Chapter 10, Part 2.


Harry stared at the table top as Draco's fleeing footsteps grew quieter. "Stupid stubborn twat," Harry muttered as the front door shut noisily. He wasn't entirely sure if he meant Draco or himself.

I probably shouldn't have shouted at him, Harry reasoned. But Draco just seemed to get more and more pissed off, no matter what he said.

All Harry had wanted to do was answer Draco's questions for the book and then, enjoy the fact that there was someone to talk to that wasn't his well- meaning, but smothering house-elf. And then, maybe, if there was time, snog a little. But now he just felt guilty for losing his temper.

Harry wondered if it was even possible for them to be friends. Their next meeting would contain discussion of the time Harry cut Draco in half. It really didn't seem likely to induce friendship.

"Master Harry, would you like seconds?" Kreacher asked, startling Harry out of his regretful torpor.

"No thanks," Harry said, finding a little smile for the elf, "it was very good though."

Kreacher nodded as he cleared the table, when he picked up Draco's bowl he asked, "Did you want Mr. Malfoy to leave?"

"No," Harry said, a little entertained by Kreachers would-be casual question, he understood the elf's moral dilemma; blood master or bequeathed master, it must drive the elf mad. "I know you like having him here."

Kreacher gave a funny little twitch and said, "Mistress Black only shouted at people to make them leave, if you want Mr Malfoy to stay maybe you shouldn't shout?"

"Good advice Kreacher," Harry said regretfully, "Thank you."

A knock sounded from the front door on the floor above, interrupting him. Harry looked at his watch. It was only three in the afternoon, everyone he knew would be at work, and it wasn't like the Jehovah's Witnesses or Whale-savers could see Number Twelve to come knocking for brainwashing or collecting. The only person that visited during business hours was Draco.

Kreacher vanished with a crack from beside him, plates and all. Harry stood and made his way up the stairs, curious about his visitor.

"No, no, I'll wait here." Harry heard Draco's voice saying when he reached the top of the stairs.

There was the crack of Kreacher disappearing as Harry pushed open the door to the foyer. Draco was standing on the font step, in the meagre cover of the lintel overhang with the heavy, seemingly endless rain pounding on the steps behind him.

He looked up quickly at the sound of the staircase door swinging closed. "I left my umbrella," Draco said hurriedly, the moment he saw Harry.

"Oh right," Harry said, he didn't really care why Draco was back, he just wanted to part on better terms this time. "Look," he said, "I'm sorry about before."

Draco sighed, "Will you please stop apologising to me," he said, and he sounded tired rather than pissed off. "Every second word that comes out of your mouth is sorry."

Harry thought this was a strange thing to be annoyed by, because he really was sorry, how else was he supposed to let Draco know that? But he shrugged and said "Okay, I'm not sorry about before, I meant every word."

"Better," Draco said, almost returning Harry's smile. Or rather, he stopped scowling.

"You can come in," Harry said, wondering if he was pushing his luck.

"Your elf is getting my umbrella then I'll be off." Draco replied. He was still upright and a little standoffish, perched on the step, trying to keep out of the rain.

"Was there nothing else you wanted to ask me?" Harry said, struck by sudden inspiration; Draco wouldn't feel like he was giving in if he came in to talk about work, "you did leave kind of suddenly."

Harry could have laughed out loud at the change in Draco's expression, his face seemed to clear in a second, and he said keenly, "There was actually," he took a step inside, seemingly without a second thought as he began to rummage in his satchel – for his notebook no doubt. "I remembered just before. Weasley said your weird dreams were because, and I quote, "of the horcrux thing" – when were you planning on mentioning that?"

"Bloody Ron," Harry said, but he was glad Draco had come inside so he answered, "I was worried it would give people ideas… you know, when they read about how unlikely it was that I was able to get them all and kill Riddle, someone might think it's a good way to become immortal."

"I understand that," said Draco, pausing in his bag search to look at Harry, "but unless you think that I will decide to kill someone and make a horcrux because of your example, you still need to tell me so that I may figure out a way to present the necessary facts without accidently falsifying anything."

"Sorry," Harry said, "but technically I didn't know about them til sixth year so …" he trailed off.

