The next day, after everyone had gone home and they put the house back in order, Harry and Hermione set to trying to deodorize Ron's old room. Draco, having been invited to Dromeda's for Tea with Molly, had left and taken Leo with him. Ron had gone back to the Burrow that morning, after staying the night, because he hadn't finished his reading for Auror training. Mostly, Ron wanted to get back before his mum noticed he was missing and had stayed the night with his girlfriend.

"It's good that Draco is making an effort to get to know them," Hermione said, referring to Dromeda and Molly, while spraying the carpet with a super strong magical carpet deodorizer and working the liquid in with a scrub brush in her other hand. They were both dressed in old clothes, Harry in the last of his Dudley collection, and Hermione with her poufy hair tied back and a pair of thick yellow gloves up to her elbows.

"Yeah," Harry confirmed. He was pulling things out from under Ron's old bed, sorting through them, and tossing most of it. There were a few dishes filled with rotten food and he had a feeling that was the cause of the smell; they certainly smelled horrible.

"You two seem to really be getting along."

"Yeah." Harry separated a spoon from a moldy bowl of porridge, creating a sickening sticky sound that made him want to puke.

"But not you and Ginny."

"Hmm." Harry tried to make the sound as noncommittal as possible, keeping his gaze focused on the trash bag as he scooped moldy porridge out of the bowl, watching it plop down into the black muggle plastic bag. He didn't quite feel up to talking about the breakup yet and hoped to avoid the coming discussion.

"Did something happen you didn't tell me about?" Hermione asked, looking up from the carpet.

Harry slowly put down the empty bowl and spoon, placing them to the side. That was an understatement, because he had barely told Hermione about anything in either relationship. She had heard from Ron and others about the breakup, but not any of the details. She also knew a bit of what was going on with the Draco and Leo situation, but not how Harry felt about any of it. He sighed and rested his forehead against his forearm on the mattress. "It wasn't working," he finally admitted.

"What wasn't working?" Hermione sounded concerned, coming to stand behind Harry after putting her spray bottle and scrub brush down, though she still wore her large rubber gloves.

"Me and Ginny. She's not what I want."

"And Draco is?"

It was all Harry could do to nod as he let his emotions finally flow. He took in a gasping breath and let a sob wrack his chest as the enormity of finally admitting his true feelings overcame him. Hermione's arms surrounded him, engulfing him in a hug. He sunk back into her safe, familiar embrace. With her he didn't have to worry about it being what he wanted or what was socially acceptable; she was just a friend and unlike Ron, she was the type of friend he could share his emotions with. He hadn't realized how much he missed her until this moment.

"It's alright, Harry. If he's who you want, then you should go for it. It doesn't matter what anyone else will think. All that matters is that it makes you happy," Hermione said soothingly, as she ran her gloved hand comfortingly up and down his back. She had only been back in the country for two days, but that was enough to catch up on what the reporters were writing. She also hadn't missed the fact that Harry hadn't denied it when Draco had called him gay or the longing looks Harry gave Draco.

Harry nodded into the embrace and let her hold him. He really needed this, Hermione having left too soon after the war and been gone for too long.

Several minutes later, Harry pulled himself together and shifted away from Hermione enough to wipe his face on his sleeves. He gave a weak chuckle and asked, "I've made a real mess out of my life, haven't I?"

"No, it's not too late to fix everything Harry. Don't you see? All you need is one honest conversation and then everything can change. It will make things so much easier."

"But what about what the papers will say? The public?"

"It doesn't matter. This is your life and you're free to live it the way you want. When have you ever let them stop you before? Don't let them stop you now; they would have held you back from going after Voldemort if they could have."

"And then we'd never be free of the evil git," Harry replied with another nervous chuckle.

"Yes, so the way I see it, they owe you for saving them. They will have to accept you the way you are or defeat the next dark lord themselves."

"There's not another one out there already, is there?"

"No, and I hope there never is, but you know what I mean."

Harry nodded, because he did know. "Do you really think they'll come around?" He waved his hands in the air, to indicate the general wizarding public.

"Yes, Harry, for you they will. It doesn't matter who you love; they'll love them too."

Harry smiled at that and gave Hermione a short hug, before saying, "I hope you're right."

"I am. They will take their cue from you, but you do need to give that cue." Here Hermione was referring to the fact that Harry had yet to make a statement since his breakup.

