tangled webs

“Harry! Harry! Harry, c’mon, wake up, mate.”

Harry rolled over with a groan, cheek damp with- he recognised with a faint sense of disgust- drool. He reached an arm out blindly, fingers groping clumsily over the bedside table until he felt the cool slide of lenses and metal underneath his fingers. Coughing, he grasped his glasses by the nose bridge, opening them and stuffing them onto his face hastily.

“Whatssamatter?” He managed, eyes bleary with sleep.

It took him a minute for his vision to focus, and as it did, freckles, red hair and a long, pale nose swam into view alarmingly close to his own face. Harry slid back with a yell, away from Ron’s startled countenance.

“Bloody hell, Ron!” he gasped.

Ron looked sheepish. “Sorry. It’s just…” he lowered his voice. “Hermione’s getting cranky. She says she reckons you sleep in to annoy her, and its unfair for us to expect her to make breakfast and have it ready for whenever we deign to grace her with our presences.”

Harry’s best mate paused for a moment, and then shrugged. “Not that I know what that last bit means, particularly, but you know ‘Mione.”

Harry could hear the faint note of pride colouring Ron’s tone, and smiled. However, his smile was quickly wiped away by an echoing yell spiralling upwards from the kitchen, bouncing around the crooked walls and staircases of the Burrow. Footsteps could be heard nearing Harry’s- formerly Bill’s- bedroom, and the landing creaked.

“Honestly, Ronald! Did you wake him up or not? Do I have to do everything myself, or--”

Hermione burst into the room, cutting herself off as she saw Harry sitting upright in bed, hair mussed and duvets rumpled around his waist.

“Oh,” she said, considerably more amicably. “Good morning, Harry.”

Ron looked offended.

“He gets a good morning, and I get a ten- minute lecture on the evils of laziness and misogyny in the wizarding world and how men should try a bit of domesticity for a change?”

Hermione sniffed. “You were sloppy. Your shirt was untucked.”

“I was in pyjamas!” Ron said incredulously. Harry hid a grin, and characteristically, Hermione softened.

“Sorry, Ron, it’s just I…” her slim hand went to her belly, heavily rounded now. “I get these mood swings sometimes.” She looked a little uncertain, which was understandably uncommon, considering she’d spent her entire school career juggling saving Harry and Ron and being constantly right.

Ron’s very freckles seemed suddenly to radiate concerned tenderness. He went over to Hermione and stood behind her, looping his lanky arms around her so his long- fingered hands were splayed gently over her belly. Hermione melted, and Ron nosed lovingly at the pale, exposed column of her neck, curls pulled back messily in a soft bun.

Harry sat awkwardly in bed, and tried not to gag. After a minute or so of solid disgustingness, he cleared his throat gently, and his best friends sprang apart, blushing like they were all still teenagers. It was nauseatingly cute, the whole thing, and maybe somebody else would have been endeared, but Harry was starting to think longingly of eggs, possibly bacon, or maybe some of those fat fluffy kippers Hogwarts used to make, just anything, anything, except Hermione’s dreadful—

“Sorry, right, so- Harry. I’ve made some of that oatmeal you like, so I guess that’ll be fine? You boys leave your wands up here; Ron, your mum didn’t like wands at the table and neither do I.”

Harry gulped.

It was going to be a long morning.

************************************************************************************************************************************************

“I just think,” Pansy said, waving her spoon around wildly, “people shouldn’t underestimate female players so much! Yeah, they can’t pass the Quaffle as hard but,” she swallowed a mouthful of cornflakes, “they’re a lot more, like, deft. Skilful. They need to be, to get onto the teams, or even have a chance. I tell you, the sexism in the industry is unbelievable.”

Draco stared at her from across the table. He looked towards Blaise for help, but Blaise was seemingly engrossed in the Quibbler, dark chocolate eyes fixed on a chunky block of text, doubtless some propaganda about an invented magical creature. However, his gaze did not seem to be moving, and now that Draco was looking, that crooked dimple in his right cheek was deepening steadily as the seconds went by.

To be honest, Blaise was little more than a damn nuisance to Draco at that moment..

He took a deep breath.

Guess I’ll take this one.

Sighing, he put his toast down, brushing crumbs gently from his fingertips. “Pans, you remember the last time you were this interested in Quidditch? And, like, talked this much about it?”

Pansy looked irritated. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Blaise cleared his throat, eyes never moving from the page he was staring fixedly at. “Well, whenever you put a lot of research into something so you can talk about it, it generally means you’re actually obsessed with a person doing that something. It’s an excuse to talk about them as much as possible.”

Pansy brushed her dark hair out of her eyes, apparently fascinated by her cereal. She stuffed another spoonful of cornflakes in her mouth and chased it down with a deep gulp of milk from the large flagon-- originally intended for Butterbeer—by her bowl. Pansy liked to have her cereal and milk separately-- she said she hated it when the cornflakes got prematurely mushy. Now, she busied herself by trying to clear the mound of cereal from her bowl as fast as humanly possible, cheeks furiously working like a gerbil on Pepper- Up Potion. The deep swills of milk she was gulping down left a smattering of faint, pale droplets on her upper lip.

Draco leaned forward, voice gentle.

“Pansy…”

“Don’t say it like that!” Pansy snapped suddenly, swallowing a huge mouthful so quickly it looked painful.

Draco was nonplussed. “What-- your name? If I’ve been saying it wrong for nine years, though I don’t see how there could possibly be another way of saying Pansy- I mean… it’s a flower, so that’s kind of, well, anyway- you should’ve said someth—”

“No- don’t take that tone! Don’t treat me like a child. Just because I…” Pansy swiped her hand over her upper lip, faint milk moustache transferred to a smudge on the back of her hand. It struck Draco how young that movement was, but decided, upon a second’s reflection, against saying that to Pansy. He doubted she’d appreciate the irony at that exact moment, and something in Blaise’s eyes, still fixed resolutely on the magazine, told him he should tread carefully.

“Just because I did that thing with the pretty Quidditch player that one time…” she mumbled.

Draco’s lips twitched. “Pans, you stalked her for a month and intercepted all her mail in case she was dating someone. You blocked her Floo, jinxed her so she couldn’t Apparate, and hid her broom in your wardrobe.”

Pansy huffed. “Well, it sounds crazy when you say it like that.”

Blaise raised his eyebrows expressively, dimple so deep it looked like a dent in cocoa cream. Draco fought the urge to snort with laughter, and Pansy narrowed her eyes at them.

“Okay, fine, so I went overboard. I just didn’t want anyone to take advantage of her. I saw her in that wand shop, and I thought, there’s a lot of people out there who’ll see a girl like her, y’know, smart and funny with these brown eyes and hair like fire or an exploded Reductor Curse or something, and oh, Draco, I wish you could’ve seen her skin. It was so smooth… satiny, almost, and she had the cutest little mole next to her nose, I remember distinctly how much I wanted to—” Pansy broke off, blushing.

“You met her once.” Draco said flatly.

“We talked!” Pansy said defensively. “She complimented my bag. And when I bought my new wand- remember, Blaise, how I broke the old one—”

Blaise nodded vaguely, munching on an apple.

“—she said, with this sweet smile,” Pansy rushed on, “‘Dragon heartstring? Classy.’ She called me classy.”

Draco picked his toast back up and took a healthy bite. “She called your wand classy.”

Pansy waved him away. “The wand is an extension of the self.”

They were interrupted by a sharp clacking sound- all three of them looked up to see an obese tawny owl knocking determinedly against the kitchen window with its sharp yellowish beak.

“Oh for—” Draco said angrily, dropping his now- cold toast with a huff and getting up. “I told the stupid bird, it doesn’t open.”

He walked over to the window, leaning over the sink to press his nose against the glass, face alarmingly close to the owl’s.

“It doesn’t work!” He yelled through the glass. “Go-- round-- the-- house!”

The owl looked disgusted.

“Come on, you fat git! Go round, it’s only a measly few metres. I’ll even open the bloody front door if you don’t want the living room window. Just—”

With a defiant squawk, the owl tightened its grip on the slim letter in its talons, tucked its wings in, and dropped to the ground with a dull thud audible even from inside the rosily warm kitchen. Draco leaned even further over the sink, peering painfully downwards at a precarious angle to see the owl lying prone on the tiny back lawn. He raked a hand through his thick blond hair, and turned to the other two.

“I’m going to have to go out there.”

Pansy nodded, already deep in a rather one- sided conversation with Blaise about the exact shade of brown of the Quidditch player’s eyes.

Draco rolled his eyes grumpily, marching over to the side door and reaching up to the high ledge above the frame, groping around for the key. He felt cold metal under his fingers, and grasped the delicate key, bringing it down. With a satisfying click, it slid into the lock, twisted smartly, and Draco reached with a grateful smile to the handle, about to turn it.

Thank Salazar the key had worked, because it had a tendency to be temperamental—

Draco paused.

The handle wouldn’t turn.

“Fuck’s sake,” he moaned, wringing the handle up and down so vigorously his wrist started to ache. He turned back to Blaise and Pansy for help, but Blaise’s nose was still buried in the bloody Quibbler, and Pansy was now waxing lyrical about the slope of the girl’s nose, which she wasn’t likely to stop doing even if she did help him.

Braving it alone is better, Draco decided.

So he spent the next twenty minutes trying to push the key in further, because Pansy had once said something about all the pins in a lock needing to be pushed the right way, and maybe there were more pins that hadn’t been pushed, so he pressed the little key practically all the way in, and then he broke it, and coincidentally that was when Draco’s patience broke too.

He turned dramatically to Blaise, an embarrassing quantity of sweat beaded on his forehead.

“The fucking key won’t turn, well, it did, but the handle didn’t, so it’s they key’s fault, I know it, and now it’s fucking broken, and the mail’s just sitting in the bloody garden getting grassy and stinking of bird—”

“Did it not occur to you,” Blaise said infuriatingly, “to use Alohomora?”

Draco was enraged.

“Did it occur to me? Did it occur to me? Was I or was I not, Blasius, second best in our entire wizarding year NEWTS?”

Pansy answered for him, her love of getting questions right overpowering her need to talk solely about the Quidditch girl.

“Yes, Draco, you were,” she said prissily.

Draco was stony- faced. “Exactly. So if your question was whether or not it occurred to me to use a fourth year spell, the answer would be- do you take me for a fucking idiot?”

“Well,” Blaise said slowly, and Pansy gasped audibly, eyes lighting with interest. She put her spoon down and sat forward. Draco slitted his eyes at her.

“You didn’t use it, did you?” Blaise continued tentatively, ignoring Pansy.

“No.” Draco said.

“So…?” Blaise probed confusedly, and Draco groaned.

“It’s not about that! Of course it occurred to me to use fucking Alohomora, but it goes against my principles! I shouldn’t need to use Alohomora. Everything should work by itself, without me needing to break out OWL- level spells, and it doesn’t, and I will not fucking just sit down and accept sub- standardness in my house.”

“If you want, Draco,” Pansy said accommodatingly, “I can claim that part of the house. So the imperfection isn’t part of your bit.”

Draco pressed a hand to his heart, softening. “Thank you, Pansy,” he said, touched.

This is why I’m friends with Pansy, he reminded himself, and was rewarded by Blaise’s yell of amusement and an outraged shriek from Pansy. Draco had just enough sense to duck in time to avoid the spoon thrown at him from across the kitchen table.

He must have said that out loud.

“Okay, okay!” he yelped, hands in the air. “I’m sorry. But if you think about it, it’s a compliment—”

“Oh, shut up,” Pansy said brusquely, and he gave her back her spoon with a regretful grimace.

There was a pause.

“So…” Draco said cautiously. “You’ll still claim the side door as your part of the house, right?”

Pansy sighed, stuffing her face with cornflakes again, and Draco took that as a yes.

He grabbed his wand from the table, turned it on the door, and, in a tone of relief, said,

“Alohomora.”

****************************************************************************************************************************************************

Why was it gloopy?

I don’t know much about cooking, but I know oatmeal shouldn’t be gloopy, Harry thought miserably, trailing his spoon through the gelatinous mixture.

Across the table, Ron was doing much the same thing. Hermione, however, was sat comfortably in an armchair beside the fire, knitting needles clacking before her, a fat book resting in her lap.

“’Mione…” Ron said hesitantly, “Have you eaten?”

“No, not this morning,” Hermione replied cheerily.

Ron leapt onto the remark like a fly onto rotting meat. “So,” he began eagerly, “so, d’you want some of my oatmeal? I mean,” his ears flushed a light shade of pink, as they always did when he was searching for an idea. Harry saw it strike him, and his face became the epitome of husbandly concern.

“It can’t be good for the baby, can it, not eating? You should have some of mine,” he said nobly. “Here.” And he pushed his bowl away from him, still brimming with lumpy viscousness.

But Hermione was having none of it, Harry thought with a mean sense of vindication.

“No, no, no,” she chirped happily, “my oatmeal doesn’t agree with me. Must be the excessive fibre.”

Harry exchanged a dubious look with Ron.

“But I made a lot for you two, because I know you always enjoy it,” she continued blithely.

Harry swallowed.

He’d hoped Hermione would drop the whole oatmeal thing, but she was clearly convinced that they were both such fans of it they never wanted to eat anything different for breakfast ever again.

It was time to put the plan into action.