Draco tutted, and resumed digging in his bag as he said sarcastically, "Right, because there isn't enough fun shit going on that year already, lets add the most evil magic of all."

Harry didn't quite hold in his laugh at Draco's ironic tone. "Sorry," he said again, "I can tell you now, if you want." He added only half seriously.

Surprisingly, Draco didn't make an excuse to leave, he just nodded and said "Okay." And then looked at Harry expectantly, his excavated notebook and quill in hand.

Harry was not willing to stand around talking about Horcruxes in the foyer, neither did he want to return to the scene of their previous argument in the kitchen, so he led the way up stairs to the drawing room, all the while wondering why it was taking Kreacher so long to find Draco's umbrella.

Harry plonked down in his favourite chair, and Draco on the nearest couch, he balanced his open book on his knee and with quill poised he said, "Right, what does you having visions of Riddle have to do with his horcrux?"

Harry sighed in resignation, "Well, firstly it wasn't just one – it was seven," He said, and Draco's eyes widened considerably, "and I was one of them. When he tried to kill baby me he'd already made five, a ring from his grandfather's family, a diary from his time at school, a locket that once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, a silver cup that had been Helga Hufflepuff's, and the d-diadem." He finished, falteringly, remembering all of a sudden that Draco had been sitting behind him on the broom when he had snatched Ravenclaw's heirloom from the feindfyre. God he was glad he'd gone back to get him that night. "They were all hidden, and safe," Harry continued, "Riddle was planning on making the final one with my death, Dumbledore said, because he wanted a seven part soul, but the charm my mother did stopped him. Then, before he fled as a 'shadow of humanity' or whatever you want to call it, part of his unstable soul latched onto me – the nearest living thing.

Draco swallowed audibly, his eyes now fixed on his scribbling quill, "Is that why you were alive when Mum checked?" His voice was very small, Harry suddenly wondered how he knew about horcruxes at all, let alone come to the conclusion that is removal could be part of Harry surviving when he shouldn't.

"Partly," Harry said. "I don't really know exactly why I didn't die – I had a super weird vision of Dumbledore explaining it all to me though – but since I imagined that, then I don't know whether or not to believe the things he told me."

Draco looked almost grey, "Okay," he said, "we can come back to that."

"Right," Harry said, collecting his thoughts, "so before the final night of the war, Riddle and I were sort of connected, but until I had the dream about Sirius in the Ministry in June of Ninety-six, neither of us had much control over it. In fact up until I saw Nagini attack Mr Weasley Riddle had no idea the connection even existed, but I'd been seeing things for more than a year before that."

Draco was whey-faced and slightly overwhelmed as he flipped through his notebook, "But I thought he possessed you, at the Ministry," he found his page and read, "'but it was too painful for him to keep it up for long.' Surely if part of his soul could live in you, he could also."

"No," Harry said, "the horcrux was just attached to me, it didn't have to share my soul like Riddle did for possession and because he was so damaged inside my 'whole' soul was painful to him."

Draco looked confused as he scrawled across the page, his quill becoming almost blurred with the speed of his note taking, "Why?" he asked, not looking up.

"I don't know," Harry said, "it was to do with me being so cut up that Sirius had just been killed, all the love overpowered his evil."

Draco nodded and continued to write, Harry sat in silence, waiting for the next question, but after nearly two minutes of quiet, interrupted only by the scratching of Draco's quill, he started to wonder if another question was even coming.

"My mother thought it was a shame," Draco said suddenly. Looking up at Harry again and shutting his book. "Sirius Black I mean, she wished to see her family continue in whatever way it could, when he escaped from Azkaban she and Father had an argument about offering him refuge if they could find him."

"Really?" Harry asked, astonished.

"Yes, but of course my father didn't want to get caught harbouring a fugitive, even though he of all people knew Black was innocent." Draco tucked his book away and said wryly, "How do you think I knew enough about what he'd supposedly done to taunt you with it? Everyone else just thought he'd killed a bunch of muggles."

"That's mental," Harry said quietly, trying to imagine a world where Sirius had hidden with the Malfoy's in their luxurious house rather squatting in a cave, eating rats. He was willing to bet Sirius would choose the rats over living with Death Eaters every time.

