Chapter 14 - If I had 100 Galleons

Draco sighed and ran his fingers though his blonde hair and tried to focus on the text book in front of him once more. It really was not a good idea to have a boyfriend at this point in his life, especially a very handsome, sexy and enthusiastic boyfriend. Harry was a very willing student when it came to pleasurable matters, however, more often than not Draco would have to instigate it, and would have to lead. Not that he was complaining, but they were starting to get into the more…unknown acts, at least unknown to Draco. He was starting to get a little nervous as he had thus maintained a certain level of knowledge.

What's more, the fact that Harry hadn't said anything to either his friends or their dorm mates left Draco extremely frustrated. He had to sit there and watch Ron and Hermione suck face and he couldn't even cuddle up to Harry. Yes. Draco was a cuddler. Not to mention the numerous times they were almost caught kissing by the incredible duo, as well as sneaking touches and glances. It made Draco feel like their relationship was something wrong or dirty; as though it was something to be ashamed of. Besides, he was running out of believable excuses.

That coupled with everything that was going on right now had Draco a little overwhelmed. Not only had he regained the respect of the Slytherin, he was now not only the Prince, the figurehead of the House, but a Lord, in the passing of his father. That brought a great deal of responsibilities that Lucius had left behind. He delegated the position in the School Governors to his mother, as he would be considered biased as one of the students. He would reclaim the position when he graduated. He did, however, hold his father's seat on the Ministry Council. He had only been to one meeting (as they met quarterly) and although he had been groomed from a young age to take his father's place, he had to shake himself several times in order to keep awake in the HORRIBLY boring session. With NEWTS, Voldemort, and general life was all taking a toll on poor Draco. Pansy had to assure him that there were NOT bags under his eyes, and that Yes, he was still gorgeous.

Draco sighed again, and laid his head on his open book. He swore he was only going to close his eyes for a moment, as he tried to muddle through the Transfiguration. Next moment he felt a hand on his shoulder, and when he looked up the candles in the library had been lit, creating a halo of light around Harry's head.

Draco smiled. "Hey," he said simply, closing his eyes again.

Harry chuckled. "Draco, there's no sleeping in the library. You should go back to the dorm."

"Meh."

Harry laughed, but stopped as he thought of something that instead brought a wicked gleam to his eye and a smirk to his lips. A whispered spell left him wincing and shaking his hands, before they dove down the back of Draco's pants to squeeze his butt.

"AHHHHHH!" Draco screamed, jumping up from the chair and rounding around to glare at Harry as he stifled great gales of laughter.

"Shhhh…." Came the scold from the librarian.

"Harry," Draco whispered, "that was incredibly mean. You're hands were freezing."

"Yup," Harry replied, as he gathered up Draco's stuff and placed it in his book bag and swung it over his shoulder, grabbing hold of Draco's arm and escorting him out of the library. "It got you up, and now we can go back to Gryffindor."

"You're a cruel, cruel man," Draco muttered, the prospect of a nice, warm, overstuffed bed beckoning him on.

"Harry. Have you by any chance…" Draco started.

"No, Draco, I haven't," Harry replied. "It's not easy, OK?"

"They're your friends. You've already told them you're gay…"

"I said I'm probably gay."

Draco sighed. "Harry." He started in an over patient and patronizing tone. "Do you dream about buggering boys?"

There was no response from the brunette.

"HA!" Draco shouted, laughing.

"Shut up," Harry replied glumly, but Draco could hear the smile underneath.

"And what if I want to send you a Valentine? It's only a week away! I've never been able to send my boyfriend a Valentine before," Draco whined.

"You've never had a boyfriend to send a Valentine to," Harry said simply.

"And now I do. Please, Harry? Please may I send you a Valentine?" Draco simpered mockingly. "Please, please, please?" Draco batted his eyes prettily and hung off Harry.

"Oh Merlin, yes, you can send me a Valentine, just… stop acting like that!" Harry said, horrified.

"Like what?" Draco smiled.

"Like a bloody girl!"

Both boys laughed as they entered the Common Room.

It was a week later, on Valentines Day, that Harry started to get cold feet. When he asked Draco about any cards being sent the blonde played dumb. And so Harry sat at breakfast in the Great Hall, praying he didn't get anything.

Ron and Hermione came down, Ron a little flushed, and Hermione grinning like a Cheshire cat, a large bouquet of flowers on her arm.

"Oh, how beautiful!" Ginny exclaimed.

"Thanks, Ginny. Ron got them for me," Hermione beamed, as Ron sat across from Harry, hiding in embarrassment.

"I'm surprised he remembered," Ginny said.

"Like she'd let me forget," Ron grumbled to Harry as he reached for some toast.

A screech above hailed the owl post.