He looked over at Ron, and cleared his throat. Ron looked up; his brown eyes were full of a sadness that could only be brought about when confronted with something like Hermione’s oatmeal. It was worse, Harry reflected, when you could practically taste the memory of Mrs Weasley’s wonderful egg sandwiches on your tongue, and smell the tang of the sharp brown sauce.

Harry raised his eyebrows at Ron, and Ron grinned immediately, nodding almost imperceptibly back at. Ron’s skill in subterfuge had come on in leaps and bounds ever since they’d started having to find creative ways to get rid of the accursed oatmeal. Now, he was wonderful at stalling, and practically as good at lying as Harry, though not quite as quiet on foot. Something about living with the Dursleys and sneaking around upstairs whenever they had company had made Harry completely silent on any type of flooring; even on the creaky wooden planks of Grimmauld Place, he’d had been silent as a tomcat, footsteps ghosting over the oak like silk slipping over steel.

The boys slipped quietly into action, adjusting their hands in their pockets, fingers tense with anticipation. Ron furrowed his brow, and Harry could see him concentrating on his magical core. He was wandlessly Accioing their wands from upstairs. The problem was that he still couldn’t do wandless magic non- verbally, so as Ron opened his lips to whisper the Summoning Spell, Harry started coughing loudly, hacking into his sleeve with practiced ease. It took about forty seconds for their wands to come whizzing into the kitchen, and they caught them deftly, hiding them under the table where they couldn’t be seen.

Now for Harry’s part.

It would have been easy to just Vanish the oatmeal verbally, but Hermione’s hearing had become incredibly sharp with pregnancy; the Mediwizards said the baby inside her was fuelling not only her magic, but her human senses. She could hear whispers from a mile off, and they had no chance of muttering Vanishing spells without her hearing. It had taken weeks for Harry to master non- verbal magic; he’d never been great in school, and it was more difficult now he was older. Ron was in charge of the wandless stuff because it came more easily to him in his family home; there was a definite air of Weasley magic permeating the place, and he could draw on it without too much hassle. But the non- verbal spell was Harry’s responsibility, and he pressed his lips firmly together, flourishing his wand in a small, precise motion under the table.

Evanesco, he thought firmly.

And the oatmeal was gone.

Harry and Ron looked at each other, grinned guiltily, and stuffed their wands in their pockets, setting their spoons down noisily.

“All done, ‘Mione!” Harry said, smiling at her.

Hermione looked up from her knitting, cheeks pleasantly flushed from the fire. “Lovely. Was it alright?”

“Delicious,” Ron said quickly. “Like usual.”

And that was that.

****************************************************************************************************************************************************

Draco paid the owl as much as it was due, but he refused to tip it.

“Come on, Draco, just give the bird an extra Knut,” Pansy wheedled.

“No!” Draco said, glaring at the offending creature. “I won’t reward obstinacy. He wouldn’t go round the house. It’s a simple service, and he was below par.”

“I won’t,” he repeated stubbornly, getting right in the bird’s face. “No.”

The yellow eyes looked back at him beseechingly, and the fat on the owl’s back jiggled as it refolded its wings. It was a tiny bit adorable.

Pansy looked amazed at how he was withstanding the plea of such a loveable animal. But Draco was different. Draco was strong, hard, unyielding. Cold as ice. Draco wouldn’t-

The owl cooed.

“Fine, fuck! But you pay the stupid fat thing, Pansy.” And he flung his wallet on the table, standing up and stalking over to the window with his arms crossed.

Pansy took out a Knut from his wallet, put it carefully in the owl’s pouch, and gave it a pistachio. The tawny hooted happily, ruffled its feathers and took flight, veering clumsily out of the kitchen and down the corridor, to where Blaise was holding the front door open for it.

Draco only turned around when he heard the door shut, bottom lip stuck out in a pout.

“Aah, Draco, don’t sulk. ‘S only a Knut,” Pansy said, smirking when he glared at her.

“It’s not about that, it’s my—”

“—your principles, yeah, we know,” Blaise finished, re- entering the kitchen and leaning against the countertop opposite Draco. His lean legs were draped in jogging bottoms, baggy fabric hanging just right over his strong calves and thighs. A sleeveless flannel shirt was carelessly unbuttoned over his chest, and Draco knew he looked kind of edible.

Blaise was anyone’s dream, and as a boy who had figured out he was gay fairly early in life, Draco had always accepted that he was objectively attractive. At Hogwarts they’d messed around a bit, but it had never meant anything. Partly because Blaise had been completely in denial about his sexuality- which Draco had never been annoyed about, but it was still a surefire way to limit a relationship- and partly because Draco had been just a trifle preoccupied by one green- eyed Saviour. They’d helped each other out as friends, but that was what they were, first and foremost. Friends.

Truthfully, all throughout school, Draco had never wanted to be more than friends with anyone, anyone except… well, Potter. It made him cringe to think about it, cringe and shiver and swallow hard, because no matter how much he tried to pass off those feverish daydreams and years of fantasies as a misguided crush, there had been something visceral there that he hadn’t felt since. A mere flash of green eyes, quickly shielded by dark fans of lashes, had been enough to make his heart race. A brush of pale skin, or the sight of the soft fall of Potter’s black hair had made him ache, a full- body ache, as though he were missing something essential. He’d lain in bed, lips parted and reaching, hot and slick with sweat and longing, thinking with such intensity of Potter, Potter, Potter. He’d recognised the tiniest twitches of the other boy’s lips, had studied him for so long with such fervour that he could see his every emotion play out across his face like a Muggle film. Potter had been his constant, a bright sharp obsession to cling to in his greying world.

Not now, though, Draco thought firmly. Not anymore.

Draco was startled back to reality by Pansy, looking at him strangely. He felt her eyes on him, gaze uncommonly soft and femininely discerning.

“Draco?” She asked carefully.

“Yep, yeah, mm-hmmn. That’s, ah. That’s me,” Draco stammered, and wanted to Avada himself.

“Y’alright?” She probed.

“No, yeah, I’m fine, I just…” he tailed off, cursing his ineloquence, and wondering why he was suddenly so fucking tongue- tied.

Pansy looked amused, and Draco didn’t know why. It rubbed him the wrong way, and because he was a spiteful bastard by nature he said, “So, Pans, we never did finish that conversation.”

“Who is it, then? Who’re you obsessed with now?”

Pansy glowered.

“I hate when you change the subject onto my love life. Ok, fine. Fucking relentless. But remember, you have no right to laugh at this story because it reaped a really big benefit for you two as well.”

Draco looked at Blaise- the other boy grinned back at him, spreading his hands wide.

“Sorry, Pans, no promises,” he shrugged.

Pansy sighed, swallowing, and sat down in her previously vacated chair. The amusement on her face gave way to a more serious expression, brows pulling together and teeth slipping down to nibble on her lip. She tucked her feet underneath her, and her hands came up reflexively to clutch at her elbows. Draco felt an overpowering protectiveness rush over him; he took a step towards her.

“Pansy?”

She looked up, and grimaced. “No, I’m fine, just… I should really have told you this earlier. For the record, I’m sorry I didn’t. It’s- well, I wanted time to process.”

Blaise looked concerned now- he came towards Pansy and sat opposite her. Draco leaned back against the counter, eyes intent on their female friend.

“Tell us.”

“Okay.” Pansy tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, silky strands snagging slightly on her roughly- filed nails. She took a shallow breath, and started.

“So, I was sort of… low. I didn’t tell you guys about it but around Christmastime, my parents were under a lot of strain- like, their relationship. And I know that’s old hat for us dysfunctional purebloods, but my parents- well, you two remember how they used to be? I always figured they were…” Pansy chewed her lip, voice wobbling slightly. Blaise’s eyes widened; this was completely unlike her.

“Different?” Draco offered gently.

“Yeah, uhm- different.” Pansy cleared her throat. “They weren’t like your mother, Blaise, no offence—”

Blaise gave a wry laugh. “None taken.”

“—or your parents, Draco, super close to the Dark… ah, him, and kind of tense as a result.”

Draco nodded.

“They were,” Pansy furrowed her brow, looking as though she were searching for the right way to explain it. Suddenly, she shook her head angrily, speaking as though she were just voicing her stream of consciousness. “Salazar, maybe it’s fucking stupid for me to be so sentimental about this. It’s just, when we were younger, you know, I’d look at both of your parents, and Crabbe’s parents, and Goyle’s parent’s, and even bloody Nott’s parents, and I’d think… wow, I got really lucky. Because my parents were in love! They were in love, and everyone could see it. Maybe if they’d been like everyone else from the start I would have been okay when they split a few months back.”

Draco’s head snapped up- he looked at Blaise, who appeared just as shocked as he was.

“Pansy, you never…”

Pansy cut him off. “I didn’t want to worry you. But my point was, I got lulled into a false sense of familial security when we were younger, so I was seriously blindsided when they moved to different fuckin’ countries.” She rubbed the back of her neck, looking sheepish. “I didn’t take it too well. I decided I needed to get away, so I fabricated an excuse of sorts, to like. Pretend I was going out of the country for something.”

Something was, by now, niggling in the back of Draco’s mind.

“Hang on… you said this happened a few months ago? When, exactly?”

Pansy grimaced. “February.”

Blaise’s mouth dropped open. “You’re not seriously saying that…?”

She nodded.

Draco swore, loudly. “Pansy Parkinson. You told us you were going to a cousin’s wedding in Prague!”

“Yeah, I know.” Pansy grimaced, but they could both see the very Slytherin smirk tugging at her lips.

“Where did you actually go, may I ask?” Blaise inquired, dimpling roguishly at her. “To see a special someone? Or should I say…” he leaned in, licking his lips obnoxiously. “Stalk a special someone?”

Pansy gave him the finger, silvery family ring flashing.

“Fuck off, Blasius. No, I sort of…” she trailed off again, and Draco resisted the urge to throttle her.

“What, Pansy, fuck’s sake- spit it out!”

“Iwenht’meesmonefrmWishWeekli!” Pansy gabbled in one nervous, incomprehensible breath. She paused, and looked at them anxiously for a reaction.

“Well?”

Draco exhaled. “Pansy. Darling. That sentence was not even slightly understandable by anyone untrained in the lingo of the chronically mad. Speak. Fucking. Sense.”

Pansy looked abashed. “I went to meet someone from Witch Weekly.”

Which, like, really?

Draco had asked for sense, not more gobbledegook.

He buried his head in his hands.

Blaise groaned, and Draco could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

“I think I speak for both Draco and myself when I say- what the hell does that mean? You met someone from Witch Weekly? What is that? Who does that? Just… what the fuck.”

“Right, sorry.” Pansy didn’t sound sorry at all. Draco raised his head from the crook of his arms.

“So, I saw this ad for someone in Witch Weekly. Like, someone to make you happy. You pay them for an hour, and they make you happy. I thought I could use—”

“Pansy,” Draco interrupted. “Are you talking about an escort, by any chance? Because, if so, you know you can call it that, right? We’re all of age here.” He smirked in Blaise’s direction. “We’ve all done some questionable things in the name of hanky- panky.”

Blaise snorted indistinctly.

Pansy looked annoyed by now. “No, I’m not talking about an escort. And stop interrupting. This ad was for more like a… therapist. A positivity person. But in a resort? You book a stay at this resort, and you spent three days being rehabilitated and given wellness support. So I booked this thing, but when I got there…” she pouted suddenly.

“What?” Blaise and Draco groaned in unison.

“I don’t want to say,” Pansy said mulishly.

“Pansy Parkinson, you had better tell us right this minute. You cannot be telling me you have dragged us along this godforsaken mud path of a plotline with you only to leave us stranded in a dung- filled ditch. Come on. Give us the good bit,” Draco demanded.

“Alright,” Pansy said, “but only if you swear- Dementor’s Kiss swear- you won’t laugh at me or call me a stalker.”

Blaise’s eyes grew comically round, and his next sentence tumbled out of his mouth as a dawning realization. “Holy shit. That Quidditch girl was at the fucking wellness centre too. You’re not obsessed with someone new, you’re still infatuated with her.” He said it with the finality of the truly shocked.

Draco spluttered. “Of course not, that’s crazy, that’s, that’s-- Pansy?”

Pansy stared at the table.

Blaise exploded. “HOLY SHIT, PANS, YOU’RE A COINCIDENTAL STALKER!”

He clutched his bare, golden sides, rolling around on his chair with tears streaming down to well in his dimples. It was disgustingly beautiful, and incredibly infectious. Draco found himself howling with laughter too, hands buried in his messy hair and stomach aching from laughter.

Pansy’s mouth was puckered as though she’d just sucked on a lemon.

“Oh, come on, Pans,” Draco cackled. “That’s pretty funny. You stalked the girl for a month last year, and you bump into her by accident at this weirdo positivity centre? After you stole her mail and blocked her Floo for weeks. That’s hilarious. She never knew you stalked her, right?”

“What d’you take me for, an idiot?” Pansy asked acidly, nose firmly stuck in the air. “’Course she didn’t.”

Blaise hooted. “So, what, you did wellness treatments together?” He clutched his spasming abs, coughing weakly.

“Actually…” Pansy said, quiet as a mouse, and the boys snapped to attention.