"Sorry," Draco said, with a touch of discomfort, "it was impolite to bring that up."

"It's fine," Harry said, with a dismissive flick of his hand, "it's been seven years, I'm quite happy to talk about him." Harry didn't mention that he'd quite happily talk about anything at all if they weren't fighting. "It's weird to think he was the same relation to your mum as Rosie is to Victoire."

"Family is confusing concept with purebloods," Draco mused, "you're supposed to do everything you can to protect each other, but not because you love them, it's to protect the family name." he shifted a little uneasily on the couch, "I was a big supporter of the House of Black living on, though it was for my own selfish reasons."

Harry kept quiet, surprised that Draco was talking so freely about something that wasn't work, it was very unusual.

"I wished so often that he had beaten Aunt Bella." Draco said, sounding guilty, "she was almost worse to live with than Riddle, he at least didn't actively go looking for people to hurt."

"God that must have been shit." Harry murmured, before he could stop himself.

"Yeah," Draco agreed flatly, "it wasn't that bad in sixth year, not once my occlumency was good enough anyway; Bella thought that queers were quite as bad as Muggleborns you see 'a hindrance to the magical birth rate'." He added bitterly. He fiddled with the cuff of his shirt absently as he spoke, and the longer bits of his hair fell forward over his face. "So while I was able to hide that, and I hadn't failed in my mission yet it was alright, Riddle came and went a lot but he wasn't living with us. It wasn't until after I … after the end of sixth, that's when everything turned to shit. Dad was broken out of prison, but the Dark- Riddle was so angry –" he stopped speaking quite suddenly, his fidgeting fingers curling on themselves, his jaw tight as he looked at Harry, quite obviously ashamed or embarrassed or something, at having said so much.

Harry though Draco was well within his rights to be upset by that period in his life. Harry had seen how life was inside Malfoy Manor, Draco being forced to torture people, prisoners held beneath their living quarters, the most repulsive of wizards infecting every corner of the house that he'd grown up in. Hideous. But hearing Draco say it made Harry realise how badly it had effected Draco, how horrible it must have been. He, Harry, might have been hungry and cold during the desperate camping trip, but hell; at least he'd been free.

"I had flashes of what was going on at your place," Harry said, not sure if he should speak at all because Draco was quite close to glaring once more, "I was starving and frozen but I didn't wish for a moment that I could be in your shoes."

"Of course you didn't," Draco snapped, "then you would have been an evil little git, instead of the heroic saviour of our world."

"Yes, that's why." Harry said, sarcastically, "No, at least I believed in what I was doing, suffering for a good cause."

"How do you know I didn't?" Draco retorted and even though the tone was waspish, it lacked the melancholy his voice had held previously.

"Don't be a twat," Harry said, not wanting to retreat to picking at each other for the sake of it. "I saw you lower your wand, and you refused to identify me."

"I didn't lower my wand, you fucking stole it". Draco said indignantly.

"No, not then," Harry said, "that night on the astronomy tower, Dumbledore said he could help you and you believed him, you lowered you wand."

"You were there?" Draco gasped, quiet clearly horrified, he glowered at Harry and said sullenly, "Of course you were there; you're always fucking there."

Harry thought that it was best not to comment, he debated calling Kreacher to find out why Draco's umbrella took an half an hour to retrieve, or to bring them some tea, or as he was feeling at the moment, whiskey.

But he didn't, he sat and waited for Draco to sort his internal frustration out. Harry was sure he was arguing silently in his head because his lips were white with the pressure of keeping them together and he was picking, rather more violently than necessary at a loose thread on his sleeve.

Keeping quiet was the right thing to do because eventually – after the thread broke and he had no more distraction – Draco said calmly, "Look Potter, we can talk about this another time, I need your notes before we do sixth year."

"Alright," Harry said, quite proud to have avoided an argument, "and the horcruxes?"

"Yeah same, I'll have to find a way to explain that without putting in too much detail, I don't think you're wrong to worry about a copycat at some point."