By the end of it, Harry wished he HAD gotten something from Draco, it would have at least been sincere, instead of the hundreds of cards he got from other students, people outside school, fans, boys, girls, married women… it never stopped. In the end, Harry just banished all the cards and letters and notes away.

Harry tried to catch Draco's eye, but the Slytherin-at-heart refused to look at him.

Down the table, Ginny's smile brightened as she read the card.

"Who are they from, Ginny?" Romilda asked.

"My boyfriend of course," Ginny cooed softly

"Blaise is so romantic," Romilda replied.

Ron's hand stopped as he was about to bring the toast up to bite. His face turned slowly to his sister, and his eyes narrowed. Unaware, Ginny glanced up to smile at Romilda and caught a glimpse of her brother. Her eyes widened.

"Ron..."

"Blaise?" Ron's eye twitched.

"Now Ronald..."

"BLAISE???" Ron shouted. The students at Slytherin looked over to Gryffindor; so did a good number of other students. Ginny opened her mouth to speak again, but it was too late. "BLAISE, I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Ron shouted as he launched out of his seat, over the table piled with food, and sprinted across the Hall straight for the Slytherin table.

"Um... guys, that's my cue," Blaise said, quickly running to and through the doors. Ron b-lined and followed, Ginny running frantically after him. Several of the students laughed as Professor Sprout, head of Hufflepuff house puffed behind, trying to catch the spry young men.

Harry laughed, and opened his Daily Prophet. Before he started to read, he saw Draco smirk at him before leaving the hall.

"Oh Merlin, what has he done?" Harry quickly scanned every inch of the paper, but could find nothing. "What's he up to?"

"Who?" Hermione asked.

Harry blushed, "Erm, nobody. Nothing."

"Harry?"

"Nothing, OK, just…leave it," Harry replied, before he turned back to the paper.

WIVES LEAVE THEIR DEATH EATER HUSBANDS

I'm sick of it. I'm going home to Mother!

It is reported that several of the rumored Death Eaters are having familial problems. After slaving away doing the "Dark Lord's" bidding, allegedly of course, the men come home to dissatisfied wives. With the recent news of the Malfoys, and Narcissa's campaign for the Light, many wives of speculated Death Eaters are coming forward, children in tow, pleading safety if not for themselves, then for their children. Their bargaining chip: Information of course.

"Our sons and daughters will not be cannon fodder for the Dark Lord!" they scream as they pack their suitcases and draw the accounts clean.

Two such woman are Prucilla Parkinson and the recently widowed Gabriella Zabini. Parkinson claims that her husband Paul has been a Death Eater all along, and Zabini has proven to have some very inside information regarding Death Eaters and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Currently they are being held at the Ministry, we assume for questioning.

The Ministry could not be reached for questioning, nor could Paul Parkinson.

"Recently widowed, huh, Blaise?" Pansy inquired in a scandalous tone.

"Apparently he had an accident on the honeymoon cruise in Greece," Blaise said off handedly.

"And how much has your family vault increased?" Pansy asked with a knowing smile.

"I don't know, somewhere around a million galleons. At least he was a Death Eater," Blaise responded.

"It's interesting that your mother's never been questioned by the Ministry."

"Not really," Draco responded. "She's got enough to bribe the Ministry into looking the other way, and especially when it's generally Death Eaters who turn up dead, they're willing to overlook it."

"What DO you have planned for Potter, Draco?" Blaise asked, changing the subject.

"Oh…you'll see," he replied, smirking at his brunette boyfriend.

It was at lunch when the day came to a cataclysmic climax of hilarity.

The Hall grew quiet as Hedwig dropped a Howler in front of Harry and left quickly, not even stopping for a nibbled treat.

"Who's it from Harry?" Ron asked.

"I have no idea. I can't think of who I pissed off recently." Harry eyed the Howler suspiciously. "Maybe it's a response from one of the ones I banished this morning?" It started to smoke.

"Better open it, Harry," Hermione whispered. "I've never seen one explode…but it happens and I think I could go my whole life not seeing that."

Harry gulped. He really couldn't think who it might be from. He thought over the last week of people he could have angered, and was drawing a blank. He sighed, and tore open the label.

The snarky drawl of Draco Malfoy boomed through the room.

EYES AS GREEN AS EMERALDS

HAIR AS BLACK AS NIGHT

LIPS AS RED AS RUBIES

AND NICE ENOUGH TO BITE

OH PLEASE JUST TELL ME

ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY

IS THAT YOU'LL BE MY ONLY

VALENTINE THIS DAY

Silence overtook the Great Hall; the only sound heard was the drip drip of Dumbledore's raised spoon of stew. And then…there was laughter. And coos. And awws. But mostly laughter.

Harry turned as red as the Gryffindor banner. It could be because he forgot to breathe from the moment he opened the Howler; but it was probably attributed to the embarrassment he felt. He buried his burning face in his arms and started to shake with silent laughter. A slender hand rested on his shoulder.