“You what? You fucking befriended this girl?” Draco asked incredulously. “After you—”

“Stalked her for a month, yes, you keep saying that,” Pansy snapped. “Look, you both see to have forgotten that the reason I followed this girl around for a bit—”

“Stalked,” muttered Blaise defiantly

“—was because in that thirty- second conversation we had, I never connected with anybody more. I was surprised when it happened because… I, well, we know her. It turns out she, ah,” Pansy cleared her throat. “She actually went to Hogwarts. Year below us. I just, uh, never really talked to her. Guess I was prejudiced.”

“Really?” Draco sat forward. “What house was she in?”

“Uhm.” Pansy’s voice was becoming steadily more and more hushed. “Gryffindor.”

Blaise mock- gagged. “Ah, well, you win some, you lose some.”

Pansy giggled, but it sounded strained to Draco’s ears. He narrowed his eyes, leaning in.

“Pansy.”

Pansy looked like a rabbit caught in headlights.

“What’s your girl’s name?”

Pansy gulped. “Uh.”

“It’s Ginny Weasley.”

********************************************************************************************************************************************************

“Fucking hell, is the Floo broken or something? It’s hot as fuck in there.” A high, familiar voice blared from the living room.

Harry came down the stairs two at a time, ducking into the living room to see Ginny, covered in soot and a mulchy mixture of mud and leaves, standing crossly before the fireplace. He raised his eyebrows.

“Alright, Gin?”

Ginny glared at him.

“No, I’m not alright, Potter. I’ve just come from practice, which was a fucking fiasco, and it rained, and I nosedived into this massive muddy puddle. To make it worse, we weren’t allowed to do any drying or cleaning charms on ourselves because there was a bunch of temporary Muggle technology nearby which would break if we did, so I stayed filthy, and I’ve just gotten practically cooked alive in your stupid Floo, which I told you was getting too hot a month ago. So no, I’m not okay, and I would really appreciate something to eat.”

She looked around hopefully. “Did Mum come back from France yet?”

Harry grimaced. “Sorry, no, she’s still at Fleur’s parent’s place.”

“Still?” Ginny demanded shrilly. “Oh for… is there anything eatable around the place, then?”

She shrugged off her muddied Quidditch robes, leaving them in a dank pile on the wooden floor, and started to make her way towards the kitchen, eyes hungry. Harry moved to block her off, expression urgent.

“Ginny, look,” he began in a hushed voice, “we’ll get you something to eat, just shut up about it for now, don’t say anything about being hungry when—”

“Ginny!” Hermione cried, coming a little ungracefully down the stairs, hand protectively curved over her belly. “Oh…” she looked dismayed. “You look dreadful.”

Ginny’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll let that go, Granger, since you’re carrying Weasley spawn, but you might want to be careful. I’ll take any further slights out on the Golden Boy here.”

She jerked her head towards Harry, who shrank back behind Hermione.

Hermione laughed, a pregnant lady laugh, full of vibrant, generous life, and Ginny smiled despite herself.

“Noted,” Hermione said. “But- did you say something about being hungry?”

Harry widened his eyes at Ginny from behind Hermione’s back, waving his arms discreetly to warn her off, but Ginny was already agreeing obliviously, pushing her red hair behind her ears. The girls went into the kitchen, chatting, and Harry leaned against the wall, feeling quite tired of trying to save everyone from the dreaded oatmeal.

Ron came thundering down the stairs presently, red hair ruffled. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly, “’Mione was making me try on dress shirts for the baby’s baptism. It’s a Muggle thing—”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

Ron leaned in confidentially. “Mental, isn’t it? Dipping the poor kid in water. I tell you, these Muggles…” he shook his rumpled head disbelievingly, and then brightened. “Did I hear Ginny come in?”

“Yep,” Harry said wearily.

“What’s wrong?” Ron asked, seeing his defeated expression.

“She said she was hungry, and Hermione heard,” Harry explained.

Ron grinned, a wide, toothy smile stretching over his face.

“Brilliant.”

******************************************************************************************************************************************************

“So, Ginny, how come you’re here, and not at your flat?” Hermione asked, knitting needles flashing deftly before her. She was sitting opposite Ginny, much to Ron’s delight, and poor Ginny was being forced to slowly eat away at the brimming bowlful of oatmeal sitting in front of her. It was even thicker now, having been left on the stove to congeal since that morning.

Ginny swallowed a mouthful of oaty sludge, shuddering silently and wiping a tear from under her left eye when Hermione wasn’t looking. “Well, there’s a massive crowd of fans outside the block. Normally they’re more manageable, but now the Cup final’s coming up,” she shook her head. “Mental.”

Ron looked a little jealous. “And that’s horrible is it, having all these people come up to you and ask for your autograph?” he said bitingly.

Ginny raised a shapely eyebrow at him. “No, Ronald, what’s horrible is that my flat doesn’t have jinx- proof curtains, and people keep Vanishing them so they can get pap shots of me on the loo.”

Harry grinned into the large mug of hot chocolate he was slurping. “Why would anyone want a pap shot of that?” He mock- trembled. “Traumatic sight.”

“I’ll have you know, Potter, that many people would pay good money for a decent picture of my lovely arse perched over the lavatory.”

Harry looked politely dubious.

Ron gagged. “Too much information, Gin. And as for you—” he pointed an accusatory finger at Harry, who widened his eyes innocently “—I don’t need to know that you’ve seen my sister on the toilet.”

“That’s not all he’s seen, Ron,” Ginny purred around the smallest spoonful possible of slop.

Ron squeezed his eyes shut, already pale face going an alarming shade of snow- white. “Merlin’s saggy balls—”

“Ron!” Hermione admonished.

“—I think I’m going to puke.” Ron finished defiantly.

Ginny rolled her eyes heartlessly. “Oh, give over. Harry and I both play for the opposite team, we established that a long time ago. Honestly, you’d think you’d have developed a stronger stomach for this stuff.”

“We’re related,” Ron groaned.

“So? I have no issue talking about you and Hermione snogging.”

Hermione blushed, and changed the subject quickly.

“How’s training coming, Ginny? England ready for the final?”

Ginny’s tongue slipped out to lick gingerly at the oatmeal, the feline gesture making her eyes cross as she looked up at Hermione.

“Yeah, it’s actually going fine. I mean, today was a bit shit, but we were missing a couple of players, it was raining cats and dogs, and nobody was allowed any protective charms so,” she shrugged, “it was to be expected.”

Harry swallowed a mouthful of hot liquid, coughing, and said, “Who d’you think you’ll be playing in the final?”

“Probably India. They’re playing Wales tomorrow, and Bulgaria’re against Bogota the day after that, but they’ll be fighting it out for fourth and fifth; Bulgaria just aren’t as good without Krum. Damn shame he retired.” Ginny shook her head sagely.

“Wales’ll be third, ‘cause we beat them narrowly yesterday, and in a few days I reckon we’ll play India for the title. ‘S going to be tough. They’ve got a great lineup this year, and there’s this Chaser-“ Ginny broke off, hacking into her sleeve. They all looked at her alarmedly as she gasped, coughing so fiercely that her body spasmed. Harry was just reaching over to pat her on the back when she took in a deep, clean gulp of oxygen. He looked to his left to see Hermione tucking her wand back into her robes, wearing an expression untarnished in its good intentions save for a tinge of smugness.

“Sorry,” Ginny wheezed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oat got stuck in my throat.”

And she shot Hermione a look so dark Harry feared for the baby’s life.

Ron grinned. “How’s that oatmeal going down, Gin?”

Ginny gave a wry laugh. “Oh, you know what, it’s so nice, but - and I hate to say this because it’s really good, but I can only eat a certain amount of slow release, high fibre foods at the moment. It’s a special diet the coach is putting us on.” She looked regretfully at her bowl, pushing it away. “I don’t think I can have any more.”

Hermione smiled serenely. “That’s alright, Ginny, Ron and Harry’ll have it tomorrow for breakfast. They love it; can’t get enough.”

Harry choked on his hot chocolate.

**************************************************************************************************************************************************************

“The Weaslette? Really, Pansy?” Draco shook his head disapprovingly. “I thought we taught you better than this.”

“Not strictly true,” Blaise interjected, waving an elegant hand. “Let’s not forget, Draco, about your raging schoolboy crush on the Chosen One. I don’t think you’re in any position to judge.”

“Thank you, Blaise,” Pansy said sweetly.

Because, yeah, Draco may have gotten drunk off Firewhisky one night and confessed in their small kitchen-- with a few silent tears, but nobody needed to know; it had been dark-- to fantasising rather dirtily about Potter throughout their entire Hogwarts career.

Pansy and Blaise had never let him forget it since.

“In what way is that the same? That was in school,” Draco snapped irritably.

“I’m just saying,” Blaise shrugged. “Kind of hypocritical for you to give her shit about dating the Weaslette when you were gagging for Potter’s golden—”

“Don’t be vulgar, Blasius,” Pansy said primly.

“—yeah, well, when you were lusting after Scarhead for about seven years.”

Draco pouted. “I thought you’d be on my side, Blaise.”

Pansy sniggered. “Why would he be? Blaise here has always been a sucker for a pretty face.” She flicked her hair and preened, fluttering her-- Draco had to admit, fairly lush-- eyelashes.

“That’s why I thought he’d be on my side,” Draco said emphatically, and Blaise grinned.

“I’m more likely to side with Draco’s pretty face than yours, though, aren’t I, Pans? That proves that this isn’t about that. I was just saying it was a little hypocritical of Draco to give you a hard time.” Blaise paused, and his smile became wolfish, teeth gleaming and dimple crooking. “Doesn’t mean I can’t though.”

Pansy threw up her hands. “Why do I bother? You two,” she shot them both a dirty look, “take the mickey out of me no matter what. I like this girl, and she’s special. I never thought we’d work, but we do, and didn’t I tell you that you couldn’t make fun of me?”

“Yeah,” Blaise never missed a beat, cheekbones only further enhanced by the attractively mocking smile he was sporting. “You said we couldn’t take the piss because your dating this girl- Ginny Weasley- reaped a benefit for us. I’m not seeing a benefit.” He craned his neck obnoxiously, peering into the distance as though looking for something, and then turned to Draco. “You seeing a benefit, Draco?”

Draco got in on the act, checking under the table and coming up faux- confused, shaking his head comically. Pansy watched them get steadily more dramatic, arms crossed across her chest.

“Ok, fine, I get it, I get it. If you’d only been more supportive, maybe a little more patient, you could have taken advantage of this, but now you guys have been dicks about it… think I’ll just take these tickets to the Quidditch World Cup Final back to the girl I’m seeing. She gave them to me for free, but I guess she’ll be okay with a return.”

Pansy slid three large, embossed tickets out of her pocket and fanned herself with them nonchalantly, mouth twisted up in a wry smile.
Draco and Blaise froze, mouths hanging open.

Then, in unison, they lunged for the tickets.

In hindsight, it was a really stupid idea. All either boy needed to do was take out their wand and Summon them. But that silver World Cup logo drove the logic right out of their brains.

From across the large wooden table they threw themselves towards Pansy, who was already giggling and slipping out of her seat, dancing way out of their reach even as they slammed down onto the oak surface, heads hanging limply down and arms akimbo.

Pansy made to skip away, humming to herself, when Draco croaked, “Wait. Wait! We’re sorry. Aren’t we, Blaise?”

Blaise nodded frantically, chocolate eyes dazed.

“We love your new girlfriend. We love her so much we’re willing to date her, and we’re both gay,” Draco joked. His smile faded when he saw the snarl cut into Pansy’s fairy- like countenance.

“Nobody touches—”

“Right, right, sorry!” Blaise cut in, shooting Draco a look that clearly said, ‘way to go, fucking idiot.’

Pansy was very possessive.

“Point is, we won’t make fun anymore. We fully support your relationship with the Weasl—uh, Ginny. Honestly.” Blaise’s voice evened out and regained some of its usual liquid charm.

Pansy looked slightly mollified. As the boys slid off the table and back into their respective seats, she sat down again, fingers still gripping the tickets tightly.

Hesitantly, as though trying not to frighten a startled animal, Blaise leant forward. “So, how did- how did she get finals tickets this early? Ginny, that is. Even for someone in the industry, you’ve got to be, like, on the team to get them so fast.” The words ‘finals tickets’ were spoken in a reverent tone, as though they were something holy.

Pansy quirked an eyebrow. “What d’you mean? D’you guys seriously not know what Ginny Weasley does for a job?”

Draco’s mouth hung open. “No… I never really followed her career, but I heard some… I mean,” he passed a hand over his forehead. “Now I’m thinking of it… I remember hearing stuff about the English International team. Salazar, Pans, I know you said the girl you liked was a Quidditch player, but…” he exhaled, feeling out of his depth. “The English International Team.”

Blaise choked quietly beside him.

Pansy grinned suddenly, a pixie- like smile that exposed her small, pearly teeth and lit up her fine- boned face. “Yeah.” She blushed, then, and dimly Draco wanted to roll his eyes but he just couldn’t because it was so fucking pure.

Blaise was catatonic, blinking slowly at the revelation. Then, he exploded with the force of a minor atomic bomb.

“PANSY’S FUCKING DATING AN INTERNATIONAL QUIDDITCH PLAYER!” He yelled, standing up on his chair so hurriedly he bashed his head on the ceiling and yelped in a tone of sex- coated pain.

Pansy pressed her lips tightly together, and Draco could see she was trying not to giggle.

