Disclaimer: If J.K. blew off her deadlines like this, she'd surely have been killed by now. Probably by me.

(a/n: Inexcusably slow updates, anyone? Many thanks for your patience, dear readers, or if you have been impatient, thank you for not taking it out on me…I've had a nice touch of good old fashioned writer's block recently and I just thank the gods I was able to bang this out before everyone got too aggravated to read any more of it. Or at least I hope you're not too aggravated to read anymore of it, anyway…)


Chapter 7: Disenchantment


It wasn't that I missed him, exactly. I mean, I'd have to be completely stupid to expect "Did you see Potter and Malfoy having it out in the hallway again?" to suddenly become "Did you see what Potter and Malfoy put on their wedding registry?", but I expected…

I don't know what I expected. But not this. Not "Did you see Potter smile at Malfoy and Malfoy look back at him like he's recently crawled out from under a toilet?"

I didn't expect everything to go back to being the way it was.

"Harry?" Hermione was looking at me and I was looking at the floor. "Are you all right?

"Fine."

"Then what're you making that face for?"

"I'm not making a face," I said, scowling at the back of Draco's head as he took a seat at the desk in front of mine. I was determined to keep calling him that, even with things like they were. Well, maybe not out loud, but…

"Yes you are," Ron said unhelpfully. I kicked him under the desk and Snape gave us both a look with "detention" written all over it.

"You should've at least said something to Ginny when you got in last night," Ron said when Snape had found someone else to glare at. "She was practically tearing down the school looking for you."

"Oh. Ginny." I stared very hard straight ahead and tried not to give the impression that I'd forgotten she existed. Which I had.

"Yeah. Ginny." I tore my eyes away from the back of Draco's disinterested head at Ron's tone. "My sister. Remember her? Your girlfriend?" He glared at me with an expression that might have been very menacing on a face with fewer freckles. "Might be nice if you ever actually—" He stopped, still fuming, then added, "I wish you'd just chuck her instead of messing her about like this!"

"Ron!" Hermione gave him a sharp look elbowed him in the stomach. "That's an awful thing to say!"

And it was awful. But it was also true.

Ginny was sweet and funny and beautiful and probably the most perfect girl I ever had any hope of meeting, but for some reason I didn't love her at all.

"I don't care! Look at him, Hermione, he's more interested in the back of Malfoy's head than his own bloody girlfriend, it's not sodding normal—"

I smiled as Draco gave me a quick, expectant look over his shoulder at the mention of his name, but Snape had picked exactly the wrong moment to dismiss the class and anything I might've done in response was immediately drowned out by students in an understandable rush to leave. I was still trying to decide what to pretend to have to go back and get as Ron and Hermione were leaving when Draco decided to skip right over the secretive bit.

"Potter. I want a word with you."

"Piss off, Malfoy," Ron said instantly. Being angry with me wasn't reason enough to stop him hating Draco.

"Alone." He grabbed my arm and pulled me out into the hallway, apparently forgetting that it'd be filled with loads of people, and then dragged me straight back in again. He glared at Ron and Hermione, who were too confused to have gone anywhere. "Out. Both of you. Now."

"Five minutes," I told them with an apologetic shrug. Ron looked about to say something but Hermione elbowed him again.

"What is it with you and abandoned classrooms, Malfoy?" I said when they'd gone.

He didn't laugh.

"I just want to know," he said as he backed me up against one of the desks, "what you think you're playing at."

"I—er—" his mouth covered mine before the words could be formed properly; my arms went around his shoulders without any prompting from my brain. "Draco—"

"No." He straightened suddenly and pushed me away. "You're not just going to call me that when you feel like it. Call me it all the time or don't call me it at all."

"But someone would—"

"Then let them. Whatever it is people want to say about it, either let them say it or don't do anything worth talking about."

"I don't—"

"It's called an ultimatum, Potter. I've kept enough secrets to last a lifetime and I won't do it with you. So—" His eyes locked with mine and much as I wanted to I couldn't look away. "—chuck Weasley and go out with me or I'm never going to see you like this again."

Which was more or less exactly what I'd been afraid he'd say.

OoOoOo

"Does that mean you missed me?"

"It's been fourteen hours, Potter, don't be daft. And don't change the subject."

"You were counting?"

"I said don't change the bloody subject!"

His eyes locked on anything but mine, shifting around the room to stare at a million inconsequential nothings. Apparently bits of dusts were of far more interest than, say, acknowledging the heartfelt speech I'd just given him.

He slid back against the desk behind him, half-sitting on it and training his eyes on the far wall. "I don't like this, Draco." First name. Good sign, I suppose.

"What don't you like?" My fingers wound through his hair and he took a sharp, quick breath as my mouth pressed against his neck.

"You know what. I care about Ginny—" he bit his lip as my hands drifted farther south than was probably polite, "—and I care about you—" he motioned for me to stop and let him get his breath back, but I only kissed him again, tracing the gentle lines of his body with one hand and holding him still with the other. If he said what I thought he was going to I wouldn't be getting another chance to do this. "—but either way someone gets hurt."

"Then don't think about us." His nails bit into my shoulders again, which considering the absue they'd taken last night would probably have been very painful if I was in any state to notice it. "Think about yourself. What do you want, Harry?"

"…I…I want…"

I grabbed his face in irritation, turning it up to mine with a sharp pang of guilt as I carefully avoided the bruise that was still fairly prominent there. "Well?"

He blinked silently, his eyes glistening with a slight shimmer of tears and suddenly I wished I hadn't said anything at all.

OoOoOo

"I think I must've missed something," said Ron irritably. The corridor was a bit more crowded than one might expect more than ten minutes after the end of the lesson, due mostly to the large number of people who'd seen Draco Malfoy dragging Harry Potter into a deserted classroom. "Because that seemed a hell of a lot like Harry ditching us for Malfoy."

"He must have a very good reason for it," replied Hermione, sounding less than sure herself.

"I can't imagi—"

There was a loud crash from inside the classroom and a disheveled pair of teenage boys appeared in the doorway. Everyone who hadn't already been watching whipped around to stare and a silence of unimaginable awkwardness promptly descended.

Draco smoothed out his hair. Harry straightened his tie.

Then, giving the crowd a defiant smile, he grabbed Draco by the shirt collar and kissed him full on the mouth.

"Does that answer your bloody question?"


(a further a/n: as you probably noticed, due to the fact that they are no longer locked in a confined area the story is no longer measured in hours. If that seems weird to you, that's because it is weird. This story is now pretty much not in any way related to my original design for it, and I'd really appreciate it if you could all pretend I am capable of planning things in a way that makes sense. Please?)