"Okay," Harry said, he just wanted Draco to understand that he didn't see him as the same person any more. That to Harry, those kids that had fought in the war were other versions of themselves. Because finally, now that he was free of the constraints of impending marriage and child rearing, he felt like a different person. In the last week he had achieved more of what Hermione would call something like "emotional growth" than he had since he first met the Weasley's and learned what it was like to have a family again.

"I'm going to go now," Draco said, but he didn't actually move, just picked up the strap of his satchel.

Harry really didn't want him to go yet, while they weren't actually fighting, the mood was still very sombre and the whole point of asking Draco back inside had been so he would leave in a better frame of mind. "Do you have another meeting?" Harry asked, trying to delay him just a bit.

"No," Draco said, "but it's been a long day and I don't really want to spend the rest of it arguing with you about the horrible shit I've done."

"So don't," Harry said quickly, "I have new whiskey, a spirit lifting nip seems in order."

Draco was easily convinced, "I suppose it couldn't make things worse."

Harry summoned the unopened bottle from the cupboard and two short tumblers, he poured a measure into each and nudged Draco's one across the coffee table to him.

Then he picked up is glass and said, "To not making things worse?"

Draco nodded, his dismal expression lifting slightly as he clinked his drink against Harry's. Then in what was obviously a concentrated effort to change the subject he asked, "So, what are you going to do with yourself? You seemed pretty certain earlier that you were done with hiding in this place."

Harry smiled, "Yeah, I really am. I think I'll talk to Robards about going back to work, even though it will have to be desk duty for a while - the reasons I wanted to leave haven't changed, arresting people while being asked for your autograph is a pain in the arse." He shrugged, a bit embarrassed, and half expecting a cutting 'poor-famous-Potter' remark, but none came, so he continued, "But you talking about that error in the budget … it makes me nervous, I don't want the public to stop trusting us again."

"If you didn't go back it wouldn't be your problem," Draco said, the whiskey had done him some good, already the edge was going from his voice. "You'd just one of the many – you could not trust the Ministry like the rest of us."

"But it would still be Ron's problem, and Hermione's," Harry said, "and all the guys in my old team, and anyway what the hell would I do with myself otherwise? I'm good at catching baddies, that's about it."

"And pouring drinks." Draco said holding out his empty glass.

"Right," Harry snorted, "I'll go and get a job in the pub shall I?"

"Why not?" Draco said easily, "You must have a decent amount of gold to be able to quit your job without any pre-planning."

"I have a bit," Harry said honestly, "but it's not enough to last my whole life, I still need to work."

There was a sharp and sudden knocking at the drawing room window, Harry looked around in surprise to see an owl he'd didn't know tapping its beak relentlessly against the window pane.

"What on earth?" Harry said. Owls that delivered his mail always dropped it off through the attic window, and Kreacher brought it down into the house. But this one was very persistent, Harry got to his feet and hurried to the window. He lifted the sliding frame and the bird hopped inside and flew directly at Draco who was still sitting on the couch.

"Oi!" Harry said, but the bird just dropped its letter on Draco's lap and pelted back out the open window.

"What the hell?" Harry said, shocked by the mad creature.

"That's Volo, Marc's bird." Draco said with a little chuckle at Harry's surprised face, "He's fucking nuts, but very efficient."

"Er, right." Harry said, he didn't want to appear nosy, but he quite wanted to know what the often mentioned Marc would be writing to Draco about. "Is something wrong?" he asked, as Draco frowned at the unfolded parchment.

"Maybe," Draco said, "more like weird." He held the parchment out to Harry who took it and sat down on the sofa next to him to read.

Draco,

Mavis says Blishwick took over the quarterly budgets in January, they used to be done by the Assistant HoD, but Blishwick decided to do the whole thing himself the last two times. I saw Iris just after lunch, she said it's wizards who look after the Ministry's accounts, since the war, the goblins don't want anything to do with the government.

I tried to talk to Cuffe this afternoon but Betty wouldn't let me near his office. I have this weird feeling she knows what we're up to but doesn't want Cuffe to know.

Come back to the office so you can tell me I'm just being paranoid. You must be done shagging by now, it's been ages.

Marc.