“WE’RE GOING TO THE WORLD CUP FINAL!” Blaise howled to the ceiling. Draco felt his lips stretch upwards in a smile.

“DRACO WAS IN LOVE WITH POTTERRRRRRR” Blaise crowed at top volume.

Draco shoved him so hard he fell onto the floor. Blaise lay there, curled up and rubbing his head like an adorable cat in his soft jogging bottoms and gaping flannel, and Pansy tackled him in a hug. They wrestled playfully, Pansy’s dark hair getting in Blaise’s mouth, Blaise’s dimples catching in her sharp little teeth.

Draco looked down at them, shaking his head. But he couldn’t tamp down on the fond smirk tugging his lips wide.

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************

It was only about eleven in the morning, maybe almost half past, and three out of the four of them were drunk. Not terribly drunk, but the kind of tipsy that ruins you for productivity for the rest of the day.

Harry and Ginny were slung over either side of the large loveseat, perched on the arms with legs tucked into the cushy centre and heads rested comfortably on the back. Ron and Hermione were sitting lazily on the sofa, Hermione’s legs splayed wide and a hand rested on her belly. Though she was still technically sober, she’d had enough Butterbeers to satisfy even the sugar- lusting baby, and was in a blissed out state quite equal to any induced by real alcohol. The weather had started to get pleasanter about twenty minutes beforehand, and now a tentative English sun was warming the glass panes of the living room windows and streaming onto the carpet in dappled squares.

They were talking about love, because that’s the best subject when one is day- drunk.

“Y’know, Harry,” Ginny said musingly, coddling her head on the plush back of the loveseat, “I really did think I loved you when we were in school.”

“Same,” Harry yawned. “Bu’ I also really thought the Chudley Cannons were a decent team back then.”

Ron—still a die- hard Cannons fan-- chucked a pillow at him, which missed by a mile.

Ginny chucked lazily, the normally finely- tuned harmony of her voice wavering and slurring just a little. “That’s true. We didn’ know ourselves then.”

“Nah,” Harry agreed. “I only knew one thing about myself, n’ that was what I had to do about our good friend Tom Marvolo Riddle when I was old enough.”

The room sobered a little, Ron’s eyes becoming shuttered and sadder, as they always did when he was thinking of Fred.

Harry carried on, voice thick as molasses, and the light air returned to the room.

“When did you find out you liked girls, Gin?”

Ginny shrugged. “I… I didn’t have a moment, I don’t think, so much as—”

She broke off with a sudden laugh like a streak of silver, darting through the air too quick to savour.

“—Actually, I’ve just remembered that’s not true. I did have a moment. It was gradual after that, but I just remembered I had a specific, out- of- the- blue moment where I suddenly felt attracted to girls. I was at dinner in the Great Hall, kind of tired, y’know, after a really shit day of lessons. You guys weren’t there, or Neville and Luna, or actually anybody I really liked. I was sitting by myself, which I didn’t mind, because I could just eat and let my mind wander. I don’ really remember what I was thinking about, but I remember hearing a group of girls giggling together behind me.”

Hermione shifted upwards on the sofa, brown eyes soft and intent on Ginny. Ron, on the other hand, was watching Hermione’s face with a tenderness mirrored in his gentle grip on her hand, the way their fingers twined together easily, thoughtlessly.

Ginny and Harry were sitting so close, heads rested inches away from each other, but the space between them might as well have screamed ‘platonic’. For a split second, Harry imagined a future where Ginny and Harry had stayed together, had kids, and been the perfect piece to slot into the jigsaw puzzle that was their story. But then the image was gone, and Ginny’s soft voice continued.

“I turned around to the Slytherin table, and there was this cluster of girls in your year, sniggering together and kind of looking at me? Immediately, I knew they were, like, making fun because I was alone. I don’t reckon you ever had this, Hermione, because you were always with these two—”

Ginny jerked her head towards Harry and Ron.

“—But for most girls, sitting alone is a big deal. If you do it, people call you a loner, but secretly everyone’s afraid of it, of having the guts to do it. Anyway, I was sure they were talking about me, so I sort of gave them a look, and—”

“Hang on,” Harry interrupted, “which look was this?”

Ginny snorted. “What the hell kind of a question is that? I don’t remember my exact facial expression.” She swallowed.

“Liar,” Harry said. Ginny grinned sheepishly. “This is the moment you realised you were gay. You remember everything; I should know, I had one of those moments.”

“Well, why does it matter?” She laughed.

“I want to know the exact mood this expression gave off,” Harry said stubbornly.

“Okay, fine,” Ginny said, rolling her eyes, and she visibly sobered, concentrating past the Firewhisky buzz, narrowing her eyes and raising one brow slightly in a quizzical, lightly sarcastic way. Her mouth quirked up in a half- smile, and Harr could imagine her exactly at age fifteen, icy and fine- boned, hot disdain evident in every clean swoop of her face.

“I made that expression at them.”

“Nice,” Harry nodded, impressed. “So what’d they do?”

“Well, you know these sorts of girls. All talk. They hushed up, mainly, but there was one girl…”

Ginny trailed off, and looked at Ron pointedly. “If you think you can handle this, fine. But on your head may it rest. Consider this a warning. I will be talking about my teenage self fancying someone.”

Ron looked as though he were undergoing a particularly painful internal struggle. He flushed, looking from Harry to Hermione with increasing desperation, and only broke when
Hermione sighed loudly.

“Fine!” He said nervously. “Just go on.”He pressed his lips so tightly together Harry feared they might be severed from his face altogether.

Ginny carried on. “There was one girl who stared right back at me, and she made, like, the exact same expression, only I was in about fifth year, so I was still kind of skinny and had a messy ponytail and the remains of acne, but this girl was sixth year, and mature at that, so she was freaking gorgeous. The way she was quirking her eyebrow, just like me… it felt like she was taking the piss, but not really? I was so attracted to that. And I can still feel the way I swallowed, hard, and my tongue felt thick, and I couldn’t look away, especially from—and I couldn’t for the life of me explain why—her neck, which was exposed on one side ‘cause her hair was pushed to the right. And it was really slim, and pale, and I could see her delicate jawline, and the point where the fullness of her mouth pressed into the sharp curve of her cheek, and it was so lovely.” Ginny sounded dreamy, and even Ron wasn’t gagging or looking away. There was something mesmerising about the whole story.

“So, yeah, I kind of coughed and looked down, and carried on eating, and that night I literally stared at the top of my four- poster and tried to sort out this tangled mass of feelings just sitting in my stomach.”

“That’s beautiful, Ginny,” Hermione breathed, misty- eyed and vaguely sugar- hazed. Even from the loveseat, Harry could smell the lingering scent of pumpkin- spice Butterbeer clinging to her skin.

“But,” and Hermione’s brow furrowed, “you said you were in fifth year? But you started dating Harry when you were in fifth year too, and you thought you loved him.”

Ginny sighed, reaching a languid arm up to tangle through her long, fiery hair. “Well, that was just one encounter with a girl that made me feel stuff. The first encounter ever. But I had about six years’ experience of having what I thought was a ‘crush’ on Harry here.” She patted his head clumsily. “At first, I tried to ignore the whole girl thing. Then, when I started dating Harry, I actually came to terms with it, but our relationship was kind of… comfortable, and I didn’t know it should be more than just that, so I thought I could be bi. And I kidded myself into thinking I loved you. No offence.”

Harry waved her away.

“But eventually, y’know, you went away, and I had a long time to figure shit out. And it wasn’t like I was unsure of what you’d say. I knew you, and by then I was pretty certain that you were, in fact, in the exact same boat as me. So we split, and I’ve never looked back. Never dated a guy again. And you never dated a girl again, did you, Harry?”

Harry shook his head, smiling at her.

The small living room of the Burrow was pervaded by a comfortable sense of sharing and vulnerability and sunlight, the musty smell of dust dancing in the beams that poured through the window. The four of them sat there for a minute, before Ginny turned her head slowly to the side facing Harry, and said, “What about you?”

Harry blinked. “What about me?”

Ron sat up. “The moment you realised you were gay.” He sounded as though he were suppressing a smile, and Harry stuck his tongue out wonkily at his best friend.

“Whyyyy?” Harry whined. “Why can’t it just be Ginny who shares?”

“Because we all want to know, Harry. You’ve never told us this,” Hermione said sternly, and Harry couldn’t resist that voice, he’d spent years learning to just fucking shut up Harry, and listen to Hermione Granger. And, to be fair, it had always served him well.

“Alriiiight,” Harry groaned, propping his head on his hand. “But you cannot laugh. Merlin, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. Fucking Firewhisky making me just say everything.”

He exhaled.

“So, sixth year. We were in DADA. Ron, you’d been paired with ‘Mione, and we were doing Confundus Charms, remember?”

Hermione nodded. “Yeah, Ron, you took ages to get it.”

Ginny snorted, and Ron chucked another pillow towards the troublesome loveseat.

“Well, I didn’t have a partner, and since Snape was our teacher that year, he thought it’d be a laugh to put me with Malfoy.”

Hermione frowned. “Really? I don’t remember that bit.”

Harry nodded grimly. “I do.” He put a lot of meaning into those two words.

There was a pregnant pause.

Ginny sat up slowly, illumination like a breaking wave on her face. “You cannot be fucking serious, Harry, Malfoy?”

Harry hid his face in the loveseat.

Hermione giggled, understanding immediately. “I knew it. I knew there was a reason you stared at that bloody Map every second of every day, never taking your eyes off the ‘Draco Malfoy’ dot. You practically slept with the thing.”

“What?” Ron demanded, looking around the room with an accusatory expression on his face. “What?”

But Harry was continuing, cringing as though reliving an especially embarrassing moment.

“We were doing the Confundus Charm, but apart from like, messing you up, the Charm lowers your inhibitions if it’s too strong, right?” He looked around the room for confirmation.

Hermione nodded mechanically, and he dipped his head.

“Well,” Harry said dryly, “I reckon Malfoy was a little strung out from trying to, you know, kill Dumbledore, so his emotions were running kind of high. He hit me with the full force of his magical core, concentrated into this one bloody Confundus Charm. So aside from acting like an idiot, I went right up to him—mind you, my brain was completely unaffected. I knew exactly what I was doing on the inside, I was still me internally, but my body was just doing its own thing.—So I was screaming at myself mentally, you know, but I couldn’t stop myself from just walking right up to him, brushing his hair out of his face, and saying ‘you’re pretty. Your hair is all messy. I want to touch it.’ I hadn’t even realised I thought he was fucking hot, but when he took the Confundus Charm off, it hit me like a train. Credit to Malfoy- and I never thought I’d say that- when the Charm was lifted he just looked at me for a minute, and then literally did not mention it once. Just carried on. But I couldn’t look him in the eye for the rest of the day, and when I got to be alone after the lesson, I was so fucking overwhelmed with how he smelled and how he looked. I sometimes wonder if, without that Confundus Charm, I ever would’ve figured it out. But yeah, I was completely gay after that lesson, and much as I kidded myself I loved you, Gin, I figured it out for certain when we went away in seventh year.”

Harry looked up from where his eyes had been fixed on the loveseat arm to see Ginny grinning at him, Hermione snickering, and Ron staring at him in abject horror.

“M… Malfoy?” He asked weakly. “Draco Malfoy?”

Harry nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“Pointy git, floppy blonde hair, posh voice?” Ron’s voice was getting shriller and shriller.

“Yep.”

“Son of Lucius Malfoy?”

Harry sighed. “Yes, Ron. I thought he was hot.”

“He was hot,” Ginny supplied helpfully. “Just a bastard.”

Ron gaped at her. “Wha—Draco Malfoy?”

Hermione slapped him lightly on the arm. “Ronald. Get a grip.”

Ron started to breathe heavily. “I just—I can’t—it’s so—”

“Gay?” Ginny offered.

“No!” Ron protested. “No, I don’t- it’s not that, I don’t care, Harry, you know I don’t,” and he looked up anxiously at Harry as though he was checking Harry knew he was not, in fact, homophobic.

Harry grinned. “Yeah, mate, I know.”

Ron slackened against the sofa. “It’s only that-- well, we spent years insulting the git. He spent years making your life hell.”

“Yes, Ron, he was a bastard,” Ginny said exasperatedly. “We’ve established this.”

“So why…?” Ron looked utterly lost.

“He. Was. Hot.” Hermione enunciated, hand rubbing lazy circles over her stomach.

“Right,” Ron mumbled. “Okay.”

Harry muffled a laugh in the loveseat, which was proving very useful.

Ginny turned back to him. “Seeing anyone now, Harry?”

Harry shook his head. He was on summer break from Auror training with Ron, and he hadn’t actually been on a date since… well, ever since he’d dated Ginny, really. He hadn’t really had time to meet anyone after school, and he’d honestly never cared enough to pursue it.

“You?” he returned the question casually, expecting a careless ‘no’, in return, since Ginny usually talked about her dates freely and without any probing necessary. If she were seeing someone, he would have expected to have heard about it by now.

Instead, there was an extremely loud silence.

*****************************************************************************************************************************************************

*Thursday- two days before the Cup Final*

“Come on, Draco, we’re going to be laaaate!” Pansy yelled down the corridor. Blaise was by the front door, checking his lapels obsessively in the mirror on the adjacent wall and tapping his foot.