Harry cringed, but nodded his head. The storm was not blowing over and it seemed inevitable that at some point he'd have to give a statement and set the world straight. It was his general policy to never respond to the gossip, but he couldn't let his son's father continue to receive these daily beatings in the press and not speak up about it. He'd felt like a cad reading the paper that morning and was particularly ashamed at what he'd said to Dromeda about Draco the day before. In the light of day, with Hermione by his side, he knew what he said was wrong. He was just grateful he'd only said it to Dromeda, so that his shame would stay private. "But what about Ron and the Weasleys?"

"Well a few of them are a bit upset about the breakup, but they all saw it coming. Molly said that she considers you like a seventh son, Harry. That means you are more to her than just Ginny's ex-boyfriend. And look where Malfoy is right now: visiting with Dromeda and Molly, which means she is already starting to accept him. Where Molly goes, the rest of the family follows. Things might be rough at first, but everything will go back to normal eventually."

"But Draco…"

"Has a big mouth and a biting wit, I know. But you saw how things were yesterday, Harry; once it was clear he was just taking the piss out of you for a laugh, everyone laughed. He actually is quite funny if you don't take his humor personally and you don't seem to be taking it personally anymore."

"Yeah, it stopped bothering me a while ago," Harry admitted with a shrug.

"Then there's no problem and everything is settled."

"But Hermione! What if I mess everything up? What if I'm wrong and he's not the one. What if I can't stand his humor next month and then we break up? We have Leo and Teddy to think about!" Harry was still worried about ruining Draco's life. That was now his main concern, because he was currently so ashamed of his actions that he didn't think he could compete with Dane. He thought Dane was the better man and that Draco was better off with Dane.

"Leo and Teddy?" Hermione asked pointedly.

"Yeah, why?" Harry asked and when Hermione kept quiet, he hastened to explain what had been going on. "He's good with Teddy and Teddy likes him. They're related and have gotten close. I think, er…I think Draco might be willing to adopt Teddy with me if it came to that."

Harry wasn't sure that he wanted to adopt Teddy, because that would mean taking the baby away from a loving grandmother. But, if something ever happened to Dromeda, he'd adopt Teddy in a heartbeat and he was beginning to think Draco would too.

"That's great!" Hermione replied enthusiastically. "I didn't know he was so paternal, but if he is that accepting of Teddy, then all the better. The four of you can be a little family together."

"That's what I want."

"But you don't want to risk losing it."

"Yeah."

"Harry, if you do nothing, you will lose it. Draco is not the type to wait around for you. He is engaged to Kingsley's nephew and the wedding is only weeks away. If you don't act quickly, he will be married and unavailable before you pull your head out of your arse. What are you going to do then? It's only a matter of time before it's too late."

The idea of Dane marrying Draco had bile rising up in Harry's throat. His heart raced, sweat broke out on his brow and the back of his neck, and he felt inexplicably angry all of a sudden. He'd been trying to suppress this jealousy, but one mention of the situation from Hermione had the monster inside him roaring to be let out. He felt like he should floo over to Dromeda's that minute and claim Draco for himself.

"You don't like that idea, do you Harry?" Hermione asked.

"No, I don't. Not at all," Harry confirmed.

"Then you should act before you lose him. It's not fair to him to wait until the wedding day and then speak up. Their mums need to be told, so that they can stop planning."

"You are assuming that Draco will call the wedding off when he finds out."

"You don't think he returns your feelings then?" Hermione asked and Harry shook his head. "Then you need to pull your head further out of your arse than I realized. Take a good look at him sometime. Anyone with half a brain can see that he wants you."

"You think so?"

"I know so. I could tell from his letters with the way he wrote about you."

"Are you sure?"

"I got the feeling from the beginning that he was moving in, to be closer to you."

"He wanted me and Leo to get closer. He wanted me to be a dad and the fastest way to do that was if they lived with me," Harry explained.

"It was more than that. If he only wanted you to be there for Leo, he would have arranged visitation and lived elsewhere. He moved in, because he wanted you. He was acting a fool when he first moved in, because he was jealous of Ginny. Once he realized that your relationship was doomed without him needing to lift a finger, he stopped interfering and let you two fall apart on your own."

Harry hadn't thought of it like that before. Hermione had a tendency to be right about everything and she was better with emotions than him, so he had reason to take her word for it. That gave him a lot to think about though, so he became lost in thought as they continued to clean.

They finished the floor and under the bed in silence, before moving on to the closet. They opened the closet door to reveal a space that was completely filled from floor to ceiling with dusty old junk.

Hermione sneezed and Harry said, "Whew," waving the dust away from his face with his hand. It had an odd smell to it, like sweat and body odor that had been left in a closet to decay for fifty years. "Do you think this has been in here since before Sirius was born?"

"Probably," Hermione agreed. "And here I thought Molly had us clean out all of these stores of old junk during the war…" She paused, examining the formidable pile before them.

