allowed till I see you naked.”

Harry grins infectiously and in a moment of reflection Draco can’t see why he would ever think he was straight. 

The other boy pulls his shirt off, and resumes his assault at Draco’s hips, and when Draco looks down, he almost comes right then because of the way Harry looks at him through his eyelashes. 

Harry painstakingly undoes his jeans buttons and pulls them down along with his boxers. 

He traces lines across Draco’s inner thighs, licks them over, The room is filled with hot wet gasps.

Draco flinches when Harry touches the scars, but he doesn’t say anything, Harry hesitates for a second, then decides otherwise, placing soft kisses along them. He takes him in his mouth. 

**

“Soup.” Harry moans loudly, coming down Draco’s throat, he makes a face and swallows. 

**

Forty five minutes later Draco drops soup all over his shirt, but like gracefully, blood of the Malfoys and all that.

“You’re ridiculous.” Harry says fondly.

“I do try.”

“You’re cute,"

"Oh?"

“You should take it as a compliment.”

“You’re gorgeous.”

“I’m a white man’s whore too now, apparently.”

Draco finishes the last of his food and picks up his own and Harry’s bowl, charming it over to the sink. He then collapses on the sofa, “I could sleep for a year.”

Harry sits next to him, “I’ll cuddle you.”

“Ew.”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”