There was no reply.

“Draco, get your arse out of the bathroom! Your hair is fine!” Blaise bellowed, never taking his eyes off his reflection.

In the bathroom, Draco stared into the mirror at the single blond strand hanging just over his forehead. He couldn’t decide if it was aristocratic or pretentious, and it was important to get a good balan—

“Hello?! Earth to Draco.” Came Pansy’s distinctively low, feminine yell.

“I’m fucking COMING!” Draco shouted. He panicked, slicking the strand back in a fit of indecision.

Immediately, his face looked severe and bony, cheekbones too sharp, ears noticeably prominent. Draco pulled the strand out again, and took a breath. At first glance, it was great- now he was wondering with relief how he could have doubted—

It suddenly looked ostentatious again, and Draco muffled a scream in his hands, mirroring a frustrated shriek that arose hellishly from down the hall at the exact same second.

Pansy’s more delicate capillaries were probably in danger of bursting right now.

“DRACO WE ARE LEAVING IMMEDIATELY, THE RESERVATION IS IN FIVE MINUTES,” Blaise boomed, rough voice commanding even from behind a door.

“Alright, fine!” With an exclamation of despair, Draco shook the gel out from his hair, dampening it with a quick splash of water from the sink, and threw the door open. As he ran down the corridor, through his bedroom and past the kitchen, he raked a hand through the thick mass of it so it fell carelessly over his eyes and framed his cheekbones. He rounded the corner at breakneck speed, pulled his dress shoes from below the ottoman, and yanked them on, doing the laces up with a complicated little bit of wandless magic.

Looking up, Draco got a fleeting visual of Pansy giving him daggers and Blaise preening himself in the mirror, before he got hurriedly to his feet and smiled.

“Shall we?”

Pansy glowered. “You first.”

Draco stayed where he was, smirking. “No, you. I insist.”

Pansy seemed to take this as an insult to her authority.

Good, thought Draco, ‘cause it was.

Blaise rolled his eyes heavily. “I’ll go first, and really I should have gone last.”

They trailed after him, elbowing each other discreetly.

“How d’you figure that?” Draco asked, then yelped from a particularly sharp jab to the ribs.

Blaise grinned. “Age before beauty.”

Pansy and Draco looked at each other for a second, nodded, and then pounced on him with elbows readied. It was a testament to how many times they had walked down that corridor that none of them bashed into the walls on their way out of the flat. However, entangled in a painful wrestling bundle, they did almost knock over an old lady coming up the stairs.

“Ah!” She yelped, voice quavery from shock. Draco leaped away from the knot of limbs that was Pansy and Blaise, raking a hand through his hair and stifling a wince.

“Sorry, Mrs Finchman!” He scowled at Blaise and bent closer to the old lady. “Crime and punishment, you know.”

A spasm of hopeless mirth twisted Blaise’s mouth before he schooled it back into a bland smile.

Mrs Finchman squinted up at him through her maroon lorgnettes. “Draco?”

He sighed. “Yes, Mrs Finchman.”

A puckered smile spread across her small, withered face. “How are you finding Oscar Wilde?”

Draco resisted the urge to stand up straighter like a schoolboy and call her Professor. “Fascinating. He’s a wonderful author.”

“Hmph! Not many young people have taste like you,” Mrs Finchman said decidedly, voice tremulous. “Anytime you want a book,” she stuck her bony finger out and jabbed at him, “you just ask me, duck, alright?”

Pansy cooed quietly in the background at her sweetness.

“Thank you, Mrs Finchman. I’ll remember that.”

Mrs Finchman reached a shaky hand up to pinch his cheek. “You’re a good boy.”

With that, she resumed the slow climb up the stairs.

Blaise eyed Draco silently, mouthing, "good boy." Draco gave him the finger, and all three of them held back laughter. Something about Mrs Finchman’s slightly random manner was hilarious to witness.

They waited until the scent of vaguely musty lemon cake she carried with her had faded away, and the tentative clunks of her walking stick had died down, and then carried on down the stairs in a more subdued fashion, only elbowing each other when strictly necessary.

Upon reaching the ground floor, where a large marble reception area preceded a clunky set of spinning doors, they made for a small nook in the wall, moving around a couple and a young boy and then ducking out of a side door and closing it firmly behind them. They stood in a small paved outdoor area, closed in by hedges and a tiny flowerbed. The Apparation point for wizards living in the building. The three of them held hands, wands gripped between teeth and stuck in pockets, and cleared their minds. Pansy was the best at Apparation; she was in charge of confirming the destination, and her thoughts were generally the most lucid. Draco and Blaise waited, breaths coming softly, and after a short, strained pause of concentration, they heard her clear voice in their heads like a bell.

Mayfair.

And then there was that awful sucking, drilling sensation that pressed relentlessly inwards, squeezing Draco until his skull felt as though it were on the verge of splintering; his eardrums would surely burst from the pressure, and he wanted nothing more than to be free from the feeling—

Cool summer air.

Draco opened his eyes to the sharpish, iron- muddied scent of a London evening, lampposts still warm from the setting sun, air carrying a heavy tang of metal and river water. He looked around to see Pansy and Blaise opening their eyes, blinking owlishly as they released each other’s hands. They were standing in a back alley which led onto a large, elegant square filled with sleek- looking cars dodging one another impatiently and flocks of people in evening dress filling the air with hums of conversation.

The three of them began to move towards the square, their breaths evening out as they adjusted to the abundance of oxygen. The cobbles were vaguely round under the stiff soles of Draco’s smart shoes, and as they stepped onto the pavement of one of Mayfair’s most expensive squares he wobbled, tipping slightly into Blaise, who stood stoically like a stunningly handsome post until Draco regained his balance. With a grateful pat on the shoulder they ducked across the street, weaving in between the traffic jam of highly- polished cars in an attempt to catch up to Pansy, who had set an extremely brisk pace. Her dark red dress gleamed in the pale light, and fluttered around her ankles slightly as she reached the other side of the road and continued across the heart of the square without once looking back to check on the other two. Draco and Blaise exchanged amused glances and continued to plunge in and out of the tiny gaps between bumpers and tyres, turning this way and that to avoid streaking their suits with grease.

The trees set in the centre of the square warded them in with sheaves of pale green leaves, fading light sifting through each paper- thin surface until the air was flawless and pure as the heart of a jewel. Blaise and Draco slowed their pace as they strode across the square, admiring the beauty of the gleaming pavement and diluted colours. Pansy was waiting for them at the entrance to the restaurant; a Muggle establishment that had a large wizarding clientele due to just how good the food was.

Together, they ascended the set of stone steps to the entrance of the restaurant, pushing open the glass door and stepping into a large, darkly lit space divided up by jagged wooden walls set at crazy intervals throughout, creating little divots and spaces for tables to go. The effect was similar to that of a high- fashion maze, confusing but beautiful. A woman dressed in traditional Japanese garb stepped up to them, eyes thickly lined with kohl and face palely made up. A Squib. They tended to work in these kinds of jobs, where Muggles and wizards mixed in society, guiding each of them to where others of their kind were.

“Reservation?” She asked politely, eyeing them.

“Yes, actually, but we’re, um…” Pansy leaned into the woman, voice lowering. “Silver guests?”

Code for magical folk.

Her tone was unsure, but the woman nodded professionally, gathering three menus in her slim arms with a practiced snap and leading them ahead to a set of stairs. “Just this way, please. Silver guests are seated downstairs.”

They followed her down a long, winding staircase with sconces set far back into the stone wall, burning with a fierce light that cast their shadows onto the walls with a flickering vigour. Pansy’s heels rang out dully every time they struck the stairs, but the woman’s feet were strangely silent; Draco glanced down to discover with surprise that she was barefoot.

The staircase opened up onto a slightly smaller space decorated the same way as upstairs, but this time with a clear feeling of magic about the place. Goblins, vampires, and one pale man with red- rimmed eyes who looked rather like a werewolf sat at darkly-lacquered tables, eating with an assortment of chopsticks and custom cutlery to accommodate the variety of claws and fur adorning their bodies. However, there were also dozens of tables with wizards sat around them, drinking from goblets, joking and laughing with their friends. Wands flashed and twirled in fingers, casually handled as though there weren’t Muggles just upstairs. It made Draco nervous.

He tensed, and Pansy noticed.

“Hey,” she whispered, “it’s alright. There’ll be Muggle Repelling charms plastered all over this joint. Didn’t you see? There were wizards with Disillusionment Charms on them at the top of the staircase. They’ll turn anyone away with a quick Confundus. Honestly.” She massaged his arm gently. “The Muggles won’t come downstairs, Draco. Promise.”

He exhaled deeply, closing his eyes for a second. “Mmm-kay.” He allowed himself to be led over to their table, in a far corner of the restaurant near one of the arched, wood- panelled windows. They were underground, but the glass had been charmed to show shifting scenes of Japanese mountain scenery, grassy rocks and still, shimmering lakes lying like secrets between high, pure white valley walls. Pansy and Blaise settled themselves on either side of him, and the woman seating them smiled at them through slickly red lips.

“Would you like to order drinks now?”

“Yes, please,” Pansy said clearly. “Can I have a vodka martini, stirred clockwise for three seconds with an olive? Actually, make that two olives. Draco?”

The woman turned to Draco, face downturned as she scribbled Pansy’s order onto the pad of creamy paper she was holding.

“Yeah, I’ll have a gin and tonic- what gins do you have?”

The woman looked up, eyes bright and birdlike. “I believe the bar stocks Hayman’s, Bombay Sapphire, Plymouth, Tanqueray Dry, Hendricks—”

“Hendricks is perfect,” Draco said with a nod. “And could I have that with some ice?”

She jerked her head in assent, pen flying across the page. “And for you, sir?”

Blaise was contemplative for a second, skin glowing like the love-child of coffee and cream, dimple pressing obscenely deep in the warm light. The woman blushed as he regarded her lazily, eyes half- lidded. “Shot of Ogden’s Firewhisky on the rocks? And keep them coming. Or, you know what, just bring the bottle, and once that’s finished cut me off.” He gave her a smile filled with easy charm. “I’m holding you accountable for my sobriety, now. Don’t let me down.”

She blushed, and Pansy looked at Draco. He knew they were thinking the same thing; Blaise could easily have turned on the same level of charm, dimple and all, to poor old Mrs Finchman.

This woman was unfortunately unaware of that fact, and she nodded, flustered, lips pursed in concentration, eyelashes flickering as she stole subtle glances at Blaise, who was now examining his perfect fingernails with elegant disinterest.

“Will that be all?”

“Yes, thank you,” Pansy said. “We’ll order in maybe ten minutes?”

The squib sashayed away, pen and pad clasped tightly between two pale, red- tipped fingers. As she set the menus down on a podium near the bottom of the stairs, she tossed a coy glance over her shoulder at Blaise, lips arranged in a sultry pout, and then turned away, bare feet silent as she padded back up the stairs.

Pansy rounded on Blaise. “Do you mind, Blasius?”

“What?” Blaise asked, utterly confused.

“Our waitress wants to sleep with you. Luckily, she’s not yet under the impression you want to sleep with her, but knowing you, you’ll have managed to convince her of that by the time the starters arrive. Stop flirting. It makes me nauseous, and besides, every time she looks at you it’s like she’s visualising you naked, and that makes me visualise you naked, which is just…” Pansy shuddered.

“I didn’t mean to!” Blaise protested, eyes wide and innocent.

Pansy shook her head, mouth quirked up in amusement. “I know, Blaise, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. For the sake of Draco’s and my sanity, please stop being such a charming bastard.”

“I don’t think it’s the charm, Pans,” Draco interjected. “Salazar knows that wears thin quick enough. I reckon it’d be more helpful to hit him with a Stinging Hex, warp up his pretty face.”

Blaise looked alarmed. “Surely that’s not necessary? I promise, I won’t talk to the waitress. Whenever she comes over I’ll look really ugly. And mean.” He blinked earnestly.

“Wonderful.” Pansy sat back, looking satisfied.

Within five minutes, a gleaming silver tray was floating towards them, laden with their drinks and the various bottles. A bucket of ice cubes floated off the platter and placed itself importantly in the centre of the table as they reached for their drinks.

Draco took a sip of his gin and tonic, smacking his lips from the burn.

Blaise gagged. “Wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“What?” Draco grinned. “This?” And he did it again, mouth open in an exaggerated ‘ahhhh’ from the fiery heat in the back of his throat.

Blaise shoved him lightly, and they started to playfight, jostling each other until Draco wobbled on his chair, legs screeching as he leant too far back. He grabbed the table for support, accidentally dragging it over the smooth wooden floors so it screeched loudly. The fluting music of the restaurant died down, and nearly everyone turned to face him, eyes questioning and brows raised as if to say, ‘who dares disturb us?’.

Draco gave them a stony glare, and pulled his chair straight with a sniff. Pretentious twats.

Pansy flicked an amused look towards Blaise, who was already schooling his mouth into something like gravity.

They opened their menus in unison, eyes flicking over the lines of curly script. To be honest, Draco wasn’t even reading properly, just flicking his eyes over the menu. Pansy was the best at ordering; she always knew what would taste best. Blaise was already setting his menu down, hands folding neatly on his lap, eyes flicking around the room with lively interest. Draco looked over to Pansy; she was still buried in the menu, brow furrowed.