"Apparently not."

"Is that an old chamber pot?" Here Hermione pointed to a large piece of ornately decorated pottery that was at the bottom of the closet. There was a box on top of the pot and a large amount of items stacked above that.

"I hope not, but we will have to move all of this other stuff to find out."

They got to work levitating the stuff on the very top of the pile out of the closet and onto the floor of the room. Among the items from the middle of the stack was a raunchy painting of a scantily clad witch touching herself. "Ewe. We need to burn this one," Harry said, covering the painting with a moth-eaten old blanket that had also been in the closet. While he was doing so, Hermione studied him closely. After tugging the blanket over the last corner of the offensive portrait, he looked over his shoulder at his friend and noticed the odd expression on her face. "What?"

"Well it's just that you still haven't told me. I assumed, I mean it's rather obvious. I've known for ages you like men, but you've never said and you liked Ginny and Cho too. I assumed…" Hermione trailed off, cheeks blushing a rosy pink at bringing this subject up.

"Yeah, I like both," Harry confirmed, glad he didn't have to spell this out with her.

"But you're not attracted to the woman in the portrait…"
"I'm sort of sick of witches at the moment. And I've never…"

"Dated a wizard?" Hermione filled in and Harry nodded. "But you want to, right?" Again Harry nodded. "It is rather hard to experiment with that type of thing when you are engaged. I mean, it must be very confusing. How do you know how you really feel when you have never kissed another man?" At that, he flushed with shame, looking away. The look on her face turned stern as she read his body language. "Harry, please tell me you didn't cheat on her! She's your best friend's sister!"

"I didn't! We haven't had sex. But, er, there were a few times…"

"Yes, Harry?" Hermione asked pointedly when Harry didn't seem like he would continue. "A few times what?"

"We kissed and touched, alright! The first time I was drunk and didn't know what I was doing, but the second time I really wanted it. Only he stopped it and said that he wasn't going to do that with me as long as I'm seeing her." Harry didn't even bother mentioning the third time, when Draco had cut the kiss off just as soon as Harry had started it.

"Good. Whew." Hermione wiped her brow, as if they had just overcome a difficult hurdle. "You know, I'm beginning to like Draco a lot more. That was pretty noble of him to protect you from yourself."

"Protect me from myself? He was the one tempting me!"

"Oh Harry, I'm sure it wasn't all of that. You were just tempted because the two of you are in close proximity and he is rather attractive."

Harry was about to deny the truth, but then he noticed Hermione's face turning red in embarrassment. Thus he decided to keep his mouth shut and instead turned back to the closet. He removed another box of seemingly random items and began to sort them into the various piles they had created. Every now and then something seemed worth saving, but most of it went in the trash, burn, or destroy piles.

"It was rather honorable of him to refuse to allow you to cheat on your fiancé," Hermione added, following Harry's lead and returning to sorting out the contents of the old burlap sack she'd been working on before Harry found the portrait. It was mostly old clothes, but she thought some of them might be salvageable. Not that she or anyone else would wear them, but think of the history of it all!

"And he did release us on Easter," Harry replied, tossing an old broken yo-yo into the trash pile.

"And told us where to find Hufflepuff's cup."

"We wouldn't have won the war so quickly without him."

"And he's been taking care of Leo all this time. I don't think you have any idea yet just how much work a baby can be."

"I do. I watched Leo by myself once. It was a lot of work."

"Yes, but Draco does that every day. Draco is clearly good with him."

"Yeah. He's pretty brilliant with Teddy too. I think the little turn-cloak prefers him to me, actually."

"That's a good sign. Babies are excellent judges of character," Hermione said wisely, looking up momentarily from a beautiful old gown she had just cleaned. This piece was in decent condition and it was so gorgeous that she hated to think that it would never see the light of day again. "Can I have this one?"

"What?" Harry asked, glancing behind him as he rummaged in the closet, pulling out a broken old lamp for the trash pile. "Oh yeah, sure. And he's so much easier to talk to than Ginny." Now that he was talking, everything was just flowing out of him. "I never would've thought Draco was the easy one to talk to. He's not so demanding either. Everything's just easier with him."

"Thanks! I sort of thought that demanding was your type," Hermione implied with a snicker, as she hung the gown up and hooked it onto the bedroom door to keep it from getting any more wrinkled than it already was, which probably wasn't possible.

"Draco is demanding too, but his demands seem more reasonable. His are mostly to do with taking proper care of Leo and Teddy and making sure they're safe. He never told me not to see her, but she tried to tell me to kick him and Leo out a few times."

"She didn't?" Hermione asked aghast.