"Er," Harry said, stuck dumb by the final line. Was that what he was supposed to think was weird?

He read the beginning again, forcing himself to concentrate because Marc's last words must have been a joke.

Harry already knew that wizards working at Gringotts handled the Ministry accounts, their signatures were always on the bottom of the monthly stipend allocations that each department had to submit, one of them and the Head of Treasury signed off all Ministry spending, it was one of the safeguards put in place to stop situations exactly like the one Marc and Draco seem to have discovered. "Do you think this Betty knows something, or is involved somehow?" He asked.

"I don't know," said Draco, slumping back against the couch, holding tightly to his whiskey. "I've been hoping and hoping that it was all going to turn out to be a mistake, some daft newbie ticking the wrong box or something, but Mavis, that's Blishwick's secretary, says he's done them all himself, that seems very dodgy to me."

"It does," Harry said, leaning forward to pour himself a new drink, "it's also against the standardised protocol, but I suppose since Treasury sets the protocols around gold in the first place they can probably break them." He sat back as Draco had, took a sip form his glass and said, "If this is some sort of scam, I bet I can guess who's helping them at Gringotts."

"Who?"

"Travers, he'd love to get one over on the Ministry, his family were taxed worse than yours."

"You mentioned that before," Draco said, "when I came to see you after you found out it wasn't me that poisoned you, how do you know how much tax they paid?"

"Junior Aurors are little more than paper lackeys," Harry said, "even when the Ministry was going mad trying to capture all the scattering Death Eaters and needed as many people as they could get, most of my intake spent more time signing off the arrest warrants, and filing incident reports than doing actual Auror work."

Draco looked rather stony at the mention of arresting Death Eaters. Harry felt bad for bringing it up again, after Draco had specifically told him that just visiting the department made him uncomfortable.

Harry didn't want to think poorly of the Aurors that had brought Draco in, no doubt people who had helped train Harry. But he'd heard the whispers in his first few weeks of training, he knew that some of the captives had been treated roughly.

Harry had spent May of '98 at The Burrow, mourning the loss of Fred and everyone else, with everyone else, eating every heaped plate Mrs Weasley put in front of him and shagging Ginny whenever they could find a moment alone.

The only contact he'd had with anyone was his lawyer. Obviously Hermione had not been qualified in such matters at that time, so he had used a doddering old fellow called Nigel Herbert that had looked after the Weasley family wills for the last century.

He had advised Harry through the organisation of Draco's bail for Narcissa, and the re-assignment and organisation of all Harry's assets and wealth. Including, Harry thought it was a little late, but the writing a will for the first time in his life. Something Herbert reiterated constantly that he should have done before heading off on a suicidal mission to kill the Dark Lord.

Mr. Herbert was a little over whelmed at the process of writing a will for someone that actually had assets and heirlooms to bequeath, not to mention the gold involved – Molly and Arthur were very typical when it came to a Weasley family's economic status.

Kingsley had arrived on the 2nd of June, puncturing the oblivious little bubble that they had all been living in for the last month by requesting that Harry, Ron and Hermione lend their faces to the rebuild of the government. Something that none of them had wanted to do unless they had some say in what was going on – they hadn't really got it. Hermione started just above entry level in the Wizengamot administration, and Harry and Ron were both lumped in at the bottom of the Auror induction. But all three of them knew that if they were to have any actual credibly then they had to earn their place as much as the next wizard.

So, by the time Harry had any real idea of how the Aurors functioned, all the looking-the-other-way-while-we're-at-war nonsense had stopped and there was a reasonable amount of structure (paperwork) in the arrest/hold-for-bail process.

"I remember the Travers one," Harry continued, "because I thought it was really steep – considering there was only one Travers on trial – normally it was worked out on a sort of sliding scale of number of Death Eaters in the family and how bad their crimes were versus how much gold they had."

"It's probably because of the sisters," Draco said, "Gilford Travers, he's the one is Azkaban, and his brother Willard who works at Gringotts, are the sons of the only boy born to Travers senior. He and his wife had five daughters as well, so there are plenty of blooded Travers around that aren't named because their mothers all made good pureblood marriages. Greg's grandmother was a Travers," he added conversationally.