He leant over to Blaise.

“Hey, man, want to play a drinking game?”

Blaise had gotten there before him; he loved watching other people, analysing and deducting, and he had a good target all ready to go.

“Take a shot every time that dude,” he jerked his head over to a nearby table where a guy in a vintage- looking sheer shirt and trousers was sitting opposite a dark- haired young man with his back to them, “flicks his hair off his forehead flirtatiously.”

Draco grinned. “You’re on.”

From behind their napkins and hands, under the pretence of smoothing back hair or checking lapels, sipping water, dropping cutlery or dabbing at their mouths with the linen cloths, they found countless ways to watch the couple, who were undoubtedly on a date.

The sheer- shirted guy had flicked his hair about eight times by the time Pansy was midway through ordering their meals, and Blaise’s tall bottle of Ogden’s was running extremely low.

Draco hiccupped. “Maybe we shouldn’t have drunk so much on empty stomachs,” he muttered to Blaise.

Blaise shrugged languidly. He was very rarely affected by alcohol; the only way anyone would know he had drunk anything at all was by the glitter in his eyes, which were a little glossier than usual.

“Nah, I like having a nice haze on me before the meal starts. Helps me when I try and figure people out.”

“What’re you guys talking about?” Pansy cut in, having just finished ordering.

“No, Blaise was just saying he likes to have a drink before he starts eating.”

“Yeah, well, Blaise can afford to. He can hold his drink, whereas you, Draco…” Pansy snickered.

Draco gasped indignantly. “How dare you? I am not a lightweight.”

“Whatever you say, blondie,” Blaise grinned.

“No! Remember that time at Theo Nott’s party last year when I drank a shit ton of vodka and was fine?”

“When was this? Come on, Draco, are you making this up?” Pansy giggled.

“Oh for—no, I remember it! I Apparated us home just fine, I was steady on my feet, and I’d drunk a load. I am not a lightweight. You remember, don’t you, Blaise?”

Blaise smirked, dimple tucking effortlessly into the pure skin of his cheek.

“Actually, Draco… I don’t even remember the party.”

“That’s because you were shit- faced!” Draco protested. “I was the only coherent one out of the three of us, and I’d drunk the most. I will not,” he crossed his arms, “will not tolerate this slander.

“Aaah, Draco, don’t sulk. We all have our strengths. You’ve the quickest draw in a duel I’ve ever seen,” Blaise said, patting his arm consolingly.

“Too right,” Draco sniffed. “Just you take note of that. You don’t want to cross me.”

“Oh yeah,” Pansy said, “really terrifying, you are, ‘specially when you’re drunk and cuddly like some sort of debauched teddy bear.”

“If we weren’t in a public place,” Draco took a dignified sip of his water, “I’d jinx you silly.”

Pansy pouted, cocking her hip playfully in her seat. “Shame we’re among other people, then. It’s been a while since I’ve mashed someone in a duel.”

“You wish, Parkinson,” Draco muttered into the rim of his glass.

Cool water slid down his throat, soothing away the ragged feeling from the corrosive heat of the Firewhisky. Draco inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of clean wax polish off the table, garlicky rich scents from other tables and the sweet mist of Pansy’s perfume.

Another two silvery platters, this time loaded with several china plates, Levitated towards their table with none of the schoolroom jerkiness Draco still Levitated things with (he was ashamed to say he’d never actually mastered Wingardium Leviosa—how could he, when Flitwick spent their entire lesson on it playing favourites with Granger?).

The plates were piled high with sushi, miso- smelling liquids, rice with delicate little crabs fried in honey and a stew- like concoction that Pansy declared, with a casually cosmopolitan slant to her mouth, was called ‘shabu- shabu’. It looked delicious.

Pansy flicked her wand; the plates arranged themselves neatly on their table, spooning out portions onto each of their plates, and the silver platters meandered back behind the bar, stacking with a smart clack.

Draco picked up his fork and started to eat away at his rice, taking chunks of meat from the strange stew- like dish and an occasional crab. It was delicious, flavours dancing across his tongue and mingling in a vibrant, blendable harmony of spice and sweet. The three of them dug in enthusiastically; for a while, the only sound at their small table was the chinking of cutlery against china, and eventually the greedy scrapes of fork tines clearing any flavoursome debris from the very surface of their plates.

**********************************************************************************************************************************************************

“Ginny?” Harry echoed, head suddenly clearer. He craned his head to look at her, eyes curious.

Ginny buried her face in the loveseat.

Ron’s voice was stern. “Ginevra. Are you… wooing somebody?”

Ginny gagged. “Ugh, don’t call it that, Ron. Honestly, one second you’re a child, and the next second you’re a bloody grandpa.” She pressed her nose deeper into the plush cushions of the seat and huffed.

“So…” Harry began tentatively. “That would be a yes.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s a yes, as such, Potter, but…” the tiny area of Ginny’s face that was visible to Harry flushed a deep, candy- apple red. “Yeah, I might be… seeing someone.”

“That’s so exciting, Ginny!” Hermione squealed. “Who is it?”

Ginny gave an indistinct groan.

“Come on, Ginny, tell us!” Harry said excitably, bouncing on the arm of his chair. Ginny looked up and gave him a deeply affectionate look, badly masked with a thin veil of irritation.

“Not you too, Potter. You’re literally a golden retriever in human form.”

But she reached out to ruffle his hair all the same, eyes crinkled and fond.

“Tell us, tell us!” Harry chanted.

Ginny sighed. “You know how I went to that wellness place back in February?”

“Was it that place your coach wanted you to go for your leg?” Hermione said, with a slight frown.

“Yeah,” Ginny nodded. “He said it was great at really organic healing, and I should go there because it was like a little holiday, and it was at this nice resort place as well.”

“Right, yeah, I remember,” Harry said.

“Well, I met a girl there,” Ginny continued, and Harry could see she was trying to stay impassive, but her pink lips twitched up indomitably, and a slight blush crept up her neck, staining the pale skin.

“And?” Ron prompted.

“And we talked, and did treatments together, and stuff. And it was fun, and easy, and she was so, so cool. Like, I’ve always dated girls who were kind of… mean, to tell the truth, because I thought they were edgy, but this girl was just the right side of alternative. She was—is—really fun, but also sarcastic, sharp, and witty. She’s awesome. And there’s this side of her which I only glimpsed, that made me certain that she was special, and it was the sweetest thing. She was hard as nails, yeah, but there were times when she’d look at me and just out- of- the- blue say something so incredibly lovely that I knew she’d never hurt me like those other girls. ‘Course, she tried to pass it off after, but it was enough that she said it. Yeah, I. Um.” Ginny rubbed the back of her neck. “Sort of got her tickets to the Cup Final as well? She’ll be sitting next to you guys. I gave her a couple extras, so she might bring friends, and I just want you to be nice, okay?”

“Yeah, of course!” Harry said, while Hermione nodded heartily in the background. “Why wouldn’t we… what makes you think we wouldn’t? Be nice, that is?”

Ginny shifted, looking uncomfortable. “You—we, sort of know her? From, like. School.”

Ron stiffened. “What House was she in?” He asked immediately, and his voice was strained. A muscle in Ginny’s delicate jaw ticked.

There was a pause.

“Why,” she began, and took a deep breath. “Why does that matter?” There was an obstinacy in her tone that made Harry wonder briefly if she’d prepared this argument beforehand.

Ron’s brows pulled together for a second, and his eyes flicked over Ginny’s face, as though searching for something.

“Stop, Ron,” she snapped.

“What?” he said defensively.

“Stop trying to guess from my face. I’m not telling you; there’s a reason why. Answer my question first. Why does it matter what House she was in?”

“Because!” Ron said hotly. Beside him, Hermione exhaled, biting her lip.

“Because what?”

“Because there’s a fucking right answer and a wrong answer, Ginny! Or, more specifically, there’s three right answers and one wrong answer!” Ron’s voice was obtrusively loud, shredding their soft friendly afternoon into ribbons, and Harry realised they were suddenly witnessing an argument.

“No there aren’t!” Ginny fought, and all of a sudden she was standing up, hair tangled over her shoulders, fists clenched by her sides. Her nails looked as though they were biting into the Quidditch- roughened skin of her palms, and her colour was high, eyes glittering from alcohol and, Harry realised with a dull shock, tears.

“The people in Slytherin didn’t ask to be—”

“In Slytherin?” Ron yelled, and launched to his feet as well. “Yes, they did, or at the very least they didn’t fight it. Ask Harry! He could have been with them, but he said no, and so he was in Gryffindor. With us. On the right side. He had a choice! They all do! And you’re just fucking naïve if you think—”

“Harry’s parents were in Gryffindor! You told him Slytherin was for bad wizards! Of fucking course he was going to pick not to go there—but the parents of these kids are in Slytherin! It’s their family tradition, and you can’t expect them to go against that at fucking age eleven—"

“Why not? Why NOT?!” Ron interrupted, and now his lashes were wet as well, both pairs of brown Weasley eyes thick with unshed tears.

“Because they don’t know any better!”

“They’re Slytherins! Whether they knew better at age eleven or not, they still fucking joined Voldemort in the end, didn’t they? They let Muggle- borns be tortured and killed by their own parents, and didn’t do a thing. They—” Ron choked off a sob, voice rising uncontrollably. “They killed Fred.”

“Not all of them, Ron!” Ginny screamed. “It’s so fucking unfair for you to use Fred against everything, when it’s just your own prejudice blinding you. Some of them were born into this! It’s all they fucking knew. Their parents were telling them it was okay! Their parents were telling them it was right! What would you do if Mum and Dad taught you something was right, from the day you were born?”

Ron opened his mouth wetly, but Ginny cut him off again.

“You’d go along with it! Because they’re your parents, and whether you’re eleven or seventeen you trust them blindly. Why is it that you laughed it off when Harry,” she thrust out an arm to the loveseat, and Harry blinked. “Said he had a crush in school on Draco Malfoy?”

“BECAUSE HARRY DIDN’T INVITE DRACO MALFOY TO SIT WITH US AT THE WORLD CUP FINAL,” Ron bellowed, face puce with exertion.

“That makes no difference, Ron! Godric, can’t you just let go of what happened? They’ve all fucking made amends. Slytherins have been dragged in and out of the Wizengamot’s Court a thousand times since the end of the war. Every single one of them has paid their dues, sometimes when they didn’t even need to. They don’t need you giving them shit for stuff they’ve already done penance for! Let go of your outdated conviction that Slytherin is bad, Slytherin is evil. They’re human, and so is this girl I like! And so help me god, Ronald, you will be sweet and nice to her, or I will never get you Finals tickets again.”

Ron swallowed, swiping at his eyes clumsily with the back of his hand. When he spoke his voice was rough.

“Okay. Okay. ‘M sorry.”

Harry and Hermione sat frozen as Ron extended his arms, and Ginny went into them considerably more agreeably than she did most things. The two fiery heads bent together, and Ginny’s long, strong limbs wrapped tight around Ron’s lanky bulk.

They separated, and Ron cleared his throat, sinking back down onto the sofa. Hermione wrapped an arm around him, and Ginny sprawled over the loveseat, head in Harry’s lap.

“So,” Ron said. “What’s her name?”

Ginny snorted. “Yeah, right. Like it’ll be that easy. I want to keep you guessing. You’ll find out on the day.”

And she closed her eyes tranquilly, cheeks still a little tearstained, breaths coming evenly and deeply. Harry brushed her hair from her face and rested his own head on the back of the loveseat. Maybe it was time for an afternoon nap.

************************************************************************************************************************************************************

“’Mione! What d’you think of this shirt?” Harry yelled through the ensuite door.

“What colour is it?” Hermione replied from inside the bathroom.

Harry glanced down at himself musingly. “Uh, maroon?”

“You don’t own any maroon shirts,” Hermione said confusedly.

“Yes, I do!” Harry insisted. “Ginny bought it for me. At Christmas.”

“Oh, that shirt. Oh, Harry, that’s not maroon! It’s plum.”

Harry bit back a foul swear word.

“Well,” he gritted out, “what do you think of my plum shirt.”

“I can’t see it,” Hermione said.

“That wasn’t a problem when I said it was maroon!” Harry yelled.

“It would have been a problem if we’d progressed to this stage in the conversation. As it was, you didn’t even get the colour right.”

Harry raked a hand through his already rumpled hair. “Hermione,” he said, closing his eyes. “Please, please help me. I’m leaving in twenty minutes.”

“I was helping—oh, alright.” The lock on the door clicked, and the silvery knob turned. Hermione emerged, looking slightly greenish.

“Don’t use that toilet,” she said weakly. “I’d like to take this opportunity to officially name it my morning sickness toilet.”

“That’s my ensuite!” Harry protested.

“To be fair,” Hermione said reasonably, settling herself in the large armchair in the corner of Harry’s room, “The Burrow didn’t even have ensuites before Ron added them. So it’s not as if you would have had it if we hadn’t renovated a bit.”

Harry groaned. “Right. Okay. Fine, just—the shirt?”

“Oh yes,” Hermione said, sweeping a critical eye over the plum shirt. Harry had pushed the sleeves up, left a couple of buttons undone, and he was wearing his tightest black Muggle skinny jeans.

“Well, it’s very—”

“’Mione!” Ron burst into the room, arms overflowing with a quantity of pale, gossamer material. “The stuff for your dress robes arrived—”

He broke off, ogling Harry alarmedly. “What’re you wearing?”