"Yep, she did. I told her no though; they're staying. At least until the…" Harry trailed off, unable to say the word wedding. "I want him and Leo to stay. It's just so much easier with them here, you know? I don't have to worry about visitation, because I see them all the time."

"Well, all the more reason to hurry along and tell Draco how you feel. Once he knows, I'm sure he will stop the wedding. You need to tell him you want things between the two of you to move forward and that you want him to stay."

"Do you think he will stay, Hermione? If I asked right? You really think he'll leave Dane to be with me?"

"Harry, with the way he was looking at you yesterday and this morning, he'll stay."

"Is it right though? To break up him and Dane? Dane's such a good guy and…" Harry felt weird saying that he didn't think he could compete. Luckily he didn't have to, because Hermione knew him well enough to guess it.

"Yes, Harry, I do. I think Draco only turned to Dane because he began to accept the fact that he couldn't have you. He's been very mature about the whole situation. But deep down, the one he really wants is you."

"How do you know? How can you be sure?"

"I know. I can tell by the way he looks at you and at Leo. He fancies you and he wants the three of you to be a proper family."

"But what if…?" Harry trailed off, unable to voice his worst fear.

"What if what, Harry?"

"What if I'm not good enough for him? What if I don't love him enough? What if he would be better off with Dane and I ruin it?"

"You are good enough, Harry," Hermione said reassuringly.

"But what if I'm not?"

"Do you love him?"

"Yes, no, I don't know," Harry wailed, tugging at his messy hair, due to his heightened level of anxiety.

"Alright, let's figure it out. If you could be with anyone in the world, who would it be?"

That was an easy one. "Draco."

"Why?"

"What? I don't know." Harry was pulling at his hair again. Why did Hermione always ask the tuff questions? Why did she always make him face his fears and worse, his feelings?

"I think you do know."

"Alright fine, he's perfect, okay? He's hot and funny and smart and wonderful. He's absolutely brilliant with Leo and Teddy and he makes spending time together so much fun. He always puts the kids before himself. I never thought he could be selfless, but with his family, he is."

"And that means a lot to you?"

"Merlin, yes! He's changed Hermione. I never would've imagined it, but he's trying to be a better person, even when it doesn't come easy to him. I mean, just look at how he's trying to be pro-muggleborn, so that Leo doesn't have to grow up with the same prejudices he did! And he didn't even want to date Dane at first, because of prejudice, and now they're getting married."

"He certainly does not make a proper racist, despite how hard he tried. And like you keep saying, he couldn't kill Dumbledore," Hermione added.

"No, he couldn't. He's not like that. He's not that type of person."

"And you love that about him." Harry nodded and Hermione continued, "And you love him."

"But do I love him enough?" Harry asked, pleadingly. He wanted his friend to say yes and to give him the push he needed to do what deep down he wanted to do most.

"Only time will tell."

"It's not fair to him to break up his relationship with Dane."

"It's not fair to him to take that decision away from him. It's Draco's decision what to do with his life. How can you expect him to make the right decision when he doesn't have all of the facts? You need to tell him how you feel, before he goes through with this marriage. It will be even worse if he goes through with a marriage to another man when he wants you, because he doesn't know you want him too. If he is willing to take the risk, then that is his decision to make. It isn't fair to him for you to make that decision for him," Hermione replied sternly.

"Are you sure?" Harry asked uncertainly.

"Positive."

"But what if he turns me down and marries Dane anyway?"

"Then at least you know that you tried and you can move on. You cannot keep this from him and ruin both of your lives because you are afraid to tell him how you feel. Where's your Gryffindor courage?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Harry let out a loud breath of air as he thought. "Okay, I'll do it then. Just give me some time to figure out what I'm going to say," he concluded, properly heartened by Hermione's words.

And so they continued cleaning the room in silence, nearing the bottom of the closet.

Finally Harry pulled out the last box, the one covering the suspicious pot, which was a bad move. Suddenly the decaying putrid smell of the closet intensified a thousand fold. Being closer to the source, he started gagging as he backed away, his hand covering his nose and mouth. Hermione stepped forward and cast a smell neutralization spell. Then she cast a Scourgify on it.

"Definitely a chamber pot then," Hermione concluded.

"Yep," Harry agreed, levitating the pot over to one of the smaller piles. "Destroy pile for that one."


Author's Note: So they've finally taken care of the smell in Ron's old room, Hermione's straightened Harry out, and Harry is ready to tell Draco how he feels. The next chapter will be the one you have all been waiting for. If anyone has any ideas for how they think it should happen, please let me know. Harry and Draco still have a lot of things to work out and I worry I will forget something.