"Greg?" Harry asked, not being able to think of anyone with that name aside from Greg Timms who was a first year Auror trainee, and he didn't think Draco would know him, or who his grandmother was.

"Goyle," Draco said, "you know, he was in our year –"

"Sorry," Harry laughed, "never thought of him having a first name before.

Draco grinned, "I'm not surprised, and I don't think he was even aware of it half the time."

"I'd say you're right about the sisters," Harry mused, "I didn't particularly care about the Travers getting the shit taxed out of them at the time, the Ministry needed gold from somewhere. But that makes sense."

"I think you'll find most Death Eaters were quite used to paying their way out of trouble anyway," Draco said. "Getting the shit taxed out of us was the least of our worries."

"Sorry," Harry muttered, and Draco made a tiny little tutting sound, and said, "You're always apologising."

"Sorry?" Harry said again, but with a sidelong smirk and Draco huffed out a short laugh.

"What are you sorry for?" He asked.

"Well that time was for annoying you with my constant apologies," Harry said honestly, "but I don't know, for everything I guess, I don't really want to say because you'll just get shitty again."

"I might not." Draco said

"Ha, whatever," he reached out and knocked his glass against Draco's, "to not making things worse remember?"

"Hmm," Draco nodded and threw back his last mouthful, "You'll have to give up your afternoon drinking habits if you go back to work," he said, "it's one thing for a journo to be a bit squiffy on the job, but an Auror? Even famous Potter would get the sack for that."

"True," said Harry. Reaching for the whiskey to tip another shot into Draco's empty glass, I'll have to find a new career then." He refilled his own and asked, "So what are you going to do about Marc?"

"I don't know, I'm not going back to tell him he's paranoid, because I don't think he is, and because he'll give me endless shit for drinking on the job," he smiled fondly into his glass and took a healthy gulp. "Do you know he is so obsessed with what I'm doing when I come to meet you? He decided this morning that I'm a prostitute –"

Harry choked on his mouthful "Why?" He sputtered, although at least the cryptic parting remark on Marc's letter was explained.

"It's a long story." Draco laughed, "First he thought that I had a new boyfriend, and he's been taking the piss for weeks that I have time off to meet up with him, and then I mentioned that there had been a problem with my pay and he put the two together, rather loudly, and decided I'm a rent boy."

"Good mate by the sound of it." Harry said, joining in a little bemusedly as Draco continued to chuckle to himself.

"He is actually," Draco said after a moment, "suffers from the same unnaturalness you do." Harry frowned and Draco clarified, "He's bi, although I think it's actually just because only shagging one gender would limit his options. He's quite the whore."

"Charming," Harry said, finding the conversation much less amusing all of a sudden, "Have you and he ever…?"

"Argh, no," Draco said at once, his face scrunched up in distaste, "he's probably my best friend, well only friend if you don't count Astoria, so no, not that he didn't try." Draco laughed, "Idiot."

Harry found it hard to smile at this, he felt a bit childish being jealous of the unknown Marc, he vaguely remembered Belby from school as having a load of dark curly hair and a wide smile, but that was all. "So you're not going to go and talk to him now about this Treasury thing?" Harry asked, trying to keep the hopefulness out of his voice.

"No," Draco said, "I'll see him in the morning, even if he'll have worked himself into a complete flap by then." He leaned back against the sofa cushions and gave Harry a rare broad smile, "What would you do about this?"

"Um," Harry said, momentarily distracted by Draco's lazy smile and the out-of-place hair falling into his eyes which were wide and honest, and looking directly at him. Draco blinked slowly and Harry realised he was not the only one that had probably had enough to drink considering it was only four in the afternoon. He looked away from Draco and it helped him focus, "I would find out what Betty has to gain from hidden money if you think she's involved," he said, "same with Blishwick … he was around before the new regime," Harry muttered, "you don't think he owes Travers anything?"

"He certainly owed my father a few favours," Draco said, and Harry glanced at him and saw he was sitting forward again, obviously trying to appear alert, "but I can't imagine Willard Travers has much pull, his brother may have, but he's as mad as a hatter by now, locked up out there." He shook his head slightly and asked suddenly, "Why do you insist on whiskey Potter?" he peered into his empty glass accusingly, "Can't you just drink beer like a normal person?"

