It is not easy to be in a secret relationship, particularly when you're at school. It is even harder when you're me, Harry Potter, saviour of the wizarding world and all that rot. Not only are my friends awfully curious about where I go and what I do, the whole bloody school wants to know...all the time. So it is not easy to get away for a secret rendezvous with my boy-friend.

So I plot and I plan. I use my invisibility cloak and I look for secluded places around the castle. It is astonishing how many there are. But our favourite place to meet is the shrieking shack. We've cleaned the place up and made it really nice. The bed is fabulous, huge and ridiculously comfortable. How can it not be? Draco was the one who picked it out.

He's also the one who put a spell on the passage that leads from the whomping willow to the shrieking shack so that anyone who gets in will only see a ruin that was burnt down in the war. Even Ron and Hermione think the place was destroyed. So that is our place and that is where I'm headed. At least I was, until I realised that I was hungry. I figured that Draco might be hungry too. Dinner was hours ago.

So went over to the kitchens and got a house-elf to pack me a few sandwiches and some chocolate cake. Draco loves chocolate cake and I owe him for having failed to meet him at the Quidditch pitch this afternoon. I'd badly wanted to go flying with him, but I'd messed up my polyjuice in Potions this morning and I was forced to spend the afternoon working on it.

I took the sandwiches and the cake and got under my invisibility cloak again. It was after hours and though curfew did not apply to eighth years, I had no desire to be caught getting out of the castle this late at night. I glanced at my watch. 11:10.

I was already ten minutes late. I could see Draco prowling, ready to tear the place apart in his impatience. I made my way across the grounds, got past the whomping willow and into the shrieking shack. Draco was waiting for me and he looked seriously put out.

"Where the hell were you? I've been waiting and waiting. First you don't show up in the afternoon and then I don't see you at dinner and now this!"

"I'm sorry, Draco. You know Slughorn kept me back to work on my potion. And I would have made it down for dinner except it's Ron's birthday today and his mum invited us to The Burrow. I tried to get a message to you, but I couldn't get away. I'm sorry."

He huffed in response. I tried to look as contrite as possible.

"Stop making puppy eyes at me!" he said. He had his arms folded across his chest and he looked so like a petulant child. All because he'd missed me. Do you have any idea how adorable that is?

I put my cloak and the food aside and I went to him. He pouted. I put one hand on his shoulder and the other in his hair and I reached up to kiss him. He didn't respond for one, two, three seconds and then he grabbed me and kissed me fiercely.

Before I knew it, we were on the bed, pressed close together, kissing and frantically trying to get rid of our clothes. This is how it had started for us, with sex. Just stress relief, we had said, but somewhere along the way I'd gone and fallen in love and so has he, I think.

We continued to kiss as we finally got rid of all those pesky clothes and soon he had me pressed against the mattress as he pushed into me. He held still for one beat and looked right at me and then he began to move and all I remember after that was this intense pleasure and a certainty that this was right. This was perfect.

We were both a bit desperate. We hadn't so much as kissed all day, but we took our time. I kept my eyes on his face. He looks so beautiful, coming apart like this. I followed him just seconds later and we collapsed in a boneless heap, holding on to each other as we tried to figure out how to breathe again.

He rolled off after a couple of minutes. I reached for my wand and cleaned us up. He turned and smiled and then he draped himself over me. That the way he likes to sleep. He says it keeps the nightmares away. It keeps my nightmares away too, so I'm not about to argue. Draco nuzzled against my neck and kissed me softly.

"I missed you," he said. "And it hurt."

He loves me alright.