Harry swore. “Right, off with the shirt.” He started trying to unbutton the unfortunate garment frantically before giving up, tearing it wholly off, and making his hair even more of a desperate situation than before.

“No, no…” Ron trailed off. “I was actually talking about the…” he made a vague gesture that seemed to encompass Harry’s skinnies.

Harry stared at him. “What, my jeans? What’s wrong with my bloody jeans? They’re black, non- ripped; they’re about as inoffensive as jeans get!”

“They’re so… tight.” Ron said lamely, eyes glued unflatteringly to Harry’s crotch area.

“Oh, Ron, don’t be such a prude,” Hermione waved him away. “It’s a date. You’re allowed to be a little provocative.”

“Provocative!” Harry rounded on her in defence of his treasured skinnies. “They’re not that tight.”

Now he was the one receiving Hermione’s patented patronising look. “Oh, please. You can practically see the brand of your underwear through those.”

“You can see more than that,” Ron averred, eyes still fixed on the apex of Harry’s legs.

“Fine, fine, fine!” Harry clapped his hands over his face. “Just, Godric, will ether of you be of any help? What shirt should I wear?”

“Well, why does it matter? Won’t your robes cover everything?” Ron asked.

Harry flicked a limp hand through the air. “Nope. Going to a Muggle place. Well, there’s a wizarding clientele, so I guess we’ll be on a separate floor, but there’s Muggles about the place. Have to blend in. No robes tonight.”

Ron set the shimmery stuff down carefully on Harry’s bed, sprawling over it and giving Harry a gleeful look. “What about that shimmery silver crop top Neville got you for your birthday?” He snorted. “Honestly, you’d think you were a rent boy, the stuff he buys you.”

Harry lunged for the bed, landing on it with a ‘whump’ and narrowly missing Ron, who scrambled out of the way with a snigger. Harry sagged.

“Hermione.” He turned pleading eyes on her. “You’re my only hope.”

“Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi,” Hermione said in a high voice. “You’re my only hope.”

Ron looked at Harry bemusedly.

“Muggle thing,” Harry said frustratedly. “Hermione! Concentrate, Christ!”

“Sorry,” Hermione said, releasing a rare giggle. “Look, why don’t you ask—”

“The fashion guru? The queen of haute couture? The style icon?” A high, amused voice said from the doorway. Ginny was leaning against the door frame, long legs and arms crossed languidly.

Harry slid off the bed and fell to his knees.

“Help me! These two,” he shot Ron and Hermione, who were clutching their sides from laughter by now, a filthy look. “Are useless. What shirt shall I wear?”

Ginny stalked over to his wardrobe, doors akimbo and a slew of shirts sliding out over one another, various colours starkly contrasting. She ran a finger over the hangers, looking at him with a furrowed brow, and hooked a practiced hand around a hanger, withdrawing a black Yves Saint Laurent shirt, polka dotted with tiny white speckles. It was loose and silky, slipping over the metal hanger like water.

“Tuck it in a bit, but loosely,” Ginny instructed, prowling around Harry as he slipped the button- up over his head. “Undo a button.”

Harry did so.

“One more,” Ginny said.

Harry did so.

“One more,” Ginny smirked. (Ron gagged in the background).

Harry looked at her. “It’s an upmarket place I’m going to, you know, not a stripper joint.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Look, you have an attractive chest. Just because I like girls doesn’t mean I don’t know what makes men look good. You don’t have chest hair, you’re pretty buff but still got that kinda lean preppy thing going on, and the shirt suits your skin tone. Trust me.”

Harry slipped the third button out of place, and adjusted the shirt so it hung low, but not obscenely low, over his chest. He stood before the mirror, grabbing his pot of gel and dipping a careful finger into it. Ginny grabbed his wrist before he could do anything.

“No. Brush your locks, give them a bit of a rumple around, no gel.”

Harry looked at her dubiously.

“Yeah,” Hermione opined from the armchair. “Ginny’s right. There’s a time and place for gel, don’t get me wrong, but your hair looks… nice, or, y’know, attractive when it’s a little messier, Harry.” She gave him an earnest look.

Harry sighed, setting the gel down.

“If I get shot down today, I’m blaming you lot.”

He gave himself an appraising sort of look in the mirror, running a brush through his hair, and then messing up the front so it was soft over his cheekbones, falling a little bit in his eyes and corkscrewing at his temples, damp from the shower.

He spun dramatically, hands splayed. “I look alright?”

Ginny dabbed at her eyes. “All grown up, our boy.”

Harry grinned.

“Showing off his smooth chest.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Hair got that just- fucked thing going on.”

Harry froze.

Ron choked.

Hermione looked serene.

“That’s why it looks good? My hair looks good messy because it looks like I’ve just—"

“Oh, don’t look so scandalised,” Ginny said, examining her nails. “It’s a good thing. Shows your date that you have other options, whilst also giving him an attractive insight into what he might get a piece of if he behaves. Works every time.”

Harry was aghast. “It’s not a dog-wrangling workshop! You can’t just…”

He turned to Ron.

“D’you think it looks good?”

Ron paled, and appeared to steel himself, drawing himself up from his seat on the arm of Hermione’s chair.

“Your shirt and jeans are good, mate, and the colour scheme works well. I like the, um—silkiness of the fabric? It’s classy. And the undone buttons are,” he gulped. “Nice. Your hair is…”

Hermione nodded encouragingly. Ron took a deep breath.

“Well, it definitely looks like you’ve just, uh, done stuff.”

Harry did not need to turn around to see the smirk tugging at Ginny’s lips.

“Which is good!” Ron said hurriedly. “For a date, I mean. I agree. With Ginny. Like.”

Harry bit his lip. “Right. So…”

He surveyed himself in the mirror.

“This is it. I’d better go—black shoes, right?”

Ginny nodded. “Not patent. Get a pair of lace-ups, preferably with a bit of a heel on them. Helps to pull off skinnies.” She raked a disturbingly clinical gaze over Harry, who felt only mildly violated. “You’ve got good legs, Golden Boy. Show ’em off.”

Harry turned on his socked heel, going hastily out of his room, down the winding, slightly rickety staircase of the Burrow, and into the hallway. From a large iron rack, he grabbed his standard pair of black shoes, and pulled them on. Ginny had followed him; while he did the laces up on the right foot, he nodded at her.

“Will you give them a bit of a heel, Gin? Not too high, mind.”

Ginny smiled faintly, wand already slashing delicately through the air. Harry stood, and wobbled as he felt himself pushed up another two inches. His dark jeans tucked nicely into the high, cut leather tops of his shoes, and the laces were attractively messy, heels giving his legs a bit of extra definition.

“Thanks,” he said, grabbing his own wand from the side table and stuffing it in his back pocket. He turned back to Ginny.

“Reckon I need a coat?”

Ginny cocked her head. “Can’t go wrong with a nice black blazer. Here. Accio.”

There was a muffled shout from upstairs, and both Ginny and Harry craned their necks to see Harry’s blazer zooming down the stairs towards them. As they looked, Ron staggered out from the landing, face beetroot red. Hermione’s cackles echoed all the way from the far corner of Harry’s bedroom.

“I was just looking through your wardrobe, Harry! Not for anything… I mean, just for—I mean, I wasn’t…” Ron said, stumbling over his words. His ears were flushed a deep pink. “And it hit me in the face.”

Harry grinned. He caught the blazer as it cleared the last few steps, shrugged it on over the silky shirt, and gave Ron the two fingered salute as he headed for the Floo.

“That’ll teach you and Hermione to make bets about where I keep my lube.”

“There’s got to be some sort of Disillusionment Charm on it!” Hermione yelled from upstairs. “It’s bloody impossible to find.”

“How d’you know I use any?” Harry said indignantly.

Ron gave him a pitying look from three floors up. “We may be two floors down, but the walls are pretty thin, mate. Either you use it or you get off on some serious pain.”

“Either way, you get off!” Hermione quipped loudly.

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Come on, Chosen One. Get to your date.” She ushered him towards the Floo.

Harry took a generous handful of Floo powder from the urn on the mantelpiece, stepped into the fireplace, which roared to life, and opened his hand so the powder fell in a thick flurry onto the emerald flames.

Blurrily, he could make out Ginny standing a few metres back, and he coughed, clearing his throat.

“Mayfair!”

********************************************************************************************************************************************

“Mmph. Pansy, will you pass the rice?” Blaise said, mouth full.

Pansy cast him a faintly disgusted look, sliding the brassy tureen of rice towards him with a delicate hand. Her chopsticks were balanced impeccably between two fingers, roughly rounded nails grazing the slim wooden sticks.

Draco grinned. “You needn’t look at him like he’s a different species, Pans; we’ve both seen you shovelling in cereal in the morning like it’s going out of fashion.”

“Not in public,” Pansy sniffed.

“And what d’you think we are?” Blaise said, swallowing the last of his huge mouthful and indicating Draco and himself.

Pansy snorted. “Not company, that’s for sure.”

“Ah!” Draco clutched his heart with his non- chopstick- holding hand. “So brutal. No thought for the feelings of us poor peasants.”

“You are peasants.” Pansy sat forward, the neckline of her dark red dress glimmering silkily in the warm light. “And I’m… what? Your beautiful benefactor?”

“I’d say I’m the benefactor, seeing as the Zabini vaults’ll be the ones shelling out for this lavish meal,” Blaise said acerbically, sitting back with a sated expression.

“Seems right, don’t you think, given you’ve hoovered up three- quarters of the meal?” Draco smirked. His fingers were restless, sliding over his expensive Muggle watch, toying with the tablecloth, smoothing over his suit trousers.

“Well, normally I’d have accounted for the whole meal, but you both seem to have the appetites of Hippogriffs tonight. Pansy here has singlehandedly demolished that shabby shabby thing.”

“Shabu- shabu,” Pansy corrected, rolling her eyes.

“You’re right. It isn’t shabby, is it? It’s positively dandified.” Blaise said.

“Honestly, Blasius, you talk such nonsense when you’re under the influence. ‘Specially when you’ve just had a good meal, too.”

Draco opened his mouth, about to cut in, when he became vaguely aware of raised voices behind him. He stopped, and twisted in his chair to see the table he and Blaise had been playing a drinking game on. The dark- haired man with his back to them was sitting up straight, gesticulating somewhat incredulously, and the sheer- shirted guy facing them looked mulish. He stood up, chair screaming on the polished wooden floors, and cut his date off mid- sentence. His voice was loud and vulgar, audible over the gentle background music, which died down abruptly as the band stopped and stared.

“—treat me this way! ‘S fucking unbelievable. We’re on a date. If I wanted a fucking lecture on politics—”

The dark- haired man interrupted, voice considerably quieter and more reasonable. Draco could just about make out his words anyway; the restaurant had quieted, people staring shamelessly at the spectacle.

“It’s not actually politics, you know. It’s basic human rights. And no, actually, we’re not on a date anymore.”

The sheer- shirted man sneered, and his blandly handsome face twisted into something ignorant and ugly. “Got that right.” He snatched up his coat from his chair and flung it dramatically over his shoulder, pivoting towards the staircase. Before he marched up to the ground floor, he turned for a parting shot, sticking out his arse in a way that was definitely on purpose and flagrantly unattractive.

“And, for the record, I don’t credit you for that shit in the War. You just kept your own nose clean. You let people call you Saviour, and did nothing. Fucking loser.”

And then the man was gone, heels drumming on the wooden staircase. The restaurant was frozen.

Draco’s mouth was suddenly very dry. He half- turned to Pansy and Blaise, a screaming question in his eyes.

They looked back at him. Pansy swallowed, and gave a hesitant nod. Her lips twitched upwards. Blaise, beside her, was openly suppressing laughter. Draco lost all composure, and gave him the finger, eyes immediately tracking back to the lone, dark- haired figure at the nearby table.

Date.

The War.

Saviour.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered.

It was Potter. Undoubtedly, unquestionably Potter.

Saviour.

Draco coughed awkwardly, shifting in his seat. The restaurant’s music started up again, and a low hum of chatter threaded across the room, ripples of conversation whispering in his ears.

Draco looked back at Blaise. “That’s…”

Blaise pressed his lips together, and to his credit, Draco would never have guessed at his amusement if it weren’t for his dimple pressing so deeply into his cheek it looked like a miniature abyss.

“Yep. That’s the Golden Boy.”

Draco felt weak. “But what are the… what are the chances of that?”

Pansy shrugged. “Actually, this is the restaurant’s busiest—”

Draco gave her a look, and she fell silent.

“What’re we going to do?” he said, voice rising to embarrassing heights.

“Well, I don’t think there is anything to do,” Pansy said, looking alarmed.

“Let’s le—we should leave. Come on, let’s go!” Draco declared, making a violent, aborted move to get up before Blaise grabbed his wrist.

“Not so fast, pal. I want dessert.”

Draco gave him a pleading look; Blaise’s eyes were like delicious pools of stubborn chocolate. Draco sank back down into his seat with a moan, covering his face with his hands.

He peeked through his fingers.

“D’you think he knows we’re here? He probably does.” Draco gave a piteous moan. “Oh Salazar, he’s probably seen me.”

Pansy gave him a doubtful look. “I don’t know, Draco, the man’s just been ditched. I don’t reckon he’s paying much attention to anything around him.”