"I am hoping that you're not laughing at the fact that I just poured my heart out to you, Potter," Draco whispered in his ear from behind him. Harry, whose head was still burrowed in his arms, shook his head. "Then why would it be?" The only response Draco got was one of the arms unfolding and pointing directly in front of him. Draco followed the arm, to the finger, and beyond to the shocked face of Ronald Weasley, whose mouth was open, and had chowder dribbling down the side of his face from an un-swallowed mouthful.

Draco laughed until his sides hurt.

Ron seemed to remember himself, finished off the bite of clam chowder, and said, "Harry, you're not going to accept are you? You don't even fancy Malfoy!"

"We're dating Ron, we have been since Winter Hols," Harry choked around the fits of laughter. The Hall grew silent again at the declaration.

What happened next made Draco laugh so hard he fell over as huge tears fell down his face.

"I WIN!!!!" Ron shouted triumphantly as he leapt into a standing position on the bench. "I WIN!" He started running down the Gryffindor table, ignoring the food he stepped in, and did a dance that would rival any touchdown shimmy. All eyes turned to Ronald Weasley, dancing on the Gryffindor table. "I WIN!" Ron shook his toosh this way and that and did an awkward version of the Chicken Dance. "I WIN!"

"THAT IS ENOUGH MR. WEASLEY," a shout came from Professor Snape at the Head Table. "FIFTY POINTS FOR YOUR DISGRACEFUL PUBLIC DISPLAY!"

"AND IT WAS WORTH IT!" Ron shouted back, pointing at Professor Snape in an accusing manner. Ron strutted down the rest of the Gryffindor table, jumped off at the end, threw a kiss out dramatically, and sauntered out of the Great Hall.

When Draco could breathe again, he called up to Harry from the floor, "Are you sure the Weasel isn't gay?" Harry fell off the bench laughing harder. As Draco watched his boyfriend shake in mirth, he couldn't help but have the feeling he knew this was going to happen…

"So, you're not angry with me?" Draco asked for the tenth time that day.

"Well, when I told you that you could send me a card, the last thing I expected was for you to out us," Harry started, "and I suppose I really should be mad, but...I don't know. It just seemed like..."

"It was supposed to happen?" Blaise offered.

"Yeah."

Things, for the most part, died down by the time everyone met to study. The day had a myriad of spells that sent songs, flowers, hearts, bubbles, and everything else imaginable. Draco's hair got spelled a horrible shade of pink, until Hermione countered it off when he wouldn't come out of the girl's bathroom. It gave Myrtle quite a laugh.

The six friends were now in the library, studying. Pansy was snacking on some candy she had gotten, Hermione was off getting a book from the restricted section, and Ron was glaring at Blaise, who in turn was nursing a black eye, a split lip, and a sprained wrist. Ron was going to stop at the black eye, just a punch to let him know who his girlfriend's brother is. THEN he found out they had been dating since Yule Ball. This meant that the bragging he had done since then either meant he cheated on his sister, or worse, that the acts described WERE his sister.

Ron thought it better not to think on it anymore. Blaise wholeheartedly agreed.

"So, how much did you win," Harry asked Ron.

"100 Galleons," Ron and Draco said at once.

Ron looked at Draco. "You knew! That's hardly fair…you didn't bet, did you?"

"I didn't know, Weasel. If I had bet, you can rest assured I would have waited until I would have won."

"Then how did you know it was 100 galleons?" Hermione asked, back with a heavy tomb.

"I…" Draco thought, "I don't know. I just did."

"I think its flashes from that portkey. I have them too," Hermione said, opening the restricted potions book. Draco smiled, and pulled out his Christmas present from Harry. Hermione gasped, "Merlin, Draco, where did you find that? I didn't see it in the catalogue anywhere…"

"That would be because this book doesn't belong to the library," Draco said, matter-of-factly.

"It belongs to you," Hermione said, disbelief in her voice. When Draco didn't say anything her tone changed. "It DOES belong to you! Where did you get that?" she asked, excited as she sat down beside him.

Harry watched Draco and Hermione talk over the book excitedly. He turned to Ron. "Should we be concerned that they're bonding…over a book?"

"I would be, but Draco's gay, so it's probably OK, right?" Ron asked, a little unsure. Both watched as Draco and Hermione laughed about some rare abstract theory. Ron and Harry looked at each other, shook their heads and went back to their studies.

"The time is drawing near, Severus. Will you be ready to take your loyal place by my side?"

Severus knelt before the man in the large high-backed chair. "Yes, my Lord."

"You will slip this into Potter's potion, once consumed he will be incapable of defending himself."

"But, what of his potions partner, my Lord?"

"Make sure it is the Malfoy boy. I want you to dispose of him when you bring me Harry Potter."

"Yes my Lord."