Harry grinned and shrugged, "I find whiskey achieves the desired outcome more efficiently."

"That is the sort of thing an alcoholic would say." Draco said a little pompously, raising an eyebrow at Harry.

"An alcoholic wouldn't admit it," Harry said with a chuckle, reaching out for the bottle to refill his glass, "I like beer just fine, but if I want to have a drink then it might as well be whiskey, less getting up to piss that way."

"You are vulgar." Draco complained, but held out his glass for a top up all the same, "Why did that girl think she needed to drug you – you say whatever is on your mind after a couple of drinks anyway."

Harry didn't answer right away, he sloshed a measure into each glass and screwed the cap back on before he said, feeling somewhat contrite, "She'd been waiting a long time for what she thought was inevitable, she shouldn't have gone about it the way she did but I'm at fault too, like you said, I shouldn't have been stringing her along."

"Pfft," Draco huffed, flicking a hand at Harry's knee, "I only said that because I thought you were using her for sex, if I'd known it was because you were having a sexuality crisis I may have been a bit more understanding."

"May have?" Harry asked.

"Would have." Draco said firmly, "Pansy still hates me for fucking her about for so long." He took a sip from his glass and didn't wince at all on swallowing, then he said regretfully, "At least you could play the game if you had to, not me. Totally utterly bent."

Harry stared, he wondered if he had the guts, he really wanted to talk to Draco about the other night, but he had no idea of the way things worked. Was it normal for gay men to kiss each other and then never speak of it again? Had Draco considered what a big deal it was to Harry to have kissed another guy, and enjoyed it? The whiskey urged him on, "Speaking of, er, being bent," Harry said, "I um, wanted to say thanks for your help the other night."

Draco's eyes snapped to him and Harry forced himself to keep his expression casual, "Thanks?" Draco asked. "I don't think I've ever been thanked before." His eyes glinted just a little bit as he the tiniest of smirks crossed his lips, "But I suppose you're welcome, it's not like it was a hardship," the smirk became fully fledged as he finished, "the Weaslette taught you well."

Harry laughed, embarrassed. "Don't call her that." he said.

"I could call her worse." Draco said pointedly.

"I did," Harry said, "to her face." He still couldn't quite believe how his sense of betrayal had caused him to say such awful things to Ginny.

"Good." Draco said, "There's nothing more unattractive than letting someone walk all over you."

"Does that mean you think I'm attractive?," Harry asked, he'd meant it as a joke, but somewhere on the way out of his mouth the question lost its humour.

"Obliviousness is also unattractive." Draco muttered.

Harry didn't quite know what to make of that, and it must have shown on his face because Draco rolled his eyes and said impatiently, "Do you really think I'd go kissing you if I thought otherwise?"

"Well I don't know," Harry admitted, "I did ask you to, to test the theory."

"You think I made a sacrifice in the name of science?" Draco asked, his mouth was still smiling, but Harry could see that he was confused too.

"Maybe?" Harry said, "I don't know how these things work, you're only the third person I've ever kissed for goodness sake."

This seem to stump Draco. He blinked twice and a little line appeared between his eyebrows. "Yes." he said.

"Yes?" Harry repeated completely lost, "yes what?"

Draco sighed peevishly, but his little smile was still there underneath the Malfoy facade, "Yes, to the attractive question, Merlin, keep up."

"Oh right, er, me too?" Harry said, hating that it sounded like a question. If there was one thing he was sure of at the moment over anything else, it was that he thought Draco was attractive.

Draco's annoyed look flickered briefly, and he seemed pleased, even if Harry was completely hopeless in any remotely romantic situation. Hopeless, but brave (drunk).

Draco's eyes widened a little as Harry leaned towards him, but then, just before Harry shut his own he saw Draco's lids flutter closed.

He was much calmer this time, whiskey really was quite marvellous, Harry thought.


^V^


A/N: It turns out that writing a believable drunky-Draco is very difficult. You may blame the delay of this chapter on his primness.

Review?

George xx