“I know I wouldn’t be,” Blaise interjected.

“Yeah,” Pansy continued, “’cause—”

“I’d be too busy getting dessert,” Blaise said meaningfully, eyebrows so far up they were nearly indiscernible from the neat, dark swoop of his hairline.

Pansy sighed. “Yes, we’ll get you dessert, Blaise.”

“Wait, but, but—what are we going to do?!” Draco demanded, clutching at Pansy’s arm. She snatched it away, pearly sharp incisors bared for a second in what could only be described as an involuntary snarl. Draco mentally smacked himself. Pansy didn’t like to be clutched at unless she’d initiated it.

“Draco, calm down. There is nothing to do. We’re all adults, we’re living our lives—who says we even have to acknowledge him? We went to the same school; that’s it.”

Draco nodded slowly. “It’s not weird?”

“Oh, it’s weird as fuck,” Blaise said with a contented groan, stretching his arms languidly above his head. “But it would be weirder not to get dessert.”

********************************************************************************************************************************************************

Harry hunched lower in his seat, jeans uncomfortably tight. His waistband was cutting into his stomach, puffed out from all the food he’d eaten. The embarrassment of being ditched was churning nauseatingly in his stomach, along with a salty soup- like dish he’d had earlier. That bastard had left him with the bill.

He’d been sitting alone for at least twenty minutes, and the restaurant had long since settled back into its usual elegant rhythms of music and conversation. But Harry was too embarrassed to do what he really wanted to, which was inquire as to where the toilet was, and then pay the bill and get out. He looked up desperately as a waiter glided by on quick, light feet, and then down again with a frustrated grimace.

“Come on, Harry,” he thought furiously. “Get a bloody grip. This is ridiculous. You can do this. You can speak to a stranger. It’s not a big deal, is it? Not something to get stressed about.”

But he was stressed, and there was no getting around that fact. His palms were slick with sweat, nails making crescent moons on their skin. His hair was stuck irritatingly to the back of his neck, and he was itching to move it, but he just couldn’t. The same way he just couldn’t stop jiggling his leg under the table, despite how it had begun to throb and pulse with uncontrollable adrenaline. The same way he just couldn’t shift on his seat so his arse was slightly less tensed and his stomach less compressed. He was paralysed by an invisible hand that clamped down over his nostrils and squeezed, a silent weight that pressed on his chest and suffocated him, a spectral something that made his pulse flutter in erratic little bursts like the wings of a butterfly.

It had been like this for a while now.

Harry should’ve known better than to come out alone on a date.

He got like this sometimes when he was by himself in new spaces, forced to interact and be confident, sociable, easily talkative like other people were. It had crept up on him the past few months, made drastically worse by the long summer break after the two intense years of Auror training. When he had been around Ron in the working week, he was generally stable. If he had any little relapses he could just stick close to Ron, but he was normally able to talk to other people and he’d be ok. But these past months of hanging out only with their tight little circle of friends who were either living in or constantly visiting the Burrow had seen him slide inexorably backwards into a place he’d never been before. His little ‘anxiety irregularity,’ as Hermione called it, had escalated into a full- scale (though undiagnosed) problem. He now found it incredibly hard to be around other people, whether they were strangers or even just people he didn’t see often.

It had started after the War, really. It wasn’t one of those gradual things, textbook medical issues that sprouted and grew over time. Exactly a week after Harry had defeated Lord Voldemort, he’d woken up in a cold sweat in his bedroom in Grimmauld Place, where they’d all been living while Ron and Hermione paid for the Burrow’s renovation. They’d been going out for lunch that day. It had been strange anyway, that feeling of freedom. The previous few days had been like something out of a dream. The absence of Voldemort had been surreal, and he’d thought that he was going to wake up any moment and find himself on the marble in Malfoy Manor, or lying tangled on the ground, thick with mulch and leaves, in the Forbidden Forest. It had been odd anyway. But that lunch… had been nightmarish. Harry remembered with a shudder how, when their waitress had approached- she must have been only seventeen, their age, with a bouncy ponytail of curling blonde hair and a shy smile- his heart had burst to thundering life, filling his veins with electricity and freezing him in place. He’d wanted to spring up and run away, screaming, but as she approached, coming closer and closer to their table, it was as though there was a great pressure bearing down on him, keeping him pinned in place. The cogs in his brain ground to a halt, and he was left pounding on the walls of his subconscious. The innate ‘Harry’ that he knew had vanished through his fingers like he never existed at all. He’d sat, ashen- faced, trembling, while the waitress asked for their orders. He hadn’t been able to utter a word. Hermione had asked for five more minutes, and she’d bent her head towards him, looking concerned. The sight of her familiar, soft brown eyes, combined with the sheer relief of the blonde ponytail retreating behind the bar, had loosened the vice- tight grip on Harry’s chest. He’d taken a shaky breath in, swallowed, and asked if they could ‘go home.’

It still made him cringe to this day.

‘Go home.’

Like he was five.

That had been the worst of it, the first day. A couple more weeks of figuring it out, testing the waters, and the routine was set. Harry was fine in Auror training, interacting with the same group of trainees, and sticking close to Ron. He could go out now he knew what to expect, but he liked people with him. On days after he had nightmares, he couldn’t be in close quarters with strangers. It was better if they travelled alone, and better still if they all just stayed at home those mornings.

This was the first date he’d been on without Ginny double- dating with him. And even those had been sparse, to be honest. Auror training had taken up most of his time. But now the two years of theory were over, he had a huge summer break. And dating, much as he tried to avoid it, was something that he had to do.

This one hadn’t even been going that badly, until the guy proved himself to be a sexist, racist twat firmly set against Muggle- borns.

“Predictable,” Harry thought glumly. “First date in months and the guy turns out like that.”

His bladder twinged, and Harry’s nails bit further into the skin of his palms, which was used to it by now. He took a deep breath, releasing the clenching of his fists with some effort, and looked up, assuming a thin veneer of confidence and likeability.

“Excuse me?” He beckoned a young waiter, steadfastly ignoring the rabbiting of his heart.

“Yes, sir?” The waiter looked politely awestruck, eyes darting from the scar on his forehead to his green eyes behind distinctive black glasses. Harry sometimes wondered if he should change style of glasses to throw people off, but what was the use in that? They’d recognise him anyway, and he’d owned this pair for more than a decade.

“Uhm, could you, ah—” someone cleared their throat behind Harry, and he startled a little, jerking in his seat. He tried to pass the movement off as recoiling from a fly, and started awkwardly swatting at the air, shooing a bug that didn’t exist. His eyes slid back up to the waiter, who now looked confused as to whether he should ask for an autograph or call St. Mungo’s. Harry lowered his hand slowly, straightening. He drew in a long, thick breath, air catching on the snag in his throat.

“Woulditbepossibleforyoutotellmewherethetoiletsareplease?”

The man blinked. “Of course, sir. They’re just over there—” he gestured to somewhere behind the bar, and Harry felt faintly sick. He’d have to navigate the tables, and go through the staff door, and not make a fool of himself, and he’d definitely trip and fall or what if someone told him he wasn’t allowed and he’d have to explain—

His pulse skyrocketed, and he clamped down on his breath, trying to calm down, be rational.

The waiter gave a small cough, and Harry looked up frantically through a thick tangle of his hair, which had fallen forward. The other man looked frightened; he took a step back. It was that more than anything that gave Harry a splash of cold perspective, and he raked a hand through his hair so it fell back into place, giving the waiter the most convincing smile he could muster.

“Thank you. I’ll, uh. Go there then.”

He forced his lips further upwards.

The waiter scurried away, and Harry looked over to the bar, mentally planning his route. He’d go around that table, then that one, and then walk along the bar to the small latched door, and he’d let himself through- closing it behind him, or someone might accost him- and he’d walk down that little passageway, and—

A girl walked in front of Harry, the flare of her dress momentarily blocking his view, and he gave a deep sigh of frustration. Being him—being like this—was exhausting.
He returned to the planning anyway, because he knew he couldn’t do it otherwise.

After the passageway, he couldn’t see further into the recesses of the restaurant, but he assumed there’d be a corridor with the witches’ toilets at one end and the wizards’ at the other. Other magical species would be somewhere in the middle. Harry fought down a burst of anxiousness. Which way would he have to go? Right or left? His belly twinged.

“That makes no difference, Harry,” he told himself. “Now come on.”

He forced himself to stand up, pushing his chair back as quietly as he could. It still squeaked a little, and he cringed visibly, looking around to see if anyone was watching him.

“Wow,” he thought. “I haven’t been this bad in… well, never. I’m like a frightened mouse.”

His legs shook a tiny bit as he walked out from behind the table, not daring to push his chair back in, and began to weave around the first table. A goblin sitting in the chair he was walking past gave a loud snort of derisive laughter, and his heart froze in his chest.

“He’s not fucking laughing at you, Harry,” he screamed mentally. “Get a move on.”

The journey was torturous. It could not have been more than twenty five metres from his table to the small gate on the side of the bar leading to the toilets, but it seemed to him like he’d been walking for hours. Every time someone sniggered or sighed his entire body seemed to curl in on itself, paranoid they were sneering at him, waiting for him to go faster, mocking him.

By the time Harry had his fingers on the wood of the door he was ready to cry. He longed for nothing more than to be on his Firebolt, hundreds of metres high, hovering in the balmy summer evening air, distanced from every other human being on the planet. Free and light, confident in his every movement. Not here in this hell that seemed spiked and maliciously armed against him, trapped in his body that quaked and froze and sent shots of pure fear dissolving through his bloodstream at its own whim. He opened the latch with clumsy fingers, going through the gate and shutting it behind him. The barman didn’t give him a second glance; he breathed a sigh of relief.

The floor was sticky under the soles of his boots, and he heard a faint snick underfoot as layers of sugary alcohol clung to the leathery heels. Harry grimaced, needing the toilet more desperately than ever. A chilly stream of air conditioning slipped under the gaping collar of his shirt, and goosebumps prickled to life on the skin of his chest, a smattering of tiny bumps spreading steadily downwards until his stomach was tingling and cold. Harry increased his pace, striding down the dimly lit passageway until he came to a fork in the corridor. He peered to the right; a faint silver ‘Wizards’ sign glinted on a dark- painted door.

Harry turned, shoulders back, refusing to appear anything but completely ordinary, and brushed past a short wizard pushing open the door. The sudden proximity of the other man made him flinch inadvertently backwards into the door, which hit him hard on the arse as it swung closed. He yelped, catching a glimpse of the wizard’s alarmed expression through the gap in the door before it slammed, and he turned sheepishly round to face the whole bathroom.

Mirrors gleamed at him from the opposite wall; his hands were light and quick on his zipper, deftly pulling himself out of his jeans and yanking his boxers down. He chose the third urinal along, looking awkwardly in the mirror as he relieved himself. It had always seemed to him slightly obscene that one was supposed to look oneself in the eyes as they took a piss, and watch the pleasure- pain of it via a mirror, but there was nowhere else to look, really. So Harry stared apologetically at himself while he finished up, and put himself away with an air of an unpleasant task done. He made his way over to the sinks, feeling the water bathe his clammy hands in cool cleansing waves. Relief soothed the knot of anxiety that had been tightening steadily in his gut the past half an hour. But then he started to feel thoroughly violated, as he always did after using a public restroom, and his stomach feebly began to churn again at the idea of going back out there.

Harry twisted sharply to stare over his shoulder, suddenly paranoid. What if someone was watching him? What if they’d seen him going into the bathroom, and set up an Extendable Ear, or they were wearing an Invisibility Cloak, or, or—

“JesusChristHarrystopitnowstopitstopit.” He didn’t mean to say it out loud, but it tore out of his throat anyway, a serrated blade dragging over the swirling, glimmering surface of his thoughts, dulling them, sharpening them with pain.

He closed his eyes, pressing the damp heels of his hands into his eyelids and trying desperately to block the headache that throbbed evilly around the backs of his eyeballs. When he lifted his hands away his eyelashes were tangled and smattered with droplets of cool water. He gave a slow blink, clearing his head, and squared his shoulders. Then, he raked a hand through his hair so it regained some of its messy charm, rumpled his shirt as artfully as he could, and set a deliberate pace out of the bathroom, opening the door carefully and striding down the dimly lit passageway. He refused to stop, check, plan; the tension in his fists and chest was invisible to anyone simply watching him, and he strolled out from the corridor behind the bar, through the gate, and around the various tables without allowing a sweat to break out on his forehead.

‘Okay. Okay, god. We’re okay, aren’t we? It’s fine.’

Harry slid back into his chair and allowed himself to go boneless. His right leg was tremoring from being clenched so stiffly, and his jaw felt wrong somehow, like the bones had been clicked out of place. He was too strung out to check the area. Instead, he just sagged on the seat, running a tired hand through the curling thickness of his hair. It beggared belief.

‘I remember how I used to be,’ he thought sadly, and shoved the thought away. He wouldn’t be self- pitying. Anyway, it wasn’t that bad, was it? It was just that he hadn’t been out much lately, and the date had gone so wrong, and it was late, so late—he cast a quick wandless Tempus.

Nine thirty.

‘You’re fucking twenty years old. Nine thirty? Godric. Fucking pathetic.’

Harry slid further down in his chair.

‘I need help.’